Pictures Create Questions For Media

Senator Rips Media 'Outrage,' Political Use Of Photo

The murder of an American civilian by militants in Iraq is providing the latest gruesome images in the Iraq war. The militants who executed Nick Berg, of Philadelphia, claimed on a grisly videotape showing Berg's beheading that the murder was in response to the humiliation of Muslims held by the U.S. at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

No U.S. media outlet has shown the entire Berg execution video, but dozens of pictures showing the alleged abuse of Iraqi detainees by American soldiers have appeared on the covers of newspapers, on television, and on the Internet, sparking worldwide outrage, particularly in the Muslim world.

Now, some in the U.S. are saying the media should never have released the Abu Ghraib images.

The CBS television show "60 Minutes" was the first to broadcast the images, after apparently being asked to hold off on showing them by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Meyers.


Meyers

Since the photos were broadcast last week, more images have been released, showing U.S. Army reservists apparently abusing Iraqi detainees. And during congressional testimony this week, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned that there are hundreds of additional images in Pentagon hands.

Members of Congress began viewing those images on Wednesday, but won't have the authority to release the pictures that the Pentagon warns could deepen international fury over the abuses.

The photographs were being made available to senators for three hours Wednesday afternoon in a high-security, classified office in the Capitol. House members were to view the photographs in a separate office building. After that, the photos were to be returned to the Pentagon while the Bush administration decides whether to make them public.

Fears that the prisoner abuses would trigger a violent backlash appeared to be realized Tuesday with Berg's killing.



And while many members of Congress were expected to view the images, some Senators have criticized the release of the photos by the media, and what they call the use of the controversy by some politicians for political gain.

During a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma said the alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners has been overblown.

"I'm sure I'm not the only one up here who is more outraged by the outrage than by the treatment" of Iraqi prisoners, Imhofe said, adding that he was "sure those Iraqi prisoners thank Allah every day that Saddam is no longer running those prisons."

Imhofe added that he was, "also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights violations while our troops, our heroes, are fighting and dying."

Inhofe was later tacitly rebuked by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. McCain asked three Army officials whether the Geneva Conventions, which dictate the terms for humane treatment of prisoners, were a burden on U.S. military activities. All three said the conventions were needed to protect U.S. soldiers in conflicts and to demonstrate the United States' moral integrity.

Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt announced that two more American soldiers have been ordered to stand trial in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal although no date for the courts-martial was set. Sgt. Javal Davis, 26, of Maryland and Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II of Buckingham, Va., were ordered to undergo a general court-martial, Kimmitt said. Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits, of Hyndman, Pa., goes on trial May 19 before a special court martial, which cannot levy as severe a sentence as a general court-martial.