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Torch carries Tibet debate to UK

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

By Jon Kelly With colourfully-dressed groups of rival supporters waving flags and chanting slogans, it had all the ingredients of a major sporting event.

But athletics became juxtaposed with politics as the Olympic torch made its way through the streets of London en route to the controversial Beijing 2008 games.

Protesters opposed to China’s human rights record and presence in Tibet made sure that attention was focused on more than just sporting endeavour.

Like any stadium crowd, they chanted and sang - but their slogans included “Shame on you, China,” and “Stop the killing in Tibet.”

They were confronted by crowds of pro-Chinese government demonstrators determined to dispel what they described as lies about their country propagated by the western media.

The incongruous April snowfall might have meant the day at times resembled the Winter Olympics more than springtime in London.

Teams of police and stewards ringing the torchbearers to prevent the flame being blown out - around 2,000 officers were mobilised to maintain order along the 31-mile route.

Cmdr Jo Kaye of Scotland Yard said the force faced a difficult task.

“It would be no good surrounding the torch with a twelve-foot high wall, would it? No-one would enjoy that,” he said.

“We’ve got to allow people to see it.”

And though there were arrests and regular grapples between protesters and police, the most serious attempt to disrupt the event - by snatching the torch from former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq - was foiled.

Ms Huq - who had publicly wavered over whether to take part - looked shaken as she recounted the incident to the BBC.

“I was completely oblivious at first, and before I knew what was happening this guy had lurched towards me.

“It was quite a violent little tussle, but I guess he wanted his opinions to be known.”

Further scuffles followed the flame all the way as protesters tried to breach police lines.

But even when 2,000 demonstrators from both sides faced each other outside the British Library in Bloomsbury, most concentrated on chanting rather than physically confronting their opponents.

One demonstrator who was determined to make his voice heard was Phuntbok Dalu, 33, from Enfield, Middlesex.

Born to Tibetan parents in India, he insisted it was impossible to disentangle Chinese government policy from the event.

“People say that sport and politics shouldn’t mix,” he said.

“But when the blood of Tibet is smeared all over these games, I don’t see how you can make that argument.”

Not all had a personal stake in the dispute, however.

Claudie Whitaker, 44, from Groombridge in Kent took part along with daughter Elizabeth Nicholls, 17, after seeing TV footage of recent protests in Tibet.

“I’m marching today because the people of Tibet aren’t allowed to do so for themselves,” Claudie said.

“I’ve never been on a demonstration before, but I felt I had do something positive.”

Tibet’s government-in-exile said on Tuesday that it could confirm 140 people had died in recent violence. China has reported 19 deaths.

However, the pro-Beijing contingent along the route - although less noisy - were equally insistent that their side was the victim of injustice.

“The western media hasn’t been telling the truth,” said Emma Ha, 34, from London.

“It was Tibetans who attacked Chinese the other week, not the other way round.”

A fellow Chinese expat in the UK capital, Paul Zhou, 50, added: “These protesters say they want freedom for Tibet.

“But if the Dalai Lama was in charge, Tibet would be even less free than it is now. I support Beijing.”

The Free Tibet contingent will argue that it has led the debate about Beijing’s policies right into the heart of London.

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Ecuador slams CIA spy interference

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has blasted the CIA for financing the country’s intelligence agencies to pass information to Colombia.

“Many of our intelligence agencies have been taken over by the CIA,” the Correa said Saturday during his weekly radio address.

“Through the CIA, information found here was passed to Colombia to improve their position,” he added.

A high-ranking intelligence officer has been sacked by the President and he has planned to overhaul the country’s spy agencies, Xinhua reported.

Diplomatic ties were severed between Ecuador and Colombia following a Colombian cross-border raid into Ecuador to hunt FARC rebels on March 1.

RB/RA

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Putin rejects Bush’s missile plans

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirms his opposition to controversial US plans to install a missile defense shield in central Europe.

“Our fundamental attitude toward the American plan has not changed,” Putin said at a news conference with Bush at his vacation house at this Black Sea resort, AP reported. “We got a lot of way to go,” Bush said.

The declaration came after US president George W. Bush and Putin ended their last face-to-face meeting.

The US plans to site elements of its planned missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Moscow says it could undermine Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent.

Bush reiterated his insistence that the plan — designed to intercept and destroy approaching ballistic missiles at high altitudes — should not be viewed as a threat to Russia. In a clear reference to Iran, he said the system would help protect Europe from “regimes that could try to hold us hostage.”

“I view this as defensive, not offense,” Bush said. “And, obviously, we’ve got a lot of work to convince the experts this defense system is not aimed at Russia.”
Putin’s remarks referred to offers by the US to give Russian officers access to the sites, and not to activate the system until Iran tests an intercontinental missile capable of reaching Europe and the US.

Despite the impasse, the two leaders agreed that Moscow and Washington would work together closely in the future on missile defense and other difficult issues.

The two leaders also signed a nine-page strategic framework aimed at keeping relations between their countries on an even keel.

MP/RA

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ID card rebels offer £1,000 for Brown’s fingerprints

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
The Observer,
Sunday April 6 2008

Two of Britain’s leading civil liberties groups are to offer a £1,000 reward for the fingerprints of the Prime Minister or Home Secretary - a move that could leave both groups open to prosecution for incitement.

The anti-ID cards group No2ID and the campaign organisation Privacy International will this week take out spoof ‘Wanted’ posters in tube stations and pub lavatories offering the cash to anyone who can lawfully obtain either the fingerprints of Gordon Brown or Jacqui Smith. An initial print run of 10,000 has been commissioned.

The posters, resembling those issued by US sheriffs hunting outlaws in the Wild West, are backed by an internet campaign and accuse Brown and Smith of ‘identity theft’. They stipulate that ‘the fingerprint must be obtained lawfully and can be located on a beer glass, doorknob or any object with a hard surface. Corroborating evidence is required to ascertain the identity of these thieves.’ The £1,000 reward will then be paid to the charity of the ‘bounty hunter’s choice’, as the posters put it. The poster continues: ‘As fingerprint technology spreads, this government will essentially have back-door access to your computers, files, wallets and even cars and homes. We are offering this bounty to teach these individuals a lesson about personal information security.’

Phil Booth, of No2ID, said the campaign was designed to highlight the increasing sensitivity of fingerprinting as a political issue. ‘Having committed the largest data breach in history, the government is about to perpetrate the largest identity theft in history,’ he said.

‘I’m sure the government will seek legal advice to see if we can be prosecuted,’ said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International. ‘But it would be a foolish government that would try to charge civil rights groups.’

