The term Standard Operating Procedure is a distinction that is made in the film by an investigator brought in to perform forensic work on photos salvaged from the troops' cameras. After describing the intricate work required to resolve erroneous time-stamping in the digital cameras and to organize the photos in a way that accurately portrays what happened in the prison, he talks about the difference between a "criminal act" and Standard Operating Procedure. The criminal acts are those that put the prisoners in mortal danger or depict cruel and unnecessary punishment. A Standard Operating Procedure may include putting prisoners in "stress positions," which sounds simple enough until you see the pictures. Splayed out across a metal bed frame, bent back with handcuffs that create a position somewhat like a crucifixion... "Stress" probably isn't the word most of us would use. A man handcuffed and wearing a hood made from a pair of women's panties also registers as Standard Operating Procedure.
It's not like the film is just a parade of the pictures that shocked many people here when they became news. There is much more focus on the individual soldiers that took the pictures and appeared in them. Charles Graner is absent, serving time in prison and unavailable for an interview. Those interviewed are a mix of military police, ranking officers, military intelligence, and even a civilian contractor. Many perspectives, none very pro-Abu Ghraib. You get the feeling that all of them wish they'd never seen the place, but that's only valid if you buy into the picture they paint of themselves as in the wrong place at the wrong time. Soldiers Harman and England calmly speak to the camera in Standard Operating Procedure about their dismay and disbelief after witnessing the inhuman treatment of prisoners. They will then, in the same breath, say that what at first seemed wrong became normal. Harman would have us believe that she was always in opposition to the way prisoners were being treated, and was just taking pictures to gather proof. It's a nice story, but when you see her giving a thumbs-up and beaming over the body of a dead prisoner, or England doing the same in front of a group of prisoners forced to pantomime and perform sexual acts, your convictions start to melt.
There is definitely thematic play throughout Standard Operating Procedure around convictions. The soldiers all believed then what they did was right, or so they say. Soldiers like England, Graner, and Harmen weren't even the worst, since the actual interrogation was performed by others. The civilian contractor interviewed in Standard Operating Procedure is one of those people, and describes a violent approach that was taken with one prisoner that turned a willing informant into a force of resolute and hardened resistance. The interrogator comments that he originally bought into the "bad apples" theory, but decided later that there was more to the story. It's too bad that Errol Morris doesn't delve deeper into that story, the version of all this that says Abu Ghraib was part of a methodical and proscribed plan to torture enemy combatants. Torture being something that officially has no place in modern military doctrine; even the allegation of officially sanctioned torture after Abu Ghraib led to lots of hand-wringing and stakes in the ground over how the US does not condone or allow torture.
Morris' film does a nice job of giving the people involved in what happened at Abu Ghraib plenty of time to talk. He rarely inserts himself between us and them, and the interludes that tell more of the story or connect stories between interviews are done in a really stylish fashion. If you've seen and enjoyed Morris' other work, Standard Operating Procedure is cut from the same cloth. The subject matter is probably too dark for many people, and very disturbing for those that heard about the treatment of the prisoners but always felt there was a reason behind this that had to do with saving American lives and winning in Iraq. The question of whether these soldiers were pawns or prime actors is always the elephant in the room. None of them seem like they had a plan or were even aware of a system. The random, seat-of-pants feeling that comes across in fictionalized war movies is right here, live and in the flesh. While the film makes it clear that these people were to blame for their actions and are in some cases repentant, the overriding cause for the abuse of the prisoners seems unresolved. If you believe the Army and its facilities are lawless frat houses, you might buy the theory that these bad apples got away with their misdeeds behind the backs of their superiors. The latter, and more realistic scenario, is that the prisoner abuses were a known quantity, until the leaked photos made things public. With nothing left to lose, each of the people on film declare that they were part of a larger process that was dedicated to degrading and breaking the prisoners. The problem comes from the way in which these pictures broke the spirit of people back home, resulted in a group of soldiers with permanent stains on their military records, and no doubt set many against us that might have otherwise been inclined to be friends. A good documentary about a difficult and controversial topic must be impartial enough to let the facts and people speak. Incredibly, given a topic so hot it's radioactive, Errol Morris pulls out a wonderful, quiet film that is an ugly but important chapter in the ongoing saga of Iraq and our occupation.
