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News archives for the week ending 8th August 2008

Mixed messages on British role in Basra

More than four months after American troops were moved hundreds of miles across Iraq to help save a faltering Iraqi Army offensive against Shiite militias in the southern oil city of Basra, a political controversy has erupted here over Britain's failure to promptly deploy its own troops, stationed only a few miles from the fighting.

Eager to distance himself from a war that hastened Tony Blair's downfall, Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged last fall to halve British troops in Iraq this year. He pulled the British garrison out of the heart of Basra in September, and began a drawdown that left the bulk of the remaining force of about 4,100 troops at a base at the Basra airport, about 10 miles from the city center. But the fighting in the city in March caused him to scrap plans to reduce the British force to 2,500 this year, and the latest government plan, outlined last month, is to aim for substantial cutbacks in 2009.

British military experts say Mr. Brown's shifting signals have left the British force in Iraq in a no man's land, still committed in significant numbers but having limited effect because of a determination to limit British casualties. This ambivalence, these experts say, contributed to the confusion in which British troops delayed for six days joining the battle over Basra in March.

New York Times, 6/8/08

Britain plans long term presence in Iraq

Britain has begun negotiations with the government in Baghdad on a long-term military commitment to Iraq that UK officials say could leave significant numbers of UK troops in the country beyond next year.

The Ministry of Defence envisages a possible longer-term relationship with the Iraqi military similar to the type that the UK has with other armed forces in the region, such as those of Oman or Jordan. Some officials are keen to counteract media reports that by the middle of next year substantially all British troops will be out of Iraq.

Officials say no decisions have been made, but the longer term roles for UK forces could include training Iraqi staff officers and non-commissioned officers for the army, and training the country's navy, marines and air force. The outcome also depends on the posture taken by the US, which - if current security improvements in Iraq continue - is also likely to reduce troop numbers in the country.

UK officials say it is possible that US troops may shift southward. This is in part because some troop contingents, including from Poland, have pulled out from regions south of Baghdad but also because US equipment being removed from the country will have to leave it from the south, either through the ports of Basra and Umm Qasr or through Kuwait.

Financial Times, 6/8/08

Iraq not spending on reconstruction

Iraq is generating revenue of about $80 billion a year, mainly from its vast reserves of crude oil, but spending only about 1% of the total on maintaining critical infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges and sanitation, the U.S. government auditor said.

The Iraqi government -- which controls the fourth-largest conventional reserves in the world, with an estimated 115 billion barrels of crude -- gets approximately 90% of its revenue from oil sales, which have jumped in value with this year's rise in prices.

Officials say Iraq's shortage of trained staff, weak procurement and budgeting systems, and violence and sectarian strife affect the government's ability to spend more of its revenue on capital investments intended to rebuild its infrastructure.

Walltreet Journal, 6/8/08

Turkey appoints pro-Nato army chief

Turkey's powerful military sent out an uncompromising message of support for the country's secular system yesterday by appointing a new head of the army known for his staunch opposition to Islamism.

Announced at a meeting of the supreme military council, General Ilker Basbug, 65, replaces retiring incumbent General Yasar Buyukanit as army chief of staff and will hold the post until 2010.

Though Basbug is strong advocate of Nato and Turkey's relationship with Israel, his appointment is expected to herald an easing of tensions between the military and the Justice and Development party (AKP) government.

Last week the AKP narrowly escaped being dissolved by the constitutional court for allegedly trying to create an Islamic state. That decision ended months of uncertainty after the chief prosecutor had sought the closure of the party, which has Islamist roots

. Yet some commentators say that as army chief of staff Basbug will adopt a less confrontational approach.

"The military is the sole appointed guardian of the foundation of the Turkish republic, so they will be allergic to any kind of Islamism," wrote Cengiz Candar in the Turkish newspaper Referans. "But after what we have just passed through, he will be much more cautious than Buyukanit."

Guardian, 5/8/08

Election bill stalls over Kirkuk

Iraqi lawmakers on Sunday failed to settle a dispute over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and pass a provincial elections bill viewed as vital for national reconciliation, despite intense pressure from the United States and the United Nations.

Iraq's parliament called a special session Sunday to vote for the second time on the elections bill, which must be approved before elections can be held in the country's 18 provinces. But the session never convened, because Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen lawmakers were unable to reach an agreement on Kirkuk, where their respective ethnic groups are locked in a struggle for land and resources.

Kurds want Kirkuk to become part of the semiautonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, but Arabs and Turkmens want the city to remain under central government control. The elections would give more power to regions as well as to Sunni Arabs, who boycotted the last provincial elections in 2005.

The Bush administration views the vote as vital to bridging Iraq's political divide and cementing security gains. But even before Sunday, Iraq's electoral commission had said the elections, originally scheduled for Oct. 1, could not take place until early next year.

Washington Post, 4/8/08

Who controls images of war?

The case of a freelance photographer in Iraq who was barred from covering the Marines after he posted photos on the Internet of several of them dead has underscored what some journalists say is a growing effort by the U.S. military to control graphic images from the war.

Zoriah Miller, the photographer who took images of Marines killed in a suicide attack in Anbar Province and posted them on his website, was subsequently forbidden to work in Marine Corps-controlled areas of the country.

