Reply #76: Judge orders release of 100 new photos of Abu Ghraib

[RAF]

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles

05 June 2005

A US judge has ordered the Bush administration to release more than 100 new photographs and videos of abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib, creating a fresh public relations nightmare for government officials as they seek to rebut accusations that the US is sponsoring torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond.

The ruling comes as Tony Blair prepares to fly to Washington for meetings this week with George Bush. Although the Prime Minister's trip is part of a series of visits to fellow G8 leaders before next month's summit at Gleneagles in Scotland, Downing Street has said that the two men will also discuss Iraq, where violence has recently surged.

A suicide car bomber attacked a police patrol in Baghdad yesterday, seriously wounding two policemen. During the day, hundreds of Iraqi and US troops braved the heat to search fields and farms in an area known as the Triangle of Death, for hideouts used by predominantly Sunni Arab militants to mount suicide attacks against nearby Baghdad.

They rounded up at least 108 Iraqis suspected of involvement in the insurgency.

Iraqi forces were claiming one major success - the arrest in a raid in Mosul of a senior militant leader, Mullah Mahdi. He is said to be linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qa'ida follower accused by Washington of masterminding much of the violence against occupation troops. An Iraqi official said the arrest was "very significant".

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=644264