Bringing peace and democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan -
TURKEY AIMS AT FULL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION WITH IRAQ
TURKEY AIMS AT FULL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION WITH IRAQ, MINISTER
(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, SEPTEMBER 17 - Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu said on Thursday that Turkey desired to achieve a
comprehensive economic integration with Iraq as Anatolia news agency
reports. The first ministerial meeting of the Turkey-Iraq High-Level
Strategic Cooperation Council started at the Ciragan Palace in Istanbul.
Speaking at the meeting, Davutoglu said that Turkish and Iraqi
governments decided to plan their countries' future according to a model
partnership framework. "This will be an important milestone in our
bilateral relations and the first example of a new understanding for a
model partnership. With this initiative, various ministers of Turkey and
Iraq will come together for the first time to implement joint projects,"
Davutoglu said. The council comprised of foreign, interior, foreign
trade, public works and housing, energy, health, agriculture and
environment ministers of Turkey and Iraq. On his part, Iraqi Foreign
Minister Hoshyar Zebari thanked Turkish government for its support and
assistance after terrorist attacks in Iraq and for its help in treating
hundreds of people injured in these attacks and said his country was
eager to cooperate with Turkey to shape the future of the region.
(ANSAmed).
2009-09-17 13:31
http://www.ansamed.info/en/news/ME01.@AM48966.html
Telegraph
Lib Dems call for an end to war in Afghanistan
The Liberal Democrats will become the first major political party to
call for an end to Britain's war in Afghanistan.
By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent
Published: 7:10PM BST 21 Sep 2009
Lib Dems call for an end to the conflict in Afghanistan Photo: GORAN
TOMASEVIC/REUTERS A motion set to be approved by the Lib Dem conference
in Bournemouth on Tuesday calls on the Government to "focus on
concluding the Afghanistan mission and to report to Parliament in detail
on progress towards a withdrawal." Instead of seeking military victory
over the Taliban, Lib Dems say Britain's priority in Afghanistan should
be the "pursuit of a ceasefire".
The Lib Dems are hardening their position on Afghanistan amid growing
questions over Nato's attempts to bring stability and democracy to the
country. The recent Afghan election was widely criticised for ballot
rigging. Eight years after Nato forces entered Afghanistan, the Taliban
insurgency continues, corruption and drug production remain widespread
and the country is still one of the world's poorest. In a report leaked
on Monday in Washington, General Stanley McChrystal, the Nato commander
in Afghanistan, warned that without more international troops and a new
strategy, the Afghan mission "will likely result in failure." There are
9,000 British troops in Afghanistan and British commanders expect Gen
McChrystal to ask for more. However, British ministers are reluctant to
send more men, and growing political scepticism about the war may
reinforce that reluctance. Polls show that British support for the war
is waning as the death tool rises. A total of 217 British service
personnel have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001. The latest to die
was a soldier from 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, killed by an
explosion on patrol in Helmand province, the Ministry of Defence
announced on Monday. The Lib Dem motion suggests that instead of
fighting the Taliban, Nato countries should focus on concluding a
regional peace deal with them, other Afghan groups and neighbouring
countries. Tabled as an emergency motion by party members from
Leicestershire and the Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats group, the
motion is expected to be endorsed by the conference on Tuesday morning.
Unlike Labour, whose leaders routinely ignore conference votes, Lib Dem
rules say motions passed by the party conference must be adopted as
formal party policy. The Lib Dem motion says: "Progress towards peace
should not depend on gaining the upper hand militarily since such a
condition is hard to define, it will delay a peace settlement and it
effectively puts the potential for political progress in the hands of
military force." It adds: "The primary and urgent security aim now
should be to stop the killing on all sides." The Lib Dems have already
backed plans for the pay of low-ranking service men and women in
Afghanistan to be raised by up to £6,000 to match that of police
officers and firemen. The party's conference in Bournemouth also backed
plans to speed up the refurbishment of military accommodation and
improved medical care. Nick Harvey, the defence spokesman, said: "Under
our proposals, no soldier that serves on the frontline in Afghanistan
would be on less than the basic salary of a police constable or
firefighter. "No service family would be living in a home that is unfit
for habitation, let alone unfit for heroes. "No veteran would be
isolated or left to deal with their psychological war wounds alone." The
Lib Dems have so far stopped short of calling for withdrawal from
Afghanistan, but Mr Clegg has said that British lives are being "wasted"
in the conflict. Ed Davey, the party's foreign affairs spokesman, said
on Sunday that Britain should "take tea" with the Taliban to strike a
peace settlement. Gordon Brown has hinted at an exit strategy from
Afghanistan, calling for an international summit to agree "timelines" on
handing responsibility to the Afghan government. The Tories back the
continued British deployment, but have strongly criticized the recent
election. Mark Cann of the British Forces Foundation, a military
charity, said the Lib Dem move could "undermine" the morale of British
personnel in Afghanistan. He said: "I think everyone in the country has
concerns about the conflict. But pulling out for political reasons is
not a good reason. "This chips away at support and contributes to a
general sense that what they are doing and have done is not important.
Given the sacrifices they are making that is not an impression anyone
should be giving."
Telegraph
Afghan mission risks 'failure' without more troops, says US general The
war in Afghanistan will be lost unless more troops are deployed and
their strategy totally revised, the commander of Nato forces in the
country has said in a confidential report to President Barack Obama.
By Alex Spillius in Washington
Published: 4:36PM BST 21 Sep 2009
Army General Stanley McChrystal Photo: REUTERS
Months after another 17,000 US military personnel were ordered into
combat - with a further 4,000 sent to train the new Afghan army -
General Stanley McChrystal said that unless the Taliban's "momentum" was
reversed, America and her allies may reach a position where "defeating
the insurgency is no longer possible". With their present tactics, Gen
McChrystal said the international contingents were actually making the
situation worse. "As formidable as the threat may be, we make the
problem harder," he wrote, adding that his force was "poorly configured"
for fighting insurgents, "inexperienced in local languages and culture,
and struggling with challenges inherent to coalition warfare".
All these "intrinsic disadvantages are exacerbated by our current
operational culture", he wrote. Nato's mission was "pre-occupied with
protection of our own forces" and operated in a way that "distances us
-- physically and psychologically -- from the people we seek to
protect." But changing the way that Nato fights and adopting more
effective tactics will inevitably require more troops. Gen McChrystal
wrote: "Resources will not win this war, but under-resourcing could lose
it. Failure to provide adequate resources also risks a longer conflict,
greater casualties, higher overall costs and ultimately, a critical loss
of political support. Any of these risks, in turn, are likely to result
in mission failure." This sombre, 66-page report was written on Aug 30
and then submitted to the Pentagon. A declassified version was passed to
the Washington Post. The general has not yet specified how many more
troops he wants, but the number would start at about 10,000. There are
already 62,000 Americans fighting in Afghanistan - a total that will
soon rise to 68,000 - alongside 9,000 Britons and 30,000 troops from
other countries. Gen McChrystal's request for reinforcements presents Mr
Obama with perhaps the toughest decision of his presidency. There is
increasing opposition in America at large, and particularly within his
Democratic party, to sending more troops. Senior Pentagon figures have
begun to complain privately about his lengthy, deliberative review of
the report. In a series of television interviews on Sunday, the
president made clear he was sceptical about further reinforcements.
"Until I'm satisfied that we've got the right strategy I'm not going to
be sending some young man or woman over there - beyond what we already
have," he told NBC. The counter-insurgency tactics that Gen McChrystal
will adopt focus on protecting ordinary Afghans and winning their
support, rather than capturing or killing Taliban fighters.
Gen McChrystal made clear that Afghanistan could still be turned around.
"While the situation is serious, success is still achievable," he wrote.
"This starts with redefining both the fight itself and what we need for
the fight. It is then sustained through a fundamentally new way of doing
business."
Tim Ripley, from Jane's Defence Weekly, said Afghanistan would be harder
to redeem than Iraq, where America dominated a single chain of command.
"Think of all the parts. You've got America, the president, Congress,
the Pentagon. You've got the Afghan government and security forces,
Nato, Pakistan. And that's just the people who are supposed to be on our
side," he said.
Telegraph
Taliban has got stronger warns General Petraeus
General David Petraeus, the overall commander of troops in Afghanistan,
has painted a bleak picture of the security situation admitting that the
Taliban has “without question” increased its strength in the country.
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
Published: 7:00AM BST 18 Sep 2009
General David Petraeus: the US commander in Afghanistan has warned the
Taliban have got stronger. Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES Gen Petraeus said the
current security situation in the country was equivalent to the most
violent period in Iraq said during a speech in London last night. But
the “mission was still doable” and although the challenges in
Afghanistan were significant “the stakes are high”.
The American general, who orchestrated the successful “surge”
strategy in Iraq, said: “As in Iraq in 2007 everything is hard and
it’s hard all the time.” But the West needed to be “realistic and
clear that the campaign requires sustained commitment”.
