by John M. Donnelly, CQ Staff
>>>>The U.S. government’s case for embargoing the release of photographs said to depict abuse of detainees rests largely on a questionable claim that disclosure of the images would endanger U.S. troops.
President Obama and many members of Congress from both parties support withholding the release of the photos, because senior military officers have persuaded them that their release would trigger violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The generals have said the result would probably be more dead American soldiers and Marines, because that is what happened in Iraq in 2004, after the publication of photos showing abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
But Defense Department data and independent experts confirm there is no clear link between the Abu Ghraib scandal and violence in Iraq. To the contrary, U.S. troop deaths were cut approximately in half in the month after the abuse photos broke in the last week of April 2004. Attacks on coalition forces were higher in the first weeks of April than they were in the 14 weeks after the scandal broke,
When violence and troop deaths rose significantly in later months, it was due to a variety of factors, not just Abu Ghraib, experts said. These included a power struggle among sects and resistance to coalition troops from former Baathists, terrorists and other armed groups.
“There is so much more that was at play in Iraq in 2004,” than the Abu Ghraib affair, said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism program director at Human Rights Watch.
Drawing a connection between the Abu Ghraib photos and the lethal violence that occurred afterward in Iraq “is opinion, not analysis,” said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.>>>>
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003143986
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