These are the archives for the week ending 16th February 2007
Sadr aides deny cleric's Iraq departure
There is disagreement over the whereabouts of the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, with the United States saying he has left Iraq for Iran.
US military spokesman General William Casey says the firebrand cleric left Iraq some time last month. But top aides to al-Sadr have strongly denied the claim. They say he has been keeping a low profile for security reasons.
The US military has identified Moqtada Sadr's militia as being one of the biggest threats to law and order in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
The mystery over his whereabouts has added to political tensions as Iraqi and US troops continue to implement a new security crackdown in Baghdad. Iraq's borders with Syria and Iran have also been temporarily closed as part of the new security plan.
ABC News 15/2/07
North Korea agrees nuclear shutdown
North Korea took the first steps towards disarmament yesterday when it agreed to shut down its nuclear reactor and readmit international inspectors in return for major concessions, including millions of dollars worth of oil.
The deal clinched in Beijing represents a breakthrough after three years of talks involving six countries.
The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said it should serve as an example to Iran, which is under UN sanctions for refusing to halt uranium enrichment.
Guardian 14/2/07
7,000 Iraqi refugees allowed into US - 40,000 flee Iraq every month
The U.S. will allow about 7,000 Iraqi refugees to settle in the country over the next year, as international pressure mounts to help millions who have fled their homes in the nearly four-year-old U.S.-led war.
Since the war began in March 2003, the United States has allowed only 463 of 3.8 million Iraq refugees into the country. The 7,000 would be resettled from nations outside Iraq, mostly Syria and Jordan, where they have fled.
In a budget request filed with Congress last week, President Bush asked for $35 million to help Iraq's refugees next year, and another $15 million for this year.
The U.N. estimates that 40,000 to 50,000 people flee Iraq each month and have not many options of where to go. Syria has taken in an estimated 1 million Iraqis.It was the last Arab country to take in large numbers.
The U.N. classifies most Iraqi refugees as having only "temporary protection status," rather than as permanent refugees because it assumes most will return to Iraq after the war ends.
Toronto Daily News 14/2/07
Canada may leave Afghanistan
Canada was Tuesday considering withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan after sustaining heavy losses in the volatile south, according to an interim report by the Canadian Senate committee on national security and defence.
Canada should consider its withdrawal, if it does not receive greater support from other NATO forces, the Senate committee recommended. In the frank interim 16-page report, the Senate committee on national security and defence says more troops, more money and a bigger commitment from other NATO countries must be gained within a year.
Canada presently has a 2,500-strong troop contingent that forms the core of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the Afghan province of Kandahar. Canadian troops have been involved in some of the worst fighting in southern Afghanistan and have sustained 42 fatalities.
Malaysia Sun, 14/2/07
Afghan government losing legitimacy
Army Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, the outgoing top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, yesterday warned that an even greater threat than the resurgent Taliban is the possibility that the government of President Hamid Karzai will suffer an irreversible loss of legitimacy among the Afghan population.
"The accumulated effects of violent terrorist insurgent attacks, corruption, insufficient social resources and growing income disparities, all overlaid by a major international presence, are taking their toll on Afghan government legitimacy," he said. "A point could be reached at which the government of Afghanistan becomes irrelevant to its people, and the goal of establishing a democratic, moderate, self-sustaining state could be lost forever."
A critical question, Eikenberry said, is whether the Afghan government is "winning." "In several critical areas -- corruption, justice, law enforcement and counter-narcotics -- it is not," he said. He called Afghan government institutions "extraordinarily weak."
Washington Post, 14/2/07
Another dodgy dossier
The much-postponed presentation of the case that Iran is arming opponents of the US army in Iraq finally took place in Baghdad on Sunday.
It was unconvincing and resembles, albeit in a minor key, Colin Powell's misrepresentation four years ago to the United Nations Security Council on Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction. The former secretary of state's allegations were not borne out by the facts, but they did smooth the path to invasion.
The main ingredient of the IEDs used by Iraqi insurgents is the high explosive the US left unsecured in nearly 100 arms dumps. Hizbollah, which is Iranian-backed, has helped the most anti-American Shia militia, Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army.
It may also have imparted its roadside bomb expertise but so, frankly, could the internet. Of the current average of 75 suicide bombers a month, nearly all are Sunni and many come from Saudi Arabia - a US ally and wellspring of Sunni jihadism.
The Bush administration's recent bellicosity towards Iran may only be the tactical application of pressure, but it is very risky.
Financial Times, 13/2/07
Thousands of street children in Iraq
Ahmed is one of thousands of homeless children throughout Iraq who survive by begging, stealing or scavenging in garbage for food. Only four years ago, the vast majority of these children were living at home with their families.
