War in Iraq
Dahr Jamail Follows the Trail of Torture
From TomDispatch
The other day on Jerry Agar’s radio show, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld responded to accusations about American atrocities at our prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He accused the detainees there of manipulating public opinion by lying about their treatment. He said, in part:
“They’re taught to lie, they’re taught to allege that they have been tortured, and that’s part of the [terrorist] training that they received. We know that torture is not occurring there. We know that for a fact? The reality is that the terrorists have media committees. They are getting very clever at manipulating the media in the United States and in the capitals of the world. They know for a fact they can’t win a single battle on the battlefields in the Middle East. They know the only place they can win a battle is in the capitol in Washington, D.C. by having the United States lose its will, so they consciously manipulate the media here to achieve their ends, and they’re very good at it.”
Statements like this have been commonplaces from an administration whose President repeatedly insists it doesn’t do “torture,” while its assembled lawyers do their best to redefine torture out of existence. Here’s how, for instance, our Vice President has described the lives of detainees at Guantanamo Bay: “They’re living in the tropics? They’re well fed. They’ve got everything they could possibly want. There isn’t any other nation in the world that would treat people who were determined to kill Americans the way we’re treating these people.”
Embedding Torture as Policy from Guantanamo to Iraq
By Dahr Jamail writing from Tom Dispatch
They told him, “We are going to cut your head off and send you to hell.”
Ali Abbas, a former detainee from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, was filling me in on the horrors he endured at the hands of American soldiers, contractors, and CIA operatives while inside the infamous prison.
It was May of 2004 when I documented his testimony in my hotel in Baghdad. “We will take you to Guantanamo,” he said one female soldier told him after he was detained by U.S. forces on September 13, 2003. “Our aim is to put you in hell so you’ll tell the truth. These are our orders — to turn your life into hell.” And they did. He was tortured in Abu Ghraib less than half a year after the occupation of Iraq began.
While the publication of the first Abu Ghraib photos in April 2004 opened the floodgates for former Iraqi detainees to speak out about their treatment at the hands of occupation forces, this wasn’t the first I’d heard of torture in Iraq. A case I’d documented even before then was that of 57 year-old Sadiq Zoman. He was held for one month by U.S. forces before being dropped off in a coma at the general hospital in Tikrit. The medical report that came with his comatose body, written by U.S. Army medic Lt. Col. Michael Hodges, listed the reasons for Zoman’s state as heat stroke and heart attack. That medical report, however, failed to mention anything about the physical trauma evident on Zomans’ body — the electrical point burns on the soles of his feet and on his genitals, the fact that the back of his head had been bashed in with a blunt instrument, or the lash marks up and down his body.
Such tales — and they were rife in Baghdad before the news of Abu Ghraib reached the world — were just the tip of the iceberg; and stories of torture similar to those I heard from Iraqi detainees during my very first trip to Iraq, back in November 2003, are still being told, because such treatment is ongoing.
The Lancet publishes research on government under-reporting of British casualties in Iraq
The highly regarded medical research journal, The Lancet, has published an analysis of government under-reporting of British casualties in the Iraq war. The research was conducted by Professor Sheila Bird of the MRC Biostatistics Unit at Cambridge, and illustrates the difficulties in trying to obtain accurate information from the government. It also confirms that casualty figures are almost certain to be much higher than stated by John Reid, the Minister of Defence.
For comment and further analysis go here
Beyond Abu Ghraib – lessons still not learnt
Amnesty International have issued a new report on detainee abuse by coallition and Iraqi army units in Iraq.
From Reuters AlertNet
LONDON, March 6 (Reuters) – Amnesty International condemned the detention in Iraq of around 14,000 prisoners without charge or trial, saying on Monday the lessons of the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal had not been learned.
“As long as U.S. and U.K. forces hold prisoners in secret detention conditions, torture is much more likely to occur, to go undetected and to go unpunished,” Amnesty’s U.K. Director Kate Allen said. In a 48-page-report entitled “Beyond Abu Ghraib”, the London-based human rights group called for an end to the internment, which it said contravened international law.
