Thursday, February 16, 2006

Australian TV Defends Abuse Broadcast

By ED JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer 48 minutes ago

An Australian television network on Thursday defended airing graphic images of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, amid U.S. concerns the photographs could heighten anti-U.S. sentiments in the Middle East and endanger the lives of American troops.

Mike Carey, senior producer of the Special Broadcasting Service's "Dateline" program, said the images appeared to show new cases of mistreatment that should trigger a fresh investigation by U.S. authorities.

"It is a quantum leap in terms of the seriousness of the apparent abuse. It does add a lot to what we know was going on there," Carey told The Associated Press.

Many of the images broadcast Wednesday by SBS were more graphic than the photos published in 2004 that prompted worldwide outrage and resulted in the prosecution of several American soldiers.

One video clip depicted a group of naked men with bags over their heads standing together and masturbating. The network said they were forced to participate. Other images showed what appear to be wounded people and the corpse of a man SBS said was killed during a CIA interrogation. SBS has refused to say how it obtained the images, and their authenticity could not be verified independently.

After they were broadcast, U.S. Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said the images were part of material that had already been investigated by U.S. authorities. Nine American soldiers were convicted in the abuse and sentenced to terms ranging from discharge from the Army to 10 years imprisonment.

Whitman said more than 25 people have been held accountable for criminal acts and "other failures" at Abu Ghraib.

Carey conceded that many of the hundreds of photographs in SBS's possession appeared to have been taken at the same time as the previously published photos that showed naked detainees stacked in a human pyramid and being intimidated by guard dogs, as well as a hooded man standing on a crate with electrodes attached to his fingers.

But he said many of the images — such as the apparent photos of dead detainees — raised fresh questions about what occurred in the notorious Baghdad jail. He queried whether all the incidents of abuse depicted in the photos had been investigated.

"Maybe the Pentagon has investigated them all but it certainly, as far as I am aware, has not explained them publicly to the American people," he told the AP. "We felt a responsibility ... to broadcast them. It is a matter of free speech."

Officials in Iraq and the United States have expressed concern that the images could enflame public anger already running high over footage of British soldiers beating youths in southern Iraq.

In Baghdad, Iraq's prime minister condemned the latest abuse images. "The Iraqi government condemns the torture practices revealed through the recent pictures that show Iraqi prisoners being tortured," a statement issued by Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's office said.

The abuse images were widely reported in news pages across Asia, though official reaction to their broadcast was muted. Anger in Muslim countries in Asia remained focused on the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, with continuing demonstrations in Pakistan and further denunciations by officials in Malaysia.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Thursday that SBS had the right to decide whether to air the images, but suggested that if the photos showed acts that have already been exposed and prosecuted, there was no reason to publish them.

Howard, a strong ally of President Bush in the Iraq war, defended U.S. efforts to punish those behind past abuses at Abu Ghraib.

"In the end we are a democracy," Howard said, conceding that "once a journalist gets photographs of that kind, the reality is they are going to publish them."

Australia's opposition Labor Party said it was crucial to determine whether the abuse shown in the newly published images had been carried out by offenders who had already been punished, or whether there were other perpetrators that must be brought to justice.

"One of our strongest weapons in the fight against terror is our commitment to uphold the rule of law," said Robert McLelland, Labor's defense spokesman.

He said the U.S. Army should carry out a fresh investigation and urged Howard to raise the issue with Washington.

Australia has about 1,320 troops in Iraq and the Middle East. Despite widespread public opposition to the war, Howard has repeatedly refused to set a deadline for pulling Australian troops out of Iraq.

Source: AP via Yahoo! News

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Related: Iraq Prisoner Abuse Slideshow (Yahoo! News)
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