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THE ABUSE scandal at Abu Ghraib jailed plunged to new depths yesterday with the publication of fresh pictures and sworn statements that detailed a teenage boy being raped, prisoners being ridden like animals and other Iraqis being forced to collect their food from toilets at the US-run detention centre.
Just when it appeared the shockwaves of the scandal might be levelling off, the new details sent fresh outrage around the Arab world and further rocked the Bush administration - already floundering after a week in which US forces killed dozens of guests at wedding party in Iraqi, having mistaken them for insurgents.
Even though the existence of the images was known - indeed, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been shown many of the images in private sessions - their publication yesterday piled further pressure on Washington as it prepares to hand over sovereignty to an Iraqi administration at the end of June.
Partly in preparation for that hand-over, a bus full of Iraqi prisoners left Abu Ghraib jail outside Baghdad yesterday as the US sought to reduce the numbers being held in the notorious jail. But the new pictures and statements - raw and graphic - completely overshadowed the small prisoner release.
In one of the sworn statements, a prisoner tells how he witnessed a US army translator rape an Iraqi boy, aged somewhere between 15 and 18. Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, prisoner number 151108, says a female soldier took photographs of the rape. Sheets had been hung to block the prisoners' view, but Mr Hilas says he heard the boy's screams and climbed a door to get a better view. "The kid was hurting very bad," says his statement.
Accompanying these statements, published in the Washington Post, are a batch of images to that will likely haunt America. One shows an Iraqi, completely naked, his arms outstretched, his back to the camera. His body is smeared with a thick brown substance that looks like excrement. It is caked around the back of his head.
Yet it is not simply these images and details that are so rocking the US, but the overwhelming evidence suggesting that far than being an isolated episode involving a "few...