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News archives for the week ending 28th November 2008

Iraq parliament approves US pact

Iraq's parliament has approved a security pact that allows US troops to stay in Iraq for three more years. Under the deal, US forces will withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009 and leave the entire country by January 1, 2012.

The vote in favour of the pact was backed by the ruling coalition's Shia and Kurdish blocs, as well as the largest Sunni Arab bloc which had demanded concessions for supporting the deal.

The agreement takes effect when the UN mandate now governing the troops expires on December 31. It is effectively a coming-of-age for the Iraqi government, which drove a hard bargain with Washington, securing a number of concessions - including a hard timeline for withdrawal - over more than 11 months of tough negotiations.

Iraq has also won the right to search US military cargo and the right to try US soldiers for crimes committed while they are off their bases and offduty.

The agreement also requires that US troops obtain Iraqi permission for all military operations and that they hand over the files of all detainees in US custody to the Iraqi authorities, who will decide their fate.

The pact also forbids US troops from using Iraq as a launch-pad or transit point for attacking another country, which may reassure Syria and Iran.

However the English version has not been made public, and there may be a dispute between the two sides over the interpretation of certain parts of the agreement.

"It's all in the wording, but it's also in the translation," said Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst. "In so many ways we have just moved from international status to a bilateral status where America with 150,000 soldiers and 400 bases will probably be able to dictate the interpretation of this agreement."

The accord has drawn fire from certain quarters, including followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, the Iraqi Shia leader, who reject any agreement with the US and who protested against the accord, chanting "Yes, yes to Iraq ...No, no, to the occupation."

Al Jazeera, 27/11/08

Afghan leader demands timetable for withdrawal

President Hamid Karzai bluntly rebuked NATO on Wednesday for its faltering campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda and demanded a timetable for the seven-year war here to end.

Mr. Karzai’s remarks, at a news conference with the secretary general of NATO, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, reflected dwindling public support for the war here and Mr. Karzai’s own political vulnerabilities. In the United States, however, the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama is planning a significant increase in the Afghanistan war effort as it scales back the American military deployment in Iraq.

While many in the foreign diplomatic community attribute the president’s criticisms to the 2009 elections, he has struck a supportive chord with many Afghans who have lost patience with the NATO-led effort, especially because of the civilian casualties.

On Wednesday, Mr. Karzai said that if he could, he would ground American warplanes before they could inflict civilian casualties and destroy villages. “We have no other choice, we have no power to stop the planes,” he said. “I wish I could intercept the planes that are going to bomb Afghan villages, but that’s not in my hands.”

New York Times, 26/11/08

Iraq delays vote on pact

The Iraqi parliament delayed a vote until today on the security agreement between the US and Iraq which will see American forces leave Iraqi cities, towns and villages by next summer and Iraq as a whole by the end of 2011.

The delay came because the Shia-Kurdish government is trying to win Sunni Arab support for the pact in return for concessions. The government has agreed there should be a national agreement on the Status of Forces Agreement with the US to be held next year and which could, in theory, rescind the accord if Iraqis voted against it. The concession may allow Sunni lawmakers to vote for the agreement but claim the decision will be made by the whole Iraqi people.

The Sunni Arabs, 20 per cent of the population, fear that as the Americans depart, the chiefly Shia government of Nouri al-Maliki will be more powerful. They want to make demands now, such as an end to the prosecution of former Baath party members, the release of Sunni prisoners and to secure the safety of 17,000 prisoners held by the US.

Independent, 27/11/08

Gates to stay in Obama administration

President Bush’s Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, has been asked to stay on in his post and has accepted, according to officials last night, a move that will give Barack Obama significant credibility with the US military but will dismay the liberal wing of his own party.

The re-appointment of Mr Gates, who took over from Donald Rumsfeld in November 2006, would fulfil Mr Obama’s pledge to have at least one Republican in his Cabinet.

The Times, 26/11/08

Cost of Afghan war up 50%

The armed forces have received a boost in Treasury funding for military operations in Afghanistan. The move comes amid signs that ministers are being forced to recognise the growing costs of the campaign.

In the first of its twice-yearly requests for the funding of operations, the Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday it would receive £3.7bn from the Treasury reserve to help cover the cost of campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans in 2008-09.

The sum has been awarded in the “winter supplementary estimates” and is likely to be followed by another transfer from the reserve in the spring to cover operations in 2008-09. The figure announced on Tuesday is more than the total amount of cash, £2.99bn, that the Treasury gave the MoD in both the winter and spring supplementary estimates for 2007-08.

The MoD said the cash for operations was “new money over and above the core defence budget” of about £37bn.

