http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-29/torture-photos-depict-sex-rapeThe Bogus Torture Coverup
by Scott Horton
The Pentagon is denying the facts: Photographs of Abu Ghraib torture are even more sexually explicit than first reported, including rape and sodomy, writes The Daily Beast's Scott Horton, who has obtained specific and detailed corroboration of the photos.The Daily Beast has confirmed that the photographs of abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, which President Obama, in a reversal, decided not to release, depict sexually explicit acts, including a uniformed soldier receiving oral sex from a female prisoner, a government contractor engaged in an act of sodomy with a male prisoner and scenes of forced masturbation, forced exhibition, and penetration involving phosphorous sticks and brooms.
These descriptions come on the heels of a British report yesterday about the photographs that contained some of these revelations—and whose credibility was questioned by the Pentagon.
The photographs differ from those already officially released. Some show U.S. personnel engaged in sexual acts with prisoners and each other. In one, a female prisoner appears to have been forced to expose her breasts to be photographed.
The Daily Beast has obtained specific corroboration of the British account, which appeared in the London Daily Telegraph, from several reliable sources, including a highly credible senior military officer with firsthand knowledge, who provided even more detail about the graphic photographs that have been withheld from the public by the Obama administration.
A senior military officer familiar with the photos told me that they would likely provoke a storm of outrage if released. The well-informed source confirmed, just as reported in the Telegraph, that many of the photographs are sexually explicit, including those mentioned above. The photographs differ from those already officially released. Some show U.S. personnel engaged in sexual acts with prisoners and each other. In one, a female prisoner appears to have been forced to expose her breasts to be photographed. In another, a prisoner is suspended naked upside down from the top bunk of a bed in a stress position.
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http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/29/report-contradicts-white-house-photos
New report appears to directly contradict White House denial on abuse photos
BY JOHN BYRNE
Published: May 29, 2009
Updated 3 hours ago
A new report appears to directly contradict denials by the White House and the Pentagon that abuse photographs the Obama administration has withheld are worse than previously known. In a posting Friday, an American reporter says he’s confirmed allegations printed in British newspapers that unreleased photographs of US servicemembers abusing prisoners include graphic images of rape, sexually explicit acts, sodomy and forced masturbation.
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Scott Horton, a journalist for Harper’s Magazine who also writes for The Daily Beast, wrote that the photographs “depict sexually explicit acts, including a uniformed soldier receiving oral sex from a female prisoner, a government contractor engaged in an act of sodomy with a male prisoner and scenes of forced masturbation, forced exhibition and penetration involving phosphorous sticks and brooms.”
Specifically, Horton writes of a photograph that allegedly shows Specialist Charles Graner, the convicted Abu Ghraib guard made famous in already released images, suturing the face of a prisoner.
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If true, the images also would seem likely to enrage key constituencies of the Middle East — and be particularly offensive to Muslims. One picture, Horton says, shows a female prisoner “assuming sexually suggestive poses in a chair.” Sexual humiliation is seen as particularly degrading in many Muslim countries, particularly when it involves women.
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