Classified Memo Reveals Iraqi Prisoners "Starving"
Classified Memo Reveals Iraqi Prisoners as "Starving"
By Jason Leopold
A classified memo written by a top military official stationed in Western Iraq reveals that a prison in downtown Fallujah is so overcrowded and dirty that it does not even meet basic “minimal levels of hygiene for human beings.”
“The conditions in these jails are so bad that I think we need to do the right thing in terms of caring for the prisoners even with our own dollars, or release them,” says the memo, written late last month by Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commander of U.S forces in western Iraq.
The classified document, leaked to the website Wikileaks, a website where whistleblowers can "reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations," was authenticated by the organization.
The memo contains other shocking revelations about conditions at the jail, including a massive shortage of food and water. The prison is said to be run by Iraqi officials. US Marines oversee operation of the facility.
“I found the conditions there to be exactly (unbelivable [sic] over crowding, total lack of anything approaching even minimal levels of hygiene for human beings, no food, little water, no ventilation) to those described in the recent (18 February) FOX news artickle [sic] by Michael Totten entitled the "Dungeon of Fallujah.,” says Kelly’s memo click here “We need to go to general quarters on this issue right now... To state that the current system is broken would erroneously imply that there is a system in place to be broken."
Totten, an independent journalist, said the prison can house a maximum of 110 prisoners but he discovered that there were more then 900 cramped into the facility. US contractors built the prison in 2005 which is located next to the US Joint Communications Center is
It is unknown who Kelly, the military commander in Iraq, sent the memo to. A Pentagon spokesman did not return calls for comment late Wednesday.
Kelly wrote that when he inspected the prison “iraqis [sic] and marines present throughout my inspection as to why these conditions existed, three conditions were universaly [sic] cited as problems in Fallujah as well as the rest of Anbar,” the commander’s memo says.
“First, there is zero support from the government for any of the jails in Anbar. No funds, food or medical support has been provided from any ministry,” Kelly added. “Second, the police that run Anbar's jails are the same personnel responsable [sic] for investigating crimes. These jailer/investigators are undermanned and more often than not spend most of their time out begging and scavenging for food than investigating crimes. (It is unlikely the prisoners will eat today)...I believe the Iraqi police are doing the best they can, and they literally begged me on humanitarian, moral and religious grounds to help them help the prisoners by somehow moving the government to action.”
In a report published earlier Wednesday, Lt. Col. Michael Callanan told United Press International that following an inspection of the prison by Kelly, US forces decided to “advise and assist” Iraqis managing the jail and are providing food to the prisoners.
"They are being fed now," Callanan told UPI.
The US military turned over control of Fallujah to the 1st Iraqi Army Division in December 2006. Since then. the US military and top White House officials have cited Fallujah as a city where efforts to install democratic values and the rule of law have paid off. Hundreds of millions of dollars has been spent in that city alone to train Iraqi police and security forces.
But Kelly’s memo contradicts the Bush administration's claims.
He describes how the US military, after five years since the US invaded the country and more than half-a-billion dollars spent by US taxpayers, still cannot seem to find success training Iraq security forces.
“The Iraqi police will ultimately be the ones whose shoulders the burden of winning or losing the fight will be carried,” the classified memo says. “To date, little attention has been paid to the Iraqi corrections system in Anbar and its current discrepancies will prevent the [Iraqi police] from becoming a professional law enforcement force unless immediate and significant support is provided.”
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Jason Leopold is the author of the National Bestseller, "News Junkie," a memoir. Visit http://www.newsjunkiebook.com for a preview. He is also a two-time winner of the Project Censored award, most recently, in 2007, for an investigative story related to Halliburton's work in Iran. He was recently named the recipient of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation’s Thomas Jefferson Award for a series of stories he wrote that exposed how soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have been pressured to accept fundamentalist Christianity. Leopold is working on a new nonprofit online publication, expected to launch soon
Original article posted here.
Showing posts with label Humanitarian Crisis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Humanitarian Crisis. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Israel, our civilized ally
Human rights coalition: Gaza at worst since 1967
JERUSALEM (AP) -- A human rights coalition charged Thursday that the humanitarian situation in Gaza has reached its worst point since Israel captured the territory in 1967.
