These are the archives for the week ending 25th March 2005
Attorney General was leant on
Documentary evidence has emerged showing that the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, changed his mind about the legality of the Iraq war just before the conflict began. The damning revelation is contained in the resignation letter of Elizabeth Wilmshurst, a legal adviser at the Foreign Office, in which she said the war would be a "crime of aggression".
The critical paragraph of her letter, published yesterday under the Freedom of Information Act, was blanked out by the Government on the grounds that it was in the public interest to protect the privacy of the advice given by the Attorney General. But last night the contents of the paragraph were leaked, and Tony Blair was facing fresh allegations of a cover-up. There has long been speculation that Lord Goldsmith was leant on to switch his view, and to sanction the war - and confirmation of that would be devastating for the Prime Minister.
Independent, 24/3/05
Oil is basis of haggling
Oil.No matter what else the politicians say, that's the biggest reason a new Iraq government hasn't been formed after weeks of haggling. Almost two months after elections politicians still have not been able to decide who will control the country's oil revenues and run the powerful Oil Ministry.
Kurds, an ethnic group living in northern Iraq, want 25 percent of the oil revenues to spend on their own three provinces, said Saad J.Kindeel, acting head of the political bureau of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. SCIRI, as it's known, is one of two Shiite Muslim parties in the United Iraqi Alliance, which won a little less than 50 percent of the 8 million ballots cast. Kurds also want the oil minister to be Kurdish to better control the northern oil city of Kirkuk, Kindeel said.
Kirkuk has long been disputed between Kurds and other Iraqis."We don't want to give up the Oil Ministry, and the Kurds are demanding they take it," Kindeel said."Kurds also demanded that 25 percent of oil revenues go to them.We did not agree."
Since a Kurdish coalition of parties took about 35 percent of the votes in the election, another party must align with them to approve top leaders in government -- a measure which takes a two-thirds vote. After that, all votes are by simple majority. "To elect the president and two deputies, we must have two-thirds.That's why the Kurds want everything up front," Kindeel said.
Kerala News, India, 24/3/05
Contractors didn't deliver
The Iraq government has stopped a $19 million payment to Raytheon Co. for not delivering an air-traffic control system to Baghdad's airport. The Waltham defense contractor (NYSE: RTN) is one of several that have not been paid by Iraq's interim government for overcharging or failing to deliver products. The 80,000-employee Raytheon reported 2004 sales of $20.2 billion.
Boston Business Journal, 22/3/05
Bulgaria pulling out...
Bulgaria's Defence Minister Nikolay Svinarov said he wanted the country's troops to leave Iraq by the end of the year, and all at the same time. Bulgaria's troop deployment in Iraq is opposed by some 70 per cent of the Bulgarian public. Anti-coalition feelings rose further in Bulgaria after Gardi Gardev was killed in a US "friendly fire" incident outside Baghdad on March 4, due to a lack of communication between his patrol and a US communications post.
The Australian, 23/3/05
...and so is Ukraine
A top Ukrainian official says President Viktor Yushchenko has signed a plan for withdrawing the country's troops from Iraq. He told reporters Tuesday the withdrawal will be complete by the end of the year.
Voice of America, 22/3/05
North Korea nuclear build up
North Korea said yesterday for the first time that it had increased its nuclear arsenal to help prevent a US attack.
In Beijing, the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, warned that the US and its Asian allies would have to find new ways of dealing with North Korea if it continued to shun nuclear disarmament talks.
Guardian 22/3/05
$2 billion oil contract
Iraq wants to build a new 2 billion dollar oil refinery with a capacity of 250,000-300,000 bpd day, according to oil ministry spokesman Asim Jihad. An Iraqi oil ministry delegation will hold meetings with 17 major international energy firms with a view to building the refinery either in the northern city of Mosul or the southern port of Basra.
Middle East Finance and Economy, 22/3/05
45 Iraqis killed
At least 45 people, including an Iraqi general, a US soldier and 29 insurgents, died in violence in Iraq on the weekend.
In the main northern city of Mosul, a suicide bomber with a fake badge yesterday slipped into a building housing the provincial anti-corruption department and blew himself up inside the office of its chief, General Walid Kachmoula, killing him and two of his guards. Hours later, attackers opened fire on the procession bearing Kachmoula's coffin as it made its way to the cemetery, killing two people and wounding 14. Separately, two unidentified bodies shot in the chest and head were found in the city.
In the capital, 24 Iraqi insurgents were killed and six coalition soldiers wounded in a firefight. In the northern oil centre of Kirkuk, a US soldier was killed and three others wounded when a roadside bomb hit their patrol. In another flashpoint town, Baquba, gunmen attacked a police station killing at least four police and wounding two, and a truck bomb was rammed into the entrance of an Iraqi army barrack wounded 17 people. Four insurgents were killed in an ensuing firefight.
