These are the archives for the week ending 8th April 2005
Kurds want autonomy
The negotiations over the new Speaker, ostensibly about the powers of a Kurdish region that has been de facto independent since 1991, masks the simple reality that the people of Kurdistan do not want to be Iraqi at all. Simultaneous with the official balloting in January, Kurdistan held an informal referendum on the region's status, with 97 percent choosing independence.
Contrary to Bush administration hopes for building a united and democratic Iraq, democracy has not endeared Iraq to the Kurds but has intensified their belief that independence is achievable. Even if Kurds and Shi'ites can find common ground on a loose federal system, it is hard to see how it will last. The Kurdish people will always want their own state and will use the democratic process to ratchet up their demands.
Boston Globe, 7/4/05
Blair admits Iraq eroded trust
Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday conceded that the Iraq war had eroded public trust in his judgment, as the first full day of campaigning for a national election on May 5 got underway. Blair's majority in the House of Commons could be significantly cut if core Labour supporters, disgruntled by the unpopular war, do not turn out to vote, or switch allegiances to the Liberal Democrats, the only major party to oppose the conflict.
"I think trust is also about the things we promised in 1997, but you are right, Iraq has been a difficult issue for me," Blair told GMTV television.
Daily Times, Pakistan, 7/4/05
Reid: Iraq not poll issue
Health Secretary John Reid today claimed Iraq was not an important General Election issue.
Mr Reid said voters were more likely to be swung by the NHS, the economy, immigration or law and order. He added that just one in 10 voters would cast their ballot over the Iraq war, saying those who opposed the war were unlikely to change their minds now.
Mr Reid told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The most important issue to people...is not actually Iraq. Less than 10 per cent say that is the most important. "The biggest issues by far are the economy, the NHS, immigration, law and order and about less than 10 per cent Iraq."
He said three inquiries into the war had shown the Government did not intend to mislead people.
The Sun on-line 6/4/05
British say US troops to harsh
U.S. troops in Iraq are provoking civilians and hampering rebuilding with an excessive use of force, British lawmakers said in a report Tuesday.
The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee also reported that the slow pace of reconstruction had fueled the insurgency in Iraq and suggested that the country had replaced Afghanistan as a training ground for terrorists.
"Excessive use by the U.S. forces of overwhelming firepower has also been counterproductive, provoking antagonism toward the coalition among ordinary Iraqis," the report said, echoing the concerns of British officials.
Some have complained that the U.S. military is too heavy-handed in Iraq, compared with British soldiers, who often patrol on foot and in berets instead of helmets in an effort to win the trust of local Iraqis.
The committee, which scrutinizes Britain's foreign policy, also was critical of the British government. It said ministers had failed to state clearly whether Britain had used intelligence extracted under torture from suspects in other countries.
Chicago Tribune 6/4/05
'Most sophisticated' attack yet
US officers have called the major assault on Abu Ghraib prison Saturday one of the most sophisticated attacks of the insurgency. Rocket barrages forced Marine guards to abandon a prison watchtower at the height of the precision-timed offensive, which employed mortars, rockets, ground assaults and a car bomb, a U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Guy Rudisill, said Monday.
"It was one of the more concerted attacks that we've seen," said Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, a U.S. military spokesman. Asked if there had been any other insurgent attack that surpassed it, Boylan said, "Not that I'm aware of."
Insurgent commanders said Monday that the prison assault represented a shift in tactics and that more attacks on U.S. installations would follow.
Washington Post, 5/4/05
Prisoners protest
Prisoners at Iraq's largest detention facility protested the transfer of several detainees deemed "unruly" by authorities, throwing rocks and setting tents on fire in a disturbance that injured four guards and 12 detainees, the military said Monday.
Friday's protest was the first of at least three violent incidents at Iraqi prisons during the past four days, with the latest occurring Monday at the notorious Abu Ghraib facility. A suicide bomber driving a tractor blew himself up outside the prison, wounding four civilians. On Saturday, insurgents attacked Abu Ghraib with rocket-propelled grenades and two car bombs, wounding dozens of U.S. service members and prisoners, the U.S. military said.
