History > 2006 > UK > Wars > Iraq (IV)

Peter Brookes        The Times        October 19, 2006

L to R:

George W. Bush and Tony Blair.

ICM poll

Iraq:

voters want British troops home

by end of year

Fresh pressure on Blair
as public back calls for early withdrawal

Tuesday October 24, 2006
Guardian
Julian Glover,
Richard Norton-Taylor and Patrick Wintour

A clear majority of voters want British troops to be pulled out of Iraq by the end of this year, regardless of the consequences for the country, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today.

In a sign that public opinion is hardening against Britain's military presence in Iraq, 61% of voters say they want British troops to leave this year, even if they have not completed their mission and Washington wants them to stay.

Only 30% now back the prime minister's commitment to keep troops in Iraq as long as is considered necessary.

Almost half of those questioned - 45% - want British forces pulled out immediately and a further 16% want them to leave by the end of the year, whether or not the US asks the British government to keep them on. When the Guardian last questioned voters on the issue in September 2005, 51% backed troop withdrawal with 41% arguing that British forces should stay in Iraq until the security situation in the country had improved.

The findings came as Iraq's deputy prime minister, in Downing Street for talks with Tony Blair yesterday, said the UK and US could not "cut and run ... and leave the Iraqis to face these difficult challenges on our own". Barham Salih, expressed concern about the mood of pessimism gripping Europe and the US, but he acknowledged that his own country needed to move faster towards more responsibility for security.

No 10 is insisting that it will not set a fixed timetable for withdrawal of troops, but there are growing signs of plans to scale back, with defence secretary Des Browne and foreign minister Kim Howells predicting that Iraq would have the capacity within a year to take over from British forces.

The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, admitted yesterday that Iraqis may eventually choose to partition the country rather than carry on as a single state.

"That is very much a matter for the Iraqis. They have had enough of people from outside handing down arbitrary boundaries and arbitrary decisions," she told BBC Radio 4's The World At One.

Asked if historians may judge that Iraq had been a foreign policy disaster for Britain, she said: "Yes, they may. Then again, they may not."

The Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, called for a parliamentary debate soon to assess whether British troops should pull out.

Ministry of Defence and senior British military commanders are now signalling that the number of British troops in Iraq will be cut significantly by early next year.

Major General Richard Shirreff, the British commander in southern Iraq, said yesterday that the planning assumption was that there could be what he called a "reasonable reduction" in the 7,000-strong force in southern Iraq at the end of the current operation designed to rid Basra of serious criminals and corrupt officials. Operation Sinbad, involving about 3,000 British troops and Iraqi forces, is expected to finish in February.

In a little-noticed report to the Commons defence committee, the MoD said at the end of last week that the Iraqi army would be in a position to take over responsibility for security in southern Iraq by the end of this year. "The 10th Division of the Iraqi army [covering southern Iraq] will be fully operational by December 2006 and the intention is to have transferred operational command to the Iraqi ground forces command by this date," the MoD says.

Senior defence officials say the total number of British troops in Iraq could be cut by as much as half by next summer.

That timetable, however, may still depend on the reaction of US commanders concerned about the impact at home and abroad of a significant British pullout.

The ICM poll carried out last weekend, suggests particularly strong support for early troop withdrawal among women and young voters, with 51% of women voters wanting troops pulled out now and only 24% backing them staying beyond Christmas.

· ICM Research interviewed a random sample of 1,019 adults aged 18+ by telephone on October 20-22. Interviews were conducted around the country and have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

    Iraq: voters want British troops home by end of year, G, 24.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1929856,00.html

The Exodus:

1.6m Iraqis have fled their country

since the war

Published: 23 October 2006
The Independent
By Patrick Cockburn

Iraq is in flight. Everywhere inside and outside the country, Iraqis who once lived in their own houses cower for safety six or seven to a room in hovels.

Many go after they have been threatened. Often they leave after receiving an envelope with a bullet inside and a scrawled note telling them to get out immediately. Others flee after a relative has been killed, believing they will be next.

Out of the population of 26 million, 1.6 million Iraqis have fled the country and a further 1.5 million are displaced within Iraq, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. In Jordan alone there are 500,000 Iraqi refugees and a further 450,000 in Syria. In Syria alone they are arriving at the rate of 40,000 a month.

It is one of the largest long-term population movements in the Middle East since Israel expelled Palestinians in the 1940s. Few of the Iraqis taking flight now show any desire to return to their homes. The numbers compelled to take to the roads have risen dramatically this year with 365,000 new refugees since the bombing of the Shia shrine in Samara in February.

Rich and poor, both are vulnerable. "I'll need more than five bodyguards if I am to live in Baghdad," said one political leader who has left Iraq. "The police came to my antiques shop and drove me around Baghdad," said an antique dealer from the formerly well-off district of Mansur. "They wanted money or they'd charge me with illegal traffic in antiques. I gave them $5,000 [£2,650] in cash, closed my shop and went with my brother to Jordan the same night. I haven't been back."

One well-established consultant doctor escaped his kidnappers in Baghdad and fled to the Kurdish capital of Arbil where he reopened his surgery. Bakers, often Shias, have been frequently targeted. Some now make bread with a Kalashnikov rifle propped against the wall beside them. Many have left Sunni districts in some of which it has become difficult to buy bread.

Former pilots who are Sunni and served in the air force believed they were being singled out by Shia death squads because they might once have bombed Iran; many have fled to Jordan. Jordanian immigration authorities are more welcoming to Sunni than Shia Iraqis. The latter find it easier to go to Syria. Every day heavily laden buses leave Baghdad for Damascus.

All sorts of Iraqis are on the run. But the Christian minorities from Karada and Doura in Baghdad are also fast disappearing. Most of their churches are closed. Many leave the country while the better off try to rent expensive houses in Ain Kawa, a Christian neighbourhood in Arbil.

Nobody feels safe. Some 70,000 Kurds have taken flight from the largely Sunni Arab city of Mosul. Among their cruellest persecutors are Arabs, settled in Kurdish areas by Saddam Hussein over the past 30 years, who were in turn expelled by returning Kurds after the US invasion in 2003. In Basra, the great Shia city of the south, Sunni are getting out after a rash of assassinations.

Baghdad is breaking up into a dozen different cities, each under the control of its own militia. In Shia areas this usually means the Mehdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr. In Sunni districts it means that the insurgents, who are also at war with the Americans, are taking over. The Sunnis control the south and south-west; the Shias the north and east.

The worst slaughter is happening in the towns on the outskirts of Baghdad where Sunnis and Shias live side by side. Shias are fleeing from Mahmoudiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, to Suwaira and Kut. The Iraqi army does little to help, and Shias complain that the US is more intent on attacking the Mehdi Army than rescuing villagers. According to one report from the Mahmoudiyah area: after two days of fighting a platoon of Iraqi soldiers "was dispatched from the Suwaira base to break the siege. They turned up for two hours and evacuated some of the women and children to the safe zone of Suwaira, but had to turn back as they were not fully equipped to handle the situation without [US] air support."

The Shias also accuse the US of attacking their own defensive lines. In Mahmoudiyah yesterday, 19 people were killed in a bombing and mortar assault blamed by the main Sunni bloc on the Mehdi Army.

Shias do have relatively safe areas to flee to (so far as any part of Iraq is safe) in east Baghdad or the Shia south of Iraq. But Sunni areas are beset so they may move only a few streets to a house they deem more secure. Otherwise they must leave the country.

Flight often brings a host of difficulties with it. Much of the Iraqi population is unemployed and depends on state-funded rations bought from a single, local grocery shop. A refugee in Baghdad cannot go to another shop even if he has taken up residence elsewhere. The lumbering state bureaucracy only shows flexibility on receipt of a bribe. Sometimes a man may move out of a district but still have his job there which he dare not give up (60 per cent of Iraqis are unemployed); 10 days ago, 14 Shia workers from the Shia town of Balad north of Baghdad were found with their throats cut in the nearby Sunni town of Dhuluiya where they had been working. In retaliation the Shias of Balad hunted down and killed 38 Sunnis.

An e-mail from a Sunni friend in Baghdad that I received in April is worth quoting in full. It reads in shaky English: "Yesterday the cousin of my step brother (as you know my father married two) killed by Badr [Shia militia] troops after three days of arresting and his body found thrown in the trash of al-Shula district. He is one of three people who were killed after heavy torture. They did nothing but they are Sunni people among the huge number of Shia people in the General Factory for Cotton in al-Qadamiyah district ... His family couldn't recognise his face but by the big wart on his left arm."

There is the total breakdown of law and order. Kidnappings are rife. Businessmen pay for the assassination of their rivals. Sunni militants kill women wearing trousers and men wearing shorts.

Rival Shia militias fight pitched battles for control of oilfields. American soldiers often shoot at anything. No wonder so many Iraqis have left their homes or fled their country.

The refugees' stories

MOHAMMED, SUNNI TRADER

Mohammed was living in the al-Jihad neighbourhood of west Baghdad. A self-confident, energetic man who was a small trader in motor parts and a driver, he does not frighten easily. But, two months ago, he decided he had no choice but to leave his pleasant home and is now living with his wife and three daughters in a single cramped room in the house of a friend.

Earlier this year, as sectarian killings increased after the destruction of the al-Askari mosque in February, he and his family fled to Syria for safety. Al-Jihad has four districts, only one of which is Sunni, and Mohammed was living in a Shia district which was increasingly dangerous for him.

Damascus was safe but too expensive. Mohammed went back to Baghdad. But when he got to his house there was bad news. His neighbours said that while he was away the Mehdi Army, the Shia militia, had come to his home. They had asked if he was Sunni or Shia. They were told he was a Sunni. They left a message saying Mohammed must go or he would be killed. He immediately took his family to the solidly Sunni al-Khadra quarter also in west Baghdad where he now lives.

