Here’s something I learned today via the estimable RickB.

In 1987, Saddam Hussein passed Law 150, outlawing trade unions in the public sector and preventing ‘public sector workers organising or going on strike. Law 150 also changed the status of employees in state-owned enterprises to civil servants, depriving public sector workers of the right to organise.’ Iraq having a small private sector, the law affected 80 per cent of the workforce.

The law has never been repealed.

The US State Department’s Iraq Country Reports on Human Rights Practices has this to say about workers’ rights in the newly liberated and democratized country:

The exercise of labor rights remained limited, largely due to insurgent and sectarian?driven violence, high unemployment, and maladapted labor organizational structures and laws. Union activity is also inhibited by the 2005 Decree 8750, which cancelled unions’ leadership boards, froze their assets, and formed an interministerial committee to administer unions’ assets and assess their capacity to resume activity.

No mention of Law 150 that was left in place in 2003 by US viceroy Paul Bremer when he reverted the Iraqi legal system to that of the pre-Saddam years.

Iraq was going to be different. The US would count its own dead (now close to 4,000), but the toll the war was taking on Iraqis was not a matter the Pentagon or any other US government department intended to quantify. Especially once Bush had declared “mission accomplished” on May 1 2003 - after that, every new Iraqi who died by violence would be a signal that the president was wrong, and would show that a war conducted in the name of humanitarian intervention was exacting a mounting humanitarian toll of its own.

But even though the Americans were not counting, people were dying, and every victim had a name and a family. Wedding parties were bombed by US planes, couples driving home at night were shot at checkpoints because they missed a flashlight warning them to stop, and hundreds of other unarmed civilians were killed for no legitimate cause. In just the last three weeks of April 2003, after Saddam’s statue and his regime were toppled, US forces killed at least 266 civilians - a pattern of overeager resort to fire which has continued to this day.

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Little Warren Iraq is five today. He’s been something of a problem child. Never out of trouble, always in the papers, some people have said he’s symptomatic of what’s wrong with the world today. He’s something of a talisman to those who want to see a better and fairer society.

Others have said that Warren shows how we can extend our values to even the the most unfortunate. Educational psychologists have made themselves rich examining the behaviour of this singular boy. He is all things to everybody.

Here, in an exclusive extract, is a report compiled by concerned teachers and parents to the governors of Warren’s school recommending that he be expelled. Questions are also being asked about whether the governors can remain in their jobs after their handling of this affair.

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Aside from everything else, one of the things that stays with me about the Iraq war is how we’ve become inured, immune, to horror and death and suffering. Maybe it’s always been so, God knows as a country we’ve long been involved in causing and suffering them.

I suppose it’s a natural reaction or else you’d go mad under the weight of it all. I clearly remember getting upset only once, although I’m sure there were other times. It was near the end of April in 2003 when an exploding ammunition dump killed an unspecified number of Iraqis. It was a come-day-go-day story. It was the accompanying photograph that did it.

Reuters: “Kudeir, a 30-year-old Iraqi worker, carries his badly burned nine-month-old son Amir Yas to safety in the Zaafaraniya neighbourhood in the outskirts of Baghdad April 26, 2003. Up to 40 Iraqi civilians were killed and many badly hurt in a series of explosions near Baghdad on Saturday, an Iraqi medic said after an arms dump blew up on the outskirts of the capital.”

My small daughter was asleep in the next room when I read the story. Look at the expression on his father’s face. Maybe you have to have kids of your own to understand, I don’t know. I imagined how I’d try comfort a baby who could not be made comfortable, how I’d feel. I think of Amir Yas often. I wonder where he and his father are today.

When I used to link to such images on my old blog, one or two people would describe them as ‘pornography’ which I’ve always found offensive and suspect. If we’re going to be complicit in these events, then turning away from the consequences is a supreme act of cowardice in my opinion. It’s a moral abdication.

