Iraq occupation Focus contribution to WSIUI event on April 10th 2010

Let me start by thanking WSIUI and Tahrir especially for organising this conference. As far as I know, this is the only event in the UK marking the 7^th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. To understand why this might be, we need to analyse

how the events of the last 7 years are now presented in the west, and the UK in particular.

For conservative commentators here and in the US and even so-called liberal papers like the New York Times, the recent elections in Iraq – described as credible and plausible, it should be noted, rather than fair or free - make the entire invasion and occupation worthwhile. They bring a sense of closure to a necessary, if painful, process.

“Former President Bush’s gut instincts that this region craved democracy were always right,” wrote Thomas Friedman in a piece entitled “It’s up to the Iraqis now. Good luck.” You would think the last troops had already left, rather than 100,000 US military still there.

But, haven’t we been here before?

“Iraq's new ruling elite show contempt for voters”

Toby Dodge writes in The Guardian (March 29^th): “Those pointing to the election results as proof that Iraq has emerged from its post-invasion turmoil should take a lesson from the pages of recent history. The architects of the invasion, George Bush and Tony Blair, trumpeted the 2005 elections as a watershed moment that justified their decision to invade.”

And then:

LA Times reports (April 1^st): A recently elected parliament member was in hiding after the Iraqi security forces raided his home this week on a warrant connected with a bombing case that had been settled in 2008 through a tribal mediation process. The arrest attempt was among a series of raids.

Iraq panel to bar 6 lawmakers from taking office

LA Times reports (March 30^th): An Iraqi government commission said that it would bar six newly elected parliament members from office. The move would take away at least two seats from the secular Iraqiya list.

These stories were before the huge escalation in violence that began a few days ago. And they were moves made by the government itself.

Once again, Iraqis are compelled to go through these electoral processes to retrospectively justify western barbarism, fully aware that the outcome will be more violence and destruction, a further rationale for deferring US military withdrawal. Th selection of these corrupt elites will have little bearing on the reality of ordinary life.

The everyday reality that occupied Iraq continues to face, can be gauged from a selection of recent headlines:

State food aid package slashed – IRIN

Iraqi refugees still suffering seven years on -Middle East Online

Iraq Saw Rising Death Toll in March -Antiwar.com

1,400 checkpoints inside Iraqi capital -Azzaman

Baha Mousa inquiry: Eight or more civilians died in British custody -The Guardian

British military intelligence 'ran renegade torture unit in Iraq' - The Independent

Marine to face court-martial in killings of 24 Iraqi civilians -LA Times

Fallujah doctors report rise in birth defects –BBC

Additionally: Research published in the American Journal of Public Health documents a tripling of leukaemia in children in the Basra region. War-related nerve agents and pesticides, and the widespread use of depleted uranium munitions by the US, are believed to be largely responsible.

The word FRAUD is one of the most common in headlines – voter fraud, government fraud, private contractor fraud, financial fraud. America’s revamped Iraq is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. But the biggest fraud is t he western theft of Iraq’s resources by Halliburton, BP, etc.

Blair Strikes Oil in Iraq

Middle east Online reports (March 26^th): In the three years since he stepped down as prime minister, Blair pocketed more than $30 million in oil revenues from his secret dealings with a South Korean oil consortium, UI Energy Corporation.

Iraq’s problems make the headlines still, but the occupation itself is rarely seen as worthy of mention. It doesn’t fit the Obama narrative. As I wrote recently:

Barack Obama’s Administration has renamed its activities in the country ‘Operation New Dawn.’ Despite promising to withdraw all troops by August of this year, there remain nearly 100,000 US troops in Iraq – not counting mercenary contractors. General Raymond Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, is exploiting the dire security situation to demand that combat brigades be kept on past this deadline. In a typical smoke and mirrors exercise by the Obama Administration, combat units are being renamed advisory units, while continuing the same frontline duties.

No surprise: From Foreign Policy in Focus – A withdrawal in name only June 2009. After listing the loopholes in the State of Forces Agreement signed in late 2008, the analysis says:

“Instead of sending soldiers stationed in cities home, the military has been expanding and building new bases in rural areas to accommodate soldiers affected by the June 30 deadline. And Congress just passed a war-spending bill that includes more funding for military construction inside Iraq.”

The point of all of this is to underline the continued relevance of our campaign Justice for Iraq.

Justice for Iraq is a campaign launched at a mass meeting of anti-war activists held in London two years ago called by Iraq Occupation Focus.

