Iraqi Kurds go to polls, still at odds with Baghdad

By Tim Cocks and Shamal Aqrawi

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi Kurds will vote on Saturday in elections expected to keep President Masoud Barzani in power in Kurdistan but unlikely to erase voter concern about corruption or end a bitter feud with Baghdad over land and oil.

Polls open at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) in the largely autonomous northern region, and close at 6 p.m. (1500 GMT), after which ballots will be flown to Baghdad for tallying. The official count is expected to take 2-3 days if no one challenges it.

The people of the relatively peaceful enclave will elect a leader directly this time, unlike the last polls in 2005, when Kurds voted only for members of parliament, who then elected the president. Former guerrilla leader Barzani looks certain to crush his five competitors.

Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Democratic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the region's most powerful parties, will run for seats on a joint list against 23 alliances of myriad smaller parties.

As the poll drew near, Barzani and other Kurdish leaders churned out fiery rhetoric about claims to territories they dispute with Baghdad's Arab-led government.

Diplomats see the row over oil-producing Kirkuk and surrounding areas as the greatest threat to Iraq's long-term stability as sectarian violence fades, but many Kurds support Barzani's hardline approach against Baghdad, from where Saddam Hussein launched deadly attacks against Kurds in the 1980s.

"Kirkuk is the most important thing to Kurds," said Yunis Mohammed Qader, 39, outside the sweltering oven of his pizza takeaway. "Only Barzani and the KDP-PUK can bring it back."

The Kurd-Arab row has held up critical energy legislation in the national parliament and casts a pall over the government's efforts to secure foreign investment in the oil sector.

Although Kurds have long dreamed of their own state and such rallying cries used to define Kurdish politics, many Kurds now worry more about problems closer to home, like graft.

ALL CHANGE?

Critics of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) point to widespread official corruption, abuses by security forces, media intimidation and an atmosphere they say stifles dissent.

"They feed on our money. They point to buildings and say it's development, but do you think most Kurds can go in that hotel?," bar worker Haider Abdul said of Kurdish leaders, pointing at a fancy Arbil hotel in the distance.

An alliance hoping to capitalize on disenchantment is the "Change" list, run by independent candidate Noshwan Mustafa.

While the polls are not expected to topple the region's two-party hegemony, "Change" officials hope for up to a third of the 111 seats in parliament, despite what they say is the ruling alliance's use of public funds for party campaigning.

"Our priority is to clean up the system and give it back to the people," said Safin Malaqara, head of the Change campaign in Arbil. "The ruling parties haven't put any oversight in place on the region's budget. God knows where all that money goes."

Sensitive to these criticisms, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, who heads the campaign of the joint KDP-PUK list, has made transparency and accountability a key issue.

Officials from KDP-PUK alliance point out that Kurds are for the most part proud of their relatively prosperous enclave, which has flourished while much of Iraq descended into bloody chaos and insurgency after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

"Kurdistan was a desert, we had nothing. Now look," said Abdilselam Berwari, head of the KDP Political Studies center. "I won't say we're angels ... but the two parties have brought successes to Kurdistan. The people know that."

Barzani's nephew, Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, will be replaced by a PUK nominee as part of a power-sharing deal between the two parties, which waged civil war in the 1990s.

Iraq investigates alleged US-insurgent talks

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD – Iraq said Friday it was investigating reports that U.S. delegates and Sunni insurgents held reconciliation talks in Turkey this year, alleging the meetings violated Iraqi sovereignty and showed tolerance for terrorists.

In Washington, the State Department acknowledged that unspecified meetings took place, but said Iraq knew about them at the time. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she had assured visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that the Iraqi government would be informed of any such meetings.

"We intend to make sure the Iraqi government is fully informed of any such activities, whether they are sponsored by another party or come from any other source," Clinton told a joint news conference with al-Maliki after they met at the State Department. "We want to be sure that we have a close working relationship and we have a very clear line of communication."

The prime minister said he was satisfied with the assurance.

"I have been given a commitment that the administration will not negotiate or reach any agreements with those who killed American soldiers, Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi people," he said.

