These are the archives for the week ending 15th April 2005
Fallujah rebuilding figures false
Robert B. Zoellick, the deputy secretary of state, wanted to see Falluja for himself instead of relying on dry reports from the "interagency process," as he put it. Ninety-five percent of Falluja's residents now have water in their homes, the official report said. Eighty-five percent of people in northern areas that were not the focus of the American offensive have electricity. Three out of five medical clinics are now open.
But sitting with five members of Falluja's temporary city council, Mr. Zoellick asked the chairman, Sheik Khalid al-Jamily, "Do most people in Falluja have safe drinking water?" The short answer was no. Mr. Zoellick asked whether electricity and schools were functioning. "We brought in some tents and desks for schools," Mr. Jamily replied. Mr. Jamily did think of one quality-of-life improvement. Because only about a third of the residents have returned since the fighting in November, "the traffic is O.K."
New York Times, 14/4/05
Ricin ring a lie
Colin Powell does not need more humiliation over the manifold errors in his February 2003 presentation to the UN. But yesterday a London jury brought down another section of the case he made for war - that Iraq and Osama bin Laden were supporting and directing terrorist poison cells throughout Europe, including a London ricin ring.
Yesterday's verdicts on five defendants and the dropping of charges against four others make clear there was no ricin ring. Nor did the "ricin ring" make or have ricin. Not that the government shared that news with us. Until today, the public record for the past three fear-inducing years has been that ricin was found in the Wood Green flat occupied by some of yesterday's acquitted defendants. It wasn't.
Guardian 14/4/05
Karzai wants permanent US bases in Afghanistan
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said his country wants longer, stronger ties with the United States, including a long-term "strategic security relationship."
Karzai, appearing at a news conference with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Kabul, Afghanistan, made the remarks when asked about reports of the forging of bilateral security agreements and the establishment of permanent U.S. military troop presence in the country, a reference to bases.
CNN, 13/4/05
Poland pulls out
Poland on Tuesday confirmed plans to withdraw its 1,700 troops from Iraq by the end of 2005, joining the growing number of countries heading for the exit when the United Nations Security Council mandate for military operations in Iraq expires at the end of the year.
Poland's decision is the latest sign of the erosion of the US-led coalition that began when Spain withdrew its 1,400 soldiers last year. The Netherlands pulled out earlier this year. Ukraine and Bulgaria have also announced plans to withdraw their forces later this year. As the coalition shrinks, the foreign troop presence in Iraq is increasingly dominated by the US, with about 140,000 soldiers in the country, and Britain, which has about 9,000.
Financial Times, 12/4/05
US allies control key ministries
The US has warned against a purge of its allies in the defence and interior ministries - crucial to real power in Iraq - by incoming Shia ministers. Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, issued a coded warning against the removal of officials from the security ministries which lead the fight against insurgency. The Shia parties, who won a majority in the parliamentary election on 30 January, are pressing for control of the interior ministry in the new government. They also want to take charge of the the intelligence agency. The defence ministry will probably go to a Sunni Arab.
"The Americans have remained largely in control of intelligence, interior and defence despite the handover of power to Iraqis in June last year," an official said.
Independent, 13/4/05
No exit strategy
The U.S. has no exit strategy or timetable for withdrawing its forces from Iraq and a pull-out depends on the readiness of the Iraqi Security Forces, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "We don't have an exit strategy, we have a victory strategy,'' Rumsfeld told soldiers during a surprise visit to Baghdad .
Bloomberg, 12/4/05
'Smart' mines
U.S. troops in Iraq will soon be able to lace their defensive perimeters with a high-tech, multi-pronged version of one of the most effective weapons in their enemy's playbook: the remote-controlled bomb. By June, soldiers in the Army's Stryker Brigade, which operates mainly in and around the northern city of Mosul, will be able to pick out an individual anti-personnel munition from a minefield of hundreds and explode it by pushing a computer's touch screen from many yards away.
The system, known as Matrix, is part of the Army's emerging arsenal of "smart" land mines that military officials say are meant to do away with the accidental deaths and maimings caused by their not-so-smart brethren.
Business Week, 11/4/05
Pigs in the trough
U.S. oil services giant Halliburton Co. may have overcharged by at least $212 million to get fuel to Iraqi civilians under a no-bid deal with the U.S. military, said Pentagon audits released on Monday. In one case, the overcharges exceeded 47 percent of the total value of the work.
