Gorilla’s Guides

By April 2004, just a little over a year after the U.S. invasion of Iraq and before the sectarian violence began, the Iraqi Association of University Teachers (AUT) reported that 250 academics had been killed. Award-winning British journalist Robert Fisk had warned early that year of the assassinations of Iraqi academics, but few U.S. newspapers picked up on the story.  By the end of 2006, according to The Independent, over 470 academics had been killed. Another British paper, The Guardian, reported that about 500 academics were killed just from the Universities of Baghdad and Basra alone.

Based on multiple sources, the BRussells Tribunal sifted through such reports and published on its website the names of over 400 murdered academics and when they were killed. Although the exact total number of assassinated academics is not really known, the indefatigable advocate for human rights Dirk Adriaensens gives a detailed analysis of the data available so far in his contribution to the book Cultural Cleansing in Iraq. According to Adriaensens, most of those killed were from the Universities of Bagdad (57 percent) and Basra (14 percent). In addition, 35 percent died in detention after being arrested/kidnapped by some security forces. The modus operandi for the killings was a professional, well-organized assassination. Fifty-four percent of the deaths occurred as a targeted killing, at point-blank range with hand guns or automatic weapons. The killing of academics did not follow any sectarian agenda since the murdered were Sunni and Shia. No one has taken responsibility for the killings, and no one has been arrested.

The reports of these murdered Iraqi academics have been around for a few years, mostly in the foreign press and on websites. I admit to an initial skepticism about their veracity. I was even more concerned about who was responsible for these heinous crimes and why. Iraqis living in Iraq knew of these murders first-hand, but did not know the culprits. Their suspicions fell naturally on the occupying power.

Along with these tragic deaths was the concomitant wave of death threats and intimidation against other Iraqi academics, which resulted in tens of thousands of Iraqi academics literally running abroad for their life. The Washington Post recently described the plight of one Iraqi family living in the United States after the husband, a professor, was assassinated and the wife, a physician, survived but gravely wounded. For some, the escape abroad was only temporary. A professor and a dean who left and returned in the past six months to Iraq were professionally assassinated.  Iraq has suffered the decapitation of its intellectual class on a staggering scale, which has thrown the country back to the dark ages.

According to the new revelations of Wikileaks, in some cases the United States, through the military, contractors, and others, killed innocent Iraqi civilians including women and children. As a matter of policy we handed over Iraqi detainees to Iraqi security forces with full knowledge that they would be subjected to torture, rape, and murder. Moreover, when our military received the reports of torture, rape, and murder it chose to ignore them. Such a policy is contrary to international law, U.S. laws, and American values.

It’s not clear whether the U.S. government or the U.S. military knows who assassinated the Iraqi academics. We don’t know if U.S. officials or military commanders looked the other way when local security forces committed those crimes. But the Wikileaks documents raise many disturbing questions about a possible U.S. role in these assassinations. Even the Gulf Cooperation Council, and its half-dozen U.S.-friendly Arab members, has called on the Obama administration to "open a serious and transparent investigation" into possible "crimes against humanity."

The evidence so far is sufficient to warrant a thorough investigation by an independent body. Iraqis, Americans, and the world need to know the truth.

Source: Foreign Policy In Focus | Who Assassinated Iraqi Academics?

The persistent lack of security is hampering efforts to provide essential services for civilians. The ICRC is doing its utmost to help meet the most pressing needs. This is an update on these and other ICRC 30-11-2010 Operational Update ICRC activities carried out in Iraq in September and October.

Despite improvements in the security situation achieved over the years in many parts of Iraq, ongoing violence continues to claim the lives of hundreds of men, women and children every month, and to have a serious impact on the lives of many more.

Over the past year, the lives of many Iraqi civilians have not changed for the better. Civilians continue to carry the heaviest burden amid the widespread violence. They are still the main victims of the indiscriminate attacks and mass explosions that have taken place in cities such as Baghdad, Ninewa, Diyala, Anbar, Najaf, Kerbala and Basra, and that have left, on average, hundreds of people wounded or dead each month this year.

"Indiscriminate attacks against civilians inflict tremendous suffering. They are clearly unacceptable. They are contrary to international humanitarian law and to the most basic principles of humanity," said Magne Barth, head of the ICRC delegation in Iraq. "Civilians must be protected against violence, as must be medical personnel and facilities".

The humanitarian situation in Iraq remains serious. Iraqis are filled with anxiety and uncertainty about what the future holds. Vulnerable people, such as women heading households, disabled people and detainees, continue to depend to some extent on outside help to meet basic needs.

The persistent lack of security and wanton violence have had a considerable effect on the feasibility of providing essential services for the population. The ICRC is doing its utmost to help meet the most pressing needs, especially in rural areas and in the places hardest hit by the conflict and other violence. ICRC activities aim primarily at ensuring that people have access to adequate health, water and sanitation services, and at helping the destitute and other needy people.

Visits to detainees held under Iraqi, Kurdistan Regional Government and USF-I authority remain a priority for the ICRC. "Ensuring that detainees are treated humanely and are held in conditions that respect their dignity has been our constant concern since we started working in Iraq 30 years ago," said Mr Barth.

The ICRC continues to speak out about the plight of conflict victims in Iraq. It does so in dialogue with as many parties as possible that can influence the situation on the ground. Its aim is to bring about greater respect for civilians and detainees, and to ensure that unimpeded access is granted for humanitarian action to help the people in greatest need throughout the country.

"The role of the ICRC, as an impartial humanitarian organization, is crucial to efforts to protect civilians from harm and to ensure that detainees are properly treated and held in decent conditions," said Mr Barth.

In September and October 2010, in response to the unstable and often changing security environment, the ICRC made further adjustments to its working procedures so that it could continue to provide services to those who need them most.

Bringing aid to vulnerable people

The ICRC has maintained its support for people facing special difficulties earning a living and supporting their families, such as women heading households and people with disabilities. In September and October:

• hygiene kits and food parcels were provided for more than 5,600 people in the governorate of Mosul;
• emergency aid was provided for more than 170 displaced people in Sulaimaniya governorate;
• 95 grants were made in Kirkuk, Ninewa, Dohuk, Sulaimaniya and Erbil governorates to enable disabled people to start small businesses and regain economic self-sufficiency. Around 700 disabled people have received such aid since 2008;
• the livestock of 731 needy farmers in the Kifri district of Diyala governorate were vaccinated;
• around 950 metric tonnes of wheat seed were delivered to some 3,800 farmers in the governorates of Diyala, Anbar, Salahadin, Baghdad and Babil to help them restore their food production;
• 50 kilometres of irrigation canals serving over 7,000 people were cleaned and renovated in the Khalis and Kifri districts of Diyala governorate;
• 600 sheep and 38 metric tonnes of fodder were distributed to 200 farmers in the Baaj district of Ninewa governorate.

Assisting hospitals and physical rehabilitation centres

In some rural and conflict-prone areas, health-care services are still struggling to meet the needs of the civilian population. The ICRC continues to help renovate the premises of health-care facilities and train staff. Limb-fitting and physical rehabilitation services are provided by the ICRC to help disabled people reintegrate into the community. In September and October:

• 10 doctors and 28 nurses successfully took part in a course intended to strengthen emergency services given in Al Sadr Teaching Hospital in Najaf;
• 273 new patients were fitted with prostheses and 1,148 new patients with orthoses at 10 ICRC-supported centres throughout Iraq.

