1) Who is the Iraqi Resistance, Anyway?
From Report from Baghdad Series
July, 2003
Web: http://www.actionla.org/Iraq/IraqReport/security.html

[To Read the Entire Report "Report from Baghdad" http://www.actionla.org/Iraq/IraqReport/intro.html]

On July 13th, under heavy U.S. military escort, there was a celebration of the formation of the 25-member Interim Iraqi Administrative Council. Most of its members are exiled Iraqis. This would include the members of the Iraqi National Congress in New York who were funded by the United States to run the post-Saddam regime, and who were airlifted by the U.S. to Baghdad for this occasion, as well as Iraqi Communist Party, and powerful Iraqi Shi'ite clerics from Iran, who are not viewed favorably by Americans.

The Council has promised to form a new permanent government, draft a new constitution and hold free elections soon. Yet U.S. administrator Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA - the highest authority in occupied Iraq - holds the ultimate power to approve or veto the Council's decisions. "This is a U.S. puppet regime," many Iraqis told me. Just a few hours after the ceremony, an Iraqi resistance ambush against the U.S. military resulted in one U.S. soldier dead and six wounded.

The catch-22 for the United States is that it is the one now blocking Iraqis from forming a new government. The U.S. wants to install a pro-western puppet regime, but it doesn't have any credibility in Iraq to survive, and it doesn't want a new Iraqi government that won't listen to Americans.

Many people believe if there were a government tomorrow in Iraq truly run by Iraqis, it would most likely be run by powerful Shi'ite Muslims from the south. The majority in Iraq, Shi'ites make up approximately 50 to 70 percent of the population. They are the de facto local government in southern Iraq since the war to replace Saddam's regime. They opposed Saddam (who is Sunni and persecuted Iraq's Shi'ite for decades), and welcomed his downfall by the U.S. invasion, but they are also against American occupation. They openly advocate that the future Iraqi government should be an Islamic government, and that America should leave as soon as possible.

Because of the importance of the Iraqi Shi'ite communities, they are represented in the Interim Council. The most powerful Iraqi Shi'ite leader, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, was exiled to Iran during Saddam's period, and formed an exiled group called the "Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq" to oppose Saddam's government. After the invasion and the regime's fall, he returned to his homeland where he enjoyed wide support from the Iraqi Shi'ite community. He was viewed as one of the most likely future Iraqi leaders, but was assassinated on August 29 in the bombing in Najaf, the most important Shi'ite city in Iraq.

Before al-Hakim's assassination, I interviewed Mohammad al-Haiddary, Imam of al-Khielany Mosque and the leader of Baghdad's Shi'ite community. Like al-Hakim, he was a member of the exiled group in Iran during Saddam's period. He recently returned to Baghdad with al-Hakim after the regime's fall. He said Iraqis don't want Americans to stay in their country. However, unlike the armed resistance, he claims the Shi'ite strategy consists of peace actions, "including diplomatic ways. Just like peaceful protests to demonstrate [our demands] using the national forces, to talk with the Americans and put pressure on them for a timetable for their leaving."

Although several Shi'ite religious leaders had openly called for an uprising against U.S. occupiers, leaders like al-Hakim and his exiled group refused armed revolt. Many Iraqi Sunnis called them cowards, but al-Haddary defends their strategy and blames the deadly attacks against Americans on Saddam's loyalists. "The Americans understand that Shi'ite leaders [only] do peace actions, and the attacks that have happened were not done by [Iraqi] Shi'ite nor Sunni, but by the Ba'athists, based on [certain] information. We have good relations with the Sunni; some of them are in the [Interim] Council, some of them are not, but none of them has declared a fight against America. And when I said Ba'athists, that means some are Sunni and some are Shi'ite."

His claims are only half true. While many people in Iraq, especially Iraqi Shi'ites, are against Saddam, and are even glad that the U.S. invaded Iraq to oust him, that does not mean that they support U.S. troops and occupation. On July 22, when U.S. troops killed Saddam's two feared sons, Udei and Qusay, in the northern city of Mosul, even hours before the U.S. commander in Iraq General Schanez's announcement, people in Baghdad already knew and were firing triumphant gunshots into the air to celebrate the news. U.S. President George Bush described it as "positive news" and "further assurance to the Iraqi people that the regime is gone and won't be back."

Qusay, Saddam's second son, was blamed for organizing what the U.S. calls the "die-hard" Saddam loyalists to attack U.S. troops after the invasion. Qusay was one of his father's most trusted lieutenants and was widely seen as his heir-apparent. "This is very important. This will contribute considerably to reducing attacks on coalition soldiers," says Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress in New York (one of those airlifted by the U.S. to Baghdad to become one of the Iraqi Interim Council members). However, the almost daily attacks against U.S. troops and the bombing that killed al-Hakim after Qusay's death have completely shattered America's and Chalabi's wishful thinking.

Despite American media claims, it's common knowledge in Iraq that most of Iraq's underground resistance forces are not the so-called "die-hard" Saddam supporters or foreign groups (such as al-Qaida). Rather, they are mainly organized by the local clans and religious clerics who have no connection to Saddam's inner circle. They are the ones who control local politics; even during Saddam's period, he needed to consult with them to get what he wanted.

