Comparing Tariq Aziz and the Iraq Warlogs

Two events have happened almost at the same time. The decision to hang Tariq Aziz, the former Foreign Minister of Iraq for being a party to Saddam's crimes, the other Wikileaks (http://wikileaks.org/) treasure trove of documents that shows the complicity of US officials and military in crimes committed against civilians in Iraq.

 The specific charges relate to Saddam's persecution of the Dawa party, a Shi'ite party that today is in power – Nouri Kamil al-Maliki from Dawa is the current Prime Minister of Iraq. This persecution was carried out at a time that Dawa was seen to be close to Iran and the Ba'athist regime was a close ally of the US. For those whose memories are selective, the persecution of the Shi'ite parties in Iraq had the imprimatur of the US. Just as the chemical weapons that Saddam used against Iran and also Kurds were supplied by the US.

It is admitted that Tariq Aziz was not personally involved with any specific act of killing or torture. In a Public Radio International (PRI) broadcast of October 26 (http://www.theworld.org/2010/10/26/tariq-aziz-gets-death-penalty/), New York Times London Bureau Chief John Burns said Tariq Aziz will be hanged, not because he directly killed or tortured anyone, but as apologist for Saddam Hussein, Aziz is guilty of "being complicit in tyrannicide." "He [Tariq Aziz] didn't do anything to stop it and from my understanding of international law that in itself is a crime."

I have never heard of this version of international law. If there is indeed under international law an understanding that all those do nothing to stop criminal activities are “ complicit in tyrannicide” as Burns puts it, what is one to make of the US officials today, as well as in the past, when they were backing Saddam to the hilt? The question here is not whether Tariq Aziz or the Ba'ath Party under Saddam were a bunch of nice guys. The simple issue is if associating with criminals is itself a crime, how do we then explain the US government claims of innocence in all criminal acts committed by their troops, their puppet Government and their mercenaries? How is it that a Tariq Aziz is guilty but all the rest including Nour Maliki implicated in the current atrocities are not? And in case the US argues that they do not know what is happening on the ground, the Wikileaks documents lay out in gory details the torture and killings conducted under US aegis and with US participation, all known and recorded by US personnel.

The problem with what Chomski termed as the New Military Humanism propagated by the US and sections in the West, lie precisely here. For all countries that they want a regime change, there is human rights. For all the rest including their own acts, there is complete impunity. International law does not apply to extra judicial killings or assassinations conducted by drone attacks, torture is now merely enhanced interrogation techniques and kidnapping extraordinary rendition. An international doublespeak which would leave the uninitiated completely baffled.

This is where Wikileaks is so important. It has torn away the standard excuse of all Governments – we did not know. Here in complete bureaucratic details, we learn the exact number of civilians killed as known to the US forces. The actual figure is of course much higher. Robert Fisk writes (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-…), “If 66,081 – I loved the "81" bit – is the highest American figure available for dead civilians, then the real civilian mortality score is infinitely higher since this records only those civilians the Americans knew of.” What Wikileaks expose' does is to break the ring fence of lies and denials with which the American administration has erected around the truth of occupation in Iraq. The Iraqis have always known the truth as has most of the world. It is only the American people and some sections in the West to whom the real nature of Iraqi occupation comes as surprise. After Wikileaks documents, even they cannot claim innocence.

The Wikileaks show that while the US and UK authorities consistently denied having body counts of civilian deaths, they lied. They had details of civilian casualties but were unwilling to make this public. Iraq Body Count, an NGO which has been monitoring civilian deaths, found that a number of deaths that were there in their database did not have entries in the military database as disclosed by Wikileaks. Similarly, a number of deaths they had not recorded were reported in the military records. Putting these two together, the civilian deaths in Iraq for the period post invasion, would be of the order of 100,000. This of course does not count the increased child mortality, higher morbidity in the population or subsequent deaths of those were wounded in such incidents but did not die immediately.