Still, the matter raised sensitive questions about Iraqis' newfound authority as the United States hands over responsibility to Iraqi forces, which have taken charge of security in cities since June 30. The revelations came as al-Maliki ended a visit to the United States after meeting President Barack Obama on Wednesday.

Although the meetings in Turkey are said to have occurred months ago, news reports about an agreement supposedly signed by the American and insurgent sides have angered Iraqis who are struggling to assert their independence after years of conflict.

Clinton denied any agreement had been reached. "We have not authorized anything to be signed," she said.

A man identified as the secretary-general of the Political Council of the Iraqi Resistance told Al-Jazeera TV last week that his group held talks with U.S. officials in March and in May. He said the two sides signed a "protocol to organize the negotiation process and a document that included U.S. recognition of the Iraqi resistance."

The man, Ali al-Jubouri, said the group's other demands included a formal U.S. apology for the 2003 invasion and the release of all Iraqi prisoners, but that the talks had since broken down.

U.S. diplomatic and military officials have negotiated with Sunni insurgents in the past, and scored a notable success by persuading Sunni tribal leaders, whose followers included anti-American fighters, to turn against al-Qaida in Iraq in what was considered a key factor in reducing violence in 2007.

Despite the drop in insurgent attacks and sectarian bloodshed, political reconciliation among Iraq's factions remains difficult. Iraq's Shiite-led government, whose supporters suffered under the Sunni-dominated rule of Saddam Hussein, is deeply skeptical of the possibility of an accord with Sunni insurgents, some of whom might have links to Saddam's old Baath party.

"Nobody can make decisions on behalf of Iraq, which has a legitimate government," said Abbas al-Bayati, a member of the security and defense committee in the Iraqi parliament. "We want to know if these armed groups are included in the national reconciliation project and whether their hands have been stained in Iraqi blood."

In an interview with the U.S.-funded Al-Hurra network, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said he received confirmation of a meeting involving U.S., insurgent and Turkish representatives in Istanbul in March.

Zebari said it was "shocking" and "amazing" that U.S. and Turkish officials met "the supporters of the former regime, groups that adopt violence and terrorism as a way to change the situation, and the networks that believe in killing, bombing and targeting innocents."

He said of the meetings: "They should not take place because they do not serve stability."

Earlier Friday, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said U.S. officials have met a wide range of Iraqi contacts to promote reconciliation and foster national unity.

"The meetings in question occurred months ago and with the knowledge of officials within the Iraqi government," Wood said. "Having spent the past six years helping Iraq build a representative and effective democratic government, the last thing we would do is take any action intended to undercut it."

On Thursday, the Iraqi Cabinet asked the U.S. and Turkish embassies for clarification of what it described as interference in Iraq's internal affairs. It said it had learned about a protocol for negotiations between representatives of the United States and the Political Council of the Iraqi Resistance, and that a Turkish government representative was a signatory to the agreement.

Al-Bayati, the lawmaker, said Iraqi officials had not seen the purported protocol but that the United States and Turkey must explain.

A Turkish government official confirmed that Iraqi Sunni groups had met in Istanbul, but he did not provide further details. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

U.S. officials worked for years to encourage dialogue with Iraqi groups — including major Sunni insurgent groups, except al-Qaida in Iraq.

One set of contacts began in late 2005 after then-U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad confronted the Shiite leadership over alleged torture of Sunni prisoners. Khalilzad met with Sunni sheiks in Anbar province and persuaded some of them to cooperate with the government.

Khalilzad said in April 2006 that U.S. officials had met with people linked to the Sunni insurgency and that those contacts were responsible for a brief but sharp drop in U.S. deaths.

US transfers $200 million in aid to Palestinians

By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer

RAMALLAH, West Bank – The United States has transferred $200 million to the Palestinian government to help ease a growing budget deficit, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has been struggling in recent months to keep his government afloat, borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars from commercial banks just to cover the public payroll.

The reasons for the shortfall include Israel's restrictions on the Palestinian economy, the border blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and the failure of some donor countries to make good on their aid pledges, Fayyad said Friday, in a video conference with Clinton.

With Friday's aid transfer, donor countries have given the Palestinian government $606 million in budget support this year, covering only about one-third of the estimated deficit of $1.45 billion for 2009, Fayyad said.

"We have received aid, but not enough to deal with our needs, and we faced sharp economic difficulties throughout the last months," Fayyad told reporters.

Since 2007, donor countries have pledged more than $10 billion to the Palestinians, to help shore up the Western-backed government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who lost Gaza in a violent Hamas takeover two years ago. However, the aid has had little impact, largely because Israeli restrictions on Palestinian trade and movement have prevented a recovery of the Palestinian economy.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration pledged $900 million in aid to the Palestinians, and the $200 million in budget support announced Friday are part of that sum. Clinton told Fayyad that the transfer of U.S. aid directly to his budget was an expression of confidence in his fiscal reforms.

"The ability of the United States to provide support directly to the Palestinian Authority is an indication of the bipartisan support for the effort to secure the peace in the Middle East, as well as for the fundamental reforms that the Palestinian Authority has undertaken," she said. "Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle worked closely with us to make this assistance possible."

Clinton was vague about prospects for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, saying only that she believes the Obama administration is making progress in creating the "right environment" for such negotiations in the near future.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is willing to resume negotiations, but not on the terms to which his predecessor had agreed. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in turn, says he will not get back to negotiations unless Israel first halts settlement construction. The U.S. has also been pushing Israel for a settlement freeze, in line with its obligations under a U.S.-backed peace plan.

However, Israel has balked at halting construction. Earlier this week, Netanyahu publicly dismissed a U.S. request that Israel halt a housing project for Jews in east Jerusalem, the part of the city claimed by the Palestinians as a capital.

Clinton on Friday described the discussions with Israeli officials as "very forthright," but also as "conversations between friends."

Senior administration officials are heading to the region in coming days, including Mideast envoy George Mitchell, National Security Adviser Jim Jones and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Mitchell has met repeatedly with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to discuss settlement construction.

Plane hits wall at Iranian airport, killing 17

By Zahra Hosseinian

TEHRAN (Reuters) – At least 17 people were killed and 23 injured when a passenger aircraft veered off the runway and hit a wall while landing at Mashhad airport in northeastern Iran on Friday, media reports said.

The plane, an Ilyushin Il-62 leased by Iran's Aria Tour from Kazakhstan, left the runway and crashed into a boundary wall, state television said.

There were 153 people on board the aircraft, which had flown to Mashhad from Tehran, it said.

Television showed images of the plane with its nose section badly damaged and said the accident was due to a malfunction in the front landing wheels. It said the pilot was among the dead.

Ali Ilkhani, director of Iran's civil aviation, told state television the plane appeared to have tried to land while flying too fast. He said 13 of the dead were crew members, nine of them from Kazakhstan.

Earlier reports said the aircraft had caught fire.

Mohammad-Reza Moti, a provincial emergency aid official, told the state news agency IRNA the injured were being treated in hospitals in Mashhad, an important pilgrimage site for Shi'ite Muslims. The majority of Iranians are Shi'ites.

"Some of the injured are in bad condition," he said.

The crash occurred around 6:20 p.m. (1350 GMT).

"We felt the plane hit uneven ground right after landing ... after the emergency exit was opened, no one dared to jump because it was too high, so we got out over the wing," one of the passengers told state television.

On July 15, a Russian-built Tupolev operated by Iran's Caspian Airlines flying to Armenia crashed in northwestern Iran, killing all 168 people aboard.

U.S. sanctions bar the sale of Boeing aircraft to Iran and hinder it from buying other aircraft or spare parts from the West. Many Western aircraft rely on U.S.-made engines and parts.

Iran president caves in, dismisses his top deputy

TEHRAN, Iran – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad caved into pressure from hardline clerics and the country's supreme leader Friday and allowed the resignation of his top deputy after a week-long standoff.

For days, the president had resisted pressure from hard-liners, including a direct order from the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to dismiss his choice for the key post of first vice president, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, who last year angered conservatives when he made friendly comments toward Israel.