One such example is Fallujah, a town 70 kilometers west of Baghdad, and the historical Sunni Muslim religious center. It's also become the center of the Iraqi resistance since the U.S. invasion. Many people believe if there's a call for uprising against Americans, it will be most likely come from places like Fallujah, so the opinions of people in this town can indicate the future of the Iraq resistance movement.

Abdul Al-Lah Al-Azez is from Saad bin Abiy Wakas Mosque in Fallujah. He is a famous Sunni leader in town and was one of the self-run city council members last June who negotiated a deal with U.S. troops after they occupied the city. He opposed Saddam, but is against American occupation as well because he said they can't accept the fact that Christian-based American troops invaded and occupied a Muslim country. He claims he doesn't know any resistance forces, but fully supports what they do and is looking for an armed uprising against the U.S. soon.

To understand whether or not Iraq can possibly organize to oust U.S. troops from their country in the future, I had a rare opportunity to interview the former Iraqi army Colonel al-Akid Jaf Sadk Hussin al-Shmary. He was an al-Istikhbarat (military intelligence officer) in the Iraqi 51st mechanics unit in the al-Basra area during the beginning of the U.S. invasion in mid-March. He was in charge of between four to five thousand soldiers, and 400 to 450 tanks and vehicles. He was based in the al-Zubayr area, the first defense line against U.S. troops from Kuwait. "We stayed in the Safwan, al-Rdga, al-Shemlia and al-Barjsia areas. And our job was to defend Al-Basrah and our base was in Al-Barjasia in al-Zubayr. There were 10 kilometers between us and the American forces," al-Shmary said.

Al-Shmary was angry the U.S. used brutal force against Iraqi military and civilians. He says when the U.S. began its invasion of Iraq on March 20, during the first few days of fighting, they lost 200 to 250 tanks in battle, and the Iraqis burned the rest of the tanks. "We lost around six or seven hundred soldiers and officers, and 1,000 or more became prisoners of war. [Since then], they have released most of the soldiers, but have still kept the high-ranking officers." He said after their defensive line was broken, they retreated to the city of al-Basra.

Al-Shmary blames their loss on traitors from Saddam's inner circle. He said they sold Iraq out to the U.S. They caused the quick defeat of the Iraqi army and lost Baghdad within few days. "The first one, General Maher Sufian al-Tikriti, he is Saddam's cousin and the general of Republican Guard, and Abdol Kareem Nufos al-Nada, he's also Saddam's cousin, and they're from Saddam's family, and we can see that Maher Sufian made a deal with the Americans. He sold the defense plan [to the Americans] for al-Basrah. When he was in al-Basrah, he took a copy of the plan from our base and I think he gave this to the Americans," he said. Asked if he knew where they are right now, al-Shmary answered, "Ask the Americans; they know where they are."

Regarding the Iraqi resistance against Americans, al-Shmary denied he has any connections, but said "I think they are from Islamic resistance, even from Fedayeen Saddam (Saddam's Men of Sacrifice). They went to the Islamic resistance and you can see that in al-Falluja. If the Iraqi army wants to do something, they will hurt the Americans a lot and I wish they would do something if the God wants that." Looking into his crystal ball, al-Shmary predicts future fighting in Iraq against Americans "will never be from the tank because we don't have them [anymore], but we could fight as street fighters, like what you saw in Baghdad, Falluja, Tikrit, Diyala, Mosul, and Diwaniyeh."

Asked why he came to me and did the interview, he says, "I don't care … for the death, the life will come to you. I showed something to the media, so if I will die, I will die once, and the Imam Ali said anyone in this life will taste the death. I wasn't afraid in battle. Do you want me to be afraid of some [U.S.] soldier who puts handcuffs on me?"

[To Read the Entire Report "Report from Baghdad" http://www.actionla.org/Iraq/IraqReport/intro.html]

Saddam Hussein spat at American soldiers moments after his capture and was
promptly punched by one of them, according to US government sources.

Time magazine, citing officials familiar with confidential accounts of
Saddam's capture, cast doubt yesterday on the Pentagon version, that a
defiant Saddam offered to negotiate, only to be told by one GI: "Regards
from President Bush."

That exchange is "apocryphal", an intelligence official told Time. The true
version involved Saddam spitting on his captors as they dragged him from his
"spider-hole" hiding place.

"A soldier promptly slugged the old tyrant," Time reported. Coalition
military spokesmen in Baghdad claimed no knowledge of the fateful punch.

Saddam's capture led to the arrest of hundreds of Iraqis, including some of
the leaders of the insurgency, Gen Richard Myers the chairman of the US
joint chiefs of staff said yesterday. He added that Saddam was not
co-operating with US interrogators.

. "The American Soldier" was named yesterday as Time magazine Person of the
Year.

DUBAI, Dec 15 (IPS) - The arrest of Saddam Hussein closes a long chapter, but poses new challenges for the coalition forces in their relations with Iraqi officials and people.

When L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq appeared before a press conference Sunday to speak his long-to-be-remembered words, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have him", even Iraqi journalists screamed in euphoria.

