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	Middle East	Tue, Apr 29, 2008

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US Contractors Involved

Disturbing Data About Failed Iraqi Projects

Israeli MP Jailed
For Corruption

Armenia Welcomes Turkish Dialogue

Italy to Stay in Afghanistan

News Diary

US Contractors Involved

Disturbing Data About Failed Iraqi Projects

An audit of US-funded reconstruction projects for Iraq has found millions of dollars have been wasted because many schemes have never been completed.
The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction blamed delays, costs, poor performance and violence for failure to finish some 855 projects, BBC reported.

Many other projects had been falsely described as complete, found the audit of 47,321 reconstruction projects.
Iraq reconstruction has cost US taxpayers more than $100 billion so far.
USAID, the body responsible for overseeing Iraqi reconstruction, has responded that the database used for the review was incomplete.
The audit by Senator Stuart Bowen found US officials had terminated at least 855 projects before completion.
Of this number, 112 were ended because of the contractors’ poor performance.
Danielle Brian, executive director of the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, said: “The report paints a depressing picture of money being poured into failed Iraq reconstruction projects.
“Contractors are killed, projects are blown up just before being completed, or the contractor just stops doing the work.“
Last year, congressional investigators said as much as $10 billion charged by US contractors for Iraq reconstruction had been questionable.

Reconciliation Talks
Representatives from Iraq’s main ethnic groups on Sunday wound up three days of talks in Finland where they studied reconciliation processes in Northern Ireland and South Africa, the organizers said.
“After three days of intense discussion the conferees adopted a set of principles for joint national action in addition to a set of implementation mechanisms with the aim of advancing national reconciliation in Iraq,“ the Finnish non-profit organization Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) said in a statement.
“Most importantly, they agreed that dialogue and negotiation was the primary means of resolving political disputes,“ it said.
According to AFP, thirty-six Iraqis took part in the closed-door seminar on “Divided Societies,“ in addition to representatives from the South African and Northern Irish peace processes.
“I am satisfied with the progress we have achieved in the difficult circumstances of our ongoing conflict and trust that we can achieve more in the coming months,“ Sheikh Humam Hamoudi, the chairman of the Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) of the Iraqi National Assembly, said in the statement.
The Iraqis agreed to meet again within three months in Baghdad to finalize their work “and refine the principles and mechanisms that would enable them to reach a national agreement.“

Mass Graves Found
In a related news, Iraqi security forces found more than 100 bodies in two mass graves. Fifty bodies were found in a mass grave in central Iraq on Sunday, a military source in the area said.
Another team said it had discovered more than 50 bodies in a grave in Mahmudiya, a town 30 kilometers south of Baghdad, on April 17.

Violence Continues
Meanwhile, US and Iraqi troops killed 38 people in fierce clashes in Baghdad, including 22 who attacked a military checkpoint in a nearby area, the US military said Monday.
Fighters, apparently taking advantage of a sandstorm that blanketed the capital, attacked several checkpoints and hammered the US-protected Green Zone in the fiercest salvo in weeks on Sunday. The sandstorm had grounded the American aircraft that normally prowl for launching teams, AP reported.
On Monday morning, the insurgents lobbed more rockets or mortar shells toward the Green Zone, which houses the US embassy and much of the Iraqi government on the west side of the Tigris River. Alarms could be heard and the public address system in the area warned residents to take cover and stay away from windows.

Israeli MP Jailed
For Corruption

An ultra-Orthodox member of Israel’s parliament has been sentenced to 18 months in jail on corruption charges. Shlomo Benizri, a former government minister, was convicted earlier this month of a variety of offences, including accepting bribes, BBC reported.
After sentencing, Benizri, 48, a member of the Shas party, pleaded his innocence and said he was the victim of a “witch hunt“. Benizri’s spokesman said he will appeal against the ruling.
The court also fined Benizri 80,000 shekels. The MP insisted he was innocent during the trial, which lasted more than two years and saw about 200 witnesses called to testify.
He was charged with a variety of offences including accepting bribes from a contractor to cover the cost of furniture and home renovations.
According to court documents a contractor donated money to a Jewish seminary linked to Benizri, bought him furniture and an air conditioner and renovated his apartment. In return, Benizri intervened to help the contractor’s business interests by passing on classified information and granting him valuable permits to bring foreign workers to Israel.

