VOICES NEWSLETTER (August/September 2004)

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The Occupation Continues
Meet the New Boss
Iraq's children: still paying the price for war and sanctions
Killing Civilians
Secret police return
Maintaining Control
Eyes on the Prize
Conscientious Objectors
Fairford Five
Detainees
Resources

plus protests update, resources list, details of forthcoming events, Voices actions...

The Occupation Continues

Mukaradeeb, wood engraving by Emily Johns - see Killing Civilians below

According to the US and Britain, on 28 June the occupation of Iraq ended and “full sovereignty” was handed over to an Iraqi Interim Government (IIG). In reality the IIG – a body chosen by the US and its proxies - is headed by a former CIA asset, its key ministries are riddled with US ‘advisers’ and - dependent upon US money and military power for its survival - it possesses no meaningful control over the 138,000 US military personnel that remain in Iraq. In other words, the occupation continues.

Meanwhile, ‘much of Iraq has fallen outside the control of America’s puppet government’, Robert Fisk reports (Independent on Sunday, 1 August).

Puppet?
Tony Blair hailed the naming of the IIG’s cabinet as a “historic day for Iraq”, ‘dismissing as “nonsense” suggestions a “puppet” Iraqi government was primed to take over on 30 June’ (BBC, 2 June). In reality the IIG ‘is dominated by [members of the old US-appointed Governing Council] in key political posts’ (Economist, 5 June) and the most important position, that of Prime Minster, went to Ayad Allawi, a ‘long-term protégé of the CIA and MI6 who has spent much of his life in exile’ (Observer, 30 May, for more on Allawi see p. 2). The crucial posts of defence and interior minister went, respectively, to former exiles Hazem Sha’alan and Falah al-Naqib, a ‘former deputy chief of staff under Saddam’ (AP, 1 June) - both of whom had been appointed provincial governors following the invasion (Reuters, 1 June).

Clearly no puppet then.

The ‘popular candidate’
The White House was quick to claim that Mr Allawi ‘had emerged as a ‘popular candidate’’ (Observer, 30 May) though the Financial Times notes that he ‘is the least popular of 17 prominent Iraqi political personalities monitored by the Iraqi Centre for Research and Studies’ (31 May), an Iraqi group ‘considered reliable enough for the
US-led Coalition Provisional Authority to have submitted questions to [them]’ (FT, 20 May). In fieldwork conducted in late April ‘nearly 40 per cent of Iraqis strongly opposed Mr Allawi’, beating even the despised Ahmed Chalabi (FT, 31 May).

‘The dictator of iraq’
So just how did Mr Allawi end up as Prime Minister of the new “fully sovereign” Iraqi Govermment?

Back in April the US and Britain were keen to present the UN – in the person of its envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi – as the driving force behind the selection of the Interim Government but as things transpired his choices were ‘overruled in humiliating circumstances’ (Guardian, 3 June) with those close to the UN envoy ‘say[ing] the choices, especially that of the prime minister … were essentially negotiated between the United States and the [US-appointed] Iraqi Governing Council’ (NYT, 2 June)

‘[A]fter first agreeing to the idea of a technocratic government, [the US] changed their minds. They accepted the complaints of their friends on the governing council that they could not all be shunted aside. The Americans were also afraid that genuine independents might call for a US troop pullout. So Washington dispatched Robert Blackwill, the national security council’s Iraq specialist, to Baghdad to work closely with the chief administrator, Paul Bremer, shortly before Mr Brahimi returned’ (Guardian, 3 June). According to Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at Warwick University, “First Blackwill watered down Brahimi’s plan. Then the governing council deliberately sabotaged it. The council undermined Brahimi and the US didn’t support him.”

George Bush later claimed that he had played “no role” in picking the new government (AFP, 2 June). However ‘in an undiplomatic flash of anger, [Brahami] told reporters: “I’m sure he doesn’t mind me saying that [US civilian administrator for Iraq Paul] Bremer is the dictator of Iraq. He has the money. He has the signature. Nothing happens without his agreement in this country”’ (Guardian, 3 June).

A “big mistake”
Having won this overwhelming ‘popular’ mandate from the US Government and 25 US-appointed Iraqis, Allawi lost no time in spelling out his vision for the future, telling the Sunday Telegraph of his plans ‘to recall four divisions of Saddam Hussein’s old army and create a rapid reaction force and anti-terrorism [sic] unit to deal with the country’s security crisis’ (30 May). A few days later he intimated that he would shortly be passing a new law ‘reinstating some former members of the Ba’ath party’ (Reuters, 5 June). According to Allawi, dissolving Saddam Hussein’s internal security forces had been a “big mistake.” “We have begun to rectify these mistakes,” he explained ominously.

Since the “handover” Allawi has announced the creation of a new domestic intelligence agency, the General Security Directorate, to ‘annihilate … terrorist groups’ (AFP, 15 July), imposed fresh restrictions on news reporting (see voices briefing As Long As We Win) and introduced a ‘National Safety Law’ that allows the IIG to ‘declare an emergency in any area of the country deemed under threat from terrorist attack’ (Daily Telegraph, 8 July). ‘Once declared, Iraqi forces will have powers to search houses and detain suspects without an arrest warrant in “extreme exigent circumstances.” The government can also monitor all mail and telephone conversa-tions, ban political groups and cancel street protests.’

