Showing posts with label civilians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label civilians. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
One in eight Iraqi children died of disease or violence before reaching their fifth birthday in 2005
Report: Iraq Child Mortality Rate Soars
May 8, 2007 - 2:34am
By MARIA CHENG
AP Medical Writer
LONDON (AP) - The chance that an Iraqi child will live beyond age 5 has plummeted faster than anywhere else in the world since 1990, according to a report released Tuesday, which placed the country last in its child survival rankings.
One in eight Iraqi children died of disease or violence before reaching their fifth birthday in 2005, according to the report by Save the Children, which said Iraq ranked last because it had made the least progress toward improving child survival rates.
Iraq's mortality rate has soared by 150 percent since 1990. Even before the latest war, Iraq was plagued by electricity shortages, a lack of clean water and too few hospitals.
The publication, which used data from 1990-2005, also determined that gains in survival rates in some of the world's poorest countries _ including Botswana, Zimbabwe and Swaziland _ were declining.
The vast majority of child deaths _ more than nine in 10 _ occur in just 60 developing countries, the report said. Of the approximately 10 million children under age 5 who die every year, most could be saved with cheap solutions, like nets to protect against mosquito-borne malaria or antibiotics to treat pneumonia, according to the report.
"These aren't intractable problems," Dr. William Foege, of the Emory University School of Public Health, wrote in a foreword to the report. "It is simply wrong for only the few to have access to all of the tools for survival because of where they live."
About 4 million children die of complications in the first month after birth every year, according to Save the Children. Other causes of death for young children include diarrhea, pneumonia and measles, the group reported.
Among industrialized countries, Iceland had the best child survival rate, and Romania the worst. The U.S. placed 26th, tied with Croatia, Estonia and Poland. Nearly seven children die for every 1,000 live births in the United States. That was more than double the rate in Iceland, and 75 percent higher than rates in the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan and Slovenia.
Among developing countries, Egypt fared the best _ lowering its child mortality rate by 68 percent largely by improving care for pregnant women, ensuring the presence of a skilled attendant during childbirth, and providing better family planning help.
Since 1994, Egypt has also increased health spending by more than 200 percent.
___
On the Net:
http://www.savethechildren.org/
(Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
Moa'amal Mohammed, age seven, sits alone in a classroom in western Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 7, 2007. Due to security concerns, many children are not attending their classes. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) By MARIA CHENG
AP Medical Writer
LONDON (AP) - The chance that an Iraqi child will live beyond age 5 has plummeted faster than anywhere else in the world since 1990, according to a report released Tuesday, which placed the country last in its child survival rankings.
One in eight Iraqi children died of disease or violence before reaching their fifth birthday in 2005, according to the report by Save the Children, which said Iraq ranked last because it had made the least progress toward improving child survival rates.
Iraq's mortality rate has soared by 150 percent since 1990. Even before the latest war, Iraq was plagued by electricity shortages, a lack of clean water and too few hospitals.
The publication, which used data from 1990-2005, also determined that gains in survival rates in some of the world's poorest countries _ including Botswana, Zimbabwe and Swaziland _ were declining.
The vast majority of child deaths _ more than nine in 10 _ occur in just 60 developing countries, the report said. Of the approximately 10 million children under age 5 who die every year, most could be saved with cheap solutions, like nets to protect against mosquito-borne malaria or antibiotics to treat pneumonia, according to the report.
"These aren't intractable problems," Dr. William Foege, of the Emory University School of Public Health, wrote in a foreword to the report. "It is simply wrong for only the few to have access to all of the tools for survival because of where they live."
About 4 million children die of complications in the first month after birth every year, according to Save the Children. Other causes of death for young children include diarrhea, pneumonia and measles, the group reported.
Among industrialized countries, Iceland had the best child survival rate, and Romania the worst. The U.S. placed 26th, tied with Croatia, Estonia and Poland. Nearly seven children die for every 1,000 live births in the United States. That was more than double the rate in Iceland, and 75 percent higher than rates in the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan and Slovenia.
Among developing countries, Egypt fared the best _ lowering its child mortality rate by 68 percent largely by improving care for pregnant women, ensuring the presence of a skilled attendant during childbirth, and providing better family planning help.
Since 1994, Egypt has also increased health spending by more than 200 percent.
___
On the Net:
http://www.savethechildren.org/
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
May 8, 2007 - 2:34am
By MARIA CHENG
AP Medical Writer
LONDON (AP) - The chance that an Iraqi child will live beyond age 5 has plummeted faster than anywhere else in the world since 1990, according to a report released Tuesday, which placed the country last in its child survival rankings.
One in eight Iraqi children died of disease or violence before reaching their fifth birthday in 2005, according to the report by Save the Children, which said Iraq ranked last because it had made the least progress toward improving child survival rates.
Iraq's mortality rate has soared by 150 percent since 1990. Even before the latest war, Iraq was plagued by electricity shortages, a lack of clean water and too few hospitals.
The publication, which used data from 1990-2005, also determined that gains in survival rates in some of the world's poorest countries _ including Botswana, Zimbabwe and Swaziland _ were declining.
The vast majority of child deaths _ more than nine in 10 _ occur in just 60 developing countries, the report said. Of the approximately 10 million children under age 5 who die every year, most could be saved with cheap solutions, like nets to protect against mosquito-borne malaria or antibiotics to treat pneumonia, according to the report.
"These aren't intractable problems," Dr. William Foege, of the Emory University School of Public Health, wrote in a foreword to the report. "It is simply wrong for only the few to have access to all of the tools for survival because of where they live."
About 4 million children die of complications in the first month after birth every year, according to Save the Children. Other causes of death for young children include diarrhea, pneumonia and measles, the group reported.
Among industrialized countries, Iceland had the best child survival rate, and Romania the worst. The U.S. placed 26th, tied with Croatia, Estonia and Poland. Nearly seven children die for every 1,000 live births in the United States. That was more than double the rate in Iceland, and 75 percent higher than rates in the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan and Slovenia.
Among developing countries, Egypt fared the best _ lowering its child mortality rate by 68 percent largely by improving care for pregnant women, ensuring the presence of a skilled attendant during childbirth, and providing better family planning help.
Since 1994, Egypt has also increased health spending by more than 200 percent.
___
On the Net:
http://www.savethechildren.org/
(Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
Moa'amal Mohammed, age seven, sits alone in a classroom in western Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 7, 2007. Due to security concerns, many children are not attending their classes. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) By MARIA CHENG
AP Medical Writer
LONDON (AP) - The chance that an Iraqi child will live beyond age 5 has plummeted faster than anywhere else in the world since 1990, according to a report released Tuesday, which placed the country last in its child survival rankings.
One in eight Iraqi children died of disease or violence before reaching their fifth birthday in 2005, according to the report by Save the Children, which said Iraq ranked last because it had made the least progress toward improving child survival rates.
Iraq's mortality rate has soared by 150 percent since 1990. Even before the latest war, Iraq was plagued by electricity shortages, a lack of clean water and too few hospitals.
The publication, which used data from 1990-2005, also determined that gains in survival rates in some of the world's poorest countries _ including Botswana, Zimbabwe and Swaziland _ were declining.
The vast majority of child deaths _ more than nine in 10 _ occur in just 60 developing countries, the report said. Of the approximately 10 million children under age 5 who die every year, most could be saved with cheap solutions, like nets to protect against mosquito-borne malaria or antibiotics to treat pneumonia, according to the report.
"These aren't intractable problems," Dr. William Foege, of the Emory University School of Public Health, wrote in a foreword to the report. "It is simply wrong for only the few to have access to all of the tools for survival because of where they live."
About 4 million children die of complications in the first month after birth every year, according to Save the Children. Other causes of death for young children include diarrhea, pneumonia and measles, the group reported.
Among industrialized countries, Iceland had the best child survival rate, and Romania the worst. The U.S. placed 26th, tied with Croatia, Estonia and Poland. Nearly seven children die for every 1,000 live births in the United States. That was more than double the rate in Iceland, and 75 percent higher than rates in the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan and Slovenia.
Among developing countries, Egypt fared the best _ lowering its child mortality rate by 68 percent largely by improving care for pregnant women, ensuring the presence of a skilled attendant during childbirth, and providing better family planning help.
Since 1994, Egypt has also increased health spending by more than 200 percent.
___
On the Net:
http://www.savethechildren.org/
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Friday, May 4, 2007
Study: One in 10 US soldiers said they mistreated civilians
Update - May 5, 2007 - Editor's note: I am posting at the secondary blog Yesterday's stories are here below.
A new Pentagon survey of troops in Iraq found that only 40 percent of Marines and 55 percent of Army soldiers would report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian.
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Yesterday's stories are here below.
See older articles at the overflow blog.
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Related
A new Pentagon survey of troops in Iraq found that only 40 percent of Marines and 55 percent of Army soldiers would report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian.
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One in three US combat troops would condone torture: survey
2 hours, 33 minutes ago
A survey of US combat troops deployed in Iraq has found that one in 10 said they mistreated civilians and more than a third condoned torture to save the life of a comrade, a report said Friday.
The study by an army mental health advisory team found continuing problems with morale and that acute mental health issues were more prevalent among troops with lengthening tours or on their second and third deployment to Iraq.
"They looked under every rock, and what they found was not always easy to look at," said Ward Casscells, the Pentagon's health affairs chief.
For the first time ever, a sampling of soldiers and marines in combat units were questioned on issues of character, and their answers suggested hardened attitudes toward civilians among front line troops:
-- About 10 percent of soldiers surveyed reported mistreating non-combatants or damaging their property when it was not necessary;
-- Less than half of the soldiers and marines would report a team member for unethical behavior;
-- More than a third of all soldiers and marines reported that torture should be allowed to save the life of a fellow soldier or marine.
Major General Gale Pollock, the army's acting surgeon general, sought to make a distinction between soldiers' thoughts about torture and their actions.
"These men and women have been seeing their friends injured and I think that having that thought is normal," she said at a Pentagon press conference.
"But what it speaks to is the leadership that the military is providing, because they're not acting on those thoughts. They're not torturing the people," she said.
The team surveyed 1,320 soldiers and 447 marines between August and October 2006 in Iraq. Although the report was completed in November, it was only released Friday in censored form after its findings began to leak to the press.
The study found that morale among soldiers was worse than among marines, which it said was explained in part by the marines' shorter six month tours.
The team recommended that the army's yearlong tours in Iraq either be shortened, or that soldiers be given 18 to 36 months between deployment to recover.
Instead, the army is moving in the opposite direction, extending tours to 15 months to keep pace with a surge in forces. The army is struggling to allow units a year at home between deployments.
AFGHANISTAN: Some 1,600 displaced after US air raids
03 May 2007 16:50:57 GMT
Source: IRIN
SHINDAND, 3 May 2007 (IRIN) - Almost 1,600 families have been displaced and many others need urgent humanitarian assistance two days after US war planes bombed several villages in the Shindand district of the western province of Herat, Afghan officials said. Reports of displacement follow claims that up to 60 civilians may have died in the fighting.
