U.S. hands over keys of Camp Cropper prison to Iraq

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U.S. hands over keys of Camp Cropper prison to Iraq

By Jane Arraf, Christian Science Monitor | Christian Science Monitor


BAGHDAD — The U.S. closed one of the most controversial chapters of the Iraq war Thursday when it transferred control of its last remaining prison to the Iraqi government.

U.S. military officials handed over the keys to Camp Cropper, located near Baghdad's international airport. It's been renamed Karkh Prison, and will operate under Iraqi authority.

"It is sort of monumental," said Maj. Gen. Jerry Cannon, chief U.S. jailer in Iraq, in an interview ahead of the official transfer of authority. "This is the last U.S. Forces large detention facility in Iraq that we're turning over."

With the close of Camp Cropper, 1,600 prisoners are being transferred to Iraqi custody, including 26 former regime officials who were handed over earlier this week. Most of them are elderly men, some of whom have spent time gardening and reading at Camp Cropper as they await trial in a much-changed Iraq.

Throughout the war, 86,000 Iraqis have gone through U.S. military detention. Many were rounded up during the height of the insurgency and released without charge months or years later. Some, thrown in with hardened insurgents, became radicalized at places like Camp Bucca, which closed in September 2009.

Others were subject to abuse, most infamously at Abu Ghraib, which was turned over to Iraqis in 2006. But improved U.S. standards have since earned the respect of Iraqis.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/15/97598/us-hands-over-keys-of-camp-cropper.html