Mission & Justice

James Bone; 20/8/08

Six Blackwater Worldwide security guards have been notified that they could face prosecution in the US for shooting dead 17 civilians in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square in an infamous incident that provoked fury in Iraq. The Blackwater employees have reportedly been sent “target letters” by US prosecutors telling them they could face charges for opening fire at the crowded intersection on September 16 last year. The move was welcomed by human rights activists, who have long complained about US private security in Iraq. “It’s incredibly important that these incidents are not beyond the law. It certainly would be a step in the right direction if the US would go ahead and bring charges,” said Jennifer Daskal, of Human Rights Watch, who has interviewed the traffic policeman on duty in Nisoor Square at the time of the shooting. “This is definitely the most high-profile case of contractor abuse in Iraq, but it’s certainly not the only one.”

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18/8/98

US prosecutors have sent letters to six Blackwater security guards involved in a Baghdad shooting last year in a move that could lead to groundbreaking criminal indictments, The Washington Post reported yesterday. Bodyguards from US security firm Blackwater Worldwide opened fire in a traffic jam last September, killing 17 Iraqi civilians while escorting a convoy of US diplomats through the capital under a contract with the State Department. The incident enraged the Iraqi government, which called it a “massacre” and demanded the right to try the guards in Iraq. Iraqis were further upset in April when the State Department renewed Blackwater’s contract to protect its embassy staff.

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15/8/08

Six American sailors working as prison camp guards in Iraq face courts martial for abusing detainees, some of whom were sealed in a cell with pepper spray. The US Navy said seven other sailors were given non-judicial punishments over the incident, which took place on May 14 at Camp Bucca, the vast desert camp in southern Iraq where the US military houses 18,000 of its 21,000 prisoners. “Two detainees suffered minor abrasions as a result of the alleged assaults, eight others were confined overnight in a detainee housing unit which was sprayed with riot control agent and then the ventilation secured,” the Navy said in a statement.

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Basil Adas; 14/8/08

There are about 4,000 to 5,000 detainees in US custody accused of being linked with Al Qaida, Omar Al Jouburi, a former advisor to Iraqi Vice-President Tariq Al Hashimi, told Gulf News. “These detainees are distributed between Copper prison which is near the Baghdad Airport and Boca prison in Basra,” Al Jouburi said. Al Jouburi confirmed all detainees were Sunni Arabs and that their fate remains unknown because of US refusal to provide any information or abide by the amnesty law issued by the Iraqi government a few months ago.

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13/8/08

The US government has spent at least $85 billion on private contractors during the 2003 Iraq war and its aftermath, a government review has said. About 20 per cent of money spent for operations in Iraq has gone to contractors, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said. At present there are at least 190,000 contractors in Iraq and in neighbouring countries, a ratio of about one per US service member, the report said. The report sparked heavy criticism by US Democrats, with Senator Kent Conrad, chairman of the US senate budget committee, saying the reliance on contractors “restricts accountability and oversight; opens the door to corruption and abuse and … may significantly increase the cost to American taxpayers”. The study did not include figures for 2008 and therefore the total paid to contractors for work in Iraq since the invasion could be even higher, possibly topping $100 billion by the end of this year, the report said.

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Taylor Luck;10/8/08

The most silent victims of war tend to be children who suffer the brunt of trauma and are most often unable to explain their feelings and fears, according to experts. Children and War foundation, a Norwegian non-profit research organisation dedicated to studying and providing counselling for children impacted by war, inner-city violence and natural disasters, has been working in the Kingdom since 2005 to aid affected children, mainly Iraqis. Rather than taking a prescription pad approach, psychiatrist Numan Ali and specialist Tori Snell have been working to heal through psychotherapy, to provide long-term coping methods for children who have suffered hardships. The approach has proven vital for Iraqis who have fled violence from their home country, according to the therapists. “These are some of the most traumatised children I’ve seen in over 30 years,” Ali noted, adding that many have experienced brutal murders, rape, car-bombings and other traumatic events, which are often magnified when living in displaced communities.

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10/8/08

The US must provide a “clear timeline” to withdraw its troops from Iraq as part of an agreement allowing them to operate in Iraq beyond this year, Hoshiyar Zebari, Iraq’s foreign minister, has said. His comments on Sunday are the strongest public assertion yet that Iraq is demanding a timeline for US withdrawal. The Reuters news agency quoted Zebari saying an agreement, including the timeline, was “very close” and would probably be presented to the Iraqi parliament in early September. George Bush, the US president, has long resisted setting a timeline for withdrawal, but in July the White House began speaking of a general “time horizon” and “aspirational goals” to withdraw.

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Bin Laden driver gets 66 months
8/8/08
A military jury has sentenced the former driver of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, to five and a half years in prison for supporting terrorism. The sentence delivered on Thursday means that Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni citizen, would be eligible for release in less than six months. However, the US government has previoulsy argued that it has the right to continue to hold Guantanamo detainees as “enemy combatants”. Prosecutors had earlier called for Hamdan to serve at least 30 years in jail after being convicted the previous day of providing support to al-Qaeda, although he was cleared of conspiracy to commit war crimes.

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8/8/08

A car bomb in an Iraqi market has killed at least 18 people and wounded at least 25 others. The explosion in Tal Afar in the north of the country on Friday took place at about 6.30pm (1530GMT). The blast occurred in the Wahda commercial district less than 30 minutes after the expiration of a vehicle ban to prevent bombers from targeting weekly Islamic services, a security official said. Tal Afar is near Mosul, about 240km northwest of Baghdad, where US-led forces have recently been focusing their battle against fighters opposed to the US presence in the country.

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Tim Reid; 7/8/08

British intelligence agency MI6 told former prime minister Tony Blair before the invasion of Iraq that a high-placed Iraqi source had said that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. The intelligence was passed to the US but was buried by the White House, according to a new book. The book claims Mr Blair sent a top British spy to the Middle East in 2003 - three months before the invasion - to dig up enough intelligence to avoid war, but US President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney dismissed any claims or possible evidence that would stop military action against Iraq. In The Way of the World, Pulitzer prize-winning author Ron Suskind claims the White House ordered the CIA to forge a backdated handwritten letter purportedly from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam. The letter, which came to light nine months after the invasion, was meant to demonstrate a link between the Baathist regime and al-Qa’ida.

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