Nuclear hopes drive caution on Iran

By Guy Dinmore Published: July 9 2009

Group of Eight leaders were divided last night on whether to take a tough approach on Iran’s crackdown on opposition protesters, weighing the risk of jeopardising possible talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme.

At issue was whether the leaders would make a united condemnation of Iran. But diplomats said the heads of government were unlikely to move further than a statement issued by their foreign ministers in mid-June, which deplored the violence in Iran and expressed “solidarity” with peaceful demonstrators contesting the results of the presidential elections.

Finmeccanica: Oil powers fuel confidence of Italian conglomerate

By Guy Dinmore

Published: July 14 2008

Soaring commodity prices and falling incomes have hit many Italian companies but for Finmeccanica – the defence-aeronautics-rail-power-plants conglomerate – oil-rich states offer expanding markets while the US remains a constant in big weapons spending.

Iran has to take into account the Arab interest in Iraq (video)

Iran has to take into account the Arab interest in Iraq, says secretary-general of the Arab League

Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, tells Gu Dinmore the only aim for all players in Iraq now should be “to clear up the mess” for the sake of the country

Click on the picture or here to watch the video

Iraq sliding into civil war, report warns

By Guy Dinmore in Washington

Published: January 29 2007

Iraq is rapidly sliding into an all-out civil war that is likely to spill over into neighbouring countries, resulting in mass deaths and refugee flows, serious disruption of Gulf oil supplies and a drastic decline in US influence in the region.

This grim forecast is set out in Things Fall Apart, a 130-page report released today by the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy, which also recommends how the US might contain the disastrous consequences of “spillover”.

Iraq casts doubt over Darfur options

By Guy Dinmore in Washington and Daniel Dombey in Brussels
December 13 2006 03:43

The crisis in Iraq has left US and British officials wary of waging a further unilateral action in a hostile Muslim country. “You must go to the dance with a partner,” says one Washington official.

But the worsening violence in Sudan’s Darfur region has led the allies to look at various last-ditch military options, including a US naval blockade of Sudan’s Red Sea coast, targeted air strikes, or imposition of a no-fly zone over Darfur. That last option has received Tony Blair’s backing, on the condition that it has UN approval.

U.S. Admits: Phosphorus may have killed civilians in Iraq

by Guy Dinmore in Washington

The US military on Wednesday acknowledged it might have killed civilians in the Iraqi city of Falluja with white phosphorus munitions during the battle against insurgents a year ago.  The Pentagon insisted civilians had not been targeted, however, and that it had avoided unnecessary casualties by evacuating the city before the offensive. 

U.S. Admits: Phosphorus may have killed civilians in Iraq

By Guy Dinmore in Washington

The US military on Wednesday acknowledged it might have killed civilians in the Iraqi city of Falluja with white phosphorus munitions during the battle against insurgents a year ago. The Pentagon insisted civilians had not been targeted, however, and that it had avoided unnecessary casualties by evacuating the city before the offensive.

White phosphorus, which is fired by artillery or mortars, can be used as an incendiary device or to create a smokescreen.

While it is not classified as a chemical weapon, the chemical is covered by Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons, which prohibits the use of incendiary weapons against military forces located within concentrations of civilians – as was the case with the insurgents in Falluja. The US is party to the convention but, unlike a number of its allies, including the UK, it has not signed Protocol III.

Powell gives bleak assessment of Iraq security problems

by Guy Dinmore in Washington

Published: January 13 2005

Colin Powell, outgoing secretary of state, says he would like to see US troops leave Iraq “as quickly as possible” but that the strength of the insurgency does not allow the Bush administration to set a timeframe for a withdrawal this year.

Mr Powell told National Public Radio yesterday the US leadership had been “in almost non-stop meetings for the last couple of days” reviewing the security problem while coalition forces were adjusting their “tactics and strategy and deployments”.

“It’s not possible right now to say that by the end of 2005, we’ll be down to such and such a number. It really is dependent upon the situation,” he said, referring to the training of the new Iraqi army and police.

Invasion of Iraq ‘has hit help for Darfur’

Tuesday September 21, 2004

By Guy Dinmore and Mark Turner
Arguments at the United Nations in favour of a robust international response to halt the violence in Sudan’s Darfur region have been undermined by the US invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, according to Gareth Evans, a key member of a high-level UN reform commission.

The case of Iraq had made it more difficult for the UN to establish the principles for outside intervention on humanitarian grounds, Mr Evans told a symposium organised by Washington’s Woodrow Wilson Center yesterday.

Bush’s Pipe Dreams for Reconstructing Iraq

by Guy Dinmore
Published on Friday, January 16, 2004 by the Financial Times

Nine months after the fall of Baghdad, as insurgents target oil installations and Iraqis queue for fuel, the Bush administration has abandoned its pre-war assertions that Iraq’s natural resources would largely fund reconstruction. While opinion polls still show a majority of Americans support the war, most do not think they should be paying so much for Iraq’s rebuilding. Before the war, US officials engaged in a delicate balancing act. They sought to counter the pervasive belief in the Middle East and Europe that the war was all about oil, while vaguely telling the US taxpayer not to worry about the cost.

Behind the scenes, however, senior figures in the administration – including Donald Rumsfeld, defense secretary, Douglas Feith, in charge of Pentagon postwar planning, Vice-President Richard Cheney, as well as the CIA’s George Tenet – were being advised by former officials, experts and corporate bosses that the badly dilapidated Iraqi oil industry in no way represented a financial lifeline.