Archive for the week ending 20th June 2008
Canadian troops told to ignore Afghan rapes
Canadian soldiers serving in Afghanistan have been ordered by commanding officers "to ignore" incidents of sexual assault among the civilian population, says a military chaplain who counsels troops returning home with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The chaplain, Jean Johns, says she recently counselled a Canadian soldier who said he witnessed a boy being raped by an Afghan soldier, then wrote a report on the allegation for her brigade chaplain.
In her March report, which she says should have been advanced "up the chain of command," Johns says the corporal told her that Canadian troops have been ordered by commanding officers "to ignore" incidents of sexual assault. Johns hasn't received a reply to the report.
While several Canadian Forces chaplains say other soldiers have made similar claims, Department of National Defence lawyers have argued Canada isn't obliged to investigate because none of the soldiers has made a formal complaint, says a senior Canadian officer familiar with the matter.
Toronto Star, 16/6/08
Medical evidence proves US torture
Medical examinations of former terrorism suspects held by the U.S. military at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, found evidence of torture and other abuse that resulted in serious injuries and mental disorders, according to a human rights group.
For the most extensive medical study of former U.S. detainees published so far, Physicians for Human Rights had doctors and mental health professionals examine 11 former prisoners.
The group alleges finding evidence of U.S. torture and war crimes and accuses U.S. military health professionals of allowing the abuse of detainees, denying them medical care and providing confidential medical information to interrogators that they then exploited.
"Some of these men really are, several years later, very severely scarred," said Barry Rosenfeld, a psychology professor at Fordham University who conducted psychological tests on six of the 11 detainees covered by the study.
"It's a testimony to how bad those conditions were and how personal the abuse was."
Associated Press, 18/6/08
New KBR overbilling scandal
A civilian Pentagon official in charge of the largest US military contract in Iraq was removed from his job in 2004 after refusing to pay one billion dollars to KBR Inc. because the company was unable to credibly justify its expenses.
KBR is an engineering, construction and services company that until April 2007 was a subsidiary of the Houston-based energy firm Halliburton, which was formerly led by Vice President Dick Cheney.
"They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn't justify," the official, Charles Smith, told The New York Times. "Ultimately, the money that was going to KBR was money being taken away from the troops, and I wasn't going to do that."
According to a recent report by the Pentagon's inspector general, nearly eight billion dollars in US military contracts to subcontractors in Iraq did not respect federal guidelines aimed at preventing fraud.
AFP, 18/6/08
Haditha: Will anyone pay for massacre?
A military judge on Tuesday dismissed the case against the highest-ranking marine charged in the deaths of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005.
Colonel Chessani was one of eight marines accused of wrongdoing in the shootings in Haditha, which was portrayed by Iraqi witnesses as a massacre of unarmed civilians and brought international condemnation on American troops.
The witnesses claimed that the marines killed the two dozen men, women and children in anger after a popular comrade was killed by a roadside bomb. Defense lawyers said the civilians were killed during a battle with insurgents in and around Haditha.
Colonel Chessani is the sixth of the accused to have his charges dismissed. Another marine was cleared. Only Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, accused of being the ringleader, still faces a court-martial. The proceedings against him have been delayed pending the appeal of a pretrial ruling.
New York Times, 18/6/08
The death of US strategy
John McCain has set off a firestorm by suggesting that the timing of the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq is "not too important."
What is important, he said, are the casualties in Iraq, pointing to long-term US troop presence in Japan, South Korea, and Germany. He should be commended for his "straight talk" in articulating what he believes, despite its unpopularity.
But Senator McCain has yet to give the American people clear answers to three fundamental questions: What, exactly, are the political objectives of keeping large numbers of American soldiers in Iraq for years to come? What plausible outcome would benefit the United States enough to justify the wrenching costs of achieving those objectives? And what, concretely, is the strategy for getting there?