Armenia Welcomes Turkish Dialogue

Armenia is ready to start dialogue with Turkey on improving relations if Ankara does not set preconditions to talks, Armenia’s new prime minister said on Sunday.
The two neighbors have no diplomatic links after Ankara severed ties in protest against Armenian control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region over which Armenia fought Turkey’s ally Azerbaijan in a war in the early 1990s, Economic Times reported.
“I confirm the readiness of the government of Armenia to engage in constructive dialogue and establish relations without preconditions,“ the press office of the Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sarksyan said he wrote in a letter to Turkey.
An Armenian backed administration controls the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Armenia and Azerbaijan are still officially at war over the mountainous area.
Last week, Turkey’s foreign minister said he had sent Armenia a letter calling for dialogue. Armenia is a mainly Christian state of around three million which lies on the edge of the Caucasus which hosts a pipeline pumping oil to Europe from Asia. Armenia also accuses Turkey of genocide during violence at the end of World War I.

Italy to Stay in Afghanistan

Italian troops will stay in Afghanistan despite the change of government in Rome, the incoming Italian foreign minister said in an interview published Monday, AFP informs.
“It’s not time to pull out,“ Franco Frattini told the “Corriere della Sera“.
“The attack on Hamid Karzai shows once again that Italy and its partners not only cannot withdraw from Afghanistan but also they should pursue the UN and NATO goals“ of democratizing the country and fighting the Taliban, he said.
President Karzai escaped an assassination attempt Sunday after militants attacked a military parade with rockets and gunfire, leaving three people dead including an MP and a 10-year-old boy who was killed apparently in return fire.

News Diary

UNITED NATIONS - Mandate of the UN Mission in Sudan expires.

WASHINGTON - Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern will speak at a joint session of the United States Congress.

LA PAZ - Deadline set by Bolivia’s government to take control of four energy companies as part of a nationalization drive began in 2006, buying company shares worth at least $200 million.

TEXAS - Deadline for Texas oilman David Chalmers, sentenced to two years in prison after admitting to paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to Iraq in connection with the UN oil-for-food program, to surrender to a federal prison in Texas.

Filipino Leader Released

A charitable organization said on Sunday that it was behind the release of a Philippine Muslim leader after a court in Manila granted him bail following years of imprisonment and house arrest, AP reported.

Domestic Violence

Amnesty International claims that “up to half“ of Turkish women are victims of domestic violence. A representative of the human rights organization in Istanbul told AP that “ the rights of thousands of women in Turkey are violated daily.“

Turkmenistan, Afghanistan Sign Energy Deals

Turkmenistan and Afghanistan signed deals on energy, transport and culture Monday, days after agreeing with Pakistan and India to push forward a multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline.
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai watched their ministers sign the deals and then inked their own on cementing bilateral ties, AFP said.
Power-poor Afghanistan wants to boost its electricity grid with imports from Turkmenistan, which has also announced plans to build a railway line into this country.
The leaders also discussed the gas transport project, an official said. The four nations involved signed an accord last week to take forward years-old plans to build the pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India. It envisages that work will start in 2010 and be completed five years later, mines ministry spokesman Kohzman Ulumi said.

Afghan Dilemma

By Ehsan Bakhshandeh

In recent weeks, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has stepped up criticisms over the poor performance of foreign forces in his country. In an interview with the “New York Times“, Karzai particularly lashed out at British and US forces for misconducting the war in Afghanistan. He complained about US-led invasion of Afghan villages and said terrorists should be hunted in the Taliban and Al-Qaeda sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan which is going to sign a peace deal with the Taliban this week.
Karzai said, “for the success of the world in Afghanistan, it would be better to recognize this inherent character in Afghanistan and work with it and support it.“
Karzai also attacked the number of civilian deaths inflicted by the coalition. Although levels of ’collateral damage’ inflicted by NATO operations have dropped substantially, deaths still continue. Two women and two children were killed recently in an air raid by NATO troops on a suspected Taliban position after a firefight. Up to 9,000 civilians have died since 2001.
Karzai himself was the target of several assassination attempts, the last on April 26.
“I am not happy with civilian casualties coming down; I want an end to civilian casualties,“ he said. “As much as one may argue it’s difficult, I don’t accept that argument.“
Last year, Afghans experienced a year full of violence and terror. The year 2007 was described by the United Nations as the “bloodiest year“ for Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001. Yet the Afghan president didn’t criticize the US as harsh as he did last weekend.
Political pundits believe one of the main reasons behind Karzai’s harsh criticism and courage to lash out at the Bush administration at the current juncture is the next US presidential elections.
In 2004, Karzai won the presidential elections in view of the great support of George Bush. Karzai was under pressure from the public opinion of Afghanistan for being too lenient with the US-led forces. Now that the embattled Bush is leaving the White House in less than eight months, Karzai has gathered the courage to blast Americans for mismanaging the war.
It is remarkable to mention that the conduct of war has also raised criticism by international organizations and even NATO members are evading reinforcing troops in Afghanistan.
The seven-year Afghan occupation by foreign troops has only resulted in increasing tension and Taliban violence while leading more Afghans to the lucrative opium business and hindering reconstruction. On April 18, a study by the US House of Representatives’ Armed Services Committee found that US provincial reconstruction teams (PRT), a much publicized program for rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan, operate as ad hoc “pickup games“ with no clear direction.
The government in Afghanistan is also saddened by the discovery that German intelligence spied on a minister. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called on his Afghan counterpart Saturday to apologize and said those involved would be sacked or transferred.
German media revealed last week that the country’s intelligence service illegally monitored the e-mails of Commerce Minister Mohammad Amin Farhang and a reporter for the German news weekly “Der Spiegel“ for several months in 2006.
Presidential elections in Afghanistan will be held next year. Although Karzai has a short period to try to boost security and curb the violence, the next Afghan government will undoubtedly move on the development track only in view of evicting foreign troops and laying the foundations for national unity among Afghan tribes.

