These are the archives for the week ending 13th May 2005
Suspects sent to regimes which regularly use torture
The United States and other countries have forcibly sent dozens of terror suspects to Egypt, according to a report by Human Rights Watch. The rights group and the State Department have both said Egypt regularly uses extreme interrogation methods on detainees.
The group said it had documented 63 cases since 1994 in which suspected Islamic militants were sent to Egypt for detention and interrogation. The figures do not include people seized after the attacks of September 2001 who were sent mainly by Middle East countries and American intelligence authorities.
The report said the total number sent to Egypt since the Sept. 11 attacks could be as high as 200 people. American officials have not disputed that people have been sent to countries where detainees are subjected to extreme interrogation tactics but have denied that anyone had been sent to another country for the purpose of torture. Among other countries to which the United States has sent detainees are Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Syria.
New York Times, 12/5/05
New government fails to damp resistance
The increased violence coincides with the approval of a new, democratic government two weeks ago. But instead of bringing the country together, the new government seems to have further alienated even moderate Sunnis who believe they have only token representation.
"That is a joke," said Sunni politician Saad Jabouri, until recently governor of Diyala Province, in an interview here. "The only people they allowed in the government are ones who think like them," he said of the majority Shia faction, who mostly come from Islamic parties.
Military and civilian experts said the insurgency seemed designed to outlast the patience of the American and Iraqi peoples. Noah Feldman, a New York University law professor who worked for the U.S. coalition in Iraq said the insurgency has been "getting stronger every passing day. When the violence recedes, it is a sign that they are regrouping."
"Everything we thought we knew about the insurgency obviously is flawed," said Judith Kipper of the Council on Foreign Relations. "It was quiet for a little while, and here it is back full force all over the country, and that is very dark news."
Newsday, 12/5/05
More bombs in 'stable' Iraq
Just last week, following the death of a British Guardsman, Anthony Wakefield, Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, spoke of the role UK forces were playing in making Iraq a "stable and democratic country". But stability was nowhere to be seen yesterday morning as suicide bombers cut a swathe of death across the country.
Scotsman, 12/5/05
Resistance 'gathering pace'
Suicide bombers have set off a wave of blasts in Iraq, killing more than 60 people and injuring more than 100 in the bloodiest day since February. The bombings continue an upsurge in violence that has claimed more than 300 lives in the past two weeks, as US forces fight rebels in the west.
Laith Kubba, an Iraqi government spokesman, told the BBC that rebels were lashing out wildly, knowing their "days are numbered". But the insurgency appears to be gathering pace rather than running out of steam, the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says.
BBC, 11/5/05
4 protesters shot in Afghanistan
At least four people have been killed and 70 injured in violent protests in Jalalabad over reports U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base desecrated copies of the Quran during questioning of prisoners held there. Afghan's interior ministry reported police fired at the crowds when they began to attack government buildings. A witness told CNN that police as well as U.S. troops fired into the air to keep the crowds under control.
Rallies were also held in several cities in neighboring Pakistan, where the religious party alliance MMA announced plans to mount a countrywide protest against the United States Friday. The country's national assembly passed a resolution demanding the U.S. government investigate the incident and punish anyone found to be responsible.
CNN, 11/5/05
Major reconstruction not yet started
Major reconstruction has not yet got off the ground in Iraq and security costs can eat up half the funding in some areas, according to Stuart Bowen the top official auditing $18.4 billion in U.S.-funded projects. Asked whether he thought rebuilding was properly under way and funds were being spent as Congress intended, the former White House lawyer said: "No," largely because so much money had been diverted to security, forcing projects to be scaled back.
There has also been evidence of corruption in some U.S.-funded deals."We are talking tens of millions of dollars and not just thousands," he said, declining to provide further details of ongoing investigations.
Reuters, 10/5/05
Chalabi pardoned
King Abdullah of Jordan has agreed to pardon Ahmed Chalabi, the controversial Iraqi political leader, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for fraud after his bank collapsed with $300m (£160m) in missing deposits in 1989. Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi President, asked the king to resolve the differences between Jordan and Mr Chalabi, now Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, during a visit to Amman this week.
