Iraq analysis

[Al-khiyal]

Saddam Hussein-era officials face new trial

BAGHDAD, November 23, 2008 (AP) - Saddam Hussein's cousin, known as ''Chemical Ali,'' and another close aide to the dictator who represented him abroad appeared in court Sunday accused of orchestrating the bloody repression of Shiite riots after the 1999 assassination of the father of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

It was the fifth trial of top Saddam-era figures and the second to include Tariq Aziz, who became internationally known as the dictator's defender and a fierce American critic after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent 1991 Gulf War.

Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, one of the most powerful Shiite clerics in Iraq in the 1990s, was killed with two of his sons in an ambush on February 20, 1999, in the holy city of Najaf. His followers said Saddam's agents were to blame.

The next day, angry loyalists rioted near a mosque in Baghdad's main Shiite district - then called Saddam City but later renamed Sadr City after the elder cleric - blockading roads and ordering shop owners to shutter up in mourning. Iraqi policemen trying to break up the protest were beaten and police cars destroyed.

Saddam's paramilitary Fedayeen militia opened fire on the protesters and a curfew was imposed while the whole district was sealed off until the next day.

Citing documents from Saddam's now-outlawed ruling Baath Party, chief prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon on Sunday said Saddam's security forces opened fire on the Sadr City crowd, killing 16 people. He said 14 others were killed in a similar crackdown in the Shiite southern city of Amarah.

Families were then ordered not to hold public funerals for those killed, al-Faroon said, citing Baath Party documents.

The documents acknowledge that some people were shot by mistake because they were near the riots, and listed the names of some victims along with their political backgrounds, according to al-Faroon.

Aziz claimed the defendants had not been granted sufficient time to discuss the case with their lawyers. ''We want real meetings with our lawyers,'' he told the court.

Another defendant who had been interior minister at the time, Mohammed Zumam, insisted he was innocent. ''I have nothing to do with this case,'' he said.

Aziz, the only Christian among Saddam's inner circle, was for years one of the most visible leaders of the ousted regime. Among his 15 co-defendants, who were all present in court Sunday, was Ali Hassan al-Majid, known by the nickname of ''Chemical Ali'' for ordering poison gas attacks against Iraq's Kurdish minority in the 1980s.

Formal charges were to be filed later in the trial, but a court official, speaking on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to release the information, said the charges were expected to include crimes against humanity, which would carry the death penalty.

Aziz also faces charges in another trial under way for officials accused in the 1992 execution of dozens of merchants accused of manipulating food supplies to drive up prices during hard economic times under U.N. sanctions.

Al-Majid has already been sentenced to death for his role in the crackdown against the Kurds, but the execution has been delayed by legal wrangling. He also has been accused in an ongoing trial over the deadly crushing of a Shiite uprising that followed the 1991 Gulf War.

Saddam was sentenced to death in May 2006 for his role in the killing of Shiite Muslims in the town of Dujail after an assassination attempt against him there in 1982. Saddam was hanged the following December.

Saddam was executed while on trial in a second case, also stemming from the brutal crackdown on the Kurds.

The younger al-Sadr emerged as a fierce opponent of the U.S. presence in Iraq in 2003 and launched three major uprisings against American-led forces, two in 2004 and one this year. He has ordered his fighters to stand down, which is considered a major factor in a steep drop in violence over the past year.

[Al-khiyal]

Pirates will infest Gulf if U.S. quits Iraq too soon: minister

Al-Maliki says U.S. troops will leave if no pact

BAGHDAD, November 23, 2008 (Reuters) - Iraq will not seek to extend the U.N. mandate of U.S. troops and they will pull out immediately if Iraqi parliament fails to approve a pact allowing them to stay until 2011, Iraq's prime minister said on Sunday.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was speaking after Iraq's leaders met with recalcitrant politicians on Sunday to try to persuade them to accept the pact, which gives the United States three years to phase out a military presence that started with a 2003 invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.

