The world has once again been reminded how much more powerful images can be than words. The outrage expressed by Arabs and the abhorrence expressed by the Bush administration last week over U.S. military guards' abuse of Iraqi prisoners were certainly justified, but both reactions were oddly belated. They seem to have blossomed on time delay, set in motion not by information -- which has been available for months -- but by pictures. Or, more accurately, by the publication of pictures.
The things that happened at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad are neither newly discovered nor unprecedented. An internal investigation into charges of abuse at the facility was launched in January; a damning report was completed in March, which included accounts of incriminating photographs; and criminal charges had been filed against six U.S. soldiers weeks before the current firestorm ignited. Six of the soldiers' superiors had also received career-ending reprimands. Moreover, as a result of pressure from international human rights groups and Arab media, at least five other investigations are under way, including an inquiry into long-standing allegations of torture and even murder at U.S.-run prisons in Afghanistan.
All of this has been duly reported, in American newspapers and elsewhere, as the separate investigations unfolded. But none of the reports was dramatized with photographs. Until U.S. media obtained and released the images this month, Arabs did not take to the streets in protest. President George W. Bush and his national security adviser, Ms. Condoleezza Rice, did not feel a need to go on Arab television to explain or (as Ms. Rice has now done) to apologize. Nobody called for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's resignation.