About the assassination of Iraqi academics
First let me congratulate the Spanish people
for the fierce opposition against the war and occupation of Iraq. And the
Spanish government that has listened to its people and has decided to withdraw
from Iraq because it became clear that this war was based on lies and was
illegal under international law.
The BRussells Tribunal was
originally a hearing committee composed of academics, intellectuals and artists
in the tradition of the Russell Tribunal, set up in 1967 to investigate war
crimes committed during the Vietnam War. The BRussells Tribunal was
directed against the war in Iraq and the imperial war policies of the Bush II
administration. Its main focus was the ‘Project for the New American
Century’, the think tank behind this war, in particular three of the
co-signatories of the mission statement: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul
Wolfowitz.
At a networking conference set up by
the Bertrand Russell
Peace Foundation at the end of
June 2003 in Brussels, it was decided that a series of hearings would be held
in different places all over the world, culminating in a final session in
Istanbul. The BRussells Tribunal was one of these commissions of inquiry, the
opening session of the World Tribunal
on Iraq. The Bertrand Russell
Peace Foundation accepted to support the initiative. The World Tribunal on Iraq
evolved as a worldwide initiative and had Tribunal sessions and associated
events in some 25 cities and countries worldwide. Many of the people present
here were involved in the WTI and we are still cooperating, as this seminar
shows. We work together on the basis of the platform text and the conclusions
of the WTI.
After our Tribunal session, we were
facing the question what to do next, how to proceed according to our
conclusions. We decided to ACT. The ongoing atrocities in Iraq need our
monitoring and the Iraqis need our support. A lot of our international friends,
who organised similar events, share this viewpoint. That’s why we
established a cooperation and bundled our efforts. And let it be very clear:
not only do we monitor the occupation, we act against the war, against the
illegal occupation of the sovereign state of Iraq, and we support all attempts
of the Iraqi people to regain its sovereignty. We are a citizen’s
initiative, meaning that we work independent from political parties.
This independent, consistent and
effective way of working has attracted some fine and influential people like
Harold Pinter, José Saramago, Eduardo Galeano, Samir Amin, Denis Halliday
and Hans von Sponeck, Margarita Papandreou, Naomi Klein etc. It’s an
explosive mixture of academics, activists, lawyers, artists, journalists and
intellectuals. They seem to believe in the format and the potential of this
network. In a way it’s reassuring, also for them, to belong to an active
group and be able to discuss recent developments and actions. This is necessary
in order to better understand the situation in Iraq. All these people are
connected with each other and can ask or give advice, bring ideas to the forum,
spread important news, and so we attempt to help the peace movement solve some
difficult questions as f.i. should we support the resistance, should the MNF-I
leave Iraq etc. We also act as a sort of hub to connect people. The way this
committee works is a rather new concept, I don’t know about any similar
initiative. And it’s very workable.
The backbone of our committee is composed of
patriotic Iraqis, both from inside Iraq and from the Diaspora. They belong to
different currents. We have the chairs from different Human Rights
organisations, medical associations, academic associations inside Iraq. This
choice wasn't made accidentally. They are better aware of the pitfalls.
They know better than all of us the realities on the ground. They know better
what has to be done in the current situation and can help on a different number
of issues. They understand what’s going on in Iraq. It’s their
country. If we want to spread correct information and viewpoints to the Western
audiences, we need the Iraqis to advise us. The BRussells Tribunal is about
THEIR country. So we want to be a bridge between the Iraqi and the Western
peace movement. We publish regularly eyewitness accounts and Iraqi Human Rights
reports that we receive. That has helped
us a lot because the situation of Iraq is extremely complicated for outsiders
like us. We cannot make a decent analysis without their help or
support.
Now, I tell all this to give you some
background and a context of who we are and why we think we can speak with some
authority about Iraqi issues.
About the Academics
campaign
The pattern of academics assassinated
appears to substantiate claims that a campaign exists and is being conducted to
erase a key section of the secular middle
class in Iraq — a class that has largely resisted the US
occupation of Iraq and refused to be co-opted by the so-called “political
process” or Iraq’s US-installed puppet
government. Academics are not the only ones being killed: 311
teachers killed the past 4 months, 182 pilots, 416 senior military officers
killed in the first 3 months of 2006. 20.000 people kidnapped since the
beginning of 2006.
