KURDISH MAFIA: CORRUPTION IN THE KURDISH NORTH (IRAQ)

KURDISH MAFIA: CORRUPTION IN THE KURDISH NORTH (IRAQ) 

LIBRARY OF U.S. DIPLOMACY 

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06KIRKUK37_a.html

Date: 2006 February 16, 19:39 (Thursday) Canonical ID: 06KIRKUK37_a – Original Classification: CONFIDENTIAL Current Classification: CONFIDENTIAL
Kirkuk, Department of State . REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 

1. (C) INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY:

Corruption is Kurdistan’s biggest economic problem. The two ruling parties’ dominant control lets corruption flourish. Corruption relies on family-clan and/or peshmerga ties. Kurdish corruption starts at the top with a few political “godfathers” who quietly distribute contracts among themselves.


Some members of a younger, third generation of party leaders in alliance with reform-minded politburo members in both parties are pushing for reform. However, their efforts are unlikely to bear fruit until after the Kirkuk issue is resolved and Kurdistan’s borders are decided. (NOTE: The information in this cable was obtained from a variety of sources — Arab, Christian, Kurdish, Turcoman and expatriate businessmen and NGO workers — over the last six months. 

END NOTE.) END INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY. 

(SBU) KURDISTAN’S CORRUPTION AND DEMOCRACY DEFICIT LINKED 

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2. (SBU) The biggest complaint most ordinary Kurds have about both the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) is their extreme corruption. Most Kurds believe corruption permeates every level of the parties and the two Kurdistan Regional Governments (KRGs) they control: KRG-Erbil (KRG-E) and KRG-Sulaymaniyah (KRG-S). Most believe the two parties see the ubiquitous political controls they put on public life as necessary to protect their respective sources of illicit funds. Thus, common wisdom in Kurdistan links corruption and the democracy deficit.

 (C) ORIGINS: A FISH ROTS FROM THE HEAD 

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3. (C) The ruthless competition between the two parties has made them desperate to hold on to their supporters and win new ones. Neither party can afford to be pickier than the other in how it does this or who its allies are. Neither party thinks it can afford to hold its members accountable. The parties’ Soviet-style political system in which the formal government, including the judicial and legislative branches, is subordinate to the party robbed both KRGs of independent oversight. Loyalty became the paramount value; competence and honesty were dismissed. Once in power, party leaders took their rewards; their followers emulate them. Ignorance and ever-present worries about Baghdad also help to keep people’s eyes shut to the problem. Thus, in Kurdistan corruption spread from the top down

.

 (SBU) CORRUPTION BASED ON CLAN AND PESHMERGA TIES 

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 4. (C) Corruption in Kurdistan follows a patron-client model. The difference between the two regions is more one of degree. KRG-E corruption centers more on the Barzani clan; KRG-S corruption runs on old Peshmerga ties. The core of the corruption in both, i.e., “the godfathers” as one interlocutor termed them, lies with those who control the security forces. They keep the game running because controlling the guns means they can enforce their illegal contracts. Security forces, and thus corruption networks, depend on their patrons and thus seldom cross party lines, i.e., companies that do business in Erbil do not do business in Sulaymaniyah and vice versa. This extends even to the cell phone industry, e.g., Asiacell in Sulaymaniyah and Korek in Erbil. According to one Kurd in Kirkuk, Asiacell’s profits are divided 50:50 between three PUK politburo members and the company. 

(C) MUNICIPALITY MINISTRIES AS CORRUPTION CENTERS 

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 5. (C) Some ministers and ministries are worse than others. In both KRGs, the Minister and Ministry of Municipalities are perhaps the most corrupt. One of many scams these ministers run is extorting kickbacks from recipients of land awarded to them in recognition for their service to the parties. The minister and all of the officials who sign off on these land grants take a fee from the recipients. In addition, the minister will award some of the land to himself and some to his friends for a fee. 

(C) 10%-30% IS THE TYPICAL SHARE KIRKUK 00000037 002.2 OF 003

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6. (C) Government contracting is predictably rife with corruption. For example, in Sulaymaniyah, without a godfather one will not even receive the tender advertising the project. Fights between connected companies are not necessary because there is so much money floating around that everyone can get a piece. (Comment: This may not last. As the circle of corruption widens and deepens, eventually demand will outrun supply. End Comment.) The entrepreneur pays 10%-30% of the contract’s value to his “partner” and another 10% to the director of the government office issuing the contract. If it is a construction contract, one can use substandard materials and shoddy work to preserve the profit margin. The building inspector will pass it because he will have been told to do so even before he shows and he will get a payoff too. The office director will cut a similar deal to ensure any samples pass government lab tests.

