These are the archives for the week ending 2nd June 2006
Basra descends into chaos
Basra Province, the heart of Iraq's Shiite south, has sunk into chaos.
Shiite political parties and their militias are fighting to control the provincial government and the region's oil wealth, contributing to some of the worst rates of killing since the invasion, with 174 killings in the past two months - double the number from the previous two months.
Trying to stamp his authority on the region, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al- Maliki arrived here in an American helicopter with Iraq's Sunni Arab vice president and three other senior Iraqi officials and berated local leaders for the chaos.
He ordered the Iraqi Army to take over Basra's streets - a demand that apparently came as a surprise to the British Army, which patrols the region, and that could prove difficult, as Iraqi units would have to be brought from outside the city.
It was the first serious test of Maliki's authority since he became prime minister last month and pledged to deal decisively with political militias and criminal gangs whose growing power is now threatening the existence of the Iraqi state.
The surge in violence has posed new difficulties for the British military, which has adopted more strenuous policing measures to contain it.
May was the second-deadliest for Europeans since the invasion, with 10 soldiers killed across the four southern provinces that the British military controls, a death toll matched only in January 2005, when the crash of a British military plane killed 10 soldiers.
International Herald Tribune 1/6/06
Haditha makes marines job harder
Allegations that Marines killed civilians in the western Iraqi town of Hadithah last year could undo efforts to win the cooperation of locals in the volatile Anbar province, some Marines say.
"All it does is make our jobs harder out here," said Capt. Andrew Del Gaudio, commander of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. "Every Iraqi will assume Marines will act like that. It's a perception that in this part of the world is hard to overcome."
USA Today, 31/5/06
Insurgency at 2 year high
The Pentagon reported yesterday that the frequency of insurgent attacks against troops and civilians is at its highest level since American commanders began tracking such figures two years ago, an ominous sign that, despite three years of combat, the US-led coalition forces haven't significantly weakened the Iraq insurgency.
The vast majority of the attacks -- from crude bombing attempts and shootings to more sophisticated, military-style assaults and suicide attacks -- were targeted at US-led coalition military forces, but the majority of deaths have been of civilians, who are far more vulnerable to insurgent tactics.
Boston Globe, 31/5/06
US response to massacre: value training
Members of the U.S. military in Iraq will receive core values training beginning Thursday, as a result of the incident in Haditha in which American troops allegedly murdered 24 Iraqi civilians.
All service members will view a slide presentation with vignettes that highlight the importance of adhering to legal, moral and ethical standards on the battlefield. The directive emphasizes professional military values, the importance of disciplined professional conduct in combat and an explanation of what to expect of Iraqi culture.
ABC News, 31/5/06
US troops kill pregnant woman
The US military says two Iraqi women have been shot to death in a city north of Baghdad after coalition forces fired at a car that failed to stop at an observation post. The statement came after Iraqi police said a pregnant woman and her cousin were killed by American troops as they were driving to a maternity hospital in Samarra, a predominantly Sunni city 60 miles north of Baghdad.
KYW News, Philadelphia, 1/6/06
Arrogant imperialist illusion
Civilian deaths in Iraq are running at 1,000 a month. Kidnappings take place daily, and ethnic cleansing is rife. Some 10,000 professionals have fled the country. The police are nowhere trusted. This is beyond any tolerable definition of security. Chaos was previously described by Downing Street as "isolated" and "not to detract" from the success of the occupation. Progress was allegedly being made away from the cameras. This is denied by all available statistics of power, water and petrol supplies.
The hidden premise of Blair's position is that British (and American) troops must by definition be a blessing to any nation they occupy. It is inconceivable that they could increase anarchy or that their departure might alleviate it. This arrogant assumption runs through every argument about Iraq at present. It is the last shred of imperialist illusion, held even by many who opposed the invasion.
Guardian, 31/3/06
US increases troop levels
The US military has deployed about 1,500 additional troops to Iraq to back up US and Iraqi forces trying to restore order in western Al Anbar province, a Pentagon spokesman said. US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad acknowledged in an interview with CNN last week that insurgents control parts of al-Anbar.
The deployment will effectively increase the US force levels in Iraq from 15 to 16 brigades, and was the latest sign of dimming prospects for a sizeable drawdown of US forces from Iraq this year.
AFP, 30/5/06
'Sustained' killing spree in Haditha
A military investigation into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis last November is expected to find that a small number of marines in western Iraq carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians, Congressional, military and Pentagon officials said Thursday.
