UN accuses USA, UK of violating Geneva Convention
Downing Street today called for the media to take a “reality check” before claiming that anarchy had descended on the streets of Baghdad.
The prime minister’s official spokesman was responding to claims from the UN that the UK and US were failing the Geneva convention by failing to control looting in Iraq.
Asked when calm might return to the streets of Baghdad, Mr Blair’s spokesman said: "I think it’s important to have a bit of a reality check here. Without condoning what’s happening, let us at least try and understand it.
"We are actually seeing here a pattern that’s been played out in other countries where a repressive regime has fallen.
"We saw a similar mixture in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, but initial disorder does give way to stability and that’s what’s happened in Basra.
"The situation there is now calm. We believe that model will work throughout Baghdad. Let’s also understand that in the main this anger and disorder is being directed against the regime and symbols of the regime that has brutalised its people in a systematic way, a regime which has kept itself rich while keeping its people poor.
"The action against some of the hospitals in Baghdad is being directed at those hospitals which were the preserve of the elite of the regime.
“Clearly there is an issue about how that is dealt with and what everybody wants is to get to a situation where these hospitals are functioning on behalf of all the people of Baghdad.”
The spokesman went on: "Efforts will clearly be made to do what we can to ensure that hospitals function as well as possible.
"This is something that the coalition is very mindful of. We are still aware of the challenges and the importance of this issue.
“But I think to lurch, as some people appear to have done, into the idea that the situation in Baghdad is worse than it was before the coalition arrived is to try to revise the history of one of the most brutal regimes we have seen in the 20th century.”
Earlier, the UN office of the humanitarian coordinator for Iraq (UNOHCI) said one of Baghdad’s biggest hospitals, al-Kindi, had been ransacked and access to medical centres was almost impossible because of the “breakdown of law and order”.
And this morning the international development secretary, Clare Short, called on the military to make a “massively bigger effort” to end looting and chaos in Iraq.
Hospitals have been ransacked as the jubilation which marked coalition victories has turned to lawlessness.
“The coalition forces seem to be unable to restrain the looters or impose any sort of controls on the mobs that now govern the streets,” the UNOHCI said in a statement.
“This inaction by the occupying powers is in violation of the Geneva conventions, which explicitly state that medical establishments must be protected, that the wounded and sick must be the object of particular protection and respect, and that hospital personnel must be protected and must be free to carry on their duties.”
It added: “This situation not only endangers the lives of the war wounded, but of all patients who need regular treatment, such as dialysis in city’s hospitals.”
The organisation, which has no personnel in Iraq, said it was given an assessment of the situation in Baghdad yesterday by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) who has a media liaison officer in the capital.
“The picture he painted over the phone can be summed up in two words: anarchy and chaos. There is no law and no order at the moment in Baghdad,” said the UNOHCI.
But despite the bleak picture the ICRC has resumed its visits to hospitals in Baghdad saying the security situation was still “volatile”.
A UNOHCI spokeswoman based in the Jordanian capital Amman said as soon as it could guarantee the security of its staff it would be sending humanitarian aid into Iraq.
Ms Short, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, said that “there must be a much bigger effort to stop this looting and violence”.
She said: "We had looting in Basra, but it is a lot better in Basra now. But we need a massively bigger effort.
“It should focus on hospitals. There were lots of injured people. The Red Cross can’t get through. There isn’t water, there isn’t power, they are running out of drugs. It is an absolute priority to make the hospitals safer.”
Ms Short agreed it was “politically unsustainable” to say the Iraqi capital had been liberated when people were looting heart monitoring machines from hospitals.
“I think everyone understands that. Our chief of the defence staff has been in touch with General Franks to secure the Red Cross compound and now they will be talking more about these issues,” she said.
“Obviously chaos feeds on itself and is a very ugly thing and this is the top priority now.”
Ms Short has gone back on a pledge to quit the cabinet if Britain went to war without a further UN resolution.
She repeatedly refused to say whether the war had been a price worth paying today, dismissing the question as not “interesting or important or useful”.
Ms Short indicated she accepted collective responsibility as “a member of the daily cabinet, we are working together”.
However, she added: “All human beings have different stresses in their priorities and mine is the humanitarian and the reconstruction.”
And asked again whether she agreed the war was justified, she added: "I agree we are where we are and all good people should be united in the way I described [to rebuild Iraq].
“Honestly I don’t think that is interesting or important or useful. What we should all do, as I have made clear, is unite around what needs to be done.”
Typical of the USA - violating treaties that it signs. At least before, the Bush administration tried to pull of of treaties before attempting to break them (environmental and START treaties).
This time, Bush had sunk to a new low, clearly violating the Geneva Conventions without first attempting to declare the USA free from having to abide by them.
And now Bush’s occupation forces are dragging the UK down to the level of the USA…