Goodbye Iraq: Last US combat brigade heads home

By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press Writer Rebecca Santana, Associated Press Writer – 40 mins ago

KHABARI CROSSING, Kuwait – A line of heavily armored American military vehicles, their headlights twinkling in the predawn desert, lumbered past the barbed wire and metal gates marking the border between Iraq and Kuwait early Thursday and rolled into history.

For the troops of the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, it was a moment of relief fraught with symbolism but lightened by the whoops and cheers of soldiers one step closer to going home. Seven years and five months after the U.S.-led invasion, the last American combat brigade was leaving Iraq, well ahead of President Barack Obama's Aug. 31 deadline for ending U.S. combat operations there.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division was officially designated the last combat brigade to leave Iraq under Obama's plan to end combat operations in Iraq by Aug. 31. Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana joined the troops on their final journey out of the country.

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When 18-year-old Spc. Luke Dill first rolled into Iraq as part of the U.S. invasion, his Humvee was so vulnerable to bombs that the troops lined its floor with flak jackets.

Now 25 and a staff sergeant after two tours of duty, he rode out of Iraq this week in a Stryker, an eight-wheeled behemoth encrusted with armor and add-ons to ward off grenades and other projectiles.

Click image to see more photos of leaving brigades

AP

"It's something I'm going to be proud of for the rest of my life — the fact that I came in on the initial push and now I'm leaving with the last of the combat units," he said.

He remembered three straight days of mortar attacks outside the city of Najaf in 2003, so noisy that after the firing ended, the silence kept him awake at night. He recalled the night skies over the northern city of Mosul being lit up by tracer bullets from almost every direction.

Now, waiting for him back in Olympia, Wash., is the "Big Boy" Harley-Davidson he purchased from one of the motorcycle company's dealerships at U.S. bases in Iraq — a vivid illustration of how embedded the American presence has become since the invasion of March 20, 2003.

That presence is far from over. Scatterings of troops still await departure, and some 50,000 will stay another year in what is designated as a noncombat role. They will carry weapons to defend themselves and accompany Iraqi troops on missions (but only if asked). Special forces will continue to help Iraqis hunt for terrorists.

So the U.S. death toll — at least 4,415 by Pentagon count as of Wednesday — may not yet be final.

The Stryker brigade, based in Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state and named for the vehicle that delivers troops into and out of battle, has lost 34 troops in Iraq. It was at the forefront of many of the fiercest battles, including operations in eastern Baghdad and Diyala province, an epicenter of the insurgency, during "the surge" of 2007. It evacuated troops at the battle of Tarmiyah, an outpost where 28 out of 34 soldiers were wounded holding off insurgents.

The U.S. military kept a tight lid on security, restricting the media embedded with the U.S. troops from reporting on the brigade's movements until they were almost to the border.

The brigade's leadership volunteered to have half of its 4,000 soldiers depart overland instead of taking the traditional flight out, a decision that allowed the unit to keep 360 Strykers in the country for an extra three weeks. The remainder of the brigade flew out with the last of the troops slated to leave later Thursday.

U.S. commanders say it was the brigade's idea to drive out, not an order from on high. The intent was to keep additional firepower handy through the "period of angst" that followed Iraq's inconclusive March 7 election, said brigade chief, Col. John Norris.

It took months of preparation to move the troops and armor across more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) of desert highway through potentially hostile territory.

The Strykers left the Baghdad area in separate convoys over a four-day period, traveling at night because the U.S.-Iraq security pact — and security worries — limit troop movements by day.

Along the way, phalanxes of American military Humvees sat at overpasses, soldiers patrolled the highways for roadside bombs, and Apache attack helicopters circled overhead as the Strykers refueled alongside the highway.

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Gus McKinney, a brigade intelligence officer, acknowledged that moving the convoys overland put soldiers at risk, but said the danger was less than in past.

The biggest threat was roadside bombs planted by Shiite extremist groups who have a strong foothold in the south, McKinney said.

But except for camels straying into the road, and breakdowns that required some vehicles to be towed, there were no incidents. The last of the Strykers rolled across the border just before 4 a.m. Thursday into Kuwait, honking their horns and waving to the small crowd gathered at the crossing.

The brigade's leadership was on hand to greet the troops after they crossed the border and pulled into a parking lot where they shed their sweaty armor and stumbled out of their Strykers.

"This is powerful. This is exciting for me. As a commander, this means that all of my soldiers are safely inside of Kuwait and getting ready to redeploy back to their families," Norris told The Associated Press.

The worst of the ride was conditions inside the Strykers — sitting for hours in a cramped space — and the temperatures outside that reached 50 Celsius (120 Fahrenheit).

The driver's compartment is called the "hellhole" because it sits over the engine and becomes almost unbearably hot. The vehicle commander and gunner can sit up in hatches to see the outside world. At the tail end are hatches for two gunners. Eight passengers — an infantry squad in combat conditions — can squeeze in the back.

Riding as a passenger felt a bit like being in a World War II-era submarine — a tight fit and no windows. The air conditioning was switched off to save fuel on the long ride south to Kuwait. Men dozed or listened to music on earphones.

Once out of Iraq, there was still work to be done. Vehicles had to be stripped of ammunition and spare tires, and eventually washed and packed for shipment home.

Meanwhile, to the north, insurgents kept up a relentless campaign against the country's institutions and security forces, killing five Iraqi government employees in roadside bombings and other attacks Wednesday. Coming a day after a suicide bomber killed 61 army recruits in central Baghdad, the latest violence highlighted the shaky reality left by the departing U.S. combat force and five months of stalemate over forming Iraq's next government.

For Dill, who reached Kuwait with an earlier convoy, the withdrawal engendered feelings of relief. His mission — to get his squad safely out of Iraq — was accomplished.

Standing alongside a hulking Stryker, his shirt stained with sweat, he acknowledged the men who weren't there to experience the day with him.

"I know that to my brothers in arms who fought and died, this day would probably mean a lot, to finally see us getting out of here," he said.

FACT CHECK: Islam already part of WTC neighborhood

By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer Calvin Woodward, Associated Press Writer 45 mins ago –

AP – FILE - In this Aug. 14, 2010 photo, pedestrians walk past the 19th century building on Park Place in …

WASHINGTON – A New York imam and his proposed mosque near ground zero are being demonized by political candidates — mostly Republicans — despite the fact that Islam is already very much a part of the World Trade Center neighborhood. And that Muslims pray inside the Pentagon, too, less than 80 feet from where terrorists attacked.

And that the imam who's being branded an extremist has been valued by both Republican and Democratic administrations as a moderate face of the faith.

Even so, the project stirs complicated emotions, and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a complex figure who defies easy categorization in the American Muslim world.

He's devoted much of his career to working closely with Christians, Jews and secular leaders to advance interfaith understanding. He's scolded his own religion for being in some ways in the "Dark Ages." Yet he's also accused the U.S. of spilling more innocent blood than al-Qaida, the terrorist network that turned the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon and four hijacked airplanes to apocalyptic rubble.

Many Republicans and some Democrats say the proposed $100 million Islamic cultural center and mosque should be built elsewhere, where there is no possible association with New York's ground zero. Far more than a local zoning issue, the matter has seized congressional campaigns, put President Barack Obama and his party on the spot — he says Muslims have the right to build the mosque — divided families of the Sept. 11, 2001, victims, caught the attention of Muslims abroad and threatened to blur distinctions between mainstream Islam in the U.S. and its radical elements.

A look at some of the claims and how they compare with the known facts:

_"The folks who want to build this mosque — who are really radical Islamists who want to triumphally prove that they can build a mosque right next to a place where 3,000 Americans were killed by radical Islamists — those folks don't have any interest in reaching out to the community. They're trying to make a case about supremacy." — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a potential 2012 presidential candidate.

_Some of the Muslim leaders associated with the mosque "are clearly terrorist sympathizers." — Kevin Calvey, a Republican running for Congress in Oklahoma.

_"This radical is a terrible choice to be one of the faces of our country overseas." — Statement by GOP Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Peter King of New York.

