Shining a light into dark world of torture [View All]

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"Some people may recover their humanity if something extraordinary happens," Crelinsten explains. "It's much harder to leave than to enter the routine of torture. Special privileges, for instance, alcohol and rewards, reinforce what they are doing."

However, he said, some do repent. "A man who tortured prisoners in a Latin American country said that one day he noticed a victim who had a club foot. So did his best friend. Suddenly he felt that it could be him, and he couldn't go on."

But once inside the closed world of torture — whether in a formal training school or a military base — resistance is difficult, and for some, impossible.

In the case of Iraq, the U.S. had already taken steps to make sure its troops were exempt from international war crimes prosecutions, and to remove international protection from those captured in its "war on terror." Officials at every level have also denied any involvement in the Abu Ghraib scandal.

"No responsible official of the Department of Defence approved any program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such abuses," said defence spokesman Larry DiRita.

However, says Allodi, who has treated torture victims since the American-backed assault on Latin America's left-wing rebels and governments in the 1970s, Washington has developed a thorough knowledge of the theory and practice of torture for decades, and has instructed both Americans and foreigners: "torture is as American as apple pie."

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