These are the archives for the week ending 2nd December 2005
Ramadi offensive
Insurgents have attacked US bases and government offices in Ramadi, in central Iraq, and then dispersed throughout the city, residents say. Scores of heavily-armed insurgents fired mortars and rockets at the buildings and then occupied several main streets. The attack came as local leaders and US military officials were meeting at the al-Anbar provincial governor's office.
Ramadi has been a rebel stronghold for many months. Residents told the Reuters news agency that hundreds of heavily armed men in masks were patrolling the main streets of the city and had set up checkpoints. Residents said there was no noticeable presence of US or Iraqi forces in the city after the attacks.
BBC News, 1/12/05
US propaganda at work
The U.S. military has secretly paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of pro-U.S. articles written by a special military unit, The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday. The newspaper also said the Information Operations Task Force in Baghdad has bought an Iraqi newspaper and taken control of a radio station, and was using them to disseminate pro-U.S. views.
The Times reported the program began this year. Records and interviews indicated the articles were written in English, translated into Arabic and then given to Baghdad newspapers to print in return for payment.
Globe and Mail, Canada, 1/12/05
Kurds push forward with autonomous oil deal
A controversial oil exploration deal between Iraq's autonomy-minded Kurds and a Norwegian company got underway this week without the approval of the central government here, raising a potentially explosive issue at a time of heightened ethnic and sectarian tensions. The Kurdistan Democratic Party, which controls a portion of the semiautonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, last year quietly signed a deal with Norway's DNO to drill for oil near the border city of Zakho. Iraqi and company officials describe the agreement as the first involving new exploration in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Drilling began after a ceremony Tuesday, during which Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdish northern region, vowed "there is no way Kurdistan would accept that the central government will control our resources," according to news agency reports.
Los Angeles Times, 1/12/05
UK airports are stopovers for torture flights
Eleven police forces were today threatened with legal action if they fail to investigate allegations that UK airports are being used as secret stop-overs by CIA jets transferring terror suspects to torture camps. The human rights group Liberty has called on the chief constables of forces from Prestwick, near Glasgow, to Bournemouth to investigate claims that the airports are facilitating kidnap and torture - which is illegal under British and European Union law.
The move follows international concern over the CIA's failure to confirm or deny suggestions that it has illegally abducted terrorist suspects and flown them between a network of clandestine detention centres - so-called "black sites" - for interrogation under torture.
Times, 30/11/05
US general blames Iraqi leaders for torture
US Lieutenant-General Martin Dempsey, in charge of training Iraq's fledgling security forces, accused some of their commanders of being responsible for recent cases of torture of detainees. "This is a leadership problem, it's generally not a low level, soldier or police problem," he told AFP. Iraqi soldiers who abuse detainees "are not doing it on their own, they are being led by someone," he said.
Yahoo News, 30/11/05
'A plan for victory'
President Bush told the American public that the White House has a plan for "complete victory" in Iraq and the eventual withdrawal of US troops today, but that it would "take time and patience" to achieve. Responding to increasingly direct criticism of his handling of the war, which has cost 2,100 American lives, President Bush released a 35-page "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq".
In this morning's strategy document, the White House said that security improvements in Iraq would allow the US military to become "less visible" but still "lethal and decisive, able to confront the enemy wherever it may organize".
Times, 30/11/05
US political agents
The Air Force, under pressure from the Pentagon, committed a "gross error" last year when it rushed to sign a no-bid contract for advisers to help plan and implement Iraq's national elections and draft its constitution, the Government Accountability Office has ruled. New York-based REEP Inc., a private translation company also known as Operational Support Services, was awarded two contracts worth more than $45 million. The firm was tasked with finding bilingual speakers "committed to a democratic Iraq" as part of a program a Pentagon official hoped would create "a nudge toward democracy," the report said. The program originally called for "Western oriented individuals of Iraqi background" but was later changed to Iraqis with U.S. citizenship.
The dispute offers insight into the Pentagon's continued use of Iraqi exiles and its strategy for bringing democracy to Iraq. "Our Defense Department has continued to pay, through pliant contractors, for a flock of Iraqi political exiles as our paid political agents in Iraq," said Charles Tiefer, a government contracting professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law.
