[R-G] Why'd Obama switch on detainee photos? Maliki went ballistic

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/69213.html

Why'd Obama switch on detainee photos? Maliki went ballistic

     * Posted on Monday, June 1, 2009

By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama reversed his decision to release  
detainee abuse photos from Iraq and Afghanistan after Iraqi Prime  
Minister Nouri al Maliki warned that Iraq would erupt into violence  
and that Iraqis would demand that U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq a  
year earlier than planned, two U.S. military officers, a senior  
defense official and a State Department official have told McClatchy.

In the days leading up to a May 28 deadline to release the photos in  
response to an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit, U.S. officials,  
led by Christopher Hill, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told Maliki that  
the administration was preparing to release photos of suspected  
detainee abuse taken from 2003 to 2006.

When U.S. officials told Maliki, "he went pale in the face," said a  
U.S. military official, who along with others requested anonymity  
because of the matter's sensitivity.

The official said Maliki warned that releasing the photos would lead  
to more violence that could delay the scheduled U.S. withdrawal from  
cities by June 30 and that Iraqis wouldn't make a distinction between  
old and new photos. The public outrage and increase in violence could  
lead Iraqis to demand a referendum on the security agreement and  
refuse to permit U.S. forces to stay until the end of 2011.

Maliki said, "Baghdad will burn" if the photos are released, said a  
second U.S. military official.

A U.S. official who's knowledgeable about the photographs told  
McClatchy that at least two of them depict nudity; one is of a woman  
suggestively holding a broomstick; one shows a detainee with bruises  
but offered no explanation how he got them; and another is of hooded  
detainees with weapons pointed at their heads.

Some of the photos were of detainees being held in prisons, while  
others were taken at the time a detainee was captured.

"It was not so much the photos themselves, but that the perception  
that they would be Abu Ghraib-type photos," added the senior defense  
official, who said U.S. officials were worried "about the potential  
street consequences" of making the photos public.

Iraq is scheduled to hold a referendum by July 30 on the accord, which  
calls for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops by the end of 2011. If the  
accord were rejected, the U.S. would have to withdraw from Iraq within  
a year of the vote or by the summer of 2010. Some U.S. officials fear  
that would be before Iraq's security forces are ready to protect their  
country on their own.

The status of forces agreement calls for the U.S. to train Iraqi  
forces in specialized areas such as aviation and intelligence  
gathering and to step to the side as Iraqi forces take control of  
their communities.

Maliki's office, Iraq's deputy prime minister and the foreign minister  
didn't answer calls seeking comment.

Denis McDonough, the deputy national security adviser for strategic  
communications, said that Obama "has been clear that releasing the  
photos would have no benefit except to potentially increase the risk  
to our troops. He's also made clear that the existence of these photos  
was only known because the acts were investigated and those who  
undertook them were sanctioned."

With tensions rising again in major Iraqi cities such as Baghdad and  
Mosul, Maliki feared that "if you add this (the photos) to that mix,  
it could very easily provide an incentive to the extremists" to use  
more violence, a State Department official said.

That, in turn, might cause U.S. and Iraqi commanders to reconsider the  
troop withdrawal from urban areas, which would be a major setback to  
Maliki's government and to the Obama administration, which is  
determined to withdraw troops from Iraq as it escalates the U.S.  
presence in Afghanistan.

The administration, which as late as April had agreed to release as  
many as 2,100 photos, said in the two weeks before the deadline  
approached that the release could trigger a backlash against American  
troops.

After U.S. officials notified Maliki, the prime minister put "heavy  
pressure" on Hill and Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the top U.S.  
military commander in Iraq, to stop the release, the senior U.S.  
defense official said.

In early May, Odierno and Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. commander  
in Afghanistan, said they objected to the release of the photos. Both  
Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said they changed their  
minds largely because of objections from U.S. commanders in the field,  
but they never mentioned Maliki's reaction. Col. James Hutton,  
Odierno's spokesman, declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.

The senior U.S. defense official said that Hill and Odierno were the  
"primary voices" urging Obama to reverse his decision. They were  
joined by U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central  
Command; and McKiernan, who also were concerned that the photos, while  
not comparable to the pictures of U.S. guards abusing prisoners at Abu  
Ghraib, could ignite anti-U.S. violence. The Senate is expected on  
Tuesday to confirm Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal as McKiernan's successor.

Several days after the meeting, Odierno returned to Washington, and he  
and Gates took their concerns to Obama. It took "considerable  
lobbying" before the president changed his mind, the senior defense  
official said.

On May 13, Obama appeared on the South Lawn of the White House and  
said: "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. In fact, the most direct consequence of  
releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American  
opinion and to put our troops in greater danger."

The photos are part of a 2004 lawsuit that sought the release of  
photos that were part of investigations of detainee abuse at Abu  
Ghraib and a half dozen other prisons. The Pentagon objected to the  
release of the photos, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second  
Circuit upheld a lower court ruling to release them.

On Monday, the ACLU released a letter signed by a dozen organizations  
calling for the release of the photos.

"The Pentagon should release the photos while reaffirming to the world  
that the U.S. repudiates such barbaric behavior and is committed to  
dismantling the culture that allowed it to occur. In the end, full  
disclosure of the crimes committed by our government will make us all  
safer," the letter said.

(Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobel and Marisa Taylor contributed  
to this article.)