These are the archives for the week ending 16th March 2007
Blair gets his missiles
Labour's historic divisions over nuclear weapons came back to haunt Tony Blair yesterday when 95 Labour backbench MPs rejected his plans to commence the £20bn renewal of the Trident nuclear submarine.
The scale of the rebellion, the largest on a domestic issue since 1997, forced the government to rely on the support of the Conservatives to win the vote.
Critics claimed Mr Blair had blundered by forcing the issue at the tail end of his premiership. It is the third time Mr Blair has been forced to rely on Conservative votes to push his policy through, following the votes on Iraq in 2003 and school trusts 12 months ago.
Guardian 15/3/07
Blair rebuked over Saudi deal
The government was rebuked yesterday by the world's leading anti-bribery watchdog over its decision to terminate a major corruption investigation into Britain's biggest arms company, BAE.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development stepped up pressure on ministers by deciding to send inspectors to London to find out why the Serious Fraud Office investigation into Saudi arms deals was stopped.
They will also investigate why Britain signed up to a global treaty outlawing the payment of bribes to foreign politicians and officials in 1998, but has so far failed to prosecute any British companies for these offences.
Tony Blair has taken full responsibility for closing down the SFO investigation into allegations that BAE has paid huge bribes to Saudi royals to win arms deals.
Guardian 15/3/07
Pakistani president faces open revolt
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan is facing an unprecedented challenge to his authority today as the case of the chief justice he tried to sack returns to court and thousands of protesting lawyers and supporters threaten to take to the streets.
The strength of the revolt, the first from within the establishment in the president's seven year rule, has caught the government by surprise and added to a mounting series of domestic and international problems for the president.
The situation is worrying western diplomats, who consider General Musharraf a key ally and who admit that there is no 'plan B' if he is deposed or assassinated.
Guardian 15/3/07
War costs UK £1 billion a year
The spiralling cost of the Iraq war to the British taxpayer is set to exceed £1bn this year for the first time since the invasion.
The total cost on the UK defence budget since the invasion exceeds £5.3bn but increases in defence spending have pushed up the cost by 10 per cent in the past four months.
In November, the Ministry of Defence said it was expecting the cost of the Iraq military operations this financial year to be £860m - a fall of £98m on the previous year. But the latest spring estimates put the total at £1,002m, £142m more than expected four months earlier.
MPs on the Commons Select Committee on Defence have challenged the MoD to explain the rise, which has taken place after the Government announced it was reducing the number of troops in Iraq.
Independent, 13/3/07
Bombs leave Baghdad reeling
The Iraqi capital was reeling on Monday from devastating bombings which killed 41 people and exposed the limits of a month-old security sweep through Baghdad by Iraqi and US forces.
The US military reported the deaths of five more US troops in Iraq, three of them in action and two in non-combat incidents.
Shiite families mourned the deaths of 31 pilgrims who were slaughtered in a car bomb attack as they arrived back in Baghdad after a religious festival in the holy city of Karbala.
News24.com 12/3/07
British troops face mental health risk
Thousands of British troops are facing permanent psychological damage after fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, a mental health charity has warned, reports the Sunday Telegraph.
"New government figures reveal that more than 2,100 soldiers have returned from Iraq since 2003 suffering from some form of mental illness," Sean Rayment writes in the British newspaper.
"The threat from roadside bombs, the intensity of the combat and the fear associated with fighting a hidden enemy are all factors said to be leading to large numbers of troops returning from operational tours with serious mental conditions."
Psychiatric conditions suffered by service personnel include post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), manic depression, and drug and alcohol dependency. But it has also emerged that up to seven British service personnel have committed suicide either during or after active duty in Iraq.
Daily Times, Pakistan, 12/3/07
US strategy undermines Iraq's women
The United States' four-year-old occupation of Iraq has considerably worsened the lives of the country's women, charges a new report from an international human rights group.