THE FACTS:

No one has established a link between the cleric and radicals. New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said: "We've identified no law enforcement issues related to the proposed mosque."

Ros-Lehtinen and King were referring to the State Department's plan, predating the mosque debate, to send Rauf on another religious outreach trip to the Middle East as part of his "long-term relationship" with U.S. officials in the Bush and Obama administrations. The State Department said Wednesday it will pay him $3,000 for a trip costing the government $16,000.

Rauf counts former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright from the Clinton administration as a friend and appeared at events overseas or meetings in Washington with former President George W. Bush's secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and Bush adviser Karen Hughes.

He has denounced the terrorist attacks and suicide bombing as anti-Islamic and has criticized Muslim nationalism. But he's made provocative statements about America, too, calling it an "accessory" to the 9/11 attacks and attributing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children to the U.S.-led sanctions in the years before the invasion.

In a July 2005 speech at the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Center in Adelaide, Australia, Rauf said, according to the center's transcript:

"We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims."

While calling terrorism unjustified, he said the U.S. has supported authoritarian regimes with heinous human rights records and, faced with that, "how else do people get attention?"

In the same address, he spoke of prospects for peace between Palestinians and the Israelis — who he said "have moved beyond Zionism" — and of a love-your-neighbor ethic uniting all religions.

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_"Mr. President, ground zero is the wrong place for a mosque." — Rick Scott, Republican candidate for Florida governor.

_"Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There's no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center." — Gingrich.

_"Just a block or two away from 9/11." — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, another 2012 GOP presidential prospect.

THE FACTS:

No mosque is going up at ground zero. The center would be established at 45-51 Park Place, just over two blocks from the northern edge of the sprawling, 16-acre World Trade Center site. Its location is roughly half a dozen normal Lower Manhattan blocks from the site of the North Tower, the nearest of the two destroyed in the attacks.

The center's location, in a former Burlington Coat Factory store, is already used by the cleric for worship, drawing a spillover from the imam's former main place for prayers, the al-Farah mosque. That mosque, at 245 West Broadway, is about a dozen blocks north of the World Trade Center grounds.

Another, the Manhattan Mosque, stands five blocks from the northeast corner of the World Trade Center site.

To be sure, the center's association with 9/11 is intentional and its location is no geographic coincidence. The building was damaged in the Sept. 11 attacks and the center's planners say they want the center to stand as a statement against terrorism.

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_"There should be no mosque near ground zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. ... America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization." — Gingrich.

_"This religion's plan is to destroy our way of life. ... If we have to let them build it, make them build it nine stories underground, so we can walk above it as citizens and Christians." — Ron McNeil, a House GOP candidate in the Florida Panhandle, in an exchange reported by The News Herald in Panama City.

THE FACTS:

Such opinions are shared by some Americans, while others are more reluctant to paint the religion with a broad brush and more welcoming of the faith in this country. Bush himself, while criticized at the time for stirring suspicions about American Muslims, traveled to a Washington mosque less than a week after the attacks to declare that terrorism is "not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace."

In any event, the U.S. armed forces field Muslim troops and make accommodations for them. The Pentagon opened an interfaith chapel in November 2002 close to the area where hijacked American Airlines flight 77 slammed into the building, killing 184 people.

Muslims gather there for a daily prayer service Monday through Thursday and hold a weekly worship service on Fridays, drawing no complaints. Similar but separate services are provided for other faiths.

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Associated Press writers Tom Hays in New York and Anne Flaherty in Washington contributed to this report.

Bomber kills 61 Iraqis in recruitment drive

By LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writer – Tue Aug 17, 5:08 pm ET

BAGHDAD – Young men from some of Iraq's poorest areas waited all night outside an army recruitment center, only to become easy prey Tuesday for a suicide bomber who killed 61 in the crowd. Desperate for jobs, dazed survivors rushed to get back in line after the attack.

Officials quickly blamed al-Qaida for the deadliest single act of violence in the capital in months. Police said 125 people were wounded.