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More Sharp Words Traded Over Lapsed Wiretap Law

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON — A new round of political sparring erupted Friday over the government’s wiretapping powers, as the Bush administration asserted that the lapsing of a surveillance law a week ago has already led to the loss of important intelligence information and made private phone carriers less willing to cooperate.

Democrats immediately returned fire over the suggestion that they had compromised national security. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, accused President Bush of “crying wolf” and said, “These latest scare tactics represent the president at his most unreasonable, irresponsible and misleading.”

The escalation in tensions appeared to dim hopes of a quick resolution to the weeks-long impasse when Congress returns next week from a break.

House Democratic leaders last week allowed the temporary surveillance law to expire rather than submit to White House demands that the House pass a Senate version that would have expanded the government’s eavesdropping abilities and given immunity to the phone carriers that helped in the National Security Agency’s program of wiretapping without warrants. The leaders wanted a 21-day extension of the law to allow more time for negotiations, but the White House deemed that idea unacceptable.

Democratic staff members from the House and Senate met Friday for the second time this week to negotiate a compromise between their competing legislation, but differences remained over immunity and safeguards for civil liberties. The administration and Congressional Republicans have refused to send representatives to the negotiating sessions, angering Democrats.

“They’re basically saying just pass the Senate bill or we won’t negotiate,” said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “It’s their way or the highway, and that’s an untenable position.”

Although the surveillance measure has expired, intelligence officials are still able to use wiretapping tools under pre-existing authorities.

But in a sharply worded letter released Friday, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, said the return to the older standards for wiretapping had hurt intelligence collection.

The letter, sent to Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas and chairman of the Intelligence Committee, told Mr. Reyes he had misunderstood important facets of the nation’s intelligence capabilities by suggesting that the expiration of the Protect America Act, approved on a temporary basis last August, would have little practical impact.

“Our experience in the past few days since the expiration of the act demonstrates that these concerns are neither speculative nor theoretical,” the letter said. “Allowing the act to expire without passing the bipartisan Senate bill had real and negative consequences for our national security. Indeed, this has led directly to a degraded intelligence capability.”

The letter gave no details on actual intelligence losses.

Mr. Mukasey and Mr. McConnell said the uncertainty created by the lapse of the law had “reduced cooperation” from some telecommunication providers, causing them to delay or refuse to comply with wiretap requests.

Generally, the government has the ability to compel the cooperation of private companies and assure them legal immunity with a valid court order. But intelligence officials said compelling cooperation was a cumbersome process that could require litigation, and they predicted that more private companies might resist cooperating if the current impasse and uncertainty over the law continued.

Democratic leaders blamed the administration for any problems, saying its refusal to agree to a brief extension of the law had caused any lapses.

“If it is true that the expiration of the P.A.A. has caused gaps in intelligence, then it was irresponsible for the president and Congressional Republicans to block an extension of the law,” the chairmen of the Senate and House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees said in a statement. “Accordingly, they should join Democrats in extending it until we can resolve our differences.”

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Was Killing Iraqi Children Worth It?

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

A snapshot of the opening scene in the U.S. invasion of Iraq provides an excellent insight into the immorality and horror of the entire operation, from start to whenever it finally finishes.

According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times, at the outset of the invasion the U.S. military dropped bombs on a palatial compound in which Saddam Hussein was hiding. The article states:

“But instead of killing the Iraqi dictator, they had killed Mr. Kharbit’s older brother, Malik al-Kharbit - the very man who had led the family’s negotiations with the C.I.A. to topple Mr. Hussein. The bombings also killed 21 other people, including children, and the fury it aroused has been widely believed to have helped kick-start the insurgency in western Iraq.”

Now, that episode has at least two important lessons.

First, prior to the invasion the popular mantra among U.S. officials and many private Americans was the need to “get Saddam.” But as we often pointed out here at The Future of Freedom Foundation, it was never going to be just a question of “getting Saddam.” Instead, it was going to be a question of how many Iraqi people, including children, U.S. forces would have to kill before they “got Saddam.”

The article doesn’t state whether the U.S. military had actual knowledge that there were innocent people, including children, in the compound that it bombed. But it is a virtual certainty that they did have such knowledge. After all, if their intelligence was sufficiently good to know that Saddam was hiding in the compound, it had to be sufficiently good to know that there were other people living in the compound, including children.

Thus, when the U.S. military dropped those bombs, it had to be with the full knowledge that they would be killing innocent people in the process, including the children. And even if they didn’t “know” that there were innocent people in the compound at the time they dropped the bombs, they knew that there were dropping the bombs in reckless disregard of whether there were innocent people there or not.

The fact is that U.S. officials didn’t care whether there were innocents, including children, in that compound. Those children and their parents were obviously considered a small price to pay if Saddam Hussein had been killed at the outset of the war.

Of course, this attitude would match the attitude taken by U.S. officials throughout the period of the brutal sanctions that were enforced from 1991 to 2003. As tens of thousands of Iraqi children were dying year after year from the sanctions, the U.S. attitude was that those deaths were a small price to pay for ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein. That’s why UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, upon being asked whether the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi from the sanctions were worth it, she replied that yes - they were “worth it.” She was expressing the sentiment of the U.S. government, a sentiment that manifested itself again in the bombing of the compound in which those Iraqi children and their families were killed.

Second, the killing of those children and their families is just one example of how U.S. foreign policy has engendered anger and hatred for the United States, which produces the threat of terrorist retaliation, which brings about the “war on terrorism,” which results in more interventions, more massive military spending, and ever-increasing loss of liberty at home.

Let me repeat what the Times article said: “The bombings also killed 21 other people, including children, and the fury it aroused has been widely believed to have helped kick-start the insurgency in western Iraq.”

Now, ask yourself: Why has the U.S. government been occupying Iraq for the past 5 years? Didn’t they already “get” Saddam? Hasn’t he already been executed?

The answer is that U.S. officials, having “gotten” Saddam must now “get” the “bad guys” in Iraq. And who are the “bad guys?” They’re the Iraqis who are angry over the killing of Iraqis, including women and children, who had to be killed in the process of “getting Saddam.”

As they continue to bomb all these “bad guys,” they continue to kill more innocents, including more Iraqi children and their families, which then incites more fury, which then causes more “bad guys” to join the insurgency. Those additional “bad guys” are then used as the excuse to continue the occupation of Iraq, an occupation that for obvious reasons will go on indefinitely.

To state what I consider self-evident moral truths, it was morally wrong and a grave violation of God’s laws to:

(1) attack a country whose government and citizenry had never attacked the United States;

(2) kill Iraqis, including children and their families, in order to achieve regime change in Iraq; and

(3) kill Iraqis, including children and their families, in order to spread “democracy” to Iraq.

One can only wonder whether the American people, in crises of conscience, will ever confront such issues.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email

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Did BT spy on 36,000 customers?

