These are the archives for the week ending 19th January 2007
US search Sudanese embassy in Iraq
U.S. forces searched part of the Sudanese embassy compound in Baghdad last week but only after requesting access from guards, the U.S. military said after Sudan complained its embassy had been raided by U.S. troops.
On Wednesday U.S. military spokesman Christopher Garver said he "had no record" of any raid on the embassy. But a U.S. statement on Thursday said that information was given "in error".
"The compound was searched as part of an operation in the general vicinity that was aimed at denying insurgents safe haven to carry out attacks against Iraqi Security Forces and Iraqi citizens," it said.
Reuters 18/1/07
Turkey debates intervention in Iraq
Turkey's opposition parties have called for troops to be sent in to northern Iraq to wipe out Turkish Kurdish guerrillas there and to prevent Iraqi Kurds from assuming control over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
Turkey is concerned over the spiralling violence in neighbouring Iraq, and has expressed dissatisfaction with U.S. and Iraqi efforts to contain separatist Turkish Kurdish guerrillas who Ankara says have been using bases in Iraq to fight for autonomy in Turkey' southeast.
Prime Minister Erdogan on Tuesday warned Iraqi Kurdish groups against trying to seize control of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
Turkey fears Iraq's Kurds want Kirkuk's lucrative oil to fund a bid for independence that could encourage separatist Kurdish guerrillas in Turkey, who have been fighting since 1984 for autonomy.
Iraqi Kurds, who claim the region as their own and hope to eventually include Kirkuk in a region of self-rule in northern Iraq, accused Turkey of interfering in Iraqi internal affairs.
International Herald Tribune 18/1/07
US won't attack Sadr City
U.S. commanders have signaled they will shy away from a Fallujah-style assault on the Baghdad stronghold of Iraq's biggest Shiite militia - even though President Bush insists that driving armed groups from the capital is key to his plan for success.
The talk from the Bush administration has been tough, with strong assurances that no part of Baghdad is off limits to the new push for control.
But in reality, the risk of killing civilians and outraging the Iraqi government may be too high to launch an all-out attack on the Mahdi Army of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in its base of the capital's sprawling Sadr City district - at least for now.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 17/1/07
Iraq builds Iran links despite US pressure
The Iraqi government is moving to solidify relations with Iran, even as the United States ratchets up its rhetorical heat and bolsters its military forces to confront Iranian influence in Iraq.
Responding to an American raid on an Iranian office in northern Iraq last week, Iraq's foreign minister said Monday that the Baghdad government intends to transform similar Iranian agencies into full-fledged consulates. The minister, Hoshyar Zebari, also said the Baghdad government plans to negotiate more border entry points with Iran.
Iraqis, who have echoed Tehran's calls for the release of the officials, say the three-way standoff that has ensued reveals more about American meddling than about Iranian influence.
Chicago Tribune, 16/1/07
More US troops for Afghanistan
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said today that U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have recommended an increase in U.S. force levels, in part to deal with an expected upsurge in Taliban violence this year.
The number of insurgent attacks is up 300 percent since September, when the Pakistani government put into effect a peace arrangement with tribal leaders in the north Waziristan area, along Afghanistan's eastern border, a U.S. military intelligence officer told reporters traveling with Gates. The officer discussed the matter on condition of anonymity.
The prospect of a troop increase, at the same time Bush is ordering 21,500 more troops into Iraq, raises new questions about the military's ability to sustain its pace of war-fighting on two major fronts. There now are about 24,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, which Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry said is the highest since the war began in October 2001.
Houston Chronicle, 17/1/07
UN estimate 34,000 civilian deaths in Iraq in 2006
More than 34,000 civilians were killed in violence in Iraq during 2006, a UN human rights official has said.
The envoy to Iraq, Gianni Magazzeni, said 34,452 civilians were killed and more than 36,000 hurt during the year. The figure is nearly three times higher than calculations previously made on the basis of Iraqi interior ministry statistics for 2006.
Accurate figures are difficult to acquire, and previous UN estimates have been rejected outright by Baghdad.
Mr Magazzeni said his figures were compiled from data collected by the Health Ministry, hospitals, mortuaries and other agencies.
Speaking in London, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair described the death of innocent people in Iraq as "tragic", but insisted it was the fault of insurgents, not foreign troops stationed in the country.
BBC News 16/1/07
US military build-up in the Gulf
Calling Iran's actions in the Middle East "very negative", US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Monday a US military build-up in the Gulf is intended to show Washington's long-term commitment to the region.
"We are simply trying to communicate to the region that we are going to be there for a long time," he told reporters after meeting with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Brussels.
President Bush has ordered a second US aircraft carrier battle group to the Gulf and announced the deployment of a Patriot missile defence battalion to the region to protect allies against potential missile strikes.
Asked whether the build-up was aimed at Iran and signaled a more confrontational stance with its Islamic regime, Gates said the United States was simply reaffirming the strategic importance of the Gulf region.
Noting that he had called for diplomatic engagement with Iran in 1994, he said that since then Iran has gone from doing some constructive things in Iraq and Afghanistan to a wholly negative position.
