US, UK justify Iraq Invasion, admit mistakes

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush defended the invasion of Iraq and justified the existing coalition forces in Iraq as necessary to help enable Iraqis to govern their own country.

They also pledged firm support to Iraq's fight against terrorism and violence, in a joint conference at the White House Thursday.

Both leaders called on the international community to support the Iraqi government. They acclaimed the arrival of a new government in Baghdad as "a new beginning", but warned of“immense challenge."

The meeting of the President and his closest ally comes at a moment when their domestic popularity has hit all time lows, with­ 26 per cent in the case of Mr Blair, primarily because of the three-year-old war, the end of which is not in sight, with the origins shrouded in controversy, reported The Independent Online Edition.

It is Mr Blair's eighth visit to Washington since 9/11 ­ and possibly his last to a country where he is far more popular than at home. The Independent

"The war has affected mentality of the country," Mr Bush acknowledged, with polls showing his approval rating down to barely 30 per cent. "American people need to know we are making progress," he said.

Currently, some 132,000 US troops are in Iraq, and the Pentagon is hoping to reduce this figure to no more than 100,000 by the end of the year. British forces number 8,000. But in both countries demands are growing for a faster withdrawal. Even in the US, where support for the war has always been higher than in Britain, Americans now believe, by a 59-40 margin, that the 2003 invasion was a mistake. The Independent

Meanwhile, they also acknowledged mistakes in managing the occupation of Iraq that have made the conflict more difficult and more damaging to the U.S. image abroad.
Washingtonpost.com

Bush was quoted by The Washington Post as saying that the "biggest mistake" for the United States was the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, in which guards photographed themselves sexually tormenting Iraqi prisoners, spawning revulsion worldwide. "We've been paying for that for a long period of time."

In his own recital of errors, Blair cited the process of "de-Baathification" that immediately followed the overthrow of the old government. Many analysts say that decision to remove all of Hussein's loyalists fueled the insurgency because it threw tens of thousands of Iraqis out of work and left an administrative vacuum, and Blair agreed that it should have been done "in a more differentiated way." Washingtonpost.com

As to the Iran issue, Mr Bush offered rewards for Tehran if it ended uranium enrichment, saying that the US would continue to work with Iran's government despite its "intransigence" but urged it to suspend enrichment to avoid international isolation. BBC

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, 2,463 US soldiers, 111 British soldiers and 111 more from other coalition nations have been killed. The death toll of Iraqi military range from 4,895 to 6,370, with the number of civilians between 37,848 and 42,216. Reuters

China under worldwide spotlight for Three Gorges Project

China comes under the world's spotlight when its gigantic Three Gorges dam neared completion last week. The world's largest hydroelectric dam, which is more than five times the size of the Hoover Dam (Wikipedia), aims to tame the flood-prone Yangtze River, the nation's longest and the 3rd worldwide. It will be able to combat a super big flood occurring once in 100 years as of 2006 and will start to take effect in flood control two years ahead of schedule (Xinhua News).

Launched in 1993, the Three Gorges Project, including the 2,300-meter-long, 185-meter-high dam with 26 power generators, is being built in three phases on the middle reaches of the Yangtze river. In addition to flood control functions, the gigantic project is expected to generate 85 bn kwh of electricity annually when it is finally completed by 2008, a year ahead of schedule (Xinhua News) .

As a global leading energy consumer, China desperately needs electricity for its booming economy. The Three Gorges project is a critical part of China's energy strategy as the dam's hydropower turbines are expected to create as much electricity as 18 nuclear power plants (CNN). And it will greatly cut down the occurrence of disasters of coal mine incidents across the country.

But the project, at cost of $24bn in total, has been incurring criticism both from domestic and abroad in regard to its investment and environment impact.

Critics say that the human cost has been far too high. More than a million people have been resettled to make way for the dam. At least 1,200 towns and villages will be submerged under the rising waters of the dam's reservoir (BBC).

Activist Dai Qing was quoted by the BBC as saying that: "The dam is causing more problems than solutions, insisting the electricity produced by the dam is much more expensive than that produced in other ways, because it costs tons of money to relocate local people and to offset the disasters it has caused to build the dam."

Allegations of corruption among officials involved with the project have raised fears of shoddy construction. Of further concern are claims the dam might become an environmental disaster. There have been little to no attempts made toward removing accumulations of toxic materials and other potential pollutants from industrial sites that will be inundated. Experts say such materials could leach into the reservoir, creating a health hazard (CNN).

Zheng Shouren, member of the Academy of Engineering of China was quoted by China's state-run Xinhua News agency as saying that the Three Gorges Project plays a key role in the flood control system of the Yangtze River due to its location, size and landform, explicating that the Three Gorges Reservoir is capable of holding 22.15 bn cubic meters of water when it attains a normal water level of 175 meters.

Dr. John Byrne, director of the University of Delaware's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy, said on CNN that: "The project's conception was monumental. This was seen in the early years [of the project] as a way to show the advanced nature of Chinese society under socialism, to solve a problem that has existed in China for thousands of years... But when you're doing something on this scale, you should really make solving the problems your first priority. Unfortunately, China has decided to launch the project -- then solve the problems along the way."

No doubt China's huge Three Gorges Project is a controversial issue. In the UK there is strong debate over pollution-free energy sources such as windfarms, which are voted against due to its ugliness and blocking the views. In response, Mrs C A Young from Tiverton said on BBC that "wake up and look to the future". This discussion is taking place over the aesthetics of wind turbines in a country which has some of the highest electricity bills in Europe. It appears that people there would rather pay the high bills than exploit the country's rich and renewable energy resources.

Links: Three Gorges Location