No, Turkey is not a safe country for refugees

So sending refugees back there to
“discourage others from making the dangerous journey”
is hypocrisy

Many politicians have been claiming that they are refusing refugees asylum and sending them back to Turkey in order to “discourage others from making the dangerous journey” to the EU. There are a few problems with that story.

First Turkey is not a safe country for refugees in any sense. Turkey has been deporting Syrian refugees back to Syria since January , including many children (1) – (2).

On top of that Turkish border guards have actually begun shooting Syrian refugees as they try to cross the border  (3).

And since the middle of last year there has also been civil war in Turkey itself, between the Turkish government and military and Kurdish separatist groups. There was a peace process between the two and negotiations were close to a breakthrough. Then left-wing Kurdish pro-peace HDP party won enough seats in an election to take away President Erdogan’s AKP party’s majority in parliament (4) – (5).

At the same time in Syria,  Syrian Kurdish groups with the support of the PKK (a Turkish Kurdish separatist group) took territory in Syria, on the border with Turkey. This raised Turkish fears of a Kurdish state (6).

Erdogan responded by restarting the war with the PKK and other Kurdish separatists in Turkey. Kurdish civilians in Turkey are among the casualties of Turkish military sniper fire and there is some evidence of war crimes against Kurdish civilians (7) – (8).

This means Turkish Kurds aren’t even safe, let alone Syrian Kurdish refugees.

What’s more there has been no food for many of the Syrian refugees in camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon since the middle of last year, when the UN was forced to cut off food aid to many of them due to lack of funds. Wealthier governments simply haven’t donated enough money to buy that food (9).

Nor is Turkey even a proper democracy for people born there – journalists and even opposition MPs who criticise the government are often jailed.  Insulting the President is a criminal offence with a sentence of 4 years or more in jail. So refugees can forget about having any rights at all (10) – (11).

Libya is even more dangerous, with the many sided civil war still going on.

Why aren’t The Muslim / Arab countries Taking Their Share?
They are – EU countries aren’t

The Gulf states including Saudi, despite some mistaken media reports, have been taking in some Syrian refugees, but given Saudi is a hardline Sunni Muslim dictatorship with religious police, no Christian, Shia Muslim, secular, or moderate Sunni Muslim Syrian refugee is likely to want to go there. (see the blog post on this link – scrolling down to bolded sub-heading ‘Are the wealthiest Arab states refusing to take in any Syrian refugees?’)

The reality is that Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon have each taken far more refugees per capita and relative to their size and wealth than any EU country. (also see comparison of the UK and Jordan on the post on this link under bolded  sub-heading ‘Is the UK taking more than its share of refugees'). (12)

The EU and the UK should take more. And as long as both are sending refugees, including children, back to Turkey, pretending it’s a “safe country”, it is impossible to be proud to be either British or European.

True, David Cameron did do a partial u-turn on his government’s refusal to allow any unaccompanied child refugees from Calais to be granted asylum in the UK. But this only allows children who arrived before 20^th March to apply for refugee status – and there is no guarantee of any who reach their 18^th birthday soon being allowed to stay after that (13).

Why are they coming here illegally?
Because They’re Given No Other Option

As for the outrage over migrants and refugees “coming here illegally” what choice are they given? The vast majority of them have none. Other than the pitiful number of 4,000 a year being selected by the UK from refugee camps in Turkey, out of millions of Syrian refugees, to one of the richest and largest countries in the EU, they have to the EU or UK illegally to make an asylum claim (14) – (15).

The obvious alternative would be for governments like the UK’s to tell their embassies in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon (and also countries bordering Libya, like Tunisia) to accept applications for asylum from people in those countries. Those whose claims were judged genuine would be granted refugee status and helped to travel safely to the UK, meaning they wouldn’t have to make dangerous journeys, pay people smugglers who are often violent criminals, or do anything illegal.

 

(1) = BBC News 15 Jan 2016 ‘Turkey 'acting illegally' over Syria refugees deportations’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35135810

(2) = Amnesty International 01 Apr 2016 ‘Turkey: Illegal mass returns of Syrian refugees expose fatal flaws in EU-Turkey deal’,
https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2016/04/turkey-illegal-mass-returns-of-syrian-refugees-expose-fatal-flaws-in-eu-turkey-deal/

(3) = Independent 31 Mar 2016 ‘Turkey 'shooting dead' Syrian refugees as they flee civil war’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/turkey-shooting-dead-syrian-refugees-flee-civil-war-a6960971.html

(4) = Newsweek 04 Aug 2015 ‘Turkey's Erdoğan calls on other parties to be 'realistic' after his party loses its majority’, http://europe.newsweek.com/turkey-war-kurds-pkk-331163?rm=eu

(5) = Independent 08 Jun 2015 ‘Turkey's Erdoğan calls on other parties to be 'realistic' after his party loses its majority’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turkeys-erdo-an-calls-on-other-parties-to-be-realistic-after-his-party-loses-its-majority-10304127.html

(6) = Telegraph 25 Jul 2015 ‘For Erdogan, Turkish assault is about containing the Kurds as much as fighting Isil’, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/11762210/For-Erdogan-Turkish-assault-is-about-containing-the-Kurds-as-much-as-fighting-Isil.html

(7) = Guardian 08 Sep 2015 ‘Kurdish civilians hit by snipers as Turkey cracks down on militants’,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/08/kurdish-civilians-killed-snipers-turkey-cracks-down-militants

(8) = Independent 22 Jan 2016 ‘Video shows Kurds waving white flag 'shot by Turkish soldiers'’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/video-shows-kurds-waving-white-flag-shot-by-turkish-soldiers-a6828416.html

(9) = Guardian 06 Sep 2015 ‘UN agencies 'broke and failing' in face of ever-growing refugee crisis’,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/06/refugee-crisis-un-agencies-broke-failing

(10) = New Yorker ‘Turkey’s jailed journalists’, http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/turkeys-jailed-journalists

(11) = BBC News 16 Apr 2015 ‘The problem with insulting Turkey's President Erdogan’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32302697

(12) = Amnesty International 03 Feb 2016 ‘Syria's refugee crisis in numbers’, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/02/syrias-refugee-crisis-in-numbers/

(13) = guardian.com 07 May 2016 ‘Should David Cameron’s U-turn on unaccompanied child refugees be celebrated?’, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/07/should-david-camerons-u-turn-on-unaccompanied-child-refugees-be-celebrated

(14) = BBC News 07 Sep 2015 ‘UK to accept 20,000 refugees from Syria by 2020’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34171148

(15) = See (10) above

The government, IDS and Katie Hopkins are all lying about food banks – the evidence that welfare “reforms” are causing poverty and hunger

Katie Hopkins is hardly renowned as a great intellect. In fact she’s famous for her stupidity, for example criticising people who named their children after countries on live TV when she called one of her own children India.

