Iraq War Update: PM Asks For Patience After Bombings in Baghdad

Iraqi PM asks for patience after Baghdad bombings

By CHELSEA J. CARTER, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD – The prime minister appealed Wednesday to Iraqis to stand by their security forces, even as angry lawmakers demanded answers and called on top officials to resign following the third massive attack against government sites since summer.

Nouri al-Maliki was expected to attend a special parliamentary session Thursday where lawmakers have demanded his interior and defense ministers appear to answer questions on how bombers once again found holes in security in heavily guarded central Baghdad, according to the parliament speaker’s spokesman.

But al-Maliki appeared ready to make some changes. State-run Iraqiya TV reported he ordered a shake-up at the top of Baghdad security —moving the deputy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Hashim Ouda, to the top spot. The current commander, veteran military leader Lt. Gen. Abboud Qanbar, will take Ouda’s post, the announcement said.

The shuffle, however, doesn’t come close to the wholesale purges
demanded by some lawmakers and other critics.

Al-Maliki asked Iraqis for patience and warned against fomenting
political divisions following Tuesday’s string of suicide bombings
that killed at least 127 people and wounded over 500 in the Iraqi
capital.

“I call on the Iraqi people for more patience and steadfastness,” he
said Wednesday in a televised address.

The deadly bombings raised tough questions for al-Maliki about the
abilities of Iraq’s security forces ahead of next year’s withdrawal of
U.S. combat troops. The U.S. military has warned of a possible rise in violence ahead of the March 7 parliamentary elections.

Ayad al-Samarrie, the parliament speaker, called on the interior and
defense ministers, the commander of Baghdad military operations and other security officials to appear before the special session, said
Omar al-Mashhadani, the speaker’s spokesman.

Top security officials have been called twice before — and failed to
show up — to answer questions in parliament about security lapses,
after suicide bombers in August and October killed hundreds in attacks on other government buildings.

This time, Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani agreed to attend the
session under one condition — that it not be held behind closed doors, according to a statement released by his office. It was not
immediately clear whether his demand was met or whether other
officials would attend.

The prime minister has so far not sacked any of this top security
advisers, but there have been growing calls for resignations following the most recent attacks. Al-Maliki has been running for re-election on a platform of improved security, and any perceived security failures could cost him as well as his political party at the polls.

During the address on state television, al-Maliki said Iraq’s security
strategies would be reviewed and possible personnel changes made. He, however, stopped short of saying whether any top officials would be held responsible for security lapses or whether he would be shuffling his security advisers.

The U.S. military has said it will keep the bulk of its 120,000 troops
in place in Iraq until after the election.

Abbas al-Bayati, the head of parliament’s defense committee, said Iraq must have an emergency plan to deal with any violence ahead of the elections.

“The Iraqi people need convincing answers from the security
commanders,” al-Bayati told state television. “If the security falls
apart, then everything will collapse.”

There have been no claims of responsibility for the latest attacks,
though Iraq has claimed al-Qaida and loyalists of Saddam Hussein’s
Baath party were behind the August and October as well as the most
recent bombings.

Al-Maliki appeared to demand that Syria must do more to stop senior
Baath Party officials living on its territory from plotting attacks
against Iraq. The prime minister has in the past accused Syria of
harboring senior Baathists who masterminded attacks in Iraq. Syria
denies the charges.

“I demand of the international community and all countries, including
neighboring countries, who condemn the attacks to turn their words
into actions and support the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government by
confronting terrorism,” al-Maliki said.

However, Baath Party spokesman Khudair al-Murshidi denied that
Baathists were behind the attacks, which he condemned in comments to Al-Jazeera television from Damascus, the Syrian capital.

While violence has dramatically declined in Iraq, insurgents have
continued with some regularity to launch attacks against security
forces and civilians.

On Wednesday, there were scattered reports of violence across the capital.

A bomb attached to a minibus exploded in northern Baghdad, killing two and injuring 11, an Iraqi army official said.

A bomb hidden in a garbage heap killed two street sweepers and injured three passers-by in northern Baghdad, while an hour later in the same neighborhood a gunman killed a police officer at a checkpoint, police said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to release the information.

Meanwhile, rescue operations were halted Wednesday around the labor and finance ministries as well as the court complex after crews
completed their search through debris, said police Col. Safaa Saadi
Jawad, the deputy head of the Interior Ministry’s rescue operations.

“If we receive reports from families of missing people, we will look
some more,” he said.

Funerals were under way for bombing victims. Some families carried
black flag-draped coffins through the streets, while others waited at
the morgue to claim bodies authorities were still working to identify.

Associated Press Writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009
13:58 Mecca time, 10:58 GMT

Al-Maliki urges unity after attacks

Iraq’s prime minister has called for the international community to do
more to safeguard the country, a day after at least 127 people were
killed in a series of co-ordinated bomb blasts across Baghdad.

Nouri al-Maliki also called on Wednesday for Iraqis to work together
to help defeat those he accused of aiming to undermine the country’s
stability.