“After the horrors of life under Saddam and then the fresh horror of U.S. prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, it is shocking to discover that the multinational forces are detaining thousands of people without charge or trial,” Allen said. “Not only have there been recent cases of prisoners being tortured in detention, but to hold this huge number of people without basic legal safeguards is a gross dereliction of responsibility on the part of both the U.S. and U.K. forces.”
Amnesty highlighted the case of Kamal Muhammad, also known as Abdullah Al-Jibouri, who it said was a 43-year-old father of 11 held without charge by U.S. forces for over two years. “His brother reports that he has received insufficient food and has lost some 20 kilos in weight in prison,” Amnesty said.
It said over 200 detainees had been imprisoned for more than two years and nearly 4,000 for over a year. “There are chilling signs that the lessons of Abu Ghraib have not been learnt,” Allen said. “Not only prisoners being held in defiance of international law, but the allegations of torture continue to pour out of Iraq.”
Human rights activists and others have often criticised the United States over its treatment of prisoners in Iraq, where it is holding around 30 times as many prisoners as it is at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The U.S. military says it has a policy against torture, but has acknowledged using interrogation techniques that include placing detainees in stress positions. In the Abu Ghraib scandal, U.S. soldiers were pictured sexually humiliating prisoners and menacing them with dogs at the jail near Baghdad.
Impeach Blair
Yet more scandalous reporting from the BBC. They are saying that anti-war protestors are up in arms because Blair said that “God will judge him for his decision to go to war in Iraq.”
That is a deliberate twisting of what Blair said into a more favourable light. I too believe God will judge Blair: the poor bastard has really got it coming in the hereafter. Blair actually said that “Others” were involved in the decision to go to war. When Parkinson pressed him, he confirmed that he was referring to God.
Saying that “God decided we should go to war” is very different from saying “God will judge my actions.”
We know that Blair and Bush had decided to attack Iraq before 9/11. We know they prayed together when they took that decision. We know they pushed on illegally once the UN wouldn’t back them, despite their lies on WMD. We know they killed scores of thousands of Iraqis, and life is a living hell for many millions still living. We know of the pointless sacrifice of the lives of our own troops.
Blair doesn’t just need to be brought down, he needs to be brought to justice. Even before God gets his hands on him.
Craig Murray to address Tower Hamlets Stop the War meeting, Wednesday 1st March
TROOPS OUT OF IRAQ – DON’T ATTACK IRAN
7.00pm, Wednesday 1 March Skeel Hall lecture theatre, People’s Palace, Queen Mary University, Mile End Rd, E1 (nearest tube: Mile End)
more info from 079 585 35231 / 079 177 96673 / [email protected]
TONY BENN
GEORGE GALLOWAY(Respect MP for Bethnal Green & Bow)
ROSE GENTLE (mother of Fusilier Gordon Gentle, killed in Basra in June ’04)
CRAIG MURRAY (Former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan)
JOHN REES (Stop the War Coalition)
SAMI RAMADANI (Iraqi exile)
MOD delays the release of British casualty figures
The Ministry of Defence is continuing to delay the release of information on British casualties in the Iraq war. Information was requested under the Freedom of Information Act following recent statements from the Minister, John Reid.
LFCM describes the continuing struggle to get at the facts.
Update 24.02.06: the MOD responses to the FOIA enquiries appear to indicate more than a small degree of obfuscation from the Minister.
Clare Short: I weep for our errors in Iraq
From The Independent
Not many years ago, I used to say that our troops were some of the best peacekeepers in the world. Having learned their lessons in Northern Ireland, their performance in Bosnia, East Timor, and Sierra Leone – and in leading the establishment of the peace-keeping force in Kabul – was exemplary.
The Department for International Development, of which I was Secretary of State, provided some funding, and the troops worked in ways that enabled them to get to know the local people. They helped with emergency repairs, set up football clubs, and got involved in other activities. The secret of the troops’ success was that they treated local people with respect. And so – despite all the deceit on the road to war in Iraq – it was easy to believe the claims that life was better in Basra than Baghdad partly because our troops knew how to behave.
