Bush got taken for a ride on Iran intelligence

It seems as if the Bush Administration went shopping for what it wanted to hear once again. This time it was an Iranian armed opposition group (no possible bias there) that gave Bush lousy intelligence, which Bush fell for wholeheartedly and acted on. One can only wonder how much these people were paid, or what acts were winked at, in exchange for this worthless information.

In the build-up to the Iraq invasion, the White House employed a stable of Iraqi exiles who provided the exact "information" Bush wanted on a regular basis. While a lot of these "sources" hadn't been in Iraq for decades, their opinions were taken as authoritative. They were asked leading questions that indicated the answers that were desired, and then given time to concoct lies, either elaborate or clumsy, that fit the situation. They got rewarded if they gave the "right" answers; if they didn't, they weren't called on again and their "intelligence" was discarded. This is how we got all kinds of "valuable intelligence" on Saddam's WMDs.

Bush wanted proof that Iranians (and the Iranian government) were bringing armour-piercing weapons and explosives into Iraq. The problem was that all of the reliable people told them they were off base, so they went to some folks who knew how to play ball. Sure, they had every interest in promoting an invasion and making the regime in Teheran look bad. Yes, you may say that these members of an outlawed armed resistance group were hardly the kind of "insiders" one would consult about the secret workings of a government they sought to overthrow. And, of course, these 'experts' knew exactly what their marks wanted to hear. Still, none of this is any reason to be suspicious of their credibility, or means that any of their "intelligence" should be independently verified. Yes, let's act on it immediately, since it matches our agenda and pre-conceived notions. What could possibly go wrong?

So they did. They arrested a bunch of Iranians, "interrogated" them, and now they are letting them go.
You must be shocked to hear that the source of the "intelligence" had played the Pentagon. There was no evidence. Sadly, in Bush-speak, this is the evidence. The lack of evidence merely shows that we are dealing with highly cunning and dangerous people. Sure, some people who don't want to win in Iraq might suggest that Bush's assumptions about Iranian involvement were unfounded, but those are just the type of people who think that a few thousand jihadists aren't going to overthrow the U.S. government and force us to bow down to Allah, make your daughter wear a burqua, and behead your dog. The key is to never change your mind, no matter what the facts may say, or question the wisdom of your course. Besides, some secret informant told us we were going to "win" any day now. In fact, he's helping us link the Loch Ness Monster to secret North Korean bio-weapons that came from Atlantis.

POLITICS-US: Seizure of Iranians Failed to Validate Bush Line
Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Nov 17 (IPS) - The George W. Bush administration's campaign to seize and detain Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials in Iraq, presented by Bush himself last January as a move to break up an alleged Iranian arms smuggling operation in Iraq, appears to have run its course without having been able to link a single Iranian to any such operation.

Despite administration rhetoric suggesting that the U.S. military had solid intelligence on which to base a campaign to break up Iranian-sponsored networks supplying armour-piercing weapons, what is now known about the kidnapping operations indicates that the actual purpose was to obtain some evidence from interrogations that would support the administration's line that the IRGC's elite Quds Force is involved in assisting Shiite forces militarily.

None of the six Iranians now held by the U.S. military, however, has provided any evidence for the administration's case despite many months of very tough interrogation usually employed on "high value" detainees.

Wayne White, former deputy director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia, told IPS he believes the administration badly wanted to get information from the Iranian detainees that they could use to make their case, but has been unable to do so.

"I'm convinced that they haven't gotten anything out of them," he said in an interview. "They haven't come up with anything they can shop around."

The programme has also been a political embarrassment in relations with U.S. allies in Iraq. U.S. military seizures of Iranians who the U.S. military claimed were IRGC Quds Force officers have been condemned not only by the Shiite government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki but by Kurdish leaders as well. The U.S. military apologised in August for "a regrettable incident" in which eight Iranians were arrested in Baghdad, and then freed after Iraqi protests.

The U.S. quietly released nine Iranian detainees last week, two of whom were seized in the Kurdish city of Erbil in January, saying they were "of no continuing intelligence value". The others do not appear to have been part of the deliberate targeting of Iranian officials.

What was later learned about the U.S. raids on Iranian officials in Kurdistan last January and again in September and in Baghdad last December shows that the U.S. military was targeting Iranians merely on the basis of their affiliation with the IRGC, while claiming publicly to have intelligence of their involvement in weapons trafficking.

The Jan. 10 raid was on an Iranian liaison office that had been operating in the Kurdistan capital of Erbil for 10 years with official Iraqi government approval. The U.S. military issued only a vaguely-worded rationale for kidnapping the five Iranians, saying they were "suspected of being closely tied to activities targeting Iraqi and coalition forces..."

That was a thinly-veiled allusion to their suspected membership in the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iraq's Kurdish foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari, who demanded the release of the five Iranians, explained that they were not part of a "clandestine network" but were working on visas and other paperwork for travel by Iraqis to Iran. Zebari pointed out that the men were working for the Revolutionary Guard Corps because that institution has the responsibility for controlling Iran's borders.

It is also common for IRGC officers to be given positions in a wide range of non-military Iranian government agencies. That was the case with Mahmoud Farhadi, the Iranian official kidnapped by U.S. military from a hotel in Soleimanieh, Kurdistan Sep. 20.

U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Mark Fox told reporters that Farhadi was a member of the "Ramadan Corps" of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard command responsible for all Iranian operations inside Iraq and the "linchpin" behind the smuggling of "sophisticated weapons" into Iraq by the Quds Force.

But officials of the Kurdistan regional government and the Kurdish president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, publicly confirmed the Iranian government's assertion that Farhadi was a civilian official of the Kermanshah province governor-general's office on a "commercial mission with the knowledge of the federal government in Baghdad and the government of Kurdistan."

Again, Kurdish authorities did not contest the fact that Farhadi had been in the IRGC. The governor of Suleymaniye, Dana Majeed, acknowledged his IRGC membership to National Public Radio a week after the U.S. kidnapping, but insisted that his job was to expedite trade and transit across the border.

The U.S. military was apparently operating on the basis of information from the Iranian armed opposition group Mujahideen E Khalq (MEK) that was badly out of date. The political arm of the MEK, the National Council or Resistance of Iran, which had been providing information to U.S. intelligence on the Iranian nuclear programme and on Iranian officials operating in Iraq, published a detailed article on Farhadi Sep. 25 which claimed that he was the commander of the Quds Force Zafar Base and said nothing about his having working for the province on cross-border trade.

But an article in a local Kurdish language daily in Soleminiye on Sep. 24 reported that an "informed source" belonging to unnamed "Iranian opposition group -- obviously the MEK -- had used the past tense in regard to Farhadi's role as Quds Force commander and acknowledged that Farhadi was now working in a commercial delegation.

In December 2006, two accredited Iranian diplomats were kidnapped from the Embassy car on the way from praying at a mosque and later had to be released. But four other Iranian officials were kidnapped in the compound of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Shiite political party called SCIRI, who had visited Bush three weeks earlier. They were in the home of the chairman of the Parliamentary security committee and head of the Badr organisation.

The official explanation was that they were being detained on "suspicion of carrying out or planning attacks against Iraqi security forces". But the Iraqi interlocutors are part of the Iraqi government which supports the occupation and opposes the Madhi army. If the Iranian officials detained were actually plotting with their hosts to attack Iraqi security forces, it would have meant that the SCIRI and the Badr Group were planning to attack their own government.

U.S. military officials claimed to the Washington Post that they had captured maps of Baghdad delineating Sunni Shiite and mixed neighbourhoods that would be useful for militias, lists of weapons systems and "information about importing modern, specially shaped explosive charges into Iran".

