Yara Bayoumy
Reuters

Wednesday 25 April 2007

Baghdad - The United Nations accused Iraq on Wednesday of
withholding sensitive civilian casualty figures because it fears they
would be used to paint a "very grim" picture of a worsening humanitarian
crisis.

Violence continued as a suicide attacker walked into a police
station in volatile Diyala province and detonated a bomb, killing nine
and wounding 16, police said.

Iraq's military also said it was altering a U.S. plan to enclose a
Sunni enclave in Baghdad with high concrete walls, after criticism that
it would fan sectarian tension. Some residents had likened the project
to Israel's West Bank barrier.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government would not release data on civilian
deaths amid spiraling sectarian violence between majority Shi'ites and
once dominant Sunni Arabs.

"UNAMI emphasizes again the utmost need for the Iraqi government to
operate in a transparent manner," the mission said in its latest report
on human rights in Iraq.

U.N. officials said they were given no official reason why their
requests for specific official data had been turned down. Only broad
percentages were available.

"We were told that the government was becoming increasingly
concerned about the figures being used to portray the situation as very
grim," United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) human rights
officer Ivana Vuco told a news conference.

Maliki, whose administration has previously accused UNAMI of
exaggerating civilian deaths, rejected the report as unbalanced.

"The Iraqi government announces its deep reservation on the report,
which lacks accuracy in the information presented, lacks credibility in
many of its points and lacks balance in its presentation of the human
rights situation in Iraq," a statement from his office said.

Humanitarian Crisis

In January, UNAMI said 34,452 Iraqi civilians were killed and more
than 36,000 wounded in 2006, figures that were much higher than any
statistics issued by the government.

On Wednesday it said Iraq faced "immense security challenges" and a
"rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis".

The U.N. report expressed concern at the treatment of thousands of
suspects detained under a major security crackdown in Baghdad, and about
reports of collusion between Iraqi forces and some militias.

It also said academics, journalists, doctors and members of
religious and ethnic minorities were increasingly being killed,
intimidated or kidnapped by armed groups.

Iraqi officials say the civilian casualty toll has declined in the
capital since the launch of the Baghdad security plan nine weeks ago.
U.S. military commanders say a surge in car bombings, however, has
pushed up the overall toll countrywide.

Under the crackdown, U.S. and Iraqi troops are sweeping through
Baghdad neighborhoods, setting up checkpoints and combat outposts and
walling off some flashpoint areas with concrete barriers.

But work began to alter a 5-km (3.5 mile) concrete wall around the
Sunni enclave of Adhamiya after Maliki ordered a halt to construction at
the weekend following sharp public outcry.

"We have sought other substitutes such as barbed wire, sand walls
and small concrete barriers," said Brigadier-General Qassim Moussawi,
Iraqi military spokesman for the U.S.-backed security plan in the city.

Both Bush and Maliki are under pressure to show progress in the
crackdown after four years of war that has killed tens of thousands of
Iraqis and more than 3,300 U.S. troops.

The U.S. Congress will vote this week on a funding bill that sets
March 31, 2008, as a goal for pulling out most troops but Bush has
repeatedly threatened to use his presidential veto.

To quote Paton- "War is hell".


We're making progress. And if Congress stops being about the smear
campaign, and starts looking at facts, they'd drop the "timeline" and
let our military do their job.