Whistleblower arrests himself

Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago, was a whistle-blower who prompted the raid by tipping off the F.B.I. to suspicious activity at the company where he worked, including possible weapons trafficking. He was arrested and held for 97 days — shackled and blindfolded, prevented from sleeping by blaring music and round-the-clock lights. In other words, he was subjected to the same mistreatment that thousands of non-Americans have been subjected to since the 2003 invasion.

Even after the military learned who Mr. Vance was, they continued to hold him in these abusive conditions for weeks more. He was not allowed to defend himself at the Potemkin hearing held to justify his detention. And that was special treatment. As an American citizen, he was at least allowed to attend his hearing. An Iraqi, or an Afghani, or any other foreigner, would have been barred from the room.

This is not the handiwork of a few out-of-control sadists at Abu Ghraib. This is a system that was created and operated outside American law and American standards of decency. Except for the few low-ranking soldiers periodically punished for abusing prisoners, it is a system without any accountability.

American military officials in Baghdad also revealed that two of the four suicide bombers who attacked hotels in Jordan on Nov. 9 had the same names as Iraqis who had been released from American-run detention centers after Army officials decided there were no grounds to hold them.

Until the Jordan bombings, much of the pressure on American authorities - from Iraqis with relatives in custody and from United Nations officials - has been to expedite the release of Iraqi detainees, many of whom are held for long periods with no access to fledgling Iraqi courts. A United Nations report this month noted that "the overall number of detainees continued to increase due to mass arrests," a situation that it said needed "urgent" remedy.

The Army says that while it continues to arrest large numbers of insurgents, it is also releasing many.

"We continue to have detainee releases every 7 to 10 days," said Lt. Col. Guy Rudisill, a spokesman for the Army's detainee operations command in Iraq. "Since the end of August, we have released approximately 2,800 security detainees."