How's it Going in Iraq?

We have help from 49, no make that 19, no make that 4, no make that *two* other countries in supplying troops for post war Iraq. This is ridiculous.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2085428/


Coalition of the Anonymous
Just which countries, exactly, are helping in Iraq?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Thursday, July 10, 2003, at 2:30 PM PT


Each day brings fresh evidence that the Bush administration is planning to keep American soldiers in Iraq for a long time—lots of soldiers, for several years—and that it's doing stunningly little to get other countries, from our supposedly vast "coalition," to chip in.


The case goes well beyond today's testimony by Gen. Tommy Franks, the outgoing head of U.S. Central Command, who told the House Armed Services Committee, "I anticipate we'll be involved in Iraq in the future. Whether that means two years or four years, I don't know." This was an only slightly more specific variation on his testimony Wednesday, before the Senate committee, that our troops would be in Iraq "for the foreseeable future." (He made this open-ended remark at the same hearing where Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, after repeated questioning on the subject, that the monthly cost of our stay there has risen from $2 billion to $3.9 billion, not counting reconstruction.)

The median number of Franks' two to four years—three years—is how long Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith said last Monday it would take to train the New Iraqi Army's first 40,000 troops, or just over one-quarter the number of U.S. troops currently in Iraq.

Rumsfeld has recently suggested the commitment might be longer still. At a Pentagon press conference on June 30, he recalled America's own spate of violence in its period of early independence and noted that, following the failed Articles of Confederation, "it took eight years before the Founders finally adopted our Constitution and inaugurated our first President." He added, "That history is worth remembering as we consider the difficulties that the Afghans and Iraqis face."

If that is now the measuring gauge, eight years is probably a conservative estimate. Unlike Saddam and Osama, Benedict Arnold wasn't roaming the countryside after the Revolutionary War. Shay's Rebellion, which Rumsfeld cited as an example of America's post-colonial chaos, was put down by a well-established militia and judiciary, the likes of which don't remotely exist in today's Iraq.

A prolonged occupation has been in the game plan since at least June 13, when, according to the trade journal Inside the Army, the Pentagon signed a $200 million contract with Kellogg Brown & Root—a subsidiary of (guess what) the Halliburton Corp.—to build barracks for 100,000 troops in Iraq, or, as the contract puts it, "the set-up and operation of all housing and logistics to sustain task force personnel." (The journal is available online only by subscription, but a summary of the article can be found here.)

In a disturbing, if unwitting, bit of symbolism, these barracks—which Halliburton has also constructed in Kosovo and Bosnia—are known as "SEAhuts," an abbreviation for "South East Asia huts," since they are similar to the quarters that were built for U.S. troops in Vietnam. (In a move that indicates that Halliburton employs some image-savvy executives, the name has recently been changed to "SWAhuts," for South West Asia.)

Gen. Franks said at yesterday's hearing that 19 countries have forces in Iraq, with another 19 preparing to send some and 11 discussing the possibility. But nobody is telling just which 19—much less 38, or 49—countries Franks is talking about. Consider this Hellerian conversation I had today with a Pentagon public-affairs spokesman:

ME: How many countries have, or soon will have, forces on the ground in Iraq?
PENTAGON: There's a dozen nations now, a dozen more very shortly, and a dozen more considering it.
ME: How many people does this add up to?
PENTAGON: You'll have to talk with the individual countries about that.
ME: Which countries are they?
PENTAGON: We can't go into that.
ME: How can I talk with the countries if you won't tell me who they are?
PENTAGON: Well, Britain, of course. Poland has publicized its involvement. But, as I'm sure you understand, this is a very discreet subject for many of the others.

Let's ignore for the moment that the spokesman's three dozen nations amount to a baker's dozen fewer than Franks' 49. (They also differ from Feith's remark on Monday, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, that 18 foreign nations have "military capabilities on the ground in Iraq" and over 41 have "made offers of military support.")

Let's also flit over the dubious merits of a coalition whose members do not want their participation known.

