Camp Bucca

Camp Bucca (Arabic: سجن بوكا, romanized: Sijn Būkā) was a forward operating base that housed a theater internment facility maintained by the United States military in the vicinity of Umm Qasr, Iraq. After being taken over by the U.S. military (800th Military Police Brigade) in April 2003, it was renamed after Ronald Bucca, the only New York City fire marshal in history to be killed in the line of duty, during the September 11 attacks. The site where Camp Bucca was built had earlier housed the tallest structure in Iraq, a 492-meter-high TV mast. After the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, many detainees from Abu Ghraib were transferred to Bucca, where U.S. authorities hoped to showcase a model detention facility. Nevertheless, Camp Bucca was the scene of prisoner abuse documented over many years by the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and U.S. Army investigators. It housed numerous prominent Islamic extremists, including a significant portion of the leadership of Al Qaeda in Iraq, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, future leader of the Islamic State (IS), who enjoyed good relations with camp authorities while there. Bucca has been described as a breeding ground for Islamic extremism, and has been cited as contributing to the emergence of IS. On 17 September 2009, the U.S. military announced that the base would be closed. In December 2010, the U.S. military handed the base to the government of Iraq, who, on the same day, gave Kufan Group of Iraq a license to invest in the new Basra Gateway, to provide a hub for Iraq's port.