The publication of the photographs has come at the end of a bad week for the administration as it has been forced to fight allegations of abuse in every corner of the war on terror. Although the White House was successful in persuading Newsweek to retract a story on abuse involving the Quran at Guantánamo Bay after riots in Afghanistan and around the Islamic world, it was then confronted by allegations that U.S. servicemen in Afghanistan had overseen a regime of terror at the holding facility at Bagram Airport near Kabul.

Then came the pictures of Saddam, which powerfully recalled other terrible images that have emerged from Iraq: of the sexual abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib by U.S. troops and trophy photographs taken by British soldiers as they abused Iraqi looters in the south. And although the new pictures may have been taken as long as a year ago, according to the Pentagon, which has examined the images, that is all the more serious for the U.S. authorities, as Saddam was at that point classified a prisoner of war and subject to protection from "public curiosity" and humiliation. This critical question also remained unanswered over weekend: Who took the photographs and why?

It has emerged that the Sun -- or journalists in News International at least -- had sat on the images for a considerable time, apparently concerned over the authenticity of the images after the scandal surrounding the Daily Mirror's publication of fake pictures of British soldiers apparently abusing an Iraqi.

But what is most worrying is the confirmation of long-held suspicions -- reported by the Guardian last May -- that some prisoners were subjected to coercive interrogation that could be classified as being abusive. The treatment of high-value detainees like Saddam has been highlighted by Barton, a former Australian intelligence officer, who was involved with interviews at the camp. "Interrogations are carried out in metal portakabins on the prison complex. What happens is we decide when to interrogate them. This is normally at the dead of night, which was deliberate to disorient them. The prisoner had no idea where he was being taken."

Barton said he witnessed no physical abuse at the jail, but he believed some prisoners had been physically "softened" up before they arrived in an induction process known as "purgatory." He told the Observer last week: "The prisoners, who I believe had been abused, were not the scientists. I believe some were former intelligence officials who had been beaten prior to their arrival at Camp Cropper to soften them up for questioning." Barton, who saw photographs of at least two prisoners with bad facial abrasions, asked questions and was told they had received them when they "resisted arrest." He said: "I remember seeing one middle-aged man who was paunchy and balding, and my view was he 'put up one hell of a fight' ... He had not just been hit once but repeatedly."

Describing the general conditions, Barton said: "Sometimes the prisoners would push the flap open to look out into the exercise yard or to get fresh air. The guards could lock the flap as punishment. Exercise was permitted on a rotation basis for half an hour a day, although this was increased to one hour after the Red Cross protested in January 2004."

He also revealed that last July, when the Iraqi provisional government took over, the British government decided it would be illegal to allow their interrogators to continue to question detainees or to use information from such interviews.

It is a slow process. But like Guantánamo and Bagram -- and like the process of "rendition" of terrorist suspects by the United States to foreign countries, where they can be tortured -- the secrets of Camp Cropper are now emerging into the light.

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