Senators See New Photographs

Thursday, May 13, 2004

(5:00 AM ET)

By Demetri Sevastopulo

Financial Times Writer

Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the reservist officer in charge of Abu Ghraib when the abuses occurred, has defended herself on US television, saying she is being made a scapegoat. While Gen Taguba disagreed with her assertions that she was unable to visit certain parts of the prison, he appeared to side with her on the point that she was not completely in charge.

WASHINGTON -- FT
Bill Frist, the US Senate majority leader, yesterday described a new batch of photographs and video clips of prisoner abuse as "appalling", saying that in many ways they "go beyond" images already the public domain.

Mr Frist said some of the images were totally unrelated to Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

He was speaking after the White House and Pentagon yesterday gave senators only limited access to the additional photographs depicting torture of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers.

John Warner, chairman of the Senate armed services committee, said the images should not be made public until investigations into the abuses were completed.

The Pentagon allowed senators to see the photographs for three hours yesterday afternoon.

The intense political focus on the photographs of prisoner abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison came as John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, yesterday stepped up his attacks on the Bush administration for its handling of the scandal.

(More: FT.com)

2004 © The Financial Times, Ltd.

Dan