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Bush Wars Title: Wikileaks Revelation on Iraqi Slaughter Imperils Extension of US Troops You can read Glenn Greenwald for the discussion of how all the Wikileaks cables got released in unredacted form, and the various culpability for this from Wikileaks, the Guardian newspaper, and others. I haven’t really followed that situation closely enough. What I do know is that the biggest revelation uncovered so far – about a slaughter in Ishaqi, Iraq of civilians by US forces in 2006, has caused the Iraqi government to reopen the case: Iraq’s government will reopen an investigation into a 2006 raid in which U.S. forces killed at least 11 Iraqi civilians, including women and children, a spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Friday [...] Iraqis in the town of Ishaqi have long claimed that U.S. military forces executed at least 11 people there — including five women and children — and then hid the crime by directing an airstrike to the area, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. A Pentagon spokesman dismissed the new claims on Friday and said that from the viewpoint of the U.S. military, nothing has changed. “Basically there’s nothing new we haven’t looked into already,” said Lt. Col. Jim Gregory. “Our position remains the same.” In the document revealed this week by WikiLeaks, a U.N. inspector named Philip Alston appears to support the Iraqi claims. He describes how U.S. forces approached a house in the early morning hours of March 15, 2006 and found a family inside, then “handcuffed all the residents and executed them.” The murders included a five month-old infant and five children under the age of 5. And perhaps the most disturbing part is that Alston told McClatchy that the lack of response from the US government on his request for information “was the case with most of the letters to the U.S. in the 2006-2007 period.” So there could be many other cases of this type that the US under George W. Bush ignored. Here’s the context for this. The US is trying to extend the military presence in Iraq, breaking the status of forces agreement that stipulates all troops to leave by the end of the year. Now, four months before that deadline, and without an agreement for an extension to train Iraqi security forces in place, this ugly incident is revealed. I’m sure every Iraqi saw this on the pages of their newspapers and on TV reports. It’s just very clear that this will imperil those negotiations. That’s especially true because the sticking point, according to reports, is that the US wants total immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts for the troops it leaves behind. That seems impossible in the wake of this grisly description of murder, execution-style. “The new report about this crime will have its impact on signing any new agreement,” said Sunni lawmaker Aliya Nusayif. She said Iraq’s parliament will investigate the new details about the raid and seek to prosecute any U.S. soldiers who commit future crimes in Iraq. Whether U.S. forces in Iraq will continue to have legal immunity from prosecution if they stay is one of the major stumbling blocks in the ongoing negotiations, as Washington will not allow the military to remain without it. August was the first month of no US deaths in Iraq. Given the outrage here, that doesn’t seem likely to continue in September. But I know a way that we can replicate that permanently – by leaving the country and allowing it to retain its sovereignty. That’s especially true given the new Wikileaks revelations. By extending the military place, we simply expose the troops who stay behind to unparalleled dangers for no compelling national security reason.
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