News & Views 09/04/07

Photo: A woman grieves as she waits to claim the body of a relative outside a hospital morgue in Baquba, 65km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad September 4, 2007. The deceased was killed by gunmen in Baquba on Tuesday, police said. REUTERS/Helmiy al-Azawi (IRAQ)

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

Too Many Search Hopelessly for the Kidnapped

Amidst the violence and chaos in Diyala province, kidnappings continue unabated, bringing an uncertain fate for the abducted, and unanswered questions for their families. Kidnapping has become another form of violence, to add to car bombs, assassinations, displacement, theft, threats and air strikes. And kidnapping itself is carried out in all sorts of ways: taking someone from their home at night, from office during the day, in plain sight of civilians and police officers on the street, at false check points, or stopping the car to abduct the person. Families of those kidnapped are left without knowing who took their loved one, or where the person might have been taken. Panic sets in. Families try to find someone in a position of influence who could help, but usually no one can. If the person kidnapped is a policeman, member of the Iraqi National Guard (ING) or a translator for the U.S. military, he is usually killed immediately. When a civilian is kidnapped and a couple of weeks pass without a ransom demand, families begin the painful process of checking the local morgue repeatedly.

Life in Claustrophobic Baghdad “Jail”

My second benchmark is the face of an Iraqi friend here. Over the past four years, I have seen his face evolve into a picture of dejection. But now there seems to be something even worse: despair. He is trying to persuade members of his own family to move abroad for safety even if it means being apart for years. Such is the fear of both random and sectarian violence in this city. But this is minor league compared to what our colleagues at an international news agency have been through. A few days ago, I attended a wake for two of their Iraqi staff - a photographer and a driver - who were killed in Baghdad in July. An American Apache helicopter opened fire on them. The US military says it was engaged in a fire-fight with insurgents at the time.

……Thousands of volunteers - all Sunni Arabs - have been stepping forward and offering to protect their own neighbourhoods. Some are former insurgents who have switched sides. Others are young unemployed men who have had enough of the violence. It is a remarkable turn-around that so many now want to co-operate with the Americans, the very people they had previously been trying to kill. The Americans have been eager to sign them up and give them contracts - 20,000 apparently so far. In the Sunni district of Baghdad we went to, the volunteers are filling a void because there are no regular police there as the police are mostly Shia. While the Americans are enthusiastic about this growing force, the majority Shia population is becoming increasingly alarmed. They fear that a Sunni militia of dubious loyalty to the government is being created across the Sunni heartlands. And if the Americans hand responsibility to them and then pull back, it could be they have created the perfect recipe for all-out civil war.

To Arrive or Not to Arrive

Moving through a kind of deserted street doesn't give any kind of positive feelings. seeing the marks of the bullets on the walls of the building in the street gives a clear idea about the heavy fights happened in it and passing through three check points within a very short distance is another evidence that the street is not really safe. Thanks Allah that we could do it and I was about 30 minutes late. I wonder when Iraqis can move freely again in their capital and that would be the question of Hamlet if he ever would have another life to live it in Baghdad.

Harsh Justice Where US Relies on Iraqi Tribes

Seated between his police chief and a U.S. Marine battalion commander, the Iraqi mayor opened his weekly security meeting by explaining how he had authorized one of the local tribes to carry out a summary execution. The police had caught two men who had killed another policeman. "As you all know, the Iraqi court system is still weak," said Mayor Farhan Ftehkhan, while an interpreter translated for the benefit of the Americans. "Yesterday I met the sheikhs, and they decided to kill them as soon as possible. So the tribes took their decision and they killed those criminals." The sheikhs carried out their summary execution in the district of al Qaim in Iraq's vast western desert province of Anbar, where Sunni Arab tribes once hostile to U.S. forces have now joined the Americans to drive out al Qaeda militants. The area, once one of the most dangerous in Iraq, is now one of the quietest. Rows of houses reduced to rubble by heavy fighting are being rebuilt. [Hey, the Iraqis are gathering data and confessions prior to the summary executions. The US troops just execute anyone they think might maybe be a threat. – dancewater]

IRAQ: Some Basra residents, NGOs fearful of British troop withdrawal

As British troops completed their pullout on 3 September from Saddan Hussein’s former palace in Basra - their last remaining base in the southern city - to Basra airport, local aid agencies and residents have expressed concern that security could deteriorate. “Basra is still in a very delicate security situation,” said Barak Hussein, media officer for the locally-based South Peace Organisation (SPO). “They are leaving the city in the hands of local security forces but these are not prepared to assume all responsibilities, especially with so many different militias in the area.” According to Iraqi military sources, British troops at the palace have been facing up to 60 mortar attacks a day. “We have raised grave concerns… at least in Basra British troops were maintaining some sort of control which wasn’t the case in other parts of Iraq, but now we might see the same cycle of violence [as elsewhere],” Hussein said. Mayada Zuhair, a spokesperson of the Basra branch of the Women’s Rights Association, a Baghdad-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), said without British troops in the area, there would be an increase in violence with local militias vying for power.

Cause of north Iraq cholera outbreak unclear-WHO

The World Health Organisation said on Tuesday thousands of people had fallen ill with cholera in northern Iraq, but the cause of the outbreak had not been identified. "The source of infection is very unclear so far," said Claire Lise Chaignat, head of the United Nations agency's global task force on cholera control. She said the northern Iraqi province of Sulaimaniya had recorded a "three- to four-fold increase" in acute watery diarrhoea -- cholera's main symptom -- between Aug. 23 and Sept. 2. There have been 2,930 cholera cases and 9 related deaths in Sulaimaniya over that 11-day period, she said. Nearby Kirkuk first detected cholera on Aug. 19 and has since had 1 death and 2,968 cases of acute watery diarrhoea, Chaignat said. She cautioned it was not yet possible to say whether all those cases were cholera. Health officials in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region said last week that a Sulaimaniya water treatment plant had tested positive for the bacterium that caused cholera, and that its filters would be cleaned. Polluted well water was also cited as a possible infection source. In Kirkuk, cracked water pipes allowing contamination by sewage were blamed for the outbreak.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

Bold-face names

Prime Minister Maliki announced at a press conference that Judge Radhi al-Radhi, head of the Commission on Public Integrity, has fled Iraq. Maliki added he was surprised to learn that the Judge had been able to leave the country, because his name was on a list of those barred from leaving the country. Maliki said his administration had been about to request Parliament officially withdraw its confidence in the Judge, in preparation for firing him and charging him in court with a "group of charges." The Al-Hayat reporter notes this "group of charges" emanates from Parliament, which set up a commission antagonistic to Al-Radhi's. The reporter refers to a report by the US Embassy (the same one outlined in a recent article in The Nation), criticising the Maliki government for endemic corruption; for blocking of Al-Radhi's investigations into its political allies; and for cutting off its budgetary funds. The report said Al-Radhi has been object of many death-threats. What this Al-Hayat article makes clear is that Maliki himself has been himself on the side of those trying to shut Al-Radhi down, and is now expressing his disappointment that he was able to flee the country.

Secret deal for roadmap to peace bears stamp of Ulster

Representatives from Sunni and Shia groups in Iraq agreed on a road map to peace based on the experience in Northern Ireland after four days of secret talks in Finland, reconciliation group the Crisis Management Initiative said last night. The meeting brought together 16 delegates from the feuding groups to study lessons learned from successful peacemaking efforts in South Africa and Northern Ireland. The factions were convened by the John W McCormack graduate school of policy studies at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. The former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari organised the seminar but was not present. "Participants committed themselves to work towards a robust framework for a lasting settlement," a statement issued by CMI said. It added that the participants "agreed to consult further" on a list of 12 recommendations to begin reconciliation talks including resolving political disputes through non-violence and democracy. Politicians from Northern Ireland including the unionist Jeffrey Donaldson and the Sinn Féin leader Martin McGuinness also attended the talks. The recommendations included disarming feuding factions and forming an independent commission to supervise this "in a verifiable manner". Mr Donaldson said: "Agreement has been reached on the way forward between the parties, and they are now going back to Iraq with these proposals." Among the groups reportedly at the talks were representatives of the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr; the leader of the largest Sunni Arab political group, Adnan al-Dulaimi; and Humam Hammoudi, the Shia chairman of the Iraqi parliament's foreign affairs committee.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

Video: The Great Iraq Swindle

How is it done? How do you screw the taxpayer for millions, get away with it and then ride off into the sunset with one middle finger extended, the other wrapped around a chilled martini? Ask Earnest O. Robbins -- he knows all about being a successful contractor in Iraq. You start off as a well-connected bureaucrat: in this case, as an Air Force civil engineer, a post from which Robbins was responsible for overseeing 70,000 servicemen and contractors, with an annual budget of $8 billion. You serve with distinction for thirty-four years, becoming such a military all-star that the Air Force frequently sends you to the Hill to testify before Congress -- until one day in the summer of 2003, when you retire to take a job as an executive for Parsons, a private construction company looking to do work in Iraq.

Troop buildup fails to reconcile Iraq

The U.S. military buildup that was supposed to calm Baghdad and other trouble spots has failed to usher in national reconciliation, as the capital's neighborhoods rupture even further along sectarian lines, violence shifts elsewhere and Iraq's government remains mired in political infighting. In the coming days, U.S. military and government leaders will offer Congress their assessment of the 6-month-old plan's results. But a review of statistics on death and displacement, political developments and the impressions of Iraqis who are living under the heightened military presence reaches a dispiriting conclusion. Despite the plan, which has brought an additional 28,500 U.S. troops to Iraq since February, none of the major legislation that Washington had expected the Iraqi parliament to pass into law has been approved. The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has increased, not decreased, according to the United Nations' International Organization for Migration and Iraq's Ministry for Displacement and Migration.

Documents Show Troops Disregarding Rules

New documents released Tuesday regarding crimes committed by U.S. soldiers against civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan detail a troubling pattern of troops failing to understand and follow the rules that govern interrogations and deadly actions. The documents, released by the American Civil Liberties Union ahead of a lawsuit, total nearly 10,000 pages of courts-martial summaries, transcripts and military investigative reports about 22 incidents. They show repeated examples of soldiers believing they were within the law when they killed local citizens. The killings include the drowning of a man soldiers pushed from a bridge into the Tigris River as punishment for breaking curfew, and the suffocation during interrogation of a former Iraqi general believed to be helping insurgents. In the suffocation, soldiers covered the man's head with a sleeping bag, then wrapped his neck with an electrical cord for a "stress position" they insisted was an approved technique.

Iran denies shelling Kurdish areas in Iraq

A senior Iranian official denied allegations that Iran has been shelling Kurdish areas in neighbouring Iraq, an Iranian news agency said on Tuesday. Iraqi officials accused Iran last month of shelling Kurdish villages in Iraq's northeast, a move Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said threatened ties with Iran. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Sunday it would investigate reports of shelling in Kurdish areas in Iraq, in the first official comment from Tehran on the issue. Iran's ISNA news agency said on Tuesday that Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Mostafavi had "denied any bombing of Iraq's northern border by Iran". [False flag operation, here, perhaps? – dancewater]

HISTORY

Bush OK'd Plan To Disband Iraq Army

Annoyed that Bush was quoted in a recent book as suggesting that he had gone a bit Rambo out in the desert, Bremer disclosed his spring 2003 correspondence with the president. The impetus for Bremer's action was Bush's interview with Robert Draper, author of the new book "Dead Certain," in which the president sounded as if he had been taken aback by the decision. "The policy had been to keep the army intact; didn't happen," Bush told Draper. When Draper asked how he had reacted when the policy changed, Bush replied, "Yeah, I can't remember. I'm sure I said, 'This is the policy, what happened?'" But according to the Bremer letters, Bush responded to the envoy's briefing that he was planning to dismantle the Iraq military with a big thumbs-up the following day: "Your leadership is apparent. You have quickly made a positive and significant impact. You have my full support and confidence."

COMMENTARY

It is not the end, but the first chapter of the war in Iraq is drawing to a close

Lord knows, it makes no sense to be anything but a pessimist when it comes to the war in Iraq. The occupation remains as bloody and fruitless as the original invasion was fraudulent and needless. The killing and dying go on, with any let-up only relative and slight. So it would be naively hopeful to see in a series of moves these last few days anything so clear as a breakthrough. But we might detect at least a change, the passing of one phase of this dread conflict into another. As Churchill said following the victory at El Alamein in 1942: "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." The first and most substantial indicator is the withdrawal, completed on Monday, of British forces to Basra Air Station. Of the 45,000 British troops involved in the original invasion, and the four Iraqi provinces that were once under direct British rule, soon there will be just 5,000, holed up behind the walls of a single airport. These soldiers will no longer live among the people to whom Britain's UN ambassador promised just last month to bring "a democratic and stable Iraq, at peace with itself and with its neighbours". Instead they will keep their distance, promising to emerge only "in extremis". And things will have to get pretty extremis for them to dare to re-enter Basra city again.

Opinion: Open Your Eyes

"If we let our enemies back us out of Iraq, we will more likely face them in America. If we don't want to hear their footsteps back home, we have to keep them on their heels over here," he told cheering young Marines on this Labor Day. In the pit of my stomach I feel nauseous. Many will hear that to mean that life is cheap in Iraq, by some estimates hundreds of thousands have died here in this fight but "if we don't want to hear their footsteps back home, we have to keep them on their heels over here." Four times he referred to keeping the "terrorists" and the "enemies" that plague Iraq here and not bringing them home. Al Qaida became an element to be reckoned with in Iraq after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion. It is a symbolic fight for many extremists against the American troops now. Many Iraqis believe that the U.S. created an atmosphere to bring their enemies here and fight them on Iraqi soil. They say it to me every day. "Why do you assume that America wants to make it better here," a friend once asked me in frustration.

Quote of the day: The soul of our country needs to be awakened . . .When leaders act contrary to conscience, we must act contrary to leaders: Veterans Fast for Life