Iraq to reinstate 20,000 Saddam-era army officers

By HAMZA HENDAWI ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER Iraqi men walk past a campaign poster depicting Mariam al-Rayis, a candidate from the Shiite-led Iraqi National Coalition, center left, and former prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, right, in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Feb. 26, 2010. Iraq's national election is set for March 7.(AP Photo/ Karim Kadim) BAGHDAD -- Iraq on Friday reinstated 20,000 former army officers dismissed after the U.S.-led invasion, a landmark gesture at reconciliation ahead of the March 7 elections. It's a move designed to allay some of the bitterness that still rankles Iraq - years after the Bush administration first made the controversial decision to dismantle Saddam Hussein's army. The 20,000 returnees are the largest known group to rejoin the officer corps. The timing of the announcement also raised suspicions that Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his allies were just currying favor ahead of the election for a new, 325-seat parliament. News of the reinstatement was followed by a U.N. announcement that Iraq was gaining momentum with its bid to end U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's army invaded Kuwait in 1990. The U.N. Security Council pledged "to review, with a view toward lifting" the sanctions once Iraq's safeguards against acquiring weapons of mass destruction are shown to be sufficient. The 2003 order by Iraq's then-American governor L. Paul Bremer to dissolve Saddam's 400,000-strong army, the largest in the Middle East on the eve of the 2003 invasion, is widely seen as a key factor that fed the alienation many Sunnis felt toward the new Iraq. That rancor fueled a Sunni insurgency that broke out later that year and still claims lives in Iraq. Sunnis dominated Saddam's regime, and many top military officers came from the community. Jobless and angry, some from the old army took their expertise in explosives, urban warfare and military tactics to the insurgency, seeking an income for their families or revenge against the Americans and their Iraqi allies. The disbanding of the army, along with the looting of the army's bases and depots across much of Iraq, is widely blamed for the torturously slow pace of forming, equipping and training the country's new army. Defense Ministry Spokesman Mohammed al-Askari denied Friday's announcement was linked to the election, insisting funding for the 20,000 positions is only now available. "This measure has nothing to do with elections, rather it is related to budget allocations," said al-Askari, who did not provide a breakdown of the ranks of the officers being reinstated. Critics, however, said the sudden return of their jobs might influence the votes of the reinstated officers. "No doubt, this move is related to the elections and it aims at gaining votes," said Maysoun al-Damlouji, a candidate from a secular bloc led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a fierce critic of al-Maliki. The skepticism underscored just how bitter feelings have become between Iraq's factions ahead of the election. Many had hoped the vote would be a chance to move past the Shiite-Sunni divisions that have tormented Iraq since Saddam's ouster nearly seven years ago, but instead, the sectarian mistrust has become more stark. Al-Maliki angered Sunnis after a Shiite-led commission barred 440 candidates - most Sunnis - from running because of suspected ties to Saddam's former ruling Baath Party. A Defense Ministry statement said the rehired personnel would be reinstated by Sunday, but a senior Iraqi military official said absorbing so many could take weeks or months to complete. In recent years, thousands of officers from the disbanded army have trickled back to service in an ongoing process of reintegration. The official said a ministry committee has been screening officers for ties to Saddam's regime or involvement in atrocities or war crimes. He said reinstatements were strictly based on the army's present requirements and mainly benefited officers from the rank of colonel down. U.S. commanders have in the past pointed out that Iraq's new army, which is at least 300,000-strong, desperately needed mid-ranking and experienced noncommissioned officers. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. The United States hopes a transparent and credible election will bolster national reconciliation efforts and pave the way for its combat forces to go home by the end of August and the rest by next year's end. Regardless of the motive, reinstating the large group of officers would help reconciliation. Al-Maliki has raised Sunni resentment with his relentless denouncements of Baathists in Iraqi politics. But many were allowed to return to government service in 2008, and al-Maliki has also shown flexibility when it comes to the military. Al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government has already reinstated many Sunni officers as top commanders in the new army. It also waived "de-Baathification" rules and reinstated generals - Sunnis and Shiites - who once held senior positions in Saddam's ruling party

American neutrality on the Falklands is a symptom of US foreign policy drift

UK Telegraph By James Corum World Last updated: February 26th, 2010 The Bush administration got a lot of things wrong – but at least they usually had some idea of who America’s adversaries were and who America’s friends were. For example, Bush’s policy of maintaining the special relationship with Britain was a simple recognition of the close bonds of alliance, friendship and interests that the British and Americans have had since World War I. In contrast, Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are apparently clueless about some of the most basic aspects of foreign policy: supporting one’s friends and fencing in one’s adversaries. The declaration of neutrality on the issue of the sovereignty of the Falklands issued by the US State Department is clear proof of the uselessness of the Obama administration. In the grand scheme of things it makes little sense for America to give moral support to the Kirchner government in Argentina. Kirchner is no friend of the US and Kirchner’s government is in deep domestic trouble for its gross mismanagement of the economy and its attempts to suppress the press criticism of the regime at home. One has to wonder what benefit America gets out of hurting Britain on this issue. Perhaps Obama thinks that the more Leftist Latin American regimes will somehow approve of the US. If that is the case, he is truly mistaken, as most Latin American nations dislike the Argentineans, and have little sympathy for the mess Argentina got into over the Falklands. But this mess is just typical of the drift in US foreign policy – if one can say that it even HAS a coherent foreign policy these days. As I said, at the core of the problem is a simple inability to recognise and support our friends over adversaries. In his first year in office Obama made numerous apologies for America’s past to the Third World, he effusively greeted the Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, he bowed low to the Saudi ruler, and called for a “reset” of relations with Russia – all the while implying that America was at fault for all these problems. At the same time he rudely undermined the security of America’s Eastern European allies by cancelling the ballistic missile defence with no notice and no prior discussion, he failed to push for a free trade agreement with Colombia – America’s strongest ally in South America – and he supported Chavez’s allies when they tried (luckily unsuccessfully) to unseat a democratic and pro-US government in Honduras. A big part of the problem is a Secretary of State who is a lightweight as far as foreign policy is concerned. Obama brought Hillary Clinton into the cabinet for domestic policy considerations. He needed to put Mrs Clinton – and her husband – under tight control. As a powerful senator from New York, she would probably have taken over as the de facto leader of the Democratic Party and been able to challenge Obama’s “Chicago Gang” for control of the party. Despite the acclaim that America’s mainstream media has heaped on Hillary Clinton over the years, her foreign policy background and experience before becoming Secretary of State was to accompany her husband on foreign trips and preside over “first wives” dinners for the spouses of visiting heads of state. One learns a lot about protocol and ceremonies – but this is no preparation for the real work of making policy. Clinton has no experience or education in foreign policy. She speaks no foreign languages and has never lived abroad. She lacks the intellectual temperament to be a foreign policy leader. Like Obama, she has long surrounded herself with sycophants. On assuming office, Obama’s vision of foreign policy was simple: he would repudiate past American policies and the whole world would melt before the president’s charm. The administration somehow thought that we really didn’t have enemies with agendas completely hostile to our own – there were just countries that had become offended by US actions and they would happily cooperate with America as soon as the evil Republicans were gone. Well, it hasn’t worked – and there was no Plan B. With a president overwhelmed by domestic problems, Hillary Clinton has failed to step in and set a foreign policy vision. Simply put, she does not have the brains or the experience to develop a coherent foreign policy vision for America. This is how we get policy mistakes on issues such as the sovereignty of the Falklands.

Gates Calls European Mood a Danger to Peace

By BRIAN KNOWLTON New York Times WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has long called European contributions to NATO inadequate, said Tuesday that public and political opposition to the military had grown so great in Europe that it was directly affecting operations in Afghanistan and impeding the alliance’s broader security goals. “The demilitarization of Europe — where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it — has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st,” he told NATO officers and officials in a speech at the National Defense University, the Defense Department-financed graduate school for military officers and diplomats. A perception of European weakness, he warned, could provide a “temptation to miscalculation and aggression” by hostile powers. The meeting was a prelude to the alliance’s review this year of its basic mission plan for the first time since 1999. “Right now,” Mr. Gates said, “the alliance faces very serious, long-term, systemic problems.” Mr. Gates’s blunt comments came just three days after the coalition government of the Netherlands collapsed in a dispute over keeping Dutch troops in Afghanistan. It now appears almost certain that most of the 2,000 Dutch troops there will be withdrawn this year. And polls show that the Afghanistan war has grown increasingly unpopular in nearly every European country. The defense secretary, putting a sharper point on his past criticisms, outlined how NATO shortfalls were exacting a material toll in Afghanistan. The alliance’s failure to finance needed helicopters and cargo aircraft, for example, was “directly impacting operations,” he said. Mr. Gates said that NATO also needed more aerial refueling tankers and intelligence-gathering equipment “for immediate use on the battlefield.” Yet alliance members, he noted, were far from reaching their spending commitments, with only 5 of 28 having reached the established target: 2 percent of gross domestic product for defense. By comparison, the United States spends more than 4 percent of its G.D.P. on its military. Dana Allin, a senior fellow with the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, called Mr. Gates’s remarks “very striking.” “Whether this is a conscious statement to sound a real sharp warning, there’s no question that the frustration among the American military establishment is palpable regarding coalition operations in Afghanistan,” he said. Mr. Gates did soften his message a bit, noting that, not counting United States forces, NATO troops in Afghanistan were to increase to 50,000 this year, from 30,000 last year. “By any measure,” he said, “that is an extraordinary feat.” More sobering, he said, was that just two months into the year, NATO was facing shortfalls of hundreds of millions of euros — “a natural consequence of having underinvested in collective defense for over a decade.” NATO’s problems — greatly magnified by the expansion of its mandate beyond European borders, following 9/11 — called for “serious, far-reaching and immediate reforms,” Mr. Gates said. Indeed, the secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, last month turned to an unlikely source — Russia — to request helicopters for use in Afghanistan, arguing that this would help reduce the terrorism threat and drug trade on a border of the former Soviet Union. Mr. Rasmussen, speaking at the same meeting as Mr. Gates, said that NATO’s members needed to better coordinate their weapons purchases. The European Union and NATO should collaborate on developing capabilities like heavy-lift helicopters, he said, and avoid “spending double money.”

