Wolfowitz in Baghdad on mystery visit

Wolfowitz in Baghdad on mystery visit

Abc.net.au -Friday, July 18

US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a top Pentagon architect of the US-led war on Iraq, is in Baghdad on an unannounced visit.

Mr Wolfowitz and US civil administrator for Iraq Paul Bremer flew by helicopter to the Abu Gharib prison, a symbol of the horrors of Saddam's regime, just west of Baghdad.

Other details of his trip are being kept tightly under wraps.

Mr Wolfowitz is a powerful deputy to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who visited Iraq in April, and seen as one of the most hawkish figures in the Bush administration's Iraq policy.

He has said that US forces would remain in Iraq as long as needed, but not one day longer.

Paul Wolfowitz's Indonesia amnesia

By Jim Lobe -Asia Times - Jul 18, 2003

WASHINGTON - Reports that the administration of US president George W Bush has decided to release funds that will permit it to train Indonesian military officers, despite a recent vote by a key Senate committee that calls for training to be suspended until the army's role in the killing of two US teachers in West Papua is clarified, has drawn strong expressions of concern on the part of human rights groups here.

Neither the Pentagon nor the State Department would confirm that a final decision has been made. However, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who monitor Indonesia closely said they understand that senior defense officials, including, notably, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a former US ambassador to Indonesia, have decided to go ahead.

Wolfowitz has long argued that US military re-engagement with the Indonesian military (TNI) should be an urgent priority in the US-led "war on terrorism" and that it can help improve the armed forces' human-rights performance, a contention with which rights organizations and many Indonesia analysts strongly disagree.

"For over three decades, the US and Indonesian militaries were extremely close and we saw no move to reform," said Ed McWilliams, a former State Department officer who served as political counselor in the US Embassy in Jakarta from 1996-99 when military relations were suspended after TNI-organized militias went on a rampage in East Timor.

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