PRESS RELEASE

For immediate distribution
Date: 20 February 2011

SUPPORT IRAQI PROTESTS!

While millions across the world watched live 18 days of dramatic revolution that ousted the US-allied torture-friendly regime of Hosni Mubarak, no one is offered live feed from Iraq of its people’s uprising against an enemy much worse.

And while President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton are being lauded for their supposed support for Egyptian democracy, no one is asking the key question Washington can’t answer: When will members of this US administration and the three previous face trial for crimes against humanity in Iraq?Nothing will prevent the collapse of US geostrategic goals in the Arab region

Despite US hypocrisy, nothing will prevent the collapse of US geostrategic goals in the Arab region. It is not by direct confrontation that this is happening, nor by ideology. The interests of the people are opposed to the model of underdevelopment Washington and allies propose and police.

The year of revolutions

Across the Arab world, 2011 appears set to be remembered as the “year of revolutions”. In Iraq, ravaged by eight years of US occupation, plunder, destruction and death, protests have burst forth in Baghdad, Kut, Basra, Kirkuk, Ramadi, Sulaymaniyah and tens of other locations. As usual, the people face live fire.

We declare our solidarity with the people of Iraq in protest. We declare our solidarity with the martyrs of the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, and all martyrs of Arab uprisings. We put Washington on notice that it is your policies that are being defeated, and it is your alliances that are falling apart.The region is witness to a rolling tide of Arab renaissance

The region is witness to a rolling tide of Arab renaissance, led by the aspirations of the Arab youth. No injustice will be spared criticism. No lie will remain unexposed.

Support Iraqi protests!

Stand in support of the Iraqi people in their struggle against state terrorism and repression, generalised corruption, a falsified political process and its state apparatus, generalised lack and collapse of public services, poverty and unemployment, systematic abuse of human rights by the government and its militias, illegal contracts, treaties and a constitution imposed under occupation, and foreign plans to destroy Iraqi culture, economy and unity.

Stand in support of the Iraqi people’s struggle for freedom, democracy, dignity, unity and social justice.

Stand in support of the Iraqi people in their uprising, and in solidarity with all Arabs at this dawn of a new era!Stand in support of the Iraqi people in their uprising!

The game is over! We demand that Maliki’s government leave without shedding the blood of innocent Iraqis on 25 February, Iraq’s “Day of Peaceful Anger”.

We demand that other states withdraw support from Maliki and not provide cover for a government bloodbath.

We are certain the people of Iraq will achieve victory, like their Tunisian and Egyptian brothers and sisters.

Bob Buzzanco, professor of history, University of Houston – USA
Dr Osama Al-Zand, university professor (retired) – Canada
Dr Edward Horgan, human rights activist – Ireland
Elizabeth Aaronsohn, Ed.D, Central CT State University
Dhr. E. Vergers, Haarlem – Netherlands
Higinio Polo, professor and writer. Barcelona – Spain
Basem Khader
Cristina Gay – Belgium
Francois Hien, film director – France
Julie Brenta, movie editor – Belgium
Annette Jacobson
Insaf Kalaji, writer
Izumi Tanaka – Japan
Lamees Ibrahim
John Cooper
Kick Leijnse – Sweden
Juliane Spitta – Germany
Peter Mundhenk
Nancy L Singham – USA
Barrie Zwicker – Canada
Göran Forsberg – Sweden
Prof. Dr. Sefik Alp Bahadir, director, Center for Iraq Studies, University of Erlangen, Nuremberg – Germany
Luke Wilcox, development and communications director, Iraqi and American Reconciliation Project
B. Ross Ashley, executive member, St Paul’s NDP – Canada
Brad Butler, artist, The Museum of non-Participation – UK
Karen Mirza, artist, The Museum of non-Participation – UK
Laura Westra, Ph.D., Ph.D.(Law) Professor Emerita (Philosophy), University of Windsor sessional instructor, Faculty of Law, University of Milano (Bicocca)
Allen L. Jasson, www.warcrimes.org.uk – UK
John Bart Gerald, poet, writer – USA / Canada
Einar Schlereth, journalist Tlaxcala
Sinfo Fernández, translator, Rebelion.org
Fernando Sancho, member of Biladi Palestinian Asociation – Bilbao / Spain
Koen Claerhout, cultural producer – Germany / Belgium
Mike Springmann
Hugh Esco
Nancy Matthews
Pippa Bartolotti
Pierre Plougonven
Aminah Hanum
Tsilli Goldenberg
Rohini Hensman, writer – India
Hazel Fuller – UK
Sinfo Fernández
Mujeeb Ebrahim
Deborah Veneziale
Zainuddin Mohamed Ismail – Singapore
Nadia Ferro
Vini Pereira
Laura Borst
José Wadih Maluf
Ronald Strand
Hiyam Noir
Kerstin Johassan
Salah Salim Ali – Norway
Muna El Shorbagi, researcher, Cairo – Egypt
Professor Hazim Awbi – UK
Michael Culver, actor, peace protester
René Broens, artist, researcher Antwerp – Belgium
Mieke de Loof, writer Antwerp – Belgium
Ramez Philippe Maalouf, master’s in human geography, University of São Paulo – Brazil
Marianne Birkby, on behalf of Radiation Free Lakeland, Cumbria – UK
Radiation Free Lakeland
Julie Maas, artist – Canada
Ángel Alonso, teacher – Spain
Terry O’Connor – Canada
Mohammad Askari
Marie Noel Lombart
Ilona Sztana – The Netherlands
KS Gupta – UK
Adriana Auderset – Switzerland
Manzur Khan

Take action!

1. Endorse this statement by writing here (hanaalbayaty@gmail.com).

2. There is a virtual blackout on the uprising in Iraq in the Western media. Take initiative and demand that news outlets put Iraq back on the agenda where you are.