Let us focus instead on Franks' base number of nations, 19, an awfully suspicious number. Could these be the 19 nations of NATO? Rumsfeld said at yesterday's Senate hearings that NATO was assisting Poland with the division that it's sending to Iraq. On June 30, a NATO force-review conference did decide to aid Poland "in a variety of supporting roles," including "communications, logistics and movement." However, it would be very misleading to tag NATO, much less to count every member-nation in NATO, as a participant in this plan. NATO Secretary General George Robertson has emphasized, "We are not talking about a NATO presence in Iraq. We are talking purely and simply about NATO help to Poland."

Poland's plan is to send a multinational force of 7,000 personnel to patrol central Iraq, in an area between the U.S. and British zones. Warsaw is contributing 2,000 of this force. Other NATO nations will fill in the other 5,000 slots, on a negotiated bilateral basis. But which countries these are, and how many will come from each, has not been announced, and may not have yet been decided.

Whichever countries are involved, it also remains a mystery just what they will be doing. The example of Australia may provide some clues. The Bush and Blair administrations always cited Australia as a strong coalition partner during the war. However, on May 15, Australian Prime Minister John Howard told his country's Parliament, "Now that the major combat phase is over … we have begun to bring home our defence personnel. … The government has made clear all along that Australia would not be in a position to provide peacekeeping forces in Iraq. Our coalition partners clearly understood and accepted our position."

Even so, Howard noted that Australia would keep in the Iraqi theater a naval task group, an Army commando element ("for a brief period"), two PC-3 patrol planes, two C-130 transport planes, some air-traffic controllers, security for the Australian mission in Baghdad, and a team of experts hunting for weapons of mass destruction. Together, these elements add up to 1,200 personnel. Even though they are not for peacekeeping as the term is commonly understood—even though Howard has explicitly bowed out of the coalition—we can be sure that Bush and Rumsfeld will count them among the faceless total of those still in.

In any case, Rumsfeld seems firmly footed in his prewar mode of insistent unilateralism. During a break in yesterday's Senate Armed Services Committee hearings, a reporter asked him to clarify the administration's position on "reaching out to NATO to provide troops" for Iraq. Rummy's first response was to act as if that was outside his jurisdiction. "The Department of State has been the instrument through which the United States of America has been consulting with many, many dozens of nations and organizations around the world," he said. "They deal with NATO, they deal with the U.N., they have been doing it." He added:

I tend to be very precise when I answer a question and I don't answer what I don't know. Can I say precisely what the request was made—or requests, plural, made—by the United States of NATO? No. You may think it's something I ought to know, but I happen not to. That's life and that's a very honest answer.

There was also this typically rambunctious exchange:

QUESTION: Do you welcome the participation of France?
RUMSFELD: We would be happy to have them.
Q: Will you ask them?
R: I've answered that question four times this morning, Charles. Really. Isn't there a limit?
Q: On France?
R: You keep repeating yourself. I have said that we would be happy to have troops from a wide variety of countries, including France. How's that?
Q: OK.
R: Does that really nail it for you?
Q: It does.
R: Great! Let's hear it for him!

There! That's the attitude that'll get the allies onboard.

 

U.S. forces were seeing "increasing sophistication," including the use of mortars in attacks, there did not appear to be coordinated efforts under a command, Franks said. "It doesn't fit my own personal definition."

Franks: 10-25 Attacks a Day on U.S. Troops in Iraq
By Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. troops in Iraq face 10 to 25 attacks a day, partly because they are hunting for Baathists, "jihadists" and fighters crossing the border from Syria, Gen. Tommy Franks, who ran the war against Baghdad, said on Thursday.

