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News archives for the week ending 5th December 2008

Guantanamo only the tip of the iceberg

Guantánamo has always been a diversionary tactic in the "war on terror". The 250 men there represent fewer than 1% of the 27,000 prisoners being held by the US beyond the rule of law. There is a reason why most people have never heard of the plight of these unfortunates - they are ghost prisoners in secret prisons.

Obama has yet to speak of the missing 99.1%. It is not clear how much he even knows about them. With America at war in two countries, new captives are being taken every day. They aren't coming to Cuba, so where are they being held?

Many are in Iraq and Afghanistan, but a smattering end up in US detention in Bosnia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kosovo and in 21st-century "prison hulks" off Diego Garcia and Somalia. The most miserable are held in proxy prisons in Egypt, Jordan and Morocco.

There is plenty of commitment to continue this project. Obama will keep Bush's secretary of defence and perhaps even his CIA director in place. And modern renditions are not a solely Republican phenomenon, as they began with Ronald Reagan, but continued with Bill Clinton.

Guardian, 4/12/08

KBR subcontractor held workers in warehouse

About 1,000 Asian men who were hired by a Kuwaiti subcontractor to the US military have been confined for as long as three months in windowless warehouses near the Baghdad airport without money or a place to work.

Najlaa International Catering Services, a subcontractor to KBR, the Texas firm formerly known as Halliburton, hired the men, who are from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. On Tuesday, they staged a march outside their compound to protest their living conditions.

"It's really dirty," a Sri Lankan man told McClatchy, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he still wants to work for Najlaa. "For all of us, there are about 12 toilets and about 10 bathrooms. The food, it's three half-liter (one pint) bottles of water a day. Bread, cheese, and jam for breakfast. Lunch is a small piece of meat, potato, and rice. Dinner is rice and dal, but it's not dal," he said, referring to the Indian lentil dish.

The conditions in which the men have been held appear to violate guidelines the US military handed down in 2006 that urged contractors to deter human trafficking to the war zone by shunning recruiters that charged excessive fees. The guidelines also defined "minimum acceptable" living spaces – 50 square feet per person – and required companies to fulfill the pledges they made to employees in contracts.

A US military spokesman for the Multi-National Force-Iraq referred questions to KBR. After McClatchy began asking questions about the men on Tuesday, the Kuwaiti contractor announced that it would return them to their home countries and pay them back salaries.

Christian Science Monitor, 4/12/08

Obama will leave tens of thousands of troops in Iraq

On the campaign trail, Senator Barack Obama offered a pledge that electrified and motivated his liberal base, vowing to “end the war” in Iraq. But as he moves closer to the White House, President-elect Obama is making clearer than ever that tens of thousands of American troops will be left behind in Iraq, even if he can make good on his campaign promise to pull all combat forces out within 16 months.

“I said that I would remove our combat troops from Iraq in 16 months, with the understanding that it might be necessary — likely to be necessary — to maintain a residual force to provide potential training, logistical support, to protect our civilians in Iraq,” Mr. Obama said this week as he introduced his national security team.

Publicly at least, Mr. Obama has not set a firm number for that “residual force,” a phrase certain to become central to the debate on the way ahead in Iraq, though one of his national security advisers, Richard Danzig, said during the campaign that it could amount to 30,000 to 55,000 troops.

New York Times, 3/12/08

Escalating the Afghan war

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the chief of the defence staff, said that more service personnel could be deployed in Afghanistan as Britain withdraws from Iraq.

The defence chief said the UK was now "close" to a "dramatic" reduction in numbers in Iraq, but insisted that there could be no "one-for-one" transfer from there to Afghanistan. He also repeated calls for Britain's overall foreign commitments to reduce.

But in a shift from previous statements, he added: "I'm not saying that we couldn't or shouldn't do more in Afghanistan if we judge that to be necessary."

Senior defence sources said the defence chief's comments reflect a belief that the Nato mission to contain the Taliban and stabilise Afghanistan is not making enough progress. "We do not have enough military force on the ground -- it's as simple as that," said one source. "We need more than we've got now."

American defence officials are working on plans to send another 20,000 US troops to Afghanistan as a "surge" based on the expansion of the military presence in Iraq credited with reducing violence there.

As the US increases its commitment to Afghanistan, advisers to Mr Obama have made clear they expect allies including Britain to increase their numbers too. US defence officials are believed to have suggested that the UK should send more than 2,000 more troops to Afghanistan in the New Year, when British generals are due to assume command of Nato forces in southern Afghanistan.

