News & Views 07/05/07

.Photo: A neighbor holds Qassem Abdullah's family photograph he salvaged from the rubble of their home in Diwaniyah, 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, July 3, 2007. Qassem's home was destroyed in an air strike Tuesday, killing all of his four children. Qassem, his wife and sister are hospitalized in serious condition. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

U.S. Use of Drones Surges Over Iraq

The use of unmanned aircraft in Iraq has surged by nearly a third since the buildup of U.S. forces began this year, and drones are now racking up more than 14,000 hours a month in the battlefield skies. The increase in unmanned aircraft _ from high-altitude Global Hawks to short-range reconnaissance Ravens that soldiers fling into the air _ has fueled a struggle among the military services over who will control their use and the more than $12 billion that will be spent on the programs over the next five years. The Air Force wants to take over development and purchasing of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), arguing that it would save money and improve technology and communications. It also wants more centralized command of the drones, saying better coordination could eliminate airspace conflicts that can endanger U.S. troops.

Baghdad Killings “Rise Sharply”

The number of unidentified bodies found in Baghdad has increased despite the launch of a security drive in the capital in February, Iraqi police say. They say that 540 corpses - many of them tortured or mutilated - were discovered in the city in June. The number is still considerably lower than in 2006, when the monthly total of bodies found at times exceeded 1,000. Nearly 30,000 extra US troops were deployed in Baghdad to curb sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis. But the number of bodies found dumped in the city has risen sharply again in the last two months - to an average of about 20 a day in June, according to the Iraqi police. Earlier this week, the Iraqi government said that the number of civilians killed across the country fell in June to the lowest level since the Baghdad crackdown began. It said 1,241 civilians were killed in June - a drop of nearly 40% compared with 1,951 violent deaths in May. The US military also claims that civilian fatalities have fallen significantly since the beginning of the year. However, the Iraqi government figures cannot be verified independently, and many deaths are believed to go unreported, correspondents say.

Violence Causes Gender Role Swap

In a society where men are the traditional breadwinners, women are increasingly forced to take on that role. The violence in Baghdad has forced some Iraqi families to shift gender roles, as men are stuck at home while women bear increasing responsibilities. Because many men in Baghdad are now afraid to go out to work or even to leave the house, women are earning the money, doing the shopping and handling the bills – duties that were traditionally carried out by men. Men say they feel trapped at home, while women say they are left with too much work. Dhiya Salman, 36, has not gone more than 100 metres from his house in six months because an armed militia is in control in the neighbourhood. A former army sergeant, Salman became a taxi driver after Saddam Hussein’s regime fell in 2003. Although he is Sunni, he used to feel comfortable driving into Shia-dominated parts of Baghdad such as Shuala and Sadr City. That changed when the bombing of the Samarra shrine bombing in February 2006 led to an explosion of fighting between Sunni and Shia militias. "I'm fed up because I used to go out all the time, and now I spend all day at home," he said. "My elderly mother is taking care of everything." The family opened a small shop selling household goods outside their home. Salman and his brothers work at the store, but his 55-year-old mother has to shop for the supplies. Salman's mother complains that she is tired of taking care of the house and buying things for the shop, but she refuses to let her sons go to the market for fear that they will be kidnapped or killed. Baghdad residents say the threat against men has increased since last year’s attack on Samarra.

…For many men in Baghdad who are relegated to their homes, the inability to provide for their families or go out of the house is a demeaning experience.

Kurdish Activists Confirm Damning Human Rights Report

Security forces in the north are accused of holding suspects without charges and subjecting them to physical abuse. Human rights advocates in northern Iraq say the findings of a new report accusing Kurdish security forces of systematic mistreatment of detainees come as no surprise, and express scepticism that international pressure will end such practices. In a report issued on July 3, the New York-based group Human Rights Watch said the security forces in Iraqi Kurdistan routinely torture detainees and deny them the right either to have a fair trial or to challenge their detention. The Kurdish Regional Government has pledged to investigate the allegations of abuse. Human Rights Watch investigators interviewed more than 150 detainees and Kurdish security officials from April to October 2006. The advocacy group recommended that Iraqi Kurdistan significantly change its detention and legal practices by requiring that detainees be either charged or released, denouncing torture and ensuring fair trials.

The kind of violations outlined in the 58-page report were not news to human rights activists in Iraqi Kurdistan. "We know that arrests have been made without warrants; torture has been carried out; and detention facilities operate with minimal human rights criteria," said Sarwar Ali, a lawyer and a human rights activist at Democracy and Human Rights Development in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah. Western forces are unlikely to curtail the use of lethal air power against Taliban forces in Afghanistan, despite a wave of civilian casualties threatening support for the mission, analysts and military sources say. An aversion in NATO capitals to allied casualties, plus all-too-frequent shortages of ground troops, have forced commanders to turn to the sky in efforts to beat insurgents still going strong six years after the U.S.-led invasion. Despite repeated criticism of Western tactics by President Hamid Karzai, and pledges by NATO and U.S. officials to review procedures, few expect an overhaul of strategy by the 50,000 international troops there any time soon. "We are aware this problem has grown and we must redouble our efforts. But there will be no overnight transformation," an alliance source said on condition of anonymity. The Afghan government, rights and aid groups say over 300 civilians have died this year from Western operations, mostly when air power is called in to get allied troops out of trouble.

