• Tensions rise over 2011 exit date for US troops
• Foreign workers to lose immunity from Iraqi law
Martin Chulov in Baghdad The Guardian, Saturday 22 November 2008 Article history
Iraqi Shia protesters yesterday defaced and burned an effigy of President George Bush in a show of contempt for a deal struck between the departing US administration and the Iraqi government which will keep US troops in Iraq for another three years.
The protest, organised by supporters of the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, drew thousands of people to the central Baghdad square where a statue of the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was torn down and destroyed five years ago by US marines and bystanders.
The demonstration followed a week of tension in the national parliament, stemming from a cabinet decision to approve the deal, which for the first time commits US forces to a departure date in 2011 and gives the central government a more dominant role in Iraqi affairs in the interim. A spate of apparent insults during debates this week led to several bodyguards bringing weapons in to the parliamentary chamber for the first time.
Iraqi officials took a first step to exert their new authority yesterday by warning all 172 foreign security companies operating in the country that from early next year their employees will lose immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit under Iraqi law.
The loss of immunity was a key sticking point for the White House during almost a year of protracted talks and has led several large security groups to consider leaving the country.
Baghdad motorists have long resented being forced to defer to western security convoys, which rule the roost on the capital's choked roads. However a series of shooting incidents over the past four years in which civilians were killed has led some contractors to believe that the new laws will be tailored to target them directly.
A security crackdown across central Baghdad yesterday heightened traffic woes during the three-hour demonstration. US forces were nowhere to be seen, with security solely in the hands of Iraqi soldiers. The Iraqi army is responsible for almost all checkpoints in Baghdad, as well as 14 other provinces.
Supporters of al-Sadr, among them members of the outlawed Mahdi army, provided an extra security ring outside Firdous Square, frisking protesters and scanning the rally from the roofs of nearby buildings. No incidents were reported.
The anti-western cleric was not present, but his supporters read a message he had drafted. "No, no to the agreement of humiliation," the speaker chanted to demonstrators waving green Shia flags and thousands of national banners.
"This crowd shows that opposition to the agreement is not insignificant and parliament will be making a big mistake if it chooses to ignore it."
The statement continued: "The government must know it is the people who help it in the good and bad times. If it throws the occupier out, we will stand by it."
The Mahdi Army has been stood down, but al-Sadr has threatened to mobilise its units if the deal goes ahead.
The Sadrists' opposition to the pact is in defiance of the approval given by a broad Shia bloc, led by prime minister Nour al-Maliki. The US-backed leader's Dawa party and the allied Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council are counting on a decisive win when the deal is put to the 275-seat parliament this week, which they will try to parlay into a strong legislative mandate.
The Shia bloc appears to have the numbers for a robust win. A weak showing would damage its legitimacy in any future deals and influence provincial and general elections due to be held next year.
Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Inmates tell of sexual abuse and beatings in Iraq's overcrowded juvenile prison system
The prison currently holds 315 children, while its capacity is 250. Photograph: Marwan Naamani/AFP· Children as young as nine held in sweltering cells
· No money to improve conditions, says ministry
Jonathan Steele in Baghdad The Guardian, Monday 8 September 2008 Article history
Karkh juvenile prison in 2004.
Hundreds of children, some as young as nine, are being held in appalling conditions in Baghdad's prisons, sleeping in sweltering temperatures in overcrowded cells without working fans, no daily access to showers, and subject to frequent sexual abuse by guards, current and former prisoners say.
At Karkh juvenile prison, Omar Ali, a 16-year-old who has spent more than three years there, showed the multiple skin sores he and many other fellow inmates have contracted through lying on thin, sweat-soaked mattresses night after night.
"The electricity comes from a generator and it's only switched on during the two-hour weekly session when visitors come in, and for two or three hours in the evening. We are convinced the guards sell the generator fuel on the black market," he said.
Jonathan Steele on the conditions for youths in prison in Baghdad
Link to this audio Daytime temperatures in Baghdad last week averaged 44C (112F). They barely drop below 38C at night. Water supplies in Karkh are spasmodic, and Omar said he was able to shower only once every three days. Boys sleep in four dormitories, averaging 75 inmates in a cell about 5 metres by 10 metres, on double bunks or the concrete floor.
Guards often take boys to a separate room in the prison and rape them, Omar alleged. They also break prison rules by lending their mobile phones to boys to ring home, on condition that each time their families top the phone up by $10 or $20. The teaching staff resigned en masse in November because of low pay, according to an international official. As a result, the children lounge around aimlessly with no daytime activities, other than an exercise yard.
