Selves and Others - News In Focus

War Mongers on Both Sides

Nooshabeh Amiri, Narges Mohammadi — 2007-12-05T22:30:00Z

Shirin Ebadi's Center for Defenders of Human Rights announced the establishment of a ‎temporary committee, “National Council for Peace,” to prevent war and institute human ‎rights. We have spoken to Narges Mohammadi, the Center's spokeswoman, about this ‎new committee and its goals. Below is an excerpt of this interview.‎

Rooz (R): When was the committee for peace established and what are its goals? ‎

Narges Mohammadi (NM): Given the situation and Iran's domestic and international ‎standing and the increasing chance for war, many of Iran's political, intellectual and civil ‎circles were wondering how it was possible to prevent a possible war. At the Center for ‎Defenders of Human Rights, we finally reached the decision to start a peace movement in ‎Iran by helping to organize a social movement and educating the public. ‎(...)

- Nooshabeh Amiri - Narges Mohammadi

US paves way for long-term stay in Iraq

Steve Negus, Demetri Sevastopulo, Andrew Ward — 2007-12-05T22:30:00Z

George W. Bush, US president, and Nouri al-Maliki, Iraqi prime minister, have signed a declaration that paves the way for a possible long-term US presence in Iraq in addition to the restoration of full Iraqi sovereignty.

US and Iraqi officials said both countries would work towards extending the United Nations mandate that allows US and coalition troops to operate in Iraq for one more year. Washington and Baghdad have also agreed to work towards then replacing the mandate with a US-Iraqi security agreement.

Hoshyar Zubari, the Iraqi foreign minister, told the FT that the next year would be the last in which US and allied troops in Iraq were covered by the UN mandate that has been in effect since 2003. He said that the status of forces in Iraq would afterwards be covered by a bilateral US-Iraqi agreement. (...)

- Steve Negus - Demetri Sevastopulo - Andrew Ward / Financial Times

What Did Bush Know on Iran, and When Did He Know It?

Gareth Porter — 2007-12-05T22:30:00Z

President Bush continues to insist Iran threatens the United States despite the new National Intelligence Estimate refuting most of his key claims. This week's consensus report from all sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies concludes Iran shut down its nuclear weapons program more than four years ago. News reports say the White House was briefed on the new intelligence assessment as early as July, but Bush says he didn't find out the specifics until last week. We speak with investigative journalist Gareth Porter. - Gareth Porter / Democracy Now!

War Supplemental Makes Room for Iran

Maya Schenwar — 2007-10-24T09:05:00Z

The Bush administration's $196.4 billion war supplemental spending request, released Monday, has Democrats reeling. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd called the supplemental "short-sighted at best," while House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey remarked in a statement, "It's amazing to me that the president expects to be taken seriously." Yet beyond the request's mind-boggling size, its open-ended aims point to the potentially vast scope of the "war on terror" for years to come - including an undiminished presence in Iraq and the possibility of action against Iran.

In the newly revised supplemental, more money than ever has been appropriated for procurement - the production of new materials, which may take three years to actually reach the battlefield, according to Department of Defense estimates in 2006. Moreover, that battlefield may change. The 2008 supplemental's title, the Global War on Terror Request, is appropriately broad, as the majority of the request's appropriations do not refer exclusively to Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, according to a report this morning in Congressional Quarterly Today, the Bush administration's request for a "Massive Ordnance Penetrator for the B-2 aircraft in response to an Urgent Operational Need from theater commanders" could be geared toward bombing underground targets in Iran.

Policy experts say that, as it stands, the supplemental contains no provisions that would prevent its funds from being used to strike Iran. (...)

- Maya Schenwar / t r u t h o u t

Iran jails its conscience

Pepe Escobar — 2007-10-24T09:05:00Z

"That Baghi's work can so irk the upper echelons of the Islamic Republic speaks volumes about a system that thrives on internal fear. It also spells out how much the Iran is in dire need of a new public relations strategy. Just when it may soon be on the receiving end of a devastating, preemptive war, and badly in need of international support, sending your best-known human rights activist to jail is not exactly a brilliant move." - Pepe Escobar / Asia Times

Steep decline in oil production brings risk of war and unrest, says new study

Ashley Seager — 2007-10-24T08:39:00Z

· Output peaked in 2006 and will fall 7% a year
· Decline in gas, coal and uranium also predicted

World oil production has already peaked and will fall by half as soon as 2030, according to a report which also warns that extreme shortages of fossil fuels will lead to wars and social breakdown.

