Archive for the week ending 28th March 2008
Bush -'normalcy is returning to Iraq'...
US President George W. Bush said Thursday it will "take some time" for Iraqi forces to crush Shiite militias but expressed confidence that they would ultimately prevail.
"This operation is going to take some time to complete," Bush said during a speech here on the "war on terror," adding that ultimately "terrorists and extremists in Iraq will know they have no place in a free and democratic society."
The US leader also said that "normalcy is returning to Iraq."
AFP 27/3/08
...as fighting continues in Basra & Baghdad
In an attempt to quell the fighting between Shiite militiamen and security forces, authorities in Baghdad have imposed a weekend curfew on the capital.
The curfew was imposed after clashes in the south have become fierce and after 3 days of mortar and rocket attacks on the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad. One American government worker was killed in one of those attacks today, according to the U.S. Embassy.
Defiant Shiites flexed their muscle today by sending tens of thousands of supporters into the streets of Baghdad, raining shells into the Green Zone and holding the Iraqi army at bay in the key oil city of Basra.
Amid all the turmoil, a bomb blasted a crucial oil pipeline in Basra, triggering a massive fire and threatening the country's ability to export oil. It was the second oil pipeline attacked in southern Iraq this week.
Basra's oil accounts for 80 percent of Iraq's production. The pipeline blast sent the world's price of oil to $107 a barrel.
Sadr's supporters lashed out at the U.S. and the Iraqi government today. Rockets and mortars fired from their Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City showered the Green Zone with rockets and mortar shells for the fourth straight day.
One landed next to the U.S. Embassy compound. Thick, black smoke billowed from inside the heavily fortified home to the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government, but no injuries were reported in today's barrage.
Since the Green Zone attacks have started, however, one U.S. soldier, two American civilians and an Iraqi soldier have been wounded and an American financial analyst has been killed.
Anger over the Basra crackdown has spread across southern Iraq where the Mahdi Army is strongest and is vying for control with government forces as well as rival Shiite groups.
Mahdi fury is focused on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite who is personally overseeing an operation against the militias in Basra. The crisis over the control of Basra is seen as a test of the government's ability to take over security.
ABC News 27/3/08
Fighting in Basra may affect oil production
Oil production and exports from Iraq's southern oilfields could be disrupted in three days if workers cannot reach their offices due to fighting in Basra, according to a Southern Oil Company official.
The streets of Basra have largely been empty since Tuesday when Iraqi security forces launched a major military operation to clear out gunmen from the oil-rich city.
Oil workers in the Basra province work 24-hour shifts and have not been replaced since Tuesday, the oil company official said.
Oilfields in the Basra province pump around 2 million barrels per day and export some 1.5 million bpd, the company official said.
Iraq receives the bulk of its revenues from its southern oilfields.
Reuters 26/3/08
Fighting continues in Basra
The Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has demanded that the country's prime minister leave Basra where he is overseeing a military operation to purge the southern city of its radical Shi'ite militiamen.
Relations between Sadr and Nouri al-Maliki have deteriorated sharply as the two men clashed over fighting between Iraqi forces and gunmen in Sadrist communities in Iraq.
Mr Maliki gave followers of Sadr and other Shi'ite gunmen 72 hours to surrender their weapons and renounce violence or bear the brunt of a military crackdown.
A spokesman for Sadr said his movement had appealed to Mr Maliki to reduce tensions in the city by returning to Baghdad and sending a parliamentary delegation to seek an end to fighting.
Fighting has raged in Basra since Tuesday morning. Residents of the sprawling city said those involved in the fighting were Sadr's Mahdi army members but the US military said it was targeting "rogue terrorist and criminal elements".
The latest round of fighting prompted a call from one of America's most respected retired officers, General Jack Keane, for British forces to reconsider their withdrawal from the city.
The general, architect of America's "surge" policy in Iraq, has said Britain must do more to fight Iranian-backed gangs in Basra.
"The security situation is worsening," he told the BBC's Today programme.
"It is a myth to say that this is just a political problem. We must maintain security and stability in Basra and the surrounding provinces, which we do not have today."
Daily Telegraph 26/3/08
Peace hopes in Afghanistan undermined
Afghanistan is being deprived of $10bn (£5bn) of promised aid, and 40% of the money that has been delivered went on corporate profits and consultancy fees, according to a hard-hitting report by aid agencies released today.
The failure of western donors to keep their promises, compounded by corruption and inefficiency , is undermining the prospects for peace in Afghanistan, it warns.
Civil aid programmes are a fraction of what is spent by America, Britain and others on military operations there. Much of the money earmarked for aid is diverted to political or military pruposes.
The report by Acbar, and alliance of international aid agencies working in the country, says the international community has pledged $25bn to Afghanistan since 2001 but only $15bn has been delivered.
The report estimated that 40% of the aid money spent in Afghanistan has found its way back to rich donor countries through corporate profits, consultants salaries and other costs, inflating the cost of projects.
Some 90% of all public spending in Afghanistan comes from international aid. The huge shortfall hinders efforts to rebuild infrastructure damaged by war and the delivery of essential services, the reports says.
Guardian 25/3/08
2,000 Iraqis allowed new life in Britain
The government is preparing to airlift up to 2,000 Iraqis out of their country to begin a new life in the UK, the first time that Iraqis will arrive here with their status as refugees assured.
