From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield. This week, the Obama administration announced it would not release photos of prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An ACLU lawsuit settled at the end of last month compelled the Department of Defense to release the photos,

and the White House said at the time it would comply. This week, the administration changed its tune.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs outlined President Obama's position on Wednesday.

He believes that the release of these photos could pose a threat to the men and women we have in harm's way in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And doesn't believe that the government made the strongest case possible to the court and asked the legal team to go make that case.

The photos could have served as a visual aid in all the ongoing debates about torture that had played out during the week.

Republicans pointed their fingers at Nancy Pelosi, saying she signed off on waterboarding.

Democrats in the Senate led hearings on interrogation techniques under the Bush administration.

And an up-ed by Richard Cohen in the Washington Post on Thursday, along with multiple TV appearances by former Vice President Dick Cheney,

re-ignited a debate on cable news and blogs about whether torture works.

But all those debates were waged without the photos.

New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer is author of the book The Dark Side,

the inside story of how the war on terror turned into a war on American ideals. She says,

like the rest of us, she's not exactly sure what's in the photos. There's been a long,

persistent rumor, that there were pictures of kids being abused and women may be being sexually

abused. And I have not seen whether or not that is true without being able to see them.

You really can't tell.

Seems to me there's two ways to view the question of to release or not to release.

One is the truth and reconciliation path, you know, that we need to come to grips with our deeds,

come what may. And the other is the sort of Danish cartoons problem, that the exercise and

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