<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - Editorials</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><description>Editorials</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA[Repeal the Gay Ban]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48148-2005Apr12.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48148-2005Apr12.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ ARMY SGT. ROBERT Stout received a Purple Heart after an exploding grenade in Iraq last May left shrapnel in his face, arm and legs. He would like to remain in the military, and he said in an interview that he would reenlist were it not for the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. But Sgt. Stout is through denying that he is gay, so he recently declared his sexual orientation to the Associated Press. Now he'll be lucky if he's allowed to serve out his tour, which ends in May, without being kicked out of the service. For under U.S. policy, even the most decorated and patriotic gay soldier is just a homosexual to be rooted  out at the military's earliest convenience.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Gains and Risks in Iraq]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32736-2005Apr6.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32736-2005Apr6.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  IRAQIS ONCE AGAIN have defied their skeptics and taken an important step toward stabilizing their country under representative government. A political accord among parties representing the country's major ethnic and religious factions led yesterday to the election as president of Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, representative of a people once slaughtered with chemical weapons by Saddam Hussein. A Sunni politician was elected speaker of the national assembly last Sunday; by this weekend, the second anniversary of the capture of Baghdad by U.S. forces, a new Shiite prime minister probably  will have been chosen. This breakthrough was significant, and took many weeks, for precisely the reasons that pessimists said it couldn't happen: The interim Iraqi constitution forced the dominant Shiites and minority Kurds to reach a consensus, while political pragmatism drove them to include Sunnis in their deal. While the hard bargaining dragged on, the Bush administration wisely refrained from overt intervention. That means the choice of government sets a precedent of hard-headed cooperation among the Iraqi parties, one they will need if they are to cross the still-higher political hurdles that lie ahead.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Intelligence Gaps]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21970-2005Apr2.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21970-2005Apr2.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   APRESIDENTIAL commission appointed last year to study the failings of U.S. intelligence on Iraq has returned with many of the same conclusions  --  and similarly scathing rhetoric  --  as previous official investigations. Intelligence agencies, it said, collected precious little hard data about Iraq and failed to critically examine what they had; in the absence of fresh evidence, analysts stuck to long-standing assumptions that Saddam Hussein must be hiding weapons of mass destruction. The commission also agreed with much of the critique of the Sept. 11 commission: that the 15 U.S. intelligence agencies fail to adequately share information or collaborate, operate poorly on the ground in collecting "human intelligence" and are too resistant to innovation. What's new, and alarming, is the commission's blunt conclusion that the same failings now plague intelligence collection on critical current threats, ranging from the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea to the proliferation of biological weapons. That finding ought to provide an urgent mandate for President Bush and his incoming director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Annan Report]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5680-2005Mar27.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5680-2005Mar27.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[LAST WEEK'S report from Kofi Annan on the reform of the United Nations is subject to the paradox that colors most pronouncements from the secretary general. His office requires him to address the world's biggest challenges. The new report ranges from economic development to global warming to peacekeeping, not to mention proposals to shake up the management of the United Nations and reform the membership of the Security Council. Yet real power is vested not in the secretary general but rather in the U.N. member states. They raise taxes and command armies, and they will determine whether Mr. Annan's proposals make any difference.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Women of Islam]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32542-2005Mar13.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32542-2005Mar13.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THEY MET THE new secretary of state, spoke to women's organizations and conferred with the U.S. Agency for International Development.  But the delegations of Afghan and Iraqi women  --  led by Massouda Jalal, Afghanistan's minister of women's affairs, and Narmin Othman, her counterpart in Iraq  --  were not in Washington last week merely to make courtesy calls. They were here to stress that women's issues, in the new democracies of Iraq and Afghanistan, are not peripheral. How these two countries resolve them may determine whether they remain democratic societies, or even open societies.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lt. Col. Brown's Address]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8748-2005Mar4.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8748-2005Mar4.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  DEPARTMENT OF Defense Directive No. 1344.10, a torturously detailed regulation that runs to 12 pages of references, responsibilities, requirements, definitions and examples, is the Pentagon's last word on the subject of "Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces on Active Duty." To summarize and condense: They are prohibited. Anthony G. Brown, an Army reservist serving in Iraq, recently ran afoul of the directive when he recorded a speech to be delivered in the Maryland House of Delegates, where, in his civilian life,  Lt. Col. Brown serves as a delegate from Prince George's County and as the Democratic whip. The speech was about George Washington and was originally meant to be played at the State House in Annapolis on Presidents' Day. The Army, once it got word of the plan, vetoed it.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Tyrant Cornered]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2698-2005Mar2.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2698-2005Mar2.