According to the NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI), the deteriorating economic situation in Iraq is the main reason for the increase in the number of street children since the occupation of the country began in 2003. The next major contributor is the increase in the number of widows countrywide.
IRIN, 11/2/07
US fires into Pakistan
Asserting a right to self-defence, U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan fired artillery rounds into Pakistan to strike Taliban fighters who attack remote outposts, the commander of U.S. forces in the region said.
The skirmishes are politically sensitive because Pakistan's government, regarded by the U.S. administration as an important ally against Islamic extremists, has denied it allows U.S. forces to strike inside its territory.
The use of the largely ungoverned Waziristan area of Pakistan as a haven for Taliban and al-Qaida fighters has become a greater irritant between Washington and Islamabad since Pakistan put in place a peace agreement there in September that was intended to stop cross-border incursions.
U.S. army Col. John Nicholson said in an interview rather than halt such incursions, the peace deal has led to a substantial increase.
Montreal Gazette, 11/2/07
US claims on Iran doubted...
The bombs are said to be provided by Iran in kit form and to be smuggled across the often-open border. However the officials who presented the evidence could not make a direct link to Iran. "The officials said such an assertion was an inference based on general intelligence assessments," stated the New York Times.
Against the inference that this all comes from Iran is the concept that Iraqis themselves would be capable of copying a design and therefore do not need to get bombs from Iran. And there have been a number of news reports over the last year expressing scepticism, even among military personnel, about the link to Iran.
The Washington Post reported last October that British troops in the south doubted the claim. A year ago, the London Times said that British officers in Basra had stopped making any such claim, saying only that the technology matched bomb-making found elsewhere in the Middle East, including Lebanon and Syria.
BBC News, 12/2/07
...but not by Blair
Downing Street has backed American claims that Iran was involved in arming Iraqi insurgents with powerful roadside weaponry used against allied forces.
Prime Minister Tony Blair had first warned in October 2005 of concerns over improvised explosive device technology and weaponry coming from Iran, said the premier's official spokesman.
He added: "Those concerns have not gone away at all.We certainly believe that if the Iranian government wanted to, it could address these concerns, but we don't see any sign that it is. We continue to make our case and the Prime Minister has been at the cutting edge of identifying this problem."
Press Association, 12/2/07
Israel tests missile
Israel carried out a successful night-time test of its Hetz (Arrow) anti-missile missile system in what public television described as a "message to Iran".
Army radio noted that the firing coincided with the Iranian regime's celebrations for the anniversary of its overthrow of the Western-backed shah in the 1979 Islamic revolution.
For the first three years after its launch in 1988, the United States paid 80 percent of the Hetz project's cost, but now the costs are shared equally.
Since the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the project's primary focus has been Iran, which Israel now sees as its main threat.
AFP, 11/2/07
US provides 'intelligence' on Iran...
The US military has accused the "highest levels" of Iran's government of supplying increasingly sophisticated roadside bombs to Iraqi insurgents.
Senior defence officials told reporters in Baghdad that the bombs were being used to deadly effect, killing more than 170 US troops since June 2004. The US officials, speaking off camera on condition of anonymity, said EFPs had also injured more than 620 US personnel since June 2004.
US claims the bombs were smuggled from Iran cannot be independently verified.
BBC News, 11/2/07
...and finally admits Iraq 'intelligence' was false
It took far too long, but a report by the Pentagon inspector general has finally confirmed that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's do-it-yourself intelligence office cooked up a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda to help justify an unjustifiable war.
The report said the team headed by Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, developed "alternative" assessments of intelligence on Iraq that contradicted the intelligence community and drew conclusions "that were not supported by the available intelligence." Feith certainly knew the Central Intelligence Agency would cry foul, so he hid his findings from the CIA.
Then Vice President Dick Cheney used them as proof of cloak-and-dagger meetings that never happened, long-term conspiracies between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden that didn't exist, and - most unforgivable - "possible Iraqi coordination" on the 9/11 attacks, which no serious intelligence analyst believed.
International Herald Tribune, 11/2/07
Real cost of Trident replacement is £100 billion
The real cost of maintaining and replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system over the next 50 years could top £100 billion - five times higher than the prime minister, Tony Blair, has said.
A new analysis of projected spending based on official figures suggests that the cost of buying and operating a successor to Trident will be around £70bn. Added to that, there is the £30bn it will cost to keep the existing warheads in service until 2023.
