Karen Button Dispatches

Upcoming Reading

2010-08-23T15:05:00.000-07:00

For the past two+ years my time has been devoted to helping with an organization called the Iraqi Student Project, acting as big sister to two young Iraqi women attending university in California and as coordinator to a solidarity group formed to provide financial, academic and cultural support.

They are each solidly on their individual paths, Farah leaning toward the intersection of political science and the unique issues women and children face, Meena leaning toward the humanities and psychology. Each are extraordinary women in their own right and it's a privilege to watch them evolve.

During this time I've been working in new directions with my writing, exploring essays in non-fiction journalism.

I'm currently in Fairbanks, Alaska where I'll be doing a reading of some of these works in collaboration with author and friend, Katey Schultz. The theme of these works is the human side of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. If you're in Fairbanks at the end of August, come join us!

Karen Button & Katey Schultz present their works of non-fiction journalism and short-story fiction:

Monday, August 30 at 7p

Forget-Me-Not Books

517 Gaffney Road, Fairbanks

(in connection with the Literacy Council of Alaska)

Update on Iraqi Refugees

2008-07-14T13:35:00.001-07:00

Please visit: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/28238 for an hour long discussion with myself and Raising Sand Radio's host Susan Galleymore on the latest situation with Iraq's refugees from the US-led occupation in their country.

~Karen

Sabbitical

2007-06-21T17:43:00.000-07:00

I am on sabbatical for research. Thanks, everyone who's contacted me and offered up your thoughts, feedback and encouragement. I should begin posting again in June 2008.
~Karen

Iraqi Refugees Live in Lebanon’s Shadows

2007-05-10T02:35:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

In the crowded Christian neighborhood of Sad el-Bouchrieh Amer chain-smokes cigarettes in the small one-bedroom apartment where his family of five now live. His wife, Nadwal, and their three sons listen silently while he recounts their harrowing escape from Iraq to Lebanon. “We were fortunate even to have arrived here,” he says, though the life is far from easy. Once a shop owner, Amer now feels lucky just to have a delivery job in a country where he is not legally allowed to work. He earns $10 USD a day.

As Christians living in Basra, life before the US-invasion was not easy, says Amer. After the invasion, it became a hell.

“Under Saddam, we lived downtrodden. But circumstances after the invasion became unbearable. Sadr’s forces took over the city and immediately the threats began.”

Amer owned a liquor store that quickly became a target of Moqtada Sadr’s Mehdi forces. One day, the militia drove by shooting into his store and a customer was killed. Amer quickly sold everything and closed the store. He then found a job with an Italian NGO that was providing aid to refugees who’d fled Saudi Arabia and Iran, where he worked for nearly three years.

But the intimidation continued. Threatening letters were dropped at the door of the Christian family, accusing them of being “dirty non-believers.” Nadwal took to wearing the hijab in public, removing it when she would enter the church. Then, Amer began to be warned about working with foreigners. After sending messages to his cell and calling him at home, the militia began following Amer until the day they caught up with him.

“I was giving a ride to some friends and my youngest son was with me in the car. We were followed and suddenly they began shooting at the car. I yelled for my son to get down on the floor. One of my friends was shot in the shoulder and I was shot here,” he says, pulling up his shirt to reveal a long, thick scar on his chest. “Then, they shot the gas tank and the car was in flames!”

Fortunately, a British patrol was nearby and heard the gunshots. When they showed up, the militia members fled.

“My son’s legs were completely burned. We were taken to the hospital, but we couldn’t even get complete medical care. There was a shortage of drugs and the hospital had been taken over, pictures of Saddam replaced by Sadr. I didn’t feel safe there because they can follow you even into the hospital and shoot you in your bed. No one can stop them!”

They were taken to a friend’s medical clinic where the bullet lodged in Amer’s chest was finally extracted and his son’s burns treated. Terrified, the family fled their house that night, accepting the protection of a Muslim friend. The friend helped find a new car and the family fled for Mosul, where they had relatives, two days later.

“I was nine months pregnant,” Nadwal adds quietly. “I gave birth in Mosul, but the baby was completely deformed and died immediately…” she trails off with tears in her eyes.

On top of this, Nadwal’s relatives urged them to leave, frightened themselves. Christians have been targeted and persecuted by militias in Iraq, driving most to flee. “They told us they couldn’t even protect themselves. But, we had no documents and didn’t know what to do. We were so scared and so stressed,” Amer continues.

After staying just 3 days, with Nadwal, Amer, and their son still recovering, the family of 5 decided to flee to Lebanon, where Amer had a cousin. With their life savings of $4,000 on them, they left early one December morning with a smuggler who promised to get them into Syria for $200 each.

After successfully entering Syria, the family nearly at the Lebanese border when they were stopped and arrested by the mukhabarat (intelligence). “They beat me and my [eldest] son very badly. I begged them to just hit me because this boy had never been touched in his life, but they didn’t listen,” Amer says sadly. “When I told them I had stitches in my chest, they hit me there, too. This was all in front of my family. I’ve never been so humiliated before.”

Amer and Nadwal had both hidden their remaining money on their bodies, which the police quickly found when searching Amer.

“I was so scared they would search me too,” Nadwal adds. “This was all our savings.”

“I was about to collapse from the beatings when they found the money,” Amer continues. “At that point, they stopped the beating and forced me to sign papers that we would return to Iraq. They told me to forget about the money, to leave and talk to no one. They said if they caught us at the border again, ‘I knew what would happen’. I was covered in blood with cotton in my nose when we arrived in Damascus.”

Still without documents, the family’s last hope was with another smuggler who promised to get them into Lebanon. After paying $150 per person, they were driven to the base of a mountain where, after an arduous 7-hour uphill trek in the mud, they had safely crossed.

The family arrived to the cousin’s house exhausted and still recovering from wounds and childbirth. But, they had arrived.

Now, a year and a half later, they have registered with UNHCR and are hoping for resettlement. Meanwhile, none of the children are attending school. The two eldest boys, a 16- and 14-year old, both work to help support the family. The youngest, still traumatized by the shooting incident in which he was burned, refuses to go, unwilling to be separated from his family.

“Thankfully, we are all still together and we’re still alive, because many Iraqis don’t even have that,” says Amer. “But, I had to quit school in order to support my family. Now,” he says sadly, “this is happening with my eldest son and he was the smartest kid in his school before.”

For the first time, Saymon, the eldest speaks up from across the room. “We’ve suffered everywhere, in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon. I feel that I’ve never seen a good day, and I wish for more.”

Shaking his head, Amer adds, “I can’t believe I used to help the refugees and now we are refugees ourselves.”

While the family hopes for resettlement elsewhere, they live in Beirut very cautiously. Like other Iraqis in Lebanon, they live mostly under cover for fear of being arrested and deported.

Lebanon, like Syria and Jordan, is not signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which gives recognition and legal status to those seeking a safe haven. Christians especially have fled to Lebanon, where they are 15 percent of the Iraqi population compared to just three percent in Iraq.

Iraqis can still sometimes obtain a one-month tourist visa either at the border or from the Lebanese Embassy in Baghdad, but it cannot be extended. Most are smuggled across the border, which Lebanon recently reinforced with a 7,000-troop presence. As a result, the majority of Iraqi refugees are in Lebanon illegally, where they are referred to as “illegal migrants”. If they are caught, they are jailed, then sent back to Iraq.

Fearful of being stopped at military checkpoints, numerous since last year’s war, or randomly by police, who then send them to jail where they await deportation, most Iraqis are living in the shadows.

Amer says he and his family all stick close to home and rarely leave their neighborhood. “If I’m stopped at a checkpoint, they’ll arrest me. It happens all the time, and to people that I’ve known.” Even on their street they don’t always feel safe. “There are frequent fights here and one night the police filled the streets when I was on my way home. I was alone and just hid until they finally left. I arrived home hours late and my family had no idea where I was.”

“I was terrified he’d been arrested,” says Nadwal. “Sometimes when there’s fighting in the streets we just lock ourselves in the house to be safe because we’re here illegally. We arrived here safely, alhamdullallah, but we live in a prison.”

Cluster Bombs Southern Lebanon’s Only Harvest this Year

2007-05-04T22:01:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

Aita al-Shaab, Southern Lebanon—Beautiful rolling hills, verdant and fertile, are dotted with olive groves and family tobacco farms in this small village on the border between Lebanon and Israel.

It was here that Hizballah captured the two Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers that kicked off last year’s July-August war. And it was here that some of the fiercest street battles raged as remaining locals joined Hizballah to fight Israeli troops. Most of the buildings still standing are scarred with pockmarks; Aita al-Shaab’s old city is remains mostly flattened, bulldozed by Israeli troops.

As dawn breaks over a ridge separating the 2km distance between Lebanon and Israel, UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) outposts glint in the early morning sun. This morning the busy sounds of reconstruction, funded primarily by Qatar, but also by Hizballah (Iran is funding road construction in the region), begins early as migrant Syrian construction workers emerge from the partially destroyed buildings where they’ve encamped.

But in the valleys below the city, rich, red dirt lies fallow even though Aita al-Shaab is an agricultural village. Fields above the town go ungrazed. Since last summer, after Israel dropped about one million cluster bombs in southern Lebanon alone—up to 40 percent of which the United Nations Mine Action Clearing Center (MACC) estimates lie unexploded--most farmers and shepherds have been too afraid to go onto their lands.

Israel has been heavily criticized for dropping 90 percent of the 2-3 million cluster bombs used throughout Lebanon during the last 72 hours of the war, after a cease-fire was agreed upon.

MACC is heading up clearing, but has a long way to go.

Thus far, 60 teams from UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon) and private companies have cleared about 10 percent (110,000) of the unexploded munitions. Focus has been on population centers, but fields, forests, and grasslands are much harder to clear. The Israeli government has refused to turn over maps where cluster bombs were dropped, making clearing more time-consuming…and dangerous. Teams are also clearing 400,000 land mines; some are leftovers from previous wars, MACC reports, and some were planted last summer by Israeli troops.

Cluster bomb attacks part of larger plan?

Many I spoke with, like eco-system management and food sovereignty expert Rami Zurayk, believe that the Israeli government’s bombardment is a deliberate attempt to separate people from their lands.

“What’s kept people in southern Lebanon for the past 60 years of neo-liberal policy,” he explains, referring to the time period since creation of the State of Israel, “is their profound attachment to the land. I believe it is Israel’s long-term strategy to create the conditions for displacement, just as they have done in Palestine.”

Nearby Beint Jbeil, also intensely bombed last summer, is a case in point says Amer Sadadin of Samidoun, a volunteer network that delivered aid to southern villages after the war. Prior to 1948, Beint Jbeil was the region’s largest city with 54,000 residents, he says, but from years of occupation the majority fled elsewhere.

“Beint Jbeil now has only 4,000 people. In the ‘70s many of these villages were destroyed and people moved to cities like Sour (Tyre). Israel is killing life in the villages,” asserts Sadadin.

“The fact that the [Israeli government’s] cleansing operation of South Lebanon is being carried out under the cover of the ‘war on terrorism’ allows the international community to turn a blind eye to it,” Zurayk maintains.

Comparatively, little reconstruction is taking place in Beint Jbeil; much of the city still lies in a ruin of twisted metal and piles of rubble. The Lebanese government is pushing residents in Beint Jbeil and elsewhere to rebuild with modernized buildings and wider roads, something many local residents refuse.

“The problem is people are being encouraged to bulldoze and build bigger,” says Sadadin. “It’s a problem when money comes in with these pre-conditions. Old cities are a maze of history, each stone represents a memory, a relationship to historical continuity. This is exactly what we’re trying to preserve.”

Samidoun is now in Aita al-Shaab with volunteer architects who are helping residents rebuild their original homes, while restoring the old city.

Farmers separated from their lands

Aita al-Shaab, as other agricultural villages in southern Lebanon, is suffering huge economic losses from their inability to farm.

Hadjia Habiba has 8,000 square meters of land that have been passed down through generations. Her lands are in parcels scattered on the outskirts of the village. Now in her seventies, Hadjia Habiba has farmed all her life and, like many here, she is economically dependent on her fields.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), agriculture makes up at least 70 percent of the economy in southern Lebanon.

Residents in Aita al-Shaab say their economy is 80-90 percent dependent on agriculture, primarily tobacco and olives.

Some of Hadjia Habiba’s lands are in Kallit Warda, where the Israeli soldiers were taken; the area still guarded by Israeli troops and she hasn’t been allowed there since last summer.

“I didn’t harvest this year at all,” she laments. With hundreds of thousands of bomblets littering the fields, no one dared enter and the crops all rotted. Normally, farmers would be planting at this time, instead the fields are quiet.

“We’re still waiting for people to check for cluster bombs, which means I also can’t plant, so there won’t be any harvest this year again either. I live from the tobacco harvest 100 percent. My husband died, so this is how I’ve raised my children.”

Shaking her head, Hadjia Habiba says she doesn't know what she is going to do for income.

Millions of dollars in loans have been given to Aita al-Shaab’s tobacco farmers, the only crop the government helps subsidize. About 80 percent of the farmlands here are used for tobacco since it is also the only crop that guarantees an income.

People here expressed anger and frustration with the government for its lack of support. “There’s no compensation from the government for our loss this year!” exclaims Hadjia Sara, another tobacco farmer who worries what will happen when she and others are unable to pay their loans. “Next year, we will have double the payments, plus interest. If we can’t pay, they could take our lands. What is the government doing?”

Farmers estimated only 25-30 percent of Aita al-Shaab’s farmlands are being planted this year, and out of those, only about 25 percent of what is normally planted.

About $280 million from agriculture and fisheries were lost as a result of last summer’s aggressions. Southern Lebanon and southern Beirut, the areas hardest hit by air strikes, are home to the some of the country’s poorest. Its majority are Shi’a.

The FAO plans to set up a farming assistance office in the south, but needs an additional $17 million in order to provide direct aid like replacement of livestock killed.

But, it’s not just economics that have hurt farming communities like this one, the social fabric has also been damaged. “Everyone helps to harvest each other’s lands, take the tobacco to the drying rooms, and then harvest the next field, ” says Hadjia Zahra. “It was a collective effort, part of our village life. Now, we sit in our homes and don’t go out. Only half the people have returned. We are still in a state of mourning.”

Of the 800-900 homes destroyed, about half have been rebuilt. The 7,000 or so people who’ve returned are crowded together, living with their families until their homes are completed.

The killing continues

Meanwhile, since the bombing stopped last August, some 200 people have been injured and another 30 killed from cluster bombs. Many referred to them as “anti-children” mines because their bright colors attract youngsters, who don’t understand their danger.

In September, three children from Aita al-Shaab were severely injured when a cluster bomb went off. Um Hassan's son was one of them.

“Two of the little village girls had gone back to their home and they found a dead fighter inside, still covered in blood,” says Um Hassan. “Cluster bombs had been planted around his body as a booby trap. Thinking they were toys, the girls picked one up and went into the street to play. My son saw them and recognized the bomb from the [educational] posters. When he told them to throw it away, they panicked and threw it at his feet where it exploded.”

All the children were badly injured, but Um Hassan’s son was the worst. Just 10 years old, his abdomen was completely ripped open, his intestines spilling out. He spent the next several months undergoing four operations. Hassan is finally back to attending school, says Um Hassan, but his condition is still fragile; remaining shrapnel in his stomach makes her son vulnerable to infection.

Another woman spoke of a nearby villager who was killed when harvesting his olives. “He pulled on the branches and a cluster bomb fell on his head,” she says sadly.

Fortunately, these have been the only accidents here, but they are reminders of the dangers that await farmers and their children on uncleared lands.

While the MACC forces are working hard to remove remaining cluster bombs, they say farmlands and forested areas are the most difficult to clear. Bomblets hide in tall grasses and in branches of trees and wash down hills after rains to re-contaminate areas already cleared.

“This has a big psychological effect,” says Sadadin. “Some friends and I went for walk when the spring flowers came, but there was a constant fear inside.”

“Children here are thinking about the war more than the classroom,” said another villager. “Israel wants peace, but they want us to pay for it.”

Resistance takes many forms

Yet, despite the constant fears of unexploded ordnance and another Israeli attack, residents are resolute about staying in Aita al-Shaab.

Aita –al-Shaab is infamous for holding off Israeli forces last summer during three separate attacks, and people are proud of this fact. They say their resolve is even firmer than before. But for the people here, resistance is far more than just fighting.

Having watched other villages evacuated over the decades, residents say they will not abandon Aita al-Shaab.

“They tried to destroy us,” exclaims Hadjia Zahra, of the Israeli forces, “but we’re not leaving! Some of us came back when the Israelis were still here. This war, people ran away, next time we’ll stay!”

When I asked one olive farmer if she is scared to harvest, she shakes her head determinedly and says no. “I’ve learned how to identify them, so I’m not afraid. And if I’m killed, then I will just join the martyrs already in heaven,” she says, referring to those who died defending the village. Defying her fears of the cluster bombs is this woman’s form of resistance.

“The memory of occupation is strong here,” says Sadadin. “Weapons are one tool, but resistance is also something social. Just staying on your land is a form of resistance and people here understand that.”

Iraq: A Blueprint for Peace

2007-04-28T15:22:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

Beirut - “The US talks about withdrawal after bringing Iraqi security forces up to speed, yet has paid militias, allowed mercenaries, and, with few exceptions, ignored the blatant abuses and torture committed by Iraqi forces. They have ignored rampant corruption within all ministries, the most egregious resulting in a medical crisis and a judicial joke. They have also committed their own atrocities, ensuring that the new Iraq is riddled with violence, fear, and contempt for the occupying forces.”

Thus starts a new peace plan entitled Planning Iraq’s Future: A detailed project to rebuild post-liberation Iraq. The 250-page book was written over the past two years by 108 Iraqis that consciously included Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, Assyrian Christians, Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, and other minorities. Two-thirds of the Iraqis still reside inside the country, the other third, outside.

Unlike some other plans, like that put forward in January by Ali Allawi, former Iraqi Defense Minister and current advisor to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, none of the Iraqis who worked on this plan have ties to the current government.

That’s important, maintain authors of the new initiative. Precisely because the new Iraqi government is backed by occupation forces means it will never hold legitimacy in the eyes of Iraqi citizens and always be a target by resistance forces, says Dr. Khair El-Din Haseeb, Director General of Beirut’s Center for Arab Unity Studies, the Arab world’s most prominent think-tank and sponsor of the project.

The imperative for Iraqis to re-gain control of their country is what fueled the broad-based plan, says Haseeb, who also edited the book. The project, “is a ‘Road Map’ for the liberation of Iraq; a blueprint to a new, liberated, independent, sovereign and democratic Iraq,” he writes in the introduction.

“This plan proposes a direction for the future of Iraq,” explained co-author Dr. AbdulKarim Hani, while in Damascus. “We’ve been asked many times what is the political program of the resistance. Well, this is it.”

Signatories on the plan represent thousands of Iraqis, the authors say, because many of them speak for larger groups. Hani, for example, is with the Iraqi National Foundation Congress (INFC), a broad coalition of Iraqi political, intellectual, religious, and ethnic forces formed in 2004 to defuse sectarian and ethnic divisions.

“This occupation came out of13 years of the worst sanctions the world has seen. Now, we have had four years of even worse suffering. These are the conditions under which this document was written,” explains Hani, who himself finally fled Iraq for Cairo a year and a half ago.

“I don’t like being called a refugee and Iraqis shouldn’t have to be. Yet there are millions who’ve had to leave their homes. To call it a ‘problem’ is too minor; I call it a catastrophe. Every person I’ve met hasn’t left Iraq for pleasure, it’s because they had to. This means, very obviously, the occupation in Iraq has failed! It is imperative for the Iraqi people to have our voice.”

Numerous plans for Iraqi’s future have also been written by other groups opposed to the occupation. Some, like that written by the Association of Muslim Scholars, a powerful Sunni clerics’ organisation, have been submitted to the United Nations. A high-level meeting, planned for next month, will bring together “non-aligned” (those opposed to occupation) representatives from all the different Iraqi projects and form a single agenda.

“In that plan we will also include draft laws to address sectarianism and education,” explains Haseeb. “Among the groups there are contacts with [armed] resistance groups, so we have their agreement as well.”

“We are forming a very broad unified resistance front that represents the will of the Iraqi people,” says Hana Ibrahim, co-author and director of the Baghdad-based NGO Women’s Will. “We are growing very large, so maybe we won’t agree on every detail, but we don’t need to. We can put these aside for now to agree on the most important points, ending the occupation of our country. What’s important a unified resistance front.”

“At that point,” Haseeb reveals, “we can include people both inside and outside of Iraq and we will work together, not just the elite, but at the grassroots. We will have a dedicated website where people and organisations from around the world can register their support.”

The distinction between Iraq’s resistance and other armed groups is critical, contends Haseeb, yet a serious lack of analysis exists in the majority of Western media. Mostly, he says, all armed groups are wrongly lumped together under the umbrella of “insurgent.”

“The [armed] resistance does not attack innocent people and condemns all violence directed at civilians. Their targets are the occupation forces. The Iraqi resistance, whether armed or political, is legally-sanctioned under international law.” This point, Haseeb argues, is frequently missing in most media and completey ignored by the Bush Adminstration.

“We understand there’s been a vacuum of political resistance,” he acknowledges, “and this [plan] will fill that vacuum.”

The main points in Planning Iraq’s Future includes:

Unequivocal 6-month US and other foreign troop withdrawal, to include all military bases;
Iraqi National Resistance will declare a ceasefire, while keeping their arms, until the final withdrawal, after which all militias and resistance will be dissolved;
Annulment of the current political process;
Installation of interim Prime Minister nominated by non-occupation-aligned political and resistance groups, under UN auspices, for two years;
Temporary peace-keeping forces installed, with consultation of the United Nations, from Arab nations that did not cooperate with US/UK invasion;
Laws convening parliamentary elections would be enacted and elections held within two years;
Army and other security forces not allowed in the political process;
Non-aligned persons nominated to supervise transparent elections, with oversight by selected internationals (former South African president Nelson Mandela and former US president Jimmy Carter are both named);
Members of the interim government would not be allowed to participate in new elections;
Reformation of Iraqi Army (not a return of the former).

Importantly, the initiative also proposes a draft constitution, written by 200 academics, which maintains national unity, addresses oil rights, and guarantees civil and social rights. The rights of women are explicitly included.

“The plan is not perfect when it comes to women’s rights, but it is much, much better than what we have now. It gives us back what we had before,” says Ibrahim from Women’s Will. “And, we must first end the occupation to end the violence. It really doesn’t matter how many rights women do or don’t have if we can’t even walk down the streets in safety or attend school.”

A plan for Iraq is important, Haseeb says, because, “the political process [in Iraq] is crumbling. We have coalitions of [local] governments rather than a central one and the ministers are all living in the Green Zone, meaning they have no access to the ministries they are supposed to run. We know the Ministry of Interior has been penetrated by militias—at least by 80 percent, the Army by at least 50 percent. That means the Americans cannot hand over security to the Iraqi forces as planned.

“They [the Americans] argue without the US Army the civil war will grow. This is nonsense! Even the Pentagon says that resistance attacks have increased by 68 percent and this is against the US military. If the US withdraws, violence would obviously decrease. It’s simple math.”

In March Haseeb sent the plan to members of the British Parliament and the US Congress, among others. “We received acknowledgement from 24 members of the House of Commons showing interest, but so far there’s been nothing from the US Congress.

“I personally prefer to work out a plan for withdrawal with the American forces in Iraq, but with the grave mistakes they’ve made in the past, we can’t count on their rationality.

“Any extension or increase in Iraq will be at the cost of American and Iraqi lives. We need to make Mr. Bush understand this. Despite his security plan, at the end of this month it will be the highest number of casualties yet.”

April has been the deadliest month this year with 100 Americans and 12 British killed. The US military does not record Iraqi civilian deaths and the Iraqi government refuses to release civilian death counts. Estimates put the number of Iraqis killed in April well over 1,000.

“I’m more hopeful than at any time before that the Americans will withdraw,” concludes Haseeb. “They have three choices, go big, go slow, or go home.”

Escaping Baghdad for Damascus: Last Hope for Iraqi Refugees

2007-04-19T07:32:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

Damascus--At the Al-Tanaf border crossing into Syria long lines of trucks, buses and American-made SUVs loaded with luggage sit idle while their passengers fill the customs offices waiting for permission to cross the frontier. Hundreds of Iraqis mill about the windy desert outpost waiting hours for their documents to be processed so they can enter one of the last countries to offer them safety from Iraq’s escalating violence.

The mood at the border is one of great weariness, mixed with sadness and plenty of resentment. “Why did you come to destroy my country?” demanded one man angrily. “I had to leave everything behind! Why don't the Americans just leave us!”

Many of the women here are wearing a black abaya, signaling they are in mourning. Um Abdullah pulls hers closer against the cold as she sits on the concrete steps in front of the building with her daughter and grandchildren waiting for her name to be called. “My two sons were killed in Baghdad,” she says shaking her head sorrowfully. “The other one who is in Syria begged us to leave. We didn’t want to go. It’s our home, but what can we do? Syria is our last hope.” Her daughter says she was a teacher in the capital city, but refuses to say anything else. “She is too afraid,” observes Um Abdullah.

Like most other Iraqis here, Um Abdullah paid her driver $400 for a seat in one of the six-passenger vehicles that brought her to Al-Tanaf. The 550km road between Baghdad and Damascus is fraught with danger; most drive only in daylight for fear of being looted, kidnapped or killed.

Hamid, one of the drivers, jokes about highway security checkpoints. “What has the Iraqi Army done to protect the road? They now use the head of the gangs . We really thank them because now the gangs are using uniforms so it’s easy to tell who they are,” he says sarcastically. “They have been given a police car and a uniform, so of course they will abuse it. One with this habit won’t quit. I witness this daily! The Americans do nothing. I’ll tell you what happened to me .”

While transporting passengers to Syria recently, Hamid says, “I was stopped by security police who were driving a GMC with luggage on top for cover. They were demanding our money when the Americans passed by and witnessed what was happening. When they questioned them, the police apologized and said they were trying to loot us just to make the local mujahadin think they were with them. Then they showed their badges to the Americans and everyone left.”

Fear the unifying factor
The incident highlights deeper issues driving the Iraqi exodus. With security forces part of the problem in a country fragmented by violence, fear is the unifying factor for the tens of thousands of Iraqis who run from their homes each month.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) up to 50,000 Iraqis flee monthly, about 10,000 of them seeking refuge outside the country.

At least 4 million Iraqis are now displaced in what Refugees International has termed the “fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world.” At least1.9 million Iraqis have escaped to neighboring communities inside Iraq, the rest have fled the country altogether. The Iraqi exodus is the largest movement of people in the region since the 1948 creation of Israel displaced millions of Palestinians, according to the UN.

Accurate figures on the number who’ve escaped Iraq is impossible to determine since only a fraction actually register with the UNHCR. In Syria for example, where the refugee agency says 1.2 million Iraqis have sought safe haven, only 72,000 have thus far registered. The Syrian government puts the number at 1.5 million, while aid organization estimates say there are closer to 2 million. The UN refugee agency expects 200,000 more Iraqis to arrive Syria by the end of the year.

As many as 4 million Iraqis are thought to have fled to countries throughout the region. Besides Syria and Jordan—where the UN puts the number at 750,000 and unofficial numbers estimate 1 million—Iraqis have also sought refuge in Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, the Gulf States, and Iran. All but Syria have effectively shut their doors.

In response some 60 nations attended a UNHCR-sponsored conference in Geneva this week to address the humanitarian crisis engulfing the Middle East. The Iraqi government pledged $25 million to assist the refugee support offices, while those countries hosting Iraqis promised to continue providing asylum, reported the UNHCR, whose aim was to elevate international attention to the disaster.

But in Jordan and Syria, where resources are already beleaguered, the strain is growing. Escalating rental prices reflect housing shortages. In Jordan Iraqis now make up nearly one-fifth of the population and officials have randomly closed their borders since November, leaving Syria the only sure exit route.

“We do thank the Syrian government,” smiles 65-year old Um Abdullah wearily as her family finally receives their documents and she gets up to leave for an uncertain future in Damascus. As she walks away another wave of new arrivals trudge across the wind-blown lot toward the customs building, clutching their travel documents in the waning light. They fill out pink entry forms, hand them over to officals, then are told to wait outside until another official calls their name from a small side window where hundreds of others also wait. And so the process continues, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, wave after wave of Iraqis seeking asylum.

Several hundred Palestinians from Iraq are not so fortunate. Some 350 are stuck in the Al-Tanaf camp just across the border in the so-called No Man’s Land, Syria refusing their entry. Another 300 are stranded in the Al-Hol camp just this side of Syria’s northern border with Iraq. Syria has been heavily criticized for allowing Iraqi nationals refuge while denying Palestinians targeted by sectarian Shi’a militias in Baghdad. Over half of the 30,000 Palestinians once in Baghdad have fled.

Seeking help not easy
Outside the sprawling month-old UNHCR facility in Damascus’s Douma district, close to two thousand Iraqis are lined up to gain an appointment for registration with the agency. Most began arriving at 6am, some slept overnight on the dusty pavement, blackened ground marking where last night’s warming fires burned.

Iraqis coming to Syria have escalated in recent months. According to Laurens Jolle, UNHCR representative for Syria, about 30,000 Iraqis arrive Syria monthly. “There are up to 4,000 people a day at the border and these numbers are increasing. One day in February 8,000 came to our offices. But, the exact number is not important,” he insists. “The real issue is for the international community to acknowledge and address the problem. Six months ago we had a huge number and there was little concern. Now, at least, there is some attention to the situation.”

In response to the humanitarian crisis, the UN allocated an additional $60 million to address the problem. But UNHCR Syria, which serves the largest number of displaced Iraqis in the region, received only $14 million, a little over $1 per person.

Another aid worker who spoke on condition of anonymity put it this way, “I believe there was a reticence and delay by authorities, even by the UNHCR, to acknowledge the situation. Nobody really cares about the human rights in the Arab world. All we have to do is look at the Palestinians and the Lebanese.”

Arriving Iraqis are encouraged by UNHCR to register with them, entitling the family to free medical care, access to services through the few aid agencies such as Caritas, and identifies the particulars for their situation. “We identify those who are most vulnerable,” says Jolle. “Unaccompanied minors, victims of torture, female heads of households and the disabled are all prioritized for protection,” he says, which includes seeking a sponsor country for asylum. “The most important thing is that they stay here and not be forced to return.”

At the Douma facility a community service center was also opened for medical emergencies because so many Iraqis arrive either wounded or with serious conditions, such as heart problems or kidney failure. Besides medical staff, a psychologist is also on board.

“It is a draconian situation in Iraq. Most Iraqis arrive here very traumatized,” says UNHCR Media Officer Adham Mardini. “Sometimes the psychological issue is even more immediate than the medical one.

“The international community needs to be sensitized. There is a growing social problem here; there is poverty which can lead to prostitution, there are psychological problems, and some people are receiving threats from Iraq.

“There are 1.2 million Iraqis in need here. The UNHCR cannot deal with this alone. The problem is the occupation, not the Syrian government or the UNHCR,” Mardini asserts. “Syria needs $1 billion to contain the Iraqi crisis.”

Underscoring Mardini’s comments, blowback from the US occupation occurred this week when several thousand Kurds arrived unexpectedly at the Douma office seeking registration. The refugee agency was caught completely unprepared without a Kurdish interpreter. With Kurdistan relatively calm, the few Kurds who’ve sought refuge have been mostly from Baghdad and speak Arabic. But, with Turkish troops recently massed along Iraq’s northern border, civilians fear an attack. Turkey has accused Iraq of allowing Kurdish guerilla groups seeking independent to launch attacks from Kurdistan. Last week the Turkish daily Today’s Zaman reported Turkish troops had already crossed Iraq’s border to destroy “terrorist” camps.

Meanwhile, outside the UNHCR Douma facility thousands continue to line the dusty street every Sunday and Monday, the only days when appointments for registration interviews are given. On this particular morning appointments were being set for October, the earliest date possible. By the afternoon, interviews were being set for mid-November. Two hundred fifty appointments had been scheduled.

Victim Recounts Iraqi Police Torture

2007-04-13T05:36:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

Damascus--Ala’a Emad Al-Dulaimi, a young man in his early twenties, sits in the living room of a friend’s house in a quiet Damascus neighborhood as he retells the nightmare of his arrest almost a year ago. The intensity of Al-Dulaimi’s experience is palpable, though his face remains dispassionate throughout most of the two hours it takes to detail the complicated maze of his encounter with Iraq’s corrupt justice system—one in which bribes and torture are so common even Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged them prior to his resignation.

In early 2005 Human Rights Watch reported that torture and abuse by Iraqi authorities were "routine and commonplace." The Al-Maliki government promised reforms, but in July last year the Los Angeles Times reported Iraqi Interior Ministry investigations revealed over 400 incidents of police misconduct, which included "the rape of female prisoners, the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes, assassinations of police officers and participation in insurgent bombings.” Most went unpunished.

In an apparent step towards addressing the problem, the Iraqi government in November filed charges for the first time against 57 members of the police force. They are charged with torturing hundreds of detainees at a prison in eastern Baghdad.

However, in more recent events, Mr. Al-Maliki dismissed an investigation in less than 24 hours after Iraqi security forces were accused of rape in February. Instead, the government then charged that the woman, Sabrine Al-Janabi, was a wanted criminal and issued an arrest warrant against her and would “reward” the officers. Al-Janabi was arrested in mid-March and there have been no reports of her since.

Also in March, when Iraqi Special Forces and British forces discoverd an Iraqi intelligence facility in Basra used to torture detainees and produce bomb-making equipment, Mr. Al-Maliki criticized the operation for lacking authority. Instead of investigating the alleged crimes, he ordered an investigation into the forces “who have carried out this illegal and irresponsible act.”

It was just last May that Al-Dulaimi was on his way to the College of Computer Sciences at Mustansariya University in Baghdad when his life took an irreversible turn, which halted his studies and nearly his life.

His story highlights the rampant corruption within Iraq’s security forces, but also its collusion between different governmental agencies.

Driving by taxi to his university on a Tuesday morning, Al-Dulaimi explains, “we traveled through the Adhamiya neighborhood and there had been some troubles. As a result, one side of the street was blocked, allowing only one lane of traffic. At that point, I saw a car approaching us head-on very fast. The taxi driver immediately stopped.” Concerned that his new taxi was about to be taken, the driver fired a shot in the air as a warning, says Al-Dulaimi.

“I had been studying and not really paying attention, so when I heard the gunshot I was shocked. Then I saw the other driver get out of his car with a gun and he fired a shot that went over our car. The taxi driver put it in reverse and tried to run away from the whole scene.”

Things happened quickly after that.

“The taxi driver was so afraid, and since there was heavy traffic he went down a side street. At this point security forces began to chase us,” Al-Dulaimi explains. “As it happened, the side street was also blocked, so it became a dead-end. We were trapped and security forces began firing heavily at us. Bullets penetrated the car. We both jumped out of the taxi with our hands up and froze.

“The ING (Iraqi National Guard) surrounded us and began beating us severely. They threw me to the ground and they hit the taxi driver in the head with a pistol. He was bleeding heavily when the police and the FPS (Facility Protection Services, in this case working as guards for the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs) also showed up. The three forces then began fighting each other for control of us. The police said: we were chasing them. The FPS said: no, they were attacking us because it happened in front of our ministry building.

“The police and the FPS eventually grabbed us and took us to the ministry with the ING still arguing.

“They put us in a small room where we were handcuffed and our ankles shackled. Ten people then came into the room and began shouting at us. ‘Why did you shoot the other car? What did you want from them? Where are you from? What political party are you from? Are you from some armed group?’

“That lasted about 15 minutes and then some others came, asking the same questions. But these men, if they didn’t like our answers, would hit us.”

Finally, Al-Dulaimi says, a man dressed in civilian clothes—a tracksuit and sweater—entered the room. The other men addressed him as Said. “His eyes were full of sparks. He sat down, took a pistol and put it on his knees and began shouting at me, ‘you will talk or I will break your knees!’ I became hysterical at this point and I began shouting back, ‘I’m a college student! I have nothing to hide!’”

Seemly convinced, Said left. Meanwhile, in an apparent attempt to regain control of Al-Dulaimi and the taxi driver, three men from the Iraqi National Guard arrived and took the two men to a vehicle waiting outside the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

“They pushed us into a pickup truck, with a machine gun mounted on top. The exit gates were closed and one of the soldiers began shooting and yelling, ‘open the gates!’ But Said came running out and slapped the soldier, yelling at him, ‘why are shooting, you could hurt someone!’ He yanked us out of the pickup and took us back into the room.

“Then the police came and put us in their car. This time, they put a bag over my head and blindfolded the taxi driver with his shirt. They took us to the Sleikh Police Station (in Adhamiya) and separated us in two cells. I still didn’t know what the charges against me were.

“At this point they began interrogating me in a room while I was blindfolded and handcuffed on the floor. ‘Tell us the truth! Why were you shooting!’ they would yell. I kept telling them I was just a student on my way to university. An officer named Captain Ala’a shouted that I was lying and he began beating me. He demanded to know what political party I belonged to, and if I was a terrorist from some group like Al-Qaida.

“This process lasted ten days. Each day they interrogated me twice and would beat me severely while I was blindfolded. Sometimes Captain Ala’a would provoke me, saying, ‘your partner told us what you’re really doing!’ At other times he was nice and would ask, ‘why are you ruining your future? All you need to do is tell us about your partner and we’ll let you go. Just testify on anything. You’re from Adhamihya where there’s so many against the Americans, just tell us something and we’ll let you go!’

“I became very desperate because during these ten days I was beaten in many different ways. I was hung from a ceiling fan with my hands tied behind me. They would tie each hand to the opposite foot (a position called the Scorpion) and hang me. Then they would beat the bottoms of my feet—they call this the al-falaka torture. At one point I became hysterical and began insulting Captain Ala’a. He asked, ‘are you trying to provoke me?’ And then he swung me from the fan, which cracked some bones.”

During this time, Al-Dulaimi says, the beatings were quite severe. “When I was taken to be interrogated I would walk, but when I came back they would have to carry me back in a blanket. The began a new style of the al-falaka and started beating me on my knees, elbows and back.”

After ten days, the jailers pulled Al-Dulaimi out of his cell and told him that Mohammed, the taxi driver, had confessed. “They told me, ‘your friend has testified against you and that you looted 30 cars, were ambushing the Americans, killing ING, and you belong to the resistance.’”

“Of course, I denied all these statements against me and they beat me for two solid days right in my cell. I was desperate and so tired I finally gave in and said I was ready to approve anything. ‘I have nothing to say, but if you have some statement, I’m ready to sign,’ I told them.

“I signed that I was involved in looting, kidnapping, planning to murder someone, and that I had joined the insurgency. These were the accusations I was forced to sign. And after I had signed, no one came to beat me anymore.

“At that point they put me with Mohammed, who was in a large cell with other prisoners and I learned what had really happened.”

Mohammed, who had never received medical care for his head would, was also severely beaten. When they put him on a balcony and threatened to push him off, Mohammed caved and said he would testify. Yet, instead of taking a statement, they put him back in his cell and took Al-Dulaimi instead.

“Finally, I was taken to a judge to approve the statement. Thinking I was safely outside the realm of the police, I denied all the statements. I told him, ‘I can undress and show you all the signs of torture, because they never hit me on my face. And, I asked the judge for a lawyer. ‘Don’t you have one,’ he asked. ‘No,’ I told him, ‘even my family doesn’t know where I am and if I’m dead or alive.’

“When I told the judge this, because it was 6pm on Friday, he told an officer to put me back in my cell to wait for a lawyer.

“The officer put me put me in a room I’d never seen before. Again I was blindfolded and handcuffed and three guys came in and began beating me severely. ‘What have you said in front of the judge?’ they demanded. ‘I said nothing,’ I pleaded. ‘Then why did Captain Ala’a say he wanted you semi-dead?’ they answered.

“They hit me on the face very hard and made my left ear so I couldn’t hear from it for a long time and when I washed for the prayers, the water would kill me.

“Captain Ala’a came back after I was beaten. ‘Did you get your discipline?’ he asked me. ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘Will you approve the statement to the judge?’ When I answered yes again, they put me back in the cell.

“The next day I was put in front of a different judge. Again it was a holiday and after 6pm. This judge gave me an attorney who had been provided by the government.

“The judge asked if the statements were correct. I told him yes, because I was too afraid to say no. Unconvinced, the judge told me, ‘you’re twenty years old and a student. It doesn’t seem that you would be doing all these things.’ But I was so tired and in pain, so I just said, ‘yes, I did do all these things.’

“Then they put me back in the cell and left me alone.

“For the first three days, I begged an officer for a call to my parents, and finally I was allowed.”

Relieved to hear from their missing son, the family hired a private attorney, yet were still not allowed to see Al-Dulaimi for a month.

The government attorney took the case to an investigative judge, Mohammed Oudae Al-Dahab, but when judge’s reporter told the family he knew an attorney who was a relative of the judge and would have influence over the case, they decided to give it a try.

“I know how it sounds, but this attorney, Ahmed Faleh, was a partner in the judge’s office. I swear!”

Faleh then took Dulaimi’s papers to Al-Dahab and asked if the case was winnable before agreeing to take the case. When Al-Dahab said it was, the family agreed to hire Faleh for $10,000, giving him a retainer of $5,000. Al-Dulaimi says Faleh promised to return the money if the case didn’t win. “This was for myself and Mohammed, as our cases were together. He couldn’t afford an attorney and my family just wanted me released.

“My family then asked the judge for me to be taken to a medical committee to document the torture and the judge approved the request. The medical committee was amazed at my injuries. ‘Are these new?’ they asked me, and I told them, no, they were from May and I hadn’t yet recovered.”

The medical report, dated 5 July and signed by three doctors from the Baghdad Morgue Institute, states Al-Dulaimi had severe discoloration of the skin on his left arm, legs and back. The document states the injuries are commensurate with those made from “either a stick or a cable.”

When the case was finally brought before the court, the insurgency charge had been dropped, leaving three—kidnapping, looting, and planning a murder. “After the judge read the medical report,” Al-Dulaimi continues, “he announced, ‘if this is how the police are treating detainees, let me investigate them.’ He said he wanted to have a judicial discussion on the issue, and because of the medical report, the first three charges were dropped.

“The attorney then called my father and wanted more money. When my father met Faleh at his office he demanded $20,000. With the $5,000 he was already paid, he was really asking for $25,000. My father said we couldn’t afford it and asked him to leave the case. Faleh refused to give back the $5,000.

“At this point the judge began to hate us because he realized he wasn’t going to make any money. So, instead of releasing us we were told that our case should go before the Supreme Court and we were sent back to jail for another month and a half. The Supreme Court took each charge separately, which took time, but all three were dropped.”

Unbelievably though, the Supreme Court judge then began a new case against Al-Dulaimi and Mohammed for having a weapon without a permit and they were sent back to jail.

“When the first officer who had beaten me, Captain Ala’a, saw me back there he said he would bring the fourth charge—belonging to the insurgency—against me if I didn’t pay him $7,500. Fortunately, my family was able to pay it and all the charges were dropped.”

After nearly seven months and paying $12,500 in what amounts to extortion fees, Al-Dulaimi was finally released on the 25th of November. His university studies ruined and his life destroyed, Al-Dulaimi fled to Syria in January where he is now trying to enter college and forget what happened to him in the new Iraq.

When asked if he fears reprisals for naming those who committed the abuses against him Al-Dulaimi replies that his family, with whom he’s now separated because of the incident, are safe in an undisclosed location.

“As for me,” he declares angrily, “no, I don’t care. After what they did to me, what else can they do? They destroyed everything!”

Kidnap Victim Finds Refuge in Syria

2007-04-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

Damascus--Mamoon Chalabi is one of hundreds of thousands who’ve narrowly escaped death in the lawlessness of Iraq—whether at the hands of American troops, Iraqi forces, government-backed death squads and other militias, armed groups or criminal gangs. Most who’ve been interviewed have harrowing tales to tell, either about themselves, a family member or friend. Chalabi’s is no exception.

It was a hot July evening in 2004 when Chalabi, an assistant to renowned Iraqi eye surgeon Dr. Abedin, was kidnapped by Iraqi police while leaving the Baghdad medical clinic.

“I was in my car and a police car stopped me. They asked me about my license and then they caught me and put me in their car. They were policemen, with the uniform of police and the car of police. They were really police! But you know, there is no law in Iraq. They can do anything.”

Chalabi was bundled into the police car, blindfolded and pinned to the floor of the vehicle as it sped away.

“They took me and sold me to a gang who put me in a room, an outside room, very near to a house. It was a home with a family, with a wife and kids, even. They put me on a chair and told me to phone my son, but he had closed his telephone. They hit me a lot then, and very terribly, on my head, my arms, my legs with planks of wood.”

Thinking the 68-year old man was also a doctor, the kidnappers demanded $750, 000, an impossible amount of money for the family. Even when they lowered the amount to $200,000, Chalabi knew his wife would never be able to collect that much cash.

After two days of severe beating, still blindfolded and terrified for his life, Chalabi decided there was no way he would live through the ordeal. “I said to my self, ‘this is the end’ and I decided to make the end by myself and not by the hand of the gang.”

When the kidnappers left that night to go drinking, Chalabi found himself alone. Able now to remove his blindfold, he wrapped it around his hand and smashed a nearby window. “It broke into many pieces. I took a piece that was like a knife, and I slashed my artery here,” he says, displaying a faint scar still visible on his wrist.

“I cut it on the left, twice, and I cut it here on the right too. Then I sat on the earth and waited for my death. I lost a lot of blood, more than 4 or 5 pints.”

But as Chalabi’s vision began to blur from blood loss, the gang suddenly returned. “They were shocked to find me like this. My artery is pushing blood like water, and there is a small lake around me.”

Taping his wrists, the kidnappers took Chalabi just meters from the Al Khindy Hospital where they dumped him. “Because I became useless, because I am going to die and I have nothing to pay to them, they left me.”

In the dark of night Chalabi was unable to call attention to himself. “There is no one who can see me and I can’t move. Believe me, I can’t move even a few centimeters.”

Staving off dogs during the night, at daybreak Chalabi found himself still alive and able to weakly call out when a young man passed by. Afraid himself, the man first notified police who then took the dying man to the hospital. “There, they put in a canella and gave me drips and blood. And, well, I saved myself.”

It took a month at home for Chalabi to regain his health, but then he went back to work. The kidnappers, still tracking him, called, expressing their surprise he had survived. “But I am not afraid because they know I have nothing. When they left me on the ground [by the hospital] they told me not to say it was the police, not to say anything. And when the police did the investigation, I didn’t give any information.”

Chalabi remained in Baghdad after the incident, hoping things would get better, but also needing to work. “Because I saw no reason for them to capture me another time, I went. You know, I have to work to live.” Others interviewed have expressed similar sentiments; while they may be safer outside Iraq, they also know they will suffer financially. For many, it takes a second or even third threat before making the difficult decision to leave everything behind.

“But the situation became very miserable, day by day,” Chalabi continues. “It became worse and worse and it began to change. Now, the kidnappers kill not even for the money, because there are no doctors, no merchants left in Iraq. Now, police just kidnap a lot of people and kill them. Sometimes they collect hundreds, like when they took the people from the Ministry of Higher Education.”

Chalabi is referring to an incident in November when scores of armed men gained entrance to the protected government building wearing the latest issue police uniforms. Between 100 and 150 men, both Sunni and Shi’ite alike, were abducted. Nine men, all Shi’ite, were immediately released; another 70, all bearing signs of torture, were released about a week later. According to the United Nations about 70, mostly Sunni, remain missing.

The incident highlights the shifts since 2004. Though criminal gangs still kidnap and demand ransom, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) reports that most of today’s kidnappings are helping to fund sectarian armed groups and are on the rise. "Abductions have increased rapidly in the past months and have become a tool for armed groups to finance their activities, to intimidate and eliminate opponents, and to instill fear," the agency reported.

Though armed groups target civilians across the board—Sunni, Shi’ite, Christian, Palestinian—the biggest change in the past few years have been the rise of militias and death squads, some US-backed and many of which operate through the government apparatus. Both the Iranian-backed Badr militia and Muqtada al-Sadr’s Madhi militia are known to operate through the sectarian Ministry of Interior and routinely abduct, torture and execute civilians, most of which are Sunni.

“The daylight abduction and the use of apparently genuine government vehicles and uniforms raised questions about possible official involvement in the operation,” said UNAMI in reference to the Ministry of Higher Education episode.

Others are more explicit.

“The Ministry of Interior’s security forces are believed to be responsible for numerous sectarian killings, operating ‘death squads’ in Baghdad and other provinces,” said Human Rights Watch in a January report. The Ministry of Interior must “end its ties to armed militias, including the Mahdi Army and Badr Forces,”

“It’s not clear whether the ministry controls the militias or the militias control the ministry, but either way, they’re responsible for some of the worst abuses in Iraq today,” said Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson.

“This is why after two years I decided to leave, because I don’t know at what time they will capture me, not for money, but to kill me,” says Chalabi. “Enough was enough.”

Recalling his kidnapping is difficult for Chalabi, even two and half years later. Instead, Chalabi prefers to put the kidnapping behind him. “Just thanks to god, al-hamdullallah, I am better now and Syria has welcomed us.

“All of us in Iraq are in this [type of] situation. We escape and we go to the UN and try to get the refugee [status].

“I pray to go back to my home. I pray for God to calm my country, that everything will be settled. I have my own house there and I can live much better than in this situation. But now, no. My home? It is here.”

Iraqis Resist Four Years of Occupation

2007-03-27T03:54:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

Damascus—Fours years of occupation by Anglo-American forces in Iraq was marked in many countries around the world by massive demonstrations this past week. But as the occupation entered another year, Iraqis themselves did not demonstrate. In the country where democracy was promised, a sweeping emergency law, implemented in 2004, bans demonstrations in Iraq without government permission.

“Every three months the government renews this emergency order,” says Baghdadi Zahra, “but even if we wanted to go into the streets, it’s too violent to do so. After four years, we cannot even walk down the street without risking death.”

The Democrat-controlled US House of Representatives has voted to continue occupation through spending another $100 billion in Iraq; the bill is now on its way to the Senate. Even though the legislation contains a timeline for US troop withdrawal, and is being touted as an end to the occupation, critics point out that at least 21,000 troops sit poised to deploy to Iraq and an additional $145 billion is earmarked for the war in the upcoming budget. Yet, as Mr. Bush remains convinced his plan for a US troop “surge” will solve the crisis of violence in Iraq, recent surveys of Iraqis residents tell a different story.

A recent poll by DS Systems, commissioned by the BBC and other media outlets, shows that, among other things, “a majority of Iraqis believe that the surge of US troops will worsen security (49%) or have no effect (22%).” The Baghdad-based Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies found in a December survey of residents in Baghdad, Najaf and Al Anbar (regions where violence remains the worst) that “95% believe the security situation has deteriorated since the arrival of US forces.” The same survey also found that 66% of respondents believe violence will decrease with US troop withdrawal.

Despite surveys, Iraqis are voting with their bodies by a continued exodus from their country. In Syria about 2,000 Iraqis continue to arrive daily. Just walk down the street in many neighborhoods of Damascus where Iraqis live, like “Little Fallujah” in one section of the city, or Saidah Zaineb, which is nearly 100% Iraqi, and people are quick to give their opinion of US occupation, resistance, and what they think about the current situation.

Woman from Baghdad, now living outside Damascus:

Just because we can’t go in the streets doesn’t mean we don’t resist [the occupation]. There are many ways to resist and there are many ways to occupy. The US and the world made a war of words and of the intellect against Iraq. We were occupied before the first tank ever rolled into Baghdad.

It is our right to resist in Iraq. If the people of America were occupied by foreigners, if they had their houses bombed, their children killed, they would also resist. For me, I resist with my poetry.

Look at Algiers and their resistance to French occupation. Who resisted? The writers, the poets, the intellectuals! Every resistance is filled with the thinkers as much as with those who fight.

I have a message to the mothers in America especially, stop sending your sons to kill and be killed.

Truck driver and his wife from Samarra, now living in Cairo:

My nephew was kidnapped by the Mahdi Army from the Iraqi Special Forces and we paid $90,000 [US] to release him. Then I was on my way to Baghdad and they [Mahdi Army] forced me to stop. They accused me of being from those who blew up the [Golden] Shrine and took my lorrie.

The occupation is a disaster for us. These are the days filled with the most sadness in my whole life. They [the occupation forces] should leave.

Director of women’s NGO in Baghdad:

The suffering for women in Iraq cannot be put into words since the invasion.

The anti-war forces in the US are very important to us in Iraq…we get great encouragement to continue on with our resistance. And we do resist occupation of our country in our own way. They [occupation forces] must leave us.

Man from Kadamiya, now living in Damascus:

I’ve been here six months and left because of the violence, which was continuous. I had a death threat on my house and had to leave.

The start of another year of occupation…it’s a very black day …I just wish to go back home.

58-year old office worker still living in Latifiyah:

I’m a typical Arab person—I feel like anybody who’s been occupied by anyone; like anyone who’s been stolen from. Anyone who’s had their lands taken would resist. I’m a revolutionary because of this occupation--anyone would be.

I have a big hope that the occupation will end. Our people won’t be easily defeated. I call it one Iraq. I won’t say “groups” because what’s going on has been imported. The sectarianism is made 100% by the Americans. They want Iraqis to be busy with these things so we don’t see the occupation.

The armed resistance should have political groups, but about political resistance alone…this is not useful when someone points a gun at you and wants to smash you with a tank. What is taken by force can only be taken back by force. The occupation won’t leave by this way [political]. It will leave when the coffins reach a high number, that’s when they’ll leave.

The big number of journalists killed in Iraq is a form of resistance, too. These are the people who risk everything. This is the style of democracy brought to us: you can say what you want, but you will be killed afterwards.

Protests will put pressure on the government and the American people should do this more—if we are talk as human beings, then this is the language of humanity and it makes me feel happy. This means a lot to us.

I do have a message to the American people especially: when we talk about “the Americans,” we are talking about the administration. We are not attacking the people. They are the victims too.

Freelance journalist from Mosul, now living in Damascus:

I believe they [the occupying forces and Iraqi government] are trying to kill anything that is independent in Iraq.

The American people should do more and more protests to end this occupation. Please do more, but we do thank you for what you’re doing.

I do have a message: the Iraqis condemn any terrorist attack against the civilian.

Political analyst from Baghdad, now living in Cairo:

The resistance in Iraq is filled both by the political and the armed resistance. I am from the political resistance, because we have both a legal and a moral obligation to resist foreign occupation of our land.

When the families of those who’ve lost their sons and daughters speak out against the occupation, we are encouraged.

I remember Mr. Bush condemning the Democratic party saying they are encouraging the resistance…well, is this a bad thing? Who would not resist occupation of their country? They need to understand this fact. We are not al-Qaeda. We are not terrorists. There is the al-moquawamah al-shrifah, the “honest resistance” in Iraq.

Two sisters from Ghazalia, now living in Damascus:

1st sister: I feel so bad. Even the first year of occupation was better. My husband was threatened and we had to leave. Now we have no work. We’re just seeking asylum anywhere.

But, really, I just ask the Americans to help us go back to our country. If they really came to help us, they will do this.

2nd sister: Our mother is a Christian, our father is Muslim. My husband is Palestinian and he was kidnapped by the Shi’a because of this. It was much better under Saddam. We never had these things.

There must be a solution in another country if they can’t give us peace in ours.

Woman from south of Baghdad, now living in Damascus:

It’s the worst days of my life and if the Americans are still in Iraq in 2008, it will be even worse than a disaster.

Woman from Baghdad, now living in Damascus:

I’ve seen a lot of Christians killed in Iraq. We’re [Christians] much worse off now, it’s much worse after the US invasion. All the churches are closed and the militias have taken them for their offices. In my house I had the death threat posted to the door, so I left. When you leave your house, you can never look back because it will be gone.

I don’t blame them [the American people], but it was very secure before the invasion. It was much better financially. Now, we’re suffering a lot because we had to leave our country and we have no money. The Americans should leave Iraq.

Former military officer from Baquba, now a shop owner in Damascus:

I just have this to say; this is the worst period in the whole history of Iraq.

“I am just like you” says Iraqi teen

2007-03-16T05:25:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

Damascus—Danya, a petite 14-year old Iraqi, and I are sitting in a small garden, the sun shining through small green leaves pushing their way into spring. Danya and her family are in Damascus for a two week holiday---if one can call it that—from Baghdad. Certain that they wouldn’t receive a visa to visit family in the United Kingdom, the reunion will instead take place in Syria.

While thousands of Iraqis pour across Syria’s borders every day, escaping Iraq’s brutal violence, Danya’s family is one of those caught in the middle. Coming to Syria may ensure one’s physical safety, but the economic reality is harsh. Most Iraqis in Syria are not working, living off their savings instead. Because Danya’s mother has a good job in Iraq the family will remain, at least for now, in Baghdad.

“I’m really scared to go back,” the 14-year old says in English, “but my mother has her work there. I hate my home; it’s very dangerous.”

Danya is visibly shaking as she talks. I ask her if she’s cold. “No,” she answers, “I am shaking all the time because I’m so angry all the time. But thank god my family is still alive.” Her hands clasped tightly in her lap, Danya speaks in abbreviated sentences that belie the depth of her experience. “I’ve been threatened at my school just for not wearing the hijab (head covering). So now, of course, I wear it.

“Bodies are thrown in front of our school all the time. My French teacher was killed in front of us one day. It was outside the school. The police shot her by mistake.

“The thing I have to think about the most is not to go out alone. I don't go anywhere, just to school. My father drives me. Even though I go to the best school in Iraq, still I hate it. I just go to school and come home. I’m really bored. All I do is just write in my diaries.

“All my friends have left Iraq and I’m alone there. Even the teachers have left. Before, we were nine classes, now we are only three.

“It’s a tragedy to see my street. It’s not like it was before. Everything’s changed! Even the people. The Shi’a people were threatened and had to leave my neighborhood. There are barbarians now who have come to my neighborhood.

“I think the American people must think we’re barbarians, that we don’t even speak English. But, we’re just like them. They should know that. It’s an important message, especially to American girls, that I am just like you.

“I think all the American people should thank god—just being safe is enough. Just living with peace is enough. They should know there are people like themselves that are stuck in Iraq and not doing anything. You’re lucky. First of all you live in peace and I cant’. I can’t even go to the doctor, besides there aren’t any left. Even, I have something wrong with my jaw and I can’t go.”

When I ask for details, Danya shows me where she feels the pain. Clearly its from her stress; she clenches her jaw constantly, even as we’re talking. “I cry every day,” Danya admits. “I don’t know why. I know crying and being angry are not good for the health. I already have grey hair, but I cut it out. Maybe I won’t live very long,” she states matter-of-factly and then drops into silence, contemplating.

“I really hate the oil,” she finally declares. “This is the reason for all our problems. Look at this country [Syria]. There’s no oil and it’s beautiful, it’s peaceful. I just need to live in peace.

“Do you think I have the right to live outside Iraq? The last thing in the world there will be is peace in Iraq—it would be the Eighth Wonder!

“May god help me and get me out of Iraq! Anywhere! I just want to live in peace.” Where would you go? She shakes her head, and looks at her lap, “I don’t know.” But her brother nudges her, “yeah, you know. Where do you want to go?” She looks up and smiles. “Australia,’ she admits.

Why?

“Because it is so very, very far away.”

Threats of Death Drive Pharmacist from Iraq

2007-03-11T16:44:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

Damascus-Dina is pharmacist from al-Jamia district in Baghdad where she owned a pharmacy and lived with her husband and their two children. She is a vibrant woman whose bright pink lipstick and blond highlights would make her an instant target in today’s Iraq. But, as it turns out, she was targeted for other reasons.

“In the past, we lived in safety,” she tells me. “I have two beautiful children, a special home; every day I go to work in the morning and then again in the evening. I was happy in my work, my home, in my country. There was no worry, no killing, no threats…my children, my husband…we lived in a safe manner. We never thought there would come a day we would live this way,” she says, referring to the current chaos.

“After the Americans came, everything in my life changed. When I was working, for the first time, I didn’t feel safe.

“One day at 4pm I was on my way to work. I was driving when four men with guns forced me to stop. The pulled me from my car and began beating me heavily with their guns. They beat me on the head and on my shoulders. They told me, ‘if you don’t leave from Iraq, we will kill your children and your husband. You’re a pharmacist and all of you, doctors, chemists, pharmacists, you all must leave Iraq!’

“Then the gunmen stole my car and in it were many pharmaceuticals and my bag with all of my ID, including my address. I was so scared.

“I cried every day thinking about what to do. I did not want to leave Iraq, but I was worried about my children and my husband. I’m a pharmacist; my husband is a chemist and a Sunni man. If my husband walked in the street and the government [security forces] took him for any reason, he would be killed for sure since the government forces are Shiite.”

Dina took the threats against her and her family very seriously. Thousands of doctors, academics and other professionals have been targeted in Iraq. Some have been kidnapped for ransom, others killed. No figures exist for how many professionals have fled Iraq, but in the medical field alone serious shortages of doctors have left many hospitals with interns now acting as the senior physicians. The World Health Organization estimates there are less than seven doctors per 10,000 people in Iraq.

“So, we had to leave Baghdad,” Dina says, shaking her head. “You know, I owned my pharmacy for 15 years; this was my life. I felt so sad. I lived all my life in Iraq. I was crying the whole road from Baghdad to Damascus. Now, after 40 years I have come to a unknown country with unfamiliar customs. In the beginning I would cry every morning I was so homesick. I felt, I can’t live in Iraq and I can’t live here.

“My children are in school…thankfully. But myself and my husband, we cannot work here. The Ministry of Health won’t allow the Iraqi pharmacist, doctor, or teacher to work . The manual labor, yes, but not the professionals.”

Dina’s family was once part of the middle-class, now disappearing from Iraq. Like too many Iraqis, Dina and her husband have lost everything they worked toward. The business in which Dina invested so much time and money is now gone, too.

“My pharmacy has been destroyed,” she laments. “One day after I left, there was a huge gun battle in the street in front of my pharmacy and it was burned completely. Everything is ended, all my money gone. I lost everything--my pharmacy, my hope to return to my country. There’s no safety at all. We have to have someone stay in our house in Iraq, not even for money, but just to protect it from being taken by others.” In Baghdad especially militias, gangs and, at times, the US military are known to either occupy a house, for use as a base, or to destroy it.

“The Americans caused so many problems by coming. They’ve damaged everything, the society, the human beings, the buildings, everything. When they came they brought with them people who were involved with Iran. Now, everything in our country is damaged. What a pity. What a pity.

“You know, the Americans said ‘we come to liberate you from Saddam,’ but instead they destroyed Iraq. When they killed Saddam we lost more hope. All the Iraqi people would wish the time would turn back, even for one moment to when Saddam was in power, just to feel, even for that moment, what life was like. It didn’t matter if you hated Saddam or liked him, all Iraqis wish for a return to those days.

When I ask where she would like to go now, she answers quickly, “I hope to stay here in Syria for two reasons. The first: here I can feel my country. I can also be close to my country and maybe I can return home some day. The second is it is an Arab country. It’s Muslim and the Syrians welcome us while the rest of the world now shuns us.

“I long one day to return to Iraq. I love my country. It’s where I was born and I spent so many good times there with many friends and family. My memories are full of these good times.

“I am telling you my story not because it is an important one, but that I hope you take this story to the outside, to the rest of the world.” She gestures to a number of other Iraqi women sitting close by. “All these women here, they have the same story. I am just one of thousands of cases like this.

“But, here is the important thing: I want the people of the world to know how I had to leave my country. Now, I don’t know what country I can live and work in. Now, most countries don’t even allow the Iraqi people. Why? I have lost my life, my home, my hope. Why? Is that what Americans want? Is that liberating? Is that being free from Saddam?”

Women in Iraq: Losing ground since 2003

2007-03-08T04:06:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

On March 8th, while much of the world recognized International Women’s Day, the Iraqi government instead celebrated the birth of the Prophet Mohammed’s daughter. That wasn’t always the case. The change came about as one of the first acts by the US-installed Interim Governing Council (IGC) and, as many Iraqi women’s groups worried, an indication of things to come from a government dominated by ultra-conservative religious parties.

They had right for concern.

As early as April 2003, concerned Iraqi women appealed to Paul Bremer when they realized they weren’t being equitably represented in the new government and saw rights they benefited from under Saddam Hussein being dismantled. Yet, the US gave only three IGC seats to women and none were included in the nine-member rotating presidential council, nor were they included on the constitutional reform committee. Plus, the US Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Affairs had only a part-time gender point person.

Then came the first law drafted by the US-installed Interim Governing Council (IGC), which would have repealed one in place since 1959 that gave women rights to custody, divorce and equal inheritance.

Fortunately, Iraqi women’s groups were able to defeat the proposal, but not without a price. Death threats and assassinations targeting women’s advocates began early on. Aqila al-Hashimi (one of the IGC members) was one of the first women who dared take a public stance to be killed; she was murdered in front of her house in September 2003.

Iraq's new constitution, enacted under US occupation, ended 85 years of secular governance by proclaiming Islam the state religion (disregarding the country’s minority religions) and the fundamental source for legislation. Suddenly gone were many of the gains made over the previous century.

During the 1920s and '30s middle-class Iraqi women first began entering the work force and advocating for equal rights. In 1952 the first women’s organization, the Iraqi Women’s Federation, was founded. Changes to the constitution in 1970 made women and men nearly equal—the exception being family law, which still favored men.

Though Saddam Hussein’s regime was indisputably brutal, women continued making gains under his rule. Women’s literacy and education improved, restrictions on women outside the home were lifted. Women won the right to vote, to run for political office, and hold jobs traditionally held by men. By the early 1980s they made up 40% of the work force and received generous maternity leave. The Unified Labor Code called for equal pay, benefits, and promotions for men and women both.

Prior to the US-led Gulf War in 1991, female literacy rates in Iraq were the highest in the region and Iraqi women were among the most educated and professional in the Arab world.

This is the Iraq that US-led troops invaded in March 2003 and the one which Mr. Bush’s government portrayed as subjugating women in an atmosphere of terror. “Saddam Hussein's brutal regime silenced the voices of Iraq's women through violence and intimidation,” still reads the US State Department’s Web site.

The US was coming to Iraq, the Bush Administration said, to free women from this purported tyranny and promote their liberation.

However, for women in Iraq, life under US occupation has meant a significant rollback of their freedoms and a frightening increase in violence used against them. One of the first actions taken by US forces upon entering Baghdad was to fire all government employees, 40% of whom were female. This put tens of thousands of women out of work, with little options elsewhere. As early as July 2003 Human Rights Watch reported that at least 400 women and girls (some as young as eight years old) had been raped during or immediately after the invasion-a level of sexualized violence unheard of under Hussein's rule.

Numerous international and Iraqi organizations, which include UNAMI (the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq) and Amnesty International, as well as the Iraqi League, the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq, and the Iraqi NGO Women’s Will have documented increasing violence against women over the past four years, and the use of sexualized torture in prisons by both US and Iraqi forces.

According to a new report by the international women’s human rights organization MADRE, not less than three international and nine Iraqi organizations have documented these abuses.

The report, entitled “Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy: Gender-based Violence and the US War on Iraq,” identifies Iraq’s US-backed government as being run by “Islamists.” (The report defines Islamists as those “who pursue a reactionary social and political vision in the name of Islam, as distinct from ‘Islamic’ relating to the religion of Islam.”)

By replacing secular governance with theocracy, MADRE charges, the US “has decisively traded women's rights for cooperation from the Islamists whom it boosted to power.” In today’s Iraq, women are being used as a political instrument through the very violence and intimidation the US once charged Hussein with.

A case in point is Prime Minister al-Maliki’s response to a 20-year old woman who, in an unprecedented international television interview, accused Iraqi Special Forces of raping her after she was arrested. After first calling for an immediate investigation, hours later Maliki’s government reversed its position, labeling the woman a liar and wanted criminal and stating it would instead “reward” the officers involved.

Mr. Maliki accused the woman of fabricating the story in order to undermine the so-called new security sweep in Baghdad. Unbelievably, he then released her name, which assuredly identifying her religious sect. In this case the woman is Sunni; Iraq’s police forces are dominated by Shiites. By exposing her, Mr. Maliki not only relinquished the woman’s privacy and endangered her life, he also ensured the case would be turned into a political sideshow rather than dealing with the real issue—abuse at the hands of those charged with protecting the public.

Accusations of police abuse, however, are anything but sectarian. In the month of February alone, three women risked their lives by coming forward and charging Iraqi security forces with rape. The first was a Sunni Arab, the second a Sunni Turkomen, and the third a Christian. The Christian woman reported to the UN news agency she was impregnated during the incident.

Neither are these new charges.

Last July the LA Times, citing a US State Department assessment conducted during 2005 and 2006, reported that brutality was “rampant in Iraq's police force, with abuses including the rape of female prisoners."Further, it found that "female detainees are often sexually assaulted. According to the documents, the commander of a detention center in the Karkh neighborhood of the capital raped a woman who was an alleged insurgent in August. That same month, two lieutenants tortured and raped two other female detainees.”

The Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) released findings of their own last summer. Their Women’s Prison Watch project found that “torture and rape are common procedure of investigation in police stations run by the militias affiliated with the government, mostly the Mahdi and Badr militias.”

“The Islamist militias, who are part of the US-supported government and police forces, are deciding what is right and wrong ... and who lives and dies,” writes OWFI’s Yanar Mohammed. "It is heartbreaking to me to see the return of extreme, anti-women practices that we had not seen for many decades. When I grew up in Iraq, women went to school. Educated, professional workingwomen were a part of our society. Today, a woman risks her life simply by going to the grocery store.”

Though militias are part and parcel of Iraqi security forces, they also operate outside the purview of government, often enforcing “moral code” on the streets.

The OWFI estimates at least 30 women are exectuted in greater Baghdad each month. “In the first ten days of November 2006, more than 150 unclaimed bodies of women, many of which were beheaded, disfigured, or bore signs of extreme torture, moved through the Baghdad morgue,” reports Mohammed.

These are frightening statistics. The US, as an occupying force, is responsible under the Hague and Geneva Conventions to protect Iraqi’s human rights. Instead, they are actually fomenting the violence. US backing of Iraq’s militias became public knowledge when a 2005 issue of Newsweek reported the “Salvador Option,” a plan used by the US in Central America during the 1980s used militias to bolster right-wing governments, had been resuscitated in Iraq. The US financially backed Shiite militias when fears that the Sunni-dominated resistance was growing too strong. Human rights became expendable for political expediency.

In civil society women are faring no better. Last June, after conducting an extensive survey, the Iraqi Women’s Rights Association warned of rising incidents of sexual abuses. While less than five cases of rape per year were reported during Saddam Hussein’s era, they found close to 60 women reported being raped between February and May 2006; an additional 80 reported other forms of abuse.

Now, with a conservative religious government installed in Iraq, women are less likely to have any protections, and much more likely to be blamed.

Though perhaps well meaning, statements like this one from a conservative Baghdadi sheikh illustrate women’s double bind. Rather than hold the police accountable in the case of the Sunni women’s sexual assault, the sheikh commented, “These incidents of abuse just prove what we have been saying for so long. That it is the Islamic duty of women to stay in their homes, looking after their children and husbands rather than searching for work-especially in light of the current security situation.” What he also fails to observe is that the woman was arrested in her house.

The MADRE report draws an important parallel between Iraq’s theocratic gender inequity and the generalized violence raging in Iraq.

“Violence against women is not incidental to Iraq's mounting civilian death toll and civil war—it is a key to understanding the wider crisis. Indeed, the twin crises plaguing Iraqi civilians—gender based violence and civil war—are deeply intertwined. For example, in the legal arena, the same provisions of the US-brokered constitution that codify gender discrimination (Articles 39 and 41) also lay the groundwork for sectarian violence: these articles establish separate laws on the basis of sex and religious affiliation.”

“Contrary to its rhetoric and its legal obligations, the Bush Administration has refused to protect women's human rights in Iraq. In fact,” concludes the MADRE report, “ it has decisively traded women’s rights for cooperation from the Islamists it has helped boost to power.”

On the Edge: Iraqi mothers cope with single parenthood

2007-02-20T10:33:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

Amman--In a one-bedroom basement apartment Um Mahmoud sits clothed in a black abaya, surrounded by three of her five children. Though married for many years, five months ago she was thrust into the role of a single mother when her husband was refused re-entry to Jordan.

Um Mahmoud is now like many Iraqi women in Amman, single and trying to raise their children with little hope for work. Unofficial figures put about fifty percent of Jordan’s 1 million Iraqis under the poverty line. No one knows exactly how many single mothers are here trying to get by, but one social worker tells me most of the families she sees are headed by the mother. “For them it is really hard,” she says, “I don’t know how they do it.”

“When I came to Jordan, my health was good,” says Um Mahmoud, “but with the pressure, it’s too much.” Now, she says, her health is faltering. She is need of an operation for a gynecological condition, but is in an elevated risk category due to high blood pressure. “Besides, where would I get the money and who would take care of the children if anything were to happen to me?” she wonders.

Um Mahmoud takes in some sewing work, but with faltering eyesight, she is only able to do small amounts.

Her two boys should be in school, but are now working to support the family—six in all. Their work in a factory brings in about $200 a month, barely enough to cover the rent and electricity. Um Mahmoud says she worries constantly for her sons. “Their health is now suffering because of the chemicals at the factory, and now the eldest one is picking up bad habits. He needs his father.”

Um Mahmoud struggles to put food on the table and says eggs are the family’s primary food source since they are very cheap. “The children accuse me of trying to turn them into chickens,” she says with a laugh. Becoming serious once again, she adds, “but really, I don’t always have money to put food on the table. My children now are blaming me for the situation, especially as the two younger girls are taunted at school for being Shi’a. Now, they don’t want to even go. It’s too much. I don’t know what to do,” she says, stopping now to wipe tears from her eyes.

The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) partners with certain NGOs to provide assistance to Iraqis. CARITAS, for example, helps families with education expenses , while CARE International provides such necessities as blankets and heaters. But with the overwhelming numbers of Iraqi refugees, the organisations say they are doing their best in a bad situation. And while some small amounts are available for health care, most just pray their children don’t become sick.

Many Iraqis criticise the aid organisations, saying they aren’t doing enough and accusing them of spending money on new staff and nice offices instead of helping people.

Um Mahmoud says when an aid representative came to her apartment and saw she had furniture she was told to stop complaining. “But, I do condemn the situation,” she retorts. She charges that many of the organisations hire only non-Iraqis who are often dismissive of Iraqi concerns.

One mother of two teenage girls offered this example. “A friend called me and said CARE was giving away blankets, so I went to their offices and they told me ‘no,’ they were finished. But another friend who went in just 30 minutes after me was given blankets. Why do it like this? Either they have blankets or they don’t. They should not be playing games.”

Compounding the situation for many women is grief for a husband who’s gone missing in Iraq--kidnapped, killed or arrested amid the country’s unrelenting violence.

Noor is from Al-Gadeer in Baghdad where she and her husband owned a home and lived with their teenage son. Yet in three short months Noor lost nearly everything.

When they realised Iraq was to be attacked, Noor and her husband obtained passports for the three of them and were prepared to flee. However, just two weeks before the US-led invasion, Noor says, her husband was inexplicably taken by the Iraqi military. “From the moment my husband was taken until now, I haven’t heard anything about him,” she says softly.

“I was alone in the house with my son when the war started, so I escaped to the north with some family. We were gone only 47 days, but when we came back there were people occupying our home. I was negotiating through others to try to get it back, but they threatened to kidnap or kill my son.”

Noor declines naming the group that threatened her; she is still afraid here in Jordan. “It’s too risky to say everything; I’m only a single mother with my son.” She pauses, then says, “I left everything behind just to protect myself and my son. Now, we have nothing.”

Though she struggles to make ends meet, Noor is more fortunate than many because she has a job in Amman, but even as an experienced accountant she makes only $145 a month; she is paid less than what a Jordanian would make.

Visibly trembling while talking, tears welling in her eyes, Noor is telling her story, she says, because, “I am hopeful that there will be some help for Iraqi refugees, perhaps even a visa to another country. The world must know about us.”

With some notable exceptions, such as Sweden , the world has mostly stood by watching as the Iraqi refugee crisis has exploded. The US has admitted only 466 Iraqis since the Anglo-American invasion in 2003. The UK accepted just five Iraqis in 2006. In the past week, under immense pressure from Congress and the international community, the Bush administration announced plans to accept 7,000 Iraqis this year.

Ten thousand Iraqis are fleeing their homes each month due to the current lack of security. Exacerbating the situation is a profound distrust by the Iraqi public of both Iraqi and American security forces.

Huda is a computer teacher from a mixed neighborhood in Baghdad who fled to Amman ten months ago with her two children. Her Sunni husband worked at the Shi’a controlled Ministry of Health as a computer analyst where Huda says he was threatened numerous times by the Mehdi Army. In 2005 the family finally decided to flee Baghdad and seek help. Huda says they registered with UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) when they arrived in Amman, but the agency did nothing to help--a common complaint here.

Citing budget constraints UNHCR has registered just 22,000 Iraqis and accorded official recognition—meaning they will seek resettlement on behalf of the refugee—to just 800 thus far.

Frustrated by the situation and their money quickly dwindling, Huda’s family decided to return to Baghdad where she and her husband still had jobs. At first everything seemed to be okay, says Huda. “But, four months later the Mehdi Army kidnapped my husband,” she weeps. “I have heard nothing since.”

Not long afterwards, Huda overheard two of the Mehdi guards who provide security at the school talking. “They were saying, ‘it’s easy to attack her house because she is alone.’ I was very scared. Then one day while I was driving I was shot at. At that point I decided to leave Iraq forever!” Fortunately, Huda escaped uninjured. When asked if she reported any of the incidents, she laughs sardonically and says, no way. Who should she tell? The Americans will direct her to the Iraqi police, she says, but the police are part of the problem.

“I do believe our country is completely destroyed and Iraq won’t be a good situation anytime soon. They [the Americans] took our land and occupied our country, so they have to find another country for us.” Huda alternates between despair, anger and a hope she holds onto that her family may somehow obtain a visa to either Australia or Switzerland. Why there? “Because they don’t have aggressive armies,” she quickly responds.

Meanwhile, Huda refuses to go back to UNHCR. “All they do is give you a white card to say you’re here. It does nothing.” She does some housecleaning to support her household of four, while attempting to gain her visa. She is proud that her12 year old son and 16 year old daughter are attending school. But, she worries constantly. “My father also lives with us and almost all our savings is gone. I really don’t know what to do. I want a job. I’m a teacher and worked for 16 years, but here I cannot work.” For now, Huda is able to put food on the table, but as for the future? “I really don’t know what we will do,” she repeats, looking into the distance.

“Today the landlord came wanting the rent and I had to beg him to come back later until I can find the money. I want my husband back. I want to go back to Iraq. We just want a normal and stable life again,” concludes Um Mahmoud.

Border Closures Hinder Fleeing Iraqi

2007-02-13T05:01:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

Amman - As thousand of Iraqis continue to flee the violence in their country daily, the two main exit routes, Jordan and Syria, are being severely restricted.

Without warning, Syria closed its borders for three days last week citing security reasons. The move took place after Iraqi President Talabani’s January visit with Syrian officials, though any link has been denied. Open for just a few days, the border has now been closed by the Iraqi government as part of the long-awaited US-backed security plan. Iraq has also closed its borders with Iran, preventing both entry and exit to both countries.

In Baghdad yesterday a three-day curfew was imposed as 2,500 Iraqi and 500 US security forces began going neighborhood to neighborhood. Today, officials announced they had sealed six areas within the city. Six car bombs exploded throughout the capital; four were aimed at Iraqi security forces and two at American forces. Later, a seventh went off at a security checkpoint.

At this time, Iraqis have only one hope as they flee continuing violence. That hope is Jordan. Thus far, Jordan’s borders remain as they have for the past months—more or less open.

Attempts to actually pin down the government’s border policy proved tricky. Authorities maintain that Iraqis are welcome in their country and that the border remains open. Iraqis insist there are frequent closings and indiscriminate refusals of entry.

Several white SUVs with Iraqi license plates line the parking lot of a transit company that carries passengers between Amman and Baghdad. Last year the lot overflowed with at least 100 SUVs, but ironically, as the Iraqi exodus continues to grow, today there are perhaps only fifteen vehicles standing by. Drivers say this is due to increased danger along the road as well as the gamble of entry.

A half dozen drivers at this particular company agreed to speak, but the manager remained nervous and said they had been advised by the government not to talk with journalists. He advised me not to stay, both for my safety and the safety of the drivers and then shut himself inside his office. The drivers were all willing enough to talk, yet all refused to use even their first name.

Drivers like these make weekly trips between Iraq and Jordan, carrying four to six passengers at a time. They cross terrain known for robberies where there are no checkpoints and for ID killings (those killed for having the wrong last name in the wrong area) where there are. Add to this the uncertainty of gaining entry to Jordan after traveling hundreds of kilometers and it’s understandable when drivers say many people now prefer to fly, even though it costs six times more.

At the Iraqi border, some four and a half hours from Amman, one driver says it’s impossible to pre-determine if Jordanian officials will allow entry. Though Iraqis worry they won’t be admitted if they have the old “S” series passport, as opposed to the new “G” series, both government officials and the drivers say it doesn’t matter. In general, “people are just rolling the dice and taking their chances,” said the driver. “There are no regulations, it just depends on the day and the mood of the officers.”

At the Ministry of Interior, however, spokesperson Ziad Zoubi insists, “the border is open 24 hours. It is closed only for shift changes. All Iraqis can enter Jordan. No one is stopping them.” He says those who are sick and elderly especially are allowed in.

Zaineb disagreed. She shared a ride from Baghdad with two elderly women who she said were in their mid-late seventies. “The way they were treated was very disrespectful by the border guards. They were made to strip completely, even their underwear. And then they were refused, and weren’t given any reason.”

Zoubi said certain restrictions do apply. Children under 18 are not allowed without a guardian, those who have past fines for overstaying a previous visa are not admitted, and, he added, “terrorists” are not allowed. When pressed on the definition of a terrorist, Zoubi explained how easy it is to forge documents in Baghdad. “We’ve found a lot of forged passports since 2003.”

Jordan is understandably nervous. In November 2005 simultaneous explosions took place at three upscale hotels in Amman, which killed at least 67 people and injured 300. Al Qaeda in Iraq—led by Jordanian Abu Musab al Zarqawi—claimed responsibility.

Zoubi said, “a lot of people can pay money for a doctor report [to gain entry to Jordan] and really be a terrorist.” However, he added that most of the refusals are due to non-payment of previous fines. Their names having been registered in a data base when they left Jordan, Iraqis are not allowed to pay when attempting to return, instead they are turned away.

Zoubi would not say how many documents are forged, nor give a figure for how many Iraqis are refused entry. But, he says, those who are allowed in can easily stay.

Iraqis claim they are able to stay for only three months, then must leave the country to gain another three months. Zoubi denies this is the case and says Iraqis need only request their stay be extended from local police stations where they can get their passports stamped. He said Iraqis are even allowed to permanently stay if they meet certain criteria—though after fifteen minutes, the only criteria I could determine was that they own a place.

Zoubi also pointed out that Jordan is generous enough to provide a return ticket for those refused entry at the airport.

“This is not true!” insists one Iraqi man, who arrived Amman by plane a month ago and is awaiting a visa to the UK. “You must have a roundtrip ticket in case we’re turned away. In Syria, no. You just need a one way.” A friend sitting with him agreed. The friend, who holds both American and Iraqi citizenship, had flown in two weeks prior. He claims Jordanian authorities treated arriving Iraqis very poorly, while he was simply waved through security after showing his US passport. “I know many people who were turned back at the border and at the airport who’ve never been to Jordan before.”

In a separate interview, Hayder, a driver who had arrived the previous night from Kirkuk, related the following story. “While I was there [at the border] a young man tried to enter,” he said. “He was in a different car than mine, but I overheard his situation. He was from Baghdad and had received death threats. He was so terrified he left without anything. He had only a small plastic bag with his documents. That’s it. He didn’t even have a change of clothing. He had never been to Jordan before, but they refused him. He was so scared, he was crying and begging them not to send him back. It was too sad. We couldn’t do anything.”

Back at the transit company, one driver says it’s frustrating to him that people must travel so far without knowing what will happen. Without clear rules, he says, “It’s all on the disposition of the authorities if people can enter or not.”

I asked Zoubi if it wouldn’t be easier for Iraqis and Jordanians both to just require a visa. “Why would we do that?” he asked in return. “Iraqis don’t need a visa in Jordan.”

Even with all the regulatory confusion the drivers say they don’t completely blame the Jordanians. “Look, the number of Iraqis coming in exceeds the number leaving. This is the problem,” says one as others nod.

An unemployed engineer who arrived five months ago is standing nearby listening. He agrees, then adds that the burden of Iraq’s refugees should not belong solely to the Jordanian government. The US, he says, needs to step up and solve the problem they created.

“What kind of democracy did the Americans bring us? It’s not that I hate the Americans, but we were safe in our homes before. I didn’t agree with the previous regime, but at least my children went to school. Now it’s completely collapsed. Would Bush accept that his children didn’t attend school? That they are refugees? This is a crystal clear issue that needs to be addressed!”

Discrimination Felt as Iraqi Refugee Crisis Grows

2007-02-08T15:48:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

Amman -Since a report released by Refugees International in November declared Iraq the “world’s fastest growing refugee crisis,” political pressure has been building for the international community to recognise the situation for what it is—a humanitarian disaster.

Nearly 100,000 Iraqis are fleeing the raging violence of their country each month. Per day 2,000 attempt to cross into Syria and 1,000 into Jordan. The rest are dispersing throughout the region to countries like Lebanon, Egypt and Libya.

Cedric Turlan, spokesperson for the NGO Coordinating Committee in Iraq (NCCI), said he believes 3-4 million Iraqis have already fled. Accurate figures are impossible to determine since only those who register as refugees with the UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) are counted. Turlan points out since many Iraqis are living without any formal documentation, the number is clearly higher. In Jordan, for example, there are officially 700,000 Iraqi refugees while organisations like NCCI and UNICEF believe the number is at least 1 million.

Yet little international support has arrived. The UNHCR said their budget last year amounted to only $1 per person in dealing with the Iraqi crisis. And even though this year’s budget has doubled, it still only amounts to $2 per person for the year.

The organisation’s coordinator of the Iraq unit, Andrew Harper, wrote in the latest issue of Forced Migration that “Iraq is haemorrhaging." He estimates that one in eight Iraqis is now displaced, making it, he says, the largest migration of people in the Middle East since Palestinians were displaced by the creation of Israel in 1948.

(To put it in perspective, if an equivalent number were displaced in the US, it would be over 35 million people, and over 7 million were it the UK.)

Iraqis now account for 10-20 percent of Jordan’s population, placing a huge strain on the country’s already beleaguered resources. It is not a wealthy nation; Jordanians make an average $5,096 USD annually and unemployment is as high as 30 percent. It also ranks among the top ten most water-deficient nations in the world and imports all its energy needs. Jordan is hardly prepared for an influx like it has witnessed.

Not surprisingly, tensions between Jordanians and Iraqis are on the rise. There is a notable difference even on the street since my last visit to Amman this past spring. In conversations strangely reminiscent to those in the States regarding Mexican immigration, Jordanians openly state their frustration with the situation, believing Iraqis are burdening the country’s economy and taking away their jobs by their willingness to work for less pay.

Yet, the Iraqis who’ve fled for their lives and are trying to eek out an existence in Jordan are equally frustrated. They feel discriminated against, they say, in a country Iraq helped for years by providing very cheap oil.

Feelings of hopelessness and despair permeate the Iraqi community as family savings dwindle and options are limited. Food, shelter, medical care, school supplies, clothing, and gas for heat all cost money that many Iraqi refugees simply don’t have.

UNHCR and UNICEF say they are doing their best, but many Iraqis are in the situation of Abu Mohammed. A 35 year old man from Kirkuk, Abu Mohammed was threatened with death and fled to Jordan in 2005 with his wife and children. But, he says, “it’s impossible for me to work here because they might catch me and deport me.” That would leave his wife alone with their four children, not to mention the danger he would be thrust back into in Iraq. Instead, the two eldest work to support the family. But, insists their father, employers “don’t give Iraqis the same salary.”

Fourteen year old Mohammed works full time in a grocery story. His fifteen year old sister, Noor, works half-time in a print shop. Between the two they bring home about $130 USD a month, barely enough to cover rent and electricity.

As teenagers, the two should be attending school rather than working, but as Iraqis without residency, they are not allowed. Last year the Jordanian government banned all Iraqi children from attending public schools, but softened the policy after two weeks. Families tell me they are now at the mercy of school administrators. In Abu Mohammed’s neighborhood, close to the bustling and mixed downtown area, Iraqi children are not allowed.

Across the city, Um Ahmed says her children are able to attend school, but are tormented because they’re Shiite. She says the family has lived in Jordan in relative peace they arrived in 2001, but since the 2003 US-led invasion attitudes began to change.

“It wasn’t like this before. It changed against the Shi’a since after 2003. Jordan blames us for the occupation,” she claims.

“Then it became worse after Saddam’s death.” A few days after Saddam’s hanging, Um Ahmed says her eight year old daughter Hana was asked if she was a Sunni or Shi’a. “She answered she was Shi’a and they told her, ‘we should dismiss you from this country!’ She came home crying and blamed me, asking, ‘why did you put us in this situation?’

“In the schools they are always focused on Shi’a or Sunni. Now the children are hating to go to school because of this. Last year their marks were much better.”

Um Ahmed’s situation is made worse by the fact her husband left five months ago to visit relatives in Iraq and hasn’t been allowed back in Jordan since. Her two sons, one of them only 10 years old, now work in a shoe factory to support the family. Tears slip down her cheeks as she talks. The five children miss their father and she is in a constant state of worry about where their next meal will come from.

Sectarian differentiation is clearly spilling over the borders—a Jordanian man who struck up casual conversation in a store volunteered that the country has always been Sunni and he worries about too many Shi’a entering. When I ask why, he reveals a deeper concern about Iran. Iraqis also report being asked if they are Shi’a or Sunni by border officials, though everyone I’ve spoken with who’s crossed—Sunni and Shi’a alike—express disgust at the question.

But most Iraqi refugees at this point say they’ve felt discriminated against because they are Iraqi, rather than by their sect.

One man relates his experience at a medical clinic, which he was told provided free health care to refugees. He says not only did the doctor treat his family with disrespect, but he was also given a bill for the services. To top it off, he was also given a long list of expensive medications and tests that should be done for his son outside the clinic. Unprepared for the fees, he says he was deeply ashamed. Abu Amar’s family is one of the poorest I’ve met with, though they were from the middle class when they lived in Iraq.

“I was so shocked at the treatment,” he says. Then adds, “as you know, Iraqis have their dignity.”

The stories these families share are only a highlight of the growing fissure between Jordanian authorities and Iraqis living in the capital city. Initially welcomed in Jordan, the government now refers to Iraqis as “illegal immigrants” rather than refugees from war.

In statements made off the record, humanitarian advocates are quick to criticise the Bush administration’s lack of support. They say the US is responsible for creating the refugee crisis and should be giving financial assistance to Syria and Jordan, especially.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres is currently touring Middle Eastern countries that where Iraqis have fled. While acknowledging Syria’s and Jordan’s generosity, he called for greater international aid to hosting nations.

“The pressure over society, over resources and infrastructure, over social systems and education, is enormous. The sacrifices made by these countries are remarkable and the international community needs to assume full responsibility supporting them."

Yet, as Mr. Bush seeks over $700 billion for next year’s military budget, and the US spends $8 billion a month on the occupation, a scant $20 billion was allocated this year for refugee assistance.

Stuck in Iraq

2007-02-02T12:01:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

This past week the Jordanian authorities began strict measures at the border they share with Iraq. Though hundreds of Iraqis attempting to flee the untenable violence in their home country each day, only a few are now being allowed to cross in to Jordan. The Syrian government, traditionally very friendly toward fleeing Iraqis, has taken similar measures. The new measures are being touted as part of the new security plan implemented by the Iraqi government and carried out jointly with American forces.

As I arrived in Amman I learned my dear friend and translator was spending the night on the border between Jordan and Iraq. Hers was among dozens of other vehicles in a long line-up hoping to cross. Trying to reach her proved impossible. It was only late the next day when she called from Baghdad I learned she was among the unlucky who were turned back.

For the past three days life has been defined by a flurry of phone calls and text messages, worry and an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness. In other words, what some 700,000-1 million Iraqis in Amman go through every day.

Her neighborhood has been under fierce mortar attacks for the past couple days. “You can’t imagine what it is like,” she says over the phone. “Last night the mortars were really terrible. There was also shooting all night long.” In the morning a neighbor tells her 100 people have been killed.

“Oh my God,” she says suddenly. What? What? “There’s another attack!” she cries, just as I hear it hit in the background. Across the miles I hear the fear in her voice. Afraid for her life, tears spill from my eyes as I try to imagine the scene. The fabric of family, neighborhood, and country ripped apart in the struggle just to survive.

“We are living in a big prison,” she says, “especially now if we cannot even be allowed to leave!”

Though Syria has intermittently closed each of its three borders, her travel agent (who, in these times, arranges not just flights, but the car transport most Iraqis depend upon) has told her those borders are still open. Please, just fly to Syria, I tell her. She is promising to call the agent when suddenly the phone goes dead. I’ve run out of credit.

I quickly text message her that I’ll call back soon and dash out to purchase another phone card, which can be purchased only in small increments. Unbelievably, it’s much more expensive to call Iraq from Jordan than it is from the States.

When we finally reach one another again, she is laughing incredulously. “You won’t believe it--the travel agent just told me all flights to Damascus have been cancelled.”

The closure is part of the so-called new security plan put forward by the Iraqi government, in which American and Iraqi forces are “securing” Baghdad. Again.

By this time, she, her sister-in-law and two nieces had gone to a relative’s house in another neighborhood. Not that it’s safe, but at least there are no mortars or gunfights—for now. “If you can tell me you still have this feeling that we will see each other, then I will have some hope,” she tells me as we say goodnight.

When we next talk, she relates another harrowing tale. Today was her eldest niece’s birthday. “She was crying because she wanted a birthday cake, something to tell her it was her birthday. We wanted to have a small celebration, of course. So, my sister-in-law was able to buy her a cake and my sister and I went to a small shop nearby so I could buy her a present. When we stopped, a man came up to the car and told us we had to park in a nearby lot that he was wanted to charge us for. You know, this is how it is now, these gangs are running the streets. I told him, ‘I am just going to be in the shop for a minute and my sister will stay with the car.’ He started shouting at me, so I left and went to toward the shop. Then he started arguing with my sister. When I looked back, he had pulled out a pistol and was aiming it at her.”

My god, did he shoot? I picture her sister, a woman who is not afraid to speak her mind facing this man.

“No, because she drove away very quickly.”

And what did you do?

“I had to walk back--by another street, of course. And, of course, we had to go to the police. So, we drove to the traffic police to report it and he said it was none of his concern, go to the Iraqi National Guard, which was nearby. So, we did that. But then as we were going back, the roads were suddenly blocked from a car bomb that exploded nearby.

“This is how it is here. It’s a nightmare.”

I listen to all of this and realise this is what some 700,000-1 million Iraqis in Jordan alone contend with daily—the feelings of powerlessness and constant worry for loved ones still in Iraq.

Later on, while meeting with two other Iraqis, the elder man keeps looking at his watch. On the hour he tells me, “I will now send a missed call to my son in Baghdad to make sure he and his mother are still alive. Watch, he will send a missed call back.” Moments later his phone buzzes. He looks up smiling, “You see, they are ok. We do this twice each day at specified times.”

“Life is cheap here”

2007-01-19T11:15:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

Abbas, a Sunni Arab, was telling me of his plan to leave Baghdad for Kurdistan. “I have no other choice,” he explained, “I have ten in my family, but I cannot work [in Baghdad] because of the situation.”

Unfortunately, moving to Kurdistan is not as easy as it may seem. Though Kurdistan is still officially part of Iraq, the country’s new constitution gave the region a certain amount of autonomous powers.

“If I want to go to the north [to Kurdistan], I must get some sort of ‘security permission,’ I don’t know how else to say it,” says Abbas. He explains that he must be able to prove to the Kurdish authorities that he is a reputable man, that he won’t be bringing the violence of Baghdad with him. He’s hopeful he’ll be given clearance though; one of his brothers has contacts in Kurdistan and has told Abbas “it is 70 percent finished”.

Kurdistan, relatively free of the violence seen in other parts of Iraq, has seen a huge influx of its Iraqi Arab neighbors, as well as Kurds who were living in Baghdad. The Kurdish government estimates that about 50,000 internally displaced refugees have fled to region, and reports that some communities have seen their population double.

Abbas says for these reasons, he doesn’t blame the Kurdish government for their caution. “I would probably do the same thing,” he says.

In Baghdad, the killings have become too much. Especially since his wife is pregnant and has lost a baby before this one, Abbas says he doesn’t know what else to do.

“We [Suna and Shi’a] are living in the same place for 1,000 years and it’s never like this.”

Abbas links the start of sectarian violence to statements made by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The alleged and, some claim, mythical leader for al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Zarqawi was held responsible by American officals as the mastermind for nearly every act of violence in Iraq until his capture and death in June 2006.

“Why do I blame al-Zarqawi? Because al-Zarqawi said ‘I will kill the Shi’a.’ But, who said this man is a [true] Muslim? Who said he speaks for the Suna? Who said he speaks for the resistance? Who is he? A criminal! Who has even see this man with their own eyes? These things [that al-Zarqawi said] were just on websites. This is something someone else can control!

“Who does it benefit to have this violence? We have always to ask ourselves this.

“My younger brother was married a year ago. His wife is a Shi’a. Between the people there is nothing, but it is with the politicians and some of the imams.”

“Life is cheap here,” he lamented, “in any other country they treat the animals better.”

As an example, Abbas tells me yesterday he was at the market when a small minibus pulled up about 300 meters away, its passengers pouring out. Among them were gunmen who began shooting. About 15 people were shot, though Abbas doesn’t know how many were killed. He said he saw nothing on the evening news about the incident.

“I am embarrassed to speak like this, but my duty is to say the truth. I wish I could give you my eyes for a day, a week, so you can see what I see. Why are we [humans] going back and not forward?”

I ask Abbas if he cannot go to Kurdistan, if he will join the millions who have already left Iraq. His answer:

“One and a half years ago if you asked me this question, I would be very angry. Today, I would kiss your hand. Any land in the world is better than this land.”

Iraq’s Education Under Grave Threat

2007-01-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

At the beginning of this school year, officials predicted that 800,000 (or 22 percent) or Iraq’s children would not be attending classes due to violence and displacement. According to actual figures recently released by the Iraqi Ministry of Education the number is higher. Much higher.

Of Iraq’s 3.5 million school-aged children, a full 70 percent are now staying home.

“It’s a dark future for Iraq’s children, especially if this situation doesn’t change,” a Ministry of Education (MoE) supervisor told me over the phone.

Najida Mahteb* oversees 95 elementary schools throughout Baghdad and in the small, mostly agricultural villages north of the city. Overall there are approximately 1,700 primary and secondary schools in Baghdad.

“I am responsible for the quality of a child’s education. It’s my job to check on the teachers and to share new ideas. For example, I sit in the classes and watch the teachers with their students. I check the notebooks of the students to see what is being learned and the teachers to see what is being taught.”

Now though, safety tops the list of priorities for everyone. Children are being kept at home by parents worried about kidnapping, or worse.

Ten year-old Haifa Waleed lives in Adhamiya, one of Baghdad’s most violent neighborhoods. She hasn’t been to school for three years she says. “I’m scared of the killings taking place in Iraq. Many of my friends have either been kidnapped or killed.

“I miss my school very much,” Haifa told the IRIN News organisation, “but in the classroom I used to keep looking at the door to see if someone would break in and kidnap me. My family is poor and if they [the kidnappers] take me, I might die because they cannot pay a ransom.”

Another family I spoke with told me they have kept their two daughters home for the first time this year. “The situation has been violent in the past, but not like it is now,” their aunt, Sabah, stated. “While I am concerned for their education, we can teach them things at home. It’s better this way.”

Prior to debilitating sanctions in the 1990s, Iraq had one of the highest literacy rates in the developing world and the highest number of female PhDs in the Middle East; half of all academics were women. Education is highly valued among Iraqis, even by those with little education themselves.

“My mother came from an uneducated family in Fallujah,” says Hana*. Her mother, now 68 years old, came from a poor family. “You can imagine 60 years ago in this conservative town--her own mother was not even free--yet even they encouraged her to go to school and she taught school for years in the south.”

Now, says Hana, everything has changed under occupation. Especially for women and children, who are targets of fundamentalist militias. “I’ve never seen Iraqi women in this situation before. Not in my whole life. Just this week, three more university students [in Baghdad] were kidnapped and raped by militias.”

Also this week, schools in Baghdad’s troubled Al-Dora district were shut down when American bombs began dropping on alleged “insurgent strongholds” and street fighting escalated.

Add to this the hundreds of academics who have been killed and the thousands who have fled the country since 2003. Though no offical statistics exist, between 250 and 500 academics have been murdered and several hundred kidnapped, threatened or arrested by Coalition forces, militias, Iraq’s government or gangs. In November, for example, about 80 gunmen raided a building at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Baghdad. Dressed as Iraqi National Police commandos, they kidnapped 100 academics, staff workers and visitors, prompting the Iraqi government to temporarily close all universities under emergency order. Five top security officials were later arrested as complicit in the crime.

Unbelievably, in the midst of such chaos, people like Najida Mahteb continue their work as best they can. Normally, Najida would drive herself to each of her 95 schools on a rotational basis, ensuring teachers have the necessary tools to give Iraq’s next generation the best education. She still insists on visiting Baghdad’s schools despite the risks associated with unrelenting violence and al-Maliki’s latest security plans, which include shutting down the city’s bridges. But, Najida hasn’t done any site visits to the 25 rural schools in her jurisdiction since last February’s bombing of Samarra’s Al-Aksari Mosque. It’s too dangerous even for her.

“It’s sad. Even though most of the people in this area are farmers, those kids are very intelligent and graduate from the university in Baghdad. They prize education.

“But now, there are so many problems, especially from the militias. Some are from the area, but mostly they are from the outside.” She explains that because one of the biggest American bases, Taji, is close by, Iraqi Army and Iraqi National Guard checkpoints have been set up close by. “These checkpoints, especially, are a cover for the militias. It is impossible to go.” (Militias commonly operate under the guise or with the cooperation of Iraqi security forces.)

“I met with one the of the [rural] teachers yesterday when she was in Baghdad. I had told her of my idea to bring my mother with me so the militias would not bother us. But, she told me ‘please don’t come’ because of the possibility of kidnapping by Mehdi Army, even if I came with my mother!

“There are new ways of teaching now, and they have no idea of the new ways because I can’t show them,” worries Najida.

Unfortunately, even if Najida could visit these schools and share the new methods, there might not be students to receive them.

As ten year-old Haifa concludes, “I prefer to be illiterate than to die or see a friend killed in front of me or maybe kidnapped and have my ears sent to my family as happened to one of my best friends three months ago.”

* Not their real names.

800,000 Iraqi Children Not Attending School

2006-09-21T23:38:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

Schools in Iraq will soon resume, but thousands of worried families will be keeping their children at home for fears of kidnapping or worse.

Girls are at particular risk. A joint Ministry of Interior (MoE) and UNICEF study found that of those who do not attend school, 74 percent are female children.

A recent report by the UK-based organisation Save the Children, entitled “Rewrite the Future: Education for children in conflict-affected countries,” documents the effects of armed conflict on primary education in 30 countries. Some 115 million primary-aged children do not attend school for various reasons, the report says, yet by far the biggest contributor is conflict, which deprives one in three, or 43 million, from attending.

In Iraq that translates to 818,000 primary-aged children, or 22.2 percent of Iraq’s student population, who are not attending school.

Since 2003, violence has dramatically increased in a country that once enjoyed relative security. Attacks on schools by US and Iraqi government forces and civilian militias, kidnappings by organised crime, and the ever-present threat of car bombs, sniper’s bullets and random shootings all contribute to the violence.

Iraq’s education ministry reported that in the first half of the 2005 academic year alone, 64 children were killed and 57 injured in attacks on schools. Another 47 were kidnapped. Yet these numbers don’t include the children who were killed or injured on their way to or from school.

Besides violence, displacement is a contributing factor to student nonattendance. Thousands of children are from families who’ve fled US-led sieges on their communities or sectarian violence and therefore don’t have access to education.

In a June report, the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission on Refugees) put the number of refugees inside Iraq at 1.8 million, an increase of 800,000 people from last year. Not included are the estimated 100,000-150,000 who were displaced as a result of US military operations in Ramadi this summer.

Professors have also been a target of Iraq’s violence, causing a severe shortage in teachers. In the first four months of 2005, 311 teachers and employees with the education ministry were killed and another 158 injured.

During that same time, 417 schools, including universities, had been attacked, resulting in the closure of several. According to the Ministry of Higher Education, close to 180 professors have been killed between February and August; another 3,250 have fled the country.

While there are no accurate figures for how many teachers have left Iraq since the US-led invasion, statistical records kept by the University Professors Union of Iraq show that over 10,000 professionals, including physicians, have fled the country since 2003.

Two more left just last month. Earlier this spring, I met with Saleh Mohammed and his wife Eman Hussain* in Amman. Both taught at Baghdad universities. They told me their concern was mostly for their son, who they had moved to Amman where about 500,000 other Iraqis now live. They planned, however, to stay in Baghdad, despite the danger. Now, six months later, they have left their beloved country due to the dire security situation, unsure when they might return.

“The number of teachers leaving the country this year is huge and almost double those who left in 2005,” Professor Salah Aliwi, director general of studies planning in the Ministry of Higher Education reported to IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks). “Every day, we are losing more experienced people, which is causing a serious problem in the education system.”

This month the MoE announced it is raising salaries by 20-50 percent in attempts to entice teachers to stay. It remains to be seen if that will make any difference. Even with the more than 13 thousand guards hired by the MoE to protect educational institutions in Iraq, it has not been sufficient to calm the violence or quell the exodus.

Once the model of education in the Middle East, twelve years of grueling sanctions and three years of bloody occupation have left Iraq’s system in shambles, a generation of children both traumatised and, it seems, deprived of education.

*Not their real names.

Target: The Media

2006-09-15T00:34:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

On September 13 two more journalists were murdered in Iraq.

Freelance photographer Safa Isma’il Enad was in a Baghdad print shop when armed men entered and asked for him by name. When he answered, the 31 year-old was gunned down and taken away by car. According to the Iraq-based Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, his body was later found east of Baghdad.

In a separate incident, 56 year-old Hadi Anawi al-Jabouri’s car was riddled with bullets as he was driving in the governate of Diyala. In addition to being a journalist, al-Jabouri was also the representative of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate.

And on September 11 Abdel Karim al-Rubai, editor of the government daily Al-Sabah was gunned down while on his way to work. Al-Rubai had received death threats two weeks prior from a militia when he wrote an editorial that the group resented.

Together, their deaths bring the total number of journalists and media workers killed in Iraq since the Anglo-American invasion of 2003 to 107. Iraq is the most dangerous place in the world for a journalist to work. Especially if that journalist is an Iraqi. Sixty-five of the 107 dead are Iraqi. The US occupation of Iraq is also the deadliest conflict on record.

The US-based non-partisan organizations Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Freedom Forum (FF) both maintain lists of past conflicts. The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan also kept track of journalist’s deaths during the Vietnam war. Following is a breakdown of the heaviest tolls and some comparative conflicts:
• Afghanistan: 2001-2006 / CPJ lists 10 journalists killed.
• Kosovo: 1999-2001 / CPJ lists 7 killed.
• Algeria: 1993-1996 / CPJ lists 58 killed.
• First Iraq war: 1991 / CPJ lists 4 killed. (All were killed after the official end of the war but died in the conflict in the immediate aftermath.)
• Balkans:1991-1995 / CPJ lists 36 killed.
• Central American conflicts: 1979-1989 / FF lists 89 killed.
• Argentina: 1976-1983 / FF lists 98 killed.
• Vietnam: 1955-1975 / FF lists 66 killed. 1962-1975 / The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan lists 71 killed.
• Korean War: FF lists 17 killed.
• World War II: FF lists 68 killed.

Kidnapping is also an ever present worry; since 2003, 41 journalists have been kidnapped in Iraq. Of those, 32 have been released and seven killed. Two are still being held.

Besides the constant threat of violence against individuals, Iraq’s media is under ever more tightening restrictions.

It was under Paul Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority that the first free speech restrictions were imposed. Those regulations were used when US-led occupation forces shut down cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr’s popular paper, al-Hawza, in March 2004. The paper was charged with inciting violence against US and other coalition forces.

Continuing the restrictions, this past July the US-backed Iraqi government announced it would impose emergency laws on the media should they criticize Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s official security plans or “offend Iraqi sensibilities.” Rather, al-Maliki urged the media to be “positive and cooperative with the state.”

Just a week ago he followed through on that threat when he ordered police to shut down the satellite channel Al-Arabiya’s Baghdad offices for one month. Though no evidence was produced, al-Maliki charged the station with inciting “sectarian violence and war in Iraq” through its news reports. The Allawi government’s July 2004 decision to ban satellite news station Al-Jazeera from Baghdad remains in place to this day. Instead, the station must broadcast out of Kurdistan in northern Iraq.

In another crackdown on free press, both the managing editor and editor-in-chief of the now defunct Sada Wasit will face at least10 years in prison and heavy fines if convicted of defamation from three articles written in 2005, in which local police and judicial officials were criticized. Notably, the editor, Ahmed Mutair Abbas, was on his way to the trial when he and his car disappeared on September 10.

Media in Iraq are the target of ever-increasing government suppression; their reporters the target of unbelievable violence.

Freedom of speech, long-touted in the U.S. as a litmus for democracy, has never been allowed in Iraq under U.S. occupation. Instead continues the long pattern of media suppression that also existed under Saddam Hussein. The difference? The violence. Now, 107 journalists are dead.

Refusing to Fight: interview with Resister Kyle Snyder

2006-08-08T20:32:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

Those who have seen the recent documentary about U.S. GI resistance during the Vietnam war “Sir No Sir!” will understand the numerous parallels to growing resistance in today’s military and its solidarity with the civilian anti-war movement. From non-violent demonstrations and sit-ins to the radical actions of The Weather Underground, hundreds of thousands protested the Vietnam war for years. Finally, officials began leaking classified information. But, ultimately, it was the individual soldier refusing to participate any longer that brought the military machine to its knees.

Fragging of superiors and outright refusal to follow combat orders became commonplace. Desertion and Absent Without Leave (AWOL) hit an all-time high; the Pentagon documented 1,500,000 during that time. About 100,000 of those active duty members went into exile, and at least 90 percent of them fled, to Canada.

Today, those precedents are being repeated. Resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq (and, to some degree, Afghanistan) among its own military is growing rapidly and the Department of Defense teetering on the brink of recruitment crisis.

Thousands of soldiers are refusing to participate any longer. Dozens, like First Lt. Ehren Watada—the first commissioned officer to refuse—have chosen to go public and face the consequences. Others simply disappear.

By the Pentagon’s own admission, over 8,000 GIs are now AWOL (many now calling it Against War of Lies). While most are living underground in the States, according to Canada’s War Resisters Support Campaign, another 100-200 have fled to Canada, following the footsteps of their Vietnam-era counter-parts. Of those, 24 have come forward and sought assistance from the Campaign. Based in Toronto, the Canada’s War Resisters Support Campaign (WRSC) reinforces Canada’s historical stance and provides a base of support for those, like American Kyle Snyder, who refuse to fight.

Thus far, the Canadian government has not deported any U.S. war resisters. Says Lee Zaslofsky, Coordinator of WRSC and Vietnam War deserter, “The US government has no authority to arrest or deport anyone who is in Canada. Since it is not a crime in Canada to be AWOL from the US military, the US cannot extradite anyone for that ‘offense’.”

This is good news for 22 year-old Kyle Snyder, who arrived in Vancouver last August on leave. Though he went to visit a friend, Snyder also knew he would not return to an Army he says has lied to him.

A thin young man with a small soul patch, spiked hair and tattoos running down both arms, Snyder looks more like he’s about to hop on a skateboard than talk about the life-changing events that brought him to Canada. I talked with Kyle Snyder after he and other resisters spoke at Vancouver’s World Peace Forum.

An Easy Target for Recruiters
“I joined the military when I was 19 years old from a government program called Job Corps, in Clearfield, Utah,” Snyder begins. “I wasn't a good kid. I didn’t have a good background. I was in foster homes from thirteen to seventeen, then when I was seventeen, I went through a government program called Job Corps. So, from thirteen all the way up, I didn’t have parental figures in my life really. My parents divorced; my father was really abusive towards my mother and he was abusive toward me. I’ve still got scars on my back. I was put in Social Services when I was thirteen. I was an easy target for recruiters, plain and simple.

“The minute I graduated in 2003, Staff Sgt. Williamson came to me and he mentioned all the benefits military programs had to offer. And, for the first time in my life, I saw that I could become something more. I saw a man in a professional uniform, clean-cut, a very professional man coming up to me, wanting me, saying I could look just like him. I wanted that. I don’t know any other 19 year old that wouldn’t want that.

“I joined the military for materialistic benefits. A $5,000 bonus seemed really really nice being 19 years old. Maybe I could put a down payment on a car or something. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to provide for a family; I wanted to have a family. I wanted all the benefits that the military had to offer.”

I asked Snyder if he thought about the invasion of Iraq when he joined the military. He said yes, but “more than anything I wanted to reconstruct the civilization of Iraq. I wanted to help liberate the people of Iraq, just like the American president was saying. So, I signed up to be a heavy construction equipment operator, part of the 94th Corps of Engineers. I figured if I was an engineer in the United States Army I could build foundations for the Iraqi people to form their new government, to form a civilization after the bombings of 2003.”

Snyder did his basic training in Ft. Lenonwood, Missouri, which he described as “a simple military process that…breaks you down, breaks down all of [your] values into believing that killing another human being is ok, and that you can make money off of killing another life, taking another human being’s soul.”

“The military took my child”
While at basic training, Snyder’s grandfather died. He was denied leave to attend the funeral. Two weeks later he was allowed to go home, and it was then that his fiancée became pregnant.

After graduation, Snyder was sent to Germany where he became part of the 94th Engineers Combat Battalion Heavy. “That’s where I met my new friends, my new brothers that I would fight with. This was my family.” It was there, Snyder says, he found out that his “child was dying inside of my fiancée’s…womb. I brought it up to medical sergeants, medical commanders. They told me that they couldn’t provide any medical attention for my child because we were not legally married. The military took my child! And nobody could say that I wasn’t trying to become a good father because I was in the military.”

Bitter and angry at the military now, it was the loss of Snyder’s child that planted those first seeds. Depressed and in shock, Snyder requested an exit from the military. “I tried for six months while the deployment orders were still in effect for my unit.” He was refused. “I became very depressed. I just went numb inside. I was put on medication, Lorazipam and Paxyl. I later refused to take the medication because I felt that it was numbing me. I decided that was something I needed to heal from myself. And I believe it’s still something I need to heal from.

“I felt that the only reason I was getting [the anti-depressants] was because they wanted me…to be a soldier.

“I learned all the different weapon system that the military could offer in a combat situation. 50 cal are used with depleted uranium rounds; I found that out when coming to Canada. I was never told that while I was in Iraq.”

Though Snyder had just lost his child, was depressed, and was about to be deployed to the violence that is now Iraq, for the month prior his superiors assigned him to “Fallen Soldier Detail,” where, Snyder says matter-of-factly, “I would salute the dead bodies that were put into caskets as they were returning to Germany before we shipped them off to the United States.”

I ask him if that affected him, to see the dead coming back from where he was about to go. Surprisingly, he shakes his head…”nah, not really.” Snyder says he didn’t expect to see combat anyway. “Going to Iraq meant I was going to reconstruct a city, not kill people. That’s what I believed I was going to do.”

Lied to by the Military
When Snyder arrived, however, he says he saw no reconstruction of Iraq. “The only reconstruction I saw was building army bases.

“I was in Mosul. I was in Baghdad. I was in Stryker. I was in Scania. [Both, military bases.] I was in Tikrit… Iraq is the size of Texas, it’s a small country. People need to realise that. There were reconstructions of forward operating bases and military bases, but no city work being done. I mean, none of that. So, why are the engineers there? “ he asks rhetorically, shaking his head.

Instead of doing the job he signed up for, says Snyder, “I was sent into what we called The Force Protection Program; it was a separate entity from my unit. We escorted everything up to a general.

“I don’t know what is worse, telling your friends you can’t fight with them because you’re escorting a general who doesn’t want to see combat, or actually being a part of the combat.”

Snyder’s first mission further demoralised him. “Capt. John G. Chung left me during my first mission. He left me and 8 personnel and 4 vehicles behind in Baghdad. He went to Forward Operating Base Scania, which was an hour north of Baghdad. My platoon sergeant, Staff Sgt Perkins went up to him and asked him why he had left. He didn’t answer us for about two months, until we confronted him and set a meeting up asking him why he had left us during the mission. ‘That’s not any of my concern, because I’m just a Private. He has different orders. I don't care what his orders are.’ How would he explain to my mother if I had died, that he was missing during that mission?”

Though in Iraq only four and half months, Snyder says he conducted over 38 documented missions. “Most men don’t even do two in a year. The chances of me surviving a firefight were 30 percent…because I was a gunner. I was lucky because I wasn’t in too much combat. But I did see my friends come back injured and I did see men from other units killed.”

“Three months into Iraq, my friend, a man that I drank beer with, a man that I had even gone to college with for awhile, shot an innocent civilian who was raking rocks along the side of the road. I remember having to go back to Forward Operating Base Marez, and reporting to my commanding officer what I just seen. I remember writing a mission statement. I remember requesting an investigation be done and I remember it being refused.

“’I can’t take this anymore!’ That’s what I thought to myself. This is not what I signed up for and it’s not what’s being shown to the American public. So, why the hell should I fight? Because what that commanding officer was telling me by refusing that investigation, was that I could pick up my M-16 or my M-4 or my M-2 and go and kill 50 Iraqi civilians because I was angry and get away with it because it’s war!”

Snyder angrily declares, “The American president was saying that we were liberating and we were reconstructing. Well, I expect to be doing that! I mean, who’s in the wrong here? I was given false orders. I was given false information. I did expect to go and help reconstruct a society.

“You know, if they want to help people in Iraq….imagine a15 year-old kid, for the last 5 years all he’s seen is [US] military personnel with weapons going through his city. How is that child supposed to believe that that man, in that uniform is helping him? Now, if that child saw a convoy of logs being brought to his city, or a convoy of water being brought to his city, still guarded, it would be a completely different situation. That’s where the American military messed up. Because they forgot about the perception of civilisation. They forgot about the perception of the Iraqi people.”

A Refugee in Canada
Snyder began documenting his missions. “I wanted to find out…you know it might have been because I was already angry with the United States Army…but it doesn’t matter. When they took my soul that way… you want them to be accountable for what they have done. Right? So, for me, documenting and taking pictures and doing all of that, that was my way of saying ‘look, you know what? You guys are the ones that are fucking up.’

He is now using the documentation as evidence in his refugee claim. His defense? “That this war is illegal and I should be able to make moral decisions as a soldier; I’m using international law and this is an international war, it’s not a civil war so they need to take into consideration international law.”

“I left the military because the situation is now that it is not conducting itself as a professional unit. Altogether the US military, in my eyes, is scrambled to the point that nobody knows what they’re doing, except the generals. I think the generals are making bad decisions and giving bad orders to people like me. So, I refuse to work in an organisation that is not professional. I refuse to work in an organisation that commits war crimes. It would be like if I worked for 7-11 and I found out my boss was laundering money. I wouldn’t want to work for them, would I? Nobody would question me then, if I quit that job. I mean, that’s the reality of it.

“I thought about turning myself back in about four months ago. I thought hard about this, to just get it over with. But, you know what? More and more, I think they have to catch me first. I’m not hiding. I’m right here. But how bad would that look if Americans came over to Canada to arrest me?”

A De-moralised Army
Still in touch with his unit, Snyder says they fully support what he’s doing and now confide in him. “From the people that I know morale is like, ‘well, what are we doing here for the fourth time?’ They’re upset because they’ve been there for the third or fourth time and they’re married…a lot of them are. So, if you’ve see your wife two months out of three years, how are you supposed to maintain a stable relationship? And that’s part of the reason that a lot of them joined the military in the first place! A lot of family men join, so nobody wants to fight a war they don’t have to.”

I ask Snyder about soldiers committing atrocities, like those in Haditha where 24 civilians were intentionally killed, or the rape of a teenager and subsequent murder of her and her family in Mahmoudiya.

Snyder says he and most other soldiers are horrified by these events. But, he says, it’s also important to remember the situation in which they’ve been placed. “You‘ve got people who just don’t care! It’s probably their third or fourth deployment and they blame the Iraqis because who are they going to blame?”

There have been accusations that some soldiers have been using drugs and I ask what Snyder thinks. Snyder says he personally didn’t see drug use, but, says, “there is prostitution. The US military brings Iraqi women on the bases, five to six at a time. They were probably in their mid-twenties…it was right across the street at Camp Diamond, in a massage parlor. I was appalled the U.S. would be funding this! It’s sickening. U.S. taxpayer’s money is going toward prostitution rings on U.S. bases. I’m willing to sit in front of a court and say these same things.”

When I ask how he knows the U.S. is funding this, he fires back, “You tell me where the money is coming from? I hold the Bush Administration responsible.” Someone, he says, has approved it, otherwise they would not be on the bases. “They owe an explanation why that kind of shit is going on.”

Leaving the U.S.
“I love my country. And that’s why I’m in Canada right now. That’s it. Plain and simple. …and any soldier that refuses to fight in this war has my respect.”

They also have the respect of the War Resister’s Campaign members, many of whom, like campaign coordinator Lee Zaslofsky, are U.S. deserters of the Vietnam war.

Of this current conflict, he says, “Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey are the first two war resisters to apply for refugee status. Their refugee claims were denied by the Immigration and Refugee Board. They appealed to the Federal Court and their case was dismissed. They now await a hearing on their appeal before the Federal Court of Appeal, which will probably happen this Fall. These two cases are different from each other, but are being considered together for convenience. If they are successful, it will be a good precedent that will benefit other war resisters; if their current appeal fails, we will try to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.”

Kyle Snyder and other resisters are watching these cases closely because they will set precedent. But no matter how the cases turn out, there is still strong support among Canadians.

“The War Resisters Support Campaign does not rely only on legal proceedings to make it possible for US Iraq War resisters to remain in Canada permanently,” says Zaslofsky. “We are also rallying support among Canadians with a petition campaign, media, political lobbying, speaking tours, etc. We believe that the best solution will be a provision by the government that makes it possible for the war resisters to stay permanently, rather than repeated refugee claims, each of which is considered individually.”

Until that happens, resisters like Kyle Snyder remain in limbo. But, that doesn’t mean that life has stopped for him. Snyder’s schedule is full with speaking engagements, interviews, letter-writing, and organising. “Right now I’m working on getting a [safe] house in Surrey than any resister can come to.”

Though emotionally exhausted, Snyder says he keeps going on the support he’s received. “It’s what fuels me, what gives me strength, just knowing that people all over the world support me.”

I ask Snyder what he wants for the future. “I want to go back to college. I want the government to leave me alone and give me time to think and to process everything. I want 21 back. I want this war to stop. That’s what I want.

“I want my friends home, and I want to know that Iraq is being reconstructed. And that can still happen. Economically, we owe the Iraqi people billions of dollars if you add up every single home and every single life that’s been taken. America owes at least that.”

For more information about the War Resisters Support Campaign go to www.resisters.ca.

Biometric Control: What’s good for Fallujah is good for Reno?

2006-07-11T00:34:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

In November 2004 the US led their second siege against the city of Fallujah, Iraq, all but destroying it. Up to 200,000 of the city’s 300,000 residents fled. The story of those who stayed is horrific, and by now well-known. Hundreds of civilians were killed alongside resistance fighters through indiscriminate aerial bombing, the use of illegal white phosphorus against a civilian populations and US snipers shooting at ambulances.

Yet the horror wasn’t over. When the first couple thousand refugees were finally allowed to return home in December, they found 50-70 percent of their city reduced to rubble and that it was now surrounded by wire fence. US forces controlled checkpoints at which residents faced a choice: get a biometric ID card, which allowed them to move through the city to designated areas, or face being shot. NBC reporter Peter Engel told Tom Brokaw’s Nightly News that Marines had been authorised to use “deadly force against anyone refusing the new rules.”

The new ID card, required to be carried at all times, included a retinal scan, fingerprints and personal information, all entered in to a database which would make its way into an international Department of Defense (DoD) database in Virginia. There, the information is funneled, along with that from other US federal agencies to a high-tech “biometric” database administered by the National Counterterrorism Center.

Biometrics are automated measurements of anything that identify one individual from another—they can include retina and iris scans, fingerprints, palm prints, facial shots, voice, and DNA. Added to these digital dossiers are personal information like birthdate, nationality, work and criminal history, and anything else deemed important to those collecting the information….like living in a city where simply being a resident also equals being a suspect.

The NCTC, newly created in 2004 as the central terrorism intelligence agency, has become the main repository for a database of international terrorism suspects and those who aid them. The list started with 75,000 names in 2003, but quadrupled to 325,000 in just three years. US intelligence and defense agencies began publicly admitting they were collecting biometric data in Afghanistan, Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay in 2004.

Who ends up on these lists? Suspected international and domestic terrorists, the agencies say. But what is a “terrorist”? Disturbingly, though world leaders have accepted George Bush’s “war on terror” and any citizen those nations deem a “terrorist” can now end up the US database, there is no internationally agreed-upon definition of what a terrorist is.

Mr. Bush’s September 2003 directive required federal agencies to gather information on individuals "known or appropriately suspected to be . . . engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism."

One’s imagination need not roam far to see who might be included—Palestine’s democratically-elected Hamas party members immediately come to mind. But having names on a list is one thing, collecting very distinguishable and unique personal information into an international database is quite another.

Debates over privacy and civil rights are raging in this country, but not loudly enough. The far-right has long proposed national ID cards, which have thus far been rejected, but the acceptance of individual data collection is quietly seeping into our everyday lives.

Softened by fear, the American public seems ever more ready to accept the exchange being offered by the US government: your personal freedoms for a sense of security.

Voice recognition systems have been used at US borders since 1997. Pittsburg and other cities, instituted pilot programs in 2001 requiring student fingerprints in exchange for school lunches. Human micro-chip implants are touted as a safety measure for seniors with Alzheimer’s. GPS bracelets track those on parole. Video surveillance cameras are mounted at banks, traffic intersections, gas stations and on public buildings.

But what ought to worry people most are these biometric databases in which government control over its population is not some science fiction fantasy, but an authentic concern.

Two years ago a friend of mine was photographing some anti-war graffiti on a downtown building. A couple months later, weirdly enough on September 11, Homeland Security officers knocked on the door of the house he had once lived, but that day was just visiting. For taking photographs, he was assumed to be linked to potential “eco-terrorist” activities elsewhere in the state and questioned for the next hour. He had been tracked down via facial recognition technology from a camera mounted on the building.

The FBI has already been publicly outed for its spying on such threats to domestic security as the peace group The Ragin’ Grannies and for taking digital pictures at anti-war demonstrations, compiling facial features of protesters into their records.

But it’s really in the US occupation of Iraq where the lock-down society is being truly tested. Iraq is being used as a proving ground for technology that the US government would like nothing less than to employ in the States. There, biometric systems are being utilized across the board to collect detailed information about its citizens, the military says, in an attempt to curb violence.

Troops are currently compiling a database of “terrorists, insurgents, local workers and detainees” in Iraq, says Marine Corps News. Anyone detained longer than 72 hours is automatically fingerprinted and entered in to the database, according to Jon A. Davis, a field representative training troops on use of the Biometric Automated Technology System or BATS. In a country where no accurate count of detainees even exists and hundreds of thousands have never even been charged, an overwhelming portion of the population will have been tagged as suspected terrorists.

Fallujah was the test case for Iraqi civilians who haven’t been detained. After the city was effectively brought to its knees by the heaviest aerial bombardment of the US invasion, terrified residents were hardly in a position to question being fingerprinted so they could go home.

An American colleague tells me that in order to enter the city for humanitarian aid purposes, he was “marched right into the line of [Iraqis] checking in. I had to get a retina scan and a 10-finger print. The [Marine] behind the computer typed my stuff in and gave me a sideways look, looked at his screen again and said, ‘fuck it, I’m not gonna do this to you man. If I log you in to this system you are going to be a registered suspected terrorist. If you try to fly, get pulled over for a traffic violation, you’re going to have trouble where ever you go.’”

Now, admits Davis, BATS has been deployed in most cities where major military units are stationed, including AL Qaim, Al Asad, Samarra and the Blue Diamond base outside Ramadi. “There are six control points in Fallujah proper alone and seven [inside] Ramadi.”

Hand-held wireless devices developed by Identix Inc. can be used in the field by troops to record fingerprints and facial IDs to anyone they deem a “terrorist.”

Aishya is an Iraqi colleague and humanitarian worker who delivers aid to communities across Iraq and travels internationally for speaking engagements. She told me she was forced to get the same biometric ID card as other Fallujans when she was trying to deliver aid there. “Of course, I had to do this, if I wanted to help the people. But I don’t know what this will mean for the future when I travel.” She says everyone knows that to hold an ID card from Fallujah means they could be targeted as an “insurgent” (which in Iraq translates to terrorist) no matter where they are in Iraq. If a Fallujan is visiting a relative in Baquba, for example, and is made to stop at a US checkpoint, they are automatically suspect.

When she recently travelled through Jordan, Aishya was pulled aside at the border. They allowed her entry, but not before administering a retinal scan and fingerprinting of their own. They told her the new equipment came from the US.

The US-backed Iraqi government is now issuing new travel documents—for the third time since 2003. Data included in the new biometric passports will be kept at the Ministry of the Interior, an agency whose secret police are torturing Iraqis with the knowledge of US military officials.

Back in the US, where the NCTC maintains its official terrorist database, how many Iraqi names have been forwarded? Is the American colleague who visited Fallujah somewhere on that list?

While NCTC officials insist that US citizens make up “only a very, very small fraction,” they also declined to tell the Washington Post what the number is, nor how many are linked to their domestic wiretapping scheme. But, they did admit known white supremacist and so-called eco-terrorists (read environmental activists arrested for civil disobedience) are in the database.

And if American citizens still think they’re safe if they just “keep their noses clean”, they might want to remember what Jondavid Black, spokesperson for Lockheed Martin’s Horizontal Integration Vision division, told the New York Times about biometric ID systems: “"What they do for the military in downtown Falluja, they can do for the police in downtown Reno.”

US Occupation Adding to “Acute” Health Crisis

2006-07-06T22:58:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

“Iraq is really going down the drain,” Roland Huguenin-Benjamin, spokesperson of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), flatly stated in his assessment of the US-occupied country. “It is a dead end; if new ideas don’t come, I don’t see much opportunity there for change,” he added.

Huguenin-Benjamin was participating in a panel discussion on “Health Needs in Iraq: Where Shortages are Manmade” at the first-ever World Peace Forum in Vancouver, BC. He wanted people to understand the current situation in Iraq against the backdrop of its recent history.

“The ICRC is in 80 countries, which are mostly poor and underdeveloped. Iraq is special case,” he said, because it was once a donor nation. “They used to give money to UNICEF,” and other international programs. “Iraq was very modern in the ‘70s.” It had a high “level of technology, state of the art medical care, and a high level of proficiency with the doctors.”

Iraqis “lived with top medical facilities…[and now] suddenly Iraq has been bombed to the middle ages.” He said that since sanctions were imposed during the 1990s, over 30% of babies are
now born under 2 kilos.

This June the ICRC said they were alarmed by a “very acute” water, fuel, and power “crisis” in Fallujah, Ramadi and Sadr City, a poor neighborhood of Baghdad. In Fallujah and Ramadi the shortages are exacerbated by US-led troops restricting access to the cities.

Under the US-led occupation, Huguenin-Benjamin continued, there is a serious lack of clean drinking water and “large portions of sewage flowing into rivers. You can imagine the medical result.” People are dying from “medical diseases that are easily solvable. Many children die of diarrhea.”

He also pointed out the that since “there is fighting on major roads, there is no way to get to medical facilities. Some medical facilities are under operation of armed gunmen. Roadside bombs, air raids, snipers…all these [factors] lead to a high number of causalities.

“Now there are even unclaimed bodies in the morgue due to the danger of just going to the morgue.”

US-led troops have also contributed significantly to the casualties, frequently occupying hospitals, said Rana Al-Aiouby, an Iraqi humanitarian aid worker based in Baghdad who was also on the panel.

Al-Aiouby was in Fallujah during the April 2004 US siege. “I saw 15-20 [US] snipers on just one roof,” she said. “I was with a medical team in an ambulance and the ambulance was shot at. They also killed an old woman who was holding a white flag.”

By now an infamous photograph, Al-Jazeera News shot on-the-scene footage at Fallujah General Hospital when US troops arrested several doctors and patients at that time, claiming the facility was an “insurgent stronghold.” They are shown handcuffed and lying on the floor, US soldiers with assault rifles standing guard over them.

Al-Aiouby was also able to enter Fallujah after the second siege in November 2004 where she saw the city all but destroyed and most of its residents reduced to refugees. “It is normal for [the US] to use cluster bombs in the cities,” she said sadly. US air strikes flattened the Nazzal Emergency Hospital during that siege.

But, Fallujah is not an isolated situation.

In Ramadi, where US-led troops are currently conducting a huge military operation, Al-Aiouby said residents are very worried. “Many in Ramadi couldn’t leave. And they have learned from the hard situation in Fallujah about the refugee camps.”

In March 2005, US troops stormed a women and children’s hospital in Ramadi, ordering medical staff and patients alike to leave, while detaining other staff members.

On Wednesday of this week, hundreds of US troops raided the Saddam Hospital in Ramadi, claiming it was being used by “insurgents” to treat their injured and to fire upon them.

Al-Aiouby said US-led troops also raided Haditha’s hospital, not for the first time, last November. “They beat the director, Walid Al-Hadithi, and arrested him, accusing him of supporting the ‘insurgents’. But he answered that [as a doctor] he should give medical treatment for anyone…if it is an American soldier, an ‘insurgent,’ anyone. Patients in the surgery were arrested.”

"What we're seeing is most clearly deliberate violations of the most fundamental conventions of international law," said Huguenin-Benjamin, specifically of US military actions in Fallujah in 2004.

Al-Aiouby, who delivers medical supplies to conflict areas, said there is a also a serious lack of medical supplies throughout Iraq. In Haditha, for example, “they have two incubators, but one is not working. After [an incubator] is used once have to leave it for three days, so if you receive another case like this you cannot put the baby inside.” She said, in Haditha, “they really don’t have anything.”

Huguenin-Benjamin, underscoring how Iraqis have had to cope with a serious deterioration in their heath care, said that the World Health Organisation life expectancy is now 51 years for Iraqi men and 61 years for women. “Look back 20 years and it was as high as anyone in the West. Iraqis are living with the memory of having quality medical services….now Iraqis are stuck in deep shit. [The country] is a catalogue of international faliures.”

US Troops Covering Their Tracks in Samarra

2006-06-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

In Samarra, where US troops have been accused of shooting two women--one pregnant--while on their way to the hospital, and trying to cover up the wrong-doing, another incident reveals a disturbing trend.

According to surviving family members, US troops killed three unarmed civilians, one a mentally disabled man, in their home on the evening of 4 May and then attempted to cover their tracks.

Around 5pm an IED exploded on Al-Burahman Street. Afterwards, US forces blocked the area and closed the streets. When a sniper shot at troops from a location close the Khalis family home, soldiers stormed the house. Fifteen people were crammed into one room, huddled together for safety. According to witnesses, troops broke down the door to the house when as they raided it, and began “shooting everywhere”.

The “Americans were yelling, ‘fuck you, shut up,’” says one of the survivors, 36 year-old Shireen, whose mother, brother and sister were killed in the incident. There were mostly women and children in the room, she says.

Shireen’s mentally disabled brother, 40 year-old Khalid Zaidan Khalif, put his arms around his 66 year-old father, Zaidan Khalif Habib trying to protect him. Troops shot Khalid and then pushed the father onto the floor, says Shireen.

It all happened so fast she says that, “I couldn’t see anything, I just heard the shooting.” Her sister, 20 year-old Emam Zaidan, was holding Shireen’s 18 month-old son in her arms when the shooting began.

“After the terrible shooting was a terrible silence. I thought they killed my father. I tried to talk to my sister. She was in her last year at school, studying for her final exams. I asked her, ‘is my son ok or he is dead?’ She didn’t respond. She was slumped against the wall. I tried to touch her shoulder and my son’s clothes were filled by blood. Then I realized she was dying.”

“I tried to talk to my mother, ‘why are you laying down like this?’ I asked her. When I tried to make her sit up I saw something white hanging from her eyes. It was one of her eyes.” Sixty year-old Khairiya N’sses Jasim had also been shot, her “other eye was stuck to the wall”.

Her sister didn’t die immediately. Shireen says in her last moments Emam begged the soldiers in English to help her. They left, she says, and brought back a military doctor, but Emam died almost immediately.

After the three were killed, Shireen says, the troops apologised, saying they killed the wrong people.

According to Reuters, a spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division (which controls the area) claimed that soldiers from its 3rd Brigade Combat Team had “killed two unnamed men and a woman in a house who had ‘planned to attack the soldiers’".

Yet, according to Iraqi police who said they witnessed the event, the civilians were unarmed. "They were not armed and there were no gunmen in the house," said an officer from the Joint Coordination Center, which acts as liaison between Iraqi and US security forces.

In a statement of what appears to be sheer fabrication, Master Sergeant Terry Webster of the 101st Airborne told Reuters that an injured woman who was taken from the scene "confessed that the three people killed had planned to attack the soldiers as they drove by the house.”

Instead, according to survivors, troops attempted to cover up their wrong doing by methods becoming disturbingly more common. Shireen says before leaving, soldiers dragged her brother out into the corridor, shot him in the chest three more times, placed a gun next to his legs to make it appear he was armed, and then took pictures.

US troops were also accused of planting an AK-47 on a disabled man they shot to death in Hamdaniyah on 26 April. It’s another case of wildly differing accounts that indicate a cover-up by Marines who executed an unarmed civilian.

Marines say they found 52 year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad al-Zobaie digging a hole to plant a bomb and killed him in a gun battle. Relatives of the dead man say he was taken from his home at 2am by Marines and that they later heard shots. Too afraid to investigate until morning, they eventually found Hashim with gunshots to his face. A next door neighbor says Marines had taken a shovel and AK-47 from his house the night before.

In another event, Iraqi police and witnesses told reporters of eleven people rounded up and killed by US troops in Ishaqi in March, most of them women and children. Though troops were cleared, according to witnesses soldiers attempted to cover up the massacre by blowing up the house afterwards.

Significantly, in both the Ishaqi and Samarra incidents, Iraqi police stepped forward to contradict US military accounts.

In response to these, and other civilian killings by US troops, even the new puppet-Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said enough is enough. In unprecedented criticisms against the US occupation, al-Maliki said violence against civilians is a "daily phenomenon” by many US troops who “do not respect the Iraqi people”.

"They crush them with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion….There is a limit to the acceptable excuses,” he stated. “Those who kill intentionally or through negligence should be tried.”

He’s right. And there are the laws to do such. Yet, with a US administration that thinks the Geneva Conventions are “archaic,” it’s not surprising that individual soldiers are committing crimes condoned at the highest levels.

Clearly, some troops are out of control and they know it. Otherwise they wouldn’t be covering their tracks. But who is giving the orders that this is ok? This is where the focus of Haditha, Abu Ghraib, and all other investigations of abuse, murder, and torture ought to be. And where an inquiry into the destruction of Fallujah and the massacre of hundreds of unarmed civilians should begin.

“Every moment in Iraq is like this!”

2006-06-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

My Iraqi colleague and friend Aishya is on the phone detailing names, ages and method of death for each of the victims of Haditha’s massacre by US troops last November. She tells me that from her interviews with survivors, there are certain details being incorrectly reported and she wants to correct them. She double-checked, she says, on a recent trip when she was bringing medical supplies to Haditha.

As I scribble down the information, she pauses. “You know,” she says, “this happens every day, of course. And what about the wedding party in Mukaradeeb near Al-Qaim in the west] the US murdered in 2004?” At least 45 people were killed by US troops in the attack near Al-Qaim in western Iraq. Pentagon officials denied a wedding was in procession, claiming instead that party-goers were “anti-coalition forces.”

“We need to get this information out,” Aishya continues, “but let me tell you something that happened just the other day.”

Aishya was staying in Haditha with the Al-Hadithi family at the end of May. In the morning 41-year old Hanan woke her, looking very sad. When Aishya asked what was wrong, Hanan told her she was extremely worried about her 18-month old boy, Hakam. He’d been having severe diarrhea and stomach pains.

Looking at the little boy, Aishya became worried too. Having seen many similar cases, she was concerned for the boy’s life. “There is no doctor in Haditha who can treat cases like this and I told Hanan and her husband they should bring the little boy to Baghdad. I invited them to come with me, but they were too afraid. I offered to go to Ramadi with them, but they were also too afraid.”

In the west of Iraq, where heavy US and Iraqi military operations have been underway for close for over a year, tens of thousands of Iraqis are homeless, either from fleeing or from having their homes reduced to rubble in air attacks. Resistance in the area has grown in response to the US-led attacks.

Finally, Hanan and her husband, Jawad, agreed to load Hakam into the car with Aishya and go to nearby Baghdadi. “But, the doctor was away,” says Aishya. This is often the case as doctors try to attend to outlying villages. “The little boy was getting worse, vomiting the whole way.

“We began driving to Hit, but on the way there was a roadblock by the Americans. They now have a new technique. They block the road and stay the same distance away as a car bomb would explode. But how do the people get through? I decided to walk that distance to them. With my hands up, I began waving. I was calling to the Americans to tell them who we are.

“Instead of coming to meet me, one of the soldiers used this sign of his hand across his neck, like he would kill me. The other one put his M16 on the side of his tank and pointed it at me. Then they began moving a humvee and a tank toward me, stopping to completely block the road.”

Jawad Al-Hadithi wanted to get out of the car to help Aishya, but would likely have been shot as males between the ages of 15 and 55 are automatically considered potential “insurgents.”

“Can you imagine? They said nothing. No one came to talk to me. They didn’t even come closer, except with their tanks. This is they way of treatment of the people.”

Earlier in the day, the small group was worried only for the life of the child. Now, trying to find a doctor, they were worried for lives of them all. Aishya says Hanan was begging her husband that they must all leave or be killed.

“I felt so powerless. Useless. Imagine you can’t do anything for the person who is the closest to you.

“I had put my hands on my head. I was speaking to them in English, but they don’t care. They didn’t give a shit. Maybe they think I am a suicide bomber. But this little boy is very sick.

“We had to turn back. We had not choice. We drove to another village and here, fortunately, we could find a doctor. It is extremely hot now. We are in the summer. But we had to stop at a bridge because it was blocked by a concrete wall. We carried the boy by our arms, but we got him to the doctor.

“Imagine you have a little boy in a similar [health] situation and it is impossible to take your child to the doctor? What if your child might die because of this kind of treatment?

“This is the everyday story in Iraq. Every moment in Iraq is like this!”

Haditha Killings are Tip of the Iceberg

2006-05-30T18:15:00.000-07:00

Last November US Marines intentionally killed 24 civilians in Iraq’s western town of Haditha. This, plus another killing in April, are—finally—making its way to the mainstream news in the US and a Congressional and military investigation are underway.

But, the investigation should expand. Though rarely reported in the mainstream media, independent news sources and human rights groups have documented hundreds of Iraqi civilian deaths by US forces that were either indiscriminate or intentional.

As early as October 2003, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released the report "Hearts and Minds: Postwar Civilian Casualties in Baghdad by US Forces” in which they collected information on 94 civilian deaths in Baghdad. The group then investigated two of five civilian deaths the US military had also investigated and had concluded the soldiers acted “within the rules of engagement.” HRW found, however, that troops had used excessive force, in one case shooting a man whose hands were clearly raised.

In the same month Amnesty International called on the US government to take responsibility for tracking and investigating civilian deaths, countering General Tommy Franks infamous response “we don’t do body counts” to the question of civilian deaths.

Since the beginning of the US-led invasion Voices in the Wilderness and the Christian Peacemakers Team, both of which maintained houses in Baghdad, have also documented hundreds of civilian deaths. In August 2003, for example, VITW documented the deaths of a father and three of his children when troops shot at the whole family. They were thrown out of a press conference for asking General Sanchez about the deaths.

In both US sieges on Fallujah several eyewitness survivors told horror stories of US military personnel killing civilians. These accounts were related in numerous outlets, often by independent journalists, but also by the Associated Press, BBC, and Al-Jazeera, to name a few. Whole families were shot dead while sleeping in their beds. US snipers were found to have shot and killed children—one young boy, whose photograph has traversed the globe, lays dead still clutching a white flag of surrender. Ambulances were targeted.

While interviewing an Iraqi doctor last summer about the US-led five-day seige on Haditha's hospital in May, he said witnesses reported US troops had shot a patient dead as he lay in his hospital bed.

These are not isolated instances. Similar reports have come out of Baquba, Mosul, Karbala, Al-Qaim, and Rawa, to name a few.

At the beginning of this month, troops responded to an IED, which targeted a US convoy in Samarra, by sealing off the neighborhood. House raids followed. In one, a family were huddled together, frightened, in one room when US troops burst through the front door shooting. According to one of the surviving witnesses, who is too terrified for her safety to use even her first name, most of the people in the room were women and children. The first casualty of the indiscriminate shooting was a man of 40 who died when he wrapped his body around his father’s to protect him. The woman’s 18-month old son was in the arms of her sister.

“After the shooting, there was a terrible silence. I thought they had killed my father.” Her 20-year old sister, who had been studying for her final exams, was slumped against the wall, still holding the child. ““I tried to touch her shoulder and my son’s clothes were filled by blood. Then I realized she was dead. I tried to talk to my mother, ‘why are you laying down like this?’ When I tried to make her sit up I saw something white hanging from her. It was one of her eyes. The other eye was stuck to the wall.”

After the three were killed, soldiers took pictures of them with a digital camera, but not before dragging the 40-year old into the corridor, the witness says, and placing a gun next to his legs.

This is the second account I’ve heard of US troops placing a gun next to someone they’ve killed. This implies the soldiers knew not only that they had killed a civilian, but also that they were attempting to cover their tracks.

If Congress and military officials are serious about investigating what Rep. John Murtha has deemed killing in “cold blood,” they need to broaden their inquiry. And not just to the numbers of civilians killed, but also to those high-ranking officers and Bush Administration officials who have created a climate of untenable chaos for US troops, disregard for Iraqi civilians and have given the ok for such breeches of international law.

Building Bridges Remains Most Important to Tortured Sheikh:

2006-05-25T20:44:00.000-07:00

an interview with Sheikh Abdul Kareem
by Karen Button

A small young boy answers the door and ushers us shyly into a small study lined with elegant green couches and chairs. He quietly slips through a side door to let his father know we’ve arrived.

Sheikh Abdul Kareem has been detained and tortured first by the Americans and then by the Iraqis. He fled to Amman, Jordan with his family almost a year ago to receive medical treatment, but is staying for safety reasons. He had, at first, refused the interview, saying he no longer would give interviews to westerners. He agreed only after a member of his mosque, who is also a friend of mine, persuaded him.

Sheik Abdul’s popular mosque, the Omar Al-Mukhtar—named after the famous Libyan mujahadin (fighter) who fought against Italian colonialism in the early 20th century—sits in the in the heart of Baghdad in Al-Yarmouk neighborhood. The Imam is known widely by Iraqis for his compassion as well as his uncompromising position on the US-led occupation. He is the head of the Omar Al-Mukhtar Association, administered by his wife, which assists families regardless of their religious affiliation. (Contrary to what many westerners may think, there is a significant Christian population in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad.) His Friday khutbah (or sermon) regularly drew 3,000 plus, some travelling—says our mutual friend who is with us—from as far away as Baquba to attend. Since Sheikh Abdul’s departure, the friend sadly notes, only 100 or so now attend.

The Sheik is dressed in a traditional dishdasha (long robe) and kuffiyeh (headdress) as he enters. He is a short man with a graying close-cropped beard, a quick smile and watching eyes. Sheikh Abdul is also very well-read, referring at one point to William James’s ideas about community, later to the US civil war and The Cold War.

He refers to “dreamland,” describing it as the community he is always teaching about and reaching for…a place where the values of acceptance and peace are primary. At one point during the interview, Sheikh Abdul excuses himself for a scheduled injection, explaining it’s part of his ongoing medical treatment. Due to the beatings while in prison, he sustained nerve damage in his back and cannot feel his legs at times.

Because his story is so powerful and the Sheikh so articulate, his story is best told in his own words, with few interruptions or interpretations.

I am Sheikh Abdul Kareem Abdul Razaq Abdul Kadher. I welcome you and let me just say first that I wish this visit won’t be like two passengers who meet in a station and then each leaves in their own direction. Though you are an American Christian and I am an Iraqi Muslim, I wish, we wish, through our good relationship to be like brothers and sisters in humanity. Even if we are of different color, different religions, let us be like brothers and sisters in humanity, having a place in dreamland.

I’m always telling my son to take 2-3 sandwiches with him to school to share them with whoever sits next to him, no matter if they are Sunni, Shi'a or Christian. I tell him, ‘Call that person your brother.’ When my son came now and told me we have guests, I told him that they are not guests, they are like your aunts and uncles.

Just like when you plant seeds in the ground, this is how we plant the seeds of love in our children. You may ask me anything you like.

Thank you. You’ve been arrested and detained. When and by whom?

I’ve been arrested twice, the first was on 7 Oct 2003 by the Americans. I was kept in the “cell of democracy.” (The name he gave the cell.)

I was first taken to one of Saddam’s former palaces, which is nearby the Second Circle. Later I was taken to a place called the 5th Department of the Military Intelligence, in Khadhimiyah neighborhood. This is now under control of the Americans. This is where I was tortured.

Maybe you have the question why were you detained and what were the things you asked the people to do through your khutbah on the menber (the platform from which a sheikh speaks).

Since the beginning, I have called on the people to resist the invasion and the occupation. This is a legal right for us and for all people. The same is for you. If your country was occupied, maybe you would be the first istshadiya (someone who gives their life for their country) just for the love of your country. [From the point of view of an Iraqi] this is the greatest kind of love, when someone gives their life for their country.

Because I am the Sheikh and Imam of this mosque, the Americans asked me to do many things I considered blackmail. Since the beginning I have been asking the people to resist the occupation in non-violent ways, yet to fight if they were called to do so. In the meantime, I have also told the people to protect anyone who is innocent—for example, journalists and the Iraqi military and police who are protecting the people. But, the situation became more difficult, it became more difficult to separate the good from the bad. At that time I asked the people to fight the occupiers and anyone who is helping them.

My friend (he points to our mutual friend sitting close by) knows very well that the American humvees surrounded our mosque many times and told me, “Either you shut your mouth or you can cooperate with us and we will make you part of this national association” (the inner circle of Iraqis, mostly exiles, who later became part of the Parliament).

Regularly, their Iraqi translator, whose face was covered, came over to give me the same message. For example, they told me the officer would give us a generator, a car I can use, and so forth. They gave me these offers because at this mosque there are more than 3,000 people coming to pray each Friday.

For me, as Imam, I wish these 3,000 people, when they finish their prayers, will go out and resist the occupation. Because of these offers from the Americans, I see the eyes of my wife and children will follow me everywhere asking, am I going to sell my country or not?

My religion tells me I must ask the people to resist the occupation. An occupier has come to take our country, they have lied, they have said they were bringing democracy, they have killed our children and raped our women and they have made a funeral in each house. It’s a very long story that would take days to tell, but I will tell you a small part of it.

I refused everything the Americans offered to me. One day a friend came to me and told me he heard I will be detained that day. I swear by God each word I’m telling you is true. A couple hours before I was arrested, the Iraqi translator who was a spy for them, came to my house with the Americans in their humvees. He pointed it out and told them this was where I lived. I was looking at them through the window. That was between 1 and 2pm.

For twenty years I am an Imam and have the asked the people to stand and not run away. I even told asked them to resist Saddam during his time. How can I ask the people to do this if I were to run away myself at this moment?

The Americans came back at 1am. My wife was praying at that time. They used a sound bomb to enter. I have a problem with my heart—arterial sclerosis—and take nitroglycerin medication for it. It is made worse under stress. I had, in fact, an appointment in a week for surgery for this heart condition.

My wife was screaming that the Americans were attacking us. Because I can speak some English, I went out to talk with them quietly to tell them I would go with them. Instead, they decided to show their ugly side. They started beating me in front of my wife and children. They threw me on the ground and about 20 soldiers piled on top of me. Then they drug me to the curb and made me sit down. They beat me so strongly, my heart trouble began and I needed my medication. An Iraqi female translator came up and began hitting my wife, saying very bad things to her.

You can’t imagine how silly they are. The soldiers told me, “We care about your health and must taste this medicine to make sure it’s not drugs, like heroin or something.” I told them, “It’s funny that you should ask me, an Imam and Sheikh of a mosque and who teaches the children and people about the Koran and the right way to live, and you, an American whose country is filled with these things, am I taking drugs?”

They hit my son Mohamed while he was sleeping. He sleeps heavily, and he thought it was his sister waking him up. When he woke he saw a tall, dark man with a helmet and gun, he was terrified. He was about 8 years old at the time. Even now, after we’ve moved to Amman, he still has some emotional problems. For example, he has taken the screws that are used in construction and tried to make holes in the walls and told me: Don’t worry, dad, we can run away and escape through these holes. If you were to call him into the room and ask him about these things, he would begin crying even now.

They threw the holy Koran and other religious books on the ground, they destroyed the furniture, and they stole the money that the people of the mosque have entrusted to me. Baghdadis have a tradition to leave their money with someone they trust. For example, some people save it for the Hajj (a pilgrimage to Mecca which a Muslim ought make at least once in their life), others who are wealthy and will give their money to the poor at the end of the year, they will keep it with the sheik as well.

They handcuffed me and shackled my feet and took me in one of the humvees. They took me to the “darkness palace.” I call it this because I heard women and children screaming in this place.

I was very careful with my answers when they interrogated me. They beat me and then put me in a 4-wheel –drive car with darkened windows and a bag over my head. They accused me of having a bomb in the mosque and when the interrogator asked me who are the people who placed it there, I told them, there is no bomb in the mosque. I told him, “Even if I didn’t care about all the people who are praying there, do you think I wouldn’t care about my four children who always play inside the yard of the mosque?”

The translator, who unfortunately I have to say was an Iraqi, is a traitor….just like you had traitors and spies in your country during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, we have our traitors too. The Iraqi translator told the Americans I am a liar. He thinks I cannot understand English. Then the Americans said they would leave him with me, to force me to answer any question. I still had the bag on my head. The translator started beating me so severely that I was bleeding from my eyes and nose. I was still handcuffed and my feet shackled. Then he began choking me. I told him I couldn’t breathe. I told him that I had a problem with my heart, that all but one of my valves were blocked. He told me he would block the last. Then he hit me very powerfully on my heart and I passed out.

When I woke, I was in an American military hospital. I have to say everything about the Americans, the good and the bad and in this hospital I met the kind Americans. One of the female doctors who helped me with the medical treatment was so kind that it gave me another impression about the Americans. I’ve mentioned this with other journalists who’ve also interviewed me. She even cleaned the pan in which I’ve had to urinate and she gave me my medication. I wish I could meet her someday to return the kind way in which she treated me.

When I eventually returned to the mosque, I even mentioned this during my Friday khutbah…but I hope you won’t use this to write only about how nice the Americans are.

Every time I’ve been beaten and tortured by the Americans, they told me to say how great Bush is and how I like him; they were filming me and taking pictures.

Sheikh Abdul pauses, as he will a few more times during the interview, to talk about the importance of honesty in all relations. Dishonesty, he believes, is the reason for war. Now, he says, it is not just Allah, but “even Jesus Christ [who] said you must tell the whole truth or you will feel shame in front of God,” before continuing with what happened.

At the 5th Department they were detaining women and men both.

They tortured me for seven days. While I would pray and was in the kneeling position, they kicked me very hard in the back. Before we pray, we wash ourselves and while I was doing this they put an electric stick into the water which gave me an electrical shock and I fell again on my back. Other things they did for example, they would bring a knife and cut holes in my dishdasha, threatening me, saying the next time the knife would be on my body. When I would use the toilet, which is a hole in the floor and was very dirty and blocked up, they would push the door open very hard and make us fall into the shit. They would also play loud music every night [to prevent us from sleeping].

Every night I was beaten by a soldier. I would be bloody and bruised and then they would make me stand against a wall and film me, telling me to say, “I love Bush,” and that I should smile because, “we are the greatest power in the whole world. You are only coolies, you are standing in front of the greatest power in the world.” I told him: I am not a ‘coolie’. I have even read William James who told his son how he should act within his community, ‘when you knock on the door, do it gently so you don’t disturb the neighbors.’

There was a soldier who brought all the other prisoners, telling me, this is your leader, and this is when he would start beating me. I was handcuffed during this time. He would tell me I should cry, but I would not, because I don’t want these people to feel weakened by their sheikh not being strong. Thanks to God, I no longer felt it when he would beat me.

Stopping, Sheikh Abdul looks, unwavering, into my eyes, “I just want to ask you if you are going to write all the truth or will you be like the others who are just doing ‘show business?”’ He tells me he’s given a couple of hours each to almost a dozen American reporters who then distilled his story down to a couple of lines. One, he says, was from Time Magazine. He calls these the “dishonest journalists.” This is why he at first denied our interview. When I assure him that’s not my intention, he continues.

For four days, I was hearing a young Iraqi women screaming continuously. “I am a virgin! I swear that no one has touched me before! I am from a religious family! Please don’t do these things to me!” When I remember this, it makes me feel very sad inside. I couldn’t hear her voice on the fifth day, only a moaning. Her voice still haunts me, it follows me everywhere.

My cell was about one and a half meters square. I was nearly dying, so I would just read the holy Koran. Every night a female and male soldier would come to the cell and make sexual moves in front of me. When the woman asked me what I thought about it, my answer was I would cry and cry. Because I speak English a bit, I told her, “Because I have lived my life with honor, I want to meet my God with honor.”

Under the name of democracy and human rights, the United States has destroyed our country. But they didn’t find anything of the weapons of mass destruction, for which they invaded our country. With sadness, I want to tell you, soon there will be a new weapon of mass destruction that will destroy the United States if they won’t awaken to the danger they are making, which is the hatred of the international community. This new group of ‘Nazis’ coming into the world now is saying we should reduce the number of Americans in the world. This is the worst weapon. This is more dangerous than the WMD.

I can give you an example: my little boy, who you’ve just seen, used to be busy with drawing butterflies and listening to music. He was a soft boy. After seeing what has been done to his father, arrested twice and beaten in front of him, you know what he told me? He asked me to buy him a heavy machine gun because he wants to be a sniper. Who made this terrorism? Who made my son [want to be] a terrorist?

On the seventh and eighth days of my detention, 10,000 people protested in many places in Baghdad. They went in front of the military base in Al-Yarmouk and demanded my release. This is the reason I was released after a week.

Perhaps you will say this was a very short time. Yet, when I would have a problem with my heart, I would knock on the bars of my cell to ask for my medication. When the soldier would bring the medication, he told me he would play a basketball game with me and would tell me to open my mouth. He was about three meters away and he would throw the pills to me. The cell floor was very, very dirty but because I was in so much pain, I didn’t care if they were dirty and would take them anyway.

I do have American friends before and after the invasion and they’ve told me they disagree about the war and are shocked by what the Americans are doing in Iraq.

The day before my release, a soldier came to me and said, “I need to tell you some bad news, but I know you are a Muslim so you will be patient, because you want to be in Paradise. The day we detained you, your son was following our convoy. One of the humvees hit him and he died.”

You know what they did was very sad. [When they took me] my son was pulling my hand on one side while the soldier was pulling me from the other.

I will tell you a short story. There is a soldier named Garner, who was responsible for the Yarmouk neighborhood. After I was released he came over and apologized, telling me they had arrested the wrong person. He told me they brought some gifts for me, some juice and milk. I didn’t receive it, letting the children take it instead.

This officer said, “I’m going to tell you good news. I will be going home soon. For me this nightmare will be over soon. “I told him he should tell the truth to people back in America.

He was a decent person and tried to do his best in our neighborhood, making relationships with the people. As Garner prepared to leave in his humvee, I told him, “Your driver hit my son’s cat and killed her, my son was very upset and was crying.”

