US Admits Failings In Rights Record

Taken from The Sydney Morning Herald, March 8, 2007
By Reuters

WASHINGTON: In a rare admission, the US has said its own human rights record was in question in an annual report that criticised Iraq for its death squads with government links, kidnapping and torture.

"We do not issue these reports because we think ourselves perfect but rather because we know ourselves to be deeply imperfect," the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, said as she presented the report, which assesses human rights in more than 190 countries but does not review the US record.

Iraq was among the most problematic nations listed in the report for 2006, which found respect for rights had also deteriorated in China, Russia, Venezuela and Egypt.

The State Department's report said worsening sectarian violence and terrorism in Iraq prevented progress on rights last year.

On one side were Sunni Arab groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq and Baathist remnants, on the other Shiite militias with ties to the Iraqi security forces.

Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Sudan, North Korea, Burma, Kazakhstan and Iran were among other nations listed as the most serious rights offenders.

The report said there had been advances in Liberia, where Africa's first female head of state was inaugurated a year ago, and in Morocco and Haiti.

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China & Russia have both been ganging up on the US over the U.S. violating Iraqis' rights. China on Thursday accused the United States of trampling on Iraq's sovereignty, saying Washington was using its campaign against terrorism as an excuse to torture people around the world and violate the rights of its own citizens. The Chinese report on US Human Rights Abuses states the following:
# The United States has used its military power to trespass on the sovereignty of other countries and violate human rights.
# The Chinese report cites U.S. news stories estimating that more than 655,000 Iraqis have died in Iraq since war started in March 2003, and repeats charges of atrocities carried out by U.S. forces there.
# It said the United States has "a flagrant record" of violating the Geneva Convention by systematically abusing prisoners in Iraq and in Afghanistan, citing the mistreatment of prisoners in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison.
# The report said the international image of the United States had been hurt by these rights violations it said were carried out under the banner of "safeguarding human rights".
# China also said the United States had a poor domestic human rights record, with its citizens suffering "increasing civil rights infringements" under security measures imposed after the Sept. 11 attacks.
# Citing U.S. reports, it said nearly three-quarters of the terrorism suspects seized by the United States in the five years since the attacks have not come to trial due to lack of evidence.
# The report also criticized the United States for not protecting its citizens' economic and social rights, saying that according to the U.S. Census Bureau 37 million people lived in poverty in the United States in 2005, or about one in eight Americans.
# "The ethnic minorities are at the bottom of American society," the Chinese report said.
The document quotes a U.S. Justice Department report that said there were 5.2 million violent crimes in the United States in 2005, the highest number in 15 years.