Vice president discusses US future in Iraq

Vice President Joe Biden discussed the future of the American mission in Iraq Friday with the top two U.S. officials there following the withdrawal of most troops from the cities.

It was the vice president's first visit to Baghdad after being appointed to oversee the administration's Iraq policy.

Biden's arrival in Baghdad late Thursday came after all U.S. combat troops were pulled out of Iraq's cities and towns on Tuesday, as part of a security agreement that will see all American soldiers out of the country by the end of 2011.

The U.S. will gradually begin drawing down forces over the coming months until there are no combat troops left in Iraq by next August.

Wearing a tan suit and suede combat boots, he had breakfast with Gen. Ray Odierno and Ambassador Christopher Hill, America's top soldier and diplomat in Iraq. The trio made no comments as they emerged from the meeting at Odierno's palatial residence at a U.S. military base, but Biden's office said they discussed the withdrawal, the security situation in Iraq, the capabilities of Iraq forces and "efforts to make progress on the various outstanding political issues in the country."

During his three-day visit, Biden also will meet with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has been criticized for failing to take advantage of security gains to make political progress. Biden's visit is the longest by a senior U.S. elected official. President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush never stayed more than a day.

The White House has said Biden will reiterate the U.S. commitment to carry out Obama's plan to withdraw combat forces. He also will press Iraqi leaders to make more progress on reconciliation and other political issues. It was his first trip to Iraq as vice president, although he has traveled to the country and met many of its leaders as a senator.

Biden's schedule was delayed by a thick sandstorm that blanketed Baghdad, at one point forcing his helicopter to land shortly after takeoff, officials said.

Al-Maliki named the day U.S. combat troops withdrew, June 30, as "National Sovereignty Day" and declared it a public holiday.

On that same day, the White House said that Biden will oversee U.S. Iraq policy and work with its government to overcoming their political differences and achieve reconciliation.

Biden, whose son Beau is serving in Iraq with the Delaware National Guard, arrived as violence flared in the Iraqi capital, which has seen scores of bombing in the past two weeks.

At least 447 Iraqi civilians were killed in June, double the toll from the previous month.

Bombings kill at least 3 people in Baghdad area

Bombings killed at least three people in the Baghdad area on Thursday in the first significant violence since Iraqi forces assumed responsibility for securing cities after the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from urban areas earlier this week.

The violence began when a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi army patrol, killing an Iraqi soldier and wounding seven other people, police and hospital officials said.

The attack occurred near a bridge that controls access to the walled-off Green Zone in central Baghdad. A car bomb later exploded near a market on the highway south of Baghdad, killing at least two people and wounding 15, according to a police officer at the regional command.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

On Tuesday — the official day of the withdrawal, which the Iraqi government dubbed National Sovereignty Day — a car bomb killed more than 30 people in the northern city of Kirkuk.

But Thursday's bombings were the first deadly attacks recorded in Baghdad after the Iraqis officially assumed responsibility for securing the cities and most of the 130,000 American troops in Iraq pulled back from urban areas to large bases on the outskirts.

Persistent violence has raised concerns about the readiness of Iraqi forces to take over their own security.

At least 447 Iraqi civilians were killed in June, double the toll from the previous month, according to an Associated Press tally.

Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari insisted his forces were on track in protecting the Iraqi people.

"The first phase of implementing the American forces withdrawal agreement has ended peacefully and successfully without any problems," he said at a news conference.

He said 168 bases and military sites have been handed over by the U.S. to the Iraqis, including 20 bases in the northern provinces of Ninevah, Salahuddin and Diyala, 86 bases in Baghdad, 46 in Anbar, 16 elsewhere.

The pull back from cities was part of a U.S.-Iraqi security pact and marks the first major step toward withdrawing all American forces from the country by Dec. 31, 2011. President Barack Obama has said all combat troops will be gone by the end of August 2010, leaving 30,000 to 50,000 troops in advisory roles.

