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CAMP BUCCA — Sewers, water, electricity, trash and fuel are services vital to any city in the United States, and urban populations simply cannot function effectively without proper city management oversight. Approximately 30 members of Oklahoma’s 1st Battalion, 160th Field Artillery, 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team face these same challenges in the middle of a desert in southern Iraq. The Guard members manage a facility with a population of more than 26,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, contractors, Department of Defense civilians and detainees at Camp Bucca, Iraq. The camp sits starkly in the middle of the desert -- all commodities and...

NORFOLK, Va. (NNS) -- Over 400 Sailors of Navy Provisional Detainee Battalion (NPDB) 2 returned home to Naval Station Norfolk Aug. 11, after a 16-month deployment in Iraq where they guarded 19,000 detainees at Camp Bucca. “We definitely accomplished our mission," said Cmdr. Kathryn Donovan, commanding officer NPDB-2. "It’s an ongoing mission of detainee ops down in Camp Bucca, Iraq. I thought we did a great job as a unit. We had very few MAs, but everyone performed outside of their rate successfully,” The unit was comprised of 422 Sailors from both active-duty and reserve components. They received advanced combat...

In the darkest hours before dawn, groups of 10 detainees toiled 15 feet beneath Compound 5 of America's largest prison in Iraq. The men worked in five-minute shifts, digging with shovels fashioned from tent poles and hauling the dirt to the surface with five-gallon water jugs tethered to 200 feet of rope. They bagged it in sacks that had been used to deliver their bread rations and spread it surreptitiously across a soccer field where fellow inmates churned it during daily matches, guards and detainees recalled. The 105th Military Police Battalion, charged with running Camp Bucca in the scorching desert...

WASHINGTON - The 82nd Airborne Division is sending about 700 soldiers to Iraq to provide extra security for detainees, whose numbers have doubled over the past year, officials said Wednesday. The 1st battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., has begun preparing to deploy over the next two months. It will be the battalion's second tour in Iraq; the first was from September 2003 to April 2004. Before that the battalion was in Afghanistan from July 2002 to January 2003. An announcement at Fort Bragg on Monday gave no information about the battalion's new mission in Iraq,...

UMM QASR, Iraq - (KRT) - The weight of a fuel truck collapsed the roof of an escape tunnel being dug out of Camp Bucca, where more than 6,000 suspected terrorists and insurgents are being held. Prison authorities said Sunday the shaft was discovered Thursday when one of the truck's tires plunged into the earth between the two main fences on the camp's perimeter. No one escaped. A small number of ringleaders involved in the attempt were placed in isolation, authorities said. The 300-foot burrow, about wide enough for a man to crawl through, was four feet underground and poorly...

The International Committee of the Red Cross is granted a privileged status to inspect the conditions of prisoners of war and other detainees in return for confidentiality. But in recent years it has demonstrated a habit of selective media leaks damaging to American purposes. This is the backdrop for two recent incidents that make us think the U.S. should reconsider the ICRC's role. The first concerns a story we heard first from a U.S. source that an ICRC representative visiting America's largest detention facility in Iraq last month had compared the U.S. to Nazi Germany. According to a Defense Department...

CAMP BUCCA, IRAQ -- U.S. military police Friday thwarted a massive escape attempt by suspected insurgents and terrorists from this southern Iraq Army base that houses more than 6,000 detainees when they uncovered a 600-foot tunnel the detainees had dug under their compound. "We were very close to a very bad thing," Major Gen. William Brandenburg said Friday after troops under his command discovered the tunnel that prisoners had painstakingly dug with the help of makeshift tools. Within hours of the discovery on the first tunnel, a second tunnel of about 300 feet was detected under an adjoining compound in...

WASHINGTON (AP)-U.S. military guards discovered a 600-foot tunnel-dug with makeshift tools-leading out of the main prison facility for detainees in Iraq before anyone had the opportunity to escape, officials said Friday.

