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According to the Crimes of War Project, Article 13 of the third Geneva Convention of 1949 requires that POW's must at all times be treated humanely. The Convention goes on to list many things from which POW's must be protected. One item says they must be protected against, "insults and public curiosity."

Former Major General Rogers of the British army, and an expert in the laws of war, indicated that the key to deciding whether treatment of POW's infringes the Convention is to look at the intention of the action. Action that was intended to be humiliating and degrading, he said, would qualify as a breach of the Convention. But television footage that was merely factual would not necessarily be a violation. Spokesman Florian Westphal of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said that the ICRC would consider the use of any image that makes a prisoner of war individually recognizable to be a violation of Article 13 of the Convention.

Technically, not all violations of the Geneva Conventions are war crimes that determination is reserved for serious breaches of the treaty. General Rogers said that in his opinion, subjecting prisoners of war to humiliating or degrading treatment was a serious violation, and hence a war crime.

Who may be charged with war crimes? I believe the answer is whoever is guilty. Leaders who order the commission of war crimes are certainly accountable. It's my understanding that the accountability flows all the way down to a private who executes an unlawful order. I believe civilians can also be held accountable, if they participate in the commission of war crimes. There are civilian members of the old Habyrimana government of Rwanda who are standing trial for the genocide.

So, it appears that a war crime has been committed, drawing on the opinions of two experts in the field. Certainly, the photographer could be guilty. It is possible that the photographer had a non-war crime purpose, perhaps it was documentation that Saddam Hussein did not have marks from torture on him on a given day and time. There is some question as to whether there even was a photographer. This image might have come from a surveillance camera.

Certainly, the person who leaked the photograph is guilty, going either by intent or by easy recognition of the individual. There might be a commanding officer involved. Certainly, there was a publisher involved. The New York Post and The Sun (British) are both owned by one man.

It seems to me that the photo was not the war crime. It's publication was the war crime. I think we should include in a war crimes investigation anyone at these two publications involved with the photograph of Saddam Hussein. Ignorance of the law is no excuse in Britain or the United States.

The media used to be self-policing in times of war. That habit is gone, now. Censorship is, in my opinion, necessary in time of war. That censorship should come from within the press. I do not want to see the government attempt to carry that burden. We need to know about prisoner abuse. It's okay for the news to tell us about it, but it is not okay for them to perpetrate it.

On America Online, I have seen many posts calling for the boycott of Newsweek until the journalists responsible for the false report of the desecrations of the Quran are fired. I think the picture of Saddam Hussein in his underwear is far more serious, because it is criminal.

I don't know how to create a grass-roots movement. I do believe it might fall to the public to provide the needed censorship. Boycotting might work on those who are motivated solely by greed. Self-censorship might arise among more responsible members of the media. We must not allow the press to lose its freedom by abusing it.