Garner became very upset toward his driver, pushing him and saying, “What? You are a criminal!” I thought, oh-my-god, these people are going to destroy themselves with this schizophrenia. I said, “You kill us, you rape the girls in our country, you invaded our country and occupy it because of the weapons of mass destruction which you haven’t found, yet you care so much about this cat. I’m sorry to say this, but you are a strange people to us.”

On the following Friday through my speech I condemned the occupation and called for jihad (literally, “struggle” or “exerted effort,” jihad means a range of activities, from the struggle for self-improvement, to the struggle to stand against oppression), asking them to end the occupation. I still had the bruises on my face from being tortured. I asked the people to resist the occupiers, but I asked them always to do this without hurting any journalists or other civilians.

I continued asking the people to resist the occupation and I talked about the Abu Ghraib scandal. I continued to do this until 10 May 2005. This is the day that Al-Karar Brigade from the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior came.

One to two weeks before a friend had come over and warned me I should leave the country, that I might be detained by the government. I had this feeling as well. The Americans knew very well they couldn’t arrest me again because of the number of people from the mosque who would be against them. This is not because I am their leader, it is because I love them and they love me very much.

They raided the mosque and broke everything inside, the furniture of the mosque and of the orphan’s association. When they raided the mosque, it was the fourth prayer, at sunset (the most populous prayer). They began beating the old men looking for me. A few weeks before I had had my surgery. When they asked for the Sheikh, I told them I was him. They raided my house at the same time, stealing things from it. My wife was hiding herself and my daughters, guarding them like a mother hen and her chicks.

I feel sad to say this truth because it might be good for the American side to hear something like this, but this Iraqi said to my wife, “The power is for the Shi’a now and soon there won’t be any Sunni alive here.”

There were about 300 detainees; 150 in each room, about 6 by 6 meters, sleeping like sardines on top of one another. It was a horrible way of torturing. For every 20 prisoners they gave us a liter and half of water.

Were they mostly Baathists?

No. But, they were mostly Sunni; we can recognise that from the family names. They were especially from the well-known families, professors in the university, sheikhs, and pilots in the ex-Iraqi air force, especially those who were bombing Kharej Island.*

An officer, Major Mohammed from the Minister of Interior dropped sulfuric acid on my foot and other sensitive areas.

Sulfuric acid will burn through and dissolve almost anything, but especially skin. Numerous eyewitness survivors have claimed the Ministry of the Interior is using sulfuric acid on detainees. Sheikh Abdul declined to say where else they used it on him.

They beat me on my back with metal bars and other types of tools. Two young men [who had been beaten] died in front in me. After they beat me, I felt as if I was in a coma and fell to the ground. I was still blindfolded, but could see a bit. I could see a young man lying on the ground. They had forced him to sit on a broken bottle and his bowels were hanging out of his ass. I could see blood clots from him and some of his nails and his teeth were lying on the ground. I smelled a horrible smell of burned flesh from the electricity they had used on him. He had amnesia at this point. This young boy was about 16 years old.

On the tenth day, I found myself in the hospital. I realised they had put some ink on my fingers and that they had made me to stamp some papers. They told me [while in the hospital] they received orders that three to four percent should die when they are in detention.

“’Should’ die?” I ask Aishya, who is translating. “Not, it’s ok this many ‘might’ die, but ‘should’ die?” She repeats my question to Sheikh Abdul and answers, “yes, he says ‘should’ die.”

For three to four of the detainees who died, I performed the [death] rites. Most of them were students at the university. One of the stories is of a young man who’s from Al-Dora district, the Al-Sahaq Quarter—his name was Wissam. He was the only son of a family with five daughters and he was a student at the Technology University. He went to a shop next to the university to copy some papers, which was then raided. He was detained, along with all the other students in the copy shop. They beat him a lot, especially in the kidneys. This caused severe bleeding, especially from his rectum and his ears.

Most of these prisoners know me from religious programs on the TV or they come to pray at my mosque, so they came to me for help. I tried to help these people.

Wissam told me his mother loved him very much, and he asked me, “What would my mother do if she knew I was this sick?” The poor boy didn’t even know he was going to die. He told me he had a high fever in his chest and in his body. I told him to say, “La ilah ila Allah, Mohammed rassoul, Allah” which means, there is no god, just Allah, and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah. (Said before a Muslim dies.)

I felt happy he said these words because as a Muslim this is a good thing. Unfortunately, as he spoke his breathing began to falter and his eyes began to roll up, and his tongue fell out of his mouth. Just before he died I turned him in the direction of Mecca.

When [the guards] knew I did these things for the boy, four of them came and began beating me with a thick cable (like those used on outside electrical lines). Afterwards, they took the body of this boy and dropped him in the garbage, right in front of us. God witness what I’m saying to you, I’ve seen the bloodiest form of torture, worse than anything I’ve ever read of in the past.

Of course, this is under the orders of the US military. They are in a very bad situation in Iraq right now.

Instead of them coming for reconstruction for the bridges, they are creating a terrible enemy who will never forget what is being done to the people. Someday will come, if you and I are alive, the shame that will follow the United States will be huge. You will see what will happen. They should bring their troops home.

We are facing a huge problem now, one that has been created by Bush and by the occupation. We are facing the problem now that [some Muslims say] each white person with blond hair and blue eyes should be killed. This is the sort of reaction that is created by Bush, not just in Iraq, but in most of the counties.

This has made us feel very, very sad. Because from these female and male blond people we have close friends—[Muslims] can’t say that everyone is bad, this is not part of our belief. This is what makes us sad. We have friends from the United States, from Italy and other places. When we see each other we cry because we care for each other this much. It’s a humanitarian brotherhood we feel between us.

I find it really strange how the people can cooperate with your president; I will give you an example. In each speech of Bush there is a black dog always with him. It is a big symbol for us that whatever happens in the world he doesn’t care, this dog is the most important thing for him.

Bush always tries to deny the truth. For example he has already lost the war, but he’s always talking about victory. He is always telling people the opposite of the truth.

For example, one month after the invasion, Bush said, “We won the battle” but after that every time we see him on the TV he’s now saying, “It’s a hard battle, it will take awhile” and so on. He’s always talking about terrorism, and the global terrorism, and “we must finish this terrorism in the world” and it should be done by the Americans.

Because of my beatings [while in detention], I have some very serious problems with my spinal cord, with one disc in particular, but it is inoperable. Now, I cannot pray normally, but must sit a chair. For many months I’ve been in Amman receiving medical treatment. It’s very expensive for the medical treatment and to stay here, and it is very hard to cover these expenses. And , it’s not only me, there are tens of thousands of Iraqis like me in the same situation.

Many, many families have been forced to leave our country for various reasons. Now for example, there is just one female American journalist who was kidnapped and they have made this a very big issue, even including me. I am one of those who asked for [Jill Carroll’s] release. Yet, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are being forced to leave their country. Who cares about them?

In fact, I’m against September 11, which happened in the United States, and also against the bombings that have happened in London, and Madrid. I have condemned these things. But, let me tell you, if we test our blood, me, as an Iraqi Muslim, you, as an American Christian, there will be no difference between us. So, why have [Americans] made this big difference between us? Is your blood mixed with honey? All of us are equal.

I want to get the truth to the American people. I tried myself to go to the United States, to make a bridge, to tell the American people the truth of what is going on in Iraq, yet they didn’t even allow me to enter the American Embassy. I wrote in the application this reason for my desire to visit the United States. They made me wait a couple hours outside the embassy and then all they told me was to go home.

I know my position very well. In Baghdad there are two sides of the river, Kurf and Safa. I can move the people on both sides [by my words]. Yet, the only thing I will say to the people is to make something of peace. If I come, I will come as a guest to your country, not with a bomb. I will ask the Americans to forgive and forget about everything, and I will ask the same of the Islamic world. I was shown on al-Jazeera (meaning that millions have seen it) and I said our problem is with the occupation, not with the innocent people. I said it’s unacceptable to make bombs against the States; they love their children as we love our children. We have to protect both communities. We have to separate Bush’s administration from the American people. We should build a new relationship because there are good American people. We should recognise this difference.

Excuse me for these words, but maybe the cold weather in Europe made [the American’s] emotions like this. Is it true, as we’ve seen in movies, that you have emotions and that you cry? Is it true that you cry when a little girl is killed in a car accident? What would happen if a school bus full of children has an accident and all are killed? How will you feel? How do feel about a school bus of children shot at by US troops, in which 40 were killed?

Excuse me for this, but I want to ask you personally, will you go back to your hotel and turn the switch off or will you remember the woman I told you about who was raped in front of me? Will you remember my little son who pulled my hand as the Americans were pulling me away from my house by the other? Will you remember my son who still has emotional problems from these events? Will you remember the 20 years of pictures and a lifetime together with my wife and I which was destroyed in one moment?

And please don’t forget this young man that I told you about who died in front of me. I wish you would remember Wissam’s mother. She is now crazy and wanders the street, stopping in front of each shop and saying, “Wissam will come out of this one.” What are you going to feel if someone is close to your heart and this has happened to him?

Under the name of democracy and human rights, the United States has destroyed our country to look for these weapons of mass destruction. So, should every country should be searched for nuclear weapons, except this spoiled little girl called Israel? We would love to live in a world where there is no such weapon, but Israel should be included in this plan. It should be a law for everyone.

My door is open to everybody. I will always say in front of everyone that I’ve seen your tears falling down from your eyes as I’ve told these stories. Maybe through your honest way of talking, you will move the emotion of the American people and they will wake up, to save your people and to save your children. This is the first time for me that I’ve seen an American crying, I’ve met with five men and six women and you are the only American journalist who has cried. Are you really an American?

We are suffering a lot from the American occupation and the American Army. I swear to God that I’ve seen, during the invasion, in front of Al-Yarmouk Hospital Americans attack an ambulance with a tank that had a pregnant woman inside. I’ve seen it; the baby from the dead woman was even completely burned.

Aishya tells the Sheikh there were actually two pregnant women inside. She knows, she says, because she has spoken with the husband of one of them, and the sister of the other, both of whom were in the ambulance and survived. The husband lost both legs and one of his eyes. A court case, filed in Brussels against Donald Rumsfeld, was dismissed. Sheikh Abdul bows his head and silently cries as he listens. He resumes slowly, by saying:

What has made our world like a volcano that may explode any minute? It’s because of this dishonesty and dishonor.

We feel sad about the people who died in Katrina and also what’s happened with Hurricane Rita. And I don’t say this because you are an American sitting in front of me, we feel sad for any people.

Without his mosque, the Sheikh says he has searched for another way to be of service to people.

I even sent a letter to the British Embassy [in Amman] since coming here, to tell them I want ed to be a volunteer with any disaster that may happen in the world. Their reply was they didn’t allow me to enter the embassy and second they called me a terrorist.

My God, my religion, my prophet order me, even if you sit with me here for one minute, there is a type of law that you are under my protection. I should consider you as a sister. I shouldn’t look at you in a bad way like other men. I should be honest even in the way I look at you. I should offer you help if you need it. Any sort of help, financial, and so on. Yet, this is the opposite view of how the American military describes Muslims. You will see what will happen in the world because of the United States has broken the peace bridge between countries in the world. We will not be able to live in peace any longer.

I would love to make a dreamland. We should, through our relations as brothers and sisters, move far away from the relationships of vampires like Bush and Saddam, and make a city of peace.

A man came to Jesus Christ and told him of another that was hurting him. A friend of Jesus Christ’s was sitting close by and said you should ask God for help. Of course in our religion, we are taught to love and honor all the prophets, including Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ corrected the man and said, “Yes, ask God for help, but you must also work for it.” If we, all of us, me, you, all of us, be honest with each other and don’t lie, our dream [of peace] will be realised.

* Kharej Island, which belongs to Iran, sits in the Gulf Coast. It was bombed by the Iraqi Air Force during the eight-year war between the two countries. Others who’ve been assassinated by the Badr Brigade have had written on their homes: This is the end of all those bombed Kharej Island.

IMF in Iraq: The Second Invasion

2006-05-18T23:30:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

“IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt
And they call it democracy”

- Bruce Cockburn, singer/songwriter
Call it Democracy, 1985

Last December the US-backed Iraqi government agreed to a $685 million loan from the International Monetary Fund, and effectively sold their country down the river called economic slavery—the master being the Free Market Economy.

They will have a lot of company. Many of the world’s so-called third world and developing nations are already on that river, barely afloat. Most of Latin America has been under the thumb of the IMF’s brutal austerity programs for decades, though certain countries, most notably Venezuela and Bolivia, who are nationalizing their resources, are testament to the pervasive undercurrent of socialist ideals.

For Iraq though, the journey has just begun.

That $685 million loan came with a heavy price tag: end oil subsidies and open Iraq’s economy to the free market. In other words, dismantle any form of socialised society and make it a commodity.

Just days after Iraq’s constitutional election gave oil companies their first taste of Iraqi crude by requiring all unexplored fields be open to the highest bidder, Prime Minister Al-Jaafari implemented the first of the IMF policies, cutting fuel subsidies. Nearly overnight fuel prices rose nine-fold. Now, five months later, a canister of gas costs about $14 USD in a country where the average monthly income is maybe $200 USD.

Defending the cuts, IMF representative Bill Murray told the Cox News Service that Iraq had to “come up with budgetary resources to finance health care, education and other important public services”. He failed to mention that Iraq once provided free health care to 93 per cent of its population with its oil revenues and also had the highest literacy rate in the Middle East.

Now, even though the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs reported in January that poverty among Iraqis had risen by 30 per cent since the US-led invasion, the government is bravely marching toward the free market.

At the end of March, the Ministry of Trade, largely responsible for food distribution, announced that it would cancel several items from the long-instituted food ration program. According to figures from the trade ministry itself, nearly 26.5 (or 96 per cent) of Iraq’s 28 million people are dependent on the monthly ration.

During Saddam Hussein’s reign, 12 items were included in the rations. That’s now been cut to four essential items, including sugar, rice, flour and cooking oil.

The ministry is expecting to cut rations altogether, perhaps by the end of the year, according to the Ra'ad Hamza, a senior trade ministry official. "If you keep Iraq under socialist laws, the economy won't improve,” he said to the Integrated Regional Information Networks. “But we'll continue to provide the population with essential items at least until the end of the current year,”

Inflation, which has skyrocketed since the invasion, can be expected to continue unchecked with the IMF policies in place.

Baghdad University economist Omar Abdel Kareem, quoted by IRIN, stated, “Before this decision, prices on items such as vegetables and grains had already doubled in January. Since then, they've increased more than 20 percent a week."

With the elimination of some rations, the price of certain products has risen by as much as 300 per cent. “In 2002 lentil beans were sold for about US $0.50 per kilogramme. Since then, the retail price has jumped to around US $2 per kilogramme.”

With half of Iraq’s population under the age of 18, it will be the children who bear the brunt of these tried and failed IMF policies.

UNICEF reported earlier this month that 25 per cent of children in Iraq are now malnourished and underweight; a March 2005 report found that malnutrition had doubled since the US-led invasion. Expect those numbers to rise alongside the inflation rate.

But Mr. Murray is not looking at those indices; he will note, instead, that Iraq’s economy has grown by 10 per cent. By IMF standards, that’s success. The poverty, malnutrition, and inflation don’t count.

And they call it democracy.

Residents Charge Iranian Intelligence are Running Samawa

2006-05-10T11:33:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

Samawa, the capital of Al-Muthana’s southern governate, sits on the shores of the Euphrates River about 270 km (170 m) south of Baghdad. It is here where sources, too afraid to be identified in this article, charge that Iranian intelligence forces inside the Badr militia are running local government and that the provincial governor, Mohammed al-Hassaani, is in their back pocket.

These sources include a religious sheikh, a police officer, two journalists and several local residents, all too frightened to openly state their names, even though one of them now lives outside Iraq. They have good reason: many who have publicly decried the SCIRI-backed governor or its militia, the Badr Organisation, are now disappeared or dead—two of them killed just days ago.

At 9:30pm on the night of May 5, the bodies of Smaah Mohammed and his uncle were found dead in the streets of Samawa. According to residents, the two men had spoken out in the past about the Badr, accusing them of ongoing attacks against Japanese troops, whose base is nearby.

“They made a big scandal against Badr,” says one man from Samawa. “Afterwards Mr. Smaah was kidnapped by the Badr and taken to Samawa police prison. Mr. Smaah gave money to the Samawa police [for his release] and then he ran away to Syria three months ago.” Smaah Mohammed had returned just five days before his assassination, assured that the recent change in Iraq’s government meant everything in Samawa was under control.

“He is thinking everything is ok,” the man continues, “but after he come back the death forces and Badr organisation kill him in the street. His body was found like [an] execution, shooting by gun into his head.”

Both of the dead men were Shi’a and were the latest deaths in what is being called a campaign to “free” Samawa of its Sunni population and any others opposed to the Badr.

Peaceful Protests Lead to Crackdowns
Last August was a crucial time in Samawa. Fed up with water and electricity shortages, a crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators held a peaceful march against the local government. Security forces, at the order of governor al-Hassaani, fired on the crowd killing at least two people and injuring 45. At an emergency meeting the regional council voted to oust al-Hassaani, who then refused to leave. Though the Mahdi Army threatened to take over if the governor didn’t exit, SCIRI officials from Baghdad—facing their own crisis to finish writing the constitution--hurriedly gathered in Samawa and convinced them to back off.

Though Samawa had been relatively free from the street violence of other Iraqi cities, residents say that began to change once al-Hassaani was installed as SCIRI’s representative.

Al-Hassaani’s refusal to step down didn’t help much with public opinion. One local journalist, who asked to be called Marwan Muhammad, was subsequently arrested twice by Badr forces for his news reports and forced to flee the country for his own safety; he tells me Samawans have been kept in check by fear. Muhammad was fortunate, though the order to arrest him came directly from the governor, he was released because many of the police officers were old family friends from this tight-knit community. Muhammad recalls an international news conference later last year where governor al-Hassaani personally approached him and said, “Marwan, I will kill you in the future!”

Iranian Intelligence Forces Increase
Sources inside Samawa claim that 1,200 Iranian intelligence forces entered the city about six weeks ago, and are now purging lists kept by local security forces of those who have been opposed to Iraq’s occupation or to the Badr.

Another reporter smuggled out details of a meeting he attended at the end of March. Held in the Muthana Council offices, governor Mohammed al-Hassaani met with, among others, Sheikh Saeed Abed Al-Ameer Dhwaini, Muthana Council President; Sheikh Ali Al-Meyali, Manager of the Iraqi government’s local Shi’ite Office; and Sheikh Abed Allah Al-Shamery from the Imam Ali mosque. At the meeting it was decided there would be a campaign “for making south Iraq free from Al-Suna Group.” It was agreed the method would be to label Sunnis “terrorists” and security forces would either “capture him and kill him” or “make them to enter the prison.”

A similar attempt was made six months ago when posters signed by the governor himself began appearing around town. In them it was declared that on behalf of the Shi’ite Al-Hussain (the man killed many eons ago and the reason for the Shi’ite/Sunni split), the Sunnis were declared terrorists and they must be made to leave Samawa. “But,” said Muhammad, “many Samawa people from the Shi’a prevent that, and say if attack al-Suna, we will declare the war against Badr organization in Samawa. Al-Suna are 40% in Samawa and many people are married between Shi’ite and al-Suna.”

At the March meeting, no Sunni were invited. The man who smuggled out details and photographs is a Shi’a. One photo taken from the meeting show Council president Sheikh Dhwaini, Governor Hassaani, the Deputy Governor Raed Dhwaini (Sheikh Dhwaini’s nephew), and Sheikh Al-Hassan, leader of the tribe to which A-Hassaani belongs, all Shi’a, all seated together.

When asked about the picture, Muhammad immediately recognizes the attendees. “All of them are Badr,” he says. When I ask if he knows Sheikh Ali Al-Meyali, he replies, “yes, he is an Iranian intelligence operative.”

How can you be sure? I ask. "When I was arrested there were also five Iranians in the jail with me, but they were unafraid. When I asked them why they said Sheikh Ali Al-Meyali will come to get them. And he did, I saw him, and they didn't have to go to the court. Afterwards I asked many of my contacts in the police, ‘who is this sheikh,’ and they told me, ‘he is with the Iranian intelligence.’"

“Now, it has started; the operation has begun,” declared the source who attended the March meeting. This time though, not only Sunnis will be targeted, but also anyone else opposed to the Badr.

Recent deaths are enough to prove that.

Just a week prior to Smaah Mohammed’s execution, 33 year-old Hussein Ali Kadem and 29 year-old taxi driver Nazar Mohamed were both taken from their homes at 2am by Badr forces, according to a sheikh in the city whose help the families sought. The families had already been to the police station where they were told they didn’t know the where men’s whereabouts, that they were taken by a “top group [who are] working with Samawa governor.” Yet, when they questioned the governor’s office, they were told, “I don’t know about that and I don’t know this group.”

The sheikh was extremely nervous, afraid if his name were published in connection to these men, he would also be in danger. Such is the level of fear in Samawa. For good reason.

At 11pm four nights later, 42 year-old Safaa Jasem, a Shi’a and shop master from Samawa, was found dead in the streets of Al-Jumhuri neighborhood. According to witnesses Jasem’s body showed signs of torture and he had been shot in the head, the same execution-style killing as is common in Baghdad these days. Samawa police prevented media coverage of the killing and forbade residents from speaking about it, telling them it would only cause more problems, a source told me. “But,” if they are not hiding anything, he asked, “now Samawa police don’t like any peoples from Samawa talking about this criminal. Why?”

Samawa Police Not on Board
Not all police are comfortable with the plan, though. One officer from the Al-Huria police station says,” There are Samawa police which don’t like to help this group, but they are afraid from the Samawa governor to be killed if they are not cooperating.” He says they received orders to obtain information about Samawans to begin “the operation,” and that the command had come down the channel of command from the Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistany himself.

In fact, there are rumblings that local police, fed up with the Badr, may fight back. Leaflets being distributed throughout Samawa today say that 250 police officers were told to “go home,” that they were being replaced by Badr. Instead, the former police are threatening to declare war on the Badr.

When asked what the nearby international troops, from Australia, Britain and Japan, are doing about the situation, one the journalist Muhammad responded. “What are they going to do? These are Iraqi peoples, if they are killed or not this is a very ordinary thing; they don’t worry about that.” Besides, he says, indicating that the occupation by international troops means little in how Iraq’s politics play out on the local level, “only Samawa’s people know to be afraid about this declaration; it is them who will be killed or who will fight back.”

A Certain Peace Amidst a Campaign of Death

2006-05-03T15:56:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

Two weeks ago I received a harrowing account from a friend in the Adhamiya district of Baghdad. At 7:30 that morning there was shooting in the street and my friend opened the door to find out what was going on. Iraqi National Guard troops shouted at him to close the door immediately. Two seconds later, he told me, shots were fired through the door at head level. “I was shivering to see this hole in the door,” he said. “My wife nearly fainted. We kept indoors for eight hours and didn’t move.” Inside the house were also two of their children. “How is your wife?” I asked. “Praying,” he responded.

This is daily life for Iraqis, where when families say goodbye to each other in the morning, it could be goodbye for good. And Baghdad, where violence is the worst, the country’s most lethal location.

For the past year Baghdad’s morgue has received on average 50 bodies a day, many of them brutally tortured, almost none that have died from natural causes. Morgue staff reported to an Iraqi collegue the average is now over 85 and that they recently received 480 bodies in one day alone—the highest number still remains 1,100 in one day last July.

For months Sunnis in Iraq’s capital have charged there is a campaign of death against them and that Ministry of Interior forces are behind it. Iraqis commonly refer to the 6th floor of the ministry’s building as sites for these tortures, on-the-street knowledge that the government won’t admit to.

Just yesterday, the conservative Iraqi station Al-Sharqiya TV reported that Baghdad’s Al-Yarmouk Hospital received 65 bodies this week alone, 25 of them yesterday, and all without heads. Reuters is reporting “some” were beheaded.

In an interview with Muthana Al-Dhari, spokesperson for the Association of Muslim Scholars, I was told, “It’s not only about the 6th floor, there is the 10th floor as well. The information we get about it is from the witnesses who’ve seen what’s going on in the Ministry of Interior. Three of the people who work in the media department [of the AMS] have been tortured in the Ministry of Interior.”

In mid-February Dr. Faik Bakir, then director of Baghdad’s mosque, turned over a detailed report the UN documenting the number of dead received and the ways in which they died. According to Dr. Bakir, the morgue received over 10,000 bodies in 2005, up from the more than 8,000 in 2004 and 6,000 in 2003. He said almost all were “suspicious deaths,” citing the causes as violence and war-related rather than by natural causes. Many had been tortured terribly. Most disturbing, he also said 7,000 people had been killed in recent months by death squads.

Before the war, in 2002, Bakir said the morgue had recorded less than 3,000 suspicious deaths.

The 24,000 bodies were from the Baghdad area alone, and do not account for the number of bodies that never make it to the morgue, thrown instead, into garbage piles or ditches, nor for those who have disappeared.

Shortly after, on 22 February, Samara’s Golden Shrine, an important Shi’a mosque, was bombed. The ensuing sectarian violence has been largely blamed for the increase in violence and deaths. While true that sectarian violence has contributed significantly to the loss of life, Imams nationwide called for tolerance and the Iraqi people themselves showed a strong unity in the weeks following.

Dr. Bakir, threatened for his disclosures fled Iraq for his own safety at the end of February.

At least two questions remain: Who is doing the killing and who is promoting sectarian violence?

It was just after this, in March, that The Guardian quoted then outgoing head of the UN human rights office in Iraq, John Pace, “The Badr brigade [Sciri's armed wing] are in the police and are mainly the ones doing the killing. They're the most notorious." Sciri, the Shi’ite political party Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, is backed by Iran. Iraqis also charge that the Medhi Army, the armed militia of Shi’a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, is targeting and killing people and that they, too, are backed by Iran.

Two weeks ago Badr and Mehdi forces were seen operating alongside Iraqi Police in an attack on Adhamiya, a predominantly Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad. Fierce street battles between the IP and residents raged. One resident told me, “We’ve seen the Badr; they are trying to gain control of our neighborhood!”

It was during these clashes that my friend’s front door was blasted through by bullets.

Iraqis have charged for some time that Iranian intelligence forces are part of these militias and are operating inside the Ministry of Interior. Mainstream news sources such as Knight Ridder and Time Magazine have reported the same. But the Adhamiyans had their own proof when five of the 37 militia captured turned out to be Iranians. “They couldn’t even speak Arabic,” said one source I spoke with, and had munitions “unlike those used by the Iraqis.”

The men were taken to the Abu Hanifa mosque in Adhamiya, where high-level negotiations were held between Sunni Muslim groups and officials from the ministries of the interior and defense.

Residents, able to prove that Iranians were coming with the Iraqi Police, used the leverage to gain a five-point agreement in which the IP, interior ministry forces and all militias were forced to pull out of the district. Residents agreed to accept the presence of the Iraqi National Guard in certain areas, so long as they are working to defeat the death squads, but maintained the right to retaliate if they are seen to be working with any of the militias. Residents also agreed to reel in their own defense forces unless needed. Occupation forces were not included in the agreement; residents maintained their right to resist the occupation.

A similar agreement was drawn up six months ago, but this one has, for the most part, held for two weeks now.

When I asked my friend yesterday if the agreement was still holding he replied, “There are explosions everywhere in Baghdad, but not in Adhamiya."

Adhamiyans can now walk freely down the street, shops have re-opened, cars have appeared back on the road…though driving outside of Adhamiya is still as dangerous as ever and a desperate situation remains regards lack of water and electricity in a city where the temperature hovers daily around 100 degrees.

The irony, of course, is that the peace in Adhamiya is being maintained not because US troops and government security forces are present, but because they are gone.

Contributions to this article from Arkan Hamad in Baghdad.

From Alaska to Iraq: Exxon Mobil’s Global Reach

2006-03-24T23:33:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

March 24 marked the 17th anniversary of the US’s largest and most devastating oil spill in US history. In 1989 Exxon’s tanker Valdez ran aground in remote Alaska, dumping millions of gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound’s pristine waters, coating 1,600 miles of its coastline. The Sound’s wildlife and Cordova’s (the small fishing town hardest-hit) economy are still in recovery nearly two decades later. Exxon’s legacy of devastation lives on in Alaska.

When the company originally self-reported a loss of 10.8 million gallons from its cargo of 53 million, the number was widely accepted, and is still widely used today to describe the spill. However, a report finally released five years post-spill by the State of Alaska estimated 30-38 million gallons were actually spilled.

Exxon denies this claim, as it also denies responsibility for lingering illnesses that hundreds of former workers are now suffering. Nicknamed the “Valdez Crud,” over 6,700 workers sought care for various respiratory illnesses at Exxon-run health clinics during clean-up operations. Federal health investigators visited the clean-up sites three times during the summer of 1989, yet Exxon refused to turn over any health records to officials. In the ensuing lawsuits, Exxon has settled most cases out-of-court, requiring all records sealed and preventing access to any information about the causes of illness.

The oil giant also reneged on their promises to pay for all damages wreaked by the spill. Ordered in 1994 to pay $5 billion in punitive damages (based on their profits in 1989) to the thousands of families whose livelihoods were ruined, Exxon instead filed numerous appeals, the latest of which was this past January. This was the same month the mega-corporation reported the largest annual profit ever earned by a US corporation--$36 billion dollars. Further, Exxon acted deplorably behind the scenes, offering seven Seattle-based seafood operators a 15 percent cut of the $5 billion if they would settle out of court. Even the courts registered their disgust with Exxon’s behaviour, when US District Judge Holland accused them of acting “as a Jekyll and Hyde, behaving laudably in public, and deplorably in private.”

In February both DemocracyNow! and The Miami Herald reported that Exxon Mobile earns a massive $5 million an hour. The oil giant could pay its twelve-year-old debt to Alaskans with just five days of its revenue, instead, it accrues upwards of one million in interest for each year it delays.

Exxon Mobil has one of the most deplorable environmental and public relations records of major oil companies. Yet, it is also one of four multi-national companies most likely to profit hugely in Iraq.

Though the contracts have yet to be signed, behind-the-scenes agreements have all but guaranteed privitisation of nearly 80 percent of Iraq’s oil fields. In Crude Designs: The Rip-Off of Iraq's Oil Wealth, industry analyst Gregg Muttitt writes, “At an oil price of $40 per barrel, Iraq stands to lose between $74 billion and $194 billion over the lifetime of the proposed contracts.” According to James Paul of the Global Policy Forum, “Shell, BP, Exxon, [and] Chevron would get the lion’s share.” In an earlier interview he pointed out, as an example, if Exxon were to gain control of Iraq’s best known super-giant field, al-Majnoon, it would double the company’s reserves in one stroke. “If you figure oil at $50 a barrel and multiply it out,” Paul explained, “it’s a total profit spread of $1 trillion. That’s more than all companies put together since John D. Rockefeller.”

Now, consumer and advocacy groups are taking on the world’s largest privately-owned oil conglomerate through boycotts.

The 15-member environmental and public interest advocacy group www.exxposeexxon.com hosts a website detailing Exxon Mobil's not-so-honorable activities, which include paying for scientific reports downplaying the threat of global warming. The group, which launched their boycott last July, represents hundreds of thousands of members and includes groups like USPIRG, MoveOn.org, and Greenpeace, which has labeled Exxon Mobil “No. 1 Climate Criminal.” In a related story, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that an IRS audit of Greenpeace was prompted by a little-known watchdog group that challenged Greenpeace's tax-exempt status. “Two and a half years ago, Public Interest Watch… wrote to the Internal Revenue Service urging the agency to audit Greenpeace and accusing the environmental group of money laundering and other crimes.” Yet, according to the Wall Street Journal, “tax records show more than 95 percent of the funding of Public Interest Watch was provided by the oil giant Exxon Mobil.”

Last December www.consumersforpeace.org also kicked off a consumer boycott, for reasons related to the war in Iraq. A coalition of organisations that include After Downing Street, Gold Star Families for Peace, the Traprock Peace Center, International Socialist Review, and Progressive Democrats of America, the group said Exxon Mobil was “selected for boycott because of its apparent active involvement in U.S. policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular.”

Besides calling for “an immediate withdrawal of US troops and
mercenaries from Iraq and prosecution of US officials responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the group is also joining the call for a “buy-cott” of Citgo gas.

Headquartered in the Houston, Texas, Citgo was purchased in 1990 by the PDVSA, a subsidiary of the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. With some 4,000 employees, it is one of the US’s largest refineries. That may be crime enough in the eyes of the Republican Congressman from Texas, “Big Oil” Joe Barton, who has initiated an investigation into Citgo. But what’s aggravated Mr. Barton most, it seems, is that the Venezuelan-owned company actually lowered its prices for oil last year, rather than raise them. Not only did Citgo supply 25 million gallons of discounted heating oil to low-income homes across the Northeast, it also gave free supplies to homeless shelters and to four Maine Tribes. These are the “crimes” being investigated.

Yet, the program was initiated in part at the request of a dozen US senators. Ten major oil companies were asked late last year to help low-income families pay their heating bills from record oil profits. Citgo was the only company to respond. The nationalized oil company also committed $1 million in aid to survivors of Hurricane Katrina, while others have been accused of padding their pockets at the expense of those in need.

While the violence that now defines Iraq grabs headlines, the quiet bargaining between privitisation and nationalisation of Iraq’s oil is taking place behind closed doors. Ask any Alaskan who lived through the Exxon Valdez oil spill and they will tell you Exxon is no longer welcome. Windfall profits rule the game in privatised industry. Yet, most northeasterners who’ve benefited from the shared nationalism of Venezuela’s Citgo corporation would have a different story to tell.

At least for now in the US, there is a choice at the pump.

For more information about where to find a Citgo station, go to http://www.citgo.com/CITGOLocator/StoreLocator.jsp

Samara Bombing and the third anniversary of mess

2006-03-23T13:26:00.000-08:00

An Open Letter from Dr. Salam Ismael
Baghdad, Iraq

I worked in many areas of conflict inside Iraq over the past three years and have witnessed many horrific scenes of slaughter and innocent people being shred to pieces. I felt pain and bitterness inside me but this is the first time since the invasion of Baghdad that I have felt anxious about my country and the direction that it's taking. I've always been confident that Iraq would never descend into civil war.

A few days after the crime in Samara was committed, the shrine of Imam Hassan Al Haidi was attacked and bombed. The proceeding days and hours were extremely hard for everyone of us. Many Sunni mosques were attacked and in some cases burnt down. Militia wearing black uniforms – belonging to one of the political parties orchestrated a campaign of violence and intimidation bringing chaos and fear to the streets. For the first time I felt that the country could be on the edge of civil war.

People closed down their shops. Families phoned their loved ones to return home and locked their doors. Bodies of young men- shot from close range were found in the streets of Baghdad. People started preparing their guns and brought weapons from local shops to protect themselves. Blockades were constructed to protect homes, mosques and businesses. I am the son of a Shiaa mother and a Sunni father and live in a mixed neighbourhood of the city. My mother was scared every time I left the house to go to the hospital or morgue as part of my work documenting the human rights violations and killings in the days following the attack on the shrine. My mother kept phoning me asking where I was, what I was doing and demanding that I return home. The fear of loved ones being killed in a potential civil war had a deep impact on all Iraqis regardless of their religious background. In the following days I felt that this fear was the thing that united most ordinary Iraqis who are living outside the green zone struggling with the difficulties of daily lives.

When I witnessed young shiaas protecting a Sunni mosque in my neighbourhood alongside sunni I breathed a sigh of relief. I saw a thirteen year old boy at around four in the morning with his khafiya wrapped around his head carrying a gun. I saw the child falling asleep from time to time whilst standing on his feet with his gun. He was there to protect his mosque from and the community from the wave of madness that was being unleashed by the militia. During this time I felt the same emotions as I did during the siege of Fallujah where I was working as a doctor. We had run out of food and were depressed and loosing hope. The first truck that broke the blockade to bring food to us was a shia convoy carrying aid. They entered Fallujah announcing on a loud speaker 'we came here to help you' they raised their fingers in a victory salute and brought us hope. Then as now I remembered the old Arab saying 'the blow that doesn't kill you can only make you stronger'. I realised the fabric of Iraqi society would never be shred to pieces – we are more united now than ever before and believe that we have turned the corner and that civil war is a distant possibility.

In the last three years US hummers were patrolling all over Baghadad. The highway in front of my house was now empty of soldiers and four days following the attack on the shrine the soldiers had vanished.. The same story was repeated in neighbourhoods across Baghdad. People were asking where are the US soldiers, the tanks and why are they not protecting us and our Neighbourhoods?

The occupiers failed to uphold their responsibility under the Geneva Convention to maintain law and order and protect civilians in the areas they are controlling. The occupiers told us that they had invaded Iraq to protect us but now when we needed protection they were nowhere to be seen. Why didn't they try and stop the violence and attacks?

I participated in an interview with the BBC who told me that the coalition forces couldn't get involved in this issue as they would be seen as supporting one side against the other. My response and the response of many Iraqis is well- why are they here? Who are they protecting? This goes back to the old question of the demand of Iraqis – that the coalition forces leave. Two days after the attack of Samara two British soldiers in Basra were killed as Iraqis are becoming more angry and frustrated that these soldiers are in their country and want them to leave.

In every society it's the police and army that take responsibility for enforcing law and order. The trust of the people is essential if law and order is to be carried out effectively. This trust collapsed following the attack of the shrine. People blockaded themselves into their homes and took up arms to protect themselves and their families. The army and police stood at the edges and observed what was happening. Militia wearing police and army uniforms carried out attacks against civilians. This has created a total breakdown in the trust and confidence of the people to these authorities that are supposed to serve and protect us.

What kind of future does Iraq have riddled with these militia and flooded with a sea of weapons? Samara is a good example of how militia disgusted [sic] in uniform are carrying out killings and terrorising Iraqis.

Two days on from the attack in Samara and the murder of hundreds of people by militia a strike was carried out by fifty doctors in one of the main hospitals in Baghdad. Doctors were unable to work because people were threatening them with guns and violence to save the lives or treat patients admitted to the hospital. I went to the hospital to assist the doctors with their actions. The doctors described how one of the doctors was taken at gun point to treat a member of the militia inside the hospital. The doctors were on strike for a day before they were forced to return to their duties.

I was horrified seeing the number weapons people were carrying inside the hospital. How can doctors work to save lives when their own lives are being threatened?

This leads me onto ask the question what kind of future do Iraqi's face under the rule of the militia instead of the rule of government and law?

Today marks the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. The invasion was carried out in the name of human rights and democracy. An invasion in the name of weapons of mass destruction. An invasion that has cost the lives of hundreds and thousands of innocent Iraqis. An invasion that was supposed to show Iraqis the light at the end of the tunnel has instead brought more darkness.. We Iraqis are still waiting to come out of the tunnel and see the light.

This invasion has caused the breakdown of law and order, the governmental system has been destroyed. The bullet and bomb now rules the streets and the cheapest thing inside Iraq is the life of a human being. From the chaotic picture that I have described to you- one must ask who is responsible for what has happened? For making Iraq an open battle field? Who is responsible for arming the militia? Who is responsible for dissolving the army and police? Many Iraqis believe that if this situation was intended it is nothing short of a crime. If the outcome is a result of misplanning then it's an even bigger crime. George Bush and Tony Blair who claim to be the guards of democracy and human rights are responsible for this crime. This 'misplanning' can be repeated anytime in anyplace. In the last three years thousands have lost their lives and human rights and democracy is being smashed around the world under the hammer of the so called 'war on terror'.

Dr Salam Ismael

Iraqi Women Tours US, Speaks Against the War

2006-03-17T08:24:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

On the eve of the third anniversary of Iraq’s invasion, a small delegation of Iraqi woman are in the US to talk about what life under US occupation of their country looks like. They arrived in time for International Women’s Day when a couple thousand women and a few men marched to the White House protesting the war. Their message was clear. Bearing pink signs in both Arabic and English that read “Leave Iraq Now!” and “No to Occupation,” the Iraqi women led the march organised by CodePink: Women Say No to War.

At a later press conference where debate about what the minutia of American troop withdrawal would entail, delegation member Entisar Mohammad Ariabi, began crying out of frustration. “It is not fair,” she said, “that on Women’s Day we are not talking about women’s lives in Iraq!”

Dr. Entisar, pharmaceutical head at Al-Yarmouk Teaching Hospital in Baghdad, has been documenting Iraq’s deteriorating health system. The reality, she said, is that “in Iraq a woman is either looking for her children under the rubble of her [bombed] house or for her husband in the prisons! I would also like to remember the pregnant women who cannot find sufficient care, where there is no hospital or delivery room for her because so many doctors have left, or she cannot take an ambulance because they are shot at.