LEILA MOHAMMED, SHIA MOTHER OF THREE

"Be gone by evening prayers or we will kill you," warned one of the four men who called at the house of Leila Mohammed, the mother of three children in the city of Baquba in strife-torn Diyala province north east of Baghdad. She and her family are Shia by religion and Kurdish by ethnic origin.

The men who threatened her were Sunni. One of them offered her children chocolate to find out the names of the men of the family.

Leila fled to Khanaqin, a Kurdish enclave also in Diyala. Her husband, Ahmed, who traded in fruit in the local market, said: "They threatened the Kurds and the Shia and told them to get out. Later, I went back to get our furniture but there was too much shooting and I was trapped in our house. I came away with nothing." He and his wife now live with nine other relatives in a three-room hovel in Khanaqin with no way of making a living.

MOHAMMED AL-MAWLA, REFUGEE IN SYRIA

Mohammed al-Mawla is adjusting to life in his new home as an Iraqi refugee living in Syria. He operates an internet café outside Damascus and sends his two children to Syrian schools. But al-Mawla, 42, fears the comfort he has found in Syria after escaping the violence in Iraq could quickly disappear if the money he has saved runs out, forcing him to leave his new home in search of work.

    The Exodus: 1.6m Iraqis have fled their country since the war, I, 23.10.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1919327.ece

4.30pm

Anti-war protesters' rights breached, court told

Monday October 23, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies

Police displayed an "exorbitant and disproportionate use of powers amounting to false imprisonment" when they stopped 120 campaigners heading for a mass rally against the Iraq war, Britain's highest court was told today.

Ben Emmerson QC, representing the protesters, said it was a fundamental right in Britain for citizens to gather to demonstrate peacefully on matters of public interest.

He told the law lords it was the responsibility of the police to maintain public order "in a manner which fully respects the rights of those who wish to demonstrate peacefully".

Police who authorised two coachloads of protesters to be stopped and passengers searched while being detained - and then forced back to London under heavy escort - had breached that right, he said.

The demonstrators were prevented from attending a mass rally at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire two days after coalition forces launched the Iraq war from the air base in March 2003.

Police from seven forces acting under the direction of Gloucestershire constabulary stopped the coaches outside Lechlade, near Fairford. Ninety of those detained formed the Fairford Coach Action to try to seek judicial condemnation of the police.

They say that although the high court and court of appeal ruled the police acted unlawfully in detaining them on their coaches, it was ruled that the police did not violate their right to freedom of movement and lawful assembly.

The law lords are being asked to overturn that ruling during the three-day hearing which began today.

Mr Emmerson said the police had behaved in a way that was "premature and indiscriminate". He said that in order for the police action to be lawful, they had to show that there was an imminent danger of public order offences.

The action was allegedly premature because 120 people who wished to take part in the demonstration were turned away when the police knew there was no imminent danger of disorder.

Mr Emmerson said it was discriminatory because the police took action against a large number of people because of the "perceived intention" of some individuals.

"We say it was beyond the scope of the powers that the officers had available to them. The decision to detain passengers on the coaches and to force them to return to London was an exorbitant and disproportionate use of powers amounting to false imprisonment."

He said the police who took the action knew that they had exercised powers to limit the area where the demonstration would take place and anyone found near the 13-mile perimeter fence at the base could be arrested.

Lord Woolf, the lord chief justice at the time of the Fairford appeal ruling, said the passengers were "virtually prisoners on the coaches for the length of the journey" back to London, which took more then two hours.

The passengers had already been held for two hours while they were searched.

The police are defending their actions and their lawyers are expected to argue that rather than interfering with the passengers' human rights, they were upholding them by protecting their lives which would have been put at risk if they had broken into the air base.

The hearing continues.

    Anti-war protesters' rights breached, court told, G, 23.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/antiwar/story/0,,1929571,00.html

4.15pm update

Britain will hold nerve on Iraq, says Blair

· Iraqi deputy PM: don't cut and run
· Lib Dem leader calls for exit debate
· Beckett: Iraq could split into parts

Monday October 23, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Oliver and agencies

The Iraqi deputy prime minister today said the international community must not "cut and run" from the country, but stressed that Iraqis were working hard to take over security.

Speaking after talks with Tony Blair, Barham Saleh said "seven or eight" of Iraq's 18 provinces could be under Iraqi control by next year, adding that he understood that the UK had not given an "open-ended commitment".

Mr Blair's official spokesman indicated the prime minister had told Mr Saleh that Britain would hold its nerve, saying UK troops would remain in Iraq until the job was done.

The spokesman said the talks were focused on ensuring that the process of handing over control of Iraqi provinces continued "as quickly as possible". However, he added that it would be wrong to say Mr Blair was pressing Mr Saleh for an exit strategy.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the leader of the Liberal Democrats - the only major party that opposed the war - today called for a Commons debate on whether the British military should remain in Iraq.

"If we are to salvage anything from Iraq, the essential first step is an admission from the prime minister and President Bush that they got it wrong," Sir Menzies said in statement. "Their strategy is in ruins.

"In March 2003, parliament was allowed to debate whether military action should be taken. Surely parliament should now be allowed to debate whether we stay or go. The government owes that to the Commons, but most of all to the British people."

In an indication that government policy on Iraq was shifting, the foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, acknowledged that the country could eventually break up into multiple parts.

Iraq is made up of three main regions - the Kurdish north, the predominantly Sunni central area, and the mainly Shia south, which contains the majority of Iraqi oil.

Asked about the possibility of separation, Ms Beckett said: "That is very much a matter for the Iraqis. They have had enough of people from outside handing down arbitrary boundaries and arbitrary decisions."

In an interview on the BBC's Today programme, she was asked whether historians would come to judge the Iraq invasion as a foreign policy disaster for Britain and replied: "Yes, they may. Then again, they may not."

London and Washington have been putting increasing pressure on Iraqi leaders to accelerate improvements in the capability of domestic security forces.

"We need to demonstrate progress on the ground," Mr Saleh said, adding that the training of Iraqi forces - which he said now amounted to more than 300,000 personnel - had been improved.

At the weekend, the foreign minister, Kim Howells, claimed that the Iraqi police and army could be given complete authority over the southern region within 12 months.

Mr Saleh did not comment directly on the claim, but said he had spoken to Mr Blair about how the Iraqi government was taking "more and more responsibility" on security.

He said it was a "tough transition" after "35 years of tyranny" under the former dictator Saddam Hussein.

The Iraqi deputy prime minister referred to last week's fighting in Amara, in the southern Maysan province, where Iraqi forces retook control from Shia militia while British troops waited outside the city in case they were needed.

He said this pattern would be seen more and more in the future, and also warned Iran and Syria not to interfere in Iraq's affairs.

Earlier, he told the Today programme that he disagreed with recent comments made by the head of Britain's armed forces, Sir Richard Dannatt, that the presence of UK troops had exacerbated security problems.

Major General Richard Sheriff, the commander of British troops in Basra, said there were "huge problems" in Iraq amid a "push back" against soldiers by insurgents.

However, he told the Today programme he was "absolutely certain [we are] beginning to win the battle of hearts and minds". "There is a paradox here," he added. "We are seen as occupiers, but we are also seen very firmly as part of the solution. The people in the city here realise this place is not going to get better by magic."

British defence officials hope to cut the number of troops based in Iraq from around 7,000 to between 3,000 and 4,000.

Mr Howells yesterday said he believed there would be "adequately trained Iraqi soldiers and security forces" to take over duties from British and US-led troops within a year.

The defence secretary, Des Browne, declined to back up the prediction, saying British forces would be "out when the job is done".

UK troops relinquished control of the southern Muthana province in July and the neighbouring Dhi Qar province last month, leaving US-led soldiers in control of the southern Basra and Maysan provinces.

The Ministry of Defence today said it was expected that Maysan would be handed over to Iraqi authorities either next month or early next year.

A total of 119 British troops have died since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. More than 2,780 US personnel have died.

    Britain will hold nerve on Iraq, says Blair, G, 23.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1929432,00.html

Blair gives Iraq 12 months to be ready for handover

· PM to meet Iraqi leaders in Downing St today
· Former envoy warns that 'only bad options' remain

Monday October 23, 2006
Guardian
Patrick Wintour and Michael Howard

Tony Blair will put pressure on the Iraqi government today to demonstrate that its security forces will be ready to take over from the British army in southern provinces within roughly a year.

Amid mounting international concern over escalating violence, Mr Blair is expected to use today's Downing Street talks with Iraq's deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh, to discuss plans for an exit strategy for British troops, with some ministers openly contemplating withdrawal inside a year.

In an attempt to demonstrate that the British army will not be bogged down in Iraq indefinitely, the defence secretary, Des Browne, said yesterday he expected that Iraq's security forces would have the capacity within a year to take over from British forces, a point also pushed home by the Foreign Office minister, Kim Howells. Mr Howells said: "I would have thought that certainly in a year or so there will be adequately trained Iraqi soldiers and security forces - policemen and women and so on - in order to do the job."

But the challenges facing the Iraqi security forces were underlined yesterday when a bomb blast and ambush on a convoy of buses near the town of Baquba killed 13 police recruits. Another 25 were injured and several were kidnapped.

Mr Blair will again insist at today's talks that British troops will not pull out prematurely, but is likely to seek a private assessment of whether the Iraqi government can do more to boost its security forces, and to dispel the impression that, pushed by sectarian violence, Iraq's parliament is endorsing a form of federalism that will undermine the Sunni minority.

The talks come amid increasingly pessimistic assessments of the situation in Iraq from senior military and diplomatic figures. Yesterday Mr Blair's closest former adviser on Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, former British ambassador to the UN, described the invasion as "a failure" and "a mess". Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, and other senior officers have also issued bleak public statements in the last fortnight.

