US Marines out of Iraq in 2010

US Marines out of Iraq in 2010
US Marines will withdraw from Iraq in the spring of 2010, General James Conway says, signaling the end of a mission amid resurgence of violence in the country.

"We think that in the spring of 2010 we'll close the door and turn out the lights to Marine Corps presence in Iraq," said General James Conway in a speech at the National Press Club.

The date is in line with the schedule set by President Barack Obama, who in February ordered the withdrawal of all US combat troops from the country by the end of August 2010 with the rest of the force coming out by the end of 2011.

Conway said there are currently 16,000 marines in Iraq and that the reduction of the force would accelerate after the legislative elections that are scheduled for January 2010.

However, Conway played down a resurgence of violence in Iraq in recent weeks.

Violence in Iraq has increased in recent weeks and Iraqi leaders suspect that the attacks had been devised by those who wanted to see Iraq struggling with sectarian unrest and bloodshed.

Rand says US unlikely to contain Iran

Rand says US unlikely to contain Iran
A US think-tank has warned that a US-led containment of Iran is 'unlikely' to be sustainable among the Persian Gulf states.

The Rand Corporation has said in a report that the Persian Gulf states desire to maintain their cordial ties with Iran, if not active political and economic engagement.

"Arab opinion on Iran is often split between publics and their regimes. Arab regimes fear Iran's nuclear aspirations but are cognizant that its nuclear program is largely endorsed by their Arab publics as a critique of Western double standards and interference," the report said.

The think-tank has urged the US administration to try to establish a multilateral security structure in the Persian Gulf region --although it will take time-- rather than pursuing unilateral policies.

The study titled "Dangerous But Not Omnipotent: Exploring the Reach and Limitations of Iranian Power in the Middle East" also says that Iran's rise as a regional power presents a key foreign policy and security challenge to the US, but its reach may be far more limited than Western conventional wisdom suggests.

Obama Rejects Isolated Dialogue with Iran

Obama Rejects Isolated Dialogue with Iran
US President Barack Obama on Friday underlined his commitment to engage Iran, but meantime said such an engagement should take place alongside other considerations, including US-Russia nuclear arms cut.
"I've said publicly that I'm committed to engaging in serious dialogue and negotiations with Iran. That can't be done in isolation, it has to be done in conjunction with the P5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) or the E3+3 process," Obama said in a joint press briefing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Obama further said he would raise the specter of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East when he begins negotiations with Iranian government officials.

Meantime, Obama drew a veiled parallel between Tehran's uranium enrichment and the nuclear stockpiles of Washington and Moscow, saying that he has plans to visit Moscow and rally support for a joint effort to reduce the nuclear stockpiles in Russia and the US.

"Our concern is not just Iran, but a broader effort to strengthen nonproliferation so that the threat of nuclear weapons is greatly reduced in our lifetime," said the US president.

Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative document to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.

Meantime, Analysts say Russia and the US have an estimated number of around 6,000 warheads that are either deployed or in reserve. Moscow and Washington have reportedly agreed to reduce their stockpiles to about 1,500 warheads apiece, down from the 2,200 allowed under an interim 2002 treaty.

Obama has tabled a motion that seeks a future strategic arms control treaty with Russia that will see an 80 percent reduction in the US nuclear stockpile.

US to Attend G8 Meeting alongside Iran

US to Attend G8 Meeting alongside Iran
The US State Department confirmed on Friday that the country's Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend a meeting of the Group of Eight foreign ministers in Italy at the end of June.

"Yes, the secretary will attend," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.

The US announcement came a day after the Italian Foreign Ministry extended an invitation to the Islamic Republic of Iran to attend the G-8 foreign ministerial meeting in Trieste, port city north of Italy, on June 25-27.

"Iran is invited to the conference, yes," said Italy's special envoy for Afghanistan Sergio Mercuri whose country currently holds the G8 presidency.

The two-day conference aims to promote peace and stability in Afghanistan with the help of its neighbors including Iran.

Washington has backed Tehran's participation in the G8 meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan this month.

Earlier in May, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said that Clinton was in favor of inviting Iran to the meeting.

Also in March, Tehran was invited to an international conference on Afghanistan at The Hague.

