The New Nation - Internet Edition

Iraq war costs US $12b per month: Studies : Female suicide bomber kills four in Diyala

AFP, Baquba

A female suicide bomber blew herself up outside the house of an Iraqi tribal sheikh, killing him and three others on Monday in the restive province of Diyala, an army officer told AFP.

The bomber arrived early Monday at Sheikh Ghadban al-Karkhi's house in the town of Kanan, north of Baquba, the provincial capital, Brigadier General Rageb Al-Omeri said.

"The bomber blew herself up as the sheikh came out of the house to meet her. The sheikh, his daughter and two of his bodyguards were killed in the attack," Omeri said.

Diyala, one of the most volatile regions of Iraq, has seen a number of suicide attacks by female bombers in the past several months.

Another report adds: The flow of blood may be ebbing, but the flood of money into the Iraq war is steadily rising, new analyses show. In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the "burn" rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda J. Bilmes report in a new book.

Beyond 2008, working with "best-case" and "realistic-moderate" scenarios, they project the Iraq and Afghan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupations of those countries, will cost the U.S. budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion - or more - by 2017.

Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could alone add $816 billion to that bottom line, they say.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has done its own projections and comes in lower, forecasting a cumulative cost by 2017 of $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion for the two wars, with Iraq generally accounting for three-quarters of the costs.

Variations in such estimates stem from the sliding scales of assumptions, scenarios and budget items that are counted. But whatever the estimate, the cost will be huge, the auditors of the Government Accountability Office say.

In a Jan. 30 report to Congress, the GAO observed that the U.S. will be committing "significant" future resources to the wars, "requiring decision makers to consider difficult trade-offs as the nation faces an increasing long-range fiscal challenge."

These numbers don't include the war's cost to the rest of the world. In Iraq itself, the 2003 U.S.-led invasion - with its devastating air bombardments - and the looting and arson that followed, severely damaged electricity and other utilities, the oil industry, countless factories, hospitals, schools and other underpinnings of an economy.

No one has tried to calculate the economic damage done to Iraq, said spokesman Niels Buenemann of the International Monetary Fund, which closely tracks national economies. But millions of Iraqis have been left without jobs, and hundreds of thousands of professionals, managers and other middle-class citizens have fled the country.

In their book, "The Three Trillion Dollar War," Stiglitz, of Columbia University, and Bilmes, of Harvard, report the two wars will have cost the U.S. budget $845 billion in 2007 dollars by next Sept. 30, end of fiscal year 2008, assuming Congress fully funds Bush administration requests. That counts not just military operations, but embassy costs, reconstruction and other war-related expenses.

That total far surpasses the $670 billion in 2007 dollars the Congressional Research Service says was the U.S. price tag for the 12-year Vietnam War.

Although American military and Iraqi civilian casualties have declined in recent months, the rate of spending has shot up. A fully funded 2008 war budget will be 155 percent higher than 2004's, the CBO reports.

The reasons are numerous: the "surge" of additional U.S. units into Iraq; rising fuel costs; fattened bonuses to attract re-enlistments; and particularly the need to "reset," that is, repair or replace worn-out, destroyed or damaged military equipment. Almost $17 billion is appropriated this year for advanced armored vehicles to protect troops against roadside bombs.

President not quitting: Musharraf’s ally

AP, Islamabad

A senior ally of Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad says the Pakistani president is not about to quit.

He said that's the case even though Musharraf's opponents are set to form a new government and reinstate judges who questioned his continued rule.

Tariq Azim, a former minister, predicted the incoming government will gradually ease its rhetoric and form a working relationship with Musharraf.

According to Azim, the anti-Musharraf parties will have to accept that the U.S.-backed leader "is not going anywhere," despite their calls for him to step down.

AFP report adds: President Pervez Musharraf huddled with key aides on Monday after Pakistan's main opposition parties agreed to form a coalition and reinstate the judges he sacked last year, officials said.

Asif Ali Zardari, widower of assassinated ex-premier Benazir Bhutto, and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif signed a coalition pact on Sunday following last month's general elections in which they trounced Musharraf's allies.

In a major blow to Musharraf, a key US ally in the "war on terror", they also agreed to bring back, within the first 30 days of the new parliament, the judges ousted by the president during emergency rule last November.

The dismissed judges, including chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Musharraf's arch-foe, could take up legal challenges to Musharraf's re-election as president in October if they are restored.

Government officials said Musharraf was "meeting legal aides" at his office in the garrison city of Rawalpindi but did not give details on what was discussed.

Private television channels said it was a "strategy meeting" including legal and constitutional advisers.

Musharraf has come under pressure from Sharif and supporters of the sacked judges to step down following the drubbing of his political backers in the February 18 parliamentary polls.

