Archive for the week ending 29th february 2008
US warship pressures Lebanon
The United States has ordered a warship to take up position off the coast of Lebanon in a show of support for the country's embattled government.
The deployment of the USS Cole is being seen as a warning to Syria which - along with Iran - backs the opposition. The Western-backed government and the opposition have repeatedly failed to agree a deal to end political impasse.
A US official quoted by news agencies said the move was "a show of support for regional stability".
BBC News, 28/2/08
Iraq war costs at least $3 trillion
When U.S. troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, the Bush administration predicted that the war would be self-financing and that rebuilding the nation would cost less than $2 billion.
Coming up on the fifth anniversary of the invasion, a Nobel laureate now estimates that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing America more than $3 trillion.
When other factors are added - such as interest on debt, future borrowing for war expenses, the cost of a continued military presence in Iraq and lifetime health-care and counseling for veterans - they think that the wars' costs range from $5 trillion to $7 trillion.
The White House doesn't care for the estimates by Stiglitz, a former chief economist of the World Bank who's now a professor at Columbia University.
"People like Joe Stiglitz lack the courage to consider the cost of doing nothing and the cost of failure. One can't even begin to put a price tag on the cost to this nation of the attacks of 9-11," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto, conceding that the costs of the war on terrorism are high while questioning the premise of Stiglitz's research.
McClatchy Press, 27/2/08
US intelligence shows Afghanistan 'deteriorating'
New U.S. intelligence assessments cast doubt on President Bush's recent contention that Taliban and al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan are "on the run."
In fact, American and NATO troops have been unable to contain an expansion of Taliban insurgents in southern and western Afghanistan, two top U.S. intelligence officers said yesterday.
They said the insurgents increasingly are funded, armed, trained and directed by al-Qaida from its sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan.
The director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, described the situation in Afghanistan as "deteriorating," even though U.S. and allied forces have been roughly doubled since 2004, from about 26,000 to nearly 50,000 today.
Baltimore Sun, 28/2/08
Iraq rejects provincial elections
Iraq's presidential council rejected a plan for new provincial elections yesterday in a major blow to one of the key measures aimed at promoting national reconciliation among the country's Sunni and Shi'ite Arab communities and the large Kurdish minority.
The three-member panel, however, approved the 2008 budget and another law that provides limited amnesty to detainees in Iraqi custody. Those laws will take effect once they are published in the Justice Ministry gazette.
The White House tried to put the best face on the setback, saying "this is democracy at work."
Gulf Daily News, 28/2/08
US intelligence backs Turkish incursion
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said Turkish operations in northern Iraq must end as soon as possible. Mr Gates, speaking ahead of a visit to Ankara, said US concerns about the assault against Kurdish militants had been made clear at the highest levels.
He said the US had provided additional intelligence and reconnaissance help to Turkey, but would also be ready to offer non-military solutions to the problem.
BBC News, 27/2/08
US support strengthens Turkish role in region
The US finally came to its senses and realised that Turkey is a power that can't be sacrificed in the region... And now it's overlooking Turkey's incursion into northern Iraq. This is a very significant achievement.
Sabah, Turkey, 27/2/08
War decision minutes must be made public
Britain's information commissioner has ordered the government to release the minutes of two cabinet meetings held in March 2003 under Tony Blair, then the prime minister, to discuss the legality of the allied invasion of Iraq that began later that month.
The commissioner, Richard Thomas, acting on a request made under the Freedom of Information Act, said his ruling was based on "the gravity and controversial nature" of Britain's decision to go to war and would not, as government officials have argued, set a "dangerous precedent" for releasing cabinet papers that have traditionally remained secret for 30 years.
Mr. Thomas cited the controversy surrounding the ruling by the Blair government's attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, that going to war was legal, and the protest resignations of several of Mr. Blair's ministers that followed.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the government would decide whether to appeal the ruling to the courts, a step that must be taken within five weeks.
Officials said cabinet minutes had often been sparse in their detail of discussions held by ministers, and would not necessarily disclose as much about the war planning as critics of the Blair government had hoped.
New York Times, 27/2/08
Rice demands action in Kenya
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticized Kenyan leaders on Tuesday for failing to end their political stand-off and said Washington would take "necessary steps" if a solution was not reached.
Rice, who is on a trip to China, said that while there had been some progress, "I am disappointed by the failure of leadership necessary to resolve all the remaining issues."
She added: "I want to emphasize that the future of our relationship with both sides and their legitimacy hinges on their cooperation to achieve this political solution."
"In that regard, we are exploring a wide range of possible actions. We will draw our own conclusions about who is responsible for lack of progress and take necessary steps." She did not elaborate.
