Blair's Envoy Warns of Arrested Iraqis Disappearing into Black Hole Created by Coalition

Very, very disturbing, especially when read on Iraq's "Freedom Day":

Iraqis arrested by coalition forces have disappeared into a 'black hole' with no records of where they are being held, Tony Blair's personal envoy on human rights has warned.

Ann Clwyd said if the scandal of the missing prisoners had been taken more seriously from the start by the US, it could have helped prevent the abuse of detainees in their jails.

In an interview with The Observer, the Labour MP said she was 'very unhappy' at the rising numbers still detained - and called on the Iraqi government to publish a report on claims that inmates were tortured by Iraqi jailers.

Clwyd, appointed after decades of campaigning against Saddam Hussein's regime, reports directly to the Prime Minister and has until now rarely discussed her work.

She has spoken out amid growing criticism of Britain's failure to stop abuses in Iraq, arguing that suggestions Blair was unwilling to confront the US administration on such issues were wrong: 'I know, in conversations he has with the people of influence in the US, he doesn't pull his punches. He pushes them, sometimes with direct results.'

Clwyd's own files include two alarming cases highlighting the issue of the missing - and the scale of effort required to trace them.

The first involves an elderly woman arrested shortly after the war in the middle of the night by US soldiers. With her family unable to find her, relatives in Britain sought Clwyd's help.