When Ann Widdecombe can tout a video of the treatment of Canadian bears to prick our consciences but we can’t bring ourselves to look at children burnt and blasted in a war we started, I wonder what’s gone wrong.

[W]hat a strange idea that the only true way to support someone is to cheer them into a situation that’s likely to get them killed. If these “supporters” ever find themselves looking up at a tower block, with someone 15 floors up threatening to jump off the balcony as friends delicately try to coax him back, they must shout, “Don’t undermine him – it’s up to all of us to support him – jump, man, jump! Go on – here’s Zoe, 22 from Clacton in a G-string and paratrooper’s cap. She supports you, so dive!”

Inevitably, once the supported boys started returning from war with bits missing, the governments and newspapers that backed them most enthusiastically decide that they’re an embarrassing nuisance.

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You have to admire the way this government covers all the angles sometimes. By ‘covers’ I mean ‘papers over’, obviously.

Sending refugees back to Iraq? Don’t worry if it’s not as safe as you claim, get them to sign a piece of paper waiving your responsibility should any of them get bombed, shot, raped or drilled on their return.

Worried about whistleblowers highlighting the failures of government? Don’t fix the failures, fix the whistleblowers.

And now, worried about coroners pointing out the mistakes, incompetence and political mendacity on the part of the Ministry of Defence that led to the deaths of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan? Don’t worry about the mistakes, incompetence and political mendacity, just shut the coroners up.

Problem solved. A lack of body armour, or radios, or Snatch Land Rovers led to soldiers’ deaths ? It can’t be the MoD’s fault if nobody says so, can it? If Iraqi militias had dragged Private Jason Smith through the streets of Basra, Des Browne would have gone mental.

He sees nothing wrong however with dragging Private Smith and his family through the courts to spare a few blushes and avoid ‘civil liability’. A liability, let us not forget, which would mean a bit more cash for the families of dead soldiers killed because fat, self-serving Des Browne is more interested in covering his arse than the torsos of his men heading into battle.

(Via Mike.)

As Flying Rodent points out, it was five years ago yesterday that Robin Cook resigned from the cabinet over Iraq.

Here’s how Cook made his name. It’s gripping stuff if you’re a fan of politics. It’s also a timely reminder that no-one is innocent in any of this, no matter how much wriggling they do.

Part two and part three.

(Cook’s resignation speech: part one and two.)

It was good to get an update on Ali Abbas, the Iraqi boy who came to Britain after a US missile liberated his arms, family and home.

I know this probably wouldn’t look too from a public relations angle in the short term, but now that Ali is making the same progress as his home country (according to the Home Secretary), isn’t it time we sent him back? I mean fair’s fair.

It’s Iraq week everybody! Columnists, bloggers and pundits: look no further for this week’s muse. It’s a part work obviously, gotta catch ‘em all.

Those of us who were against the war will have our say, those who were for it will have theirs. At the end of the week nothing will have changed, hundred of thousands will still be dead and those responsible will still be at large. Still, I’m sure Britain’s wordsmiths will find some kind of catharsis, so maybe a little good will come of it all until next year.

Anyway, at this early stage, I’m tempted to say that nobody will better this from Flying Rodent:

Because that’s the deal… It’s not about us, dipshits. Britain is long beyond the point where anything we say or do can ameliorate the situation, and frankly, if our reaction to the Iraq invasion clusterfuck is to bleat about how it has shit in our ideological chili, maybe it’s time we ordered a tall drink of shut-the-fuck-up.

Have a good week. Don’t forget the March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm on Wednesday. Just try to be a little more practical and original than ‘I told you so’.

Why This Rush?

A diplomatic battle raging at the UN where the British and Americans are intensely lobbying for a second resolution that will authorise war. They are met by fierce hostility and resistance by countries who want to give the weapons inspectors more time in Iraq.

See the other films here.

(via Crooks and Liars)

I’m eagerly awaiting Jacqui* Smiths announcement that she once bought a kebab in Basra. Like in London, she wouldn’t walk the street of Iraq’s third largest city after midnight, but then does anyone know anybody who would choose to do so? Ms Smith would admit she is fortunate that she doesn’t have to do that.

