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Report: War and Occupation January 2007 “They are like dogs and if you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than dogs then you’ve lost control of them.” -Major General Geoffrey Miller [2] Thousands of Iraqis Arbitrarily Arrested and Held The Rather than police, arrests are made by heavily-armed soldiers – frequently English-speaking US troops, whose orders may be misunderstood by the affected Iraqis. The soldiers often take many people simultaneously into custody – during neighborhood sweeps and house searches, at checkpoints, and in round-ups of all kinds. Arrests are nearly always made without judicial warrant or evidence of wrong-doing. The Red Cross has described house arrests as follows: “Arresting authorities entered houses usually after dark, breaking down doors, waking up residents roughly, yelling orders, forcing family members into one room under military guard while further searching the rest of the house and further breaking doors, cabinets and other property. They arrested suspects, tying their hands in the back with flexi-cuffs, hooding them, and taking them away. Sometimes they arrested all adult males present in the house, including elderly, handicapped or sick people. Treatment often included pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking and striking with rifles. Individuals were often led away in whatever they were wearing at the time of arrest – sometimes in pyjamas or underwear – and were denied the opportunity to gather a few essential belongings such as clothing, hygiene items, medicines or eyeglasses.”[3] The Red Cross has also mentioned many allegations of theft of personal property, including money and automobiles, by arresting troops.[4] The Red Cross notes that 70-90% of those taken into custody appear to have been arrested “by mistake.”[5] Since the early days of the occupation, US forces have taken thousands of Iraqis into custody for “security” reasons. By January 2004, the official list of such detainees numbered 8,500 but the real count was widely believed to be higher.[6] In late 2005, mass detention operations before the elections swelled the prisoner numbers still further.[7] Though major releases were announced during the summer of 2006, by the end of December, the number of Coalition detainees stood at 14,500.[8] In addition to these official numbers, the US and its partners hold many hundreds in intake facilities, where they are not yet registered and counted.[9] Others, also uncounted, may be held in secret detention centers, CIA interrogation sites and other “ghost” locations.[10] Among the detainees are women, the elderly, and even two hundred juveniles, according to a July 2006 UN estimate.[11] Reports speak of children as young as ten years old being held for long periods.[12] Many have suffered from serious trauma as a result of their prison experience.[13] US General Janis Karpinski, former commander of prison guards in Iraq, told military interviewers that she met a boy in a US prison who was listed as an eleven-year-old but looked closer to eight. The boy was crying, she said, and asking for his mother.[14] Because of regular releases and new arrests, US forces have deprived a very large number of Iraqis of their freedom and exposed them to the harsh prison system, since the occupation began. No one has counted the total, but Amnesty International comments that in aggregate “tens of thousands of internees have been held for weeks or months and thousands for more than one year” in arbitrary and extrajudicial detention.[15] Outsourcing Detention to Iraqi Authorities In the second half of 2004, after the US Coalition had officially transferred sovereignty to a new interim Iraqi government, Iraqi authorities asked for control over all detainees. The Coalition did not agree, but still, commanders began to transfer prisoners to Iraqi forces. In the aftermath of the Abu Graib scandal, political and legal developments in the US were imposing limits on military detention practices in Iraq.[16] Hundreds of prisoners were turned over to the Iraqi Ministries of Defense, Justice and Interior, the latter a highly militarized department with little civilian police experience and scant concern for the rule of law.[17] Iraqi-held prisoners were not legally under US or Coalition responsibility, but they were still to a large degree under US control or influence.[18] Scores of US advisors were working with Iraqi authorities, including at Iraqi detention sites. At Iraqi interrogations, US intelligence personnel could be present or in a supervisory role, while preserving deniability.[19] Iraqi military and security forces were of course making their own arrests while Coalition arrests continued at a rapid pace. As a result, the country-wide prisoner count more than doubled from April 2005 to April 2006. [20] Iraqi-controlled detention centers are reportedly very
crowded and operate with almost complete disregard for legal standards.
Iraqi authorities have not allowed any monitoring visits to these
facilities and even the Red Cross has been completely denied access.