But Laura Rozen of the National Journal quoted a U.S. official as saying that the evidence was far less conclusive than was claimed. "They are trying to walk this back," said the official. "There are no smoking guns about Iran in Iraq."

None of the allegedly damning evidence was mentioned in the Feb. 11 military briefing to the U.S. media on the alleged Quds Force EFP smuggling, indicating that these claims were vastly exaggerated.

*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in June 2005.

Poland calls it quits

Bowing to popular opinion, Poland has announced it will get its troops out of Iraq.
Watch for the Bush Administration to be making snide and derogatory remarks about the Polish military in the near future. Mysterious obstacles will also crop up to Poland's membership in NATO as well.

Yeat another one of Bush's puppets, Kaczynski, joins Abe and Blair in the rubbish heap. How long until Howard takes his place in the seat reserved for foreign leaders that followed the Decider blindly?

Poland to pull troops from Iraq

The new Polish defence minister has said his country will withdraw its 900 troops deployed in Iraq next year.

The previous government of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the former prime minister, had extended the deployment of its 900-strong force until the end of 2007 and planned to send more troops in 2008.

But Bogdan Klich, the new defence minister from the Liberal government, told the public radio station Jedynma: "I can confirm that in 2008, the Polish military contingent in Iraq will be withdrawn."

Klich said on Saturday that the details of the withdrawal would be announced next Friday when Donald Tusk, Poland's new prime minister, outlines his government's policies in parliament.

Warsaw had previously been one of most vocal supporters of the US policy in Iraq.

Polish troops took part in the invasion in 2003, sparking a bitter verbal confrontation with anti-war European Union members, notably France.

US-Polish ties strengthened after the election in 2005 of the previous Law and Justice party administration.

The conservative government of prime minister Kaczynski, the identical twin of the current Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, had said it was planning to send a new group of soldiers in 2008.

Snap win

Tusk's Civic Platform, which won October's snap general elections, had earlier pledged a swift pull-out of Polish armed forces from Iraq.

Tusk said in November it was important that Washington recognise that his Civic Platform had won power with a pledge to "end the mission in Iraq at least in its current form, in 2008".

In October, Edward Pietrzyk, Poland's ambassador to Iraq, was seriously injured and his driver killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

A total of 22 Polish soldiers have been killed in Iraq since 2003.

The current 900-strong Polish contingent is stationed in the Diwaniyah region of Iraq, where 2,600 were deployed in 2003.

A public opinion poll last June found that 81 per cent of Poles were opposed to their soldiers' deployment alongside US troops in Iraq, with only 15 per cent in favour.

British military in crisis

Once again, a senior commander in the British military is saying that the service is in danger of collapse.
Boldly following the Decider into a two-front military effort is pushing the military to the limit. Blair's yes-man mentality is slowly fading from prominence among senior commanders, and the truth is coming out about what poor condition the services are really in.

Of course, Britain's steadfast ally, the Bush Administration, has seen fit to show its gratitude by implying the the British military is full of cowards and pansies. Meanwhile, Bush asks for more troops and money for the Afghan campaign from exhausted and reluctant allies. Remember, the Afghan effort was supposed to be a walk in the park - primarily peacekeeping, training, and reconstruction. At the end was a pat on the head from the Decider for all the allies' hard work, while Bush would take the credit for his "vision".

Like Iraq, the reconstruction never came. Desperate farmers are now forced to grow drug crops and pay the Taliban for protection. The perpetually-broke puppet, Karzai, can't even pay his civil servants. Areas that were fiercely won seem to slip back into militants' control almost as soon as the Coalition leaves. Air strikes have produced high-profile civilian casualties, and the Coalition shows a callous, arrogant, and dismissive view of these casualties. Some allies have opted out of combat altogether, and Bush can't seem to browbeat them as effectively as he once did. Coalition troops are finding increasing reluctance and resistance among the Afghan population.

American politicians, such has Rep. Lantos, have hardly helped by telling our allies that they owe us big-time for WW2 and letting them know that we expect a lot more help from them. At what point does an ally become an enabler for an incompetent leader that sees bombings and bullets as the solution to every problem?

With Bush now building up the charge for yet another war with Iran, one wonders how this exhausted British military will be able to handle a third front. Nothing has gone as the Decider said it would in either Iraq or Afghanistan, but somehow our allies are supposed to believe that Bush has it all figured out with Iran.

With Pakistan's tribal areas becoming a de-facto independent state, the challenge only increases for the British military. Thumbs-up, smiley-faced assessments may be good for domestic consumption, but are worthless for planning military campaigns. It remains to be seen if Gordon Brown will continue to be led by the nose into presiding over the collapse of his country's army.

See also here, here, here and here for more stories on the British military's disaster.

Our forces can't carry on like this, says General Sir Richard Dannatt

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent

Last Updated: 1:30am GMT 18/11/2007

The head of the Army has warned that years of Government under-funding and overstretch have left troops feeling "devalued, angry and suffering from Iraq fatigue", The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the Chief of the General Staff, reveals in a top-level report that the present level of operations is "unsustainable", the Army is "under-manned" and increasing numbers of troops are "disillusioned" with service life.

Gen Dannatt states that the "military covenant is clearly out of kilter", and the chain of command needs to improve standards of pay, accommodation and medical care.

"We must strive to give individuals and units ample recuperation time between operations, but I do not underestimate how difficult this will be to achieve whilst under-manned and with less robust establishments than I would like."

The report, a copy of which has been seen by this newspaper, reveals for the first time the general's concerns on virtually every aspect of the Army, from levels of pay to the quality of food in canteens.

Gen Dannatt came to public prominence last year when, within weeks of taking over as head of the Army, he said the Iraq war was causing security problems in Britain.

In the new report, he says that operations on the two fronts of Iraq and Afghanistan are putting soldiers and their families under "great pressure", and that the long-term impact of operations is "damaging" and is "mortgaging the goodwill of our people".

In terms of "overstretch", the report says, "the tank of goodwill now runs on vapour; many experienced staff are talking of leaving".

Last week, Lt Col Stuart Tootal, 42, who commanded the Parachute Regiment in Afghanistan, resigned from the Army over the "shoddy" treatment of injured troops. In a letter to defence chiefs, he was reported to have criticised levels of pay, a lack of training equipment and the appalling housing - all issues raised in Gen Dannatt's report.

The report lays bare how a lack of funding, resources and manpower are forcing defence chiefs into making decisions once considered unthinkable.

One such move includes sending "medically downgraded" or injured troops and soldiers as young as 17 to guard the Falkland Islands to release fit troops for operations - a move Gen Dannatt says he wholly supports.

The report adds:

• Delays to military inquests are a disgrace

• Military housing estates are unsafe and being overrun by immigrant families

• Poor food quality is creating a "pot-noodle and sandwich" culture among junior soldiers

• Work-life balance is an increasing concern

• Soldiers are "going sick" to get out of the Army

• Leave is often cancelled or constrained because of operational overstretch

• Harmony guidelines - the time between operational tours - are becoming meaningless

• The Army is no longer fun

• Fitness in the Army is tailing off and more soldiers are medically downgraded

The report's findings follow months of interviews with thousands of soldiers and their families from 47 units.

Entitled Chief of the General Staff's Briefing Team Report (2007), the findings are described by Gen Dannatt as a "comprehensive, vivid and accurate" picture of Army life.

He writes that "improvements need to be made in accommodation, pay and medical services" and that the "chain of command must still improve things" if more soldiers are to be recruited.

The general accepts the view that delays in holding military inquests are a "disgrace" and writes: "I share the frustration and know that many families feel let down by the process. The delays are unacceptable and I will continue to press for improvements."

