Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Wall Street Journal
September 18, 2008
Pg. 22
U.S. Military Aims to Temper Detainees' Religious Beliefs Before Their Release
By Yochi J. Dreazen
BAGHDAD -- The U.S. focus in Iraq is fast shifting from fighting a war to preparing for its aftermath.
The cornerstone of the transition is an effort to rehabilitate and release thousands of Iraqi detainees, including many former insurgents. According to the military, there are more than 19,000 Iraqi detainees in American custody, down from 26,000 in November 2007.
The effort, centered in Baghdad and Basra, includes courses in literacy, mathematics and moderate Islamic thought. The military hopes the courses will temper the detainees' religious beliefs and give them the skills to find and hold a steady job.
"The idea is to move from punishment to rehabilitation," said Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, one of the officers leading the push. "It's not enough to simply lock these guys up and hope they somehow turn into productive members of Iraqi society."
Few in the military question the need for the rehabilitation effort, but some wonder whether troops should be leading it. Some officers privately complain the program is turning them into social workers who coddle violent extremists. But few are willing to voice those criticisms because the effort is a favored project of Gen. David Petraeus, the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Gen. Petraeus believes the country's stability will be shaped by how well former insurgents are integrated back into Iraqi society. He sees the rehabilitation push as a powerful weapon in that fight.
The military has made such noncombat efforts before. When U.S. forces were embroiled in a long and bloody insurgency in the Philippines early last century, American commanders mounted a largely successful push to rehabilitate thousands of former Filipino rebels.
But the scale of the effort in Iraq is unprecedented and influenced by nonmilitary sources. U.S. officials said they drew from a Saudi Arabian model in developing the American rehabilitation effort. The Saudi government recently launched an initiative to temper the religious extremism of many of its prisoners through classes in moderate Islamic law and beliefs.
If the U.S. military's efforts don't succeed in tempering extremism, skeptics worry that many of the released Iraqis will rejoin the fight and threaten recent security gains.
"I'm hopeful that what the detainees learned in the program will moderate their religious extremism," said Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, who commands U.S. forces in northern Iraq. "Will some go back to their old habits? Probably."
The program marks a shift away from early U.S. detention policies in Iraq. When the insurgency first flared in 2003, the U.S. military resorted to mass arrests of thousands of Sunni men, sometimes with little or no evidence. The arrests contributed to the violence by persuading many Sunnis that the U.S. was prejudiced against their community. The abuses at the American prison facility at nearby Abu Ghraib further inflamed public anger about the U.S.'s detention efforts.
"We still live in the shadow of Abu Ghraib," said Capt. Jason Reed, an officer overseeing Camp Cropper, the main U.S. detention facility in Baghdad.
The program grew out of an American realization that the U.S. wouldn't be able to hold most of the detainees much longer. The thousands of Iraqis in American custody are a major source of public anger, and politicians regularly demand that the U.S. release the detainees or transfer them to Iraqi control. This year, more than 12,000 detainees have been released.
Maj. Jay Gardner, the executive officer for Task Force al-Amal, which runs the rehabilitation effort, said the military believes that some detainees would need to be held for the long term, while others "simply made bad choices" and could be freed, he said. "The thin line we have to walk is figuring out which is which."
Today, newly detained Iraqis are brought to trailers at Camp Cropper for 20-minute interviews with Iraqi clerics and social workers.
The Iraqi officials complete 15-page reports assessing whether detainees have extremist religious or political views. Militants are moved into separate facilities that operate like conventional U.S. prisons. The remaining detainees are allowed to take part in the rehabilitation courses, which also include skills training such as carpentry and sewing classes.
The segregation is meant to counter a flaw in earlier American detention operations. In the past, the military failed to separate extremists from the general detainee population, giving militants an opportunity to win over other prisoners.
Each American detention facility inadvertently became an "insurgent university," Command Sgt. Maj. Edgar Dahl, the top enlisted soldier at the Camp Bucca detention facility in Basra, wrote in a recent essay in Army Times.
In Baghdad, the rehabilitation courses take place in sweltering green tents on the grounds of Camp Cropper, a sprawling prison near the city's airport.
The centerpiece of the rehabilitation effort is the "tanweer" course, Arabic for "enlightenment," which exposes detainees to moderate Islamic thought. The courses combine short lectures on Koranic verses discussing peace or respect for other religions with open-ended discussions. The instructors are Iraqi contractors, paid by the U.S.
"Islam does not distinguish between the rights and freedoms of one sect or another," the course materials note, instructing teachers to "discuss why bloodshed is prohibited."
Qais, a soft-spoken Iraqi, began a recent session by telling the detainees that God created all humans, regardless of their religion or skin color. "God is saying, don't hate because of religion," he said.