That said, she’ll state categorically that people are ‘much less likely to be a victim of crime’ in Basra since New Labour took over.

* Jacqui. What is she, like, 12 or something?

‘Is it safe?’ asked Smith

Excellent news for Mehdi Kazemi who’s been given a (quite literal) stay of execution by the Home Secretary. Was it pity or compassion that touched her cold heart? Was she shamed into it or did she simply want to get him off the telly and out of the papers where he was making her look bad?

The 1,400 asylum seekers that Jacqui Smith wants to return to the newly ’safe’ Iraq should take heed. They should get organised, start queueing outside the Home Office, and get themselves on the telly like Northern Rock pensioners.

It’s a double-pronged attack. The asylum seekers get to demonstrate their embrace of British values by showing how much they love a good queue. The government get to demonstrate their embrace of public relation values by showing how much they hate a good queue.

No doubt Ms Smith took an evidence-based approach in making her decision. Let’s look at some of the evidence she must have considered when declaring herself the new Safety Elephant.

As Bookdrunk points out, the Ms Smith’s colleagues at the Foreign office judge the situation in Iraq as:

…highly dangerous with a continuing high threat of terrorism throughout Iraq, violence and kidnapping targeting foreign nationals, including individuals of non-western appearance.

Iraq is so safe, that earlier this week, as Philip says, Defence Secretary Des Browne had to be smuggled into Basra in a ’surprise’ visit. Surely he should have announced his intentions in the tabloids with a ‘Hey! I’m off to the new safe Iraq! Who’s with me?’

And that’s before we point out a new rise in the death toll across the country. And the fact that northen Iraq, controlled by the Kurds, and previously judged safe enough to return asylum seekers to (with precautionary helmets and flak jackets), has just seen an incursion by the Turkish military.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Jaqui Smith considered all this in making her decision. It’s just hard not to have the feeling that her conclusion was pretty much, ‘meh‘. Judging by the lack of coverage, let alone outrage, in the British media over all this, who can deny that her’s was the correct response?

‘Starved or shot, what’ll it be?’ said Smith

DEAD-EYED Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has declared Iraq safe and told 1,400 Iraqi asylum seekers to bugger off back or be forced to live in the gutter.

Ministers hope that by making life for Iraqi asylum seekers similar to that in downtown Baghdad, they will acclimatise and take the hint. In keeping with British policy in Iraq, support for Iraqis in the UK is being withdrawn.

Those refusing to return to the tranquil haven of new Iraq will have their shitty accommodation, piss-poor food and look-at-me-I’m-an-asylum-seeker vouchers reallocated.

Despite 78 deaths in Iraq since Saturday and in a move that will please racists and sociopaths everywhere, Ms Smith will implement a plan to cover her arse should any of the returnees be shot, bombed, drilled, raped, tortured, disappeared or otherwise fail to integrate into the newly rebuilt Iraqi society.

Each asylum seeker will be asked to sign a waiver ‘agreeing the government will take no responsibility for what happens to them or their families once they return to Iraqi territory’. ‘Iraq is safe but we’re not complacent about these matters,’ said a morally-compromised source close to the Home Secretary.

A spokesperson for Ms Smith told reporters, ‘The current cabinet is stuffed to the rafters with proper bastards. Really evil bastards. You have to get up early to beat the likes of Jack Straw and John Hutton. The Home Secretary feels that it takes something really, really special to stand out. We believe these new measures will demonstrate the emotionally-detached thuggery that modern politics demands.’

No Iraqi asylum seekers were available for comment.

Number of MPs signing Early Day Motion 401 in support of Iraqi Employees helping the British Military: 79

Number of MPs signing Early Day Motion 1756 in support of the Canadian bears helping the British Military: 207

Apparently the bearskin hats worn by certain army regiments have ‘no military significance and involve unnecessary cruelty’. The same could be said about the treatment of the Iraqi employees, just don’t expect many Members of Parliament to say it. Not least my own, MP Celia Barlow, who’s fully aware of the situation with the Iraqi employees and has made respresentations to ministers on the matter, but gave her name only to the bears.