The occupation continues
Unsurprisingly Allawi was also quick to call for foreign troops to remain in Iraq after the “handover.” Indeed, during the ceremony unveiling the new government in Baghdad, Allawi ‘went out of his way to stress Iraq’s need for US and foreign troops to protect itself [declaring,] “Iraq will need multinational forces to defeat its enemies … I call on the United States and Europe to protect Iraq.”’(AFP, 2 June). Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz later told the House Armed Services Committee that it was “entirely possible” that US troops ‘could be stationed in Iraq for years’ (Washington Post, 23 June).

On 8 June the UN Security Council passed a US/UK-drafted Resolution (1546) endorsing the “handover.” This ‘reaffirms the authorisation for the multinational force’ established by UN Resolution 1511 [1], declaring that this authorisation ‘shall expire’ once a constitutionally elected government is in place or ‘if requested by the Government of Iraq.’ Of course, no such request will be made, for, as ‘top US officials’ explained last December, ‘the new Iraqi government’s sovereignty [sic]…rest[s] on a foundation of US military force and money’ (LA Times, 28 Dec 2003).

‘A familiar ploy’
All of which sounds eerily familiar. During Britain’s first occupation of Iraq in the 1920s the ‘threat either to withdraw the British presence to Basra or to evacuate the country altogether, if British demands were not complied with’ became ‘a familiar ploy’ (Iraq Under British Occupation and Mandate, Peter Sluglett, p. 77) – though never, of course, one that needed to be followed through. For, as the British Colonial Secretary Leopold Amery explained in 1925, ‘[i]f the writ of [the British-installed Iraqi monarch] King Faisal runs effectively through his kingdom, it [wa]s entirely due to the British airplanes’ that had by then become the state’s main weapon of coercion (Inventing Iraq, Toby Dodge, Hurst, 2003, p. 131).

‘What sovereignty means’
UN Resolution 1546 did not grant the IIG veto power over the activities of US/UK forces in Iraq. Instead it merely states that the ‘security structures’ described in a pair of letters exchanged between the CPA and the Iraqi Interim Government which are appended to the resolution ‘will serve as the fora for the multinational force and Iraqi government to reach agreement on the full range of fundamental security and policy issues, including policy on sensitive offensive operations, and will ensure full partnership between Iraqi forces and the multinational force, through close coordination and consultation.’

Since the new resolution ‘does not stipulate what should happen if they fail to agree’ (Guardian, 9 June) the IIG has no real control over the 138,000 US forces that will continue to occupy Iraq after 30 June - save the option of slitting its own throat by asking them to leave. Less than three days after the “handover” the second most senior American officer in Iraq, Lieutenant General Thomas Metz, declared that the US would ‘risk launching high-profile military actions at targets in Iraq even if they go directly against the wishes of the new Iraqi Government’ (Guardian, 1 July).[2]

All of which should be of particular concern to Tony Blair, who on 25 May had dramatically declared that if there were a ‘political decision as to whether you go into a place like Fallujah in a particular way, that has to be done with the consent of the Iraqi government and the final political control remains with the Iraqi government. That’s what the transfer of sovereignty means’ (Independent, 26 May). In reality the IIG has no ‘final control’ - political or otherwise – and therefore no meaningful sovereignty.

Prisoners and contracts
And the restrictions on Iraq’s “sovereignty” don’t end there: the US continues to detain thousands of Iraqis prisoner (see p. 8); and under the terms of UN Resolution 1546 the IIG is obliged to honour existing contracts entered into - and follow a budget set - by the US, which ‘approved a flurry of spending commitments using Iraqi funds’ worth at least $2.5bn in the six weeks before the “handover” (FT, 28 June).

Hundreds of millions of dollars of Iraq’s oil revenues have been used, by the US, to ‘hire western military companies to secure strategic sites, such as the national broadcasting centre, and keep them, for the time being, out of Iraqi control [and] British security firms have won contracts that give them control of access to both Baghdad international Airport and the port of Um Qasr’ (Economist, 26 June). Furthermore the US ‘control[s] the bulk of Iraq’s capital budget’ (Economist, 24 April)

And then there are the 100 laws imposed by the US – which the IIG is forbidden to alter – and the scores of US advisers who remain at their posts as the ‘eyes and ears’ of the US “embassy” (see p. 6).

Back to the ‘20s
As one looks at today’s “sovereign” Iraq it is hard not to be struck by parallels with the country’s earlier period of British domination.

Thus, in 1932, when Iraq was first granted nominal independence by Britain, ‘the British presence was as visible as before, with most of the British advisers staying at their posts for the time being, a British military mission training the Iraqi army and the RAF retaining bases at Habbaniyya and Shu‘aiba. British-owned companies were as conspicuous as ever in all the major sectors of the economy and British influence over the king and his ministers remained strong’ (A History of Iraq by Charles Tripp, p.77).

Likewise, following WWI the British Government ‘naturally placed importance on establishing a friendly and co-operative Iraqi government which would be under its control’ (The role of the military in politics: a case study of Iraq to 1941, Mohammed Tarbush, p. 36). Rhetoric aside, this remains the driving imperative today.

Puppet or poodle?
Nonetheless the ‘puppet’ metaphor is perhaps not the best. Even in the ‘20s King Faisal and his Government were forced to contend with the ‘permanent problem … [that] they were vitally bound to Britain for their very existence, yet in order to appear credible within Iraq they had to appear to oppose all attempts at British control’ (Iraq under British occupation and mandate, Peter Sluglett, p.67, emphasis added). Thus one should expect conflicts between the US and the IIG – within limits.