CAMP BUCCA, IRAQ -- U.S. military police Friday thwarted a massive escape attempt by suspected insurgents and terrorists from this southern Iraq Army base that houses more than 6,000 detainees when they uncovered a 600-foot tunnel the detainees had dug under their compound. "We were very close to a very bad thing," Major Gen. William Brandenburg said Friday after troops under his command discovered the tunnel that prisoners had painstakingly dug with the help of makeshift tools. Within hours of the discovery on the first tunnel, a second tunnel of about 300 feet was detected under an adjoining compound in...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A military police private who bared her breasts during a mud-wrestling party at an Army camp in Iraq is being kicked out of the service, her grandmother said Friday. Luci Tomlin said 19-year-old Pfc. Deanna Allen was being singled out since photos of the event were published earlier this month. href="http://www.fayettevillenc.com/">

The Army has ordered a full-scale investigation into the sex and mud-wrestling escapade at Camp Bucca in Iraq, modeled after its sweeping probe of abuse allegations at Abu Ghraib prison. Lt. Gen. James Helmly, commander of the Army Reserve, ordered the probe after the Sunday Daily News reported that sergeants at Camp Bucca allegedly lent their rooms to G.I.s for sex parties and arranged a wild mud-wrestling bout with scantily clad female military prison guards last year. The investigation will be conducted under Army Regulation 15-6, the same rules that governed Gen. Antonio Taguba in his probe into the alleged...

07:49 AM CST on Monday, February 7, 2005 Associated Press RALEIGH, N.C. - Military officials have demoted a female member of a National Guard military police unit for indecent exposure after a mud-wrestling party at the Camp Bucca detention center in Iraq. Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, spokesman for detainee operations at the U.S. Army-run camp did not released the name of the soldier. However, the New York Daily News identified her as Deanna Allen, 19, and Allen's mother, Ladyna Waldrop of Black Mountain, confirmed the identification. After an inquiry, Allen was demoted from specialist to private first class and placed...

Female Member of NC-Based Guard Unit Demoted for Mud-Wrestling Party in Iraq By Martha Waggoner Associated Press Writer RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - A female member of a National Guard military police unit was demoted for indecent exposure after a mud-wrestling party at the Army-run Camp Bucca detention center in Iraq, a military spokesman said Sunday. The party occurred Oct. 30, as the 160th Military Police Battalion, an Army Reserve Unit from Tallahassee, Fla., prepared to turn over its duties to the Asheville-based 105th Military Police Battalion, said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, spokesman for detainee operations at Camp Bucca. In the...

In front of a cheering male audience, two young women wearing only bras and panties throw themselves into a mud-filled plastic kiddie pool and roll around in a wild wrestling match. At one point a man in the audience raises a water bottle and douses the entwined pair. At another, a "referee" moves in to break up the scantily clad grapplers. A young blond lifts her T-shirt to expose her breasts. A brunette turns her back to the camera and exposes her thong undies. These scenes, taken from 30 photos leaked to the Daily News, could have been snapped at...

January 31, 2005 Release Number: 05-01-120 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE RIOT AT CAMP BUCCA LEAVES 4 DEAD, 6 INJUREDBAGHDAD, Iraq -- A riot at the Camp Bucca Theater Internment Facility shortly after noon, Jan.31, left four detainees dead and six injured. The violence erupted after a routine search for contraband in one of the camp's 10 compounds. The facility's commander immediately deployed all available guards to the camp in an attempt to control the situation. The riot quickly spread to three additional compounds, with detainees throwing rocks and fashioning weapons from materials inside their living areas. The four compounds involved in...

BAGHDAD, Iraq There's been a deadly riot at a detention facility in Iraq. The U-S command says U-S guards opened fire, killing four detainees. Six others were injured.The riot broke out shortly after noon at the Camp Bucca (BOO-KAH) internment facility in southern Iraq. That's the main facility for holding security detainees.A statement for the command says it happened after a routine search for contraband in one of the camp's ten compounds.It says the riot quickly spread to three additional compounds, with detainees throwing rocks and making weapons from materials inside their living areas.The command says guards tried to calm...

U.S. Guards Shoot Dead 4 Inmates in Iraq Prison Riot 51 minutes ago BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops shot dead four inmates during a riot at a military prison in southern Iraq and six other detainees were injured on Monday, the U.S. military said. The riot at Camp Bucca Theater Internment Facility erupted after a routine search for contraband in one of the camp's 10 compounds and spread to three other compounds, with detainees throwing rocks and fashioning weapons, the military said. U.S. guards opened fire after the rioting raged unabated for 45 minutes. The injuries were caused both by...