Palestinians form a line at a Gaza City bakery, one of few which hadn't closed for lack of fuel.
In a scathing report, eight British-based rights organizations said that more than 1.1 million people, about 80 percent of Gaza's residents, are now dependent on food aid, as opposed to 63 percent in 2006. It said that overall unemployment is close to 40 percent.
It also said that hospitals are suffering from power cuts of up to 12 hours a day, and the water and sewage systems were close to collapse.
The report follows strident international condemnation of Israel after it struck hard against Palestinian militants in Gaza, killing more than 120 in the past week, including many civilians, after Palestinians militants escalated their daily rocket fire at Israel.
The Palestinian rockets have killed 13 people, wounded dozens more, traumatized thousands and caused millions of dollars in damage. Video Watch the people who caught in the crossfire »
Israel's Defense Ministry rejected the report, blaming the militant Hamas rulers of Gaza for the hardships.
"The main responsibility for events in Gaza -- since the withdrawal of Israel from the territory and the uprooting of the settlements there -- is the Hamas organization, to which all complaints should be addressed," read a statement by spokesman, Maj. Peter Lerner.
Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said Israel must protect its citizens, "but as the occupying power in Gaza it also has a legal duty to ensure that Gazans have access to food, clean water, electricity and medical care."
Israel removed all 21 settlements and withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005. Israel maintains that ended its occupation, but rights groups say that since Israel still controls Gaza's land, sea and air access, it is still the occupier.
After Hamas militants seized control of Gaza in June, Israel closed its crossings, allowing only shipments of vital goods into Gaza.
The 16-page report -- sponsored by Amnesty, along with CARE International UK, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Medecins du Monde UK, Oxfam, Save the Children UK and Trocaire -- calls on the British government to exert greater pressure on Israel and to reverse its policy on not negotiating with Gaza's Hamas rulers.
Israel and the West shun Hamas and label it a terrorist organization. Hamas does not accept the presence of a Jewish state.
Replying to the report, Israel's Defense Ministry said it was misdirected.
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The Israeli Defense Ministry also said medicines and medical equipment are shipped into Gaza with no limitation. On Wednesday, a typical day, the military said it allowed 69 truckloads of supplies into Gaza, including basic food and baby formula.
This week NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based watchdog, called on human rights groups to end what it called their political use of international law. It cited an Amnesty International press release that it said made unsubstantiated accusations that Israeli responses "are being carried out with reckless disregard for civilian life."
Original article posted here.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Looking forward to a New Year of Not Much Better
Iraqi Hopes Dim Through Worst Year of Occupation
by Dahr Jamail and Ali Al-Fadhily
Despite promises from Iraqi and U.S. leaders that 2006 would bring improvement, Iraqis have suffered through the worst year in living memory, facing violence, fragmentation and a disintegrated economy.
A year back Iraqis were promised that 2006 would be the fresh beginning of a, prosperous, democratic and unified Iraq. Through an elected parliament and a unity government, they would find peace, and start rebuilding a country torn apart by the U.S.-backed UN sanctions and then the U.S.-led invasion and occupation.
An Iraqi boy holds a gun's barrel during a protest of displaced Sunnis in Baghdad's al-Adil neighborhood Sunday Dec. 10, 2006. Some 150 Sunni families fled to Sunni dominated al-Adil from Hurriyah neighborhood where fighting occurred Saturday. Witnesses said Shiite militiamen entered Hurriyah after Sunnis warned the few Shiites living there to leave or be killed. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed )
But everyone agrees that the situation now is worse than ever. Leaders in Iraq disagree only to the extent they blame one another for the collapse in security that has led to worsened services and living conditions.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, along with many other Shia leaders in the Iraqi government, blames al-Qaeda and "Saddamists" for the degrading situation. Echoing statements by U.S. President George W. Bush, al-Maliki told reporters recently: "Those terrorists hate democracy because that makes them lose power, and all they are doing is killing Iraqi people in order to recapture what they lost after the liberation of Iraq."
Whatever leaders say, people are simply looking back on a hellish year, and fearful of another to come.
"I wish I could flee to any third world country and work in garbage collection rather than stay here and live like a frightened rat," Adel Mohammed Aziz, a teacher from Baghdad told IPS. "We are all living in fear for our lives; death chases us all around.."
