torresdd

http://www.counterpunch.org/

super duty

For over 20 years, the greatest threat to Iraqis has been Saddam Hussein's
regime -- he has killed, tortured, raped and terrorized the Iraqi people and
his neighbors for over two decades.

When Iraq is free, past crimes against humanity and war crimes committed
against Iraqis, will be accounted for, in a post-conflict Iraqi-led process.
The United States, members of the coalition and international community will
work with the Iraqi people to build a strong and credible judicial process
to address these abuses.

Under Saddam's regime many hundreds of thousands of people have died as a
result of his actions - the vast majority of them Muslims.

According to a 2001 Amnesty International report, "victims of torture in
Iraq are subjected to a wide range of forms of torture, including the
gouging out of eyes, severe beatings and electric shocks... some victims
have died as a result and many have been left with permanent physical and
psychological damage."

Saddam has had approximately 40 of his own relatives murdered.

Allegations of prostitution used to intimidate opponents of the regime, have
been used by the regime to justify the barbaric beheading of women.

Documented chemical attacks by the regime, from 1983 to 1988, resulted in
some 30,000 Iraqi and Iranian deaths.

Human Rights Watch estimates that Saddam's 1987-1988 campaign of terror
against the Kurds killed at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000
Kurds. o The Iraqi regime used chemical agents to include mustard gas and
nerve agents in attacks against at least 40 Kurdish villages between
1987-1988. The largest was the attack on Halabja which resulted in
approximately 5,000 deaths. o 2,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed during
the campaign of terror.

Iraq's 13 million Shi'a Muslims, the majority of Iraq's population of
approximately 22 million, face severe restrictions on their religious
practice, including a ban on communal Friday prayer, and restriction on
funeral processions.

According to Human Rights Watch, "senior Arab diplomats told the
London-based Arabic daily newspaper al-Hayat in October [1991] that Iraqi
leaders were privately acknowledging that 250,000 people were killed during
the uprisings, with most of the casualties in the south." Refugees
International reports that the "Oppressive government policies have led to
the internal displacement of 900,000 Iraqis, primarily Kurds who have fled
to the north to escape Saddam Hussein's Arabization campaigns (which involve
forcing Kurds to renounce their Kurdish identity or lose their property) and
Marsh Arabs, who fled the government's campaign to dry up the southern
marshes for agricultural use. More than 200,000 Iraqis continue to live as
refugees in Iran."

The U.S. Committee for Refugees, in 2002, estimated that nearly 100,000
Kurds, Assyrians and Turkomans had previously been expelled, by the regime,
from the "central-government-controlled Kirkuk and surrounding districts in
the oil-rich region bordering the Kurdish controlled north."

"Over the past five years, 400,000 Iraqi children under the age of five died
of malnutrition and disease, preventively, but died because of the nature of
the regime under which they are living." (Prime Minister Tony Blair, March
27, 2003) o Under the oil-for-food program, the international community
sought to make available to the Iraqi people adequate supplies of food and
medicine, but the regime blocked sufficient access for international workers
to ensure proper distribution of these supplies. o Since the beginning of
Operation Iraqi Freedom, coalition forces have discovered military
warehouses filled with food supplies meant for the Iraqi people that had
been diverted by Iraqi military forces.

The Iraqi regime has repeatedly refused visits by human rights monitors.
From 1992 until 2002, Saddam prevented the UN Special Rapporteur from
visiting Iraq.

The UN Special Rapporteur's September 2001, report criticized the regime for
"the sheer number of executions," the number of "extrajudicial executions on
political grounds," and "the absence of a due process of the law."

Executions: Saddam Hussein's regime has carried out frequent summary
executions, including: o 4,000 prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in 1984 o
3,000 prisoners at the Mahjar prison from 1993-1998 o 2,500 prisoners were
executed between 1997-1999 in a "prison cleansing campaign" o 122 political
prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib prison in February/March 2000 o 23
political prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib prison in October 2001 o At
least 130 Iraqi women were beheaded between June 2000 and April 2001

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