You Can't Handle the Truth

Lawyers for the Defense Department are refusing to cooperate with an order from a federal judge to release 87 secret photographs and four videotapes showing human rights abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The images reportedly depict abuses more shocking than any the public has yet seen. After viewing them last year, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress that they were "hard to believe,” showing acts "that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane." Rumsfeld added, "If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse." The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit last year to demand public release of the additional photos. Pentagon lawyers argued that their release would only add to the humiliation of the prisoners, but U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein ordered the Pentagon to comply with the ACLU's request by July 23, after removing any identifying features from the images. In an eleventh-hour appeal, the government has entered a new legal filing opposing their release. The ACLU has joined the Center for Constitutional Rights and several other organizations to denounce what they called "the latest in a series of attempts by the government to keep the images from being made public and to cover up the torture of detainees in U.S. custody around the world."