British panel begins inquiry on Iraq war; Blair to testify

LONDON - An official inquiry into Britain’s role in the Iraq war opened November 24 with top government advisers testifying that some Bush administration officials were calling for Saddam Hussein’s ouster as early as 2001 — long before sanctions were exhausted and two years before the U.S.-led invasion. Critics hope the hearings, which will call ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair, will expose alleged deception in the buildup to armed combat. Blair will be questioned on whether he secretly backed President George W. Bush’s plan for invasion a year before Parliament authorized military involvement in 2003.

The order to send 45,000 British troops to take part in the 2003 invasion has always been controversial and led to massive anti-war protests in London. During meetings with the inquiry committee held before the formal hearings began, relatives of British soldiers killed during the conflict accused Blair of taking Britain into an illegal war and deceiving the public. A pre-war government dossier justifying military action included the claim that Saddam was capable of launching weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes. No such weapons were found, leading to accusations that Blair had distorted intelligence.

As the inquiry began, a small group of anti-war protesters gathered near Parliament. “Five years we’ve waited for this, and finally we’re getting somewhere,” said Pauline Graham, 70, who traveled from Glasgow, Scotland, to see the hearings. Her grandson Gordon Gentle, 19, was killed in the Iraq city of Basra in 2004.

Sir Peter Ricketts, chairman of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee in 2001, said Britain had hoped for strengthening the Iraq containment policy in place since the 1991 Gulf War — reducing the threat posed by Iraq through sanctions, weapons inspections and security measures. But he said some in the Bush administration had a different vision. “We were conscious that there were other voices in Washington, some of whom were talking about regime change,” Ricketts said, citing an article written by Bush’s National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warning that nothing would change in Iraq until Saddam Hussein was gone. The turning point for the U.S. administration was the Sept. 11 terror attacks. After the attacks, Ricketts said, “we heard people in Washington thought there might be some link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden ... I don’t think we saw any evidence of it.”

The Iraq inquiry is envisioned to be a comprehensive look at the war from the summer of 2001 to the end of July 2009, embracing the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the military action and its aftermath. The panel will question dozens of officials, including military officials and spy agency chiefs. It will also seek evidence but not testimony from ex-White House staff.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown set up the inquiry to address public criticism of three key aspects: the case made for war, the planning for the invasion, and the failure to prepare for reconstruction. Leaked military documents published November 22 disclosed that senior British military officers claim war plans were in place months before the March 2003 invasion, but were so badly drafted they left troops poorly equipped and ill-prepared.

Bereaved families and activists have long called for an inquiry into the U.S.-led war. The Labour-led government lost a significant share of parliamentary seats because of the war. Inquiry chairman John Chilcot said the panel would consider the legal basis for war but it will not establish criminal or civil liability; it can only offer reprimand and recommendations in hope mistakes won’t be repeated in the future. Chilcot said he hoped the panel would be able to deliver its conclusions by the end of next year.

On the Net: http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk

– compiled and edited from The Associated Press, 24 Nov. 2009, and Reuters, 12 Nov. 2009
PeaceMeal, Nov/December 2009

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Iraqis hit by frenzy of crime after years of war

BAGHDAD - The kidnappers holding Muhsin Mohammed Muhsin, an Iraqi auto mechanic’s 11-year-old son, gave him just two days to come up with $100,000 in ransom. When he could not, they were just as quick to deliver their punishment: They chopped off the boy’s head and hands and dumped his body in the garbage. The boy’s final words to his father came in an agonizing phone call: “Daddy, give them the money. They are beating me,” Muhsin pleaded a day before he was killed.

As the worst of the country’s sectarian bloodshed ebbs, Iraqis now face a new threat to getting on with their lives: a frenzy of violent crime. Many of those involved are believed to be battle-experienced former insurgents unable to find legitimate work. They often bring the same brutality to their crimes that they showed in the fighting that nearly pushed the country into a Sunni-Shiite civil war in 2006 and 2007.

The result has been a wave of thefts and armed robberies, hitting homes, cars, jewelry stores, currency exchanges, pawn shops and banks. Kidnapping, too, remains terrifyingly common, as it was during the peak of the insurgency. Now, however, the targets are increasingly children, and the kidnappers, rather than having sectarian motives, are seeking ransoms. In southern Baghdad’s Saydiyah neighborhood, photos of missing children are pasted on electricity poles and the concrete blast walls that enclose many areas of the bomb-battered capital.

There are few statistics tracking the number and kinds of crimes, in part because the government remains focused on the bombings and other insurgent attacks that continue to plague Baghdad and Iraq’s north. But in the minds of the public, crime has become as consum-ing as the violence directly related to the war. And like the lack of electricity and other services, crime is now a top complaint of Iraqis.

Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said investigations found that 60 to 70 percent of the criminal activity is carried out by former insurgent groups or by gangs affiliated with them — partly explaining the brutality of some of the crimes. Some members of Iraq’s security forces are also involved, perhaps a sign that militants are still infiltrating the security services.

In one of the most high-profile crimes in recent years, several members of Iraq’s presidential guards — which protect senior officials — broke into the state-run Rafidain Bank on July 28 and stole about 5.6 billion Iraqi dinars, or $4.8 million. They tied up eight guards at the bank in Baghdad’s central Karradah area and shot each one execution-style. Four of the robbers were caught, convicted and sentenced to hang. Three others remain at large.

In April, Iraq created a military task force to battle gangland-style crime after gunmen with silencer-fitted weapons killed at least seven people during a daylight heist of jewelry stores. Still, criminals continue to operate seemingly without fear of getting caught.

Muhsin Mohammed Muhsin, the 11-year-old, was kidnapped around noon on Aug. 31 on his way home from a neighbor’s funeral in Baghdad’s eastern Shiite district of Sadr City, where he lived. Sadr City is home to about 2.5 million Shiites and was a stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia of the anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who fought U.S. troops intermittently until he declared a unilateral cease-fire in 2007. When it was under militia control, kidnappings there were extremely rare.

Alaa al-Moussawi, chairman of an export and import company, said, “What feeds the fear inside us and increases our worries is that some of these gangs are members of the security forces.”

– edited from The Associated Press, September 21, 2009
PeaceMeal Sept/October 2009