The displacement of Iraqis from Iraq is currently the world's fastest-growing refugee crisis, according to the Washington-based group Refugees International which works towards providing humanitarian assistance and protection for displaced people.
The United Nations estimates that at least 2.3 million Iraqis have fled the growing violence in their country. They estimate that 1.8 million Iraqis have fled to surrounding countries, while another half million have vacated their homes for safer areas within Iraq. An estimated 40,000 people are leaving Iraq every month for Syria alone, according to the UN.
Cases of sectarian killings had been reported before this year, with targeted victims such as former military people or scientists. But this year sectarian-based death squads became a threat to all Iraqis, particularly Sunni Muslims, whose beliefs differ in ways from those of Shia Muslims. The body count has increased to a minimum of 100 a day, with most killed after monstrous torture.
"We cannot go to work, cannot go to pray in our mosques, and cannot send our children to schools," young mother Um Rheem from the Shaab quarter in Baghdad told IPS. "Many Sunni men have been killed by Shia death squads who have the full support of the government and Americans."
Such fears are common in many areas in Baghdad where the Sunnis are a minority. Other areas have other problems to live with.
"In areas where Sunnis are a majority, death squads attack in hundreds, taking advantage of curfews and using government police cars," Mahmood Abdulla from the predominantly Sunni Jihad quarter of Baghdad told IPS. "When we defend ourselves and our homes, they shell us with mortars and Kaytousha missiles. All of this takes place under the eyes of Americans and Iraqi government officials."
Shia Iraqis complain that they cannot go to Sunni dominated areas for work, and they cannot travel on the highway that leads to Syria and Jordan for fear of Sunni militias looking for revenge.
"Sunnis who lost family members would kill any Shia they find, and so we cannot go through their areas," Sa'arat Hassan, a vegetable merchant at the Jameela wholesale vegetable market in Baghdad told IPS.
According to a survey conducted by U.S. and Iraqi doctors for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, published in the British Lancet Medical Journal Oct. 11 this year, 654,965 Iraqis, or 2.5 percent of the entire population of the country, have died as a result of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation.
The survey found that "of post-invasion deaths, 601,027àwere due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire."
The two months following publication of the survey have been Iraq's bloodiest to date.
The streets of Baghdad, once packed with cars and open businesses, look deserted most of the day now.
"We cannot open our shops for more than three to four hours a day," a carpet seller on the volatile Rasheed Street told IPS. "Many of my colleagues have been abducted for ransom or killed for sectarian reasons on the way to work. We expect death every minute."
The economic disaster is now an emergency. More than five million Iraqis are living below the poverty line, close to half of them in desperate conditions, according to a government study.
Iraqi officials and NGOs estimate the unemployment rate at more than 60 percent.
The cost of basic necessities soared during 2006, compounding the unemployment crisis. A report by Iraq's central office for statistics cited by the NGO Coordination Committee for Iraq (NCCI) suggests 70 percent inflation from July 2005 to July 2006.
The World Food Programme said in a report 'Food Security and Vulnerability in Iraq' last May that if the situation in Iraq was not controlled, 8.3 million more people (31 percent of the population) would be rendered "food insecure" if they were not provided their monthly food rations. The rations were introduced under the Oil for Food Programme set up during the sanctions period in the 1990s.
Sectarian violence increased in Iraq after the bombing last February of an important Shia shrine located in Samarra, 60 km north of Baghdad. Shia death squads started appearing in massive numbers afterwards to carry out mass killings of Sunnis, and setting fire to their mosques. U.S. forces failed to provide protection for civilians on either side.
Meanwhile, armed Iraqi resistance to the U.S. occupation increased rapidly during 2006.
"Resistance fighters are Iraqis who are trying to put an end to this vicious occupation," a senior political analyst at Baghdad University told IPS on condition of anonymity. "The Americans ignited sectarian war so that they reduce the action of national resistance, but the result came to be the opposite, and they are being hit harder and more often."
The Sunni-dominated areas of Baghdad and western Iraq faced the worst U.S. military operations during 2006. The policy of siege, raids and large-scale detentions led to massive killing of civilians in cities like Haditha, Karma and Ramadi.
