Introduction:

The US acts of aggression against the people of Iraq are a war crime as they flagrantly violate Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 which define the war crime as one of the following actions:

B-1: deliberate attacks against civilian population, in this very capacity, or against civilians not participating directly in military actions.

6: killing or injuring a combatant who has voluntarily surrendered, by laying down his weapon or when he no longer has a means of defense.

20: the use of weapons, shells, war material or means causing, ipso facto, unnecessary damages or pains, or of an indiscriminate nature contravening international law on armed conflicts.

C: In case of a non-international armed conflict, the gross violations of Article 3 shared by the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949: any act committed against persons not actively engaged in actions, including those from the armed forces who have laid down their weapons and who have become unable to fight because of illness, injury, detention or any other reason.

This documented bulletin deals with the observation and presentation of events involving murders and genocide perpetrated by the US and its allies’ forces in the war against Iraq, and after cease fire, against the Arab Nation and peoples of the world. It includes supporting official statements, testimonies of witnesses and revelations of official documented reports and studies.

It is a bulletin seeking objectivity in presenting events as firsthand documented. It is an outcry against the murder and a disclosure of the reality of those criminals who claim liberty, justice, democracy and respect for human rights.

First- Three criminal US acts against Iraq

Battle of Rumailah, 2 March 1991; the events of 27 February and 1 March in which American soldiers fired upon Iraqis posing no threat to them, persons who had already surrendered on 27 February. Investigation into these three events was conducted by US army investigators, after crimes, which US officials tried to suppress their consequences, had smelled. However, Hersh insisted on making interviews with more than 200 American former and still on-duty officers and men, including the army investigators, which took him six months. He, later, came to clarifying a disturbing image, as reflected by editor David Reimnick in his comments on Hersh’s article:

1- The Incident of 2 March 1991

The division commander alleged that his troops had been attacked by a retreating Iraqi Republican Guard division. But his allegations were disputed by the officers assigned to McCaffrey’s mobile headquarters on how significant and strong the Iraqi attack was. However, McCaffrey ordered a "comprehensive offensive" that destroyed some 700 tanks, armored vehicles and carriers, in spite of the cease fire!

Hersh says,

"Many of the Generals interviewed for this account believe that McCaffrey’s attack went too far, and violated one of the most fundamental doctrines: that a commander must respond in proportion t o the threat…"

He adds,

" McCaffrey’s accounts were disputed by soldiers and officers who were at the scene on March 2^nd . His offensive was not so much a counterattack provoked by enemy fire as a systematic destruction of Iraqis who were generally fulfilling the requirements of retreat…"

Among McCaffery’s harshest critics his fellow Army Generals. Lieutenant General James H. Johnson (retired) who commanded the 82^nd Airborne Division during the war said: "There was no need to be shooting at anybody. They couldn’t surrender fast enough. The war was over."

Lieutenant General Roland Griffith, who commanded the 1^st Armored Division of VII Corps, said of McCaffrey "He made it a battle when it was never one…"

Lieutenant General (James Testerman) said:

"In the afternoon of February 37^th, namely one day before the cease fire , James Manchester and other scouts were providing a road bunker, in front of the major forces of Lieutenant Colonel Ware’s battalion, with soldiers. The operation was proceeding routinely, the Lieutenant Colonel recalled. "A Buick" comes up, with the commander, who had surrendered his battalion to us. Vehicles kept arriving , including an Iraqi hospital bus, as reported by the specialist, Edward Walker, who was ordered to keep a head count. There were 382 Iraqi prisoners, all stripped of weapons and lined up in rows, he recalled. One of the soldiers, who had lost an eye, asked if he was now a prisoner. He was told yes. "Thank Allah", the man said. Each one of these Iraqi soldiers was given (a white piece of paper), because they didn’t have anything white.

Lieutenant General James Testerman said:

"Lieutenant Allen, who was responsible for the scout platoon, made it a point to keep the battalion headquarters in the loop. Allen told the battalion center that he had captured a large number of prisoners, he also reported the precise position of the surrendered Iraqi hospital bus".

