The Torture Photos We’re Not Supposed To See

Below are three photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, from the website of the Sydney Morning Herald, which made them available in 2006, and from Britain’s Daily Telegraph. The photos relate to President Obama’s recent decision to back down, at the last minute, from a promise to comply with a court order demanding the release, by May 28, of 44 photos of the abuse of prisoners in various locations in Afghanistan and Iraq. As the Guardian noted last month, the photos confirm that “abuse was much more widespread than the US has so far been prepared to admit,” and even though these photos are not thought to be part of the 44 photos in question, it is believed that they constitute part of the 2,000 photos that the government was also “processing for release” at the time, according to the Justice Department.

For more on the story, see Documents Describe Prisoner Abuse Photos Obama is Withholding on The Public Record, and for extensive galleries of previously released photos, see two articles at Salon, here and here.