UM QASR, Iraq -- The men line up, dirty but happy. They carry a variety of boxes, cheap suitcases and plastic bags. Some have wrapped towels around their heads like traditional Arab headdresses; one incongruously sports a straw hat.
It is Camp Bucca, named after a New York firefighter who died Sept. 11, 2001. Once home to some 7,000 Iraqi prisoners of war, the camp is completing its business. The prisoners started going home on April 24. Only a few Iraqis suspected of war crimes or believed to have useful intelligence will remain.
It is characteristic not just of the swift victory of America and its allies but of Western society that Washington began releasing prisoners before the war had officially ended. The conflict was not necessary for U.S. security, but Washington and its friends do fight with extraordinary humaneness compared to totalitarian hellholes like Saddam Hussein's Iraq.