These are the archives for the week ending 11th August 2006
British troops overstretched
British troops in Iraq are overstretched, ill-equipped and underpaid, and the strain of fighting two big wars at once threatens its military effectiveness, a parliamentary committee said on Thursday.
In a strongly-worded report on the Iraq mission, the cross-party Defence Committee accused the government of failing to act quickly enough to provide better armoured vehicles or enough helicopters. It said troops were being rotated into Iraq and Afghanistan without their normal rest.
Reuters, 10/8/06
2,000 bodies in Baghdad's morgue during July.
Almost 2,000 bodies were taken to Baghdad's morgue in July, the highest tally in five months of rising sectarian bloodshed which has forced the United States to boost troop levels in the capital to head off a civil war.
Morgue assistant manager Doctor Abdul Razzaq al-Obaidi said that about 90 percent had died violently. "Most of the cases have gunshot wounds to the head. Some of them were strangled and others were beaten to death with clubs," he said.
The grim statistics came as a new poll showed the Iraq war had become more unpopular with Americans. The CNN poll showed that 60 percent of Americans were against the U.S. war in Iraq, the highest level of opposition since the 2003 invasion, and a majority would back a partial withdrawal of U.S. forces by year's end.
Reuters 9/8/06
One day in Iraq
The following are security incidents in Iraq reported on Tuesday, Aug. 8, as of 1100 GMT.
BAGHDAD - A police commando was wounded when a roadside bomb went off near his patrol in the eastern Zayouna district of Baghdad.
ISKANDARIYA - Two civilians were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol on the main road between Mussayab and Iskandariya, 25 miles south of Baghdad.
RASHAD - Gunmen killed two employees of a private company in the small town of Rashad, near Kirkuk, 150 miles north of Baghdad.
FALLUJA - Gunmen killed a police lieutenant colonel and wounded his brother in Falluja, 35 miles west of Baghdad.
NEAR BAGHDAD - The bodies of seven people wearing military uniforms were found shot dead in a small town 20 miles south of Baghdad.
MOSUL - Gunmen killed two people at a mobile telephone shop in the northern city of Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad.
TIKRIT - Two separate roadside bomb attacks killed a policeman and wounded eight civilians, including a child, in Tikrit, 110 miles north of Baghdad.
HAWIJA - Police arrested two insurgents while they were planting bombs on the side of the road near Hawija, 43 miles southwest of Kirkuk.
BAGHDAD - Ten people were killed and 69 wounded when two roadside bombs exploded in al-Shorja market in central Baghdad.
BAGHDAD - Three separate roadside bomb attacks in Baghdad killed at least nine people, police said. Two of the blasts targeted police, and the third was aimed at one of Baghdad's busiest bus stations.
BAGHDAD - Gunmen stormed a bank in the northern Baghdad district of Adhamiya, killing five people -- three bodyguards and two employees -- before walking away with the equivalent of $4,000, police sources said.
Reuters, 8/8/06
How US fired Jack Straw
When Jack Straw was replaced by Margaret Beckett as Foreign Secretary, it seemed an almost inexplicable event. Mr Straw had been very competent - experienced, serious, moderate and always well briefed. Margaret Beckett is embarrassingly inexperienced. I made inquiries in Washington and was told that Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, had taken exception to Mr Straw's statement that it would be "nuts" to bomb Iran. The United States, it was said, had put pressure on Tony Blair to change his Foreign Secretary. Mr Straw had been fired at the request of the Bush Administration, particularly at the Pentagon.
The alternative explanation was more recently given by Irwin Stelzer in The Spectator; he has remarkably good Washington contacts and is probably right. His account is that Mr Straw was indeed dismissed because of American anxieties, but that Condoleeza Rice herself had become worried, on her visit to Blackburn, by Mr Straw's dependence on Muslim votes. About 20 per cent of the voters in Blackburn are Islamic; Mr Straw was dismissed only four weeks after Dr Rice's visit to his constituency.
It may be that both explanations are correct. The first complaint may have been made by Mr Rumsfeld because of Iran; Dr Rice may have withdrawn her support after seeing the Islamic pressures in Blackburn. At any rate, Irwin Stelzer's account confirms that Mr Straw was fired because of American pressure.
Times, 7/8/06
US and al-Sadr face conundrum
Both al-Sadr and the U.S. military are locked in a high-risk struggle as the Americans seek to restore order to Baghdad and shore up the shaky government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, himself a Shiite. The Americans know they must rein in al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia if they are to disband armed groups believed responsible for the sharp rise in sectarian violence that has brought the country to the brink of civil war.