The final blow, however, appeared to be the public reading on state television of the order issued earlier by Khamenei to dismiss Mashai because he is "contrary to the interest of you and the government."

The issue created a rare rift between Ahmadinejad and the hard-liners that form the bedrock of his support and comes at a particular sensitive time as he is battling opposition reformists who accuse him of winning the June 12 presidential elections through fraud.

"After the announcement of the exalted supreme leader's order, Mashai doesn't consider himself first vice president," IRNA quoted presidential aide Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi as saying late Friday.

The resignation capped a day of renewed pressure that featured conservative student street demonstrations and Friday sermons railing against Mashai's appointment.

Despite all the pressure, Ahmadinejad had pleaded for more time to explain his reasons for choosing a man he had described as a "pious, caring, honest and creative caretaker for Iran." Mashai's son is also married to the president's daughter.

The president even continued to back his man after his greatest supporter and the supreme leader of the country issued a private order Monday telling him that the appointment "causes a rift and disillusionment among your supporters. The aforementioned appointment must be canceled and consider it null and void."

Reading the order publicly Friday dramatically increased the pressure on Ahmadinejad, and further refusal to act would have amounted to a flagrant and public defiance of the supreme leader.

The issue was also the topic of the main Friday prayer sermon in Tehran. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said that "now that he (Khamenei) has expressed his opinion, there is no room for delay anymore."

Khamenei has the final say over all state matters and has rarely faced defiance in the past. That changed following last month's election when supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi challenged Khamenei's ruling that the June 12 vote was fair.

The flap over the vice presidency appears to signal a move by Khamenei to entrench for himself an even more unquestionable status in the face of the reformist threat. By demanding Mashai's removal, Khamenei is effectively appropriating a new power, since normally the supreme leader does not intervene openly to remove a government official, though he is believed to often vet appointments behind the scenes.

The president's brief defiance may have been out of fear of an attempt by hard-liners to dictate the government he is due to form next month.

Mashai angered hard-liners in 2008 when he said Iranians were "friends of all people in the world — even Israelis." He was serving as vice president in charge of tourism and cultural heritage at the time.

Iran has 12 vice presidents, but the first vice president is the most important because he succeeds the president if he dies, is incapacitated, steps down or is removed. The first vice president also leads Cabinet meetings in the absence of the president.

Hard-line students protesting in the streets Friday warned Ahmadinejad that they will withdraw their support unless he dismisses Mashai.

"Obeying the leader's order is the demand of the nation," they chanted.

Paper: Bush considered sending troops into Buffalo

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration in 2002 considered sending U.S. troops into a Buffalo, N.Y., suburb to arrest a group of terror suspects in what would have been a nearly unprecedented use of military power, The New York Times reported.

Vice President Dick Cheney and several other Bush advisers at the time strongly urged that the military be used to apprehend men who were suspected of plotting with al Qaida, who later became known as the Lackawanna Six, the Times reported on its Web site Friday night. It cited former administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The proposal advanced to at least one-high level administration meeting, before President George W. Bush decided against it.

Dispatching troops into the streets is virtually unheard of. The Constitution and various laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.

According to the Times, Cheney and other Bush aides said an Oct. 23, 2001, Justice Department memo gave broad presidential authority that allowed Bush to use the domestic use of the military against al-Qaida if it was justified on the grounds of national security, rather than law enforcement.

Among those arguing for the military use besides Cheney were his legal adviser David S. Addington and some senior Defense Department officials, the Times reported.

Opposing the idea were Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser; John B. Bellinger III, the top lawyer at the National Security Council; FBI Director Robert Mueller; and Michael Chertoff, then the head of the Justice Department's criminal division.

Bush ultimately nixed the proposal and ordered the FBI to make the arrests in Lackawanna. The men were subsequently arrested and pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges.

Scott L. Silliman, a Duke University law professor specializing in national security law, told the Times that a U.S. president had not deployed the active-duty military on domestic soil in a law enforcement capacity, without specific statutory authority, since the Civil War.