It was a historic breakthrough, but not the end of the Saddam story.

Coalition forces in Iraq and U.S. officials in Washington had long argued that closing the chapter on Saddam Hussein was necessary.

This was primarily for two reasons.

First, many U.S. military commanders believed that as long as Saddam was on the run he would at least psychologically contribute to the ongoing attacks on coalition forces.

Commander of the U.S. forces in Iraq Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told a recent press conference that one reason more Iraqis had not come forward to offer information on guerrilla leaders was the fear they would be punished by Saddam and his followers.

The second reason was that many Iraqis could not accept that a new page was turned Apr. 9 when Baghdad fell to the coalition forces.

"As long as Saddam has not been killed or arrested, there will remain a shadow for many Iraqis as to whether they can move on with their lives, whether they can start rebuilding their country and re-map their own lives," Intifahd Qanbar, spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress had told IPS in Baghdad in October.

The capture of Saddam Saturday is likely to solve at least the second problem.

But Gen. Sanchez says the arrest is not likely to end attacks against coalition forces.

It raises the question whether Saddam's arrest will embolden guerrillas into launching an all-out attack, and whether such an attack against much better equipped coalition forces can be sustained.

Aside from the military aspect, the coalition forces now face a political challenge: what to do with Saddam.

For months both coalition officials and members of the governing council have said Saddam would be tried in a special Iraqi human rights court.

But in their press conference in Baghdad Sunday, both Bremer and Gen. Sanchez refused to make commitments on Saddam's future.

Asked whether the former Iraqi leader would be turned over to Iraqi forces, the two U.S. officials said interrogation of Saddam will continue, and that other matters will be decided later.

Less than an hour later, members of the Iraqi governing council were saying something different.

"He will be provided a lawyer, the trial will be Iraqi and it will be a fair trial," said acting president of the governing council Adnan Pacheche.

That may be easier said than done, and coalition forces will likely be walking a tight rope.

Many Iraqis would want Saddam to be put on trial soon, but it is unlikely that his interrogators would let go of him in a hurry.

In a country where many are already complaining about the coalition forces' record card, choosing the right balance between providing a speedy trial and getting whatever information they need could prove difficult.

While Iraqis promise fair trial for Saddam and others in their custody, it is unlikely that Iraq's new and fledgling legal system can produce a human rights court competent enough to try Saddam.

The governing council signed a bill last week to set up a war crimes tribunal. But establishing a court to try Saddam will take time and money. (END/2003)

- $30bn goes to private military
- Fears over 'hired guns' policy
- British firms get big slice of contracts
- Deals in Baghdad, Kabul and Balkans

Private corporations have penetrated western warfare so deeply that they are now the second biggest contributor to coalition forces in Iraq after the Pentagon, a Guardian investigation has established.

While the official coalition figures list the British as the second largest contingent with around 9,900 troops, they are narrowly outnumbered by the 10,000 private military contractors now on the ground.

The investigation has also discovered that the proportion of contracted security personnel in the firing line is 10 times greater than during the first Gulf war. In 1991, for every private contractor, there were about 100 servicemen and women; now there are 10.

The private sector is so firmly embedded in combat, occupation and peacekeeping duties that the phenomenon may have reached the point of no return: the US military would struggle to wage war without it.

While reliable figures are difficult to come by and governmental accounting and monitoring of the contracts are notoriously shoddy, the US army estimates that of the $87bn (£50.2bn) earmarked this year for the broader Iraqi campaign, including central Asia and Afghanistan, one third of that, nearly $30bn, will be spent on contracts to private companies.

The myriad military and security companies thriving on this largesse are at the sharp end of a revolution in military affairs that is taking us into unknown territory - the partial privatisation of war.

"This is a trend that is growing and Iraq is the high point of the trend," said Peter Singer, a security analyst at Washington's Brookings Institution. "This is a sea change in the way we prosecute warfare. There are historical parallels, but we haven't seen them for 250 years."

When America launched its invasion in March, the battleships in the Gulf were manned by US navy personnel. But alongside them sat civilians from four companies operating some of the world's most sophisticated weapons systems.

When the unmanned Predator drones, the Global Hawks, and the B-2 stealth bombers went into action, their weapons systems, too, were operated and maintained by non-military personnel working for private companies.

The private sector is even more deeply involved in the war's aftermath. A US company has the lucrative contracts to train the new Iraqi army, another to recruit and train an Iraqi police force.

But this is a field in which British companies dominate, with nearly half of the dozen or so private firms in Iraq coming from the UK.

The big British player in Iraq is Global Risk International, based in Hampton, Middlesex. It is supplying hired Gurkhas, Fijian paramilitaries and, it is believed, ex-SAS veterans, to guard the Baghdad headquarters of Paul Bremer, the US overlord, according to analysts.

It is a trend that has been growing worldwide since the end of the cold war, a booming business which entails replacing soldiers wherever possible with highly paid civilians and hired guns not subject to standard military disciplinary procedures.

The biggest US military base built since Vietnam, Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, was constructed and continues to be serviced by private contractors. At Tuzla in northern Bosnia, headquarters for US peacekeepers, everything that can be farmed out to private businesses has been. The bill so far runs to more than $5bn. The contracts include those to the US company ITT, which supplies the armed guards, overwhelmingly US private citizens, at US installations.