In reality the IIG’s position is perhaps best described by George Kennan’s comments, in a 1939 report to the US State Department, on axis-dominated Slovakia: “In internal matters, it has exactly the same independence as a dog on a leash. As long as the dog trots quietly and cheerfully at his master’s side – and in the same direction – he is quite free. If he starts out on any tangents of his own, he feels the pull at once’ (quoted by Oxford professor of international relations Sir Adam Roberts, Guardian, 25 May 2004).

Looking forward
Earlier this year the New York Times reported that ‘Pentagon policy makers and military officers … [we]re worried that without a successful political process’ military operations such as the then-ongoing massacre in Fallujah would ‘have to be repeated in months to come’ (12 April). “[U]nless the political side keeps up, we’ll have to do it again after [the “handover”] and maybe in September and again next year and again and again,” a military officer told the paper.

Yet as long as the US continues its military occupation of Iraq the possibility of a ‘successful political process’ is a remote prospect to say the least. Furthermore, according to US military officials, ‘the guerillas … [now] have enough popular support among nationalist Iraqis angered by the presence of US troops that they cannot be militarily defeated’ (AP, 9 July).

Where next?
Where the next blow will fall is anybody’s guess: Baquba, Samara, Kut, Mahmoudiya, Hilla, Fallujah and Ramdai are all currently outside Government control (IoS, 1 August). On 21 July the Washington Post reported that ‘tens of thousands of people had fled Samarra’ in anticipation of a US assault on the city and US military officials told the paper that they were planning to mount a ‘joint operation with Iraqi security forces’ in which ‘U.S. forces would likely seize Samarra in a powerful assault [and] then have Iraqi National Guard or police officers patrol the city.’ To our knowledge the story went unreported in the British press.

The pressures on the US and British governments to try and maintain control over Iraq are enormous, with potentially trillions of dollars at stake (see p. 6). Social movements here and in the US that can raise the social costs of the occupation could act as a countervailing force. In their absence the prospects for Iraq and its people remain grim.

Endnotes
[1] 1511 actually left open the question of whether the existing occupation forces were part of the new ‘multinational force’ (MNF) it created but for the sake of comprehension, in what follows we shall adopt the US/UK fiction that they are one and the same.

[2] Perhaps unsurprisingly the IIG has thus far had few disagreements with the US over military matters. Thus, on 5 July, the US launched an airstrike on a house in Fallujah ‘[a]cting on intelligence provided by the new Iraqi government … killing at least eight people’ – ‘the fifth … US strike in a little more than two weeks’ (LA Times, 6 July). In June a senior Iraqi official had explained that it was ‘important that Mr Allawi showed that he was capable of ordering the killing of Iraqis’ (Telegraph, 21 June).

Meet the New Boss

‘I trust Dr Allawi’s restraint and respect for democracy and liberty’ (Ann Clwyd, “Special Envoy to the Prime Minister on Human Rights in Iraq”, Times, 31 July)

Who exactly is Iraq’s new Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi? A former Ba’athist, Allawi heads the Iraqi National Accord (INA), an “opposition” group ‘created in December 1990, on the initiative of Saudi Prince Turki ibn Faysal, with the support of the CIA, and Jordanian and British agencies’ and ‘largely made up of Ba‘thists and former military officers’ (Iraq’s major political groupings, www.middleeastreference.org.uk).

‘A true believer’
“Allawi helped Saddam get to power,” an American intelligence officer told Seymour Hersh. “He was an effective operator and a true believer” (New Yorker, 28 June).

The head of the INA’s political bureau ‘remembers working closely with Allawi laying the groundwork among students for the first Baath coup in 1963’ in which ‘an estimated 3,000 Communist Party members and opponents of the coup were executed’ and Allawi remained ‘a loyal and active party member’ through the second Baath coup in 1968 ‘during which [Saddam] Hussein personally led the purge[s] …using public executions and television show trials to cow the nation’ (Christian Science Monitor, 20 July). Allawi ‘has always believed that regime change should involve getting rid of indiv-iduals not institutions’, the FT’s Middle East Editor Roula Khalaf notes (3 July).

Allawi moved to London in 1971 where he was in charge of the European operations of the Baath Party’s intelligence agency, the Mukhabarat, until 1975 and - according to a ‘cabinet-level Middle East diplomat’ - was involved with a “hit team” that ‘sought out and killed Baath Party dissenters throughout Europe’ (New Yorker, 28 June). “If you’re asking me if Allawi has blood on his hands from his days in London, the answer is yes, he does,” former CIA officer Vincent Cannistraro told Hersh. Allegations have recently surfaced that Allawi personally executed six suspected insurgents at a police station in Baghdad just days before the 28 June “handover” (Sydney Morning Herald, 17 July).

‘Our kind of bully’
During the ‘90s, when the ‘[t]he CIA favoured Mr Allawi’s vision of a tight military coup, which would replace Mr Hussein with a pro-western autocrat, while preserving the existing order’ (FT, 30 June), the INA conducted a bombing campaign in Iraq which killed as many as 100 civilians (Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession, Patrick and Andrew Cockburn, p. 211-215). The INA also provided the “intelligence” – which it subsequently admitted had been a “crock of shit” – that formed the basis for the British Government’s infamous assertion that Iraq could deploy WMD within ‘45 minutes’ (Guardian, 27 January).