"Hundreds of houses have been destroyed and thousands of people need emergency relief," the director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in Herat, Ghulam Nabi Hakak, told IRIN on Thursday.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) and some other relief organisations are reportedly working on aid delivery. "Sixty metric tonnes of food items will be dispatched to the affected regions very soon and further aid will be delivered after assessments," said Rick Carsino, WFP's country director for Afghanistan.
Civilians killed
Between 27 and 29 April United States Special Forces fighting with the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police killed more than 130 Taliban fighters in the Shindand district, a US military press release reported. During the engagement a coalition aircraft bombed targets and an AC-130 gunship was also called in. According to the military press release "there were no civilian casualties reported".
However, the government of Afghanistan and the United Nations has confirmed reports which say more than 45 civilians, including women and children, died as a result of US military operation in Shindand.
On Tuesday a UNAMA assessment team visited the area to investigate what UN Spokesman Adrian Edwards described as "possible indiscriminate use of force and possible civilian displacement". Edwards says the UN believes figures of up to 49 civilian deaths, including 18 women, are credible.
Others say the figure could be higher, according to AIHRC "about 60 civilians have been killed in the air raids". Bahauddin, a resident of Shindand, said "more than 100 people have been killed all of whom are civilians". IRIN cannot confirm these reports.
IRIN understands that the UN team visited bombed villages, including Polmakan. Sources described the village as "heavily bombed" with eight houses destroyed and with women sitting and crying saying that their children were still under the rubble.
People were still digging bodies out of the rubble of their mud-walled homes on Tuesday afternoon, a spokeswoman for the governor of Herat province confirmed, saying that 52 people were wounded.
Of those, at least 25 wounded individuals have been admitted in Shindand's only hospital, and six more with severe injuries have been taken to a hospital in Herat city, local officials said.
A truck driver from Zerkoh valley who arrived in Herat on Tuesday confirmed to an IRIN reporter that 25 wounded people were taken from Bakhtabad village to Shindand hospital, saying he was the driver who took them there.
Denial
While a press release by US forces in Afghanistan says the operation in Shindand was jointly conducted by US Special Forces - operating outside NATO command - and Afghan National Police, a police official in Herat denied the Afghan forces' involvement.
"Unfortunately the operation was not coordinated with us," General Shafiq, a police commander in Herat, contended.
Major Chris Belcher, spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force 82, confirmed that US forces under Operation Enduring Freedom were in command during the engagement. He said other forces, including NATO/ISAF forces, joined in support, and that the Afghan police were also involved.
Major Belcher said the US forces were leading a joint reconnaissance patrol with the Afghan National Police when they were ambushed by around 80-90 insurgents on 27 April. They withdrew but were ambushed again when they returned on 29 April. On both occasions close air support was used.
He said US forces have no official reports of civilian casualties, and they conducted a battle damage assessment following the engagement. However, they are cooperating with ISAF and the Afghan government to investigate other reports of civilian deaths.
Nangarhar raid
In another incident on 27 April US forces raided a house in the eastern province of Nangarhar in which six people were killed and three others, including a woman, have been taken away by the American soldiers.
Hundreds of people marched in the streets of Nangarhar, accusing US forces for killing civilians and using search tactics that harm peoples' cultural values.
Civilians are the major victims of armed conflicts in Afghanistan, prominent Afghan and international human rights watchdogs reported in April.
kn-ak/sr/md/ad
"This report is also available as a radio story in Dari and Pashto on IRIN's Afghanistan Radio Page."
Source: IRIN
SHINDAND, 3 May 2007 (IRIN) - Almost 1,600 families have been displaced and many others need urgent humanitarian assistance two days after US war planes bombed several villages in the Shindand district of the western province of Herat, Afghan officials said. Reports of displacement follow claims that up to 60 civilians may have died in the fighting.
"Hundreds of houses have been destroyed and thousands of people need emergency relief," the director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in Herat, Ghulam Nabi Hakak, told IRIN on Thursday.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) and some other relief organisations are reportedly working on aid delivery. "Sixty metric tonnes of food items will be dispatched to the affected regions very soon and further aid will be delivered after assessments," said Rick Carsino, WFP's country director for Afghanistan.
Civilians killed
Between 27 and 29 April United States Special Forces fighting with the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police killed more than 130 Taliban fighters in the Shindand district, a US military press release reported. During the engagement a coalition aircraft bombed targets and an AC-130 gunship was also called in. According to the military press release "there were no civilian casualties reported".
However, the government of Afghanistan and the United Nations has confirmed reports which say more than 45 civilians, including women and children, died as a result of US military operation in Shindand.
On Tuesday a UNAMA assessment team visited the area to investigate what UN Spokesman Adrian Edwards described as "possible indiscriminate use of force and possible civilian displacement". Edwards says the UN believes figures of up to 49 civilian deaths, including 18 women, are credible.
Others say the figure could be higher, according to AIHRC "about 60 civilians have been killed in the air raids". Bahauddin, a resident of Shindand, said "more than 100 people have been killed all of whom are civilians". IRIN cannot confirm these reports.
IRIN understands that the UN team visited bombed villages, including Polmakan. Sources described the village as "heavily bombed" with eight houses destroyed and with women sitting and crying saying that their children were still under the rubble.
People were still digging bodies out of the rubble of their mud-walled homes on Tuesday afternoon, a spokeswoman for the governor of Herat province confirmed, saying that 52 people were wounded.
Of those, at least 25 wounded individuals have been admitted in Shindand's only hospital, and six more with severe injuries have been taken to a hospital in Herat city, local officials said.
A truck driver from Zerkoh valley who arrived in Herat on Tuesday confirmed to an IRIN reporter that 25 wounded people were taken from Bakhtabad village to Shindand hospital, saying he was the driver who took them there.
Denial
While a press release by US forces in Afghanistan says the operation in Shindand was jointly conducted by US Special Forces - operating outside NATO command - and Afghan National Police, a police official in Herat denied the Afghan forces' involvement.
"Unfortunately the operation was not coordinated with us," General Shafiq, a police commander in Herat, contended.
Major Chris Belcher, spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force 82, confirmed that US forces under Operation Enduring Freedom were in command during the engagement. He said other forces, including NATO/ISAF forces, joined in support, and that the Afghan police were also involved.
Major Belcher said the US forces were leading a joint reconnaissance patrol with the Afghan National Police when they were ambushed by around 80-90 insurgents on 27 April. They withdrew but were ambushed again when they returned on 29 April. On both occasions close air support was used.
He said US forces have no official reports of civilian casualties, and they conducted a battle damage assessment following the engagement. However, they are cooperating with ISAF and the Afghan government to investigate other reports of civilian deaths.
Nangarhar raid
In another incident on 27 April US forces raided a house in the eastern province of Nangarhar in which six people were killed and three others, including a woman, have been taken away by the American soldiers.
Hundreds of people marched in the streets of Nangarhar, accusing US forces for killing civilians and using search tactics that harm peoples' cultural values.
Civilians are the major victims of armed conflicts in Afghanistan, prominent Afghan and international human rights watchdogs reported in April.
kn-ak/sr/md/ad
"This report is also available as a radio story in Dari and Pashto on IRIN's Afghanistan Radio Page."
Beleaguered Iraqis now fear their own security forces more than the insurgents
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Published: 04 May 2007
"Be careful," warned a senior Iraqi government official living in the Green Zone in Baghdad, "be very careful and above all do not trust the police or the army."
He added that the level of insecurity in the Iraqi capital is as bad now as it was before the US drive to make the city safe came into operation in February.
The so-called "surge", the dispatch of 20,000 extra American troops to Iraq with the prime mission of getting control of Baghdad, is visibly failing.
There are army and police checkpoints everywhere but Iraqis are terrified because they do not know if the men in uniform they see there are, in reality, death squad members.
Omar, the 15-year-old brother-in-law of a friend, was driving with two other boys through al-Mansur in west Baghdad a fortnight ago. Their car was stopped at a police checkpoint. Most of the police in Baghdad are Shia. They took him away saying they suspected that his ID card was a fake. The real reason was probably that only Sunnis use the name Omar. Three days later he was found dead.
I was driving through central Baghdad yesterday. Our car was pulled over at an army checkpoint. I had hung my jacket from a hook above the window so nobody could easily see I was a foreigner. A soldier leaned in the window and asked who I was. We were lucky. He merely looked surprised when told I was a foreign journalist and said softly: "Keep well hidden."
The problem about the US security plan is that it does not provide security. It had some impact to begin with and the number of bodies found in the street went down. This was mainly because the Shia Mehdi Army was stood down by its leader, Muqtada al-Sadr.
But the Sunni insurgent groups increased the number of sectarian suicide bombings against Shia markets. The US was unable to stop this and now the sectarian body count is on the rise again. Some 30 bodies, each shot in the head, were found on Wednesday alone.
The main new American tactic is proving counter-productive. This is the sealing-off of entire neighbourhoods, either by concrete walls or barriers of rubbish, so there is only a single entrance and exit.
Speaking of Sunni districts such as al-Adhamiyah, a government official said: "We are creating mini-Islamic republics."
This is born out by anecdotal evidence. The uncle of a friend called Mohammed (nobody wants their full name published) died of natural causes. The family, all Sunni, wanted to bury him but were unable to reach the nearest cemetery in Abu Ghraib. Instead they went to one in Adhamiyah. As they entered the cemetery an armed civilian group, whom they took to be al-Qa'ida from their way of speaking, asked directly: "Are any of you Shia?" Only when reassured that they were all Sunni were they allowed to bury their relative.
The failure of the "surge" comes because it is not accompanied by any political reconciliation. On the contrary the government is factionalised. The two vice-presidents, Tariq al- Hashimi, a Sunni, and Adel Abdel Mehdi, a Shia, may make conciliatory statements, but one Iraqi observer noted: "Tariq only employs Sunni and Adel only Shia."
The Sunni feel they are fighting for their lives. Their last redoubts in east Baghdad (aside from Adhamiyah) are being overrun by the Mehdi Army. The Sunni insurgent groups, notably al-Qa'ida, are on the offensive in west Baghdad, where they are strongest. When the Americans succeed in driving away Shia militia their place is taken, not by government forces, but by Sunni militia.
People in Baghdad are terrified of being killed by a bomb or bundled into the boot of a car and murdered. Less dramatic, but equally significant in forcing people to flee Iraq for Jordan or Syria is the sheer difficulty of maintaining a normal life. Much of the trade in the city used to take place in open-air markets. But because of repeated bombs attacks only one is now open. This is in Karada, but many people no longer go there because it has come under repeated attack.
So many areas are now sealed off in Baghdad that there are continuous traffic jams. This presents a problem for drivers. If they to avoid the traffic jams by driving off the main road they may enter an area where militiamen rule whomay kill them.
One friend who had just returned from a trip to Syria found that, because of an attack on a government patrol, his neighbourhood had been closed to traffic. "I had to walk for 40 minutes with my heavy suitcase," he lamented.
Even in dangerous neighbourhoods such as Beitawin, off Saadoun Street in central Baghdad, notorious for its criminal gangs even in Saddam Hussein's time, people were queuing for petrol for hours yesterday evening because they have no choiceif they want to fill their tanks.
