More
Horrific Pictures To Follow
By Andrew Buncombe
09 May 2004
The Independent
The Bush administration was bracing itself last night for the release
of new pictures and video footage from Abu Ghraib which show US soldiers
having sex with an Iraqi woman prisoner, troops almost beating a prisoner
to death, and the rape of young boys by Iraqi guards at the jail.
Senior officials
have warned that the new images and details of the abuse and torture
at the prison west of Baghdad will be even more shocking than those
already released. They will undoubtedly place even more pressure on
President George Bush and his beleaguered Defence Secretary, Donald
Rumsfeld, as they desperately try to limit the political damage from
the growing scandal.
NBC News has quoted
military officials as saying that the new photographsalso show US soldiers
"acting inappropriately with a dead body". This may refer
to a picture, which The Washington Post described but did not publish,
of Sabrina Harman, one of seven reservists charged with abuses, posing
with thumbs up next to a decaying corpse.
NBC also reported
that the rape of young boys by Iraqi guards, apparently in a special
section of the prison, had been filmed by US soldiers.
There are even suggestions
that the murder of a prisoner has been recorded. Republican Senator
Lindsey Graham from South Carolina questioned Mr Rumsfeld on Friday
about why the abuse had not been detected earlier. "The American
public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here.
We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience."
The new images will
further rock the Bush administration, suffering its worst crisis yet
after photographs showing US army reservists abusing and sexually humiliating
prisoners caused international revulsion and outrage. But the knowledge
that the abuse was much more widespread, and that there are more shocking
images to come, is threatening even more problems for Mr Bush as he
prepares to hand over sovereignty to an Iraqi government on 30 June.
Further evidence
emerged, meanwhile, that the abuse of prisoners by military police reservists
was ordered by military intelligence officers, CIA operatives or even
by privately hired civilian interrogators. Ms Harman said they were
told to break the prisoners down in preparation for questioning.
"They would
bring in one or several prisoners at a time already hooded and cuffed.
The job of the MP [military police] was to keep them awake, make it
hell so they would talk," Ms Harman, 26, from northern Virginia,
told The Washington Post. "The person who brought them in would
set the standards on whether or not to 'be nice'."
A total of seven
reservists from the 372nd Military Police Company based in Cumberland,
Maryland, have now been charged over the abuse, including Lynndie England,
21, who was photographed with a prisoner on a leash. Seven other soldiers
have been reprimanded, and several relieved of command.
Rumours of the existence
of more pictures have been circulating in Washington for days and were
confirmed on Friday by Mr Rumsfeld, who said they were "sadistic,
cruel and inhuman".
The investigative
journalist Seymour Hersh, who revealed the extent of the abuse, warned
earlier last week: "It's going to get much worse. This kind of
stuff was much more widespread.
"There are
videotapes of stuff that you wouldn't want to mention on national television
... There were things done to young boys."
President Bush insisted
that while the abuse of Iraqi prisoners was "a stain on our country's
honour and reputation", it would not deflect his mission in Iraq.
"[The photographs]
do not reflect our values," he said.
© 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd