07 December 2009, Monday
EKREM DUMANLI ANKARA
WASHINGTON D.C
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has expressed unwillingness to sending combat troops to Afghanistan in the wake of US President Barack Obama’s call on NATO allies to beef up troop numbers.
The prime minister was, however, warm to training the Afghan army. “We can open a center for training Afghan soldiers in Afghanistan. We can train one Afghan battalion in Turkey and another in Afghanistan. If Afghanistan calls for training its police officers, our police departments are ready,” Erdoğan stated. His remarks came during a question and answer session with Turkish journalists on Sunday during his flight to the US....
In less than a week, the Neocons in the nation and Bush's former Secretary have turned a surge and hand over to the Afghans into a forever war.
I don't think so.
Congress needs to deny funding and troops for an escalation in the war in Afghanistan ! The wars conducted under the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Gates White House are severely in question and we have no moral obligation or right to stay another day !
Unless. Of course. Obama wants to join them!
U.S. officials are stressing an eventual drawdown of American troops will be done gradually and in a manner that allows Afghan forces to assume security responsibilities
Iraq war inquiry sees fingers pointed at US (click here)
Friday, 4 December 2009
By Peter Biles
BBC world affairs correspondent
The Iraq inquiry has produced another week of compelling evidence.
We are beginning to understand how and why Iraq ended up in such a parlous state after the 2003 invasion.
A number of witnesses have pointed a finger of blame at the United States for the chaos that ensued.
Sir David Manning, Tony Blair's former foreign policy adviser, set the tone with a withering attack on the Americans for their post-war planning.
"The assumption that the Americans would have a coherent plan which would be implemented after the war, obviously proved to be unfounded," he said.
On the setting-up of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in 2003, Sir David said: "The perception I had is that ambassador Paul Bremer arrived with pretty much the Americanised plenipotentiary power."
What followed was the controversial decision to disband the Iraqi army and carry out a purge of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party....
Gates is a liar. Bin Laden is still alive !
Bin Laden 'seen in Afghanistan in early 2009' (click here)
20:45 GMT, Friday, 4 December 2009
By Orla Guerin
BBC News, Islamabad
A Taliban detainee in Pakistan claims to have information about Osama Bin Laden's whereabouts in January or February of this year.
His claims cannot be verified, but a leading American expert says his account should be investigated.
The detainee claims to have met Osama Bin Laden numerous times before 9/11.
He claims that in January or February he met a trusted contact who had seen Bin Laden about 15 to 20 days earlier in Afghanistan.
"In 2009, in January or February I met this friend of mine. He said he had come from meeting Sheikh Osama, and he could arrange for me to meet him," he said.
"He helps al-Qaeda people coming from other countries to get to the sheikh, so he can advise them on whatever they are planning for Europe or other places.
"The sheikh doesn't stay in any one place. That guy came from Ghazni, so I think that's where the sheikh was."...
'Dead wrong' (click here)
Eighteen months before the Senate report, the Silberman-Robb commission - set up by President Bush in early 2004 - had reported in no uncertain terms that US intelligence had been "dead wrong" in judging that Iraq had been developing WMD before the invasion.
Led by retired judge Laurence Silberman, the report was highly critical of intelligence failings, but it had attracted criticism from Mr Bush's opponents who had wanted it to report back before the November 2004 presidential election.
While it was not conceived as a backward-looking inquiry into the Iraq war, one of the most high-profile investigations of the conflict was the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group.
Set up by Congress in March 2006, the 10-member panel was tasked with assessing the situation on the ground in Iraq and coming up with recommendations.
It met or spoke to more than 170 individuals, including Iraq's leaders, President Bush, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, ambassadors and other senior officials, analysts and media representatives from among Iraq's neighbours and the US.
In December 2006 it concluded the situation in Iraq was "grave and deteriorating" - strongly urging a pull back of US forces once the situation allowed.
Meanwhile, within the US Congress itself, hundreds of witnesses have testified at scores of hearings on Iraq in recent years....
