DoD
By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

U.S. officials decided last year that detainees held in coalition-run facilities in Iraq needed opportunities to voice their concerns and broaden their minds, rather than to just mark time, a senior U.S. military officer posted in Iraq said today.

“The way detention operations used to be conducted here in the country were a strategic risk,” Army Brig. Gen. Michael R. Nevin, commander of 177th Military Police Brigade, said in a conference call with military analysts.

“Back about in last March and April, there were a lot of violent actions, riots, detainee-on-detainee violence and detainee-on-guard violence going on in the facilities,” Nevin recalled. “Things were boiling over.”

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