Sir Jeremy warned: "There are only bad options from the coalition for now on," and predicted that a solution to the fighting would require a "massive new effort of regional diplomacy" involving Syria and Iran - something that would constitute a huge change in US policy.

The continued hints of a British drawdown of its troops next year contrast with a growing mood of desperation in Washington over the intensity of the fighting in Iraq, and signs of a possible break-up of the country. The Bush administration was reported yesterday to be drafting an urgent plan to pressure the Iraqi government into dealing with increasing violence in the country.

If Iraq fails to meet crucial milestones, then US officials hold open the possibility of sanctions, though they stress that would not include the immediate withdrawal of US troops.

In a separate but revealing development the White House was forced on to the defensive after a senior US state department official gave the frankest assessment yet of US policy in Iraq. Alberto Fernandez, Washington's top foreign affairs spin doctor, described it as "a failure", and accused his government of "autocratic thinking". Speaking in Arabic on al-Jazeera television Mr Fernandez, director of public diplomacy at the bureau of near eastern affairs, said: "We tried to do our best, but I think there is much room for criticism because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the United States in Iraq."

In Britain, the shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, said a British review should match the strategy rethink under way in Washington. He suggested the Tories will be demanding a full Commons debate on the crisis next month.

    Blair gives Iraq 12 months to be ready for handover, G, 23.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1929000,00.html

UK warned against invasion

Monday October 23, 2006
Guardian
Dan Glaister in Los Angeles

On the day after the September 11 terrorist attacks, senior British intelligence officials told their American counterparts that they would not support retaliatory action against Iraq, a new book claims.

Tyler Drumheller, who worked for the CIA for 26 years and rose to become head of the agency's European operations, says the former CIA director George Tenet received a "powerful delegation from a very close European ally" at the CIA's headquarters on September 12 2001.

According to Drumheller in his book, On the Brink, the head of the delegation told Mr Tenet that "his government stood by us ... and that we could count on it for any and all support." But the official continued: "I hope we can all agree that we should concentrate on Afghanistan and not be tempted to launch any attacks on Iraq." According to Drumheller, Mr Tenet replied, "Absolutely, we all agree on that."

Although Drumheller does not disclose the nationality of the delegation, two former intelligence officials confirmed to Newsweek magazine that the officials were Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, and David Manning, then a British foreign policy adviser and now the UK ambassador to Washington. British sources confirmed to the magazine that the delegation visited Mr Tenet on September 12.

Sir Richard was the source for the assertion in a Downing Street memo of July 2002 that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of taking military action against Iraq.

Mr Tenet, asked in the run up to the invasion of Iraq how confident he was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, told President George Bush that it was a "slam dunk", according to an account by the journalist Bob Woodward.

    UK warned against invasion, G, 23.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1929012,00.html

Iraq mayhem triggers hunt for exit strategy in US and UK

Foreign Office urges talks with Syria and Iran, as militia seize city left by British

Saturday October 21, 2006
Guardian
Ewen MacAskill, Julian Borger in Washington and Michael Howard in Sulaymaniya

Frantic efforts are under way in Washington and London to find an exit strategy for Iraq as a renewed surge in violence led George Bush to admit yesterday that tactics there might need to change.

Diplomats and politicians in both capitals are desperately reviewing and debating options that were once regarded as unthinkable.

The review was given added urgency yesterday when 800 gunmen, thought to be part of the Mahdi army militia, ran amok in Amara, a town transferred by the British to Iraqi control two months ago.

A source in the Amara police department said 30 officers and 20 civilians had been killed when the gunmen overran police stations and set up roadblocks. About 500 British soldiers were last night on standby to go back in.

In Washington, Mr Bush said he would consult his top military commanders in Iraq today over whether a change of tactics was necessary. But the president, who is under intense pressure to rethink his Iraq strategy if not his whole approach to foreign policy, said talks with the generals would only concern tactics, not strategy. "We are constantly adjusting tactics so we can achieve our objectives and right now, it's tough," the president admitted to the Associated Press.

With 74 American soldiers already dead in Iraq in October, it is likely to be the worst month for US forces in two years. US officers admitted on Thursday that the effort to pacify the capital, the Baghdad Initiative, had failed.

Pressure for a change of strategy is partly the result of leaks from a review from a study group set up by the former US secretary of state, James Baker, at Mr Bush's request. The leaks from Mr Baker's Iraq Study Group (ISG), which is due to report after next month's Congressional elections, suggest it will recommend a fundamental change of course.

The Foreign Office is conducting a review in tandem with Mr Baker. UK officials said the Foreign Office was "beavering away" on about half a dozen options, roughly the same as those considered by the ISG. One official said discussions were proceeding at "a high tempo".

Among the changes the ISG is expected to recommend is the opening of talks on Iraq's future with Syria and Iran, countries the White House has sought to isolate.

"The failure of the Baghdad initiative is convincing evidence that a military solution is not going to work," said Larry Diamond, a former adviser to the US-led occupation authority in Baghdad who also advised the ISG. "We should be talking to neighbouring Arab states and we think we should be talking to Iran - to broker the compromises which might save the situation," Mr Diamond told the Guardian.

Other options being considered are a redeployment of forces to "super-bases" in Iraq or bases outside the country, pressuring the Baghdad government to find a fairer way of sharing Iraq's oil wealth to give Sunnis a better deal, and even the partitioning of the country into autonomous Kurdish, Sunni and Shia regions - an idea the White House has dismissed as a "non-starter".

British diplomats, including Dominic Asquith, the ambassador to Iraq, and Sir David Manning, ambassador to Washington, have contributed to the ISG.

The Foreign Office is backing the ISG proposal to engage with Iran and Syria. "We are encouraging them to go with that," a Foreign Office source said.

The Foreign Office has ruled out an immediate unilateral British pull-out and partition. It basically favours a continuation of the present policy, but is agonising over whether to press for a timetable, possibly even a secret one, for withdrawal. "Every policy option I could lay out for you would be worse than what we are doing now," a British official said.

    Iraq mayhem triggers hunt for exit strategy in US and UK, G, 21.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1928037,00.html

Blair: troops may quit Iraq in 10-16 months

· PM adjusts stance as mood changes in US
· Security situation will dictate withdrawal date

Thursday October 19, 2006
Guardian
Patrick Wintour


Tony Blair yesterday shifted ground on the continuing presence of British troops in Iraq by saying it was government policy to leave the country within 10 to 16 months - so long as the security situation allowed.

The prime minister also agreed with the chief of the general staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, that the presence of British forces could become a provocation, but disagreed with Gen Dannatt by insisting it was still the government's aim to secure a liberal democracy in Iraq.

Mr Blair's comments at prime minister's questions appear to be an attempt to pacify the restive mood of the British army, as well as to reflect the developing view in Washington that some radical policy change is imminent after the US mid- term elections.

In a change of tone, Mr Blair told MPs the aim was to leave the Iraqi forces to organise security, adding: "Otherwise, of course, we are a provocation rather than a help to them."

Mr Blair added: "I told the [Commons] liaison committee just a few months ago: 'I suspect over the next 18 months there will obviously be opportunities to draw down significant numbers of British troops because the capacity of the Iraqi forces will build up'. I said it then. I say it now."

He added that in August General George Casey, US commander of forces in Iraq, also called for a withdrawal over 12 to 18 months. Gen Casey, Mr Blair reminded MPs, had said: "I don't have a date, but I can see over the next 12 to 18 months the Iraqi security forces progressing to a point where they can take on the security responsibilities for the country".

But Mr Blair refused to abandon his aim to secure democracy in the Middle East saying: "I believe that the maintenance of democracy is absolutely essential for us, in Iraq and in Afghanistan."

He added: "I don't want to dismay our allies or hearten our enemies by suggesting we will do anything else other than stay until the job is done."

Washington is waiting for a report from the former secretary of state, James Baker, setting out fresh options for Iraq, including asking Iraq's neighbours to help with security in the country.

Mr Blair balanced his remarks with a more familiar insistence that it would be disastrous for allied forces to leave prematurely. His spokesman said later that British troops would be provocative if they stayed after the Iraqi government had asked them to leave, or the Iraqi security forces were deemed capable of dealing with the insurgency.

The Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, said it was clear the government's strategy had failed and the choice was stark - to change strategy or get out. But Mr Blair insisted that only the "progressive" withdrawal of British forces, as the Iraqi security capability built up, would work.

The US army has reported that by August this year security responsibilities had been transferred to 86 Iraqi battalions against a target of 114, and an increase from 37 in January. But the number of Iraqi units judged to be fully operationally independent is kept as classified information. There has been widespread criticism at the poor level of training of Iraqi forces by the US army, including the lack of language skills.

Opinion-polling in Iraq conducted last month showed 71% of Iraqis want coalition troops out within a year. Seventy eight per cent thought the presence of coalition troops was provoking more conflict than preventing it. Fifty-eight per cent thought that if the US left within six months, it would decrease violence.

This is not a view shared by many senior Iraqi leaders, who still believe a precipitate withdrawal would increase the already high levels of violence. The number of Iraqis who believe Iraq is going in the right direction has fallen to 47%, down from 64% in January.

The polling, led by World Public Opinion was conducted between September 1 and September 4 in all 18 Iraqi provinces.

    Blair: troops may quit Iraq in 10-16 months, G, 19.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1925440,00.html

The British officer said: 'We are now just another tribe'

Saturday October 14, 2006
Guardian
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in Basra


As the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Anglians prepared to set out on patrol through central Basra yesterday, risking mortar attack and possibly more, all the talk was of their boss's suggestion that they were making the situation worse.

General Sir Richard Dannatt's comments that the British military presence in southern Iraq "exacerbates the security problems" and that they should get out "sometime soon" was met with a mix of frustration and quiet agreement in the heavily fortified Palace compound, a former Saddam palace in southern Basra that now houses the consulate as well as 1,200 coalition troops.

