U.S. Constructs, Expands Prisons in Iraq

On the heels of the announcement of a Halliburton contract to build a new $30 million facility at Guantanamo, comes this news about four prison construction projects in Iraq. The prisoner populations at current U.S.-run facilities are ballooning as more “insurgents” are captured. The plans, reports The Los Angeles Times, include:


  • expansion of Abu Ghraib
  • expansion of Camp Bucca,
  • a large-scale expansion of Camp Cropper near the Baghdad Airport where “high value” prisoners are held, and
  • construction of a new prison at Suleimania, in northern Iraq, that will hold 2,000 prisoners


“[T]he construction boom will increase the total U.S. long-term detention capability to more than 16,000 prisoners.” And, the timeline for turning over Abu Ghraib to the Iraqi Ministry of Justice has been moved ahead to February 2006.


So overwhelmed are the prisons that MPs have been reassigned to Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib “from other duties in Iraq, including the vital task of training new Iraqi police officers.”


What do I know but wouldn’t a little habeas corpus help lower the prison population? That way, our MPs can train policemen and new facilities won’t have to be built. But the LAT piece describes the slow, inadequate prisoner “review” process.

And who in the hell in the U.S. military is going to be left available to guard the expanded facilities? So, what’s going on here? … Below

Maj. Gen. William Brandenburg, who oversees U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, originally had planned to be out of Abu Ghraib by early spring. “I believed it until mid-December, but the numbers just weren’t going that way,” he said. “Business is booming.”


I’ll bet it is. (Ka-ching.)


I’ve searched the DOD site for details on any contracts, but am coming up empty. The LAT doesn’t mention the awarding of any contracts to date. We’ll have to keep our eyes out for the names of the companies that get these lucrative construction projects.

At Guantanamo, the ka-ching goes like this:

Under the deal with the Norfolk, Virginia-based U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Atlantic, the work is to be wrapped up by July 2006. It is part of a larger contract that could be worth up to $500 million if all options are exercised, the Defense Department said.

The project is to be carried out by Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root Services of Arlington, Virginia. It includes site work, heating ventilation and air conditioning, plumbing and electrical work, the Pentagon said. … (Reuters/Yahoo, June 16, 2005)


More background info from the LAT article, reprinted in today’s Seattle Times:

Aggressive operations against insurgents over the past six months have brought a flood of new prisoners to U.S.-run facilities — including many believed to be hard-line rebels who have launched bloody attacks on U.S. troops.


The number of U.S.-held prisoners in Iraq reached all-time record levels earlier in June and has since gone down slightly. Through Saturday the average prisoner total in June stood at 10,783, up from 7,837 in January and 5,435 in June 2004.


The two main U.S. Army-run prisons, Abu Ghraib outside Baghdad and Camp Bucca, are operating near their maximum or “surge” emergency limits. As of Saturday, the two prisons held 10,178 inmates, with an additional 1,630 awaiting processing in different Army divisional and brigade headquarters.


“We’re pushing our surge capacity,” said Army spokesman Lt. Col. Guy Rudisill in Baghdad.
<P<[…]


Brandenburg emphasized that he still hopes to end the U.S. presence at Abu Ghraib by early next year. But with a large percentage of the detainees taken into custody in and around the capital, the general estimates he will still need capacity to hold around 2,000 prisoners in the Baghdad area.


… [T]he eventual Abu Ghraib departure will coincide with a large-scale expansion of the Camp Cropper prison, which is on a U.S. base near Baghdad International Airport and now houses “high value” prisoners such as Saddam’s top lieutenants and possibly Saddam himself.


The expansion campaign will cost just more than $50 million: $30 Million for Camp Cropper, $12 million to expand Camp Bucca, $8 million to renovate Fort Suse and just less than $1 million for Abu Ghraib.


Efforts to relieve the crowding by speeding up prisoner releases have been frustrated, officials say, by an increase in prisoners deemed a high risk to commit further acts of violence if set free. A Combined Review and Release Board, composed of three U.S. officials and six Iraqis — two each from the ministries of interior, justice and human rights — reviews each new prisoner within 90 days of his arrival. The board decides which prisoners can be safely released and which ones still pose an immediate threat and must be detained long-term.


A second joint Iraqi-American review board has been created in hopes of speeding up prisoner releases. But a new breed of more hard-core detainee has partially stymied the release process.


Ka-ching. Ka-ching. Ka-ching.