:: Article nr. 74556 sent on 03-feb-2011 07:38 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=74556

February 2, 2011

Twenty years ago, one of the most diabolical slaughters in war history occurred in Iraq. Despite the assurances of the Bush I regime that retreating Iraqi soldiers would not be attacked, just the opposite happened. Iraqi soldiers and civilians were massacred after Saddam Hussein called for their exit of Kuwait.

More than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed in five weeks, the majority during the 100-hour ground war. You may say, "This is war and people get killed." That’s true, but tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers were killed by illegal weapons in a most brutal manner that contradicted international laws that apply to war.

When then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, was asked about the number of deaths the Iraqi military suffered, he said, "I don’t have a clue and I don’t plan to undertake any real effort to find out." This is the same man who stated several months after Desert Storm that his goal was to "make the world scared to death of the United States."

We all know how Powell as Secretary of State lied to the world about Iraq in 2002 and 2003, yet few remember his affinity for killing during the Gulf War. He was just as vicious and untruthful in 1991 as he was in the early part of the 21^st century.

Prior to the start of the ground phase, many countries were trying to dissuade the U.S. from attacking. Moscow came up with a peace plan that Bush called "a cruel hoax." Bush kept saying that the only objective was for Iraqi troops to leave Kuwait. When one reporter asked him how the Iraqis could retreat while they were still being heavily bombed, Bush answered, "That’s for them to find out."

On February 22, 1991, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater played his own "cruel hoax." He stated, "The United States and its coalition partners reiterate that their forces will not attack retreating Iraqi forces."

Despite all the efforts to bring a peaceful conclusion, none was accepted by the U.S. Saddam Hussein ordered a retreat of Iraqi troops from Kuwait on February 25, 1991. This order, with Fitzwater’s earlier statement, appeared to be the beginning of the end of violence in Kuwait and Iraq.

Bush looked at it another way. He now had his chance to slaughter tens of thousands of defenseless soldiers and one of the most barbaric massacres in history began.

On February 25, 1991, at a junction of roads leading from Kuwait City, U.S. Marine aircraft, flying close support for ground troops, arrived and saw a five-vehicle-wide stream moving on the highway out of Kuwait City. The vehicles were occupied by Iraqi military personnel (mostly unarmed) and civilians of many nationalities.

The Marines allowed the vehicles to get out of the city and then laid down an aerial barrage of anti-armor mines across the road, making it impossible for the vehicles to move ahead. There were miles of vehicles and thousands of passengers who were not able to move. Kill zones were assigned to groups of eight aircraft sent into the target area every 15 minutes. According to Major General Royal N. Moore, commander of the Marine Air Wing 3, "It was like a turkey shoot until the weather turned sour."

By the morning of February 26, the 2^nd Marine Division and its augmenting armored brigade (the Tiger brigade) of the Army’s 2^nd Armored Division arrived on the scene. Other ground division followed. Now, the slaughter on what has become to be known as "The Highway of Death" began in earnest.

U.S. troops observed thousands of Iraqis trying to escape up the highway. They attacked the defenseless soldiers from the high ground, cutting to shreds vehicles and people trapped in a miles-long traffic jam. Allied jets repeatedly pounded the blocked vehicles. Schwarzkopf’s orders were "not to let anybody or anything out of Kuwait City."

On February 27, the first words hit the outside world about this carnage, however, it still would be a few more weeks until photographs of the destruction made their way to the public, and then only a few were seen. A pool reporter with the 2^nd Armored Division wrote:

As we drove slowly through the wreckage, our armored personnel carrier’s tracks splashed through great pools of bloody water. We passed dead soldiers lying, as if resting, without a mark on them. We found others cut up so badly; a pair of legs in its trousers would be 50 yards from the top half of the body. Four soldiers had died under a truck where they sought protection.

The Iraqi retreat extended north of Jahra, where the two main roads going into Iraq split at al-Mutlaa. Because the main road was so jammed, Iraqi troops were being diverted along a coastal route. These soldiers suffered the same fate as those on the Highway of Death. According to a U.S. Army officer on the scene (the coastal road):

There was nothing but shit strewn everywhere, five to seven miles of just solid bombed-out vehicles. The Air Force had been given the word to work over the entire area, to find anything that moved and take it out.

Surrendering Iraqi troops were also slaughtered. A media pool report of February 27 stated:

One Navy pilot, who asked not to be identified, said Iraqis have affixed white flags to their tanks and are riding with turrets open, scanning the skies with their binoculars. The flier said that under allied rules of engagement, pilots were still bombing tanks unless soldiers abandoned the vehicles and left them behind.

The first British pilots to arrive at the scenes of slaughter returned to their base. They protested taking part in attacking defenseless soldiers, but, under threat of court martial, they eventually took part in the massacre.

A report by Greenpeace called On Impact proclaimed:

Aboard the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Ranger, air strikes against Iraqi troops were being launched so feverishly … that pilots said they took whatever bombs happened to be closest to the flight deck. S-3 Viking anti-submarine patrol aircraft were brought into the bombing campaign, carrying cluster bombs. The number of attacking aircraft was so dense that air traffic control had to divert planes to avoid collisions.

