THE head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq has established a new terror network in Britain which is recruiting young Muslim fanatics to fight coalition troops.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has recently set up the group to recruit and train would-be suicide bombers and gunmen, counter-terrorism officials have said.
The new group, Ansar al-Fath â Partisans of Victory â is an offshoot of Ansar al-Islam, an organisation that is to be banned under new anti-terror rules announced by Charles Clarke, the home secretary, last week.
Ansar al-Fath provides logistical support to foreign fighters in Iraq and uses the internet to find new recruits for Zarqawi.
Government officials say a âsteady trickleâ of about 70 young Muslim men have travelled to Iraq from Britain in the past two years.
They warn that some newly trained âprofessional jihadistsâ have returned here and may be planning attacks.
The American government has offered $25m for Zarqawiâs capture dead or alive â the same as the bounty for Osama Bin Laden.
Zarqawi was implicated in the beheading in Iraq last September of Ken Bigley, a British contractor.
The remaining five men out of 10 detained in anti-terrorism raids in Croydon, south London, Derby and Wolverhampton last weekend were released yesterday. Another was set free straight after the raids and the other four last Wednesday. Those released by police yesterday are now being detained by the immigration service.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/16/2005 01:15 ||
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#1
Those released by police yesterday are now being detained by the immigration service
Good! If only the American Border Patrol were so efficient about our southern invaders.
#2
the days of police releasing illegals rather than turning them over may be on teh end here in teh SW. Political winds are blowing that way, and it seems the polis get it, finally
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/16/2005 15:18 Comments ||
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Congressional investigators probing whether the world's largest "wealth management" firm, UBS, may have laundered $5 billion in American currency for state sponsors of terrorism are pushing for the American government to block or seize any assets that may be held by the Castro regime at the Swiss bank's vault in Zurich, according to correspondence obtained by The New York Sun.
The efforts are part of an ongoing probe into alleged money laundering by the Swiss bank that gained steam this week after Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican of Florida, announced that the House International Relations Committee will launch an investigation this session.
In April 2003, American troops liberating Iraq found $762 million in American cash in hideouts belonging to Saddam Hussein. American investigators traced the banknotes to UBS and the Extended Custodial Inventory Program. The program, run by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in cooperation with international banks, allowed clients to exchange old banknotes for new ones. One condition of the program was that American currency neither be distributed to nor accepted from nations against which America maintains economic sanctions.
It was in violation of those terms that UBS procured $3.9 billion in American banknotes for Cuba, $1 billion for the Islamic Republic of Iran, $30 million for Libya, and less than $1 million for Yugoslavia in transactions discovered by American investigators as they probed the mysterious Iraqi stash. UBS was sanctioned by the Swiss Banking Commission and the Federal Reserve, to which the Swiss bank paid a $100 million fine in May 2004.
Cuba, Iran, and Libya appear on the State Department's official list of state sponsors of terrorism. As a result, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen has asked that regulatory agencies investigate the possibility of seizing or freezing any assets remaining in those accounts.
#1
Um, doesn't publicizing this guarantee that there will be nothing to seize?
I know UBS from the IT perspective, though I'll have to skip the details in public, and they are quintessentially European in corporate culture. I would presume they find the little US politician's statements and accusations immensely amusing.
I seem to recall that attitude prevailed in the UN before the OFF investigations started bearing actionable results, too. There are few entities in this world, including the flatulent UN, which can compare in arrogance to a major banking firm.
#2
There are few entities in this world, including the flatulent UN, which can compare in arrogance to a major banking firm.
Two of them are the Federal Reserve System and the Comptroller of the Currency. I'd be the Swiss Banking Commission is right up there, too. If UBS wants to keep doing business in the US, they will play ball with them. As I read this, UBS got $3.9 billion in currency from Cuba. Somehow we found out about this while we were tracing missing Iraqi cash perhaps in Iraqi records. Now the pressure is on UBS to come clean about what's in the vaults in Zurich and how it got there. Note that they have already paid a $100,000,000 fine to the Swiss Banking Commission and the Fed over this. If they don't come clean, the Feds are being asked to seize $5billion of UBS Cash. All of UBS's dollar holdings are at the Fed or other US regulated banks, so it's going to be hard for them to avoid having it frozen if the government chooses to go that route. Any dollars they deposit in a European bank end up getting deposited in an American bank where they can be found. So they can't remove them. It might also be hard to explain to all their customers who can no longer make dollar denominated transactions.
I suspect UBS is trying to figure out how to explain to the US and Swiss regulators why they broke the agreement in such a fashion that results in fewer bank examiners coming over than if they stonewalled. In either case, they've going to have a lot of government snoops in their trousers for a while.
#4
It's not UBS's money, it belongs to those countries listed, and until it's frozen, it's not frozen - so they can move it out of those accounts at will.
Additionally, the $100M fine to the Swiss Banking Commission (lol, parasites.) is undoubtedly only a fraction of the fee they received for converting $5B for the countries on the list.
THE diehard gang of Muslim extremists responsible for last weekâs attack on the southern Russian city of Nalchik consisted mainly of local militants intent on creating a strict Islamic state independent of Moscow, according to security sources in the region.
The disclosure that the gunmen were not sent from the war-torn republic of Chechnya but belonged to a group from Kabardino-Balkaria, the Russian republic of which Nalchik is the capital, will be of great concern to the Kremlin.
It provides alarming evidence that far from dying down â as claimed by President Vladimir Putin â the bloody Chechen conflict is spreading.
âMost of the militants who were killed and those caught alive are local,â said an officer with the Nalchik anti-terrorism police unit. â The ferocity of the attacks has shocked the city.â
The 24 hours of gun battles in which several police stations and other security forces buildings were attacked left at least 108 dead, including more than 60 militants. Nearly 30 others were detained.
Most of the gunmen were thought to be members of Yarmuk, a homegrown fundamentalist group that the local authorities twice claimed to have destroyed.
Composed mainly of young extremists from the regionâs two main ethnic groups, the Kabardins and the Balkars, Yarmuk has close ties with Shamil Basayev, Russiaâs most wanted terrorist, who was behind the Beslan attack and appears to be extending his influence in an attempt to open up a new front in his war with Moscow.
Last week Russian prosecutors blamed Anzor Astemirov, a radical Yarmuk leader with ties to Basayev, for the Nalchik attacks. Local officials claimed they were launched to rescue a group of extremists surrounded by security forces. But the assault on the city appeared too well organised to be spontaneous. Observers believe it was a suicide mission with the aim of killing scores of officers and embarrassing the authorities.
Security forces were caught off guard when about 100 militants armed with AK47s, hand grenades and rocket launchers turned up in the city centre.
In near-simultaneous attacks shortly after 9am on Thursday, the militants targeted three police stations, the headquarters of the local FSB (the former KGB), the interior ministry building, the offices of the cityâs prison guards, a military unit guarding the airport and a counter-terrorism centre.
âSuddenly a car pulled up outside the FSB building,â said Evgenia Sakurova, the director of a hotel opposite.
âFive or six armed men jumped out and ran towards the FSB entrance. They were carrying rucksacks. Quickly they took them off and threw them at the main doors. Explosions followed and all the windows on the ground and first floors were blown out. But the terrorists didnât manage to break into the building and officers started shooting at them from inside.â
Two militants were killed in the gun battle. Three others ran for cover into a souvenir shop where they reportedly took three women hostage.
As battles raged across the city centre, 15 militants mounted an assault on a police station near the airport.
âTwo cars packed with armed men drove up to the building,â a witness said. âOne group lobbed a hand grenade into the front entrance and stormed inside. The other attacked the side entrance.
âThere were a few officers chatting by their parked cars. The militants fired at them from machineguns and killed them.â
A firefight ensued as officers on the first and second floors fired back at the militants.
As another group of gunmen was beaten back by soldiers at the airport and Russian reinforcements began to pour into the city, militants raided at least two gun shops.
One police officer and three gunmen were killed at one of them. A wounded masked militant was seen crawling on the ground screaming in pain.
Putin ordered the city to be sealed off and anyone putting up resistance to be shot. However, some militants are thought to have escaped.
At the souvenir shop, it took until the early hours of Friday to end the standoff. âThe shop was surrounded,â said Alexei Lavrentiev, who watched Russian special forces in gas masks storm the building.
âThey fired several rockets from a grenade launcher through the window and fired from machineguns. An armoured personnel carrier smashed through a wall. Two hostages were carried out. They looked more dead than alive.â
As he stared at the bodies of two policemen and three insurgents Lavrentiev added: âThe militants are all dead now but the city is in a state of shock. The question on everybodyâs mind is, where and when will these terrorists strike next?â
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/16/2005 14:45 ||
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They came early in the morning. More than a hundred, and perhaps as many as 500 armed men attacking the quiet Russian town of Nalchik in the shadow of Europe's highest mountain. A bloody battle over the next 36 hours saw dozens dead and left Kremlin policy in the turbulent region in tatters. Yet another of the poor, volatile republics spread across the North Caucasus had been hit by an event of extreme violence and shocking brutality, and yet again the culprits were Islamic militants. Their numbers are growing, says Alexei Malashenko at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "They can appear and attack anywhere."
The war in Chechnya is spreading. Until recently, neighboring Kabardino-Balkaria seemed exempt from the region's turmoil. Its capital, Nalchik, is a stopping point for tourists on their way to climb 5,642-meter Mount Elbrus; residents went about their lives, largely unperturbed by terrorism. But last week, like an army, the militants attacked. Their targets were government officesâheadquarters of the security services, police stations, the Interior Ministry and the airport. Fighting closed down the city as President Vladimir Putin gave orders to kill anyone resisting arrest or trying to escape while Russian forces moved in.
For much of Thursday, Nalchik was a war zone. Commuters blundered into gunfire in the town center. Militants commandeered a tractor to break into a gun shop, fittingly named Arsenal. Smoke plumed from office buildings as police hunkered on the ground from flying bullets. By Friday afternoon, according to official figures, 92 of the attackers were dead, along with 12 civilians and 24 law-enforcement officials.
