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News archives for the week ending 26th March 2010

Gates: too early for peace talks in Afghanistan

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says it is probably too early for the Afghan government to be able to persuade senior Taliban leaders to lay down their arms.

Gates told a House committee on Wednesday he believes negotiations between the two will be necessary at some point to bring peace to Afghanistan. But for talks to work, the Afghan government must be in a position of strength and the Taliban convinced they are going to lose, Gates said.

Gates said: "I don't think we're there yet."

Associated Press, 24/3/10

Army dominates Pakistan's agenda for US talks

In the first ministerial-level strategic talks scheduled on Wednesday, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will focus on security cooperation between the two uneasy allies to fight Islamist militants. The talks will also tackle U.S. help to bolster Pakistan's weak economy and help it overcome growing water and energy crises.

However, analysts say it is the head of Pakistan's army, General Ashfaq Kayani, also attending the talks, who has set the agenda for Pakistan on security-related matters.

"In strategic dialogue, security-related issues have always been handled by the military," said security and political analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi.

The army, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half its 61 years of independence, has traditionally dominated the country's key foreign policy matters such as relations with rival India, military ties with the United States and Afghan policy.

Although Pakistan returned to full civilian rule with the 2008 resignation of President Pervez Musharraf, a former army chief, analysts said the army had not given up its dominance of key security issues.

Reuters, 23/3/10

Military could overspend by £36 billion

The U.K. defence budget is unaffordable and could add £36 billion more than expected to Britain's public debt over the next decade unless contracts are cut and military costs are more carefully controlled, an influential committee reported Tuesday.

The U.K. Public Accounts Committee, a group of lawmakers who examine government budgeting, said the country's defence department's projections for a 2.7% rise in defence spending until 2020 were optimistic, noting that if military spending remained flat, the shortfall would be £36 billion.

Dow Jones Newswire, 22/3/10

US plans another Guantanamo, but in Afghanistan

The White House is considering whether to detain international terrorism suspects at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, senior U.S. officials said, an option that would lead to another prison with the same purpose as Guantanamo Bay, which it has promised to close.

That the option of detaining suspects captured outside Afghanistan at Bagram is being contemplated reflects a recognition by the Obama administration that it has few other places to hold and interrogate foreign prisoners without giving them access to the U.S. court system, the officials said.

Without a location outside the United States for sending prisoners, the administration must resort to turning the suspects over to foreign governments, bringing them to the U.S. or even killing them.

In one case last year, U.S. special operations forces killed an Al Qaeda-linked suspect named Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in a helicopter attack in southern Somalia rather than trying to capture him, a U.S. official said.

Officials had debated trying to take him alive but decided against doing so in part because of uncertainty over where to hold him, the official added.

Los Angeles Times, 21/3/10

Iraq front runners seek electoral allies

With the complete results in Iraq's election just days away, there were signs Monday the two front runners were reaching out to other political parties, signaling the start of the jockeying to form the next ruling coalition.

Representatives of al-Maliki's State of Law met Sunday with his erstwhile rivals in the Iraqi National Alliance, made up of religious Shiite parties backed by Iran and with a strong base of support in Iraq's southern belt.

Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite with strong Sunni Arab backing, traveled north on Sunday to speak with the Kurdish parties. Both the powerful Kurdish Alliance and the INA will be bringing to the negotiating table seats from the three provinces in which they are winning, making them potential kingmakers in any future government.

"With a race this close, all bets are off and anything is possible," said Joost Hiltermann, an analyst at the International Crisis Group. "At this point, we just don't know what the next government will look like."

The last government took nearly six months of haggling to form.

Washington Post, 22/3/10

Iraq jutice system '70 per cent OK'

With corruption seemingly endemic to the executive and legislative branches of government, Iraq's judiciary also appears compromised.

In an interview with the Herald last week the Chief Judge of the Supreme Criminal Court, Adnan Al-Bederi, admitted that political interference was still a fact of the judicial process."

While Judge Bederi believed that in most cases Iraqi judges made their decisions according to the law, ''there are sometimes political pressures".

''The Iraqi judiciary system is facing some interference from different sides, but not like the same way under the old regime,'' he said. ''I think that the Iraqi judiciary system is much healthier; we can say 70 per cent of it is OK."

Sydney Morning Herald, 23/3/10

UK army ran secret torture centre in Iraq

UK's military intelligence ran a secret torture unit in Iraq which "reported directly to London" and authorised harsh treatment of detainees, a media report said on Sunday.

In fact, prisoners were kept hooded for long periods in intense heat and deprived of sleep by military intelligence officers who were answerable only "directly to London", the Independent reported, citing documents.

Times of India, 22/3/10

Election commission rejects Iraq vote recount

Iraq's election commission has rejected calls from the president and prime minister for a recount of votes cast in the general election on 7 March.

An election official said a recount of all votes would be impossible and was unnecessary because of checks on fraud. Earlier, President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri Maliki backed calls for a manual recount of votes.

Partial results indicate a close race between Mr Maliki and former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. But the long delay in announcing the full results has led to growing allegations of fraud and demands for a recount.

BBC News, 21/3/10

Israel rebuffs US on illegal settlement building

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out any concession on the building of settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, despite international pressure.

