BAGHDAD, Feb. 21 — The most wicked acts are spoken of openly and without reserve in Iraq. Torture, stabbings and bodies ripped to pieces in bombings are all part of the daily conversation.
Rape is different.
Rape is not mentioned by the victims, and rarely by the authorities. And when it is discussed publicly, as in several high-profile cases involving American soldiers and Iraqi women, it is usually left to the relatives of the victim to give the explicit details.
So when a 20-year-old Sunni woman from Baghdad appeared on the satellite television station Al Jazeera on Monday night with a horrific account of kidnapping and sexual assault at the hands of three officers in the Shiite-dominated Iraqi National Police, people across the country were stunned, some disbelieving, others horrified, but all riveted.
Almost immediately, Shiite leaders lined up to condemn the woman, calling her charges propaganda aimed at undermining the new security campaign. Sunni politicians offered the woman their support. Whatever the truth of the accusation, though, it played to sectarian fears on both sides.
For many Shiites, the charges appeared to be an attempt to smear them and attack the Shiite-led government; for Sunnis, the woman's account only highlighted what they already believed to be true — that the Iraqi government cares little for justice and promotes a Shiite agenda.
Bitter exchanges between politicians of various sects were relayed to millions on television, interspersed with clips of the woman telling her story, her face veiled, just the tears in her eyes visible.
Today, tensions over the matter remained high as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki ordered the dismissal of Sheikh Ahmad Abdul Ghafoor al-Samaraei, the head of the country's Sunni endowment, after Mr. Samaraei and other prominent Sunni politicians called for an investigation of the incident.
The Americans, who have advisers working with the Iraqi National Police, have found themselves caught in the middle without answers. The woman said the Americans had rescued her from the officers and gave her medical treatment. The American-backed, Shiite-led government said the Americans would show the woman's claims to be false.
The American military said only that it was investigating the charges.
That was also the first response of Mr. Maliki, who issued a statement soon after the woman appeared on television on Monday, promising a full investigation and the most severe punishment for anyone involved.
Only hours later, however, Mr. Maliki reversed himself. His office released a second statement after midnight, that one calling the woman a liar and a wanted criminal and going on to praise the officers involved.
"It has been shown after medical examinations that the woman had not been subjected to any sexual attack whatsoever, and that there are three outstanding arrest warrants against her issued by security agencies," said the second statement. "After the allegations have been proven to be false, the prime minister has ordered that the officers accused be rewarded."
The government did not elaborate on the statement or say why the prime minister had so quickly reversed himself. His office only said that "known parties" had been responsible for the allegations.
But in siding with the security forces, Mr. Maliki threatened to only heighten the tensions surrounding the already highly charged case. His government also released the woman's name, which is not being published by The New York Times.
Other Sunni politicians rushed to her defense as well, accusing the government of revealing its true sectarian bias.
The case "should not be dealt with on a sectarian basis," said Saleem Abdullah, a spokesman for the Tawafiq bloc of Sunni parties, which helped the woman come forward. "She is a sister for all Iraqis."
He went on to say the government's handling of the issue could undermine its credibility in directing the security crackdown.
With fears of violence pervasive throughout the country, many Iraqis stay inside their homes whenever they can. Satellite television is their connection to the outside world and, just as often, their own country. On the two most prominent channels, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, they would have heard the woman telling her story over and over.
If she made up the story, it was an elaborate piece of propaganda and the contradictory statements by the Iraqi government only added to its power.
The woman was lying on a bed as she was interviewed, a blue blanket pulled up nearly to her chin. She had a light pink scarf covering her hair and a black scarf covering her face.
She said she was taken from her house on Sunday morning by the National Police while her husband was out, something no one disputes. The officers, she said, were looking for weapons but when they arrived at the police garrison, they accused her of cooking for Sunni insurgents.
It was at the garrison that she says the first officer raped her, covering her mouth to muffle her screams. Others were in the room at the time.
"I begged one of them to get me out," she said. "He said, 'No, no. I will after you give me one thing.' " She asked what that was, and he told her he wanted to "get close to me." She said she was led into a small room with a bed and a machine gun against the wall. Another officer came in and told the first man to leave. "Leave her to me," the man said, according to her account.