McCain may genuinely believe there is still a political objective, albeit a far more modest one than President Bush and the war's supporters originally articulated, that can justify the sacrifice of still more American lives and treasure.
But if he can't do better than slogans such as "winning" and "stability," it's hard to avoid the conclusion that such an objective simply doesn't exist. And in that case, we can add one more exorbitant cost to the war's bill: the death of strategy.
Christian Science Monitor, 17/6/08
Brown backs Bush on Iraq and Afghanistan
Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced Monday that Britain and Europe would freeze the overseas assets of Iran's largest commercial bank, joining the United States in intensifying financial pressure against Iran over its refusal to address international concern over its nuclear activities.
Brown, appearing with President George W. Bush after discussions here, also pledged to send additional troops to Afghanistan, and indicated that he would not bend to political pressure at home to withdraw British forces in southern Iraq more quickly.
International Herald Tribune, 16/6/08
...and sends hundreds more troops to Afghanistan
Hundreds more British troops will be sent to Afghanistan during the coming year to help to improve protection for British Forces, Gordon Brown announced yesterday after talks with President Bush.
Despite warnings of "overstretch" in the Army, the Prime Minister said that levels of British Forces would reach their highest point.
As the bodies of the latest five soldiers to be killed in Afghanistan were returned, ministers said that the extra troops, sent as part of a "reconfiguration" of the British contingent, would improve security for British servicemen and women.
The Times, 17/6/08
Karzai threatens attacks on Pakistan
Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday threatened to attack Taliban insurgents on Pakistani soil, saying his war-torn country had a right to do so out of "self-defence".
The warning came just days after US-led forces carried out an air strike in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt bordering Afghanistan. Washington says it was targeting militants, but Pakistan says 11 of its soldiers were killed.
"Afghanistan has the right to destroy terrorist nests on the other side of the border in self-defence," Karzai told a news conference in Kabul.
"When they cross the border from Pakistan to come and kill Afghans and coalition troops, it gives us exactly the right to go back and do the same," he added, in his toughest comments yet on stamping out militancy along the border.
The stark warning earned a swift response from Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who said that his country would not tolerate any violations of its territorial sovereignty.
AFP, 15/6/08
Sadrists will endorse candidates
Members of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr's political bloc announced Sunday that the group would not compete as a party in coming local elections but would endorse candidates.
The decision appeared aimed at allowing the Sadr movement to play a role in the Iraqi elections despite a government threat to bar the bloc from fielding candidates if it did not first dissolve its militia.
The endorsements "will not be for Sadrists alone, but for individuals, chieftains, people with popularity and talents to serve and offer public services to the people," said Sadr loyalist and parliament member Haidar Fakhrildeen.
Los Angeles Times, 16/6/08
Iraq refugees at highest level ever
Amnesty International has described the problems faced by Iraqi refugees as reaching shocking proportions.
In a report based on research in Iraq and neighbouring Syria and Jordan, the human rights group accused governments of doing little or nothing to help. Amnesty says that today the number of displaced Iraqis is highest ever at an estimated 4.7 million.
Many cannot leave Iraq, and for those who do their situation is steadily worsening. Amnesty says many families are now destitute and face impossible choices and new risks, including child labour, prostitution and the prospect of being forced through circumstances to undertaken voluntary return to Iraq.
The human rights group argues that while there has been some improvement in security in Iraq over the past year, the country is neither safe nor suitable for return.
Radio New Zealand, 15/6/08
Bush urges Brown to stay in Iraq
U.S. President George W. Bush urged Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday not to set a timetable for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
Bush issued his call ahead of a visit to Britain, the final stop of a European farewell tour on which he has won support for a ratcheting up of pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme.
He said that the United States and Britain, Washington's main ally on Iraq, both obviously wanted to bring their troops home but this could only be "based upon success".
Last week media reports said Britain could possibly pull all its forces out by the end of the year, but with the situation still unstable on the ground that appears unfeasible.
