Now a court martial in Germany has released similar images that the prosecution says are genuine. While the Mirror’s images were false, the abuse story was well founded. Morgan feels vindicated, just as Gavyn Davies and Greg Dyke do. They lost their posts running the BBC because of a radio report that the government had sexed up its dossier on the reasons for the war in Iraq. Who would quibble with that now?

I feel not nearly so indignant about the British photographs as I did about the repellent images of American torture in Abu Ghraib prison. The “British” picture of a man tied to a forklift truck is appalling, but it looks like an extempore and disorganised event. The use by GIs of hoods, electric cables and dogs appeared systemic.

When Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, was first given the file he took no action to prevent recurrences. How far up the American chain of command responsibility passes remains a moot point. I feel sure that abuse was not authorised by senior ranks in the British Army, let alone by politicians.

The British government bears the blame for one thing: it is wrong that we do not count the number of Iraqis who have been killed. It suggests that we place no value on their lives. The policy is dehumanising and racist. Soldiers pick up those messages. Highfalutin rhetoric about spreading freedom, repeated in President George W Bush’s inaugural address, rings hollow if we do not care how many of those that we liberate are dead.

The pictures compound other unwelcome publicity. A week ago newspapers carried photographs of Sandhurst officer cadets wearing Nazi uniforms. In November five members of the Household Cavalry were arrested after a bottle attack on Adnan Said, a 23-year-old Syrian student, who lost his left eye. The parents of Sally Geeson want to know why the army left a sexual predator, Lance-Corporal David Atkinson, free to strangle her before killing himself.

Those could be dismissed as one-off events if there were not evidence of institutionalised problems. Four soldiers have died from firearm wounds at Deepcut barracks in Surrey (two while I was defence secretary). In some of those cases coroners have recorded open verdicts. Even if they were all suicides, as the army says, the implications are worrying.

That the deaths occurred over a seven-year period implies that there is an underlying malaise and officers have failed to deal with it.

Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, has refused to set up a public inquiry. A Surrey police report on Deepcut revealed 61 allegations of assault, 12 of indecent assault and eight of rape or gang rape. Leslie Skinner, a training instructor, was jailed last year for 4Å years after admitting indecent assaults on four soldiers aged between 17 and 21.

Responses to the army’s continuous attitudes survey based on 2,000 interviews revealed that 85% believed there was bullying. The finding was omitted from the version of the survey supplied to MPs by the government.

In the 1990s several cases of racial abuse shamed the armed forces. When Mark Parchment enlisted in the Royal Marines he was made to carry a spear on parade. He was given a special initiation for “niggers”. He was soaked with urine, attacked and had his genitals shaved. Richard Stokes resigned from the Household Cavalry when a banana was thrown at him during a rehearsal for trooping the colour. But in 1998 the Commission for Racial Equality decided not to take enforcement action against the armed forces in view of improvements in policies and practice.

A few days ago the Ministry of Defence was forced to admit that Staff Sergeant David Howard, a soldier with 22 years’ experience, had suffered racial discrimination and harassment. An employment tribunal was told that Major Robert Turnbull called Howard “Bubba” to his face, a reference to the black character with learning difficulties in the movie Forrest Gump. Turnbull has since been promoted.

All this tells me that the army’s top command is doing too little to end disgraceful practices. That is unforgivable. The army’s effectiveness is seriously hampered because many units are under strength. The bad publicity must deter recruits.