Washington has shown desire to reach out to Tehran to tackle problems facing Afghanistan, including the growing strength of Taliban militants across the war-torn country.

Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta has also welcomed the presence of Iran at the meeting on Afghanistan.

Sadr: Obama has subtle plans to control world

Iraq's senior cleric Moqtada al-Sadr says Barack Obama's speech indicates that the US wants to take a different avenue to bring the world under its control.

"The honeyed political speech expressed only one aim -- America wants to take a different avenue to bring the world under its control" compared to the former US president George W. Bush's strategies, Sadr said in a statement released to journalists in the holy city of Najaf on Thursday.

"Obama cannot change the American policies... which were and are still hostile to Islam, and that will continue," he added.

The Iraqi cleric further pointed out that he would trust the US president "only after their (the US) withdrawal from our beloved Iraq and Muslim Afghanistan and their withdrawal of support for the Israeli enemy, and I hope for this from him."

"Let him know that the resistance and the opposition will continue. We don't believe his words," he noted.

The US president pledged to forge a "new beginning" for Islam and America in his speech in Cairo, vowing to purge years of "suspicion and discord."

The American leader vowed to end mistrust, forge a state for Palestinians and defuse a nuclear showdown with the Islamic Republic.

Meanwhile, Lebanon's Hezbollah said on Thursday that US President Barack Obama's Cairo speech had signaled no real shift in US policy in the Arab world.

US pressing Nabucco scheme sans Iran

The US has made it clear that it does not support Iran's involvement in the Nabucco gas pipeline until Tehran 'changes its policies'.

Richard Morningstar, the US special envoy for Eurasian energy issues, said that Iran can only join the gas pipeline undertaking after the normalization of ties between Tehran and Washington.

He told a group of reporters in Ankara on Thursday that inviting Iran to the project without a resolution to the standoff over its nuclear program could "have a negative effect."

"We don't want to change our policy unless Iran changes its policy," AP quoted Morningstar as saying.

The pipeline is to link the Caspian Sea region, the Middle East and Egypt to the European Union via Turkey.

The Nabucco consortium, which aims at decreasing Europe's dependence on Russian natural gas, has been unable to find sufficient gas supplies necessary for the feasibility of the project.

Turkey, which is a member of the consortium, has repeatedly voiced its support for Iran's involvement in the project.

Three US soldiers killed in Afghanistan

Three US soldiers are killed in an ambush in Afghanistan's Kapisa province north of Kabul, taking number of the coalition forces killed in 2009 to 126.

"Three coalition service members were killed in an attack on their convoy in Kapisa province this morning when their convoy struck an improvised explosive device and came under small-arms fire," the US military said on Thursday.

The force's media office told AFP that the three were from the United States.

No militant group has as yet claimed responsibility for the attack in area where extremist Hezb-e-Islami faction led by former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are active.

A separate bombing in the southern province of Kandahar on Wednesday evening killed five Afghan security forces, Press TV correspondent reported.

The explosion hit a police patrol in the city of Spin Buldak, near the Durand Line border with Pakistan, when a Taliban militant rammed his explosive-laden motorcycle into the vehicle.

Taliban-linked insurgency has risen in Afghanistan, particularly in the violent south where hundreds of NATO soldiers are stationed.

Recent attacks have raised stability concerns as the nation heads for key presidential and provincial elections scheduled for August 20, the second since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

President Hamid Karzai came out as the winner in the previous lection in 2004 and is to step down when his five-year term ends in October 2009.

Obama seeks fresh start with Muslim world

US President Barack Obama calls for a "new beginning" between the US and the Muslim world, saying that his roots come from a Muslim generation.

"I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims," Obama said Thursday in a speech in which he touched on the story of his life and religious beliefs.

Addressing a cheering crowd of Egyptians and Muslim dignitaries at Cairo University, the American president called for an end to ongoing tensions between the US and the Muslim world.

"I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles."

Obama went on to say that some extremists have fueled tensions between the West and the Muslim world to further their agenda and have managed to build up hatred toward Muslims in the West.

"Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. This has bred more fear and mistrust."

Obama quoted passages from the Qur'an, Talmud and the Bible and called for peace while praising peacemakers.

"There is one rule that lies at the core of every religion -- that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples," Obama continued. "The people of the world can live together in peace."