Putin praised his forces for fighting off the insurgentsâand was quick to show himself in command. But there was criticism, even so. "The fact that more than 100 rebels converged and attacked the city in broad daylight is clearly an intelligence failure," says Simon Saradzhyan, director of research at the Eurasian Security Studies Center in Moscow. The security forces' quick response was encouraging, he added, but suggested that in itself is not enough. "We must also have a system of prevention and interdiction," lest there be more such incidents.
That seems almost inevitable. One by one, the republics of the North Caucasus have been hit by a whirlwind of violence from Islamic extremists. Last week's events came just over a year after Chechen militants seized a school in Beslan, in neighboring northern Ossetia, ending in the deaths of 331 hostages. Nearby Dagestan, a jigsaw republic with dozens of nationalities and increasing clan tension, has seen almost daily shootings. The attack on Nalchik most resembled the assault on the Ingushetian capital of Nazran in June last year, when more than a hundred militants led by Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, the man who organized the Beslan attack, entered the town and killed 70 law-enforcement officials.
This time, particularly in contrast to Beslan, the militants appeared to avoid killing civilians. According to some accounts, terrorists instructed passersby to âget out of the way and said they were interested only in killing police. It remains unclear who organized the assault. Witnesses say there were Chechens and Arabs among the attackers; many reportedly wore long beards, the hallmark of Islamic jihadists. But most appear to have been Kabardins. A Chechen rebel Web site claimed the attack was the work of Yarmuk, the local branch of a regional network of militants called the Caucasus Front. In any event, the operation appears to be the first major maneuver of the new Chechen rebel leader and cleric Abdul-Khalim Saydullayev, who has vowed to spread the war throughout the region and create an Islamic caliphate.
Clearly, Moscow has been mishandling an explosive situation. Beset by poverty and ethnic strife, the North Caucasus has long been fertile ground for religious extremism. But government oppressionâand corruptionâhas exacerbated problems. Kabardino-Balkaria is a perfect example. The republic is poverty-stricken and divided ethnically, with minority Balkars filling the ranks of militant groups. Muslim Balkars were deported in 1943 because of Soviet suspicions that they would rebel and aid the Nazis during the war. When they returned, they found themselves a minority among native Kabardins, also mainly Muslim, and immigrant Russians. Tensions have been kept in check under the rule of an autocratic strongman appointed by the Kremlin and determined to crush all political and religious opposition. In 2004, most of the mosques in the republic were closed, save for those run by clerics favored by the stateâand even there, prayers are in Russian. Hundreds of Islamic activists have been arrested, often accused of terrorism. Meanwhile, ordinary Muslims in Nalchik and other cities complain of harassment by Russian authorities, whether it's young women wearing the traditional higab or students studying Arabic or the Qur'an.
It's unclear to what extent, if any, angry local activists participated in last week's attack. Authorities have accused a Muslim cleric named Mussa Mukozhoyev, the self-proclaimed emir of the Muslims of Kabardino-Balkaria and founder of an underground Islamic group called Jamaat, who is currently in hiding. Yet Mukozhoyev is widely known to be a moderate. "We are not fools. We don't want to bring the Chechen war into our homes," he told NEWSWEEK last year. But even then, he explained, it was becoming harder and harder to hold back extremists intent on jihad against the Russians they considered to be their oppressors. Those radicals went on to form Yarmuk, according to Akhmed Yarlykapov at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, which launched a series of smaller attacks on police and other symbols of government in Nalchik in 2004.
Despite last week's explosion, experts say that the radicalization of Kabardino-Balkaria and other republics could still be reversed if some autonomy were allowed. "Putin needs to address the root causes of extremism," says Saradzhyan. "These are not just poverty and unemployment among the youth. It is, foremost, resentment over the oppression of political and religious freedoms." If he doesn't, the attack on Nalchik will not be the last.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/16/2005 14:43 ||
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Nice graphic at link.
Former members of the Russian military have been secretly helping Iran to acquire technology needed to produce missiles capable of striking European capitals. The Russians are acting as go-betweens with North Korea as part of a multi-million pound deal they negotiated between Teheran and Pyongyang in 2003. It has enabled Teheran to receive regular clandestine shipments of top secret missile technology, believed to be channelled through Russia.
Western intelligence officials believe that the technology will enable Iran to complete development of a missile with a range of 2,200 miles, capable of hitting much of Europe. including Paris, but not London - nice map at link
It is designed to carry a 1.2-ton payload, sufficient for a basic nuclear device.
The revelation raises the stakes in the confrontation between Iran's Islamic regime and the West - led by the United States ... ... no, it won't reach any part of the US, so not our problem ...
...and European countries including Britain. Nope. won't reach them, either. Just Germany and half of France. Maybe the US should provide assistance too
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, clashed with Russian officials over Iran's nuclear programme during a visit to Moscow yesterday, saying that Teheran must fulfil its obligations under the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. She was later expected to urge President Vladimir Putin to back a referral of Iran to the United Nations Security Council.
A senior American official said Iran's programme was "sophisticated and getting larger and more accurate. They have had very much in mind the payload needed to carry a nuclear weapon. "I think Putin knows what the Iranians are doing." Because his people are doing it. You don't think the Iranians could do this alone, do you?
Khan helped. But the Russians are also helping.
Iran is believed to be hiding its weapons development behind its nuclear power programme, for which it receives Russian support, and has refused to suspend uranium enrichment or to allow full UN inspections.
John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, told BBC2's Newsnight that Iran was "determined to get nuclear weapons deliverable on ballistic missiles it can then use to intimidate not only its own region but possibly to supply to terrorists".
Iran's longest-range missile is the Shahab 3, which, with an 800-mile range, could hit Israel. The North Korean deal will allow the Iranian missile to reach targets far into Europe - including Rome, Berlin, and much of France. North Korea has developed a missile, the Taepo Dong 2, that could reach America's west coast, based on the submarine-launched Soviet SSN6. Modifications allow it to be fired from a land-based transporter and this technology is being smuggled to Teheran with Russian help.
Russians have provided production facilities, diagrams and operating instruction so the missile can be built in Iran. Liquid propellant has been shipped to Iran. Russian specialists have also been sent to Iran to help development of its Shahab 5 missile project, which the Iranians hope to have operational by the end of the decade.
#1
They might not be able to reach the US from Iran, but they could if they were launched from South America or from a submarine. By the way, what does Chavez need with a Russian sub anyway?
F rom Thursday's New York Times: ''Nalchik, Russia -- Insurgents launched a series of raids today in this southern Russian city, striking the area's main airport and several police and security buildings in large-scale, daytime attacks that left at least 85 people dead.''
"Insurgents," eh?
From Agence France Presse:
"Nalchik, Russia: More than 60 people were killed as scores of militants launched simultaneous attacks on police and government buildings . . ."
"Militants," you say?
From the Scotsman:
"Rebel forces battled Russian troops for control of a provincial capital in the Caucasus yesterday . . ."
"Rebel forces,'' huh?
From Toronto's Globe & Mail:
"Nalchik, Russia -- Scores of rebels launched simultaneous attacks on police and government buildings . . ."
"Rebels," by the score. But why were they rebelling? What were they insurging over? You had to pick up the Globe & Mail's rival, the Toronto Star, to read exactly the same Associated Press dispatch but with one subtle difference:
''Nalchik, Russia -- Scores of Islamic militants launched simultaneous attacks on police and government buildings . . ."
Ah, "Islamic militants." So that's what the rebels were insurging over. In the geopolitical Hogwart's, Islamic "militants" are the new Voldemort, the enemy whose name it's best never to utter. In fairness to the New York Times, they did use the I-word in paragraph seven. And Agence France Presse got around to mentioning Islam in paragraph 22. And NPR's "All Things Considered" had one of those bland interviews between one of its unperturbable anchorettes and some Russian geopolitical academic type in which they chitchatted through every conceivable aspect of the situation and finally got around to kinda sorta revealing the identity of the perpetrators in the very last word of the geopolitical expert's very last sentence.
When the NPR report started, I was driving on the vast open plains of I-91 in Vermont and reckoned, just to make things interesting, I'll add another five miles to the speed for every minute that goes by without mentioning Islam. But I couldn't get the needle to go above 130, and the vibrations caused the passenger-side wing-mirror to drop off. And then, right at the end, having conducted a perfect interview that managed to go into great depth about everything except who these guys were and what they were fighting over, the Russian academic dude had to go and spoil it all by saying somethin' stupid like "republics which are mostly . . . Muslim." He mumbled the last word, but nevertheless the NPR gal leapt in to thank him and move smoothly on to some poll showing that the Dems are going to sweep the 2006 midterms because Bush has the worst numbers since numbers were invented.
I underestimated multiculturalism. After 9/11, I assumed the internal contradictions of the rainbow coalition would be made plain: that a cult of "tolerance" would in the end founder against a demographic so cheerfully upfront in their intolerance. Instead, Islamic "militants" have become the highest repository of multicultural pieties. So you're nice about gays and Native Americans? Big deal. Anyone can be tolerant of the tolerant, but tolerance of intolerance gives an even more intense frisson of pleasure to the multiculti- masochists. And so Islamists who murder non-Muslims in pursuit of explicitly Islamic goals are airbrushed into vague, generic "rebel forces." You can't tell the players without a scorecard, and that's just the way the Western media intend to keep it. If you wake up one morning and switch on the TV to see the Empire State Building crumbling to dust, don't be surprised if the announcer goes, "Insurging rebel militant forces today attacked key targets in New York. In other news, the president's annual Ramadan banquet saw celebrities dancing into the small hours to Mullah Omar And His All-Girl Orchestra . . ."
What happened in Russia on Thursday was serious business, not just in the death toll but in the number of key government installations that the alleged insurging rebel militants of non-specific ideology managed to seize with relative ease. The militantly rebellious insurgers of no known religious affiliation have long said they want a pan-Caucasian Islamic state from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, and the carnage they wreaked in the hitherto semi-safe-ish republic of Kabardino-Balkaria suggests that they're more likely to spread the conflict to other parts of the Russian Federation than Moscow is to contain it.
