March 20, 2008, is Day One of the sixth year of the War in Iraq. Regardless of your views on how sound the reasoning was for going to war, it's hard to deny that we have a long way to go toward a stable Iraq and restoration of America's image in the world.
January 20, 2009, is the first day of the next presidency, the first chance for the next president to chart a new course for America in Iraq and right our standing in the world. Reason suggests that neither "stay the course" nor "immediate withdrawal" is best for America and the rest of the world.
Our sister site, OnDayOne.org is asking you what that agenda should be. For the next 10 days, we will be compiling the most recent suggestions (tagged with "Iraq") in our Delegates' Lounge (top of the right column). Please submit your ideas at OnDayOne.org.
NPR's All Things Considered, in a report entitled "U.N. Returns to Baghdad in Force," provides a welcome look into the hard work undertaken by the hundreds of personnel -- both foreign and domestic -- serving the United Nations in Iraq. The "return" of the report's title refers to the aftermath of the August 2003 suicide bombing -- one of the first of the insurgency -- that destroyed the UN mission's base and killed 22 of its staff, including the mission's head, veteran diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello (about whom Samantha Power has just published an insightful book). NPR correspondent Anne Garrels interviews the Secretary-General's current Special Representative in Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, and highlights some of the UN's unheralded successes in Iraq.
These successes include: delaying the referendum on the city of Kirkuk, which, if conducted too early, would likely have only exacerbated volatile ethnic tensions; helping the Iraqi government design the structure with which to use its oil money (a luxury not enjoyed by most countries in which the UN operates); and preparing for the upcoming regional elections, which local Iraqis, largely dissatisfied with their regional governments, are eagerly awaiting.
A couple of recently released UN reports reveal the lingering security and human rights concerns in Iraq.
In its human rights report, issued on Saturday, the UN mission in Iraq cautioned that, while violent attacks have decreased in Baghdad, the security situation in the rest of the country remains precarious.
In another report, a group of experts established in 2005 to investigate the use of mercenaries found that private military contractors (PMCs) often operate without sufficient accountability, posing yet another danger to human rights in countries like Iraq.
Presenting its report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the working group said that private security companies in such conflict-wracked countries as Iraq, Colombia and Afghanistan are recruiting former policemen and members of the military from developing countries as "security guards" in their operations. Once there, those guards in fact become "militarily armed private soldiers," which is essentially a new way to describe mercenaries, who are often responsible for serious human rights abuses, the working group stated.Even without mention of the name Blackwater, the implied subtext of this report remains the incident last September, in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed by personnel of the infamous U.S. contractor. As voices from The Wall Street Journal to The New Republic have opened their arms to the possibility of using PMCs in places like Darfur, the working group's report serves as a reminder that contractors can often undermine the very security they are meant to ensure.
UNHCR says (pdf) that a five year decline in applications for asylum in developed countries turned around in 2007 because of Iraqis fleeing violence in their own home country.
The number of Iraqis lodging asylum claims in industrialized countries has almost doubled in 2007 compared to 2006 (from 22,900 to 45,200). The 2007 level was at the same time the fourth highest observed in the industrialized countries since 1990. The numbers have remained high throughout the year with quarterly figures ranging between 10,700 and 12,000.This amounts to only about 1 percent of the total estimated number of Iraqis uprooted by violence--most are either internally displaced or in Syria and Jordan. Still, this increase in asylum applications is notable because most of the destination countries are in Europe, principally Sweden, France, the UK and Greece, where asylum is a hot-button political issue that is often lumped together with immigration controversies. If this trend continues, Iraqis fleeing for their lives may find little respite in Europe. They are already finding it difficult to come to the United States. Five years on, the Iraqi refugee crisis remains one of the most critical humanitarian situations in the world.
Barak Obama takes on race in America.
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>>Iraq - The Iraq war has now entered its sixth year. The New York Times is providing a series of stories looking back at various aspects of the last five years including an interactive timeline of important events, an analysis of how cost estimates got so off track, and insight into the war's role in the 2008 presidential campaign. The Guardian probes the true death toll. Meanwhile, the "Reconciliation Conference" intended to bring Iraq's factions together is instead highlighting their differences.
