Iraq warns of US terror factories

An Iraqi official says US-run detention facilities in the country, denounced as “factories for terrorists,” have brought about more crime than correction.

“The majority of the detainees who used to be inside US prisons went back to work in crimes and terrorism at a high level after they were released,” a spokesman for the security forces in Baghdad, Major General Qassim Atta, was quoted by AFP as saying on Tuesday.

“Many of them occupied leadership positions in al-Qaeda,” the spokesperson went on to say.

Iraqi police hold two of those released responsible for attacks on government ministries and deaths of more than 100 people.

Brigadier General David Quantock, the chief of American-run detention centers in Iraq, however, said late last year that “what frustrates me is the idea that there was a lot of radicalization going on inside the facilities of which I completely disagree.”

“A lot of these guys were radicals even before they got into our facilities and we spent a lot of time and resources separating the extremists from the moderates,” Quantock had said.

Until August 30 2009, the US military held around 9,000 Iraqi detainees despite its obligation to release them or hand them over to Iraqi officials under a security pact signed between Baghdad and Washington in late 2008.