Military housing is an area singled out for criticism. "Estates are becoming less safe and more run down. Some are degenerating - in Germany it is reported that many of the neighbouring areas are occupied by immigrant families with hordes of children.

This is of particular concern for wives when their husband is deployed [on operations]." In Britain, some service families' accommodation areas have "ex-married quarters owned by housing associations, and disruptive civilian families have moved in, causing concerns over vandalism and theft".

The report strongly criticises the "Pay As You Dine" policy of making soldiers pay for what they eat, which many in the Army call a "disaster".

It says: "There are real concerns about the new eating habits of some soldiers due to Pay As You Dine. A "pot noodle and sandwich" culture is being created and soldiers are cooking rations over gas burners in their rooms. There are apocryphal stories of soldiers flaking during PT sessions from a lack of nutrients".

The report adds: "Pay As You Dine was sold as a strap line of new restaurants, better choice and good quality. The reality is very different - for most, the only investment has been a till."

There is a growing problem of troops "going sick" to get out of the Army.

There is a lack of "training areas, range availability, shortages of ammunition, spares and manpower - which is limiting the amount of meaningful training that can be undertaken. There are insufficient serviceable aircraft for parachute training. Apache flying hours are limited by lack of serviceable aircraft".

Patrick Mercer, a Tory MP and former infantry commander, said: "These problem areas existed 10 years ago. Now we have a crisis and it is a disgrace that senior officers and ministers have allowed this to happen. I am staggered that the head of the Army thinks it acceptable to send kids and those medically unfit for war to guard the Falklands."

Billions evaporate in Iraqi corruption

Ah, yes, Diyala. The shining star of neocons, the proof that Bush can "win" in Iraq and that all we need are more bullets and air strikes to bring Bush's dreams to fruition.

$7 billion disappeared in the first year of the occupation. All of those neocons cheering about Bush hanging tough on "pork" should be asking where it went. But that's okay; it went to "making us safer" somehow.

Diyala is also the place where senior police commanders create hundreds of false names of policemen under their command, while collecting the salaries of all of these false officers. How does this make us safer? How does this help stabilise Iraq? If you ask these questions, however, you are a traitor, a socialist, and you don't "want us to win". Paying for imaginary police officers in a foreign country is money well spent, in the view of Republicans, but actually making disability payments to wounded and traumatised vets is just "wasteful".

Republicans who vote against rebuilding the bridge in Minnesota that collapsed in early August (it's pork, you know), are apparently okay with forking over the cash for contractors in Iraq to pay bribes and not even complete the work they were paid for.

As multiple billions seep away into government officals' pockets, Republicans brag about the "stunning success" in a country that barely fuctions. Nobody looks at where the money is going and what is actually being done with it. It's all secret, but incompetent investigators whose primary qualifications are contributions to Republican candidates are on the job, studiously ignoring the problems and vigourously shrugging their shoulders in a patriotic manner. Let's not look too close, okay? The system is working, so let's look at how many kids might be going to the doctor on our dime. That's the real scandal, and the GOP is on it.

story from IPS

IRAQ: Corruption Adds to Baquba's Problems
By Ahmed Ali*

BAQUBA, Nov 15 (IPS) - Facing violence, unemployment and poverty, the capital city of Iraq's volatile Diyala province now finds itself confronting also corruption.

This follows the failed promises of reform, reconstruction and rehabilitation at the beginning of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Billions of dollars of U.S. and Iraqi funds were set aside for rebuilding Iraq, ruined by four years of occupation, 12 years of sanctions, and 30 years of dictatorship. There is little to show for these vast amounts of aid money.

The infrastructure is clearly worse on all measurable levels than it was pre- invasion.

Under the Coalition Provisional Authority, more than 7 billion dollars went "missing" in the first year of occupation alone. Now Iraqi authorities are blamed for adding to the corruption.

Contractors in Baquba told IPS they believe the governor's office is directly involved in the corruption.

"I'm not quite sure about the governor (Ra'ad Hameed al-Mula Jowad al- Tamimi) himself," the owner of a security contracts company, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "What is certain is that his protection group plays a big role in taking the money using his name."

"In contrast to all the contractors, a large number of projects go to the governor's nephew," contractor Abu Ahmed told IPS. "This contractor often tries to influence the monitoring committee to sign his invoice even if it is inconsistent with the specifications of the job."

Payments for roads and bridges have been made even when the job was badly done or left incomplete, he said.

Companies and contractors submit their bids to the government committee. The committee as a whole is then supposed to examine the tenders according to the terms announced. But in Diyala province, contractors say the committee divides the projects among its members.

"Every committee member takes a number of projects, and makes deals with contractors," co-owner of the al-Khadra company for general contractors, who did not wish to give his name, told IPS. "If the contractor does not pay them a bribe, he won't get the contract."

The usual rate, he said, is 10 percent of the value of the contract to be paid to the one who awards it. The company owner said he had seen this process first-hand.

"Imagine, in a project of one million dollars, the contractor should pay 100,000 dollars to be awarded the project to begin with," he added.

Governor al-Tamimi was nearly killed Sep. 27 by a suicide bomber outside a mosque in Shifta village nearby Baquba. He was injured, but 24 people were killed, and 37 others wounded.

A city official told IPS that a senior member of the department of planning in the governor's office has been accused of blackmailing contractors, "and his name is on the list of the minister's council for investigation."

Abu Shaima, who has worked for some of the companies that have been awarded contracts, said there are four contact persons "in the north" who make deals with contractors. Local workers, most of whom are now jobless, told IPS that government employment is itself affected by corruption.

"You have to pay to be a policeman," former policeman Abu Qassim told IPS. "You bring your CV, with a few hundred dollars." Or, he said, "the first salary will be for the officer who is in charge of nominating volunteers."

There are all sorts of variations. "Sometimes, there are hundreds of false names whose salaries go to the senior officers. Or, one may be told that he can have half of the salary without coming to the office." Meanwhile, basic infrastructure, from water to electricity to security, barely functions.

On Oct. 25, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was questioned by lawmakers over claims that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was shielding top ministers from corruption probes.

Senator Henry Waxman said Maliki had issued a decree requiring his approval before any minister or official in the presidential office was brought before a court on corruption charges.

Rice refused to respond directly, and instead claimed that U.S. officials took all allegations of corruption in Iraq seriously.

(*Ahmed, our correspondent in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region) (END/2007)

Pakistan is beginning to crumble

So I guess throwing democratic opponents, lawyers, and judges in jail hasn't helped Musharraf deal with the radical Islamist insurgency in Pakistan. Are we surprised?

The Pakistani Army has already lost the federally-administered tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan, and the Swat Valley. Now the insurgents are moving east, further into Pakistan proper, and they aren't meeting with much resistance. In Bush-speak, this means that the militants are "desperate". In the language that the rest of the world uses, they are in ascendance.

Meanwhile Bush wrings his hands in a most powerful manner. He is willing to escalate to finger-crossing if it comes to that, however.

story from the New York Times

Militants Gain Despite Decree by Musharraf

By JANE PERLEZ and ISMAIL KHAN

Published: November 16, 2007

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov. 15 — Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, says he instituted emergency rule for the extra powers it would give him to push back the militants who have carved out a mini-state in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

But in the last several days, the militants have extended their reach, capturing more territory in Pakistan’s settled areas and chasing away frightened policemen, local government officials said.

As inconspicuous as it might be in a nation of 160 million people, the takeover of the small Alpuri district headquarters this week was considered a particular embarrassment for General Musharraf. It showed how the militants could still thumb their noses at the Pakistani Army.

In fact, local officials and Western diplomats said, there is little evidence that the 12-day-old emergency decree has increased the government’s leverage in fighting the militants, or that General Musharraf has used the decree to take any extraordinary steps to combat them.

