By Edward Harris
The Associated Press, 30 May 2006
Western aid workers drive past Afghan beggars cradling naked, dirty children. U.S. military vehicles race through trash-strewn streets with their guns pointed into traffic.
To many Afghans, foreigners are a privileged elite, earning hefty salaries and given to drinking alcohol while this shattered Islamic nation remains mired in violence and poverty.
That divide helped stoke Monday's deadly anti-Western riots, the latest of several bouts of unrest that have wracked Afghanistan in the past year. The worst riots seen in Kabul for years began after a U.S. military truck whose brakes failed careered down a hill and plowed into cars at an intersection, killing at least one Afghan.
Afghans generally are grateful to the U.S.-led military alliance for ousting the Taliban in 2001 and welcome help from international charities. But many residents also long to lift themselves out of poverty and take control of their destinies, more than four years after the downfall of the Taliban's strict Islamic rule.
"We don't want these foreigners, they should go home. They're damaging our society, the economy is terrible and we're so poor. And they're looting Afghanistan. Why aren't they building factories?" asked Faisal Agha, who was injured in the riots that left at least 11 dead and scores wounded.
"Now there's prostitution, alcohol. There's more vice," the 45-year-old policeman said from his hospital bed, his eyes puffy and face bruised after falling during Monday's chaos.
Between 3,000 and 4,000 foreign civilians are believed to be working in Afghanistan alongside 23,000 American troops and 9,000 members of a NATO-led multinational force, mostly from Western countries.
Foreign intervention has been a thread running through the past quarter-century of strife in Afghanistan.
Soviet forces invaded in 1979, and Arab fighters helped drive them out a decade later. After the Taliban took control in 1996, establishing a theocracy that banned music and television, and sheltered Osama bin Laden.
The U.S.-led invasion in late 2001 pushed the Taliban aside, a wrenching change that exposed many Afghans directly to Western culture for the first time as aid workers and military forces came to help rebuild the nation.
Four years later, many Afghans are unimpressed by what they have seen, although they are quick to distinguish between foreigners who are here to help and those seen as a negative influence.
"We have two kinds of foreigners here. Those that indulge in prostitution and alcohol, and we reject them," said Mohammed Anwar, standing outside a shop still smoldering Tuesday after rioters burned it because they believed it sold alcohol.
"But the others have come to help us in reconstruction and we welcome them," said the unemployed 45-year-old father of eight. "And they're far more numerous."
Still, even Afghans' famed hospitality — tea or soft drinks are mandatory for all guests — is being strained by the economic inequities and foreign military presence.
Unemployment for Afghans is about 40 percent, while foreigners live in spacious compounds and maneuver expensive four-wheel-drive vehicles past blue-shrouded women holding unclothed children and begging for money.
Rents in some areas have risen by 1,000 percent since the Taliban's ouster as international organizations have moved in, pricing most Afghans out of the market.
Prices of mutton quadrupled as comparatively expensive restaurants with largely foreign clientele blossomed around Kabul.
While the economy grew by 8 percent last year — spurred by the influx of aid and illicit revenues from the drug industry — many Afghans now feel worse off because inflation reached 16 percent.
There also is anger over the civilian deaths caused by coalition military action against Taliban guerrillas. The latest incident occurred last week, when a U.S. airstrike killed at least 16 civilians in a southern village. A rights group said as many as 34 civilians died.
During the past four years, at least 180 civilians have died as a result of coalition action, according to a count based on Associated Press reports. The U.S. military says it does all it can to prevent such casualties.
After Monday's traffic accident in Kabul, rioters stoned the American vehicles and then poured into the city center, looting goods and ransacking the offices of foreign aid groups, buildings associated with the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, stores where liquor was believed sold and a brothel.
At least 11 people were killed, most of them from gunshot wounds, according to three city hospitals. More than 100 people were wounded.
In the past year, Afghans have rioted after reports that the Muslim holy book was allegedly placed in a toilet by a guard at the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and after Western newspapers published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. Each time, about a dozen people were killed.
Despite suspicions that anti-government elements could be fomenting the unrest, the main protagonists seemed to be angry young men.
Still, the signs on the street are that the irritation with foreigners has not hardened into widespread xenophobia.
"We want the good foreigners to stay in Afghanistan, to help us. Not these people who kill us, they must go," said Ahmed Mirwais Kabuli, a 17-year-old wedding photographer.
Kabuli wore a black shirt emblazoned with the Union Jack. One of his life's dreams?
"I'd love to visit London," he said.
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Citation: Edward Harris. "Many Afghans resent foreigners' presence," The Associated Press, 30 May 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060530/ap_on_re_as/afghan_resenting_foreigners
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31 May 2006
30 May 2006
The Marines and a 'massacre' in Iraq
By Ali Hamdani, Ned Parker, Nick Meo and Tom Baldwin
The Times, UK, 27 May 2006
WITH remarkable self-assurance for a ten-year-old girl, Iman Hassan recounted how her family was killed by American troops as she cowered in terror in a corner of her living room.
It happened soon after 7am on November 19 last year, she claimed in an interview with The Times. She was still in her pyjamas and preparing for school when a US military convoy rumbled down the road near her home in al-Haditha, a town on the Euphrates surrounded by date farms that has become a hotbed of insurgents. Three months earlier 20 American soldiers had been killed there.
At that moment a Humvee was blown up by a roadside bomb, killing Miguel Terrazas, its 20-year-old driver from El Paso, Texas. Iman’s father was praying in the next room of her house, a basic two-storey building made of breezeblocks. Her grandparents were still in bed. The family heard shots but knew to stay indoors.
What happened next is the subject of a massive inquiry by the US Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The results are expected to deal another devastating blow to America’s standing in Iraq and across the world.
US Congressmen briefed on the investigation expect it to conclude that Corporal Terrazas’s fellow marines ran amok, killing as many as 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, in cold blood. A dozen marines face courts martial or even charges of homicide. A separate inquiry is determining whether there was a cover-up.
Pentagon and military officials who have seen the findings of the investigation have said that it may be the worst case of misconduct by American ground forces in Iraq, and that includes the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse. Critics will draw comparisons with the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, when US soldiers killed more than 500 unarmed villagers. Then it took 18 months for the truth to emerge, and changed the American public’s perception of the war.
The investigation is also coming to a head only days after President Bush and Tony Blair hailed the creation of Iraq’s new Government of national unity as a turning point in the country’s three-year descent into mayhem.
“It’s a disaster,” said Tareq al-Hashemi, Iraq’s Sunni Vice-President, who dislikes the occupation but does not want US troops to leave until the country is stable. “They are provoking all Iraqis, especially from the Arab Sunni community. They are pushing them to join the national resistance and to fight . . . Maybe some of them feel sympathetic to al-Qaeda now,” he told The Times.
“The situation in western Anbar province is out of control. This happened primarily because of the behaviour of the American Army — their large-scale violation of human rights. They are killing people, hurting people, destroying towns.”
As Iman tells it, US marines burst into her house 15 minutes after the bomb destroyed the Humvee, apparently looking for insurgents. They shouted at her father. Then a grenade was thrown into her grandparents’ room. She saw her mother hit by shrapnel. Her aunt grabbed a baby and ran from the house.
Soldiers opened fire inside the living room, where most of the family were gathered. Her uncle Rashid came downstairs, saw what was happening, then fled outside, where he was pursued by Marines and shot.
“Everybody who was in the house was killed by the Americans except my brother Abdul-Rahman and me,” Iman said. “We were too scared to move and tried to hide under a pillow. I was hit by shrapnel in my leg. For two hours we didn’t dare to move. My family didn’t die immediately. We could hear them groaning.”
Iman’s grandfather Abdul al-Hamid Hassan, her grandmother Khamisa, her father Walid, uncle Mujahid, her mother, uncle Rashid and cousin Abdullah, 4, had all been fatally wounded.
The US military initially reported al-Haditha as just one more bloody incident. “Fifteen Iraqi civilians and a Marine were killed when a roadside bomb exploded in al-Haditha,” said Captain Jeffrey S. Pool, a Marine spokesman.
It later suggested the Iraqi civilians had been caught in the crossfire of a battle between the Marines and insurgents. Lieutenant-Colonel Michelle Martin-Hing, a spokeswoman for the multinational force in Iraq, said that the insurgents “placed non-combatants in the line of fire as the Marines responded to defend themselves”.
But a video made by a trainee Iraqi journalist was passed to Time magazine. It showed bloodstained bodies, bullet and shrapnel marks inside the Hassan family home, and walls spattered with blood. There was no evidence of a skirmish on the outside of the buildings. Doctors said that most of the victims had been shot from close range in the head or chest.
Sources familiar with the investigation say that 24 Iraqis were killed that day. Seven of the victims were women and three were children. Five men were apparently shot in a taxi at a checkpoint.
“There was no firefight. There was no IED [improvised explosive device] that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood,” said John Murtha, a senior Democratic congressman, who has been briefed on the investigation. Mr Murtha is a former Marine colonel and vocal critic of the war.
The Marines belonged to the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment of the 1st Marine Division. The battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Jeffrey Chessani, and two company commanders, Captain Luke McConnell and Captain James Kimber, were suspended last month, but much worse is expected.
Pentagon sources say three Marines are facing criminal charges, including homicide. An additional nine Marines may also face courts martial.
The investigation’s findings will be published within weeks, but the damage limitation has already begun. General Michael Hagee, the US Marine Corps Commandant, flew to Baghdad on Thursday to tell his men that they must observe international rules of war. “To most Marines, the most difficult part of courage is not the raw physical courage we have seen so often on today’s battlefield. It is rather the moral courage to do the ‘right thing’ in the face of danger or pressure from other Marines,” he said. “We use lethal force only when justifed, proportional and, more importantly, lawful.”
Zalmay Khalilzad, US Ambassador to Baghdad, said that he and the US military would strive to assure Iraqis that what happened in Haditha “does not reflect US policy, reflect US goals, reflect US values”.
John Warner, Republican chairman of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, said he hoped that the public would remember “the magnificent performance” of the million other troops who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Back in al-Haditha, Iman and what remains of her family have been left to pick up the pieces of their lives. The girl’s uncle, Abu Muhammad, said that there was no time to give their relatives a proper funeral. “Instead we buried three in a grave, so there were five graves for the entire family,” he said. “We buried each man with his wife and child.”
An American unit attended the funeral to apologise, but not before it had positioned snipers around the mourners, he added.
Muhammad Abed, a cousin of Iman, said that two months ago a group of Americans returned to ask about the incident, take pictures and pay $2,500 compensation for each victim. Other Americans in civilian clothes returned to ask questions this month. After the attack Iman’s brother, Abdul Rahman, 8, refused to speak about the incident.
US troops still patrol al-Haditha and raid homes. Iman says that she will never forgive them: “I hate them. They came to kill us and then they say sorry.”
Seven thousand miles away, in El Paso, Texas, there are more victims — the family of the dead Humvee driver, Corporal Terrazas. Rosario Terrazas, his aunt, said: “My nephew was very kindhearted. While he was in Iraq, he asked us to send him care packages to give to the Iraqi children.”
But their grief has been compounded by the knowledge of what his colleagues allegedly did after his death. “It is difficult for us to believe they would do these terrible things,” his aunt said. “Sometimes it seems that it was because of him that an awful thing happened. Do you not realise what that is like?”
Lawyers who have talked to the Marines emphasise the extreme pressure that they were facing that day. The insurgents had mounted a wave of attacks, and the town was one of the most dangerous in Iraq for US troops. Three months earlier insurgents had ambushed and killed six Marine snipers, then released a video showing the mutilated body of a dead servicemen. Later 14 Marines were killed by a bomb near the town.
But the Marine Corps, which has lost 700 men in Iraq, refused to comment on the investigation. Colonel David Lapan, a spokesman, told The Times: “The investigations are ongoing, therefore any comment . . . would be inappropriate and could undermine the investigatory and possible legal process.”
----------------------------
Citation: Ali Hamdani, Ned Parker, Nick Meo and Tom Baldwin. "The Marines and a 'massacre' in Iraq," The Times, UK, 27 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2199287,00.html
----------------------------
The Times, UK, 27 May 2006
WITH remarkable self-assurance for a ten-year-old girl, Iman Hassan recounted how her family was killed by American troops as she cowered in terror in a corner of her living room.
It happened soon after 7am on November 19 last year, she claimed in an interview with The Times. She was still in her pyjamas and preparing for school when a US military convoy rumbled down the road near her home in al-Haditha, a town on the Euphrates surrounded by date farms that has become a hotbed of insurgents. Three months earlier 20 American soldiers had been killed there.
At that moment a Humvee was blown up by a roadside bomb, killing Miguel Terrazas, its 20-year-old driver from El Paso, Texas. Iman’s father was praying in the next room of her house, a basic two-storey building made of breezeblocks. Her grandparents were still in bed. The family heard shots but knew to stay indoors.
What happened next is the subject of a massive inquiry by the US Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The results are expected to deal another devastating blow to America’s standing in Iraq and across the world.
US Congressmen briefed on the investigation expect it to conclude that Corporal Terrazas’s fellow marines ran amok, killing as many as 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, in cold blood. A dozen marines face courts martial or even charges of homicide. A separate inquiry is determining whether there was a cover-up.
Pentagon and military officials who have seen the findings of the investigation have said that it may be the worst case of misconduct by American ground forces in Iraq, and that includes the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse. Critics will draw comparisons with the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, when US soldiers killed more than 500 unarmed villagers. Then it took 18 months for the truth to emerge, and changed the American public’s perception of the war.
The investigation is also coming to a head only days after President Bush and Tony Blair hailed the creation of Iraq’s new Government of national unity as a turning point in the country’s three-year descent into mayhem.
“It’s a disaster,” said Tareq al-Hashemi, Iraq’s Sunni Vice-President, who dislikes the occupation but does not want US troops to leave until the country is stable. “They are provoking all Iraqis, especially from the Arab Sunni community. They are pushing them to join the national resistance and to fight . . . Maybe some of them feel sympathetic to al-Qaeda now,” he told The Times.
“The situation in western Anbar province is out of control. This happened primarily because of the behaviour of the American Army — their large-scale violation of human rights. They are killing people, hurting people, destroying towns.”
As Iman tells it, US marines burst into her house 15 minutes after the bomb destroyed the Humvee, apparently looking for insurgents. They shouted at her father. Then a grenade was thrown into her grandparents’ room. She saw her mother hit by shrapnel. Her aunt grabbed a baby and ran from the house.
Soldiers opened fire inside the living room, where most of the family were gathered. Her uncle Rashid came downstairs, saw what was happening, then fled outside, where he was pursued by Marines and shot.
“Everybody who was in the house was killed by the Americans except my brother Abdul-Rahman and me,” Iman said. “We were too scared to move and tried to hide under a pillow. I was hit by shrapnel in my leg. For two hours we didn’t dare to move. My family didn’t die immediately. We could hear them groaning.”
Iman’s grandfather Abdul al-Hamid Hassan, her grandmother Khamisa, her father Walid, uncle Mujahid, her mother, uncle Rashid and cousin Abdullah, 4, had all been fatally wounded.
The US military initially reported al-Haditha as just one more bloody incident. “Fifteen Iraqi civilians and a Marine were killed when a roadside bomb exploded in al-Haditha,” said Captain Jeffrey S. Pool, a Marine spokesman.
It later suggested the Iraqi civilians had been caught in the crossfire of a battle between the Marines and insurgents. Lieutenant-Colonel Michelle Martin-Hing, a spokeswoman for the multinational force in Iraq, said that the insurgents “placed non-combatants in the line of fire as the Marines responded to defend themselves”.
But a video made by a trainee Iraqi journalist was passed to Time magazine. It showed bloodstained bodies, bullet and shrapnel marks inside the Hassan family home, and walls spattered with blood. There was no evidence of a skirmish on the outside of the buildings. Doctors said that most of the victims had been shot from close range in the head or chest.
Sources familiar with the investigation say that 24 Iraqis were killed that day. Seven of the victims were women and three were children. Five men were apparently shot in a taxi at a checkpoint.
“There was no firefight. There was no IED [improvised explosive device] that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood,” said John Murtha, a senior Democratic congressman, who has been briefed on the investigation. Mr Murtha is a former Marine colonel and vocal critic of the war.
The Marines belonged to the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment of the 1st Marine Division. The battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Jeffrey Chessani, and two company commanders, Captain Luke McConnell and Captain James Kimber, were suspended last month, but much worse is expected.
Pentagon sources say three Marines are facing criminal charges, including homicide. An additional nine Marines may also face courts martial.
The investigation’s findings will be published within weeks, but the damage limitation has already begun. General Michael Hagee, the US Marine Corps Commandant, flew to Baghdad on Thursday to tell his men that they must observe international rules of war. “To most Marines, the most difficult part of courage is not the raw physical courage we have seen so often on today’s battlefield. It is rather the moral courage to do the ‘right thing’ in the face of danger or pressure from other Marines,” he said. “We use lethal force only when justifed, proportional and, more importantly, lawful.”
Zalmay Khalilzad, US Ambassador to Baghdad, said that he and the US military would strive to assure Iraqis that what happened in Haditha “does not reflect US policy, reflect US goals, reflect US values”.
John Warner, Republican chairman of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, said he hoped that the public would remember “the magnificent performance” of the million other troops who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Back in al-Haditha, Iman and what remains of her family have been left to pick up the pieces of their lives. The girl’s uncle, Abu Muhammad, said that there was no time to give their relatives a proper funeral. “Instead we buried three in a grave, so there were five graves for the entire family,” he said. “We buried each man with his wife and child.”
An American unit attended the funeral to apologise, but not before it had positioned snipers around the mourners, he added.
Muhammad Abed, a cousin of Iman, said that two months ago a group of Americans returned to ask about the incident, take pictures and pay $2,500 compensation for each victim. Other Americans in civilian clothes returned to ask questions this month. After the attack Iman’s brother, Abdul Rahman, 8, refused to speak about the incident.
US troops still patrol al-Haditha and raid homes. Iman says that she will never forgive them: “I hate them. They came to kill us and then they say sorry.”
Seven thousand miles away, in El Paso, Texas, there are more victims — the family of the dead Humvee driver, Corporal Terrazas. Rosario Terrazas, his aunt, said: “My nephew was very kindhearted. While he was in Iraq, he asked us to send him care packages to give to the Iraqi children.”
But their grief has been compounded by the knowledge of what his colleagues allegedly did after his death. “It is difficult for us to believe they would do these terrible things,” his aunt said. “Sometimes it seems that it was because of him that an awful thing happened. Do you not realise what that is like?”
Lawyers who have talked to the Marines emphasise the extreme pressure that they were facing that day. The insurgents had mounted a wave of attacks, and the town was one of the most dangerous in Iraq for US troops. Three months earlier insurgents had ambushed and killed six Marine snipers, then released a video showing the mutilated body of a dead servicemen. Later 14 Marines were killed by a bomb near the town.
But the Marine Corps, which has lost 700 men in Iraq, refused to comment on the investigation. Colonel David Lapan, a spokesman, told The Times: “The investigations are ongoing, therefore any comment . . . would be inappropriate and could undermine the investigatory and possible legal process.”
