New Detainees Strain Iraq's Jails

"I finally said, 'Yes, I have planted the explosives.' I didn't do it, but because of the beating, I confessed."

"No detainee goes in that doesn't get beaten," said Shimmari. "They take confessions by force."

Iraqi government officials acknowledge that the prisons are overcrowded and that abuses have taken place, but they tend to characterize mistreatment as an aberration rather than a systemic problem. Iraq's minister of human rights, Wijdan Salim, said the soldiers who serve as guards in Iraqi military prisons are not trained to care for detainees.

"It's not their job," she said. "They don't know how to deal with them."

The State Department chronicled a series of detainee abuses in its human rights report published in March. The report found "many, well-documented instances of torture and other abuses by government agents and by illegal armed groups."

Instances of abuse inside Defense and Interior Ministry facilities reported by local and international human rights groups included "application of electric shocks, fingernail extractions, and other severe beatings. In some cases, police threatened and sexually abused detainees and visiting family members," the report said.

To accommodate the burgeoning prison population and try to prevent such mistreatment, U.S. and Iraqi authorities are building two detention facilities in eastern Baghdad, one at an existing prison complex in Rusafa, capable of accommodating 5,250 people. At a camp in Baladiyat, to hold 850 prisoners, detainees will live in tents built for 30 people each, said Yei, the deputy justice minister.

The new prison space is part of a massive project called the Rusafa Law and Order Complex, a fortified compound near the Interior Ministry building that, when finished, will include a courthouse and dormitories for lawyers and judges, within a guarded perimeter. The goal is to create a second Green Zone-style haven where authorities can push through the growing backlog of criminal cases.

"This represents a small step forward -- and it must be emphasized that this is merely a foothold -- on two fronts: the political will to embrace the rule of law and the capacity to render justice through secure and legitimate proceedings," U.S. Army Col. Mark S. Martins, senior staff judge advocate, said in a statement.

Special correspondents Saad al-Izzi, Naseer Nouri and Naseer Mehdawi contributed to this report.