Thread: U.S. to release photos from other probes in Afghanistan, Iraq

The decision will make public for the first time photos obtained in military investigations at facilities other than the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Forty four pictures that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was seeking in a court case, plus a "substantial number" of other images, will be released by May 28.

The photos, examined by Air Force and Army criminal investigators, are apparently not as shocking as those taken at Abu Ghraib, which became a symbol of U.S. mistakes in Iraq. But Pentagon officials nevertheless are concerned that the release could incite another backlash in the Middle East.

Some of the photos show military personnel intimidating or threatening detainees by pointing weapons at them, according to officials who have seen them. Military officers have been court-martialed for threatening detainees at gunpoint.

"This will constitute visual proof that, unlike the Bush administration's claim, the abuse was not confined to Abu Ghraib and was not aberrational," said Amrit Singh, a lawyer for the ACLU, which obtained the agreement as part of a long-running legal battle for documents related to Bush-era anti-terrorism policies.

The photo-release decision comes as President Obama is trying to quell a drive to investigate Bush-era anti-terrorism practices, which was spurred in part by the release last week of Justice Department memos detailing the Bush administration's legal justifications for harsh interrogations. But the photos and a series of other possible disclosures stemming from the ACLU lawsuit threaten to fuel the controversy.

Additional disclosures to be considered in the coming weeks include transcripts of detainee interrogations by the CIA, a CIA inspector general's report that has been kept mostly secret and background materials of a Justice Department internal investigation into prisoner abuse.

Sounds like Obama is going to make sure there's enough evidence out there to assure the Bush Administration gets their asses sued to hell and back.

Good for him.

Politics | U.S. to release photos from other probes in Afghanistan, Iraq | Seattle Times Newspaper

Originally Posted by Blueneck

Sounds like Obama is going to make sure there's enough evidence out there to assure the Bush Administration gets their asses sued to hell and back.

Good for him.

Politics | U.S. to release photos from other probes in Afghanistan, Iraq | Seattle Times Newspaper

The thing that people seems to sometimes miss about Obama is that he's methodical as all get out. He's process oriented and a strategic thinker.

Notice how he has, in his own good time (still within 100 days), rolled back some of the most annoying ideological policy vestiges of GW Bush.

So he releases the torture memos (the kind of thing he promised) and now he's being accused of flip-flopping for not kicking ass enough. All in good time, I think. And, more importantly, Obama's approach seems to be make the sins of the Bush administration simply whither under public scorn and be burned into history as wrong.

I wish I could be as intentional in my daily work as he is.

But then, I have a man-crush on Obama.