CPTnet
January 14, 2004

IRAQ: Hidden U.S. prisons

by Cliff Kindy,

On January 4, Sheila Provencher and Cliff Kindy met with Haji Ali in central
Baghdad. Ali is a staff person for Victims of American Occupation Prison
Association. He says he is the person in the famous picture from Abu Ghraib
Prison showing a hooded detainee standing on a stool with electrical wires
attached to his body. CPT has met several times with members of this group
because of their direct connection to Iraqi detainees.

Haji Ali told the CPTers that military base detention facilities hold
detainees for long periods to cover up how many detainees the Multinational
Forces (MNF) are actually holding. Some media report that the detainee
population has doubled since the U.S. assault on Fallujah in November 2004,
but the number is impossible to confirm because the prisoners are not in the
"official" prisons like Abu Ghraib and Bucca. He also mentioned a glass
factory in Ramadi, near Fallujah, that was being used as a detention
facility.

Ali then shared a map, dated July 2004, that located U.S. prisons scattered
across Iraq. It identifies eighteen prisons, though Multinational Forces
(MNF) usually refer only to Abu Ghraib and Bucca Camp, and, sometimes, Camp
Cropper, at the Baghdad International Airport, which holds more prominent
detainees. The map identifies these three and notes that they, along with
one other prison, have interrogation sections operated by intelligence
units.

The map identifies two other prisons as "temporary holding facilities."
Another in Mosul is a youth and children facility. One in Erbil is a
women's prison.

"Many detainees in prison are there based on false information," Ali said.
The International Red Cross reported last year that the U.S. holds 70 - 90%
of Iraqi detainees without cause. With secret prisons and unknown numbers
of Iraqi detainees, human rights groups have difficulty monitoring U.S.
treatment of Iraqi detainees.

Haji Ali told Provencher and Kindy that his organization has contacts with
all kinds of people, even those in the resistance. "U.S. prisons are the
best training grounds for the resistance," he said. "Prisoners feel
hopeless when they are mistreated. Will this treatment make U.S. citizens
feel safe in Iraq or the Middle East? Kuwait has been the strongest ally of
the U.S., but the people there reject the U.S. The United States is
fighting terrorism and pushing people into being enemies." Haji Ali
concluded the meeting by telling Provencher and Kindy, "U.S. human rights
organizations and U.S. people must intervene to end the suffering of
Iraqis."