 (C) FUELING CORRUPTION ———————- 

7. (C) Corruption is rife in the fuel business, as the existence of hordes of street fuel sellers attests. Fuel shortages are manipulated and perhaps created by the parties so as to drive up black market fuel prices. Also, fuel for Iraq is sold into Turkey and Syria. For example, in January 2006, a Kurdish resident of Kirkuk told IPAO the story of a newly-hired customs inspector who (in January 2006) noticed four fuel trucks coming from Turkey that were suspiciously heavy. He checked inside and found the tanks full of water, whereupon he arrested the drivers and impounded the trucks. That night, a high KRG official called the office and said those were his tanker trucks. The trucks and drivers were released with an apology from the officer. 

(U) “I am your friend,” AND “This is best for you.”

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 8. (C) Every large company is affiliated with one of the “godfathers.” If it were not, it would soon shrink for lack of business. Anyone investing in the north will be approached by someone not directly affiliated with the KRG leadership of that area who will take a 10%-30% stake in the company or project. The real godfathers never reveal themselves. In Sulaymaniyah, we hear there are three or four of them and they are all PUK politburo members. If anyone tries to cause one of their companies a problem or take away a contract, the godfathers just say, “That belongs to a cousin of mine” and the matter is dropped. 

(C) CORRUPTION WARPING THE ECONOMY

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 9. (C) Corruption has warped the growth of the entire Kurdistan economy. For example, the leading private companies in Kurdistan are all vertically integrated cross-sectoral conglomerates, e.g., Diyar Group, Eagle Group, Falcon Group, KAR Group, Nasri Group, Sandi Group, Silver Star Group and Ster Group. These conglomerates tend to have construction, import-export, logistics, real estate and security subsidiaries. All of these companies are alleged to be allied to one or more non-competing “godfathers” in the local ruling party. The vertical integration is necessary because corruption means that one cannot allow well-connected rivals to control the goods and services one needs to operate. So, these politically connected entrepreneurs import inputs, organize the shipments, protect the shipments and work sites, buy the real estate and build the projects themselves. Capabilities across sectors allow a conglomerate to compete against other client firms of its patron for any contract its patron may land. 

10. (C) The economies and governments of the Kurdish north are tightly wrapped in the tentacles of the KDP and PUK. 

Those tentacles are extending into the Kurdish-inhabited border zones of Ninawa, Salah ad Din and Diyala provinces and Kirkuk as the biggest prize of all. In Kirkuk, we are told the KDP focuses on land speculation and the PUK on contract fraud. With Kirkuk still up for grabs, albeit more tightly bound to the PUK than KDP at this point, business remains depressed. Companies await a victor in the turf war so they can shop with confidence for a lasting patron. 

(C) KDP/PUK GENERATIONAL CHANGE COULD OVERTURN THE SYSTEM ——————————————— ———— 

KIRKUK 00000037 003.2 OF 003 

11. (C) A western expatriate businessman in northern Kurdistan acknowledged the widespread corruption, but notes that many party leaders do not see what they do as wrong. They think of it as just compensation for all their sacrifices in the struggle. The second tier of leaders in the KDP and PUK politburos below Barzani and Talabani also participate in the corruption. However, the third generation of leaders divides between those who want their turn at the trough and those who want to end corruption. The last group is allying itself with second-generation leaders, such as the KDP’s Nechirvan Barzani or the PUK’s Nechirwan Mustafa, who also support change. Our source notes that Barzani, Talabani and second-tier leaders already have their bank accounts, homes and family members abroad, as well as substantial assets inside the country. He believes that, so long as they can enjoy the fruits of their labors, they will not stop the change. Also, they know that everything they have built for Kurdistan will be lost if reform does not come.

 

(U) COMMENT

 ———– 

12. (C) Corruption is the main economic problem in the north. Corruption chases away much legitimate investment (although the Kurds have been wise enough to wield corruption as a tax and not a confiscatory device), delegitimizes the whole idea of free markets and democracy, increases the (still small but growing) support for Islamic parties and increases the power of the corrupt, making it less likely they can be pried out of their positions. Furthermore, intra-Kurd corruption feeds the fears of Arab, Christian and Turcoman minorities in Kirkuk that they will be completely shut out of government jobs (still the vast majority of all jobs here), contracts and markets by KDP and PUK loyalists. This is a legitimate concern and it makes a violent explosion over the future final status of Kirkuk more rather than less likely. However, real internal reform is unlikely until after the Kirkuk issue is settled and the other borders of Kurdistan finalized. Only then will the reformers and their supporters have the space to undertake internal reforms.

 DEAN 

 https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06KIRKUK37_a.html

WikiLeaks is a Rare Truth-teller. Smearing Julian Assange is Shameful

WikiLeaks is a rare example of a newsgathering organisation that exposes the truth. Julian Assange is by no means alone.

