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News archives for the week ending 23rd January 2009

Drop in oil price hits Iraq economy

Iraq will have dramatically less money to spend than expected because of plunging oil prices, a situation that's already forced the country to slash rebuilding plans by 40 percent.

U.S. commanders warn that without speedy economic development and reconstruction, security could be at risk in a country with about 38 percent unemployed or working part time.

Newsday, 23/1/09

Ambassador warns of hasty Iraq exit

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker on Thursday warned against a hasty withdrawal of American forces from Iraq and offered a sobering assessment of the country despite what he called its "remarkable transition" in the last two years.

Obama would like to have all the troops out by spring 2010. An agreement forged by the Bush administration and the Iraqi government calls for the last troops to leave by the end of 2011, though it is subject to change.

Whatever happens, the ambassador said that if it were to be a "precipitous withdrawal, that could be very dangerous." Crocker said he was confident that was not the direction Obama was going.

Los Angeles Times, 23/1/09

Obama will listen to commanders on Iraq

President Obama gave his national security team on Wednesday a new mission to end the war in Iraq, nearly six years after United States-led forces invaded, but he held off ordering a troop withdrawal right away to hear concerns and options from his military commanders.

“I asked the military leadership to engage in additional planning necessary to execute a responsible military drawdown from Iraq,” Mr. Obama said in a written statement after the meeting.

His opposition to the war was the original foundation of his presidential race, and ending it stands as perhaps the most salient test of his commitment to his campaign promises. Yet fulfilling his pledge also could put him at odds from the start with generals who worry that acting too quickly may jeopardize the progress achieved since President Bush sent in more forces and General Petraeus revamped the strategy two years ago.

Military planners have prepared a series of possible withdrawal plans that, in the words of one official, “range from conservative to aggressive.” One of them matches the president’s 16-month timetable, although Mr. Obama always envisioned a substantial “residual force” remaining beyond that to train Iraqi forces and hunt terrorist cells.

New York Times, 21/1/09

US forces protect anti-Iran terrorists

The Iraqi government this week accused an Iranian opposition group of planning a suicide attack against Iraqi troops, a possible prelude to decisive government action to close the group's camp in Iraq and expel its members.

The fate of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, has long been an irritant in relations between the government of Iraq, which has built close ties with Iran, and the U.S. government. The MEK received support from Saddam Hussein's government and has been designated a terrorist organization by the State Department, but the U.S. military has protected the group's base in Iraq, known as Camp Ashraf, since the 2003 invasion. U.S. officials credit the MEK with providing information about Iran's nuclear program.

The United States handed nominal control of the outer perimeter of the camp to the Iraqi government Jan. 1, when a new security agreement between the United States and Iraq came into effect. The agreement gives Iraq greater say in security matters, but U.S. officials said they intend to keep a military contingent at the camp to help the Iraqi government honor its commitments to treat the group's members humanely.

Washington Post, 21/1/09

Hutton: Afghanistan is national security priority

“We are here in Afghanistan at the request of the Afghan Govt, under the terms of the UN Council security resolution acting in a way which is vital to UK national security because we have to make sure that Afghanistan does not fall back into the hands of the extremists and the terrorists. And if that were to happen we know that we would see more terrorist violence on the streets of the UK. So given that this is a national security priority for the UK it is right and proper that we are making the kind of contribution that we are in Afghanistan.”

Defence Secretary John Hutton, speaking on Radio 4 Today programme, 20/1/09

Obama must redefine victory in Afghanistan

Barack Obama says he will make Afghanistan the central front in his fight against terrorism but the incoming U.S. president will have to scale back the war aims he inherits from George W. Bush and redefine success.

Since 2005, a revived Taliban insurgency has made growing inroads against understaffed U.S., NATO and Afghan forces, while President Hamid Karzai's ineffective government has been mired in corruption and a booming illegal drugs trade. The most Obama can hope to achieve in a mountainous country that wore down British and Soviet invaders is probably an ethnic power-sharing pact, including tribes that now help the Taliban, in hopes of keeping al Qaeda at bay once Western forces leave.

