27 February 2003
Iraqi Human Shields Policy Puts Civilians at Risk
(Official says military bunker stands on top of orphanage) (1100) By Jacquelyn S. Porth Washington File Security Affairs Writer A senior Defense Department official says the U.S. military will seek to minimize civilian casualties and infrastructure damage if there is war in Iraq, unlike the strategy of the Iraqi regime which has routinely placed its military equipment in and around "parks, mosques, hospitals, hotels, crowded shopping districts and even cemeteries." During the past 10 years, the official said, the Iraqi government has put innocent civilians and its cultural and religious heritage at risk "all in violation of the fundamental principle that civilians and civilian objects must be protected in wartime." He told reporters at the Washington-based Foreign Press Center February 27 that recent intelligence reporting indicates that the Iraqi regime has built a command-and-control center below an orphanage housing more than a thousand orphans. As another example of how the Iraqis are conducting a countertargeting strategy designed to invite an attack by coalition forces on a civilian target, he said Iraqi anti-aircraft weapons have been placed on the roof of the Ministry of Media in Baghdad, which is reportedly home to the Iraqi media. Countertargeting can be used to thwart an adversary's military operations on the ground and in the air, or even to impede the work of U.N. weapons inspectors, the official said. The official, who briefed on condition that he not be identified, said countertargeting efforts are not unique to Iraq; the Serbs used the tactic effectively during the Kosovo conflict by disseminating misleading reports about the full extent of civilian deaths and infrastructure damage. Countertargeting, whether in Kosovo, Iraq or elsewhere, may have the desired effect of deterring strikes, degrading the effectiveness of coalition strikes, or preventing fast, efficient dismantling of an adversary's military assets and capabilities, "thereby slowing down an air campaign and stopping the coalition from achieving their aims quickly," he said. In Iraq's case, the official said, the objective of these activities is to preserve Iraq's military strength and create an incident whereby innocents are killed in order to "discredit" the coalition effort. The official said there are different kinds of "human shields" being used by the Iraqi regime to achieve its goals. There are the foreign volunteers who just entered the country and are being offered lodging and stocked refrigerators. Some of them, he said, have been sent to locations which were ostensibly civilian in nature, but then balked at their assignment when they spotted military units stationed nearby. He also said some Iraqi citizens are being offered food and a place to stay in exchange for moving to specific locations. During Operation Desert Storm, the Iraqi regime was criticized in the news media when it moved foreign national "guests" around the country, and the guests were actually oil field workers and other foreigners who has been seized and held hostage. Prisoners of war were also moved to strategic sites near military targets in civilian centers. He pointed out that these actions violate the Law of Armed Conflict under the 1949 Geneva Convention which prohibits manipulating and using "human shields" in this way. Asked how many civilians might die in any new conflict from such an Iraqi strategy, the official suggested there would likely be a high number of casualties, perhaps, numbering in the thousands. There is no escaping civilian deaths in time of war, he said, but Iraq's policy of putting noncombatants at risk "certainly exacerbates the problem." He also pointed out that U.S. and coalition forces comply with the Law of Armed Conflict and seek to avoid striking civilian facilities, such as mosques which are clearly prohibited targets. Saddam Hussein, on the other hand, views civilian facilities "as excellent deceptive sanctuaries," he added. During the Persian Gulf war, Iraq carefully removed the dome of an Iraqi mosque "to simulate bomb damage," according to briefings at the Defense Department and the Foreign Press Center on February 26 and February 27, respectively. Slides which were shown during the briefings indicate that the Iraqis bulldozed some rubble "to create the false impression that a coalition bomb had struck the al-Basrah mosque (see: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2003/g030226-D-9085M.html). The point, the official said, was "to embarrass the coalition military and foment a storm of international protest." Asked by a reporter from Finland if new smart weapons might aid in avoiding civilian casualties, the official answered: "Absolutely." But he also acknowledged that it is impossible to prevent accidents from occurring. In the event of war, the official predicted that the Iraqi regime would deliberately create "a fog of confusion." He recalled that this happened when a coalition aircraft struck the al-Firdus structure in Baghdad in February 1991. It was targeted because it had been identified as a military command-and-control center, and, in fact, the official said, it had been rumored that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had visited the facility about an hour before it was attacked. But the structure was also being used as a civilian air shelter and some 300 women and children were unknowingly killed at the same time. A new report about Iraq's use of human shields produced by the U.S. intelligence community says that the facility may have been "a two-level, dual-use facility, with a military center built below a civilian bomb shelter." It also states that some foreign military analysts believe that the bunker may have been used "as a civilian shelter for the families of Iraqi military officers and government officials." The full text of the document, entitled "Putting Noncombatants at Risk: Saddam's Use of 'Human Shields'" is available on the Web at http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/iraq_human_shields/index.html During the two briefings and in the report, itself, there are black-and-white photographs depicting Iraqi MiG-25 combat aircraft parked during Operation Desert Storm beside an historical tower, Ur Ziggurat near Tallil. What is noteworthy, however, is that there are no nearby airfields to land the aircraft. Coalition aircraft did not take the bait and strike the 4,000-year-old archeological site, which the official described as "a cultural treasure." More current examples of Iraq's policy of countertargeting are available. The official said the Iraqis have built new military revetments for armored vehicles near an international food distribution warehouse and civilian housing. The report also quotes a December 22 press account that a senior Iraqi Ba'th Party member said a number of Arab volunteers would be sent to "sensitive sites likely to be targeted in U.S. strikes." (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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