According to Walker, Ware’s headquarters were ordered to blow up the confiscated weapons, and Ware was chosen for this task, then a scout platoon was ordered to move. While they were driving their vehicles the explosion occurred. At that moment, Walker said, a battalion of Bradleys came into view and began rolling toward the prisoners, then the Bradley’s machine guns opened up.

Another scout, Sergeant Steve L. Mulig, said: "I saw rounds impact in front of the vehicle and I could tell that they were hitting close to the prisoners, because there were people running. There were some who could have survived, but a lot of them wouldn’t have, from were I saw the rounds hit".

He added, Sergeant Steven Larimore, who was in charge of a G.S.R team, was ordered to work with scouts from the 3-7 Battalion affiliated with McCaffrey’s command. Some army troops had discovered a cache of Iraqi weapons at a deserted schoolhouse on March 1^st late afternoon. The radar team joined the 3-7 scouts in clearing the village and searching the schoolhouse. The weapons were covered with a waxed paper and protective grease. After taking souvenirs, Larimore told me , he and his men moved to the east, still accompanied by the scouts. Larimore and his men noticed a group of villagers walking in the area. One guy had a white bed sheet on a stick, but unwarrantedly, some guy from where we’re sitting in the scout platoon "begins shooting" into the villagers. Other machine guns joined in. We were screaming, ‘Cease fire!!’ The firing went on. Larimore estimated that he saw fifteen, and perhaps twenty Iraqis fall. He had never been in a firefight before, he said, and he was stunned by the noise and the carnage.

A second eyewitness, Sergeant Wayne R. Irwin, who was in charge of another G.S.R team and who was in the area, said that the Iraqis were "just passing through" the area when the scouts suddenly began firing their machine guns. "I yelled for them to cease fire", he said. "I couldn’t understand why they were firing". Of the Iraqis, he said, "To me, they posed no threat to us. They were all in civilian clothes".

Brasfield recorded what the scouts had been sending on the radio, while the Bradleys were shooting into Iraqis POWs, on a recorder tape he had brought with him. He heard one man saying:

"The advanced company, which is behind us, is tearing those vehicles into pieces. Another one was asking, "There is somebody firing at them. What pushes them to open fire?"

Then Lieutenant Colonel Allen reported to Ware saying:

"There is a fire, but there is no body there to open fire upon".

Ware replied, saying: I understand that.

Brasfield says in the recorder tape:

" They want to surrender. Shit on the armored vehicles. They shouldn’t have blown them up, it is a murder crime. We opened fire on the guys, whom we had gathered… they didn’t have any weapons.

3-The incident of 1 March 1991

Hersh says:

"One day after the cease fire another incident occurred, in which American soldiers were charged with opening fire on defenseless Iraqis".

The scouts explained to Irwin that the Iraqis were carrying launchers, grenade and stuff like that. But Irwin says, "that he didn’t find that account credible, and the Iraqis had nothing"!

Lieutenant Grisillo, the leader of the scouts platoon who opened fire, says:

"Larimore, whom I collided with at that time, had failed to realize that his men were responding to a threat. They raised a white flag, Grisillo recalled, but they were not carrying weapons".

In August 1991, Colonel Ernest H. Dinkel, who was then a Deputy Chief of Staff for the Criminal Investigation Division, was chosen to investigate charges contained in an anonymous letter that had been mailed to the Army Inspector General. It appeared to have been written by an officer serving in one of McCaffrey’s 24^th Division command posts.

Dinkel says: "That’s what scared everybody. This was from someone who was there. The letter alleged that McCaffrey was guilty of a "war crime" in his march 2^nd assault on the retreating Iraqis, and had urged his brigade commanders "to find a way for him to go and kill all the bastards".

The letter also claimed that 24^th Division soldiers had "slaughtered Iraqi prisoners of war after seizing an airfield".

Hersh says: "Colonel Dinkel and his crew spent several weeks conducting interviews with more than 150 men and women, including McCaffrey and his aides, and collecting data on the anonymous letter, at Fort Stewart and at Army bases across America, but they never focused on the shootings of February 27^th and 1^st March 1991."

