Archive for August, 2008

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U.S. Officers Executed Iraqis, Statements Say

August 27, 2008
By PAUL VON ZIELBAUER | The New York Times, August 26, 2008

In March or April 2007, three noncommissioned United States Army officers, including a first sergeant, a platoon sergeant and a senior medic, killed four Iraqi prisoners with pistol shots to the head as the men stood handcuffed and blindfolded beside a Baghdad canal, two of the soldiers said in sworn statements.

After the killings, the first sergeant — the senior noncommissioned officer of his Army company — told the other two to remove the men’s bloody blindfolds and plastic handcuffs, according to the statements made to Army investigators, which were obtained by The New York Times.

The statements and other court documents were provided by a person close to one of the soldiers in the unit who insisted on anonymity and who has an interest in the outcome of the legal proceedings.

After removing the blindfolds and handcuffs, the three soldiers shoved the four bodies into the canal, rejoined other members of their unit waiting in nearby vehicles and drove back to their combat outpost in southwest Baghdad, the statements said.

The soldiers, all from Company D, First Battalion, Second Infantry, 172nd Infantry Brigade, have not been charged with a crime. However, lawyers representing other members of the platoon who said they witnessed or heard the shootings, which were said to have occurred on a combat patrol west of Baghdad, said all three would probably be charged with murder.

The accounts of and confessions to the killings, by Sgt. First Class Joseph P. Mayo, the platoon sergeant, and Sgt. Michael P. Leahy Jr., Company D’s senior medic and an acting squad leader, were made in January in signed statements to Army investigators in Schweinfurt, Germany.

In their statements, Sergeants Mayo and Leahy each described killing at least one of the Iraqi detainees on instructions from First Sgt. John E. Hatley, who the soldiers said killed two of the detainees with pistol shots to the back of their heads. Sergeant Hatley’s civilian lawyer in Germany, David Court, did not respond to phone calls and e-mail messages Tuesday.

Last month, four other soldiers from Sergeant Hatley’s unit were charged with murder conspiracy for agreeing to go along with the plan to kill the four prisoners, in violation of military laws that forbid harming enemy combatants once they are disarmed and in custody.

In an Army evidentiary hearing on Tuesday in Vilseck, Germany, two of those soldiers — Specialists Steven A. Ribordy and Belmor G. Ramos — invoked their right against self-incrimination. Reached by telephone, James D. Culp, a civilian lawyer for one of the other two soldiers charged, Staff Sgt. Jess C. Cunningham, declined to comment. A lawyer for the fourth soldier, Sgt. Charles P. Quigley, could not be reached.

In their sworn statements, Sergeants Mayo and Leahy described the events that preceded the shooting of the Iraqi men, who apparently were Shiite fighters linked to the Mahdi Army militia, which controlled the West Rashid area of southwest Baghdad.

After taking small-arms fire, the patrol chased some men into a building, arresting them and finding several automatic weapons, grenades and a sniper rifle, they said. On the way to their combat outpost, Sergeant Hatley’s convoy was informed by Army superiors that the evidence to detain the Iraqis was insufficient, Sergeant Leahy said in his statement. The unit was told to release the men, according to the statement.

“First Sergeant Hatley then made the call to take the detainees to a canal and kill them,” Sergeant Leahy said, as retribution for the deaths of two soldiers from the unit: Staff Sgt. Karl O. Soto-Pinedo, who died from a sniper’s bullet, and Specialist Marieo Guerrero, killed by a roadside bomb.

“So the patrol went to the canal, and First Sergeant, Sgt. First Class Mayo and I took the detainees out of the back of the Bradley, lined them up and shot them,” Sergeant Leahy said, referring to a Bradley fighting vehicle. “We then pushed the bodies into the canal and left.”

Sergeant Mayo, in his statement, attributed his decision to kill the men to “anger,” apparently at the recent deaths of his two comrades.

Sergeant Leahy, in his statement, said, “I’m ashamed of what I’ve done,” later adding: “When I did it, I thought I was doing it for my family. Now I realize that I’m hurting my family more now than if I wouldn’t have done it.”

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Pakistan: From crisis to crisis

August 27, 2008

Editorial

The Khaleej Times, August 26, 2008

THE more things change in Pakistan, the more they seem to remain the same. It was only six months ago that the people of the South Asian country celebrated when the outcome of February 18 polls brought the two leading parties and bitter rivals together in an unprecedented coalition.