3. For updated information on the uprising in Iraq follow here (Arabic) and here (English).

PRESS RELEASE

For immediate distribution
Date: 30 October 2010

WIKILEAKS IRAQ WAR LOGS:
LEGAL ACTION IS UNAVOIDABLE

To all victims of the US-UK invasion of Iraq and their families,

To all progressive lawyers, legal associations and institutions, parliamentarians, international civil servants, and everyone who supports legal action to ensure redress for Iraqi victims of US-UK crimes:

Just over a year ago, we submitted a legal case before the Audencia Nacional in Madrid under laws of universal jurisdiction against four US presidents and four UK prime ministers — George H W Bush, William J Clinton, George W Bush, Barack H Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair and Gordon Brown — on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Iraq. This case was based on our analysis of hundreds of documents available in the public domain, along with firsthand witness testimony that informed our effort and our designation of US-UK actions as genocide.[1]

The essence of our case was that the accumulated pattern of harm, stretching over 19 years, revealed a clear and specific “intent to destroy”, in whole or in part, the state and nation of Iraq. The essence of our case was that the accumulated pattern of harm, stretching over 19 years, revealed a clear and specific “intent to destroy”, in whole or in part, the state and nation of IraqWe catalogued the purposive dismantling of the Iraqi state and the imposition, incitement and engineering of sectarian conflict. We also described the systematic destruction of Iraq’s civil infrastructure, added to the massive use of depleted uranium, which from 1990 onwards led to millions of excess deaths. We outlined the use of disproportionate and indiscriminate force, the use of internationally prohibited weapons such as white phosphorus, and the use of prohibited means and methods of warfare. And we identified the use of death squads and armed militias associated with political forces promoted by and protected by Washington, the terror that led to the forced mass displacement of five million Iraqis, and the institutionalised regime of mass and arbitrary detention and torture, along with blackmail, kidnapping, rape and unfair trials, that characterised Iraq under US occupation.

The Wikileaks disclosure

The near 400,000 classified documents that Wikileaks recently published substantiate the claims we made in our case and constitute official US evidence of elements of the case we presented: the existence in Iraq of a regime of systematic torture; rape used as a weapon of warfare and terror; incidence of arbitrary, summary and extrajudicial executions; the routine use by US armed forces of indiscriminate and disproportionate force; the alarming collapse of the division between military and civilian targets, with two thirds of the victims registered in the leaked documents being acknowledged as civilians. We will add these documents to our archive of evidence.

But these documents alone must be situated. While adding to the picture of the real war conducted, they do not contain it.

1. Inevitably, the leaked documents tell the story of the Iraq war from the perspective of — and within the confines of — the US military and its record-keeping practice. One cannot expect this practice to be anything but influenced by US Army culture and the operational goal of winning the war.

2. The leaked documents do not cover the actions of the CIA and other non-US Army agencies in the Iraq war, or similar agencies of foreign powers.

3. The leaked documents do not cover the role or actions of US security contractors, or mercenaries, in the Iraq war, which were granted legal immunity by the US occupation.

4. The leaked documents do not cover the role or actions of sectarian militias and death squads linked to foreign states and political forces in the US-sponsored and vetted political process, and that conducted campaigns of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity targeting Arab Sunnis, Turkmen, Christians, Yezidis, Sabeans, and Shabak as such, and even innocent Shia, in addition to the systematic assassination of middle class professionals.

5. The leaked documents provide raw data on day-to-day operations but do not contain information on the strategic planning or aims of the war.

6. The leaked documents only cover self-reported incidents, while the body count overall only encompasses the dead the US Army recovered.

7. The leaked documents do not collate the overwhelming bulk of the killing in Iraq, which involved militias incorporated into the new Iraqi Security Forces led by Iraq’s puppet governments — among which that of Nouri Al-Maliki — and for which the US, as the occupying power, is legally responsible.

8. The leaked documents do not cover the orchestrated plunder of national and individual property, individual appropriation of state property, arbitrary dismissal and refusal of work, and the mass non-payment of salaries and withdrawal of social rights. Nor do the documents shed light on the collapse of Iraq’s economy, and the consequent mass impoverishment and displacement of Iraqis.

9. The leaked documents do not cover non-violent excess deaths in Iraq, whether the result of the collapse of Iraq’s public health system, the contamination of Iraq’s environment, including by radioactive munitions, and the spread of disease amid the overall collapse of all public services, including provision of electricity, a functioning sewage system, and clean water.

10. The leaked documents do not shed any light on the trauma induced by the US-led war on individual Iraqis and the Iraqi nation as a whole.

Demand for legal action

At present, there is a full-scale damage limitation effort ongoing, headed by the US Pentagon and involving: attempts to focus attention away from the detail of the leaked documents and onto the founder of Wikileaks and his person; to focus attention on the failure to act against torture when it involved Iraqi police and paramilitary forces, ignoring US practices of torture or the culture of violence the US occupation has promoted overall (including by specifically training and arming death squads and militias); and to divert attention to the role of Iran while failing to contextualise the cooperative relation between the United States and Iran in the destruction of Iraq.

Despite US manoeuvres, the United States administration and the government of Iraq stand equally accused. Neither can be trusted to investigate the facts contained in the classified documents Wikileaks has brought into the public domain. the United States administration and the government of Iraq stand equally accused. Neither can be trusted to investigate the facts contained in the classified documents Wikileaks has brought into the public domainOnly action that invokes the universal jurisdiction of the conventions the US and Iraqi governments have violated in Iraq can be satisfactory and objective. And only by stepping back and reviewing the whole period, from 1990 through until now, can one adequately situate the Wikileaks Iraq War Logs and understand their importance.

Wikileaks has done a tremendous service to truth in times of war, and has placed before us raw evidence that is compelling, undeniable, and that tells — in part — the story of the Iraq war in a way until now untold. We salute Wikileaks and its sources for the courageous act of releasing the classified Iraq War Logs. We call on all lawyers, judges and juridical institutions to display equal courage, and in coalition to work towards the swift prosecution of US and UK war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Iraq. We believe that only by coordinated action can those responsible for grave crimes and rights violations in Iraq be held accountable.

We therefore call for the formation of an international coalition of lawyers, legal specialists and antiwar and anti-occupation progressive forces to realise this obligation.

We are ready to cooperate with and join any effort that aims to ensure redress and reparations for Iraqi victims of US and UK crimes.

There is no excuse now for failing to take legal action everywhere it is feasible, both at the national level — where the universal jurisdiction of international conventions permits — and beyond. But legal action must be informed by an analysis of the nature of the war as a whole, and by the testimony not only of the US Army, but also Arab and international solidarity groups and associations, and foremost the Iraqi people — the victims of the US-led war of aggression on Iraq.

Ad Hoc Committee for Justice for Iraq

Contacts:

We are not taking signatures for this call to action; rather we ask those with requisite skills to commit to building a new coalition to pursue legal action, which we also commit to join. Please inform us of your efforts, in the hope that together we can build towards effective legal action:

info@USgenocide.org

Endnote
[1] http://usgenocide.org/press/press-release-2-case-introduction/

From the first day of the US-UK occupation of Iraq, the occupation began to undertake a series of measures, directly or through its local allies, to destroy Iraq as a state and a nation and to partition it along ethnic and sectarian lines.

