Just Foreign Policy News
April 16, 2010
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Do "Liberals" Support the War in Afghanistan?
A poll posted yesterday on the liberal web site Daily Kos asked respondents about the Feingold-McGovern bill, which would require the President to establish a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Here is the result:
Poll: "I would like my Representative and Senators to co-sponsor the Feingold-McGovern-Jones bill."
Yes 90% 613 votes
No 9% 66 votes
Total: 679 votes
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/4/15/857508/-Feingold,-McGovern-Introduce-Bill-to-End-Afghanistan-War
Urge Congress to End the War in Afghanistan
Urge your representatives to: oppose the war supplemental, support the Feingold-McGovern-Jones bill for a timetable for military withdrawal, and support peace negotiations.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/civilians
Highlights of the House Afghanistan Debate
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/video/housedebate
Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) NATO statistics show Deaths of Afghan civilians by NATO troops have more than doubled this year, USA Today reports. NATO troops killed 72 civilians in the first three months of 2010, up from 29 in the same period in 2009, according to ISAF figures. Red Cross report said the number of civilians killed by Taliban roadside bombs has soared in Kandahar, where NATO forces are preparing a major offensive.
2) Defense Secretary Gates voiced support for a stalled U.S. trade agreement with Colombia, the Los Angeles Times reports. The agreement, signed during the Bush administration, has been opposed by labor and human rights groups because of Colombia’s history of harsh intolerance of labor activism. President Obama was skeptical about the agreement as a senator and during his presidential campaign, citing Colombia’s record of labor crackdowns. But after meeting last year with Colombian President Uribe, Obama said ordered U.S. trade officials to move ahead on the deal.
3) Italian aid workers have accused Afghan officials of illegally detaining nine medical staff on spurious charges of plotting to kill the Helmand governor, Jerome Starkey reports for the Times of London reports. Neither lawyers acting for the detainees, nor the medics’ colleagues, have been allowed to see or speak to them since they were detained on Saturday. Afghan officials claimed the men had confessed to participating in a plot to assassinate the governor of Helmand, but later retracted their statements. British troops denied involvement but a video clearly showed British soldiers on the scene.
4) Military experts in Japan say the number of U.S. Marines actually stationed in Okinawa has been much smaller in recent years than the formal tally, leading them to question claims that the Marines’ presence is "indispensable," Kyodo News reports. The US says the full strength of the Marines in Okinawa is around 18,000, while the Okinawa government says the number is actually about 12,000. Many ground units do not remain in Okinawa on a regular basis, government officials said, adding some of the units have been sent to Iraq and Afghanistan.
5) Nine witnesses say Afghan prisoners are being abused in a "secret jail" at the US Bagram airbase, the BBC reports. The abuses are all said to have taken place since Obama was elected. Prisoners complained of beatings, extreme cold, and sleep and sensory deprivation. One said he was made to dance by US soldiers every time he wanted to use the toilet.
Israel/Lebanon
6) King Abdullah of Jordan has warned the US that there were fears in Lebanon that a war between Israel and Hizbollah was "imminent," the Telegraph reports. Syria denied an Israeli allegation it has provided Hizbollah with long-range Scud missiles, which Syria said would be used as a pretext by Israel to raise tension prior to a possible attack on Hizbollah. Officials in Syria have warned that it would join in any war involving Israel, Lebanon and Hizbollah.
Honduras
7) The Honduran government reached a deal to grant land to thousands of farm workers occupying plantations, apparently averting a feared confrontation with the military, AP reports. Honduran Agrarian Reform Minister Cesar Ham said the deal constitutes the largest land grant to the poor in the history of Honduras.
Iran
8) Brazilian Foreign Minister Amorim said there is an "affinity" between Brazil’s opposition to new sanctions on Iran and the positions of China and India, AP reports. "Our belief is that there is still the possibility" for a negotiated agreement, Amorim said, adding that China and India seem to believe that "the effectiveness of the sanctions is questionable and that sanctions affect only the most vulnerable people and not the leaders."
Afghanistan
9) General Petraeus said the U.S. is working with Afghan President Karzai on his plan for a loya jirga, or tribal assembly, next month to discuss possible reconciliation with some Taliban loyalists, Bloomberg reports. Petraeus said Afghan leaders persuaded U.S. officials they had a plan for reaching a "national consensus" on terms for reconciliation.
