Jim Lobe

Despite being asked by President George W. Bush to stay in his post, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld appears to be in growing political trouble, and not just because of his cavalier reply last week to a question posed by a member of the Tennessee National Guard in Kuwait about the lack of armored vehicles to … Continue reading “Rummy Back on the Rocks?”

The United States is poised to punish some of its closest friends overseas for supporting the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a growing number of its soldiers are being sanctioned for abusing prisoners in the "war on terrorism," said U.S. human rights groups Wednesday. A measure inserted into the current omnibus appropriations bill in Congress … Continue reading “US Attacks Global Court as GIs Sanctioned”

While opinions are divided over whether the revamp of the U.S. intelligence community laid out in the compromise bill just approved by Congress will improve the performance of the relevant agencies, there is little doubt that the failure of President George W. Bush to push the bill through would have badly damaged his political credibility. … Continue reading “Bush Gets Weak Intel Reform – Barely”

The Pentagon’s announcement this week that it is adding 12,000 more troops to the approximately 138,000 soldiers it already has in Iraq has put an abrupt end to the fleeting sense of triumph that followed November’s "victory" by U.S. Marines who regained control of Fallujah, the main Sunni rebel stronghold. While the administration sought to … Continue reading “More Troops Mean More Trouble”

Neither its nearly quarter-century "war against drugs" nor the almost $3 billion Washington has spent since 2000 on Plan Colombia has resulted in higher prices on U.S. streets for cocaine or heroin, says a major report by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) released Tuesday. The 400-page report [.pdf], which focuses mainly on the … Continue reading “25-Year ‘War on Drugs’ Fails on the Streets”

U.S. officials Tuesday insisted that detainees held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been treated "humanely," despite a Red Cross report that concluded interrogators were using psychological and physical techniques that were "tantamount to torture." "We strongly disagree with any characterization that suggests the way detainees are being treated is inconsistent … Continue reading “US Downplays Report on Guantanamo Prisoner Abuse”

Human rights and humanitarian groups are calling for a full-scale investigation regarding the Nov. 3 death in a South Florida detention facility of an 81-year-old Haitian pastor four days after he had flown to the United States and asked for political asylum. Church World Service (CWS), the relief arm of 36 Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican … Continue reading “Clamor for Investigation Into Death of Elderly Haitian in US Custody”

The Bush administration is facing an early test of its interest in easing tensions with traditional U.S. allies in the 2005 foreign-aid bill, which bans some $2.5 billion in economic assistance for friendly governments that have not ratified a bilateral immunity agreement (BIA) with Washington to shield U.S. nationals from the jurisdiction of the International … Continue reading “US Pushes War-Crimes Immunity in Foreign-Aid Bill”

Al-Qaeda and radical Islamists are winning the propaganda war against the United States, says a high-level Pentagon panel, which concluded that Bush administration policies in the Middle East, its fundamental failure to understand the Muslim world, and a lack of imagination in using new communications technologies are responsible. In a report [.pdf] concluded in September … Continue reading “Pentagon Panel: US Invasions Unite Extremists”

A cost-conscious U.S. Congress has denied funding to Bush administration projects to develop new nuclear weapons designed to target rogue states or terrorists developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Critics who said the new "bunker buster" weapons risked blurring the lines between conventional and unconventional warfare hailed the move, which was led by a member … Continue reading “Congress Rejects New Nukes”