Iraqi MPs reject UK exit deal

December 21 2008

By Kim Sengupta and Brian Brady

Basra:

Parliamentary vote on mandate for British forces could leave them without legal cover next month. Kim Sengupta in Basra and Brian Brady report

Britain’s exit strategy from Iraq suffered a setback yesterday when the country’s parliament rejected a draft law paving the way for withdrawal of forces by the end of July. The reversal was embarrassing for both Gordon Brown and the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, after the two leaders publicly declared last week that an agreement had been reached on the pullout.

Foreign Office sources admitted that unless the law receives formal Iraqi approval by the end of this month, when the United Nations mandate for the occupation expires, the vote could lead to British troops being confined to base, because they would not have the legal authority to do anything else in Iraq. However, officials attempted to dampen speculation that the resolution could have such a dramatic impact, and insisted that the problem was “procedural”.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We have worked closely with the government of Iraq to ensure that there is a firm legal basis for the presence of our forces in 2009. We will now discuss with the government of Iraq what the vote in the Council of Representatives means for the proposed legal basis for the UK and other forces, and look at the options.”

The possibility of British troops operating in a legal limbo from January was increased by Mr Maliki’s refusal even to start talks with the UK until after the Iraqi parliament approved the US deal on 27 November. This reflected his anger at what he saw as Britain’s surrender of Basra to Shia militias last year.

Early this month the Secretary of State for Defence, John Hutton, warned: “I won’t hesitate to pull [British forces] out. They have to be [legally] protected, and the way things stand at the moment they will not be.” His Conservative shadow, Liam Fox, said the Iraqi vote “raises serious questions”. If another vote failed, Britain would have to ensure alternative arrangements were in place by the end of the month.

The immediate effect of the vote by the MPs to reject the draft law by 80 votes to 68 is that the UK, Australia, Romania, Estonia, El Salvador and Nato would not technically have legal authority for any use of force in Iraq, even in self-defence, after the end of the month. Yesterday’s was the first reading of the bill in the Council of Representatives, or parliament. It is now due to be sent back to Mr Maliki’s cabinet for amendments, with another vote due next week. Some MPs want the law dropped and replaced with an international agreement similar to the deal with the US, which lays down the terms for its withdrawal of 140,000 troops from Iraq by 2011.

Nassir al-Issawi, an MP allied to the radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who wants foreign troops to leave at once, said: “What the parliament did today, rejecting the bill, was a great national achievement. We believe that British forces and all other forces should pack their things.”

Fariad Rawndouzi, a Kurdish MP, said many of his colleagues were also unhappy with the formulation of the bill, and wanted it to resemble the “status of forces” agreement between the US and Iraq more closely.

Senior officers at the British base in Basra said a team of Foreign Office lawyers was negotiating with the Iraqi government in Baghdad, and they still hoped an agreement would be reached. One official said: “There was always a feeling that this may go to the wire, and we must realise that it is all quite symbolic.” There were no plans to start pulling out British troops immediately in the new year.

But Mr Maliki’s casual assurance to Mr Brown when he visited Iraq last week that all would be well may cause embarrassment to both sides. Hakim Ali Ibrahim, an Iraqi political analyst, said: “Parliament wants to make a stand to show it should not be taken for granted. Perhaps Maliki and Gordon Brown should not have made such a big thing out of this before they were certain everything would go through smoothly. We have elections coming up, and the government has to do deals with the MPs.”

The provincial elections in January, the first held under sovereign, rather than occupation, laws, will be followed by a referendum on autonomy for Basra province, which could have a crucial impact on the division of its oil riches.

There are fears that the militias will attempt to use the polls to infiltrate the city again, and yesterday General Raymond Odierno, the US commander of coalition forces in Iraq, visited Basra for an election security meeting with Major General Andy Salmon, the British commander in Basra.