Today, the puppet government of the occupation and its Kurdish partners are trying to hold a population census in Kirkuk province whose aim is to give a permanent legal character to the criminal social engineering, ethnic cleansing and demographic changes that have been implemented under occupation.[1] This could unleash a full blown civil war across Iraq, and potentially lead to its partition and a consequent regional war.

In addition to the death of more than one million Iraqis, the ethnic cleansing and other means pursued by the United States, United Kingdom and their allies in order to implement the process of partitioning Iraq, in its cities and regions, have caused the forced migration of 2.5 million Iraqis out of Iraq and the forced displacement of 2.5 million others from their homes inside Iraq.

The ethnic cleansing suffered by the population in the provinces of Mosul, Diyala, Salahuddin and the Baghdad area, and most notably in Kirkuk and the so-called “disputed areas” — where the population is forced by various means, including systematic assassinations, bombing civilians, collective punishment, transfer, displacement, deportation and other crimes against humanity, to migrate only to be replaced by people from other provinces or even from outside Iraq — is a clear crime of destruction and part of the intended partition of Iraq.

The United States, the United Kingdom and their allies waged an illegal war of aggression against Iraq and occupied its territory. This war in itself is a crime punishable under international law. International law, in particular The Hague Regulations of 1907, the Geneva Conventions and additional protocols, and the Genocide Convention, explicitly prohibits occupying powers from instituting changes aimed at permanently altering the foundational structures of occupied territories, including the judiciary, economy, political institutions and social fabric.[2]

International law considers the systematic transfer, deportation or displacement of population a crime against humanity.[3] Residents of affected areas, the Iraqi national forces, the displaced, and the majority of the people of Iraq declare this census null and void. It has no binding legal consequences and cannot and should not be used to support or justify the intended partition of Iraq.

We demand that no census be conducted before the free return of all Iraqi refugees. We demand that the question of ethnicity not be used to instigate the partition of Iraq and that it be removed from any census, now and in the future. We declare as fraudulent the justification under occupation of a census on the basis of long term planning in the context of a temporary and unstable demographic situation.

We demand that the United Nations and the Arab League and all governments, personalities, organisations and institutions support the demands of the people of Iraq by not recognising the results of this census, and by not assisting in conducting it. This census is designed to reward criminals for their crimes at the expense of their victims.

Please sign to support this statement.

Dr. Ian Douglas, coordinator of the International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq and member of the Executive Committee of the BRussells Tribunal
Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Iraqi political analyst and member of the Executive Committee of the BRussells Tribunal
Hana Al Bayaty, member of the Executive Committee of the BRussells Tribunal and the International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq
Dirk Adriaensens, member of the Executive Committee of the BRussells Tribunal
Prof. Em. François Houtart,  Participant in the Bertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal on US Crimes in Vietnam in 1967, Director of the Tricontinental Center (Cetri), spiritual father and member of the International Committee of the World Social Forum of Porto Alegre, Executive Secretary of the Alternative World Forum, President of the International League for Rights and Liberation of People, Honorary President of the BRussells Tribunal and senior advisor to the President of the United Nations General Assembly Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, recipient of the 2009 UNESCO Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence
Prof. Dr. Lieven De Cauter, philosopher, K.U. Leuven / Rits, initiator of the BRussells Tribunal
Prof. Patrick Deboosere, Demographer, VUB – member of the BRussells Tribunal Executive committee
Prof. Dr. Jean Bricmont, Scientist, specialist in theoretical physics, U.C. Louvain-La-Neuve, member of the BRussells Tribunal Executive Committee
Ward Treunen, former TV producer – member of the BRussells Tribunal Executive committee
Hugo Wanner, VZW Netwerk Vlaanderen – member of the BRussells Tribunal Executive committee

NOTES

[1] Forced displacement and the construction of walled-in districts and their associated regimes, by contributing to demographic changes in Iraq, contravene international humanitarian law, including Article 49, paragraphs 1 and 5, of The Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in the Time of War, 1949, and as such constitute war crimes.
[2] Articles 43 and 55 of The Hague IV Regulations on Laws and Customs of War on Land, 1907 (HR); Articles 54 and 64 of The Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in the Time of War, 1949. Occupying powers are obliged to manage the resources of the occupied territory under the law of usufruct only. This means that while they may use national resources as necessary to the upkeep of the wellbeing of the population in the occupied territory (Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 64) they cannot profit from the use of such resources or award themselves partial or whole ownership of such resources. The US remains a belligerent occupier of Iraq.
[3] Article 7 (1) (d) of the Elements of Crimes of the International Criminal Court.

PRESS RELEASE

For immediate distribution
Date: 14 February 2010

WHY JUDICIAL ACTION?
IRAQ: 19 YEARS OF INTENDED DESTRUCTION

Having supported and participated with others in reviving the efficacy of people’s tribunals as a moral response to imperial war, we turned to — and encourage others to move towards — legal and judicial action. Why?

1. Holding the US and UK to account for crimes committed in Iraq is not the only factor but could be a key contributing factor to ending the killing of Iraqis, which appears a cornerstone of their strategy. While mainstream Western debate continues to put in question the manifest illegality of the war, nothing suggests that a sea change in US or UK policy lies ahead.

2. No change in policy or political figureheads absolves us of the moral obligation to provide redress for Iraqi victims or to establish accountability for the massive crimes committed against the Iraqi people over the past 19 years. While change will only come when accountability has been ensured, and when we fulfil our moral responsibilities and restore the foundations of global humanity, the suffering of the Iraqi people will not end until the crimes committed against them have stopped and been recognised as crimes.

3. The duplicity of the international human rights system, and the weakness of international law, should not block legal action: people the world over cannot afford that the systematic violence and destruction visited upon Iraq becomes a precedent for the 21st century via the inaction of law.