Providing clean water and sanitation

Access to clean water remains difficult in much of Iraq. ICRC engineers continue to repair and upgrade water, electrical and sanitary facilities, especially in places where violence remains a concern and in rural areas, to improve the quality of services provided in communities and health-care facilities. In September and October, these activities included:

Emergency assistance:

The ICRC delivered water by truck:

● in Zharawa district, Sadr City, Husseinia and Maamal to 6,384 internally displaced people;
● to the 385-bed Al Imam Ali General Hospital;
● to the 400-bed Al Kindy General Hospital in Baghdad, which was struggling to cope with summer water shortages.

Support for health-care facilities:

The ICRC completed work upgrading:
● Tarmiyah General Hospital, which serves between 250 and 300 outpatients daily, in Baghdad governorate;
● Tamour primary health-care centre, which serves 50 patients per day, in Kirkuk governorate.

Water supply in hospitals:

• The ICRC completed the installation of drinking-water purification units in Baquba General Hospital, Muqdadiya General Hospital, Baladrooz General Hospital and Al Zahraa Maternity Hospital, with an overall capacity of 600 beds, in Diyala governorate.

Drinking-water supply:

• Five main projects benefiting around 725,000 people were completed throughout the country.

Visiting detainees

ICRC delegates visit detainees in order to monitor the conditions in which they are being held and the treatment they receive. In all cases, the ICRC shares its findings and recommendations confidentially with the detaining authorities, with the aim of obtaining improvements where necessary.

In September and October, the ICRC visited detainees held by the correctional service of the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defence and various Kurdish Regional Government authorities in places of detention in Basra, Thi Qar/Nasiriya, Baghdad, Babil, Kirkuk, Erbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniya governorates.

In some of these places, to help the detaining authority improve conditions of detention, the ICRC gave detainees mattresses, blankets and recreational items such as books and games.

The ICRC makes a special effort to restore and maintain ties between detainees and their families. In September and October, over 1,000 Red Cross messages were exchanged between detainees and their families in Iraq and abroad. The ICRC also responded to around 800 enquiries from families seeking information on detained relatives. In addition, it issued 249 certificates of detention to former detainees. The ICRC facilitated the voluntary repatriation of two released detainees, and issued two travel documents to refugees to enable them to resettle abroad.

Clarifying what happened to missing people

In its role as a neutral intermediary, the ICRC continues to chair the mechanisms set up to address the cases of people who went missing in connection with the 1990-1991 Gulf War. At the 67th session of the Technical Sub-Committee of the Tripartite Commission, held on 28 September in Kuwait, the members of the sub-committee reaffirmed their commitment to accounting for people who went missing in connection with the war. At the sub-committee’s next meeting, which will take place in Kuwait in November, preparations will be made for a joint field mission to the south of Iraq to check on suspected burial sites.

On 27 and 28 October, representatives of Iran and Iraq held a high-level meeting in Geneva under ICRC auspices with the aim of determining what happened to people missing in connection with the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. The meeting was the first of its kind following the signature in October 2008 of a memorandum of understanding between Iran, Iraq and the ICRC aimed at expediting the search for information on people previously registered as, or presumed to be, prisoners of war and on others who have gone missing, and at identifying mortal remains.

Relieving the suffering of the families of missing persons by clarifying what happened to their loved ones is one of the ICRC’s priorities. The ICRC continues to provide the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights and Baghdad’s Medical-Legal Institute with the technical support they require to exchange information and build up their capacity in the area of forensics.

Promoting international humanitarian law

Reminding parties to a conflict of their obligation to protect civilians is a fundamental part of the ICRC’s work. The organization also endeavours to promote international humanitarian law within civil society. In this framework, it organizes presentations for various audiences, which include military personnel, prison staff, students and professors.

In September and October, information sessions on international humanitarian law were organized for members of the Iraqi Army, the Peshmerga forces and Assayesh security forces. In October, a "train-the-trainers" course was organized for 14 members of the Iraqi Centre for Military Values and Professional Leadership Development. One member of the Iraqi armed forces attended an advanced course on international humanitarian law at the International Institute of Humanitarian Law in San Remo, Italy, and another attended a workshop on rules of engagement, also held in Italy.

Iraq: civilians still suffering undue hardship

A new US estimate of the number of Iraqis killed seven years after the US-led invasion serves as a reminder that civilians are dying on a daily basis in Iraq, writes Salah Hemeid

Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright’s famous quotation apparently justifying the deaths of half a million Iraqi children as a result of the Washington- backed and UN-imposed sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s has often been remembered as a cold-blooded assertion of US policy objectives.

The aphorism came to mind again last week when US media reported that the United States had finally released its first official compilation of data on Iraqi casualties, more than seven years after its invasion of the country.

The report, posted on the US Central Command website in July, drew little notice until last Thursday, when media outlets published details showing that 63,185 civilians and 13,754 members of the Iraqi security forces had been killed from early 2004 to August 2008.

It is not clear why the figures did not include casualties from the immediate aftermath of the US-led invasion in 2003, or from the period after August 2008. It is not clear either how the data were compiled and using what methodology.

The figures seem to represent a "policy engineered" anti-climax as the Obama administration, facing a mid- term election challenge, tries to bring an end to America’s misadventure in Iraq.

The number of Iraqis killed during the US-led invasion and its aftermath has long been hotly debated, estimates ranging from fewer than 100,000 to more than a million.

Knowing how these latest US figures were arrived at would speak volumes about how the United States is faring as it prepares to exit from Iraq.

The casualty figures released by Washington are lower than those from Iraqi government sources. Last year, the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights reported that 85,694 Iraqis, including military and police personnel, had been killed from the beginning of 2004 through to October 2008.

In January 2008, the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that 151,000 deaths had taken place in the country due to the violence, with a 95 per cent confidence estimate of between 104,000 and 223,000 from March 2003 through to June 2006. The figures were based on the results of an Iraq family health survey published in the New England Journal of Medicine, a respected US journal.

Another estimate from the Iraq Body Count, a non- governmental organisation based in Britain that uses media accounts, has put the number of civilian dead in Iraq at 47,668 during the same period as the WHO study. The group’s latest figures for civilian deaths from violence in the country until September 19 2010 stood at between 98,252 and 107,235.

A 2006 survey in The Lancet, a British medical journal, estimated that more than 600,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the war, a figure more than 10 times higher than other estimates at the time.

Iraq has not officially reacted to any of the studies, though many Iraqis have rejected the new US figures on the number of civilian deaths in the conflict, saying that they are well below the actual numbers who have died.

The numbers are misleading, critics say, because they are not based on a well- defined methodology dealing with all violence-related deaths, including assassinations and in operations conducted by the US military.

Estimates of casualty figures during the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq have been controversial because of the high political stakes involved and the possibility of manipulation aimed at swaying public opinion. The recent report was prompted by a Freedom of Information Act request from the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

Scepticism has arisen about these latest figures not only because of possible discrepancies and the mysterious standards used to establish the magnitude of the casualties, but also because the parties involved have been reluctant to tell the truth about this human tragedy.

A fundamental question is why the US military, which bears primary responsibility for the conflict, failed to address the issue start from the start and why it did not keep accurate records on the victims of the invasion and occupation.

The military’s apparent incapacity to provide statistics about the causalities of US air bombardments and other related operations is a real and pressing concern.

Another question of concern is why the US media, omnipresent in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, has not capitalised on its high standards of professionalism to gather accurate data about the human tragedy in Iraq.