That is far from assured and would require cooperation from a weak Pakistani government transfixed by tension with India.

Asked in a Reuters interview last July what would constitute success in Afghanistan, Obama said: "I think our goals have to be very modest but they will still be very difficult to meet. We should want a functioning Afghan government that can maintain its own security and territorial integrity."

Reuters, 19/1/09

Iraq's political balance shaped by the occupation

Iraq's provincial elections this month promise to redefine the constellation of power in a country in transition, contested by thousands of candidates on hundreds of lists, some represented by a single person. But six years of war, often pivoting on the pragmatic choices of U.S. soldiers and diplomats, have empowered sometimes unlikely forces -- Sunni tribes, former insurgents and religious Shiite parties -- in ways that will indelibly shape the kind of political system the United States leaves behind.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the south, the soul of Iraq's Shiite majority. Power and patronage -- the kind of favoritism that guarantees jobs in the police and army and delivers largess to pilgrims and tribes -- give a decisive edge to Shiite Islamic parties in the balloting set for Jan. 31, cementing power they have enjoyed in the region since they inherited Saddam Hussein's rule in 2003, with American and British help.

They seem certain to retain that power, even as a river of discontent as long as the Euphrates flows through the south, which is rife with complaints that no one -- not the religious parties, and certainly not the weak secular forces or technocrats on the outside looking in -- offers the representation that many people seek.

Washington Post, 19/1/09

Obama seeks advice from McCain

Not long after Senator John McCain returned last month from an official trip to Iraq and Pakistan, he received a phone call from President-elect Barack Obama. Mr. Obama said he wanted Mr. McCain’s advice, people in each camp briefed on the conversation said. What did he see on the trip? What did he learn?

It was just one step in a post-election courtship that historians say has few modern parallels, beginning with a private meeting in Mr. Obama’s transition office in Chicago just two weeks after the vote. On Monday night, Mr. McCain will be the guest of honor at a black-tie dinner celebrating Mr. Obama’s inauguration.

Over the last three months, Mr. Obama has quietly consulted Mr. McCain about many of the new administration’s potential nominees to top national security jobs and about other issues. Mr. McCain, meanwhile, has told colleagues “that many of these appointments he would have made himself,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and a close McCain friend.

New York Times, 18/1/09

Taliban influence spreads in Pakistan

In a northern valley where Taliban guerrillas have been waging a bloody war against security forces for more than a year, hard-liners have blown up or burned down some 170 schools, most of them for girls. Then in December, a warning by militants in a pirate radio broadcast: All schools for girls should close by Jan. 15.

This week, an association representing 400 private schools for boys and girls in the Swat valley said they would all remain closed after the winter break because of the threat. "Since the Taliban's warning, attendance in our schools has reduced by almost half" to some 20,000 students, association president Ziauddin Yousufzai told The Associated Press on Friday.

"From today, we have closed our schools as we cannot run our education system in this insecure environment," he said.

Associated Press, 18/1/09

NATO chief blames Afghan leadership

NATO's top official took issue on Sunday with Afghanistan's sluggish forward progress, placing blame more on the country's weak leadership than on the Taliban-led insurgency.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the basic problem in Afghanistan is not too much Taliban but the country has too little central control. The longer it takes to see progress, he said, the longer the military operation remains in place at a "real cost in lives."

"But we have paid enough, in blood and treasure, to demand that the Afghan government take more concrete and vigorous action to root out corruption and increase efficiency, even where that means difficult political choices," Scheffer said.

Reuters, 18/1/09

Momentum builds for self-rule in southern Iraq

The country's biggest Shiite party is hoping for a big win in elections across the oil-rich south to jump-start its campaign for a self-ruled region — a move that would transform Iraq and, critics say, give Iran its biggest prize since the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

To reach that goal, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council needs to win control of Najaf — which it wants as a future capital of an autonomous southern Iraq — when voters across the country choose members of ruling provincial councils Jan. 31.

