Case For Releasing Images
There is little question that the release of the original Abu Ghraib photographs brought to light grave crimes that may have continued unabated, and gone unpunished, had they not been exposed.Low-ranking soldiers abusing and torturing inmates at Abu Ghraib were, in fact, following orders. They were carrying out a policy set out by the highest members of the Bush administration. But that policy of "enhanced interrogation techniques" (a euphemism for torture) would have gone unquestioned and likely unimpeded had the Abu Ghraib scandal not shattered the American public's illusions about the American mission in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Abu Ghraib scandal was the beginning of a larger unraveling that exposed the Bush administration's woeful inadequacies in both its occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in its prosecution of the war on terror: Abu Ghraib was emblematic of a systemic failure of leadership, a dearth of adequate, appropriate and trained manpower in specialized situations, and the absence of a larger, focused strategy to execute the war in Iraq in conjunction with the war in Afghanistan. The photographs, in sum, symbolized a far graver, broader crisis.
Their release achieved other purposes. They forced a reckoning with failed policies, forced accountability, and forced investigations that led to some, albeit only a few, prosecutions, and only of low-level enlisted men and women.
To the rest of the world, releasing the images proved that the United States can and does face up to its failures--fitfully so perhaps, and in an incomplete way, but willingly nevertheless. It proved that whistle-blowers have an important role to play in an open society, and secrecy a sinister role, when it is unchallenged.
“These photographs provide visual proof that prisoner abuse by U.S. personnel was not aberrational but widespread, reaching far beyond the walls of Abu Ghraib,” Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the A.C.L.U., which sued for release of the pictures under the Freedom of Information Act, told The New York Times.
Releasing the complete record would be the only way to fully reckon with the Bush administration's torture regime--honestly, openly and without qualifications, in order that all misdeeds and crimes are examined, punished if necessary, and kept from being repeated--especially because servicemen are still engaged in two wars. Absent a full accounting, Abu Ghraib is a scandal waiting to happen again elsewhere.
Case Against Releasing Images
In the Middle East, the photographs discredited the Bush administration's claim that it was in Iraq to restore democracy, civility, severely undermined American foreign policy's credibility and damaged relations with American allies. The photographs were used as a recruiting tool by insurgents in Iraq and by al-Qaeda terrorists elsewhere. American credibility in Iraq, never strong, never recovered.Obama argues, along with some Pentagon officials, that releasing additional images would endanger American troops abroad. That's not the most convincing argument (considering the extent to which individuals were endangered, brutalized and, in some cases, murdered by acts depicted in the images or not). Nor is the argument against damaging American credibility.
There are powerful, compelling arguments against releasing further images, however. As Philip Gourevitch (editor of the Paris Review, author of a book on Abu Ghraib and a liberal) wrote in The New York Times in late May, 2009, "Just as it was a public service to release the Abu Ghraib photographs five years ago, Mr. Obama is right today to say we don’t need more of them." He added:
Releasing additional photographs would not be telling us anything that we don’t already know. We don’t need to see a picture to know that American interrogators used waterboarding — a crime our military has prosecuted as torture for more than a century — when we can see former Vice President Dick Cheney taking credit for having people waterboarded. [...]Crime-scene photographs, for all their power to reveal, can also serve as a distraction, even a deterrent, from precise understanding of the events they depict. Photographs cannot show us a chain of command, or Washington decision making. Photographs cannot tell stories. They can only provide evidence of stories, and evidence is mute; it demands investigation and interpretation.
I spent more than a year living with the photographs from Abu Ghraib while writing a book about the soldiers who took them and appeared in them. I saw many more pictures than were ever published in the press, including, I believe, many — if not most — of the photos that the president would now prefer that you don’t see. [...] [M]ost of the worst things that happened at Abu Ghraib were never photographed.
Where It Stands
In the end, it's not up to Barack Obama or the Pentagon to decide whether or how to release additional photographs--unless they're inclined to defy federal court orders.A federal district court in 2008 and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in September 2008 ordered the release of the photographs. Obama's remaining option is to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which may not be interested in hearing the case--leaving the appeals court decision to stand as law.
Several additional photographs have been surfacing by leaks and drips. Britain's Daily Telegraph reported that some of the photographs depict the rape of an inmate by a guard.
Bottom line: The photographs are unlikely to be kept secret.
As Michael Wolff wrote, "we have, on the one hand, crimes so horrendous that they must be investigated and exposed—hence the pictures must come out. Or, on the other, rumors and allegations that will surely take on a hyperbolic life of their own, unless the pictures come out. We will see these pictures."