Iraq calls on US to hand over Iraqi detainees

By Waleed Mubder

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s human rights minister called on
U.S.-led forces on Thursday to hand over all Iraqi inmates at
U.S.-run prisons to the Iraqi government, a day after more
damaging images of prisoner abuse emerged.

“We are very worried about the Iraqi detainees in Abu
Ghraib,” Zuhair al-Chalabi told Reuters. “The multinational
forces and the British forces should hand them over to the
(Iraqi) government.”

“This is a very dangerous issue that the Iraqi government
should review,” said Chalabi, who was nominated as minister
last year but whose appointment has not been ratified as the
parliament elected in December has not yet convened.

“The Iraqi government should move immediately to have the
prisons and the prisoners delivered to the ministry of
justice.”

U.S. forces are holding about 14,000 detainees at several
detention centers around Iraq, including Abu Ghraib. Most of
those detained have been rounded up on suspicion of planning or
carrying out attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.

It was not immediately clear what weight — if any —
Chalabi’s words would carry.

It could be months before Iraqis get a new government,
particularly as the appointment by the ruling Shi’ite Muslim
bloc of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari to retain his post has
exposed splits within the main coalition.

Jaafari’s office was more measured than Chalabi in
condemning the new abuse images, broadcast on Wednesday an
Australian television channel, calling them “a dangerous thing
which contradicts completely with human rights laws.”

He said such abuses “should not be repeated.”

U.S. military spokesman Major General Rick Lynch said the
new images, from among those taken by U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib
in late 2003, were related to an isolated event and that those
responsible had already been punished.

“When the pictures come back out now, it’s a reflection on
what happened before and not a reflection of what’s happening
now. We believe the people of Iraq understand that,” he told
reporters in Baghdad.

“SAVAGE CRIMES”

In the interview, Chalabi condemned the previously
unpublished images as “major human rights violations” and
compared them to abuses committed under dictatorships.

“These are major violations that turned to crimes. When you
torture and hit in this brutal way it doesn’t make any
difference from the dictators’ systems,” he said.

President Jalal Talabani also strongly condemned the
images, which come at a time when many Iraqis are already
incensed by footage of British soldiers apparently beating
Iraqi teenagers in the south and the satirical cartoons of the
Prophet Mohammad.

“We have condemned these savage crimes. We reject that a
civilized country allow its soldiers to commit these ugly and
terrible crimes,” Talabani told reporters.

“We demand very harsh punishments against the
perpetrators.”