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  AS THE MIDDLE East changes all around him, Syrian President Bashar Assad still tries to play by the old rules. He figured he could sponsor terrorism in Iraq and Israel and thereby block progress toward democracy and peace. He calculated that the car bomb that killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri -- whether or not it was planted by his agents -- would stop the gathering Lebanese independence movement. He was wrong: In each case, such tactics have been defeated by an emerging Arab movement of people power. The 8 million Iraqis who turned out to vote, the Palestinians who have overwhelmingly supported the cease-fire with Israel, and the tens of thousands of Lebanese who have been marching and camping in the center of Beirut have all proved more potent than assassinations and suicide bombs. If Mr. Assad will not yield to the new political realities they are creating, he will place his own regime at risk.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mr. Bush in Europe]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38526-2005Feb19.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38526-2005Feb19.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  PRESIDENT BUSH'S visit to Europe beginning today has a different character from those of his first term. He goes not to attend obligatory summit meetings or to confer with governments that have been supportive of his policies but in an effort to refurbish the broader transatlantic relationship and to urge Europeans to join in his ambitious effort to spread democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere. The fact that Mr. Bush perceives the need for partnership with Europe on what he has described as a generational project to address the causes of Islamic extremism is encouraging; even more so is his greater willingness to treat European governments as independent allies who must be coaxed and listened to.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Iraq's Electoral Balance]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24757-2005Feb14.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24757-2005Feb14.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  THE 8.5 MILLION Iraqis who turned out to vote two weeks ago have elected a national assembly more suited for the task of nation-building than many would have expected. An alliance backed by the Shiite clergy won a plurality of the vote, and it may command a bare majority in the 275-seat body. But fears that Iraq's new government will be monopolized by pro-Iranian factions bent on religious rule seem unfounded. The Shiite block will be balanced by an almost equal number of secular legislators, and its leaders acknowledge the need to compromise with Kurds, Sunnis and other groups. It is likely that the new prime minister will be secular and Western-educated, and his cabinet may contain some of the same politicians handpicked by the United States for Iraq's first postwar government.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rebuilding the Army]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1670-2005Feb5.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1670-2005Feb5.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   ADAY AFTER President Bush bluntly ruled out an "artificial timetable" for withdrawal from Iraq, the Pentagon delivered a sobering follow-up: While the 15,000 additional U.S. troops deployed for last Sunday's elections will be withdrawn, the 17 remaining brigades -- 135,000 soldiers and Marines -- will be needed in Iraq at least through the end of this year. That estimate is understandable, given the continuing strength of the Sunni insurgency and the troubles in preparing Iraqi security forces. In fact, even the post-election reduction seems questionable, given that vital infrastructure and roads in Iraq, and even the highway from downtown Baghdad to the airport, remain insecure. Yet the alarming truth may be that the administration has little choice but to draw down troops: As it is, the present deployment in Iraq is on the verge of breaking an undermanned Army.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Naming U.N. Names]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64956-2005Feb4.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64956-2005Feb4.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  THE FIRST and most important point to make about the preliminary report on corruption in the United Nations' oil-for-food program is that it is not a whitewash. Despite dark  hints that Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who led the investigation, was too chummy with the U.N. bosses, Thursday's report did name names. Most notably, it accused Benon Sevan of having received the rights to purchase millions of barrels of discounted oil from Iraqi officials while he was serving as the director of the oil-for-food program.  Suspicions that Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary general, would try to sweep the story under the carpet also have not proven correct.  Mr. Annan has announced that he will  pursue disciplinary proceedings against Mr. Sevan and other U.N. officials.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Vote to Persevere]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50092-2005Jan30.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50092-2005Jan30.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   FOR MONTHS news from Iraq has told the story of the extremists, those who destroy themselves to murder others and to proclaim the cause of a religious or Baathist dictatorship. Yesterday the world saw and heard, at last, another Iraq, one in which millions of people from all over the country turned out to vote -- even in places where their nominal leaders had proclaimed a boycott, even at polling stations where mortar rounds fell or gunfire rang out. Some danced or distributed chocolates, some wept with joy, others grimly pressed forward as if their lives literally depended on it. A 32-year-old man who lost his leg in a suicide bombing arrived at the polls in Baghdad and told a Reuters reporter, "I would have crawled here if I had to." There were nine suicide bombings, and at least 44 people died, including one U.S. soldier. But the day's message was unmistakable: The majority of Iraqis support the emerging democratic order in their country, and many are willing to risk their lives for it.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Iraq's Election]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47776-2005Jan29.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47776-2005Jan29.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THE BUSH administration and much of the world will be riveted by the news from Iraq today as millions of citizens head for some 5,000 polling places -- and insurgents try to kill as many of them as possible. The day may bring a large turnout and relative peace; or horrific violence, such as yesterday's mortar attack on the U.S. Embassy, and a de facto boycott; or, quite possibly, both, in different parts of the country. What is already clear is that the most fateful struggle in Iraq is between the millions willing to risk their lives for a new political order founded on a free vote and an extremist minority whose cause, as succinctly stated by Abu Musab Zarqawi, is "a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it." Today, and in the months after the election, it should be the mission of the United States to support that civil majority and help it defend itself against its totalitarian enemy.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Day of Loss]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40075-2005Jan26.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40075-2005Jan26.