(Human Rights News, October 29, 2006) The Iraqi government must move quickly to prosecute all Ministry of Interior personnel responsible for ‘death squad’ killings in Baghdad and elsewhere, Human Rights Watch said today. 

Evidence suggests that Iraqi security forces are involved in these horrific crimes, and thus far the government has not held them accountable, said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division.

“The Iraqi government must stop giving protection to security forces responsible for abduction, torture and murder. Every month, hundreds of people are abducted, tortured and killed by what many believe are death squads that include security forces. To terrorize the population, the killers often dump the mutilated corpses in public areas.”

We can expect in future that these mutilated corpses may have Pentagon-originated ID cards pinned to their blood-soaked shirts.

As soon as it has been compiled and authenticated, the proposed list of 'trustworthy’ employees will be stolen from Ministry computers (or downloaded intentionally). The names, addresses and family ties of every Iraqi who ever worked with or cooperated with the West will finally be on paper. A death list. Then, while we are still there (or for sure when we begin to leave), the death-squads will begin their business in earnest.

Remembered images of the Embassy evacuation in Vietnam ought to refresh American memory. 40,000 Iraqis are a hell of a lot of people to kick off the skids of departing American helicopters.

(James Cogan, 25 October 2005) The interior ministry of the pro-US government in Iraq is being directly accused of carrying out the murder of Sadoun Antar Nudsaif al-Janabi, a key defense lawyer in the trial of Saddam Hussein and seven others that began on October 19.

Janabi was seized from his office late in the evening on October 20 by as many as 10 men. Witnesses claim they were wearing police uniforms. Several hours later, Janabi’s body was found on the street near Baghdad’s Fardous Mosque. He had been killed execution-style with two gunshots to the head.

Hemeid Faraj al-Janabi, the sheik of the Al Janibiyeen tribe to which Janabi belonged, told the Arabic daily Al Hayat on Monday: “We have evidence from the interior ministry that the executors of the operation are from the ministry. They kidnapped Sadoun al-Janabi and took him to one of the ministry’s buildings in the Al Jaderiyah region—which is the house of the one of the daughters of the overthrown president—where they assassinated him.”

Two other defense lawyers were assassinated in an attack on their car while driving to the Saddam Hussein trial. It quickly became a matter of some bravery (or foolishness) to represent the accused.

This decision to implement an ID system for Iraqi workers is so poorly conceived and thought through, that it seems to me it requires a personal sign-off by the Secretary of Defense prior to its implementation.

I’d be very surprised if Bob Gates wasn’t busy elsewhere while this one slid by.
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Media comment;

• Washington Post-A Contract to Find 'Trustworthy' Iraqi Workers
  

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