Alberto Gonzales, recently confirmed as the new Attorney General of the United States, was one of several blamed for allowing torture to happen at Abu Ghraib by Stephen Hartnett, an associate professor of speech communication.

During the coalition occupation of Iraq, several examples of torture occurred at Abu Ghraib, one of the country’s best-known prisons, Hartnett said on Jan. 26 at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Ill.

A common assumption was that only a few individuals were behind the brutality, he said.

“We’ve got six rotten soldiers,” Zhi Hamby, director of administration for the National Military Intelligence Association, said in Hartnett’s new book Empire of Deception.

In his Jan. 26 seminar, however, Hartnett said that torture was purposely used to obtain important information, pointing out four levels of responsibility and how they played a part in fostering what occurred.

While the actions at Abu Ghraib seemed to be random and without thought, there is a familiar pose in which the victim stands in the form of a cross, covered in a dark shawl with wires attached to different parts of the body, he said.

“This is a standard torture procedure,” Hartnett said. “It’s called the Vietnam.”

Its presence indicates that there were higher authorities involved, he said. This information is also based on reports by several high-ranking U.S. Army officials such as Lieutenant General Anthony Jones and Major General George Fay, he said.

Ryan Ruzic, executive board member of the College Republicans and sophomore in LAS, disputed Hartnett’s claim that standard torture procedure implicated higher-ranking officials.

“If it is in fact standard procedure, I don’t know how that connects to ‘the White House staff knew about it,'” he said.

White House legal staff, led by Gonzales, must be held responsible, Hartnett said.

“Gonzales was trying to find a way to make torture legal,” he said.

Gonzales attempted to revise international law to give more freedom to U.S. government agencies operating in Iraq, including the military and CIA.

Ruzic said during his confirmation hearing before U.S. senators last week, Gonzales repeatedly denied endorsing the use of torture.

“The problem is what you define as torture,” Ruzic said. “(Gonzales) defines torture differently than what other people would define it as. I, for example, believe that reading three chapters (of assigned readings) tonight is torture. Some people think that sleep deprivation is torture.”

Ruzic said that a balance needed to be struck between the treatment of detainees and the need to find out important information from them.

“No one doubts that forceful interrogation is needed in some cases to elicit valuable information from people unwilling to help the U.S. military,” Ruzic said.

Hartnett also attacked private contractors and companies hired by the Defense Department.

These companies, such as CACI, which provides networking technologies for the Defense Department, and Titan, a service that provides translators, were put in charge of prisons and interrogations, due to the military’s lack of personnel. These corporations would then hire people who had no experience in interrogation.

“They would basically hire anyone, people who have no idea what they’re doing,” Hartnett said.

Moreover, many of these new employees had previously worked in U.S. prisons, places with cultures of extreme violence and brutality, and naturally would contribute to the use of torture, he said.

This culture of violence, which, though not as severe as in prison, is also part of current American society, he said.

For instance, the way news of Abu Ghraib was first leaked was when a U.S. soldier found pictures in a screensaver of torture and Iraqi women being raped.

The worst part about it, Hartnett said, is how the detainees’ religion was used against them.

“Their religion involves a great deal of honor,” Hartnett said. “They are forced to do things that, if exposed, would humiliate them in their own society.”

This includes eating meat and stripping down naked in front of other people.

Hartnett warned that torture is severely influencing the way America is viewed abroad.

“What concerns me is the way these events are ruining America’s credibility as a nation,” he said. “Our goals of promoting democracy and freedom are at risk.”

The worst reaction, however, may come from terrorists, who are aggravated by the sight of Americans oppressing Islam. Hartnett pointed out that this is especially unfortunate since the operation in Iraq is meant to be a war against terrorism, not one to fuel it.

The material for the seminar was taken from one of the chapters in “Empire of Deception: The War in Iraq, Globalization & The Twilight of Democracy,” a book he recently co-wrote about the events surrounding 9/11.

Despite his criticisms, Hartnett has not yet gotten into possible ways of restoring America’s integrity.

“That’s a whole other book,” he said.

Laura Stengrim, co-author of Empire of Deception, however, had a few ideas.

“In terms of policy, the U.S. could begin by honoring international laws and basic norms of human decency,” she said. “The torture issue falls within the depths of corruption that we’ve seen under this administration, and that needs to be addressed if the U.S. is to restore credibility.”

Ruzic said he agreed that America should make an effort to improve the way it is regarded by others in the world.

However, Ruzic added, “I think (Stengrim) is overstating how much current negative American sentiment comes from use of torture, and how much comes from disagreement over our actions, such as the invasion of Iraq.”

Stengrim also pointed out that the book is an attempt to bring the truth to light.

“Despite the fact that Americans are mostly fed garbage and propaganda about current events, we want to demonstrate that they can also very easily access intelligent, critical news and analyses,” she said.

Hartnett agreed.

“I want to open the eyes of my audience”, he said.

And, according to people who attended the seminar, he succeeded.

“If what Hartnett said is true, then many of us are sorely misinformed,” Nathaniel West of Mattoon, Ill., said.

Some students were not convinced that Hartnett’s claims were completely accurate.

Greg Meves, president of College Republicans and junior in LAS, said that it would be difficult to treat Iraqi prisoners worse than terrorists have treated captured Coalition members, some of whom were decapitated.

“Our prisoners in Iraq are being treated worse,” he said.