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VOICES
NEWSLETTER (February / March 2005)
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of the newsletter
Iraq's
election: whoever wins, the occupation continues
"Something
in return"
Torture order came
from the top
The 'Salvador option'
Hearts and minds
"Wiped off
the map"
Fallujah: a dead city
UK corporations
Resistance round-up
Hinzman update
Resources
Iraq's
election: whoever wins, the occupation continues
30 January will see the first nationwide election
in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, but whoever Iraqis vote
for – if they vote at all - the occupation is set to continue,
with all that that entails (see below). Fundamentally, this election
does not allow Iraqis to change the single most important political
fact in their lives: the military occupation of their country
by a foreign power.
$200bn and counting
Indeed, having already spent well over $100bn on the invasion
and occupation of Iraq (FT, 14 Jan) – and with
Bush expected to request a further $80bn in February (AFP,
4 Jan) – the US is not about to voluntarily withdraw before
it has achieved its objectives - most notably control over the
world’s second largest proven oil reserves.
a reassuring “presence”
Nor is the new government – expected to be dominated by
parties of the Shia majority - likely to be in a position to ask
US troops to leave any time soon. Like its predecessor, it will
be dependent upon the US military presence for its survival. Indeed,
as the FT reports, ‘US leverage rests upon awareness
among the Shia that their government is unlikely to survive a
civil war without continued US support’ (13 Jan) and the
main Shi’ite slate - expected to obtain a large proportion
of votes - was forced to announce its list ‘in the Convention
Centre in the Green Zone in Baghdad, protected by US soldiers’
(Independent on Sunday, 19 Dec).
According to the overall commander of US forces in Iraq
and Afghanistan, Gen John Abizaid, ‘A US-led multinational
force w[ill] have to remain for some time beyond [2005]…
to provide a back-up to Iraqi forces in case of dire emergency…
and provid[e] a reassuring “presence”’ (Telegraph,
8 Dec).
‘Red lines’
Iraq expert and Independent Middle East correspondent
Patrick Cockburn notes that the 30 January election is
‘n[ot]…likely to see a shift in authority from the
US to Iraqis’ (Independent on Sunday,
19 Dec).
The
poll will use a national system of proportional representation
to elect a 275-member legislative ‘National Assembly’.
However, Iraqis will not get a chance to vote for the new Government’s
executive – where whatever real power the new government
possesses will lie. Instead the Assembly will select a 3-person
Presidency Council, which will in turn select a Prime Minister
– a process over which the US is likely to be able to exert
a good deal of pressure.
On 19 Dec Reuters reported that Iraqi officials were
privately suggesting that the current US-appointed PM –
former CIA asset, Ayad Allawi – was ‘considered the
front runner’ for the Premiership in the new government.
A ‘senior official from a leading Shi’ite party’
was quoted as saying that, “There is simply no one else
on whom the assembly could reach consensus. Kurds would rather
deal with Allawi than an Islamist Shi’ite, so would Sunnis.
We also realise an Islamist Shi’ite prime minister is a
red line for the Americans.”
‘Palatable to Washington’
Washington undoubtedly has ‘red lines’ but they probably
have more to do with obedience than religion. Thus, while one
anonymous US official – identified as ‘an expert on
the Middle East’ – recently told the FT that
the US was “[n]ow … willing to countenance a limited
theocracy in Iraq” (3 Dec), ‘[a] US official
who declined to be named’ told Reuters that while ‘he
did not know of a deal to bring Allawi back … it was clear
any Iraqi prime minister would have to be palatable to Washington’
(Reuters, 19 Dec)
Among the other names ‘circulating in Washington as a likely
prime minister’ (FT, 3 Dec) is that of the current
Finance Minister Adel Abd al-Mahdi – a member of the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Al-Mahdi recently
announced that the current leadership were ‘looking at privatising
the Iraqi National Oil Company’ and rolling back the food
ration system – upon which many Iraqi families still depend
for their survival - in accord with its recent agreement with
the IMF (Inter Press Service, 23 Dec). Judging by this
recent performance Mr al-Mahdi sounds like the sort of Islamist
that Washington can do business with.