According to former CIA case officer Reuel Marc Gerecht “Two facts stand out about Allawi. One, he likes to think of himself as a man of ideas; and, two, his strongest virtue is that he’s a thug” (New Yorker, 28 June). That this may well be his ‘strongest virtue’ from the US perspective was confirmed by the anonymous State Department who told the the Economist that Allawi was “our kind of bully” (26 June).

Iraq's children: still paying the price for war and sanctions

The 6th August 2004 was the 14th anniversary of the imposition of comprehensive UN economic sanctions on Iraq – a policy once described by Save the Children as ‘a silent war against Iraq’s children’ (press release, 25 July 2000). Kept in place by the US and British governments these sanctions were the primary factor in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.

Today, despite more than 15 months of occupation and the almost limitless resources available to the US and Britain the legacy of sanctions – a devastated infrastructure and an impoverished population - is still killing and stunting Iraqi children:

- On 4 June AP reported that at Baghdad’s General Teaching Hospital for Children - where ‘[c]ockroaches roam hospital wards ... pools of urine in the corridors are not unusual [and] [t]here is an overpowering stench from toilets that overflow into the wards’ - ‘children die each week from diarrhea because of poor sanitation, shortages of medical equipment and poorly trained staff.’

- ‘A humanitarian crisis could erupt in [Basra] …[where people are] facing 50 degree…temperatures with less than half the supply of water required’ (acting special representative of the UN Secretary General, Ross Mountain, Reuters, 29 July). Senior doctors in Basra say conditions in the main hospitals are much worse than before the invasion. In June there was no running water for 3 weeks in the Al Jumhori Hospital – the second largest in Basra - badly hitting the operating theatres (personal correspondence with Voices, July 2004).

- The UN World Food Programme estimates that ‘around a third (27.6%) of all children (1-5 years old) in Iraq are chronically malnourished’ (13 July 2004). Chronic malnutrition can lead to lifelong physical and mental stunting.

Killing Civilians

'[T]he right hon. Gentleman talked about the murder of innocent civilians in Iraq. That point is occasionally presented as if the civilians who have died and who are dying in Iraq are somehow dying as a result of coalition action. We are not killing civilians in Iraq, terrorists are killing civilians in Iraq’ Tony Blair (Hansard, 14 July, Column 1442)

Amara, 9 May
‘Residents of Amara said a British helicopter fired on houses in the city’s Sadeq district, killing four civilians and destroying several houses. British officials denied using helicopters in the area. “There were helicopters circling the area, then they started firing,” said Subeih Hassan, standing in front of his demolished house. His brother was killed in the British attack. Also killed in nearby houses were a baby, a man in his 60s and a fourth man, according to residents’ (Guardian, 10 May)

Mukaradeeb, 19 May
In the early hours of 19 May the US military attacked the tiny village of Mukaradeeb near the Syrian border. By the time the sun rose the raid had claimed 42 lives, all civilians. According to the doctor at al-Qaim hospital the dead included 11 women and 14 children (Guardian, 25 May)

The victims had been attending a wedding but when the bombing started at 3am the party was long over.

“We went out of the house and the American soldiers started to shoot us. They were shooting low on the ground and targeting us one by one,” Haleema Shibab told the Guardian from her hospital bed. ‘[Shihab] ran with her youngest child in her arms and her two young boys, Ali and Hamza, close behind. As she crossed the fields a shell exploded close to her, fracturing her legs and knocking her to the ground. She lay there and a second round hit her on the right arm. By then her two boys lay dead. “I left them because they were dead,” she said. One, she saw, had been decapitated by a shell.’ “I fell into the mud and an American soldier came and kicked me. I pretended to be dead so he wouldn’t kill me. My youngest child was alive next to me.” (Guardian, 21 May). Mrs Shibab’s husband Mohammed and eldest son Rakat were also killed in the attack.

The US military admitted that it had attacked the village but claimed that it had targeted a “suspected foreign fighter safe house” during which it had come under “hostile fire.” ‘Major General James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division was scathing of those who suggested a wedding party had been hit. “How many people go to the middle of the desert ... to hold a wedding 80 miles (130km) from the nearest civilisation? These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let’s not be naive.”’ (Guardian, 21 May). Yet, Justin Huggler notes, ‘Iraqis replied that the victims of the attack were holding a wedding in the village where they had lived all their lives’ and Mattis had ‘no explanation for the dead women and children’ in video footage obtained by the al-Arabiya television network (Independent, 25 May). “I have not seen the pictures but bad things happen in wars. I don’t have to apologise for the conduct of my men,” Mattis said.

Later when new footage of the wedding party itself emerged ‘show[ing] an Iraqi musician playing an electric organ [who] is recognisable as one of the corpses shown in the footage of the burials’ a military spokesperson stated that ‘[i]t could be that there was a wedding.’ Earlier , the main US military spokesperson in Iraq, Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt had stated that “Bad people have parties too” (Independent, 25 May).

More than a month later the US military – despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary - was still claiming that Mukaradeeb was ‘a legitimate military target’ (AP, 1 July)

Fallujah, 19 June
‘An American F-16 jet fired missiles into a residential area in [Fallujah] … killing at least 22 members of one extended family … Dr Fadhil al-Baddrani said the entire family of Mohammed Hamadi, ... [a] farner, married with two wives, were killed. Among the dead were his wives and children.’ Local residents accused the US of ‘trying to inflict the maximum damage by firing two strikes – one first to attack and another to kill the rescuers’ (Guardian, 20 June).