Where Have All the MANPADS Gone?

By Katie Drummond Man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) — the shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles that are a popular black market item for insurgent forces — have dropped off the military’s radar in Iraq. But not because they’re necessarily being traded less. The military just can’t find them. A new report [PDF] by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) confirms that “only a handful” of illicit MANPADS were recovered from terrorist caches in 2009, according to media reports and interviews with military sources. That’s a major drop, considering that dozens were being recovered and dismantled in previous years: an estimated 121 between October 2006 and December 2008. Tracking down the weapons has been a primary focus for U.S. and Iraqi forces, and justifiably so. In 2003, Colin Powell remarked that there was “no threat more serious to aviation” than the missiles, which can be used to shoot down helicopters and commercial airliners, and are available on the black market for as little as a few hundred dollars. Globally, the U.S. has led an effort to dismantle the weapons, with over 30,000 voluntarily destroyed since 2003. Most of the MANPADS still out there — estimates suggest more than 500,000 remain operational, with thousands being kept illicitly — are of Soviet descent. The second-generation, SA-7 and SA-14 missiles were stockpiled by Saddam Hussein’s regime, and then looted during the leadership’s collapse in 2003. That’s why they’re more common among Iraqi insurgents, and less of a threat to forces fighting in Afghanistan. The good news is that the Soviet missiles may be nearing the end of their lifespan, and aren’t as powerful as their more modern, American counterparts. Which, of course, might also be in the hands of insurgents, albeit in lesser numbers. The CIA “lost” several hundred Stingers, SA-7s and Blowpipes in the 1980s, and Sweden admitted to inadvertently diverting a few dozen of their MANPADs to Iran in the 1980s, as well. The optimistic conclusion would be that rigorous military efforts are paying off, and terrorists have less access to MANPADS than they used to. Or, the seizures might not be reported as often. A spokesperson for the Multi-National Forces-Iraq cited “operational security” constraints, and refused to comment when asked by the FAS about the apparent decrease. Then there’s the possibility that the missiles are just becoming harder to find. Insurgents would be wise to keep MANPADS well-hidden: they’re cheap, portable, highly-lethal and easy to use. Plus, military forces and civilians remain vulnerable to an attack. Security measures at civilian airports, like changes to perimeter security or airplane flight patterns, haven’t been implemented. And anti-missile jammers for commercial flights are still a rarity. Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/where-have-all-the-manpads-gone/#ixzz0gNf0emgO

A Model of Harmony Is Found in a Flashpoint City for Iraqi Sectarian Fighting

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS SAMARRA, Iraq — Busloads of Iranian pilgrims arrive every day at this city’s Askari Shrine, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest places, which was badly damaged by a bombing four years ago that prompted reprisal killings and pushed the country to the brink of civil war. The city, where firefights between American soldiers and Sunni insurgents took place as recently as last year, is now generally peaceful — and has been presented as a model of the harmony that can be achieved in other violent areas of the country. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who is running for re-election, has said that Iraq’s security forces are able to keep the peace in Iraq without any American role. But in Samarra, local commanders do almost nothing without checking with the American military first, raising concerns about what will happen after the scheduled departure of United States combat troops at the end of August and the exit of all American forces from the country by the end of next year. Even in its peace, there are rumblings of discontent in Samarra. The city’s pacification has meant its division by a long stretch of gray blast wall separating the shrine and its pilgrims from the rest of the city; by rare — and even then, often brittle — social interactions between Sunnis and Shiites; and by the presence of dozens of police and army checkpoints. The economy is ruined, and the danger of fresh violence persists. Still, Samarra has come so far from its days as a place of unrelenting violence that many in Iraq insist that it can ultimately be an example of nation building for the rest of the country. There is agreement among both the American military and the Iraqi government that Samarra must succeed if Iraq is to move forward without further fits of sectarian killing. “National reconciliation started here when the people asked for international help in rebuilding the Askari Shrine,” said Mahmood Khalef Ahmad, Samarra’s Sunni mayor, who was wounded by gunmen from Al Qaeda a few years ago. “What we have achieved here should be a clear example to other provinces in Iraq.” Much of that success, however, is due to the generally unseen hand of the United States, even as Americans minimize their current role in Samarra. Publicly, Mr. Ahmad is also dismissive of the continuing American influence in Samarra. But the mayor was appointed to his post by the American military, and as is the case of almost every other political, tribal or security official in town, he consults with the American military and civilians on an almost daily basis — though almost always in private. The transition from America’s exclusively military role in Iraq to one of moderator, persuader and occasional arm twister is not new, but it has taken on new urgency with the progression of the withdrawal and the difficulties in establishing democratic principles in a country unfamiliar with them. “We are coaching them, we are advising them, we are often a go-between,” said David Stewart, team leader of the State Department’s 55-member provincial reconstruction group for Salahuddin Province, where Samarra is located. “Our goal is to be out of the picture.” The military has also adopted a behind-the-scenes strategy in Samarra. It has established a 24-hour joint operation center with the Iraqi police and the Iraqi Army where situational updates arrive in both Arabic and English. The United States forces also have a team of enlisted men and officers working with Samarra Operations Command, which is responsible for the city’s security and answers directly to Prime Minister Maliki. “The interaction is constant,” said Col. Hank Arnold, commander of the Fourth Infantry Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division from Fort Riley, Kan., the American military unit currently responsible for Samarra. Moreover, American forces meet nearly every day with the city’s Awakening Councils — well-armed groups of former Sunni insurgents who acknowledge having killed American troops in the past. And, according to Iraqi security officials in Samarra, American soldiers also continue to undertake raids — with and without the participation or knowledge of their Iraqi counterparts, which would appear to violate the Status of Forces Agreement, which regulates the activities of American troops and their eventual withdrawal from Iraq. “They have many operations that we don’t know about inside and outside the city,” said Bassim Majid Jafar, deputy chief of the Samarra police. “We don’t know everything they do. But we trust them. The relationship is good.” Samarra resembles a dusty armed camp. It is policed by about 3,000 Iraqi security force members and an almost equal number of Awakening Council fighters. Buildings, many made of mud, are crumbling. Bullet holes mark houses, walls and shop windows. The roads are riddled with potholes. While many Iraqi towns are packed with traffic jams because people have been able to afford relatively cheap imported automobiles, Samarra has little traffic and many people ride bicycles and mule carts. Open sewers flow through some neighborhoods. The blast wall that protects the shrine but divides the town prevents pilgrims from shopping, eating in local restaurants or staying in hotels. Many businesses have been abandoned. “The streets have been blocked, many buildings have been destroyed, and the people of Samarra have lived like strangers in their own city,” said Mahdi Aran, a member of the local provincial council. “If they want life to come back to the city, they have to take the wall down.” The Americans, who put the wall up, also say they would like it removed and replaced with an iron fence with gates and security cameras. But Colonel Arnold said he was awaiting the approval of the government in Baghdad, which is more skeptical about the safety of the shrine than the Americans. Repairs are under way at the 10th-century shrine but are still two years from being completed. It is topped by gray concrete instead of its famous golden dome, but it still attracts more than one million pilgrims each year, many from Iran. While many Sunnis in Samarra view the Shiite shrine with reverence, many also regard it with anger. They say that it is a symbol of Iran’s dominance of the city and that it attracts far more government attention and money than the city’s predominately Sunni population does. Sheik Khalid Flaeh, an Awakening Council leader, said he was trying to halt what he believed was an attempt at a Shiite takeover in town. “Iran has a big conspiracy in Samarra,” he said. “Iranians go to buy a house from the owner and offer to pay four times the amount. But we will not allow people to sell their houses to Iranians.” He said he used fear to discourage home sales. “We defeated Al Qaeda, and as long as we are here, there will be peace,” he said about Sunni tribes in Samarra. “But if there are no jobs, if they are not allowed to join the police and army, I might not be able to prevent them from joining Al Qaeda.”

