Taguba denies he's seen abuse photos suppressed by Obama - quote in Telegraph not accurate.

[jefferson_dem]

Taguba denies he's seen abuse photos suppressed by Obama
The general told a U.K. paper about images he saw investigating Abu Ghraib -- not photos Obama wants kept secret.

By Mark Benjamin

May 30, 2009 | Retired Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba denied reports that he has seen the prisoner-abuse photos that President Obama is fighting to keep secret, in an exclusive interview with Salon Friday night.

On Thursday an article in the Daily Telegraph reported that Taguba, the lead investigator into Abu Ghraib abuse, had seen images Obama wanted suppressed, and supported the president's decision to fight their release. The paper quoted Taguba as saying, "These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency."

But Taguba says he wasn't talking about the 44 photographs that are the subject of an ongoing ACLU lawsuit that Obama is fighting.

"The photographs in that lawsuit, I have not seen," Taguba told Salon Friday night. The actual quote in the Telegraph was accurate, Taguba said -- but he was referring to the hundreds of images he reviewed as an investigator of the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq -- not the photos of abuse that Obama is seeking to suppress.

In March 2006 Salon published "The Abu Ghraib Files," 279 photographs and 19 videos collected by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division as it examined the shocking cases of prisoner abuse at the notorious Baghdad prison. The photos depict scenes of extreme cruelty – prisoners forced to publicly masturbate, naked prisoners held in extreme stress positions, or being walked naked by a female guard. Some photos show prisoners bloodied and otherwise injured, with untrained guards tending to their wounds.

<SNIP>

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/05/30/taguba/index.html

[bigtree]

1. the Salon pics as described don't match Taguba's description of rape

Also, even if the pics he saw aren't part of the 44 sought in the lawsuit, there still were 2000, or so, reported which are also being suppressed by the administration. The article isn't clear about whether he's sticking to his description of rape, or if he was referring to the Salon pics when he described photos of rape. There don't appear to be any photos released by the administration (or the last one) which fit his descriptions.

The significant news here is his opinion that the pics being withheld shouldn't be released.