Pakistan
10) A UN investigation into the assassination of the former opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has concluded that the failure of Pakistani authorities to effectively investigate the killing was "deliberate" and had been "severely hampered" by the country’s powerful intelligence agencies, the New York Times reports. [Opposition leaders – now the government – had asked for the UN probe – JFP.] Particularly disturbing, the report said, was Musharraf’s failure to provide Bhutto with the same security that was extended to two other former prime ministers.
Iraq
11) The Sunni-backed secular coalition that came in first in Iraqi elections tried to improve relations with Iran, assuring Iran that if it heads the new government, it would not let Iraq be used as a launching pad for a U.S. or Israeli attack, AP reports. Iraqiya spokeswoman Maysoun al-Damlouji said a delegation to Tehran promised Iranian leaders "the Iraqiya movement will not allow the use of Iraqi land and airspace for launching an attack on Iran." Al-Damlouji said Iran had expressed an interest in having "Iraqiya play a role in building bridges with other countries in the region." A security agreement between the Iraqi and U.S. governments bars the use of Iraqi territory for aggression.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Deaths Of Afghan Civilians Double
Paul Wiseman, USA Today, April 15, 2010
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-04-15-afghan-shooting_N.htm
Kabul – Deaths of Afghan civilians by NATO troops have more than doubled this year, NATO statistics show, jeopardizing a U.S. campaign to win over the local population by protecting them against insurgent attacks.
NATO troops accidentally killed 72 civilians in the first three months of 2010, up from 29 in the same period in 2009, according to figures the International Security Assistance Force gave USA TODAY. The numbers were released after Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, issued measures to protect ordinary Afghans.
A Red Cross report out Thursday said the number of civilians killed and wounded by Taliban roadside bombs has soared in Kandahar, where NATO and Afghan forces are preparing for a major offensive against the insurgent stronghold.
Some Afghans say the rise in civilian deaths may help the enemy. "If (it) continues, people will abandon the government and join the Taliban," says Malalai Ishaqzai, a member of parliament.
[…]
2) Gates Calls For Ratification Of Colombia Free Trade Agreement
The stalled pact has long been supported by U.S. businesses but opposed by labor and human rights groups because of Bogota’s intolerance of labor activists.
Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times, April 16, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-fgw-colombia-gates16-2010apr16,0,240325.story
Bogota, Colombia – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates voiced support Thursday for a U.S. free trade agreement with Colombia, a treaty considered a critical reward for one of Washington’s strongest allies in the region. [Like most U.S. media, the LAT insists on calling it a "free trade agreement," even though it includes increased restrictions on trade, like strengthening protections for intellectual property claims – JFP.]
The proposed agreement, first signed during the George W. Bush administration, has long been supported by U.S. businesses but opposed by labor and human rights groups because of Bogota’s history of harsh intolerance of labor activism.
Defense Department officials have favored the pact as a way to reward Colombia for its successful effort at beating back drug trafficking and the country’s insurgency.
At a news conference in Bogota, the Colombian capital, Gates said he met this week with James L. Jones, the White House national security advisor, to discuss an administration push for congressional ratification of the accord. "I would hope we would be in a position to make a renewed effort to get ratification of the free trade agreement," Gates said. "It is a good deal for Colombia; it is also a good deal for the United States."
President Obama was skeptical about the agreement as a senator and during his presidential campaign, citing Colombia’s record of labor crackdowns. But after meeting last year with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Obama said Bogota had made progress on human rights issues and ordered U.S. trade officials to move ahead on the deal.
[…]
3) Afghan Officials Accused Of Illegally Detaining Italians Over Murder Plot
Jerome Starkey, Times of London, April 16, 2010
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7099204.ece
Italian aid workers have accused Afghan officials of illegally detaining nine medical staff on spurious charges of plotting to kill the Helmand governor, as four German soldiers were killed in an explosion in the north of the country.
Three Italians and at least six Afghan men were seized in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, after British and Afghan troops stormed the hospital and claimed to have found explosives.
Neither lawyers acting for the detainees, nor the medics’ colleagues, have been allowed to see or speak to them since they were detained on Saturday. "Our colleagues have been detained illegally for five days," said Rossella Miccio, a director of the Milan-based charity Emergency. "We are just asking the Government to respect the laws of its own country."
Afghan officials claimed that the men had confessed to their parts in an extraordinary Guy Fawkes plot to lure the governor of Helmand into the hospital compound and assassinate him in an explosion, but later retracted their statements. "They would never have thought of killing anybody," Ms Miccio said. "They were here to help people, treat people. They have helped this country save thousands of lives."
