Smoke fills the sky in Khartoum, Sudan, on Friday, April 21, 2023. Photo: AP
Baghdad: The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that it is working to evacuate its nationals from Sudan, where clashes continued for a ninth day.
“We are working to achieve a very urgent response, and the safety of our community is a top priority,” ministry spokesman Ahmed al-Sahaf was quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying.
The ministry has succeeded in evacuating “14 Iraqi citizens from Khartoum to a safe place in the Port Sudan area. We continue our efforts to evacuate the remaining individuals,” according to al-Sahaf, noting that there are about 300 Iraqis in Sudan.
Clashes between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continue in the capital Khartoum and adjoining cities for the ninth successive day due to disagreement over the RSF’s integration into the army.
According to Sudan’s health ministry, the deadly clashes have left at least 424 people killed and about 3,730 wounded by Saturday.
Ankara: A total of 21 “terrorists” were killed by Turkish troops over the past four days in northern Syria and Iraq, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said.
Three of the “terrorists” were killed in Iraq’s Zap region, semi-official Anadolu Agency quoted Akar as saying during an event in the Turkish central province of Kayseri on Saturday, Xinhua news agency reported.
Calling the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) a “tool in the hands of imperialists” to hinder Turkey’s development, Akar said that the Turkish government is determined to eliminate the PKK.
The fight against “terrorists” will not end until the security of Turkey’s borders and the nation is ensured, he said.
The PKK has been involved in armed clashes with Turkish forces for more than three decades and is designated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US, and the European Union.
Baghdad: Five Islamic State (IS) militants were killed in airstrikes in Iraq’s eastern province of Diyala, the Iraqi military said.
Based on intelligence reports, Iraqi warplanes carried out two airstrikes on IS hideouts in the mountainous area of Narin near the Himreen mountain range of northern Diyala, destroying the hideouts and killing five IS militants, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a statement issued by the Security Media Cell, a media outlet affiliated with the Iraqi Joint Operations Command.
Despite repeated military operations against IS remnants, extremist militants are still hiding in deserts and the Himreen mountains in the provinces of Diyala, Salahuddin, and Kirkuk.
Since the defeat of the IS in 2017, the remnants of the extremist group have melted into urban centers, deserts, and mountainous areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.
“My preference when dealing with an issue like this — which doesn’t strike me as particularly ideological — is to address members on a one-on-one basis and figure out what anxieties or concerns they might have,” Young said in a joint interview conducted with Kaine.
Kaine said he’s brought the topic up regularly in Democratic caucus meetings for a decade now, describing himself as a “Johnny one-note” on an issue he first took notice of in 2002 while serving as lieutenant governor of Virginia.
“Congress needs to own these responsibilities. Having a good bipartisan colleague on this just makes the difference,” Kaine said.
Since introducing their first joint war powers repeal bill in 2019, Kaine and Young have taken different tacks with their respective parties on the matter. Kaine said that his challenge hasn’t been winning support from fellow Democrats so much as grabbing the focus of the caucus amid a host of competing national security issues.
“It’s been a long crusade of Sen. Kaine’s,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who recalled his colleague “standing up in our caucus and bringing it up every couple of months.”
On Young’s side of the aisle, pro-repeal Republicans said the passage of time and the growing opposition to prolonged war within their party’s base made it easier to sell axing the authorizations. In addition, only a handful of senators who initially voted for war in Iraq remain in the chamber.
“Each decade we get beyond the end of the war, I think most people are finally figuring out the war’s over,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), describing Young as “very, very good” at rounding up GOP support for the effort.
Other Republican allies said Young’s experience as a former Marine lent credibility to his arguments for repealing the war powers.
“When it comes from Todd, who’s spent years there as an officer, I think it just means a little bit even more. It’s not like he’s a dove,” said Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), a repeal backer.
Wednesday’s repeal vote won over the entire Senate Democratic majority, in addition to 18 Republicans who ranged from centrist Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to non-interventionist conservative Paul.
Should the Senate war powers repeal pass the House, the Biden administration has indicated the president would support it. But getting it to Biden’s desk requires House passage — and that won’t be easy. Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) wants to repeal and replace both the 2002 military force authorization and a broad one passed in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks, the latter of which still serves as the basis for counterterrorism activities around the world.
