It's action time for Obama on the torture photos

Congress this week has had a big discussion on what to do with abuse photos from Abu Ghraib prison. If you haven't been following the news, Congress is working on funding legislation for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. In the Senate version of the spending bill, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) attached a provision to bar the Abu Ghraib photos from being released for five years

A handful of very liberal members of the House of Representatives, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have said they would not vote for the spending legislation if that provision was in the spending bill. Due to this opposition, the conference committee, the group tasked with smoothing out the differences between the House and Senate version were forced to drop the provision after the urging of the Obama Administration.

President Obama himself has said that he does not want the photos released and supported the McConnell amendment. Obama stated he opposed the measure because of the anger it will cause among Muslims and the harm that could come to our troops. I agree with President Obama on this idea.

The problem though is that the Obama adminstraton was not able to use its influence to get the necessary support for the spending measure and asked the conference committeee to remove the amendment from the spending bill.

I have two issues at this point, one issue is why some members of Congress want the photos released ( I feel this is more political and a topic for another blog) . The main issue I have is that the photo issue has not been resolved and the Obama administration needs to act now.

Congress has shown they are not capable of making the photos classified and the responsibility now lays with the president. I urge President Obama to classify these photosl for national security purposes and end the debate in Congress. These photo's should have never been taken and their existence is a black mark on the United States but no one benefits from their release. The photos should not be released now, in five years or ever, their release serves no function but political enjoyment for some of the exteme liberal members of Congress.