Emergency runs three hospitals across Afghanistan and 28 clinics and first aid posts. Italians in Kabul suspect that the explosives may have been planted. A video of the raid shows police walking into a store room and going straight to the two boxes where grenades and suicide vests were concealed.
[…] British troops denied any involvement in the raid but a video released shortly afterwards clearly showed British soldiers on the scene. The hospital is less than a mile from their headquarters.
Asked if British soldiers or diplomats had provided any help or information in the aftermath of the raid, Ms Miccio said: "Absolutely not … we have never been contacted by nobody [sic]. We sent an official letter to the British Embassy in Italy, to have information, but we never received anything."
4) Okinawa Marines Said Dispensable
Analysts say force levels have been greatly reduced and question their role as a deterrent
Yutaka Yoshida, Kyodo News, April 16, 2010
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100416f4.html
The clock is ticking for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama as he works to decide where to relocate the controversial U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, but there has been little discussion regarding whether it is reasonable to assert that the presence of the marines in Okinawa is indispensable.
Military experts in Japan say the number of marines actually stationed in Okinawa has been much smaller in recent years than the formal tally, prompting some to doubt whether keeping many marines there would act as a deterrent.
[…] But military analyst Shoji Fukuyoshi has his doubts, saying the deployment of marines in Okinawa has been "hollowed out."
The United States says the full strength of the marines in Okinawa is around 18,000, while the prefectural government says the number is actually about 12,000.
Many ground units do not remain in Okinawa on a regular basis but rotate to the prefecture, local government officials said, adding some of the units have been sent to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Fukuyoshi said the U.S. side claims it has four infantry battalions in Okinawa, but three of them, with a total of around 2,000 members, have been away from the island since 2003.
Under the current bilateral agreement on the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, around 8,000 marines in Okinawa will be transferred to Guam and the remaining 10,000 will theoretically remain in the prefecture.
The U.S. Marine Corps has three expeditionary forces and Okinawa is the only location outside of the U.S. mainland that hosts one of them, the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force, which manages facilities including the Futenma air station – the base at the center of the controversy between Japan and the United States. Nearly 60 percent of U.S. service personnel stationed in Okinawa are marines.
But there is a view that only the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, which has about 2,200 members, could deal with an emergency by boarding four amphibious assault ships in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture.
Security experts say marine units should stay in Okinawa for purposes such as providing ground force presence, rescuing civilians in an emergency on the Korean Peninsula, antiterrorism operations in Asia and disaster relief activities.
But Masaaki Gabe, an expert on international politics, said, "The U.S. Navy and Air Force in Japan could be seen as a deterrent. But I don’t see meaning in keeping the marines."
5) Afghans ‘abused at secret prison’ at Bagram airbase
Hilary Andersson, BBC News, 15 April 2010 11:51 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8621973.stm
Bagram – Afghan prisoners are being abused in a "secret jail" at Bagram airbase, according to nine witnesses whose stories the BBC has documented.
The abuses are all said to have taken place since US President Barack Obama was elected, promising to end torture. The US military has denied the existence of a secret detention site and promised to look into allegations.
Bagram was the site of a controversial jail holding hundreds of inmates, who have now been moved to another complex. The old prison was notorious for allegations of prisoner torture and abuse. But witnesses told the BBC in interviews or written testimony that abuses continue in a hidden facility.
"They call it the Black Hole," said Sher Agha who spent six days in the facility last autumn. "When they released us they told us we should not tell our stories to outsiders because that will harm us."
Sher Agha and others we interviewed complained their cells were very cold. "When I wanted to sleep and started shivering with cold I started reciting the holy Koran," he said.
But sleep, according to the prisoners interviewed, is deliberately prevented in this detention site. "I could not sleep, nobody could sleep because there was a machine that was making noise," said Mirwais, who said he was held in the secret jail for 24 days. "There was a small camera in my cell, and if you were sleeping they’d come in and disturb you," he added.
The prisoners, who were interviewed separately, all told very similar stories. Most of them said they had been beaten by American soldiers at the point of arrest before being taken to the prison. Mirwais had half a row of teeth missing, which he said was from being struck with the butt of a gun by an American soldier.
No-one said they were visited by the International Committee of the Red Cross during their detention at the site, and they all said that their families did not know where they were.
In the small concrete cells, the prisoners said, a light was on all the time. They said they could not tell if it was night or day and described this as very disturbing.
Mirwais said he was made to dance to music by American soldiers every time he wanted to use the toilet.
