Free Republic

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee. Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

From White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs’s press briefing today: Q ... Is this something that is being considered, by the president, for reversal? Or is this the policy that will go forward? And does he have any anxiety about the potential consequences of the release of these photographs? MR. GIBBS: Well, obviously the president has great concern about any impact that pictures of potential detainee abuse, in the past, could have on the present-day service members that are protecting our freedom either in Iraq, Afghanistan or throughout the world. That's something the president is very cognizant of. And we are...

If President Obama wanted to refrain from releasing these photos in order to protect the military forces he commands or promote the security of Americans — his two highest obligations as president — he could do so by simply issuing an executive order. The applicable statute expressly allows for it, just as it provides for Congress — now in the firm control of the president and his party — to withhold the photos from disclosure. Instead, Obama and congressional Democrats are choosing to release the photos. They are making that choice fully aware that it will cost lives. It is...

In the summer of 2004, a group of former detainees of Abu Ghraib prison filed a lawsuit. One claimed to be the man in the photograph -- wires attached to his outstretched arms. The trouble was, the man in the photograph was not Mr. Qaissi.

Globe caught with pants down: Paper duped into running porn photos The Boston Globe was reeling yesterday after graphic photos of alleged sexual abuse of Iraqi women by U.S. soldiers turned out to be staged shots from a hardcore porn Web site. ``This photo should not have appeared in the Globe,'' editor Martin Baron said in a statement. ``First, images portrayed in the photo were overly graphic. Second, as the story clearly pointed out, those images were never authenticated as photos of prisoner abuse. There was a lapse in judgment and procedures, and we apologize for it.'' The ``lapse'' came...