These are the archives for the week ending 30th March 2007
Most Americans support withdrawal deadline
Most Americans support the U.S. House provision setting a timetable that calls for most U.S. troops to be out of Iraq by September 2008, said a survey released on Wednesday.
According to the CBS News poll, 59 percent of those surveyed favored the provision while 37 percent opposed it. The poll was conducted before Tuesday's Senate vote to include a non-binding withdrawal timetable in its version of legislation to provide continued funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The survey also found that while most Americans believe Iran is providing weapons to insurgents in Iraq, the majority sees that nation as a threat that does not require military action on the part of the United States.
People's Daily, China, 29/3/07
Police rampage in northern Iraq
One of the bloodiest chapters in Iraq's sectarian strife unfolded over the past two days in the northern city of Tal Afar where gunmen, some of them apparently police officers, participated in the revenge killings of scores of Sunnis in the aftermath of a huge double suicide bombing in a Shiite area.
Two hours after the explosion of truck bombs, which killed 83 people and wounded more than 185, the gunmen - some of whom witnesses recognized as police officers - went house to house in a Sunni neighborhood, dragged people into the street and shot them in the head, witnesses and local leaders said.
The killing went on for several hours before the Iraqi Army intervened. The police are mostly Shiites, although the city is mixed.
New York Times, 29/3/07
US hails guilty plea
The Bush administration yesterday claimed a victory in its campaign to demonstrate the legitimacy of its widely condemned system of military tribunals after securing the first guilty plea from a Guantanamo Bay inmate. But human rights organisations dismissed the proceedings as unfair.
The prospect of a conviction - even on a single minor charge - against David Hicks, was hailed by Pentagon officials as a milestone.
Mr Hick's father described the decision to plead guilty as an act of desperation after 'five years of hell' at the island prison.
Human Rights Watch also expressed concern about the fairness of the proceedings after the military judge dismissed two of Mr Hick's lawyers, saying they were unqualified.
Guardian 28/3/07
Iraq to allow Saddam regime officials back
Former members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party who lost their jobs in the wake of the 2003 invasion will be allowed to take up posts in the government and security forces under a new law designed to foster reconciliation between Iraq's Shia and Sunni Arabs.
The US has been putting intense pressure on the Shia-led government to meet a series of benchmarks designed to bring Iraq's once all-powerful Sunni Arabs back into the fold and take the sting out of the insurgency, which is raging in many Sunni areas of the capital and beyond.
Despite the new proposals, it is unclear how many former Ba'ath members will apply for their jobs back. With militias and death squads linked to the ruling Shia alliance operating with relative ease in the capital and infiltrating the ministries, some former Ba'athists may simply opt to lie low.
Guardian 28/3/07
Blair wants no-fly zone over Darfur
Tony Blair is pushing the United Nations to declare a no-fly zone over Darfur, enforced if necessary by the bombing of Sudanese military airfields used for raids on the province.
A no-fly zone, of the kind enforced in Iraq before the invasion, has been widely dismissed by military experts as impractical over Darfur, which is the size of France.
But US and British officials are considering a cheaper alternative: punitive air strikes against Sudanese air force bases if Khartoum violated the no-fly zone.
The initiative for such tough action is being driven by Mr Blair himself, often in the face of scepticism in the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence.
Mr Blair is said by his aides to believe the ethnic cleansing to be a defining moral issue. "The prime minister believes in a values driven foreign policy and believes you have to evenly apply those values to have any credibility. He sees Darfur as a test of the international community's commitment to its own values," a Downing Street source said.
Tony Blair's idea of persuading the UN to enforce a no-fly zone over Darfur is likely to be a hard sell. As one aid official put it: "British and American bombing to advance humanitarian goals is a damaged brand on the world stage."
Guardian 28/3/07
Bush will veto withdrawal date bill
The Senate went on record for the first time on Tuesday in favor of a withdrawal date from Iraq, with Democrats marshalling the votes they needed to deliver a forceful rebuke to President Bush's war policy.
By a vote of 50-48, with a few crucial votes shifting in favor of the Democratic position, the Senate rejected a Republican effort to strip from the military spending bill any mention of a withdrawal date. The legislation will now move forward containing phrasing that sets a nonbinding goal of beginning a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within 120 days of the enactment of the measure, with a complete pullout by March 31, 2008.
