Iraq

Quoteworthy – On the death sentence given to Tariq Aziz in Iraq

by Howard on October 28, 2010

We do not question the guilt of Mr Aziz in respect of the crimes for which he has been convicted. We hold no brief for his activities under Saddam Hussein. He is currently a very ill man and will in probability die from his illness.

Our appeal is on a humanitarian basis. Nothing will be served by his execution. He has largely been forgotten during his imprisonment since giving himself up to the coalition forces. His own view that he would die in prison would in our view be a sufficient punishment.

The indiscriminate use of the death penalty during Saddam’s regime was widely condemned in the west. To support such action now would be a failure of moral courage. If Iraq is to rebuild itself and find its proper place in the community of nations, it needs to commit itself to the principles of the United Nations declaration on human rights.

- Rt Rev Peter B Price Bishop of Bath and Wells, Rt Rev Colin Bennets Bishop of Coventry 1998-2008, Major General Tim Cross in a letter opposing the death sentence of Tariq Aziz, a former deputy to Saddam Hussein

Update Nov. 17, 2010, from AP via Yahoo!:

Iraq’s president said Wednesday he won’t sign off on a death penalty sentence against one of Saddam Hussein’s closest confidantes, Tariq Aziz, setting the stage for a possible battle over the fate of the man known as the international face of the dictator’s regime.
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During an interview that aired Wednesday with France 24 TV, President Jalal Talabani cited a number of reasons for refusing to approve the execution.
“I cannot sign an order of this kind because I am a Socialist,” Talabani said. “I feel compassion for Tariq Aziz because he is a Christian, an Iraqi Christian.”
“In addition, he is an elderly man — aged over 70 — and this is why I will never sign this order,” Talabani said in Arabic through a translator. He was speaking in Paris, where he attended a meeting of the Socialist International this week.
Talabani has refused to sign off on death sentences for other former regime members, including former defense minister Sultan Hashim al-Taie, who signed the cease-fire with U.S.-led forces that ended the 1991 Gulf war and remains in U.S. custody.
However, it was not immediately clear whether Talabani’s opposition would necessarily spare Aziz’s life. Under the constitution, the president is supposed to ratify death sentences, but there are mechanisms for the execution to be carried out through parliament.

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Newly leaked documents detail abuses in Iraq

by Howard on October 23, 2010

I haven’t had a chance to watch much TV news the past few days, so I don’t know much attention this has gotten, but recently leaked documents contain information of which more Americans should be aware.

From part of excellent coverage by The Guardian:

A grim picture of the US and Britain’s legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.

Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters and civilian killings in the Afghan war.

The new logs detail how:

• US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.

• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.

• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.

The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee’s apparent death.
…
Although US generals have claimed their army does not carry out body counts and British ministers still say no official statistics exist, the war logs show these claims are untrue. The field reports purport to identify all civilian and insurgent casualties, as well as numbers of coalition forces wounded and killed in action. They give a total of more than 109,000 violent deaths from all causes between 2004 and the end of 2009.

This includes 66,081 civilians, 23,984 people classed as “enemy” and 15,196 members of the Iraqi security forces. Another 3,771 dead US and allied soldiers complete the body count.

No fewer than 31,780 of these deaths are attributed to improvised roadside bombs (IEDs) planted by insurgents. The other major recorded tally is of 34,814 victims of sectarian killings, recorded as murders in the logs.

However, the US figures appear to be unreliable in respect of civilian deaths caused by their own military activities. For example, in Falluja, the site of two major urban battles in 2004, no civilian deaths are recorded. Yet Iraq Body Count monitors identified more than 1,200 civilians who died during the fighting.

Phil Shiner, human rights specialist at Public Interest Lawyers, plans to use material from the logs in court to try to force the UK to hold a public inquiry into the unlawful killing of Iraqi civilians.

He also plans to sue the British government over its failure to stop the abuse and torture of detainees by Iraqi forces. The coalition’s formal policy of not investigating such allegations is “simply not permissible”, he says.
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WikiLeaks says it is posting online the entire set of 400,000 Iraq field reports – in defiance of the Pentagon.

