Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday June 18 2007 - (813)

Monday June 18 2007 edition
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Iraq On Verge Of Genocidal Civil War, Warns Ex-U.S. Official 2007-06-18 02:02:50 The man who led the initial American effort to reconstruct Iraq after the war believes the country is on the brink of a genocidal civil war and its government will fall apart unless the U.S. changes course and allows a three-way federal structure. He has also urged talks with Iran and other regional players. Jay Garner, the former U.S. general appointed two months before the invasion to head reconstruction in Iraq, admitted that before the 2003 war coordination between the various U.S. departments and military had been disjointed. He also disclosed that the U.S. State Department official in charge of postwar planning, Thomas Warrick, was prevented from joining his team by Donald Rumsfeld, who was defense secretary. He said he was shocked by the Pentagon's decision to reduce troop levels and disband the Iraqi army. Read The Full Story Gen. Petraeus Sees U.S. Troops In Iraq For Years To Come 2007-06-18 02:02:22 Conditions in Iraq will not improve sufficiently by September to justify a drawdown of U.S. military forces, the top commander in Iraq said Sunday. Asked whether he thought the job assigned to an additional 30,000 troops deployed as the centerpiece of President Bush's new war strategy would be completed by then, Gen. David H. Petraeus replied: "I do not, no. I think that we have a lot of heavy lifting to do." Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, his diplomatic counterpart in Baghdad, said a key report they will deliver to Washington in September will include what Crocker called "an assessment of what the consequences might be if we pursue other directions." Noting the "unhelpful roles" being played by Iran and Syria in Iraq, Crocker said: "We've got to consider what could happen." Read The Full Story Gaza Situation Putting Strain On Egyptian Border 2007-06-18 02:01:21 All but sealed off by Egypt and Israel, Gaza presented an intensifying security concern to its neighbors and a fast-approaching humanitarian crisis Sunday, three days after its takeover by Hamas. Palestinian boys spilled over the rusted metal fence at Gaza's unguarded border to fly kites in the no man's land between Gaza and Egypt. Palestinian security forces, dominated by the Fatah movement, fled their border posts last week in the course of their rout by Hamas fighters. Egyptian soldiers posted every 100 feet or so have effectively served on border duty for both sides of the frontier in the first days of Hamas' administration. The Egyptians chucked rocks at Palestinian boys who clung to the barbed wire and low concrete walls on the Egyptian side of the border at Salaheldin, a long-closed crossing 1.5 miles from the main Rafah transit point between Gaza and Egypt. Read The Full Story 7 Afghan Children Killed In Air Strike 2007-06-18 02:00:10 At least seven children have been killed in a U.S.-led coalition air strike in a religious school in Afghanistan, the coalition said on Monday, amid rising anger over civilian deaths from foreign military operations. Violence has surged in recent months in Afghanistan after the traditional winter lull, with foreign forces launching attacks against Taliban guerrilla strongholds in the south and east and the Taliban hitting back with a string of suicide bombings. In a separate incident, three coalition soldiers and their Afghan interpreter were killed on Sunday when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle near the southern city of Kandahar. The air strike, late on Sunday in southeast Paktika province near the Pakistan border, was part of an operation aimed at a compound containing a mosque and a madrassa thought to have been used as a safehouse by al-Qaeda fighters, said the coalition. Read The Full Story Shiites, Kurds Express Deep Doubts On U.S.-Sunni Partnership In Iraq 2007-06-17 20:02:43 Shiite and Kurdish officials expressed deep reservations on Sunday about the new U.S. military strategy to partner with Sunni Arab groups to help defeat the militant organization al-Qaeda in Iraq. "They are trusting terrorists," said Ali al-Adeeb, a prominent Shiite lawmaker who was among many to question the loyalty of the Sunni groups. "They are trusting people who have previously attacked American forces and innocent people. They are trusting people who are loyal to the regime of Saddam Hussein." Throughout Iraq, a growing number of Sunni groups profess to have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq because of its indiscriminate killing and repressive version of Islam. In some areas, these groups have provided information to Americans about al-Qaeda members or the deadly explosives that target the soldiers. Read The Full Story Abu Ghraib Investigator Believes Pentagon Directed Abuse 2007-06-17 20:02:14 The Army two-star general who led the first investigation into detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq  believes that senior defense officials were involved in directing abusive interrogation policies and said that he was forced to retire early because of his pursuit of the issue, says an article to be published Monday in the New Yorker magazine. Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba said that he felt mocked and shunned by top Pentagon officials, including then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld,after filing an exhaustive report on the now-notorious Abu Ghraib abuse that sparked international outrage and led to an overhaul of the U.S. interrogation and detention policies. Taguba's report examining the 800th Military Police Brigade put in plain terms what had been documented in shocking photographs. In interviews with New Yorker reporter Seymour M. Hersh, Taguba said that he was ordered to limit his investigation to low-ranking soldiers who were photographed with the detainees and the soldiers' unit, but that it was always his sense that the abuse was ordered at higher levels. Taguba was quoted as saying that he thinks top commanders in Iraq had extensive knowledge of the aggressive interrogation techniques that mirrored those used on high-value detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and that the military police "were literally being exploited by the military interrogators." Taguba also said that Rumsfeld misled Congress when he testified in May 2004 about the abuse investigation, minimizing how much he knew about the incidents. Taguba said that he met with Rumsfeld and top aides the day before the testimony. Read The Full Story Body Of Iraq Newspaper Editor Found In Morgue 2007-06-17 20:01:33 The body of the political editor of a government-financed newspaper was found Sunday in the main Baghdad mortuary. The editor, Falieh Meshthab, 48, was kidnapped three days ago by armed men in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad as he drove to Al Sabah, the daily newspaper where he worked. A longtime reporter and former correspondent for a state-run newspaper under Saddam Hussein, Meshthab wrote and edited articles on political developments in Iraq. Meshthab had been shot, said officials. “We blame the bad security situation in Baghdad for his murder,” said Falah al-Mishaal, the editor of the paper. “And we blame those who use religion as a tool to justify their deeds.” He added that he believed that Meshthab’s work on behalf of Hussein government might have resulted in his assassination. Shiite militias have singled out a number of people with ties to the former government. Read The Full Story Soldiers Return From The Battlefield With Psychological Wounds, But The VA Mental-Health System Makes Healing Difficult 2007-06-17 03:10:07 Army Spec. Jeans Cruz helped capture Saddam Hussein. When he came home to the Bronx in New York City,  important people called him a war hero and promised to help him start a new life. The mayor of New York, officials of his parents' home town in Puerto Rico, the borough president and other local dignitaries honored him with plaques and silk parade sashes. They handed him their business cards and urged him to phone. But a "black shadow" had followed Cruz home from Iraq, he confided to an Army counselor. He was hounded by recurring images of how war really was for him: not the triumphant scene of Hussein in handcuffs, but visions of dead Iraqi children. In public, the former Army scout stood tall for the cameras and marched in the parades. In private, he slashed his forearms to provoke the pain and adrenaline of combat. He heard voices and smelled stale blood. Soon the offers of help evaporated and he found himself estranged and alone, struggling with financial collapse and a darkening depression. At a low point, he went to the local Department of Veterans Affairs medical center for help. One Veterans Administration (V.A.) psychologist diagnosed Cruz with post-traumatic stress disorder. His condition was labeled "severe and chronic." In a letter supporting his request for PTSD-related disability pay, the psychologist wrote that Cruz was "in need of major help" and that he had provided "more than enough evidence" to back up his PTSD claim. His combat experiences, the letter said, "have been well documented." Read The Full Story UMP Get Oomph! Sarkozy's Party Set For Landslide Victory In French Assembly 2007-06-17 03:08:36 In the final seal of approval for President Nicolas Sarkozy from the French people, he appears to have won a crushing victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections. He now has a massive endorsement for an ambitious and controversial program of reforms. The latest round of polls gave the right-wing president's party, the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), a historic majority, with more than 65 per cent of the vote, paving the way for a summer of new laws and a potential winter of industrial discontent. The UMP, the party which Sarkozy led until being elected president in May for a five-year term, now seems likely to have up to 450 of the 577 seats in the national assembly. The total will be boosted by a variety of small centre-right groups who will be parliamentary allies. It is set to be the biggest single parliamentary majority under the 49-year-old constitution of the Fifth Republic. Read The Full Story	Tiny But Hungry, Moth Threatens California Agriculture 2007-06-18 02:02:38 Full grown, the light brown apple moth is roughly the size of a nickel: a little dirt-colored insect with an adult life span shorter than the average summer vacation. But oh, what an eater. As a caterpillar, the moth feeds on flowers, fruits and firs, a diet that can include corn and tomatoes for dinner and cherries, peaches and plums for dessert. So omnivorous is the moth that some entomologists call it the “light brown everything moth.” It is exactly that appetite that has state and federal officials in California worried. A native of Australia, the moth had never been seen in the continental United States before February, when a retired entomologist discovered one in a trap behind his house in Berkeley, just across the bay from San Francisco and within fluttering distance of one of the nation’s most important agricultural regions. The moth has since been found in nine California counties, including Napa, where the discovery of a single specimen set off alarm bells for winemakers and farmers up and down the grape-happy region. Read The Full Story Gazans Stock Up On Gasoline, Food As Fuel Supplies Run Dry 2007-06-18 02:02:09 Gazans rushed to stock up on gasoline and food Sunday as Israel cut fuel supplies in its first concrete response to Hamas' seizure of power in Gaza. The panic-buying came on another frenetic day of politics as President Mahmoud Abbas swore in a new government in Ramallah, West Bank, and outlawed the Hamas militias that deposed the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. He promised their members would be punished for their actions. Ismail Haniyeh, who was fired by Abbas as prime minister on Thursday, insisted that he remained in power and that the new government