Bodies of bloodied young men, some still clutching job applications in their hands, were scattered on the ground outside the headquarters' gate. Soldiers collected bits of flesh and stray hands and legs as frantic Iraqis showed up to search for relatives.

The early morning bombing in central Baghdad starkly displayed Iraqi forces' failure to plug even the most obvious holes in their security two weeks before the formal end of the U.S. combat role in Iraq.

Army and police recruitment centers have been frequent targets for militants, underscoring the determination of the applicants to risk their lives for work in a country with an unemployment rate estimated as high as 30 percent.

"I have to get this job at any cost in order to feed my family," said Ali Ahmed, 34, a father of two who returned to the bloody street after taking a friend to the hospital. "I have no option but to come back to the line. If there were other job opportunities, I would not be here in the first place."

Ali Ibrahim, 21, who suffered minor shrapnel wounds in the blast, returned to the line after his release from the hospital.

"I came back with my friend to try to get in. We are forced to come back for the sake of earning a living by securing the job," said Ibrahim, who had been waiting since 3 a.m.

Yasir Ali, a 29-year-old recruit, washed blood off his body at a nearby police station and then went back to the line outside the Iraqi army's 11th Division headquarters and recruiting center.

The men waited in vain. The recruitment center was shut down after the attack, and the military said it would not reopen. Even so, some applicants remained there until mid-afternoon.

On the last of a nine-day recruitment drive, Iraqi officials provided only scant security for the estimated 1,000 men hoping to get hired, hundreds of whom had stayed outside the headquarters overnight for a first shot at handing in their job applications.

The recruits were from three poor Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad and the impoverished Babil and Muthanna provinces in Iraq's Shiite-dominated south.

The suicide bomber sat patiently with them through dawn before launching his attack, Ali said.

Ali said he watched the bomber, whom he described as a young man, walk up to an Iraqi army officer and detonate the nail-packed explosives strapped to his legs about 7:30 a.m.

"Severed hands and legs were falling over me," Ali said. "I was soaked with blood from the body parts and wounded and dead people falling over and beside me."

The body of the suicide bomber was found with his legs blown off, said Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi.

Two police officials put the death toll at 61 with 125 others wounded. Officials at four Baghdad hospitals confirmed the body count. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Al-Moussawi said there were 39 killed and 57 wounded. Varying casualty counts are common in the confusion after attacks.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, a bomb attached to a fuel truck detonated in the mostly Shiite neighborhood of Ur on Tuesday night, killing 10 people, wounding 46 and causing a nearby gas station to catch fire, according to police and hospital officials.

Military recruiting stations and security checkpoints continue to be easy targets for insurgents who have killed 454 soldiers, policemen and government-backed local militias so far this year, according to an Associated Press count.

The repeated bombings show that despite at least $22 billion in U.S. funding since 2004 for training and equipment, security forces are little better at protecting themselves than the population.

The looming departure of the U.S. military has turned Iraqi forces into even more attractive victims for insurgents looking to prove their might by exploiting security gaps.

The White House said the bombing will not halt either Iraq's transition to democracy or the U.S. troop withdrawal.

"There obviously are still people who want to derail the advances that the Iraqi people have made toward democracy," Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton said. "But they are firmly on track."

Al-Moussawi said the Iraqi military would shut down all recruiting centers in urban areas. Although police protect their own recruits by having them wait inside fortified buildings and closing off nearby roads, al-Moussawi said that was not always possible for the army because of the sheer number of job applicants.

"We couldn't get another place for the recruits," al-Moussawi said — despite describing the dearth of protections as "a mistake."

"It was difficult to control the area because it's an open area and because of the large number of recruits," he said.

Despite the risks, many Iraqis are lured by the prospect of a steady paycheck to join the security forces. After years of war, there are few jobs to be had, leaving Iraq's estimated unemployment rate at between 15 and 30 percent.

Adding to Iraq's economic stress is the political uncertainty that has dragged on for more than five months, since March parliamentary elections failed to produce a clear winner. That has left competing political parties bickering over how to share power and whether to replace Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — instead of creating a stable government to rebuild industries and economic development.