The vote
As we have seen, the nature of the new Government is to be constrained
by Washington’s ‘red lines’ and what the US
is willing to ‘countenance.’ Furthermore the new PM
– the most powerful position in the new government –
must be someone ‘palatable to Washington.’ Setting
these substantive issues to one side though, even a meaningful
vote at the purely formal level looks unlikely.
Thus the commander of US ground forces in Iraq, Lt Gen. Thomas
Metz, recently admitted that ‘security conditions in four
Iraqi provinces militated against holding elections’ (USAToday.com,
12 Jan). These four provinces include Baghdad, and between them
house as much as half of Iraq’s population. Furthermore,
because of security concerns, ‘[i]n many cases the names
of those who wish to hold public office are not actually available
and will be shown only on request inside the polling station on
election day’ (Times, 14 Jan).
Meanwhile, ‘most international experts assessing the fairness
of Iraq’s elections will monitor the vote from the safety
of neighbouring Jordan’ (AP, 24 Dec) and US forces
have launched 'the largest military operation in Iraq since the
2003 invasion ... fanning across the country to secure [sic] the
election ... flooding soldiers into areas where previously there
were no coalition troops' (Sunday Telegraph, 23 Jan)
Civil war?
Iraqis themselves are split over the election. Grand Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani - the most senior Shi’a religious figure
in Iraq, who commands enormous respect amongst Iraqi Shi’ites
- has issued a religious ruling requiring every man and woman
to vote, ‘elevat[ing] the duty to vote to the same level
as fasting during Ramadan and praying five times a day - among
the five most sacred obligations for observant Muslims’
(Los Angeles Times, 22 Nov). A Shia electrical engineer
from Baghdad told the Guardian that he would “vote even
if I die, because I know I will be considered as a martyr because
of [Sistani’s] edict” (20 Dec).
By contrast, an internal US State Department poll conducted in
December, found that only 32% of Iraqi Sunnis were “very
likely” to vote, with only 12% believing that the poll will
be “completely free and fair” and 88% saying that
they “w[ill] stay home if there are threats of violence
against polling stations” (AFP, 11 Jan). The Iraqi
Islamic Party, ‘one of the few influential groups to [have]
put forward a slate of Sunni candidates,’ is now calling
for a boycott (USAToday.com, 28 Dec) and ‘[i]nsurgents
have repeatedly threatened to disrupt the elections and…kill
electoral officials…post[ing] letters on the walls of Sunni
areas threatening to kill anyone participating in the voting process,
describing it as being illegitimate’ (Guardian,
20 Dec).
Sectarian attacks have also been conducted against the Shia, including
the murder of one of Sistani’s aides (NYT, 15 Jan).
If, as seems likely, Sunnis cannot – or will not –
vote, and end up grossly underrepresented in the Assembly (which
is supposed to draft a permanent constitution) the US occupation
could end up being transformed into a civil war: a nightmare option
for Iraqis, though not necessarily, one suspects, for the US.
ACTION
Voices has helped to organise a demo. on 30 Jan to coincide with
the election. See [INSERT LINK HERE]
"Something
in return"
Whilst the possibility of
Iranian interference in Iraq’s 30 January election has received
some press attention, the fact that ‘influential, US-financed
agencies …have their hands all over Iraq’s transitional
process, from the formation of political parties to monitoring
the January 30 nationwide polls and possibly conducting exit polls
that could be used to evaluate the fairness of ballot-casting,’
has received little or no coverage (The
New Standard, 13 Dec).
One such agency is the International Republican Institute (IRI),
part of a consortium that has received more than $80mn ‘to
provide technical and political assistance to the electoral process’
in the run up to the election. The IRI has been linked to both
the 2002 armed coup that briefly ousted Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez, and the violent January 2004 uprising against the democratically
elected Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide (Mother Jones,
Nov/Dec 2004).
