WASHINGTON: The top US commander in Iraq announced in March he was sending two combat brigades home from Iraq, marking the first major drawdown of US troops there since the “surge” ended last year.
The announcement came days after President Obama announced that the US combat mission in Iraq would end by September 2010. It, however, left open the question when they would begin to return.
According to Wijdan Salim, Iraq’s human rights minister, there is no ambiguity to that question. All US troops will leave Iraq as scheduled — this includes withdrawing American forces from Iraq’s major cities by June 30.
Salim, speaking with a handful of journalists on Monday at the State Department’s Foreign Press Center, told Arab News that despite the recent upsurge in violence throughout her country, she expected “the Americans to leave at the scheduled time.”
Asked if she thought the recent upsurge of violence in her country was due to the Americans withdrawing from these areas, Salim said: “No.” She added that the Iraqi people must learn to trust the Iraqi security forces. “The minister of interior and the police forces are much better than before.”
When asked if some American forces might stay in troubled provinces, such as Diala or Anbar, she said: “No. I don’t think the [recent surge in] violence is because the US is leaving.”
Her counterpart, Ambassador Steven Steiner, from the State Department’s office of monitoring the trafficking of persons, added, “Things are on track with the withdrawal.” The effect of the drawdown, he said, “will be gradual.”
Earlier in the meeting, Salim, who handles a extensive portfolio that includes women’s rights, human rights, gender-based violence, human trafficking, minorities, prisoners, missing persons, refugees and is “responsible for displaced people inside Iraq,” spoke of the need to help Iraqi women help themselves.
Outlining the legal situation of women in Iraq, she spoke of problems related to the increasing number of widows and divorcees in the country. “For this large number of women, it is not the job of the government to give them money but rather to create jobs for them.”
But tradition, tribes and religion can stand in the way of this progress. “Men are slow to change,” she said. “We need to educate women about their rights, educate them how to live and how to find jobs. But we also need to educate men to include women in all aspects of Iraqi society.”
Women neglected in Iraqi society are “vulnerable and to earn some money for themselves and their families — they can be used by terrorists,” she said.
Salim, the only Christian serving in the Cabinet, is certainly no wallflower. Last year when asked about the killing of 13 Iraqi civilians by US security guards in ambiguous circumstances, she told the BBC that she believed that Blackwater security guards should stand trial in Iraq.
An Assyrian, Salim was elected as part of Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi National List, a secular, non-sectarian Iraqiya list made up of a various religious denominations. She is based in Baghdad.
On April 15, Salim’s Ministry of Human Rights released its annual report on jails and detention centers for 2008; it highlighted some negative aspects and called for human rights gains by 2010.
The report also highlights legal developments that have been undertaken to defend the rights of prisoners and detainees, and presents solutions for several problems in accordance with human rights principles and international laws.
The draft law imposes tough penalties, including life imprisonment and a fine not exceeding 25 million dinars ($21,000) for traffickers if the victim “is under 15, or a female, or has special needs,” and also applies if the crime was committed by kidnapping or force, or if the criminal “is a direct or distant relative or the victim’s caretaker or husband or wife,” a tacit acknowledgment that victims are often trafficked by people they know.
Sensitive to criticism by human rights groups and rebuked by the US for failing to take measures against human trafficking, the Iraqi government has been working on the draft law to tackle the problem.
Late last year, the US State Department released their highly critical study: “Trafficking in Persons Report.” “Let’s say it was a tough report about the situation in Iraq, and in so many cases it was right,” said Minister Salim.