We can no longer be under that illusion. The video footage that came to light last week showing the beatings of young men by British troops – and the decision of the people of Basra to refuse all contact with British forces – suggests that all is not as we were led to believe. We can no longer feel the same pride in the performance of our armed forces. And their loss of reputation makes them more vulnerable in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Keeping the video from Iraq in perspective
I feel the need to comment on the video of brutality by British soldiers released at the weekend, purely because so much rubbish has been spouted in the mainstream media on the subject.
I may surprise you by starting with the observation that, on the scale of violence we have visited on Iraq, this was a negligible incident. People on all sides are dying every day. I have heard enough first hand accounts, from British diplomats and military, from journalists and NGO worker martialled. Actually, I blame them very little. What are they supposed to do to disperse a crowd which, plainly, was trying to inflict actual violence on the troops? If every Iraqi who threw a stone at coalition forces was interned, you would keep millions of prisoners. There are no Iraqi authorities to whom prisoners can be turned over who will deal with them sensibly. The British don’t want prisoners, and the UK military now have a de facto policy of not turning prisoners over to the US authorities because of their inept and violent handling of them.
The British troops are in a completely impossible situation. Their role is to support a corrupt and inefficient Iraqi puppet administration which is incapable of exercising control, and would do little for good if it did have control. The vast majority of the Iraqi population do not want us there. The real good that this video might have done is in driving home to the British public, against the ceaseless propaganda of the mainstream media, that we are not wanted. That stone-throwing crowd were Shias, for God’s sake. The official propaganda says that they are on ‘our’ side.
So our troops are being sniped at, blown up or facing violent mobs. They can do little about it. Their own military leadership are convinced that they should not be there. They are not the ones reaping the benefits of huge income from the new US and UK oil contracts, though they will be giving their lives to protect the carpetbaggers who have descended on Iraq like locusts. Is there any wonder that this boils over in frustration?
The disgraceful actions in that video were not the product of intrinsic evil on the part of the British troops involved. This incident was one of the more minor consequences of the illegal war of aggression and occupation launched by George Bush and Tony Blair. It is Blair and Bush, not the troops, who should be in the dock.
Craig
Battle Plans for Iran?
By Mike Whitney in OpEd News
In less than 24 hours the Bush administration won impressive victories on both domestic and foreign policy fronts. At home, the far-right Federalist Society alum, Sam Alito, has overcome the feeble resistance from Democratic senators; ensuring his confirmation to the Supreme Court sometime late on Tuesday. Equally astonishing, the administration has coerced both Russia and China into bringing Iran before the United Nations Security Council although (as Mohamed ElBaradei says) ‘There’s no evidence of a nuclear weapons program.’ The surprising capitulation of Russia and China has forced Iran to abandon its efforts for further negotiations; cutting off dialogue that might diffuse the volatile situation.
‘We consider any referral or report of Iran to the Security Council as the end of diplomacy,’ Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told state television.
The administration’s success with Iran ends the diplomatic charade and paves the way for war.
Senior US official in Iraq admits stealing $2 million of reconstruction aid and taking bribes in exchange for $8 million worth of contracts
In the United States, a former official has admitted stealing millions of dollars meant for the reconstruction of Iraq.
Robert Stein held a senior position in the Coalition Provisional Authority, which administered Iraq after American and allied forces invaded in 2003. In a Washington court, he admitted to stealing more than $2m (‘1.12m) and taking bribes in return for contracts. He faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.
Robert Stein’s story is one of extraordinary corruption and excess amid the ruins of Iraq. He was in charge of overseeing money for the rebuilding of shattered infrastructure in south-central Iraq in 2003 and 2004. Mr Stein admitted in court to conspiring to give out contracts worth $8m to a certain company in return for bribes.
He also received gifts and sexual favours lavished on him at a special villa in Baghdad. But it didn’t stop there.
Robert Stein admitted to stealing $2m from reconstruction funds.