Air Force Captain running for Congress

2010 Watch: Kinzinger versus Halvorson An Air National Guardsman takes on a vulnerable incumbent. ShareThis12:48 PM, Feb 19, 2010 · BY Matthew Continetti Democrats won congressional campaigns in 2006 and 2008 campaigning as moderates. The party fielded candidates with attractive personal stories who did not stray far from the center. One of those candidates was former Mary Kay cosmetics saleswoman Debbie Halvorson, a freshman elected in 2008 in Illinois's Eleventh Congressional District. This was no ordinary victory. Illinois 11 is a Republican place. Bush won it in 2000 and 2004. Halvorson's predecessor, Republican Jerry Weller, held the seat since 1994 before retiring in 2008. But the GOP trend did not hold in a Democratic year, with Illinois's own Barack Obama at the top of the ticket. Obama defeated McCain 53 percent to 45 percent. Halvorson defeated her Republican opponent, businessman Marty Ozinga, 58 percent to 34 percent. How'd she do it? Part of her strategy was negative attacks on Ozinga. The other part was stressing her moderate credentials. On the trail, Halvorson would bring up her admiration for Blue Dog Democrats and fiscal responsibility. Once in Washington, though, Halvorson did not join the Blue Dogs. And her moderate image vanished when she signed on to the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda. In November, Halvorson will face Adam Kinzinger, a 32-year-old captain in the Air National Guard. Kinzinger is someone to watch as the story of the 2010 midterms unfolds. He's one of many young Global War on Terror veterans looking to enter national politics, and he's having some success. A couple weeks back, Kinzinger won the GOP primary with 64 percent of the vote. He's enrolled in Rep. Kevin McCarthy's Young Guns House recruitment program. His rise coincides with the fall of Obama's New Foundation. On the stump, Kinzinger emphasizes Halvorson's lock-step support of Nancy Pelosi, from the stimulus, to cap-and-trade, to health care. This is a program Kinzinger is happy to attack and Halvorson is reluctant to defend. Halvorson held no town halls during the 2009 August recess to openly (and combatively) discuss health care reform. Kinzinger held eight -- not bad for a guy who had just returned from Iraq in May. Kinzinger says Halvorson and the Democrats have failed to promote economic recovery and are interested in expanding government beyond its capacities. Halvorson has said that "sometimes Democratic ideas are really good and I'm going to vote for them." Tell that to the voters. The Cook Report says the race is "Likely Democratic," but that may change as Obama continues to flounder and as Kinzinger's fundraising begins to equal Halvorson's. If for no other reason, the race is worth keeping an eye on since it pits an RC-26 pilot against the Pink Cadillac set. What's more, the race reveals quite a bit about America's changing political landscape. In 2006 and 2008, Independents in Republican-leaning districts bet that moderate Democrats would remain moderate under the leadership of the national party in D.C. It was a bet that went south. And now the voters are looking to recoup their losses.

Jobs, prices data flag hurdles for economy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of U.S. workers filing new applications for unemployment insurance unexpectedly surged last week, while producer prices increased sharply in January, raising potential hurdles for the economic recovery. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 31,000 to 473,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. That compared to market expectations for 430,000. Another report from the department showed prices paid at the farm and factory gate rose a faster than expected 1.4 percent from December after a 0.4 percent gain in December, as higher gasoline prices and unusually cold temperatures helped boost energy costs. "When you have PPI moving up and still no progress in the jobs situation, that doesn't bode well for continued improvement in equity prices," said Alan Lancz, president at Alan B. Lancz & Associates Inc in Toledo, Ohio. U.S. stock index futures added to losses after jobless claims and producer price data, while government debt prices rose. Last week was the survey week for the employment report for February, which is scheduled for release in early March. The labor market, hardest hit by the worst recession in seven decades, has lagged the economic recovery that started in the second half of 2009. The economy has lost 8.4 million jobs since the start of the downturn in December 2007. The PPI report may give investors, who keeping a wary eye on inflation following massive efforts by the Federal Reserve to pull the economy out of its worst slump since the Great Depression of the 1930s, something to worry about. "The bottom line is that the Fed is going to have some decisions to make at its next meeting, since it seems inflation is now back on the table," said Lancz. Fed officials, keeping an eye on how quickly the recovering economy absorbs the excess slack that built up during the recession, have said they are likely to keep interest rates extraordinarily low for "an extended period." About three-fourths of the increase in PPI last month was due to a 5.1 percent jump in prices for energy goods, the department said. Energy costs were pushed up by a spike in prices for gasoline, liquefied petroleum and home heating oil. Strong energy prices overshadowed a slowdown in the food prices, which rose 0.4 percent after increasing 1.3 percent in December. Stripping out the volatile food and energy costs, core producer prices rose a faster than expected 0.3 percent last month after being flat in December. The core index had been forecast to rise 0.1 percent in January. The department on Friday will release its consumer price report for January. Headline CPI is seen rising 0.3 percent from December and core CPI gaining 0.1 percent, according to a Reuters survey. "It does present some upside risks to our call for only modest gains in CPI and also points to some possible upward price pressures in the pipeline," Millan Mulraine, an economics strategist at TD Securities in Toronto. In the claims report, the four-week moving average of new claims, which irons out week-to-week volatility, fell 1,500 to 467,500, the Labor Department said. The number of people still receiving for benefits after an initial week of aid was unchanged at 4.56 million in the week ended February 6. This measure has held below the 5 million mark for eight straight weeks and analysts believe it is starting to reflect an improvement in the labor market rather than people merely dropping off rolls because they have exhausted their benefits.

U.S. troops at lowest level in Iraq since 2003 invasion

BAGHDAD (AP) — The number of American troops in Iraq has dropped below 100,000 for the first time since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the U.S. military said Tuesday. The U.S. military plans on maintaining its current 98,000 troops on the ground in Iraq through the March 7 elections, said 1st Lt. Elizabeth Feste, an army spokeswoman in Baghdad. That's in line with what Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has said would remain in place until at least 60 days after the election — a period during which he has said Iraq's new government will be at its most vulnerable. President Obama has ordered all but 50,000 troops to leave Iraq by Aug. 31. The remainder will pull out by the end of next year under an Iraqi-American security agreement. "The withdrawal pace remains on target for about 50,000 at the end of August 2010," Feste said. AFGHANISTAN: U.S.-led offensive in Marjah continues AT RISK: Afghanistan far deadlier than Iraq for U.S. troops in 2009 Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is running for re-election on a campaign promise to make Iraq independent from U.S. military help. At a campaign rally Tuesday, he said the United States cannot expect to use Iraq as a launching pad for military action in the Middle East. "We also confirm to all our neighboring and friendly countries that our constitution stipulates to not let the Iraqi territories be a springboard to harm security and interests of any state," al-Maliki told supporters at a Baghdad hotel. During the height of the invasion in May 2003, about 150,000 U.S. forces were in Iraq. That number quickly dropped off by January 2004 as American troops moved from a combat to occupation role. The troop levels ramped up in October 2007 as part of a troop surge ordered by President Bush. At the peak of the surge there were roughly 170,000 troops on the ground. Violence dropped dramatically as a result, but the Pentagon has warned that attacks may increase in the weeks leading to the election. The Pentagon has said it is concerned that tension between the Shiite-dominated government and minority Sunnis could reignite sectarian violence that was tamped down by the troop surge. Thousands of angry Sunnis protested Tuesday in Fallujah against comments attributed to a Shiite lawmaker who allegedly insulted a companion of the prophet Mohammed revered by Sunnis. The demonstrations in Fallujah west of Baghdad followed a similar protest of hundreds of Sunnis in Baghdad on Monday over the comments by lawmaker Bahaa al-Aaraji. On Tuesday, a string of bombs targeted Iraqi army patrols and a police crime lab in Mosul northwest of Baghdad. In the first attack, a car bomb exploded outside a side entrance of the lab, said Lt. Col. Salim Ibrahim, an area commander. It killed two people. Later, two roadside bombs struck separate Iraqi army patrols in eastern Mosul, killing two soldiers.

