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The
War Profiteers - War Crimes, Kidnappings & Torture |
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The Second Gulf War/Iraq Invasion II - The Killing
of Civilians & Prisoners |
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Newest media report: Mortar Bomb Kills 27, Wounds 56
in Iraq’s Karbala (5/2/2010/AFP
& Press Association) Newest government/NGO report: Iraqi Civilian, Police,
and Security Forces Casualty Statistics (17/9/2009/CRS) |
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Background - The Killing of Civilians in Iraq “The allegations sound like reports of war crimes
committed by someone else's soldiers: men in black ski masks enter a house,
where three of them take turns raping a 14-year-old girl. They then kill her,
her parents, and her 5-year-old sister. It is the kind of atrocity Americans
associate with the Nazis, Serbian paramilitary commandos in Kosovo, perhaps
Russian troops in Chechnya - not U.S. soldiers. ‘One doesn’t expect the
American troops to behave the same way, because there are notions that higher
morals prevail in the U.S. armed forces,’ said Robert Rotberg, an expert on
conflict and conflict resolution at Harvard University. “But as a military tribunal in Baghdad is deciding
whether five American soldiers must stand trial in connection with the rape and
murder of an Iraqi girl and the killing of her parents and sister in March,
military experts and historians warn that it will become increasingly
difficult for American troops fighting against an elusive enemy in Iraq to
maintain military discipline under the intense pressures of war. Wartime
atrocities, they say, occur in most wars and are committed by most, if not
all, occupying troops - even by such a high-tech, well-trained military as
the United States’. […] “Recent allegations of atrocities by American troops
- which include the investigations into whether U.S. servicemen shot in cold
blood 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Haditha in November, shot an unarmed
Iraqi man in February, executed a civilian in April and three prisoners in
May - ‘aren’t surprising at all,’ said Andrew Wiest, professor of military
history at the University of Southern Mississippi. ‘The fact that we maybe
weren’t expecting them is surprising.’ […]” [Excerpt
of a San Francisco Chronicle article
from August 13th, 2006] |
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Reports Archive The Government & NGO Reports
Archive Diverse Archives The Falluja Killing Chronicles The U.S. Foreign Claims Act in Iraq Archives of Individual Killings of Iraqi
Civilians & Prisoners Recent Media Reports February 5th, 2010 - Mortar Bomb Kills 27, Wounds 56
in Iraq’s Karbala 2 news
articles from Agence France Presse & Press Association February 3rd, 2010 - Iraq Bombing Kills at least 20 as
Pilgrims Converge on Karbala 1 news
article from the Washington Post January 26th, 2010 - 21 Killed in Bombing at Baghdad
Government Building 2 news
articles from the Los Angeles Times & Christian Science Monitor January 14th, 2010 - Bombs Kill Up to 15 in Shiite
Holy City in Iraq 1 news
article from Agence France Presse Selected
Killings & Massacres of Iraqi Civilians &
Prisoners
Five Individuals Killings of Iraqi Civilians &
Detainees by U.S. Troops
Graphic by New
York Times/Date: June 17th, 2006 Recent Reports on Civilian Killings & Living
Conditions of the General Population September 17th, 2009 - Iraqi Civilian, Police,
and Security Forces Casualty Statistics Report by the
Congressional Research Service “[…] This report presents various governmental and
nongovernmental estimates of Iraqi civilian, police, and security forces
fatalities. The Iraq government is releasing increasingly regular data on
these deaths. The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) releases the monthly
pattern of Iraqi civilian, police, and security forces deaths, and it
regularly updates total U.S. military deaths and wounded statistics from
Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), as reflected in CRS Report RS 21578, Iraq:
U.S. Casualties, by Susan G. Chesser. Because the estimates contained in this
report are based on varying time periods and have been created using
differing methodologies, readers should exercise caution when using them and
should look to them as guideposts rather than as statements of fact. […]” April 29th, 2009 - Human Rights Report: 1 July
- 31 December 2008 Report by the
United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) “[…] 1. The second half of 2008 was characterised by
further improvements in the security situation, already noted during the
first months of the year, with additional decrease in the number of
high-visibility mass-casualty attacks by militias, insurgents and criminal
groups. The large scale military offensives in Basra and Sadr City in March
and April were followed by smaller targeted operations in Missan, Diyala and
Ninawa in July, August and November respectively. In October 2008, the
numbers of Iraqi civilians and soldiers from the Multi-National Force - Iraq
(MNF-I) killed reached their lowest levels since 2003. For the first time
since 2007, the Ministry of Health published the number of civilian
casualties in Iraq. According to the Ministry, a total of 6,787 civilians
were killed and 20,178 injured in 2008, which illustrates a significant
reduction in the number of violent deaths compared to the 34,542 civilians
killed and 36,685 injured in 2006. “2. Nonetheless, the United Nations Assistance
Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) remains concerned about the overall human rights
situation in Iraq since indiscriminate attacks remained a frequent
occurrence; the targeted killings of security forces, high ranking officials
and civil servants, religious and political leaders, professional groups such
as journalists, educators, medical doctors, judges and lawyers and other
civilians continued at a high rate, as did criminal abductions for ransom.
