Iraq Occupation Focus
www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk
Newsletter No.182
September 30th, 2011
This IOF Newsletter is produced as a free service for all those opposed to the occupation. In order to strengthen our campaign, please make sure you sign up to receive the free newsletter automatically – go to: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/iraqfocus. Please also ask all those who share our opposition to the brutal US occupation to do likewise.
Military news
As Iraq pullback nears, US still at war in south
AP reports (September 15th): Soldiers at this base sleep with their shoes on so they don't cut their feet running under rocket fire. Elsewhere in Iraq the tanks are being packed up, but here they still serve in the hunt for insurgents. And when U.S. troops hand out soccer balls to village children, Apache helicopters circle above.
In a little more than 100 days, the U.S. military is supposed to be gone from Iraq after a war, insurgency and occupation that has stretched across nearly nine years. But in marshy southern Iraq, where Shiite militancy runs strong, the war is still being waged.
Iraq cleric says his forces could attack US troops
The Independent reports (September 12th): Any American troops remaining in Iraq after the end of the year will be attacked, according to Muqtada al-Sadr, the nationalist Shia cleric whose movement has previously fought to end the US occupation. He said that military operations by his Mehdi Army militia against US troops will be suspended to give them no excuse to remain beyond 31 December as was agreed by US and Iraq in 2008.
He threatened, in a statement on his website, that if there is not a full US withdrawal "the military operation will start again and with new approaches, and it will be very severe".
Massive U.S. Embassy In Iraq Will Expand Further As Soldiers Leave
Huffington Post reports (September 16th): American combat troops in Iraq may be heading to the exits -- or not -- but the U.S. government's enormously expensive intervention there is hardly coming to an end.
In a telling sign of how dangerous and chaotic Iraq remains more than eight years after President George W. Bush launched the war against Saddam Hussein, U.S. diplomats, military advisers and other officials are planning to fall back to the gargantuan embassy in Baghdad -- a heavily fortified, self-contained compound the size of Vatican City.
The embassy compound is by far the largest the world has ever seen, at one and a half square miles, big enough for 94 football fields. It cost three quarters of a billion dollars to build (coming in about $150 million over budget). Inside its high walls, guard towers and machine-gun emplacements lie not just the embassy itself, but more than 20 other buildings.
Abuse
Cables: Iraqi Detainees Were Tortured, Beaten, Raped
Antiwar.com reports (September 12th): Iraqi detainees were severely tortured, beaten, and raped in an Iraqi National Police detention complex in 2006, according to a confidential State Department cable released by WikiLeaks. Discovery by US officials of the abuse did not lead to criminal investigations of the perpetrators and much of the mistreatment was permitted to continue.
On May 30, 2006, “a joint US-Iraqi inspection” of an Iraqi detention facility “discovered more than 1,400 detainees in squalid, cramped conditions,” many of whom were illegally detained. Prisoners “displayed bruising, broken bones, and lash-marks, many claimed to have been hung by handcuffs from a hook in the ceiling and beaten on the soles of their feet and their buttocks.”
Baha Mousa soldiers should be brought to justice, says father
The Guardian reports (September 13th): British troops who contributed to the death of Baha Mousa should be brought to justice, his father has said, while lawyers acting for his and other victims' families have called for the soldiers responsible to face charges of murder, war crimes offences and misconduct in public office.
The call for prosecutions follows publication last week of a damning report on the fate of Mousa, 26, an Iraqi who had been arrested in Basra shortly after the invasion in 2003. The public inquiry concluded that there had been an "appalling episode of serious gratuitous violence" meted out by members of the 1st Battalion the Queen's Lancashire Regiment (1QLR).
Torture—a very British tradition
Socialist Worker reports (September 17th): The instructions were simple. “Get up you fucking bastard”, “Get up you fucking ape” screamed the soldiers, followed by kicks and punches. Sometimes the blows came from multiple fists and boots.
Getting up meant squatting, half leaning against a wall, arms pointing straight out. This is known as a stress position.
