News & Views 04/11/07

Photo: A Turkish Kurdish woman holds a banner that reads: 'Let's stop the blood being spilt' during a demonstration in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 11, 2007. Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Turkey had the right to chase separatist Kurdish guerrillas inside Iraq if Baghdad was not powerful enough to fight them itself. Turkey is increasingly feeling the sting of Kurdish rebel attacks, originating from northern Iraq, as clashes with the guerrillas left around 20 people dead since Saturday. (AP Photo/Murad Sezer)

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

Red Cross Details 'Unbearable Suffering' of Iraqi Civilians

Iraqi civilians are experiencing "immense suffering" because of a "disastrous" security situation, deepening poverty and a worsening humanitarian crisis, according to a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The ICRC also sees no sign that the US-led security "surge" in Baghdad is bringing relief to the capital, while hospitals struggle to cope with mass casualties as malnutrition as well as power and water shortages become more frequent across the country. "The suffering Iraqi men, women and children are enduring today is unbearable and unacceptable," Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of operations for the organisation, said at the group's Geneva headquarters. The report, Civilians without Protection, provides a grim snapshot of the situation in Iraq but will carry special weight thanks to the ICRC's reputation as the scrupulously neutral "silent service" of international humanitarian work. It maintains a presence in Baghdad despite the bombing of its offices in 2003, and works closely with the Iraqi Red Crescent. The report says that more than 100,000 families have been forced to leave their homes in the past year because of the shootings, bombings, abductions, murders and military operations.

Myth of Tal Afar, Beacon of American 'Success'

Pity the city that becomes a symbol of US success in Iraq. Last year,Tal Afar in the north-east of the country was being lauded in Washington as the one place where the US had brought peace. Perhaps the same prescription might work elsewhere in Iraq. Embedded American journalists scurried to this poor and depressing Turkoman city between Mosul and the Syrian border to report on the good news. President Bush even singled it out for optimistic comment in March 2006. "Tal Afar shows that, when Iraqis can count on a basic level of safety and security, they can live together peacefully," he said. "The people of Tal Afar have shown why spreading liberty and democracy is at the heart of our strategy to defeat the terrorists." It was always a myth. On 27 March, a gigantic truck bomb exploded in a Shia market area in Tal Afar. It was the deadliest single bomb out of the many that have been detonated by Sunni insurgents. The Interior Ministry said that 152 people were killed and 347 wounded in the explosion. Hours after the blast, an event occurred that the Iraqi government had been dreading. The police, all Shia, possibly including some who had lost relatives in the explosion, went on a pogrom. They picked up Sunni men and boys in the streets and in their houses, and then killed them with single shots to the head. As many as 70 may have been executed.

Mentally Handicapped Children Used in Attacks

The dreams 13-year-old Barak Muhammad (not his real name) had of leading a normal teenage life were dashed when his father sold him to al-Qaeda militants. Being mentally handicapped, he said he was considered a burden by his family and was told he would be better off sacrificing his life for his country. "I don't have a mother and never went to school. I was dreaming of a day that I would go to school like my other brothers, but I was considered different. My father was always telling me that I was a mistake in his life, a boy that was just bringing expenses and problems," Barak said. Barak's father sold him to al-Qaeda in Iraq for US $10,000 to support his remaining five children. Now, Barak is in training to fight US and Iraqi troops. "Today, I help some men who say they are from al-Qaeda group. They fight people who are occupying Iraq and they said that if I do my work well, God will protect me and make me be a healthy boy," Barak said, adding that fighters promised him that he would soon join his mother in heaven. Carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle, Barak said he accompanies insurgents during night time raids and when needed acts as a decoy to divert the attention of US or Iraqi forces in the run-up to an attack. Abu Ahmed, who claims to be a spokesman for al-Qaeda in Iraq and Barak's trainer, said they were giving him a better life. "We're doing a favour to Barak. We're giving him the chance to be useful and not suffer daily beatings from his father. Here, with us, he gets Islamic lessons and is soon going to be a good fighter and maybe one day even become a suicide bomber in the name of God," Abu Ahmed said.

Fix the Public Distribution System to Meet Needs of the Displaced

Iraq's internally displaced are in desperate need of assistance as the Public Distribution System (PDS) that they and other Iraqis depend on for food and fuel is broken. Poor management is to blame for its shortcomings, as well as terrible security and a general lack of political will on the part of the Government of Iraq to acknowledge the scope of the crisis. With the central government unable or at times unwilling to protect and assist Iraqi civilians, donor governments must step in to fill the gaps. Reform of the PDS should be a priority, and agencies such as the US Department of Agriculture and the UN World Food Program (WFP) must provide the technical assistance required to ensure the system is once again fully functional and able to reach the most vulnerable Iraqis. Under the former regime of Saddam Hussein every Iraqi had the right to receive rations through the PDS system established during the sanctions period in the context of the Oil for Food program that began in 1995. Run by the Iraqi Ministry of Trade, the PDS was one of the most efficient institutions of the Iraqi state. Iraq, which had once been a net exporter of food, depended on imports, importing up to four hundred and eighty tons of food per month before the war. Eighty percent of Iraqis benefited from the PDS and for sixty percent of Iraqis the food basket was their only source of outside support. Ministry of Trade distribution warehouses throughout the country fed local branches. Each family had a card it redeemed in the neighborhood PDS branch. The family was tied to that branch alone.

