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News archives for the week ending 26th June 2009

US arms Somali government

The United States said on Thursday it had sent weapons to Somalia's government to help thwart Islamist insurgents.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Washington was providing arms at the government's request to help it "repel the onslaught of extremist forces which are intent on .... spoiling efforts to bring peace and stability to Somalia."

Asked if the United States was afraid the government might collapse or be overwhelmed by insurgent attacks, Kelly replied: "We are concerned."

Washington Post, 25/6/09

Afghan war continues to escalate

NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, boosted by a big influx of U.S. troops, will step up operations in Helmand province and the city of Kandahar soon, the top regional commander said on Thursday.

"We are entering a new stage in the operation," Dutch Army Major General Mart de Kruif told reporters at the Pentagon in a conference call from NATO's base at Kandahar Air Field.

The United States has been pouring thousands of troops this year into southern Afghanistan, the heartland of the Taliban movement and scene of the heaviest fighting, to prepare for an effort to regain the initiative from the insurgents.

Washington Post, 25/6/09

Obama speaks out on Iran

Under growing pressure to speak out more forcefully on Iran, President Barack Obama used his toughest language yet Tuesday to condemn its government's violent suppression of political dissent and to declare the world "appalled and outraged" by the crackdown.

But Obama again stopped short of calling off his diplomatic overture to Iran and refused at a news conference to threaten consequences. "We don't yet know how this is going to play out," he said.

His latest comments showed the president willing to speak more bluntly about principles of human rights and free speech, while working to avoid the appearance of taking sides in Iran's disputed presidential election.

But conservative and Republican critics, including McCain, have pushed the president to go further by rejecting the election results.

Obama argued Tuesday that intervening directly would only serve the interests of the Iranian government, which he said has gone so far as to mistranslate his words to convince Iranians that American meddling is driving the protests.

Obama also took the unusual step of denying CIA involvement in the post-election protests, responding to attempts by the Islamic regime to discredit government critics by portraying them as tools of U.S. spy agencies.

Accusations of U.S. meddling resonate in Iran because of a long and antagonistic history that can be traced to a CIA-backed overthrow of Iran's elected government in 1953, an episode that Obama acknowledged in his recent speech in Cairo.

Chicago Tribune 25/6/09

Iran parliament meets to discuss UK ties

Iranian lawmakers have met to discuss relations with Britain as tensions continue to grow between the two countries following Iran's presidential election.

In a Tuesday meeting, also attended by Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, the Parliament's national security and foreign policy commission called for reconsidering ties with Britain.

Iran has expelled two British diplomats from the country in protest to UK officials' remarks on Iran's post-election unrest, which has erupted since the re-election of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the presidential vote last week and resulted in the death of at least 20 people.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday that UK was also expelling two Iranian diplomats following Tehran's decision to expel the second and third secretaries of the British embassy.

Tehran condemned the British officials' remark as a clear interference in Iran's internal affairs, saying London is supporting 'illegal rallies' in the Iranian capital Tehran.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has rejected the claims, saying turning the dispute among Iranians about the election results into a battle between Iran and other countries - the UK in particular - 'is without foundation'.

Press TV 25/6/09

Pakistan condemns US airstrikes as counterproductive

Pakistan said its battle to defeat terrorism is being harmed by U.S. drone attacks after a strike yesterday near the border with Afghanistan reportedly killed at least 50 people.

Such attacks are “counterproductive” and should be condemned, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan cited Syed Samsam Ali Bukhari, the minister of state for information and broadcasting, as saying. The raids may also affect Pakistan’s relations with the U.S., he said.

Bloomberg.com, 24/6/09

Baghdad bomb kills 70

Nearly 70 people have been killed by a bomb blast in the eastern Sadr City area of Baghdad, Iraqi officials say. Police said the device went off in a market place in the predominantly Shia area of the Iraqi capital. More than 130 people were also reported to have been injured in the blast, one of the worst in Iraq this year.

It comes less than a week before US soldiers pull out of all Iraqi cities, a move the US said would not be affected by a recent surge in violence.

BBC News, 25/6/09

Cashing in on Iraqi oil

With his sale of Addax Petroleum to China's government-controlled oil giant Sinopec, Swiss tycoon Jean Claude Gandur has made the first Iraqi oil mega-fortune of the post-Saddam era. Sinopec's purchase price for Addax, $7.2 billion in cash, is more than double what the company traded for early this year.

Most of Addax's daily output of 150,000 barrels comes from fields off the coast of Nigeria that Gandur acquired for a song nearly a decade ago. Addax also has assets in Gabon and Cameroon.