In Israel, a US company supplies the security for American diplomats, a very risky business. In Colombia, a US company flies the planes destroying the coca plantations and the helicopter gunships protecting them, in what some would characterise as a small undeclared war.

In Kabul, a US company provides the bodyguards to try to save President Hamid Karzai from assassination, raising questions over whether they are combatants in a deepening conflict with emboldened Taliban insurgents.

And in the small town of Hadzici west of Sarajevo, a military compound houses the latest computer technology, the war games simulations challenging the Bosnian army's brightest young officers.

Crucial to transforming what was an improvised militia desperately fighting for survival into a modern army fit eventually to join Nato, the army computer centre was established by US officers who structured, trained, and armed the Bosnian military. The Americans accomplished a similar mission in Croatia and are carrying out the same job in Macedonia.

The input from the US military has been so important that the US experts can credibly claim to have tipped the military balance in a region ravaged by four wars in a decade. But the American officers, including several four-star generals, are retired, not serving. They work, at least directly, not for the US government, but for a private company, Military Professional Resources Inc.

"In the Balkans MPRI are playing an incredibly critical role. The balance of power in the region was altered by a private company. That's one measure of the sea change," said Mr Singer, the author of a recent book on the subject, Corporate Warriors.

The surge in the use of private companies should not be confused with the traditional use of mercenaries in armed conflicts. The use of mercenaries is outlawed by the Geneva conventions, but no one is accusing the Pentagon, while awarding more than 3,000 contracts to private companies over the past decade, of violating the laws of war.

The Pentagon will "pursue additional opportunities to outsource and privatise", the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, pledged last year and military analysts expect him to try to cut a further 200,000 jobs in the armed forces.

It is this kind of "downsizing" that has fed the growth of the military private sector.

Since the end of the cold war it is reckoned that six million servicemen have been thrown on to the employment market with little to peddle but their fighting and military skills. The US military is 60% the size of a decade ago, the Soviet collapse wrecked the colossal Red Army, the East German military melted away, the end of apartheid destroyed the white officer class in South Africa. The British armed forces, notes Mr Singer, are at their smallest since the Napoleonic wars.

The booming private sector has soaked up much of this manpower and expertise.

It also enables the Americans, in particular, to wage wars by proxy and without the kind of congressional and media oversight to which conventional deployments are subject.

From the level of the street or the trenches to the rarefied corridors of strategic analysis and policy-making, however, the problems surfacing are immense and complex.

One senior British officer complains that his driver was recently approached and offered a fortune to move to a "rather dodgy outfit". Ex-SAS veterans in Iraq can charge up to $1,000 a day.

"There's an explosion of these companies attracting our servicemen financially," said Rear Admiral Hugh Edleston, a Royal Navy officer who is just completing three years as chief military adviser to the international administration running Bosnia.

He said that outside agencies were sometimes better placed to provide training and resources. "But you should never mix serving military with security operations. You need to be absolutely clear on the division between the military and the paramilitary."

"If these things weren't privatised, uniformed men would have to do it and that draws down your strength," said another senior retired officer engaged in the private sector. But he warned: "There is a slight risk that things can get out of hand and these companies become small armies themselves."

And in Baghdad or Bogota, Kabul or Tuzla, there are armed company employees effectively licensed to kill. On the job, say guarding a peacekeepers' compound in Tuzla, the civilian employees are subject to the same rules of engagement as foreign troops.

But if an American GI draws and uses his weapon in an off-duty bar brawl, he will be subject to the US judicial military code. If an American guard employed by the US company ITT in Tuzla does the same, he answers to Bosnian law. By definition these companies are frequently operating in "failed states" where national law is notional. The risk is the employees can literally get away with murder.

Or lesser, but appalling crimes. Dyncorp, for example, a Pentagon favourite, has the contract worth tens of millions of dollars to train an Iraqi police force. It also won the contracts to train the Bosnian police and was implicated in a grim sex slavery scandal, with its employees accused of rape and the buying and selling of girls as young as 12. A number of employees were fired, but never prosecuted. The only court cases to result involved the two whistleblowers who exposed the episode and were sacked.

"Dyncorp should never have been awarded the Iraqi police contract," said Madeleine Rees, the chief UN human rights officer in Sarajevo.

Of the two court cases, one US police officer working for Dyncorp in Bosnia, Kathryn Bolkovac, won her suit for wrongful dismissal. The other involving a mechanic, Ben Johnston, was settled out of court. Mr Johnston's suit against Dyncorp charged that he "witnessed co-workers and supervisors literally buying and selling women for their own personal enjoyment, and employees would brag about the various ages and talents of the individual slaves they had purchased".

There are other formidable problems surfacing in what is uncharted territory - issues of loyalty, accountability, ideology, and national interest. By definition, a private military company is in Iraq or Bosnia not to pursue US, UN, or EU policy, but to make money.

The growing clout of the military services corporations raises questions about an insidious, longer-term impact on governments' planning, strategy and decision-taking.

