Located twenty miles west of Baghdad, Abu Ghraib is a 280-acre prison complex that was built by British contractors in the 1960s as Baghdad Central Confinement Facility. Serving as a long-term torture chamber under Saddam Hussein's rule, weekly executions and daily abuse occurred. Prisoners shared a twelve-by twelve- foot cells with as many as 39 others under filthy and dehumanizing conditions. Though an exact count of detainees that passed through its doors is difficult to estimate, it's believed fifty thousand prisoners occupied Abu Ghraib at one time.

Prisoners were designated to one of five compounds, depending on their criminal affiliation. There were separate facilities for foreign prisoners; long-term or short-term prisoners; and separate spaces for those charged with capital and "special" crimes. The sections for political prisoners were either "open" or "closed." Closed wings were only for Shiites, who were not allowed visitors or any outside contact. All prisoners were subject to cruel and unusual conditions like being force-fed shredded plastic and, it's widely speculated, subjected to experiments as part of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons program.

According to Amnesty International reports, more than 150 detainees were executed over two days in January of 1994; hundreds of opposition group prisoners were executed in 1996; 60 prisoners were executed in June of 1998; at least a hundred prisoners were executed on a single day in 1999; and 23 Shia Muslim political prisoners were executed in one month in 2001. It is believed 4,000 prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib in 1984 alone.

After the collapse of Saddam Hussein's reign, the enormous complex of Abu Ghraib was deserted. The prison was looted and completely stripped of anything deemed valuable: its doors, windows and bricks. The US-led coalition quickly rejuvenated the old structures and repaired the cells. In its transformation into a US military prison, Abu Ghraib was given an overhaul that included tile floors, new toilets, showers and a complete medical center.