However there is more to her than just a brainless celeb. She’s also a brainless celeb who was handed everything on a plate from the age of 3 in an incredibly pampered upbringing as part of a smug establishment, but loves to condemn people so poor they rely on food banks to eat .

She has become a spokesperson for the rich and powerful, targeting the poor and the powerless on their behalf. That’s not exactly a hard position to get if you were born into the right family. There are thousands of the smug braying nobodies spilling nonsense at us from every newspaper from the tabloids to The Telegraph. They have these positions not because of any talent, but because they are part of the smug establishment, “one of us” , grew up with them, went to public school with them.

No wonder The Sun gave her a column and she goes out shooting with its editors. And The Sun pretends it’s the newspaper of ordinary people!

They share their prejudices and blind ideology, which is why Hopkins is so often stating her agreement with something tory government ministers like Michael Gove have said. In her ludicrous Huffington Post piece on food banks she quotes him on those who rely on food banks supposedly only having to do so because they mismanage their finances.

What a co-incidence that Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, condemns food banks too. And they both, like Hopkins, are tories who went to public school (1).

Hopkins claimed recently on twitter that only people who deliberately give up working could become poor.

She also tweeted that “Food banks are bridging the gap between income and the number of Sky, mobile, car finance contracts clueless individuals prioritised.”

And she keeps on posting links to her own 2013 comment article as supposed proof that food banks are “a complete con”. (2) – (3)

Hopkins’ idiotic witterings would be irrelevant on their own. But they’re part of a propaganda campaign against the poorest by the government, political parties and the establishment. So the lies have to be challenged.

Now let’s take a look at the facts – or more accurately the lack of them – in her piece on food banks.

Hopkins writes that

‘One food bank user commented: "We were given a food parcel. Me and my partner sat down and ate for four hours solid until it was all gone".

To get hold of this free food, users have to wangle a voucher from an agency worker at a job centre or drop in clinic, supposedly to a maximum of three. This limit is not enforced.

Oscar-winning performances of desperation are plenty. A recent BBC documentary showed one man lying that it was his son's birthday in order to procure a voucher.

Individuals like this have become vouchers tourists travelling between agencies, collecting vouchers quicker than genital warts on a student.’ (4)

No source for the “comment” from the food bank user. Googling the quote provides no sources for it. So basically her entire article is based on one BBC documentary.

Given the date of her article it has to be ‘Britain’s Hidden Hungry’ from November  2012. Either she didn’t watch it or else she just picked out the bits she liked, because even the summary on the BBC website page says:

‘Care-leaver Charlotte eats just one meal a day. It's all she can afford, so she starves herself till evening. Sandra, middle class mother of five, is embarrassed that all she can give her son for his school packed lunch is bread and butter. Middle manager Kelly, mother of two, hasn't eaten for two days. Meet Britain's hidden hungry.

As of 2012, more than 170,000 people are believed to be dependent on a chain of 300 foodbanks run by a Christian charity, the Trussell Trust. Bafta award winning film-maker David Modell has spent six months at the Coventry foodbank following the stories of Charlotte, Sandra and Kelly to find out how, in 2012, so many Britons are suffering genuine and prolonged bouts of real hunger.’

Another BBC documentary on hunger and food banks this year ‘Hungry Britain’ came to similar conclusions. You can watch that documentary online here.

A report by Oxfam and Church Action Against Poverty in 2013 found that:

‘We estimate that over 500,000 people are now reliant on food aid – the use of food banks and receipt of food parcels ….Some of the increase…is caused by unemployment, increasing levels of underemployment, low and falling income, and rising food and fuel prices. The National Minimum Wage and benefits levels need to rise in line with inflation…

…up to half of all people turning to food banks are doing so as a direct result of having benefit payments delayed, reduced, or withdrawn altogether. Figures gathered by the Trussell Trust …show that changes to the benefit system are the most common reasons for people using food banks…

There is a real risk that the benefit cuts and the introduction of Universal Credit (which will require internet access and make payments less frequently) will lead to even larger numbers being forced to turn to food banks. Food banks may not have the capacity to cope with the increased level of demand.’ (5)

A recent report of an inquiry into food banks and hunger by MPs of all parties had similar findings – that the main causes of food bank use were rising costs of food, energy bills, low wages, unemployment and welfare “reforms” (6)

So Hopkins, like IDS and Gove, is picking out a handful of examples of people exploiting food banks and ignoring the mountain of evidence that the majority of people going to food banks are in genuine poverty and would go hungry without them.

And now on the lie that most people in poverty are unemployed and unemployed because they don’t want to work.

First, large numbers of people going into work remain in poverty (under 60% of median income or £119 per week for an adult or £288 for a couple with two children) or in deep poverty (a third or less lower income than that). Since 2012 there have been more people in work and in poverty than out of work and in poverty in the UK (7) – (8).

Newly created jobs have increasingly becoming part-time and/or low paid over the past two decades. This accelerated after the banking crisis with the number of people in the UK who want full-time work but can only get part-time having increased by 1 million between 2008 and 2012 alone (9).

Second the number of unemployed people continues to exceed the number of job vacancies even on the government’s figures of 1.96 million and 637,000 respectively, which fiddle the former down and the latter up (10) – (11).

So much for Katie Hopkins’, IDS and every other propagandist and useful idiot who claims food banks are “a con” and that anyone in hunger or poverty is there purely due to their own failings.

