These are the archives for the week ending 1st September 2006
US in Iraq until 'victory is achieved'
President Bush yesterday vowed the US would not leave Iraq until 'victory is achieved' in the form of a stable democratic US ally established in Baghdad, arguing that the alternative was facing terrorists "in the streets of our own cities".
Facing a tenacious insurgency and sectarian conflict, administration officials, particularly military officers, have recently focused on a robust Iraqi army as the US goal and exit strategy.
However, the president made it clear he was setting his sights higher, and closer to the original war aims.
"The security of the civilised world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq. So the United States of America will not leave until victor is achieved" the president said.
Guardian 1/9/06
Bush demands action
President George Bush demanded that there be 'consequences' for Iran after it ignored a UN security council deadline yesterday to suspend part of its nuclear programme.
Washington wants UN sanctions imposed on Tehran as quickly as possible, but the security council is seriously divided. The Iranian government has hinted at retaliatory action if sanctions are imposed.
The security council is due to meet next month to begin discussion on a new resolution to impose sanctions, but the negotiations could take months.
Russia and China, which have close economic ties with Iran and are veto-wielding permanent members of the security council, are lukewarm about punitive measures.
Guardian 1/9/06
British diplomats survive bombing
A convoy of British diplomats and guards was blasted by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad on Thursday but the British embassy said no one was injured. "An incident occurred this morning involving British embassy personnel travelling outside the International Zone," an embassy spokesman said in a statement. "There were no injuries."
Iraqi police sources said two people were hurt in the attack in the Mansour district. It is close to the International Zone, better known as the Green Zone, a fortified area that houses the British and U.S. embassies and much of the Iraqi government.
Reuters,31/8/06
US troop levels and casualties increase
The United States has expanded its force in Iraq to 140,000 troops, the most since January and 13,000 more than five weeks ago, the Pentagon said on Thursday, amid relentless violence in Baghdad and elsewhere.
As American troops continue to fight a tenacious insurgency nearly 3 1/2 years into the war, U.S. military deaths in Iraq reached at least 64 in August -- increasing from 43 in July and ending three straight monthly declines. August's total still was about average for a war in which 63.7 U.S. troops have died per month. Deaths have ranged from a low of 20 in February 2004 to a high of 137 in November of that year. There have been 2,635 U.S. military deaths since war began in March 2003, and another 19,773 troops have been wounded in action, the Pentagon said.
Washington Post, 31/8/06
Contract to spin Iraq news
U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq. The contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide "public relations products" that would improve coverage of the military command's performance, according to a statement of work attached to the proposal.
Its goal is to "develop communication strategies and tactics, identify opportunities, and execute events . . . to effectively communicate Iraqi government and coalition's goals, and build support among our strategic audiences in achieving these goals," according to the statement of work that is publicly available through the Web site http://www.fbodaily.com.
A public relations practitioner who asked for anonymity because he may be involved in a bid on the contract said that military commanders "are overwhelmed by the media out there and are trying to understand how to get their information out. As an example, he said, there are complaints that reports from Iraq sometimes quote Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr more than military commanders.
Washington Post, 31/8/06
US accused of bid to oust Chavez
The US has channelled millions to opposition groups in Venezuela under a "pro-democracy" programme that supporters of President Hugo Chavez claim is a covert attempt to bankroll the defeat of his government.
Information about the grants, obtained under a Freedom of Information request, revealed 132 contracts worth $26m (£14m) but obscured the names and other identifying details of nearly half the organisations.
"What this indicates is that there is a great deal of money, a great deal of concern to oust or neutralise Chavez" said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington.
Guardian 30/8/06
US to coordinate attacks on Kurds
The United States has appointed a former NATO commander as special envoy to help Turkey and Iraq fight Kurdish rebels along their border and in northern Iraq, the State Department said on Tuesday. The appointment of retired Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, underscored U.S. commitment to working with Turkey and Iraq to end "terrorism in all its forms", said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
Several thousand members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, are believed to be hiding in the mountains of mainly Kurdish northern Iraq, from where they slip across the border to attack Turkish police, troops and other targets. Turkey has repeatedly warned it has the right under international law to conduct cross-border operations if Iraq and the United States fail to crack down on PKK rebels.
Last week, Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish guerrilla positions in the Iraqi border region. The United States, which has more than 130,000 troops in Iraq, fears that cross-border operations by Turkey will further complicate an already unstable environment there.
Diplomats have said Turkey is frustrated that the United States accepted Israel's right to launch attacks against its enemies in Lebanon while opposing Ankara taking unilateral action against the PKK in Iraq.
