These are the archives for the week ending 28th September 2007
Cholera spreading in Iraq
A cholera outbreak in Iraq is spreading, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, with new cases confirmed in Baghdad, Basra and for the first time three northern districts.
The number of confirmed cases has now reached 2,116, WHO said. Just a day earlier a WHO official put the number of confirmed cases at 1,652. Eleven people have died of the disease so far.
The global health body estimates that more than 30,000 people have fallen ill with acute watery diarrhea, which may later be confirmed as cholera.
Cholera is a gastrointestinal disease that is typically spread by drinking contaminated water and can cause severe diarrhea that in extreme cases can lead to fatal dehydration. It can be prevented by treating drinking water with chlorine and improving hygiene conditions.
Associated Press, 25/9/07
US Senate votes to break up Iraq
Deadlocked over how and when to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, the U.S. Senate today approved a symbolic policy statement endorsing the decentralization of Iraq into semi-autonomous regions.
The nonbinding measure sponsored by Democratic Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. -- which supports a so-called federal system of government in Iraq -- won unusually broad bipartisan support, passing easily, 75 to 23. It attracted 26 Republicans, 47 Democrats and two independents.
Biden's proposal, which he outlined a year and a half ago, was once dismissed by the Bush administration and many on Capitol Hill as an unworkable and irresponsible prescription for breaking apart Iraq.
But as the government of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has stumbled in its efforts to unify the country's warring religious and ethnic communities, the idea of a decentralized country divided among Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shiites has taken on new currency.
Los Angeles Times, 26/9/07
War good for profits
General Dynamics Corp., the worst performing stock among the five largest U.S. defense companies, may outpace competitors such as Raytheon Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. as investors gain confidence that a U.S. pullout from Iraq won't hurt profit at the Army's biggest supplier of combat gear.
Investors are too focused on the war in Iraq, Chief Executive Officer Nicholas Chabraja said.
"This company does not depend on that particular deployment," he said at a Sept. 10 investor conference. "And when that one is done, there is going to be another one. We will not be out of Afghanistan under any circumstances." He didn't elaborate.
U.S. troops in Iraq might need General Dynamics' armored vehicles and tanks for years to come said Erik Becker, co-manager of the Waddell & Reed Advisors Core Investment fund, based in Overland Park, Kansas.
"The U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan will continue for longer than people expect," said Becker.
Bloomberg.com, 27/9/07
US seeks long term presence in Iraq
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told Congress on Wednesday that he envisioned keeping five combat brigades in Iraq as a "long-term presence."
He added that "in my head" he envisioned a force as a quarter of the current combat brigades. Mr. Gates gave no timetable for reaching that force level or for how long the forces would be required to stay.
He added that there had been no detailed planning by the Pentagon about what level of forces would be required on a more or less permanent basis.
A combat brigade has 3,500 to 4,500 soldiers, leaving a minimum of 17,500 combat troops in Iraq under the plan Mr. Gates described. The total American force required would probably end up being at least twice that, because of the need for support troops and other related personnel.
New York Times, 27/9/07
War inches closer to Iran
Iran's role with the violence in Iraq remains a major preoccupation of the Bush administration, with the U.S. military now building a base, practically within shouting distance of Iran - an extraordinary step to curb what it says is the smuggling of advanced weapons into Iraq.
It will be called Combat Outpost Shocker, and it will hardly come as a pleasant surprise to Iran that the United States will have a new base just 5 miles from their border. Col. Mark Mueller, of the 3rd Infantry Division, said it is the first time the U.S. military will be that close to Iran.
"Obviously, they probably won't be very happy about it," Mueller told ABC's Terry McCarthy.
ABC News, 25/9/07
Snipers laid bait for Iraqis
The Pentagon is refusing to comment directly on news reports in the United States about a classified program encouraging some military snipers in Iraq to use fake weapons and bomb-making materials as bait, and then killing anyone who picks up the items.
News reports on the classified sniper program are based on information described in documents related to recently filed murder charges against three members of a U.S. Army sniper team.
Each soldier is accused of killing an Iraqi in separate shootings and then planting incriminating evidence, such as wire for making bombs, on the bodies of the victims.
In sworn statements, soldiers testifying for the defense say the sniper team was employing a so-called baiting program developed at the Pentagon by the Asymmetrical Warfare Group. That group advises commanders on how to fight unconventional conflicts such as the insurgency in Iraq.
An Army spokesman, Paul Boyce, says there are no classified programs at the Pentagon that authorize the murder of Iraqi civilians or planting evidence to make killings appear to be legally justified.
Voice of America, 25/9/07
Iraq government says US violating sovereignty
Iran shut most of its border crossings with Northern Iraq on Monday to protest the US military's arrest of an Iranian official who had been visiting Iraq as part of an official delegation.
The detention in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah of the Iranian, who was visiting Iraq at the behest of both the Iraqi central government and the semiautonomous Kurdish government in the north, has brought protests from the Iraqi government as well as rare signs of unhappiness with the US from the Kurds, who are usually the most pro-American of any Iraqi faction.
The matter is the latest in a string of issues that have strained relations between the US and Iraqi governments, with senior Iraqi officials saying US military actions are violating their nation's sovereignty. Agence France-Presse reports that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has attacked the detention as has the Iraqi president, an ethnic Kurd.
