Source: Reuters
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, March 17 (Reuters) - Five years after the United States led an invasion of Iraq, millions of people there are still deprived of clean water and medical care, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday.
In a sober report marking the anniversary of the 2003 start of the war, which ousted dictator Saddam Hussein and unleashed deep sectarian tensions, the humanitarian body said Iraqi hospitals lack beds, drugs, and medical staff.
Some areas of the country of 27 million people have no functioning water and sanitation facilities, and the poor public water supply has forced some families to use at least a third of their average $150 monthly income buying clean drinking water.
"Five years after the outbreak of the war in Iraq, the humanitarian situation in most of the country remains among the most critical in the world," the ICRC said, describing Iraq's health care system as "now in worse shape than ever."
The Swiss-based agency is mandated to help victims of war and monitor compliance to international rules of war, enshrined in the Geneva Conventions.
Its report said tens of thousands of Iraqis have disappeared since the start of the war. The conflict was grounded in faulty U.S. intelligence suggesting Saddam was hiding weapons of mass destruction. No such arsenal was ever found.
"Many of those killed in the current violence have never been properly identified, because only a small percentage of the bodies have been turned over to Iraqi government institutions such as the Medical-Legal Institute in Baghdad," it said.
MATCHING DNA SAMPLES
The ICRC is providing forensic equipment to medical and legal institutes enabling them to examine DNA samples and match them with those of families searching for their loved ones.
Iraqi violence rates have fallen 60 percent since last June, but the U.S. military commander there, General David Petraeus, says the security gains are fragile and easily reversed.
Declining civilian casualties have been hailed by Iraqi and U.S. military officials as proof that new counter-insurgency tactics adopted last year have been working.
But Beatrice Megevand Roggo, the ICRC's head of operations for the Middle East and Africa, said those who have fled their homes to escape violence in Iraq, including many children, women, and elderly and disabled people, remained extremely vulnerable.
"Better security in some parts of Iraq must not distract attention from the continuing plight of millions of people who have essentially been left to their own devices," she said.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis -- nearly all men -- are in detention, according to the ICRC. They include 20,000 inmates at at the country's largest detention facility at Camp Bucca in the south near Basra, which is run by U.S.-led multinational forces.
The ICRC regularly visits people held by the multinational forces in Iraq, the Kurdish regional government and the Iraqi justice ministry -- altogether some 5,000 detainees last year.
It is still seeking a comprehensive agreement for access to all prisoners held by Iraqi authorities.
Iraq is the ICRC's largest operation worldwide with an annual budget of 107 million Swiss francs ($106 million). It deploys 600 staff in the country, including 72 expatriates. (Editing by Laura MacInnis and Jon Boyle)
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As troops leave, U.S. seeks custody of key Iraq detainee
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WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD (Reuters) - With less than 60 days before the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, the United States is quietly seeking to keep custody of its highest profile detainee there, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.
But it is unclear if Baghdad will agree -- something it appears highly reluctant to do -- or where the United States would take him if it did win outright custody.
Hezbollah operative Ali Mussa Daqduq, suspected of orchestrating a 2007 kidnapping that resulted in the killing of five U.S. military personnel, must be transferred to Iraqi custody by the end of this year under the terms of a U.S.-Iraq security agreement.
But U.S. lawmakers fear that Iraq will be unable to hold Daqduq, who was born in Lebanon, for long. Two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration would like for the Iraqis to release him to U.S. custody.
Daqduq's fate and the difficult question of what the U.S. government would do with him highlights one of the big dilemmas facing President Barack Obama as he moves forward with plans announced last month for a complete military pullout from Iraq.
Although violence has ebbed considerably since the height of Iraq's sectarian slaughter, questions remain about Iraq's ability to deal with militants -- including
Daqduq, who is accused of training Iraqi extremists in how to use mortars, rockets and explosively formed penetrators, known as EFPs.
One of the U.S. officials said it was unclear whether a formal request had been made to transfer Daqduq to U.S. custody. But two Iraqi sources, including a senior Iraqi military official, said the United States had already asked to take him out of Iraq.