"I swear on the Koran and the Prophet Muhammad, I am not that kind of woman," she said she told the officer. He repeated her words scornfully and beat her with a black water hose, she said.
"If we want something, we will take; and things we don't want, we will kill," the woman said she was told.
She said that the attack was videotaped and that she was told she would be killed if she told anyone about it.
A nurse who said she treated the woman after the attack said that she saw signs of sexual and physical assault. The woman, according to the nurse, could identify one of her attackers because he was not wearing a mask, as were the others, and could identify a second attacker by a mark on his genitals.
The nurse would speak only on the condition of anonymity because she feared that Shiite militiamen would kill her for speaking out. The nurse said she was also wanted by the authorities, who believed the clinic she works at was used by insurgents.
She said the clinic was simply for Sunnis in the Amil neighborhood who were too afraid to the visit the Shiite-run hospital.
In Amil, which has been almost totally cleared of Sunnis, people were outraged, but not surprised. The woman's charges seemed to confirm their worst fears that the security forces were little better than militias in uniform.
A spokeswoman for the American military here in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberle, confirmed that the woman had been detained by the Iraqi National Police on Sunday morning, but said that everything that happened after that was under investigation.
But a senior Iraqi official, speaking only on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen as critical of the Americans, said that he had alerted the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, on the day the woman made her allegations, cautioning him that if the case was not handled delicately, it could further inflame sectarian passions.
A spokesman for Mr. Khalilzad could not be reached.
The sectarian tensions further complicated an already delicate topic in Iraqi society.
The most high-profile rape cases since the American invasion four years ago have involved charges against American soldiers. And even in those cases, it was left to the relatives to speak publicly. Iraqis said they could not remember the case of a rape victim going on television.
Sabah Salem, a professor at the Baghdad University College of Law, said that while men were occasionally charged with rape in Iraq and punished, many cases went unreported.
"Rape cases in Iraq are viewed as a shameful thing to any woman regardless of the fact that she is the victim," he said in an interview.
The charges and countercharges occurred on yet another day of unrelenting violence in the capital, as two car bombs and a suicide bomber, in separate attacks, killed at least 17 people. One of the car bombs exploded in a neighborhood that was visited earlier in the day by Mr. Maliki, on a rare foray outside of the Green Zone.
North of Baghdad, a truck carrying chlorine exploded, killing nine people, The Associated Press reported. More than 150 others were made violently ill by the toxic fumes.
Damien Cave and Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed reporting.
<http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#117197686894037233> Tuesday, February 20, 2007 Maliki's Reaction...
As expected, Al Maliki is claiming the rape allegations are all lies. Apparently, his people simply asked the officers if they raped Sabrine Al Janabi and they said no. I'm so glad that's been cleared up.
"Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nouri al-Makiki moved quickly to try to defuse a scandal after a Sunni woman said she was raped by three officers of the Shiite-dominated police.
The government's response — siding with the officers and trying to discredit the allegations — threatened to bring even more backlash.
A statement by al-Makiki's office accused "certain parties" — presumably Sunni politicians — of fabricating the claims in an attempt to undermine security forces during the ongoing Baghdad security operation, which began last week. The statement was issued only hours after al-Maliki ordered an investigation into the case Monday night.
The 20-year-old married woman said she was assaulted after police commandos took her into custody Sunday in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Amil, accusing her of helping insurgents. She said she was taken to a police garrison and raped.
"It has been shown after medical examinations that the woman had not been subjected to any sexual attack whatsoever and that there are three outstanding arrest warrants against her issued by security agencies," the government statement said, without giving details.
"After the allegations have been proven to be false, the prime minister has ordered that the officers accused be rewarded," it said without elaborating."
I hate the media and I hate the Iraqi government for turning this atrocity into another Sunni-Shia debacle- like it matters whether Sabrine is Sunni or Shia or Arab or Kurd (the Al Janabi tribe is composed of both Sunnis and Shia). Maliki did not only turn the woman into a liar, he is rewarding the officers she accused. It's outrageous and maddening.