The Associated Press kept a record for the period from 28 April 2005 to 30 September 2010 listing some 49,416 deaths.

Yet, even more disturbing than these US failures has been the failure by successive Iraqi governments to establish an efficient process of data collection to register the deaths of Iraqi citizens and to compensate their families.

Failure to collect data and dodgy statistics are not the only problems. There is also the problem of how to count deaths that are directly related to the war and occupation, separating them from deaths as a result of violence in the country.

Absent from the debate is any explanation of the humanitarian crisis that has struck Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion, including increasing poverty, unemployment, the deterioration of health services and the destruction of the country’s ecological system.

Statistics such as those released by the US military have also largely ignored Iraqi fatalities caused by a lack of clean drinking water and a breakdown in utilities.

Humanitarian agencies like the International Committee of the Red Cross have warned that the country’s healthcare facilities face grave shortages of staff and supplies, with the water, sewage and electricity infrastructure being in critical condition.

Rates of cancer, leukemia and brain tumours, widely believed to have been caused by US weaponry, have been on the rise, some research suggesting that they rival those reported among survivors of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The US military’s report on the death toll in Iraq comes at a time when US President Barack Obama has reached his lowest ratings in US opinion polls ahead of crucial mid-term elections next month.

The release of the statistics while Obama embarks on a campaign to drum up support for Democratic Party candidates cannot be a coincidence.

By publishing a limited number of casualties in Iraq, the Obama administration may be hoping that it can go ahead with its policy of "turning the page" in Iraq, ending the US military presence in the country by the end of next year.

Exiting from Iraq would benefit the Democratic Party, whose president vowed to end the legacy of the Republican Party and its president in Iraq.

If all goes to plan, Iraq will no longer be front-page news in America, as US soldiers pack up to leave in order to help Democrats achieve some sort of hoped-for victory in next month’s elections.

However, the very day this article was sent to print, a spate of bomb attacks across Iraq killed and wounded many people, serving as proof that the threat of death remains a part of daily life in the country.

If Albright’s idea that the price paid by Iraqi civilians for US policy "is worth it" can serve as any sort of reminder in this sad chapter of Iraq’s history, then it should be that the US-led invasion has turned into a humanitarian tragedy, as well as an American national predicament.

Source: Al-Ahram Weekly | Region | Death and body bags

Syria’s plan to divert the waters of the Tigris portends a long and bitter quarrel with Iraq, reports Bassel Oudat from Damascus

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Last year’s severe drought in northeastern Syria dried up the Khabur River which is the lifeline in that region, causing some 500,000 Syrians to migrate to other areas inside Syria. In response, the government signed a deal with the Kuwaiti Fund for Arab Economic Development to begin a project on the Tigris close to the Syrian-Turkish-Iraqi border, diverting enough water to fertilise 200,000 hectares.

Baghdad was infuriated by the project and called Damascus to an "emergency meeting" to clarify the details of the "surprise plan" which would divert river water over long distances inside Syrian territories. Iraq’s Water Resources Ministry stated that any diverted water will affect Iraq’s already meagre water quota, which would negatively influence local agriculture and the economy. Iraqi officials also predicted that the plan will jeopardise already worsening relations between the two neighbouring states.

Syria has not responded to Iraq’s invitation. Informed Syrian sources asserted that the project was conceived decades ago, and not a new concept at all, as the Iraqis are claiming. In fact, it is an indicator of warming relations between Syria and Turkey, because Ankara gave Damascus the green light to go ahead and begin the project.

The plan is indeed old, but was delayed because previous governments in Turkey refused to sign any agreement to share water with Syria and Iraq. With encouragement from abroad, Ankara was fooled into believing that it would be stronger and have more leverage by controlling the water flow.

Syria and Iraq have fought over water resources in the past. In the 1980s, it threatened to ignite a war. Eventually the quarrel came to include Turkey, especially after Ankara began building large dams on the Euphrates and Tigris. So far, no three-way agreement has been reached because Turkey refuses to share the water with Syria and Iraq.

The heart of the problem lies in differences of interpretation of Syria and Iraq on the one hand, and Turkey on the other. Turkey believes the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which originate in the Taurus Mountains in Turkey and pass through Syria and Iraq, to be "marginally cross-border rivers" because they barely pass inside the borders of Syria and Iraq. But Syria and Iraq consider them major international water bodies which should be evenly divided among everyone.

When the regimes in Damascus and Baghdad fell out in the 1970-80s, this negatively affected their rights to the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris and a number of smaller rivers, because they refused to sit together or with the Turkish side. Ankara used Syrian- Iraqi tensions to exercise control over the waters of the rivers and keep a much larger share than stipulated in international water agreements for itself. It constructed massive dams on the rivers, using their waters in agricultural and industrial projects along their banks. It cut down the amount of water going to each country, and refused to recognise that the two rivers were international waterways but rather local Turkish rivers which happen to pass through Syria and Iraq on their way to the Arab shore, south of Basra in Iraq.

In 1974, Turkey began the Southeastern Anatolian (GAP) project which consists of 21 dams, 17 of which on the Euphrates including Ataturk Dam and four others on the River Tigris. It also included 19 power stations and 47 water reservoirs, and a variety of other projects in the fields of agriculture, industry, transportation, irrigation and communication. Ankara earmarked $32 billion for the project and received a large part of the budget from international funding in the form of loans and grants, especially from the US, Canada, Israel and France.

In 1987, Syria and Iraq tried to gain some recognition over the waters of the two rivers, but it was too late. Turkey refused to negotiate with them as one party and dealt with each side separately, taking a disproportionate amount for itself. Damascus and Baghdad could do nothing, especially in light of the fact that Ankara continued its plans to construct dams and was able to cut off the flow of the river altogether to both neighbours.

In 1989, Syria and Iraq agreed to divide the quota of the Euphrates River given to them, whereby Syria’s share amounted to 42 per cent and 52 per cent went to Iraq. Later, in 2000, the two sides agreed that Syria should receive a share of the Tigris water (which flows 50km inside its border), enough to irrigate almost 200,000 hectares of land.

In the end, sharing the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris became a capricious matter, not relying on clear and precise agreements based on international law. Turkey’s whims dictate quotas with no base in international law. In 2007, a three-way meeting failed to result in a comprehensive agreement on the issue because Turkey refused to change the status quo and wanted to make it a de facto arrangement.

Syria’s project to divert Tigris water, which it started publicly planning at the beginning of this year, has antagonised the Iraqis to an unexpected degree, and Baghdad’s reaction came as a surprise to Damascus. This is especially true since there is a preliminary agreement regarding this issue with the previous regime in Iraq, which Iraqis today consider invalid. The Syrians counter that the agreement was concluded with a legitimate Iraqi government and not one person per se, and it is illogical to annul agreements between countries every time the regime changes.

Syrian political circles feel that Iraq’s reasoning is another attempt by Iraq’s government to raise tensions between the two countries, and manipulate this domestically now that Iraq is about to form a new government.

Relations between the two neighbours have not been at their best for almost one year, after Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki accused Syria of hosting and assisting Al-Baath Party elements who support the ousted regime in Baghdad. Iraq claims these elements are behind a number of attacks in Baghdad which have killed hundreds of Iraqis. These accusations also came as a surprise for the Syrians who said they have tried their utmost in the past few years to prevent fighters from going into Iraq by more vigilant control of the border. At the same time, Syria is home to 1.5 million Iraqi refugees and says it has cooperated with Iraqi authorities.