Humanitarian Catastrophe Looms In Diwaniyah

A week of fierce clashes between US-Iraqi forces and Shia militiamen in Diwaniyah has brought the city to the brink of a "real humanitarian catastrophe", health workers said on Wednesday. Aid agencies and doctors are demanding they be given access to a desperate population who have become prisoners in their own homes. "We can't send our ambulances in to collect dead bodies or the wounded from the streets. And we are running out of essential medical items such as pain killer tablets, IV fluids, anaesthesia, stitches, antiseptics and things like bandages and cotton," said Dr Kamal Hussein of the city's general hospital. "In addition, we don't have enough fuel to operate our generators so we only have four to six hours of electricity a day," Hussein added. "The government and US forces must allow medicines into this city otherwise there will be a real humanitarian catastrophe." The predominantly Shia city of Diwaniyah, about 130km south of the capital, Baghdad, has a population of between 400,000 and half a million. The focus of the US offensive in Diwaniyah is The Mahdi Army, run by radical Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, who had ordered Baghdad militiamen to lay down their weapons during a month-long US-led security crackdown in the capital.

A Mosque Raid Sets Off Sunnis in Iraq’s Capital

Sunni militants and residents of the Baghdad neighborhood of Fadhil fought a fierce daylong battle with the Iraqi Army and American soldiers on Tuesday in what appeared to be the most sustained confrontation since the start of the security plan to calm violence in the capital. The battle left seven people dead, three insurgents and four Iraqi soldiers, and wounded 16 United States soldiers, according to a statement from the American military. Two Iraqi Army soldiers and one child were also wounded, the statement said. But neighborhood residents reported far higher fatalities and said local gunmen had destroyed five Iraqi Army Humvees. The fighting damaged an Apache helicopter, the United States military said. The fighting started after the Iraqi Army raided a mosque and killed two men, according to residents contacted by phone and a Sunni religious group. Residents said the gun battle began near the mosque in an area with many warehouses and continued in a residential neighborhood.

………Fighting began Tuesday just past dawn, when the Iraqis and the Americans cordoned off part of the neighborhood and began searching for militants, according to local residents and the American military in a written statement. The Iraqi Army raided a mosque and killed two men in front of other worshipers at the early morning prayers, according to the residents and the Muslim Scholars Association, a hard-line Sunni religious group, which quoted witnesses’ reports. The American military said it had no information about any killings in the mosque. “One of those killed was named Sheik Saif; he was the muezzin,” said Qais Ahmed, 36, a day laborer, who lives near the mosque. The muezzin is the person who calls the faithful to prayer from a mosque’s loudspeakers and often is a well-known figure in the neighborhood. “Then, the locals took their guns and went out to fight the Iraqi Army and the police in reaction to these executions,” he said.

…..At day’s end, Mr. Ahmed said he went to one of the two mosques where bodies of the neighborhood dead were laid out and counted 36 people, including women and children. Other residents reported that there were at least 23 dead. Several reported that they were unable to transport wounded people to the hospital because they feared that the military would take the wounded into custody on the grounds that they were insurgents, and would arrest those carrying them as well.

Iraq's Wounded: On Their Own

The biggest break for Fouad Musa, who lost his right arm in a bombing in Baghdad five months ago, came two weeks ago when he got back his job as a cook in a restaurant at half his previous salary. "I could not believe it when I got my job back. Knocking on the doors of government offices has gotten me nowhere, just empty promises," says Mr. Musa, speaking in the living room of his tiny Sadr City apartment, a giant poster of three revered Shiite imams adorning the pink and white walls. He is surrounded by his three boys, Ahmed, Mohammed, and Laith, who sit shyly in their finest clothes, listening to every word. For tens of thousands of Iraqis like Musa, who have been severely wounded or disabled in the war, the standard government response is, "You're lucky to be alive." In a country where the government is too dysfunctional and overwhelmed to meet their needs, and help from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) is increasingly out of reach because of security concerns, many Iraqis find salvation and hope only when they take matters into their own hands. In 2006, considered the most violent year since the US-led invasion four years ago, 36,685 Iraqis were wounded in acts of violence throughout the country, according to estimates by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq. The government does not release official statistics for the dead and wounded, but a source at the Interior Ministry put that figure at 15,143.