It was one of a number of international initiatives inspired by the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research whose board member Hans von Sponeck was formerly UN Humanitarian Coordinator. It issued an important paper on the future of Iraq, observing: “The invasion and ongoing occupation is a political, intellectual and moral disaster. A withdrawal that leaves Iraq at its own fate without any war reparations, aid, opportunities for socio-political healing, etc. would be yet another.”

The issues we wanted to address included:

What should happen to the tens of thousands of Iraqis, including children, still detained with no prospect of legal process? Who will clean up the cluster bombs and depleted uranium warheads, which in heavily bombarded areas such as Falluja have caused a huge increase in birth defects? How can Iraq extricate itself from oil extraction contracts signed away by its puppet government and return to full sovereignty over its economic affairs? What can be done to heal the trauma whose long-term effects distort the development of all post-conflict societies, often violently? What kind of financial compensation should the perpetrators pay for their illegal and immoral occupation?

So we launched Justice for Iraq. It seeks to generate support for a simple, five point platform that can begin to repair the damage to Iraq unleashed by the Occupation.

Justice for Iraq

We call on those states responsible for the invasion and occupation of Iraq to terminate their illegal and immoral war, and express our solidarity with the Iraqi people in their struggle for peace, justice and self-determination.

In particular, we demand:

1. An immediate end to the US and UK-led occupation of Iraq;

2. Urgent action to fully address the current humanitarian crises facing Iraq's people, including help for the more than three million refugees and displaced persons;

3. An end to all foreign interference in Iraq's affairs, including its oil industry, so that Iraqis can exercise their right to self-determination;

4. Compensation and reparations from those countries responsible for war and sanctions on Iraq;

5. Prosecution of all those responsible for war crimes, human rights abuses, and the theft of Iraq's resources.

None of these issues have been addressed. The British government approach of Withdraw and forget, fully supported bv a pliant mainstream media, has made it difficult to generate a campaign around these essential demands. Additionally, the diminishing numbers of anti-war activists inevitably means that they will prioritise the most urgent issues.

In the US too, the anti-war movement is weaker, partly due to the disastrous decision of some to subordinate their independence to the Obama campaign, where militarism now leaves them paralysed to strengthen their movement.

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But if Iraq as an issue is no longer capable of mobilising hundreds of thousands on the streets, there are still significant opportunities to advance our agenda – especially as we have been right on all the substantive issues.

WSIUI and IOF have built a platform of knowledge and expertise around these issues. We continue to generate and disseminate our ideas to thousands in the form of IOF’s fortnightly newsletter, our blog and website. Conferences like this, with the participation of the Stop the War Coalition are hugely important. The BRussells Tribunal is a brilliant initiative. It’s partly down to our work –your persistence – that Tony Blair remains a discredited liar, that the issue continues to make new headlines, that the government is forced to hold new enquiries.

So how do we take our campaign to the next level?

We are now in the run-up to a general election. The wars n Afghanistan and Iraq are among the many topics that the political elite do not want us to talk about. Even in the debates about cutting the government’s budget deficits, none of them talk about getting out of these wars or scrapping weapon systems. Nut ordinary people are not fooled. Millions of people will be talking about political issues, many for the first time. We can inject our agenda into this debate.

Tony Blair made a speech in his former constituency of Sedgefield a couple of weeks ago. He was picketed by anti-war activists. Novelist Sue Townsend, writing in The Guardian recently said she

‘ wept tears of shame, rage, and pity as British and American planes dropped their "strategic" bombs over Baghdad. I wondered if Blair was sitting on a sofa with his family watching shock and awe…could he look his children in the eye when the transmission was over? I have never recovered from the shock of that night. I have been told my fixation with Blair and his involvement with the invasion of Iraq is unhealthy – "that was all back in the day", get over it, "move forward". But I can't. ‘

Neither can thousands of others who want to see Blair held to account and even tried for war crimes. We should be there every time he tries to speak in this election campaign, demanding he face prosecution for war crimes. We should call on Labour candidates to have nothing to do with him – no rehabilitation!

There are a few others worth seeking out, like Malcolm Rifkind, Conservative MP for Kensington, who headed ArmorGroup, until its recent takeover, which has made millions providing mercenary contractors in Iraq.