Though the Ministry of Interior is not supposed to hold prisoners,
according to applicable law in By mid-2005, the Iraqis held about 5,000 prisoners and
in February 2006 about 8,000. [22] By May of 2006, according to the Iraqi
Ministry of Human Rights, Iraqi authorities were holding about 13,300
security detainees [23] – an increase that led to over-crowing and
abusive conditions. By December of 2006, Iraqi detainees numbered over 15,
000. [24] Meanwhile, the Undefined Legal Status The US authorities almost never bring charges against
detainees or bring them to trial. Official Coalition figures from November
2005, report that only 1,301 detainees had received trials since the
beginning of the occupation [26] – a miniscule proportion – probably
less than one in a hundred – of all those ever held. The Responding to complaints about arbitrary arrest, the
Coalition developed a system of review, which in theory gave all prisoners
a chance to have their case examined. The Combined Review and Release
Board (CRRB), set up in August 2004, is composed of both Iraqi and
Coalition representatives, but it has recommending powers only and is not
binding upon the Coalition.[27] Prisoners’ status is said to be reviewed
at least every six months. The system for those held by Many legal authorities and international human rights bodies believe that long periods of incarceration without due process, especially in secret facilities and without any contact with families, constitutes by itself illegally abusive treatment. [29] Families suffer due to extreme uncertainty, anguish and often economic difficulty. Coalition commanders eventually release most prisoners,
after months of terrifying detention, interrogation and uncertainty.
Releases are often as arbitrary as the original arrests. One prisoner may
be released after a month, another after six months, another after a year
or more, with no clear difference between the cases – and absolutely no
explanations, apologies or compensation given for the months of
incarceration. Even the manner of the release can be punitive. Secret Archipelago International law requires military occupiers to register prisoners promptly, make them accessible to Red Cross visits, and inform families and friends of their whereabouts. These rules prevent “incommunicado detention,” because a lack of independent oversight often leads to bad conditions and abuse. [31] But Coalition commanders have frequently ignored these requirements, in disregard of the law. They have failed to keep an up-to-date and accurate central prisoner register and not fully and regularly disclosed prisoner names. [32] They have held hundreds and perhaps thousands of hidden or unregistered detainees in local prison camps or in secret interrogation centers, where the detainees have remained incommunicado and invisible for weeks or even months, a practice in direct breach of US army doctrine which sets a twelve hour limit to holding of detainees prior to registration.[33] Even in central prisons like Abu Ghraib, interrogators have kept “ghost detainees” by moving them around to avoid any encounter with ICRC inspectors.[34] Some prisoners have allegedly been transferred out of Iraq to secret interrogation centers in foreign locations.[35] In one case, documented by the UK Prime Minister’s
office, an elderly Iraqi woman was “lost” after being arrested in a
round-up at the beginning of the war. Finally, after many months in what Commanders have denied human rights organizations like Amnesty International access to virtually all prisons in Iraq – in spite of repeated visit requests.[37] Commanders have also refused requests by UN human rights experts to visit Coalition prisons.[38] And they have selectively denied Red Cross access to detention sites other than the central prisons, including, reportedly, local facilities, special interrogation centers and other sites where detainees are most at risk.[39] In March, 2005, a Human Rights First lawyer expressed great concern about the field prisons where “conditions are terrible,” the “worse abuses” occur and Red Cross access is “limited to nonexistent.”[40] Coalition Prisons Coalition forces hold prisoners throughout Abu Ghraib Prison, a complex of buildings
near Other Sites include six relatively large
