PM’s credibility at stake following abuse allegations

By Fatih Abdulsalam
Azzaman, November 17, 2005

Prime Ministry Ibrahim al-Jaafari is now facing the most critical decision in his entire life that will either make or break his political career.

Before him are two options in the aftermath of the reported atrocities against Iraqi inmates in a secret prison in Baghdad.

To win back his credibility, in the eyes of many Iraqis at least, he should insist on revealing the whole truth and punish the perpetrators no matter their political affiliations or rank.

This move will need a lot of courage as it will place him in direct confrontation against his own Shiite coalition which helped him ascend to power.

Or he could simply put his coalition’s interests before those of the country by simply condoning the atrocities in return for the covetous premiership that will be decided in the light of January elections.

So far, Jaafari has indicated he will pursue the first path, insisting that he will only be satisfied when the full truth is revealed and the violators are brought to justice.

And that is exactly what Iraqis need: full transparency. This requires that the prime minister make public the outcome of the investigation he has ordered and lay bare the full scale of the secret detention centers the ministry of interior has been running.

Jaafari claims he had no knowledge of the existence of these notorious jails which remind many Iraqis of their dark days under their former tormentor Saddam Hussein.

Now that he knows his interior ministry violates basic human rights of prisoners by starving and torturing them, it is indeed time for him to act.

Some might say it is too late. But better late than never. We believe Jafaari should have acted decisively when human rights groups pointed to these atrocities in their reports.

The prisoners and U.S. troops who found them on Sunday have corroborated these reports.

Both speak of beatings with cables, hanging from wrists, the use of electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body and burning with cigarette studs.

These atrocities and many others attributed to U.S. troops have confirmed Iraqis worst fears that there are no noticeable differences between their reign of terror under Saddam Hussein and the one they are passing through now.

Iraqis now wonder: where is the democracy the U.S. vowed to create in Iraq when its tanks rumbled through Baghdad.

The U.S. itself says more than 21,000 Iraqis now languish in its prisons in Iraq without trial, access to lawyers or visits by relatives.

The surge in prisoner population in Iraq has forced the U.S. to build more and more jails across the country.

The U.S. invasion has brought us nothing but these jails, lack of freedom, and lack of transparency and usurpation of basic rights.

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