To begin with, as was their usual practice, the UN, the US and the EU stood back and watched developments from the sidelines. Despite the fact that the people of Iraq had suffered enough and were crying out for a non-sectarian government of national salvation, that could stabilise the current situation and allow all Iraqis a fair share of wealth and power, the West was content to act only as an interested observer. It was becoming abundantly clear to many, however, that another four years of corrupt dictatorship by Maliki could destroy Iraq.
Lawlessness, terrorism, corruption and the systematic abuse of human rights are each a daily feature of life in Iraq. The World Bank lists Iraq as having one of the worst qualities of governance in the world. Transparency International lists Iraq as one of the world’s most corrupt countries. It has a dreadful human rights record and now is in third place after only China and neighbouring Iran in the number of people it executes. In spite of vast oil revenues, per capita income is only $1,000 per year, making it one of the world’s poorest countries.
The situation for women in Iraq is dire. Women are subject to rape, attack and violence. Maliki’s genocidal attacks in al-Anbar on the spurious pretext of war against terror had left 250,000 people homeless, mostly women and children, because they are the only ones who are allowed to leave the cities. Five or six provinces in Iraq were subjected to this kind of abuse. It even became impossible to travel from Baghdad to al-Anbar to deliver aid. The suffering of the displaced women and children went far beyond the sheer loss of their homes. They lost everything, including access to health care, education, everything.
Forcing people to move in this way was creating a new situation where a new identity was being artificially manufactured for vast swathes of the Iraqi population, splitting them up into sectarian divisions. This was something that had never been experienced even under Saddam. Iraqi women grew up next to Shiia, Sunni, Christians and Turkmen, and nobody cared what religion anyone was. But now Iraq was fracturing. Extreme levels of trauma, fear, anxiety and post-traumatic stress were being experienced by tens of thousands of Iraqis. Women were fighting for basic survival. Iraq has five million widows and five million orphans, but only 120,000 receive state aid. A widow’s average benefit is in any case only £55 ($85) per month and average rent is £130 ($200) per month.
Only 2% of women are in the Iraqi civil service. Despite billions of dollars of oil income annually, Iraq is suffering from endemic corruption. The death penalty is not just for men. Iraq has become a slaughterhouse. It is barbaric. Children of men and women who have been executed on charges of terrorism, will grow up to become terrorists themselves, to take their revenge.
Education has suffered too. 92% of children have impediments to their schooling. Schools suffer from poor and dilapidated buildings; many schools even for 500 children have no toilets and often appallingly difficult transport links. Meanwhile the killing of teachers, scientists and academics, many of them women, goes on apace. Middle-class people are leaving the country by the tens of thousands.
Following my successful meetings in Erbil in November 2013, I had invited key speakers from Iraq to address a major human rights conference in the European Parliament, Brussels, on 19 February 2014. The speakers included some of the most prominent political and religious leaders in Iraq, including Sheik Dr Rafie Alrafaee, Grand Mufti of Iraq, Salim Abdullah al-Jabouri, Chair of the Human Rights Committee in the Council of Representatives, Haidar Mulla, Member of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, Minister Falah Mustafa Bakir, KRG Head of Department of Foreign Relations and Yonadam Kanna, Chair of the Labour and Social Affairs Committee in the Iraqi Council of Representatives. I chaired the conference and drew attention to a highly critical report on Iraq by the European Parliament’s Directorate-General for External Policies, entitled ‘Iraq’s deadly spiral towards a civil war’. I told the conference that a resolution condemning the ongoing violence and abuse of human rights in Iraq was also under preparation in the European Parliament and would be debated the following week in Strasbourg.
In my opening remarks I said:
Last November, I was in Iraq. I met with many leading politicians, religious leaders and with courageous men and women who had led popular uprisings and protests in al-Anbar and six provinces of Iraq and in many Iraqi cities. The message from all of them was identical. They told me that lawlessness, terrorism, corruption and the systematic abuse of human rights are each a daily feature of life in Iraq. They told me that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is rapidly becoming another Saddam Hussein, and that modern Iraq is a dust-bowl of violence and bloodshed.
