Iraqis fear the U.S sharing their Biometric Data in the Next Phase of the Occupation

As the U.S. government moves its military into the next phase of Iraq’s occupation by claiming the war is over to pacify the American people (while merely renaming combat troops and surging mercenaries into the country), its plan to transfer biometric info to the Iraqi government is raising fears among Iraqis that it will be misused to carry out vendettas.

The U.S. military has been collecting biometric info on Iraqis over the past seven years since the war started and taken fingerprints and DNA from 80,000 Iraqi detainees. It also computerized Saddam Hussein’s fingerprint files, feeling the need to include the enemies of the dictator it overthrew in the database.

This was outlined in a Boston Globe story by Farah Stockman on August 31st:

After the military’s incursion into Fallujah in 2004, US soldiers collected fingerprints and iris scans of every resident as they passed through checkpoints to return.

Iraqis who assist the United States are afraid that allowing the Iraqi government to access this information will result in them being identified as traitors and targeted for revenge by subversive enemies within the Iraqi police.

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