Those polls, conducted in most trying circumstances and the unusual alliance that they created, were seen as a triumph of democracy. That historic alliance is now in tatters, two weeks before the crucial presidential election.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan Muslim League (N), has finally walked out of the governing coalition with the Pakistan Peoples Party of Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain former PM Benazir Bhutto and a contender for the top job now. Sharif’s party has also decided to field Saaeduz Zaman, a former supreme court chief justice, as its own presidential candidate. It must be the shortest political honeymoon ever. So what was seen as a ground breaking alliance was little more than a marriage of convenience!

To be fair to Sharif and his party, the former prime minister gave the government and coalition partner Zardari a long, long rope and at least three deadlines to restore the Supreme Court and high court judges sacked by General Pervez Musharraf following the imposition of Emergency. In spite of numerous meetings and agreements between Sharif and Zardari, there has been no move or initiative by the government and the governing PPP to resolve the judges issue. After all these encounters, Zardari and Sharif appeared together before the media to reiterate their commitment to the restoration of judiciary, democracy and the rule of law.

In fact, the coalition promised to restore the judges within 24 hours of Musharraf’s exit, implying the General was the only hurdle to the restoration of judiciary. It’s been more than a week since Musharraf left the presidency. But Pakistan remains stuck where it had been before the General’s departure with the ruling party offering no signs or hopes of any progress.

What happens now? The government led by the PPP is likely to survive with the support of other minor players like MQM, ANP and JUI. However, with Sharif in opposition and the issue of restoration of judges still hanging fire, the prospects of the current dispensation continuing for long appear rather remote. And yet another general election with a realignment of forces looks imminent in not too distant a future. When that happens, Pakistan’s leaders and politicians will be held to account by the voters. As Benazir Bhutto, the late wife of Zardari, would say: Democracy is the best revenge. That will be especially true when the politicians go back to the voters.

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Pakistan in Uncertain Times

August 27, 2008

The Military Waits in the Wings

By DEEPAK TRAPATHI | Counterpunch, August 23/24, 2008

Old enemies seldom make easy bedfellows. This is what we see in Pakistan today. Now that President Pervez Musharraf, once the military strongman, has been forced out, the shaky alliance of the two most powerful civilian politicians, Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, is unraveling. The euphoria over the defeat of Musharraf’s party in the February parliamentary elections has evaporated. The aim which had brought Zardari and Sharif together has been achieved. And their old hostilities are, once again, coming to the fore.

I have been an observer of Pakistan’s troubled and unhappy journey for over thirty years. And I must say that the sudden outbreak of hope after the victory for the democratic forces last February had not been seen for a long time in the country. The election result had clear messages from the electorate to those it sees as controlling the destiny of Pakistan. First, to the military, which has ruled the country for more than half of the period since independence in 1947; and which, under General Musharraf, subverted the judiciary above all. Second, to America, whose role in shaping Pakistan’s policies is seen by the electorate as unacceptable interference, exercised through the Bush administration’s proxy, Musharraf.

With Musharraf gone, Washington’s plans in the region are in disarray. Bush, in his final few months in the White House, seems to have decided to deal with Pakistan’s military chief, General Ashfaq Kiyani, on matters of collaboration in the ‘war on terror’. After ruling Pakistan from the front for almost a decade, the military has had enough and retreated into the background. However, it continues to be the real center of power behind the cover of a civilian government that survives from day to day.

Earlier, I referred to Zardari and Sharif being old adversaries. So I should give a brief explanation of what lies at the root of their antagonism and distrust. They belong to very different political clans. Sharif was a protégé of the military dictator, General Zia-ul Haq. Under his martial law administration, the Sharif family enjoyed a dramatic rise in its business and political fortunes. Zardari belongs to the Bhutto clan by marriage to Benazir, who was assassinated in December 2007. Sharif is from Punjab, the most populous and wealthy province, which dominates the military hierarchy of Pakistan; Zardari from Sindh, a province with about half the population of Punjab.

