The Washington Post reports on the background of the election-day riot and shooting at Camp Bucca, Umm Qasr, the main coalition jail in Iraq.
“”What happened here on January 31st has changed the dynamics” of managing such situations, said Maj. Gen. William Brandenburg, who oversees U.S. military detention operations in Iraq and toured the facility last week. “It showed that the prisoners could hurl rocks farther than we could fire nonlethal weapons. It also showed that we have to do a better job of understanding who we have in detention.”
It would appear, as so often already in Iraq, that a little sense and calm and common decency would have saved a deal of blood and screaming. The riot broke out after a cell search for contraband during which, according to the prisoners’ imam, a number of Korans were damaged.