Franks, who stepped down recently as head of U.S. Central Command and will soon retire, told the House Armed Services Committee that "on a given day, there will be somewhere between 10 and 25 violent incidents" in Iraq where 148,000 U.S. troops are located. He did not bend to Democratic attempts to label the current fighting conditions as guerrilla warfare, saying those types of operations would be supported by the people but that Iraqis did not support the violence. Also, while U.S. forces were seeing "increasing sophistication," including the use of mortars in attacks, there did not appear to be coordinated efforts under a command, Franks said. "It doesn't fit my own personal definition."

Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the senior Democrat on the panel, said if the current pattern were left unchecked, the United States may find itself "in the throes of guerrilla warfare for years."
Skelton added: "We cannot leave Iraq. This has to be a success. If it's not a success, the credibility of the United States of America as a leader in this free world will hit rock bottom. We cannot allow that."

Since May 1 when the United States declared major combat ended, 31 American troops have been killed in hostile action.
Franks divided Iraqis into two categories, saying the first group included "pro-coalition" Iraqis or those who were neutral and waiting to see if they would reap any economic benefits from the change in power in Baghdad. He said the second group included disenfranchised Baathists who supported former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and "jihadists," which he did not define but said included "terrorists."

"In my view, the population of the first group is factors larger than the population of the second group, which stirs up all the violence," Franks said. "We have our people every day not sitting in base camps, but rather out looking to find the Baathists, looking to find the jihadists, looking to find these people who cross the border from Syria and are hellbent on creating difficulty," he said. Asked later whether foreign fighters were infiltrating Iraq to attack U.S. forces, Franks told reporters, "It's very difficult to say right now." He added, "Our forces are on the lookout for them."

U.S. troops would probably remain in Iraq until a new government was elected, although the number of troops may be reduced next year, Franks said. "I anticipate that we will be involved in Iraq in the future. ... I don't know whether that means two years or four years," Franks said. He also said he believed the threat from Iraq's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs before the war had not been overstated.
"I'm very confident that we will find weapons or we will find evidence of it," he said.

 

Unfortunately, we've tied our hands with this occupation and can't do much if something legitmately threatening to national security happens in the next ten or so years. Guess we'll have to bring back the draft...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0711/p01s01-usmi.html

US force nears limit of its global stretch

A decision on deploying troops to Liberia may hinge on needs elsewhere as troop levels stay high in Iraq.

By Peter Grier and Faye Bowers | Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – So many United States troops are now deployed to so many different places around the world that the American military may be in danger of overextension.
Consider the state of the Army, the service most affected by the nation's foreign commitments. There are still upwards of 150,000 soldiers in Iraq, plus 10,000 in Afghanistan. Some 5,000 remain on peacekeeping duty in the Balkans.

Add in 25,000 GIs based in Korea, plus other foreign stations, and the deployed total is close to 250,000.

This global peacekeeping force must be generated from an active-duty Army of 480,000, plus 550,000 reserves. At the least, the strain may play havoc with training and leave. At the most, it could cause many tired and homesick personnel to leave the service.

On Wednesday, President Bush said workload concerns might limit any US peacekeeping mission in Liberia.

A final decision on any US involvement in that chaotic West African country has not yet been made, said Bush at a joint news conference with South African President Thabo Mbeki.

But the president noted that the Pentagon has already trained African peacekeepers from Nigeria, Senegal, and other countries. Thus any US deployment to Liberia might center on training and aid for African troops. "It's in our interest that we continue that strategy so that we don't ever get overextended," said Bush.

The main reason that some analysts both within and outside the military are worried about being stretched thin is obvious: the necessity of keeping large forces in Iraq.

The administration's prewar estimates held that a US occupation force could be whittled down to 50,000 in fairly short order. Iraq's indigenous bureaucracy would be able to handle security and administration swiftly, planners felt.

Then came the looting and insecurity of the war's immediate aftermath, plus continued resistance from remnants of the defeated Saddam Hussein regime.

At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of US troops in the Iraq war, said that the current force of 150,000 troops would have to remain in Iraq for the "foreseeable future."

This revelation was not startling. Still, some Senators complained that the administration has yet to think through its Iraq peacekeeping plans. "We are dangerously stretched thin in the Army and other services also," said Sen. Jack Reed (D) of Rhode Island.

