In Iraq, Was I a Torturer?

By Justine Sharrock, Mother Jones.

[Alternet]

When 27-year-old Ben Allbright returned from Iraq, he was treated like a hero. But he is haunted by the "harsh interrogations" he oversaw.

The prisons in Iraq stink. Ask any guard or interrogator and they'll tell you it's a smell they'll never forget: sweat, fear and rot. On the base where Ben Allbright served from May to September 2003, a small outfit named Tiger in western Iraq, water was especially scarce; Ben would rig a hose to a water bottle in a feeble attempt to shower. He and the other Army reservists tried mopping the floors, but the cheap solvents only added a chemical note to the stench. During the day, when the temperature was in the triple digits, the smell fermented. [...]