Detainee Update: Brig. Gen. Quantock, MNF-I/TF-134, June 22, 2009
Multi-National Force-Iraq
Brig. Gen. David Quantock, Deputy CG, MNF-I Detainee Operations/CG, Task Force-134, provides an update on detainee operations.
OPERATIONAL UPDATE ON DETAINEE OPERATIONS
Brigadier General David Quantock, Deputy Commanding General of MNF-I Detainee Operations and Commanding General of Task Force 134
DATE: June 22, 2009
TRANSCRIBED BY: SOS INTERNATIONAL LTD.
PARTICIPANTS:
Brigadier General Quantock and various members of the Pan-Arabic media.
REPORTERS 1-8
REP1 = REPORTER 1
INT = INTERPRETER
[PH] = PHONETIC SPELLING
BG QUANTOCK: [Unintelligible] everyone. The air conditioning is working in here, I can see that. I should have brought a coat. Well, let me start off with a couple of comments, and then we’ll go from there to questions.
Today we have 10,826 detainees inside our facilities. This is the lowest number of detainees we have had in custody since September of 2005. We’ve also just finished our ninth joint subcommittee meeting with the Government of Iraq. This has been tremendously valuable in coordinating our efforts at transferring and releasing detainees. In accordance with the security agreement, before we release or transfer any detainee, we ensure that we’re in complete cooperation with the Government of Iraq. And since the security agreement, we have released over 3,700 detainees and have transferred over 800 detainees to the Government of Iraq under an arrest warrant or a detention order. As you know, under the security agreement, there’s only two choices for detainees: either we release them or they’re transferred to the Government of Iraq with a detention order or release order or arrest warrant or detention order.
Now, there’s been a lot of discussion about when we’re closing facilities. We are looking to close Camp Bucca around the middle of September for detainee operations. Now, there are a number of initiatives in place to figure out what to do with Camp Bucca as a whole after that date. So there are a number of ideas of what to use Camp Bucca with and we will work with the Government of Iraq to make sure that we do a great...do a good turnover with the Government of Iraq.
So with that, I’m ready to take any questions that you might have.
REP1:
[Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: Sir, there’s a rumor and there’s news in the south, you guys are supposed to turn it...to handover Bucca to the Government of Iraq and until now we don’t see that.
BG QUANTOCK: Right. We, of course, still have detainees in there and we will, of course, keep the facility until we let all the detainees go, which will be around mid-September, 2009. We will ultimately turn over Bucca to the Government of Iraq; we just have not set that date yet because we may need that facility to help facilitate our departure from Iraq.
REP1: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: But for the detention, sir, it will be closed in the middle of September of this year?
BG QUANTOCK: Middle of September for detainee operations.
INT: But as a base of....
BG QUANTOCK: As a base, we have not set a specific date for turnover.
Sir.
REP2: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: He’s from Al-Sawa[ph] Newspaper.
BG QUANTOCK: Oh, great.
REP2: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: OK. Sir, he have two questions. He’s from Al-Sawa[ph] Newspaper. First, the question. As you know and everybody know, the end of June the American troops will withdraw from the cities, and is the file of the detainees still will be open, still will be going on? And when you guys going to close the cases and the file of the detainees? The second question he have about the....
BG QUANTOCK: Let me answer the first one first.
INT: Sure.
BG QUANTOCK: OK. Let’s just do this one at a time; otherwise I’ll forget both questions.
INT: Alright, sir.
BG QUANTOCK: To answer the question, we will continue to be reviewing the files and we hope to be done with the review of the files by the end of this year. And the second question?
INT: The second thing...question regarding the former regime detainees. Are you guys going to keep them or are you guys going to hand them over to the Iraqi and GOI? And how soon it’s going to happen?
BG QUANTOCK: That date and when we’re going to turn them over has not yet been decided. However, our intent is to turn all of them over to the Government of Iraq when they have the capacity to take them.
Yes, sir.
REP3: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: OK.
REP3: [Continues speaking in Arabic.]