He told the students they would be released soon, and the choices they made about whether to return to violence would determine their own fate, as well as that of the country.
"You need to learn from what we've suffered through these past five years," he said. "Iraq has bled and suffered. Do you all understand?"
The detainees, who were arrested for offenses ranging from theft to planting roadside bombs, nodded their heads silently. Several took notes. The caption on a poster on the back wall of the tent read: "You are the key to the future of Iraq."
The mood in the tent changed when Qais turned to politics. The instructor began talking about the need for a peace deal between the country's Arabs and Kurds when several detainees cut him off.
"That fight was in the past and it will be the responsibility of the Kurds if it starts up again," said a stocky detainee who identified himself as a former police officer. "The Kurds, they push too far."
Qais dropped the topic and ended the class with a simple admonition. "When you go home, forgive, like brothers," he told the detainees. "Put this all behind you and never look back."
Many of the instructors believe they are making an impact but concede they can't be sure their messages get through. Jamal, one of the tanweer teachers, said many prisoners told him what they knew he wanted to hear.
"I want to believe they will leave here and be good citizens, but I cannot tell what is in their heart," he said. "They are very good at pretending."
Military officials said it will be difficult to measure the program's effectiveness until the detainees have been released and make choices of either rejoining normal society or the insurgency.
It will be years before the effort can be judged a success or failure, but military officials are cautiously optimistic. Lt. Col. Rod Faulk, the chief of staff at Camp Cropper, said that as of July the U.S. had released more than 14,000 detainees since the new programs went into effect and recaptured just 53.
"Anybody who's conservative gets angry and says, 'Why are we doing all of this for them? They're all insurgents,' " Col. Faulk said. "Well, the truth is, they're not all insurgents."
On the streets of Iraq, a murkier picture emerges. Haider, who didn't want his full name used for fear of being arrested again, was 18 when he was detained in Diyala province for ferrying weapons between insurgent hideouts. He spent six months at Camp Bucca and eight months at Camp Cropper before being released.
Haider said the classes initially forced him to re-evaluate whether attacks on American and Iraqi security forces were permitted under Islam. But the lessons seem less persuasive the longer he is out of prison.
"Definitely the classes made me see new parts of Islam, the peaceful parts," he said. "But things sound different out here than they did in there."
September 18, 2008
Pg. 22
U.S. Military Aims to Temper Detainees' Religious Beliefs Before Their Release
By Yochi J. Dreazen
BAGHDAD -- The U.S. focus in Iraq is fast shifting from fighting a war to preparing for its aftermath.
The cornerstone of the transition is an effort to rehabilitate and release thousands of Iraqi detainees, including many former insurgents. According to the military, there are more than 19,000 Iraqi detainees in American custody, down from 26,000 in November 2007.
The effort, centered in Baghdad and Basra, includes courses in literacy, mathematics and moderate Islamic thought. The military hopes the courses will temper the detainees' religious beliefs and give them the skills to find and hold a steady job.
"The idea is to move from punishment to rehabilitation," said Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, one of the officers leading the push. "It's not enough to simply lock these guys up and hope they somehow turn into productive members of Iraqi society."
Few in the military question the need for the rehabilitation effort, but some wonder whether troops should be leading it. Some officers privately complain the program is turning them into social workers who coddle violent extremists. But few are willing to voice those criticisms because the effort is a favored project of Gen. David Petraeus, the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Gen. Petraeus believes the country's stability will be shaped by how well former insurgents are integrated back into Iraqi society. He sees the rehabilitation push as a powerful weapon in that fight.
The military has made such noncombat efforts before. When U.S. forces were embroiled in a long and bloody insurgency in the Philippines early last century, American commanders mounted a largely successful push to rehabilitate thousands of former Filipino rebels.
But the scale of the effort in Iraq is unprecedented and influenced by nonmilitary sources. U.S. officials said they drew from a Saudi Arabian model in developing the American rehabilitation effort. The Saudi government recently launched an initiative to temper the religious extremism of many of its prisoners through classes in moderate Islamic law and beliefs.
If the U.S. military's efforts don't succeed in tempering extremism, skeptics worry that many of the released Iraqis will rejoin the fight and threaten recent security gains.
"I'm hopeful that what the detainees learned in the program will moderate their religious extremism," said Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, who commands U.S. forces in northern Iraq. "Will some go back to their old habits? Probably."
The program marks a shift away from early U.S. detention policies in Iraq. When the insurgency first flared in 2003, the U.S. military resorted to mass arrests of thousands of Sunni men, sometimes with little or no evidence. The arrests contributed to the violence by persuading many Sunnis that the U.S. was prejudiced against their community. The abuses at the American prison facility at nearby Abu Ghraib further inflamed public anger about the U.S.'s detention efforts.
