These are the archives for the week ending 29th July 2005
Riot at US Afghan base
Hundreds of protesters chanting "Die America!'' and throwing stones tried to batter down a gate at the U.S. military's main Afghan base Tuesday, adding to anxieties in a country worried that fighting with insurgents could disrupt elections. Rioting broke out in a crowd of more than 1,000 people who gathered to protest the detention of eight villagers at the base, where thousands of U.S. and other foreign soldiers live behind razor-wire fences and landmines left from Afghanistan's civil war.
The demonstrators said they were angry that U.S. troops arrested the villagers late Monday without consulting local authorities. "We have supported the Americans for years. We should be treated with dignity,'' said Shah Aghar, 35. "They are arresting our people without the permission of the government. They are breaking into our houses and offending the people. We are very angry.''
Canandian TV, 26/7/05
Blair admits Iraq was a factor
For the first time, British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday grudgingly acknowledged Iraq as a factor behind terrorism, but he insisted that terrorists were using the situation there as an "excuse.'' Replying to a question about the link between Iraq and increase in terrorism at a press conference in Downing Street, Mr. Blair retorted that he had "never said'' that Iraq had "nothing to do'' with terrorism. "But whatever excuses they [terrorists] give, we should not give an inch to them - not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in Palestine.''
Mr. Blair's remarks came as an opinion showed that a significant majority of Britons believed that his policy on Iraq had given a boost to terrorists. In a Populus poll for The Times, 64 per cent of the voters said that his decision to take Britain to war in Iraq had "increased the risk of terrorist attacks like the ones this month in London.''
The Hindu, India, 27/7/05
US supporting African dictatorships
The U.S. military is embarking on a long-term push into Africa to counter what it considers growing inroads by al Qaeda and other terrorist networks in poor, lawless and predominantly Muslim expanses of the continent. The Pentagon plans to train thousands of African troops in battalions equipped for extended desert and border operations and to link the militaries of different countries with secure satellite communications.
The initiative, with proposed funding of $500 million over seven years, covers Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Nigeria, Morocco and Tunisia -- with the U.S. military eager to add Libya if relations improve. Across the region, some of the governments the U.S. military is working with have embraced counterterrorism as a way to stifle legitimate dissent and Muslim groups, according to reports issued by the International Crisis Group
Washington Post, 26/7/05
Resistance recruited into police
Iraq's police force is recruiting insurgents and former criminals to its ranks, according to a report released by the US defence department. It blames poor vetting procedures and recommends that the quality of records at Iraq's interior ministry be checked.
US-run training programmes, in which more than 60,000 Iraqi recruits have taken part, are only a qualified success, the Pentagon report says. An earlier report found only 50% of battalions able to combat insurgents.
"There is a perception that training programmes have produced 'cannon fodder' - numbers of nominal policemen incapable of defending themselves, let alone the Iraqi public," it says.
BBC News, 26/7/05
Sunni boycott ends
Iraq's Sunni Arab constitution writers agreed to sit at the drafting table again in the run-up to a new charter on Monday after their demands were met. The last-moment compromise came as the Iraqi parliament met conditions put forward by Sunni groups to end their boycott of the constitution drafting process.
"All of the demands presented by our brothers have been met," parliament Speaker Hajem al-Hassani said in a statement signed by him, following a week-long Sunni walkout triggered by the murder of three colleagues. The Sunnis demanded a thorough investigation into the killings of three Sunni constitution writers last week, improvement of protection measures for Sunnis and a greater Sunni role in composing the charter.
The statement said a juridical panel will be established to carry out an independent investigation into the killings. Sunni Arabs will have the right to demand further measures if they are discontented with the results of the investigation, the statement added, without revealing further details.
Xinhuaa, China, 25/7/05
Privatising the war
Operation Iraqi Freedom has put into practice the Pentagon's thinking that the U.S. military can wage a cheaper, more efficient war by outsourcing many of the behind-the-lines support functions. But the lines between warriors and civilians have blurred amid the carnage of Iraq's insurgency.