INT: Sir, he’s from Al-Medan[ph] Newspaper.
BG QUANTOCK: I know him well.
INT: OK, sir. And as you will hear several questions, today have four?
BG QUANTOCK: Only four?
REP3: [Speaks in Arabic.]
INT: Only four.
[Laughter.]
INT: Alright. First question regarding....
BG QUANTOCK: Do one at a time.
INT: Yes, sir.
BG QUANTOCK: OK.
INT: First question regarding TCN.
BG QUANTOCK: Yes.
INT: We see the number of detainees Coalition Forces going down.
BG QUANTOCK: Mm-hmm.
INT: What is the future of the TCN? Are you going to hand them over to the GOI or are you going to hand them over to their country through the American Embassy here?
BG QUANTOCK: They will all be turned over to the Government of Iraq. In fact, we will...we’ve already turned over a number of them to the Government of Iraq. We, right now, today, have 96 TCNs left right now. Within the last 30 days, we’ve already transferred 37 of them over to the Government of Iraq. They did not want to get them all at one time. They want them—so they can study their cases—about a third per month. We expect to have all the third-country nationals turned over to the Government of Iraq by the end of August.
Number two?
INT: Juveniles, sir.
BG QUANTOCK: Yes.
INT: OK. He just want you to talk about juveniles.
BG QUANTOCK: Yeah. Juveniles, you know...juveniles. We are down to a total of 19 now. We...if you remember, we were at a high of 912 in November of 2007, so we’ve come down a great deal in the juveniles. Within the next 30 days, we should have turned over almost all the juveniles to the Government of Iraq.
INT: You said in what month, sir?
BG QUANTOCK: Within about one to two months we’ll have all the juveniles turned over to the Government of Iraq or released. Again, this is a capacity issue with the juveniles. We will not put a juvenile in a facility that’s overcrowded. So as the capacity opens up, we’ll start to move them over. And we’ve worked...we’re working very closely with MOSA to make sure that they have the capacity, so that when we move them over, they are not moving to a crowded facility.
Number three?
INT: Sir, number three, he’s talking about Taji.
BG QUANTOCK: Mm-hmm.
INT: Are you satisfied with the status of the living of detainees in Taji?
BG QUANTOCK: I’m very satisfied with the living conditions at Taji. We had the minister of justice visit the facility at the beginning of this month, and he is looking forward to taking over that facility sometime in January of 2010.
The facility was built for medium-threat detainees. It has a number of vocational-educational buildings available. We are currently working with the Ministry of Labor and Social Services, the MOSA, to put a vocational training center in there. And the minister of justice is working with the minister of health to take over the hospital once we turn the facility over. So I believe it will meet the requirements of the minister of justice and provide them another...about another 5,000 bed spaces to help alleviate the overcrowding in their facilities.
And number four...question number four?
INT: Number four, sir. Since January 1st, which is [unintelligible] about the security agreement...
BG QUANTOCK: Right.
INT: ...is there any death cases in our facility? Any detainees died?
BG QUANTOCK: We had two individuals—no. Since 1 January, I believe we’ve had one, and that was a heart attack by one of the detainees. And that has been it.
Yes?
REP3: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: [Laughs.] He said I’m sorry, I’d like to keep asking questions because nobody asking.
BG QUANTOCK: That’s great! I’m here to answer questions.
INT: We are acting like a greedy....
BG QUANTOCK: That’s fine.
INT: OK.
REP3: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: OK. Sir, for his question, it’s after you hand over all the detention facility to the GOI.
BG QUANTOCK: Mm-hmm.
INT: Is it still going to be coordination between the American side and GOI as exchange of information and experience?
BG QUANTOCK: Oh, absolutely. We...that’s part of the security agreement and also part of the Joint Subcommittee on Detainee Affairs is to continue to share information between Coalition Forces and the Government of Iraq. We have the same goals here, the security and safety of the Iraqi people. And as long as we’re here, we’ll be working hand in hand with the Government of Iraq to keep a safe and secure Iraq.
