Iraq snapshot - March 14, 2012
The Common Ills
Tuesday, March 14,
2012. Chaos and violence continue, Moqtada orders no protests during
the summit, Iraqi youth continue to be targeted, the State Dept and
White House continue to be silent, the Senate hears about homeless
veterans, and more.
Sandra
Strickland: In January 1990, I process out of the Army and received an
Honorable Discharge. With the skills and training that I acquired from
the Army, I set out to live the American dream and become a business
owner. Life happened along the way and in nOvember 2002 I met and
married my husband. We talked about opening up an auto repair shop
together, but about 4 months after we were married, he was called back
to active duty to assist in training the soldiers who were being sent to
Iraq and Afghanistan, and was stationed at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina
while I stayed at our home in Stafford, Virginia. In 2006, my spouse was
released from active duty and when he returned home, we opened up our
auto repair shop in January 2007. Our marriage suffered because of the
separation, among other things, and we continued to grow apart and
eventually talked about divorce. Two days before Christmas of 2010,
when my spouse picked up our children from school and preparatory
academy, he made a verbal threat to the academy director that he was
going to kill me and the kids. That was the day I took my kids and left
-- and ended up living in a domestic violence shelter with my two
younger children in two (ages 6 and 4 at time). At the time I was
working as a temp on a Government contract so I managed to save enough
money to move me and my children into a 1 bedrom with den apartment in
February 2011. Everything was going great until I wakled into work on
Monday, April 25, 2011 and was told that the contract that I was working
on was ending and Friday, April 29, 2011 would be my last day. I
became unemployed on April 29, 2011 and, despite being a veteran, going
on countless interviews and submitting countless resumes and having a
wealth of administrative experience, I remained unemployed until
September 2011. Although I received unemployment compensation for a
brief time, my fanances became depleted and the eviction notices started
coming. Also during this time, I was dealing with custody issues for
my children. Although the court awarded joint custody to me and my
spouse, I was awarded temporary physical custody until such time as we
went to court for the final custody hearing. That hearing took place and
although we both maintained joint custody, the judge reversed the order
and awarded physical custody to my spouse because he still had the
marital home that our children grew up in which was in their best
interest to stay there and because my apartment was out of their current
school district, it would not be in their best interest to transition
them to a new school for the upcoming school term. Not only was I in
shock by the decision, I felt as though I was being victimized because I
chose to take my children and leave an unhealthy environment --
regardless of the fact that we were homeless. Not only did I lose
physical custody of my children, I eventually ended up losing my
apartment because I couldn't afford to pay the rent, due to the lack of
funds from being unemployed and not having a full time job. So now, I
am homeless and have been reduced to a "every other weekend" mother
because my children no longer live with me every day.
Sandra
Strickland was testifying before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee
at today's hearing on homeless veterans. Senator Patty Murray is the
Chair of the Committee. During her opening remarks, she explained, "In
2009, Secretary Shinseki laid out the bold goal of ending homelessness
among veterans in five years. As we reach the halfway point, today's
hearing will examine the progress made to date, as well as the
challenges and opportunities moving forward -- particularly the
challenges that homeless women veterans face. As many in the room know,
VA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development recently
announced that the number of homeless veterans dropped by 12% -- to a
little more than 67,000. VA and HUD deserve to be commended for the
signficant progress they have made. But despite this progress,
challenges remain."
The number of homelss
earlier in the decade was said by the VA to have been 275,000 and now
the VA states it has been reduced to 67,494 veterans. While the overall
veterans homeless population has been reduced, there has been an
increase in the number of homeless women veterans. They once made up 2%
of the homeless population but that has increased to 6% by the VA's
current numbers.
The VA's Deupty Assistant
Inspector General for Audits and Evaluations Linda Halliday offered
anecodtal evidence as to why that number might be increasing as she
discussed the results of a recent audit:
31%
of the 26 providers reviewed did not adequately address the safety,
security and privacy risks of veterans, especially female veterans. GPD
prgoram medical facility staff allowed providers to house female
veterans in male-only approved fcailities and multi-gender facilities
for which security and privacy risks had not been assessed and
mitigated. For example, we identified the following risks: bedrooms and
bathrooms without sufficient locks, halls and stairs without sufficient
lighting and female and male residents on the same floor without access
restrictions. In addition, some providers housed female veterans in
female-only facilities that had inadequate security measures -- such as
inadequate monitoring and not restricting access to non-residents. We
discovered serious female veteran safety, security and privacy issues at
one site that required immediate VHA management attention. Two
homeless femal veterans were housed in a male-only approved provider
facility. The two female residents shared a bathroom with male
residents without an adequate lock and had sleeping rooms on the same
floor as male residents witout adequate barriers restricting access to
the female rooms. We found that since fiscal year 2002, VA's GPD
program staff had placed 22 homeless females in this male-only approved
facility without adequately addressing the safety, security and privacy
needs of the female veterans.