Halliburton, which was run by Vice President Dick Cheney until he joined the race for the White House in 2000, has said its KBR subsidiary delivered fuel for the best possible price in Iraq and has consistently denied it overcharged.
Reuters, 12/4/05
The pot and the kettle
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on a surprise visit, warned Iraq's new leaders on Tuesday against political purges and cronyism that could spark "lack of confidence or corruption in government."
Reuters, 12/4/05
Iraq war firm asks for bar on protests
An arms components company which makes bomb parts that were used in the Iraq war is taking legal action to stop anti-war protests being held outside its factory.
The Forbes-listed US company, EDO MBM, which has a subsidiary at Home Farm Industrial Estate, Brighton, is seeking an injunction under the Harassment Act against 14 people and two groups, Smash EDO and the now defunct Bombs Out of Brighton.
An injunction could ban those individuals and groups, and, by association potentially hundreds of other protestors, from going within a half-mile radius of the EDO premises - except on Thursday afternoons, for two hours, when quiet demonstrations of up to 10 people would be permitted.
Guardian 11/4/05
Occupation to last 2 more years
Despite weekend protests against the presence of foreign troops in Iraq, new Iraqi President Jalil Talabani expects the US-led occupation to continue for two more years, he told the Cable News Network (CNN) on Sunday.
Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates, 11/4/05
Torture still widespread
In a recent human rights report on Iraq, the State Department catalogued reports of such practices as "arbitrary deprivation of life, torture, impunity, poor prison conditions -- particularly in pretrial detention facilities -- and arbitrary arrest and detention." "The police often continued to use the methods employed by the previous regime," the report stated.
"Reportedly, coerced confessions and interrogation continued to be the favored method of investigation by police. According to one government official, hundreds of cases were pending at year's end alleging torture." Many Iraqis see the U.S. military as the country's supreme authority, but U.S. forces technically defer to Iraqi sovereignty and do not want to be seen as dictating the country's path toward democracy and the rule of law.
Washington Post, 9/4/05
Prisoners held without charge
US and Iraqi forces are holding a record 17 000 men and women - most without being formally charged - and those in Iraqi-controlled jails live often in deplorable conditions, officials said. About two-thirds are locked up as "security detainees" without any formal charges in US-run facilities, Guy Rudisill, the US military spokesperson for Iraqi detention operations, told AFP.
The rest are incarcerated in Iraqi-run jails in conditions that fall well below any international standard and are in dire need of reform, said Bakhtiar Amin, Iraq's outgoing human rights minister. "None of the Iraqi detention centres meet international standards for cleanliness, food and the treatment of prisoners" he added.
News 24, South Africa, 10/4/05
Shia protest over US presence in Iraq
Tens of thousands of supporters of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have marched in Baghdad to denounce the US presence in Iraq and call for a speedy trial of Saddam Hussein on the second anniversary of his overthrow.
Chanting "No, no to the occupiers", tens of thousands of young and old men gathered in the poor Shia district of Sadr City on Saturday to begin a planned peaceful march to al-Firdos Square, the central Baghdad spot where Saddam's statue was torn down two years ago.
Mimicking the famous images of US soldiers and Iraqis pulling down a statue of Saddam as Baghdad fell, protesters toppled effigies of US President George Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Saddam - all dressed in red Iraqi prison jumpsuits that signified they had been condemned to death sentences.
"Force the occupation to leave from our country," one banner read in English.
Al-Firdos Square has become a central rallying place for Iraqis since Saddam's overthrow two years ago. US forces last year shut down the square, sealing it off with razor wire, to prevent people massing on the first anniversary.
Sunni Muslims were urged by the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq, an influential Sunni group, to demonstrate to mark the fall of Saddam and to demand US forces leave Iraq.
Aljazeera 9/4/05
Iraq a 'free fraud zone'
A former senior advisor to the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which ran Iraq until the election of an interim Iraq government last January, says that the US government's refusal to prosecute US firms accused of corruption in Iraq is turning the country into a "free fraud zone."
Newsweek reported earlier this week that Frank Willis compared Iraq to the "wild west," and that with only $4.1 billion of the $18.7 billion that the US government set aside for the reconstruction of Iraq having been spent, the lack of action on the part of the government means "the corruption will only get worse."
And the corruption problems go far beyond US contractors and other international firms. Reuters reported in March that one of the biggest problems facing the establishment of a legitimate government in Iraq is the corruption rampant in many Iraq government departments.
Christian Science Monitor, 7/4/05