Clinton: Iran is becoming a military dictatorship

By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security Writer Robert Burns, Ap National Security Writer 2 hrs 14 mins ago DOHA, Qatar – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that Iran is becoming a military dictatorship, a new U.S. accusation in the midst of rising tensions with Iran over its nuclear ambitions and crack down on anti-government protesters. Speaking to Arab students at Carnegie Mellon's Doha campus, Clinton said Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps appears to have gained so much power that it effectively is supplanting the government. "Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship," she said. "That is our view." Last week the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it was freezing the assets in U.S. jurisdictions of a Revolutionary Guard general and four subsidiaries of a previously penalized construction company he runs because of their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction. The Revolutionary Guard has long been a pillar of Iran's regime as a force separate from the ordinary armed forces. The Guard now has a hand in every critical area, including missile development, oil resources, dam building, road construction, telecommunications and nuclear technology. It also has absorbed the paramilitary Basij as a full-fledged part of its command structure — giving the militia greater funding and a stronger presence in Iran's internal politics. Asked if the U.S. is planning a military attack on Iran, Clinton said "no." The U.S. is focused on gaining international support for sanctions "that will be particularly aimed at those enterprises controlled by the Revolutionary Guard, which we believe is in effect supplanting the government of Iran," she said. The Obama administration is trying to "send a message to Iran — a very clear message" that the U.S. is still open to engagement "but that we will not stand idly by while you pursue a nuclear program that can be used to threaten your neighbors and even beyond," Clinton said. Later, as she boarded her plane for the next stop on her Middle East trip, Clinton said, "The civilian leadership is either preoccupied with its internal political situation or is ceding ground to the Revolutionary Guard." She told reporters traveling with her that it appears the Revolutionary Guard is in charge of Iran's controversial nuclear program and the country changing course "depends on whether the clerical and political leadership begin to reassert themselves." She added: "I'm not predicting what will happen but I think the trend with this greater and greater military lock on leadership decisions should be disturbing to Iranians as well as those of us on the outside." Clinton said the Iran that could emerge is "a far cry from the Islamic Republic that had elections and different points of view within the leadership circle. That is part of the reason that we are so concerned with what we are seeing going on there." In her Doha appearance, Clinton also said she foresees a possible breakthrough soon in stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. "I'm hopeful that this year will see the commencement of serious negotiations that will cover every issue that is outstanding," she said, adding that "everyone is anticipating" progress after more than a year of impasse between the negotiating parties. The peace talks broke down in late 2008 with Israel's incursion into Gaza, which had launched rocket attacks on Israeli targets. Clinton spoke in an interview with the Al-Jazeera TV network before a live audience of mostly Arab students at the Carnegie Mellon campus. In remarks in the Qatari capital on Sunday, Clinton said she and the president are disappointed that the administration's efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks had failed thus far. Reflecting the extent of concern in the Persian Gulf region about a U.S. confrontation with Iran, another member of the audience asked Clinton about the outlook for improving relations with Tehran. Clinton reiterated the Obama's administration view that Iran has violated its international obligation to use nuclear technology only for peaceful purposes. And she regretted that Iran has not accepted U.S. offers of nuclear negotiations. Clinton makes a point of raising the topic of women and girls' rights whenever she travels abroad. In a speech Sunday to a forum on U.S.-Muslim relations, she stressed it in the context of U.S. support for nations seeking to build democratic institutions. "As nations strive to build and strengthen governments that reflect the will of their people, grounded in their own traditions, they can count on the United States to be their partner," she said. "But the will of the people means the will of all the people, men and women. Women's rights are an issue of singular importance to me personally and as secretary of state." She also cited the issue of violence against women, without mentioning any specific country. "Even today, in 2010, women are still targets of violence," she said Sunday. "And all too often, religion might be used to justify it. But there is never a justification for violence against women. It is not cultural. It is criminal. And it is up to religious leaders to take a stand for women, to call for an end to honor killings, child marriages, domestic and gender-based violence." Later Monday, Clinton flew to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for a meeting with King Abdullah and a session with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.

Attack Gives Marines a Taste of War

By C. J. CHIVERS MARJA, Afghanistan — The helicopters landed before dawn Saturday in a poppy field beside a row of mud-walled compounds. The Marines ran into the darkness and crouched through the rotor-whipped dust as their aircraft lifted away. For the Marines of Company K, Third Battalion, Sixth Marines, the assault into the last large Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province was beginning. For almost all of them, this was to be their first taste of war. And an afternoon of small-arms combat was ahead. But at first, these Marines, the vanguard for 6,000 NATO and Afghan troops streaming in to loosen the Taliban’s grip here permanently, met no resistance. On the last miles of the ride in, the Marines were silent as the aircraft flew 200 feet above freshly sprouting fields. Irrigation canals glittered beneath the portholes, rolling past fast. They did not know what to expect, beyond the fact that at least hundreds of insurgents were waiting for them, and that many would fight to keep their hold on this opium-poppy production center. Company K is part of what many Marines call a surge battalion, one of the units assigned to Afghanistan after President Obama decided last year to increase the American troop level on the ground. It arrived in Afghanistan a month ago, and had waited for this moment. Its introduction to the war was a crash course. As helicopter wheels touched soil, the aircraft filled with whoops, and the Marines stood and bolted for the tail ramp. They moved briskly. Within minutes, the first Marines of Third Platoon were entering compounds to the landing zone’s north, checking for enemy fighters and booby traps. The rest of the platoon followed through the gate. Sergeants and corporals urged a steady pace. “Go! Go! Go!” they said, spicing instructions with foul words. By 3 a.m., Company K had its toehold. The company’s mission was to seize the area around the major intersection in northern Marja, clear a village beside it and hold it. By drawing this assignment, the company had become its battalion’s lead unit — sent alone and out front into Taliban territory. It had been told to hold its area until other companies, driving over the ground and clearing hidden explosives from the roads, worked down from the northwest and caught up. Second Platoon took a position to the west, to block Route 605, a main road. First Platoon was to the east, watching over another likely Taliban avenue of approach. Third Platoon gathered in the southernmost compounds, with orders to sweep north and clear the entire village. Third Platoon’s commander, First Lt. Adam J. Franco, ordered a halt until dawn. A canal separated the platoon from the village. The company had been warned of booby traps. Lieutenant Franco chose to cross the canal with daylight, reducing the risks of a Marine’s stepping on an unseen pressure plate that would detonate an explosive charge. “Hold tight,” he said into his radio. The noncommissioned officers paced in the blackness, counting and recounting every man. Being the lead company had drawbacks. The Marines had been told that ground reinforcements and fresh supplies might not reach them for three days. This meant they had to carry everything they would need during that time: water, ammunition, food, first-aid equipment, bedrolls, clothes and spare batteries for radios and night-vision devices. As they jogged forward, the men grunted and swore under their burdens, which in many cases weighed 100 pounds or more. Some carried five-gallon jugs of water, others hauled stretchers, rockets, mortar ammunition or bundles of plastic explosives and spools of time-fuse and detonating cord. In Third Platoon, two teams carried collapsible aluminum footbridges, each about 25 feet long when extended, which the platoon would use to cross the canal. At daybreak, Third Platoon bounded across one of its bridges and into the village, and dropped its backpacks and extra equipment, moving forward without excess weight. The Taliban initially chose not to fight, and the company’s first sweeps were uneventful. At 8:30 a.m., as one of the squads searched buildings, a gunshot sounded just behind the walls. The Marines rushed toward the door, guns level to their eyes, ready for their first fight. A shout carried over the wall. “Dog!” the voice said. A Marine had fired a warning shot at an attacking dog, scaring it off. The young Marines shook their heads. Minutes later, gunfire erupted to the south, where another unit, First Battalion, Sixth Marines, had also inserted Marines. The firing was intense for about 10 minutes, then it subsided. It rose again a few minutes later, and subsided again. Much of the shooting carried the distinct sound of American machine guns and squad automatic weapons. Then a large explosion rumbled near the source of the noise. A small mushroom-shaped cloud rose from the spot: an airstrike. The Marines listened to the fighting far away. They still had no contact. Before the assault, Capt. Joshua P. Biggers, Company K’s commander, had said that as many as 90 percent of the company’s Marines had not been in combat before. A few were brand new — straight from boot camp and infantry school, men with roughly a half-year in the corps. But the captain also said the bulk of the company had been together a year or more. These Marines knew each other well, he said, and had trained intensely for this day. “They’re ready,” he said. Soon they were finding signs of the Taliban. A sweep of one compound turned up 12 sacks of fertilizer used to make explosives and a batch of new cooking pots, which insurgents have often used as the shells of bombs. The compound’s only adult male resident, Abdul Ghani, said the fertilizer belonged to his son. The company detained Abdul Ghani. At 10 a.m., the day changed. Taliban fighters probed Second Platoon, and a firefight erupted as the platoon moved toward the road. It subsided, but not before several Taliban fighters had been killed and the platoon had been fired on by small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. At 12:40, fighting broke out for Third Platoon. For almost three hours, Second and Third Platoons took sporadic fire from insurgents in several directions. At times the fighting was intense, and the gunfire rose and roared and snapped overhead. The fight briefly quieted after a B-1 bomber dropped a 500-pound bomb on a compound near the landing zone, leveling most of the house there. For a short while after the airstrike, the village was quiet. But by late afternoon, the company, which had established a crude outpost in a compound, was taking fire again. Between exchanges of fire, a squad-sized patrol led by Cpl. Thomas D. Drake pushed out across the fields to search the building that had been hit by the airstrike. The Taliban let the Marines walk into an open field and approach a tall stand of dried grass. Then they opened fire in a hasty ambush. The Marines dropped. They fired back, exposed. Gunfire rose to a crescendo. Corporal Drake shouted over the noise to the team in front, “You got everyone?” He shouted to the team behind him, which was pressed flat in the field. “Everyone O.K.?” The Taliban firing subsided. “We’re moving!” the corporal shouted. The patrol stood and sprinted toward the withdrawing Taliban, and then ran across irrigation dikes and poppy fields and entered the compound that had been struck. It searched the wreckage, took pictures, collected a few documents and returned to the small outpost just ahead of dark. At night, Captain Biggers reflected on the day. An explosives ordnance disposal team with the company had found and destroyed four large bombs hidden in the roads. The platoons had seized their first objectives. In its first day of combat, Company K had been fighting for hours without a casualty, and several Taliban fighters were lying dead in one of the fields.