[…] The BBC was allowed into the new Bagram prison for an hour. This was one of the first opportunities any outsider has had to set eyes on Bagram’s interned prisoners since a jail was first established at Bagram soon after 9/11.
In the new jail, prisoners were being moved around in wheelchairs with goggles and headphones on. The goggles were blacked out, and the purpose of the headphones was to block out all sound. Each prisoner was handcuffed and had their legs shackled.
[…] The US military itself has admitted that about 80% of those at Bagram are probably not hardened terrorists. It is the process of giving every detainee an internal military trial of sorts, called a Detainee Review Board.
The prisoners are represented by soldiers who are not lawyers. "To this date, no prisoner has ever seen a lawyer in Bagram", said Tina Foster, who represents several of Bagram’s prisoners in cases she has filed in on their behalf in the US. Guantanamo Bay’s prisoners are able to see their lawyers.
About 100 prisoners have been released through this process, but due to an increased intake, the number of prisoners at Parwan is now 800, up from about 650 in September 2009.
[…]
Israel/Lebanon
6) Fears that war between Israel and Hizbollah is ‘imminent’
King Abdullah of Jordan has warned the US that there were fears in Lebanon that a war between Israel and Hizbollah was "imminent" amid high tensions in the region.
Alex Spillius, Richard Spencer and Adrian Blomfield, Telegraph, 15 Apr 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/7594964/Fears-that-war-between-Israel-and-Hizbollah-is-imminent.html
The king, in Washington for President Barack Obama’s nuclear summit, gave his warning after Israel claimed that Syria had handed over Scud missiles in its armoury to the Lebanon-based Hizbollah. His comments, which were made to private meeting of the US Congressional Friends of Jordan caucus were said to be "sobering".
Syria yesterday denied the allegation that it has provided Hizbollah with long-range Scud missiles, which would allowing them to target Israel’s cities. The country’s foreign ministry said the claims would be used as a pretext by Israel to raise tension prior to a possible attack on Hizbollah.
"For some time now, Israel has been running a campaign claiming that Syria has been supplying Hizbollah with Scud missiles in Lebanon ," a foreign ministry statement released yesterday said. "Syria strongly denies these allegations which are an attempt by Israel to raise tensions in the region."
[…] Al-Rai, the Kuwaiti newspaper which first raised the allegations, said a Hizbollah source had confirmed it had access to Scuds but that they were old and unusable. The source said the issue was being blown out of proportion by Israel in order to create a media frenzy.
The newspaper did, however, link the claims to Hizbollah’s threat that if Lebanese infrastructure, such as Beirut Airport , came under attack in the event of conflict, Israel would be hit in turn, including towns at the edge of the range of Hizbollah’s known missile arsenal.
What is undisputed is that all sides are raising the stakes in the absence of negotiations between Israel and either Palestinian factions or Syria. The Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, has balanced overtures to Washington with reassurances that his alliances with both Hizbollah and Iran remain strong. He held a high-profile meeting in Damascus with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and the Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in February.
Officials in Syria have warned that it would join in any war involving Israel, Lebanon and Hizbollah.
Honduras
7) Honduras reaches deal with 3,000 squatters on farm.
Freddy Cuevas, AP, April 14, 2010
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9F307BG0.htm
Tegucigalpa, Honduras – The Honduran government reached a deal Wednesday to grant land to thousands of farm workers occupying plantations in a standoff that raised fears of unrest nearly a year after a coup.
After 14 hours of intense negotiations, President Porfirio Lobo’s government agreed to grant 11,000 hectares (27,000 acres) to some 3,000 farm workers occupying commercial plantations used to grow African palms in the Caribbean coast region around the Aguan River.
Tensions rose this week when the government deployed more than 2,000 soldiers and police to seize drugs and illegal weapons in the area, which is increasingly used by traffickers to move narcotics toward the U.S. The deployment drew protests from opponents of last year’s coup that ousted then-President Manuel Zelaya. The National Popular Resistance Front said the troop presence posed a serious threat of raids to clear the squatters.
The leader of the farm workers, Ruddy Hernandez, praised the deal as a sign of "the government’s serious commitment to resolving our problems." "It creates an opening to establish calm in our region," he said.
But the farm workers did not immediately abandon the 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) they seized last year just before the coup. Hernandez said the deal would be ratified during a farm workers’ meeting Saturday. The workers are demanding that the troops withdraw, but the government has made no decision on that.
Occupations of farmland by poor laborers are common in many parts of Latin America, where land ownership is often greatly unequal and reform efforts have generally been modest.