It were the Iraqi intellectuals who asked
us to start a campaign to create awareness for this problem.
When we started, it was clear we had to avoid
some traps and pitfalls. I’ll sum up a few of the most
important.
a) we had to avoid complicity in any way with
the occupying forces and its puppet government. We don’t want to humanize
this dreadful occupation. That’s why we appeal to international human
rights organisations and the UNHCHR to investigate this matter, and not to the
Iraqi puppet government and the occupying forces, who are the perpetrators of
these crimes.
b) We had to make sure to work with many
different Iraqi anti-occupation organisations and individuals, in order to be
as inclusive as possible.
c) We had to avoid putting this issue
in the context of a sectarian strife between Sunni’s and Shia. I will
develop this point later.
d) We had to avoid to look at this issue as
being a sort of revenge against academics of the previous government.
The so-called Debaathification was the first step in the
destruction of Iraq’s educational system. It was used by the US to divide
and destroy Iraq. Most of these so-called “revenge killings” that
took place after the war can be attributed to the occupying forces and
collaborators.
e) We had to counter the claims of the Iraqi
puppet government, the US occupiers, and the recently started campaign to
safeguard the Iraqi academics, backed by both the government of Iraq and
UNESCO, that criminal gangs are committing these assassinations.
f) Also, we had to mention the
possible role of the Mossad in these assassinations, even though we have no
hard evidence to substantiate the many assertions that Israel in
involved.
g) We have to carry out this campaign in the
most effective and prudent way, in order not to put the Iraqi academics even in
a more dangerous situation. This requires close contacts on the ground and a
lot of consultation. We distributed questionnaires from UNHCHR to the families
of the victims. Not one has returned until now. The reason that is being given
is that the families are too afraid to openly accuse the perpetrators. They are
even too afraid to ask the police for details about the crime.
We drafted our petition very carefully, in
cooperation with the Iraqis of the BRussells Tribunal network. The
result is that besides over 8.000 academics worldwide, all the different
patriotic currents and Iraqi anti-occupation movements have signed our
petition. It was the first time something like this happened. So ours is a
unifying rather than a divisive action.
Death Squads and the Salvador
option
I would like to look into one major
point of concern connected to this issue, and that is the so-called sectarian
issue: some commentators claim that the assassination campaign of academics is
part of a so-called civil war between Sunni and Shia. That’s it’s
the ignorant Islamist Shia who receives direct orders from Iran to kill
intellectual Sunni’s, and that it is unfortunately beyond the control of
the US now. And thus the occupying forces should remain in Iraq to restore law
and order. Mainstream media are raising this smokescreen to hide the truth from
getting out.
Another smokescreen is the claim that
most of the assassinations are carried out by criminal gangs, who first kidnap
their victims, and then a ransom is paid. And after that either they are
assassinated, and if not, they flee the country.
I want to put this campaign in the context
where it ought to be.
What we are witnessing is the result of a
carefully planned US campaign to liquidate every Iraqi who opposes the
occupation of his country, the so-called “Salvador option”. In
fact, since 1945 the U.S. developed
counterinsurgency policies based on the model of Nazi suppression of partisan
insurgents that emphasized placing the civilian population under strict control
and using terror to make the population afraid to support or collaborate with
insurgents.
On January 1 2004, Robert Dreyfuss stated
that: “part of a secret $3 billion in new funds—tucked away in the
$87 billion Iraq appropriation that Congress approved in early November 2003
— will go toward the creation of a paramilitary unit manned by militiamen
associated with former Iraqi exile groups. Experts say it could lead to a wave
of extrajudicial killings, not only of armed rebels but of nationalists, other
opponents of the U.S. occupation and thousands of civilian Baathists—up
to 120,000 of the estimated 2.5 million former Baath Party members in Iraq.
“They’re clearly cooking up joint teams to do Phoenix-like things,
like they did in Vietnam,” said Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA chief of
counter terrorism. The bulk of the covert money will support U.S. efforts to
create a lethal, and revenge-minded, Iraqi security force. “The big money
would be for standing up an Iraqi secret police to liquidate the
resistance,” said John Pike, an expert on classified military budgets at
www.globalsecurity.org. “And
it has to be politically loyal to the United States.” It’s also
pouring money into the creation of an Iraqi secret police staffed mainly by
gunmen associated with members of the puppet Iraqi Governing Council. Those
militiamen are linked to Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress (inc),
the Kurdish peshmerga (“facing death”) forces and Shiite
paramilitary units, especially those of the Iran-backed Supreme Council for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Technically illegal, these armed forces have been
tolerated, even encouraged, by the Pentagon.” End of quote.
