BAGHDAD , Iraq ( CNN ) -- The one-star general almost yells when asked to talk about the infamous Abu Ghraib photos showing U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees . An Iraqi detainee grips a fence at Camp Cropper , one of the few U.S. detention centers remaining in Iraq . `` If we had had a company commander doing what he was supposed to be doing , a battalion commander doing what he was supposed to be doing ... , '' Brig . Gen. David Quantock said . He carried on -- growing more and more angry . So the next obvious question was , `` It makes you angry ? '' `` It does make me angry , '' he said . `` Because I think we lost a lot of American lives because of those photos . '' And there it is -- the issue of detainee abuse and what the U.S. military struggles with , and has struggled with , since the release of those photos in 2004 , some of which showed naked prisoners being humiliated , stacked in piles or subjected to mock torture . Quantock , the head of detainee operations in Iraq , is echoing a debate raging in Washington . Another round of photos allegedly showing further abuse of prisoners was to be released by the end of this month . But President Obama asked that the photos be held back . Obama said he believed the release of the pictures could put American lives in danger . That is Catch-22 situation No . 1 : on one hand transparency ; on the other , the safety of U.S. troops . Quantock agreed with his commander in chief . `` The jihadists have used those pictures . And it has spurred some of the violence , '' he said . Walking through Camp Cropper -- one of the last remaining U.S. detention centers in Iraq -- it is clear the damaging photos have forced the United States to become more transparent in its dealings with prisoners . Detainees are now checked before and after interrogations to ensure the guards have not abused them . Officers who walk the catwalk , the long metal walkway that surrounds the sprawling yard housing the detainees , have more oversight . These institutional checks reduce the possibility that abuse could reach the same scale as it did in Abu Ghraib in 2003 . The camp itself has a strange feeling to it . Visitors are told to put on sunglasses before entering some of the holding areas . Many of the detainees spit and even throw their own fecal matter at the guards , officials said . Inmates in American detention with arrest warrants against them will be turned over to Iraqi authorities under the terms of the U.S.-Iraqi security agreement . All others will be released . But the United States has signed the international treaty against torture , which compels a nation to keep suspects detained rather than send them to another country if that other country might ill-treat them . `` Iraqi detention facilities are not good ; they are not like American facilities , '' said a woman who had just visited her detainee husband at Camp Cropper . `` There is a lot of witness testimony from detainees who suffered maltreatment in Iraqi detention facilities . '' A U.N. report examining the second half of 2008 agreed , saying that detention centers run by Iraqis are using torture and physical abuse to extract confessions . The lingering questions about Iraqi detention facilities create Catch-22 situation No . 2 . The United States very much wants not only to get out of Iraq , but to get out of the detainee operation business . But it has a legal bar to satisfy . For its part , the U.S. military said it is inspecting and monitoring nine of the Iraqi facilities where its detainees will go . Iraqi government authorities maintain that they are treating all prisoners in accordance with international law . But when the United States pulls its last troops form Iraq , the monitoring is likely to stop . Nongovernmental organizations have been denied access , and CNN recently has not been allowed into any Iraqi prison .
U.S. head of detainee program in Iraq is angered by Abu Ghraib photos . The pictures and abuse of Iraqi women continue to cause problems . U.S. military makes tough choices over treatment of detainees in Iraq .