The British army made ten Iraqi hotel workers spend days like this. Even if they stayed in position they were beaten, had urine poured over them or were forced to drink it. They had their heads covered with hoods.
It is torture and it was systematic. It is what being “questioned” by the occupying forces in Iraq really meant.
Iraqi radio talk show host murdered
The Guardian reports (September 12th): Iraqi radio talk show host Hadi al-Mahdi has been shot dead just hours after writing on his Facebook page: "I have lived the last three days in a state of terror. There are some who call me and warn me of raids and arrests of protesters. There is someone saying that the government will do this and that. There is someone with a fake name coming on to Facebook to threaten me."
Mahdi - a journalist, filmmaker and playwright - was found dead in his home, with two gunshot wounds to his head. According to the Washington Post, his death has sparked fears among journalists and activists that, as US troops leave the country, Iraq's ruling class is turning to chillingly familiar tactics to silence dissent.
Protests
Iraq: Seeking Jobs and Electricity
NY Times reports (September 16th): Several thousand followers of the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr took to the streets in Iraqi cities, calling for the government to provide more electricity and jobs. Far fewer people took part in the protests than in previous demonstrations organized by Mr. Sadr, a Shiite. In the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in Baghdad, slightly fewer than 1,000 people protested for about 20 minutes immediately after prayers. In addition, about 3,000 followers of Mr. Sadr protested in Najaf.
Iraqi activist: Baghdad betrayed me
CNN reports (September 12th): The heading on 21-year-old Noof Assi's blog page is the classic Gandhi quote: "Be the change you want to see in the world." She is often at the forefront of demonstrations in Iraq demanding basic services and reforms -- but her road from child to activist has been dogged by bloodshed and violence.
Al-Iraqiya Bloc condemns detention of female activist
Aswat al-Iraq reports (September 24th): The official spokesman of al-Iraqiya Bloc, led by Iyad Allawi, condemned the detention of an a female activist for her participation in a demonstration in Baghdad last Friday.
“A security force, in civilian clothing, detained the activist, Sana’a al-Duleimy, with the use of an ambulance vehicle, locking her in a police center for several hours, where she was exposed to rough beating, abuse and humiliation,” Maysoun al-Damaloujy said.
Daily Protests
Fight for Women’s Rights Begins All Over Again
IPS reports (September 13th): he Al-Amal Association is one of a handful of women’s advocates in Iraq fighting for female equality in marriage and divorce, and opposing a draconian penal code that favours perpetrators of domestic abuse and of honour killings within households.
According to United Nations statistics, one in five women from 15 to 49 years old has suffered physical violence at the hands of her husband. "The real numbers are likely higher," says UNDP. "Reporting of gender-based violence cases is generally low, as women fear social stigmatisation and lack confidence that authorities will investigate complaints."
"The deterioration of security has promoted a rise in tribal customs and religiously-inflected political extremism, which have had a deleterious effect on women’s rights both inside and outside the home," says a Human Rights Watch report published this year.
Iraqis call government office building home
AFP reports (September 14th): Bassem Awdah and eight family members have for years been packed into two cramped rooms in a decrepit former government office building in central Baghdad, because they have nowhere else to live.
The crowded conditions for Awdah's family and other residents of the building in Al-Masbah area -- which held defence ministry offices during Saddam Hussein's rule, but was taken over by people in need of homes after his 2003 ouster -- are a microcosm of a wider problem: Iraq's severe housing shortage.
Iraq’s southern province – an environmental nightmare
Azzaman reports (September 23rd): The southern Iraqi Province of Missan sits on five million landmines and remnants of unspecified quantities of depleted uranium, the head of the province’s Health Department Dr. Maythan Lafta said.
In an interview with the newspaper, Lafta said the province was facing “an environmental catastrophe.”
In postwar Iraq, housing is scarce and pricey
Washington Post reports (September 23rd): As Iraq’s economy rattles awake after years of war, the country is experiencing a real-estate boom, with choice properties in Baghdad or in towns such as Karbala or Irbil selling for $500,000 to more than $1 million.