On March 10, the scenes at the coastal road were still horrendous. Reporter Michael Kelly described them:

For a 50 or 60-mile stretch from just north of Jahra to the Iraqi border, the road was littered with exploded and roasted vehicles, charred and blown-up bodies … I saw no bodies that had not belonged to men in uniform. It was not always easy to ascertain this because the force of the explosions and the heat of the fires had blown most of the clothing off the soldiers, and often too had cooked their remains into wizened, mummified, charcoal-men.

General McPeak took great pride in the slaughter. He said, "When enemy armies are defeated, they retreat. It’s during this phase that the true fruits of victory are achieved from combat, when the enemy’s disorganized." Less than a week after the White House spokesman assured the world that U.S. forces would not attack a retreating Iraqi army, most of the army was destroyed while it was retreating.

When the operation was completed, Iraq was stuck with the bill. One of the conditions of the cease-fire was that Iraq had to pay Kuwait $50 billion in reparations for damage caused by the U.S. When the oil-for-food program began, the first 15% of all revenues taken in by Iraq went to Kuwait.

The most appalling aspect of this end to Desert Storm was the bravado of the U.S. government and the top military officers. They ordered this unnecessary slaughter and took glee every time they publicly spoke of it. Powell and McPeak gained the military accolades that had diverted them a couple of decades earlier in Vietnam.

In addition to the Highway of Death carnage, an incident occurred that has since been forgotten by most of the world. On the first two days of the ground war (February 24 and 25, 1991), U.S. troops, using tanks and earthmovers that had been specially-fitted with plows, buried thousands of Iraqi soldiers alive.

Three brigades of the 1^st Mechanized Infantry Division (the Big Red One) used the tactic to destroy trenches and bunkers that were defended by about 10,000 Iraqi soldiers. These combatants were draftees, not seasoned troops such as the Republican Guard.

The assault was carefully planned and rehearsed. According to U.S. participants, about 2,000 Iraqis surrendered and were not buried. Most of the rest, about 8,000, were buried beneath tons of sand — many trying to surrender. Captain Bernie Williams was rewarded for his part in the burying with a Silver Star. He said, "Once we went through there, other than the ones who surrendered, there wasn’t anybody left."

According to a senior Army official who, under anonymity, was questioned by The Spotlight about the tactics, the use of earthmovers is standard procedure in breaching obstacles and minefields. The heavy equipment precedes armored and infantry units to level barriers, then the vehicles can move quickly through enemy defenses. The official stated that any Iraqi troops who remained in their bunkers would have been buried and killed. He added, "This is war. This isn’t a pickup basketball game."

Colonel Anthony Moreno, commander of the 2^nd Brigade, said, "For all I know, we could’ve killed thousands." A thinner line of trenches on Moreno’s left flank was attacked by the 1^st Brigade, commanded by Colonel Lon Maggart. He estimated that his troops alone buried about 650 Iraqis alive.

After the cease-fire, in an interview with New York Newsday, Maggart and Moreno came forward with some of the first public testimony about the burying alive of Iraqi soldiers. Prior to their interview, then Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, never mentioned the atrocities, even when he submitted a report to Congress just prior to the interviews.

The technique used in burying the soldiers involved a pair of M1-A1 tanks with plows shaped like giant teeth along each section of the trench line. The tanks took up positions on either side of the trenches. Bradley fighting vehicles and Vulcan armored personnel carriers straddled the trench line and fired into the Iraqi soldiers as the tanks covered them with piles of sand.

Moreno recalled, "I came through right after the lead company. What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with peoples’ arms and things sticking out of them." Maggart added, "I know burying people alive sounds pretty nasty, but it would be even nastier if we had to put our troops in the trenches and clean them out."

The attack contradicted U.S. Army doctrine, which calls for troops to leave their armored vehicle to clean out trenches or to bypass and isolate fortified positions. Moreno admitted that the assault was not according to policy:

This was not doctrine. My concept is to defeat the enemy with your power and equipment. We’re going to have to bludgeon them with every piece of equipment we’ve got. I’m not going to sacrifice the lives of my soldiers — it’s not cost-effective.

The most disturbing aspect of the incident was the secrecy involved. When Newsday broke the story, many were taken by surprise. According to members of the U.S. House and Senate Armed Forces Committees, the Pentagon had withheld details of the assault from the committees. Senate Chairman, Sam Nunn, was unaware of the assault and after he was notified, he stated, "It sounds like another example of the horrors of war." Quickly, the incident was forgotten.

The killing of defenseless soldiers and civilians did not end with the cease-fire. On the morning of March 2 (two days after the cease-fire was announced), a convoy of Iraqi vehicles was reported moving through the demarcation point of allied operations on Highway 8 about 50 kilometers west of Basra.

According to a pool reporter from the UPI, a platoon of the 24^th Infantry Division reported that the "massive Iraqi convoy … had just shot a couple of rockets at it." The Washington Post added that the convoy of 700 wheeled vehicles and 300 armored vehicles "opened fire in an effort to clear a path toward a causeway across the Euphrates." Lt. Chuck Ware, the battalion commander, received permission to return fire and the battalion received backup from Army artillery and 20 U.S. Cobra and Apache helicopters.