Iraq: 19 years of intended destruction

US and UK military, economic, political and cultural imperialism in Iraq is an outrage, upon Iraq, the Iraqi people, and the world. The intended destruction — or genocide — of Iraq as a state and nation has been ongoing for 19 years. It began with the imposition of the most draconian sanctions regime ever designed and that led to 1.5 million excess Iraqi deaths, including 500,000 children. Against overwhelming evidence of its catastrophic human impact, and increasing international condemnation, this sanctions regime was maintained under pressure of successive US and UK governments for 13 years.
The intended destruction — or genocide — of Iraq as a state and nation has been ongoing for 19 years. It began with the imposition of the most draconian sanctions regime ever designed and that led to 1.5 million excess Iraqi deaths, including 500,000 children
Destroying Iraq included the purposeful targeting of its water and sanitation systems, despite forewarnings of the unavoidable consequences and manifest illegality of attacking the health-related facilities of a civilian population. Iraq was prohibited from rebuilding even basic civil infrastructure, and this infrastructure remains ruined after nearly seven years of US occupation.

Destroying Iraq has also included dropping, since 1990, thousands of tons of depleted uranium on Iraq, leading in some places to a 600 per cent rise in cancer and leukaemia cases, especially among children.

Destroying Iraq included 42 days of disproportionate bombing during the first Gulf War, with civilian governmental offices systematically destroyed. In 2003, having disarmed Iraq, the US and UK launched “Shock and Awe”, an air campaign that openly threatened “total destruction”. In both instances, war, where no distinction was enforced between military and civilian targets, saw the destruction of schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, shelters, residential areas, and historical sites.

Destroying Iraq has included promoting, funding and organizing sectarian and ethnic groups bent on dividing Iraq into three or more sectarian or ethnic entities, backed by armed militias that would terrorize the Iraqi people, forcing Iraqis to seek protection by embracing their secondary sectarian or ethnic identity, or by fleeing the country. Since 2003, some 4.7 million Iraqis — one fifth of the population — have been forcibly displaced.
Destroying Iraq has included promoting, funding and organizing sectarian and ethnic groups bent on dividing Iraq into three or more sectarian or ethnic entities, backed by armed militias that would terrorize the Iraqi people
Destroying Iraq has included purposefully dismantling the state by targeting and destroying state institutions, refusing to stop or stem — or by instigating — mass looting, and by engaging in ideological persecution, contrary to protected freedoms and rights and entailing “manhunting” and extrajudicial assassination, of Baathists, the entire educated class of the state apparatus, linguistic and religious minorities and Arab Sunnis, resulting in the total collapse of all public services and other economic functions and opening the way for civil strife and corruption.

Destroying Iraq has also included widespread campaigns of urbicide: destroying cities and towns and using terror in order to force Iraqis to accept the diktat of a belligerent foreign occupation. Allied with the promotion of sectarian militias and political forces, Coalition terror in Iraq has led, by credible estimates, to the violent deaths of over one million Iraqis since 2003 alone.

Destroying Iraq also has included recasting and redrafting — contrary to international humanitarian law — Iraq’s entire political environment in an attempt to render the future of Iraq dependent on US and UK strategic designs. Alongside the attempt to partition Iraq and to establish by military force a pro-occupation Iraqi government and political system, the US and UK governments have promoted and engaged in the massive plunder of Iraqi resources, attempting to privatize the property and means of wellbeing of the Iraqi nation.

Destroying Iraq has also entailed erasing Iraq’s heritage and unique cultural and archaeological history, by destroying monuments, museums, libraries and world heritage sites, and promoting chauvinism and corruption in the place of Iraq’s once advanced education system. By control of Iraqi media and promotion of violent sectarian political forces, the US and UK governments presented Iraqis with the choice between embracing allegiance to a belligerent foreign power and pre-industrial slavery at the hands of its local proxies.

Legal action and global moral responsibility

This is but the barest summary of the horrors Iraq has endured, all based on lies that nobody but cowed governments and complicit mainstream media believed. The US and UK governments instigated, supported, condoned, rationalized, executed and/or perpetuated or excused the destruction of Iraq based on lies and narrow strategic and economic interests, and against the will of their own people.

US and UK heads of government past and present — from Bush Sr to Obama, from Thatcher to Brown — have each played a key role, along with their subordinates, in the Iraq genocide. The accumulated pattern of consequences, foreknowledge, false propaganda, manipulation and manifest lies followed by systematic destructive actions on all levels, known and condoned, proves it genocide unequivocally.
The accumulated pattern of consequences, foreknowledge, false propaganda, manipulation and manifest lies followed by systematic destructive actions on all levels, known and condoned, proves it genocide unequivocally
In 2003, millions worldwide were mobilized in opposition to war. In going ahead with the invasion of Iraq, the US and UK governments launched an illegal war of aggression. Allowing those responsible for the intended destruction of Iraq to escape accountability means such actions could be repeated elsewhere and that world public opinion will remain unheard. To help re-establish the rights of people everywhere, legal action is vital against those who so wilfully ignored public opinion and led their countries to a war that erased over one million lives.
In presenting a judicial challenge to impunity, our efforts stand in defence of humanity. Defending the Iraqi people promotes justice, freedom and dignity for all
We are indeed before immoral and unlawful acts, contrary to the basis upon which the international order of state sovereignty and peace and security rests, and contrary to centuries of political struggle against oppression. Whereas official international justice is closed before the suffering of those that imperialism makes a target, through popular, ground-up legal action we can open a channel whereby the conscience of humanity can express its solidarity with justice for victims of imperial crimes.

In reality, the US-UK plan has failed. Against overwhelming violence, the Iraqi nation still resists. Our judicial action and call for further legal initiatives is in support of the right of resistance of the Iraqi people. It also gives notice that the violent aggression of the occupation is unsustainable, as are its lies. In presenting a judicial challenge to impunity, our efforts stand in defence of humanity. Defending the Iraqi people promotes justice, freedom and dignity for all.

When all is said, the question is not why judicial action, but rather how and when.

Ad Hoc Committee For Justice For Iraq

Press contacts

PRESS RELEASE

For immediate distribution
Date: 7 February 2010

STATEMENT ON THE CLOSURE
OF THE LEGAL CASE FOR IRAQ IN SPAIN
FILED AGAINST FOUR US PRESIDENTS
AND FOUR UK PRIME MINISTERS
FOR WAR CRIMES, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
AND GENOCIDE IN IRAQ

MADRID/CAIRO: Public enquiries on the decision to wage war on Iraq that are silent about the crimes committed, the victims involved, and provide for no sanction, whatever their outcome, are not enough. Illegal acts should entail consequences: the dead and the harmed deserve justice.

