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| Written by Chris Floyd |
| Tuesday, 17 January 2012 23:38 |
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In a remarkable piece of reportage,
the Guardian's Ghaith Abdul-Ahad details the glorious fruits of the
"liberation" that America has so generously and selflessly gifted to the
people of Iraq:
Um Hussein had six children. Her eldest
son was killed by Sunni insurgents in 2005, when they took control of
the neighbourhood. Three of her remaining sons were kidnapped by a Shia
militia group when they left the neighbourhood to find work. They were
never seen again.
[Her last surviving son] Yassir was detained in 2007. For three years she heard nothing of him and assumed he was dead like his brothers. Then one day she took a phone call from an officer who said she could go to visit him if she paid a bribe. She borrowed the money from her neighbour and set off for the prison. "We waited until they brought him," she said. "His hands and legs were tied in metal chains like a criminal. I didn't know him from the torture. He wasn't my son, he was someone else. I cried: 'Your mother dies for you, my dear son.' I picked dirt from the floor and smacked it on my head. They dragged me out and wouldn't let me see him again. I have lost four. I told them I wouldn't lose this one." Afterwards, the officers called from prison demanding hefty bribes to let him go while telling the family he was being tortured. ... "We had to send [the security men] phone cards so they could call us. They said: 'Your son is being tortured – he will die if you don't pay.' So we paid and paid. What could I do? He is the last I have. Yassir's case is part of a growing body of evidence collected by the Guardian that shows Iraqi state security officers are systematically arresting people on trumped-up charges, torturing them and extorting bribes from their families for their release. Endemic corruption in Iraq has created a new industry in which senior security service officers buy their authority over particular neighbourhoods by bribing politicians, junior officers pay their seniors monthly stipends and everyone gets a return on their investment by extorting money from the families of detainees. ...
Rafic is an officer in one of the most
feared security units in Iraq, one of the many commando anti-terrorism
units which, at the height of the civil war, had a reputation for being a
government-backed death squad. ... When we met him in December he was
closing a $5,000 deal with the family of a detainee. He promised them he
would send their son blankets and food and assured them the beating and
torture would stop. The money was the first of many payments Rafic
would receive before the man would be released.
... Rafic stood outside a small shop where he held his "surgery" every evening, drinking Greek ouzo with his friends and receiving visitors. His scope of business is not limited to detainees but covers anything related to corrupt officialdom, including getting ID cards and passports ... "We are neutral," he said, referring to his commando unit. "We don't do Sunni and Shia any more. We are professional. We detain Shia and Sunni. There is no difference." How do you make detainees confess? "We hang them from the ceiling and beat them until they are motionless corpses," he said. "Then they confess." "Look," he added, "the system now is just like under Saddam: walk by the wall, don't go near politics and you can walk with your head high and not fear anything. But if you come close to the throne then the wrath of Allah will fall on you and we have eyes everywhere." "When the children of the slain/Cry for revenge to ease their pain/Lost in shadows you'll never see/Will you be free? Will you be free?" |
