Two different Paces in Iraq
Gen. Peter Pace says things are going 'very well' in Iraq; John Pace, former UN-Iraq human rights chief, say abuses are as bad now as under Saddam Hussein.
Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Sunday that
Iraq is not on the verge of civil war. The
Associated Press reports that, despite polls that show Americans are increasingly worried about how the war in Iraq is going, "much progress is being made toward training Iraqi forces to take over security of the country," which would allow more US troops to return home.
"I do not believe it has deep roots," Pace said of the insurgency. "I do not believe that they're on the verge of civil war." ...
Asked how things are going, Pace said: "I'd say they're going well. I wouldn't put a great big smiley face on it, but I'd say they're going well."
Speaking on
NBC's Meet the Press, General Pace did admit that "
anything could happen" in Iraq but he felt that over the past 10 days, the Iraqi people had shown that they do not want civil war.
CNN reported recently that the only battalion rated capable of fighting without US support
was downgraded recently. While the downgrade means that there are no Iraqi untis that can fight without help from the US, "there are 53 Iraqi battalions at level two status [needs help from US], up from 36 in October. There are 45 battalions at level three."
But the other Pace talking about Iraq, John Pace, the former UN human rights chief in Iraq, tells
a markedly different story about the situation. Mr. Pace, who stepped down from his post in mid-February, says human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad now as they were under the regime of Saddam Hussein.
"Under Saddam, if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of expression and thought, you were physically more or less OK," Pace said in an interview with
The Associated Press. "But now, no. Here, you have a primitive, chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone."
Mr. Pace, who was born in Malta but now resides in Australia, said that while the scale of atrocity under Saddam was "daunting," now nobody is safe from abuse. "It is certainly as bad," he said. "It extends over a much wider section of the population than it did under Saddam."
Mr. Pace specifically named Shiite militias as a major source of the problem. He cited in particular the Badr Brigade, linked to the
the Interior Ministry, run by Bayan Jabr, a leading figure in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. During his time in Iraq, Mr. Pace would visit the morgue in Baghdad once a week, and used what he saw there as a barometer of the situation in the country.
He said about three-quarters of the several hundred bodies brought to the morgue each month were categorised "gunshot wound" as the cause of death. "Nearly all were executed and tortured," Mr Pace said. Mr. Pace said both the
government-backed militias and the insurgents warned morgue workers not to properly investigate deaths. He told
The Guardian that Faik Bakir, the director of the Baghdad morgue, had to flee Iraq for fear of his life after he reported that more than 7,000 people had been killed by death squads in recent months.
Mr. Pace's view on the role Shiite militias play in the possibility of civil war in Iraq was echoed Saturday by Gen. George Casey, commander of the Multi-National Force-Iraq.
The Washington Post reports that General Casey said that "
disarming the groups of sectarian fighters is vital to US success in the long run."
Reports cited by Casey said that Iraqi security forces allowed Shiite militias through checkpoints to attack Sunni mosques last week.
"I do not believe that we will ultimately succeed until the Iraqi security forces, the police and the military, are the only ones in Iraq with guns," he told a Pentagon news briefing via teleconference from Iraq. In the same press briefing, Casey said he had not stopped the practice of paying Iraqi media to print positive stories about Iraq.
Mr. Pace also had harsh words for the US in Iraq. In an interview with Amy Goodman of
Democracy Now!, he said he believes the US had
violated the Geneva conventions and "is fueling the violence through its raids on Iraqi homes and is holding thousands of detainees that are for the most part innocent of any crimes."
Also...
•
'This is civil war ��� if we go back, we die' (The Age, Australia)
•
Iraq at war with itself (Economist)
•
Hero's death turns into a murder investigation (The Times of London)
•
The Army's buying PR (Washington Post)
• Feedback appreciated. E-mail
Tom Regan
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