Christian Science Monitor, 24/9/07
Iraq government powerless to control mercenaries
Senior Iraqi officials repeatedly complained to U.S. officials about Blackwater USA's alleged involvement in the deaths of numerous Iraqis, but the Americans took little action to regulate the private security firm until 11 Iraqis were shot dead last Sunday, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.
Before that episode, U.S. officials were made aware in high-level meetings and formal memorandums of Blackwater's alleged transgressions. They included six violent incidents this year allegedly involving the North Carolina firm that left a total of 10 Iraqis dead, the officials said.
The lack of a U.S. response underscores the powerlessness of Iraqi officials to control the tens of thousands of security contractors who operate under U.S.-drafted Iraqi regulations that shield them from Iraqi laws.
Washington Post, 23/9/07
Bomber hits US sponsored talks
A suicide bomber struck a U.S.-promoted reconciliation meeting of Shiite and Sunni tribal sheiks as they were washing their hands or sipping tea Monday, killing at least 15 people, including the city's police chief, and wounding about 30 others.
Two U.S. soldiers were also wounded in the 8:30 p.m. blast at a Shiite mosque in Baqouba, a former al-Qaida in Iraq stronghold about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials, who gave the overall casualty toll.
The brazen attack, which bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq, represented a major challenge to U.S. efforts to bring together Shiites and Sunnis here in Diyala province, scene of some of the bitterest fighting in Iraq.
Houston Chronicle, 24/9/07
Afghanistan: thousands dead this year
Ambushes and gunbattles around Afghanistan killed at least 26 people, including 12 government employees and unarmed police killed by gunmen in the relatively calm north, officials said Monday.
Gunfire killed a NATO service member Sunday in eastern Afghanistan, the alliance said in a statement. It did not provide any details, including the victim's nationality, though the majority of soldiers in the east are American.
Insurgency-related violence has left more than 4,400 dead so far this year, most of them militants, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Afghan and Western officials.
The Canadian Press, 24/9/07
UK not meeting obligations to refugees
The UK must do more to meet its "moral obligation" to the thousands of refugees fleeing violence in Iraq, Amnesty International says.
The campaign group says the UK, as one of the leaders of the 2003 invasion, should be helping the estimated 2m who have fled to Syria, Jordan and Europe.
The UK has forcibly returned more people to Iraq than any other European nation, which is staggering, it says.
The campaign group warns that lack of support from the international community meant Syria and Jordan were preparing to tighten their borders, cutting off escape routes for those trying to flee from the violence in Iraq.
BBC News, 24/9/07
Mercenaries back on streets...
The US security firm Blackwater has resumed limited operations in the Iraqi capital Baghdad four days after a deadly shootout involving the company. The company provides security to all US state department employees in Iraq.
A US embassy spokeswoman said the decision to allow Blackwater to resume work had been taken in consultation with the Iraqi government.
A separate Iraqi interior ministry investigation has found that Blackwater was "100% guilty" of the incident in which 11 Iraqi civilians were killed. Blackwater says its guards acted in self-defence, but this has been disputed by Iraqi eyewitnesses.
The interior ministry report, based on testimony from witnesses, concluded that Blackwater guards in Baghdad's Nisour Square started shooting after two mortar rounds landed nearby.
"They started shooting randomly from four positions in the square, killing 11 civilians and injuring 12 others," said interior ministry spokesman Maj Gen Abdul-Karim Khalaf.
BBC News, 21/9/07
...under investigation for arms smuggling...
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether staff from controversial US security company Blackwater smuggled weapons to Iraq, according to reports.
Some employees are alleged to have sent over unlicensed weapons and equipment, that could have been used by a group labelled as terrorist by the US.
In July, Turkey complained to the US that they had seized American weapons from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), designated a terrorist organisation by Washington.
Investigators are reportedly attempting to determine if any Blackwater weapons could have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of the PKK.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi government was also investigating if Blackwater had been involved in six other violent incidents in Iraq that left at least 10 people dead, according to the Washington Post's Saturday's edition.
BBC News, 22/9/07
...and doubling the size of occupying army
It's the other army. The private one, perhaps 160,000 strong in Iraq alone, armed, sometimes dangerous, often sloppy with tax dollars, and without which U.S. troops would represent a far less formidable force.
The coalition of willing contractors has swallowed more than $100 billion of U.S. spending on the Iraq war. More than 1,000 of its ranks have been killed since the 2003 invasion. Today, there is a U.S.-paid contractor - doing everything from manning a machine gun to cleaning toilets - for virtually every soldier tromping around the country.
Kansas City Star, 22/9/07
Germany drops CIA extradition demand
A German Justice Ministry official said Saturday that US officials have confirmed that there are no plans to extradite 13 CIA agents wanted in Germany on suspicion of playing a role in the alleged 2003 kidnapping and extraordinary rendition of German national Khalid el-Masri.
German prosecutors said in June they would seek extradition of the agents, but a German Justice Ministry spokesperson told Der Spiegel that after being informed by the Bush administration that the extradition request would be denied, German officials have decided not to press a formal request.
Jurist, 22/9/07