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BROOKINGS: IRAQ INDEX

GLOBAL UNITY FRAYING AT THE EDGES A protestor challenges police at the G-8 Summit Conference at Gleneagles, Scotland. Among other problems, President Bush appeared determined to block efforts to control global warming.

MULTIPLE EXPLOSIONS STRIKE LONDON TRANSIT SYSTEM One caller to BBC Five said his friend had seen "the bus ripped open like a can of sardines and bodies everywhere."

London tube passengers escape along tracks after bombs hit across the city and demolished a bus

The pattern of the bombing--careful coordination covering a geographical arc around the City of London, pegged to a critical political event--the G8 conference --resembled the strategy favored by Al Qaeda or a splinter group. One British analyst noted: "Whatever we have been doing in the War Against Terrorism, it isnn't working."
(BBC, July 7, 2005)
--The Economist recaps the events and police assessment
--Technorati offers a broad selection of London blogs with eyewitness accounts
--The Guardian
--The Independent

FRANCHISING AL QAEDA
Splintering under pressure from a wide range of police and intelligence organizations, the terrorist movement is morphing into a brand rather than a coherent, organized, top-down structure. Think of Hercules' battle against the Hydra. Steve Coll and Susan B. Glasser report on the current analysis in the Washington Post (Steve Coll, Susan Glasser, Washington Post, July 8, 2005)
AN OUTLINE AL QAEDA STRATEGY AGAINST COALITION PARTNERS, INCLUDING ENGLAND
An Al Qaeda policy document on the internet in 2003 explains the strategy behind the Madrid train bombing which took place several months later. It also suggests England as a likely target: "Poland is unlikely to withdraw from the coalition (in Iraq) because there is political consensus on foreign policy, and the country has a very high tolerance for human casualties.Britain is easier to force out of Iraq, because the popular opposition to the war and the occupation is so high. However, the author estimates that Britain will only withdraw from Iraq in one of two cases: either if Britain suffers significant human casualties in Iraq or if Spain and Italy withdraws first..." The document was translated by Forsvarets Forskning Institutt, the Danish Defense Institute, in late 2003. The New Yorker reported on it it in reference to the Madrid train bombing.
--Documents described by Forsvarets Forsknings Institutt
--Lawrence Wright's analysis of Madrid bombing in the New Yorker with the Forsvarets document (July 26, 2004)

G-8 FORGES ON DESPITE BOMBING--Guardian
G-8 SUMMIT FAULT LINES
Summits are supposed to help world leaders get together on the same wave length. Before the terrorist bombing hit London, this one seemed likely to hilight the growing differences. First, French President Jacques Chirac, insulted British cuisine during a conversation with Russia's Vladimir Putin, claiming that Britain's major contribution to world agriculture has been mad cow disease. Then, George W. Bush made it clear that despite the evidence for global warming, he has no intention of trying to curb U.S. carbon emissions, and he is only half-heartedly behind efforts to deal with Africa's crushing poverty. And that isn't taking into account the anti-global protesters, who have already begun filling Gleneagles' jails. That said, BBC commentator John Simpson suggests that this summit could produce some surprises, and possibly a few ambushes from Tony Blair, who is not only hosting the summit, but will also head the European Union for the next six months.
(John Simpson, BBC, July 5, 2005)
G-8 SUMMIT WEBSITE