Reuters, 26/2/07
The myth of the surge
The U.S. has not only added 30,000 more troops in Iraq - it has essentially bribed the opposition, arming the very Sunni militants who only months ago were waging deadly assaults on American forces.
To engineer a fragile peace, the U.S. military has created and backed dozens of new Sunni militias, which now operate beyond the control of Iraq's central government.
At least 80,000 men across Iraq are now employed by the Americans as Iraqi Security Volunteers. Nearly all are Sunnis, with the exception of a few thousand Shiites. The American forces responsible for overseeing "volunteer" these militias have no illusions about their loyalty.
"The only reason anything works or anybody deals with us is because we give them money," says a young Army intelligence officer. The 2nd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, which patrols the Dora district of Baghdad, is handing out $32 million to Iraqis in the area, including $6 million to build the towering walls that, in the words of one U.S. officer, serve only to "make Iraqis more divided than they already are."
In districts like Dora, the strategy of the surge seems simple: to buy off every Iraqi in sight. All told, the U.S. is now backing more than 600,000 Iraqi men in the security sector - more than half the number Saddam had at the height of his power.
With the ISVs in place, the Americans are now arming both sides in the civil war. "Iraqi solutions for Iraqi problems," as U.S. strategists like to say. David Kilcullen, the counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. Petraeus, calls it "balancing competing armed interest groups."
Rolling Stone, 6/3/08
Britain's role in rendition and torture
Hundreds of Iraqis and Afghans captured by British and American special forces were rendered to prisons where they faced torture, a former SAS soldier said yesterday. Ben Griffin said individuals detained by SAS troops in a joint UK-US special forces taskforce had ended up in interrogation centres in Iraq, including the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, and in Afghanistan, as well as Guantánamo Bay.
Griffin, 29, left the British army last year after three months in Baghdad, saying he disagreed with the "illegal" tactics of US troops. While ministers had stated their wish that the Guantánamo Bay camp should be closed, they had been silent over prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.
He added: "These secretive prisons are part of a global network in which individuals face torture and are held indefinitely without charge. All of this is in direct contravention of the Geneva conventions, international law and the UN convention against torture."
Referring to the government's admission last week that two US rendition flights containing terror suspects had landed at the British territory of Diego Garcia, Griffin said the use of British territory and airspace "pales into insignificance in light of the fact that it has been British soldiers detaining the victims of extraordinary rendition in the first place".
Guardian, 26/2/08
Escalating Iraq and Afghanistan
The Pentagon is projecting that when the United States troop buildup in Iraq ends in July there will be about 8,000 more troops on the ground than when it began in January 2007, a senior general said Monday.
Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, head of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that by July the troop total was likely to be 140,000. There were 132,000 troops there when President Bush approved orders to send five more Army brigades to Iraq to improve security and avert civil war.
General Ham also announced that the Pentagon believed that United States force levels in Afghanistan would be at 32,000 in late summer, up from about 28,000 now. The current total is the highest since the war began in October 2001, and 3,200 more marines are scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan this spring.
New York Times, 26/2/08
Attacks on Afghan women at 'epidemic proportions'
Six years after the US and Britain "freed" Afghan women from the oppressive Taliban regime, a new report proves that life is just as bad for most, and worse in some cases.
Projects started in the optimistic days of 2002 have begun to wane as the UK and its Nato allies fail to treat women's rights as a priority, workers in the country insist.
The statistics in the report from Womankind, Afghan Women and Girls Seven Years On, make shocking reading. Violent attacks against females, usually domestic, are at epidemic proportions with 87 per cent of females complaining of such abuse - half of it sexual. More than 60 per cent of marriages are forced.
Despite a new law banning the practice, 57 per cent of brides are under the age of 16. The illiteracy rate among women is 88 per cent with just 5 per cent of girls attending secondary school.
Maternal mortality rates - one in nine women dies in childbirth - are the highest in the world alongside Sierra Leone. And 30 years of conflict have left more than one million widows with no enforceable rights, left to beg on the streets alongside an increasing number of orphans.
Afghanistan is the only country in the world with a higher suicide rate among women than men.
Independent, 25/2/08
US expands presence in Pakistan
US officials are quietly planning to expand their presence in and around the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan by creating special coordination centers on the Afghan side of the border where US, Afghan, and Pakistani officials can share intelligence about Al Qaeda and Taliban militants, according to State Department and Pentagon officials.
The Bush administration is also seeking to expand its influence in the tribal areas through a new economic support initiative that would initially focus on school and road construction projects. Officials recently asked Congress for $453 million to launch the effort - a higher request for economic support funds than for any country except Afghanistan.
