The Great Escape
On July 21, the temperature spiked to a sweltering 107 degrees in Baghdad - brutal heat for the guards and prisoners inside Abu Ghraib's cement confines. Outside, among a patchwork of green farmland and dry brown fields, federal police and army troops - packing AK-47s, PKC machine guns and sniper rifles - were positioned throughout […]Raheem Salman and Ned Parker report for Foreign Policy:
On July 21, the temperature spiked to a sweltering 107 degrees in Baghdad - brutal heat for the guards and prisoners inside Abu Ghraib's cement confines. Outside, among a patchwork of green farmland and dry brown fields, federal police and army troops - packing AK-47s, PKC machine guns and sniper rifles - were positioned throughout the terrain, which is dotted with Sunni farms and villages where insurgents had once launched a guerrilla war against U.S. troops. Within the walls of the infamous prison, the guards - armed only with pepper spray and clubs - were the last line of defense from would-be assailants.
At around 9 p.m. that night, as detainees were being counted on the way back to their cells after dinner, the mortars began to fall.