Huge telescope opens in Spain's Canary Islands

By CARLOS MORENO, Associated Press Writer

LA PALMA, Canary Islands – One of the world's most powerful telescopes opened its shutters for the first time Friday to begin exploring faint light from distant parts of the universe. The Gran Telescopio Canarias, a euro130 million ($185 million) telescope featuring a 34-foot (10.4-meter) reflecting mirror, sits atop an extinct volcano. Its location above cloud cover takes advantage of the pristine skies in the Atlantic Ocean.

Planning for the telescope began in 1987 and has involved more than 1,000 people from 100 companies. It was inaugurated Friday by King Juan Carlos.

The observatory is located at 2,400 meters (7,870 feet) above sea-level where prevailing winds keep the atmosphere stable and transparent, the Canary Islands Astrophysics Institute said.

The institute, which runs the telescope, said it will capture the birth of stars, study characteristics of black holes and decipher some of the chemical components of the Big Bang.

The telescope is composed of 36 separate mirrors that began slowly focusing in July 2007 to eventually act as a single large reflecting surface that directs light onto a central camera point.

Among those who have done research at La Palma is Brian May, lead guitarist of rock group Queen, who studied there for part of his doctorate in astrophysics at the institute.

May, who published "BANG! The Complete History of the Universe" with astronomers Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott, composed a musical score for the telescope's inauguration.

Large reflecting telescopes began making major contributions to astronomical research when Edwin Hubble perfected the technique of capturing photographic exposures of space with the then-massive 200-inch mirror at Mount Palomar Observatory, in north San Diego County, California in Jan. 1949.

Some Gitmo detainees may come to US jails

PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon's top lawyer said Friday that the Obama administration has not abandoned the possibility of transferring some prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention center to a prison in the United States despite strong congressional concerns.

Defense Department general counsel Jeh Charles Johnson told the House Armed Services Committee that some suspected terrorists might be transferred to the U.S. for prosecution and others sent to a facility inside the U.S. for long-term incarceration.

Johnson also said no prisoners would be released from custody inside the country.

Administration officials had raised those possible moves before, but Congress in June passed a law that would allow detainees held at the Navy-run prison in Cuba to be transferred to the U.S. for prosecution only after lawmakers have had two months to read a White House report on how it plans to shut the facility and disperse the inmates.

Congress also blocked all funding for the transfer of any Guantanamo detainees into the United States for the 2009 fiscal year ending Sept. 30. President Barack Obama has ordered the Guantanamo facility closed by January 2010.

The White House is considering both civilian federal jails and military prisons for potential future incarceration for prisoners facing criminal prosecution, military tribunals, or long-term detention without a trial, Assistant Attorney General David Kris said at the same hearing.

More than 50 have been cleared for transfer to another country. An administration task force is still sorting through the remaining 229 prisoners to determine their fates. The panel has made determinations in about half the cases, according to a Justice Department official who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Government lawyers in both the Obama and Bush administrations say that an unspecified number of detainees they consider especially dangerous should continue to be held without trial. Some of the evidence against them is classified or thin, and the government fears these detainees could be released should they be given their day in court.

Johnson also said the Obama administration has not yet determined where it will hold newly captured al-Qaida or Taliban prisoners for extended detention after Guantanamo Bay's prison closes.

The Bush administration established the jail at Guantanamo shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists. It has held about 780 prisoners.

About 550 of them have been returned to their home countries or resettled in other places. Roughly another 50 have been approved for transfer to other countries, pending those governments' approval.

The Obama administration on Friday signaled it intends to bring a second Guantanamo Bay detainee to the United States for trial in criminal court. Federal prosecutors told a court Friday they no longer plan to hold Mohammed Jawad as a wartime prisoner. Jawad is not likely to be transferred soon. For the time being, prosecutors say, he will remain at Guantanamo while an "expedited" criminal investigation is conducted.

So far, the only Guantanamo detainee brought to face trial in a U.S. criminal court is Ahmed Ghailani, who was sent to New York in June to face charges he helped orchestrate two bomb attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998.