He said there had been a 60 per cent increase in violence in the last
year although some of this was attributable to Nato’s increase of
offensive operations.
“The Taliban without question have expanded their strength and
influence” in certain districts of Afghanistan,” he told a select
audience of military, security services and political figures at the
Policy Exchange think tank.
In many districts there was the feeling of a “downward spiral present”
in terms of progress. The Taliban were funding their campaign not only
by the drugs trade and crime but also with “donations from
outsiders”. The military had recognised the limitation of special
forces in Afghanistan and the need to concentrate on winning over the
population. He also listed Iran as one of the main threats to stability
in the region with its continued support of “proxy malign elements”
and development of a nuclear weapon. From the turbulence of the recent
election he suggested a “thugocracy” might be emerging with
opposition leaders arrested. But Tehran’s actions had acted a
recruiting sergeant to the West’s case in the region and it was no
coincidence that the US had two Aegis-class anti-missile warships in the
Gulf and eight Patriot counter-missile batteries. Iran was also
continuing to fund and train rouge militias in Iraq equipping them with
sophisticated bomb-making technology. Unlike some of his colleagues in
the US military Gen Petraeus went out of his way to praise the British
military which had “qualities of sheer competence as well as mental
and physical courage”. He singled out the SAS as “absolutely
extraordinary at what they do” and Britain was “privileged to have
such troops”.
Telegraph
Afghanistan election: Hamid Karzai admits officials were 'partial'
towards him Hamid Karzai has admitted that government officials showed
bias in his favour in Afghanistan's fraud-riddled presidential election.
By Julius Cavendish in Kabul
Published: 6:21PM BST 17 Sep 2009
President Hamid Karzai has admitted that government officials showed
bias in his favour in Afghanistan's fraud-riddled presidential election
Photo: EPA In his first public acknowledgement that there was fraud in
last month's polls, he conceded that "there were some government
officials who were partial toward me". But he insisted that the issues
of ballot box stuffing had been overblown and that such allegations
feature in elections all over the world.
He stopped short of implicating members of the Independent Election
Commission, all of whom are Karzai appointees and some of whom admitted
that they broke their own rules by counting suspicious ballots during
the tally. Instead President Karzai dismissed allegations of widespread
fraud as media exaggeration, insisting that the vote was still valid.
"Like other elections of the world ... there were problems and
sensitivities in the Afghanistan elections, but it has not been to the
extent which the media speak of," he said. "If there was fraud, it was
small - it happens all over the world." Mr Karzai added that he had so
far only seen concrete evidence that 1,200 ballots were faked. Hee said
that if some government officials had been overzealous in their support
for him, then others had favoured his chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah.
"That's something that we understand and we must accept for now until
Afghanistan grows further into a more stable state structure, into a
more bureaucratised civil service and into a more apolitical
institutionalised civil and military service in the country," he said.
Complete but uncertified results released on Wednesday showed Mr Karzai
winning the election in a single round with 54.6 per cent of the vote.
Dr Abdullah trailed on 27.8 per cent. Mr Karzai also accused journalists
of misreporting what had happened on election day, by concentrating on
the allegations that hundreds of thousands of ballots might be fake and
not paying proper respect for the bravery of the Afghan people to turn
out and vote. "Almost half of the country was under attack, hundreds of
rockets came on election sites all over the country, but people even
then came out and voted," he said. European Union election observers
announced earlier in the week that 1.1 million votes cast for Mr Karzai
were suspect, compared with about 300,000 for Dr Abdullah. The UN-backed
watchdog investigating complaints of fraud has annulled about 200,000
ballots and ordered a recount of 10 per cent of votes.
Telegraph
General Sir David Richards: Afghans losing patience with Nato 'failure'
General Sir David Richards, the new head of the British Army, has said
that Afghans are losing patience with Nato’s “failure” to deliver
progress in the battle with the Taliban.
By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent
Published: 6:15PM BST 17 Sep 2009
General Sir David Richards takes up his post as the Western mission in
Afghanistan faces growing questions from voters and politicians Photo:
AFP Sir David insisted that the alliance can still succeed in
Afghanistan, but warned that Western forces risk losing the support of
the Afghan population. In his first speech since becoming Chief of the
General Staff, Sir David also warned that Britain’s Armed Forces need
fundamental reform to prepare them for a generation of irregular
conflicts like the Afghan war.
Sir David takes up his post as the Western mission in Afghanistan
faces growing questions from voters and politicians. A mounting British
death toll and doubts about the integrity of recent Afghan elections
have fuelled doubts about campaign. Eight years after Nato forces
entered Afghanistan, the Taliban insurgency continues, corruption and
drug production remain widespread and the country is still one of the
world’s poorest. In a frank assessment of the situation, Sir David
said: “Over 80 per cent of the Afghan population still doggedly want
their government and the international community to succeed, although
their patience with our failure to meet the expectations of progress we
ironically have done much to create is undoubtedly beginning to flag.”
Still, he insisted that “despite their frustrations with the speed of
progress”, the majority of Afghans remain supportive of the Western
intervention. After reviewing the Nato mission in Afghanistan, General
Stanley McChrystal, the head of allied forces in the country, is soon
expected to make a formal request for more Western troops. British
ministers are wary of adding to the 9,000 British personnel currently
deployed, but Sir David hinted at support for a reinforcement. He said:
“We should be part of that process, preserving our relationship with
the USA in the process but, more importantly, seeing through this thing
we started.”
In a Chatham House speech, Sir David also called for a fundamental shift
in the way the Armed Forces operate and equip themselves, reducing their
focus on conventional state-vs-state warfare in order to concentrate on
dealing with insurgencies and other irregular conflicts.
Suggesting that Britain should spend less money on traditional systems
like fighter jets and warships, the general said the Forces faced a
turning point like that after the First World War when some commanders
resisted replacing horse-borne cavalry with tanks and other motorised
units.
Without a profound change in attitude and strategy, British forces will
not be ready for the conflicts of the future, he said. Sir David said:
“If this, arguably at least our generation’s ‘horse and tank
moment’, is not gripped our armed forces will try, with inadequate
resources, to be all things to all conflicts and perhaps fail to succeed
properly in any.”
Telegraph
British Afghanistan commander Major General Nick Carter: 'Time is not on
our side' Major General Nick Carter, the British general soon to take
charge of British troops in Afghanistan, has warned time is not on the
side of those battling the Taliban.
By Aislinn Laing
Published: 7:33AM BST 18 Sep 2009
Britain currently has around 8,300 troops in Afghanistan Photo: PA Maj
Gen Carter said there exists an "opportunity" for the 45,000 Armed
Forces personnel currently serving in Afghanistan to make a difference
in the next year. But he conceded that without the "luxury" of time,
forces needed to show "positive trends" as quickly as they can.
"We can't be everywhere... we've... got to focus on achievable
objectives," he told the BBC's Security Correspondent Frank Gardner. "I
think security where we know the population is living, freedom of
movement on the key highways – that means the Afghan economy can start
to kick-start itself, and that people can begin to take a stake in their
community – is the way in which we will achieve success." His comments
follow those of a series of senior military leaders in both the UK and
the US. This week, the new head of the British Army, General Sir David
Richards, said that Afghans were losing patience with Nato’s
“failure” to deliver progress in the battle with the Taliban. He
also warned that defeat for allied forces in Afghanistan would have an
"intoxicating impact" on extremists around the world. At the same time,
US Central Command chief General David Petraeus warned in a lecture that
the campaign in Afghanistan would require a “sustained, substantial,
commitment”. He admitted that the Taliban had “without question”
increased its strength in the country, adding bleakly that "everything
in Afghanistan is hard". Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has also
joined forces with Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown, who was at one time
expected to become the UN's special representative in Afghanistan, to
warn that Nato forces must change their policies if they are to stand
any chance of success. The pair also called on Brown to reform the
special war cabinet created during other wars and a minister for
Afghanistan, as well as sending more aid money to the country. "British
soldiers are fighting the war at full capacity; but their government is
not," they said. Maj Gen Carter said the surge of forces in Afghanistan
presented an opportunity. "We don't have the luxury of time, but 18
months ago there were probably 1,500 American soldiers in the south.
There are now 25,000," he said. "And there's an awful lot more resources
coming into the south as well. And with this amount of effort, I think
that we do have an opportunity, during the course of the next year, to
make a difference. "But I absolutely acknowledge that time is not on our
side, and we've got to show positive trends as quickly as we possibly
can." He said his forces would seize the initiative from the Taliban by
separating insurgents from the civilian population physically and
mentally. "It's about fundamentally getting [the civilian population] to
realise that the institutions that we're partnering and the...
reconstruction teams... are worth supporting, rather than the
insurgent," he said. "I think that it will happen slowly, but my
goodness me, there'll be a tipping point when the population will
suddenly realise that it's worth being with its government institutions,
rather than with the insurgent."
