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News archives for the week ending 16th July 2010

US hands over prison to Iraq

The U.S. military handed over its last prison in Iraq on Thursday, ending an ignominious chapter of the 2003 U.S. invasion that saw thousands detained without charge and triggered outrage after disclosures of abuse.

Nearly 90,000 people have been rounded up by U.S. forces in the last seven years as suspected Sunni Islamist insurgents or members of Shi'ite militia. Never charged, they were held for months or years in prisons like Cropper, or Camp Bucca, a sprawling compound in the southern desert near Kuwait that was closed down last year.

Disclosures in 2004 that U.S. jailers had abused and sexually humiliated Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison on Baghdad's outskirts outraged many Iraqis and may have contributed to a growing insurgency at the time.

Several journalists, including a Reuters photographer and cameraman, have spent months in U.S. military detention without ever being told what they were suspected of.

Reuters, 15/7/10

Blair ordered rendition to Guantanamo

Secret Government documents have reportedly suggested Tony Blair ordered diplomats to prevent the return to Britain of a UK national detained as a terror suspect and later sent to Guantanamo Bay.

The papers, released as part of a court case being brought by former Guantanamo detainees, show it was decided early in 2002 that the transfer of UK nationals to the US military camp in Cuba was "the best way" to meet the Government's counter-terrorism goals.

And they reveal concern within the Foreign Office that Martin Mubanga's right to consular access was breached as a result of direct interference from 10 Downing Street and that the Government would be "open to charges of concealed extradition".

Another document, published in The Guardian, appears to record an interrogation attended by UK agents at Bagram air base in Afghanistan where detainee Omar Deghayes complained of being treated in a "barbaric" fashion by his American captors using leg braces and "lock-down positions".

Press Association, 15/7/10

Massive increase in number of US troops wounded in Afghanistan

According to numbers compiled by the Defense Manpower Data Center, 2,000 Americans have been wounded in Afghanistan through July 3. That is almost as many as the 2,139 that were wounded in 2009. The 2009 wounded figures were themselves a three-fold increase over the previous year.

In another alarming statistic, four times as many American service members have been wounded in the first six months of 2010 as were wounded in the same time frame a year ago.

Through the end of June, 1,922 American service members have been wounded in Afghanistan. That compares to 485 wounded through the same time period last year.

ABC News, 15/7/10

'We're all in a lot more danger than we were'

Even before the overnight suicide attack in Kandahar that killed three US soldiers and five Afghan civilians, the view from patients and doctors at Mirwais hospital in Kandahar – the only trauma center for four of Afghanistan’s most violent provinces – was that the war isn’t going well.

Doctors last week said they’ve been flooded with Afghan casualties in recent months, and that surgeons have been forced to keep back-to-back 24-hour shifts, as the US-led surge designed to improve security and living conditions for Afghans continues to build.

So far, the results in the eyes of Afghans have been scant, with many in the city and its surroundings saying they’ve been put in greater danger by the effort.

“The Taliban have been around us for years, but all they ever asked for was a little food or water when they were around,” Hekmatullah, a young farmer, says from his hospital bed. He received a leg wound when a joint US-Afghan patrol got into a firefight with the Taliban across the field he was tending in Zabul province. “We’re all in a lot more danger than we were.”

That’s a common sentiment across much of the south. Last week, a delegation of tribal elders trooped to the provincial council chaired by Ahmad Wali Karzai, President Hamid Karzai’s brother, to complain about a NATO-built police checkpoint in their neighborhood, which they said was putting their families in danger and disrupting their lives.

Christian Science Monitor, 14/7/10

Western intervention stokes violence in Somalia

On Tuesday, senior US officials got on the phone with reporters to give a background briefing on the coordinated terrorist bombings that killed 76 people in the African nation of Uganda on Sunday as they were watching the World Cup.

The officials described Somalia as a “complicated and challenging environment,” and that’s putting it mildly. It is made of fiercely loyal and clashing clans, and has had 14 governments between 1991 and 2010. It now has a Western-backed transitional government that controls only a few blocks of the capital city, Mogadishu, thanks to the presence of about 5,000 African Union peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi.

