Obama Changes His Mind On Detainee Photos

The President is now going to fight to block the release of more Abu Ghraib-sytle photos of detainees undergoing interrogation.

President Obama met with White House counsel Greg Craig and other members of the White House counsel team last week and told them that he had second thoughts about the decision to hand over photographs of detainee abuse to the ACLU, per a judge's order, and had changed his mind.

The president "believes their release would endanger our troops," a White House official says, adding that the president "believes that the national security implications of such a release have not been fully presented to the court."

At the end of that meeting, the president directed Craig to object to the immediate release of the photos on those grounds. In an Oval Office meeting with Iraq Commander General Ray Odierno, the president told him of his decision to argue against the release of the photographs.

The move is a complete 180. In a letter from the Justice Department to a federal judge on April 23, the Obama administration announced that the Pentagon would turn over 44 photographs showing detainee abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Bush administration.

The photographs are part of a 2003 Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU for all information relating to the treatment of detainees -- the same battle that led to President Obama's decision to release memos from the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel providing legal justifications for brutal interrogation methods, many of which the International Committee of the Red Cross calls torture.

"The reversal is another indication of a continuance of the Bush administration policies under the Obama administration," ACLU attorney Amrit Singh told ABC News. "President Obama's promise of accountability is meaningless, this is inconsistent with his promise of transparency, it violates the government's commitment to the court. People need to examine these abusive photographs, but also the government officials need to be held accountable."

It's unclear what step the White House will now take, whether the administration will challenge the release in appellate court with new arguments or whether it will take the case to the Supreme Court.

Nice. Obama has determined there's nothing to gain from this politically and everything to lose, which means the photos themselves must be very, very damning evidence against the Bush torture regime. The photos are apparently so inflammatory that Obama has no choice but to adopt Bush legal arguments and prevent the photos from coming out.

Somebody convinced Obama to change his mind on this. Who was it? Is this the White House response to Nancy Pelosi/Jane Harman's troubles, and Obama is buckling to the CIA? Is this the price the White House had to pay for a new commander in Afghanistan, and he's buckling to the Military? Surely he's not caving in to Cheney and the Republicans on this, is he?

Or is this a combination of the above? There's a reason Obama decided to do the wrong thing once again, and I'd like to know what it is.