Sources

(1) = Independent 22 Dec 2013 ‘Iain Duncan Smith accuses food bank charity the Trussell Trust of scaremongering’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/iain-duncan-smith-accuses-food-bank-charity-the-trussell-trust-of-scaremongering-9021150.html

(2) = Huffington Post 18 Oct 2013 ‘The Real Reason Food Banks Have Trebled’,
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/katie-hopkins/food-bank-real-reason-use-has-trebled_b_4121733.html

(3) = Huffington Post 10 Jan 2014 ‘Katie Hopkins Calls Food Banks 'A Complete Con' And Defends Benefits Street (VIDEO)’, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/10/katie-hopkins-food-banks_n_4574311.html

(4) = See (2) above

(5) = Oxfam & Church Action Against Poverty 30 May 2013 ‘Walking the Breadline: The scandal of food poverty in 21st-century Britain’, http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/walking-the-breadline-the-scandal-of-food-poverty-in-21st-century-britain-292978

(6) = BBC News 08 Dec 2014 ‘'Pay benefits faster' to reduce hunger, MPs urge’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30346060

(7) = Joseph Rowntree Foundation 06 Dec 2010 ‘Monitoring poverty and social exclusion 2010’,
http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/monitoring-poverty-2010

(8) = Joseph Rowntree Foundation 26 November 2012 ‘In-work poverty outstrips poverty in workless households’, http://www.jrf.org.uk/blog/2012/11/work-poverty-outstrips-poverty-workless-households

(9) = ONS 28 Nov 2012 ‘People in Work Wanting More Hours Increases by 1 million Since 2008’, http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lmac/underemployed-workers-in-the-uk/2012/rpt-underemployed-workers.html

(10) = ONS Statistical bulletin: UK Labour Market, November 2014 ‘Vacancies Aug – Oct 2014’,
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/november-2014/statistical-bulletin.html#tab-14--Vacancies

(11) = ONS Statistical bulletin: UK Labour Market, November 2014, ‘Key Points for July to September 2014’,
http://ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/november-2014/statistical-bulletin.html

Buccaneering by Cameron's Bank and Hedge Fund Pirate Friends in the City is the reason many Scots and English people would like to get out of the UK

Prime Minister David Cameron says we must save the UK as it’s a “brilliant, buccaneering country” (1) – (2). That’s an interesting choice of words. Buccaneers were pirates. How appropriate from a Prime Minister whose party gets most of its funding from the banks and hedge funds who are the modern international, government approved, pirates, stealing billions from 99.9% of the world’s population (3) – (4).

The hedge funds and banks even buy up food and stockpile it to push the price up to make money on “futures trading”, starving the world’s poorest people for profits that go to already super-rich investors, stock market traders and senior managers (5). David Cameron and much of his party are not ashamed of this, but proud of it.

To them Elizabethan England with its state approved pirates, or “privateers” like Sir Francis Drake, is a wet dream they want to bring back – and through privatisation, lack of regulation and eroding the welfare state, they are succeeding.

Big banks, hedge funds, energy companies and supermarkets are the privateers of our day, buying the right to steal from millions and avoid taxes in offshore tax havens through donations to party funds. They’re worse than the privateers, because at least the privateers were stealing from other governments and rich merchants, while the modern privateers steal from the vast majority including the very poorest.

The Coalition government has blocked even modest EU attempts at increased regulation and restrictions on bankers’ bonuses. Chancellor George Osborne has gone to court to block EU caps on bankers’ bonuses. For Cameron and Osborne there must be no restrictions on buccaneering. Cap benefits for the poorest, but bankers have to be able to pay themselves whatever they like (6).

With the number of people reliant on food banks in the UK having increased from under 50,000 to around half a million in the first few years of their government, they are also heading us back towards Elizabethan era levels of poverty and inequality. Like Tony Blair, they are very relaxed about this, as they’re not the ones who have to go hungry or watch their kids go hungry (7) – (8).

And this is the kind of thing David Cameron thinks will make Scots want to stay part of the UK? Even many English people would like to escape that kind of organised kleptocracy. Buccaneering isn’t popular when the buccaneers are the super-rich, stealing from the majority and making the poorest go hungry.

The best thing Scots can do to end this is vote Yes and go independent, both to save our own people, and to provide an example of supposedly impossible alternatives working; an example that no UK government would be able to ignore.

 (1) = www.guardian.com 07 Feb 2014 ‘David Cameron sets out 'emotional, patriotic' case to keep Scotland in UK’, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/07/david-cameron-scottish-independence-referendum-olympic-park

(2) = www.gov.uk 07 Feb 2014 ‘The importance of Scotland to the UK: David Cameron’s speech’, https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-importance-of-scotland-to-the-uk-david-camerons-speech  (see paragraph near end of speech which begins ‘And I passionately hope that my children’ – final sentence of paragraph reads ‘Our great United Kingdom: brave, brilliant, buccaneering, generous, tolerant, proud – this is our country.’)

(3) = BBC News 9 Feb 2011 ‘More than half of Conservative donors 'from the City'’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12401049

(4) = Bureau of Investigative Journalism ‘Tory Party funding from City doubles under Cameron’, http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/02/08/city-financing-of-the-conservative-party-doubles-under-cameron/

(5) = Independent On Sunday 01 April 2012 ‘The real hunger games: How banks gamble on food prices – and the poor lose out’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/the-real-hunger-games-how-banks-gamble-on-food-prices--and-the-poor-lose-out-7606263.html

(6) = Guardian 25 Sep 2013 ‘Osborne bats for bankers' bonuses citing risk to City from EU cap’, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/sep/25/osborne-bankers-bonuses-eu-cap

(7) = BBC News 30 May 2013 ‘Food bank reliance in the UK triples, says Oxfam’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22715451

(8) = www.parliament.uk 18 Dec 2013 ‘MPs debate Accident and Emergency Services and Food Banks’, http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2013/december/opposition-day-18-december-2013/

Are Iraqis better off as a result of the 2003 invasion and overthrow of Saddam?

This is the third of three posts on Tony Blair’s version of what happened in Iraq from the 1980s to the present – and what really happened; and on whether war on Iraq or Iran could be justified or necessary (the first two are here and here). This post looks at whether Iraqis have been better off since the 2003 invasion than they were under Saddam ; what Iraqis have said about it themselves in opinion polls; and what conclusions might be drawn.