----------------------------
Citation: Ali Hamdani, Ned Parker, Nick Meo and Tom Baldwin. "The Marines and a 'massacre' in Iraq," The Times, UK, 27 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2199287,00.html
----------------------------
The Shame Of Kilo Company
Sparked by a TIME report published in March, a U.S. military investigation is probing the killing of as many as 24 Iraqi civilians by a group of Marines in the town of Haditha last November. Several Marines may face criminal charges, including murder. And new revelations suggest that their superiors may have helped in a cover-up.
By Michael Duffy
TIME Magazine, 28 May 2006
The outfit known as Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, wasn't new to Iraq last year when it moved into Haditha, a Euphrates River farming town about 150 miles northwest of Baghdad. Several members of the unit were on their second tour of Iraq; one was on his third. The men in Kilo Company were veterans of ferocious house-to-house fighting in Fallujah. Their combat experience seemed to prepare them for the ordeal of serving in an insurgent stronghold like Haditha, the kind of place where the enemy attacks U.S. troops from the cover of mosques, schools and homes and uses civilians as shields, complicating Marine engagement rules to shoot only when threatened. In Haditha, says a Marine who has been there twice, "you can't tell a bad guy until he shoots you."
But one morning last November, some members of Kilo Company apparently didn't attempt to distinguish between enemies and innocents. Instead, they seem to have gone on the worst rampage by U.S. service members in the Iraq war, killing as many as 24 civilians in cold blood. The details of what happened in Haditha were first disclosed in March by TIME's Tim McGirk and Aparisim Ghosh, and their reporting prompted the military to launch an inquiry into the civilian deaths. The darkest suspicions about the killings were confirmed last week, when members of Congress who were briefed on the two ongoing military investigations disclosed that at least some members of a Marine unit may soon be charged in connection with the deaths of the Iraqis--and that the charges may include murder, which carries the death penalty. "This was a small number of Marines who fired directly on civilians and killed them," said Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican and former Marine who was briefed two weeks ago by Marine Corps officials. "This is going to be an ugly story."
With the U.S. struggling to hold on to public support for the war and no end to the insurgency in sight, the prospect of possible indictments has induced an aching dread among military and government officials. As the military launched another probe--into the April 26 killing of an Iraqi civilian by Marines--General Michael Hagee, commandant of the Marine Corps, headed to Iraq to address Marines on the growing crisis. Marine Corps public-affairs director Brigadier General Mary Ann Krusa-Dossin says the allegations "have caused serious concern at the highest levels" of the corps.
A military source in Iraq told TIME that investigators have obtained two sets of photos from Haditha. The first is after-action photos taken by the military as part of the routine procedure that follows any such event. Submitted in the official report on the fighting, the photos do not show any bodies. Investigators have also discovered a second, more damning set of photos, taken by Marines of the Kilo Company immediately after the shootings. The source says it isn't clear if these photos were held back from the after-action report or were personal snapshots taken by the Marines. The source says a Marine e-mailed at least one photo to a friend in the U.S.
Almost as damaging as the alleged massacre may be evidence that the unit's members and their superiors conspired to cover it up. "There's no doubt that the Marines allegedly involved in doing this--they lied about it," says Kline. "They certainly tried to cover it up." Three Marine officers, including the company commander and battalion commander, have been relieved of duty in part for actions related to the deaths in Haditha. A lawmaker who has been briefed on the matter says the investigations may implicate other senior officers.
In hindsight, it seems remarkable that the Marines were able to conceal such a horrific event for so long. It began, as so many things in Iraq do, with an explosion. At about 7:15 in the morning on Nov. 19, a string of four humvees were on routine patrol in a residential area when a white taxicab approached from the opposite end of the street. The Marines made hand and arm signals for the taxi to stop. But as the taxi halted near the first humvee, a bomb under the fourth humvee exploded, killing its driver--Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, Texas--wounding two of his comrades and shattering windows 150 yards away. Marines said the convoy almost immediately began to take fire from several houses on either side of the road. Locals dispute that, claiming the only firing after the explosion was done by the Marines. Suspecting that the four students in the taxi either triggered the bomb or were acting as spotters, the Marines ordered the men and the driver, who by then had exited the taxi, to lie on the ground. Instead, they ran, and the Marines shot and killed them.
The military's initial report stated that Terrazas and 15 civilians were killed in a roadside blast and that shortly afterward, the Marines came under attack and returned fire, killing eight insurgents. But as TIME reported in March on the basis of interviews with 28 individuals, including military officials, the families of the victims, human-rights investigators and local doctors, much of that account is dubious. Members of Congress, as well as military sources, have confirmed the critical details of TIME's initial report--that after gunning down the five fleeing the taxi, a few members of Kilo Company moved through four homes along nearby streets, killing 19 men, women and children. The Marines contend they took small-arms fire from at least one house, but as TIME's story detailed in March, only one of the 19 victims was found with a weapon.
The day after the killings, an Iraqi journalism student videotaped the scene at a local morgue and the homes where the shootings had occurred. "You could tell they were enraged," the student, Taher Thabet, said last week. "They not only killed people, they smashed furniture, tore down wall hangings, and when they took prisoners, they treated them very roughly. This was not a precise military operation." A delegation of angry village elders complained to senior Marines in Haditha about the killings but were rebuffed with the excuse that the raid had been a mistake. TIME learned about the Haditha action in January, when it obtained a copy of Thabet's videotape from an Iraqi human-rights group. But a Marine spokesman brushed off any inquiries. "To be honest," Marine Captain Jeff Pool e-mailed McGirk, "I cannot believe you're buying any of this. This falls into the same category of AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) propaganda." In late January, TIME gave a copy of the videotape to Colonel Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. After reviewing it, he recommended a formal investigation. The ensuing probe, conducted by a colonel, concluded that Marines, not a bomb, killed the civilians but that the deaths were the result of "collateral damage," not deliberate homicide. Nevertheless, after reviewing the initial probe, senior military officials launched a criminal investigation.
A military source in Iraq says the men of Kilo Company stuck by their story throughout the initial inquiry, but what they told the first military investigator raised suspicions. One of the most glaring discrepancies involved the shooting of the four students and the taxi driver. "They had no weapons, they didn't show hostile intent, so why shoot them?" the military source says. Khaled Raseef, a spokesman for the victims' relatives, says U.S. military investigators visited the alleged massacre sites 15 times and "asked detailed questions, examined each bullet hole and burn mark and took all sorts of measurements. In the end, they brought all the survivors to the homes and did a mock-up of the Marines' movements." As the detectives found contradictions in the Marines' account, "the official story fell apart and people started rolling on each other," says the military source.
Military sources told TIME that the first probe is focusing on the unit's leader, who was at the scene of virtually every shooting that day in Haditha. Pentagon officials say the sergeant has served more than seven years in the corps and was on his first Iraq tour. At least two other enlisted men may be directly involved, Pentagon officials say, and perhaps as many as nine others in the 13-man unit witnessed the shootings but neither attempted to step in nor reported them later.
Among the mysteries still unsolved is what caused such a catastrophic collapse in the Marines' discipline. U.S. troops are trained to make the deliberate distinction between friend and foe and are aware that the enemy has completely mixed into the civilian population. Marine Sergeant Eddie Wright, who lost both hands in a rocket-propelled-grenade attack in Fallujah two years ago, said it's natural "to want to kill the guys who killed your buddy." But, he adds, "you don't lash out at innocent people."
So why did some men in Kilo Company apparently snap? Perhaps because of the stress of fighting a violent and unpopular war--or because their commanders failed them. Military psychiatrists who have studied what makes a soldier's moral compass go haywire in battle look first for a weak chain of command. That was a factor in the March 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, when U.S. soldiers, including members of an Army platoon led by Lieut. William Calley, killed some 500 Vietnamese. Says a retired Army Green Beret colonel who fought in Vietnam: "Somebody has failed to say, 'No, that's not right.'" No one, apparently, was delivering that message last November in Haditha.
For more exclusive coverage of the killings in Haditha, including reaction from local residents, visit time.com [This article contains a complex diagram. Please see a hardcopy or pdf.] THE SCENE At 7:15 a.m. on Nov. 19, 2005, Marine Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, was killed when a bomb exploded under his humvee on a road just south of Haditha. Within hours, Marines killed two dozen Iraqi civilians, including women and children
HUMVEE CONVOY
To central Haditha
Movement of Marines
Hay al-Sinnai Road
1 Bomb explodes 2 Taxi Four teens and driver killed
3 Waleed house Seven killed, including two women and a child
4 Younis house Eight killed, including six women
5 Ayed house (son) Group of women and children guarded
6 Ayed house (father) Four men killed in adjoining house TIME Graphic by Jackson Dykman and Joe Lertola; satellite image from Digital Globe via Google Earth
With reporting Douglas Waller, Aparisim Ghosh, Sally B. Donnelly, Massimo Calabresi, Michael Weisskopf and Tim McGirk
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Citation: Michael Duffy. "The Shame Of Kilo Company," TIME Magazine, 28 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1198892,00.html
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By Michael Duffy
TIME Magazine, 28 May 2006
The outfit known as Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, wasn't new to Iraq last year when it moved into Haditha, a Euphrates River farming town about 150 miles northwest of Baghdad. Several members of the unit were on their second tour of Iraq; one was on his third. The men in Kilo Company were veterans of ferocious house-to-house fighting in Fallujah. Their combat experience seemed to prepare them for the ordeal of serving in an insurgent stronghold like Haditha, the kind of place where the enemy attacks U.S. troops from the cover of mosques, schools and homes and uses civilians as shields, complicating Marine engagement rules to shoot only when threatened. In Haditha, says a Marine who has been there twice, "you can't tell a bad guy until he shoots you."
But one morning last November, some members of Kilo Company apparently didn't attempt to distinguish between enemies and innocents. Instead, they seem to have gone on the worst rampage by U.S. service members in the Iraq war, killing as many as 24 civilians in cold blood. The details of what happened in Haditha were first disclosed in March by TIME's Tim McGirk and Aparisim Ghosh, and their reporting prompted the military to launch an inquiry into the civilian deaths. The darkest suspicions about the killings were confirmed last week, when members of Congress who were briefed on the two ongoing military investigations disclosed that at least some members of a Marine unit may soon be charged in connection with the deaths of the Iraqis--and that the charges may include murder, which carries the death penalty. "This was a small number of Marines who fired directly on civilians and killed them," said Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican and former Marine who was briefed two weeks ago by Marine Corps officials. "This is going to be an ugly story."
With the U.S. struggling to hold on to public support for the war and no end to the insurgency in sight, the prospect of possible indictments has induced an aching dread among military and government officials. As the military launched another probe--into the April 26 killing of an Iraqi civilian by Marines--General Michael Hagee, commandant of the Marine Corps, headed to Iraq to address Marines on the growing crisis. Marine Corps public-affairs director Brigadier General Mary Ann Krusa-Dossin says the allegations "have caused serious concern at the highest levels" of the corps.
A military source in Iraq told TIME that investigators have obtained two sets of photos from Haditha. The first is after-action photos taken by the military as part of the routine procedure that follows any such event. Submitted in the official report on the fighting, the photos do not show any bodies. Investigators have also discovered a second, more damning set of photos, taken by Marines of the Kilo Company immediately after the shootings. The source says it isn't clear if these photos were held back from the after-action report or were personal snapshots taken by the Marines. The source says a Marine e-mailed at least one photo to a friend in the U.S.
Almost as damaging as the alleged massacre may be evidence that the unit's members and their superiors conspired to cover it up. "There's no doubt that the Marines allegedly involved in doing this--they lied about it," says Kline. "They certainly tried to cover it up." Three Marine officers, including the company commander and battalion commander, have been relieved of duty in part for actions related to the deaths in Haditha. A lawmaker who has been briefed on the matter says the investigations may implicate other senior officers.
In hindsight, it seems remarkable that the Marines were able to conceal such a horrific event for so long. It began, as so many things in Iraq do, with an explosion. At about 7:15 in the morning on Nov. 19, a string of four humvees were on routine patrol in a residential area when a white taxicab approached from the opposite end of the street. The Marines made hand and arm signals for the taxi to stop. But as the taxi halted near the first humvee, a bomb under the fourth humvee exploded, killing its driver--Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, Texas--wounding two of his comrades and shattering windows 150 yards away. Marines said the convoy almost immediately began to take fire from several houses on either side of the road. Locals dispute that, claiming the only firing after the explosion was done by the Marines. Suspecting that the four students in the taxi either triggered the bomb or were acting as spotters, the Marines ordered the men and the driver, who by then had exited the taxi, to lie on the ground. Instead, they ran, and the Marines shot and killed them.
The military's initial report stated that Terrazas and 15 civilians were killed in a roadside blast and that shortly afterward, the Marines came under attack and returned fire, killing eight insurgents. But as TIME reported in March on the basis of interviews with 28 individuals, including military officials, the families of the victims, human-rights investigators and local doctors, much of that account is dubious. Members of Congress, as well as military sources, have confirmed the critical details of TIME's initial report--that after gunning down the five fleeing the taxi, a few members of Kilo Company moved through four homes along nearby streets, killing 19 men, women and children. The Marines contend they took small-arms fire from at least one house, but as TIME's story detailed in March, only one of the 19 victims was found with a weapon.
The day after the killings, an Iraqi journalism student videotaped the scene at a local morgue and the homes where the shootings had occurred. "You could tell they were enraged," the student, Taher Thabet, said last week. "They not only killed people, they smashed furniture, tore down wall hangings, and when they took prisoners, they treated them very roughly. This was not a precise military operation." A delegation of angry village elders complained to senior Marines in Haditha about the killings but were rebuffed with the excuse that the raid had been a mistake. TIME learned about the Haditha action in January, when it obtained a copy of Thabet's videotape from an Iraqi human-rights group. But a Marine spokesman brushed off any inquiries. "To be honest," Marine Captain Jeff Pool e-mailed McGirk, "I cannot believe you're buying any of this. This falls into the same category of AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) propaganda." In late January, TIME gave a copy of the videotape to Colonel Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. After reviewing it, he recommended a formal investigation. The ensuing probe, conducted by a colonel, concluded that Marines, not a bomb, killed the civilians but that the deaths were the result of "collateral damage," not deliberate homicide. Nevertheless, after reviewing the initial probe, senior military officials launched a criminal investigation.
A military source in Iraq says the men of Kilo Company stuck by their story throughout the initial inquiry, but what they told the first military investigator raised suspicions. One of the most glaring discrepancies involved the shooting of the four students and the taxi driver. "They had no weapons, they didn't show hostile intent, so why shoot them?" the military source says. Khaled Raseef, a spokesman for the victims' relatives, says U.S. military investigators visited the alleged massacre sites 15 times and "asked detailed questions, examined each bullet hole and burn mark and took all sorts of measurements. In the end, they brought all the survivors to the homes and did a mock-up of the Marines' movements." As the detectives found contradictions in the Marines' account, "the official story fell apart and people started rolling on each other," says the military source.
Military sources told TIME that the first probe is focusing on the unit's leader, who was at the scene of virtually every shooting that day in Haditha. Pentagon officials say the sergeant has served more than seven years in the corps and was on his first Iraq tour. At least two other enlisted men may be directly involved, Pentagon officials say, and perhaps as many as nine others in the 13-man unit witnessed the shootings but neither attempted to step in nor reported them later.
Among the mysteries still unsolved is what caused such a catastrophic collapse in the Marines' discipline. U.S. troops are trained to make the deliberate distinction between friend and foe and are aware that the enemy has completely mixed into the civilian population. Marine Sergeant Eddie Wright, who lost both hands in a rocket-propelled-grenade attack in Fallujah two years ago, said it's natural "to want to kill the guys who killed your buddy." But, he adds, "you don't lash out at innocent people."
So why did some men in Kilo Company apparently snap? Perhaps because of the stress of fighting a violent and unpopular war--or because their commanders failed them. Military psychiatrists who have studied what makes a soldier's moral compass go haywire in battle look first for a weak chain of command. That was a factor in the March 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, when U.S. soldiers, including members of an Army platoon led by Lieut. William Calley, killed some 500 Vietnamese. Says a retired Army Green Beret colonel who fought in Vietnam: "Somebody has failed to say, 'No, that's not right.'" No one, apparently, was delivering that message last November in Haditha.
For more exclusive coverage of the killings in Haditha, including reaction from local residents, visit time.com [This article contains a complex diagram. Please see a hardcopy or pdf.] THE SCENE At 7:15 a.m. on Nov. 19, 2005, Marine Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, was killed when a bomb exploded under his humvee on a road just south of Haditha. Within hours, Marines killed two dozen Iraqi civilians, including women and children
HUMVEE CONVOY
To central Haditha
Movement of Marines
Hay al-Sinnai Road
1 Bomb explodes 2 Taxi Four teens and driver killed
3 Waleed house Seven killed, including two women and a child
4 Younis house Eight killed, including six women
5 Ayed house (son) Group of women and children guarded
6 Ayed house (father) Four men killed in adjoining house TIME Graphic by Jackson Dykman and Joe Lertola; satellite image from Digital Globe via Google Earth
With reporting Douglas Waller, Aparisim Ghosh, Sally B. Donnelly, Massimo Calabresi, Michael Weisskopf and Tim McGirk
------------------------
Citation: Michael Duffy. "The Shame Of Kilo Company," TIME Magazine, 28 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1198892,00.html
------------------------
Iraq PM ready to use force on Basra oil "gangs"
By Mariam Karouny
Reuters, 30 May 2006
BAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will fly to Iraq's second city Basra on Wednesday to end faction fighting among fellow Shi'ites and said he is ready to use force against "gangs" holding oil exports and other trade to ransom.
"We must restore security in Basra and if anyone defies peaceful solutions then force will be the solution," he told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
"There's no way we can leave Basra, the gateway to Iraq, our imports and exports, at the mercy of criminal, terrorist gangs. We will use force against these gangs."
Security has deteriorated sharply in the southern city over the past year as rival factions from the Shi'ite Muslim majority tussle for a share of the power handed to Shi'ites by the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated administration.
Basra, whose oil accounts for virtually all of Iraq's state revenues, is a major prize for all parties.
Speaking three days after a small Shi'ite faction warned it could halt oil exports from Basra to win concessions in Baghdad, Maliki said: "I will go tomorrow with a delegation from the government and from the parliament."
"We will spare nothing to find a solution," he added, saying he would stay in the city beyond Wednesday if needed.
Maliki said he was unhappy with some of the policies of British forces who patrol Basra province, where various factions of his dominant Shi'ite Islamist Alliance bloc are competing for power and influence.
He said a further complication was foreign "infiltrators" coming across the border from Shi'ite Iran -- though he declined to say he believed these incomers were themselves Iranian.
"What is happening in Basra has many dimensions," said Maliki, whose Dawa party is part of the Alliance coalition.
THREAT TO EXPORTS
The main Alliance factions involved in Basra's power struggles are the armed Badr organisation, the governor's Fadhila party and the movement of cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr.
A source close to Fadhila warned last week it could halt oil exports.
Noting an open conflict between the governor and the police chief against a backdrop of daily killings and widespread accusations of corruption and organised crime, he said: "We cannot blame whatever is happening on terrorists.
"There is a tribal dimension and also there are the armed organised criminal gangs who are kidnapping and killing people, and these are the most dangerous element in the crisis.
