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Army investigates gruesome Internet war-zone pictures

The Army has opened an investigation into whether US troops have sent gruesome photographs of Iraqi war dead to an Internet site where the soldiers were given free access to online pornography, Army officials said on Tuesday.

Some photographs on the Internet site show people in US military uniforms standing around what appear to be dead bodies. Other photos include graphic images of severed body parts and what appear to be internal organs spilling from bodies onto the ground.

The images are said to come from Afghanistan as well as Iraq. Their authenticity has not been determined.

Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman, said that if soldiers had posted the images, their actions could violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which defines conduct unbecoming an officer or soldier.

Another Pentagon official who reviewed the Web site said it raised questions, as well, of whether the acts could be viewed as a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which set standards for treatment of remains of those killed in a combat zone.

The Council on US-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based civil rights and advocacy group, called for an investigation after details of the photographs were described in news media and online reports.

Arsalan Iftikhar, the group's legal director, asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to "investigate this troubling phenomenon and do whatever is necessary to bring it to an end."

On the Web site, the photographs are set aside from the pornographic images that are its standard content. Those who provided the pictures often included crude captions. But there is also some discussion about the war, its purpose and conduct.

An article published last week in the Online Journalism Review of the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Southern California identified the site's operator as Chris Wilson, and said he lived in Florida but maintained the site on computer hosts overseas.

The article quoted him as saying: "To me, this is from the soldier's slant. This is directly from them. They can take the digital cameras and take a picture and send it to me, and that's the most raw you can get it. I like to see it from their point of view, and I think it's newsworthy."

On the site, under the headline "Cooked Iraqi," a posted photograph shows uniformed men posing in front of what appear to be charred remains. The photo promoted several anonymous postings including one that said, "Burn baby, burn!"

Officials said the military's preliminary inquiry was being conducted by the Army Criminal Investigation Command. They said it had proved difficult to identify the military personnel who can be seen in some of the photographs wearing Army or Marine Corps uniforms but no clear name tags or unit markings.

Digital cameras have been ubiquitous in the modern combat zone, and it was digital pictures and videos that provided the first public evidence of the extreme degree to which military police soldiers had abused Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.

In the aftermath of Abu Ghraib and reports of other abuses by US troops, Pentagon and military officials acknowledged that such behavior could severely damage the US war effort in Iraq.
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