Most prisoners in Iraq jails called ‘threat to security’

Nearly all 8,080 prisoners being held by U.S. authorities in Iraq are considered security threats: insurgents linked to attacks on coalition forces, and terrorists and former officials of Saddam Hussein’s regime suspected of having useful intelligence, military officials say.

“The goal is to gain intelligence,” said a coalition spokesman in Iraq. “Under the rules of the Geneva Convention, those in detention can be exploited for intelligence.”

Additionally, the U.S. Army has a small number of Iraqi criminals in custody, a couple hundred arrested for breaking local laws. Up to 7,000 criminals, who until March were kept with security detainees, already have been turned over to the new Iraqi government ministry.

“Security detainees are those who are considered an imperative threat to security,” said the spokesman, who spoke on condition he not be identified by name. “These are people who have been identified through means such as intelligence and reconnaissance as being a threat to coalition forces or Iraqis, or people living and working in Iraq legally.”

The approximately 7,800 security detainees make up about 95 percent of the prison population, and are the category of prisoners photographed nude and being abused at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison, where about 4,000 prisoners are being held, U.S. officials said.

“These are people who have been captured as a consequence of anticoalition or anti-Iraqi activity,” the coalition spokesman said.

“High-value detainees” are held at a prison located at Baghdad International Airport, about 10 miles west of the capital, and are intensely interrogated, which involves regular questioning and psychological and physical pressure designed to make them reveal information.

Saddam Hussein, who was captured in December, is believed to be at this prison, called Camp Cropper, along with about 100 high-ranking prisoners. Officials have said that interrogations of the Iraqi leader have not produced any good intelligence information.

The high-value detainees include former Iraqi officials on the “Top 55” most-wanted Iraqis. A total of 42 of the most-wanted officials are in custody. About 60 others, including intelligence officials, generals and Ba’ath Party officials are included in the high-value prisoner population.

Interrogations are performed by military intelligence personnel and a small group of CIA officers.

According to an Army report on prisoner abuses made public last week, the CIA also kept a small number of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison that were handled secretly and outside of formal prison administration. The CIA prisoners were called “ghost detainees” by the Army because of the secrecy surrounding their detention.

At one point, the ghost prisoners were moved around the facility “to hide them from a visiting International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) survey team,” according to the Army report.

The CIA detainees numbered less than 20 and their registration at the prison was delayed for intelligence operational reasons.

Most of the other prisoners are held at a facility known as Camp Bucca at Umm Qasr, south of Basra.

The spokesman said many of the security detainees are picked up during raids and other engagements, such as counterambushes, and are screened at local holding points and then taken to one of three prisons based on what kind of information they may have.

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