Iraq to Open Saddam Abuse Museum at Abu Ghraib

The notorious Abu Ghraib prison is getting a facelift: work to reopen the facility and construct a museum documenting Saddam Hussein's crimes — but not the abuses committed there by U.S. guards.

An Iraqi corrections officer looks over the "hard site" of the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of...

An Iraqi corrections officer looks over the "hard site" of the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq in this Saturday, July 10, 2004 file photo. The Iraqi government is planning to open a museum inside the notorious prison to document the crimes committed there during Saddam Hussein's regime.(AP Photo/John Moore, File)

(AP)

The sprawling complex, which has not held prisoners since 2006, will be refurbished with the goal of taking new inmates in about a year, the government said Thursday.

Also, a section of the 280-acre site just west of Baghdad will be converted into the museum featuring execution chamber exhibits and other displays of torture tools used by Saddam's regime — including an iron chain used to tie prisoners together.

But Iraq's predominantly Shiite government has no plans to document the U.S. military abuse scandal that erupted in 2004 with the publication of photographs that shocked the world: grinning U.S. soldiers mistreating Iraqi prisoners, some naked, being held on leashes or in painful and sexually humiliating positions.

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Iraq's deputy justice minister, Busho Ibrahim, told The Associated Press that the American brutality was "nothing" compared with the violence and atrocities of Saddam and his Sunni-dominated Baath party.

"There is evidence of the crimes (Saddam committed) such as the hooks used to dangle prisoners, tools used to beat and torture prisoners and ... the execution chambers in which 50 or 100 people were killed at once," he said.

The government's announcement did not detail the full scope of the refurbishing work and didn't say whether the museum would be open to the public. Ibrahim did not offer any further information on the plans.

It's also unclear whether Sunni groups and others will attempt to press for the U.S. abuses to be added by the government, which is keen to highlight Saddam's heavy hand but could be wary of upsetting its allies in Washington.

Nevertheless, the 4-decade-old prison is now best known as the setting for one of America's lowest moments of the war.

The photos from Abu Ghraib brought another serious stain to America's reputation after worldwide protests against the March 2003 invasion. They also discredited Washington's claims that it was trying to build a country based on rule of law and respect for human rights on the wreckage of dictatorship.