Daily Telegraph, 1/12/08

Obama will invest in military

President-elect Barack Obama vowed on Monday to continue to invest to strengthen the U.S. military, increase ground forces and ensure success against al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Announcing his national security team, Obama said Defense Secretary Robert Gates had agreed to remain in office, and reiterated his intention to announce a new mission as soon as he took office to end the war in Iraq.

"We will also ensure that we have the strategy -- and resources -- to succeed against al Qaeda and the Taliban," Obama told a news conference. "And going forward, we will continue to make the investments necessary to strengthen our military and increase our ground forces to defeat the threats of the 21st century."

Reuters, 1/12/08

Pakistan threatens to withdraw from border areas

Senior Pakistani intelligence officials have threatened to end military operations against Islamist militants along the country's Afghan border if India deploys troops on their eastern frontier.

In a rare briefing to senior local journalists, intelligence officials said the coming days would be "crucial" and threatened to pull out all the troops committed to the "war on terror" in the event of "an unwanted conflict" with India. "We will not leave a single troop on the western [Afghan] border if we are threatened by India," an official was reported as saying.

The Pakistani operations, largely funded by the United States, are seen by Nato commanders as vital to keep open supply lines to their troops in Afghanistan and to block, or at least hinder, movement by militants across the porous Afghan-Pakistan frontier.

Guardian, 1/12/08

NATO split over attitude to Russia

NATO foreign ministers will gather this week in Brussels with the United States and Germany quarreling over just how much distance to keep from Georgia and Ukraine. The debate is ostensibly over the mechanisms through which Georgia and Ukraine will, at some point, become members of the alliance. But the real debate is over relations with Russia, especially after its brief war with Georgia in August.

The Bush administration, which has maintained close ties with Georgia and with pro-Western politicians in Ukraine, wants to give no concessions to what it sees as a newly aggressive Russia. Rather, it wants NATO to send a clear message that Moscow cannot intimidate the alliance and that it does not get to veto NATO membership.

After this week, the next NATO summit meeting will be held in April, when the organization marks its 60th anniversary and when France is scheduled to reintegrate fully into the military wing of the alliance. But by then, American relations with NATO will be the responsibility of President-elect Barack Obama and his intended secretary of state, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In a possible indication of her views on NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, Mrs. Clinton, in conjunction with Senator John McCain of Arizona, nominated Presidents Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia and Viktor A. Yushchenko of Ukraine in January 2005 for the Nobel Peace Prize for their roles “in leading freedom movements” and their “extraordinary commitment to peace.”

Not all NATO members are so enthusiastic.

New York Times, 30/11/08

India may take lesson from US and attack Pakistan

As evidence mounts that last week’s attacks in Mumbai may have originated on Pakistani soil, American officials’ aggressive campaign to strike at militants in Pakistan may complicate efforts to prevent an Indian military response, which could lead to a conflict between the bitter enemies.

In December 2001, when Pakistani militants attacked India’s Parliament, and again this summer, when militants aided by Pakistani spies bombed the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan, the Bush administration used aggressive diplomacy to dampen anger in New Delhi. This time, however, the Indian government might not be so receptive to the American message — and that could derail the coming Obama administration’s hopes of creating a broader, regional response to the threat posed by Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Officials in New Delhi might also feel less compelled to follow calls for a controlled response from the Bush administration, which has steadily escalated a campaign of airstrikes on Pakistani soil using remotely piloted aircraft. The Pentagon has even sent Special Operations forces into Pakistan to attack suspected militant targets, partly in an attempt to stop the militants from crossing the border into Afghanistan, where they are helping fuel an increasingly robust Taliban insurgency.

The White House has adopted a clear position to justify those attacks: if a country cannot deal with a terrorism problem on its own, the United States reserves the right to act unilaterally. Should it become clear that the men who rampaged through Mumbai trained in Pakistan, even if the Pakistani government had no hand in the operation, what will stop the Indians from adopting the same position?

New York Times, 29/11/08

Basra: women killed for as little as £65

Authorities in the southern Iraqi city of Basra have admitted they are powerless to prevent 'honour killings' in the city following a 70 per cent increase in religious murders during the past year. There has been no improvement in conviction rates for these killings.

So far this year, 81 women in the city have been murdered for allegedly bringing shame on their families. Only five people have been convicted. During 2007 the Basra security committee recorded 47 'honour killings' and three convictions. One lawyer in the city described how police were actively protecting perpetrators and said that a woman in Basra could now be murdered by hired hitmen for as little as £65.