But the Americans cannot afford an all-out move against al-Sadr. That would trigger a backlash among the Shiite majority - a nightmare scenario for the troubled U.S. mission in Iraq. A major push against al-Sadr would also undercut al-Maliki, who relies heavily on al-Sadr for political support. Al-Sadr's movement holds 30 of the 275 seats in parliament and five Cabinet posts. Al-Sadr's backing helped al-Maliki win the top job during painstaking negotiations within the Shiite alliance that led to the ouster of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
But al-Sadr faces his own conundrum. An armed showdown with the Americans could cost al-Sadr his close ties to al-Maliki's government, destroy the last vestige of Shiite political unity and - in the end - result in the deaths of thousands of loyal followers. At the very least, it could prompt the government and the Americans into a serious effort to disband the Shiite militias, which would mean locking up key leaders and combing Sadr City and other Sadrist strongholds in search of weapons.
Yahoo News, 7/8/06
Iraqi PM criticises US tactics in Baghdad
Iraq's prime minister sharply criticized a U.S.-Iraqi attack Monday on a Shiite militia stronghold in Baghdad, breaking with his American partners on security tactics as the United States launches a major operation to secure the capital.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's criticism followed a pre-dawn air and ground attack on an area of Sadr City, stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia. Police said three people, including a woman and a child, were killed in the raid, which the U.S. command said was aimed at "individuals involved in punishment and torture cell activities."
Al-Maliki, a Shiite, said he was "very angered and pained" by the operation, warning that it could undermine his efforts toward national reconciliation. "Reconciliation cannot go hand in hand with operations that violate the rights of citizens this way," al-Maliki said in a statement on government television.
"This operation used weapons that are unreasonable to detain someone - like using planes." He apologized to the Iraqi people for the operation and said "this won't happen again."
Houston Chronicle, 7/8/06
US troops in 'make or break' operation
US troop reinforcements sent to help stem sectarian bloodshed in Baghdad fanned out across mainly Sunni districts yesterday, in what a senior military official described as the first stage of a 'make or break' operation to prevent civil war.
With neither the inexperienced Iraqi security forces nor the weak central government capable of halting the killings, US commanders have redeployed about 3,700 soldiers of the army's 172nd Stryker brigade from the province of Nineveh.
At least 100 people were killed in violence over the weekend. The military hopes the fresh show of US might in Baghdad will bolster Iraqi security operations, deter the death squads, and reassure frightened citizens that a semblance of normal life is possible.
A senior US military officer said he hoped the operation in Baghdad would increase trust in US forces and in the Shia dominated Iraqi forces which are accused by many Sunnis of collusion in attacks against their community.
For the past few weeks, sectarian violence or the threat of it, has turned some of the neighbourhoods in western Baghdad into ghost towns.
The bombings, hijackings, kidnappings and countless checkpoints have deterred commerce and delayed deliveries.
Shops on main streets have remained closed and shuttered while food markets stand empty.
Guardian 7/8/06
1,500 needed psychiatric treatment
More than 800 British troops have been admitted to the Priory clinics with mental health problems in the last two-and-a-half years, it emerged today.
They include some of the estimated 1,500 servicemen and women who have needed psychiatric treatment after serving in Iraq.
Guardian 7/8/06
'Proper rebel movement' in Afghanistan
The international community is up against 'a proper rebel movement' in Afghanistan, the UN special envoy for the landlocked nation said in an interview. 'The quicker everyone realizes this the better,' Tom Koenigs told the German news magazine Der Spiegel against the background of increased attacks in the south of Afghanistan.
He said the situation remained critical despite the heavy casualties suffered by the Taliban at the hands of US-led coalition forces. 'There is a virtual unlimited reservoir of Taliban fighters. It is not possible to defeat the movement by inflicting heavy losses on it,' he told Der Spiegel.
Pakistan Tribune, 7/8/06
Pro Hizbullah protests in Baghdad
Iraq is not on track to become another Iran despite the disconcerting images last week of Iraqis burning U.S. flags and chanting "Death to America," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.
The protests in Baghdad on Friday were organized by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in response to fighting in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah. Crowds of al-Sadr supporters from across Iraq's Shiite heartland chanted "Death to Israel, Death to America" in the one of the biggest pro-Hezbollah rallies since the conflict began July 12.
Rice said she thinks that as Iraq becomes more stable and democratic "you won't have demonstrations of that kind."