Reuters, 29/8/06
George W's palace' is on track
The plans are a state secret, but as the concrete hulks of a huge 21-building complex rise from the ashes of Saddam's Baghdad, Washington is sending a clear message to Iraqis: "We're here to stay." It's being built in the Middle East, but George W's palace, as the locals have dubbed the new US embassy, is designed as a suburb of Washington. An army of more than 3500 diplomatic and support staff will have their own sports centre, beauty parlour and swimming pool. And if the five-metre-thick perimeter walls don't keep the locals at bay, then the built-in surface-to-air missile station should.
After almost four years, the Americans still can't turn on the lights for the Iraqis, but that won't be a problem for the embassy staffers. The same with the toilets - they will always flush on command. All services for the biggest embassy in the world will operate independently from the rattletrap utilities of the Iraqi capital. Scheduled for completion next June, this is the only US reconstruction project in Iraq that is on track.
The Age, Australia, 26/8/06
Rumsfeld threat to Iran
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned potential adversaries on Monday that the United States remained capable of responding to military threats at home and abroad, despite its troop commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. "We are capable of dealing with other problems were they to occur," he told troops at an airfield in the Nevada desert.
"It would be unfortunate if other countries thought that because we have 136,000 troops in Iraq today, that we're not capable of defending our country or doing anything that we might need to do," he said in response to a question about military options for dealing with Iran.
Reuters, 28/8/06
Browne sees improvement...
Britain's defense secretary said on Monday that security had improved in southern Iraq and his Iraqi counterpart predicted that formal control of another province in the region would be handed back to Iraq soon.
"I recognise there are continuing challenges and I've seen some violence over this weekend which suggests there's much more work to be done," Des Browne told a joint news conference with Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul Qader Jassim. "But as Prime Minister Maliki said in an interview this weekend, things are improving and the challenge is to maintain that improvement," he added.
CNN, 28/8/06
...but 100 die
Iraq has been wracked by another day of carnage leaving around 100 people dead. A suicide car bomber struck at the heart of Iraq's embattled security forces - the interior ministry in Baghdad. Up to 16 people were killed and 62 were wounded. In Kirkuk two simultaneous car bombs left another nine people dead and more than 20 injured.
There are also reports that fierce street fighting with Shi'ite militia south of Baghdad has claimed the lives of 25 Iraqi soldiers. Six American soldiers were also killed in separate attacks. Earlier, the Iraqi Prime Minister told CNN the violence was decreasing and there would never be a civil war in Iraq.
Australian Broadcasting Company, 28/8/06
Licenced to kill
The majority of U.S. service members charged in the unlawful deaths of Iraqi civilians have been acquitted, found guilty of relatively minor offenses or given administrative punishments without trials, according to a Washington Post review of concluded military cases. Charges against some of the troops were dropped completely.
Though experts estimate that thousands of Iraqi civilians have died at the hands of U.S. forces, only 39 service members were formally accused in connection with the deaths of 20 Iraqis from 2003 to early this year. Twenty-six of the 39 troops were initially charged with murder, negligent homicide or manslaughter; 12 of them ultimately served prison time for any offense.
Top military officers, military lawyers, experts and troops say the number of homicide cases prosecuted probably represents only a small portion of the incidents in which Iraqi citizens were killed under questionable circumstances. Officials also say privately that some cases have not been investigated thoroughly because there has been a tendency to consider Iraqi civilian deaths an unintended consequence of combat operations.
"I think there were many other engagements that should have been investigated, definitely," said an Army major who served in Iraq in 2004, speaking anonymously because he fears retribution. "But no one wanted to look at them or report them higher. . . . It was just the way things worked."
Washington Post, 28/8/06
Violence spreads north of Baghdad
Gunmen and bombers killed at least 69 people in Iraq on Sunday, even as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki repeated the assertions of Iraqi and U.S. leaders that violence was easing from a wartime high set earlier this summer.
While U.S. and Iraqi forces have deployed additional soldiers in Baghdad to deal with the surge of sectarian violence, the deadliest of the attacks Sunday occurred outside the capital, in cities to the north.
San Jose Mercury News, 28/8/06
Broadcasters block Lebanon charity appeal
Plans for a major charity appeal to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon have been shelved after television broadcasters refused to back it. The BBC said concerns over its editorial impartiality meant it was unable to support a national appeal despite two separate requests from the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC). And the corporation, along with ITN and Sky News, told charities they feared people might not support such a campaign because of the "political complexities" of the Middle East.