A bizarre flavour has been given to Saadoun Street because the government has encouraged artists to paint the giant concrete blast barriers with uplifting, if unlikely, scenes of mountain torrents, meadows in spring and lakeside scenes. Many of the pictures, all in garish greens, blues and yellows, look more like Switzerland than Iraq.
Muqtada al-Sadr, for his part, is encouraging artists to paint the blast barriers with scenes illustrating the anguish that has been inflicted on the Iraqi people by the US occupation.
The only "gated community" that functions successfully in Baghdad is the Green Zone itself, the four square miles on the right bank of the Tigris that is home to the government and the US embassy. It is sealed off from the rest of Iraq by multiple security barriers and fortifications.
Entering the zone recently I was questioned and searched, at different stages, by Kurds, Georgians, Peruvians and Nepalese.
No country in the world has such rigorous frontier procedures as what one American called "this little chunk of Texas". Living cut off in the zone it is impossible for the ruling elite of Iraq to understand the terrible suffering and terror beyond the compound's gates.
Published: 04 May 2007
"Be careful," warned a senior Iraqi government official living in the Green Zone in Baghdad, "be very careful and above all do not trust the police or the army."
He added that the level of insecurity in the Iraqi capital is as bad now as it was before the US drive to make the city safe came into operation in February.
The so-called "surge", the dispatch of 20,000 extra American troops to Iraq with the prime mission of getting control of Baghdad, is visibly failing.
There are army and police checkpoints everywhere but Iraqis are terrified because they do not know if the men in uniform they see there are, in reality, death squad members.
Omar, the 15-year-old brother-in-law of a friend, was driving with two other boys through al-Mansur in west Baghdad a fortnight ago. Their car was stopped at a police checkpoint. Most of the police in Baghdad are Shia. They took him away saying they suspected that his ID card was a fake. The real reason was probably that only Sunnis use the name Omar. Three days later he was found dead.
I was driving through central Baghdad yesterday. Our car was pulled over at an army checkpoint. I had hung my jacket from a hook above the window so nobody could easily see I was a foreigner. A soldier leaned in the window and asked who I was. We were lucky. He merely looked surprised when told I was a foreign journalist and said softly: "Keep well hidden."
The problem about the US security plan is that it does not provide security. It had some impact to begin with and the number of bodies found in the street went down. This was mainly because the Shia Mehdi Army was stood down by its leader, Muqtada al-Sadr.
But the Sunni insurgent groups increased the number of sectarian suicide bombings against Shia markets. The US was unable to stop this and now the sectarian body count is on the rise again. Some 30 bodies, each shot in the head, were found on Wednesday alone.
The main new American tactic is proving counter-productive. This is the sealing-off of entire neighbourhoods, either by concrete walls or barriers of rubbish, so there is only a single entrance and exit.
Speaking of Sunni districts such as al-Adhamiyah, a government official said: "We are creating mini-Islamic republics."
This is born out by anecdotal evidence. The uncle of a friend called Mohammed (nobody wants their full name published) died of natural causes. The family, all Sunni, wanted to bury him but were unable to reach the nearest cemetery in Abu Ghraib. Instead they went to one in Adhamiyah. As they entered the cemetery an armed civilian group, whom they took to be al-Qa'ida from their way of speaking, asked directly: "Are any of you Shia?" Only when reassured that they were all Sunni were they allowed to bury their relative.
The failure of the "surge" comes because it is not accompanied by any political reconciliation. On the contrary the government is factionalised. The two vice-presidents, Tariq al- Hashimi, a Sunni, and Adel Abdel Mehdi, a Shia, may make conciliatory statements, but one Iraqi observer noted: "Tariq only employs Sunni and Adel only Shia."
The Sunni feel they are fighting for their lives. Their last redoubts in east Baghdad (aside from Adhamiyah) are being overrun by the Mehdi Army. The Sunni insurgent groups, notably al-Qa'ida, are on the offensive in west Baghdad, where they are strongest. When the Americans succeed in driving away Shia militia their place is taken, not by government forces, but by Sunni militia.
People in Baghdad are terrified of being killed by a bomb or bundled into the boot of a car and murdered. Less dramatic, but equally significant in forcing people to flee Iraq for Jordan or Syria is the sheer difficulty of maintaining a normal life. Much of the trade in the city used to take place in open-air markets. But because of repeated bombs attacks only one is now open. This is in Karada, but many people no longer go there because it has come under repeated attack.
So many areas are now sealed off in Baghdad that there are continuous traffic jams. This presents a problem for drivers. If they to avoid the traffic jams by driving off the main road they may enter an area where militiamen rule whomay kill them.
One friend who had just returned from a trip to Syria found that, because of an attack on a government patrol, his neighbourhood had been closed to traffic. "I had to walk for 40 minutes with my heavy suitcase," he lamented.
Even in dangerous neighbourhoods such as Beitawin, off Saadoun Street in central Baghdad, notorious for its criminal gangs even in Saddam Hussein's time, people were queuing for petrol for hours yesterday evening because they have no choiceif they want to fill their tanks.
A bizarre flavour has been given to Saadoun Street because the government has encouraged artists to paint the giant concrete blast barriers with uplifting, if unlikely, scenes of mountain torrents, meadows in spring and lakeside scenes. Many of the pictures, all in garish greens, blues and yellows, look more like Switzerland than Iraq.
Muqtada al-Sadr, for his part, is encouraging artists to paint the blast barriers with scenes illustrating the anguish that has been inflicted on the Iraqi people by the US occupation.
The only "gated community" that functions successfully in Baghdad is the Green Zone itself, the four square miles on the right bank of the Tigris that is home to the government and the US embassy. It is sealed off from the rest of Iraq by multiple security barriers and fortifications.
Entering the zone recently I was questioned and searched, at different stages, by Kurds, Georgians, Peruvians and Nepalese.
No country in the world has such rigorous frontier procedures as what one American called "this little chunk of Texas". Living cut off in the zone it is impossible for the ruling elite of Iraq to understand the terrible suffering and terror beyond the compound's gates.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Is anyone in America listening?
According to a recent poll, one in four Iraqis has personally experienced or witnessed the murder of a family member as a result of violence since the US-led invasion.
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Some straight talking: but is anyone in America listening?
By Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph
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Some straight talking: but is anyone in America listening?
By Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 29/04/2007
| It is a theme of nearly all the great post-Vietnam movies. In Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter, Robert De Niro plays a veteran who is dismayed, if not unhinged, by homecoming. From the mean streets of New York in the former, to the Pennsylvanian steel town in the latter, the folks back home just don't get it about the war. I imagine that some American soldiers returning from tours of duty in Iraq might get an even stronger feeling of alienation if they were to visit, as I have in the last seven days, those quintessential American playgrounds, Las Vegas and Palm Beach. From the casinos of Nevada to the condos of Florida, the good times are rolling, regardless of events in the Middle East. It is hard to believe, as you walk past the thronged roulette tables and inanely burbling fruit machines of Vegas, that this is a country at war. As for that eye-catching billboard "For The Injured" on Interstate 95, I'm afraid it has nothing to do with the war wounded of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It's just another ambulance-chasing attorney, brazenly advertising his readiness to sue someone if you trip on the sidewalk. advertisement At least vets who came back in the Seventies found that home was pretty messed up too. By contrast, those returning home today must feel like latecomers to a gold rush. On Wednesday, fuelled by seemingly limitless liquidity and reports of strong corporate earnings, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a record high of 13,000. The financial markets seem to have shrugged off their recent anxieties about sub-prime mortgages, focusing instead on the megabucks being made at the other end of the income distribution scale. A survey by Alpha magazine revealed that three American hedge fund managers earned more than a billion dollars last year. That's billion with a 'b', as in nine zeroes. But it is not just Wall Street and hedgie HQ Greenwich, Connecticut, that are booming. Nor is it exclusively the money men who are putting smiles on the faces of the high-end hoteliers in Vegas and Palm Beach. Ever since President Bush began touting the wonders of ethanol as an alternative source of fuel to oil from the Middle East, American corn farmers have been enjoying a bonanza. The price of a bushel of corn has soared from around $1.80 in late 2005 to $3.75 today. With farmers switching from soybean and other crops, these too have jumped in price. And now the hedge fund managers, who follow commodity prices the way other people follow soap operas, are chasing up the price of arable land. States they used to fly over, they now want to take over. Sure, the nasty story of the housing slowdown is far from finished. There is also a certain amount of nail-biting at the Federal Reserve about inflation. Nor has anyone yet figured out how to pay for the mind-boggling unfunded liabilities of the Medicare and Social Security systems. But somehow these problems seem strangely abstract and remote, whereas you can almost smell the money to be made from corn futures. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Iraq burns. More than 3,000 Americans have died there, the equivalent of a hundred Virginia Techs. Nearly 25,000 have been wounded in action, many of them gravely. And that is nothing compared with the number of Iraqis who have been killed as the country has slid into civil war. Fatalities among the civilian population are running at about 3,000 a month. The Brookings Institution's latest Iraq Survey carried one statistic that froze my blood: according to a recent poll, one in four Iraqis has personally experienced or witnessed the murder of a family member as a result of violence since the US-led invasion. Dow 13,000, meet Iraq 13,000. That's approximately the number of Iraqis killed so far this year. Last week, General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, tried to explain to his fellow Americans that stabilising Iraq will require "an enormous commitment". "This effort may get harder before it gets easier," he told reporters at a Pentagon briefing. Real stability might be "years down the road". Unfortunately, this is not what anyone wants to hear these days, least of all Democratic lawmakers. Even before Petraeus returned to his unenviable post in Baghdad, both houses of Congress narrowly passed a bill that would require the administration to start withdrawing troops this coming October 1, and to end all combat operations by March of next year. No doubt, President Bush will veto the bill. But it is significant that only one presidential candidate is now sticking by the president's policy of a "surge" to bring Baghdad under control as a first step towards stabilisation. Although I am one of those advising John McCain on foreign policy, I had nothing to do with the speech he made in the Senate a month ago, which spelt out with unflinching clarity the three likely consequences of a premature American exit: 1. A "real prospect" of genocide in Iraq if sectarian violence spirals out of control 2. "Massive humanitarian displacement, growing Iranian influence and wider bloodshed" throughout the region 3. The degeneration of Iraq into a new "failed state", ideally situated to provide a haven for terrorist organisations like Somalia and Afghanistan in the Nineties. McCain is surely right about this. At the very least, we need to contemplate such a worst-case scenario, rather than blithely assuming that an American withdrawal will somehow improve matters - a far less likely scenario. What's more, McCain argues on the basis of unmatched experience, including real military experience. None of the other candidates has so much as tried on a uniform. Yet according to the opinion polls, his "Straight-Talk Express" is currently lagging behind their Hot-Air Balloons. That strikes me as yet another sign that Americans don't want to face the reality that they are at war - and about to admit defeat. Let's remind ourselves that there is a precedent for this myopia. It took a long time for American investors to acknowledge that there might be an economic as well as a strategic downside to failure in Vietnam. The Dow hit a record high of 1,051 on January 11, 1973. By December 6 the following year it had fallen by nearly half. It did not regain the heights of January 1973 until November 1982. What went wrong in the Seventies? Clearly, it was more than just the loss of South Vietnam, which turned out not to matter much (to the United States, that is). More significant were the economic consequences of Lyndon Johnson's attempt to have both guns and butter: war in Vietnam plus the "Great Society" welfare programme. What were, by our standards, quite modest deficits and quite minor balance of payments problems translated into a creeping inflationary pressure, not least because of the strength of organised labour and the weakness of the Federal Reserve. When the Middle East blew up in 1973, sending oil prices sky-rocketing, the United States was swept into an inflationary spiral that neither Richard Nixon nor Gerald Ford nor Jimmy Carter was able to halt. Sometimes I wonder if the Seventies might be making a surreptitious comeback. At the hedge fund conference that brought me to Las Vegas, a clear majority of managers said they expected higher inflation in the year ahead. But a majority also didn't expect the Fed to tighten monetary policy further. That makes me nervous. If John McCain is right and the Middle East does blow up some time after an American exit from Iraq, oil could end up at $100 a barrel. Then what? Well, how about higher inflation, a dollar slide and a stock market sell-off? Pretty soon we could all find ourselves wearing flares, consuming three-martini lunches and disco-dancing to KC and the Sunshine Band. Let's just hope that - as in the Seventies - there will at least be some good movies to watch. |
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Shattered Lives
April 27, 2007
I mentioned the infinitely sad, momentous and largely ignored refugee crisis created by our monstrously criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq just the other day (and see here).