Did you see that news item in Stavropolsky Meridian last October? "Strontium, Uranium And Plutonium Found In Train To Caucasus." When a region already regarded as a Bud's Discount Warehouse for nuclear materials is getting sucked deeper into the maw of Islamism, why be so sheepish about letting us know the forces at play?
The Russians couldn't hold on to Eastern Europe. They couldn't hold on to Central Asia. Why would they fare any better with the present so-called Russian "Federation"? The country is literally dying. It's had a net population loss every year since 1992, one of the lowest fertility rates in the world -- 1.2 children born per woman -- and one of the highest abortion rates: some 70 percent of pregnancies are terminated. Russian men now have a lower life expectancy than Bangladeshis -- not because Bangladesh is brimming with actuarial advantages but because, if he had four legs and hung from a tree in a rain forest, the Russian male would be on the endangered species list.
Yet, within their present territory, there remain a few exceptions to the grim statistics cited above, parts of Russia that retain healthy fertility rates and healthy mortality rates. And guess what? They're the Muslim parts. Or, as the New York Times/NPR/Agence France Presse/Scotsman/Toronto Globe & Mail would say, they're the insurgent rebel militant parts. Many of these Russian Muslim areas -- like Bashkortistan (and no, I didn't make that up, it's a real stan. Check it out in the World Book Of Stans) -- are also rich in natural resources.
If you're an energy-rich Muslim republic, what's the point of going down the express garbage chute of history with the Russian Federation? The Islamification of significant parts of present-day Russia is going to be a critical factor in its death spiral.
I'm aware the very concept of "the enemy" is alien to the non-judgment multicultural mind: There are no enemies, just friends whose grievances we haven't yet accommodated. But the media's sensitivity police apparently want this to be the first war we lose without even knowing who it is we've lost to. C'mon, guys, next time something happens in the Caucasus, why not blame the "Caucasians"? At least that way, we'll figure it must have been right-wing buddies of Timothy McVeigh.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/16/2005 14:02 ||
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#1
Ima gonna repeater
PC = Dimminess
C'mon, guys, next time something happens in the Caucasus, why not blame the "Caucasians"? At least that way, we'll figure it must have been right-wing buddies of Timothy McVeigh.
Brilliant.
Posted by: Mark S. fan ||
10/16/2005 14:59 Comments ||
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#2
The country is literally dying. It's had a net population loss every year since 1992
Robert Heinlein toured Russia in 1960. He and his Russian-speaking wife spoke to many people there. Their conclusion even back then was that the birth rate was below replacement rate. The Russians have been dying off for at least 40+ years.
#3
The Leftist-Socialist world is dying, and they know it - the only good gener thing about Western democratic Socialism as a class is that the Westies are dying slower than the Russians or Chicoms. Thus the premise, amongst others in PC parallel, of America's enemies to induce America vv 9-11 to dev Global Empire and allegedly spread American "Liberalism/Liberal SOcialism" around the planet ergo America is NOT allowed to govern its own Empire. Alleged Liberal Socialist Amerika for all its efforts under righteous indignation is to not only lose its sovereignty, but also de facto control of its systems of Government, economy, and natural or competetive endowments. Ala KATRINA-GATE, AL SHARPTON and JESSE JACKSON, the US's Federal level of national Govt., and only the Federal-level of national Govt. must expand and expand and expand, spend spend and spend, and OBTW tax tax and, SSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH, some more, from local to State to trans-State to Continental to regional to transregional to..........................Global, and possibly extra-Global, maybe even LUNAR or beyond, and before we humans even set up anything on the moon!? Govt allegedly helping and protecting the Masses = Govt making sure the Masses HAVE NO RIGHTS FOR ANYTHING. America > like the Euros, increasingly unable to satisfacorily afford our brand of Socialism to such an extent that we have to depend on Totalitarianism and giving up our sovereignty and civil-natural-human rights to third parties/entities for our personal, national and geopol security and well-being. And then we Amerikans have the gall to presume these Third Parties won't gulag us, purge us, andor kill us because their region of terra firma needs our resources and endowments far more than we do or were willing to dev on our own.
It was almost a year ago Congress passed a law requiring the Pentagon to reimburse soldiers for body armor and equipment they bought for better protection in Iraq.
And nearly a year later the Department of Defense hasn't been able to figure out a way to make this reimbursement, according to an Associated Press story Thursday.
This is an incredible report in two ways.
It is incredible in the first place that soldiers or parents of soldiers have to pay out hundreds or thousands of dollars for additional armor the government has not provided in an attempt to increase the soldiers' safety.
And, secondly, it is impossible to understand why the Pentagon, massive bureaucracy that it is, still cannot -- 12 months after being required to -- figure out a way to reimburse these families.
The AP reported Pentagon officials opposed the reimbursement idea, calling it "an unmanageable precedent that will saddle the DOD with an open-ended financial burden."
It seems to us the real "burden" in this case is on the men and women sent to Iraq to fight this war. They are the ones putting their lives on the line, and if they and their families feel they can add some assurance the soldiers will have greater protection while serving there, the government should pay the cost for that protection.
The bottom line is that our fighting men and women should have all the protection they can possibly have, and it is up to the Defense Department to provide it.
We agree with the comment of a former Marine whose son, also a Marine, is serving in Fallujah, who was quoted by the AP: "...I think the U.S. has an obligation to make sure they (soldiers) have this equipment and to reimburse for it. I just don't support Donald Rumsfeld's idea of going to war with what you have, not what you want. You go to war prepared, and you don't go to war until you are prepared."
The law passed last October gave the Defense Department until Feb. 25 to come up with a way to make the reimbursements. Obviously, we are long past that deadline.
In April an undersecretary of defense wrote a letter to a senator saying his office was developing regulations to implement the reimbursement and would be done in about 60 days. Equally obviously, we are long past that deadline as well.
It is no surprise the wheels at the Pentagon are moving so slowly in this issue. Washington bureaucracy in every department operates much the same way. But in this case the Pentagon is failing to follow a law passed by Congress a year ago this month either because of the difficulties in figuring out a way to reimburse families for their purchases or because Pentagon officials have dug in their heels and are not complying with the law because they opposed it in the first lace.
#1
...it is impossible to understand why the Pentagon, massive bureaucracy that it is, still cannot -- 12 months after being required to -- figure out a way to reimburse these families.
I think you just contradicted yourself there, Mr. Editor.
It would be like Congress mandating that insurance companies have to cover "all hurricane damage" in New Orleans - after the storm. No pre-existing inventories, no limits on coverage, no ability to determine what is and what is not an allowable expense .....
It was Congress covering their collective a*ses for a decade of inadequate military funding and for the Clinton policy of refusing to stockpile armor, supplies etc. in case a conflict actually broke out.
WaPo registration required, so I only trimmed the Spiraling Death Toll™ paragraphs.
Iraq's constitution seemed assured of passage Sunday, despite strong opposition from Sunni Arabs who voted in surprisingly high numbers in an effort to stop it. The U.S. military announced that five American soldiers were killed by a bomb blast on referendum day.
President Bush hailed the vote as a victory for opponents of terrorism. "The vote today in Iraq is in stark contrast to the attitude, the philosophy and strategy of al-Qaida, their terrorist friends and killers," Bush said.
If the constitution is approved, Iraqis will choose a new parliament in Dec. 15 elections. Parliament then will select a new government, which must take office by Dec. 31. The constitution's apparent victory was muted, though, by the prospect that the result might divide the country further.
Now the question is whether Sunnis will accept the passage of a constitution despite a significant "no" vote from their community. While moderates could take a more active role in politics, hard-liners could turn to the insurgency, deciding that violence is the only hope for retaining influence.
Rejection appeared highly unlikely after initial vote counts showed that a majority supported the constitution in two of the four provinces that Sunni Arab opponents were relying on to defeat it.
Opponents needed to get a two-thirds "no" vote in three of those provinces. They may have reached the threshold in Anbar and Salahuddin, but Diyala and Ninevah provinces appeared to have supported the document by a wide margin. The latter three have Sunni majorities but also powerful Shiite and Kurdish communities, which made them focal points for the political battle.
In Diyala, 70 percent supported the referendum, 20 percent opposed it, said Adil Abdel-Latif, the head of the election commission in Diyala. The result came from a first count of the approximately 400,000 votes cast. At least one more count was being conducted to confirm the votes, which would then be sent to Baghdad, where results from all provinces are being collected for final confirmation. Flash! The Detroit News says constitution leading by a narrow margin.
According to a vote count from 275 of Ninevah's 300 polling stations, about 326,000 people supported the constitution and 90,000 opposed it, said Abdul-Ghani Ali Yehya, spokesman for the election commission in the province's capital, Mosul. Ballots from the remaining 25 stations were still being brought to the central counting center, he said.
A nationwide majority "yes" vote is assured by the widespread support of the Shiites, who make up 60 percent of Iraq's estimated 27 million people, and the Kurds, who make up another 20 percent. Abdul-Hussein al-Hendawi, a top official in the elections commission, stressed there were no final results yet from Saturday's vote. The constitution is a crucial step in Iraq's transition to democracy after two decades of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. Washington hopes it passes so Iraqis can form a legitimate, representative government, tame the insurgency and enable the 150,000 U.S. troops to begin withdrawing.
Rice said "there's a belief that it has probably passed." She said her information came from "people on the ground who are trying to do the numbers, trying to look at where the votes are coming from and so forth." U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told CNN's "Late Edition" it was "too soon to tell," but Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said, "My guess is, yes, it will be passed."
If the charter is defeated, parliament will dissolve, but the December elections will go ahead as planned. The new parliament then will draft another constitution and present it to voters in a second referendum.
Saturday's referendum saw few attacks on voters, and no voter deaths from violence. But the U.S. military reported Sunday that five American soldiers were killed on voting day by a roadside bomb during combat operations in the western town of Ramadi, a stronghold of Sunni insurgents. It was the deadliest attack against U.S. troops in Iraq since Sept. 29, when five soldiers were killed by a bomb, also in Ramadi.
Few people turned out to vote in Ramadi, or other parts of Anbar province, the vast region that is the heartland of the Sunni Arab minority and the main battleground between Sunni insurgents and U.S.-Iraqi forces. The exception was Fallujah, where thousands turned out. Opposition to the constitution is powerful there and likely would push results past the two-thirds threshold for a "no" vote in Anbar. Ah! Some bad news. Let's report it in full detail.
