Just Foreign Policy News
August 2, 2011
Support the Work of Just Foreign Policy
Go Straight to the News Summary
I) Actions and Featured Articles
Rep. Lee introduces bill mandating US withdrawal from Iraq as planned
The bill prohibits funding to maintain US troops in Iraq past December.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.2757:
Barbara Slavin: The Enemy of Iran’s Enemy
Iran has had links to members of what became known as al Qaeda since the early 1990s, Slavin writes. But Iran sees Al Qaeda not as an ally, but as a bargaining chip against U.S. support for Iranian terrorists.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/08/01/the_enemy_of_irans_enemy
Help Support Our Advocacy for Peace and Diplomacy
The opponents of peace and diplomacy work every day. Help us be an effective counterweight.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate
II) Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) The good news is that the Pentagon budget is finally on the table in deficit reduction talks, writes William Hartung in the Huffington Post. But it will take a lot more work to ensure that it is truly reduced. The reductions being proposed now are being measured against the Pentagon’s hoped-for rate of growth, not against current spending levels. So numbers that may sound like big cuts may not actually be cuts at all – they could just be reductions in the rate of growth.
In the first round, the deficit reduction package calls for $350 billion in reductions in "defense spending" over the next decade, which would still allow the Pentagon budget to grow faster than inflation, Hartung writes. But then there is another round of cuts, to be determined by a congressional commission charged with coming up with an additional $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade.
The challenge will be to transform this opportunity into real cuts along the lines suggested by the Sustainable Defense Task Force, the Domenici-Rivlin task force, the report of the president’s deficit commission, the Cato Institute, the Stimson Center, the Center for American Progress and other independent analysts. These proposals call for reductions in Pentagon spending ranging from $400 billion over five years to $1.4 trillion over ten years. [Thus, essentially the entire deficit reduction could be achieved with military cuts – JFP.]
2) The first fiscal year of the debt deal reduces "security" spending $4.5 billion below the FY 2011 level, writes Laicie Olson for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. While this is a small cut, it would represent the first time in recent years that "security" spending has actually gone down, rather than merely being reduced from previously projected increases.
3) What McKeon and other defense hawks are really worried about is the trigger mechanism, which would automatically cut $600 billion from the base defense budgets over 10 years if the new joint committee can’t make a deal on $1.2 trillion of additional cuts, writes Josh Rogin in Foreign Policy. After "mechanical adjustments," which are ways to predict the real value of the cuts considering other factors, that $600 billion cut is estimated by the administration to actually be about $534 billion.
If you add the $350 billion in defense cuts announced by the White House as part of today’s deal with the $534 billion in defense cuts in the trigger mechanism, it totals $884 billion. That number is close to the $886 billion in defense cuts proposed in the plan put forth by the Senate’s bipartisan budget group the Gang of Six, which President Obama has already endorsed, Rogin notes.
4) As a result of the trigger mechanism, Republican defense hawks may face a choice between tax increases and cutting military spending, the New York Times reports. Tea Party-allied Republicans might not mind, the Times notes, since many would like to see a smaller government across the board and a less expensive US presence around the world.
5) The prospect of $600 billion in additional defense cuts over the next decade is enough to compel the U.S. military to make big changes to its global strategy, the Washington Post reports. "You could reasonably make those cuts as long as you were willing to rethink our military strategy, not allow for any sacred cows and cut ruthlessly," said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an influential defense think tank with close ties to the Pentagon.
To find $1 trillion in savings, the White House would have to make major changes to its current global military strategy, under which the Pentagon should be able to fight two wars like Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously, the Post notes. Scaling back that requirement would allow for big cuts to the Army and Marine Corps, which collectively have grown by about 92,000 men and women since 2001 and would probably have to shrink at a minimum to pre-2001 levels. In shrinking the force, Congress would be betting that the Afghan war will wind down as planned and that the country will not be drawn into any big, costly counterinsurgency wars in the next 10 to 15 years.
6) Spending more than $200 billion over the next ten years to rebuild the U.S. nuclear arsenal can no longer be justified in the post-budget-deal era, writes Tom Collina of the Arms Control Association in The Hill. The Department of Defense and the National Nuclear Security Administration plan to use this $200 billion to build a new generation of submarines, bombers and missiles for the nuclear "triad," upgrade the nuclear warheads they carry, and rebuild the warhead factories. One of the Senate’s most conservative Republicans, Tom Coburn, recently called for cutting $79 billion from the U.S. nuclear weapons budget over the next decade, Collina notes.
