George W. Bush says that he needed to escalate the military occupation of Iraq with a “surge” of American soldiers sent to the country in order to establish a free and secure Iraq. However, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, the escalation has promoted neither freedom nor security. Instead, the UN reports that the escalation has been founded upon methods that abuse the rights of Iraqis even as they fail to stop the violence there.
The Iraqi government which is sponsored by and working in coordination with the American military has instituted regulations that allow people to be put in prison without arrest warrants, without trial, and without any limitation on the length of time such imprisonments can last. So, the government that American soldiers are fighting and killing to defend has become one that grabs people off the street and throws them into prison cells without any guarantees that they will be allowed any legal rights. Even those prisoners who are given a trial are subjected to a system that the United Nations says “consistently failed to meet minimum fair trial standards.”
At the same time, the Iraqi government is not even bothering to check that the people it takes prisoner are protected from torture and other abuses. Iraqi police and soldiers who are suspected of torturing and abusing prisoners are not being prosecuted.
The UN report explains, “The continuing failure to take decisive action in this regard can only serve to encourage a climate of impunity that prevails today, undermining the government’s own efforts to restore law and order and ensure respect for the rule of law.”
Source: New York Times, April 26, 2007
