Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Media: Reuters
Byline: n/a
Date: 30 September 2006
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States may cut off funding for Iraq's police
because of its failure to punish people responsible for torture, the U.S.
ambassador to Iraq said in an interview published on Saturday.
Zalmay Khalilzad told the New York Times that Washington has yet to formally
notify Baghdad that funding may be cut, but officials are reviewing programs
because of a U.S. law that forbids funding armies or police that violate
human rights.
Khalilzad said he still had faith in Iraq's new Interior Minister Jawad
al-Bolani, who oversees the police, and hoped he would punish those
responsible for torture to avoid sanctions under the law, named for
Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy.
"There is a Leahy Law that affects support if the terms of the law are not
observed and implemented, and he has assured us that he will do so,"
Khalilzad said. "And we are still in discussions with him."
The United Nations said in a report earlier this month that torture was
rampant in Iraqi detention centers and in the widespread sectarian killings
seen across the country, based on the signs of abuse on victims' bodies.
The world body has demanded punishment of police responsible for abuse in
Iraq after U.S. and Iraqi inspectors uncovered evidence in May of systematic
torture at a prison known as Site 4, run by the Interior Ministry's national
police.
Some 1,400 inmates were kept at the site. No Iraqi officials have been
arrested. Khalilzad said Bolani was waiting for written assurances that
indictments had been handed down.
Several senior U.S. military officials have briefed reporters this week
expressing concern that the new government of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki has failed to crack down on Shi'ite death squads since taking
office in May.
One of those officials said police units were continuing to cooperate with
death squads as recently as the past few weeks, by allowing them to re-enter
areas U.S. forces had secured in a seven-week-old crackdown in the capital
Baghdad.
Bolani, a Shi'ite engineer, is seen as having little clout among the
powerful parties with their own militia that controlled the Interior
Ministry in the government Maliki replaced. But Khalilzad said Bolani has
the right intentions.
"He wants to do the right thing," he said.
"Not because of us, but because that's what Iraqi law would require him to
do as well. That's a much better reason for him to do the right thing than
for the U.S. pressing him or the U.S. threatening with some sort of a
sanction."
Byline: n/a
Date: 30 September 2006
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States may cut off funding for Iraq's police
because of its failure to punish people responsible for torture, the U.S.
ambassador to Iraq said in an interview published on Saturday.
Zalmay Khalilzad told the New York Times that Washington has yet to formally
notify Baghdad that funding may be cut, but officials are reviewing programs
because of a U.S. law that forbids funding armies or police that violate
human rights.
Khalilzad said he still had faith in Iraq's new Interior Minister Jawad
al-Bolani, who oversees the police, and hoped he would punish those
responsible for torture to avoid sanctions under the law, named for
Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy.
"There is a Leahy Law that affects support if the terms of the law are not
observed and implemented, and he has assured us that he will do so,"
Khalilzad said. "And we are still in discussions with him."
The United Nations said in a report earlier this month that torture was
rampant in Iraqi detention centers and in the widespread sectarian killings
seen across the country, based on the signs of abuse on victims' bodies.
The world body has demanded punishment of police responsible for abuse in
Iraq after U.S. and Iraqi inspectors uncovered evidence in May of systematic
torture at a prison known as Site 4, run by the Interior Ministry's national
police.
Some 1,400 inmates were kept at the site. No Iraqi officials have been
arrested. Khalilzad said Bolani was waiting for written assurances that
indictments had been handed down.
Several senior U.S. military officials have briefed reporters this week
expressing concern that the new government of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki has failed to crack down on Shi'ite death squads since taking
office in May.
One of those officials said police units were continuing to cooperate with
death squads as recently as the past few weeks, by allowing them to re-enter
areas U.S. forces had secured in a seven-week-old crackdown in the capital
Baghdad.
Bolani, a Shi'ite engineer, is seen as having little clout among the
powerful parties with their own militia that controlled the Interior
Ministry in the government Maliki replaced. But Khalilzad said Bolani has
the right intentions.
"He wants to do the right thing," he said.
"Not because of us, but because that's what Iraqi law would require him to
do as well. That's a much better reason for him to do the right thing than
for the U.S. pressing him or the U.S. threatening with some sort of a
sanction."