Baghdad, Iraq – New images showing Iraqis abused by U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib prison three years ago threatened Wednesday to inflame public anger already running high over footage of British soldiers beating youths in southern Iraq.
Images of naked prisoners, some bloodied and lying on the floor, were taken about the same time as earlier photos that triggered a worldwide scandal and led to military trials and prison sentences for several lower-ranking American soldiers.
Many of the images broadcast by Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service, including some that appear to show corpses, were more graphic than those previously published.
One of the video clips depicted a group of naked men with bags over their heads standing together and masturbating. The network said they were forced to participate.
Al-Jazeera TV later aired some of the pictures in the Middle East, at a time of widespread anti-Western protests over published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
The Arab satellite station refrained from showing some of the most shocking and sexually explicit images. Excerpts were also broadcast on CNN.
Iraq’s acting human-rights minister, Nermine Othman, said she was “horrified” by the pictures and would study whether any action could be taken against those responsible, even though some offenders have been imprisoned.
“There will be two kinds of reactions from Iraqis,” she told The Associated Press. “One will be anger and others will feel sorry that they (SBS) didn’t give them to the Iraqi government to investigate. Why use them? Why show them? We have had enough suffering and we don’t want any more.”
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the Defense Department believed the release of additional images of prisoner abuse was harmful and “could only further inflame and possibly incite unnecessary violence in the world.”
Whitman said he did not know whether the photos and video clips were among images the Pentagon has been withholding from public release since 2004.
But another defense official said Army officials had reviewed the photos posted on the Sydney Morning Herald’s website and matched them to images that were among those turned over to military authorities in 2004 by a U.S. soldier.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to address the matter publicly, said the photos contained no new information about abuse.
The Australian station refused to say how it obtained the images, and their authenticity could not be verified independently.
However, they were consistent with earlier photographs of abuse by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib.
