Iraqi Civilians Research Articles

Continuing UCMJ Proceedings Involving Offenses Against Civilians in Iraq

Continuing UCMJ Proceedings Involving Offenses Against Civilians in Iraq

Mediation in War: Winning Hearts and Minds Using Mediated Condolence Payments

When an Iraqi noncombatant civilian is killed in the crossfire between the U.S. military and insurgents, the victim's family can apply for a “condolence payment” of up to $2,500 as a token of condolence and sympathy. As the process currently stands, the family member is handed a sum of money by U.S. personnel and ushered out the door. In this model, money equals apology. In this article, the author argues that the efficacy and efficiency of the current condolence payment program could be greatly increased by adding Arab‐Muslim mediation techniques tailored to Iraqi culture. Mediation would fill a gap in the current program to help foster a constructive, stabilizing dialogue between the U.S. military and aggrieved Iraqi civilians. The author believes that with each positive, mediated interaction — each reconciliative engagement between an aggrieved Iraqi civilian, a mediator, and a U.S. military representative — the U.S. military can prevent today's aggrieved Iraqi parent, sibling, or child from becoming tomorrow's insurgent.This article was written with two goals. The implementation of a mediated condolence payment program, even on a limited or pilot basis, would likely increase the chances of American success in Iraq and improve the daily lives of Iraqi civilians. If it is not possible to implement such a program in Iraq before American involvement there ends, then it may still have value as an important component of the post‐conflict nation‐building playbook of the U.S. and other foreign forces.

In the Crossfire or the Crosshairs? Norms, Civilian Casualties, and U.S. Conduct in Iraq

The belief that U.S. forces regularly violate the norm of noncombatant immunity (i.e., the notion that civilians should not be targeted or disproportionately harmed during hostilities) has been widely held since the outset of the Iraq War. Yet the evidence suggests that the U.S. military has done a better job of respecting noncombatant immunity in Iraq than is commonly thought. It also suggests that compliance has improved over time as the military has adjusted its behavior in response to real and perceived violations of the norm. This behavior is best explained by the internalization of noncombatant immunity within the U.S. military's organizational culture, especially since the Vietnam War. Contemporary U.S. military culture is characterized by an “annihilation-restraint paradox”: a commitment to the use of overwhelming but lawful force. The restraint portion of this paradox explains relatively high levels of U.S. adherence with the norm of noncombatant immunity in Iraq, while the tension between annihilation and restraint helps to account for instances of noncompliance and for why Iraqi civilian casualties from U.S. operations, although low by historical standards, have still probably been higher than was militarily necessary or inevitable.

Solid X-ray

This article presents details of research and development in the field of medical treatments using rapid prototyping. Many physicians are turning to rapid prototyping because it can give them models of their patients’ internal organs or bones. The plastic models are essentially printed in three dimensions from a patient’s computer tomography or magnetic resonance imaging scans. The 3D models let doctors see and touch the diseased part of a patient’s anatomy as they will see it in the operating room. A medical team is adding a new technique called electron-beam melting, which relies upon melted titanium powder to produce implantable metal devices from CT-scan information. The technology, from Arcam of Boras, Sweden, builds up the metal parts via rapid prototyping. RP4Baghdad is a humanitarian effort founded in mid-2005 by members of the U.S. rapid prototyping and manufacturing industry. It calls upon rapid prototyping techniques to help treat Iraqi civilians with severe injuries to the head and face.