Mr Singer argues that for the first time in the history of the modern nation state, governments are surrendering one of the essential and defining attributes of statehood, the state's monopoly on the legitimate use of force.

But for those on the receiving end, there seems scant alternative.

"I had some problems with some of the American generals," said Enes Becirbasic, a Bosnian military official who managed the Bosnian side of the MPRI projects to build and arm a Bosnian army. "It's a conflict of interest. I represent our national interest, but they're businessmen. I would have preferred direct cooperation with state organisations like Nato or the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. But we had no choice. We had to use MPRI."

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited

WASHINGTON, Dec 12 (IPS) - The George W. Bush administration's decision to exclude countries that opposed the U.S.-led war on Iraq from multi-billion-dollar reconstruction deals contradicts its position both on free trade and its self-described mission in Iraq, analysts here say.

U.S. allies like Canada, France and Germany, and its old foe Russia, will lose lucrative contracts because they opposed the U.S.-led war. The countries have objected, especially since the United States is simultaneously asking them to forgive Iraq's enormous foreign debts.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder challenged the move Thursday, saying "international law must apply here".

Washington defended the policy, first revealed in a memo by Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, as "appropriate and reasonable" since the U.S. is committing troops and taxpayers' money.

The directive signed by Wolfowitz states that "it is necessary for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States to limit competition for the prime contracts of these procurements to companies from the United States, Iraq, Coalition partners and force contributing nations".

The restrictions apply to 18.6 billion dollars in reconstruction contracts.

However, some analysts here say the move raises doubts about whether the reconstruction of Iraq is the administration's main goal at all.

"Wolfowitz's decree forces us all to ask the question again: are these reconstruction contracts for the benefit of Iraq, or are they political rewards, handed out to 'friends'?" said Rania Masri of the U.S.-based Institute for Southern Studies.

Masri said the decision shows that "transforming the Iraqi economy for foreign ownership and foreign plunder is the main goal".

Masri referred to the quick move to privatise the Iraqi economy. Weeks into the occupation, while the Iraqi infrastructure was still in ruins, the U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, removed all tariffs and trade restrictions. This devastated the Iraqi textile and poultry industries, she said.

Bremer has also imposed a 15 percent flat tax, and allowed 100 percent foreign ownership of almost all Iraqi industries, as well as the resulting removal of profits from the country.

Other experts say this is not what the United States, as the occupying power, should be doing.

"The reconstruction of Iraq should be for the benefit of Iraqis, not a reward for any corporations," said Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies. "Reconstruction funds from the U.S. should be used to build up the devastated Iraqi economy -- meaning that Iraqi firms and workers should be hired to rebuild the country, not U.S. or international firms."

William Hartung of the World Policy Institute said the decision could hurt both Iraqis and U.S. taxpayers.

"Keeping qualified French, German, Canadian and Russian firms out of the bidding on the next round of reconstruction contracts, worth 18.6 billion dollars, will make it that much harder to eliminate rampant price gouging by companies like Halliburton," he said.

On Friday, senior defence officials said a Pentagon audit found that Vice Pres. Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton, one of the administration's favoured corporate partners in Iraq, may have overcharged the U.S. Army by 1.09 dollars per gallon on a total of nearly 57 million gallons of gasoline that were delivered to Iraqi citizens under a no-bid contract.

The economic repercussions of the decision extend to other areas, analysts say. By excluding countries that have prior experience constructing Iraqi factories, electrical grids, hospitals and water pumping stations, Washington will likely end up rebuilding those facilities rather than simply repairing them -- a much more expensive endeavour.

The decision also strongly undermines U.S. rhetoric on free trade, according to Gayle Smith of the Washington-based Centre for American Progress. By ensuring that the Iraqi market is only accessible to Coalition members, the United States is restricting the space for Iraq's future trade ties, she said.

The White House decision has legitimised political interference in government procurement operations, setting the stage for future contracts to be subject to the whims of individual government agencies, Smith said.

"It has upended trade relations by using its status as occupying authority to monopolise a single market," she said. "And it has certainly lent credence to the view held by some that one of its aims is to secure the spoils of victory."

The exclusion policy even drew fire from some of the staunchest backers of the administration. Neo-conservative analysts William Kristol and Robert Kagan wrote in the right-wing Weekly Standard that the policy was "heavy-handed", "stupid" and "counter-productive".

One thing that almost all analysts agree on is that the decision will certainly hinder attempts to increase international involvement in Iraq.

"The Bush administration has poured another bucket of cold water on efforts to internationalise the stabilisation of Iraq," Smith said. "The Pentagon has increased the cost to Americans, weakened the traditional alliances America needs to defeat terrorism, and undermined Iraq's long-term future."

6) Lenders Saddle US Soldiers With Debt
By RUSS BYNUM, AP

FORT STEWART, Ga. (Dec. 16) - On Gen. Screven Way, the one-mile strip of fast-food joints and pawn shops leading to the front gate of Fort Stewart, getting a cash loan of $100 to $500 is about as easy as buying a cheeseburger.