detention centers – a facility known as Prison Conditions While torture and abuse have been the worse aspect of Coalition prisons, authorities have also subjected detainees to unacceptable and inhumane conditions of incarceration, which violate international human rights standards. Reports have spoken of poor food and bad quality water, prisoners exposed to extremes of temperature, grossly overcrowded cells, and seriously inadequate sanitation arrangements. [68] General Paul Mikolashek reported that at Abu Ghraib, garbage and sewage covered the grounds of the outdoor camps, bathing facilities were minimal, fresh water was in short supply and detainee meals were frequently contaminated with dirt and rodent droppings. [69] In order to pressure prisoners and to “soften them up” for interrogation, guards at many facilities have reportedly withheld or greatly curtailed access to food and water, punitively limited visits to the latrine, confined inmates to fetid isolation cells, and removed mattresses, sheets and prisoners’ clothing.[70] Conditions in the Coalition prisons are greatly worsened by the language barrier between guards and detainees, which results in what the Red Cross has called “frequent misunderstandings” that are “compounded by a widespread attitude of contempt on the part of the guards.”[71] The Red Cross reported further that “a failure to understand or a misunderstanding of orders given in English was construed by guards as resistance or disobedience,” leading to abusive punishments. [72] At Camp Nama, a temporary detention site at the Baghdad International Airport, run by a secret US military unit called Task Force 6-26, prisoners were crammed into dozens of small cells, overwhelmed by the smell of human waste, and often forced to squat or crouch for sleeping because of overcrowded conditions.[73] In Tal Afar, at a police station under direct supervision of US forces, “forty-seven prisoners were squeezed into a cell so tight that they had to take turns sleeping; four or five others were crammed into the latrine.”[74] In this jail, one of the detainees was a twelve year-old boy; another man was a schoolteacher who had been arrested after a roadside bomb detonated near the taxi he had hired. He had never seen a lawyer.”[75] Prisoners have repeatedly protested, rioted, gone on hunger strikes and otherwise taken extreme measures to call attention to their unacceptable prison conditions. The March 2004 report by General Antonio Taguba, investigating prison abuse, makes it clear that Coalition prisons were seriously overcrowded and that during 2003 there had already been a number of protests, to which guards had responded by opening fire on prisoners. [76] In one such incident at Abu Ghraib on November 24, 2003, guards killed three and wounding nine. [77] Two of the world’s most respected medical journals, The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine, have run articles detailing the unethical and illegal behavior of military medical staff at Coalition prisons.[78] Doctors, nurses and other medical personnel have failed to monitor and correct unhealthful sanitary conditions and inadequate provision of food and shelter.[79] Most seriously, they have not reasonably attended to the medical needs of prisoner Not only have they failed to conduct routine examinations, but they have failed to attend to prisoners’ wounds, sores, broken limbs and other serious conditions.[80] Military medical personnel have also failed to report prisoners’ medical condition or filled out false reports and death certificates.[81] They have failed to provide prisoners with needed medicines.[82] And they have turned over prisoners’ medical records to interrogators, to allow them to exploit the vulnerabilities of detainees.[83] Few Coalition military doctors or medical professionals have come forward to give evidence about these serious violations of international law, though the crimes have been well-documented by civilian medical researchers. Nor has any military medical professional been brought to trial to account for these acts, so damaging to the prisoners put under their care. Practices Condemned in In September, 2005, Iraqi Justice Minister Abdul
Hussein Shandal said “No citizen should be arrested without a court
order. There is abuse [of human rights] due to detentions, which are
overseen by the Multinational Force and are not in the control of the
Justice Ministry.”[84] UN Secretary General Kofi Annan repeatedly called
attention to the Coalition’s policies of arbitrary imprisonment,
referring in 2005 to “the detention of thousands of persons without due
process.” Annan also noted that “prolonged detention without access to
lawyers and courts is prohibited under international law, including during
states of emergency.”[85] In March 2006, Annan again reiterated these
concerns, making a clear judgment that the Coalition’s arguments about
security are unacceptable."[86] UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights, Louise Arbour has made the same point and the UN Assistance
Mission in Conclusion The Geneva Conventions and the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights set clear standards for the
legal status and treatment of prisoners of war and criminal detainees.