In the 1980s, Nawaz Sharif’s political fortunes rose dramatically, starting with his appointment as chief minister of Punjab with the blessings of General Zia. Sharif’s rise continued after Zia’s death in a plane crash in 1988 and, two years later, he rose to be the prime minister of Pakistan. Zia, during his military rule, deposed and then executed the head of the Bhutto clan, Zulfiqar Ali, the elected prime minister of the country. Before Sharif and General Musharraf fell out with each other and Sharif’s government was deposed in a coup in 1999, it was Sharif who was close to the military establishment. The Bhutto clan was the outcast and Benazir and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, spent years in jail.

Memories of his overthrow, and subsequent exile to Saudi Arabia, by Musharraf have made Nawaz Sharif distrustful of the army. Zardari, acknowledging the army’s paramount role in the country’s politics, and encouraged by America, would like to work with it. The two are far more mature, suave and no longer as impetuous as they were in their youth. But that the political fortunes of one were made at the cost of the other remains a fact of history and difficult to forget.

Against that difficult-to-forget episode of history is the new reality of Pakistan today. The People’s Party led by the Bhutto clan, Benazir’s widower and their teenage son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, is the larger party in Parliament and its character is truly national. The main stronghold of the Muslim League faction of Nawaz Sharif is essentially Punjab, the most important province, but not the whole country. It matters at a time when rival forces are pulling the country apart. Some represent Islamic fundamentalism, others secularism; some support a strong center while others demand greater provincial autonomy. Pakistan is more volatile today than at the time of its breakup in 1971, when East Pakistan seceded to become Bangladesh.

As Zardari and Sharif maneuver to consolidate their positions after years in the wilderness, Pakistan struggles with the insurgency that grows day by day and the economic crisis worsen. New questions arise. As Zardari embarks on his quest to become the next president of Pakistan, will he turn the post into that of a constitutional figurehead? Or insist on keeping the powers to dismiss the government, dissolve the parliament and meddle with the judiciary? Will the next president side with the all powerful military and cooperate with the United States in the ‘war on terror’ that caused the downfall of Musharraf? Or work to reduce the role of the army in the running of the country? Will the judges who were dismissed by Musharraf by illegal means be reinstated? Or is the integrity of the judiciaryto remain in tatters? Above all, will the hopes, which the people of Pakistan pinned on the elected politicians, be realized? Or they will, once again, be disappointed. As these and other questions linger, the military will be waiting in the wings.

Deepak Tripathi, a former BBC journalist, is an author and a researcher, with reference to South and West Asia, terrorism and the US. His website is http://deepaktripathi.wordpress.com and he can be reached at DandATripathi@gmail.com.

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Israel ‘doubling’ settlement growth

August 27, 2008

Al Jazeera, August 26, 2008

Rice maintains that she aims for the two sides to reach a peace deal by January [AFP]

Israel has nearly doubled settlement construction activity in the occupied West Bank since 2007, a report by the rights group Peace Now says.

The report on settlement expansion coincided with the 18th visit by Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, to the Middle East, on Tuesday.

Rice urged Israel to stop expanding settlements, deemed illegal under international law, arguing that they were not helpful to the peace process.

“The settlement activity is not conducive to creating an environment for negotiations,” Rice said at a news conference with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Earlier in Jerusalem, after talks with Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, Rice referred to settlements, saying “anything that undermines confidence between the parties ought to be avoided”.

A US-backed “road map” for peace calls on Israel to halt all settlement activity in the West Bank and for Palestinians to rein in armed groups.

Settlement ‘noise’

The report by Peace Now, a non-governmental organisation, said that at least 2,600 new homes for Israelis are currently under construction in the West Bank, an increase of 80 per cent over last year.

In occupied East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of their future state, the number of new government bids for construction has increased from 46 in 2007 to 1,761 so far this year.

Palestinians say the construction of Israeli homes undermines final status talks as it runs counter to earlier agreements.

But Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, said the construction will not affect talks.

“The peace process is not, and should not be, affected by any kind of settlement activities,” Livni said.

Livni urged the Palestinians not to use settlement building “as an excuse” to avoid negotiations, but added she understood “their frustration” at times.

Peace process

Nour Odeh, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Ramallah, said the issue of settlement building played into larger concerns.

“The issue of settlement building is not just that they exist on occupied land in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, it’s about control over water and the territorial contiguity of any possible future [Palestinian] state,” she said.

“It’s difficult for Palestinians to have any confidence in the committment to reach a solution when settlement activity has almost doubled – and by the Palestinain count more than doubled.”