Dana Perino, the deputy White House press secretary, said the president was "disappointed that the Senate continues down a path with a bill that he will veto and has no chance of becoming law."
Houston Chronicle, 27/3/07
Baghdad sweeps cram two jails
Hundreds of Iraqis detained in the Baghdad security crackdown have been crammed into two detention centers run by the Defense Ministry that were designed to hold only dozens of people, a government monitoring group said Tuesday.
The numbers suggested that the security plan's emphasis on aggressive block-by-block sweeps of troubled neighborhoods in the capital had flooded Iraq's frail detention system, and appeared to confirm the fears of some human rights advocates who have been predicting that the new plan would aggravate already poor conditions.
In one of the detention centers, in the town of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, 705 people were packed into an area built for 75, according to Maan Zeki Khadum, an official with the monitoring group. The other center, on Muthana Air Base, held 272 people in a space designed to hold about 50, he said, and included two women and four boys who were being held in violation of regulations that require juveniles to be separated from adults and males from females.
In an interview, Mr. Khadum said the detention system had been suffering from a problem of "fast detention and very slow release, especially for those who are not guilty." His group includes 17 lawyers and is working under a government committee run by the Shiite politician Ahmad Chalabi.
New York Times, 28/3/07
Iraqi deaths survey 'was robust'
The British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war, the BBC has learnt.
Shortly after the publication of the survey in October last year Tony Blair's official spokesperson said the Lancet's figure was not anywhere near accurate. He said the survey had used an extrapolation technique, from a relatively small sample from an area of Iraq that was not representative of the country as a whole. President Bush said: "I don't consider it a credible report."
But a memo by the MoD's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Roy Anderson, on 13 October, states: "The study design is robust and employs methods that are regarded as close to "best practice" in this area, given the difficulties of data collection and verification in the present circumstances in Iraq."
If the Lancet survey is right, then 2.5% of the Iraqi population - an average of more than 500 people a day - have been killed since the start of the war.
BBC News, 26/3/07
Involuntary call-up for US troops
As many as 1,200 Marine reservists are being involuntarily called up for duty in Iraq next year for jobs the service has been unable to find enough volunteers to fill, the Marine Corps said Monday.
The mobilization, which was approved by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last week, reflects the increasing manpower shortages the Marines are facing as the war in Iraq continues. Officials said it would have been necessary even without the increase in American force levels in Iraq, which will reach 160,000, including 25,000 marines, by June.
The mobilization is the largest involuntary call-up since the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, when around 2,000 Marine reservists were returned to active duty. The Army has made more extensive use of a similar authorization, ordering back more than 5,000 soldiers since the war in Iraq began.
New York Times, 27/3/07
US in talks with Iraq insurgents
The outgoing U.S. ambassador to Iraq says U.S. and Iraqi officials are holding talks with some insurgent groups as part of reconciliation efforts.
Zalmay Khalilizad told a farewell news conference in Baghdad Monday that the talks are aimed at isolating al-Qaida in Iraq. Khalilzad said the goal is to have the country's different groups reconcile and embrace the new Iraq.
He said the United States wants to separate more and more groups from al-Qaida, which he said is waging war on both Sunni and Shi'ite Iraqis.
Voice of America, 26/3/07
Central Baghdad ripped by clashes
Clashes erupted in central Baghdad on Sunday between Iraqi security forces and gunmen firing from the rooftops and alleys, killing at least two Iraqis and injuring six despite a major security clampdown.
They were among at least 27 Iraqis reported found slain during the day. Five U.S. soldiers were killed in roadside bombings, four in a single blast east of the capital, the military said.
San Francisco Chronicle, 26/3/07
US: West should stay in Afghanistan for "many, many years"
U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Washington was grateful to European countries such as Britain, Estonia, Romania and the Netherlands which have troops operating in combat zones in Afghanistan, but said more were needed.
"We are going to have to be in it for the long-term... This is not a two- or three-year effort. I think all of us will be there many, many years from now," he told a conference in Brussels.
Last year saw the worst violence in Afghanistan since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban from power in late 2001. More than 4,000 people died in fighting in 2006, including about 1,000 civilians.
Fighting is expected to be heavy in 2007. The Taliban have said they have prepared thousands of suicide bombers.
