‘Consequence,’ a Memoir by a Former Abu Ghraib Interrogator...

Of the Abu Ghraib torture photos broadcast by “60 Minutes” in April 2004, Mr. Fair writes:

“Some of the activities in the photographs are familiar to me. Others are not. But I am not shocked. Neither is anyone else who served at Abu Ghraib. Instead, we are shocked by the performance of the men who stand behind microphones and say things like ‘bad apples’ and ‘Animal House’ on night shift.’”

In 2007, Mr. Fair says, he confessed everything to a lawyer from the Department of Justice and two agents from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, providing pictures, letters, names, firsthand accounts, locations and techniques. He was not prosecuted. “We tortured people the right way,” he writes, “following the right procedures, and used the approved techniques.”

Mr. Fair, however, became increasingly racked by guilt. He begins having nightmares. Nightmares in which “someone I know begins to shrink,” becoming so small “they slip through my fingers and disappear onto the floor.” Nightmares in which “there’s a large pool of blood on the floor” that moves as if it’s alive, nipping at his feet.

His marriage starts to unravel. He drinks heavily despite a heart condition that threatens his health. When his best friend from Iraq, Ferdinand Ibabao, is killed by a suicide bomber in Baghdad, Mr. Fair thinks that maybe he, too, deserves to die there. He returns to Iraq for another tour — this time, in a job with the National Security Agency.

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He is still haunted by voices: “the voice of the general from the comfortable interrogation booth, the cries from the hard site, the sobs from the Palestinian chair and the sound of the old man’s head hitting the wall.”

“It is nearly impossible to silence them,” he writes. “As I know it should be.”

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