Strickland
and Halliday were part of the first panel to appear before the
Committee. That panel also included Rev. Scott Rogers (Executive
Director of the Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry),
Vietnam Veternas of America's Marsh Four who chairs the National Women
Veterans Committee, National Coaltion for HOmeless Veterans' John
Driscoll. We'll note this exchange.
Chair
Patty Murray: You contacted the VA and asked for help. Obviously, they
just said to you nothing. Right? They just said nothing. You got no
response?
Sandra
Strickland: No. No, to me, their basic concern was my mental health.
Because I had shared with them everything that was going on with me and
their first question to me was, "Are you mentally stable?"
Chair Patty Murray: So you weren't assigned a case manager or referred for employment or training services or anything?
Sandra Strickland: No.
Chair Patty Murray: What do you think they should have said when you first called?
Sandra
Strickland: What do you need? Not what I wanted or what they wanted
for me but what I needed. And if they weren't able to provide the
resources themselves, provide resources that I could reach out too. I
wasn't even given that. They just told me they could give me a list of
shelters. I could do that myself. But I mean, are they -- I just felt
that there should be some type of partnership. If they're not able to
assist or provide the assistance then there should be partners that they
work with that they could refer a veteran too so that they're not just
left when they hang up the phone feeling hopeless because that's how I
felt.
Chair
Patty Murray: Yeah. Ms. Halliday, your testimony was really eye
opening, I think. Telling someone that they're going to be some place
sleeping without a lock on the door, bathrooms that don't have locks.
Insufficient lighting. Ms. Strickland, what would that type of
environment have meant to you?
Sandra Strickland: An unsafe environment?
Chair Patty Murray: Yes.
Sandra
Strickland: I would have stayed in my car. It's -- It's different when
you have children, you know? I mean, of course I think of my safety
but I think of my children as well. There aren't -- There are programs
but it's not enough for women with children. Yes, I could have gone to
other shelters but I wouldn't be able to take my children with me. And
then, a female? Just from being a woman, you want to be able to feel
that when you go to a transitional home or shelter that you do have
adequate safety.
Chair Patty Murray: Basic. Ms. Four, Reverend Rogers, what would that have meant for the women who live in your facilities?
Marsh
Four: Let me just say we do have, that's the agency, a 30 bed
transitional program exclusively for women veterans. And, uhm, I
believe in some cases the women do come there because it is a place that
they know is safe, that they know is secured. We take great attention
to that and I think one of the situations that exists is that there are
so few of these programs in the community that are exclusive to women
veterans, that are designed for them, to address their tremendous
needs. That is one of the shortfalls also.
Chair Patty Murray: Reverend Rogers, what is the importance for basic security and things like that in your clients?
Rev.
Scott Rogers: It is absolutely paramount. We really feel like it took
almost two years for us to earn that trust and making sure that we could
commit the amount of resources that were needed. That's why I asked
you'll to consider some kind of a challenge grant. The community wants
to respond but because of the numbers of women and their children are
low, even though we have them housed separately and they're able to have
their own room and facilities, it's at a much greater cost. With a
little bit of extra help from this Committee and from Congress, we can
provide not only that safety and security but that can also address the
professional needs around sexual trauma, having a well trained staff,
being really able to train our volunteers. I've got women who want to
mentor other women but don't always understand the levels and
complexities of that trauma. We would like to be able to have the
funding and the support and we believe we can get it matched by the
community with some leadership here because we don't, again, believe in
the entitlement system but we do want to help you create the incentives
but with the funding to overcome the smaller numbers but dealing with
more complex issues.
Chair
Patty Murray: And both of the VA's Inspector General and GAO
really made it clear that the VA has to improve their services for
homeless women veterans. But reports that were issued by two
organizations and oversight by my staff have found really disincentives
for homeless women veterans to seek VA's housing programs -- including
no minimum standards for gender specific safety and limitations in
available housing options for homeless veterans, especially with
children. So my question to all of you is what would you do -- What
would you direct the VA to do today to serve homeless women veterans?
Ms. Strickland, if you had the opportunity to say to the VA, "Do this,"
what would it be?
Sandra Stickland: Provide adequate programs that can deal with the unique needs of female veterans.