A betrayal of expectations

That US forces would be stretched during a crisis such as the fight for Baghdad is no surprise, say analysts.

The problem is what comes after. Many US units overseas include reservists who have been uprooted from families and jobs for months. Half the active-duty Army is married, and has been similarly separated from home and hearth.

Even if brought back soon, many units might face another deployment to Iraq in 2004 or even 2005, if the security situation remains unsettled.

"We won't be able to maintain the level of professionalism we have [in the military] if men and women are kept away from their families for a long period of time," says Anthony Cordesman, an expert on the military at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Most of the people in the military today signed up under the assumption that deployments and combat would be the exception rather than the rule. When that is not the case, stresses accumulate. People leave service - and a few even lash out.

"When you look at patterns in groups that have been intensely deployed ... we have had increases in suicides and violent assaults," says retired Brig. Gen. John Reppert, a military strategist at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of government.

The search for solutions

Today's deployments likely mean that training for longer-term missions, such as the integration of new NATO nations' militaries into the common force, might also be neglected.

Solutions to strains in the force might include mobilization of "weekend warriors" that, up to this point, haven't been called on.

"One option to look at is mobilizing some of our many National Guard forces," says Marcus Corbin, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information.

The Pentagon could also lean more on the Marine Corps to supplement Army peacekeeping troops, and perhaps even apply to Congress for an increase in Army strength of 10,000 to 20,000 personnel. And of course, the US could also solicit troops from allies that opposed the Iraq war.

"It's a mystery to me why, apparently, we have not reached out to NATO and to the United Nations as institutions," said Sen. Carl Levin (D) of Michigan on Wednesday. "Their support could bring significant additional forces."

 

We are helping the Shiites keep women indoors. Where's Laura Bush when there's a real problem for women?

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/1996364


July 15, 2003, 9:46PM

Sexual assaults, abductions on rise in Iraq
New York Times
RESOURCES




BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Since the end of the war and the outbreak of anarchy on the capital's streets, women here have grown increasingly afraid of being abducted and raped. Rumors swirl, especially in a country where rape is so rarely reported.

The breakdown of the Iraqi government after the war makes any crime hard to quantify. But the incidence of rape and abduction in particular appears to have increased, according to discussions with physicians, law enforcement officials and families involved.

A new report by Human Rights Watch based on more than 70 interviews with law enforcement officials, victims and their families, medical personnel and members of the coalition authority found 25 credible reports of abduction and sexual violence since the war. Baghdadis believe there are far more, and fear is limiting women's role in the capital's economic, social and political life just as Iraq tries to rise from the ashes, the report notes.

For most Iraqi victims of abduction and rape, getting medical and police assistance is a humiliating process. Deeply traditional notions of honor foster a sense of shame so strong that many families offer no consolation or support for victims, only blame.

For 9-year-old Sanariya, the memory of being raped by a stranger seven weeks ago makes her grow feverish and have nightmares, her 28-year-old sister, Fatin, said. She cries, "Let me go!"

Sanariya's four brothers and parents beat her daily, Fatin said. The city morgue gets corpses of women who were murdered by their relatives in so-called honor killings after they returned from an abduction -- even, in some cases, when they had not been raped, said Nidal Hussein, a morgue nurse.

"For a woman's family, all this is worse than death," said Dr. Khulud Younis, a gynecologist at the Alwiyah Women's Hospital. "They will face shame. If a woman has a sister, her future will be gone. These women don't deserve to be treated like this."

Some police in Baghdad say there is little they can do to help. Their precinct houses were thoroughly looted after the war. Despite promises from the U.S. authorities, Baghdad police are still severely underequipped.

 

Check out this quote:

“People with all kinds of political beliefs come to see us — I like that, we welcome them all. ... It’s always wrong, never more so than when there are real lives at stake.... It’s not a Republican or Democrat question, it’s not a liberal or conservative question, it’s an American question.... protecting our democracy we ask our sons and daughters to die for.”