Independent, 11/5/05
Provincial governor kidnapped
The governor of one of Iraq's most dangerous provinces has been kidnapped by insurgents calling for an end to US operations close to the Syrian border. Raja Nawaf, governor of the western province of Anbar, was seized at a roadblock between the town of Qaim and the provincial capital Ramadi. The kidnappers later demanded that US troops pull out of Qaim, where the US says it has killed 100 insurgents.
BBC News, 10/5/05
Oil pipeline attacked
Saboteurs attacked a crude oil pipeline complex near the Kirkuk fields in northern Iraq on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Iraqi Oil Ministry said. "It was a bomb. Crews are working on extinguishing the fire in the complex, which is part of the northern production system," Assem Jihad told Reuters by telephone from Baghdad.
Jihad did not say whether the attack could further delay restarting exports from the northern fields to Turkey, which have been idle for most of the past two years because of sabotage against the network.
Reuters, 10/5/05
US expands prisons in Iraq
The number of prisoners held in U.S. military detention centers in Iraq has risen without interruption since autumn, filling the centers to capacity and prompting commanders to embark on an unanticipated prison expansion plan. The detainee population surpassed 11,350 last week, a nearly 20 percent jump since Iraq's Jan. 30 elections.
U.S. prisons now contain more than twice the number of people they did in early October, when aggressive raids began in a stepped-up effort to crush the insurgency before January's vote. Anticipating continued growth in the detainee population, U.S. commanders have decided to expand three existing facilities and open a fourth, at a total cost of about $50 million.
Washington Post, 10/5/05
South Korea disputes US claim
South Korean officials have reacted with scepticism to US media claims that North Korea is preparing an underground nuclear test and might conduct one as early as June. The New York Times reported that US officials familiar with satellite and intelligence data believed Pyongyang was building a reviewing stand and filling in a tunnel, saying this was a sign of a potential underground nuclear test.
But South Korean officials refused to link the tunnel to a possible nuclear test. "The South Korean Government has been aware since the late 1990s that a tunnel was being dug in the area," a senior government official told the Joongang daily yesterday. We have been closely monitoring the work, but there has been no sign indicating preparations for a nuclear arms test."
The Australian, 9/5/05
Iraq cabinet deal falters
Iraq's parliament approved six new ministers on Sunday hoping to fill the political void that has stoked the insurgency, but one minister turned down the job, leaving the cabinet still incomplete three months after polls. Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari had announced the cabinet was complete after months of bickering to agree the balance of power between competing sectarian and ethnic blocs, and vowed to crack down on an escalating insurgency.
But proposed human rights minister Hisham al-Shibli told Reuters he had been picked purely to placate Iraq's restive Sunni Arab minority, and said he was rejecting the post. "This post was given to me without anyone consulting me. I was surprised when they nominated me. It was just because I am a Sunni," he said. "This is something I reject completely. I am a democratic figure ... and I am completely against sectarianism."
Reuters, 9/5/05
'It was Iraq wot did it'
It is probably fair to say that, as far as Labour is concerned, it was Iraq wot did it. The issue of the war and the prime minister's honesty hung over the entire campaign and clearly played a significant part in Labour's losses. It was not the only issue responsible for the reduction in the vote, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that, for many, it was decisive.
BBC News, 7/5/05
US inflates importance of prisoner
The capture of a supposed Al-Qaeda kingpin by Pakistani agents last week was hailed by President George W Bush as "a critical victory in the war on terror". According to European intelligence experts, however, Abu Faraj al-Libbi was not the terrorists' third in command, as claimed, but a middle-ranker derided by one source as "among the flotsam and jetsam" of the organisation.
The backslapping in Washington and Islamabad has astonished European terrorism experts, who point out that the Libyan was neither on the FBI's most wanted list, nor on that of the State Department "rewards for justice" programme. Another Libyan is on the FBI list - Anas al-Liby, who is wanted over the 1998 East African embassy bombings - and some believe the Americans may have initially confused the two.