The Scotsman, 26/3/07
Mercenaries to guard Iraq parliament
A suicide attacker came within feet of Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie and exploded his vest during a Friday prayer service in the private mosque attached to al-Zubaie home. The Sunni official was seriously wounded and nine people were killed.
The assassination attempt, at least the third major security breach involving a top politician in four months, prompted Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to order a government-wide security shake up, including plans to hire a foreign company to guard the Green Zone building where parliament meets, a security official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with reporters.
Glenn Falls Post-Star, 25/3/07
UN Council imposes sanctions on Iran
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to impose new sanctions on Iran for its nuclear ambitions by targeting Tehran's arms exports, state-owned bank and elite Revolutionary Guards.
The resolution bans arms exports from Iran and freezes financial assets abroad of 28 Iranian individuals and entities, including its Bank Sepah, and the commanders and companies associated with the Revolutionary Guards.
It threatens further sanctions if Iran does not comply within 60 days. If it does, sanctions would be suspended.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had wanted to speak to the 15-nation council but cancelled his appearance because visas for his flight crew were delivered too late for his plane to arrive in New York before the vote. Washington disputes this.
But both Iran and the big powers, who drafted the resolution, offered further talks, although the sanctions would remain in place until Iran halted enrichment.
Reuters 25/3/07
US pullout 'would undermine Iraq'
Iraq's vice-president has warned that a quick withdrawal of US troops could worsen the security situation in Iraq.
Tareq al-Hashemi responded after the US House of Representatives passed a bill imposing a deadline for all US troops to leave Iraq by 31 August 2008.
Mr Hashemi said replacing US troops with poorly-trained Iraqis whose loyalty was questionable would create a security vacuum.
US President George W Bush vowed to veto the Democratic-sponsored bill. A grim-faced President Bush said the vote, which was largely along partisan lines, was an effort to "force me to accept restrictions on our commanders, an artificial timetable for withdrawal and their pet spending projects". "This is not going to happen," he said.
The bill was primarily to authorise $124bn (£62bn) in funding for US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some Democratic representatives voted against it, because they want to put an immediate end to the war. Others opposed it because it could make the work of military commanders more difficult.
Most Republicans opposed the legislation, which they said would represent an admission of failure in Iraq.
The House bill calls for the withdrawal of troops to begin as early as July 2007 if there is no evidence progress is being made in bringing order to Iraq.
BBC News 24/3/07
EU tells Iran to free UK troops
The EU has told Iran to free fifteen British sailors who were captured after allegedly straying into Iranian waters near the Iraqi city of Basra.
The British troops - including one woman - were detained on Friday during what Britain described as a "routine anti-smuggling operation" in the Shatt al-Arab waterway that divides Iraq and Iran.
Iran's Fars news agency said on Saturday that the sailors and marines had been taken to Tehran to explain their "aggressive action".
General Ali Reza Afshar, a senior Iranian military official, told an Iranian news agency on Saturday that the captured Britons had "confessed to illegal entry into Iran's waters."
The seizure of the British vessels, a pair of rigid inflatable boats known as RIBs, took place in long-disputed waters just outside of the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab.
A 1975 treaty gave the waters to Iraq and US and British ships commonly operate there, but Aandahl said Iran disputes Iraq's jurisdiction over the waters.
Al-Jazeera 24/3/07
US struggles to avert Turkish intervention
The US is scrambling to head of a 'disastrous' Turkish military intervention in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq that threatens to derail the Baghdad security surge and open up a third front in the battle to save Iraq from disintegration.
Senior Bush administration officials have assured Turkey in recent days that US forces will increase efforts to root out Kurdistan Worker' party (PKK) guerrillas enjoying safe haven in the Qandil mountains, on the Iraq-Iran-Turkey border.
But Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister, MPs, military chiefs and diplomats say up to 3,800 PKK fighters are preparing for attacks in south-east Turkey - and Turkey is ready to hit back if the Americans fail to act.
Turkish sources said 'hot pursuit' special forces operations in Khaftanin and Qanimasi, northern Iraq, were already underway.
Murat Karayilan, a PKK leader, said this week that a 'mad war' was in prospect unless Ankara backed off.
Another factor adding to tensions is the firm Turkish belief that the US is playing a double game in northern Iraq. Officials say the CIA is covertly funding and arming the PKK's sister organisation, the Iran-based Kurdistan Free Life party, to destabilise the Iranian government.
Guardian 23/3/07