These are the archives for the week ending 23rd November 2007
Congress and Pentagon fight on funding
The Defense Department warned yesterday that as many as 200,000 contractors and civilian employees will begin receiving layoff warnings by Christmas unless Congress acts on President Bush's $196 billion war request, but senior Democrats said no war funds will be approved until Bush accepts a shift in his Iraq policy.
Skirmishing over war funding has continued for nearly a year, but the White House and Congress appear ready to push toward a showdown in the coming weeks. Democratic leaders are convinced that Congress's abysmal approval ratings stem in large part from its inability to force Bush to change his approach in Iraq. But with violence declining in Iraq, Republicans believe they are in an even stronger position to stay the course.
Washington Post, 21/11/07
Afghanistan 'falling into Taliban hands'
The Taliban has a permanent presence in 54% of Afghanistan and the country is in serious danger of falling into the group's hands, according to a report by an independent thinktank with long experience in the area.
Despite the presence of tens of thousands of Nato-led troops and billions of dollars in aid, the insurgents, driven out by the US invasion in 2001, now control "vast swaths of unchallenged territory, including rural areas, some district centres, and important road arteries," the Senlis Council says in a report released today.
It says that the frontline is getting ever closer to Kabul - a warning echoed by the UN, which says more and more of the country is becoming a "no go" area for western aid and development workers.
Guardian, 21/11/07
US military chief looks at Iran and China
The Chairman of the U.S. military Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Admiral Michael Mullen, says the United States must look beyond the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and reach out to partners around the world to reduce uncertainty. He also expressed concern about developments in Iran and China.
The chairman made clear that military force is one possible option regarding Iran. "I'd never take the military option off the table. Having the military option on the table doesn't mean it's going to get used but it certainly is intended to insure that there is no miscommunication or miscalculation" he said.
He said that the Asia-Pacific region is also a strategic concern, and singled out China's military build-up and a Chinese anti-satellite test conducted in January that has yet to be explained.
"It speaks to a higher level of concern that many of us in the United States have about what is the strategic intent of the investment, the high tech investment that the Chinese government is making with respect to its military capability in the future," he said.
Chinese officials have responded to U.S. questions about the test, saying it was not hostile and posed no threat.
Voice of America, 20/11/07
More trouble for mercenaries
Iraq's government turned up the heat on private security firms on Tuesday, threatening to deal firmly with those that act outside the law and opening an investigation into the shooting of a woman in central Baghdad.
Monday's shooting was the latest in a string of incidents that have triggered widespread anger and prompted the Iraqi government to propose a change to the laws under which foreign security contractors operate.
The U.S. military said those responsible for the shooting in Baghdad on Monday could be charged under Iraqi law because the company involved, Dubai-based ALMCO, is a logistics contractor for food supply, construction and training, not a security firm.
"We demand that all security companies obey the law and orders released by the Iraqi government, otherwise the security forces will be obliged to deal firmly with these companies," Baghdad security spokesman Brigadier-General Qassim Moussawi told a news conference.
Moussawi said Iraqi officials would try to bring charges against those responsible for seriously wounding the woman. "There was a violation of Iraqi law," he said. "They were driving on the wrong side of the road, there was a random shooting and they hit a woman in her legs."
Malaysia Star, 21/11/07
Too much Afghan aid wasted
Too much aid to Afghanistan is wasted -- soaked up in contractors' profits, spent on expensive expatriate consultants or squandered on small-scale, quick-fix projects, leading charity Oxfam said on Tuesday.
Despite more than £7.3 billion pounds of aid pumped into Afghanistan since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001, many Afghans still suffer levels of poverty rarely seen outside sub-Saharan Africa.
By far the biggest donor, the United States approved a further $6.4 billion in Afghan aid this year, but the funds are spent in ways that are "ineffective or inefficient", Oxfam said.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) allocates close to half its funds to the five largest U.S. contractors in Afghanistan. "Too much aid is absorbed by profits of companies and sub-contractors, on non-Afghan resources and on high expatriate salaries and living costs," the report said.