Baghdad, 6 July
‘[A]n Iraqi motorist was shot dead by US troops … as he tried to overtake a military convoy, according to police and witnesses. He was shunted into a wall by a Humvee vehicle and shot three times at close range, one witness said. The victim lay in a pool of blood, his face covered with a blood-soaked cloth, as his distraught father vowed to join the insurgency against the foreign forces in Iraq. “God curse the Americans!” he shouted. Relatives at the scene said the victim had been due to get married Thursday. US soldiers also shot dead an Iraqi child and wounded another when the car their father was driving failed to stop at a checkpoint in the capital late Monday, the US military said’ (AFP, 6 July).

Secret Police Return

‘Secret policemen who helped Saddam Hussein spy on his people are being allowed to join the country’s revived intelligence service by the new Iraqi prime minister, Iyad Allawi’ (Sunday Times reports, 25 July) – continuing a trend identified in voices #33 and #34. ‘The resurrection of the Mukhabarat [ie. secret police] in two separate buildings in the American- protected Green Zone in Baghdad is well under way’ and ‘[h]undreds of junior to mid-level officers of the old regime have already reported for duty,’ the paper reports.

‘Sources in Baghdad say the word has gone out that former bosses of the once-dreaded Mukhabarat service are welcome to return to work as long as they are not wanted criminals or, as one intelligence official put it, ‘well-known torturers and mass killers’.’ Presumably less well-known torturers and mass killers - or those who killed, but only on a smaller scale – are still eligible …

Take action!
Copies of Voices campaign postcard Iraq’s new secret police? – protesting the rehiring of Saddam’s intelligence services - are available free on request from the office.

Maintaining Control

Prior to 28 June the US made sure to maintain its influence after the “handover”: appointing key officials; placing scores of advisers in Iraqi ministries; passing new laws; and training and equipping Iraq’s armed forces.

Powerful Levers
In May the Wall Street Journal reported that the US had been ‘quietly building institutions that w[ould] give [it] powerful levers for influencing nearly every important decision the interim government will make’ (13 May). ‘In a series of edicts issued earlier this spring, [the US] created new commissions that effectively take away virtually all of the powers once held by several ministries’ (WSJ, 13 May) and ‘110 to 160 American advisers will be layered through Iraq’s ministries, in some cases on contracts signed by the occupation, extending into the period after June 30’ (NYT, 2 June). ‘In many cases, these U.S. and Iraqi proxies will serve multiyear terms and have significant authority to run criminal investigations, award contracts, direct troops and subpoena citizens.’ US officials familiar with the plans told the WSJ that ‘the new Iraqi government w[ould] be … unable to make major decisions within specific ministries without tacit U.S. approval’ (WSJ, 13 May).

The US Embassy
The advisers will form the ‘eyes and ears of the American embassy’ (AFP, 16 June) – ‘one of America’s largest diplomatic missions ever assembled’ with 1,700 employees and an operating budget of $1.5bn for the next 18 months (New York Times, 16 May). The new US “ambassador”, John Negroponte, is notorious for his previous role as Ambassador to Honduras where he was ‘instrumental in assisting the Contras’ (Independent, 15 April) – the proxy army the US used to attack “soft targets” (ie. undefended civilians) in Nicaragua during the ‘80s – as well as helping to cover up the activities of Battalion 316, a Honduran ‘secret army unit trained and supported by the [CIA]’ which ‘kidnapped, tortured and killed’ hundreds of Honduran citizens (Baltimore Sun, 11 June 1995).

100 Laws
A second layer of control is provided by the 100 laws that the US imposed prior to 28 June. These range from the wholesale privatisation of Iraq’s non-oil industries to regulating traffic. The day before the “handover” the US passed a law granting ‘immunity from all Iraqi legal process[es]’ to the “multinational force” and to all foreign contractors ‘act[ing] … pursuant to the terms and conditions of a Contract.’

According to the Iraqi Interim Constitution – a March 2004 document drafted under close US-supervision and signed by the US-appointed Governing Council – the IIG cannot ‘rescind or amend’ any of these laws, though it may pass new laws of its own provided that they do not ‘[affect] Iraq’s destiny beyond the limited interim period.’ [1]

“You set up these things and they begin to develop a certain life and momentum on their own — and it’s harder to reverse course,” exiting US administrator Paul Bremer explained (Washington Post, 27 June).

Financial Pressure
Since the handover there has been some friction between the US and the IIG regarding these laws. Iraq’s communications minister ‘has already taken exception to [former US civilian administrator in Iraq Paul] Bremer’s Order 65’ - which transferred many of the ministry’s powers to US-appointed commissioners – stating that ‘the [Iraqi] government does not recognise [Mr Bremer’s decrees] as the law of the land’ (FT, 5 July).

Nonetheless ‘coalition officials insisted that Order 65 remained intact’ and – indicating how things work in “sovereign” Iraq - that the ‘coalition expects to be able to bring financial pressure to bear on the government.’ A coalition official warned that if the Iraqi authorities sought to erode the commissions’ powers, Iraq stood to forfeit funding and resources, including $25m of equipment earmarked for the [commission]. “If they do away with the [commission] ... I would suspect considerable US resources could be withheld,” he said.’

The Iraqi Army
Since the “handover” the US and Britain have continued to train and equip Iraq’s armed forces and police as part of its strategy of ‘Iraqification’, aimed at minimising “coalition” casualtie, putting an Iraqi face on the occupation, and building long-term ties with these crucial institutions of the Iraqi state. At the same time, however, the US has also been ‘struggling to check the ambitions of [Allawi’s] ministers to rebuild and re-arm Iraq’s forces’ (FT, 23 June).

