While the Abu Ghraib prison scandal focused public attention on the military’s faults, the same sorts of abuses have gone on with far less scrutiny, at the hands of US intelligence agencies, often with the acquiescence or collaboration of other national governments.
Increasingly since September 11, 2001, the United States government has taken advantage of the generosity of regimes with well-deserved reputations for brutality. Najeeb Nuaimi, a former Qatar justice minister, told the Washington Post, ‘The number of people who have been detained in the Arab world for the sake of America is much more than in Guantanamo Bay. Really, thousands.’