"We still live in the shadow of Abu Ghraib," said Capt. Jason Reed, an officer overseeing Camp Cropper, the main U.S. detention facility in Baghdad.
The program grew out of an American realization that the U.S. wouldn't be able to hold most of the detainees much longer. The thousands of Iraqis in American custody are a major source of public anger, and politicians regularly demand that the U.S. release the detainees or transfer them to Iraqi control. This year, more than 12,000 detainees have been released.
Maj. Jay Gardner, the executive officer for Task Force al-Amal, which runs the rehabilitation effort, said the military believes that some detainees would need to be held for the long term, while others "simply made bad choices" and could be freed, he said. "The thin line we have to walk is figuring out which is which."
Today, newly detained Iraqis are brought to trailers at Camp Cropper for 20-minute interviews with Iraqi clerics and social workers.
The Iraqi officials complete 15-page reports assessing whether detainees have extremist religious or political views. Militants are moved into separate facilities that operate like conventional U.S. prisons. The remaining detainees are allowed to take part in the rehabilitation courses, which also include skills training such as carpentry and sewing classes.
The segregation is meant to counter a flaw in earlier American detention operations. In the past, the military failed to separate extremists from the general detainee population, giving militants an opportunity to win over other prisoners.
Each American detention facility inadvertently became an "insurgent university," Command Sgt. Maj. Edgar Dahl, the top enlisted soldier at the Camp Bucca detention facility in Basra, wrote in a recent essay in Army Times.
In Baghdad, the rehabilitation courses take place in sweltering green tents on the grounds of Camp Cropper, a sprawling prison near the city's airport.
The centerpiece of the rehabilitation effort is the "tanweer" course, Arabic for "enlightenment," which exposes detainees to moderate Islamic thought. The courses combine short lectures on Koranic verses discussing peace or respect for other religions with open-ended discussions. The instructors are Iraqi contractors, paid by the U.S.
"Islam does not distinguish between the rights and freedoms of one sect or another," the course materials note, instructing teachers to "discuss why bloodshed is prohibited."
Qais, a soft-spoken Iraqi, began a recent session by telling the detainees that God created all humans, regardless of their religion or skin color. "God is saying, don't hate because of religion," he said.
He told the students they would be released soon, and the choices they made about whether to return to violence would determine their own fate, as well as that of the country.
"You need to learn from what we've suffered through these past five years," he said. "Iraq has bled and suffered. Do you all understand?"
The detainees, who were arrested for offenses ranging from theft to planting roadside bombs, nodded their heads silently. Several took notes. The caption on a poster on the back wall of the tent read: "You are the key to the future of Iraq."
The mood in the tent changed when Qais turned to politics. The instructor began talking about the need for a peace deal between the country's Arabs and Kurds when several detainees cut him off.
"That fight was in the past and it will be the responsibility of the Kurds if it starts up again," said a stocky detainee who identified himself as a former police officer. "The Kurds, they push too far."
Qais dropped the topic and ended the class with a simple admonition. "When you go home, forgive, like brothers," he told the detainees. "Put this all behind you and never look back."
Many of the instructors believe they are making an impact but concede they can't be sure their messages get through. Jamal, one of the tanweer teachers, said many prisoners told him what they knew he wanted to hear.
"I want to believe they will leave here and be good citizens, but I cannot tell what is in their heart," he said. "They are very good at pretending."
Military officials said it will be difficult to measure the program's effectiveness until the detainees have been released and make choices of either rejoining normal society or the insurgency.
It will be years before the effort can be judged a success or failure, but military officials are cautiously optimistic. Lt. Col. Rod Faulk, the chief of staff at Camp Cropper, said that as of July the U.S. had released more than 14,000 detainees since the new programs went into effect and recaptured just 53.
"Anybody who's conservative gets angry and says, 'Why are we doing all of this for them? They're all insurgents,' " Col. Faulk said. "Well, the truth is, they're not all insurgents."
On the streets of Iraq, a murkier picture emerges. Haider, who didn't want his full name used for fear of being arrested again, was 18 when he was detained in Diyala province for ferrying weapons between insurgent hideouts. He spent six months at Camp Bucca and eight months at Camp Cropper before being released.
Haider said the classes initially forced him to re-evaluate whether attacks on American and Iraqi security forces were permitted under Islam. But the lessons seem less persuasive the longer he is out of prison.
"Definitely the classes made me see new parts of Islam, the peaceful parts," he said. "But things sound different out here than they did in there."