Picture - Iraqi refugees. Many have been deported back to Iraq from the US and UK, whose governments claim Iraq is now a safe destination.

Using WMDs on Iraqis,
 supposedly to stop Saddam doing it – 15 years after he’d stopped

Bush and Blair and their supporters on Iraq claim they had to invade to save Iraqis from Saddam using WMDs on them. Yet Coalition forces then used WMDs on Iraqis, just as they had with napalm and Depleted Uranium shells and bombs in the 1991 war and in enforcing the ‘No Fly Zones’ from 1991 till 2003 (1) – (4). This, the fact that they provided Saddam with money, chemicals and hardware to produce and deliver chemical weapons before and after the gassing of the Kurds at Halabja ; and the fact that Saddam’s use of chemical weapons ended in 1988 with the end of the Iran-Iraq war, make it an empty claim.

It’s a constant refrain of the US and British governments in their foreign policy and wars that their enemies are responsible for everything; and that anything they did was to prevent the crimes of their enemies. In fact they are responsible for their own actions, which include using cluster munitions (effectively land mines deployed from planes or by artillery) and WMD such as Depleted Uranium shells and bombs and White Phosphorus in cities including Fallujah – along with new versions of napalm (5) – (8).  The results have been massively increased rates of cancers and birth defects among Iraqi babies and children from 1991 on (9) – (10). Since the April and 2004 Coalition assaults on the city of Fallujah it has the highest rates of all among babies and infants (11).

Many Iraqi, American and British doctors studying Iraqi children and British and American veterans of the 1991 Gulf War and the Bosnian and Kosovo wars also believe their illnesses are caused by exposure to residue from DU munitions used in these wars – and among some units the rate of cancers and birth defects among their children has been extremely high (12) – (15).

Killing and torturing Iraqis - supposedly to save them from Saddam doing it

Ending rape, torture and murder by death squads and secret police is also supposed to be a benefit of the US led invasion. Except they continued under Coalition forces and still continue under the new Iraqi government.

Actions of the US and British governments in Iraq which Iraq war supporters like to ignore also include approving and encouraging systematic torture , which, including beatings over nights and days, working in shifts , breaking arms and legs with baseball bats ; asphyxiation and electric shocks (that’s according to American and British Iraq veterans as well as Iraqis) (16) – (27), ordering the targeting of both ambulances and civilians in the assaults on Fallujah (according to American aid workers and Iraqis in Fallujah at the time) (28) – (29); and giving orders to force teenage looters into tidal canals to drown. All of this was afterwards covered up by military courts martial pretending either that nothing happened or else it was a few troops out of control, to avoid trials that might ask how high the orders had originated (30) – (31). Courts martial, unlike civilian courts, do not have any minimum legal standards and allow witnesses and evidence to be ignored.

Amnesty International’s annual report for 2010, like UN inquiries in earlier years, found Iraqi police rape women and employ the same torture methods used by Saddam (32) – (33).

Amnesty found that ‘Iraqi security forces committed gross human rights violations including extrajudicial executions, torture...and did so largely with impunity....Torture methods reported included beatings with cables and hosepipes, suspension by the limbs for long periods...electric shocks to the genitals...breaking of limbs, removal of toenails with pliers and piercing the body with drills. Some detainees were alleged to have been raped.’

And that

‘‘In May inmates of the womens’ prison in al Kadhimiya told members of the parliament’s human rights committee that they had been raped while held in prison or detained elsewhere’ (34)

 Iraqi US trained “police commando” death squads and other new elite US trained ‘counter-terrorist’ units torture and kill suspects at a whim, having been trained by officers like Colonel James Steele who trained the notorious US backed death squads of El Salvador in the 1980s, who, like Iraqi security forces today, targeted anyone critical of the US or it’s favoured government, including American nuns , not just armed enemies or terrorists (35) – (39). (for more on the ‘El Salvador Option’ from El Salvador to Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan  see this post)

US Sanctions killed more Iraqis than Saddam after 1991,
Since Invasion food situation worse than under Saddam and sanctions

Keith Gilmour commendably mentions the sanctions on Iraq demanded by the US which were estimated by UN officials charged with enforcing them to have caused the deaths of around 5,000 to 6,000 children per month from 1991 to March 2003 (40). British and American government spokespeople will generally claim Saddam was to blame for these sanctions. Saddam was guilty of many terrible crimes, but the extreme sanctions imposed on Iraq at the demand of the US government weren’t one of them.

Many supporters of the Iraq war argue that the war was necessary to end deaths from sanctions without allowing Saddam to develop new WMD threats. Apart from the fact that Saddam had already proven he wasn’t willing to use WMDs on other countries (see conclusion) and hadn’t risked using them on his people since he lost the backing of the US after 1991, the invasion did not improve the situation once the sanctions were lifted, because the Coalition administration and the new Iraqi governments are so corrupt.

More Iraqis face hunger now even than under sanctions and Saddam. New Iraqi governments have cut food rations repeatedly (and again this year ), to a level around a quarter of that before the invasion,  reducing many Iraqis to scavenging in bins for food. This is despite the new governments having a larger budget than Saddam’s regime (41) – (49). Around $8 billion dollars that could have provided food and medicines went missing from Iraqi UN oil fund money appropriated by Bush’s ‘governor’ Paul Bremer (50) – (54).

What do Iraqis say?

It’s common for both sides in the Iraq war debate to point to the answers to some questions in some opinion polls as evidence that Iraqis did or didn’t support the invasion or do or don’t think they’re better off as a result of Saddam being overthrown. While the majority of polls seem to show a majority of Iraqis saying they backed the invasion and are better off as a result of the invasion, there is as much debate between Iraqis about these questions as there is in the US or the UK. Iraqis’. answers to different questions in the same poll are often contradictory, seeming to provide a majority in favour when a question is phrased one way; but when the same question is asked differently, providing a majority against.

It’s also worth considering the fact that Iraqis have grown up in a situation where answering a question about politics in a way that the current government disliked could end up in torture, jail or death for them and their entire families – and continue to live in such a situation today. This cuts both ways though as they may fear not only the coalition or the new government but their enemies too.