2009-09-17 14:15
Kabul attack worst since Nassiriya
Heaviest loss of life by Italian forces in Afghanistan
(ANSA) - Rome, September 17 - Thursday's suicide attack in Kabul killing
six Italian soldiers was the single heaviest loss of life to be suffered
by Italy since a car bomb in Iraq killed 19 Italians in 2003.
Twelve Carabinieri military police, five army soldiers and two civilians
were killed on November 12, 2003 when two vehicles loaded with
explosives drove into the Italian base in Nassiriya and exploded.
Eight Iraqis were also killed in the attack.
A total of 21 Italians have now died in Afghanistan, 16 in combat and
six from other causes.
Before Thursday, the most serious attacks were a pair of roadside bombs
in 2006, which killed two soldiers each. The last Italian to die in
Afghanistan, on 14 July, was also the victim of a roadside bomb.
http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2009-09-17_117408698
.html
Scanned in from the News Letter
www.newsletter.co.uk
Aug/Sep 2009
Belfast
Dealing with horrors of war
A team of highly-skilled and supremely-dedicated staff manage probably
the most challenging hospital environment in the world - the Camp
Bastion field hospital in Helmand province - SAM MARSDEN reports
EVERY day the helicopters bring in new casualties with horrific wounds,
and every day the staff of the Camp Bastion field hospital calmly get on
with saving their lives.
The record British death toll in Afghanistan this summer - 22 soldiers
were killed in July alone -would have been even higher without the
world-class treatment given to wounded troops.
The doctors and nurses at the state-of-the-art field hospital at Camp
Bastion, the main UK military base in Helmand province, admit it has
been a gruelling few months.
But they continue to work around the clock dealing with all the patients
brought through their doors, from British troops with gunshot wounds
from a Taliban firefight to Afghan children who have lost both legs in
an improvised explosive device (IED) blast.
For a period last year, the hospital was largely run by a unit of around
70 Territorial Army medics from Northern Ireland.
The reservists - deployed on a three-month tour of duty - dealt with
around 600 admissions to the hospital and carried out almost 400
operations, providing medical care and support to the casualties from
the Armed Forces, the Afghan National army, the Taliban and Afghan
civilians, including children.
On their return to the Province in October, Health Minister Michael
McGimpsey said he was "deeply impressed by their bravery, and the
compassion and care they showed for all their patients".
Now the hospital's medical director is Colonel Tim Hodgetts, who has
previously done four tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. He jokes that
in terms of his working hours it is like being a junior doctor again.
"The last month I've been here has been a very intense period," he said.
"It's been busier here than probably any other tour I've done, including
war fighting in 2003 in Iraq, and it's been sustained."
About half the casualties admitted to the hospital are British
servicemen, some of whom have lost two and sometimes three limbs in IED
attacks.
The medics also treat other Nato troops based in southern Afghanistan -
primarily Americans, but also Danes and Estonians - and Afghan soldiers,
police officers and civilians.
The wounded are generally flown in on a UK or US military helicopter and
can arrive at any time of the day or night, although there are certain
regular peaks in activity.
Col Hodgetts said: "Some of the worst things seem to happen in the
morning, when the patrols go out and IEDs have been laid in the night.
"The guys are coming in with horrific amputations."
The 200 hospital staff - currently half Danish, a quarter British and a
quarter American - daily treat injuries they would hardly ever encounter
back home.
That morning an Afghan child had died after arriving with a penetrating
brain injury from an IED blast.
Col Hodgetts said: "You would see more paediatric trauma in three months
here than you probably would in a lifetime in an NHS hospital.
"It's quite harrowing for the staff to deal with injured children. The
innocence and vulnerability is upsetting."
The Camp Bastion field hospital is set up so casualties can be
resuscitated in the operating theatre while the surgeons scrub up.
At times there can be as many as 20 members of staff working on a
seriously injured patient.
Col Hodgetts said: "They can have their operation within minutes of
arriving at the hospital.
"This is critical for our patients, especially bilateral amputees, of
whom we see far too many." .
People who donate blood in the UK may not realise that a significant
amount of it is used to save the lives of wounded British troops in
Afghanistan.
Some casualties - such as those who have several limbs amputated - need
"enormous amounts" of blood, in some cases up to 32 litres.
Col Hodgetts praised the "phenomenal" logistics chain that delivers
-huge quantities of blood products to Afghanistan.
On rare occasions the hospital runs low on blood, but there is no
shortage of willing donors in Camp Bastion.
Col Hodgetts said: "We put a tannoy message out to the camp, and we were
overwhelmed, even though it was in the middle of the night.
"The US Marines came over in a bus and said, 'we'll help'. The goodwill
is absolutely huge."
Critically wounded British troops are generally flown back to the UK
within 24 to 48 hours, but Afghans tend to stay in the hospital for
longer because they will not receive adequate treatment at local health
facilities.
Those treated at the hospital can include suspected insurgents, although
the staff insist that everyone receives the same care.
Col Hodgetts said: "What we will do is try and use areas of the ward for
different types of patient. If necessary we will screen certain patients
off.
"But the underlying, fundamental principle for us is we are just
treating people to the same standard.
"I know it must be uncomfortable for the soldiers so be close to a
potential enemy, but at the moment that is the way it is, the way that
it's been for serial deployments before us."
Many more troops now survive their wounds thanks to the quality of the
trauma care offered in Afghanistan.
In a study of 296 service personnel and civilians who survived seriously
injuries after being treatment at Camp Bastion field hospital between
April 2006 and July 2008, an expert panel found that 75 would not have
been expected to live.
Col Hodgetts said: "There are people surviving now who probably would
not have survived 12 months ago."
But despite these incredible statistics, death is ever present in the
hospital.
Col Hodgetts deals with all fatalities personally, feeling it is unfair
to pass the grim job onto hjs staff.
"I will have seen between 60 and 70 dead since I got here in mid-July.
It's a case of examining the body, doing a death certificate," he said.
"It's a horrible, horrible place to be, particularly when you are
dealing with our own guys."
--
Telegraph
Nato mission in Afghanistan 'risks failure' without more troops, says
Stanley McChrystal The senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army
General Stanley McChrystal, says in a confidential assessment of the war
that without additional forces and a new strategy, the mission "will
likely result in failure".
Reuters
Published: 9:39AM BST 21 Sep 2009
Army General Stanley McChrystal Photo: REUTERS
The assessment is contained in a 66-page document, an unclassified
version of which was obtained by The Washington Post and published on
its website on Monday. General McChrystal's spokesman in Kabul confirmed
it was genuine. Below are some of the main points included in the
assessment.
* General McChrystal says despite some progress being made, many
indicators point to a general deterioration in the overall state of the
country. If the government were to fall to the Taliban, he says,
Afghanistan could again become a base for terrorism. "We face not only a
resilient and growing insurgency; there is also a crisis of confidence
among Afghans - in both their government and the international community
- that undermines our credibility and emboldens the insurgents."
* General McChrystal says he needs a "jump" in resources, both civilian
and military to defeat the insurgency. While not outlining any specific
numbers, he says Afghanistan has been historically under-resourced and
remains so today. He says he will submit a review of resources at a
later date. Resources will not win the war, General McChrystal says, but
"under-resourcing" could lose it.
* Apart from more resources, General McChrystal says what is also needed
is a new strategy that is credible and sustainable for ordinary Afghans.
Instead of concentrating on "seizing terrain" and "destroying"
insurgents, the objective must be gaining the support of the population.
A perception that international forces have an "uncertain resolve", he
says makes Afghans reluctant to align with the foreign forces against
the Taliban. "Additional resources are required, but focusing on force
or resource requirements misses the point entirely. The key take away
from this assessment is the urgent need for a significant change to our
strategy and the way that we think and operate," he says.
* General McChrystal says foreign forces need to think differently about
the impact of time on their efforts in Afghanistan. Instead of seeing it
in terms of annual "fighting seasons" international forces should be
focused on a year-round campaign aimed at winning the support of the
people, by protecting them from insurgent coercion and intimidation.
General McChrystal says forces in Afghanistan faced both a long-term
fight, which would require patience and commitment, and a short-term
fight, where failure to gain the initiative would mean it would be no
longer possible to defeat the insurgency.
* General McChrystal says the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) are
not large enough to fight the Taliban and that demonstrable progress by
the government and the ANSF over the next 12 to 18 months is critical to
maintain the support of the international community. He says the size of
the Afghan army needed to increase from a planned strength of 134,000 to
an estimated 240,000. There are currently around 92,000 soldiers in the
army. The Afghan police force, which lags years behind the army, needs
to grow from 84,000 police to 160,000, he says.
* Detention operations in Afghanistan, although critical to
counter-insurgency operations, have the potential to become a "strategic
liability" for international forces, says General McChrystal. He says
Afghans see U.S. detention operations as secretive and lacking in due
process. All detention centres, he says, including the prison at Bagram
Air Base, are to be eventually handed over to the Afghan authorities
when they have the capacity to run them.