Employees of Titan, one of the largest companies involved, and of other corporations have become part of an experiment in government contracting run largely by trial and error. Several current and former Titan employees say they worked in a land of chaos and lawlessness, where company rules were often vague and employees were sometimes left to fend for themselves. "We called it 'the Wild West.' It was uncontrollable," said Marc Hill, a Titan manager from Arizona who was based near Baghdad from June 2003 until March 2004. "There was very poor planning, and they put people's lives in danger."
From March 2003, when the war began, to March 2004, before the attacks in Fallujah, 48 U.S. civilian contract employees were killed in Iraq and 379 were wounded. Over the next 15 months, from April 2004 until June 30, 2005, 283 died and 3,018 were wounded, according to data kept by the Labor Department.
San Diego Union-Tribune, 24/7/05
Managing the news
The U.S. military on Sunday said it was looking into how virtually identical quotations ended up in two of its news releases about different insurgent attacks. Following a car bombing in Baghdad on Sunday, the U.S. military issued a statement with a quotation attributed to an unidentified Iraqi that was virtually identical to a quote reacting to an attack on July 13.
Sunday's news release said: "'The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the ISF and all of Iraq. They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists,' said one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified."
The July 13 news release said: "'The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the children and all of Iraq,' said one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified. 'They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists.'"
CNN, 24/7/05
Iraq war creates suicide bombers
The shrill denials by Tony Blair and Jack Straw that hostility to the invasion of Iraq motivated the bombers are demonstrably untrue. The findings of an investigation, to be published soon, into 300 young Saudis, caught and interrogated by Saudi intelligence on their way to Iraq to fight or blow themselves up, shows that very few had any previous contact with al-Qa'ida or any other terrorist organisation previous to 2003. It was the invasion of Iraq which prompted their decision to die.
Some 36 Saudis who did blow themselves up in Iraq did so for similar reasons, according to the same study, commissioned by the Saudi government and carried out by a US-trained Saudi researcher, Nawaf Obaid, who was given permission to speak to Saudi intelligence officers. A separate Israeli study of 154 foreign fighters in Iraq, carried out by the Global Research in International Affairs Centre in Israel, also concluded that almost all had been radicalised by Iraq alone.
Independent, 24/7/05
Drugs problem for US troops
Two years into the occupation of Iraq the menace of drug abuse appears to be afflicting American troops. Aware of the debilitating effect drugs had on the morale and effectiveness of GIs in the Vietnam War, the authorities are attempting to stifle a repeat in Iraq. Aside from random urine tests and barrack room searches, commanders have asked their troops to inform on colleagues.
According to US army figures, out of the 4,000 men of the 256th Brigade Combat Team, 53 faced alcohol-related charges and 48 were charged with drug offences. "Some of these young soldiers just can't handle the stress," said Capt Christopher Krafchek, a military defence lawyer. The majority of drug-users are in their teens or early 20s, and sometimes get their drugs from local Iraqis while on patrol in Baghdad.
Daily Telegraph, 23/7/05
Americans believe war is encouraging terrorism
A growing number of Americans fear the war in Iraq is undermining the fight against terrorism and raising the risk of terrorist attacks in this country, a poll found. Almost half, 47 percent, say the war in Iraq has hurt the fight against terrorism _ the highest number to say that since the war began in March 2003, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
And about the same number, 45 percent, said soon after the first round of subway bombings in London that the war in Iraq was raising the risk of terrorism in this country. That's up from 36 percent last fall.
Washington Post, 22/7/05
Constitutional process in doubt
With only about three weeks left before the parliamentary deadline for the draft of a new constitution, a senior Western diplomat in Baghdad said Friday that some of the most contentious issues still remain to be resolved, including regional autonomy, women's rights, electoral law and the control of revenues from natural resources.
The disclosures came on the third day of a walkout by the Sunni Arab members of the constitution-writing committee, who halted their participation after two Sunni colleagues were assassinated, throwing the constitutional process into doubt. The comments by the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Western officials are trying to remain in the background, seemed to counter recent comments by some Shiite committee members that the draft was almost complete.