Reuters, 20/11/07
US killing of allies threatens relationship with Sunnis...
A group of gunmen killed in U.S. airstrikes in Iraq last week were pro-U.S. fighters, an American military officer said on Sunday, despite the military's public statements that they were insurgents.
The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said U.S. military officials had talked to Sunni Arab tribal sheikhs in Taji, just north of Baghdad, to express their regret for the loss of life in the attack, which took place last Tuesday.
"There was some confusion and we were not able to turn off the attack quickly enough," he said of the airstrikes that continued for several hours despite frantic phone calls from local tribal leaders to the U.S. base in Taji.
The incident threatens to derail a carefully constructed relationship between U.S. forces and anti-al Qaeda Sunni tribes in Taji and has put the spotlight on operating procedures for tribal police units the U.S. military is forming around Iraq.
"If they (the U.S. military) do not give us a proper reason for what happened, we will withdraw from the Awakening Council and let al Qaeda return," said Sheikh Shathir Abid Salim, leader of the anti-al Qaeda group. His brother was among those killed.
Reuters, 18/11/07
...while Shi'ite governor denounces 'brutal' civilian shootings
An Iraqi provincial governor accused U.S. troops of opening fire on civilian cars south of Baghdad on Sunday, wounding six people, and threatened to suspend ties with U.S. officials over the "brutal" attack. A U.S. military spokesman said no information was immediately available when contacted about the incident.
Ahmed Marzok, governor of the southern Shi'ite province of Muthanna, said six people were wounded, including two policemen, in the attack near al-Rumaitha, north of the provincial capital of Samawa, 170 miles south of Baghdad. A source in al-Rumaitha hospital put the number of wounded at five and said a woman was among them.
Marzok described the attack as "barbaric, brutal and illegal" and quickly called a meeting of provincial officials, where he demanded a full investigation of the incident by the Iraqi government. He also called for Muthanna officials to suspend work with multi-national forces in the province, including military engineers and a U.S. provincial reconstruction team.
Reuters, 18/11/07
US secretly helped Pakistan secure nuclear weapons
Over the past six years, the Bush administration has spent almost $100 million on a highly classified program to help Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, secure his country's nuclear weapons, according to current and former senior administration officials.
But with the future of that country's leadership in doubt, debate is intensifying about whether Washington has done enough to help protect the warheads and laboratories, and whether Pakistan's reluctance to reveal critical details about its arsenal has undercut the effectiveness of the continuing security effort.
While American officials say that they believe the arsenal is safe at the moment, and that they take at face value Pakistani assurances that security is vastly improved, in many cases the Pakistani government has been reluctant to show American officials how or where the gear is actually used. That is because the Pakistanis do not want to reveal the locations of their weapons or the amount or type of new bomb-grade fuel the country is now producing.
New York Times, 18/11/07
Children were victims of bodyguards, not bomb
Up to two-thirds of the 77 people killed and 100 wounded in a suicide bombing last week were hit by bullets from visiting lawmakers' panicked bodyguards, who fired on a crowd of mostly schoolchildren for up to five minutes, a preliminary U.N. report says.
Afghanistan's Interior Ministry says only a "small number" of the victims were hit by gunfire, but an Afghan official in Baghlan province told The Associated Press that bodyguards were "raining bullets" on the crowd. The suicide bomb contained ball bearings, the Interior Ministry said, which may have caused wounds that look like bullet holes.
An Afghan doctor who treated patients after the Nov. 6 blast, meanwhile, told the AP that a high-ranking government official told him not to publicly reveal the number of gunfire victims, suggesting a possible government cover-up.
Yahoo News, 17/11/07
Weak dollar reflects US decline
Professor Riordan Roett, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, told Bloomberg News: "There is a loss of confidence in the dollar and the US. It may only reflect the widespread dismay with the Bush administration, but it is obvious that the next administration, of either party, will have a steep uphill struggle."
