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In addition to the CBS story, which finally broke the story on "60 Minutes II, the story grew from a report obtained by The New Yorker magazine 

60 Minutes II had the story before coming out with it, but it caved in to "an appeal from the Defense Department, and eventually from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, to delay this broadcast" (April 29, 2004). It finally aired the images of sexual torture and murder of Iraqi prisoners on Wednesday, as the photos were "beginning to circulate elsewhere, and with other journalists about to publish their versions of the story" (April 29, 2004).

The The New Yorker magazine, in a report entitled TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB, said it had obtained a U.S. Army Report that Iraqi detainees were subjected to “sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses” at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.  Those abuses included threats of rape and the pouring of water and liquid from chemical lights on detainees, said the internal report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba.

In what suggests superiors in the military or intelligence agency involved had prior knowledge of the abuse, Taguba reported:  This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees was perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, and also by members of the American intelligence community.

Taguba backed up his assertion by citing evidence from sworn statements to Army C.I.D. investigators. Specialist Sabrina Harman, one of the accused M.P.s, testified that it was her job to keep detainees awake, including one hooded prisoner who was placed on a box with wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis. She stated, “MI wanted to get them to talk. It is Graner and Frederick’s job to do things for MI and OGA to get these people to talk.”

Detainees were beaten with a broom handle and one was sodomized with “a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick,” the report said, according to the magazine.

The report was based on “detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence,” The New Yorker said in its May 10 issue.

The abuses became public because of the outrage of Specialist Joseph M. Darby, an M.P. whose role emerged during the Article 32 hearing against Chip Frederick, one of six defendants so far in an ongoing investigation. 

For the full story above, from The New Yorker: 
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact

From MSNBC.  For full MSNBC story below:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4855930/ 

New Iraq Prison Abuse Images Show 'Savage Beatings'  http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0521-03.htm 

(This section compiled from MSNBC)

One of the pictures showed a hooded prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his hands. CBS reported the prisoner was told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted, although the wires were not really connected to a power supply. Other photos, with the genitals blurred, simulated sexual acts.

“They were ugly images. Is this the way the Americans treat prisoners?” asked Ahmad Taher, 24, a student at Baghdad’s Mustansiriyah University. “Americans claim that they respect freedom and democracy — but only in their country.”

Hussein al-Saeedi, spokesman for Kuwait’s al-Salaf radical Islamic group, said the images “make every sensible person doubt all the principles Western democracies are offering” and show the need for an end to the U.S. occupation.

“America justified its invasion of Iraq by saying the country was under a dictatorship. Unfortunately, Americans are now torturing the Iraqi people in the same place Saddam tortured them,” he said.

In Baghdad, U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said the commander of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, was being sent to Iraq to take over the coalition detention facilities.

(Please see additional photos below)

http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/iraqis_tortured/