These are the archives for the week ending 9th March 2007
China blasts US on human rights
China on Thursday blasted the United States for trampling on Iraq's sovereignty, using its campaign against terrorism as an excuse to carry out torture and violate the rights of its citizens.
It said the United States has used its strong military power to trespass on the sovereignty of other countries and violate human rights. The Chinese report cites U.S. news stories estimating that more than 655,000 Iraqis have died in Iraq since war started in March 2003, and repeats charges of atrocities carried out by U.S. forces there.
It said the United States has "a flagrant record" of violating the Geneva Convention by systematically abusing prisoners in Iraq and in Afghanistan, citing severe mistreatment of prisoners in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison as one example.
China also said the United States had a poor domestic human rights record, with its citizens suffering "increasing civil rights infringements" as the U.S. government put average Americans under intense surveillance as part of terrorism investigations since the Sept. 11 attacks.
It cited U.S. reports that said nearly three-quarters of the terrorism suspects seized by the United States in the five years following the attacks have not been put on trial due to lack of evidence.
International Herald Tribune, 7/3/07
"The Iraqis rolled their eyes and sighed quietly."
It was supposed to be a seamless display of Iraqi and American cooperation in the urban fiefdom of Iraq's most powerful Shiite militia. What it became, however, was a wrangle of competing commanders, bruised egos and conflicting priorities.
Capt. Josh Taylor a company commander from the 73rd Cavalry Regiment assured the Iraqis the U.S. mission was to teach them how to keep their neighborhoods safe - not to play big brother - and that cooperating was the only way to stop the violence. The Iraqis rolled their eyes and sighed quietly.
Houston Chronicle, 7/3/07
Senior White House aide guilty of perjury
George Bush suffered a fresh setback yesterday when a top white House aide, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, was found guilty of perjury in relation to events leading up to the invasion of Iraq.
Mr Bush, whose polling rates are already the worst of his six years in office as a result of Iraq, watched the verdict on television in the Oval office.
Libby could face 25 years in jail. He is to appeal and that process could be drawn out until just before Mr Bush leaves office in January 2009, at which time he could pardon him.
The jury found Libby guilty of lying to the FBI and obstructing justice. The FBI had been investigating a leak by the Bush administration of the identity of a CIA agent, Valerie Plame, who subsequently lost her job.
The leak appeared to be an act of revenge by the White House against her husband, Joe Wilson, a former ambassador who challenged Mr Bush's case for invading Iraq.
Guardian 7/3/07
Official: Iraq's widespread violence and significant human rights problems
Widespread violence seriously compromised the government's ability to protect human rights. Sectarian-driven violence, acts of terrorism, and revenge by armed groups in a climate of criminality and impunity undercut government efforts to establish and maintain the rule of law.
On one side, predominantly Sunni Arab groups such as Al-Qa'ida in Iraq, irreconcilable remnants of the Ba'thist regime, and insurgents waging guerrilla warfare violently opposed the government and targeted Shi'a communities.
The other, predominantly Shi'a militias with some ties to the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), targeted Sunnis in large-scale death squad and kidnapping activities. While the law provides for civilian authorities' control over the security forces, there were many instances in which elements of the security forces acted independently.
During the year, the following significant human rights problems were reported: Pervasive climate of violence; misappropriation of official authority by sectarian, criminal, terrorist, and insurgent groups; arbitrary deprivation of life; disappearances; torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; impunity; poor conditions in pretrial detention facilities; arbitrary arrest and detention; denial of fair public trial; an immature judicial system lacking capacity; limitations on freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association due to terrorist and militia violence; restrictions on religious freedom; large numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs); lack of transparency and widespread corruption at all levels of government; constraints on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); discrimination against women, ethnic, and religious minorities; and limited exercise of labor rights.
US Department of State, Report on Human Rights Practices, 6/3/07
Commonwealth soldiers form union
Soldiers from the Commonwealth serving in the British army are so dissatisfied with their treatment they are to form a trade union. The move comes amid complaints of widespread racism, unfair treatment and a lack of welfare support.
Marlon Clancy, who is setting up the British Commonwealth Soldiers Union, said one issue was preferential treatment.
"In some units, the white soldiers will be given priority for courses over the black soldiers, and the black soldier - no matter how long he's been in, if he has been in four years longer than the white soldier - he will be put behind the white soldier," he told the BBC.
Recent years have seen the number of servicemen and women from Commonwealth countries swell as the MoD struggles to recruit people born in the UK. In 2000, there were just 435 from the Commonwealth but that figure has since risen to 6,000 - the bulk of whom are from Fiji.
