Watching the Warmakers is based in Brighton, England.
Our aim is to support activists in educating themselves in the issues
which confront those struggling for peace and justice.

News archives for the week ending 14th November 2008

Baghdad shaken by series of bombs

At least 21 people have been killed and more than 85 injured in a series of bombs throughout Baghdad, police said. In the most serious attack, at least 12 people were killed and 60 injured when almost simultaneous car and roadside bombs detonated in eastern Baghdad.

Earlier a car bomb killed four people and injured 14 during the morning rush hour in a busy central shopping area. Police also said five people were killed and 12 wounded in an explosion in the north of the capital. It is the third consecutive day of bombing Baghdad. More than 30 were killed on Monday and Tuesday in blasts with struck during the morning rush-hour.

Correspondents say overall security in Iraq has improved significantly over the past year as US and Iraqi forces allied with local Sunni militias have flooded into formerly ungovernable districts. However, recent weeks have seen a return of smaller bombings that have hit during rush hour. This has undermined public confidence around the city.

BBC News, 12/11/08

Afghanistan resumes executions

The execution of nine rapists, kidnappers, murderers and militants in the past week has found widespread support among Afghans weary of rising crime and disillusioned by the apparent impunity of criminals after a moratorium of over a year.

With presidential elections planned for next year, President Hamid Karzai's personal signing of the death warrants has been seen as an election ploy, but risks angering his international allies. The UN's chief human rights official has called for an immediate halt to executions saying the country's fledgling justice system cannot guarantee a fair trial.

aily Telegraph, 12/11/08

Escalating the war in Afghanistan

More international troops are needed in the south of Afghanistan and they must be ready to fight insurgents, the country's foreign minister said on Wednesday. Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, visiting Britain with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said international efforts to train the Afghan military to handle security by itself remained vital for the long-term, but in the meantime more foreign fighting troops were needed.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to send more troops to Afghanistan, where the United States already has more than 30,000 military personnel and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has not ruled out sending more troops to add to the 8,000 British soldiers already there. But Brown stressed on Tuesday that NATO allies should do more to share the burden.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said a review was taking place in the United States about their military force in Afghanistan, adding: "I think we should wait and see how American plans develop and then make our own assessment in due course."

Reuters, 13/11/08

Afghanistan as important to UK as world wars

Terrorists in Afghanistan pose a direct threat to British security and it is even more important now than in 2001 that British troops be there to confront them, Defence Secretary John Hutton said on Tuesday.

"In my view our engagement is as much a security priority for the UK today as the world wars or the Cold War of the last century," he told the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based thinktank.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is due to visit Britain later this week, and Hutton said it was right for the Afghan government to talk to those who "aspire to lay down their arms and enter the political process."

But reconciliation would happen only when the Afghan government and the NATO-led force were seen to be winning politically and militarily, and prepared to stay for the long haul, said Hutton, who visited Afghanistan and Iraq last month.

Reuters, 11/11/08

Who pays for Iraq's secret police?

If it ever comes to court it should be one of the more interesting libel cases of the decade. The Iraqi National Intelligence Service is threatening to sue Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi politician, for asking who pays for it. "It is somewhat curious," says Mr Chalabi, "that the intelligence service of a country which is sovereign – that no one really knows who is funding it."

In fact there are very few Iraqis who do not believe they have a very clear idea of who funds Iraq's secret police. Its director is General Mohammed Abdullah Shahwani, who once led a failed coup against Saddam Hussein, and was handpicked by the CIA to run the new security organisation soon after the invasion of 2003. He is believed to have been answering to them ever since.

The history of the Iraqi intelligence service is important because it shows the real distribution of power in Iraq rather than the spurious picture presented by President Bush. It explains why so many Iraqis are suspicious of the security accord, or Status of Forces Agreement, that the White House has been pushing the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Malki to sign. It reveals the real political landscape where President-elect Barack Obama will soon have to find his bearings.