Somalia
7) The Obama administration is moving toward easing anti-terrorism restrictions in Somalia that have hampered delivery of urgently needed aid to famine-stricken parts of the country, the Washington Post reports. Aid organizations say that, without the threat of U.S. punishment, their employees will be able to work more easily with their Somali networks to get food into hard-hit areas.
Afghanistan
8) Local officials said a NATO airstrike targeted a police station in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province Monday, killing at least four police officers and wounding eight others, CNN reports. A provincial council head said the strike was based on bad intelligence. "The people will not let their sons work as policemen anymore," the official said.
Egypt
9) Former Finance Minister Samir Radwan said Egypt turned down IMF loans because the lender was seen as tainted by concessions demanded of past borrowers, Bloomberg reports. The fund endorsed economic programs under Mubarak that deepened Egypt’s income inequality and helped fuel this year’s uprising, protest leaders say.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) What If We Really Cut the Pentagon Budget?
William Hartung, Huffington Post, 8/2/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-hartung/cut-pentagon-budget_b_916136.html
The good news is that the Pentagon budget is finally on the table in deficit reduction talks. But it will take a lot more hard work to ensure that it is truly reduced as part of ongoing negotiations over the size and shape of the federal budget.
A casual look at the budget deal struck by President Obama and the congressional leadership suggests that the Pentagon is up for "hundreds of billions of dollars" in cuts over the next decade. But depending upon how it plays out politically, the current plan may or may not result in real cuts in Pentagon spending.
First off, some perspective is in order. In recent years, military spending has been at its highest levels since World War II. The Pentagon budget has been steadily rising since 1998, an unprecedented string of increases that far outstrips anything that happened in the periods surrounding World War II, Korea or Vietnam. Left to its own devices, the Pentagon would have continued to seek annual increases for at least the next decade. The reductions being proposed now are being measured against the Pentagon’s hoped-for rate of growth, not against current spending levels. So numbers that may sound like big cuts may not actually be cuts at all — they could just be reductions in the rate of growth of the Pentagon’s massive budget.
That brings us to the deficit reduction package . In the first round, it calls for $350 billion in reductions in "defense spending" over the next decade as part of a package of cuts that will exceed $900 billion (the rest coming from civilian discretionary spending). Reductions at that level would still allow the Pentagon budget to grow with inflation, and then some. In fact, if this proposal is carried out — which is by no means guaranteed — the Pentagon is likely to see reductions that are considerably less than the $350 billion figure. That’s because for at least part, if not all, of the ten-year period the reductions are to be made in "security spending," which includes not just the Pentagon but also the Department of Homeland Security, veteran’s affairs, international affairs, and the nuclear weapons portion of the Department of Energy. So the Pentagon doesn’t have to bear the full burden of the $350 billion in reductions, a figure which is not particularly onerous in the first place.
But there is another round of spending cuts in the offing, to be determined by the recommendations of a congressional commission that is being established as part of the deficit deal.
[…] The commission will be charged with coming up with an additional $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade, drawn in theory not only from cuts in the discretionary budget but also from revenue increases and reductions in spending on entitlements like Medicare. If the commission can’t come up with a plan, an automatic cutting mechanism would come into play that would impose across-the-board cuts of up to $1.2 trillion. Cuts would be assessed 50/50 between military spending (the Pentagon plus the nuclear weapons work at the Department of Energy) and civilian programs. Under the worst case scenario for the Pentagon, this could mean up to an additional $600 billion in reductions against its spending plans for the next decade.
But military spending reductions in that range are unlikely to occur under the current proposal, for several reasons. First, the congressional commission has strong incentives to come up with a deal rather than letting the automatic cuts provision take effect. Absent significant public pressure, the commission’s deal is unlikely to impose 50/50 cuts on defense versus civilian programs, and as a result the Pentagon will be spared its fair share of spending reductions. Second, depending on what "baseline" level of spending the reductions are measured against, any reductions in Pentagon spending may be less than meet the eye.