"There are infiltrators who mean to complicate the situation in Basra because Basra is Iraq's oil artery," he added.
"Also there is some behaviour from the British," he said without specifying which policies he was complaining about.
"We will work on reconciling tribes and religious figures and political parties, and also increase the security presence to stop the criminals," he said.
Maliki said he would not spare any option to end the Basra crisis.
"We have to go to find solutions ... We have a crisis but it is not an insoluble crisis and, God willing, our efforts will be enough to find solutions acceptable to all sides involved."
----------------------
Citation: Mariam Karouny. "Iraq PM ready to use force on Basra oil "gangs"," Reuters, 30 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L30182670.htm
----------------------
Reuters, 30 May 2006
BAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will fly to Iraq's second city Basra on Wednesday to end faction fighting among fellow Shi'ites and said he is ready to use force against "gangs" holding oil exports and other trade to ransom.
"We must restore security in Basra and if anyone defies peaceful solutions then force will be the solution," he told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
"There's no way we can leave Basra, the gateway to Iraq, our imports and exports, at the mercy of criminal, terrorist gangs. We will use force against these gangs."
Security has deteriorated sharply in the southern city over the past year as rival factions from the Shi'ite Muslim majority tussle for a share of the power handed to Shi'ites by the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated administration.
Basra, whose oil accounts for virtually all of Iraq's state revenues, is a major prize for all parties.
Speaking three days after a small Shi'ite faction warned it could halt oil exports from Basra to win concessions in Baghdad, Maliki said: "I will go tomorrow with a delegation from the government and from the parliament."
"We will spare nothing to find a solution," he added, saying he would stay in the city beyond Wednesday if needed.
Maliki said he was unhappy with some of the policies of British forces who patrol Basra province, where various factions of his dominant Shi'ite Islamist Alliance bloc are competing for power and influence.
He said a further complication was foreign "infiltrators" coming across the border from Shi'ite Iran -- though he declined to say he believed these incomers were themselves Iranian.
"What is happening in Basra has many dimensions," said Maliki, whose Dawa party is part of the Alliance coalition.
THREAT TO EXPORTS
The main Alliance factions involved in Basra's power struggles are the armed Badr organisation, the governor's Fadhila party and the movement of cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr.
A source close to Fadhila warned last week it could halt oil exports.
Noting an open conflict between the governor and the police chief against a backdrop of daily killings and widespread accusations of corruption and organised crime, he said: "We cannot blame whatever is happening on terrorists.
"There is a tribal dimension and also there are the armed organised criminal gangs who are kidnapping and killing people, and these are the most dangerous element in the crisis.
"There are infiltrators who mean to complicate the situation in Basra because Basra is Iraq's oil artery," he added.
"Also there is some behaviour from the British," he said without specifying which policies he was complaining about.
"We will work on reconciling tribes and religious figures and political parties, and also increase the security presence to stop the criminals," he said.
Maliki said he would not spare any option to end the Basra crisis.
"We have to go to find solutions ... We have a crisis but it is not an insoluble crisis and, God willing, our efforts will be enough to find solutions acceptable to all sides involved."
----------------------
Citation: Mariam Karouny. "Iraq PM ready to use force on Basra oil "gangs"," Reuters, 30 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L30182670.htm
----------------------
25 May 2006
Let's not lose Afghanistan again
By Tom Lantos
The Boston Globe, 25 May 2006
AFGHANISTAN, the launchpad for Al Qaeda's 9/11 terrorist attacks, is slowly sliding toward instability. US and international forces, with their mandate to protect the country, are stretched impossibly thin. And yet Congress is on the verge of making an error that could help to undermine the goal of Afghan peace.
Since American and coalition troops ousted the ruling Taliban, great strides have been made along Afghanistan's path to democracy. After four years of US and international assistance and military involvement, Afghanistan now has a freely elected president and parliament, a nascent national army, and the beginnings of economic development.
But the goal of a stable, peaceful, democratic Afghanistan is still gravely threatened. A resurgent Taliban, increased terrorist attacks, slowed reconstruction and development, and rising opium poppy growth are reversing the tide of success. The risk of losing Afghanistan increases with each passing day. In the last year, deadly attacks have risen by more than 20 percent. Such assaults have killed or injured more US, Afghan, and coalition soldiers, civilians, and aid workers than in the previous three years combined. Heroin production has soared, now constituting nearly half of the Afghan economy, enriching warlords and terrorists alike while fostering government corruption.
US plans to withdraw 3,000 troops are widely interpreted in Afghanistan as the beginning of the end of America's tangible commitment to the country's new freedom, even though more NATO troops are arriving. If the United States doesn't want to lose Afghanistan again, its long-term political, economic, and military commitments must be beyond question.
To counter this concern, the United States and NATO should at least maintain current force levels. For now, the yardstick of international commitment is the number of international boots on Afghan soil, and American boots count the most. Given doubts in Kabul (and in Washington) that the NATO units replacing US troops in the restive south and southeast will do more than hunker down in protected enclaves, it is important for Afghan allies and enemies alike to believe that America will remain there in strength.
In addition, the United States should maintain its current economic commitment for the next seven to 10 years. Congress should fully fund President Bush's request for $1.1 billion for fiscal 2007, money that is in doubt because of House Republicans' short-sighted decisions to slash the president's foreign assistance request and cut nearly 15 percent from the request for Afghanistan.
But assistance funds also should be spent in smarter ways. Afghanistan not only has suffered a quarter century of warfare, but its physical and economic infrastructure are undeveloped. The task now is not so much reconstruction as sustainable development. International assistance should focus tightly on nurturing internal economic growth. It was symbolically important in 2003 for foreign contractors to build portions of the Kabul-Khandahar road. Now, Afghans should manage all major development projects themselves.
The same goes for political development. The international community should promote political party building and a strengthened parliament, an independent judiciary, war-crimes accountability, and independent media. There should be new campaigns to disarm militias. Elections are a necessary but insufficient element in a self-perpetuating democratic system.
In addition, the explosive growth of opium production must be smothered. In a country awash with weapons and drug profits -- and drug lords prepared to use them to protect their interests -- there is no easy answer. Assistance to farmers should be increased and accelerated; eradicating their crops without a viable alternative livelihood will simply drive them into the arms of the Taliban. America and its allies should increase aid to train police and to help authorities destroy drug labs and warehouses, including using US airlifts and, when necessary, US military force against narco-traffickers.
While America should not underestimate these challenges, it must also recognize that the Afghan people are resilient, enterprising, and fed up with warlords, drugs, and violence. Give them the right tools, and they can fashion a society that will break new ground in the Islamic world.
Tom Lantos, a US representative from California, is the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee.
--------------------------
Citation: Tom Lantos. "Let's not lose Afghanistan again," The Boston Globe, 25 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2006/05/25/lets_not_lose_afghanistan_again/
--------------------------
The Boston Globe, 25 May 2006
AFGHANISTAN, the launchpad for Al Qaeda's 9/11 terrorist attacks, is slowly sliding toward instability. US and international forces, with their mandate to protect the country, are stretched impossibly thin. And yet Congress is on the verge of making an error that could help to undermine the goal of Afghan peace.
Since American and coalition troops ousted the ruling Taliban, great strides have been made along Afghanistan's path to democracy. After four years of US and international assistance and military involvement, Afghanistan now has a freely elected president and parliament, a nascent national army, and the beginnings of economic development.
But the goal of a stable, peaceful, democratic Afghanistan is still gravely threatened. A resurgent Taliban, increased terrorist attacks, slowed reconstruction and development, and rising opium poppy growth are reversing the tide of success. The risk of losing Afghanistan increases with each passing day. In the last year, deadly attacks have risen by more than 20 percent. Such assaults have killed or injured more US, Afghan, and coalition soldiers, civilians, and aid workers than in the previous three years combined. Heroin production has soared, now constituting nearly half of the Afghan economy, enriching warlords and terrorists alike while fostering government corruption.
US plans to withdraw 3,000 troops are widely interpreted in Afghanistan as the beginning of the end of America's tangible commitment to the country's new freedom, even though more NATO troops are arriving. If the United States doesn't want to lose Afghanistan again, its long-term political, economic, and military commitments must be beyond question.
To counter this concern, the United States and NATO should at least maintain current force levels. For now, the yardstick of international commitment is the number of international boots on Afghan soil, and American boots count the most. Given doubts in Kabul (and in Washington) that the NATO units replacing US troops in the restive south and southeast will do more than hunker down in protected enclaves, it is important for Afghan allies and enemies alike to believe that America will remain there in strength.
In addition, the United States should maintain its current economic commitment for the next seven to 10 years. Congress should fully fund President Bush's request for $1.1 billion for fiscal 2007, money that is in doubt because of House Republicans' short-sighted decisions to slash the president's foreign assistance request and cut nearly 15 percent from the request for Afghanistan.
But assistance funds also should be spent in smarter ways. Afghanistan not only has suffered a quarter century of warfare, but its physical and economic infrastructure are undeveloped. The task now is not so much reconstruction as sustainable development. International assistance should focus tightly on nurturing internal economic growth. It was symbolically important in 2003 for foreign contractors to build portions of the Kabul-Khandahar road. Now, Afghans should manage all major development projects themselves.
The same goes for political development. The international community should promote political party building and a strengthened parliament, an independent judiciary, war-crimes accountability, and independent media. There should be new campaigns to disarm militias. Elections are a necessary but insufficient element in a self-perpetuating democratic system.
In addition, the explosive growth of opium production must be smothered. In a country awash with weapons and drug profits -- and drug lords prepared to use them to protect their interests -- there is no easy answer. Assistance to farmers should be increased and accelerated; eradicating their crops without a viable alternative livelihood will simply drive them into the arms of the Taliban. America and its allies should increase aid to train police and to help authorities destroy drug labs and warehouses, including using US airlifts and, when necessary, US military force against narco-traffickers.
While America should not underestimate these challenges, it must also recognize that the Afghan people are resilient, enterprising, and fed up with warlords, drugs, and violence. Give them the right tools, and they can fashion a society that will break new ground in the Islamic world.
Tom Lantos, a US representative from California, is the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee.
--------------------------
Citation: Tom Lantos. "Let's not lose Afghanistan again," The Boston Globe, 25 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2006/05/25/lets_not_lose_afghanistan_again/
--------------------------
Iraq PM: Forces capable of securing nation
By Patrick Quinn
The Associated Press, 24 May 2006
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Wednesday he believed Iraqi forces were capable of taking over security around the country within 18 months, but he did not mention a timetable for U.S.-led coalition forces to leave.
In Washington, the White House said before a meeting between President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair that it was premature to talk about troop withdrawals.
The killing of at least 18 people around Iraq was a reminder of the lack of security in a country where drive-by shootings and roadside bombings are so commonplace they fail to elicit any official reaction.
The U.S. military announced that a soldier was killed in action, and Iraqi police said they found the bodies of nine people who had been tortured. The slayings pointed to the sectarian death squads in Baghdad and Iraq's major cities.
"Our forces are capable of taking over the security in all Iraqi provinces within a year-and-a-half," al-Maliki said in a written statement, in which he acknowledged that security forces needed more recruits, training and equipment.
His comments came as Sunni Arab and Shiite political leaders expressed hope that compromise candidates would be found to head the defense and interior ministries by Saturday.
A firm hand guiding the two ministries could lay the groundwork for shifting security responsibilities from U.S.-led forces to the Iraqi army and police. U.S. officials have conceded that could take longer than Iraqi officials wish.
The violence in Iraq and the need for coalition forces will be a primary topic when Bush and Blair meet Thursday. Both leaders have dropped sharply in the polls and are under pressure to make troop cutbacks.
"I do not believe that you're going to hear the president or the prime minister say we're going to be out in one year, two years, four years," White House spokesman Tony Snow said. "I just don't think you're going to get any specific prediction of troops withdrawals."
Iraq's armed forces and police number about 254,000 and should reach about 273,000 by year's end. That, according to al-Maliki, is when "responsibility for much of Iraq's territorial security should have been transferred to Iraqi control" — except for Anbar province and Baghdad, two of the most violent areas.
Al-Maliki and Blair said Monday that Iraqi security forces would start assuming full responsibility for some provinces and cities next month. They declined to set a date for a coalition withdrawal.
However, handing over security responsibilities to the Iraqis does not necessarily mean that significant numbers of U.S.-led forces will start returning home. Instead, plans call for them to move from cities to large coalition bases — where they will be on call if needed.
The Iraqi army needs to recruit at least 5,000 troops in Anbar, the western province that U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad acknowledged is not fully under coalition or Iraqi government control.
"I believe that parts of Anbar are under the control of terrorists and insurgents. But as far as the country as a whole is concerned, it is the coalition forces, along with Iraqi forces, who are in control," Khalilzad told CNN.
The U.S. Army has said it wants make up the shortfall in Anbar with locally recruited troops, but such a move probably will not be possible unless the Defense Ministry is controlled by a Sunni Arab.
"Negotiations are under way in order to reach a decision regarding the appointment of the ministers of defense and interior. Within the coming two days, the decision will be made," Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the main Sunni Arab party, the Iraqi Accordance Front, told The Associated Press.
Sunni Arabs also have sought the ministry as a counterbalance to the Shiite-run Interior Ministry, which many members of the minority blame for failing to disband militias they say are responsible for sectarian death squads.
Al-Dulaimi said his coalition presented six Defense Ministry nominees for vetting and made it clear that Sunni Arabs want an interior minister "who is not linked to militias."
Shiite deputies said a seven-member selection committee failed to agree on a candidate but would keep meeting daily and hoped to make a choice by Saturday, the day before parliament convenes. The 275-member body will have to approve any candidates.
A U.S. Army soldier died Tuesday when his patrol was attacked by small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades during an operation to clear roadside bombs south of Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, the military said.
In Wednesday's worst drive-by shooting, gunmen killed Adel Issa, of Diyala's provincial council, and two bodyguards in northern Iraq.
In Baghdad, 10 drive-by shootings killed 14 people: Hussein Ahmed Rashid, a member of Iraq's national tennis team, and two of his friends; a college student; two day laborers; a police officer; two street vendors; a university professor; two taxi drivers; a builder; and a grocery store owner, police said.
In other violence, two roadside bombs in Baghdad wounded nine Iraqis, including two soldiers, and gunmen killed an Iraqi soldier at a checkpoint near the U.S. military base north of Baghdad, officials said.
A university student was killed and four others were wounded in a drive by-shooting in Mosul, police said.
Baghdad police found the bodies of two Iraqis who had been shot in the head, Hussein said.
In Dayera, a rural area 35 miles south of Baghdad, police found the bodies of seven Iraqis shot through the head, police Capt. Muthana Khalid said.
Associated Press reporters Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.
-----------------------------
Citation: Patrick Quinn. "Iraq PM: Forces capable of securing nation," The Associated Press, 24 May 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060524/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
-----------------------------
The Associated Press, 24 May 2006
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Wednesday he believed Iraqi forces were capable of taking over security around the country within 18 months, but he did not mention a timetable for U.S.-led coalition forces to leave.
In Washington, the White House said before a meeting between President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair that it was premature to talk about troop withdrawals.
The killing of at least 18 people around Iraq was a reminder of the lack of security in a country where drive-by shootings and roadside bombings are so commonplace they fail to elicit any official reaction.
The U.S. military announced that a soldier was killed in action, and Iraqi police said they found the bodies of nine people who had been tortured. The slayings pointed to the sectarian death squads in Baghdad and Iraq's major cities.
"Our forces are capable of taking over the security in all Iraqi provinces within a year-and-a-half," al-Maliki said in a written statement, in which he acknowledged that security forces needed more recruits, training and equipment.
His comments came as Sunni Arab and Shiite political leaders expressed hope that compromise candidates would be found to head the defense and interior ministries by Saturday.
A firm hand guiding the two ministries could lay the groundwork for shifting security responsibilities from U.S.-led forces to the Iraqi army and police. U.S. officials have conceded that could take longer than Iraqi officials wish.
The violence in Iraq and the need for coalition forces will be a primary topic when Bush and Blair meet Thursday. Both leaders have dropped sharply in the polls and are under pressure to make troop cutbacks.
"I do not believe that you're going to hear the president or the prime minister say we're going to be out in one year, two years, four years," White House spokesman Tony Snow said. "I just don't think you're going to get any specific prediction of troops withdrawals."
Iraq's armed forces and police number about 254,000 and should reach about 273,000 by year's end. That, according to al-Maliki, is when "responsibility for much of Iraq's territorial security should have been transferred to Iraqi control" — except for Anbar province and Baghdad, two of the most violent areas.
Al-Maliki and Blair said Monday that Iraqi security forces would start assuming full responsibility for some provinces and cities next month. They declined to set a date for a coalition withdrawal.
However, handing over security responsibilities to the Iraqis does not necessarily mean that significant numbers of U.S.-led forces will start returning home. Instead, plans call for them to move from cities to large coalition bases — where they will be on call if needed.
The Iraqi army needs to recruit at least 5,000 troops in Anbar, the western province that U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad acknowledged is not fully under coalition or Iraqi government control.
"I believe that parts of Anbar are under the control of terrorists and insurgents. But as far as the country as a whole is concerned, it is the coalition forces, along with Iraqi forces, who are in control," Khalilzad told CNN.
The U.S. Army has said it wants make up the shortfall in Anbar with locally recruited troops, but such a move probably will not be possible unless the Defense Ministry is controlled by a Sunni Arab.
"Negotiations are under way in order to reach a decision regarding the appointment of the ministers of defense and interior. Within the coming two days, the decision will be made," Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the main Sunni Arab party, the Iraqi Accordance Front, told The Associated Press.
Sunni Arabs also have sought the ministry as a counterbalance to the Shiite-run Interior Ministry, which many members of the minority blame for failing to disband militias they say are responsible for sectarian death squads.
Al-Dulaimi said his coalition presented six Defense Ministry nominees for vetting and made it clear that Sunni Arabs want an interior minister "who is not linked to militias."
Shiite deputies said a seven-member selection committee failed to agree on a candidate but would keep meeting daily and hoped to make a choice by Saturday, the day before parliament convenes. The 275-member body will have to approve any candidates.
A U.S. Army soldier died Tuesday when his patrol was attacked by small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades during an operation to clear roadside bombs south of Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, the military said.
In Wednesday's worst drive-by shooting, gunmen killed Adel Issa, of Diyala's provincial council, and two bodyguards in northern Iraq.
In Baghdad, 10 drive-by shootings killed 14 people: Hussein Ahmed Rashid, a member of Iraq's national tennis team, and two of his friends; a college student; two day laborers; a police officer; two street vendors; a university professor; two taxi drivers; a builder; and a grocery store owner, police said.
In other violence, two roadside bombs in Baghdad wounded nine Iraqis, including two soldiers, and gunmen killed an Iraqi soldier at a checkpoint near the U.S. military base north of Baghdad, officials said.
A university student was killed and four others were wounded in a drive by-shooting in Mosul, police said.
Baghdad police found the bodies of two Iraqis who had been shot in the head, Hussein said.
In Dayera, a rural area 35 miles south of Baghdad, police found the bodies of seven Iraqis shot through the head, police Capt. Muthana Khalid said.
Associated Press reporters Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.
-----------------------------
Citation: Patrick Quinn. "Iraq PM: Forces capable of securing nation," The Associated Press, 24 May 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060524/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
-----------------------------
24 May 2006
Troops Train Knowing There's a Catch
Soldiers preparing for Iraq realize that possible troop reductions could send them home instead. The uncertainty weighs on military families.
By Peter Spiegel
Los Angeles Times, 24 May 2006
FORT POLK, La. — For weeks, the 1st Cavalry Division's "Grey Wolf" brigade has slogged the forests of central Louisiana in a final round of combat training — tightening the bowstring one last notch before its scheduled departure for Iraq.
Bone-weary but keyed up and ready, the brigade's 3,800 soldiers are part of the stream of troops moving down a vast assembly line created by the Pentagon to train and transport the tens of thousands rotating into and out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
At the same time, defense officials have begun to plan for the possible phased reduction of U.S. forces in Iraq. By the end of the year, the number of troops there could drop by as many as 30,000.
So soldiers continue to train as though tomorrow will be their own personal D-day, knowing all the while that they might end up going home instead. As a result, the soldiers, their families and the U.S. military as a whole are faced with often-difficult adjustments.
"There's tremendous mental preparation ahead of deployment," said Michele Flournoy, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies who has worked on readiness issues at the Pentagon. "To go through all that preparation and then be told, 'No, sorry, you're not going,' and then, in many instances, be told two months later you are going is very difficult psychologically and emotionally," Flournoy said.
From a logistical point of view, the deployment system involves so many long-range plans and commitments that asking it to pause or run in place is like asking a space shuttle and its crew to launch but circle overhead while headquarters decides whether to send it on its way.
"The Bush administration desperately wants to draw down the military presence in Iraq, but it is unable to begin that process until it is confident a disaster won't follow," said Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute with close ties to the Pentagon. "The American soldier is going to be in the middle of that for a long time to come."
Said Army Staff Sgt. Cody Choate, sweat dripping down his face as he stood in the muggy bayou heat at Fort Polk one recent day: "If you start thinking you're not going, when it really happens, you're going to be in the mud."
For now, in the mud is where Choate and the rest of the Grey Wolf brigade are anyway.
For almost a month, they have been at Fort Polk, home to the Joint Readiness Training Center — one of two facilities in the United States that the Army has developed for last-minute training of units headed into combat. A total of 28 brigades have come through Fort Polk's 190,000-acre facility since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, at a cost of $9 million for each monthlong session.
Over the last three years, Polk has transformed itself into a replica of what American units are likely to encounter in Iraq, complete with 18 small villages populated by more than 700 "role players" who act as Iraqi civilians.
When a simulated car bomb erupted here recently in a cataclysm of smoke, flames and screaming wounded, Choate — who has already survived three overseas deployments — said it "scared me more than anything I've been through in Iraq."
Col. David Sutherland, the Grey Wolf brigade commander, said his troops actually started getting ready to deploy in January, with a monthlong evaluation exercise at their home base of Fort Hood, Texas. The brigade needed work on some traditional combat skills, marksmanship and medical treatment. But it also needed to hone skills that were more Iraq-specific, such as handling detainees and developing what Sutherland called "intense cultural awareness."
Now the brigade is not sure it will even go to Iraq, although Army officials said it is officially slotted to replace units of the 4th Infantry Division, which is in Baghdad and urban areas just south.
Being in limbo can be even tougher for spouses and families than for soldiers.
"It's an emotional roller coaster," said Michelle Joyner, a member of a military family group. "To find out you're not going is a relief, but sometimes the families turn around months later and find out they are going."
The National Military Family Assn., a nonprofit group that represents soldiers' spouses, has conducted two surveys since the start of the Iraq war — both of which showed that unpredictability over when soldiers will be sent overseas is one of the primary sources of familial stress.
Ironically, it was partly to reduce the uncertainty that the Army began to develop long-term deployment schedules. In the case of the Grey Wolf brigade, commanders have known since late 2005 that they were projected to arrive in Iraq in October.
In the first outward sign that the Army is beginning to retool long-planned Iraq rotations, the Pentagon this month announced that it was delaying the deployment of a Germany-based brigade. The news came just days before soldiers were scheduled to ship out.
The Pentagon has insisted that the move does not signal that a decision has been made for more cuts in troop strength. But Army officials acknowledge they have been forced to reexamine their deployment schedule for this summer and fall, particularly for "heavy," or tank-laden, brigades.
Changing the timing of planned deployments can cause major headaches.
For example, troop deployments to Iraq are being funded through special emergency spending bills passed by Congress. But if a unit ends up staying home, money for its activities must come from the Army's regular annual budget.
Also, the military has moved toward private contracting to ship equipment. A brigade will send more than 85% of its gear over land by commercial rail and trucking companies; about 30% of the materiel sent overseas goes on private ships. Putting the brakes on a deployment becomes more difficult the closer a brigade gets to departure.
"The longer it takes, the harder it is for us," said Kevin Landy, the senior transport specialist for European-based brigades at the Army's deployment command. "When you deal with commercial carriers, it's not always an easy thing to do."
As for the Grey Wolf brigade — suspended between the prospect of going to war and the possibility of going home — its members are trying to make the best of things.
"I can give them clarity, but I can't always give them certainty," Sutherland said. "Predictability is sometimes changed by events."
--------------------------
Citation: Peter Spiegel. "Troops Train Knowing There's a Catch," Los Angeles Times, 24 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-limbo24may24,1,4240633.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
--------------------------
By Peter Spiegel
Los Angeles Times, 24 May 2006
FORT POLK, La. — For weeks, the 1st Cavalry Division's "Grey Wolf" brigade has slogged the forests of central Louisiana in a final round of combat training — tightening the bowstring one last notch before its scheduled departure for Iraq.
Bone-weary but keyed up and ready, the brigade's 3,800 soldiers are part of the stream of troops moving down a vast assembly line created by the Pentagon to train and transport the tens of thousands rotating into and out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
At the same time, defense officials have begun to plan for the possible phased reduction of U.S. forces in Iraq. By the end of the year, the number of troops there could drop by as many as 30,000.
So soldiers continue to train as though tomorrow will be their own personal D-day, knowing all the while that they might end up going home instead. As a result, the soldiers, their families and the U.S. military as a whole are faced with often-difficult adjustments.
"There's tremendous mental preparation ahead of deployment," said Michele Flournoy, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies who has worked on readiness issues at the Pentagon. "To go through all that preparation and then be told, 'No, sorry, you're not going,' and then, in many instances, be told two months later you are going is very difficult psychologically and emotionally," Flournoy said.
From a logistical point of view, the deployment system involves so many long-range plans and commitments that asking it to pause or run in place is like asking a space shuttle and its crew to launch but circle overhead while headquarters decides whether to send it on its way.
"The Bush administration desperately wants to draw down the military presence in Iraq, but it is unable to begin that process until it is confident a disaster won't follow," said Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute with close ties to the Pentagon. "The American soldier is going to be in the middle of that for a long time to come."
Said Army Staff Sgt. Cody Choate, sweat dripping down his face as he stood in the muggy bayou heat at Fort Polk one recent day: "If you start thinking you're not going, when it really happens, you're going to be in the mud."
For now, in the mud is where Choate and the rest of the Grey Wolf brigade are anyway.
For almost a month, they have been at Fort Polk, home to the Joint Readiness Training Center — one of two facilities in the United States that the Army has developed for last-minute training of units headed into combat. A total of 28 brigades have come through Fort Polk's 190,000-acre facility since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, at a cost of $9 million for each monthlong session.
Over the last three years, Polk has transformed itself into a replica of what American units are likely to encounter in Iraq, complete with 18 small villages populated by more than 700 "role players" who act as Iraqi civilians.
When a simulated car bomb erupted here recently in a cataclysm of smoke, flames and screaming wounded, Choate — who has already survived three overseas deployments — said it "scared me more than anything I've been through in Iraq."
Col. David Sutherland, the Grey Wolf brigade commander, said his troops actually started getting ready to deploy in January, with a monthlong evaluation exercise at their home base of Fort Hood, Texas. The brigade needed work on some traditional combat skills, marksmanship and medical treatment. But it also needed to hone skills that were more Iraq-specific, such as handling detainees and developing what Sutherland called "intense cultural awareness."
Now the brigade is not sure it will even go to Iraq, although Army officials said it is officially slotted to replace units of the 4th Infantry Division, which is in Baghdad and urban areas just south.
Being in limbo can be even tougher for spouses and families than for soldiers.
"It's an emotional roller coaster," said Michelle Joyner, a member of a military family group. "To find out you're not going is a relief, but sometimes the families turn around months later and find out they are going."
The National Military Family Assn., a nonprofit group that represents soldiers' spouses, has conducted two surveys since the start of the Iraq war — both of which showed that unpredictability over when soldiers will be sent overseas is one of the primary sources of familial stress.
Ironically, it was partly to reduce the uncertainty that the Army began to develop long-term deployment schedules. In the case of the Grey Wolf brigade, commanders have known since late 2005 that they were projected to arrive in Iraq in October.
In the first outward sign that the Army is beginning to retool long-planned Iraq rotations, the Pentagon this month announced that it was delaying the deployment of a Germany-based brigade. The news came just days before soldiers were scheduled to ship out.
The Pentagon has insisted that the move does not signal that a decision has been made for more cuts in troop strength. But Army officials acknowledge they have been forced to reexamine their deployment schedule for this summer and fall, particularly for "heavy," or tank-laden, brigades.
Changing the timing of planned deployments can cause major headaches.
For example, troop deployments to Iraq are being funded through special emergency spending bills passed by Congress. But if a unit ends up staying home, money for its activities must come from the Army's regular annual budget.
Also, the military has moved toward private contracting to ship equipment. A brigade will send more than 85% of its gear over land by commercial rail and trucking companies; about 30% of the materiel sent overseas goes on private ships. Putting the brakes on a deployment becomes more difficult the closer a brigade gets to departure.
"The longer it takes, the harder it is for us," said Kevin Landy, the senior transport specialist for European-based brigades at the Army's deployment command. "When you deal with commercial carriers, it's not always an easy thing to do."
As for the Grey Wolf brigade — suspended between the prospect of going to war and the possibility of going home — its members are trying to make the best of things.
"I can give them clarity, but I can't always give them certainty," Sutherland said. "Predictability is sometimes changed by events."
--------------------------
Citation: Peter Spiegel. "Troops Train Knowing There's a Catch," Los Angeles Times, 24 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-limbo24may24,1,4240633.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
--------------------------
Karzai Orders Probe Into U.S. Airstrike
By Jason Straziuso
The Associated Press, 23 May 2006
President Hamid Karzai ordered an inquiry Tuesday into a U.S. bombing that killed at least 16 civilians, including some at a religious school, and called for a meeting with the commander of American forces in Afghanistan.
It was the second time in five weeks that Karzai has complained about civilian deaths from airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition.
U.S. warplanes targeted the southern village overnight Sunday because Taliban fighters were hiding there, and dozens of the militants were killed. It was one of the deadliest U.S. attacks since the American-led invasion in 2001.
Karzai expressed "concern at the coalition forces' decision to bomb civilian areas" in the village of Azizi in Kandahar province, but he also strongly condemned the "terrorists' act of cowardice" in using civilians as human shields.
Local officials said 17 civilians died in the bombings of an Islamic school and mud-brick homes, and the U.S.-led coalition said at least 20 — and perhaps as many as 80 — militants were killed.
Just last month, Karzai complained about coalition attacks that killed seven civilians in eastern Kunar province. Karzai ordered an investigation and demanded the coalition use restraint.
In September, the Afghan president challenged the need for major foreign military operations, saying airstrikes no longer were effective. But that statement came before a resurgence of militant activity this spring with snow melting on the high mountain passes used by fighters.
Militant supporters of the former Taliban regime have stepped up attacks this year, triggering a tough response from coalition and Afghan forces. The coalition airstrike on Azizi was the third clash there in a week.
Up to 27 militants were killed in a ground battle and airstrike in the same area Thursday.
A U.S. military spokeswoman, Lt. Tamara Lawrence, said she could not comment on whether the military would change its tactics after the Azizi bombing.
An official with the New York-based Human Rights Watch said the attack was "completely predictable and avoidable," and he accused the Taliban of purposely endangering civilians.
"In southern Afghanistan, civilians are caught in the crossfire, and we expect it's going to be a long and bloody summer," said Sam Zarifi, head of the group's Asia division. "Taliban insurgent forces who take shelter in a civilian area knowing that it's going to draw hostile fire are violating international law.
"There is some evidence that was happening in this case."
Zarifi also said the coalition should change its tactics to avoid civilian casualties. "This sometimes means not launching attacks in certain civilian-heavy areas, and using the right weapons," he said.
In 2004, the U.S. military said it had modified its rules of engagement after Karzai expressed outrage over the deaths of 15 children in two airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan. But officials refused to say how the rules had been changed, saying that would only help militants.
The worst such incident came in July 2002, when Afghan officials said 48 civilians were killed and 117 wounded in an airstrike in Uruzgan province. The dead included 25 members of an extended family attending a wedding celebration.
Karzai is on an official visit to the United Arab Emirates, and the statement from his office said that on his return to Kabul he would summon the commander of U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan — Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry — for a "full explanation."
Lawrence said Karzai and Eikenberry talk frequently, and "we will provide any information that the president requests on coalition operations."
"We would also stress that the government of Afghanistan shares our concern that enemy fighters are knowingly putting noncombatants' lives at risk, and together we will continue to take all measures to prevent injury to innocent civilians," she said.
In Azizi, villagers buried their dead. U.S. Air Force A-10 Warthog warplanes had bombed the religious school, or madrassa, where the militants were suspected of hiding, before hitting surrounding homes as the insurgents took shelter there.
One villager, Haji Ikhlaf, told The Associated Press that 26 civilians had been buried by early Tuesday — higher than the toll given by officials. Karzai's office said 16 civilians died, though a local doctor told the AP a 17th died of his injuries.
"We've buried women. We've buried children," Ikhlaf, 40, said by cell phone from the area, which has been closed off to reporters by local security forces. "They are killing us. We are so angry."
Villagers also dug graves for Taliban rebels, he said.
Eikenberry told the AP on Monday that the military was "looking into" reports of civilian deaths. Other coalition officials said they were confident the airstrike had hit a Taliban compound.
The coalition said 20 Taliban were confirmed killed in the airstrike on Azizi and up to 60 more militants may have died.
Human Rights Watch's Zarifi said the results of past investigations into similar airstrikes "have not been very satisfactory."
"Karzai's actions are a response to public opinion, which is increasingly resentful of the American presence," he said.
Newly reported fighting, meanwhile, killed 19 more people, including three police officers and 12 militants who died in a firefight and three health care workers killed by a roadside bomb. The deaths pushed the toll in a week of violence to 305, most of them militants, according to Afghan and coalition figures.
Those figures are difficult to confirm independently because many of the villages are closed off by authorities or are in remote areas.
The deadliest fighting in four years comes ahead of preparations for the U.S.-led coalition to hand over security operations in southern Afghanistan to NATO by July.
Militants ambushed a police patrol in the southern province of Helmand, the heartland of the heroin trade. Dozens of Taliban fled after Monday's attack, leaving behind the bodies of 12 fighters, provincial administrator Ghulam Muhiddin.
The medical workers were killed Monday about 25 miles west of Kabul on a road often frequented by foreigners, said Bashar Gul, a deputy police chief. The blast killed a doctor, two nurses and their driver — all workers for the local Afghan Health Development Services, he said.
Militants repeatedly have targeted aid workers. Last month, gunmen stormed a medical clinic in a northwestern province and killed five doctors and nurses.
The Taliban opposes the presence of the workers because they believe they bolster Karzai's U.S.-backed government.
Associated Press reporters Noor Khan in Kandahar and Robin Hindery in New York contributed to this report.
---------------------
Citation: Jason Straziuso. "Karzai Orders Probe Into U.S. Airstrike," The Associated Press, 23 May 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060523/ap_on_re_as/afghanistan
---------------------
The Associated Press, 23 May 2006
President Hamid Karzai ordered an inquiry Tuesday into a U.S. bombing that killed at least 16 civilians, including some at a religious school, and called for a meeting with the commander of American forces in Afghanistan.
It was the second time in five weeks that Karzai has complained about civilian deaths from airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition.
U.S. warplanes targeted the southern village overnight Sunday because Taliban fighters were hiding there, and dozens of the militants were killed. It was one of the deadliest U.S. attacks since the American-led invasion in 2001.
Karzai expressed "concern at the coalition forces' decision to bomb civilian areas" in the village of Azizi in Kandahar province, but he also strongly condemned the "terrorists' act of cowardice" in using civilians as human shields.
Local officials said 17 civilians died in the bombings of an Islamic school and mud-brick homes, and the U.S.-led coalition said at least 20 — and perhaps as many as 80 — militants were killed.
Just last month, Karzai complained about coalition attacks that killed seven civilians in eastern Kunar province. Karzai ordered an investigation and demanded the coalition use restraint.
In September, the Afghan president challenged the need for major foreign military operations, saying airstrikes no longer were effective. But that statement came before a resurgence of militant activity this spring with snow melting on the high mountain passes used by fighters.
Militant supporters of the former Taliban regime have stepped up attacks this year, triggering a tough response from coalition and Afghan forces. The coalition airstrike on Azizi was the third clash there in a week.
Up to 27 militants were killed in a ground battle and airstrike in the same area Thursday.
A U.S. military spokeswoman, Lt. Tamara Lawrence, said she could not comment on whether the military would change its tactics after the Azizi bombing.
An official with the New York-based Human Rights Watch said the attack was "completely predictable and avoidable," and he accused the Taliban of purposely endangering civilians.
"In southern Afghanistan, civilians are caught in the crossfire, and we expect it's going to be a long and bloody summer," said Sam Zarifi, head of the group's Asia division. "Taliban insurgent forces who take shelter in a civilian area knowing that it's going to draw hostile fire are violating international law.
"There is some evidence that was happening in this case."
Zarifi also said the coalition should change its tactics to avoid civilian casualties. "This sometimes means not launching attacks in certain civilian-heavy areas, and using the right weapons," he said.
In 2004, the U.S. military said it had modified its rules of engagement after Karzai expressed outrage over the deaths of 15 children in two airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan. But officials refused to say how the rules had been changed, saying that would only help militants.
The worst such incident came in July 2002, when Afghan officials said 48 civilians were killed and 117 wounded in an airstrike in Uruzgan province. The dead included 25 members of an extended family attending a wedding celebration.
Karzai is on an official visit to the United Arab Emirates, and the statement from his office said that on his return to Kabul he would summon the commander of U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan — Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry — for a "full explanation."
Lawrence said Karzai and Eikenberry talk frequently, and "we will provide any information that the president requests on coalition operations."
"We would also stress that the government of Afghanistan shares our concern that enemy fighters are knowingly putting noncombatants' lives at risk, and together we will continue to take all measures to prevent injury to innocent civilians," she said.
In Azizi, villagers buried their dead. U.S. Air Force A-10 Warthog warplanes had bombed the religious school, or madrassa, where the militants were suspected of hiding, before hitting surrounding homes as the insurgents took shelter there.
One villager, Haji Ikhlaf, told The Associated Press that 26 civilians had been buried by early Tuesday — higher than the toll given by officials. Karzai's office said 16 civilians died, though a local doctor told the AP a 17th died of his injuries.
"We've buried women. We've buried children," Ikhlaf, 40, said by cell phone from the area, which has been closed off to reporters by local security forces. "They are killing us. We are so angry."
Villagers also dug graves for Taliban rebels, he said.
Eikenberry told the AP on Monday that the military was "looking into" reports of civilian deaths. Other coalition officials said they were confident the airstrike had hit a Taliban compound.
The coalition said 20 Taliban were confirmed killed in the airstrike on Azizi and up to 60 more militants may have died.
Human Rights Watch's Zarifi said the results of past investigations into similar airstrikes "have not been very satisfactory."
"Karzai's actions are a response to public opinion, which is increasingly resentful of the American presence," he said.
Newly reported fighting, meanwhile, killed 19 more people, including three police officers and 12 militants who died in a firefight and three health care workers killed by a roadside bomb. The deaths pushed the toll in a week of violence to 305, most of them militants, according to Afghan and coalition figures.
Those figures are difficult to confirm independently because many of the villages are closed off by authorities or are in remote areas.
The deadliest fighting in four years comes ahead of preparations for the U.S.-led coalition to hand over security operations in southern Afghanistan to NATO by July.
Militants ambushed a police patrol in the southern province of Helmand, the heartland of the heroin trade. Dozens of Taliban fled after Monday's attack, leaving behind the bodies of 12 fighters, provincial administrator Ghulam Muhiddin.
The medical workers were killed Monday about 25 miles west of Kabul on a road often frequented by foreigners, said Bashar Gul, a deputy police chief. The blast killed a doctor, two nurses and their driver — all workers for the local Afghan Health Development Services, he said.
Militants repeatedly have targeted aid workers. Last month, gunmen stormed a medical clinic in a northwestern province and killed five doctors and nurses.
The Taliban opposes the presence of the workers because they believe they bolster Karzai's U.S.-backed government.
Associated Press reporters Noor Khan in Kandahar and Robin Hindery in New York contributed to this report.
---------------------
Citation: Jason Straziuso. "Karzai Orders Probe Into U.S. Airstrike," The Associated Press, 23 May 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060523/ap_on_re_as/afghanistan
---------------------
Iraq not yet seen ready to take charge of security
By Fredrik Dahl
Reuters, 23 May 2006
BAGHDAD - Iraq's new government and Britain sent upbeat signals this week about foreign troops leaving, but security experts voiced doubt on Tuesday about the ability of the country's fledgling security forces to take over.
The United States and Britain say the Iraqi army and police they are training are gradually assuming control over more and more territory, three years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The Iraq war has become a political liability both for U.S. President George W. Bush and his ally Tony Blair. They want to see progress so they can start pulling out their combined 140,000 troops, under daily attack from insurgents.
The national unity government sworn in on Saturday appears equally keen to show Iraqis it can move towards full sovereignty without depending on Western soldiers for security.
"As conditions improve ... we will, province by province, pull back troops," Blair's spokesman said on Tuesday, a day after the prime minister visited Baghdad.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki gave the most optimistic timetable yet during Monday's meetings, saying Iraqi forces could be in charge of most of the country by the end of 2006.
But while Iraq's 250,000 troops and police have improved their capabilities, they are still not strong enough to combat on their own the guerrillas and militias that have killed thousands of people in postwar Iraq, analysts said.
"I don't see them being able to function independently and effectively without the help of the Americans," said Iraq expert Mustafa Alani of the Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre.
"They are not really a mature force," he added.
He and others questioned the cohesion of the Iraqi forces, set up virtually from scratch after Saddam's army was disbanded in 2003, and their loyalty to the government based in Baghdad's heavily-fortified and U.S.-protected Green Zone.
U.S. commanders say the Iraqi forces comprise mixed units of majority Shi'ite Muslims, minority Sunni Arabs and ethnic Kurds to create a truly national army for a fractured country.
But it remains to be seen if their discipline will hold in the face of worsening communal conflict and possible civil war. The U.S. military said a soldier was killed earlier this month when a mainly Kurdish army unit clashed with a mainly Arab one.
"There is always a danger that they factionalise into ethnic groups. In part it is already happening," said Simon Henderson, a senior research fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
TRAINING, EQUIPMENT NEEDED
Maliki, who has vowed to use "maximum force against terrorists", acknowledged that Iraqi forces scheduled to expand to 325,000 this year needed more training and equipment.
He still has to fill the defence and interior ministry portfolios, left temporarily vacant due to sectarian wrangling.
Yet Maliki suggested Iraqi troops could take over security in all of Iraq's 18 provinces, except Baghdad and the western Sunni Arab heartland of Anbar, where an insurgency that erupted after Saddam's overthrow is still raging.
He said two British-run southern provinces, Muthanna and Amara, could be handed to Iraqi forces next month.
Toby Dodge, an Iraq analyst at London's Queen Mary College University, dismissed Maliki's plan. "It is wishful thinking, propaganda, and not a realistic timetable for handover."
Henderson said he was puzzled by Maliki's failure to mention Basra in the south, where security has deteriorated sharply over the past year as armed Shi'ite factions tussle for power.
A British official with Blair in Baghdad said he expected all foreign combatant forces to withdraw within four years.
Some of Britain's 7,200 troops were likely to leave in the next few months, he said. But Basra, where most of them are based, remained too dangerous to begin pulling out forces.
Henderson put it bluntly: "An imminent withdrawal would be catastrophic for Iraq, catastrophic for Basra and a poor reflection on British diplomacy now and in the future."
Washington has resisted setting a timetable for drawing down its 133,000 troops, though Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday much territory was now under Iraqi control.
"That notorious highway between the (Baghdad) airport and the international zone (Green Zone) is now controlled by Iraqis," she told U.S. television. "And, in fact, it has been much more peaceful since they've taken control of it."
While attacks on the road are less frequent, suicide bombers killed 14 people near the main airport checkpoint a week ago.
Henderson said he expected the United States to remain militarily engaged for at least a decade. When Washington was talking about withdrawing, he said, that meant leaving a less visible but still powerful military presence in Iraq.
Additional reporting by Adrian Croft in London
----------------------------------
Citation: Fredrik Dahl. "Iraq not yet seen ready to take charge of security," Reuters, 23 May 2006.
Original URL: http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-05-23T141832Z_01_L2330011_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ-SECURITY.xml&archived=False
----------------------------------
Reuters, 23 May 2006
BAGHDAD - Iraq's new government and Britain sent upbeat signals this week about foreign troops leaving, but security experts voiced doubt on Tuesday about the ability of the country's fledgling security forces to take over.
The United States and Britain say the Iraqi army and police they are training are gradually assuming control over more and more territory, three years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The Iraq war has become a political liability both for U.S. President George W. Bush and his ally Tony Blair. They want to see progress so they can start pulling out their combined 140,000 troops, under daily attack from insurgents.
The national unity government sworn in on Saturday appears equally keen to show Iraqis it can move towards full sovereignty without depending on Western soldiers for security.
"As conditions improve ... we will, province by province, pull back troops," Blair's spokesman said on Tuesday, a day after the prime minister visited Baghdad.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki gave the most optimistic timetable yet during Monday's meetings, saying Iraqi forces could be in charge of most of the country by the end of 2006.
But while Iraq's 250,000 troops and police have improved their capabilities, they are still not strong enough to combat on their own the guerrillas and militias that have killed thousands of people in postwar Iraq, analysts said.
"I don't see them being able to function independently and effectively without the help of the Americans," said Iraq expert Mustafa Alani of the Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre.
"They are not really a mature force," he added.
He and others questioned the cohesion of the Iraqi forces, set up virtually from scratch after Saddam's army was disbanded in 2003, and their loyalty to the government based in Baghdad's heavily-fortified and U.S.-protected Green Zone.
U.S. commanders say the Iraqi forces comprise mixed units of majority Shi'ite Muslims, minority Sunni Arabs and ethnic Kurds to create a truly national army for a fractured country.
But it remains to be seen if their discipline will hold in the face of worsening communal conflict and possible civil war. The U.S. military said a soldier was killed earlier this month when a mainly Kurdish army unit clashed with a mainly Arab one.
"There is always a danger that they factionalise into ethnic groups. In part it is already happening," said Simon Henderson, a senior research fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
TRAINING, EQUIPMENT NEEDED
Maliki, who has vowed to use "maximum force against terrorists", acknowledged that Iraqi forces scheduled to expand to 325,000 this year needed more training and equipment.
He still has to fill the defence and interior ministry portfolios, left temporarily vacant due to sectarian wrangling.
Yet Maliki suggested Iraqi troops could take over security in all of Iraq's 18 provinces, except Baghdad and the western Sunni Arab heartland of Anbar, where an insurgency that erupted after Saddam's overthrow is still raging.
He said two British-run southern provinces, Muthanna and Amara, could be handed to Iraqi forces next month.
Toby Dodge, an Iraq analyst at London's Queen Mary College University, dismissed Maliki's plan. "It is wishful thinking, propaganda, and not a realistic timetable for handover."
Henderson said he was puzzled by Maliki's failure to mention Basra in the south, where security has deteriorated sharply over the past year as armed Shi'ite factions tussle for power.
A British official with Blair in Baghdad said he expected all foreign combatant forces to withdraw within four years.
Some of Britain's 7,200 troops were likely to leave in the next few months, he said. But Basra, where most of them are based, remained too dangerous to begin pulling out forces.
Henderson put it bluntly: "An imminent withdrawal would be catastrophic for Iraq, catastrophic for Basra and a poor reflection on British diplomacy now and in the future."
Washington has resisted setting a timetable for drawing down its 133,000 troops, though Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday much territory was now under Iraqi control.
"That notorious highway between the (Baghdad) airport and the international zone (Green Zone) is now controlled by Iraqis," she told U.S. television. "And, in fact, it has been much more peaceful since they've taken control of it."
While attacks on the road are less frequent, suicide bombers killed 14 people near the main airport checkpoint a week ago.
Henderson said he expected the United States to remain militarily engaged for at least a decade. When Washington was talking about withdrawing, he said, that meant leaving a less visible but still powerful military presence in Iraq.
Additional reporting by Adrian Croft in London
----------------------------------
Citation: Fredrik Dahl. "Iraq not yet seen ready to take charge of security," Reuters, 23 May 2006.
Original URL: http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-05-23T141832Z_01_L2330011_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ-SECURITY.xml&archived=False
----------------------------------
Hands-Off or Not? Saudis Wring Theirs Over Iraq
By Megan K. Stack
Los Angeles Times, 24 May 2006
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A stark dilemma lies before the rulers of this desert kingdom: how to insulate their land from the sectarian fighting in neighboring Iraq yet find a way to counter Iran's swelling influence there.
Though Saudi rulers might prefer to avoid involvement in Iraq, there is a growing sense here that of all the Arab countries, Saudi Arabia is the most likely to be sucked in if the violence doesn't slow. A host of ideas, virtually all of them controversial, are swirling around Riyadh, including funneling arms to Iraq's Sunni Arabs and improving ties with Iran.
As growing numbers of Iraq's minority Sunni Muslims are killed in their conflict with Shiite Muslims, Sunnis in Saudi Arabia — the cradle of Islam — are watching with alarm. Many are keen to protect their fellow Sunnis across the border, a desire intensified by the tribal and family links that bind the countries.
At the same time, Saudi rulers are deeply nervous about the growing power of Iran, a long-distrusted neighbor. To them, the U.S.-led war in Iraq has been a strategic disaster. The resulting power shift to Shiite politicians in Iraq, many of whom lived for years in Iran and received money and other support from that government, has placed Baghdad under the sway of Iranian clerics, they say, and that threatens to destabilize Saudi Arabia.
Violence and Iranian influence in Iraq "will shake the base of society and drive Saudi Arabia to enter the war, with the United States or without," said Abdullah Askar, a columnist and political science professor at King Saud University. "There is a misconception that we have a solid social base. We don't. There are deep roots and viruses just waiting for the time to erupt and rise up."
Among hard-liners, there is talk of organizing and funding Sunni militias in Iraq to fight powerful Shiite paramilitary groups and alleged death squads. Aside from helping to protect Sunnis, Saudi-backed gunmen could give the kingdom a foothold from which to fight Iranian influence.
"The option is for us to start arming and creating Sunni militias," said a Saudi official who asked not to be named. "If things got out of hand, we absolutely would."
But that idea is thorny. Many Saudis worry that the line separating Sunni militias from Sunni insurgents would be wobbly at best. Any move by the kingdom to support Sunnis with ties to the insurgents who attack American troops could be disastrous for Washington, where some already question Saudi Arabia's reliability as a U.S. ally.
Moreover, the kingdom is generally loath to pump up rebel groups for fear that the House of Saud would eventually find itself on the wrong end of an extremist's weapon.
Saudi Arabia has a history of sending "holy warriors" abroad to fight on behalf of embattled Sunnis. But state-sponsored jihad has backfired against the royal family. Some of the Saudi men who received government cash and encouragement to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s drifted home and turned against the rulers. The "Arab Afghans," including one named Osama bin Laden, imported the seeds of terrorism to Saudi Arabia.
Saudis uncomfortable with taking sides advocate opening aggressive discussions with Iran, or even working out some sort of rapprochement.
Others are calling on the Saudi government to exploit cross-border tribal links, which include connections to Shiites in Iraq's south, to ease friction between Iraqi sects.
But so far, the rulers have remained silent on the subject. The highly secretive government has tried to steer clear of the political turmoil since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. It still hasn't opened an embassy in Baghdad, nor has it agreed to forgive Iraqi debt — more than $32 billion, a figure that makes the Saudi government Iraq's biggest creditor.
Saudi Arabia has pragmatic reasons for keeping its distance. While chaos has reigned in Iraq, Saudi Arabia has quietly prospered: High oil prices, driven up by the war, have flooded the kingdom with cash. Security forces seem to have made headway in quieting the insurgent attacks that plagued the kingdom. And the death of longtime ruler King Fahd last summer raised hopes that his successor, Abdullah, would deliver on long-standing promises of reform.
At the same time, the royal family and powerful Sunni clerics have led efforts to improve long-troubled relations with the kingdom's Shiite minority.
Although Shiites make up less than 10% of Saudi Arabia's population, they are concentrated along the oil-rich eastern coast. And with the region already on edge, rulers are wary of provoking more sectarian bitterness by siding too openly with Iraq's Sunnis.
"If we go and get involved," said Abdelaziz Qasim, an outspoken cleric with reformist leanings, "we'll face a lot of problems with the Shiites and Iran."
Qasim sipped bitter cardamom coffee on a recent afternoon as he criticized the Saudi government for failing to soothe sectarian hostilities. He complained that when an attack on a Shiite shrine pushed Iraq to the edge of civil war in February, Sunni clerics in Saudi Arabia failed to criticize the bombing.
"The silence of the ulema about the violence in Iraq is interrupting our stability," Qasim said, referring to religious scholars. "Such silence gives the wrong impression: that we have no concern for Shiite blood…. Shia won't forgive us such silence."
But Sunnis, too, might prove unforgiving. There is a palpable sense of rising impatience here over the government's inability to protect the Sunnis in Iraq.
"There's no clear action or policy. The government is not saying anything, they don't even say anything to the people," said Awad Badi, research director at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies. "Maybe they are playing behind the scenes, but we don't see anything."
Badi, who grew up in the town of Al Jawf in northern Saudi Arabia, said he knew a 19-year-old from his hometown who last year asked his father's permission to vacation in Jordan with his friends. "Then he calls saying, 'I'm in Iraq and I'm ready to die,' " Badi said.
Many Saudis describe frustration over their government's failure to infiltrate Iraqi politics. Many believe that such interference could create a counterweight to Iran's influence.
"Iran is very strongly involved in Iraq," said Ibrahim Qayid, who was elected to Riyadh's municipal council in last year's first-ever elections. "The Arab countries are not as strongly involved, and they should be."
Some Saudis are hoping the crisis will push the kingdom to assume a more hands-on role in the region. They believe that confusion over Iraq has highlighted a vacuum in Arab leadership, and they are pushing their government to set the tone for dealings with Baghdad.
"Are they realizing the burden of responsibility on them? The issue here is all about leadership, and the Saudis need to lead now because there's no one left," said Nawaf Obeid, a security advisor to the Saudi government. "Today, whatever Saudi Arabia decides to do will set the stage for how the Arabs deal with Iraq."
----------------------------
Citation: Megan K. Stack. "Hands-Off or Not? Saudis Wring Theirs Over Iraq," Los Angeles Times, 24 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-saudi24may24,1,4895994.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
----------------------------
Los Angeles Times, 24 May 2006
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A stark dilemma lies before the rulers of this desert kingdom: how to insulate their land from the sectarian fighting in neighboring Iraq yet find a way to counter Iran's swelling influence there.
Though Saudi rulers might prefer to avoid involvement in Iraq, there is a growing sense here that of all the Arab countries, Saudi Arabia is the most likely to be sucked in if the violence doesn't slow. A host of ideas, virtually all of them controversial, are swirling around Riyadh, including funneling arms to Iraq's Sunni Arabs and improving ties with Iran.
As growing numbers of Iraq's minority Sunni Muslims are killed in their conflict with Shiite Muslims, Sunnis in Saudi Arabia — the cradle of Islam — are watching with alarm. Many are keen to protect their fellow Sunnis across the border, a desire intensified by the tribal and family links that bind the countries.
At the same time, Saudi rulers are deeply nervous about the growing power of Iran, a long-distrusted neighbor. To them, the U.S.-led war in Iraq has been a strategic disaster. The resulting power shift to Shiite politicians in Iraq, many of whom lived for years in Iran and received money and other support from that government, has placed Baghdad under the sway of Iranian clerics, they say, and that threatens to destabilize Saudi Arabia.
Violence and Iranian influence in Iraq "will shake the base of society and drive Saudi Arabia to enter the war, with the United States or without," said Abdullah Askar, a columnist and political science professor at King Saud University. "There is a misconception that we have a solid social base. We don't. There are deep roots and viruses just waiting for the time to erupt and rise up."
Among hard-liners, there is talk of organizing and funding Sunni militias in Iraq to fight powerful Shiite paramilitary groups and alleged death squads. Aside from helping to protect Sunnis, Saudi-backed gunmen could give the kingdom a foothold from which to fight Iranian influence.
"The option is for us to start arming and creating Sunni militias," said a Saudi official who asked not to be named. "If things got out of hand, we absolutely would."
But that idea is thorny. Many Saudis worry that the line separating Sunni militias from Sunni insurgents would be wobbly at best. Any move by the kingdom to support Sunnis with ties to the insurgents who attack American troops could be disastrous for Washington, where some already question Saudi Arabia's reliability as a U.S. ally.
Moreover, the kingdom is generally loath to pump up rebel groups for fear that the House of Saud would eventually find itself on the wrong end of an extremist's weapon.
Saudi Arabia has a history of sending "holy warriors" abroad to fight on behalf of embattled Sunnis. But state-sponsored jihad has backfired against the royal family. Some of the Saudi men who received government cash and encouragement to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s drifted home and turned against the rulers. The "Arab Afghans," including one named Osama bin Laden, imported the seeds of terrorism to Saudi Arabia.
Saudis uncomfortable with taking sides advocate opening aggressive discussions with Iran, or even working out some sort of rapprochement.
Others are calling on the Saudi government to exploit cross-border tribal links, which include connections to Shiites in Iraq's south, to ease friction between Iraqi sects.
But so far, the rulers have remained silent on the subject. The highly secretive government has tried to steer clear of the political turmoil since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. It still hasn't opened an embassy in Baghdad, nor has it agreed to forgive Iraqi debt — more than $32 billion, a figure that makes the Saudi government Iraq's biggest creditor.
Saudi Arabia has pragmatic reasons for keeping its distance. While chaos has reigned in Iraq, Saudi Arabia has quietly prospered: High oil prices, driven up by the war, have flooded the kingdom with cash. Security forces seem to have made headway in quieting the insurgent attacks that plagued the kingdom. And the death of longtime ruler King Fahd last summer raised hopes that his successor, Abdullah, would deliver on long-standing promises of reform.
At the same time, the royal family and powerful Sunni clerics have led efforts to improve long-troubled relations with the kingdom's Shiite minority.
Although Shiites make up less than 10% of Saudi Arabia's population, they are concentrated along the oil-rich eastern coast. And with the region already on edge, rulers are wary of provoking more sectarian bitterness by siding too openly with Iraq's Sunnis.
"If we go and get involved," said Abdelaziz Qasim, an outspoken cleric with reformist leanings, "we'll face a lot of problems with the Shiites and Iran."
Qasim sipped bitter cardamom coffee on a recent afternoon as he criticized the Saudi government for failing to soothe sectarian hostilities. He complained that when an attack on a Shiite shrine pushed Iraq to the edge of civil war in February, Sunni clerics in Saudi Arabia failed to criticize the bombing.
"The silence of the ulema about the violence in Iraq is interrupting our stability," Qasim said, referring to religious scholars. "Such silence gives the wrong impression: that we have no concern for Shiite blood…. Shia won't forgive us such silence."
But Sunnis, too, might prove unforgiving. There is a palpable sense of rising impatience here over the government's inability to protect the Sunnis in Iraq.
"There's no clear action or policy. The government is not saying anything, they don't even say anything to the people," said Awad Badi, research director at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies. "Maybe they are playing behind the scenes, but we don't see anything."
Badi, who grew up in the town of Al Jawf in northern Saudi Arabia, said he knew a 19-year-old from his hometown who last year asked his father's permission to vacation in Jordan with his friends. "Then he calls saying, 'I'm in Iraq and I'm ready to die,' " Badi said.
Many Saudis describe frustration over their government's failure to infiltrate Iraqi politics. Many believe that such interference could create a counterweight to Iran's influence.
"Iran is very strongly involved in Iraq," said Ibrahim Qayid, who was elected to Riyadh's municipal council in last year's first-ever elections. "The Arab countries are not as strongly involved, and they should be."
Some Saudis are hoping the crisis will push the kingdom to assume a more hands-on role in the region. They believe that confusion over Iraq has highlighted a vacuum in Arab leadership, and they are pushing their government to set the tone for dealings with Baghdad.
"Are they realizing the burden of responsibility on them? The issue here is all about leadership, and the Saudis need to lead now because there's no one left," said Nawaf Obeid, a security advisor to the Saudi government. "Today, whatever Saudi Arabia decides to do will set the stage for how the Arabs deal with Iraq."
----------------------------
Citation: Megan K. Stack. "Hands-Off or Not? Saudis Wring Theirs Over Iraq," Los Angeles Times, 24 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-saudi24may24,1,4895994.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
----------------------------
23 May 2006
Which is the real Iraq?
By Patrick Cockburn
The Independent, UK, 23 May 2006
Blair's view: 'We have a government of national unity that crosses all boundaries. Iraqi people are able to write the next chapter of their history themselves' - Tony Blair on a visit to Iraq yesterday
Another view: Two car bombs explode in Baghdad, killing nine. At least 23 more die in attacks elsewhere, bringing the death toll in May to 848 as sectarian violence spreads.
A frustrating aspect of writing about Iraq since the invasion is that the worse the situation becomes, the easier it is for Tony Blair or George Bush to pretend it is improving. That is because as Baghdad and Iraq, aside from the three Kurdish provinces, become the stalking ground for death squads and assassins, it is impossible to report the collapse of security without being killed doing so.
There was a ghastly absurdity about Mr Blair's optimism as he stood beside the new Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone yesterday. As usual, Mr Blair arrived by helicopter. Anybody entering the zone on foot has to negotiate eight checkpoints defended by heavily armed troops and guards surrounded by sandbags, razor wire, sniffer dogs and X-ray machines.
Mr Blair said the establishment of a national unity government meant there was no longer any justification for the insurgency. He announced that now at last the "Iraqi people [are] able to take charge of their own destiny and write the next chapter of Iraqi history themselves".
But Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador, played a crucial role in getting rid of the last duly elected prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari. His officials do not conceal that the envoy has been what The New York Times described as "a tireless midwife in the birthing of the new government" . That is hardly the sign of a sovereign and independent Iraqi administration.
Mr Blair said "we have a government of national unity that crosses all boundaries". Unfortunately that is exactly what we do not have. The five months it has taken to form a government since the election for the Iraqi parliament on 15 December shows the depth of existing divisions. This government has a Minister of Tourism but, as yet, no Minister of the Interior or Defence, the two crucial jobs in a country torn apart by war.
In the two parliamentary elections and a referendum on the constitution in 2005, Iraqis voted along strictly sectarian or ethnic lines. The Shia and Sunni religious parties and the Kurdish coalition triumphed; secular and nationalist candidates performed dismally. The new constitution shifting power to Kurdish and Shia super-regions with control over new oil discoveries means that, in future, Iraq will be largely a geographical expression.
So divided is the new government that each ministry becomes the fief of the party that holds it. The ministries are, in practice, patronage machines employing only party loyalists. They are milked for money, jobs and contracts. Ministers cannot be dismissed for incompetence or corruption, however gross, because it would lead to the deal between the parties and communities unravelling. (The government has become a sort of bureaucratic feudalism with each ministry presided over by an independent chieftain.)
Mr Blair claimed yesterday that one of the strengths of the new government was that it was "directly elected by the votes of millions of Iraqi people". But the US and British embassies in Baghdad have spent much of the past five months trying to foist figures such as the former prime minister Iyad Allawi into the government, despite the poor performance of his party at the polls.
The problem for the US and Britain in Iraq is at one level quite simple. " If you have democracy in Iraq it will be in the interests of Iran, religious organisations and the Shia," said Sami Shoresh, a commentator on Iraqi affairs.
All these things the US and Britain want to avoid, but it is proving impossible to do so.
The Sunnis, the heart of the uprising against the occupation, are now waiting to see who will be appointed to run the Interior and Defence ministries. Terrified of Shia death squads run by the Interior Ministry, the militiamen of the Badr Organisation or the Mehdi Army, the Sunnis are looking to greater protection from the US. But it is unlikely that their community, having fought the occupation for three years, will now support it.
One of the strengths of Mr Maliki's government should be that it includes Sunni members whose parties did well in the election in December. But the five million Sunni Arabs do not have a leadership as coherent as that of the Shia and the Kurds. The elected politicians cannot deliver the armed resistance. In any case, these parliamentary leaders of the Sunnis, only 20 per cent of the Iraqi population, know that the only reason the Americans take them seriously is because of the guerrilla war that has so far killed or wounded 20,000 US troops.
The Shias, for their part, having used the invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein to gain power, have no intention of seeing it taken away from them by Mr Khalilzad or anybody else. The end of foreign military occupation will come when they decide it is no longer in their interests.
-----------------------
Citation: Patrick Cockburn. "Which is the real Iraq?," The Independent, UK, 23 May 2006.
Original URL: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article570217.ece
-----------------------
The Independent, UK, 23 May 2006
Blair's view: 'We have a government of national unity that crosses all boundaries. Iraqi people are able to write the next chapter of their history themselves' - Tony Blair on a visit to Iraq yesterday
Another view: Two car bombs explode in Baghdad, killing nine. At least 23 more die in attacks elsewhere, bringing the death toll in May to 848 as sectarian violence spreads.
A frustrating aspect of writing about Iraq since the invasion is that the worse the situation becomes, the easier it is for Tony Blair or George Bush to pretend it is improving. That is because as Baghdad and Iraq, aside from the three Kurdish provinces, become the stalking ground for death squads and assassins, it is impossible to report the collapse of security without being killed doing so.
There was a ghastly absurdity about Mr Blair's optimism as he stood beside the new Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone yesterday. As usual, Mr Blair arrived by helicopter. Anybody entering the zone on foot has to negotiate eight checkpoints defended by heavily armed troops and guards surrounded by sandbags, razor wire, sniffer dogs and X-ray machines.
Mr Blair said the establishment of a national unity government meant there was no longer any justification for the insurgency. He announced that now at last the "Iraqi people [are] able to take charge of their own destiny and write the next chapter of Iraqi history themselves".
But Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador, played a crucial role in getting rid of the last duly elected prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari. His officials do not conceal that the envoy has been what The New York Times described as "a tireless midwife in the birthing of the new government" . That is hardly the sign of a sovereign and independent Iraqi administration.
Mr Blair said "we have a government of national unity that crosses all boundaries". Unfortunately that is exactly what we do not have. The five months it has taken to form a government since the election for the Iraqi parliament on 15 December shows the depth of existing divisions. This government has a Minister of Tourism but, as yet, no Minister of the Interior or Defence, the two crucial jobs in a country torn apart by war.
In the two parliamentary elections and a referendum on the constitution in 2005, Iraqis voted along strictly sectarian or ethnic lines. The Shia and Sunni religious parties and the Kurdish coalition triumphed; secular and nationalist candidates performed dismally. The new constitution shifting power to Kurdish and Shia super-regions with control over new oil discoveries means that, in future, Iraq will be largely a geographical expression.
So divided is the new government that each ministry becomes the fief of the party that holds it. The ministries are, in practice, patronage machines employing only party loyalists. They are milked for money, jobs and contracts. Ministers cannot be dismissed for incompetence or corruption, however gross, because it would lead to the deal between the parties and communities unravelling. (The government has become a sort of bureaucratic feudalism with each ministry presided over by an independent chieftain.)
Mr Blair claimed yesterday that one of the strengths of the new government was that it was "directly elected by the votes of millions of Iraqi people". But the US and British embassies in Baghdad have spent much of the past five months trying to foist figures such as the former prime minister Iyad Allawi into the government, despite the poor performance of his party at the polls.
The problem for the US and Britain in Iraq is at one level quite simple. " If you have democracy in Iraq it will be in the interests of Iran, religious organisations and the Shia," said Sami Shoresh, a commentator on Iraqi affairs.
All these things the US and Britain want to avoid, but it is proving impossible to do so.
The Sunnis, the heart of the uprising against the occupation, are now waiting to see who will be appointed to run the Interior and Defence ministries. Terrified of Shia death squads run by the Interior Ministry, the militiamen of the Badr Organisation or the Mehdi Army, the Sunnis are looking to greater protection from the US. But it is unlikely that their community, having fought the occupation for three years, will now support it.
One of the strengths of Mr Maliki's government should be that it includes Sunni members whose parties did well in the election in December. But the five million Sunni Arabs do not have a leadership as coherent as that of the Shia and the Kurds. The elected politicians cannot deliver the armed resistance. In any case, these parliamentary leaders of the Sunnis, only 20 per cent of the Iraqi population, know that the only reason the Americans take them seriously is because of the guerrilla war that has so far killed or wounded 20,000 US troops.
The Shias, for their part, having used the invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein to gain power, have no intention of seeing it taken away from them by Mr Khalilzad or anybody else. The end of foreign military occupation will come when they decide it is no longer in their interests.
-----------------------
Citation: Patrick Cockburn. "Which is the real Iraq?," The Independent, UK, 23 May 2006.
Original URL: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article570217.ece
-----------------------
22 May 2006
Some Iraq war vets go homeless after return to US
By Daniel Trotta
Reuters, 19 May 2006
NEW YORK - The nightmare of Iraq was bad enough for Vanessa Gamboa. Unprepared for combat beyond her basic training, the supply specialist soon found herself in a firefight, commanding a handful of clerks.
"They promoted me to sergeant. I knew my job but I didn't know anything about combat. So I'm responsible for all these people and I don't know what to tell them but to duck," Gamboa said.
The battle, on a supply delivery run, ended without casualties, and it did little to steel Gamboa for what awaited her back home in Brooklyn.
When the single mother was discharged in April, after her second tour in Iraq, she was 24 and had little money and no place to live. She slept in her son's day-care center.
Gamboa is part of a small but growing trend among U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- homelessness.
On any given night the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) helps 200 to 250 of them, and more go uncounted. They are among nearly 200,000 homeless veterans in America, largely from the Vietnam War.
Advocates say the number of homeless veterans is certain to grow, just as it did in the years following the Vietnam and Gulf wars, as a consequence of the stresses of war and inadequate job training.
Homeless veterans have remained in the shadows of the national debate about Iraq, although the issue may gain traction from the film "When I Came Home," which won an award this month for best New York-made documentary at the city's Tribeca Film Festival.
The documentary tells the story of Iraq war veteran Herold Noel as he lived in his car. It will get a screening in June at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
U.S. Rep. Bob Filner, a California Democrat, calls it a "national disgrace" that homelessness among veterans has not been solved and held an informal hearing on Thursday to highlight the issue.
"We've seen the same thing with Agent Orange and Gulf War syndrome," Filner said of ailments from prior wars. "The bureaucracy is denying that there's anything wrong. First it's deny, deny, deny. Then they admit it's a small problem. And later they admit it's a widespread problem.
"We're not talking about a lot of money (to solve the problem) compared with overall spending on the war in Iraq. We're spending a billion dollars every two and a half days," he told Reuters.
DISCHARGED AND FORGOTTEN
One theme of the documentary is that veterans who risked their lives in war are too easily discarded by society once they are out of the military. The film shows Noel being denied housing by New York City's housing agency.
Gamboa had a similar experience.
"They put me in this roach-infested hotel. I was there for 10 days," Gamboa said. "Then they said I wasn't eligible to stay in a shelter because I could stay with my sister, who lives in a studio apartment with her husband. And I haven't spoken to her in six years."
Now her luck is improving.
Unlike many low-ranking soldiers, Gamboa received army training with civilian applications -- logistics -- and started a job with a fancy Fifth Avenue clothing store this week.
And despite an Army snafu that nearly denied her U.S. citizenship, the Guatemalan-born Gamboa, who moved to Brooklyn as a child, took her oath before the U.S. flag on Friday.
Military recruiters target poor neighborhoods like Gamboa's Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Young adults with few job skills join the Army. When they get out, many have fallen behind their contemporaries, experts say.
The stresses of combat and military life contribute to post traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and mental illness, which are especially taboo subjects to soldiers trained not to admit failure easily.
About half of all homeless veterans suffer from mental illness, and more than two-thirds suffer from alcohol or drug abuse problems, the VA says.
Gamboa has avoided those pitfalls, but female veterans are three times more likely to become homeless than women in the general population, the American Journal of Public Health reported.
Repeated deployments -- a hallmark of the Iraq war -- and separation from family can also portend future problems.
"Then the downward spiral begins with substance abuse and problems with the law," said Amy Fairweather of Iraq Veteran, which helps war veterans in San Francisco.
"If you wanted to put together all the repercussions that put people at risk for homelessness, you couldn't do better than the Iraq war."
-----------------------
Citation: Daniel Trotta. "Some Iraq war vets go homeless after return to US," Reuters, 19 May 2006.
Original URL: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-05-19T184405Z_01_N19384748_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-HOMELESS-VETERANS.xml&archived=False&src=051906_1940_ARTICLE_PROMO_also_on_reuters
-----------------------
Reuters, 19 May 2006
NEW YORK - The nightmare of Iraq was bad enough for Vanessa Gamboa. Unprepared for combat beyond her basic training, the supply specialist soon found herself in a firefight, commanding a handful of clerks.
"They promoted me to sergeant. I knew my job but I didn't know anything about combat. So I'm responsible for all these people and I don't know what to tell them but to duck," Gamboa said.
The battle, on a supply delivery run, ended without casualties, and it did little to steel Gamboa for what awaited her back home in Brooklyn.
When the single mother was discharged in April, after her second tour in Iraq, she was 24 and had little money and no place to live. She slept in her son's day-care center.
Gamboa is part of a small but growing trend among U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- homelessness.
On any given night the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) helps 200 to 250 of them, and more go uncounted. They are among nearly 200,000 homeless veterans in America, largely from the Vietnam War.
Advocates say the number of homeless veterans is certain to grow, just as it did in the years following the Vietnam and Gulf wars, as a consequence of the stresses of war and inadequate job training.
Homeless veterans have remained in the shadows of the national debate about Iraq, although the issue may gain traction from the film "When I Came Home," which won an award this month for best New York-made documentary at the city's Tribeca Film Festival.
The documentary tells the story of Iraq war veteran Herold Noel as he lived in his car. It will get a screening in June at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
U.S. Rep. Bob Filner, a California Democrat, calls it a "national disgrace" that homelessness among veterans has not been solved and held an informal hearing on Thursday to highlight the issue.
"We've seen the same thing with Agent Orange and Gulf War syndrome," Filner said of ailments from prior wars. "The bureaucracy is denying that there's anything wrong. First it's deny, deny, deny. Then they admit it's a small problem. And later they admit it's a widespread problem.
"We're not talking about a lot of money (to solve the problem) compared with overall spending on the war in Iraq. We're spending a billion dollars every two and a half days," he told Reuters.
DISCHARGED AND FORGOTTEN
One theme of the documentary is that veterans who risked their lives in war are too easily discarded by society once they are out of the military. The film shows Noel being denied housing by New York City's housing agency.
Gamboa had a similar experience.
"They put me in this roach-infested hotel. I was there for 10 days," Gamboa said. "Then they said I wasn't eligible to stay in a shelter because I could stay with my sister, who lives in a studio apartment with her husband. And I haven't spoken to her in six years."
Now her luck is improving.
Unlike many low-ranking soldiers, Gamboa received army training with civilian applications -- logistics -- and started a job with a fancy Fifth Avenue clothing store this week.
And despite an Army snafu that nearly denied her U.S. citizenship, the Guatemalan-born Gamboa, who moved to Brooklyn as a child, took her oath before the U.S. flag on Friday.
Military recruiters target poor neighborhoods like Gamboa's Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Young adults with few job skills join the Army. When they get out, many have fallen behind their contemporaries, experts say.
The stresses of combat and military life contribute to post traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and mental illness, which are especially taboo subjects to soldiers trained not to admit failure easily.
About half of all homeless veterans suffer from mental illness, and more than two-thirds suffer from alcohol or drug abuse problems, the VA says.
Gamboa has avoided those pitfalls, but female veterans are three times more likely to become homeless than women in the general population, the American Journal of Public Health reported.
Repeated deployments -- a hallmark of the Iraq war -- and separation from family can also portend future problems.
"Then the downward spiral begins with substance abuse and problems with the law," said Amy Fairweather of Iraq Veteran, which helps war veterans in San Francisco.
"If you wanted to put together all the repercussions that put people at risk for homelessness, you couldn't do better than the Iraq war."
-----------------------
Citation: Daniel Trotta. "Some Iraq war vets go homeless after return to US," Reuters, 19 May 2006.
Original URL: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-05-19T184405Z_01_N19384748_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-HOMELESS-VETERANS.xml&archived=False&src=051906_1940_ARTICLE_PROMO_also_on_reuters
-----------------------
Afghan drugs, poverty and anger fuel Taliban war
By Sayed Salahuddin
Reuters, 21 May 2006
Drugs, poverty and frustration with the Afghan government are fuelling an insurgency by Taliban militants, who appear to be growing stronger just as more foreign forces are arriving to try to improve security.
Violence in the past week has been some of the worst since U.S.-led forces drove the Taliban from power. In recent days, more than 100 people have died in bombings and gunbattles in the Afghan south. Two French soldiers, an American and a Canadian were among the dead.
On Sunday, a car bomb in the Afghan capital killed three people, security officials said.
The violence comes as NATO is expanding its peacekeeping force from 9,000 to 16,000, in preparation for taking over security responsibilities in the south from U.S.-led forces.
NATO troops from Britain, Canada and the Netherlands are spearheading the expansion into parts of the country where few, if any, foreign or government troops have set foot, and where the insurgents and drug cartels hold sway.
"It's hardly surprising the opposition want to disrupt it and contest it," NATO spokesman Mark Laity said of the alliance's push into new areas.
"They know this is a substantial expansion."
With 23,000 U.S. troops in the country, Afghanistan will soon have nearly 40,000 foreign troops, the most since 2001, facing off against the insurgents and their drug-gang allies.
But as foreign forces and President Hamid Karzai's government seek to push their authority into the countryside, the Taliban too have been expanding their reach.
The militants are now operating in areas where they have not been since since late 2001. Ever larger swathes of the south and east are off-limits to the government and aid workers.
In Ghazni province southwest of Kabul, for example, the Taliban have infiltrated villages just 10 km (six miles) from the provincial capital, residents say.
Police and other government workers are abandoning their homes for the safety Ghazni town in the face of Taliban threats.
GRIEVANCES
Across the countryside, the Taliban are finding a population frustrated with the government and disillusioned with foreign forces.
"People have grievances to do with governance, transparency and corruption. There's frustration, people are not getting what they expected," said a Western analyst.
"I think this would be happening regardless of what's going on with deployments," he said of the violence.
Many impoverished, deeply conservative Afghans are also receptive to the insurgents' rallying cry of jihad, or holy war, said Waheed Mozhdah, a writer and political analyst who served as a government official during Taliban rule.
"Every war needs a cause more so than weapons. The Taliban have a cause and that is Islam," Mozhdah said.
The recent release of a Christian covert who many thought should have been punished for abandoning Islam had raised questions over the legitimacy of the government from an Islamic point of view, he said.
At the same time, there was resentment of heavy-handed tactics by foreign forces searching for militants and many Afghans saw no improvement in their lives nearly five years after the Taliban were driven out.
"There was hope among people after the Taliban's ouster that things would improve economically, Afghanistan would be reconstructed. But it seems those hopes did not come true," Mozhdah said.
The Western-backed government's efforts to eradicate opium-growing were also playing into the hands of the Taliban.
"Instead of arresting officials involved in trafficking the government has resorted to punishing poor farmers. That has caused anger," he said.
"If you put those factors together, you get a picture of why the Taliban have been successful in increasing their attacks and recruiting fighters," Mozhdah said.
Another huge advantage for the Taliban are sanctuaries on the lawless Pakistani side of the border from where arms and fighters stream in, analysts say.
NATO's top military commander in Europe said on Saturday Afghanistan was teetering on the brink of becoming a narco-state with drug cartels posing a greater threat than the Taliban.
NATO forces hope to provide a window of security for the government and aid agencies to start improving lives.
Their exit strategy is building up Afghan forces so they can take over. That will take years.
-------------------------
Citation: Sayed Salahuddin. "Afghan drugs, poverty and anger fuel Taliban war," Reuters, 21 May 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060521/wl_nm/afghan_insurgency_dc
-------------------------
Reuters, 21 May 2006
Drugs, poverty and frustration with the Afghan government are fuelling an insurgency by Taliban militants, who appear to be growing stronger just as more foreign forces are arriving to try to improve security.
Violence in the past week has been some of the worst since U.S.-led forces drove the Taliban from power. In recent days, more than 100 people have died in bombings and gunbattles in the Afghan south. Two French soldiers, an American and a Canadian were among the dead.
On Sunday, a car bomb in the Afghan capital killed three people, security officials said.
The violence comes as NATO is expanding its peacekeeping force from 9,000 to 16,000, in preparation for taking over security responsibilities in the south from U.S.-led forces.
NATO troops from Britain, Canada and the Netherlands are spearheading the expansion into parts of the country where few, if any, foreign or government troops have set foot, and where the insurgents and drug cartels hold sway.
"It's hardly surprising the opposition want to disrupt it and contest it," NATO spokesman Mark Laity said of the alliance's push into new areas.
"They know this is a substantial expansion."
With 23,000 U.S. troops in the country, Afghanistan will soon have nearly 40,000 foreign troops, the most since 2001, facing off against the insurgents and their drug-gang allies.
But as foreign forces and President Hamid Karzai's government seek to push their authority into the countryside, the Taliban too have been expanding their reach.
The militants are now operating in areas where they have not been since since late 2001. Ever larger swathes of the south and east are off-limits to the government and aid workers.
In Ghazni province southwest of Kabul, for example, the Taliban have infiltrated villages just 10 km (six miles) from the provincial capital, residents say.
Police and other government workers are abandoning their homes for the safety Ghazni town in the face of Taliban threats.
GRIEVANCES
Across the countryside, the Taliban are finding a population frustrated with the government and disillusioned with foreign forces.
"People have grievances to do with governance, transparency and corruption. There's frustration, people are not getting what they expected," said a Western analyst.
"I think this would be happening regardless of what's going on with deployments," he said of the violence.
Many impoverished, deeply conservative Afghans are also receptive to the insurgents' rallying cry of jihad, or holy war, said Waheed Mozhdah, a writer and political analyst who served as a government official during Taliban rule.
"Every war needs a cause more so than weapons. The Taliban have a cause and that is Islam," Mozhdah said.
The recent release of a Christian covert who many thought should have been punished for abandoning Islam had raised questions over the legitimacy of the government from an Islamic point of view, he said.
At the same time, there was resentment of heavy-handed tactics by foreign forces searching for militants and many Afghans saw no improvement in their lives nearly five years after the Taliban were driven out.
"There was hope among people after the Taliban's ouster that things would improve economically, Afghanistan would be reconstructed. But it seems those hopes did not come true," Mozhdah said.
The Western-backed government's efforts to eradicate opium-growing were also playing into the hands of the Taliban.
"Instead of arresting officials involved in trafficking the government has resorted to punishing poor farmers. That has caused anger," he said.
"If you put those factors together, you get a picture of why the Taliban have been successful in increasing their attacks and recruiting fighters," Mozhdah said.
Another huge advantage for the Taliban are sanctuaries on the lawless Pakistani side of the border from where arms and fighters stream in, analysts say.
NATO's top military commander in Europe said on Saturday Afghanistan was teetering on the brink of becoming a narco-state with drug cartels posing a greater threat than the Taliban.
NATO forces hope to provide a window of security for the government and aid agencies to start improving lives.
Their exit strategy is building up Afghan forces so they can take over. That will take years.
-------------------------
Citation: Sayed Salahuddin. "Afghan drugs, poverty and anger fuel Taliban war," Reuters, 21 May 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060521/wl_nm/afghan_insurgency_dc
-------------------------
Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold
Across central Iraq, there is an exodus of people fleeing for their lives as sectarian assassins and death squads hunt them down. At ground level, Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold on a massive scale.
By Patrick Cockburn
The Independent, UK, 20 May 2006
The state of Iraq now resembles Bosnia at the height of the fighting in the 1990s when each community fled to places where its members were a majority and were able to defend themselves. "Be gone by evening prayers or we will kill you," warned one of four men who called at the house of Leila Mohammed, a pregnant mother of three children in the city of Baquba, in Diyala province north-east of Baghdad. He offered chocolate to one of her children to try to find out the names of the men in the family.
Mrs Mohammed is a Kurd and a Shia in Baquba, which has a majority of Sunni Arabs. Her husband, Ahmed, who traded fruit in the local market, said: " They threatened the Kurds and the Shia and told them to get out. Later I went back to try to get our furniture but there was too much shooting and I was trapped in our house. I came away with nothing." He and his wife now live with nine other relatives in a three-room hovel in Khanaqin.
The same pattern of intimidation, flight and death is being repeated in mixed provinces all over Iraq. By now Iraqis do not have to be reminded of the consequences of ignoring threats.
In Baquba, with a population of 350,000, gunmen last week ordered people off a bus, separated the men from the women and shot dead 11 of them. Not far away police found the mutilated body of a kidnapped six-year-old boy for whom a ransom had already been paid.
The sectarian warfare in Baghdad is sparsely reported but the provinces around the capital are now so dangerous for reporters that they seldom, if ever, go there, except as embeds with US troops. Two months ago in Mosul, I met an Iraqi army captain from Diyala who said Sunni and Shia were slaughtering each other in his home province. "Whoever is in a minority runs," he said. "If forces are more equal they fight it out."
It was impossible to travel to Baquba, the capital of Diyala, from Baghdad without extreme danger of being killed on the road. But I thought that if I took the road from Kurdistan leading south, kept close to the Iranian border and stayed in Kurdish-controlled territory I could reach Khanaqin, a town of 75,000 people in eastern Diyala. If what the army captain said about the killings and mass flight was true then there were bound to be refugees who had reached there.
I thought it was too dangerous to go beyond the town into the Arab part of Diyala province, once famous for its fruit, since it is largely under insurgent control. But, as I had hoped, it was possible to talk to Kurds who had sought refuge in Khanaqin over the past month.
Salam Hussein Rostam, a police lieutenant in charge of registering and investigating people arriving in terror from all over Iraq, gestured to an enormous file of paper beside him. "I've received 200 families recently, most of them in the last week," he said. This means that about one thousand people have sought refuge in one small town. Lt Rostam said that the refugees were coming from all over Iraq. In some cases they had left not because they were threatened with death but because they were fired from their jobs for belonging to the wrong community. "I know of two health workers from Baghdad who were sacked simply because they were Kurds and not Shia," he said.
This was probably because the Health Ministry in Baghdad is controlled by the party of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia cleric.
The flight of the middle class started about six months after the invasion in 2003 as it became clear Iraq was becoming more, not less, violent. They moved to Jordan, Syria and Egypt. The suicide bombing campaign was largely directed against Shias who only began to retaliate after they had taken over the government in May last year. Interior Ministry forces arrested, tortured and killed Sunnis.
But a decisive step towards sectarian civil war took place when the Shia Al-Askari shrine in Samarra was blown up on 22 February this year. Some 1,300 Sunni were killed in retaliation.
Kadm Darwish Ali, a policeman from Baquba and now also a refugee, said: " Everything got worse after Samarra. I had been threatened with death before but now I felt every time I appeared in the street I was likely to die."
Every community has its atrocity stories. The cousin of a friend was a Sunni Arab who worked in the wholly Shia district of Qadamiyah in west Baghdad. One day last month he disappeared. Three days later his body was discovered on a rubbish dump in another Shia district. "His face was so badly mutilated," said my friend, that "we only knew it was him from a wart on his arm."
Since the destruction of the mosque in Samarra sectarian warfare has broken out in every Iraqi city where there is a mixed population. In many cases the minority is too small to stand and fight. Sunnis have been fleeing Basra after a series of killings. Christians are being eliminated in Mosul in the north. Shias are being killed or driven out of cities and towns north of Baghdad such as Baquba or Samarra itself.
Dujail, 40 miles north of Baghdad, is the Shia village where Saddam Hussein is accused of carrying out a judicial massacre, killing 148 people after an attempt to assassinate him in 1982. He is on trial for the killings. The villagers are now paying a terrible price for giving evidence at his trial.
In the past few months Sunni insurgents have been stopping them at an improvised checkpoint on the road to Baghdad. Masked gunmen glance at their identity cards and if under place of birth is written "Dujail" they kill them. So far 20 villagers have been murdered and 20 have disappeared.
----------------------------------
Citation: Patrick Cockburn. "Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold," The Independent, UK, 20 May 2006.
Original URL: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article548945.ece
----------------------------------
By Patrick Cockburn
The Independent, UK, 20 May 2006
The state of Iraq now resembles Bosnia at the height of the fighting in the 1990s when each community fled to places where its members were a majority and were able to defend themselves. "Be gone by evening prayers or we will kill you," warned one of four men who called at the house of Leila Mohammed, a pregnant mother of three children in the city of Baquba, in Diyala province north-east of Baghdad. He offered chocolate to one of her children to try to find out the names of the men in the family.
Mrs Mohammed is a Kurd and a Shia in Baquba, which has a majority of Sunni Arabs. Her husband, Ahmed, who traded fruit in the local market, said: " They threatened the Kurds and the Shia and told them to get out. Later I went back to try to get our furniture but there was too much shooting and I was trapped in our house. I came away with nothing." He and his wife now live with nine other relatives in a three-room hovel in Khanaqin.
The same pattern of intimidation, flight and death is being repeated in mixed provinces all over Iraq. By now Iraqis do not have to be reminded of the consequences of ignoring threats.
In Baquba, with a population of 350,000, gunmen last week ordered people off a bus, separated the men from the women and shot dead 11 of them. Not far away police found the mutilated body of a kidnapped six-year-old boy for whom a ransom had already been paid.
The sectarian warfare in Baghdad is sparsely reported but the provinces around the capital are now so dangerous for reporters that they seldom, if ever, go there, except as embeds with US troops. Two months ago in Mosul, I met an Iraqi army captain from Diyala who said Sunni and Shia were slaughtering each other in his home province. "Whoever is in a minority runs," he said. "If forces are more equal they fight it out."
It was impossible to travel to Baquba, the capital of Diyala, from Baghdad without extreme danger of being killed on the road. But I thought that if I took the road from Kurdistan leading south, kept close to the Iranian border and stayed in Kurdish-controlled territory I could reach Khanaqin, a town of 75,000 people in eastern Diyala. If what the army captain said about the killings and mass flight was true then there were bound to be refugees who had reached there.
I thought it was too dangerous to go beyond the town into the Arab part of Diyala province, once famous for its fruit, since it is largely under insurgent control. But, as I had hoped, it was possible to talk to Kurds who had sought refuge in Khanaqin over the past month.
Salam Hussein Rostam, a police lieutenant in charge of registering and investigating people arriving in terror from all over Iraq, gestured to an enormous file of paper beside him. "I've received 200 families recently, most of them in the last week," he said. This means that about one thousand people have sought refuge in one small town. Lt Rostam said that the refugees were coming from all over Iraq. In some cases they had left not because they were threatened with death but because they were fired from their jobs for belonging to the wrong community. "I know of two health workers from Baghdad who were sacked simply because they were Kurds and not Shia," he said.
This was probably because the Health Ministry in Baghdad is controlled by the party of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia cleric.
The flight of the middle class started about six months after the invasion in 2003 as it became clear Iraq was becoming more, not less, violent. They moved to Jordan, Syria and Egypt. The suicide bombing campaign was largely directed against Shias who only began to retaliate after they had taken over the government in May last year. Interior Ministry forces arrested, tortured and killed Sunnis.
But a decisive step towards sectarian civil war took place when the Shia Al-Askari shrine in Samarra was blown up on 22 February this year. Some 1,300 Sunni were killed in retaliation.
Kadm Darwish Ali, a policeman from Baquba and now also a refugee, said: " Everything got worse after Samarra. I had been threatened with death before but now I felt every time I appeared in the street I was likely to die."
Every community has its atrocity stories. The cousin of a friend was a Sunni Arab who worked in the wholly Shia district of Qadamiyah in west Baghdad. One day last month he disappeared. Three days later his body was discovered on a rubbish dump in another Shia district. "His face was so badly mutilated," said my friend, that "we only knew it was him from a wart on his arm."
Since the destruction of the mosque in Samarra sectarian warfare has broken out in every Iraqi city where there is a mixed population. In many cases the minority is too small to stand and fight. Sunnis have been fleeing Basra after a series of killings. Christians are being eliminated in Mosul in the north. Shias are being killed or driven out of cities and towns north of Baghdad such as Baquba or Samarra itself.
Dujail, 40 miles north of Baghdad, is the Shia village where Saddam Hussein is accused of carrying out a judicial massacre, killing 148 people after an attempt to assassinate him in 1982. He is on trial for the killings. The villagers are now paying a terrible price for giving evidence at his trial.
In the past few months Sunni insurgents have been stopping them at an improvised checkpoint on the road to Baghdad. Masked gunmen glance at their identity cards and if under place of birth is written "Dujail" they kill them. So far 20 villagers have been murdered and 20 have disappeared.
----------------------------------
Citation: Patrick Cockburn. "Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold," The Independent, UK, 20 May 2006.
Original URL: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article548945.ece
----------------------------------
Gaps in Iraq government offer guide to priorities
By Alastair Macdonald
Reuters, 21 May 2006
BAGHDAD - Iraq's new national unity government is packed with elected leaders from almost every sectarian, ethnic and political group, but two elements that are notably missing may offer the best clues to its priorities.
One thing it still lacks is ministers for the key security posts, interior and defence; the other is a middle name.
For the first time since U.S. forces overthrew Saddam Hussein, Iraq has an administration that is not "provisional", "interim", "transitional" nor any other epithet to undermine its powers or offer excuses for inaction on issues most pressing for its 26 million people -- restoring security and the economy.
That could radically change the focus of government, as well as its relationship with the U.S. occupying forces. The choice of security ministers this week will give more indications of whether the cabinet itself can overcome its internal divisions.
Since the United States returned Iraq's formal sovereignty, politics has been marked by the sometimes abstract institutional business of organising elections and drafting a constitution.
New Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in his 34-point policy programme presented to parliament on Saturday, has made clear his priorities are the urgent reversal of a slide to sectarian civil war that accelerated in the power vacuum which followed December's election and, over time, improving public services.
"These two issues take precedence now over the construction of full political institutions," said politics professor Hazim al-Naimi at Baghdad's Mustansiriya University. "Security and services are not detached from that process but urgent need means they now need to be addressed more seriously."
"There are no excuses any more," one Western official in Baghdad said, noting there were nearly four years until the next election. "They have to get on with it and deliver for people."
Some officials say Maliki may try to put off parliamentary reviews of constitutional issues, including the fraught question of regional autonomy, to avoid distractions. However, parliament is obliged to address the issues this year.
SECURITY PRIORITY
His completion of a multiconfessional, multi-ethnic cabinet two days ahead of a constitutional deadline has raised hopes for Maliki's ability to steer a consensual, common line. But many believe it will be the filling of the still vacant security ministry jobs that will provide the best guide to his success.
"Only when we see who is interior minister and defence minister will we really know if this national unity government can work," one senior Iraqi politician said on Sunday.
That filling those jobs is taking so long is a further indication of their critical importance to the entire programme.
The interior ministry is pledged to Maliki's dominant Shi'ite Islamists, defence to the disaffected Sunni minority that dominated under Saddam but has for the most part now tentatively engaged in the U.S.-sponsored political process.
The main groups, including the Kurds, have a veto on both posts and much will be read into whether the ministers appointed in the coming days match the job requirements of competence and a credible claim to hold national above sectarian interests.
The United States effectively demanded the removal of the previous, interim, interior minister, who was accused by Sunnis of condoning Shi'ite militia death squads working with police.
That minister is now at finance and the battle goes on over replacing him. If his team is not to be hamstrung by disputes around the cabinet table, Maliki must choose very carefully.
His own role, engaging the credibility he brings as a former underground Shi'ite militant, will be vital in persuading fellow Shi'ites to give up militias and build a credible police.
His programme also features economic priorities, notably on improving electricity supplies. Diplomats suggest Maliki may act to divert power to sabotage-blighted Baghdad to cool passions in the capital, where a U.S. policy to reverse Saddam's practice and spread supply across the country has not been popular.
OLIVE BRANCH
Along with a predictable promise of "maximum force" against hardline militants -- notably the Sunni Islamists of al Qaeda and Saddam's diehard Baathist followers -- Maliki also talked on Sunday of reaching out to those who renounce violence.
One rapid way to foster popularity among Sunnis may be to free some of the 15,000 inmates of U.S. military jails.
Maliki's programme promises the "immediate release of those detained without a court order". Many Iraqi officials see large numbers of the U.S. "security detainees" as little threat.
Any request for their release would be a test of the new relationship between Iraq and Washington.
U.S. and British officials say they are keen to negotiate treaties to regulate their troops' presence in Iraq before the U.N. resolution governing that expires at the end of the year.
Maliki's programme calls for an "objective timetable" for Iraqi forces to be trained and take over from foreign troops -- in line with U.S. and British hopes of withdrawing from Iraq.
For many Iraqis, the U.S. presence is a distortion that has reinforced sectarian divisions. For others, the Americans are a bulwark against disintegration into a regional war that would drag in their Arab, Iranian and other neighbours.
Britain's envoy warned against expecting too much too soon. "There'll be some teething problems," William Patey said. "They must put the interests of the people above those of parties."
But a U.S. official in Baghdad said this year would determine Iraq's future for years to come. He said: "The next six to eight months will set the stage for this country to succeed. Or not."
Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Omar al-Ibadi.
-----------------------------
Citation: Alastair Macdonald. "Gaps in Iraq government offer guide to priorities," Reuters, 21 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAC140758.htm
-----------------------------
Reuters, 21 May 2006
BAGHDAD - Iraq's new national unity government is packed with elected leaders from almost every sectarian, ethnic and political group, but two elements that are notably missing may offer the best clues to its priorities.
One thing it still lacks is ministers for the key security posts, interior and defence; the other is a middle name.
For the first time since U.S. forces overthrew Saddam Hussein, Iraq has an administration that is not "provisional", "interim", "transitional" nor any other epithet to undermine its powers or offer excuses for inaction on issues most pressing for its 26 million people -- restoring security and the economy.
That could radically change the focus of government, as well as its relationship with the U.S. occupying forces. The choice of security ministers this week will give more indications of whether the cabinet itself can overcome its internal divisions.
Since the United States returned Iraq's formal sovereignty, politics has been marked by the sometimes abstract institutional business of organising elections and drafting a constitution.
New Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in his 34-point policy programme presented to parliament on Saturday, has made clear his priorities are the urgent reversal of a slide to sectarian civil war that accelerated in the power vacuum which followed December's election and, over time, improving public services.
"These two issues take precedence now over the construction of full political institutions," said politics professor Hazim al-Naimi at Baghdad's Mustansiriya University. "Security and services are not detached from that process but urgent need means they now need to be addressed more seriously."
"There are no excuses any more," one Western official in Baghdad said, noting there were nearly four years until the next election. "They have to get on with it and deliver for people."
Some officials say Maliki may try to put off parliamentary reviews of constitutional issues, including the fraught question of regional autonomy, to avoid distractions. However, parliament is obliged to address the issues this year.
SECURITY PRIORITY
His completion of a multiconfessional, multi-ethnic cabinet two days ahead of a constitutional deadline has raised hopes for Maliki's ability to steer a consensual, common line. But many believe it will be the filling of the still vacant security ministry jobs that will provide the best guide to his success.
"Only when we see who is interior minister and defence minister will we really know if this national unity government can work," one senior Iraqi politician said on Sunday.
That filling those jobs is taking so long is a further indication of their critical importance to the entire programme.
The interior ministry is pledged to Maliki's dominant Shi'ite Islamists, defence to the disaffected Sunni minority that dominated under Saddam but has for the most part now tentatively engaged in the U.S.-sponsored political process.
The main groups, including the Kurds, have a veto on both posts and much will be read into whether the ministers appointed in the coming days match the job requirements of competence and a credible claim to hold national above sectarian interests.
The United States effectively demanded the removal of the previous, interim, interior minister, who was accused by Sunnis of condoning Shi'ite militia death squads working with police.
That minister is now at finance and the battle goes on over replacing him. If his team is not to be hamstrung by disputes around the cabinet table, Maliki must choose very carefully.
His own role, engaging the credibility he brings as a former underground Shi'ite militant, will be vital in persuading fellow Shi'ites to give up militias and build a credible police.
His programme also features economic priorities, notably on improving electricity supplies. Diplomats suggest Maliki may act to divert power to sabotage-blighted Baghdad to cool passions in the capital, where a U.S. policy to reverse Saddam's practice and spread supply across the country has not been popular.
OLIVE BRANCH
Along with a predictable promise of "maximum force" against hardline militants -- notably the Sunni Islamists of al Qaeda and Saddam's diehard Baathist followers -- Maliki also talked on Sunday of reaching out to those who renounce violence.
One rapid way to foster popularity among Sunnis may be to free some of the 15,000 inmates of U.S. military jails.
Maliki's programme promises the "immediate release of those detained without a court order". Many Iraqi officials see large numbers of the U.S. "security detainees" as little threat.
Any request for their release would be a test of the new relationship between Iraq and Washington.
U.S. and British officials say they are keen to negotiate treaties to regulate their troops' presence in Iraq before the U.N. resolution governing that expires at the end of the year.
Maliki's programme calls for an "objective timetable" for Iraqi forces to be trained and take over from foreign troops -- in line with U.S. and British hopes of withdrawing from Iraq.
For many Iraqis, the U.S. presence is a distortion that has reinforced sectarian divisions. For others, the Americans are a bulwark against disintegration into a regional war that would drag in their Arab, Iranian and other neighbours.
Britain's envoy warned against expecting too much too soon. "There'll be some teething problems," William Patey said. "They must put the interests of the people above those of parties."
But a U.S. official in Baghdad said this year would determine Iraq's future for years to come. He said: "The next six to eight months will set the stage for this country to succeed. Or not."
Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Omar al-Ibadi.
-----------------------------
Citation: Alastair Macdonald. "Gaps in Iraq government offer guide to priorities," Reuters, 21 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAC140758.htm
-----------------------------
Iraqis Lack Faith in Leaders
Weary from years of war and uncertainty, they see little hope government will ease nation's woes.
By Megan K. Stack
Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2006
BAGHDAD — There was a time when the sitting room of the storied Alwiya Social Club was perpetually packed and rowdy with voices.
But that was before fear locked many Iraqis into their homes. These days, a flat spring sunlight bathes empty chairs and a worn carpet. A lone musician sits huddled near the old upright piano, poking listlessly at an electronic keyboard.
Club manager Hisham Amin Zekki sends a weary look around the room. Like many Iraqis, he is too preoccupied with his own troubles to pay much attention to Iraq's new government.
He worries about high gasoline prices, mortar attacks and getting a flat tire in the wrong neighborhood. He daydreams of sending his only child, a 25-year-old son, to America in search of a better life. He is haunted by memories of bingo nights and wedding parties that stretched until dawn.
"I don't have much faith that this new government will achieve democracy and security," said Zekki, a 65-year-old Sunni Muslim Arab with carefully slicked hair. "We should not be desperate. We must have hope. But until now we have no sign of hope, not even a glimpse."
Across this country, Iraqis of all backgrounds struggle to gin up enthusiasm for their long-awaited government, which was approved by parliament Saturday after five months of political haggling.
As Prime Minister Nouri Maliki took up his new duties Sunday amid continuing violence, the voices of Iraqis were a window into the steep challenges that lie before him — and a harsh illustration of the divide between the high-flown rhetoric of Iraq's ruling elite and the depression, anger and vengeance on the streets.
After three years of war and uncertainty, many Iraqis are too busy to lend much emotional energy to the political process. They are exhausted from bloodshed, distrustful of their neighbors, grappling with questions of identity and sectarian violence.
They are also keenly aware that most of their political leaders spend their days locked in the heavily fortified Green Zone, shielded from the rest of the country by foreign soldiers and strict checkpoints.
"The people we elected gave so many rights away," said Mohammed Ali Hilfi, a 29-year-old Shiite Muslim in the southern shrine city of Najaf. "The politicians won't try to stop the violence, because they don't care about the blood of the Iraqis."
Hilfi is trying to make a living from his Internet shop, but it isn't easy. He doesn't own a home or a car. Still a bachelor, he lives with his parents. He rattles off his list of wishes for the government: electricity, services and especially security.
"My family worries every day about my return back home," he said.
Those concerns wind through the entire country — a connective thread in an otherwise divided land.
"It is security, security, security that's needed," said Hussein Abdullah Ubaidi, a 45-year-old Sunni who lives in the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk. "We expect Maliki's government to stop Iraqi bloodshed. It's spilled on a daily basis, in cold blood."
Like many Sunnis, Ubaidi griped bitterly about the distribution of Cabinet spots according to sect.
"The manner in which this government was formed is incorrect," he said. "Sunnis were oppressed and mistreated in this government. Only a few ministries were given to them, and insignificant ones, too."
Many Iraqis said they were worried that the new government, with its ministries distributed among sectarian parties, would only reinforce animosities between the factions, infusing this fragile society with even deeper tensions.
"We need reconciliation among all the sides," said Hussein Ali Baldawi, a 60-year-old Shiite in the Iraqi town of Balad. "An honest government is important, but from my point of view it should not be sectarian."
Alaa Mahmood, a 25-year-old Shiite college student in Mosul, readily admits that her sect is generously represented in the Cabinet. The majority group in Iraq, Shiites now dominate both the parliament and the Cabinet. It is a historical renaissance for a group that was severely oppressed under Saddam Hussein.
But Mahmood, the mother of three children, is not satisfied with her sect's political gains. Like many Shiites, her patience with the U.S. soldiers and diplomats has worn thin. She calls Americans "the occupiers" — a typical epithet from Shiites who have gone from viewing the U.S. soldiers as liberating warriors to resenting them as obstacles to greater Shiite power.
"I don't trust the new government. I don't expect anything from them," Mahmood said. "They should start the real work and expel the occupiers."
Salam Abdallah Mihmidi, 50, a Sunni who is a retired teacher in the restive western province of Al Anbar, sat in a fabric shop dressed in threadbare clothes. Asked about the government, he fretted about Sunni rights but also about the economic crisis that's gripped western Iraq since the fighting choked off the flow of tourists and businessmen.
"If the youth don't find jobs, they will loot, kill and fall in with the gangs of killers," he said.
Mihmidi's son recently dropped out of college in Baghdad because he feared that his name, Omar, a common one among Sunnis, would tip off Shiites to his sectarian identity and make him vulnerable to attack.
Spirits were slightly higher in the Kurdish north, where both security and the economy have been relatively healthy since the U.S.-led invasion.
"As Kurds, I think we did well. We have the positions that satisfied our ambitions," said Eyad Ahmed Hamad Ameen, a 34-year-old schoolteacher in Irbil. But, Ameen added, "the security situation is a major concern. We want to travel in all of Iraq without fear."
Summer is coming on strong now. But as the heat gets thicker, electricity is still a weak and intermittent flicker to many Iraqis. Baghdad has power only a few hours each day. With generators too expensive for many families, people are bracing themselves to spend the blazing months ahead in the swampy darkness of their homes.
"We don't have electricity at home, so we have to get used to the heat," said Izzadin Khalaf Youssef, a 25-year-old physical education student at Baghdad University. "It's become very difficult, very hard. There are times you cannot even leave your apartment."
Hidden behind the headline-grabbing violence, Iraqis are grappling with all manner of small deprivations. Yousef Jaber Mohsin, a 36-year-old Shiite in the southern city of Samawah, just wants to see his sister again. She lives in Baqubah, north of Baghdad, and the roads have been too dangerous to travel.
"I want to see peace in our beloved land," said Mohsin, a schoolteacher who paused on his way home with an armload of groceries. "The government should take care of the dreams of the people, and feel the disaster the people felt."
Times staff writers Suhail Ahmad and Saif Rasheed and special correspondents in Samawah, Mosul, Al Anbar province, Irbil, Kirkuk, Najaf and Baqubah contributed to this report.
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Citation: Megan K. Stack. "Iraqis Lack Faith in Leaders," Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mood22may22,0,6920671.story?coll=la-home-headlines
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By Megan K. Stack
Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2006
BAGHDAD — There was a time when the sitting room of the storied Alwiya Social Club was perpetually packed and rowdy with voices.
But that was before fear locked many Iraqis into their homes. These days, a flat spring sunlight bathes empty chairs and a worn carpet. A lone musician sits huddled near the old upright piano, poking listlessly at an electronic keyboard.
Club manager Hisham Amin Zekki sends a weary look around the room. Like many Iraqis, he is too preoccupied with his own troubles to pay much attention to Iraq's new government.
He worries about high gasoline prices, mortar attacks and getting a flat tire in the wrong neighborhood. He daydreams of sending his only child, a 25-year-old son, to America in search of a better life. He is haunted by memories of bingo nights and wedding parties that stretched until dawn.
"I don't have much faith that this new government will achieve democracy and security," said Zekki, a 65-year-old Sunni Muslim Arab with carefully slicked hair. "We should not be desperate. We must have hope. But until now we have no sign of hope, not even a glimpse."
Across this country, Iraqis of all backgrounds struggle to gin up enthusiasm for their long-awaited government, which was approved by parliament Saturday after five months of political haggling.
As Prime Minister Nouri Maliki took up his new duties Sunday amid continuing violence, the voices of Iraqis were a window into the steep challenges that lie before him — and a harsh illustration of the divide between the high-flown rhetoric of Iraq's ruling elite and the depression, anger and vengeance on the streets.
After three years of war and uncertainty, many Iraqis are too busy to lend much emotional energy to the political process. They are exhausted from bloodshed, distrustful of their neighbors, grappling with questions of identity and sectarian violence.
They are also keenly aware that most of their political leaders spend their days locked in the heavily fortified Green Zone, shielded from the rest of the country by foreign soldiers and strict checkpoints.
"The people we elected gave so many rights away," said Mohammed Ali Hilfi, a 29-year-old Shiite Muslim in the southern shrine city of Najaf. "The politicians won't try to stop the violence, because they don't care about the blood of the Iraqis."
Hilfi is trying to make a living from his Internet shop, but it isn't easy. He doesn't own a home or a car. Still a bachelor, he lives with his parents. He rattles off his list of wishes for the government: electricity, services and especially security.
"My family worries every day about my return back home," he said.
Those concerns wind through the entire country — a connective thread in an otherwise divided land.
"It is security, security, security that's needed," said Hussein Abdullah Ubaidi, a 45-year-old Sunni who lives in the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk. "We expect Maliki's government to stop Iraqi bloodshed. It's spilled on a daily basis, in cold blood."
Like many Sunnis, Ubaidi griped bitterly about the distribution of Cabinet spots according to sect.
"The manner in which this government was formed is incorrect," he said. "Sunnis were oppressed and mistreated in this government. Only a few ministries were given to them, and insignificant ones, too."
Many Iraqis said they were worried that the new government, with its ministries distributed among sectarian parties, would only reinforce animosities between the factions, infusing this fragile society with even deeper tensions.
"We need reconciliation among all the sides," said Hussein Ali Baldawi, a 60-year-old Shiite in the Iraqi town of Balad. "An honest government is important, but from my point of view it should not be sectarian."
Alaa Mahmood, a 25-year-old Shiite college student in Mosul, readily admits that her sect is generously represented in the Cabinet. The majority group in Iraq, Shiites now dominate both the parliament and the Cabinet. It is a historical renaissance for a group that was severely oppressed under Saddam Hussein.
But Mahmood, the mother of three children, is not satisfied with her sect's political gains. Like many Shiites, her patience with the U.S. soldiers and diplomats has worn thin. She calls Americans "the occupiers" — a typical epithet from Shiites who have gone from viewing the U.S. soldiers as liberating warriors to resenting them as obstacles to greater Shiite power.
"I don't trust the new government. I don't expect anything from them," Mahmood said. "They should start the real work and expel the occupiers."
Salam Abdallah Mihmidi, 50, a Sunni who is a retired teacher in the restive western province of Al Anbar, sat in a fabric shop dressed in threadbare clothes. Asked about the government, he fretted about Sunni rights but also about the economic crisis that's gripped western Iraq since the fighting choked off the flow of tourists and businessmen.
"If the youth don't find jobs, they will loot, kill and fall in with the gangs of killers," he said.
Mihmidi's son recently dropped out of college in Baghdad because he feared that his name, Omar, a common one among Sunnis, would tip off Shiites to his sectarian identity and make him vulnerable to attack.
Spirits were slightly higher in the Kurdish north, where both security and the economy have been relatively healthy since the U.S.-led invasion.
"As Kurds, I think we did well. We have the positions that satisfied our ambitions," said Eyad Ahmed Hamad Ameen, a 34-year-old schoolteacher in Irbil. But, Ameen added, "the security situation is a major concern. We want to travel in all of Iraq without fear."
Summer is coming on strong now. But as the heat gets thicker, electricity is still a weak and intermittent flicker to many Iraqis. Baghdad has power only a few hours each day. With generators too expensive for many families, people are bracing themselves to spend the blazing months ahead in the swampy darkness of their homes.
"We don't have electricity at home, so we have to get used to the heat," said Izzadin Khalaf Youssef, a 25-year-old physical education student at Baghdad University. "It's become very difficult, very hard. There are times you cannot even leave your apartment."
Hidden behind the headline-grabbing violence, Iraqis are grappling with all manner of small deprivations. Yousef Jaber Mohsin, a 36-year-old Shiite in the southern city of Samawah, just wants to see his sister again. She lives in Baqubah, north of Baghdad, and the roads have been too dangerous to travel.
"I want to see peace in our beloved land," said Mohsin, a schoolteacher who paused on his way home with an armload of groceries. "The government should take care of the dreams of the people, and feel the disaster the people felt."
Times staff writers Suhail Ahmad and Saif Rasheed and special correspondents in Samawah, Mosul, Al Anbar province, Irbil, Kirkuk, Najaf and Baqubah contributed to this report.
-------------------------
Citation: Megan K. Stack. "Iraqis Lack Faith in Leaders," Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2006.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mood22may22,0,6920671.story?coll=la-home-headlines
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