Financial Times, 26/11/08

'That's why people miss the Taliban'

Bribes here are called shirini, which means "sweets" in the Afghan language of Dari. Most interactions with the government require shirini — getting a new driver's license quickly costs $100 to $160, Afghans say. Even to pay a water or electricity bill, a customer has to hand over a bribe.

"Everything comes with a bribe," said Javed, 25, a truck driver who, like many Afghans, has no last name. "Otherwise, nothing in Kabul works."

Prisoners say they don't have defense lawyers—they have brokers, who help negotiate bribes. Izzatullah Wasifi, the former head of the anti-corruption and bribery bureau who also once was the governor of Farah province, said the former police chief there told him that he paid $100,000 for the post, which was considered lucrative because of all the bribes pouring in.

"In the beginning with the Taliban, if somebody dropped $1 million on the street, nobody would grab it," Wasifi said. "That's why people miss the Taliban."

Chicago Tribune, 25/11/08

Bush 'very pleased' with Iraq war

US President George W Bush believes the Iraq war was a success and is "very pleased" with what is happening there, he said in a pre-recorded interview broadcast on a Japanese television network on Sunday.

"I think the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was right," Bush told the Sunday Project programme of the private Asahi network. Saddam was an enemy of the United States and a lot of people thought he had weapons of mass destruction, Bush said, adding "remarkable" progress had been made in Iraq since the late dictator was toppled in 2003.

"People have been able to take their troops out of Iraq because Iraq is becoming successful. I'm very pleased with what is taking place there now," he said, adding there still is "a lot of work" to be done.

"We are bringing troops home because of the success in Iraq. But Iraq is not yet completely safe."

Times of India, 23/11/08

Dramatic increase in US attacks on Pakistan

Pilotless "drone" aircraft deliver a silent, deadly payload that has proved effective in killing militants, but has also killed civilians when intelligence goes awry or in "collateral damage" from a successful strike.

In Pakistan, strikes were infrequent - every few months - until August, when there was a sudden and dramatic increase in the drone attacks. Since then there have been at least 20 strikes - more than one a week - possibly in a stepped-up attempt to kill Osama bin Laden before George Bush leaves office on January 20 next year.

The intensity of the bombardment now has made the drone attacks a highly emotive political issue in Pakistan, feeding anti-Americanism. Pakistan's government and army protest loudly after each strike.

And yet it is thought that Islamabad is secretly cooperating with the attacks, providing much of the human intelligence that allows the drones to target safe houses in the tribal area where al-Qaida militants are suspected of hiding out. The country even goes as far as hosting CIA agents in Pakistani army compounds in the tribal area, who call in the strikes.

Guardian, 24/11/08

Escalating the Afghan war

The commander of NATO said Monday he hopes that U.S. plans to send more troops to Afghanistan will motivate other alliance members to do the same. The Bush administration has announced plans to send 3,500 additional Marines to Afghanistan before year's end, then an Army brigade of about 5,000 soldiers in January. Over the next 12-18 months, the U.S. hopes to add as many as three more combat brigades, with more planes and helicopters to support them.

There are currently about 65,000 international troops in Afghanistan, including some 32,000 U.S. forces, all record numbers. U.S. officials have repeatedly pressed European allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, particularly to the more dangerous southern and eastern regions.

The planned reinforcements will bring the international force to roughly the same level as the contingent the Soviets deployed to Afghanistan in the 1980s, in an unsuccessful effort to defeat the U.S.-backed fundamentalist rebellion there.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 24/11/08

US rushes to find charges against detainees

The U.S. military is rushing to build criminal cases against some 5,000 detainees it deems dangerous — including suspected members of al-Qaida in Iraq — because the proposed security pact with Iraq would end its right to hold prisoners without charge.

If passed, the deal would mean U.S. troops could no longer hold people without charge as they have since the 2003 invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. Beginning Jan. 1, all detentions would have to be based on evidence, and the U.S. would have to prosecute prisoners in Iraqi courts or let them go.

"At the end of the day, if there's not enough facts to justify a court case, then we'll have to release," said Brig. Gen. David Quantock, the commander of the U.S. detention system in Iraq.

The Americans have evidence against only "a few hundred" of the most dangerous detainees, Quantock said, leaving open the possibility that thousands could find themselves back on Iraq's streets soon. "We have a lot of work to do," he said.

Associated Press, 23/11/08

Pact does not protect Iraq's assets

Iraqi lawmakers opposed to the proposed security agreement with the United States have seized on a new argument that has emerged only in recent days: the accord does not explicitly protect Iraq’s vast oil wealth and other assets from seizure to satisfy billions of dollars in legal claims against the former government of Saddam Hussein.