But the Supreme Council faces strong opposition from other Shiite groups, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party and followers of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Those groups fear regional self-rule, modeled after the Kurdish autonomous area in the north, would weaken Iraq, open the door to expanded Iranian influence and threaten the existence of the Iraqi state.

Zoheir al-Hakim, a senior Supreme Council official in Najaf, predicted a comfortable win in this urban center of Shiite learning about 100 miles south of Baghdad.

"Creating a region in the south is our right by law and under the constitution," al-Hakim said. "Our loyal masses will take on anyone who tries to take this right away from us."

Associated Press, 17/1/09

US will not close Kyrgyzstan base...

The United States has no plans to close its military airbase in Kyrgyzstan, the U.S. regional military chief said Saturday.

A source close to Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's office told Reuters on January 13 that the Central Asian state was preparing a statement announcing the closure of the base, a key U.S. staging post for its operations in nearby Afghanistan.

But U.S. Central Command chief General David Petraeus, visiting Tajikistan as part of a regional tour that also takes him to Kyrgyzstan this weekend, said the United States had no plans to stop using the airbase.

"We look forward to discussing the future of the base there and we certainly have no plans to change anything frankly," he told reporters.

Reuters, 17/1/09

...but will pay more

A top US general said Monday that Washington wanted to boost aid to Kyrgyzstan, after reports that the central Asian nation would close a US military airbase used to support operations in Afghanistan.

General David Petraeus, commander of US Central Command, told reporters that he had met with Kyrgyz officials and discussed the importance of the Manas airbase, as the United States moves to step up its military presence in Afghanistan.

"I noted our desire to increase the benefits that accrue to your country from Manas and the other activities," he said, noting that Kyrgyzstan received 150 million dollars worth of US assistance per year.

AFP, 19/1/09

Maliki aims to build power base in provincial elections

The stern face of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki glares out from campaign posters plastered across Iraq these days. He is not on any ballot in the provincial elections scheduled for Jan. 31. But in agreeing to be the public image of the Coalition of the State of Law, a group of candidates running primarily on his record, Maliki has effectively turned the contest into a referendum on his rule.

The elections will be the most crucial test so far of Maliki's attempt to bolster the central government's authority -- and his own. If he succeeds in establishing a nationwide base of local politicians ready to support him and the idea of centralized government, Maliki will have cemented his three-year transformation from little-known lawmaker to the most powerful Iraqi statesman since Saddam Hussein.

His growing popularity has threatened the authority of his longtime allies, including Kurds and fellow Shiites, as has the growing perception that he is becoming a strongman. Critics fear that he will expand his political strength in the coming elections.

Washington Post, 17/1/09

US and Israel sign anti-Hamas agreement

The United States and Israel are signing an agreement intended to assure the Jewish state that Hamas militants will not be able to rearm if it agrees to a cease-fire to end the fighting in Gaza, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday.

Rice's chief spokesman, Sean McCormack, said later that the memorandum is about two and a half pages and is "a very general framework, underpinned by a number of understandings."

Among the understandings, he said, is a U.S. commitment of "resources, wherewithal and technology necessary in order to fulfill our part of the bargain. The essential element of this is to inhibit the ability of Hamas to rearm."

Associated Press, 16/1/09

UK urges escalation of Afghan war

Britain urged European allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, adding pressure for commitments that are set to increase after President-elect Barack Obama takes office next week.

“We want the NATO alliance to step up to the plate,” Defense Secretary John Hutton told journalists today in London. “It is not credible for the Europeans to say that America can go on doing the all heavy lifting.”

“For NATO, the struggle in Afghanistan is a defining issue,” Hutton said. “NATO has to stand together and I don’t believe that all members are doing that sufficiently.”

The U.K., whose 8,900 troops are the second-biggest foreign contingent in Afghanistan, may bolster that force when its mission in Iraq ends later this year.

Bloomberg, 15/1/09