THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Ukraine begins peacekeepers withdrawal from Iraq

KYIV. March 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) - The first group of the Ukrainian peacekeepers stationed in Iraq is expected to return to Ukraine on Tuesday under the program to cut down the Ukrainian contingent in that country.

Interfax earlier reported, citing the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, that about 140 Ukrainian servicemen are expected to arrive in Mykolayiv on two defense ministry planes later on Tuesday.

Ukraine plans to pull out the remaining contingent from Iraq following consultations with the Iraqi leadership and with the partners in the coalition. The withdrawal is likely to proceed in three stages to last from March 15 until the middle of October. Ukraine's National Security Council recently made the decision to withdraw up to 150 servicemen at the first stage, about 590 at the second stage and the remaining peacekeepers at the final stage.

Ukrainian peacekeepers were sent to Iraq by Ukrainian ex-president Leonid Kuchma's decision, approved by the parliament on June 5, 2003. Since August, 2003, about 1,600 Ukrainian servicemen and over 2,000 pieces of military equipment have been stationed in Iraq. The Ukrainian personnel have been rotated on several occasions. Seventeen Ukrainian peacekeepers have been killed, one officer has died of a heart attack and several dozen servicemen have been wounded since August, 2003.

How is it they can cut and run but we can't?

Two years after President Bush led the country to war in Iraq, Americans appear to be of two minds about the situation in the Middle East: A majority say they believe the Iraqis are better off today than they were before the conflict began -- but they also say the war was not worth fighting in the first place, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The January elections in Iraq have helped to shift public opinion in a positive direction about the future of Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, with a clear majority of Americans (56 percent) saying they are now confident that Iraqi leaders can create a stable government -- a dramatic turnaround since just before the elections.

The poll also shows that more Americans believe the war has improved the chances of democracy spreading in the Middle East than believe it has diminished those prospects.

Despite the optimism about the future, the poll suggests there has been little change in the negative public opinion about the decision to go to war. Fifty-three percent of Americans said the war was not worth fighting, 57 percent said they disapprove of the president's handling of Iraq, and 70 percent said the number of U.S. casualties, including more than 1,500 deaths, is an unacceptable price.

The mixed assessment of the situation in Iraq comes near the second anniversary of the U.S. invasion. It offers a benchmark for measuring the shifts in public opinion that have occurred since Bush launched the war despite opposition from much of the rest of the world.

Along with judgments about the war in Iraq, the poll found little appetite for military action against other states Bush has targeted for criticism, including Iran and North Korea. But with Iraq moving toward greater self-governance, Bush does not appear to be under great pressure to remove U.S. forces immediately -- despite criticism of how he has handled the situation there.

The poll also comes in the midst of encouraging signs throughout the Middle East, with tensions between Israelis and Palestinians reduced, popular support and international pressure for an end to Syria's occupation of Lebanon, and tentative steps toward democracy in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Bush has reaped some of the credit for the changes underway in the region, having made the promotion of democracy there and elsewhere the central theme of his second-term foreign policy agenda.

Over the past two years, Americans rallied around Bush in the initial stages of the war but grew increasingly disillusioned as stepped-up insurgent attacks a year ago turned the conflict bloodier. Today, Americans offer a more nuanced assessment of the experience there and its impact both on the United States and the Middle East. Deep partisan divisions remain, with Republicans positive about the decision to go to war and Democrats strongly negative.

Foreign policy experts said they found the seemingly conflicting views about the past and the future consistent with long-standing attitudes about the use of U.S. military force. For starters, Americans rank promoting democracy abroad at or near the bottom of acceptable reasons for using military force.

"People just think this is not our mission, that we should not be the democracy policemen," said James B. Steinberg, vice president and director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution. "Even though they think they [the Iraqis] are better off, they're leery about the U.S. going out and doing these things."