Al-Askari predicted the number left would be on the lower end, saying all but 35,000 American troops would be withdrawing in the coming months.

"Now we are working on the second phase of the agreement which is reducing the American forces before their complete withdrawal on Dec. 31, 2011," he said.

Amnesty accuses Israel, Hamas of Gaza war crimes

Israeli forces killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians and destroyed thousands of Gaza Strip homes in attacks that amounted to war crimes, Amnesty International charged Thursday, in the first in-depth human rights group report on the recent war in Gaza.

Amnesty called on Israel to publicly pledge not to use artillery, white phosphorus and other imprecise weapons in densely populated areas. And it urged Gaza's militant Hamas rulers to stop rocket fire against Israeli civilians — attacks it also described as war crimes.

Israel and Hamas both denounced the report as unbalanced. Israel charged that Amnesty "succumbed to the manipulations of the Hamas terror organization" and Hamas accused the rights group of downplaying the scale of the destruction Israel left behind.

Amnesty — which first accused Israel of war crimes shortly after the fighting ended on Jan. 18 — said "disturbing questions" remain about why high-precision weapons like tank shells and air-delivered bombs and missiles "killed so many children and other civilians."

The group deplored Israel's use of less-precise artillery shells and highly incendiary white phosphorous in built-up areas. It also accused Israeli forces of using Palestinians as "human shields" and frequently blocking civilians from receiving medical care and humanitarian aid.

The pattern of Israeli attacks and the high number of civilian casualties "showed elements of reckless conduct, disregard for civilian lives and property and a consistent failure to distinguish between military targets and civilians and civilian objects," Amnesty International charged.

More than 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, were killed during the three-week offensive, according to Gaza health officials and human rights groups. Israel, which launched the war to halt years of rocket and mortar attacks on its southern communities, puts the death toll closer to 1,100. It says the vast majority of the dead were militants, though it has refused requests to provide a list of the dead.

Amnesty says some 300 children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians were among the dead. Thirteen Israelis also were killed, including three civilians who died by rocket fire.

The Israeli military rejected the report's findings, saying it did not properly recognize "the unbearable reality of nine years of incessant and indiscriminate rocket fire on the citizens of Israel."

The report, the military added, ignored the military's efforts to minimize civilian casualties in a battlefield where Hamas used residential areas, medical facilities, schools and mosques as cover to stage attacks.

"It presents a distorted view of the laws of war that does not comply with the rules implemented by democratic states battling terror," the military said in a statement.

Israel did not respond to Amnesty International's repeated requests for information on specific cases detailed in the report and for meetings to discuss the organization's findings, said Donatella Rovera, who headed Amnesty's field research mission.

The 117-page Amnesty report also denounced Hamas for firing rockets into Israel.

"Such unlawful attacks constitute war crimes and are unacceptable," Rovera said.

Hamas called a news conference Thursday to denounce the report.

"The report equated the victim and the executioner and denied our people's right to resist the occupation," said spokesman Fawzi Barhoum. "The report ignores the scale of destruction and serious crimes committed by the occupation in Gaza ... and provides a misleading description in order to reduce the magnitude of the Israeli crimes."

Earlier, Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Hamas' Gaza government said his bloc believes "the leaders of the occupation state must be tried for these crimes." He ignored Amnesty's criticism of the militants' conduct.

The report was based on physical evidence and testimony that a team of four researchers, including a military expert, gathered from dozens of attack sites in Gaza and southern Israel during and after the war.

It broke little new ground, concentrating on issues, cases and problems that have been dealt with in other frameworks.

Among the Gaza cases cited were the well-documented shelling of a house where a family took refuge on soldiers' orders before 21 people were killed; an Israeli artillery attack near a U.N. school that killed dozens; and the shelling of a house that killed three daughters of a Gaza doctor who has worked in Israel for years and is a champion of coexistence.

