These are the archives for the week ending 20th July 2007
Mercenaries may outnumber US troops...
Estimates of the number of private security personnel and other civilian contractors in Iraq today range from 126,000 to 180,000 - nearly as many, if not more than, the number of Americans in uniform there.
Most are not Americans. They come from Fiji, Brazil, Scotland, Croatia, Hungary, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Australia, and other countries.
Senior commanders acknowledge the value of contractors, especially those that are armed and ready to fight if attacked.
At his Senate confirmation hearing in January, Army Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the multinational force in Iraq, said that the "surge" by US forces in Iraq might not include enough American troops. "However, there are tens of thousands of contract security forces and [Iraqi] ministerial security forces that do, in fact, guard facilities and secure institutions," he added. "That does give me the reason to believe that we can accomplish the mission in Baghdad."
Still, many senior military officers worry about the impact that relying on so many civilian contractors - especially armed private security forces - will have on the conduct of future conflicts.
Christian Science Monitor, 16/7/07
...and have their own airline
A new no-frills airline that begins weekly flights between Baghdad and Amman, Jordan, in August will accept only certain passengers - U.S. and Western citizens. Iraqis, Indians, Pakistanis and other non-Westerners need not apply
Expat Airways, looking to capitalize on the thousands of contract workers in Iraq, is believed to be the world's only commercial airline to blacklist a large swath of nationalities.
Company officials say the carrier's 8 a.m. flights out of Baghdad beginning Aug. 7 will help speed U.S. and Western contractors through Baghdad International Airport where daylong delays, overbooking and no-show planes are common.
Seattle Times, 16/7/07
Attack on Iran is back on agenda
The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before the US President, George Bush, leaves office in 18 months.
The move follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department over the past month. Although the Bush Administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo."
The Vice-President, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and the Defence Secretary, Robert Gates.
Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Dr Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and State Department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him.
"The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern," the source said this week.
Sydney Morning Herald, 17/7/07
Most foreign fighters in Iraq are Saudis
Bush administration officials frequently have lashed out at Syria and Iran for helping the insurgents who attack U.S. troops and civilians in Iraq.
But according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from Saudi Arabia.
Saudi fighters are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than any other nationality, said the senior American military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He added that half of all Saudi fighters in Iraq are suicide bombers.
In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis. The situation has left the U.S. military in the awkward position of facing an enemy whose top source of fighters is a key regional ally.
Kansas City Star, 15/7/07
Afghan governor sacked after criticising government
Afghanistan's government fired a provincial governor days after he said Afghans are distancing themselves from President Hamid Karzai and that a "vacuum of authority" is allowing the Taliban, al-Qaida and other groups to gain power.
"In remote parts of the country there is practically a vacuum of authority, a vacuum of power. Somebody will have to fill that vacuum. Either the criminals fill that vacuum or the Taliban and al-Qaida do," Abdul Sattar Murad said in the interview on Thursday.
"All the political parties are now drifting away from the national leadership. All over the country, the people are distancing themselves from the government," he was quoted as saying.
Washington Post, 16/7/07
RAF buys hunter-killer robot planes
The Royal Air Force has ordered three "hunter-killer" robot planes from America for use in Afghanistan. The Reapers, priced at £8 million each, plus service costs, will be flown by remote control by RAF "pilots" operating them via satellite link from 7,000 miles away at the US Air Force's Nellis base in Nevada. There are 44 RAF crew already flying Predators from Nellis and it is easy for them to upgrade to Reapers.
At first the RAF Reaper planes will be unarmed and used only for reconnaissance. But defence experts last night predicted that it will not be long before they are used in full attack mode.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "The aircraft we have ordered are capable of using the weapons - you just need to clip them on and install an extra bit of kit inside to fire them."
A military expert said: "These aircraft have awesome firepower and the great thing is there is never any danger to their crew because they are safely tucked away on the ground thousands of miles from the battlefield."