Though the boys in the prison have been convicted, international standards for fair trials are never met. "Trials last on average for 25 minutes, no witnesses are called, confessions are used as the only evidence, and court-appointed defence lawyers get the case file on the day of the trial, leaving no chance to consult the defendant in private," an international adviser in Baghdad said on condition of anonymity.
Omar Ali was 13 when interior ministry special forces raided his house in a predominantly Sunni suburb in October 2004. He and his 14-year-old brother were arrested. A week later the special forces came back and took their father. All three are still in custody.
The ministry is under Shia control and its forces have repeatedly been accused of targeting innocent Sunnis. Sahar Muhammad, the boys' mother, told the Guardian that when she was able to visit her sons they told her they were beaten repeatedly in the first days of custody and ordered to sign a blank sheet of paper on which charges would be written later.
Raad Jamal was 17 when US forces raided his home in the mixed Sunni and Shia district of Doura in June last year. His mother, Suad Ahmed Rashid, who was with him during the interview, told the Guardian: "During the US raid an American officer told my daughter: 'Tell your brother to confess he is with al-Qaida so we can send him to Camp Bucca [a US prison near Basra] or else we'll hand him to the Iraqis and they will torture him'."
Raad and a friend were taken to a US base and were transferred next morning to the seventh brigade of the Iraqi army's second regiment. Raad said he and his friend were hung from the ceiling on ropes, beaten with electric cables, and taken for interrogation one by one. "They said everyone who comes here has to confess," Raad said.
He was then sent to another Iraqi army base. "I stayed there about six months. I didn't confess anything I didn't do. They write false statements and ask you to press your thumb on it. I refused but they forced my thumb on to the paper," he said. At the juvenile court Raad encountered a sympathetic judge.
"The judge did not accept my confession. He said I was innocent but for administrative reasons I would have to go to Tobchi until I was released." He spent a few months in Tobchi and was released in March.
Last year officials from the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (Unami) visited Baghdad's Tobchi prison, where children awaiting trial are held. They reported that detainees provided "particularly worrisome allegations of ill-treatment or other abuse of juvenile males, several of whom told Unami they had been beaten and sexually abused while held in the custody of the ministries of the interior and defence prior to transfer to a juvenile facility. Upon examining them Unami observed injuries consistent with beatings."
The UN found severe overcrowding at Tobchi, with around 400 inmates in a prison with an official capacity of 206. "In some cells juveniles were taking turns to sleep on the floor without mattresses," the UN reported. The ministry of labour and social affairs (Molsa), which manages the prison, said shortages of funds prevented improvements.
Kadhim Raouf Ali, deputy director general of Molsa's juvenile department, told the Guardian that inmate numbers in Tobchi had been sharply reduced this year thanks to speeded-up releases under the new amnesty law. There were only 226 inmates now. But he admitted Karkh was still overcrowded. It was holding 315 children while capacity was 250.
Child detainees in US custody in Iraq fare better than those in Iraqi hands, said Shatha Alobosi, an Iraqi woman MP. Former inmates interviewed by the Guardian confirmed that there is less overcrowding and brutality.
Now, as Iraqi pressure mounts for a return of sovereignty, the US has been moving to release all under-18s. In December last year it held 950 children. The current total is 180.
"We anticipate having less than 100 juveniles in detention by the end of Ramadan [later this month], and hopefully release all juveniles to their families before the end of this year," First Lieutenant Randi Norton, a US military spokesman, said.
The Iraqi Islamic party, the main Sunni party in parliament, takes a special interest in detainees, adult as well as juvenile, since the majority are Sunnis. It gives aid to poor families who have no breadwinner, and has urged the authorities to improve conditions and release prisoners.
"We still have a long way to go. The problem is how to make a major and drastic reform of the judicial system, and change the mentality of officers in the army and police," its leader, the Iraqi vice president Tariq al-Hashemi, told the Guardian.
· An Iraqi contributed reporting for this article. Names of inmates and family members have been changed.
Sunday, 18 January 2009
Ditch the smooth transition. The people voted for change
Instead of accepting the corrupted bail-out and reassuring Wall Street, Obama's team must start doing the hard stuff now
Naomi Klein The Guardian, Friday 14 November 2008 Article history
The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington's handling of the Wall Street bail-out is not merely incompetent: it is borderline criminal.
In a moment of high panic in September, the US treasury pushed through a radical change in how bank mergers are taxed - a change long sought by the industry. Despite the fact that this move will deprive the government of as much as $140bn in tax revenue, legislators found out only after the fact. According to the Washington Post, more than a dozen tax attorneys agree that "[the] treasury had no authority to issue the [tax change] notice".
