In May 2006, about 9,000 pages of Army documents were released to the American Civil Liberties Union. The documents, according to the ACLU, show that a senior general ordered interrogators to "go to the outer limits" to get information from detainees and that senior government officials were aware of abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.

The ACLU said the documents make clear "that while President Bush and other officials assured the world that what occurred at Abu Ghraib was the work of 'a few bad apples,' the government knew that abuse was happening in numerous facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan."

The documents came in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The New York Civil Liberties Union was co-counsel in the case. You can read the documents online.