"Those Americans take us all for terrorists," the manager of a human rights NGO in Ramadi to the west of Baghdad told IPS.
Speaking on condition that he and his organisation remain unnamed for fear of U.S. military reprisals, he added: "Their (U.S. military's) crimes in Fallujah in 2004 were exposed, but they have committed a lot more crimes in 2006, and the world is silent about them. There is moaning in every house in the western and northern parts of the city (Ramadi) for losing members of their families."
A poll conducted by the well-respected group World Public Opinion last month showed that 61 percent of Iraqis support attacks against U.S. forces. The poll found that 83 percent of Iraqis surveyed want the U.S. to withdraw completely next year.
U.S. casualties increased dramatically during the last three months of the year. This year saw at least 812 coalition soldier deaths in Iraq, with December looking to be one of the deadliest months for them, according to the website Iraq Coalition Casualties.
So far, at least 3,193 occupation troops have been killed in Iraq, 2,946 of them from the United States, according to the website. In addition, there have been 46,880 U.S. non-mortal casualties, including non-hostile and medical evacuations.
With no drastic changes imminent to the failed U.S. policy in Iraq, coupled with an Iraqi government that grows more impotent by the day, Iraqis have dim hopes of improvement in 2007.
Original article posted here.
by Dahr Jamail and Ali Al-Fadhily
Despite promises from Iraqi and U.S. leaders that 2006 would bring improvement, Iraqis have suffered through the worst year in living memory, facing violence, fragmentation and a disintegrated economy.
A year back Iraqis were promised that 2006 would be the fresh beginning of a, prosperous, democratic and unified Iraq. Through an elected parliament and a unity government, they would find peace, and start rebuilding a country torn apart by the U.S.-backed UN sanctions and then the U.S.-led invasion and occupation.
An Iraqi boy holds a gun's barrel during a protest of displaced Sunnis in Baghdad's al-Adil neighborhood Sunday Dec. 10, 2006. Some 150 Sunni families fled to Sunni dominated al-Adil from Hurriyah neighborhood where fighting occurred Saturday. Witnesses said Shiite militiamen entered Hurriyah after Sunnis warned the few Shiites living there to leave or be killed. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed )
But everyone agrees that the situation now is worse than ever. Leaders in Iraq disagree only to the extent they blame one another for the collapse in security that has led to worsened services and living conditions.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, along with many other Shia leaders in the Iraqi government, blames al-Qaeda and "Saddamists" for the degrading situation. Echoing statements by U.S. President George W. Bush, al-Maliki told reporters recently: "Those terrorists hate democracy because that makes them lose power, and all they are doing is killing Iraqi people in order to recapture what they lost after the liberation of Iraq."
Whatever leaders say, people are simply looking back on a hellish year, and fearful of another to come.
"I wish I could flee to any third world country and work in garbage collection rather than stay here and live like a frightened rat," Adel Mohammed Aziz, a teacher from Baghdad told IPS. "We are all living in fear for our lives; death chases us all around.."
The displacement of Iraqis from Iraq is currently the world's fastest-growing refugee crisis, according to the Washington-based group Refugees International which works towards providing humanitarian assistance and protection for displaced people.
The United Nations estimates that at least 2.3 million Iraqis have fled the growing violence in their country. They estimate that 1.8 million Iraqis have fled to surrounding countries, while another half million have vacated their homes for safer areas within Iraq. An estimated 40,000 people are leaving Iraq every month for Syria alone, according to the UN.
Cases of sectarian killings had been reported before this year, with targeted victims such as former military people or scientists. But this year sectarian-based death squads became a threat to all Iraqis, particularly Sunni Muslims, whose beliefs differ in ways from those of Shia Muslims. The body count has increased to a minimum of 100 a day, with most killed after monstrous torture.
"We cannot go to work, cannot go to pray in our mosques, and cannot send our children to schools," young mother Um Rheem from the Shaab quarter in Baghdad told IPS. "Many Sunni men have been killed by Shia death squads who have the full support of the government and Americans."
Such fears are common in many areas in Baghdad where the Sunnis are a minority. Other areas have other problems to live with.