The expansion of US efforts in the tribal areas - made possible, in part, by rising Pakistani anger at a string of suicide attacks by militants from the region - also includes the deployment of about 30 US counterinsurgency trainers to teach an elite Pakistani force to fight Al Qaeda and indigenous extremists.
Boston Globe, 25/2/08
US calls for short Turkish incursion
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has urged Turkey to keep its military campaign against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq as short as possible.
He said Ankara should employ political and economic measures to isolate the PKK and erode its support base, and that America's experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan showed that military muscle should be complemented by efforts to address grievances held by minority groups.
"These economic and political measures are really important because after a certain point people become inured to military attacks," he said.
BBC News, 24/2/08
Australian government affirms US ties
Despite Australia's decision to withdraw all 550 combat troops from Iraq and the ouster of a government closely allied with the Bush administration, the new defense and foreign ministers said Saturday that there was no chill in U.S. relations and pledged not to remove any of their soldiers from southern Afghanistan.
After a full day of talks with their American counterparts, the Australian ministers said the U.S. remained their most important alliance, with Foreign Minister Stephen Smith calling it "indispensable" to the country's security.
"The alliance relationship transcends a Labor or Liberal government here, or a Democrat or Republican administration in the United States," Smith said.
Although the Iraq war remains unpopular in Australia, the level of anti-American sentiment here has not risen to levels seen in other close U.S. allies such as Britain.
Analysts have said the loss in November by Prime Minister John Howard's Liberal government to Kevin Rudd's Labor Party was as much the result of domestic political issues as Howard's close embrace of Bush administration foreign policies.
Los Angeles Times, 24/2/08
Baghdad open for business
The last time organizers tried to stage a business convention in Baghdad, it had to be called off in a hurry because a mortar round exploded near the venue shortly before it was set to open.
So the fact that the first Baghdad Business-to-Business Expo went ahead at all last weekend marks something of a milestone in Iraq's struggle to return to normalcy.
Some 260 companies, most of them Iraqi, booked stands at the show, at the heavily guarded Rasheed Hotel inside the fortified Green Zone. To reach the hotel, visitors had to pass through 10 different checkpoints, submitting to several body searches, a full body X-ray and a bomb-sniffing dog.
It took four days for the display merchandise to be cleared by the U.S. military and transported into the zone. Nonetheless, organizers hoped the convention will send the message that Baghdad is now safer and open for business.
Houston Chronicle, 23/2/08
Turning tail in Afghanistan
The first law of holes is when you are in one stop digging. If the NATO nations are honest they have as much idea about what to do next in Afghanistan as the Soviet generals did in 1988 - the year in which the relatively new Secretary General of the Soviet Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev, decided that the Red Army should cut its horrific losses and pull out and leave the Afghans to fight each other.
The Afghan tribes have an uninterrupted record of success in resisting the foreign invaders - Genghis Khan, the Persians, the British in Winston Churchill's day as a subaltern, the Soviets and now NATO. Time, they know, is on their side. Their rifles, explosives and suicide bombers are a match for the most modern weapons in NATO's armoury.
The only thing that could possibly subdue them would be a massive number of NATO boots on the ground, prepared to engage in close up fighting, but to find numbers of this order would mean switching the full force of America's military might from Iraq to Afghanistan and persuading America´s allies to beef up their contributions to levels that would triple or quadruple present deployments.
While the politicians are finding it hard to come to terms with leading a retreat, given the constant pressure from Washington, they are - as Chancellor Angela Merkel has made clear - slowly but clearly turning tail.
Khaleej Times, Dubai, 24/2/08
Iraq warns Turkey over incursion
Iraq's foreign minister has warned that any escalation of Turkey's operation against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq could destabilise the region.
Hoshyar Zebari said the "limited" raid into a remote, uninhabited area should end "as soon as possible". And the Kurdish regional leader said a "massive resistance" would be mounted if civilians were attacked.
Mr Zebari said despite a Turkish promise to Baghdad that Turkish troops would "avoid targeting the infrastructure", a number of bridges had already been destroyed.
Washington said it had been informed of the incursion in advance and that it had urged the Turks to limit their action to precise targeting of rebel Kurdish targets.
BBC News, 23/2/08
Oil companies poised to enter Basra
Western oil giants are poised to enter southern Iraq to tap the country's vast reserves, despite the ongoing threat of violence, according to Gordon Brown's business emissary to the country. Michael Wareing, who heads the new Basra Development Commission, acknowledged that there would be concerns among Iraqis about multinationals exploiting natural resources.
Basra, where 4,000 British troops are based, has been described as 'the lung' of Iraq by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The region accounts for 90 per cent of government revenue and 70 per cent of Iraq's proven oil reserves. It has access to the Gulf and is potentially one of the richest areas in the Middle East, but continues to be plagued by rival militias.