By John Pilger 
February 14, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - Last December, I stood with supporters of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in the bitter cold outside the Ecuadorean embassy in London. Candles were lit; the faces were young and old and from all over the world. They were there to demonstrate their human solidarity with someone whose guts they admired. They were in no doubt about the importance of what Assange had revealed and achieved, and the grave dangers he now faced. Absent entirely were the lies, spite, jealousy, opportunism and pathetic animus of a few who claim the right to guard the limits of informed public debate.

These public displays of warmth for Assange are common and seldom reported. Several thousand people packed Sydney Town Hall, with hundreds spilling into the street. In New York recently, Assange was awarded the Yoko Ono Lennon Prize for Courage.  In the audience was Daniel Ellsberg, who risked all to leak the truth about the barbarism of the Vietnam War.

Like the philanthropist Jemima Khan, the investigative journalist Phillip Knightley, the acclaimed film-maker Ken Loach and others lost bail money in standing up for Julian Assange. “The US is out to crush someone who has revealed its dirty secrets,” Loach wrote to me. “Extradition via Sweden is more than likely… is it difficult to choose whom to support?”

No, it is not difficult.

In the New Statesman last week, Jemima Khan, a philanthropist, ended her support for an epic struggle for justice, truth and freedom with an article on WikiLeaks’s founder. To Khan, the Ellsbergs and Yoko Onos, the Knightleys and Loaches, and the countless people they represent, have all been duped. We are all “blinkered”. We are all mindlessly “devoted”. We are all cultists.

In the final words of her j’accuse, Khan describes Assange as “an Australian L. Ron Hubbard”. She must have known such gratuitous abuse would make a snappy headline — as indeed it did across the press in Australia.

The War you don’t see. Film by John Pilger

John Pilger - The War You Don't See from The War We Don't See on Vimeo.

From the award-winning director of The War on Democracy comes John Pilger's latest work, The War You Don't See. This hard-hitting exposé scrutinises the effects of the media during wartime, asking what is the role of the media in rapacious wars.

When symbols are separated from facts and the facts don't matter, could the media be accused of conspiring to play down the carnage and of using 'embedded journalism' to amplify the lies? This documentary unveils the war you don't see and allows you to make up your own mind.



http://thegentleawakening.ning.com/video/john-pilger-the-war-you-dont

John Pilger - The War You Don't SeeFull Movie: http://thegentleawakening.ning.com/video/john-pilger-the-war-you-dont..............................................­..............................The award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger is one of many high-profile public supporters of Julian Assange and his organization WikiLeaks. Pilger has attended Assange's court proceedings in London and has offered to contribute funds for his more than $300,000 bail.

Pilger's latest film, The War You Don't See, includes interviews with Assange. Pilger says that WikiLeaks is revolutionizing journalism and galvanizing public opinion to stand up to global elites.

[includes rush transcript]AMY GOODMAN: We're continuing with John Pilger, the famed Australian filmmaker who has lived in Britain for decades. John, your film, The War You Don't See, premiered last night on ITV in Britain and in theaters throughout Britain. The film features your interview with Julian Assange. This is an excerpt.

JOHN PILGER: In the information that you have revealed on WikiLeaks about these so-called endless wars, what has come out of them?

JULIAN ASSANGE: Looking at the enormous quantity and diversity of these military or intelligence apparatus insider documents, what I see is a vast, sprawling estate, what we would traditionally call the military-intelligence complex or military-industrial complex, and that this sprawling industrial estate is growing, becoming more and more secretive, becoming more and more uncontrolled. This is not a sophisticated conspiracy controlled at the top. This is a vast movement of self-interest by thousands and thousands of players, all working together and against each other.

AMY GOODMAN: That is an excerpt of the new film that premiered last night in Britain, The War You Don't See. John Pilger, you know Julian Assange. Talk more about what he's saying and about the media's coverage of what WikiLeaks has done, from the release of the Iraq war logs to those in Afghanistan to now this largest trove of U.S. diplomatic cables ever released in history, John.

JOHN PILGER: Well, what Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is doing is what journalists should have been doing. I mean, I think you mention the reaction to him. Some of the hostility, especially in the United States, from some of those very highly paid journalists at the top has been quite instructive, because I think that they are shamed by WikiLeaks.

They are shamed by the founder of WikiLeaks, who is prepared to say that the public has a right to know the secrets of governments that impinge on our democratic rights. WikiLeaks is doing something very Jeffersonian. It was Jefferson who said that information is the currency of democracy. And here you have a lot of these famous journalists in America are rather looking down their noses, at best, and saying some quite defamatory things about Assange and WikiLeaks, when in fact they should have been exploiting their First Amendment privilege and letting people know just how government has lied to us, lied to us in the run-up to the Iraq war and lied to us in so many other circumstances. And I think that's really been the value of all this.

People have been given a glimpse of how big power operates. And they're—it's coming from a facilitator, it's coming from these very brave whistleblowers. And in my film, Julian Assange goes out of his way to celebrate the people within the system who he describes as the equivalent of conscientious objectors during the First World War, these extraordinarily courageous people who were prepared to speak out against that slaughter.

