Reading this article, I find myself desperately struggling to find an innocent explanation – and failing. The gist is that the US can’t hand over control of prisons to Iraqis, because the Iraqi government has too much respect for human rights.
The commander of U.S. prison operations, which include Abu Ghraib and three other sites, said he could not predict when the Iraqi government will match U.S. standards of care for detainees and pass laws allowing it to hold people without trial — key conditions for handing over detainees, numbering 14,700 today.
The US authorities believe that they, unlike Iraqis, do have the right to waive due process:
while the United States points to a United Nations Security Council Resolution allowing it to detain people without charge as suspected guerrillas, the Iraqi government would need to pass its own legislation to do that
I’m not sure where they think this legal authorization comes from. All I can see is that Resolution 1511
authorizes a multinational force under unified command to take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq
Resolution 1546
Decides that the multinational force shall have the authority to take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq
If that’s all there is, this is as legally dubious as it is morally dubious – but quite possibly I’ve missed something elsewhere. Anybody want to see what information Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have collected on this?
I won’t go into the ethical and political dimensions to why this is bad; no doubt anyone reading this post will already be convinced that giving people a trial before jailing them is a Good Thing.
[Cross-post from the [Iraq Analysis Group blog](http://www.iraqanalysis.org/blog)]