US embassy cable - 05BAGHDAD3004

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 003004 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/18/2015 
TAGS: MOPS, PHUM, PINS, PTER, IZ, Detainees, Security 
SUBJECT: ITG RELUCTANT TO CONSIDER LEGAL DETENTION 
AUTHORITIES 
 
Classified By: Classified by David C. Litt, Political- 
Military Affairs Counselor, for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  (S) Iraqi participation and input improved at the 
third USG-ITG meeting to discuss legal authorities for 
the proposed transition of Coalition detention 
operations to the Iraqi government. Representatives 
from the Ministries of Human Rights, Interior, 
Justice, and Ministry of State for National Security 
joined TNA member Sharwan al-Waely in a spirited if 
unfocused discussion on detainee issues. 
 
2.  (S) All Iraqi participants were adamant that no 
legal authorities for Iraqi security detention exist 
today, and none showed interest in developing such 
authorities in the future. Discussion focused instead 
on the transfer of greater numbers of detainees to the 
Iraqi court system, and al-Waely's plan to introduce a 
shadow committee to "help" the Combined Review and 
Release Board (CRRB), which he views critically. 
 
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DEFINING THE PROBLEM 
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3.  (S) Al-Waely's opening comments indicated he had 
been receptive to last week's briefing on the profile 
and threat level of the Coalition detainee population. 
In reviewing the issue for new members of the 
group, he accurately explained the roles of the CRRB 
and the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI), and 
noted that "both we and the Americans are afraid" of 
the consequences of releasing many detainees currently 
in custody. 
 
4.  (S) MoHR Prisons Director Saad Sultan echoed this 
assessment, telling the group that his extensive 
contacts with Coalition detainees (Sultan is 
a regular presence at Abu Ghraib) had convinced him 
that many were criminals who had committed serious 
crimes under the previous regime. "If the Iraqi people 
knew who these people were," he said, "they would come 
forward and complain against them". 
 
5.  (S) A discussion of the best means by which to 
identify court-worthy criminals amongst the security 
internee population ensued, with the MOI 
representative offering to check detainee names 
against files in the MOI criminal record department 
for past offenses, and several Iraqi participants 
suggesting that detainee names be publicly advertised 
in order to solicit legal complaints from the Iraqi 
public about past criminal acts. 
 
6.  (S) (Note: a number of these propositions may 
prove useful if they come to fruition; the 
collection of additional information on past 
criminal acts by detainees could, in theory, assist 
in the discovery of outstanding warrants. End note.) 
 
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LEGAL AUTHORITIES 
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7.  (S) All Iraqi participants responded with a firm 
negative to Embassy counsel's inquiry as to whether 
they believed the Iraqi government currently possessed 
any rights to impose security detention. "If I 
find someone who has been in custody longer than 
twenty-four hours and has not seen a judge," said 
Sultan, "I tell MOI or MOJ to let him go". 
 
8.  (S) The Director General of the Ministry of 
National Security did note, as an aside, that in 
reality he often saw people who had been detained 
in Iraqi custody "for months" without appearing before 
a judge, but no one else commented on the issue 
of current Iraqi extra-judicial detention. 
 
9.  (S) When Embassy counsel raised the disposition of 
dangerous detainees in Coalition custody against whom 
- for reasons of witness intimidation, sensitive 
intelligence, or other causes - court cases could not 
be brought, the group was unmoved. "If you have a case 
where you have no source, no evidence, no crime, no 
case, that person should be released," said Raad Alim, 
representing the Ministry of Justice. 
 
 
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CHANGING THE SUBJECT 
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10.  (S) Pol-MilOff raised a hypothetical scenario, 
asking whether the in future, Iraqi Security Forces 
in the midst of a five-day fight against insurgents 
in an enemy-occupied town would be expected to choose 
between bringing a judge into the midst of the 
fighting to mount investigative hearings or releasing 
disarmed fighters twenty-four hours after their 
capture, into a live battle. 
 
11.  (S) Al-Waely ignored the scenario and quickly 
changed the subject. "Let us talk about a practical 
proposal", he said, outlining a plan to form another 
committee - and several sub-committees - to "extend" 
the work of the CRRB, which reviews detainee files 
and recommends release or continued detention. (Note: 
al-Waely has previously been vocal in his opinion 
that the CRRB recommends insufficient numbers of 
detainees for release.) 
 
12. (Note: One Iraqi idea - to have the CRRB's 
Iraqi participants examine detainee files closely 
for missed evidence of relevant criminal offenses, 
given their greater familiarity with Iraqi idiom 
and law - was clearly productive, although already 
in practice at the CRRB.) 
 
12.  (S) An animated discussion followed among the 
Iraqi participants as to the proposed committee's scope. 
It is not clear that consensus was reached - the MOI 
representative proposed that detainee names be checked 
against criminal records, MoHR was intent upon 
publishing names to attract witnesses, and al-Waely 
announced that lists would be screened for former 
regime figures and "names that are innocent". 
 
13.  (S) Embassy counsel proposed at the close of the 
meeting that we return next week to the subject of Iraqi 
legal detention authorities for  security detention; 
the Iraqi participants agreed politely, and said that 
they would also update Embassy and MNF-I representatives 
of the formation and progress of the new (and as yet 
unnamed) committee. 
 
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COMMENT 
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14.  (S) Our Iraqi interlocutors are enthusiastic 
about increasing the proportion of detainees funneled 
into the criminal justice system, which they blame for 
a perceived backlog in prosecutions. (Enthusiasm for 
adequately funding and securing the court is less 
apparent.) Many of their proposals are practical and 
positive, and these will be developed as a priority. 
 
15.  (S) Our partners show little interest, however, 
in the consequences for internal Iraqi security of 
releasing large numbers of detainees who the Iraqi- 
majority CRRB has judged pose an imperative threat 
to security, but who the Iraqi courts are unable to 
charge. We will discuss these security concerns in 
detail next week, with a focus on real-word examples 
illustrating the gravity of the problem, but note 
that this disengagement is common across the ITG. 
 
16.  (S) Should al-Waely's conception of the newly- 
formed committee prevail, we expect it will function 
as a source of detainee release requests rather than a 
forum for discussion of legal and political issues 
raised by the proposed transfer of Coalition detention 
operations.  We will need to monitor carefully its 
interaction with and influence on the current CRRB. 
Satterfield