But Addax' most interesting and potentially valuable asset is its stake in the Taq Taq field in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, which is thought to hold upward of 3 billion barrels. Gandur signed a deal with Kurds to develop that field in 2005, as war raged in southern Iraq and in spite of condemnation by Iraqi and U.S. officials that the contracts were not valid.

Forbes.com, 24/6/09

Israel agrees new settlement

An Israeli rights group has revealed that Tel Aviv has approved plans to "legalise" 60 existing homes at an illegal West Bank settlement and allow the construction of 240 other residences there.

Bimkom reported that Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has given Jewish settlers at the Water Reservoir Hill outpost near Ramallah the green light to expand their colony. This flouts Washington's demand for a settlement freeze and appears to confirm fears that the illegal outposts are intended to permanently seize land that has been earmarked by the international community for a future Palestinian state.

Since 1967, Israel has built 121 West Bank settlements, which are now home to around 300,000 Israeli Jews. An additional 180,000 Israeli Jews live in east Jerusalem, which, like the West Bank, was seized by Israel in the 1967 war.

Palestine Telegraph, 24/6/09

Kyrgyzstan reverses decision on US base

Kyrgyzstan has essentially reversed a decision to close an American air base that is central to the NATO mission in nearby Afghanistan, after the United States acceded to sharply higher rent and to minor restrictions on the site, Kyrgyz and American officials said Tuesday.

The Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan has been used since 2001 as a refueling stop and transit hub for operations in Afghanistan. Thousands of personnel and roughly 500 tons of cargo pass through the base each month.

The Kyrgyz and American governments both said the new arrangement would put limitations on the base. But neither side could point to any significant ones, and it seemed as if the agreement was written to offer the Kyrgyz government a face-saving way to undo its earlier decision.

One major change, though, is the rent. It will rise to $60 million annually from $17.4 million, Kadyrbek Sarbayev, Kyrgyzstan’s foreign minister, told the Kyrgyz Parliament on Tuesday.

New York Times, 23/6/09

US drone kills 60 at funeral

A US drone aircraft killed at least 45 Pakistani Taliban militants in south Waziristan yesterday when it fired missiles at the funeral of an insurgent commander killed earlier in the day, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

One local security official, who could not be identified as he was not authorised to speak to media, said that more than 60 had died of whom "half are civilians". Funerals of Taliban are attended by local villagers, not just militants.

Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan, is part of Pakistan's lawless tribal area, where US forces have mounted about 60 drone attacks against suspected militants since early last year. But bombing a funeral is unusual and may be unprecedented.

Guardian, 24/6/09

US to limit airstrikes in Afghanistan

The new U.S. military commander in Afghanistan will limit the use of airstrikes in order to help cut down on civilian casualties, his chief spokesman said Monday.

In a "tactical directive" to be issued in coming days, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal has ordered new operational standards, including refraining from firing on structures where insurgents may have taken refuge among civilians unless Western or allied troops are in imminent danger, said spokesman Navy Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith.

Also under revision are ground search and seizure practices and the treatment of detainees, changes officials hope will reduce tensions between U.S. forces and Afghan citizens, and build a "civilian surge" to improve reconstruction and governance.

Los Angeles Times, 23/6/09

Civilians 'bear brunt of conflict'

Civilians bear the brunt of modern conflict, a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross suggests.

The report, called "Our world, views from the field" asked 4,000 civilians from eight countries to relate their personal experiences of war. Of those, 44% said they had witnessed armed conflict first hand and one in three had seen a relative killed.

The countries were Afghanistan, Georgia, Haiti, Liberia, DR Congo, Colombia, Lebanon and the Philippines. More than half - 56% - said they had been forced to leave their homes and almost half had lost contact with a loved one.

BBC News, 23/6/09

Death toll hits 80 in Iraq truck bombing

The death toll from a suicide truck bombing in Taza, Iraq, has reached 80, a police official said Sunday. It was the deadliest single attack in the war-torn nation this year, CNN reported.

The police official said the horrific blast Saturday near a mosque, shops and houses also wounded 211 people and destroyed at least 50 buildings, the U.S. network said.

UPI, 21/6/09

Oil contracts 'will put the Iraq economy in chains'

It is only now, six years after the American invasion, that the battle for the control of Iraqi oil production is moving to the centre of politics in Baghdad. On 29 and 30 June, the Iraqi government will award contracts under which international oil companies will take a central role in producing crude oil from Iraq's six super-giant oilfields over the next 20 to 25 years. By coincidence, 30 June is also the date on which the last American troops will be leaving Iraqi cities. On the very day that Iraq regains greater physical authority over its territory, it is ceding a measure of control over the oilfields on which the future of the country entirely depends.