Chair Patty Murray: The basics.
Sandra Strickland: The basics.
Chair Patty Murray: Safety, security, locks, privacy.
Sandra
Strickland: Yes. And then resources to help us get back on our feet,
to help us become self-sufficient, so that we don't become --
Chair Patty Murray: Chronic homeless?
Sandra Strickland: Correct.
Chair Patty Murray: Ms. Four?
Marsha
Four: One I think would be that certainly the issue of the security
really impacts their ability to focus on the programs that they have to
work in. I think it's very important that the VA truly does some
oversight of what they have in order to remold and work with some of the
opportunities they have in front of them. I think that the addition of
some extra funding through the special needs grants for those programs
that want to do the work with women veterans -- it can be quite costly
because the staff that's needed and the support that that grant allowed
for assistance to the families who took care of the children while the
women were attending to some very specific and some very important work
to go into the mental health filed, I think that's another important
place. And also to really make an evaluation of how many military sexual
trauma specific residential treatment programs there are in this
country and the fact that, if they are a far distance, how do they
expect the homeless women to get into those programs and travel there.
Chair Patty Murray: Reverend Rogers?
Rev.
Scott Rogers: First, I want to say thank you, Ms. Strickland for your
courage and I'm sorry for your experience. We-we simply ask the VA to
be right there with us. And what we say and what Charles George VA
Medical Center does is they train their staff. There staff is with us
as much as three and four days a week in our facility working with both
our women and our men. But they're also there saying they're going to
be the advocate, the ombudsman right alongside us as a faith-based and
other community based providers. I think it's when they exhibit and put
in place men and women, professionals, with that same passion that it
really makes the difference because nobody can understimate the power of
saying, "Welcome home, veteran."
Chair Patty Murray: Ms. Halliday, final comment?
Linda
Halliday: We'd like to say that we'd like to see the VA transition
away from the reliance of providing these services in multi-gender
facilities. We'd like to see incentives put in place for special needs
to ensure that female veterans needs are met, just as it was said
before. And I think you would also have to possibly explore using
contracts outside of the grant and per diem program to fit the unique
needs of female veterans especially when they don't represent a large
number and it would be smaller and get better economical solutions
We
may cover more of the hearing in tomorrow's snapshot. Right now, we're
moving over to the targeting of Iraqi youth. Michelangelo Signorile
interviewed (reposted at Huffington Post) Iraqi LGBT's Ali Hili on his Sirius XM radio program. The targeted are those who are or suspected of being gay and/or Emo.
Michelangelo
Signorile: What has the US State Dept done? And certainly, in light of
[Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton's strong statements about
countries around the world -- she gave a speech in Geneva speaking out
about the brutality [against] gay people and said the US would be, you
know, pulling funding even in some cases for countries, foreign aid
would be in jeopardy, that were pushing an anti-gay agenda. Is the US
State Dept just trying to look the other way?
Ali
Hili: They have been looking the other way and it's a shame on the
international world community that this genocide is happening under the
eyes of the world and the gay community in particular. No one is doing
anything to help support their brothers and sisters inside Iraq and this
is on the conscious -- this is on the conscious of everyone who's been
responsible to post it.
Michelangelo
Signorile: What do you think people listening right now should be
doing? Americans listening. Should they be putting pressure on the
State Dept and Hillary Clinton?
Ali
Hili: Of course. People should stand up. Stand up against this. this
administration in Iraq, this establishment of killing that has been
prosecuting sexual minorities, minorities and groups like even the
Emos. Nobody ever did anything to stop these killings, these
atrocities. The media is going to pick up on it for a period of time
and then it's going to slow down and disappear. But those victims who
are living there in fear, who's going to help them who's going to
support them?
Michaelangelo Signorile: Has there been any official statement from the State Dept or Hillary Clinton?
Ali Hili: No. Nothing. Nothing. We haven't heard anything.
And
no statment again today. Victoria Nuland handled the State Dept
briefing. She came out joking ("Only the early birds here today!") and
did everything but called for someone to bump up the lights as she asked, "So, what's on your minds?" Tomorrow, Victoria does the Tarzan yell.
Who is going to stand up for the Iraqi youth? The State Dept? The White House? Anybody? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?
