Five years since the illegal and unprovoked aggression launched by American and British forces, and amounting to either one of the most delusional or cynical assessments on the Iraq war since George W. Bush’s famous “Mission Accomplished” speech in 2003, British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith says the country is now safe enough for asylum seekers to return home.
The proposed thirty-minute current affairs film will challenge dialectically the Home Office view and denounce how those who launched and supported the invasion are failing to take responsibility, juxtaposing the official discourse with the reaffirmed realities that have been proved, and proved again, but just as doggedly denied by those in power, forcing us to live trapped between two narratives of present history.
Behind the official rhetoric, the poignant truth:
1) Iraqis were promised freedom, democracy and prosperity. Instead they have seen the physical and social destruction of their country, mass killing, tens of thousands thrown into jail without trial, rampant torture, an epidemic of sectarian terror attacks, pauperization, and the complete breakdown of basic services and supplies. An end to this situation remains far from sight.
2) The UK involvement in Iraq should compel its government to open its doors. But for thousands of Iraqi asylum seekers there is no welcome; instead they face ill treatment, misery and destitution before they are deported, as changes in British asylum policy are introduced to restrict the admission of migrants to the UK.
The film will thus listen to the voices of those Iraqis on both sides of the fence of the asylum process, in particular those fearing for their lives back home and hoping for a new beginning in Britain.
Aesthetically, “In Safe Hands” will align itself with English filmmaker Adam Curtis' characteristic montage technique (as seen in his BBC documentary series 'The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom'), relying heavily on archived footage and editorial voice-over. This material will additionally be inter-cut alongside interviews of Iraqi refugees, purposely lit to highlight the sense of alienation.
The film will convey the build-up to the invasion and its immediate aftermath: the false WMD claims (eg. Colin Powell presenting phony intelligence in his report on Iraq's WMD delivered at the United Nations); the Azores three meeting and the bombing of Baghdad; graphic images of the conflict; Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech in 2003.
Archived reports and news items will illustrate the evolution and escalation of the conflict leading to the long lasting bloodbath of sectarian violence as Sunni and Shia insurgencies against the US-led coalition convulse the country despite (or because of) the latest American surge.
Contrasts will be highlighted between these facts, the increasing number of Iraqi deaths and the diminishing approved asylum claims in the UK over the last five years.
As news of unrest continue to be reported, Bush will proclaim the Iraq war has been a “major strategic victory” in the “war on terror;” Former Spanish Prime Minister and Bush acolyte Jose Maria Aznar will describe the situation in Iraq, 80,000 dead civilians on, as very good; the British Government will claim Iraq is now safe despite the conflict, meaning that more than 1,400 rejected Iraqi refugees will be given a deadline to go home after being asked to sign a waiver agreeing the government will take no responsibility for what happens to them or their families once they return to Iraq - or face destitution in Britain by being refused the minimal welfare support they are currently on.
The official line will be contested by refugees first hand accounts throughout.
© Jose M Barea Velazquez, April 2008
Saturday 19 April 2008
On filming the Iraq aftermath (research paper excerpts)
The original premise for the enclosed hard-edged, current affairs thirty-minute slot proposal is relatively simple: five years since the illegal invasion of Iraq by American and British forces, Iraq is drowning in a bloodbath of vicious sectarian violence, and those who launched and supported this aggression are failing to take responsibility. Seumas Milne from the Guardian reports:
“The unprovoked aggression launched by the US and Britain against Iraq five years ago today has already gone down across the world as, to borrow the words of President Roosevelt, ‘a day which will live in infamy’. Iraqis were promised freedom, democracy and prosperity. Instead (…) they have seen the physical and social destruction of their country, mass killing, tens of thousands thrown into jail without trial, rampant torture, an epidemic of sectarian terror attacks, pauperization, and the complete breakdown of basic services and supplies.”