Numerous strip-mall businesses bear names like Check Into CA$H ("Need Cash Today? It's Easy as 1-2-3"), First American Cash Advance, Gold Check C.S. Payday Advance, and PJ Cash ("Civilian and Military Welcome").
Fort Stewart has declared these so-called payday lenders enemies at its gate, accusing them of preying on U.S. troops with high-interest, short-term loans that plunge them deep into debt.

"It's like riding a merry-go-round - once you get on, it's hard to get off," said Frederick Sledge, an emergency relief officer at Fort Stewart whose office gives interest-free loans to soldiers in financial trouble.

Military bases across the nation have become magnets for payday lenders, which charge fees as high as $30 every two weeks per $100 borrowed - equal to a 720 percent annual interest rate.

Earlier this month, officials from Fort Stewart and Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base urged Georgia lawmakers to crack down on such loans, which are illegal under state law but thrive because of lax enforcement.

Lt. Col. Russ Putnam, a Fort Stewart lawyer, told legislators that stress over paying off payday loans hurts troop morale and the combat readiness of the post's 3rd Infantry Division, which led the assault on Baghdad. In extreme cases, soldiers saddled with debt must be discharged.

"When we lose those people because of payday check cashing, they're as good as dead to us. They are gone," Putnam told the lawmakers.

The Community Financial Services Association, which represents about 15,000 payday loan stores nationwide, denies its members are taking advantage of soldiers. In March, the association urged its lenders to suspend the collection of loan payments by troops sent to the war in Iraq.

The CFSA says that in any case, only about 2 percent of customers are active-duty military.

Jet Toney, a lobbyist for payday lenders in Georgia, said perhaps the military needs to focus more on educating troops about money instead of bashing payday lenders as predators.

"They're not preying on anybody - they're just open for business," Toney said. "It strikes me hard that the military protests so much when they have some responsibility on their end as well. How many 18-to-22-year-olds make perfect financial decisions?"

Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Jason Withrow, who works on a nuclear submarine at Kings Bay, took out a payday loan to make ends meet after being hurt in a car wreck. A back injury had forced him to drop his second job loading beer kegs at the Navy exchange. Withrow soon found himself taking out loans with other payday lenders to pay the interest on his initial advance.

"In five months I spent about $7,000 in interest and didn't even pay on the principal $1,900," said Withrow, 24, of Brooklyn, Mich. "I was having marital problems because of money and didn't know what to do for Christmas for my kid."

He finally asked his commanders for help. The base emergency relief office agreed to pay off Withrow's loans. Now he has a schedule to repay the money over 18 months, with commanders watching over his finances.

"I will never go back to these idiots," Withrow said of his lenders.

Other bases say they have had similar problems with troops sinking into payday debt.
The lenders "are targeting the post primarily because of the assurance they'll be paid," said Richard Bridges, spokesman for Fort Carson, the Army post in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Lenders know they will recoup their money because they can get the Army to help them collect. Soldiers who do not pay up can face a court-martial and loss of security clearance, and in some cases are kicked out of the Army.
At Fort Carson a few years ago, officials began requiring lenders who advertise in the post newspaper to list their interest rates, some of which were as high as 560 percent.

At Fort Bliss, Texas, officials at the Army Emergency Relief office estimate nearly a tenth of the 10,000 active-duty troops stationed there have needed financial counseling because of payday loans and other debt problems, such as high-interest rent-to-own plans and bounced checks.

Georgia law caps annual interest rates at 60 percent, but violations are a misdemeanor and rarely prosecuted.
Yvette Walters, the wife of a Fort Stewart soldier, took a different approach, filing a class-action suit against Heritage Bank after taking out cash advances at annual interest rates of 340 to 592 percent. The bank settled last year by agreeing to pay $1.9 million to more than 11,500 people, many of them military.

Associated Press writers Erin Gartner in Denver and Chris Roberts in El Paso, Texas, contributed to this story.

12/16/03 14:18 EST

"Two days ago there was a demonstration after school finished, against the
coalition and for Saddam. Yesterday the American army came and surrounded
the whole block. They just crashed into the school, 6, 7, 8 into every
classroom with their guns. They took the name of every student and matched
the names to the photos they got from the day before and then arrested the
students. They actually dragged them by their shirts onto the floor and
out of the class."

They wouldn't give their names. The children at Adnan Kheiralla Boys'
School in the Amiriya district of Baghdad were still scared, still
seething with rage. Another boy, Hakim Hamid Naji, was taken today. "They
were kicking him," one of the pupils said. A car pulled up and a tall,
thin boy ran into the school, talked briefly with staff and left again.
The kids said the soldiers had come looking for this boy too.

The headmaster, too, was reluctant to speak. No, he said, looking down at
the desk, there were no guns. But Ahmed, an English teacher, followed the
soldiers on the raid. "The translators had masks or scarves because maybe
they are from this area. They came and they chose several students and
they took them. The demonstration started after school on Tuesday. I
advised them not to do it because I am their teacher and the Americans
don't care. The children had pictures of Saddam Hussein from their text
books and that's all, so they demonstrated and just said we want Saddam
Hussein.

"There were no leaders, this wasn't an arranged demonstration. It comes
honestly, some of the students say, we love Saddam Hussein. Some of the
students say no, we hate Saddam Hussein. I told them, it's OK, let them
love him and let them hate him, we can all express our opinions. There are
no weapons, there is no bombing."