Those hand-picked to come to Britain include translators and other staff who have supported British forces in Iraq.
The plan follows controversy last year about the government refusing many interpreters sanctuary in the UK despite the fact their work could put their lives in danger.
The news comes after The Guardian revealed that the Home Office is returning hundreds of Iraqi asylum seekers to central and southern Iraq for the first time, a decision condemned by human rights groups.
Guardian 25/3/08
Iran shells Kurdish bases in Iraq
Iranian artillery shelled three border towns in northern Iraq where Iranian Kurdish rebels are believed to be operating, an Iraqi Kurdish official said Sunday.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Kurdish protesters lobbed stones at police and soldiers in southeastern Turkey in a fourth straight day of clashes that have killed two people and injured dozens.
The shelling hit the towns of Marado, Razda and Dolakoka and lasted about two hours, said Azad Watho, a top official in the Iraqi city of Sulaymaniya.
Watho, the administrator of the towns, said the shelling had targeted the fighters of the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, or PEJAK, but had no more details.
Tehran had no immediate comment.
Los Angeles Times 24/3/08
US death toll tops 4,000
The US death toll in Iraq has topped 4,000 after a roadside bomb killed four soldiers in Baghdad.
The grim milestone in the five-year-long conflict came on Sunday night after a day when at least 61 people were killed across the country.
Rockets and mortars pounded the US-protected Green Zone in Baghdad, underscoring the fragile security situation and the resilience of both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups despite an overall lull in violence.
The attacks on the Green Zone probably stemmed from rising tensions between rival Shiite groups and were the most sustained assault in months against the nerve centre of the US mission.
The soldiers who died were on patrol when their vehicle was struck at about 10pm in southern Baghdad, the US military said.
Press Association 24/3/08
The forgotten dead of the Iraq war
While the number of US troops killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion stands at 4,000, up to three times as many Iraqi soldiers have died - and the number of civilians killed runs into tens and probably hundreds of thousands.
The icasualties.org web site, based only on published reports, shows that around 8,000 members of the Iraqi security forces have died since the March 2003 invasion. Last year however the Iraqi government put the figure at 12,000.
There is no agreement when it comes to civilian casualties, particularly as many deaths are never reported in the media. In January, a joint UN World Health Organisation and the Iraqi government study concluded that between 104,000 and 223,000 Iraqis had died violently since the invasion.
As of March 24, the independent Iraq Body Count website, based solely on incidents reported by the media, spoke of close to 90,000 deaths, of whom over a quarter - 24,000 - died in 2007.
At the high end of the scale, in September 2007 a British polling institute estimated the total number of civilian deaths at 1.2 million, a figure coherent with an earlier report in The Lancet, a respected British medical review.
As of July 2006, a statistical survey quoted in The Lancet found that 655,000 more civilians had died than would have been the case if there had been no war.
The scars run deeply in Iraqi society.
Africaasia 24/3/08
UN renews mission in Afghanistan
The U.N. Security Council on Thursday authorized an expanded political mission in Afghanistan to strengthen support for the Afghan government as the country confronts increasing insurgent violence.
The resolution was approved unanimously by the 15-member council.
"Afghanistan is one of the most important issues facing the world, because the struggle against terrorism and against extremism in that part of the world is the defining challenge of our time," Afghan-born U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said.
Renewing the mandate for another year gives the mission and Kai Eide of Norway, the new U.N. special representative in Afghanistan, responsibility for providing "more coherent support by the international community to the Afghan government" and for leading the U.N. in "a strengthened and expanded presence throughout the country."
The council's resolution expresses concern about "increased violent and terrorist activities by the Taliban, al-Qaida, illegally armed groups, criminals and those involved in the narcotics trade, and the increasingly strong links between terrorism activities and illicit drugs."
Insurgent violence in Afghanistan is at its highest level since U.S. forces invaded the country in 2001 to oust the hard-line Islamic Taliban rulers, who harbored al-Qaida leaders blamed for planning the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
AP 21/3/08
'So?' says Cheney
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney downplayed most Americans' opposition to the Iraq war, saying the administration would not be affected by "fluctuating" opinion polls.
Cheney said that the U.S. troop surge last year has yielded a "major success".
When asked to comment on a recent poll showing that most Americans say the Iraq war is not worth it, Cheney responded with "so?"
"You don't care what the American people think?" the TV host asked.
"No," Cheney answered. "I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls."
As an architect of the U.S. Iraq war policy, Cheney declared during a surprise visit to Baghdad on Monday that U.S. efforts to install democracy in Iraq is a "successful endeavor."
He also insisted on the links between former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida although a newly-released defense intelligence report has made an opposite conclusion.
According to a latest poll by Washington Post-ABC News, nearly two-thirds of Americans said that the war was not worth fighting and fewer than half think that the United States is making significant progress restoring civil order in Iraq.
Only 32 percent of Americans approved Bush's performance in the job, the lowest in his tenure so far.
China View 21/3/08
Miliband: Iraq war 'a remarkable victory'
David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said yesterday that building peace in Iraq had been "much more difficult" than expected, but he did not blame the US for mistakes now widely accepted as allowing the insurgency to flourish.
Speaking on the fifth anniversary of the invasion, Miliband said: "I think the war itself was a remarkable victory. It went better than most people expected. But the truth is that building the peace after the war has been much more difficult than people expected."
Guardian, 21/3/08