Walter Russell Mead, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the attitudes make it less likely that the Bush administration or future administrations will use the promotion of democracy to justify conflicts.
"Americans don't like putting Americans in harm's way and fighting wars for humanitarian reasons," he said, adding in an interview: "It means, by and large, the United States will not be spreading democracy at the point of a bayonet. There really isn't long-term mass support in public opinion for that kind of war."

But Bush's advocacy on behalf of democracy in the Middle East may be winning over skeptical Americans, and some advocates of the war believe that could have a lasting effect on opinions.

One of those supporters, William Kristol, editor and publisher of the conservative Weekly Standard, said negative judgments about the decision to go to war are understandable, even defensible, given that the administration used the threat of weapons of mass destruction as a cause for war and then never found any in Iraq. Nor, he said, did Bush anticipate or prepare the public for what turned out to be a far deadlier and longer period of U.S. occupation.

"Ultimately, events will matter most, not snapshots of public opinion," he said. "If Iraq is pretty stable and democratic and things are improving noticeably in the Middle East, that will be the fundamental judgment of the war."

The second anniversary is too early for drawing those kinds of conclusions, given the fluid nature of events in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. One point that is clear today is that Americans saw Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as a threat long before the war and continue to see him that way.

In the new poll, 56 percent said they think Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the start of the war and 6 in 10 said they believe Iraq provided direct support to the al Qaeda terrorist network, which struck the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. Also, 55 percent of Americans said the administration told people what it believed to be true, while 43 percent believe the administration deliberately misled the country.

Retrospective judgments of Bush's decision making are far more negative that they were two years ago as events were unfolding. For the first time in a Post-ABC poll, a majority (51 percent) called the war in Iraq a mistake. On the day Baghdad fell in April 2003, just 16 percent called the war a mistake and 81 percent said it was the right thing to do.

A plurality of Americans said the war has damaged this country's standing around the world, with 41 percent saying the U.S. position is weaker, 28 percent saying it is stronger and the rest saying it has made no difference. Two years ago, 52 percent said the war had made the U.S. position stronger, vs. 12 percent who said it was weaker.

Still, a majority of Americans (54 percent) said they believe most Iraqis support what this country is doing, and although a majority said the United States is bogged down in Iraq, more Americans believe the United States is making good progress than they did in the fall of 2004.

Nor is there great pressure to bring the troops home immediately. A plurality (44 percent) said troop strength in Iraq should be decreased, but only a quarter of the people who said that argued for an immediate withdrawal, translating to 12 percent of the total population. Far more of those calling for a troop reduction support a gradual withdrawal, leaving Bush a relatively free hand to determine the pace of such a move.

Party identification remains the great dividing line on public opinion about the war, as it has for the past year. The steady decline of support for the war was driven by growing Democratic opposition to Bush's policies, and those attitudes remain fixed. Four in 5 Democrats said the war was not worth fighting, whereas 4 in 5 Republicans said it was, and similar divisions exist on other judgments about the war. Partisan divisions on prospects for the Iraqis' future exist but are not as stark.

Americans are divided over whether the Iraq war makes it more or less likely that Bush will use military force to resolve disputes with other countries, but they are overwhelmingly opposed to such action to deal with Iran and North Korea -- countries Bush has singled out because of their pursuit of nuclear weapons. The public sees North Korea and Iran as threats to the United States, but by sizable majorities they oppose limited military action or invasion against either.

Among those surveyed who believe the war was not worth fighting but who see progress in the Middle East, there is clear ambivalence about U.S. policy. Geraldine Schneider, 69, of Sarasota, Fla., called the war "unsuccessful and the wrong thing to do." But she said it has benefited Iraqis. "In some ways they are better off," she said. "They certainly have a little more freedom."

Larry Kuebler, 65, of Saginaw, Mich., is cautiously optimistic. "The people who were oppressed have a better advantage than they had before," he said. "Eventually things will get better for Iraqis; when they get their own army, their own police, their own democratic system, they will be better off, in the very long run. But it will take time."