Honduran Agrarian Reform Minister Cesar Ham said Tuesday’s deal constitutes the largest land grant to the poor in the history of the Central American nation, where class tensions were a key factor in the June coup. The state-owned land, located in the same region as the protest, is to be granted within a year. The government also pledged to provide the farm workers with financial assistance and technical support.
[…]
Iran
8) Brazil: ‘Affinity’ on Iran with China, India
Bradley Brooks, Associated Press, Thursday, April 15, 2010; 9:07 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/15/AR2010041505772.html
Brasilia, Brazil – There is an "affinity" between Brazil’s opposition to new sanctions on Iran and the positions of China and India, the Brazilian foreign minister said as leaders of those nations met Thursday.
Brazil has increased its political and economic ties to Iran in the past year while frequently criticizing efforts to impose sanctions over its nuclear program.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with Chinese and Indian leaders on the sidelines of a summit of the so-called BRIC nations, which also includes Russia. "We saw a great affinity of views from both," Amorim said. "There was an exchange of ideas on how to start the process, what is the best way to find a peaceful solution" to international concern about Iran’s development of nuclear energy.
[…] China and Russia, as part of the U.N. Security Council, have the most clout among BRIC nations in shaping a global response to Iran. On Thursday at the United Nations, leading powers met to discuss possible new sanctions against Iran. Chinese diplomats said their position was to focus on diplomacy.
Chinese president Hu Jintao made no statements in Brasilia about Iran. But Amorim said after Silva met with Hu and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the Brazil delegation was optimistic.
"Our belief is that there is still the possibility" for a negotiated agreement, he said, adding that China and India seem to believe that "the effectiveness of the sanctions is questionable and that sanctions affect only the most vulnerable people and not the leaders."
[…] Also on Thursday, the fledgling political club known as IBSA, which comprises Brazil, India and South Africa, convened its fourth annual meeting.
Leaders from the three nations met with Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki and called for the resumption of peace talks with Israel that would "lead to a two-state solution" with East Jerusalem as the shared capital.
Afghanistan
9) Petraeus Says Commando Raids On Afghan Taliban Leaders Rising
Tony Capaccio and Lizzie O’Leary, Bloomberg, April 16
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aCNvIpoPKM9k
The U.S. is deploying more counter- terrorism teams in Afghanistan designed to kill Taliban leaders as the Afghan government works to lure away their supporters, said General David Petraeus, the top commander in the region.
The "operational tempo" in Afghanistan of so-called special mission units "is going to increase in the months ahead," Petraeus said yesterday in an interview in Washington.
Alongside that military effort, the U.S. is working with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on his plan for a loya jirga, or tribal assembly, next month to discuss possible reconciliation with some Taliban loyalists, said Petraeus, the 57-year-old combatant commander in the Middle East and Central Asia.
[…] Petraeus said Afghan leaders persuaded him and other U.S. officials, including special envoy Richard Holbrooke, during a meeting in Kabul earlier this week that they had a plan for reaching a "national consensus" on terms for reconciliation.
The process would include interests such as those of women in Afghanistan, the commander said. "A light came on for a number of us about the importance of the peace jirga and the importance of national consensus," Petraeus said. "There’s a very sophisticated analysis on the Afghan side."
[…]
Pakistan
10) U.N. Report Finds Faults in Pakistani Bhutto Inquiry
Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, April 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/world/asia/16bhutto.html?ref=world
Islamabad, Pakistan – A United Nations investigation into the assassination of the former opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has concluded that the failure of Pakistani authorities to effectively investigate the killing was "deliberate" and had been "severely hampered" by the country’s powerful intelligence agencies.
The 65-page report, issued in New York on Thursday, did not answer the question of who killed Ms. Bhutto, or even give the precise cause of death. It was concerned instead with looking into the facts and circumstances surrounding her death in a suicide bombing and gun attack at a political rally in December 2007.
[…] Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said that Pakistan’s government had already opened an investigation into Ms. Bhutto’s death last year, but that the UN report would be "a shot in the arm," for that probe. The report cataloged a litany of failings on the part of the authorities before and after the attack that killed Ms. Bhutto, leaving an impression of purposeful obstruction and raising questions of whether the country’s military and intelligence establishment had something to hide.
It was particularly scathing of the role of Saud Aziz, the police chief in Rawalpindi, the city where the assassination took place, who made a series of decisions that denied investigators valuable evidence.
These included orders to hose down the crime scene less than two hours after the attack. Hosting long lunches and serving tea, he then delayed investigators for two full days from reaching the site, where they finally spent seven hours wading through a drainage sewer to retrieve a single bullet casing.
