“Standard Operating Procedure”

Is it possible for a photograph to change the world? Photographs taken by soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison changed the war in Iraq and changed America’s image of itself. Standard Operating Procedure examines the context of these photographs to answer: Why were they taken? What was happening outside the frame? Who are the soldiers who took them and were in them? What were they thinking? The story of Abu Ghraib is still shrouded in moral ambiguity, but it is clear what happened there. The Abu Ghraib photographs serve as both an expose and a coverup. An expose, because the photographs offer us a glimpse of the horror of Abu Ghraib; and a coverup because they convinced journalists and readers they had seen everything. The underlying question that we still have not resolved, four years after the scandal: how could American values become so compromised that Abu Ghraib — and the subsequent coverup — could happen?