All the Bradley Mannings and others are absolutely heroic figures. There's no question about that.http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2010/12/15/john_pilger_journalists_must_support_julian........................................­......................http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/06/09KABUL1651.html

Wikileaks: Russia Might Be Arming PKK

A senior Spanish investigator alleged to the US that Moscow's strategy was to use "organised crime groups to do whatever the government of Russia cannot acceptably do as a government". Recent operations included gun-running to the Kurds "in an attempt to destabilise Turkey" and "arms trafficking" in the mysterious Arctic Sea cargo ship hijacking in 2009, the Guardian reports.

The quote from Wikileaks:

As an example, he cited Kalashov, whom he said worked for Russian military intelligence to sell weapons to the Kurds to destabilize Turkey. Grinda claimed that the GOR takes the relationship with OC leaders even further by granting them the privileges of politics, in order to grant them immunity from racketeering charges.

Earlier before the Turkish army said 72 percent of the Kalashnikovs used by the PKK are from Russia, 15 percent from China and the rest from Hungary and Bulgaria. There were also claims by the Turkish intelligence service a PKK leader had talks with Russian arms dealers and negotiated the sale of Russian-made rockets. Therefore Turkish diplomacy was focused on convincing Russia to end alleged support for the PKK.There was also a claim a Russian national was part of a PKK hit squad that killed police officers in Turkey in July 2010.

According to analyst Svante Cornell Russia utilized the PKK as a lever against Turkey to deter possible Turkish support for Chechen insurgents. He also claims that the Soviet Union used to support the PKK in the 1980s

EU officials give first analysis of WikiLeaks impact

ANDREW RETTMAN
03.12.2010

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - More investment in European External Action Service (EEAS) security, loss of goodwill in the EU's special relationship with the US and heightened tension in the Middle East are all likely consequences of the WikiLeaks scandal, EU insiders say.

WikiLeaks is a no-go area in on-the-record press briefings in Brussels, with EU spokespeople saying they do not comment on leaks or trying to brush them off as a distraction to real business. But senior EU officials interviewed on an anonymous basis by EUobserver in the wake of the publications say it will have practical and political implications for EU foreign-policy-making.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton is set to face pressure to spend more money on cyber security and counter-espionage measures in the EEAS' hub and its foreign delegations. The scandal comes just as a special Ashton taskforce is finalising plans for the physical security of the EEAS headquarters in Brussels and installing new encryption systems for sending cables back-and-forth to its 136 foreign embassies.

European Commission delegations in the past mostly cabled on mundane issues, such as distributing aid. But EEAS appointments of senior politicians to head missions in, for example, Tbilisi and Beijing, indicate the cables will be more spicy in future.

Security specialists in Brussels are "shocked" and "astonished" that a 23-year-old official, the suspected source of the US breach, had access to verbatim transcripts of ambassadors' conversations in top foreign postings.

"The juicy tidbits, the verbatim stuff, should only be seen by a very few people. If Solana, say, had spoken to the King of Jordan, we would afterward learn that: 'We are confident the Jordanians think the following' or 'the Saudis are nervous about the Iranian situation.' Not 'Solana and the King said so-and-so on such-and-such a date'," one EU contact explained.

The contact admitted that the human element is never 100 percent secure: "Vetting is at best a deterrent, a negative exercise - you need to know the guy does not have a girlfriend in the SVR [Russian military intelligence]. But all the big spies in history passed their vetting."

Some EU experts are confident a WikiLeaks-type incident cannot happen in Brussels even on present arrangements - top-level-classified documents from the EU's intelligence-sharing bureau, the Joint Situation Centre, for example, are circulated in paper copies only. But others are less sanguine. "The lesson learned is that any secret can appear in the public sphere at any time, and more and more due to the Internet ... a piece of paper can be scanned," a French intelligence expert said.

Meanwhile, EU officials are on tenterhooks for US gossip on their colleagues, with Brussels expecting about 500 cables from the US mission to the EU to be released shortly.

The 600 cables so far in the open have not revealed anything major about US interests that EU counterparts did not already know. But the leaks will make EU personnel "more cautious" in what they tell their US colleagues in future and have generated antipathy toward the State Department.

While the cables make entertaining reading, US ambassadors, many of whom are political appointments rather than professional diplomats, are seen by some as indulging in "tittle-tattle" and journalistic-type sensationalism that would not be tolerated in European foreign ministries.
Washington appears weak because it was unable to quickly shut down WikiLeaks. A set of cables on the 2008 Russia-Georgia war also demystifies the US as a superpower. Senior US diplomats come out looking as if they "fell asleep at the wheel" and gullibly swallowed Georgian reports, one EU source said: "It shows the US is not omnipotent. People expected them to have spy images of who moved when, who shot first. But they had no idea."