Syria: US Charges Fake

Syria said on Monday that US accusations had been building a nuclear reactor until its destruction in an Israeli air raid last September were as bogus as American claims that Saddam Hussein’s regime had weapons of mass destruction in 2003.
The ruling Baath party’s mouthpiece, the “Al-Baath“ daily, compared the photographs of the bombed site shown to US congressmen last week to the images Washington presented to the UN Security Council as alleged evidence of Iraq’s non-conventional arsenal in the run-up to the US-led invasion, AFP reported.
“When you look at these pictures... a single image comes to mind --that of [former] US Secretary of State Colin Powell accusing Iraq of hiding weapons of mass destruction and presenting as proof a dossier of photographs,“ Al-Baath said.
“Of course Powell later acknowledged that he had been fooled by the US intelligence services and by conservatives within the administration.“
“The new US campaign of lies should surprise nobody--it’s a continuation of the same policy of US pressure against Syria that’s been going on“ for the past five years, the paper added.
“Syria again rejects the US allegations and reaffirms that it has nothing to hide concerning its legitimate national defenses.
Syria wants to see peace in the region, unlike the current US administration which has been behind all its wars and crises.“
US national security officials briefed US congressmen on Thursday, presenting intelligence they said showed Syria had been building a secret nuclear reactor for military ends.
They said the plant was being built with the help of North Korea, until its destruction by Israel in an air raid on September.
The International Atomic Energy Agency launched an investigation into the US accusations on Friday but also chided both Israel and the United States for their handling of the affair.
Syria roundly rejected the US allegations but promised full cooperation with the UN watchdog.
In an interview published by the Qatari daily “Al-Watan“ on Sunday, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad ridiculed the US accusations.
“Does it make sense that we would build a nuclear facility in the desert and not protect it with anti-aircraft defenses?“ he asked.
“A nuclear site exposed to (spy) satellites, in the heart of Syria and in an open space?
Asked about Syria’s response, Assad said “retaliation does not mean a missile for a missile, a bomb for a bomb or a bullet for a bullet ... They [Israelis] understand what we mean. We do not say that we will retaliate, i.e. we will bomb.“

Blair Has List of West Bank Problems

Middle East envoy Tony Blair has drawn up a list of West Bank travel and trade restrictions that he wants Israel to remove to bolster peace talks with the Palestinians, officials briefed on the document said on Monday.
The list calls for the removal of a number of key roadblocks, including one near the Jewish settlement of Beit El that restricts Palestinian travel to and from the West Bank city of Ramallah, where President Mahmoud Abbas’ government is based, Reuters said.
The list is the first of its kind by the former prime minister since world powers appointed him last June to spearhead efforts to revive the Palestinian economy.
Recently, there has been calls to bring Blair alongside George Bush to trial for committing war crimes.
Citing Israel’s restrictions, the World Bank cautioned this week that per capita income in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 2008 would be static, if not lower, despite $7.7 billion in aid pledged to the Palestinians in December.
A spokesman for Blair said: “We can’t discuss the details of what we are talking about with the Israelis.“
Palestinians say Israel’s network of hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank amount to collective punishment, stifle their economy and undermine support for Abbas. While maintaining restrictions in the West Bank, Israel has tightened its economic and military cordon of the Gaza Strip.