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

By MATTHEW HICKLEY

BT tested secret “spyware” on tens of thousands of its broadband customers without their knowledge, it admitted yesterday.

It carried out covert trials of a system which monitors every internet page a user visits.

Companies can exploit such data to target users with tailored online advertisements.

An investigation into the affair has been started by the Information Commissioner, the personal data watchdog.

Privacy campaigners reacted with horror, accusing BT of illegal interception on a huge scale. Yesterday, the company was forced to admit that it had monitored the web browsing habits of 36,000 customers.

The scandal came to light only after some customers stumbled across tell-tale signs of spying. At first, they were wrongly told a software virus was to blame.

Executives insisted they had not broken the law and said no “personally identifiable information” had been shared or divulged.

BT said it randomly chose 36,000 broadband users for a “small-scale technical trial” in 2006 and 2007.

The monitoring system, developed by U.S. software company Phorm, accesses information from a computer.

It then scans every website a customer visits, silently checking for keywords and building up a unique picture of their interests.

If a user searches online to buy a holiday or expensive TV, for example, or looks for internet dating services or advice on weight loss, the Phorm system will add all the information to their file.

One BT customer who spotted unexplained problems with his computer was told repeatedly by BT helpdesk staff that a virus was to blame.

Stephen Mainwaring, who runs an online company in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, has made a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner and is considering legal action.

Nicholas Bohm, of the Foundation for Information Policy Research, said BT’s actions amounted to illegal data interception.

He told the BBC: “It seems a clear-cut case of illegal interception of communication.”

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British inventor and founding father of the worldwide web, said a person’s data and web history are private property.

“It’s mine - you can’t have it,” he added.

“If you want to use it for something, then you have to negotiate with me. I have to agree, I have to understand what I’m getting in return.”

Emma Sanderson, head of value-added services at BT, said it had not broken the law.

“It was completely anonymous and no personally identifiable information was shared. No information was stored or divulged.”

A further trial is planned in the next few weeks, BT said, but customers will be asked in advance.

A spokesman said the Phorm system did not record details of which websites a user visited, but only keywords from the content which flagged up topics the customer is interested in.

Phorm uses anonymous code numbers for each computer, he said, rather than recording individuals’ names.

• Social networking website MySpace has teamed up with record labels Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group to launch a rival to Apple’s music download service iTunes.

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Obama and Hillary Spin a ‘Big Lie’ About Iraq

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

The two Dems lie every time they discuss Iraq on the campaign trail, but the media refuse to call them on it.

By Joshua Holland

The cable news networks are happy to spend hours on the latest silly campaign squabble but can’t bring themselves to point out the plain fact that the two Democratic nominees are lying, blatantly, to the American people about one of the most important issues facing the country today.

On the stump, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are crystal clear in their rhetoric about Iraq. In a statement released on the occasion of the 4,000th U.S. combat death in Iraq, Clinton said, “I have made [a] promise. And I intend to honor it by bringing a responsible end to this war, and bringing our troops home safely.” Not to be outdone, the Obama campaign piped in with an even more definitive statement: “It is past time to end this war that should never have been waged by bringing our troops home.”

On the campaign trail, the two candidates often speak of bringing the troops home and ending the war, and Democratic primary voters, 80 percent of whom want U.S. troops out of Iraq within 12 months, reward them with boisterous applause.

It’s a Big Lie, and everyone who follows the debates over U.S. policy towards Iraq knows it, but refuses to call the candidates on it. Both Clinton and Obama (PDF) have been very clear — in the fine print — about the fact that they will leave a significant number of “residual forces” in Iraq, albeit with a more limited mission than the Bush administration has pursued. They would protect U.S. infrastructure and personnel — Obama says “the U.S. embassy” — train Iraqi forces and retain a rapid-response force to conduct “limited counter-terrorism” missions.

Although the candidates refuse to specify the exact scope and length of that mission, independent analysts say that it would require at least 40,000 and as many as 75,000 soldiers and marines. When one looks at the big picture, the end game appears to be a significant draw-down of troops — with as many as 100,000 sent home or redeployed to Afghanistan, where thin NATO troops are struggling to contain a re-emergent Taliban — calling a halt to most combat operations and patrols, and dismantling most or all U.S. bases outside of Baghdad.

They would, however, maintain the infrastructure of the U.S. occupation and provide the forces necessary to do so. As the Nation’s Jeremy Scahill told Amy Goodman,

Both [candidates] intend to keep the Green Zone intact. Both of them intend to keep the current U.S. embassy project, which is slated to be the largest embassy in the history of the world … And they’re also going to keep open the Baghdad airport indefinitely.

Calling the massive campus the United States is building in Baghdad an “embassy” is somewhat misleading. The Associated Press described it as a “fortresslike compound rising beside the Tigris River … the largest of its kind in the world, the size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq’s turbulent future.”

Obama and Clinton have co-sponsored legislation that would increase accountability for the 180,000 security contractors — some authorized to carry weapons and use deadly force — that have run around Iraq largely unaccountable under U.S. and Iraqi laws and the military justice system (Clinton only did so after coming under pressure from human rights and other activists). Creating accountability is a positive step, but neither Clinton nor Obama have said that they would discontinue the use of mercenaries and other private contractors in Iraq.

There is a mile-wide gap between the Democrats’ analysis of the war and that of John McCain, and that’s evident in the candidates’ rhetoric. Those differences are significant, in that they would lead to very different political climates in which the issue would be debated after the election.

But all three candidates have embraced the Catch-22 that assures our enduring presence in Iraq. It can be summed up like this: U.S. forces must remain in Iraq as long as an active insurgency contributes to its instability, and an active insurgency will continue to create instability until the United States makes a commitment to a full withdrawal.

Having accepted that narrative, the sad reality is that the Democratic candidates’ Iraq policies differ only incrementally from that of John McCain, or from the long-term “cooperation agreement” Bush is attempting to negotiate with the Iraqi government his administration installed in Baghdad.

McCain, like Bush, speaks only in the vaguest terms about drawing down troops “as the Iraqis stand up,” but, short of implementing a draft, a president McCain would have little choice but to make significant cuts to our current troop levels. So, the difference between the Democratic and Republican candidates is one of numbers, rather than approaches. John McCain will likely draw down fewer troops than the Democrats would, and would have them continue to patrol the streets of Iraq. But all of the presidential candidates share similar assumptions about the United States playing a central role in Iraqi affairs moving forward — all will retain the infrastructure of the occupation for the foreseeable future.