Source

December 20 2008

By Waleed Ibrahim and Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD

Iraq’s parliament voted on Saturday to reject a draft law that allows troops from Britain, Australia and several other countries to remain beyond the end of this year, Iraqi parliamentarians said.

The draft law, under which those troops would withdraw by the end of July, was rejected because lawmakers objected to it being in the form of legislation, rather than an agreement as was the deal Iraq signed with the United States, said Hussein al-Falluji, a member of the Sunni Accordance Front.

“Legally relations between two countries cannot be organised by a law. They should be arranged, according to international law, through treaties or agreements,” said Falluji.

“For this reason parliament rejected this law. It was a big mistake by the government.”

Both the law governing the British presence and the security pact allowing the 140,000 U.S. soldiers in the country to remain three more years replace a U.N. mandate that expires on December 31.

“What the parliament did today, rejecting the bill, was a great national achievement,” said Nassir al-Issawi, a lawmaker loyal to anti-American Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who wants an immediate end to what he sees as a foreign occupation.

“We believe that British forces and all other forces should pack their things,” said Issawi.

No comment was immediately available from the government.

The rejected law covered the future of troops from Britain, Australia, Romania, Estonia, El Salvador and NATO in Iraq, where violence is dropping sharply and foreign troops are increasingly handing over security to local forces.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said this week that a reserve component of around 400 British soldiers, compared to 4,100 now, would remain to train Iraqi naval forces in the south after July.

The U.S.-Iraqi security pact sets a withdrawal date for the U.S. troops in Iraq at the end of 2011 and gradually restricts U.S. activities more than five years after the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

(Writing by Missy Ryan; Editing by Michael Christie and Ralph Boulton)

Source

British cost of Iraq and Afghanistan reaches £13Billion

Ontario lawyers call on Prime Minister to ask U.S. to return Omar Khadr

November 12, 2008

TORONTO

The group that oversees Ontario’s lawyers is calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to ask the U.S. to return Omar Khadr to Canada.

Khadr, the only Canadian citizen being held in Guantanamo Bay, is due to stand trial Jan. 26 for war crimes.

The U.S. accuses him of throwing a hand grenade that killed an American army medic following a fierce four-hour firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002.

Derry Miller, treasurer of the Law Society of Upper Canada, says the group believes Khadr, now 22, should be returned to Canada and put on trial here.

In a Nov. 6 letter to Harper, Miller notes that U.S. president-elect Barack Obama is on the record as being opposed to the operation of the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Miller says the law society believes this makes it an opportune time to raise the issue with the U.S.

“The Law Society of Upper Canada regards adherence to the rule of law and due process as fundamental principles that are the right of every Canadian citizen, regardless of the character or circumstances of the citizen,” Miller writes.

Khadr should be “returned to Canada, where he can be tried by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees recognized” by the Geneva Conventions,” the letter states.

Harper has repeatedly said he would not interfere.

The Canadian government has also maintained the Americans have reassured Ottawa of Khadr’s humane treatment.

Khadr, who was 15 at the time he was captured, was badly wounded and near death when he was captured.

Ottawa has said it pressed the Americans to ensure his proper medical care, to take his age into account, and to allow him access to Canadian lawyers.

In a May 2008 ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada said there have been “clear” violations of fundamental human rights in the Khadr case.

And in July 2008, documents revealed Khadr was deprived of sleep for weeks to soften him up for interrogation.

Department of Foreign Affairs reports say Canadian official Jim Gould visited Khadr in Guantanamo Bay in 2004 and was told by the American military that measures were taken to make the then-17-year-old more pliable for interviews.

Source

U.S. altered evidence in Khadr case: lawyers

MICHAEL MELIA

March 13, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba

A U.S. military commander altered a report on a firefight in Afghanistan to cast blame for the death of a Delta Force commando on a Canadian youth who was captured after the shooting stopped, a defence lawyer said Thursday.