Rice said she still aims to reach a peace accord by January, when George Bush, the US president, leaves office, but she has played down chances of striking any partial accord in time for the September UN General Assembly.

Egypt talks

Separately, Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister, travelled to Egypt on Tuesday where he met Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, to discuss the ceasefire in Gaza that has been in effect since mid-June.

Barak hailed Egyptian efforts along the porous border which “have visibly been effective”, a statement from the Israeli defence ministry said.

But Barak also said that “more effort should be put in order to further reduce” weapons smuggling into Gaza.

The two leaders also discussed ways to renew talks on the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas fighters near Gaza in June 2006.

On Monday, Barak ordered the closure of all border crossings into Gaza after two rockets were fired from the strip.

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Final straw for Afghan leader after child death toll in air strike hits 60

August 27, 2008

· Karzai orders new rules for all foreign military activity
· 90 civilians killed in worst incident since 2001

Sixty children were killed in air strikes by US-led coalition warplanes in western Afghanistan last week, a UN investigation has found. UN investigators said they discovered “convincing evidence” that a total of 90 Afghan civilians died in the incident.

The toll, potentially the worst since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, could wreck relations between the Afghan government and the Nato-led coalition forces, which were already under severe strain over civilian casualties and strategy in the counter-insurgency against the Taliban.

The government of President Hamid Karzai has ordered that any military operation by foreign forces on its territory will be subject to a new set of rules enforceable under international law.

Kai Eide, the UN special envoy to Afghanistan who ordered the investigation, said the incident could undermine the faith of the Afghan people in international efforts to stabilise the country.

Military sources said the air strikes last Thursday on the Shindand district of Herat province were carried out not by the Nato force attempting to bolster Karzai’s government, but as part of a parallel US mission targeting al-Qaida and Taliban militants, called Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF).

US officials initially said that the air strikes were aimed at a Taliban stronghold and had killed 30 jihadis. An OEF spokesman in Kabul said last night that an investigation into the incident had been launched last Saturday and was still under way.

In his report, Eide said investigators from the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama) found that up to eight houses in the village of Nawabad had been destroyed in the raids and many others damaged.

“Investigations by Unama found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men. Fifteen other villagers were wounded or otherwise injured,” Eide wrote.

“This is matter of grave concern to the United Nations, I have repeatedly made clear that the safety and welfare of civilians must be considered above all else during the planning and conduct of all military operations. The impact of such operations undermines the trust and confidence of the Afghan people in efforts to build a just, peaceful, and law-abiding state.”

Humayun Hamidzada, a spokesman for the Afghan president, said Karzai had ordered that all foreign military operations be governed by an internationally enforceable “status of forces agreement”.

“The patience of the Afghan people has run out. We no longer can afford to see the killing of our children,” Hamidzada said.

The incident comes at a fraught time for western forces in Afghanistan, after a week of high casualties and deep splits within Nato on sharing the burden of the Afghan conflict.

Eide was appointed to bring some coordination to the international community’s disparate efforts. But last night he warned that those efforts were in danger of being crippled by public mistrust.

In a harshly worded statement, he said: “I want to remind all parties engaged in the conflict that the protection of civilians must be their primary concern; they must respect their duties under international humanitarian and human rights law to protect the people we are here to serve.”

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American UN envoy’s ties to ‘Mr 10 Per Cent’ are questioned

August 26, 2008

Keith Bedford/Reuters
Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, on August 11, 2008. Khalilzad is facing questions from senior Bush administration officials over what they describe as unauthorized contacts with Asif Ali Zardari, a contender to succeed Pervez Musharraf as president of Pakistan.

International Herald Times, August 26, 2008

WASHINGTON: Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to the United Nations, is facing angry questions from other senior Bush administration officials over what they describe as unauthorized contacts with Asif Ali Zardari, a contender to succeed Pervez Musharraf as president of Pakistan.

Khalilzad had spoken by telephone with Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, several times a week for the past month until he was confronted about the unauthorized contacts, a senior United States official said. Other officials said Khalilzad had planned to meet with Zardari privately next Tuesday while on vacation in Dubai, in a session that was canceled only after Richard Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, learned from Zardari himself that the ambassador was providing “advice and help.”

