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“The world was shocked when the first photos were revealed. Now the ACLU is fighting the Bush administration for public release of a more gruesome set — this time with videos. We seem to be living in an age where pictures speak louder than words–or do they?”
[Open Source Radio - MP3]
“So what is shown on the 87 photographs and four videos from Abu Ghraib prison that the Pentagon, in an eleventh hour move, blocked from release this weekend? One clue: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress last year, after viewing a large cache of unreleased images: ”I mean, I looked at them last night, and they're hard to believe.“ They show acts ”that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane,“ he added. A Republican Senator suggested the same day they contained scenes of ”rape and murder.“ No wonder Rumsfeld commented then, ”If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse.“
Yesterday, news emerged that lawyers for the Pentagon had refused to cooperate with a federal judge's order to release dozens of unseen photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by Saturday. The photos were among thousands turned over by the key ”whistleblower“ in the scandal, Specialist Joseph M. Darby. Just a few that were released to the press sparked the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal last year, and the video images are said to be even more shocking. [...] One Pentagon lawyer has argued that they should not be released because they would only add to the humiliation of the prisoners. But the ACLU has said the faces of the victims can easily be ”redacted.“ To get a sense of what may be shown in these images, one has to go back to press reports from when the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal was still front page news.
This is how CNN reported it on May 8, 2004, in a typical account that day:
”U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld revealed Friday that videos and ‘a lot more pictures’ exist of the abuse of Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib prison. [...] “The embattled defense secretary fielded sharp and skeptical questions from lawmakers as he testified about the growing prisoner abuse scandal. A military report about that abuse describes detainees being threatened, sodomized with a chemical light and forced into sexually humiliating poses. [...] ”’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,’ Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters after Rumsfeld testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. ’We're talking about rape and murder -- and some very serious charges.’ “A report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba on the abuse at the prison outside Baghdad says videotapes and photographs show naked detainees, and that groups of men were forced to masturbate while being photographed and videotaped. Taguba also found evidence of a ‘male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.’ ”Rumsfeld told Congress the unrevealed photos and videos contain acts 'that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.’“ [...] The military later screened some of the images for lawmakers, who said they showed, among other things, attack dogs snarling at cowed prisoners, Iraqi women forced to expose their breasts, and naked prisoners forced to have sex with each other. [...] ”Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it's going to come out.“
[Editor and Publisher]
Today was the day the government was supposed to process and redact photographs and videos relating to the abuse and torture of prisoners held abroad. Raising new arguments on the eve of its deadline, the United States government refused to release the materials to the public. The photographs and videos were to be processed for eventual release as a result of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations.
“The government is raising newfound reasons for withholding records to which the public has an undeniable right,” said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the ACLU. “Instead of releasing these records and holding officials accountable for detainee abuse, the government now seeks to shield itself from public scrutiny by filing these reasons in secret.”
In a letter filed at the eleventh hour, the Department of Defense claims that photographs and videos of abuse that the court had previously ordered redacted for future release “could result in harm to individuals” for reasons that will be set forth in a memorandum and three declarations that the government will file under seal with the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York.
Under the government’s proposal, the documents explaining the government’s reasons for withholding the images of abuse will not be available to the public except in redacted form, and the photographs and videos may never be made public.
[ACLU]
In May, the Los Angeles Times released a survey revealing how few photographs of wounded or dead American service members in Iraq were appearing in U.S. publications. Newspaper editors seemed to agree that one primary obstacle was logistical: Given the sporadic nature of the violence occurring in a country the size of California, getting to the news is a dangerous challenge in itself. But when photographers are indeed able to capture such scenes, what happens to those images? The Times' survey of six months of coverage found almost no pictures of Americans killed in action at a time when 559 Americans and Western allies died; the same publications ran just 44 photos from Iraq to represent the thousands of Westerners wounded during the same period. But according to photo services, pictures are sometimes transmitted and left unused.
Santiago Lyon, director of photography for The Associated Press, says the wire service primarily gets such images from embedded photographers, who are bound by military ground rules to hold back photos in which the dead or wounded might be recognized until the families are notified. “If the faces are not recognizable, in theory you can send them,” he says. “But it's rare that we're in a situation where we're able to [obtain] those pictures. Even with the foreign photographers working there, it's still a lot of hit and miss.” One notable exception: Last year, AP photographer John B. Moore -- one of a team of AP photographers in Iraq who won a Pulitzer in the breaking news category this year -- got exclusive access to a U.S. military hospital in Baghdad and was able to photograph the dead and wounded. One striking image that he captured showed medics attempting to resuscitate a dying soldier.
“We made an effort not to show the faces,” says Lyon, “but when we sent them out, in the U.S. a lot of major papers chose not to run them. Those papers and other media subscribe to our feed. They're paying a flat rate, and can run as many or as few as they choose. In this case, they chose not to.” [...] Saman believes so few pictures are appearing in American papers because of a double standard that he says reflects the nature of our society. “Americans understand we are at war -- but not many people want to see the real consequences, especially when they involve one of your own,” he says. “I think some publications cater to this sentiment by trying not to anger subscribers and advertisers with harsh 'in-your-face' coverage of the true nature of war.” [...]
...internationally there's more an appetite for those types of pictures. He feels the reluctance of U.S. newspapers to publish those images is not an issue on which AP should comment. “We're providing photos and text to our subscribers, and it's up to them to use pictures as they see fit,” he observes. “We've covered our mission. Of course, as a journalist, I think the truth needs to be told.” For Swanson, who captured a particularly vivid truth while embedded with Echo Company, which lost 12 of its Marines in a two-week period, the poverty of images has removed death from the war: “It's war, whether you agree to it or not ... death needs to be shown. You have to know what you might lose before you commit so many lives. A country needs to be reminded that an 18-year-old has just died, and that Memorial Day and Veterans' Day are not just days for picnics at the beach.”
[Editor & Publisher]
Iraq War Fatalities is a chart of the US and coalition military fatalities that have occurred in the war in Iraq since the onset. The animation runs at ten frames per second with a single black dot indicating the geographic location of a coalition fatality.
[Obleek]
“History,” Hegel 
said, “is a slaughterhouse.” And war is how the slaughter is carried out. If we believe that the present war in Iraq is just and necessary, why do we shrink from looking at the damage it wreaks? Why does the government that ordered the war and hails it as an instrument of good then ask us to respect those who died in the cause by not describing and depicting how they died? And why, in response, have newspapers gone along with Washington and grown timid about showing photos of the killing and maiming? What kind of honor does this bestow on those who are sent to fight in the nation's name? [...]
The photographs that accompany this piece are not gratuitously violent. They are merely real. All but one were taken by David Leeson, a highly regarded photographer at The Dallas Morning News. He and his Morning News colleague Cheryl Diaz Meyer were awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in breaking-news photography “for their eloquent photographs depicting both the violence and poignancy of the war with Iraq.” [...]
I don't hold much esteem for the usual crime-and-catastrophe formula on most late-news shows, but I have even less for contentions that withholding information from the public is good for them. Because we are a country of diverse culture groupings, there will always be differences of view, about war photographs and stories, over matters of taste and “shock” issues. But, while the reporter or photographer must consider these impact and shock issues his primary mission has to be one of getting the story right. And getting it right means not omitting anything important out of timidity or squeamishness. When I would return from a war scene, I always felt I had to write the story first for myself and then for the reader. The goal was to come as close as possible to make the reader smell, feel, see, and touch what I had witnessed that day. “Pay attention,” was my mental message to the reader. “People are dying. This is important.”
[Village Voice]
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