The US military will soon close Iraq's infamous Abu Ghraib prison and transfer its 4,500 detainees to another detention facility, a US military spokesman said on Thursday.
Abu Ghraib, on the western outskirts of Baghdad, already dreaded under Saddam Hussein's regime, gained further notoriety when it was revealed that US forces had abused Iraqi detainees there in 2003.
"We will transfer operations from Abu Ghraib to the new Camp Cropper once construction is completed there," US detainee operations spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Kier-Kevin Curry said in a statement, speaking of a detention camp near Baghdad airport.
"No precise dates have been set, but the plan is to accomplish this within the next two to three months," he said.
US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson said the Abu Ghraib facility would be handed over to the Iraqi authorities, "but we do not anticipate the Iraqi government to use it as a prison or a detention facility."
"However, it is up to them how to use it," Johnson said.
The Iraqi government currently operates its own prison within the grounds of Abu Ghraib.
The US military said it was responsible for 4,537 detainees at Abu Ghraib.
Curry said coalition forces and the Iraqi government were preparing for Iraqis to assume full control of detention operations.
He said a joint planning team meets regularly to develop the details of the transfer which involves training the Iraqis.
Curry said the four-step training involves a course on the basics of how to be a prison guard and how to work with coalition forces at the facilities.
"A specific timeline is difficult to project at this stage with so many variables and the transition will be based on meeting standards, not on a timeline," he said.
Apart from those held at Abu Ghraib, the US military holds 8,607 detainees at Camp Bucca, in the south of the country, 127 at Camp Cropper, and 1,318 at Fort Suse, in the north of the country.
Meanwhile, the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) said it hoped the transfer of detainees to the new facility would facilitate inspections by its officials.
"For us what is significant is the way in which the prisoners are treated," ICRC spokesman Nada Doumani said.
"If they are transferred we wish that it is to centers where the ICRC can visit them. The ICRC has not been able to visit Abu Ghraib for a year because of the security situation," he said.
Pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib, including some showing bloodied and naked prisoners smeared with excrement or forced to perform sexual acts, stoked anti-US sentiment across the world.
Seven lower ranking US soldiers, described by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as "a few bad apples," faced courts martial over the abuse.
Specialist Charles Graner and his girlfriend of the time, Private Lynndie England, became the public face of the abuse scandal.
Graner was said to have been the ringleader of the humiliating mistreatment and was jailed for 10 years. England who was pictured holding a naked prisoner at the end of a dog leash, was sentenced to three years in jail and given a dishonorable discharge.
The prison commander at the time, Janis Karpinski, was the most senior officer to be reprimanded. She was demoted from brigadier-general to colonel, but faced no charges.
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