These are the archives for the week ending 10th November 2006
Bush turns to ex-spymaster
President George W. Bush turned to his father's former CIA director, Robert Gates, to rescue a trouble-filled US mission in Iraq. In naming Gates as Rumfeld's successor, Bush appeared to be reaching back to a group of more pragmatic advisers who surrounded his father during the Gulf War when the United States drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait but did not follow them to Baghdad.
Gates had served as the CIA's deputy director, the foil to President Ronald Reagan's legendary spymaster William Casey, another impetuous personality at the center of the Iran-Contra scandal. He later served as deputy national security adviser under the elder Bush from 1989 to 1991.
AFP, 8/11/06
Iraqi's applaud end of Rumsfeld...
Iraqi lawmakers welcomed the resignation of US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying they held him responsible for many of the war-torn country's ongoing woes. Politicians reached by AFP late on Wednesday were unanimous in their pleasure at seeing the controversial American politician, one of the architects of the US-led invasion of Iraq, move on.
"The resignation came late," said venerable Shiite politician Mahmud Othman. "He should have made it right after the scandal of Abu Ghraib in the Spring of 2004."
AFP, 8/11/06
...but have little faith in Democrats
Iraqi leaders predicted no change in U.S. Iraq policy and ordinary citizens doubted any U.S. party could restore their wrecked country after Democrats swept mid-term elections and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld quit.
Nadim al-Jabiri, an academic and prominent member of the dominant Shi'ite Islamic bloc the United Iraqi Alliance, said Rumsfeld's resignation was no surprise. "The military strategy they have used won the war but failed to bring stability. I don't think his resignation will have an effect on the ground as our problems are too great," he said.
Some ordinary Iraqis took a similar view. "Iraq is long ruined and American policy is fixed, whichever party takes control of Congress. If the Democrats can finally bring us some security they are welcome, but I believe no one can succeed," said Abdullah, a 28-year-old computing student.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose testy relations with Washington have often spilled into public clashes, told the BBC in an interview that he did not think a shift in Congress would bring any noticeable change in U.S. policy on Iraq. "I understand that America will always work for America's interest in its foreign policy. The relationship will not experience any major or dramatic change if new opinions surface after the elections," he said in the interview filmed on Tuesday before the election was over.
Reuters, 8/11/06
State of emergency renewed as dozens more die
Beset by rampant sectarian violence, Iraq's parliament voted Wednesday to extend the country's state of emergency for 30 more days, as at least 66 more Iraqis were killed or found dead.
The state of emergency has been renewed every month since it was first authorized in November 2004. It allows for a nighttime curfew and gives the government extra powers to make arrests without warrants and launch police and military operations. The measures are implemented in all areas of the country apart from the autonomous Kurdish region in the north.
Santa Barbara News-Press, 8/11/06
Shares in military contractors plunge
Shares in military contractors plunged Wednesday after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned midday, causing uncertainty about the future of some Pentagon programs ahead of the fiscal 2008 defense budget.
The country's largest military contractor, Lockheed Martin Corp. was one of the biggest losers, shedding $2.30, or 2.6 percent, to $85.19 on the New York Stock Exchange. But the decline was broad, with armaments maker General Dynamics Corp., combat communications systems maker Raytheon Co., and government services company Halliburton Co. all falling into negative territory.
Ahead of the elections, analysts were concerned that a change in control could put larger military projects under scrutiny. Programs such as the F-22 fighter jet and Osprey hybrid aircraft, which cost billions in development costs, were thought to be in jeopardy. But Wall Street didn't expect a Democrat-led Congress to trim overall defense spending as the party bolsters its image as being tough on security ahead of the 2008 presidential election.
"Rumsfeld's leaving changes everything," said Cowen analyst Cai von Rumohr. "This is the guy who decides what program will get support or not, but now his resignation has kind of thrown the cards up into the air and caused uncertainty. The equity markets don't usually like uncertainty."
Canadian Business Online, 8/11/06
Rumsfeld on 'little understood' war
Appearing in the oval office with President Bush, and the newly nominated Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday he is confident in Iraq's mission though few people understand it.
