President Bush spoke to White House reporters today on the recent images of torture and humiliation in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq:
"As you know, there have been photos released of harsh treatment of Iraqi prisoners, including sexual poses and female prisoners forced to expose their breasts. I find these pictures disgusting, even after having seen them repeatedly, say maybe four times last night and once this morning.
In addition to the photos, the Pentagon has informed me that there are also videos of the abuse, which I'm sure are equally disgusting and which I am trying to get my hands on. If any of you have a copy, please speak with Scott after the meeting so we can get that from you.
Many of these photos and videos have already been distributed via the internet. There are also apparently some MP3s of the abuse, as well as a Flash animation. Andy is working on getting the right plug-ins for us to review this material.
However, from what's been released so far, and, you know, reported, I want to tell you that there seems to be a lot of misreporting and over-reaction going on right now. I mean, just as a for instance, everyone's talking about how the prisoners got sodomized. Well, the fact is, they just got a LITTLE BIT sodomized. And you don't see that getting reported.
There's also been a lot of fuss made about these prisoners being forced to wear hoods and leashes. And frankly, that's not such an unusual technique. We've all done that, including Laura and myself. So I don't see what the fuss is.
In closing, I just want to remind you that we are there to liberate the Iraqi people, and if some of these people hate democracy and freedom so much that we need to strip them naked, sic German shepards on them, put hoods over their heads and jam glowsticks up their butts in order to free them, well so be it. Because I for one think a little thing called freedom can make a pretty big difference.
Thank you."