General Peter Barry, the commander of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, explained: "While the investigation had been closed, the senior Army commanders realized that there was a specific element of reality in what was contained in the anonymous letter, which explains that its writer, whoever he may be, has a detailed information, but to confirm a criminal act is a difficult matter".

Concerning March 1^st 1991, shortly after returning from Iraq, Sergeant Larimore gathered six of his colleagues from the Ground Surveillance Radar teams of the 124^th Military Intelligence Battalion, and walked into the Fort Stewart branch of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division office and met with two investigators. These men described what they had seen on March 1^st, when Iraqis in civilian clothes had been shot near a schoolhouse while holding a white flag.

All six of us went and told what we knew, Larimore said. The basic tenet was that we didn’t see anybody shooting at us before the 1^st Brigade platoon opened fire.

U.S. Soldiers Say Fellow Troops Fired on Helpless Iraqis

Three days into the massive Gulf War ground on Iraq, a platoon of scouts was patrolling ahead of the U.S. Army’s main forces, looking for signs of enemy troops.

It was Feb. 27,1991, and the platoon was ordered to set up a roadblock on Highway 8 near the Jalibah airfield in Iraq,80 miles west of the city of Basrah. The operation seemed routine, the scouts told ABCNEWS, until an Iraqi soldier emerged from a nearby bunker. He wanted to surrender, according to scouts who spoke to ABCNEWS. Soon, other Iraqi soldiers followed, also trying to surrender, the scouts said.

It kept escalating," says one of the American soldiers, Edward Walker. "I mean, it just—vehicles kept coming and more vehicles, then more people."

The scouts were part of the 2—7 Battalion of the 1^st Brigade, and they had orders to check areas ahead of the main forces and to be on the lookout for enemy troops. Walker and three others of the six former scouts interviewed by ABCNEWS have since left the army

Their missions were potentially dangerous. But on that day in February 1991, as Iraqi troops began to surrender, the scouts said they met no resistance as they began to confiscate the Iraqis weapons. They kept the Iraqi prisoners of war seated together along the roadside. About 200-300 Iraqis had arrived in a dozen vehicles.

At all times, the scouts said, they kept their commander informed. James Manchester, who now works for a technology company, tells ABCNEWS the scouts made it clear through radio communications that the Iraqi soldiers had surrendered and had given up their weapons. "We gave update as to every situation as it occurred," Manchester says.

Hours later, the scouts platoon was ordered to move on to another mission, but several stayed behind to destroy the prisoners weapons. The situation that seemed under control, the scouts say, quickly deteriorated when about 14 Bradley fighting vehicles from the scouts battalion appeared on the scene.

"That when I saw some of the turrets on the Bradleys traverse," says David Collatt, a scout from Arkansas.

And then, all of a sudden, their fellow soldiers started shouting, Collatt says.

According to the scouts, the Bradleys began firing in the area of the abandoned Iraqi vehicles and unarmed prisoners. Six scouts interviewed by ABCNEWS say they saw it happen. Walker, who now lives in Missouri says he still has troubles dealing with his experiences in the Gulf War, and Collatt say they were about 200 yards away, "I seen the rounds impacting into the bank."

Collatt says, "Dirt kicking up and people jumping up and running."

Walker says the scouts tried to get the Bradleys to cease fire. "We’re screaming at them. ‘Tell them to stop, tell them to stop!’"

The Bradley rounds were falling dangerously close to the scouts’ Humvees as they sped away, they say.

The soldier say they did not see whether any of the prisoners were wounded or killed.

Given the firepower of a Bradley, several scouts are convinced it would have been impossible for everyone to emerge unscathed.

"It’d be a miracle if no one got killed, injured or mamed from what happened" ,Collatt says.

Prompted by a compliant from one of the scouts who said he had witnessed a war crime, the Army launched an internal investigation. Col. John LeMoyne, commander of 1^st Brigade, oversaw the investigation. The 1^st Brigade was part of 24^th Infantry Division, which was under the command of Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who is now the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the so-called drug czar.