And we should go after the corporations that have made and continue to make money out of Iraq. Companies like Group 4 Security, hired to provide the British Army with security in southern Iraq, but also accused of provoking a riot at Yarl’s Wood detention centre a few years ago. Companies like De La Rue which got the $120 million contract to print Iraq’s new currency, paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. It was printed in Basingstoke and flown in on 27 specially chartered flights – the Iraqi Government had no control over the process. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the deputy ‘viceroy’ in Iraq in the first two years of the Occupation, is on the board. All of these companies have head offices just a few streets away.

And we should ask all candidates – where do they stand on our demands? The millions of displaced people. The need for reparations. The prosecution – not just of a few soldiers – but those who authorised war, aerial bombardment, the torture of civilians. And we should publicise their answers – in the local press, on our blogs and websites, in press releases to the national media.

Just to say: MPs are very approachable at this time. Some are honest. Some are scoundrels. But most are ignorant. If we could get the knowledge and understanding here in this room today into their field of vision, I believe it would make a huge difference.

After the election there will be the Chilcot Report. Like previous reports, it will make criticisms of the way the war was authorised and conducted. But there must be consequences. If the war was illegal, unjustified and wrong, what about holding those responsible to account? What about compensation for the millions whose lives were disrupted and ruined? This provides a focus for public meetings, press work, legal initiatives and a range of activities that can advance our campaign.

So we have to take our ideas wherever the opportunity presents itself, developing our expertise, publicising the issues, briefing MPs, strengthening our ties with international co-thinkers and building our campaigning platform. No-one else will do this. No-one else is talking about these issues, except the people here today.

So we carry on. We may no longer have hundreds of thousands on the streets, but we have their tacit backing and goodwill. Polls show a majority of people want a complete end to military occupation and 40% are angry that it ever happened. The support for our work is real and deep-rooted. It must continue to encourage and inspire us in the struggles ahead.

Interesting comment in The Guardian

Iraq's new ruling elite show contempt for voters

Toby Dodge writes in The Guardian (March 29^th): Those pointing to the election results as proof that Iraq has emerged from its post-invasion turmoil should take a lesson from the pages of recent history. The architects of the invasion, George Bush and Tony Blair, trumpeted the 2005 elections as a watershed moment that justified their decision to invade. Instead, those elections and the parties they empowered played a major role in driving Iraq into a destructive civil war.

The first indication of problems arose in January, when the justice and accountability commission – the organisation charged with pursuing the de-Ba'athification process set in train by the Americans in 2003 – issued edicts seeking to ban 511 individual candidates and 14 party lists from the elections. On the eve of the vote the commission banned a further 50 candidates. Meanwhile, Ali Faisal al-Lami, the head of the justice and accountability commission, also ran as a parliamentary candidate, in a blatant conflict of interest indicative of a system where governmental institutions have been colonised by political parties and run as private fiefdoms.

The behaviour of both Allawi and Maliki during the count indicates their refusal to be bound rules that do not benefit them. When the count looked like it was going to favour Maliki, Allawi's organisation lodged a number of complaints alleging widespread fraud. But as the number of votes counted swung against Maliki, Allawi quickly changed his stance, saying: "The Iraqi people have honoured the Iraqiya list and chosen it to be the basis of forming the new government." Maliki also dramatically changed his opinion. "No way we will accept the results," he bluntly stated. Instead he called for a recount in order to prevent a "return to violence". If anyone failed to detect the sinister threat at the heart of his statement, he issued it in his role as head of the country's armed forces.

More at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/29/iraq-elite-contempt-voters

Further worrying trends:

In Iraq, newly elected lawmaker target of arrest warrant

LA Times reports (April 1^st): A recently elected parliament member was in hiding after the Iraqi security forces raided his home this week on a warrant connected with a bombing case that had been settled in 2008 through a tribal mediation process.

The attempted arrest of Sheik Qais Jabouri, who had worked closely with the Iraqi government on sectarian reconciliation issues, has elicited charges from the secular Iraqiya election slate, on which he was a candidate, that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki is carrying out politically motivated arrests to stay in power after his own Shiite Muslim-led slate finished a close second in national elections March 7.

The arrest attempt was among a series of raids directed against Iraqiya candidates in Baghdad and Diyala provinces. One candidate, Najim Harbi, was taken into custody before the national vote, but he was elected anyway while being held in an undisclosed location. Another elected Iraqiya lawmaker from Jabouri's district, Madaen, southeast of Baghdad, has also gone into hiding after receiving warnings from contacts in the Iraqi security forces that a raid on his home was imminent.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/africa/la-fg-iraq-accused2-2010apr02,0,4400164.story

Iraq panel to bar 6 lawmakers from taking office

LA Times reports (March 30^th): An Iraqi government commission said that it would bar six newly elected parliament members from office, accusing them of having been members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

The move, if upheld by a panel of judges, would take away at least two seats from the secular Iraqiya list, currently the largest bloc in the upcoming parliament, and risk tainting the election results in the eyes of the many minority Sunni Arabs who voted for the slate.