The ensuing fighting was one-sided and several thousand Iraqis (civilian and military) were killed in two hours. There were few Iraqi survivors.

A Washington Post report on March 18, 1991 said:

U.S. tanks were shooting Iraqi tanks off heavy equipment trailers trying to haul them to safety. Bradley fighting vehicles shattered truck after truck with 25mm cannon fire as Iraqi civilians and soldiers alike ran into the surrounding marshes.

Lt. Col. Ware said, "They shot first, we won big." Another U.S. officer stated, "We really waxed them."

This massacre took place after the cease-fire had been announced. At the time, it was thought that the convoy was not aware of its position; therefore it ran into the U.S. Army personnel. All the equipment was being transported on trucks — it was not in position to use in battle — so the U.S. forces had nothing to fear in terms of casualties. Some Iraqi soldiers were lying down on the vehicles and sleeping or obtaining a suntan.

When the post-cease-fire massacre occurred, the U.S. news agencies mentioned a "skirmish" between Iraqi and U.S. troops and said there were no U.S. casualties. They did not mention the slaughter.

The information made it appear that the unlucky Iraqis had taken a wrong turn somewhere and happened to run into a trigger-happy group of soldiers. The truth, however, is much more diabolical.

In May 2000, The New Yorker published an article by Seymour Hersh called "Overwhelming Force." Hersh spent years tracking down some of the participants in the slaughter, which was given the moniker the "Battle of Rumaila."

Instead of a wayward convoy of Iraqis who had the bad luck to shoot at U.S. forces, Hersh paints a picture of U.S. General Barry McCaffrey intentionally giving wrong location information to his superiors so he could concoct a battle with the hapless Iraqis who, in reality, were exactly where they were supposed to be according to the "safe" routes of return designated by the U.S.

Hersh explained:

McCaffrey’s insistence that the Iraqis attacked first was disputed in interviews for this article by some of his subordinates in the wartime headquarters of the 24^th Division, and also by soldiers and officers who were at the scene on March 2^nd. The accounts of these men, taken together, suggest that McCaffrey’s offensive, two days into a cease-fire, was not so much a counterattack provoked by enemy fire as a systematic destruction of Iraqis who were generally fulfilling the requirements of retreat; most of the Iraqi tanks traveled from the battlefield with their cannons reversed and secured, in a position known as travel-lock. According to these witnesses, the 24^th faced little determined Iraqi resistance at any point during the war or its aftermath; they also said that other senior officers exaggerated the extent of Iraqi resistance throughout the war.

The slaughter may have been forgotten and never discussed if not for an anonymous letter sent to the Pentagon that accused McCaffrey of a series of war crimes. The letter stated that McCaffrey’s division began the March 2^nd assault without Iraqi provocation and it included information only an insider would know. An investigation ensued, but, eventually, McCaffrey was exonerated.

Despite the prospect of an inquiry, McCaffrey openly bragged about his unit’s performance in the massacre. He told another general’s battalion that the 24^th Division had carried out:

"absolutely one of the most astounding goddamned operations ever seen in the history of military science … We were not fighting the Danish Armed Forces up here. There were a half million of those assholes that were extremely well-armed and equipped."

Some participants of the battle say that Iraq did not fire the first shot. Others maintain the Iraqis shot first, but only once. Authorities differed on the time between the supposed Iraqi shot and the beginning of the U.S. actions. Some say it was about 40 minutes, while others say the time lapse was close to two hours. Either way, it was evident that if Iraq did fire a shot, there was no follow-up or change of formation for the convoy. It still went forward with its equipment not in place for battle.

Soon, a call came asking for every available unit to come to rescue the U.S. troops. Sergeant Stuart Hirstein and his team rushed to the site. When Hirstein arrived, he said there was no attack and no imminent threat from retreating Iraqi tanks. He stated:

Some of the tanks were in travel formation, and their guns were not in any engaged position. The Iraqi crew members were sitting on the outside of their vehicles, catching rays. Nobody was on the machine guns.

Despite the intelligence that stated the Iraqis were no threat, and the doubts of other officers about an Iraqi attack, McCaffrey still wanted to go to battle. There were more discussions and Captain Bell, who had been involved with the talks before the U.S. "counterattack," believed that McCaffrey moved his brigades to the east of the original cease-fire line to provoke the Iraqis. He added that there is a huge difference between a round or two fired in panic and McCaffrey’s determination that the Iraqis were "attacking us." He added, that "is pure fabrication."

Hersh described the beginning of the hostilities that wiped out thousands:

The division log placed the time of McCaffrey’s first known battle order at five minutes after nine o’clock. According to Log Item 74. McCaffrey directed that the causeway "be targeted," thus blocking the basic escape route for the retreating forces. The division’s Apache helicopters were to "engage from south with intent of terminating engagement." Within moments, the assault was all-out. One company reported that it had engaged a force of between a hundred and two hundred Iraqi "dismounts." By ten o’clock, division headquarters had begun receiving reports of extensive damage to the Iraqi forces. One group of Apache helicopters reported in mid-morning, "Enemy not firing back, they are jumping in ditches to hide." Forty minutes later, according to another log item, McCaffrey ordered artillery to be "used in conjunction with personnel sweep to 'pound these guys’ and end the engagement."