Sunni Arabs, who controlled the country under Saddam, widely opposed the charter, fearing it will break the country into three sections: powerful Kurdish and Shiite mini-states in the oil-rich north and south, and a weak and impoverished Sunni zone in central and western Iraq. But at the last minute, a major party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, came out in favor of it after amendments were made giving Sunnis the chance to try to make deeper changes later, which may have split Sunni voting.
Some Sunni Arab leaders of the "no" campaign decried the reported results and insisted their figures showed the constitution's defeat, though they did not cite exact numbers. Some accused the United States of interfering in the results. "We are warning of acts of fraud. This might lead to civil disobedience if there is fraud," said Saleh al-Mutlaq, head of the National Dialogue Council "We consider that Rice's statement is pressure on the Independent Election Commission to pass the draft."
Some ballot boxes were still making their way to counting centers in the provinces. Provincial election workers were adding up the paper ballots, which will be sent to the counting center in Baghdad's Green Zone for another check to reach the final, certified result.
Turnout by Shiites and Kurdish in regions outside the most contested provinces was well below January's parliamentary elections, despite calls by the top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, for his followers to vote. In most provinces in the south, between 54 and 58 percent of voters went to the polls, though Basra's was higher at 63 percent, U.N elections chief Carina Perelli said. She said turnout in Qadissiyah, originally reported by the commission as 33 percent, was actually 56 percent. In January, Shiite turnout was above 80 percent.
Still, the nine provinces of the south, the heartland of the Shiites, and the three provinces of the Kurdish autonomous zone in the north were expected to roll in big "yes" numbers.
Iraq's former defense minister, Hazem al-Shaalan, Sunday accused Iran of helping al-Qaida elements enter Iraq with the knowledge of the U.S. forces.
Shaalan told United Press International in an interview in London that al-Qaida elements "enter and leave Iraq easily through Iran before heading to Afghanistan," adding the U.S. and other Western forces in Iraq were "well aware of this fact."
He insisted it was the issue of Iran's connection with al-Qaida elements that prompted what he described as the "campaign" against him, in reference to an Iraqi warrant issued for his arrest on charges of embezzling more than one billion dollars of military funds.
Shaalan said the "campaign" against him was being led by Iraq's deputy prime minister and Iran's ally, Ahmad Chalabi, "not for personal reasons, but because of my criticism of Iran for its interference in our country."
The Iraqi authorities issued arrest warrants for Shaalan and 26 other senior officials that served in the U.S.-backed interim Iraqi government on corruption charges.
The former defense minister said since he returned to his country after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, he consistently briefed the multinational forces on information he received regarding Iran's involvement in Iraq.
"The coalition forces know these facts well, just as they know about the smuggling of weapons from Iran," he said.
Shaalan added the U.S.-led forces in his country paved the way for Iran's interference in Iraq by leaving the borders open between the two countries.
He said the foreign forces ignored his recommendations to withdraw their troops from Iraqi cities and towns to deploy on Iraq's borders.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/16/2005 14:40 ||
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"Daddy, I want to be a martyr. Can you get me an explosive belt?"
When Abu Qaqa al-Tamimi's 9-year-old son asked for his help in becoming a suicide bomber, he was, to say the least, taken aback.
"This is not what you expect to hear from a little boy," says al-Tamimi, an Iraqi man in his late 40s with close-cropped hair and a thin beard lining a round face. "I didn't know what to say." The son had even come up with a proposed target. "There was an American checkpoint near his school, and he said, 'They won't suspect me because I'm a kid, so I can walk right up to them and explode the belt.'"
Like other Iraqi parents, al-Tamimi frets about the emotional toll on his child caused by the daily onslaught of suicide bombings. But al-Tamimi bears a personal responsibility for his son's bizarre ambitions. For the past 13 months, al-Tamimi has played a crucial, and murderous, role in the Iraqi insurgency: he is one of a small number of operatives who provide would-be suicide bombers with everything from safe houses to target information and explosives.
Al-Tamimi says he also acts as a guardian, religious guide and all-around father figure in the final days of a bomber's life. "Once a volunteer is placed in my care," he says, "I am responsible for everything in his life until the time comes for him to end it."
Al-Tamimi is often the last person bombers talk to before their deadly mission. He is so proficient at facilitating suicide bombings that he says his own brother and sister have asked to be considered for "martyrdom operations." He gave them some basic training but advised them to find other, less drastic ways of serving the insurgency. "A suicide bombing should be the last resort," he says. "It should not be a shortcut to paradise."
Handlers like al-Tamimi are usually anonymous and almost never claim responsibility for their part in suicide operations. But the terrorism that has plagued Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein would not have been possible without men like al-Tamimi, who says he organizes attacks for several insurgent organizations, ranging from hard-core jihadis like Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda operation in Iraq to more obscure Iraqi nationalist groups. "These are the guys who supply the intel and networks," says the Rand Corp.'s counterterrorism expert Bruce Hoffman. "They are the terrorists' trump cardâand our Achilles' heel."
Al-Tamimi met with TIME in two interviews spanning five hours. He agreed to meet with us after members of the TIME staff approached Iraqi contacts who are close to the insurgency, in an effort to gain information on the ways in which suicide-bombing networks operate.
Although he discussed his life and work in intimate detail, he refused to be identified by his real name, choosing a pseudonym that is an homage to a warrior from early Islamic history. Al-Tamimi says he has helped coordinate at least 30 suicide bombings since September 2004. Although he discussed three attacks at some length, he provided verifiable details for only one, an attempted assassination of an Iraqi general in Fallujah in June, in which the bomber killed three Iraqi soldiers and two civilians. However, al-Tamimi's identity, background and job description are backed up by members of several other Iraqi insurgent groups that claim to have used his deadly services. His comments provide a rare glimpse into the recesses of Iraq's insurgency and reveal the diversity and sophistication of the rebel networks intent on plunging Iraq into violent chaos. As the U.S. and the interim Iraqi government seek to peel factions of the insurgency away from one another, al-Tamimi's association with multiple groups that have disparate agendas is an indication of how widely suicide bombings have been embraced as the insurgents' primary weapon.
Despite al-Tamimi's years of military service with Saddam's Republican Guard, his burned-brown skin and callused hands mark him as a farmer. He speaks in a high, breathless schoolboy voice, gesticulating animatedly with his hands while his eyes bulge in excitement. As a Republican Guard officer, a messenger for Saddam in the early months of the insurgency and a prisoner in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, al-Tamimi has developed networks that spread wide.
"Many people in the insurgency know me," he says with obvious pride, "even if they have never met me." His standing in the insurgency allows different groups to send him their would-be bombers, confident that he can be entrusted with the most sensitive missions.
When he is contacted by an insurgent group for a suicide operation, al-Tamimi says, the deal can go one of two ways. Some groups have a specific target in mind, even a specific timeline; others seek his advice on the best time and place to attack. To cover both bases, al-Tamimi constantly gathers intelligence on the most obvious targets: police stations, checkpoints, restaurants favored by Iraqi security forces, government ministries, roads used by U.S. military convoys and patrols. "My job is to know how I can get a bomber to the best spot for an attack, at a time when he is sure to inflict the most damage," he says. For instance, when scoping out a police station, he notes the timing of shift changes, "because if you attack then, you get the most casualties."
Al-Tamimi won't reveal how insurgent groups get their bombers to him, but once they arrive, his first job is to set them up in a safe house. He maintains several in Baghdad and elsewhere in the Sunni triangle. There the bomber is provided with everything from food and clothing to religious texts and inspirational music. Since the bombers are usually religious fanatics, they may ask for spiritual guidance. "In their last days, these men are usually thinking of God and paradise," he says. "Sometimes they like to hear about the rewards that are awaiting them."
Most of the more than 30 bombers he says have passed through his hands were foreigners, or "Arabs," to use al-Tamimi's blanket term for all non-Iraqi mujahedin. Although he says more and more Iraqis are volunteering for suicide operations, insurgent groups prefer to use the foreigners. "Iraqis are fighting for their country's future, so they have something to live for," he explains. He says foreign fighters "come a long way from their countries, spending a lot of money and with high hopes. They don't want to gradually earn their entry to paradise by participating in operations against the Americans. They want martyrdom immediately." That's a valued quality sought by a handler like al-Tamimi, says counterterrorism expert Hoffman: "It's one less thing for the handler to worry aboutâwhether the guy is going to change his mind and bolt."
While the would-be martyr keeps a low profile, al-Tamimi arranges for the explosives; he knows how to get his hands on explosive belts or bomb-laden cars. Belts are more complicated, he says, since they may need to be custom-made to a bomber's size. All the time, al-Tamimi fine-tunes the plan, scoping out the target over and over, to prepare for any eventualities. He will check and recheck his information and adjust the plan to any changesâin convoy routes and timing, for instance. He may even do a dry run of the operation himself to be absolutely certain.
When the plan is set, al-Tamimi says, he takes the bomber-to-be to the target area some days ahead of the operation, to help him become familiar with the surroundings. He will show the bomber side streets and alternative routes to the destination and sometimes will drive a pilot car well ahead of the bomber to check for any last-minute changes in the target area. Sometimes al-Tamimi will videotape the climax of the operation on behalf of the bomber's sponsors. He enjoys documenting these final moments in the lives of the bombers, he says, "because they will one day be part of Iraqi history."
Al-Tamimi's own story mirrors the transformation of the insurgency over the past 2 1/2 years. After the U.S. invasion, he says, he joined some like-minded friends and used his military experience to attack U.S. supply convoys on the roads to Baghdad. But he soon realized it was futile. "The Americans had advanced weapons and helicopters so small groups like mine couldn't hope to make much of an impact," he recalls. Then, two weeks after the fall of Saddam's regime (but before his capture), al-Tamimi says he received word from the man he still calls "al-Rais"âthe President. "He sent a messenger to me with a simple question: 'What do you need?'" says al-Tamimi. Saddam's offer of help was followed by deliveries of cash and weapons. "He said, 'Widen your network; go around the country and find others who will fight,'" al-Tamimi says. "He said that we had to attack the Americans from different angles so they would not be able to settle in Iraq." He made contact with insurgent groups in the Sunni triangle and around Baghdad. He also helped set up Jaish Mohammed (Army of Mohammed), a group of Baathists and ex-military men.