"The great respect that I have for your leadership, Mr. President, in this little-understood, unfamiliar war-- the first war of the 21st century. " Rumsfeld said. "it is not well-known, It was not well-understood. It is complex for people to comprehend, and I know with certainty that over time the contributions you've made will be recorded by history"
CNN, 8/11/06
Official: it's about oil
During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, President George W Bush and his aides sternly dismissed suggestions that the war was about oil. "Nonsense," declared Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "This is not about that," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
Now, more than 3 years later, someone else is asserting the war is about oil - Bush. As he barnstormed across the country campaigning for Republican candidates in Tuesday's elections, Bush cited oil as a reason to stay in Iraq. If the United States pulled its troops out prematurely it would hand Iraq's considerable petroleum reserve to terrorists to use as a weapon, he said.
"You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources," he said at a rally in Geeley, Colorado. "And then you can imagine them saying: `We're going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following.' And the following would be along the lines of, well: `Retreat and let us continue to expand our dark vision."' Bush said extremists would use energy to try to blackmail the US to abandon its alliance with Israel.
At a stop in Missouri, he said radicals would "pull millions of barrels of oil off the market, driving the price up to US$300 or US$400 a barrel." White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Bush's latest argument does not reflect a real shift. "We're still not saying we went into Iraq for oil. That's not true," he said. "But there is the realistic strategic concern that if a country with such enormous oil reserves and revenues is controlled by essentially a terrorist organization, it could be destabilizing for the region."
The Standard, China, 8/11/06
Police charged with torture
Iraq's Interior Ministry has charged nearly 100 employees, including a police general and other high-ranking officers, with involvement in torturing detainees at a prison in Baghdad known as Site 4. Police and other forces of Iraq's Shi'ite-led Interior Ministry have long been accused by Sunni Arabs of operating torture centers and dungeons holding Sunni detainees.
Site 4, the eastern Baghdad prison run by the Interior Ministry was found to hold 1,431 detainees, including 37 juveniles, after a joint Iraqi-U.S. inspection in May. A United Nations report said the prisoners were held in "overcrowded, unsafe and unhealthy conditions" and that detainees suffered "systematic physical and physiological abuse by Ministry of Interior officials."
Reuters, 7/11/06
Iraq war on line in US vote
Americans voted on Tuesday in elections for Congress that could curb the power of George W. Bush's Republicans, force a change of direction in Iraq and shape the legacy of a U.S. president with two years left in office.
Democrats are on course to recapture control of the U.S. House of Representatives from Republicans for the first time since 1994, opinion polls showed, with their chance of taking over the Senate hinging on several key races that are too close to call.
A majority for the party in even one chamber of Congress could slam the brakes on Bush's second-term legislative agenda, hasten his lame-duck status and give Democrats a chance to investigate his most controversial policy decisions, such as the war in Iraq.
Reuters 7/11/06
Iran renews offer to talk to US about Iraq
Iran has renewed its offer to talk about Iraq with its archenemy, the United States, because it is concerned about the escalating turmoil in the neighbouring country, analysts say.
But it may also be seeking to slow Washington's push for sanctions over Iran's nuclear program.
The United States has yet to respond to the offer made Sunday by Iran's Foreign Ministry. The spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Mike McClellan, said he would have no comment until Washington had decided, adding that no preparations were under way for such talks.
Leading opinion-makers on U.S. foreign policy, including former Secretary of State James Baker, have urged Washington to talk to Iran about the conflict in Iraq, which is fast approaching a sectarian civil war.
International Herald Tribune 7/11/06
Internment breeds extremism
An Iraqi parliamentary delegation has accused the US army in Iraq of breeding extremism by carrying out an "irresponsible arrest campaign". The delegation represents the Iraqi Accordance Front, which is the biggest Sunni Arab bloc in the Iraqi parliament, occupying 44 seats in the 275 seat parliament.
