Detention of Iraqis may be fueling insurgency

By Larry Kaplow

INTERNATIONAL STAFF Austin American-Statesman

Sunday, September 11, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The U.S.-led dragnet for insurgents catches the harmless much more often than the dangerous, according to military figures, helping breed resentment among Iraqis who often languish in prison for months before the system sets them free.

Nearly 75 percent of all detainees arrested are being released because there is not enough evidence that they pose a threat, according to the Army.

About half are freed within days of their arrests by the units or divisions that captured them. But thousands of others are sent to major prisons, such as Abu Ghraib, where they wait an average of six months before being released, according to 1st Lt. Kristy Miller, spokeswoman for the military's detention system in Iraq.

From March 2003 through early last month, 42,228 Iraqi detainees had been sent into the system. As of Friday, 12,184 remained in U.S. detention.

U.S. officials assert that Iraq is the main front in the fight against terrorism. But the wide sweep for suspects there, carried out with what critics say is faulty intelligence and ignorance about local culture, produces anti-American rage and political controversy.

"Insurgency after insurgency has shown that if you mismanage detentions, you create more insurgents than you get rid of," said Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He said U.S. officials failed to plan sufficiently for the insurgency they now face and therefore were late in developing accurate intelligence networks, which would have helped prevent unwarranted detentions. More simply, he said, they failed to recruit enough Arabic translators.

Last month, in an effort to encourage Sunni Muslims to support the draft Iraqi constitution, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani asked for a mass release of detainees. The U.S. military responded by setting free 1,000 prisoners.

Those releases were approved by a standing committee of U.S. military lawyers and employees of the Iraqi ministries of justice, interior and human rights, which meets three days a week to plow through hundreds of files and recommend which detainees should be set free.

Two Iraqis on the committee described common U.S. mistakes that result in Iraqis being wrongly incarcerated.

The committee members, both lawyers, were made available for interviews after a request to the Iraqi government by Cox Newspapers. The interviews were granted on the condition that the members not be identified because of the risk they would face if people know that they participate in decisions to detain Iraqis.

Among the cases they described, U.S. troops arrested one Iraqi man because he had an Arabic poster showing a beheaded man. The soldiers thought it was the sinister propaganda of terrorists and hauled him away to Abu Ghraib.

Months later, the Iraqis reviewing the case quickly recognized that the poster was a benign tribute to Imam Hussein, a Shiite hero beheaded in the seventh century. The committee ordered his release.

Another Iraqi was selling copies of the Witness, a popular tabloid newspaper peddling gossip about the old dictatorship. Troops saw the cover photo of Saddam Hussein and took the man away for months until his case was reviewed and he was set free.

Several men in the city of Fallujah were arrested when soldiers thought an elderly woman's panicked call to her grandchild was an alert that kidnappers were nearby. She was actually attempting to shield the child from American troops.

Many more Iraqis are wrongly detained based on the lies of manipulative informants or false positives in explosives tests or because they were simply among the many passers-by swept up for being in the vicinity of an attack on U.S. troops, the lawyers said.

Nearly every day, the U.S. military announces the capture of "suspected terrorists" snatched during house raids, in markets and after firefights. Yet most of those arrested get released, and the insurgency persists.

Last month, 85 American troops died in Iraq, the highest monthly death toll since January.

The military says it has improved training for troops in making arrests and screening detainees, with U.S. lawyers reviewing their cases repeatedly starting from the first days after Iraqis are arrested.

The joint Iraqi-American review process has worked for a year, prompted by the scandal involving physical and sexual abuse at Abu Ghraib. As of last week, it had reviewed 18,208 detainee files and ordered the release of 10,092 detainees, or about 55 percent.

The committee reviews only those kept at the major detention centers. About half are released by the divisions that capture them before they are sent to the centers.

"Everybody we have detained or will detain, we detain for specific reasons. Based on intelligence or information, we had reason to believe that the individual was conducting an attack, was conducting activities as part of the insurgency," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a coalition spokesman.

But the detentions are a hot political issue in Iraq. Many political leaders, including U.S. allies, have denounced the frequent arrests.

Iraqis reacted angrily in May when U.S. troops mistakenly roughed up and arrested the leader of the largest Sunni political party, which U.S. diplomats had been trying to entice into the government.

For Iraqis who have been wrongly detained, the hunt for insurgents seems random and frightening. Men are pulled off the streets or from their homes, their hands cuffed and their faces covered with hoods.

Many are never told of the evidence against them and spend months in harsh prison camps where cellmates preach holy war and teach how to wage it.

Saleh Hadi al-Zobai, 25, was a security guard at a truck depot in October when American troops handcuffed and hooded him, arresting him for having a Kalashnikov rifle, standard equipment here for a security guard.

He spent months in prisons, where he developed diabetes and anger toward U.S. troops he once credited for ousting Saddam Hussein.

"I spent eight months (in jail) without reason," he said. "I got sick in prison, and I'm still sick."

He recalled months in Camp Bucca, a crowded camp where rock-throwing riots would erupt. There, innocents were mixed with hardened fighters. He was released by the review board after signing a pledge not to commit violence.

"I was nervous. I was sick. I was mad. People were crying. Most had nervous breakdowns," he said. "When we talked among the prisoners, people would say it would be a crime if you got out and did not fight" the Americans.

Col. William Hudson Jr., staff judge advocate for the 3rd Infantry Division in Baghdad, said the combat theater in Iraq has "matured," bringing more legal safeguards.

Troops now carry "target folders," with profiles and sometimes photos of the suspects for arrest. They have evidence checklists requiring them to have two witness statements from Iraqis or fellow soldiers about a suspect's crimes.

Mass arrests are less common than in the first year of the war.

Though Iraqis complain that soldiers often arrest anyone running from a bomb blast, an aide to Hudson said that someone's flight alone probably would not keep him in detention after review by division lawyers.

Still, from late February, when the division started arriving, through June, nearly half of the division's detainees were released within three weeks of captivity and about 45 percent of those sent to the major prisons have been released.

For Iraqis who have been captured, the system seems haphazard.

Bassem al-Hadithi, 34, is a lawyer who was detained for two weeks after troops broke open the doors to his house, broke furniture and confiscated money, he said.

"I'm angry. Very angry," he said in the courthouse where he now defends other detainees brought to trial by U.S. troops.

He blamed the arrest on lies by an informant he does not know.

"Most people captured by the Americans are named by informants," he said. "I can make the Americans take you right now. Just give me your name and address."