An American soldier's video diary showing her disdain for Iraqi detainees who died in her charge is to be broadcast by a U.S. network on Wednesday in a further escalation of the prisoner abuse scandal that has shaken the Bush administration and provoked world outrage. CBS, which two weeks ago broadcast the first pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, said on Tuesday its "60 Minutes II" program would show video footage depicting conditions there and at another U.S.-run prison in southern Iraq called Camp Bucca. Photographs of Iraqi prisoners being sexually humiliated, threatened by...

Photos of alleged abuse by unit given to New Yorker reporter. By JERRY LYNOTT jlynott@leader.net Already reeling from a U.S. Army report that concluded soldiers of the 320th Military Police Battalion abused Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, the Ashley-based Army reserve unit drew more notoriety in The New Yorker over photos the magazine says show 320th soldiers using dogs to terrorize a naked prisoner. In the magazine's online version of a story titled "Chain of Command" by investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh, the author says he was given new digital photos by a member of the 320th. "The...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The head of U.S. detention centers in Iraq said Saturday the military has no plans to close the Abu Ghraib prison and blamed the abuse of detainees there on poor leadership and disregard for the rules. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller said the United States does intend to cut the number of prisoners to help improve conditions but added that ``we will continue to conduct interrogation missions at the Abu Ghraib facility.''Miller was named head of prisons in April after Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the commander of Abu Ghraib, was suspended amid allegations of abuse by U.S....

A former POW in Iraq names an Ashley-based reservist in a complaint against the U.S. Army. And he compared the treatment at his camp to the abuse that's making international news. Hossam Shaltout said widespread mistreatment from soldiers in Camp Bucca, where he was imprisoned last year, was as inhumane as that depicted in recent photos from Camp Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Shaltout described Camp Bucca as a "torture camp" where soldiers beat and humiliated prisoners, had them lie naked atop each other or pose in sexual positions. "They wanted us to have sex with each other," Shaltout said. He...

<p>Relatives of four Army reservists from Pennsylvania who are accused of beating and abusing Iraqi prisoners say they fear their loved ones are targets of a vendetta.</p> <p>The four U.S. soldiers accused of abusing prisoners of war include, clockwise from top left, Sgt. Timothy Canjar, Master Sgt. Lisa Marie Girman, Staff Sgt. Scott A. McKenzie and Sgt. Shawna L. Edmondson.</p>

PHILADELPHIA - The families of four U.S. Army reservists accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners of war have enlisted politicians, veterans groups and hundreds of friends to help persuade the military to dismiss the charges at a hearing next week. The four soldiers, all with the 320th Military Police Battalion based in Ashley, Pa., are charged with punching and kicking several Iraqis, breaking one man's nose, while escorting a busload of prisoners to a POW processing center near Umm Qasr in May. Details of the allegations haven't been released by the Army, and the soldiers said they have been ordered not...

<p>Chanting "Saddam no, Bush yes," some 200 Iraqi prisoners of war were let go Sunday at the coalition's main internment camp in the desert near the southern port of Umm Qasr.</p> <p>The men, many of them barefooted, shook hands with the American soldiers guarding the camp before boarding buses and trucks to be driven to nearby Basra, southern Iraq's largest city.</p>

CAMP BUCCA, Iraq April 27 — Chanting "Saddam no, Bush yes," some 200 Iraqi prisoners of war were let go Sunday at the coalition's main internment camp in the desert near the southern port of Umm Qasr.The men, many of them barefooted, shook hands with the American soldiers guarding the camp before boarding buses and trucks to be driven to nearby Basra, southern Iraq's largest city.Their departure brought to 700 the number of POWs released since Friday, said Maj. Stacy Garrity of the U.S. Army's 800th Military Police Brigade, which runs the camp. Around 5,800 more prisoners, including some from...

CAMP BUCCA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. military forces freed 200 Iraqi prisoners of war from their main internment camp in southern Iraq on Sunday as part of plans to release thousands of soldiers captured after Saddam Hussein sent them to fight. Former POWs, many of them shoeless and wearing tattered military garb or U.S.-issued blue coveralls, squatted patiently in a driving sandstorm before camp guards called them to board buses and trucks where they began singing, chanting and ululating with the joy of going home. Slight, curly-haired Thacker al-Rubai told Reuters his wife and five children had no idea he...