On 6 October 2009, working with and on behalf of Iraqi plaintiffs, we filed a case before Spanish law against four US presidents and four UK prime ministers for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Iraq. The case presented spanned 19 years, including not only the wholesale destruction of Iraq witnessed from 2003, but also the sanctions period during which 1.5 million excess Iraqi deaths were recorded.
All humanity knows the crimes committed in Iraq by those we accused, but no jurisdiction is bringing them to justice. We presented with Iraqi victims a solid case drawing on evidence contained in over 900 documents and that refer to thousands of individual incidents from which a pattern of accumulated harm and intent can be discerned
We brought the case to Spain because its laws of universal jurisdiction are based on principles enshrined in its constitution. All humanity knows the crimes committed in Iraq by those we accused, but no jurisdiction is bringing them to justice. We presented with Iraqi victims a solid case drawing on evidence contained in over 900 documents and that refer to thousands of individual incidents from which a pattern of accumulated harm and intent can be discerned.

When we brought our case, we knew that the Spanish Senate would soon vote on an amendment earlier passed by the lower house of parliament to curtail the application of universal jurisdiction in Spain. We were conscious that this restriction could be retroactive, and we took account of the content of the proposed amendment in our case filing. As we imagined, 2009 turned out to be a sad year for upholding universal human rights and international law in Spain. One day after we filed, the law was curtailed, and soon thereafter our case closed. Serious cases of the kind universal jurisdiction exists to address became more difficult to investigate.

One more jurisdiction to fall

Despite submitting a 110-page long referenced accusation (the Introduction of which is appended to this statement), the Spanish public prosecutor and the judge assigned to our case determined there was no reason to investigate. Their arguments were erroneous and could easily have been refuted if we could have appealed. To do so we needed a professional Spanish lawyer — either in a paid capacity or as a volunteer who wished to help the Iraqi people in its struggle for justice. As we had limited means, and for other reasons mostly concerning internal Spanish affairs, which were not our concern, we could not secure a lawyer in either capacity to appeal. Our motion for more time to find a lawyer was rejected.
Western states used universal jurisdiction in the past to judge Third World countries. When victims in the global South began using it to judge Israel and US aggression, Western countries rushed to restrict it
We continue to believe that the violent killing of over one million people in Iraq since 2003 alone, the ongoing US occupation — that carries direct legal responsibility — and the displacement of up to a fifth of the Iraqi population from the terror that occupation has entailed and incited suggests strongly that the claims we put forward ought to be further investigated.

In reality, our case is a paramount example of those that authorities in the West — Spain included — fear. To them, such cases represent the double edge of sustaining the principle of universal jurisdiction. Western states used universal jurisdiction in the past to judge Third World countries. When victims in the global South began using it to judge Israel and US aggression, Western countries rushed to restrict it. Abandoning universal jurisdiction by diluting it is now the general tendency.

Call for wider collective effort to prosecute

We regret that the Spanish courts refused to investigate our case, but this will not discourage us. We have a just cause. The crimes are evident. The responsible are well known, even if the international juridical system continues to ignore Iraqi victims. Justice for victims and the wish of all humanity that war criminals should be punished oblige us to search for alternative legal possibilities, so that the crimes committed in Iraq can be investigatedand accountability established.

At present, failed international justice allows US and UK war criminals to stand above international law. This constitutes an attack — or makes possible future attacks — on the human rights of everyone, everywhere
At present, failed international justice allows US and UK war criminals to stand above international law. Understanding that this constitutes an attack — or makes possible future attacks — on the human rights of everyone, everywhere, we will continue to advocate the use of all possible avenues, including UN institutions, the International Criminal Court, and popular tribunals, to highlight and bring before law and moral and public opinion US and UK crimes in Iraq.

We are ready to make our experience and expertise available to those who struggle in the same direction. We look forward to a time when the countries of the global South, which are generally victims of aggression, reinforce their juridical systems by implementing the principle of universal jurisdiction. This will be a great service to humanity and international law.

Millions of people in Iraq have been killed, displaced, terrorised, detained, tortured or impoverished under the hammer of US and UK military, economic, political, ideological and cultural attacks. The very fabric and being of the country has been subject to intentional destruction. This destruction constitutes one of the gravest international crimes ever committed. All humanity should unite in refusing that law — by failing to assure justice for Iraqi victims — enables this destruction to be the opening precedent of the 21st century.

Ad Hoc Committee For Justice For Iraq

See the full Introduction to the case here.

Press contacts

PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release
Date: 20 November 2009

FOR JUSTICE FOR IRAQ:
LEGAL CASE FILED AGAINST
FOUR US PRESIDENTS
AND FOUR UK PRIME MINISTERS
FOR WAR CRIMES, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
AND GENOCIDE IN IRAQ

The following is the introduction to a legal case filed 6 October 2009 before the Audiencia Nacional in Spain against four United States presidents and four United Kingdom prime ministers for commissioning, condoning and/or perpetuating multiple war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq. The case was filed under laws of universal jurisdiction.

This case, naming George H W Bush, William J Clinton, George W Bush, Barack H Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair and Gordon Brown, is brought by Iraqis and others who stand in solidarity with the Iraqi people and in defence of their rights and international law.

INTRODUCTION

The respondents herein identified in this complaint have all held or hold high public office in the administrations of the United States and the United Kingdom, and/or commanding authority in the respective armed forces of these countries, and whilst in command or in office actively instigated, authorized, supported, justified, executed and/or perpetuated:

1. A 13-year sanctions regime on Iraq known and proven to have an overwhelmingly destructive impact on Iraqi public health, especially child mortality

2. The use of disproportionate and indiscriminate military force, including numerous extra-legal strikes and bombing campaigns throughout the 1990s, entailing the purposeful destruction of Iraq’s water and health facilities, and defence capacities, and the widespread contamination of Iraq’s ecosphere and life environment by the unjustified and massive use of depleted uranium munitions

3. The prevention by means of comprehensive sanctions, and/or military strikes, of the reconstruction of Iraq’s critical civil infrastructure, including its health, water and sanitation systems, and the decontamination of Iraq’s ecosphere/life environment, backed by the threat of Security Council veto where unanimity was not present for such strikes and/or the continuance of the sanctions regime

4. The launching of an illegal war of aggression against Iraq based on deliberate falsification of threat assessment intelligence and systematic efforts to conceal from the general public in the United States and the United Kingdom, and other countries, along with parts of the military command structure of the respective armed forces deployed, the true aims and objectives of that war