Of equally dubious legality are the equity deals the treasury has negotiated with many of the banks. According to Congressman Barney Frank, one of the architects of the legislation that enables the deals: "Any use of these funds for any purpose other than lending - for bonuses, for severance pay, for dividends, for acquisitions of other institutions ... is a violation of the act." Yet this is exactly how the funds are being used.
Then there is the nearly $2 trillion that America's central bank, the Federal Reserve, has handed out in emergency loans. Incredibly, the Fed will not reveal which corporations have received these loans or what it has accepted as collateral. Bloomberg news service believes this secrecy violates the law and has filed a federal suit demanding full disclosure.
Yet the Democrats are either openly defending the administration or refusing to intervene. "There is only one president at a time," we hear from Barack Obama. That's true. But every sweetheart deal the Bush administration makes threatens to hobble Obama's ability to make good on his promise of change. To cite just one example, that $140bn in missing revenue is almost the same sum as Obama's renewable energy programme. Obama owes it to the people who elected him to call this what it is: an attempt to undermine the electoral process by stealth.
Yes, there is only one president at a time, but that president needed the support of powerful Democrats - including Obama - to get the bail-out passed. Now that it is clear the Bush administration is violating the terms to which both parties agreed, the Democrats have not just the right, but a grave responsibility, to intervene forcefully.
I suspect the real reason the Democrats are failing to act has less to do with presidential protocol than with fear: fear that the stockmarket, which has the temperament of an over-indulged two-year-old, will throw one of its world-shaking tantrums. Disclosing the truth about who is receiving federal loans, we are told, could cause the market to bet against those banks. Question the legality of equity deals, and the same thing will happen. Challenge the $140bn tax giveaway and mergers could fail.
More than that, the Democrats, including Obama, appear to believe that the need to soothe the market should govern all key economic decisions in the transition period. Which is why, just days after a euphoric victory for "change", the mantra abruptly shifted to "smooth transition" and "continuity".
Take Obama's choice for chief of staff. Rahm Emanuel, the House Democrat who received the most donations from the financial sector, sends an unmistakably reassuring message to Wall Street. When asked if Obama would be moving quickly to increase taxes on the wealthy, as promised, Emanuel pointedly did not answer the question.
This same market-coddling logic should, we are told, guide Obama's selection of treasury secretary. Fox News and MNSBC explained that Larry Summers, who held the post under Clinton, is the man "the Street would like most". Let's be clear why. "The Street" would cheer a Summers appointment for the same reason the rest of us should fear it: because traders will assume that this champion of deregulation will offer a transition from Henry Paulson so smooth that we will barely know it happened. On the other hand, someone like Sheila Bair, the chairman of the banks' insurer of last resort, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, would spark fear on the Street - for all the right reasons.
One thing we know for certain is that the market will react violently to anyone likely to impose serious regulation, invest in people, and cut off the free money. In short, the markets can be relied on to vote in precisely the opposite way that Americans have just voted. (A recent poll found 60% strongly favour "stricter regulations on financial institutions", while just 21% support aid to financial companies.)
There is no way to reconcile the public's vote for change with the market's foot-stomping for more of the same. Any moves to change course will be met with market shocks. The good news is that once it is clear the new rules will be applied across the board, fairly, the market will stabilise and adjust. Furthermore, the timing for this turbulence could not be better. Over the past three months, we've been shocked so often that market stability would come as more of a surprise. That gives Obama a window to disregard the calls for a seamless transition and do the hard stuff first. Few will be able to blame him for a crisis that predates him, or fault him for honouring the clearly expressed wishes of the electorate. The longer he waits, however, the more memories will fade.
When transferring power from a functional, trustworthy regime, everyone favours a smooth transition. When exiting an era marked by criminality and bankrupt ideology, a little rockiness at the start would be a very good sign.
This column was first published in The Nation
Naomi Klein The Guardian, Friday 14 November 2008 Article history
The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington's handling of the Wall Street bail-out is not merely incompetent: it is borderline criminal.
In a moment of high panic in September, the US treasury pushed through a radical change in how bank mergers are taxed - a change long sought by the industry. Despite the fact that this move will deprive the government of as much as $140bn in tax revenue, legislators found out only after the fact. According to the Washington Post, more than a dozen tax attorneys agree that "[the] treasury had no authority to issue the [tax change] notice".
Of equally dubious legality are the equity deals the treasury has negotiated with many of the banks. According to Congressman Barney Frank, one of the architects of the legislation that enables the deals: "Any use of these funds for any purpose other than lending - for bonuses, for severance pay, for dividends, for acquisitions of other institutions ... is a violation of the act." Yet this is exactly how the funds are being used.