Report Focuses On Displaced Families

Relentless violence, malnutrition, overtaxed hospitals, contaminated drinking water and chronic power shortages are "inflicting immense suffering" on Iraqis, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a report to be issued early today. "Civilians bear the brunt of the relentless violence and the extremely poor security conditions that are disrupting the lives and livelihoods of millions," the report concludes. Grim reports on the conditions of Iraqi life are not new, but the Red Cross is considered an objective organization that has been one of the few major international humanitarian groups to maintain a presence throughout Iraq as security has deteriorated. The report lists a broad range of deficiencies, but highlights the problems faced by families displaced by sectarian violence. It also says that the sectarian fighting has exacerbated power shortages by preventing repairs to the electrical grid and generation plants.

Shadows

I awoke to the sound of furious barking. What time is it? Looking at the window I could see that day had not yet dawned– before six in the morning. Why was Suka – our tiny doggie – barking madly at the entrance window?? Apprehensively, I get up and run to look outside. I could see shadows moving about in the garden. What to do?? Do I call out?? Do I pretend not to be at home?? Which is the safest move?? Have “they” come for me?? Good God, spare us – My kids!! Suka continues to bark madly, and I hear a chuckle from outside, “They have a dog!” “Not a very large one, judging by its bark!” English! I hesitate, then call out in Arabic: “Who is outside?” Arabic, “We are here to search the area, house by house. We are the Army” “Please wait until we get dressed.” “Very well.” Quickly I call both my daughter and son, “Get dressed! Quick!”

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

The Muslim Scholars Association, a Sunni group, issued a statement quoting witnesses as saying Tuesday's battle began after Iraqi troops entered a mosque and executed two young men in front of other worshippers. Ground forces used tear gas on civilians, it said. But the witness in Fadhil said the two men were executed in an outdoor vegetable market, not in the mosque. The Iraqi military was not immediately available to comment on the claim.

Official Calls For An About-Face In U.S. War Policy

The United States must make a strategic U-turn if it is to salvage the political situation in Iraq after four years of a botched occupation, a former top minister in Iraq's transitional government said yesterday. Ali A. Allawi, a former top Cabinet minister and now an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said U.S. officials would have to curb the ambitions of Iraq's Shi'ite majority, offer new concessions to the country's alienated Sunni minority and deal directly with neighboring countries Iran and Syria before Iraq can hope to become stable again. "Since the 2003 invasion, I would say that U.S. policy in Iraq has been not only inappropriate but incoherent," said Allawi, a secular Shi'ite and a cousin of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. "We need a U.S. U-turn in Iraq that focuses on the whole regional security architecture. The zero-sum mentality has to cease." Allawi's memoir, "The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace," is the first insider look by a top Iraqi official of the 2003 war and its troubled aftermath. It was published on the fourth anniversary of the capture of Baghdad by U.S.-led forces.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

The head of the International Red Cross in Tehran says he saw wounds on an Iranian diplomat who has alleged that US forces in Iraq tortured him. Peter Stoeker said there were marks on Jalal Sharafi's feet, legs, back and nose but he was unable to say if they were the result of torture

America's Plan for Baghdad

Divide and rule. A new counter-insurgency strategy to carve up the city into sealed areas. The tactic failed in Vietnam. So what chance does it have in Iraq? Faced with an ever-more ruthless insurgency in Baghdad - despite President George Bush's "surge" in troops - US forces in the city are now planning a massive and highly controversial counter-insurgency operation that will seal off vast areas of the city, enclosing whole neighbourhoods with barricades and allowing only Iraqis with newly issued ID cards to enter. The campaign of "gated communities" - whose genesis was in the Vietnam War - will involve up to 30 of the city's 89 official districts and will be the most ambitious counter-insurgency programme yet mounted by the US in Iraq. The system has been used - and has spectacularly failed - in the past, and its inauguration in Iraq is as much a sign of American desperation at the country's continued descent into civil conflict as it is of US determination to "win" the war against an Iraqi insurgency that has cost the lives of more than 3,200 American troops. The system of "gating" areas under foreign occupation failed during the French war against FLN insurgents in Algeria and again during the American war in Vietnam. Israel has employed similar practices during its occupation of Palestinian territory - again, with little success. But the campaign has far wider military ambitions than the pacification of Baghdad. It now appears that the US military intends to place as many as five mechanised brigades - comprising about 40,000 men - south and east of Baghdad, at least three of them positioned between the capital and the Iranian border. This would present Iran with a powerful - and potentially aggressive - American military force close to its border in the event of a US or Israeli military strike against its nuclear facilities later this year.