Kuebler proudly flies an American flag outside his house. When a local man or woman was killed on injured in Iraq, he would briefly lower the flag to half-staff. "I was moving it up and down every other day," he recalled. "It's at half-staff now, and that's where it is staying. I will not move it until it is over."

Assistant polling director Claudia Deane contributed to this report.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Gelisgesti wrote:

How is it they can cut and run but we can't?

We can cut and run too. Nothing to stop us but our consciences.

"We did it before and we can do it again."

Before in Vietnam we left behind more than a million to be murdered. I think many who aided and abetted the US withdrawal from Vietnam via their protests are still suffering from guilty consciences which they demonstrate by their irrational advocacy of cutting and running from Iraq too. Withdrawal from Iraq could set new records in the number left behind to be murdered and the number left thereby with guilty consciences.

The question is not can we cut and run? The question is should we cut and run?

I say we shouldn't. What say you?

Brits warned US of detainee abuse in 2002


By Shaun Waterman
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor


Washington, DC, Mar. 15 (UPI) -- In January 2002, one day after the British Secret Intelligence Service was granted access to U.S.-held detainees in Afghanistan, the agency became so concerned about prisoner treatment that it warned its personnel not to take part in coercive interrogations, documents show.


The British government's "stated commitment to human rights makes it important that the Americans understand that we cannot be party to such ill treatment nor can we be seen to condone it," reads a memo from the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6.

"In no case should (detainees) be coerced during or in conjunction with an (MI6) interview of them," states the memo, cited in a report last week from the British parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee.

MI6 management circulated the memo to all its personnel deployed to Afghanistan, suggesting that abuses should be drawn to the attention "of a suitably senior U.S. official locally" and warning that officials could face jail time if they were involved in mistreatment.

"As a representative of a U.K. public authority, you are obliged to act in accordance with the Human Rights Act 2000 which prohibits torture, or inhumane or degrading treatment. ... (Y)our actions incur criminal liability in the same way as if you were carrying out those acts in the U.K."

The note was an immediate response to a cable from an MI6 operative who had interrogated a U.S.-held detainee. Although he told his superiors that the interrogation was conducted in accordance with Geneva Convention standards, the report says, he also made some "observations" about the "the handling of (the) detainee by the U.S. military before the beginning of the interview."

His observations are redacted from the report, but the committee describes the concerns he raised as "potentially serious abuse."

On Jan. 11, 2002, one day after receiving the operative's cable, MI6 replied and sent copies to all his colleagues. "It appears from your description that (U.S.-held detainees) may not be being treated in accordance with the appropriate standards," the memo reads.

"That doesn't surprise me in the slightest," former British government official Tom Parker told United Press International. "The British intelligence services have a totally different ethos from their American counterparts."

These differences were thrown into sharp relief when President Bush announced Feb. 7, 2002, that captured Taliban fighters would not be accorded the protection of the Geneva Conventions. They would, he added, be treated humanely "to the extent consistent with military necessity."

Parker, who now lectures on international terrorism at Yale University, said the British learned about the need for a tight regime governing interrogations "the hard way" by being "slapped down pretty severely" by the European Court of Human Rights over the methods used on suspected terrorists in Northern Ireland.

The committee found that, despite several reports during 2002 of detainee abuse in both Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, British intelligence did not brief the ministers to whom they were supposedly reporting until the summer of 2004, after the revelations about abuse at Abu Ghraib, and complaints from several Britons released from Guantanamo Bay aroused public concern about detention issues.

British intelligence personnel on the ground did raise several of the 2002 reports from Afghanistan -- each characterized as "an isolated incident" -- with U.S. authorities at the time, the report finds, but there was no effort to follow up.

One former British intelligence official who has worked with the U.S. military in Iraq told UPI that raising such issues was venturing into tricky territory.