“Our enemies - the enemies of freedom, democracy, stability and
security - they range their malice against our continued achievement,” he said in Baghdad.

“However, they cannot live under the challenges that we impose on
them, where all the Iraqi peoples join hands … Our people live above
their differences. It is our role to join hands and transcend our
differences.

“We cannot let these differences undermine our efforts to face the
challenges where, if our enemies triumph, it will leave no space to
anyone in this country.”

US condemnation

The United States on Tuesday condemned the deadly attacks in Iraq
pledging “to support the Iraqi people as they face down violent
extremism”.

Less than nine months before the US is to pull out combat troops from Iraq, the attacks in the capital, Baghdad, underlined concerns over the readiness of Iraqi forces to handle security alone.

Iraqi authorities faced angry questions about how bombers again found holes in Iraqi security and the attacks prompted Joe Biden, the US vice-president, to call on Iraq’s leaders to show support.

“The United States strongly condemns these attacks on the Iraqi people and their elected government,” Biden’s office said on Tuesday.

Deadline on track

The attack came days after Barack Obama, the US president pledged that US forces would meet the deadline to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq by August next year, and completely pull out by the end of 2011.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, echoed
that on Tuesday, saying the co-ordinated violence would not derail
plans to begin withdrawing US troops from Iraq.

“Certainly we’re always looking at plans that take into consideration
other outcomes, but right now we just don’t see anything at this point
in time that would require us to execute those,” the senior US
military officer said.

The planned drawdown of US forces from Iraq in the medium-term is in contrast to Obama’s strategy on Afghanistan, to which the US president last week committed 30,000 more troops.

Mullen said: “Clearly I’ve got my increase in Afghanistan on a balance
with the decrease in Iraq, and I can actually execute that within some
margin. So it is by no means one for one, or even one brigade for one
brigade kind of thing.

“For the worst case kinds of options, obviously, it would start to
impede. But right now I don’t think we’re even close to that.”

Co-ordinated attacks

Tuesday’s attacks in Baghdad - the third such co-ordinated wave of
attacks to devastate the capital since August - struck government
targets across the city in rapid succession, leaving at least 127
people dead and at least 513 injured.

Five bomb-laden vehicles were driven into a finance ministry office, a
tunnel leading to the labour ministry, a courthouse, a police patrol,
and interior ministry offices in central Baghdad.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Iraqi officials
said the attacks bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda and fighters loyal to
Saddam Hussein’s Baath party who plunged the country into sectarian bloodshed and chaos in 2006-2007.

The last two major strikes on Iraqi government sites were co-ordinated blasts in August and October this year that killed more than 255 people.

Sunni groups linked to al-Qaeda claimed those attacks.

The latest attacks came hours before an official said that Iraq’s
general election - the second since US-led troops overthrew Saddam as president - would be held on March 6.

The election is seen as crucial to consolidating Iraq’s fledgling
democracy ahead of the planned US withdrawal.

Mullen said US troops would not be drawn down until after the elections.

He said US commanders believe that even with the delay in the
elections – originally scheduled to be held in January - the force can
come down by 50,000 troops by August.

But he said the US military is paying close attention to the situation
and working to help Iraqi security forces to address any shortfalls.

“We still have 115,000 United States troops in Iraq as a symbol of the
United States commitment here, and we want to see this thing come out well,” he said.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Tuesday, December 08, 2009
23:41 Mecca time, 20:41 GMT

Scores dead in Iraq bomb blasts

Six children were among eight people killed when a bomb exploded at a Baghdad school on Monday

At least 127 people have been killed and more than 400 others wounded in a series of bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, police say.

Two car bombs exploded near the labour and interior ministries, two
more struck in central Baghdad, and another at a police patrol in
Dora, in the south of the city.

The first explosion in central Baghdad was heard at 10.25 am (0725
GMT) on Tuesday, with a second blast within seconds and a third one a minute later.

Iraqiya television reported one of the blasts hit a market there.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks.

An interior ministry official said 12 of those killed in Dora were
students at a nearby technical college.

The remaining three victims were policemen working at the checkpoint.

The Iraqi parliament held an emergency session to discuss the
bombings. Many MPs have condemned the government’s handling of the security situation in the capital.

They also condemned the government for failing to provide a senior
security minister to answer MPs’ questions.

‘Security infiltrated’

Tuesday’s bombings come two days after the Iraqi parliament passed a new electoral law paving the way for parliamentary elections on March 7, 2010.

Iraqi and US military officials have expressed concern about a
possible spurt in attacks aimed at destabilising the government before next year’s polls.

Zeina Khodr, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Iraq, said the attacks are
another embarrassment for the government.

“We just spoke to a high raking official who said he was worried that
the security forces were infiltrated,” Khodr said.

“This is a blow to the security forces and prime minister Nuri
al-Maliki, who is running for re-election on a platform that he has
improved security across the country.

“Attacks have become part of daily life, not only in Baghdad, but
across the country. Security is not only fragile, it is
deteriorating.”

More violence

On Monday, eight people were killed when a bomb exploded at a school in Baghdad. The dead included six children, 41 people were wounded in the attack.