New York Times, 22/7/05
Resistance growing stronger
Despite months of assurances that their forces were on the wane, the guerrillas and terrorists battling the American-backed enterprise here appear to be growing more violent, more resilient and more sophisticated than ever. American commanders say the number of attacks against American and Iraqi forces has held steady over the last year, averaging about 65 a day. But they concede the growing sophistication of insurgent attacks and the insurgents' ability to replenish their ranks as fast as they are killed.
"We are capturing or killing a lot of insurgents," said a senior Army intelligence officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make his assessments public. "But they're being replaced quicker than we can interdict their operations. There is always another insurgent ready to step up and take charge."
At the same time, the Americans acknowledge that they are no closer to understanding the inner workings of the insurgency or stemming the flow of foreign fighters, who are believed to be conducting a vast majority of suicide attacks. The insurgency, believed to be an unlikely mix of Baath Party die-hards and Islamic militants, has largely eluded the understanding of American intelligence officers since the fall of Saddam Hussein's government 27 months ago.
New York Times, 23/7/05
US kills Syrian border guards
Damascus said that its forces on the border with Iraq are often exposed to fire by the American army and the Iraqi forces, adding that this resulted in killing two of those guards at the hands of the American soldiers. The Syrian deputy foreign minister Walid al-Mu'allim said that the security forces on the border are attacked not only by persons who infiltrated the border, but also by the American and Iraqi forces.
He noted that 100 clashes took place on the border. He said that the American soldiers on the Iraqi borders opened fire indiscriminately on everyone behind land barriers on the borders because of their lack of self control.
Al-Mu'allim accused each of Washington, London and Baghdad of not making enough efforts to prevent infiltrating persons from entering Iraq, noting that the Syrian authorities implemented what it was asked for. Syria increased the number of its forces at the border with Iraq by deploying 4500 soldiers in the border area, which makes it difficult for infiltrators to cross the borders only during day time but lack night vision instruments which the US prevented Syria from obtaining.
ArabicNews.com, 22/7/05
Australians will not replace Brits
Prime Minister John Howard has told the British Government that Australia will not send any more troops to Iraq. There has been speculation that Britain would withdraw its troops next year and Australia could be asked to increase its commitment.
Mr Howard has held talks with the Defence Minister John Reid in London, and he says he does not think Australia needs to boost the number of soldiers in Iraq.
ABC News, Australia, 22/7/05
Iraqi forces not ready
A senior U-S commander says none of the ten-thousand U-S-trained Iraqi forces in the western part of the country are ready to fight militants on their own. Marine Corps Major General Stephen Johnson says the strength of the insurgency in the Anbar province has slowed the rate of progress in training Iraqi troops and police.
But he says he remains optimistic. He says some of the Iraqi forces should be ready to go at it without U-S help by next year. Yesterday, Pentagon officials said only three of the 107 Iraqi army battalions are capable of operating on their own, without U-S support.
Associated Press, 22/7/05
Sunnis boycott constitution talks
Sunni members of Iraq's constitutional committee have confirmed their decision to boycott constitutional drafting negotiations, citing dissatisfaction with the treatment of their views by the committee's Shia chairman. Sunni parliamentary delegates joined 14 non-elected members and nine additional committee advisers on Thursday to extend their demands beyond strengthened security and insist that the chairman, Hamam Hamoudi, retract his claims of steady progress in the talks.
Mr Hamoudi, a Shia cleric, says the committee is on track to present a "tentative draft" of the constitution by the beginning of next month, allowing further discussions before parliament's August 15 approval deadline. Two days ago, amid unresolved political differences, he played down the first boycott signs and insisted contentious Arab identity questions raised by the Sunni faction were "minor points".
"Mr Hamoudi should respect the opinion of Sunni committee members," Adnan al-Janabi, a Sunni parliamentarian and committee member, told the Financial Times. "All have agreed to continue the suspension, and not to stop until they get what they need."
Financial Times, 21/7/05