The 24^th Division continued pounding the Iraqi column throughout the morning, until every vehicle moving toward the causeway — tank, truck, or automobile — was destroyed

McCaffrey was triumphant at battle’s end. "He was smiling like a proud father," John Brasfield told me …

… A couple of evenings later, Pierson was driving toward the causeway. "It must have been a nightmare along this road as the Apaches dispensed death from five kilometers away, one vehicle at a time. I stopped as a familiar smell wafted through the air … It was the smell of a cookout on a warm summer day, the smell of seared steak."

After the battle, a captured Iraqi tank commander asked again and again, "Why are you killing us? All we were doing was going home. Why are you killing us?"

Shortly before his troops flew back to Fort Stewart in the U.S., McCaffrey told them he had never been:

"more proud of American soldiers in my entire life as watching your attack on 2 March … It’s fascinating to watch what’s happening in our country. God, it’s the damnedest thing I ever saw in my life. It’s probably the single most unifying event that has happened in America since World War II … The upshot will be that, just like Vietnam had the tragic effect on our country for years, this one has brought back a new way of looking at ourselves."

McCaffrey weathered the storm and received his fourth star in 1994. In 1996, he retired from the Army and was appointed by the Clinton administration as the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, more commonly known as the U.S. Drug Czar.

Hersh’s article received much pre-publicity in 2000 and many people were anticipating the piece. Then, a couple of days before The New Yorker was to appear on the stands with the article, a press conference was called to address the issue. A Clinton spokesman took to the podium and criticized the article. He called it "old wine in a new bottle." In the space of about five minutes, an article that should have been read by the American public was dismissed as rubbish by the Clinton administration. The curious aspect of this denigration is that the article had not yet appeared. Normally, an administration tears apart something in the press after it is published. This fact alone should have piqued the interest of the public. However, the opposite occurred. Within a couple of days of its publishing, few spoke of the article again. It became a non-issue.

The entire article is a must-read for anyone who wants to know the truth about how the U.S. military conducted itself in Desert Storm. Not all the personnel were as bloodthirsty as McCaffrey, and Hersh interviewed participants who opposed the decision to slaughter thousands of Iraqis who could not fight back. It is available online at many websites. Punch in the name of the article on a search engine and you will be able to find the entire piece.

Marlin Fitzwater’s statement that retreating Iraqi troops would not be attacked was an outright lie, yet neither he nor the administration paid a price for the deceit. Up to 100,000 retreating Iraqis were slaughtered after he made the statement to the world. Among the retreating Iraqi soldiers were civilian men, women and children of various nationalities. Their deaths were, according to various U.S. military officers, the "spoils of war."

Those soldiers who did make it out of Kuwait were still not out of the woods. As soon as they approached Basra, they came under attack from Iranians who crossed the Iran-Iraq border during the U.S. bombing and their Iranian-backed Iraqi stooges. Much bloodshed on both sides occurred, creating more deaths for Iraqi troops. When the hostilities ended, the Iraqi army, by putting up a fierce resistance to the attempted coup, came out on top.

Marlin Fitzwater lied about not attacking retreating Iraqi troops and despite the horrendous circumstances they endured to get back to Iraq, their war was not over. Iran, with the blessing of the U.S., tried to finish off the Iraqi army. But, in the end, the heroic army kept Iraq intact by its brave fighting. Even this part of history has been re-written by the U.S. Instead of stating that Iraqi soldiers faced yet another ambush, the West put its propaganda machine in full gear and the perception of this incident has been attributed to Iraqi soldiers attacking and massacring Iraqi Shi’ite Muslims.

NCCI: As the former Regional Coordinator for Women for Women International in Iraq, what do you feel are some of the greatest obstacles facing NGOs which operate in the sector of women's rights?

Manal Omar: The biggest challenge is when women become the negotiating chip.  One of the titles of my chapters in my book is "Negotiating Chip," because I witnessed too often how women's rights were used during political or social bargaining. For example, you may have high-level Kurdish representatives that believe 100% in women's rights.  However, during political debates, or when it's time to vote on a resolution, they will not vote pro-women.  When I would challenge them, they often would say that their primary issue is federalization, and as a result, they would strike a deal on a resolution for women if more conservative parties would vote on the resolution of federalization. The second challenge is what I call the "not now" argument.  This argument usually states that because of overall violence and instability, it is not an appropriate time to discuss women's issues.  I have witnessed how the "not now" easily becomes the "not ever."  Women must maximize the window of opportunity to push their rights forward.

NCCI: When was the last time that you were in Iraq?  Did you notice any changes in women's status in the country at that time?

Manal Omar: The last time I was in Iraq was December 2010.  Unfortunately, during my trip there was the announcement of the new government ministries.  It was very sad to see that Iraqi women were not part of the list of ministries at all.  Many of the women's organizations I have worked with for the last seven years called me and were in shock to see how Iraqi women continue to lose rights rather than gain them!  After the previous elections, there were 6 female ministers; now there are none.  Even the Ministry for Women's Affairs has an interim male Minister.  This highlights that the challenge facing women is stronger than ever.

