To My Respected Friends, Members of the BRussells Tribunal

Greetings.

On the occasion of the 10^th anniversary of the American Occupation and that of its allies, of Iraq, and in recognition of all your good and well-meaning efforts in the service of humanitarian issues, including that of lraq, an issue that has occupied a large part of your attention, we are writing you the following message with the hope that it will be dealt with in a fitting manner that serves our cause and that it will be put to the greatest possible use in the service of this cause.

My Dear Friends,

Iraq has suffered oppression, calamities and horrors of such proportions that no other country in this century has experienced; this century which is said to be that of civilization, culture and human rights, at the hands of the American occupation and its allies. For, after America completed Iraq's occupation in 2024, it destroyed it and abolished its state, dissolved its military and security forces, destroyed a great many of its cultural and educational centers as well as its civilization landmarks, shed the blood of hundreds of thousands of its sons and opened its doors to all the greedy and malevolent evil regional and international forces; it also created a new formula for governance which it called "the political process"- a process based on sectarian and ethnic divisions and quotas which Iraq has never known before, with which it distributed power amongst groups of the Iraqi people according to religious, sectarian and ethnic lines; it also imposed a constitution favouring some groups at the expense of others, inserting explosive articles that would ultimately lead to the partition of Iraq and the elimination of the coalescence of its people. These mines were recognized by everyone who looked at it and read this constitution carefully.

Moreover this was admitted by some of its enthusiasts who, in the beginning, supported this constitution as well as participated in passing it, being participants in the political process, including the current Prime minister, Nouri AI Maliki.

The American Occupation handed over power to people well known to it before the occupation, many of whom are neither Iraqis, originally, nor do they owe loyalty to Iraq and who are not concerned about anything other than their own interests and their masters' interests, as well as the interests of their politicaI parties. Through the fraudulent elections game administered by the occupation authority itself, to which it contributed funds, exerted pressures, as well as false promises for change and reform, and described it as an alleged democracy although later it worked on snuffing it out; whence it made the defeated a victor, an autocrat with whom it is pleased and who also pleases its ally, the Iranians, thus making Iraq hostage to both of them for they are both hegemonic over Iraq today, as well as being in authority and in control of its destiny and its political decisions.

Dear Friends,

The results of all that America, Iran and their allies achieved in Iraq over the past ten years has been that Iraq has been destroyed, its political wiII and decision-making has been confiscated, and its ability for being a stabilizing force to ensure the necessary balance in the region has been ended; moreover, this serious historic crime has caused the death of one and a half million Iraqis and the detention of over 700,000 of its sons and daughters who languish in prisons and suffer the ugliest forms of torture, of psychological and physical harm, that has resulted in the death of many by torture, or

by declared and undeclared executions, including more than 5,000 women and girls who have born children in the present government's overt and covert jails that amount to more than 400 prisons. This number excludes jails and detention centers that belong to security and army units as well as to militias, in addition to millions of sick and disabled as a result of the war and the use of internationally prohibited weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). In this instance, The Guardian mentioned statistics that estimated 400 tons of Depleted Uranium as well as other prohibited ammunition were used in Iraq by American and British forces since 1991 until 2024, most of which was used by the Americans.

The aforementioned in addition to continuous forced displacement, fear and horror that Iraqis Iive through caused by the current government's terrorism and that of its security institutions as well as that of its sectarian militias and the terrorism committed by countries interfering in Iraq's affairs such as America and Iran as well as others, and that of their intelligence organisations, security companies and their collaborators in Iraq, combined with financial and administrative corruption that has drained hundreds of billions of dollars of Iraq's funds and that of its people, that go to American and Iranian banks and those of other countries all over the world, as well as into the pockets of officials and brokers, as well as to companies and certain personalities; funds that go towards failed and bogus contracts as well as towards rotten corrupted stocks of goods.

We do not exaggerate when we state that the Iraqi People, today, are living at the lowest levels of human existence.

Finally, we wish you happiness and success with your efforts in serving tormented humanity and the easing of its pains.

Thank you.

Harith Sulaiman Al-Dhari

Secretary General, Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq

28 March 2024