U.S. transfers prison, 2,900 ex-insurgents to Iraq

Just a few more months and Iraq will have complete control of their Prisons !
I hope they keep the Inmates as Inmates !

(Reuters) - The U.S. military handed over a $107 million prison and nearly 3,000 inmates to the Iraqi government on Monday as it prepares to leave Iraq seven years after ousting Saddam Hussein.

The formal transfer of the detention center at Camp Taji, a sprawling U.S. base north of Baghdad, is part of a plan to unwind a U.S. detention program in Iraq that cost $500 million a year at its peak.

U.S. forces had taken into custody about 90,000 people since the 2003 invasion. By August, there will only be about 100 in U.S. custody, said Major General David Quantock, head of detention operations.

"At one point our guard force was over 10,000 and now we're going to go to a guard force of around 100 by the first of September, all part of the responsible drawdown plan to get U.S. forces down to 50,000," he said.

The U.S. detention centers in Iraq were being closed or transferred to the Iraqi government under a bilateral security pact signed by Iraq and the United States in 2008. The largest, Camp Bucca in the southern desert near Kuwait, was shut down last September.

The last, Camp Cropper located near Baghdad airport, will be turned over to Iraq on July 15, Quantock said.