Where Nobody Is Accountable

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/22920

Where Nobody Is Accountable
Submitted by davidswanson on Fri, 2007-05-25 13:31. Activism

By Ali al-Fadhily, Inter Press Service
http://dahrjamailiraq.com

BAGHDAD, May 21 (IPS) - Killings, crime, lack of medical care, collapse of education, the list goes on. But with the occupation by U.S.-led forces now into a fifth year, and a supposedly democratic government in place, no one knows who to hold accountable for all that is going wrong.

It is the occupation forces, particularly the United States and Britain, that must be held accountable, many Iraqis say.

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The lack of accountability appears now to be leading to greater support for armed resistance against occupation forces.

"What accountability are you talking about, sir," said Abu Jassim from Fallujah, who lost four members of his family when a U.S. bomb destroyed his home during the first U.S. offensive in the city in April 2004. "Americans are criminals, and the whole world is covering up for their crimes." They will be held accountable, he said, by "Allah" and by "the heroes of the Iraqi resistance."

Iraqis are also angry over destruction of their civilian infrastructure, for which no one has been held responsible.

"The U.S. crime of deliberately crushing Iraqi infrastructure must be looked at as a crime against humanity," chief engineer Jalal Abdulla at Baghdad's Ministry of Electricity told IPS. "They did not have to do this to support their military effort, but they did it just to cause hundreds of thousands of deaths for no reason but cruelty."

Others vent their frustration against what they see as an impotent United Nations. "The UN should be the place for asking those Americans why they committed so many crimes in Iraq," said Baghdad resident Malik Hammad.


(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region)

:cry: