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News archives for the week ending 12th December 2008

US sells $6 billion of arms to Iraq

The U.S. Defense Department on Wednesday said it had approved the sale to Iraq of weapons valued at up to $6 billion, including 400 Stryker wheeled vehicles, military radios, training aircraft, 20 coastal patrol boats and 140 M1A1 Abrams tanks.

Reuters, 10/12/08

Basra to petition on autonomy

Iraq's election commission will run a petition drive to see if there's enough support for a referendum to decide whether the oil-rich province of Basra will become a self-ruled region, officials said Wednesday.

The Iraqi election commission said it would set up 34 centers across Basra where voters can sign the petition asking for a self-rule referendum. The drive begins on Monday and will last until Jan. 14, commission officials said. Basra lawmaker Wail Abdul-Latif said that at least 10 percent of registered voters must sign the petition in order for a referendum to be scheduled.

If a majority voted in favor in the referendum, Basra would become a self-ruled region with the same powers as the Kurdish self-ruled area in the north. That would give local authorities more control of the province's vast oil wealth.

Associated Press, 10/12/08

Afghan escalation is 'uplift' not 'surge'

America is planning to send at least 5,000 additional troops to Afghanistan's Helmand province to help out beleaguered British troops, according to defence sources in Washington and Kabul. Ministers are expected to examine early next year whether British reinforcements will also be sent to boost the present force of 8,100 troops in the British-controlled province.

The Americans are planning to send three combat brigades of at least 20,000 extra troops to Afghanistan from January. Some estimates coming out of Washington suggest that the total could be as high as 30,000.

Although it is being called a surge, like the US reinforcement of Iraq, the British refer to it as an “uplift” because the additional troops will remain for the long term.

The decision to send 5,000 to Helmand will lead to a restructuring of the forces in the province, with control being split between the British in the north and the US in the south.

The Times, 11/12/08

Britain could leave Iraq by March

British forces should begin pulling out of Iraq by next March, a senior defence source has revealed to the BBC.

The UK has been negotiating the legal basis on which its forces can stay in the Gulf state when its UN mandate expires at the end of the year. It still has 4,100 troops in Basra but defence chiefs plan a withdrawal over the next year if Iraqi elections in January pass off peacefully. A withdrawal could allow resources to be diverted to Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has indicated that almost all British troops should leave Iraq by the middle of next year, with a few hundred possibly remaining to train Iraqi security forces. Previously it had been suggested that troops could start leaving in January. However, the BBC has learned that the process is likely to begin in March - six years after the US-led invasion.

BBC News, 10/12/08

Afghanistan - Obama's Iraq?

Afghanistan has the potential to become what Iraq was for so long for Bush—a quagmire without exit. There is an emerging consensus on U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and a redeployment of troops to Afghanistan. But for now the new troops will be deployed in provinces just outside Kabul to protect the increasingly threatened capital. This version of the “enclave strategy” once proposed for Vietnam is no more than a holding action. How can we rout the terrorists and the Taliban from mountain sanctuaries if our enemies control 80 percent of the country?

Obama and his re-enlisted Secretary of Defense seem to comprehend this; Robert Gates already has a Pentagon review underway that looks beyond Bush’s discredited obsession with disproportionately military solutions. The new answer, or hope, is not just more troops, but “soft power.” Applied to Afghanistan, this means economic reconstruction, jobs, schools, credible regional government and more culturally sensitive uses of armed force. In other words, defeat the enemy by making friends.

The difficulty, of course, is that the enemy won’t cooperate; with truck bombings, suicide blasts and no holds barred they will counter soft power with intensified terrorism. If they succeed, what do we try next?

The Week, 9/12/08

Escalation in Afghanistan is not a 'surge'...

The top commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan said Sunday that 2009 will be a "tough fight" in Afghanistan and the United States will need nearly twice as many troops for up to four years to stabilize the country.

Gen. David McKiernan said increasing U.S. troop levels from about 32,000 to 55,000 or 60,000 is "needed until we get to this tipping point where the Afghan army and the Afghan police have both the capacity and capability to provide security for their people."

"I don't like to use the word 'surge' here because if we put these additional forces in here, it's going to be for the next few years," McKiernan said. "It's not a temporary increase of combat strength."

USA Today, 8/12/08

...as Taliban controls more of country

The Taliban have expanded their footprint in Afghanistan and now have a permanent presence in nearly three-quarters of the country, according to a new report. The Paris-based International Council on Security and Development, a think tank that maintains full-time offices in Afghanistan, said the Taliban have spread across much of the country and are beginning to encircle the capital, Kabul.

The group said Taliban fighters have advanced out of southern Afghanistan, a region where they often hold de facto governing power, and carry out regular attacks in western and northwestern Afghanistan as well as in and around Kabul. Taliban forces can be found in 72% of Afghanistan, up from 54% a year earlier.

"While the international community's prospects in Afghanistan have never been bleaker, the Taliban has been experiencing a renaissance that has gained momentum since 2005," the report said. "The West is in genuine danger of losing Afghanistan."

Afghanistan has seen a sharp spike in violence this year, with U.S. fatalities and civilian casualties hitting records. Some American commanders fear the Taliban will start an offensive this winter.

Wall Street Journal, 7/12/08

Iraqi women fight back against 'honour killings'

Hawjin Hama Rashid, a feisty journalist in bluejeans and a frilly blouse, had come to the morgue in this Kurdish city to research tribal killings of women. "A week doesn't pass without at least 10," the morgue director said, showing Rashid pictures of corpses on his computer screen.

From the southern port city of Basra to bustling Irbil in northern Iraq, Iraqi activists are trying to counter the rising influence of religious fundamentalists and tribal chieftains who have insisted that women wear the veil, prevented girls from receiving education and sanctioned killings of women accused of besmirching their family's honor.