If the candidates are banned, it could rob the Iraqiya bloc of its plurality in the new 325-member parliament.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq-debaath30-2010mar30,0,2503140.story

More allegations of election fraud

Iraq opposition alleges 'flagrant' election fraud

AFP reports (March 12^th): A senior member of Iraq's main secular opposition bloc protested of blatant fraud in favour of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki during Iraq's general election.

"There has been clear and flagrant fraud," said Intisar Allawi, a senior candidate in ex-prime minister Iyad Allawi's Iraqiya bloc, the main rival to Maliki's State of Law Alliance.

"There were persons who manipulated or changed the figures to increase the vote in favour of the State of Law Alliance." She said that Iraqiya's own election observers for last Sunday's poll had found ballot papers in garbage dumps in the northern disputed province of Kirkuk.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g7hNVskfantamiTBTfBWIxp8Mybw

Ayad Allawi accuses Nouri al-Maliki's group of fraud in bid to retain power

The Times adds (March 12^th): Ayad Allawi told Western officials that aides to Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, had hidden ballot papers and falsified computer records in an effort to retain power. “They are stealing the votes of the Iraqi people,” his spokesman told a press conference called to set out the main claims.

Several violations alleged by Mr Allawi have been confirmed by diplomats and election observers. Mr Allawi also claimed that 250,000 soldiers were denied the chance to vote, and that an election monitor had found ballot papers with votes for Mr Allawi dumped in the garden of a polling station in the northern city of Kirkuk.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article7058578.ece

Fallujah doctors report rise in birth defects

Finally the BBC has picked up the story and its Foreign Affairs Editor John Simpson has gone to the city to investigate:

): Doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion.

The city witnessed fierce fighting in 2004 as US forces carried out a major offensive against insurgents.

Now, the level of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than in Europe.

British-based Iraqi researcher Malik Hamdan told the BBC's World Today programme that doctors in Fallujah were witnessing a "massive unprecedented number" of heart defects, and an increase in the number of nervous system defects.

She said that one doctor in the city had compared data about birth defects from before 2003 - when she saw about one case every two months - with the situation now, when, she saw cases every day.

More at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8548707.stm

As elections approach

Next Sunday March 7th sees national elections in Iraq, but news reports indicate they are unlikely to generate much enthusiasm nor be free or fair. Michael Hastings reports that only 22 percent in Baghdad say they will vote -http://trueslant.com/michaelhastings/2010/02/23/poll-majority-of-iraqis-think-security-has-gotten-worse-only-22-percent-in-baghdad-say-they-will-vote-no-love-for-iran/

Juan Cole is concerned abut widespread fraud(February 28^th): "Iraqis go to the voting booth on Sunday, March 7, to elect the second full-term parliament since the fall of the one-party Baath regime in 2003. Many Iraqis are worried about ballot and other irregularities in their polls.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Sadr Movement is complaining bitterly about a rash of arrests by the government of Sadrist activists. The hard line Shiite movement asserted that these arrests were aimed at influencing the course of the election.

Al-Hayat writes in Arabic that the National Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of Shiite religious parties, has alleged that there are 800,000 imaginary voters' names on the election rolls. Member of parliament for the National Iraqi Alliance, Qasim Da'ud, told al-Hayat that his coalition has already detected numerous instances of attempted fraud in the upcoming election."

http://www.juancole.com/

The Observer reports of boycotts

Fears of Iraq poll boycott after Sunni party pulls out

The Observer reports (February 21^st): One of Iraq's two most prominent Sunni politicians has withdrawn his party from next month's general election and called on Sunni voters to boycott the polls – a move that has raised fears of a repeat of the country's disastrous 2005 ballot.

The call for a boycott was made by Saleh al-Mutlaq, an MP who leads the National Dialogue Front, a leading Sunni party. It is part of a cross-sectarian Iraqiya electoral alliance, formed to contest the 7 March ballot.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/21/fears-iraq-poll-boycott-sunni

and The National tells us of votes for sale:

Poor selling their votes for cash

The National reports (February 21^st): he March 7 election may be a critical event in the contest to decide Iraq’s future, but for some of the nation’s poor, the right to vote does not mean having a say in who leads the country; it means having something to sell to make desperately needed cash.