Then there is the nearly $2 trillion that America's central bank, the Federal Reserve, has handed out in emergency loans. Incredibly, the Fed will not reveal which corporations have received these loans or what it has accepted as collateral. Bloomberg news service believes this secrecy violates the law and has filed a federal suit demanding full disclosure.
Yet the Democrats are either openly defending the administration or refusing to intervene. "There is only one president at a time," we hear from Barack Obama. That's true. But every sweetheart deal the Bush administration makes threatens to hobble Obama's ability to make good on his promise of change. To cite just one example, that $140bn in missing revenue is almost the same sum as Obama's renewable energy programme. Obama owes it to the people who elected him to call this what it is: an attempt to undermine the electoral process by stealth.
Yes, there is only one president at a time, but that president needed the support of powerful Democrats - including Obama - to get the bail-out passed. Now that it is clear the Bush administration is violating the terms to which both parties agreed, the Democrats have not just the right, but a grave responsibility, to intervene forcefully.
I suspect the real reason the Democrats are failing to act has less to do with presidential protocol than with fear: fear that the stockmarket, which has the temperament of an over-indulged two-year-old, will throw one of its world-shaking tantrums. Disclosing the truth about who is receiving federal loans, we are told, could cause the market to bet against those banks. Question the legality of equity deals, and the same thing will happen. Challenge the $140bn tax giveaway and mergers could fail.
More than that, the Democrats, including Obama, appear to believe that the need to soothe the market should govern all key economic decisions in the transition period. Which is why, just days after a euphoric victory for "change", the mantra abruptly shifted to "smooth transition" and "continuity".
Take Obama's choice for chief of staff. Rahm Emanuel, the House Democrat who received the most donations from the financial sector, sends an unmistakably reassuring message to Wall Street. When asked if Obama would be moving quickly to increase taxes on the wealthy, as promised, Emanuel pointedly did not answer the question.
This same market-coddling logic should, we are told, guide Obama's selection of treasury secretary. Fox News and MNSBC explained that Larry Summers, who held the post under Clinton, is the man "the Street would like most". Let's be clear why. "The Street" would cheer a Summers appointment for the same reason the rest of us should fear it: because traders will assume that this champion of deregulation will offer a transition from Henry Paulson so smooth that we will barely know it happened. On the other hand, someone like Sheila Bair, the chairman of the banks' insurer of last resort, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, would spark fear on the Street - for all the right reasons.
One thing we know for certain is that the market will react violently to anyone likely to impose serious regulation, invest in people, and cut off the free money. In short, the markets can be relied on to vote in precisely the opposite way that Americans have just voted. (A recent poll found 60% strongly favour "stricter regulations on financial institutions", while just 21% support aid to financial companies.)
There is no way to reconcile the public's vote for change with the market's foot-stomping for more of the same. Any moves to change course will be met with market shocks. The good news is that once it is clear the new rules will be applied across the board, fairly, the market will stabilise and adjust. Furthermore, the timing for this turbulence could not be better. Over the past three months, we've been shocked so often that market stability would come as more of a surprise. That gives Obama a window to disregard the calls for a seamless transition and do the hard stuff first. Few will be able to blame him for a crisis that predates him, or fault him for honouring the clearly expressed wishes of the electorate. The longer he waits, however, the more memories will fade.
When transferring power from a functional, trustworthy regime, everyone favours a smooth transition. When exiting an era marked by criminality and bankrupt ideology, a little rockiness at the start would be a very good sign.
This column was first published in The Nation
Monday, 12 January 2009
Shoe thrown at George Bush
Guardian link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/dec/15/bush-shoes-iraq
George Bush's engagement with Iraq appeared to end as it began - in chaos and anger - yesterday when a surprise trip to Baghdad to thank his troops and herald a new security pact was disrupted by an Iraqi man calling the US president a "dog" in Arabic and throwing his shoes at him.
The Bush trip, which will also take in Afghanistan where he arrived this morning, was conducted amid deep secrecy. It was intended to round off on a high note the policy that has most defined his presidency.
During a press conference with the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, he said the conflict had been necessary, adding: "The war is not over."
But his comments were clearly not to the liking of one person. "This is the end!" the man shouted, before hurling first one and then his other shoe at the American leader from a distance of about 12 feet.
Bush ducked as the first shoe flew close above his head, hitting the wall behind him. He ducked again to avoid the second shoe, as Iraqi security men pounced on the assailant - reported to be an Iraqi journalist - and dragged him screaming out of the room.