Under these standards, it is illegal to hold persons arbitrarily, or for
excessive lengths of time. All detainees are guaranteed the right to legal
counsel and due process of law. They have a right to decent and humane
standards of incarceration, they have a right of contact with the Red
Cross, and they must not to be mistreated. Domestic laws of the The The lengthy and abusive detention of tens of thousands of innocent people, removed violently from their families and held incommunicado for long periods, can have no possible rationale except to terrorize the Iraqi population. After nearly four years of occupation, great harm has been done by these practices and international law has been seriously and criminally violated. Footnotes
[1] This chapter deals with issues of detention but not torture. For torture, see Chapter X. [2] As quoted by Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, reported by BBC News, “Iraq Abuse Ordered From the Top,” June 15, 2004. [3]“Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the Treatment by the Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq during Arrest, Internment and Interrogation,” International Committee of the Red Cross, February, 2004 [“ICRC Report”], p. 7. [4]ICRC Report, pp. 21-22. [5]The ICRC reported that it was given this estimate by Coalition Military Intelligence officers, ibid., p. 8. [6]Amnesty International, “Beyond Abu Ghraib,” (March, 2006), p. 17. [7]UN Assistance Mission for [8]UNAMI 1 November-31 December, 2006, p.18. [9]See the discussion about these facilities below and about the slow
process of registration. In March 2005, it was estimated that 1,300
persons were being held in transient facilities (Edward Wong, “US Jails
in [10]Human Rights Watch, “No Blood, No Foul,” July 2006, provides
extensive information about three secret detention facilities – [11]IRIN (UN), “Child Prisoners Left Without Support,” July 30, 2006. See also “The Other Prisoners,” The Guardian, May 20, 2004 an article with considerable evidence about women prisoners. [12]Neil Mackey, “ [13] IRIN (UN), “Child Prisoners.”. [14] “US Held Youngsters at Abu Ghraib,” BBC News Site, March 11, 2005. “[15] Beyond Abu Ghraib,” p. 16. Janis Karpinski, who was in command of prison guards in 2003, thinks that average detainee turnover could be 4-6 months, which would suggest a detainee total of well over 100,000 (private communication January, 2007). [16]In October, 2004, for instance, the US Congress passed a law requiring the Department of Defense to provide regular reporting of the number of those held in military custody. (“Behind the Wire” pp. i and ii) In this same period, the US Supreme Court took an important decision in the case Raisul v. Bush that also impacted detention policy. [17]Human Rights Watch, “The New [18] “Beyond Abu Ghraib,” pp. 8-9. [19] Ibid., pp. 6 and 9. [20]See our data table. We estimate that the total rose from around 13,000 to around 29,000 in this period. [21] “The New [22] UNAMI, “1 January-28 February, 2006,” p. 6. [23] UNAMI, “1 July-31 August, 2006,” p. 14. [24] UNAMI, “1 November-31 December, 2006,” p. 18. [25] Ibid. [26] Multinational Force, Central Criminal Court of Iraq, 28 November 2005, http://www.mnf-iraq. com/TF134/Trials.htm [27] “Beyond Abu Ghraib,” pp. 22-24. [28] “Beyond Abu Ghraib,” pp. 22-24. The [29] Ibid., pp. 37-38. [30]Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall, “In Secret Unit’s ‘Black Room,’ a Grim Portrait of U.S. Abuse,” New York Times, March 19, 2006. [31]See comments in “Beyond Abu Ghraib,” pp. 31, 33, and 34. [32]Human Rights First, “Behind the Wire,” March, 2005, p. 7. [33]Josh White and Scott Higham, “Army Calls Abuses
`Aberrations’,” [34]See New York Times, June 17, 2004 and Reuters, June 17, 2004. The Taguba Report first made reference to this practice. See also Human Rights First, “Ending Secret Detentions,” June, 2004 and ACLU, “Enduring Abuse,” (April, 2006), esp. Section 5, pp. 45-49. It is clear that the ICRC has had some degree of access to Coalition prisoners, as the leaked report of February, 2004 makes clear (29 visits to 14 facilities), but the access was far from satisfactory or complete, as the report also makes clear. [35] “Beyond Abu Ghraib,” April, 2006, p. 6. Human Rights First
estimates that at least a dozen detainees in [36]Gaby Hinsliff, “Blair Envoy Reveals Plight of Iraqis Left in Jail Maze.” The Observer. 9 April 2006. [37] Information from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