U.S. troop levels will decrease regardless of who enters the White House in 2009 because of military (and political) necessity, rather than principled opposition to the occupation of Iraq. Defense experts from across the political spectrum agree that the current scope of the U.S. commitment in Iraq is unsustainable over the long run. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 13, Gen. Richard Cody, U.S. Army vice chief of staff, made that point quite clearly:

The current demand for our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeds the sustainable supply … Given the current theater demand for Army forces, we are unable to provide a sustainable tempo of deployments for our soldiers and families … Equipment used repeatedly in harsh environments is wearing out more rapidly than programmed. Army support systems, designed for the pre-9/11 peacetime Army, are straining under the accumulation of stress from six years at war. Overall, our readiness is being consumed as fast as we build it.

The United States has already decreased its military footprint in the streets of Iraq — surrendering large swaths of territory to local authorities and Iraqi security forces in an effort to reduce U.S. casualties. Spun as a spontaneous Sunni (and, later, Shiite) “Awakening,” much of that territory is being turned over to whichever armed group holds the most sway in a designated area. Small fiefdoms have been built in communities across Iraq with weapons and cash provided by U.S. taxpayers — there are currently as many as 100,000 militiamen in American employ.

What’s your favorite part of the last five years?

If there were truth in advertising, the Democratic candidates would simply argue that their approach would significantly reduce the costs of the occupation (we’re spending $275 million every single day right now), result in far fewer American casualties and, if executed well, might significantly improve the United States’ image in the world. They could argue, convincingly, that a Democratic president and Congress would improve oversight of the contracting practices that have proven so disastrous in the “reconstruction” of Iraq.

All of that is true, but one can also rest assured that whatever feature one has liked best about the last five years will continue under a U.S occupation with a lighter footprint, even if, in some cases, it would continue to a lesser degree.

Anti-U.S. insurgency

The McCain campaign is quite touchy about his now-infamous remark that staying in Iraq for 100 years would be fine with him. They keep pointing out that he was simply comparing Iraq with places like Japan and South Korea, where U.S. troops have been stationed for decades. Their defense is perhaps more frightening than the original statement; it reveals a man hopelessly out of touch with the situation on the ground.

Unlike Japan or South Korea, there is an active and effective anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq. It is popular; in a poll conducted last August, almost 6 in 10 Iraqis said that attacks on U.S. troops were “acceptable.” Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, told me last fall that more than three-quarters of those he’d polled thought the United States plans to establish permanent bases in Iraq, and “that view is closely related to support for attacks on U.S. troops.” In fact, he said, “among those who believe the U.S. will withdraw, just 34 percent favor attacks against U.S. troops, but among those who believe the U.S. will not withdraw, 68 percent favor attacking coalition forces.”

By overwhelmingly large margins, Iraqis believe the United States makes the final decisions in the Green Zone, not their nominal “sovereign government”; in late 2006, more than seven of ten Iraqis said that if their government demanded that the U.S. leave their country, we would refuse to do so.

Last June, when Bush first spoke of a “Korea Model” for Iraq, Raed Jarrar, my frequent writing partner, spoke with several Iraqi lawmakers from across the political spectrum, including Nassar al-Rubaie, the head of the Al-Sadr bloc in Iraq’s parliament, who told us: “There is no Iraqi who will agree to keep permanent U.S. bases. Even the ones who are against the timetable for withdrawal oppose a long-term U.S. presence.”

As long as there is a walled city-within-a-city in the heart of Baghdad, where Westerners eat Kentucky Fried Chicken and dictate — or are perceived to dictate — the terms of Iraq’s future, the insurgency will continue. Whether that “Emerald City” is guarded by 40,000 U.S. troops or 140,000 is irrelevant to that reality.

Propping up an unpopular government

Under a lighter occupation, the United States would continue to prop up, by force when necessary, an Iraqi government with little legitimacy and an agenda that is deeply unpopular with a majority of the Iraqi population.

The U.S.-backed regime favors an extended American presence; 70 percent of Iraqis want a complete withdrawal of foreign troops within 12 months (PDF). Maliki and his supporters favor a loose federal system in which powerful regional governments oversee most domestic issues; 66 percent of Iraqis favor “one unified Iraq with a strong central government” (PDF). The Maliki regime favors the wholesale privatization of Iraq’s oil sector; two out of three Iraqis want their country’s oil wealth to be controlled by the state (the norm throughout the Middle East).

Continue…

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Iran torpedoes US plans for Iraqi oil

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

In the highly competitive world of international politics, nation states very rarely miss an opportunity to crow about success stories. The opportunity comes rare, mostly by default, and seldom enduring. By any standards of showmanship, therefore, Tehran has set a new benchmark of reticence.

By all accounts, Iran played a decisive role in hammering out the peace deal among the Shi’ite factions in Iraq. A bloody week of human killing on the Tigris River ended on Sunday. Details are sketchy, however, since they must come from non-Iranian sources. Tehran keeps silent about its role.

The deal was brokered after negotiations in the holy city of Qom in Iran involving the two Shi’ite factions - the Da’wa Party and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) - which have been locked in conflict with Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in southern Iraq. It appears that one of the most shadowy figures of the Iranian security establishment, General Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) personally mediated in the intra-Iraqi Shi’ite negotiations. Suleimani is in charge of the IRGC’s operations abroad.

US military commanders routinely blame the Quds for all their woes in Iraq. The fact that the representatives of Da’wa and SIIC secretly traveled to Qom under the very nose of American and British intelligence and sought Quds mediation to broker a deal conveys a huge political message. Iran signals that security considerations rather than politics or religion prevailed.

But the politics of the deal are all too apparent. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who was camping in Basra and personally supervising the operations against the Mahdi Army, was not in the loop about the goings-on. As for US President George W Bush, he had just spoken praising Maliki for waging a “historic and decisive” battle against the Mahdi Army, which he said was “a defining moment” in the history of a “free Iraq”. Both Maliki and Bush look very foolish.

But why isn’t Tehran in any hurry to claim victory? After all, rubbishing the Bush presidency has been the stuff of Iranian rhetoric. Perhaps, Iranians had shut down over Nauroz new year festivities. They do take the joyful advent of spring very seriously. Or maybe, Suleimani’s involvement makes the subject a no-go area for public discussion. Third, Iranians should know better than anyone that the intra-Shi’ite rivalries are far too deep-rooted to lend themselves to an amicable settlement in a day’s negotiations.

The turf war in the Iraqi Shi’ite regions has several templates. Iraq’s future as a unitary state; the parameters of acceptable federalism, if any; attitude towards the US; control of oil wealth; overvaulting political ambitions - all these are intertwined features of a complex matrix. Therefore, the fragility of the newfound peace is all too apparent. Tehran will be justified in estimating that it is prudent to wait and watch whether peace gains traction in the critical weeks ahead.