In his address to the conference, Dr Rafie Alrafaee, the Grand Mufti of Iraq, said:
Maliki is following a heinous policy of indiscriminate bombings of innocent people. The people of al-Anbar did not start the war. We did everything to reach a peaceful settlement. Maliki’s forces attacked these peaceful rallies. They have bombarded the houses of innocent people. My own brother was killed last week in the bombardment and was not from al Qaeda or from Daesh [ISIS]. When Maliki launched his so-called war against terrorists in the desert in Anbar province, not a single combatant of al-Qaeda was killed. The only people killed were innocent shepherds. What is happening in Fallujah is genocide. 1,000 civilians have been injured. Events in Iraq have taken a very dangerous turn. It could lead to a civil war in which all Iraqi people will lose. The European Parliament should deal with this matter. We’ve been handed on a golden platter to the Iranian government.
Salim Abdullah al-Jabouri, Chair of the Human Rights Committee in the Council of Representatives and now President of the Iraqi Parliament said:
We called on the international community to come to our rescue, but we were faced with just talk and no action. Now the tears of Iraqi women have dried up. We’re sick of unfulfilled promises. But all of this has not put an end to bloodshed in Iraq. All of the violations are serious, all are important. They are issues of international governance and international law. We Iraqis are the ones who suffer. Investigators use torture to obtain confessions. We need to adopt legislation that will put a stop to violations of prisoners. A person can be detained for years on false accusations. But human rights violations will not lead to the eradication of terrorism. Our committee has managed to get many women released from prison. Iraq is rich in diversity, but the killing still goes on. There are around ten car bombs every day. The Iraqi media should be given more freedom to report the truth. Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced in al-Anbar Province. A generation has lost all of its rights.
Haidar Mulla, Member of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, said:
Mr Stevenson has increased the influence of the EU in Iraq and, in particular, he has increased the importance of human rights. We had hoped that Iraq would become a democracy after the fall of the previous regime. But our human rights record is not something we should be proud of. Our task is difficult and complex. We have to pave the way for a culture that respects human rights. The Government of Iraq has not implemented Article 19 on human rights. This is not a gift to the people. It is their right. Currently there is a ratio of one military personnel to 27 civilians and even so we cannot live peacefully. We have a political crisis and we have to deal with it politically.
Minister Falah Mustafa Bakir, KRG Head of Department of Foreign Relations, said:
Human rights is not a privilege. It is a basic right. We care about human rights because as Kurds we have a long experience of suffering.
The conference was judged to be a great success, but again the subsequent media reports caused a furious backlash from Baghdad, with Maliki once again condemning me for only backing the Sunnis, which was quite untrue, and for giving a one-sided picture of what was happening in Iraq!
Many of Iraq’s wounds are self-inflicted, resulting from failed political leadership. Nouri al-Maliki focused all of his efforts on remaining in power, steadily becoming more authoritarian and repressive and implementing sectarian policies that led directly to
ethnic polarisation. By tightly controlling the military and security forces from his own office, he guaranteed that the very forces that could have ensured stability and an end to conflict contributed to the exact opposite. He used those forces, with direct assistance from the fascist Iranian regime, repeatedly to attack, kidnap and murder the innocent and defenceless refugees in Camps Ashraf and Liberty, committing crimes against humanity for which he must be held accountable in the international courts.
Maliki also marginalised or openly discriminated against all non-Shiia minorities, despite the fact they were supposed to be protected and have equal rights under the Iraqi constitution. The Christian population of Iraq has shrunk to fewer than 300,000 and many have been forced to flee from the Islamic State (IS), faced with an ultimatum to convert to Islam, pay a special non-Islamic tax, or die. Soon, some people think that one of the oldest Christian communities in the world may become extinct. But they are not the only minority facing ethnic cleansing.
