February 21, 2007

Dear "Mrs. Talabani"*,

It almost seems a life time ago, when in 1982 a member of the Iraqi Women’s League addressed at a meeting of the Campaign Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq (CARDRI) and informed the members how the freedom fighting Iraqi’s faced "liquidation" "in the torture chambers and on the gallows" of Saddam Hussain's Iraq.

That same spokesperson also informed that conference that "95% of Iraqi women were illiterate until the 1950’s" and that "the conditions of occupation, colonialism and superficial national independence," had left Iraqi women "to suffer from the consequences of backwardness and dependency," as a result of "the mediaeval traditions that the civilised colonialists strove to maintain."

You also asked a question yourself, in the preface to the book Saddams Iraq: Revolution or Reaction, first published by CARDRI in 1986, "What kind of regime would do so much damage to a country just to keep control of it?"

You also claimed in the same preface, that "Those in Iraq who suffer and sacrifice for democracy are those the (Saddam) regime tries to silence with brutal repression".

And what about the others you refer to, those Iraqi’s who have been "summarily executed", "tortured and killed, Iraqi’s who have disappeared" and those who have been "detained without trial"…sound familiar?

Did you forget that Ahmed Chalabi wrote about sanctions in 1994, in the second CARDRI publication "Iraq Since the Gulf War", that "A journey through Iraqi countryside today would be a journey of horror through a wasteland of disease, hunger, repression and war. In this rich land of oil and great agricultural potential, millions are subsisting on UN handouts."

Doctor Suha Omar described in her contribution to that same book, how after the Gulf War there was an increase in violence against women, with "war traumatised conscripts" returning to Iraq, who "would take out their distress and anger on wives, daughters, mothers and sisters."

"Women had to pick up the pieces because the men were either mentally or physically damaged by the war". According to Doctor Omar, the situation faced by women was exasperated by the "drastically worsened economic situation, as victims of the pauperisation of Iraqi society."

It was CARDRI who helped to publicise the 1991 study by Harvard, which discovered that after the Gulf War there had been a "fourfold increase in child mortality and a high incidence of health problems among women, including psychosomatic conditions such as sleeplessness and mental disorders."

Did CARDRI ever inform the British public, that whilst the Sanctions were imposed to stop Saddam from building the US/UK’s alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction, that the US based International Action Centre reported that items refused entry into Iraq included; "batteries, X-ray machines, ambulances because they could be used in battles, computers and even enriched powdered milk, which supposedly could be used in germ warfare."

"Many of the children killed by Sanctions have died from diseases carried in impure drinking water." It has been estimated that before the Gulf War of 1991, the vast majority of Iraqi people had access to potable drinking water, a health service that was described by the UN "as being the best in the region" and each child was guaranteed a free education.

Did CARDRI or even INDICT ever answer Andy Kershaw of the Independent in 2001, when he asked how the UK and USA expected Saddam Hussain, "to wage war with beef broth?" Did Sanctions Committee "661 expect him to turn on the Kurds again by spraying them with malt extract? Or send his presidential guard back into Kuwait armed to the teeth with pencils?"

"Pencils", as you may know, according to Sanctions Committee 661, "contain graphite and therefore could be put to military use". So do you share the belief of Madeline Albright and think that the deaths of Iraqi children, at the hands of Western imposed Sanctions (not Saddam Hussain) was ever "a price worth paying"?

But now you have your "democratic rights" in Iraq, your so-called freedom, imposed upon the Iraqi people and brought about and maintained with a method, that even your own supporters once described this as being "repression", "cruel", "backward" and even "mediaeval".

Similar to your own question, in the preface of Saddams Iraq: Revolution or Reaction, Leila Anwar asked on the 17/2/2007 "What kind of government hangs its women?"This was asked in relation to Wassan Talib, 31 years old, Zainab Fadhil, 25 years old, and Liqa Omar Muhammad, 26 years old, who all face imminent execution on the charges of "offences against the public welfare"

Anwar also states that these women are granted "no trial, no legal counsel, no defence and no witnesses".Which then requires an answer from you, as Britain’s human rights envoy to Iraq and long time associate of the current Iraqi president.

And what about the report from IRIN on 7/2/2007, about a 22 year old female student who was raped by an Iraqi soldier during a "democratic" raid on her home. The same article states that this young woman’s "democratic rights" were violated and as a consequence of "democratic" "repression", has now been made pregnant by the US/UK trained soldier, sorry, I mean rapist!

Meanwhile, your "elected" Prime Minister in the Green Zone has denied 20 year old Sabrine Al Janabi’s claim that she too had been raped by Iraqi security officials, allegations that even you know are not made lightly in Iraqi society.

As Riverbend, the Iraqi blogger explained on the 20/2/2007: "No Iraqi woman under the circumstances- under any circumstances- would publicly, falsely claim she was raped. There are just too many risks. There is the risk of being shunned socially.

There is the risk of beginning an endless chain of retaliations and revenge killings between tribes. There is the shame of coming out publicly and talking about a subject so taboo, she and her husband are not only risking their reputations by telling this story, they are risking their lives."

According to your "democratic" government in Baghdad: "It has been shown after medical examinations that the woman had not been subjected to any sexual attack whatsoever and that there are three outstanding arrest warrants against her issued by security agencies,".

"After the allegations have been proven to be false, the prime minister has ordered that the officers accused be rewarded."

It was December 2006, when the Iraqi Minister of Women’s Affairs along with local NGOs, came out and said that "female prisoners in Iraq are held in appalling conditions, often without charge, and are sometimes raped and tortured."

The minister also said that "We don’t know the exact number of female prisoners but there are many being held in different prisons - even though the [other ministries in the] government and US forces deny it."

So let me ask you Ann Clwyd MP and former chairperson of CARDRI: "What kind of regime would do so much damage to a country just to keep control of it?"

Yours sincerely,

Mr. Hussein Al-alak
Chairman,
The Iraq Solidarity Campaign

*Ann Clwyd MP is affectionately and often referred to by many inside of Iraq as being "Mrs. Talabani".