Former head of UN inspections in Iraq in 2003, Hans Blix, annotates:
“The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a tragedy – for Iraq, for the US, for the UN, for truth and human dignity (…) The elimination of weapons of mass destruction was the declared main aim of the war (…) Responsibility for the war must rest, though, on what those launching it knew by March 2003. By then, Unmovic inspectors had carried out some 700 inspections at 500 sites without finding prohibited weapons. The contract that George Bush held up before Congress to show that Iraq was purchasing uranium oxide was proved to be a forgery. The allied powers were on thin ice, but they preferred to replace question marks with exclamation marks. They could not succeed in eliminating WMDs because they did not exist. Nor could they succeed in the declared aim to eliminate al-Qaida operators, because they were not in Iraq. They came later, attracted by the occupants.”
On this occasion, however, my efforts will not focus necessarily or exclusively in questioning the legality of this war - given that the invasion of Iraq indeed remains regarded as illegal not only in the eyes of the majority of “the UN Security Council, its secretary general, and the overwhelming weight of international legal opinion” , but also confirmed by the transcripts of the “Crawford Memo” . Instead, I will be looking at the aftermath of this unjustifiable aggression.
At the time this paper is being written, the dimension of this tragedy is reaching an epic scale: a conservative estimate of civilian deaths that ranges from hundred of thousands to over a million, and two million refugees driven from their homes in Iraq. And yet, according to official figures, only about one sixth of the Iraqis seeking asylum in the UK is allowed to remain .
By 2007 Britain was being urged by the UN to play a leading role in tackling the grave humanitarian crisis of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees by resettling some in the UK and by stopping the deportation of asylum seekers. The Guardian reports:
“(…)The UNHCR estimates that 40,000-50,000 people are fleeing Iraq every month, adding to an estimated two million refugees, most in Syria and Jordan.
"We believe that because of the UK's involvement in the Iraq conflict, the UK should be playing a leading role in addressing this humanitarian crisis," said Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Refugee Council in a joint open letter urging Mr Blair to adopt "a more generous, more principled, more coherent, and more far-sighted set of UK policies".
Britain approves just 12% of Iraqi asylum claims, compared with a 91% approval rate in Sweden, which has suspended forcible refugee returns.”
A year on, with no end to the carnage in Iraq in sight, these figures have almost doubled:
“The number of Iraqis applying for asylum across the EU almost doubled last year, rising from 19,375 to 38,286, reflecting the growing chaos in the country, according to UN figures released today.
The resurgence in the number of Iraqis fleeing across Europe comes as the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees says the Iraqi refugee crisis - with 4.5 million people uprooted by the conflict - continues to represent one of its biggest challenges.
For the second year in a row the UN's refugee agency says Iraq was the main source of asylum seekers in the EU during 2007, accounting for a fifth of all those claiming refugee status last year. The trend was mirrored in Britain where the number of Iraqis claiming asylum rose from 1,300 in 2006 to 2,075 last year.”
Britain response to the situation? Tightening the claim process. Indeed, immigration was a major electoral issue in the 2005 election campaigns and in an attempt to gain voter support, subsequent changes in British asylum policy have focused on restricting the admission of migrants to the UK.
The Guardian:
“Before the 2003 invasion, almost half of Iraqi asylum claims were successful. Since then, the recognition rate has fallen to an average of less than 3%. This is despite the fact that, throughout the war, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has advised that Iraqi asylum seekers – particularly those from the central and southern areas – should be either recognized as refugees or provided with another form of protection. In the period preceding the invasion an average of 800 Iraqis were granted asylum each year in this country; since 2003 numbers have fallen to between five and 150, while applications have averaged about 1,500 per year during this period.”
However, despite the proven facts, the simplicity of my premise didn’t necessarily translate into an easy subject to tackle from an investigative perspective - beyond checking stats and sources that could translate into analytical trends, and eventually, fact-finding (let us pretend for a moment that the exposé quality of the piece could be left to a second plane), where is the story? And more importantly, what is the angle? With an unrealistic time constraint of six weeks, I set out to find the answer.
(…)
As a result of my research, and a compulsive and thorough consumption of both daily and archived independent news, two main narrative leads have emerged:
1. A common denominator of ill treatment of asylum seekers (on their own account) by the Home Office. The following case study may help illustrating this point:
“Two Iraqis, Fazzel Abdula Ahmad and Sarwar Rahid Mohammad, have been deported to the Kurdistan region in the past week, according to refugee groups. More than 90 Iraqi Kurds have been returned since August 2005.