NCCI: Who do you consider as the most vulnerable groups of women today in Iraq?  What special protection should NGOs and the government seek to provide them with?

Manal Omar: The most vulnerable groups would be women heads of households; this usually means widows, divorcés, or unmarried women.  They do not have the access or mobility than men generally have.  They are often more vulnerable in times of limited security and have less access to income.  A lack of security remains the primary obstacle limiting women's ability to attain economic self-sufficiency.  Naturally, women in that category who are either internally displaced people (IDPs) or refugees in neighbouring countries are at twice the riskk. NGOs should focus on programs that are accessible for these women.  The best programs will not be able to succeed if women are not able to come, and that is often the case with the vulnerable women.  They have very limited mobility.  The more the program is available with limited transportation time and costs, the more accessible it will be for these groups.  Overall, the Iraqi government is still the primary duty bearer and should have programs targeting the most vulnerable groups.  These programs should be easy to access, with minimum bureaucracy and clear application steps.

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AI, January 15, 2011

Amnesty International has urged the Iraqi authorities to prevent the forcible return to Iran of several members of the Ahwazi Arab minority amid fears that they would be at serious risk of torture and other human rights violations in Iran.

Two recognized refugees, Shahhed Abdulhussain Abbas Allami and Saleh Jasim Mohammed al-Hamid, are currently being detained in Basra prison, while a third man has already been transferred to the custody of Iranian officials in Iraq.

At least three other Ahwazi Arabs, all members of the same family, are also at serious risk. They are believed to have been detained by the Iraqi authorities at the request of the Iranian government because their father is an Iranian political activist, currently exiled. Two members of this family, both aged under 18, have already been handed to Iranian officials in Iraq and their subsequent fate is unknown.

"The Iraq authorities must not allow these members of Iran’s Ahwazi Arab minority to be sent back to Iran," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.

"In the past other cases of Ahwazi Arabs forcibly returned to Iran have faced torture. Amnesty International fears that these individuals would be at real risk of human rights violations if they are returned, and it would be a breach of Iraq’s obligations under international law."

States are not permitted to return individuals to countries where they would be at risk of torture or other serious human rights violations.

These cases arise at a time when the Iraqi government is said to be negotiating a cooperation agreement with Iran which would allow the two states to hand over or exchange convicted prisoners.

The five members of the same family who are under threat include Zeydan Abbas, Haydar Abbas and Jabran Jemah Abbas, all of whom are currently detained at Al-Amara prison. Their younger brother and sister, Walid Jemah Abbas and Nasren Jemah Abbas, both aged under 18, were detained with them but have already been handed into the custody of Iranian officials in Iraq.

The Ahwazi Arab minority is one of many minority communities in Iran. Much of Iran's Arab community lives in the south-western province of Khuzestan, which borders Iraq. Most are Shi’a Muslims but some are reported to have converted to Sunni Islam, heightening government suspicion about Ahwazis, who complain that they are marginalized and subject to discrimination.

Iraq is a state party to both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and to the Convention against Torture (CAT), treaties which prohibit the forcible return of anyone to a country where they would be at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.

The international law principle of non-refoulement also prohibits the forcible return of anyone to a country where they would be at risk of serious human rights abuses, including torture.

:: Article nr. 73918 sent on 15-jan-2011 06:19 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=73918

niqash | fri 14 jan 11

Three months have passed since the publication of US secret documents by the Wikileaks site, which included 400,000 documents relating to Iraqi political affairs. So far, there has been no serious Iraqi response.

Instead, the two main political forces in the country, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law Coalition, and Ayad Allawi’s Iraqiya list, initially tried using these documents to further their own interests.

The Iraqiya list demanded investigations over allegations that Maliki had commanded squads that killed and tortured his opponents.

Maliki denied these accusations, saying they were "tricks and media bubbles planned to serve certain political goals."

But since the two parties joined forces and agreed on the formation of a new government at the end of December 2010, they have both ignored the Wikileaks documents.

Dr Hashem Hasan, professor of journalism and media at the University of Baghdad, stressed that other people, as well as politicians, have used these documents to serve their own interests.

As an example, he mentions the news item, broadcast on al-Rai TV at the end of December 2010, which alleged that the journalist Firas al-Hamadani worked for the Israeli Mossad in Iraq.

The channel, run by Mishaan al-Jibour, a former MP charged with corruption and embezzlement by an Iraqi court, claimed that this information came from Wikileaks.

Dr Hasan believes Al-Rai broadcast the news as revenge, although he does not expect it to have much impact locally or internationally, as "Iraq is already a country full of sins and violations."

Firas al-Hamadani denies all the accusations against him, and says he will file a lawsuit against Mishaan for fabricating the story.

He says Mishaan attacked him, because of an article he recently published in a local newspaper, which exposed Mishaan's role in the assassination of Hussein Kamel, the brother in law of the late Saddam Hussein, and the Iraqi astronomer Hamid al-Azri.