"I can't believe they are saying these things," one embassy official said. "This whole thing is to do with politics and Tony Blair. It's not about what is happening on the ground here, but what is happening there."

Three and a half years after British forces, in the general's words, "effectively kicked the door in" to southern Iraq, many squaddies still believe they are making a difference, and that if they were to withdraw now there would be a messy collapse into open civil war.

Inside the army base yesterday, a tall, thin, 20-something private was preparing his Warrior for a patrol into the city centre. His camouflaged uniform has long since faded under the scorching sun, and his flak jacket was covered with grease. The private, who has been in Iraq for five months, and has a few weeks to go before being relieved, was unimpressed by the general's comments. "He's just saying this because he wants to take us to another fucking war, in Afghanistan or somewhere else," he said. "He doesn't care."

The extent of the deterioration of the security situation in the south of Iraq, however, is unmistakable. Eighteen months ago, when I was last embedded in Basra, the British army still patrolled in berets and without flak jackets. Today they will only emerge in heavily armoured Warrior vehicles, wearing heavy-duty helmets with protective screens across their faces, and body armour to cover their shoulders and upper arms.

Where the army once was able to patrol around the city relatively freely, they now know there are certain parts of it where they will be vulnerable to attack. Patrols often involve a visit close to a Sunni mosque, just to reassure worshippers that the forces are there.

Part of the difficulty is identifying the enemy. Basra has become riddled with organised gangs, militias and death squads, and its police force is corrupt. According to senior coalition advisers, there are around 20 different security and police groups in the city, ranging from the directorate of education police to the justice police; the governor alone has 200 armed gunmen protecting him. Some of the police units are active in organised crime and have been infiltrated by militias, others work as death squads. There are also around a dozen religious militias.

"We are in a tribal society in Basra and we [the British army] are in effect one of these tribes," said Lt Col Simon Brown, commander of the 2nd Battalion. "As long as we are here the others will attack us because we are the most influential tribe. We cramp their style."

He can see the general's point. "There is so much poverty and frustration in the streets of Basra, as long as you are in the street, someone will shoot at you. We complicate the situation. We give the disaffected and frustrated a chance to empty their frustrations by shooting at us."

One recent episode illustrates this. A military base in Amara called Abomaji had been held by the British for months, attracting heavy mortar attack. In late August it was handed to the Iraqi army; within 48 hours, according to the commander of the unit, everything on the base had been looted. The decision was taken to set up a mobile base in the desert, shifting position every 48 to 72 hours. Staying in one place to be shot at, it would seem, wasn't worth the trouble.

"We cannot substantially influence the situation. Our powers are diminishing," said a British civilian contractor attached to the British embassy. "The army is holding the ring and they are buying us and the Iraqis time, but the talk of the troops is misleading. There can't be a military solution to what is happening in Iraq."

In the sweltering back seat of a Warrior, sweat running down his face, 2nd Lt Matt Lamber said he couldn't afford to get distracted by the general's comments. "I try not to think of that. I try to look at the smaller picture of what we are doing, and enjoy the small victories on the ground, the bad guys we arrest."

On unofficial military web forums, meanwhile, other soldiers were more willing to speak out in support of Sir Richard. "A man in the right position saying the right things NOW," one soldier serving in Iraq wrote on the British Army Rumour Service website. "We should be happy to have such a man in place who is on side and supports the army."

Another wrote: "The most impressive comments I have heard from someone of his seniority for a long time."

A third added: "I am thoroughly heartened by this and have the beginnings of a thaw in the cynicism which has dogged my service thinking since 2003."

An internet poll conducted by the website showed overwhelming support for the general, with 76% saying he had been "absolutely right" and 16% saying he was right from a military point of view. Just 2% said he had been "rather wrong".

But one soldier calling himself Merkator criticised Sir Richard's media appearances, which followed his newspaper interview yesterday. He said: "You claim to be standing up for the men and women that serve under you, but your backtracking this morning has dispelled that notion."

· Additional reporting by Matthew Taylor.

    The British officer said: 'We are now just another tribe', G, 14.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1922331,00.html

We must not 'break' army, warns top general after triggering Iraq storm

PM insists he 'agrees with every word' of defence chief's comments on British troops

Saturday October 14, 2006
Guardian
Will Woodward and Richard Norton-Taylor

Government efforts to quell the firestorm created by a critique of the crisis in Iraq from the head of the army were undermined yesterday when he warned British forces could "break" if they stayed in the country for more than a few years.

General Sir Richard Dannatt was forced to try and dampen the impact of his unprecedented broadside on the prime minister's policy toward Iraq. But the attempt backfired as he warned that British troops should come home in two years, contradicting Mr Blair's refusal to put a deadline on their presence in Iraq.

Mr Blair last night said he "agreed with every word" in a series of radio and television interviews designed to hose down the crisis created by General Dannatt's interview in the Daily Mail in which he said Britain's presence in Iraq was harming Britain's security.

The interview - in which Gen Dannatt also suggested the original ambitions for Iraq were naive - put him at odds with the government. But after overnight discussions with Des Browne, the defence secretary, Gen Dannatt said there was not "a piece of paper, however thin" between him and the government.

The general refused to back down on the substance of his remarks and to some degree compounded them. "I am not a maverick in this sense. I am soldier speaking up for his army. I am just saying come on, we can't be here forever at this level," he told Radio 4's Today programme.

"I have got an army to look after which is going to be successful in current operations, but I want an army in five years time and 10 years time. Don't let's break it on this one."

In another interview, with Sky News, Gen Dannatt said: "The army is exceptionally busy so I want to see this mission successfully concluded, but I also want to make sure I've got an army that's not so exhausted that it's still there and can do the job in five years' time, in 10 years' time ..."

The prime minister's official spokesman said the way the Daily Mail interview was presented, "did raise questions" but the general had dealt with them.

In a written statement yesterday, the general said: "We have been in southern Iraq for three-and-a-half years and we have made significant progress ... The point that I'm trying to make is the mere fact that we are still in some places exacerbates violence from those who want to destabilise Iraqi democracy."

Last night Mr Blair - speaking at the end of talks on Northern Ireland talks - went further. "What he is saying about wanting the British forces out of Iraq is precisely the same as we're all saying," he said. "Our strategy is to withdraw from Iraq when the job is done.

"When he's talking about how our presence can exacerbate the problems in Iraq he's absolutely right. I've said the same myself ... We'll withdraw completely from Iraq as the Iraqi forces are able to handle their own security."

No 10 was caught off guard on Thursday evening when reports of the Mail story first surfaced. Gen Dannatt was contacted and spoke to Mr Browne. According to government sources, he volunteered to return to London from the south coast to give interviews clarifying his position.

Downing Street also dismissed as "fabrication" BBC claims that the White House had intervened. There was also speculation that the interview helped the government to push the Americans into allowing an early exit from Iraq but this was discounted by official sources.

Loyalist Labour MPs said the general was reflecting a view that the situation had changed. David Winnick, a senior backbencher who supported the Iraq war, said: "I think there is now a growing political consensus, including those who support military action, that there now must be a limited timeframe for British forces to remain in Iraq. There is no evidence whatsoever that the daily slaughter of innocent Iraqi civilians by terrorist sectarian groups is being hindered in any way by the military presence of the coalition troops."

Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said it was a "refreshing change" for a senior military figure to make these remarks in public.

Mike Penning, a former Grenadier Guard and now Tory MP for Hemel Hempstead, said: "Frankly I'd have been chuffed if I was serving under Sir Richard that he'd come forward with the truth, no political spin, no politics, just put his troops first, and they would be very proud of him, like I am."

But the official Tory response betrayed a nervousness about appearing to break ranks with the government on Iraq. Ex-ministers said he had gone beyond his brief. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former foreign secretary, says in interview to be broadcast on Sunday that the general had made "an honest mistake" and it should be a case of "two strikes and you're out".

He tells GMTV: "I think senior generals ... musn't cross over that line into expressing political views at variance with the government of the day. He did do that, I suspect not intentionally. He'll be sadder and wiser this weekend."

    We must not 'break' army, warns top general after triggering Iraq storm, G, 14.10.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,1922440,00.html

Army chief: British troops must pull out of Iraq soon

General attacks government policy that has 'exacerbated' security risks

Friday October 13, 2006
Guardian
Richard Norton-Taylor and Tania Branigan

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, dropped a political bombshell last night by saying that Britain must withdraw from Iraq "soon" or risk serious consequences for Iraqi and British society.

In a blistering attack on Tony Blair's foreign policy, Gen Dannatt said the continuing military presence in Iraq was jeopardising British security and interests around the world.

"I don't say that the difficulties we are experiencing round the world are caused by our presence in Iraq, but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates them," he said in comments that met with admiration from anti-war campaigners and disbelief in some parts of Westminster.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Gen Dannatt, who became chief of the general staff in August, said we should "get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems".

He added: "We are in a Muslim country and Muslims' views of foreigners in their country are quite clear.

"As a foreigner, you can be welcomed by being invited in a country, but we weren't invited ... by those in Iraq at the time. The military campaign we fought in 2003 effectively kicked the door in.

"Whatever consent we may have had in the first place, may have turned to tolerance and has largely turned to intolerance." He added that planning for the postwar phase was "poor" and the aim of imposing a liberal democracy in Iraq had been over-ambitious. He was more optimistic that "we can get it right in Afghanistan."

Such an outspoken intervention by a British army chief is unprecedented in modern times and bound to increase pressure on the government to continue making its Iraq case against a backdrop of increasing mayhem on the ground.

Mr Blair denied last month that Iraq would be safer if British troops withdrew. Downing Street said last night that Britain's 7,000 troops were in Iraq "at the express wish of the democratically elected Iraqi government", and under a UN mandate.

But Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, said last night government policy on Iraq was collapsing "brick by brick". "Senior military figures who were always doubtful about action in Iraq and its aftermath are becoming increasingly anxious about ... the risks involved," he said.

There was widespread surprise at Gen Dannatt's frankness, with some backbenchers privately questioning whether he could carry on in his role after his comments. Doug Henderson, a former minister for the armed forces and ally of Gordon Brown, questioned why the general had made his thoughts public.

"One can only assume that Sir Richard has made his views known privately and that they've been ignored," he told BBC2's Newsnight programme. He said soldiers expected to have the support of the chief of the general staff, adding: "The soldiers on the frontline must be wondering why they are there now."

Kevan Jones, a Labour MP on the defence select committee, said: "There was always going to come a tipping point in Iraq, where we were no longer a solution but a problem. If General Dannatt is saying that time has been reached, that's very concerning. An interview like this, though, is not the way to say that."

In his first interview since taking the chief of staff job, Gen Dannatt told the Guardian last month that the army could only just cope with what the government was demanding of it, and said he believed ministers were taking British soldiers for granted. In the Mail interview he went further, criticising the defence secretary, Des Browne, for the "unacceptable" treatment of injured troops and warning that the government was in danger of breaking the "covenant" between a country and its army. He said he was "outraged" by reports of injured soldiers recuperating in hospital being confronted by antiwar campaigners who told them to remove their uniforms.

A devout Christian, he said a moral vacuum opening up in Britain was allowing militant Islamists to flourish.

    Army chief: British troops must pull out of Iraq soon, G, 13.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1921450,00.html

General gives voice to army's unspoken fears

· Plain speaker is unhappy with role of British forces
· Officers admit morale affected by task in Iraq

Friday October 13, 2006
Guardian
Richard Norton-Taylor

Even before his explosive remarks in which he calls for the swift withdrawal of British troops from Iraq, General Richard Dannatt had a reputation for speaking his mind. In his first interview as head of the army, he spoke to the Guardian last month about the burdens being placed on the army in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. "Can we cope?" he asked. "Just."

The comments made clear that just two weeks after taking over the post, Gen Dannatt was unhappy with the way the government was using the armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And yet the frustrations voiced by Gen Dannatt in that interview and again in today's Daily Mail, amplify what many military chiefs, notably in the army, have been thinking for months, if not years.

British soldiers were sent in to join the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 ill-equipped, officers say. They were sent into southern Afghanistan this summer ill-equipped and unprepared for the fight against the Taliban.

A number of his colleagues in the top ranks of the armed forces preferred to ingratiate themselves with the government. Gen Dannatt was not prepared to do so. He intended to say it as it is. For many months officers have been wondering what was the point of keeping the more than 7,000 British troops in Iraq.

The government's mantra, repeated unconvincingly by military chiefs, has been that their exit from Iraq was "conditions-based": that it will happen when the Iraqi army and security forces can stand on their own feet.

Although two provinces have been handed back to Iraqi rule, the growing sectarian carnage and escalating death toll have raised serious questions about the viability of withdrawal. On Wednesday, the US army chief said he was planning to keep numbers at current levels until 2010.

But antiwar campaigners were pleased last night that a new high-profile recruit had apparently rallied to their cause. Andrew Burgin, of the Stop the War Coalition, said the general "has made a very powerful case for the troops to be withdrawn from Iraq and he is exactly right".

"He has articulated what we have been saying for a long period now: that the presence of the British forces is exacerbating the security problems in Iraq itself," Mr Burgin said.

Gen Dannatt's intervention was as much a defence of the beleaguered armed forces as an entreaty for a change of foreign policy. "I am going to stand up for what is right for the army," he said. "Honesty is what it is about."

Senior officers have long since let on that morale has been affected by the wide range of tasks imposed on soldiers, as well as the growing disaffection for the Iraq campaign back at home.

British soldiers were being asked to take on the role of policemen, civil engineers, construction workers, politicians, and diplomats, with little reward and apparently little appreciation back home where their presence in Iraq was becoming increasingly unpopular.

The tasks facing British troops in Afghanistan are similar to those they have had to endure in Iraq. But, as Gen Dannatt implied in his interview the Daily Mail, the situation in Afghanistan is different.

British, and other Nato, troops were invited in by the elected government.

The price of failure there is greater with the prospect of the country becoming again a "failed state", a haven again for the Taliban and al-Qaida-influenced jihadists.

But British troops, as they have been making clear over the past few days, need help there from other Nato countries and more equipment, notably helicopters.

When it comes to casualties - in Iraq or Afghanistan - Gen Dannatt was critical of the practice of treating the wounded in civilian wards.

"I was outraged at the story of someone saying 'take your uniform off'," he said, referring to reported actions by antiwar campaigners.

"Our people need the privacy of recovering in a military environment - a soldier manning a machine gun in Basra loses consciousness when he is hit by a missile and next recovers consciousness in a hospital in the UK," he said.

"He wants to wake up to familiar sights and sounds, he wants to see people in uniform. He doesn't want to be in a civilian environment."

    General gives voice to army's unspoken fears, G, 13.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1921461,00.html

4.30pm

Beckett rejects Iraq death toll

Thursday October 12, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest and agencies

Margaret Beckett today rejected claims that the death toll in Iraq since the US/UK-led invasion had topped 650,000 as she launched the British government's annual report on human rights around the globe.

The publication of the document - inaugurated by the Labour government and now in its ninth year - was overshadowed by the findings of the Lancet report into the Iraqi death toll.

Speaking at the Foreign Office launch, the foreign secretary admitted that the British government did not keep a tally of fatalities, but "that doesn't mean that one has to accept every figure someone comes up with".

Her downplaying of the report was echoed by Downing Street, who rejected the Lancet figure outright, calling it not "anywhere near accurate."

Tony Blair's official spokesman said: "The problem with this is that they are using an extrapolation technique from a relatively small sample, from an area of Iraq which isn't representative of the country as a whole.

"We have questioned that technique right from the beginning and we continue to do so.

"The Lancet figure is an order of magnitude higher than any other figure; it is not one we believe to be anywhere near accurate."

The only figure that should be accepted was that of the Iraqi health ministry, he suggested.

"There is a democratically-elected, sovereign government [in Iraq] and therefore it is for the Iraqi government - as would be entirely the case in the United Kingdom - to address these issues and not for us."

Mrs Beckett said: "No-one disputes that there have been many deaths in Iraq and that all of those deaths are regretted and tragically many of them are deaths of civilians," she said.

"That doesn't mean that one has to accept every figure someone comes up with.

"All I can say is that the [Lancet] report gives a figure which is orders of magnitude different from that which comes from any other source.

"Whatever the methodology anybody else is using, there is nobody who comes up with figures on this scale."

Launching the report on human right abuses, Mrs Beckett repeated the government view that the US detention camp at Guantánamo Bay should close, although, like Mr Blair, she put no timetable on its shutdown.

The camp - part of a US naval base on a small section of Cuban land controlled by America - was "unacceptable in terms of human rights" and should close, Mrs Beckett said today.

The foreign secretary warned that the continuing detention without trial of hundreds of suspects at the base might be doing more harm than good in the fight against terrorism.

She said: "As the prime minister has said, we believe that the camp should close.

"The continuing detention without fair trial of prisoners is unacceptable in terms of human rights, but it is also ineffective in terms of counter-terrorism.

"It is widely argued now that the existence of the camp is as much a radicalising and destabilising influence as it is a safeguard to security."

But she and the report also praised the work of the Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya in calling for democracy on the rest of the Cuban island.

Mrs Beckett said: "[Mr Paya] has suffered years of threats, harassment and intimidation.

"His family are constantly watched. His children have been victimised. Members of his network beaten up and thrown in jail.

"The Cuban government say he is a US puppet. But we judge that he is a proud Cuban who rejects any outside interference in Cuban affairs."

Fidel Castro, the Cuban president, stepped down temporarily in August to have surgery to stem internal bleeding. Power is currently in the hands of his brother, Raul, and other leading Communist figures, while Fidel recovers.

Mrs Beckett defended Britain's practice of seeking assurances from countries such as Jordan and Algeria that terror suspects deported there will not face torture on their return.

These memorandums of understanding with regimes with previously poor records on human rights did not undermine the UK's long-standing opposition to the use of torture, she insisted.

In today's report, Mrs Beckett warned that repressive regimes around the world were using the fight against terrorism as an excuse for tightening restrictions on the human rights of their own citizens.

But the report argued that it was a "complete fallacy" to draw a link between the "legitimate national security" measures of democratic regimes and the repressive acts of authoritarian states.

Mrs Beckett said that she was aware of accusations that the government's use of deportation with assurances undermined Britain's long-term commitment against torture.

But she said: "That's not true. We have been given assurances and we are building the means to verify that the human rights of those returned will be respected."

Today's report highlights concerns over Zimbabwe, where home clearances have left some 700,000 homeless or destitute, and Burma, where the house arrest of democratic activist Aung San Suu Kyi has twice been extended in the past year.

Other countries mentioned include Saudi Arabia, Russia, Uzbekistan, Israel and the occupied territories, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Syria was added to the list of "major countries of concern" because of the increased repression of human rights defenders, tightened restrictions on freedom of expression and continuing reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees.

Meanwhile, Indonesia was removed from the list because of a transformation in the human rights situation since the democratic elections of 1999.

This year's document makes "bleak reading", said Mrs Beckett, adding: "In some of those countries with the very worst records on human rights, there has been little sign of improvement."

Mrs Beckett also paid brief tribute to the murdered Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, saying her murder was "a tragedy for freedom of speech in Russia."

"Her killer must be brought to justice and I'm very pleased to hear that the Russian government will do just that."