Mariam Ayub Sattar, an activist in Basra, said that any woman caught speaking to a man in public who was not her husband or a relative was considered a prostitute and punished. A fortnight ago three women were burned with acid while walking through a market in Basra after stopping to speak to a male friend, Sattar said.

Nine of the 12 voluntary organisations helping women in Basra have closed down since the US-led invasion.

OBserver, 30/11/08

Bush hopes to be seen as liberator of millions

George W. Bush hopes history will see him as a president who liberated millions of Iraqis and Afghans, who worked towards peace and who never sold his soul for political ends.

"I'd like to be a president (known) as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace," Bush said in excerpts of a recent interview released by the White House Friday.

AFP, 29/11/08

UK may join Afghan war escalation

Britain will carefully examine any request from the incoming U.S. administration to send more troops to Afghanistan, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in an interview published Friday.

The U.K. government had previously said it should first be up to other allies to provide additional personnel as NATO seeks to increase its forces in Afghanistan. But Miliband and Defense Secretary John Hutton said separately that Britain — which boosted its force in Afghanistan in June — could be prepared to offer more troops.

Britain contributes around 8,000 to a 50,000-strong NATO mission and is the second largest military presence in the country after the United States.

Associated Press, 28/11/08

The end of the 'coalition of the willing'

President Bush's “coalition of the willing” is set to all but disappear from Iraq by the end of the year, with 13 countries, including South Korea, Japan, Moldova and Tonga preparing to withdraw their few remaining troops.

Britain, Australia, Romania, Estonia and El Salvador are the only nations, apart from the US, that plan to remain after a UN mandate authorising their presence expires on December 31. London must still reach an agreement with Baghdad, however, to keep its 4,100-strong contingent on the ground into the new year. Failure to do so in time would leave British troops without legal cover and they too would have to leave.

While the coalition is dissolving, another force of foreigners is still thriving in the country: thousands of private contractors from developing countries such as Peru, Uganda, the Philippines and Bangladesh.

The Times, 29/11/08

Iraqi Kurds to begin solo export of oil...

Iraq's self-ruled Kurdish regional government will export crude oil for the first time by early next year, a Kurdish official said on Wednesday. Ashti Hawrami, the natural resources minister in the Kurdistan region, said an initial 100,000 barrels per day of crude oil from two northern Iraqi fields would be sent through a pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

Exports would eventually be ramped up to 250,000 bpd by the end of 2009, he said in a statement. Hawrami did not say when the exports would begin, but noted they would be coordinated with the Iraqi Oil Ministry.

The announcement appeared to take the national government by surprise, with a ministry spokesman saying the Kurds had not yet received approval to unilaterally begin exports. An "export license has not yet been granted, and is still under discussion," Assem Jihad told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "Only a technical agreement has been reached on how to link these two fields to the Iraqi strategical export pipeline."

The distribution of Iraq's vast oil reserves has been a major sticking point in the ratification of a national hydrocarbons law, which has been stalled in parliament since February 2007.

Associated Press, 27/11/08

...but split with central government remains

Oil contracts signed by the Kurdish regional government (KRG) with foreign oil companies are not recognised by central government in Baghdad, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain Shahristani said on Friday.

The comments come despite an initial agreement on Thursday between the central Iraqi oil ministry and the largely autonomous Kurdish authorities to allow exports from Kurdistan to Turkey.

Norwegian oil company DNO has a concession with the KRG from which it hopes to start exports of 100,000 barrels daily in the first quarter of next year. But Shahristani said the revenues from oil produced anywhere in Iraq belonged to central government for redistribution around the country.

Reuters, 28/11/08

Japan withdraws airforce from Iraq

Japan will withdraw its air force from Iraq by the middle of December, bringing to a close a five-year operation to provide supplies to coalition forces operating in the country. The Air Self-Defence Force's (ASDF) operations in Iraq have attracted controversy at home, with critics accusing the government of riding rough-shod over the pacifist constitution.

Prime Minister Taro Aso, however, was keen to underline the contribution of the Japanese military at a time when Tokyo is attempting to raise its international profile by taking part in more overseas deployments.

It has been reported that the US has requested that Japan provide air transport support in Afghanistan, while military resources may also be diverted to combating pirates operating off the eastern seaboard of Africa.

Daily Telegraph, 28/11/08