Some of that money, the court heard, was smuggled onto aircraft and flown back to the United States in suitcases. The case is an ugly twist in the tale of post-war Iraq.
The Coalition Provisional Authority, which ceased to exist in 2004, has already endured some tough criticism over the way it managed funds and handed out contracts. A report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction on how the authority went about its business is expected in the coming weeks.
The signs are it could make embarrassing reading for many of those involved.
Meanwhile, a new documentary, “Shadow Company”, seeks to explore the secret world of Private Military Companies, including the British-run firm Aegis, whose $293 million Iraq contract raised many eyebrows when it was awarded in 2004.
LEAK OF THE WEEK: Bush considered provoking war with Saddam by flying a US spyplane over Iraq bearing UN colours
George Bush considered provoking a war with Saddam Hussein’s regime by flying a United States spyplane over Iraq bearing UN colours, enticing the Iraqis to take a shot at it, according to a leaked memo of a meeting between the US President and Tony Blair.
The two leaders were worried by the lack of hard evidence that Saddam Hussein had broken UN resolutions, though privately they were convinced that he had. According to the memorandum, Mr Bush said: “The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach.”
He added: “It was also possible that a defector could be brought out who would give a public presentation about Saddam’s WMD, and there was also a small possibility that Saddam would be assassinated.” The memo damningly suggests the decision to invade Iraq had already been made when Mr Blair and the US President met in Washington on 31 January 2003 ‘ when the British Government was still working on obtaining a second UN resolution to legitimise the conflict.
The leaders discussed the prospects for a second resolution, but Mr Bush said: “The US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would ‘twist arms’ and ‘even threaten’. But he had to say that if ultimately we failed, military action would follow anyway.” He added that he had a date, 10 March, pencilled in for the start of military action. The war actually began on 20 March.
Mr Blair replied that he was “solidly with the President and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam.” But he also insisted that ” a second Security Council resolution would provide an insurance policy against the unexpected, and international cover, including with the Arabs” .
The memo appears to refute claims made in memoirs published by the former UK ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, who has accused Mr Blair of missing an opportunity to win the US over to a strategy based on a second UN resolution. It now appears Mr Bush’s mind was already made up.
There was also a discussion of what might happen in Iraq after Saddam had been overthrown. President Bush said that he “thought it unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups”. Mr Blair did not respond. Details of the meeting are revealed in a book, Lawless World, published today by Philippe Sands, a professor of law at University College London.
“I think no one would be surprised at the idea that the use of spy planes to review what is going on would be considered,” Mr Sands told Channel 4 News last night. “What is surprising is the idea that they would be painted in the colours of the United Nations to provoke an attack which could then be used to justify material breach.
“Now that plainly looks as if it is deception, and it raises… questions of legality, both in terms of domestic law and international law.”
Other participants in the meeting were Mr Bush’s National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, her deputy, Dan Fried, the chief of staff, Andrew Card, Mr Blair’s then security adviser, Sir David Manning, his foreign policy aide, Matthew Rycroft, and his chief of staff, Jonathan Powell.
The Downing Street spokesman later said: “The Prime Minister only committed forces to Iraq after securing the approval of the Commons in the vote on 18 March 2003.”
The spokesman added: “All these matters have been thoroughly investigated and we stand by our position.”
* The Ministry of Defence will publish casualty figures for UK troops in Iraq on its website within the next few weeks, the Government disclosed last night. Defence Secretary John Reid said the figures ‘ which will be regularly updated ‘ would identify the number of personnel categorised as seriously injured and very seriously injured. He promised to alert MPs before the first publication of the figures. The pledge came in a Commons written reply.
100th British soldier killed in Iraq
A British soldier has been killed in an explosion in southern Iraq, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed.
The soldier, from the 7th Armoured Brigade, died as result of injuries sustained after a blast in Basra province, the ministry said.
Other soldiers injured in the incident are receiving treatment at the Shaibah medical facility.
The death brings the number of British personnel to have died in Iraq to 100 and is the second fatality this week.
For previous discussion of the true extent of British casualties go here and here.
