Psyche, Science, and Society

25,000 US detainees in Iraq

October 12th, 2007

The mass attention to the abuse of those in detention began with the April 2004 Abu Ghraib revelations. Yet both human rights activists and we psychologists have focussed most upon abuses that occurred at Guantanamo, and more recently, at the CIA “black sites.” So we need a reminder that there are huge numbers of detainees held in Iraq, in support of an illegal and brutal occupation, and more held in Afghanistan. AFP provides such a reminder with an article telling us that US forces are holding an astounding almost 25,000 Iraqis in their detention centers in that devastated country:

US detains nearly 25,000 in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US militaryis holding nearly 25,000 people in its prisons in Iraq, 860 of whom are under the age of 16, the general in charge of their detention said on Wednesday.

Eighty-three percent of inmates are Sunnis and 16 percent are Shiite, General Douglas Stone told a press conference in Baghdad.

Egyptians, Iranians, Saudis and Syrians number among 280 foreign nationals imprisoned by the US military in Iraq, he said.

There are two prisons run by the Americans on Iraqi soil: one at their Camp Cropper base outside Baghdad, the other at Camp Bucca near the southern port of Umm Qasr.

These prison receive an average of 60 news inmates each day, according to Stone, while the average length of time for incarceration of a detainee is 300 days.

Since the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in mid-September, the US military has freed around 50 to 60 prisoners every day.

We know very little of what goes on in those detention centers, since Rumsfeld ordered cameras removed as soon as the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. It is reported that there are psychologists in Behavioral Science onsultation Teams [BSTs] there, but we have almost no information about what they are doing.

We should not assume that no news is good news. Last year American contractor and whistle-blower Donald Vance was held for three months in the US prison at Camp Cropper. As was reported in the New York Times, his treatment was extremely brutal:

American guards arrived at the man’s cell periodically over the next several days, shackled his hands and feet, blindfolded him and took him to a padded room for interrogation, the detainee said. After an hour or two, he was returned to his cell, fatigued but unable to sleep.

The fluorescent lights in his cell were never turned off, he said. At most hours, heavy metal or country music blared in the corridor. He said he was rousted at random times without explanation and made to stand in his cell. Even lying down, he said, he was kept from covering his face to block out the light, noise and cold. And when he was released after 97 days he was exhausted, depressed and scared….

Five times in the first week, guards shackled the prisoners’ hands and feet, covered their eyes, placed towels over their heads and put them in wheelchairs to be pushed to a room with a carpeted ceiling and walls. There they were questioned by an array of officials who, they said they were told, represented the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

“It’s like boom, boom, boom,” Mr. Ertel said. “They are drilling you. ‘We know you did this, you are part of this gun smuggling thing.’ And I’m saying you have it absolutely way off.”

The two men slept in their 9-by-9-foot cells on concrete slabs, with worn three-inch foam mats. With the fluorescent lights on and the temperature in the 50s, Mr. Vance said, “I paced myself to sleep, walking until I couldn’t anymore. I broke the straps on two pair of flip-flops.”

As is usual,the military denied Vance’s account:

Asked about the lights, the detainee operations spokeswoman said that the camp’s policy was to turn off cell lights at night “to allow detainees to sleep.”

It was only the fact that Mr Vancewas American, and innocent, that got the press to report on his brutal treatment. What is being done to those 25,000 Iraqis? I don’t know. But I think we, the American public, should know.

Entry Filed under: Interrogation, Iraq, Torture