I am deeply saddened, but tragically hardly surprised, to read the following at Baghdad Burning:
Some acts are so terrible that they cannot be reversed, or repaired. The invasion and occupation of Iraq is such an act, indeed a long, horrifying series of such acts. We all prefer to believe in redemption, but there are times when redemption is no longer possible.
It is not possible here. We will not be forgiven, and we should not be. We have destroyed redemption for ourselves, as we have destroyed countless lives and an entire country.
Bless you and yours, River, and safe passage.
I am deeply saddened, but tragically hardly surprised, to read the following at Baghdad Burning:
I remember Baghdad before the war- one could live anywhere. We didn't know what our neighbors were- we didn't care. No one asked about religion or sect. No one bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia? You only asked something like that if you were uncouth and backward. Our lives revolve around it now. Our existence depends on hiding it or highlighting it- depending on the group of masked men who stop you or raid your home in the middle of the night.As I have noted before, even if we left Iraq within the next few months and made all those reparations that are possible, as we should and must, we must never think there will be forgiveness for what we have done.
On a personal note, we've finally decided to leave. I guess I've known we would be leaving for a while now. We discussed it as a family dozens of times. At first, someone would suggest it tentatively because, it was just a preposterous idea- leaving ones home and extended family- leaving ones country- and to what? To where?
Since last summer, we had been discussing it more and more. It was only a matter of time before what began as a suggestion- a last case scenario- soon took on solidity and developed into a plan. For the last couple of months, it has only been a matter of logistics. Plane or car? Jordan or Syria? Will we all leave together as a family? Or will it be only my brother and I at first?
After Jordan or Syria- where then? Obviously, either of those countries is going to be a transit to something else. They are both overflowing with Iraqi refugees, and every single Iraqi living in either country is complaining of the fact that work is difficult to come by, and getting a residency is even more difficult. There is also the little problem of being turned back at the border. Thousands of Iraqis aren't being let into Syria or Jordan- and there are no definite criteria for entry, the decision is based on the whim of the border patrol guard checking your passport.
An airplane isn't necessarily safer, as the trip to Baghdad International Airport is in itself risky and travelers are just as likely to be refused permission to enter the country (Syria and Jordan) if they arrive by airplane. And if you're wondering why Syria or Jordan, because they are the only two countries that will let Iraqis in without a visa. Following up visa issues with the few functioning embassies or consulates in Baghdad is next to impossible.
So we've been busy. Busy trying to decide what part of our lives to leave behind. Which memories are dispensable? We, like many Iraqis, are not the classic refugees- the ones with only the clothes on their backs and no choice. We are choosing to leave because the other option is simply a continuation of what has been one long nightmare- stay and wait and try to survive.
On the one hand, I know that leaving the country and starting a new life somewhere else- as yet unknown- is such a huge thing that it should dwarf every trivial concern. The funny thing is that it’s the trivial that seems to occupy our lives. We discuss whether to take photo albums or leave them behind. Can I bring along a stuffed animal I've had since the age of four? Is there room for E.'s guitar? What clothes do we take? Summer clothes? The winter clothes too? What about my books? What about the CDs, the baby pictures?
The problem is that we don't even know if we'll ever see this stuff again. We don't know if whatever we leave, including the house, will be available when and if we come back. There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends… And to what?
It's difficult to decide which is more frightening- car bombs and militias, or having to leave everything you know and love, to some unspecified place for a future where nothing is certain.
Some acts are so terrible that they cannot be reversed, or repaired. The invasion and occupation of Iraq is such an act, indeed a long, horrifying series of such acts. We all prefer to believe in redemption, but there are times when redemption is no longer possible.
It is not possible here. We will not be forgiven, and we should not be. We have destroyed redemption for ourselves, as we have destroyed countless lives and an entire country.
Bless you and yours, River, and safe passage.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Israelis target Palestinians with weapons causing 'burns ... by heat so intense that many cases have required amputation'
Gaza as Israel's testing ground
Mel Frykberg, Al-Ahram Weekly, Apr 27, 2007
Mel Frykberg, Al-Ahram Weekly, Apr 27, 2007
This article was originally published by Al-Ahram Weekly and is republished with permission.
Doctors in Gaza have been reporting strange wounds on the bodies of innocent bystanders and those targeted by drones. These wounds consist of many small holes, often invisible to X-rays, and burns caused by heat so intense that many cases have required amputation because of the extensive burning.
Habas Al-Wahid, head of the emergency centre at the Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza city told the journalists that the legs of the injured were sliced from their bodies "as if a saw was used to cut through the bone." But there was no evidence of ordinary metal shrapnel in or near the wounds.
At Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Juma Saka said that on examination of the wounds, the doctors had found a powder on the victim's bodies and in their internal organs. Afterwards they removed the microscopic particles which turned out to be carbon and tungsten.
"The powder was like microscopic shrapnel, and this is likely what caused the injuries," Saka said. Complicating the issue was the death of many patients several days afterwards, although they appeared to recover initially. Accusations that Israel is using Gaza and its inhabitants as a laboratory to test new military weapons, have been made from several quarters.
"We don't know what it means -- new weapons or something added to a previous weapon," said Saied Joudda, deputy director at the Kamal Odwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip.
To back up their personal experiences, a group of doctors compiled extensive documentary evidence of the extent of the wounds, which occurred specifically in the legs. In other parts of the body, metallic fragments, bigger than the size of the small wounds, were found.
"In our opinion, Israel has also used chemical weapons, such as numerous cases demonstrate, documented cases, with persons having extremely serious burns to their internal organs in the absence of external wounds," said Mouawia, a cardio-vascular surgeon and director-general of emergency services in Gaza.
An investigating team of Italian journalists produced a documentary on Italian state television's satellite channel, RAI News 24, alleging that Israel used dense inert metal explosives (DIME) against Palestinian targets in July and August of last year. This followed journalists taking samples of the microscopic explosives from Gaza and having them tested in a laboratory in Italy.
Carmela Vaccaio, a doctor at the University of Parma, examined samples sent by the Italian reporters from the Gaza Strip and found a high concentration of carbon, as well as copper, aluminium and tungsten, which she considered to be unusual materials. In her report she concluded, "these findings could be in line with the hypothesis that the weapon in question is DIME. The same investigating team also exposed the US military's use of white phosphorus against civilians during attacks on Falluja in Iraq.
Similar accusations were made against Israel during the Lebanon war, when the Jewish state originally denied using phosphorous against Lebanese civilians. But several days later, following the explosive allegations of the Italian journalists and with overwhelming evidence, Israeli cabinet minister, Jacob Edery confirmed that the Israeli military had in fact made use of phosphorous shells.
Israel is accused of dropping more than a million cluster bombs in the south of Lebanon just a few days before the ceasefire. Since then there have been several Lebanese deaths on a daily basis after people accidentally trod on unexploded shells.
According to military experts, DIME is a carbon-encased missile that shatters on impact into minuscule splinters, at the same time setting off an explosive that shoots blades of energy-charged, heavy metal tungsten alloy (HMTA) powder, such as cobalt and nickel or iron, with a carbon fibre casing. It turns to dust on impact, as it loses inertia very quickly due to air resistance, burning and destroying through a very precise angulation everything within a four-metre range, as opposed to the shrapnel which results from the fragmentation of a metal casing. The designation of the metal as "inert" is due to the metal's non-involvement in the blast, rather than the metal being chemically or biologically inert.
This technology is one of a new range of "low collateral damage" or LCD weapons designed to minimise the damage to nearby property, by confining its increased lethal effects to a restricted space. So it is "ideal for densely populated areas" and "helping the warfighter to prevent the loss of public support," according to its enthusiastic proponents.
Israeli military spokesmen have refused to acknowledge or deny the use of DIME in Gaza, but simply stated that Israel only uses weapons that are legal under international law. The catch is that as DIME is a new weapon, the jury is still out as it still has to be assessed.
However, Yitzhak Ben-Israel, a major-general in the Israel Air Force, and former head of the army's weapons- development programme didn't deny that the Israelis had used DIME in Gaza but went on to explain its credentials.
"The idea behind DIME is to allow the accurate pin- pointing of targets without causing collateral damage to innocent bystanders. This is a technology that allows the striking of very small targets."
This would conveniently fit in with Israel's policy of targeted assassinations, however as the Gaza Strip is so densely populated with nearly 1.5 million people crammed into an area 10 by six miles, the chances of innocent bystanders being hit is very high.
In addition to being seriously maimed, injured and killed, due to the carcinogenic effects of DIME, the number of Palestinians becoming afflicted with cancer will multiply in the long term, in addition to their environment being extensively damaged should the Israelis continue to use this new weapon with impunity.
 |
Palestinians inspect a destroyed building after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, last summer. (Maan Images) |
Habas Al-Wahid, head of the emergency centre at the Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza city told the journalists that the legs of the injured were sliced from their bodies "as if a saw was used to cut through the bone." But there was no evidence of ordinary metal shrapnel in or near the wounds.
At Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Juma Saka said that on examination of the wounds, the doctors had found a powder on the victim's bodies and in their internal organs. Afterwards they removed the microscopic particles which turned out to be carbon and tungsten.
"The powder was like microscopic shrapnel, and this is likely what caused the injuries," Saka said. Complicating the issue was the death of many patients several days afterwards, although they appeared to recover initially. Accusations that Israel is using Gaza and its inhabitants as a laboratory to test new military weapons, have been made from several quarters.
"We don't know what it means -- new weapons or something added to a previous weapon," said Saied Joudda, deputy director at the Kamal Odwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip.
