Iraq is casting a long shadow over the US presidential race, and with relative calm in the country the candidates are debating how fast US troops should quit Iraq. Senator Barack Obama’s 16-month timetable for withdrawal has the backing of Iraqi leaders, and the Bush administration itself now endorses a “time horizon” for troop cuts. But absent from the debate has been any discussion of the fate of nearly 21,000 prisoners held in Iraq by US forces. Obama and his Republican rival Senator John McCain ought to start talking now about what to do with detainees in US military custody in Iraq.
The US-led Multinational Force-Iraq (MNF) has claimed the authority to hold the detainees under successive UN Security Council Resolutions, the last of which expires at the end of the year. Prospects for a status-of-forces agreement (SOFA) and related pacts that might fill the legal void are clouded by the Bush administration’s lame duck status.
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