Election campaign kicks off in Iraq

By BUSHRA JUHI The Associated Press BAGHDAD — Iraq officially kicked off the campaign season Friday, just hours after an appeals panel banned a number of candidates from running in March nationwide elections. Enlarge photo FILE- In this Feb. 7, 2007 file photo, a helicopter operated by Blackwater USA, a private security contractor, flies over central Baghdad, Iraq. Iraq has ordered about 250 former and current employees of Blackwater Worldwide to leave the country within seven days or face having their visas pulled. The order comes in the wake of a U.S. judge dismissing criminal charges against five Blackwater guards who were accused in the September 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic, File) Enlarge photo FILE - In this April 4, 2004 file photo, plainclothes contractors working for Blackwater USA take part in a firefight as Iraqi demonstrators loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr attempt to advance on a facility being defended by U.S. and Spanish soldiers in the Iraqi city of Najaf. Iraq has ordered about 250 former and current employees of Blackwater Worldwide to leave the country within seven days or face having their visas pulled. The order comes in the wake of a U.S. judge dismissing criminal charges against five Blackwater guards who were accused in the September 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Gervasio Sanchez, File) Enlarge photo Campaign material depicting Iraq's Interior Minister, Jawad Bolani and his Unity Alliance of Iraq, for the upcoming election, are prepared at a printing shop in Baghdad, Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) Enlarge photo Campaign materials for the upcoming Iraqi election, are prepared at a printing shop in Baghdad, Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) More Nation & World stories » Mass. 1st-grade sex harassment case settled Clinton leaves hospital Schools close as South starts getting rare snow The nation's weather Disaster in Haiti Health Care Reform: News and resources Top news around the Web Campaign posters were plastered across Baghdad and other cities by early Friday morning, urging people to go to the polls. In Basra, one poster read: "Your city needs someone who knows what Basra needs." But in a move that was likely to raise tensions ahead of the March 7 parliamentary elections between the Shiite-led government and Sunnis who claim they are politically undermined, the appeals panel late Thursday only cleared 28 candidates out of the hundreds blacklisted over suspected ties to Saddam Hussein's regime. "The appeals were accepted either because of similarity of names or because there was not enough evidence against them," said Mudhafar al-Battat, a spokesman for the government-backed Accountability and Justice Committee — tasked with weeding out hardcore supporters of Saddam's outlawed Baath party. Al-Battat declined to identify those candidates barred from the election. Ali al-Lami, head of the committee that drafted the blacklist, said he had been informed by the appeals panel of its decision to bar Saleh al-Mutlaq and Dhafir al-Ani, the most prominent Sunni lawmakers. Al-Mutlaq, a fierce critic of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, has acknowledged he was a Baathist until the late 1970s but quit the party. Al-Ani took the helm of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament after its moderate leader Harith al-Obeidi was assassinated in June 2009. A number of those candidates blacklisted were either replaced by their party or dropped out of the election altogether. Within hours of the decision, campaign posters in Baghdad were plastered across concrete blast walls that double as makeshift billboards — a practice that has become popular in Iraq in recent years. The start of campaigning had been postponed by more than a week to give the panel time to investigate the appeals of candidates on the blacklist. Many candidates, including al-Maliki, were forced to remove campaign posters earlier this week after they were put up ahead of the official campaign period.

Iran claims new success in uranium enrichment

By Thomas Erdbrink, Joby Warrick and Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, February 11, 2010; 12:05 PM TEHRAN -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asserted Thursday that Iran has produced its first batch of higher-grade enriched uranium and declared that his country is now a "nuclear state," although he continued to deny that Iran has any intention of building nuclear weapons. Addressing a huge crowd of government supporters in central Tehran on the 31st anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution, Ahmadinejad defiantly declared that the state's uranium-enrichment facility near Natanz has produced an unspecified quantity of uranium enriched to 20 percent just two days after starting the process. "We have the capability to enrich uranium more than 20 percent or even 80 percent, but we don't enrich [to that level] because we don't need it," Ahmadinejad said. Reiterating his denials of any plans to build nuclear weapons, he told the throng, "When we say that we don't build nuclear bombs, it means that we won't do that because we don't believe in having them. The Iranian nation is brave enough that if one day we wanted to create an atomic bomb, we would announce it publicly and would create it." Addressing Western powers, he added: "We are not afraid of you." Iran announced Monday that it would begin increasing the enrichment level of some of its uranium the next day, from a current maximum of 3.5 percent to 20 percent, ostensibly to provide fuel for a 41-year-old, U.S.-built research reactor in Tehran that produces medical isotopes. Although it falls short of the 90 percent enriched uranium needed for the fissile material in nuclear weapons, the plan to produce 20 percent enriched uranium was met with swift condemnation from the United States and its allies, which began moving to impose tougher international sanctions on Iran. Three rounds of U.N. Security Council have been imposed on Iran for producing low-enriched 3.5 percent uranium, which Tehran has said it needs to fuel nuclear power plants. Ahmadinejad vowed that Iran's uranium-enrichment work "will continue until the needs of the country are totally met." He went on to claim, without specifying amounts, that production of 20 percent enriched uranium would triple in the next few days. However, Ahmadinejad's remarks Thursday were contradicted by new U.S. assessments that indicate Iran is experiencing surprising setbacks in its efforts to enrich uranium. The assessments suggest that equipment failures and other difficulties could undermine Iranian plans for dramatically scaling up its nuclear program. Former U.S. officials and independent nuclear experts say continued technical problems could also delay -- though probably not halt -- Iran's march toward achieving nuclear-weapons capability, giving the United States and its allies more time to press for a diplomatic solution. In recent months, Israeli officials have been less vocal in their demands that Western nations curtail Iran's nuclear program. Indications of Iran's diminished capacity to enrich uranium arose as the Obama administration began to take sterner action to compel Iran to abandon enrichment. On Wednesday, the Treasury Department announced new U.S. sanctions against companies it says are affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, a key player in the country's nuclear and missile programs. While Iran says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, Western nations suspect that the country is intent on developing an atomic bomb. The program prompts frequent international posturing, such as Iran's announcement last year that it would expand its nuclear facilities tenfold and more recent statements from Western leaders that the time has come to apply tougher international sanctions against the country. Beneath this rhetoric, U.N. reports over the last year have shown a drop in production at Iran's main uranium enrichment plant near the city of Natanz. Now a new assessment, based on three years of internal data from U.N. nuclear inspections, suggests that Iran's mechanical woes are deeper than previously known. At least through the end of 2009, the Natanz plant appears to have performed so poorly that sabotage cannot be ruled out as an explanation, according to a draft study by David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). A copy of the report was provided to The Washington Post. Asked about Ahmadinejad's claim Thursday that Iran has already produced its first batch of 20 percent enriched uranium, Albright said any such uranium turned out so soon after starting the process would be "a tiny amount," the Associated Press reported. The ISIS study showed that more than half of the Natanz plant's 8,700 uranium-enriching machines, called centrifuges, were idle at the end of last year and that the number of working machines had steadily dropped -- from 5,000 in May to just over 3,900 in November. Moreover, output from the nominally functioning machines was about half of what was expected, said the report, drawing from data gathered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. A separate, forthcoming analysis by the Federation of American Scientists also describes Iran's flagging performance and suggests that continued failures may increase Iran's appetite for a deal with the West. Ivan Oelrich, vice president of the federation's Strategic Security Program, said Iranian leaders appear to have raced into large-scale uranium production for political reasons. "They are really struggling to reproduce what is literally half-century-old European technology and doing a really bad job of it," Oelrich said. The findings are in line with assessments by numerous former U.S. and European officials and weapons analysts who say that Iran's centrifuges appear to be breaking down at a faster rate than expected, even after factoring in the notoriously unreliable, 1970s-vintage model the Iranians are using. According to several of the officials, the problems have prompted new thinking about the urgency of the Iranian nuclear threat, although the country has demonstrated a growing technical prowess, such as its expanding missile program. "Whether Iran has deliberately slowed down or been forced to, either way that stretches out the time," said Patrick Clawson, deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a nonpartisan think tank. But analysts also warned that Iran remains capable of making enough enriched uranium for a small arsenal of nuclear weapons, if it decides to do so. Iran has announced plans to build 10 new uranium plants. Some officials suggested that the apparent drop in output could be a ruse, an attempt by Iran to disguise its true capability until it is ready to test a nuclear device. Iran acknowledged last year that it had built a secret enrichment facility inside a mountain bunker near the Shiite holy city of Qom, leading to suspicions that there could be other hidden sites. "The IAEA measurements at Natanz are very crude and easily subject to intentional manipulation," said a former U.S. official who has closely monitored Iran's nuclear progress. He predicted that the watchdog agency eventually "will see that Iran is hiding production and is underreporting their success." The administration's announcement of new sanctions represents stepped-up enforcement of existing punitive measures against Iran as the White House prepares to push for concerted action by the U.N. Security Council, the European Union and a coalition of major trading partners in an effort to force Iran to address international concerns over its nuclear ambitions. U.S. officials are considering additional sanctions against companies linked to the Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as finance, insurance and other entities connected to the government elite, but Russian and Chinese acquiescence is not guaranteed. Russia has warned that it probably would not support economic measures, although Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency Wednesday that Iran's decision this week to begin producing higher-enriched uranium has given "additional relevance" to a new sanctions resolution. China has remained cool to new sanctions. This week's action freezes the assets of four companies that Treasury said are owned or controlled by, or act on behalf of, a major contractor known as Khatam al-Anbiya, which has channeled billions of dollars a year to the Guard from its activities in oil, construction, transportation and other industries. The action also targets Guard Gen. Rostam Qasemi, who is the commander of Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters. The Guard has received at least $6 billion worth of government contracts in two years, according to state-run media, but the total is likely much higher because many contracts are not disclosed. Working through its private-sector arm, the group operates Tehran's international airport, manages Iran's weapons manufacturing business and is involved in other industries. "Today's action exposing Khatam al-Anbiya subsidiaries will help firms worldwide avoid business that ultimately benefits the IRGC and its dangerous activities," said Treasury Undersecretary Stuart A. Levey. The subsidiaries are: the Fater Engineering Institute, the Imensazen Consultant Engineers Institute, the Makin Institute and the Rahab Institute. Also Wednesday, Iran rejected an offer from the United States to help provide it with a steady supply of medical isotopes, meaning that it will stay with its plan to produce uranium enriched to 20 percent in order to feed an aging U.S.-built research reactor that can make the isotopes. Iranian officials have told the IAEA that the country will produce its first batch of higher-enriched uranium within a few days, but the officials also disclosed that the effort will be modest, involving a small amount of uranium feedstock and a fraction of Iran's capacities, according to a confidential U.N. document obtained by the Associated Press. The enrichment program's troubles have been documented by IAEA inspectors who have visited the Natanz plant at scheduled intervals to collect samples and take measurements to ensure that Iran isn't diverting the enriched fuel for a clandestine weapons program. As the ISIS study notes, the Natanz plant initially exceeded expectations, producing steadily higher amounts of low-enriched fuel. But sometime in late 2008 or early 2009, the output dropped from about 90 to 70 kilograms per month. Overall production improved slightly after that but struggled to return to 2008 levels, even as Iranian scientists installed more centrifuges, the report said. In late 2009, the 3,900 machines listed as functional were generating half the amount of enriched uranium expected, it said. Neither Iran nor the U.N. watchdog have officially accounted for the slumping output, and U.S. officials have declined to speculate publicly about the reasons. The ISIS report identifies the likely cause as a combination of poor design and Iran's rush to put complex assemblages of centrifuges into production before working out the bugs. The report cites "daily attrition through breakage," as well as a failure to anticipate the difficulty of operating large numbers of machines simultaneously. "Iran has moved too quickly to install centrifuges, at the expense of developing competence in operating them reliably," said the report, co-authored by Albright and Christina Walrond. "In the process it has made many mistakes." Also, while there is no hard evidence pointing to sabotage, ISIS acknowledges the possibility that Natanz's problems were caused by outside sources. "It is well known that the United States and European intelligence agencies seek to place defective or bugged equipment into Iran's smuggling networks," it said.