The Cost of War: The Children of Iraq

In late 1970s, was among the most developed countries in the Middle East, with a sophisticated human infrastructure and the second largest oil reserves in the world. However, the Iraq-Iran war from 1980 to 1988, followed in 1991 by the American blitzkrieg to oust the Iraqi forces from Kuwait, sent back to the pre-industrial age. Imposed on through the United Nations, the subsequent Anglo-American sanction regime dilapidated the socioeconomic infrastructure of the country for almost thirteen years. Most recently, the invasion of 2003 has engulfed in a state of lawlessness, widespread insecurity, and corruption at many levels. Predictably, Iraq's children have been particularly vulnerable to these societal upheavals. This paper argues that the traumas imposed on modern Iraq, having stunted its development and alienated it from the region, have wiped out any happy prospects for its children.The 1991 Gulf War and SanctionsRefusing any possible negotiations or diplomatic settlement, the Anglo-American response to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait was a bombing campaign.1 Subsequent declassified documents reveal that in US-led campaign, its forces deliberately destroyed Iraq's water treatment capacity, knew the necessary chemicals were blocked by sanctions, and fully understood the implications for Iraqis.2 The Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) identified Iraq's water treatment systems as vulnerable because of their reliance on foreign materials already blocked by sanctions. Iraq will suffer increasing shortages of purified water because of the lack of required chemicals, the DIA wrote in January 1991. Incidences of disease, including possible epidemics, will become probable unless the population were careful to boil water.3 Predictably, the most vulnerable in America's illegal targeting4 of Iraq's basic infrastructure were the children. Further US intelligence documents, observing the degradation of Iraq's water supply under the bombing continued, noted the particular impact on children.5 Within months of the war, the UN secretary general's envoy reported that was facing a water and sanitation crisis, predicting an imminent catastrophe, which could include epidemics and famine, if massive life-supporting needs are not rapidly met; US intelligence agreed.6 In October 1991, The International Study Team sent a task force of 87 researchers and professionals specialized in a wide variety of disciplines, including medicine, health care and child psychology, to conduct an in-depth comprehensive study of the impact of the 1991 Gulf War on Iraqi civilians, particularly children. The study covered all of the Iraqi governorates without interference or supervision from the Iraqi government. The study was based on 9,000 household interviews in more than 300 locations.7 The study pointed to: an increase in infectious diseases correlated with contaminated water supplies; malnutrition caused by a collapse in crop production and the inability to import sufficient food; a sharp increase in infant and child mortality immediately following the war; and, severe impacts on the social and psychological well being of women and children. With the sanctions in place, the crisis of the health care system, which the war created, was further exacerbated.The study reported an immediate and startling increase in child mortality rate associated with the destruction of the physical infrastructure and the collapsing the health care system, which the protracted sanction regime ultimately wiped out. The study estimated that mortality rate for children under 5-years old increased 380 after the onset of the war: for age 1 -year old or less, the increase in mortality rate was 350 percent. The study estimated that there were approximately 46,900 excess deaths during the first eight months of 1991. The International Study Team, using the practices established by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, investigated the level malnutrition, deigning children as malnourished where they fall 2 standard deviations (-2 DS) from the media reference value. …

Individual and Collective Moral Responsibility for Systemic Military Atrocity*

THERE are two kinds of killing in war: intended and unintended. Soldiers intend to, and may under the laws of war, kill those who pose a threat to them. Soldiers may not intentionally kill innocents. Indeed, soldiers ought to try, as much as they can, to avoid even accidentally killing non-combatants. Thus, perhaps as much as soldiers are trained to kill they are taught to avoid unnecessary killing of innocents. Limited, unintended killing of non-combatants (collateral damage) may be excused in the just war tradition and by the laws of armed combat if those deaths were the result of “necessary” military operations and efforts were taken to avoid unnecessary killing. Intentionally killing non-combatants is considered an atrocity for which actors are morally responsible and legally culpable. When an atrocity is planned it is genocide, ethnic cleansing or terror bombing. Moral responsibility here belongs with individual perpetrators and commanders. Sometimes atrocities are isolated and limited, the act of an individual or a small group of soldiers who “lose it.” In the early morning of 19 November 2005 a twenty-year-old marine, Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, was killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha, Iraq. In response, US marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians, including children aged 14, 10, 5, 4, 3 and 1 over several hours as members of a thirteen-man unit, the 1st Squad of Marine Company K, Third Battalion Marines attacked and killed people in three houses and a taxi carrying four college students. Here, moral responsibility clearly belongs to individual perpetrators. “Only a man with a gun to his head is not responsible.”

