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Iraq
US priority: managing captives in Iraq
2007-04-06
To deal with more detentions, the US is building facilities and adding military police.

WASHINGTON - As the Baghdad security plan under Army Gen. David Petraeus moves forward, US and Iraqi forces are apprehending hundreds of insurgents, terrorists, and other criminals. Many of them are quickly being transferred to the Iraqis for detainment. There's just one problem: The Iraqi judicial system, which is responsible for processing such detainees, isn't yet up to the task. This is forcing the Americans to build more detention facilities to hold all the detainees – and bring in more US military police to guard them.

The Iraqi judicial system has been hobbled by the four years of war, as well as the loss of judges and lawyers who either fled the country or were murdered. As a result, the judicial system simply doesn't have the capacity to process many of the new detainees.

This is posing a key challenge as American and Iraqi forces try to bring stability to some of Iraq's most dangerous neighborhoods. Thus US forces are beefing up their facilities, and also helping the Iraqis build their own detention centers. In addition, on Monday, the Pentagon formally announced the deployment to Iraq of more than 2,000 additional US military police, who will join the roughly 3,000 MPs already there.

Defense officials see the US moves as a sign that General Petraeus is confident he'll clean up the streets – using the right amount of resources, with the aim of avoiding another detention fiasco like Abu Ghraib.

Nabbing criminals, insurgents, and others, and holding them for as long as it takes, is "very sound operational planning," says Mike Newton, a law professor at Vanderbilt University and a retired Army lieutenant colonel who has been to Iraq four times as a legal consultant.

"If you have military forces on the ground as part of a surge, that helps, but if you do that and you know there are bad guys in the neighborhood, they'll just wait you out," Mr. Newton says. "You've got to pick them up."

But indeed, this means building the capacity to hold some detainees until the Iraqi judicial system – for centuries, the pride of Iraq – can be restored to its former glory. For the past several years, the United States itself has held about 13,000 individuals captive and now holds about 18,000 captives. But as the Baghdad security plan also known as Fard Al Kanoon moves forward, Petraeus is planning for the possibility of holding as many as 40,000 captives. Most are being held at two facilities, one at Camp Cropper in Baghdad and another at Camp Bucca, south of the city.

Posted by:GolfBravoUSMC

#3  Simple - don't take captives.

Munch all you want Use all the bullets you want - we'll make more.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2007-04-06 22:53  

#2  Ok, if we can't lock 'em all up, let's just kill every other one. That'll take the pressure off, and very da$$$d few of those killed would be innocent, anyway. What's so hard about that?
Posted by: Old Patriot   2007-04-06 21:44  

#1  First - Bucca is in the south of the COUNTRY, not just a bit south of B'dad.

This is good news. MNF-I had to have been considering this as part of any move towards fighting the war (as opposed to pretending to train the Iraqis to fight the war, as previously).

But there's a key error here (not in the article so much as the reality it correctly describes). These attempts to maintain some high standard of quasi-judicial procedures have been a mistake, and have always met with difficulties due to not just the limited capacity of the judicial system but the incapacity of that system due to intimidation.

Mike Newton, quoted in the article, and with whom I worked a bit over there, would know better, but it seems to me that from the outset we/Iraq should have proceeded under emergency laws for times of internal conflict that set a very low judicial bar on detentions, while at the same time working to set up the best review system feasible under the circumstances. It's nice to see the Central Criminal Court coming out with convictions of jihadis, but I'd rather have many, many more military-age males in detention and no judicial proceedings at all, if needed.

There's a pure detention challenge as well, as noted. Our intention last year was to get down to just Cropper and Bucca (high-value types are at Cropper). Don't see how current facilities can handle the flow of detainees absolutely certain to flow from any serious offensive actions.

There's much silly talk about "fighting a 21st century war". Well, it's no different from fighting any other war, of course. But you actually have to FIGHT IT. Mass detention - including some on the preventive side - has always been a neccessary part of any Iraq operations that actually aim to have an impact on the situation.
Posted by: Verlaine   2007-04-06 13:52  

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