BAGHDAD, Aug. 2, 2008
U.S. Works To Phase Out Role In Iraq Jails
10,000 Detainees Freed This Year As U.S. Military Releases More Prisoners Than They Detain
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A military policewoman looks over Iraqi detainees praying at the Camp Cropper detention center in Baghdad in this 2007 file photo. (Getty Images/John Moore)
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Photo Essay Week In Iraq Photos A daily diary with scenes of the latest attacks and snapshots from the effort to rebuild a nation.
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Interactive Iraq: 5 Years At War Five years after the U.S.-led invasion, the war wears on.
The military said about 21,000 people remained in custody, and it is currently releasing about 45 detainees and detaining 30 a day.
The United States wants to transfer the detainees to Iraqi control. Reaching that goal has been slowed partly by the lack of adequate Iraqi prison space and trained guards. More than 8,900 people were released from detention last year.
The U.S. military separated moderate detainees from extremists and instituted religious, educational and vocational programs over the past year to try to rehabilitate less dangerous prisoners. It also increased releases under amnesty programs.
"Due to changes in the conduct of detainee operations and programs to prepare detainees for reintegration into society, we have not only gone over 10,000 releases, but our re-internment rate is less than 1 percent," said Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
The U.S. military says its detention system is authorized by a U.N. resolution under which the Iraqi government allows U.S. troops to arrest people at will. U.S. military attorneys say it also complies with international laws covering warfare and was created in "the spirit" of the Geneva Conventions.
Commanders say they are entitled to hold any prisoner until the detainee is no longer considered a threat to U.S. forces. Local law and court rulings do not apply, they add.
Rights groups have criticized U.S. detention policy as a misrepresentation of international law, which they say requires some form of legal process to detain someone.
The right of the U.S. to detain Iraqi citizens has been one of the contentious areas of debate with the Iraqis over a new security agreement that would keep U.S. forces in the country after a U.N. mandate expires at year's end.
Many Iraqi officials want the country's courts to have sole responsibility for arresting and detaining Iraqi citizens.
The average detention time is 330 days, the military said on Saturday. About 17,000 of the inmates, including some of the most dangerous, are held at Camp Bucca - a facility in southern Iraq.
The military has increased control over prisons to correct widespread U.S. prison abuses that sparked international criticism.
Allegations of abuse at U.S. prisons escalated in 2004 with the release of pictures of grinning U.S. soldiers posing with detainees at the Abu Ghraib facility west of Baghdad. Some were naked, being held on leashes or in painful and sexually humiliating positions.
That prison has since been closed, and 11 U.S. soldiers were convicted of breaking military laws. Five others were disciplined in the scandal.
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Add a Comment See all 16 Comments
- And start sourcing out our torture programs again? To whom? I think al-Maliki wants no part in it, but, then again, he''s just a puppet and has no say in the matter.
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- A quick qay to end the war is to empty U.S. jails and send them to Iraq. We would continue sending these upstanding citizens until all Iraqis decided that a peaceful democracy is better than having U.S. trash.
P.S. We would only take them back at a rate of 1 prisoner per 10,000 barrels of oil. - Reply to this comment
- What & waste all that torture training?
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- Posted by terrorislamv at 11:44 PM : Aug 02, 2008
YOU ARE FIGHTING A LOSING BATTLE. SOME OF THESE GOOD PEOPLE DON''T NEED THE TRUTH.. IT UP SETS THEM....:-) - Reply to this comment
- Praise Jesus. Hallelujah. The war for oil is going just dandy. It only cost a trillion dollars and a million lives. Nothing like spreading freedom and democracy. And oil profits. Amen!
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- As usual the United States of America will foot the Bill to rebuild Iraq. And with all of the Oil that they have over there will be used for something else. I know that may sound CRAZY to some people but all we have to do is wait and see. After this War is "over", if we can ever say that, we will have our Military over there and in Afghanistan for years.
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- I guarantee you these Iraqi prisoners are not happy about being turned over to total Iraqi authority. Posted by whiskyrokkr huh? what are you smoking?
Posted by obama441 at 02:59 PM : Aug 02, 2008
I would say that he was not smoking anything at all.
Does not seem to me that you know much about the country of Iraq. The people that are in the position of taking over government are to be feared by the people that are in the Prison''s. I really hope we are able to put these men and or women back into the Iraqi Society and that they can help rebuild what has been torn all to He** as a result of this crazy War. - Reply to this comment
- instituted religious, educational and vocational programs over the past year to try to rehabilitate less dangerous prisoners
Religious programs?
What?
Posted by sandy19731 at 02:08 PM : Aug 02, 2008
Yeah - you know:
"radical Islam - 101"
"advanced jihadist terror tactics"
"IED design and placement"
etc. - Reply to this comment
- One of the first things the 10,000 released detainees did was to head straight to an AQI or Al Sadr recruiting stations. This will be the case for the 20,000 detainees we still hold. The end result is that we are "growing" our enemies.
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- I guarantee you these Iraqi prisoners are not happy about being turned over to total Iraqi authority. Posted by whiskyrokkr huh? what are you smoking?
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- Less dangerous is a interesting description. Does that mean someone who is not as crazy mad about their country being invaded for no legit reason than someone else? Sane Americans should ask themselves the question of how they would feel if the shoe was on the other foot.
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- instituted religious, educational and vocational programs over the past year to try to rehabilitate less dangerous prisoners
Religious programs?
What? - Reply to this comment
- This is called the Bush Christian make innocent people love you program. Invade a innocent country to steal their OIL. Then pick up any citizen you don''t like and throw them in jail without any right to a trial. When caught close the torture prison. You can always ship them to Club Gitmo for torture.
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- I guarantee you these Iraqi prisoners are not happy about being turned over to total Iraqi authority.
Posted by whiskyrokkr at 01:30 PM : Aug 02, 2008
So they''re unconditionally releasing them?!?
They''re releasing them because they don''t have "adequate Iraqi prison space and trained guards"?
Are we now in the practice of releasing dangerous "terrorists and insurgents", or were they "innocent enough" to be released in the first place? - Reply to this comment
- I guarantee you these Iraqi prisoners are not happy about being turned over to total Iraqi authority.
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- CBS: The U.S. military says its detention system is authorized by a U.N. resolution under which the Iraqi government allows U.S. troops to arrest people at will. U.S. military attorneys say it also complies with international laws covering warfare and was created in "the spirit" of the Geneva Conventions.
-The US Military should arrest Liar935Bush for instigating a war based on lies, lies and more lies. That would be in the real Geneva Conventions spirit - Reply to this comment
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
