U.S. engagement of insurgents in the Middle East at the time was guided by "COIN" doctrine, and military action included incapacitation strategy that reflected U.S. crime policy under the Reagan Administration.
[10] Upon embarking on The War on Terror, George W. Bush put forth memoranda declaring that detainees captured under suspicion of ties to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda were not entitled to POW rights per the Fourth Geneva Convention.
[11] The military staff at Abu Ghraib were advised to follow protocols established for use at Guantanamo Bay to obtain intelligence, contributing to the detainee abuse that made the prison infamous.
[11] Detainees who were captured and placed in detention camps were subject to verbal, physical, and sexual harassment and assault, the most egregious documented examples being outlined in leaked images and subsequent Taguba Report.
These included offering vocational and educational programs in prison and fast-tracking releases for detainees who had committed no aggressions, posed no dangers, and had acted against the U.S. presence (if at all) for financial compensation, not on ideology.
[3] Leading up to the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, detainees were gradually released or transferred to other prisons as camps were shut down and control was relinquished back to the Iraqi government.
[14] The terrorist analyst organization The Soufan Group reported in 2014 that nine of the Islamic State's top leaders had been incarcerated together at Camp Bucca, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the first caliph of the IS.
As the United States withdrew and thousands of prisoners were released, Iraq saw an uptick in attacks endorsed by Al-Qaeda, marking the beginning of the rise of ISIS.