The Yezidis, whose Zoroastrian religion pre-dates Christianity by a thousand years, are regarded as devil-worshippers by the jihadists of IS, who have massacred them in their hundreds and driven them from their homes. It was the plight of thousands of Yezidis facing starvation, dehydration and death on Mount Sinjar that drew Obama and Cameron back into the Iraqi conflict, both promising military and humanitarian aid.
It was the US and the UK – George W. Bush and Tony Blair – who invaded Iraq and overthrew Saddam, declaring: ‘Mission accomplished’. This created the ethnic melting pot that the Iranians exploited and that Nouri al-Maliki debased. The predictable result was violent reaction by the oppressed minorities, notably the Sunnis, and the alienation and growing disillusion of the Kurds. Maliki’s genocidal campaign against the Sunni population of al-Anbar province raged on for many months, inevitably sucking in elements of ISIS from the Syrian civil war, which capitalised on the fear and loathing of Maliki among the Sunni population. The escalating violence finally exploded into a civil conflict equal to, or worse than, the sectarian civil war that broke out during the US occupation. ISIS made rapid territorial gains in both the south and north of Iraq, capturing entire cities like Mosul and driving tens of thousands of Christians, Yezidis and other ethnic minorities to flee for their lives.
In the face of this onslaught the Iraqi military collapsed. The astute use of social media by ISIS ensured that ghastly films and photographs of mass slaughter and beheadings of captured Iraqi soldiers spread panic in the ranks. Thousands of Iraqi military personnel tore off their uniforms, dropped their weapons and fled. ISIS captured hundreds of tonnes of new weaponry, tanks, Humvees, rocket launchers and small arms. More importantly, they took control of rich oilfields and banks, and became one of the wealthiest terrorist organisations in the world.
Success bred success, and more and more jihadists flooded into Iraq from Syria to join the war. Such were their territorial gains that they ditched the name ISIS and re-named themselves the Islamic State (IS). Their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared himself Caliph, or head of state of the new Caliphate. The US State Department has designated al-Baghdadi as a Global Terrorist and offered a $10 million ‘dead or alive’ reward for his capture or death. Undeterred, in July 2014, al-Baghdadi made a speech from the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, northern Iraq, in which he declared himself the world leader of all Muslims. He announced that the Islamic State would march on Rome and conquer the whole of Europe and the Middle East. His declaration of a Caliphate caused great consternation amongst many Middle East governments and religious leaders, who claimed such a pronouncement was void under Sharia law.
The expansion of ISIS inside Iraq took the world by surprise. Suddenly even the Kurdish Peshmerga were being forced to retreat as Islamic State jihadists moved relentlessly towards Erbil, the KRG capital. Maliki exploited the worsening crisis for his own ends, pleading with the West and neighbouring Iran for military assistance, and repeatedly stating that he was the only person who could resolve the crisis. Western leaders, however, began to realise what many others and I had been arguing for years – that Maliki was the problem, not the solution. Only his removal from office and replacement by a non-sectarian government of national salvation could reunite the country and lead the fightback against the IS terrorists.
It rapidly became apparent that Maliki no longer had majority support, even amongst his own Shiia political factions. Obama and John Kerry were by now openly calling for his removal, and as the Islamic State began even to threaten the borders of Iran, the Mullahs saw the writing on the wall and threw their long-time puppet to the encircling wolves. When the newly appointed Iraqi President, Fuad Masum, ignored Maliki’s entreaties and invited Haider al-Abadi to form a government, Maliki reacted furiously, stating that he would report the President to the judiciary for breaching the constitution. As leader of the main Shiite political faction that had won most seats in the election, Maliki argued that it was his constitutional right to remain in charge as Prime Minister. This was a great irony coming from Maliki, a past master at breaching the Iraqi constitution. Nevertheless, bolstered by growing international support, even from the Iranian Mullahs, President Masum ignored Maliki’s threats and gave the job to Haider al-Abadi.
Realising the game was up, Maliki finally agreed to stand aside, and the Manchester University-educated Haider al-Abadi began active negotiations to form a new, inclusive government, involving Shiias, Sunnis, Kurds and all ethnic minorities and political factions. The prospects for a government of national salvation and an end to sectarian strife began to grow.