McCaul said this week he wants a “counterterrorism-focused AUMF without geographical boundaries” that would end after five years “so it’s not forever war stuff.”
But McCaul also has made clear that the ultimate decision rests with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and the California Republican is already facing trouble navigating an issue that’s split his conference.
And the strategy Young employed to win over Senate Republicans might not work in the House: The Hoosier said he tailored his arguments depending on the member as he built a sufficient Republican bloc to deliver repeal.
Democrats took notice — especially Young’s colleagues on the Foreign Relations Committee, which remains a rare occasionally bipartisan bastion on a bitterly divided Hill. Kaine described the Hoosier as “a natural partner,” while Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said “he’s one of the folks who acts as a glue in the Senate.”
On his own side of the aisle, Young downplayed the idea that his work on war powers repeal created awkwardness with Senate GOP leaders, all of whom except National Republican Senatorial Chair Steve Daines (R-Mont.) ultimately opposed the legislation. (Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, still away from the chamber recuperating after a concussion, condemned the repeal vote on Tuesday.)
“In this job, we do what we believe is right and in the best interest of our constituents and the country,” said Young, who easily won a second term last fall.
Not every senior Senate Republican, however, took the approach of Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) — who observed of the repeal vote that “sometimes you just have to accept reality.” Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, spoke for GOP colleagues who fear the repeal of the war powers may only embolden U.S. enemies abroad.
“I’m also worried about how our adversaries will read this,” said Rubio, who opposed repeal. “Will this be used against us?”
Meanwhile, many of Kaine and Young’s colleagues might welcome them rejoining hands to go further still by revamping or even outright repealing the 2001 war powers authorization that McCaul is eyeing, which teed up the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. The duo said in this week’s interview that they’re open to such discussions, but acknowledge that needle will be a difficult one to thread.
“It’ll take some heavy lifting to get there,” Kaine said, suggesting that Wednesday’s vote might create “a little bit of momentum toward exploring how to make sure we have the right authorities.”
Young said he’d want to ensure any revisions to the 2001 war powers measure clarify there will be no gap in existing legal authorities to conduct necessary operations overseas, which he said many members view as a point of vulnerability.
For the moment, pro-repeal senators appear openly grateful to complete work on a substantive bill after the Democratic majority considered more than 10 GOP amendments. As Murphy put it, “people have been hungry for some meaty, bipartisan bills.”
“The country is war-weary and there’s an instinct, which is the correct one, that we can’t be at war forever,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). “And there is a beautiful left-right coalition that understands that.”
Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) wasn’t alone in openly praising the architects of that coalition.
“Give Tim Kaine and Sen. Young credit,” he said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Baghdad: Three Islamic State (IS) terrorists were killed in airstrikes in Iraq’s eastern province of Diyala, a security source said on Saturday.
Iraqi warplanes on Friday carried out airstrikes on IS hideouts in the northern part of Diyala, destroying the hideouts and killing the three terrorists, Major Alaa al-Saadi from Diyala police told Xinhua news agency.
The security situation in Iraq has improved since the defeat of the IS in 2017.
However, its remnants have since melted into urban centers, deserts, and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians despite repeated military operations against them.
“Voters are tired of wars that don’t have any justification or basis,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who has supported advancing the repeal of 1991 and 2002 authorizations for war in Iraq. “The Iraq thing, that was not justifiable … And that’s hard for my party to admit. Because they pushed it, they carried the water for it.”
Former President Donald Trump has aligned more with Hawley, casting the Iraq war as a mistake throughout his 2016 campaign. But he’s staying quiet on the war authorization debate as his 2024 campaign prepares for a looming indictment; his spokesperson didn’t return a request for comment on the issue. And while president, Trump did not support peeling back the Iraq War authorization, muddying his position significantly.
Meanwhile, plenty of Senate Republicans disagree — 19 of them voted to advance the repeal of military force authorizations this week, a group that spans the conference’s ideological spectrum. And on the other side of the aisle, every Senate Democrat voted to support repeal while the Biden White House has voiced support for nixing the war authorizations.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), for his part, appears on the opposite side of Hawley on the war powers debate. The potential 2024 contender voted against advancing the repeal of the Iraq authorizations, though his office didn’t respond to a request for comment on his ultimate stance.
