How the images of prison abuse shape perceptions of the war

It's a cliché that a picture is worth a thousand words.

But the case of the Iraqi prisoner-abuse scandal proves the power of that truism.

Just as the images of napalmed children and slaughtered innocent civilians in Vietnam played a role in transforming American public opinion, the release of photos from the Abu Ghraib prison may also become a watershed event in the national and international debate about the war in Iraq, terrorism, and the use American power.

The official administration efforts to paint a picture that most things were going well in Iraq, despite some setbacks, have been undercut by the images of beaten, bruised corpses and American soldiers who mugged for the camera while humiliating naked, hooded detainees.

The photos, which were snapped by soldiers equipped with digital cameras and burned onto CDs, are a testament to the digital revolution's ability to bring a new transparency to the brutality of war. And in this age of interconnectivity and 24-hour news channels from CNN to Al Jazeera, the images have had an immediate and profound impact both here and abroad in ways that simple words could not.

"This strikes right at the heart of America's image of itself," says Tom Patterson of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Mass. "The pictures are starkly in contrast with what Americans think of themselves: They are graphic and they're not ambiguous. And they're doing much more damage abroad than most Americans realize."

Since Jan. 16, the national and international media had been writing about the investigation of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Granted, many reports were footnote-like ("also in Iraq today ..."), and many were couched with official assurances that the military "was taking them seriously" and investigating "professionally." Still, some stories included allegations about the humiliation of naked prisoners and the existence of disturbing photos.

But it wasn't until the graphic images actually appeared on "60 Minutes II" and in "The New Yorker" that the magnitude of the abuses and their international ramifications started to become clear.

Suddenly, official assurances of military competence and professionalism appeared to be contradicted in living color. Other allegations about US misuse of detainees gained new credibility. And the repeated airings of the photos, along with warnings of more images to come, have given the abuse story a powerful resonance that didn't exist prior to their release.

"The fact that there are these visuals has enhanced the news value of this story," says Shanto Iyengar, a professor of political science and communication at Stanford University in California. "My guess is that the percentage of Americans who believe that things are not going well in Iraq and who believe that there's something wrong with the administration's handling of the war will go up in the short term." In a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, 44 percent of those polled - a new low - said they believed the war was worthwhile, down from 50 percent a month ago.

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