The kind of announcement they could only make on a late Friday afternoon

July 25, 2005

About two months ago, Andrew Sullivan noted on The Chris Matthews Show that the ACLU had won a lawsuit over Abu Ghraib photos that had not yet been seen, but were, as he put it, “horrifying beyond belief.” Late Friday, however, Rumsfeld’s Pentagon announced it was not complying with the court order that was supposed to make those photos public.

Lawyers for the Defense Department are refusing to cooperate with a federal judge’s order to release secret photographs and videotapes related to the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.

The lawyers said in a letter sent to the federal court in Manhattan late Thursday that they would file a sealed brief explaining their reasons for not turning over the material, which they were to have released by yesterday.

Usually these guys wait for Friday afternoons to release embarrassing information. This time, they waited for a Friday afternoon to announce they won’t be releasing embarrassing information.

To be sure, we’re not just talking about pictures of dog collars and piled up prisoners. When Rumsfeld saw these un-released photographs and videos, he said in May 2004, “I mean, I looked at them last night, and they’re hard to believe.” He added that they show acts “that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane.” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested the same day they contained scenes of “rape and murder.”

And what’s Rumsfeld’s excuse for ignoring the court-imposed deadline for releasing the 87 photographs and 4 videos?

The Pentagon lawyers said in a letter sent to the federal court in Manhattan that they would file a sealed brief explaining their reasons for not turning over the material. They had been ordered to do so by a federal judge in response to a [Freedom of Information Act] lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU accused the government Friday of putting another legal roadblock in the way of its bid to allow the public to see the images of the prisoner abuse scandal.

These images are going to come out eventually and they will disgust and enrage the world.

Seymour Hersh said Rumsfeld and his top aides are “in total terror it’s going to come out.” From the description of the pictures and videos, it sounds like their panic is more than justified.

It is a sad state of affairs that we find ourselves in, choosing between revealing the gross incompetence of our civilian leadership to conduct war, and trashing yet again our Nation and troops’ image in the world. I have to say I am split on this. Freedom of information—good. Exposing BushCo—good. Giving fodder to our enemies for what will really just amount to a “hang the private� charade with no real affect on this administration—questionable.

The results will be dictated by the minority party’s willingness and ability to go after those truly responsible, the first being Rumsfeld. Based on past results, I am not confident we would see anything more than we have in the past.

  • I see Eadie’s point, but giving BushCo slack has never paid off IMO.

    We need to rip the bandaid off and get this wound tended to, or we will die of gangrene

  • We do need to expose this. An interesting Constitutional crisis may result, based on past conduct by all of the “players” involvolved, if the courts and/or Dems push for the release of these photographs and videos.

    Consider: Dumsfeld and the Pentagon/Department of Defense operate within the Executive Branch of the federal government, headed of course by the President. The courts are, of course, part of the Judicial Branch of the federal government. Court orders are to be enforced by the Executive Branch of the federal government. The Congress, being the Legislative Branch of the federal government, makes the laws and, in theory, can limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts — and has on a number of occasions threatened and even taken (so far) unsuccessful steps to do so.

    Bush doesn’t want the photos & videos released. We can assume that the Rethug-controlled Congress doesn’t want them released, either — the Congressional Leadership (such as it is) saw all of these items, and has taken no steps to demand their release, or to simply released them directly to the public. If the court denies the Defense Department’s motion and yet again orders release, or if the Congress steps in and passes “instant legislation” ala Schiavo, then what? It is not outside the realm of possibility for Bush to say, in effect, “Well Mr. Judge, you issued the order, now you enforce it.” Or for the Congress to tell the court, in essense, to “go Cheney yourself.” THEN WHAT?????

    These bastards in charge of our government have been playing a “Ponzi scheme” of duck and cover, hide the truth, obfuscate, and kept the CCCP (Compliant Complicit Corporate Press) bamboozled for a long time — each lie, each distortion, each suppression more desperate and outrageous than the one before. The scheme, or house of cards, is starting to catch up to them. But will it be soon enough before the Rethugs actually create a Constitutional crisis (and Schiavo with GWBush/Congress and JEB/Florida DFC came pretty damn close)?