Baghdad taxi drivers devise new survival tactics

Before 2006, Noor Adel Abdullah, a 21-year-old student of English at Baghdad's College of Languages, used to take a 20-minute ride by bus to get to her college. Now, she needs at least an hour and three buses to reach the same destination. Noor finds it difficult to get a Sunni bus driver to drive her from her Sunni Amiriyah neighbourhood in western Baghdad to the Shia Bab al-Mudham area in the east, where the college is located. "I have to change buses three times as most of the Sunni drivers can't get through Shia areas and vice-versa, as they fear sectarian violence," said Abdullah. For decades, Iraq's six million-strong capital was a city where people mixed freely and did not care whether their neighbour was a Sunni or a Shia Muslim. However, that peaceful coexistence between members of different religions and sects in Baghdad is now being threatened as diehards from the two Muslim sects fight for their own territory.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

U.S. occupation troops outnumbered by cntractors

The number of U.S.-paid private contractors mercenaries in occupied Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops, newly released figures show, raising fresh questions about the privatization of the war effort and the government's capacity to carry out military and rebuilding campaigns. More than 180,000 civilians — including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis — are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense Department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times. Including the recent troop surge, 160,000 soldiers and a few thousand civilian government employees are stationed in Iraq. The total number of private contractors, far higher than previously reported, shows how heavily the Bush administration has relied on private corporations to carry out the occupation of Iraq — a mission criticized as being undermanned. "These numbers are big," said Peter Singer, a Brookings Institution scholar who has written on military contracting. "They illustrate better than anything that we went in without enough troops. This is not the coalition of the willing. It's the coalition of the billing." The numbers include at least 21,000 Americans, 43,000 foreign contractors and about 118,000 Iraqis — all employed in Iraq by U.S. tax dollars, according to the most recent government data.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

Australia says oil means no Iraq withdrawal

Australia admitted for the first time on Thursday that securing oil supply is a key factor behind its involvement in the US-led war in Iraq. Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said a review of Australia's defence strategy to be released Thursday concluded that maintaining "resource security" in the Middle East was a priority. "The defence update we're releasing today sets out many priorities for Australia's defence and security, and resource security is one of them," Nelson told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "Obviously the Middle East itself, not only Iraq, but the entire region is an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world.

HISTORY

U.S. Intervention in the Middle East

This partial chronology of U.S. intervention in the Middle East illustrates the lengths to which the U.S. power structure has gone to gain and maintain U.S. domination of the Middle East--a region considered key to the U.S.'s standing as an imperialist world power. This is not a complete list of the invasions, bombings, assassinations, coups and other interventions by the U.S. government, its allies, or its client states, nor does it fully document the U.S.'s economic domination and exploitation of the region's people and resources.

1986: When a bomb goes off in a Berlin nightclub and kills two Americans, the U.S. blames Libya's Qaddafi. U.S. bombers strike Libyan military facilities, residential areas of Tripoli and Benghazi, and Qaddafi's house, killing 101 people, including Qaddafi's adopted daughter.

1987: The U.S. Navy is dispatched to the Persian Gulf to prevent Iran from cutting off Iraq's oil shipments. During these patrols, a U.S. ship shoots down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing all 290 onboard.

1988: The Iraqi regime launches mass poison-gas attacks on Kurds, killing thousands and bulldozing many villages. The U.S. responds by increasing its support for the Iraqi regime.

July 1988: A cease-fire ends the Iran-Iraq war with neither side victorious. Over 1 million Iranians and Iraqis are killed during the 8-year war.

1989: The last Soviet troops leave Afghanistan. The war, fueled by U.S.-Soviet rivalry, has torn Afghanistan apart, killing more than one million Afghans and forcing one-third of the population to flee into refugee camps. More than 15,000 Soviet soldiers die in the war.

July 1990: April Glaspie, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, meets with Saddam Hussein, who threatens military action against Kuwait for overproducing its oil quota, slant drilling for oil in Iraqi territory, and encroaching on Iraqi territory--seriously harming war weakened Iraq. Glaspie replies, "We have no opinion on the Arab- Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait."

August 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait. The U.S. seizes the moment to assert its hegemony in the post-Soviet world and strengthen its grip on the Persian Gulf: the U.S. condemns Iraq, rejects a diplomatic settlement, imposes sanctions, and prepares for an all-out military assault on Iraq.

Remains of Toxic Bullets Litter Iraq

At a roadside produce stand on the outskirts of Baghdad, business is brisk for Latifa Khalaf Hamid. Iraqi drivers pull up and snap up fresh bunches of parsley, mint leaves, dill, and onion stalks. But Ms. Hamid's stand is just four paces away from a burnt-out Iraqi tank, destroyed by - and contaminated with - controversial American depleted-uranium (DU) bullets. Local children play "throughout the day" on the tank, Hamid says, and on another one across the road. No one has warned the vendor in the faded, threadbare black gown to keep the toxic and radioactive dust off her produce. The children haven't been told not to play with the radioactive debris. They gather around as a Geiger counter carried by a visiting reporter starts singing when it nears a DU bullet fragment no bigger than a pencil eraser. It registers nearly 1,000 times normal background radiation levels on the digital readout.

The Monitor visited four sites in the city - including two randomly chosen destroyed Iraqi armored vehicles, a clutch of burned American ammunition trucks, and the downtown planning ministry - and found significant levels of radioactive contamination from the US battle for Baghdad. In the first partial Pentagon disclosure of the amount of DU used in Iraq, a US Central Command spokesman told the Monitor that A-10 Warthog aircraft - the same planes that shot at the Iraqi planning ministry - fired 300,000 bullets. The normal combat mix for these 30-mm rounds is five DU bullets to 1 - a mix that would have left about 75 tons of DU in Iraq.

Quote of the day: It takes twenty years or more of peace to make a man; it only takes twenty seconds of war to destroy him. – King Baudouin I of Belgium