Investigators managed to collect just 23 pieces of evidence in a case that would typically have yielded thousands, the report said.
The decision to hose down the site was made after Mr. Aziz received a call from army headquarters, possibly involving Maj. Gen. Nadeem Ijaz Ahmad, then director general of military intelligence, the report said, citing anonymous sources. It called a later Pakistani inquiry into the decision "a whitewash."
"Hosing down the crime scene so soon after the blast goes beyond mere incompetence," the report said. "It is up to the relevant authorities to determine whether this amounts to criminal responsibility."
The report also criticized Mr. Aziz for deliberately preventing an autopsy, repeatedly denying doctors permission to conduct it, and effectively eliminating another central piece of evidence.
[…] Instead, the report criticized what it called the pervasive influence of the country’s military and intelligence authorities. The country’s main intelligence agency, known by its initials, the I.S.I., conducted its own parallel investigation even though it does not have a legal mandate to conduct criminal investigations, and selectively withheld information from the police, it said. "The investigation was severely hampered by intelligence agencies and other government officials," the reports said, "which impeded an unfettered search for the truth."
Agents from the I.S.I. were present at crucial points of the police investigation, including during the gathering of evidence at the crime scene and the forensic examination of Ms. Bhutto’s vehicle, "playing a role that the police were reluctant to reveal to the commission," the report said, referring to the United Nations panel. An I.S.I. officer was also present at the hospital throughout the evening.
The relationship with the military was a fraught one for Ms. Bhutto, who had raised concerns about Pakistanis she believed were a threat to her security to Pervez Musharraf, a military general who was then the president. They included a former I.S.I. director, Hamid Gul, and a former military intelligence officer, Brigadier Ejaz Shah.
Particularly disturbing, the report said, was Mr. Musharraf’s failure to provide Ms. Bhutto, a former prime minister, with the same security that was extended to two other former prime ministers on Oct. 22, 2007, who were his political allies. "This discriminatory treatment is profoundly troubling given the devastating attempt on her life only three days earlier and the specific threats against her which were being tracked by the I.S.I.," the report said.
It also noted sharply that it was Mr. Musharraf who made the decision to call a news conference the day after the assassination. In it, the government presented evidence of a telephone intercept collected by the I.S.I. linking the attack to the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud. "It is not clear how or when the intercept from the I.S.I. was recorded," the report said. "Such a hasty announcement of the perpetrator prejudiced the police investigations which had not yet begun," it added.
[…]
Iraq
11) Iraq’s Allawi courts Iranian support
David Rising, Associated Press, Thursday, April 15, 2010; 1:47 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/15/AR2010041501427.html
Baghdad – The Sunni-backed secular coalition that came in first in Iraqi elections tried Thursday to improve relations with powerful Shiite neighbor Iran, assuring Tehran that if it heads the new government, it would not let Iraq be used as a launching pad for an invasion.
The Iraqiya alliance led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi edged out his chief rival in the March 7 parliamentary election by just two seats. But neither Iraqiya nor the State of Law alliance led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki won enough to form a government alone.
Since the election, Iraq’s political groups have been jockeying to broker partnerships to win control of the parliament – in part by courting the support of Iraq’s neighbors in the Mideast.
In a statement Thursday, Iraqiya spokeswoman Maysoun al-Damlouji said a delegation to Tehran promised Iranian leaders that "the Iraqiya movement will not allow the use of Iraqi land and airspace for launching an attack on Iran."
Iran sees the presence of tens of thousands of U.S. forces in Iraq as a threat, although a security agreement between the Iraqi and U.S. governments bars the use of Iraqi territory for aggression.
Iraq has been dominated by Shiite parties close to Iran since the fall of Saddam Hussein. And during the election campaign, Allawi spoke out often against Iran’s influence in Iraq.
But in a surprising announcement last week, Iran’s ambassador in Baghdad singled out Iraqiya in saying all of Iraq’s major coalitions should play a part in the new government. Though it was not an endorsement of a government led by Allawi, it was still a significant shift for Iran, which has promoted Shiite power since Saddam was toppled.
Following the Iraqiya visit, Iranian state TV reported that Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani again expressed hope that all Iraqi political groups would "participate in the future of Iraq, based on their political weight."
Al-Damlouji said Iran had expressed an interest in having "Iraqiya play a role in building bridges with other countries in the region," which are primarily Sunni-led.
[…]
–
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
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