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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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December 23rd,
2007 - Iraq: America’s Outsourced War |
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Iraq: America’s Outsourced
War By Chris Gelken American Chronicle December 23, 2007 This week a U.S. human rights
group filed its second lawsuit against security contractor Blackwater on
charges of war crimes, assault and wrongful death. The company, at the center
of the infamous Nisoor Square shooting in Baghdad that left 17 Iraqi
civilians dead, is further accused of killing an Iraqi salesman on Sept. 9,
2007. Meanwhile, a U.S.
Congressional committee was hearing testimony from a female former employee
of U.S. contractor Halliburton. The young woman told the hearing she was
drugged and then gang-raped by American workers in her accommodation in the
high-security Green Zone in Baghdad in July 2005. Two-and-a-half years later,
the Justice Department has failed to complete its investigation, and a
department official who was scheduled to give evidence at the hearing failed
to show up. In an interview with
PressTV, Kevin Zeese, the director of Democracy Rising, hit out at the
corporatization of war, Iraq’s lack of true sovereignty, and accused the
Democrats of lip-service in their efforts to end the Iraqi conflict. PressTV: Just how out of
control is the contractor situation getting in Iraq? Zeese: I don’t think we know
the full answer to that. We’ve seen some examples of misbehavior by
corporations like KBR [Kellogg Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary] and
some of the mercenary corporations that are doing security in Iraq. I don’t
find it surprising that U.S. human rights groups are filing suit about this.
Many Americans, I think a majority of Americans oppose this war. I think
about 70 percent want to see us get out of Iraq and don’t want to see us get
into a military confrontation with Iran. The American government is out of
step with the American people, and they are fighting to take their government
back. PressTV: Blackwater has been
involved in at least 56 shooting incidents this year alone and is the subject
of lawsuits and multiple complaints. Given this background, surely you’d
imagine the State Department would have ordered at least a temporary
withdrawal of their operating license? Zeese: In fact the Iraqi
government has asked for that to happen and it shows that Iraq is not in
control of its own government. Blackwater is extremely well
connected, especially to the Republican Party leadership and into the Bush
administration. It will be interesting to see how they do when the Democrats
take power after the next election, which seems more and more likely. But even with the Democrats
in control of Congress we’re not seeing Blackwater pulled up for a series of
hearings. We’re not seeing documents that have been required, subpoenaed
files; we’re not seeing efforts by the members of Congress who are Democrats
challenge Blackwater, and no one is talking about cutting the funding for
that kind of program. The problem in the United
States is that we have a very much corporate controlled government, and we
now have more corporate security firms and personnel in Iraq than we have
U.S. troops. PressTV: Who is protecting
Blackwater? Zeese: I think you see the
protection in the White House, for sure. You see it in the State Department
and the Department of Defense. Congress is only doing a kind of touch-up job
in order to satisfy their anti-war base of voters, but they are not really
going all the way to push this thing to the edge. PressTV: So protection of
Blackwater goes all the way to the top? Zeese: I think they are part
of the team. As I said, we have a corporate government, and a corporate
security firm is consistent with that style. We have privatized many
traditionally government functions, including military functions, so we see
private firms being paid five and ten times the amount of soldiers who used
to do these jobs, and that creates all kind of legal complexities. Who do the
contractors answer to? The Military Code of Justice? Do they answer to Iraqi
law, do they answer to U.S. civilian law? Nobody seems to know and as you
know we’ve seen no charges brought against these abuses. PressTV: Contractors and
troops in Iraq are pretty much given immunity from prosecution under the Paul
Bremer era Article 17, so how much chance do the victims of abuse really have
of seeing justice? Zeese: Well, they have no
chance if they don’t try to push for justice. So I think justice is something
that is not granted easily, it is something that has to be demanded. So I
appreciate this woman from Halliburton, Kellogg Brown and Root coming forward
and publicly fighting for her rights because that is the only way justice
will occur. I do believe that the
American public abhors what is going on in Iraq, abhors the role of firms
like Blackwater and KBR and their behavior to U.S. and Iraqi citizens. I
think the more that comes out the more likely we will see justice. But it
will be an uphill battle and not an easy one. PressTV: We’ve just seen the
United Nations Security Council endorse the U.S. mandate in Iraq for another
year, so does that mean another year of Article 17 and abuse? Zeese: That U.N. decision is
one that violates the Iraqi constitution. Last January the Iraqi Prime
Minister went to the U.N. without consulting the legislature, the parliament.
The parliament complained about that. In fact, a majority of the members of
parliament signed a letter to the Prime Minister demanding that he bring
further continuation of the U.S. role in Iraq to the parliament before he
went to the United Nations, and he didn’t do that, despite the fact that the
Iraqi constitution requires parliamentary approval. So the U.N. in approving
this continuation is ignoring Iraqi law and I think acting illegally. It’s a
clear indication that this is an occupation and not a democracy that we are
developing in Iraq. PressTV: Despite that,
George Bush and Prime Minister Maliki have reached an understanding on the long
term presence of U.S. troops in Iraq, perhaps similar to the deals with
places like South Korea or Japan. It’s quite obvious the Iraqi people don’t
want American troops or mercenaries there, so what’s the future for the
average American soldier posted to Iraq? Zeese: I don’t see a good
future for this. I think we are in the process of creating more enemies than
we are capturing or killing, and I think we are creating all sorts of anger
throughout the Middle East. Recent decisions that we are talking about to
combine U.S. and Israeli missile defense efforts will further intertwine the
United States into the internationally illegal activity of Israel, and that
will further create anger. The Iraqi people don’t want
it, the U.S. people don’t want it, and I think the Democratic Party in
allowing this negotiation to go forward without saying stop is ceding ground
to Bush because they don’t want to stop this war either. They want to keep
this war and they want Bush to do the dirty work before they come to power. External link: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=46830 |