Rare footage: "I have been jailed for 2 years and have never been put before a judge or court!"

Rare footage from inside a Baghdad prison camp shows hundreds of inmates packed into wire-mesh tents, protesting their innocence. [...] The video pictures were given to Reuters Television on Saturday by the office of Sunni Arab Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who visited the Rusafa prison compound in eastern Baghdad with his Shi'ite counterpart.

They've been promised better treatment, so it's all A-OK. Uh-huh, and the Blue Fairy will turn George Bush into a real boy.

At one point [Hashemi] added: "You are lucky to be here. At least you have security. Those outside do not even have security."

So, um, Hashemi's worse off than they are? They should be on their knees thanking him. Don't they recognize their good fortune in being locked up for years in a vile place with absolutely no way to prove their innocence (or guilt)?

And did I just hear the Sunni Arab V.P. admit to everyone that Iraq is a disaster? I thought so. Back to the lucky, safe ingrates prisoners.

U.S. forces and Iraq's own security forces have imprisoned tens of thousands of detainees without charge in the four years since the fall of President Saddam Hussein.

Shades of....democracy? No, no that's not it. Justice? Nope. Ah! I know! Abuse!

The treatment of prisoners has been especially resonant in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2004, when pictures showed U.S. troops sexually humiliating detainees. Washington says such abuse has stopped and those responsible were punished.

Of course it has. Of course they were.

Although U.S. forces are not responsible for prisoners held by Iraqi authorities, "we encourage them to treat their prisoners with as much respect as is seen in the West," said U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver.

Uh-oh.