These are the archives for the week ending 30th June 06
Judge quashes terror orders
A high court judge last night demolished a central plank of the government's anti-terror policy when he quashed 'control orders' on six suspected terrorists, saying that home secretary 'had no power to make them under human rights law'.
John Reid said the control order system was needed to deal with international terror suspects who could not be deported on human rights grounds to countries where there was a risk of torture.
The decision, if upheld by the appeal court, will leave a big hole in the government's anti-terror policy as ministers will be left with no powers to detain terror suspects whom they are not able to prosecute in an open criminal court.
Amnesty International said the judgement showed Mr Reid could not deprive people of their liberty without charge or trial: "If people are suspected of having committed a crime, they should be charged and put on trial - not arbitrarily detained".
Guardian 29/6/06
Safer Iraq needed for US investment
Iraq's instability has kept foreign oil companies from investing in reconstruction, compounding what officials see as a litany of woes confronting the country's once-dominant oil sector from corruption to poorly maintained fields.
While the world's thirst for oil grows, untapped Iraqi reserves and current production that still hasn't met prewar levels remain a problem with no imminent solution.
Only when Iraq's newly formed government guarantees a safer environment will the billions of dollars needed begin to flow, analysts and officials say.
"It's too soon to make a judgment on how close we are. . I suspect we could be a few years away," Shell Oil Co. President John Hofmeister recently told The Associated Press.
ABC News 27/6/06
US army costs triple
The annual cost of replacing, repairing and upgrading Army equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan is expected to more than triple next year to more than $17 billion, according to Army documents obtained by the Associated Press.
From 2002 to 2006, the Army spent an average of $4 billion a year in annual equipment costs. But as the war takes a harder toll on the military, that number is projected to balloon to more than $12 billion for the federal budget year that starts next Oct.
ABC News 26/6/06
British soldiers killed in Afghanistan
Two British soldiers were killed today and another injured when their dawn patrol through one of the most dangerous parts of southern Afghanistan, Helmand, came under attack from Taleban militia.
Britain will soon have about 3,300 troops in Helmand, as part of an expansion by Nato forces in the country as they take over from the US-led coalition that displaced the Taleban in late 2001.
Its forces are currently involved alongside US, Canadian and Afghan forces in Operation Mountain Thrust, a campaign to root out insurgents in the southern provinces of Helmand, Uruzgan, Kandahar and Zabul.
The dangers facing them, against an experienced and committed enemy, are becoming ever more apparent. More than 1,000 Afghan civilians and some 50 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year, leading the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, to question the West's strategy in the 'War on Terror'.
Times online 27/6/06
Amnesty needs to be wide to work.....
A peace plan unveiled by the Iraqi government in a bid to stem a raging insurgency will only succeed if the United States refrains from setting the terms of any amnesty given to the rebels, analysts said.
Any move by Washington to try to restrict the categories of insurgent eligible for clemency under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's reconciliation plan would only further fan rebel violence by exposing the limits of Iraqi sovereignty, they said.
US and Iraqi leaders "have to differentiate between terrorists and national resistance and it is here that the Americans have to show flexibility," said Hassan al-Bazzaz, professor of crisis management at Baghdad University.
"They have to accept the reality that there is a national resistance here to occupation forces of groups who do not like their presence", Bazzaz told AFP. "If they do not accept some hard realities, then many rebel groups will brush aside the plan and Iraq's dilemma will never be solved."
Yahoo News, 27/6/06
...but US disagrees
U.S. officials of both parties warned yesterday that an Iraqi government offer of amnesty for insurgents should not include those who have killed U.S. military personnel.
"Absolutely," said Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, when asked on "Fox News Sunday" whether amnesty should be denied in such cases. "For heaven's sake, we liberated that country. We got rid of a horrific dictator," said Mr. Levin, who voted against the 2003 Iraq war resolution. "We've paid a tremendous price. More than 2,500 Americans have given up their lives. The idea that they should even consider talking about amnesty for people who have killed people who liberated their country is unconscionable."