“Elections are a beautiful opportunity to get some money,” Ahmad Salam said. “There are lots of people willing to sell their votes, and lots of people who want to buy them.”

A mechanic by trade working in the impoverished Sadr City slum of north-eastern Baghdad, Mr Salam has taken on the role of an election agent with a difference. He collects votes and then offers them en masse to whichever party is prepared to make the highest bid, taking a commission for his efforts.

“I have 100 people who have given me their vote to sell,” he said outside the small garage where he is employed as a casual worker, earning a few dollars a day. “None of them cares who wins, none of them thinks it makes any difference, so they give me their vote, and I sell it.”

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100221/FOREIGN/702209896/1002%20al.ae

New human rights reports

The International Rescue Committee reports (February 17th): Seven years into the Iraq conflict, millions of Iraqi civilians remain uprooted and desperate, but ongoing strife and persecution, occupied and ruined homes and lack of vital services in their communities of origin preclude most from returning home safely, says the International Rescue Committee’s Commission on Iraqi Refugees.In its third report, “A Tough Road Home: Uprooted Iraqis in Jordan, Syria and Iraq,” the Commission says only a tiny fraction of Iraq’s displaced have returned home, in spite of reports that would suggest otherwise. For the vast majority of those who remain uprooted, the situation is precarious and growing worse, yet aid levels that were inadequate to begin with are dropping off.
The Commission found that most displaced Iraqis inside and outside Iraq are struggling to get by and continue to face overwhelming economic obstacles. They have largely exhausted savings they once had and are becoming more if not solely dependent on charity. Few are able to find stable sources of income. Many lack adequate shelter, food and other basic services. A large number suffer severe psychological distress over the loss of family, savings, livelihoods and property. In Iraq, government assistance is often out of reach because of chronic insecurity and bureaucratic red tape.

http://www.theirc.org/news/unable-return-home-safely-uprooted-iraqis-grow-destitute-and-desperate-6845

Meanwhile more medical evidence on abnormal leukaemia rates:
Nerve agents could be to blame for tripling of child leukaemia in Basra

The Times reports (February 19th): Rates of leukaemia in children around the Basra area of Southern Iraq have almost tripled in the last 15 years according to calculations by public health experts. Research published in the American Journal of Public Health documents 698 cases of leukaemia among children under the age of 15 in the period to 2007. There was a peak of 211 cases in 2006.
Rates increased from three to almost 8.5 cases of the disease per 100,000 children over the time period. This is more than double the rate of leukaemia in the European Union.
The researchers speculated that increased exposure to substances related to childhood leukaemia might be responsible. War-related nerve agents and pesticides, and the widespread use of depleted uranium munitions, might also be factors, they said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article7033011.ece

Latest news from IOF Newsletter No 140

More civilian deaths in a joint US-Iraq raid:

Governor wants apology and compensation from U.S. troops for killing 10 Iraqis
Azzaman reports (February 13th): The Governor of Missan has formally asked U.S. troops for an apology and compensation for the killing of 10 Iraqis in his province.
Mohammed al-Sudani described those killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation as “martyrs” and said the victims’ families should be both “morally and materially” compensated.
Sudani said the operation was illegal because “it took place without permission from the local authorities.”
http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news\2010-02-13\kurd.htm

Lots of cases pending against the British government:

Iraqis claiming abuse by British forces
AFP reports (February 5th): Lawyers for scores of Iraqis who claim they were abused by British soldiers called for a public inquiry into how the country's forces have treated detainees during the US-led war.
A law firm representing 66 Iraqis said claims that British troops mistreated prisoners during the Iraq conflict were so numerous and similar that defence officials must hold a single inquiry into Britain's detention policy. British soldiers are accused by the claimants of subjecting Iraqis to rape, sexual humiliation and torture.
"There are so many cases and so many have so much in common - similar allegations at similar facilities, often involving the same people," said lawyer Phil Shiner, from the firm Public Interest Lawyers.
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/iraqis-claiming-abuse-by-british-forces-20100205-ngvi.html

but rich pickings for some...


British firms vie for contracts in Iraq’s Basra
Azzaman reports (February 15th): The southern Iraqi Province of Basra has invited 25 British firms to persuade them to bid for contracts and invest in the impoverished region. The British business executives were led by Baroness Emma Nicholson.
http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news\2010-02-15\kurd.htm