Warship sale to Russia 'no threat to Nato'Premium

By Slobodan Lekic in Brussels CONCERN among former Soviet republics about France's sale of a modern assault ship to Russia were yesterday described as "understandable" by Nato. Nato members Estonia and Lithuania have expressed alarm at the sale of the 23,700-ton Mistral-class helicopter carrier to the Russian navy. But Nato spokesman James Appathurai said: "Secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen doesn't consider Russia a threat and he hopes Russia doesn't think of Nato as a threat. But the anxieties of some allies are real and are understandable for historical reasons and geographical reasons." France has agreed to sell Russia a single warship and is considering a request for three more that may be built in Russian shipyards. Each costs 500million (£440m). It is the first major sale of defence equipment to Russia by a Nato member. During the 2008 war with Georgia, Russian forces used the navy to support operations on the ground.

Iran Nuclear Plans Start New Calls for Sanctions

By ALAN COWELL and THOM SHANKER New York Times PARIS — Iran told the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency on Monday that it would begin enriching its stockpile of uranium for use in a medical reactor, prompting officials from the United States, France and Russia to call for stronger sanctions against Tehran. Late Monday in Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that it had received a letter from Iran declaring its intent to begin enriching uranium up to 20 percent. The agency’s statement gave no date for starting the enrichment, though Tehran said that might come as early as Tuesday. Tehran’s decision elicited a sharp reaction in the West. In Paris, the visiting United States defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, said the Obama administration and its allies had done all they could to entice Iran to negotiate. “All of these initiatives have been rejected,” he said. While “we must still try and find a peaceful way to resolve this issue, ” he said, “the only path that is left to us at this point, it seems to me, is that pressure track. But it will require all of the international community to work together.” Even in Russia, which along with China has consistently resisted sanctions against Iran, there were calls for stronger action against Tehran. Konstantin I. Kosachyov, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of the Russian Parliament, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as urging the international community to prepare “serious measures.” At issue is a proposal for Iran to send its uranium stockpile outside the country to be enriched and processed into fuel rods for use in the medical reactor. This was attractive to the West because it would deprive Iran of stockpiles that it could convert into bomb fuel, while providing Tehran with fuel rods that would be very difficult to use in a weapon. Iran was reported last October to have accepted the proposal, but later backed away. Western officials say Iran has rejected the deal, but Tehran accuses the West of failing to respond to its proposals. If Russia does join the other world powers in backing President Obama’s call for tougher United Nations sanctions, that would isolate China, which has said such action could make finding a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis even more difficult. The United States has begun circulating ideas for possible sanctions among its closest allies on the Security Council and is hoping that Iran’s announcement might convince China that Tehran’s real purpose is to create a weapon, and not the civilian use of nuclear energy. Calling Iran’s move provocative, a senior American official said that the decision to enrich to 20 percent, if carried out, would suggest that Iran’s “intentions are not as they stated.” Iran’s nuclear program is one of the most contentious issues between the West and Tehran, which asserts its right to a peaceful nuclear program and rejects Western suspicions that it is seeking to build a nuclear weapon. In recent days Iran has sent a perplexing series of conflicting signals. In its letter to the nuclear agency, Iran set out a plan to begin enriching its stockpile to 20-percent purity, news reports said. That is high enough for use in the medical reactor but significantly lower than the 90 percent levels needed for weapons. The worry is that any effort to produce 20-percent enriched uranium would put the country in a position to produce weapons-grade uranium in a comparatively short time, nuclear experts say. That is alarming to, among others, the Israeli leadership, which has called an Iranian nuclear weapon an “existential threat.” It remains far from clear that Iran has the capacity to enrich fuel to the level ordered by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is apparently seeking to increase pressure on the West to reopen negotiations on providing fuel for the medical reactor on terms more favorable to Tehran. Indeed, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, was quoted by Reuters as suggesting that Tehran’s planned enrichment efforts would be halted if Iran received fuel enriched to 20 percent from abroad. He also said a previously announced plan to build 10 new enrichment plants would begin in the next Iranian year starting on March 21, Reuters reported. In another development, The White House and European Union issued a statement Tuesday expressing concern about signs of a renewed crackdown by Tehran around the approaching anniversary of the founding of the Islamic Republic.