Syrian officials believe that Iraq’s objections to the Tigris project are not a result of Iraqi concerns over water but have other political goals to do with domestic Iraqi politics, power struggles among Iraqi factions, and complications in forming Iraq’s new cabinet.

No doubt, the quarrel between Syria and Iraq over the past decades has allowed Turkey to do as it pleases with the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris. Today, closer ties between Damascus and Ankara — which could almost be described as a strategic alliance — are still not enough to convince Turkey to admit that these are international rivers, and it continues to control them unilaterally.

Observers believe that rising political friction between Syria and Iraq, their distraction with secondary issues over more important ones, and their lax positions towards Turkey on the water issue and other matters have not only caused tension, but resulted in immense strategic losses for both parties.

They will have to look beyond this current spat and focus on the real problem — resolving the quota issue with Turkey.

Al-Ahram Weekly | Region | Turkey muddies the water

I never thought of fighting the Americans because I didn’t regard the United States as a colonising country. I thought it was a civilised state. Unfortunately, after the invasion, the opposite proved true.

President Bush didn’t send doctors and engineers, or construction and democracy specialists, or experts from NASA and Google. Instead, he sent uneducated gangsters who didn’t know anything about Arabic and Iraqi traditions. This was one of the main issues that triggered the resistance.

When I saw the first US tanks in Fallujah in 2003 I opposed their presence, but at the same time I had always been against Saddam Hussein’s regime. I just wished that change would not have come from the outside. A perfect change would have been through a coup or an assassination, not an occupation.

I joined al-Qaeda on April 28, 2003, after several US soldiers killed more than 13 Iraqi civilians from the rooftop of an elementary school in Hay al-Nazzal, south of Fallujah. The Iraqis were staging a demonstration and demanded that the Americans leave the school.

The Americans killed the civilians and then refused to let us remove the dead bodies. It was then that I felt the rush to fight. (Editor’s note: The US military maintained that its soldiers were returning fire.)

I met several young men who were thinking of attacking the school. At 1 am, eight of us went to the school carrying RPG7s and AK-47s, which we found at deserted Iraqi army bases. We were surprised to find another group preparing an attack.

We quickly agreed to launch a coordinated assault. It lasted several minutes and we fled quickly, fearing strikes from Apaches and Blackhawks.

The group we met was from al-Qaeda.

DRIVEN BY VENGEANCE

My goal in fighting the Americans was to force them to leave.

The event that made me angry and committed to killing was when my best friend was killed in an air strike on a house in central Fallujah. He was passing by that house.

My anger quickly subsided when I opened fire on a Marine and saw him collapse. I thought, “I’ve avenged my friend.”

My brigade was responsible for engaging the Americans at a distance of less than 200 metres. We were 120 fighters in Fallujah. Only a few are still alive and even fewer would be objective and fair in telling the story.

I had more than 60 engagements with the Americans while I was with al-Qaeda. I did not go out on a mission unless it was to fight them. I feel very lucky to have survived all of these operations. Perhaps it was God’s will that allowed me to survive and tell my story.

Al-Qaeda’s combat technique is similar to guerrilla warfare. It is not systematic, which made it difficult for the Americans to fight back. If we were a regular army the Americans would have then be able to defeat us, but we were like the liquid that slips through your fingers.

Some operations required a lot of planning while others only needed a few hours. The most difficult thing was staging a tactical retreat. Most of our casualties occurred not during our attack but when retreating. The Americans react quickly. Within a few minutes after each operation, their choppers and soldiers would show up and we would come under fire.

As a result, we devised strategies such as wearing black clothing, hiding in trees and orchards and parking getaway cars at a distance.

We received intelligence by bribing police, army and Shia sources. The Americans considered [Shia] more trustworthy than Sunni.

We used to communicate using Thuraya (satellite) phones or through human contacts. We would meet as needed. Sometimes, we would have three meetings over several days, but a week could pass without a single gathering.

One of the things we witnessed was how a 100 US dollar improvised explosive device, IED, was capable of destroying an armoured vehicle that cost one million dollars. The IEDs were the best weapon for al-Qaeda and the insurgents in Iraq.

I never planted IEDs in cars. I was in a combat brigade against the Americans and this is why I am at ease with myself. 

I was seriously wounded four times. We had a small clinic in central Fallujah that treated wounded Arab fighters who couldn’t go to public hospitals. This clinic had medical supplies and medicine donated by pharmacies. The doctors were in Fallujah. Some of them volunteered to treat the wounded. Others were sent for and would show up minutes later.

Islam teaches us to tell the truth, even if it is against us. There was a Marine who fought bravely against us in 2004. He fiercely repelled many of our attacks on his own. But he couldn’t keep it up for long because he was outnumbered by al-Qaeda fighters.

He went down during the engagement, clutching his dog tag. I respected him a lot because of his fighting. I wished that the Iraqi government had half of this Marine’s courage and his sacrifice. Iraq would have been a better place.

ARAB “MARTYRS”

My brigade consisted of Iraqis and foreign Arabs. The foreign Arabs didn’t want to spend time with us. They carried out their duties and went to their special headquarters in Fallujah, the location of which was constantly changing.

This was one of the main reasons why we did not have strong relations with them. Iraqi (insurgency) leaders were always in direct contact with them.

The sole mission of the foreign Arabs was to fight and die in Iraq. They looked at death as a wish that they wanted to come true so that they could go to heaven.

Suicide or martyr operations, call them what you want, were carried out regularly. Sometimes, it got so competitive that every fighter wanted to drive a detonated car and attack an American or an Iraqi target. They even resorted to drawing lots.

Before a suicide mission is carried out a ceremony is performed, a kind of party in which everyone bids farewell to the driver. During the farewell, there are religious songs, food, laughing and congratulations on his martyrdom. The ceremony concludes with the taping of his will, which is sent to his wife and family.

In every ceremony that was held, I was assured that the Americans had found themselves in a real quagmire because al-Qaeda had come to Iraq to fight the Americans. They would go to Mars if they knew the Americans were there. There is so much hatred and I think it’s because of President Bush, the father and the son. It’s President Obama’s bad luck that he is burdened with past mistakes.

The secret of al-Qaeda’s power was the Sunni tribes. They were aware of our plans and operations, and when we lost this factor we became weak. The Americans realised that and they bought them off.

Al-Qaeda didn’t pay anyone. The fighting was voluntary and based on deep convictions. No one would take such extraordinary risks with his life for money or power.

Back then, I worked as a teacher once or twice a week. The situation was unstable in Anbar so we only worked part-time. No one would go after you if you didn’t show up.

My family was living in fear and apprehension. I felt how much my wife loved me then, more than at any other time. My wife, my son and my brother-in-law asked me to quit fighting because they feared for my life. But I ignored them just as a smoker ignores a doctor’s orders to quit.

QUESTIONING AL-QAEDA

My time with al-Qaeda was a bit unusual because I disagreed with them about many things, such as bombing markets, killing civilians, imposing fatwas (edicts) from Afghanistan and killing Shia. I did not think they should target Christians, American civilians and construction workers. This was very important to them.

I was never involved in killing Iraqi forces, and this was one of the reasons I left al-Qaeda. I used to tell them that I was only fighting the occupiers, just like the Vietnamese, Somalis and Chechens who fought the Russians. They accused me of tarnishing my Islamic faith.