"Nobody was killed", LeMoyne says, "None, zero, Soldiers, the Iraqi soldiers were never shot at, ever, at that point … none of us—hundred and hundreds of us—ever saw a body. None of us."

But ABCNEWS reviewed the investigation and found it to be flawed and incomplete.

The Army failed to interview the aide whom LeMoyne told investigators he immediately sent to the area. It also failed to interview many of the scouts.

And, ABCNEWS has learned, the Army did not interview many of the Bradley crews. While the Army did conclude there was firing by the Bradley, it failed to establish which Bradleys were firing.

The Bradley crew members who did submit statements denied any knowledge of the incident and denied shooting at anything.

Further, the Army failed to establish why there was firing, at all, in an area known to hold disarmed prisoners.

To this day, battalion commander Lt. Col. Charles Ware does not have a clear explanation.

"Our mission and our directives were to engage the Iraqi army as they made an effort to proceed to the west," Ware says.

But these prisoners, the scouts say, were not proceeding anywhere.

More than nine years later, the scouts say they are still tormented by what they witnessed.

"You feel like you betrayed these people that you had taken into your care," Manchester says.

"It makes me feel so guilty," says Walker. "It’s just like I pulled the trigger myself."

The scouts say they do not believe the Army deliberately set out to attack unarmed prisoners. But they also believe the Army was not interested in finding out the truth—whatever it may be.

The world talks about the American crimes against Iraq !!

The American Army has unveiled new reports implying that the American forces attacked, unwarrantedly, retreating Iraqi forces after the cease fire in the Gulf War. It is not easy to deny what have been stated in Seymour Hersh’s article, published by the New Yorker. There are strong reasons that push the Pentagon and the Congress to review the subject. Some officers, who are acquainted with the American assault, have provided detailed testimonies suggesting that General Barry McCaffrey, one of the most prominent Generals in America and who has got most of medals, had ordered the launch of an unwarranted revengeful attack.

General McCaffrey had defended his act, but none of what he said justified the response of an Army’s element to the New Yorker’s article. Because the internal investigations conducted by the Army are not the appropriate answer.

The crux of the issue which Hersh has risen, is whether General McCaffrey, who was commanding the 24^th Infantry Division, had intended to provoke fighting with retreating Iraqi forces after the cease fire had come into force, that he blocked the causeway in the face of these forces to launch an astounding assault against them on March 2^nd 1991.

Hersh told a number of officers under General McCaffrey’s command, including Lieutenant Colonel Patric Larimore, the division’s operations officer, that an excessive fire had been used against Iraqi forces that did not pose a serious threat to the Americans. They believe that the American assault had constituted an open and premeditated violation of cease fire rules and disengagement approved by the Pentagon.

Hersh scrutinized a number of other serious charges in which soldiers, led by General McCaffrey, had been involved in killing a number of Iraqi prisoners of war. Investigations, that had been conducted by the Army into all these matters and which had proved McCaffrey’s guiltlessness, must not be the last word. As Walter Kronkit, the former programs designer in C.B.S, had hinted in a letter he had sent to the Times this week, that the Pentagon efforts in restricting the coverage of war news had blocked the American people from being informed about the battles waged by the American forces in Kuwait and Iraq. A more comprehensive coverage would have indicated, since long time ago, whether McCaffrey’s orders were appropriate.

The Senate did not conduct a deep investigation into the acs of the 24^th Infantry Division when it approved the promotion of General Mccaffrey after the war or when it approved his appointment in his current position as the designer of the anti-drugs policy.

The Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, must form an independent panel to review this matter, and if he does not do that, the Senate and the House should have their own investigation to discover the facts.

Against Iraqi Prisoners of War

The American Associated Press Agency, AP, reported that it was acquainted with military records consisting of hundreds of pages which confirm that the American soldiers continued opening fire on an Iraqi Republican Guard Battalion at the Iraqi-Kuwaiti borders on March 1^st, namely two days after the official cease fire. The documents confirmed that the investigations of the American Army had intended to hide basic information about the American violations.