This was said by Bruce Springsteen onstage at his show last night (7/15) at the Meadowlands. I wonder if this means that Clear Channel will now take Springsteen's music off their playlists?

 

I can't figure out what he's trying to say. What's always wrong?

 

Oh, please...clearly he's talking about Dancing in the Dark...


Actually, it is a pretty confusing sentence...missing a primary predicate, as they say, but I think it can be infered that he means being partisan about decisions like whether or not to go to war.

 

You're right. They are much better off under the likes of Saddam.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8445-2003Jul17.html?nav=hptop_tb&nav=hptop_tb


Postwar Window Closing in Iraq, Study Says
More Funds, International Force Recommended to Improve Security Situation
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 18, 2003; Page A09


A team of outside experts dispatched by the Pentagon to assess security and reconstruction operations in Iraq reported yesterday that the window of opportunity for achieving postwar success is closing and requires immediate and dramatic action by U.S. military and civilian personnel.

The team concluded that the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in charge of reconstruction efforts is isolated and underfunded and recommended that U.S. officials move immediately to internationalize the daunting task of rebuilding Iraq, particularly in light of "rising anti-Americanism in parts of the country."

Amid escalating guerrilla attacks against U.S. forces and mounting criticism of the Bush administration by Democrats for poor postwar planning in Iraq, the report represents a comprehensive, independent assessment of conditions there, both in terms of security and reconstruction.

"The 'hearts and minds' of key segments of the Sunni and Shi'a communities are in play and can be won, but only if the Coalition Provisional Authority and new Iraqi authorities deliver in short order," the experts said in 10-page report to Pentagon officials, which they released at a news conference.

The report noted "significant progress" but said "the next 12 months will be decisive."

The team, organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, traveled to Iraq at Pentagon expense between June 27 and July 7. It was led by John Hamre, who served as deputy defense secretary in the Clinton administration and is now CSIS president.

Bryan G. Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said defense officials "agree with the assessment that there has been enormous progress in Iraq since the removal of [Saddam Hussein's] regime and that significant challenges lie ahead."

"We look forward to working through the report in a systematic fashion to determine how we might put into practice the elements and findings, as appropriate," Whitman said.

While measured in tone and focused on 32 separate recommendations for rapidly improving conditions in Iraq, the report represents, in many respects, a critical assessment of the Bush administration's postwar plan.

It implicitly faults the administration for failing to adequately involve the international community and the United Nations in reconstruction activities. "The scope of the challenges, the financial requirements, and rising anti-Americanism in parts of Iraq argue for a new coalition that includes countries and organizations beyond the original war fighting coalition," the report says.

The report also notes that the administration, by vesting virtually all reconstruction authority in the Pentagon, chose a new model for postwar management that cut out many agencies more experienced in the field and relied on the Defense Department's "relatively untested capacities."

The study does not weigh in on the much-debated question of whether the Pentagon lacked enough forces on the ground when the war ended to secure Iraq's cities, prevent looting and forcefully demonstrate that U.S. forces were in control.

But the experts singled out security as Iraq's primary problem and said "volatile" conditions must be dealt with over the next three months to prevent the window of opportunity for success from closing.

The U.S. military, despite the presence of 148,000 troops in Iraq, the report says, is not visible enough at the street level, particularly in Baghdad, and must reassess its force composition and tactics in response to a "steady deterioration in the security situation."

Frederick Barton, a team member and CSIS official, said that while there probably were not enough troops on the ground when the war ended in April, increasing the U.S. military force in the country now would be problematic, given growing resentment of its presence.

Thousands of forces guarding military bases and Iraqi installations, he said, should be redeployed to increase their visibility and augmented by private security contractors and Iraqi police. But the job of rooting out remnants of Saddam Hussein's Baath party now waging a guerrilla war, he said, must remain primarily with U.S. forces.