Related stories
|
To back up their personal experiences, a group of doctors compiled extensive documentary evidence of the extent of the wounds, which occurred specifically in the legs. In other parts of the body, metallic fragments, bigger than the size of the small wounds, were found.
"In our opinion, Israel has also used chemical weapons, such as numerous cases demonstrate, documented cases, with persons having extremely serious burns to their internal organs in the absence of external wounds," said Mouawia, a cardio-vascular surgeon and director-general of emergency services in Gaza.
An investigating team of Italian journalists produced a documentary on Italian state television's satellite channel, RAI News 24, alleging that Israel used dense inert metal explosives (DIME) against Palestinian targets in July and August of last year. This followed journalists taking samples of the microscopic explosives from Gaza and having them tested in a laboratory in Italy.
Carmela Vaccaio, a doctor at the University of Parma, examined samples sent by the Italian reporters from the Gaza Strip and found a high concentration of carbon, as well as copper, aluminium and tungsten, which she considered to be unusual materials. In her report she concluded, "these findings could be in line with the hypothesis that the weapon in question is DIME. The same investigating team also exposed the US military's use of white phosphorus against civilians during attacks on Falluja in Iraq.
Similar accusations were made against Israel during the Lebanon war, when the Jewish state originally denied using phosphorous against Lebanese civilians. But several days later, following the explosive allegations of the Italian journalists and with overwhelming evidence, Israeli cabinet minister, Jacob Edery confirmed that the Israeli military had in fact made use of phosphorous shells.
Israel is accused of dropping more than a million cluster bombs in the south of Lebanon just a few days before the ceasefire. Since then there have been several Lebanese deaths on a daily basis after people accidentally trod on unexploded shells.
According to military experts, DIME is a carbon-encased missile that shatters on impact into minuscule splinters, at the same time setting off an explosive that shoots blades of energy-charged, heavy metal tungsten alloy (HMTA) powder, such as cobalt and nickel or iron, with a carbon fibre casing. It turns to dust on impact, as it loses inertia very quickly due to air resistance, burning and destroying through a very precise angulation everything within a four-metre range, as opposed to the shrapnel which results from the fragmentation of a metal casing. The designation of the metal as "inert" is due to the metal's non-involvement in the blast, rather than the metal being chemically or biologically inert.
This technology is one of a new range of "low collateral damage" or LCD weapons designed to minimise the damage to nearby property, by confining its increased lethal effects to a restricted space. So it is "ideal for densely populated areas" and "helping the warfighter to prevent the loss of public support," according to its enthusiastic proponents.
Israeli military spokesmen have refused to acknowledge or deny the use of DIME in Gaza, but simply stated that Israel only uses weapons that are legal under international law. The catch is that as DIME is a new weapon, the jury is still out as it still has to be assessed.
However, Yitzhak Ben-Israel, a major-general in the Israel Air Force, and former head of the army's weapons- development programme didn't deny that the Israelis had used DIME in Gaza but went on to explain its credentials.
"The idea behind DIME is to allow the accurate pin- pointing of targets without causing collateral damage to innocent bystanders. This is a technology that allows the striking of very small targets."
This would conveniently fit in with Israel's policy of targeted assassinations, however as the Gaza Strip is so densely populated with nearly 1.5 million people crammed into an area 10 by six miles, the chances of innocent bystanders being hit is very high.
In addition to being seriously maimed, injured and killed, due to the carcinogenic effects of DIME, the number of Palestinians becoming afflicted with cancer will multiply in the long term, in addition to their environment being extensively damaged should the Israelis continue to use this new weapon with impunity.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Afghan Massacre: Criminal Charges Expected Against Marines
UPDATE - April 27, 2007 - Editor's note: I posting at the the secondary blog(also see some new articles below).
See older articles at the overflow blog.
See older articles at the overflow blog.
The Marine Corps is expecting criminal charges against at least five marines from a Special Operations unit that killed 10 civilians in eastern Afghanistan last month after a suicide bomb attack on their patrol convoy, a marine official said yesterday.
Marine and civilian lawyers involved in the case have been told to expect charges against five to seven marines involved in the shootings, possibly including one officer, said the marine official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official added that a formal inquiry by naval investigators is continuing and could result in fewer or no marines being charged. The official declined to provide the names or ranks of those likely to be charged.
US Admits Killing Iraqi Women and Children in Baghdad Airstrike
Iraqi civilians believed dead in US strike-military
26 Apr 2007 10:17:15 GMT
More BAGHDAD, April 26 (Reuters) - Two Iraqi women and two children were believed to have been killed in a U.S. air strike aimed at al Qaeda militants north of Baghdad on Thursday, the U.S. military said.
Soldiers were searching buildings near Taji, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad, for a car bomb network with links to al Qaeda when they came under small arms fire, a military statement said.
The soldiers called in an air strike and four insurgents were killed.
"Additionally, coalition forces believe that two women and two children were also killed during the strike," the statement said. "The bodies were left on the site."
No other details were immediately available.
"Unfortunately, al Qaeda in Iraq continues to use women and children in their illegal activities," U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver said in the statement.
The military said explosives and weapons were also found in the building.
The U.S. military rarely admits killing Iraqi civilians in strikes against suspected insurgents. It says insurgents often place women and children in harm's way with their activities.
26 Apr 2007 10:17:15 GMT
More BAGHDAD, April 26 (Reuters) - Two Iraqi women and two children were believed to have been killed in a U.S. air strike aimed at al Qaeda militants north of Baghdad on Thursday, the U.S. military said.
Soldiers were searching buildings near Taji, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad, for a car bomb network with links to al Qaeda when they came under small arms fire, a military statement said.
The soldiers called in an air strike and four insurgents were killed.
"Additionally, coalition forces believe that two women and two children were also killed during the strike," the statement said. "The bodies were left on the site."
No other details were immediately available.
"Unfortunately, al Qaeda in Iraq continues to use women and children in their illegal activities," U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver said in the statement.
The military said explosives and weapons were also found in the building.
The U.S. military rarely admits killing Iraqi civilians in strikes against suspected insurgents. It says insurgents often place women and children in harm's way with their activities.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
UN criticises Iraq for concealing casualty figures
by Jay Deshmukh 2 hours, 45 minutes ago
The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq criticised Baghdad on Wednesday for concealing the casualty figures from its sectarian war and charged that many detainees have "disappeared".
While placing the blame for the majority of violent civilian deaths on the insurgents and illegal militias fighting in Iraq, UNAMI expressed concern about the human rights record of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government.
In its quarterly report on the human rights situation, the UN mission said the Iraqi government had stopped providing casualty figures and denied that its previous reports had exaggerated the death toll in the conflict.
In a report on January 16, UNAMI said more than 34,400 people had died in the daily acts of violence across the country in 2006.
"The prime minister's office told UNAMI that the mortality figures contained in the report were exaggerated, although they were in fact figures compiled and provided by a government ministry," UNAMI said on Wednesday.
"It was a matter of regret that the Iraqi government did not provide UNAMI with access to the ministry of health's overall mortality figures for the reporting period.
"UNAMI emphasises again the utmost need for the Iraqi government to operate in a transparent manner and does not accept the government's suggestion that UNAMI used the mortality figures in an inappropriate fashion."
At a news conference to launch the latest report, UN human rights officer Ivana Vuco insisted: "These figures are probably the most carefully screened.
"Unofficially in follow-up meetings we were told that the government was concerned that people would misconstrue the figures to portray a grim situation," she said.
Maliki's office hit back at the UN mission and complained that its latest report lacked credibility.
"Despite the Iraqi government's full cooperation and transparency in dealing with the UN delegation in Iraq, much of the information contained in the report was not taken from credible sources," it said.
"Considering the conditions which Iraq is currently enduring, this report calls into question the credibility of the United Nations office in Iraq, aggravating the humanitarian situation instead of resolving it."
While being unable to provide statistics because of the government's decision, the new report for the first quarter of 2007 said violence remained a serious problem in Iraq, despite a US and Iraqi security operation.
"In February and March, sectarian violence claimed the lives of large numbers of civilians, including women and children, in both Shiite and Sunni neighbourhoods," the report said.
"While government officials claimed an initial drop in the number of killings in the latter half of February following the launch of the Baghdad Security Plan, the number of reported casualties rose again in March."
Iraqi and US officials insist the civilian death toll from Iraq's sectarian war has declined since the plan began on February 14, but refuse to release detailed figures to back up the assertion.
A US embassy official also criticised the UNAMI report.
He said the health ministry -- the key source for providing data to UNAMI in previous reports used to be run by loyalists of Shiite radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr and was "viewed essentially by many as not reporting accurately".
"It had a political agenda. It was trying to undermine any confidence in the programme of the government. It was giving numbers that did not have any detail background," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
The Baghdad Security Plan seeks to quell the violence but Vuco said it also had increased the potential for the abuse of detainees' human rights.
"The disappearance of detainees still continues," she said. "We have serious concerns that not all detainees are being registered. We found people looking for detained family members who they were unable to locate."
Most of these detainees are held for "prolonged periods of time without charge in overcrowded conditions," she said.
At least 37,641 people were being held in detention centres across Iraq as of end of March, UNAMI said, adding of these about 3,000 were detained since the Baghdad crackdown began.
The US-led coalition continued to hold 17,898 people, while the rest were in the custody of Iraqi authorities.
UNAMI said that at least 736,422 Iraqis had fled their homes since the sectarian unrest flared up in February last year, on top of 1.2 million who had been displaced previously.
Monday, April 23, 2007
U.S. Blamed for 'Bloody Wednesday'
IRAQ:
Ali al-Fadhily*
BAGHDAD, Apr 23 (IPS) - Iraqis blame the U.S. occupation for the failure of two parallel security plans drawn up by U.S. forces and Iraqi troops that failed dramatically with the bombings last week that killed more than 300 people in Baghdad.
Under the security plans additional troops were brought to Baghdad and most city streets closed. But car bombings, operations by death squads and attacks on U.S. troops continue.
The attacks Wednesday last week took a high casualty among Kurdish workers known to work in that area. Kurds in the north have stayed relatively free of the violence and the sectarian Shia-Sunni killings in the rest of the country. Kurds had supported the U.S.-led invasion four years back.
"A car bomb went off in Sadriyah neighbourhood in the city centre causing death to over 200 people," Mahmood Abdulla from the Russafa Police Directorate in Baghdad told IPS. "It is not certain that the car was driven by a suicide person, in fact most of us believe it was parked there since early morning."
Sadriyah is one of the oldest neighbourhoods of Baghdad. It is an area that brings together different ethnic and sectarian groups.
"We do not know who is killing us, but we do know who is responsible for our safety," Kaka Kadir, who lost a 15-year-old son in the attack told IPS. "All we receive from our government and the Americans is talk, and holding other people accountable, while it is them who should protect us."
"I do not believe it is al-Qaeda any more," a woman weeping near the scene of the bombing told IPS. "I do not care any more, I am just losing my loved ones. The last explosion hit my husband and now he is disabled, and this one took my son's life."
She referred to a similar bombing two-and-a-half months ago at the same market, which killed 137 and wounded many more.