The U.N. is examining the conduct of both sides to the conflict. Hamas allowed veteran war crimes investigator Richard Goldstone and his team into Gaza last month, but Hamas security often accompanied them, raising questions about the ability of witnesses to freely describe the militant group's actions.

Israel has refused to cooperate with the probe, claiming the U.N. council overseeing the investigation is biased.

Israel conducted its own internal investigation earlier this year and cleared the military of wrongdoing. Human rights groups criticized the probe as a whitewash.

Hamas, the Amnesty report noted, continues to justify its attacks on Israel's civilian population.

Iraqi Cabinet approves BP's offer on Rumaila

Iraq's government on Wednesday approved a BP-led consortium's offer to develop a giant oil field in the south, moving forward with the only deal struck during a much-hyped but ultimately disappointing international oil auction.

Iraq, which is desperate for cash to fund its reconstruction efforts, had put six oil and two gas fields on offer Tuesday to foreign firms in the country's first international oil licensing round in over three decades. But the auction — opposed from the start by many of the country's lawmakers — failed to elicit the kind of excitement or commitments Iraqi oil officials had anticipated.

BP and its Chinese consortium partner CNPC walked away from the auction with development rights for the 17.8 billion barrel Rumaila field. But their win came only after they agreed to take less money for the oil they produced.

Under the service contracts, the companies are paid a per barrel price for production over a minimum target level. BP and CNPC had bid $3.99 per barrel, but slashed their price to the $2 per barrel payment sought by the oil ministry. Their only rivals for the fields, a consortium led by U.S. giant Exxon Mobil, refused to amend its offer of $4.80 per barrel on target production of 3.1 million barrels per day.

The Cabinet of ministers signed off on the BP deal, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

The government did not say when the signing would take place.

But many expect the oil ministry to try to move forward quickly, if for no other reason than because al-Shahristani needs to replenish the already-limited political capital he spent in pushing past lawmaker objections and bringing the bidding round from plan to reality.

He billed it as the answer to Iraq's cash crunch, and the lackluster showing could further embolden his critics.

The promise of access to about 43 billion of Iraq's 115 billion barrels of crude reserves was apparently not appetizing enough for foreign firms to overlook the inherit risks they face in a country still emerging from decades of sanctions and a U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Many lawmakers have opposed the bidding process from the start, saying al-Shahristani's push to have the contracts approved by the Cabinet instead of the parliament renders them illegal. Many ordinary Iraqis — who still say the U.S.-led war was mainly for oil — worry that giving foreign firms access to the country's key resource opens the door for economic occupation.

In a sign of the potential obstacles companies will face, Ali Balo, the head of the parliament's influential oil and gas committee said Wednesday the contracts "will face huge problems" if parliament is not allowed to sign off on them.

Iran recount seen as bid to placate opposition

Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.

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In an attempt to placate protesters, Iran conducted a partial recount Monday of votes cast in its disputed presidential election, and the hard-line president asked for an investigation into the shooting death of a young woman who has become a potent symbol of the opposition's struggle.

The regime's standoff with the West over its crackdown on demonstrators sharply escalated Sunday when Iran announced it had detained nine local employees of the British Embassy in Tehran. Both Britain and the European Union condemned what they called "harassment and intimidation."

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said five of the Iranian embassy staffers had been released and the remaining four were being interrogated.

Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseini Ejehi claimed he had videotape showing some of the employees mingling with protesters, and said the fate of those who remain in custody now rests with the court system in a country where supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's word is law. State television said the cleric-controlled judiciary appointed a team "to help clarify the fate of the detainees."

But Qashqavi played down the dispute, saying officials were in written and verbal contact with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Iran had dismissed the idea of downgrading relations. Last week, Iran expelled two British diplomats after accusing the country of meddling, and Britain responded in kind.

