The US Army has dropped an inquiry into whether US military personnel provided gruesome photographs of war dead in Iraq and Afghanistan to an Internet website in return for access to pornography, army spokesmen said Wednesday.
A preliminary inquiry by the Army's Criminal Investigation Command concluded that there was insufficient evidence of a felony crime to warrant a criminal investigation, said Colonel Joseph Curtain, an army spokesman.
"We're not blowing this off," he said, noting that an investigation could be opened if new evidence came to light.
"There are multiple challenges here," he added. "One is the anonymity of sources, dates, times, locations, units, anything that is reasonably identifiable that we can work off of."
One photograph show grinning soldiers in what appear to be US military uniforms, but with no identifying insignia, gathered around the charred remains of a body over the caption "Cooked Iraqi."
Another showed a man behind the wheel of a car with a bloody pulp where his head was. In others, just dismembered body parts were displayed.
The website reportedly offered access to free web porn to US military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan in return for emailed photographs, posting some of the goriest with captions and photo credits with names such as "sideburnz" or "chris."
Chris Wilson, identified in news accounts as the website's creator, was quoted in the online version of the East Bay Express, a weekly, as saying the images were "an unedited look at the war" from the soldiers point of view.
"There's always going to be a slant from the news media. ... And this is a photo that comes straight from their camera to the site. To me, it's just a more real look at what's going on," he was quoted as saying.
The photographs raise the specter of another black eye for the US military, echoing the pictures taken of US guards abusing and sexually humiliating prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
Curtain said the army inquiry, which was conducted over the past week, was unable to establish where the photographs were taken and whether they were actually snapped by US military personnel.
"There's no units, there's no names of military personnel, there are spurious sources for all this stuff," he said.
Curtain said the military command in the region was concerned about the impact.
"We hold our military to a higher standard. It really comes down to a matter of good order and discipline," he said.
"But you've got to remember we've got no bona fide evidence that the US military is behind this," Curtain said.
Paul Boyce, another army spokesman, said if US military personnel did provide the photographs they could be prosecuted under Article 134 of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice for "conduct unbecoming a soldier."
However, the spokesmen knew of no specific rule forbidding soldiers from taking photographs of war dead for their own use.
Conviction on such a charge typically carries minor punishment such as a reduction in rank and fines, or administrative sanctions.
The army issued guidance earlier this month to soldiers cautioning them against posting photographs or blog entries on the Internet because of concerns they could jeopardise operational security.
Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker reiterated the guidelines Tuesday in a weekly newsletter circulated in army command channels.
Troops are forbidden from using government computers to access pornography. In Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers have Internet access mainly through military sponsored Internet cafes on base.
No steps have been taken so far to prevent troops from bringing digital cameras and personal computers with them when they deploy.
"One of the things they (US commanders) would potentially consider are policies and procedures for soldiers using private image gathering devices in a combat zone," Curtain said.