That citizens of this country suffer from “war fatigue” is
unconscionable. War documentary fatigue, however, is forgivable.
The slimy trails left behind by films like Outfoxed, Control
Room, and Bush’s Brain (not to mention all the fictional
bombs) have stuck our feet to the floor—outside the theater.
After all, who wants shell out 10 bucks to be told, yet again, what an
idiot Donald Rumsfeld is? Thankfully, Errol Morris’ Standard
Operating Procedure, which examines the prisoner abuse scandal at
Abu Ghraib, avoids any partisan traps.
The story is simply told by the ones who were there, including the
now infamous Lynndie England, the slight, short-haired woman caught
literally holding the leash and posing with scores of nude, hooded
Iraqi prisoners. Surprisingly, England’s constantly smug tone indicates
little or no remorse; she explains her actions as the result of
“blinding love” for a fellow soldier. Besides England, there are other,
more sympathetic players—many of whom seemed to be caught in the
worst place at a very wrong time.
The star witnesses, however—and the most compelling and
profound characters in the film—are the photographs of what went
down at Abu Ghraib, most of which are far more gruesome and degrading
than those appearing in the mainstream news. There are hundreds of
them.
For visual spice, Morris adds fantastically shot, visceral
re-creations of the many horrors of Abu Ghraib: the snarling dogs, the
dripping interrogations, the scraping along raw cold cement, the rust
and deep squalor that colors Saddam’s former prison.
What Standard Operating Procedure unexpectedly illuminates is
that a few, select members of the small, under-trained group of MPs
assigned to Abu Ghraib are as much to blame as our government’s poor
oversight. Standard Operating Procedure jabs at the higher
echelon’s responsibility, but is ultimately unable to make tangible
headway in implicating any top officials. What it can do, however, is
tell us that indeed there were, as President Bush said, a few rotten
apples at Abu Ghraib—severely sadistic, deeply perverted cranks
who themselves deserve no better than the abuse they doled out.