Bucca

Hello everyone,

I am back at Speicher for a little while after spending a couple of weeks down in the southern reaches of Iraq. Although the trip to and from Bucca was somewhat grueling, it was nothing compared to getting back in time to watch the Ohio State football team embarrass itself on national TV once again. I suppose that this is as good a year as any to miss the opportunity to watch much football. As for that Army football team, when the head coach has to apologize to the Army for the performance of his team, you know something isn’t right over on the Hudson River.

I spent the past couple of weeks presiding over a Multi-National Force Release Committee (MNFRC) down at a place called Camp Bucca. Bucca is a Theater Internment Facility (TIF). It currently houses about 17,000 guests, and that number is decreasing as the MNFRC boards do their work. Bucca is located about 800 meters north of the Kuwait border and it is south of Basra.

The purpose of the MNFRC boards is to review the case file for each detainee to determine which of the detainees no longer present a security threat to the multi-national forces in Iraq or to the Iraqi government or citizens. Each detainee, no matter what their reason for being in the TIF, is given a hearing at a MNFRC board once every six months. Each board consists of three US military representatives (senior NCOs and officers) who review the files on one day and hold a hearing with the detainee present the next day.

Note that the people being held at Bucca are called “detainees” and not Prisoners of War. By international law and Geneva Convention statutes, they are unlawful combatants if they were fighting against coalition or Iraqi forces. In plain language, to be lawful combatants under the Geneva Convention standards, a person must be fighting while in a distinguishable uniform, he must have a command structure, he must carry his weapons openly, and he can’t hide among the civilian population. The actual verbiage of the Convention is a little more official sounding, but that is the gist of it.

Despite their unlawful status, the US treats the detainees like no other nation would consider treating captured enemy personnel. The commander of the TIF operation at Bucca makes it clear that the press has an open door to visit the facility any time they choose. He says that there is nothing that the US will hide down there. A few weeks ago, a western reporter did visit Bucca, and he asked to speak to Iraqi families who were visiting. As you can imagine with a “Western reporter,” this guy was looking for an Abu Graib moment. He interviewed 20 different sets of families after they conducted visitation with their relatives in the TIF. Of the 20 families, none told him that their loved ones were suffering any mistreatment or abuse. Many told him that they were grateful for the educational opportunities being offered, and one mother, who has 2 sons in the TIF, told the reporter that this is the first time in her sons’ lives that they were “making something” of themselves by taking advantage of the educational offerings in Bucca. She said that she actually hopes they finish their education before they are released. Naturally, the reporter reported none of this and instead wrote a story of how bad these families missed their loved ones (I’m sure that they do). By the way, the US pays the families mileage for traveling to see their kin at Bucca. While at the facility, they are fed a meal and the kids are given gifts.

While in the TIF, the detainees each have the opportunity to take a wide variety of educational and vocational courses. It probably won’t surprise anyone to learn that many of these detainees cannot read, so they are taught to read and perform math, among many other courses. They are also offered an Islamic studies course, and no, it is not the Saudi extremist version. Many of the detainees are here because they were told that Islam demands that they commit certain acts against the infidel. Not being able to read, they don’t know any different. The Islamic studies courses are taught by Iraqi clerics who provide a very different take on Islam than what so many of the detainees were taught. The detainees are served 3 full meals each day, and they receive medical and dental treatment at the same facility and by the same medical personnel that the US forces use at Bucca. Many of these Iraqis see a dentist for the first time in their lives at Bucca. Many have surgeries that they would have never have been able to receive in their hometowns. The conduct of the US forces towards the detainees at Bucca is designed to teach the detainees that the lessons they have been taught about the evil Americans were probably incorrect lessons. Obviously, no one wants to be stuck behind high walls and concertina wire for several years, but my point is, these detainees, most of whom have engaged in some type of activity designed to hurt or kill US or Iraqi forces, are given first class treatment regardless of what they were accused of doing to earn a spot in the TIF.