5. Establishing by design an occupation apparatus that by its incompetence, inexperience, corruption and/or ideological or sectarian alignment and actions would finalize the destruction of the Iraqi state and the attempted destruction of Iraqi national unity and identity, entailing an attack upon Iraqis as a whole and the intended destruction of the Iraqi national group as such.
The acts ordered and/or continued and perpetuated by the respondents identified in this complaint were unlawful in nature, were known to be and/or ought reasonably to have been known to be unlawful in nature, and were based on manifest and purposive lies, manipulations, deliberately misleading presentations of facts, and baseless assertions and other false justifications
The acts ordered and/or continued and perpetuated by the respondents identified in this complaint were unlawful in nature, were known to be and/or ought reasonably to have been known to be unlawful in nature, and were based on manifest and purposive lies, manipulations, deliberately misleading presentations of facts, and baseless assertions and other false justifications. The consistency of the propaganda effort that supported and contextualized these unlawful acts was such — and was aimed and known to be so — that it constituted an international campaign of demonization and dehumanization of Iraqis, the Iraqi nation, the Iraqi state, Iraq’s civil and military leadership, Iraq’s civil administrative apparatus, and Iraq in its Arab context. As such, and through actions taken and summarized below, the respondents:

1. Deprived the Iraqi people of all or the majority of their fundamental rights as established and protected by international human rights law and international humanitarian law, expressed in the UN Charter and conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions, including the right of defence

2. Structured and implemented policies that continue to deprive the Iraqi people of their sovereignty and the exercise of their freedom, human rights, and civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, as established and guaranteed by international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including the UN Charter and conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions

3. Consistently gave political and legal cover to these acts, even as these acts were known to be and/or ought reasonably to have been known to be in violation of international law, including peremptory or jus cogens standards of law

4. Asserted and defended extra-legal immunity for all those engaged in acts that have attacked the protected rights of the Iraqi people, and established a pattern of impunity for those accused of such attacks by failing to adequately investigate and prosecute specific and general allegations of grave abuses, and/or to ensure responsibility is assumed throughout the chain of command that permitted or failed to prohibit such attacks, and/or dismissed or distorted numerous customary legal standards, including the laws of war and those that outlaw the preemptive use of force in international relations

5. Abused and overran international law, the guarantor of international order, peace and security, which the United Nations System exists to protect and is deemed to embody, enshrined in the UN Charter, and upon whose foundation the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gains positive affect and final meaning.
Opportunity for redress for Iraqi victims in their own national jurisdiction is non-existent as Iraq remains occupied, its sovereign institutions dismantled and non-functioning. Without effective investigation and prosecution of these abuses and violations, the international community runs the risk of allowing a precedent of unlawful action of such grave magnitude to be set without censure, thereby endangering the rights and dignity not only of Iraqis but also of people the world over
Opportunity for redress for Iraqi victims in their own national jurisdiction is non-existent as Iraq remains occupied, its sovereign institutions dismantled and non-functioning. Despite numerous individual petitions submitted to its chief prosecutor, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has stated that it has no jurisdiction to hear cases of abuses and violations of human rights standards and international humanitarian law in Iraq. In light of US and UK threats to use permanent member veto power in the past, it is not foreseeable that the Security Council in the future will refer complaints in Iraq to the ICC, and nor can Iraqis wait for Security Council reform. Without effective investigation and prosecution of these abuses and violations, the international community runs the risk of allowing a precedent of unlawful action of such grave magnitude to be set without censure, thereby endangering the rights and dignity not only of Iraqis but also of people the world over. Such a precedent would be contrary to the UN Charter and the principles upon which the international order of states is deemed to be founded. The basis for public acceptance of a state of law is that it protects peace and defends the wellbeing of the people. Failure to investigate and effectively prosecute the catalogue of grave abuses and violations perpetrated by the respondents in Iraq, and against the Iraqi people, would constitute an ongoing and inherent threat to the basis of the international order in general and to international peace and security specifically.
Though there are nuances of responsibility inherent to the nature of policy construction and execution, the personal relations and interconnections between primary and secondary level individuals involved, and the groups or common circles to which they belong, testify to a large degree of cohesion present in intent and action among the respondents identified and those who support and benefit from the policies they have pursued
Alongside those in official positions of authority, key political advisers, lobbyists, strategists and corporate representatives have also played a crucial role in the ideological and political justifications and legitimization sought and falsely proposed in order to execute the overall policy embraced, inclusive of an accumulated pattern of attacks, military and otherwise, that has lasted 19 years to date, culminating in the 2003 illegal war of aggression waged on Iraq and that continues to be executed despite wide and ongoing condemnation. Though there are nuances of responsibility inherent to the nature of policy construction and execution, the personal relations and interconnections between primary and secondary level individuals involved, and the groups or common circles to which they belong, testify to a large degree of cohesion present in intent and action among the respondents identified and those who support and benefit from the policies they have pursued. At the least, this shared intent is one of deliberate harm; at worst, it amounts to an objective intent to destroy for definable, and at times publicly enunciated, strategic, geopolitical and geo-economic reasons. Furthermore, none of the respondents can reasonably claim they did not have knowledge of the likely outcome of their policies, and those they supported, as all had not only participated in the design and execution of these policies, but they continued to execute said policies once their effects were widely known and had been proven to be detrimental to — and destructive of — the health, sovereignty and rights of the Iraqi people, and further have defended these policies and in majority continue to do so.