“Many hospitals have been destroyed in Baghdad, Haditha, and al-Qaim during military bombings. Many of the doctors in these places have been beaten, killed or arrested by US troops.

“So many of the diseases under control under Saddam are now back, especially for children—meningitis and hepatitis because of no medicines or vaccines. There are also health problems due to bad water and lack of sanitation.” According to UNICEF, said Dr. Entisar, before the invasion Iraq was number 80 on the list of countries ranked according to death of children under the age of five. This was also during sanctions. Iraq now ranks number 36.

“We [Iraqi women] are sitting here safe. You cannot imagine how we feel being here because we are very worried about our families. We are calling them every day just to make sure they are still alive. End this occupation! It is the reason for all these things!”

Earlier, the delegation had attempted to meet with a number of congressional members to discuss the situation in Iraq, only to be stymied by tight schedules and what some of the women felt was a lack of interest.

“Most were too busy to meet with us,” said journalist and human rights worker Eman Ahmed Khammas. “One actually met us in the hallway. Some did not even take notes.”

Dr. Entisar said she told them, “I’m talking about the deaths of thousands of Iraqis. If you don’t have even five minutes, I refuse to talk!”

“This is the problem,” said Khammas, pointing to a story in The Washington Post about how well things are going in Iraq. “This is the way issues in Iraq are covered in the media unfortunately; [American] people know almost nothing except the ‘happy image’ that really does not exist.”

“We want to tell you this story of Iraq because the media is not telling you the real story.” Faiza Al-Araji, a religious Shi’a who’s married to a Sunni, explained that she used to be a civil engineer until the invasion made a blogger out of her. (afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com) “This is a kind of documentation about what is happening in Iraq. I can tell you from personal experience, six months after the war started, I had guns put in my face and was robbed. I went to the Iraqi police and to the US troops and they both said, ‘sorry, we can’t do anything.’

“Last August the Ministry of Interior arrested my son. They put a bag over his head and took him for four days. These were the worst four days in my life! And, this is the story of most Iraqi women now.”

Fortunately, another prisoner had a cell phone, so Al-Araji’s son was finally able to call her. He told her that the “seniors” within the Ministry told me if his family would pay, he would be released. “We had to pay the seniors in the Ministry $1000 and they released him. This is now the face of the government in Iraq.” Al-Araji’s son was lucky. Most who are arrested by the Ministry are severely tortured, many end up dead. In fear, Al-Araji’s family fled to Jordan where they now live.

Khammas continued, “We hear about horrible stories of torture in the Iraqi prisons, which are unfortunately worse than the American ones. The Iraqi authorities deny their existence,” she says, though too many witnesses have sworn to their presence. “We don’t know the exact number of those detained, but many people are missing in Iraq.

“Another big problem are the continuing military operations. Bush said they ended in May 2003, but this is not true. They have taken place in Najaf, Samarra, the west of Iraq. When they make these raids life stops; school stops, everything stops, and people end up as refugees. For example, with Steel Curtain operations [in Al-Qaim] 8,400 families were left homeless.
“Nearly 50 percent of those who have died during the war are women and children. Death is the king of the streets in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq.”

As to sectarian divisions and the resulting violence, Al-Araji was clear. “It was Bremer who began dividing us; he is the one who named the Sunni Triangle. He put the principles sectarian division in the constitution of Iraq. We never had this before; this is not Iraq. [The Americans] created this story.”

Nadje Al-Ali, a writer and researcher who specializes in women in the Middle East elaborated, “The UK and the US have fueled these differences especially by not securing the borders before now.”

She also attributes the violence to frustration. “After three years, basic services haven’t even been rebuilt,” She pointed to destroyed schools, lack of electricity, and sanitation services.
With this the current situation, asked Al-Araji, “how could I trust [the Americans] to stay another 3 years in Iraq? If [the Americans] are doing anything good for us, give me facts on the ground that Iraq is better and I will never say another word!!”

Instead, Al-Araji charged, “What really exists is a country in absolute chaos! After three years, Iraqis have lost the ‘key.’ We aren’t even the decision-makers in our own country!”

The solution, they all concluded, “Pull out troops!”

Meanwhile, as these Iraqi women tour the US speaking at rallies commemorating the third anniversary of the war in Iraq, American and Iraqi forces have begun Operation Swarmer. Being conducted north of Baghdad, the American military is calling the operation the "largest air assault" in nearly three years.

For information about where the Iraqi women’s delegation are speaking, go to www.womensaynotowar.org

“A cocktail of enemies”

2006-03-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

It was difficult to leave the Middle East, knowing of the uncertain chaos that continues to increase with each day in Iraq. And, of course, knowing I can leave, while my friends, and thousands that I don’t know, can’t. My last days in Jordan were very full with last minute interviews and conversations with friends inside Iraq, which were peppered with the background sounds of gunshots and helicopters flying overhead, despite the curfews.

As one friend reported, "the situation here is very, very bad. Every night in Baghdad there's shooting and of course no one can go out and check out what's happening. The day before yesterday a guard in front of a primary school was killed. The children were inside, so it was a terrible day for them. A teenager from a poor family who picks up garbage from the houses nearby the school was also killed. The attackers didn’t have masks on, they’ve become that brave. This boy tried to run away and was shot. Why? Maybe because he saw them. Too many children don't want to go school now because they are so scared.”

Another says “Yesterday, there were four suicide bombers in Baghdad alone. This violence, it's become like a sort of habit to us. Like, the director of the [Baghdad] morgue, Dr. Faik. He just ran away to Jordan for fear of his life after he reported the real number and condition of bodies.”

She was referring to Faik Bakir who received multiple death threats after reporting that up to three quarters of the 7,000 dead he’s examined in recent months show signs of torture and execution. Many of the bodies have a single bullet shot to the head, their hands tied behind their backs. Others show signs of horrific torture, holes drilled into their bodies and the sides of their heads. I have seen many of these types of pictures, some shown to me by people who desperately want the truth to be told, but are just as desperate to maintain anonymity to ensure the same doesn’t happen to them or their family members.

The number of dead in Baghdad’s morgue has been steadily increasing; the facility now receives 700-1,000 people a month. In Iraq it’s widely believed that the Ministry of the Interior is responsible for the majority of these deaths, yet across the Atlantic these reports are just now making headlines. Outgoing chief of the United Nations human rights office in Iraq made international news when he recently told The Independent, "[The killings are] being done by anyone who wishes to wipe out anybody else for various reasons. But the bulk are attributed to the agents of the Ministry of the Interior."

Yet, it’s not just the Ministry of the Interior Iraqis fear. Coalition forces, CIA and other foreign intelligence forces, American-hired mercenaries (which have numbers greater than the British military), sectarian armed militias, the Iraqi resistance fighters, common criminals, international mafia, and suicide bombers all combine to make life in Iraq on the third anniversary of America’s war more deadly than ever.

“I’ll go back to the West soon to deliver more of the medical supplies to the hospital there,” another friend informs me. When I express my concern and ask if it’s really safe to travel there, he laughs and tells me, “Well, I feel safer there because at least I just need to watch out for the Americans. Here, in Baghdad it's like a cocktail of enemies. You don’t know who you might be killed by.”

Torture in Iraq’s Government Prisons: “The Americans know what is going on"

2006-02-28T17:56:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

When new photographs emerged from Abu Ghraib last week, the US administration, in typical fashion, attempted to sidestep the situation by downplaying their importance. They claim, after all, that there is nothing new in the photographs (untrue, as some depict never-before-seen homicides and forms of sexual abuse) and that those responsible have already been punished. Instead of laying blame on the actions themselves and with the officials who approved them, they blame those who’ve released the photos, warning that their release will only fuel more violence, especially toward Americans.

The United States, it seems, is fond of telling other nations what is right or wrong, but refuses to hold itself to the same principles.

Case in point are the ongoing allegations that prisons run by the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior are torturing people. This information first came to light about two months ago, and at the prodding of US officials the Iraqi government has recently announced an investigation into the matter. But, what about the United States? The Bush administration has refused to conduct an investigation that would genuinely examine how far up the chain of command abuse was condoned in Abu Ghraib and other US-run prisons.

Yet, we ought not stop even there. The question should not end with how high the approval goes, but also to ask how broad. It’s no secret that the US is training Iraqi security forces. But, how much knowledge do US officials have about Iraqi-run prisons—especially those run by the Ministry of the Interior—and are they also condoning the torture there?

Jamal (not his real name) is an Iraqi journalist from Baquba. I met him while interviewing a friend of his, in part about reports of torture in the secret prisons run by Iraq’s Ministry of Interior; he had heard me ask his friend if he thought American forces were aware of these prisons and the torture being conducted there.

After the initial interview, Jamal pulled me aside, “I want to tell you a story. It is the story of my being detained. I don’t want to tell you this because I need you to know in what ways I was also beaten, but because I want to prove to you that the Americans know what is going on in these government prisons.”

On the 10th of June last year Ministry of Interior forces raided Jamal’s house at night. “There were six children sleeping in the house, yet they burst through the door with all their weapons out. They raided my house because I am a journalist and I had written a story about the religious sheikh, Khudhair A-Dulaimy, who was tortured and murdered in their prison in the Diyala Police building.

“The sheikh was tortured and beaten very badly each night. Finally, one night he vomited blood. Neither the Iraqi Police nor the American Army took him to the hospital and he died.”

Continuing with his own story, he says, “These people who came for me are very ignorant. I am only in the media, but when they saw my computer they said I was the head of terrorism. They investigated everyone in the house, even my three-year-old boy. They stole all my money and my gold; these are criminals wearing military uniforms.”

In Baquba, “there are two police stations run by two brothers. One is the Mafrak Police Station, where I was first taken. Colonel Waleed runs this one. The other is a federal police station run by Major Ali. This man is afraid of no one—he even detained the local judge. In fact the Major stole about $1 billion, it was even published in al-Basaer news.”

No one can touch him though, Jamal says, because, “he enjoys close relations with the Americans.”

“This federal camp where the sheikh was killed is about one square kilometer big.” Though is is an Iraqi prison, he explains “On each corner is a tower controlled by the Americans, and at the main entrance there is an American tank.

“In this main entrance is a large corridor that is used by both the Iraqis and the Americans,” he explains as he draws a map. “I was thrown in this corridor at 1p and was there until midnight. I was blindfolded, but it was later removed. I saw the Americans using this entrance.”

He points to rooms whose back walls are the common wall of this corridor. “In these rooms is where they torture people. I know because this is where they took me. I ended up in the same cell where sheikh Khudhair had been killed about three months before. Because many of the prisoners had been at least a year, they knew the sheikh and told me of his torture.

“Can you believe,” he asks, jabbing at the paper, “that with only one wall between them, the Americans wouldn’t hear the screaming?”

Jamal then relates a story that indicates American forces not only know of the torture, but at higher levels are condoning it.

“Witnesses have seen prisoners at Mafrak handcuffed behind their back, hung from a crane by their arms, then tortured. The officers do this at night when they are drunk—they call it a party—telling the prisoners to bark like a dog or bray like a donkey. One of these prisoners was called Mustafa. Colonel Waleed took Mustafa to the airport, where the Americans have a prison. From Mafrak, the prisoners can see the airport and the American tanks there. When they arrived, the American officer saw signs of abuse and asked Mustafa if he had been tortured. Colonel Waleed answered no, but Mustafa nodded his head. That same night an American came to Mafrak and found a person from Khalass City (about 10k from Baquba) hanging from a crane and took a picture of him. There was an investigation and the Americans kicked Colonel Waleed out. Yet because of the relationship he has with the Americans, he was back in three days.

“I have so many stories I could tell you,” he continues. “A sheikh from Balad Rooz, 40k east of Baquba, whose name I swore I wouldn’t reveal, told me this story. A Sunni man was arrested by the Iraqi Police (IP) and taken to this prison. He was accused of resisting the Americans. They tortured him for two days and couldn’t get any information from him, so they arrested his wife and brought her in. The sheikh was brought into the room and found both of them crying.”

At this point Jamal stops. “Please,” he said. “this is very bad. It would be very difficult to say this to you, as a woman. I will write it instead.”

He bends over a piece of paper and begins writing furiously. After he finishes the third page, he hands it to my friend to translate and looks away as she begins reading.

“The IP told the sheikh to have sex with the woman and left. The couple begged the sheikh, saying, ‘please our honor is in your hands.’ The sheikh answered, ‘Please, I won’t do anything against my belief and my religion.’

At this point, Jamal clarifies later, the couple did not know the man was a sheikh. “The IP returned to the room demanding to know if they’d had sex. When they answered no, he told the sheikh, ‘You have a beautiful wife. We will bring her if you don't have sex with this man’s wife and we will all rape her, in front of you.’

“Waleed then told the sheikh, who is Sunni, that his name should now be Haydir, which is a Shi’a name. ‘Because of this pressure,’ the sheikh told [Jamal], ‘I agreed to go into the next room where I found the wife naked and crying.’

“The sheikh asked the man, ‘is this your real wife?’ ‘Yes,’ the man answered. ‘Then we are in big trouble,’ said the sheikh. ‘They will perform some test to see if we’ve done this. Please, you two have sex and I won’t look. I’ll have sex with myself and in this way we can all save our honor.’

“It worked. Afterwards, the IP made the test and then the soldiers began dancing and singing, ‘Haydir did it, Haydir did it.’

“The next day the IP came and told the man to take his wife home. They still did not know this man was a religious sheikh. But, before he left, they told him, ‘the other man is a sheikh.’ Meaning that they were trying to get these two men to hate one another based on religious difference.

“Now I will tell you a Kurdish Peshmerga story from Al-Udhaim, about 90k north from Baquba. There used to be a camp there for the mujahadin group Halak. The Peshmerga captured a man from there; he used to be an officer in the Iraqi Army, but had become a merchant in order to survive after the war started. He was accused of fighting against the Shi’a in 1991, even though he graduated from the military in 1995.

“A number of us were together in what we called ‘the coffin room’ because they would come at 1am each night; we were very afraid wondering who would be tortured tonight. One night they brought in a man who was wearing only his underwear. We couldn’t tell the color of his skin due to the level of his torture. We were ordered not to talk with him. But after three days, he told us his story.

“The Peshmerga put a water pipe in his ass and then opened it. In this way it filled his body and then his chest. One of the prisoners was a nurse and told us, ‘he won’t live.’ And I don’t know what happened to this man because I left the prison.

Again he asks me, “With the Americans just on the other side of these walls, how could they not hear the screams?

“As you can see from these stories, the Americans clearly know what is going on in these prisons,” concludes Jamal.

“After thirteen days they released me. At the end of detention, if they can’t prove anything, they bring a list of four crimes and you are told to choose one.”

“What are the crimes?” I asked.

“Attacked an American convoy, these types of things,” he replies.

“And what did you choose?”

He just smiles sadly at me.

“It’s a civil war—now it has started”

2006-02-26T17:53:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

Today was a mixture of emotion. Late afternoon my mobile rang and to my great relief, Aisha, my friend who I hadn’t heard from in four days, was on the other end. She had been in Haditha, in the west of Iraq, delivering medical supplies to the hospital, destroyed last summer when US and US-led Iraqi troops occupied it for five days. Because the phone lines are completely destroyed, it had been impossible for her to call.

She told me of some severe attacks by US forces in the past few months and that the area is completely cordoned off now, with checkpoints surrounding the city. Now, she was trying to get into Baghdad, but it, too, is sealed and no one allowed to enter or to leave. The same with Samarra as most of the country’s so-called Sunni triangle was under curfew. Aisha will stay outside Baghdad tonight, and possibly many nights as the government announced an extension of the curfew until at least 6am Monday, imposed to quell the violence that’s swept Iraq since Wednesday’s bombing in Samarra.

When I called another friend who lives in the Al-Adhamiya neighborhood of Baghdad to let him know Aisha was safe, he told me, with his ever-present laugh, “well, of course we cannot leave our house, but I just was telling my wife that I wanted to spend more time with her and now I can. Today we made a picnic in the back courtyard, just for a change of scenery from the inside of the house.”

But later in the evening, when I called him back for the latest news. I found him in a state of terrible anxiety. Even with an extended curfew there were major clashes in the street.

“The Iraqi Police (IP) are everywhere!” he declared. “We just heard Saadoun al-Dulaimi (the Iraqi defense minister) on the television saying there’s been a Shi’a call that that all followers of Mohammed (Sunnis) should leave Al-Masa’in (a Sunni town)!”

“While he was talking five more mosques are attacked in that time! Three mosques in Al-Adhamiya were attacked, an imam in Barah killed. there are helicopters flying overhead and gunshots are everywhere.

My family, we’ve gathered all in one room for safety and my son and I will stay up the night to defend our house!”

“There is an imposed curfew. Who’s on the streets and fighting?” I ask.

“Only the Sunni are respecting the curfew because they don’t have the ability to do otherwise, while the IP (read Shi’a) are wearing the military uniform and can do as the like.”

“And, where are the American troops?”

“The Americans have disappeared from Baghdad. They came to Al-Adhamiya with their humvees to at 6pm to defend the Numan Hospital, which was attacked, but then they left us.

“It’s a civil war! Now it’s started!” he declares fearfully.

He goes on to say that 150 mosques have been attacked throughout Iraq and hundreds killed.
I ask about the response of Iraqis, “Are there signs that people are still holding on to unity?”

“Al-Daraji (spokesperson for Muqtada Al-Sadr) is saying that tomorrow they will go to the Association of Muslim Scholars to talk. And in Basrah, a demonstration with both Shi’a and Sunni marched together, calling for unity,” he says.

“These are good signs, but, really Karen, we don’t know what will happen.”

I hung up reluctantly and after a sleepless night of worry, call back in the morning. My friend is in better spirits, saying the night calmed down and he went to bed at 4am.

“Now we wait,” he says. “Our curfew continues.”

Yesterday, the Sunni Accord Front, the most powerful Sunni political group in Iraq, pulled out of government talks due to the number of reprisal attacks. By this morning, nearly 170, mostly Sunni, mosques had been attacked, and over 200 people killed.

Long on the brink of civil war, it seems nearly impossible to turn back from it now though both Shi’a and Sunni parties are in talks. Meanwhile, the question remains, who is responsible for Wednesday’s bombing of the Askariya shrine? The Americans, of course, are blaming Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi, the man who, for them, is responsible for every ill in Iraq; the Badr Brigades (militia of Al-Sistani's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution) are blaming the occupation, though not the Shi’a-led government; and the Sunni are blaming the occupation and the government, in particular, the notorious Ministry of the Interior.

But, the real question that must be asked is, who would benefit from the division of Iraq that would result from civil war? In the end though, whoever is responsible for the bombing of one of Shiite Islam’s most holy sites, it is the civilians of Iraq who are paying. As always.

Deepening Crisis and a Missing Friend

2006-02-24T06:15:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

A week ago I waved goodbye to my dear friend Aisha as the suburban bound for Iraq pulled away from the curb at 4:30am. With the bedlam that now defines daily life for Iraqis, I was, needless to say, deeply concerned about her return.

“There was a huge explosion in Fallujah as we passed by,” she says when I finally reach her the following evening, “and it was really strange to pull into Baghdad. The whole city is dark, except for those who have generators.” But, she had arrived. She was safe.

Today, as violence continued to engulf Iraq in response to the bombing of the holy Shi’a Askariya Mosque in Samarra, I am trying not to think the worst. None of us have heard from Aisha in three days.

Scheduled to be in Samarra yesterday, she never showed up. I call another friend in Baghdad, who is a neighbor with Aisha’s family. When I tell him my concerns and ask if he would call Aisha’s family, casually, so as not to worry them, he offers to walk over instead. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” he gently chastises. “Look, I will call on the family, as if I am just passing by, and then ask after Aisha.”

I think back to last night when I was chatting with him on the net and there were gunshots in the background.

“Are they close?” I ask. “It’s ok, they stopped,” he replies. Then, “they are back, closer now.”

“Is everything ok?”

“Don’t worry, Karen, this is our life here now. We hear these things all the time.” Then he abruptly types “I must go now. Bye,” and he’s gone.

I sat looking at the screen for a full minute, hoping he and his family were fine, knowing this is what Iraq looks like. It’s not the first time we’ve been talking and there have been gunshots. I tell myself it’s ok, that they’ve been through countless nights like this and they’ve been ok.

Except that at least 80 people had just been killed, because after months of speculation, Iraq really is on the brink of a civil war.

With the bombing of one Shi’a Islam’s holiest sites, the Askariya shrine, in Samarra on Wednesday, sectarian violence has claimed at least 130 lives so far. Ninety Sunni mosques have been attacked in retaliation, three clerics killed and the government is on the verge of collapsing.

And, this morning, my friend is going to drop by Aisha’s as if he’s just out for a stroll. “Is it safe this morning?” “Yes, it’s ok,” he assures me.

He calls me back in an hour. “Aisha went to Haditha with a friend, her mother told me.” Good. So, now we call Haditha. Except that we find out all the transmission sites have been bombed and there are no working land lines in Haditha. We finally reach another friend who has cousins in Haditha with cell phones. Fortunately, they work and we find out Aisha was there Wednesday.

But, where is she now? Samarra is closed and has been since Wednesday when huge demonstrations broke out protesting what many see as attempts from outside influences to provoke civil war. In the aftermath though, three journalists working for Al-Arabiya are kidnapped and later found dead, bringing the death toll for journalists and media assistances to 82 since the start of the war. Iraq, for the third straight year, has been listed as the most dangerous place in the world for journalists to work, especially if they are Iraqi.

Finally we realise we’ve done everything we can and now there’s nothing to do but wait. It’s a helpless feeling that gives me a glimpse of what Iraqis deal with daily.

Later in the evening, an urgent message scrolls across the news: the government has declared a daytime curfew until 4pm on Friday, preventing people from attending the most important weekly prayers. What they don’t say, but is abundantly clear from the areas the curfew is imposed—Diyala, Suleimanyia and Babylon, in addition to Baghdad—is these are predominantly Sunni areas, though there has also been significant violence in predominantly-Shi’a Basrah.

It also means that wherever Aisha is, she’s stuck there until the curfew ends. If it ends. The government also declared there will be another announcement Friday afternoon that may extend the curfew.

Iraqis often rhetorically ask me—after they’ve related a story about how it now takes 2 hours to drive the 20-minute road to work, or how they live on the 13th floor and were without electricity (meaning no elevator) last week for three days, or how when they walk out the door in the morning they don’t know if they will return at night, or how people even drive on the sidewalks now because there are so many roadblocks—“this is the liberation?”

After three years, Iraq is still a country under occupation, with a puppet government, and with no functioning infrastructure.

If there were, my friend Aisha wouldn’t be taking her life in her hands to deliver suitcases of medical supplies to hospitals.

Missing for Three Years in Iraq’s Prisons

2006-02-20T03:23:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

Assaf Hunaihin Salih al-Jumeili is a well-dressed man with a serious face and very sad eyes. We met at the Cairo Tribunal on Bush, Blair and Sharon; he had been looking my way trying to catch my eye, but focused on the proceedings and assuming he was looking for someone else, at first I didn’t respond. At a break, he motioned me over as I walked by and, puzzled, I sat down next to him. On his lap were several folded papers sitting atop a Koran. Opening the papers, he shows me a letter to the International Red Cross in Egypt he’d written on behalf of his only son, Aysser Assaf, who disappeared at the beginning of April 2003.

Umm Qasr is a port town, which sits on the border of Kuwait in southern Iraq. In the nearby desert, American forces set up the now notorious Bucca Camp where several US soldiers were accused of abusing prisoners as early as May 2003 (long before the Abu Ghraib revelations), and where frustrated US military personnel regularly complained, all the way up to Rumsfeld, about the lack of facilities, training and leadership.

Named after a New York firefighter and Army Reservist who died in the World Trade Center, Camp Bucca was originally set up as a temporary prisoner-of-war camp and was closed by December 2003. The military later re-opened it to accommodate overflow from Abu Ghraib. There are no accurate figures on how many are being detained in Iraq, but it is believed to be tens of thousands.

Between 7,000 and 8,000 prisoners were once held at the Camp Bucca alone; it is believed the number now stands between 5,000 and 6,000.

After his son’s disappearance, Assaf Hunaihin traveled to the closest prison facility, as many families do when a relative disappears, and found his son’s name on a list maintained by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) of Bucca detainees.

“That was April 3, 2003 and that’s the last we ever knew. My son can’t be located. I’ve written to everyone I was told to.” Hoping to would find his son in another detention camp, Assaf tirelessly followed every lead he got.

“I went to the ICRC offices in Basrah seven times, to Nasriyeh three times and I even visited their offices in Baghdad nine times before it was bombed and closed. I went to the US CMCC [Civil-Military Coordination Center] office in Baghdad and filled out the forms they asked me to, and also to the Baghdad Airport prison and Abu Ghraib. I’ve heard no response from any of them.”

Assaf, an attorney, was eventually approached by the families of two other young men who were detained at the same time, Muiah Rashid Resn and Yasser Hamid Ahmed, to represent them as well.

“I was told that maybe my son had been taken to one of the secret US prisons in Jordan, Kuwait or United Arab Emirates…that he was probably no longer in Iraq.” Assaf and his wife and moved from Basrah to Baghdad because of the offices located there, which they hoped could help.

“Even though I have a number that was assigned to him by the Americans, no one can find him,” Assaf laments. “We don’t know if he’s been charged with anything, we don’t know anything, for three years now!”

Unfortunately, it’s an all too common story. Last year the International Red Cross reported that the US holds 70 – 90 percent of Iraqi detainees without cause. This doesn’t even take in to account the numbers who’ve disappeared in Iraqi government prisons.

“The families planned a delegation of lawyers to go outside Iraq and raise this issue of prisoners. Of course, we went to the Iraqi Bar Association for official representation; they, in turn, asked the new government for their permission.”

Instead, the US-backed Iraqi government dissolved the Bar Association, which had maintained its pre-invasion leadership. When asked if he thinks there was any correlation, Assaf shrugs his shoulders, “We don’t know these things. The Union of International Lawyers is supposed to supervise new elections on March 16. But of course, the government doesn’t agree with anything that doesn’t speak in their voice.”

“Now, I am my own delegation,” he explains. “This is why I came all the way to Cairo when I heard about the trial.

“First, I am a father, and if there was one chance in a million that I could meet someone who can help me, it’s worth it. My son’s wife and mother told me, ‘We need to know, is he dead or alive. If he’s dead, we just want to know so that we can at least mourn him!”

My eyes fall to the bottom of Assaf’s letter to the International Committee to the Red Cross where he’s written,

I, as a father, a very broken-heart I beg you to help me to know my son’s destiny and
ask you to allow me to see him according to Geneva Treaty about the captives.

Who Will Possess Iraq’s Oilfields?

2006-02-17T00:47:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

A friend wrote recently from Occupied Iraq that with the December elections over Iraq had truly been stolen. I thought perhaps they were referring to the stamp of legitimacy elections would give Iraq’s American-approved government, but they were actually talking about the final pieces falling in to place for those who’ve long coveted Iraq’s oilfields.

The “how” begins with Iraq’s new constitution; written largely behind closed doors and with tremendous US influence, it was voted into place during October’s referendum. Cleverly, it gives the impression that Iraq’s oil will remain in the hands of its people by guaranteeing “oil and gas is the property of all the Iraqi people” and that revenues from “current fields” will be fairly distributed across the provinces. The key phrase is “current fields;” in the following section the document then requires all future exploration use “the most modern techniques of market principles and encouraging investment.” The modern investment model being promoted in Iraq during these secret meetings is production sharing agreements, or PSAs.

Mostly political in nature, PSAs maintain the technicality—and just as importantly, the appearance—of keeping oil ownership in government hands, yet the majority of profits goes to private companies. These agreements are generally used in countries where oil is either hard to extract and therefore expensive, or where reserves are small enough that companies may be unwilling to invest. PSAs guarantee a high profit margin, providing an enticement to otherwise uninterested oil companies. In Iraq, where extracting oil is not technologically challenging and reserves are huge, PSAs don’t make sense—unless they are intended to benefit someone other than Iraqis.

Oil driving Iraq policies
While world demand for oil increases, supplies continue to dwindle. In fact, many believe world oil reserves has already reached its peak and is in decline. Numerous citizen groups and non-governmental organisations realise the world must revolutionize its main energy source from fossil fuel to something ecologically sustainable. Yet, with the world’s economic stability deeply linked to oil and the corporations who control it, the fight for possession is fierce. And often deadly…as is the case in Iraq.

An oil company’s economic health is based on its reserves, listed as part of its assets. The problem, says James Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Institute, is that due to these dwindling supplies, there are not enough reserves for these corporations to maintain economic health. “Oil companies cannot replace their reserves. They are frantically looking all over the world. The companies know oil is running out in the world, they just don’t say it. Imagine if oil is $100 a barrel and imagine if your company doesn’t control it.”

Then, imagine if those same companies know where to find it.

Iraq has the planet’s second largest known oil reserves. Its untapped fields account for nearly two-thirds of Iraq’s known reserves, estimated to be at least 115 billion barrels. Its al-Majnoon field—a “super-giant” in geological terms—holds an estimated 20 million barrels alone. And that one field, says, Paul would double the oil giant Exxon’s reserves in one fell swoop. He maintains that the cost to produce oil in Iraq is cheap—about $1/barrel—which adds significantly to the profit margin. “If you figure oil at $50 a barrel and multiply it out,” Paul explains, “it’s a total profit spread of $1 trillion. That’s more than all companies put together since John D. Rockefeller.” As of this writing, oil stands at $61/bbl, though it hit $68/bbl last week and is expected to climb again.

Before Saddam Hussein nationalized its fields in 1972, Iraq’s oil was divided according to agreements the British had made during their occupation of Iraq in the early part of the century.

The companies, Shell and Anglo-Persian (which later became BP) had about 50 percent, the French company Foflaq (which later became Total) had about 25 percent, and it was intended, says Paul, that the remainder stay in Iraq’s hands. However, “in the 1920s Churchill convinced the British to give some [percentage] to the Americans, or they would always have trouble.” So, Iraq’s portion of their own oil went to a consortium of American companies that included Exxon and Unocal. Now, says Paul, “these companies want back—Shell, BP, Exxon, Chevron—would get the lion’s share.”

Iraqi’s organize against globalisation
Iraqi’s though, have no desire to privatise their oilfields. In fact, Iraq’s oil union is quite strong. They reorganised after the US-led invasion by August 2003 into ten state-owned companies in southern Iraq, forming the General Union of Oil Employees (GUOE). In the following months GUOE was instrumental in assisting other labor unions to form. Though GUOE remains independent, other unions have now joined to form the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU). The newly born labor movement is strongest in southern Iraq, but is beginning to gather strength across the country. Now, they are fighting hard for Iraqi jobs—and against globalisation.

Iraqis know full well that oil is the main reason for the US invasion and remains the central project in globalising Iraq’s resources.

In Crude Designs, a report published by the UK-based non-governmental organisation Platform and the US’s Global Policy Institute, oil analyst Greg Muttitt says if current plans are approved, Iraqi’s will “lose control of more than 85 percent of their oil resources to foreign multinationals.”

The report, published in November, is well-known and hotly debated in Iraq. At the end of November Al-Jazeera news hosted a debate between Muttitt and Ahmad Chalabi, who, along with other interim-government members, participated in State Department hosted talks about PSAs.

According to Crude Designs, production-sharing agreements are “beyond the reach of Iraqi courts, public scrutiny or democratic control.” Because they are “subject to commercial confidentiality provisions, PSAs are effectively immune from public scrutiny and lock governments into economic terms that cannot be altered for decades.

“In Iraq’s case, these contracts could be signed while the government is new and weak, the security situation dire, and the country still under military occupation. As such the terms are likely to be highly unfavourable, but could persist for up to 40 years. At an oil price of $40 per barrel, Iraq stands to lose between $74 billion and $194 billion over the lifetime of the proposed contracts.”

This is what Iraq’s unions are fighting against. In an excellent article published by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union—the first to call for an end to the US occupation—senior fireman Abdul Faisal Jaleel, from the Basra refinery is quoted. “We reject foreign investment. We want to keep our own oil revenues and use them to develop our country with our own hands.”

Last June, at the invitation of US Labor Against the War, six members from GUOE, IFTU, and the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions of Iraq toured 25 US cities, educating their union counterparts on the real costs of the occupation. Member unions were hoping to pressure the AFL-CIO into adopting a stance against the occupation. In October, they were successful. For the first time in 50 years, the AFL-CIO spoke against US military action. It called on the US government to bring the troops home “rapidly” and demanded Iraqi “workers be granted internationally recognized labor rights to organize free of interference from government and employers, and to bargain collectively.”

Failing economy used to pressure for globalisation
In December though, Iraq’s interim government claimed its debt too great to rebuild the country and accepted a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Questions remain. Why would Iraq be forced to rebuild its own country after a foreign invasion and where have all those billions earmarked for reconstruction gone?

To summarize—since the issue is far too complex address here—the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) has squandered billions of US tax-payer dollars intended to reconstruct destroyed Iraq and given in no-bid contracts to companies like Halliburton and Bechtel. The companies, under no obligation to account for spent funds, have been caught overcharging and wasting millions.

Meanwhile, $6 billion of Iraq’s money leftover from the United Nations Oil for Food Programme and about $10 billion from frozen assets and resumed oil exports were transferred into the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, to be spent by the CPA “in a transparent manner…for the benefit of the Iraqi people.”

Of that $16 billion, $8.8 disappeared while Paul Bremer was still in charge and to this day remains unaccounted for. Other funds intended for reconstruction have been diverted to pay for security; contracted by the US government, Blackwater and other private “security” companies are in reality mercenaries-for-hire. Earning up to $5,000/day, they constitute the second-largest force in the so-called Coalition of the Willing.

Some of the story has emerged only because Senator Henry Waxman has been dogging the Bush administration with ongoing internal audits. Ed Harriman, in an article in July’s London Review of Books, follows the audit trail of missing, stolen, squandered and unaccounted for money that has left Iraq’s financial situation a shambles. Well-documented, Harriman provides ample evidence that as Iraq is expected to pay for its own reconstruction, the country is simultaneously being driven into impoverishment by the corruption of US officials and their US-installed Iraqi counterparts.

Following suit, corruption is also rampant in the American-backed Iraqi government. For example, on 5 February Iraq’s Public Integrity Commission filed criminal charges against a member of its parliament for allegedly embezzling millions of dollars intended to improve security of a key pipeline.

True to IMF policy, the $685 million loan came with a price; Iraq was to end oil subsidies and open its economy to private investment. In response, just after December elections the outgoing government increased fuel prices nine-fold. The move stunned Iraqis. Widespread demonstrations followed across the country; police fired upon a crowd of 3,000 protesters in Nassiryeh and killed four during riots in Kirkuk.

Iraqis are long used to both food and fuel subsidies and, one can argue, with 70-80 percent unemployment, are surviving in part because of them. As Iraqis come to realise how IMF policies further squeeze their lives this can only spell additional disaster. As The LA Times notes “Over the summer, gas was selling for about five cents a gallon. Now it’s about 65 cents, and at the end of the price increases, gasoline will cost about…$1 per gallon.”

“This is classic,” says Paul, of the Global Policy Institute. “The IMF always insists on the issue of ending subsidizes, even bread which is a more basic need. It almost always happens that riots ensue, governments even fall as a result of these policies.”

The US administration, of course, has a different view. US Treasury Secretary John Snow, quoted in The Progressive, stated “This arrangement will underpin economic stability and help lay the foundation for an open and prosperous economy in Iraq.”

Though Iraq’s Oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, quit in protest, he was back within days and the seemingly immortal friend of the US, out-going Deputy Primer Minister, convicted embezzler and falsified-intelligence informant, Ahmad Chalabi is guaranteed a significant role.

“There has been a tremendous amount of maneuvering. Al-Uloum was not opposed to PSAs. He participated in the [US] State Department group that recommended them,” Paul reveals. “Chalabi is asking large sums for himself to do deals with the oil companies.”

Ironically, says Paul, “one of Iraq’s biggest crises is being brought about by shortages in the oil sector when it has the worlds second or third largest oil reserves.”

“Iraq’s debt will [likely] be used to force the government to sign production-sharing agreements with the multi-nationals,” Platform’s Greg Muttitt believes.

As Iraq’s standard of living continues to plunge, what remains for the Bush administration and its friends is sealing the deal. Yet, Iraqi’s themselves are loathe to this idea and the strength of their resistance speaks for itself. While the term resistance is used almost exclusively to describe the fighters, Iraqi resistance also includes non-violent protests, boycotts, and, of course, the successful strikes organized by Iraqi labor unions.

Many Iraqis I’ve spoken with are quick to point out Iraq’s long commitment to taking care of the social sector. Even under a brutal dictatorship, nationalized oil revenues built hospitals, universities and factories that were some of the best in the Middle East. This, prior to the 1980s when Iraq went to war with Iran and the US-led embargo that defined the 1990s. A return to those prior days is what many Iraqis are working toward.

As James Paul sums it up “Oil workers are opposed [to privatization] and are very powerful in these situations; they are very clear that oil should remain in national hands. They can’t just kill them all or fire them all. It’s widely known that these [multinational] companies controlled everything before. The main theme of their history is related to oil. You don’t have to be a wide-eyed radical to understand this; every Iraqi knows that oil is at the center of the war.”

Interview with George Galloway

2006-02-07T11:34:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

The British Member of Parliament, George Galloway was in Egypt recently to testify about Britain’s involvement in Iraq’s invasion at a trial organised by the Arab Lawyers Union. Instead, he spent a sleepless night in a detention room at the Cairo airport, told he was a security risk. His Respect Party negotiated on his behalf and he was finally released, but only after the tribunal had ended.

Tired, but gracious, he gave most of his limited time to interviews. We sat in the restaurant of the Shepheard Hotel, an upscale hotel whose lobby is filled with Africans draped in colorful robes and in suits, Asians clustered in small groups, boisterous Arabs sitting around low tables laughing, and a few Americans—mostly businessmen. Ironically, as we talk about American imperialism, Britain’s participation, and the effects on regional politics in the Middle East, the background music swells into a crescendo of the Star-Spangled Banner and continues with other American march tunes.

George Galloway is an eloquent and passionate man, whether in Parliament, in the US Senate—where he flew last year to personally confront Republicans charging his misconduct in the Oil-for-Food Programme (his pointed questioning celebrated by the Left who’d been longing for this kind of courage from the Democrats)—or in person. His anti-war stance and 30 year support of Arab peoples has ensured his controversy; he is often in conflict with Prime Minister Tony Blair and doesn’t shy away from criticism of George W. Bush. He has been tireless in his support of the Iraqi people during sanctions and after, visiting the country, he says, over 200 times.

We met just prior to his departure back to the airport, and after he’d given an interview with Iraqi TV, excerpts of which are included as they answer some of my own questions had we the time.

George Galloway, thank you for making this time. You were detained by Egyptian authorities as you entered to testify at a trial being held here. What happened?

Well, first I should say that President Mubarak today sent a personal envoy, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Egyptian Parliament to convey his sincere apologies for what happened to me and that the President was very upset. The envoy was Dr. Mustafa El-Feki. I accepted his apology and I’m grateful for the expression of sympathy from President Mubarak and so I won’t be taking that matter any further. But, you heard me say [last night] what happened to me…it was not a nice experience; it was unprecedented in my 30 years of working in the Arab world and I was very upset about it. But, of course, I accept the apology, which is a gracious one and I will put the matter behind me.

Were you given any reason for your detention? They at first said you were a security threat. Do you think it may have been to prevent you from testifying?

They say no. They say it was a security service mistake and that the security service must become more political, must know who is who and what is what. This is what they say.

You know that the Iraqi and Palestinian witnesses were denied visas?

Yes. This is inexcusable. I don’t know why Egypt continues to act like this because all Arabs look to Egypt as their model, if you like, that this is the greatest Arab country—it’s the most populous Arab country, it’s the most historical Arab country. Egypt has a role to play as a part of this Nation; it shouldn’t turn its back on the Arab Nation. This isn’t correct. I think the trial was hampered by the refusal of visas of participants, and of course that was added to by my absence.

There have been 20 former tribunals held on Bush and Blair’s invasion and occupation of Iraq. What particular importance do you think this trial had?