"They asked to take him but the Iraqis are rejecting that," said the Iraqi military official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
A senior Obama administration official acknowledged "serious and ongoing deliberations about how to handle" Daqduq but would not elaborate. The Pentagon declined comment.
GUANTANAMO BAY?
Daqduq was captured in March 2007 and initially claimed he was a deaf mute. U.S. forces accused him of being a surrogate for Iran's elite Quds force operatives and say he joined the Lebanese Hezbollah in 1983.
The senior Iraqi officer said he is being held in a prison jointly run by the United States and Iraq, and also cited efforts by individuals in Lebanon and Iran to win custody.
"The Iranians and the Lebanese are trying to get him back by negotiating with the Iraqi government," the officer said, without elaborating.
It's unclear what options Obama would pursue to deal with Daqduq if he were taken out of Iraq. It appears highly unlikely Obama would want to add to the population at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, which he promised but has so far failed to close.
Robert Chesney, a counter-terrorism law and policy expert at the University of Texas School of Law, said the Daqduq case highlights the legal quandary Obama faces in detainee policy.
Although Daqduq could theoretically face trial in a U.S. civilian court, a U.S. military commission like the one in Guantanamo Bay would appear to be the most appropriate given his alleged battlefield activities. But whichever option the administration chooses, there will be fierce criticism.
"If you do it one way, the left gets mad, if you do it another way, the right gets mad," Chesney said.
Senator John McCain, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and 18 other lawmakers wrote to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in July saying that bringing Daqduq to Guantanamo would be the best decision.
"It is absolutely clear that the policy option that most reduces the risk to Americans' safety is the one the administration apparently refuses to consider -- law of war detention at Guantanamo with or without trial by military commission," they wrote.
At the time, they warned Iraqi courts might be unable to convict him, if Iraq gained custody. Daqduq, they said, might take advantage of "ineffective incarceration" or other Iraqi challenges.
"If he is released from United States custody, there is little doubt that Daqduq will return to the battlefield and resume his terrorist activities against the United States and our interests," the lawmakers wrote.
(Editing by Warren Strobel and Cynthia Osterman)
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This Iraqi Prison Camp Is Now A Hotel
Oil investors and executives who visit Iraq have a new option for lodging: Camp Bucca, a former US prison base, has been transformed into a hotel, The New York Times reported.
The Basra Gatewayhotel in Southern Iraq opened on November 24, to coincide with an oil and gas conference in nearby Basra.
Operated by the Kufan group, the hotel has retained much of the base's original esthetics, including the barbed wire that surrounds the property as well as the military residential trailers, known as CHUs (containerized housing units). The units, some of which have been equipped with individual plumbing, go for $190 a night.
The venture is an attempt by investors to make commercial use out of recently abandoned military compounds, which will all be handed over to the Iraqi government by the end of the year.
Basra, about 330 miles from Baghdad, is in the midst of many of the country's oil fields, and The International Energy Agency projects that oil production in Iraq will increase faster than in any other country over the next 25 years, the New York Times reported.
Around 150 executives who were looking into new investment opportunities in Iraq stayed at the hotel; many of them were not told that it was a former prison base until they arrived. One group of Swedes were so dismayed they checked out early.
“People complained,” Loay Almalaieka, a vice president of the Kufan Group, told the New York Times. "The new plumbing burst in some rooms. We couldn’t achieve a great level of satisfaction with these executives, for obvious reasons.”
Several companies, including Exxon, have looked into renting permanent space at the hotel for their employees. As Amar Latif, Basra Gateway’s general manager, told the New York Times,
“Exxon loved it,” Mr. Latif said of the former Camp Bucca. Their representatives visited half a dozen times, he said, to examine the security arrangements, taking in the sprawl of razor wire and concrete walls and exclaiming, “Oh boy, it’s excellent!”
On the downside, Iraq’s security situation is still so dismal that a former prison appears alluring as a hotel.
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