But the most important Iranian calculation would be not to provoke the Americans unnecessarily by rubbing in the true import of what happened. Tehran would be gratified that in any case it has made the point that it possesses awesome influence within Iraq. Anyone who knows today’s anarchic Iraq would realize that triggering a new spiral of violence in that country may not require much ingenuity, muscle power or political clout.

But to be able to summarily cry halt to cascading violence, and to achieve that precisely in about 48 hours, well, that’s an altogether impressive capability in political terms. In this case, the Iranians have managed it with felicitous ease, as if they were just turning off a well-lubricated tap. That requires great command over the killing fields of Iraq, the native warriors, and the sheer ability to calibrate the flow of events and micromanage attitudes.

Conceivably, Tehran would have decided with its accumulated centuries-old Persian wisdom that certain things in life are always best left unspoken, especially stunning successes. Besides, it is far more productive to leave Washington to contemplate over happenings and draw the unavoidable conclusion that if it musters the courage to make that existential choice, Iran can be an immensely valuable factor of stability for Iraq.

But it wasn’t a matter of political symbolism, either. Tangible issues are involved. Questions of vital national interests. Clearly, Tehran had genuine concerns over the developing situation in southern Iraq close to its border. Tehran viewed the flare-up involving the Shi’ite factions with great disquiet. This was apparent from the speech by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who led the prayer sermon in Tehran on Friday. He bemoaned, “Iraq is currently entangled in many problems.” But Jannati explicitly didn’t take sides between the warring factions.

On the one hand, he advised the Mahdi Army (”Iraqi popular armed forces”) and Maliki (”Iraqi popular government”) to hold talks. But he also advised the “popular armed forces present in Basra” (read Badr Organization, Da’wa, the smaller Fadhila party, etc.) to intervene with the “Iraqi popular government”. Third, Jannati also called on Maliki to “heed the [popular] forces’ views and solve problems eventually in a way that would be to the interest of all.”

Curiously, he criticized the silence on the part of the Muslim world - “especially the Organization of the Islamic Conference” (OIC) - over the “enormous brutality and oppression in Iraq”. He said, “It is not clear why Muslim states, especially the OIC, do not show any reaction against so much injustice and oppression in Iraq, while such measures could be easily prevented through unity and solidarity.” The remark contained a barely disguised barb aimed at Saudi Arabia for hobnobbing with the US. (US Vice President Dick Cheney had visited Riyadh and Baghdad barely one week before Maliki launched the offensive in Basra.)

Yet, all in all, Jannati politely refrained from expressing Iran’s complete disapproval of the conduct of Maliki in carrying out the offensive as part of the US game plan to establish control of Basra, which is the principal artery for American oil majors to evacuate Iraqi oil. The Sadrists oppose the current plans for opening up the nationalized Iraqi oil industry to foreign exploitation.

However, the day after Jannati spoke, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini came down hard on the Maliki government. He deplored the use of American and British air power against the Sadrist militia - “waves of US-UK air raids on civilians”. He called on the Shi’ite factions to end the fighting as “continued fighting only serves the interests of the occupiers … and give pretexts to occupiers to continue their illegitimate presence” in Iraq.

Most important, he called for negotiations - which had already commenced in Qom by that time - “in a friendly and goodwill atmosphere”. As for the Maliki government, Hosseini expressed the hope it would “exercise wisdom, cooperation, mutual understanding, patience, calm and contacts with Iraqi political leaders to overcome the current crisis period”. Plainly put, Hosseini asked Maliki not to be dumb enough to sub-serve US interests and to realize where his own political interests lay. He pointedly drew a line of distinction between Maliki and the powerful Iraqi Shi’ite leadership.

The Iranian accounts of the fighting have shown a distinct sympathy for the Sadrist militia, highlighting that the Mahdi Army was being “unfairly singled out” for attack by government forces; that the Sadrists’ quarrel with Maliki was that he “refused to set a deadline for US and coalition troops to leave”; that US troops were providing the government forces with “intelligence, surveillance and occasional air strikes and raids”; and that Iraqi troops were refusing to obey orders to fight the Sadrist militia. The Iranian official news agency quoted Muqtada as comparing Maliki to Saddam Hussein. “Under Saddam’s rule, we complained about how the government distanced itself from the people and operated under dictatorial terms. Now the government is also dealing with people on such terms,” he was quoted as saying.

Out of the dramatic developments of the past week, several questions arise, the principal being that the Bush administration’s triumphalism over the so-called Iraq “surge” strategy has become irredeemably farcical, and, two, US doublespeak has become badly exposed. What stands out is that Washington promoted the latest round of violence in Basra, whereas Iran cried halt to it. The awesome influence of Tehran has become all too apparent. How does Bush come to terms with it?

What has happened is essentially that Iran has frustrated the joint US-British objective of gaining control of Basra, without which the strategy of establishing control over the fabulous oil fields of southern Iraq will not work. Control of Basra is a pre-requisite before American oil majors make their multi-billion investments to kick start large-scale oil production in Iraq. Iraq’s Southern Oil Company is headquartered in Basra. Highly strategic installations are concentrated in the region, such as pipeline networks, pumping stations, refineries and loading terminals. The American oil majors will insist on fastening these installations.

The game plan for control of Basra now needs to be reworked. The idea was to take Basra in hand now so that the Sadrists would be thwarted from taking over the local administration in elections in October - in other words, to ensure the political underpinning for Basra. All indications are that the Sadrists are riding a huge wave of popular support. They have caught the imagination of the poor, downtrodden, dispossessed masses in the majority Shi’ite community. They are hard to replace in democratic elections. The sense of frustration in Washington and London must be very deep that Basra is not yet fastened. Time is running out for Bush to make sure that his successor in the White House inherits an irreversible process in the US’s Iraq policy.

Indeed, in his first comments, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown initially refused to say on Tuesday whether the government’s plans to cut the number of troops in Iraq to 2,500 from 4,000 were on course. He simply said British troops were facing “difficulties” in Basra. This was followed by Defense Secretary Des Browne saying that return of 2,500 troops from southern Iraq this spring had been placed on hold indefinitely.

Bush hasn’t yet spoken. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates put on a brave face, saying first-hand information was limited, but based on that, “they [Iraqi troops] seem to have done a pretty good job”. To be sure, Cheney must be furious that Tehran torpedoed the entire US strategy for Big Oil. He has had a hard time shepherding the pro-West Arab regimes in the region, especially Saudi Arabia, up to this point.

Besides, nothing infuriates Cheney more than when US oil interests are hit. Thus, the most critical few weeks in the decades-long US-Iran standoff may have just begun. Last week, five former US secretaries of state who served in Democratic and Republican administrations - Henry Kissinger, James Baker, Warren Christopher, Madeline Albright and Colin Powell - sat at a round-table discussion in Athens and reached a consensus to urge the next US administration to open a line of dialogue with Iran.