“When you pay for something, you expect to get something
in return,” a State Department official told the Chicago
Tribune (1 Jan). He, of course, was referring to $20mn Iran
has allegedly channeled to pro-Iranian parties contesting the
30 Jan election, but the point is a good one.
Torture
order came from the top
US
government documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) have revealed: that ‘abuse and even torture
by US marines in Iraq was widespread’; that ‘a special
operations task force in Iraq sought to silence Defence Intelligence
Agency personnel who observed abusive interrogations’; that
‘Army Commanders may have interfered in military investigations
into the deaths of Iraqi detainees in American custody’;
and ‘[suggest] that President Bush issued an Executive Order
authorising the use of inhumane interrogation methods against
detainees in Iraq’ (ACLU press releases, 14, 7,
21 and 20 Dec resp.)
The documents
describe substantiated incidents of torture and abuse, including,
in one incident that took place in April 2004, the use of electric
shock torture. Another document reports a Navy Corpsman’s
description of how ‘Iraqis classified as Enemy Prisoners
of War (EPWs) would be taken to an empty swimming pool and handcuffed
and legcuffed with burlap bags placed over their heads. They would
then remain in the kneeling position for up to 24 hours awaiting
interrogation’ (ACLU press release, 14
Dec).
Burn marks and bruises
A 25 June 2004 memo. from the Director of the Defence Intelligence
Agency (DIA) to the Under Secretary of Defence for Intelligence,
Stephen Cambone, describes how two DIA interrogators assigned
to the clandestine US military task force TF 6-26, observed ‘prisoners
arriving at the Temporary Detention Facility in Baghdad with burn
marks on their backs. Some have bruises, and some complained of
kidney pain.’ One interrogator witnessed TF 6-26
officers ‘punch a prisoner in the face to the point that
the individual needed medical attention.’ ‘It [i]s
unclear when the abuse took place, but the interrogators reported
the incident on June 24,’ the day before the memo. was sent,
leading to speculation that these incidents might post-date the
Abu Ghraib scandal (Guardian, 9 Dec).
‘[A] fact-finding mission for Army Generals in December
2003 had warned that the same unit – then called
Task Force 121…was beating detainees and using a secret
facility to hide its interrogations. The task force, which is
still active in Iraq…is made up primarily of soldiers from
two Army “special mission units,” whose existence
is not officially acknowled-ged by the Pentagon’
and ‘[s]everal of its members…are under criminal investig-ation
for the deaths of two prisoners in their custody’ (Washington
Post, 8 Dec).
The Special Access Programme
According to Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh –
who broke the story of the Abu Ghraib torture photos last May
– Cambone played a key role in bringing the Special Access
Program (SAP) that ‘encouraged [the] physical coercion and
sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners’ to Abu Ghraib (Chain
of Command, p. 59, 47). The SAP had its origins in
a top-secret finding, signed by Bush in late 2001 or early 2002,
that created a ‘clandestine team of Special forces and others
who would … snatch - or assassinate if nec-essary - identified
“high value” Al Qaeda operatives anywhere in the world’
and which also set up ‘secret interrogation centers…in
allied countries where harsh treatments were meted out, uncon-strained
by legal limits or public disclosure’ – a
program ‘expanded…into the prisons of Iraq’
by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in August 2003 (Chain
of Command, p.16, 46).
According to Hersh the SAP - after being disbanded for a few days
- was ‘reconstituted’ mid-June 2004 with ‘[t]he
same rules of engagement’ (Chain of Command, p.65).