Years of violence, sectarian tensions and international sanctions have left the country with an acute housing shortage that is driving up prices, experts say. The growing country of 30 million needs about 2 million housing units, according to a United Nations estimate.
Iraqi Christians find safety in north, but no jobs
Reuters report (September 21st): Menas Saad Youssef no longer fears being blown up while praying in a church. But she and many other traumatised Christians who fled Iraq's capital for safer areas have a new crisis -- no jobs.
Almost a year since a deadly church siege in Baghdad that killed dozens of people and prompted her family to seek refuge in the prosperous northern Kurdish region, Youssef sits at home, frustrated about her future.
The 28-year-old academic, who is still haunted by images of her friends lying in pools of blood at the cathedral where she prayed every Sunday, misses her job as an architectur?p>rofessor in Baghdad.
As an Iraqi, I am very pessimistic
Peter Kandela writes for The Guardian (September 18th): For the Iraqi people, life has deteriorated dreadfully. Security remains a major problem. Kidnapping, corruption, suicide bombing and general lawlessness all continue, major religious groupings mainly live in closed neighbourhood and minorities like the Christians have largely been forced out of the country. Reluctantly, all my close relatives, except one sister, have fled abroad in fear of their lives.
Then there is the more insidious form of fear, which accompanies poverty and lawlessness. A recent feature on the Iraqi website Aljeeranshowed the very large numbers of women and children forced to beg on the streets, and highlighted their sexual vulnerability. This is an entirely new phenomenon in Iraq.
The right to security is paramount, but what about the right to clean water and power? Most people have given up on the expectation of a regular electricity supply.
Unreported Afghanistan
U.S. soldier gets 7 years in prison for Afghan murder
Reuters reports (September 23rd): The youngest of five U.S. soldiers accused of killing unarmed Afghan civilians in cold blood was sentenced to seven years in prison for gunning down a teenage boy whose corpse he posed with as if it were a trophy.
Andrew Holmes pleaded guilty to a single count of murder -- reduced in a deal with prosecutors from the more serious charge of premeditated murder -- admitting he made a "bad decision" when he shot the young villager at close range.
U.S. Staging 40 Night Raids in Afghanistan Every Night
Time reports (September 19th): The Open Society Foundations and the Liason Office, an Afghan NGO, have a new report on these counter-terrorism raids, which are mostly conducted at night. "The Cost of Kill/Capture" solidly reports that for some strange reason, people don't like it when you kick in their doors in the middle of the night and point guns at them, particularly if they haven't done anything wrong.
The increasing number of raids is stunning. By late 2010, NATO stats showed night raids had increased to 20 raids every night. The latest data suggests that number is now probably more like 40. Not surprisingly, "The escalation in raids had taken the battlefield more directly into Afghan homes, sparking tremendous backlash among the Afghan population," the report says.
U.S. to build new massive prison in Bagram
Salon.com reports (September 19th): As the Obama administration announced plans for hundreds of billions of dollars more in domestic budget cuts, it late last week solicited bids for the construction of a massive new prison in Bagram, Afghanistan. Posted on the aptly named FedBizOps.Gov website which it uses to announce new privatized spending projects, the administration unveiled plans for "the construction of Detention Facility in Parwan (DFIP), Bagram, Afghanistan" which includes "detainee housing capability for approximately 2000 detainees." It will also feature "guard towers, administrative facility and Vehicle/Personnel Access Control Gates, security surveillance and restricted access systems." The announcement provided: "the estimated cost of the project is between $25,000,000 to $100,000,000."
Less than 50% of U.S. troops believe Afghanistan war is winnable
Daily Mail reports (September 18th): U.S. troops are losing confidence in the military's long-term chances of success in Afghanistan, a new poll has revealed. The Military Times survey found less than half of serving soldiers believe the U.S. is 'very likely' or 'somewhat likely' to succeed in Afghanistan.