"In areas where Sunnis are a majority, death squads attack in hundreds, taking advantage of curfews and using government police cars," Mahmood Abdulla from the predominantly Sunni Jihad quarter of Baghdad told IPS. "When we defend ourselves and our homes, they shell us with mortars and Kaytousha missiles. All of this takes place under the eyes of Americans and Iraqi government officials."
Shia Iraqis complain that they cannot go to Sunni dominated areas for work, and they cannot travel on the highway that leads to Syria and Jordan for fear of Sunni militias looking for revenge.
"Sunnis who lost family members would kill any Shia they find, and so we cannot go through their areas," Sa'arat Hassan, a vegetable merchant at the Jameela wholesale vegetable market in Baghdad told IPS.
According to a survey conducted by U.S. and Iraqi doctors for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, published in the British Lancet Medical Journal Oct. 11 this year, 654,965 Iraqis, or 2.5 percent of the entire population of the country, have died as a result of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation.
The survey found that "of post-invasion deaths, 601,027àwere due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire."
The two months following publication of the survey have been Iraq's bloodiest to date.
The streets of Baghdad, once packed with cars and open businesses, look deserted most of the day now.
"We cannot open our shops for more than three to four hours a day," a carpet seller on the volatile Rasheed Street told IPS. "Many of my colleagues have been abducted for ransom or killed for sectarian reasons on the way to work. We expect death every minute."
The economic disaster is now an emergency. More than five million Iraqis are living below the poverty line, close to half of them in desperate conditions, according to a government study.
Iraqi officials and NGOs estimate the unemployment rate at more than 60 percent.
The cost of basic necessities soared during 2006, compounding the unemployment crisis. A report by Iraq's central office for statistics cited by the NGO Coordination Committee for Iraq (NCCI) suggests 70 percent inflation from July 2005 to July 2006.
The World Food Programme said in a report 'Food Security and Vulnerability in Iraq' last May that if the situation in Iraq was not controlled, 8.3 million more people (31 percent of the population) would be rendered "food insecure" if they were not provided their monthly food rations. The rations were introduced under the Oil for Food Programme set up during the sanctions period in the 1990s.
Sectarian violence increased in Iraq after the bombing last February of an important Shia shrine located in Samarra, 60 km north of Baghdad. Shia death squads started appearing in massive numbers afterwards to carry out mass killings of Sunnis, and setting fire to their mosques. U.S. forces failed to provide protection for civilians on either side.
Meanwhile, armed Iraqi resistance to the U.S. occupation increased rapidly during 2006.
"Resistance fighters are Iraqis who are trying to put an end to this vicious occupation," a senior political analyst at Baghdad University told IPS on condition of anonymity. "The Americans ignited sectarian war so that they reduce the action of national resistance, but the result came to be the opposite, and they are being hit harder and more often."
The Sunni-dominated areas of Baghdad and western Iraq faced the worst U.S. military operations during 2006. The policy of siege, raids and large-scale detentions led to massive killing of civilians in cities like Haditha, Karma and Ramadi.
"Those Americans take us all for terrorists," the manager of a human rights NGO in Ramadi to the west of Baghdad told IPS.
Speaking on condition that he and his organisation remain unnamed for fear of U.S. military reprisals, he added: "Their (U.S. military's) crimes in Fallujah in 2004 were exposed, but they have committed a lot more crimes in 2006, and the world is silent about them. There is moaning in every house in the western and northern parts of the city (Ramadi) for losing members of their families."
A poll conducted by the well-respected group World Public Opinion last month showed that 61 percent of Iraqis support attacks against U.S. forces. The poll found that 83 percent of Iraqis surveyed want the U.S. to withdraw completely next year.
U.S. casualties increased dramatically during the last three months of the year. This year saw at least 812 coalition soldier deaths in Iraq, with December looking to be one of the deadliest months for them, according to the website Iraq Coalition Casualties.
So far, at least 3,193 occupation troops have been killed in Iraq, 2,946 of them from the United States, according to the website. In addition, there have been 46,880 U.S. non-mortal casualties, including non-hostile and medical evacuations.
With no drastic changes imminent to the failed U.S. policy in Iraq, coupled with an Iraqi government that grows more impotent by the day, Iraqis have dim hopes of improvement in 2007.
Original article posted here.
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