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December 04, 2004
Jan. Elections Remain Misunderstood in U.S., Tenuous in Iraq
The NewStandard
by Lisa Ashkenaz Croke, The NewStandard
Dahr Jamail in Baghdad contributed to this piece.
With politicians and the media distorting news of the upcoming Iraqi elections, most Americans have no idea how the process will work. Meanwhile, informed skeptics look at recent history and wonder if it will work at all.
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1267
December 3 - Asked last week if Sunni participation was needed to make Iraq's national elections "free and fair," President Bush told reporters that he was "confident [that] when people realize that there's a chance to vote on a President, they will participate."
Bush's statement constitutes a significant misrepresentation of Iraq's upcoming election, albeit one likely believed by millions of Americans. In truth, Iraqis will not be voting for a president or any other executive.
While most Americans have little idea -- or the wrong idea -- about how the so-called "transition to democracy" in Iraq is supposed to work, politicians and the media have done little to clear up misconceptions of the process. But its complexity and the hastiness with which it is being carried out are reminiscent of last summer's experiment in assembly democracy, a development that has analysts worried that even if the election is not completely ruined by violence, it will be spoiled by political operatives.
It might be politically advantageous for President Bush to oversimplify Iraq's transitional process in a public address, but he demonstrated a much better understanding of it six months ago, when he spoke before the US Army War College.
"In [the January] election, the Iraqi people will choose a transitional national assembly, the first freely-elected, truly representative national governing body in Iraq's history," Bush more accurately explained in May, though the degree to which the body will be "truly representative" is in dispute.
"This assembly will serve as Iraq's legislature," Bush continued, "and it will choose a transitional government with executive powers. The transitional national assembly will also draft a new constitution, which will be presented to the Iraqi people in a referendum scheduled for the fall of 2005. Under this new constitution, Iraq will elect a permanent government by the end of next year."
In other words, even if limited popular elections can proceed in the face of escalating political and security crises, none of Iraq's estimated 12 to 14 million eligible voters will cast a ballot for president in the election scheduled for January 30, 2005. Iraqis do not yet have the right to vote for executive officials.
For at least the next year, Iraq's sovereignty will reside in a kind of limbo begun on June 28, 2004. That was the day Iraq's administrative responsibilities were transferred from the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority and its appointed Iraqi Governing Council to the un-elected Iraqi Interim Government backed by the US. The country's interim constitution next mandates a two-phase "transitional period," whereby the interim government is replaced with a new, partially elected Iraqi Transitional Government.
Iraqis will be voting for the core of a powerful transitional legislature -- the 237-member National Assembly. According to the current, temporary constitution of Iraq, the National Assembly's "principal mission shall be to legislate and exercise oversight over the work of the executive authority."
As President Bush correctly noted in May, it is the National Assembly -- not the Iraqi people -- that will determine who serves in the executive branch, electing Iraq's president and two deputies of state. Collectively, these three officials form the state's presidential council, and must unanimously select Iraq's next prime minister, Iyad Allawi's successor.
The prime minister is responsible for presenting the Presidential Council with recommendations for the Cabinet of Ministers. Upon a vote of confidence from the National Assembly, the first phase of Iraq's "transitional period" toward full sovereignty is considered ended and its second phase will have just begun.
Phase two ends once the Assembly finishes drafting a permanent constitution, approved in a public referendum, and a new government is elected; if everything goes according to plan, this will all occur by December 31, 2005.
However, some analysts are concerned that January's scheduled election will be undermined -- not only by "insurgents," but also by US-backed political operatives.
Marina S. Ottaway, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who penned a fiery op-ed in the Washington Post appealing to the US not to "rig" the Iraqi elections, told The NewStandard she is concerned the process may be a rerun of last summer's Iraqi National Conference, widely considered to have been a major fiasco.
Held in August, the Conference was originally touted as an opportunity for Iraqis to serve as delegates and elect a 100-member interim National Council from amongst the event's 1,200 participants. The four-day conference became a debacle that pitted many of the delegates against former members of the defunct Iraqi Governing Council, who enjoyed the United States' support.
Not only were 19 seats already pledged to the remaining ex-Governing Council members who had not previously been absorbed into the Interim Government in June, but many former Council members served double duty organizing the National Conference and participating as delegates.
TNS reported on August 22 on delegates' difficulty in grappling with unexpected rules that denied them the opportunity to run individually for the seats, forcing delegates to form slates according to conference requirements, such as the inclusion of women. But many participants complained most delegates never had a chance, as the winning slate was almost three months in the making, its competition scraped together in a matter of days.
The result was that powerful, unpopular, US-backed political parties -- most formed in exile from where they safely advocated the 2003 invasion of Iraq -- gained overwhelming representation in the first phase of Iraq's transitional process.
Ottaway suspects the US is not interested in a "genuinely competitive" election come January but instead has plans to somehow weight the process in favor of Washington's preferred outcome.
Dr. Wamidh Omar Nadhmi, a senior political scientist at Baghdad University, shares Ottaway's general concerns. "Have a free election, and don't take sides," he rhetorically advised the US in a recent interview with TNS in his home. "Don't give unnecessary support for people who are unrooted in the society."