The reporting period was also characterised by the attacks against minority
leaders and the large displacement of over 12,000 Christians from Mosul in
October. Violence against women in the Region of Kurdistan and the rest of
Iraq remained one of the issues of serious concern as the pattern of the
recorded incidents of suicide often points towards ‘honour’-related
homicides. “3. The improvement in the security situation was
not accompanied by a full re-establishment of the rule of law and by
systematically addressing impunity. In most cases, the perpetrators of human
rights abuses were not brought to justice. UNAMI has continuously stated that
security may not be sustainable unless significant steps are taken in the
area of human rights such as strengthening the rule of law and addressing
impunity. This is an opportunity for Iraq, as it exerts its sovereignty, to
advance all aspects of the rule of law including legal reform, strengthening
the judiciary, improving the conditions of detention and enabling access to
justice by detainees. UNAMI and the United Nations Country Team (UNCT) stand
ready to assist. “4. With regards to the situation in prisons and
detention centres, at the end of the reporting period a total of 41,271
individuals remained detained under the custody of different authorities such
as the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence,
Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and MNF-I. The number of detainees
under Iraqi control in December 2008 was 26,249 and those under the control
of MNF-I was 15,058. UNAMI continued to raise concerns about the conditions
of detainees, many of whom have been deprived of their liberty for months or
even years in overcrowded cells, and about violations of the minimum rules of
due process as many did not have access to defence counsel, or were not
formally charged with a crime or appeared before a judge. The new Iraq-United
States Bilateral Agreement envisaging the release or transfer of MNF-I-held
detainees to the Iraqi custody takes effect on January 2009. UNAMI calls upon
both parties to implement the agreement in strict respect of human rights
norms and standards. UNAMI/HRO received credible reports of allegations of
torture and ill-treatment in pre-trial detention in Iraqi detention
facilities. UNAMI/HRO also received reports of ill-treatment in detention
facilities in the Region of Kurdistan and has requested both, the Iraqi
Authorities and the Kurdish Regional Authorities (KRG) to urgently
investigate all such cases. […]” April 16th, 2009 - The Weapons That Kill Civilians Report
by the New England Journal of Medicine “[…] Armed violence, such as that in the ongoing conflict in Iraq, is
a threat to global health. It causes serious injuries and deaths of
civilians, makes orphans of children, traumatizes populations, and undermines
the ability of communities to provide adequate medical care even as it
dramatically increases health care needs. Moreover, indiscriminate or
intentional harm to civilians violates humanitarian principles and basic
human rights. Believing that a careful assessment of the effects of different
kinds of weapons on civilians in Iraq was needed, we used the database of the
Iraq Body Count (IBC), a nongovernmental organization that documents civilian
violent deaths in Iraq, to determine the nature and effects of various
weapons on civilians in Iraq. The patterns we found convince us that
documenting the particular causes of violent civilian deaths during armed
conflict is essential, both to prevent civilian harm and to monitor
compliance with international humanitarian law. […] “[…] The greatest proportion of victims - 19,706 of 60,481, or 33% -
were killed by execution after abduction or capture. Of the bodies of those
who were executed, 5760, or 29%, showed marks of torture, such as bruises,
drill holes, or burns. (A typical media report about this particularly
appalling form of violent death reads: "The bullet-riddled bodies bore
signs of torture and their hands were tied behind their backs.") Iraqi
civilians also suffered heavy tolls from small-arms gunfire in open shootings
and firefights (20% of deaths), apart from executions involving gunfire, and
from suicide bombs (14% of deaths). “In events with at least one Iraqi civilian victim, the methods that
killed the most civilians per event were aerial bombings (17 per event),
combined use of aerial and ground weapons (17 per event), and suicide bombers
on foot (16 per event). Aerial bombs killed, on average, 9 more civilians per
event than aerial missiles (17 vs. 8 per event). Indeed, if an aerial bomb
killed civilians at all, it tended to kill many. It seems clear from these
findings that to protect civilians from indiscriminate harm, as required by
international humanitarian law (including the Geneva Conventions), military
and civilian policies should prohibit aerial bombing in civilian areas unless
it can be demonstrated - by monitoring of civilian casualties, for example -
that civilians are being protected. […]” December 28th, 2008 - Post-Surge Violence: Its Extent
and Nature Report by Iraq
Body Count “[…] This analysis looks at trends. But when
examining the violence afflicting civilians in Iraq’s continuing conflict, a
distinction must be drawn between abstractions represented by varying “rates”
of violence and the reality of that violence for those experiencing it. Every
statistic on this page can be traced to a human life violently ended, and no
one is any less a victim for having been killed during a “downward trend” in
violence. “With only a few days of 2008 remaining, the year so
far has seen another 8,315–9,028 civilian deaths added to the IBC database.