U.S. leaders and Iraqi government officials again accused "terrorists and the Saddamists" of the bombing. But many people around Baghdad are blaming the occupation forces and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government.
"I noticed that security officers did not carry out any site investigation," a former police officer who lives in a neighbouring area told IPS on condition of anonymity. "I have also noticed that no such crime has been solved since the first days of the occupation."
The officer said that "huge crimes like the Samarra shrine explosions (at the al-Askari Shia mosque in Samarra, 90km north of Baghdad in February last year) that led to increasing sectarian dispute, and many other crimes, remain unsolved."
The focus last week was on the Sadriyah attacks, but many others were carried out.
One explosion was reported near a hospital in Karrada district in southeast Baghdad the same day. The attack seems to have targeted an Iraqi army patrol, and killed at least 11 people, four of them soldiers.
"Karrada is supposed to be very well protected," 28-year-old Hussein Rathman, a local shop owner who could not reach his shop that day told IPS. "It seems there is no hope, and everyone should think seriously of leaving the country."
Another explosion the same day killed at least 40 people at Muzaffar Square near Sadr City in east Baghdad. Angry Iraqis demonstrated soon after the bombing against the Iraqi government and occupation forces.
"The problem is that those Americans are still talking about peace and reconciliation in Iraq," Jabbar Ahmed, a lawyer and human rights activist in Baghdad told IPS. "They should just leave the country after all the disappointment people here feel towards them. All they are doing is lying all the time, while Iraqi blood has become so cheap."
The killings did not end Wednesday. In attacks the following day 82 people were killed and another 70 injured. Three U.S. soldiers and two British troops were also killed in Thursday's violence.
According to the U.S. Department of Defence, at least 3,315 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq so far.
*(Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region)
Ali al-Fadhily*
BAGHDAD, Apr 23 (IPS) - Iraqis blame the U.S. occupation for the failure of two parallel security plans drawn up by U.S. forces and Iraqi troops that failed dramatically with the bombings last week that killed more than 300 people in Baghdad.
Under the security plans additional troops were brought to Baghdad and most city streets closed. But car bombings, operations by death squads and attacks on U.S. troops continue.
The attacks Wednesday last week took a high casualty among Kurdish workers known to work in that area. Kurds in the north have stayed relatively free of the violence and the sectarian Shia-Sunni killings in the rest of the country. Kurds had supported the U.S.-led invasion four years back.
"A car bomb went off in Sadriyah neighbourhood in the city centre causing death to over 200 people," Mahmood Abdulla from the Russafa Police Directorate in Baghdad told IPS. "It is not certain that the car was driven by a suicide person, in fact most of us believe it was parked there since early morning."
Sadriyah is one of the oldest neighbourhoods of Baghdad. It is an area that brings together different ethnic and sectarian groups.
"We do not know who is killing us, but we do know who is responsible for our safety," Kaka Kadir, who lost a 15-year-old son in the attack told IPS. "All we receive from our government and the Americans is talk, and holding other people accountable, while it is them who should protect us."
"I do not believe it is al-Qaeda any more," a woman weeping near the scene of the bombing told IPS. "I do not care any more, I am just losing my loved ones. The last explosion hit my husband and now he is disabled, and this one took my son's life."
She referred to a similar bombing two-and-a-half months ago at the same market, which killed 137 and wounded many more.
U.S. leaders and Iraqi government officials again accused "terrorists and the Saddamists" of the bombing. But many people around Baghdad are blaming the occupation forces and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government.
"I noticed that security officers did not carry out any site investigation," a former police officer who lives in a neighbouring area told IPS on condition of anonymity. "I have also noticed that no such crime has been solved since the first days of the occupation."
The officer said that "huge crimes like the Samarra shrine explosions (at the al-Askari Shia mosque in Samarra, 90km north of Baghdad in February last year) that led to increasing sectarian dispute, and many other crimes, remain unsolved."
The focus last week was on the Sadriyah attacks, but many others were carried out.
One explosion was reported near a hospital in Karrada district in southeast Baghdad the same day. The attack seems to have targeted an Iraqi army patrol, and killed at least 11 people, four of them soldiers.
"Karrada is supposed to be very well protected," 28-year-old Hussein Rathman, a local shop owner who could not reach his shop that day told IPS. "It seems there is no hope, and everyone should think seriously of leaving the country."
Another explosion the same day killed at least 40 people at Muzaffar Square near Sadr City in east Baghdad. Angry Iraqis demonstrated soon after the bombing against the Iraqi government and occupation forces.
"The problem is that those Americans are still talking about peace and reconciliation in Iraq," Jabbar Ahmed, a lawyer and human rights activist in Baghdad told IPS. "They should just leave the country after all the disappointment people here feel towards them. All they are doing is lying all the time, while Iraqi blood has become so cheap."
The killings did not end Wednesday. In attacks the following day 82 people were killed and another 70 injured. Three U.S. soldiers and two British troops were also killed in Thursday's violence.
According to the U.S. Department of Defence, at least 3,315 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq so far.
*(Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region)
Eyewitnesses: Israeli army used a young Palestinian as a human shield. Again.
Eyewitnesses: Israeli army used a young Palestinian as a human shield in Balata Refugee camp
author Monday April 23, 2007 09:01author by IMEMC - Newsauthor email news at imemc dot org Report this post to the editors
Palestinian Man being used as Human Shield in Bethlehm, (File - Photo by Maan)
Despite an Israeli high court ruling to ban on using Palestinians as human shields, the Israeli army continue to force Palestinian civilians to walk in front of their military vehicles as they invade several West Bank areas.
Eyewitnesses in Balata refugee camp near Nablus reported that Israeli troops used Mahmoud Ji'arim, from the camp as a human shield on Monday morning. J'iarim was forced to walk with the soldiers as they went around in the camp and kidnapped five Palestinians.
Eyewitnesses said that troops invaded the camp and Al-Dahiya neighborhood in Nablus and took prisoner Abdul Rahman Al-Qani, Mahmoud Al-Sahli, Mohammad Hamid, Ghassan Abu Hamada and Mohammad Abdul Ghani.
In March Israeli troops were video-taped using Palestinian civilians as human shields, despite objections by International HUman Rights Organizations and the ruling of the Israeli court of Justice, who illegalized the usage of civilians in military operations.
A coverup of torture, racism and complicity in war crimes
The evidence of British abuse and killing of Iraqi civilians is part of an iceberg of disgrace which demands a public inquiry
Phil Shiner
Monday April 23, 2007
The Guardian
Phil Shiner
Monday April 23, 2007
The Guardian
Images of the battered, bloodied, bruised face of Baha Mousa, tortured to death while in detention with British troops under the Iraq occupation, should have shocked the nation when they appeared last week. Instead, most media outlets chose to ignore them. By comparison, when Canadian troops meted out similar treatment to a prisoner in Somalia in the 1990s, the result was a five-year public inquiry and spring-clean of the military justice system. What is going on?
To answer that question is to dig into what was described as a cover-up by the judge advocate at the conclusion of the court martial into the incident. What follows arises from publicly available material, most of it in the House of Lords case, which finishes tomorrow, into whether the Human Rights Act applied to protect Mousa and others. There are four clusters of issues we have to face.
First, the incident led to more than just a single death. Photographs and medical evidence show our troops nearly killed another civilian, and badly injured five others. The judge found that a group of soldiers had engaged in systematic torture and humiliation, but none had been charged because of an "obvious closing of ranks". Who were the torturers?
Second, the torture included the use of four techniques banned by the government in 1972: hooding, stressing and sleep and food deprivation. And it was not just one rogue battalion, 1st Queen's Lancashire Regiment (QLR), but others. Further, we are asked to believe that only a single battalion relied on senior brigade legal advice, which said it would not be breaching international humanitarian law to hood and stress civilian detainees. Is this credible?
Third, the facility where Mousa and others were tortured was small. The soldiers' shouting and detainees' screaming were audible to anyone on the site. So, who are those in command who knew, or ought to have known, what was going on in the critical 36 hours before Mousa's death? Even more potentially damning to the chain of command responsibility, who knew, or ought to have known, of the complete breakdown in the system of training troops? There was a failure to train troops to observe the law and also, it seems, to teach them the basic principles to enable them to fulfil their role.
The evidence on the training of tactical questioners is striking. They have an important balance to strike. They need to obtain evidence from detainees that may, for example, save the lives of our troops. And they must do so without using torture or ill-treatment. This is about prisoner handling. The evidence shows the tactical questioners in the Mousa incident had precisely 1.25 hours training on this. Further, those responsible did not ensure that rules of engagement appropriate to an occupation, not a war, were promulgated to reflect the change for 10 weeks. There is a risk that during this period our troops were following the wrong rules.
The final cluster of issues is where it starts to get really ugly. What are we supposed to make of material that shows it was standard to refer to Iraqis as "Ali Babas"? Or of military operations that had similar racist connotations from an earlier era? Or material that indicates a remorseless disregard of Iraqis' human rights, which dehumanised them in the eyes of the troops who were supposed to protect them? When our troops were supposed to be exercising policing functions, we appear to have shot first and asked questions later.
Uncomfortable questions about our complicity in war crimes with the US also lurk beneath the surface. The evidence from prosecution witnesses in the court martial shows that the US was putting pressure on us to adopt its interrogation techniques.
Consider that the facility involved in the Mousa incident was in the middle of an urban area and the abuse occurred in broad daylight. By comparison, our theatre internment facility, Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, was in the middle of nowhere. But the government claims the US ran Camp Bucca. The evidence in the court martial is clear. We had two compounds for UK detainees, they had six. We had jurisdiction over UK detainees who were subject to questioning by our tactical questioners. So why the blatant denial of responsibility where it is obvious the UK did have jurisdiction? The MoD admitted in 2004 that six other Iraqis had died while in detention with British troops, and we know all British detainees were taken to Camp Bucca until Christmas 2003. We also know that US forces killed Iraqis during "riots" at the facility and that three US soldiers were discharged in 2004 after being found guilty of abusing prisoners. If Mousa died in our custody where he did, what was happening in the British section of Camp Bucca?
Most of this iceberg of disgrace will remain hidden unless there is an independent and public inquiry. What is our government's response to Mousa's death and its implications? Sadly, it knows no shame. Despite the shocking facts and images, it argues in the Lords that the Human Rights Act does not apply outside the territory of the UK. If it succeeds in this argument, we can all give up hope of there being any proper domestic accountability for any human rights abuses by UK personnel outside the country. I can almost hear the howl of anguish from Baha Mousa's grave.
· Phil Shiner is a solicitor and acts for the family of Baha Mousa and in 40 other cases of torture, beatings and killings by UK forces in Iraq
One child killed by Israeli army gunfire during invasion of Palestinian village
One child killed by Israeli army gunfire during invasion of village near Ramallah
Sunday April 22, 2007 16:04 by Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC News ghassanb at imemc dot org
On Sunday morning one Palestinian child was shot and killed by Israeli army fire during an invasion of the village of Dier Abu Mish'al, located west of the central West Bank city of Ramallah
A massive Israeli force invaded the village on Sunday at dawn. Troops then searched and ransacked scores of residents' homes. During the search campaign local youth hurled stones at the invading soldiers who opened fire randomly at the them and nearby houses, killing one boy.