The whistleblowing activists say they have deleted all names from the documents that might result in reprisals. They were accused by the US military of possibly having “blood on their hands” over the previous Afghan release by redacting too few names. But the military recently conceded that no harm had been identified.

Condemning this fresh leak, however, the Pentagon said: “This security breach could very well get our troops and those they are fighting with killed. Our enemies will mine this information looking for insights into how we operate, cultivate sources and react in combat situations, even the capability of our equipment.”

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U.S. soldiers exposed to potentially harmful emissions from burn pits

by Howard on October 17, 2010

From CNN:

Military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to use waste methods that expose troops to potentially toxic emissions without fully understanding the effects, according to a new government audit obtained by CNN.
Between September 2009 and October 2010, investigators from the Government Accountability Office visited four bases in Iraq and reviewed planning documents on waste disposal for bases in Afghanistan. None of the Iraq bases visited were in compliance with military regulations. All four burned plastic — which generates harmful emissions — despite regulations against doing so.
The emissions have been the source of controversy as troops have complained about a host of problems, from cancerous tumors to respiratory issues, blaming exposure to burn pits. Military officials have denied any consequential effects on most troops.
The military, the report concluded, has been slow in using alternatives and has not considered the long-term costs of dealing with subsequent health issues.
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Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, who has been vocal in his concern about troops’ exposure to burn pits, urged the Pentagon to restrict the use of the pits in Afghanistan.
“I am deeply troubled to learn that the Defense Department has not taken simple steps, such as segregating plastics, to ensure that our troops are not exposed to harmful emissions,” Feingold said in a statement released Friday.
The acting commander of Central Command, Lt. Gen. John Allen, wrote a letter to Feingold in July saying the military is trying to eliminate the use of burn pits at bases that are active for 90 days or more and occupied by 100 personnel or more. In Iraq, Allen anticipates there will be no burn pits by December of this year. Afghanistan is more challenging, but the military is in the process of procuring “almost 200 incinerators,” he said in the letter, obtained by CNN.
The military, Allen wrote, continues “to evaluate potential health outcomes in Service Members who have deployed” and he promises an improvement in air sampling collection.

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Quoteworthy – On members of “Sunni awakening” joining Al Qaeda in Iraq

by Howard on October 17, 2010

“The Awakening doesn’t know what the future holds because it is not clear what the government intends for them. At this point, Awakening members have two options: Stay with the government, which would be a threat to their lives, or help Al Qaeda by being a double agent. The Awakening is like a database for Al Qaeda that can be used to target places that had been out of reach before.”

- Nathum al-Jubouri, a former Awakening Council leader in Salahuddin Province who recently quit the organization

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Quoteworthy – On the withdrawal from Iraq

by Howard on August 29, 2010

Given all the damage that remains in Iraq, it is no wonder that some Iraqis are confused and angry at the rosy pronouncements about Iraq’s path to progress. Without masking his hostility and frustration, Jassim Al-Assawi pressed Ambassador Hill to explain why, despite all the problems Iraq is currently experiencing, he remains so optimistic. After waxing poetic about the heroism and drive of the Iraqi people, Hill simply insisted, “There’s no going back, only forward.”

This last statement encapsulates what is perhaps the most important function of the success narrative. All this talk about moving forward is also an insistence on not looking back, especially not to 2003. The U.S. has sought to control the past of the Iraq war by rejecting and effectively erasing it, willfully marginalizing the very act that got this whole story going in the first place. The Bush administration needed to scratch 2003 out in order to minimize its own role in the destruction of Iraq and the suffering of its people. Now, the Obama administration has picked up the eraser in order to convince everyone that this is a “responsible” withdrawal.

No matter how much the U.S government erases the past or predicts the future of Iraq, ordinary Iraqis will continue to face the more messy and complicated realities of the present. I dare Obama and everyone else in the spin machine to go to Iraq and look a child in the eyes. A child who, seven years after the U.S. invasion, still lacks adequate housing, drinking water, sanitation, electricity and education. Now, tell that child that the war in Iraq was a success.

- Hannah Gurman, from her article, The Iraq withdrawal: An Orwellian success on salon.com

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