    Beckett rejects Iraq death toll, G, 12.10.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,1920984,00.html

One in 40 Iraqis 'killed since invasion'

US and Britain reject journal's finding that death toll has topped 650,000

Thursday October 12, 2006
Guardian
Sarah Boseley, health editor

The death toll in Iraq following the US-led invasion has topped 655,000 - one in 40 of the entire population - according to a major piece of research in one of the world's leading medical journals.

The study, produced by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and published online by the Lancet, claims the total number of deaths is more than 10 times greater than any previously compiled estimate.

The findings provoked an immediate political storm. Within hours of its release, George Bush had dismissed the figures. "I don't consider it a credible report," he told reporters at the White House. "Neither does General Casey [the top US officer in Iraq], neither do Iraqi officials."

The Foreign Office also cast doubt on the findings, stating that the government preferred to rely on the body count of the Iraqi ministry of health, which recorded just 7,254 deaths between January 2005 and January 2006.

But the US researchers have the backing of four separate independent experts who reviewed the new paper for the Lancet. All urged publication. One spoke of the "powerful strength" of the research methods, which involved house-to-house surveys by teams of doctors across Iraq.

The Johns Hopkins researchers published an earlier study in the Lancet in October 2004, which caused similar shock waves. They say the new work validates the old and shows an alarming escalation in violent deaths.

Nearly a third of the deaths (31%) were ascribed to the coalition forces. Most of the deaths - 601,000 out of 655,000 - were due to violence and of those, 56% were caused by gunshot wounds. Air strikes, car bombs and other explosions accounted for a further 13-14%.

For reasons involving their own safety, the doctors did not probe whether those who died were combatants or civilians. Deaths due to disease have also risen as the conflict has damaged Iraq's health services.

The authors say their discovery that the death rate in Iraq has more than doubled from 5.5 per 1,000 a year before the invasion to 13.3 per 1,000 a year since "constitutes a humanitarian emergency".

"Although such death rates might be common in times of war," write the authors, Professor Gilbert Burnham and colleagues, "the combination of a long duration and tens of millions of people affected has made this the deadliest international conflict of the 21st century and should be of grave concern to everyone.

"At the conclusion of our 2004 study we urged that an independent body assess the excess mortality that we saw in Iraq. This has not happened.

"We continue to believe that an independent international body to monitor compliance with the Geneva conventions and other humanitarian standards in conflict is urgently needed. With reliable data, those voices that speak out for civilians trapped in conflict might be able to lessen the tragic human cost of future wars."

Yesterday the Foreign Office repeated the government's criticism of two years ago. "We will be looking at it in more detail but it is a fairly small sample they have taken and they have extrapolated across the country," said a spokesman.

"We rely on the Iraqi government themselves. They are producing their own figures these days. Our position at the moment is that whatever figures we see, all these civilian deaths are a tragedy and of great concern to us. The multinational forces and the international community have to support a democratically elected government which is trying to stamp out the violence."

The US defence department said that it always regrets the loss of life anywhere. "The coalition takes enormous precautions to prevent civilian deaths and injuries," said its spokesman, Mark Ballesteros.

"By contrast, the enemy in Iraq takes no such precautions and deliberately targets innocent civilians.

"It would be difficult for the US to precisely determine the number of civilian deaths in Iraq as a result of insurgent activity. The Iraqi ministry of health would be in a better position, with all of its records, to provide more accurate information on deaths in Iraq."

The Lancet editor, Richard Horton, says in a commentary published online with the study that the work "corroborates the impression that Iraq is descending into bloodthirsty chaos".

Plans by the Americans to reduce the number of troops in Iraq appeared yesterday to have been scuppered by the growing violence in the country.

General Peter Schoomaker, the US army chief of staff, said he was planning for troop numbers to stay at the present level through to 2010. "This is not a prediction that things are going poorly or better. It's just that I have to have enough ammo in the magazine that I can continue to shoot as long as they want us to shoot," he said.

There are 141,000 American troops in Iraq, and the US government had hinted it would begin reducing numbers to 100,000 after the inauguration of the Iraqi government. But these plans appear to have been jeopardised by increased insurgent attacks and sectarian killings.

Yesterday, Jan Egeland, the UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, warned: "Revenge killing seems to be totally out of control" and added that the "blunt, brutal violence" in Iraq was targeting all civilians.

But despite Dr Horton's bleak assessment, he writes, "absolute despair would be the wrong response. Instead, the disaster that is the west's current strategy in Iraq must be used as a constructive call to the international community to reconfigure its foreign policy around human security rather than national security ... Health is now the most important foreign policy issue of our time."

    One in 40 Iraqis 'killed since invasion', G, 12.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1920166,00.html

Aura of fear and death stalks Iraq

As the Lancet releases shocking figures on the death toll in Iraq, Peter Beaumont describes the daily carnage across Baghdad

Thursday October 12, 2006
Guardian
Peter Beaumont

Baghdad resounds to the tales of the dead. Not the distant, dry accounting of news wires, but terrifying close-up accounts. Six beheaded corpses are dumped with their heads between their knees in Muhammad's street in Ghazaliya, a largely Sunni suburb of Baghdad. US soldiers ask him to search the bodies for IDs, fearful the corpses may be booby-trapped. He manages to frisk two before the effort becomes too awful.

This summer Muhammad witnessed a mass attack by Shia gunmen from a neighbouring area to his own, of running battles outside his house, the loudspeakers on the mosques coordinating the defence.

A few days after the appearance of the headless bodies, a translator for a British colleague announces he has lost a relative. He is distraught as the family searches the morgue for the body. The kidnappers get in touch. Your relative is still alive and eating his evening meal, they say, but start searching for his body in three days.

After a while the numbers no longer seem to matter - only the impact on a society of a steady and encroaching tide of killing. The aura of fear, cruelty and death is claustrophobic and all enveloping.

No report or estimate of the death toll, however disputed, gets near to conveying the corrosive nature of so much killing, so routinely carried out.

Law and order does not exist as the police themselves are involved in the killing. There are so many bodies that their disposal has become a problem of waste management. Most cities have to cope with fly-tipping of rubbish. Baghdad has to cope with the fly-tipping of corpses.

In some areas of Baghdad, such as Sadr City, US soldiers welded down sewer covers to prevent bodies being dumped.

But that was when the death squads cared about concealment. Today there is little time for such niceties. The bodies are dumped on rubbish heaps, in rivers, on areas of open ground.

Often victims are shot on the street in front of waiting traffic, as a reminder, if anyone needed it, that the next bullet could be for them.

Most victims have their hands bound, their feet tied and many show signs of torture. Two years ago, journalists were reluctant to accept that victims were tortured with drills, nails and caustic liquids. No one disputes it today.

Some Sunni families have stopped going to Baghdad's morgue, which is in an area controlled by Shia militias, who are responsible for the death squads. The families of two recently murdered Sunni soldiers in a largely Shia battalion of the Iraqi army, their colonel said, were followed to the morgue and attacked. Funerals have also been targeted. Death follows death. Hospitals have been used for holding and torturing the disappeared.

The sound of killing has become routine. No one pays attention to the morning explosions until the reports come in - the numbers of the dead and where. Baghdadis soon develop an ear for these attacks. They can distinguish between the sound of improvised explosive devices buried in the road, and the sound of mortars and car bombs. These are now commonplace. The conversation stoppers are the ingenious and brazen: the secondary and tertiary bombs left to kill the rescue workers; the abductions in broad daylight by men in police uniforms from shops and factories, while their colleagues try to hide from the lethal sweep.

Jihadis have recently taken to renting a shop at the bottom of a housing block on a short lease. They fill it with explosives with the aim of bringing down the building.

But what scares most are the impromptu checkpoints. They can be mounted by police, militias and jihadis, but they can all have the same result. Utter the wrong name, show the wrong number plate, or the wrong ID, and you can be quickly ushered away to face summary execution.

And there is no end in sight.

· Peter Beaumont returned from Baghdad at the weekend

    Aura of fear and death stalks Iraq, G, 12.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1920053,00.html

This terrible misadventure has killed one in 40 Iraqis

The government will do all it can to discredit the latest estimate of civilian casualties since the invasion: 650,000

Thursday October 12, 2006
The Guardian
Richard Horton

Many people refused to believe the Lancet report in 2004 from a group of American and Iraqi public-health scientists who surveyed homes across the country and found that about 100,000 additional Iraqi deaths had taken place since the coalition invasion in March 2003. Several government ministers were deployed to destroy the credibility of the findings and, in large part, they succeeded. But now their denials have come back to haunt them, for the figures from Iraq have been confirmed by a further study.

The same team from Johns Hopkins University worked with Iraqi doctors to visit over 1,800 homes in Iraq, selected randomly to make sure that no bias could creep in to their calculations.

They identified more than 12,000 family members and tracked those who had died over an interval that spanned both pre- and post-invasion periods. The Iraqi interviewers spoke fluent English as well as Arabic, and they were well trained to collect the information they were seeking. They asked permission from every family to use the data they wanted. And they chased down death certificates in over four out of five cases to make sure that they had a double check on the numbers and causes of death given to them by family members.

All of these checks and balances mean that the 650,000 additional Iraqi casualties they report since the invasion is the most reliable estimate we have of civilian deaths. Most of these deaths have been of men aged 15 to 44.

Not only do we have a better understanding of the toll our invasion has had on the country; we also understand better just how those deaths have come about. Before the invasion only a tiny proportion of deaths were due to violence. But since the invasion over half of all deaths have been due to violent causes. It is our occupation and our continued presence in Iraq that is fuelling this violence. Claims that the terrorist threat was always there are simply disproved by these findings.

The nature of these causes has changed too. Early on in the post-invasion period deaths were made worse by aerial bombing. But now gunshot wounds and car bombs are having a far greater effect. Far from our presence in Iraq stabilising the chaos or alleviating the rate at which casualties are mounting, we seem to be making the situation worse. In each year since the invasion, the mortality rates due to violence have increased.