Daily Mail, 16/7/07
Miliband stresses support for Bush
New British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, seeking to quash speculation that London may distance itself from Washington over Iraq, insisted on Sunday the United States was still Britain's number one ally.
"It is the single most important bilateral relationship," he told BBC Television in his first broadcast interview since taking office. "Our commitment to work with the American government in general and the Bush administration in particular is resolute," he said, stressing there was no change in tone.
"We'll not allow people to separate us from the United States of America in dealing with the common challenges we face around the world."
Washington Post, 15/7/07
Iraqi union denounces oil grab
Hassan Jumaa Awad al Assadi, the head of the Iraqi oil workers' union, was in London last week campaigning against a new law which, he says, will give the oil giants unprecedented rights to his country's vast reserves.
'We will lose control over Iraqi oil. Therefore, the social progress in Iraq will be curtailed substantially, because the oil companies want huge profits; they are not concerned about the environment, wages, or living conditions,' he warned. 'We will wait to see the reaction of the Iraqi people.'
Baghdad has reacted angrily to the union's campaign, issuing arrest warrants for al Assadi and his fellow leaders, and refusing to recognise the 26,000-strong confederation of workers. But a mass protest is planned in Basra tomorrow.
Al Assadi said that Washington and London had put heavy pressure on the Iraqi government to persuade it to pass the new law. 'It's not logical for the US to come out empty-handed: they want their hands to be full of Iraqi oil,' he said.
Observer, 15/7/07
UK facing 'catastrophic failure' in Afghanistan
Britain's most senior generals have issued a blunt warning to Downing Street that the military campaign in Afghanistan is facing a catastrophic failure, a development that could lead to an Islamist government seizing power in neighbouring Pakistan.
Amid fears that London and Washington are taking their eye off Afghanistan as they grapple with Iraq, the generals have told Number 10 that the collapse of the government in Afghanistan, headed by Hamid Karzai, would present a grave threat to the security of Britain.
Lord Inge, the former chief of the defence staff, highlighted their fears in public last week when he warned of a 'strategic failure' in Afghanistan. The Observer understands that Inge was speaking with the direct authority of the general staff when he made an intervention in a House of Lords debate.
'The situation in Afghanistan is much worse than many people recognise,' Inge told peers.
'We need to face up to that issue, the consequence of strategic failure in Afghanistan and what that would mean for Nato... We need to recognise that the situation - in my view, and I have recently been in Afghanistan - is much, much more serious than people want to recognise.'
Observer, 15/7/07
US increases bombings in Iraq
Away from the headlines and debate over the "surge" in U.S. ground troops, the Air Force has quietly built up its hardware inside Iraq, sharply stepped up bombing and laid a foundation for a sustained air campaign in support of American and Iraqi forces.
Statistics tell the story: Air Force and Navy aircraft dropped 437 bombs and missiles in Iraq in the first six months of 2007, a fivefold increase over the 86 used in the first half of 2006, and three times more than in the second half of 2006, according to Air Force data. In June, bombs dropped at a rate of more than five a day.
Iraq Body Count, a London-based, anti-war research group that monitors Iraqi war deaths, says the step-up in air attacks appears to have been accompanied by an increase in Iraqi civilian casualties from air strikes.
Based on media reports, it counts a recent average of 50 such deaths per month. The Air Force itself does not maintain such data.
Associated Press, 14/7/07
Iraq like 'an experiment in an American laboratory'
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shrugged off U.S. doubts of his government's military and political progress on Saturday, saying Iraqi forces are capable and American troops can leave "any time they want."
Meanwhile one of al-Maliki's close advisers, Shiite lawmaker Hassan al-Suneid, bristled over American pressure, telling The Associated Press that "the situation looks as if it is an experiment in an American laboratory (judging) whether we succeed or fail."
He sharply criticized the U.S. military, saying it was committing human rights violations and embarrassing the Iraqi government through such tactics as building a wall around Baghdad's Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah and launching repeated raids on suspected Shiite militiamen in the capital's slum of Sadr City.