In November 2003 al-Tamimi was arrested by U.S. forces and tossed into Abu Ghraib on the outskirts of Baghdad, where, he says, he endured forms of torture similar to those displayed in the infamous photographs from the prisonâincluding being chained at the neck and dragged around like a dog. While these claims cannot be verified without knowing his real name, al-Tamimi showed TIME scars on his leg that appeared consistent with lashing by electrical wires. He also says the stint in prison made him more religious. By the time al-Tamimi emerged nine months later, Saddam had been captured and the nature of the insurgency had changed: the Baathist networks, including al-Tamimi's group Jaish Mohammed, had in some cases joined forces with Islamic extremist organizations. Rejoining the leadership of the group, al-Tamimi initially used his skills in explosives to supervise its use of roadside bombs against U.S. and Iraqi forces.
Although he doesn't say how and why he segued into handling suicide bombers, his experience in making alliances and connections made him a natural for the role.
But his turn toward suicide bombings has come at a moral cost. In his conversations with TIME, al-Tamimi initially gave no signs of any internal anguish over sending young men off on suicide missions.
"What I do serves my country, and what they do serves my country," he said. But he grew uncomfortable when the discussion turned to the victims of suicide bombings: scores of innocent Iraqis have died in terrorist attacks perpetrated by men whom al-Tamimi openly boasts to have trained. "I have always tried to avoid civilian casualties," he says. "I always try to attack the American military." It's an implausible claim. According to the "Rand Terrorism Chronology," which tracks suicide bombings in Iraq, attacks on U.S. military targets are relatively rare, but there have been more than 250 assaults on civilian targets in 2005 alone, killing more than 2,400 Iraqis and injuring 5,200 others. Pressed, al-Tamimi says angrily, "Civilian deaths are regrettable, but when you are in a freedom struggle, it sometimes happens."
Al-Tamimi talks breathlessly about the religious fervor and iron determination of the young men sent to him. He cites the example of his current charge, a Saudi barely past his teens who arrived in Baghdad early this month. "You can't imagine how excited and happy he is," al-Tamimi says. "He can't stop smiling and laughing, even singing. He is sure he is going to paradise, and he just can't wait."
But al-Tamimi's dealings with jihadist groups have left him suspicious about their long-term goals in Iraq. "I've had many conversations with them, and I keep asking, 'What is your vision?'" he says. "They never have a straight answer." He fears they want to turn Iraq into another Afghanistan, with a Taliban-style government.
Even for a born-again Muslim, that's a distressing scenario. So, he says, "one day, when the Americans have gone, we will need to fight another war, against these jihadis. They won't leave quietly."
In the meantime, he is focusing on more immediate matters. He has told his son that he is too young to become a martyr but says he recently taught the child how to make roadside bombs and how to fashion a rudimentary rocket launcher out of metal tubes. (He also gave TIME a propaganda video, in which he and two other adults teach a group of four children how to jury-rig a pair of artillery shells into a bomb.) "We have to prepare the next generation for battle," he says. "We have to realize that the fight against the Americans might last a long, long time." So long as men like him continue to send their young to die, that prediction may well come true.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/16/2005 14:33 ||
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#1
Fooey. Former Republican Guard officer with a direct connection to the fleeing Saddam Hussein, suffering from moral cost because of his choices? Not bloody likely. Time Magazine is propagandizing for the other side again.
Iraq's constitution seemed assured of passage Sunday, despite strong opposition from Sunni Arabs who voted in surprisingly high numbers in an effort to stop it. The U.S. military announced that five American soldiers were killed by a bomb blast on referendum day.
President Bush hailed the vote as a victory for opponents of terrorism.
"The vote today in Iraq is in stark contrast to the attitude, the philosophy and strategy of al-Qaida, their terrorist friends and killers," Bush said.
If the constitution is approved, Iraqis will choose a new parliament in Dec. 15 elections. Parliament then will select a new government, which must take office by Dec. 31. The constitution's apparent victory was muted, though, by the prospect that the result might divide the country further.
Now the question is whether Sunnis will accept the passage of a constitution despite a significant "no" vote from their community. While moderates could take a more active role in politics, hard-liners could turn to the insurgency, deciding that violence is the only hope for retaining influence.
Initial estimates of overall turnout Saturday were 61 percent, election officials said.
In London, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said the charter was likely to pass but stressed she did not know the outcome for certain.
Rejection appeared highly unlikely after initial vote counts showed that a majority supported the constitution in two of the four provinces that Sunni Arab opponents were relying on to defeat it.
Opponents needed to get a two-thirds "no" vote in three of those provinces. They may have reached the threshold in Anbar and Salahuddin, but Diyala and Ninevah provinces appeared to have supported the document by a wide margin.
The latter three have Sunni majorities but also powerful Shiite and Kurdish communities, which made them focal points for the political battle.
In Diyala, 70 percent supported the referendum, 20 percent opposed it, said Adil Abdel-Latif, the head of the election commission in Diyala. The result came from a first count of the approximately 400,000 votes cast.
At least one more count was being conducted to confirm the votes, which would then be sent to Baghdad, where results from all provinces are being collected for final confirmation.
According to a vote count from 275 of Ninevah's 300 polling stations, about 326,000 people supported the constitution and 90,000 opposed it, said Abdul-Ghani Ali Yehya, spokesman for the election commission in the province's capital, Mosul.
Ballots from the remaining 25 stations were still being brought to the central counting center, he said.
A nationwide majority "yes" vote is assured by the widespread support of the Shiites, who make up 60 percent of Iraq's estimated 27 million people, and the Kurds, who make up another 20 percent. Abdul-Hussein al-Hendawi, a top official in the elections commission, stressed there were no final results yet from Saturday's vote.
The constitution is a crucial step in Iraq's transition to democracy after two decades of
Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. Washington hopes it passes so Iraqis can form a legitimate, representative government, tame the insurgency and enable the 150,000 U.S. troops to begin withdrawing.
Rice said "there's a belief that it has probably passed." She said her information came from "people on the ground who are trying to do the numbers, trying to look at where the votes are coming from and so forth."
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told CNN's "Late Edition" it was "too soon to tell," but Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said, "My guess is, yes, it will be passed."
If the charter is defeated, parliament will dissolve, but the December elections will go ahead as planned. The new parliament then will draft another constitution and present it to voters in a second referendum.
Saturday's referendum saw few attacks on voters, and no voter deaths from violence. But the U.S. military reported Sunday that five American soldiers were killed on voting day by a roadside bomb during combat operations in the western town of Ramadi, a stronghold of Sunni insurgents. It was the deadliest attack against U.S. troops in Iraq since Sept. 29, when five soldiers were killed by a bomb, also in Ramadi.
Few people turned out to vote in Ramadi, or other parts of Anbar province, the vast region that is the heartland of the Sunni Arab minority and the main battleground between Sunni insurgents and U.S.-Iraqi forces.
The exception was Fallujah, where thousands turned out. Opposition to the constitution is powerful there and likely would push results past the two-thirds threshold for a "no" vote in Anbar.
Sunni Arabs, who controlled the country under Saddam, widely opposed the charter, fearing it will break the country into three sections: powerful Kurdish and Shiite mini-states in the oil-rich north and south, and a weak and impoverished Sunni zone in central and western Iraq.
But at the last minute, a major party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, came out in favor of it after amendments were made giving Sunnis the chance to try to make deeper changes later, which may have split Sunni voting.
Some Sunni Arab leaders of the "no" campaign decried the reported results and insisted their figures showed the constitution's defeat, though they did not cite exact numbers. Some accused the United States of interfering in the results.
"We are warning of acts of fraud. This might lead to civil disobedience if there is fraud," said Saleh al-Mutlaq, head of the National Dialogue Council "We consider that Rice's statement is pressure on the Independent Election Commission to pass the draft."
Some ballot boxes were still making their way to counting centers in the provinces. Provincial election workers were adding up the paper ballots, which will be sent to the counting center in Baghdad's Green Zone for another check to reach the final, certified result.
Vote counters in the heavily fortified district, where U.S. and Iraqi government offices are located, already were totaling votes from the capital and its surroundings. But election officials said the central compilation of the provinces' ballots may not start until Monday.
Sunday morning, two mortars hit the zone, but it was not known if they struck anywhere near the counting center. The blasts raised plumes of smoke from the zone but caused no injuries or significant damage, the U.S. Embassy said.
The attack came shortly after authorities lifted a driving ban imposed Saturday to prevent suicide car bombings during voting. The ban was part of a nationwide security clampdown.
Turnout by Shiites and Kurdish in regions outside the most contested provinces was well below January's parliamentary elections â despite calls by the top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, for his followers to vote.
In most provinces in the south, between 54 and 58 percent of voters went to the polls, though Basra's was higher at 63 percent, U.N elections chief Carina Perelli said. She said turnout in Qadissiyah, originally reported by the commission as 33 percent, was actually 56 percent. In January, Shiite turnout was above 80 percent.
Still, the nine provinces of the south, the heartland of the Shiites, and the three provinces of the Kurdish autonomous zone in the north were expected to roll in big "yes" numbers.
The lower participation may have been out of belief that success was a sure bet or because of disillusionment with Iraq's Shiite leadership, which has been in power since April with little easing of numerous infrastructure problems.
"Why should I care? Nothing has changed since we have elected this government: no security, no electricity, no water," said Saad Ibrahim, a Shiite resident of Baghdad's Karrada district. "The constitution will not change that. The main issue is not getting this constitution passed, but how to stop terrorism."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/16/2005 14:25 ||
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Odd, I was expecting this headline from the MSM:
Sunni Arab voters turned out in force for Iraq's constitutional referendum Saturday as insurgents largely suspended attacks, granting Sunnis a chance to try to defeat the U.S.-backed charter and giving much of the country a rare day of peace that belied the deep fractures exposed by the vote. Voting en masse for the first time since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Sunni Arabs cast ballots in large numbers, according to electoral officials and witnesses. Turnout in areas populated by the country's Shiite majority and ethnic Kurds, whose political leaders drafted the proposed constitution, was described by officials as low.