While the so-called adults in government cut class, the tragedy continues for Iraqi youths. Peter Graff (Reuters) reports the way some Iraqi youths are dealing with the targeting:
Hafidh Jamal, 19, who works in a shoe store in the upscale Karrada neighbourhood, said he used to dress in black with his hair long in the back, but he fled his home in Sadr City this week and cut his hair. Two friends were killed for dressing in the emo style, he said. "Let them kill me. They killed my close friends," he told Reuters. "I support emo. I love this phenomenon." Tim Marshall (Sky News) notes the work of the Organization of Women's Freedom In Iraq to call out the murders: The OWFI documents some of the crimes here (be aware this link leads to a graphic image) and says the current wave of killings began on February 6th. Gays have always been persecuted in Iraq, but two things happened after the 2003 invasion of the country which led to the wave of anti gay killings in 2009 and now again. Ali Hussein (Al Mada) notes Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi's condemnation of the killing of Iraqi youths for being or thought to be Emo and Hussein notes that the targeting brings back memories of the Saddam Hussein regime when innocent people were behead and tossed into the garbage. Al Rafidayn quotes Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi stating that the liquadation of youths on the pretext of reforming Iraqi society is about embracing violence and terror and that they killers are in violation of the law. Another Al Mada article notes that while Nujaifi has spoken out against the killing, the Ministry of the Interior has remained silent except to deny that any targeting is taking place. MP Chuan Mohammed Taha serves on the Security and Defense Committee and notes that that governmental indifference to these killings is a new form of terrorism and that the Ministry of the Interior is a participant in the killings if only due to the fact that they know about the murders and they hide them from the public. Taha also declares that Emo is the expression of a personality and the law guarantees Iraqis the right to freely express their opinions. Abe Greenwald (Commentary) offers his thoughts on the subject: In a Contentions post, I noted that the initiative allowed Obama to shirk America's unique role in actually securing human rights around the world, while earning praise from identity-politics activists. The administration's failure (and disinclination) to maintain an American presence in Iraq after 2012 meant that anti-gay barbarians such as al-Qaeda and Iranian proxies would stay behind and prey upon Iraq's homosexuals without fear of American influence. If Obama really wanted to protect gay rights from history's most vicious anti-gay forces, I wrote, he'd keep America in Iraq (and Afghanistan) instead of issuing memos and giving speeches. And if the progressives singing his praises really felt that gay rights were human rights they'd have been more inclined to support George W. Bush's freedom agenda and less eager to cut and run in our wars abroad. How tragic to have been proven so right so soon.
So
even Commentary -- a right-wing periodical -- can weigh in publicly but
elected and appointed officials in the US all have a case of Vegas
throat?
Last night, Turkey launched another wave of air strikes on northern Iraq. Reuters notes Turkish Col Hussein Tamr states the assault -- supposedly targeting the PKK -- lasted over "an hour." Yesterday David Petraeus, the Director of the CIA, was visiting Turkey and speaking with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. RTT reports that they discussed "escalating sectarian strife in Iraq." Press TV tries to cover it and opens with:
The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), David Petraeus, has expressed concerns about the possible trial of Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi on charges of involvement in terrorist activities.
Al Sabaah reports
that three "followers" of Tareq al-Hashemi were sentenced in Dhi Qar's
Criminal court for possession of prohibited weapons and conspiracy
terrorism charges. Al Rafidayn reports the three were sentenced to life imprisonment.
Meanwhile Baghdad prepares to go on lockdown. March 29th the Arab Summit is scheduled to be held in the capital and Al Sabaah reports
that the Baghdad Operations Command has declared approximately 100,000
security officers will provide protection during the summit. In
addition, Chen Zhi (Xinhua) reports that starting March 26th, Baghdad International Airport will be shut down. Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) notes
that Moqtada al-Sadr has issued a statement announcing protests will
not take place during the summit. So much for free expression in Iraq
and, if any violate the edict of Moqtada, which of his deadly militias
will he use for slaughter? Dar Addustour notes
that the Cabinet has agreed to foot the bill for the Summit which,
according to Nouri's spokesperson Ali al-Dabbagh, will cost $100 billion
dinars. That would be $86,073,447.54 in US dollars. As so many Iraqis
remain unemployed and in poverty, it will be interesting to see how the
costs play out among the people.
Nouri
is stalling on the national conference to address Iraq's political
crisis and his latest stalling attempt is insisting that it take place
after the Arab summit. Al Rafidayn notes
that Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi and KRG President Massoud Barzani are
both calling for the conference to take place this month before the Arab
Summit (scheduled to kick off March 29th). Al Mada adds
that after all the prep meetings for the national conference (there
have been at least five), it was decided Monday to create a small
committee that would set the agendy and that this committee is scheduled
to meet today. For those who've forgotten, those prep meetings? They
were also supposed to determine the agenda.
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