Washington Post, 14/7/07
Former UK spy chief blames wars for attacks
Stella Rimmington, who led the domestic intelligence agency MI5 between 1992 and 1996, said she believed - unlike Prime Minister Gordon Brown and predecessor Tony Blair - that Britain's role in Iraq has acted as a catalyst for violence.
Rimmington acknowledged al-Qaida attacks predated the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, but said their significance should not be played down.
"Terrorism was around from this source before we went into Iraq or Afghanistan," she told the Daily Mail. "But there is no doubt it has acted as a recruiting sergeant for a lot of these young men because of this sense of grievance about foreign policy."
"If we had not gone to war I sense we would have had some of this, but not at the same level," she added.
International Herald Tribune, 13/7/07
Brown denies change of foreign policy
Gordon Brown has sought to avert a row with the White House over his government's approach to ties with the US by reminding his cabinet of the importance of bilateral relations with Washington.
The prime minister made clear he was not contemplating any change in relations with the US following a speech in which Douglas Alexander, the international development secretary, called for a foreign policy that was "multilateralist, not unilateralist".
Tom Scholar, the prime minister's chief of staff, wrote to all members of the cabinet stating Mr Brown wanted to remind them of the importance of the relationship with the US.
"We will not allow people to separate us from the United States of America in dealing with the common challenges that we face around the world," the prime minister said earlier in the day.
Financial Times, 13/7/07
Journalists killed in 'random American bombardment'
An Iraqi photographer and driver working for Reuters in Iraq were killed in Baghdad on Thursday in what witnesses said was a U.S. helicopter attack but which the military described as a firefight with insurgents.
Iraqi police blamed American military action for the deaths. A preliminary police report obtained by Reuters said Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh had been killed by a "random American bombardment" that had killed nine other people.
The report was issued by the al-Rashad police station, the closest station to the scene. Reuters obtained a photocopy of the report. It was based upon witness accounts of the incident and signed by a lieutenant-colonel, the head of the station.
Reuters, 12/7/07
House of Representatives votes for partial pull out
The United States House of Representatives has voted in favour of pulling most combat troops out of Iraq by April next year. The legislation calls for the Pentagon to begin withdrawing combat troops within four months.
The vote comes despite President George W Bush's threat to veto any timetable. Correspondents say the House of Representatives, controlled by the Democrats, is hoping to pressure the Senate to approve a similar timeline.
It is the third time this year the House has voted to end US military involvement in Iraq. Two previous efforts either failed in the Senate or were vetoed by President Bush.
The latest attempt would allow some US forces to stay in Iraq to train the Iraqi army and carry out counter-terrorism operations.
BBC News, 13/7/07
Misleading emphasis on Iraq report
The White House yesterday sought to suggest possible change for the better in Iraq by saying that there had been satisfactory progress on eight of the 18 goals set by Congress. Unsatisfactory progress is reported on six, unsatisfactory but with some progress on two and "too early to assess" on a further two.
The picture it hopes to give - and this has been uncritically reported by the US media - is of a mixture of progress and frustration in Iraq. The wholly misleading suggestion is that the war could go either way. In reality the six failures are on issues critical to the survival of Iraq while the eight successes are on largely trivial matters.
Thus unsatisfactory progress is reported on "the Iraqi security forces even handedly enforcing the law" and on the number of Iraqi units willing to fight independently of the Americans. This means that there is no Iraqi national army but one consisting of Kurds, Shia and Sunni who will never act against their own communities. Despite three years of training, the Iraqi security forces cannot defend the government.
Set against these vitally important failures are almost ludicrously trivial or meaningless successes. For instance, "the rights of minority political parties are being defended" but these groups have no political influence. The alliance of Shia religious and Kurdish nationalist parties that make up the government is not keen to share power with anybody. This is scarcely surprising since they triumphantly won the election in 2005.
Independent, 13/7/07