Turnout reached 93 percent in the heavily Sunni western city of Fallujah after clerics and others went door-to-door telling residents it was safe to venture out of their homes, election officials said.
But in some other western cities, fear crushed the potential that had been suggested by heavy Sunni voter registration. In Ramadi, election day opened with automatic-weapons fire around at least one polling site. There were sporadic explosions as U.S. Marines patrolled the streets. Turnout there was 10 percent. "People are terrified and don't want to risk their lives," said an electoral official, Nadhum Ali.
The strong overall turnout in the west, however, raised the possibility that the disempowered Sunni minority could defeat the draft charter, which endorses a loose federal system with a weak, religiously influenced central government. Many Sunnis fear the draft would bring the breakup of Iraq into ethnic and religious substates, and make permanent their loss of power to the Shiite Muslim majority after the toppling of Hussein.
Defeating the charter would take a two-thirds "no" vote in at least three of Iraq's 18 provinces. Turnout was strong in three heavily Sunni provinces that had been expected to vote against it: Salahuddin, with 75 percent turnout reported by the local electoral director; Diyala, with 65 percent turnout; and Anbar, whose provincial total was not released Saturday.
First returns were expected Sunday; final, unofficial results are due Thursday. A close vote would risk heightening Sunni suspicions about the political process.
In his weekly radio address Saturday, President Bush said that the referendum dealt "a severe blow to the terrorists" while sending a message to the world. "Iraqis will decide the future of their country through peaceful elections, not violent insurgency."
Bush said the referendum was "a critical step forward in Iraq's march toward democracy." Despite eroding public support for the war, Bush also promised to stay the course in Iraq. "America will not run, and we will not forget our responsibilities," he said.
Speaking in the Democratic radio address, retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark called the vote "an important step toward a democratic Iraq." Still, he said, "let's not kid ourselves about the difficulties that lie ahead." Defeating the insurgency, winning the support of alienated Sunnis, training Iraqi forces and rebuilding the country's infrastructure and economy remain formidable tasks, he said.
For some Sunnis, a vote against the constitution was in part a statement of rejection of the U.S. occupation. But for most, the vote appeared to signal their entry to Iraq's political process in hope of regaining some control over their future -- if not by defeating the charter, then by winning seats in December's parliamentary elections and working to amend it.
If the Shiites consolidate their power, "we will never see stability in Iraq again," said Khalaf Ahmed Khalif, 53, a farmer in Ishaqi, an area of lush farmland amid arid desert in Salahuddin province. "If you think it's bad, just think about double the number of forces the Americans have in the country right now."
In Ishaqi, 300 people voted in January in elections for a transitional government. By late Saturday afternoon, 9,350 had turned out.
The turnout was also high in several larger cities across the mostly Sunni province, including places where the U.S. military has waged a nearly continuous battle against insurgents. Samarra, which reported 35,636 voters by mid-afternoon, had run out of ballots and was requesting more from U.S. commanders.
Not all Sunnis voted "no." In Baghdad, some said they voted for the charter because of security concerns, hoping that the next step would be rule of law.
"I insisted on voting, even though my neighbors told me it would be dangerous," Haifa Ahmed Satoor, 38, a government worker and a Sunni, said in Baghdad before voting "yes."
"I don't want more people killed in the name of Sunni resistance," Satoor said. "We already lost neighbors -- I don't want to lose relatives."
In Sadr City, a vast Shiite area in northeast Baghdad, Mayyada Ahmed already had. She came to a polling center to vote for the draft on the final day of mourning for a cousin shot by Americans at a checkpoint. A few weeks ago, three other male relatives were abducted from their home and later found dead in heaps of garbage.
"We came because we hope the future will be better," Ahmed said, reflexively waving her ink-stained finger in a now-worn symbol of hope from the last election. "We are hoping it will provide safety. We will keep voting until it does."
U.S. troops in Baghdad and most of the country yielded election security to Iraqi forces, save for American convoys that rumbled through Baghdad. As in January, a one-day ban on private vehicles helped block suicide attacks. Iraqi troops manning checkpoints fell into impromptu soccer games with children, who poured into the streets, roller-skating and biking through the city on Baghdad's most peaceful day in months.
Nationwide, security was a "resounding success," with all of the 13 recorded attacks aimed at election targets failing, Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, a spokesman for the U.S. military, said in Baghdad. Boylan said Iraqi forces in the Shiite city of Hilla stopped two women -- one from Jordan, the other from Saudi Arabia -- wearing explosive vests.
One of at least two mortar rounds heard Saturday in Baghdad landed inside the Green Zone, where some lawmakers and others voted behind concrete barriers and concertina wire.
In insurgent strongholds, such as Baghdad's southern neighborhood of Doura, where gunmen sometimes take to the streets by the score, the absence of major attacks suggested the Iraqi militant groups had kept their promise of election-day calm. "There was a large turnout," said lawyer Abdul Amir Yousuf, 68, ringed by Iraqi police.
Coincidentally or not, the vote fell on the date of Hussein's last show election, in 2002, when he declared that his government had been approved by 100 percent of Iraqi voters.
On Saturday, most of the elation seen in January's vote was gone. Men, leading wives, sisters and daughters to protect them, made straight lines through milling children to the polls and then retreated back inside their homes.
Many voters objected strongly to the last-minute dealmaking that kept many Iraqis from seeing the draft constitution in its final form.
"I may be in the minority, but first of all I am not voting to support something I have not seen, and they never showed us the constitution," said Majeed Khadhan, 35, a taxi driver in Najaf. "Second, the Americans say this is about democracy, but we do not live in a democracy when we are occupied. . . . This constitution will not help that. It was made to please the politicians, not to please the people."
Some, however, retained the excitement they had in January.
"I cannot read, but my sons and daughters read parts of the constitution to me and told me it would provide security and stability in the future," said Mardhiya Omar Ibrahim, 85, who was carried to a polling place in Mosul on her son's back. "So I went out to vote for it because I want the future to be safe and peaceful for my sons and grandchildren."
"I vote a thousand times 'yes,' not only once, because I have not forgotten the mass graves and the torture and the killings," said Abdul Hussein Ahmed, 63, a laborer who emerged from a polling station in Najaf with purple finger aloft.
"Five members of my family were killed by Saddam and his people. But now, with this constitution, everyone is equal under the law," Ahmed said.
In the north, where passage of the constitution with its federal system would enshrine the de facto autonomy Kurds there have enjoyed since the Persian Gulf War, Salih Saeed Mohammed, 64, blew on his ink-stained finger as he left a polling place. "This process legitimizes the fate of our nation," he said, referring not to Iraq but to the Kurdish north, where many believe its establishment as a federal region will lead to independence.
When polls closed in the city of Sulaymaniyah, thousands of people poured into the streets among drivers pounding car horns and waving Kurdish flags.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/16/2005 01:12 ||
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#1
From Iraq the Model:
High= more than 66%
Moderate= 33% - 66%
Low= less than 33%
#2
The insurgent team finished second, while the American-backed team came in next to last.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/16/2005 10:38 Comments ||
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#3
I find the 93% number hard to believe since live blogging yesterday reported light voting in the morning in Fallujah.
A late day surge? Or massive vote fraud?
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
10/16/2005 13:18 Comments ||
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#4
Or low registration with most of those registering voting?
The Guardian, of all papers, is providing extensive quotes from a lot of voters, both those voting 'yes' and 'no'. A number are below. Maybe the MSM is waking up.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Sunni Arabs voted in surprisingly high numbers on Iraq's new constitution Saturday, many of them hoping to defeat it in an intense competition with Shiites and Kurds over the shape of the nation's young democracy after decades of dictatorship. With little violence, turnout was more than 66 percent in the three most crucial provinces.
The constitution still seemed likely to pass, as expected. But the large Sunni turnout made it possible that the vote would be close or even go the other way, and late Saturday it appeared at least two of a required three provinces might reject it by a wide margin.
After polls opened at 7 a.m., whole families turned out at voting stations, with parents carrying young children, sometimes in holiday clothes. Men and women lined up by the hundreds in some places or kept up a constant traffic into heavily bunkered polls, dressed in their best in suits and ties or neatly pressed veils - or in shorts and flip-flops, weary from the day's Ramadan fast. ``I'm 75 years old. Everything is finished for me. But I'm going to vote because I want a good future for my children,'' Said Ahmad Fliha said after walking up a hill with the help of a relative and a soldier to a polling site in Haditha, a western Sunni town.
Some 9 million Iraqis cast ballots, election officials said, announcing a preliminary turnout estimate of 61 percent.
In Baghdad, men counted votes by lanterns because the electricity was out in parts of the city. Results were written on a chalkboard. Outside, Iraqi soldiers huddled in a courtyard, breaking their fast. Northeast of the capital, in Baqouba, men sat around long tables, putting ``yes'' votes in one pile and ``no'' votes in another.
A day that U.S. and Iraqi leaders feared could become bloody turned out to be the most peaceful in months, amid a heavy clampdown by U.S.-Iraqi forces across the country. ``The constitution is a sign of civilization,'' Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said after casting his ballot. ``This constitution has come after heavy sacrifices. It is a new birth.''
The country's Shiite majority - some 60 percent of its estimated 27 million people - and the Kurds - another 20 percent - largely support the approximately 140-article charter, which provides them with autonomy in the northern and southern regions where they are concentrated. The Sunni Arab minority, which dominated the country under Saddam Hussein and forms the backbone of the insurgency, widely opposes the draft, convinced its federalist system will tear the country into Shiite and Kurdish mini-states in the south and north, leaving Sunnis in an impoverished center.
Most Sunnis appeared to be voting ``no'' even after one major party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, came out in support of the draft because last-minute amendments promised Sunnis the chance to try to change the charter later. ``We have entered the political process now because our rights were being usurped by others who have marginalized us,'' said Sunni Hazem Jassim, 45, referring to Iraq's other factions.