These organizations have apparently had access to prisons in [38] Five independent experts of the UN Commission on Human Rights have made several requests for visits See “Beyond Abu Ghraib,” p. 34-35 [39]Ed Vulliamy, “Red Cross Denied Access to PoWs” The Observer May 25, 2003; “Behind the Wire” Human Rights First March 2005; in 2006 Amnesty International writes that the ICRC “does not have access to brigade and division internment facilities of the MNF – that is, military bases where detainees are mainly held during the first days or weeks of their detention.,” “Beyond Abu Ghraib,” p. 34. [40] Matt Kelley, “US Holds About 10,500 Prisoners in [41] The information in this section is largely drawn from Human Rights First, “Behind the Wire,” March, 2005 and “Beyond Abu Ghraib.” [42] See Taguba Report, p. 38. [43] [44] George W. Bush, speech at the US Army War College, [45] “Beyond Abu Ghraib,” p. 18. This number was taken by Amnesty from the official MNF web site. [46] Associated Press, “Inmates Transferred out of Abu Ghraib as Coalition Hands Off Control,” September 3, 2006. See also Nancy A. Youssef, “Abu Ghraib No Longer Houses any Prisoners, Iraqi Officials Say,” McClatchy Newspapers, August 26, 2006. [47] Patrick Quinn, “US War Prisons Legal Vacuum for 14,000,” Associated Press, September 16, 2006 [48] CID Report of Investigation, Department of the Army, 10th Military Police Detachment, Third Military Police Group, Camp Bucca, Um Qasr, June 8, 2003. [49] Jackie Spinner, “Remote Facility in [50] “US Military Occupation Facilities – Umm Qasr.” Global Security. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/umm-qasr.htm. April 2006. Amnesty International reported 7,365 prisoners at Bucca in November, 2005, see “Beyond Abu Ghraib,” (March, 2006), p. 18. [51] Jackie Spinner, “Remote Facility,” op. cit. [52] Bradley Graham, “Prisoner Uprising In [53] Multinational Force, “New Theater Internment Facility Opens in [54] “Beyond Abu Ghraib,” p. 18. [55]Douglas Jehl, “Earlier Jail Seen as Incubator for Abuses,” New York Times, May 15, 2004. [56] “Beyond Abu Ghraib,” p. 40. [57]“ICRC Report,” p. 4 [58] Patrick Quinn, “US War Prisons;” Bradley Graham, “US to Expand.” [59] UNAMI, “1 July-31 August, 2006,” p. 14. [60] Audrey Gillan, “Senior Behavior Infected Soldiers,” The Guardian, February 11, 2005; [61]Audrey Gillan, “Allegations of Ill-Treatment After Protest by Iraqi Detainees,” The Guardian, December 24, 2005. [62]Ibid. [63]Ibid. [64]Amnesty International counted 650 persons held at the brigade or divisional level on a list published in November 2005 - “Beyond Abu Ghraib” p. 17. [65] Schmitt and [66] “No Blood, No Foul,” pp. 38-47. [67] See "ICRC Report,” page 5. We have compiled the list of
prisons additionally from reports of Amnesty International, Human Rights
Watch and Human Rights First. A “forward operating base” is a small,
temporary base located close to a theater of operations. For commentary on
local sites, see White and Higham, op. cit. GlobalSecurity.org had a list
of forward operating bases in [68] Christian Peacemaker Teams, [69] White and Higham, op. cit. Department of the Army, The Inspector General, “Detainee Operations Inspection, July 21, 2004 [The Mikolashek Report] [70] Taguba Report documents a case in which Military Interrogation personnel at Abu Ghraib asked guards to remove mattresses, sheets and clothing and it otherwise talks about demands by MI and by the CIA that guards pressure prisoners by creating unbearable conditions. [71] “ICRC Report,” p. 17. [72] Ibid. [73]Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall. “Before and After Abu Ghraib,
a [74] Packer, George. “The Lesson of Tal Afar.” The New Yorker. 10 April 2006. [75] Ibid. [76] Taguba Report, pp. 27-31. This list with brief descriptions covers the period June 2003-January 2004. [77] Taguba Report. pp. 28-29. [78] Robert Jay Lifton, “Doctors and Torture,” New England Journal
of Medicine, July 29, 2004 and Steven H. Miles, “Abu Graib: its legacy
for military medicine,” The Lancet, Vol 364 (August 21, 2004), 725-729.
The Journal of the American Medical Association has also run an article on
this matter. See C. Reis et al, “Physician Participation in Human Rights
Abuses in [79] Ibid., p. 726. [80] Ibid. [81] Ibid., pp. 726, 728. [82] Ibid., p. 726. [83] Ibid., p. 728 and Lifton, “Doctors and Torture.” [84] As quoted in Mariam Karouny and Alastair Macdonald, “Iraq Slams U.S. Detentions, Immunity For Troops,” Reuters, September 14, 2005. [85] UN Doc. S/2005/373, Annan, Kofi. “Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 30 of resolution 1546” 7 June 2005, para. 72. [86] UN Doc. S/2006/137, Annan, Kofi. “Report of the Secretary General Pursuant to Paragraph 30 of Resolution 1546” 3 March 2006. [87] All UNAMI bi-monthly reports provide commentary on the detention system.
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