|
[Previous entry: "Vicarious thrills"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "The Secretary's chariot is definitely on fire"] 17 July 2003: "Insecurity in Iraq"
Diane links to an extremely disturbing article in the New York Times regarding rape in Iraq. In over three years of dealing with war crimes, I developed a pretty warped sense of humour as a self-defence mechanism to deal with the stuff I was handling. But the one thing I could never joke about was rape. the failure of Iraqi and U.S.-led occupation authorities to provide public security in Iraq's capital lies at the root of a widespread fear of rape and abduction among women and their families.That's not an unfair assessment, but it's important to bear in mind that this failure on the part of the occupation forces is caused in no small part not only by the fact that public order in Iraq is FUBAR, but that it was intentionally made to be so. And for that latter point, no blame can be ascribed to the Coalition. As I argued in an entry on 01-May-2003, the Ba'ath party's strategy seems to have been to foster a situation in which public order would collapse spectacularly and comprehensively in the event of the Ba'ath party's loss of control. As I commented in that post, one has to wonder how much larger the Coalition ground force would have had to have been to maintain order from the very earliest moment; the likely answer is that no number of American troops would have been sufficient.What the Ba'ath party was in effect doing was holding its entire population hostage, and in such a way that even if the hostage-taker was removed, the hostage would still suffer. In retrospect, I can only conclude that this strategy was—at least in part—behind the emptying of the Iraqi jails last October. Some 40,000 convicts, many of them robbers, rapists and the like, were released into society, and most of them are still at large. I find it inconceivable that this has not played a significant part in the breakdown of public order. The situation in Iraq is undeniably bad; however, it's not a given that, but for the war, it would not be as bad, if not worse. It's been pointed out, for example, that according to the UN, only 50-60% of Baghdad's electricity requirement was being met during the first half of June. But before one leaps to blame the Coalition for this, it should be noted that the UN also pointed out that before the war, 40% of that requirement was being met. Correspondingly, it is not unreasonable to speculate that the breakdown of public order in Iraq started before the war, but that we just weren't hearing about it. Thus, it is unreasonable to blame the Coalition for creating the problem. That having been said, as the Coalition currently "exercises the functions of government in [occupied] territory" (to quote Article 6 of the Geneva Convention IV), it is responsible for dealing with it. And that responsibility should not be shirked. |
Navigation: home archives backgrounder Blogs:
au currant Miscellanea:
Care to contribute |