………. In theory, US forces can then concentrate on providing physical reconstruction in what the military like to call a "secure environment". But insurgents are not foreigners, despite the presence of al-Qa'ida in Iraq. They come from the same population centres that will be "gated" and will, if undiscovered, hold ID cards themselves; they will be "enclosed" with everyone else. A former US officer in Vietnam who has a deep knowledge of General Petraeus's plans is sceptical of the possible results. "The first loyalty of any Sunni who is in the Iraqi army is to the insurgency," he said. "Any Shia's first loyalty is to the head of his political party and its militia. Any Kurd in the Iraqi army, his first loyalty is to either Barzani or Talabani. There is no independent Iraqi army. These people really have no choice. They are trying to save their families from starvation and reprisal. At one time they may have believed in a unified Iraq. At one time they may have been secular. But the violence and brutality that started with the American invasion has burnt those liberal ideas out of people ... Every American who is embedded in an Iraqi unit is in constant mortal danger."

AP Photographer Still Held In Iraq By US Forces

One year after his arrest, an Associated Press photographer is still being held at a prison camp in Iraq by U.S. military officials who have neither formally charged him with a crime nor made public any evidence of wrongdoing. Bilal Hussein was taken prisoner in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on April 12, 2006. Twelve months later, the U.S. military claims it is justified in continuing to imprison him merely because it considers him a security threat. ``April 12 is a sad anniversary for Bilal's AP colleagues worldwide,'' said the AP's executive editor, Kathleen Carroll. ``He has now been held by the U.S. military in Iraq for an entire year without formal charges or the due process that a democratic society demands.'' Paul Gardephe, the lawyer handling the case for the AP, recently returned from an extended visit to Iraq, where he spoke with military officials, journalists, Iraqi citizens and - for more than 40 hours - Hussein himself at the Camp Cropper prison near Baghdad's airport. ``Bilal has done nothing to justify a year in detention without charges,'' Gardephe said. ``The military has not provided any credible evidence to support the various accusations of criminal conduct that it has made.''

Ankara Pillories Iraqi Kurds

Between Turkey and Iraq, verbal escalation has crossed the threshold of intimidation. "Mr. Barzani has crossed a line, (...) northern Iraq, which is a neighbor, is in the process of making a mistake; the price to pay will be very high," threatened Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday. This menacing tone responded to warnings from the leader of Iraqi Kurdistan concerning the city of Kirkuk. The warnings were perceived by Ankara as a declaration of hostility. "Turkey has no right to intervene in Kirkuk, and, if it does so, we will involve ourselves in the problems of Diyarbakir and other Turkish cities," that count a Kurdish minority of about 15 million people, warned Massoud Barzani Saturday on television channel al-Arabiya. These exchanged warnings from both sides of the Turkish-Iranian border illustrate the sensitivity of the Kurdish question in the region. Seen from Turkey: "Barzani is lighting the dynamite fuse," summarized yesterday's Kemalist Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet. By declaring that the city of Kirkuk had "a Kurdish identity, geographically and historically" and that it "was part of Kurdistan," the president of autonomous Kurdistan touched a sensitive issue in Ankara.

Turkish prime minister warns Iraqi Kurdish leader not to threaten Turkey

The Turkish prime minister yesterday warned Iraqi Kurds against interfering in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast, saying "the price for them will be very high." Recep Tayyip Erdogan was reacting to comments by Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq, who said Iraqi Kurds would retaliate to any Turkish interference in northern Iraq by stirring up trouble in Turkey's southeast. "He's out of place," Erdogan said of Barzani. "He'll be crushed under his words." The verbal sparring was set off by Barzani on Saturday when he said in an interview with al-Arabiyah television that Iraqi Kurds could "interfere" in Kurdish-majority Turkish cities if Ankara interfered in northern Iraq. The remark touched an extremely sensitive nerve in Turkey, where more than 37,000 people have been killed in fighting between Turkish security forces and Kurdish rebels since 1984, most of them in the southeastern region bordering Iraq. Turkey fears that any moves toward greater independence for Kurds in northern Iraq could incite Turkey's own estimated 14 million Kurds to outright rebellion. Turkey is especially concerned about Barzani's bid to incorporate the oil-rich northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk into his semiautonomous region, fearing that Iraqi Kurds will use the city's oil revenues to fund a bid for independence. "Northern Iraq, which is a neighbor, is making a serious mistake: the price for them will be very high," Erdogan warned.

COMMENTARY

Message in a Bottle from Iraq

Iraqslogger on Monday posted pictures from the demonstrations in Najaf against the US occupation of Iraq. Check out the signs written in English: "Yes, Yes to Independence"
"Union of Iraq Students demand for the speedy withdrawal of occupation forces unconditiolly" Yes, that last one is not my typo - that's the sign as it appeared. It's a colorful sign. Some folks went to a lot of trouble to make a sign in a language that they weren't very familiar with. Some folks at the demonstration were not focused on rallying Iraqis against the occupation. Some folks were focused on getting a message out to people whose native language is English: Us.