WILL BRITISH LEADERSHIP MAKE OR BREAK THE EUROPEAN UNION?
London's plans for European political integration look fairly explicit. Tony Blair will try to save the E.U.'s enlargement from the rising anti-enlargement sentiment of Western European countries. He'll also try to promote a further liberalization of the European market. His support of European security and defense capabilities will be largely dependent upon the transatlantic relationship...If, on the contrary, Paris and/or Berlin try to promote a European core -- to be used in a more competitive, multipolar sense -- a serious clash between Britain and the continental powers is likely to explode in the coming months. Given the weakness of the present French and German governments, such ambitious moves would be very hard for Paris and Berlin to sustain. ( Federico Bodonaro, Power and Interest News Report, July 6, 2005)
FOOD FIGHT
Before the bombing made everyone pull behind London, and before Britain won the competition for the 2012 Olympics, Jacques Chirac stirred the G-8 pot at a meeting in Russia on Sunday when he joked to Vladimir Putin and Gerhard Schröder that the British could not be trusted and worse food was only found in Finland...According to Liberation, the French president declared that the only thing the British have ever brought to European agriculture is mad cow disease.... (The Guardian, July 5, 2005)
IRAQ'S INSURGENCY ENTERS A NEW PHASE: ATTACKS AGAINST ISLAMIC DIPLOMATS READY TO HELP THE U.S.
Gunmen ambushed two senior diplomats from Muslim countries in apparent kidnap bids after the weekend abduction of Egypt's top envoy. The attacks appear aimed at isolating Iraq in the Muslim world - even as the government makes progress in overtures to its disaffected Sunni Arab minority.(Beirut Daily Star, July 6, 2005)
INSURGENCY MURDERS EGYPTIAN AMBASSADOR
A video on the website showed a blindfolded man who identified himself as Mr Sherif saying he had worked at Egyptian embassies in Iraq and Israel.(BBC, July 7, 2005)
BUSH AGAINST THE REST OF THE WORLD ON GLOBAL WARMING...
Global warming is likely to return as a major concern once the reaction to the latest wave of terrorism dies down. The Bush administration remains the bogeyman on the issue. The Independent asks, "Can America prevent the rich countries agreeing what to do about climate change?" asks The Independent. "That's the other vital question at Gleneagles alongside Africa and its poverty and, last night, the omens did not look good..." (Michael McCarthy, The Independent, July 5, 2005)
EUROPEANS ON CLIMATE CHANGE
"The issue is not Kyoto as normally understood—that's happening anyway, notwithstanding the U.S. nonparticipation. The issue on which we now require the U.S.'s constructive and creative engagement is the huge challenge beyond Kyoto, beyond 2012..."(Background briefing by Nigel Purvis, Brookings Scholar on Environment and Development, and others at the Brookings Institution, April 18, 2005)
AFRICA NEEDS HELP BUT THE FUROR OVER DEBT SUSPENSION MAY BE A DISTRACTION FROM THE REAL ISSUES
Some doubt that debt relief will do much good, since most loans to Africa are heavily subsidized. The Economist frets that by focusing too heavily on Africa, the G-8 was likely to miss more serious problems. As the Economist puts it: "...Some continue to think that the focus on Africa is misguided. Last week David Dodge, the governor of the Bank of Canada, told the Financial Times that the G8 should be addressing the gigantic economic imbalances that are threatening the current burst of global prosperity, rather than concentrating on aid to Africa. He has a point. In recent years, the world has grown far too dependent on American consumer demand to support export-linked growth in other countries—and the American consumer has grown far too dependent on cheap money to fuel spending, much of it lent by Asian central banks trying to keep their currencies artificially cheap in order to stimulate exports. This is clearly unsustainable. If the central banks, or consumers, suddenly decide to retrench, many worry the result could be a “hard landing” for the American economy—which would fall even harder on poor countries’ export industries than on Americans..." (The Economist, July 4, 2005)
-CANADA'S NATIONAL POST ON DAVID DODGE AND THE G-8

U.S. MARINES ACCUSED OF SHOOTING THE COUSIN OF IRAQ'S AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.
In a letter to colleagues, Iraq's ambassador to the U.N., Samir Sumaidaie, said that his cousin,Mohammed, an engineering student, was visiting his family home when some 10 marines with an Egyptian interpreter knocked on the door at 1000 local time. Mohammed opened the door "happy to exercise some of his English", said the ambassador.When asked if there were any weapons in the house, Mohammed took the marines to a room where there was a rifle with no live ammunition. It was the last the family saw him alive. Shortly after, another brother was dragged out and beaten and the family was ordered to wait outside. As the marines left "smiling at each other" an hour later, the interpreter told the mother they had killed Mohammed, said Mr Sumaidaie."In the bedroom, Mohammed was found dead and laying in a clotted pool of his blood. A single bullet had penetrated his neck."The US military said the allegations "roughly correspond to an incident involving coalition forces on that day and in that general location". (BBC, July 1, 2005)