Still, as has been said before, the Tories won’t push this issue because it means letting more darkies into Britain and that doesn’t play well with the Daily Mail-reading core vote they have. New Labour won’t push it because it means letting more darkies into Britain and that doesn’t play well with the Daily Mail-reading core vote they want.

In other news, Ann Widdecombe is a grizzled and bitter old hypocrite. Early Day Motions, she says, ‘have no more impact than a feather landing on a mattress’ unless they’re chasing an issue she’s bothered about of course.

And if you’re an ickle baby foetus, Ann’s got your back. If you’re an ickle baby foetus who grows up to be drilled to death by an Iraqi death squad or executed for being an Iranian homosexual, well, sorry but Ann’s got bears to worry about. Oh, and selling pasta along with her dignity as well.

Join the March 19 Blogswarm Against the Iraq War.

Yes it is, it’s the magic number:

The costs of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq this year are likely to almost double to £3.3bn, a committee of MPs has warned.

Now that’s a lot of money. Suddenly you see why Mozambique and Bosnia are going to have to live with stray landmines and loose machine guns for a while longer.

Of course, it would be nice to know just where all this money is going. Nice, yes. Necessary? What do you think?

While the committee recommended that the House of Commons should accept the estimates, it said the Ministry of Defence needed to provide more information on how the additional cash was being spent.

No doubt the government can’t release this information for reasons of security. The cabinet’s job security. The thing is, with this shower you can’t be sure whether they’re covering up or they genuinely have no idea. The paperwork could have been given to David Miliband to crayon on. Or recycled to meet some Whitehall target or other.

Whatever the reason, it’s time to get your magic wallet out again.

Well, slap my thigh and call me Roger, you’ve got to hand it to them. This is amazing. So amazing, I almost danced around the room in elation at being alive to see such a thing. Honestly and truthfully, this is one of the most stupendous, awe-inspiring things I have ever seen.

You thought the Blair years saw the pinnacle of high-handed contempt for human life masquerading as political economy? Of moral bankruptcy. Of the pathology that can turn away from human suffering. WELL GET THIS, BABY:

Money set aside to clear landmines and remove arms from conflict zones is to be raided to pay a private defence contractor to keep Tornado jets flying in Iraq, according to a confidential memo seen by the Guardian. The Ministry of Defence plans to pay BAE Systems from the multimillion-pound Conflict Prevention Fund - which covers projects such as destroying weapons in Bosnia and landmines in Mozambique - to subsidise the £5m-£10m cost of servicing each of the six planes.

See what I mean? Read it again:

Money set aside to clear landmines and remove arms from conflict zones is to be raided to pay a private defence contractor to keep Tornado jets flying in Iraq.

GODDAMN. You’ll tell your grandchildren about this one. Doesn’t it make the head spin? They’re going to take money used for conflict prevention to pay for conflict permission. They’re going to divert money allocated to saving lives into taking them instead.

Imagine the twisted, stunted, mutilated, suppurating morality of the people who came up with this. Picture that instead of going home, getting into a hot bath and opening a significant vein or two, they kissed their children, ate a good dinner and slept the sleep of the just.

I mean, what next? Making a woman who turned a blind eye to child abuse Children’s Minister? Oh, I forgot, they already did that.

But wait, this is a good bit:

Defensive news briefs are being developed to counter adverse media comment.

Translation: Yes, we know we’re massive bastards, but we need to persuade the media otherwise.

I don’t doubt they’ll succeed.

You know, I once said that I refused to believe that this government was truly evil. What a naive, ingenuous fool I was. If Gordon Brown were to go on live television tonight and pull off his mask to reveal himself Satan, I doubt many would turn a hair. The Daily Mirror would still say ‘at least he’s not a toff like that David Cameron’.

