These are the archives for the week ending 15th July 2005
Iraq 'recruiting sergeant' for terrorism
A joint Home Office and Foreign Office dossier - Young Muslims and Extremism - prepared for the prime minister last year, said Britain might now be harbouring thousands of Al-Qaeda sympathisers.
The Iraq war is identified by the dossier as a key cause of young Britons turning to terrorism. The analysis says: "It seems that a particularly strong cause of disillusionment among Muslims, including young Muslims, is a perceived 'double standard' in the foreign policy of western governments, in particular Britain and the US.
"The perception is that passive 'oppression', as demonstrated in British foreign policy, eg non-action on Kashmir and Chechnya, has given way to 'active oppression'. The war on terror, and in Iraq and Afghanistan, are all seen by a section of British Muslims as having been acts against Islam."
In an interview yesterday, Blair denied that the London terrorist attacks were a direct result of British involvement in the Iraq war. "September 11 happened before Iraq, before Afghanistan, before any of these issues and that was the worst terrorist atrocity of all," he said.
However, the analysis prepared for Blair identified Iraq as a "recruiting sergeant" for extremism.
Sunday Times 10/7/05
Iraqis sell their blood to survive
Iraqis are selling their own blood to people who are buying supplies for relatives in need, due to a shortage, doctors say.
This has caused concern over the spread of disease since the supplies are not checked for blood-borne infections.
Every day hundreds of donors can be seen standing outside the blood bank at the Iraqi National Centre for Blood Donations in the capital, Baghdad. More people have started to donate blood following shortages and a call from the Health Ministry for increased supplies to cope with increasing violence in the country, resulting in more patients requiring urgent blood transfusions.
However, people in the queue willing to donate for free are being intercepted before they reach the centre. Donors are approached by so called 'negotiators' who pay them between US $ 15 - $20 per blood bag. At a time when unemployment stands at 33 percent and most of the country is still dependent on food rations, the sale of blood may be an attractive option for many.
Reuters 12/7/05
US army overstretched
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has consistently rejected any contention that the Army is stretched too thin in fighting simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But a new Army study has concluded the service is so strained that the U.S. will soon "need to decide what military capabilities the Army should have and what risks may be prudent to assume."
The assessment comes from an in-house undertaking prepared by the RAND Corp.'s Arroyo Center, the Army's federally funded research institute.
Even as the Army was studying the report, it announced Monday that it is augmenting its troop strength in Afghanistan this month with a battalion that just returned from Iraq in March. And the Army's latest monthly recruitment figures show the service and its reserve components likely will not meet recruitment goals for this fiscal year.
The report - "Stretched Thin: Army Forces for Sustained Operations" raises significant questions about the Army's future and the burdens the Pentagon and taxpayers will have to bear to field adequate forces. The study further calls into question the Pentagon's ability to carry out its policy of maintaining the capacity to fight two major regional wars simultaneously while also providing troops for national security at home and the war on terrorism.
Chicago Tribune 12/7/05
Iraqi civilian casualties
An Iraqi humanitarian organization is reporting that 128,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion began in March 2003.
Iraqiyun, a humanitarian organization in Baghdad, said that the toll includes everyone who has been killed since that time, adding that 55 percent of those killed have been women and children aged 12 and under.
Iraqiyun obtained data from relatives and families of the deceased, as well as from Iraqi hospitals in all the country's provinces. The 128,000 figure only includes those whose relatives have been informed of their deaths and does not include those were abducted, assassinated or simply disappeared.
The number includes those who died during the U.S. assaults on al-Fallujah and al-Qa'im.
No official estimates of Iraqi casualties from the war have been issued by the Pentagon, which insists that it does not do "body counts." The Washington Post on July 12 reported that U.S. military deaths in Iraq now total 1,755.
United Press International 12/7/05
Iraqi army ready to take control
Iraqi troops are ready to take control of some cities as a first step towards sending home US and other foreign soldiers, Iraq's prime minister has said.
He said security in many of Iraq's 18 provinces - notably in the Shia south and the Kurdish-controlled north - has improved so that Iraqi forces could assume the burden of maintaining order in cities there.
Al-Jaafari's comments were aimed partly at defusing growing calls by Sunni Arabs and others for the Americans to set a date to leave Iraq.
US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said Washington was committed to supporting the new Iraqi leadership and that US troop strength "will be based on the conditions by which the Iraqi forces are able to meet the effort to deal with the counterinsurgency".
However, the Defence Department wants to pull some troops out of Iraq next year, partly because the commitment is stretching the army and Marine Corps perilously thin as casualties mount.
US commanders believe the presence of a large US force is generating tacit support for anti-American attacks.
Aljazeera.Net 13/7/05
Danger in Iraq exaggerated
The danger faced by U.S. troops in Iraq has been exaggerated, adding to the difficulty of recruiting soldiers at home, the Army general in charge of National Guard forces said Tuesday.
The casualty rate for Guardsmen is low compared with any previous armed conflict, Lt. Gen. Steven Blum said during a breakfast with reporters. He said he recognizes that every death is a tragedy. "But I lose, unfortunately, more people through private automobile accidents and motorcycle accidents over the same period of time," he said.
"It is dangerous," he said, but "it is misrepresented, how dangerous it really is."
Surveys of Americans of recruiting age and their parents have shown that fear of being killed or wounded in Iraq is one of the major reasons that young people are choosing other careers after high school.
Detroit Free Press 13/7/05
Iraq Shiites call for troops out
Radicals within Iraq's Shiite majority community launched a petition for the withdrawal of US-led troops, which they said was drawing support from across the sectarian divide.
Supporters of firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr, who led a bloody six-month uprising against the coalition last year, said they were aiming to secure one million signatures inside four days.