"Factories are being closed and farms are being deserted, and nobody cares in the government," said Baghdad political analyst Hadi Jalo. "This situation has forced thousands of young people to risk their lives working in the security forces."

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Associated Press Writers Barbara Surk, Sameer N. Yacoub, Mazin Yahya and Bushra Juhi contributed to this report.

Giros Récord: las empresas giraron al exterior US$ 2.125 millones

6 AGO 2010 08:21h

Fue por el pago de utilidades a las casas matrices y dividendos a los accionistas.

Por Gustavo Bazzan | gbazzan@clarlin.com

Los datos del Banco Central son incontrastables. Los dólares entran por el puerto y salen del país por los bancos. Casi todas las divisas que ingresan a raudales gracias a la cosecha récord de soja se están yendo por dos vías:

* Los privados que deciden comprar dólares y eligen sacarlos del circuito financiero formal;

* Las empresas extranjeras, que privilegian el giro de sus ganancias a las casas matrices a la reinversión en la actividad que desarrollan en territorio argentino.

La información surge del último informe cambiario del Banco Central, correspondiente al segundo trimestre de 2010. La "formación neta de activos externos del sector privado no financiero", comúnmente conocida como "fuga de divisas", trepó entre abril y junio a 2.787 millones de dólares, redondeando en el semestre una fuga de 6.644 millones de dólares.

El giro de utilidades y dividendos de las empresas trepó a 2.731 millones de dólares en el semestre, pero fue récord la transferencia de dólares del segundo trimestre: 2.125 millones de dólares.

El propio Banco Central señala que al frente del giro de utilidades (para las casas matrices) y los dividendos (para los accionistas) que se registraron entre abril y junio se ubicaron las empresas petroleras.

"Se destacaron los pagos del sector petróleo por US$ 794 millones, entidades financieras por US$ 317 millones, industria química por US$ 186 millones y oleaginosos y cereales por US$ 180 millones".

Lo de las petroleras ocurre al mismo tiempo que la crisis energética puso otra vez sobre el tapete la falta de inversiones suficientes en exploración y producción de las empresas del sector. Eso se traduce en cortes de gas a las empresas y un fuerte aumento en el precio del gas envasado en garrafas que consumen los sectores de menor poder adquisitivo.

Lo notable es que el giro de ganancias corresponde a los balances que reflejan la performance del 2009, es decir cuando se observó un fuerte freno en la actividad económica que significó, al menos según mediciones privadas, una contracción del PBI no menor al 2% durante el año pasado.

Es decir, las ganancias que se están obteniendo por la fuerte recuperación económica del 2010 recién se verán reflejadas en los balances que se harán públicos en 2011.

En el semestre, dice el informe, "el Central computó pagos netos de deuda en moneda extranjera del sector público y BCRA por unos US$ 2.250 millones. En consecuencia, las reservas internacionales del Banco Central registraron un aumento trimestral de US$ 1.780 millones, alcanzando un stock de US$ 49.240 millones al 30 de junio de 2010 (ayer, estaban en US$ 50.036 millones).

Es decir que en seis meses las reservas subieron apenas 2.000 millones de dólares a pesar del fuerte ingreso de divisas por las exportaciones.

Es cierto que la salida de capitales se desaceleró en el segundo trimestre. Los primeros tres meses fueron críticos porque entre enero y marzo se desarrolló la crisis por el fondo del bicentenario y la salida de Martín Redrado del Banco Central. Ahora, la economía se recupera, pero la fuga sigue siendo importante.

Republicans want review of birthright citizenship

By BEN EVANS, Associated Press Writer Ben Evans, Associated Press Writer – Tue Aug 3, 6:25 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Leading Republicans are joining a push to reconsider the constitutional amendment that grants automatic citizenship to people born in the United States.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Tuesday he supports holding hearings on the 14th Amendment right, although he emphasized that Washington's immigration focus should remain on border security.

His comments came as other Republicans in recent days have questioned or challenged birthright citizenship, embracing a cause that had largely been confined to the far right.