San Diego Union-Tribune, 4/4/05
Firms eye profits
Traders eyeing Iraq's vast reconstruction and the potential billions of dollars of business displayed their wares at a fair in Jordan on Monday, which also underlined the scale of the rebuilding required. Pavilions from 44 Arab and foreign countries, including China, Britain, France, the United States and Malaysia are displaying their products at the fair.
But security problems cast a shadow over the potential business in a market estimated by the organisers to be worth more than 150 billion dollars long-term in equipment and technology needs.
Middle East Online, 4/4/05
Iraqi speaker supported Falluja attack
Hachim al-Hasani, an experienced businessman and active politician, was elected on Sunday by Iraqi lawmakers as speaker of the newly sworn-in National Assembly. The Sunni Arab used to serve as spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party, the biggest political group in the Sunni community, but he quit his membership in the run-up to the elections on Jan. 30. He remained as minister of industry when Hussein Hamid, the party leader, decided to pull all the members out of the interim government last November in protest against the US-Iraqi military operation in the restive city of Fallujah.
Born in 1954 in Kirkuk, Hasani graduated from Mosul University in northern Iraq. He went to the United States in 1979 to pursue further learnings in the International Trade College in Nebraska University. He gained his professorship in the Connecticut University and then started giving lectures in US universities while heading an internet company.
As director of the American Investment and Trading Company in Los Angeles, Hasani also maintained memberships in several non-governmental organizations. Before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Hasani stepped onto Iraq's political stage as an oppositionist to Saddam Hussein's regime and joined the Iraqi Islamic Party.
Xinhua, China, 4/4/05
Abu Ghraib battle
Insurgents assailed Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison on Saturday, launching waves of car bombs, rockets and gunfire in an hours-long onslaught that wounded 18 American GIs and 12 detainees, the U.S. military said.
Insurgents kept up sporadic attacks for about four hours, firing rocket-propelled grenades onto the prison grounds, said Lt. Col. Guy Rudisill, the military spokesman for detention operations. Americans fired back with heavy weapons. There was no word on any casualties among the attackers. It was unclear late Saturday whether any detainees had escaped.
Washington Post, 3/4/05
Taliban attacks on increase
After an unusually bitter winter in Afghanistan, the Taliban have emerged from hibernation with a vengeance and begun a spring campaign of violence, with just months to go before key parliamentary elections. Bombs have caused carnage in Kandahar, Kabul and Jalalabad and attacks have killed four Afghan policemen and injured local soldiers and US during a fortnight of bloodshed.
"They have one basic principle: avoid targeting the Afghan people, except the police and the army, who they consider collaborators," a western security source said.
Daily Times, Pakistan, 2/4/05
Three iraqis tortured to death by police
The Iraqi government's unprecedented admission that its police tortured and killed three Shi'ite Muslim militiamen while they were in custody has set off angry complaints from newly elected Shi'ite legislators. Government officials insist the killings are an isolated case.
But the leaders of the powerful Shi'ite Islamist bloc that won more than half the seats in the new National Assembly say the case reveals mistakes in the way Allawi and his US advisers recruited and trained Iraq's police. Those Shi'ite leaders say the force is a haven for Ba'athists who mistreated Iraqis, especially Shi'ites, under Saddam Hussein.
Two recent reports, one issued in January by Human Rights Watch and the other by the US State Department last month, cite scores of reports of torture and arbitrary detention by Iraqi police and soldiers. Last year, the US report says, police executed 12 alleged kidnappers in Baghdad and took part in revenge killings of 10 Ba'athists in Basra. But the Badr case stands out because Iraqi officials acknowledge that the men were tortured, and medical records detail the brutal beatings they received.
Boston Globe, 31/3/05
US knows little about Iran or North Korea
US intelligence on Iraq was "dead wrong," dealing a blow to American credibility that will take years to undo, and spymasters still know disturbingly little about nuclear programmes in countries like Iran and North Korea, a presidential commission reported today.
Calcutta Telegraph, 31/3/05