“Iraq will have a lightly-armed standing army and no heavy field artillery,” Jacinta Caroll, director of defence policy for the now-defunct CPA told the FT: ‘If tanks and attack aircraft were needed, Iraq would have to rely on US-led forces, she said.’ ‘All but 20 percent of the defence ministry’s 2004 $1.5bn budget stems from US funds,’ Coalition officials told the FT, and ‘Iraq’s share is earmarked for the payment of salaries, not equipment.’ ‘Furthermore ‘[t]o curb Iraq’s access to heavy weapons, observers say the occupation authorities have signed a $259m contract with US company Anham Joint Venture to be sole supplier of arms to Iraq’s armed forces for the next two years.’ As Patrick Cockburn obsevers ‘[t]he US will allow Iraq to rearm, but only against its own people’ (Counterpunch, 25 July).

Footnotes
[1] There is one form of long-term agreement that the US is eager for the IIG to enter into – and which 1546 authorised - namely binding agreements on Iraq’s outstanding odious debts. It is feared that these may lock the country into an IMF structural adjustment programme, depriving Iraqis of their economic freedom, see www.jubileeiraq.org.

Eyes on the Prize
Though it appears to be widely believed within the anti-war movement that oil played a major role in last years invasion, few people outside the industry appreciate the potential for spectacular profits from Iraqi oil. The Global Policy Forum recently estimated that US and British oil companies stand to reap profits from Iraqi oil of anywhere between $600bn and $9 trillion over the next 50 years, even if Iraq’s oil production remains under national control provided only that Iraq enters into production sharing agreements that offer the companies favourable terms (www.globalpolicy.org, 28 Jan).

The stakes, it seems, are very high indeed.

FURTHER READING: Oil Companies in Iraq: A Century of Rivalry and War, November 2003. www.globalpolicy.org.

ACTION: voices is supporting a street theatre tour of corporate war profiteers (and would-be war profiteers) with offices in central London on 4 September starting at the Shell Centre (see back page).

Conscientious Objectors

A US soldier has been jailed for a year for refusing to return to fight in Iraq, while two US soldiers who unsuccessfully filed for Conscientious Objector (CO) status have fled to Canada and are seeking refugee status.

Camilo Mejia
On May 21, 2004 Sgt. Camilo Mejia (28) was sentenced to one year in prison for refusing to fight in Iraq – ‘the same sentence … handed out to Jeremy Sivits, the first soldier to stand trial for abuses at Abu Ghraib prison’ (Guardian, 12 June). Last year Camilo spent six months in combat in Iraq with the US Army where he witnessed the abuse of prisoners and the killing of civilians. During two weeks leave in October 2003 he decided that the war was illegal and immoral and went AWOL. In March 2004 he turned himself in and filed an application for CO status, which was denied. “By putting my weapon down, I chose to reassert myself as a human being,” he said. Amnesty International considers Camilo to be a prisoner of conscience and is calling for his immediate and unconditional release.

PLEASE WRITE:

- to David T. Johnson, Chargé d’Affaires ad interim at the US Embassy (24 Grosvenor Square, London, W1A 1AE); Major General William G. Webster, Jr, Commanding General, Fort Stewart 42 Wayne Place, Ft. Stewart, GA 31314, USA; and The Honorable Les Brownlee, Acting Secretary of the Army, 102 Army Pentagon, Room 3E588, Washington DC 20310-0102, USA. Urge that Camilo be released immediately and unconditionally, noting that Amnesty International considers him to be a prisoner of conscience. Explain that, though Camilo went AWOL he took reasonable steps to secure his release from military obligations through legal means, including applying for CO status, and should therefore not have been tried and imprisoned for “desertion”.

- letters of support to Pt. Camilo Mejia, Building 1490, Randolph Rd, Fort Sill, OK 73503, USA. Please cc these to Camilo’s mother so that she can make sure they are not being destroyed: Maritza Castillo, 201 178 Drive # 323, Miami, FL. 33160, USA.

For more info. see www.freecamilo.org.

Jeremy Hinzman & Brandon Hughey
On 2 January 2004 Jeremy Hinzman (25) crossed the Canadian border seeking asylum, along with his wife Nga Nguyen (32) and son Liam (2). Hinzman had enlisted in early 2001 but came to question the meaning of military life after attending Quaker meetings. He submitted his first application for CO status in August 2002, after which he spent several months washing dishes and cleaning floors in Afghanistan. He fled to Canada after ‘ma[king] a very unsoldierly vow to himself and his wife … that [he] would refuse to take part in any way’ in the invasion of Iraq. More info. at www.jeremyhinzman.net.

Brandon Hughey (18) joined the US army when he was 17 but his training soon set off alarm bells: “You have to pretend that you’re shooting at ‘ragheads’. Shoot as many ragheads as you can, they’d say. It was a shock to me,” he says (Guardian, 12 June).
He fled to Canada in March 2004 having ‘promised [him]self that under no circumstances would [he] … become complicit in the illegal occupation of Iraq.’ More info. at http://brandonhughey.org/

Hinzman and Hughey both face lengthy prison sentences if their applications for refugee status are denied.