Initially the deportees were sent in large groups on military flights from RAF Brize Norton, via Cyprus, to the new airfield near the Kurdish city of Irbil. They complained about being handcuffed and were ordered to wear flak jackets as they flew over Iraq.
Like others more recently returned to northern Iraq, Ahmad and Mohammad were given tickets for a commercial flight on Royal Jordanian Airlines. Once in the capital, Amman, deportees are transferred on to a civilian flight to Irbil.
“Iraq, including Kurdistan, is dangerous. The UK government must stop forcibly deporting Iraqi Kurds," said Dashty Jamal of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugeees. "Fazzel's wife and child are currently missing in Iraq and he fears his life will be in danger.”
One Iraqi refugee, Solyman Rashed, who agreed after 15 months in a UK detention centre to voluntarily return to northern Iraq, was killed in a car attack in the city of Kirkuk.
Another refugee, Burhan Namiq, 28, complained in an open letter after being deported 18 months ago back to his native Sulaimaniya in Kurdistan: "I sought asylum in the United Kingdom, stayed and lived there without committing any crime for two years, but you did not accept my claim for asylum.
“That decision made me depressed, isolated and forced me to consider suicide. The treatment in detention and the deportation can only be described as inhuman and humiliating.
“Only two days after my removal I was sent to hospital. I had suffered a heart attack due to depression and the inhuman treatment I received whilst in your 'care'.””
2. Despite escalation of conflict in Iraq (at the time this article is going to print, a confidential draft agreement covering the future of US forces in Iraq, passed to the Guardian, allegedly shows that provision is being made for an open-ended military presence in the country ), “we are being subjected to a renewed barrage of spin about the success of the US surge in turning the country around, quelling the violence and opening the way to a sunlit future :”
Former Spanish Prime Minister and Bush acolyte Jose Maria Aznar declared to BBC Radio 4 on March 18th 2008 that the situation in Iraq is very good .
On March 19th 2008 George W Bush proclaims the Iraq war a “major strategic victory” in the “war on terror.” The Guardian reports:
“George Bush marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion yesterday with an uncompromising speech in which he described the war as noble, necessary and just, and claimed there was now an unprecedented Arab uprising under way against Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaida.
(…)‘Five years into this battle, there is an understandable debate over whether the war was worth fighting, whether the fight is worth winning, and whether we can win it,’ he said. ‘The answers are clear to me: removing Sadam Hussein from power was the right decision – and this is a fight Americans must win. Because we acted, the world is better and the United States of America is safer.’
(…)‘For the terrorists, Iraq was supposed to be the place where al-Qaida rallied Arab masses to drive America out. Instead, Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al-Qaida out. In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-sclae Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden… An the significance of this development cannot be overstated.’”
March 13th. According to leaked Home Office correspondence seen and disclosed by The Guardian, the British Government says Iraq is now safe despite the conflict. More than 1,400 rejected Iraqi refugees could be given a deadline to go home and be asked to sign a waiver agreeing the government will take no responsibility for what happens to them or their families once they return to Iraq - or face destitution in Britain by being refused the minimal welfare support they are currently on. The decision by the home secretary Jacqui Smith to declare that it is safe to send refugees back to Iraq comes after more than 78 people have been killed in incidents across the country on that week alone.
Confronting this blatant official deceit with the voices of those Iraqis trapped on both sides of the fence of the asylum process and the “reaffirmed realities that have been proved, and proved again, but just as doggedly denied by those in power, forcing us to live trapped between two narratives of present history” will be the ultimate goal of this film.
© Jose M Barea Velazquez, April 2008
Seumas Milne, "There must be a reckoning for this day of infamy." The Guardian, March 20th 2008.
Hans Blix, " A war of utter folly." The Guardian, Thursday March 20th 2008.
Seumas Milne, "There must be a reckoning for this day of infamy." The Guardian, March 20th 2008.
Ernesto Ekaizer, "Bush avisó a Aznar de que estaría en Bagdad en marzo con o sin resolución de la ONU." El Pais, 25th September 2007
Facts and figures enclosed in the appendix.