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

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British army faces new torture claims

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

The testament of a respected Shia elder, aged 70, suggests brutal treatment of civilians is still continuing, writes Robert Verkaik.

The British Army faces new allegations of torture and abuse over the arrest and detention of a Shia tribal leader and his family who claim they were hooded and beaten by soldiers based at Basra airport last year.

The allegations could prove highly damaging as they come just days after the Government said that abuses committed by British soldiers had been limited to 2003 and 2004 and involved only a “very small minority” of servicemen.

In the new claims, which are being prepared for legal action in the UK courts, Jabbir Hmoud Kammash, 70, the leader of a sub-division of the Albu-Darraj tribe in southern Iraq, alleges that a group of 20 soldiers raided his home in Al-Gzaizah, Basra, in the early hours of the morning in April last year.

Mr Kammash, a former Iraq national wrestling champion, says that on the day of the raid, his family were celebrating the birth of his grandchild: “There were over 20 soldiers. They broke into the house through the door and came down from the roof. My wife, daughters and their kids were all screaming in horror. I was very scared for their safety.”

The Iraqis claim that money and computers were taken during the raid and furniture destroyed. Mr Kammash says he, his two sons and three male house guests were hooded, handcuffed and then driven off to the British military base at Basra airport.

“Two soldiers sat on my back while I was kneeling, which caused me great pain. I felt I was going to suffocate,” says Mr Kammash in his statement. “I pushed my back up, which made the two soldiers hit the car’s roof. The soldiers started punishing me for it by hitting my head with rifle butts – they only stopped when they noticed blood was gushing out of my head. Then they started beating me heavily in the ribs.”

Mr Kammash says his head injury later required six stitches at a British military hospital.

His statement continues: “I was in severe pain and could not walk when they ordered me out of the jeep, so they started kicking and hitting me all over my body till I dropped to the floor.

“They brought a stretcher and took me to the army clinic in the airport, where I stayed for about four hours.

“I woke up to see an oxygen mask on my nose. Someone placed a pencil between my fingers and squeezed strongly, which made me scream, then asked whether I agreed to them stitching up my head – I agreed to that.”

The respected Shia elder, who was still hooded, says he was dragged by two soldiers from the hospital for interrogation.

The use of hoods, if proven, would be particularly damning. Their use was outlawed by the British government in 1972, but reintroduced in Iraq without any seeming official sanction. When it emerged that prisoners were being hooded in 2004, troops were told formally that the practice should cease.

Mr Kammash’s tribe has enjoyed significant influence in the south since the days of the Ottoman Empire. Abdul-Hadi Al-Darraji, one of the members of this tribe, is the official spokesman for Muqtada al-Sadr.

These new claims will increase the pressure on the Government to hold an independent inquiry into the actions of British soldiers in the detention of Iraqi civilians from the beginning of the war right up to the present day.

Despite dozens of allegations of abuse, only a handful of lower ranks have been found guilty of mistreating prisoners. No officer has been found guilty of any wrongdoing.

Mr Kammash added: “The interrogator accused me of using my house for terrorist activities and asked me to confess. I explained that I am an elderly man in a house full of women and children, and the thorough search of the house had revealed no weapons at all.

“They re-hooded me and dragged me back to the open ground, where they made me sit on rough gravel on my knees. Every time I felt sleepy or tired and my back bent forward, a soldier kicked my back with his boots or the rifle butt to keep me awake. They were absolutely merciless considering my age.”

Sleep deprivation is recognised internationally as a form of torture.

During the raid Mr Kammash’s son Ammar, 25, claims he was badly beaten in front of his mother because he had tried to reassure her there was nothing to worry about.

“Soldiers started beating me to stop me talking,” he said. “They were very selective in choosing the areas where they beat me – I was hit on my ribs, stomach, thighs and shoulders. It seemed to me that their intention was not to cause lasting or apparent damage to my body. They used their boots, fists, rifle butts and helmets.”

He claims that during his interrogation a British officer threatened that if he did not confess “they would bring my wife and sisters and rape them in front of me”.

He too was treated for his injuries at the army hospital at the airport.

Mr Kammash was released the next day along with a second son, Alaa. Ammar was released four days later.

None of the men has been charged. Three other Iraqis held by the British during the same raid claim they were also inhumanely treated and were released without charge.

The men have all given witness statements to the Iraqi League, a UK-based human rights group that helped uncover evidence leading to the court martial of British troops accused in connection with the killing of Baha Mousa, a 26-year-old hotel receptionist who was beaten to death by soldiers in September 2003.

Mazin Younis, spokesperson for the Iraqi League, said: “After three visits to Basra and over 70 cases I have investigated of alleged killings or torture, especially that of Baha Mousa and his colleagues, I truly hoped that the MoD had taken serious steps to prevent hooding and abuse of Iraqi prisoners after this horrible crime. Now I am really shocked to learn that these practices may have been adopted as a policy by the British Army that has continued well into 2007.”

He added: “Mr Kammash and his sons have expressed to the Iraqi League their intention to take legal action against the British government for the abuse they have suffered, and to claim damages for the injuries and losses incurred in the raid. We are now talking to British lawyers regarding this case.”

Last week Des Browne, the Secretary of State for Defence, admitted that Mr Mousa had been tortured before he died, but said that some of the allegations against British soldiers were exaggerated. In letters sent to the lawyers representing Mr Mousa’s family, the Government said it would resist attempts to hold a wider court inquiry into events surrounding his death.

In January the Ministry of Defence published its findings into the allegations of mistreatment of civilians detained by troops in 2003 and 2004.

Brigadier Robert Aitken, the director of army personnel strategy, said soldiers had received only “scant” information on how to treat such civilians and that forces needed to be given “a better understanding between right and wrong”.

But he said there was no evidence of endemic abuse.

Martyn Day, senior partner of solicitors firm Leigh Day & Co, which specialises in human rights cases, said he had been asked to investigate the new allegations: “From what I can see, these cases have a very familiar ring to them. It shows we are not just talking about a few rogue soldiers at the beginning of the war. The scale of the abuse clearly goes much further and needs to be fully investigated at an independent public inquiry.”

Mr Day said the hooding of prisoners, putting them into the stress position and depriving them of food and water were all methods widely employed by the Army.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: “We have no record of this incident or any complaints linked to it. However, the Royal Military Police will investigate any allegation of abuse reported to us. We condemn all acts of abuse and brutality and take any allegations of wrongdoing very seriously.”

Jabbir Hmoud Kammash: A tribal leader draws on personal experience to give damaging evidence against the British Army

On 1 April 2007 my house was raided by British troops at around 1am. I live in Al-Gzaizah, Basra, the same district where most Camp Breadbasket victims come from. My house was occupied then by 15 members of our family, most of them women and children. One of my daughters had just had a baby on that day.