The lawyer, Navy Lieutenant-Commander William Kuebler, made the allegation at a pretrial hearing as he argued for access to the officer, identified only as “Col. W,” as well as details about interrogations that he said might help clear his client of war-crimes charges.

The U.S. military has charged Omar Khadr with murder for throwing a grenade that killed Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer during a U.S. military raid on July 27, 2002, on an al-Qaeda compound in eastern Afghanistan. Mr. Khadr’s case is on track to be the first to go to trial under a military tribunal system at this U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

The military commander’s official report the day after the raid originally said the assailant who threw the grenade was killed, which would rule out Mr. Khadr as the suspect. But the report was revised months later, under the same date, to say a U.S. fighter had only “engaged” the assailant, according to Cdr. Kuebler, who said the later version was presented to him by prosecutors as an “updated” document.

Cmdr. Kuebler told reporters after the hearing that it appears “the government manufactured evidence to make it look like Omar was guilty.”

Prosecutors did not contest Cmdr. Kuebler’s account in court and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Khadr, who was captured when he was 15, is among roughly 80 detainees the Pentagon plans to prosecute at Guantanamo. So far, roughly a dozen of the 275 men held at Guantanamo have been charged with war crimes.

Cmdr. Kuebler said the trial will likely hinge on statements that Mr. Khadr made to interrogators when he was held at a military prison at Bagram air base in Afghanistan. The lawyer asked to be provided with the names of the interrogators as well as what techniques they used.

His interrogators included members of a unit implicated in the December 2002 beating deaths of two Afghan detainees, named Dilawar and Habibullah, Cmdr. Kuebler said.

Mr. Kuebler showed the judge a photograph of Mr. Khadr after his capture, with two gaping exit wounds in his chest from gunshots to his back, and said he would have been particularly vulnerable to coercion when he arrived at Bagram.

“We’re not talking about an adult of able physical and mental condition,” he said.

The lead prosecutor, Marine Corps Maj. Jeffrey Groharing, said defence lawyers have not demonstrated that speaking with individual interrogators would benefit their case. He said the government already has provided typewritten summaries of the Bagram interrogations.

Cmdr. Kuebler bristled at the prosecutor’s decision to withhold information it does not consider relevant to the case.

“What does he know about our case … and what might help us prepare for trial?” he asked.

The judge, Army Col. Peter Brownback, scolded both sides for not co-operating more closely on evidence-related issues that could delay the trial, currently scheduled for May. He said he would rule on most of the defence motions by late Friday.

Judge Brownback also ordered prosecutors to provide the defence with official correspondence regarding the case between the U.S. and Canadian governments.

Also Thursday, a separate military tribunal arraigned a Saudi detainee, Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al-Darbi, who is accused of plotting in 2001-2002 to attack a ship in the Strait of Hormuz or off the coast of Yemen as a member of al-Qaida. He did not enter a plea to charges that include supporting terrorism.

Source
Break Them Down: Systematic Use of “Psychological Torture” by U.S. Forces
The report is the first comprehensive review of the use of “psychological torture” by US forces, examining the devastating health consequences of psychological coercion and explaining how a regime of psychological torture was put into place in the U.S. “war on terror”.

Techniques of psychological torture used have included sensory deprivation, isolation, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, the use of military working dogs to instill fear, cultural and sexual humiliation, mock executions, and the threat of violence or death toward detainees or their loved ones. There is strong evidence that psychological torture remains in use today.

May 2005, Report in PDF 135 pages

Anything this child or anyone else for that matter,  would have said to the interrogators would be to say the least invalid. Torture renders any confession useless.

Well if you have the inclination.

One could drop Stephen a line or give him a call.

A little encouragement may help Stephen do something to help a child who has been tortured, among other things.

Stephen Harper

Telephone: (613) 992-4211

Fax: (613) 941-6900

Email: Harper.S@parl.gc.ca

Related Story:

Who Cares about Omar Khadr ?