Mick Hume on the fake photo scandal at the UK’s Mirror tabloid:
- Does it matter whether or not the photographs are fakes or staged, if we believe that British troops have been abusing Iraqi detainees? That is the question now being asked by the UK Daily Mirror’s defenders and the anti-war movement. To which the resounding answer must be yes, it bloody well does matter. …
Since the controversy over the alleged Iraq torture pictures blew up, and increasingly loud doubts have been raised over the veracity of the photos published in the Mirror, a line of defence has emerged which suggests that this is somehow a diversion. ‘Torture is the real issue, not these photos’ declared the headline on Roy Greenslade’s media column in the Guardian on 4 May. …
The irony is that the Blair government has taken a similar line in seeking to justify its wretched war in Iraq. All right, the New Labour spokesman will admit, it seems that our dossiers on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction might have got the odd detail wrong. But we honestly felt it was true, and anyway these details don’t really matter, because the greater truth is that Saddam was a wicked tyrant and those dodgy dossiers helped us launch a war to stop him.
Note: this stupid hoax distracted almost all attention from a real torture story.