There were over 20 soldiers. They broke into the house through the door and came down from the roof. We felt like the whole Army was invading. My wife, daughters and their kids were all screaming in horror.

They searched the house and found no weapons, though they took all my savings: 2m Iraqi dinars (£812), two golden rings and a computer. None of these items were returned to us.

They hooded and handcuffed me. I was taken into an Army jeep and made to sit on my knees. Two soldiers sat on my back, which caused me great pain. I pushed my back up which made the two soldiers hit the roof. The soldiers started punishing me for it by hitting my head with rifle butts. They only stopped when they noticed blood was gushing out of my head. I later had six stitches. Then they started beating me in the ribs.

We were taken to the British base in Basra airport. I was in severe pain and could not walk when they ordered me out of the jeep, so they started kicking and hitting me till I dropped to the floor.

They brought a stretcher and took me to the Army clinic. Someone placed a pencil between my fingers and squeezed strongly which made me scream, then asked whether I agreed to them stitching-up my head.

There were non-Iraqi female doctors as well. A female doctor inspected my injuries and bruises and asked whether they were old.

I was taken away from the hospital by two soldiers who dragged me over rough ground. Then they took me for interrogation. During the interrogation the hood was lifted, and the interrogator asked me to stand up and look into his eyes. I explained that I was could not stand up. I asked him to bring me crutches so that I could stay standing.

He accused me of using my house for terrorist activities. I explained that I am an elderly man in a house full of women and children, and the search revealed no weapons.

They re-hooded me and dragged me back to the open ground, where they made me sit on gravel on my knees. Every time I felt tired and my back bent forward, a soldier kicked my back with his boots or the rifle butt to keep me awake. They were absolutely merciless considering my age.

I was taken a second time to be interrogated, where the officer apologised for my detention and confirmed that I had been detained by mistake. He gave me a $5 note. I told him that I had no need for his $5. He asked me to keep it as a souvenir from the British!

I was released the next day, along with my 25-year-old son, Alaa’. He had bruises all over his face and body. My other son, Ammar, was released four days later.

I stayed in bed for about three months after this incident. The wound in my head is still apparent, while the other bruises have since healed.

During the interrogation they made me hold a piece of paper with a number on it and they photographed me from the front and sides. I felt extremely humiliated. They were treating me like a criminal, while I was a tribe’s chief who had a well-known history as Iraq’s wrestling champion from 1966-68.

A diary of brutality

8 May 2003

Kareem Ali, 16, drowned after allegedly being forced to swim the Shatt al-Arab canal in Basra by British soldiers. Four troops were cleared of manslaughter.

11 May 2003

Nadhem Abdullah, 18, died after allegedly being assaulted by British soldiers in southern Iraq. Charges against seven soldiers were dismissed by a court martial in Essex.

15 May 2003

Photographs of abuse of Iraqi civilians by British soldiers were taken at Camp Breadbasket, a food distribution camp. They were released to the media two years later, leading to the conviction of four soldiers.

24 May 2003

Sa’eed Shabram drowned after also allegedly being forced to swim the Shatt al-Arab canal. No charges were brought.

15 september 2003

Baha Mousa, 26, was beaten to death and eight other Iraqi civilians were tortured by British soldiers. Only one soldier was convicted and jailed for a year. Defence Secretary Des Browne last week agreed to pay compensation, which could reach £1m.

April 2004

British soldiers were filmed beating youths during a riot at Al-Amarah. No action was taken.

May 2004

British troops allegedly executed 20 Iraqis and mutilated their corpses in the army base at Abu Naji. The MoD denies the allegations; legal action continues.

April 2007

A Shia tribal leader is beaten, hooded and deprived of sleep after being dragged off, along with two sons and three male house guests, he alleges, in a legal claim under preparation.

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Kanu claims FA Cup treasure

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

Paul Wilson at Wembley
Sunday April 6, 2008
The Observer

Harry Redknapp is going to the FA Cup final, Portsmouth have a great chance of their first significant silver for over half a century, and it must be the city’s maritime heritage that prompted the stadium DJ to play the Pirates of the Caribbean theme in celebration.Portsmouth Pirates is perfect. Not because they stole this semi - one-paced West Bromwich were there for the taking - but if Captain Jack Sparrow had joined Redknapp, Tony Adams and Joe Jordan on the Pompey bench he would not have looked wholly out of place.

And there is definitely a piratical gleam in the eye of Nwankwo Kanu, now lining up an improbable third FA Cup winner’s medal to add to a bulging treasure chest that also includes Champions League and Uefa Cup winner’s medals, titles in Nigeria, Holland and England and an Olympic gold medal. This final hurrah could not be envisaged when the Kanu career was petering out at West Bromwich, though anything is possible for a player who made FA Cup history at the very first attempt. It was Kanu of Arsenal, if you recall, who inadvertently took advantage of a sporting gesture by Sheffield United on his English debut in 1999 to create a situation where Arsène Wenger even more sportingly offered a replay.

‘We asked him to play 25 games to earn a new contract, but I’ll give him one anyway,’ Redknapp said, after Kanu’s 26th game of the season. ‘We’ve been relying on Jermain Defoe and I knew we would need someone to weigh in today.’

Albion have history too. They are still the only team ever to win the ‘double’ of promotion and FA Cup in the same season. They went into this game in a position to repeat their feat of 1931, and ended up sounding as though the promotion part is uppermost in their minds. ‘We were good for 75 yards, but never threatened their goalkeeper enough,’ manager Tony Mowbray said. ‘We showed we could play, though, and if we take that attitude into our next six matches we could be playing in the Premier League next year.’

Albion were responsible for most of the early attacking without making any impression on the Portsmouth defence. Kevin Phillips had a couple of shots blocked, but only Zoltan Gera appeared to have the guile to outwit defenders. The Hungarian brought the first save of the game from David James, though after keeping Manchester United at bay for 90 minutes at Old Trafford in the last round Pompey were not about to be intimidated by a Championship strike force.

Instead, Redknapp’s players kept their shape and bided their time, waiting for opportunities to launch Milan Baros on the break. Any Liverpool fan could point out a flaw in that strategy, however, and while Baros had a couple of promising openings it was no great surprise that half time arrived with the game still scoreless. Baros’s most conspicuous contribution before the break was to get himself booked for bringing down the ball with a hand to leave himself a clear shooting chance, and even then he put his shot over the bar. Baros also failed to capitalise when Kanu offered him a half-chance in front of goal after 40 minutes, leaving a 30-yard free-kick from Sulley Muntari that flew straight at Dean Kiely as Portsmouth’s only attempt on target in the first 45 minutes.

