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14-6-2003 Scotsman Vanished into thin air By GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN IT IS eight weeks since Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister, gave himself up to United States forces in Baghdad. A powerful man, he was a familiar face in the corridors of power around the globe, one of the few Iraqi leaders whose name was as well known outside his own country as inside. But since he surrendered on 24 April, Aziz has disappeared. He is not alone. Out of a list of 55 of Iraq's most wanted senior figures published by the US defence department, 29 were in custody as of yesterday. They have also vanished from public view. Ask where they are being held, in what conditions or what will happen to them and the shutters come down. The Foreign Office, in London, is extremely reluctant to say anything about what is happening to Aziz or any of the others. The Americans are equally vague. And so keen are the coalition to avoid talking about the subject that they have told the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) not to talk about the subject either. All that organisation can say is that staff have visited several hundred prisoners in and around Baghdad, including some of those on the list of Iraq's most-wanted. They probably shouldn't even have said that. In effect, 29 of the most significant people in Saddam Hussein's regime have been cut off from the outside world while intelligence officers attempt to persuade them to divulge what they know about the workings of the old dictatorship. There has been much speculation about where they might have been taken, but the truth is that most are still in Baghdad, held in US custody while the coalition tries to work out what to do with them next. Despite a lot of positive noises coming out of Washington about the intelligence value of those in custody, they do not appear to be making much progress. Aziz, for example, was the man the US hoped would lead them to Saddam and the weapons of mass destruction. He was the man who could spill the beans on the Iraqi regime's innermost secrets. When he surrendered, there was talk of deals having been done, maybe in exchange for a new identity. If that is the case, it is taking a very long time. His family are apparently in Jordan, but according to Bill Rammell, the parliamentary under-secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs, Aziz is in Baghdad. Answering a question from Tam Dalyell MP in an evening debate on 4 June, he professed himself "extremely grateful" for the chance to shed light on the mystery of the missing prisoners. Referring to a written answer from Mike O'Brien, the Foreign Office minister, he noted that the "coalition partners have had the opportunity to interview Mr Aziz on a number of topics and this will continue". He was also able to state that Aziz remained in custody in Baghdad and that the ICRC had been notified and given access to the detention centre where Aziz and other detainees were being held. "We are trying to establish what medical treatment the detainees are receiving, but I can assure members that all prisoners of war are being treated in accordance with international law and the Geneva conventions," he added. Mr Dalyell, however, did not just want to know where Aziz was being held, but what was going to happen to him once coalition partners had run out of questions to ask. "It is too early to determine the nature of any criminal charges that Tariq Aziz and other Iraqi detainees might face," replied Mr Rammell. But it was not for the British government to bring those charges, he added. Instead, the coalition was hoping that the Iraqis themselves would take on the task of trying their former leaders. The rest of the answer provided an intriguing insight into the coalition's thinking. If Aziz and the others on the list thought that they might buy their freedom by surrendering and trying to cut a deal with their captors, they appeared to be out of luck. It was not victors' justice, insisted Mr Rammell, but - citing the discovery of mass graves - the Iraqi leaders most responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes should be brought to justice as soon as possible. "There are strong arguments for allowing the Iraqis themselves to bring to justice those who have committed crimes against them, and we will need to see what sort of investigative and trial processes they can adopt," he said. "Iraq will need international help to rehabilitate its justice system, and we are willing to play a part, together with our coalition partners, in achieving that end." All of which offers some small insight into the fate of the big guns of the Saddam regime, but no fine detail. Whether they are being kept under some form of house arrest in one of their old leader's many palaces - as has been suggested in some quarters - or whether they are firmly under lock and key in a Guantanamo Bay-style detention centre is not a subject anyone wishes to address. Amnesty International is concerned that they have been given no access to lawyers and the Red Cross. An ICRC spokeswoman in the Middle East, Tamara al Rifai, could only confirm that staff had been in to a number of detention centres in Iraq. "We have been visiting detention centres in and around Baghdad and we have seen around 1,000 people, some of them on the American list of the most-wanted," she said. Of the senior figures from the regime, the only one she knew of who had been released from custody was the minister of health. The US department of defence is equally coy about the fate of Aziz and his fellow prisoners. "We don't have much info on that," said a spokesman yesterday. However, he was keen to stress that the quest for the remaining fugitives was going well and they were having some success with their attempts to debrief those already in custody. "We're making progress every day," he confirmed. But the coalition does appear far readier to throw open the cell doors for those further down the Iraqi pecking order. According to the US spokesman, out of about 8,000 people taken into custody since the start of the war, about 7,000 have since been released. Demonstrating an endearing faith in human nature, their US captors agreed to set them free if they agreed to sign a contract in which they promised not to take up arms again against coalition forces. The spokesman said many had complimented their US captors on the quality of the food they received while in custody and on the general conditions in which they were kept. Whether that bonhomie continued after their release, however, is unclear. The fighting of the past days has indicated that there are still those in Iraq who remain loyal to the old regime and the presence in the country of thousands of prisoners released by Saddam on the eve of the war has further complicated the already fragile security situation, prompting the US to start rearresting some of those who were released under the amnesty. And just as big a problem is the failure to locate the really big players still at large. The coalition may have the likes of Mr Aziz, Abd al Tawab Mullah Huwaysh - the man credited with control of the weapons of mass destruction programmes, and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, better known as Chemical Sally, but no-one on the coalition side appears to have any idea where Saddam himself might be. Dead, say the optimists; fatally injured in the first strike of the war. Alive, says Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi, who recently claimed that the deposed Iraqi leader had been seen moving around the area north of Baghdad offering loyal troops bounties to attack US soldiers.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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