Medical sources stated that Kareem Zahran, 14, sustained critical wounds during the clashes. Soldiers detained the boy until he died from severe bleeding. After two hours the Israeli forces handed the boy's body to a Palestinian ambulance which took him to a hospital in Ramallah city.
On the way to the hospital the army also detained the ambulance car from one hour, the medical team reported. On Sunday afternoon hundreds of Palestinians along side with Zahran's family members took to the streets in Ramallah city during the boy's funeral which ended with the burial of the child in the city cemmetry, local sources reported.
With Zahran's death, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli army gunfire in the past 24 hours in the West Bank, mounts to 8. In Jenin city, in the northern part of the West Bank, a 17-year old girl named Boshra Naji was shot and killed on Saturday evening, by Israeli military fire during an invasion of Jenin refugee camp.
The invasion is the third in less than 24 hours. On Saturday evening, soldiers assassinated three Palestinian resistance fighters during an invasion of Kafer Dan town, west of Jenin. Also in Jenin, one resident was killed on Saturday at dawn after the army invaded Kafer Dan village, west of the city. Two other fighters were assassinated on Saturday night after midnight in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Report On Haditha Condemns Marines
Signs of Misconduct Were Ignored, U.S. General Says
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 21, 2007; A01
The Marine Corps chain of command in Iraq ignored "obvious" signs of "serious misconduct" in the 2005 slayings of two dozen civilians in Haditha, and commanders fostered a climate that devalued the life of innocent Iraqis to the point that their deaths were considered an insignificant part of the war, according to an Army general's investigation.
Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell's 104-page report on Haditha is scathing in its criticism of the Marines' actions, from the enlisted men who were involved in the shootings on Nov. 19, 2005, to the two-star general who commanded the 2nd Marine Division in Iraq at the time. Bargewell's previously undisclosed report, obtained by The Washington Post, found that officers may have willfully ignored reports of the civilian deaths to protect themselves and their units from blame. Though Bargewell found no specific coverup, he concluded that there also was no interest at any level in investigating allegations of a massacre.
"All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result of insurgent tactics," Bargewell wrote. He condemned that approach because it could desensitize Marines to the welfare of noncombatants. "Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get 'the job done' no matter what it takes."
Bargewell's sharp criticism of the Marine command appears to have been a contributing factor in subsequent efforts by top leaders to ensure that U.S. troops exercise appropriate restraint around civilians. Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, who was the top field commander in Iraq last year, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the top U.S. commander there, have emphasized the importance of protecting the civilian population in counterinsurgency operations and have ordered aggressive investigations of alleged wrongdoing.
Though Bargewell completed his secret report in June 2006, it has not been publicly released because of ongoing criminal investigations of three Marines on murder allegations and four Marine officers who allegedly failed to look into the case. Bargewell's report, now unclassified, focuses on the reporting of the incident and the training and command climate within the Marine Corps leadership; it does not address the actual incident in detail.
The investigation began in March 2006 after an initial inquiry concluded that the Marines did not intentionally kill civilians. Bargewell's team interviewed Marines in Asad in western Iraq and in the United States in April 2006. His final report was submitted to Chiarelli on June 15, 2006.
A Marine Corps spokesman declined to comment yesterday. Marine officials have generally not discussed the incident because it is under investigation.
In the Haditha incident, which has become one of the most notorious alleged atrocities of the Iraq war, Marines killed two dozen civilians after a huge roadside bomb ripped through a Humvee in their convoy, killing one Marine instantly and injuring two others. A Naval Criminal Investigative Service report found that the Marines then killed five unarmed civilians whom they ordered out of a car -- one Marine alleged that another got down on one knee and shot them one by one -- before storming several houses and killing women and children, some of them still in their pajamas and lying in bed.
The Marines have told investigators that they believed they were taking small-arms fire from the houses and that they were following their rules of engagement when they threw grenades and then shot everyone inside.
Bargewell found that, though the Marines were trained correctly, some "did not follow proper house and room techniques" by not positively identifying their targets. Lt. William T. Kallop, the only officer on the scene at the time, ordered the attack on the houses and told investigators that he did not believe the Marines did anything wrong. Kallop received immunity this month and will probably testify at the hearings for the other Marines.
The report notes errors and oversights at all levels of the Marine command in Iraq. Bargewell says that Marines at the squad level came up with a false story; that Kilo Company officers and the commander of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, passed along insufficient information to the regimental commander; and that regimental officers and officers at the 2nd Marine Division ignored signs of a problem and believed the incident to be insignificant. He also accuses the entire chain of failing to recognize the importance of civilian deaths.
Of particular concern to Bargewell was that nearly all Marines looked the other way when confronted with early reports that many civilians had been shot in fighting on the streets of Haditha after a roadside bomb killed a member of their unit. His investigation found that Marines and officers present that day immediately reported numerous civilian deaths to superiors but that the reports were "untimely, inaccurate and incomplete" -- failures he attributed to "inattention and negligence, in certain cases willful negligence."
Then, no one asked any further questions, Bargewell wrote, despite gruesome photographs circulating among junior Marines that showed that women and children had been killed in their beds. He cited several opportunities to investigate that were not taken, such as when more than $40,000 in condolence payments went to Iraqis after the killings.
"I found that the duty to inquire further was so obvious in this case that a reasonable person with knowledge of these events would have certainly made further inquiries," Bargewell wrote. "The most remarkable aspect of the follow-on action with regard to the civilian casualties from the 19 November 2005 Haditha incident was the absence of virtually any kind of inquiry at any level of command into the circumstances surrounding the deaths."
No one recommended an investigation until a Time magazine reporter began asking questions about the attack in January 2006. Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, the division commander, dismissed the allegations as insurgent propaganda, according to the report. The battalion commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, also refused to investigate, saying, "My marines are not murderers," according to two of his top subordinates. Bargewell called this "an unwillingness, bordering on denial," to examine an incident that could be harmful to his unit.
Chessani's attorneys have denied that he did anything wrong and have said that he informed his commanders about the incident.
The regimental commander, Col. Stephen Davis, was also not interested in investigating, according to the report. "The RCT-2 Commander, however, expressed only mild concern over the potential negative ramifications of indiscriminate killing based on his stated view that the Iraqis and insurgents respect strength and power over righteousness," the report says.
None of Chessani's superiors has been charged with a crime, but in addition to the battalion commander, two captains and a lieutenant have been charged with failing to investigate or with impeding the investigation.
Bargewell found that Huck's division staff viewed the allegations of inappropriate killings as part of insurgent "information operations" and an attempt to make the Marines look bad. He also noted a proclivity among senior officers to look past such allegations even if there was a chance they could be accurate. Bargewell called that approach "myopic and overly simplistic" and said it produced a tendency to judge credibility based on the source of the information rather than on the facts.
Iraqi doctor denied visit to U.S. conference: civilian deaths specialist
Iraqi doctor denied visit to U.S. conference
April 20, 2007
associated pressSEATTLE–An Iraqi doctor who concluded that more Iraqi civilians have died in the war than has been reported has been prevented from attending a medical conference at the University of Washington.
Riyadh Lafta had been scheduled to give a lecture this evening at the Seattle campus but his visa to the United States has not been approved.
The State Department cited miscommunication as the reason for the delay.
Lafta is an epidemiologist who teaches at Al-Mustansiriya University College of Medicine in Baghdad. He co-wrote an October 2006 article that concluded nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died since the war began in March 2003. The article appeared in the British medical journal, The Lancet.
The findings were 10 times greater than other studies, said Tim Takaro, an associate professor of health sciences at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.
"The magnitude of that has been lost on the American people. Both the British and U.S. governments have discounted these figures," said Takaro, who conducts research with Lafta.
The School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the UW asked Lafta to discuss the study, as well as elevated cancer levels in southern Iraq.
Last July, Lafta applied for a visa with the U.S. Embassy in Amman, Jordan.
Officials there tried contacting the doctor twice by e-mail, but never received a response, State Department spokesman Steve Royster said. Incomplete visa applications can be held.
"This is a matter of a simple but unfortunate miscommunication," Royster said.
Amy Hagopian, a UW acting assistant professor who is conducting research with Lafta, believes the reason is more political.
"My hypothesis is the Bush administration was extremely threatened by The Lancet study," Hagopian said.
Hagopian said both Lafta and UW officials tried contacting federal officials when they hadn't heard anything about his visa. The university was assisted by staff from the offices of both U.S. Representative Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), who visited Iraq in 2002, and Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.)
"They were stonewalling us," she said. "Any comments to the contrary are obfuscation."
Lafta was invited to deliver his lecture today at Simon Fraser University so it could be broadcast by video to the UW. However, the British government this week denied him a four-hour transit visa for a stopover between the Middle East and Canada.
Les Roberts of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, who worked with Lafta on the Iraqi death estimates, was scheduled to speak in his place at the UW.
Haditha Report Blasts Marines
Haditha Report Blasts Marines
"Obvious" signs of misconduct ignored in 2005 slayings of two dozen Iraqis, Army probe finds.
Josh White
Thursday, April 19, 2007
RAQ: Thousands missing since war began
18 Apr 2007 11:23:46 GMT
Source: IRIN
More BAGHDAD, 18 April 2007 (IRIN) - BAGHDAD, 18 April 2007 (IRIN) - When 53-year-old Tina Abdallah celebrated the fall of deceased former President Saddam Hussein in March 2003, she had no idea that her suffering had just begun. Four years on, the mother of two is desperate for news about her sons who have disappeared in separate incidents following the US-led invasion of 2003.
"During Saddam's time, people were being arrested and sometimes families couldn't get any information about their loved ones. But the proposed democracy hasn't changed this reality. My two sons have disappeared and I can't get any information. I don't even know if they are dead," Tina said.
"I have gone to NGOs, the Ministry of Human Rights and police departments looking for them but no one could help me. My last attempt was in the US-run prisons, but it was even harder to get to speak with someone there because of the huge number of people with the same problem as me," she added.
Because of unrelenting violence hampering all efforts to collect data, the number of people who have disappeared in Iraq since 2003 is not known. But aid workers estimate the figure to be in the tens of thousands.
"Based on studies done by local NGOs, it is probable that at least 15,000 Iraqis have disappeared in the past four years of occupation," Mukhaled al-A'ani, a spokesman for local Iraqi NGO Human Rights Association (HRA), said.
According to Diar Hassnun, a spokesman for Iraq's Ministry of Human Rights, the ministry is working to come up with an official figure for a report it is compiling.
In February 2005, the ministry set up a National Centre for Missing and Disappeared Persons (NCMDP) to help relatives find out what had happened to their loved ones. The initial focus of the centre was to help recover mass graves and identify those who had gone missing since 1978. Now, because of the sheer number of concerned relatives, it is putting more emphasis on finding people who have recently gone missing.