West Bromwich failed to cause James any further palpitations either, though a back header from Glen Johnson had him scurrying when a fumbled pick-up gave James Morrison a glimpse. It was a pity the game was proving so uneventful, since the atmosphere beforehand had been a real throwback.

For the record, Pompey fans kept up the noise for longer, partly because they have such a good tune and partly because from the 54th minute they had something to sing about. There was no real surprise in Kanu scoring against his former club - such things are written in the stars, like Peter Crouch scoring when Liverpool finally give him a start - though it was doubly ironic that the architect should be Baros. Because while the Czech did well to turn Martin Albrechtsen when Johnson launched a ball into the area, and even better to force a save from Kiely, replays suggested he again used an arm in controlling the ball. This time it was less blatant and was not spotted - if it had been, Portsmouth would have been down to 10 men - and Albion compounded their bad luck when Gera hacked the ball out of Kiely’s clutches to present Kanu with a tap-in. Without Gera’s intervention, Kiely would probably have saved at the second attempt, held the ball on the line or flicked it to safety.

That opened up the game and in an enjoyable last half-hour there were chances at both ends. Pompey ought to have made the game safe when Nico Kranjcar’s through pass released Baros, though in a reversion to type the striker showed too much of the ball to Kiely. Robert Koren crashed a shot against James’s bar in the best attack Albion had so far managed, then Ishmael Miller wasted a good opportunity by crossing too close to James, with Phillips waiting unmarked at the far post. David Nugent had a shot saved at the other end before Miller passed up perhaps the clearest chance of an equaliser, meeting Carl Hoefkens’s low cross at the near post, but failing to keep his shot on target.

Right at the death, Nugent had an opportunity to double Portsmouth’s lead, only to waft his shot unconvincingly over the bar. 17 May cannot come quickly enough for Redknapp. After that date Jermain Defoe will no longer be cup-tied.

Man of the match: Sol Campbell

Sulley Muntari was the liveliest of Portsmouth’s offensive players but, like the Manchester United encounter, this result was based on defensive solidity. Campbell and Sylvain Distin formed an impenetrable barrier at centre-back, Albion could not get a look-in, and the 33-year-old captain led by example.

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Brown backs army cadet corps plan for schools

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

Mark Townsend and Anushka Asthana
Sunday April 6, 2008
The Observer

Controversial plans for pupils in comprehensive schools to sign up for military drills and weapons training are being backed by Gordon Brown in an attempt to improve the relationship between the public and the armed forces.

A major review of the military’s role in British society says that encouraging more state secondary school pupils to join the cadet corps would improve discipline among teenagers while helping to improve the public perception of the army, navy and air force.

However, anti-gun campaigners say that teaching teenagers to shoot would exacerbate the growing problem of gun crime among youngsters.

The government-commissioned review of civil and military relations, led by Quentin Davies, the Labour MP, was ‘alarmed’ at the number of schoolchildren who had no idea of military life. Davies wants secondary school pupils to receive basic military training as a means of developing greater affiliation with the armed forces.

Davies, who was a Tory MP before defecting to Labour last year, said his controversial proposals to expand the cadet structure throughout the comprehensive system were firmly backed by the Prime Minister, the Children’s Secretary Ed Balls and defence ministers.

‘The Prime Minister is very, very keen on the opportunities represented by cadet forces and we will be making a number of recommendations to increase the use of this superb national asset,’ he said.

Only 60 cadet forces exist among the England and Wales comprehensive system, with just 2 per cent of pupils members. This compares to 200 forces in the grammar and independent school sector, which represent only 10 per cent of schools. Another six military cadets corps were introduced into the state sector during the last year, but the vast majority of the £80m a year Ministry of Defence funding for the Combined Cadet Force goes to funding young people in independent schools.

Under the new government proposals, state schools who do not set up a cadet system will encourage pupils to attend a community cadet force instead.

One of the core elements of the cadets’ training is mastering shooting skills and military drill, although advocates including Davies believe the virtues of discipline, physical exercise and team spirit outweigh any concerns over the use of firearms.

However, the recommendation is contentious for other reasons, with teaching unions last month claiming school-based cadets were merely a questionable tactic of military recruitment. Recently, the army announced a bursary scheme for thousands of school leavers in an effort to boost recruitment amid a projected 10 per cent shortfall in troop numbers.

Last month the National Union of Teachers pointed to evidence from the Rowntree Trust that suggested the MoD was focusing disproportionately on schools in the most disadvantaged areas and targeting vulnerable pupils without clearly outlining the risks of an army career. However, the union insisted it was not ‘anti-military’.

Last night, the notion of introducing cadet forces across schools was welcomed by heads and teachers. Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Headteachers, said: ‘One of the things that these organisations do bring is discipline and order and, in my experience, working with children who have fragmented lives at home, that is something that is missing and something they crave.’

Brookes said some children had a natural propensity to look for a career in the armed forces and as long as it was a ‘genuine choice’ and not ‘exploitation’ then he welcomed it.

However, Lyn Costello, co-founder of Mothers Against Murder and Aggression, which campaigns against street violence, said plans to encourage the use of firearms in state schools were perturbing if the controls were not strict enough.

She said: ‘There would be a problem putting kids onto rifle ranges because that doesn’t teach them that guns are dangerous, but in the army you hope that they will learn that this is a bit of machinery that kills. Obviously they will need strict controls and the guns would have to be monitored very carefully.’

Police recently warned that officers could soon be forced to shoot a child amid concern about the increasingly lower age of firearms use among young people. Scotland Yard’s ‘blood on your hands’ campaign last year focused on pupils who were getting involved in gun crime. There were eight teenage gun murders in London last year.

Elsewhere in his review, Davies also recommends that the British military’s portrayal in the school curriculum should be re-examined, although he accepts that the government cannot become involved in such decisions and that teachers by law are required to treat political issues in a balanced way and to avoid partisan views. Other ways to improve relations between youngsters and the armed forces include more school visits from serving soldiers. Davies, whose report also relied on the expert views of Bill Clark, a senior Ministry of Defence civil servant, and Air Commodore Martin Sharp, examined how France teaches the importance of its military legacy within its curriculum.

The report also unequivocally recommends that soldiers should be encouraged to wear their uniform off-duty, a policy that has been relaxed since British military personnel ceased to be targets of the IRA.

Davies said: ‘There is a definitive move back in that direction and there is overwhelming support within the military for this.’

The report singles out Harrods for criticism and condemns the store’s policy of refusing to allow military personnel in uniform to enter its doors as ‘unacceptable’. Other instances cited in the report include an incident on a garage forecourt in which an Asian attendant refused to serve a soldier wearing a uniform and the decision of the RAF to ban personnel from wearing uniforms in the city of Peterborough following abuse.

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