These are the archives for the week ending 6th May 05
Bomb kills more than 50
An Iraqi carrying hidden explosives set them off outside a police recruitment center Wednesday where people were applying for jobs, police said. The U.S. military said at least 50 Iraqis were killed, making it the deadliest insurgent attack in Iraq in more than two months.
Including Wednesday's bombing, some 200 people have been killed in insurgent attacks since last week's approval of a partial Cabinet that largely shut out Sunnis Arabs.
Guardian, 4/5/05
Thousands of attacks in last year
The scale of the continuing violence in Iraq over the past year was underlined by a US report on the 4 March shooting by American troops of Italian security agent Nicola Calipari, the rescuer of the journalist Giuliana Sgrena who had been held hostage. It also reveals there were 15,527 attacks on coalition forces, largely American, from July 2004 to late March 2005. Some 2,404 attacks took place in Baghdad from 1 November to 12 March.
The report was first issued by the US in a heavily censored form with sensitive information blocked out. But an Italian computer specialist discovered that the censorship was easy to remove
Independent, 3/5/05
US threat to Iran
The gulf between Iran and the United States deepened Monday when the Bush administration, at the opening of a conference on the future of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, demanded that Iran dismantle all the "equipment and facilities" it has built over the past two decades to manufacture nuclear material. The demand, made by Stephen G. Rademaker, an assistant secretary of state, is a longtime demand but it comes at a sensitive moment.
The 184 signers of the treaty who do not have nuclear weapons, or who have given them up, insist that the central bargain of the 1970 accord allows any signer to build nuclear facilities as long as they are for peaceful purposes. They also contend that the United States is not living up to its commitment that all nuclear weapons nations will move toward the elimination of their arsenals.
New York Times, 2/5/05
Continued resistance is not a surprise
The scale of these attacks certainly did not come as a surprise to U.S. military intelligence officers in Iraq or to professional analysts in Washington. Most of them have repeatedly warned both within the Army and in think tanks for many weeks that the idea that the elections had knocked the steam out of the insurgency and politically isolated it was illusory. There has been no significant evidence whatsoever on the ground to support that contention.
Even when assaults on U.S. forces in Iraq fell significantly in number and in terms of casualties inflicted through February and March, murderous assaults on Iraqis, especially on the new Iraqi security forces continued unabated. And even where U.S. casualties fell significantly, they never fell below the level of at least one U.S. soldier being killed per day. During March, 34 were killed; more were seriously injured.
Washington Times, 2/5/05
US war machine is creaking
The strains imposed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made it far more difficult for the U.S. military to beat back new acts of aggression, launch a pre-emptive strike or prevent conflict in another part of the world, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded in a classified analysis presented to Congress today.
Los Angeles Times, 2/5/05
Puppet government hardens stance
As the nation reels from a daily frenzy of car-bomb attacks and ambushes, Iraq's new Cabinet is expected to be sworn in today with emboldened Shiite Muslim lawmakers signaling that there are limits to their willingness to share power with other groups. The post of defense minister, reserved for the Sunni Arab minority, remained vacant following rejection by the powerful Shiite bloc of at least three Sunni candidates.
The rejection comes as the Shiite majority in the assembly is insisting on controlling each of the more than two dozen parliamentary committees, including the key panel tasked with writing Iraq's constitution.
Houston Chronicle, 3/5/04
Mobile phone 'land grab'
Afghanistan has become the latest frontier for mobile phone companies looking for unsaturated markets. The country, which is seeking to rebuild itself after the US invasion, is to auction off two mobile phone licences based on the GSM (global system for mobile communications) standard used in Europe. As Western markets become saturated, telephone operators are in a land grab for new customers in developing areas of the world.
Times, 2/5/05
Civilians killed in Afghanistan
Warplanes attacked a rebel camp in a Taliban-haunted province of central Afghanistan, killing three civilians and four suspected militants, the U.S. said Saturday. Four militants, an Afghan woman, an Afghan man and a child were killed, the U.S. said. Two wounded children were taken to a U.S. base for treatment. The air strike by U.S.-led coalition forces Friday was part of a two-day offensive against insurgents in Uruzgan province, the U.S. statement said. Afghan officials and human-rights groups have complained about civilian casualties in U.S.-led military operations.
In the western city of Herat, protesters shouted anti-U.S. slogans and demanded the return of a regional strongman, former governor Ismail Khan, a day after a woman and her daughter were shot dead in unrest.
Chicago Tribune, 1/5/05
Oil not flowing
American officials had hoped that oil output at this stage would be at three million barrels a day, generating badly needed funds for reconstruction. That level of production could also reduce oil prices, which are now around $50 a barrel and a global source of inflationary pressure. But close to $2 billion worth of American technical aid to the oil sector has brought only limited gains. Sabotage of a pipeline to Turkey has choked off exports from Iraq's northern fields, around Kirkuk, and violence has slowed efforts to renovate the larger southern fields.