Nominees for the next Assembly must be backed with at least 500 signatures and meet several other requirements, some of them vague enough to leave plenty of room for controversial interpretations. Article 31 of the transitional constitution lists eight qualifications ranging from age and education to the expected elimination of certain members of the previous regime to other, less quantifiable conditions.
For instance, individuals who "have enriched" themselves "in an illegitimate manner at the expense of the homeland and public finance" are to be barred from running, even if they've never been legally charged or convicted of any crime. Oddly, the only criminals directly barred from candidacy are those "convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude." The constitution does not offer any further clarification on this point, but merely insists that the nominee "shall have a good reputation."
While the elections for the National Assembly may overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and allow for the formation of yet another transitional government, Iraqis still face the possibility that the Assembly will fail to draft a constitution in time for the October 15, 2005 general referendum at which it must be approved, or that the public will reject the measure next fall.
The constitution addresses both scenarios with the same remedy: If, by August 1, the National Assembly is unable to draft a permanent constitution, the Presidency Council may grant a six-month extension. Should they miss that deadline, or should Iraqi voters fail to approve a draft constitution, the National Assembly is dissolved, a new one elected and the second phase starts all over again.
© 2004 The NewStandard. See our reprint policy.
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Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2004
Fallujah Refugees Tell of Life and Death in the Kill Zone
The NewStandard
by Dahr Jamail
Journalists and residents who have fled Fallujah share accounts of US troops killing unarmed and wounded people; Dahr Jamail continues interviewing survivors as images of a city under US assault further emerge.
Baghdad , Dec 3 - Men now seeking refuge in the Baghdad area are telling horrific stories of indiscriminate killings by US forces during the peak of fighting last month in the largely annihilated city of Fallujah.
In an interview with The NewStandard, Burhan Fasa’a, an Iraqi journalist who works for the popular Lebanese satellite TV station, LBC, said he witnessed US crimes up close. Burhan Fasa’a, who was in Fallujah for nine days during the most intense combat, said Americans grew easily frustrated with Iraqis who could not speak English.
"Americans did not have interpreters with them," Fasa’a said, "so they entered houses and killed people because they didn’t speak English. They entered the house where I was with 26 people, and [they] shot people because [the people] didn’t obey [the soldiers’] orders, even just because the people couldn’t understand a word of English."
A man named Khalil, who asked The NewStandard not to use his last name for fear of reprisals, said he had witnessed the shooting of civilians who were waving white flags while they tried to escape the city.
Fasa’a further speculated, "Soldiers thought the people were rejecting their orders, so they shot them. But the people just couldn’t understand them."
Fasa’a says American troops detained him. They interrogated him specifically about working for the Arab media, he said, and held him for three days. Fasa’a and other prisoners slept on the ground with no blankets. He said prisoners were made to go to the bathroom in handcuffs, using one toilet in the middle of the camp.
"During the nine days I was in Fallujah, all of the wounded women, kids and old people, none of them were evacuated," Fasa’a said. "They either suffered to death, or somehow survived."
Many refugees tell stories of having witnessed US troops killing already injured people, including former fighters and noncombatants alike.
"I watched them roll over wounded people in the street with tanks," said Kassem Mohammed Ahmed, a resident of Fallujah. "This happened so many times."
Other refugees recount similar stories. "I saw so many civilians killed there, and I
saw several tanks roll over the wounded in the streets," said Aziz Abdulla, 27 years old, who fled the fighting last month. Another resident, Abu Aziz, said he also witnessed American armored vehicles crushing people he believes were alive.
Abdul Razaq Ismail, another resident who fled Fallujah, said: "I saw dead bodies on the ground and nobody could bury them because of the American snipers. The Americans were dropping some of the bodies into the Euphrates near Fallujah."
A man called Abu Hammad said he witnessed US troops throwing Iraqi bodies into the Euphrates River. Others nodded in agreement. Abu Hammed and others also said they saw Americans shooting unarmed Iraqis who waved white flags.
Believing that American and Iraqi forces were bent on killing anyone who stayed in Fallujah, Hammad said he watched people attempt to swim across the Euphrates to escape the siege. "Even then the Americans shot them with rifles from the shore," he said. "Even if some of them were holding a white flag or white clothes over their heads to show they are not fighters, they were all shot."
Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein reported witnessing similar events. After running out of basic necessities and deciding to flee the city at the height of the US-led assault, Hussein ran to the Euphrates.
"I decided to swim," Hussein told colleagues at the AP, who wrote up the photographer’s harrowing story, "but I changed my mind after seeing US helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river."
Hussein said he saw soldiers kill a family of five as they tried to traverse the Euphrates, before he buried a man by the riverbank with his bare hands.
"I kept walking along the river for two hours and I could still see some US snipers ready to shoot anyone who might swim," Hussein recounted. "I quit the idea of crossing the river and walked for about five hours through orchards."
A man named Khalil, who asked The NewStandard not to use his last name for fear of reprisals, said he had witnessed the shooting of civilians who were waving white flags while they tried to escape the city. "They shot women and old men in the streets," he said. "Then they shot anyone who tried to get their bodies."
