LAST Friday night, Wikileaks published the secret US field reports and war logs from the battlefield that is Iraq, detailing recorded civilian deaths, torture of detainees and summary executions by pro-US Iraqi puppet forces, all of which the US and UK command was aware of under Order 242 issued in 2004, which instructed coalition troops to take no action.
391,832 files were released in all. US and British officials had insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record a total of more than 109,000 violent deaths from all causes between 2004 and the end of 2009. This account leaves out the numbers killed during the invasion.
It includes 66,081 civilians, 23,984 people classed as ‘enemy’ and 15,196 members of the Iraqi security forces, as well as 3,771 dead US and allied soldiers.
No fewer than 34,814 victims of sectarian killings, carried out by militias installed by the US and UK, are recorded as murders in the logs.
The worst place for deaths was Baghdad – 45,497, followed by MND north (which is the region that goes from Baghdad up to Kurdistan) where another 34,210 died. The quietest place was the north east with only 328 deaths.
The database records 12,578 escalation-of-force incidents (where someone is shot driving too fast at a checkpoint, for instance) – and these resulted in 778 recorded deaths.
The 391,832 documents reveal that detainees were abused by America’s Iraqi allies, while US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct was systematic and normally unpunished.
The war logs showed the war in Iraq involved private contractors on a scale previously unknown in US-UK wars.
The documents said that as recently as December 2009, US authorities were passed a video of Iraqi soldiers executing a bound detainee.
The US Defence Department on Saturday strongly condemned the unauthorised release of the documents, as did the UK coalition government.
The torture of Iraqi prisoners by the pro-US Iraqi puppet forces was even more horrific than the torture at the Abu Ghraib prison. The documents contain references to prisoners being murdered as well as hundreds of accounts of beatings, burnings and lashings.
The war logs record: ‘A prisoner was kneeling on the ground, blindfolded and handcuffed, when an Iraqi soldier walked over to him and kicked him in the neck. A US Marine sergeant was watching and reported the incident, which was duly recorded and judged to be valid. The outcome: “No investigation required.”’
Another records: ‘A man who was detained by Iraqi soldiers in an underground bunker reported that he had been subjected to the notoriously painful strappado position: with his hands tied behind his back, he was suspended from the ceiling by his wrists. The soldiers had then whipped him with plastic piping and used electric drills on him. The man was treated by US medics; the paperwork was sent through the necessary channels; but yet again, no investigation was required.’
US order 242, issued in June 2004, orders coalition troops not to investigate any breach of the laws of armed conflict, such as the abuse of detainees, unless it directly involves members of the coalition. Where the alleged abuse is committed by Iraqi on Iraqi, ‘only an initial report will be made… No further investigation will be required unless directed by HQ.’
It is now more than crystal clear that the Iraq war was and remains one big war crime. Its perpetrators from Blair and Bush to its military commanders must pay for their crimes. This can only be done through carrying out a socialist revolution.
