Reuters:

The images are among photographs included in a 2004 report into prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison conducted by U.S. Major General Antonio Taguba. Taguba included allegations of rape and sexual abuse in his report, and on Wednesday he confirmed to the Daily Telegraph that images supporting those allegations were also in the file…. The newspaper said at least one picture showed an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee. Others are said to depict sexual assaults with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

Obama:

“The publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals,” the president said at a White House briefing.

Well, I for one am feeling a bit had. You’ll recall that the GOP line of attack on the abuse photos previously was that they were indicative of nothing more than the equivalent of fraternity pranks. Well, I don’t know what fraternity these boys went to, but US soldiers raping female prisoners goes far beyond a frat prank. Yes, we knew that they scared the prisoners with dogs and humiliated them by making them stand nude in front of women. (There was also that photo of the dead prisoner on ice…) I do not believe that we had any clue that prisoners were being raped as part of their interrogation. This most certainly adds something new, if only to silence those critics who claimed that this was just another day at the office.

I’d also add that this was not just the errant acts of a few soldiers. Torture was official US policy. And the Obama administration has already made clear that there is no benefit in holding accountable those who came up with this policy. So these photos shed quite a light on Obama’s decision not to hold the intellectual fathers of these acts accountable.