REP3: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: Sir, we hear the news of some allegation as a lot of violation...human rights violation at Coalition Forces facilities. What is your comment about that? Is it true there’s human rights violation there?
BG QUANTOCK: Well, I’d like to know the source of who’s talking about human rights. We’ve had many visits to our facilities, many Government of Iraq officials and many media visits to our facilities. The International Committee of the Red Cross visits us almost every other month, and I can tell you there has been no allegations of any mistreatment of detainees.
We understand very seriously how important...treating detainees humanely is extremely important. We understand at some point many of these detainees will be released and it does no good to improperly treat detainees who will someday be released.
Our focus inside our facilities is to separate extremists from moderates, to give them some educational and vocational training so that when they leave our facilities, they can positively contribute to the future of Iraq and to themselves. And that’s why, as we start to transition Taji, one of our main efforts is to put a vocational training center at Taji that, when we leave, that will not stop because we would like to leave, at Taji, a model facility that can be replicated throughout Iraq.
No, I think what you’re referring to is past allega-...or past investigations that have been conducted against Coalition Forces but they were not in our facilities. But you have to understand how they were discovered: it was through our investigations. When we find out that something has gone wrong, we do not hide it; we investigate it and hold those responsible accountable.
REP3: [Asks question in Arabic.]
BG QUANTOCK: Mm-hmm.
REP3: [Continues speaking in Arabic.]
INT: Do you have a number of these guys?
BG QUANTOCK: Do we have a number?
INT: Yeah. Do you think...you have numbers of these guys who did this investigation of abuse?
BG QUANTOCK: About a number? I’m not going to get into numbers. But it has been very low. You have to understand that over the period of six years, we’ve had over a million, you know, coalition soldiers that have come into Iraq, and the number is infinitesimal. But the key point is that when we find out that something has gone wrong, we investigate it and we hold people accountable.
Yes. We’ll get to you next.
REP4: I’m [unintelligible] from Al-Rashid Radio and I’m sorry I came late.
BG QUANTOCK: Oh, it’s OK. We’ll dock your pay.
[Laughter.]
REP4: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: I understand there is a lot of detainees in American prison. They’re being detained for just suspicion. And a lot of them, they are an employee here, they lost everything, and most of them, they lost even their job. Does the American rule compensate these people or find them job after all?
BG QUANTOCK: I know that the Government of Iraq is taking that on and trying to fix that. But there is no intent right now by the Coalition Forces to pay back any of the people that have been held in custody. I mean one of the focuses has been, again, we go back to how...what we do with detainees inside our facilities is that we separate extremists from moderates, hopefully provide them skills so that they can go out there and contribute positively to the future of the Government of Iraq. And in addition to that, there are opportunities inside our facilities to actually earn money. They can earn up to $4.00 per day inside our facilities. That money can be either held until they’re released or given to the families during visitation.
I will also say that since, you know, we have gotten much better at screening through detainees than we were in the past. Many of the detainees that we hold, in fact most of them we hold today, it’s more than just suspicion. These are low-threat detainees, not no-threat detainees. And as we release the detainees, we have ordered them from the least threat to the highest threat. And today, we pretty much...we’re coming to the ends of the low-threat detainees.
And we continue to work with the Government of Iraq to prosecute those detainees that have enough evidence to prosecute. And working with the Government of Iraq, in the last two months, we’ve transferred over 800 detainees to the Government of Iraq with a valid arrest warrant or detention order. In addition to that, we are currently prosecuting almost 2,000 detainees that we have in our custody. We have over 300 convicts; about 80 of them are awaiting death sentences. We have about another over 700...nearly 800 detainees that are waiting on investigative hearing. And we have another 800 detainees that are awaiting trial. So as the evidence becomes available, and working in coordination with the Government of Iraq, we continue to work the prosecutions of many of them.
REP5: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: First of all, regarding TCN, how many Turkish detainee in coalition facility and where are they being held?