The contracts have been heavily criticised inside Iraq as a sell-out to the big oil companies, which are desperate to get back into Iraq – oil was nationalised here in 1972, and Iraq and Iran are the only two places in the world where immense quantities of oil might still be discovered. Several of those criticising the contracts work in the Iraqi oil industry. "The service contracts will put the Iraqi economy in chains and shackle its independence for the next 20 years," said Fayad al-Nema, head of the state-owned South Oil Company, which produces 80 per cent of Iraq's crude. "They squander Iraq's reserves."

Independent, 21/6/09

Army officer attacks 'failing' UK policy in Afghanistan

Writing in the British Army Review, an official MoD publication, Major SN Miller, stated: "Lets not kid ourselves. To date Operation Herrick [the British codename for the War in Afghanistan] has been a failure".

He claimed that hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers money had been wasted on a war which had failed to deliver any real reconstruction, governance or security. Rather than "winning hearts and minds", Major Miller, who serves in the Defence Intelligence Staff serving Intelligence Corps, said the British presence had had the opposite effect.

But his most blistering attack was on the UK's counter-narcotics policy, where the illicit sale of drugs has been successfully used by the Taliban to fund the insurgency and kill British troops.

He wrote: "British policy towards the poppy crop has been an unmitigated disaster. The chief "effect" of the British presence in Helmand has been to transform Helmand into the opium centre of the world."

Daily Telegraph, 20/6/09

Blair pushed Brown to hold war inquiry in private...

Tony Blair urged Gordon Brown to hold the independent inquiry into the Iraq war in secret because he feared that he would be subjected to a "show trial" if it were opened to the public, the Observer can reveal.

The revelation that the former prime minister - who led Britain to war in March 2003 - had intervened will fuel the anger of MPs, peers, military leaders and former civil servants, who were appalled by Brown's decision last week to order the investigation to be conducted behind closed doors.

Observer, 21/6/09

...as he worries about top Euro job

A public appearance by Mr Blair before the Chilcot inquiry would also damage his ambitions of becoming EU president, a role that needs the support of European countries that opposed the war.

Independent, 21/6/09

...and memo confirms Bush and Blair conspired to provoke a war

A confidential record of a meeting between President Bush and Tony Blair before the invasion of Iraq, outlining their intention to go to war without a second United Nations resolution, will be an explosive issue for the official inquiry into the UK's role in toppling Saddam Hussein.

The memo, written on 31 January 2003, almost two months before the invasion and seen by the Observer, confirms that as the two men became increasingly aware UN inspectors would fail to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they had to contemplate alternative scenarios that might trigger a second resolution legitimising military action.

Bush told Blair the US had drawn up a provocative plan "to fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft painted in UN colours over Iraq with fighter cover". Bush said that if Saddam fired at the planes this would put the Iraqi leader in breach of UN resolutions. The president expressed hopes that an Iraqi defector would be "brought out" to give a public presentation on Saddam's WMD or that someone might assassinate the Iraqi leader.

However, Bush confirmed even without a second resolution, the US was prepared for military action. The memo said Blair told Bush he was "solidly with the president".

Observer, 21/6/09

US joins Human Rights Council

The United States has joined the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council for the first time. U.S. diplomats Friday pledged to work constructively with other council members on behalf of the word's persecuted and abused people.

The top diplomat at the U.S. mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Mark Storella, said the United States is joining the three-year-old body in the spirit of cooperation. The U.S. was elected to the Geneva-based council last month, after the Obama administration decided to pursue a council seat.

The Bush administration previously had boycotted the organization, saying the U.N. rights body focused too much on criticizing Israel, while ignoring human rights abuses in Sudan and elsewhere.

Voice of America, 19/6/09

Lieberman: Israel's only dispute with the US is over settlements

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told reporters in Washington on Thursday that Israel's only dispute with the United States is over the issue of West Bank settlements.

"There are many issues currently discussed by the United States and ourselves, at least 20 different points, and I think that we agree on 19 of those points," Lieberman said when asked about differences between Israel and the U.S. on settlements.

"So we can disagree on one issue, since both sides want to reach an understanding on that as well. No one is interested in deepening controversy, both sides are interested to find an agreed-upon formula, and we will reach an understanding."

He also repeated Thursday that Israel had refused to stop accommodating for "natural growth" in West Bank settlements, rejecting a demand to do so by United States President Barack Obama.

Haaretz, Israel, 19/6/09