The bar for Sunni opponents to defeat the constitution is high: They must get a two-thirds ``no'' vote in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces. They were likely to reach that threshold in the vast Sunni heartland of Anbar province in the west. They must snatch the two others among the provinces of Salahuddin, Ninevah or Diyala, north of Baghdad.
By late Saturday, Salahuddin appeared to be nearing a two-thirds ``no'' vote after an overwhelming showing at the polls in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, where some election officials said 90 percent of the voters cast ballots. There were no figures on Ninevah or Diyala, but those are considered harder for Sunnis to win. Each of those provinces has a Sunni Arab majority, but they also have significant Shiite or Kurdish minorities. Competition was fierce in all three, with some of the highest turnout rates in the country - well above 66 percent.
In the south, Shiite women in head-to-toe veils and men emerged from the poll stations flashing victory signs with fingers stained with violet ink to show they had voted, apparently responding in mass to the call by their top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to support the charter. ``Today, I came to vote because I am tired of terrorists, and I want the country to be safe again,'' said Zeinab Sahib, a 30-year-old mother of three, one of the first voters at a school in the mainly Shiite neighborhood of Karrada in Baghdad.
In a nearby district, Kurds lined up as well, some decked out in tradition garb of baggy pants and belted vests, or wrapped in the red-and-green Kurdish flag, emblazoned with a yellow sun. ``This document serves the ambitions of the Kurdish nation and we hope then that we will be able to determine our destiny in the future,'' said Barzan Berwari, a 45-year-old businessman.
In Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, voting was intense. ``This constitution was written by people who are loyal to Iran rather than being loyal to Iraq,'' said Hassan Maajoun, 60, reflecting some Shiites' deep suspicion of Sunni ties to neighboring Iran.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/16/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
In Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, voting was intense. ``This constitution was written by people who are loyal to Iran rather than being loyal to Iraq,'' said Hassan Maajoun, 60, reflecting some Shiites' deep suspicion of Sunni ties to neighboring Iran.
Al Q-Guardian, does the fake but accurate again.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
10/16/2005 0:21 Comments ||
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#2
Actually, I thought that was a fair quote: fair in that there are likely a number of Tikritis who think like that. It does us good to hear this; gives the government an opportunity to turn that perception around.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/16/2005 0:33 Comments ||
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#3
Once again I wonder how much better things might have been if the 4th ID had been able to sweep down out of Turkey into the Sunni triangle and grind the Baathists into the dirt.
#8
I noted with amusement the absolute despair over at CNN this morning. They were almost as blue as if George Bush had through some luck been elected to a third term.
Otherwise, the MSM emphasis I've noted: since there was almost no violence on election day, they talk about the violence "in the run up to the election".
They also emphasize that Sunnis were widely opposed to the (constitution), which they have been using their thesaurus to try to find synonyms for, that make it sound less important.
And this leads to the most amazing MSM spin of all, that the constitution *demonstrates* that the country is heading towards civil war. Now, while I wouldn't dream of trying to justify *that* statement, it's not too hard to imagine the MSM contorting themselves to do so.
#9
Lol, Moose - excellent take, IMHO. I may just mosey on over to a few of the asshat channels to see them morose and despondent and spinning like devishes... I've already heard one moron (Donk "Strategist") on Fox this AM say that this means we should start withdrawing troops and that the lack of such an announcement by Bush proves he has no exit strategy, lol. Amazing selective dervishy BS and proof that the cognitive dissonance thingy must be genetic - and the Moonbats can thus be identified for a boutique viral attack, lol. Yes, hearing them try to figure out how to make this a bad thing will make for a nice smug Saturday morning, lol.
#10
Fox last night noted this was calm compared to the "extensive" violence in January. I thought the day of the eleection was pretty calm?
This am, the WaPo mused how insurgents stopped their attacks so the Sunnis could all come out and vote "NO", while turnout in the Kurd and Shia districts was quite light.
Turn, turn, turn....
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/16/2005 10:36 Comments ||
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#11
At the moment, CNN is doing damage control by having Blitzer interview one of CNN's own correspondents about how support for the war is flagging, blah-blah.
Posted by: Matt ||
10/16/2005 12:41 Comments ||
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#12
Very old saying
"When the reporters start interviewing each other, the story's over"
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/16/2005 14:38 Comments ||
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Iran said Sunday it would not return to a full freeze of its disputed nuclear activities, but nevertheless voiced confidence it would not face referral to the UN Security Council. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has called on Iran to halt uranium conversion work at its Isfahan facility, and the European Union has set this as a condition for a resuming negotiations. But when asked if Iran would again halt uranium conversion work, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi simply replied: "No."
"The suspension was voluntary and we are not ready to go back on our decision," he told reporters, sticking by Iran's position that it only wants to make reactor fuel and that it has a right to do so as a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The refusal to suspend work at Isfahan means Iran is unlikely to resume negotiations with Britain, France and Germany ahead of the next meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board in November.
The so-called EU-3, backed by the United States, would therefore be expected to push for the case to be referred to the Security Council. "There is no judicial or legal reason to send the Iranian dossier to the Security Council," Asefi asserted. "Many countries have this view," he said, mentioning China and Russia as examples.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2005 20:48 ||
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DEBKAfile Exclusive: From Vienna, UN investigator Detlev Mehlis has demanded Syrian permission to perform an autopsy on the body of interior minister Ghazi Kenaan whom Damascus reported committed suicide last Wednesday
Mehlis is due to submit his findings on the murder of Lebanese leader Rafiq Hariri to the UN Security Council in one week. His latest action came amid the cloud of suspicion hanging over the death of the former Lebanon strongman as the investigation closed in on Damascus. Kenaan was a longtime repository of the Assad regimeâs innermost secrets and boss of its security and intelligence agencies. If not complicit, the dead man would certainly have possessed dangerous knowledge about the mechanics of a Syrian involvement in the Hariri murder plot. He was one of the seven Syrian senior officials Mehlev questioned in his inquiry.
BEIRUT: The chief UN investigator looking into the killing of Lebanon's former premier Rafiq Hariri has asked Damascus to let him probe the reported suicide of Syria's interior minister, the As-Safir newspaper said yesterday. The minister, General Ghazi Kanaan, headed Syria's military intelligence in Lebanon for 20 years. He was found dead in his Damascus office on Wednesday.
Quoting Lebanese security sources, the newspaper said investigator Detlev Mehlis had "officially asked Syria to authorise him to inquire into this suicide and to carry out an autopsy" on the general. Damascus has said that Kanaan shot himself in the mouth with his personal revolver. Some Lebanese papers, including Al-Mostaqbal, which belongs to the Hariri family, have questioned Syria's official version, while sceptics say he may have been murdered to keep him from revealing what he may have known about the Hariri case. Just hours before his death, Kanaan denied a Lebanese television report that he had received 10 million dollars for backing Hariri's election in Lebanon's 2000 parliamentary election. Last month, Kanaan was interviewed by Mehlis' commission looking into Hariri's murder on February 14. Mehlis, a German prosecutor, heads the panel, which has to report to the UN Security Council by October 25.
Meanwhile, Lebanon has taken security measures similar to a "state of emergency" ahead of the publication this month of a UN report into the murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, a minister said in remarks published yesterday. "We have taken steps similar to those of a state of emergency in order to deal with any possible repercussions," Interior Minister Hassen Sabeh was quoted by the An-Nahar daily newspaper as saying. "It is normal to expect that the report will spark political and security reactions whatever its content." Sabeh did not say what measures had been taken, but police and troops have increased patrols in the capital and surrounding area.
Posted by: DanNY ||
10/16/2005 00:00 ||
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Another man brought to Bagh by the earthquake was a very different kind of Pakistani. With a striped polo-shirt, beige trousers and better English grammar than most people in the UK, Mohammed Mustafa had come not on foot, but by car. Based in Islamabad, he had been told by his boss to go down to Kashmir to help the people there. And he had made a pretty good job of it. He set up a massive outdoor kitchen, cooking 1,200 meals a day for earthquake survivors. From Mohammed Mustafa's point of view it was plain common sense.
But this is Ramadan, the time of year that Muslims fast between sunrise and sunset. Feeding 1,200 people with no kitchen requires a bit of preparation. You need to light fires, boil rice and cook meat. It takes several hours. You have to get going in advance. But one of the local mullahs did not see it that way and he paid Mohammed Mustafa a visit.
"What are you doing?" he shouted. "Don't you know it's Ramadan now? This is just not permitted. You can't cook food during the day. It's against Islam. Stop or I'll burn this place down - your tents, your pots, everything."
"Surely," Mohammed Mustafa argued, "if the people are hungry they must eat? Look, they're suffering. I'm a Muslim too. These people have nothing, they need this food."
It was a vitriolic exchange but, in classic Pakistani style, they eventually worked out a compromise. "Cook in the day if you must," the mullah grumbled, "but if I see anyone here eating during daylight hours I'll be back and I'll set this place alight."
I asked many people in Bagh why the earthquake had happened and time and again I was told it was Allah's will. "He's punishing us for our misdeeds," they said.
"But why would Allah kill children?" I asked.
"To teach us a lesson," one mullah told me, "that we may learn that we need to live better lives."
Mullahs will only set things alight if you give them the power to do so.
A gust of wind and slight error of judgment could have wiped out the top brass of Indiaâs armed forces as well as Russiaâs defence minister on Sunday.
Russian defence minister Ivanov Borisovish, Russiaâs ambassador Trubnikov Ivonovich, Army chief Gen J J Singh, Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi and half a dozen other generals had a miraculous escape during an Indo-Russian joint exercise at the Mahajan firing range, 137 km from here, when a military jeep â paradropped from an IAF aircraft â landed near the officials watching the proceedings.
Posted by: john ||
10/16/2005 15:24 ||
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#1
I think somebody's flying career is over...
The Air Chief was measured in his response. "I would not like to comment at this moment, but I have asked the pilot for a debrief," ACM Tyagi said.
Sources in Delhi said a court of inquiry would be ordered into the incident.