Independent, 11/11/08

Triple bombing kills at least 28 in Iraq

A triple bombing Monday destroyed a minibus full of passengers and rained debris on people nearby, killing at least 28 in the deadliest attack in the capital in months.

The attack, which also left at least 50 wounded, showed the resilience of extremist networks that continue to target politicians, police and ordinary Iraqis with explosives, even as overall violence in Iraq has dropped and the Iraqi security forces have grown in strength and numbers.

Meanwhile, in the central Iraqi city of Baqubah, a female suicide bomber blew herself up at a checkpoint near the city market manned by U.S.-paid neighborhood guards, police said. Four people were killed.

Kansas City Star, 11/11/08

Karzai condemns new civilian killing

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday condemned the U.S. coalition's killing of 14 "private security guards" in eastern Afghanistan, saying such attacks will only "expand the gap" between the people and his government, as well as its western backers. In a statement, the president said that those killed in the eastern Khost province on Sunday were working for a road construction company.

"Despite the Afghan government's constant requests to NATO and coalition forces to prevent air strikes that cause the death of innocent people and civilians, such an incident has happened once again which has no justification," Karzai was quoted in the statement as saying.

CBC News, Canada, 10/11/08

Iraq pact rules out US troops past 2011

The proposed U.S.-Iraqi security pact removes language authorizing Iraq to ask U.S. soldiers to stay beyond 2011 and bans cross-border attacks from Iraqi soil, according to a copy of the draft obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

The latest draft, sent Thursday to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, also strengthens language regarding Iraqi sovereignty but does not appear to make significant changes in the limited legal authority granted to Iraq to prosecute U.S. soldiers for major crimes committed off post and off duty.

But it was unclear whether the changes would be enough to silence critics — especially among the majority Shiite community — who have complained the deal favors U.S. interests over Iraq's.

The new draft states that U.S. troops must be out of Iraqi cities by June 30 and leave the country entirely by Dec. 31, 2011. The previous draft authorized the Iraqi government to ask U.S. troops to stay beyond that for training and other assistance.

As a further assurance, the deal is now officially an agreement "on the withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq" and the "organization of their activities during their temporary presence."

Associated Press, 10/11/08

Britain will ‘not necessarily’ increase troops...

The government will not necessarily follow suit if US President-elect Barack Obama sends more troops to Afghanistan as part of an Iraq-style 'surge', Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Sunday.

Obama indicated during his election campaign that he wanted to increase the US presence in Afghanistan while beginning a phased withdrawal from Iraq. Britain already has 8,000 troops in Afghanistan, fighting Taliban extremists in the south of the country. Asked if Obama's plans to step up the pace of operations in Afghanistan would require an increase in Britain's commitment there, Miliband told the BBC: "Not necessarily, no."

He added: "As the second-largest contributor of troops in Afghanistan, the first thing we say is that we don't want to bear an unfair share of the burden. The second thing we say is that more foreign troops on their own are not going to provide the answer in Afghanistan. It needs to be an approach that combines a serious security presence with the development of the country."

Britain is expected to scale down its involvement in Iraq next year, but the head of the armed forces, Jock Stirrup, said he would oppose troops being transferred from there to Afghanistan.

"I have said for a very long time that the British armed forces are stretched," he said in a BBC interview. "We are doing more than we are structured and resourced to do in the long term. We can do it for a short period, but we can't continue doing it ad infinitum. So it can't be - even if the situation demanded it - just a one-for-one transfer from Iraq to Afghanistan. We have to reduce that tempo."

AFP, 9/11/08

...and neither will Australia

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says the Federal Government has no plans to increase the number of Australian troops in Afghanistan. The election of US President-elect Barack Obama has led to speculation he might ask Australia to expand its role.

Mr Smith has told the ABC's Insiders program he cannot see any need for a change at this stage. "We are the largest non-NATO contributor and we have got no plans to increase that amount," he said. "Certainly we are not going to be in the business of increasing our amount, or our contribution, if that simply provides and excuse for other countries not to make their own contribution."