Brussels will in future find it harder to believe in US statements on supporting multilateralism.
One source in the EU institutions said the State Department seems to have divided the world into "white faces" and "indians," with the white faces trying to lead the indians around in a game of manipulation. "Their dealings with European capitals show they put more weight in their bilateral relations than in dealing with the EU," the source added.

"It's rather ugly. There's an element of condescension," a European specialist on Middle East policy said. "The cables show a kind of paranoia about terrorism and Iran. But there is no evidence of any vision for the region beyond that, of how to resolve the issues, except by further militarisation and co-opting people into counter-terrorism operations."

The contact feared that US foreign policy will degrade further if Washington goes back to a pre-9/11 model of information-sharing, in which junior officials have access to only small chunks of information, helping the top cadre to quash ideas that do not fit their agenda: "They will say: 'Interesting. But you don't have the full picture.' The few at the top of the pyramid will find it easier to protect the status quo. It will lead to self-censorship and dysfunctionality."

Rocking the boat
Laying aside tension on Iran, conflict-prone Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are quieter than ever in the past two years.

The WikiLeaks impact on the region is unpredictable. One contact said it might refresh diplomatic relationships as US personnel frantically row-back on their published comments. Another believes it could lead to an outbreak of anti-Western protests as in the case of the 2003 Mohammed cartoons after the cables are translated into Arabic and filter down to street level.

In the worst-case scenario, US cables on the 2005 assassination of Lebanese leader Rafik Hariri and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) set up to probe the murder could push forward the publication of the STL verdict or derail a tentative agreement among Arab powers on how to handle the ruling. The Hague is carefully stage-managing the verdict, which is expected to blame Hezbollah, in case Hezbollah provokes a conflict with Israel in order to distract from loss of face at home.

EU experts agree that the WikiLeaks cables are authentic and that Mr Assange does not appear to be the agent of a third country. One EU official noted that if the leaks were, say, a US plot to justify a military strike on Iran, a much smaller sample would have been released.

"I don't think they [WikiLeaks] really understand what they have. If there is any political agenda here, it is to weaken the US government. It happened on his [US President Barack Obama] watch," the source said.

© 2010 EUobserver.com. All rights reserved. Printed on 04.12.2010.

Dirk Adriansens on The Wikileaks Report, Stockholm Seminar Part 5

Dirk Adriansens on The Wikileaks Report, Stockholm Seminar Part 5

Could Wikileaks leave Iraq without a Government?

Posted on October 24, 2010 by Juan Cole
Informed Comment

The wikileaks document dump from the Iraq War may well derail the formation of a government by implicating caretaker prime minister Nuri al-Maliki in running death squads. We are in our seventh month since the March 7 elections, but no new prime minister has been named because no party or coalition has the 163 seats needed for a majority in Parliament.

In recent weeks caretaker prime minister Nuri al-Maliki has finally put together some 138 seats, needing only 25 to form a government.

But the Wikileak allegations about the government running Shiite death squads during al-Maliki’s term as prime minister may have derailed that process.

Al-Maliki’s rival, the largely secular Iraqiya List of Iyad Allawi, has slammed him in the aftermath of the leaks and has demanded an investigation of him. He says he is suspicious of the timing of the leaks. (Likely he means that it is odd that this information surfaced just as he closed in on nailing down a second term as prime minister, a development not welcome to Washington because it was fostered by Iran.) But it is silly to allege that Julian Assange is secretly working for the US government.

Jordanian t.v., which probably backs Allawi because he now heads a party popular with the Sunni Arabs, had this report, according to the USG open source center :

‘ Within its 1700 GMT newscast on 23 October, the Jordan Television carries as its 12th news item a report on the classified documents posted on WikiLeaks.

The channel says: “Iraqi officials have vowed to investigate any claims about crimes committed by the police and the army during the war in Iraq after WikiLeaks has published on its website classified US files that included the details of violations committed against prisoners at the hands of Iraqi forces.”

The channel then carries a video report by its reporter Sami al-Harbi in which he says: “As expected, WikiLeaks has set off d a big bomb through publishing documents on violations committed by the US forces against Iraqis, which included killing and torture.

Reactions by many parties denounced what has been published. The United Nations called on Washington to investigate the information published on this website and to quickly verify he cases of torture mentioned in the US Army’s documents.

The Iraqi side through the interior minister denounced such violations, affirming that the government will begin an investigation to verify the published information.”

The report adds: “The Iraqi street that was not surprised at these documents stressed the importance of these documents in revealing the violations against Iraqis during the war.”

The report notes: “The documents that referred to the role of Al-Maliki in these violations are expected to diminish his chances in the upcoming battle for prime minister’s post.

Iraqi officials pledged to investigate any claims on crimes committed by the police or the army during the sectarian war in Iraq.

