{"id":13697,"date":"2012-01-17T08:28:02","date_gmt":"2012-01-17T16:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=13697"},"modified":"2012-01-17T08:45:47","modified_gmt":"2012-01-17T16:45:47","slug":"iraqi-security-forces-abduct-innocents-extort-money-from-their-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/17\/iraqi-security-forces-abduct-innocents-extort-money-from-their-families\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraqi Security Forces Abduct Innocents &#038; Extort Money From Their Families"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2012\/jan\/16\/corruption-iraq-son-tortured-pay\">The liberated Iraq<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;We had to send [the security men] phone cards so they could call us. They said: &#8216;Your son is being tortured \u2013 he will die if you don&#8217;t pay.&#8217; So we paid and paid. What could I do? He is the last I have. I said I would sell myself in the streets, just bring him back to me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yassir&#8217;s case is part of a growing body of evidence collected by the Guardian that shows Iraqi state security officers are systematically arresting people on trumped-up charges, torturing them and extorting bribes from their families for their release. Endemic corruption in\u00a0<a title=\"More from guardian.co.uk on Iraq\" href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/iraq\">Iraq<\/a>\u00a0has created a new industry in which senior security service officers buy their authority over particular neighbourhoods by bribing politicians, junior officers pay their seniors monthly stipends and everyone gets a return on their investment by extorting money from the families of detainees.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>See some of my previous writing on what a gift we&#8217;ve given the Iraqis:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2012\/01\/04\/us-approves-of-malikis-consolidating-dictatorial-power-in-iraq\/\">US Approves of Maliki&#8217;s Consolidating Dictatorial Power in Iraq<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/29\/us-sending-iraq-11-billion-in-arms-despite-malikis-turn-towards-dictatorship\/\">US Sending $11 Billion in Arms, Despite Maliki&#8217;s Turn Towards Dictatorship<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/17\/is-this-what-democracy-looks-like\/\">Is this what democracy looks like?<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2011\/12\/15\/panetta-says-iraq-debacle-worth-the-price\/\">Panetta Says Iraq Debacle &#8216;Worth It&#8217;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The liberated Iraq: &#8220;We had to send [the security men] phone cards so they could call us. They said: &#8216;Your son is being tortured \u2013 he will die if you don&#8217;t pay.&#8217; So we paid and paid. What could I do? He is the last I have. I said I would sell myself in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-13697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13697"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13699,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13697\/revisions\/13699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13697"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}