I believed that a ceasefire was imperative for the Iraqi forces to take over security from the Americans. I thought that targeting the Iraqi forces would lengthen the occupation.

Over time, things changed a lot. al-Qaeda was no longer supported among Sunni. It carried out executions and killed hundreds of people in markets.

If al-Qaeda were to rule Iraq, it would not have succeeded because it prohibited so many things and imposed new rules. They saw Shia as infidels who should be killed. Christians were given three options: to pay tribute, convert to Islam or be killed. 

Iraq is a complex country. It is impossible to apply al-Qaeda’s rules here because this is a diverse nation. Al-Qaeda would mean the end of Iraq. Everyone would have to flee or be killed. Barely one quarter of the population would have remained.

I left al-Qaeda when I realised that things started to get out of control. Some of the fighters started to disobey orders after [local al-Qaeda leader] Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed.

Zarqawi was a strongman who directed battles in Mosul and in Tal Afar through phone calls from Fallujah. No one dared to act without consulting him. I think if al-Qaeda finds a man with the same characteristics it will stage a huge comeback.

The night I left, I told my neighbours and friends, including a fighter who was very close to me. I had always confided in him about my fears and my opposition to the future of the resistance and jihad because of the actions of some al-Qaeda fighters.

I called another fighter and told him that my son was seriously ill. I said I would have to leave quickly for Syria and stay there for a long time. He told me that my wife could take care of my son, but I told him that she couldn’t survive without me. He was angry and I knew he didn’t believe me.

I left quietly, as anyone with al-Qaeda should. I travelled at night with my family to Syria and stayed there for nine months. I rented my furnished house to a Baghdad displaced family. The rent helped me survive in Syria.

RETURN TO IRAQ

When I came back to Iraq, I discovered that all of the fighters I knew were killed, imprisoned or their whereabouts were unknown.

I went to live with one of my relatives in another province. My wife and children went straight to our house to check the situation and see if I could return.

After a few days, my wife confirmed that I was not being chased by the Sahwa (Sunni Awakening Councils) or al-Qaeda. I returned. The Sahwa didn’t pursue any of the fighters who killed Americans, but instead hunted those who carried operations against the tribes.

Al-Qaeda’s biggest strength is its rigidity – its uncompromising, unyielding, non-negotiable stance. If al-Qaeda decides to assassinate someone, they will do it even if ten years have passed. Even if [a politician] leaves office, even if he is on deathbed, they will kill him with a kitchen knife because they see this as a religious obligation, just like praying, fasting and jihad.

I am afraid of being assassinated by those who might believe that I betrayed them. For them, betrayal has many faces, and one is deserting the battlefield. Few people outside my circle of trust know about my involvement with the resistance and I fear them.

Now it’s better to stand back and watch because the battle is not over yet. I worry that the Sunni may ask us to take up arms again if Iran gains political power after the US pullout.

I used to support the US withdrawal but now I don’t want it to happen so quickly. They (the Americans) should end the Iranian influence before they pull out. If they withdraw and Iran is in Iraq this will create a new Sunni armed uprising.

The US, the Iraqi government and a large number of al-Qaeda fighters damaged Iraq. This period of history will be revealed by me. I will tell the truth, as I saw it, to future generations.

Abu Najim is the nom de guerre of a former Iraqi member of al-Qaeda in Anbar province.

He told his story to an IWPR-trained journalist whose identity is not revealed due to security concerns.

Source: First Person: My Life as an Insurgent – IWPR Institute for War & Peace Reporting

The Foreign Office claims it opposes secret detention, but it has endlessly stonewalled the truth from my charity Reprieve.

Six years ago the British took two men into custody in Iraq. Working with the Americans, the UK then rendered the men to Afghanistan where they have been held ever since in secret detention, beyond the protection of law.

The charity for which I work, Reprieve, has been trying to reunite them with their legal rights. We do not insist that they are innocent – although the evidence suggests that they are. We do insist that they should be allowed a fair trial.

The government has a policy for this kind of thing of course. Let us identify the policy, and then compare it with the government’s practice.

"Providing help to those in need has long been an important part of the value lawyers provide to society," Jack Straw said to the Law Society on 8 March 2008. "It shows the profession at its very best, giving up time and expertise to help others."

Of course, this is what Reprieve seeks to do, at no cost to the public.

"The UK’s position on secret detention is clear," said a Foreign Office spokesperson recently. "We oppose any deprivation of liberty that amounts to placing individuals beyond the protection of the law."

Here, Reprieve seeks to put an end to the two prisoners’ detention beyond the protection of the law.

Thus, one might reasonably assume that the government would want to help us bring the law into this secret prison.

Yet there seems to be no government policy requiring adherence to principle. For several years the government simply lied about their involvement. Consider, for example, the statement that Jack Straw made on 13 December 2005 to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee (FASC): "Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States … there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop, because we have not been … Some of the reports … are in the realms of the fantastic."

Presumably we can all agree that this was false.

A leaked Home Office memorandum to then prime minister Tony Blair from December 2005 advised him to "dodge" questions about the extent of UK involvement in US renditions. Reasonable people may infer that Blair intentionally misled the public as well.

And so it went on. But in 2009, John Hutton admitted that the two men had, indeed, been rendered. I immediately wrote to him asking for their names so that Reprieve could offer them free legal representation. The Ministry of Defence wrote back saying that to disclose their names would violate the Data Protection Act. (It was OK, apparently, for Hutton to say that they were both irredeemable terrorists who should be held without trial by the US military.)

Over the next 14 months, Reprieve spent several thousand pounds trying to identify the men. We tracked down former Bagram prisoners on three continents, and they provided circumstantial hints that we pieced together. Every penny we spent could have been saved had the government merely told the truth.

We discovered evidence that proved Hutton had misled parliament as well. At least one prisoner could not possibly have been a member of the Sunni extremist group, Lashkar e Taiba, since he was a Shia rice farmer.

Over and again, as our investigation progressed, we asked the government simply to confirm their names. We underlined the heartache suffered by their innocent families. The government batted away each reasonable request.

Ultimately, this week, we had no choice but to sue to confirm the prisoners’ names.

As the political parties squabble over cutting waste, they would do well to begin with the government’s pointless defence of the indefensible with their expensive hired legal guns – here, as in Binyam Mohamed’s case.

As if this were not folly enough, now the government has threatened to try to make Reprieve – a charity – pay their legal expenses. This is a blatant ploy to try to intimidate us from bringing suit.

When I complained about it yesterday, the MOD issued a hyperbolic response: "The suggestion that Reprieve has been ‘intimidated’ by a threat of costs is ridiculous." In a perverse way, this is true: we will not be intimidated, as their stratagem simply offends us.

The MOD goes on to say that they have issued this threat because we would not give them a "reciprocal" assurance that they would not have to pay us for their illegal actions, and their endless stonewalling of the truth. I cannot speak for the British lawyers involved in the case, but there is no question of the government paying Reprieve. They never have paid us for any work we have done for prisoners in secret prisons, and there is no reason to think that they are about to start now.

So it ultimately comes down to this: they want to fritter away billions on banks, but steal donations from Reprieve, a charity doing the work that they claim to encourage. It is the Robin Hood tax with a twist: rob from the poor to give to the rich. Perhaps we have finally learned what the term New Labour means: socialism turned upside-down.