Well, you won’t really know that until later. The whole story about the straw that broke the camel’s back is that you never really know which is the last straw until it is the last straw. These tribunals are important in themselves, they certainly don’t do the struggle to end the occupation any harm, but their exact weight and importance will vary, but their accumulated weight and strength will only be seen after the event. If I tell you that I’m old enough to remember the Bertrand Russell Tribunal against the Viet Nam war in the 1960s, it didn’t seem like that big of deal at the time, but historically, it has enormous importance and has, indeed, been the model for other such tribunals ever since. A perspective will have to be gained on these events by time.

Was there a significance that this was held in an Arab nation?

Yes. It has made a big impact, I think. It’s been very widely covered. It’s been good that it took place here. To be fair to Egypt, there are not many Arab countries, if any, that would have allowed the tribunal to take place there at all.

About the recent cartoons of Islam. In your viewpoint are there any hidden reasons for this; why now? in this campaign?

You may have heard me say to the Iraqi TV that, first of all, you don’t have to be a Muslim to be on the receiving end of the imperialist lash. People of Cuba, for more than 40 years, have been in that position. The people of Cambodia and Viet Nam lost millions of people, in our lifetime, under the lash of American imperialism. So, you don’t have to be a Muslim. But, in recent years, after the fall of the Soviet Union, unconquered Islam was the only territory free from the globalisation of capitalism and its imperialist foreign policy. The only people still resisting in the world, other than the Cubans, are the Muslims. This brings them into conflict with the tyrants, because Islam forbids its believers to accept tyranny and injustice. It commands the believers to stand up against injustice. And as Bush and Blair and Co. speak the very language of injustice and are, themselves, establishing tyranny around the world, inevitably this brings them into conflict with Muslims.

Now, the good thing is that there millions of people in non-Muslim countries, millions of non-Muslims, who are equally opposed to globalised capitalism and the imperialist war machine which comes from it. So, the Muslims have allies amongst non-Muslims and this is the phenomenon we have seen over the last few years. The development of a massive anti-war movement around the world where Muslims and non-Muslims were on one hand because they share a rejection of occupation, war, exploitation, despoliation of the earth, its environment.

This alliance is potentially world-changing, because the Muslims alone cannot, their allies alone cannot, but together, we might be able to change the world.

How can we narrow the gap between the West and Islam, the West and the Arabs?

Well, there are many things that can be done, for example, the Cairo Conference, which I’m one the founders of, is an attempt to bridge this gap between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world between these allies that I talk about. This is one way. By Muslims participating in the anti-war movements around the world. This is a way to do it. To reject the separatism of the Islamist extremists who say that voting is haram (forbidden), that working with non-Muslims is haram, calling people kofar (atheist) and so on. This separatism should be rejected and Muslims should throw themselves whole-heartedly into the broad and mass movement in the world. Of course, we are not helped by some of the negative phenomena of Islamist extremism. If young Muslims are so angry that they blow themselves up on the London Underground, killing innocent people, this is a big setback. This drives people apart when we should be bringing them together.

These are things that need to be done, but I want to caution you on this point. The division is not between West and East, certainly not between Christianity and Islam. We believe in the prophets, peace be upon them. George W. Bush believes in the profits and how to get a piece of them!

George Bush is no representative of Christianity or of the West. This is a battle between the “bad” people and the others, and there are many bad people in the Muslim world who are ruling some Muslim countries, who are acting as slaves for the bad people in the West. There is not a clear division between Muslims and non-Muslims. There are many good people in the non-Muslim world and good people in the Muslim world and we need to find each other.

It seems though in the West, the US and the UK in particular, with their project of globalisation, is attempting to use religion as a divide, as a tool to accomplish this.

Yes. When George Bush said that it was a “crusade,” even if it was a mistake to say it, it is what he meant. It betrayed the thoughts that were in his mind, because Bush has put himself at the head of an army of Christian fundamentalists and Zionist forces in the United States. This apocalyptic language of Armageddon and so on is what they really believe. I don’t think he really believes it. I think Bush didn’t find God, he just found the Party of God, America’s Hezbollah, the Party of Christian Fundamentalism, and he decided to ride it to power. And it’s been, up to a point, very successful.

Many who are working against corporate globalisation think that the Iraqi resistance, the real Iraqi resistance, is in some ways, on the front line of resisting that globalisation. Do you have a response to that?

Well, in the sense that the occupation intends to make Iraq just another pawn in the game, subject to the unalterable and irresistible forces of globalised capitalism and the resistance is opposing that, then yes, the resistance in that sense is an anti-globalisation force. If the occupation succeeds in forcing Iraqi farmers to deal with their world-wide conspiracy of patenting of seeds and so on, this will make Iraq just another brick in the wall. The Iraqi resistance does not want to join that wall. The Iraqi resistance wants Iraq to be an independent and sovereign nation, following its own path. Cuba, too, refuses this path to be just another brick in the capitalist wall, so incurs the wrath of the United States likewise.

And, as we’re seeing in Venezuela…

Yes, Venezuela. Bolivia will shortly follow suit. Any country which breaks from this consensus, Iran also, to a degree. Iran is insisting on its rights, rights which other countries have and is being openly threatened with war as a result. There are many countries now beginning to break from this pre-determined path. We must all support them as well as we can, even if we have disagreements, as we do in Iran, for example. Even where we have disagreements with Iran, if I have to choose between Iran and George Bush, I choose Iran.

You mentioned Hezbollah…can we speak about Hariri. Do you think Syria is responsible for the assassination of Hariri and for the current chaos in Lebanon?

No, I don’t believe that Syria is responsible for the death of Hariri because Syria is the main loser from this crime. States don’t normally commit acts such as that when they know, as any fool could have predicted, that the world will come down on top of them. So, I don’t believe that Syria is responsible at all for this crime. There may have been some Syrians involved, but I don’t believe that President Bashar Assad took a decision to blow up Hariri. This would be madness! Someone else is acting in Lebanon. Who that someone else is, you don’t have to look far, just a few miles. Down the highway, down the south of Lebanon, you see the very power who has both the interest and the capability of fermenting the type of chaos in Lebanon, which we have seen.

It seems there is some type of European-American agreement towards Iran and Syria. What is the interest?

Let’s discuss what the goal is first. The goal is to break the regime in Damascus, not because of anything bad that it’s done, and it has done some bad things, but because of the good things that it does. What are they? Syria will not sign a surrender of peace with Sharon, Syria will not kick out the resistance from Damascus, she will not break her strategic alliance with Hezbollah, she will not—the is the most important thing—she will not open her borders for the United States to use Syria as a military base to crush the Iraqi resistance. She will not allow the United States to use her territory to destroy the Iraqi resistance. For all of the reasons, America wants to either destroy the regime in Damascus or to push them to their knees.

Iran has some of the same elements, but an additional one, Iran is a mighty country, wealthy, populous, with real historic and religious weight. If such a country becomes a nuclear-armed power, this will change the balance of power in the area very considerably. Not just, by the way, to Israel, but to the detriment of America’s puppet regimes in the Arabian Gulf, which is something often missed by commentators. In fact, Iran’s track record indicates that it would seek to use its political power in its own region rather in Israel. It’s more likely Iran would use its new strength on behalf of its co-religionists in Saudi Arabia, for example, or in Bahrain, than it would attack Israel. I think they have no intention of attacking Israel. Hamid Ajahon’s rhetoric is just that, rhetoric. So these are the goals.

Why the Europeans have joined is more problematic? They certainly share the latter fear, but why France, for example, has decided to throw its lot in with America on the Syrian-Lebanese issue is explicable by France’s refusal to accept that it is no longer an imperial force. The reason France is back in Cote de Vor is because it doesn’t accept that it’s no longer an empire and it’s now trying to recover some of its empire in the Levant. If it can increase its influence in Lebanon and Syria, this will be some kind of—you might say small—renaissance in the French imperial power.

About Iran, how do evaluate events there?

Well, the Iranian government should insist upon its legal and sovereign rights. No one has the right to bully Iran out of exercising its rights under the Non-proliferation Treaty and its rights as an independent sovereign country; the Iranian regime is to be congratulated for its refusal to bow the knee to these bullies.

The West is in a very difficult conundrum with Iran, not least as have said earlier with Iraqi TV, because Iran is much more powerful than it was before, thanks to Bush and Blair and their invasion of Iraq. If anyone strikes Iran, Iran will answer the strike in Iraq. And who is in Iraq where Iran is strong? Britain. We have 8,000 young men in the south of Iraq at the mercy of 10 million or more Shiite Muslims, many of whom are closely allied with Iran. They want to punish Iran, they want to bully Iran. Iran is standing up to them and Iran now has a card, which it can play in Iraq, which makes it un-invadable. They will never invade Iran because the cost would now be too high, not just because Iran would fight them, but because they would fight them in Iraq and they could make Iraq completely ungovernable for the night if Ayatollah Khomeini were to call for a general uprising in the south of Iraq against the occupation. The occupation would have to leave on the first flight. This is how powerful Iran is now in the south of Iraq.

Do you think the US will attempt the Iraq scenario in Syria?

Obviously, Syria is weaker than Iran. It doesn’t have the wealth, it doesn’t have the population, it doesn’t have the homogeneity that Iran largely has. It is much more vulnerable geographically. But, the Syrian regime is not as weak as Bush thinks it is. First of all, Bashar Assad is a very smart guy. He proved the exception to my rule, which is that hereditary leadership is a bad idea. In fact, I think he’s a very good idea, Bashar. And I think the Syrian regime is playing its cards well. Secondly, the main problem about invading Syria is that those who will gain will not be pro-American moderates, but hard-line Islamist forces. In other words, the alternative to Bashar in Damascus is not a slave to the West, it will be someone even more difficult to deal with than Bashar Assad. So I believe they will concentrate on the latter course of action, not trying to destroy the regime in Damascus, but to try and weaken it, to try and force it into bowing the knee on some of these questions that I talked about.

About the court in Cairo, what is the aim of it especially in America and Britain?

Ironically, America and Britain would never have heard of it if I had not been held at the airport and stopped from attending it, so in that sense I should be grateful for what happened to me. I will take the verdict of the trial into the British Parliament next week; I will deliver the sentence to Mr. Blair. It’s political theatre, it has a value which will be seen only in retrospect. It will not necessarily change anything today; it might contribute to changing everything in the longer term. So, I congratulate the Arab Lawyers Union in holding this trial. I’m sorry I didn’t attend, but I’m glad that I was a part of it.

Lastly, one thing very different in this trial is that Sharon and Palestine were included; former trials have only been about Iraq. What’s the purpose?

Well, it’s quite right that these three war criminals should be on trial together. They are part of the same axis of evil; it’s an axis which begins in Pennsylvania Avenue, it runs through Downing Street and it ends in Occupied Jerusalem in the Capitol Room of Sharon. So, it’s right that these three should be on trial together. They are co-accused of war crimes and they are all enemies of peace in the world, so I’m glad they were all tried together.

Throughout this interview flashes went off as photographers would walk up and snap photos of this man who is an obvious hero in the Arab world, one of the few Westerners who has taken an unequivocal stance on their behalf. Yet, his real position is one that focuses on bringing together the world’s burgeoning movements against war and globalised capitalism, summed up in the motto from the World Social Forum: Another World is Possible.

George Galloway interview with Iraqi TV:
You were to be a public witness in the trial against Bush, Blair and Sharon, what would you have told the court?

I would have told the court that the British people can see very clearly that Mr. Blair has committed crimes against Iraq; he also committed a crime against us. He lied to us in Parliament, to the Queen, to his own soldiers; he lied about the reasons for the war and he lied about the consequences of the war. This is treason, because he did it through a conspiracy with a foreign president, George W. Bush, against the knowledge and against the interest of his own people.

Why is British policy linked to American policy?

Because Prime Minister Blair is umbilically connected to George Bush, as he was to Bill Clinton before. Once I had a personal meeting with Mr. Blair at the time of the Desert Fox attack on Iraq in 1998. I asked him: why are you allowing this special relationship with Bill Clinton to take our country to these kind of policy disasters? He told me: This special relationship is our foreign policy. We have only one foreign policy, this special relationship with the United States.

But this is a profound mistake. Britain is, first of all, is a proud and ancient, historical nation. We had an empire across the world when the Americans were still cowboys. We know the Middle East better than the Americans will ever do. So, we have our own interests in this region. Second, we are a European country. The European mainland is twenty miles away from us, America is thousands of miles away from us. And because of our special relationship with the United States, we prejudiced our position as a European country. The European regard us as a Trojan horse for American interests. And thirdly, while a warm relationship with Bill Clinton was understandable, no one in Britain understands how anyone can fall in love with George W. Bush. At least Bush has the excuse that he is stupid. What about Mr. Blair? He is an Oxford-educated, highly-skilled lawyer.

What about this kind of marriage between the British and the Americans? What is the effect on the region?

The Arabs are paying the highest price. And the broader Muslim world is paying it too, because that is the way the world is divided today. Islam is the last unconquered territory. The Soviet Union is defeated. Socialism is defeated. Nationalism is depressed. But, Islam is unconquered. And because Islam commands the believer to reject injustice and tyranny, this makes Islam automatically in a collision course with these tyrants, Bush and Blair. And, Islam has millions of soldiers. Millions of soldiers to resist this globalisation.

From your talking, we understand that these extremists are not from Islam, but are borne from the American and British policies.

This is undoubtedly true. If you look at Iraqis—the best example—the radicalisation of Iraq, the Islamist invasion of Iraq is the result of the policy of Bush and Blair. And so you see the law of ‘unintended consequence’. For example, Iran became much more powerful in Iraq as a result of the policy of Bush and Blair. So, now when they threaten Iran, unjustly and illegally threaten Iran, they have to face the fact if they strike Iran, Iran will strike them in Iraq! This is not what they intended to happen. The Chinese have a saying, that sometimes the enemy struggles mightily to life a huge stone only to drop it on its own feet. And this is what they’ve done in the Muslim world!

We understand the British and the Americans are modern in all kinds of fields. Why have they failed to grasp this strategic fallout?

That’s a very good question. How can it be that the United States, this hugely successful country, the most dynamic, the most talented, the most scientifically-advanced people in the world, came to choose twice George W. Bush as their president? Is the greatest man in the United States? This is ridiculous! So there is a disjunction between the importance of countries of like Britain and America and the quality of the leaders they produce.

But, they don’t have the excuse that they weren’t told about this. Mr. Blair told British television a month ago that he had been surprised by the scale of the Iraqi resistance. But, he has no reason to be surprised. I personally told him, man to man, just him and me, close as I am to you right now, I told him: The Iraqis will fight you with their teeth if necessary and they will fight you forever until you leave! I told him that Iraqis are still talking about the British in the 1920s. They can still tell me which families didn’t fight the British in the 1920s! The Iraqis are very tough people…and when Baghdad falls, it will not be the beginning of the end, it will be the end of the beginning! When Baghdad falls the war will begin! I told him: You will face suicide bombers, car bombers, roadside bombs, and the day will come when the hundreds will become thousands and the thousands will become millions. All of this I told him man to man, face to face before the war! So, he has no reason to be surprised.

Are you reading the Iraqi history or are you just guessing this strategy from any country that would resist an occupation?

Well, it’s both. Any dignified people—and nobody is more dignified than the Iraqis—will never accept foreign armies occupying their country, taking away their young men, insulting their women, stealing their wealth. The British would never accept it! If Hitler had landed in our country, when we stood alone, when the Americans were watching the war on the news, every dignified person in Britain would have—day and night—planned in which way they could attack this foreign occupation. They would have cut the throats of any of the occupier they could find!…because the British are a dignified people. The Iraqis are not less dignified than us. But also I knew the specifics of the Iraqi situation. Iraqis know that the imperial powers and Israel want to break Iraq, because they don’t want to see any strong Arab country. An Arab country with a population with water, with oil, with gas, with educated people, with a sense of itself as a nation…they don’t want to see such an Arab country. They want to break Iraq and the Iraqis know this!

If I have one message for the Iraqi people, it’s to stay as one people! Don’t allow the enemy to break Iraq!

World’s First Arab Tribunal on the War in Iraq

2006-02-04T09:22:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

Here in Egypt a nation is mourning the deaths of more than 1,100 people, when a passenger ferry sank off the west coast two days ago; it’s also reading headline news about the detention of George Galloway.

Scheduled to testify at a tribunal being held in Cairo, the British MP was denied entry into Egypt after his arrival at midnight.

“I was held in a small, dirty room for hours without food or water. I have been a friend of the Arab community for 30 years; I don’t understand this treatment” Galloway said from his hotel after he was eventually released. An event certain to be ignored by Western press, Galloway added that “Egypt has now ensured this will make international news”.

And so it has, with Galloway’s Respect party calling the detention “outrageous” after Egypt’s authorities said he was on a list of those to banned, thereby considered a national security threat. After hours of negotiation, and as he was about to board a place, Galloway was allowed to enter the country, but only after the tribunal was finished.*

Other scheduled witnesses were effectively silenced as well; the Palestinians and Iraqis scheduled to testify were all denied visas, some of whom testified in previous tribunals.

Iraqis scheduled to take the stand included Sheikh Mothna Harith Al-Dari, spokesperson of the Muslim Scholars Association and Ali Shalal, the black-robed and hooded man behind Abu Ghraib’s most notorious photo and representative of the group Victims of Prisons.

Among the others were head of the Iraqi Bar Association, doctors, human rights workers, and former prisoners, “including 20 who have never spoken in public before and were to testify in a closed-court session for the safety of themselves and their families in Iraq,” according to their attorney Hala Al-As’ad.

Similar to former tribunals on Iraq, held in Europe, Asia and the US, this one has tried its defendants without their presence, not for lack of invitation, but for lack of response. But what distinguishes this trial from previous ones about Iraq is its organisation by Arabs and its location in an Arab nation; Cairo was chosen because it is the headquarters of the Arab Lawyers Union (ALU), who organised the mock-trial. Of course, the irony here is Cairo’s tribunal had far less Iraqi witnesses than former events.

As a Permanent Bureau member of the ALU, Sabah Al-Muktar represents expatriate Iraqis and is one of the Cairo trial organisers. He’s also on the Advisory Committee of the Brussels Tribunal and has testified in Tokyo and Athens as well.

“This is an extension to the Brussels Tribunal, a follow-up,” he said. When asked why organisers chose to include Ariel Sharon and the issue of Occupied Palestine, when others have not, he explained. “The first reason is that this trial is addressing crimes committed in this region. The second is we know there are Israeli/American-coordinated actions in Iraq, which unfortunately we cannot fully address because these witnesses were denied visas.”

Hala El-asmar, Director of International Relations, elaborated, “We—the Arab Lawyers Union—believe, in the end, that [Bush, Blair and Sharon] are all serving the same object. We believe that the invasion of Iraq is part of an overall plan of interference in the Middle East for control, especially for its oil.

“This ‘new’ imperialism of the US is an extension of earlier British imperialism. There are good relations between Bush and Sharon, and we believe that the multi-nationals are also together in this. Unfortunately, there is also a lack of democracy in this region. Many Gulf leaders and Egypt are part of the project; many leaders work only for their power, as if they are running their own company, instead of a state.”

In fact, the issue of Arab disunity and lack of true democracy was a thread throughout the two-day trial. At the end of his testimony, Salah Saldin Hafiz, of the Arab Journalists Association implored, “There is no single Arab country that doesn’t seek to steal the freedom from the people. This requires another special trial, which I hope we have in the future.”

Later though, an angry man from the audience shouted…”The US will not allow independent Arab regimes!!”

In the courtroom, posters hung from the judges bench, one of them with the photo of an old woman, crying, her arms extended toward the heavens. An Iraqi journalist turned to me, “This photo is famous in Iraq and always makes us cry. There are bombs that have fallen all around, destroying everything, and this old woman is pleading with the occupiers to leave.”

The event began when the presiding judge, Mahathir Mohamed, the former prime minister of Malaysia, asked all to stand for a moment of silence for those that have been killed in both conflicts, in which some were moved to tears. A distinguished list formed the judges panel, including the former prime minister of Malta, Karemenu Mifsud Bonnici, and Fouad Abdel-Moneim Riad, a former judge at The Hague.

Few westerners were present and I was the only representative of American media, for which I was continually thanked by the hundreds of Arabs present.

The only other American present was Stanley Cohen, a human rights attorney from New York, a member of the mock-trial’s prosecution team who began by saying, “I come from the US to speak on behalf of religious tolerance; I am a Jew. There are those who say that if you are anti-Israeli politics, you are anti-Semitic or a self-hating Jew, yet we have an obligation to international law.”

He continued by making comparisons between what was done to the Jewish people in Hitler’s Germany to the policies of Sharon’s Israel now being applied to the Palestinians, “with mass detentions, forced evacuation, burning of lands, torture, and murder”.

“It is impossible the US can be an independent arbitrator in Israel. It’s like asking Hitler to preside over WWII.”

Many Americans don’t understand the links between Israeli and US/UK policies as they are seen, even by Israeli Jews and Arabs, here in the Middle East. This perspective permeated the past two days, and was described to me in an interview with George Galloway as the “real axis of evil”.

Even without key witnesses, ample evidence was turned over to the panel of judges, who included the former prime minister of Malta.

The Arab Journalists Association handed over two files containing the names and details of journalists killed in Iraq and Palestine charging, “The killing of journalists has been in some cases premeditated; those targeting journalists are also those who are seeking democracy. The killing of journalists has encouraged even greater violence against them.”

“The number of journalists killed in Iraq numbers 79. This is more than were killed in two decades in Viet Nam.” Iraq was recently listed for the second year in a row as the most dangerous place in the world for journalists to work. He added that Iraq has been effectively censored by these acts.

Monsoor Hussein, an elegant Libyan man and head of the Arab Farmers Federation, called both the occupation of Iraq and that of Palestine “racial wars”. “In both places, there have been the mass cutting of trees essential to cultural identity, land seizures, and the forced removal of people. In Palestine it is the olive trees, in Iraq their dates. Iraq has 500 different kinds of dates; this is their cultural heritage. Iraq was once the world’s number one producer; production has fallen by 66 percent. It used to be a great producer of certain types of rice. No longer! Its soil is now polluted by weapons used in the war.”

Spokesperson of the Arab Commission for Human Rights, Dr. Haytham Manna turned over to the court medical accounts and eyewitness testimony from former Guantanamo detainees. A quiet man with a gentle demeanor, the Syrian, who now lives in France, is respected world-wide for his unwavering stance on human rights in all countries.

Then, an older Iraqi man from Basra, Ahmed el-Ghanem, took the stand. Wearing a red and white-checked kaffiya and white dishdasha (a long robe), he stated he is the head of his tribe in southern Iraq. He gave a detailed account of the roundup of all men in his family and the inhumane treatment by both British and American troops, including being kept in a “tent without a roof, where we had no shade from a sun that would melt anything”.

Though, like many Iraqis, he declined to give specifics of the torture he underwent, the story of el-Ghanem’s father was enough. “After my detention for 30 days, US forces entered my house, intimidating my wife and daughters. They broke all the furniture, stole our money and gold (which many Iraqis keep in their home), and then arrested my 74-year-old father, even our servant. They tortured my father and my two brothers badly. Why? To humiliate the head of the tribe. My father had a stroke as a result of the torture. What did they do? They dropped him on the street, where he was found by chance by some neighbors. Forty-five days later he died.”

Other witnesses included Carlos Faria, President of the Spanish Anti-war on Iraq Association, Mohasen Khalim, the former Iraqi Ambassador to Egypt, and Bian Al-Hout, who gave accounts of the massacres in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila by Sharon’s government.

In the end, the verdict was predictable. All three men were found guilty in a decree detailing specific violations of the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremburg Charter.

As in previous tribunals, this one has no legal teeth. It is a symbolic gesture. But, as presiding judge, Malaysia’s Mohamed reminded people, “The message from this trial is that these men are criminals. Even if they cannot be punished under international law at this time, the world sees them as criminals. With each tribunal this becomes more apparent.”

Dr. Riad, who presided in the Hague during the initial Bosnian trials, added, “The great mistake is when people forget history. This is keeping the record. During the [Bosnian Croat Blaskic and Bosnian Serb Krstic] trials, in which some victims travelled to The Hague by foot, they would say, ‘it is enough that the world knows.’

“This kind of documentation is important. These trials can help us go to real trials in the future.”

Until then, say organisers, these issues must remain in the public eye. The importance now, they say, is for the anti-war movement in Europe, Asia, the US and, in “the Arab street” to come together.

It looks like they will next week when Galloway plans “to personally deliver the Cairo verdict to Mr. Blair when I see him in Parliament”. And “until the occupation ends,” he emphasised, “I have one message to the Iraqi people: Stay as one people, do not allow the enemies to break Iraq!”

*In a subsequent interview, Galloway said that the Egyptian government has apologised and he, accepting, considered “the case closed”.

"Where is Arab Unity?"

2006-02-01T06:21:00.001-08:00

by Karen Button

Today I will go to Cairo where the Arab Lawyers Union will put Bush, Blair and Sharon on trial. But I will be without the company of my Iraqi friends who also wanted to attend and who both possess press passes. The tribunal is important; it’s the first to be organised by Arabs and to be held in an Arab country that will address the war in Iraq. At the Egyptian Embassy I was told that as an American I can easily obtain a visa in Cairo at the airport. Ahmad and Hana were told Iraqis must apply for a visa that will take at least two weeks; it doesn’t matter that they are Arabs going to an Arab country, nor that they are wanting to attend an event that affects their own country.

I watched as my friend Hana argued through a hole in the glass window with the dispassionate man who sat behind it. Where was Arab unity? she wanted to know. Why was it that those from the US and Israel could just fly into Egypt, while an Arab could not? Her anger exposed the double-standard that divides the Middle East along a line which grows more complicated—those who are aligned with the West for economic and political reasons and those who fall within the so-called axis of evil, which now must include Syria.

Iraqis can cross freely into Syria, while I must apply for a visa, but it makes sense to me. After all, the US has been threatening Syria since 9/11 and has turned up the rhetoric in recent months. However, the return to Jordan for an Iraq is not so easy. An Iraqi friend who was in Damascus for a conference last week was turned away at the closest border crossing and told he must cross near Iraq. When he finally arrived there he was told the border was closed and he would have to wait until morning. Fortunately, there was a nearby mosque where he could sleep, though the night was cold and he had only his jacket. He arrived in Amman exhausted.

Similarly, a Jordanian friend who wants to go to Iraq cannot. Why? Because he is Arab and the American-aligned government of Iraq has decided foreign Arabs who want to come to Iraq must be part of the mujahadin. Interestingly, Jordan—close friends of the US—has recently decided that no American can be tried here.

But back to yesterday. After the embassy, our next stop was the police station. All visitors to Jordan must go within two weeks to have their passports stamped , allowing for an extended visa. The trim officer in his crisp uniform took our documents. He looked at mine, routinely entered information into a computer, stamped it and gave it back. However, the Iraqis, he said, must go to another office first to get a health certificate. Why?

“Because the Arabs have money,” was his cynical answer.

This was painful to watch. The officer told Hana and Ahmad he was sorry, but was only following orders. Hana was in heated debate with him. Where, she asked, was his dignity as an Arab to be treating other Arabs, under occupation, in such a way. He responded by saying she should take her complaints up with her embassy.

At this, she began to cry. “I have no one that represents me. There is no Iraqi government; we are under occupation!!”

Tears rolled down my face now too—for her, my friend that I care about; for Iraqis, whose country is being taken away from them more and more each day; for my shame at being American and the helplessness of seeing what’s being done and not being able to stop it.

Shamed also was this Jordanian police officer who softly said, “please, don’t make me cry too,” as he quietly picked up both Iraqi passports and became, for a minute, not an officer but the human underneath his uniform, and stamped them each.

Driving to Baghdad Faster Than Flying

2006-01-27T14:59:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

In an impossibly large and affluent shopping mall in the middle of Amman—where security guards with serious faces have just checked our bags and required passage through a metal detector, measures taken since November’s three hotel bombings—I’m sitting with an Iraqi family who are some of Amman’s more recent arrivals. The mall’s cavernous food court is a meeting place during the cold winter months for Iraqis who come to connect with one another and get news from those just out of Iraq.

Listening, I think how the stories of these people’s lives under the American occupation are impossible to imagine; there is nothing of normalcy, nothing routine…except those things that are of war… checkpoints, house raids and detainments, daily explosions and aerial bombings, poverty brought by high unemployment; and of course the sporadic electricity and water.

But in the midst of this, people continue to live their lives as best they can, going to work if they have it, making meals, and visiting relatives. There is the story a man now tells me about his elderly mother who came from Baghdad to Amman for a visit.

Seventy-two years old and not well, the mother goes to the airport at 2pm for a 4pm flight. Normal enough. Except that departure and arrival times are always an estimate to deter those who would from shooting down the aircraft; contractors seen as collaborators of the occupation and despised by the resistance also use these flights. Plus, the ten-mile journey to the airport is quite dangerous and an imposed curfew shuts down the airport and the road at 6pm.

The passengers go through security and wait for their flight to Amman, but one of the passengers, the Minister of Electricity, hasn’t shown up, so they wait. And wait. Finally, it is apparent he isn’t coming and it is now too late for the 300 or so people to leave; they must stay the night. There are no restaurants, so they go without food and make do with the chairs and floor to sleep. Fortunately, the mother has a cell phone and is able to call her son and let him know she’s not coming. Ahmed, a nearby passenger, promises the son he will look after her.

The next morning, all 300 must stand in line and go back through security to get their passports re-stamped since the date of exit has changed. Today the Minister of Electricity shows up…though in the mix of new arrivals, fortunately for him, no one knows who he is. At last, everyone aboard, they take off for Amman. Turns out though, that the Minister needs to go to Syria, so the plane detours to Damascus first. A two-hour flight from Baghdad to Amman has turned into a 48-hour odyssey. When the mother finally arrives in Amman, she stays in bed for a week to recover.

Now, the son tells me, laughing with typical Iraqi humor, that when his mother left, she has returned to Baghdad by car because it is only a 24 hour trip—faster than flying.

From “Democracy” to Police State

2006-01-21T03:01:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

After six months, I’m back in Amman, Jordan and signs of urban growth is everywhere. The future bus station across from my hotel, a few connected walls before, is now near completion, with an opening date set in March. New buildings are being constructed across the city and the sounds of pilings being driven is part of the background noise. I’m told 400,000 people moved to this desert crossroad country of six million last year alone.

What has surprised me most though, is the increased numbers of Iraqis here in Amman, all escaping the nearly unbearable living conditions, compounded by a violence that is not only lethal, but ever more indiscriminate.

After meeting with just a few Iraqis on my first days here, already I have several meetings set up with those who’ve recently fled what’s left of their Iraq. Many are doctors who’ve fled after either being threatened with kidnapping or having survived kidnapping, adding to an exodus of academics who’ve been targeted by criminal gangs or worse. Many believe that secret police, both Iraqi and American, are behind some of these abductions, others believe they are common criminals, and still others believe it is the religious fundamentalists causing much of the problem…some claim the Mullahs of Iran want control of Iraq. This is not without some substantiation. Many of Iraq’s Shi’a are followers of the High Council of Islamic Revolution party, most of whose leaders follow Tehran. However, supporters of Iraq’s Muqtada al-Sadr, who is a strong opponent of US occupation and representative of the poor of Baghdad, is growing.

Also present though is al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group of jihadists never before known in Iraq prior to the US-led invasion. Though wading through the resistance’s various factions is impossible, more complicated still is the multiple layers of the so-called legitimate armed forces—forces that include what an Iraqi contractor for the US Department of Defense who I met on the plane-ride over called “grey fox,” the secret security forces set up by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld that only he and Mr. Bush have any knowledge of or jurisdiction over. A group of operatives made doubly dangerous by receiving their orders from a man who’s made it clear he has no time for such trivialities as international treaties and laws governing war and the treatment of human beings. (This contractor also offered me a job, saying I could make upwards of $900,000/year.)

Add to this unholy mix the mercenaries—most prefer the ambiguous term “contractor”—which constitute the second largest force in the Coalition (or Collision as one Iraqi friend recently mispronounced it, but I thought rather prescient) of the Willing. To give an idea who these people are, take the case of retired British commando, Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer, who, according to a Boston Globe report, is known for his illicit arms deals in Africa and commanding a “murderous military unit in Northern Ireland.” His “past work includes a ‘psychological campaign’ against the inhabitants of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea, who were complaining about environmental destruction from a copper mine on their island.” The Pentagon awarded Spicer’s company a $293 million contract for “coordinating security” in Iraq.

Also operating a campaign of terror are the US-trained Iraqi secret police force known as the Wolf Brigades. CIA operatives, Shi’a-run Iraqi secret prisons, US and British troops with prisons of their own, and religious armies, such as the Badr Brigades, followers of Iran’s al-Sistani and the Medhi army who follow the Iraqi Shi’a leader al-Sadr all combine to form a deadly fabric of daily violence.

How many of the 400,000 recent arrivals in Jordan are Iraqis? Hard to say. But I’ll soon meet a large number who come together weekly to discuss Iraq, their situation here in Jordan, and what their future holds. Many of them, I’m told, are doctors, professors and teachers, business leaders, and other professionals.

“Iraq is being emptied of all our educated ,” one man tells me. “How can we ever re-build our country without these people?”

The Tightening Noose Around Iraq’s Fledgling Democracy

2006-01-10T13:07:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

Many have feared that the December 15th elections would not give Iraqis the democracy promised since the invasion of their country in 2003. It seems they were right to worry.

Since the elections, a number of key events have taken place, which bear highlighting.

Visa Requirements Tightened

Tougher requirements for visas was announced a week after the election. The Foreign Affairs Ministry, in a statement that defies logic, claimed, “Before, the Iraqi authorities easily granted visas to most applicants, which led to an increase in foreign insurgents coming into Iraq, especially Arabs.”

Apparently, before now foreign fighters were not only applying for visas, they were being granted them too easily. Who this will actually affect are NGOs, journalists, and business owners, many of whom are now living in Amman, Jordan and travel between the two countries.

Khalid Sumayre, a senior ministry official, went on to declare, “From now on, if a journalist wants a visa, he has to have a security detail to provide him [sic] with protection.”

Journalists at Risk/News Censored

At the same time, the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists released their annual report, calling Iraq the most dangerous place for journalists in 2005. Since the start of the war, 60 journalists have been killed, 41 have been Iraqi. Of those, 13 have been killed by the US, prompting calls by journalist rights groups for investigations whether or not they were targeted killings.

An additional 22 media workers have been killed while working. 36 journalists have been kidnapped in that same time period; most were released. One, Jill Carroll of The Christian Science Monitor, was abducted January 7th and is still being held. Her interpreter was shot dead. Also disturbing is the frequent detainment of journalists—particularly Iraqis—and the confiscation of their work by US forces, such as what happened to Ali Fadhil on 8 January.

Fadhil, an award-winning reporter working for The Guardian and Channel 4, was investigating accusations that “tens of millions of dollars worth of Iraqi funds held by the Americans and British have been misused or misappropriated,” according to The Guardian.

“The director of the film, Callum Macrae, said yesterday: ‘The timing and nature of this raid is extremely disturbing. It is only a few days since we first approached the US authorities and told them Ali was doing this investigation, and asked them then to grant him an interview about our findings.’

“The troops told Dr Fadhil that they were looking for an Iraqi insurgent and seized video tapes he had shot for the programme. These have not yet been returned.”

IMF Loan First Step Toward Privitization

In late December the International Monetary Fund unsurprisingly weighed in by granting a $685 million loan to Iraq to rebuild their war-ravaged country. In exchange for Iraqi’s paying for their own reconstruction, the IMF demanded the government end oil subsidies and open the country’s economy to private investment.

In response to IMF pressures, Iraq’s outgoing government increased fuel prices nine-fold, causing demonstrations and riots across the country. Police fired upon a crowd of 3,000 protesters in Nassiryeh and killed four during riots in Kirkuk.

When Iraq’s Oil Minster, Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, protested, he was given a “forced vacation.” According to the blog DailyKos, al-Uloum asked, “Is this how we repay the Iraq citizens who risked their lives to participate in the elections, by raising fuel prices in this way?”

Ahmed Chalabi, former CIA informant and convicted embezzler, replaced al-Uloum, leaving no question that the US will benefit over Iraqi citizens in regards their oil. In closed-door meetings members of Iraq’s interim-government and representatives from the US and the UK have been negotiating Iraq’s oil future. If the current plan is signed off on, Iraqis will lose control of more than 85 percent of their oil resources to foreign multinationals according to a report entitled Crude Designs by researcher Greg Muttitt.

Though Iraqis have no desire to privatize their oilfields, they may have no choice. In a country whose resources have long been nationalized, there has been no public discourse about the future of their oil.

The noose around Bush's democracy experiment in Iraq continues to tighten.

Fallujah: Resistance Growing One Year Later

2005-12-27T00:19:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

Doctors for Iraq (DFI), a 250-member medical organization, has released a new report entitled “Falluja—One Year On” that calls for an independent investigation in to human rights abuses conducted during the city’s two sieges last year by US led troops.

The report substantiates recent revelations by Italian television that the US military used white phosphorus and a form of napalm against civilians in Fallujah, a charge initially denied by the US government but later admitted.

The report charges that medical facilities were attacked and that chemical agents were used against civilians. Furthermore, food, water and medical care were denied, mitary curfews were imposed that impeded stores from selling food, and random arrests and collective punishment were the norm. The organization calls upon the United Nations and the European Union to conduct the investigations.

The report has added to the embitterment Fallujans feel one year after the siege. Fallujah remains under strict military rule with checkpoints at all entrances to the city and residents must possess a US issued biometric identity to reenter. Only about half of the city’s original population have returned to their devastated town while promises of reconstruction go unfulfilled. Shortages of water, fuel and electricity along with continuing home raids mark daily reality for those that have returned.

Drinking water, pumped directly from the
Euphrates River, has contributed to a
serious rise in waterborne illnesses.

Though the official siege on Fallujah ended last December, residents still have a military curfew imposed on them from 11pm to 6am, and their lives are anything but routine. When entering their own city, “people are often searched in an aggressive manner, verbally abused and humiliated,” the DFI report states. “These checkpoints have become mechanisms to control the entire population of the city and many local residents have described Falluja as being like ‘one big prison.’”

The Sunday Times reports the presence of 4,200 American Marines and 5,000 Iraqi National Guardsmen for the 170,000 residents. However, there is little real authority in Fallujah. Two people interviewed told of being robbed by Iraqi security forces while returning home with cash they had just received in compensation for their destroyed homes. Many others complained that their businesses had been broken into and items stolen by Iraqi forces during the nighttime curfew.

"We are afraid of the National Guards and American soldiers who are supposed to be protecting us," Um Ahmad said. "Things are getting worse." Others, like Abu Seif, report of random home raids in which they were taken into custody and tortured. "What the Americans have done to Falluja is unacceptable, and if they think it is over they do not know what is coming," he said.

“The bitter truth is that the actions of US and Iraqi forces have reignited the insurgency. Anger, hate and mistrust of America are deeper than ever,” concludes Hala Jaber.

Regime Change in Syria?

2005-12-22T22:13:00.000-08:00

Connecting the Dots From Mosul to Hafia
by Karen Button

As the Bush administration continues to crank up the rhetoric about Syria being a bad international player, laying the groundwork for possible UN sanctions and the almost inevitable military action, one might wonder: why Syria? Syria’s government has cooperated to a limited extent since Mr. Bush began his War on Terror. Though Syria did oppose US military action in Iraq, they have contracted with the US for “questioning” detainees the CIA sends to the Ba’athist-led country.

As Washington cuts contact with Damascus citing Syria’s rogue-state behavior, it is really just another step in isolating a country that the Bush administration set its sights on years ago. In a double bind, the administration has refused offers by Syria to revive intelligence cooperation that was severed by Syria after the US invaded Iraq. At the same time it criticizes Syria for not doing enough to prevent foreign fighters from crossing its borders into Iraq.

"What we see in general is an administration that is categorically refusing to engage with Syria on any level," said Syria's ambassador to the US, Imad Moustapha. "We see an administration that would really love to see another crisis in the Middle East, this time targeting Syria. Even before the Iraq war started, they had this grand vision for the Middle East." He is, of course, right.

The Washington Post’s William Arkin wrote, “The January 2002 Nuclear Posture Review levied requirements on the military to conduct planning for potential use of nuclear weapons against Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and North Korea.”

Later that year, in a May 6 speech to the Heritage Foundation, then Under Secretary of State John Bolton named Libya, Syria and Cuba as countries that were attempting to obtain weapons of mass destruction. "States that renounce terror and abandon WMD can become part of our effort. But those that do not can expect to become our targets," he said.