The US president appeared untroubled by the incident and later quipped: "All I can report is it is a size 10." But the disruption was clearly unwelcome on his fourth and final visit to Iraq.
It was also pregnant with symbolism. In the Arab world, throwing shoes at somebody is considered a serious insult, as is even showing them the soles of one's footwear, as demonstrated by jubilant Iraqis towards the statue of Saddam Hussein as it was toppled in Baghdad during the 2003 invasion.
With less than six weeks to go before the end of Bush's presidency, his surprise visit to Iraq aims to highlight the decline in violence in the country and the so-called status of forces agreement, which comes into force next month.
Speaking before the shoe incident, Bush said of the five-and-a-half year occupation: "The work hasn't been easy, but it has been necessary for American security, Iraqi hope and world peace ... I'm just so grateful I had the chance to come back to Iraq before my presidency ends."
The security pact, approved by the Iraqi parliament three weeks ago, provides for the removal of US troops from Iraqi cities by the middle of next year and a full withdrawal by 2011. But there are already signs that the agreement is running into problems. Most importantly, its timetable will have to be squared with that of the incoming president.
Barack Obama has said consistently that he will pull US forces out of Iraq within the much tighter timeframe of 16 months, security conditions permitting. He is likely to highlight that ambition early on in his term, which begins on 20 January.
The provision to evacuate US personnel from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 has also been drawn into question. Over the weekend the top US commander in the country, General Ray Odierno, said American troops would remain in several cities beyond next summer, acting in a support role as part of "transition teams".
Doubt has also been cast on the legal basis of the new pact, which leaves the US occupation without the cover of a UN mandate.
Bush landed in Baghdad on Air Force One after an 11-hour flight and began the visit with talks with the president, Jalal Talabani, and his aides. "I've known these men for a long time and I've come to admire them for their courage and their determination to succeed," Bush said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/dec/15/bush-shoes-iraq
George Bush's engagement with Iraq appeared to end as it began - in chaos and anger - yesterday when a surprise trip to Baghdad to thank his troops and herald a new security pact was disrupted by an Iraqi man calling the US president a "dog" in Arabic and throwing his shoes at him.
The Bush trip, which will also take in Afghanistan where he arrived this morning, was conducted amid deep secrecy. It was intended to round off on a high note the policy that has most defined his presidency.
During a press conference with the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, he said the conflict had been necessary, adding: "The war is not over."
But his comments were clearly not to the liking of one person. "This is the end!" the man shouted, before hurling first one and then his other shoe at the American leader from a distance of about 12 feet.
Bush ducked as the first shoe flew close above his head, hitting the wall behind him. He ducked again to avoid the second shoe, as Iraqi security men pounced on the assailant - reported to be an Iraqi journalist - and dragged him screaming out of the room.
The US president appeared untroubled by the incident and later quipped: "All I can report is it is a size 10." But the disruption was clearly unwelcome on his fourth and final visit to Iraq.
It was also pregnant with symbolism. In the Arab world, throwing shoes at somebody is considered a serious insult, as is even showing them the soles of one's footwear, as demonstrated by jubilant Iraqis towards the statue of Saddam Hussein as it was toppled in Baghdad during the 2003 invasion.
With less than six weeks to go before the end of Bush's presidency, his surprise visit to Iraq aims to highlight the decline in violence in the country and the so-called status of forces agreement, which comes into force next month.
Speaking before the shoe incident, Bush said of the five-and-a-half year occupation: "The work hasn't been easy, but it has been necessary for American security, Iraqi hope and world peace ... I'm just so grateful I had the chance to come back to Iraq before my presidency ends."
The security pact, approved by the Iraqi parliament three weeks ago, provides for the removal of US troops from Iraqi cities by the middle of next year and a full withdrawal by 2011. But there are already signs that the agreement is running into problems. Most importantly, its timetable will have to be squared with that of the incoming president.
Barack Obama has said consistently that he will pull US forces out of Iraq within the much tighter timeframe of 16 months, security conditions permitting. He is likely to highlight that ambition early on in his term, which begins on 20 January.
The provision to evacuate US personnel from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 has also been drawn into question. Over the weekend the top US commander in the country, General Ray Odierno, said American troops would remain in several cities beyond next summer, acting in a support role as part of "transition teams".
Doubt has also been cast on the legal basis of the new pact, which leaves the US occupation without the cover of a UN mandate.
Bush landed in Baghdad on Air Force One after an 11-hour flight and began the visit with talks with the president, Jalal Talabani, and his aides. "I've known these men for a long time and I've come to admire them for their courage and their determination to succeed," Bush said.
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