"Extending the presence of the international forces on Iraqi soil will not be our alternative," Maliki told journalists. "The alternative will be their immediate withdrawal from Iraq."

Leaders of every major political bloc apart from followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr attended late evening talks behind closed doors on Sunday, as the government struggled to win broad acceptance of the pact.

The meetings ended without a final resolution, said Hassan al-Shimmari, the leader in parliament of the Shi'ite Fadhila party, one of the factions opposed to the pact.

"It was agreed the heads should meet tomorrow and every bloc present demands ... as recommendations to be voted on," he said.

Maliki and other cabinet ministers have fervently defended the pact, arguing that it is Iraq's best hope for restoring sovereignty while avoiding the bloody chaos of recent years.

"An immediate withdrawal would not be in Iraq's interests," Maliki told the late night news conference. Many Iraqis have assumed Iraq's only alternative was an extension of the existing U.N. mandate, which ends on December 31, given the security challenges it still faces.

Parliament has been debating the proposed pact after cabinet approved it last Sunday. Lawmakers are scheduled to vote on it on Wednesday, before setting off for a holiday recess.

Large Shi'ite and Kurdish parties that support Maliki may have enough votes to pass the pact, but to win a broad consensus they need to win over Sunni Arabs and smaller parties.

The Sadrists, who have been isolated from the political mainstream since a government crackdown on their Mehdi Army militia this year, oppose any extension of the U.S. presence. Thousands of their supporters marched against the pact on Friday.

They have 30 seats in the 275 seat legislature.

All other groups say they back a pact in principle. But some, including the main Sunni Arab group, the Accordance Front, have reservations about the text thrashed out over nearly a year of painstaking negotiations between Baghdad and Washington.

Several have indicated they may not approve it or turn up, prompting dire warnings from the government of a return to the violence that threatened to tear Iraq apart after the invasion.

Influential Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who could sink the pact if he disapproved of it, has said it is up to parliament to decide. But he says the pact should have the support of all of Iraq's communities.

[Al-khiyal]

U.S. alone critical of Syria at Iraq conference

DAMASCUS, November 23, 2008 (Reuters) - The United States stood alone at a conference on Sunday in accusing host Syria of sheltering militants attacking Iraq, while other countries adopted a more conciliatory tone, delegates said.

No other state present at the conference on security for Iraq joined Washington in its open criticism, weeks after a U.S. raid on Syria that targeted suspected militants linked to al Qaeda, they told Reuters.

U.S. Charge d'Affaires Maura Connelly, the senior American diplomat in Syria, told a closed session that Syria must stop allowing what she called terrorist networks using its territory as a base for attacks in Iraq.

Washington's leading Western ally, Britain, has recently praised Syria for preventing foreign fighters from infiltrating into Iraq, and its foreign secretary, David Miliband, was in Damascus this week pursuing detente with Syria.

"The American diplomat's speech was blunt and short. The United States was the only country at the conference to criticise Syria openly," one of the delegates said.

"The British ambassador called on neighbouring countries to take action against 'facilitators' based inside their territories, but he did not name names," a second delegate said.

Western countries, Russia, Iran, Iraq and most of Iraq's other neighbours are attending the meeting in the Syrian capital with the aim of devising security measures to help end violence in Iraq and attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.

But Saudi Arabia, which has major disagreements with Syria over Lebanon and Iran, stayed away.

The United States pushed for the meeting in 2006 to get Arab countries to engage more on Iraq. Syria, which opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, agreed to host it on a regular basis as part of a new policy to defuse tension with Baghdad.

It had threatened to cancel the meeting after the U.S. raid on Syria from Iraqi territory on October 26, which Damascus said killed eight civilians. It decided to go ahead after the Iraqi government condemned the strike, reversing an earlier stance.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmad Arnous said Syria was a "victim of terrorism" and that it would not allow any attack on any individual living in its territory, the delegates said.

"Arnous chose not to respond directly to the U.S. charge, but emphasised that Iraq's stability was in the interest of Syria," another delegate said.