In the past, ministers have said that maintaining Trident absorbed no more than 3% of the total defence budget. But recently, they have increased this figure to 5%-6%. In evidence to the House of Commons Defence Committee last week, the defence secretary Des Browne admitted that the cost estimates had been revised. He accepted that it was "perfectly legitimate" to assume that Trident would continue to absorb 5%-6% of the defence budget.
On that basis, calculations suggest, the total cost of maintaining and replacing Britain's nuclear weapons between now and 2054 will be between £90bn and £110bn.
Sunday Herald, 11/2/07
Afghan - British tensions
The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, will meet Tony Blair in London this week in an attempt to repair relations with Britain which one diplomat described as "in total tatters".
Some of Karzai's closest advisers have accused Britain of conspiring with Pakistan to hand over southern Afghanistan. The deputy head of mission at the British embassy was in such a heated argument with the president that it was feared he would be expelled. Karzai's chief of staff, Jawed Ludin, was forced to resign after his attempts to defend Britain led to accusations that he was a British spy.
The row centres on the continued violence in Helmand province, where British troops are based, and London's refusal to acknowledge publicly Pakistan's role in supporting the Taliban. Karzai accuses Britain of "compromising" with Islamabad because of its need for cooperation from Pakistan's security services to infiltrate terrorist groups involving British Muslims.
Sunday Times, 11/2/07
US kills Kurdish allies
An American helicopter apparently fired on friendly Kurdish pesh merga fighters by mistake on Friday, killing as many as nine people. The attack took place in the northern city of Mosul, when the helicopter attacked a guard post overlooking the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party of the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani.
The attack stunned officials of the party, who said that their base and the surrounding guard posts were well known to the American military. "Everybody knows that it is a PUK base, and is used for protecting the main road between Mosul and Erbil," said Kabir Goran, a senior party official.
He said the guard post that was attacked was about one kilometer from the headquarters. "We have daily contacts with the Americans and they have been to the base," he said.
International Herald Tribune, 9/2/07
Resistance announces peace plan
For the first time, one of Iraq's principal insurgent groups has set out the terms of a ceasefire that would allow American and British forces to leave the country they invaded almost four years ago.
The present terms would be impossible for any US administration to meet - but the words of Abu Salih Al-Jeelani, one of the military leaders of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Resistance Movement show that the groups which have taken more than 3,000 American lives are actively discussing the opening of contacts with the occupation army.
Al-Jeelani suggests the United Nations, the Arab League or the Islamic Conference might lead such negotiations and would have to guarantee the security of the participants. Then come the conditions:
- * The release of 5,000 detainees held in Iraqi prisons as "proof of goodwill".
- * Recognition "of the legitimacy of the resistance and the legitimacy of its role in representing the will of the Iraqi people".
- * An internationally guaranteed timetable for all agreements.
- * The negotiations to take place in public.
- * The resistance "must be represented by a committee comprising the representatives of all the jihadist brigades".
- * The US to be represented by its ambassador in Iraq and the most senior commander.
Independent, 9/2/07
Health official ran death squad
Iraqi and American troops arrested the second highest official in the Iraqi Health Ministry on Thursday, charging that he funneled millions of dollars to rogue Shiite militants who kidnapped and killed Iraqi civilians.
The United States military said in a statement that the official was suspected of using his position to run a rogue unit of the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia that claims loyalty to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr. The statement accused the official of flooding the Health Ministry's payroll with militants, embezzling American money meant to pay for Iraq's overworked medical system and using Health Ministry "facilities and services for sectarian kidnapping and murder."
An Interior Ministry official said the authorities in recent weeks had come to believe that Mr. Zamili was using government ambulances to ferry weapons and militants across Sadr City, hiding them from American raids.
Shiite officials said Mr. Zamili's arrest was an affront to Iraqi sovereignty. The health minister, Ali al-Shammari, called the arrest an abduction and demanded proof to support the charges against his deputy.
New York Times, 9/2/07
Senator Clinton pledges support to Israel
"I am so honored to be here and once again to speak on behalf of the causes and concerns that we share. And there is no doubt that AIPAC is at the forefront of efforts to advocate on behalf of Israel. And on behalf of the shared interests and security and democracy that form the unbreakable bond between our two nations.
I thank you for supporting AIPAC. Because as active citizens you are serving an essential function: when you advocate, when you lobby, when you speak out on issues that matter to the Jewish community and to Israel you are speaking also on behalf of issues that are important to the larger community of Americans.
That's because the bond shared between the U.S. and Israel is based on shared interests but is rooted in the strength we derive from our shared values. As Americans we are humbled by Israel's commitment to civic engagement and open debate, free expression and the rule of law, even in the face of grave dangers."
Senator Hilary Clinton, Speech to American Israel Public Affairs Committee on 1/2/07