"You have to do it," he said. "You have to cover yourself. You absolutely have to be very clear that this is not good enough and you can't be a party to it. But then you have to go back and try to resume the good working relationship you had with them. They are the people whose job it is to keep you alive."

Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a spokesman for the Pentagon, told UPI that he could not provide details of any communication the U.S. military might have received from British personnel. But he said he was sure that "in the spirit of the close alliance with Britain, those concerns, observations, inputs, would have been treated very seriously."

"We know very little about what techniques the U.S. government authorized for use on detainees held in Afghanistan," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. "We believe the government is withholding key documents that show who is responsible for the widespread abuse of detainees held in U.S. custody there."

She added that the president's February 2002 announcement suspending the Taliban's Geneva protections "set the stage for the systemic and widespread abuse of detainees held in U.S. custody in Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq."

A former defense official involved with detainee policy cautioned -- without any details of the various incidents that caused concern -- that it was impossible to judge how serious the abuse the British had complained about might have been.

"Coercion can mean a lot of different things," he told UPI. "Shouting at people, banging your fist on the table. Those are technically coercion."

But the former British intelligence official said that he and other British personnel who had witnessed U.S. detention and interrogation techniques in Iraq and Guantanamo had been "appalled" at some of what they saw.

"My sense was that -- as far as the detainees we had access to (at Guantanamo) was concerned -- it was a futile exercise. The individuals were not of particularly high quality, and the techniques the Americans were using were counter-productive."

The former official told UPI that in Iraq, "I told the people working with me not to have anything to do with the interrogations of high-value detainees."

Publication of report on the handling of detainees by UK Intelligence personnel in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and Iraq

Iraq Rebuilding Is Major Corruption Risk -- Report
Wed Mar 16, 2005

By Philip Blenkinsop
BERLIN (Reuters) - The reconstruction of Iraq risks turning into the world's biggest corruption scandal, Transparency International said on Wednesday in a report focused on a worldwide problem of bribery in the building industry.

"If urgent steps are not taken, Iraq will not become the shining beacon of democracy envisaged by the Bush administration, it will become the biggest corruption scandal in history," the independent anti-graft group wrote in its annual Global Corruption Report.

The 2005 report refers to the scandal-tainted United Nations oil-for-food program and complaints of bribery affecting almost all Iraqi government operations.

It criticized the United States for its poor handling of procurement and said calls for rapid privatization to reduce debts were misguided.

Corruption was likely to worsen as large-scale spending on building contracts and procurement got under way.

"Funds being poured into rebuilding countries such as Iraq must be safeguarded against corruption," Transparency chairman Peter Eigen said in a statement.

"Transparency must also be the watchword as donors pledge massive sums for reconstruction in the countries affected by the Asian tsunami," he added.

MOST RIFE

The group said surveys had repeatedly shown that corruption was most rife in the $3.2 trillion construction sector and plagued both the developed and developing worlds.

Corruption wastes money and reduces quality, it said. It can cost lives through poor building in areas affected by natural disasters, and can have a devastating impact on the environment by encouraging inappropriate but lucrative projects.

Transparency International's report listed six "monuments of corruption," including the Yacyreta hydropower project on the border of Argentina and Paraguay, environmentally suspect dams in Malaysia and Uganda and a nuclear power plant in the Philippines built on an active fault line, prone to earthquakes.

The six also included an $8 billion dam project in Lesotho, though the report said the impoverished African kingdom had won unprecedented battles against graft.

It also pointed to $13 million allegedly paid in bribes for a German waste incineration plant.

To counter the problem, Transparency International issued a list of minimum standards for public procurement, including measures to ensure transparent, competitive bidding and the blacklisting of companies caught offering bribes.

The group welcomed the growing readiness of international companies to commit themselves to anti-corruption principles, but said the challenge facing them was to enforce such policies.

Transparency International also publishes an annual Corruption Perceptions Index, which last year placed Finland top and Bangladesh and Haiti joint bottom.

($1=.7444 Euro)