China's debt bomb

By ARTHUR HERMAN 'He who pays the piper calls the tune": That old saying captures perfectly America's growing dependence on our No. 1 creditor in the world, Communist China. By their carelessness Congress and the Obama administration are steadily handing over control of America's economic and financial future to a handful of Chinese officials and generals in Beijing. Those who think the Chinese won't use that control if they feel they have to are ignoring history -- and the Chinese. The ancient military strategist Sun Tzu said that the best strategy was to render an opponent's army helpless even before the battle began. America may still have the biggest and best military in the world. But many at the Pentagon are starting to realize that, thanks to our growing fiscal irresponsibility, we may be surrendering control of America's destiny to a rival superpower -- and all without a shot being fired. Consider the scale of the problem. With President Obama's 2010 budget, 42 cents of every dollar the federal government spends will have to be borrowed. In the last decade, foreign investors have wound up lending us roughly half of all federal debt -- with just two countries, China and Japan, providing nearly half of that sum, or 44 percent, through the purchase of US Treasury securities. China now tops Japan as our biggest lender by some $30 billion a year, at $789 billion. (By comparison, our No. 3 lender, Great Britain, comes in at a measly $277 billion). But that's not all. As its booming economy becomes more global, China is also the world's largest holder of foreign-currency reserves. Most of that is in US dollars. Indeed, without most Americans realizing it, China has become the largest foreign holder of US dollars in the world. How many dollars foreign exchange traders at the Bank of China decide to sell or buy on any given day is increasingly determining whether the dollars in our purses and wallets buy a little or a lot. Seen from one angle, this dependence on China for the value of our national currency and the funding of our debt is like our dependence on inexpensive Chinese exports for our standard of living: the inevitable fruit of today's interlocking global economies -- and poor planning on our part. Seen from another, more strategic angle, it may spell disaster. History shows that nations that can't control their economic fortunes don't control much else. Debt freezes destinies -- as every credit-card holder knows. Europeans discovered that after World War II, when they lost the power to make major decisions without first checking with their lender-in-chief, the United States. At that time, we used our economic dominance to rebuild Europe, not reduce it to impotence. On the other hand, If US-China relations continue to deteriorate -- over arms sales to Taiwan, Internet freedom issues, Chinese industrial espionage and a Chinese military build-up that looks more and more like it's directed at challenging US power in Asia -- our lenders-in-chief in Beijing may not be so scrupulous. Indeed, back in 1999, the Chinese literally wrote the book on how to use economic asymmetries as a blunt instrument, entitled "Unrestricted Warfare." It draws no meaningful distinction between military, economic and political force (including using cyberspace) as means to defeat an enemy. Instead, it shows how a nation can dominate its opponents not with planes, ships and soldiers, but with foreign exchange rates, trade embargoes and armies of computer hackers. Suppose that in retaliation for some slight China decides to stop buying Treasury bonds, forcing our debt to cost us even more. A furious US Congress hits back with trade sanctions. China then responds by driving up the price of the dollar, crippling US exports -- or, alternately, it crashes the dollar by dumping its foreign reserves, even as Chinese computer hackers slow down our banks' ability to respond to the crisis. No one will call this a war. But it will certainly fit the classic definition of war as politics by other means. And the Pentagon knows it. Last March, the Pentagon held its first-ever economic-warfare war game, with China as the putative opponent and with economists and bankers (including from UBS) helping out. Details of what unfolded are still classified. However, sources told Fox Business News that the scenario played out as planned. That was the good news. The bad news is that China won. Today, some experts argue that rational self-interest will prevent China from waging this kind of economic warfare, because crippling the US would also severely wound its own economy. However, on an issue like Taiwan or Japan, rational judgment can take a backseat to national pride, and the desire to reverse old humiliations. That war game was almost a year ago, when the Federal deficit was half of what it is today. And China is moving out of its short-term debt positions -- although slowly enough not to roil the credit markets. In any case, Bracken and others argue that we need more coordination between the Treasury and the Pentagon on ways to deal with a vulnerability that seemed entirely theoretical then, but now seems all too real. Still others are pushing for rules restricting the future sales of Treasury securities to foreign buyers. All this, however, is only playing catch up. The real issue is whether we get our fiscal house in order, and realize that a $12 trillion national debt and a crippled economy could leave us as vulnerable as we once were on a December Sunday morning 69 years ago, at Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Iraqi court lifts mass ban on candidates, cutting risk of Sunni election boycott

By Leila Fadel and Qais Mizher Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, February 4, 2010; A08 BAGHDAD -- An Iraqi appeals court on Wednesday overturned an effort to bar hundreds of candidates from Iraq's upcoming national elections, reducing the risk of a Sunni boycott that could render the entire process illegitimate. The panel asked Iraq's electoral commission to postpone until after the March 7 parliamentary elections the appeals of hundreds of candidates accused of allegiance to deposed president Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. The candidates would be allowed to run, and those elected would deal with their appeals then. If deemed unfit, they would be prohibited from taking office. The plan, which Iraqi officials said Vice President Joe Biden proposed in phone conversations last month, means the judicial panel would probably face only a handful of appeals cases, rather than having to process several hundred in less than two months. Electoral commission officials said Wednesday that they will not make a decision until they are officially informed of the appeals court's decision Thursday. The United States and United Nations have pushed for transparency in the appeals process, fearing that if the mass ban is seen as a sectarian or politically motivated move by the Shiite-led government, Iraq's large Sunni Arab minority will refuse to vote. Most Sunni Arabs boycotted the last national elections, in 2005, to protest the U.S.-led occupation. A powerful insurgency ensued, targeting the government and its foreign backers. The Supreme National Commission for Accountability and Justice, assigned to purge Hussein loyalists from government, announced the ban last month, sending shock waves through Iraq's fragile political system. The panel barred more than 500 candidates; some were Shiites, but the most prominent were Sunni. The commission condemned Wednesday's appeals court decision as unconstitutional and said the judges had been unduly influenced by the United States. "I appeal to the government and the Foreign Ministry in particular to ask the American Embassy in Baghdad to stop its interference and pressures on the accountability and electoral commissions," said Ali Faisal al-Lami, the head of the commission, speaking on state television. Lami, who is running as a candidate, said in a phone interview that the ruling is illegal and that the electoral commission has no right to authorize the candidates to run. "The appeals committee should come to us for every step," he said. "We are the only ones that have the authority to deal with this overturning." Iraq's Shiite-led government has pushed hard to weed out Hussein-era officials from public offices and security forces, a policy initiated by the United States shortly after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. But many contend that the policy has gone too far, penalizing innocent people and depriving Iraq of skilled government workers. The U.S. Embassy welcomed Wednesday's decision as a step toward legitimate elections. U.S. officials said they had yet to see the ruling but dismissed Lami's criticism that they had infringed on Iraq's sovereignty. "Mr. Al-Lami should take up his complaint with the Court of Cassation, not the U.S. embassy," Philip Frayne, an embassy spokesman, said in an e-mail. Also Wednesday, at least 20 people were killed and 117 injured when a motorcycle laden with explosives detonated among Shiite pilgrims converging on the southern city of Karbala. The attack was the second in three days to target pilgrims walking to the holy city to mark a Shiite commemoration.

US envoy says Iraq election on March 7 must be seen as fair

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill talks to The Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Feb. 1, 2010. America's ambassador to Iraq says he thinks a fierce controversy over a ballot purge of candidates who are suspected Saddam Hussein loyalists will be resolved before March 7 parliamentary elections. Hill says he believes Iraq's government will open its vetting process to show voters why certain candidates were disqualified from running. Baghdad (Iraq) LARA JAKES Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD (AP) — The U.S. ambassador to Iraq outlined twin challenges Monday to the unsteady democracy's elections next month: assuring that voters and rival factions accept the result and then making sure the losers step aside quietly. Christopher Hill said the March 7 parliamentary balloting will likely shape Iraq's path long after the U.S. military pullout. It also will test Sunni-Shiite cooperation to quell violence — which struck again Monday as a suicide bomber killed at least 54 Shiite pilgrims. The vote, delayed from January, will be the last major election in which the U.S. military is helping with security. At stake are some of the country's most ambitious goals, including political and sectarian reconciliation and finalizing a law governing the oil industry, on which Iraq's economy is almost solely dependent. In an interview with The Associated Press, Hill said he was confident Shiite political leaders would soon settle a seething debate over the purge from the ballot of about 450 candidates accused of being loyalists to Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime. The blacklist is widely seen as targeting Sunnis, even though Shiite candidates are also on the list. He predicted the Iraqi government would fully explain the reasons for banning each of the candidates because "there should be a situation where people don't scratch their heads at why certain people have been included on the list." "We don't want a situation where some people, or some groups of people, do not accept the outcome" of the election, he said. "That can make the security situation problematic." Among those barred from running is prominent Sunni politician Salah al-Mutlak, who has acknowledged he was a Baathist until the late 1970s, when he quit the party. An Iraqi court dismissed al-Mutlak's appeal and 41 others this week, said Hamdiya al-Hussaini, a member of the independent elections commission. A clear reason why was not immediately available. A high-profile sheik in Anbar province, Awakening Council leader Ahmed Abu Risha, is weighing whether to urge fellow Sunnis to boycott the election if the purge continues. His group was one of the first of Sunni insurgents to side with U.S. forces against al-Qaida. A perception among Sunnis that they are being shut out of the election could set back progress the U.S. military made in 2006 and 2007 in reversing the insurgency, which threatened Iraq with civil war. A breakdown in security could also hamper U.S. plans to withdraw all combat troops by the end of August, a move that is critical to President Barack Obama's new focus on Afghanistan. Violence has ebbed substantially across Iraq over the last two years. But in a grim and all-too-familiar reminder of sectarian attacks, Iraqi security officials said a female suicide bomber who hid explosives beneath her long black abaya cloak killed at least 54 people in Baghdad on Monday as Shiite pilgrims headed to the southern city of Karbala ahead of a Shiite holy day. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has staked his political future on an alliance with fellow Shiites and moderate Sunnis — all seeking to portray themselves as reliable leaders by citing improvements in overall security and hints of economic gains such as recent oil deals with foreign investors. But al-Maliki faces Shiite rivals from among religious parties and from his own interior minister, who has forged a bloc with the Sunni sheik Abu Risa. In his embassy office in the Green Zone, Hill spoke of what he called "the day after" — the transition into the new government's rule. He predicted it will "take a lot of time" for the government to get up and running — mostly to ensure balance and inclusion among competing political forces. After Iraq's last parliamentary election in 2005, bickering between and within political parties and religious groups delayed the new government from being seated for months. Part of that was because of U.S. insistence that Sunni lawmakers be given some power to balance out majority Shiite leaders. If the ballot purge leads to disputed election results, the government could be delayed even longer. International election observers believe a disputed election that leads to chaos could easily inflame insurgents who already have sent political messages in the forms of car bombs and suicide bombers to target government buildings in four spectacular attacks in Baghdad since August, including one last week. "What will help determine whether these elections are successful or not is not the behavior of the winners, but rather how the losers accept the elections," Hill said.

