US Training of Death Squads in Iraq? - War Is A Crime .org

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0422-20.htmIraq Three Years after “Liberation”By Stephen ZunesCommonDreams.orgApril 22, 2006Three years after U.S. forces captured Baghdad, Iraqis are suffering from unprecedentedviolence and misery. Although Saddam Hussein was indeed one of the world's mostbrutal tyrants, the no-fly zones and arms embargo in place for more than a dozen yearsprior to his ouster had severely weakened his capacity to do violence against his ownpeople. Today, the level of violent deaths is not only far higher than during his final yearsin power, but the sheer randomness of the violence has left millions of Iraqis in a state ofperpetual terror. At least 30,000 Iraqi civilians have died, most of them at the hands ofU.S. forces but increasingly from terrorist groups and Iraqi government death squads.Thousands more soldiers and police have also been killed. Violent crime, includingkidnapping, rape, and armed robbery, is at record levels. There is a proliferation of smallarms, and private militias are growing rapidly. A Lebanon-type multifaceted civil war,only on a much wider and deadlier scale, grows more likely with time.Over 50,000 Iraqis have been imprisoned by U.S. forces since the invasion, but only 1.5% ofthem have been convicted of any crime. Currently, U.S. forces hold 15,000 to 18,000 Iraqiprisoners, more than were imprisoned under Saddam Hussein. Amnesty International and otherhuman rights groups have cited U.S. forces with widespread violations of internationalhumanitarian law, including torture and other abuses of prisoners.It is not just the fear of arrest and torture that have worsened since the U.S. conquest of Iraq threeyears ago. Although the destruction of the civilian infrastructure during the heavy U.S.-ledbombing campaign in 1991 combined with the subsequent economic sanctions led to enormoussuffering among ordinary Iraqis, the United Nations' Oil-for-Food program, despite the abuses,did substantially improve the quality of life in the years preceding the U.S. invasion. Now,deaths from malnutrition and preventable diseases, particularly among children, are again on theincrease. The supply of drinking water, reliability of electricity, and effectiveness of sewagedisposal are all worse than before the invasion.As much as half of the labor force is unemployed, and the cost of living has skyrocketed. Themedian income of Iraqis has declined by more than half. The UN's World Food Program (WFP)reports that the Iraqi people suffer from “significant countrywide shortages of rice, sugar, milk,and infant formula,” and the WFP documents approximately 400,000 Iraqi children sufferingfrom “dangerous deficiencies of protein.” Oil production, the country's chief source of revenue,is less than half of what it was before the invasion. And despite Bush administration promises toinfuse billions of dollars worth of foreign aid to rebuild the country's civilian infrastructure, onlya small fraction of these ventures have been completed, and most projects have been cancelled.142