Overall though, from what poll results we do have, the majority of Iraqis do seem to think they’re better off without Saddam and to have considered having Coalition troops there as being less bad than not having them there (though a majority have negative views of coalition forces and governments and the new Iraqi governments). Their responses also suggest they do not approve of many the actions of the new Iraqi government or the Coalition – just that they consider the alternatives even worse (55) – (56).

For instance in a poll in 2007 63% of Iraqis said the invasion of Iraq was wrong, 58% said they had no confidence in US or UK occupation forces, with another 27% saying they had ‘not very much’ confidence in them; and 80% thought Coalition forces had done a ‘very bad’ job or ‘quite a bad’ job; while 79% said they opposed the presence of Coalition forces in Iraq; and 70% said Coalition forces had made security worse. However at the same time 63% did not want Coalition forces to leave Iraq; and 51% said attacks on Coalition forces were unacceptable (57).

During 2010 one poll showed more Iraqis now approved of their own government’s performance than of the US government’s performance (though only a minority approved of either) (58). Yet another poll in 2010 showed a majority thought US troops should not leave Iraq yet (59).

Polls are also a matter of perception and perception is shaped by propaganda by governments and their enemies and by what the media focus on and how they frame issues – as is shown by the fact that poll results in Iraq and elsewhere change massively on the same questions in just a few months. People who are very religious for instance may also consider freedom of religion as important as food supply or safety from torture or death. Even people who aren’t religious may consider the right to vote in elections in which different parties and candidates are allowed to be something they value, even if they’re worse off in other ways.

Conclusion – Murder, Torture, Rape and Theft
are the same whether you call them democracy or not

None of this can make torturing people or murdering them, or corruption reducing their food rations, justifiable on the grounds that they are now carried out by an elected government. People who are murdered or tortured in the name of “democracy”, by an elected government do not suffer less because the ideology used to attempt to justify the act sounds better on paper. Torture and murder are not democratic acts. A “democracy” which allows or orders murder, rape and torture on a large scale is a democracy in name only; and has more similarities to a dictatorship than a democracy in reality. The actions ordered by Coalition governments and the new Iraqi governments in Iraq do not differ greatly from Saddam’s when he was in power, except in exceeding the level of corruption under Saddam by several orders of magnitude and leaving more Iraqis suffering hunger and lack of medical treatment as a result.

Replacing a dictatorship is only a positive thing if you replace it with something better; and if you do so in a way that does not cause large numbers of unnecessary deaths. Neither requirement has been met in Iraq so far.

While many have claimed Saddam would still be in power if Coalition forces hadn’t invaded there is in fact no way to know whether he would have been overthrown instead – no-one expected the sudden and largely peaceful fall of the Berlin Wall and the German Communist Party or of the Soviet Union either, yet they still happened.

More than anything the facts on Iraq show we should beware of accepting the view of the majority as always (or even usually) being the reality given how quickly the views of the majority change – and how greatly propaganda can influence public opinion if it’s repeated enough times.

(1) = Bennis , Phyllis & Moushabeck  , Michael (Editors) (1992)  ‘Beyond the Storm’  ; Canongate Press , London , 1992, p326 – 355

(2) = Lee , Ian (1991) ‘Continuing Health Costs of the Gulf War’, Medical Educational Trust , London , 1991

(3) = Blum , William (1995) ‘Killing Hope’,  Common Courage Press , Monroe , Maine , 1995, pages 334-338

(4) = Pilger , John (1998) ‘Hidden Agendas’ Vintage , London , 1998, pages 49 – 52

(5) = BBC News 29 May 2003 ‘Cluster bombs 'used in Iraq cities'’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2946054.stm

(6) = Observer 14 Dec 2003 ‘Army shells pose cancer risk in Iraq’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/dec/14/iraq.military

(7) =  BBC News 16 Nov 2005 ‘US used white phosphorus in Iraq’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4440664.stm

(8) =  Independent 10 Aug 2003 ‘US admits it used napalm bombs in Iraq’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-admits-it-used-napalm-bombs-in-iraq-589508.html

(9) = Independent 10 Jan 2001 ‘These children had cancer. Now they are dead. I believe they were killed by depleted uranium’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/these-children-had-cancer-now-they-are-dead-i-believe-they-were-killed-by-depleted-uranium-705543.html

(10) = BBC News 14 Apr 2000 ‘Iraq's ward of death’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/713670.stm

(11) = Guardian.co.uk 13 Nov 2009 ‘Huge rise in birth defects in Falluja’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/13/falluja-cancer-children-birth-defects

(12) = BBC News 07 Jun 1999 ‘Depleted uranium: the lingering poison’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/362484.stm

(13) = BBC News 04 Jan 2001 ‘Q&A: Depleted uranium weapons’,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1101447.stm

(14) = BBC News 18 Jan 2001 ‘Depleted uranium: The next generation’,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1122566.stm

(15) = NYT 29 Jan 2001 ‘Doctor's Gulf War Studies Link Cancer to Depleted Uranium’,
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/29/world/29DOCT.html?pagewanted=1

(16) = Human Rights Watch World Report 2006 - ‘Torture and Inhumane Treatment: A Deliberate U.S. Policy’ - http://hrw.org/wr2k6/introduction/2.htm#_Toc121910421

(17) = Amnesty International 1 Nov 2005 ‘TORTURE AND ILL-TREATMENT IN THE ‘WAR ON TERROR’’, http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engact400142005

(18) = Amnesty International Annual Report 2006 - ‘Summary of Country report for Iraq’’, http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/irq-summary-eng

(19) = Washington Post Wednesday, September 28, 2005; A21,‘ A Matter of Honor’, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/27/AR2005092701527_pf.html

(20) = ABC News 18 May 2004,‘Intel Staffer Cites Abu Ghraib Cover-Up’, http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=131658&page=1 and http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=131658

(21) = ABC News 21 May 2004, ‘Military Punishes Abu Ghraib Key Witness’, http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=131659&page=1 and http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=131659

(22) = Scotsman 27 May 2004,'Soldier left brain damaged after playing unruly prisoner at Guantánamo', http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=602732004

(23) = Independent 14 Oct 2006 - ‘Guantanamo guards 'admitted abusing inmates' - http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1870834.ece