AQ Khan nails Pakistan's nuke lies
CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA, TNN 21 September 2009, 12:00am IST
WASHINGTON: An angry, humiliated, and wounded A.Q.Khan has finally made
public and official what has long been suspected: his nuclear
proliferation activities that included exchanging and passing
blue-prints and equipment to China, Iran, North Korea, and Libya was
done at the behest of the Pakistani government and military, and he was
forced to take the rap for it. ( Watch Video )
''The bastards first used us and are now playing dirty games with us,''
Khan writes about the Pakistani leadership in a December 2003 letter to
his wife Henny that has finally been made public by an interlocutor.
''Darling, if the government plays any mischief with me take a tough
stand,'' he tells his wife, adding, ''They might try to get rid of me to
cover up all the things they got done by me.''
But Henny was unable to play hardball because Khan had also sent copies
of that letter to his daughter Dina in London, and to his niece Kausar
Khan in Amsterdam through his brother, a Pakistan Airlines executive.
Pakistani intelligence agencies got wind of it and threatened the
well-being of the family, forcing him to recant and publicly take the
blame for the proliferation activities in a humiliating television
spectacle engineered by then military ruler Pervez Musharraf.
However, a copy of the four-page letter reached Khan’s long-time
journalistic contact Simon Henderson20in 2007. In fact, in the letter,
Khan tells his wife, ''Get in touch with Simon Henderson and give him
all the details.'' Henderson says when he acquired the copy of the
letter, he was shocked. His acquaintance with Khan goes back to the late
1970s, but it was never intimate, and consisted of an occasional
interviews and conversations, and seasonal greetings.
Describing the four-page letter as ''extraordinary,'' Henderson says in
numbered paragraphs, it outlines Pakistan’s nuclear co-operation
with China, Iran and North Korea, and also mentions Libya. Some of the
disclosures are stunning , and in one para that is bound to embarrass
Beijing, besides implicating it, Khan writes about how Pakistan helped
China in enrichment technology in return for bomb blueprints.
''We put up a centrifuge plant at Hanzhong (250km southwest of
Xian),� Khan writes. “The Chinese gave us drawings of the
nuclear weapon, gave us 50kg of enriched uranium, gave us 10 tons of UF6
(natural) and 5 tons of UF6 (3%).'' UF6 is uranium hexafluoride, the
gaseous feedstock for an enrichment plan.
On Iran, the letter says: ''Probably with the blessings of BB [Benazir
Bhutto]...General Imtiaz [Benazir’s defence adviser, now dead]
asked me to give a set of drawings and some components to the Iranians.
The names and addresses of suppliers were also given to the Iranians.''
On North Korea: ''[A now-retired general] took $3million through me from
the N. Koreans and asked me to
give some drawings and machines.''
Henderson does not explain why he waited nearly two years since he got
hold of the letter to make it public. But he writes sympathetically
about Khan’s travails in Pakistan, where he is held largely
incommunicado under house arrest. The Pakistani government and the
military have repeatedly rejected and challenged court orders to free
him, and an episode last month, where Khan was freed just for a day on
court orders before Islamabad locked him up again under pressure from
Washington, appears to have precipitated the leak of the explosive
letter.
Henderson’s Sunday Times expose also implicates the U.S and other
western powers, who he says, basically shoved Islamabad’s rampant
proliferation (while blaming it solely on Khan) under the carpet in
order to get Pakistan’s cooperation in the war on terror. The
move also saved Washington from huge embarrassment since it was
basically asleep on the watch when Pakistan began its nuclear
proliferation and then winked at it when it was discovered, all the
while lavishing billions in military supplies on its unstable client
state.
PAK GOVT RESCUED BROKE A.Q.KHAN WITH $ 2500 PER MONTH PENSION
Henderson also implicitly defends Khan from charges that he profited
from proliferation activities, as alleged by deposed military ruler
Pervez Musharraf. Khan, he says, is adamant that he never sold nuclear
secrets for personal gain. So what about the millions of dollars he rep
ortedly made?
''Nothing was confiscated from him and no reported investigation turned
up hidden accounts. Having planted rumours about Khan’s greed,
Pakistani officials were curiously indifferent to following them
through,'' Henderson writes.
According to Henderson, much was made of a ''hotel'', named after
Khan’s wife, Henny, built by a local tour guide with the help of
money from Khan and a group of friends in Timbuktu. But it is a modest
structure at best, more of a guesthouse, he says. A weekend home at Bani
Gala, outside Islamabad, where Khan went to relax, is hardly the palace
that some reports have made it.
In fact, says Henderson, Khan was close to being broke by the summer
2007, when he was finding it difficult to make ends meet on his pension
of 12,200 (Pakistani) rupees per month. After pleading with General
Khalid Kidwai, the officer supervising both Pakistan’s nuclear
weapons and Khan, the pension was increased to $2,500 per month and
there was a one-off lump-sum payment of the equivalent of $50,000.
Hendersen says he has copies of the agreement and cheques.
Henderson’s 3000-word expose also reveals a couple of intriguing
tid-bits that should interest the world’s strategic community,
including New Delhi. Besides details of the Pakistan-China nexus, he
says Pakistan tested only two devices in its 1998 tit-for-tat nuclear
tests that followed India.
While Pakistan claims it conducted six tests to be one-u p on
India’s five tests, Western experts and seismologists have long
said they recorded only two signals for devices that measured between
two and four kilotons. Khan also states clearly that China gave Pakistan
designs for the nuclear bombs.
In fact, in one colorful passage in his article, Henderson describes how
Khan was warned by a Chinese counterpart about the Pakistani Army. On a
visit to Kahuta, Li Chew, the senior minister who ran China’s
nuclear-weapons programme, tells Khan, ''As long as they need the bomb,
they will lick your balls. As soon as you have delivered the bomb, they
will kick your balls.''
Henderson himself seems deeply conscious of any perception that he is
close to Khan or that he is a cat’s paw for any country. ''Any
relationship with a source is fraught with potential difficulties. One
doesn’t want to be blind to the chance of being used. Government
officials and politicians in any country are seldom interested in the
simple truth. They all have their particular story to tell. In this
context, I am frankly amazed that Khan has chosen me to be his
interlocutor with the world,'' he writes.
But Pakistani authorities were clearly aware that he and Khan had been
in touch and Khan may have managed to smuggle a copy of the letter
implicating Islamabad to him. Henderson says in a court document that
Khan was asked to sign when he was promised freedom, there is a line
that read “That in case Mr Simon Henderson or anyone else proceeds
with the publication of any information or material anywhere in the
world, I affirm that it would not be based on any input from me and I
disown it.� That line was eventually deleted and replaced with a
more general prohibition about unnamed ''specific media personnel.''
In other words, stand by for a flurry of denials.
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:57:14 -0400
UK troops tortured Iraqi detainees, Inquiry finds
Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:15:46 GMT
British troops have violated international law in Iraqi prisons on
numnerous occasions through the "banned interrogation methods," a public
inquiry reveals.
The yearlong inquiry into the 2003 death of Baha Mousa states that the
26-year-old hotel receptionist died in UK military custody in Basra,
southern Iraq, in September 2003 after being subjected to humiliating
abuse.
Baha Mousa's night shift on the reception desk was coming to an end on
September 14, 2003 and his father had just arrived to drive him home.
Then soldiers from the former Queen's Lancashire Regiment raided Basra's
Ibn al-Haytham hotel and took Mousa along with six other hotel employees
to Battle Group Main camp, known as BG Main. Four days later Baha was
dead.
He was said to have been subjected to "conditioning techniques",
including being forced to maintain painful "stress positions", hooding
and deprivation of sleep and food.
When his father, Daoud Mousa, a stout colonel in the Basra police force,
arrived at the British military morgue to identify his son's body he was
confronted with a bruised, bloody and badly beaten corpse.
"When they took the cover off his body I could see his nose was broken
badly," he said. "There was blood coming from his nose and his mouth.
The skin on his wrists had been torn off. The skin on his forehead was
torn away and beneath his eyes there was no skin either. On the left
side of his chest there were clear blue bruises and also on his abdomen.
On his legs I saw bruising from kicking. I couldn't stand it."
Rabinder Singh QC, counsel for Mousa's family and other Iraqis detained
with him, has meanwhile said, "This case is not just about beatings or a
few bad apples. There is something rotten in the whole barrel."
Singh went on to note, "One of the striking features of the terrible
events of BG Main in September 2003 is that the abuse did not take place
in a secret location behind closed doors. The temporary detention
facility (TDF) was open to the outside. Many people must have seen or
heard what was going on. Many seem to have visited the TDF."
"This gives rise to serious questions about the professionalism of the
outfit and whether the culture was one of impunity. It also gives rise
to serious questions about the capacity of the regiment's members to
question and challenge abuse."
Baha's two sons, Hassan, 3, and Hussein, 5, are orphans. Their
22-year-old mother died of cancer six months before Baha.
The British Ministry of Defense has already agreed to pay a total of GBP
3 million (USD 4.8 million) in compensation to Mousa's family and other
detainees who have been subjected to abuse.