"The American soldiers came with tanks and stopped the demonstration and
the kids sat in front of the tanks. They took pictures of the students and
they had some spy maybe, I'm not sure, maybe students in the school. I
begged the soldiers to leave these students because they are naïve, they
just believe this is a civilian demonstration, but the soldiers were very
rude to the students and treated them like soldiers. They are kids, they
are teenagers, so I begged the officer, but he didn't care.

"I told them, just calm down, but they said no, they are not kids. In Abu
Ghraib we have 16 year olds shooting at us. I said yes, but these are in
school. They have books, not weapons. And they took pictures of us, what
is your name, stand here. I am not a criminal, I am a teacher. They took
pictures of most of the teachers.

"I told them you have to educate people about freedom, not punish them,
but they brought tanks and helicopters. Yesterday they surrounded the
school and came in with weapons everywhere, soldiers everywhere and used
tear gas on the students. They fired guns to scare them, above their
heads. One student got a broken arm because of the beating. They had some
sticks, electric sticks and they hit the students. Some of them were
vomiting, some of them were crying and they were very afraid."

All the other teachers and students who talked to us backed Ahmed's
version over the headmaster's: the soldiers were armed when they came into
the classrooms. One of the arrested boys decided he trusted Ahmed enough
to talk to the people that Ahmed told him were safe, as long as he wasn't
recorded and we promised not to identify him in any way. He wouldn't give
his name or age.

"The soldiers pointed at me and I was grabbed by about 8 of them and
dragged out by my clothes and my collar. They threw me on the ground and
searched me and cocked their guns on me. We were held in chicken cages,
about two metres by a metre and a half with criss cross wire. They were
swearing at us a lot. They didn't beat us but they accused us of having
relations with Saddam Hussein, asking who organized the demonstration,
telling us anyone who is against our American interests will be arrested.

"They offered us some food but more curses. They didn't inform our parents
at all. The headmaster came with three of the fathers. Most of us were
held between 7 and 10 hours but one student is not Iraqi and he was held
for much longer and they questioned him for two hours and made him stand
outside from 10pm till 2am in the freezing cold. The youngest was 14."

The school is named after a brother-in-law of Saddam's who was popular
with both Sunni and Shia people. For this he was killed by Saddam and,
when the statues of former regime figures were being destroyed after the
invasion, both of his monuments, in Baghdad and Basra, were protected by
local people. The pupils have painted over the sign at the school's
entrance, renaming it Saddam's School. The depiction of Saddam on TV in
American hands seems to have made him a heroic symbol even to many who
disliked him.

One of the boys told me, "Only 40 kids out of all of us were on the first
demonstration but after the raid, we will all go out on Saturday after
school and demonstrate against the occupation. They have turned us all
against the American soldiers. We don't care about their tanks, we don't
care about their machine guns, we don't care about their prisons any
more."

Outside the school, Rana asked me, "Did you see the bodies in Amiriya?
There were bodies in the street, Americans and Iraqis. They stopped an
ambulance, threw in 5 bodies and said go, just go. It is a war zone. They
don't want to give the bodies to the families. Even my neighbour, he was
killed by the Americans a few days ago and they didn't receive his body
yet. When they went to the hospital the doctors said you have to go to the
Americans, bring permission from them and we will give you your son's
body."

Wasef, one of the Iraq Indymedia members, was shot in the foot while
filming the demonstration in Amiriya yesterday. He's OK, still smiling,
doesn't know who fired the bullet that hit him.

In the Abu Ghraib hospital while I was visiting someone, there was a
noise, something more than a groan but weaker than a shout, broken by
short in-breaths, aah, aah, aah: a man with a gunshot wound, a crowd of
men trying to lift him from the trolley to the bed. Outside was exploding
at frequent intervals. In the doorway they were loading a coffin onto a
pick up. A woman with a full pregnant belly told us her two children were
playing in the garden when a rocket landed in the flower bed. Another one
landed in the street outside.

The petrol queues are now about 2-3km long, two cars wide in places.
Billboards and leaflets declare the new penalty of 3 to 10 years in jail
-- yes, it does say years -- for buying or selling black market petrol.
They, like the posters advertising rewards for information, are plastered
with paint, red or black.

I have to apologise to Hamsa and Khalid -- I misunderstood. Hamsa said,
"Now you are in handcuffs, the bastards," not "you bastard" about Saddam
-- a small but significant linguistic cock-up on my part, and Khalid said
they will make him crawl over nails not that they should. I'm sorry.

See also:

Secondary School under Siege by US Forces, Dahr Jamail, Electronic Iraq
(18 December 2003) http://electroniciraq.net/news/1271.shtml

Jo Wilding is based in Baghdad and wrote for Electronic Iraq during the war.

8) Cluster Bombs, Air Strikes Killed Hundreds - HRW
Jim Lobe
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=21511

WASHINGTON, Dec 12 (IPS) - Hundreds of civilians were killed by Coalition cluster bombs and air strikes designed to "decapitate" the Iraqi leadership, according to a new report by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), which said the high cost in civilian casualties caused by the two tactics may have violated the laws of war.