Instead, it has proved more of a distraction, they said, forcing General Musharraf to concentrate on his own political survival, even as the army starts its first offensive operation since the Nov. 3 decree.

The success of the militants in Swat has caused new concern in Washington about the ability and the will of Pakistani forces to fight the militants who are now training their sights directly on Pakistan’s government, not only on the NATO and American forces across the border in Afghanistan, Western officials said.

After several weeks of heavy clashes, the militants largely control Swat, the mountainous region that is the scenic jewel of Pakistan, and are pushing into Shangla, to the east. All of the sites lie deeper inside Pakistan than the tribal areas, on the Afghan border, where Al Qaeda, the Taliban and assorted foreign and local militants have expanded a stronghold in recent years. In Alpuri, the administrative headquarters of Shangla, a crowd of militants easily took over the police station, despite the emergency decree, Mayor Ibad Khan said.

“They came straight to the police station; it was empty,” he said in a telephone interview. The district police officer had run away. “I am still searching for him,” Mr. Khan said. Asked why the police station was empty, he said, “I am asking myself the same question.”

--------------------------------------------------------

Even though the militants numbered only in the hundreds, they would give “a tough time to the army, and they will cost the army a lot,” said Hasan-Askari Rizvi, a military analyst in Lahore.

He said the army would probably be able to expel the militants from the cities and towns. But the militants would take shelter in the mountains, and could survive the winter unscathed.

The soldiers, almost all of whom do not come from the region and feel like outsiders there, are unprepared for what could amount to a guerrilla war, he said.

Another problem was the intense barrage of propaganda from the religious clerics in the region. The messages exhorting soldiers not to fight a “foreigners war,” meaning a war on behalf of the United States, had undermined the morale of the government paramilitary forces that were leading the fight, he said.

“The army has never faced such a serious challenge in the tribal areas or in Swat before,” Mr. Rizvi said.

Iraq occupation still unpopular

I came across this war-supporter's blog and was surprised by two of his assertions about the Iraq occupation:

• public opposition to the war is not high
• being "opposed to the war" means you want to lose the war

So, it took me a few seconds to find the latest Gallup Poll. Surprisingly, it says the public is still opposed to the war, and have been for some time.

Only about one-third of Americans say the recent U.S. troop surge is making the situation in Iraq better, and the majority of Americans continue to say it was a mistake to send troops there in the first place. Although Americans are pessimistic about progress in the war, a slim majority still believe the United States is likely to win -- a slight improvement since mid-January, but similar to measures in early January and in 2006.

So I guess the issue is if you think that someone who says it was mistake to go into Iraq in the first place is "opposed" to the "war" (which is really an occupation at this point). However you slice the semantics of it, it sure isn't enthusiasm. People can't stop it, but they think it's a bad idea. And these people also think (by a slim majority, that is) that we will "win", so they obviously don't 'want to lose'.

Let's take a look at those numbers:

The public's assessment of the surge has not shown much change since August, but in April and July polls, Americans were slightly more negative in their assessments.

Hmmm. So 64% either think the surge isn't making much difference or think it's making things worse. But they somehow don't "oppose" it. And things have been this way for a while now.

Gallup has asked this question six times since the start of the war. Immediately after the United States invaded Baghdad in April 2003, more than 9 in 10 Americans said it was likely that the United States would win the war. When the question was next updated, in March 2006 -- three years after the start of the war -- opinions had become less positive, with just 54% saying victory was likely or certain. The results have been stable since that time.

Now, we all know that, to Republicans, any kind of rational, sober, objective assessment of the the Iraq effort is really just another way of saying that you want terrorists to kill your family and our soldiers to die in a bloodbath. Maybe that's why they are polling so low, by the way. Either way, I look at only 19% of the public being "certain we will win" as pretty lukewarm support. And that number isn't swinging upward, either.

When Petraeus made his report in September, Republicans expected a big swing in favour of the Iraq occupation and the surge. Right-wing blogs crowed that this was the proof America finally needed, and that Bush would be vindicated. The truth is that there is virtually no change at all in opinion:

28. In view of the developments since we first sent our troops to Iraq, do you think the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq, or not?

	Yes	No	No opinion
	%	%	%
2007 Nov 2-4	58	39	3
2007 Oct 12-14	60	37	2
2007 Sep 14-16	58	41	1
2007 Sep 7-8	54	44	2
2007 Aug 3-5	57	42	2

As you can see, the Republicans picked up a statistically-insignificant 2% who merely said that it wasn't a mistake to go into Iraq. Not that they like how it's been handled, or are happy how it's going, but just that it wasn't a mistake. A statistically-significant 19% more think that it was a mistake to go into Iraq in the first place, and that number seems stable.

The surge was supposed to disarm the militas and bring political stability to Iraq. That's what the public bought, anyway. Instead we are arming the "good" terrorists and the political situation is unchanged. Provincial elections are still unscheduled. Basra is floundering. Kurdistan is not only seeing increasing violence, but Turkey is threatening an invasion. Corpses showing signs of torture show up on Baghdad streets every day. The country is segregated into walled communities. The water, health care, and electricity infrastructres have collapsed. Malnutrition is a serious crisis. Syria is kicking out Iraqis and they are returning to become homeless. Huge amounts of oil are disappearing without being accounted for. Iraqi prisons are places where torture is common. It's not only a mess, it's an insanely expensive mess.

So we see that the right-wing blogger alluded to at the start of the post is living in his own little world.

Let's look at Bush's approval numbers. From the Washington Post/ABC News poll (11/4):

1. Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president? Do you approve/disapprove strongly or somewhat?

-------- Approve --------   ------- Disapprove ------     No
           NET   Strongly   Somewhat   NET   Somewhat   Strongly   opinion
11/1/07      33       17         16      64       13         50        3
9/30/07      33       15         18      64       14         49        3
9/7/07       33       16         17      64       15         49        3 

The guy has strong disapproval from half of the country. Only half of his supporters are strong supporters. Almost four times as many strongly disapprove than "somewhat disapprove".

2. Do you think things in this country (are generally going in the right direction) or do you feel things (have gotten pretty seriously off on the wrong track)?

                 Right     Wrong     No
             direction   track   opinion
11/1/07           24        74        2
6/1/07            25        73        2
1/19/07           26        71        3 

...and Republicans are just offering to continue Bush's policies.

$80k per American for wars so far

Get your checkbook out, because you owe Mr. Bush $80,000 for his blunders in Iraq and Afghanistan.
All of those no-bid contracts for his buddies, pallets of cash, and mysteriously inept accounting practises have their cost, I guess. Who could possibly have expected this?

And the sale of bonds to keep the costs of the war "off the books", essentially borrowing the money from other countries, means that you not only have to pay it back, but with interest. Who knew?

These are "hidden costs"? Hidden from whom?

So now we will be treated to the sight of "support the troops" Republicans trying to screw wounded vets out of disability pay and medical treatment, while screaming for new wars. Now all of those flag-waving Republicans will see the cost of Bush's ineptitude in dragging out the Afghan and Iraq efforts into several years due to hopeless optimism that everything would go our way because we are are, after all, the United States of America.

Of course, this is only the cost of these two campaigns so far. With Bush determined to keep us in both of these quagmires for the rest of his term, those costs will inevitably increase. Since Petraeus says we will need to be in Iraq for at least ten more years, each of us could very well be on the hook for over $185,000 each. But at least Saddam was hanged and some Afghan girls get to go to school in a violence-wracked country with a collapsed economy.

story from the BBC

Hidden costs 'raise US war price'

The US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing nearly double the amount previously thought, according to a report set to be released by Congress.

