How the Top Iraqi Terrorist Was Helped by a Bush-Signed Agreement

With the crisis in Iraq intensifying, conservative media outlets have searched for a fall guy and found one: President Barack Obama. In recent days, conservative websites have peddled the claim that it was Obama who freed the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Al Qaeda-inspired Islamic militant group currently overrunning cities in northern Iraq and threatening Baghdad. Referring to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who heads ISIS, the Daily Mail asserts, "Obama SET FREE the merciless terrorist warlord now leading the ISIS horde blazing a trail of destruction through Iraq." Right-wing author David Horowitz's FrontPage Magazine claims Baghdadi, who was once held by US forces in Iraq, was released "on Obama's watch." And RedState.com says Baghdadi was let go under the Obama administration's "policy of releasing terrorists." But they have it wrong: It was an agreement signed by President George W. Bush in 2008 that led to Baghdadi's release in 2009.

In 2005, US military forces captured Baghdadi. (There are not many public details about his capture or his role then in the ongoing insurgency.) He was held in a US-run detention camp in southern Iraq called Camp Bucca, where he remained for several years.

In 2008, while reducing the numbers of US troops in the country, Bush signed an agreement with the Iraqi government that mandated that all detainees be handed over to Iraqi forces. In accordance with this agreement, Baghdadi was transferred to Iraqi custody in 2009, and by 2010, the Iraqi government (for a reason not explained publicly) had set him free. That same year, Baghdadi assumed leadership of ISIS. He has since been dubbed "the new bin Laden."

It's not as if Bush could have prevented Baghdadi's release by maintaining control over detainees—in part because his administration had so screwed up on this front. (See Abu Ghraib.) At the time, "the United States' detainee programs had become a black eye," says Patrick Johnston, an expert on Iraqi insurgent groups at the RAND Corporation. US-run detention facilities were overcrowded; some prisoners were tortured. Continuing a large US-controlled detainee program "was a political nonstarter," he adds....


http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-release-george-bush