Ian Black (Middle East editor) "Take more Iraqi refugees, UN tells Britain." The Guardian, April 17th 2007
Alan Travis (home affairs editor) "Chaos in Iraq sparks surge in EU asylum applications." The Guardian, Tuesday March 18th 2008
Hannah Godfrey, "From Baghdad to Britain." The Guardian (G2) March 20th 2008
Alan Travis, "The treatment is humiliating." (case study) The Guardian March 13th 2008
Seumas Milne, "Secret US plan for military future in Iraq." The Guardian, April 8th 2008
Seumas Milne, "There must be a reckoning for this day of infamy." The Guardian, March 20th 2008.
P. X. DE S. "Aznar asegura que ‘la situación en Irak es muy buena.’" El Pais, March 19th 2008
Ewen MacAskill (in Washington) "Bush: The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary and it is just." The Guardian, March 20th 2008
Alan Travis (home affairs editor) "Iraqi asylum seekers given deadline to go home or face destitution in UK." The Guardian March 13th 2008
Mark Danner, "The Moment Has Come to Get Rid of Saddam" New York Review of Books, Volume 54, Number 17. November 8th, 2007
Selected bibliography/webography
• Ernesto Ekaizer, "Bush avisó a Aznar de que estaría en Bagdad en marzo con o sin resolución de la ONU." El Pais, September 25th 2007
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Bush/aviso/Aznar/estaria/Bagdad/marzo/resolucion/ONU/elpepuint/20070925elpepuint_17/Tes
• Fred Attewil, "Judge orders return to UK of 15-year-old Iraqi refugee." The Guardian, December 19th 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/dec/19/immigration.politics
• Aida Edemariam, "The true cost of war (Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz counts the true cost of the Iraq war)", The Guardian (G2), February 28th 2008
• Alan Travis, "Iraqi asylum seekers given deadline to go home or face destitution in UK." The Guardian, March 13th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/13/immigrationpolicy.immigration
• Rageh Omaar, "The story that isn't being told.", The Guardian, March 17th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/17/iraqandthemedia.iraq?gusrc=rss&feed=media
• Alan Travis (home affairs editor) "Chaos in Iraq sparks surge in EU asylum applications." The Guardian, March 18th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/18/iraq.immigration
• P. X. DE S. "Aznar asegura que ‘la situación en Irak es muy buena.’" El Pais, March 19th 2008
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/Aznar/asegura/situacion/Irak/buena/elpepiesp/20080319elpepinac_7/Tes
• Hannah Godfrey, "From Baghdad to Britain." The Guardian (G2), March 20th 2008
• Ewen MacAskill, "Iraq, five years on." The Guardian, March 20th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/20/georgebush.usa
• Seumas Milne, "There must be a reckoning for this day of infamy." The Guardian, March 20th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/20/iraq
• Hans Blix, "A war of utter folly." The Guardian, March 20th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/20/iraq.usa
• Diane Taylor, "Airlift will bring 2,000 hand-picked Iraqis to new life in Britain." The Guardian, March 25th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/25/immigrationpolicy.immigration
• Hannah Godfrey, "Asylum seekers say expulsion flight ended in beating in Iraq." The Guardian, March 29th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/29/immigration.immigrationpolicy?gusrc=rss&feed=politics
• Jamie Doward, "Anger as 50 Iraqi refugees are sent back.", The Guardian, March 30th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/30/immigrationpolicy.immigration
• Jonathan Steele, "In backing the Basra assault, the US has only helped Sadr." The Guardian, April 4th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/04/usa.iraq
• Reuters Bagdad, "Sadr urges million-strong march agains the US." The Guardian, April 4th 2008
• Seumas Milne, "Secret US plan for military future in Iraq." The Guardian, April 8th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/08/iraq.usa
“The unprovoked aggression launched by the US and Britain against Iraq five years ago today has already gone down across the world as, to borrow the words of President Roosevelt, ‘a day which will live in infamy’. Iraqis were promised freedom, democracy and prosperity. Instead (…) they have seen the physical and social destruction of their country, mass killing, tens of thousands thrown into jail without trial, rampant torture, an epidemic of sectarian terror attacks, pauperization, and the complete breakdown of basic services and supplies.”
