Human Rights Watch is deeply concerned about reports that Iraqi civilians in some cities have ransacked Iraqi government offices and removed important documents relating to the government's security apparatus and past human rights crimes. Human Rights Watch has also received reports that Iraqi civilians or Iraqi government agents have burned the archives at some security offices. In Basra, for example, British officials have publicly stated that they allowed the looting of Ba'ath party buildings, which house important archives, as a means of showing the population that the party had lost control of the city.

In addition to urging the U.S., the U.K., and other coalition forces to take all possible steps to prevent looting and the emergence of a security vacuum that could endanger civilian populations, we call upon the coalition to establish a coordinated effort to secure and preserve all documents and archives relating to the Iraqi state and its security forces. The coalition should hold the archives in secure custody until they can be returned to a stable post-conflict Iraqi government. We believe such an effort will assist in the future prosecutions of Iraqi officials suspected of crimes against humanity, war crimes, or genocide, and the effort to redress the crimes of the past.

Following the 1991 uprisings, Kurdish officials secured an estimated 18 tons of Iraqi state documents, which were transferred to the United States and analyzed by Human Rights Watch. These captured documents clearly established Iraqi government responsibility for the genocidal Anfal campaign against the Kurds, and helped Human Rights Watch identify the responsible Iraqi officials. The documents also provided important evidence of other repressive actions by the Iraqi government, including its campaign against the southern Marsh Arab population.

Human Rights Watch estimates that some 250,000 to 290,000 Iraqis have "disappeared" during the rule of the Ba'ath Party-taken away from their homes by the Iraqi security forces, and never heard from again. The archives of the Iraqi security services could finally allow the families of those "disappeared" to find out what has happened to their long-lost relatives.

Human Rights Watch believes that a concerted effort to secure and preserve all Iraqi archives will also be of vital importance to the success of post-conflict reconstruction programs, particularly those related to the orderly return of civilian forcibly displaced in Iraq. The Iraqi government has expelled more than 100,000 ethnic Kurds, Assyrians, and Turkomans from the northern city of Kirkuk and its environs, and in most cases the only records that would allow those expelled families to re-establish claims to their lost property exist in Iraqi archives. The loss of those archives would gravely complicate an orderly return process, as evidenced by the difficult return of displaced populations in the Balkans, in large case due to the willful destruction of their property documents during ethnic cleansing.

Finally, Human Rights Watch is concerned that leaving Iraqi security archives unsecured could lead to an increase in retaliatory violence and vengeance killings. The security archives identify tens of thousands of security agents and collaborators by name. Many Iraqi civilians were forced to collaborate with the security agencies, and may have informed on relatives, neighbors, and friends who were later jailed or killed. The publication of their identities at a time when general security and order are not assured could place those collaborators and others in grave danger.

The coalition must do its utmost to ensure that the archives of the Iraqi government-both the documents in the hands of the central Iraqi ministries as well as the potentially equally important documents stored at police and other security-associated buildings around the country-are secured as soon as possible. The preservation of these vital documents can only be achieved through a coordinated and determined effort by the coalition military forces.

Human Rights Watch has played a central role in analyzing the Iraqi state documents captured during the 1991 uprisings. We hope that the coalition will allow Human Rights Watch similar access to any newly obtained documents, so we can continue to establish a credible and impartial record of the crimes against humanity inflicted on the Iraqi people.

Sincerely,