"We started this morning and so far we have had a good response, not only from Shiites - Sunnis and Christians have also been coming to show their support" said Ibrahim al-Jaberi, and official in Sadr's movement.
More than 400,000 people had signed the petition by midday on Monday. The petition, which will be submitted to the Iraqi government and United Nations, reads: "I hereby declare my rejection of the forces of occupation and demand their withdrawal"
Yahoo news 11/7/05
Quieter than bombs, but just as deadly
Insurgent sabotage, years of neglect and a reconstruction effort halted because of violence have turned Iraq's water supply into a stinking trickle, killing Iraqis as surely as bullets and bombs.
Most of those who die are small children. "My son is suffering from dehydration," says Lamia Khudier, clutching tiny baby Akeel at Sadr City's Health Clinic Number 6. "It's the water. The water is dirty. It smells. Please, fix the water. It is disgusting."
Baghdad's pipes are broken. Fresh water and raw sewage mix underground. Water pressure is low or non-existent, forcing Baghdadis to use their own pumps to suck out foul water.
The clinic's director, Ziad Nima Salman, says most children in the slum suffer from dehydration, diarrhoea and vomiting. Babies are fed milk made by mixing powder with putrid water.
His clinic has treated twice as many patients with hepatitis A and typhoid in just the first six months of this year than in all of 2004.
Iraq's water supply was probably the single most important victim of the overall neglect of infrastructure during more than a decade of UN-imposed economic sanctions.
Reuters 12/7/05
Media death toll still rising
In the last three weeks, American soldiers have killed at least four journalists in Iraq - each while the reporter was driving his car.
These killings bring the total number of journalists killed by U.S. forces in Iraq to 17, according to the International Federation of Journalists.
The most important Arab media outlet, al-Jazeera television, remains banned from Iraq.
Anti-war.com 12/7/05
Iraqi suspects suffocate in heat
Nine building workers have died in Iraq after being arrested on suspicion of insurgent activity and then left in a closed metal container.
Three men survived the ordeal, police sources said, despite being left for 14 hours in the burning Iraqi summer heat.
They had apparently been caught up in a firefight between US troops and Iraqi gunmen, and were detained after taking an injured colleague to hospital.
Police commandos face numerous claims that they abuse and torture detainees.
BBC News 11/7/05
US, Iraq, sign pact to boost trade
The United States and the U.S.-backed government in Iraq have signed a formal agreement aimed at boosting economic ties between the two countries, the U.S. Trade Representative's office said on Monday.
The pact, which could lead to a free trade agreement between Washington and Baghdad, was signed during a meeting of the U.S.-Iraq Joint Commission on Reconstruction and Economic Development in Amman, Jordan.
The trade and investment framework agreement, or TIFA, establishes a joint council to work on a wide range of commercial issues. "Iraq is making a major effort to reintegrate into the international economy and the meetings of the joint council should assist Iraq in this important endeavor," Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Ashley Wills said in a statement.
U.S. exports to Iraq surpassed $856 million in 2004, in the first full year after sanctions were lifted. Major items were goods to help rebuild the country such as generators, telecommunications equipment and trucks. Spare parts for the U.S. military were another leading export, as well as consumer and household products such as cars, clothing, TVs, toys and sporting goods.
The United States imported $8.5 billion worth of mostly oil from Iraq last year. The Mideast country was a major market for U.S. agricultural goods before the first Gulf War in 1991.
Reuters 11/7/05
US begins new offensive in Falluja
The US military has launched an operation against insurgents around Fallujah only six months after its officials proclaimed the city "the safest place in Iraq".
The initiative, launched on Thursday but publicised only at the weekend, involved hundreds of marines supported by 100 Iraqi soldiers sweeping through the fertile farmland and villages south of the city.
There is growing concern that the city's pacification has not proved as final as hoped for in November. Then, the Americans' biggest urban offensive since Vietnam forced out the militia who exported violence from Fallujah to the rest of Iraq.
Checkpoints were established at roads leading into the city yesterday. Marines searched every car and person entering. In the months after November's assault, attacks on American and Iraqi security forces fell sharply. But in recent weeks there have been regular reports of bombings and small arms fire. Two weeks ago four female marines were among six American personnel who died when their convoy was struck by a suicide car bomb just outside the city.
News.Telegraph 11/7/05
Iraqi rebels set main oil refinery on fire
Iraq rebels fired mortars at Baghdad's main oil refinery in a renewed assault on key infrastructure as Egyptian diplomats prepared to leave the city following the murder of Cairo's kidnapped top envoy.
A huge fire broke out at the Dura oil refinery on the outskirts of the capital after it was hit by two mortar rounds on Friday, oil ministry spokesperson Assem Jihad said. A total of 150 firefighters battled the blaze for more than two hours before putting it out.
The Dura refinery, which can handle about 100 000 barrels a day, supplies Baghdad with most of its petrol and fuels a key power plant. The capital's water supply has also come under mounting attack. On Thursday, insurgents bombed a key main, leaving half the city without water at the height of summer in the third such attack in as many weeks.
Independent on Line, South Africa, 10/7/05
Police fire on demonstrators
Police opened fire on 1,000 demonstrators today at the seat of the provincial government in Saddam Hussein's hometown who were protesting the killing of the local council's head official, authorities said. At least four were wounded.
The protesters demanded the resignation of the deputy governor and police chief because they believe their clan was responsible for yesterday's killing of Ali Ghalib Ibrahim, who belongs to a rival clan, Mayor Wael Ibrahim Ali said. "He was fighting the corruption in the city council and that's why they assassinated him," Ali said during the demonstration. Police guarding the provincial government building first fired warning shots into the air followed by volleys into the crowd, police Lt Khudhir Ali said.
Ireland Online, 7/7/05