These are the archives for the week ending 24th February 2006
More than half of Americans say war a mistake
More Americans than nearly ever before now say the war in Iraq is a "mistake" for the United States, according to a new Gallup poll. That figure now stands at 55%, up 4% point since late January. Only once before was the figure higher, at 59%, and that was during the period of overall pessimism right after Hurricane Katrina hit.
Gallup noted that it had asked this question about other wars involving the United States, "and only the Vietnam War engendered more public opposition than the current Iraq War. " The peak opposition to the Vietnam conflict was 61%. That figure for the generally unpopular Korean War was 51%.
When asked to assess the progress of the war, only 31% say the United States and its allies are winning the war - the lowest Gallup has measured to date.
Editor and Publisher
100 dead in US custody
Nearly 100 prisoners have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since August 2002, the Human Rights First organisation said ahead of the publication of their report. At least 98 deaths occurred, with at least 34 of them suspected or confirmed homicides -- deliberate or reckless killing -- the group of US lawyers told BBC television Tuesday.
Their dossier claims that 11 more deaths are deemed suspicious and that between eight and 12 prisoners were tortured to death. However, charges are rare and sentences are light, the report said.
AFP, 22/2/06
US admits Guantanamo clampdown
The military commander responsible for the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, confirmed Tuesday that officials there last month turned to more aggressive methods to deter prisoners who were carrying out long-term hunger strikes to protest their incarceration. The commander, Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, head of the United States Southern Command, said soldiers at Guantánamo began strapping some of the detainees into "restraint chairs" to force-feed them and isolate them from one another.
After The New York Times reported Feb. 9 that the military had begun using restraint chairs and other harsh methods, military spokesmen insisted that the procedures for dealing with the hunger strikes at Guantánamo had not changed. They also said they could not confirm that the chairs had been used.
New York Times, 22/2/06
Iraqi PM rejects Straw lecture
A car bomb killed at least 21 people in Baghdad on Tuesday hours after Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari angrily rejected U.S. warnings to the Shi'ite majority to embrace sectarian rivals in a new government. Speaking after talks with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who echoed the U.S. ambassador's call for a government of national unity, the normally calm and diplomatic Jaafari, a Shi'ite Islamist, said Iraq knew its own best interests.
"When someone asks us whether we want a sectarian government the answer is 'no we do not want a sectarian government' -- not because the U.S. ambassador says so or issues a warning," he told a news conference. "We do not need anybody to remind us, thank you."
Yahoo, 21/2/06
Rumsfeld 'misstated facts' on planted news
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday he was mistaken when he stated last week that the U.S. military had stopped paying Iraqi newspapers to publish pro-American articles. Rumsfeld had said in a television interview on Friday that the U.S. military had ceased paying to place positive stories in Iraqi media after criticism in the U.S. Congress and press. Rumsfeld made similar comments the same day to the Council on Foreign Relations.
"I just misstated the facts," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing on Tuesday. Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the military command in Iraq was still paying to plant positive stories, even as U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Scott Van Buskirk investigates it.
Reuters, 21/2/06
Iraqi government still some way off
Iraqi political parties have run into major obstacles in talks on a new national unity government, officials said yesterday. This raised the possibility of a major delay that would be a setback to US hopes for a significant reduction in its troop levels this year. US officials hope a new government that includes representatives of all Iraq's religious and ethnic communities might help to calm violence by luring the Sunni Arab minority away from the Sunni-dominated insurgency so that US and other foreign troops can begin to head home.
But prospects for a broad-based coalition taking power soon appeared in doubt after officials from the Shi'ite and Kurdish blocs said in interviews that talks between the two groups had reflected major policy differences. The political parties have decided to negotiate a program for the new government before dividing up Cabinet posts. That step is also bound to prove contentious and time-consuming.
Boston Globe, 20/2/06
Karbala cuts contacts with occupying troops
The governing council of Karbala province said Monday it was suspending contact with U.S. forces over the behavior of soldiers during a visit to the governor's office two days ago. Karbala provincial spokesman Abdel Amir Hanoun complained that U.S. soldiers brought dogs inside the building when their commander visited provincial Gov. Aqeel al-Khazraji, considered an insult by the council.
They also blocked roads leading to the governor's office, preventing council members and the governor from parking cars outside the building, Hanoun said. The governor instructed the council to suspend contacts until U.S. forces apologize, he said.
Yahoo News, 20/2/06
Suicide bombers target NATO in Afghanistan
As NATO troops replace U.S. forces on southern Afghanistan's battlefields, insurgents are waging a suicide bombing campaign that appears aimed at shaking the alliance's public support in Europe and Canada. Suicide bombings were rare in Afghanistan until last fall, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization began debating a move into southern Afghanistan. The mission is expected to draw NATO into the first ground combat in its 57-year history. The NATO forces are set to take over from U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan this spring, but will depend on American attack helicopters and other aircraft for support.
