Would an Iraq pullout really be worse than this?

[dArKeR]

By Jonathan Steele
THE GUARDIAN , LONDON
Monday, May 17, 2004,Page 9

Can the American occupation of Iraq be sustained any longer? In the wake of the prison horrors revealed at Abu Ghraib, has the time not come for a serious debate on the immediate withdrawal of British forces and the 150,000-strong US forces as well?

The worldwide shockwaves from the torture pictures are political as well as moral. Outrage is prompting calls for radical change, which US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's sudden trip to Baghdad no doubt is intended to block. In the US, Richard Holbrooke, a strong contender to run the state department in a Kerry presidency, calls the scandal "the most serious setback for the American military since Vietnam." Wesley Clark, the former NATO commander who ran in the Democratic party primaries, puts the prospect of pressure leading to an early end to the US mission as "better than 50-50."

In Iraq, according to Ahmed Fawzi, spokesman for the UN envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, who is currently helping to select an Iraqi government: "Everyone we have spoken to has raised the issue. They feel humiliated."

For many Iraqis the pictures show something even worse than torture. They reveal pornographic sadism.

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