Prison photos must be seen

It's probably too soon to tell if the pictures of the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, will be the dominant images we will remember from the war in Iraq in decades to come.\nBut they are certainly dominant images now, played all over the 24-hour news networks, appearing in magazines and newspapers and becoming the topic of conversation all over the country.\nNow comes the barbaric and horribly grisly beheading of Nicholas Berg, a 26-year-old American businessman, at the will of masked assailants. In a video on an Islamist Web site linked to al Qaeda, Berg's captors claim his death was revenge for the mistreatment of prisoners. Some have begun to question whether the pictures of the abuse ever should have been released in the first place and if more photos should be released in the future.\n Wednesday, more pictures were made available to Congress, but were returned to the Pentagon while the Bush administration decides whether to make them public, amidst fears more photographs will trigger more violence. \n All the photos must be released. They are among the only evidence we have that misconduct took place, and the other options of running the story would either keep the full story disclosed or be counterproductive.\nThere has been a troublesome suggestion that the media should exhibit "restraint" and reconsider publishing any more photographs to prevent more violence against Americans.\nNot running follow-ups to the story if more pictures are released, after it has broken and has been exposed all over the world, makes no sense. It lets those who should be held accountable go without any accountability. It is not the job of the press to sit on stories or cover them up for potential consequences.\nRunning the story without the photographs, as some have suggested, seems like it would be a suitable substitute. But if not running the photographs to protect Americans overseas is the motivation, then the descriptions of the new photographs in vivid details and exposing more abuses may be just as threatening.\nIn our already media-saturated world, it is only a matter of time before the images leak out. We can't erase the fact that the pictures were taken by pretending that not broadcasting them will make them stay unseen.\nThe new pictures will be painful to see. If Americans are outraged, it's because the press has done its job. \nOur outrage at the abuse will hopefully lead to the perpetrators' punishments.\nBoth images, the abuses of Iraqi detainees and the murder of Berg, are everything everyone claims they are -- horrific, abhorrent and inhuman. We must do what is required for us to maintain a moral presence by overcoming this scandal, punishing our guilty, keeping our system transparent and holding our violators accountable (all the way to where the buck stops, if necessary).\nIt is something the terrorists won't do and -- to prove we believe in the freedom we have said we intend to spread -- Americans should.