TURKEY AIMS AT FULL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION WITH IRAQ, MINISTER
(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, SEPTEMBER 17 - Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu said on Thursday that Turkey desired to achieve a
comprehensive economic integration with Iraq as Anatolia news agency
reports. The first ministerial meeting of the Turkey-Iraq High-Level
Strategic Cooperation Council started at the Ciragan Palace in Istanbul.
Speaking at the meeting, Davutoglu said that Turkish and Iraqi
governments decided to plan their countries' future according to a model
partnership framework. "This will be an important milestone in our
bilateral relations and the first example of a new understanding for a
model partnership. With this initiative, various ministers of Turkey and
Iraq will come together for the first time to implement joint projects,"
Davutoglu said. The council comprised of foreign, interior, foreign
trade, public works and housing, energy, health, agriculture and
environment ministers of Turkey and Iraq. On his part, Iraqi Foreign
Minister Hoshyar Zebari thanked Turkish government for its support and
assistance after terrorist attacks in Iraq and for its help in treating
hundreds of people injured in these attacks and said his country was
eager to cooperate with Turkey to shape the future of the region.
(ANSAmed).
2009-09-17 13:31
http://www.ansamed.info/en/news/ME01.@AM48966.html
Telegraph
Lib Dems call for an end to war in Afghanistan
The Liberal Democrats will become the first major political party to
call for an end to Britain's war in Afghanistan.
By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent
Published: 7:10PM BST 21 Sep 2009
Lib Dems call for an end to the conflict in Afghanistan Photo: GORAN
TOMASEVIC/REUTERS A motion set to be approved by the Lib Dem conference
in Bournemouth on Tuesday calls on the Government to "focus on
concluding the Afghanistan mission and to report to Parliament in detail
on progress towards a withdrawal." Instead of seeking military victory
over the Taliban, Lib Dems say Britain's priority in Afghanistan should
be the "pursuit of a ceasefire".
The Lib Dems are hardening their position on Afghanistan amid growing
questions over Nato's attempts to bring stability and democracy to the
country. The recent Afghan election was widely criticised for ballot
rigging. Eight years after Nato forces entered Afghanistan, the Taliban
insurgency continues, corruption and drug production remain widespread
and the country is still one of the world's poorest. In a report leaked
on Monday in Washington, General Stanley McChrystal, the Nato commander
in Afghanistan, warned that without more international troops and a new
strategy, the Afghan mission "will likely result in failure." There are
9,000 British troops in Afghanistan and British commanders expect Gen
McChrystal to ask for more. However, British ministers are reluctant to
send more men, and growing political scepticism about the war may
reinforce that reluctance. Polls show that British support for the war
is waning as the death tool rises. A total of 217 British service
personnel have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001. The latest to die
was a soldier from 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, killed by an
explosion on patrol in Helmand province, the Ministry of Defence
announced on Monday. The Lib Dem motion suggests that instead of
fighting the Taliban, Nato countries should focus on concluding a
regional peace deal with them, other Afghan groups and neighbouring
countries. Tabled as an emergency motion by party members from
Leicestershire and the Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats group, the
motion is expected to be endorsed by the conference on Tuesday morning.
Unlike Labour, whose leaders routinely ignore conference votes, Lib Dem
rules say motions passed by the party conference must be adopted as
formal party policy. The Lib Dem motion says: "Progress towards peace
should not depend on gaining the upper hand militarily since such a
condition is hard to define, it will delay a peace settlement and it
effectively puts the potential for political progress in the hands of
military force." It adds: "The primary and urgent security aim now
should be to stop the killing on all sides." The Lib Dems have already
backed plans for the pay of low-ranking service men and women in
Afghanistan to be raised by up to £6,000 to match that of police
officers and firemen. The party's conference in Bournemouth also backed
plans to speed up the refurbishment of military accommodation and
improved medical care. Nick Harvey, the defence spokesman, said: "Under
our proposals, no soldier that serves on the frontline in Afghanistan
would be on less than the basic salary of a police constable or
firefighter. "No service family would be living in a home that is unfit
for habitation, let alone unfit for heroes. "No veteran would be
isolated or left to deal with their psychological war wounds alone." The
Lib Dems have so far stopped short of calling for withdrawal from
Afghanistan, but Mr Clegg has said that British lives are being "wasted"
in the conflict. Ed Davey, the party's foreign affairs spokesman, said
on Sunday that Britain should "take tea" with the Taliban to strike a
peace settlement. Gordon Brown has hinted at an exit strategy from
Afghanistan, calling for an international summit to agree "timelines" on
handing responsibility to the Afghan government. The Tories back the
continued British deployment, but have strongly criticized the recent
election. Mark Cann of the British Forces Foundation, a military
charity, said the Lib Dem move could "undermine" the morale of British
personnel in Afghanistan. He said: "I think everyone in the country has
concerns about the conflict. But pulling out for political reasons is
not a good reason. "This chips away at support and contributes to a
general sense that what they are doing and have done is not important.
Given the sacrifices they are making that is not an impression anyone
should be giving."
Telegraph
Afghan mission risks 'failure' without more troops, says US general The
war in Afghanistan will be lost unless more troops are deployed and
their strategy totally revised, the commander of Nato forces in the
country has said in a confidential report to President Barack Obama.
By Alex Spillius in Washington
Published: 4:36PM BST 21 Sep 2009
Army General Stanley McChrystal Photo: REUTERS
Months after another 17,000 US military personnel were ordered into
combat - with a further 4,000 sent to train the new Afghan army -
General Stanley McChrystal said that unless the Taliban's "momentum" was
reversed, America and her allies may reach a position where "defeating
the insurgency is no longer possible". With their present tactics, Gen
McChrystal said the international contingents were actually making the
situation worse. "As formidable as the threat may be, we make the
problem harder," he wrote, adding that his force was "poorly configured"
for fighting insurgents, "inexperienced in local languages and culture,
and struggling with challenges inherent to coalition warfare".
All these "intrinsic disadvantages are exacerbated by our current
operational culture", he wrote. Nato's mission was "pre-occupied with
protection of our own forces" and operated in a way that "distances us
-- physically and psychologically -- from the people we seek to
protect." But changing the way that Nato fights and adopting more
effective tactics will inevitably require more troops. Gen McChrystal
wrote: "Resources will not win this war, but under-resourcing could lose
it. Failure to provide adequate resources also risks a longer conflict,
greater casualties, higher overall costs and ultimately, a critical loss
of political support. Any of these risks, in turn, are likely to result
in mission failure." This sombre, 66-page report was written on Aug 30
and then submitted to the Pentagon. A declassified version was passed to
the Washington Post. The general has not yet specified how many more
troops he wants, but the number would start at about 10,000. There are
already 62,000 Americans fighting in Afghanistan - a total that will
soon rise to 68,000 - alongside 9,000 Britons and 30,000 troops from
other countries. Gen McChrystal's request for reinforcements presents Mr
Obama with perhaps the toughest decision of his presidency. There is
increasing opposition in America at large, and particularly within his
Democratic party, to sending more troops. Senior Pentagon figures have
begun to complain privately about his lengthy, deliberative review of
the report. In a series of television interviews on Sunday, the
president made clear he was sceptical about further reinforcements.
"Until I'm satisfied that we've got the right strategy I'm not going to
be sending some young man or woman over there - beyond what we already
have," he told NBC. The counter-insurgency tactics that Gen McChrystal
will adopt focus on protecting ordinary Afghans and winning their
support, rather than capturing or killing Taliban fighters.
Gen McChrystal made clear that Afghanistan could still be turned around.
"While the situation is serious, success is still achievable," he wrote.
"This starts with redefining both the fight itself and what we need for
the fight. It is then sustained through a fundamentally new way of doing
business."
Tim Ripley, from Jane's Defence Weekly, said Afghanistan would be harder
to redeem than Iraq, where America dominated a single chain of command.
"Think of all the parts. You've got America, the president, Congress,
the Pentagon. You've got the Afghan government and security forces,
Nato, Pakistan. And that's just the people who are supposed to be on our
side," he said.
Telegraph
Taliban has got stronger warns General Petraeus
General David Petraeus, the overall commander of troops in Afghanistan,
has painted a bleak picture of the security situation admitting that the
Taliban has “without question” increased its strength in the country.
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
Published: 7:00AM BST 18 Sep 2009
General David Petraeus: the US commander in Afghanistan has warned the
Taliban have got stronger. Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES Gen Petraeus said the
current security situation in the country was equivalent to the most
violent period in Iraq said during a speech in London last night. But
the “mission was still doable” and although the challenges in
Afghanistan were significant “the stakes are high”.
The American general, who orchestrated the successful “surge”
strategy in Iraq, said: “As in Iraq in 2007 everything is hard and
it’s hard all the time.” But the West needed to be “realistic and
clear that the campaign requires sustained commitment”.
He said there had been a 60 per cent increase in violence in the last
year although some of this was attributable to Nato’s increase of
offensive operations.
