Arrests, apologies in Iraq -- Errors often bring payments

[Barrett808]

Arrests, apologies in Iraq
Errors often bring payments
By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff, 12/26/2003

SAMARRA, Iraq -- Greeted by his sobbing wife, Tariq Hassan al-Abbas returned home Monday afternoon as a platoon of US infantrymen surged around him, crouching to fit through the front door with their M-16 rifles.

"You brought him back! You Americans brought him back!" sobbed his wife.

Abbas is one of dozens of men arrested by mistake during a series of nighttime raids in Samarra over the last week.

His detention and awkward repatriation illustrate the challenges faced by US soldiers trying to process dozens of informant tips, interrogate hundreds of detainees, and track several hundred more suspected guerrillas.

"Sometimes we get bad information," shrugged Captain Todd Brown, leader of Bravo Company of First Battalion, Eighth Infantry Regiment, in the Fourth Infantry Division's Third Brigade Combat Team.

On the ground, soldiers find themselves in sometimes befuddling one-on-one interactions with the victims of misdirected raids they call "Jerry Springers," after the talk show host notorious for staging boisterous confrontations.

Brown and his commanders are well aware of the price of their miscues.

(more)

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2003/12/26/arrests_apologies_in_iraq/

[teryang]

1. Doesn't sound too promising

This officer seems to grasp the dilemna his troops are in. That doesn't mean there is much he can do about it.

[mbperrin]

2. 300 bucks! Woo-hoo! Kick in the front door, blow out the windows

give me a black eye and hold me for a few days - hell, it's a gravy train!!!!!

That's what we're doing in Gitmo, right? And Padilla's family will get their c-notes any day now, correct?

Everybody knows that a few American dollars will fix anything!