Presidential Order
Interestingly, documents obtained from the FBI refer to a ‘Presidential
Executive Order’ authorising the use of sleep deprivation,
stress positions, the use of military dogs and “sensory
deprivation through the use of hoods” and ‘appear
to describe an account…by an FBI agent who
had “observed numerous physical abuse incidents
of Iraqi civilian detainees,” including “strangulation,
beatings, [and] placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees
ear openings”’ (ACLU press release,
20 Dec).
Not just the US
Meanwhile three British soldiers have been put on trial for torturing
and sexually humiliating Iraqi civilians in May 2003 (Independent,
19 Jan). The three claim that they were following orders to “work
the prisoners hard” by a superior officer. 'A total of 36
individual armed forces personnel are now facing the courts, including
up to 20 for allegedly killing Iraqis' (Independent on Sunday,
23 Jan).
‘Beyond any doubt’
A 23 December Washington Post editorial observed that, ‘Since
the publication of photographs of abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib
prison in the spring the administration’s whitewashers -
led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld - have contended that
the crimes were carried out by a few low-ranking reservists, that
they were limited to the night shift during a few chaotic months
at Abu Ghraib in 2003, that they were unrelated to the interrogation
of prisoners and that no torture occurred at the Guantanamo Bay
prison where hundreds of terrorism suspects are held. The new
[ACLU] documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of
this cover story is false.’
ACTION
- Read the documents obtained by the ACLU on-line at www.aclu.org/torturefoia
- Get hold of Voices’ Justice for Iraq’s Detainees
action pack - available on-line [INSERT LINK HERE] - and take
part in the Christian Peacemaker Teams’ Adopt a Detainee
campaign (www.cpt.org)
- Invite Chris Kindy from the Christian Peacemaker Teams to speak
to your group during his tour in March (see here).
- Take part in the CAMPACC National Lobby for Human Rights and
Civil Liberties on 11-12 March (see here)
The 'Salvador option'
According
to Newsweek the Pentagon has been discussing a “Salvador
option” in Iraq: ‘send[ing] Special Forces teams to
advise, support, and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely
hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen,
to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathisers, even across
the border into Syria’ (8 Jan, emphasis added).
‘It remains unclear, however, whether this would be a policy
of assassination or so-called “snatch” operations,
in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation,’
the magazine reports. Ominously, the director of Iraq’s
National Intelligence Service, Muhammed al-Shahwani – a
former General in Saddam’s military – told Newsweek
that “The Sunni population is paying no price for the support
it is giving to the terrorists. From their point of view it is
cost-free. We have to change that equation.”
The name derives from the strategy whereby ‘the U.S. government,
in an inte-grated effort involving the C.I.A., the Pentagon, and
the State Department, backed the creation of military units [so-called
“death squads”] that targeted civilian activists’
in El Salvador during the 1980s, killing civilians by the thousand.
(DemocracyNow.org, 10 Jan).
According to Newsweek ‘Pentagon sources emphasize
there has been no decision yet to launch the Salvador option’
but Reuters reports that, in the so-called “triangle of
death” just south of Baghdad, ‘US forces … are
hitting back with a new weapon – ex-members of Saddam’s
special forces’ (27 Nov). According to the wire agency ‘US
raids to capture or kill insurgents [there] are now mounted almost
exclusively alongside commandos from the Ministry of Interior
and a SWAT team from the provincial capital Hilla’.
Hearts and minds
‘There is only one traffic
law in Ramadi these days: when the Americans approach, Iraqis
scatter,’ the Economist reports (1 Jan).
US soldiers tack bilingual notices on their rear bumpers reading:
“Keep 50m or deadly force will be applied.” “If
anything gets too close to us we fucking waste them,” one
marine lieutenant explained. “It’s kind of
a shame, because we’ve killed a lot of innocent people
… It gets to a point where you can’t wait to see guys
with guns, so you start shooting everybody … It gets to
a point where you don’t mind the bad stuff you do.”
‘Marines say they shoot at any Iraqi they see handling a
mobile phone near a bomb-blast,’ since mobiles can be used
as triggering devices.