Arnous was referring to a car bomb attack in September on a military intelligence complex in Damascus that killed at least 17 people. Syria blamed the attack on Fatah al-Islam, a militant group it said was active in Lebanon.

State television showed confessions by alleged Fatah al-Islam members who said the car had come from Iraq.

Interior Minister Bassam Abdel Majeed, who made a brief appearance at the meeting, said Syria had enough forces on the border with Iraq to stop what he called infiltration in both directions, dismissing media reports that Syrian guards had been pulled away from the border after the U.S. raid.

Delegates said representatives of China and Russia had condemned the United States for using Iraq as a "base for aggression." A joint statement issued by Iraq and its neighbours after the meeting said they opposed any offensive action launched from Iraq against its neighbours or vice versa.

A U.S. official in Washington said the September strike had killed Abu Ghadiy, whom he identified as a smuggler of fighters to al Qaeda in Iraq.

The attack further damaged ties between Damascus and Washington, which imposed sanctions on Syria in 2004, mainly for its support for the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and the Lebanese Shi'ite movement Hezbollah.

Washington recalled its ambassador to Syria the following year, when the former Western-backed Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri was assassinated in Beirut.

[Al-khiyal]

Father murdered, wife and daughter jailed: killers call the shots in Iraq's justice system

November 24, 2008 -- Nour al-Houda al-Maliki woke one night in March to the cracks of the bullets that killed her father as he lay sleeping, six feet from her. She saw four masked men. One she knew as a member of the Mahdi army, the feared clan that ruthlessly calls the shots throughout her south Baghdad neighbourhood.

Overcome by fear, the 21-year-old still managed to take her mother to the nearby Rashid police station the next day to report her father's murder and identify at least one killer.

"They said to me, 'You mention the Mahdi army one more time and we will beat you, then jail you'," Nour, 21, recalled at the weekend. They were true to their word. She left prison 15 days ago and has been on the run since. "I'm scared," she said. "So scared, but who can I turn to?"

Maliki is among tens of thousands of Iraqis for whom justice is a delusory buzz-word of a departing occupation. As the US prepares to withdraw its combat troops from most towns and villages by the middle of next year, the rule of law remains unenforceable throughout all layers of the nascent state it will leave behind.

Even the judiciary cowers in fear from the criminals, or militants, who have held the country to ransom for at least three years. Many of the gunmen are filling the ranks of the so-called Sons of Iraq, the steadily growing movement credited with steadying Iraqi security.

Among the Sons of Iraq rank and file are former al-Qaida insurgents who once used to be the US military's targets. At a Sons of Iraq pay day at the Hamani police station, north of Baghdad, Captain James Polak from the 2/14 Stryker Brigades was supervising the handover of responsibilities from his troops to local Iraqis.

Asked how they decided which former insurgents were jailed and which were given salaries, he replied: "We have been told that anything that happened longer than four months ago is the cut-off."

The upshot is that among Iraq's judges and victims, there is a growing sense that justice will never be served.

"As judges, we are under the most critical of threats," said one Iraqi supreme court judge, who refused to be identified because of a terrorist attack on his home during the summer.

On June 30, six senior judges were targeted by insurgents who planted explosives in their driveways or shot them on the way to court. The chief justice was assassinated at the steering wheel of his car. Three other judges were wounded.

The judge who was attacked at home keeps a loaded pistol in his chambers these days and rarely dons the black robe that marks him as an arbiter of law.

"We are always stressed and some of us are depressed," he said, sipping bitter coffee in his chambers inside a fortified compound in Baghdad. "We are consulting psychologists, who tell us to go often to wide open places, like lakes," he said, with incredulity. "We are working beyond our capabilities as human beings."

At another safe compound downtown, one of Iraq's best-known lawyers also lamented his inability to do his job. "The justice system will have no role in the rebuilding of Iraq," he said. "The law system is supposed to be independent, but this is not true. Many practitioners are afraid and have been influenced by different groups in many different ways. A judge simply cannot use his skills to do what he is trained to do. He knows he is likely to pay with his life for trying."