Al Shabab is fighting to turn Somalia into a state ruled by a harsh interpretation of Islamic law, and it controls the two biggest ports in the south. Its stated reason for the Uganda attack was to force foreign troops out of Somalia. It was a fringe movement until 2006, when Ethiopian troops, with US backing, intervened and instated the transitional government.

Indeed, some experts point out that it’s the foreign intervention that has stoked Al Shabab and turned it into a full-blown insurgency that made it open to Al Qaeda’s funds and training. In the 1990s, Al Qaeda tried to put down roots in Somalia, but it was perceived as foreign and Arab and couldn’t break into the clan system. Until recently, Taliban-like fundamentalism was a stranger to this country of Sufi Muslims with moderate religious views.

Christian Science Monitor, 14/7/10

US increases spending on nuclear weapons

Even as it touts U.S. efforts to sharply reduce its number of nuclear warheads, the Obama administration plans to increase spending on the aging nuclear weapons infrastructure to levels reminiscent of the Cold War, a new budget document shows.

A 20-year spending plan from the agency that manages the nuclear arsenal shows that the administration wants to hike nuclear weapons spending to an average of about $8 billion a year in coming years, compared to recent spending levels of $6 billion to $7 billion a year.

The National Nuclear Security Administration plan is drawing criticism from some arms control groups, who contend the increased spending is unjustified and may prompt other world powers to doubt President Obama's pledge to reduce American reliance on nuclear weapons.

Los Angeles Times, 14/7/10

Most Americans think war is going badly

Most Americans continue to say things are going badly for the U.S. in Afghanistan, and those assessments are more pessimistic now than they were just two months ago, a new CBS News poll shows. Most Americans also want a timetable for withdrawal from the country.

Today, the poll finds, 62 percent of Americans say the war is going badly, up from 49 percent in May. Just 31 percent say the war in Afghanistan is going well.

Nine years into the war, 33 percent of Americans say they do not want large numbers of U.S. troops in Afghanistan for another year. Twenty-three percent of Americans say they are willing to have troops stay there for one or two more years.

CBS News, 13/7/10

High death count continues in Afghanistan

Coalition troop deaths in Afghanistan continued to add up in what has been a hot and bloody struggle, with eight American and four British troops slain over the last 48 hours.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force confirmed the eight American deaths. Five died Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, one in a bombing and the others in a small-arms attack. Three were killed Tuesday as they repelled an insurgent attack on a police base in Kandahar city.

The British Defence Ministry reported four deaths in Helmand province -- that of a Marine shot during a foot patrol in the Sangin district of Helmand province and those of three soldiers who were killed in a premeditated attack by a member of the Afghan National Army.

The death toll is on pace to match the killings recorded in June, the bloodiest month so far for U.S. and international troops during the Afghan war.

CNN, 14/7/10

Public 'want rethink on Trident'

The majority of the British public and selected "opinion-formers" want government to reconsider the like for like replacement of the existing nuclear deterrent, according to a YouGov survey.

The survey, for thinktank Chatham House, showed that only 22 per cent of around 900 "opinion-formers" contacted and 29 per cent of the 2,500 members of the general public surveyed were in favour of continuing with a like-for-like or "broadly comparable" replacement for the existing deterrent.

Seventy two per cent of the opinion formers – chosen from business, Whitehall, the media and the voluntary sector – were in favour of exploring cheaper alternatives or scrapping the nuclear deterrent while 50 per cent of the members of the public interviewed were of the same opinion.

The like-for-like replacement of Trident looks set to go ahead, however, as the Conservative Party did not concede for the deterrent to be included in the Strategic Defence and Security Review as proposed by the Liberal Democrats during the general election campaign. Instead the two coalition parties compromised, with a Trident value review being conducted to look for areas where the cost of the nuclear deterrent could be brought down.

Defence management, 13/7/10

Still no government in Iraq

Iraq’s Parliament has met once, for 18 minutes on June 14, since the close outcome of national elections more than four months ago created a political stalemate.

On Monday parliamentary leaders delayed a session scheduled for this week, raising questions about whether their inaction is now breaking the law. Under the Constitution, a new president should be chosen within 30 days of the first session.

“It is not legal,” said Hayder al-Abadi, a spokesman for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s State of Law political alliance. “It reflects the inability of the slates and blocs to agree.”

