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News archives for the week ending 18th July 2008

US abandons Afghan outpost

U.S. troops abandoned a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan where militants killed nine of their comrades this week, officials said Wednesday, in another sign of the struggle facing foreign and Afghan security forces strung out along the mountainous border. Elsewhere in the frontier region, NATO launched artillery and helicopter strikes in Pakistan after coming under insurgent rocket fire, officials said.

The violence is another indication of the growing strength of the Taliban-led insurgency, especially in Afghanistan's east, where the outpost near the village of Wanat was breached by militants on Sunday. Nine Americans were killed in the deadliest incident for U.S. forces in three years.

Omar Sami, spokesman for the Nuristan provincial governor, said American and Afghan soldiers left the base Tuesday.

Associated Press, 16/7/08

Administration forgetful over false tales of heroism

Widespread - and, we suspect, self-induced - amnesia among high officials of the Bush administration and its Defense Department has made it impossible for House investigators to determine whether top officials helped spread two bogus stories of heroism used to bolster support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It now looks as if we may never know who kept stoking the impression that Cpl. Pat Tillman, an Army Ranger who became an icon of the administration's war on terror, had been killed by the enemy in Afghanistan (in a battle that won him a questionable Silver Star) long after the military knew he had been killed accidentally by fire from American forces. Nor are we apt to find out who promoted the false story that Pfc. Jessica Lynch had been captured in Iraq after a Rambo-like performance in which she emptied her weapon and was wounded in battle. In fact, she had been badly hurt in a vehicle accident during an ambush and was being well cared for by the Iraqis.

Although the administration made a show of cooperating with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Democratic investigators were frustrated by the professed inability of top officials to recall who knew what, and when. There was also a puzzling absence of documents that logic suggests should have existed. In some 1,500 pages of White House e-mail messages and other documents about Corporal Tillman, there is not a single mention of fratricide.

New York Times, 16/7/08

Killer Marine 'eager to get back to work'

A Marine hearing officer Monday recommended against sending a Marine sniper to a court-martial in the shooting deaths of two Syrians and the wounding of two others in Iraq. Instead, the officer, Capt. Jeffery King, recommended that a dereliction of duty charge against Sgt. Johnny Winnick be handled through nonjudicial punishment and that manslaughter and assault charges be dropped. In nonjudicial punishment, the harshest penalty would be a demotion and a reprimand.

Winnick believed the Syrians were planting a roadside bomb when they stopped their truck at a spot where Marines had suspected such a bomb might be placed. Winnick opened fire and ordered his team to continue firing as they charged toward the downed men. No evidence was uncovered that the four men had been planting a bomb.

"Our Marines deserve the benefit of the doubt when they make good-faith decisions to use force in self-defense during combat," Daniel Conway, one of Winnick's attorneys, said after the hearing officer's report was released. "Sgt. Winnick is a stand-up Marine, and he's eager to get back to work."

Los Angeles Times, 15/7/08

Brown ends Iraq withdrawal hope

Gordon Brown dashed hopes that he was about to announce a withdrawal of British troops from Iraq when he rejected calls by Labour MPs and the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, for a clear timetable to pull out. "I cannot set an artificial timetable," the Prime Minister said yesterday.

Independent, 15/7/08

Obama reaffirms withdrawal position

Barack Obama is strongly reaffirming his stance on pulling combat troops out of Iraq in his first 16 months in office, if elected president, emboldened by the Iraqi government saying last week it supports a timetable for U.S. forces to leave.

"The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity," Obama wrote today in a New York Times op-ed. "We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States."

Maliki's comments have left Obama increasing focused on the withdrawal part of his Iraq strategy, instead of the troops he would leave there to maintain stability, which he had emphasized in the last few weeks as the general election has started.

Obama still has not said how large of a force he would leave in Iraq, as ten of thousands of the forces in Iraq are not "combat troops" and could remain in the country even if Obama removed all combat forces.

Washington Post, 14/7/08

Iraqis may close green zone

The green zone of Baghdad, a highly fortified slice of American suburbia on the banks of the Tigris river, may soon be handed over to Iraqi control if the increasingly assertive government of Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, gets its way.

A senior Iraqi government official said this weekend the enclave should revert to Iraqi control by the end of the year. "We think that by the end of 2008 all the zones in Baghdad should be integrated into the city," said Ali Dabbagh, the government's spokesman. "The American soldiers should be based in agreed camps outside the cities and population areas."

The green zone, which was built after the US-led invasion in 2003 as a safe administrative hub, has long infuriated Iraqis. It sliced off neighbouring districts from one another. Mortars fall in the area but the kidnappings, car bombs and lack of water and electricity in the rest of the country seem remote to its inhabitants. Many American visitors never leave except to fly by helicopter to Baghdad airport.

The call for the "liberation" of the zone reflects Maliki's growing confidence after military victories that have prompted him to declare that terrorism has been defeated.