The decision to take on the mission came only after considerable debate within the alliance. The formal discussion began in September, about the time insurgents launched a wave of suicide attacks. At least 22 suicide bombers have struck since then, more than double the total for the previous three years.
Los Angeles Times, 18/2/06
US military deaths worldwide
As of Feb. 19, 2006, at least 215 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. Of those, the military reports 129 were killed by hostile action.
Outside the Afghan region, the Defense Department reports 56 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, two are the result of hostile action. The military lists these other locations as: Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, Djibouti, Eritrea, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Yemen. There was also one military civilian death and four CIA officer deaths.
Associated Press, 19/2/06
Maysan withdraws cooperation from British
The ruling council of Maysan province, in Southern Iraq, is to freeze ties with the British authorities over the recently released videotape of UK soldiers beating Iraqi youths during a 2004 riot there. Maysan council chairman, Abdul-Jabar Haider, said all contacts with British civilian and military authorities would be suspended pending completion of an inquiry into the incident.
Scotsman, 20/2/06
US Churches denounce Iraq war
A coalition of American churches has issued a statement strongly denouncing the U.S.- led war in Iraq and accusing Bush's administration of "raining down terror".
In the statement, read at a huge gathering of Christian churches, members of World Council of Churches, which includes more than 350 mainstream Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches, apologized to the world nations for "the violence, degradation and poverty our nation has sown", adding "We lament with special anguish the war in Iraq, launched in deception and violating global norms of justice and human rights,"
This is part of the mounting domestic and international pressure on the U.S. President George W. Bush who has repeatedly stated that the American forces will stay the course in Iraq.
Aljazeera 19/2/06
Iraq is deadliest country for journalists
Last week the Committee to Protect Journalists announced that 22 journalists had been killed in Iraq in 2005.
The total since the invasion three years ago is now 61 - which makes Iraq the deadliest country for journalists in the last quarter of a century.
This is the most dangerous place in the world to report, the frontline where you are most likely to get killed or end up in an orange jumpsuit in a video.
The Independent 19/2/06
Oil attacks costing Iraq $6.25bn
Attacks by insurgents on Iraq's oil industry cost the country $6.25bn (£3.6bn) in lost revenue during 2005, according to the Iraqi oil ministry.
A total of 186 attacks were carried out on oil sites last year, claiming the lives of 47 engineers and 91 police and security guards, a spokesman said. US officials say the cost of rebuilding Iraq could reach more than $56bn.
Iraq currently produces about two million barrels of oil a day, mostly from oil fields in the southern and northern tips of the country. However, that is down by about 800,000 barrels from production levels before Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled in 2003.
Violent attacks on foreign contractors in Iraq have also hit the economy, pushing up security costs and delaying reconstruction projects.
BBC News 19/2/06
Blair: Guantanamo policy unchanged
Prime Minister Tony Blair has said the Government's policy on the US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay had not changed. The statement came after one of his Cabinet Ministers called for it to close. On Thursday, Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said the base should shut - and suggested the Prime Minister agreed with him. But Mr Blair reiterated his call for the "anomaly" of the base to be dealt with "sooner or later".
A United Nations report - backed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan - has called for the immediate closure of the controversial site in Cuba. The recent UN report, ordered by the body's Commission on Human Rights, called on the US government to refrain from any practice "amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" at Guantanamo. It said all detainees should be brought to trial or released "without further delay" and the facility closed.
The Scotsman, 17/2/06
Rice attack on Venezuela
The Venezuelan president, viewed by the Bush Administration as a communist madman, got some choice words from the US Secretary of State over concerns that he's forming ties to terrorists and extremists. Making her sharpest criticisms yet about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Condoleezza Rice said that Venezuela and Cuba are ''sidekicks'' of Iran and dangers to Latin American democracies, and gave new details of a US diplomatic campaign to contain Chavez.
Rice told the members of the House International Relations Committee that there was a need to convince Chavez that there is ''a united front against some of the things that Venezuela gets involved in." Chavez has repeatedly alleged that President Bush supported a failed 2002 coup against him and is trying to overthrow or kill him. The State Department denies this accusation.
As with leftists in the US and Europe, Chavez often makes outlandish statements hoping something will gain traction. The Bush administration in recent days appears to have gone in a full-scale offensive. Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld equated Chavez's rise to power through democratic means with Hitler, and the Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte described Venezuela's ties with Iran and North Korea as a threat to US. interests.
The Conservative Voice, 18/2/06