“Can I ask what sort of ‘advice and help’ you are providing?” Boucher wrote in an angry e-mail message to Khalilzad. “What sort of channel is this? Governmental, private, personnel?” Copies of the message were sent to others at the highest levels of the State Department; the message was provided to The New York Times by an administration official who had received a copy.

Officially, the United States has remained neutral in the contest to succeed Musharraf, and there is concern within the State Department that the discussions between Khalilzad and Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister, could leave the impression that the United States is taking sides in Pakistan’s already chaotic internal politics.

Khalilzad also had a close relationship with Bhutto, flying with her last summer on a private jet to a policy gathering in Aspen, Colorado. Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan in December.

The conduct by Khalilzad, who is Afghan by birth, has also raised hackles because of speculation that he might seek to succeed Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan. Khalilzad, who was the Bush administration’s first ambassador to Afghanistan, has also kept in close contact with Afghan officials, angering William Wood, the current American ambassador, said officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter of Khalilzad’s contacts. Khalilzad has said he has no plans to seek the Afghan presidency.

Through his spokesman, he said he had been friends with Zardari for years. “Ambassador Khalilzad had planned to meet socially with Zardari during his personal vacation,” said Richard Grenell, the spokesman for the United States Mission to the United Nations. “But because Zardari is now a presidential candidate, Ambassador Khalilzad postponed the meeting, after consulting with senior State Department officials and Zardari himself.”

A senior American official said that Khalilzad had been advised to “stop speaking freely” to Zardari, and that it was not clear whether he would face any disciplinary action.

In 1979, Andrew Young was forced to resign as the American ambassador to the United Nations over his unauthorized contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Administration officials described John Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state, and Boucher as angry over the conduct of Khalilzad because as United Nations ambassador he has no direct responsibility for American relations with Pakistan. Those dealings have been handled principally by Negroponte, Boucher and Anne W. Patterson, the American ambassador to Pakistan. Both Negroponte and Patterson served as the United Nations ambassador.

“Why do I have to learn about this from Asif after it’s all set up?” Boucher wrote in the Aug. 18 message, referring to the planned Dubai meeting with Zardari. “We have maintained a public line that we are not involved in the politics or the details. We are merely keeping in touch with the parties. Can I say that honestly if you’re providing ‘advice and help’? Please advise and help me so that I understand what’s going on here.”

This is not the first time Khalilzad has gotten into trouble for unauthorized contacts. In January, White House officials expressed anger about an unauthorized appearance in which Khalilzad sat beside the Iranian foreign minister at a panel of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The United States does not have diplomatic relations with Iran, and a request from Khalilzad to be part of the United States delegation to Davos had been turned down by officials at the State Department and the White House, a senior administration official said.

Continued . . .

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Curfew continues in Srinagar; toll rises to six

August 26, 2008
The Times of India, August 26, 2008
Curfew continues in Srinagar

A woman speaks to a cop on the third day of a curfew in Srinagar. (Reuters Photo)

SRINAGAR: A person injured in clashes in the Kashmir Valley died early Tuesday taking the toll in the ongoing violence in the region since Sunday to six as curfew remained clamped for the third consecutive day.

Bashir Ahmad Bahar, who was injured in firing by security forces at Hajan in Bandipora district on Monday succumbed to injuries at a hospital here this morning, official sources said.

Four persons were killed and 80 injured in escalating violence in the Valley on Monday when security forces opened fire on curfew-defying protesters at several parts of the state.

One person was killed in security forces firing in Dalgate area of the city on Sunday, when authorities imposed curfew in all 10 districts of the Valley.

The stone-pelting protesters were shot when security forces tried to disperse those who rallied across the Kashmir valley defying curfew in all its ten districts.

The authorities arrested top separatist leaders including chairmen of both factions of Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and JKLF leader Mohammad Yaseen Malik in a midnight swoop on Sunday to prevent them from organising a march to Lal Chowk.

Police also conducted raids at many places and picked up a dozen second rung separatist leaders. Army was assisting police in all districts barring Srinagar to maintain law and order.

Meanwhile, for the second consecutive day today, the local newspapers failed to hit stands in view of the curfew, after 17 media persons were allegedly thrashed by personnel of the law enforcing agencies on Monday.

