These are the archives for the week ending 4th February 2005
"It's fun to shoot people"
A senior Marine Corps general who said it was "fun to shoot some people" should have chosen his words more carefully but will not be disciplined, military officials said yesterday. Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who led troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, made the comments at a conference Tuesday in San Diego, Reuters news agency reports. "Actually it's quite fun to fight 'em, you know," said Gen. Mathis, who also called it "a hoot."
"It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling." "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Gen. Mattis said during a panel discussion. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a ... lot of fun to shoot them."
Washington Times, 4/2/05
US business pulls out of Iran
General Electric Co., which has been accused of collecting "blood money" by doing business in Iran, will stop accepting any new orders for business in the country, company officials said Wednesday. The move by the world's largest company by market value comes just days after another conglomerate, Halliburton Co., announced the company will wind down its operations in Iran.
"We're seeing a turnaround by a number of U.S. companies operating in Iran," said Dan Katz, chief counsel to U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. Katz said the moves may signal an imminent change in U.S. policy that has allowed foreign subsidiaries of American companies to do business in Iran.
Pittsburg Post-Gazette, 3/2/05
Iran-contra official will advance democracy
Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair, was promoted to deputy national security adviser to President Bush. Abrams, who previously was in charge of Middle East affairs, will be responsible for pushing Bush's strategy for advancing democracy.
Washington Post, 3/2/05
Marines struggle to recruit
For the first time in nearly a decade, the Marine Corps missed its monthly recruiting goal in January in what military officials said was the latest troubling indicator of the Iraq war's impact on the armed services. The struggles of the Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard to recruit and retain soldiers have received national attention in recent months. But the failure of the Marines, who historically have had the luxury of turning away willing recruits, is a potential problem for the service.
In a reflection of the difficult market for Marine recruiters, the service is offering bonuses of up to $30,000 to retain combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan rather than relying on replenishing its ranks with troops fresh from boot camp.
San Francisco Chronicle, 3/2/05
Media management of election
There a wide range of factors which are actually preventing journalists from covering this election properly, and one of those factors, for example, is the way in which the American handlers who are actually running the Ministry of Information's affairs here in real terms, have designed the whole thing. I would say that along with the violence, it is just as serious an impediment for journalists.
Why, for example, we've been limited to filming at only five polling stations, and we discovered when the list of the five polling stations was published that four of those five polling stations are actually in Shia areas, and therefore by definition will shed very little light on whether Sunnis vote or not. The pictures of people voting will be there, but perhaps the truth of what is going on won't.
ITN's Julian Manyon on CNN's 'Meet the correspondents', 29/1/05
7 paras charged with murder
Seven British paras have been charged with a joint offence of murder over the death of an Iraqi civilian, the attorney general has said. The charges relate to the death of Nadhem Abdullah on 11 May 2003 in Uzayra in southern Iraq, following an incident at the roadside.
BBC News, 3/2/05
US desertions
Rather than face another tour of duty in Iraq, a Lexington soldier who won a purple heart after he was wounded by a roadside bomb has deserted to Canada. Darrell Anderson, 22, wounded in Iraq last April, says his experiences, not his wounds, convinced him that the war was wrong. He said he felt he was being forced to possibly gun down innocent Iraqis.
"There are no weapons of mass destruction. Innocent people are being killed every day. It's a war about money -- to keep money in rich people's pockets. There is no way I can believe in that. I still believe in my country, but I can no longer be a part of the Army or that war," Anderson said. A spokeswoman said the military counts desertions by fiscal year. There have been 2,594 desertions since October of 2003, said Lt. Col. Pamela Hart.
Lexington Herald_leader, 2/2/05
January deadly for US troops
January was the third month since the U.S. invasion of Iraq that U.S. troop deaths reached or exceeded 100, and it was one of the deadliest months for the National Guard and Reserve. The only months deadlier than January for U.S. troops in Iraq were last November, when 138 died, and last April, with 135. The Pentagon also said Tuesday, in its weekly update on the number wounded in action in Iraq, that the total now stands at 10,770, up 152 from a week earlier and up about 500 over the last four weeks.
Boston Globe, 1/2/05
The news from Vietnam
United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting. According to reports from Saigon, 83 percent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong. A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam.
New York Times, 4/9/67
Running a privatised war
The top U.S. commander in Baghdad is facing a budget gap of at least $4 billion between what Halliburton Co. says it will cost to provide services for U.S. troops for a year and what the government has budgeted, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
In December Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root unit, which provides food, mail, telephones and other basic services to U.S. troops in Iraq, submitted an estimate to the Pentagon for expected spending in the year starting May 1, based on a list of Army requirements. The company said its costs for the year could exceed $10 billion. But the Army has budgeted just $3.6 billion to support the KBR-provided services during the same period, the newspaper said.
Reuters, 1/2/05
Iraq reconstruction funds missing
Almost $9bn (£4.7bn) of Iraqi oil revenue is missing from a fund set up to reconstruct the country.The BBC's File On 4 programme has learnt that out of over $20bn raised in oil revenues during US-led rule, the use of $8.8bn is unaccounted for. US government auditors criticise the Coalition Provisional Authority for failing to manage the money properly.
An earlier auditors' report from last year revealed evidence of wholesale carelessness with large amounts of cash. On one occasion, $1.4bn had to be transported to a bank in three helicopters, as it weighed 14 tons, but no deposit slip was obtained when it was paid in.