Most observers believe that the many Wikileaks revelations about abuses of power by the Iraqi government, its security forces and US troops, will not lead to any prosecutions.

In November 2005, according to Wikileaks, US soldiers described the treatment of 95 detainees held in Baghdad by Iraqi forces as inhumane:

"Detainees were blindfolded in one room and their bodies showed signs of torture and ill-treatment, including cigarette burns and injuries due to severe beatings."

One of the detainees claimed that 12 people had died in the previous weeks "as a result of torture and illnesses."

On 16 June 2007, some US soldiers accused Iraqi forces of extracting a confession from one of the suspects "by using chemical substances that cause burns and by cutting his fingers."

The victim, who received medical care at a hospital in Mosul, had to have his right leg amputated below the knee and lost several toes from his left foot. He also lost some fingers from both hands.

In August 2009, a US doctor serving in the US army saw "bruises, burns, and visible injuries on the head, legs and neck" of one of the detainees who died in prison. Iraqi police said that the defendant had committed suicide.

Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, told al-Jazeera that "the documents published provide enough evidence to file 40 lawsuits of unlawful killings."

Some observers say that it is possible to file such lawsuits in theory, but that in practice it is hard to do. Despite all the evidence of violation and abuse, no legal steps have been taken to date.

Saleem Abdallah al-Jibouri, an MP for the Accordance Front, believes the documents will have little impact inside and outside Iraq.

"In order to use these documents as evidence against the perpetrators, they will need to be checked and examined for their accuracy. This won’t happen because it doesn’t serve the interests of the political elite in the country."

In Iraq’s recent history, there have been three famous trials, where official government documents were used as evidence.

The first was the al-Mahdawi court case of 1958, which was formed to conduct trials against symbols of the monarchy between 1921 and 1958.

The second was the mock trial set up by the Baath Party, after its coup in 1963, which led to the execution of the general and the then Prime Minister, Abdul Karim Qasim.

The third was the special court formed to conduct trials against symbols of the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein between 1968 and 2003.

All three trials took place only after the old regimes were deposed. While the politicians were in power, they were protected from prosecution.

Saleem al-Jibouri, who headed the Legal Committee in the last parliament, believes the only real impact of the Wikileaks revelations is that it has reinforced existing convictions that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was involved in "death and torture squads".

Although the term is not widely used in Iraq, it is clearly a reference to the anti-terrorism apparatus, which was established by US forces and put under the administration of Prime Minister Maliki.

Jibouri does not rule out the possibility that when the current decision-makers change, these documents could be used to hold people to account.

"They have exposed how the US military covered up acts of torture by the Iraqi police and army against Iraqi prisoners", he says. "They have revealed that the US was aware of these acts of torture, but ordered its troops not to interfere."

Wikileaks has also disclosed that there were 1,400 shooting incidents of Iraqi civilians at US checkpoints, and that hundreds of civilians were killed. Official statements have denied this, but many Iraqis can testify to losing several family members in this way.

With regard to what the documents have called "the secret Iranian role in arming and financing the Shiite militia, and Iran's interference in Iraqi affairs," this is not new.

Many Iraqi officials and politicians made public statements about Iran's involvement in Iraqi affairs long before Wikileaks published documents about this issue.

On Iran’s involvement in Iraq, journalist Qays Hassan, says "this is like someone trying to prove that the sun exists." The documents, he says, are of interest to other parts of the world, but not to Iraq.

There has also been no response regarding the alleged statements by the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that "Iraq just needs a dictator."

Shortly before publishing the secret documents, Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, said they would change the world. So far, there is little evidence they are changing anything in Iraq.

Azzaman, January 14, 2011


The last two years saw an upsurge in insecurity due to an unprecedented hike in assassinations whether in Baghdad or other major Iraqi cities.

These assassinations, which have so far claimed more than 2,000 lives among the country’s security forces, are carried out in two major ways.

In the first, the assassins rely on silencer guns which are either imported or produced locally. In the second, the assassins rely on stick explosive charges most of which are imported.

The problem with these assassinations is two-fold. First, the assassins select their victims very carefully and make sure they have a role to play in the country’s armed forces and security ranks. Second, they have turned into an unstoppable contagious disease.

The paradox is that no one can say exactly who is behind these assassinations and why they are being carried out at this particular junction.

There are no Wikileaks reports to reveal the secrets behind these terrifying killings. But one can say with certainty that both U.S. and Iraqi government claims of having succeeded to reinstate relative calm in the country are false and hollow.

Blaming them on al-Qaeda branch in Iraq, the so-called the Iraqi Islamic state, is the worst conspiracy theory-hatched scenario one can imagine. If the assassinations are truly of al-Qaeda making, then we the Iraqis and the whole world with us should lament not only our future but the future of our children.

Such an allegation, if true, it will mean that al-Qaeda is unbeatable and that the U.S. has cut and run in Iraq and that our shaky government will soon be overthrown with the terror group’s operatives taking over.

Who other than the world’s mightiest intelligence agencies is capable of carrying out such highly coordinated and well-targeted assassinations? How come that the mighty U.S. armed forces could not put an end to them?

