Diverse Civilian Internees. Please: add a new term to your dictionary of Orwellian terms: Diverse Civilian Internees. "In the past month, as the new security crackdown in Baghdad has begun, U.S. forces have arrested 1,000 Iraqis, bringing to 18,000 the number of detainees being held in two U.S.-run facilities in that country. The average stay is about one year in these detention centers, but some 8,000 of the current detainees have been held longer, including 1,300 who have been in U.S. custody for two years, according to a statement provided by Capt. Phillip Valenti, public affairs officer for Task Force 134, the U.S. Military Police group handling detainee operations. "The intent is to detain individuals determined to be true threats to coalition forces, Iraqi Security Forces and stability in Iraq," said Valenti. "Unlike situations in the past, these detainees are not conventional prisoners of war." Instead, he said, they are "diverse civilian internees from widely divergent political, religious and ethnic backgrounds who are detained on the basis of intelligence available at the time of capture and gathered during subsequent questioning." Valenti said 250 of those currently in custody are third-country nationals, including some high-value detainees."