Iraq images show 'more depravity'

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CLAIMS that images of tortured prisoners in Iraq would trigger renewed violence were "a joke", the producer of the program that broadcast the new footage said today. SBS's Dateline program last night aired the images of naked prisoners, some bloodied and apparently lying dead on the floor, that were taken about the same time as earlier photos that led to protests and outrage in the Middle East in 2004.

Dateline's executive producer Mike Carey today said the program's researchers had unearthed new cases of apparent prisoner abuse at the US-run Abu Ghraib prison even though the US and Iraqi governments claimed the footage shown was part of material that had already been investigated and dealt with by US authorities. Mr Carey said the new images represented "a quantum leap" in the depravity of anything previously seen from the Baghdad jail. "There needs to be further investigation to find out how those corpses came to be in Abu Ghraib and find out whether they were killed while they were in Abu Ghraib under US care."

More than 25 people have already been held accountable for criminal acts and other failures at Abu Ghraib. "(But) I don't think anybody has been punished for murder or killing people," Mr Carey said. He said the program aired the pictures as soon it could after receiving them. The White House and Iraqi government have condemned the broadcasting of the pictures, fearing they could trigger renewed violence and lead to coalition troops being threatened. Mr Carey said that fear was "a joke". "Troops are already at great risk in Iraq," he said.

"I don't think anything that we do here in Australia is going to make their risk any greater or smaller." The footage has further enraged Iraqis already incensed by the publication on Sunday of images of British soldiers apparently beating Iraqi youths and by cartoons in European newspapers satirising the prophet Mohammed. Mr Carey said it was a coincidence that this story so closely followed the two other events. "I'm a reporter. We got these pictures showing an order of abuse higher in magnitude than what appears to have happened there," Mr Carey said. "We put them to air because it's our responsibility as reporters to get this stuff on air. "To say that somehow or another that we (timed) it on purpose is just bullshit."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18167848%255E1702,00.html