The 417 Compensations Settled by UK Are Insufficient to Redress the War Crimes Against Iraqi Civilians

The Guardian newspaper reported that the UK Ministry of Defense has settled 417 Iraq compensation claims without making any official announcement about it.

The Ministry of Defense paid out several million pounds to compensate the Iraqi victims who endured severe human rights violations from the British soldiers during the years of the UK military operations in Iraq, ending in 2011. 

The abuse forms against the Iraqi detainees included cruel and inhumane treatment, arbitrary detention and assault.

In an interview with Al-Estiklal, the Iraqi political writer Nadhir Kandory pointed out: “The number of cases filed against the British army is not commensurate with the size of the large violations that took place in Iraq against Iraqi civilians.” 

He added, “The reason for this gap is because many Iraqis who were subjected to these violations or their families, do not have the ability to claim their rights in the British courts.”

Mustafa Kamil, editor-in-chief of Viewpoints newspaper told Al-Estiklal that none of the Iraqi households has spared the British-American war’s severe consequences. He emphasized that the Iraqis were subjected to direct crimes, in the form of torture, rape, imprisonment, killing, destruction of property and displacement.

 

Cruel Violations

The decision of the UK Supreme Court concluded that violations of the Geneva Conventions and human rights laws had been committed against Iraqi civilians during the US–British led invasion of Iraq.

Sabana Malik, member of the law firm claiming the Iraqi victims’ rights confirmed to BBC that it is essential that those who have been wronged by the British government, whether at home or abroad should be able to seek justice and redress the situation. Their ability to do so in the UK courts is not a targeted campaign against British people, but a test of the strength of our democracy. 

The Guardian pointed out that: “Many of the fresh claims also involve hooding—where a sandbag or other hood is thrown over the head of a detainee. The practice was banned in 1972.” 

The newspaper elucidated that the unlawful detention and beating by one or more implements, probably with rifle butts, were also part of the abusive treatments suffered from the victims.

A statement from the legal team, "Lee Die Sollister," stressed that the ill-treatment included soldiers taking turns trampling on the backs of detainees and covering their heads for periods of time.

The Iraqi analyst Nadhir Kandory explained that the British Middle East Eye report stated that 75% of the cases filed by Iraqis were subjected to inhuman treatment, during interrogations carried out by British army investigators. Thus, confirming that these violations, torture and deliberate humiliation were not the result of military operations, but were deliberate practices to humiliate Iraqis without any reason.

 

Disregarded Rights

British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace announced that the agency responsible for the independent investigation, which has seen 1,291 allegations since July 2017, has "officially closed its doors." The minister attributed the lack of investigations to the lack of evidence required against the backdrop of the difficult circumstances that accompanied these accusations.

He added, "In some cases, the difficult conditions on the battlefield caused not to obtain all the required evidence, and therefore the chances of holding those responsible to account were lost."

Mr.Mustafa Kamil, emphasized that there are very rare and almost insignificant cases that were presented before American or British military courts. Yet, the penalties were non severe at all, such as preventing the soldiers from promotion or expulsion from military service and possibly imprisonment for a few years, and these penalties do not match the size of the crime committed by those concerned. Most of the penalties are subject to premeditated murder.

He continued: “the American and British courts have refrained from accepting many of the cases submitted by Iraqi or foreign lawyers. Furthermore, even what they accepted to consider was formally rejected from a legal point of view, either for lack of evidence as alleged, or for the lack of jurisdiction of the concerned court, or for other reasons inconsistent with the law.”

 

War Crimes

The Guardian stated that: “there is no prospect of any criminal action following the 417 civil settlements, after several years of often politically charged debate about the conduct of British soldiers in Iraq.”

The British Middle East Eye pointed out “The UK government has attempted to bring forward legislation in an attempt to prevent military officials being prosecuted for war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and other conflicts.”

The newspaper added, “However, campaigning from human rights activists forced the government to drop plans to protect soldiers from prosecution in April.”

Mr. Nadhir expressed that there are clear evidence of the UK’s recognition of the illegality of war in Iraq. its judgment that it was a fruitless war waged against the Iraqi people and not against the Iraqi regime, which could have been eliminated by helping the Iraqis revolt against it, and not as the American and British army did, which destroyed Iraq under the pretext of overthrowing the dictatorial regime.

For another side, Mr Kamil believes that it is necessary for the lawsuits to be of a criminal nature. The crimes were not only committed against Iraqi individuals, but rather they were committed against the Iraqi people. The calls for the illegality of the war launched by the United States and Britain against Iraq, and the imposition of compensation in favor of the Iraqi people for all the crimes committed against Iraq and Iraqis and against the infrastructure of this country, and the bad effects of that invasion.

He ironically added if this is related to the British army, which contributed to the process of the invasion of Iraq, but did not stay long in it, then how would it be if we wanted to activate the war crimes committed by the United States army, which until now still maintains military forces in it?

 

Iraqi Government Action Required

Mostafa Kamil emphasized that the most important thing in this regard is that even though the Iraqi diplomacy in 2003 was unable to prevent the American and British invasion because the decision in this regard was already taken and on the way to implementation, it prevented Washington and London from obtaining a cover legalizing the invasion and occupation. 

He added: “The American and the British governments were unable to obtain an international resolution that allows aggression against Iraq, which means that Iraq's legal rights as a result of the invasion and occupation will not be lost if there is a national government in Iraq that demands the rights of its people.”

Nadhir concluded by saying that: ​"​If there was a serious dealing with these issues, or if those who were subjected to these violations or their families can be supported by the current Iraqi government to facilitate the filing of lawsuits against the British army, we would expect a greater number of lawsuits against the British army."