Obama Reverses His Position And Decides Not To Release Photos Of Detainee Treatment That The ACLU Has Been Suing To Have Publicly Disclosed

ABC's Jake Tapper reports that "President Obama met with White House counsel Greg Craig and other members of the White House counsel team last week and told them that he had second thoughts about the decision to hand over photographs of detainee abuse to the ACLU, per a judge’s order, and had changed his mind... At the end of that meeting, the president directed Craig to object to the immediate release of the photos on those grounds. In an Oval Office meeting with Iraq Commander General Ray Odierno, the president told him of his decision to argue against the release of the photographs. The move is a complete 180. In a letter from the Justice Department to a federal judge on April 23, the Obama administration announced that the Pentagon would turn over 44 photographs showing detainee abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Bush administration."

Reuters reports that President Barack Obama announced his "reversal" today and that "Obama shifted gears after senior military commanders and some members of Congress expressed misgivings about the potential for the photos to generate violence against U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan... The American Civil Liberties Union, which argued for the photos' release, expressed outrage and said the decision 'makes a mockery' of Obama's campaign promise of transparency."

Obama "did exactly the right thing" and "the fact that the president reconsidered the decision is a strength not a weakness," a statement released by Senators Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman said.

"Our commanders, both General McKiernan and General Odierno, have expressed very serious reservations about this, and their very great worry that release of these photographs will cost American lives," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told U.S. lawmakers. "That was all it took for me."

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