Reuters, 15/6/08
Troops pour into south Iraq city
Iraqi troops and police backed by US forces have been sent to the southern city of Amara in a fresh operation against Shia gunmen, officials say. Iraqi army tanks have been patrolling major streets in the city and the security forces set up checkpoints.
Correspondents say the new operation is the latest drive by Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki to impose his authority. Hundreds were reported killed in March in battles which began in Basra and spread to Baghdad and elsewhere.
BBC News, 14/6/08
May's Afghan deaths outnuber those in Iraq
It's a grim gauge of U.S. wars going in opposite directions: American and allied combat deaths in Afghanistan in May passed the monthly toll in Iraq for the first time.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates used the statistical comparison to dramatize his point to NATO defense ministers that they need to do more to get Afghanistan moving in a better direction. He wants more allied combat troops more trainers and more public commitment.
More positively, the May death totals point to security improvements in Iraq that few thought likely a year ago.
But the deterioration in Afghanistan suggests a troubling additional possibility: a widening of the war to Pakistan, where the Taliban and al-Qaida have found haven.
Associated Press, 14/6/08
Maliki: talks with US have 'reached impasse'...
Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki has said that talks with the US on a long-term agreement allowing US forces to remain in Iraq have "reached an impasse".
BBC Baghdad correspondent Nick Witchell says the disagreement between Mr Maliki and US negotiators goes to the heart of the immensely sensitive issue of who is actually in charge in the country: the Americans or the Iraqis.
The Americans are trying to negotiate a new Status of Forces agreement with the Iraqis. But the Iraqi government regards many of the American demands as infringements of Iraqi sovereignty.
Mirembe Nantongo, a spokeswoman for the US embassy in Baghdad, said: "We remain hopeful, as do our Iraqi government partners, regarding a successful conclusion to these negotiations."
More than five years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, there are 150,000 US troops based in the country.
BBC News, 13/6/08
...and Iraq may ask US to leave
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki raised the possibility that his country won't sign a status of forces agreement with the United States and will ask U.S. troops to go home when their U.N. mandate to be in Iraq expires at the end of the year.
Maliki made the comment after weeks of complaints from Shiite Muslim lawmakers that U.S. proposals that would govern a continued troop presence in Iraq would infringe on Iraq's sovereignty.
"Iraq has another option that it may use," Maliki said during a visit to Amman, Jordan. "The Iraqi government, if it wants, has the right to demand that the U.N. terminate the presence of international forces on Iraqi sovereign soil."
McClatchy Newspapers, 13/6/08
Sadr announces new resistance force
Iraq's Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr announced on Friday that he plans to form a new armed group to fight US forces in Iraq.
In a statement issued to his nearly 60,000 strong Mahdi Army militia, the anti-American cleric said the fight against US forces will now be waged only by the new group.
"The resistance will be carried out exclusively by a special group which I will announce later," Sadr said in a statement which was read out at a mosque in the holy Shiite town of Kufa. "We will keep resisting the occupier until the liberation (of Iraq) or (our) martrydom."
Sadr said the group will direct its operations against US forces and will be banned from fighting Iraqis.
AFP, 13/6/08
Supreme Court upholds Guantanamo detainees rights
The Supreme Court dealt the Bush administration a stunning setback yesterday, ruling that terrorist suspects imprisoned at Guantanamo can fight for their rights in U.S. courts and likely sounding a death knell for the controversial offshore war-crimes trials.
Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy delivered a harsh rebuke of the Bush administration's efforts to craft war-crimes trials beyond the reach of American justice. "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times," he wrote.
Yesterday's ruling was the third straight judgment against the Bush administration concerning the rights of Guantanamo prisoners.
It cast a cloud over the entire process. Not only do Guantanamo detainees have the explicit right to challenge, in U.S. federal courts, their continued imprisonment, but the court also ruled that the process by which detainees are classified as "enemy combatants" may also be challenged.
Globe and Mail, Canada, 13/6/08