was illegal. Israeli nervousness at the emergence of an Islamic mini-state on its southern doorstep was compounded by a reminder of the instability on its northern flank when two rockets were fired across the border from Lebanon, the first such episode since last summer's war with Hezbollah. Hezbollah denied involvement. Read The Full Story Renewed Threat To Kill Abducted BBC Reporter Alan Johnston 2007-06-18 02:00:52 Efforts to win the release of the kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston were set back Sunday night when the militants holding him threatened to kill him and said he would not be freed until their demands were met. The warning, from a spokesman for a group calling itself the Army of Islam, came on a day when Hamas officials had suggested Johnston's release was only hours away. "Freeing this detainee has not been part of any deal with any faction or organization. What appears on television screens and through the media here and there are untrue," the Army of Islam spokesman, named as Abu Khatab, told al-Jazeera television Sunday night. "If they do not meet our demands there will be no release for that detainee and if things become more difficult ... then we would seek God's satisfaction by slaughtering this journalist." Read The Full Story Kurdish Rebel Leader Warns Turkey Against Iraq Incursion 2007-06-18 01:59:56 A Kurdish rebel leader has warned Turkey that it faces disaster if its troops and tanks cross into northern Iraq, amid growing concern of a big Turkish operation to hunt down Kurdish guerrillas holed up across the border. The Turkish army faces "a political and military disaster" if its generals give orders for a cross-border offensive, Cemil Bayik, one of the two most powerful figures in the Kurdistan Workers party, or PKK, told the Guardian at a hideout in the Qandil mountains on the border with Iran. Bayik said his units did not seek a fight, but "would defend ourselves if attacked". It could become "a quagmire for them [the Turkish army] and create space for Iran to interfere in Iraq also," he said. Over the past month, tensions have been rising in Iraqi Kurdistan, with the Turkish army massing thousands of troops and tanks along the 238-mile border and its hawkish chief of staff, General Yasar Buyukanit, repeatedly pressing a reluctant government in Ankara for permission to go in after the PKK. Read The Full Story As Lebanon's Muslims Polarize, Radical Group Pulls In Sunnis 2007-06-17 20:02:28 Surrounded in the first hours of their battle with Lebanese forces in this northern Lebanese city, fighters of the Fatah al-Islam group shouted desperately from the windows of their hideouts. "God is great!" one resident, housewife Aziza Ahmed, recalled the fighters yelling. "Come be holy warriors with us!" Mohammed al-Jasm, a 28-year-old unemployed Lebanese Sunni, received his summons by cellphone on May 20, his family believes. Chunky and unmarried, twice-failed in shopkeeping ventures and increasingly prone to spending his idle hours with fundamentalist friends, Jasm took his gun and rallied to the Sunni group, his brothers said. He soon made a forlorn cellphone call to his mother: I'm wounded, he told her. Read The Full Story Sarkozy's Party Wins Smaller Majority Than Expected In French Assembly 2007-06-17 20:01:51 The conservative party of President Nicolas Sarkozy won a solid victory in French parliamentary elections on Sunday, but it failed to secure the rout of the left that polls had predicted. In a sign that the left is still alive in France, three polling institutes estimated late Sunday night that Sarkozy’s governing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) would win between 314 to 328 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament. The polling groups projected that the Socialists would win between 206 to 212 seats. That outcome reflected a net gain of seats for the left and a net loss for the right. Sarkozy’s party had 359 seats in the outgoing Parliament, while the Socialists had 149. In the most high-stakes contest, Alain Juppe, Sarkozy’s minister of a new high-profile ministry for the environment, transportation and energy and the mayor of Bordeaux, lost to a Socialist. He announced that he will step down as minister, a humiliating setback for the Sarkozy government. Read The Full Story For U.S. And Allies, Mideast Morass Just Gets Deeper 2007-06-17 03:10:21 The Middle East is in flames. Over the past week, war erupted among the Palestinians and their government collapsed. A Shiite shrine in Iraq was bombed - again - as the new U.S. military strategy showed no sign of diminishing violence. Lebanon battled a new al-Qaeda faction in the north as a leading politician was assassinated in Beirut. And Egyptian elections were marred by irregularities, including police obstructing voters, in a serious setback to democracy efforts. U.S. policy in the region isn't faring much better, say Middle East and U.S. analysts. "It's close to a nightmare for the administration," Ellen Laipson, president of the Henry L. Stimson Center and former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, said in an interview from Dubai. "They can't catch their breath. ... It makes Condi Rice's last year as secretary of state very daunting. What are the odds she can get virtually anything back on track?" Read The Full Story At Least 18 Killed As Bomb Rips Through Police Bus In Kabul 2007-06-17 03:09:35 A bomb ripped through a police bus in a crowded civilian area in Kabul on Sunday, killing at least 18 people and wounding more than 35 others, said an official and witnesses. The police academy bus was carrying several police recruits when the bomb went off inside it, leaving several dead, said Zalmai Khan, the deputy police chief of Kabul province. The thunderous explosion was heard throughout central Kabul at about 8:10 a.m. local time. Ali Shah Paktiawal, Kabul police director of criminal investigation, said initial reports indicated that dozens of policemen were feared dead. Read The Full Story
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