Avenging a wrong is a key tenet of social life in the Arab world, and reconciling the past is seen by the vast majority of Iraqi citizens as a prerequisite to moving forward. "But we are not looking like we are going to be able to do that," said a second senior judge, who was also unwilling to be identified. "If we don't have the past, we don't have the future."

Amid growing resentment at the clean slates being thrown the way of some Sons of Iraq members, the US military yesterday said in a statement: "The prime minister's direction is that members of the Sons of Iraq will not be arrested until the warrant is reviewed by an independent joint legal advisory committee." This committee has been ordered to be formed by the country's national reconciliation committee.

The committee, along with the subject matter, is a work in progress. But that is no comfort to Maliki.

"I was jailed for eight months because they forced me to sign a confession that I helped kill my father for an inheritance," she said from her Baghdad hideout. "My mother was jailed for life.

"When we went to the investigating judge, they asked me was there anything I wanted to change in my confession. I was too scared, but all I could think about was my brother hanging from the roof by his feet with the police beating him.

"I don't know what my future is," she sobbed. "But if I go back to my neighbourhood, or to the court, or to the police, they will kill me."

Attacks on judges

June 27 2008: Chief Judge KamilAbdul Majeed was shot dead at traffic signals between court and his home.

June 30 2008: Five judges from Baghdad's criminal courts were targeted in a coordinated bombing campaign:

Sulaiman Abdullah: Hand grenade strapped to his front gate. Roadside bomb at front gate exploded later.

Qusai Ali Jasim: Bomb discovered and defused inside electricity box in his garage.

Ali al-Alaak: Bomb exploded outside home.

Ghanim al-Shammari: Bomb exploded outside home.

Hassan Shwalah: Bomb placed outside his garage.

All five survived.

[Al-khiyal]

Rape's vast toll in Iraq war remains largely ignored

Amman, Jordan, November 24, 2008 -- As though recoiling from her own memories, Khalida shrank deeper into her faded armchair with each sentence she told: of how gunmen apparently working for Iraq's Interior Ministry kidnapped her, beat and raped her; of how they discarded her on a Baghdad sidewalk.

But her suffering did not end when she fled Iraq and became a refugee in Jordan's capital, Amman. When Khalida's husband learned that she had been raped, he abandoned her and their two young sons.

Rumors spread fast in Amman; soon, everyone on her block knew that she was without a man in the house. Last month, her Jordanian neighbor barged into her apartment and attempted to rape her.

Khalida never reported the incident. Like tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, she does not have a permit to live or work here, and she is afraid that if she turns to authorities for help she will get deported. So instead of seeking punishment for her assailant, she latched the flimsy metal door of her apartment and stopped going outside.

Her story sheds light on a problem that is little researched, poorly understood, and largely ignored: Iraqi rape victims who now live in Jordan illegally and without protection. Sexual assault is heavily stigmatized in the Middle East, and victims are often afraid to talk about it to anyone, fearing that their families will abandon them. And their shaky status in Jordan leaves them afraid to seek help and vulnerable to new assaults and abuse. They fear persecution by Jordanian immigration authorities almost as much as they fear returning to Iraq.

"The lack of legal status does lead to these sorts of protection issues [and] puts them in very exploitative situations," says Imran Riza, who heads the mission in Jordan of the United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the main international agency that assists Iraqis in Jordan. Women like Khalida, he says, "are certainly vulnerable, and much more vulnerable than others."

Rape is a common weapon of any war; no one knows how many Iraqi women have been raped since the war began in 2003. Most crimes against women "are not reported because of stigma, fear of retaliation, or lack of confidence in the police," MADRE, an international women's rights group, wrote in its 2007 report about violence against women in Iraq. Some women, like Khalida, are raped by Iraqi security forces. A 2005 report published by the Iraqi National Association for Human Rights found that women held in Interior Ministry detention centers endure "systematic rape by the investigators."

