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The US military has opened a new prison with capacity for more than
1,700 detainees near the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.
Fort Suse began operations on October 17 and the first inmates arrived on October
24, a US military statement said Sunday.
Captain Patricia Brewer told AFP the detainees had previously been held in
other theatre detainment facilities such as Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, and
Camp Bucca, in southern Iraq.
"The opening of Fort Suse is a big step in the transition of detention
operations to the Iraqis," the statement said, quoting Major General William
Brandenburg, commanding general of detainee operations.
"It will be the first facility to be completely turned over to Iraqi control.
This complete transition of operations will take place after extensive training
of Iraqi guards and only after they are completely confident in their ability
to run this facility."
The site is an old Russian-built army training center that was renovated in
a little more than two months with a workforce of about 400 and a budget of
eight million dollars.
The prison will be handed over when "Iraqi guards are confident in their
ability to maintain the same high-quality level of care and control currently
maintained by coalition forces," the statement said.