All that being said, at least the Pentagon is on the table for reductions in its planned expenditures. That has not been the case for over a decade. So this period represents an historic opportunity to bring runaway Pentagon spending into line with economic and strategic realities. The challenge will be to transform that impulse into real cuts along the lines suggested by the Sustainable Defense Task Force, the Domenici-Rivlin task force, the report of the president’s deficit commission, the Cato Institute, the Stimson Center, the Center for American Progress and other independent analysts. These proposals call for reductions in Pentagon spending ranging from $400 billion over five years to $1.4 trillion over ten years. Making real cuts at these levels will mean not just eliminating or significantly reducing spending on unnecessary weapons systems like the V-22 Osprey, the Virginia class attack submarine, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and a new generation of bombers and ballistic missile submarines. It will also involve cutting troop levels in line with a new strategy that sheds missions like the wars of occupation and large-scale counterinsurgency that have been carried out in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[…]
2) The Debt Deal and Defense Spending
Laicie Olson, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Aug 02, 2011
http://www.nukesofhazardblog.com/story/2011/8/2/133157/1318
There is a lot of confusion surrounding the debt deal and what it means for defense. Things have gotten so complicated with the defense/non-defense security/non-security debate, that even the experts are uncertain.
To be clear on at least the definitions, "security," as defined in the deal, is defense and non-defense security, including the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Intelligence, International Affairs and the National Nuclear Security Administration. This definition applies to the first two years of the budget deal, and its relevant spending caps, only.
For the first two years, the bill is clear on this category of spending. For Fiscal Year (FY) 2012, the bill sets a $684 billion ceiling for "security." This number is a $4.5 billion overall decrease in security spending from the FY 2011 level of $688.5 billion. The FY 2013 security cap is $686 billion, still tracking below FY 2011 levels.
While the cut is not large, it is significant, since previous cuts have taken reductions from the amount of increases, rather actually reducing the item from the previous year.
However, what we do not know is how these reductions would be allocated between the Pentagon and, say, foreign aid or the nuclear weapons complex. Exact funding levels will be left up to Congress.
Then things get even more confusing. If a longer-term deal is not reached, security spending is redefined as the traditional "050" budget category, meaning the Department of Defense and some defense-related funding within the Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, and FBI.
The category does not include foreign aid, homeland security, veterans and other categories of spending.
Of course, even with these definitions, we still do not actually know the extent of future defense cuts. The White House claims that the deal will result in $350 billion in cuts from the 050 account over the next 10 years, but the claim is only an estimate. The bill itself contains no language detailing the cuts over 10 years.
The number proposed by the administration, $350 billion, tracks closely with the $400 billion reduction goal already set out by the President. It does not add to the $400 billion number, but rather replaces it, with the assumption that the final two years, totaling 12, will see more savings.
There is one possibility, however, that could result in large savings, specifically from defense (050). The second part of the bill calls for a joint committee of House and Senate members to fashion a longer-term plan. If the committee fails to come to an agreement or Congress rejects it, sequestration, or automatic cuts, kicks in. In the case of sequestration, everything changes. The plan requires that half of the cuts come from defense (050) and half from non-defense.
Proposed sequestration cuts are based on a formula that would reduce both discretionary and mandatory 050 spending by half of the needed $1.2 trillion in savings. The cuts would be spread over nine years. The administration estimates that a total $534 billion cut from the 050 account would result from sequestration over ten years.
The joint committee will have until Thanksgiving to come up with a deal.
[…]
3) Defense spending cut in debt deal unclear
Josh Rogin, Foreign Policy, Monday, August 1, 2011
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/08/01/defense_spending_cut_in_debt_deal_unclear
Despite the White House’s claim that the new debt deal would cut $350 billion from defense spending over the next ten years, there are no specifics in the bill on defense cuts — and no way to tell what the final cuts will be.
[…] "There’s actually no way to tell. It’s not possible to calculate," Gordon Adams, former OMB national security chief in the Clinton administration, told The Cable today. "The whole deal is designed to be opaque about the things you really want to know, such as how much defense will be cut."
[…] The defense budget was $529 billion for fiscal 2011 and the entire "security" budget was $688.5 billion. The debt deal caps fiscal 2012 security spending at $684 billion, which means a cut of about $4.5 billion compared to fiscal 2011 levels. That money could come from defense, or it could come from the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Nuclear Safety Administration, or another department. Nobody knows.
The fiscal 2013 security cap is $686 billion.
The caps will prevent security spending from going up, but the details are still in lawmakers’ hands and therefore anything could happen, said Gordon. "It’s more disciplined because now there’s a cap. Now they have to duke it out at the [committee] chairmen’s level," he said.
And those committee chairmen are already working on it. We’re told that defense hawks, including House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA), huddled with House GOP leadership this afternoon to demand answers to exactly how much the deal would impact defense.
