IRAQ: An Australian television station broadcast previously unpublished images yesterday of apparent abuse of prisoners at the US-run Abu Ghraib prison, outraging Iraqis who said American troops must leave.
The Special Broadcasting Service's Dateline current affairs programme said the images were recorded at the same time as the now infamous pictures of US soldiers abusing Abu Ghraib detainees which sparked international outrage in 2004. Some of the pictures suggest further abuse such as killing, torture and sexual humiliation, Dateline said.
The grainy, still photographs and video images show prisoners - some bleeding or hooded - bound to beds and doors, sometimes with a smiling American guard beside them.
They include two naked men handcuffed together, a pile of five naked detainees photographed from the rear, and a dog straining at a leash close to the face of a crouching man in a bright orange jumpsuit.
The images were swiftly rebroadcast by Arab satellite television stations.
They stirred up more anger among Arabs, already incensed by the publication on Sunday of images of British soldiers apparently beating Iraqi youths and by cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad printed in European papers this month.
"What hurts me more is for the world to see us tortured in this way without blinking an eye," says Iraqi teacher Hanan Adeeb (34).
"When I see this I understand why people think the only way to get Iraq out of this dilemma is to send the Americans away."
US forces have been in Iraq since they led the 2003 invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the abuses at Abu Ghraib had already been fully investigated.
"The department believes that the release of all of these images will further inflame and cause unnecessary violence in the world," Mr Whitman said.
"... In Abu Ghraib specifically, there have been more than 25 individuals - officer and enlisted - that have been held accountable for criminal acts and other failures."
Iraq's Human Rights Minister Nermeen Othman said Abu Ghraib had improved since the pictures were taken. Dateline executive producer Mike Carey said the programme had obtained a file containing hundreds of pictures - some that have been seen before and others that show new abuses. He declined to say where or how the station had got hold of the images, but said he assumed other journalists or media also had access to them.
Several pictures appear to show US soldier Charles Graner, jailed for 10 years for his leading role in the Abu Ghraib abuse and who featured in the earlier batch of photographs.