A handful of organizations are working to help rape victims in Iraq. MADRE, together with the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, operates several shelters and safe houses in Baghdad for Iraqi rape victims, where the women have access to healthcare and counseling.

But militias often target women's rights advocates in Iraq, so these facilities are "a clandestine network," operated by "mostly somebody who at a great risk to themselves has opened a room for these victims," says Yifat Susskind, MADRE's communications director. The shelters have helped several thousand Iraqi women since 2003. Most rape victims learn about the shelters from other women.

Documenting sexual assault in Iraq by international researchers remains complicated because of widespread violence. "There's been a security issue, so we haven't been able to get people on the ground to look at the issue for a long time," says Marianne Mollmann, who leads women's rights advocacy at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, which published its last report about rape in Iraq in 2003.

Similarly, no one has tried to estimate how many Iraqi refugees have been raped while in Iraq or in Jordan, says Mohamad Habashneh, a Jordanian psychiatrist who works with Iraqi rape victims.

Mr. Habashneh has treated approximately 40 Iraqi rape victims for clinical depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. But he estimates that they are just a fraction of Iraqi refugees who had been raped.

Psychiatrists like Habashneh charge between $25 and $40 per visit, too expensive for most Iraqi refugees, who, like Khalida, live hand-to-mouth on monthly handouts of about $100 from international agencies.

Many victims are afraid to go outside or travel to a clinic out of fear of being detained by Jordanian authorities.

To help these women, women's rights organizations in Jordan must coordinate with larger agencies, such as UNHCR, to provide care and programs that would help the victims earn money "because rape survivors are alienated from their family and therefore have no way to sustain themselves," Ms. Susskind says.

But so far, these resources are not available for most Iraqi rape victims in Jordan. There are no support groups, no counselors, no hot lines, an no one to soothe Khalida when she has flashbacks that make her relive the day when assailants dressed in police uniforms arrived at the Oil Ministry where she worked and said they were taking her in for questioning.

She did not tell her husband that she had been raped but he figured it out. Now, Khalida does not blame him for going away, or for leaving her so vulnerable to men who wish to prey on her.

"I have his phone number," she says, sobbing quietly. "I dial it sometimes for the kids to talk to their father. Sometimes, because I love him, I like to hear his voice. But when I say 'hello' he hangs up."

[Al-khiyal]

Female suicide bomber kills five outside Baghdad's Green Zone

BAGHDAD, November 24, 2008 (Bernama) -- A woman suicide bomber blew herself up at a checkpoint outside the Green Zone in central Baghdad on Monday morning, killing at least five people and wounding 12 others, China's Xinhua news agency quoted an Interior Ministry source as saying.

A woman wearing an explosive-belt blew herself up at a checkpoint manned by Iraqi security forces outside the heavily fortified Green Zone, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

"Our first reports said that five killed and 12 injured, including security members," the source said.

Suicide attacks carried out by women and girls have become increasingly common in Iraq in recent months. The U.S. military says that the al-Qaida insurgents prefer using female bombers because they can easily escape detection as the Iraqi police are reluctant to search them.

Insurgents frequently targeted the Green Zone, which houses some Iraqi government offices and foreign embassies, including those of the United States'.

The roughly 10 square km area is located on the west bank of the Tigris River which bisects the Iraqi capital.

[Al-khiyal]

Rush hour bombs kill 18 in Baghdad

November 24, 2008 -- Two rush hour attacks in Baghdad this morning have killed 18 people and wounded 18 more.

In the first attack a woman suicide bomber killed five people and wounded 12 outside the heavily guarded Green Zone.

The woman blew herself up at a checkpoint where a crowd of Iraqi employees were waiting to enter, sending a black pillar of smoke into the sky.

The checkpoint was one of the main entrances to the zone, which houses Iraq's parliament and several government offices and foreign embassies.

In a separate attack in East Baghdad, 13 people were killed by a roadside bomb that exploded near a bus carrying trade ministry employees.