"There are bodies the Americans threw in the river," Khalil continued, noting that he personally witnessed US troops using the Euphrates to dispose of Iraqi dead. "And anyone who stayed thought they would be killed by the Americans, so they tried to swim across the river. Even people who couldn’t swim tried to cross the river. They drowned rather than staying to be killed by the Americans," said Khalil.
US military commanders reported at least two incidents during which they say Iraqi resistance fighters used white flags to lure Marines into dangerous situations, including a well-orchestrated ambush.
Proponents of relaxed rules of engagement for US troops engaged in "counter-insurgency" warfare have cited such incidents from last month’s experience in Fallujah as arguments for more permissive combat regulations. Some have said US forces should establish what used to be called "free-fire zones," wherein any human being encountered is assumed to be hostile, and thus a legitimate target, relieving American infantrymen of their obligation to distinguish and protect civilians. But if the stories Fallujan witnesses have shared with TNS are accurate, it appears the policy might have preceded the argument in this case.
US and Iraqi officials have called the "pacification" of Fallujah a success and said that the action was necessary to stabilize Iraq in preparation for the country’s planned "transition to democracy." The military continues to deny US-led forces killed significant numbers of civilians during November’s nearly constant fighting and bombardment.
© 2004 The NewStandard. See our reprint policy.
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Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 07:02 PM | Comments (0)
November 30, 2004
Neglect Follows Siege of Fallujah
Dahr Jamail
The Iraqi ministry of health is failing to provide enough support to hundreds of thousands who fled Fallujah, and doctors in Baghdad are perplexed.
During the Najaf fighting it was not like this, said a Baghdad surgeon. ”There were mobile operating theatres and plenty of help for them. But for Fallujah they have done next to nothing. Why?”
BAGHDAD, Nov 30 (IPS) - The Iraqi ministry of health is failing to provide enough support to hundreds of thousands who fled Fallujah.
Doctors in Baghdad are perplexed why there has been little or no assistance from the health ministry to residents or refugees.
”During the Najaf fighting this summer things were not like this,” says Dr. Riad Hussein, a resident surgeon in Baghdad. ”There were mobile operating theatres and plenty of help for them. But for Fallujah they have done next to nothing. Why?”
The doctor said the decision appeared to be political.. ”The minister of health is a Shia,” he said. ”And I'm not so sure he is motivated to help a Sunni city like Fallujah.”
Some doctors said a deliberate decision had been taken not to help people in the besieged city.
”The ministry of health instructed us not to provide aid for Fallujans,” says Dr. Aisha Mohammed from Baghdad. ”But then they have not done anything to help them during the siege, and very little at the refugee camps in Baghdad.”
Dr. Mohammed said she and several doctors from her hospital had struggled to get supplies from the ministry of health to refugees stranded in camps around Baghdad.
”Only when we fought them did they allow us to have some supplies,” she told IPS. ”What they eventually let us have after we demanded it, is still not nearly enough for all of the camps. We are in a crisis.”
Abel Hamid Salim, spokesman for the Iraqi Red Crescent (IRC) in Baghdad told IPS that ”while the MOH (ministry of health) gave their approval to transport aid to the refugees of Fallujah, they had provided the IRC no support of materials.” He said they had no word yet when refugee families will be allowed to return to Fallujah.
Musir Khasem Ali who heads the public relations department of the health ministry says there are more than 400,000 refugees from Fallujah. He was unable to provide any details about how his ministry was assisting the refugees who are now spread all over central Iraq.
Fellow Iraqis rather than the government or even non-governmental organisations are providing most of the aid the refugees need.
The ministry claims to have done the necessary. ”We provided everything the refugees needed,” says Shehab Ahmed Jassim who is in charge of managing the refugee crisis for the ministry of health. ”We sent 20 ambulances to the general hospital in Fallujah.”
But none of these ambulances actually entered the city area. The Fallujah general hospital remained a no-go zone for people in the city trapped in their homes until very recently.
The refugees meanwhile continue to suffer. ”We are aware that in the camps now there are severe problems of diarrhea, colds, flu and lack of electricity and clean water,” Jassim said.
As children at a refugee camp on the University of Baghdad campus carried plates of rice from the small mosque around which the camp is located into nearby tents, Um Aziz, a mother of five small children said ”even though we don't have enough of anything, most of what we have is coming from families, with not much from the ministry of health.”
Another refugee, Mohammed Abdel Shukir, 43, said that ”last night I managed to cover myself with five blankets and I still shivered through the night.” Pointing to the tents around the mosque he said, ”Where can we go when the Americans have bombed our city to the ground?”
Sheikh Abu Ahmed, another refugee at the camp said that Humvees carrying U.S. soldiers and members of the Iraqi National Guard had come to search their camp for wounded fighters.
”I told them we had no wounded fighters, but they went tent to tent and took their guns into the mosque,” he said. ”Of course they found no one but they terrorised children and women. Is what they did to our city not enough for them?”
Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 06:02 PM | Comments (0)