Supreme Court Launches Abuse Photo Cover Up

December 1. 2009

President Barack Obama

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned an appeals court ruling, decreeing that abuse photos of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, must remain secret, in accordance with the White House and Congress' wishes.

This is not transparency in government and will not be applauded by the international community, as it lends the appearance of a cover-up, something the world wanted to see gone with the George W. Bush presidency. This ruling is not sending the right message to the world.

Supreme Court rules to keep detainee abuse photos secret

Posted on Monday, 11.30.09 - WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court did all it could Monday to lock up forever some incendiary photos that show U.S. soldiers abusing foreign prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yielding to Congress and the White House, justices took the expected but formal step of reversing a lower court's order that the pictures be released. Using its budget powers, Congress already had moved to keep the photos secret.

In a brief, unsigned decision issued Monday without elaboration, the court cited a provision in a Homeland Security funding bill President Barack Obama signed Oct. 28. The provision permitted the Pentagon to block the public release of the pictures in question, as well as others deemed to "endanger" U.S. soldiers or civilians.

"Disclosure of those photographs would pose a clear and grave risk of inciting violence and riots against American troops and coalition forces," Solicitor General Elena Kagan had warned the Supreme Court.

The Justice Department's brief noted that one picture shows "several soldiers posing near standing detainees who are handcuffed to bars with sandbags covering their heads while a soldier holds a broom as if sticking (its) end ... into the rectum of a restrained detainee."

Another photo shows a soldier who appears to be striking an Iraqi detainee with the butt of a rifle...

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