The video begins with three soldiers huddled around a naked
detainee, his thin frame backed against a wall. With a snap of
his wrist, one of the soldiers slaps the man across his left
cheek so hard that the prisoner's knees buckle. Another
detainee, handcuffed and on his back, is dragged across the
prison floor.
Then, the human pyramid begins to take shape. Soldiers force
hooded and naked prisoners into crouches on the floor, one by
one, side by side, a soldier pointing to where the next ones
should go. The video stops. But there is more.
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A
U.S. soldier with his right arm and fist cocked appears
prepared to strike one detainee in a pile of detainees in
the Abu Ghraib detention facility outside Baghdad.
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In a collection of hundreds of so-far-unreleased photographs
and short digital videos obtained by The Washington Post, U.S.
soldiers are shown physically and emotionally abusing detainees
last fall in the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad.
The new pictures and videos go beyond the photos previously
released to the public in several ways, amplifying the overt
violence against detainees and displaying a variety of abusive
techniques previously unseen. They show a group of apparently
cavalier soldiers assaulting prisoners, forcing detainees to
masturbate, and standing over a naked prisoner while holding a
shotgun. Some of the videos echo scenes in previously released
still photographs -- such as the stacking of naked detainees --
but the video images render the incidents more vividly.
Defense Department spokesman Lawrence T. DiRita said the
photographs, by description, sounded like those the Pentagon has
exhibited to members of Congress and that Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld had warned might yet become public.
"There are a series of investigations going on as a result
of the disclosure of the activities depicted on photos,"
DiRita said last night.
The new images do not shed light on who directed the abuse, a
question central to the court cases of the 372nd Military Police
Company soldiers charged in the abuse scandal. But the pictures
do show soldiers appearing to delight in the abuses, and they
starkly reveal several detainees cowering in fear.
In one video clip, five hooded and naked detainees stand
against the wall in the darkness, each masturbating, with two
other hooded detainees crouched at their feet. Another shows a
prisoner handcuffed to the outside of a cell door. He repeatedly
slams his head into the green metal, leaving streaks of blood
before he ultimately collapses at the feet of a cameraman.
In one photo, a soldier is seen cocking his fist as he holds
a hooded detainee in a headlock amid a pile of several
detainees. Later, he is seen kneeling atop the same pile,
flexing his muscles, a broad smile on his face, posing.
Another soldier is seen in a photo brandishing a black baton
as a naked prisoner -- cuffed at the ankles and smeared with a
brown substance -- stands at the center of the prison hallway
and holds his arms spread to either side.
Detainees recoil from unmuzzled dogs in at least four photos.
In one, a prisoner in an orange jumpsuit sits up against a
wall, his hands behind his back. His fear is unmistakable as a
black dog snarls at him, the animal's long, sharp teeth bared
inches from his face. The dog is leashed by an unidentified U.S.
soldier in a flak jacket and wool hat, the soldier using both
hands to keep the dog restrained.
In another photo, the same handler has the black dog, which
this time looks ready to pounce as a naked detainee shrinks away
in the middle of a prison hallway, his hands defensively up in
front of him. Another soldier, his hands in his pockets,
watches.
The photos continue, showing an array of abuse in what appear
to be different rooms, cells, showers and hallways of Abu Ghraib.
Hooded and cloaked men are handcuffed to hallway rails. A
prisoner in flexible handcuffs is made to use a banana to
simulate anal sex. Two naked male detainees are handcuffed to
each other. A naked detainee hangs upside down from a top bunk.
Another naked detainee grimaces, his face pressed against the
ground, a soldier bending his arm behind his back. Blood covers
the detainee's left knee, and another soldier grabs his right
leg.
In one photo, a detainee is stripped to his underwear, in a
hood. He is standing, crouched, on top of two boxes of MRE
military meals, his arms cuffed around his left knee, his right
ankle chained to a cell door.
Another detainee appears to be the victim of a cruel joke: A
photo shows the man's deformed left hand emerging from an orange
jumpsuit, the words "The Claw" written in English on
his left breast pocket. A crude drawing of the man's hand
appears on the back of his jumpsuit in another photo, with
"The Claw" scrawled across his shoulder blades in
black ink.
The situation inside the prison became so chaotic that U.S.
soldiers turned their cameras on themselves, filming scenes of
consensual sex.
Photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib were presented to Army
investigators in January. They began to surface publicly last
month, severely damaging the U.S. reputation in the Arab world.
"Be on notice," Rumsfeld said in a
standing-room-only Senate hearing room May 8. "There are a
lot more photographs and videos that exist. If these are
released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters
worse."
Staff writer Thomas E. Ricks contributed to this report.