This was written on the 1st of
January 2004. Soon after this blood-money was drained to Iraq, the consequences
of this secret operation became clear. According to an article published in New York Times Magazine, in September
2004, Counsellor to the US Ambassador for Iraqi Security Forces James Steele
was assigned to work with a new elite Iraqi counter-insurgency unit known as
the Special Police Commandos, formed under the operational control of
Iraq’s Interior Ministry.
Many of the same men in charge of
training El Salvador's right-wing counter-insurgency forces during its
bloody civil war are revealed to be advisors to Iraqi security
forces.
Max Fuller, a specialist in Latin-America, has
investigated this matter thoroughly. He writes: “From 1984 to 1986 then
Col. Steele had led the US Military Advisory Group in El Salvador, where he was
responsible for developing special operating forces at brigade level during the
height of the conflict. These forces, composed of the most brutal soldiers
available, replicated the kind of small-unit operations with which Steele was
familiar from his service in Vietnam. Rather than focusing on seizing terrain,
their role was to attack ‘insurgent’ leadership, their supporters,
sources of supply and base camps. In military circles it was the use of such
tactics that made the difference in ultimately defeating the guerrillas; for
others, such as the Catholic priest Daniel Santiago, the presence of people
like Steele contributed to another sort of difference:
“People are not just killed by death
squads in El Salvador – they are decapitated and then their heads are
placed on pikes and used to dot the landscape. Men are not just disemboweled by
the Salvadoran Treasury Police; their severed genitalia are stuffed into their
mouths. Salvadoran women are not just raped by the National Guard; their wombs
are cut from their bodies and used to cover their faces. It is not enough to
kill children; they are dragged over barbed wire until the flesh falls from
their bones, while parents are forced to watch. (Cited by Chomsky)”.
The responsible person for these atrocities was John Negroponte, then
Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985, appointed as US Ambassador in
Baghdad.
Iraq's interior minister Bayan Jabr, has
admitted death squads and other unauthorised armed groups have been carrying
out sectarian killings in the country. In
a BBC interview on April 11 2006, he denied these groups were his
responsibility. He added that there are non-governmental armed groups called
the Facility Protection Service, set up in 2003 by the U.S. occupation, that
number 150,000 effectives. These 150,000
hired guns are "out of order, not under our control," along with
another 30,000 private security guards, Jabr said.
But the prime minister,
Ibrahim Jaafari, described the Badr organisation last summer as a
"shield" defending Iraq, while the president, Jalal Talabani, claimed
the Badr organisation and the peshmerga were patriots who "are important
to fulfilling this sacred task, establishing a democratic, federal and
independent Iraq".
John Pace, the outgoing head
of the UN human rights office in Iraq, told the March 2 British Guardian that
many killings were carried out by Shia militias linked to the interior ministry
run by Bayan Jabr, a leading figure in the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)". SCIRI is the main party in the coalition of
Shiite religious parties that heads the US-backed Iraqi government. "The
Badr brigade [SCIRI’s militia] are in the police and are mainly the ones
doing the killing", said Pace. "They’re the most
notorious."
However, I tend to believe Bayan
Jabr. I think he knows very well what’s going on, but I believe
him when he says these groups are not his responsibility, because I think that
these militia’s, who were created, financed, armed and trained by
the occupying forces, are under the direct control of the US.
Steven Casteel works as a senior
vice-president of Vance, a security company. “Just prior to joining Vance, Mr.
Casteel was selected by the White House to be Senior Advisor to Iraq's
Ministry of Interior under the Coalition Provisional Authority and later the
Department of State. In that capacity he advised former Ambassadors Bremer and
Negroponte on non-military security matters, set policy, and led the creation
and operations of the Ministry's critical services. Services included the
new Iraqi Police, Border Police, Immigration, Customs Service, Civil Defense
and Fire Programs. Responsibilities included recruitment, training, equipping,
and deployment of services and personnel “ (http://www.vanceglobal.com/whoweare/leadership/casteel/). So he was involved in
overseeing the training and creating of Iraqi police forces.