BBC News, 7/3/07
More US troops to Iraq
The number of U.S. troops needed to carry out President George W. Bush's Iraq security plan could approach 30,000, significantly more than he projected in January, a senior Pentagon official said on Tuesday.
In testimony to the House of Representatives Budget Committee, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England said U.S. military commanders in Iraq were requesting varying numbers of support troops to augment the additional 21,500 soldiers Bush has ordered into combat.
"At this point, our expectation is the number of ... troops could go above 21,500 by about 4,000, maybe as many as 7,000," England said. There are nearly 140,000 U.S. troops already fighting in Iraq.
Reuters, 6/3/07
Biggest prison break yet
Dozens of gunmen stormed an Iraqi jail in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday and freed up to 140 prisoners in one of the biggest prison breaks since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, police said.
Militants attacked Mosul's northwestern Badoush prison just after sunset in the ethnically mixed city and overwhelmed police, who were forced to call the U.S. military for backup. Most of the prisoners were believed to be insurgents, police said.
Reuters, 6/3/07
Iraq: there is no plan B
During a White House meeting last week, a group of governors asked President Bush and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about their backup plan for Iraq. What would the administration do if its new strategy didn't work?
The conclusion they took away, the governors later said, was that there is no Plan B. "I'm a Marine," Pace told them, "and Marines don't talk about failure. They talk about victory."
Washington Post, 5/3/07
US airstrike kills 9 civilians
Nine civilians, including four children, were killed in Afghanistan when US planes dropped two 2,000lb bombs on their mud home. Their deaths came after at least eight civilians were killed by US Marines a day earlier.
It has been a disastrous two days for the Americans in Afghanistan. First US Marines trying to get to safety after being ambushed by a suicide bomber sprayed gunfire wildly across one of the busiest roads in the country, killing passers-by. And now US planes have dropped two bombs on a family home, killing children aged between six months and five years.
Last year, the Afghan President Hamid Karzai wept as he pleaded for Western soldiers to take more care to avoid killing civilians. But the killings continue.
Independent, 6/3/07
Strike on Iran would aid extremists
Any military action against Iran's atomic programme is likely to backfire and accelerate Tehran's development of a nuclear bomb, a report today by a British former nuclear weapons scientist warns.
In his report, Frank Barnaby argues that air strikes, reportedly being contemplated as an option by the White House, would strengthen the hand of Iranian hardliners, unite the Iranian population behind a bomb, and would almost certainly trigger an underground crash programme to build a small number of warheads as quickly as possible.
"As soon as you start bombing you unite the population behind the Government" he said. "Right now in Iran, there are different opinions about all this, but after an attack you would have a united people and a united scientific community".
Dr Barnaby - now a consultant for the Oxford Research Group thinktank which published his report - said air strikes would be unlikely to destroy all the centrifuges Iran is using to enrich uranium.
An attack could trigger a walkout by Iran from the non-proliferation treaty and the departure of UN inspectors.
Guardian 5/3/07
4.5 million Iraqi children under-nourished
According to the United Nations Children's Agency (UNICEF), about one in 10 children under five in Iraq are underweight and one in five are short for their age. This means that some 4.5 million children in the country are under-nourished.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg, according to Claire Hajaj, Communication Officer at UNICEF Iraq Support Centre in Amman (ISCA). "Many Iraqi children may also be suffering from 'hidden hunger' - deficiencies in critical vitamins and minerals that are the building blocks for children's physical and intellectual development," Hajaj said.
"These deficiencies are hard to measure, but they make children much more vulnerable to illness and less likely to thrive at school."
Dr Mayssun Abdel-Rahman, a paediatrician at Baghdad's Children Teaching Hospital, said that the country's health system is crumbling and that it was only UNICEF and the World Health Organization that were keeping it afloat. But much more needs to be done, she said, as hundreds of children are dying from easily cured ailments, such as diarrhoea and undernutrition.
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 5/3/07
Blair: Iraq problem goes when I go
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in an interview published on Sunday that domestic controversy over his backing for Washington over Iraq will end when he leaves office in the coming months.
Speaking to The Observer weekly newspaper, Blair said of the 2005 general election, in which his governing Labour Party saw its overall majority sharply cut: "Iraq was a factor then. In a sense, when I go, that goes with me."
Daily Times, Pakistan, 5/3/07
Iraqi PM condemns British raid
Iraq's prime minister has called for an investigation into Sunday's raid by Iraqi and British forces in Basra on an intelligence agency detention centre. Nouri Maliki issued a statement calling for those behind the "illegal and irresponsible act" to be punished.
The British military said the raid was part of an operation led by Iraqi counter-terrorist forces who were seeking a "known death squad leader". It said evidence of torture had been found at the southern Iraqi facility.