BG QUANTOCK: Well, I mean I cannot go into the number of the nationality of detainees. I mean that is a private matter between the Government of Iraq and the Coalition Forces. The Geneva Convention provides protections for detainees so that we can protect, in some cases, many of their identities. All is...I can talk in generality: we have 96 third-country nationals left to transfer to the Government of Iraq.
INT: Second question, sir. She have two questions.
BG QUANTOCK: Oh, she had two questions?
INT: Yes, sir.
BG QUANTOCK: Second question.
INT: Second question, talk about high-threat detainees...
BG QUANTOCK: Mm-hmm.
INT: ...if there’s any intent to transfer them somewhere else or also transfer them to Guantanamo Bay?
BG QUANTOCK: No. I mean there is no thought [laughs] to send them to Guantanamo Bay. As you know, we’re trying to close that facility. All of the high-threat detainees, and there’s about 2,300 of them, will be prosecuted in accordance to the Iraqi rule of law. And it will be an Iraqi decision whether to release...or an Iraqi judge to make the decision whether to release or to convict. But there will be nobody leaving this country unless the Government of Iraq agrees.
Question?
REP6: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: There’s any escape cases? Detainees escape from detention facilities.
BG QUANTOCK: We have not had...
INT: If there is, sir, how you guys deal with that?
BG QUANTOCK: We try to find them.
[Laughter.]
BG QUANTOCK: No, I mean we’ve had...our last escape was last summer, August to be exact. But we have done a lot of measures, you know, improving the security posture to ensure that none escape.
REP6: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: OK. Sir, 80 death sentence.
BG QUANTOCK: Mm-hmm.
INT: Is this 80 being convict by the Iraqi judges?
BG QUANTOCK: Absolutely.
INT: And would you transfer them to the Iraqi...GOI if the GOI asked for them?
BG QUANTOCK: Absolutely. But the reason why we can’t transfer them is because their facility right now that holds death-sentence detainees is well over capacity. And in accordance with the security agreement, we are holding them on behalf of the Government of Iraq. All of our detainees that have either sentences or are awaiting hearings, it’s all through the Iraqi system.
REP6: [Asks question in Arabic.]
BG QUANTOCK: Mm-hmm.
REP6: [Continues speaking in Arabic.]
BG QUANTOCK: If you’re smiling, it’s not good.
INT: Sir, he keep...because he asked you this question a thousand times in the past.
BG QUANTOCK: A thousand ti-...I can’t wait.
INT: Alright, sir. He [unintelligible] Bucca [unintelligible] Taji when he is going to have a chance to visit the former detainee...to see the former regime detainees?
BG QUANTOCK: Well, as you know, by the Geneva, we are...they...the detainees are protected. You know the answer, too. [Laughs.] They’re protected from public curiosity. These populations...these special populations require special protections.
REP6: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: But you give chance to one of the Gulf newspaper...Gulf-country newspaper. I think he mean al-Hayad[ph], sir, to visit Saddam Hussein’s cell.
BG QUANTOCK: I don’t know if we did. OK, but that wasn’t interviewing...I mean that wasn’t interviewing a former regime element. That’s like apples and oranges, it doesn’t equate.
REP6: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: Will he give us a chance to just see the place?
BG QUANTOCK: Oh, yes. That’s not a problem. It’s an office space, somebody’s working there.
REP6: OK.
BG QUANTOCK: [Laughs.]
INT: [Unintelligible].
REP6: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: OK. OK, sir. Too many voices.
BG QUANTOCK: I use too many what?
INT: Voices...
BG QUANTOCK: Uh-huh. Go ahead.
INT: ...raised that the spike of violence...
BG QUANTOCK: Mm-hmm.
INT: ...the former detainees stood behind it.
BG QUANTOCK: Mm-hmm.
INT: Is there any evaluation for that situation on...is there any study for these...the cases of the detainees?
BG QUANTOCK: We study it every day. And there is, right now, no linkage between the release of detainees and any spike in violence. The...and we look at it; again, we look at it every single day. The—I’m trying to think—I lost my train of thought there for a second. But...there’s...what we’re seeing is some foreign fighters caused a spike in violence in April. And you also have to understand to this point, we’ve really released the low-threat detainees.
