The evidence for the real looting of Iraq is revealed in the eighteenth quarterly report of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), dated 27 August 2004.1 You may recall that UNMOVIC was the United Nations inspection organisation that carried out inspections in Iraq from November 2002 to March 2003. Paragraph 5 of UNMOVIC’s report states that “scrap metal” started arriving in Jordan from Iraq in June 2003 and that the flow accelerated in 2004. The metals taken from Iraq include stainless steel and “other more valuable alloys”. It was estimated that 60 000 tons of metal was taken in 2003 and 70 000 tons “up until June 2004”. This is significant as Iraq gained its “sovereignty” in that month, which means that the looting was apparently stopped at that point.

UNMOVIC personnel were told this amount comprised “only a small part” of all metal “exported” from Iraq to neighbouring countries, Europe, North Africa and Asia. While UNMOVIC makes mention of “scrap metal”, we cannot underestimate the value of this resource, which can be reused and recycled into other products. It is particularly valuable for a country like Iraq, which probably doesn’t have the indigenous sources of raw materials available to other countries. The phenomenal quantity of materials taken in staggering: 130 000 tons of metal. However, it wasn’t just the metals that were taken, but a “lot of high-quality industrial production equipment from facilities all over Iraq” was “purchased by unnamed contractors at low cost”, and removed from Iraq.

While this issue come to light in the UNMOVIC report, its true significance was not noted at the time as it was only mentioned in passing in relation to missile engines that were removed from Iraq. At least part of this so-called “scrap export business” was sanctioned by the Iraqi Ministry of Trade. However, this is surely a laughable notion as the majority of this looting was carried out while the Coalition Provisional Authority officially controlled the country. Further, any “Iraqi” institutions throughout 2003 and 2004 were totally dominated and controlled by American officials in any case.

Some of this looting probably represents corruption on the part of unscrupulous pro-American Iraqis placed in power by the Americans. Some may have been for ostensibly legitimate purposes. Regardless, it still represents a veritable fire sale of Iraqi resources to outside interests at bargain basement prices. This is practically akin to the Russians who dismantled whole German factories for removal to Russia at the end of World War Two. Selling the resources at “low cost” may have been an attempt to circumvent accusations of outright looting or pillage by giving it a veneer of “export” and “trade”. It is also added proof of corruption among Iraqis who were probably using their positions to line their own pockets.

The looting can surely also be defined as a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits “pillage” of an occupied territory. As far as the FLM is aware, this charge has not been levelled against the United States previously. The FLM is also not aware if looting or stealing resources from an occupied country is catered for separately in the Geneva Conventions.2

The FLM calls for an independent investigation of this issue regarding possible corruption among Iraqi officials, potential war crimes and breaches of the Geneva Conventions by the occupying powers, and the general effect it has had on Iraq itself.