If the conflict in Vietnam was notable for open access given to journalists, the Iraq war may mark an opposite extreme. After five years and more than 4,000 American combat deaths, searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic photographs of dead U.S. soldiers.

While the Bush administration faced criticism for overt political manipulation in not permitting photos of flag-draped coffins, the issue is more emotional on the battlefield. Local military commanders worry about security in publishing images of the American dead and about an affront to the dignity of fallen comrades.

Most newspapers refuse to publish such pictures as a matter of policy.

But opponents of the war, civil liberties advocates and journalists argue that the public portrayal of the war is being sanitized and that Americans who choose to do so have the right to see - in whatever medium - the human cost of a war that polls consistently show is unpopular with Americans.

Journalists say it is now harder to accompany troops in Iraq on combat missions. Even memorial services for killed soldiers, once routinely open, are increasingly off limits.

News organizations say that such restrictions are one factor in declining coverage of the war, along with the danger, the high cost to financially ailing media outlets and diminished interest among Americans in following the war.

By a recent count, only half a dozen Western photographers were covering a war in which 150,000 U.S. troops are engaged.

Star Tribune, Minneapolis, 2/8/08

Deal left Basra at mercy of gangs

British commanders in Iraq made an astonishing secret deal with a Shia prisoner to withdraw from Basra which left the city at the mercy of criminal gangs, one of the UK's senior military officers serving in Iraq has said.

Colonel Richard Iron said the "understandable but inexcusable" deal was one of several "terrible mistakes" the British have made during their occupation of the south of the country. In an exclusive interview with The Independent on Sunday, Col Iron, who leads the teams mentoring the Iraqi army in central Basra, said the deal had included the release of 120 prisoners and had the effect of leaving the city in a lawless state.

One seasoned, UK-based Iraq-watcher added: "There was a sense that no one was making policy in London."

Independent on Sunday, 3/8/08

Pakistan resist pressure from US

The Bush administration and its allies are pressing Pakistan to end its support for Afghan insurgents linked to al-Qaida, but Pakistani generals are unlikely to be swayed because they increasingly see their interests diverging from those of the United States, U.S. and foreign experts said.

The administration sought to ratchet up the pressure last month by sending top U.S. military and intelligence officials to Pakistan to confront officials there with intelligence linking Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence to the Taliban and other militant Islamist groups.

When that failed to produce the desired response, U.S. officials told news organizations about the visit, and then revealed that the intelligence included an intercepted communication between ISI officers and a pro-Taliban network that carried out a July 7 bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the Afghan capital.

The U.S. and Britain privately have demanded that Pakistan move against the Taliban's top leadership, which they contend is based near Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Baluchistan Province, said a State Department official and a senior NATO defense official, who both requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly.

On Friday, however, Pakistan vehemently rejected the allegations of ISI involvement in the Indian Embassy blast, which killed 41 and injured 141.

Pakistani generals and other leaders are also infuriated by President Bush's pursuit of a strategic relationship with India, their foe in three wars, as embodied by a U.S.-Indian civilian nuclear-cooperation pact that won United Nations approval Friday, the U.S. officials and experts said.

Seattle Times 2/8/08

US has 21,000 detainees in Iraq

The U.S. military said on Saturday that roughly 21,000 Iraqi detainees are in its custody at two U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, despite releasing more than 10,000 other detainees so far in 2008.

A military statement revealed that the U.S. troops currently hold a total of around 21,000 detainees, some 17,000 of them at Camp Bucca near Basra, and about 3,000 others at Camp Cropper in Baghdad.

The total number also included a dozen women, over 300 juveniles, about 200 foreigners and about 200 detainees over the age of 60, the statement said.

The statement also said that more than 10,000 detainees have been released from the U.S.-run prisons in Iraq this year "since implementation of programs designed to better prepare detainees for reintegration into society and to reduce recidivism."

The U.S troops are authorized by UN Security Council Resolution1790 and the Geneva Convention to detain anyone "necessary for imperative reasons of security," the statement said. "There is a detainee review process in place, which judges security risk, so that at any point in that process, detainees can be retained or released," it added.

Xinhua 2/8/08

BAE reaps spoils of war

BAE Systems' chief executive, Mike Turner, is to bow out on a high after Europe's largest defence group defied the worsening economic conditions to boost sales by more than 12 per cent as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to provide good business.

Mr Turner said yesterday: "Credit crisis, what credit crisis?" as he unveiled his last interim results after six years as chief executive and 42 years at the company.

Total sales at the defence group in the first six months of the year rose from £6.8bn in the first half of 2007 to £7.7bn a year on. Earnings before interest, tax and amortisation were up 26 per cent from £700m to £881m.

In its results statement, the group said sales grew, particularly from clients "prioritising the provision of equipment and capability to their armed forces engaged in overseas operations".

The group is predicting a strong second half to 2008, saying it expects "to benefit further from the current high demand for armoured wheeled vehicles to meet operational requirements". It added that the order book stood at £41bn.

Independent, 2/8/08

Kirkuk row intensifies

Iraq's government called for calm on Friday to dampen a bitter row over the status of Kirkuk, a day after Kurdish councilors called for the city to become part of the largely autonomous region of Kurdistan.

The government rejected the move, insisting control of the disputed oil-rich city in northern Iraq would be decided through political consensus with the city's other ethnic groups.

Reuters, 1/8/08