Mr Netanyahu said he had written to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to remove any doubt about the issue. He made the remarks hours before he left for Washington to address the influential pro-Israeli group, Aipac.

"As far as we are concerned, building in Jerusalem is like building in Tel Aviv," Mr Netanyahu told his cabinet.

BBC News, 21/3/10

US tuns blind eye to Afghan opium

The effort to win over Afghans on former Taliban turf in Marja has put American and NATO commanders in the unusual position of arguing against opium eradication, pitting them against some Afghan officials who are pushing to destroy the harvest.

From Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal on down, the military’s position is clear: “U.S. forces no longer eradicate,” as one NATO official put it. Opium is the main livelihood of 60 to 70 percent of the farmers in Marja, which was seized from Taliban rebels in a major offensive last month. American Marines occupying the area are under orders to leave the farmers’ fields alone.

“Marja is a special case right now,” said Cmdr. Jeffrey Eggers, a member of the general’s Strategic Advisory Group, his top advisory body. “We don’t trample the livelihood of those we’re trying to win over.”

NewYork Times, 20/3/10

Blair's secret Iraq oil job

Tony Blair is set to rake in a six-figure sum after doing a secret deal with an oil firm in Iraq, it emerged yesterday.

The former PM has been in the pay of South Korea's UI oil company for up to 18 months. But he persuaded Whitehall watchdogs to keep his contract secret because of "market sensitivities". UI Energy are one of the biggest investors in Iraq's Kurdistan region and it's likely Blair has made hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The advisory committee on business appointments published details of the deal this week and also revealed a separate undisclosed contract Blair had with the Kuwait government.

Daily Record, Scotland, 20/3/10

Allawi urges faster election result

The narrow leader in the race to become Iraq's next prime minister says poll results are taking too long to declare. Iyad Allawi, who headed the country from 2004 to 2005, told the BBC full results from the 7 March election should have been released days ago.

Mr Allawi has a slim lead over current Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. But analysts say the count is so tight that a hectic period of coalition-building is likely to ensue once the results have been announced.

With more than 90% of the votes counted, Mr Allawi's Iraqiya political bloc is ahead by nearly 8,000 votes. But Mr Maliki's State of Law alliance is ahead in seven of 12 provinces - meaning he stands to get more representation in a future parliament.

BBC News, 20/3/10

Two-state solution in US strategic interest...

A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the United States' strategic interest.

"The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel," Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week.

"Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples . . . [and] al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world."

A two-state solution wouldn't solve all U.S. challenges in the region, but it would make it easier to address most of them. It is also the best guarantee of Israel's long-term future. By showing real backbone this time and explaining to the American people why his approach is the right one, Obama could advance U.S. interests and be a true friend to the Jewish state.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the other groups supporting the status quo disagree. They think it is acceptable for Israel to continue expanding its control over Palestinian lands and believe that the United States should back Israel's actions unconditionally. And Christian Zionist organizations go further: They want Israel to control these lands forever because they think that will hasten the Second Coming.

Washington Post, 21/3/10

...but military aid to Israel is untouchable

The diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and Israel has sent a tremor through their alliance, but one key part of the bond seems virtually untouchable: the roughly $3 billion a year in U.S. military aid.

One reason may be the potential backlash from Israel's supporters in the U.S. Another is that the overwhelming part of the money cycles back into the American economy.

Israel is the biggest recipient of American aid after Afghanistan. But unlike most other countries, Israel's aid is earmarked entirely for military spending. Under an agreement between the two allies, at least three-quarters of the aid must be spent with U.S. companies.

This means that the "close, unshakable bond," as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton described it, is also a mutually beneficial one: Israel gets the latest American military technology, and American weapons makers - Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing and others - get a steady stream of income.

Washington Post, 20/3/10

Taliban arrests have halted peace talks

The former top United Nations official in Afghanistan said that recent arrests of high-ranking Taliban figures by Pakistan had severed important secret communications between the Taliban and the West meant to foster peace negotiations.

Kai Eide, the former special representative in Afghanistan for the United Nations secretary general, told the BBC in an interview broadcast on Friday that, for the past year, the United Nations had been quietly involved in early discussions with the Taliban in Dubai. He said those talks were upended by the arrests of senior Taliban leaders, including the group’s second in command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in February.

Mr. Eide, who stepped down earlier this month, said the arrests undermined efforts to start talks and to build trust that are necessary for substantive peace negotiations.

New York Times, 19/3/10

'Major intensification' of US- Pakistan partnership

The United States and Pakistan will hold their first strategic dialogue at the ministerial level in Washington next Wednesday.

U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke told reporters at the State Department Friday that these talks mark a "major intensification" of the U.S.-Pakistan partnership.

The Obama administration has made improving and broadening relations with Pakistan a top priority, but U.S. policies and drone strikes targeting militants in the region remain unpopular.

Voice of America, 19/3/10

US spreads Afghan war to north

U.S. commanders in Afghanistan are drawing up plans to deploy about 2,500 additional troops and trainers to the country's north due to concerns about a growing Taliban presence there, defence officials said on Friday.

The reinforcements, part of the 30,000-troop increase ordered by President Barack Obama in December, could take part in military operations with German forces already in the area with the aim of protecting vital supply lines.

"They're getting more violence there than they're used to," a U.S. defence official said of the plan, which he called "tentative."

New York Times, 19/3/10