Source: Government’s rendition bully tactics | Clive Stafford Smith | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

"The Education system in Iraq, prior to 1991, was one of the best in the region; with over 100% Gross Enrollment Rate for primary schooling and high levels of literacy, both of men and women. The Higher Education, especially the scientific and technological institutions, were of an international standard, staffed by high quality personnel." (UNESCO Fact Sheet, March 28, 2003)[1].

As a result of the ongoing US Occupation of Iraq, today Iraq is more illiterate than it was five or 25 years ago because the US administration and the US forces occupying Iraq began to root and destroy every aspect of Iraq’s education.

The Iraqi educational system was the target of US military action because education is the backbone of any society. Without an efficient education system, no society can function, wrote Ghali Hassan in May 2005.[2] Facts have proven him right. This is also one of the conclusions of the book "Cultural Cleansing in Iraq."[3]

Random Facts

A recent UNESCO report, "Education Under Attack 2010 – Iraq," dated 10 February 2010, concluded, "Although overall security in Iraq had improved, the situation faced by schools, students, teachers and academics remained dangerous."[4] The destruction of Iraq’s education is ongoing.

Let’s present a few random facts that give an idea of the scale of the destruction of Iraq’s education sector under occupation:

• The director[5] of the United Nations University International Leadership Institute published a report[6] on April 27, 2005, detailing that since the start of the war of 2003 some 84 percent of Iraq’s higher education institutions have been burnt, looted or destroyed[7].
• Like most higher education institutions across Iraq, Baghdad University escaped almost unscathed from the bombing. In the subsequent looting and burning, 20 of the capital’s colleges were destroyed. No institution escaped: the faculty of education in Waziriyya was raided daily for two weeks; the veterinary college in Abu Ghraib lost all its equipment; two buildings in the faculty of fine arts stand smoke-blackened against the skyline. In every college, in every classroom, you could write "education" in the dust on the tables.[8]
• Ongoing violence has destroyed school buildings, and about a quarter of all Iraq’s primary schools need major rehabilitation. Since March 2003, more than 700 primary schools have been bombed, 200 have been burnt and over 3,000 looted.
• Between March 2003 and October 2008, 31,598 violent attacks against educational institutions were reported in Iraq, according to the Ministry of Education (MoE).[9]
• Since 2007, bombings at Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad have killed or maimed more than 335 students and staff members, according to a October 19, 2009, New York Times article, and a 12-foot-high blast wall has been built around the campus.[10]
• "Education under Attack (2007) reported that 296 people serving as education staff were killed in 2005; and 180 teachers were killed between February and November 2006.[11]

These are just a few examples to highlight the level of cultural genocide in Iraq. The list is endless, the real number of casualties much higher. More information can be found in the book "Cultural Cleansing in Iraq" and in the BRussells Tribunal archives on Iraqi education under occupation, perhaps the most comprehensive database on the Internet about the assassination of Iraqi academics and the destruction of Iraq’s education.[12] Our campaign to protect Iraqi academics[13] is still ongoing, because the tragedy continues. The UNESCO report "Education Under Attack 2010 – Iraq" is very clear: "Attacks on education targets continued throughout 2007 and 2008 at a lower rate – but one that would cause serious concern in any other country." Why didn’t it cause serious concern? Is it because it’s of US design?

The petition we issued, also containing a call for action, is still valid today and can still be signed: http://www.petitiononline.com/Iraqacad/petition.html. An excerpt:

1. We appeal to organisations which work to enforce or defend international humanitarian law to put these crimes on the agenda.

2. We request that an independent international investigation be launched immediately to probe these extrajudicial killings. This investigation should also examine the issue of responsibility to clearly identify who is accountable for this state of affairs. We appeal to the special rapporteur on summary executions at UNHCHR in Geneva.

We urge that educators mobilise colleagues and concerned citizens to take up the cause of the salvation of Iraq’s intellectual wealth, by organising seminars, teach-ins and forums on the plight of Iraq’s academics.

Occupying Schools

When writing "Killing the Intellectual Class" for the book "Cultural Cleansing in Iraq," I added a short story about occupation of schools by the MNF-I (Multinational Force-Iraq, the official name of the American-led foreign forces):

"it certainly is our policy to not establish military headquarters or other operations in protected areas under the Geneva Convention," said Lt. Col. Gary Keck, a spokesman for the Department of Defense in Washington, when a journalist asked why the US army occupied a girls’ and boys’ school of a town in northern Iraq.[14]

At a UN press briefings in Amman on April 30, 2003, the question was asked:" Do you know of any other schools that are still occupied and would you ask them of making a point to stay away from the schools, so they can be rehabilitated?"

S. Ingram answered, "I am not aware of any other places that this situation holds. I remember the incident you referred to, there was a school in the north and some contacts were necessary to persuade the US troops there to leave the premises, which they subsequently did. I am not aware of any other places were schools are being occupied."[15]

"I am not aware" – a pack of lies. Because occupying schools is exactly what the US Army did (and still does) on a regular basis. I heard and read numerous eyewitness accounts about Iraqi protests after US forces occupied schools and educational institutions.

The origins of armed resistance in Fallujah f.i. can be traced almost precisely to April 28, 2003, when US troops, who had arrived in the city five days earlier, massacred 17 apparently unarmed protesters. The April 28 protest had demanded an end to Fallujah’s occupation and, more specifically, that US troops vacate the al Qaid primary school, where classes had been scheduled to resume on April 29.[16]

And it continued. On February 29, 2008, the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMSI) published a press release condemning the American occupation forces for the seizure of an Islamic Secondary School in Baghdad.

On May 1, 2008, the Iraqi News Agency "Voices of Iraq," reported, "The US military withdrew from a building of the education department in Sadr City in eastern Baghdad, which they used it as a barrack last month."[17]

This was basically all the hard information I had found about the occupation of educational institutions by the occupation forces and I thought the evidence was a little thin to make a decent case, so I decided not to use it for the book.

But, now, I read in the UNESCO report 2010: "MNF-I, the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police units occupied more than 70 school buildings for military purposes in the Diyala governorate alone."[18]

This is only in one province. There’s no information at my disposal about the other regions, but we can almost certainly conclude that occupying schools by occupation forces was/is a general phenomenon throughout Iraq. Where else would you station a one million strong army and security forces?

On April 11, 2003, a number of Iraqi scientists and university professors sent an SOS email complaining American occupation forces were threatening their lives.[19] The appeal message said that looting and robberies were taking place under the watchful eye of the occupation soldiers.

The occupation soldiers, the email added, were transporting mobs to the scientific institutions, such as Mosul University and different educational institutions, to destroy scientific research centers and confiscate all papers and documents to nip in the bud any Iraqi scientific renaissance.[20]

John Agresto, in charge of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in 2003-2004, initially believed that the looting of Iraq’s universities was a positive act in that it would allow such institutions to begin again with a clean slate, with the newest equipment as well as a brand new curriculum.[21]

The Hague IV Conventions[22] on Laws and Customs of War on Land, 1917, make explicit, in Article 56, that educational institutions are to be regarded as private property, and, thus, must not be pillaged or destroyed, that occupying forces in war are bound to protect such property and that proceedings should follow their intentional damage, seizure or destruction. Article 55 reinforces this duty relative to all public buildings and capital. Further, an occupying power is obliged, according to Articles 43 and 46, to protect life and take all steps in its power to re-establish and ensure "public order and safety."