In their quest for stability in Iraq, U.S. officials have empowered tribal and religious leaders, Sunni and Shiite, who reject the secularism that Saddam Hussein once largely maintained. These leaders have imposed strict interpretations of Islam and enforced tribal codes that female activists say limit their freedom and encourage violence against them.

"Women are being strangled by religion and tribalism," said Muna Saud, a 52-year-old activist in Basra.

Washington Post, 7/12/08

Official Calls for Sensitivity to Afghan Demands

In unusually blunt remarks, the chief of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan warned in an interview this weekend that unless Afghanistan’s international partners conducted their military operations with more care and cultural sensitivity, redoubled their work to minimize civilian casualties and accelerated their reconstruction programs, they risked jeopardizing their efforts to stabilize and rebuild the country.

Kai Eide, the United Nations special representative for Afghanistan, also came to the defense of the country’s embattled president, Hamid Karzai, saying that Mr. Karzai’s harsh public criticism of his foreign allies on both the military and development fronts had been authentic, not to mention an accurate reflection of widespread and growing frustration among Afghans.

Some foreign diplomats have dismissed Mr. Karzai’s recent remarks as a cynical effort to curry favor with Afghan voters during the prelude to national elections, Mr. Eide said.

New York Times, 7/12/08

Iraq will turn out to be 'strategic achievement'

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that the US-led war in Iraq will turn out to be a "strategic achievement" for not only President George W. Bush but for the United States.

Interviewed on Fox television, Rice said she "would give anything" to revisit the issue of weapons of mass destruction, but said the 2003 invasion was still right even if the weapons were never found.

"I still believe that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is going to turn out to be a great strategic achievement, not just for the Bush administration, but for the United States of America," Rice told Fox.

Instead of a repressive dictator who has sown instability, triggered wars and used weapons of mass destruction, "you now have a young democratic multi-ethnic Iraq," Rice said.

AFP, 7//12/08

Taliban fighters destroy crucial Nato supplies in Pakistan

Hundreds of Taliban fighters have stormed a crucial Nato depot outside the Pakistani city of Peshawar, destroying over 100 lorries which would have taken supplies to American and British forces in Afghanistan. The gunmen overpowered and disarmed the security guards, before setting fire to the vehicles, many of which were laden with Humvee armoured cars intended for Western forces.

About three quarters of all the ammunition, food, weapons and other supplies needed by Nato's troops in Afghanistan, including 8,000 British soldiers, pass through Pakistan. The Taliban have clearly identified this route as a crucial vulnerability. Most supplies, including fuel, are unloaded in Karachi on the Arabian Sea and then carried along main roads through Pakistan and into Afghanistan via the Khyber Pass. The depot in Peshawar, the nearest city to the Pass which crosses the north-west frontier into Afghanistan, is a vital link in this chain.

The latest attack was a double victory for the Taliban. Earlier incidents had temporarily closed the Khyber Pass, causing a build up of lorries at the depot. A significant portion of this backlog has now been destroyed.

Tribal leaders loyal to Pakistan's government deploy armed men on their section of the Pass. Nonetheless, the Khyber is often closed for days at a time. Last month, it was shut for a week when gunmen hijacked a dozen Nato lorries and made off with four Humvee armoured cars.

Daily Telegraph, 7/12/08

US rescinds ban on interpreters wearing masks

The Pentagon has rescinded a controversial decision that banned Iraqi interpreters working for US troops in Baghdad from protecting their identities by wearing ski-masks. The ban was meant to reflect the improved security situation - in which interpreters were no longer afraid of retaliation. But that is not the case.

"If anyone of my neighbours see me with this uniform I will get killed," said an interpreter working with the US 4-10 Cavalry Regiment, which patrols a large part of western Baghdad. "Maybe they will kill my family. That's the issue", he added.

US officials at first tried to defend the Pentagon ruling, saying interpreters could seek alternative employment if they were unhappy with it.

BBC News, 6/12/08

Obama favours missile defense

The U.S. military conducted a successful test of its system built to knock out long-range missiles that could be fired by North Korea or Iran, the Pentagon said on Friday. U.S. officials had billed the test as a particularly realistic simulation of a possible missile attack but critics of the system disputed that description.

Advisers to U.S. President-elect Barack Obama have said he favors missile defense in principle but the program, a flagship policy of the Bush administration, will face more scrutiny after he takes office.

President George W. Bush has been spending roughly $10 billion a year on all aspects of missile defense, the Pentagon's costliest annual outlay for an arms development program.

The United States and Russia are at odds over a Bush administration plan to extend the Boeing-managed system into Eastern Europe, using 10 silo-based two-stage interceptors in Poland and a related radar system in the Czech Republic.

Reuters, 5/12/08

Attack on Afghan supply route

More than 60 lorries supplying Western forces in Afghanistan have been set on fire in a suspected militant attack in north-west Pakistan, police say.

Police said at least one person was killed as more than 250 gunmen attacked the terminal near the city of Peshawar using rockets and guns. Some of the lorries were laden with Humvee armoured vehicles.

Taleban militants are suspected of being behind several such attacks aimed at disrupting supplies, analysts say.

BBC News, 7/12/08

US preparing for Afghanistan escalation

The military is beginning a big building effort in Afghanistan to house the roughly 20,000 additional troops who are expected to begin pouring in early next year, a top military officer said Friday.

Maj. Gen. Michael Tucker, deputy commander for operations for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, told Pentagon reporters that military leaders are anticipating a "very active winter" of insurgency attacks.

And while he provided few details, he said there is a "very huge building campaign that has already begun. We're pushing dirt as we speak to prepare for the arrival of these forces."

Associated Press, 6/12/08