AFP, 21/3/05
Blair stretched law to breaking point
The Prime Minister faced new damaging claims last night about his conduct in the build-up to the Iraq war. In a BBC Panorama programme to mark the second anniversary of the invasion, Sir Stephen Wall, Mr Blair's former European affairs adviser, said that the Government "stretched the legal argument [over the war] to breaking point".
The claim was coupled with an allegation in the programme that Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, was on record as saying "the facts and the intelligence" were being "fixed round the policy" by President George W Bush's US administration.
Telegraph, 21/3/05
Rumsfeld warns Iraqis
On the political front, Mr Rumsfeld warned Iraq's political leaders they had to be "darned careful" about the make-up of their new government. "The important thing is that they be competent people. They have to be darned careful about making a lot of changes just to be putting in their friend or to be putting in someone else from their tribe or from their ethnic group."
"This is too serious a business over there and the United States has got too much invested and too much committed and too many lives at stake for people to be careless about that," he said.
News.com, Australia, 21/3/05
Bush Defends Iraq War, Europeans Protest
Two years to the day after the start of the U.S. led invasion of Iraq, President Bush defended his decision to go to war.
"Now, because we acted, Iraq's government is no longer a threat to the world or its own people. Today the Iraqi people are taking charge of their own destiny," he said.
Anti-war activists in Europe remain unconvinced that the March 2003 invasion was justified. On Saturday, tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in cities across Europe to demand an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
A crowd of tens of thousands marched through central London, while an estimated 15,000 people marched in Istanbul to protest the U.S. presence in Iraq. Others protests were held in Sweden, Spain and Italy.
Voice of America 20/3/05
Briton killed in Qatar suicide bombing
A shocked Qatar probed how an Egyptian suicide bomber killed a Briton and wounded 12 people near a British school in the capital Doha, amid fears the gas-rich state has become the latest target for militant attacks.
Omar Ahmad Abdullah Ali detonated his booby-trapped car late Saturday outside a theatre linked to the Doha English-Speaking School. The blast, which went off while dozens of people were watching a play in the theatre, sparked a blaze that partially destroyed the building and set several nearby cars on fire.
It was the first time Qatar, home to the US Central Command and the operational base for the US-led war on Iraq in 2003, has been the site of such an attack against a Western target.
Channel News Asia 20/3/05
'One huge US jail'
Washington likes to hold up Afghanistan as an exemplar of how a rogue regime can be replaced by democracy.
Meanwhile, human-rights activists and Afghan politicians have accused the US military of placing Afghanistan at the hub of a global system of detention centres where prisoners are held incommunicado and allegedly subjected to torture. The secrecy surrounding them prevents any real independent investigation of the allegations.
Dr Rafiullah Bida, regional director of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission said "All I do nowadays is chart complaints against the US military. Many thousands of people have been rounded up and detained by them. Those who have been freed say that they were held alongside foreign detainees who've been brought to this country to be processed. No one is charged. No one is identified. No international monitors are allowed into the US jails."
Nader Nadery, also of the Human Rights Commission said "Afghanistan is being transformed into an enormous US jail. What we have here is a military strategy that has spawned serious human rights abuses, a system of which Afghanistan is but one part"
In the past 18 months, the commission has logged more than 800 allegations of human rights abuses committed by US troops.
Guardian 19/3/05
Toward the third year in Iraq
On this second anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Americans remain understandably conflicted about a war that has cost 1,519 American lives, more than $200 billion in spending and much tragedy and sacrifice among Iraqis.
According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, most Americans now oppose the war and believe it has damaged America's standing abroad.
They see the growing number of nations withdrawing troops in the wake of the January elections and wonder when the U.S. will do the same.
Italy, Ukraine, Poland and Bulgaria recently announced they would pull a combined 6,700 troops this year. That follows withdrawals by 14 other nations, from contingents as large as the 1,400 Spanish troops to the 51 withdrawn by Tonga.
Denver Post 19/3/05
Britain 'could send more troops to Iraq'
Britain could send more troops to Iraq if Italy pulls its soldiers out, the head of the British Army has said.
Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, has been quoted as saying he would begin a "progressive withdrawal" of his country's 3,000 troops from September. Downing Street has said Mr Berlusconi's remarks had been misinterpreted and Italy had no plans to withdraw its troops prematurely.
Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the Chief of the Defence Staff, said the Army had the capacity to fill in if required but insisted there was confusion over Italy's plans. He said it would be a long time until British troops could withdraw and that the multi-national force could only pull out when the Iraqi forces could stand on their own feet.
"But that is some way out," he said.
Daily Telegraph 18/3/05