Torture Photos Depict Sex, Rape - Despite denials from Pentagon (Scott Horton)

[jefferson_dem]

Torture Photos Depict Sex, Rape
by Scott Horton

Despite denials from the Pentagon, the Abu Ghraib photos Obama doesn't want you to see depict explicit sexual acts, including rape and sodomy, reports The Daily Beast's Scott Horton.

The Daily Beast has confirmed that the photographs of abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison which President Obama, in a reversal, decided not to release, depict sexually explicit acts, including a uniformed soldier receiving oral sex from a female prisoner, a government contractor engaged in an act of sodomy with a male prisoner and scenes of forced masturbation, forced exhibition and penetration involving phosphorous sticks and brooms.

These descriptions come on the heals of a British report yesterday about the photographs that contained some of these revelations—and whose credibility was questioned by the Pentagon.

The photographs differ from those already officially released. Some show U.S. personnel engaged in sexual acts with prisoners and each other. In one, a female prisoner appears to have been forced to expose her breasts to be photographed.

The Daily Beast has obtained specific corroboration of the British account, which appeared in the London Daily Telegraph, from several reliable sources, including a highly credible senior military officer with first-hand knowledge who provided even more detail about the graphic photographs that have been withheld from the public by the Obama administration.

A senior military officer familiar with the photos told me that they would likely provoke a storm of outrage if released. The well-informed source confirmed, just as reported in the London Daily Telegraph, that many the photographs are sexually explicit, including those mentioned above. The photographs differ from those already officially released. Some show U.S. personnel engaged in sexual acts with prisoners and each other. In one, a female prisoner appears to have been forced to expose her breasts to be photographed. In another a prisoner is suspended naked upside from the top bunk of a bed in a stress position.

<SNIP>

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-29/torture-photos-depict-sex-rape/