Mission & Justice

Amir Taheri, 25/6/08

It is more than five years that Saddam Hussain is gone, and his regime replaced by governments elected under the supervision of the United Nations. And, yet, Iraq remains subject to most of the harsh conditions imposed by the UN, under Chapter 7 of its charter, when Saddam invaded Kuwait 18 years ago. his paradoxical situation is the fruit of a messy compromise under which the US-led coalition forces are allowed to remain in Iraq with UN approval. That approval, secured after the invasion and renewed on an annual basis, runs out at the end of the year. Unless it is renewed once more, which is far from certain, there would be no legal basis for the presence of US and allied troops in Iraq. This is why Baghdad and Washington have been negotiating a new deal under which the coalition forces would remain at the invitation of the Iraqi government.

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5/6/08

A US marine has been cleared of covering up the massacre of 24 civilians in Iraq. Women and children were among those killed by US forces in the town of Haditha in 2005. The killings in Haditha are the most serious war crime allegations levelled at US forces since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Lieutenant Andrew Grayson, 27, was found not guilty by a jury on Wednesday of ordering photos of the slaughtered civilians to be deleted from army computers. Grayson, an intelligence officer, was not present when the Iraqis were shot dead by US marines on November 19, 2005, shortly after a roadside bomb killed a US soldier nearby.

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Peter Alford; 20/8/08

An Australian woman who was raped by a US navy sailor six years ago has finally won compensation - but not justice, she says - in the form of a payment of three million yen ($30,120) from the Japanese Government. The payment, which should have been made by the rapist following a civil court judgment, comes instead from a little-known Ministry of Defence fund for compensating civilian victims of illegal behaviour by US military personnel in Japan. “This money doesn’t represent real justice to me,” the woman, “Jane”, told The Australian yesterday. “He should have paid that money, or the US military should have, not the Japanese Government.

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