From the start of the implementation of a US-instigated and dominantly administered sanctions regime up to the present day, an approximate total of 2,700,000 Iraqis have died as a direct result of sanctions followed by the US-UK led war of aggression on, and occupation of, Iraq beginning in 2003. Among those killed during the sanctions period were 560,000 children. From 2003 onwards, having weakened Iraq’s civil and military infrastructure to the degree that its people were rendered near totally defenceless, Iraq was subject to a level of aggression of near unprecedented scale and nature in international history, occurring in parallel with the promotion of a partition plan for Iraq, the substantial direct funding of sectarian groups and militias that would play a key role in fragmenting the country under occupation, both administratively and in terms of national identity, the cancellation of the former state apparatus and the dismissal of its personnel entailing the collapse of all public services and state protection for the Iraqi people, the further destruction of the health and education systems of Iraq, and the creation of waves of internal and external displacement totaling nearly 5,000,000 Iraqis, or one fifth of the Iraqi population. By December 2007, the Iraqi Anti-Corruption Board reported that there were up to 5,000,000 orphans in Iraq, while the Iraqi Ministry of Women’s Affairs counts 3,000,000 widows as of 2009.
Such massive destruction of life, having as context a 19-year period of accumulated attacks, with numerous warnings and opportunities for remedy and a reversal of policy ignored, cannot be mere happenstance. Indeed, the paramount charge that must be investigated, and that plain fact evidence suggests, is that this level of destruction has been integral to the US and UK’s shared international policy for Iraq
Such massive destruction of life, having as context a 19-year period of accumulated attacks, with numerous warnings and opportunities for remedy and a reversal of policy ignored, cannot be mere happenstance. Indeed, the paramount charge that must be investigated, and that plain fact evidence suggests, is that this level of destruction has been integral to the US and UK’s shared international policy for Iraq. The destruction in whole or in part of the Iraqi people as a national group, and depriving this group of all or the majority of its rights, appears from a reasoned account of the catalogue of violations, abuses and attacks to which the Iraqi people have been subject to be the unlawful means pursued purposely by the respondents in order to redraw by force the strategic and political map of the Arab region and Iraq’s place within that context, and to capture, appropriate and plunder, via the cancellation of the sovereignty of the Iraqi people and the destruction and fragmentation of their identity and unity as a national group, Iraq’s substantial natural energy resources. Historically, the Iraqi national group, variegated yet cohesive, was and continues to be, despite the aggression faced, firmly rooted in its overwhelming majority in the concept of citizenship of the Iraqi state — a state founded on public provision of services and a nationally owned energy industry. The policy that the respondents have sought and continue to seek to impose, that has entailed privatizing and seizing ownership of Iraqi citizens’ resources, along with the administrative and political partition of the former unitary state, is contrary to the basis of, and cohesion of, the Iraqi people as a national group.

Until prevented by effective legal investigation and precautionary action, it is highly likely that the combined US/UK strategy in Iraq will continue, though its tactics may change. Iraqis in the majority show no sign of surrendering their right to and belief in Iraqi citizenship, including sovereign control over Iraq’s natural resources. Between a belligerent foreign aggressor and a resilient, resistant people legal action is crucial to end the ongoing and by all likelihood perpetual slaughter of Iraqis and the destruction of their national identity and rights. We are before immoral and unlawful acts, contrary to the basis on which the international order of state sovereignty and peace and security rests, and that brought about and continue to pursue the destruction of the Iraqi state and attempted destruction of the Iraqi nation. Whereas 1,200,000 Iraqis, according to credible estimates, have lost their lives to violence since 2003 alone, the Iraqi people continue to lose their lives or at best live under constant fear of death, mutilation, detention, exile and lack of access to their rightful resources and freedoms. The sum of these conditions, the outcome of a pattern of purposeful action whose consequences could be foreseen, and of which detailed and compelling notice was served, situated in a context of false justifications, deceptions, and outright lies, and matched by the unlawful use of force, and disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force, amounts to substantive violations of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

As proof of the widespread impact of past and current US and UK policies, in 2009 the American Friends Service Committee, in collaboration with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), reported that some 80 per cent of Iraqis surveyed in Iraq had witnessed a shooting, 68 per cent had been interrogated or harassed by militias, 77 per cent had been affected by shelling/rocket attacks, 72 per cent had witnessed a car bombing, 23 per cent of Iraqis in Baghdad had had a family member kidnapped, and 75 per cent had had a family member or someone close to them murdered.

Military operations in Iraq from 2003 have already cost for the United States an estimated $800 billion, with long-term costs estimated at $1.8 trillion. By 2009, the estimated cost for the United Kingdom, according to figures released by the UK Ministry of Defence, was £8.4 billion ($13.7 billion). The United States continues to spend $12 billion on the war per month. There has been a total of 513,000 US soldiers deployed to Iraq since 2003. Some 170,000 were stationed during the “Surge” campaign of 2007, and 130,000 remain deployed as of June 2009. In addition to regular armed forces, the US administration is believed to employ up to 130,000 additional private security contractors and has refused to release official numbers in this regard. Security companies have been granted blanket immunity under Iraqi law. Equally, there is no effective mechanism, or hope, for Iraqis to hold US and UK forces to account directly.

The narration of facts that follows is substantiated with evidence detailed in the Annex. Other facts to be investigated while reported are not mentioned in the following.

Ad Hoc Committee For Justice For Iraq

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PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release
Date: 7 October 2009

FOR JUSTICE FOR IRAQ:
LEGAL CASE FILED AGAINST
FOUR US PRESIDENTS
AND FOUR UK PRIME MINISTERS
FOR WAR CRIMES, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
AND GENOCIDE IN IRAQ

MADRID: Today the Spanish Senate, acting to confirm a decision already taken under pressure from powerful governments accused of grave crimes, will limit Spain’s laws of universal jurisdiction. Yesterday, ahead of the change of law, a legal case was filed at the Audiencia Nacional against four United States presidents and four United Kingdom prime ministers for commissioning, condoning and/or perpetuating multiple war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq.

This case, naming George H W Bush, William J Clinton, George W Bush, Barack H Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair and Gordon Brown, is brought by Iraqis and others who stand in solidarity with the Iraqi people and in defence of their rights and international law.

Iraq: 19 years of intended destruction

The intended destruction — or genocide — of Iraq as a state and nation has been ongoing for 19 years, combining the imposition of the most draconian sanctions regime ever designed and that led to 1.5 million Iraqi deaths, including 500,000 children, with a war of aggression that led to the violent deaths of over one million more.
Since 1990, thousands of tons of depleted uranium have been dropped on Iraq, leading in some places to a 600 per cent rise in cancer and leukaemia cases, especially among children. In both the first Gulf War and “Shock and Awe” in 2003, an air campaign that openly threatened “total destruction”, waves of disproportionate bombing made no distinction between military and civilian targets, with schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, shelters, residential areas, and historical sites all destroyed.
Destroying Iraq included the purposeful targeting of its water and sanitation system, attacking the health of the civilian population. Since 1990, thousands of tons of depleted uranium have been dropped on Iraq, leading in some places to a 600 per cent rise in cancer and leukaemia cases, especially among children. In both the first Gulf War and “Shock and Awe” in 2003, an air campaign that openly threatened “total destruction”, waves of disproportionate bombing made no distinction between military and civilian targets, with schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, shelters, residential areas, and historical sites all destroyed.