Vigils and protests are being organised across the UK to mark this event.
Please see here for further details.
London bombings survivor Rachel North on the government’s refusal to acknowledge the causes of terrorism
“Clean Skins”, by Rachel North
The Government cannot afford to say that Iraq and the bloody aftermath have gifted those who recruit and train these young men with a PR strategy that keeps making more willing martyrs, soldiers, jihadi warriors. The hideous irony – that the ‘War on Terror’ has only made more terror, fear and has generated many more terrorists – dare not be mentioned.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Biggest Terrorist Of All?
By Jeremy Pikser in Yahoo News
On Friday night I had the pleasure of seeing a truly great and courageous American, Harry Belafonte, make opening remarks at The Commission on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration held at Riverside Church in New York.
Belafonte, who several years ago got mainstream punditry all upset by calling Colin Powell a house slave, has shaken things up again by calling George W. Bush “the world’s greatest terrorist.”
It didn’t take long for the right wing “patriotic” yahoos to call for his scalp. How dare he?! It’s outrageous! It’s treasonous! But has anyone stopped to ask… is it true?
The reasonably conservative estimate of civilian deaths caused by Bush’s unprovoked attack on the sovereign state of Iraq (defined by the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal to be the highest of all war crimes) is 100,000. On a straight mathematical basis, that would be equal to one Twin Tower attack every month for close to three years. Think about that. Think about how we would feel if such a thing were to come to pass on American soil. Then try to think how Iraqis in particular, and Arabs in general must feel about what has been unleashed by George Bush.
If the other leading contender for the title is Osama Bin Laden, I would say Bush wins the title of “the greatest” hands down.
But don’t take my word for it, and don’t go the crude measure of simple body count mathematics. Don’t take Harry’s word for it, either. Instead, check the testimony given to the Commission by former Marine and UN arms inspector Scott Ritter, Former US diplomat to Afghanistan Ann White, former UK Ambassador to Kazakhstan, Craig Murray, and Brig. Gen Janis Karpinskiy former commander at Abu Graib as well as other highly qualified and knowledgeable experts which make a compelling legal case that the Bush regime is not only wrong, but criminal, in it’s policies in regard to Iraq, torture, the environment, and world health policy.
UK Casualties in Iraq: Whats the real figure?
Is John Reid telling the truth about UK casualties in Iraq?
Some people seem to have doubts and others are taking individual action via the Freedom of Information Act.
Impeach Blair, says General Sir Michael Rose
Sir Michael Rose, the retired British army General who led United Nations forces in Bosnia has called for Tony Blair to be impeached for taking the country to war in Iraq on false grounds. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, he said that Blair must not be allowed to “walk away”, and must be held accountable in order to deter future politicians from making the same mistakes. Asked whether he believed his views were shared by senior officers still serving in the army, Rose suggested that a “debate” had been going on.
You can listen to the interview here 
(Real Player)
See also: Blairwatch – General Sir Michael Rose calls for Blair to be Impeached
The campaign for impeachment is online: ImpeachBlair.org
Update (10/01): Many mainstream papers are now running with this story. A quote from the Guardian
“…people have seen their political wishes ignored for reasons that have now proved false. Nor has there been any attempt made in parliament to call Mr Blair personally to account for what has transpired to be a blunder of enormous strategic significance,” he writes.
It should not be surprising that “so many of the voters of this country have turned their backs on a democratic system which they feel has so little credibility and is so unresponsive”.
Foreign office staff threatened resignations in bid to stop US bombing of Al Jazeera. Jack Straw lies over CIA flights.
The British Foreign Office privately accepts that CIA rendition flights did pass through its territory, a diplomatic source told United Press International.
The well-placed source said the Foreign Office “totally accepts” that the United States used British airfields to transfer prisoners abroad for interrogation, and is “extremely worried” about the political consequences.
The revelation comes amid growing signs of divergence between London and Washington over the way in which the war on terror should be conducted.