Former head of UN inspections in Iraq in 2003, Hans Blix, annotates:
“The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a tragedy – for Iraq, for the US, for the UN, for truth and human dignity (…) The elimination of weapons of mass destruction was the declared main aim of the war (…) Responsibility for the war must rest, though, on what those launching it knew by March 2003. By then, Unmovic inspectors had carried out some 700 inspections at 500 sites without finding prohibited weapons. The contract that George Bush held up before Congress to show that Iraq was purchasing uranium oxide was proved to be a forgery. The allied powers were on thin ice, but they preferred to replace question marks with exclamation marks. They could not succeed in eliminating WMDs because they did not exist. Nor could they succeed in the declared aim to eliminate al-Qaida operators, because they were not in Iraq. They came later, attracted by the occupants.”
On this occasion, however, my efforts will not focus necessarily or exclusively in questioning the legality of this war - given that the invasion of Iraq indeed remains regarded as illegal not only in the eyes of the majority of “the UN Security Council, its secretary general, and the overwhelming weight of international legal opinion” , but also confirmed by the transcripts of the “Crawford Memo” . Instead, I will be looking at the aftermath of this unjustifiable aggression.
At the time this paper is being written, the dimension of this tragedy is reaching an epic scale: a conservative estimate of civilian deaths that ranges from hundred of thousands to over a million, and two million refugees driven from their homes in Iraq. And yet, according to official figures, only about one sixth of the Iraqis seeking asylum in the UK is allowed to remain .
By 2007 Britain was being urged by the UN to play a leading role in tackling the grave humanitarian crisis of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees by resettling some in the UK and by stopping the deportation of asylum seekers. The Guardian reports:
“(…)The UNHCR estimates that 40,000-50,000 people are fleeing Iraq every month, adding to an estimated two million refugees, most in Syria and Jordan.
"We believe that because of the UK's involvement in the Iraq conflict, the UK should be playing a leading role in addressing this humanitarian crisis," said Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Refugee Council in a joint open letter urging Mr Blair to adopt "a more generous, more principled, more coherent, and more far-sighted set of UK policies".
Britain approves just 12% of Iraqi asylum claims, compared with a 91% approval rate in Sweden, which has suspended forcible refugee returns.”
A year on, with no end to the carnage in Iraq in sight, these figures have almost doubled:
“The number of Iraqis applying for asylum across the EU almost doubled last year, rising from 19,375 to 38,286, reflecting the growing chaos in the country, according to UN figures released today.
The resurgence in the number of Iraqis fleeing across Europe comes as the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees says the Iraqi refugee crisis - with 4.5 million people uprooted by the conflict - continues to represent one of its biggest challenges.
For the second year in a row the UN's refugee agency says Iraq was the main source of asylum seekers in the EU during 2007, accounting for a fifth of all those claiming refugee status last year. The trend was mirrored in Britain where the number of Iraqis claiming asylum rose from 1,300 in 2006 to 2,075 last year.”
Britain response to the situation? Tightening the claim process. Indeed, immigration was a major electoral issue in the 2005 election campaigns and in an attempt to gain voter support, subsequent changes in British asylum policy have focused on restricting the admission of migrants to the UK.
The Guardian:
“Before the 2003 invasion, almost half of Iraqi asylum claims were successful. Since then, the recognition rate has fallen to an average of less than 3%. This is despite the fact that, throughout the war, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has advised that Iraqi asylum seekers – particularly those from the central and southern areas – should be either recognized as refugees or provided with another form of protection. In the period preceding the invasion an average of 800 Iraqis were granted asylum each year in this country; since 2003 numbers have fallen to between five and 150, while applications have averaged about 1,500 per year during this period.”
However, despite the proven facts, the simplicity of my premise didn’t necessarily translate into an easy subject to tackle from an investigative perspective - beyond checking stats and sources that could translate into analytical trends, and eventually, fact-finding (let us pretend for a moment that the exposé quality of the piece could be left to a second plane), where is the story? And more importantly, what is the angle? With an unrealistic time constraint of six weeks, I set out to find the answer.