"None of those conditions apply any longer," he said. "The Iranians believe that they are in a position to press us in many ways. They are doing nothing to be constructive in Iraq at this point."
Middle-East on line 15/1/07
Blair ruled out more troops for Iraq
Tony Blair formally rejected an American appeal to send hundreds more British troops to Iraq to help with US "surge" tactics, Scotland on Sunday can reveal. The Prime Minister was confronted with the request for extra help to supplement the thousands of American reinforcements on their way to Baghdad, during conversations with President Bush before Christmas.
But he turned down the plea for around 2,000 extra British troops - to add to the 7,200 already stationed around Basra - because it would conflict with the government's hopes of scaling down Britain's Iraq presence in the coming months.
Defence sources last night claimed Blair feared the political impact of allowing a revival of the Iraq dispute to overshadow his final months in office.
Scotland on Sunday, 14/1/07
US threatens Iran
The White House said today that Iranians are aiding the insurgency in Iraq and that the US has the authority to pursue them because they "put our people at risk."
"We are going to need to deal with what Iran is doing inside Iraq," national security adviser Stephen Hadley said. And said Vice President Dick Cheney: "Iran is fishing in troubled waters inside Iraq."
Raids that US President George Bush has approved against Iranian targets in Iraq are part of broad efforts to confront Tehran's aggression, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday while in Jerusalem.
Irish Examiner, 14/1/07
Mission creep will keep UK in Afghanistan
A senior Royal Marine responsible for training Afghan soldiers cast doubt yesterday on whether native troops would be ready to take over security and allow British forces to "step back" as scheduled in two years' time.
Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan Dewar, the commanding officer of Arbroath-based 45 Commando, said his experiences in Helmand province suggested it was "probably optimistic" that the fledgling Afghan National Army would be capable of tackling the Taleban, warlords and drug traffickers by the planned end of the British mission in 2009.
His comments reinforce fears that "mission creep" will force NATO troops to remain in the country indefinitely to prop up its security services.
The Scotsman, 12/1/07
Blair threatens more military spending
Tony Blair promised more cash for Britain's armed forces today as he defended his policy of intervention in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
The prime minister pledged to increase government spending on equipment, personnel and living conditions as he embarked on a "hearts-and-minds battle" to convince the country that Britain should remain a major defence power.
In a keynote defence lecture Mr Blair argued that there were two types of nations: "Those who do war fighting and peacekeeping and those who have, effectively, except in the most exceptional circumstances, retreated to the peacekeeping alone."
Mr Blair, speaking on board HMS Albion in Plymouth, added: "Britain does both. We should stay that way."
Guardian, 12/1/07
US public oppose Bush plan...
Seventy percent of Americans oppose sending more troops to Iraq, according to a new poll that provides a devastatingly blunt response to President Bush's plan to bolster military forces there. The Associated Press-Ipsos poll found widespread disagreement with the Bush administration over its proposed solution, and growing skepticism that the United States made the right decision in going to war in the first place.
Just as 70 percent of Americans oppose sending more troops to Iraq, a like number don't think such an increase would help stabilize the situation there, the poll suggested. When asked to name the most important problem facing the U.S., 38 percent of those polled volunteered war, up significantly from 24 percent three months ago.
Associated Press, 11/1/07
...as do press...
Most media analysts greeted President Bush's new Iraq strategy with marked skepticism, if not outright hostility. The New York Times says that with his plan, Bush is "ignoring the results of the November elections, rejecting the central thrust of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and flouting the advice of some of his own generals."
According to a number of media analysts, the plan is either too "risky" or simply a "gamble" on Bush's part. The new strategy, says the Washington Post, "is likely to touch off a more dangerous phase of the war, featuring months of fighting in the streets of the Iraqi capital, current and former military officials warned."
The AP derides Bush's "huge gamble. If it fails, he will have few if any options left." Tim Russert, on NBC, said the President "made it double or nothing. He'll get the escalation in troops, but it really is his last chance." Similarly, CBS' Jim Axelrod said after the speech, "The question you have to ask is, if this doesn't work, where does the President go from here?"
The New York Times contends the plan "depends on the good intentions and competence of a Shiite-dominated Iraqi government that has not demonstrated an abundant supply of either." The Wall Street Journal makes a similar assessment.
USNews.com, 11/1/07
...and US politicians...
President Bush's proposal to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq encountered strong bipartisan opposition on Capitol Hill yesterday, and his top national security advisers, dispatched to defend the strategy, were greeted with a skepticism not seen from Congress over the past six years.
Lawmakers said they have little confidencethat the Iraqi government has the capacity to deliver on promises to take the lead in cracking down on violent militias and providing security in Baghdad, as the president's plan contemplates.
Democrats and Republicans alike said they are concerned that Bush's plan, announced Wednesday night in a nationally televised prime-time address, is too little and too late and does not appear very different from previous efforts to secure the capital.
Washington Post, 12/1/07
...but not UK government
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, while hailing Bush's new strategy, underlined that London certainly has no plans to increase its own military presence in the south of the country.
Beckett welcomed Bush's decision to send 21,500 additional troops and other measures that are backed by the fledgling Iraqi government which showed both were determined to defuse spiraling violence, particularly in Baghdad.
AFP, 11/1/07