“The Taliban without question have expanded their strength and
influence” in certain districts of Afghanistan,” he told a select
audience of military, security services and political figures at the
Policy Exchange think tank.
In many districts there was the feeling of a “downward spiral present”
in terms of progress. The Taliban were funding their campaign not only
by the drugs trade and crime but also with “donations from
outsiders”. The military had recognised the limitation of special
forces in Afghanistan and the need to concentrate on winning over the
population. He also listed Iran as one of the main threats to stability
in the region with its continued support of “proxy malign elements”
and development of a nuclear weapon. From the turbulence of the recent
election he suggested a “thugocracy” might be emerging with
opposition leaders arrested. But Tehran’s actions had acted a
recruiting sergeant to the West’s case in the region and it was no
coincidence that the US had two Aegis-class anti-missile warships in the
Gulf and eight Patriot counter-missile batteries. Iran was also
continuing to fund and train rouge militias in Iraq equipping them with
sophisticated bomb-making technology. Unlike some of his colleagues in
the US military Gen Petraeus went out of his way to praise the British
military which had “qualities of sheer competence as well as mental
and physical courage”. He singled out the SAS as “absolutely
extraordinary at what they do” and Britain was “privileged to have
such troops”.
Telegraph
Afghanistan election: Hamid Karzai admits officials were 'partial'
towards him Hamid Karzai has admitted that government officials showed
bias in his favour in Afghanistan's fraud-riddled presidential election.
By Julius Cavendish in Kabul
Published: 6:21PM BST 17 Sep 2009
President Hamid Karzai has admitted that government officials showed
bias in his favour in Afghanistan's fraud-riddled presidential election
Photo: EPA In his first public acknowledgement that there was fraud in
last month's polls, he conceded that "there were some government
officials who were partial toward me". But he insisted that the issues
of ballot box stuffing had been overblown and that such allegations
feature in elections all over the world.
He stopped short of implicating members of the Independent Election
Commission, all of whom are Karzai appointees and some of whom admitted
that they broke their own rules by counting suspicious ballots during
the tally. Instead President Karzai dismissed allegations of widespread
fraud as media exaggeration, insisting that the vote was still valid.
"Like other elections of the world ... there were problems and
sensitivities in the Afghanistan elections, but it has not been to the
extent which the media speak of," he said. "If there was fraud, it was
small - it happens all over the world." Mr Karzai added that he had so
far only seen concrete evidence that 1,200 ballots were faked. Hee said
that if some government officials had been overzealous in their support
for him, then others had favoured his chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah.
"That's something that we understand and we must accept for now until
Afghanistan grows further into a more stable state structure, into a
more bureaucratised civil service and into a more apolitical
institutionalised civil and military service in the country," he said.
Complete but uncertified results released on Wednesday showed Mr Karzai
winning the election in a single round with 54.6 per cent of the vote.
Dr Abdullah trailed on 27.8 per cent. Mr Karzai also accused journalists
of misreporting what had happened on election day, by concentrating on
the allegations that hundreds of thousands of ballots might be fake and
not paying proper respect for the bravery of the Afghan people to turn
out and vote. "Almost half of the country was under attack, hundreds of
rockets came on election sites all over the country, but people even
then came out and voted," he said. European Union election observers
announced earlier in the week that 1.1 million votes cast for Mr Karzai
were suspect, compared with about 300,000 for Dr Abdullah. The UN-backed
watchdog investigating complaints of fraud has annulled about 200,000
ballots and ordered a recount of 10 per cent of votes.
Telegraph
General Sir David Richards: Afghans losing patience with Nato 'failure'
General Sir David Richards, the new head of the British Army, has said
that Afghans are losing patience with Nato’s “failure” to deliver
progress in the battle with the Taliban.
By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent
Published: 6:15PM BST 17 Sep 2009
General Sir David Richards takes up his post as the Western mission in
Afghanistan faces growing questions from voters and politicians Photo:
AFP Sir David insisted that the alliance can still succeed in
Afghanistan, but warned that Western forces risk losing the support of
the Afghan population. In his first speech since becoming Chief of the
General Staff, Sir David also warned that Britain’s Armed Forces need
fundamental reform to prepare them for a generation of irregular
conflicts like the Afghan war.
Sir David takes up his post as the Western mission in Afghanistan
faces growing questions from voters and politicians. A mounting British
death toll and doubts about the integrity of recent Afghan elections
have fuelled doubts about campaign. Eight years after Nato forces
entered Afghanistan, the Taliban insurgency continues, corruption and
drug production remain widespread and the country is still one of the
world’s poorest. In a frank assessment of the situation, Sir David
said: “Over 80 per cent of the Afghan population still doggedly want
their government and the international community to succeed, although
their patience with our failure to meet the expectations of progress we
ironically have done much to create is undoubtedly beginning to flag.”
Still, he insisted that “despite their frustrations with the speed of
progress”, the majority of Afghans remain supportive of the Western
intervention. After reviewing the Nato mission in Afghanistan, General
Stanley McChrystal, the head of allied forces in the country, is soon
expected to make a formal request for more Western troops. British
ministers are wary of adding to the 9,000 British personnel currently
deployed, but Sir David hinted at support for a reinforcement. He said:
“We should be part of that process, preserving our relationship with
the USA in the process but, more importantly, seeing through this thing
we started.”
In a Chatham House speech, Sir David also called for a fundamental shift
in the way the Armed Forces operate and equip themselves, reducing their
focus on conventional state-vs-state warfare in order to concentrate on
dealing with insurgencies and other irregular conflicts.
Suggesting that Britain should spend less money on traditional systems
like fighter jets and warships, the general said the Forces faced a
turning point like that after the First World War when some commanders
resisted replacing horse-borne cavalry with tanks and other motorised
units.
Without a profound change in attitude and strategy, British forces will
not be ready for the conflicts of the future, he said. Sir David said:
“If this, arguably at least our generation’s ‘horse and tank
moment’, is not gripped our armed forces will try, with inadequate
resources, to be all things to all conflicts and perhaps fail to succeed
properly in any.”
Telegraph
British Afghanistan commander Major General Nick Carter: 'Time is not on
our side' Major General Nick Carter, the British general soon to take
charge of British troops in Afghanistan, has warned time is not on the
side of those battling the Taliban.
By Aislinn Laing
Published: 7:33AM BST 18 Sep 2009
Britain currently has around 8,300 troops in Afghanistan Photo: PA Maj
Gen Carter said there exists an "opportunity" for the 45,000 Armed
Forces personnel currently serving in Afghanistan to make a difference
in the next year. But he conceded that without the "luxury" of time,
forces needed to show "positive trends" as quickly as they can.
"We can't be everywhere... we've... got to focus on achievable
objectives," he told the BBC's Security Correspondent Frank Gardner. "I
think security where we know the population is living, freedom of
movement on the key highways – that means the Afghan economy can start
to kick-start itself, and that people can begin to take a stake in their
community – is the way in which we will achieve success." His comments
follow those of a series of senior military leaders in both the UK and
the US. This week, the new head of the British Army, General Sir David
Richards, said that Afghans were losing patience with Nato’s
“failure” to deliver progress in the battle with the Taliban. He
also warned that defeat for allied forces in Afghanistan would have an
"intoxicating impact" on extremists around the world. At the same time,
US Central Command chief General David Petraeus warned in a lecture that
the campaign in Afghanistan would require a “sustained, substantial,
commitment”. He admitted that the Taliban had “without question”
increased its strength in the country, adding bleakly that "everything
in Afghanistan is hard". Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has also
joined forces with Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown, who was at one time
expected to become the UN's special representative in Afghanistan, to
warn that Nato forces must change their policies if they are to stand
any chance of success. The pair also called on Brown to reform the
special war cabinet created during other wars and a minister for
Afghanistan, as well as sending more aid money to the country. "British
soldiers are fighting the war at full capacity; but their government is
not," they said. Maj Gen Carter said the surge of forces in Afghanistan
presented an opportunity. "We don't have the luxury of time, but 18
months ago there were probably 1,500 American soldiers in the south.
There are now 25,000," he said. "And there's an awful lot more resources
coming into the south as well. And with this amount of effort, I think
that we do have an opportunity, during the course of the next year, to
make a difference. "But I absolutely acknowledge that time is not on our
side, and we've got to show positive trends as quickly as we possibly
can." He said his forces would seize the initiative from the Taliban by
separating insurgents from the civilian population physically and
mentally. "It's about fundamentally getting [the civilian population] to
realise that the institutions that we're partnering and the...
reconstruction teams... are worth supporting, rather than the
insurgent," he said. "I think that it will happen slowly, but my
goodness me, there'll be a tipping point when the population will
suddenly realise that it's worth being with its government institutions,
rather than with the insurgent."