The ongoing assassinations leave more than on question mark about whatever the U.S. and Iraqi government officials say in regard to conditions in Iraq.

They tell every Iraqi person that nothing is secure in Iraq. If government army and security officers can be killed in droves every day, what about ordinary Iraqis? If those supposed to protect Iraqis cannot protect themselves, one can imagine the hell the Iraqi people have been in since the 2003-U.S. invasion.

Large-scale assassinations carried out with such intensity and precision are not the work of an individual or even a group firing at random or planting a bomb on the side of a road.

These assassinations are the product of a complex intelligence effort determined to liquidate a class of Iraqis for purely strategic benefits.

This year will turn into a fertile ground for the agencies carrying out their assassinations. There is good reason to believe that 2011 will see further intensification by these assassinations targeting and selecting more important individuals in government ranks.

2011 will become one of the most difficult years for the Iraqi street since the 2003-U.S. invasion

Posted here on 13 Jan 2011

Iraq: Threats of foreign influence

The return of prominent Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr will have an unpredictable influence on Iraqi politics.

January 12, 2011

News of the abrupt return to Iraq this week of Muqtada al-Sadr from his four-year, self-imposed exile in Iran was not particularly well-received in Washington.

Americans have famously short memories, but the diminutive, scowling, black-clad cleric still stirs vivid and troubling recollections along the Potomac. That is hardly a surprise; nor, given the rapid decline of the US presence and role in Iraq, is it particularly significant.

Far more significant is the palpable apprehension seen among virtually all Iraqis outside al-Sadr's core constituency, as they sift clues to determine what al-Sadr's return portends for him, for them, for his movement, and for the future of Iraqi politics.

Reports of al-Sadr's visit to Najaf's shrine of Imam Ali immediately upon his return hearken back to the return of another exiled cleric, also the scion of a great Iraqi Shiite family. Would that Abdul Majid al-Khoei had commanded the protection recently afforded to Muqtada when the former returned to Najaf in April, 2003.

The compelling, but still ambiguous evidence of Muqtada's complicity in the death of his rival at the hands of a mob - which resulted in an Iraqi judicial warrant for the young al-Sadr's arrest - were an early indication of the violent methods he was to employ, and of the nature of his base of power and support in Iraq.

It was those two factors - the ambiguity of brother Muqtada's often behind-the-scenes role in the violent actions of the militia he nominally led, and the threat that his arrest could unleash an explosion of mob violence - which served to postpone, time and again, what would otherwise have been the young firebrand's appointment with the inside of a US-run prison.

Thus, the persistent threat of that 2003 arrest warrant remained unfulfilled during the heavy fighting in Najaf between US occupation forces and al-Sadr's Jaysh al-Mahdi militia in August, 2004; and again in 2006, as Jaysh al-Mahdi's growing sectarian brutality in greater Baghdad eventually caused the US military to rate it an even greater threat to Iraqi stability than al-Qaeda in Iraq.

It was only when the announced "surge" of US forces into Baghdad in early 2007 suggested the imminence of a decisive battle with militia forces in eastern Baghdad's Sadr City slums - many of whose commanders had slipped well beyond Muqtada's operational control - that the son and son-in-law of grand ayatollahs suddenly felt the urgent call to pursue religious study in Iran.

There is much to suggest, in fact, that it was the cooperation of Jaysh al-Mahdi commanders loyal to Muqtada in providing information to the Americans that permitted the latter so effectively to winnow out rogue commanders in Sadr City in early 2007.

Ironically, it thus may have been the US Army which was instrumental in returning the Mahdi Army to al-Sadr's operational control.

A similar irony attended a recent meeting in Qom, when al-Sadr's reconciliation with mainstream Iraqi politics was literally sealed with a kiss.

This display of avuncular affection was bestowed upon the former enfant terrible of Iraqi Shiite politics by none other than his seemingly irreconcilable enemy, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki who, despite having been responsible for ordering the all-out attack on al-Sadr's militia forces in Basra and in Baghdad in Spring of 2008, nonetheless had received critical, eleventh-hour support from the so-called al-Sadr Trend to cement a parliamentary majority in support of a second term in office.

It was this formal affirmation of al-Sadr's unexpected role as Prime Ministerial kingmaker - the product, we are told, of heavy Iranian influence upon its scholarly guest - that cleared the way, along with assurances that the long-ago criminal warrant for his arrest had finally lapsed, for Muqtada al-Sadr's homecoming in Najaf.

The prodigal son returns

It is tempting, and perhaps accurate, to ascribe the peaceful return of Iraq's prodigal son to a healthy evolution in Iraq away from violence and toward electoral and factional politics as a means of reconciling the country's deep divisions.

The trepidation which attended al-Sadr's first post-return speech this past Saturday, however, suggested that this transformation remains both tenuous and reversible.

Iraqis do not fear Muqtada's control over 12 percent of the seats in the Council of Representatives. What they fear is the cult-like following which he still commands among the poor, urban Shiite proletariat, perhaps the most potent, least sophisticated, and most manipulable force in Iraqi politics.

