U.S. military says it keeps 21,000 detainees in Iraq

www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-02 18:46:15

BAGHDAD, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) --

The U.S. military said on Saturday that roughly 21,000 Iraqi detainees are in its custody at two U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, despite releasing more than 10,000 other detainees so far in 2008.

A military statement revealed that the U.S. troops currently hold a total of around 21,000 detainees, some 17,000 of them at Camp Bucca near Basra, and about 3,000 others at Camp Cropper in Baghdad.

The total number also included a dozen women, over 300 juveniles, about 200 foreigners and about 200 detainees over the age of 60, the statement said.

The statement also said that more than 10,000 detainees have been released from the U.S.-run prisons in Iraq this year "since implementation of programs designed to better prepare detainees for reintegration into society and to reduce recidivism."

The U.S troops are authorized by UN Security Council Resolution1790 and the Geneva Convention to detain anyone "necessary for imperative reasons of security," the statement said.

"There is a detainee review process in place, which judges security risk, so that at any point in that process, detainees can be retained or released," it added.

Editor: Wang Hongjiang

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.