Barton said he now believes the Iraqi insurgency is more sophisticated than the military initially appreciated. "We came to the conclusion while we were there that thousands of [Baathist fighters] just don't go missing as an accident -- that it probably was a coordinated effort," Barton said. "It's really not hard to travel around the country, and it's not hard to [communicate by] word of mouth."

Another team member, Bathsheba Crocker, a former State Department attorney, said officials she met with in the southern city of Basra now believe the looting there was orchestrated by Hussein's regime. "This wasn't just the result of overexcitement or venting or whatever it was we thought it was at the beginning," she said. "The devastation is unbelievable."

Beyond security, the report says, the Coalition Provisional Authority, the agency in charge of reconstruction headed by L. Paul Bremer, must improve communications with the Iraqi people and decentralize its structure by opening 18 regional offices.

The authority will soon be in desperate need of funds and must be freed of bureaucratic restrictions so that it can rapidly commit money for essential improvements, the report says, particularly those related to the country's water and power systems.

Hamre, in a foreword to the report, wrote that "the enormity of this undertaking cannot be overstated; there are huge challenges ahead."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

 

Except we paid tax dollars to put them between gang rapists and the fundamentalist Shiites.


This has multiple sources, other newspapers back this up:

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s904673.htm

Rape and trafficking of women prevalent in post-war Iraq PRINT FRIENDLY EMAIL STORY
PM - Thursday, 17 July , 2003 18:30:00
Reporter: Nick Grimm
MARK COLVIN: Pity the women of Iraq.

Under Saddam Hussein's regime, rape was used, and officially sanctioned, as a weapon of torture and political repression. Now Saddam is gone, but the number of reported rapes appears to be rising.

It's not the security forces perpetrating it any more, but the post-war lawlessness, particularly in the capital, is bringing new problems, and they affect women especially badly.

A report from Human Rights Watch says many Iraqi women and girls have been forced to change the way they live, travelling with escorts and staying off the streets at night.

Rafael Epstein reports.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: As fighting waned in April, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, tried to play down fears about the lawlessness in Iraq, saying simply that freedom is untidy.

DONALD RUMSFELD: I picked up a newspaper today, and I couldn't believe it. I read eight headlines that talked about chaos, violence, unrest, and it just was Henny Penny, the sky is falling, I've never seen anything like it, and here is a country that's being liberated.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Sexual assault, rape and the reported trafficking of women are the new hidden crime, part of life for women in a liberated Iraq.

It is important to remember, rape was an instrument of state coercion under Saddam Hussein. And there was of course crime, including rape under the old regime. While comparisons are difficult, Human Rights Watch has been trying research the problem in Baghdad.

Middle East director Hanny Megally says the evidence leads him to believe it is worse than before the war.

HANNY MEGALLY: A girl who was, you know, on her way to school and was abducted, you know, off the streets, taken away by a gang, you know, raped for several days and then taken back and released to places where girls have been taken, and so far nobody knows what's happened to them.

A girl who was playing outside her house on the staircase at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, a few men approached her, knocked her on the head and carried her off in a van.

That's not to say this is happening on a large scale, but the fact that this type of thing is happening in a very conservative society, I think has spread fear amongst the rest of the people living in the capital.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The report from Human Rights Watch is based on over 70 interviews with police, victims and their families. The lack of order makes its impossible to gather statistics. But what is new, are reports that some women are abducted so they can be onsold, trafficked as sex slaves.

HANNY MEGALLY: I couldn't statistically tell you that it's a major upsurge. On the other hand, I think what we're seeing which is different, is abductions of women or girls in broad daylight, off the street, which is something that wasn't happening before the war.

Clearly, there's gangs who are going around the capital looking for girls that may be even abducted and then sold. There's trafficking taking place. And again, with a lack of law and order, it's coming much more to the fore.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: In a conservative society, the few victims who actually report the crime are sometimes dismissed and often ignored. Others are delivered to the morgue, killed by relatives for shaming their families. With state-sanctioned rape no longer a problem, women in Baghdad are taking precautions against the new threat.