Muqtada's standing among this element of the populace would be enough by itself to make him a political force to be reckoned with.

But the real base of Muqtada's power, now as before, is the potential for mob violence posed by his most passionate supporters, as well as the more directed and disciplined threat posed by the Promised Day Brigade, al-Sadr's post-Mahdi Army militia.

Despite its leader's supposed new-found political respectability, an aura of violent illegitimacy still clings to the al-Sadr Trend: Indeed, at least two Iraqi laws bar organisations affiliated with a militia from political participation. The clear lesson for everyone concerned is that accountability under the law still does not apply to Muqtada al-Sadr.

In the event, al-Sadr's speech was a blend of old and new, of threat and reassurance. The white flecks in his formerly jet-black beard suggested a maturity which was reflected in rhetoric which stressed the importance of avoiding intra-Iraqi violence.

But his reiterated opposition to foreign occupation and his insistence on strict adherence to the agreed timetable for US military withdrawal contained, depending upon one's interpretation, either a clear threat, or a familiar and characteristic ambiguousness on the potential for a return to violence.

It is easy to speculate, as the reaction of the US Embassy in Baghdad seemed to suggest, that al-Sadr's strident insistence on continued resistance, both military and cultural, to the Americans, is essentially a sham, a gratuitous attempt to maintain a heroic pose against a foreign armed force which has been greatly reduced and which is on track to disappear in any case, by formal agreement, in just 12 short months.

It is also quite possible, however, that al-Sadr believes that the thorough defeat and subsequent "suspension" of his militia, though ordered by Maliki and spearheaded by the Iraqi Army, could not have been accomplished without the support of the US military.

In view of past indications that the US might be invited to maintain a military force beyond the end of 2011 to shore up the persistent shortcomings of Maliki's army, it is not at all surprising that Muqtada would insist on the former's rapid departure.

Iraqis should take little comfort in the fact that al-Sadr's threats are limited, for now, to "foreign occupiers", when he could easily turn his sights later on to those whom he might easily accuse of being the agents of that erstwhile occupier.

"Lebanonisation"

All of which leads us to yet another irony: The fact that a self-proclaimed champion of Iraqi nationalism and enemy of foreign influence should himself be considered by many to offer the clearest example of Iran's insidious and growing domination of Iraqi politics.

The bill of particulars in that indictment include al-Sadr's nearly four-year refuge in Iran, his apparently close religious and scholarly ties to senior clerics close to Iran's senior leadership, the heavy-handed Iranian role in ultimately persuading him to throw his parliamentary support behind his bitter enemy Maliki, and the seeming coordination of his return with the high-profile visit of acting Iranian Foreign Minister Salihi to Iraq.

In fact, there are those who cite Muqtada al-Sadr as exhibit A in what some are beginning to call the "Lebanonisation" of Iraqi politics. The reason that Lebanon itself has been "Lebanonised" is that the various Lebanese factions have consistently reached out for foreign support to gain advantage over their domestic political and sectarian rivals, thus legitimising similar behaviour against themselves.

And indeed, Iraq appears to be moving gradually on a similar track: First by enthusiastically embracing an increasingly baroque division of political power along strictly ethno-sectarian lines, and then by tolerating a political culture in which factions shamelessly seek foreign support of their respective domestic agendas.

The Kurds, old masters at this game, have improbably cultivated close ties with the Turks. The al-Iraqiyah Coalition under Ayad Allawi has overtly curried support among Sunni Arab neighbours suspicious of growing Iranian influence. Meanwhile, the Shiite factions themselves have competed ever more strongly for Iranian attention and support.

While the dangers associated with these trends are obvious, it is unlikely that we will see a Lebanon spring up along the Tigris and Euphrates, where regional powers conduct proxy wars on Mesopotamian soil.

Iran aside, there appears to be little scope for neighbouring countries to exert critical political influence in Iraq. Turkey's traditional concerns over Kurdish autonomy and the rights of the Turkmen minority in northern Iraq are abating, and the Turks display no desire to become enmeshed in factional Iraqi politics, focusing instead on spreading cultural and business ties as broadly as possible.

The Sunni Arab states, for their part, and despite their morbid preoccupation with growing Iranian influence in the region, have proved ill-adept at generating any decisive influence in Iraq.

And Iran, for all its high-profile meddling and its extensive religious and cultural ties to Iraq, is only able to command real influence among the Shi'a, who remain a highly fractious lot. The Iranians will no doubt exhaust themselves with no end of factional intrigue, and yet they are highly unlikely to unify Iraq's majority Shiites in a way which will permit them to dominate their neighbour.

As for the turbulent Mr. al-Sadr, it is highly likely that the Iranians, if they don't realise it already, will find in him a client who is impossible to control, and more likely to be a net detriment, rather than an asset, in the pursuit of their national interests in Iraq.

In the end the Iraqis generally, if they are wise, will discover that, whatever marginal advantages they can gain through recourse to their neighbours, the only long-term solutions to their problems will be found in political accommodation with fellow Iraqis.

It remains very much to be seen whether the Pilgrim's progress of Muqtada al-Sadr will contribute constructively to that process.