Alex Constantine - May 30, 2009
Also see: "Children Sodomized at Abu Ghraib don't Suffer Permanent Organ Failure - Must not be Torture"
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Story and (explicitly violent) sexual abuse photos here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-29/torture-photos-depict-sex-rape/#gallery=298;page=1
Excerpts
www.thedailybeast.com
"The Pentagon is denying the facts: Photographs of Abu Ghraib torture are even more sexually explicit than first reported, including rape and sodomy, writes The Daily Beast's Scott Horton, who has obtained specific and detailed corroboration of the photos.
"The Daily Beast has confirmed that the photographs of abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, which President Obama, in a reversal, decided not to release, depict sexually explicit acts, including a uniformed soldier receiving oral sex from a female prisoner, a government contractor engaged in an act of sodomy with a male prisoner and scenes of forced masturbation, forced exhibition, and penetration involving phosphorous sticks and brooms.
"These descriptions come on the heels of a British report yesterday about the photographs that contained some of these revelations—and whose credibility was questioned by the Pentagon as well as the British newspaper's source, who claims he was misunderstood. ... A senior military officer familiar with the photos told me that they would likely provoke a storm of outrage if released. ...
"The Telegraph article quoted retired Major General Antonio Taguba, who directed the official inquiry in 2004 into the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Taguba told the Telegraph that the 'pictures show torture, abuse, rape, and every indecency.' The Telegraph reported: “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.”
"In response to the Telegraph account, Bryan G. Whitman, a deputy assistant secretary of Defense, attacked the newspaper. 'That news organization has completely mischaracterized the images,' he said. 'None of the photos in question depict the images that are described in that article.' White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, later in the day, widened the assault to a general one against British journalism. 'If I wanted to read a writeup today of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champions League Cup, I might open up a British newspaper,' Gibbs said. '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.' ... "