Demolishing Abu Ghraib Prison

DEMOLISHING ABU GHRAIB PRISON

Mr. BREAUX. I probably should not be getting into this because I have not looked at it, but it seems that the sense of the resolution is the prison should be destroyed. I do not think it was so much a problem with the prison as it was with people who ran the prison. It is not the physical plant that caused the problem. It is the people who were running the prison.

If we do demolish a prison, are we not going to have to build another one? It seems to me what we ought to be advocating is not the demolishing of the prison but the replacement of the people who were running the prison with professional people who understand how to treat prisoners.

The problem is not the physical plant. The problem is the people running it. I am sort of concerned if we demolish the prison we are going to have to end up building another one because we are going to have prisoners who are going to have to be dealt with over there.

Mr. CRAIG. The Senator from Louisiana makes an excellent point. There will be a need for a prison to detain people. This is a very large complex. It is also phenomenally symbolic of the evil of Saddam Hussein where within those walls literally thousands of Iraqis were killed. It was known as the death center. Symbolically what we do is very important. Tragically, what we have done or allowed to happen is very important. I think what the Senator from Nebraska and I are saying is, let us look at the death chambers themselves and tell the Iraqi people those chambers will no longer stand. I believe that is an important expression. Words are one thing; actions are clearly another. I believe symbolically what we say today, or what the Senate of the United States could say and should say, is important.

Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Mr. President, my response to my friend from Louisiana is if this had been a prison, I would say let us continue it as a prison and change simply the administration, the prison guards. But it was never a prison. It was a place of abuse and atrocity, a death chamber for thousands and thousands of Iraqi citizens. So it is not a prison, and it never was converted into a prison, apparently not even during the time that we have been able to administer it.

Mr. BREAUX. With the explanation I think that clears up a great deal of my concern, and I intend to support it. I thank you.