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Scott Horton reports that the descriptions of the Abu Ghraib photos that Obama is withholding are accurate after all. He says some of the withheld photos are still circulating among soldiers in Iraq, one of whom showed some of them to him.
He also recounts the history of media attacks by the Pentagon spokesman who derided the entirety of British journalism over the Daily Telegraph report.
Gen. Taguba denied reports that he has seen the prisoner-abuse photos that President Obama is fighting to keep secret. Says Daily Telegraph misrepresented the object of his comments, which were about photos already released.
rape at Abu Ghraib: my own thoughts on the issue, which effectively closes the debate between myself and Thomas.
The blunt truth is this: Either Obama or Taguba is lying.
A charitable interpretation might be that Obama did not see all the photos that Taguba saw; one might imagine a scenario where the military filtered the photos they gave him for review. A less charitable interpretation would be that Obama is speaking the technical truth; Tagugba’s report did indeed contain allegations of rape (and, much worse – abuse of children) and so these photos don’t represent “new” information in that sense. And a truly exculpatory scenario might be that the photos to which the Telegraph refers are private ones which are not the same photos to which Obama refers.
Photos that Obama is fighting to prevent from being released to the public of abuse at Abu Ghrab includes images of a man and a woman being raped, by a US translator and a US soldier, respectively.
Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.
Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.
Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.
Aziz wrote here recently in support of not releasing the photos.
I still think we shouldn’t release the prisoner abuse photos – yet.
(in reply to Hussein’s reply to me)
Obama will not release new photos of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. I think he’s doing the right thing.