Saturday, June 04, 2005

Another wave of Abu Ghraib photos in pipeline

"A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Army to release more than 100 photographs and several videos taken by an American soldier relating to detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, according to court documents," Reuters reports.

A few months back, Matt Welch described some of these photos and videos:

The images, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress, depict "acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel, and inhuman." After Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) viewed some of them in a classified briefing, he testified that his "stomach gave out." NBC News reported that they show "American soldiers beating one prisoner almost to death, apparently raping a female prisoner, acting inappropriately with a dead body, and taping Iraqi guards raping young boys." Everyone who saw the photographs and videos seemed to shudder openly when contemplating what the reaction would be when they eventually were made public.
Assuming the ACLU gets what it's promised, this looks like the making of a political bombshell that will cause everyone to forget the Koran flushing incident. In particular, once credible evidence of rape becomes public, the shit will, as they say, hit the fan.

(via war in context)