An extension of this protection, which is guaranteed in the soon-to-expire United Nations resolution that the security agreement is meant to replace, will have to be negotiated separately, a wide range of Iraq and American officials who support the security agreement acknowledged Sunday.

They also acknowledged that such a move will be critical to protecting Iraq’s assets, or the government’s main source of revenue — oil exports — could be thrown into disarray when the United Nations resolution expires Dec. 31.

New York Times, 23/11/08

Pakistan doubts US motives in Asia

A redrawn map of South Asia has been making the rounds among Pakistani elites. It shows their country truncated, reduced to an elongated sliver of land with the big bulk of India to the east, and an enlarged Afghanistan to the west.

That the map was first circulated as a theoretical exercise in some American neoconservative circles matters little here. It has fueled a belief among Pakistanis, including members of the armed forces, that what the United States really wants is the breakup of Pakistan, the only Muslim country with nuclear arms.

“One of the biggest fears of the Pakistani military planners is the collaboration between India and Afghanistan to destroy Pakistan,” said a senior Pakistani government official involved in strategic planning, who insisted on anonymity as per diplomatic custom. “Some people feel the United States is colluding in this.”

Such distrust has been exacerbated by what Pakistanis see as the Bush administration’s tilt toward India. Exhibit A for the Pakistanis is India’s nuclear deal with the United States, which allows India to engage in nuclear trade even though it never joined the global Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Pakistan, with its recent history of spreading nuclear technology, received no comparable bargain.

The nuclear deal was devised in Washington to position India as a strategic counterbalance to China. That is how it is seen in Pakistan, too, but with no enthusiasm. “The United States has changed the whole nuclear order by this deal, and in doing so is containing China, the only friend Pakistan has in the region,” said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani Army general.

New York Times, 22/11/08

Pact vote is "50-50"

The Iraqi Parliament will vote Wednesday on a pact that would allow American troops to stay in Iraq for three more years, but the government's hopes of winning a wide margin of approval to ensure the deal's legitimacy appeared to be fading.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his top ministers struggled Saturday to rally support for the pact, arguing that Iraqi security forces aren't ready to stand on their own. The defense minister warned that losing U.S. protection would leave Iraqis vulnerable to threats such as al-Qaeda in Iraq and even bring piracy – like that preying on international shipping off the African nation of Somalia – to the Persian Gulf.

The vote originally was planned for Monday, but Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani announced the new date after six hours of speeches by lawmakers closed out this week's debate on the pact. The speaker, a Sunni Arab, rated chances for the pact's passage at "50-50."

On Saturday, several lawmakers said it made no sense to approve a deal with a U.S. administration that has less than two months in office and argued a better option would be to renegotiate once Barack Obama becomes president.

Dallas Morning News, 23/11/08

Kurds buy Bulgarian arms

Kurdish officials this fall took delivery of three planeloads of small arms and ammunition imported from Bulgaria, three U.S. military officials said, an acquisition that occurred outside the weapons procurement procedures of Iraq's central government.

The large quantity of weapons and the timing of the shipment alarmed U.S. officials, who have grown concerned about the prospect of an armed confrontation between Iraqi Kurds and the government at a time when the Kurds are attempting to expand their control over parts of northern Iraq.

Iraq's ethnic Kurds maintain an autonomous region that comprises three of the country's 18 provinces. In recent months, the Shiite-led central government in Baghdad, which includes some Kurds in prominent positions, has accused Kurdish leaders of attempting to expand their territory by deploying their militia, known as pesh merga, to areas south of the autonomous region. Among other things, the Kurds and Iraq's government are at odds over control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which lies outside the autonomous region, and over how Iraq's oil revenue ought to be distributed.

Washington Post, 23/11/08

Iraqis protest against agreement

Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's call to followers to hold a mass prayer and protest in central Baghdad to denounce the new Status of Forces Agreement reached between U.S. and Iraqi negotiators brought tens of thousands of people swarming into central Baghdad's Firdos Square on Friday.

This is none other than the place where U.S. forces helped Iraqis joyously pull down a giant statue of Saddam Hussein back in April 2003. This time, the crowd gathered at the square was just as frenzied, but there were no American forces in sight. And this time, the protesters dragged down something very different: an effigy of President Bush.

Their anger is over the SOFA, which would keep U.S. forces in Iraq through December 2011. That's far too long, according to the anti-U.S. cleric Sadr, and according to those in the crowd Friday.

Los Angeles Times, 21/11/08