This was confirmed by Major General Husayn Kamal, one of the deputies of the Iraqi interior minister, who said that the Iraqi officials will not turn a blind eye to these acts and any person involved in the violations.”

The channel goes on to report: “WikiLeaks website published some 400,000 US classified documents on the war on Iraq, some of which mentioned in detail horrible cases of abuse of prisoners by the Iraqi forces, which the United States was aware of but did not launch an investigation into them, according to the website.”

The channel adds: “These files indicate that the US military command in Iraq was aware of the violations of human rights and the cases of torture against the detainees in the Iraqi prisons, but failed to launch investigations into these cases.”

The report adds: “The documents disclosed that hundreds of Iraqi civilians were killed at the checkpoints set up by the US forces following the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and that hundreds of Iraqi detainees were tortured at the hands of the coalition forces.

The documents revealed that the US soldiers blew up complete civilian buildings because of the presence of only one insurgent on the roof. The documents disclosed in detail the killing of more than 66,000 civilians in the Iraqi war.

The New York Times published excerpts of the documents indicating the role of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in assassinations and bombings in Iraq.

The documents also reveal the confessions of detainees who received training in Iran and that they used Iranian-made weapons that were discovered by the US forces.’

A member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Jalaluddin Saghir was blistering in his criticism of the Iraqi government because of the new revelations. ISCI (which Iranian official news calls SIIC) is for the moment declining to join al-Maliki’s coalition. Its leaders thus have a vested interest in al-Maliki fading away.

Iraq: Wikileaks Documents Describe Torture of Detainees

Iraq: Wikileaks Documents Describe Torture of Detainees

US Handed Over Detainees Despite Systematic Abuse by Iraqi Forces(New York, October 23, 2010)

– The Iraqi government should investigate credible reports that its forces engaged in torture and systematic abuse of detainees, Human Rights Watch said today. Hundreds of documents released on October 22, 2010, by Wikileaks reveal beatings, burnings, and lashings of detainees by their Iraqi captors. Iraq should prosecute those responsible for torture and other crimes, Human Rights Watch said.

The US government should also investigate whether its forces breached international law by transferring thousands of Iraqi detainees from US to Iraqi custody despite the clear risk of torture. Field reports and other documents released by Wikileaks reveal that US forces often failed to intervene to prevent torture and continued to transfer detainees to Iraqi custody despite the fact that they knew or should have known that torture was routine.

“These new disclosures show torture at the hands of Iraqi security forces is rampant and goes completely unpunished,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “It’s clear that US authorities knew of systematic abuse by Iraqi troops, but they handed thousands of detainees over anyway.”

The 391,831 documents released by Wikileaks, mostly authored by low-ranking US officers in the field between 2004 and 2009, refer to the deaths of at least six detainees in Iraqi custody.

The reports also reveal many previously unreported instances in which US soldiers killed civilians, including at checkpoints on Iraq’s roads and during raids on people’s homes.

The documents indicate that US commanders frequently failed to follow up on credible evidence that Iraqi forces killed, tortured, and mistreated their captives. According to the documents, US authorities investigated some abuse cases, but much of the time they either ignored the abuse or asked Iraqis to investigate and closed the file.

In one incident on January 2, 2007, Iraqi security forces took detainees to an abandoned house and beat them, resulting in a death. The report stated, “As Coalition Forces were not involved in the alleged abuse, no further investigation is necessary.”

Even when US officials reported abuse to Iraqi authorities, the Iraqis often did not act. In one report, an Iraqi police chief told US military inspectors that his officers engaged in abuse “and supported it as a method of conducting investigations.” Another report said that an Iraqi police chief refused to file charges “as long as the abuse produced no marks.”

The documents reveal extensive abuse of detainees by Iraqi security forces over the six-year period.

In a November 2005 document, US military personnel described Iraqi abuse at a Baghdad facility that held 95 blindfolded detainees in a single room: “Many of them bear marks of abuse to include cigarette burns, bruising consistent with beatings and open sores... according to one of the detainees questioned on site, 12 detainees have died of disease in recent weeks.”On June 16, 2007, US soldiers reported that Iraqi forces interrogated and tortured a terrorism suspect by burning him with chemicals or acid and cutting off his fingers.

According to the Wikileaks file, “Victim received extensive medical care at the Mosul General Hospital resulting in amputation of his right leg below the knee[,] several toes on his left foot, as well as amputation of several fingers on both hands. Extensive scars resulted from the chemical/acid burns, which were diagnosed as 3rd degree chemical burns along with skin decay.”

In a case reported on December 14, 2009, the US military received a video showing Iraqi Army officers executing a bound detainee in the northern town of Talafar: “The footage shows [Iraqi] soldiers moving the detainee into the street, pushing him to the ground, punching him, and shooting him.”

