I'm not usually one to question the tactics of the military - they are on the ground, I'm not. This, however, just can't be defended in any way. From AP via Yahoo:
"The U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of 'leveraging' their husbands into surrender, U.S. military documents show.This tactic is un-American and should be rejected by both Democrats and Republicans with equal disgust.
In one case, a secretive task force locked up the young mother of a nursing baby, a U.S. intelligence officer reported. In the case of a second detainee, one American colonel suggested to another that they catch her husband by tacking a note to the family's door telling him 'to come get his wife.'
The issue of female detentions in Iraq has taken on a higher profile since kidnappers seized American journalist Jill Carroll on Jan. 7 and threatened to kill her unless all Iraqi women detainees are freed."