US Occupation of Iraq: Where is the limit?
The BRussells Tribunal Committee
BTC, March 13, 2006
The United States-led occupation continues to demolish humanitarian law with impunity in Iraq
Occupying powers have bred a culture of insecurity that destroys the lives of ordinary Iraqis
International institutions, monitoring bodies and parliaments must act or risk irrelevance
Three years have passed since the United States launched an illegal war of aggression on the sovereign Republic of Iraq. Neither were weapons of mass destruction found nor democracy or human rights advanced. Within one month, Iraqis will enter their fourth year as a people under occupation, ruled by a puppet regime that sanctions death squads and torture.
The time has long passed for this to end.
In the words of John Pace — until recently head of the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq — “the ordinary Iraqi has absolutely no protection whatsoever from the state or from the authorities.” Pace adds that, “the prevalence torture is quite clearly established,” that “the degree of violence has increased exponentially since the invasion,” and that “the country has been blown apart in terms of its social structures and social fiber.”
In the absence of a sovereign Iraqi government — which cannot exist, by definition, under occupation — the US-led Multi-National Forces in Iraq (MNF-I) are legally responsible, and imputable, for the failure to protect even the most basic of all human rights principles: the right to life. The current situation is intolerable. Workers in the morgue of Baghdad alone report that on average 1600 corpses are brought in every month. Following the criminal destruction of Al-Askari mosque in Samarra, these same workers report that 1300 dead were brought in over a period of seven days.
The US-led occupation has consciously led Iraq to the verge of disintegration. The country is being plundered. Torture and assassinations are endemic. Women and children have borne an equal share of the violence. The occupation is running out of space for prisoners. Cities have been targeted and destroyed in a programme of urbicide — Fallujah, Tel Afar, Al-Qaim, Haditha. US coordinated air strikes and related military interventions are the biggest killer in Iraq. Repeated polls in Iraq have shown that Iraqis believe they would be safer if foreign troops left.
A culture of intended destruction
As the year 2006 opens, we have no other conclusion to draw except that the United States has intended destruction upon the people of Iraq. The use of depleted uranium weaponry will leave a scar on Iraq for billions of years. All public services have collapsed — health, water, electricity, communications, justice and security. The occupation has done nothing to protect Iraqis. Refusing to safeguard civilians is as much a violation of international law as the criminal use of chemical agents — such as white phosphorus on Fallujah and Tel Afar. Criminal inaction, especially following the Samarra atrocity — the US military standing by as death squads roam the streets of Iraq — has highlighted with precision the underlying rationality of the US presence in Iraq: impoverish the country, break it up, foment sectarian hatred, stand back and watch the killing fields swallow the population.
Silence is complicity
The international community has failed Iraq, and the Iraqi people. A decade of silence over murderous sanctions has been compounded with timidity as the United States overturned a century of legal regulation and waged an illegal preemptive war on a state that was already on its knees.
The BRussells Tribunal, in solidarity with the Iraqi people and its struggle to recover sovereignty, calls on all international organizations and institutions that work towards upholding international law, as well as national parliaments and regional organizations, to act now and with purpose.
International institutions, monitoring bodies and parliaments must recognize the gravity of the situation and act to protect the life and person of all Iraq civilians, condemn US policies in Iraq, demand the unconditional and immediate withdrawal of all foreign forces, demand the US and all other occupying powers pay reparations to Iraq and compensation to Iraqis for the human and material destruction wrought, restore in full Iraqi sovereignty, recognize as null and void any treaty, law or contract passed under occupation, and bring again a semblance of credibility to the legal underpinnings of international society.
When the powerful claim a state of exception to law the rights and obligations of all are undermined. The situation in Iraq is disgrace to us all. It is time for all actors in positions of authority and influence to rediscover their conscience, as well as their mandate and legal obligations, and speak up and ensure the end of this atrocity now.
Selected writings of some members (and former members) of the BRussells Tribunal
Accomplices in War Crimes
Echoes Of War
The invasion and occupation of Iraq was a premeditated murderous act of aggression
Iraq - A Criminal Process
The Crimes of US ‘Democracy’
World Disorder and the Crimes against the People of Iraq
“Violent insurgency”
In Less Than Three Years
Mass Starvation and Democracy Prevention
Iraq: A cluster of torture prisons
Dehumanisation of the “others”
The ‘Evil Ideology’ - The teachings Of Islam are Peace and Equality
Death squads, Devastation and the Corporate Media
Real History and the Improvements in Iraq
Road to the Muslim Holocaust
War Crimes — Committed In All Our Names
Recruiting Lies vs. Military Reality
Biopiracy and GMOs: The Fate of Iraq’s Agriculture
Iraq: A cluster of torture prisons
Who is John Negroponte?