[…] What McKeon and other defense hawks are really worried about is the trigger mechanism, which would automatically cut $600 billion from the base defense budgets over 10 years if the new joint committee can’t make a deal on $1.2 trillion of additional cuts. After "mechanical adjustments," which are ways to predict the real value of the cuts considering other factors, that $600 billion cut is estimated by the administration to actually be about $534 billion.
[…] By the way, the White House didn’t mention today that it had already promised to cut $400 billion from security spending, although there are no details on that plan either.
Interestingly, if you add the $350 billion in defense cuts announced by the White House as part of today’s deal with the $534 billion in defense cuts in the trigger mechanism, it totals $884 billion. That number is suspiciously close to the $886 billion in defense cuts proposed in the plan put forth by the Senate’s bipartisan budget group the Gang of Six, which President Barack Obama has already endorsed.
"It just happens to lead you to [Gang of Six leader Sen. Kent] Conrad’s number," said Gordon. "I suspect it’s not a coincidence."
4) Pentagon Faces Possibility Of Hundreds Of Billions In Spending Cuts Over 10 Years
Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times, August 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/us/politics/02pentagon.html
Washington – The Pentagon began grappling on Monday with the possibility that it will have to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the military budget over the next decade, but there were so few details in the debt ceiling deal reached by the White House and Congress that confusion over the actual size of the reductions was rampant.
There was at least some clarity for the immediate future: cuts in next year’s military budget are likely to be minimal or at least modest, depending on the way the counting is done. Beyond that, military budget analysts said, there was a real possibility that cuts in military spending would amount to about $550 billion over the next 10 years – or $150 billion more than what President Obama has already requested.
[…] But there were potentially far more ominous signs down the road for Republicans opposed to military cuts. In an apparent strategy by Democrats to try to force Republicans’ hands, the deal says that after an immediate $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade, a bipartisan Congressional committee must come up with an additional $1.5 trillion cuts by November – or trigger automatic across-the-board spending cuts of $1.2 trillion starting in 2013. Half of those cuts would come from military spending.
As at least one Republican presidential candidate saw it, the deal would make it easier for Democrats to extract concessions on tax increases from Republicans if there is the threat of draconian military cuts hanging over Republican heads. The candidate, Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, said Monday that the deal "opens the door to higher taxes and puts defense cuts on the table."
The apparent strategy does not necessarily apply to Tea Party-allied Republicans, who are divided on military cuts and in many cases would like to see a smaller government across the board and a less expensive American presence around the world.
[…] Over all, though, it is familiar if unhappy territory for the Pentagon. The new $350 billion projected cut over 10 years replaces Mr. Obama’s request in April that the Pentagon cut $400 billion over 12 years – more or less a wash for the Defense Department, which has already been reviewing where to make reductions.
On Monday, as the House prepared to vote on the deal, Pentagon officials were publicly cautious about what they acknowledge are inevitable spending cuts coming their way. (The debt ceiling deal, however, does not factor in any savings from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, estimated at some $1 trillion in reduced spending over the next years.)
[…]
5) Debt ‘Trigger’ Has Pentagon Budget In Its Crosshairs
Greg Jaffe, Washington Post, August 1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-in-cross-hairs-of-debt-trigger/2011/08/01/gIQAhSt9nI_story.html
The prospect of $600 billion in additional defense cuts over the next decade is enough to make Pentagon generals wince and to compel the U.S. military to make big changes to its global strategy. But the cuts can be made without gutting the current force, defense budget analysts said.
The White House already has ordered the Pentagon to come up with about $400 billion in savings over the next 12 years, a reduction that would slow the growth in defense spending to about the current rate of inflation.
The larger and more painful cuts of an additional $600 billion would be triggered only if Republicans and Democrats cannot come to an agreement on a second round of spending cuts in the next four months.
"You could reasonably make those cuts as long as you were willing to rethink our military strategy, not allow for any sacred cows and cut ruthlessly," said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an influential defense think tank with close ties to the Pentagon.
[…] Meanwhile, the Pentagon has been struggling to even come up with the $400 billion in cuts over 12 years that the president requested. "I don’t think the Defense Department has fully accepted the new budget environment," said a senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing budget negotiations. "They are acting as if the $400-billion cut is the maximum and pushing back. But congressional plans seem to have gone far beyond that."
To find $1 trillion in savings, the White House would have to make major changes to its current global military strategy, under which the Pentagon should be able to fight two wars like Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously.
Scaling back that requirement would allow for big cuts to the Army and Marine Corps, which collectively have grown by about 92,000 men and women since 2001 and would probably have to shrink at a minimum to pre-2001 levels. In shrinking the force, Congress would be betting that the Afghan war will wind down as planned and that the country will not be drawn into any big, costly counterinsurgency wars in the next 10 to 15 years.