That possibility and the emerging details of the killings have raised fears that the incident could be the gravest case involving misconduct by American ground forces in Iraq. Officials briefed on preliminary results of the inquiry said the civilians killed at Haditha did not die from a makeshift bomb, as the military first reported, or in cross-fire between marines and attackers, as was later announced. A separate inquiry has begun to find whether the events were deliberately covered up.
Evidence indicates that the civilians were killed during a sustained sweep by a small group of marines that lasted three to five hours and included shootings of five men standing near a taxi at a checkpoint, and killings inside at least two homes that included women and children, officials said. That evidence, described by Congressional, Pentagon and military officials briefed on the inquiry, suggested to one Congressional official that the killings were "methodical in nature."
New York Times, 26/5/06
Murder of ambassador's cousin
The new Iraqi ambassador to the United States has accused US Marines of "intentionally" killing a cousin in the Iraqi town of Haditha last year. Speaking only hours after presenting his credentials to President George W Bush at the White House, Ambassador Samir al-Sumaidaie said his relative was shot dead five months before the killing of 24 civilians in the town in November that is now the subject of a controversial inquiry.
The ambassador told how Mohammed al-Sumaidaie, a 21-year-old engineering student, was killed after opening the door of the family house to US Marines on June 25. "I believe he was killed intentionally. I believe he was killed unnecessarily," Mr Sumaidaie said on CNN television.
"The Marines were doing house-to-house searches, and they went into the house of my cousin. He opened the door for them. His mother, his siblings were there. He let them into the bedroom of his father, and there he was shot."
ABC News, 31/5/06
'Liberal interventionism' loses ground
The Prime Minister has to accept that the war is now widely seen as the 'wreckage' of his world view. What he calls 'a doctrine of benign inactivity' has, he admits, become 'the majority view of a large part of Western opinion, certainly in Europe'.
A lot of the liberal imperialists have lost their religion in the bloody sands of Iraq. Mindful of what it has done to the reputations of George W Bush and Tony Blair, it is going to be very much harder for any future American President or British Prime Minister to convince themselves - let alone their voters - that armed intervention is worth the risks.
Gordon Brown's supporters will tell you that when he gets into Number 10 he has no intention of replicating Tony Blair's military activism. The Chancellor will raise funds for the starving, but he is much less keen on mobilising battalions for the oppressed. Whoever succeeds George W Bush in the White House will be as haunted by Iraq as a previous generation of Presidents were spooked by Vietnam.
Observer, 28/5/06
Blair toes Bush's line
In accordance with the usual protocol, Tony Blair's George-town address was discussed with members of the Bush administration. The Americans suggested changes - and in a break with the usual protocol, Mr Blair appears to have made them.
He seems to have watered down his original insistence that "change should not be imposed on Iran" to leave the door open for military action. He dropped his original insistence that the US and Europe give up their monopoly of the top posts at the IMF and the World Bank. He scaled back his plea for action on climate change.
Telegraph, 28/5/06
At least 1,000 British troops desert
More than 1,000 members of the British military have deserted since the start of the Iraq war, the BBC has learned. Figures for those still missing are 86 from 2001, 118 from 2002, 134 from 2003, 229 from 2004, 377 from 2005, and 189 for this year so far.
The news comes as Parliament debates a law that will forbid military personnel from refusing to participate in the occupation of a foreign country.
Military law expert Gilbert Blades, who represents soldiers at courts martial, said the numbers leaving because of Iraq were often obscured as they were not counted as conscientious objectors.
"One can't help thinking that what's behind every absence is the problem in Iraq and I would think that if the real truth was told, then the Iraq problem has contributed to a huge number of people going absent," he told BBC Radio Five Live.
BBC News, 28/5/06
Bungled SAS raid kills donkeys
SAS troops blew up the wrong house, destroyed three cars and ran over two donkeys during a bungled night-time raid in Iraq. Fifty British and US Special Forces swooped on a home - thought to be where a terror cell was hiding 20 SA16 surface-to-air missiles and an SA80 assault gun.
Acting on information from US intelligence, the SAS abseiled from a helicopter on to the roof and blew in the roof and walls. They then arrested two Iraqi brothers, who were later found to be totally innocent.
Squaddies have dubbed the mission at Majar Al Kabir, near Basra, "A Donkey Too Far" - after the failed WW2 operation made into the movie A Bridge Too Far. A Whitehall source said: "There's been a fair amount of ribbing. But the troops can see the funny side. Next time we'll get the right address and the boys will keep a special look out for stray donkeys."
Sunday Mirror, 28/5/06