The total figure of 650,000 is truly staggering. It represents 2.5% of the entire Iraqi population. In 2004 The Lancet was criticised for publishing a number that seemed to have a high degree of uncertainty. The best estimate then was 98,000 deaths. But the uncertainty meant that it could have been as low as 8,000 or as high as 194,000.

In the latest study there is also a large degree of uncertainty, but even the lowest possible figure it gives for the number of deaths - 400,000 - makes clear just how terrible our intervention in Iraq has been. The highest possible figure is more than 900,000. Looking at these numbers, we have to concede that we have created a humanitarian disaster of unprecedented proportions for a foreign policy that was supposed to protect civilian populations, not subject them to ever-greater harm.

Why is this Lancet estimate so much higher than the figures put out by President Bush or the Iraq Body Count website? They put the number of casualties in the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands. To be fair, Iraq Body Count does not claim to publish accurate absolute numbers of deaths. Instead, their figures are valuable for measuring trends. But the reason for the discrepancy between these lower estimates and the new figure of 650,000 deaths lies in the way the number is sought. Passive surveillance, the most common method used to estimate numbers of civilian deaths, will always underestimate the total number of casualties. We know this from past wars and conflict zones, where the estimates have been too low by a factor of 10 or even 20.

Only when you go out and knock on the doors of families, actively looking for deaths, do you begin to get close to the right number. This method is now tried and tested. It has been the basis for mortality estimates in war zones such as Darfur and the Congo. Interestingly, when we report figures from these countries politicians do not challenge them. They frown, nod their heads and agree that the situation is grave and intolerable. The international community must act, they say. When it comes to Iraq the story is different. Expect the current government to mobilise all its efforts to undermine the work done by this American and Iraqi team. Expect the government to criticise the Lancet for being too political. Expect the government to do all it can to dismiss this story and wash its hands of its responsibility to take these latest findings seriously.

But if we were talking about the risk of smoking to the population, and published research demonstrating the effect of tobacco on mortality, few would dispute the message or the importance of scientists and medical journals in being actively engaged in a public debate. For Iraq, violence is the public-health priority right now. It is a proper subject for science and it is a proper subject for a medical journal to comment on.

So what is the right conclusion from this work? How should this latest research inform public policy? First, Iraq is an unequivocal humanitarian emergency. Civilians are being harmed by our presence in Iraq, not helped. That should force us to pause and ask what we are doing and why. There is no shame in saying that we have got the policy wrong. Moreover, we have a legal obligation under the Geneva conventions to do all we can to protect civilian populations. These findings show not only that are we not adhering to this legal obligation, but also that we are progressively subverting it year on year.

And finally, we can truthfully say that our foreign policy - based as it is on 19th-century notions of the nation-state - is long past its sell-by date. We need a new set of principles to govern our diplomacy and military strategy - principles that are based on the idea of human security and not national security, health and wellbeing and not economic self-interest and territorial ambition.

The best hope we can have from our terrible misadventure in Iraq is that a new political and social movement will grow to overturn this politics of humiliation. We are one human family. Let's act like it.

· Richard Horton is the editor of the Lancet

    This terrible misadventure has killed one in 40 Iraqis, G, 12.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1920005,00.html

Trials and errors

Thursday October 12, 2006
The Guardian
Leader

Saddam Hussein never cared for truth or justice when he ruled Iraq and those who suffered under him might think it perverse to care about his fate now. But his trial for genocide and war crimes against the Kurds has degenerated into black farce, a chaotic travesty of what should have been due process to call him to account. Saddam was back in the dock yesterday after being thrown out for urging insurgents to fight US-backed security forces - and then rebuked the judge for turning off his microphone. A fellow defendant punched a clerk. The previous judge was sacked by the government when he opined that the ex-president was not a dictator. Three defence lawyers have been murdered, one after being abducted and tortured. Witnesses have been threatened.

Judicial procedure and decorum may seem irrelevant in a country that is reeling under seemingly unstoppable sectarian violence. Even if the human toll since March 2003 is less than the horrific, if contentious, new estimate of 655,000, Iraq seems to be bleeding to death and falling apart. Still, when Saddam was captured in December 2004, trying him was seen - cynically, short-sightedly or naively - as a way of obtaining retribution for ordinary Iraqis, drawing a line under the past and thus helping a new democratic political system to take root. Only the most diehard Ba'athists denied, after all, that he had terrible crimes to answer for.

Cat-and-mouse games between celebrity defendants and judges are familiar from Slobodan Milosevic's trial at the UN tribunal in the Hague. Milosevic's death robbed his victims of satisfaction. But other Balkan figures have been convicted of war crimes in a calm and neutral atmosphere. Since the March 2003 invasion, however, Iraq has never been peaceful or stable enough to allow a case of this kind to proceed in anything approaching an orderly manner. And if this and other trials do run their course, what will be the likely effect on a fractured country of the hanging of Saddam and others such as "Chemical" Ali Hassan al-Majid, charged with gassing thousands of Kurds?

The international criminal court in the Hague cannot try Saddam because it has no jurisdiction over Iraq, so another UN criminal tribunal should be created abroad to handle his and related cases. Nuri al-Maliki's government is unlikely to agree. But justice cannot be done or seen to be done in Iraq today - impartially, efficiently or even safely. The old tyrant may be getting a far better deal than anything that existed when he was in charge. But that is not saying much. And it is not nearly good enough.

    Trials and errors, G, 12.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1920161,00.html

Why? Inquest wait goes on for families of dead soldiers

Published: 07 October 2006
The Independent
By Terri Judd and Ben Russell

The Government has been accused of treating the families of dead servicemen with contempt and prolonging their agony by delaying inquests into their killings in Iraq.

For many grieving relatives, the coroner's court is their first chance to ask their own questions, while most insist it offers closure and a chance to move on.

But the families of almost two thirds of the 119 servicemen and women who have died in Iraq have not had inquests. Even the families of the first troops killed in the conflict, in a Sea Knight helicopter crash on 21 March 2003, have yet to have their day in court.

Ministers have repeatedly blamed a backlog at Oxford coroner's court as families were told that the inquests must be held there because the bodies were flown to RAF Brize Norton.

However, The Independent has learnt that the cases could easily have been transferred to other, less overloaded coroners, closer to the families' homes.

Last night, the Government was accused of bungling incompetence as a row erupted between the department responsible and the Oxford coroner, Nicholas Gardiner.

The Labour MP Peter Kilfoyle, a former defence minister, said: "This is showing tremendous indifference towards the families of people who, after all, have laid down their lives for the country. Bringing them closure over the deaths should be the highest priority."

Sue Smith, whose son Pte Phillip Hewett, 21, was among three Staffordshire Regiment soldiers killed by a roadside bomb in July 2005, said: "They have total disregard for the families. We are left in limbo. Our lads deserve better."

A total of 69 service personnel who died in Iraq - not including the latest victim, L/Cpl Dennis Brady - are awaiting inquests before Oxford coroner's court with a further 10 in Wiltshire. Yet the Oxford coroner is now also taking on a further 37 deaths from Afghanistan.

In June this year, the Constitutional Affairs minister Harriet Harman acknowledged the problem and Mr Gardiner was given £80,000 in new funding, three new deputy coroners - including a former High Court judge - and extra administrators.

Staff have been working round the clock to process inquests and Ms Harman is expected to make a statement this week, announcing that all cases for 2003 and 2004 should be dealt with by the end of the year.

Although the law states that the case falls to the coroner "where the body lies", a spokesman for the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) said cases were transferred "all the time". He added: "The coroner who takes on the inquest can agree to pass it on to another coroner. But it is up to the coroner. The Government cannot intervene.

"It could happen and it does happen, it is just Mr Gardiner prefers to keep them there."

He added that a draft bill for coroners' reform, due to be introduced this year, would limit such powers and allow other coroners, from the area where the family live, to request a case. "In our plans, the Oxford coroner would be more duty-bound to take notice if another coroner asked for the case to be sent to his or her district."

In the case of Sgt Chris Hickey, who was killed by a roadside bomb late last year, the process was initially handed to the Wiltshire coroner, because his body was returned to RAF Lyneham. But the North Yorkshire coroner, Geoff Fell, said it was transferred to his area to make it easier for the family. It has since taken place.

Mr Gardiner insisted that there was only a small and limited window of opportunity for him to transfer the cases before the dead servicemen were taken home for funerals.

"It is a quirk in the law, that has been there for years. If the DCA wants to throw mud, you could ask them why they haven't changed it in 25 years," he said.

Nevertheless, he added he had great sympathy for the families and was now trying to transfer some of the newer cases to courts closer to the families' home.

Liam Fox, the shadow Defence Secretary, said last night: "Despite all the promises, there remains a backlog and families of servicemen killed in action cannot get closure on their personal tragedies and traumas because of bureaucratic incompetence."

For many relatives, such wrangles are irrelevant, they want an opportunity for closure. Sarah Chapman, who lost her brother Sgt Robert O'Connor, 38, in January 2005, said: "You start to get suspicious. Why are they taking so long? You feel like you are hitting a wall of silence. The wound is always going to be open and unable to close, the grief is still so raw. It is so damaging."

'We are just hanging on. We need the truth and answers'

By Terri Judd

For the families of Cpl Stephen Allbutt and Trooper David Clarke it has been a long and agonising journey since the pair were killed within days of the invasion.

Cpl Allbutt, 35, and Tpr Clarke, 19, died when their tank was hit by another in a "friendly fire" incident. For the families of the soldiers from the Queen's Royal Lancers it has been a confusing search for the truth. A board of inquiry demanded better training practices, but failed, they felt, to give them the answers they sought.

