No pattern of defying the Geneva Conventions here, move along
Some Iraqis Held Outside Control of Top General
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: May 17, 2004
WASHINGTON, May 16 — About 100 high-ranking Iraqi prisoners held for months at a time in spartan conditions on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport are being detained under a special chain of command, under conditions not subject to approval by the top American commander in Iraq, according to military officials.
The unusual lines of authority in the detainees' handling are part of a tangled network of authority over prisoners in Iraq, in which the military police, military intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, various military commanders and the Pentagon itself have all played a role. Congressional investigators who are looking into the scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners say those arrangements have made it difficult to determine where the final authority lies.[P6: emphasis added because I do not believe this effect was accidental]
At least as of February, many of the 100 or so prisoners categorized by American officials as "high value detainees" because of the special intelligence they are believed to possess, had been held since June 2003 for nearly 23 hours a day in strict solitary confinement in small concrete cells without sunlight, according to a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
While not tantamount to the sexual humiliation and other abuses inflicted on Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, the conditions have been described by the Red Cross as a violation of the Geneva Conventions, the international treaty that the Bush administration has said it regards as "fully applicable" to all prisoners held by the United States in Iraq.
Oops. I guess I wrote that title too soon, huh?
