CARNAGE & DESPAIR: Iraq 5 Years On
Amnesty International – March 2008
Five years after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussain, Iraq is one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Hundreds of people are being killed every month in the pervasive violence, while countless lives are threatened every day by poverty, cuts to power and water supplies, food and medical shortages, and rising violence against women and girls. Sectarian hatred has torn apart families and neighbourhoods that once lived together in harmony.
Inside Iraq, it is not just the sectarian violence that is claiming lives. Iraqis are also being killed by MNF and Iraqi security forces – often as the result of excessive use of force, deliberate killings and indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Private foreign miitary and security contractors have also killed Iraqis and appear to have total impunity to do so.
US forces have killed scores of civilians in recent months. On many occasions US troops have fired at unarmed civilians seen as a threat because they came too close to a convoy or patrol or approached checkpoints too quickly. As early as 2003, Amnesty International raised such cases with US authorities, but necessary changes to rules of engagement apparently were never made and the killings continue.
US military officials often blame armed groups, in particular al-Qa’ida, for causing civilian killings by US forces. They accuse the groups of deliberately launching attacks against Iraqi and MNF forces from inhabited civilian areas, so that civilians are likely to be killed or injured when the MNF returns fire. Until now the US government has not published any statistics about civilian casualties caused by US forces. The following cases are a few recent examples of such killings.
On 28 September 2007, US forces launched an air raid targeting a building in the predominantly Sunni neighbourhood of al-Saha in south-west Baghdad. Iraqi officials stated that seven men, two women and four children, who were sleeping in the building, were killed. A US military official told the French news agency AFP after the incident: “We regret when civilians are hurt or killed while coalition forces search to rid Iraq of terrorism.”15
On 11 October 2007, a US air strike on a building near Lake Tharthar, about 120km north-west of Baghdad, killed nine children and six women. A US military official said the killings were “absolutely regrettable” and that the US military had launched an investigation. He added: “We do not target civilians… But when our forces are fired upon, as they routinely are, then they have no option but to return fire.”16
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