‘Since September 1, when the battalion’s 800 men were
deployed to Ramadi, they have killed 400-500 people, according
to one of their officers…When fired upon, they retaliate
by blitzing whichever buildings they think the fire is coming
from.’
“It could be fatal”
‘American marines and GIs frequently display contempt for
Iraqis, civilian or official. Thus one 18-year-old Texan
solider in Mosul who, confronted by jeering schoolchildren, shot
canisters of buckshot at them from his grenade-launcher. “It’s
not good dude, it could be fatal, but you gotta do it,”’
he explained (Economist, 1 Jan). Meanwhile in Ramadi,
marines conducting house searches ‘[kick] in the doors of
houses at random, in order to scream, in English, at trembling
middle-aged women within: “Where’s your black mask?”
and “Bitch, where’s the gun?”’
At a training course in North Carolina marines are taught, using
role play, ‘to think like jihadists’ (Sunday Times,
12 Dec). A marine who had recently returned from a seven-month
posting in Iraq explained that the course had ‘helped [him]
to know how the enemy thinks and how sophisticated they are.”
Asked how he would deal with Iraqis if he were in charge
he replied, “I’d kill them all. They don’t know
what democracy is.”
"Wiped
off the map"
‘British
soldiers are preparing to seize back the rebel Iraqi town of Majar
al-Kabir’ which has been largely off limits since the killing
of 6 British policemen there last year (Sunday Telegraph,
12 Dec).
Majar al-Kabir was the scene of fierce fighting between insurgents
and British troops last May as well as accusations by local people
that British soldiers killed Iraqi prisoners and mutilated corpses
(see Voices #37).
Lt Col Ben Bathurst, who commands the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards
in Maysan province, told the paper that ‘British
military thinking … had changed in Iraq, moving closer to
the American concept of overwhelming force.’ “If
anything we’ve shifted more than the Americans,” he
explained. An Iraqi aide and translator to Bathurst, ‘privately
warned one hardliner who opposed British entry that he had no
option but to agree, or face Majar al-Kabir being “wiped
off the map”.’
£5 billion
Meanwhile ‘[t]he cost to the British taxpayer of
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has soared to almost £5
billion’ (Daily Telegraph, 2 Dec). Lib
Dem Treasury spokesperson Vincent Cable told the Independent that
Gordon Brown was ‘deliberately confusing the spending on
Iraq with the ongoing cost of the military operations in Afghanistan
and elsewhere to avoid the exact cost of the war on Iraq and its
aftermath becoming known’ (2 Dec). According to Cable Britain’s
operations in Iraq are currently costing ‘about £125mn
a month’ and will have cost £5bn by the end of 2005.
In December a cross-party group of MPs returned from Iraq ‘convinced
that British troops may have to be deployed there for
at least another 10 years’ (Independent,
22 Dec)
Fallujah:
a dead city
While more than 200,000
refugees from the city remain in exile, evidence has continued
to mount concerning the horrors of the November assault on Fallujah.
‘Thanksgiving massacre’
The original US codename for the November assault on Fallujah
– “Thanksgiving Massacre” (Telegraph,
24 Dec) – appears to have been prescient. Indeed, according
to the director of the city’s main hospital, Dr Rafa’ah
al-Iyssaue, ‘the hospital emergency team has recovered
more than 700 bodies from rubble where houses and shops once stood,
adding that more than 500 were women and children’
(UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, 5 Jan).
‘Two babies were found at their homes who are believed to
have died from malnu-trition, according to a special-ist at the
hospital.’ These numbers only cover 9 of the cities 27 neighbour-hoods.
Killing doctors & patients
Meanwhile The Nation reports ‘credible’ accounts ‘from
multiple sources’ that ‘US armed forces killed
scores of patients in an attack on a Fallujah health center
and have deprived civilians of health care, food and water’
(13 Dec). According to Dr Sami al-Jamaili, US warplanes dropped
3 bombs on the Central Health Centre clinic where he was working
at 5.30am on 9 November, killing 35 patients, including two girls
and three boys under the age of ten. Fifteen medics, four nurses
and five health support staff were also killed in the attack.