Washington Post, 29/11/05
Cut off in Ramadi
For weeks the 2-69, an entire armored battalion, was cut off from other American forces. The roads in and out of its base were saturated with improvised explosive devices, says Captain Chas Cannon. At one stage, there were 100 explosions a week. "You expected to get hit ... possibly several times," says Cannon. The roads were closed; some food was rationed.
But with aggressive combat operations, sniper assaults and the building of precarious outposts, the 2-69 has regained control of the city's main artery, "Route Michigan," the troops' lifeline. Now they are struggling to keep it open. "Anyone who thinks [Iraq] is going to be won a year from now is mistaken," says brigade commander Colonel John Gronski.
Time Magazine, 27/11/05
Government death squads
As the American military pushes the largely Shiite Iraqi security services into a larger role in combating the insurgency, evidence has begun to mount suggesting that the Iraqi forces are carrying out executions in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods. Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged in recent weeks, most of them brought forward by Sunni civilians, who claim that their relatives have been taken away by Iraqi men in uniform without warrant or explanation. Some Sunni men have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills. Many have simply vanished.
Many of the claims of killings and abductions have been substantiated by at least one human rights organization working here - which asked not to be identified because of safety concerns - and documented by Sunni leaders working in their communities. Bayan Jabr, the interior minister, and other government officials denied any government involvement, saying the killings were carried out by men driving stolen police cars and wearing police and army uniforms purchased at local markets.
New York Times, 28/11/05
Torture widespread
Iraqi authorities have been torturing and abusing prisoners in jails across the country, current and former Iraqi officials charged. Deputy Human Rights Minister Aida Ussayran and Gen. Muntadhar Muhi al-Samaraee, a former head of special forces at the Ministry of the Interior, made the allegations two weeks after 169 men who apparently had been tortured were discovered in a south-central Baghdad building run by the Interior Ministry.
In five visits to a women's prison in Baghdad's Kadhimiya district over more than three months, the Human Rights Ministry found that women were being raped by male guards, Ussayran said. That problem continues. One woman told the Human Rights Ministry that she was raped seven times on the seventh floor of the Interior Ministry, which is notorious to some Iraqi Sunni Muslims and home to intelligence offices.
San Jose Mercury News, 28/11/05
Increased air attacks planned
A key element of the troop reduction plans, not mentioned in the President's public statements, is that the departing American troops will be replaced by American airpower. Quick, deadly strikes by U.S. warplanes are seen as a way to improve dramatically the combat capability of even the weakest Iraqi combat units. The danger, military experts have told me, is that, while the number of American casualties would decrease as ground troops are withdrawn, the over-all level of violence and the number of Iraqi fatalities would increase unless there are stringent controls over who bombs what.
Within the military, the prospect of using airpower as a substitute for American troops on the ground has caused great unease. For one thing, Air Force commanders, in particular, have deep-seated objections to the possibility that Iraqis eventually will be responsible for target selection. "Will the Iraqis call in air strikes in order to snuff rivals, or other warlords, or to snuff members of your own sect and blame someone else?" another senior military planner now on assignment in the Pentagon asked. "Will some Iraqis be targeting on behalf of Al Qaeda, or the insurgency, or the Iranians?"
New Yorker, 28/11/05
'Fallujah is a prison'
At the edge of this city the other day, Fallujah residents waited in a line of 130 cars to pass through the fortifications, document checks and vehicle inspections that separate their city from the outside world. Near the center of town, American and Iraqi troops cordoned streets and searched each house for the tools of rebellion: weapons, cash, computers, and the explosives, wires or batteries used to make bombs. Troops enforce a 10 p.m. curfew, but residents say they get off the streets soon after dark to avoid the dangers of nervous soldiers at checkpoints.
Fallujah seems quieter than many other cities of central Iraq. But in a day's visit this month, there was little immediate evidence that America is achieving its broader counterinsurgency goal: winning popular support, or at least acceptance, by convincing Fallujah's people that they can rebuild their lives and their city. Residents say the lockdown of the city humiliates them and chokes the economy so badly that many people struggle simply to survive.
