These are the archives for the week ending 24th August 2007
Bush hails army as "greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known"
Making it clear he will resist congressional pressure next month for an early withdrawal, President Bush signalled that US troops, whom he hailed as the "greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known", will be in Iraq as long as he is president.
Guardian, 23/8/07
Western oil companies eye Iraq oil
A large western oil company has offered $700m for oil assets in Iraqi Kurdistan owned by DNO, the small Norwegian oil company. The offer signals that international oil companies are willing to put significant amounts of money into Iraq in spite of the security problems and lack of a legal framework.
DNO refused to name the company, but industry executives speculated that Royal Dutch Shell was a possible bidder. Shell on Wednesday refused to comment.
DNO, which is quoted on the Oslo stock exchange, discovered the Tawke oilfield in late 2005, after signing a production-sharing agreement in June 2004 with the Kurdish regional government, a semi-autonomous area of northern Iraq.
In June, it became the first foreign oil company to pump crude oil in Iraq since the nationalisation of the country's hydrocarbons industry 35 years ago, albeit on a very small scale.
Financial Times, 23/8/07
Choosing the lessons of Vietnam
President George Bush tried to reinforce his case for perseverance in Iraq by placing the unpopular war in the historical context of the U.S. experience in Japan, South Korea and Vietnam.
Speaking to thousand of veterans, many of whom served in Asia, Bush laid the groundwork for a key mid-September report on Iraq that is expected to show some progress on the security front but little in the way of political reconciliation.
Bush said it was in the U.S. interests to continue to work to stabilize Iraq and held out the modern democracies in Japan and South Korea as potential models. He also raised the example of the emergence of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and violence in Vietnam after U.S. troops pulled out to warn of the consequences of leaving Iraq.
"Despite the mistakes that have been made, despite the problems we have encountered, seeing the Iraqis through as they build their democracy is critical to keeping the American people safe from the terrorists who want to attack us," he said.
Bush also used his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars to insist that he supported Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, despite comments he made a day earlier highlighting frustration with the Iraqi leader's inability to reconcile warring factions there.
Reuters 22/8/07
US denies shooting protestors
The U.S. military denied on Tuesday that one of its convoys opened fire on demonstrators who had blocked a main road near Baghdad, after residents and police said the unit had wounded up to 18 people.
U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Donnelly confirmed protesters had stopped a convoy in the town of Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad on the main road linking the capital to the northern city of Kirkuk.
"There was small arms fire and thrown rocks received from somewhere in the vicinity of the protest. We fired warning shots and smoke to screen anyone from aiming at our units. At no time did the unit fire at the crowd," Donnelly said.
One of the protesters, Fuad Hameed, 40, told Reuters that residents had been protesting the lack of security in the town. Seventeen mortar rounds hit different parts of Khalis on Saturday, killing seven people.
He said U.S. troops in the convoy at first tried to disperse the protesters with teargas and then opened fire and at least 17 people were wounded, mostly in the lower parts of their bodies.
Police said 18 people had been wounded, some of them seriously.
Reuters, 21/8/07
Roadside bomb kills governor
A roadside bomb yesterday killed the governor of Muthanna province, an area of southern Iraq which President George Bush singled out in his weekly radio address last Saturday as showing political progress.
Mohammed Ali al-Hassani was the second southern governor to be killed in just over a week. His driver and body guard were also killed shortly after their nine-vehicle convoy left his home for his office in Samawah.
The province is one of four which used to be controlled by British troops and was the first to be handed back to Iraqis last year.
The attacks appear to stem from the growing struggle for power in the south between the two main Shia groups with militias.
The conflict has made parts of Basra into no-go zones, although unlike the Shia versus Sunni tensions it is targeting the political elite rather than ordinary civilians.
The tension in the southern provinces is seen by analysts as further proof of the powerlessness of the central government of prime minister Nouri al Maliki.
Guardian 21/8/07
Key senator calls for end to Maliki government...
Declaring the government of Iraq "non-functional," the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Monday that Iraq's parliament should oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Cabinet if they are unable to forge a political compromise with rival factions in a matter of days.
"I hope the parliament will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and more unifying prime minister and government," Senator Carl Levin said after a three-day trip to Iraq and Jordan.
Levin's statement is the most strident call for leadership change in Iraq from an elected U.S. official.
Washington Post, 21/8/07
...and so does former strong ally
A top Iraqi Shiite militia leader predicted today that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government was nearing its end because it has been tainted by its close work with American forces.
Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr told The Independent newspaper that al-Maliki's government was on the brink of collapse, despite efforts to bolster its base of support.
"Al-Maliki's government will not survive because he has proven that he will not work with important elements of the Iraqi people," the cleric said.
"The prime minister is a tool for the Americans, and people see that clearly. It will probably be the Americans who decide to change him when they realize he has failed. We don't have a democracy here, we have a foreign occupation."
Al-Sadr had been among al-Maliki's strongest supporters.
International Herald Tribune, 20/8/07
Tens of thousands displaced in Afghanistan
Fighting in Afghanistan has driven tens of thousands of people from their homes and the number of displaced is growing by the day, says a Swiss human rights expert.
Walter Kälin, the United Nations representative for the human rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs), says the dangerous security situation in the country means it is almost impossible to get help to those in need.
According to the UN, there are already around 129,000 IDPs who were displaced by drought and insecurity in 2000/2001 and who are still unable to return home. In addition there are now those that have been forced out of their homes by ongoing military operations in the south, southwest and central parts of the country.