Wareing, international chief executive of KPMG, was asked by Brown to help kick-start business in the Basra region in the hope that prosperity will bring stability. Wareing, 53, told The Observer that security had improved significantly in recent months and was no longer an issue for investors.
'If you look at many other economies in the world, particularly the oil-rich economies, many of these places are quite challenging countries in which to do business,' he said. 'Frankly, if you can successfully operate in the Niger Delta, that is a very different benchmark from imagining that Basra needs to be like London or Paris.'
Observer, 24/2/08
Turkish troops invade Iraq
Turkey said yesterday it had sent ground troops into northern Iraq in a significant escalation of its fight against separatist PKK Kurdish rebels, as the US and the European Union called for restraint amid fears the move could undermine Iraq's only stable region.
An incursion across the border by Turkish troops has long been in the offing, although it was not immediately clear yesterday how big the operation was or how long it would last. But it is a serious escalation of Turkey's battle against the rebels after weeks of aerial assaults on PKK bases in the mountains that straddle the Turkish-Iraqi border.
The Turkish government said it had alerted the Bush administration to the operation in advance, but the news still caused alarm in Washington and Brussels.
The operation is a blow to the US, which last year made a series of efforts to persuade Turkey not to carry out a large-scale ground incursion.
Some Turkish reports suggested that up to 10,000 troops had crossed into Iraq, although a US military official told Reuters that "a few hundred" were involved. The Turkish military did not say how many troops took part but said they would leave "as soon as planned goals are achieved".
Financial Times 23/2/08
New Pakistan government may curtail US death strikes
US officials reached a quiet understanding with Pakistan's leader last month to intensify secret strikes against suspected terrorists by unmanned aircraft launched inside Pakistan, senior officials in both governments say.
But the prospect of changes in Pakistan's government has the US worried that the new operations could be curtailed. Among other things, the arrangements allow an increase in the number and scope of strikes by Predator aircraft launched from a secret base in Pakistan.
Instead of having to confirm the identity of a suspected militant leader before attacking, the relaxation allows American operators to strike convoys bearing, for instance, the characteristics of al-Qaeda leaders on the run, so long as the risk of civilian casualties is judged to be low.
Sydney Morning Herald, 23/2/08
UK troops accused of torture and murder
Lawyers for five Iraqis have accused British soldiers of mass executions and torture and called for a police investigation into an "atrocious episode" in British army history.
Phil Shiner and Martyn Day, who have brought several cases against the British military for its actions in Iraq, produced statements on Friday from five men who say they were detained by British forces after a battle in southern Iraq in May 2004.
The men, who were blindfolded and bound, said their captors repeatedly beat and abused them, including forcing them to strip naked. While detained, they said they heard the systematic torture and execution of up to 20 other detainees.
"On the basis of the evidence currently available, we are of the view that our clients' allegations -- that the British were responsible for the torture and deaths of up to 20 Iraqis -- may well be true," Day told a news conference.
"Whether or not there is enough evidence to prosecute individual soldiers, it will only be by an open public inquiry that this question will be answered."
Reuters, 22/2/08
Al-Sadr Extends Cease-Fire
Anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced Friday that he has extended a cease-fire order to his Shiite militia for another six months, giving Iraq a chance to continue its fragile recovery from brutal sectarian violence.
Al-Sadr's decision to halt the activities of his powerful militia for up to six months last August was one of three critical steps widely credited with bringing the Iraqi death toll down more than 60 percent in recent months.
The other pieces of the puzzle are U.S. troop reinforcements and the move by American-backed Sunni Arab fighters to switch allegiances and start working against al-Qaida in Iraq.
Al-Sadr has said he needs time to reorganize his militia and the announcement was widely seen as a bid to bolster his image as a major player in Iraqi politics as Shiite leaders jockey for power ahead of an anticipated U.S. withdrawal.
Associated Press, 22/2/08
Talks to ban cluster bombs fail
Delegates from more than 120 countries have failed to reach an agreement on banning the use of cluster bombs during a five-day conference in Wellington, New Zealand.
Cluster munitions contain small so-called "bomblets" which scatter over a wide area and which sometimes explode only decades after a conflict, killing and maiming civilians.
The move to ban the controversial weapons has been backed by 83 nations, but significant countries such as China, Russia and the United States - the main manufacturers of the munitions - remain opposed to a ban. They have not joined the process and have not sent observers to the Wellington conference.
According to the Cluster Munitions Coalition, France, Germany, Japan and the UK have been stepping up diplomatic pressure to weaken the draft treaty by excluding certain weapons, including a transition period and allowing the use of cluster bombs in joint military operations with countries that do not sign the treaty.
Al Jazeera, 22/2/08