The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the United States and Iraq specified that the United States would stop holding Iraqi detainees. In spite of this, US forces are still holding over 13,000 Iraqi detainees, according to Brigadier-General David Quantock. It is his intention that these detainees are to be freed or charged with some sort of actual crime in an Iraqi court.

Brig-Gen Quantock also told reporters that around half of those detainees were considered “dangerous” and that they will work with the Iraqi government to build a case against those detainees. The goal seems to be to bring them before the court “around the middle of this summer, beginning of September.”

Though the US has roughly halved the number of detainees it is holding, there seems to be no legal basis for them to hold any detainees under the SOFA. The Iraqi government has not publicly complained about the detentions.

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