[Alex]
Among the unfortunate aspects of today’s New York Times splash is that it’s hard to be surprised by the fact that a US citizen was detained for three months without charge in Iraq, despite being an FBI informer. If that’s how Donald Vance, a Navy veteran working as a contractor in Baghdad, was treated, well, how sensitively do you think we’re dealing with the local population?
A spokeswoman for the Pentagon’s detention operations in Iraq, First Lt. Lea Ann Fracasso, said in written answers to questions that the men had been “treated fair and humanely,” and that there was no record of either man complaining about their treatment.
She said officials did not reach Mr. Vance’s contact at the F.B.I. until he had been in custody for three weeks. Even so, she said, officials determined that he “posed a threat” and decided to continue holding him. He was released two months later, Lieutenant Fracasso said, based on a “subsequent re-examination of his case,” and his stated plans to leave Iraq.
The Dish 