The sexual torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib is documented in The Torture Papers, a book by Karen Greenberg and Joshua Dratel. The book includes the legal memoranda and military reports about instances of sexual torture that occurred at the notorious prison.

Many of the people housed at Abu Ghraib were not suspected terrorists or part of the insurgency. Many were innocent; others were prostitutes and petty criminals.

The following testimony is typical of what detainees told military investigators.

One detainee reported that several military police officers tied him up in a room. “One of the police was pissing on me … And one of the police put part of his stick that he always carries inside my ass and I felt it going inside me about 2 centimeters. And then two American girls began hitting me with a ball made of sponge on my dick.”

Another account reveals that another official at the prison was “fucking a kid, probably between 15 to 18. The kid was hurting very bad. He was wearing the military uniform putting his dick in the little kid’s ass. A female soldier was taking pictures … I saw another prisoner tied to a bed. They inserted a phosphoric light in his ass. Then I saw them putting a stick in his ass. A female soldier was taking pictures.”

In over 1,500 pages of documents, accounts like the above fill reports. The testimonials are not just from prisoners, but also from military and civilian personnel at Abu Ghraib, and also at Afghanistan and Guantánamo.

The Associated Press notes that “some Guantánamo prisoners who have been released say they were tormented by ‘prostitutes.’” And it’s backed up by a new book by a former American Army sergeant Erik R. Saar, 29.

He worked as an Arabic interpreter and reports how female interrogators used a toxic combination of sex and religion to try to break Muslim detainees.

Saar’s book shows how the Pentagon denigrates Islamic law – allowing its female interrogators to try to make Muslim men talk in late-night sessions featuring sexual touching and displays of fake menstrual blood, and by parading in miniskirts, tight T-shirts, bras and thong underwear.

His book contains an anecdote related by Paisley Dodds, an AP reporter:

A female military interrogator who wanted to turn up the heat on a 21-year-old Saudi detainee, who allegedly had taken flying lessons in Arizona before 9/11, removed her uniform top to expose a snug T-shirt. She began belittling the prisoner – who was praying with his eyes closed – as she touched her breasts, rubbed them against the Saudi’s back and commented on his apparent erection.

After the prisoner spat in her face, she left the room to ask a Muslim linguist how she could break the prisoner’s reliance on God. The linguist suggested she tell the prisoner that she was menstruating, touch him, and then shut off the water in his cell so he couldn’t wash.

“The concept was to make the detainee feel that after talking to her he was unclean and was unable to go before his God in prayer and gain strength,” Mr. Saar recounted, adding: “She then started to place her hands in her pants as she walked behind the detainee. As she circled around him he could see that she was taking her hand out of her pants. When it became visible, the detainee saw what appeared to be red blood on her hand. She said, ‘Who sent you to Arizona?’ He then glared at her with a piercing look of hatred. She then wiped the red ink on his face. He shouted at the top of his lungs, spat at her and lunged forward,” breaking out of an ankle shackle.

The interrogator’s parting shot was: “Have a fun night in your cell without any water to clean yourself.”

A female civilian contractor kept her “uniform” – a thong and miniskirt – on the back of the door of an interrogation room, the author says.

Of course, military rules do not sanction how those officials treated the prisoners. Even the standards for conducting interrogations (and trying to soften up the witnesses) do not suggest sexual sadism.

Apparently, military personnel got the impression from Bush administration lawyers that they could do what they wanted to prisoners. It’s hard to believe that John Woo, a professor of constitutional law at UC Berkeley, and Alberto Gonzales, a former justice of the Texas Supreme Court, could conclude that the Geneva Conventions (against torture) wouldn’t apply to detainees and prisoners. But they did, and their memoranda suggest that torture is lawful.