clipped from: www.city-journal.org   

For the past nine months, Task Force 134—led by Major General Douglas M. Stone, a two-star Marine general who oversees civilian detention in Iraq—has been experimenting with a series of unconventional initiatives at two large “camps” where 23,245 suspected insurgents, Iraqi and foreign, are being held. The aim of these programs, which I visited in April, is not only to accelerate the identification and release of those falsely accused of “jihadi” activity, but also to de-radicalize and rehabilitate others who may have joined the insurgency primarily to feed their families, or because they were motivated by a militant, perverse interpretation of Islam.


Initial data, once in short supply, are impressive: of the 8,000 detainees released so far under the program, only 21 have been recaptured as a result of suspected insurgent activity, a rate that officers say is unprecedented. “It means that only .2 percent of those detained have returned to the fight,”