KNIGHT-RIDDER REPORTER KILLED
"...Yasser Salihee, an Iraqi special correspondent for Knight Ridder, was shot to death in Baghdad last Friday.The shot appears to have been fired by a U.S. military sniper, though there were Iraqi soldiers in the area who also may have been shooting at the time..."(Tom Lasseter, Knight-Ridder, June 29, 2005)

RETHINKING THE WAR
"... With the Sunni-dominated insurgency in Iraq unchecked and marked by a continuous stream of suicide bombings aimed at Iraqi security forces, kidnappings of foreign workers and diplomats, attacks on coalition troops, sabotage of public services, and, most importantly, assassinations of Shi'a leaders, the Bush administration has been challenged by its critics to come up with new policies that might turn the situation in Washington's favor. The administration chose instead to reaffirm its current policy of counting upon the constitution-drafting process in Baghdad to lead to the formation of a legitimate government, and of encouraging the strengthening of Iraqi security forces to the point at which they will be capable of resisting the insurgency successfully on their own account...The most significant result of the Congressional pressure for policy revision was the revelation of cracks in support within the administration for its official positions..." (Michael Weinstein, Power and Interest News Review, July 5, 2005)

ANTHONY CORDESMAN ON THE PRESIDENT'S IRAQ PRESS CONFERENCE: SOME REALITY BUT STILL PLENTY OF SPIN
"The President correctly referred to hundreds of foreign fighters, their horrifying extremism, and the very real threat they pose," says Cordesman, "(but) he totally failed to mention the thousands of native Iraqis that make up the core of the insurgency, the fact we have only some 600 foreign detainees out of a total of 14,000, the fact most intelligence estimates put foreign fighters at around 5% of the total, and the fact we face a major native popular Sunni uprising and deep Sunni distrust..."(Anthony Cordesman, Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 28, 2005)

NEW YORK TIMES: CONDOLEEZA RICE HAS CORRECTED SOME OF JOHN BOLTON'S MESS...WHAT'S NEXT
"John Bolton was a destructive presence in the State Department under Mr. Powell," notes the Times edtorial, "and his administration fans were lobbying to see him promoted to the No. 2 job. Ms. Rice avoided that disastrous possibility by backing Mr. Bolton instead for the job of ambassador to the United Nations. She chose the far more stable and grounded-in-reality Robert Zoellick, the former trade representative, as her deputy. Granted, siccing Mr. Bolton on the rest of the world at the United Nations isn't exactly the best way to sideline him, but at least he has been removed from dangerous areas like North Korea policy..." (The New York Times, July 4, 2005)

GOOD-BYE TO CHECK POINT CHARLIE
In Berlin these days, real estate outweighs souvenirs of a past that everyone would just as soon forget. Workers on Tuesday began tearing down a memorial to people killed at the East German border during the Cold War after the private Checkpoint Charlie museum lost a court fight over the real estate where the field of 1,067 crosses stood. The bank that owns the parcel — in a high-rent downtown district — wanted out of its lease to the museum at the former crossing point through the Berlin Wall. The museum had until Tuesday to raise the ?36 million (US$43 million) to buy the land from the bank. When time ran out, court bailiffs arrived to supervise the memorial’s removal. (International Herald Tribune, July 5, 2005)

DEALING WITH THE CAUSAL TOURIST-TERRORIST
Like many others who visit a foreign country, Syrian national and Spanish citizen Ghasoub al-Abrash Ghalyoun documented his 1997 travels to the United States with a video camera. In San Francisco, he shot footage of the Golden Gate Bridge; in Chicago, he videotaped the Sears Tower. While in New York City, he showed a particular fascination with the World Trade Center, filming it from numerous angles.
Then and now, Ghalyoun claims he was a tourist fulfilling a lifelong dream of traveling to the United States. Spanish authorities believed otherwise. When they discovered Ghalyoun's tapes during a 2002 raid of his Madrid home, they accused him of aiding the 9/11 hijackers and charged him with mass murder. (According to an attorney for the 9/11 families, Ghalyoun's footage ominously traces what would become the hijackers' flight pattern into the Twin Towers.) But upon closer inspection, the tapes included enough touristy behavior--an audible "Say cheese!"--and amateurish picture quality that in late May Spain's High Court freed Ghalyoun on bail, a signal that he might be cleared of wrongdoing...
(Josh Schollmeyer, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July-August, 2005)