The report, which found that U.S.-led Coalition forces in Iraq generally tried to comply with international humanitarian law, nonetheless concluded that U.S. ground forces were too eager to use cluster munitions in populated areas, and that 50 "decapitation" attacks failed to hit a single one of their targets, but caused dozens of civilian deaths and injuries.

"Coalition forces generally tried to avoid killing Iraqis who weren't taking part in combat," said Kenneth Roth, HRW's executive director. "But the deaths of hundreds of civilians could have been prevented."

The 147-page report, 'Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq,' also details numerous violations of international humanitarian law by Iraqi forces, including their use of human shields, the abuse of Red Cross and Red Crescent emblems, the use of anti-personnel landmines, and the deployment of weapons and other military equipment in mosques, hospitals and archaeological and cultural sites.

In many cases, the Iraqi military failed to take adequate precautions to protect civilians from military operations, and its practice of donning civilian clothes necessarily put other civilians at risk.

International humanitarian law does not outlaw all civilian casualties in wartime, but it requires armed forces to take all feasible precautions for avoiding harm to civilians. It also requires them to refrain from attacks that are indiscriminate or where the anticipated harm to civilians exceeds the possible military gain.

The report is based primarily on the research of three experts who conducted battle damage assessments (BDA) missions to the main areas of fighting in the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys where civilian deaths had been reported and other sites where cluster bombs were used, as well as hospital and U.S. military records the delegation was able to obtain. HRW has previously conducted BDA missions to Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.

At each of the sites, the team studied the ballistic evidence and interviewed Coalition soldiers, residents, and victims for their accounts of what took place. Because Iraqi soldiers dispersed during the war, however, HRW said it proved virtually impossible to find any who took part in specific battles.

The team did not try to estimate the total number of civilian deaths that resulted from hostilities during the war. The Associated Press (AP) estimated after canvassing 60 of Iraq's 124 hospitals immediately after the war that well over 3,420 civilians were killed, while the Los Angeles Times concluded that at least 1,700 civilians were killed and more than 8,000 injured in Baghdad after it surveyed 27 hospitals there.

London-based Medact, the British affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, concluded in a study released last month that a total of between 5,700 and 7,356 civilians were killed between Mar. 20 and May 1 as a result of hostilities. AP also reported Wednesday that an effort by the Iraqi health ministry to count the total number of casualties was suspended this week, allegedly on orders from the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).

The report concluded that the use of cluster weapons, particularly by U.S. and British ground forces, caused more civilian casualties than any other factor in the Coalition's military campaign in March and April. U.S. and British forces together used almost 13,000 cluster munitions, containing a total of nearly two million submunitions, or bomblets, that killed or wounded more than 1,000 civilians.

Most of the civilian casualties resulting from the air war occurred during a total of 50 U.S. attacks that targeted the Iraqi leadership, including two high-profile attacks against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein himself, one of which killed 18 civilians and destroyed three homes in the Mansur neighborhood of Baghdad.

HRW found that the military's "decapitation" strategy relied almost exclusively on intercepts of satellite phones backed up by "inadequate" corroborating intelligence. Thuraya satellite phones used by the leadership provide geo-coordinates that are accurate to within only a 100-metre radius, and thus U.S. intelligence could not determine the origin of a call with a high degree of accuracy, particularly considering that population density of the targeted areas.

"The decapitation strategy was an utter failure on military grounds, since it didn't kill a single Iraqi in 50 attempts," said Roth. "But it also failed on human rights grounds. It's no good using a precise weapon if the target hasn't been located precisely," Roth added.

On the other hand, HRW found that Coalition air strikes against pre-planned fixed targets apparently caused few civilian casualties, and the U.S. and British air forces generally avoided civilian infrastructure, although so-called "dual-use" targets that included electrical and media facilities were hit.

The report also praised the relative restraint on the part of the U.S. Air Force in using cluster bombs, noting that the frequency of its use of such weapons has progressively declined from the 1999 Kosovo campaign and the 2001 Afghanistan war.

But U.S. ground forces resorted much more readily to cluster munitions, according to Ross, who said they "need to learn the lesson that the Air Forces seems to have adopted: cluster munitions cannot be used in populated areas without huge loss of civilian life."

In a single day, U.S. cluster-munition attacks in Hilla on Mar. 31 killed at least 33 civilians and injured 109, while the same weapon was implicated in high civilian casualties in Najaf and Nasariya, as well. One hospital director told HRW that cluster munitions caused 90 percent of the civilian injuries that his hospital treated during the war.

Moreover, the Coalition is believed to have left behind many tens of thousands of cluster-munition "duds" -- those that did not explode on impact and then become de facto landmines that have already caused dozens of casualties.

The report also took Coalition forces to task for failing to secure vast arsenals of weapons that were abandoned by Iraqi forces during the war. None have been used to mount guerrilla attacks on Coalition forces, but many civilians, including children searching for playthings or scrap metal, have been killed or injured at these sites, the report said.

Human Rights Watch Report
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/12/us-iraq-press.htm

Back to PeaceNoWar Home Page