May 12, 2004: Reaction to the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal has been overwhelmingly negative. "The pictures from Abu Ghraib are like a monstrous production of every cliché about American imperialism ... The whole western world is damaged: Its values appear as hypocrisy and the crudest prejudice about its decadence is confirmed" (SPIEGEL ONLINE, May 11, 2004).

The "Frankfurter Rundschau" also saw Arab prejudice being verified by the Abu Ghraib scandal: "Prejudice in the Arab world about the Middle East policy of the USA has not only been confirmed during the intervention in Iraq, but even surpassed. After the humbling scenes from Saddams former torture chamber every crude conspiracy theory can be supported with corroborating pictures ... the American Middle East mission brings Arabs only contempt instead of respect" (May 6, 2004).

The prisoner abuse scandal has hurt America's credibility once again re: the intervention in Iraq: "After no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq and ... the official reason for war was gone, Bush emphasized in a very personal way the human rights abuses under Saddam Hussein, including the torture methods used in his prisons, as a justification for the war. And now this. Why wasn't anything done since the conditions apparently were known for months? Credibility sounds different than this" ("Neue Ruhr/Rhein Zeitung", May 5, 2004).

"America preaches morals that the country cannot abide by itself ... America has documented its strength and invincibility, but not its moral leadership. The Bush government ... has created a climate of lawlessness in which excesses like Abu Ghraib can thrive. The price for it is high: America is losing not only its authority and credibility – the country is losing its values" ("Süddeutsche Zeitung", May 6, 2004). "The repulsive pictures of abused prisoners along with grinning prison guards of both sexes may have removed the last moral standing of the occupation visible only to a minority of Iraqis. The Arab world has had its worst suspicions about the secret ambitions of the Americans confirmed" (ibid., May 8, 2004).

The Vatican foreign minister, archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, said the prisoner abuse in Baghdad was worse than 9/11: "It [the mistreatment of prisoners] is a bigger blow for the USA than the 11th of September. The point is that this wasn't done by terrorists, but by the Americans against themselves" ("La Repubblica", May 12, 2004).