200,000 refugees
More than 200,000 Iraqis fled the November assault and, while
85,000 have returned to inspect the damage since the partial re-opening
of the city on 23 December, thus far only 8500 have elected to
stay (FT, 16 Jan). The reasons are not hard to discern:
‘Lakes of sewage in the streets. The smell of corpses inside
charred buildings. No water and electricity. Long waits and thorough
searches by US troops at checkpoints. Warnings to watch out for
land mines and booby traps. Occasional gunfire between troops
and insurgents’ (LA Times, 30 Dec).
An Iraqi doctor who accompanied some of the refugees back to the
city told the BBC that, “about 60% to 70%
of the buildings are completely crushed and damaged, and not ready
to inhabit at the moment. Of the 30% still left standing, I don’t
think there is a single one that has not been exposed to some
damage” (24 Dec).
The “model city”
‘US commanders and Iraqi leaders [had] declared their intention
to make Fallujah a “model city”’ (Boston
Globe, 5 Dec). Now, ‘[e]very resident is required to
carry a small card outlining new rules for the city,’ a
6pm curfew is in place and ‘[g]raffiti and public gatherings
are illegal. Cars and visitors are banned and [m]ales aged between
15 and 55 must carry special identification cards. US officials
have announced plans to use fingerprinting and retina scans to
prevent insurgents from returning’ (LA Times, 30
Dec). At one point the US even floated the idea of compelling
all males in Fallujah to join “work battalions” to
clear rubble in the devastated city (Boston Globe, 5
Dec).
Near-freezing temperatures
Meanwhile, many of the 200,000+ refugees who fled the city have
been struggling to find food, shelter and medical provision in
near-freezing temperatures. On 8 December the LA Times
reported on the plight of one such family, living in a 10-by-10-foot
canvas tent in a makeshift camp in Baghdad, ‘the only chair
… a red plastic child’s seat reserved for their oldest
son, 10, who has a disability that makes his arms and legs shake.
Two other children, ages 5 and 2, have physical and mental disabilities
that require their parents to constantly coddle them.’
The battle for Fallujah
It would be a mistake, however, to believe that Americans have
entirely forgotten Fallujah. Indeed, the Guardian reports
that Harrison Ford is to star in a new film from Universal Pictures
entitled ‘No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah’,
based on a not-yet-published “non-fiction” work by
former marine, Bing West (17 Dec). Ford will play General Jim
Mattis, who led the first marine assault on the city in April
2004 – though the film will cover both attacks.
‘The film promises to depict the story from the point of
view of US soldiers and politicians [and] it seems unlikely that
the plight of the Iraqis will figure too prominently in Hollywood’s
take on the subject,’ the Guardian notes. According
to West, ‘If America needs a hard job done, the
Marines will do it, and they won’t lose their humanity in
the process or any sleep over pulling the trigger. Yes, they are
“the world’s most lethal killing machine.” That’s
what America needs in battle’ (Slate.com,
12 Nov).
ACTION
- Write to Harrison Ford, c/o United Talent Agency,
9560 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 500, Beverly Hills, CA 90212, USA. Urge
him not to take part in a film glorifying US war crimes in Iraq.
For more info. and back-ground on the April and Nov assaults on
Fallujah see voices briefing Fallujah & Beyond (5
May 04) and JNV briefing Onslaught: the attack on Fallujah
(11 Nov).
-
Get hold of voices campaign postcard to Tony
Blair US/UK: Stop Killing Iraqis for your mailing, church group,
street stall etc… (above)
- Organise an event during the first week of April
to mark the 1st anniversary of the siege of Fallujah.
UK
corporations
British
oil companies BP and Royal Dutch / Shell ‘have both been
asked by Iraq’s oil ministry to help conduct technical studies
of two of the country’s biggest oil fields’ (FT,
15/16 Jan).
