New Abu Ghraib photos linked to earlier abuses

SYDNEY – An Australian television station broadcast on Wednesday what it said were previously unpublished images of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, fuelling more Arab anger against the United States.

The Special Broadcasting Service’s ‘Dateline’ current affairs programme said the images were recorded at the same time as the now-infamous pictures of US soldiers abusing Abu Ghraib detainees which sparked international outrage in 2004. Some of the images were shown last year at trials in Fort Hood, Texas, including against abuse ringleader Charles Graner who is now serving a ten-year prison sentence.One official who reviewed the newly broadcast images on Wednesday and compared them to some of the photos stored on Graner’s computer said they were the same.”The overwhelming majority of the photos I’ve seen are photos that have been in existence for years that were on Charles Graner’s hard drive,” said the official, who did not want to be named because of concerns of possible prosecution for discussing the images.Graner appears in several of the images, and others showed different photos of an Iraqi who was later humiliated in now notorious images showing him with a lease to his neck.Dateline said some of the newly broadcast pictures suggest further abuse such as killing, torture and sexual humiliation.The grainy, still photographs and video images show prisoners, some bleeding or hooded, bound to beds and doors, sometimes with a smiling American guard beside them.They include two naked men handcuffed together, a pile of five naked detainees photographed from the rear, and a dog straining at a leash close to the face of a crouching man wearing a bright orange jumpsuit.A soldier from Graner’s unit told Reuters he had seen the newly published images before, and said the corpses were among three Iraqis killed in a riot in an open-air part of Abu Ghraib.”That was from a riot that happened,” the soldier said of one image.”They’re old pictures, nothing new and sizzling.”The soldier asked for anonymity to avoid possible punishment stemming from service at Abu Ghraib.The images were swiftly re-broadcast by Arab satellite television stations and several news organisations, including American ABC News television, showed them on their Websites.They stirred up more anger among Arabs, already incensed by the publication on Sunday of images of British soldiers apparently beating Iraqi youths and by cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammad printed in European papers this month.”This is truly American ugliness that no other country in the world can compete with,” journalist Saleh al-Humaidi told Reuters in Yemen.”The Americans ought to apologise to mankind for their government’s lie to the world that it is fighting for freedom and that it came to Iraq to save it from Saddam Hussein’s oppression.”Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the abuses at Abu Ghraib had already been fully investigated.”The department believes that the release of all of these images will further inflame and cause unnecessary violence in the world,” Whitman said.”In Abu Ghraib specifically, there have been more than 25 individuals – officer and enlisted – that have been held accountable for criminal acts and other failures.”The American Civil Liberties Union in New York said the United States must aggressively investigate the abuses.”The important question now is how the government is going to respond and whether the government is finally going to make a serious effort to hold senior policy makers responsible,” said Steven Shapiro, legal director with the ACLU in New York.Dateline executive producer Mike Carey said the programme had obtained a file containing hundreds of pictures – some that have been seen before and others that show new abuses.Graner’s computer had more than 1 000 images, an official told Reuters.Carey declined to say where or how the station had got hold of the images.In Iraq, anger grew as more television stations broadcast the images.- Nampa-ReutersSome of the images were shown last year at trials in Fort Hood, Texas, including against abuse ringleader Charles Graner who is now serving a ten-year prison sentence.One official who reviewed the newly broadcast images on Wednesday and compared them to some of the photos stored on Graner’s computer said they were the same.”The overwhelming majority of the photos I’ve seen are photos that have been in existence for years that were on Charles Graner’s hard drive,” said the official, who did not want to be named because of concerns of possible prosecution for discussing the images.Graner appears in several of the images, and others showed different photos of an Iraqi who was later humiliated in now notorious images showing him with a lease to his neck.Dateline said some of the newly broadcast pictures suggest further abuse such as killing, torture and sexual humiliation.The grainy, still photographs and video images show prisoners, some bleeding or hooded, bound to beds and doors, sometimes with a smiling American guard beside them.They include two naked men handcuffed together, a pile of five naked detainees photographed from the rear, and a dog straining at a leash close to the face of a crouching man wearing a bright orange jumpsuit.A soldier from Graner’s unit told Reuters he had seen the newly published images before, and said the corpses were among three Iraqis killed in a riot in an open-air part of Abu Ghraib.”That was from a riot that happened,” the soldier said of one image.”They’re old pictures, nothing new and sizzling.”The soldier asked for anonymity to avoid possible punishment stemming from service at Abu Ghraib.The images were swiftly re-broadcast by Arab satellite television stations and several news organisations, including American ABC News television, showed them on their Websites.They stirred up more anger among Arabs, already incensed by the publication on Sunday of images of British soldiers apparently beating Iraqi youths and by cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammad printed in European papers this month.”This is truly American ugliness that no other country in the world can compete with,” journalist Saleh al-Humaidi told Reuters in Yemen.”The Americans ought to apologise to mankind for their government’s lie to the world that it is fighting for freedom and that it came to Iraq to save it from Saddam Hussein’s oppression.”Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the abuses at Abu Ghraib had already been fully investigated.”The department believes that the release of all of these images will further inflame and cause unnecessary violence in the world,” Whitman said.”In Abu Ghraib specifically, there have been more than 25 individuals – officer and enlisted – that have been held accountable for criminal acts and other failures.”The American Civil Liberties Union in New York said the United States must aggressively investigate the abuses.”The important question now is how the government is going to respond and whether the government is finally going to make a serious effort to hold senior policy makers responsible,” said Steven Shapiro, legal director with the ACLU in New York.Dateline executive producer Mike Carey said the programme had obtained a file containing hundreds of pictures – some that have been seen before and others that show new abuses.Graner’s computer had more than 1 000 images, an official told Reuters.Carey declined to say where or how the station had got hold of the images.In Iraq, anger grew as more television stations broadcast the images.- Nampa-Reuters