HANNY MEGALLY: I think that's the major impact, that people are fearful, parents are fearful of sending their girls to school or to university, women are fearful of going out unless they really have to, particularly if we're talking, you know, in the evenings.

So in a sense, that fear is spreading and it's causing more anxiety, particularly because Coalition forces have not been able to bring back law and order in the capital.

MARK COLVIN: Hanny Megally, from Human Rights Watch, with Rafael Epstein.

 

Hey we blew up another Saddam statue today! Thats good, right?

 

It's a miracle! God has punished the wicked!

 

Hey we have had WMD scientists in custody for a long time. Apparently they cannot or will not reveal the location of any WMD so we're holding them until they can remember something. At this point I'm not sure why they just didn't ship them to Jordan or Egypt so they could torture them for us, unless they really don't have anything new to reveal...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,1002036,00.html


Iraq row over fate of seized scientists

Red Cross urges US to clarify status of three dozen prisoners held in unknown conditions near Baghdad

Jonathan Steele in Baghdad
Sunday July 20, 2003
The Observer

American efforts at finding top Iraqi scientists who can attest to Saddam Hussein hiding weapons of mass destruction have turned out to be as fruitless as the search for the weapons themselves.
The continued detention of leading Iraqi scientists and other officials by US forces is swiftly turning into a major human rights row.

Washington officials hoped that, with Saddam's removal, the people who had intimate knowledge of Iraq's secret arms industry would give a different story from the denials given while he still held sway.

But as pressure intensifies on President George Bush and Tony Blair to prove Iraq had WMD, the inability to produce a single scientist from the former regime to confirm the assertions about an alleged threat is becoming an embarrassment.

Helma al-Saadi, a German who cuts an elegant figure sitting in her Baghdad home, last saw her husband Amer more than three months ago. She has written two letters to Paul Bremer, Iraq's US administrator, but her pleas for a visit have been ignored and she has been given no official word of his whereabouts or condition.

Under Saddam, Iraqi wives all too often saw husbands taken to unknown detention centres and held indefinitely and without visiting rights. While secret detentions are not so frequent under US rule, the anxious wait is no less grim. 'I don't want to aggravate the Americans or make them feel provoked, but I've had no official notification of why he is being held or what charges he's facing,' Helma al-Saadi said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, with an internationally recognised mandate to inspect detention centres around the world, has been urging the US to clarify the status of the three dozen Iraqi scientists and officials it holds. The authorities have given no details of their whereabouts and, unlike Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay, the place where they are held has not been shown to journalists.

Some detainees are believed to be imprisoned in solitary cells or in swelteringly hot tents near the vast US base at Baghdad airport.

With a British PhD under his belt, Amer al-Saadi took training courses at British weapons factories before returning to Baghdad in the1970s and becoming one of Iraq's top military scientists. A Shia, he never joined the Sunni-led Baath Party and last met Saddam in 1995.

When the UN sent its inspectors back to Iraq last year, he was nominated by Saddam as main liaison.

A handsome, silver-haired man with fluent English, he appeared at press conferences in the weeks before the war, arguing, as he had with the UN inspection team, that Iraq had destroyed all its remaining WMDs after the 1991 Gulf War but acknowledging proper documentation had not been kept.

Al-Saadi was the first scientist to surrender to the US, on 12 April. 'He wanted to make himself available to the coalition forces for questioning and co-operation,' his wife said.

'He thought he would be interrogated for three hours, but it became three days, three weeks, and now more than three months.

'I am sure he is continuing to say what he always said, which is that the weapons were destroyed years ago,' she told The Observer. Many believe al-Saadi has not been released because it would be an admission that claims of a secret weapons programme amounted to nothing.

Others call it a 'vendetta by Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell' because al-Saadi had criticised them, describing the Secretary of State's testimony to the UN Security Council as a 'typical American show, full of stunts and special effects'.