New York Times, 12/7/10

Non-military options over Iraq neglected says diplomat

Dealing with Saddam Hussein through sanctions and other methods was a "very available" alternative to military action, a former UK diplomat has said.

Carne Ross, who resigned over the war, told the Iraq inquiry that the UK did not work hard enough to make its pre-2003 policy of containment work. Officials trying to argue for this approach felt "very beleaguered".

There was no "significant intelligence" to back up beliefs Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, he added.

BBC News, 12/7/10

China outflanks US in Pakistan

Asif Ali Zardari, the president of Pakistan, has concluded his fifth visit to China since he came to power in 2008.

Amid much mutual backslapping and loud calls from the Pakistani president for more Chinese investment in his country's ravenous energy sector, Zardari and Hu Jintao, his Chinese counterpart, have stayed almost silent on the biggest of their shared concerns.

Neither side was expected to trumpet their blockbuster civilian nuclear agreement, which could knock another hole in the developing world's non-proliferation regime and lead Islamabad farther down the road away from Washington and towards Beijing.

"Five to six years from now, I think China-Pakistan relations will definitely outweigh US-Pakistan relations, especially because China is willing to invest in sectors outside the military," Rohit Honawar, a Pakistan analyst for the Mumbai-based Strategic Foresight Group, said.

Al Jazeera, 12/7/10

Arms sales 'reflect US idealism'

Washington's arms sales to Taiwan shows that the United States' foreign policy still upholds idealism over pragmatism, the top U.S. diplomat in Taiwan said in a speech Saturday.

"From the Machiavellian point of view, it's easy to say we're not selling arms anymore to Taiwan," said William Stanton, director of American Institute in Taiwan, the U.S. representative office in Taiwan in the absence of official diplomatic ties.

But he said arms sales to Taiwan went beyond such geopolitical calculations and reflected the U.S.' continued efforts to strike a balance.

Focus Taiwan, 10/7/10

Britain strengthens links with Turkey

British Foreign Secretary, William Hague and Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu showed a united front at Thursday press conference, the latter emphasising the “common objectives” both nations share.

Turkish Minister went on to describe future trading agreements and plans to increase commerce from $9 billion to $20 billion. His desire to establish the first Turkish/British University in his country followed Hague’s declaration that Britain would “strongly support” Turkey’s membership of the EU, a measure which would help strengthen the ties between the nations.

Positive relations between the two are cited as evidence for a “new, distinctly British Foreign Policy” which Hague attributes to the new Coalition Government.

Regarding international affairs, the Foreign Secretary recognised Turkey’s value as a fellow NATO ally and claimed, “We value Turkey’s advice and opinions on issues such as Afghanistan, Iran and the Middle East peace process, and the Western Balkans.”

The Muslim News, 9/7/10

Petraeus reviews rules of engagement

With insurgent attacks increasing across Afghanistan, frustration about rules of engagement is growing among troops, and among some members of Congress. Addressing those concerns will be one of the most complicated initial tasks facing Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new commander of U.S. and NATO forces in the country.

The controversy pits the desire of top military officers to limit civilian casualties, something they regard as an essential part of the overall counterinsurgency campaign, against a widespread feeling among rank-and-file troops that restrictions on air and mortar strikes are placing them at unnecessary risk and allowing Taliban fighters to operate with impunity.

During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Petraeus promised to "look very hard" at the rules of engagement. He has since asked Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the top operational commander in Afghanistan, to review the rules. The examination will include discussions with troops around the country, military officials said.

CBS News, 9/7/10

More than 65 dead in Pakistan bombing

Suicide bomb explosions tore through a busy market Friday in a volatile tribal region of Pakistan, killing more than 65 people in an attack that illustrated the Taliban's potency despite several recent military offensives against the insurgents.

The blasts took place in the village of Yakka Ghund outside the offices of a senior administrator for the Mohmand tribal region, police said. At least 112 people were injured.

The intended target remained unclear. A large crowd lining up for new national identity cards had gathered at government offices in Yakka Ghund's main bazaar, and the bazaar itself was filled with midmorning customers. Government offices and bustling markets often are targeted in Taliban suicide bombings.

However, Pakistani television channels reported that members of a local lashkar, or anti-Taliban tribal militia, was meeting nearby when the attackers hit and may have been the intended target.

Los Angeles Times, 9/7/10