LONDON
www.ektecanadagoose.com, May 13 (UPI) -- Photos of British troops beating and urinating on Iraqi detainees were "categorically" faked, the British government said Thursday.
The pictures
www.nikefreedeutschland.net, which created a British angle to the global media firestorm about prisoner abuse by the U.S. military in Iraq, became the object of suspicion almost as soon as they appeared two weeks ago -- in the Daily Mirror, a London-based tabloid that has taken a stridently anti-war editorial line and paid thousands of dollars for the right to publish them.
Experts and analysts immediately highlighted the pristine condition of the weapons, uniforms and vehicle, and asked whether the Mirror's offer of $7,800 each for the pictures might have tempted their sources to manufacture the images.
A probe by the Special Investigations branch of the Royal Military Police found that "the truck in which the photographs were taken was never in Iraq," the armed forces minister, Adam Ingram
Nike Free outlet deutschland, told Parliament Thursday. "Those pictures were categorically not taken in Iraq."
Ingram added that the opinion of the military investigators had been "independently corroborated." He declined to give further details saying that a criminal investigation was under way.
The revelation led to calls for the resignation of the Daily Mirror's editor, Piers Morgan, who Tory defense spokesman Keith Simpson said had "traded not only the good name, but possibly the lives" of British troops for "cheap news headlines."
Asked whether Morgan might be prosecuted, Ingram replied that the inquiry underway was a military one and Morgan was not subject to military law, "although some might think" he should be.
Thursday's row dominated Ingram's routine House of Commons appearance, overshadowing questions about whether the minister had misled parliament last week. Ingram then told MPs that he had seen "no reports" about abuse by British troops prior to the revelations about the sexual humiliation and torture of detainees in U.S. custody at Abu Ghraib.
Thursday Ingram said that the word report "has a specific meaning," and that the documents he had seen prior to his statement did not meet that definition. "It was not a report," he said of the written allegation from Amnesty International, adding that his earlier statement to the Commons had been a "correct and honest answer."
Headlines about the fakes brought a welcome day of relief for Britain's Labor government, which has been buffeted by the backwash from the scandal about U.S. treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib. Prime Minister Tony Blair has become such a lightning rod for unhappiness about the country's role as President Bush's most steadfast ally that he has promised to resign if it becomes clear he is a liability to the party's re-election chances.
Morgan has spent the week simultaneously defending the photos, while maintaining that the paper's broader story -- about rogue behavior by members of the Queen's Lancashire regiment -- was not dependent on them.
The Daily Mirror said in a statement Thursday that the photos "were just one piece of evidence about one incident," adding that there was no "incontrovertible proof" that the photos were fakes. In an awkwardly phrased apologia, the paper said the pictures "accurately illustrated the reality about the appalling conduct of some British troops."
One private sector military analyst told United Press International on condition of anonymity that there were a number of obvious errors in the pictures. "Their boots are even laced up wrong," he said, pointing out that soldiers are taught to tie their boots in such a way that the laces can be cut with a single knife thrust to remove boots from injured personnel in a hurry.
"These are such poor fakes that whoever made them either had no idea what they were doing or wanted them to get found out," he said.
Fellow editors Thursday joined the calls for Morgan to do the decent thing.
"In his position I would be resigning forthwith," Andrew Gowers, the editor of the Financial Times, told the Guardian newspaper.
"The defense, as I understand it, is that the pictures may not have been of actual events but reflect events that took place; and that the story is basically right ... I think that's an untenable position to be in."
Rosie Boycott, the former editor of the Express and the Independent, recalled the fake Hitler diaries published by The Times and the German news magazine Stern in 1983.
"I think (Morgan) should have definitely stood back" after the pictures were questioned, said Boycott.
"There but for the grace of God go all of us," she added. "I don't know what Piers will do, but I think a lot of editors would resign."
Former Guardian editor Peter Preston told the paper people should wait for the whole story to come out. "Did he knowingly deceive? Was he hoaxed? These are all things that need to be thought about, not done on a hair trigger," he said.
The Mirror has never identified the two soldiers who told the story in the first place, and later responded to the offer of money with the photos. Ingram called on Morgan "to co-operate fully in this inquiry."
But The Mirror in its statement said it would not reveal the identity of its sources.
The paper's publication of the faked photographs also drew attention from a major court case in London this week, in which dozens of Iraqi families whose relatives were killed by British forces in combat or detention are seeking to sue the government under European human rights law.Related Topics Articles：