In addition, The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict[23] (ratified by the Republic of Iraq in 1967) creates a clear obligation to protect museums, libraries, archives, and other sites of cultural property. Paragraph 1 of Article 4 notes: "The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect cultural property situated within their own territory as well as within the territory of other High Contracting Parties by refraining from any use of the property and its immediate surroundings or of the appliances in use for its protection for purposes which are likely to expose it to destruction or damage in the event of armed conflict; and by refraining from any act of hostility, directed against such property."

Using schools and universities for military purposes; destroying educational institutions and assisting in looting; criminal neglect when educational staff is being harassed and assassinated; dismantling the Iraqi education system; and active involvement in training, funding and arming murderous militia’s … War crime upon war crime upon war crime.

When will there be justice for Iraq? When will there be a serious investigation into these crimes by official international human rights bodies? And who will charge the successive Anglo-American administrations for war crimes and crimes against humanity?

[1] http://portal.unesco.org/es/ev.php-URL_ID=11216&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

[2] http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/HAS505B.html

[3] http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745328126&CID=BRUSSELLS

[4] http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4b7aa9df5.html

[5] http://www.la.unu.edu/about_staff_reddy.asp

[6] http://www.unu.edu/news/ili/Iraq.doc

[7] http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Academicspetition.htm

[8] http://www.brusselstribunal.org/academicsArticles.htm#weed-out

[9] http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4b7aa9df5.html

[10] http://www.ohio.edu/outlook/2009-10/March/Iraq-professor-409.cfm

[11] http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4b7aa9df5.html

[12] http://www.brusselstribunal.org/AcademicsResources.htm

[13] http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Academics.htm

[14] http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0404/p07s01-woiq.html

[15] http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocus/iraq/infocusnews.asp?NewsID=509&sID=9

[16] http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/2183.cfm and http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/mar/17/iraq.rorymccarthy

[17] http://www.iraqupdates.com/p_articles.php?refid=DH-S-01-05-2008&article=30525

[18] http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4b7aa9df5.html

[19] http://www.islamonline.net/english/news/2003-04/12/article02.shtml

[20] Dirk Adriaensens in "Cultural Cleansing in Iraq," p. 119. http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745328126&

[21] Nabil al-Tikriti in "Cultural Cleansing in Iraq," p. 98. http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745328126&

[22] http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague04.htm

[23] http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13637&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

t r u t h o u t | Destroying Educational Institutions or Using Them for Military Purposes Is a War Crime

Source: Dirk Adriaensens People vs Total War Incorporated | Destroying Educational Institutions or Using them for Military Purposes is a War Crime

Fatih Abdulsalam’s 4 part series was published in Al-Zaman newspaper’s English edition between the third and sixth of February. (Links and "teaser" extracts are at the end of this posting.) The articles, as one expects from Fatih Abdulsalam, are well writtenn and worth reading in their entirety. I however want to concentrate upon an essential point:

Not every member of the Baath party was loyal to Saddam Hussein or his policies. There is a big difference between “Saddamists” and “Baathists”. The commission is treating both the same way.

This blunder has made every Baathist a Saddamist whther they like it or not. And who was not a member of the Baath party. Without registering in the Baath party, there was no possibility for getting a job. And the government was almost the sole employer.

Source: Will there be a coup d’état in Iraq? (2)

He is right. This is a monumental blunder and one which, even if reversed, has caused massive damage to our already shredded political and social fabric.

I know all about Saddamists. Like many who write on this site I experienced the Saddamist terror firsthand, I was one of those who rose in rebellion in 1991 and my wife and young family were first tortured and then killed by Saddam’s Mukhabarat. I completely understand the terror and loathing felt for the Saddamists by those now in power. But that does not blind me to the fact that there is an enormous difference between somebody who joined the Ba’ath because they were forced to and a committed Ba’athist who wholeheartedly supported Saddam’s regime of thugs, thieves, and torturers.

In 1991 I was one of those who who was stupid enough to believe the cynical lies of American President President George H. W. Bush who on February 15, 1991, encouraged us to rise and remove Saddam from power saying this :

GEORGE H.W. BUSH: There is another way for the bloodshed to stop, and that is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside, and then comply with the United Nations’ resolutions and rejoin the family of peace-loving nations.

Source 1 (Text): CNN.com – Transcripts 

Source 2 (Text): KurdishMedia.com: The role and diplomacy of non-state actors: Case study on Kurds in Iraq

Source: 3 (Audiovisual): You watch and hear Bush saying it here from 2:33 in the recording.

Bush’s speech is perhaps the best known encouragement from the Americans to us and the Kurds to rise against Saddam but it was only one of many.
American radio stations particularly Voice of America, and the Saudi-based radio station maintained and paid for by the CIA "Voice of Free Iraq"  made broadcast after broadcast urgng the Kurds and the Shi’a to rise up against Saddam and promising American support.

Many of us were fooled by this cynical American ploy and rose against the tyrant. We lost. Far from helping us the Americans actively colluded with Saddam. The American general Schwartzkopf allowed Saddam to use his airpower and heavy weaponry against us and with that our defeat and the defeat of the Kurds was a foregone conclusion.

Nobody has ever been able to put reliable figures on how many were killed but at least 100,000 Shi’a were slaughtered and more than a million became refugees. The figures for the Kurds are equally horrific at the very least 100,000 Kurds were killed or "disappeared" and the numbers forced to flee their homes are again at least 1 million. Extrapolating from the numbes of found in mass graves since Saddam’s regime fell it seems that at 300,00 Kurds, Shia Arab Muslims and other dissidents were killed in reprisal for the uprising.

I and many others have very good reason to hate and despise Saddam’s followers.

I was wounded in the fighting and we had learned that I had been recognised and was being sought by officers of the Third Directorate of the Mukhabarat. That I am alive today is because a brave friend hid me, treated my injuries, and then arranged for me to be smuggled out of the country. My wife and young family were not so lucky as me. They were seized by men from the Mukhabarat as they fled from our home, they were tortured by the Mukhabarat and killed. Years later when they had tracked me down, Saddam’s Mukhabarat arranged for a tape of my wife and family’s screams begging their torturers to kill them to be sent to me. I still do not know where they are buried.

I have as I say very good reason to hate and despise Saddam’s followers – and I do.  But there is as Fatih Abdulsalam rightly says "a big difference between “Saddamists” and “Baathists”". There is a big difference between Saddamists, (who were mostly secularists), and Sunni Muslims. In any case as anybody with a shred of honesty will tell you many of Saddam’s most ardent supporters were from a Shia background.

For the sake of short term political advantage the current political powers that be are trying to ram through yet another political measure aimed at disenfranchising not so much at Sunni Muslims per se as at secularists who mostly come from a Sunni background. In doing so they risk turning our country into a jigsaw of warring cantons. This is why the conflicts over Kirkuk, Mosul, and the other parts of Irak that are sometimes called "disputed areas" are heating up. Various groups are jostling for advantage in the struggles that will take place when (and if) the Americans leave.

Once withdrawn, local forces will take over, and Iraq’s file will no longer be of international interest. It will be purely a domestic affair.

The possibility of a coup in these circumstances will be even higher. But no plotter and no coup would have the ability to spread control across the country. Coups will only have dominance over certain regions.

Source: Fatih Abdulsalam:  Will there be a coup d’état in Iraq? (4)

"Coups will only have dominance over certain regions" or in other words the breakup of my country. The thing that the American invaders have wanted and worked so hard for. It falls to all of us who love our country to prevent this.

Ali 

Extracts and Links

Fatih Abdulsalam:  Will there be a coup d’état in Iraq?

