Terrorism
In a Reversal, White House Will Seek to Withhold Photos of Detainee Abuse
Posted May 13, 2009 11:32 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
The Obama administration has reversed course and decided it will oppose releasing photos of claimed prisoner abuses at U.S. prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Anonymous officials told several publications that President Obama met with his legal team last week and said he feared that U.S. troops would be endangered by release of the photos. FOX News, the New York Times, MSNBC and Politico are among the publications that had the story.
The switch in stance was officially announced later today, the Washington Post reports. The United States had reached an agreement to release the photos last month in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The New York City-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused in March to reconsider a decision requiring disclosure.
The administration’s approach will be outlined in a court filing, the Times says.
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Comments
AndytheLawyer
May 13, 2009 11:46 AM CST
I don’t get it. Dick Cheney has been all over the media this month proclaiming that everything the USA did to detainees made America safer. Why would wthe government not want to proudly display how this was accomplished?
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J.D.
May 13, 2009 11:56 AM CST
The reality is that Obama is finally seeing that Cheney—and most conservatives—have been right all along.
I look forward to seeing more “on-the-job-training” improving Obama’s logic.
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Andy the Lawyer
May 13, 2009 1:05 PM CST
J.D.—and I look forward to Cheney’s war crimes trial at the Hague.
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J.D.
May 13, 2009 1:41 PM CST
Keep wishing, Andy. Only liberals dream about seeing the United States denigrated.
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B. McLeod
May 13, 2009 4:29 PM CST
Cheney is not the United States. He can’t even shoot straight. If they really wanted to put terror into prisoners, they could make them go hunting with Cheney.
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T.R.
May 14, 2009 10:55 AM CST
@J.D.
I highly doubt that it was Dick Cheney who persuaded the president to make this particular decision. From all that has been reported, it appears that the in-theater military and Secretary of Defense made a strong a case to the president, and thus the decision. I don’t personally like it much, but I also don’t have the same clearance the president does. And by the way, “liberals,” as you put it, really don’t have to “dream” about the U.S. being denigrated. The previous administration seemed quite capable of accomplishing that already.
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J.D.
May 19, 2009 12:32 PM CST
T.R, please see above, Thx.
It’s “on-the-job-training” which is improving Obama’s logic and correcting his liberalism.
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