BAGHDAD, Aug 29, (Agencies): Tens of thousands of people are still missing in the Gulf from Iraq’s past 30 years of warfare, with families still living in hope of news, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Sunday.
“The impact of wars is still being felt by people in the greater Gulf region years or even decades after the guns fell silent,” the ICRC said in a statement on the eve of the International Day of the Disappeared.
“Thousands are still hoping to receive news of their relatives who went missing in connection with the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war or the 1990-1991 Gulf War (over Kuwait), or after armed conflict broke out in Iraq in 2003,” it said.
The Iran-Iraq war is estimated to have cost one million lives on the two sides, while tens of thousands more Iraqis were killed in toppled dictator Saddam Hussein’s other two conflicts.
“Tens of thousands of soldiers who took part in the Iran-Iraq war, including some former prisoners of war, remain unaccounted for today,” said the ICRC, which organises exchanges of remains and provides DNA facilities.
“The families on both sides have been hoping to find out what happened to their loved ones during all these years. They have never given up hope.”
The international aid agency said it “renews its call upon governments in the region to pursue their efforts to provide information on the fate of people who went missing.
“It reminds the authorities on all sides of their commitment to fulfilling their obligations under international humanitarian law, clarifying the fate of all persons still unaccounted for and providing answers for the families.”
Iraq does not need more soldiers and police to wage war against insurgents as US combat operations end, a senior Iraqi security official said.
Instead, it needs better intelligence gathering and a way to stop countries intent on torpedoing Iraq’s nascent democracy from supporting Sunni Islamist insurgents linked to al-Qaeda, or Shiite militia, said Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed al-Khafaji.
“Whether the US troops are here or not, these groups will continue their operations because they are the hired guns of regional states with agendas, which want to sabotage democratic Iraq,” Khafaji told Reuters in an interview on Saturday.
“They come from known dictatorships. They have a single message — to kill Iraqis and scorch the earth they live on.”
The end to US combat operations on Tuesday and a fall in troops to 50,000 ahead of a full pullout in 2011 is a milestone in the 7-1/2 year war launched by ex-President George W. Bush.
President Barack Obama, whose Democratic party faces a war-weary public in Congressional elections in November, said on Saturday that scaling back the US military presence in Iraq meant he was fulfilling a promise to US voters to end the war.
Iraq would “chart its own course” now, Obama said.
Obama’s message this weekend that Iraq would “chart its own course” may have been welcome news for war-weary Americans, but it has fuelled anxieties about the future among Iraqis.
“The war is not ending. The war against terrorism continues here,” Nuri al-Moussawi, a 51-year-old Baghdad resident, said. Obama said on Saturday the end of US combat operations on Tuesday, and a fall in US troop numbers to 50,000, helped fulfil a promise he made during the 2008 presidential campaign to end the 7-1/2-year war launched by his predecessor, George W. Bush.
But the failure of Iraqi leaders to form a new government almost six months after elections, and persistent attacks by insurgents, have done little to instil confidence among Iraqis.
“The American withdrawal is hasty. The capabilities of our army have not been built yet,” Moussawi said.
Overall violence has fallen sharply since the peak of sectarian carnage in 2006/07. Nevertheless, like many Iraqis, Moussawi has little faith in the abilities of Iraq’s 660,000-strong police and army to protect the country.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s top customs official on Sunday said 90 percent of a multi-million dollar batch of US-purchased computers destined for schoolchildren but allegedly sold off on the cheap had been recovered.
The American military said on Friday that an unnamed senior official at Umm Qasr port had misappropriated the 1.9-million-dollar gift and auctioned the computers for only 45,700 dollars.
But customs chief Nofal Salim denied the claim, saying the sale was in accordance with a legal disposal procedure for all goods not claimed by the addressee 90 days after their arrival in Iraq.
“On May 19 we received a list from the port of Umm Qasr of containers arriving more than 90 days earlier and which had not been claimed,” Salim said.
“No container belonging to the American military appeared on the list.
“However, there were two belonging to a company named Global, although there was no indication that they were destined for the education authorities in Babil province.”
The European Union signed a 2.5 million euro ($3.2 million) agreement with Iraq on Sunday to help Iraqi scientists’ dismantle, decommission and decontaminate nuclear facilities built under dictator Saddam Hussein.
Iraq has tried to clean up its 10 old nuclear sites around the country as US combat operations end seven years after the invasion to topple Saddam. But the going has been slow since the work began two years ago.
The EU programme to train Iraqi scientists and provide equipment will speed up the clearing operation which had been estimated to take up to 10 years. So far scientists have only cleared one site in central Baghdad.
“This contract will help boost the abilities (of the scientists) so they will be able to dismantle more complicated facilities,” Science and Technology Minister Raed Fahmy told reporters after signing an agreement with the EU in Baghdad.