Sunday Times, 13/7/08

Bush gives Israel 'amber light' for Iran attack

President George W Bush has told the Israeli government that he may be prepared to approve a future military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down, according to a senior Pentagon official.

Despite the opposition of his own generals and widespread scepticism that America is ready to risk the military, political and economic consequences of an airborne strike on Iran, the president has given an "amber light" to an Israeli plan to attack Iran's main nuclear sites with long-range bombing sorties, the official told The Sunday Times.

"Amber means get on with your preparations, stand by for immediate attack and tell us when you're ready," the official said. But the Israelis have also been told that they can expect no help from American forces and will not be able to use US military bases in Iraq for logistical support.

"It's really all down to the Israelis," the Pentagon official added. "This administration will not attack Iran. This has already been decided. But the president is really preoccupied with the nuclear threat against Israel and I know he doesn't believe that anything but force will deter Iran."

The official added that Israel had not so far presented Bush with a convincing military proposal. "If there is no solid plan, the amber will never turn to green," he said.

Sunday Times, 13/7/08

Obama would escalate Afghan war

Senator Barack Obama is proposing that the United States deploy about 10,000 more troops to battle resurgent forces in Afghanistan, a plan intended to shift the American military focus from the Iraq war to the marked rise in violence from the Taliban.

"As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan," Mr. Obama wrote in an Op-Ed article published on Monday in The New York Times. "We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there."

New Yort Times, 14/7/08

Iraq rejects agreement with US

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have abandoned efforts to conclude a comprehensive agreement governing the long-term status of U.S troops in Iraq before the end of the Bush presidency, according to senior U.S. officials, effectively leaving talks over an extended U.S. military presence there to the next administration.

In place of the formal status-of-forces agreement negotiators had hoped to complete by July 31, the two governments are now working on a "bridge" document, more limited in both time and scope, that would allow basic U.S. military operations to continue beyond the expiration of a U.N. mandate at the end of the year.

The failure of months of negotiations over the more detailed accord -- blamed on both the Iraqi refusal to accept U.S. terms and the complexity of the task -- deals a blow to the Bush administration's plans to leave in place a formal military architecture in Iraq that could last for years.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his political allies have come under intense domestic pressure to reject any perceived infringement on Iraqi sovereignty. Maliki, who last week publicly insisted on a withdrawal timeline, wants to frame the agreement as outlining the terms for "Americans leaving Iraq" rather than the conditions under which they will stay, said the U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because U.S.-Iraqi negotiations are ongoing.

Washington Post, 13/7/08

Official: UK in Afghanistan for 'a generation'

Afghanistan poses a greater challenge than Iraq for the United States and its allies and will require a commitment from the international community for a generation, Britain's defence secretary said on Thursday.

Des Browne, in the United States to mark the 50th anniversary of a US-British mutual defence agreement, also said the next US administration will need to make NATO's transformation from a Cold War organization a priority to help ensure long-term success in Afghanistan. "I have no doubt that it will be a longer haul in Afghanistan," Browne said in a speech at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

Daily Times, Pakistan, 12/7/08

Women in Iraq fight for rights

Every time I go to work driving my car, I look around me to count how many other women are driving their cars like me. They're always hard to find.

After sectarian violence increased after the Samarra shrine bombing in February 2006, fundamentalist insurgents and Shiite militias started to forbid women to drive cars, saying it was unacceptable according to Islamic law. They threatened to kidnap women drivers or kill them and leave their bodies by the road. They also said women would have a similar fate if they didn't wear the traditional Islamic clothing - an abaya and a hijab (head scarf).

So women, including me, stopped driving. I stopped driving even in my neighborhood, which made me feel depressed because I felt like I had lost one of my rights. I had always worn a hijab, but women who didn't started to wear one to protect themselves.

Not driving affected my work as a reporter and it was difficult to use other means of transportation, such as taxis or buses. I couldn't take my children to school or pick them up, or even go shopping alone.

A parliament member I was interviewing on women's rights asked me if I drive a car. I said I do now, since security has improved, but I had stopped for two years. He said angrily, "That's what they want. They want to freeze women's progress in Iraq."

Wall Street Journal, 11/7/08

Israeli warplanes use US basis in Iraq

Iraqi Defense Ministry officials told local media on Friday that Israeli warplanes operating out of a US airbase are conducting exercises in their country for a possible strike on neighboring Iran.

According to the sources, the Israeli planes enter Iraq via Jordanian airspace during the night, and then land at a US military base near the Iraqi city of Hadita. If Israel ultimately decides to launch a aerial strike against Iran's main uranium enrichment facility, taking off from Hadita would cut the flight time to the target down to about five minutes.

Israeli media was unable to verify the Iraqi report, but Israeli officials have admitted in recent weeks to conducting military maneuvers in preparation for a possible strike on Iran, including a major air force exercise over Greece last month.

Israel Today, 11/7/08