ABUSE CRISIS: Navy Probes New Abuse Photos, page 1

posted on Dec, 3 2004 @ 06:23 PM

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With the amount of time that has passed since the Iraqi abuse scandal first surfaced, one would think that we would be at a point where this could all be put behind us and move on. Today the U.S. military has launched a new criminal investigation into photographs that are reported to show Navy SEALs "sitting on hooded, handcuffed detainees, along with photos of what could be bloodied prisoners, one of them with a gun to his head". these new pictures are among hundreds posted on a web site by a woman who claims her husband brought them home from Iraq. These photos according to the following report contain a "date stamp" of May 2003. Which would have been a time just before the infamous Abu Ghraib prison photos.

ABCNEWS.com Full Article

CORONADO, Calif. Dec 3, 2004 � The U.S. military has launched a criminal investigation into photographs that appear to show Navy SEALs in Iraq sitting on hooded and handcuffed detainees, and photos of what appear to be bloodied prisoners, one with a gun to his head.

Some of the photos have date stamps suggesting they were taken in May 2003, which could make them the earliest evidence of possible abuse of prisoners in Iraq. The far more brutal practices photographed in Abu Ghraib prison occurred months later.

An Associated Press reporter found more than 40 of the pictures among hundreds in an album posted on a commercial photo-sharing Web site by a woman who said her husband brought them from Iraq after his tour of duty. It is unclear who took the pictures, which the Navy said it was investigating after the AP furnished copies to get comment for this story.

These and other photos found by the AP appear to show the immediate aftermath of raids on civilian homes. One man is lying on his back with a boot on his chest. A mug shot shows a man with an automatic weapon pointed at his head and a gloved thumb jabbed into his throat. In many photos, faces have been blacked out. What appears to be blood drips from the heads of some. A family huddles in a room in one photo and others show debris and upturned furniture.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

According to the above report the photos were turned over to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which instructed the SEAL command to determine whether they show any serious crimes.

How far back does this go?

How serious is this new case?

Will we ever see these new photos?

Remember these are 'new' photos of a time before the infamous Abu Ghraib prison photos which led to charges against seven soldiers accused of humiliating and assaulting prisoners.

Some will say this is nothing, no damage was done. However we must remember that we do live in an age of modern technology, the internet and it seems that in this case that if these new photos had not shown up on a web site we may have never known of it.

It seems some were so proud of their abuse of Iraqi prisoners that they not only took photos, they posted them on the internet.

Don't bother searching for them, They are gone now I am sure.

But you never know, these images could now turn up anywhere. Maybe even here at ATS.

Complete ATSNN Abuse Crisis Coverage:

Iraqi Abuse Crisis

[edit on 3-12-2004 by UM_Gazz]

Psychoses

posted on Dec, 4 2004 @ 09:49 AM

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These photo's are supposedly taken immediately after raids on civilian homes. How widespread is this kind of behaviour? If millitary command claim they know nothing about these incidents then they are basically saying they are not in control of their forces.

It does tend to explain why so many Iraqi citizens are becoming "insurgents" and fighting back against the occupying forces.

As for the wife who posted the images on the internet, she must have been very naive to think that they wouldn't be found.

AceOfBase

posted on Dec, 5 2004 @ 06:41 AM

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Does anyone have the high quality images from that website?

I found the site the photos are from but their bandwidth for the month is exceeded so I can't access them.

I think it's this persons gallery here:
knighthawk.smugmug.com...

This site here has some small versions of the photos with some of the faces masked out:
ancapistan.typepad.com...