The New York-based group MADRE says Iraqi women are enduring unprecedented levels of assault, abductions, public beatings, death threats, sexual assaults, honor killings, domestic abuse, torture in detention, beheadings, shootings, and public hangings.
MADRE's 40-page report, titled "Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy: Gender-Based Violence and the U.S. War on Iraq," also argues that the rise of theocratic militias in Iraq is the result of deliberate plans by U.S. officials, not an accidental byproduct of a bungled occupation.
"Rather than support progressive and democratically minded Iraqis, including members of the women's movement," the report reads, "the U.S. threw its weight behind Iraq's Shiite Islamists, calculating that these forces, long suppressed by Saddam Hussein, would cooperate with the occupation and deliver the stability needed for the U.S. to implement its policies in Iraq."
Yahoo News, 10/3/07
US and Iran in talks
U.S. and Iranian envoys yesterday found themselves discussing how to end the violence in Iraq at an international conference in Baghdad - a contact that could potentially melt a 27-year diplomatic freeze.
While confined to one session, the exchange of views left a door ajar to further interaction between two nations increasingly drawn toward common issues in Iraq.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, listened to and spoke with Iranian delegates "directly and in the presence of others" at a gathering pushed by Iraq's neighbours and the U.N. Security Council's five permanent members.
Khalilzad said he raised concerns that Shiite militants were getting weapons and aid from Iran.
Chief Iranian envoy Abbas Araghchi again demanded a clear timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
New York Post 11/3/07
More US troops to Iraq and Afghanistan
President Bush approved 8,200 more U.S. troops for Iraq and Afghanistan on top of reinforcements already ordered to those two countries, the White House said Saturday, a move that comes amid a fiery debate in Washington over the Iraq war.
The president agreed to send 4,700 troops to Iraq in addition to the 21,500 he ordered to go in January, mainly to provide support for those combat forces and to handle more anticipated Iraqi prisoners. He also decided to send a 3,500-member brigade to Afghanistan to accelerate training of local forces, doubling his previous troop increase to fight a resurgent Taliban.
Although officials had foreshadowed the additional forces for Iraq in recent days, the latest troop increase in Afghanistan had not been known and will bring U.S. forces there to an all-time high. The deployments underscore the challenges facing the United States in both countries and further stretch an already-strained military.
In Iraq particularly, the moves could fuel suspicions that a troop increase initially described as a temporary "surge" may grow larger and last longer than predicted.
Indianapolis Star, 11/3/07
Joint US-Colombian operation
On the eve of a visit by President Bush, the U.S. Embassy confirmed Saturday that American and Colombian soldiers had conducted a joint operation in the southern stronghold of leftist rebels who are holding three U.S. military contractors.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Marshall Louis said only that "U.S. personnel accompanied Colombian forces in the south, and that's all I can say about it". The U.S. military's rules of engagement bar American soldiers from combat operations in this conflict-scarred nation but permit them to accompany host-nation troops in areas where guerrillas operate and defend themselves if attacked.
Colombia is by far the biggest beneficiary of U.S. aid to the region, receiving $5 billion since 2000 - mostly to combat drug trafficking.
Houston Chronicle, 11/3/07
US military claims censorship justified
The U.S. military asserted that an American soldier was justified in erasing journalists' footage of the aftermath of a suicide bombing and shooting in Afghanistan last week, saying publication could have compromised a military investigation and led to false public conclusions.
The comments came in response to an Associated Press protest that a U.S. soldier had forced two freelance journalists working for the U.S.-based news agency to delete photos and video at the scene of violence March 4 in Barikaw, eastern Afghanistan. At least eight Afghans were killed and 34 wounded.
"Investigative integrity is one circumstance when civil and military authorities will reluctantly exercise the right to control what a journalist is permitted to document," Col. Victor Petrenko, chief of staff to the top U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan, said in a letter Friday.
The Associated Press disputed the assertions. Petrenko said that taking pictures could also misrepresent what had happened in the incident.
