These are the archives for the week ending 4th January 2008
Security gains in Iraq still tenuous
Security gains that have led to a significant fall in violence over the last six months are tenuous and could be lost if Iraqis become disillusioned or extremists mount a major attack, a top U.S. commander said Thursday.
Violence in Iraq has decreased by 60 percent since June, according to U.S. military figures, and the government has been sounding upbeat. The country is notably calmer than it was at the same time last year, when there were fears of all-out civil war. "I'm very optimistic, but at the same time I'm very realistic. We have a tenuous security situation right now," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the commander of U.S. forces south of Baghdad.
One issue is what will happen to the armed U.S.-backed groups once security is restored. The government has said it will integrate about a third of them into Iraqi security forces.
"The other two-thirds we have to find productive work for," Lynch said. The U.S. has said that Iraq is matching $155 million the U.S. has set aside to create jobs and provide vocational training for the fighters.
"This is really a government of Iraq issue," Lynch said. "They've got to think about how do we take all these productive citizens and compensate them for the work that they're doing."
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has been uneasy about integrating the predominantly Sunni fighters - now better organized and armed - and about the possibility they could switch sides again. But failing to provide employment for the fighters could lead them straight back into the insurgency, Lynch said.
"If indeed a concerned citizen is getting paid today and he's not getting paid tomorrow, there's a tendency of going back to doing bad things," he said. "And I don't want that to happen."
International Herald Tribune 3/1/08
Iraq amnesty does not cover gays
The Iraq government is considering the release of some 5,000 prisoners but a spokesperson said it would not include terrorists or homosexuals. The Iraqi government has about 20,000 people in custody, while the U.S. military holds about 25,000.
Homosexuality itself is not illegal in Iraq, but police regularly arrest gays on other charges often trumped up. The amnesty bill drafted by the Shiite-dominated government falls far short of Sunni demands. About the only thing on which the two sides agree is that imprisoned gays not be freed.
The total number of gays being held is not known. And, they may be the lucky ones, according to some LGBT activists. Death squads imposing strict Islamic law are reportedly responsible for the murders of hundreds of gay men across Iraq.
Last year the leader of an exiled Iraqi LGBT rights group told a London conference on homophobia that that militias blamed for the murders of hundreds of gay men and women are sanctioned by the government and the US-led coalition is doing little to stop the killings.
In 2006 the Iraq government strongly criticized a U.N. report on human rights that put its civilian death toll in 2006 at 34,452, saying it is "superficial" because it included people such as homosexuals.
365Gay.com, 2/1/08
Rise in use of killing machines
The military's reliance on unmanned aircraft that can watch, hunt and sometimes kill insurgents has soared to more than 500,000 hours in the air, largely in Iraq.
And new Defense Department figures show that the Air Force more than doubled its monthly use of drones between January and October, forcing it to take pilots out of the air and shift them to remote flying duty to meet part of the demand.
According to a new Pentagon report, the Defense Department plans to develop an "increasingly sophisticated force of unmanned systems" over the next 25 years.
The effort will confront some current shortfalls, including plans to improve how well the drones can quickly and precisely identify and locate targets. That would also involve increasing the precision of the guided weapons that are on some of the unmanned aircraft.
Those efforts are considered critical because it enables the military to hunt down and kill militants without putting troops at risk.
Associated Press, 1/1/08
Afghan drug trade likely to rise in 2008
Afghanistan's already booming drugs trade is likely to grow even more this year, the head of foreign troops in the country said on Wednesday, warning this would bankroll the Taliban insurgency.
Afghanistan's poppies already produce more than 90 percent of the world's heroin, but the government, the United Nations, donor countries and commanders of the 40,000-plus foreign force are divided over how best to tackle the problem.
General Dan McNeill, commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for Afghanistan, told his first news briefing of the new year on Wednesday there was a clear link between poppy growing and the strength of the insurgency.
"When I see a poppy field, I see it turning into money and then into IEDs, AKs and RPGs ...," he said referring to the improvised explosive devices, Kalashnikov rifles and rocket propelled grenades favoured by the Taliban.
Acknowledging he had little hard data to back him up, McNeill estimated that 20-30 percent of Afghanistan's multi-billion dollar illicit drug economy - vastly bigger than the formal economy - was funding the insurgency.
While the hardline Islamic Taliban managed to virtually eradicate poppy cultivation in the year before they were ousted by a U.S.-led force after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the crop has made a remarkable comeback in the years since Western-backed President Hamid Karzai took power.
Reuters 2/1/08
2007 is deadliest year in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan in 2007 saw a record level of violence that killed more than 6,500 people, including 110 US troops - the highest ever in Afghanistan - and almost 4,500 militants, according to an Associated Press count. Britain lost 41 soldiers, while Canada lost 30. Other nations lost a total of 40.
The AP count is based on figures from Western and Afghan officials and is not definitive.