A smaller military would have less of a presence in East Asia.
[…] Major procurement programs also would have to be slashed to accommodate the $600 billion in cuts. The Air Force’s plans for a new bomber would almost certainly get delayed and the stealthy Joint Strike Fighter program, which carries a price tag in excess of $300 billion, would shrink in size and ambition.
[…]
6) Looking for defense cuts? Go nuclear
Tom Z. Collina, The Hill, 08/02/11 02:06 PM ET
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/175033-looking-for-defense-cuts-go-nuclear
[Collina is research director at the Arms Control Association]
As the dust settles on the just-passed budget deal, one thing is becoming clear: there is now high-level bipartisan agreement that the U.S. defense budget will be reduced in a major way, anywhere from $350 to $850 billion over the next decade, according to the White House. And despite defense hawk grumblings, reductions of this magnitude can actually make America safer by forcing leaders to cancel low-priority programs and focus on the ones that really matter. It’s time to get serious about our top security priorities and cut the dead wood.
For example, can the Nation really afford to spend more than $200 billion over the next ten years to rebuild the U.S. nuclear arsenal? Republican senators demanded, and won, a promise from the Obama administration to do just that when the New START treaty was approved last year. But that was then. Can all of this funding be justified in the post-budget-deal era? No, it can’t.
The Department of Defense and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plan to use this $200 billion to build a new generation of submarines, bombers and missiles for the nuclear "triad," upgrade the nuclear warheads they carry, and rebuild the warhead factories. But we will be better off-from a fiscal as well as a security perspective–if a large fraction of this money is invested elsewhere.
One of the Senate’s most conservative Republicans, Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), recently called for cutting $79 billion from the U.S. nuclear weapons budget over the next decade. Coburn’s plan calls for reducing the U.S. nuclear stockpile below New START limits of no more than 1,550 warheads on 700 deployed long-range delivery systems by 2018.
Russia, however, has already dropped its forces below these limits, so now the United States deploys hundreds of weapons more than Moscow. Does this make us safer? No, since maintaining a larger arsenal than Russia will likely prompt its leaders to build back up to New START levels, to the detriment of U.S. security. Meanwhile China, often cast as the next U.S. competitor, has just a few hundred nuclear weapons, and only about 50 that could reach the United States. Washington can safely reduce its arsenal to match Russia’s, and negotiate a follow-on treaty to get to lower numbers.
The main way that nuclear reductions save money is by reducing the need to buy new, expensive delivery systems. The new submarine, called the SSBN(X), with 12 boats at $7 billion each, is projected to cost around $100 billion including development. The new bombers are projected to cost at least $50 billion over their lifetime. These cost estimates are likely to go up. Similarly, the NNSA is planning to spend billions rebuilding the factories that make key nuclear warhead parts. But if the nuclear arsenal is reduced, we will need fewer submarines, bombers and warheads. By delaying procurement decisions until future needs are clearer, we can save billions.
Case in point: the Pentagon is in the midst of reviewing the roles and missions of U.S. nuclear weapons, which will ultimately determine how many weapons we need. This review is an important opportunity to revisit the central assumptions of U.S. nuclear weapons policy, many of which have not changed since the Soviet Union ceased to exist. For example, do we still need a nuclear triad, or will a "dyad" do? Looking to the future, if all 12 submarines are built, they would likely carry over 700 nuclear warheads when completed in the 2030s. What are they for?
[…]
Somalia
7) U.S. May Ease Anti-Terror Rules To Help Starving Somalis
Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post, August 1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-to-ease-anti-terrorism-rules-to-help-somali-famine-victims/2011/08/01/gIQALvnQoI_story.html
The Obama administration is moving toward easing anti-terrorism restrictions in Somalia that have hampered delivery of urgently needed aid to famine-stricken parts of the country, officials said Monday.
The shift reflects the administration’s alarm about the drought in East Africa, the region’s worst in two decades. About 2.2 million of the 3.7 million people affected by famine live in parts of southern Somalia ruled by al-Shabab, an Islamist extremist group linked to al-Qaeda.
Under current restrictions, U.S.-funded groups could face prosecution if they pay "taxes" or tolls demanded by al-Shabab on food shipments. Humanitarian groups say that has only added to the severe difficulties of working in southern Somalia, where al-Shabab has killed and threatened Western aid workers.