Posted by: john ||
10/16/2005 15:41 Comments ||
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#2
Nawww, its Dubya's fault - ala KATRINA, Dubya and Rummy ordered USDOD's "Fascist" weather machines to deliber blow the jeep towards the Generals. Now INDIA will have no choice but to distrust the USA and work wid the Russians and Chicoms to save the world from America.
Downside risks facing the world economy, namely from rising oil prices, dominated weekend discussions among central bankers and finance ministers from industrialized and developing countries, but the relatively quiet front on China's foreign exchange policy didn't signal expectations for the yuan to appreciate will ease.
China's currency and financial openness will be the key issues discussed at the U.S.-China Joint Economic Commission, a regular forum for U.S. and Chinese officials to meet and discuss bilateral economic issues. The JEC meeting began Sunday on the heels of the G20 meeting. People's Bank of China governor Zhou Xiaochuan, Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renqing, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan are all participating in the talks.
Following the end of a two-day meeting of the G20, which includes the U.S., the European Union, as well as China, Brazil and India, the G20 issued the following statement: "We ... emphasized that the risks -- long lasting high and volatile oil prices, widening global imbalances and rising protectionist sentiments -- are to the downside and could exacerbate uncertainties and aggravate global economic and financial vulnerabilities (communique).
That, BTW, seems to be aimed at the oil producing countries ... be careful how you try to exploit the current global situation because you just might find yourselves with fewer customers
.
The communique made no reference to China's foreign-exchange reform, including only a general determination for G20 members to implement "necessary fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policies, and accelerate structural adjustments' to resolve global imbalances and overcome risks.
But delegates talking to Dow Jones Newswires on the sidelines of the main closed-door meetings mostly said they welcomed China's July move to scrap its de facto dollar peg, revaluing the yuan by 2.1% versus the dollar, and instead referencing its value to a basket of currencies. Many said they expected China to allow its currency more flexibility.
"Being public on such matters does not simplify things necessarily and can create an abnormal phenomenon of speculation that we never like," said European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet in a briefing Sunday following the meeting's conclusion. "We welcome the recent moves [by China]. We will certainly follow with great attention the future decisions of the Chinese authorities."
Canadian Revenue Minister John McCallum, representing Finance Minister Ralph Goodale at the meeting, said Saturday: "China, as a major global player, in the longer run will, I believe, have a more flexible currency."
The International Monetary Fund, which along with the World Bank is a member of the G20, also urged China to make the yuan more flexible, with Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato bringing up the issue to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in a meeting on Friday. "We see a need for Chinese authorities to give the new exchange rate system the chance to evolve and to produce more results in terms of more flexibility of the Chinese currency," Mr. Rato said during a briefing Saturday.
High Oil Prices Could Be Inflationary
However, most of the participants focused on the impact high oil prices could have on the global economy and their individual countries.
The issue is "complicated," said the People's Bank of China Mr. Zhou. "Certainly if very high prices last for a very, very long time, we will probably see inflation happen in many countries."
Saudi Arabian Finance Minister Ibrahim Abdel Aziz Al Assaf said that oil prices are out of line with market fundamentals, and Saudi Arabia is working to help stabilize world oil prices. "The nervousness of oil traders, geopolitical events and natural disasters are all affecting the equation of supply and demand," he said.
He said dialogue over high oil prices must include both oil producing and consuming countries, which he said hasn't been the case in the past. "Only when oil prices increase, [major oil consuming countries] want dialogue," he said. "When the prices are low they want to let the market forces work."
G20 countries agreed on the need to increase oil production and refining capacity, as well as increase oil investment and they expressed the need to improve the transparency and efficiency of the oil market, based on the communique.
China, U.S. Face Off Over Reforms
Top U.S. economic officials, led by Messrs. Snow and Greenspan, began talks with their Chinese counterparts Sunday on rancorous economic issues, including Beijing's currency controls and its huge and growing trade surplus. The talks followed a meeting of financial leaders of the world's leading economies that focused on coping with high oil prices and other risks to global growth.
U.S. officials said they would press Beijing to move faster on easing controls on the yuan, which critics say is undervalued by as much as 40%, pushing exports higher and contributing to a bilateral trade imbalance that topped $162 billion last year.
But they also said they want to expand the dialogue to include a wider range of reforms of its economy and financial markets.
Mr. Snow and other officials said they were planning to lobby Beijing to open its financial and other markets wider to foreign firms and to carry out reforms to encourage more domestic demand and reduce the Chinese economy's dependence on exports. Mr. Greenspan, revered in China as an economic mastermind, planned no public comments during his visit, officials said.
"If we truly want to deal with these imbalances bilaterally or multilaterally, you need to focus on more than just the currency," U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs Tim Adams told reporters.
The U.S. Treasury hopes that by putting more emphasis on China's financial reforms, it can call attention to the progress China has made in this area while also encouraging it to open wider to foreign competition.
"It does indeed help us to work with Congress to explain the enormity of the reform effort that needs to be undertaken here and how many of these things work together," Mr. Adams said.
The U.S. side also planned to present a statement on priorities for building China's financial system that calls for established foreign banks, insurance and securities firms to be eligible to set up multiple branches on the same terms that domestic firms do.
Washington also wants China to remove the $10 billion minimum requirement in assets that restricts the ability of foreign institutional investors to buy domestic securities, and to end foreign ownership caps on financial institutions and allow 100% foreign ownership of subsidiaries.
"To the extent that China succeeds in building its capital markets, it will increase the size of the Chinese economy and the world economy as well," said Christopher Cox, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Mr. Cox said he would seek closer cooperation with China's financial regulators, including initiatives to help train Chinese stock regulators and work together on investigations into market abuses.
But U.S. officials said they don't plan to ease pressure on China to allow more currency flexibility.
Chinese officials say they cannot move any faster in currency reforms after having revalued the yuan by 2.1% in July, at the same time giving up a decade-old peg to the U.S. dollar and switching to a basket of major currencies that also includes the Japanese yen and euro. The currency has gained only about 0.3% in value since then.
Participants said Sunday that the currency issue wasn't raised during the Group of e Group of 20, which included finance ministers and central banks from the richest industrialized countries, as well as big developing nations like China, India and Brazil.
But the joint statement issued after the talks included a pledge by all members to "implement necessary fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policies," dismantle trade barriers and resolve imbalances viewed as threats to global economic growth.
#1
having revalued the yuan by 2.1% in July, at the same time giving up a decade-old peg to the U.S. dollar and switching to a basket of major currencies that also includes the Japanese yen and euro. The currency has gained only about 0.3% in value since then.
#2
High oil prices are not inflationary. Only an excessively expansive monetary policy is inflationary. High oil prices may depress economic activity till the economy digests them, but they need not be inflationary. Hard to believe DowJones has reporters who don't know this, but they are probably all English or Poli Sci majors.
As votes are counted in Afghanistan's parliamentary polls, the people's emphatic rejection of the fundamentalist Taliban ideology has become clear. Afghan voters rejected outright the former Taliban leaders and declared their preference for the ballot against the bullet. Former Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil heads the list of ex-Taliban men who lost at the hustings. Muttawakil had tried his luck from Kandahar, which had served as the Taliban capital during their seven-year rule.
The other prominent ex-Taliban losers include Maulvi Qlamuddin, the Taliban minister for beating the crap out of Afghan women promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, Abdul Hakim Munib, Taliban deputy extortion and collusion trade minister and Mullah Abdul Samad Khaksar, the Taliban intelligence chief.
Shame Khaksar hasn't yet succumbed to sepsis.
All these former Taliban heavyweights broke ranks with the segments of Taliban still waging war against the US-supported Karzai government and tried their luck in the Sep 18 elections to get into the mainstream of Afghan polity.
Karzai, who had induced these leaders away from the Taliban, seems to have succeeded in throwing them out of mainstream politics. Karzai declared the "successful holding of elections as a crushing defeat of the militants".
The only Taliban renegade to have been elected and that too with a big margin, is former guerrilla commander Mullah Abdul Salam 'Rocketi' in Zabul province, which is still one of the hotbeds of terrorist violence.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/16/2005 00:15 ||
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the Taliban minister for promotion of virtue and prevention of vice..
I'll bet he did lotsa reesearch on all the infidel Haraam intranats, and at the stock yards too...uno, the goats on the spring break thingy.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
10/16/2005 0:41 Comments ||
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Norwegian envoy Trond Furuhovde held talks with the Colombo government and the Tigers to arrange a meeting to review their troubled truce. Furuhovde said here last night there had been no breakthrough in arranging early negotiations between the parties after the truce came under renewed pressure with the murder of foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in August. "I cannot say if the talks can be held in the near future," Furuhovde told reporters.
But it's a safe bet that nothing will happen.
Meanwhile, Ian Martin, an expert who is advising both sides on human rights issues and is a former head of Amnesty International, said yesterday the two parties had yet to agree on a mechanism to prevent and investigate violations.
Government's Peace Secretariat head Jayantha Dhanapala reaffirmed the government's commitment to move to a human rights declaration as agreed by both parties in March 2003, it said in a statement.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/16/2005 00:13 ||
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CAIRO - Egyptian authorities ordered on Saturday the release of a leading member of the officially banned Muslim Brotherhood who has been detained since May, officials in the state security prosecutorâs office said.
The prosecutor ordered that Essam el-Erian and three other Islamists whom the officials did not name be freed on bail of 2,000 Egyptian pounds ($348) each. Erianâs wife, Fatima, told Reuters he should be released by Sunday. Erian was arrested at his house during a crackdown on the Islamist movement.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/16/2005 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Iran said Sunday it would not return to a full freeze of its disputed nuclear activities, but nevertheless voiced confidence it would not face referral to the UN Security Council. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has called on Iran to halt uranium conversion work at its Isfahan facility, and the European Union has set this as a condition for a resuming negotiations. But when asked if Iran would again halt uranium conversion work, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi simply replied: "No." 
BEIRUT: The chief UN investigator looking into the killing of Lebanon's former premier Rafiq Hariri has asked Damascus to let him probe the reported suicide of Syria's interior minister, the As-Safir newspaper said yesterday. The minister, General Ghazi Kanaan, headed Syria's military intelligence in Lebanon for 20 years. He was found dead in his Damascus office on Wednesday.