In at least two cases, postmortems revealed evidence of death by torture. On December 3, 2008, a sheikh who a police chief claimed had died from “bad kidneys” in fact was found to have “evidence of some type of unknown surgical procedure on [his] abdomen. The incision was closed by 3-4 stitches. There was also evidence of bruises on the face, chest, ankle, and back of the body.”

On August 27, 2009, a US medical officer found “bruises and burns as well as visible injuries to the head, arm, torso, legs and neck” on the body of another detainee. Police claimed the detainee had committed suicide while in custody.

The disclosures by Wikileaks come almost six months after Human Rights Watch interviewed 42 detainees who had been tortured over a period of months by security forces at a secret prison in the old Muthanna airport in West Baghdad.

The facility held about 430 detainees who had no access to their families or lawyers. The prisoners said their torturers kicked, whipped, and beat them, tried to suffocate them, gave them electric shocks, burned them with cigarettes, and pulled out their fingernails and teeth. They said that interrogators sodomized some detainees with sticks and pistol barrels. Some young men said they were forced to perform oral sex on interrogators and guards and that interrogators forced detainees to molest one another. Iraqi authorities have still not prosecuted any officials responsible.

Between early 2009 and July 2010, US forces transferred thousands of Iraqi detainees to Iraqi custody. International law prohibits the transfer of detained individuals to the authorities of another state where they face a serious risk of torture and ill-treatment.

“US authorities have an obligation not to transfer any of the 200 or so detainees still in their custody to Iraqi forces or to anyone else who might mistreat them,” said Stork.

“The US should also make sure those detainees already transferred are not in a dungeon somewhere currently facing torture.”

At a Pentagon news conference on November 29, 2005, Gen. Peter Pace, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded to a question about Pentagon guidance in situations where US commanders witness abuse by Iraqi forces, saying, “It is absolutely the responsibility of every US service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it.” Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who was also on the podium, intervened and said: “But I don’t think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it’s to report it.” Pace responded, “If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it.”A reporter then asked Rumsfeld if it was his sense that alleged Iraqi abuses were not widespread. Rumsfeld responded that he did not know.“It’s obviously something that the – General Casey and his troops are attentive to and have to be concerned about,” Rumsfeld told the reporter. “It – I’m not going to be judging it from 4,000 miles away – how many miles away?”


For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Iraq, please visit:http://www.hrw.org/en/middle-eastn-africa/iraq

For more information, please contact:In Washington, DC, Joe Stork (English): +1-202-299-4925 (mobile); or storkj@hrw.org
In Dubai, Samer Muscati (English): +971-50-923-7654; or muscats@hrw.org

The Iraq War Logs - WikiLeaks

The Iraq War Logs

http://wikileaks.org/




At 5pm EST Friday 22nd October 2010 WikiLeaks released the largest classified military leak in history. The 391,832 reports ('The Iraq War Logs'), document the war and occupation in Iraq, from 1st January 2004 to 31st December 2009 (except for the months of May 2004 and March 2009) as told by soldiers in the United States Army. Each is a 'SIGACT' or Significant Action in the war. They detail events as seen and heard by the US military troops on the ground in Iraq and are the first real glimpse into the secret history of the war that the United States government has been privy to throughout.


The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 'civilians'; 23,984 'enemy' (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 'host nation' (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 'friendly' (coalition forces). The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60%) of these are civilian deaths.That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six year period. For comparison, the 'Afghan War Diaries', previously released by WikiLeaks, covering the same period, detail the deaths of some 20,000 people. Iraq during the same period, was five times as lethal with equivallent population size.

Please donate to WikiLeaks to defend this information.

WikiLeaks says funding has been blocked after government blacklisting

WikiLeaks says funding has been blocked after government blacklisting
David Leigh and Rob Evans

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange holds up a copy of the Guardian after thousands of US military documents were leaked and exposed Photograph: Andrew Winning/REUTERS


Founder Julian Assange hits out at decision by Moneybookers, which collects the whistleblowing website's donations

October 14, 2010

The whistleblowing group WikiLeaks claims that it has had its funding blocked and that it is the victim of financial warfare by the US government.
Moneybookers, a British-registered internet payment company that collects WikiLeaks donations, emailed the organisation to say it had closed down its account because it had been put on an official US watchlist and on an Australian government blacklist.

The apparent blacklisting came a few days after the Pentagon publicly expressed its anger at WikiLeaks and its founder, Australian citizen Julian Assange, for obtaining thousands of classified military documents about the war in Afghanistan, in one of the US army's biggest leaks of information. The documents caused a sensation when they were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and German magazine Der Spiegel, revealing hitherto unreported civilian casualties.

WikiLeaks defied Pentagon calls to return the war logs and destroy all copies. Instead, it has been reported that it intends to release an even larger cache of military documents, disclosing other abuses in Iraq.