As a former top DEA man, he was
involved in the hunt for Colombia’s notorious cocaine baron Pablo
Escobar, during which the DEA collaborated with a paramilitary organization
known as Los Pepes, which later transformed itself into the AUC, an
umbrella organization covering all of Colombia’s paramilitary death
squads.
Like Colombia’s death squads,
Iraq’s Police Commandos deliberately cultivate a frightening paramilitary
image. During raids they openly intimidate and brutalize suspects, even in the
presence of foreign journalists. Significantly, many of the Commandos,
including their leader, are Sunni Muslims.
Many of the highest-ranking officers
in the Wolf brigade f.i. are Sunnis and, when asked about other minorities,
Abul Waleed, a 41-year-old three-star general from the old regime, mentions
Kurds and even a Yazidi, as members of these brigades. General Adnan Thabit, a
Sunni and general under Saddam Hussein, is the leader of Iraq's Special
Police Commandos.
Of course some of the sections of
these militia’s may follow an Iranian agenda, or a sectarian agenda, but
if you look at the composition and actions of these death squads, they should
certainly not be called “Shiite death squads”, but
“anti-resistance death squads”.
Putting the primary blame for these
killing on criminal gangs or on Iran, is serving the US interests in the
region. Continuously linking “Shiite” to
“death squads” also serves the US agenda by fuelling sectarian
strife and so contributing to the deliberate disintegration of the
country.
Many of the murdered academics are
Shia, and what most of those killed academics have in common, is their
opposition to the US occupation of Iraq.
Patrick Lang, former chief of Middle East
analysis for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency says: “What those of us
in El Salvador learned was that American policy might call for surgical action,
but once the local troops are involved, they’re as likely to use a
chain-saw as a scalpel. And that, too, can serve American ends. In almost any
counter-insurgency, the basic message the government or the occupiers tries to
get across to the population is brutally simple: “We can protect you from
the guerrillas, but the guerrillas can’t protect you from us, and
you’ve got to choose sides.” Sometimes you can win the
population’s hearts and minds; sometimes you just have to make them more
frightened of you than they are of the insurgents.” And for this aim they
use the Wolf Brigade, the Scorpions Brigade, the Lions Brigade, the
Peshmerga’s and the “security forces” of the Ministry of
Interior.
We receive many eye-witness reports from
inside Iraq. They are published on the BRussells Tribunal
website.
One report describes a case where people are
arrested by the Badr Brigade, with the help of US forces and brought to secret
prisons under the control of the Badr brigades.
Another report describes how in the aftermath
of the bombing of the Askariyah shrine in Samarra, the village of Al Fursan,
south of Baghdad, is ethnically cleaned by black-clad militias and police
commandos while American tanks are standing by, watch what happens and
don’t interfere while people are being slaughtered, houses being
burned.
The latest report dates from 17 of
April. Men in police uniforms attacked
the Al-Adhamiya neighbourhood in Baghdad. The Ministry of Interior
claimed the uniformed men didn’t belong to the puppet forces, but local
residents are quite sure they were special forces from the Ministry of
Interior, probably Badr brigades. The neighbourhood was sealed off
and electricity was cut off.
When the uniformed forces entered the neighbourhood, the National Guards
that are usually patrolling the streets left. Young armed men from
the neighbourhood fought side by side with mujahedin against the attacking
forces to protect Al-Adhamiya. Several residents have been killed in
the streets. US troops also entered the neighbourhood. At first, they only
stood by and watched; later on they, too, fired at the locals, who tried
to repel the attacks. These reports show that there is at least complicity of
the US forces in the actions of the militia’s.
These examples show that there is at least
complicity of the US forces in the actions of the militia’s.
To conclude I would like to denounce the total
lack of interest in human lives by the occupying forces and the Western
mainstream press. There is obviously a lot of racism involved in the way this
occupation is handled by the MNF-I and covered by the media. Some of the
academics assassinated were among the finest scientists not only in the Middle
East, but worldwide. Nevertheless, none of these murders have been
investigated, and very few commemorations appeared in the Western press when
these famous academics were killed. And that is another crime.
Dirk Adriaensens.
Member BRussells Tribunal Executive
Committee
* Additional sources (taken from: Death Squads
in Iraq: A timeline) www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/3/23/202410/772
January 14, 2005:
Newsweek breaks the "Salvador Option'
story. (Newsweek)
January 25, 2005:
Human Rights Watch releases a damning report
alleging torture and mistreatment of detainees by the new Iraqi government.