PLEASE WRITE to the Candian High Commissioner to the UK, Mel Cappe (1 Grosvenor Square, London W1K 4AB); The Right Honourable Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada, Office of the Prime Minister, 80 Wellington Street, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A 0A2; and Hon. Judy Sgro, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Room 239, Confederation Bldg, House of Commons, Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6. Urge them to recognise Hinzman and Hughey’s right to asylum in Canada

AT EASE
Do you know a member of the Armed Forces with scruples about being involved with a particular war or with war in general? If so AT EASE - a free advice service for members of the Armed Forces and their families - is there to help.. It is free, completely confidential and completely independent (in particular it has no connection with the MoD). Contact AT EASE, 28 Commercial St, E1. atease@advisory.freeserve .co.uk. Tel. 0207 247 5164 (Sundays 5-7pm).

Fairford Five
The Court of Appeal has ruled that the five defendants currently awaiting trial for acts (or attempted acts) of disarmament at USAF Fairford in the run up to the invasion of Iraq cannot raise the question of the legal status of the war itself – on the basis that “British foreign policy … and the deployment of the armed forces were issues into which the courts would not enquire.”

A statement submitted by the prosecution and written by Sir Michael Hastings Jay, Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, claimed that were the court to “express opinions on questions of international law concerning the use of force by the United Kingdom and the United States…differ[ent] from those expressed by the Government”, it would be “prejudicial to the national interest” and could “undermine” the Iraqi Interim Government and governments that had sided with the US, “give comfort and encouragement to terrorist organisations”, and “increase the vulnerability of UK forces and personnel in Iraq.” The truth, it seems, can be a powerful force indeed …

Trial dates for the five have not yet been fixed. See www.b52two.org.uk for more info. and updates.

Detainees

Despite the so-called “handover” of sovereignty - and new revelations regarding torture in US-run detention facilities (see box) - the US continues to detain thousands of Iraqis and is planning to detain even more.

5000 Detainees
On the 19 July Agence France Presse reported that the US was holding 2600 Iraqis and 42 non-Iraqis at Camp Bucca near the Kuwaiti border, and a further 2400 at Abu Ghraib prison.’

‘Hundreds of Iraqi prisoners were held in Abu Ghraib prison for prolonged periods despite a lack of evidence that they posed a security threat to American forces, according to an [unpublished] Army report completed last [autumn]’ that leaked to the New York Times (30 May). Some were held for several months ‘for nothing more than expressing “displeasure or ill will” toward American occupying forces.’ According to a leaked February 2004 report by the Red Cross, military intelligence officers had told the organisation that “in their estimate between 70 percent and 90 percent of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake” (NYT, 30 May)

Overruling the Court
The detainees – some of whom have been held without trial for as long as 14 months - were all ‘recently issued charge sheets following pressure from the [Red Cross]’ (AFP, 19 July) but can expect little justice from the so-called Central Criminal Court to which their cases will be referred, ‘a hybrid legal institution, created by the American-led occupation, in which US lawyers prepare cases for Iraqi prosecutors to present to Iraqi judges, who were in turn chosen by the coalition’ (FT, 29 June).

Indeed, the day after the “handover” the FT reported how prisoner Iyad Akmush, 23, ‘learnt the limits of sovereignty yesterday when US prosecutors refused to uphold an Iraqi judge’s order acquitting him of attempted murder of coalition troops’, instead returning him to Abu Ghraib (FT, 29 June).

According to Michael Frank, the deputy special prosecutor for “Multinational Force-Iraq” (ie. the US-led occupying forces) - who oversaw Mr Akmush’s case dressed in military fatigues - it was necessary to override the court ‘because judges and prosecutors were reluctant to sentence Iraqis for attacking coalition forces.’ “Iraqis who have been detained as a security threat can still be detained until firstly the coalition leaves or secondly they are considered to be no longer a threat,” he said.

A second US prosecutor explained that, “We could have established our own military court and sentenced them the way we see fit. We didn’t want to do that. We wanted Iraqis to run the court” – but not, it seems to make decisions contrary to the desires of the US military.

The Future
‘[T]he medium-term prospects for a resolution to the prisoner issue look bleak’, AFP notes, with the US planning ‘to expand and transform Camp Bucca … into a long-term detention facility for the most serious offenders that would include those in Abu Ghraib’ (19 July).

The US is also looking to detain more Iraqis: in an annex to UN Resolution 1546 the US has “granted” itself the right to use “internment where this is necessary for imperative reasons of security” – a measure which Amnesty notes is ‘only provided for in Article 78 of the Fourth Geneva Convention dealing with occupation’, concluding that, ‘[n]o such powers can be exercised without the US also assuming full responsibility and accountability under the applicable law of occupation’ (AI, 28 June).

Still active
Meanwhile, according to the sources of Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh, the Special Access Programme (SAP) which ‘encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners’ is ‘still active’ (New Yorker, 24 May). A former intelligence official told Hersh that the role of Major General Geoffrey Miller – who was presented to the American public as the man who would ‘clean up the Iraqi prison system and instill respect for the Geneva Conventions’ after the Abu Ghraib prison abuse story broke – is to “save what he can…protect[ing] the program while limiting any loss of core capability.”

“Are we an independent country or not, why don’t you rescue us from this hell?” pleaded one prisoner at Camp Bucca during a visit by the Interim Government’s Human Rights Minister (AFP, 19 July).

The answer, of course, is no.

Take Action!

- Adopt a Detainee: The Christian Peacemaker Teams’ ‘Adopt a Detainee’ campaign ‘matches individual detainees with congregations, mosques, synagogues, or peace groups who organize their members to write two letters on the detainee’s behalf’ – one to an MP, the other to the new US embassy in Baghdad. The CPT is a project of the Brethren, Quaker and Mennonite Churches and has been working on the ground in Iraq since October 2002 (with a focus on detainees since June 2003). To join the ‘Adopt a Detainee’ campaign e-mail jrp@cpt.org or telephone 001-937-313-4458. See www.cpt.org/adopt/adopt_a_detainee.php for more details.