(24) = ICRC Feb 2004 - ‘REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS (ICRC) ON THE TREATMENT BY THE COALITION FORCES OF PRISONERS OF WAR AND OTHER PROTECTED PERSONS BY THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS IN IRAQ , Chapter 1 , paragraph 7, http://cryptome.org/icrc-report.htm

(25) = Amnesty International 6 Mar 2006 - ‘Beyond Abu Ghraib: detention and torture in Iraq' - http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engmde140012006

(26) = Amnesty International 15 Mar 2007 - ‘United Kingdom Court Martial acquittals: many questions remain unanswered and further action required to ensure justice' - http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR450052007

(27) = Guardian 16 Sep 2004 - ‘UK officers linked to torture jail' - http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5017135-103550,00.html

(28) = BBC News 23 Apr 2004 ‘Picture emerges of Falluja siege’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3653223.stm

(29) = Guardian 17 Apr 2004 ‘'Getting aid past US snipers is impossible'’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/apr/17/iraq

(30) = Guardian 03 May 2006 ‘Iraqi, 15, 'drowned after soldiers forced him into canal'’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/may/03/iraq.military

(31) = Guardian 07 Jun 2006 ‘Soldiers cleared of Iraqi teenager's manslaughter -Court martial absolves trio of 15-year-old's drowning’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/jun/07/iraq.military

(32)  = BBC News Online 21 Sep 2006 - ‘Iraq torture 'worse after Saddam' ' - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5368360.stm

(33) = Amnesty International World Report 2010 (covering 2009) – Country Report Iraq,http://report2010.amnesty.org/sites/default/files/AIR2010_AZ_EN.pdf#page=123 ;(once pdf loads, scroll down to page 125 (by PDF page number) or 178 (number marked on page)

(34) = New York Times 03 Apr 1998 '4 Salvadorans Say They Killed U.S. Nuns on Orders of Military', http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/03/world/4-salvadorans-say-they-killed-us-nuns-on-orders-of-military.html?scp=5&sq=American+nuns+killed+Salvador&st=nyt

(35) = Joan Didion (1983)‘Salvador’ Granta Books, London, 2006, pages 15-17, 18, 38

(36) = New York Times Magazine 01 May 2005 ‘The Way of the Commandos’, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/magazine/01ARMY.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

(37) = Guardian 20 May 2005 ‘British lawyers to pursue Iraqi security forces over killings’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/20/iraq.uk

(38) = Washington Post 11 Mar 2005 ‘Suicide Bomber Kills 47 in Mosul’ ; ‘Third Mass Grave Found; Police Official Ambushed in Baghdad’, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23448-2005Mar10.html

(39) = Shane Bauer ‘Iraq’s new death squad’ in The Nation 6th June 2009, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090622/bauer

(40) = Guardian 29 Nov 2001 ‘The hostage nation : Former UN relief chiefs Hans von Sponeck and Denis Halliday speak out against an attack on Iraq’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,608578,00.html

(41) = UNOCHA IRIN news service 02 Apr 2006, ‘IRAQ: Food prices rise after reduction of monthly rations’, http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=26250

(42)= UNOCHA IRIN news service 9 Sep 2007, ‘IRAQ: Food rationing system failing as Ramadan approaches’,http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=74196  

(43) = UNOCHA IRIN news service 17 Oct 2007, ‘IRAQ: Hundreds forced to scavenge for food in garbage bins’,http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=74829

(44) = UNOCHA IRIN news service 4 Dec 2007, ‘IRAQ: Government to cut items from its free food handouts’, http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=75677

(45) = Allawi, Ali A. ‘The occupation of Iraq’ Yale UP, New Haven & London, 2007 (paperback edn)

(46) = Refugees International 04 Oct 2007, ‘Iraq: Fix the Public Distribution System to meet needs of the displaced’,  http://refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/9971/

(47) = IPS/ Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail 03 May 2008, ‘Corruption Eats Into Food Rations’,http://dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/iraq/000795.php#more

(48) = UNoCHA’s IRIN news 08 Nov 2009 ‘IRAQ: Food insecurity on the rise, says official’,http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86926

(49) = UNoCHA IRIN news 01 Apr 2010 ‘IRAQ: State food aid package slashed’, http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88646

(50) = CNN 31 Jan 2005‘Audit: U.S. lost track of $9 billion in Iraq funds’, http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/30/iraq.audit/

(51) = Guardian 07 July 2005 ‘So, Mr Bremer, where did all the money go?’http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jul/07/iraq.features11

(52) = ABC News 06 Feb 2007‘Waste in War: Where Did All the Iraq Reconstruction Money Go? : Congressional inquiry probes former Bush official's handling of billions ofdollars, http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2852426&page=1

(53) = Guardian 08 Feb 2007 ‘How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish’http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1

(54) = Independent 28 Jul 2010 ‘US unable to account for billions of Iraq oil money’,http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-unable-to-account-for-billions-of-iraq-oil-money-2036925.html

(55) = Iraq Analysis - Opinion Polls in Iraq, http://www.iraqanalysis.org/info/55 , (provides links to various polls conducted between 2003 and 2007)

(56) = Oxford Research International Feb 2004 ‘National Survery of Iraq’ http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/15_03_04_iraqsurvey.pdf

(57) = BBC, NBC & AHK poll of Iraqis Aug 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/10_09_07_iraqpoll.pdf

(58) = Gallup 26 Aug 2010 ‘Iraqis More Approving of Own Leadership Than of U.S.’, http://www.gallup.com/poll/142670/iraqis-approving-own-leadership.aspx

(59) = AFP 24 Aug 2010 ‘Iraqis say 'wrong time' for US withdrawal: poll’,http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100824/wl_mideast_afp/iraqusmilitarypullout_20100824133725

 

Iraq may be a ‘Land of Opportunity’ for some, but of death, violence and hunger for many others

Baghdad in Iraq - a land of opportunity? and if so, for who?

John Rentoul has risen to new heights of absurdity in his attempts to present the Iraq war as a success, by using a comment article in The Times newspaper by Jeffrey Archer as a source for a claim that Iraq is now a wonderful place to live with a vibrant economy. Archer was found guilty of perjury (i.e lying to a court) and of obstructing the course of justice – and jailed for it, while Blair got off with lying to an entire country by being Prime Minister (1) – (2).