BBC News, 5/3/07
US troops kill civilians...
An explosives-rigged minivan crashed into a convoy of Marines that US officials said also came under fire from gunmen. As many as 10 people were killed and 34 wounded as the convoy made a frenzied escape, and injured Afghans said the Americans fired on civilian cars and pedestrians as they sped away.
US officials said militant gunfire may have killed or injured civilians, but Afghanistan's Interior Ministry and wounded Afghans said most of the bullets were American. Hundreds of angry Afghans protested near the blast site, denouncing the US presence here.
Associated Press, 5/3/07
...and attempt to suppress story
Afghan journalists covering the aftermath of a suicide bomb attack and shooting in eastern Afghanistan Sunday said U.S. troops deleted their photos and video and warned them not to publish or air any images of U.S. troops or a car where three Afghans were shot to death.
Afghan witnesses and gunshot victims said U.S. forces fired on civilians in cars and on foot along at least a six-mile stretch of road in Nangarhar province following a suicide attack against the Marine convoy.
A freelance photographer working for The Associated Press and a cameraman working for AP Television News said a U.S. soldier deleted their photos and video showing a four-wheel drive vehicle in which three people were shot to death about 100 yards from the suicide bombing. The AP plans to lodge a protest with the American military.
Khanwali Kamran, a reporter for the Afghan channel Ariana Television said the American soldiers also deleted his footage. "They warned me that if it is aired ... then, 'You will face problems,"' Kamran said.
Taqiullah Taqi, a reporter for Afghanistan's largest television station, Tolo TV, said Americans were using abusive language. "According to the translator, they said, 'Delete them, or we will delete you,"' Taqi said.
7 News, Boston, 4/3/07
Obama: Iraq policy imperils Israel
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday blamed Bush administration failings in Iraq for strengthening the strategic position of Iran, which he says must be stopped from acquiring nuclear weapons.
The Illinois senator said that means "direct engagement" with Iran similar to the meetings with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.
"A consequence of the Administration's failed strategy in Iraq has been to strengthen Iran's strategic position; reduce US credibility and influence in the region; and place Israel and other nations friendly to the United States in greater peril," according to a text of a speech Obama was set to deliver to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Jerusalem Post, 2/3/07
Senators call for attacks on Pakistan
Members of the US Senate have urged the Bush administration to launch military strikes at alleged Al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan, prompting the Pakistani envoy in Washington to warn that such an attitude could bring down the present set-up in Islamabad.
Senior Pentagon officials added fuel to the fire by claiming that their troops have already targeted Taliban and Al Qaeda sites inside Pakistan and that they have an agreement that allows them to do so.
In an interview to a Western news agency, Pakistan's envoy in Washington, Mahmud Ali Durrani, also warned that such pressure tactics could destabilise Pakistan and may even bring down President Musharraf.
Asked if it might trigger President Musharraf's ouster, he replied: "I don't know. Possibly it could bring him down. It could destabilise the whole country. It could cause mega problems there. That is possible."
Dawn, Pakistan, 2/3/07
US troops lacking as spring offensive begins
Signs of a new spring offensive by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan have begun to emerge, but NATO commanders are still short more than 1,000 combat troops, despite repeated requests to allied nations, the top commander said.
U.S. Gen. John Craddock told reporters Friday that while the allies are winning more battles with insurgents, they are losing the counter-narcotics war, and more work and greater coordination is needed in the reconstruction effort.
Craddock said there has already been a slight increase in suicide attacks and roadside bombs - the beginnings of an expected increase in violence as the weather improves. And he said he is still short by as much as two battalions, largely combat units, despite recent commitments for about 7,000 additional troops there, including more than 3,500 from the United States.
International Herald Tribune, 2/3/07
Massacre that didn't happen
The report sounded horrific. A suicide truck bomb set off in Ramadi, a Sunni Muslim stronghold, targeted children on a soccer field, killing at least 15. The story was repeated by wire services, newspapers and television newscasts. Political figures and humanitarian groups alike condemned the attack.
The only problem: it didn't happen, a senior U.S. military spokesman said Wednesday. "There were no children killed," said Rear Adm. Mark Fox, spokesman for the multinational forces in Iraq. "The allegation was false."
State-run Iraqiya TV first reported the incident Tuesday shortly after 8 p.m., scrolling the words across the bottom of the screen. Other television stations quickly followed with their own reports. Before the night was out, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had condemned the act, as had the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
Iraqi television dropped the report Wednesday night, and some officials in Ramadi backed off their early statements, saying people may have been mixing up the purported incident with another bombing.
Seattle Times, 1/3/07