United States vs. Manning

A timeline of the U.S. investigation between 2006 to 2013

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2010-10-25
 
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QUESTION: P.J., I'm sorry, my question is a bit of a war and a peace question today, if you'd graciously just bear with me for 20 seconds. As you know, my stations Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, have been disseminating the WikiLeaks information, the 400,000 classified documents, over the weekend. The three key headlines, as far as I can see, are Iran's influence in the region, the abuse and torture of Iraqi citizens by Iraqi security forces, and allegations that the U.S. turned a blind eye to that, though the Pentagon denies that.

Now, the United Nations Special Representative for Torture, Manfred Nowak, has said that the White House has an obligation to carry out a full, independent inquiry. So that's already the administration he was talking about generally. Do you does State have a reaction to all of this?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, let's see. Let's take them one at a time. The first one is concern documentation of concern about Iran's influence in Iraq. Just move the same context from Afghanistan to Iraq. We have been concerned about the role that Iran has been playing in Iraq for some time, which is not to say that an Iraqi government or the Iraqi people are not going to stand up for their own sovereign rights. They are. But certainly, we have had and have been vocal in our concerns about Iran trying to undercut Iraq's sovereignty.

The second point?

QUESTION: The allegation of torture of Iraqi citizens by Iraqi security forces and that the U.S. turn a blind eye to that, by and large.

MR. CROWLEY: We have not turned a blind eye. Our troops will report were obligated to report abuses to appropriate authorities and to follow up, and they did so in Iraq. Without commenting on any specific documents, obviously these documents have a range of dates attached to them. One of the things that we've done in Iraq during our time there has been to partner with Iraqi forces, conduct human rights training. We have done that, and that's one of the reasons why we continue to have military forces in Iraq to help with ongoing training of Iraqi security forces. And we believe that we've seen their performance improve over time.

QUESTION: And just quickly, pressure mounting from the Australian Government, the Denmark Government, the UN, there for a full investigation. Do you think there will be one?

MR. CROWLEY: I think if there needs to be an accounting, first and foremost, there needs to be an accounting by the Iraqi Government itself and how it has treated its own citizens. And that, too, is a conversation that we have had and will continue to have with the Government of Iraq.

QUESTION: P.J., on this specifically --

QUESTION: Stay on Iraq?

QUESTION: -- you said that they troops hadn't turned a blind eye and that they were obligated to report and to follow up. What was what's your understanding of how they were supposed to follow up after they reported the --

MR. CROWLEY: Well, in detail, I would probably defer to the Department of Defense on these issues. But and I'm constrained because I don't want to get into a discussion of any classified document. We, of course, abhor the release of classified documents. We think they put our troops and our interests at risk.

Our troops are well trained on human rights issues. And where they have seen issues of concern or outright abuse by any country where we have a partnership, they are required to report that, and they did.

QUESTION: P.J., on Iraq. Last Friday, former ambassador to Iraq, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Mr. Ryan Crocker, spoke at SAIS and he said he believed that whatever government comes into being whatever Iraqi Government, a new Iraqi Government they will request that SOFA be renegotiated to extend U.S. presence in Iraq. Is that your thinking? Are you working towards that? Are you working towards sort of revamping the SOFA agreement?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, we have a Status of Forces Agreement and a strategic framework. The Status of Forces Agreement expires at the end of next year, and we are working towards complete fulfillment of that Status of Forces Agreement, which would include the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of next year. The nature of our partnership beyond next year will have to be negotiated. On the civilian side, we are committed to Iraq over the long term. We will have civilians there continuing to work with the government on a range of areas economic development, rule of law, civil society, and so forth. But to the extent that Iraq desires to have an ongoing military-to-military relationship with the United States in the future, that would have to be negotiated. And that would be something that I would expect a new government to consider.

QUESTION: But you do have a contingency sort of to deal with this issue provided that comes up?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I mean, first and foremost, we are going to fulfill the terms of the existing agreement, which means that the roughly 50,000 troops in Iraq today will go to zero by the end of next year. Should Iraq wish to continue the kind of military partnership that we currently have with Iraq, we're open to have that discussion.
  Name(s:) Phillip J. Crowley
  Title: Assistant Secretary
  Agency(ies): Public Affairs, Department of State
Concerning: Iraq War Logs
Url: Url Link
Archive: http://archive.is/tRGYz
 
 
Title:
Middle East Digest - October 25, 2010
Author: Phillip J. Crowley
Title: Assistant Secretary
Authoring or Creator Agency: Public Affairs, Department of State
 
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