The perfect crime: razing Abu Ghraib By Rannie Amiri An insidious recommendation has found its way into the contrived condemnation by American politicians of abuse of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison at the hands of United States military personnel.  It is a proposition whereby United States' collusion with the despotic regime of Saddam Hussein over the last two decades, as well as their current sanction of the same violence at the same location, can seemingly be erased in one fell swoop: raze Abu Ghraib. Built by British contractors in the 1960s, Abu Ghraib is both the name of Iraq's largest prison and the town in which it is located, approximately twenty miles west of Baghdad. It is a sprawling 280-acre complex, often described as a city within a city, surrounded by four kilometers of security perimeter and twenty-four guard towers. In Saddam's day, the entire complex housed 15,000 persons, with its 4 x 4 meter cells holding an average of forty. The infamy of the penitentiary stems from its well-known use as an interrogation and torture center, in which tens of thousands languished and were brutalized or executed in sadistic fashion. In light of its lurid history, I suspect many in the United States and abroad find the recent calls to destroy Abu Ghraib quite appropriate. As a reminder of an ignominious past, it should not be left standing.  The current abuse "scandal" has now caused the voices advocating such action to grow louder and more adamant. Do not be deceived. This is not for the benefit, nor at the behest, of the Iraqi people. Rather, it is nothing more than a duplicitous attempt to wash clean the hands of those complicit in the crimes committed there. As testament to this, one only has to look at those calling for Abu Ghraib's destruction. It will come as no surprise that one of them is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who shamelessly deemed it "not a bad idea." As envoy of the Reagan administration, he was famously seen shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in 1983. This gesture was emblematic of the cordial relationship Washington shared with him. It was the United States after all who provided Iraq with the biological and chemical weapons it needed to stem the influence of the newly established Islamic Republic of Iran and to persecute the Shi'a and Kurdish populations of the country.  Abu Ghraib and similar institutions were instrumental to the maintenance of Saddam's authority based entirely on fear, intimidation, and collective punishment. The appeals for Abu Ghraib's demolition are not limited to neo-conservatives, however.  Senator John McCain (R-AZ) felt that one measure necessary to salvage America's image abroad would be "razing that prison to the ground because of the symbol of torture and mistreatment, both from the Saddam Hussein regime and this one..."  Similar sentiments were expressed by Senator Pat Roberts (R-KA), chairman of the Intelligence Committee (who bluntly remarked, "take the damn thing down") and Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) of the Armed Services Committee. Indeed, the entire Senate considered a resolution which states that Abu Ghraib should be destroyed "as a symbolic gesture that the American people will not tolerate the past and current mistreatment of prisoners."  The most recent advocate has been none other than President Bush himself. Underneath the guise of this alleged humanitarian and "symbolic" gesture of contrition by United States policymakers is the full recognition of what this prison truly represents: a standing indictment. Not only is it an indictment of the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath party, but one of the United States who bolstered and nurtured his rule when it served their purpose. They, along with the Europeans, turned a blind eye to the atrocities committed by him against his own people. The recently surfaced evidence of torture meted out by American soldiers only now provides a second, more pressing, need to help Iraqis forget the destructive role the United States has played in their country. Abu Ghraib is also an indictment of the Arabs and the anemic Arab League, who regarded Saddam as the savior from the perceived threat of the Iranian revolution toward the Arab monarchies. They found comfort in this paper tiger and his empty rhetoric in "confronting" Israel. Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, the late King Hussein of Jordan, the Emirs of Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, the Sultan of Oman...all share equal culpability for the brutality which occurred at Abu Ghraib over the past decades. There are plenty of interested parties, therefore, who would like nothing more than to see Abu Ghraib flattened. The Iraq people, though, should spare no effort in making sure that not one stone is overturned. It should remain as a memorial to those whose lives were lost or forever scarred there, and as a reminder that many of Iraq's supposed friends have yet to be called to account. Allowing the United States to raze Abu Ghraib would be akin to allowing a murderer, or the person who hired him in this case, to enter the crime scene and wipe his fingerprints clean. It would be, in essence, the perfect crime. Rannie Amiri is an independent observer, commentator, and exponent of issues dealing with the Arab and Islamic worlds. 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