>>Kuwait - Kuwait's ruler, Sheikh Sabah, dissolved parliament today after the cabinet quit on Monday amid complaints about the lack of parliamentary cooperation on an agenda to diversify the economy. New elections will be called in less than two months.
>>Tibet - The Chinese state media has announced that 100 Tibetan protestors have turned themselves in. Meanwhile, Tibetans on horseback raided government offices in Gansu. China has also said that the Olympic torch will travel through Tibet (and summit Mt. Everest) as planned.
Yesterday in UN Dispatch
Only the first few minutes were devoted to the "monster" incident. For the most part, Power talks smartly about her new book and the future of the U.S. in Iraq. Money quote: "What Sergio's life underscores is the degree to which in the 21st century to deal with global challenges...you gotta have people by your side and you have to have international wind at your back."
My concern really would be with how deeply will the cultural, regional sub-context be taken in to account while implementing the PEPFAR Bill. The way it looks to me with so many clauses and sub-clauses it appears already to have a target group in mind at the cost of keeping certain groups beyond its reach as a form of 'disciplining' for not adhering in the first place (in the last five years!). And what worries me is that such a huge amount of money will go in to sticking to the "dos and don'ts" of the Bill rather than reaching substantially larger groups of people. Haven't we already seen this before? In conflict zones like Afghanistan ... in Iraq ... where so much money has gone yet women live lives not very different from the previous decade; and of course much too often also reflected in policies taken up by each of our own governments?
Countries in Asia and Africa already suffer from the burden of too many cultural practices and unfair, gender imbalanced value systems (the experience of development workers will show) which cannot be challenged but have to be worked around slowly and deliberately. When one invokes the prostitution pledge I wonder what happens to girls who have been unwittingly lured in to the sex trade in the first place and are unable to return back to their own communities (even when rescued) out of fear of ostracism or the 'shame' that they bring to the family. Thus, they are often compelled to return to the very life they fight to leave.
A Ukrainian police officer serving in Kosovo died today from wounds sustained during Monday's riots in Mitrovica, a frequent flash point. The lightly armed UNMIK police were forced to withdraw from the city when the riot gained steam, and were replaced by NATO troops. Ban condemned the riots. Serb authorities blamed NATO of using excessive force. This video from Russia today gives you a sense of the scale of destruction visited on Mitrovica yesterday.
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>>Russia - Today Secretaries Rice and Gates continue what has been widely reported as positive talks on missile defense, non-proliferation, and terrorism in Moscow. Yesterday Secretary Rice confirmed that President Bush had sent a letter to President Putin in the last few days proposing a new strategic framework for cooperation. On Sunday, Secretary Gates suggested that, in order to address Russian concerns about missile defense, the U.S. would not turn on certain elements of the system until Iran demonstrated that it had a missile that could reach Europe. President Putin endorsed portions of the letter on Monday. Secretary Rice is meeting with Kremlin opponents today.
>>Serbia - Yesterday, 100 UN riot police backed by NATO soldiers regained control of a courthouse in Mitrovica in northern Kosovo from which the UN had overseen local justice. The courthouse had been overrun by 300 Serbs on Friday, who refused to leave. The raid, in turn, sparked riots and machine gun and grenade attacks on UN police and NATO peacekeepers in the worst violence in northern Kosovo since Kosovo declared independence last month. One Ukrainian serving in the UN police force was killed by shrapnel, and UN personnel were force to pull out.
>>Pakistan - Pakistan's new National Assembly, led by opponents of President Musharraf, was sworn in on Monday. Fahmida Mizda, a women and a close associate of Bhutto widower Asif Ali Zardari, has been named as the parliamentary speaker pending approval. Meanwhile, the leader of Pakistan's lawyers' movement has said that there will be nationwide protests if the Supreme Court, stacked by Musharraf, decides today to stall the parliamentary resolution to reinstate judges fired by Musharraf. Zardari has said that such a resolution should pass within 30 days.
Yesterday in UN Dispatch