2009-09-17 14:15
Kabul attack worst since Nassiriya
Heaviest loss of life by Italian forces in Afghanistan
(ANSA) - Rome, September 17 - Thursday's suicide attack in Kabul killing
six Italian soldiers was the single heaviest loss of life to be suffered
by Italy since a car bomb in Iraq killed 19 Italians in 2003.
Twelve Carabinieri military police, five army soldiers and two civilians
were killed on November 12, 2003 when two vehicles loaded with
explosives drove into the Italian base in Nassiriya and exploded.
Eight Iraqis were also killed in the attack.
A total of 21 Italians have now died in Afghanistan, 16 in combat and
six from other causes.
Before Thursday, the most serious attacks were a pair of roadside bombs
in 2006, which killed two soldiers each. The last Italian to die in
Afghanistan, on 14 July, was also the victim of a roadside bomb.
http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2009-09-17_117408698
.html
Scanned in from the News Letter
www.newsletter.co.uk
Aug/Sep 2009
Belfast
Dealing with horrors of war
A team of highly-skilled and supremely-dedicated staff manage probably
the most challenging hospital environment in the world - the Camp
Bastion field hospital in Helmand province - SAM MARSDEN reports
EVERY day the helicopters bring in new casualties with horrific wounds,
and every day the staff of the Camp Bastion field hospital calmly get on
with saving their lives.
The record British death toll in Afghanistan this summer - 22 soldiers
were killed in July alone -would have been even higher without the
world-class treatment given to wounded troops.
The doctors and nurses at the state-of-the-art field hospital at Camp
Bastion, the main UK military base in Helmand province, admit it has
been a gruelling few months.
But they continue to work around the clock dealing with all the patients
brought through their doors, from British troops with gunshot wounds
from a Taliban firefight to Afghan children who have lost both legs in
an improvised explosive device (IED) blast.
For a period last year, the hospital was largely run by a unit of around
70 Territorial Army medics from Northern Ireland.
The reservists - deployed on a three-month tour of duty - dealt with
around 600 admissions to the hospital and carried out almost 400
operations, providing medical care and support to the casualties from
the Armed Forces, the Afghan National army, the Taliban and Afghan
civilians, including children.
On their return to the Province in October, Health Minister Michael
McGimpsey said he was "deeply impressed by their bravery, and the
compassion and care they showed for all their patients".
Now the hospital's medical director is Colonel Tim Hodgetts, who has
previously done four tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. He jokes that
in terms of his working hours it is like being a junior doctor again.
"The last month I've been here has been a very intense period," he said.
"It's been busier here than probably any other tour I've done, including
war fighting in 2003 in Iraq, and it's been sustained."
About half the casualties admitted to the hospital are British
servicemen, some of whom have lost two and sometimes three limbs in IED
attacks.
The medics also treat other Nato troops based in southern Afghanistan -
primarily Americans, but also Danes and Estonians - and Afghan soldiers,
police officers and civilians.
The wounded are generally flown in on a UK or US military helicopter and
can arrive at any time of the day or night, although there are certain
regular peaks in activity.
Col Hodgetts said: "Some of the worst things seem to happen in the
morning, when the patrols go out and IEDs have been laid in the night.
"The guys are coming in with horrific amputations."
The 200 hospital staff - currently half Danish, a quarter British and a
quarter American - daily treat injuries they would hardly ever encounter
back home.
That morning an Afghan child had died after arriving with a penetrating
brain injury from an IED blast.
Col Hodgetts said: "You would see more paediatric trauma in three months
here than you probably would in a lifetime in an NHS hospital.
"It's quite harrowing for the staff to deal with injured children. The
innocence and vulnerability is upsetting."
The Camp Bastion field hospital is set up so casualties can be
resuscitated in the operating theatre while the surgeons scrub up.
At times there can be as many as 20 members of staff working on a
seriously injured patient.
Col Hodgetts said: "They can have their operation within minutes of
arriving at the hospital.
"This is critical for our patients, especially bilateral amputees, of
whom we see far too many." .
People who donate blood in the UK may not realise that a significant
amount of it is used to save the lives of wounded British troops in
Afghanistan.
Some casualties - such as those who have several limbs amputated - need
"enormous amounts" of blood, in some cases up to 32 litres.
Col Hodgetts praised the "phenomenal" logistics chain that delivers
-huge quantities of blood products to Afghanistan.
On rare occasions the hospital runs low on blood, but there is no
shortage of willing donors in Camp Bastion.
Col Hodgetts said: "We put a tannoy message out to the camp, and we were
overwhelmed, even though it was in the middle of the night.
"The US Marines came over in a bus and said, 'we'll help'. The goodwill
is absolutely huge."
Critically wounded British troops are generally flown back to the UK
within 24 to 48 hours, but Afghans tend to stay in the hospital for
longer because they will not receive adequate treatment at local health
facilities.
Those treated at the hospital can include suspected insurgents, although
the staff insist that everyone receives the same care.
Col Hodgetts said: "What we will do is try and use areas of the ward for
different types of patient. If necessary we will screen certain patients
off.
"But the underlying, fundamental principle for us is we are just
treating people to the same standard.
"I know it must be uncomfortable for the soldiers so be close to a
potential enemy, but at the moment that is the way it is, the way that
it's been for serial deployments before us."
Many more troops now survive their wounds thanks to the quality of the
trauma care offered in Afghanistan.
In a study of 296 service personnel and civilians who survived seriously
injuries after being treatment at Camp Bastion field hospital between
April 2006 and July 2008, an expert panel found that 75 would not have
been expected to live.
Col Hodgetts said: "There are people surviving now who probably would
not have survived 12 months ago."
But despite these incredible statistics, death is ever present in the
hospital.
Col Hodgetts deals with all fatalities personally, feeling it is unfair
to pass the grim job onto hjs staff.
"I will have seen between 60 and 70 dead since I got here in mid-July.
It's a case of examining the body, doing a death certificate," he said.
"It's a horrible, horrible place to be, particularly when you are
dealing with our own guys."
--
Telegraph
Nato mission in Afghanistan 'risks failure' without more troops, says
Stanley McChrystal The senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army
General Stanley McChrystal, says in a confidential assessment of the war
that without additional forces and a new strategy, the mission "will
likely result in failure".
Reuters
Published: 9:39AM BST 21 Sep 2009
Army General Stanley McChrystal Photo: REUTERS
The assessment is contained in a 66-page document, an unclassified
version of which was obtained by The Washington Post and published on
its website on Monday. General McChrystal's spokesman in Kabul confirmed
it was genuine. Below are some of the main points included in the
assessment.
* General McChrystal says despite some progress being made, many
indicators point to a general deterioration in the overall state of the
country. If the government were to fall to the Taliban, he says,
Afghanistan could again become a base for terrorism. "We face not only a
resilient and growing insurgency; there is also a crisis of confidence
among Afghans - in both their government and the international community
- that undermines our credibility and emboldens the insurgents."
* General McChrystal says he needs a "jump" in resources, both civilian
and military to defeat the insurgency. While not outlining any specific
numbers, he says Afghanistan has been historically under-resourced and
remains so today. He says he will submit a review of resources at a
later date. Resources will not win the war, General McChrystal says, but
"under-resourcing" could lose it.
* Apart from more resources, General McChrystal says what is also needed
is a new strategy that is credible and sustainable for ordinary Afghans.
Instead of concentrating on "seizing terrain" and "destroying"
insurgents, the objective must be gaining the support of the population.
A perception that international forces have an "uncertain resolve", he
says makes Afghans reluctant to align with the foreign forces against
the Taliban. "Additional resources are required, but focusing on force
or resource requirements misses the point entirely. The key take away
from this assessment is the urgent need for a significant change to our
strategy and the way that we think and operate," he says.
* General McChrystal says foreign forces need to think differently about
the impact of time on their efforts in Afghanistan. Instead of seeing it
in terms of annual "fighting seasons" international forces should be
focused on a year-round campaign aimed at winning the support of the
people, by protecting them from insurgent coercion and intimidation.
General McChrystal says forces in Afghanistan faced both a long-term
fight, which would require patience and commitment, and a short-term
fight, where failure to gain the initiative would mean it would be no
longer possible to defeat the insurgency.
* General McChrystal says the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) are
not large enough to fight the Taliban and that demonstrable progress by
the government and the ANSF over the next 12 to 18 months is critical to
maintain the support of the international community. He says the size of
the Afghan army needed to increase from a planned strength of 134,000 to
an estimated 240,000. There are currently around 92,000 soldiers in the
army. The Afghan police force, which lags years behind the army, needs
to grow from 84,000 police to 160,000, he says.
* Detention operations in Afghanistan, although critical to
counter-insurgency operations, have the potential to become a "strategic
liability" for international forces, says General McChrystal. He says
Afghans see U.S. detention operations as secretive and lacking in due
process. All detention centres, he says, including the prison at Bagram
Air Base, are to be eventually handed over to the Afghan authorities
when they have the capacity to run them.