Destroying Iraq included promoting, funding and organizing sectarian and ethnic groups bent on dividing Iraq into three or more sectarian or ethnic entities, backed by armed militias that would terrorize the Iraqi people. Since 2003, some 4.7 million Iraqis — one fifth of the population — have been forcibly displaced. Under occupation, kidnappings, killings, extortion and mutilation became endemic, targeting men, women and even children and the elderly.

Destroying Iraq included purposefully dismantling the state by refusing to stop or stem or by instigating mass looting, and by engaging in ideological persecution, entailing “manhunting”, extrajudicial assassinations, mass imprisonment and torture, of Baathists, the entire educated class of the state apparatus, religious and linguistic minorities and Arab Sunnis, resulting in the total collapse of all public services and other economic functions and promoting civil strife and systematic corruption.

In parallel, Iraq’s rich heritage and unique cultural and archaeological patrimony has been wantonly destroyed.

In order to render Iraq dependent on US and UK strategic designs, successive US and UK governments have attempted to partition Iraq and to establish by military force a pro-occupation Iraqi government and political system. They have promoted and engaged in the massive plunder of Iraqi natural resources, attempting to privatize this property and wealth of the Iraqi nation.

Humanity at stake

This is but the barest summary of the horrors Iraq has endured, based on lies that nobody but cowed governments and complicit media believed. In 2003, millions worldwide were mobilized in opposition to US/UK plans. In going ahead, the US and UK launched an illegal war of aggression. Accountability has not been established.
The persons named in this case have each played a key role in Iraq’s intended destruction. They instigated, supported, condoned, rationalized, executed and/or perpetuated or excused this destruction based on lies and narrow strategic and economic interests, and against the will of their own people. Allowing those responsible to escape accountability means such actions could be repeated elsewhere
The persons named in this case have each played a key role in Iraq’s intended destruction. They instigated, supported, condoned, rationalized, executed and/or perpetuated or excused this destruction based on lies and narrow strategic and economic interests, and against the will of their own people. Allowing those responsible to escape accountability means such actions could be repeated elsewhere.

It is imperative now to establish accountability for US and UK war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Iraq because:

Every Iraqi victim deserves justice.

Everyone responsible should be accountable.

We are before immoral and unlawful acts, contrary to the basis on which the international order of state sovereignty and peace and security rests. Whereas the official international justice system is closed before the suffering of those that imperialism makes a target, through this case we try to open a channel whereby the conscience of humanity can express its solidarity with justice for victims of imperial crimes.

Ad Hoc Committee For Justice For Iraq

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November, 2007, published in Turkey’s Today’s Zaman

By Bulent Kenes

The answer given to this question by Dr. Ian Douglas, who teaches courses on political science at An-Najah National University and is a member of the BRussells Tribunal Committee, is an open and clear “Yes.”

The massive tragedy that has been taking place right next to our country since April 2003 is unfortunately not given enough coverage by the Turkish media. The editorial “kitchens” of newspapers and televisions have become so used to the killing of dozens of Iraqis every day by Americans, insurgents or Al-Qaeda members that they have ceased to attach any news value to these killings. Although the tragedy that claims lives every day seems to have created a kind of sentimental stupor in the media, this definitely does not mean that the tragedy is no longer there. This bloody tragedy, which we have become so used to, is stripping ourselves of our humanity, and is suffered every single day with all its terror in a country right next to us. Every moment it leaves a woman childless, husbandless, fatherless, brotherless, or leaves a child motherless, brotherless, fatherless, or without a grandfather, uncle or aunt.
This bloody tragedy, which we have become so used to, is stripping ourselves of our humanity, and is suffered every single day with all its terror in a country right next to us
Before the very eyes of a numb-hearted world, a country is being pillaged and plundered; a nation is being wiped out step by step. While dozens of people are killed every day, maybe hundreds are forced into leaving their homes, hometowns and homeland.

Dr. Douglas rises against this, articulating that “this is a full-fledged genocide.” He has decided to inform as many people as he can and calls on everyone he reaches to be much more sensitive toward the genocide being perpetrated in Iraq. It is impossible not to see the genuine pain of having witnessed massive destruction in the eyes of this man, who has also visited me to share his views.

Maybe we should stop for a moment to associate Iraq only with the existence of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the north of the country and the threat it poses to Turkey, or with projects being realized by Turkish contractors and businessmen in Iraq, and once again try to see what is really happening there.

Dr. Douglas states that the United States began its genocide in Iraq 17 years ago and notes, “The 2003 US invasion of Iraq was the culmination and intensification of a consistent US policy of destroying Iraq as a national and state entity.” Having figured out that around 1.5 million people, most them children and women, died because of the 13-year UN-led embargo on Iraq, which was enforced as a result of heavy pressure from the US, Dr. Douglas adds that the number of people killed in the war since 2003 has exceeded 1 million. He benefits also from Lancet and the Iraq Body Count in reaching the quoted figures and holds the United States responsible for the killing of a total 2.5 million people in Iraq — apart from the cultural, social and economic destruction it has inflicted on the country. He bluntly describes this as downright genocide.

Dr. Douglas notes these under the title, “Implementing genocide in Iraq.” He says: “The US has sought to: 1) destroy Iraq physically and culturally, and principally militarily, so that it can never re-emerge as an economic, political or military power; and 2) break Iraq as a state and a nation, substituting the state with three or more conflicting and weak entities based on ethnic and sectarian affiliations that presage the destruction of Iraq’s Muslim Arab identity. These two objectives, if achieved, would allow for the plunder of Iraq’s resource riches, control of its median position in order to attain global pre-eminence and serve in the protection of the US’s offensive regional instrument and proxy, Israel.”
The international community not only failed to prevent the illegal US invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, but also supported what from 1990 has been a gathering US-led genocide in Iraq. This is a catastrophic betrayal for the Iraqi people and an injury to us all
Dr. Douglas also accuses the international community. “The international community not only failed to prevent the illegal US invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, but also supported what from 1990 has been a gathering US-led genocide in Iraq. This is a catastrophic betrayal for the Iraqi people and an injury to us all,” he said.

“The Iraqi people have the legal right to resist occupation, colonialism and genocide by all available means, including armed struggle,” says Dr. Douglas, adding, “The national popular resistance in Iraq is combating genocide directly where international law as a preventative and protective mechanism has failed.”

He also makes two calls: “In defense of civilization, people all over the world should rise up in support of the national liberation struggle of Iraqi people. In defense of international law, jurists and law associations should work to bring the charge of genocide against the US, its leaders and its allies.”

Who can claim that Dr. Douglas’ accusations and calls are unfair or ill founded?