This compares to 25,774–27,599 deaths reported in 2006, and 22,671–24,295 in
2007. This is a substantial drop on the preceding two years: on a per-day
rate, it represents a reduction from 76 per day (2006) and 67 per day (2007)
to 25 per day in 2008. “The most notable reduction in violence has been in
Baghdad. For the first time since the US-led occupation of Iraq began, fewer
deaths have been reported in the capital than in the rest of the country
(from 54% of all deaths in 2006-2007 to 32% in 2008). Most of these
reductions have been attributed to declining inter-communal violence. “Yet these improvements, as important and welcome as
they are, can only be seen as a success when compared to the much worse
conditions that prevailed in 2006-2007. Even within this timeframe, areas
outside Baghdad have seen far less dramatic reductions in violence, and
dozens of civilians are still being killed in conflict-related violence
throughout Iraq on a relentless, daily basis. At 25 per day, the 2008 rate
for violent civilian deaths is equivalent to that existing throughout the
first 20 months of post-invasion Iraq, from May 2003 to December 2004 (15,355
deaths over 610 days). […]” The Government & NGO Reports
Archive |
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War Scenes from Iraq |
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Victim of U.S. airstrike |
4 children - killed by U.S. forces |
2 babys - killed by U.S. forces |
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Background 1) 9-year-old Ibtihal Jassem is rescued by her uncle Jaber Jouda, in Basra,
Iraq, after the bombing of the Mshan neighbourhood by coalition warplanes.
Born deaf and mute, Jassem not only lost her right leg in the U.S. bombing of
Basra two days after the war in Iraq began, but also all seven members of her
family. After she was rescued by Jaber Jouda, who found her with her right
leg almost severed, Jassem has lived with her grandparents - March 22nd,
2003 - AP Photo/Nabil El Jourana; Graphic 2) “US Military Cases in Iraq” - Graphic - June 17th, 2006
- New York Times; War Scenes from Iraq 1) An
injured young girl lies in a hospital in Fallujah, Iraq after U.S. warplanes
launched a wave of airstrikes Friday on Fallujah killing two civilians and
wounding 11 others, hospital officials said - August 28th, 2004 -
Abdul Kadir Sadi/Associated Press; 2) A
relative looks at four children who died when the car they were travelling in
allegedly came under fire from U.S. forces, whereby the driver lost control
and the car fell into a stream near Fallujah, Iraq. Eye witness, Hussein Alwan,
said that the U.S. military personnel stopped locals from assisting the
drowning people, leading to the death of the four children along with two
other women travelling in the car. The wounded driver was later rescued. The
U.S. military media liason personnel said in Baghdad that they were unaware
of any such incident. - September 30th, 2004 - Bilal
Hussein/Associated Press; 3) The
dead bodies of two children lie inside the morgue of Baqouba hospital, Iraq.
U.S. forces mistakenly fired on a civilian vehicle outside of an American
military base north of Baghdad on Monday, killing at least three people,
including one child, a U.S. spokesman said. Five people returning from a
relative's funeral, including three children, were killed and two others
wounded, said Dr. Ahmed Fouad of the Baqouba city morgue. U.S. officials said
they only knew of three deaths in the incident, including one child, and
three others wounded. - November 21st, 2005 - Mohammed
Adnan/Associated Press; |
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