While acknowledging that Islam is a religion of peace and compassion, Obama promised to do his utmost to fight against all efforts to create "negative stereotypes of Islam".

My experience, he said, "guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't... And I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."

Obama's Middle East tour is viewed as an effort by the 44th US president to reach out to the Muslim world.

On the first leg of his trip, the American president visited Saudi Arabia Wednesday.

GM makes new offer to ease bankruptcy

US auto giant General Motors says if its bondholders accept the company's bid to sell its assets under bankruptcy protection law, they will be offered 10 percent of GM's stocks.

Based on GM's new offer, bondholders will be offered 10 percent of the company when restructured in addition to warrants to purchase another 15 percent, explained the Detroit-based carmaker through a US regulatory filing on Thursday.

In return, creditors who represent about 20 percent of the company's debt, will allow GM to sell its profitable assets to a government-funded company established in accordance with the bankruptcy law.

The new company would cede 17.5 percent of its stock to the United Auto Workers union's health-care trust fund and 10 percent to back the "old GM" to pay creditors.

The GM filing says if the bondholders do not agree to support the sale, then they would have less or no chance to obtain stocks or warrants.

US government to own 72% of GM

Fallen US auto giant General Motors pulled back from the brink, winning government and bondholder support for a new restructuring plan.

GM, kept afloat so far with USD 19b in taxpayer money, had been facing a deadline on Monday to come up with an agreed reorganization.

The new plan endorsed by bondholders, would see the government hold a 72.5 percent stake in return for possibly more than USD 50b of fresh funding.

The Treasury Department "has indicated to GM that if GM decides to seek relief under the US Bankruptcy Code and seek bankruptcy court approval for the sale of substantially all of its assets ... a new company sponsored by the US Treasury (New GM) would agree to acquire such assets," a GM filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said.


The government could provide "in excess of USD 50b" for this reorganization that would be converted to stock, it added.


GM's survival was thrown into doubt earlier this week when holders of some USD 27b in GM bonds rejected a plan to swap that debt for 10 percent of the new company.

Obama to ban PoW photos exposing rape, torture

The US administration asks an appeals court to stop the release of prisoner abuse images, showing that Obama has fully backtracked on his promise of transparency.

In a motion filed Thursday in a New York federal appeals court, the Obama administration said that it did not want the photos to be available to the public, arguing that they could lead to violence against US troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and even Pakistan.

"[Distributing the photos poses] a clear and grave risk of inciting violence and riots against American and coalition forces, as well as civilian personnel, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan," the motion said.

The court filing also included two semi-classified statements by the top US commander in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno, and the head of US Central Command General David Petraeus, who leads US military activities in the Middle East and Central Asia.

"[The release of the images] would… further endanger the lives of US soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors, civilians and contractors," said Petraeus.

Odierno also claimed that Iraqi officials had told him the release of the photos, which are believed to number in the thousands, could disrupt democratic progress in Iraq before the national elections.

Last month, Obama's administration said that it would comply with a court order, which was issued following a lengthy Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The order said the pictures must be released by May 28.

Earlier in May, however, Barack Obama reversed his position, saying that he did not feel comfortable with his previous decision.

The new US administration's U-turn on the issue drew a heavy backlash from the ACLU, which expressed outrage and said the decision "makes a mockery" of Obama's campaign promise of transparency.

While Amnesty International said that it was disappointed, other US human rights groups also accused Obama of following in the footsteps of former president George W. Bush.

News of the US government's official stance came as Press TV released some images of the maltreatment of prisoners by US soldiers, confirming an earlier Daily Telegraph report, which revealed the photos of abuse at Iraqi jails include images of rape and sexual assault.

Washington-based investigative journalist Wayne Madsen emailed the horrific images to Press TV, rejecting allegations by neoconservative media that they were fake.

Madsen said when some of the disputed photos were randomly published by the Boston Globe in 2004, neoconservatives made the same accusations against the paper.

The Daily Telegraph report focused on information provided by Major General Antonio Taguba, a former army officer who published a report in 2004 into the abuse scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Contradicting an Obama administration claim that photos did not include pictures of sexual abuse, Taguba said the images showed mistreatment, torture, and rape.