Washington Post, 6/8/06
Hizbullah emerges as symbol of resistance
Artists and Writers for Change, a liberal movement which campaigns for reform in Egypt are precisely the type of 'mainstream' people that Tony Blair was pinning his hopes on earlier this week as a bulwark against extremism.
As a result of the bombing of Lebanon, they are now venting their wrath against Israel and the US and waving Hizbullah flags. The anger in Egypt ranges across the spectrum from the Muslim brotherhood to business associations.
Whatever qualms Arabs once had about Hizbullah they have since been dissipated by Israel's attacks. Unlike al-Qaida, admiration for Hizbullah stretches beyond disaffected militants to take in teachers, writers, broadcasters and doctors many of whom, under other circumstances, would be pressing for democracy and reform.
In Baghdad hundreds of thousands of Shia youths waved Hizbullah flags, proclaiming their willingness to die for Lebanon.
Predictable as that may be, the raising of Hizbullah's flag by demonstrators in Saudi Arabia last Tuesday could prove more portentous. About 2,000 people from the kingdom's marginalised Shia minority defied a ban on public protests.
In Bahrain, where marches have attracted up to 5,000 demonstrators, the Sunni monarchy finds itself in the tricky position of having to show solidarity with its Shia majority's indignation without compromising its status as an American ally and base for the US navy's Fifth Fleet.
Despite Jordan's peace treaty with Israel, the king was unusually forthright on Thursday warning Israel's action had 'weakened the voice of moderation'.
Guardian 5/8/06
Deployed to Afghanistan's 'hell'
In the fierce heat of the Kandahar summer, eking out what little shade I could while waiting by the runway for a military flight, I got chatting to a British soldier. He was on his way to what here they call "Hell"... the itchingly sandy and repressively hot Camp Bastion in the Helmand desert, miles from the nearest town, where sandstorms can last for days and where thousands of British troops are now based.
"When I joined up 10 years ago," he said, "people rarely knew anyone who had died in action. Now, pretty much everyone you speak to knows someone who's been killed here or in Iraq."
BBC, 6/8/06
UK troops 'on brink of exhaustion'
British troops fighting Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan are on the "brink of exhaustion". Commanders fear that the number of "high tempo" operations being launched against the Taliban is "unsustainable" unless the 3,600-strong task force is reinforced with an extra 1,000-strong infantry battle group.
Sunday Telegraph, 6/8/06
US troops fire on protest convoy
U.S. troops opened fire on a convoy carrying supporters of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr at a checkpoint south of Baghdad on Thursday, wounding at least 16 people, Iraqi police said.A Mahmudiya police source said the convoy, transporting Sadr supporters from the holy city of Najaf to Baghdad for a rally on Friday, had been passing by a U.S. base in the flashpoint town of Mahmudiya when the shooting took place.
Al-Sadr has called on supporters to gather in Baghdad for a rally after Friday prayers in support of Hizbollah in Lebanon.
Reuters, 3/8/06
Occupiers pinned in bases
The U.S. military is increasingly using air lifts instead of ground convoys to resupply troops to avoid the deadly roadside bombs that remain a major killer of American soldiers after more than three years of war.
"When we first got here, all of our stuff was shipped out by ground," said 1st Lt. Ted Mataxis, 29, of Raleigh, N.C., whose unit is responsible for assembling Humvee tires, engines and other repair parts for air transport. Now "we're sending the majority of our stuff by air," he said. "The only stuff that goes out by ground are the big, bulky items."
"Any time you go outside the wire, anything can happen," said Maj. Doug A. LeVien, 34, from Brooklyn, N.Y., with the 548th Logistic Task Force. "All battalion commanders try to minimize how often you have to go out. If you don't have to go out, that's a win."
Associated Press, 3/8/06
Another bloody day in Iraq
Iraqi police came under attack and fought intense battles with gunmen overnight in the southern outskirts of Baghdad, at the end of a bloody day in which at least 44 people were killed across Iraq.
In the first clash, 19 miles south of the capital, gunmen attacked a police checkpoint killing 14 people, including six policemen, Kut police said on Thursday. A second battle erupted nearby between a joint military and police force and insurgents, the prime minister's office announced.
Police in Kut also reported finding 18 bodies in the Tigris river showing signs of torture. They had all been shot. In Baghdad, police said the death toll from Wednesday's twin bomb attack on a soccer pitch where children were playing in west Baghdad's predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Amil had risen to 16. Further attacks around the country brought the day's death toll to 44.
AFP, 3/8/06