Abu Ghraib
During the war in Iraq that began in March 2003, personnel of the United States Army and the Central Intelligence Agency committed a series of human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. These violations included physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy, and murder. The abuses came to light with reports published in late 2003 by Amnesty International and the Associated Press. The incidents received widespread condemnation both within the United States and abroad, although the soldiers received support from some conservative media within the US.

The administration of George W. Bush attempted to portray the abuses as isolated incidents, not indicative of general US policy. This was contradicted by humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, stated after multiple investigations that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated but were part of a wider pattern of torture and brutal treatment at American overseas detention centers, including those in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. There was evidence that authorization for the torture had come from high up in the military hierarchy, with allegations being made that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had authorized some of the actions.

The United States Department of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery. Between May 2004 and March 2006, these soldiers were convicted in courts-martial, sentenced to military prison, and dishonorably discharged from service. Two soldiers, Specialists Charles Graner and Lynndie England, were sentenced to ten and three years in prison, respectively. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the commanding officer of all detention facilities in Iraq, was reprimanded and demoted to the rank of colonel. Several more military personnel who were accused of perpetrating or authorizing the measures, including many of higher rank, were not prosecuted.

Documents popularly known as the Torture Memos later came to light a few years later. These documents, prepared shortly before the Iraq invasion by the United States Department of Justice, authorized certain enhanced interrogation techniques, generally held to involve torture, of foreign detainees. The memoranda also argued that international humanitarian laws, such as the Geneva Conventions, did not apply to American interrogators overseas. Several subsequent US Supreme Court decisions, including Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), have overturned Bush administration policy, and ruled that Geneva Conventions apply.
Taguba's report stated that the following abuses happened in this incident:
- Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet.
- Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees.
- Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing.
- Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time.
- Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's underwear.
- Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped.
- Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them.
- Positioning a naked detainee on a box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture.
- Writing "I am a Rapest (sic)" on the leg of a detainee accused of rape, and then photographing him naked.
- Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee's neck and having a female soldier pose for a picture.
- A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.
- Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee.
- Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.