Multiple UCMJ Proceedings Involving Offenses Against Civilians in Iraq

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Gulf war depleted uranium risks

US and British forces used depleted uranium (DU) in armor-piercing rounds to disable enemy tanks during the Gulf and Balkan Wars. Uranium particulate is generated by DU shell impact and particulate entrained in air may be inhaled or ingested by troops and nearby civilian populations. As uranium is slightly radioactive and chemically toxic, a number of critics have asserted that DU exposure has resulted in a variety of adverse health effects for exposed veterans and nearby civilian populations. The study described in this paper used mathematical modeling to estimate health risks from exposure to DU during the 1991 Gulf War for both US troops and nearby Iraqi civilians. The analysis found that the risks of DU-induced leukemia or birth defects are far too small to result in an observable increase in these health effects among exposed veterans or Iraqi civilians. The analysis indicated that only a few ( approximately 5) US veterans in vehicles accidentally targeted by US tanks received significant exposure levels, resulting in about a 1.4% lifetime risk of DU radiation-induced fatal cancer (compared with about a 24% risk of a fatal cancer from all other causes). These veterans may have also experienced temporary kidney damage. Iraqi children playing for 500 h in DU-destroyed vehicles are predicted to incur a cancer risk of about 0.4%. In vitro and animal tests suggest the possibility of chemically induced health effects from DU internalization, such as immune system impairment. Further study is needed to determine the applicability of these findings for Gulf War exposure to DU. Veterans and civilians who did not occupy DU-contaminated vehicles are unlikely to have internalized quantities of DU significantly in excess of normal internalization of natural uranium from the environment.

Violence in Iraq and Nigeria, OPEC cuts output, admits Angola

This section summarizes downstream developments of the previous month. Exploration & Production are covered in 'Upstream Review'. Iraq ended 2006 with its crude oil exports at zero, its oil industry in need of "urgent attention", according to a report delivered to the US President and Congress, and its domestic security situation spiralling out of control. The execution of former President Saddam Hussain on 30th December failed to pacify the country, as the government appears to have hoped, as more than 2,000 Iraqi civilians died during the month of December and US military casualties passed the 3,000 mark. Crude oil exports ceased as bad weather closed the Persian Gulf terminals of Basrah and Khor al‐Amaya. Exports via Ceyhan were already at a standstill, following recent attacks on the pipeline from Kirkuk. The country's main refinery, at Baiji was closed for part of December following threats to workers there and an attack on its main supply pipeline from Kirkuk. The government tried to relieve the resulting shortage of refined products by arranging to import some 6,300 bpd of fuel from Iran. The black‐market prices of some refined products were reported by the Arabic newspaper, al‐Hayat to have reached record levels. The Oil Ministry estimated that Iraq's oil exports were 1.6 mn bpd during 2006. Iraq has agreed to supply Jordan with 10,000 bpd of crude oil at a discount of around $18/bbl.

Moderatorsʼ Summary: Wound Management (Session II)

Moderatorsʼ Summary: Wound Management (Session II)

Multiple Proceedings Against U.S. Service Members for Deaths of Iraqi Civilians

Multiple Proceedings Against U.S. Service Members for Deaths of Iraqi Civilians

Unembedded: four independent photojournalists on the war in Iraq

Unembedded bears witness to the enduring power of independent journalism. In their unflinching look at war-ravaged Iraq, four freelance photojournalists show that life there is brutal yet poignant; that compassion co-exists with anger, hatred and fear. By gaining the confidence of Iraqi civilians and insurgents, these photojournalists have brought back images of life in wartime, from beauty parlours and joyful wedding scenes to the carnage of civilian casualties, the heartbroken faces of grieving parents, and the glassy-eyed shock of parentless children. Working outside the US military's official eembedding' programme, the authors bring us face-to-face with the people of Iraq. They combine photographs and essays with excerpts from two years of personal letters, journal entries, and feature stories to take us across front lines and cultural barriers into the lives of a nation in crisis. Theirs is a path to understanding the cost of war