The German-based Energy Watch Group will release its study in London today saying that global oil production peaked in 2006 - much earlier than most experts had expected. The report, which predicts that production will now fall by 7% a year, comes after oil prices set new records almost every day last week, on Friday hitting more than $90 (£44) a barrel. (...)

- Ashley Seager / Guardian

Claims of secret CIA jail for terror suspects on British island to be investigated

Ian Cobain, Richard Norton-Taylor — 2007-10-24T07:48:00Z

· Legal charity urges action on Diego Garcia claims
· Prisoners may have been held in ships off coast

Allegations that the CIA held al-Qaida suspects for interrogation at a secret prison on sovereign British territory are to be investigated by MPs, the Guardian has learned. The all-party foreign affairs committee is to examine long-standing suspicions that the agency has operated one of its so-called "black site" prisons on Diego Garcia, the British overseas territory in the Indian Ocean that is home to a large US military base.

Lawyers from Reprieve, a legal charity that represents a number of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, including several former British residents, are calling on the committee to question US and British officials about the allegations. According to the organisation's submission to the committee, the UK government is "potentially systematically complicit in the most serious crimes against humanity of disappearance, torture and prolonged incommunicado detention". (...)

- Ian Cobain - Richard Norton-Taylor / Guardian

U.S. must face huge death toll of Iraqi civilians

Gilbert Burnham, Les Roberts — 2007-10-24T07:42:00Z

Not wanting to think about civilian deaths in Iraq has become almost universal. But ignorance of the Iraqi death toll is no longer an option.

An Associated Press poll in February found that the average American believed about 9,900 Iraqis had been killed since the end of major combat operations in 2003. Recent evidence suggests that things in Iraq may be 100 times worse than Americans realize.

News report tallies suggest that about 75,000 Iraqis have died since the U.S.-led invasion. But a study of 13 war-affected countries presented at a recent Harvard conference found that more than 80 percent of violent deaths in conflicts go unreported by the press and governments. (...)

- Gilbert Burnham - Les Roberts / Baltimore Sun

Iraq Body Count: “A Very Misleading Exercise”

2007-10-24T07:00:00Z

Introduction

The mainstream media are continuing to use figures provided by the website Iraq Body Count (IBC) to sell the public a number for total post-invasion deaths of Iraqis that is perhaps 5-10% of the true death toll.

As we recently reported, only a handful of media outlets covered a new ORB poll revealing that 1.2 million Iraqis had been murdered since the 2003 invasion. BBC Online provided a rare example:

“A UK-based polling agency, Opinion Research Business (ORB), said it had extrapolated the figure by asking a random sample of 1,461 Iraqi adults how many people living in their household had died as a result of the violence rather than from natural causes.

“The results lend weight to a 2006 survey of Iraqi households published by the Lancet, which suggested that about 655,000 Iraqi deaths were 'a consequence of the war'.

“However, these estimates are both far higher than the running total of reported civilian deaths maintained by the campaign group Iraq Body Count which puts the figure at between 71,000 and 78,000.” (BBC Online, 'US contractors in Iraq shootout,' September 17, 2007;

BBC's Newsnight programme used IBC's figures in the same way:

“More than a million Iraqis have been killed since the invasion in 2003, according to the British polling company ORB. The study's likely to fuel controversy over the true, human cost of the war. It's significantly up on the previous highest estimate of 650,000 deaths published by the Lancet last October... The independent Iraqi [sic] Body Count group puts the current total at closer to 75,000.” (Newsnight, BBC2, September 14, 2007)

These reports again raise serious issues about what IBC's figures actually mean, how they are being used and misused to cast doubt on higher numbers, and about what IBC is doing to promote or reduce the confusion.

/ Media Lens

Even the British Are Leaving Iraq

2007-10-24T06:50:00Z

With the 'coalition of the willing' breathing its last, the U.S. should take note of how to form a realistic exit strategy.

The "coalition of the willing" is over. One by one, its members have ceded the bloodstained ground to the battling Iraqis and the unyielding U.S. president. Prime Minister Gordon Brown's decision Monday to halve the vestigial British military force in Basra was inevitable; backing the U.S. in Iraq has become a political albatross for governments all over the world.

Washington had always exaggerated the strength of the coalition, which once numbered 34 countries. But Spain and New Zealand pulled out troops in 2004; the Netherlands, Hungary, Singapore, Norway and Ukraine left in 2005, followed by Japan and Italy in 2006. Georgia and Poland, which desperately need U.S. goodwill as a bulwark against a resurgent Russia, still maintain a symbolic presence. (...)

/ Los Angeles Times