Supporters of preserving the decades-old war powers argue repealing the authorizations without a replacement that’s tailored to modern-day threats would be a mistake, even after Saddam Hussein and other original drivers of the war have been vanquished.
“I understand Saddam is gone. The war is over. But we do have soldiers stationed in Iraq and close to the Iraqi government,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is seeking to amend the repeal of Iraq authorizations with provisions covering Iran. “And I want to make sure that if you repeal the 2002 [authorization for the use of military force], you replace it with something that’s relevant to today.”
One key ingredient missing from the Senate this week is Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — a strong advocate for keeping previous war authorizations in place who is off the Hill recovering from a concussion. His chief deputy, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), said on Wednesday that while “I personally believe they serve important legal and presidential functions when it comes to the war on terror, there is a diversity of opinion among Republicans.”
In other words, McConnell probably couldn’t have stopped the war powers repeal from passing, even if he’d tried.
And even as they argue in favor of keeping the authorizations, many Republicans concede the debate is unlikely to be a major factor in their presidential primary next year — a battle that’s likely to be dominated by social issues, inflation and crime.
“I don’t know whether it’s actually penetrated people’s consciousness,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an opponent of repealing the authorizations, said in an interview. “To me, this is more of a symbolic gesture than anything else.”
Yet it’s an incredibly important topic for the GOP, particularly after Trump campaigned and won on harsh criticism of the Iraq war only to later oppose winding down the authorization that launched it. Whether it’s Trump or someone else, the next Republican president will have to settle on a position that addresses whether repealing the military force authorizations might bind a future commander-in-chief’s hands.
“I don’t know that it will be a primary issue, but I do think it’s an important issue that we should be discussing,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a member of the party’s chamber leadership.
In some ways, it’s easier to keep the old authorizations in place given how difficult it is for a president to get congressional approval for war. In 2013, then-President Barack Obama sought a war authorization for Syria. It got through committee — then lawmakers abandoned it.
Since then, many members of Congress — like Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) — focused on repealing old authorizations far more than entertaining new ones. Kaine said his repeal plan got more GOP support than he would have expected, crediting first-term Sens. J.D. Vance of Ohio, Ted Budd of North Carolina and Eric Schmitt of Missouri for infusing the party with new energy on the idea.
But Kaine gave Trump very little credit for changing the debate, instead saying it’s President Joe Biden who respected Congress’ right to make decisions on war and peace.
“Trump had different points of view on Iraq at different times. And President Trump was always against repeals of AUMF. We tried them with Trump — even the ‘02 — and he was rock solid against it,” Kaine recalled.
Trump’s own band of supporters in Congress are split. Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) and Graham support keeping the old authorizations in place, while Schmitt and Vance want to scrap them. In an interview, Schmitt described himself as an example of where conservatives are landing these days on matters of war.
With full attendance, repealing the last congressional vestiges of the Iraq war might get 70 Senate votes. Lawmakers continue to haggle over which amendments to the bill will be considered, with final passage expected next week.
Some in the chamber, like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), are pressing to go further by seeking to modify or even repeal the broad 2001 AUMF that Congress passed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — which remains in effect. But Kaine conceded last week that there is insufficient support to examine that authorization right now.
Clearing the Senate would, of course, be just the first step toward the war powers repeal becoming law. Speaker Kevin McCarthy would then have to find a way forward on a rare issue that unites Democrats and archconservatives in his narrowly-split chamber.
But some Republican supporters are optimistic that after years of attempts, this is the moment for repeal.
“There’s going to be more interest than you’d see in the past,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), who is retiring at the end of his term as he runs for governor. “I think it’s a smart move to do what we’re doing.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Ankara: Turkey and Iraq will build a land and railroad transportation corridor stretching from the Iraqi province of Basra to the Turkish border, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
“We have tasked our minister friends, who will carry out the works for materialising the Development Road Project, extending from Basra to Turkey,” Erdogan said at a joint press conference with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani on Tuesday.