"When this centre was first set up, we didn't expect to receive so many claims of recently disappeared Iraqis. There are hundreds of new missing people every year and since 2006 the situation has worsened in tandem with the sectarian violence," said Hassnun, adding that more than 200,000 people disappeared under Saddam's government, many of whom are still expected to be found in mass graves across Iraq.
Families ignored by the government
But families claim that they have been ignored by the government, and are left on their own to search for their missing relatives, hoping they are being held prisoners somewhere.
"I don't want to think my son is dead," said Abu Khalid, 58, whose 35-year-old son has been missing for the past two years. "I prefer imagining that he is being held in a prison somewhere, as was common during Saddam's time. But if he's not in a prison, I need to find his body at least and stop suffering and dreaming that one day he might come back. I should be able to tell his sons that their father is dead."
HRA's al-A'ani said there are daily reports of hundreds of missing Iraqis and that NGOs are doing there best to help relatives find them.
"We are working very hard with families who are trying to get information about their missing loved ones. Unfortunately, we can't get information in every place," al-A'ani said. "But compared to the number of missing people in 2005, figures for 2006 and 2007 have increased by at least 50 percent."
"Information on less than 10 percent of those missing has been conveyed to their families. Most of the time they [missing persons] had been killed," he added.
But Tina Abdallah clings to the hope that her two sons are alive and will never forget the days on which they disappeared.
Tina said that the first incident happened in August 2004. Aziz, her 28-year-old son, went to his work in a bakery, two weeks before his marriage, and never returned home. Her second son, 25-year-old Ibraheem, never came home from classes at Baghdad's Mustansiriyah University, where he was in his final year.
"I go to the morgue every two days but nothing so far. My husband died from cardiac problems 10 years ago and since then my boys had been taking care of me. Now, I don't even have anything to eat as well as being recently displaced and suffering emotionally from the disappearance of my beloved sons," Tina said.
as/ar/ed
Source: IRIN
More BAGHDAD, 18 April 2007 (IRIN) - BAGHDAD, 18 April 2007 (IRIN) - When 53-year-old Tina Abdallah celebrated the fall of deceased former President Saddam Hussein in March 2003, she had no idea that her suffering had just begun. Four years on, the mother of two is desperate for news about her sons who have disappeared in separate incidents following the US-led invasion of 2003.
"During Saddam's time, people were being arrested and sometimes families couldn't get any information about their loved ones. But the proposed democracy hasn't changed this reality. My two sons have disappeared and I can't get any information. I don't even know if they are dead," Tina said.
"I have gone to NGOs, the Ministry of Human Rights and police departments looking for them but no one could help me. My last attempt was in the US-run prisons, but it was even harder to get to speak with someone there because of the huge number of people with the same problem as me," she added.
Because of unrelenting violence hampering all efforts to collect data, the number of people who have disappeared in Iraq since 2003 is not known. But aid workers estimate the figure to be in the tens of thousands.
"Based on studies done by local NGOs, it is probable that at least 15,000 Iraqis have disappeared in the past four years of occupation," Mukhaled al-A'ani, a spokesman for local Iraqi NGO Human Rights Association (HRA), said.
According to Diar Hassnun, a spokesman for Iraq's Ministry of Human Rights, the ministry is working to come up with an official figure for a report it is compiling.
In February 2005, the ministry set up a National Centre for Missing and Disappeared Persons (NCMDP) to help relatives find out what had happened to their loved ones. The initial focus of the centre was to help recover mass graves and identify those who had gone missing since 1978. Now, because of the sheer number of concerned relatives, it is putting more emphasis on finding people who have recently gone missing.
"When this centre was first set up, we didn't expect to receive so many claims of recently disappeared Iraqis. There are hundreds of new missing people every year and since 2006 the situation has worsened in tandem with the sectarian violence," said Hassnun, adding that more than 200,000 people disappeared under Saddam's government, many of whom are still expected to be found in mass graves across Iraq.
Families ignored by the government
But families claim that they have been ignored by the government, and are left on their own to search for their missing relatives, hoping they are being held prisoners somewhere.
"I don't want to think my son is dead," said Abu Khalid, 58, whose 35-year-old son has been missing for the past two years. "I prefer imagining that he is being held in a prison somewhere, as was common during Saddam's time. But if he's not in a prison, I need to find his body at least and stop suffering and dreaming that one day he might come back. I should be able to tell his sons that their father is dead."
HRA's al-A'ani said there are daily reports of hundreds of missing Iraqis and that NGOs are doing there best to help relatives find them.
"We are working very hard with families who are trying to get information about their missing loved ones. Unfortunately, we can't get information in every place," al-A'ani said. "But compared to the number of missing people in 2005, figures for 2006 and 2007 have increased by at least 50 percent."
"Information on less than 10 percent of those missing has been conveyed to their families. Most of the time they [missing persons] had been killed," he added.
But Tina Abdallah clings to the hope that her two sons are alive and will never forget the days on which they disappeared.
Tina said that the first incident happened in August 2004. Aziz, her 28-year-old son, went to his work in a bakery, two weeks before his marriage, and never returned home. Her second son, 25-year-old Ibraheem, never came home from classes at Baghdad's Mustansiriyah University, where he was in his final year.
"I go to the morgue every two days but nothing so far. My husband died from cardiac problems 10 years ago and since then my boys had been taking care of me. Now, I don't even have anything to eat as well as being recently displaced and suffering emotionally from the disappearance of my beloved sons," Tina said.
as/ar/ed
8 Million Iraqis Need Urgent Aid: UN
Wednesday, 18 April 2007
The United Nations warned on Tuesday, April 17, that nearly eight million Iraqis were in dire need of aid, while international relief groups urged world countries, particularly war allies Washington and London, to accommodate millions of Iraqis fleeing their violence-ravaged country.
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"Up to eight million Iraqi civilians are in urgent need of humanitarian relief," UN humanitarian chief John Holmes told a conference on Iraq's displacement crisis in Geneva, reported Agence France Presse (AFP).
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"That is around four million more than those who are internally or externally displaced."
There are also four million Iraqi refugees and displaced people, about 2 million in Syria and Jordan and 1.9 million inside the war-torn country.
Holmes asserted that millions of people are facing "a basic survival crisis" in oil-rich Iraq, urging the world to shoulder its responsibility towards traumatized Iraqis.
"Iraq is not just a deeply controversial political and security issue, but a profound and no doubt lasting humanitarian crisis affecting millions of civilians."
A poll conducted jointly by ABC News, the BBC, and German TV network ARD showed on Monday, March 19 that four year after the invasion, two-thirds of Iraqis see a gloomy picture for their future and have lost all confidence in their "liberators".
It found that basic necessities were lacking in Iraq, with 88 percent of respondents saying the availability of electricity was either "quite bad" or "very bad".
About 69 percent gave similar responses for the availability of clean water, and 88 percent for the availability of driving or cooking fuel.
The UN Development Program (UNDP) and an Iraqi government agency said on Sunday, February 18, that a third of Iraq's 26 million people live in poverty.
It added that the living standards of Iraqis have been deteriorating after a thriving economy in the 1970s and 80s.
Open Borders
In a related development, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged world countries Tuesday to keep their borders open to the growing flood of Iraqi refugees.
"I hope this conference will galvanize international support to provide them with more protection and assistance and I hope it will mobilize resources in establishing much needed protection space," Ban said in a video message.
"For neighboring countries this means keeping borders open and upholding the principle of no forced return," he elaborated.
Some 800,000 Iraqis have fled their homes since February 2006, according to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). Up to 50,000 Iraqis their country every month.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the World's largest relief agency, praised Syria and Jordan for generous reception to Iraqis refugees.
But it warned that infrastructures in those countries have reached their limits.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned Tuesday that some of Iraq's neighbors were "closing off escape routes" for refugees by introducing restrictions, including a seven-billion-dollar high-tech barrier Saudi Arabian was building on the border.
About 95 percent of fleeing Iraqis remain in the Middle East, but the number of Iraqis reaching industrialized countries, mainly Europe, surged by 77 percent (22,200) in 2006, according to UNHCR data.
The US-based HRW singled out the US and Britain for harsher criticism.
"The United States and the United Kingdom bear a particular responsibility to help people displaced in and out of Iraq," said Bill Frelick, refugee director at HRW.
"They undertook a war that has directly caused thousands of deaths, widespread fear and suffering, and forced displacement."
AMSI Net- Agencies
The United Nations warned on Tuesday, April 17, that nearly eight million Iraqis were in dire need of aid, while international relief groups urged world countries, particularly war allies Washington and London, to accommodate millions of Iraqis fleeing their violence-ravaged country.
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"Up to eight million Iraqi civilians are in urgent need of humanitarian relief," UN humanitarian chief John Holmes told a conference on Iraq's displacement crisis in Geneva, reported Agence France Presse (AFP).
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"That is around four million more than those who are internally or externally displaced."
There are also four million Iraqi refugees and displaced people, about 2 million in Syria and Jordan and 1.9 million inside the war-torn country.
Holmes asserted that millions of people are facing "a basic survival crisis" in oil-rich Iraq, urging the world to shoulder its responsibility towards traumatized Iraqis.
"Iraq is not just a deeply controversial political and security issue, but a profound and no doubt lasting humanitarian crisis affecting millions of civilians."
A poll conducted jointly by ABC News, the BBC, and German TV network ARD showed on Monday, March 19 that four year after the invasion, two-thirds of Iraqis see a gloomy picture for their future and have lost all confidence in their "liberators".
It found that basic necessities were lacking in Iraq, with 88 percent of respondents saying the availability of electricity was either "quite bad" or "very bad".
About 69 percent gave similar responses for the availability of clean water, and 88 percent for the availability of driving or cooking fuel.
The UN Development Program (UNDP) and an Iraqi government agency said on Sunday, February 18, that a third of Iraq's 26 million people live in poverty.
It added that the living standards of Iraqis have been deteriorating after a thriving economy in the 1970s and 80s.
Open Borders
In a related development, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged world countries Tuesday to keep their borders open to the growing flood of Iraqi refugees.
"I hope this conference will galvanize international support to provide them with more protection and assistance and I hope it will mobilize resources in establishing much needed protection space," Ban said in a video message.
"For neighboring countries this means keeping borders open and upholding the principle of no forced return," he elaborated.
Some 800,000 Iraqis have fled their homes since February 2006, according to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). Up to 50,000 Iraqis their country every month.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the World's largest relief agency, praised Syria and Jordan for generous reception to Iraqis refugees.
But it warned that infrastructures in those countries have reached their limits.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned Tuesday that some of Iraq's neighbors were "closing off escape routes" for refugees by introducing restrictions, including a seven-billion-dollar high-tech barrier Saudi Arabian was building on the border.
About 95 percent of fleeing Iraqis remain in the Middle East, but the number of Iraqis reaching industrialized countries, mainly Europe, surged by 77 percent (22,200) in 2006, according to UNHCR data.
The US-based HRW singled out the US and Britain for harsher criticism.
"The United States and the United Kingdom bear a particular responsibility to help people displaced in and out of Iraq," said Bill Frelick, refugee director at HRW.
"They undertook a war that has directly caused thousands of deaths, widespread fear and suffering, and forced displacement."
AMSI Net- Agencies
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