    THEN WHAT???? Again, I’m just askin’ ….

  • I don’t see Eadie’s point. I am not ambivalent about this at all. The photos most emphatically do not give “fodder” to the U.S.’s enemies. The acts of rape, torture, and murder do. Eadie, do you really think that the Iraqis (and other Muslims around the world) don’t know what U.S. soldiers have been doing in that country? I have been reading about these crimes for more than a year now. They have been living it.

    We in the U.S. need to see the consequences of the actions taken our name. Yes, it makes you uncomfortable. It should. It will probably lead to courts-martial. It should. It will inflame world opinion against the U.S. presence in Iraq. It should. We would condemn such abuses on our soil as barbaric.

    We cannot sweep our barbaric acts under the rug and pretend that we are civilized.

  • Chimpy’s finished when these ugly films come out. Children being sodomized and SCREAMING.

    Women being raped by “our boys”.

    Support the troops!

  • We must do everything we can to bring forth all the
    evidence of this horrific crime, this crime against
    humanity, this war crime, committed by Bush and
    his surrogates, when they attacked Iraq. Only
    then might the American people be so filled with
    revulsion and horror that they will demand an end
    to it, and call for the prosecution of its perpetrators.

  • Women and children being raped??!! The bastards who did this are no better than the pig who kidnapped and raped the Groene children in Idaho or any other sex offender. The fact that Bush, Cheney, Rummy et al sent us to Iraq illegally does not give our troops or any other US citizen over there the right to abuse anyone. I agree with Eadie about the “hang the private” chrade that those at the top should be punished as well. However, these rapist if true should be FUCKING HANGED! american or not.

  • I’m with laughingman; this isn’t going to come as much of a shock to the Arab world. And this evidence must be made public. Our only hope of redemption is to turn over all the rocks, no matter how ugly the truth is. I remember the outrage when al-Jazeera was broadcasting footage of the dead and wounded in the early days of the war and thinking to myself, “what do people think war is?” And then, of course, it was “too upsetting” to show flag-draped caskets returning our soldiers to their families. I think anyone who voted for these bastards (as well as the bastards themselves) should be forced to look at every dead body, every horrible wound, every destroyed building, every devasted family (here and in Iraq), every instance of prison abuse. It’s easy to put a “Support our Troops” ribbon on your car and feel patriotic. It’s quite another matter to come face to face with the carnage and destruction of a real war.

    I think you can lay a lot of the blame for this on the administration – they created an atmosphere that basically said, “these are animals, not people, do what you want.” With Rummy inventing an entirely new classification of prisoners not entitled to conventional protections, Bush referring to “evildoers” every other day, and the constant attempts to link Iraq to 9/11, it doesn’t surprise me that this is the result. I certainly don’t condone the horrible acts committed by anyone in uniform, but I can understand how it happened. Punishment for these crimes should be visited on all involved, from the top down, including civilian “consultants.”

    In a perfect world, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Rice, Hadley, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz, Bolton (and countless others) would be charged with 1782 counts of murder, plus however many thousand Iraqi deaths and would have to pay restitution to the American people for the cost of the war. Short of that, impeachment will do.

  • Whatever the bushies want to hide, we need to see. Across the board. They thought this whole ruling the world thing was going to be easier to pull off. They figured the rules really were for wimps and they certainly weren’t gonna get tarred with that brush. If it was up to them we would get our morning Milk and Honey Report and then get on with running in place so they could enjoy the rest of the day without further fuss.

    The photos and videos aren’t embarassing or even thought provoking to RepubCo. They are nothing more than an inconvenience and a pain in the ass. They are one more thing to spin when too many balls are already in the air. We need to bury these pricks in balls. They need another ball like a donkey needs a tail.

    Whatever comes down the pike that smells like inconvenience and difficulty, we need to stick it on them. The liberal logo should be a donkey with a glue gun and buckets full of horrid photos. They own this stuff, we’re just trying to return it.

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