Former Major General Antonio Taguba, the officer who conducted an inquiry into Abu Ghraib in 2004, has been interviewed by Britain's Daily Telegraph. In the interview he confirmed that the unreleased prisoner torture photos contain images of rape at Abu Ghraib.
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.
Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.
Obama has made a huge mistake by not releasing these photographs, and is now shown to have stretched the truth very far when he claimed that "these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib." No, Mr. President, these photos are
worse than those originally released from Abu Ghraib.
Maj Gen Taguba’s internal inquiry into the abuse at Abu Ghraib, included sworn statements by 13 detainees, which, he said in the report, he found "credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses."
Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: "I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid’s ***.... and the female soldier was taking pictures."
We now have confirmation that the unspeakable accusations of child rape that Seymour Hersh alleged are true. American soldiers raped children at Abu Ghraib, and there is photographic evidence. Now all I have to ask is, are Americans ready to finally face the reckoning of what was done in our name? Because like it or not, these photos will be released, and no one will be able to ignore this horrible truth any longer.
**UPDATE**
Both the Pentagon and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs have come out denying the truth of the report.
Reuters:
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the Daily Telegraph newspaper had shown "an inability to get the facts right".
"That news organization has completely mischaracterized the images," Whitman told reporters. "None of the photos in question depict the images that are described in that article."
Gibbs as reported on Politico:
I want to speak generally about some reports I’ve witnessed over the past few years in the British media. And in some ways, I’m surprised it filtered down," Gibbs began. "Let’s just say if I wanted to look up – if I wanted to read a writeup today of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champion’s League cup, I might open up a British newspaper. If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I’m not entirely sure it’d be in the first pack of clips I’d pick up.
Instead of answering on the merits, both Gibbs and the Pentagon are attacking the immediate source of the news, the Daily Telegraph. However, neither have actually denied that General Taguba, who as the Reuters article points out included allegations of rape in his 2004 report and again made the allegations in 2007, is telling the truth.
The White House and the Pentagon doesn't want this story to come out. I understand that many people feel, as obviously does President Obama, that the negative consequences of releasing these photos must be avoided. I understand that concern.
But I disagree.
Our nation has committed war crimes. We are at our core a nation of laws, laws dedicated to the highest ideals of protecting individual freedoms and human values. If we are to cast those laws and values aside, then we have forfeited our soul as a nation.
We must face the fact of what has been committed in our name. Until we do so, until we face the horror of our nation's actions and punish those who are responsible for them, then we have no moral standing, and are merely admitting that values and laws are fine and dandy until they become inconvenient.
Make no mistake. This is our Nuremburg moment. Will we act to redeem ourselves by punishing the guilty and ensuring that this never happens again, or will we let torture and rape become our values, and thus forfeit our nation's very reason for being?