There is no doubt that the disruption and mistakes made by the US following the 2003 invasion contributed to Iraq’s current predicament and its years of failed governance. Constant interference and manipulation by Iran has exacerbated this situation and helped to divide the nation further. It was intolerable that the Western powers said nothing in the face of such tyranny and corruption. Iraq’s progress always depended on the willingness of its leaders to turn away from a narrow focus on their own power, wealth, ethnicity and faction. If, with Maliki now gone, they do not move forward, Iraq will face civil war and disintegration. It will become a failed state.
After five years as President of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq from 2009 to 2014, and many visits to the country and discussions with its political leaders, I cannot now simply wash my hands and walk away. It is for this reason that I decided to set up the European Iraqi Freedom Association, whose main motivation is to work towards the restoration of democracy, freedom and justice in that beleaguered country. The people of Iraq have been tortured, beaten, abused and robbed of their heritage and livelihoods by a long succession of corrupt and dictatorial leaders. They deserve a better future, and the European Iraqi Freedom Association will be their voice in Europe.
Many distinguished politicians and notable leaders who share these objectives have joined me in this task, including my longstanding friend and collaborator Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Vice President of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2014, Paulo Casaca, MEP from 1999 to 2009, Geir Haarde, former Prime Minister of Iceland, Sid Ahmed Ghozali, former Prime Minister of Algeria, His Excellency Tariq Al-Hashemi, former Vice President of Iraq, Lord Carlile, former National Security Advisor to the UK government, and Giulio Terzi, former Foreign Minister of Italy. I anticipate many other distinguished political colleagues will join.
Our objective is to see a non-sectarian government of national salvation that can unite the Shiias and the Sunnis in Iraq and bring together the many other diverse ethnic factions. The first imperative if this goal is to be achieved is for the eviction of the Iranian regime from Iraq. They relentlessly built up their influence and internal meddling in Iraq during the eight years of Maliki’s dictatorship, and progress towards national unity cannot happen until they are forced out.
We have achieved one of our first objectives by seeing the departure of Nouri al-Maliki, a corrupt and brutal sociopath. We must now pla
ce our faith in Haider al-Abadi, the new Prime Minister, and trust that he will not repeat the mistakes of his predecessor. If he unites the Shiias, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq and offers the hand of friendship to the many ethnic minorities and ejects the agents of the Iranian regime and its criminal militias from the political scene, he will be able to revive the tribes and lead a successful fight against the Islamic State terrorists, driving them back to Syria.
It will be a mountainous task for al-Abadi. First he has to set up an inclusive cabinet, clear of the influence of foreign powers, particularly the Iranian regime. Then he must order the immediate release of all political prisoners, especially the women who have been imprisoned by Maliki under bogus terrorist charges. Next he must demonstrate that he will welcome the participation of all parts of Iraqi society, particularly the Sunnis and Kurds, in power-sharing, recognising the people’s rights in Sunni provinces and entering into dialogue with the tribal leaders and Sunni revolutionaries.
He must begin rounding up the savage militias associated with the Iranian regime, such as Badr, Asaib and Kataib terrorists, as well as other criminal gangs that have played a significant role in Maliki’s rule and instigated the sectarian war in Iraq. He must purge the army of Iranian mercenaries and all those that Maliki has recruited under his sectarian policy, restoring patriotic officers and turning it into a professional and national army. Only such an army, supported by the tribes and the people, will be able to confront extremist and terrorist groups like the Islamic State.
The new Prime Minister should also disclose to the Iraqi people the names of those who carried out the executions, massacres, bombardment and rocket attacks against innocent people, and those responsible for poverty and state corruption; all should be held accountable in the courts. He must re-establish the independence of the judiciary, dismissing those who have turned Iraq’s justice system into a political tool wielded by Maliki. He must also arrest and hold to account the perpetrators of the six massacres at Camps Ashraf and Liberty, as well as lifting the inhuman siege against Iranian refugees at Liberty and guaranteeing their rights and security and their right to ownership of their property at Liberty and Ashraf.
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