Tonight, ABC Nightline airs a fascinating, troubling, in-depth interview with a former U.S. Navy Seal detained in Iraq for 55 days. The handsome photo below comes from a BBC story written during his detention (excerpted below the fold).

Kas was in Iraq to make a documentary about the Persian King Cyrus the Great and the greatness of “the real Iran.” BBC quotes a fellow filmmaker who says Kas is “more right-wing than many of his colleagues” — “he ‘believed in everything which is American’.”

I cannot overstate the significance of tonight’s interview. We will have not just a U.S. citizen’s first-hand account.

We will have the account of a patriotic, flag-waving former Navy Seal who’s also a professional documentary filmmaker who went to Iraq to film the part of his documentary about the legendary Babylon.

From today’s Nightline newsletter:

“There’s a reckless arrest policy, and there’s a tremendous amount of humiliation that follows that arrest policy, and I strongly believe that one of the major reasons that the insurgency is growing is because when detainees are released they come out and they’re looking for retribution.” — Cyrus Kar

[This section is WRITEN BY THE NIGHTLINE PRODUCER Dina Demetrius for today’s newsletter.]

Part of my job as a producer in Los Angeles is to book “first” interviews for ABC News. I helped to do that for “Good Morning America” in late July when Cyrus Kar, a Los Angeles documentary filmmaker, had just returned home from a harrowing experience in a U.S. detention camp in Iraq, where he was filming. Kar is an American citizen and Navy veteran, and a supporter of the war. He was arrested in Iraq as a suspected terrorist. His story was checked out within days by the FBI, yet he was held by the U.S. military for nearly two months. His family brought in the ACLU. The perfect ending to a perfect nightmare.

The requisite scramble of reporters and hot-heeled booking producers ensued; the series of quick, live network interviews concluded. But when you’ve experienced the level of fear and abandonment Kar felt as he sat day after day in solitary confinement, the sound bites don’t always roll off the tongue. The three-minute live interviews don’t do the story justice. I watched Kar’s interviews and saw his eyes communicating something much deeper than a description of the facts. Over the following two weeks, Kar revealed to me at greater length his thoughts and feelings about his captivity and the war in Iraq. The shock of his experience was wearing off, the determination to speak out was settling in. He had a lot more to say.

We brought Kar to Washington to sit down in the studio with Ted Koppel and recount, in depth, not just the circumstances of his detention in U.S. custody, but his thoughts on how that detention may be emblematic of a larger problem in Iraq — one that may continue to create a rise in Iraqi insurgency, and a rise in American deaths. Through his voice you hear the frustration at the slow wheels of justice. Through his eyes you see a sense of humiliation and betrayal from the inside out.

Saddam Hussein has had more due process than Cyrus Kar – this is a detention policy that was drafted by Kafka .

Mark Rosenbaum
American Civil Liberties Union

The strange case of Cyrus Kar
By Robert Greenall, BBC News
July 7, 2005

Confirmation by the Pentagon that five US citizens have been detained in Iraq on suspicion of links to insurgents has drawn attention to the highly controversial case of Iranian-born filmmaker Cyrus Kar, said to be one of the detainees.

Mr Kar’s relatives say his constitutional rights have been trampled on, and that he is being kept in detention without trial despite the fact that the FBI has, they say, already cleared him of any suspicion.

Mr Kar was making a film in Iraq about namesake Cyrus the Great
On Wednesday a lawsuit was filed against the government for his release.

Mr Kar is described as a patriotic American who believed in spreading democracy around the world.

A former Navy Seal raised in the western US, he had gone to Iraq to film part of a documentary about an enlightened ancient Persian king.

Mr Kar’s relatives say they have been able to talk to him by phone several times, and that he has been becoming increasingly angry.

All their attempts to find out through government departments, legislators and the military in Iraq about what is to happen to him have failed.

Need for caution

Mr Kar, 44, has apparently been held without trial since 17 May.

He was arrested while travelling in a taxi carrying washing machine timers, which can be used as components in bombs.

The Pentagon has not officially confirmed Mr Kar’s detention, citing a policy of non-disclosure of the names of detainees. …