I have to say I look forward to antiwar folks heading to Iraq to serve as human shields. Not because I want them to suffer casulties. I just have this idea that if they spent enough time there they'd look around them enough to realize just what kind of regime they're defending. Course, I suspect they'll be assigned govt handlers over there and have limited if any contact with normal Iraqis. That's how journalists are handled:
* Foreign journalists must work from offices located within the Iraqi ministry building and are accompanied everywhere they go by ministry officers, who reportedly restrict their movements and make it impossible for them to interact freely with citizens.
A few excerpts from The Case of the US vs Iraq:
arabicnews.com;
* Former Mukhabarat member Khalid Al-Janabi reported that a Mukhabarat unit, the Technical Operations Directorate, used rape and sexual assault in a systematic and institutionalized manner for political purposes. The unit reportedly also videotaped the rape of female relatives of suspected oppositionists and used the videotapes for blackmail purposes and to ensure their future cooperation.
* In June 2000, a former Iraqi general reportedly received a videotape of security forces raping a female family member. He subsequently received a telephone call from an intelligence agent who stated that another female relative was being held and warned him to stop speaking out against the Iraqi Government.
* In May, the Iraqi Government reportedly tortured to death the mother of three Iraqi defectors for her children's opposition activities.
* Iraqi security agents reportedly decapitated numerous women and men in front of their family members. According to Amnesty International, the victims' heads were displayed in front of their homes for several days.
* Iraqi security services routinely and systematically torture detainees. According to former prisoners, torture techniques included branding, electric shocks administered to the genitals and other areas, beating, pulling out of fingernails, burning with hot irons and blowtorches, suspension from rotating ceiling fans, dripping acid on the skin, rape, breaking of limbs, denial of food and water, extended solitary confinement in dark and extremely small compartments, and threats to rape or otherwise harm family members and relatives. Evidence of such torture often was apparent when security forces returned the mutilated bodies of torture victims to their families.
* In 2000, the authorities reportedly introduced tongue amputation as a punishment for persons who criticize Saddam Hussein or his family, and on July 17, government authorities reportedly amputated the tongue of a person who allegedly criticized Saddam Hussein. Authorities reportedly performed the amputation in front of a large crowd. Similar tongue amputations also reportedly occurred.
* Refugees fleeing to Europe often reported instances of torture to receiving governments, and displayed scars and mutilations to substantiate their claims.
* In August 2001 Amnesty International released a report entitled Iraq -- Systematic Torture of Political Prisoners, which detailed the systematic and routine use of torture against suspected political opponents and, occasionally, other prisoners. Amnesty International also reports "Detainees have also been threatened with bringing in a female relative, especially the wife or the mother, and raping her in front of the detainee. Some of these threats have been carried out."
* Saad Keis Naoman, an Iraqi soccer player who defected to Europe, reported that he and his teammates were beaten and humiliated at the order of Uday Saddam Hussein for poor performances. He was flogged until his back was bloody, forcing him to sleep on his stomach in the tiny cell in Al-Radwaniya prison.
* Former UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur Max Van der Stoel's report in April 1998 stated that Iraq had executed at least 1,500 people during the previous year for political reasons.
* The government continues to execute summarily alleged political opponents and leaders in the Shi'a religious community. Reports suggest that persons were executed merely because of their association with an opposition group or as part of a continuing effort to reduce prison populations.
* In June 2001, security forces killed a Shi'a cleric, Hussein Bahar al-Uloom, for refusing to appear on television to congratulate Qusay Saddam Hussein for his election to a Ba'th Party position. Such killings continue an apparent government policy of eliminating prominent Shi'a clerics who are suspected of disloyalty to the government. In 1998 and 1999, the Government killed a number of leading Shi'a clerics, prompting the former Special Rapporteur in 1999 to express his concern to the government that the killings might be part of a systematic attack by government officials on the independent leadership of the Shi'a Muslim community. The government did not respond to the Special Rapporteur's letter.
* There are persistent reports that families are made to pay for the cost of executions.
* Saddam Hussein destroyed the southern Iraqi town of Albu 'Aysh sometime between September 1998 and December 1999.
* Iraq has conducted a systematic "Arabization" campaign of ethnic cleansing designed to harass and expel ethnic Kurds and Turkmen from government-controlled areas. Non-Arab citizens are forced to change their ethnicity or their identity documents and adopt Arab names, or they are deprived of their homes, property and food-ration cards, and expelled.
* Iraq often announces food ration cuts for the general population, blaming US or UK actions. Among the most controversial have been cuts in baby milk rations. Iraq has blamed the shortages on US and UK contract rejections, although the UN has approved all baby milk contracts submitted.
* There are widespread reports that food and medicine that could have been made available to the general public, including children, have been stockpiled in warehouses or diverted for the personal use of some government officials.
* Amnesty International reported that Iraq has the world's worst record for numbers of persons who have disappeared or remain unaccounted for.
* In 1999, the UN Special Rapporteur stated that Iraq remains the country with the highest number of disappearances known to the UN: over 16,000.
* In practice, Saddam Hussein does not permit freedom of speech or of the press, and does not tolerate political dissent in areas under its control. In November 2000, the UN General Assembly criticized Saddam Hussein's "suppression of freedom of thought, expression, information, association, and assembly." The Special Rapporteur stated in October 1999 that citizens lived "in a climate of fear," in which whatever they said or did, particularly in the area of politics, involved "the risk of arrest and interrogation by the police or military intelligence." He noted that "the mere suggestion that someone is not a supporter of the President carries the prospect of the death penalty."
* In June 2001, the Human Rights Alliance reported that Saddam Hussein had killed more than 500 journalists and other intellectuals in the past decade.
* In September 1999, Hashem Hasan, a journalist and Baghdad University professor, was arrested after declining an appointment as editor of one of Uday Hussein's publications. The Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) sent a letter of appeal to Uday Hussein; however, Hassan's fate and whereabouts remained unknown at year's end.
* The Iraqi government has for decades conducted a brutal campaign of murder, summary execution, and protracted arbitrary arrest against the religious leaders and followers of the majority Shi'a Muslim population. Despite nominal legal protection of religious equality, the Government has repressed severely the Shi'a clergy and those who follow the Shi'a faith.
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