Sunday Times, 8/5/05
Afghanistan resistance
A surge of fighting in southern Afghanistan has killed 64 insurgents and 10 Afghan security men, U.S. and Afghan officials said Thursday. It was the worst single loss suffered by the American-trained government army.
The U.S. military said the bloodshed in Kandahar and Zabul provinces was as much the result of operations by government forces and the 18,000 soldiers of a U.S.-led international coalition as from a resurgence by Taliban loyalists and other insurgents.
Kansas City Star, 7/5/05
'Another Fallujah'
American soldiers have sealed off the restive city of Ramadi in western Iraq after troops raided its hospital in search of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Residents of the violent Sunni Triangle city, 70 miles west of Baghdad, said that US forces were reinforcing their positions around the city, prohibiting vehicles from entering and allowing passage only by foot through a single checkpoint. The nightly curfew has been brought forward from 10pm to 8pm. "It seems like it's going to be another Fallujah," one worried resident said, referring to the US assault on the nearby city last year.
Samir al-Obeidi, an administrator at Ramadi's hospital, said that American troops and Iraqi National Guardsmen raided the hospital on April 28, terrifying patients. "They came after the curfew without prior notice. They started searching all the wards, for men and women. Lots of people were horrified. They didn't know what was happening," he said. "They kicked in any of the doors in the staff accommodation that were locked. We asked what they were looking for and they finally answered, 'Zarqawi'.
Times, 7/5/05
Labour wins, but loses support
Tony Blair survived widespread opposition to the Iraq war to win a third straight term in power on Friday but saw his majority in parliament drastically reduced. A chastened prime minister admitted the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 had been a divisive issue and said voters had clearly wanted his center-left Labour party re-elected with less power.
With most results in, Blair was heading for a majority in parliament of between 60 and 80 seats, sharply down from the 161 last time, an outcome which may hasten his fall, analysts said.
Reuters, 6/5/05
The Iraq factor
Tony Blair has acknowledged the Iraq war has contributed to Labour's reduced majority as he wins a third term. The prime minister admitted the war had been a "divisive issue" during the campaign and conceded there were "lots of lessons" for Labour to learn.
One significant Labour loss saw ex-Labour MP George Galloway, who founded the anti-war Respect Party, oust his former colleague Oona King in Bethnal Green and Bow. In his victory speech he said: "Mr Blair, this defeat is for Iraq and the other defeats that New Labour has received this evening are for Iraq. "
BBC News, 6/5/05
US defence budget equals rest of world
Defence expenditure in the US will equal that of the rest of the world combined within 12 months, making it "increasingly pressing" for European contractors to develop a "closer association" with the US, corporate finance group PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) says. Its report adds that "the US is in the driving seat", raising the prospect of a future scenario in which it could "dominate the supply of the world's arms completely".
The US defence budget reached US$417.4 billion in 2003 - 46 per cent of the global total. Less than two per cent of the US defence budget is spent outside its home market, the report notes, and of this around one per cent goes to UK contractors.
Jane's Defence Industry, 5/5/05
US corruption 'a poor example'
U.S. government mismanagement of assets in Iraq, from the lack of proper documentation on nearly $100 million in cash to millions of dollars worth of unaccounted-for equipment, are setting back efforts to fight corruption in the fledgling democracy, auditors and critics say.
Examples of possible misspending in Iraq revealed in recent months include: "Less than adequate controls" over $8.8 billion given to the interim Iraqi government between the March 2003 invasion and the hand over of power to Iraqis on June 28, 2004; projected totals of nearly $20 million in missing or unaccounted-for equipment in Baghdad and Kuwait; a lack of proper rules governing some $600 million in cash handed out by U.S. authorities.
Critics say the freewheeling postwar spending in Iraq is, at best, providing a poor example for the new Iraqi government to follow.
Associated Press, 5/5/05