Since then, Libya has had a change-of-heart, as they term it in Washington, renouncing any plans for weapons procurement or development and cowing to terms set by the West. Libya has since been held up as an example of what is expected from Syria.

The Defense Department, in a document entitled “Contingency Planning Guidance” for 2004, outlined “emerging threats” that ultimately resulted in a directive to the Defense Intelligence Agency to significantly increase its work on Syria. This entails analyzing the country’s leadership, military forces, equipment capability, electrical infrastructure, communications design and vulnerabilities.

The assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri may or may not have been committed by the Syrians, but was certainly convenient for Mr. Bush to point an immediate accusatory finger. Convenient also, was the timing of Mr. Bolton’s contentious installation as US Ambassador to the UN. The UN’s investigative report (the Mehlis Report) into Mr. Hariri’s killing was inconclusive and left more questions than answers. It has been widely criticized for a number of reasons, not the least of which is Mr. Bolton’s involvement, which can hardly been seen as neutral.

Why, for example, has the report relied so much on its main witness, Zuhir Mohamed Said Saddik who, like Iraq’s witness-for-war Ahmed Chalabi, is a convicted embezzler? Why didn’t the report focus on gathering hard facts, instead? An obvious gap was a lack of investigation into the background of the car used in the bombing, stolen from Japan in 2004 and somehow ending up in Lebanon six months later? Publicly questioned yet not even mentioned in the report, did Syria actually possess the technology to block the sophisticated bomb detonation detection equipment installed in Hariri’s car?

Beyond the Mehlis Report, one question we must ask ourselves is: Who really stands to gain from the assassination of Mr. Hariri? Does Syria, a country already under enormous international pressure to withdraw from Lebanon? What would murdering a popular politician and hugely successful businessman with powerful ties accomplish for Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad?

The subsequent political fallout has done nothing for Syria, but it has had the desired effect for the US—to further isolate and vilify a country marked for regime change in Washington long before Mr. Hariri was killed. This is not to excuse Syria. Like Saddam’s Iraq, Syria is controlled by Ba’athist Party elite who are dictatorial and often violent. Its human rights record is dismal and they are known to assassinate political opponents.

So if Syria did kill the former prime minister, why is the Bush government so concerned about that, yet willing to contract with the same government to torture detainees? Remember Maher Arar? He is the Syrian-Canadian software engineer who was detained by US officials at Kennedy airport enroute home to Canada in early 2003. After being intensely interrogated for days, Arar was placed on a CIA jet and "rendered" to Syria where he was further interrogated and tortured for 10 months in an underground cell.

Some of the real reasons for regime change can likely be found in following the oil. Yep, we’re back to oil. Prior to the US invasion of oil-rich Iraq, Washington and Tel Aviv began discussions to reopen an old oil pipeline route that once ran from Mosul to Haifa. The pipeline was redirected to Syria in 1948 after the British mandate in Palestine expired.

During those discussions in early 2003, the Israeli Minister for National Infrastructures, Joseph Paritzky, was widely quoted as saying that the new pipeline would cut Israel’s energy bill by “at least 25 percent since the country is currently largely dependent on expensive imports from Russia.” This is not an insignificant amount and could transform Israel’s economy according to some analysts. Israel now imports about 80 percent of its oil from the former Soviet Union due to a 1979 Persian and Arab trade embargo.

The old pipeline route went through Jordan and it’s assumed the new one would as well. In fact, negotiations for this pipeline date back to the 1980s when Donald Rumsfeld was leading the charge and had already secured Bechtel for the deal. Today, Bechtel is still in line for the project.

In June 2003 James Akins, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia and oft-quoted Arab expert, stated: "There would be a fee for transit rights through Jordan, just as there would be fees for Israel from those using what would be the Haifa terminal. After all, this is a new world order now. This is what things look like particularly if we wipe out Syria. It just goes to show that this is all about oil, for the United States and its ally."

During the same time period, the Bush administration issued more threats against Syria than in the history of relations between the two nations. Their reasoning has been an insecure border, through which Syria has been accused of allowing the transit of military equipment and people – a convenient double-standard given that Iraq’s borders were wide open for months between Jordan and Turkey. Apparently would-be insurgents only enter through Syria.

But the United States is already unofficially at war with Syria. For the past six months, US Army Rangers and the Special Operations Delta Force have been crossing the border into Syria, supposedly to "interdict" terrorists coming into Iraq. Several Syrian soldiers have been killed according to The Guardian, Al-Jazeera and other sources. This is despite the Pentagon’s own admission that only 4-5 percent of the resistance in Iraq is foreign.

Meanwhile, Iraqi communities along the Syrian border have been laid siege to since early May when these operations began. The UN news agency IRIN has reported that up to 100,000 people have become homeless as US-led forces drop 500-pound bombs on the homes of suspected “insurgents.” Further compounding this humanitarian crisis is an inaccessibility to the communities since five bridges crossing the Euphrates have also been bombed. The Iraqi Red Crescent, one of the few aid agencies still left in Iraq, has called upon the military to stop the killing of civilians. Meanwhile the aid and advocacy organization Doctors for Iraq has testified at the World Health Organization’s invitation to the extreme conditions in the west.

Whether or not the US is using these border operations as a cover to enter Syria, the facts remain that it is using whatever means necessary to create a new world order in the Middle East, and Syria appears to be next on the hit list.

Support Our Troops, Question The War

2005-12-09T16:16:00.000-08:00

An Interview With Diane Benson
by Karen Button

Thirteen days into his Stop Loss deployment—thirteen days after he was supposed to be honorably released from the military—Diane’s son was critically injured, losing limb and clinging to life as a result of a remotely detonated IED (improvised explosive device). He is listed by the military as “VSI” (very seriously injured). Family remains by his side in the States, where he was flown once stabilized. -KB

Diane Benson lives at the end of the road, amongst the birch and spruce of Alaska’s Southcentral forests. She’s a T’lingit community leader who is known in the state for her speeches, poetry, performance and for not being shy about speaking her truth. Her piercing gaze can be fierce, but always softens when she speaks about her son, who is in the US Army and serving in Iraq. Due to get out at the end of October, he is instead back in Iraq as part of the military’s “Stop Loss” program, which involuntarily and indefinitely extends a soldier’s tour of duty.

photo by Pamela Thompson

Diane wears a metal bracelet, given to her by her son’s fiancé, that is engraved with her son’s name and his deployment and return dates, and that she is constantly touching, rotating it slowly around her wrist.

We sit at her dining room table in a room that’s filled with the feeling of family, connection and community. There are framed photographs of her son, his friends and wife—married just before his second deployment—and of other family members scattered throughout.

When did your son enlist in the Army?

Right after 9/11. He and his friends were talking about it and I was scared to death. I think it’s intuition; I knew he was going to join. Have you ever been on a river and up ahead are rapids that you didn’t expect? Well, what are you going to do about it at that point, except try to ride it?

I felt like that because I tried to talk him out of it, and he said flat-out, “Mom, you’re not going to talk me out of it. I have to do this.” I was hating myself for not coming up with the words—how could I be a person who knows words and not have the words to stop him. His T’lingit name—the name I gave him—means “strong.” I just don’t want him to be there.

He joined just after 9/11. Why?

Who wasn’t affected that day? I got calls that day that the towers came tumbling down from family and even from a woman in Norway. My business name at this time was Northern Stars and she was looking for Northern something. She was trying to find her sister; she was very scared. She ended up talking to me and there was so much compassion in this woman’s voice. Here we are from two different countries from two different places talking about what happened and that whole feeling of wanting peace and just wanting peace in the world.

How old was your son when he joined?

Twenty.

When was his first deployment?

Well, let’s see … (laughing, she turns the bracelet around). March 2 [2003]. I didn’t even get to know he was gone. They wouldn’t tell us. He was at Fort Campbell.

So, when your son was deployed you really had no idea where he was deployed to?

No. I mean, I suspected. It was that mother’s intuition thing again. I already saw in my mind’s eye that he was going to be in the service, that he was going to go to war, and I kept hoping that none of it was true. I somehow knew in my gut that as much as we might wish to make it logical, we have an administration that’s not logical. So anything can happen, and “anything” is happening.

That’s what we’re facing. Because Stop Loss isn’t logical, really. I know how it appears logical from the administration’s point of view and how that might play out for those that are wealthy, that they conveniently don’t serve if they don’t want to.

As an activist, I can look at the world and it has a different picture. As a mom whose son is gone to war, it’s not theoretical anymore ... it’s not political. It’s as personal as it gets. And, he’s my life. He’s my only child.

When was he scheduled to get out of the military?

His four-year commitment was up the end of October [2005].

Instead, Stop Loss was instituted…when?

Well, the thing about Stop Loss is that it’s been off and on since this war began. We are literally abusing our military.

Alaska has a lot of Alaska Native National Guardsmen, who are now serving as Army soldiers in Iraq. They didn’t sign up for that. So, those who say “they signed up for this,” no, I disagree, these guys didn’t sign up for this. My son didn’t sign up for more than four years. He didn’t sign up for two deployments. He did his time. He served as this administration requested. He completed his commitment. So, somebody is lying to him. I don’t know what’s honorable in this country anymore when we can do that.

At what point did you realize Stop Loss was going to be affecting your son?

This past February. We knew that they were really utilizing it. We thought maybe, maybe, it wouldn’t affect him. We could only hope. But, it did.

How did your son feel about going back?

He really didn’t want to go back. Absolutely, flat, did not want to go back!

How did he feel about what he saw there the first time?

He wouldn’t talk about it. He never talked about it.

You’re a member of Military Families Speak Out. When did you become involved with them?

Pretty early on. It was after the threat that we would go to war, that war was imminent. That was in the fall of 2002 when I was scrambling to get him out. I was really scared. We investigated whether an only child could get out and they said they didn’t use that.

I was reading that for a period it applied during Viet Nam and then it was another sort of thing that could cause a deferment. I was reading that Dick Cheney had five deferments; he managed to keep being deferred for all these different reasons. Cheney got married as soon as that became the way to be out. Then, when it was limited to only men who were fathers, nine months later he had a daughter—which was curious—but that was the way they could be deferred.

The situation now, the only ones who are serving and being taken advantage of are the ones who volunteered. Many of them that volunteered—this is what I discovered in Georgia [Ft. Benning, where her son graduated from boot camp] and this is what got me involved. I looked around at the different families who were there and what were they? Hispanic and Black and poor Whites and Native Americans. And I thought, “what the heck?” It was so glaring to me. It wasn’t that they were mostly people of color, but there was a definite, definite sense these were not well-to-do families here.

You started speaking out against the war at that time?

Yeah, I started speaking out…I think the first peace rally was at that time.

As time has gone on, I don’t see myself as just being an anti-war protester. I see myself as a person, as an American citizen who has an obligation to a group of people who are in an untenable situation, so much so that they cannot speak to the issue, they cannot ask the questions that we, as citizens, have to ask.

It’s totally legitimate to ask questions about what we’re doing, about where’s the evidence that we needed to do this. It’s important to look at where are we now, but it’s still legitimate to keep that in our minds that when we went in to Iraq, this administration lied to us. That’s important.

I know people that say, “Well, what do we do now? How do we support our troops now?” Well, we ask questions. We don’t just ask questions, we tell Congress, “you do the right thing,” whether it’s with the money put up for this war, whether it’s about the way we handle veterans when they come back, whether it’s about the gear that they wear.

If we aren’t properly outfitting these people to do something that we’ve asked them to do…it’s on us. It’s fully on us. And that’s why I got involved [with MFSO] because I read Operation Truth and Military Families Speak Out and it was fascinating to me to see military families stand up and they were making more sense.

What do you think will work?

I think what’s happening now with military families bringing awareness to the legitimacy of asking questions, to holding our Congress and our presidency accountable. In other words, if they’re lying, we need to talk about it and we need to hold them accountable.

And in the process, it makes it more personal and active for the community and if the community becomes involved on that level then they know they’ve got to become more involved in why this is happening in the first place.

Once you become more involved in the real people of it, instead of the romanticism, the romanticism of war ... but the reality of doing it and why, why they were killed, why the equipment they have is inadequate and that we have 15,000 soldiers or more that have lost limbs ... [then] we’re going to absorb this reality as a community.

You’ve got to know what Stop Loss is and if you’re really behind the war, you’ll have someone in your family signing up today.

What do you find is the support here in Alaska for Military Families Speak Out? Do you hear that, if you say anything bad about the war, that you’re not supporting the troops?

When I talk to [those who say] we can’t question the president because we’re not supporting our troops ... what is that? It means that we don’t want the troops to feel bad or to feel that they’re not supported. Well, the troops feel not supported when we don’t ask questions on their behalf. Because these questions are on their behalf.

As a mom, I can say this, for sure. I have a personal interest in the questions being answered on my son’s behalf, so he can live. And so that if he is out there in harm’s way, it’s for a damn good reason. And I, as a military family member, need that reassurance. And I think that’s what military families are trying to say.

When Cindy Sheehan asks a question and you’ve got a Viet Nam veteran sitting in front of the TV saying, “these damn protesters,” what he’s saying is he’s back in the 60s and the 70s and, “they had no respect for us and they hated us and they called us baby-killers.” For the most part people didn’t do that, but they had no welcome when they came home. They didn’t know where to go when they got off the plane. They weren’t able to decompress properly. And many of them went off to commit suicide. Well, this is what hurts [the soldiers] so much today, because they know, they’re keenly aware of what’s happened to their buddies.

What would you say to George Bush if you had an audience with him?

That’s funny you ask because I’ve thought about that. Because watching Cindy Sheehan I’ve thought, “what would you say?” And I pray to God that I don’t have to have that experience of somebody showing up at my door. But if I was in Cindy’s shoes…number one question: why utilize stop loss? If this is such an important war, if you really believe in what you’re doing, then why wouldn’t there be a more equitable approach?

Why wouldn’t the military have—and I’m not talking about military research for some nuclear explosive or a better jet or something—why wouldn’t the grunts on the ground be properly outfitted?

Why would you have them be in a country serving when they often don’t know what the mission is…so what is the mission, George? And why, if it’s so critical, aren’t any Congressmen’s or women’s children serving?

I need to know why rich people don’t have a lot of their kids serving. I need to know that, if this is so important, why don’t we stay the course with your grandchildren or your children? And when I understand that, then I’ll be ok…as I can be. But right now, it’s two different messages for me, and for the soldiers.

(After a long pause, she says quietly) But, I don’t think they can answer that.

For more information about Military Families Speak Out go to: www.mfso.org.

"People Are Seriously Suffering"

2005-11-20T16:31:00.000-08:00

by Karen Button

Operation Steel Curtain, launched near the Syrian border in western Iraq two weeks ago by US/Iraqi military forces, marks not just another offensive in this beleaguered region, but an on-going military presence since early May. Since then, repeated offensives with names like Matador, Sword, Arrow, River Gate, and Iron Fist have created a humanitarian crisis, leaving thousands encamped in desert shelters. The Iraqi Red Crescent has reported difficulties currently reaching civilians due to an inability to cross the Euphrates. According to locals, US-led troops have blown up five bridges, effectively isolating many of the communities on the other side and preventing many from fleeing.

Operation Steel Curtain, which has targeted the city of Al-Qaim, has been using US planes to drop 500-pound bombs on targets claimed to be “terrorist safe houses” However, sources inside the city have reported dozens of civilian deaths and families buried in the rubble of their targeted homes.

Residents attempting to flee were warned via loudspeaker they must do so by foot and would be shot if they left in vehicles, reported the Associated Press. 3,500 troops have sealed the city of Al-Qaim, cutting communications and imposing a military curfew.

According to the United Nations affiliated news agency IRIN, doctors reported dozens of civilians were killed and injured in the latest attacks on Husaybah, a community close to Al-Qaim. The attacks have forced thousands to flee to makeshift camps, in place since the fighting began in May.

“The situation is becoming critical,” Ferdous al-Abadi, spokesman for the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) told IRIN. “People are seriously suffering.”

Most press coverage actually from the region is coming from embedded reporters, such as those reporting for The New York Times and CNN. Mainstream outlets reporting from Baghdad are often quoting US military spokespeople. Not surprisingly, USA Today is reporting a 50 percent decrease in foreign fighters entering from Syria. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-11-06-iraq-border_x.htm) This, according to “a US General,” not even named in this report.

Though independent press coverage has been minimal--Iraqi reporters have claimed often being turned back at military checkpoints--Sabah Ali was able to get through and has one of the few independent reports from the region.

“Arriving in Alqaim general hospital …we listened to different stories of the last attack. A big black banner says that the ambulance driver, Mahmood Chiad, was shot on Oct 1, 2005 by the American troops while he was trying to help some injured families.”

Chiad was on a call, enroute to Karabala, when he was shot in the chest and killed, leaving a widow and six children. “The ambulance was then hit by a grenade which ripped it in two parts, and burnt it,” Ali said. She said they were not allowed to photograph the remains of the vehicle.

As in other military operations, witnesses at Al-Qaim hospital claim the US is using snipers. “A young man, H.Khalaf, was lying on a trolley, soaked in blood. He was shot in his genitals by an American sniper while he was going home from the market just across the street. ‘There was nothing, no shooting, no bombing, nothing,’ said a neighbor who brought Khalaf to the hospital said. ‘We heard the shot, and he was lying there bleeding. We could not reach him. He crawled to the side street.’

“In the ward another young man, Salah Hamid, was shot under the belt too. He was driving his taxi at 10 am on Monday Oct 17, 2005 in the market place when he was shot by the American snipers. The doctor explained that a large part of his intestine had to be cut.

“The hospital’s assistant director described how bad and difficult the situation is, the continuous bombing of houses and cars, the snipers who shoot indiscriminately any moving thing (two days ago they killed 6 donkeys), the besieged city, the closed highway. ‘I do not understand why they cut the highway and let families go through the desert, they are searching everything and everybody! Now, on top of everything else, the oxygen tubes are not allowed in the hospital.’

“The administrative assistant explained the situation in the bombed areas across the river (Euphrates) after the bridges were bombed in the attack: ‘There are many villages: Rumana, Al-Beidha, Al-Ish, Dgheima, Baghooz, Al-rabot….etc where families sought shelter from the bombing. These villages are cut of any kind of help now, and are exposed to regular bombing. There is no doctor or clinic in an area of 110 kilometers along the river. The injured families have to be brought by boats, bleed to death, or die under the rubbles. It is impossible to count the dead, their families bury them on the spot, without any document, and of course no media coverage. Civilians, relatives and neighbors help evacuating those buried under the rubbles. Snipers are still hurting us most. On the Referendum day Oct 15, no one would dare to go out; I would not, even if I was given the post of a president.’

“Early next morning, around 7 am, there was noise and crowd in the hospital. Two cars covered with dust, and few men were standing at the emergency gate. One old man, over 60, was sobbing and talking to the sky, repeating hysterically, ‘please come and see what happened to me,’ other men were crying silently.

“A girl of ten was lying on one trolley, and a young woman on another. They were still conscious. The girl, Yosr Jasim Mohammad Al-Ta’i, 10, (going to 5th grade, as she said proudly), was injured in her feet, back, and right ear, which were covered with blood. She did not know that she is the only survivor of a family of 8. Her father, her mother Ibtisam Thiyab Othman, and five of her brothers and sister were buried dead under the rubbles when the American airplanes bombed Al-Ish village at 2 am that day, Oct 26, 2005.

“The woman, Sa’diya, 35, was injured in her thigh. She was [w]rapped in a burnt out quilt. Sa’diya was in her uncles’ house. Her house was blown up by the American troops the day before "they took the women and children out, and blow the house, I do not know if they arrested the men or they blow them inside the house. We came to my uncles’ house yesterday, today at 2 am we were bombed again". Sa’diya was terribly shocked. "I do not know how many people were killed. We were more than 30 in the house. My three uncles, their wives and children, my aunt, and five guests in the diwan (guest room), were killed. I do not know if there are any survivors, I was buried under the wall. I saw my uncle Idan, and two of the children Farooq and Ahmad, they were dead". (Sa’diy did not know that Yosr, one of the guests and herself are the only survivors of the many families in that house).

“Khalifa Mokhlos the only survivor among the 4 men in the guest room said that the other 4 men were killed when two missiles hit the house. "Jasim M. Mokhlos (30), Idan Abdulla Mosa (52), Awad M.Mosa (45), and Moslem K.Hussein (30) were all killed".

“K., the chief of community council in Al-Risala district, himself handicapped in the Iraqi-Iranian war, was telling us many stories of demolished houses and killed families. We asked to visit some of them. He was hesitant, but then suggested that we only visit those in the relatively safe districts. Alqaim now looks so different from Alqaim we saw 18 months ago in the first major American attack in April 2004. Then it was a city full of life, shops, offices, people, police…there was movement in the street. Now it is a dead city. Fear and suspicion are the kings of the streets.

Sabah Ali documented numerous cases of civilian deaths (for the full report, go to: http://www.brusselstribunal.org/ArticlesIraq2.htm and page down), and the fear many refugees now have of returning to their homes.

Now complicating the situation, Reuters is reporting that the military claims to be making the area “safe for residents to vote in December 15 elections, and unlike in previous operations Iraqi security forces will remain in the area to make sure insurgents do not return.”

A further complication is that most of the military operations now being conducted in Iraq are in the minority-Sunni regions; most of the Iraqi forces are comprised of Shiites and Kurds.

From Soldier To Activist

2005-10-20T21:35:00.000-07:00

An Interview With Tim Goodrich
by Karen Button

Tim Goodrich , at 24, has served four years in the military and co-founded Iraq Veterans Against the War, a rapidly expanding organization whose members include soldiers like Camilo Mejia who have refused redeployment to Iraq and whose goals are to bring the troops home now, support the troops once they get back and support Iraqi reconstruction.

Tim’s four years in the military spanned some of the most pivotal moments in recent US history. He was deployed on three different occasions to the Middle East, during which he helped “soften up” Iraq in bombing campaigns the Bush Administration denied took place, prior to the US’s declaration of war.

While Mr. Bush refuses to acknowledge the debacle in Iraq, insisting that US forces will not withdraw, troop morale continues to decline and membership in the IVAW increases.

On nearly continuous tour, Tim Goodrich now testifies, educates and speaks against the war in Iraq, what it’s like to be part of military culture, and on behalf of veterans.

What’s your military background?

At an early age, maybe 5/6 yrs old I knew I was going to be in the military. It’s a family tradition; both my grandfathers were in WWII and Korea, uncles and cousins in Vietnam, and even today some are currently serving. I remember playing with the Army guys on the front porch with my brother. For Christmas I always got fighter pilot calendars and instead of throwing them away at the end of the year, I would put the pictures up on my bedroom wall. It got to the point where I had about 80 some pictures of fighter planes on my wall. It was just covered.

I joined when I was 18. It was between the Navy and the Air Force, but I was turned off to the Navy because I don’t swim so well. (laughing)

Originally I had an ROTC scholarship. I was all set to go to West Virginia University but the scholarship was for electrical engineering and my math skills aren’t so good. I found out the hard way that I wasn’t really ready for that type of degree, plus it was straight out of high school and like many others I just wasn’t ready to start college right away.

So your decision to join was out of family tradition, nothing to do with economics?

Right, absolutely. I just wanted to serve my country and family tradition. My parents, while they’re not completely wealthy, they’re middle class and they could have sent me through school. They sent my brother and sister through school and they could have for me as well.

You were in the military September 11, 2001. What were your thoughts after the attacks?

I’d already been deployed once before to the Middle East. When September 11 happened I pretty much knew I’d be sent overseas and I was…after about 3 months. I was the second wave of my unit that went over there to a forward operating base. I didn’t have any questions. I’ve got pictures of me signing bombs that were going to be dropped on Afghanistan. I was caught up in it and I didn’t see the other side. I didn’t ask the question why they attacked us in the first place, which is what people need to be asking.

So you didn’t have any questions about when you got deployed you just thought, “this is the right thing, this is what I’m going to do”?

Yeah, I just thought, we got attacked, it’s our job to respond.

How long was that deployment and were you in Afghanistan?

It was from December ‘01 to February ‘02. I was actually in Oman and we were flying direct combat support out of there for missions over Afghanistan.

What kind of missions?

My job was avionics technician, which is performing maintenance. I repaired the radio systems, communication/navigation systems and technological systems onboard the E3 AWAICS, which is a command and control aircraft. It’s called ‘the eye in the sky,’ it’s a radar surveillance aircraft and is there to make sure there’s no enemy aircraft, then they direct the fighters and bombers where to go to drop their munitions on target.

Was this pre-ops for the ground troops?

No, we worked in conjunction with the ground troops. We were able to relay battle maps to the ground troops and to some of the fighters and bombers.

What did you see while there?

Not too much; we were confined to the base in Oman. But, it was different than my other deployment in Saudi Arabia; there was a different tempo because we had B1 bombers flying day in and day out, 24 hours a day. Every couple hours one would take off, and those things are massive and loud; they’d shake you out of bed. Then we had the KC 135 aerial refuelers on the ramp with us, so it was definitely different. I was helping them patrol the no-fly zone over Iraq and also bombing them at the same time, which I didn’t know at the time.

You didn’t know you were bombing Iraq?

Well, I’d gone over there thinking we’re patrolling the no-fly zone and making sure there’s no aircraft flying over the sky in Iraq; just making sure they comply with the UN Charters. Then after a couple of weeks we were shown a surveillance video during an intelligence briefing and it showed a bomb hitting a target. I thought: Wow, I didn’t know we were doing this kind of stuff. Most of the fighters were based in other bases across the Middle East, so while our fighters did go up I never realized they were dropping munitions until I saw that video. That time. I was there from March until May of 2001

What did you think when you saw that target hit?

Well. this was even pre-Afghanistan, so like I said I still wasn’t asking any questions. I mean, I got excited, it was a morale booster, everybody was just excited because we’d accomplished our mission.

What was your mission? Did you understand what it was?

No….it’s kind of funny because when you’re deployed in the Middle East, you’re right at the forefront but all you see is just this little slice of the big picture that’s right in front of you and oftentimes you now less about the war that’s going on in front of you than the people back home do.

Let’s talk about the war a bit…you’ve obviously had an awakening, you’re in the midst of a speaking tour with Iraq Veterans Against the War. What was the moment you started questioning?

I was on my third and final deployment to the Middle East, August through October of 2002. I started questioning when the Bush Administration started talking about going to war in Iraq. That was very suspicious to me because he was saying they had weapons of mass destruction and from our briefings I knew that we were within range of those. And then he started saying that they had a nuclear weapon they could drop on the United States in 45 minutes and I thought: wait a second, we’re 200 miles away from the border and they’re not attacking us, why would they attack the US? Do they have that capability? And then I realized that with the sanctions and the no-fly zone we had them contained in this little box for 12 years. That and the constantly changing rationale from the Bush Administration just made me suspicious, so I was against it from the start.

Did you have others to talk to?

Not so much, no. Out of my unit of 150, there were only about three or four of us that were against the war.

Did you talk to each other?

Yeah, but the military is funny. They say there's certain things you’re not supposed to talk about at work: sex, religion, politics, and war. But, in the military you’re either really busy or you’re really bored. A lot of times we were really bored, so that’s all we would talk about and my buddy got some verbal reprimands. We were eventually told to stop talking about it. For the most part I just kept quiet because I knew I was due to leave the military in a couple months and I didn’t want to make waves and cause trouble for myself. I just wanted a quiet exit and to be done with it.

What did you think you would do when you got back?

I was definitely against it (the war), and I was still active duty. One weekend I used part of my government paycheck to fly out to New York City because a big protest was happening- it was February 15, 2003. I had been back four and half months and was due to get out in just a month in a half.

You came home right in the middle of all the rhetoric.

Yeah, right in the middle, and I remember just hoping that Colin Powell was going to stand up for what’s right and I remember even saying to my dad on the phone: Colin Powell is our last hope that this war doesn’t happen. And then he testified on February 5th.

What was your father’s response?

He’s a good listener. He’s very moderate, so he doesn’t put in too much of his own opinion.

Yet, he saw this change happening in you?

Yeah, definitely. (laughing) He didn’t try to take sides either way. He’s always been good about that, letting me figure things out on my own.

What happened for you in New York City?

Wow! Well, my sister was living there at the time, we took the subway and I walked out of the tunnel into Grand Central Station where a lot of people were meeting up for the actual march and where people were in transit to get to the march. I remember just having to hold back tears because it was just so beautiful to see that many people coming together for something they believed in so strongly.

Was that the first time you were moved in that way?

Oh, yeah! It was, it was…and then in the march, to just see blocks and blocks and miles of people coming together for the same thing. But I was kind of like a lost sheep though because…well, Military Families Speak Out had already been started, and knowing Nancy and Charlie, the co-founders, I told them (later) I was there at this protest and I was active duty military and they said, “where were you, we were looking for you,” and I didn’t know who to turn to, I was still on my own. I hadn’t really met anyone in the movement. I was just there, an individual, no associations whatsoever.

After such a powerful experience what did you do afterwards?

Well, I did the march and one of the concerts one night, and I went to a meeting one of the groups had. I made a couple of contacts, but other than that I just went home and ended up just getting out of the military a month later.

But what were you thinking? What did you do with those feelings you had at the march afterwards?

I don’t know. (laughing) Even to this day, it’s an amazing feeling when I see so many people come together for such a good cause and being in the movement now, thoroughly embedded in it, I can say I’ve met some of the best people in doing this type of work, people that will do anything for someone else, selfless people and whenever I’m in any kind a big protest, it just really moves me to see and feel that kind of energy because I know there are those good people there.

How did you feel when it was clear the US would be attacking Iraq?

When the war hit, it was hard. I was glued to the TV. I was a wreck. I was in shock. I couldn’t believe this was being done in my name. I felt betrayed and that’s a feeling that sticks with me to this day.

Talk more about that.

When you grow up in American society and you’re told from day one that being in the military is an honorable thing to do and you see your grandparents have served, it’s in your mind that being in the military really is an honorable thing to do. And when you volunteer to join, when you sign on the dotted line, you’re basically saying: I will give my life for my country, for the defense of the country. And then when the Administration sent us into a war that had nothing to do with the defense of our country, even the opposite--in my opinion it’s harm to the defense of our country---it’s this deep thing….I guess you just have to be put in the position to volunteer your life for your country to understand.

Can you draw an analogy to help people understand?

No…and even on a more shallow level, trying to explain military life to people is difficult because there’s just nothing that compares. Explaining military life is hard, explaining that feeling of betrayal is even harder.

With your new perspective, what did you think you would do now, after the military?

I didn’t know. I had made a couple contacts with a student group and I aligned myself with them for a little while and I did a little bit of writing for their publication and did some local stuff in Oklahoma City, where I’d been stationed, against the war. They had weekly peace marches on Sunday and I started making more and more contacts in the peace movement, that’s about it.

Did you feel lost at that time?

Looking back I guess I kind of did. I didn’t see the big picture. I didn’t realize how powerful my voice was at that point, after having helped bomb Iraq before the war and then being against it. I didn’t realize how powerful that was.

How did Iraq Veterans Against the War come about?

Eight months after I left active duty I went to Baghdad as a civilian with Global Exchange. What I saw there galvanized me even more against the war. I didn’t see any of the reconstruction. Even at that point I thought there was some reconstruction going on; I didn’t believe what the TV said, I knew better by then, but I had a hard time believing there was no reconstruction going on so I went there expecting to see at least some and I saw none. That really pissed me off and it galvanized me more. I started speaking out more and a couple months after I returned from Iraq I met Mike Hoffman, one of our other co-founders. It was the week before the first anniversary of the war.

We were at Dover Air Force Base doing a memorial/protest. Of course, Dover is where all the dead bodies come home. We both spoke there. He told me about his idea to form a group of recent veterans who were against the war and I liked the idea and we kept in touch. We met a couple of others across the US who felt the same way and then nine of us launched Iraq Veterans Against the War on July 28, 2004, right before the Democratic National Convention and during the Veterans for Peace annual convention.

How do you feel now about that? When you look back on your life before to where you are now?

(laughing) I can’t believe it’s only been a year because I’ve been so incredibly busy. It feels like so much longer; it feels like we’ve been doing this work for years. I’m so caught up in it, to tell you the truth I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to.

Does it feel like your life’s work?

Definitely! I feel like I have a mission to do.

What do you say to young people thinking of joining the military?

I tell them don’t do it. I don’t have so much a problem with people joining the military in a time of peace, but in the time of an illegal war, I definitely can’t support it and I do whatever I can to get them to consider other alternatives.

Yet, you have a distinct respect for the military still, it sounds like.

Yeah, you have to, to see what these guys go through. The military four years was some of the hardest time of my life. They ask a lot of you, not only physically, but emotionally. It’s your whole life when you’re in. There’s a deep sense of loyalty and commitment when you’re in the military that you don’t have as a clerk in a 7/11. So, that sticks with you.

Beyond the individual soldiers though, what do you feel about the military? Do you feel that we need it?

At this point in the global situation, I think there is a need for the military because there are countries that have bad foreign policies just like the US and would like to get their hands on the US’s interests if they could, so I think at this point it is necessary for defense. But, I look at back at our foreign policy and the way our military has been used in at least the last hundred years and I can’t think of a time when it was used out of selflessness and for purely self-defense reasons.

What do you think the solution is?

I wish it were that easy. I think the first thing we need to do is examine our foreign policy and implement one that doesn’t take advantage so much and exploit other countries. Put a little respect into the people we deal with around the world.

"Those Are The Sounds Of Peace"

2005-10-05T13:38:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

I spoke this morning with a representative from Doctors for Iraq, one of the few humanitarian NGOs still operating in Iraq. He told me, sadly, that the five doctors who have been in the Al Qaim district delivering medical care to the 6,400 refugee families now encamped in the surrounding desert are returning to Baghdad. The reason? They have little to no supplies and in an area where such basics as food and tents are in short supply, feel they can do nothing for these refugees.

The US is continuing two major assaults in the Sunni province of Al Anbar, Operation Iron Fist and Operation River Gate, where 2500 American troops are conducting house-to-house searches and aerial strikes, causing thousands to flee their homes once again. In early May of this year US/Iraqi troops laid siege on the same communities of Haditha, Al Qaim, and their surrounding villages, maintaining they were routing out Al-Qaeda.

The current assaults take place at the beginning of Ramadan and just two weeks before the constitutional referendum. In rhetoric reminiscent of the assault on Fallujah, in which troops laid siege on the city in order to rout out so-called insurgents and make it safe for the then-upcoming January elections, Coalition forces are justifying current operations by claiming insurgents in western Iraq are attempting to disrupt the upcoming constitutional referendum amid an upsurge in foreign fighters.

Iraqi National Assembly speaker Hajim al-Hasani has condemned the military operations, fearing they will discourage voter participation instead.

"There must be alternative solutions instead of later talking about low turnout for the referendum, just like what occurred in the elections,'' he said in an interview with Aljazeera.

Meanwhile, Col. Stephen Davis, commander of the one of the Marine units participating in the operations, told residents in western Iraq: “Some of you are concerned about the attack helicopters and mortar fire from the base. I will tell you this: those are the sounds of peace."

This might come as a shock to the thousands who are now refugees or to the hundreds who’ve lost their houses or family members due to the renewed violence, many of whom have been buried beneath the rubble of their homes or cannot get to the hospitals.

"Some people, mostly women and children, have been killed and injured in these areas. We don't know the exact number. "We cannot transfer casualties to Al Qaim hospital as roads are closed and bridges are destroyed," Dr Ammar al-Marsumi, an Iraqi doctor at al-Qaim hospital, told Aljazeera.

Just downriver from Col. Davis, the representative from Doctors for Iraq tells me, American snipers in Ramadi have killed ten women and children in the past few days, propelling fears that a new offensive will be launched there as well.

These fears are well-founded. In earlier attacks in western Iraq, the government gave warning that operations would commence. This time however, residents had no idea. US military officials stated they didn’t want to give insurgents a heads-up.

“If we had provided advance warning in this case it would have given the terrorists an opportunity to run away or further use the citizens as human shields,” Lieutenant Colonel Steven Boylan, a spokesman for the US-led coalition of military forces in Iraq, was quoted as saying.

“We were informed in advance before the last offensive against Al-Qaim and were able to prepare ourselves for it, but this one was a surprise to all of us,” said Muhammad Rabia’a,” a 43 year-old man who decided to clear out immediately with six members of his family.

“I just took my family and ran from the town to keep them safe, without even knowing where to go,” he told IRIN.

Perhaps this man’s retreating footsteps are also “the sounds of peace.”

"Scorched Earth" In Iraq

2005-10-01T10:40:00.000-07:00

by Karen Button

As power outages and the violence of unremitting car bombs continue to dominate daily life in Baghdad, the BBC has reported that a female suicide bomber has killed six people outside an army recruitment center in Talafar, Iraq.

Though you probably haven’t heard much about it in the news, this is the same city where a US-led offensive has displaced thousands of families in the past month, leaving them to survive in desert encampments with little food, water or medical care.

The Iraqi Red Crescent has complained to the United Nations that they have not been allowed in the city of Talafar where US/Iraqi (largely comprised of Kurdish Peshmerga) forces cut water and electricity prior to staging the largest attack since Fallujah in an on-going “scorched earth” campaign in Iraq’s Sunnis regions.

In a statement that defies both logic and humanitarian law, Lt. Col. Hassan al-Medan, a senior Iraqi officer in the operation and spokesperson for the Coalition forces told IRIN, “If we allow the entrance of food and medicines to the city we are just feeding the insurgents and those who are not [insurgents], and are not afraid, will ask to leave. It is not a human disaster but the prevention of it.”

However, a statement from the Arab International Committee urged the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Conferences, the United Nations and all political and religious leaders to “take action to stop the military aggression against the city of Talafar and to lift the siege imposed on it.”

Similar statements have been issued by Doctors for Iraq, an organisation whose members travel to areas of conflict to help with medical care. A representative from the organisation I spoke with recently had just come from the region. He told me while he is deeply worried about these families he is even more worried about those from the western region of Iraq, where he had also been.

“Talafar is very close to Mosul where at least there are offices available for medical care. And some will be able to find refuge with family or friends there too. This is a terrible situation where we have been told of military forces arresting all men between 22 and 50 as they are attempting to flee. But, there is an even bigger problem in Al-Qaim.”

“Al-Qaim is 300 kilometers into the desert. It is very remote, so there are very few doctors able to get there. Also, they are using the biggest bombs there. They are using 500-ton bombs! The houses are completely flattened and these operations have been since the beginning of May. I was just there and I can tell you the military are preparing for renewed operations, you can see it. They will again attack Al-Qaim, Ramadi and Rawa.”

Thus, people are fleeing the area once again in an attempt to escape the inevitable violence. “There are at least 2,500 refugee families from Al-Qaim living in tents in the desert,” he says.

Now, a similar situation is brewing in Samara, about 120km north of Baghdad. Hundreds of families are fleeing, following an announcement by the Ministry of Defense that Coalition forces are preparing for an offensive against “insurgents.”

The governor of the province, Hamad al-Kashty, was quoted as warning that, “the government should be careful and not transform our city into another terror as happened with Fallujah and Talafar."

Ferdous al-Abadi, a spokesperson for the Iraqi Red Crescent, said, "We put all our efforts to help the people who fled Talafar, another operation will just bring more injustice and pain to Iraqis. We had difficulties getting aid to Talafar as our stores were empty and another offensive will be much worse." The agency has urged the government not to continue with their planned offensive.

Doctors for Iraq concur. But, the doctor tells me, adding to the situation is an ongoing medical crisis, exacerbated by chronic medical brain-drain. Three weeks ago US troops randomly killed one of Iraq’s famous cardiologists who had chosen to stay in the country after the war. Dr. Basil Hassan, from the Iraq Center of Heart Disease in Baghdad’s Medical City, was an inspiration to many other doctors who also chose to stay by his example, despite increased kidnappings for ransom. Now, many of these doctors too, are fleeing, due to the unsecured conditions. Reuters is reporting that the Iraqi Doctors’ Syndicate, a medics’ register, estimates at least 1,500 medical professionals have fled this year alone, with at least that many also leaving in 2003 and 2004.

With the 15 October referendum for a new Iraq constitution fast approaching, many Iraqis believe the on-going military actions in Sunni areas is a deliberate attempt by the US/Iraqi forces to intimidate Sunnis into not voting. The proposed constitution would fail passage if at least three of the eighteen governates turn it down. Sunnis hold a majority in al-Anbar, Salah ad Din, Diyala and Ninevah.