By Command Sgt. Maj. Edgar W. Dahl
Task Force Bucca Public Affairs Office
CAMP BUCCA, Iraq – Hundreds of miles from Baghdad, tucked in the southeast corner of Iraq near the deep water port of Umm Qasr, and only 800 meters from the border of Kuwait, is Forward Operating Base Bucca. Within this one mile by two mile expanse of dry desert is the world's largest military detention camp. Thousands of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, other coalition Force members and civilians call it home.
Inside the wire, the 19,000 detainees under the care and custody of these professionals call it other things. For them, Bucca is the place they ended up after being captured conducting insurgent acts across Iraq. For those who have not visited Camp Bucca, it cannot be easily explained. One thing this place is not, however, is Abu Ghraib in 2003—far from it—literally and figuratively.
During the day, the steady wind tugs at tent ropes, swirls dust, and blows trash into the endless miles of concertina wire that enclose the compounds of the Theater Internment Facility. At night, thousands of lights wash the area in a fluorescent and halogen glow. Generators hum loudly, spew exhaust, and add to the sterile, industrial, all business ambiance of the enclosure. Flying over the 'city blocks' of the TIF at night by helicopter is something better seen than described. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, hundreds of tower scouts surround the compounds in their high perches and roving guards enforce compliance with the rules, keep watch over the place and log hundreds of miles walking in rectangular beats around their guard post. It is work that is hot, dusty, physically and mentally draining, and monotonous—most of the time.
All the while, detainees get moved to hospital appointments, get fed, go before review boards, attend school and get shipped to different compounds, among the other multitude of tasks required to care for a small city's worth of people. Several times a week, some board busses for their journey home. Frequent and necessary hands-on searches ensure the safety of both the guards and detainees. Concerns from the detainees get passed through the wire verbally and in writing to non-commissioned officers and officers that act as compound shift leaders and officers-in-charge. In many cases, these are U.S. service members who are doing this type of work for the first time in their careers.
The daily grind of Bucca is unique in American military history. The distinctiveness of this operation stems from several distinguishing aspects. One, we are not detaining enemy soldiers like in past wars. Two, we have gone way beyond housing these detainees and just ensuring care and custody. Third, we hold processes that could lead to their eventual release. Great Americans endure this grind every day and they do it to a high standard.
Armed with the outdated military doctrine that had failed to keep up with the asymmetric battlefield, the initial few years of doing Detainee Operations in Iraq resulted in a nearly total focus on care and custody portion of the detained. In other words: keep them fed, housed, safe and quiet. There was no obligation or effort to rehabilitate or transform the detainees into worthy Iraqi citizens capable of being released back into society. There was no process of training them in vocations, exposing them to basic education, allowing them visitors, providing them alternatives to insurgent activity or enlightening them on the true interpretations of the Holy Qur'an. There was wire, guns and slogging out the hot, dusty days, which was just as true for the guards as the detainees.
With no hope of eventual release, nothing to keep them busy, and with too much time on their hands, the detainees became part of a system that proved to be a breeding ground for insurgents. Extremist detainees mixed with moderates and pecking orders within the compounds went down from the toughest to the meek. Al Qaida in Iraq, Takfiri, and Jaish Al Mahdi detainees bullied the often unwilling but unable to resist moderates and passive detainees with their firebrand view of the world. Detainee Operations in Iraq had become an 'Insurgent university,' and we were losing the 'war inside the wire.' This brewing storm manifested itself in detainee non-compliance, riots, burning of compounds, injury to CF and detainees and even death of detainees. Something had to be done.
As a result of the need to do things differently, the care and custody portion of DO, while still a necessary and primary function, had to be supplemented. First, extremist detainees had to be separated from the moderates. Second, the detainees required hope. Third, they needed something to do. Fourth, they wanted to prepare for release. What resulted to fill that vacuum was what DO is today at Camp Bucca. It is a far cry from the care and custody 'warehousing' culture that characterized DO prior. Someone who did it three, two, or even one year ago would not recognize DO today. It changes daily—and it needs to.
Today, detainees are provided education in reading and writing Arabic, mathematics and English. They receive religious instruction from Islamic clerics and go to Islamic discussion programs designed to counter twisted and incorrect interpretations of the Qur'an. They learn woodworking, art, and participate in leadership and work programs that include work as compound chiefs, interpreters, Imams, teachers, barbers, food handlers and compound cleanliness and maintenance workers. They also have an opportunity to obtain civics classes which expose them to the workings of the current Iraqi government. They recently formed soccer leagues comprised of teams not only from different compounds—but from different Islamic sects, tribes and geographical areas. The games went off without incident.
Moreover, extremist elements are removed from the general population and housed separately from the moderate detainees. Visitors from all over Iraq journey to Bucca to see their family members and the detainees are allowed to talk to and hug their children, wives and family. Detainees go to a review board every six months and are permitted to present their case to a panel made up of a field grade officer, a company grade officer and a senior NCO from tactical units across Iraq who are flown in for this purpose. That panel recommends whether to release, further intern the detainee with access to services to better himself, or –for the more extreme individuals -- continue to intern. Many are released, and this hope of eventual liberation buoys their optimism of return to their home, family, tribe and neighborhood. This hope is the most important gift the CF has to give to detainees.
Initiatives in the last year at Bucca have been embraced by the assigned coalition and U.S. Armed Forces and their efforts at the E4 and E5 level have paid off dramatically in the reduction of riots, detainee assaults, extremist activity and non-compliance. Extremist labors at inciting unrest have been nullified with their separation from moderates; and moderate detainees immerse themselves in Islamic discussions programs, vocational training and reading and writing—many of them for the first time. Mostly, they have an expectation of eventual release—hope. They moderate their behavior and know that any act of disobedience could result in continued detention. With a recidivism rate of less than one percent after thousands of releases, it is a result enviable by any large detention system anywhere in the world.
Detainees are still fed, housed and safeguarded. The care and custody portion never ended. But DO in Iraq today is much more than that. It is dynamic, evolutionary, changing and fluid—just like the asymmetric battlefield. Detainee Operations at Camp Bucca today is conducted professionally and seriously by the best Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors, Coast Guardsmen and civilians the coalition and America have to offer. On their backs; is the task of once and for all wiping away the memory of Abu Ghraib and changing the outdated frame of mind that paints DO as 'watching bad guys behind wire, throwing food in and not letting them escape.' Detainee Operations is strategic, important and vital. It has to be done right; and it is done right everyday in this southeast corner of Iraq where the Post Exchange is a small trailer, the temperature is normally 10 degrees hotter than Baghdad, there are no swimming pools or large palaces and the intake of detainees is constant. It isn't what you think—come and see us.
| Date Taken: | 07.18.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 07.18.2008 11:02 |
| Story ID: | 21610 |
| Location: | IQ |
| Web Views: | 319 |
| Downloads: | 193 |
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