A May investigative report by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba concluded that some military-intelligence and other government interrogators "actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses." Cpl. Graner, according to his lawyer, "is not a ringleader."

...The prison's population ballooned to nearly 7,000. From outside, insurgents pummeled it with mortars. Abu Ghraib had a hellish reputation under the Hussein regime as a place of torture and execution. To the Americans it was a different kind of hell: cold, cramped and full of detainees prone to riot. Some soldiers felt like prisoners themselves.

Those assigned to Tier 1A worked in a particular dank place, rotten with the smell of feces and body odor. Yet in some ways they were more fortunate, working in a strong building and handling only about 50 detainees. Those on the night shift operated with little oversight....

In 1973, a psychology professor at Stanford University conducted a famous academic exercise in which students played the role of either prison guard or inmate. The professor, Philip Zimbardo, says that once the "guards" grew acclimated to their work, those with the most aggressive personalities began behaving sadistically -- and then "guards" with more passive personalities followed. Soon, "guards" began abusing "prisoners," and even students who didn't condone the abuse made no effort to stop it.

Sgt. Davis, asked by investigators why he didn't refuse to go along with the abusive conduct at Abu Ghraib and report it, answered with a comment that could have been lifted from the Stanford experiment: "I assumed that if they were doing things out of the ordinary or outside the guidelines, someone would have said something." Sgt. Davis faces a military trial next year. His lawyer plans to argue that his client was following orders from the highest levels of government...
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..One night, Sgt. Frederick told the military court, he saw a detainee standing on a box in the shower, with wires dangling nearby. He testified that Cpl. Graner said intelligence officers "wanted him stressed out."

Sgt. Frederick said he wrapped a wire around one of the detainee's fingers, while Sgt. Davis attached a wire to the Iraqi's hand, Spc. Harman attached one to his toe, and someone attached a wire to the detainee's penis. While the naked and hooded prisoner waited, anticipating a jolt, Sgt. Frederick and Spc. Harman snapped pictures with a digital camera. An attorney for Sgt. Davis says that his client denies attaching wires and that other soldiers have given sworn statements clearing his client.

The Taguba report listed more misbehavior, most of it over just a few days in early November 2003: "Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broomstick; and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threat of attack, and in once instance actually biting" one.

Abu Ghraib detainees questioned by the Army described most MPs by their appearance or uniform, but some knew Cpl. Graner by name. They described him as being at the center of the action, while others stood by taking pictures.

Cpl. Graner, one inmate told the Army, "cuffed my hands with irons behind my back to the metal of the window, to the point my feet were off the ground and I was hanging there for about 5 hours just because I asked about the time, because I wanted to pray. And then they took all my clothes and he took the female underwear and he put it over my head. After he released me from the window, he tied me to my bed until before dawn ... Graner and the other two soldiers were taking pictures of everything they did to me."

...The pyramid of naked Iraqi detainees was "no big deal," according to Mr. Graner's lawyer: "Cheerleaders all across America form pyramids every day, and it doesn't hurt people," he says. "This was a control technique."

He also contends that guards in civilian prisons routinely put collars on inmates' necks. "This was not the result of soldiers becoming sadistic and brutalizing people," the lawyer says. "It was a matter of the intelligence community being under tremendous pressure to produce and get evidence that could be turned into intelligence. I think everything that was done there was perfectly lawful."

His client, Spc. Graner, suffered no moral crises, Mr. Womack adds. "He wasn't ashamed of it. His psyche was fine. He was following orders."