The second important issue that Wikileaks document brings out is that torture was officially sanctioned if conducted by the Iraqi forces. According to the instructions given to the US forces, if they came across torture, they had to report it but not take any steps to either stop it or follow it up with Iraqi authorities. This is the secret Frago 242 memo (frago meaning fragment of an order) that is now public due to Wikileaks. This tells the soldiers, "Provided the initial report confirms US forces were not involved in the detainee abuse, no further investigation will be conducted unless directed by HHQ [Higher Headquarters]. All the US and coalition forces had to do if they wanted people tortured is to hand over to their Iraqi counterparts. After that, they were clean, the Tariq Aziz principle of “tyrannicide” notwithstanding.

Robert Fisk in his article brings out how high the connivance with torture reached in his Independent column. “In its investigations, for example, al-Jazeera found an extract from a run-of-the-mill Pentagon press conference in November 2005. Peter Pace, the uninspiring chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is briefing journalists on how soldiers should react to the cruel treatment of prisoners, pointing out proudly that an American soldier's duty is to intervene if he sees evidence of torture. Then the camera moves to the far more sinister figure of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who suddenly interrupts – almost in a mutter, and to Pace's consternation – "I don't think you mean they (American soldiers) have an obligation to physically stop it. It's to report it."

The third element in the Wikileaks documents is of course what the western media calls defence contractors (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/world/middleeast/24contractors.html), who are just mercenaries by another name. Blackwater (now name changed to Xe Securities) was notorious for its excesses. Their shooting of 17 Iraqis without provocation at Nisour Square in Baghdad is well known. Still recently, they had total immunity under one of the numerous decrees passed by the Imperial Authority in Baghdad, Paul Bremmer, which is known as Order 17 of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Effectively, Blackwater or its employees cannot be tried in an Iraqi court even if the crime was committed in Iraq. Blackwater, according to Congressional Report, has earned $ 1 billion from US Government's contracts. One of the results of drawing down of US forces in Iraq to a target of 50,000, is rapid increase of defence contractors – the number is set to double from 40,000 to 80,000. In other words, the US forces will reduce, but this in proportion to the increase in its mercenary army. And Wikileaks and its numerous documents provide a detailed account of the growing lawlessness that is under way with this “privatisation” of US occupation of Iraq.

There has been a lot of press reports on Wikileaks and the Iran connection behind a lot of Iraq violence. New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/world/middleeast/23iran.html) gives a lot of prominence to it. It seems quite mystifying why this should even prove a surprise. To any observer of the situation if Iraq, it would be obvious that Iran has a lot of influence over the Shi'ite forces in Iraq. They were sheltered there in Saddam's days, and bore the brunt of his attacks. Why all this would disappear just because these are the forces that the US wooed after their invasion is difficult to understand. Both the US and the British forces have tried to use local forces in Iran against the Iranian Government, Jundallah, being only one amongst others. Seymour Hersh has a detailed account

.(http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh) of Bush Administration's significant widening of CIA black-ops in Iran involving various groups -- Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups such as Jundallah. Why then this pretend surprise that Iranians were also doing the same? If Iranians with much greater penetration of Shi'ite forces did not do anything similar, one would have to conclude they were particularly incompetent. Obviously, Iran under a military threat from the US and CIA's clandestine operations within, would see their ability to unleash forces within Iraq as a counterweight to such threats. There is evidence to indicate this is one of the reasons that the US Armed Forces has been against an attack on Iran – the consequences might be much higher insurgency levels in Iraq. In any case, the major problem for the period that Wikileaks documents show Iranian involvement, was also the period that Sunni insurgency was at its highest, the bulk of the attacks on American forces came from this quarter.

What emerges from all this is the total hypocrisy of the US and its so-called coalition of the willing. A Tariq Aziz is to be hanged for being part of the highest decision making body in Iraq, where atrocities were committed. In contrast, all those who are intimately connected with torture and killings in Iraq, are bringing democracy to Middle East. This is the New Military Humanism – from Kosovo to Iraq.