The new investigations in the file of initial investigations made it clear that the investigators deleted the names of the soldiers, whom they interviewed, in order to avoid, later, any examinations of their statements. Some other records had also been removed from the file of investigation into the incident, which became known to some people in the Pentagon as (Rumaila Incident) and to others as (Rumaila Massacre)!!

An official note issued by the Pentagon on 9 Sept. 1991, acknowledged the occurrence of a (military engagement) with the Iraqi soldiers on March 2^nd, but it held the Iraqis responsible under the pretext that they had (provoked) the American forces!!

The new documents charge the 24^th American battalion under General McCaffrey’s command with murdering hundreds of Iraqi prisoners of war and veterans after the issuance of cease fire decision.

During the investigation, one officer, who was working under General McCaffrey’s command, testified that he regarded what had happened as (a massacre). My belief was, what had happened constituted a massacre, but the basic line of General (McCaffrey’s) behavior was an attempt to protect the American soldiers from a potential exposure to fire, he said.

As to the General, who advanced to the front lines to lead the assault himself, he said in front of a Senate House Committee, that he could specify the number of the Iraqi soldiers who had been killed by the American fire as a result of that assault.

Second: What had been dropped on Iraq was equivalent to 7 nuclear bombs. It killed thousands of people and destroyed the environment

• The last years outcomes have unveiled that the depleted uranium (DU) was relevant to strange diseases that spread in Iraq recently, as America has fired:

• (940) thousands of small depleted uranium rounds.

• (14) thousands of tanks missiles.

• It had destroyed two vehicles loaded with depleted uranium shells during the war in order to make its poisonous parcels spread in the air.

• It had fired more that (50) thousands of missiles by war planes that bombarded cities in the north, south, and center of Iraq.

• It had dropped (88) thousand tons of different kinds and sizes of bombs, which were equivalent to seven and a half folds of the explosive and incendiary power of the bomb dropped on Heroshima.

The British Defense Secretary Rikfind, had also acknowledged in a letter he had sent to the member of the British Common House, Tony Bin, that the British forces had fired 88 thousands of depleted uranium shells on the Iraqi forces, and the American forces had used twice as much as that.

* The Depleted Uranium:

Poisonous and radio active material, which results from the process of uranium enrichment. The rate of its radioactivity is 06% of the enriched uranium radioactivity. Among its effects, are the increase in the rate of the patients of leukemia, congenital deformation among the fetuses, abortions of the pregnant, herpes, and all kinds of malignant tumors (cancer).

Reports point out:

• There are 270 680 thousand kgs of depleted uranium wastes had been left in the military battlefield between Iraq and Kuwait. Iraq has been suffering from the existence of radioactive materials on its territory, which it cannot remove due to its financial and technical inability.

• The different weapons that had been fired on Iraq were equivalent to 7 nuclear bombs.

• The bombardment of Iraq has left radioactive materials which resulted in a genocide against the population of Iraq, especially those who were exposed to bombardment during the war. Further, there were about (50) thousand Iraqi child died during the first eight months of 1991, due to cancer diseases, renal failure, and internal diseases that were not known in the past.

• The depleted uranium has contributed in soil and underground water pollution. The rate of this pollution is equivalent to ten folds of normal extent, and its costs are estimated at $ 370 billion.

The International Custom has rested on some basic facts, which it regards as rights that must not be transgressed, especially the nonuse of genocide means, racial discrimination and segregation as well as not exposing civilians to danger, and inflicting any harm on these firm basic rights constitutes a crime against humanity. This International Custom has been embodied in the items of Geneva Fourth Conventions, the Additional Protocol, Annex 1,and the International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide Perpetrators.

In the light of these conventions’ humanitarian purposes and pursuant to their essential facts, the economic sanctions are considered as an act of war and a systematic genocide against the Iraqi people, aside from implementing them by military force, which, from a legal point of view, is considered as an object of implementing the standards of the Humanitarian International Law.

The extensive destruction of the civilian infrastructure has led to the death of a great number of people, especially children, the elderly and the sick. What is certain, the bombardment campaign led by the US had largely gone beyond the declared purposes of the relevant Security Council Resolutions, for it had actually aimed at the destruction of the morale of Iraq and its social tenacity, both materially and morally.