"Their number is estimated at up to 80,000 but nobody really knows because many of these areas are inaccessible both for the international community and the Afghan governmental authorities," said Kälin.
Swiss Info, 20/8/07
British face rout in Iraq...
A military adviser to President Bush has warned that British forces will have to fight their way out of Iraq in an "ugly and embarrassing" retreat.
Stephen Biddle, who also advises the US commander in Iraq, said Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias in the south would try to create the impression they were forcing a retreat.
"They want to make it clear they have forced the British out. That means they'll use car bombs, ambushes, RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] . . . and there will be a number of British casualties."
The comments coincide with British military estimates that withdrawal could cost the lives of 10 to 15 soldiers. Some British officers believe they are facing a "humiliating" retreat under fire to Kuwait or the southern Iraqi port of Umm Qasr.
"I regret to say that the Basra experience is set to become a major blunder in terms of military history," said a senior officer. "The insurgents are calling the shots . . . and in a worst-case scenario will chase us out of southern Iraq."
Sunday Times, 19/8/07
...and army wants to leave
Senior military commanders have told the Government that Britain can achieve "nothing more" in south-east Iraq, and that the 5,500 British troops still deployed there should move towards withdrawal without further delay.
Last month Gordon Brown said after meeting George Bush at Camp David that the decision to hand over security in Basra province - the last of the four held by the British - "will be made on the military advice of our commanders on the ground" Two generals said last week that the military advice given to the Prime Minister was, "We've done what we can in the south [of Iraq]".
Before the invasion in 2003, officers were told that the Army's war aims were to bring stability and democracy to Iraq and to the Middle East as a whole. Those ambitions have been drastically revised.
The priorities now are an orderly withdrawal, with the reputation and capability of the Army "reasonably intact", and for Britain to remain a "credible ally". The final phrase appears to refer to tensions with the US, which has more troops in Iraq than at any other time, including the invasion, as it seeks to impose order in Baghdad and neighbouring provinces.
Sunday Independent, 19/8/07
Medical crisis in Iraq
The humanitarian disaster in Iraq is being compounded by a mass exodus of their medical staff fleeing chronic violence and lawlessness. A report by Oxfam International shows the lack of doctors and nurses is fracturing a health system on the brink of collapse.
The dossier says Iraq is suffering from an appalling and largely hidden humanitarian crisis, away from the daily bombings, with millions of people in desperate need of help.
The children, as is the case in most conflicts, are among the worst-affected. Child malnutrition rates already as high as 19 per cent before the US led invasion, are now 28 per cent. More than 11 per cent of babies are born underweight, a rate tripled since the war.
The Oxfam dossier shows that four years after "liberation" by the US and Britain, more than 43 per cent of Iraqis suffer from "absolute poverty" and about half the population is unemployed. Of the four million dependant on food aid, only 60 per cent have access to the government-run distribution system, a dramatic decline from 96 per cent three years ago.
Independent, 18/8/07
Iraqi women driven to prostitution
The women are too afraid and ashamed to show their faces or have their real names used. They have been driven to sell their bodies to put food on the table for their children -- for as little as $8 a day.
"People shouldn't criticize women, or talk badly about them," says 37-year-old Suha as she adjusts the light colored scarf she wears these days to avoid extremists who insist women cover themselves. "They all say we have lost our way, but they never ask why we had to take this path."
"I don't have money to take my kid to the doctor. I have to do anything that I can to preserve my child, because I am a mother," she says, explaining why she prostitutes herself.
Violence, increased cost of living, and lack of any sort of government aid leave women like these with few other options, according to humanitarian workers.
"At this point there is a population of women who have to sell their bodies in order to keep their children alive," says Yanar Mohammed, head and founder of the Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq.
"It's a taboo that no one is speaking about." She adds, "There is a huge population of women who were the victims of war who had to sell their bodies, their souls and they lost it all. It crushes us to see them, but we have to work on it and that's why we started our team of women activists."
CNN, 16/8/07
New political bloc excludes Sunnis
Iraq's political leaders emerged Thursday from three days of crisis talks with a new alliance that seeks to save the current government. But the reshaped power bloc included no Sunnis and immediately raised questions about its legitimacy as a unifying force.
Under fire Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki hailed the political agreement as a first step toward unblocking the paralysis that has gripped his Shiite-dominated government since it first took power in May 2006.
The new Shiite-Kurdish coalition will retain a majority in parliament and apparently have a clear path to pass legislation demanded by the Bush administration, including a law on sharing Iraq's oil wealth among Iraqi groups.
Al Bawaba, 16/8/07
More troops to Afghanistan
As Britain's military winds down its efforts in Iraq, the United Kingdom is pouring more soldiers and aid money into Afghanistan to fight a resurgent Taliban and booming drug trade it says pose a direct threat to the nation.
Britain's ambassador in Kabul said the government began increasing its focus on Afghanistan shortly before the end of former Prime Minister Tony Blair's tenure in June and has made it even more of a priority under Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
During a visit to the United States late last month, Brown called Afghanistan "the front line against terrorism," in contrast to President Bush's common refrain that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror.
Britain will increase its troop strength in Afghanistan to 7,700 by the year's end, up from 7,000 today and 3,600 a year ago. The United States has 25,000 soldiers in Afghanistan.
Seattle Times, 17/8/07