Rentoul’s blog post has the heading “Iraq – Land of Opportunity” while Archer’s comment article is headed “wake up you Brits, make a fortune in Iraq’ and claims that Baghdad is now “a boom town, not a bomb site” on the basis that there are now “few suicide bombings” , although he admits “the most recent exploded the day after I left”.

One commenter on Rentoul’s blog quipped “don’t tell me, it goes boom, boom, boom”.

Sectarian killings and terrorism continue in Iraq and Afghanistan

Iraqis help a survivor of a bombing in June this year - bombings and sectarian killings have continued this month (photo taken by Nabil Al-jurani of AP)

Unfortunately that joke isn’t too far from the truth. The number of sectarian killings, car bombings and suicide bombings have certainly fallen compared to say 2005 or 2006, but they continue and remain much worse than they were in the 90s or 2001-2002 – and so a long, long way from a vindication of the decision to invade Iraq.

Members of the Awakening militias, who were persuaded to fight for the government when the American government was supplying their wages, have begun to be recruited to fight for Al Qa’ida, which is now offering higher wages, something made easier by the US government ending funding of the militias’ wages last year (3) – (4).

The US and EU governments have either been blinded to the connection between unemployment and poverty and sectarian killings, due to their adherence to the theory that the free market creates democracy – or else have failed to care about the connection.

In Iraq and Afghanistan (as in the former Yugoslavia crime in the 1990s) crime is now the only employment that offers the chance to make enough to feed families for large numbers of people. Sectarianism provides a justification for this war economy. If Sunnis and Shia are painted as enemies who threaten each other then a Sunni killing a shia and taking his money can claim to be defending his own people rather than committing a crime against another Iraqi. Similarly one community can drive another out of their homes and take them for themselves and call it ‘self-defence’ or warfare; or Shia kidnappers can take a Sunni hostage, get a ransom and then kill them anyway to eliminate the risk of being identified, trying to justify it in terms of sectarian warfare (5) – (6).

The murder of Christian aid workers in Afghanistan, which some Taliban claimed responsibility for, while others denounced it, is another example of religion, ethnicity and ideology being used to justify theft and murder in a country where surviving any other way has become impossible for many of it’s people. The murderers were almost certainly ‘thieves’ as the Afghan police say they are, while also seeing themselves as Taliban, even if many Taliban leaders disown them. The theory that the aid workers were trying to convert Muslims to Christianity is the excuse the bandits need to claim to be defending their people rather than just murdering defenceless people. Similar things happened with splinter groups from Al Sadr’s Madhi army in Iraq (7).

Money to be made for some, but still less food for many

Iraqis prepare rice. Food rations have been cut in half repeatedly even compared to those provided under Saddam and sanctions and are now around one eighth of those provided before the invasion. Over $8 billion of Iraqi money released by the UN to the US led Coalition remains unaccounted for while many Iraqis go hungry on insufficient rations ( Photo Saba Arar of UNICEF)

Lord Archer is probably right that there’s plenty of money to be made in Iraq too. That doesn’t mean the majority of Iraqis are benefiting though. There was plenty to be made for foreign companies, businessmen and contractors even at the height of the insurgency and occupation, both from Iraqi oil revenues and from the Coalition Provisional Authority’s generosity with Iraqi money.

Under Bush’s ‘Governor of Iraq’ Paul Bremer, described by UN envoy to Iraq Lakhdar Brahimi as “the new dictator of Iraq” over $8 billion of Iraqi money was handed out to various private contractors working for the “Coalition Provisional Authority”. Much of it has never been accounted for (8) – (13).

When challenged about it by congress Bremer simply replied that it was Iraqi money, not American taxpayers’ money (the clear implication being that he could get off with handing it out to whoever he liked as the US congress couldn’t hold him to account for it – and with 50,000 US troops remaining in Iraq until December 2011 the Iraqi government can't either) (9).

A recent report  ‘by the US Special Investigator for Iraq Reconstruction says $8.7bn (£5.6bn) out of $9.1bn withdrawn between 2004 and 2007 from a special account set up by the UN Security Council is unaccounted for.’ (13).

This was money from the UN’s Oil for Food programme for Iraq. Bremer shouldn’t have been distributing a penny of it without the approval of a new Iraqi government.

Many Americans may be unaware of this aspect of fraud relating to the programme, as their media mostly focused on millions of dollars allegedly pocketed by some UN Officials rather than the billions vanished by Bremer’s CPA.

As far as can be determined none of the money Bremer disappeared went to Iraqis for food.

Meanwhile more Iraqis remain shorter of food, clean water, sewerage and electricity than under Saddam and sanctions.

In Iraq IMF policies imposed as conditions for debt reduction have included cuts in food price subsidies and provision of food rations to the poorest. By autumn 2007 more people relied on government rations for food than under Saddam and UN sanctions – and the amount and types of food provided to each person were reduced compared to the 1990s (14) – (15). Hundreds of people in Baghdad were scavenging in bins for food (16). Yet in December 2007 the Iraqi government cut food rations again on the stated grounds that the budget (much larger than under Saddam and sanctions in the 90s) couldn’t pay for them (17).

In theory the rations were to be replaced by cash payments of social security – but with rocketing food prices and Iraqi and US government corruption this has never been implemented and would be unlikely to allow Iraqis to afford enough food to eat (18) – (19).

In April 2010 the Iraqi government cut the range of foodstuffs in the rations by half again, citing food price rises and budgetary problems (again) as the cause (20).

Many refugees inside Iraq – ‘internally displaced people’ forced out of their homes by coalition offensives and sectarian killings by other Iraqis – can’t get food rations at all as they are no longer at the address they were listed at for rations but in tents elsewhere (21) – (22).

The number of Iraqis unable to afford enough food is still on the increase and around a fifth of Iraqis are unemployed and the same proportion live below the poverty line (23).

Halliburton and it’s subsidiaries also made big profits by over-charging the US military in Iraq for oil and food among other things, in many cases in no-bid contracts (24) – (25). In this case the money was being stolen from American taxpayers, rather than Iraqis – but when it came to money for shoring up the levees in New Orleans to prevent the flooding or to helping the survivors after hurricane Katrina, private mercenary companies like Blackwater once again got far more money than people who were really in need.

