What "debate"?
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June 2, 2009 | Last Thursday, the Obama administration asked a federal court to block the release of images that depict detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. The court had sided with the American Civil Liberties Union in its request that the administration release the photos. The administration's move seemed to lend credence to swirling rumors on the Internet that the administration was suppressing a cache of images showing sexual abuse of detainees. The day of the administration's request to the court, Britain's Daily Telegraph published a story claiming that the images included rape and sexual abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere in Iraq and Afghanistan. On Friday, the Daily Beast reported that many of the photographs were "sexually explicit" and included images of "a uniformed soldier receiving oral sex from a female prisoner, a government contractor engaged in an act of sodomy with a male prisoner" and "penetration involving phosphorous sticks and brooms."
What do these unreleased images actually depict? A Defense Department official who has seen the unreleased images consented to give Salon some details. Salon agreed to keep the identity of the defense official private in exchange for the opportunity to interview a person with firsthand knowledge of the images.
Specifically, the official said there are about 2,000 images related to detainee abuse, none of which are from Abu Ghraib, and the images do not include depictions of sexual abuse. The official said the government does not have secret images of rape buried in its files.
The official told Salon that the Pentagon has compiled around 2,000 images of possible detainee abuse in response to the ACLU's suit. Salon then asked, via e-mail, whether any of the 2,000 images "
a possible rape or sexual abuse" of the sort described in the media recently. The Daily Telegraph had reported that there were images of a male soldier forcing oral sex on a female detainee and a male translator anally raping a male detainee. "We don't have anything that would comport to what they are reporting," the official answered. (The official did not address whether any such images had ever existed.)...
Salon contacted the White House to ask why, if there is no videotape or photos showing sexual abuse, the administration continues to fight the release of further images. An official referred Salon to President Obama's own explanation that the pictures add little to the torture debate. "I want to emphasize that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib," Obama said on May 13 when he announced that he would reverse course and fight the release of the images.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/06/02/suppressed_photos/
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