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Young generation of Kashmiris want independence from Indian rule

August 26, 2008
Valley youth yearn for azaadi
Rashid Ahmed, Hindustan Times
Email Author

Srinagar, August 24, 2008

First Published: 23:01 IST(24/8/2008)

Last Updated: 01:28 IST(25/8/2008)

His mother tried to stop 17-year-old Muneeb Shaikh from joining the protest march to the United Nations Military Observers Group (UNMOG) office last Monday. Around 20 people had been killed in police firing across the Valley while participating in similar protests the previous week.

Muneeb symbolises a generation of Kashmiri youth who, while they may share the enthusiasm of their counterparts elsewhere for consumerist goodies and having a good time, are just as keen on azadi as well.Muneeb is a Class XI student at one of Srinagar’s best private schools. “Why should you worry? You have two sons. If one dies, the other will look after you,” he shot back.

“We were mentally prepared for his corpse to be brought home,” said his 53-year-old father Ghulam Shaikh, an employee with a local television channel. Fortunately this particular march remained peaceful and Muneeb got back unscathed.

Muneeb symbolises a generation of Kashmiri youth who, while they may share the enthusiasm of their counterparts elsewhere for consumerist goodies and having a good time, are just as keen on azadi as well. Born during the turbulent, militancy-ridden years of the late 1980s and 1990s, they display a passion for freedom that their parents, after the long years of bloodshed and bitterness in the state, have lost. “More than 90 per cent of the people taking part in these marches are below 25,” Ghulam Shaikh pointed out.

“They are born warriors,” said Mohammed Ishaq Wani, a local college lecturer, who has been observing young people closely for years.

At the forefront of the crowd at last Friday’s rally, following the prayers, were students of Srinagar’s Sri Pratap College. Some of them came zooming in on trendy motorbikes, but freedom from India remained their agenda. “They are our future. They will achieve what we could not,” said Ghulam Mohammad Dar, a 70-year-old shopkeeper Nawakadal watching them.

“This is a generation that has grown up amid the sounds of booming guns and exploding grenades,” said Dr Nazir Mushtaq, psychiatrist at Srinagar’s SMHS Hospital, explaining the young people’s fearlessness. “Lathi charges and exploding teargas shells are commonplace for them. They are not afraid of death.”

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Iraq, U.S. clash over timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal

August 26, 2008

By Leila Fadel, McClatchy Newspapers Mon Aug 25, 3:17 PM ET

BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said Monday there would be no security agreement between the United States and Iraq without an unconditional timetable for withdrawal— a direct challenge to the Bush administration, which insists that the timing for troop departure would be based on conditions on the ground.

“No pact or an agreement should be set without being based on full sovereignty, national common interests, and no foreign soldier should remain on Iraqi land, and there should be a specific deadline and it should not be open,” Maliki told a meeting of tribal Sheikhs in Baghdad .

Maliki said that the United States and Iraq had agreed that all foreign troops would be off Iraqi soil by the end of 2011. “There is an agreement actually reached, reached between the two parties on a fixed date, which is the end of 2011, to end any foreign presence on Iraqi soil,” Maliki said.

But the White House disputed Maliki’s statement and made clear the two countries are still at odds over the terms of a U.S. withdrawal.

“Any decisions on troops will be based on conditions on the ground in Iraq ,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said in Crawford, Tex. , where President Bush is vacationing. “That has always been our position. It continues to be our position.”

Fratto denied Maliki’s assertion that an agreement has been reached mandating that all foreign forces be out of Iraq by the end of 2011.

“An agreement has not been signed,” he said. “There is no agreement until there’s an agreement signed. There are discussions that continue in Baghdad .”

Maliki also said the dispute has not been resolved over immunity for U.S. troops and contractors when they are off their bases. He said this was one of the most divisive issues under negotiation.

“We can’t neglect our sons by giving an open immunity for anyone whether he is Iraqi or a foreigner,” he said

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Baghdad last week in an effort to push the process forward. Her long meeting with Maliki ended with no concrete solution, his advisor told McClatchy .

Jonathan S. Landay contributed from Washington

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Joe Biden: I am a Zionist

August 26, 2008

Source:  Information Clearing House

US Senator Joe Biden, candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, speaks with Shalom TV CEO Mark S. Golub on Israel and Jewish-related issues in this exclusive interview.

Shalom TV is an American Jewish cable television network carried on Comcast and Blue Ridge cable systems. Complete programming information is available online at http://www.shalomtv.com

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