April 23, 2009 Anderson Cooper 360.
COOPER: Two big stories happening right now, the breaking news, the ACLU saying that we will soon be getting another batch of photos depicting prisoner abuse, not just in Iraq, but also Afghanistan, that and the latest threat to America's vital ally in the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban, Pakistan.
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COOPER: Let's talk about these photos that the ACLU has just said that -- new photos that they say show U.S. personnel abusing prisoners in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
We know that -- that the techniques, the interrogation techniques used in -- in Guantanamo Bay, used in these CIA black sites, we know that they were used at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. We know they were also obviously used at -- at Abu Ghraib and other sites.
What do you make of this report that new photos are coming out?
ZAKARIA: It's pretty troubling, Anderson.
You know, I tracked the -- the -- public support in Iraq for the U.S. occupation very carefully. And the month before Abu Ghraib, the -- the photographs from Abu Ghraib came out, there were about 60 percent of Iraqis were still supportive of the U.S. occupation.
It dropped almost 25 points over the course of the two months that the -- that the Abu Ghraib photos came out. This stuff really has a major effect on our reputation, on our image abroad. It changes what our allies can do, because they're scared of their publics.
This is one of the reasons why I think this broader issue of whether the United States should engage in practices that are really outside of the pale, this is not just a technical legal issue. It has huge foreign policy implications.
COOPER: Fareed Zakaria, appreciate your joining us tonight. Fareed, thanks very much.