As for the board itself, it was interesting duty. To determine whether a person should be recommended for release or not, we were not simply supposed to focus on the charges against the detainee. We were not conducting a criminal trial to determine guilt or innocence for past conduct. We were conducting hearings to determine who we believed could be released with a high expectation that they would no longer commit negative acts against us. (The recidivism rate after several years of MNFRC boards, by the way, is only .7% - that is “point 7 percent”). One of the factors that we had to take into account is the detainee’s willingness to admit that what they did was wrong. Unfortunately, none of these guys admit that they did anything in the first place. They can be caught on tape laying an IED or shooting at US forces, or they can be shot while engaged in a fire fight, or they can have a hand blown off while emplacing an IED, but that doesn’t matter. In their version, they were just walking down the street heading towards the mosque to pray when out of nowhere shots rang out and here they are. How about the explosive residue on your hands? (What is an explosive?) How about the anti-aircraft weapon buried in your back yard? (Those damn neighbors probably snuck it there one night). How about the 152 millimeter field artillery round sitting on your dining room table with wires hanging out of it? (You know, I never even noticed that). Like I said, it was interesting. There were certainly people in the TIF who were swept up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. These brave AQI/ISI souls and their Jaysh al-Mahdi counterparts do fight amongst civilians, so oftentimes these civilians get hurt or they get detained. The MNFRC boards are a way to help sort this out.

On the other hand, we came face to face with some hard core killers as well. Some came in with their horns clearly visible, and some were very sophisticated. There is a way to ask the right question in the right way to shine the light on what is really inside a person. You have all heard the stories of the medieval brutality that some of these people inflict on others, and when a person is capable of doing something like that to other people, that piece of them comes out. No, you don’t have to waste time wondering how many of these types are recommended for release.

The leaders of the insurgent groups are generally intelligent people. Unfortunately, there were a high number of high school teachers and college professors among them. They have easy access to young people and they use this access to recruit for the insurgency. These are the people who would come in and explain that an insurgent is a dumb and poor young person who can be easily manipulated to carry out senseless acts of violence against others and, as educated and respected community members, they certainly wouldn’t fit the profile of an insurgent. At that point, I would agree that they did not fit the profile of an insurgent fighter, but then I would ask them to do the board the favor of describing the people who recruit these poor, easily manipulated young people. Not one of those who we thought were the recruiters and leaders would go down that road. None of them would take the chance of describing themselves to us. That was telling in and of itself. If a detainee is recommended for release, the US Brigade Combat Team in the area to which they would be released has the opportunity to object to that release based on their knowledge of the person. The obvious goal is not to release the real bad guys or the leaders who can easily assemble another group of fighters.

I know that everyone has been hearing that Iraq is calling for a specific date for the US to leave Iraq. Publicly, that is a true statement, but also publicly, and not widely reported, is the real story that Prime Minister Maliki is looking for a pull out date based on conditions. Immediately after Maliki told his party faithful last month that he is demanding that the US be completely out of Iraq by 2011, one of his aides came over to a reporter and said the following: “The agreement (with the US) will be met with significant discomfort, so Iraqi officials will resort to using the dates mentioned in the agreement to sell it to the public, even though they might be used in a guidance way. If you ask the Prime Minister, ‘What happens if the situation on the ground changes before 2011?’, then he would obviously say that the dates might need to change.” Keep in mind that it is election season over here, too.

I didn’t get many pictures this trip. The aircraft you see is the Marine Osprey touching down at Bucca. We hooked up with the Marines over in Fallujah and rode to Bucca in that thing. It has a unique feel to it as it tries to figure out if it is a plane or helicopter. I know people have heard that things are looking up over in the Marine sector in Anbar Province, so you may be wondering if I can confirm this. I was only over there a couple of days, but I can tell you that I did meet two Marines who could both read AND write, and I met a third who could speak in complete sentences, so yes, I would say that things are looking up in Anbar. The second picture is from the outside of the TIF looking in. That is just a small portion of the TIF as the complex can hold over 20,000 detainees if needed.

Everyone take care and enjoy the rest of your September.