Don't even think about going to IraqBabes.com for a look at the photos that turned up on a pair of Arabic-language sites as anti-Iraq War propaganda. The hosting company has dropped IraqBabes.com as a client and removed the site from its servers.
The site now features nothing but a page showing a magic-marker children's line drawing of a horse or donkey.
"I was appalled by this whole thing," Velocity Hosting's Linda MacNew told AVNOnline.com May 5. "And in light of the anti-American use, we have severed all relationships with that client."
Velocity learned the hard way thanks to World Net Daily, which published a May 4 story discussing images from IraqBabes.com and a second adult site, SexInWar.com, both of which were taken up by Albasarah.net and a Tunisia-based site and used for pages attacking the U.S. war in Iraq.
The Arabic-language sites purported that the images were of actual Iraqi women being raped and/or sexually abused by American troops, but in fact the women and troops were actors playing roles, WND reported and Velocity affirmed.
It was because of WND that Velocity learned about the way the pictures were used in the first place, but the company was fearful that people might have seen the story and assumed Velocity had created IraqBabes.com. The original WND story, which noted IraqBabes.com was created in April 2003, seemed not to clarify that Velocity was not the originator, even if the site was registered with Velocity as part of the unnamed client's hosting package.
"The site IraqBabes.com is one of our clients' sites that we had purchased for him as part of a hosting package that he ordered," Velocity said in a statement to WND, a statement the company shared with AVNOnline.com. "Even though we knew it would be an adult site, all content was legal content, obtained from a sponsor [named] Extreme Traffic, and listed in their 2257 statement that all scenes in the movies and images were performed by actors.
"All actors/models were over 18 at the time of photography," the statement continued. "And were paid for their performances... we have decided to sever all business ties with this client and have removed their site from our server."
MacNew said she only wanted people to know that the company was unaware of what had been happening. "We've rectified the problem on our end, as much as we could," she said. "I don't want to wreck our reputation as a hosting company. And we do want to thank WND for contacting us and making us aware of what was going on."