Musharraf seized power in a military coup in 1999 but his grip on power weakened last year when he stepped down as army chief under intense domestic and international pressure.

His political troubles began almost exactly a year ago when he first tried to oust chief justice Chaudhry, citing alleged misconduct by the judge.

Spanish Socialists win short of overall majority

Reuters, Madrid

Spain's governing Socialist Party won Sunday's election but fell short of the absolute majority that might have helped them act more quickly to cushion an economic slowdown.

"I will govern for all people, thinking first of those who have nothing," Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told thousands of supporters cheering and waving red flags outside the Socialist headquarters.

With 96 percent of votes counted, the Socialists were projected to win 169 seats in the 350-seat lower house, up five from the previous legislature.

The conservative Popular Party (PP) won 153 seats, also up five from 2004, when voters turned against them after they rushed to blame the Basque separatists of ETA for election-eve train bombings that turned out to be the work of Islamists.

Stop threats then we'll talk, Iran tells West

AFP, Tehran

Iran on Sunday told the West it would only hold talks over its disputed nuclear programme if world powers stopped threatening further punitive measures against Tehran.

"The time of using the policy of the carrot and the stick has ended," Javad Vaeedi, a top national security official, said on the sidelines of a security conference in Tehran.

"If they (the West) want to have serious negotiations, in fair conditions and taking into account the interests of the two parties, they must first stop threatening."

His comments came a week after the UN Security Council tightened sanctions against Tehran over its refusal to heed the world body's calls to freeze uranium enrichment, a potential weapons-making process.

Following the sanctions resolution, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected any new talks with the European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana -- who has represented world powers in past discussions on the nuclear crisis.

Ahmadinejad said Tehran would in future negotiate only with the UN atomic agency and would not sit down with anyone from outside the body, such as Solana, who has held two years of nuclear talks with Iran.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, speaking at a conference in Tehran, meanwhile refused to directly answer a question about whether Iran would continue talking to Solana.

"We are still supporters of negotiations that have a precise objective, a defined programme and are assured of providing us with results," he said.

"We are ready to discuss any proposition in this framework, including the important questions of the world, different problems, notably that of occupation and the desire of certain countries to dominate others".

The Security Council has repeatedly called on Iran to freeze uranium enrichment, which the West fears could be used to make nuclear weapons, but which Iran insists is only needed to make atomic fuel for power stations.

Embattled Malaysian PM sworn in for second term

AFP, Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia's Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was sworn in for a second term Monday, defying calls to quit after presiding over the ruling coalition's worst ever election performance. Dressed in a traditional costume and matching "songkok" hat, Abdullah took an oath before Malaysia's King Mizan Zainal Abidin in a solemn ceremony at the royal palace in Kuala Lumpur. Also attending were his heir apparent, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak, and other senior ministers who then went into a meeting of the dominant United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) which leads the Barisan Nasional coalition. Abdullah's coalition was mauled in Saturday's election, losing its crucial two-thirds majority in parliament for the first time since 1969 and conceding four states to the resurgent opposition, which now controls five in all. Voters punished the government for rising inflation and its mishandling of racial tensions, leading to a backlash from Malaysia's minority ethnic Chinese and Indians as well as Muslim Malays who form its powerbase. But Abdullah told supporters he would not quit. "Why should I step down?" he told a cheering crowd outside his home late Sunday. "Our party has won. I do not fear anyone except Allah. I will stay on, I will not give up. "We have to continue our struggle, our agenda is far from over. We want our country to be progressive and successful and for you, the people, to be happy," he added.

Sarkozy's party suffers setbacks in French local polls

AFP, Paris

President Nicolas Sarkozy's camp suffered setbacks in several major cities in round one of French local elections Sunday, dealing a new blow to the right-winger as he battles a collapse in popularity. Exit polls showed the opposition Socialists well-placed to score big gains over Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), in next Sunday's decisive second round of a vote cast as a referendum on his presidency. The Socialists retained a firm grip on the capital Paris and cemented their hold on France's third city Lyon -- clinching victory in round one -- as well as on the northern city of Lille. Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe, a rising star of the left and one of France's most popular politicians, received a resounding thumbs-up for his pro-environment urban policies, with about 41.6 percent of first round votes, against 27.9 for his right-wing rival Francoise de Panafieu. Delanoe's Green party allies won 6.7 percent of the vote. Nationwide, left-wing parties took some 47.5 percent of the vote, well ahead of the UMP and its allies on 40 percent, according to a CSA survey. Turnout was high, estimated at close to 70 percent. Socialist leader Francois Hollande said voters had sent "a warning to the president of the republic and the government on the policies conducted over the past nine months."