AQ Khan nails Pakistan's nuke lies
CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA, TNN 21 September 2009, 12:00am IST
WASHINGTON: An angry, humiliated, and wounded A.Q.Khan has finally made
public and official what has long been suspected: his nuclear
proliferation activities that included exchanging and passing
blue-prints and equipment to China, Iran, North Korea, and Libya was
done at the behest of the Pakistani government and military, and he was
forced to take the rap for it. ( Watch Video )
''The bastards first used us and are now playing dirty games with us,''
Khan writes about the Pakistani leadership in a December 2003 letter to
his wife Henny that has finally been made public by an interlocutor.
''Darling, if the government plays any mischief with me take a tough
stand,'' he tells his wife, adding, ''They might try to get rid of me to
cover up all the things they got done by me.''
But Henny was unable to play hardball because Khan had also sent copies
of that letter to his daughter Dina in London, and to his niece Kausar
Khan in Amsterdam through his brother, a Pakistan Airlines executive.
Pakistani intelligence agencies got wind of it and threatened the
well-being of the family, forcing him to recant and publicly take the
blame for the proliferation activities in a humiliating television
spectacle engineered by then military ruler Pervez Musharraf.
However, a copy of the four-page letter reached Khan’s long-time
journalistic contact Simon Henderson20in 2007. In fact, in the letter,
Khan tells his wife, ''Get in touch with Simon Henderson and give him
all the details.'' Henderson says when he acquired the copy of the
letter, he was shocked. His acquaintance with Khan goes back to the late
1970s, but it was never intimate, and consisted of an occasional
interviews and conversations, and seasonal greetings.
Describing the four-page letter as ''extraordinary,'' Henderson says in
numbered paragraphs, it outlines Pakistan’s nuclear co-operation
with China, Iran and North Korea, and also mentions Libya. Some of the
disclosures are stunning , and in one para that is bound to embarrass
Beijing, besides implicating it, Khan writes about how Pakistan helped
China in enrichment technology in return for bomb blueprints.
''We put up a centrifuge plant at Hanzhong (250km southwest of
Xian),� Khan writes. “The Chinese gave us drawings of the
nuclear weapon, gave us 50kg of enriched uranium, gave us 10 tons of UF6
(natural) and 5 tons of UF6 (3%).'' UF6 is uranium hexafluoride, the
gaseous feedstock for an enrichment plan.
On Iran, the letter says: ''Probably with the blessings of BB [Benazir
Bhutto]...General Imtiaz [Benazir’s defence adviser, now dead]
asked me to give a set of drawings and some components to the Iranians.
The names and addresses of suppliers were also given to the Iranians.''
On North Korea: ''[A now-retired general] took $3million through me from
the N. Koreans and asked me to
give some drawings and machines.''
Henderson does not explain why he waited nearly two years since he got
hold of the letter to make it public. But he writes sympathetically
about Khan’s travails in Pakistan, where he is held largely
incommunicado under house arrest. The Pakistani government and the
military have repeatedly rejected and challenged court orders to free
him, and an episode last month, where Khan was freed just for a day on
court orders before Islamabad locked him up again under pressure from
Washington, appears to have precipitated the leak of the explosive
letter.
Henderson’s Sunday Times expose also implicates the U.S and other
western powers, who he says, basically shoved Islamabad’s rampant
proliferation (while blaming it solely on Khan) under the carpet in
order to get Pakistan’s cooperation in the war on terror. The
move also saved Washington from huge embarrassment since it was
basically asleep on the watch when Pakistan began its nuclear
proliferation and then winked at it when it was discovered, all the
while lavishing billions in military supplies on its unstable client
state.
PAK GOVT RESCUED BROKE A.Q.KHAN WITH $ 2500 PER MONTH PENSION
Henderson also implicitly defends Khan from charges that he profited
from proliferation activities, as alleged by deposed military ruler
Pervez Musharraf. Khan, he says, is adamant that he never sold nuclear
secrets for personal gain. So what about the millions of dollars he rep
ortedly made?
''Nothing was confiscated from him and no reported investigation turned
up hidden accounts. Having planted rumours about Khan’s greed,
Pakistani officials were curiously indifferent to following them
through,'' Henderson writes.
According to Henderson, much was made of a ''hotel'', named after
Khan’s wife, Henny, built by a local tour guide with the help of
money from Khan and a group of friends in Timbuktu. But it is a modest
structure at best, more of a guesthouse, he says. A weekend home at Bani
Gala, outside Islamabad, where Khan went to relax, is hardly the palace
that some reports have made it.
In fact, says Henderson, Khan was close to being broke by the summer
2007, when he was finding it difficult to make ends meet on his pension
of 12,200 (Pakistani) rupees per month. After pleading with General
Khalid Kidwai, the officer supervising both Pakistan’s nuclear
weapons and Khan, the pension was increased to $2,500 per month and
there was a one-off lump-sum payment of the equivalent of $50,000.
Hendersen says he has copies of the agreement and cheques.
Henderson’s 3000-word expose also reveals a couple of intriguing
tid-bits that should interest the world’s strategic community,
including New Delhi. Besides details of the Pakistan-China nexus, he
says Pakistan tested only two devices in its 1998 tit-for-tat nuclear
tests that followed India.
While Pakistan claims it conducted six tests to be one-u p on
India’s five tests, Western experts and seismologists have long
said they recorded only two signals for devices that measured between
two and four kilotons. Khan also states clearly that China gave Pakistan
designs for the nuclear bombs.
In fact, in one colorful passage in his article, Henderson describes how
Khan was warned by a Chinese counterpart about the Pakistani Army. On a
visit to Kahuta, Li Chew, the senior minister who ran China’s
nuclear-weapons programme, tells Khan, ''As long as they need the bomb,
they will lick your balls. As soon as you have delivered the bomb, they
will kick your balls.''
Henderson himself seems deeply conscious of any perception that he is
close to Khan or that he is a cat’s paw for any country. ''Any
relationship with a source is fraught with potential difficulties. One
doesn’t want to be blind to the chance of being used. Government
officials and politicians in any country are seldom interested in the
simple truth. They all have their particular story to tell. In this
context, I am frankly amazed that Khan has chosen me to be his
interlocutor with the world,'' he writes.
But Pakistani authorities were clearly aware that he and Khan had been
in touch and Khan may have managed to smuggle a copy of the letter
implicating Islamabad to him. Henderson says in a court document that
Khan was asked to sign when he was promised freedom, there is a line
that read “That in case Mr Simon Henderson or anyone else proceeds
with the publication of any information or material anywhere in the
world, I affirm that it would not be based on any input from me and I
disown it.� That line was eventually deleted and replaced with a
more general prohibition about unnamed ''specific media personnel.''
In other words, stand by for a flurry of denials.
everyone with power is a barbaric thug
UK troops tortured Iraqi detainees, Inquiry finds
Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:15:46 GMT
British troops have violated international law in Iraqi prisons on
numnerous occasions through the "banned interrogation methods," a public
inquiry reveals.
The yearlong inquiry into the 2003 death of Baha Mousa states that the
26-year-old hotel receptionist died in UK military custody in Basra,
southern Iraq, in September 2003 after being subjected to humiliating
abuse.
Baha Mousa's night shift on the reception desk was coming to an end on
September 14, 2003 and his father had just arrived to drive him home.
Then soldiers from the former Queen's Lancashire Regiment raided Basra's
Ibn al-Haytham hotel and took Mousa along with six other hotel employees
to Battle Group Main camp, known as BG Main. Four days later Baha was
dead.
He was said to have been subjected to "conditioning techniques",
including being forced to maintain painful "stress positions", hooding
and deprivation of sleep and food.
When his father, Daoud Mousa, a stout colonel in the Basra police force,
arrived at the British military morgue to identify his son's body he was
confronted with a bruised, bloody and badly beaten corpse.
"When they took the cover off his body I could see his nose was broken
badly," he said. "There was blood coming from his nose and his mouth.
The skin on his wrists had been torn off. The skin on his forehead was
torn away and beneath his eyes there was no skin either. On the left
side of his chest there were clear blue bruises and also on his abdomen.
On his legs I saw bruising from kicking. I couldn't stand it."
Rabinder Singh QC, counsel for Mousa's family and other Iraqis detained
with him, has meanwhile said, "This case is not just about beatings or a
few bad apples. There is something rotten in the whole barrel."
Singh went on to note, "One of the striking features of the terrible
events of BG Main in September 2003 is that the abuse did not take place
in a secret location behind closed doors. The temporary detention
facility (TDF) was open to the outside. Many people must have seen or
heard what was going on. Many seem to have visited the TDF."
"This gives rise to serious questions about the professionalism of the
outfit and whether the culture was one of impunity. It also gives rise
to serious questions about the capacity of the regiment's members to
question and challenge abuse."
Baha's two sons, Hassan, 3, and Hussein, 5, are orphans. Their
22-year-old mother died of cancer six months before Baha.
The British Ministry of Defense has already agreed to pay a total of GBP
3 million (USD 4.8 million) in compensation to Mousa's family and other
detainees who have been subjected to abuse.
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