(…)
As a result of my research, and a compulsive and thorough consumption of both daily and archived independent news, two main narrative leads have emerged:
1. A common denominator of ill treatment of asylum seekers (on their own account) by the Home Office. The following case study may help illustrating this point:
“Two Iraqis, Fazzel Abdula Ahmad and Sarwar Rahid Mohammad, have been deported to the Kurdistan region in the past week, according to refugee groups. More than 90 Iraqi Kurds have been returned since August 2005.
Initially the deportees were sent in large groups on military flights from RAF Brize Norton, via Cyprus, to the new airfield near the Kurdish city of Irbil. They complained about being handcuffed and were ordered to wear flak jackets as they flew over Iraq.
Like others more recently returned to northern Iraq, Ahmad and Mohammad were given tickets for a commercial flight on Royal Jordanian Airlines. Once in the capital, Amman, deportees are transferred on to a civilian flight to Irbil.
“Iraq, including Kurdistan, is dangerous. The UK government must stop forcibly deporting Iraqi Kurds," said Dashty Jamal of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugeees. "Fazzel's wife and child are currently missing in Iraq and he fears his life will be in danger.”
One Iraqi refugee, Solyman Rashed, who agreed after 15 months in a UK detention centre to voluntarily return to northern Iraq, was killed in a car attack in the city of Kirkuk.
Another refugee, Burhan Namiq, 28, complained in an open letter after being deported 18 months ago back to his native Sulaimaniya in Kurdistan: "I sought asylum in the United Kingdom, stayed and lived there without committing any crime for two years, but you did not accept my claim for asylum.
“That decision made me depressed, isolated and forced me to consider suicide. The treatment in detention and the deportation can only be described as inhuman and humiliating.
“Only two days after my removal I was sent to hospital. I had suffered a heart attack due to depression and the inhuman treatment I received whilst in your 'care'.””
2. Despite escalation of conflict in Iraq (at the time this article is going to print, a confidential draft agreement covering the future of US forces in Iraq, passed to the Guardian, allegedly shows that provision is being made for an open-ended military presence in the country ), “we are being subjected to a renewed barrage of spin about the success of the US surge in turning the country around, quelling the violence and opening the way to a sunlit future :”
Former Spanish Prime Minister and Bush acolyte Jose Maria Aznar declared to BBC Radio 4 on March 18th 2008 that the situation in Iraq is very good .
On March 19th 2008 George W Bush proclaims the Iraq war a “major strategic victory” in the “war on terror.” The Guardian reports:
“George Bush marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion yesterday with an uncompromising speech in which he described the war as noble, necessary and just, and claimed there was now an unprecedented Arab uprising under way against Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaida.
(…)‘Five years into this battle, there is an understandable debate over whether the war was worth fighting, whether the fight is worth winning, and whether we can win it,’ he said. ‘The answers are clear to me: removing Sadam Hussein from power was the right decision – and this is a fight Americans must win. Because we acted, the world is better and the United States of America is safer.’
(…)‘For the terrorists, Iraq was supposed to be the place where al-Qaida rallied Arab masses to drive America out. Instead, Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al-Qaida out. In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-sclae Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden… An the significance of this development cannot be overstated.’”
March 13th. According to leaked Home Office correspondence seen and disclosed by The Guardian, the British Government says Iraq is now safe despite the conflict. More than 1,400 rejected Iraqi refugees could be given a deadline to go home and be asked to sign a waiver agreeing the government will take no responsibility for what happens to them or their families once they return to Iraq - or face destitution in Britain by being refused the minimal welfare support they are currently on. The decision by the home secretary Jacqui Smith to declare that it is safe to send refugees back to Iraq comes after more than 78 people have been killed in incidents across the country on that week alone.
Confronting this blatant official deceit with the voices of those Iraqis trapped on both sides of the fence of the asylum process and the “reaffirmed realities that have been proved, and proved again, but just as doggedly denied by those in power, forcing us to live trapped between two narratives of present history” will be the ultimate goal of this film.
© Jose M Barea Velazquez, April 2008
Seumas Milne, "There must be a reckoning for this day of infamy." The Guardian, March 20th 2008.
