The U.S. government’s case for embargoing the release of photographs said to depict abuse of detainees rests largely on a questionable claim that disclosure of the images would endanger U.S. troops.

President Obama and many members of Congress from both parties support withholding the release of the photos, because senior military officers have persuaded them that their release would trigger violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The generals have said the result would probably be more dead American soldiers and Marines, because that is what happened in Iraq in 2004, after the publication of photos showing abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

But Defense Department data and independent experts confirm there is no clear link between the Abu Ghraib scandal and violence in Iraq. To the contrary, U.S. troop deaths were cut approximately in half in the month after the abuse photos broke in the last week of April 2004. Attacks on coalition forces were higher in the first weeks of April than they were in the 14 weeks after the scandal broke,

When violence and troop deaths rose significantly in later months, it was due to a variety of factors, not just Abu Ghraib, experts said. These included a power struggle among sects and resistance to coalition troops from former Baathists, terrorists and other armed groups.

“There is so much more that was at play in Iraq in 2004,” than the Abu Ghraib affair, said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism program director at Human Rights Watch.

Drawing a connection between the Abu Ghraib photos and the lethal violence that occurred afterward in Iraq “is opinion, not analysis,” said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Through the Courts

The American Civil Liberties Union has sought since 2003 to see the photos of prisoners at various U.S.-run facilities abroad. The group won the first round in court in 2005 in New York’s Southern District. The judge in that case, Alvin K. Hellerstein, did not see a clear risk to troops from the photos’ potential release. Besides, he said, terrorists do not need more photos of abuse to justify their attacks .

“Of course, national security and the safety and integrity of our soldiers, military and intelligence operations are not to be compromised, but is our nation better preserved by trying to squelch relevant documents that otherwise would be produced for fear of retaliation by an enemy that needs no pretext to attack?” he wrote in his decision.

In 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit affirmed the lower court decision.

Obama had originally said he would make the photos public. But after hearing from military commanders, he reversed himself and now says he will take the case to the Supreme Court, because publication of the photos would “put our troops in greater danger.”

In Congress, meanwhile, Sens. Lindsey Graham , R-S.C., and Joseph I. Lieberman , I-Conn., have written legislation that would suspend the Freedom of Information Act for detainee abuse photos taken from 2001 to 2009 if the Defense secretary believes troops would be endangered by the images’ disclosure. Similar legislation is afoot in the House.

“Every photo is a bullet for our enemies,” Graham said.