I could go on about this all day and there’s a very real possibility that I might.

From this angle, one suddenly wonders whether the Conflict Prevention Fund isn’t merely a job creation scheme:

The UK’s Global Conflict Prevention Fund has helped to destroy over one million weapons around the world in addition to providing advice on stockpile security and management.

Get rid of the old ones so the likes of BAE can make shiny new ones. War! Huh. Good God, y’all. What is it good for? Well, it’s quite good at fostering corruption in the name of the national interest. BAE shareholders, yes, it’s quite good for them. The deformed egos of small and otherwise mediocre and unremarkable men, it’s just what they need.

Say it again.

(Via Philip)

Baby Jesus and the orphans, it gets worse. If the Taliban have been watching British news channels today they know what fiendish new weapon to bring to bear on our brave boys during the Spring Offensive: harsh language.

If I was an RAF servicemen I’d be absolutely livid tonight. British politicians have rallied round today and worked hard to paint the flyboys as a bunch of pansies frightened of a bit of name-calling.

Listen to Tory Liam Fox, shadow minister for something or other, subtly painting our armed forces as pussies:

We cannot have our armed forces personnel intimidated for wearing the uniform they are so rightly proud of.

Intimidated? These guys are trained to face bullets and bombs, to kill or be killed. Have any of them been crying themselves to sleep or frightened to leave the barracks? If they have, I’d dare to suggest they’re in the wrong trade and should try something else with alacrity. Being a Member of Parliament perhaps?

Why didn’t Fox go the whole hog and send the servicemen’s mums into Peterborough to have it out with the bullies? You know, if he’s bent on stripping these men of their dignity entirely. I’d say that Fox is in politics because he’s too weak to carry furniture but he’s clearly incapable of carrying an argument either.

To be honest, I think discretion is the better part of valour in this instance and the commander has made the right choice in banning RAF personnel wearing uniforms outside their base. Like I said earlier, when you bear in mind what some servicemen will do in a provincial pub at the slightest provocation, I wonder if the commander didn’t have the public’s rather than his men’s interests at the front of his mind.

Defence minister Des Browne is doing his utmost to protect his men from verbal slurs will all due ‘urgency’. Whether this involves body armour and if Des can get it into theatre in a timely manner before someone is hurt or killed isn’t clear.

(See Philip as well.)

This can’t be right. RAF servicemen are being abused in the street because of the Iraq war? That’s bollocks. As we’ve been told time and time again, Iraq is not an excuse for anything. The roots go much deeper.

The armed forces should make how to behave in a pub part of basic training. I bet you’d half this public abuse overnight.

Like the Chardonnay Chap over at Aaronovitch Watch, I wish I’d written this:

If Bush had spent that $3,000,000,000,000 on shoes, no American child would ever have to wear the same shoes more than once. Or he could have bought everyone in Iraq an Aston Martin. Those would be the actions of a madman, of course, yet still more sensible than what he actually did do.

“You are two fools,” I answered. “You’ll be turned back at the Frontier or cut up the minute you set foot in Afghanistan. Do you want any money or a recommendation down-country? I can help you to the chance of work next week.”

“Next week we shall be hard at work ourselves, thank you,” said Murdoch. “It isn’t so easy being a King as it looks. When we’ve got our Kingdom in going order we’ll let you know, and you can come up and help us to govern it.”

“Would two lunatics make a Contrack like that!” said Windsor, with subdued pride, showing me a greasy half-sheet of note-paper on which was written the D-Notice. I copied it, then and there, as a curiosity:—

This Contract between me and you persuing witnesseth in the name of God — Amen and so forth.

Signed by you and me this day.
Henry Charles Albert David Windsor.
Rupert Murdoch.
Both Gentlemen at Large.

“There was no need for the last article,” said Windsor, blushing modestly; “but it looks regular. Now you know the sort of men that loafers are — we are loafers, Rupe, until we get out of England — and do you think that we could sign a Contrack like that unless we was in earnest?”

