Last week the US government made an announcement that they would be releasing 500 prisoners in Iraq as a "goodwill gesture." What they didn't tell us is that, as of this writing four days after the announcement, those 500 prisoners--a tiny minority of the estimated 13,000 prisoners the US holds in Iraq--still have not been released. The 60 or so prisoners released on Thursday were part of a routine hold-and-release program, whereby US troops make massive arrests, question and hold their captives for 72 hours, then release the ones they think are innocent. No long-term prisoners (some have been held without charges or access to a lawyer for nearly nine months) have yet been released. Now it turns out that Paul Bremer only made his announcement under pressure from British officials in Baghdad who are appalled at the large numbers of Iraqis that are being scooped up, detained, and disappeared during routine US military operations.--Maria Tomchick. Source: "US frees Iraqis after British protest," Luke Harding & Richard Norton Taylor, The Guardian, 1/8/04.

In other Iraq news, General Ahmed Qadim, the chief of police in Baghdad, told a Reuters reporter that Baghdad streets won't be safe for at least a year. He said that there are only half as many Iraqi police patrolling the streets of Baghdad as are needed. Currently, Iraqi police lack everything from police cars to the lab equipment necessary to analyze fingerprints, hair samples, and blood types. They even lack uniforms: many of them wear civilian clothes with only a blue armband to denote the fact that they're Iraqi police. This may explain why US and coalition troops keep shooting Iraqi police by mistake. About 150 have been killed in the last seven months. In addition, General Qadim said that police training is vastly inadequate, which might explain why Iraqi police are notoriously trigger happy and have killed a number of unarmed Iraqi demonstrators in recent weeks. Also, no one has pointed out that, with only armbands to denote an Iraqi policeman, guerrillas are easily able to slip on an armband and impersonate a cop.--M.T. Source: "Baghdad Won't Be Safe for a Year, Police Chief Says," Luke Baker, Reuters, 1/6/04.

Last week the Bush administration quietly withdrew a 400-member team searching for WMD in Iraq. Apparently, the Joint Captured Material Exploitation Group has searched every reasonable nook and cranny in Iraq and found nothing. A larger group, the 1400-member Iraq Survey Group, will remain in Iraq, but Defense Department officials told the New York Times that most of the new linguists and intelligence analysts joining the Iraq Survey Group have been assigned to hunt for guerrillas, not search for WMD. David Kay, the head of the Iraq Survey Group, told reporters last month that he may resign; he spent last week in Washington DC trying to work out with his superiors at the CIA and the Pentagon just what the hell the ISG is supposed to be doing in Iraq.--M.T. Source: "US Withdraws a Team of Weapons Hunters From Iraq," Douglas Jehl, New York Times, 1/7/04,