Cpl Allbutt's wife, Debbi, said: "I am not happy with the Army decision and I am hoping when it goes to the civilian domain, the coroner will see the errors we see and people will be cross-examined. "We are just hanging on and waiting. We do not want to blame somebody, we need the truth and some answers." Yet they still have no date for that inquest.

For Tpr Clarke's mother, Beverley, the situation is even worse. She has been told that because there were no remains to be repatriated, there will be no inquest. All she can hope for is to be an interested bystander at Cpl Allbutt's hearing.

She said:"What makes me really angry is the length of time it took them to tell me that there would be no inquest - three years. I really was gutted. My son died for his country. Surely he is entitled to a verdict upon his death. We will go to Stephen's. But we are coming up to four years, and there is still no end in sight.

Ever since it happened it has been a waiting game. We have had to wait for everything. David and Stephen were among the first killed. It is as if they have been forgotten. But we are never going to let the Army forget. They owe us an explanation."

    Why? Inquest wait goes on for families of dead soldiers, I, 7.10.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article1816853.ece

The list of British war casualties awaiting hearings

Published: 07 October 2006
The Independent

Col Sgt John Cecil, 35; L/Bdr Llywelyn Evans, 24; Capt Philip Stuart Guy, 29; Marine Sholto Hedenskog, 26; Sgt Les Hehir, 34; OM (Comm) Ian Seymour RN, 29; WO Mark Stratford, 39 and Maj Jason Ward, RM, 34, killed 21 March 2003 in US Marine Corps CH-46 helicopter crash. On 22 March 2003, Lieut Philip Green RN, 30; Lieut Antony King RN, 35; Lieut Marc Lawrence RN, 26; Lieut Philip West RN, 32; Lieut James Williams RN, 28 and Lieut Andrew Wilson RN, 36, died when two Royal Navy Sea King helicopters collided.

On 23 March 2003, Flt-Lieut Kevin Barry and Flt-Lieut David Rhys Williams killed when RAF GR4 Tornado aircraft attacked: .

Sgt Steven Roberts, 33, and L/Cpl Barry Stephen, 31, killed in action near Basra on 24 March 2003. On 25 March 2003, Cpl Stephen Allbutt, 35 and Tpr David Clarke, 19, of the Queen's Royal Lancers were killed.

L/Cpl of Horse Matty Hull, 25, was killed in an incident involving D Squadron, The Blues & Royals, on 28 March 2003. Marine Christopher Maddison, 24, killed in action near Basra on 30 March 2003. L/Cpl of Horse Karl Shearer, died in an accident on 1 April 2003. Gnr Duncan Pritchard, 22, died on 8 May 2003, following an accident. Pte Jason Smith, 32, died in southern Iraq on 13 August 2003.

Maj James Stenner, 30 and Sgt Norman Patterson, 28, killed on 1 January 2004 in a road accident . L/Cpl Andrew Craw, 21, died during incident on a training range. Fsr Gordon Gentle, 19, was killed in an attack in Basra on 28 June 2004.

Flt-Lieut Kristian Gover, 30, killed in RAF Puma helicopter accident on 19 July 2004.

Staff Sgt Denise Michelle Rose, 34, found dead at a military base in Basra on 31 October 2004. On 30 January 2005, Sqd-Ldr Patrick Marshall, 39; Flt-Lieut David Stead, 35; Flt-Lieut Andrew Smith, 25; Flt-Lieut Paul Pardoel, 35; ME Gary Nicholson, 42; Chief Technician Richard Brown, 40; Flt Sgt Mark Gibson, 34; Sgt Robert O'Connor, 38; Cpl David Williams, 37; Acting L/Cpl Steven Jones, 25; killed in RAF Hercules crash.

Guardsman Anthony John Wakefield died of wounds on 2 May 2005. L/Cpl Alan Brackenbury died during an incident on 29 May 2005. Signaller Paul William Didsbury, died on 29 June 2005.

On 16 July 2005, Second Lieut Richard Shearer; Pte Leon Spicer and Pte Phillip Hewett killed when a patrol was attacked.

Fsr Donal Anthony Meade, 20 and Fsr Stephen Robert Manning, 22, killed in Basra on 5 September 2005. L/Cpl Allan Douglas shot dead in Al Amara on 30 January 2006. Cpl Gordon Alexander Pritchard died in Um Qasr on 31 January 2006.

Tpr Carl Smith died in a vehicle accident south of Basra, on 2 February 2006. Capt Richard Holmes and Pte Lee Ellis killed on 28 February 2006.

Lt Richard Palmer died after roadside bomb on 16 April 2006. Wing Co John Coxen; Lieut- Commander Darren Chapman; Capt David Dobson; Flt- Lieut Sarah-Jayne Mulvihill and Marine Paul Collins killed in Lynx helicopter crash in Basra on 6 May 2006. Pte Joseva Lewaicei and Pte Adam Morris killed by roadside bomb in Basra on 13 May 2006. Lieut Tom Mildinhall and L/Cpl Paul Farrelly killed in an attack in Basra on 28 May 2006. Cpl John Johnston Cosby died in Basra on 16 July 2006. Cpl Matthew Cornish died after mortar attack on 1 August 2006. Gnr Samuela Vanua and Gnr Stephen Robert Wright killed by roadside bomb on 4 September 2006. Gnr Lee Thornton died after fighting in Al Qurna on 5 September 2006

    The list of British war casualties awaiting hearings, I, 7.10.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article1816854.ece

12.45pm

Soldier killed in Iraq mortar attack

Monday October 2, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Agencies

A British soldier and two children have been killed in an insurgent mortar attack on a multinational forces base in southern Iraq, in 24 hours of violence which has left 14 other people dead and 40 kidnapped.
Iraqi authorities have also reported discovering 50 bodies across the country, all of them shot and many with signs of torture.

The British soldier was killed and another seriously injured after three mortar shells landed inside the Shaat al-Arab Hotel base in Basra on Sunday afternoon. The two soldiers have not been named but a Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said they were from the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Major Charlie Burbridge told Sky News that the military conducted regular patrols in the area to protect the security of the base. "It is a major challenge to stop these sorts of attacks," he said.

One of the 15 mortar rounds that missed the British targets landed on a nearby home, killing two children and injuring a third. On Monday, at least 14 people were killed and many were injured in attacks across the country, including four people who died in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.

Reuters reported that 14 people were kidnapped outside computer shops in the centre of the capital on Monday, a day after 26 workers were seized from a meat processing factory. The kidnappings are usually attributed to either Sunni extremists or Shia death squads, who spare members of their own sect but kill the others.

In the 24-hour period into Monday morning, Iraqi authorities reported finding a total of 50 bodies, all of them shot and some with signs of torture and mutilation.

The headless bodies of seven people were discovered in Suwayrah, south of Baghdad, and turned in to the Kut morgue. In eastern Baghdad, the bodies of two people were found with their arms and legs bound, and with signs of torture.

The United Nations has expressed concern over increasing evidence of torture in Iraq, with the organisation's leading anti-torture expert saying it was worse now than it was under Saddam Hussein. Manfred Nowack has attributed much of the torture to militias, government forces and terrorist groups.

    Soldier killed in Iraq mortar attack, G, 2.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1885783,00.html

British soldier killed in Basra

October 02, 2006
Times Online 
By Jenny Percival and agencies

A British soldier was killed and another was injured in southern Iraq, the Ministry of Defence said today.

A spokeswoman said the soldiers were from the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Relatives of the dead solider have been informed but the soldier will not be named until after a 24-hour period of grace.

The spokeswoman added that soldier's death was the result of an "indirect attack" on a multi-national force at the Shaat al-Arab Hotel base in Basra City on Sunday afternoon.

An "indirect attack" could include mortar fire, but the spokeswoman declined to elaborate.

The hotel had been targeted before - only a week ago insurgents fired mortar rounds at British targets but one landed in a nearby house, killing a seven-year-old boy and his three-year-old sister.

Last week Jack Straw, the Leader of the House, described the current situation in Iraq as "dire". Today Major Charles Burbridge, speaking from Iraq, told Sky News that the situation in Basra was "a challenge".

Major Burbridge said: "We face a considerable challenge but we feel reasonably confident that we can make progress in the south."

This latest fatality brings the total number of UK soldiers killed in Iraq to 119.

On September 7, Gunner Lee Thornton, who was serving with 58 Battery, 12 Regiment Royal Artillery, died from his injuries two days after he was shot at al-Qurna, north of Basra. He was transferred to a military hospital in Germany but he did not survive his injuries.

Two days beforehand Gunners Stephen Wright and Samuela Vanua died in a roadside explosion near al-Dayr, north of Basra. Both were members of 12 Regiment Royal Artillery.

Today at least 10 Iraqis also died in a series of attacks, while authorities found more mutilated bodies in and around Baghdad - likely victims of the sectarian death squads that roam the capital area.

The headless bodies of seven people were turned in to the Kut morgue. The bodies were found yesterday in Suwayrah, 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Baghdad.

In eastern Baghdad, the bodies of two more people were found, police said. They had been shot, their arms and legs bound, and showed signs of torture.

Already in the 24-hour period into Monday morning, a total of 50 bodies, all shot and some with signs of torture, had been found in the capital.

In comments on CNN’s Late Edition yesterday, the US Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said that al-Qaeda-linked militants had been weakened in recent months and that "a main part of the violence now is sectarian violence ...between death squads associated with militias."

He said the Iraqi government "in the course of the next two months, has to make progress in terms of containing sectarian violence."

His comments came as the Iraqi parliament voted to extend Iraq's state of emergency for 30 more days.

The state of emergency has been renewed every month since first being authorised in November 2004. It grants security forces greater powers and affects the entire country apart from the autonomous Kurdish region in the north.

The measure allows for a nighttime curfew and gives the government extra powers to make arrests without warrants and launch police and military operations when it deems them necessary.

    British soldier killed in Basra, Ts, 2.10.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2384940,00.html