Cultivating The Breeding Grounds Of Hate

Usually I dump on Kevin Ferris of the Philadelphia Inquirer for concocting all of his war-loving, Democrat/liberal-hating literary dreck from the confines of southeastern Pennsylvania, but in his most recent literary exercise yesterday, he travels to Baghdad to write about the U.S. detainee facilities at Camp Bucca and Camp Cropper (he writes primarily about Cropper, part of the military’s attempt to separate the innocent from al Qaeda and other extremists, apparently)…

At a briefing Monday at Cropper, officers said the detainee population peaked at 25,000 last October - news reports have said 30,000. Today, there are almost 18,000, including 3,500 al-Qaeda members, 2,100 "high-value" detainees - think former regime leadership - and 163 foreign nationals. The majority, 83 percent, are Sunnis.

About 25 detainees are added daily, but twice that number are released each day. Last month, during Ramadan, it was 81. At Cropper, they report that of the 13,236 released since September 2007, only 97 have had to be recaptured, for a recidivism rate of 0.7 percent. Before September 2007, the rate was about 7 percent.

Part of the difference has been the counterinsurgency strategy implemented within the detainee camps. There, too, protection and separation would occur, under the direction of Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, who took command in spring 2007.

…

Under Stone's leadership, camps began separating al-Qaeda from those deemed lesser risks. The evaluations are conducted by coalition staff, as well as local imams, teachers and counselors. Reading, vocational and religion programs were begun to help detainees safely reintegrate into society.

At Camp Cropper, the results of two of their programs are on display: the "Cropper Camel," a homemade stuffed animal often presented by graduates of the sewing class to family members during camp visits, as well as paintings by detainees who have joined the art program.

All detainees are invited to join the classes, though al-Qaeda members refuse, officers at Cropper say.

I am in no position to personally evaluate the effectiveness of Gen. Stone’s approach at Camp Cropper, but I do have some questions.

First, why is so much of Ferris’ column devoted to Cropper, when, according to this story…

…(Camp) Bucca is the U.S. military's largest detention center in Iraq. It currently holds about 18,000 Iraqis, the majority of those in U.S. custody. An additional 3,000 are at Camp Cropper at Baghdad Airport.

…

Since 2003, approximately 65,000 Iraqis have been officially detained by the U.S. military. Another 65,000 have been held for short periods and not sent to a major internment facility such as Bucca or Camp Cropper. The latter facility serves as the system's in- and out-processing center.

So Cropper isn’t even the final destination for many of the detainees? Gee, isn’t that something we should find out from Ferris’ column?

Detention can be extended indefinitely. Capt. Cornelia Schultz, a military spokeswoman, said approximately 10 percent of detainees have been in custody since at least 2005, 20 percent have been held since 2006, 50 percent since 2007 and 20 percent were detained this year. At the moment, overall numbers are dropping, with an average of 45 detainees being released and 30 entering the system each day.

Among the issues being negotiated under a new memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iraq is an Iraqi demand that the U.S. military no longer detain Iraqis without the Baghdad government's approval.

"The idea is not to tie the hands of the ground troops," said Capt. Dylan Imperato, a military lawyer at Cropper.

Understandable, if it ends up saving the lives of our people, even if we are playing “catch-up” (and as always, “no one could have foreseen this”).

And here’s another question I have that I wish Ferris had asked; what about the kids (here)…

US military authorities, operating as the Multinational Forces in Iraq, were as of May 12, 2008 holding 513 Iraqi children as “imperative threats to security,” and have transferred an unknown number of other children to Iraqi custody. According to a recent report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), children in Iraqi custody are at risk of physical abuse.

“In conflicts where it was not directly involved, the US has been a leader in helping child soldiers re-enter society,” said Clarisa Bencomo, Middle East children’s researcher at Human Rights Watch. “That kind of leadership is unfortunately missing in Iraq.”

On May 22, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (met) in Geneva to review US compliance with the Optional Protocol on children in armed conflict, which the US ratified in 2002. The treaty bans the recruitment and use of persons under 18 in hostilities by any party to a conflict, and requires states to provide all appropriate assistance for the physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of such children under their jurisdiction or control.

Since 2003, the US has detained some 2,400 children in Iraq, including children as young as 10. Detention rates rose drastically in 2007 to an average of 100 new children a month from 25 a month in 2006. The US holds most children at US Camp Cropper in Baghdad, but has also held children at the main US military detention facility, Camp Bucca near Basra. US officials earlier this year told Human Rights Watch that they separate children from adults at these facilities but do not separate very young or particularly vulnerable children from other child detainees.

In early 2007, a 17-year-old boy was reportedly strangled to death by a fellow child detainee at Camp Cropper.

Child detainees, no differently from adults, may be interrogated over the course of days or weeks by military units in the field before being sent to the main detention centers. They have no real opportunity to challenge their detention: earlier this year US officials told Human Rights Watch that children are not provided with lawyers and do not attend the one-week or one-month detention reviews after their transfer to Camp Cropper. In addition, children have very limited contact with their families. While the US does assign each child a military “advocate” at the mandatory six-month detention review, that advocate has no training in juvenile justice or child development.

As of February 2008, the reported average length of detention for children was more than 130 days, and some children have been detained for more than a year without charge or trial, in violation of the Coalition Provisional Authority memorandum on criminal procedures. That memorandum’s section on “security internee process” states, “Any person under the age of 18 interned at any time shall in all cases be released not later than 12 months after the initial date of internment.”

“The vast majority of children detained in Iraq languish for months in US military custody,” Bencomo said. “The US should provide these children with immediate access to lawyers and an independent judicial review of their detention.”

Again, I’m not trying to impugn the efforts of our military, though it’s plain that the process started under Gen. Stone (with the blessing of The Almighty Petraeus, of course) still has a few bugs, to say the least.

And that’s not something we would learn from Ferris’ column, which is more appropriate for Stars N’ Stripes than a mass circulation daily newspaper, even one as propagandistic as the Inquirer.