US President Barack Obama said he would try to block the court-ordered release of photos showing US troops abusing prisoners, abruptly reversing his position out of concern the pictures would “further inflame anti-American opinion” and endanger US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama’s turnabout on Wednesday set off immediate reactions from bloggers, both liberals who decried that he was buckling to political pressure and conservatives who agreed with the decision but said it proved the president was a flip-flopper.
The White House said last month it would not oppose the release of dozens of photos from military investigations of alleged misconduct. But US commanders in the war zones expressed concern about fresh damage the photos might do, especially as the US tries to wind down the Iraq War and step up operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
When photos emerged in 2004 from the infamous US-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq showing grinning US soldiers posing with detainees — some of the prisoners naked, some being held on leashes — the pictures caused a huge anti-US backlash around the globe, particularly in the Muslim world.
Obama, realizing how high emotions run on detainee treatment during the Bush administration and now, made it a point to personally explain his change of heart, stopping to address TV cameras late in the day as he left the White House for a flight to Arizona.
He said the photos had already served their purpose in investigations of “a small number of individuals.”
Those cases were all concluded by 2004 and the president said “the individuals who were involved have been identified and appropriate actions have been taken.”
The Pentagon conducted 200 investigations into alleged abuse connected with the photos that are now in question. The administration did not provide an immediate accounting of how they turned out.
“This is not a situation in which the Pentagon has concealed or sought to justify inappropriate action,” Obama said of the photos.
“In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”
The Department of Justice immediately filed a notice with the court of its new position on the release, including that it was considering an appeal with the Supreme Court. The government has until June 9 to do so.
“I want to emphasize that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib,” Obama said.
But he said he had made it clear that “any abuse of detainees is unacceptable. It is against our values. It endangers our security. It will not be tolerated.”
The effort to keep the photos from becoming public represented for many a sharp reversal from Obama’s repeated pledges for open government, and in particular from his promise to be forthcoming with information that courts have ruled should be publicly available.
As such, it invited criticism from the more liberal segments of the Democratic Party, which want a full accounting — and even redress — for what they see as the misdeeds of former US president George W. Bush’s administration.
“The decision to not release the photographs makes a mockery of President Obama’s promise of transparency and accountability,” said American Civil Liberties Union attorney Amrit Singh, who argued and won the case in question before the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. “It is essential that these photographs be released so that the public can examine for itself the full scale and scope of prisoner abuse that was conducted in its name.”
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