"What needs to happen is all actors on the ground – insurgents, the U.S. government and donors – need to lift any restrictions" on providing aid, said Shannon Scribner, humanitarian policy manager at the relief agency Oxfam.
The situation has posed a dilemma for the Obama administration. According to experts on Somalia, if the regulations are relaxed, it is inevitable that some aid will be siphoned off by al-Shabab.
But with thousands of villagers, many of them children, having died of hunger – and with scores streaming across the border to crowded refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia – the need to lift restrictions may be more pressing. "The question is, can we live with some diversion of aid to stop the famine?" said Ken Menkhaus, a Davidson College professor and expert on Somalia.
"The fear on the part of the Obama administration is of being put in a position, by opponents, of channeling food aid to terrorists," Menkhaus said. But he said al-Shabab gets most of its revenue from other sources – such as charcoal smuggling.
[…] No one expects that a U.S. policy change on the anti-terrorism restrictions will end the famine. But aid organizations say that, without the threat of U.S. punishment, their employees will be able to work more easily with their Somali networks to get food into hard-hit areas.
"This is an instance where a lot of lives really could be saved if we could get aid flowing to the south," said Jeremy Konyndyk, policy director for Mercy Corps.
Valerie Amos, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, warned Monday that the food emergency could soon expand beyond the two regions of Somalia where the United Nations formally declared famine last month. "Unless we see a massive increase in the response, the famine will spread to five or six more regions," she said.
[…]
Afghanistan
8) NATO airstrike kills four Afghan police officers
David Ariosto, CNN, August 1, 2011
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/08/01/afghanistan.nato.airstrike/index.html
Kabul — A NATO airstrike targeted a police station in a remote district of Afghanistan’s Nuristan province early Monday morning, killing at least four police officers and wounding eight others, officials said.
A provincial council head said the strike in Wama district was based on bad intelligence, but added that a NATO helicopter landed nearby and detained 12 police officers.
"This action will create distance among the government and people," Enaitullah Mazhabyar told CNN. "The people will not let their sons work as policemen anymore."
[…]
Egypt
9) IMF’s ‘Harsh’ Legacy Blocks Middle East Loans After Egypt U-Turn
Alaa Shahine and Sandrine Rastello, Bloomberg, Aug 2, 2011 6:10 AM CT
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-01/imf-s-harsh-legacy-blocks-middle-east-loans-after-egypt-u-turn.html
Egypt turned down International Monetary Fund loans that would have helped the economy because the lender was seen as tainted by concessions demanded of past borrowers, former Finance Minister Samir Radwan said.
"People are still affected by the past, when the IMF used to impose harsh conditions," said Radwan, who axed a $3 billion accord with the IMF in June within three weeks of negotiating it. He was replaced in a July 17 reshuffle aimed at placating protesters demanding faster change after the toppling of former President Hosni Mubarak, who is due in court tomorrow on corruption charges.
The IMF loan was offered with few strings attached and was vetoed by Egypt’s interim military rulers after a "damaging" media campaign, even though the North African country needed the cash, Radwan said in a telephone interview on July 27. The reversal shows how hard it may be for the IMF to shake off the legacy of past policies, even after admitting mistakes.
The fund endorsed economic programs under Mubarak that deepened Egypt’s income inequality and helped fuel this year’s uprising, protest leaders say. Tunisia, too, has yet to take up the fund’s offer for help after the revolt against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, whose policies the IMF also praised.
[…] Tunisia needs at least $1 billion in additional financing this year, central bank Governor Mustapha Kamel Nabli said in June. Like Egypt, the country is seeking to stabilize its economy amid political turmoil, and it’s borrowing from the World Bank, the European Investment Bank and the African Development Bank. Yet Nabli said last week that Tunisia won’t be seeking IMF loans.
Egyptian activists recall the praise for "prudent macroeconomic policies" under Mubarak in a March 2010 IMF report. By cutting debt and attracting investment from companies such as Vodafone Group Plc (VOD), Egypt boosted growth to about 7 percent a year by 2008, yet the numbers masked youth unemployment rates above 20 percent.
A sense that Egypt’s new rulers were going back to business as usual fueled anger at the IMF accord, Khalil said. "Nobody felt that the government was serious about reviewing past policies," he said. "The first thing they did was go to the IMF."
Countries that shunned IMF loans in the past were often seeking to escape spending discipline. Egypt is doing the opposite — tightening its belt in order to do without IMF money.
[…]
–
Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming US foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the majority of Americans. The archive of the Just Foreign Policy News is here:
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/blog/dailynews