"We feel that Fallujah is a prison," said Mohammed, a restaurant manager who asked that his full name not be published, saying a high public profile is risky here. He showed the plastic identity card, issued by U.S. Marines, that Fallujans must show at checkpoints to enter the city. Marines take retina scans and all 10 fingerprints of every resident when issuing the cards. "Are we criminals?" Mohammed asked.
Newsday, 26/11/05
'Trophy' video shows civilian killings
A "trophy" video appearing to show security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked two investigations after it was posted on the internet, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal. The video has sparked concern that private security companies, which are not subject to any form of regulation either in Britain or in Iraq, could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Iraqis.
The video, which first appeared on a website that has been linked unofficially to Aegis Defence Services, contained four separate clips, in which security guards open fire with automatic rifles at civilian cars. The Foreign Office has also confirmed that it is investigating the contents of the video in conjunction with Aegis, one of the biggest security companies operating in Iraq. The company was recently awarded a £220 million security contract in Iraq by the United States government. Aegis conducts a number of security duties and helped with the collection of ballot papers in the country's recent referendum.
Capt Adnan Tawfiq of the Iraqi Interior Ministry which deals with compensation issues, has told the Sunday Telegraph that he has received numerous claims from families who allege that their relatives have been shot by private security contractors travelling in road convoys. He said: "When the security companies kill people they just drive away and nothing is done. Sometimes we ring the companies concerned and they deny everything. The families don't get any money or compensation. I would say we have had about 50-60 incidents of this kind."
Sunday Telegraph, 27/11/05
Allawi: Iraq as bad as under Saddam
Human rights abuses in Iraq are now as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein and are even in danger of eclipsing his record, according to the country's first Prime Minister after the fall of Saddam's regime.
'People are doing the same as [in] Saddam's time and worse,' Ayad Allawi told The Observer. 'It is an appropriate comparison. People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things.'
In a damning and wide-ranging indictment of Iraq's escalating human rights catastrophe, Allawi accused fellow Shias in the government of being responsible for death squads and secret torture centres. The brutality of elements in the new security forces rivals that of Saddam's secret police, he said.
He added that he now had so little faith in the rule of law that he had instructed his own bodyguards to fire on any police car that attempted to approach his headquarters without prior notice, following the implication of police units in many of the abuses.
Observer, 27/11/05
US pressures allies to stay
US and Iraqi leaders are pressing their military allies in Iraq to postpone withdrawing troops, warning against a pullout until the new government is capable of securing the country on its own. Iraq's foreign minister, on a visit to Tokyo yesterday, urged Japan to delay its plan to withdraw in December 600 military engineers working on water and other reconstruction projects. US andIraq i officials are urging Poland to postpone the scheduled departure in January of its 1,400 troops, who are overseeing security south of Baghdad. US and Iraqi officials also are hoping to persuade other nations in the 27-member international coalition to extend their commitments to Iraq.
The Bush administration, under pressure at home to outline its exit strategy more clearly, has held up the coalition as a symbol of foreign support for a mission that initially was opposed by the United Nations. ''Militarily, the contingents that are there don't make an enormous amount of difference," said Charles Heyman, a former British infantry officer and a senior defense analyst at Jane's Information Group in London. ''But from a political perspective, they make a huge amount of difference. The White House can point to a 'coalition of the willing.' Their departure chips away at the Americans' ability to project this as a major international effort inIraq."
About 177,000 foreign troops are in Iraq, the Coalition Press Information Center in Baghdad said yesterday. The vast majority, more than 155,000, are US forces. Britain contributes the next largest contingent, with 10,000 soldiers responsible for security in southernIraq.
Boston Globe, 26/11/05
Iraq has black market in blood
In Iraq, a country being torn apart in a seemingly never-ending conflict, there is now an acute shortage of blood. And the worse the violence becomes, the higher its black market prices rise. Faced with the crisis, the medical authorities will supply blood for operations and treatment only if families or friends of the victims can provide an equal amount in return.
Independent, 26/11/05