Last week, The Telegraph reported that General Antonio Taguba believed the Obama administration was witholding the photos of detainee abuse at the center of a FOIA lawsuit filed by the ACLU because they contained sexual abuse. Taguba clarified to Salon on Friday that the photos he referred to, which showed the sexual abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, had already been released years ago. He said he had not seen the photos the ACLU is requesting. Scott Horton of the Daily Beast initially confirmed The Telegraph's account, but has since corrected his story.
McClatchy reports that part of the reason the photos were withheld was because of pressure from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq, who was concerned that outrage from the photos would provoke violence and jeopardize the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. While the president had previously said that releasing the photos would put American troops abroad in danger, McClatchy is the first to report that Prime Minister Maliki had any influence on the decision.
Yesterday Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg extended the government's deadline to file a possible appeal to prevent the release of the photographs. The ACLU sent a a letter, signed by more than a dozen human rights groups, calling on President Obama to release the photos. "The public has an undeniable right to see these photos. As disturbing as they may be, it is critical that the American people know the full truth about the abuse that occurred in their name," ACLU staff attorney Amrit Singh said in a statement. "The government's decision to suppress the photos is fundamentally inconsistent with President Obama's own promise of transparency and accountability."
In the meantime, Senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham have proposed a bill that would allow the government to avoid releasing any "photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States."
That grants the administration a shockingly high level of secrecy. Even if one believes that the timing for releasing the photos in question is poor, the idea that the government can pass laws limiting public access to information related to government lawbreaking is troubling.
-- A. Serwer