One US company is accused of massively inflating its profits by setting up sham companies to send fake invoices which the coalition paid. Others are alleged to have demanded dubious commissions which then came out of Iraqi funds. Even some Coalition officials are said to have openly demanded bribes of up to $300,000 in cash.
File on Four, Radio 4, 1/2/05
Irregularities in Mosul
US officials praised the election turnout in Iraq's restive third city of Mosul, but political parties in its ethnically-divided province protested about the lack of polling centres and ballot papers. There was also concern over voting patterns and many irregularities observed in Mosul itself despite the absence of violence and a steady trickle of voters into polling stations.
Local representatives of some communities were angry at the absence of voting in several of the province's districts. "The elections were neither honest nor transparent and excluded large segments of our nation," charged Mohammed Taher of the Iraqi Turkmen Front. "We are bitterly disappointed," agreed Mehdi al-Harki, an official with Kurdistan Democratic Party in Mosul. All told they said nearly half a million potential voters did not get a chance to take part because of the problems.
The lack of preparations was evident inside polling sites where an AFP reporter witnessed numerous instances of voters on the west side being told by election workers to vote for the list headed by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Similar irregularities were reported by officials at least seven sites on the east side and at the Rashidiya site on the northern end.
Yahoo News 31/1/05
US guards kill prisoners
U.S. troops in Iraq shot dead four detainees on Monday during a riot at the main U.S. prison camp for guerrilla suspects, near the Kuwaiti border. U.S. officers said six prisoners were also wounded in the violence, which affected hundreds of men at Camp Bucca on the day after Iraqis voted in their first free election in decades. There were no serious injuries among the Americans during 45 minutes of rioting.
Reuters 31/1/04
Occupying force still in power
Will the election involve a real transfer of power to the Shia? Last June Iraqi sovereignty was supposedly transferred to the US-appointed interim government of Iyad Allawi. The change was largely a mirage. The government still depends for its existence on the presence of 150,000 US troops. The wall to wall media coverage of the election yesterday obscured several of the realities of political life in Iraq. The National Assembly now being elected will have limited powers. It is constituted so no single community can dominate the others. But, as in Lebanon, this may be a recipe for paralysis. The assembly must elect a president and two vice-presidents and they will in turn chose a prime minister and ministers. The successful candidate will be the person with the fewest enemies.
Shia religious leaders have been telling their followers to vote as the quickest way to end the occupation. The enthusiasm with which so many Shia went to the polls is a double-edged weapon. They did so in the belief that their ballots would translate into power. In the immediate future, the election changes little in Iraq. The world is full of parliaments duly elected by a free ballot but power stays elsewhere, with the army, the security services or, in the case of Iraq today, an occupying foreign power.
Independent 31/1/05
Vote, or lose food rations
A rumor spread here that anyone who did not vote would lose his or her food rations. "It is a very weak participation in Tikrit," said Khalaf Muhammed, 43, the electoral commission official in charge of a polling station in the city's center -- who acknowledged spreading the false rumor to try to lure voters.
"Even though we spread a rumor in the city saying anyone who doesn't vote will be deprived of their food ration, only 10 people voted . . . mostly old men." The rumor about food rations also was rife in the Sunni neighborhoods of Baghdad, gaining credence because voter registration rolls were taken from centralized records for the ration of rice, flour, oil and other staples.
Washington Post, 30/1/05
Lockheed and Halliburton clean up
Lockheed Martin again was the largest recipient of U.S. Defense Department contracts in 2004.LOckheed, the world's largest defense contractor, received $20.7 billion in contracts. "There were a lot of opportunities in 2004," said Lockheed spokesman Tom Jurkowsky.
Halliburton, the highest placed nonweapons maker with considerable contracts in support of military operations in the Middle East, had $8 billion in work in fiscal 2004, putting the company in sixth position. In 2003, Halliburton had just $3.9 billion. Overall, there were $21.7 billion more prime contracts in 2004 than the year before, for a total of $230.7 billion.
MarketWatch 28/1/05
Foreign cash weighs against local parties
Tomorrows supposedly free and fair elections have been undermined by a wealth of 'soft money', an absence of inspectors and no limits to how much candidates can spend.
As a result, parties with links to exile groups have a huge advantage over their rivals. Groups linked to both Iran and Saudi Arabia have received millions of dollars while 'home-grown' Iraqi political parties dependent on donations from their members are struggling.
The US Agency for International Development has spent $80m (£42m) on voter education and training in Iraq through two organisations, the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute.
Critics of these groups say they have a long history in places such as Haiti of favouring groups friendly to Washington and undermining 'unfriendly' or dissident groups.
Independent 29/1/05
Election like a film
Several Iraqis interviewed yesterday said that they saw the election as a movie directed by the Americans to impress the outside world.
"It is like a film in which the Iraqis are directed by the US to do what they are told," said Abu Draid, an unemployed carpenter. "It is the Americans who will control the next government whatever happens at the polls."
New Zealand Herald 29/1/05
Most Sunnis won't vote
Three out of four Sunni Arabs will not vote in Iraq's weekend elections, while a majority of Sunnis and Shiites want US troops to leave the country immediately or as soon as an elected government is in place, according to a poll.
About 76 per cent of Sunnis say they "definitely will not vote" in Sunday's elections, according to the poll conducted by US-based Zogby International for Abu Dhabi television. Only nine per cent of Sunnis say they will cast ballots. The poll, released on Friday, showed that 82 per cent of Sunnis and 69 per cent of Shiites want US forces to withdraw "either immediately or after an elected government is in place."
Hindustan Times, 29/1/05