ACLU asks Obama Administration to release photos that Rumsfeld said were "too sadistic" to be shown

[Louis-Emmanuel]

Raw Story
March 10, 2009


Excerpt:

At issue are 87 photographs the ACLU believed were taken by members of the military at facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the Abu Ghraib prison that became synonymous with US abuses after humiliating photos from there first appeared in the New Yorker in early 2004.

Although the government stopped trying to fight the full release of Abu Ghraib photos after they all were independently published in 2006, the ACLU says the Pentagon continues to keep hidden 29 additional images from at least seven different locations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Bush administration claimed that making additional photos public would "generate outrage and would violate U.S. obligations towards detainees under the Geneva Conventions," the ACLU noted in its statement.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/ACLU_demands_Obama_administration_release_prisoner_0310.html

I'll add that in 2005 Donald Rumsfeld opposed a judge's order to make the photographs public, by using the following argument:

" "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."

The 2005 article can be found here: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001218842

I believe these are the photos containing what Seymour Hersh described as women being raped and children being sodomized.

[Colobo]

1. W's government reminds me of Videla's dictatorship in Argentina.

[firedupdem]

2. The pictures they released were pretty bad by themselves...These

must really be sadistic! Horrible.

[wiggs]

3. There was video too, shown in secret to congressmen. nt

[hileeopnyn8d]

4. I remember when he said that

and I always figured if Rumsfeld thought they were sadistic, cruel and inhumane - they HAD to be the absolutely horrible.

[Louis-Emmanuel]

5. I expect 90% of Americans to support prosecutions if they see these photos/videos

If that's what it takes to bring justice to the victims so be it, as their faces will be censored anyway.

[hileeopnyn8d]

6. I agree

and I think that if they had been shown, there might have been a bigger push for impeachment. I personally will have a very hard time viewing them, I don't handle stuff like that well.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

7. The Senators saw them.

They were shaken to the core. I remember Hersh saying they would be released but they have not been.