World Tribunal on Iraq Charges UK and US with War Crimes

WORLD TRIBUNAL ON IRAQ CHARGES UK AND US WITH WAR CRIMES
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WORLD TRIBUNAL ON IRAQ CHARGES UK AND US WITH WAR CRIMES

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A "Jury of Conscience" from 10 countries constituted a World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) that met in Istanbul from 24-26 June 2005 and culminated a series of inquiries held in numerous major cities throughout the world. The jury included the famous Indian writer Arundhati Roy and a variety of other distinguished people from around the world and from callings including science, law, writing and humanitarian activism.

In short, the WTI Jury, after hearing expert testimony from scores of people from around the world, concluded that the UK, the US and their Coalition partners had participated in an illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq and in doing so had violated international covenants on war and the treatment of prisoners of war and civilians set out in the UN Charter, international law, the post-WW2 Nuremberg Principles and the Geneva Conventions.

The report of the WTI Jury is summarized below following the main subdivisions of their report [1].

I. Overview of WTI Findings

The US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq involved the following: illegal invasion without UN sanction; a pre-invasion falsehood campaign; an inhumane and deadly sanctions campaign from mid-1990 onwards; ignoring of massive global opposition; failure of established politico-legal constraints; economic, social and environmental devastation of Iraq; exacerbation of Iraqi internal divisions; a huge death toll (100,000 civilian deaths) and 60,000 Iraqis in custody; illegal privatization and appropriation of major slabs of the Iraqi economy; occupier-imposed laws; and massive, continuing and legitimate Iraqi opposition to US occupation.

II. WTI Charges

The WTI Jury established numerous charges against specific Coalition-associated governments, corporations and individuals as follows:

A. Against the UK and US governments for: plotting and executing illegal invasion; targetting civilian areas; horrendous use of indiscriminate force; use of DU munitions in contravention of health standards; warfare immensely damaging to civilians; serious degradation of the status of Iraqi women; killing of protestors; individual and collective punishments without due process or regard for civilians (most notably the destruction of Fallujah); degradation and torture of Iraqi soldiers and civilians; illegal re-writing of Iraqi laws; environmental devastation; destruction of unique cultural heritage; media censorship and violent targetting of journalists and intellectuals; official re-defining of torture and use of "rendition" to permit egregious torture in third countries; ignoring global public conscience; and installation of de facto policies for further illegal wars.

B. Against the UN Security Council for: failure to protect Iraqis; imposition of deadly sanctions from mid-1990 onwards; allowing immense UK-US bombing since 1991; giving free rein to the US; failure to stop war crimes; and failure to make the US-led Coalition accountable.

C. Against Coalition governments for collaboration in the illegal invasion, occupation and war crimes.

D. Against governments of other countries for logistical support and other complicity.

E. Against private corporations for profitable contractual involvements.

F. Against major media corporations for: disseminating falsehoods (e.g. the non-existent WMDs); non-reportage of atrocities; non-reportage of humanitarian dissent; collaboration with Coalition bigotry, racism and xenophobia; normalizing war as an acceptable option; permitting fraudulent use of resources for illegal war; and promoting dangerous corporate-military security perspectives.

III. WTI Recommendations{mosgoogle right}

The WTI Jury supported the legitimacy of Iraqi resistance to occupation and made a series of recommendations, namely: Coalition withdrawal; reparations to Iraq; retraction of imposed laws; closure of offshore US prisons and proper treatment of prisoners under international law; exhaustive investigation of those guilty of war crimes (including many named people); accountability processes to assess involvement of journalists and corporations; international non-violent actions against numerous, named complicit corporations; conscientious objection by young people and soldiers to participation in illegal war; an international campaign for dismantling US military bases abroad; and that people worldwide resist government support for the occupation of Iraq.

Media non-reportage of the WTI Jury findings

The WTI Jury findings are consonant with the views of decent people throughout the world but the corporate mainstream media have substantially ignored these important findings [2]. The WTI report was repeatedly concerned with the malignant role played in the Iraq debacle by dishonest and complicit mainstream media. Nevertheless a Google search for "World Tribunal on Iraq" yielded 54,200 URLs, indicating coverage by alternative media. Clearly decent people should eschew mainstream media that have lied, war-mongered and supported egregious Coalition war crimes in Iraq.

Quantitating Coalition war crimes in Iraq - WTI Jury report conservative

The WTI Jury report is actually quite conservative and this is reflected in their summary of the casualties of the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. The following UN-derived statistics support the tenor of the WTI report. >>>cont

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