‘Both companies will be providing the ministry with advice,
analysis and training.’ Meanwhile a Turkish-British-Iraqi
consort-ium has been awarded a $136mn contract to develop the
Khurmala Dome, an exten-sion of the Kirkuk field (FT,
25/26 Dec). ‘Dynamic Processing Solutions [8-10 Combe Road,
Portishead, BS20 6BJ] will participate through an engineering
contract.’
In December Iraq’s finance minister announced that the Iraqi
Government was hoping to ‘pass a new law that will further
open Iraq’s huge oil reserves to foreign companies’
and would ‘reconsider deals signed between French and Russian
oil firms and [Saddam’s] regime’ (IPS, 23
Dec). “I think this is very promising to the American investors
and to American enterprises, certainly to oil companies,”
he explained.
ACTION
- Take part in the Week of Action Against the Corporate
Plunder of Iraq, 1-7 April (see INSERT LINK HERE)
- Organise a screening of The Oil Factor: Behind the
War on Terror (see below)
- Get hold of Platform’s excellent pamphlet
Beyond Oil: The oil curse and solutions for an oil free future.
Available from Voices.
- Get your local library to order a copies of Iraq
Inc: A profitable occupation and Blood and Oil: How America’s
Thirst for Petrol is Killing Us (see below)
Resistance
round-up
A sample of recent anti-war action:
6 Dec: A US Naval Petty Officer opposed to the
war, Pablo Paredes (23), refuses to board his ship as it deploys
for the Persian Gulf (see www.swiftsmart
veterans.com for more on his case)
14 Dec: the family of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi civilian
beaten to death by British military guards in September 2003,
finally wins the right to an “independent and effective”
inquiry into his death. Lawyers for the Defence Secretary, Geoff
Hoon, had argued against such a judgement. See www.publicinterest
lawyers.co.uk.
16 Dec: Four anti-war activists protest the ongoing
corporate invasion of Iraq by occupying the building housing Windrush
Communications [The Clergy House, Mark Street, EC2A 4ER] –
the company that organises the Iraq Procurement conferences (www.iraqprocurement.com).
Police remove them but there are plans afoot for a return visit
(see here)!
19
Dec: The Observer reports that ‘senior army commanders
have expressed fears that the increasingly vocal anti-Iraq war
movement is discouraging thousands of young men from considering
a career in the armed forces.’
22/23 Dec: Activists erect tents in Parliament
Square for a through-the-night demo. to protest the plight of
Fallujah’s refugees (see here).
28 Dec: 6 Christian peace activists dig graves
on the lawn outside the MoD and spray paint slogans onto the MoD
walls on ‘Holy Innocents Day,’ demanding an end to
the war.
13 Jan: Kevin Benderman (40), a mechanic with
nine years in the Army, refuses to return to Iraq and files for
CO status, stating that he became morally opposed to war after
seeing it firsthand during his first Iraq tour (AP, 13
Jan)
19 Jan: Lance Corporal George Solomou becomes
the first British solider to ‘urge mass refusal among the
ranks to serve in Iraq’ announcing that he “would
rather spend a year in prison than a minute in Iraq as part of
an illegal war” (Guardian, 19 Jan).
Hinzman
update
Jeremy
Hinzman (26), the first US soldier to apply for refugee status
in Canada since the invasion of Iraq (see Voices #36), had his
case heard in December.
Jimmy Massey, a staff sergeant who was in the Marines for 12 years
and served three months in Iraq, testified on Hinzman’s
behalf, telling the Refugee Board how his company had “deliberately
gunned down people who were civilians … I saw plenty of
Marines become psychopaths. They enjoyed the killing” (AP,
8 Dec). ‘Hinzman likely would have been forced to commit
atrocities that violated the Geneva Conventions if he went to
Iraq,’ Massey told the Board.
A decision in the case is expected in Feb and will set an important
precedent – either opening or closing a potential refuge
for other US soldiers. If his claim is rejected he may still be
able to lodge an appeal or file an application to stay on humanitarian
grounds.
