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Despite the fact that last week an Iraqi judicial committee determined that he should be set free and granted him amnesty, and press freedom groups continue to call for his release, today Associated Press photojournalist Bilal Hussein started his third year in U.S. military detention in Baghdad.

With the bulk of the U.S. military's accusations against the photographer either dismissed or debunked by independent investigators, the military says it reserves the option to "ignore" the amnesty ruling and to keep Hussein in detention as long as they think he's a threat.

When the military turned the photographer's case over to an Iraqi judge and the Iraqi judicial system in December 2007, they said it was up to the Iraqi judicial system to determine Hussein's fate. Now that the Iraqis have done that, and the outcome was other than what the U.S. military hoped for, their decision to continue to hold Hussein while they "review" the amnesty order flies in the face of their own previous words.

Despite press freedom groups and Iraqi judges sayiing Hussein, 36, should be released immediately, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer is still in prison in Camp Cropper, a U.S. detention facility near Baghdad's airport.

The military seized and detained Hussein in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, two years ago today. They have held him without charging him with any crime under the suspicion that he had worked with Iraqi insurgents.