US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made a surprise visit to Baghdad yesterday, flying into the eye of the storm over Americans torturing prisoners that has sapped Washington's credibility in Iraq.
Hours after US lawmakers viewed "sadistic" new photographs of US troops torturing Iraqis, the embattled secretary met Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the US commander in Iraq, and Major General Geoffrey Miller, the new head of US prisons there.
It was not clear whether he would visit the nearby Abu Ghraib jail itself, where seven military police reservists are charged with sexually and physically tormenting detainees.
PHOTO: AP
His trip looked like a robust answer to critics who say Rumsfeld, one of the architects of the Iraq war, should resign, six months before US President George W Bush seeks re-election.
As international anger at US conduct in Iraq -- and at its Guantanamo Bay prison on Cuba -- mounts, General Richard Myers, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff who visited with Rumsfeld, said: "We absolutely have the high moral ground."
Once notorious as Saddam Hussein's torture chamber, Abu Ghraib has become a symbol of the US failure to win over many Iraqis despite ridding them of Saddam a year ago. With just seven weeks to go until Washington hands sovereignty back to an Iraqi government, that is a serious problem for Rumsfeld.
Efforts by the Bush administration to contain the damage to the seven soldiers charged have been buffeted by reports from the Red Cross and other groups saying that Washington was warned about systematic and widespread torture many months ago.
Not only are Arabs dismayed at evidence that the troops who overthrew Saddam's dictatorship were inflicting torments themselves on thousands of Iraqis but US allies, many of whom opposed the war, are also becoming more vocal in criticism.
"It all gives the impression of a total lack of direction," French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told Le Monde newspaper in unusually tough comments about Iraq under US occupation.
Prisoner abuses and persistent violence showed the country and region were spinning out of control, Barnier said.
In the holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala, where US troops are facing an uprising by a Shiite Muslim militia loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, there was renewed fighting.
Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army fighters stormed the main police station in Najaf overnight and emptied the weapons store, police said, before they were driven off by US tanks.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
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IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
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