Monday, Jul 25, 2005 4:19 PM UTC
The hidden horrors of Abu Ghraib
The Pentagon refuses to release images of torture at the Iraqi prison.
Topics: War Room, Politics News
Last Friday was the deadline set by a federal judge for the Pentagon to release a stash of photographs and videotapes showing graphic proof of the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The government ignored the deadline. Instead, in a secret brief filed with the court, it argued — as it has done ever since the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the photos last year — that it shouldn’t have to release the evidence.
Nobody knows what the government’s latest argument is, but it may have something to do with the hit President Bush’s flowery rhetoric may take if pictures of “freedom on the march” are shown to the world. As Editor & Publisher points out in a nice compilation of public comments about the secret images, we haven’t yet seen the worst of Abu Ghraib. Not by a long shot.
Donald Rumsfeld said last year that the images in question are “hard to believe,” and that what they show “can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane.” And here’s what Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, said of the pictures after they were screened for members of Congress last year: “The American public needs to understand we’re talking about rape and murder here. We’re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience… We’re talking about rape and murder — and some very serious charges.”
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