Summary: U.S. The House voted Thursday to impose mandatory sanctions on entities that contribute to Iran's ability to acquire chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Critics questioned the need for unilateral action when the US was pushing for a multinational approach to Iran's alleged nuclear program. ''It is, if you will, a cruise missile aimed at a difficult diplomatic effort just as they are reaching their most sensitive point,'' said Rep. Earl Blumenauer. It also approves assistance for human rights, pro-democracy and independent organizations and says the US should not enter into agreements with governments that are assisting Iran's nuclear program. Some warned language in the bill supporting democratic change in Iran would only antagonize people in Iran who might see parallels to U.S. regime change objectives in neighboring Iraq. It's time, said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, ''to give assurance to Iran that we are not going to attack them.''
The Senate approved a measure on Thursday on the interrogations and trials of terrorism suspects. The vote was 65 to 34. The vote showed Democrats believe Bush's power to wield national security as a political issue is seriously diminished, the New York Times reports.
The banking consortium Swift breached European privacy rules when it aided a US antiterrorism program by providing confidential information about money transfers, Belgium's privacy protection commission concluded Thursday.
Iran The EU's foreign policy chief said Thursday that important progress had been made in talks over resolving Iran's nuclear ambitions and more talks would be held next week.
Iraq The White House ignored an urgent warning in September 2003 from a top Iraq adviser that thousands of additional American troops were desperately needed to quell the insurgency, according to a new book by Bob Woodward. Woodward says the Bush administration is concealing the level of violence against U.S. troops in Iraq and the situation there is growing worse despite White House claims of progress.
While more than 130 have been killed in Iraq since the US invasion, journalists in Iraq are now also threatened by the law, the New York Times reports. Roughly a dozen Iraqi journalists have been charged with offending public officials in the past year. Three journalists are being tried for articles that accused officials of corruption.
In a sweeping new assessment of reconstruction failures in Iraq, a federal inspector told Congress Thursday that 13 of 14 major projects built by the American contractor Parsons that were examined by his agency were substandard.
About three-quarters of Iraqis believe American forces are provoking more conflict than they are preventing and should be withdrawn within a year, according to new poll. The poll found a majority support attacks against American-led forces.
Two-thirds of Americans surveyed consider Iraq to be in a civil war, a CNN poll said Thursday.
Pakistan General Musharraf says he is doing his best to stop the infiltration of Taliban fighters from Pakistan to Afghanistan. But his best has been strikingly ineffective, considering the powers he wields as a military dictator, says the New York Times in an editorial.
President Musharraf found himself facing accusations that his country's intelligence service had indirect ties to Al Qaeda and that his government committed widespread human rights abuses as an ally of the US in its effort to curb terrorism, the New York Times reports.
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-------- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org
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