Sen. Russ Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press" said, "The idea of amnesty for people that have attacked or killed American troops, I think that's unacceptable."
Washington Times, 26/6/06
Official: killing civilians fuels war
The death of civilians at the hands of U.S. troops has fueled the insurgency in Iraq, according to a top-level U.S. military commander, who said U.S. officials began keeping records of these deaths last summer.
Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who as head of the Multinational Force-Iraq is the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, said the number of civilian dead and wounded is an important measurement of how effectively U.S. forces are interacting with the Iraqi people.
``We have people who were on the fence or supported us who in the last two years or three years have in fact decided to strike out against us. And you have to ask: Why is that? And I would argue in many instances we are our own worst enemy,'' Chiarelli said. Chiarelli said he reviews the figures daily. If fewer civilians are killed, ``I think that will make our soldiers safer,'' Chiarelli said.
San Jose Mercury News, 26/6/06
Iraq reconciliation plan falls short of Sunni hopes
A Sunni leader in Iraq said on Monday that the insurgency would persist until Washington sets a timetable to withdraw its troops and that loyalists to ousted leader Saddam Hussein should be included in peace talks. Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi said Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's national reconciliation plan, unveiled on Sunday, fell well short of its goals to defuse the Sunni Arab insurgency and heal Iraq's sectarian wounds.
"The project is vague. There is no time schedule to implement it. There are loose ends that have to be fastened," said Hashemi, a leader of the Sunni minority group, dominant under Saddam and now the backbone of the insurgency. Hashemi also said Maliki will have to talk to insurgents he has so far spurned if he wants to deliver on promises to reconcile Iraq's divided communities.
Reuters, 26/6/06
British powerless to stem violence in south
British forces are facing rising violence among Shia Muslim factions in southern Iraq, but are powerless to contain it, military and diplomatic sources have told The Independent on Sunday. Both British and Iraqi authorities were seeking to play down the situation, they added.
Last week, as the Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, was declaring that the withdrawal of British forces from parts of Iraq was evidence of "mission accomplished", the senior British commander in the country disclosed that the security situation in Basra had deteriorated. Lieutenant General Nick Houghton told the Commons defence committee: "There is a worrying amount of violence and murder carried out between rival Shia factions. There is no doubt that it has got worse of late, due to the protracted period of talks to form the government."
Since a spate of bomb attacks against them last autumn, British forces have largely kept out of the centre of Basra. Much of the police force in the south has been taken over by Shia militias who often clash with one another as well as intimidating ordinary people and attacking what is left of the Sunni community in the south.
Independent on Sunday, 25/6/06
At least 50,000 Iraqis dead
At least 50,000 Iraqis have died violently since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to statistics from the Baghdad morgue, the Iraqi Health Ministry and other agencies - a toll 20,000 higher than previously acknowledged by the Bush administration. Many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but not counted because of serious lapses in recording deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion, when there was no functioning Iraqi government, and continued spotty reporting nationwide since.
Iraqi officials involved in compiling the statistics say violent deaths in some regions have been grossly undercounted, notably in the troubled province of Al Anbar in the west. Health workers there are unable to compile the data because of violence, security crackdowns, electrical shortages and failing telephone networks.
The Health Ministry acknowledged the undercount. In addition, the ministry said its figures exclude the three northern provinces of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan because Kurdish officials do not provide death toll figures to the government in Baghdad.
Los Angeles Times, 25/6/06
Baghdad state of emergency
The Iraqi government declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew on Friday after insurgent gunmen set up roadblocks in central Baghdad and opened fire on US and Iraqi troops just north of the heavily fortified Green Zone.
With just two hours notice, the prime minister ordered everyone off the streets of the capital from 2 pm on Friday until 6 am Saturday. US and Iraqi forces also were engaged in firefights with insurgents in the dangerous Dora neighbourhood in south Baghdad.
Mumbai Mirror, 24/6/06