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Military Returnees From Afghanistan and Iraq

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Military Returnees From Afghanistan and Iraq

Assessment and Treatment of Iraqi Prisoners and Civilians

Assessment and Treatment of Iraqi Prisoners and Civilians

How We Fight

ON THE MORNING of November 19, 2005, a U.S. Marine unit patrolling Haditha, a small farming town in the heart of Iraq's violence-plagued Anbar Province, was hit by a powerful roadside bomb. The explosion killed one marine and wounded two others. But that was just the start of the killing that day. Following the attack, four Iraqi college students and a driver who were approaching the scene in a taxi were also killed, as were 19 civilians in nearby houses, including an elderly man in a wheelchair and several children and the women who were trying to shield them. The first official account of the incident claimed that only i5 civilians had died, all from the bomb blast. In March 2006, an extensive Time magazine investigation challenged that version of events. Subsequent inquiries found that the marines had probably killed all 24 Iraqi civilians themselves and that U.S. commanders should have conducted a more thorough investigation earlier. The marines involved in the incident appear likely to face criminal charges, including for murder. If the marines' responsibility is confirmed, the Haditha killings will be the gravest violation by U.S. forces of the legal prohibition against the wanton targeting of civilians since the invasion of Iraq. A bedrock of the laws of war for more than a century, noncombatant immunity encompasses two key concepts: distinction

Who we are

Who we are

Management Of Unstable Cervical Spine Injuries In Southern Iraq During OP TELIC

IntroductionCervical spine fractures and dislocations are uncommon injuries that can have serious neurological consequences. These injuries require adequate stabilisation to prevent further spinal cord injury during transfer between hospitals. Evacuation...

Iraq's oil sector mired in problems despite successful election

The people of Iraq surprised many outside observers by turning out in greater numbers than expected to vote in January's election. Moreover, the threatened violence, though considerable, proved to be less than initially feared. The country's economy and energy industries, however, remain in a parlous state, with few signs of amelioration in sight. Both American and British forces recorded their worst single day for casualties just before the election, and terrorist attacks on foreign soldiers, Iraqi civilians and government forces continued at high levels following the poll.

The impact of united nations economic sanctions on Iraqi civilians

The impact of united nations economic sanctions on Iraqi civilians

Culture, US Imperialism, and Globalization

The return of what was once termed gunboat diplomacy in first decade of twenty-first century as part of new global order endorsed repeatedly and abstractly by George H. W. and now George W. Bush's regimes could not have occurred without prior work of culture. In what follows, I make a simple, important point: US cultural production, work of what Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno termed the culture industry, conditioned American citizens to accept undisguised militarism and jingoistic nationalism now driving US foreign policy (Horkheimer and Adorno 122). In its inevitably globalized forms, US culture industry continues to produce deep divisions between local resistance and subaltern imitation so characteristic of colonial conflicts from age of traditional imperialism to neo-imperialisms of our postindustrial era. And culture industry today does its work in ways that encompass a wide range of nominally different political positions, so that in many respects Left, liberal, and conservative cultural works often achieve complementary, rather than contested, ends. In this respect, little has changed since Horkheimer and Adorno argued in 1944, Even aesthetic activities of political opposites are one in their enthusiastic obedience to rhythm of iron system (Horkheimer and Adorno 120). As US military raced toward Baghdad, there was considerable criticism of embedded reporters allowed to report war under special conditions imposed by Pentagon and Department of Defense. Most of criticism assumed that such reporting was biased or censored. When a Newsweek photographer was caught doctoring on his laptop a photograph of an encounter between Iraqi civilians and US military personnel, his firing seemed to vindicate news magazine of prejudice. Antiwar activists circulated two photographs of Iraqi demonstrators tearing down a monumental statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square, Baghdad: The first was a familiar photograph in news of demonstrators beating on sculpture's foundation and then, with help of an Abrams tank,