ABC News, Australia, 9/11/08

Obama: a change of tone, not substance

Armed with great eloquence, Mr. Obama will certainly bring a welcome change in tone to U.S. diplomacy. In substance, though, the basic strands of Washington's foreign policy are likely to remain much the same under him as they were under his reviled predecessor.

Start with the biggest issue facing the new president: the two wars being fought by Americans overseas. Mr. Obama has promised to shift troops out of Iraq and redeploy them to Afghanistan, where the fight with the Taliban is heating up. Washington is already doing just that.

Mr. Obama is a big critic of the way Mr. Bush has handled the war in Iraq and the "war on terror" generally, but don't mistake him for a peacenik. Although he favours negotiating with enemies when necessary, he says there are perhaps 40,000 hard-core extremists who can't be talked to. "Our job," he says, "is to incapacitate them, to kill them."

During the campaign, he said he would strike jihadist bases in Pakistan if its government refused to act on an intelligence tip. On Iran, too, Mr. Obama offers less change than his fans might hope for. Yes, he would talk to Iran's theocratic regime if the time were right, something the Bush administration has refused to do (although it has let its European allies negotiate in its place). But he also says he would do anything in his power to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, including (he has as much as said) ordering a military strike as a last resort. No option is excluded.

Just like the present administration, Mr. Obama condemned Moscow's invasion of Georgia, and, just like the present administration, he favours letting Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. He promises to continue talking directly to North Korea about its nuclear program while building a strong international coalition to eliminate the program, much as Mr. Bush has done through his six-nation process on the issue.

If Arabs hope for a more "balanced" U.S. Middle East policy under Mr. Obama, they may be disappointed. He has been a staunch supporter of Israel and during a campaign visit there, he praised the Jewish state as fervently as Mr. Bush ever did.

Toronto Globe and Mail, 7/11/08

Israel's man in the White House

Israeli media on Thursday hailed Barack Obama's choice of Rahm Emanuel to be his chief of staff, with one daily calling the Democrat of Israeli descent "our man in the White House."

Radio stations and newspapers pointed out Emanuel's Jerusalem-born father was once a member of Irgun, an ultra-nationalist Jewish terror group behind such slaughters of civilians as the bombing of the King David hotel which killed 92 people in 1946. Emanuel himself volunteered to serve in the Israeli Army and did a two-month stint at a base in northern Israel during the 1991 Gulf war, public radio reported.

"It is obvious he will exert influence on the president to be pro-Israeli," Emanuel's father, who moved to the US in the 1960s, told the Maariv daily. The newspaper headlined the article: "Our man in the White House."

Daily Star, Lebanon, 7/11/08

Military argue against Iraq withdrawal

Senior U.S. military officials will likely advise Barack Obama to adjust his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by mid-2010. While promising a 16-month timetable for getting all U.S. fighting forces out, Obama repeatedly insisted on what he calls a "responsible" withdrawal.

Pulling nearly all U.S. troops and equipment out of Iraq in 16 months is "physically impossible," says a top officer involved in briefing the President-elect on U.S. operations in Iraq. That schedule would create a bottleneck of equipment and troops in the south of Iraq and Kuwait where brigades repair, clean and load vehicles and weapons for the trip home, said the official. Others say U.S. could conceivably pull out on that time scale, although that would require leaving more equipment behind.

Time, 7/11/08

Airstrike on wedding party in Afghanistan

The U.S. military said today it was investigating a report that an American airstrike hit a wedding party, killing dozens of civilians and prompting new pleas from President Hamid Karzai that foreign forces try harder to avoid hurting and killing noncombatants.

"We cannot win the fight against terrorism with airstrikes," Karzai told reporters at the presidential palace, speaking hours after Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential election. "This is my first demand of the new president of the United States -- to put an end to civilian casualties."

Western news agencies quoted people from the remote village of Wech Bagtu as saying that an airstrike on Monday destroyed a residential compound where a wedding was being celebrated, killing about three dozen people, most of them women and children. The bride was said to be among the injured.

Los Angeles Times, 5/11/08