Helma says their life under Saddam was always difficult despite a pleasant home and a good salary. Al-Saadi stopped travelling abroad in 1987 after three approaches by American and one by British intelligence to switch sides.

'This complicated his life, but he was always a patriot,' she said. The couple's three children live in Germany 'because he wanted a better life for them, in liberty and free of coercion'.

Al-Saadi became a national hero during the war with Iran for developing long-range missiles which turned the tide and forced a ceasefire in 1988. His scholarship to Britain came from the Iraqi Defence Ministry and he had been obliged to make his career in it on his return.

As acting Minister of Oil he played a large part in getting the country's power and electricity up and running again after the Gulf War, in contrast to the inefficiency of the US now, his wife said.

Around 30 other Iraqis in the 'pack of cards' are being held in similarly secret conditions. Like al-Saadi and the former Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, many were professionals with no connection to the torture machine of the Interior Ministry or the state security organisation.

 

Two more killed today, Sunday. It hardly qualifies as news, but.....
*************
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division were killed and one was injured in an ambush Sunday when their convoy came under rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire in northern Iraq (news - web sites), the U.S. military said.

more

 

Things continue to get worse for our troops in Iraq:

Commander: Troops in Iraq Powerless Against Bombs
By Michael Georgy

RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - The U.S. military commander of Iraq (news - web sites)'s biggest province said Thursday American troops were virtually powerless to stop escalating booby-trap and bomb attacks on their convoys.

"Frankly there is little that we can do as far as force protection," said Col. David Teeples, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in al-Anbar province, home to some of Iraq's most restive and anti-American cities.

Over the past two weeks, his forces have witnessed an escalation in attacks by improvised explosive devices -- TNT, plastic explosive and propane cylinders hooked to electrical wires triggered by remote control devices.

U.S. troops have responded by stepping up highway patrols in an effort to stop the bloodshed.

"Any piles of sand, bags, garbage, tires, anything that may be close to the road is going to be taken very cautiously," Teeples told Reuters in an interview in his command center in one of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s former palaces on the edge of Ramadi.

"It is going to be cleared with a bulldozer or there will be action by the convoy against those that may be close enough to command detonate that."

Guerrilla attacks have killed 52 U.S. troops since President Bush (news - web sites) declared major combat over on May 1. A number of the attacks have taken place in al-Anbar province.

U.S. military officials have blamed the violence on former Baath party members and guerrillas loyal to Saddam, who was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion on April 9.

Teeples said about 25 hardcore Baath party officials in the towns of Ramadi, Falluja and Habbaniya were financing attacks.


CONSTANT ATTACKS

Ramadi is hit nearly every night by mortar attacks and U.S. military convoys frequently come under fire from rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) by day.

"We have been attacked by subversive elements and I believe that these subversive elements are young males that can be paid a lot of money and receive weapons from former Baathists and former regime loyalists," Teeples said.

"It is inviting for them to set up an explosive device or to shoot an RPG at a coalition force because they are going to get paid a great deal of money for doing it."

Teeples said young men hard up for cash and pro-Saddam guerrillas with military training were behind the bloodshed.

"I think that there are some that are unemployed that are just not happy with their situation and they are told by subversive leaders that they can make some money and get rid of coalition forces at the same time," he said.

"I think there are also some Saddam Fedayeen, some people that are knowledgeable of weapons, knowledgeable of how to fire and how to set up explosives that are also being coerced by some of the regime loyalists that have money."

Teeples said that so far his troops had arrested more than 200 Iraqis suspected of attacking or planning attacks on U.S. soldiers. Earlier in the day, he offered a $500 reward for any shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons handed in by Iraqis, after unsuccessful attacks on U.S. aircraft.

"Eventually someday there is the hope that we will be able to fly civilian aircraft into Iraq. Since civilian aircraft do not have defense mechanisms we would like to get anti-aircraft shoulder-fired weapons off of the individuals who may have them," he said.