9,000 new detainees since start of 'surge'; 83,000 now held by U.S. or Iraqis

Above: Detainees at Camp Buca, a U.S. detention facility. Under emergency powers, Iraqis may be held upon suspicion and without trial. Some detainees are as young as 11.

U.S. military operations associated with the troop increase in Baghdad have boosted the number of detainees held in American facilities in Iraq to about 23,000, up 5,000 from four months ago, according to Army Col. Mark Martins, the top military lawyer in Iraq. That number represents an all-time high since the U.S. occupation began in 2003.

Iraqi security forces have picked up 4,052 detainees during the increase, bringing the overall number of security detainees now held in Iraqi prisons to 60,000, said Judge Abdul Satar Bayrkdar, spokesman for the Iraqi Higher Judicial Council. About 1,100 of those picked up since the increase began were later released for lack of evidence, while the rest were transferred to the criminal court system, he said.

Martins, the chief judge advocate for Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said that while Iraq is holding detainees under its domestic law, the United States holds them under "the law of armed conflict" standards set by the Geneva Conventions. That means that U.S. military forces have determined "that a detainee represents an imperative threat to the security and stability of Iraq."

Martins said at a news conference in Baghdad that a detainee's status is reviewed every six months, but that detainees are transferred from U.S. custody to the Iraqi criminal court system only if adequate evidence is available.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

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