"Reduction of diplomatic ties is not on our agenda for any country, including Britain," Qashqavi said.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, asked a top judge Monday to investigate the killing of Neda Agha Soltan, who became an icon of Iran's ragtag opposition after gruesome video of her bleeding to death on a Tehran street was circulated worldwide.

Ahmadinejad's Web site said Soltan was slain by "unknown agents and in a suspicious" way, convincing him that "enemies of the nation" were responsible.

The regime has implicated protesters and even foreign intelligence agents in Soltan's death. But an Iranian doctor who said he tried to save her told the BBC last week she apparently was shot by a member of the volunteer Basij militia. Protesters spotted an armed member of the militia on a motorcycle, and stopped and disarmed him, Dr. Arash Hejazi said.

Authorities have cracked down hard on dissent, most recently on Sunday, when riot police clashed with up to 3,000 protesters near the Ghoba Mosque in north Tehran. It was Iran's first major post-election unrest in four days.

Witnesses told The Associated Press that police used tear gas and clubs to break up the crowd, and said some demonstrators suffered broken bones. They alleged that security forces beat an elderly woman, prompting a screaming match with young demonstrators who then fought back.

The reports could not be independently verified because of tight restrictions imposed on journalists in Iran.

North Tehran is a base of support for opposition Mir Hossein Mousavi, who insists he — not Ahmadinejad — won the disputed June 12 election.

The Guardian Council, Iran's top electoral oversight body, said it planned to complete the recount of a random 10 percent of ballots by the end of the day. Spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei said the recount was aimed at gaining "the confidence of the respectable supporters of candidates."

Yet it was unclear what purpose the recount would serve. Khamenei and the Council already have pronounced the results free of major fraud and insist that Ahmadinejad won by a landslide, and Mousavi has insisted the government nullify the results and hold a new vote — steps it flatly refuses to consider.

State TV said Mousavi representatives met with a Guardian Council election review panel, but it ended in a stalemate and officials decided to proceed with the recount.

Witnesses who spoke with the AP said they did not spot Mousavi at Sunday's rally. But one of his close assistants addressed the crowd through a loudspeaker and other opposition figures also appeared, including reformist presidential candidate Mahdi Karroubi.

Local news site Rooz Online said Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, were supposed to attend the protest — but when they couldn't reach the scene, Mousavi addressed supporters via a telephone held up to a megaphone, and spoke of "the importance of the people's vote and peace."

Sunday's clashes erupted at a rally that had been planned to coincide with a memorial held each year for Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, who came to be considered a martyr in the Islamic Republic after he was killed in a major anti-regime bombing in 1981.

Iranian authorities say 17 protesters and eight Basijis have been killed in two weeks of unrest, and that hundreds of people have been arrested.

Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted Basij commander Hossein Taeb — whose militiamen have played a key role in the government's effort to quash protests — as saying that authorities arrested several people who dressed in police and Basiji uniforms and smashed car windows.

The Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights said its information suggests at least 2,000 arrests have been made — "not just (people) arrested and later released, but who are locked up in prison," the group's vice president, Abdol Karim Lahidji, told the AP.

He said his information came from members of human rights groups in Iran and other contacts inside the country.

Iran's increasingly acrimonious relations with the West complicated President Barack Obama's hopes of engaging the regime in dialogue over its nuclear program. Iran insists its program is peaceful and geared solely toward generating electricity; the U.S. and its allies contend that Tehran is covertly trying to build a nuclear weapon.

U.S. officials said Sunday that the administration remains open to discussions on Iran's nuclear ambitions despite questions about the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad.

"It's in the United States' national interest to make sure that we have employed all elements at our disposal, including diplomacy, to prevent Iran from achieving that nuclear capacity," Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

But it won't be easy, said Reza Aslan, a renowned Middle East scholar and author.

"How is the administration going to have a conversation with Ahmadinejad when there is no sense of (his) legitimacy?" Aslan said. "It will almost be impossible to sit down and talk."