On the same day gunmen stormed a checkpoint near Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad, killing five members of an anti-al-Qaeda group, police said.

The men were members of the Sunni Awakening Council, one of many Sunni groups that have begun taking on al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The US has 115,000 soldiers in Iraq, but that figure will drop to
50,000 next year as all of its combat troops are pulled out before a
complete withdrawal by the end of 2011.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

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On another planet Part 585

In his PBR today Alistair Darling has announced a public sector pay freeze for 4 million UK workers, including vital frontline staff such as nurses, police and teachers.

Meanwhile, over in la-la land, the Dutch, French and Spanish press report that EU civil servants in Brussels are planning a strike for Monday against attempts by 15 member state governments (including the UK) to stop 38,000 EU civil servants (including Commissioners) getting an inflation-busting 3.7% payrise. (StandaardStandaard 2Le Monde)

The member states are resisting because the wages of national civil servants are being frozen or cut. The national governments claim that because of the economic crisis, an exceptional clause in the civil servants’ statute should enter into force. The clause states that “in times of serious and sudden deterioration of the economic and social situation” in the EU, the Commission can impose a new wage proposal.

However, according to some reports, it looks likely that national governments will have to agree to the pay rise, because they are contractually bound to the agreement and are likely to lose the case if it goes to the European Court of Justice. Trade unions are demanding that member states “respect the rules”.

Not only that, but a Trade Union President with 38 years experience working in the Commission told Spanish paper El Mundo today that the payrise should go ahead because the money “has already been put aside”, and would otherwise “end up being lost in the EU budget and will go on milk quotas.”

Great. So either we grant the unjustified payrise, or we waste the money on milk quotas. What a choice.

Out there in eurospace

Foreign Secretary David Miliband appeared before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee this afternoon to discuss developments in the EU, ahead of the formal six-monthly European Council meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday this week.

Although Foreign Ministers usually attend these meetings, the Lisbon Treaty states that it should only be EU heads of state. The Swedish EU Presidency, on the advice of the legal service for the Council, according to Miliband, had decided that Foreign Ministers will not be invited, which has put some noses out of joint. Thanks to Lisbon, EU Foreign Ministers are no longer welcome but instead EU Foreign Minister Cathy Ashton gets a seat.

However, Miliband added that the Treaty still allows for heads of state to bring along a minister when the agenda requires it, and that EU leaders will have a discussion over dinner about “whether the Treaty means what it says”, with regards to whether or not foreign ministers may be allowed to attend these meetings in future. What a bizarre thing to say - what do we do if they find the Treaty does not “mean what it says”? That goes down as another admission from the Government that the text is indeed highly ambiguous and that, as we argued, MPs were effectively signing a blank cheque when they agreed it.

Miliband also revealed that, although the final outline and recruitment policy of the new European External Action Service, EEAS, is still to be decided (another of Lisbon’s ‘unanswered questions), the Foreign and Commonwealth Office anticipates that it will be contributing 18-25 staff to the new EU institution.

You may remember back in October, a document from the Swedish EU Presidency on the outline of the EEAS. This stated that staff from Member States should represent at least one third of staff at the senior level, including diplomatics in delegations - with people keen to keep in mind a geographic balance for those working in the new institution. The rest of the staff would be taken from the Commission and the General Secretariat of the Council.

Since it has been suggested that the size of the EEAS could reach anything between 6,000 and 8,000, it is not quite clear how those two ideas tally. Unless the UK will be sending a bloc of staff way below the number which other member states are sending, it may turn out that long-time eurocrats (the same ones striking for a payrise next week) may make up the bulk of the staff in the EEAS after all.

There were also some Select Committee questions regarding the appointment of Cathy Ashton, and the role of the new EU Foreign Minister, specifically in relation to the EEAS. One MP pointed out that it was a rather strange message to send, for Ashton to have her office in the Commission building, when the nature of the job was supposed to be ‘intergovernmental’, i.e. to represent the foreign policy of all 27 member states.

Asked this very question recently, Ashton said she was staying in her office in the Commission simply because she knows where the coffee is. Hmm.

Conservative MP for Wells David Heathcoat-Amory pointed out that as a sui generis institution, without precedent, it is extremely unclear where the lines of responsibility for the EEAS are, and it sits in some kind of limbo-like “euro-space” between the Council and Commission.

Indeed. The problem with this brand new institution, which the EU has made clear will become a seperate institution in its own right, with its own budget (£45 billion over 3 years, according to Javier Solana), is that for the very first time it is an institution which seems to straddle both the Commission and the Council - blurring the lines between the intergovernmental and the supranational if you like.In this sense it will be a real “EU foreign office” - with EU diplomats for the first time, instead of mere European Commission ‘delegates’ and representatives abroad. They will supposedly speak on behalf of the EU as a whole, as opposed to representing just the Commission.

How will that work in practice? It seems Miliband and even Ashton aren’t too sure about that. We left the Select Committee hearing none the wiser.

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Today on New Scientist: 9 December 2009

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