Now, does that mean at some point in time as we release.... You have to remember, we only have two options under the security agreement: we either release or we transfer to the Government of Iraq with an arrest warrant. And everything that we’re doing is, again, in cooperation with the Government of Iraq. That’s why it’s so very important that we give the Government of Iraq the opportunity to review the files prior to releasing the detainee. So before any detainee is released, the Government of Iraq has thoroughly reviewed that file and determined that there are no arrest warrants, no detention orders on that detainee.
And the Government of Iraq is every bit as worried about exactly what you talked about as we are. And every attack is extensively looked through to find all evidence to find out if somebody is linked to that that was ultimately one of our detainees. And about two months ago, General Aiden was right here, and he said that there was no linkage between the spike in violence and the release of the detainees. And we’ll continue to watch that every single day, every release that we do, we continue to watch that with...in cooperation with the Government of Iraq.
REP7: So you [unintelligible] releasing the detainees by the Iraqi government after the turning over...
BG QUANTOCK: I’m sorry?
REP7: You see a [unintelligible] releasing Iraqi detainees and turning over [unintelligible] Iraqi government?
BG QUANTOCK: I mean...I feel if we’re transferring detainees to the Government of Iraq, I feel confident that they’re going to follow the rule of law with respect to that detainee. I also feel confident if we can’t find anything on a particular individual and we have to release that detainee, that because the Iraqi Security Forces are much better and the police are much better, that they will refrain from the conduct that got them in trouble in the first place. I mean that’s why we’re removing ourselves from the cities. We feel that the Iraqi Security Forces, it’s time, that they’re ready to take over responsibility for their cities and their country. And we’re confident that they’re ready, and we’ll continue to support them in any way that we’re asked.
REP7: So you are not doing this because of just the agreement, you believe in [unintelligible].
BG QUANTOCK: We believe it. Exactly. We believe...of course we have to abide by the security agreement, that’s very important to us. But this is the right time to do this, this is the right time to allow the Government of Iraq, who has worked very hard at regaining their sovereignty and their security to...it’s time for them to take responsibility for their cities.
And there will probably be some tough days out there, but there are tough days when we are in the cities, too. Al-Qaida is just as evil, if not more evil, every single day. Their inhumanity to man is mind-boggling. Their inhumanity to man is just unparalleled. The killing of innocents and women, it someday will be stopped. And it’s going to take all of us – the Iraqis, Coalition Forces – to get rid of that menace. And when that happens, the democracy in Iraq will really stand up and flourish, and I feel very confident that that’s in the near term.
REP8: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: What do you mean? The democracy or the...al-Qaida?
BG QUANTOCK: I think...well, I hope both. But for sure democracy. It’ll take all of us, all coun-...many countries together to eliminate that plague called al-Qaida.
REP8: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: OK, sir [laughs]. The question has nothing to do with the detention...
BG QUANTOCK: OK.
INT: ...and she’s still wanting me to translate it to you.
BG QUANTOCK: OK.
INT: You said...the democracy you’re talking about, unfortunately gave you chance as a Coalition Forces to have more freedom in the country and to start[?] the Iraqi people to go see somewhere else. So basically what she mean, you have more freedom in this country than the Iraqi, as a movement.
BG QUANTOCK: I mean that’s not the intent. Now, if you know....
REP8: [Asks question in Arabic.]
INT: But the democracy has to be...at first...you apply it first in the street.
BG QUANTOCK: Right. I guess I don’t completely understand the question.
REP8: [Repeats question in Arabic.]
INT: Can they come visit the detention facility [unintelligible]?
BG QUANTOCK: Absolutely. If you can get with my public affairs officers in the back, we will schedule up dates and you can come any time that you’d like. We’re very proud of our facilities and we’ve had over 90 visits by Iraqi media since August of the last year. We look forward to seeing you out there.
Very good. Shukran. Thank you very much. Shukran jaziilan.
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