Using WMD on Iraqis to prevent Saddam using them on them

A girl born in Fallujah with no left hand. Birth defects in the city have rocketed since the Coalition assaults in 2004 which used white phosphorus and depleted uranium shells

The theory that the invasion was protecting Iraqis from Saddam using chemical weapons on them, as he did against the Kurds in the 80s, has also been revealed as empty propaganda. When Saddam was gassing the Kurds the US and British governments were funding and arming him. Twenty years later they claimed they were going to prevent Saddam ever using WMD on his own people again. Unfortunately Coalition forces during the occupation used both cluster bombs (which kill as many civilians as land mines) and chemical weapons such as  white phosphorus and depleted uranium shells in the middle of towns and cities. In Fallujah, which suffered major coalition offensives on it in April and November 2004, there are now extremely high levels of cancers and birth defects among children; though clusters of leukaemia and birth defects were already high in many areas since DU was used extensively by coalition forces in the 1991 war (26) – (28).

Blair’s self-deluding propaganda from Iraq to Iran

I posted a shorter version of this post as a comment on Rentoul’s blog, but he moderated it out of existence (though it’s possible this could have been due to fears of legal action from Lord Archer). It seems that reality is still not merely a foreign country but an alien planet or universe for those who have blind faith in the Iraq war and Saint Anthony.

If Blair and his supporters were willing to apologise for peddling deliberate distortions of intelligence analyses to start a war that was bound to kill far more people than it could possibly save – and if they weren’t pushing for another war, that might be old news.

Unfortunately since Blair left office he has continued to call for “action” to avert the “threat” from Iran ,for instance in speeches in the US and at his appearance at the Chilcot Inquiry. 

Blair and his propaganda remain far from the truth and potentially dangerous. I genuinely believe that Blair genuinely believes what he says, but that doesn’t make it the truth. In fact Blair has probably bought his own propaganda line because it’s preferable to the truth, which is that he created a disaster which is still killing people.

So there’s no option but to keep on repeating the facts about the continuing disaster in Iraq in the hope that it’ll stop it being repeated in Iran.

(1) = Eagle Eye 26 July 2010 ‘Iraq, land of opportunity’,http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2010/07/26/iraq-land-of-opportunity/

(2) = Times 26 July 2010 ‘Wake up, you Brits. Make a fortune in Iraq’,http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/article2658957.ece

(3) = guardian.co.uk 10 Aug 2010 ‘Fears of al–Qaida return in Iraq as US–backed fighters defect’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/10/al-qaida-sons-of-iraq

(4) = Guardian 02 Apr 2009 ‘Iraq disbands Sunni militia that helped defeat insurgents’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/02/iraq-sunni-militia-disbanded

(5) = Guardian 27 Jan 2007 ‘'If they pay we kill them anyway' - the kidnapper's story’,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jan/27/iraq-middleeast

(6) = Kaldor, Mary (1999) ‘New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era’, Polity Press, 1999

(7) = Observer 08 Aug 2010 ‘British surgeon among 10 medics executed in Afghanistan’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/08/british-surgeon-karen-woo-afghanistan

(8) = Guardian 03 Jun 2004 ‘How honest broker was defeated - and with him hopes of credibility’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jun/03/iraq.jonathansteele

(9) = CNN 31 Jan 2005‘Audit: U.S. lost track of $9 billion in Iraq funds’, http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/30/iraq.audit/

(10) = Guardian 07 July 2005 ‘So, Mr Bremer, where did all the money go?’http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jul/07/iraq.features11

(11) = ABC News 06 Feb 2007‘Waste in War: Where Did All the Iraq Reconstruction Money Go? : Congressional inquiry probes former Bush official's handling of billions ofdollars, http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2852426&page=1

(12) = Guardian 08 Feb 2007 ‘How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish’http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1

(13) = Independent 28 Jul 2010 ‘US unable to account for billions of Iraq oil money’,http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-unable-to-account-for-billions-of-iraq-oil-money-2036925.html

(14) = UNOCHA IRIN news service 02 Apr 2006, ‘IRAQ: Food prices rise after reduction of monthly rations’, http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=26250

(15)= UNOCHA IRIN news service 9 Sep 2007, ‘IRAQ: Food rationing system failing as Ramadan approaches’,http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=74196  

(16) = UNOCHA IRIN news service 17 Oct 2007, ‘IRAQ: Hundreds forced to scavenge for food in garbage bins’,http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=74829

(17) = UNOCHA IRIN news service 4 Dec 2007, ‘IRAQ: Government to cut items from its free food handouts’, http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=75677

(18) = Allawi, Ali A. ‘The occupation of Iraq’ Yale UP, New Haven & London, 2007 (paperback edn) p 375-376, 430-431

(19) = IPS/ Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail 03 May 2008, ‘Corruption Eats Into Food Rations’,http://dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/iraq/000795.php#more

(20) = UNoCHA IRIN news 01 Apr 2010 ‘IRAQ: State food aid package slashed’,http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88646

(21) = Allawi, Ali A. ‘The occupation of Iraq’ Yale UP, New Haven & London, 2007 (paperback edn) Ch20 , p348-369 & 427

(22) = Refugees International 04 Oct 2007, ‘Iraq: Fix the Public Distribution System to meet needs of the displaced’,  http://refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/9971/

(23) = UNoCHA’s IRIN news 08 Nov 2009 ‘IRAQ: Food insecurity on the rise, says official’,http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86926

(24) = BBC News 13 Dec 2003 ‘Bush warns 'oil overcharge' firm’,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3312015.stm

(25) = Halliburton Watch 14 Mar 2005 ‘Auditors find another $108 million in Halliburton overcharges’, http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/108million_overcharge.html - provides links to Pentagon audit of the contracts involved and the executive summary of it - http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/108million_overcharge.html

(26) = guardian.co.uk 13 Nov 2009 ‘Huge rise in birth defects in Falluja’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/13/falluja-cancer-children-birth-defects

(27) = Observer 14 Dec 2003 ‘Army shells pose cancer risk in Iraq’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/dec/14/iraq.military

(28) = BBC News 16 Nov 2005 ‘US used white phosphorus in Iraq’,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4440664.stm