(Human Rights Watch)
April 28, 2005:
The new Iraqi government is approved. The
Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution wins control of the Interior Ministry.
The new minister is Bayan Jabr. (Juan
Cole)(PBS)
May 1, 2005:
Many of the same men in charge of training El
Salvador's right-wing counter-insurgency forces during its bloody civil war
are revealed to be advisors to Iraqi security forces. (NYT Magazine)
May 16, 2005
55 dead bodies are discovered in Iraq.
(CNN)
May 22,
2005: An elite group of
commandos known as the Wolf Brigade is profiled by Knight Ridder. The group is
notorious for its brutal treatment of detainees.(Knight Ridder)
June 12, 2005:
20 bodies are found around Baghdad. Many of them
show signs of torture. (CNN)
June 28, 2005:
Numerous Sunni males turn up dead after being
detained by men wearing police uniforms. (Knight Ridder)
July 7, 2005:
Horrifying descriptions of torture by Iraqi
security forces emerge. (The Observer)
September 8, 2005:
The U.N. expresses concern over abuses by
pro-government forces in Iraq. (Reuters)
September 16, 2005:
CBS reports on the torture and execution of
numerous Sunnis. (CBS News)
October 7, 2005:
At least 537 bodies have been found since April,
many of them Sunnis. (Associated Press)
October 12, 2005:
Sectarian hatred extends itself into the Iraqi
military. (Knight Ridder)
November 15, 2005:
U.S. Forces discover a secret torture center run
by Iraq's Interior Ministry. (Washington Post)
November 27, 2005:
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi claims
that the human rights situation in Iraq is just as bad, if not worse, than it
was under Saddam. (CNN)
November 28, 2005:
Abuse of prisoners in Iraq is called routine.
(Knight Ridder)
Interior Minister Bayan Jabr defends the
alleged torture camp. (CNN)
November 29, 2005:
The NY Times and LA Times both run stories about
allegations of Shiites running death squads that target Sunnis. (Los Angeles
Times)(New York Times)
December 11, 2005:
Torture is discovered at a second Interior
Ministry run prison in Iraq. (Washington Post)
December 27,
2006: US refuses to handover jails and prisons to Iraqis until conditions
improve(Times Online)
January 22, 2006:
Iraqis attempt to find officials without ties to
militias. USA Today
January 25, 2006:
Sunni leaders urge followers to defend against
deadly house raids. (Knight Ridder)
February 5, 2006:
14 blindfolded tortured bodies found in Baghdad,
called common occurrence. (Washington Post)
February 16, 2006:
Iraq's government launches investigation
into death squad claims after US general catches Iraqi policemen about to
execute a Sunni. (BBC News)
February 22, 2006
Powerful blast destroys Golden Mosque in
Samarra. Shiites swear revenge. (New York Times)
February 23, 2006:
47 predominantly Sunni workers are stopped at a
checkpoint and massacred outside Baghdad. (Knight Ridder)
February 26, 2006:
Andrew Buncombe and Patrick Cockburn report that
hundreds of Iraqis are being tortured to death every month by Interior Ministry
death squads. (The Independent)
February 28, 2006:
Violence since mosque explosion kills more than
1,300 Iraqis. (Washington Post)
March 2, 2006:
Director of the Baghdad morgue claims that up to
7,000 people have been killed by death squads in the past several months. (The
Guardian)
March 8, 2006:
the State Department criticizes the Iraqi
government's human rights violations in its annual report. (State
Department)
Gunmen dressed up as Interior Ministry
commandos raid a private security company and abduct 50 people. A US Military
patrol comes across a bus with the bodies of 18 men piled up inside.
(Washington Post)
March 12, 2006:
Iraqi officials admit to the existence of death
squads operating from inside the government. (Knight Ridder)
March 14,
2006: Iraqi authorities find 80 dead bodies over the course of two
days.(BBC News)
March 20, 2006:
The US continues to arm and train the same Iraqi
security forces accused of having a sectarian bent and committing numerous
massacres. (Time)
March 22,
2006: The U.N. demands that the
Iraqi government reign in their abusive security forces. (UN News Centre)
Col. James Steele and General
Abul Waleed (Responsible person of the Wolf Brigade) in Samarra