Adnan al-Dulaimi, the chairman of the Front, said: "There are now around 17,000 Iraqi detainees in Buka camp in the south. Most of them are innocent people. They get arrested and thrown in jail for months and years without charges and without trial, and while in prison they are approached by al-Qaeda people."
Aljazeera, 6/11/06
US seeks silence on CIA prisons
The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the "alternative interrogation methods" that their captors used to get them to talk. The government says in new court filings that those interrogation methods are now among the nation's most sensitive national security secrets and that their release -- even to the detainees' own attorneys -- "could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage."
The battle over legal rights for terrorism suspects detained for years in CIA prisons centers on Majid Khan, a 26-year-old former Catonsville resident who was one of 14 high-value detainees transferred in September from the "black" sites to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The government, in trying to block lawyers' access to the 14 detainees, effectively asserts that the detainees' experiences are a secret that should never be shared with the public.
Because Khan "was detained by CIA in this program, he may have come into possession of information, including locations of detention, conditions of detention, and alternative interrogation techniques that is classified at the TOP SECRET//SCI level," an affidavit from CIA Information Review Officer Marilyn A. Dorn states, using the acronym for "sensitive compartmented information."
Washington Post, 4/11/06
Few Iraqis think US is fighting for them
Ask an Iraqi what American troops are fighting for in Iraq, and the answer likely will be: not for me. No matter the politics of the respondent, recent interviews with 19 Iraqis, both Shiite and Sunni Muslims, found almost no one who thought the Americans were fighting for them. Only ethnic Kurds, who have established a largely autonomous region in Iraq's north, were willing to say that American troops serve their interests.
Public opinion surveys over the years have shown growing Iraqi discontent with the American presence. The most recent, released in September by WorldPublicOpinion.org, found that seven of 10 Iraqis want U.S.-led forces to withdraw within a year. In the same survey, 78 percent said the U.S. presence provokes more conflict than it prevents; 84 percent said they had little or no confidence in the U.S military.
Charlotte Observer, 3/11/06
Beckett: Nobody could have anticipated violence
The United States and its allies had not expected the soaring level of violence and sectarian killings in Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said on Friday.
Beckett said there were various arguments over whether the post-conflict scenario in Iraq had been anticipated correctly. "But I don't think anyone would have foreseen the explosion of what seemed to be long-buried sectarian hatred that we have seen in Iraq," she said. "It's truly an appalling set of circumstances that there are so many people who are interested to continue destruction and who wish to destroy and undermine any improvement people seek to make in the lives of the people of Iraq," she said.
Earlier this week, Britain moved most civilian staff from its consulate in Basra to the airport due to the rising threat of mortar and rocket attacks. But it said its commitment to Iraq remained firm and British troops would stay in the country until the job was done. Britain's Iraq policy has eroded Prime Minister Tony Blair's authority, divided his Labor Party and the country.
Reuters, 3/11/06
Iraqi President wants occupation to continue for two to three years
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani says he does not envisage US-led forces withdrawing from his country before two to three years, despite a US call for them to leave in half the time. "We think that we need time, not 30 years, but we need some years" for Iraqi forces to be ready to take over security nationwide, he told a conference in Paris, at the start of a state visit to France.
"I personally can say between two to three years would be enough to rebuild our security forces and to ask our friends, to tell them 'Bye Bye' dear friends, with our thanks to you," he said.
The president's comments clashed with those of the US military commander in Iraq, General George Casey, who said last week Iraq's armed forces should be able to take on responsibility for security within the next 12 to 18 months.
AFP, 2/11/06
Iraq war hinders recruitment
Th war in Iraq has "impacted" on the ability of Britain's armed forces to take on sufficient numbers of recruits, an official report claimed today. The National Audit Office's review of recruitment and retention pointed out research which showed that 42% of parents "would be less likely to encourage their children towards a career in the Army because of operations in Iraq".
A further 33% of parents were also "likely to discourage" their children from joining the RAF because of the so-called "Iraq factor". The report also shows how, for the past five years, the armed forces have been operating below strength and at a faster tempo than allowed for by planners.
The Herald, Scotland, 3/11/06