"The staging of a coup d’état is still there in the minds of some politicians but the possibility of its success is no longer there in Iraq, a high senior government official has been reported as saying…. read in full   03/02/2010

Fatih Abdulsalam:  Will there be a coup d’état in Iraq? (2)

The place of military coups in Iraqi political life, as I said earlier, needs more than one article. The reason is the fear that what now looks like a possibility will sooner or later turn into reality.p… read in full   04/02/2010

Fatih Abdulsalam:  Will there be a coup d’état in Iraq? (3)

Politics is like football. The winner is only declared at the end of the game. But in football, the game is time-limited. In politics it is timeless…. read in full   05/02/2010

Fatih Abdulsalam:  Will there be a coup d’état in Iraq? (4)

There are two possible scenarios when talking about the specter of a coup in Iraq in the aftermath of the U.S. occupation of the country…. read in full   06/02/2010

First an extract from the Sunday Times’ article How this suicide bomber opened a new front in Al-Qaeda’s war:

The man they were waiting for was a 32-year-old Jordanian doctor called Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi.

He was driving across the border from Pakistan where he had spent a year becoming close to Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s Egyptian deputy. That morning, Wednesday December 30, Balawi had been picked up at the Ghulam Khan border crossing by an Afghan army commander called Arghawan, who was in charge of security at the Chapman base. The pair drove to the village of Mermandi, near Khost in south-eastern Afghanistan, where at about 12.30pm they were met by Arghawan’s driver.

…  …  …

As Balawi stepped out of the car, seven CIA officers and a handful of soldiers gathered around. According to the guard, it was then that Balawi detonated his bomb, killing eight and injuring six.

Arghawan, still sitting in the driver’s seat, survived the initial blast but a US soldier shot him in the head with his pistol, assuming that he was part of the bomb plot.

“There were lots of body parts,” said the guard. “The suicide bomber’s legs were all that was left of him. He had hidden the bomb beneath his pattu.”

Source:  How this suicide bomber opened a new front in Al-Qaeda’s war – Times Online [emphasis added].

If you want a perfect example of how the American military loses wars it’s sitting there staring you in the face. In that one throwaway sentence giving one little detail in a relatively lengthy report sits the perfect example of how unreasoning American military brutality is busily engaged in losing the war in Afghanistan, gaining America and Americans lots more enemies, and losing America and Americans allies. It’s worth repeating — "Arghawan, still sitting in the driver’s seat, survived the initial blast but a US soldier shot him in the head with his pistol, assuming that he was part of the bomb plot."

Arghawan

If you read the Times’ report in full you’ll learn that:

1. Arghawan was "an Afghan army commander" who was "in charge of security" at the FOB¹ Chapman.
2. He was of sufficient rank to command the services of a driver.
3. That the CIA commander in the base trusted him enough for him to be told that he was to meet al-Balawi and bring him to the base a week ahead of time (from Ghulam Khan border crossing to FOB Chapman is about a 2 hour drive).
4. That he knew al-Balawi and trusted him.
5. That he was known to al-Balawi who trusted him in return.
6. That he possessed sufficient tradecraft to take at least one anti-surveillance measure that we know of.

Being only a humble bomb disposal officer with several successful tours of duty both in Irak and in Afghanistan under my belt I make no claims to being an expert either in military intelligence nor do I claim to be anything other than reasonably well informed on Afghanistan. Nevertheless a big part of my job is ensuring the survival of the men under my command by not unessarily brutalising or offending the locals and being able to recognise patterns in a seemingly chaotic environment. A side-benefit of having being promoted is that I have had some military intelligence and counter-intelligence training. I have always been reasonably proficient at activity analysis.

Having issued all the required disclaimers and caveats I will say that I’ll eat my beret, epaulettes, ribbons and boots if, given 1-5 above, Arghawan was "just" an Afghan army commander. I’d drop dead with shock if Arghawan was just an "Afghan army commander". The evidence above leads me to strongly suspect that Arghawan was at the very least a middle-ranking officer in the Afghan intelligence service — the Amaniyat.²

Not Your Average Grunt

So what have we got?

We’ve got a US soldier acting as a guard in the inner ring of a secured CIA operated FOB in one of the trickier to deal with provinces of Afghanistan.

Now this US soldier wouldn’t be just an average grunt. Not with that posting. He’d be an experienced soldier and almost certainly would have at least some counter-intelligence and counterinsurgency training. It is also almost certain that in the unlikely event of him not being a special forces soldier that he would at the very least have had some fairly intensive special forces training.

In short neither this soldier nor his comrades in FOB Chapman would be "average grunts". They’d be both experienced and well-trained and expected to behave as well-trained experienced professionals in a crisis.

Assault, Treachery & Criminally Stupid Incompetence

What cirumstances do we have?

A fortress (which is what an FOB is) can be penetrated by the enemy either by assault, treachery, or both. In this case the fortress was penetrated by treachery and subjected to a devastatingly successful attack. The "US soldier" was understandably upset. And (being understandably upset) he responded in the unthinkingly violent manner known and despised by America’s enemies and allies alike the world over. He assumed that Arghawan who had somehow survived the blast³  was part of the plot and "shot him in the head with his pistol".

Even if the US Soldier’s assumption was correct and Arghawan was party to the conspiracy it was an act of criminal stupidity to kill him. There are lots of reasons why shooting Arghawan dead was an act of of criminally stupid incompetence. I’ve listed some of them below, they’re not in any particular order, doubtless you can think of others.

Let’s assume Arghawan was part of the plot to penetrate the base:

• Killing him meant that there was no possiblilty of interrogating him. There is therefore no possibility of finding out why he didn’t search al-Balawi.
• The opportunity to glean intelligence information from Arghawan about the bomber’s last hours is gone.
• There is no possibility of finding out from him whether, like al-Balawi, he was in fact an operative for the Taliban.
• If he was an operative for the Taliban there is now no possibility of finding out:
  • Who turned him and how.
  • There is now no possibility of finding out whether his service was penetrated by the Taliban and if so the extent of penetration
  • There is now no possibility of finding out who his contacts were.
  • There is now no possibility of discovering who his controller was.
  • There is now no possibility of discovering how he eluded discovery.
• It’s a war crime to kill the wounded.
• It’s a war crime to kill the enemy without giving them the chance to surrender.

Let’s assume Arghawan was NOT part of the plot to penetrate the base:

• It’s a bad idea to kill your allies just because your massive security and operational failings have resulted in disaster.
• The opportunity to glean intelligence information from Arghawan about the bomber’s last hours is gone.
• Arghawan’s comrades are unlikely to be pleased with this further display of how little their lives are valued by Americans.
• It’s a war crime to kill the wounded.
• It’s a war crime to kill suspects without giving them the chance to surrender.

I remember once seeing on late-night television the 1958 film  "I Accuse!" about the  Dreyfus Affair. In it there’s a sequence in which Dreyfus is publicly disgraced as being unfit to bear arms for his country. He is paraded in front of his comrades and other soldiers and has to stand still while another officer rips off the buttons and epaulettes from his uniform, confiscates his sword and breaks it over his knee.

I hope they do a lot more than that to this soldier whose unthinking need for revenge meant that he committed a war crime and threw away vital intelligence information. I hope they court-martial him first for being a war criminal and then court-martial him again being criminally stupid and incompetent. I hope that they parade him in front of his regiment and publicly chop his fucking balls off pour encourager les autres.

du