The American assault against Iraq was random. It had greatly got ahead of the clear military goals. It covered each element in the social infrastructure and cultural heritage of the country. In its attack, America had bombarded targets in all main cities comprehensively. This bombardment had, in many instances, recurred on the same targets, including isolated villages and remote nomads tents!!

The Iraqi people had faced a survival crisis of frightening dimensions. The water and sanitation systems had broken up, there was a shortage in foodstuff and the exhausted hospital supplies were not replaced. Early March 1991, the untreated sewage waters began to flow into the Tigris, the main drinking water source for thousands of civilian people. The weakness of the means for the treatment of these waters led to the spread of the diseases of cholera, typhoid, hepatitis and polio, which had been fully eradicated from Iraq prior to the war.

A report, which had been prepared by a team of lawyers and specialists in public health from Harvard University in October 1991, had unveiled that the morality among children under five years old in Iraq have been doubled almost five times since the Gulf War and there are about one million child suffering malnutrition, in addition to almost one hundred thousands child who are starving to death.

According to the report of the team, the children are similar to those who survived Heroshima bomb and are characterized with sluggishness and lack of sensation. Dr, Magne Roundalen commented that the children are similar to living dead people, who have lost all their feelings and no longer enjoy their life.

Harvard Report pointed out to a general health catastrophe which is existing all around the country. The children who are suffering anemia and diabetes and who can be cured, are dying due to the lack of cancer medicine and insulin, and there are diseases like polio and measles, which can be prevented, have come to spread again. The report has estimated that the morality average among children under five years old has risen up to 38% and that third of the survivors are suffering from severe malnutrition.

According to a group of psychoanalysts, who have a decade long experience in the wars of Uganda, the Sudan, and Mozambique, the Iraqi children " are the most suffering children among wars’ children that were being described". The report commented on this miserable generation of Iraqi children by saying, "shock, estrangement, sorrow, absence of hopes, current feeling of threat, the feeling that what had happened might happen again and the impact of sanctions make us wonder: Aren’t these children the most suffering in the world?"

 

Irrefutable Facts

The principle of discrimination between combatants and civilians constitutes a basic element of Humanitarian International Law, and consequently we must consider whether the comprehensive blockade aims at the whole population in a way that causes grave harms to the civilians, and which makes them actually the main object of the blockade.

The inhuman destruction, which has been inflicted upon Iraq and its people through ongoing comprehensive embargo and war, and despite the official cease fire and Iraq’s implementation of its obligations, constitutes a continuation of the war, and consequently a "Genocide".

The US and the UK bear the full responsibility for these crimes and genocide under International Law. They are indebted to the International Community, including the state of Iraq, for this responsibility in its criminal dimension. They are also indebted to Iraq and its people for this responsibility in its civil dimension.

The international responsibility is not limited only to these states, rather it extends, in one way or another, to include states that implement the blockade, as they are indirectly responsible for the damages being inflicted , indiscriminately, on civilians in contradiction to the obligations established in Humanitarian International Law.

From 1995 to 1998, the Oil-for-Food Deal had failed to meet the humanitarian needs in accordance with the Secretary General’s warning regarding the deterioration of the humanitarian condition of the Iraqi people. He had urgently called for an increase in the essential resources to cover the needs of the Iraqi people.

The report of the Secretary General had proved that what have been provided to Iraq under the economic sanctions system are far from meeting the basic needs of the Iraqi people. This proves that the violation of Geneva Fourth Convention and the Additional Protocol, Annex 1, is going on against the Iraqi people and up to the present time.

In the light of what have been mentioned, it becomes clear that the US is the first engineer of the genocide to which the Iraqi people is subjected for years now, as the American officials work with intention and determination to annihilate a whole nation after they had tested new kinds of weapons in a real environment. So, the use of these weapons had caused a genocide to an old civilized nation.

Thus, the United States bears the responsibility for this crime of the age and it enters the circle of the criminal law as the first criminal of war, who has been set free for a century now. 

source: http://www.iraqi-mission.org/ 26 Nov 2000