From Holden:

Maybe history will call Chimpy the Education President after all.

U.S. commanders in Iraq are expressing grave concerns that the overcrowded Abu Ghraib prison has become a breeding ground for extremist leaders and a school for terrorist foot soldiers.

The reason is that the confinement allows detainees to forge relationships and exchange lessons of combat against the United States and the new Iraqi government.

“Abu Ghraib is a graduate-level training ground for the insurgency,” said a U.S. commander in Iraq.

The U.S. military has halted transferring detainees to Iraqi-run facilities until the country improves its prisoner care. But concerns about the growing detainee population under U.S. control have prompted a number of officers to stop sending every suspect rounded up to Abu Ghraib and other prisons.

[snip]

U.S. military and intelligence officers say Iraq has become a magnet for violent extremists from across the Islamic world. The officials warn that violent extremists who are not killed, captured and held or persuaded to give up the struggle will emerge battle tested, and more proficient at carrying out terror attacks elsewhere.

Some officers warn of a parallel to the Soviet experience in Afghanistan, when radical Islamic fighters drawn to fight the Soviet occupiers forged strong relationships with religious extremists from within Afghanistan and across the Islamic world.

Among those anti-Soviet fighters in Afghanistan was Osama bin Laden.

Here are some more of the latest Abu Ghraib University graduation pictures.