Gates' QDR Envisions a Do-It-All Military

By JOHN T. BENNETT The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) unveiled Feb. 1 envisions a U.S. military that would be very different than the one Defense Secretary Robert Gates found upon taking office in 2006. The much-anticipated review calls for a force shaped for a wide swath of activities in many hotspots, not one only shaped to simultaneously fight two peer militaries. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen speaks Feb. 1 at a news briefing at the Pentagon to discuss the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review and the 2011 U.S. defense budget. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is seated to his left. (JEWEL SAMAD / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE) The 2010 review keeps a requirement for a force capable of conducting two major contingencies at once, but it "breaks from the past … in its insistence that the U.S. Armed Forces must be capable of conducting a wide range of operations." Related Topics Americas Air Warfare Land Warfare Naval Warfare And it's no short list, ranging from two big operations to "homeland defense and defense support to civil authorities, to deterrence and preparedness missions, to the conflicts we are in and the wars we may someday face," the QDR states. Gates, during a briefing at the Pentagon, told reporters he found the Cold War-era force planning construct "too confining," and felt it "didn't represent the real world" in which the U.S. military will operate for years to come. The secretary prompted the change in the Pentagon's force planned construct months ago. As the QDR process was getting underway, Gates told reporters he asked DoD researchers and planners what would happen if the U.S. military, which already is involved in a pair of major operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, faced another serious challenge. Examples the secretary listed included a major earthquake like the one that destroyed much of Haiti last month and a major domestic disaster. The new construct "stresses the importance of fielding forces that are versatile and that, in aggregate, can undertake missions across the full range of plausible challenges," according to the QDR. "Because America's adversaries have been adopting a wide range of strategies and capabilities that can be brought to bear against the United States and its forces, allies, and interests, it is no longer appropriate to speak of 'major regional conflicts' as the sole or even the primary template for sizing, shaping, and evaluating U.S. forces," the review states. Instead, the quadrennial study calls for a U.S. force "prepared to conduct a wide variety of missions under a range of different circumstances." It goes on to describe operations that "may vary in duration and intensity for maritime, air, ground, space and cyber forces." Some former officials and analysts have raised concerns about the notion of creating a military largely composed of so-called "full-spectrum forces," meaning they are able to do many things. One source who reviewed a copy of the quadrennial study before it was publicly released said he worries it is pushing for a generalist U.S. force. "That notion is a total misnomer," the source said, adding he feels forces should have a clear and strong expertise. The Pentagon seems to have heard such alarms. "Ensuring flexibility of the whole force does not require each part of the force to do everything equally well," the quadrennial review states. "Not all challenges pose the same degree of threat to national interests, rely on U.S. military capabilities equally, or have the same chance of occurrence." The new force-shaping model was derived from what the draft report calls the Pentagon's four defense strategy priorities: "prevail in today's wars; prevent and deter conflict; prepare to succeed in a wide range of contingencies; and preserve and enhance the force." Sources say the priorities are known within the QDR process as "the Four Ps." The study also establishes frameworks that look beyond the five-year DoD budget plan that was rolled out along with the QDR. "Whereas [past] QDRs have often emphasized shaping the force beyond the five-year time frame, this QDR, of necessity, had to focus intensively on present conflicts as well as potential future needs," it states. "Our force-sizing construct therefore takes into account the realities of the current operational environment. In order to shape the force of the future, however, the construct also establishes sizing criteria for the midterm [5–7 years] and long term [7–20 years]." The study also hints Obama administration defense officials agree with many Pentagon observers who have long said past QDRs failed to make a lasting impact because they often aren't implemented within the Pentagon's annual budgeting process. "To ensure a tight coupling of strategic ends to means, the QDR force-sizing construct is defined according to the priority objectives of the defense strategy," the study states. Additionally, the draft QDR says Pentagon officials built the review around six key mission areas: defend the United States and support civil authorities at home; conduct counterinsurgency, stability and counterterrorist operations; build partnership capacity; deter and defeat aggression in anti-access environments; impede proliferation and counter weapons of mass destruction; operate effectively in cyberspace. The QDR calls for steps to ensure success in each mission area that could influence Pentagon procurement and research accounts. For defending the homeland, initiatives include enhancing crisis response forces, speeding development of nuclear and radiation detection tools, and bolstering counter-IED tools to thwart potential bomb attacks inside the United States. Under the counterinsurgency-stability-counterterror goals, the QDR calls for increased availability of helicopters, unmanned and manned ISR planes, increasing "enabling assets for special operations forces." For "deterring and defeating" foes in "anti-access environments," the QDR cites a list of steps: more long-range strike systems; "exploit advantages in subsurface operations"; enhance ISR platforms; and assure access to space. The QDR raises cyberspace operations to the top of the department's focus list. Here, the Pentagon must "develop a more comprehensive approach to DoD operations in cyberspace." Also needed are "greater cyber expertise and awareness," and better organization and command of cyber activities within DoD and across the federal government, it states. Meantime, the QDR also spawned a follow-on study that will "determine what combination of joint persistent surveillance, electronic warfare, and precision-attack capabilities, including both penetrating platforms and stand-off weapons, will best support U.S. power projection operations over the next two to three decades." That study will inform budget plans for long-range strike programs for fiscal 2012 through fiscal 2017. Reaction to the QDR from Capitol Hill has been largely predictable, with Democrats praising the strategic review and Republicans voicing questions and concerns. The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., said in a statement he is "concerned we are not making the necessary investments in research and development - as well as across-the-board investments in our weapons platforms - that will be required to meet the threats outlined in the Quadrennial Defense Review." Industry analysts say the review will create new opportunities for defense firms in realms like cyber security, giving a boost to helicopter- and unmanned aircraft makers.

Iran's Defiance Spurs Rise In U.S. Military Defenses

By PETER SPIEGEL Wall Street Journal WASHINGTON—The U.S. and its allies in the Persian Gulf have stepped up their military defenses in recent months in response to Iranian missile tests and Tehran's continued defiance of international efforts to curtail its nuclear program, according to U.S. officials. The moves, which have included upgrades, new purchases of American-made Patriot antimissile batteries and the addition of advanced air- and missile-defense radars, illustrate both growing concern with the Iranian moves and a new willingness by Arab allies in the region to more publicly tie their defenses to the U.S. "President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad has been the best recruiting officer for U.S. Central Command in the Gulf region," said a senior U.S. military official. View Full Image Associated Press A U.S. Navy boat patrols the harbor in Manama, Bahrain. Although some of the buildup has been going on for years—the Bush administration repeatedly sent envoys to the region in a bid to persuade Gulf allies like Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar to link their air and missile defenses in response to Iranian saber-rattling—the heightened profile of the moves comes as the Obama administration has toughened its rhetoric against Tehran. After months of attempting to engage Iran in nuclear diplomacy, the administration has been working in recent weeks to win an international consensus for a new round of sanctions against Iran. Another U.S. official said the willingness of Gulf allies to work more closely with the U.S. on their defenses is a sign of shifting attitudes toward Iran. "Clearly the opportunity cost of working with the U.S. in the region has come down," said the official. Some of the new initiatives were described publicly by Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, in a January address to the Institute for the Study of War in Washington. In the address, Gen. Petraeus said countries in the region were improving their shared early-warning air- and missile-defense systems by signing bilateral deals with the U.S. to share radar data, which can then be pulled together into a more sophisticated regional system. Gen. Petraeus also said that Gulf allies have increased purchases of weapons, including advanced fighter planes and that four countries have acquired new Patriot batteries. In addition, he said, the U.S. has deployed two Navy cruisers armed with sophisticated Aegis radar and ballistic-missile defenses to the Gulf to provide further defenses. Beyond Iran's missile tests and nuclear program, he said, the U.S. and its Gulf allies also have grown increasingly concerned about Iran's army of proxy extremists in Iraq, Gaza and elsewhere in the region. In a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Friday, retired Gen. James Jones, the White House national-security adviser, said the U.S. believes increased pressure on Iran from both international sanctions and domestic unrest could lead it to use proxies to stoke violence. "History shows that when regimes are feeling pressure, as Iran is internally and will externally in the near future, it often lashes out through its surrogates," he said.