- Speaking Tour: in conjunction with CPT-UK, voices is hosting a UK tour by the co-ordinator of the CPT’s Iraq project, Peggy Gish (who is currently in Iraq). Peggy will be in the UK between 12-22 November and is eager to speak to as many different groups around the country as possible during her stay, provided only that they can cover her travel expenses. Contact voices if you would like to host a meeting: voices@voicesuk.org or 0845 458 2564.


Resources

NEW GROUPS

Iraq Occupation Focus (IOF)
www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk. New, mainly London-based, group campainging ‘to end the occupation of Iraq and provide practical solidarity for Iraqis.’ Is producing a series of fact sheets as well as a weekly e-newsletter (see below). It also holds open, monthly organising meetings and is planning an anti-occupation conference for November.

Child Victims of War
www.childvictimsofwar.org tel. 0208 567 4237. New group established by former voices delegate Joanne Baker to ‘rais[e] funds to build children’s rehabilitation centres in Iraq’ and ‘organis[e] the testing of Iraqi children for depleted uranium contamination.’ Currently fundraising to open and maintain an office in Baghdad, Child Victims of War is happy to speak to groups around the country as well as supply leaflets, posters and photographs.

NEW BOOKS

The Iraqi Predicament: People in the Quagmire of Power Politics by Tareq Y. Ismael, Jacqueline S. Ismael. £14.99. Pluto Press. Reviewed by Milan Rai.

Contrary to the impression given in the blurb on the back, this is not really an up-to-date assessment of Iraq’s role in world politics, or of the state of her people - there are only twenty or so scattered pages on the situation since March 2003. An academic attempt at wide coverage (Arab politics, postwar US foreign policy, 11 September, etc.), it ends (oddly) with the history of relations between Russia and Iraq. There’s a lot about sanctions, but almost nothing about the lived reality of the Iraqi people.

Hope Dies Last: Making a Difference in an Indifferent World by Studs Terkel. £14.99. Granta Books.

Studs Terkel’s latest collection of interviews is about hope: what it is; where it comes from; and how it can be instilled in others. Interviewees include labour, civil rights and peace activists (including the co-founder of voices us, Kathy Kelly) but also the pilot of the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and a man who spent 20 years on death-row for a crime he didn’t commit. As Terkel notes, ‘hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up.’ A book to inspire.

WEEKLY INFO. BULLETINS

For a long time now it has been difficult to keep on top of Iraq-related news.
Fortunately two high quality weekly info. e-bulletins now exist to help keep you up to speed.

Watching the Warmakers - produced by two seasoned Brighton activists, this weekly digest of media reports usually consists of about a dozen one or two paragraph excerpts from the current weeks must-read stories. Subscribe at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/handsoff_ newsbriefing or by emailing k.page53@ ntlworld.com and asking to be added to the list. A web-based archive will be available soon.

Iraq Occupation Focus Newsletter - an excellent mix of news briefs and info. re. upcoming actions and activities, produced by Iraq Occupation Focus (see above). Comes out roughly once every 1-2 weeks. Subscribe at http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/iraqfocus.

Both e-bulletins are attractively formatted for printing to double-sided A4, ideal for your local anti-war group, stall, mosque, union etc...

POSTCARDS & POSTERS

Voices has produced a new postcard End the Occupation. Other cards available are Iraq’s New Secret Police? (see page 3) and Iraqis maimed...Occupiers’ shame – demanding compensation for Iraqis injured in the invasion and occupation. All postcards can be obtained by contacting the office and are free (though donations are welcome). Ideal for stalls, mailings etc…

The front of the postcard - featuring Emily Johns’ distinctive artwork - is also available as a window poster in a variety of sizes (see front and back pages).

Essential websites

Future of Iraq Portal – www.justinalexander.net/iraq - still the best set of links to Iraq-related sites on the net!

Jubilee Iraq – www.jubileeiraq.org - The place to go for information and news on Iraq’s debts and reparation payments.

Democracy Now! The War and Peace Report – www.democracynow.org - The web-site of Pacifica radio’s amazing daily, independent, news programme. DN! continues to produce stellar coverage of the war and much else besides. Where else can you hear up-to-the-minute interviews with Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, Greg Palast, and Robert Fisk, as well as activists from around the US? Those with internet access can listen to the program on-line (shows dating back to 1997 are archived). Truly a news programme like no other.

Occupation Watch – www.occupation watch.org - a very useful web-site with an excellent archive of thematically categorised media articles about Iraq.

Informed Comment - www.juancole.com - Highly informative web-blog run by Iraq-expert and Professor of History at the University of Michigan, Juan Cole. For those with easy access to the internet a daily must-read.
new voices blog

For those of you with internet access voices will be experimenting with a new web-log, which we hope to update on (at least) a weekly basis. Check it out here.

ACTIVISTS' MEDIA TOOLKIT

Essential resource for all those involved in campaigning and activism - covering everything from writing press releases and being interviewed to selling pictures and video to the mainstream and how to start up your own alternative newsletter. Inclues a database of over 300 direct phone and fax numbers for national and regional media (print, TV, cable, satellite, radio and internet) and listings for trade press, magazines and alternative media of the world. Available from the office.