When British Prime Minister Tony Blair learnt in April 2003 that the United States had bombed a Baghdad hotel in which several media organizations were housed, killing three journalists, he “literally jumped out of his chair,” the source told UPI. The Foreign Office was “horrified,” considering the attack to be “obscene,” the source said.
London took the same attitude towards a U.S. suggestion that it would attack the Qatar headquarters of the Arabic language television al-Jazeera, the source said.
Foreign Office officials threatened to resign if the Americans went ahead with the attacks, revealed in a Downing Street memo leaked to the British media earlier this year.
Blair reportedly talked U.S. President George W. Bush out of the attacks, warning it could fuel a worldwide backlash. The Mirror newspaper quoted a source as saying: “There’s no doubt what Bush wanted, and no doubt Blair didn’t want him to do it.”
Mercenaries in Iraq – Q & A from the FAC
On 23rd November, shortly before the Aegis Video of civillian shootings hit the public airwaves, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee addressed a number of questions to Ian Pearson, Minister for Trade, Foreign & Commonwealth Office with responsibility for human rights, on the activities of British mercenary companies.
Q132 Mr Keetch: There have been, as you know, Minister, a number of high profile issues resulting in British military personnel involved in abuse in Iraq, including court martials. There was also the case of the proceedings that were recently dropped against some British soldiers accused of murder in Iraq. I am aware and the Committee is aware of the rules of engagement of the British Armed Forces. Can you tell us a bit about, if you like, the rules of engagement of the British based private military companies that exists in Iraq, because it is certainly the case that there are thousands of British citizens in Iraq carrying weapons working for private military companies that are not covered by British Government rules of engagement for armed forces but, nevertheless, are doing work in that country? Does the British Government give advice to those companies as to what kind of human rights activities and security training and such that they should be doing out there?
Mr Pearson: I think that question is probably better directed at the Ministry of Defence, who are likely to have better information about this. As Minister with responsibility for human rights I would want to make sure that the human rights obligations of any individual and, indeed, any company, whether it is operating in Iraq or wherever, are closely followed, and certainly we want would want to make sure that UK companies who operate in Iraq are fully aware of their human rights obligations.
Q138 Andrew Mackinlay: I want to take you back to Paul Keech’s point when he questioned you about private security companies and you referred Paul Keech to the Ministry of Defence. Can I gently remind you that before you were a minister of foreign office the Foreign Office produced a Green Paper on the private security companies, not the Ministry of Defence. It came here to this Committee, who produced a report, and the motive was regulation: because one foresaw some of the things which Paul Keech referred to. I remember at the time taunting the Foreign Office, saying, “This is going to be pigeon holed”, and broadly they said, “My God, how can you suggest such a thing?” Is it not pigeon-holed? Is it dead? Is this parrot dead, this Green Paper on regulating private military companies because of human right considerations?
Ian Pearson: I am not cited on this, so I cannot give you an answer on that other than the general answer.
Q139 Andrew Mackinlay: You see my point, though, do not you? The fact is you are the human rights minister. It was not I who initiated it, it was during McShane’s period and Cook’s, and it was a Green Paper produced, we dealt with it at length and it is dead as a dodo. It is dead as a dodo, I put it to you, for the reasons which Keech referred to, the fact that it is too sensitive. It raises the question of rules of engagement, recruitment, where they come from, where they are going to, companies being able to dissolve themselves at arm’s length, distance, “Nothing to do with us, guv”, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Could you come back to us on this, because I am putting it to you, the Government have ducked it because it is a hot potato and it does raise serious human rights issues and you should know about it?
Mr Pearson: I am certainly not prepared to pronounce the parrot dead yet.
Q140 Andrew Mackinlay: That is good.
Ian Pearson: As I say, I do not have information to hand specifically on this. If it would be helpful I would be happy to write to the Committee on this.
Q141 Chairman: Perhaps you could inform the Foreign Secretary that we have raised this matter. He is before us in a couple of weeks’ time, so I am sure we would like something before then, if possible.
Ian Pearson: I will bring it to his attention.
Will be interesting to hear what Jack Straw had to say on that one…