But even if the insurgency is tamed, oil experts say, Iraq will never receive the foreign investment and advanced technologies it needs until the country has a strategy and laws, ideally enshrined in a constitution, for developing hydrocarbons. Can foreign firms be partners in exploring and drilling new fields and in reaping the product, or will they simply be hired to do the work? Whatever pattern Iraq chooses, it must be clearly delineated, industry executives say, and with protections offered to foreign investors.
New York Times, 2/5/05
Deadly attacks continue
A car bomb obliterated a tent packed with mourners at the funeral of a Kurdish official in northern Iraq yesterday, killing about 25 people and wounding more than 50 in the single deadliest attack since insurgents started bearing down on Iraq's newly named government late last week.
The blast capped four violent days in which at least 116 people, including 11 Americans, were killed in a storm of bombings and ambushes attributed to Iraqi insurgents.
Boston Globe, 2/5/05
US outsources torture
Seven months before Sept. 11, 2001, the State Department issued a human rights report on Uzbekistan. It was a litany of horrors. The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques were "beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask." Separately, international human rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails included boiling of body parts, using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Two prisoners were boiled to death, the groups reported.
Now there is growing evidence that the United States has sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan for detention and interrogation, even as Uzbekistan's treatment of its own prisoners continues to earn it admonishments from around the world, including from the State Department. Uzbekistan's role as a surrogate jailer for the United States was confirmed by a half-dozen current and former intelligence officials working in Europe, the Middle East and the United States. The C.I.A. declined to comment on the prisoner transfer program, but an intelligence official estimated that the number of terrorism suspects sent by the United States to Tashkent was in the dozens.
New York Times, 1/5/05
New government 'sectarian'
After nearly three months of political infighting, Iraq's National Assembly yesterday approved a government. But the new Shi'ite-dominated Cabinet already appeared to be set back by the sectarian divisions that deepened during months of inconclusive and often hostile negotiations. The all-important defense and oil ministries were filled with temporary selections because of lingering disagreements.
Sunni politicians yesterday angrily decried ''sectarian exclusion" of their minority group in the selection of the new Cabinet. And one-third of the members of the transitional National Assembly did not show up to approve the Cabinet ministers, whose selection had been hammered out in recent weeks in back-room deals.
The immediate public backlash by Sunni political leaders against the choices does not bode well for the new government, whose main tasks are to write a new constitution by the end of August and pave the way for national elections for a permanent government in December. The support of Sunni Arabs is crucial for a new constitution to get approval. If a majority of voters in any three provinces votes against the constitution in a national referendum, it fails.
Ethnic leaders also lashed out at the new government yesterday. Christians and Turkomans joined Sunnis in their vocal criticism after the Cabinet membership was announced.
Boston Globe, 29/4/05
New wave of attacks
Insurgents set off at least 17 bombs in Iraq on Friday, killing at least 50 people, including three US soldiers, in a series of attacks aimed at shaking Iraq's newly formed government. Many of the bombing targets were Iraqi security forces and police, whom insurgents accuse of collaborating with the Americans.
Associated Press, 30/4/05
Italy may issue separate report
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Thursday that he might issue separate "conclusions" about the fatal shooting of an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq by American troops if American and Italian officials could not agree on who was responsible."If the conclusions differ, we will go with different conclusions," he told reporters. He said Italy "will not sign anything that does not convince us."
Italy has 3,000 troops in Iraq, a presence that has been unpopular among voters. It is one reason for Mr. Berlusconi's declining popularity and, many experts say, his lowered chances of winning re-election in voting that is scheduled for early 2006.
New York Times, 29/4/05
Bush praises government, but Sunnis aren't so sure
US President George W. Bush praised Iraq's first democratically elected government in half a century as embodying the country's "unity and diversity" and promised lasting US support. The international community welcomed the new cabinet approved on Thursday but Sunni Arab leaders expressed their disappointment over the partial line-up and warned a fresh political crisis loomed if the demands of the minority were not met.
Vice President Ghazi al-Yawar, a Sunni tribal leader, expressed frustration that some ministries were left vacant and warned that Sunni ministers could step down if his minority community did not obtain more posts.
Khaleej Times, 29/4/05
Chalabi appointment questioned
Iraq's choice of Ahmad Chalabi as acting oil minister has raised concerns that he is not the best person for the job because he has little energy experience and was once convicted of bank fraud, U.S. energy experts said on Thursday.
Chalabi is taking over the ministry at a critical time. It must make decisions on which companies get preference for oil sales, which contracts are honored and which will be renegotiated. The ministry also faces frequent sabotage against its oil pipelines.
"(Chalabi) is going to make it extremely easy for people to make charges about corruption and raise questions on how the oil money is distributed," said Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies based in Washington.
Reuters, 28/4/05