Hans Blix, " A war of utter folly." The Guardian, Thursday March 20th 2008.
Seumas Milne, "There must be a reckoning for this day of infamy." The Guardian, March 20th 2008.
Ernesto Ekaizer, "Bush avisó a Aznar de que estaría en Bagdad en marzo con o sin resolución de la ONU." El Pais, 25th September 2007
Facts and figures enclosed in the appendix.
Ian Black (Middle East editor) "Take more Iraqi refugees, UN tells Britain." The Guardian, April 17th 2007
Alan Travis (home affairs editor) "Chaos in Iraq sparks surge in EU asylum applications." The Guardian, Tuesday March 18th 2008
Hannah Godfrey, "From Baghdad to Britain." The Guardian (G2) March 20th 2008
Alan Travis, "The treatment is humiliating." (case study) The Guardian March 13th 2008
Seumas Milne, "Secret US plan for military future in Iraq." The Guardian, April 8th 2008
Seumas Milne, "There must be a reckoning for this day of infamy." The Guardian, March 20th 2008.
P. X. DE S. "Aznar asegura que ‘la situación en Irak es muy buena.’" El Pais, March 19th 2008
Ewen MacAskill (in Washington) "Bush: The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary and it is just." The Guardian, March 20th 2008
Alan Travis (home affairs editor) "Iraqi asylum seekers given deadline to go home or face destitution in UK." The Guardian March 13th 2008
Mark Danner, "The Moment Has Come to Get Rid of Saddam" New York Review of Books, Volume 54, Number 17. November 8th, 2007
Selected bibliography/webography
• Ernesto Ekaizer, "Bush avisó a Aznar de que estaría en Bagdad en marzo con o sin resolución de la ONU." El Pais, September 25th 2007
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Bush/aviso/Aznar/estaria/Bagdad/marzo/resolucion/ONU/elpepuint/20070925elpepuint_17/Tes
• Fred Attewil, "Judge orders return to UK of 15-year-old Iraqi refugee." The Guardian, December 19th 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/dec/19/immigration.politics
• Aida Edemariam, "The true cost of war (Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz counts the true cost of the Iraq war)", The Guardian (G2), February 28th 2008
• Alan Travis, "Iraqi asylum seekers given deadline to go home or face destitution in UK." The Guardian, March 13th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/13/immigrationpolicy.immigration
• Rageh Omaar, "The story that isn't being told.", The Guardian, March 17th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/17/iraqandthemedia.iraq?gusrc=rss&feed=media
• Alan Travis (home affairs editor) "Chaos in Iraq sparks surge in EU asylum applications." The Guardian, March 18th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/18/iraq.immigration
• P. X. DE S. "Aznar asegura que ‘la situación en Irak es muy buena.’" El Pais, March 19th 2008
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/Aznar/asegura/situacion/Irak/buena/elpepiesp/20080319elpepinac_7/Tes
• Hannah Godfrey, "From Baghdad to Britain." The Guardian (G2), March 20th 2008
• Ewen MacAskill, "Iraq, five years on." The Guardian, March 20th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/20/georgebush.usa
• Seumas Milne, "There must be a reckoning for this day of infamy." The Guardian, March 20th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/20/iraq
• Hans Blix, "A war of utter folly." The Guardian, March 20th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/20/iraq.usa
• Diane Taylor, "Airlift will bring 2,000 hand-picked Iraqis to new life in Britain." The Guardian, March 25th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/25/immigrationpolicy.immigration
• Hannah Godfrey, "Asylum seekers say expulsion flight ended in beating in Iraq." The Guardian, March 29th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/29/immigration.immigrationpolicy?gusrc=rss&feed=politics
• Jamie Doward, "Anger as 50 Iraqi refugees are sent back.", The Guardian, March 30th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/30/immigrationpolicy.immigration
• Jonathan Steele, "In backing the Basra assault, the US has only helped Sadr." The Guardian, April 4th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/04/usa.iraq
• Reuters Bagdad, "Sadr urges million-strong march agains the US." The Guardian, April 4th 2008
• Seumas Milne, "Secret US plan for military future in Iraq." The Guardian, April 8th 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/08/iraq.usa
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