"When untrained people take photographs or video, there is a very real risk that the images or videography will capture visual details that are not as they originally were," he said. "If such visual media are subsequently used as part of the public record to document an event like this, then public conclusions about such a serious event can be falsely made."
International Herald Tribune, 10/3/07
Bush's claims of progress challenged
President Bush on Tuesday cited "encouraging signs" of military and political progress in Iraq as his new strategy gets underway. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted that "things are going reasonably well." And on Thursday, Rice's special coordinator for Iraq, David M. Satterfield, described a "dramatic decrease" in sectarian attacks in Baghdad since Bush's plan was announced in January.
But a number of analysts and critics said this week that some of those signs indicate less progress than the administration has suggested. Sectarian attacks in Baghdad are down at the moment, but the deaths of Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops have increased outside the capital. Though Iraqi leaders have agreed on a new framework law for oil resources, the details of how the oil revenue will be divided among competing Iraqi groups remain unresolved.
At times Bush's assessment appeared less than fully accurate. "The Iraqi government," the president said, "has completed the deployment of three additional Iraqi Army brigades to the capital. They said they were going to employ three brigades, and they did." But a senior U.S. military official in Baghdad said this week that two Iraqi brigades and one battalion of a third have arrived in Baghdad.
Bush's report that "Iraqi and U.S. forces have rounded up more than 700 people affiliated with Shia extremists" appears to have little to do with the new strategy. The number is "based on captures . . . since July 2006," the military official said. Bush first reported the same roundup -- citing 600 captures -- last fall.
Washington Post, 10/3/07
US troops kill family in Sadr city
American soldiers were accused Friday of opening fire on a car carrying a family in the Baghdad district of Sadr City, killing a man and his two young daughters and wounding his son. The allegations were made by the man's wife, who was in the car, and members of the Iraqi police, who were at the scene.
"That is a serious allegation, and we'll take a look and figure out what happened," Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said late Friday.
The episode had the potential to inflame anti-American sentiment in the neighborhood and reawaken the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia that has largely controlled the district but has agreed to stand down to allow the sweep to take place.
New York Times, 10/3/07
'Surge' will be bigger, costlier, longer
There are increasing hints that President Bush's troop buildup in Baghdad could be bigger, cost more and perhaps last longer than the plan he unveiled in January.
The Bush plan called for sending 21,500 more US combat troops to Iraq, most of them to be committed to the security operation in Baghdad where thousands of 1st Cavalry Division soldiers are serving as part of Multinational Division Baghdad. But the Pentagon's initial estimate of 2,400 extra troops to support them has doubled and could go higher.
The cost of the buildup was put at $5.5 billion, but now the administration is talking about another $1 billion in costs for the escalation. And the new top US commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, indicates the buildup will continue past next fall.
KWTX, Texas, 9/3/07
Democrats set date for troops recall
The newly-powerful Democrats in the US Congress are demanding that all combat troops leave Iraq by 2008 in return for supporting George Bush's request for $100bn (£51.8bn) of extra funding.
The move left Mr Bush with the choice of agreeing to a timetable or being unable to raise enough money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the strategy, which echoed the way the party ended the Vietnam war, is also risky for the Democrats. While polls suggest two-thirds of Americans oppose the war, the party would be open to accusations from Mr Bush of denying funding to US troops still in the field.
Guardian 9/3/07
Maliki suspends cooperation with UK
The government of Iraq has put on hold all its collaboration with British military forces deployed to that country, Al-Iraqiyah news network reported.
Minister of State for National Assembly Affairs Safa al-Din Mohammed al-Safi said the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had condemned British troops for raiding the police information and security building in Basra, ordering all cooperation with British forces be suspended until completion of investigations into the matter.
"The prime minister has also ordered that legal action be taken against the perpetrators of the irresponsible act," he noted.
Press TV, Iran, 8/3/07