Many of the charities have been left frustrated by their failure to get broadcasters' backing for the project. "People were frustrated that they found it difficult to support this," said a source at one of the charities. "There's a genuine humanitarian need in Lebanon and whether there's a conflict should not affect that."
Insiders pointed out that the DEC already has a national appeal for the Darfur crisis, which has a political dimension, as well as for the famine in Niger, and dispute that the situation in Lebanon is "too complex".
Guardian, 25/8/06
Pakistan's hidden war for oil
Nearly 60 people, including a prominent tribal leader, are thought to have been killed in a battle between government forces and fighters in Baluchistan. Earlier on Saturday an interior ministry official said that 21 members of the security forces and 37 rebel fighters were killed in the fighting, which appeared to be among the heaviest in the southwestern province of Pakistan in years.
Baluchistan is Pakistan's biggest but poorest province. It has Pakistan's main natural gas reserves but Baluch separatists have long complained that the province does not get a fair share of the profits from its resources. Officials say that hundreds of people have been killed in the region since late 2004.
Aljazeera, 27/8/06
Iraq inflation doubles
Three months into the administration of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the inflation rate has reached 70 percent a year, up from 32 percent last year. Wages are flat, banks are barely functioning and the consensus among many American and Iraqi officials is that inflation is most likely to accelerate.
Fuel remains the country's most visible example of economic dysfunction. A gallon of gasoline cost as little as 4 cents in November. Now, after the International Monetary Fund pushed the Oil Ministry to cut its subsidies, the official price is about 67 cents.
The spike has come as a shock to Iraqis, who make only about $150 a month on average - if they have jobs. Estimates of unemployment range from 40 to 60 percent. And with black-market sellers commanding $3.19 a gallon because of shortages, up from about $1.25 a few months ago, the actual price most Iraqis pay is far higher than what is officially sanctioned.
New York Times, 25/8/06
Iraqis deny US claims on Iran
Iraq's most powerful politician has dismissed claims by U.S. officials and generals that Iran is interfering in Baghdad's affairs. Abdul-Azziz al-Hakim has told TIME that despite repeated requests from him and other Iraqi politicians, American officials have failed to show any reliable evidence of Tehran's interference. "[The U.S.] has been making such claims for a long time," he said, "and for three years we've told them, 'Show us proof.' But they never have."
Many Shi'ite politicians dismiss as scapegoating the statements by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and generals at the Pentagon that Iran is actively arming and training Sh'ite militias in Iraq. "They are looking for somebody to blame for the failure [of the U.S. military to halt the sectarian killings in Iraq] and it is easy to blame Iran," said Hadi al-Amiri, who heads the Iraqi parliament's security and defense committee, while also running the Badr Organization, a Shi'ite militia.
Even political observers not affiliated to the Shi'ite parties are likely to be surprised by Brig. Gen. Michael Barbero's claim, at a press conference Wednesday, that there was "irrefutable" evidence of Iranian collusion with Iraqi militias. That is the exact opposite of what U.S. military officials in Baghdad have been saying.
Time Magazine, 25/8/06
Back door draft
With bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan stemming the flow of volunteers the US marine corps has been forced to call up reserves for compulsory service. The involuntary call-up, seen as a "back-door draft" by Pentagon critics, is the first since the start of the Iraq war, and will begin in a few months when an initial batch of up to 2,500 reservists is summoned back to active service for a year or more.
The army has already sent 2,200 reservists back to the front of which only about 350 went voluntarily. The marine corps announcement is in contrast to predictions by US commanders a few months ago that the number of American troops in Iraq could be reduced from about 130,000 to 100,000 by the end of the year.
China Daily, 25/8/06
British abandon base
British troops abandoned a major base in southern Iraq on Thursday and prepared to wage guerrilla warfare along the Iranian border to combat weapons smuggling, a move that anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called the first expulsion of U.S.-led coalition forces from an Iraqi urban center.
"This is the first Iraqi city that has kicked out the occupier!" trumpeted a message from Sadr's office that played on car-mounted speakers in Amarah, capital of the southern province of Maysan. "We have to celebrate this occasion!"
Maj. Charlie Burbridge, a British military spokesman, said the last of 1,200 troops left Camp Abu Naji, just outside Amarah, at noon Thursday, after several days of heavy mortar and rocket fire by a local militia, which local residents identified as the Sadr-controlled Mahdi Army. The repositioning is the first public acknowledgment that forces from the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq have entered into guerrilla warfare to combat the insurgents and militias they have been fighting for more than three years.
Washington Post, 24/8/06