No Iraqi woman under the circumstances- under any circumstances- would publicly, falsely claim she was raped. There are just too many risks. There is the risk of being shunned socially. There is the risk of beginning an endless chain of retaliations and revenge killings between tribes. There is the shame of coming out publicly and talking about a subject so taboo, she and her husband are not only risking their reputations by telling this story, they are risking their lives.
No one would lie about something like this simply to undermine the Baghdad security operation. That can be done simply by calculating the dozens of dead this last week. Or by writing about the mass detentions of innocents, or how people are once again burying their valuables so that Iraqi and American troops don't steal them.
It was less than 14 hours between Sabrine's claims and Maliki's rewarding the people she accused. In 14 hours, Maliki not only established their innocence, but turned them into his own personal heroes. I wonder if Maliki would entrust the safety his own wife and daughter to these men.
This is meant to discourage other prisoners, especially women, from coming forward and making claims against Iraqi and American forces. Maliki is the stupidest man alive (well, after Bush of course…) if he believes his arrogance and callous handling of the situation will work to dismiss it from the minds of Iraqis. By doing what he is doing, he's making it more clear than ever that under his rule, under his government, vigilante justice is the only way to go. Why leave it to the security forces and police? Simply hire a militia or gang to get revenge. If he doesn't get some justice for her, her tribe will be forced to... And the Janabat (the Al Janabis) are a force to be reckoned with.
Maliki could at least pretend the rape of a young Iraqi woman is still an outrage in todays Iraq...
- posted by river @ 3:59 PM
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/22/world/middleeast/22confess.html> February 22, 2007 Soldier Weeps Describing Role in Rape and Killings in Iraq By REUTERS
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky., Feb 21 (Reuters) — A soldier broke down and wept at his court-martial here on Wednesday as he described how he and others had planned the rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, who was murdered along with her family.
Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, 24, was the second American soldier to plead guilty to raping the girl and killing her and her family in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, in March 2006, then burning the bodies to cover up the crime.
The confession, which he read, described how he, Specialist James P. Barker and Steven D. Green, a private who was later discharged after a psychiatric evaluation, had planned the attack.
"While we were playing cards Barker and Green started talking about having sex with an Iraqi female. Barker and Green had already known ..." Sergeant Cortez said before breaking down. He bowed his head and remained silent, sniffling occasionally, for a full minute before continuing.
"Barker and Green had already known what, um, house they wanted to go to. They had been there before and knew only one male was in the house, and knew it would be an easy target," he said.
The sergeant went on to describe how the men, before heading to the house, changed their clothes so they would not be recognized as American soldiers.
Once at the house, Private Green, the suspected ringleader, took the girl's mother, father and 7-year-old sister into a bedroom, Sergeant Cortez said, while he and Specialist Barker took the teenager to the living room, where they took turns raping her.
"She kept squirming and trying to keep her legs closed and saying stuff in Arabic," said Sergeant Cortez, who was flanked by his civilian and military lawyers.
He said that during the rape, "I hear five or six gunshots that came from the bedroom. After Barker was done, Green came out of the bedroom and said that he had killed them all, that all of them were dead," Sergeant Cortez said.
When he began crying again, one of his lawyers asked the court for a recess, which was granted.
Sergeant Cortez could face life in prison without possibility of parole for the rape and four counts of murder. In all, four soldiers as well as the former soldier, Mr. Green, were charged in the case, which outraged Iraqis and heightened tensions in the war zone. The infantrymen were members of Company B of the First Battalion, 502nd Infantry, 101st Airborne Division and were assigned to a checkpoint considered one of the most dangerous in Iraq.
Specialist Barker pleaded guilty in November and was sentenced to 90 years in a military prison. Mr. Green was discharged from the Army for a "personality disorder" and is in a Kentucky prison awaiting civilian trial.
Specialist Barker and Sergeant Cortez both avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty and are expected to testify against Mr. Green and others charged in the crime.
Sergeant Cortez also pleaded guilty to arson and breaking into the girl's house and to obstruction of justice for helping get rid of the murder weapon, an AK-47, which was thrown into a canal. In addition, he admitted to drinking whiskey before the attack, a violation of Army rules against alcohol in that area of Iraq.
The other soldiers charged in the case are Pvt. Jesse V. Spielman and Pvt. Bryan L. Howard. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>