Democrats say the wars have cost $1.5 trillion - almost twice the requested $804bn (£402bn) - because of "hidden costs", the Washington Post reports.

That figure would amount to $20,000 for an average US family of four, it adds.

And some of the figures cited in the report were labelled speculative by funding experts, the Post says.

Among the indicators contributing to the higher cost of the conflicts are higher oil costs and payments to war veterans.
'Lost earnings'
The report is expected to be presented to Congress later on Tuesday.
The Democratic authors included the costs of treating wounded veterans and mounting interest payments on money borrowed to finance the wars.
The report calculates that the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the average US family of four more than $20,000.
It adds that the amount could rise to $46,300 over the next decade, the Washington Post says.
The committee's Democrats estimate that treating veterans could add more than $30bn to war costs, including disability payments and lost earnings for veterans affected by post-traumatic stress disorder.
Republicans have not yet commented officially on the report.

Iraqi official admits torture

full story

Iraqi Interior Ministry Official Admits Abuses

12/11/2007

By Naseer Al-Alei

Baghdad, Asharq Al-Awsat - An Iraqi Interior Ministry official has admitted to Asharq Al-Awsat that investigators used violence to extract confessions from suspects and that 75 per cent of insurgents' leaders, including top al-Qaeda figures, were dead.

Iraq's Interior Ministry Spokesman General Abdel-Karim Khalaf told the Asharq al-Awsat that some investigators had used violence to force suspects to confess but they did this 'without the knowledge' of people in higher authority.

'The use of violence is an old technique that we have no need for as we have enough ways other than extracting confessions by force,' Khalaf said.

Pakistan makes its slide into dictatorship

Unbelievable, in every sense of the word.
Martial law was declared in Pakistan (again), ostensibly to help in the fight against "militants", however the democratic opposition and lawyers seem to be the main targets. It's also illegal now to report on suicide bombings and "militant activities", and any broadcasters that "ridicule" members of the government or armed forces are in for three years in prison.

Meanwhile, morale among Pakistan's military is low, with little enthusiasm for a war against their own people. Somehow this helps the War On Terror, but I'm not really sure how. The rebellion has spread beyond the federally-administered Tribal Areas into Swat Valley, with prominent clerics and even local government officials taking a defiant tone. Bush has sent drones into the frontier to fire missiles on "rebel positions", further polarising public opinion.

Another regional ally, Georgia, has also established a "state of emergency" in the face of large peaceful protests. The U.S. is helping Georgia rapidly build up its military, and the country is important to Bush's plans in keeping Russia in check. Georgia also sent troops to Iraq, and Bush is dangling NATO membership as a prize if ' support' continues. So, another U.S. client state is now having "democracy problems".

The media has put a happy smiley face on the Pakistan situation by showing us that Bhutto is able to leave her house, and that Saakashvili promises elections in January.

story from The Star

Nov 05, 2007 04:30 AM

Allan Woods
OTTAWA BUREAU

OTTAWA–The imposition of emergency rule in Pakistan this weekend could turn the difficult task of fighting Afghanistan's Taliban insurgency into an impossible mission, military and diplomatic analysts warned yesterday.

"The Taliban and the rest of that gangster crew is going to have an easier time in Pakistan, which in turn means that the situation in Afghanistan may continue to be unstable," said Alex Morrison, president of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies. "The equation is that the more Pakistan is unsettled, the more Afghanistan is unsettled."

Yesterday, the government of Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf began a nationwide crackdown on the political opposition, the news media and the courts. Police throughout the country raided the homes of opposition party leaders and activists, arresting at least 500.

A main Islamist opposition party said authorities had also detained 600-700 of its supporters overnight in southern and central provinces.

Police with batons charged dozens of lawyers protesting outside the High Court in the economic capital Karachi early today, arresting at least 50, lawyers said. Another half a dozen lawyers were "mercilessly beaten" when they chanted anti-government slogans at a court in Rawalpindi.

About 70 activists were detained at the offices of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in the eastern city of Lahore. Police confiscated the equipment of journalists covering the raid and ordered them to leave the premises. All independent television news stations remained off the air for a second straight day.

Pakistan's deposed chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry declared Musharraf's post-emergency setup "illegal and unconstitutional" in comments published today.

"Every thing that is happening today is illegal, unconstitutional and against the orders of the Supreme Court," Chaudhry told local daily The News in his first reported comments since the crisis began.

In an address to the nation that ended early yesterday, Musharraf justified his declaration on the grounds that he needed a free hand to battle rising militancy in Pakistan. The move drew strong rebukes from Musharraf's allies in the West, including Canada and the United States.

Non-government critics at home and abroad say the measures amount to martial law and say it was concern over his political longevity that prompted the controversial decision. Pakistan's Supreme Court was set to rule on whether the Oct. 6 re-election of Musharraf, who stayed on as head of the army after a military coup in 1999, was legitimate.

A top adviser to the president conceded later yesterday that the final decision came after a Supreme Court judge quietly informed the government last week the court would rule against Musharraf's effort to stay on as president.

"After that, there was no option," said Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League. "He is not happy with this decision, frankly speaking. We are all not happy with the decision. But there was no other choice.''

Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs said yesterday that Canadian diplomats at the High Commission in Islamabad, and at consulates in Karachi and Lahore, are closely monitoring the situation. There have been no requests for consular assistance from Canadian citizens in Pakistan, but the government has warned against all travel to the country.

However, Ottawa has made no decisions yet about the future of any aid that it delivers. In 2004-05 the Canadian International Development Agency sent $50 million to Pakistan.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington would review its $150 million-a-month assistance program to Pakistan.

During a surprise stop in Afghanistan yesterday, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Canada is "very concerned" the emergency measures, which have no expiry date, will destabilize the work that NATO and the United Nations are doing in Afghanistan.

The two countries have a long, porous border and insurgents freely cross from Afghanistan into Pakistan's lawless tribal zones, which serve as a home base where they are largely safe from coalition forces.

"We're calling for free and fair elections, the reinstatement of the judiciary and we're hoping they will continue their efforts toward regional security in Afghanistan," MacKay said in Kandahar.

MacKay's last trip to the region, in January as foreign affairs minister, was to have included a "blunt talk" with Musharraf over border concerns. But the face-to-face meeting never transpired and he had to content himself with talking to his Pakistani counterpart.

MacKay said Canada's "specific concerns" relate to Afghan refugees in Pakistan and the impact the emergency rule will have on their movement in and out of the country.

"We're concerned about the impact it will have politically throughout the region," he told reporters.

The U.S. and other allies of the war on terror have largely overlooked Musharraf's eight-year dictatorship in exchange for the efforts of Pakistan's military to root out Taliban and other insurgents in the tribal region along the border.

The support for the coalition has made Musharraf unpopular at home, even though there has been little done to impede the movements of Islamic fighters, said Kamran Bokhari, the Toronto-based director of Middle East analysis for Strategic Forecasting Inc.

"Pakistan was becoming destabilized already, even before Musharraf did this," Bokhari said in a telephone interview from Ankara, Turkey. "Now that Musharraf has done this, it's going to get, more than likely, worse because he's fully paying attention to surviving. The question is: how does martial law, or emergency ... help him fight against Al Qaeda more effectively than he could before this?"

Gordon Smith, a former Canadian ambassador to NATO, said if Musharraf is truly serious about cracking down on Islamic radicals, he may now allow NATO troops to enter his country and fight with the more than 60,000 Pakistani soldiers that are already policing the tribal regions. That may be the only way he can keep Western allies on side while still flouting democracy.

Then-defence minister Gordon O'Connor raised this issue on a September 2006 visit to Pakistan, saying that placing Canadian troops in Pakistan would ease intelligence sharing. The idea was quickly dismissed as politically unsaleable.

"Musharraf was always trying to balance the pressures on him to do something about Al Qaeda, coming from the Americans and others, including us," said Smith, who now teaches politics at the University of Victoria. "Maybe what this indicates now is that ... he will really allow what needs to happen in northern Pakistan."

A senior NATO official speaking last week in Ottawa warned of the need for a "more effective contribution" from Pakistan in the effort to stabilize Afghanistan. Jonathan Parish, a senior policy adviser, said the task for military forces in the south and east of the country would otherwise be "difficult if not impossible."

new comment policy

Well, the mail is in, and the new policy to reject anonymous has got the right-wingers all hot and bothered.
Since poor reading comprehension skills seem to be the norm among this group, I'll state again anonymous comments will be rejected, and it doesn't matter if your comments agree with me or not. You can use a false name on your blogger account or simply log in as "other" using a false name, and your comments will go through. I'm not really sure what these right-wing nuts are afraid of, or why they insist on using the "anonymous" option, but the vast majority of their comments are simply noise and frequently completely off-topic. If you feel you are missing out on this commentary, I can sum it up succintly:

• Anyone who criticises Bush is guilty of "Bush-hate", which means their opinion is to be discarded.
• Anyone who points out bad news about the Iraq or Afghan campaigns is a "traitor" who is motivated by "wanting to lose". This also means that everything they say can be ignored.
• Any news reports that don't come from Fox News are "biased", which apparently means they are complete lies.
• It was patriotic to slander Clinton, but it's treasonous and unpatriotic to criticise Bush. You see, Clinton was "corrupt", and Bush is just "misunderstood".

So there you go, all you anonymous right-wing loons. It's all right there for the world to see.

At this time, I would like to thank all of the intelligent people who make comments here, whether they agree with me or not. Every blogger prizes thoughtful comments.

Iraqi refugee population is growing - 2 million+

Never mind that for over two years now, 50,000 Iraqis fled the country each month. Over the past three months, about 3000 have returned. Let the neocon smiley-face assault begin. But as they cheer, someone should remind them of the over 2 million refugees that weren't able to flee the country and are "internally displaced". According to Bush, this is the U.N's problem. Nothing to do with years of violence and the collapse of the infrastructure, of course, because everything is going great in Iraq, right? They just chose to be homeless, destitute, and without medical care on a whim, or possibly to make Bush look bad.

Oh, and most of the "internally displaced" are in Baghdad, the focus of the surge and a city in which 1.5 million refugees is "normalcy".

If things are so stable, where is the political progress? Bush claimed that security improvements would create political stability. Could he possibly have been wrong? And why is nobody talking about the provincial elections anymore? That was one the big benchmarks that Bush was so confident would be achieved.

Iraq: Nearly 2.3 Million Displaced

05/11/2007

BAGHDAD, (AP) - Nearly 2.3 million Iraqis - the vast majority of them women and children - have fled their homes but remain inside the country's borders and are in urgent need of basic care, according to a report issued Monday by the Iraqi Red Crescent.

The number of internally displaced people, or IDPs, in Iraq grew by 16 percent in September, to 2,299,425, the Red Crescent said. That figure has skyrocketed since the beginning of 2007, when less than half a million people were listed as displaced.

More than 83 percent of those displaced are women and children under the age of 12, the report said.

Four and a half years after the U.S.-led invasion, the Iraqi government struggles to provide basic services, water, electricity and access to schools and medical care, to citizens across the country. Much of Iraq, especially the capital, is beset by violence, crumbling infrastructure and rampant crime, and most humanitarian groups are unable to reach victims who need help.

"In addition to their plight as being displaced, the majority suffer from disease, poverty and malnutrition," the Red Crescent reported.

"Children do not attend schools and are being sheltered in tents, abandoned government buildings with no water or electricity, mosques, churches, or with relatives," it said.

The report jibes with the Iraqi government's announcement Saturday that more than 3,000 families driven out of their Baghdad neighborhoods have returned to their homes in the past three months because of a drop in sectarian violence.

As of Sept. 30, more than 60 percent of displaced Iraqis - nearly 1.5 million people - were in Baghdad. "It has the largest number of displaced people as a result of many explosions, military operations and armed conflicts," the report said.

The Red Crescent report did not specify whether the number of displaced people in Baghdad had risen in fallen in the past three months.

The figures in Monday's report were tabulated by Red Crescent coordinators and volunteers in all 18 Iraqi provinces. The group says it has 5,000 employees and 95,000 volunteers working at 365 offices around the country.

Meanwhile, violence continued Monday, but at lower levels - in line with a trend of reduced numbers of attacks in recent months.

A roadside bomb killed one civilian and wounded four others in eastern Baghdad, police said. Another such bomb exploded near Suwayrah, 25 miles south of the capital, killing another civilian, officers said.

Later Monday, gunmen assassinated a member of the neighborhood council in Khadra, an area of western Baghdad, police said. Hamad Abdul-Latif was driving his car in the adjacent al-Jamia area when he was attacked, police said.

Approaching the year's end - more than four months after the U.S. completed a 30,000-strong force buildup - the monthly death toll among Americans and Iraqis has fallen dramatically.

At least 1,023 Iraqi civilians died in September; in October, that figure was just 875. The number of U.S. troop deaths dropped from 65 to 36 in the same period, according to statistics kept by the AP. That's the lowest monthly toll of American deaths this year.

On average, 56 Iraqis - civilians and security forces - have died each day so far in 2007.

But 2007 is on course to be the deadliest year on record for American troops in Iraq, despite the recent sharp drop in U.S. deaths.

Insurgents take over three new districts in Afghanistan

I guess this proves the Taliban are "desperate", which is Republican-speak for a situation where things look bad for us. This occurred in one the more stable areas of the country.

As the second article notes, this year has seen the highest number of casualties since the invasion began. Somehow this is proof that we are "winning". The increased emphasis on air power has also meant an increase in civilian deaths. Just in the past seven days, we have been driven out of three districts by the insurgents, so I guess this also is somehow proof of imminent "victory" in someone's mind.

story from iafrica.com

AFGHANISTAN
Afghan suicide blast leaves 100 dead

Tue, 06 Nov 2007

Around 100 people including six lawmakers were killed or wounded in a suicide bombing on Tuesday at a sugar factory in northern Afghanistan, one of the worst attacks since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Government officials said the bomber blew himself up in the factory in the northern province of Baghlan just as a parliamentary economics committee was visiting.

"Several people, including civilians, children and at least six MPs were martyred," presidential spokesperson Homayun Hamidzada told AFP.

Officials were not immediately able to provide a breakdown of the dead and wounded in the immediate aftermath of the late afternoon blast in the town of Pul-i-Khumri, about 150 kilometres north of Kabul.

"According to initial reports from our local health and hospital officials, there are 100 people killed and injured," Ahmad Shah Shokohmand, director of provincial health departments in the public health ministry in Kabul told AFP.

"In one hospital we have got 42 people admitted and in another hospital nine bodies have been brought," Shokohmand said.

The interior ministry said earlier that 50 were dead and wounded. It was a suicide attack, spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.

Afghan media cited witnesses saying mutilated bodies littered the scene of the attack, which was covered in blood. Many of the wounded were in a critical condition, they said.

There were about 18 MPs in the delegation that visited the factory, said a lawmaker in Kabul, Daud Sultanzai. His information was that five MPs were dead and at least three wounded.

Bodyguards and other members of the delegation were also killed, he added.

The lawmakers were on a tour of Baghlan province, another parliamentarian, Shukria Barakzai, told AFP in Kabul.

Those dead included Mustafa Kazimi, who headed the parliament's economics committee and a former government commerce minister, she said.

"The president condemned this attack in the strongest terms possible," said Hamidzada, spokesman for President Hamid Karzai.

"This is the act of the enemies of the people of Afghanistan."

A helicopter was sent from Kabul to evacuate some of the wounded, according to a parliament official. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said it was also mustering help.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast but there have been around 120 suicide attacks in Afghanistan this year, most of them blamed on the extremist Taliban movement waging an intensifying insurgency.

However, one of the Taliban's main spokesmen, Zabihullah Mujahed, said his organisation was not involved in the latest attack.

Northern Afghanistan, including Baghlan, has seen relatively little of the daily violence plaguing Afghanistan and blamed on the Taliban.

The hardline Islamic Taliban were in government from 1996 until they were ousted in late 2001 by a US-led coalition following the 11 September attacks that year in the United States.

The Taliban's insurgency has grown in strength year after year — more than 5000 people have been killed in unrest this year, most of them rebels.

In the past week, insurgents have also driven security forces out of three districts in southern and central Afghanistan, and claim to have captured the areas. The government says it will launch operations soon to drive them out.

About 25 "terrorists" were meanwhile killed in an air strike in the western province of Badghis late Monday, an army general said.

The Taliban are allied with the al-Qaeda network and are said to be trained and supplied across the border in Pakistan, where rebel leaders are thought to have fled after their government was driven out.

While the Taliban lead the campaign against the government, other Islamist outfits are also involved. They include that of former Afghan prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who operates in the north and east.

AFP

-----------------------------------------------------------

SURPRISE VISIT TO AFGHANISTAN

Merkel Resists Calls to Send Troops South

German Chancellor Angela Merkel landed in Afghanistan on Saturday for her first visit to the country. She pledged more funds for training police and -- with an eye to an upcoming parliamentary vote -- insisted German troops would not be sent to the dangerous south.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's surprise visit to Afghanistan on Saturday was all about the timing. Her first visit to the country since taking the helm of Germany's grand coalition government came just a few days before the German parliament votes on continuing Germany's participation in the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom and her visit to the United States on Friday.
Merkel took the opportunity to emphasize what she sees as Germany's priorities in Afghanistan, namely training police and helping to build up infrastructure, and she reiterated Germany's determination not to send its troops to the volatile south.
Her one-day visit, which was only announced to the media when she had landed in Kabul, was surrounded by high security, with Merkel wearing a bullet proof vest and transported in military helicopters and vehicles.
During a meeting with President Hamid Karzai, who called Germany an "old friend," Merkel announced that Berlin was increasing its contribution to police training to €20 million a year.
...
Germany has come in for criticism from some NATO allies for failing to send any of the 3,000 troops it has stationed in the country to Afghanistan's dangerous south, where the coalition troops are engaged in fierce battles with militant Taliban fighters (more...). This year has been the bloodiest for the country since the Taliban regime was overthrown in 2001, with 5,600 people killed, including more than 190 foreign soldiers.
Merkel reiterated during her visit that there were no plans to send German troops to the south. However she added that "whenever troops in the south need urgent assistance, we will of course provide help," without clarifying what form that help might take. "But I strongly believe we should stick to our plan that has been worked out, in order not to weaken our forces in the north," she said.
Last month Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, approved extending the deployment of troops and six Tornado reconnaissance jets as part of the ISAF operation, after Merkel's government argued that a pull-out would open the door for militants to use the country as a base for terrorism.
This Thursday, the Bundestag meets to vote on continuing Germany's involvement in the US-led anti-terror Operation Enduring Freedom. Merkel then travels to Texas on Friday for a weekend meeting with US President George W. Bush.

--------------------------------------------------------

Taliban capture Afghan district

Agencies
Published: November 05, 2007, 18:05

Kabul: Taliban insurgents have captured a third district in Afghanistan proving they are able to mount large military offensives.

Taliban rebels captured the Farah district of Gulistan a week ago, then on Wednesday took nearby Bakwa. On Sunday, the insurgents seized Khak-e Sefid, defying Afghan and foreign forces to retake the lost ground.

New poll shows unchanged attitudes

Despite desperate media spin on Iraq, over 60% of the American public says the Iraq effort is not worth fighting. The Republicans have completely missed the boat on Iraq. A decrease in troop deaths is not what will turn opinion around; it's far too late for that. The surge was supposed to provide the stability so the we could leave, not reduce troop deaths or allow "only" 300 civilans a month to be killed. Also, after years of 50,000 Iraqis a month fleeing the country, neocons cheer that about 3000 have returned over the last three months. Big deal. In Baghdad, the neighbourhoods are already segregated and walled off, and have been that way for some time. That's not a sign that people are getting along better; in fact, it proves the opposite. The only thing that the Iraqi government has agreed on lately is that Blackwater should go; hardly a bright spot for Bush. Quite simply, the Republicans have blown it and patience has worn out. If we left tomorrow they might be able to turn it around by the election, but we all know that won't happen.

Bush's popularity also remains at his usual 24%. I remember when he dropped to 40% and Republicans said that was 'good enough'. Now if he were work his way up to 30%, they would wildly cheer. And the Republicans still offer more of Bush's policies in their new candidates. Even spotty economic news is spun out of recognition. Payrolls increased, but those jobs were mostly in low-paying sectors. People have caught on that giving the wealty more money only means their jobs get outsourced to foreign countries, not improved by increased domestic investment. Just as the Reagan tax cuts were squandered by the wealthy in forced leveraged buyouts that produced mass layoffs, likewise Bush's cuts have been wasted.
70 % think we will be going the polls in '08 in the middle of a recession, which usually doesn't work in the Republicans' favour.

story from The New Zealand Herald

Americans want change

7:15AM Tuesday November 06, 2007

Sixty per cent of Americans want the country to change direction after nearly seven years of President George W. Bush's rule, a new poll released yesterday shows. Only 24 per cent thought the nation was on the right track.
More than six in 10 called the war in Iraq not worth fighting, and nearly two-thirds gave the economy negative marks. About seven in 10 saw an economic recession likely over the next year.
The poll indicated that the coming battle for the White House was shaping up to be another hard-fought, highly negative and closely decided contest, The Washington Post said.
At this point, Senator Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, holds the edge in hypothetical match-ups with four of the top contenders for the Republican nomination. But her margins are far from comfortable against the two best-known Republican candidates, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Senator John McCain, The Post said.
Not one of the leading candidates in either party has a favourable rating above 51 per cent in the new poll.

British Army report says Iraq war was badly planned

Not a big surprise, in total, but the specifics are interesting. Following Bush's example, the reports from the British "boots on the ground" were "hopelessly optimistic". As I've said before, military campaigns are not football matches; cheerleading cannot take the place of sober analysis. You simply cannot make decisions based on intelligence that has been shaped to put a positive spin on the situation.

Also, as has been widely suspected for years, the U.S. drove the operation with its own agenda with little or no regard for the British situation. Everything was planned for a quick victory scenario, with no clear planning for the occupation beyond victory speeches and heroic claims. Plan "B" was simply more of the same. Thus, despite the boundless optimism, the peace was lost within 100 days. Plan "B" turned into a snarling campaign of treason accusations against critics who noticed that things weren't going as well as expected.

And, of course, the infamous Decider secrecy was imposed on the British, which worked against the planning by excluding anyone who wasn't "hopelessly optimistic". This is what happens when loyalty is your primary consideration; you only hear what you want to hear and only plan for the best possible outcome.

While this was a secret report that was leaked from British Army, one can only wonder if the American military is engaging in similar introspection. Perhaps the Bush Administration "yes men" and minders have prevented our military from learning from this debacle.

story from the Daily Telegraph:

Iraq war was badly planned, says Army

Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent

Last Updated: 2:16am GMT 04/11/2007

A leaked internal Army report has delivered an unprecedented attack on the planning and execution of the war in Iraq.

The document, which openly condemns British and US foreign policy, says that "leaders should not start an operation without thinking through the options and implications of their plans".

It claims that widespread planning failures in the post-war phase led to the peace in Iraq being lost by September 2003, within the first 100 days of the occupation.

The report, marked "restricted", adds that many senior officers now believe that the Government has developed a "bureaucratic approach to problem solving" and is "no longer capable" of running large scale military operations such as the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 16-page document describes how the Iraq campaign was undermined by a lack of planning, resources, funding and intelligence.

"The evidence shows that too little planning was done for Operation Telic [the codename for the war in Iraq] particularly on the non-military side, and that too few resources, both human and financial were allocated to the post-war situation," it says.

The report, drawn up in late 2006, suggests that Britain and the US may have breeched the Geneva Convention by failing properly to conduct their duties as "occupying powers".

It also says that assessments by British commanders on the success of their reconstruction efforts were "hopelessly optimistic". The secrecy surrounding the operation, the report claims, meant that government departments were unable to plan for the post-war phase until December 2002 - just three months before the start of the invasion.

The report, entitled An Analysis of Operation Telic, makes no apology for the stark criticisms contained within it nor for the embarrassment it will cause the Government.

Instead, the document, which is part of a wider study called Theme Zero, says that the "Army has a duty to learn from experience". The report states:

• The British headquarters suffered from a lack of good quality officers

• Lack of planning put Britain and the US, as occupying powers, in "breach" of the Geneva Convention

• Lack of planning resulted in delays before essential reconstruction could begin

• Not enough funding was requested by senior commanders or approved by the Treasury

• British commanders were forced to work to an ideologically driven US timetable

• Restrictive operational security meant that few people in Government were involved in planning.

The report also says that the main focus of US commanders was the stabilisation of Baghdad and that they were "unresponsive" to the concerns of their British counter-parts for the worsening situation in southern Iraq.

One officer wrote that the Britain was committed to an ideologically driven US timetable, adding: "The train was on Grand Central station, and was leaving at a time which we did not control."

The report says "the multinational headquarters suffered from a lack of good quality British officers with formal staff training", a situation which persisted until the military secretary, who advises the secretary of state for defence, intervened to ensure that officers of the correct calibre- were posted to Iraq.

Crucially, the document claims that the British were unable to win the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqis because they failed to understand Arab culture. One officer wrote: "We may be able to influence their minds but we will never win the (Islamic) heart.

18 killed in Iraqi "progress"

18 killed in a "normal" day of Iraqi sectarian violence. It looks like Baghdad isn't the only place where bodies showing signs of torture are being dumped. Yet we continue to hear stories of "success" in Diyala due to employing "friendly" terrorists to wipe out (in a "friendly" way, I imagine) the "bad guys".

And remember, all this is happening as the Bush Administration tells us how peaceful Iraq is getting.

full report

Baghdad

A civilian was killed and 3 policemen were injured in a IED explosion that targeted their patrol near Al Elwiyah children hospital in Karrada neighborhood downtown Baghdad around 2,00 pm.

3 Iranian pilgrims were injured when gunmen opened fire targeting the pilgrims’ bus in Adan square in Hurriyah neighborhood northwest Baghdad around 3,00 pm. The pilgrims were coming from Karbala city to visit Kadhemiyah holy shrine.

A civilian was killed and 4 others wounded in a parked car bomb in Mansour neighborhood west Baghdad around 4,00 pm.

2 civilians were injured when a mortar shell hit Al Kindi Street in Harthiyah neighborhood west Baghdad around 4,30 pm.

Police found 4 anonymous bodies in Baghdad today in the following neighborhoods (1 body in Amil, 1 body in Doura, 1 body in Saidiyah and 1 body in Sleikh.

Diyala

Police found 6 anonymous bodies in Kahlis town north of Baquba city today afternoon. Signs of torture was obvious on the blind-folded bodies and they were shot in different parts, police said

Babil

A policeman was killed and another one was injured in an IED explosion that targeted their patrol in Al Mahaweel town north of Hilla city around 7,40 am.

Cuba embargo condemned in U.N.

Once again, we see Bush's disdain for the U.N, unless it is to pressure that body into cleaning up Bush's various messes. For example, faced with grim reports of collapsed Iraqi infrastructure, child mortality and malnutrition, lack of clean water, a medical system unable to deal with cholera outbreaks, etc. Bush has glibly suggested that the U.N. should be the one to solve those problems. Apparently we are in Iraq to do the ungrateful world a great favour by chasing terrorists from one province to another, so the least the world could do is to handle all of the complications springing from the occupation.

The U.N. also has failed to rally around Bush's extremely hazy 'plan' to wage an air war against Iran. The only thing that has prevented U.N. sanctions against Israel for several years now is the U.S. veto power on the Security Council. But when the U.N. made a heavily-qualified and conditional endorsement of military action against Saddam, the U.N. was praised by Bush and it was "the world against Saddam".

Now it is the world against Bush, however. The U.S. embargo against Cuba, which the U.S. has had no hesitation to bully other nations into complying with, has now been condemned by the U.N. in a 184-4 vote with one abstention. It's hard to get the world so unified, but Bush has set his mind to it with a bully approach and his "with us or against us" mindset. Those in the "with us" camp are expected to exhaust their militaries and treasuries and back whatever crazy scheme the Decider dreams up, and also mouth increasingly-bizzare defences of Israel's actions. Do those in the "with us" camp get preferential treatment or increased aid? No, but they get photo ops with the Decider and a pat on the head. It's no wonder that the "against us" camp is growing.

In fairness, the embargo against Cuba has been backed by Democrats as well in the past. However, it's only now that the world has seen fit to stand up against U.S. foreign policy so unanimously, and that is because of Bush. The idea that a tiny island could militarily threaten the giant U.S. has long produced ridicule from the rest of the planet, but these thoughts were expressed most often in private. Slowly, countries such as Canada moved away from involvement in the embargo. So Bush, devoid of any credibility and having no political capital in the global community, once again pushed for the world to follow our lead in Cuba. And the world apparently flipped him off.

Consider that the primary "moderate" plan to get us out of Iraq is for the "international community" to increase their presence there. With the vast majority of the globe increasingly aligning itself against Bush's foreign policies, what chance does that approach have?

Cuba celebrates diplomatic victory over U.S

Cuba Wednesday hailed a new appeal made by the United Nations, which urged Washington to lift an economic and trade embargo against the Caribbean country.

"Crushing victory," "historic record" and "overwhelming support to Cuba" are some of the most repeated phrases in the media that reported Cuba's diplomatic victory Tuesday, when the world body asked the United States to lift the blockade by 184 votes in favor, four against and one abstention.

The vote also implicated an implicit condemnation of Washington as the UN suggests that the embargo has infringed the UN Charter and international law, analysts said.

Tuesday's voting at the UN General Assembly demonstrated a unanimous rejection of the embargo throughout the five continents, including all Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania, they said.

Washington's hostile policy toward Cuba has been rejected by an overwhelming majority of UN member countries, analysts added.

According to the Cuban government, the embargo, which was imposed in 1962 by former U.S. president John F. Kennedy, has caused an 89-billion-U.S. dollar economic loss to Cuba, as well as immeasurable damage and deaths to the country's inhabitants.

The UN has asked the United States in a number of resolutions to end the embargo, but Washington has refused to do so.

Source: Xinhua