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   YESTERDAY was the deadliest day yet for the U.S. mission in Iraq: 37  American service members  were killed, including 30  Marines and a Navy sailor who died when their Super  Stallion helicopter crashed in Iraq's western desert. More than two dozen Iraqis were also killed and wounded as insurgents carried out six car bombings and a rash of other attacks in their campaign to disrupt the elections that are to be held Sunday. Weather, rather than enemy forces, appeared to be responsible for the helicopter crash; the U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. George W. Casey, insisted in a meeting with reporters that violence has declined in the past  two months. Even if true, that will be little consolation to the dozens of American families who yesterday suffered a grievous loss, or to the tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers who now brace themselves to defend elections against an insurgent offensive in the coming days.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Inauguration Day]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22533-2005Jan19.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22533-2005Jan19.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   IT IS ENTICING to think of Inauguration Day as a fresh start, even for a second-term president: a time to wipe the slate clean, to pocket past victories, forgive old errors and move on. President Bush himself embraced such a vision, from one perspective, when he said last week that he saw no need to hold any senior officials accountable for what critics view as first-term misjudgments about Iraq. "We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 election," he told interviewers from The Post. Mr. Bush's political opponents like to imagine a fresh start from a different perspective. The president, they say, has a chance to be what (in their view) he failed to be the first time around: a uniter, an alliance-builder, a deficit hawk, a Middle East dove.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Second Term Abroad]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19441-2005Jan18.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19441-2005Jan18.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   CONDOLEEZZA RICE's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday offered a likely model for the Bush administration's second-term foreign policy. The nominee for secretary of state  was polished, well prepared, and good at making the president's case and  answering the sometimes passionate critiques of his record in Iraq and elsewhere. She pledged "to  put a major emphasis on public diplomacy in all of its forms" and twice  declared that "the time for diplomacy is now." But she gave no indication of change in any of the policies that her diplomacy will defend, whether in Iraq, the larger Middle East or elsewhere.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Power of Elections]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64444-2005Jan10.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64444-2005Jan10.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  DESPITE LIMITED competition and a less than overwhelming turnout, the Palestinian presidential elections on Sunday must be judged a success: They gave a mandate to a new president, Mahmoud Abbas, who has opposed the use of violence against Israel and promised to reform Palestinian government. The prospect of democratic change in the Middle East, as well as an Israeli-Palestinian peace, has gotten a badly needed boost. Now the question  is whether Iraq can similarly gain from the elections it has scheduled in less than three weeks, or whether those Iraqis and Americans who argue that a vote will do more harm than good and should be postponed are right. The question is not an easy one, but the arguments for sticking to a Jan. 30 election date are stronger.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Pentagon's Cuts]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61877-2005Jan9.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61877-2005Jan9.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THANKS TO President Bush's tax cuts in a time of war, the Pentagon is beginning to contemplate significant reductions in weapons systems: a reported $55 billion over the next six years. Some should have been made years ago. Others seem to reflect a frantic search for savings when wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing $5 billion a month and the entire government is under pressure to contribute to Mr. Bush's pledge to reduce the budget deficit. Most will face stiff opposition in Congress. If they are pushed through, the net effect may be to shift the U.S. military closer to preparing for the wars it has actually been fighting during the past four years rather than the ones defense theorists -- among them Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- have imagined. Yet they may still leave U.S. forces unprepared to win in Iraq and elsewhere.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[War Crimes]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20986-2004Dec22.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20986-2004Dec22.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THANKS TO a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, thousands of pages of government documents released this month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA -- truths the Bush administration implacably has refused to acknowledge. Since the publication of photographs of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in the spring  the administration's whitewashers -- led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- have contended that the crimes were carried out by a few low-ranking reservists, that they were limited to the night shift during a few chaotic months at Abu Ghraib in 2003, that they were unrelated to the interrogation of prisoners and that no torture occurred at the Guantanamo Bay prison where hundreds of terrorism suspects are held. The new documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of this cover story is false.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Explosion in Mosul]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18035-2004Dec21.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18035-2004Dec21.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/gulf/iraq/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:03:14 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   WHEN THE BLAST ripped through the mess tent at Forward Operating Base  Marez outside Mosul yesterday, U.S. soldiers responded with the pragmatism and courage we've seen so often in Iraq. Those who were not mortally injured picked themselves up, overturned lunch tables and used them to carry their wounded comrades. According to reporter Jeremy  Redmon of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, who witnessed the attack, medics rushed to the tent, where they found a grievous toll: at least 22  dead and more than 60 wounded in the worst single attack on U.S. troops since the war began. But the soldiers rallied; one sergeant, blown off his chair, stripped off his shirt and wrapped it around a wounded comrade. Maj. James Zollar, acting commander of the Richmond-based 276th Engineer Battalion, told his officers, "This is a tragic, tragic thing for us, but we still have missions."]]></description><author></author></item></channel></rss>