Afghan officials are known to exaggerate Taliban deaths, for instance, and NATO's International Security Assistance Force does not release numbers of militants it killed, meaning AP's estimate of 4,478 militants deaths could be low.
Independent 1/1/08
..and in Iraq
This year has been the most deadly for American troops in Iraq since the invasion nearly five years ago, US military figures out today show.
Deaths peaked in May when 126 American soldiers died in coalition assaults on insurgent strongholds.
The second half of the year saw violence drop dramatically with the American surge of 30,000 extra troops and a freeze on activities by some militias.
The 899 American troop deaths in 2007 surpassed 2004 when 850 US soldiers were killed.
The US military deaths are dwarfed by Iraqi civilian casualties, although the fluctuations show the same pattern.
It is difficult to obtain accurate figures on civilian casualties but the Associated Press said Iraqi civilian deaths peaked in May with 2,155 killed, falling to 718 in November and 710 in December.
Over the year, 18,610 Iraqis were killed. In 2006, the only other full year an AP count has been made, 13,813 civilians were killed.
The civilian toll was compiled by AP from hospital, police and military officials, as well as accounts from reporters and photographers. Insurgent deaths were not included. Other counts differ and some are much higher.
Guardian unlimited 1/1/08
Iraq's Kurd villagers see no hope
Since Turkish warplanes turned her village home into a heap of rubble last week, mother of eight Aziya Rasheed says she has lost all hope for the future.
Air strikes on mountain villages around the town of Sankasar in northern Iraq on December 16 destroyed much of Rasheed's modest home as the family slept, injuring her 16-year-old daughter so severely that she had to have her leg amputated above the knee.
"We lost everything, even my daughter's leg. Isn't this terrorism from Turkey?" she said angrily.
The fate of Iraqi civilians caught up in the fight between Turkish forces and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas could effect the delicate balance of security in northern Iraq.
Turkey has massed up to 100,000 troops on the Iraqi border and waged a campaign of low-level cross-border strikes on PKK militants for several months, accusing PKK fighters based in Iraq of carrying out deadly attacks in Turkey.
The campaign intensified this month, with air and artillery strikes and small-scale cross-border raids by ground forces.
U.S. and Iraqi authorities describe the PKK as terrorists and say they support Turkey's right to strike back. But they have also expressed concern that civilian casualties could destabilize northern Iraq. Washington has had to tread a delicate path between the interests of its two close allies.
Rueters 30/12/08
Economy nudges Iraq aside
For the White House and for presidential contenders, signs of progress in Iraq and growing economic tensions at home are changing the political dynamics. Many economists see a recession looming; others suggest the U.S. economy may already be in one.
Iraq no longer dominates the daily White House news briefings and only came up a few times at President Bush's 50-minute year-end news conference.
On the campaign trail, Republican candidates generally skirt the issue or talk about the war on terror instead of just Iraq.
Concern about instability and terrorism in the Middle East and South Asia was brought into renewed focus with Thursday's assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. But even as the killing moved several presidential candidates to tout their national security credentials, the issue again was characterized more broadly than Iraq.
The Democratic presidential contenders all want the war to end, but most have nuanced positions and generally lack detailed withdrawal plans. For Democrats, the economy and health care are raised far more frequently than Iraq at town-hall meetings and other gatherings.
Despite approval ratings in the 30s and lack of majorities in the House and Senate, Bush prevailed in every battle with Democrats on Iraq policy, even winning passage of the $70 billion in war spending with no strings attached.
While the reduction in casualties and apparent military progress in Iraq clearly play to Republican strengths, the emergence of economic concerns and the recent credit and housing crises can work against them and provide more ammunition to Democrats, said James A. Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University.
"After all, most elections for the presidency in America rest on domestic issues," Thurber said.
AP 29/12/08
US fears affect on Afghanistan
President Bush held an emergency meeting of his top foreign-policy aides Friday to discuss the deepening crisis in Pakistan, as administration officials and others explored whether Thursday's assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto marks the beginning of a new Islamic extremist offensive that could spread beyond Pakistan and undermine the U.S. war effort in neighbouring Afghanistan.
U.S. officials fear that a renewed campaign by Islamic militants aimed at the Pakistani government, and based along the border with Afghanistan, would complicate U.S. policy in the region by effectively merging the six-year-old war in Afghanistan with Pakistan's growing turbulence.
"The fates of Afghanistan and Pakistan are inextricably tied," said J. Alexander Thier, a former U.N. official in Afghanistan who is now at the U.S. Institute for Peace. U.S. military officers and other defense experts are concerned that continued instability eventually will spill over and intensify the fighting in Afghanistan, which has spiked in recent months as the Taliban have strengthened and expanded its operations.
Unrest in Pakistan and increasing fuel prices already have boosted the cost of food in Afghanistan, making it more likely that hungry Afghans will be lured by payments from the Taliban to participate in attacks, a U.S. Army officer in Afghanistan said.
Seattle Times 29/12/08