US military moves court to block release: Abu Ghraib pictures
By Our Correspondent
NEW YORK, Aug 13: The Chairman of US Joint Chief of Staff, Gen Richard B. Myers, told a New York court on Saturday that releasing photos and videotapes of detainee abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison would aid Al Qaeda recruitment, weaken governments in Iraq and Afghanistan and incite hatred against US troops.
The American Civil Liberties Union is seeking the release of 87 photographs and four videotapes taken at the prison as part of a lawsuit it filed in Oct 2003.
Gen Myers told the court in unsealed court papers filed with the District Court in Manhattan that it was ‘probable that Al Qaeda and other groups will seize upon these images and videos as grist for their propaganda mill’.
The ACLU complaint seeks information on the treatment of detainees in US custody and the transfer of prisoners to countries known to use torture. It also contends that prisoner abuse is systemic.
The government submitted an additional request to the court on Friday arguing that some information in its papers that remains blacked out should not be made public.
In a response to the arguments by Gen Myers, the ACLU submitted a declaration by a retired colonel, Michael Pheneger, who said Gen Myers ‘mistakes propaganda for motivation’.
Michael Pheneger, a military intelligence officer from 1963 to 1993, said that Iraqi guerillas average 70 attacks a day and that they ‘will continue regardless of whether the photos and tapes are released or not’.
Mr Pheneger said he believed that releasing the photos would lead to a thorough public examination of the administration’s decision to 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.
Gen Myers said his views about the pictures were supported by Gen John Abizaid, head of the United States Central Command, and Gen George Casey, commander of the American forces in Iraq.
An investigation into the abuse depicted on the pictures was continuing, Gen Myers told the court.
“I condemn in the strongest terms the misconduct and abuse depicted in these images,” he said. “It was illegal, immoral and contrary to American values and character.”