As well as reaching its lowest level against the euro, which has been trading at more than $1.47, the dollar has also fallen to its lowest level against the Canadian dollar since 1950, sterling since 1981, and the Swiss franc since 1995.
Its plight was made still worse by a jarring signal from China that it was switching to other currencies. Cheng Siwei, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, told a conference in Beijing: "We will favour stronger currencies over weaker ones, and will readjust accordingly."
The warning was reinforced by a Chinese central bank vice-director, Xu Jian, who said the dollar was "losing its status as the world currency". China has stockpiled £700bn worth of foreign currency, and has only to decide to slow its accumulation of dollars to weaken the currency further.
Last month, in a humiliating turn of events, the central bank in Iraq, four years after the United States invaded, stated that it wished to diversify reserves from a reliance on dollars.
Korea's central bank has urged shipbuilders to issue invoices in the local currency and take precautions against the weakened dollar, and three of the world's big oil exporters, Iran, Venezuela, and Russia, are demanding payment in euros rather than dollars. Iran insisted that Japan should make all its payments for oil in yen, rather than dollars.
Warren Buffet, who is reputedly the richest man in the world, was asked on the US network CNBC last month what he thought was the best currency in the world to own now. He answered: "Not the US dollar."
Independent, 17/11/07
US kills Iraqi allies
Leaders of a Sunni tribal group in Iraq formed to fight al-Qaeda say dozens of their men were killed by US forces in a battle north of the capital, Baghdad.
One of the leaders of the Taji Awakening Council said airstrikes killed 45 of his pro-US fighters. The US military said coalition forces killed 25 suspected insurgents in the Taji area at the same time in an operation targeting al-Qaeda leaders.
BBC News, 15/11/07
Desertions from US army increase by 80%
After six years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, American soldiers are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980.
The number of US Army deserters this year shows an 80 percent increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. The totals remain far lower than they were during the Vietnam War, when conscription was in effect, but they show a steady increase over the past four years and a 42 percent jump since last year.
International Herald Tribune, 16/11/07
Violence drops as Brits withdraw
Violence in Iraq's Basra province has dropped by 90 percent since British troops moved their base outside the provincial capital, according to British military authorities.
"Most of the violence was being perpetuated against British forces. Once we repositioned to the contingency operating base at the airport, we were no longer a target, so the level of overall violence dropped by 90 percent," Lt. Col. Derek Plews, spokesman for Maj. Gen. Graham Binns, told CNN on Friday.
CNN, 16/11/07
Gates threatens Congress over funding for war
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday that he will have to lay off 200,000 civilian employees and contractors, terminate military contracts and partially shut down U.S. military bases unless Congress acts quickly to approve additional funding for the Iraq war.
Echoing similar warnings from past funding battles, Gates said the Army and Marine Corps will develop plans for sharp spending cuts unless Congress moves to provide $196 billion President Bush has requested.
On Tuesday, Bush signed a separate $471-billion Defense appropriations bill. But that spending measure includes little of the money needed to keep the wars going in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Los Angeles Times, 16/11/07
US seeks new supply routes for Afghan forces
The US military is looking at alternate routes to send supplies to troops in Afghanistan in case the political crisis in Pakistan makes current supply lines unavailable, the Pentagon said.
The US military sends 75% of its supplies for the Afghanistan war through or over Pakistan, including 40% of the fuel sent to troops, the Defense Department said. Those routes have remained open after Pakistan's president, Gen Pervez Musharraf, declared emergency rule on November 3, suspending the constitution and arresting thousands of activists.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said he did not know if any US military funding to Pakistan was being used by the Pakistani government to implement emergency rule.
One News, New Zealand, 15/11/07
US has over half a million under arms
Swelling the ranks of the US Army to 547,000 troops by 2010 will probably not be enough to meet its needs, the army chief of staff George Casey said today.
"I believe that the 540,000 we're building here is a good milestone. I believe it is probably not big enough," he told US legislators. "However, I want to get there, and once we get that going, I want to have a discussion about 'does it need to be bigger?'"
The Australian, 16/11/07