“You won’t enjoy your lives much longer if you are going to try this idiotic adventure. Don’t set the place on fire,” I said, “and go away before nine o’clock.”

“Good-by,” said Murdoch, giving me his hand cautiously. “It’s the last time we’ll shake hands with an Englishman these many days. Shake hands with him, Windsor,” he cried.

Windsor shook hands. My eye could detect no failure in the disguises. There was just the chance, therefore, that Windsor and Murdoch would be able to wander through Afghanistan without detection.

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There is much to say about the tawdry stunt of Prince Harry in Afghanistan. That the MoD should gleefully leap on the opportunity to produce such revolting propaganda is only to be expected.

That the media, after all this time and all it should have learned, lapped it up like a dog returning to its own vomit, should be more surprising but isn’t really. There’s a twinge of sympathy for the Prince, I suppose - he’s a puppet in all this. But then that was the role allotted to him at birth and he’ll be one until he dies.

You think he’d be aware of that by now. The fact that he says that he needed to go to Afghanistan and call in air-strikes in order to feel ‘normal’ would suggest not. The way this has been choreographed down to the minutest detail I’m amazed we’re not seeing photographs of the less-than-private shits Harry boasts he’s been taking over the last ten weeks. Fancy that, a member of the royal family needing to defecate! Lawks! I fort that kind of fing was only for the loiks of me and you, Mary Parpins.

Anyway, Marina Hyde in the Guardian says it all better:

On the one hand, it was nice to see Prince Harry in a British army uniform, as opposed to one of Hitler’s. It’s a little bit like Pokemon, really. I’m hoping he’ll give us a highly collectible Hutu warrior snap soon. Gotta catch ‘em all! On the other, is there anyone over Pokemon-playing age who believes it was really worth it? The sheer number of man-hours and money lavished on allowing one young man to experience job satisfaction is mind-boggling. It has to be the most fatuous use of Ministry of Defence resources since Geoff Hoon.

According to the executive director of the Society of Editors, who helped establish the controversial media blackout, it was not designed to mislead readers and viewers but to ultimately give them “a deeper insight into a new side of Prince Harry”. But how completely intriguing. And yet, is he basically still a fairly dim, fairly affable chap, you might ask? It would appear so. But he’s being fairly dim and fairly affable in Afghanistan. Or rather, he was until the news broke, at which point a detailed, prearranged plan to get him out - how many logistical brains are wasted on this nonsense? - was mobilised. So at least we have an exit strategy for Prince Harry, if not for the actual war.

Wouldn’t it have been cheaper and caused less damage to the psychological well-being of the nation to just give him an X-Box and a copy of ‘Call of Duty’?

I like it that Internet hack Matt Drudge got his Prince Harry in Afghanistan ’scoop’ from Australian supermarket rag, New Idea.

He’s moved on from the literally soiled goods of Monica Lewinsky’s dress to the literary soiled goods of second hand stories.

Thanks to the government, we now know that Ben Griffin is no lone fantasist howling at the moon:

A former SAS soldier was served with a high court order yesterday preventing him from making fresh disclosures about how hundreds of Iraqis and Afghans captured by British and American special forces were rendered to prisons where they faced torture.

Ben Griffin could be jailed if he makes further disclosures about how people seized by special forces were allegedly mistreated and ended up in secret prisons in breach of the Geneva conventions and international law. Griffin, 29, left the British army in 2005 after three months in Baghdad, saying he disagreed with the “illegal” tactics of US troops.

I think we can be certain he was telling the truth. Why gag him if what he was saying was rubbish? If that were the case surely sending out some obsequious, ambitious and morally-compromised minor functionary to smear him - as is usually the done thing - would have served.

The Ministry of Defence said it did not comment on special forces’ activities.

Sorry guys, but you just did. And how.

We now know that every utterance and mention of Ben Griffin is worth the closest scrutiny. Get yourself a Google News Alert. The speech Griffin made on Monday is reproduced below.

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