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Pentagon official tells Salon: No rape pics among withheld abuse photos
John Byrne
Raw Story
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
A purported Pentagon official involved with litigation aimed at forcing the Obama administration to release additional photographs of abuse at Iraqi jails says that stories regarding the contents of the photographs are false.
The official spoke anonymously to Salon reporter Mark Benjamin, who has a long and credible history on national security and military reporting. The source said there were no sexually explicit images among 44 photographs specifically identified by a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Further, the Pentagon official added that the military knew of no other existing photographs depicting elements as described by Harper’s reporter Scott Horton last Friday, who said the images contained “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.”
However, when pressed by Benjamin, the official would not confirm or deny whether such images ever existed.
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 “[show] a possible rape or sexual abuse” of the sort described in the media recently… “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.) Retired Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, whom the Telegraph had quoted as confirming that there were rape images among the unreleased material, told Salon on Friday that the Telegraph’s report was inaccurate because he was quoted in a way that suggested he had seen the unreleased material. He has not.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
The official further clarified that the Defense Department is not withholding any additional images or video of apparent detainee abuse from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Salon published all of that material back in 2006, which included images of prisoners being forced to masturbate and to simulate oral sex. The Pentagon is not aware of any other images of abuse from the prison. “You have the whole set of Abu Ghraib,” the official said. “There are no ‘X Files’ of images sitting somewhere else of Abu Ghraib.”
It’s unclear why Horton got details wrong, though there appears to be confusion about what is in the photographs specifically tagged to the ACLU lawsuit (of which there are only 44) and what is in other photographs. Some images of abuse were passed from soldier to soldier in US combat zones; these could have been seen by officers familiar with other photographs but not be subject to the ACLU suit.
In his correction, Horton said that some of the images he referred to in his story last week were published by Salon in 2006. But he maintained that the story regarding abuse photographs is “far from over.”
Update and correction: Since this story posted Friday, Salon has accurately pointed out that the sexually explicit photographs focused on in my story were first published by Salon in 2006, and that all the Salon photographs have in fact been released by the government. The 44 photos subject to the ACLU law suit and reviewed by President Obama do not contain sexually explicit images.
But the story is far from over. Indeed, a senior Pentagon official involved in the ACLU litigation tells me that the 44 photographs in question are not the end of the controversy, stating that an internal process of review was still underway, reconsidering photographs that “may previously have been miscategorized.” The source declined to comment on the additional photographs. In addition, the official confirmed that…there are a “substantial number” of unreleased photographs, past the 44 in question, potentially subject to the ACLU’s request. It remains to be seen what they are and what is in them.
Horton also added, “Obama’s May 14 decision not to release these 44 photographs, after personally reviewing them, was a stall tactic: he intends to release them eventually, even if he prevails in court, once the situation on the ground improves.”
A report Monday alleged that Obama changed his mind about releasing the photographs after outrage from Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki.
“When U.S. officials told Maliki, ‘he went pale in the face,’ said a U.S. military official, who along with others requested anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity,” a McClatchy reporter wrote Monday. “Maliki said, “Baghdad will burn” if the photos are released,” a second official purportedly said.
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June 2nd, 2009 at 10:25 am
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June 2nd, 2009 at 10:41 am
Well the Pentagon says they don’t exist. Case closed. move along. nothing to see here. The Pentagon always tells us the truth, so why would anyone ever doubt their credibility.
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:47 am
This whole thing is ridiculous. Jimmy Carter was right on this issue when he was interviewed on CNN about it…by withholding the photos, the photos themselves have taken on a mythical status leaving the imaginations of Americans and Iraqis to decide what they think is in them. What this article doesn’t mention is that the Salon article states Taguba did see rape in the Abu Ghraib photos:
…from the Salon article….
“The photographs in that lawsuit, I have not seen,” Taguba told Salon Friday night. The actual quote in the Telegraph was accurate, Taguba said — but he was referring to the hundreds of images he reviewed as an investigator of the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq — not the photos of abuse that Obama is seeking to suppress.”
Taguba didn’t see rape in any of the WITHHELD photos, because he didn’t see any photos at all, but according to him he did see them in his Abu Ghraib investigation. So unless he’s not telling the truth then there was rape. As for the withheld photos, there’s no telling what’s in those. It could be more of the same of what we’ve seen already, or something worse. Until the administration comes clean the speculation is just going to stir things up even more. Either way, whether or not the WITHHELD photos show rape is a moot point since it’s acknowledged by Taguba that rape indeed happened.
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:09 am
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Scene from the upcoming documentary called “The Alex Jones Deception”. Coming out on 9/5/09.
Alex Jones finally gets exposed.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=linCmhBcc0o
trace Reply:
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Your an idiot… I watched the video… Nothing of substance whatSOever…Michelle was asked some questions she couldn’t answer…embarrassed about being confronted on what she said in a book she wrote…she has her punks then start crap with Alex….ridiculous…
to have this posted here instead of real issues and how to change bad to good…the only thing you’ve managed to do is whine like a bunch of old, gossiping, nothing better to do with your time, bible thumping old ladies…congrats!
Norman Reply:
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:54 pm
AJ Vids
I watched the video that your link directed me to. Seems like a junior CIA agent working to develop skills at manipulation to get promoted to the Real deal of gaining and controlling the thoughts and will on man. I guess if this video becomes popular the dude will get his promotion and increase in pay and then work the more major lines of control.
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:34 am
Well then release the photos???????
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:56 am
Yeah sure, they burn down the village to save the people from themselves. Who are these people trying to kid? Some of us got past the Hardy Boys Detective Manual, did the pentagon?
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:49 pm
if only Michael Jackson would come back to save us AWOOOH!
EA HEEEE! SHACKATOOME !
June 2nd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
the Pentagon official lies; the American people have been the declared enemy of the u s government since at least 1933. The pentagon is dedicated to prosecute war upon the American people, by way of a revolution in military affairs and conflicts short of all out war.
snafu is a daily reality, war is a cluster f---. The u s government and it’s corporate owners are slated for utter destruction by reason of their own bloodlust. so be it
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:50 pm
So I guess these pictures do not exist either???
http://tenpercent.files.wordpr.....-800wi.jpg
Nate Reply:
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:09 pm
can you verify or elaborate where that picture came from? I hope it isn’t some set up still picture from a porn flick (verses an actual crime being committed picture).
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:50 am
If told you once, I’ll tell you a thousand times.
Give the damn photos to Wal-Mart to process. They always lose mine.
Now Mr Moderator – don’t remove my posting again!