Iraq’s Health Care Under the Occupation
The Resort To Torture
The Rise Of Legitimate Resistance Movement.
Iraqi Women Under Occupation
The Life And Mysterious Murder Of Margaret
Bush-Terror: The Supreme International Crime
Accomplices in War Crimes
Media Disinformation and the Nature of the Iraqi Resistance
Living Conditions in Iraq: A Criminal Tragedy
Useful Propaganda
Iraq: A colonial dictatorship
Civilization under Occupation
Iraq Elections and the Liberal Elites
The Staged Elections of 2005
Elections’ Aftermath
Independent Media: Enemy Target
The resort to torture
Undermining Iraq’s Food Security
Colonial Violence against Women in Iraq
200 Children Die Every Day
Iraqi Women Under Occupation
US War Crimes, An International Vow of Silence
Who are the “Barbarians”?
Iraq: The Massacres Continue as “Democracy-Building”
Unmasked: The War Against Iraqi Children
IRAQ: Women suffer colonial violence
Iraq - A Colonial Dictatorship
Real History and the Improvements in Iraq
Iraq’s Parliament: New Farce
The Destruction of Iraq’s Educational System under US Occupation
Imperial Misadventures
What do Fallujah and Halabja have in Common?
Assumptive and Malicious Disinformation
They Saved Our Lives
Iraqi voices are drowned out in a blizzard of occupiers’ spin
Exit without a strategy
“The elections won’t change things”
A fiction as powerful as WMD
Iraqis told them to go from day one
The Vietnam turnout was good as well
Behind the rising tide of resistance in Iraq
Falluja’s defiance of a new empire
Collaboration won’t buy Iraq’s freedom
America has sown the seeds of civil war in Iraq
There’s more to Sadr than meets the eye
The true face of Iraqi resistance
Resistance to occupation will grow
Britain’s Trade Unions, the Occupation of Iraq and the IFTU
Iraq elections are not free
Patriots and invaders
Bring the British troops home
Whose interests at heart?
Who Are The Terrorists In Falluja
Iraq’s New Marketplace of Ideas: Graffiti
The battle of posters
Death in Najaf
Iraqi elections 2005
Joy is green
All the king’s horses
In our hands
Iraq’s ticking time-bombs
Will they, won’t they?
Post-election doldrums
As the bloodbath continues
‘Not our concern’
Hostage hoax
Free to be like US
Kirkuk’s curse
The ballot and the bullet
Scorched dreams
In the rubble of Falluja
Beyond security
Bremer knew
Smoke and ashes
Poppies bloom in Iraq
Iraq: free for all
Business as usual
Woe betide Najaf
The six-month mark
Baghdad blues
Waiting for Al-Mahdi
Freedom is never a gift from above
Targeting tolerance
Third gear
Smoke and ashes
Between a rock and a hard place
Tomorrow will be ours
The only way is out Dec. 08 2005
Why the US will lose Nov. 04 2005
People not puppets Aug. 18, 2005
Professor of international law accuses Harvard of hiring ” War criminal” (23 Nov 2004)
US as Belligerent Occupant (22 Dec 2005)
Francis Boyle offers expert’s analysis of Iraq war as “Pure Evil” (10 Jan 2006) Video
Biowarfare: Who Poses the Threat?
The National Campaign to Impeach President George W. Bush (16 June 2005)
Destroying World Order (22 June 2004)
Torture and International Human Rights (09 Jan 2005)
War Criminal as Attorney General? (18 Nov 2004)
Obliterating Fallujah: A War Crime in Real Time (15 Nov 2004)
As I recall it's also a place where the insurgents had shot Iraqi families whose homes they had taken over to hide from our troops.
Off-topic but since they mention Tal Afar... this is what was going on when Zarqawi was thought to have taken over there:
Iraqi TV airs video footage of children mutilated by gunmen in Tal Afar
Kuwait News Agency ^ | 2005 Sep 12
Posted on 09/13/2005 6:57:28 AM PDT by Wiz
BAGHDAD, Sept 12 (KUNA) -- Al-Iraqiya satellite television channel on Monday aired video footage showing dead bodies of Iraqi people, including children, mutilated by gunmen in the city of Tal Afar, northern Iraq.
It showed photos of Iraqi children between the ages of six and 17, with their bodies and faces mutilated while lying down in their bedrooms, in addition to other photos of demolished and looted houses.
The station also aired video footage of Tal Afar residents in camps outside the city, as they were forced to leave due to bombings and terror threats.
(Excerpt) Read more at kuna.net.kw ...