Now is the moment to put pressure on the Canadian Government to
do the right thing!
ACTION
- Get hold of copies of Voices
FREE campaign postcard to the Canadian High Commissioner,
calling on the Canadian Govern-ment to ‘mak[e] provision
for US war objectors to have sanctuary in Canada’ –
and help to flood the Canadian embassy with them!
Resources
New
Books
- Iraq, Inc. – A Profitable Occupation
by
Pratap Chatterjee, Seven Stories Press, 2004. £7.99.
Based in part on materials that first appeared on CorpWatch’s
warprofiteers.com site, Iraq Inc. ‘takes us into the fast-spinning
revolving door between the government officials who attacked Iraq
and the corporations who have profited so handsomely from the
war. A powerful combination of investigative research and on-the-ground
reporting … essential for anyone who wants to know what
has really gone wrong in Iraq’ (Naomi Klein).
-
Blood and Oil: How America’s Thirst for Petrol is Killing
Us
by Michael
Klare, Hamish Hamilton, 2004. £12.99.
As Klare notes in his preface, while ‘politicians and pundits
regularly deny that there is a any connection between blood and
oil’ many of us know such claims are false, yet lack the
information to counter this spin . Blood and Oil helps to fill
this gap, explaining why the US ‘cannot remove [its] forces
from the Gulf as long as [it] remains committed to a strategy
of maximum petroleum extraction,’ as well as why this strategy
is ‘bound to lead to recurrent military involvement’
around the world. Essential reading.
Fallujah:
Shock and Awe edited by Ken Coates, Spokesman, 2004. £5.
A useful collection of articles, including Naomi Klein’s
Baghdad Year Zero, and an edited version of the Lancet survey
on excess mortality in Iraq since the invasion (see voices 38).
Get your library to order a copy!
New DVD
The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror
by Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brohy, 93 mins. Available from Voices
for £15 incl. p&p.
In their latest documentary, the makers of the popular Hidden
Wars of Desert Storm, examine the human cost of - and the
broader geo-strategic picture behind - the current “war
on terrorism”, using exclusive footage shot in Afghanistan
and Iraq, and interviews with a host of figures, ranging from
Noam Chomsky and Taliban author Ahmed Rashid, to the director
of the Project for a New American Century. The title is a bit
misleading since only a small proportion of the actual running
time is devoted to the politics of oil per se, with the remaining
material comprised of a useful account of the first 14 months
of the occupation of Iraq and a ½hr short on the invasion
of Afghanistan. Probably best screened in truncated form eg. as
an hour long doc. re. oil and Iraq.
Web-sites
Count the Casualties - www.countthecasualties.org.uk
Web-site of a new campaign – in the wake of the recent Lancet
study - demanding a ‘comprehensive, independent, peer-reviewed
inquiry into Iraqi casualties since the US/UK invasion in March
2003.’
Electronic
Iran – www.electroniciran.net
The web-site the Electronic Iraq folk hope they won’t
have to bring you. Currently includes a list of background articles
including Sy Hersh’s latest explosive New Yorker
piece, revealing that the Bush administration ‘has been
conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least
since last summer … [to identify] targets that could be
destroyed by precision strikes and short-term commando raids’
(17 Jan).
B52Two
– www.b52two.org.uk
In the early hours of 18 March 2003 two activists were arrested
trying to enter USAF Fairford to disarm the B-52s that would shortly
be bombing Iraq. Still awaiting trial, there next stop is an appeal
to the House of Lords. Order FREE copies of their excellent newsletter
– or request a speaker - on 01865 200 550.
Postcards
Voices is currently running two postcard campaigns: Stop the Killing
in Iraq (to Blair) - pictured above - and Support the troops:
give them asylum. Both cards available FREE from the office (though
donations welcome!). Ideal for stalls, mailings etc…
See here for images and texts.
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