ICTJ in the News

May 19, 2004

Iraqis not consulted on key policies: rights group

Khaleej Times (Dubai)

LONDON - US-led occupiers paid scant heed to Iraqi opinion when crafting policies such as "de-Baathification" and creating a tribunal to judge Saddam Hussein, a study by a US-based human rights group shows.

"The first thing the report brings out is the importance of consulting with Iraqis," Hanny Megally, of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), told Reuters.

The survey of Iraqi attitudes towards transitional justice, released on Wednesday, shows these have often been out of step with policies pursued by Iraq's US administrator Paul Bremer.

"The big problem we have seen in the last year has been the United States going it alone, consulting with a limited number of Iraqis, mostly their friends and advisers, many of whom came from outside," Megally said, referring to former Iraqi exiles.

He said the planned formal handover of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government on June 30 offered the chance to change course without loss of face for Washington and London. "We are seeing the June deadline as a good opportunity to learn the lessons of the past and focus on putting together mechanisms and processes of consulting Iraqis."

The United States had hitherto made assumptions about what Iraqis wanted, he said, citing the sweeping measures Bremer took on his arrival in Baghdad a year ago to uproot Saddam's Baath party and bar many of its members from public sector jobs.

However, the ICTJ survey, conducted about three months after Saddam fell in April last year, finds Iraqis making a clear distinction between "Saddamists" with blood on their hands and people who joined the Baath party for pragmatic reasons.

Nearly a year after dissolving the party, along with Iraq's armed forces, Bremer said last month his de-Baathification policy had been unfairly implemented and promised adjustments.

The ICTJ report, entitled "Iraqi Voices" suggests other reasons for Iraqi hostility to the US-led occupation.

"Comments indicated distrust of the United States because of the historical support provided to Saddam Hussein and the disorder, lack of security and looting that followed the end of his regime," it says.

The study, produced with the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, also reveals Iraqi anger at the United Nations for years of sanctions and at the world for leaving Iraqis to their fate for 35 years of Baathist rule.

It says Iraqis want fair trials, but also "swift and vengeful justice", for Saddam and his aides. They want an Iraqi-controlled accountability process, but have little faith in the Iraqi judicial system and see the need for outside help.

Megally said the Iraq Special Tribunal set up in December to try Saddam and top Baathists appeared to be Iraqi-led in name only, with the United States calling the shots.

He said the US approach to mass graves had been to treat them as a source of evidence for prosecuting Saddam, which, however worthwhile, did little to meet the needs of relatives desperate to learn the fate of their missing loved ones.

Megally said Iraqis would watch keenly how the United States deals with American soldiers involved in abusing Iraqi detainees in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison or elsewhere.

"If people have been tortured there should be a transparent process, investigations, accountability. This is how you establish the rule of law," he said, adding that some Iraqis would remain suspicious unless there was an independent inquiry.

The study tapped 395 people, drawn from a broad spectrum of the Iraqi population, through interviews and focus groups in July and August last year.