Moneybookers moved against WikiLeaks on 13 August, according to the correspondence, less than a week after the Pentagon made public threats of reprisals against the organisation. Moneybookers wrote to Assange: "Following an audit of your account by our security department, we must advise that your account has been closed … to comply with money laundering or other investigations conducted by government authorities."

When Assange emailed to ask what the problem was, he says he was told in response by Daniel Stromberg, the Moneybookers e-commerce manager for the Nordic region: "When I did my regular overview of my customers, I noticed that something was wrong with your account and I emailed our risk and legal department to solve this issue.

"Below I have copied the answer I received from them: 'Hi Daniel, you can inform him that initially his account was suspended due to being accessed from a blacklisted IP address.

However, following recent publicity and the subsequently addition of the WikiLeaks entity to blacklists in Australia and watchlists in the USA, we have terminated the business relationship.'"

Assange said: "This is likely to cause a huge backlash against Moneybookers. Craven behaviour in relation to the US government is unlikely to be seen sympathetically."

Moneybookers, which is registered in the UK but controlled by the Bahrain-based group Investcorp, would not make anyone available to explain the decision. Its public relations firm, 77PR, said: "We have never had any request, inquiry or correspondence from any authority regarding this former customer." Asked how this could be reconciled with the references in the correspondence to a blacklist, it said: "We stick with our original statement."



www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/14/wikileaks-says-funding-is-blocked

Iraq Outrage over US Killing Video

Iraq Outrage Over US Killing Video
By Aljazeera
07 April, 2010
Aljazeera




Families of Iraqi civilians, seen being shot and killed by US forces in a leaked video, are seeking justice for their deaths.

Earlier this week Wikileaks, a whistleblower website that publishes anonymously sourced documents, released a video showing the US military firing at a group of civilians in Baghdad three years ago.

The shooting left 12 people dead, including two employees of the Reuters news agency.
The Pentagon said it had no reason to doubt the authenticity of the tape, but that two investigations into the incident cleared the aircrew of any wrongdoing.

But victims' relatives have told Al Jazeera they want the military personnel responsible for the deaths to be taken to court.

Two young children whose father was killed in the attack could not understand why they were targeted.

"We were coming back and we saw an injured man. My father said, let's take him to hospital. Then I heard only the bullets ... Why did they shoots us? Didn't they see we were children?" said Sajad Mutashar, who was injured along with his sister.

His uncle, Satar, demanded the pilot be taken to court.
"Nobody gave the children anything, their rights are gone and the Americans didn't even compensate for the destroyed car. I sold it for $500 to spend the money treating them," Satar told Al Jazeera.

The US army says it has authorised payments to the family.

'Monster pilot'
The family of Saeed Chamgh, one of the Reuters employee killed in the attack, is also demanding justice for his death.

"The pilot is not human, he's a monster. What did my brother do? What did his children do? Does the pilot accept his kids to be orphans?" Safa Chmagh, Saeed’s brother, told Al Jazeera.
"Inshallah we won't leave his rights."

Salwan Saeed, Saeed's son, said: "The American has broken my back by killing my father.
"I will not let the Americans get away with it.
"I will follow the path of my father and will hold another camera."

A statement from the two inquiries said the aircrew had acted appropriately and followed the rules of engagement.

According to Pentagon investigations into the affair, the aircrew had reason to believe the people seen in the video were anti-government fighters.

But Mark Taylor an international law expert and a director at the Fafo Institute for International Studies in Norway, told Al Jazeera the evidence so far "indicated that there's a case to be made that a war crime may have been committed".

'Case for war crimes'
Taylor said the US authorities, especially the US military, has to take a closer look at this investigation.
"There are questions about the way the investigation was conducted and whether or not it was done in a proper manner," he said.

Taylor said the Iraqi families may be able to get monetary compensation, but that there could be a much larger case to be had.

"There are precedents of US soldiers being prosecuted for crimes in Iraq, for crimes of murder, rape and manslaughter. So it's not unprecedented that this could go forward both in military courts as well as in civilian criminal courts in the US.

"The case also raises larger questions about the laws of war. I think what this video shows is really a case that challenges whether the laws of war are strict enough."
WikiLeaks said it obtained the video from a number of "military whistleblowers".

Watch the Wiki leaks video here

Collateral Murder - Massacre of Iraqis by US military

Collateral Murder


Please click on the link below to see the video
http://collateralmurder.com/


Intended and by higher command chains sanctioned fatal injuries or deaths of civilians caused by military operations.

Civilian casualties caused by assymetric warfare supported by widespread use of remote weaponary (drones, intelligent missiles, computer guided guns) disregarding human life.

Overview

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.

After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".

Consequently, WikiLeaks has released the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008, revealing these rules before, during, and after the killings.

WikiLeaks has released both the original 38 minutes video and a shorter version with an initial analysis. Subtitles have been added to both versions from the radio transmissions.
WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.

WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work.