Prisoner Abuse at Abu Ghraib

27Dec08

This post was actually my final exam in my Political Science class last quarter at the University of Washington.

In the case of Abu Ghraib, the existence of asymmetric information led to not only unthinkable treatment of prisoners, but, even more surprising, encouragement of these actions by principles and a breakdown of oversight. There was a breakdown in communication that ranged from the soldiers committing the abuses to the very top, in Donald Rumsfield. Because this lack of information flow, lots of mixed signals were appearing. The night crew was under the impression that they were doing a good job, and their officers didn’t want to know how they were doing it. This is clearly a case of a self-inflicted information breakdown that had huge consequences.

Though adverse selection played a role in the abuses that took place, I think that moral hazard, coupled with the culture of the agency, was the biggest issue in this case. First, in addressing the culture, this is a war that is being discussed. The culture here, though difficult to define in any situation, was one that was driven by results. If good results were achieved then the methods were looked at with much less weight and scrutiny. This was a perfect breeding ground for the types of abuses that occurred in the prison to come to life. This type of culture led to a lack of direct evaluation, virtually no direct observation, and a definite shirking of duty and responsibility on the part of the night crew. However, this severe case of moral hazard extended up through the ranks of the military. The supervisors of the night crew shirked the responsibility of overseeing how they (the night crew) were performing the interrogations. Though rumors about purported abuses had been circulated a little bit, no one did anything to investigate, and, in the first actual investigation, these things were not even mentioned.

As far as adverse selection is concerned, it would have been extremely difficult to screen for these circumstances. However, the breakdown could have occurred here because of, once again, the culture of the agency. The agents were chosen, I am guessing, because they fit best into this type of results driven culture. There were certain things that took precedent, such as ability and a desire to complete objectives, over other things, like whistle-blowing or moral-driven attributes. Though I think that given much less stressful circumstances the night crew wouldn’t have done the things they did, it was impossible for the principles to know how their agents were going to act in the circumstances that arose. There were no other cases of these abuses in any of the other prisons.

The biggest problem in this case is that of the agency’s culture. Steps should be taken to change the culture from one driven by results (by that I mean achieving the results no matter the cost is more important than backing off when moral lines are clearly going to be crossed) to something much less severe. However, as discussed ad nauseum during the quarter, changing the culture is no easy task. First of all, the culture needs to be clearly defined. This is a very difficult thing to do, in this case, for a few reasons. The culture was, though was roughly the same throughout all the armed forces in Iraq, different between different areas. The culture at Abu Ghraib seemed to be different from the cultures of other prisons. Also, the cultures differed between Marines and Navy, Army and Air Force. So, nailing down a specific culture would be extremely difficult.

In changing a culture, reorganization is often considered. In the case of Abu Ghraib, as well as in other cases of agency failure, finding where the agency needs to be reorganized is very difficult. One of the main difficulties is found in bureaucratic accountability. In this type of situation, who is responsible? Is it merely the fault of the night crew themselves, or were they merely the product of decisions made by their supervisors? If not the supervisors of the night crew then would it be the person in charge of the prison, or maybe the man in charge of operations on Iraq? Maybe the person to blame is the Secretary of State. The big problem of accountability is found in the habit of agencies of passing the buck. Everyone seems to like pointing fingers at others, passing off accountability, when things go wrong (it is funny, however, that when the opposite happens, people try to take credit for successes, accountability in these cases is also difficult to define).

Therefore, reorganization proves equally difficult to do. This requires finding who is to blame, and then possibly replacing them. If reorganization happens, then adverse selection will definitely take place. Measures need to be taken to put a check on it, because if there aren’t checks, then similar things are likely to occur. One of the ways that could be considered, that would hopefully reduce moral hazard, would be to have inspections and direct observances of the prison interrogations. There should also be strict punishments, not only fixed to deviance, but enforced as well. I have found with my 2 year old that fixing punishments to deviance have little to know effect in deterrence unless enforcement occurs one hundred percent of the time.

I do not think that drastically changing the culture is necessary in this case. Action should be taken against those who perpetrated the abuses, as well as those who directly shirked the responsibility of oversight, and to top it off, those who, in the higher-up, who lied about the abuses occurring. The next thing that should happen is simply what I discussed in the paragraph above. Attention needs to be paid to detail, and deviance needs to be punished, no exceptions. Other incentive structures could be added, but those can be discussed at a different time.

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Tags: Abu Ghraib, Abuse, Geneva Convention, Iraq, Iraq war, Political Issue, Prisoner Abuse, War in Iraq