First, many of those in the pictures were not POWs or even common criminals. Just people picked up off the street and not charged with anything. When they would do those sweeps and pull all 18-25 year old men off the street, well this is what was sometimes happening.
Next, we went their claiming to be the moral bright light that would do no sadistic torture unlike Saddam. There are supposedly photos of people beaten badly, and other abuses. This is not what you do if you want the moral high ground. Why did it happen, because from the top down there were no rules. Rummy said we would not follow the Geneva conventions with these people but would treat them humanely. Vague at best, and given that the guards didn't have any rules there, they just probably were following orders.
The prisons were put in sexually compromising positions with women often in the pictures. In that part of the world, modesty is very high, and having the double insult of nakedness and a woman with a dog collar around your neck is seen as something much worse than what we see it as.
In the end we are losing all of are reasons to be there:
WMD - Not there
Toture and abuse - whoops, losing out now
You have to assume that if 6 people were dumb enough to photograph their actions, there are probably 10x or more who didn't take pictures. It seems that the British photos were staged, possibly for money, but the American ones definitely not.
We are losing in Iraq, we backed out of Fallujah without taking it, we are giving control of the millitary back to Baathists, we are having to get tens of billions more for the current year and for all the future, we won the battles but are losing the war.