“I believe that we will transform the Development Road Project into the new Silk Road of our region,” the Turkish President added.
Moreover, Turkey will increase the amount of water released from the Tigris river to help Iraq tackle its water shortage, he said.
Baghdad has been urging Ankara to secure Iraqi water share from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers which originate from Turkey, as Iraq often suffers from drought, Xinhua news agency reported.
In their talks, the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to fighting against all forms of terrorism, Erdogan said.
“Our expectation from our Iraqi brothers is that they shall designate the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as a terrorist organisation and clear their lands of this bloodshedder terrorist organisation,” Erdogan added.
Al-Sudani, for his part, underlined that his government will not allow Iraqi lands to become a “point to launch attacks” against its neighbour.
“Security of Turkey and security of Iraq are inseparable,” he said.
The security officials of the two countries exchanged information on the issue during talks in the capital Ankara, al-Sudani added.
The PKK, listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the EU, has been rebelling against the Turkish government for more than three decades. It has been using Iraq’s Qandil Mountains as its main base for years.
Baghdad: Twenty years after the American invasion of Iraq, the Arab country is still suffering the consequences of the invasion, which it claimed came under the pretext of establishing a democratic system that could be generalized to all countries in the region and rid the country of the rule of the late President Saddam Hussein (1979-2003).
On March 20, 2003, an international coalition led by the United States (US) launched a military operation to overthrow Saddam’s regime, and despite its overthrow on April 9, 2003, the American presence continued for two decades, with multiple declarations of withdrawal and then return.
On May 1, 2003, President Bush declared “mission accomplished” aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and ended major combat operations in Iraq.
Before the end of 2003, Saddam was caught by US forces hiding in a ditch near his childhood home in Tikrit. He was later tried by an Iraqi court and executed for his role in the mass killings and crimes against humanity.
The date chosen for his execution, December 30, 2006, which happened to be the first day of Eid al-Adha, has been controversial ever since.
Every year on March 20, millions of Iraqis, along with millions of others around the world, remember the invasion of Iraq, the most significant event that shook the Gulf region, the Middle East, and the world at large in the first decade of the 21st century.
Human Rights Watch in a report published on Sunday, considered that “the Iraqi people paid the highest price for the invasion.” The organization urged “the parties to the conflict to compensate the victims and hold the perpetrators accountable,” but “impunity still exists.”
According to the Iraq Body Count, from 2003 to 2011, the date of the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians were killed and the United States lost nearly 4,500 of its personnel in Iraq.
Iraq is still suffering from the consequences of the decision of the Civil Coalition Authority, led by US Ambassador Paul Bremer, to form the nucleus of the Ministries of Defense and Interior from militia elements, whether those founded in Iran or those formed immediately after the invasion.
After 20 years, the specter of service shortages and corruption looms, leading Iraqis to look pessimistically towards the future, while the threat of climate change, water scarcity, and desertification looms large on the horizon.
From bad to worse
Although Iraq is an oil-rich country, a third of its 42 million people still live in poverty, with unemployment high among the youth.
Iraqis believe that conditions in Iraq in general have not improved enough, whether at the level of the economy, infrastructure, services, community unity, or state sovereignty.
An Iraqi academic told the Anadolu News Agency that after the fall of Saddam, Iraqis hoped that changing his authoritarian, dictatorial regime would build a new state for them, based on democracy and the fair distribution of wealth.
He added, “After two decades, the change produced a lame political process, tainted by financial and administrative corruption, sectarian quotas, and the sharing of resources between the influential powers.”
This is while the vast majority in Iraq live under the burden of deteriorating services, the prevalence of uncontrolled weapons, corruption gangs, and organized crime gangs, according to the Iraqi academic.
The basic rights that have been partially achieved in Iraq, such as freedom of opinion and expression, are among the fundamental rights established by the United Nations and international treaties, which are included in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In October 2019, a large public demonstration called the “October Revolution” took place in the capital Baghdad and other central and southern Iraqi provinces. Every year the protesters continue to demand their rights.
Protesters called for an end to corruption, improved living conditions and public services, job opportunities, a quota system between Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds, and an end to political power’s dependence on foreign powers, particularly Iran and the US.
