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Government: release of Abu Ghraib prison photos could cause riots
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press Writer
August 12, 2005, 3:06 PM EDT
NEW YORK -- Releasing pictures and videotapes of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison would aid al-Qaida recruitment, weaken Afghanistan and Iraqi governments and incite riots against U.S. troops, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff says.
The warning by Gen. Richard B. Myers was contained in court papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan and recently unsealed.
The government submitted additional papers to the court Friday arguing that some information in its arguments that remains redacted should not be made public.
Myers said the release of the pictures "pose a clear and grave risk of inciting violence and riots against American troops and coalition forces."
He said it was "probable that al-Qaida and other groups will seize upon these images and videos as grist for their propaganda mill," leading to violent attacks, increased terrorist recruitment, continued financial support and a worsening of tensions between the Iraqi and Afghani populaces and U.S. and coalition forces.
He said the photographs and videos would be used in a propaganda campaign by insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq who "use any means necessary to incite violence" against innocent civilians to undercut the U.S. mission.
The arguments were submitted July 21 in a case in which the American Civil Liberties Union seeks the release of 87 photographs and four videotapes taken at the prison.
The ACLU sought the pictures as part of a lawsuit it filed in October 2003 seeking information on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody and the transfer of prisoners to countries known to use torture. The ACLU contends that prisoner abuse is systemic.
In a response to the arguments by Myers, the ACLU submitted a declaration by retired U.S. Army Col. Michael E. Pheneger, who said Myers "mistakes propaganda for motivation."
He said he does "not underestimate the propaganda impact of the release of additional photos of the degradation of Iraqi prisoners in U.S. custody, but the photos will not be the real cause of subsequent attacks."
He noted that insurgents average 70 attacks a day and that they "will continue regardless of whether the photos and tapes are released."
Pheneger, a military intelligence officer from 1963 to 1993, said he found it difficult as a patriot and a career soldier to criticize the government.
But he said he believed that the release of the photos _ though damaging to the Army's reputation _ would lead to a thorough public examination of the effects of the administration's decision to change long-standing policies and approve interrogation techniques that the Army had long prohibited.
"The first step to abandoning practices that are repugnant to our laws and national ideals is to bring them into the sunshine and assign accountability," he wrote.
Myers said the United States has documented situations in which insurgents have falsely claimed that U.S. actions in Iraq caused suffering to women and children when the damage was actually done by violence and sabotage by the insurgents.
He said the insurgents rely on doctored photographs and images to support their calls to violence.
He said Department of Defense experts noted last year that doctored images and videos purporting to document the rape of Iraqi women by U.S. soldiers were actually from a Hungarian pornography site. He said the images were distributed and presented on pro-Islamist and Arabic news Web sites as actual examples of U.S. "barbarism."
References to the so-called rape photos surfaced in Muslim sermons throughout the Middle East along with calls for retaliatory violence, he said.
Myers quoted one Iraqi novelist and Middle East expert as saying he receives angry messages each day from young Arab men vowing to avenge the Iraqi girls.
"We have noted other instances of insurgent attacks after the disclosure of images depicting alleged abuse of detainees," he said.
Myers said his views about the pictures were supported by Gen. John P. Abizaid, head of the United States Central Command and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the commander of the American forces in Iraq.
He said an investigation into the abuse depicted on the pictures continues.
"I condemn in the strongest terms the misconduct and abuse depicted in these images," he said. "It was illegal, immoral and contrary to American vales and character."
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who will decide whether to release redacted versions of the pictures and videotapes, has said he believed photographs "are the best evidence the public can have of what occurred" at the prison.
Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.[/quote:d2705]
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ ... -apnewyork
Government: release of Abu Ghraib photos could cause riots
Government: release of Abu Ghraib photos could cause riots -
08-13-2005, 02:17 PM
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