The senators include Arizona's John McCain, the party's 2008 presidential nominee; Arizona's Jon Kyl, the Republicans' second-ranking senator; Alabama's Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a leading negotiator on immigration legislation.

"I'm not sure exactly what the drafters of the (14th) amendment had in mind, but I doubt it was that somebody could fly in from Brazil and have a child and fly back home with that child, and that child is forever an American citizen," Sessions said.

Legal experts say repealing the citizenship right can be done only through constitutional amendment, which would require approval by two-thirds majorities in both chambers of Congress and by three-fourths of the states. Legislation to amend the right, introduced previously in the House, has stalled.

The proposals are sure to appeal to conservative voters as immigration so far is playing a central role in November's elections. They also could carry risks by alienating Hispanic voters and alarming moderates who could view constitutional challenges as extreme. Hispanics have become the largest minority group in the United States, and many are highly driven by the illegal immigrant debate.

McConnell and McCain seemed to recognize the risk by offering guarded statements Tuesday.

McCain, who faces a challenge from the right in his re-election bid, said he supports reviewing citizenship rights. He emphasized, however, that amending the Constitution is a serious matter.

"I believe that the Constitution is a strong, complete and carefully crafted document that has successfully governed our nation for centuries and any proposal to amend the Constitution should receive extensive and thoughtful consideration," he said.

At a news conference, McConnell refused to endorse Graham's suggestion that citizenship rights be repealed for children of illegal immigrants. While refusing to take questions, he suggested instead that he would look narrowly into reports of businesses that help immigrants arrange to have babies in the United States in order to win their children U.S. citizenship.

The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War, granted citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States," including recently freed slaves.

Defenders of the amendment say altering it would weaken a fundamental American value while doing little to deter illegal immigration. They also say it would create bureaucratic hardships for parents giving birth.

Quoting a newspaper columnist, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Republicans were "either taking leave of their senses or their principles" in advocating repeal.

An estimated 10.8 million illegal immigrants were living in the U.S. as of January 2009, according to the Homeland Security Department. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that as of 2008, there were 3.8 million illegal immigrants in this country whose children are U.S. citizens.

U.S. billionaires pledge fortunes to charity

By Michelle Nichols Michelle Nichols – Wed Aug 4, 6:18 pm ET

Reuters – Billionaire financier and Berkshire Hathaway Chief Executive Warren Buffett eats ice cream during the …

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Dozens of U.S. billionaires pledged on Wednesday to give at least half their fortunes to charity as part of a philanthropic campaign by two of the world's richest men -- Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

Based on Forbes magazine's estimates of the billionaires' wealth, at least $150 billion could be given away.

Among the rich joining The Giving Pledge campaign are New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, media moguls Barry Diller and Ted Turner, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, "Star Wars" movie maker George Lucas and energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens.

A total of 40 of the richest people in the United States, including Microsoft founder Gates and investor Buffett, now have taken the pledge.

Since launching the campaign in June, Buffett, Gates and his wife Melinda have spoken to about 20 percent of the wealthiest people in the United States -- 70 to 80 billionaires -- in a bid to persuade them to give away their fortunes.

"In most cases we had reason to believe that the people already had an interest in philanthropy," Buffett said. "It was a very soft sell but 40 have signed up."

"We're looking forward to enlisting many of these 40 to go out and make some calls also so we can report an even greater milestone but we're off to a terrific start," he said.

The campaign asks U.S. billionaires to give away at least half their wealth during their lifetime or after their death, and to publicly state their intention with a letter explaining their decision.

Gates has an estimated $53 billion fortune, which places him second on the Forbes magazine list of the world's richest people, and Buffett, who made his fortune with insurance and investment company Berkshire Hathaway Inc, ranks third on the list with $47 billion.

The Giving Pledge does not accept money or tell people how to donate their money, but asks billionaires to make a moral commitment to give their fortunes to charity. "The idea is not to tell anybody when or how to do it, but at least offer what others have learned," Buffett said.

Many billionaires taking the pledge have already been active in philanthropy in everything from genetic and cancer research to education, gun control and libraries and the arts.

TAX BREAK NOT A MOTIVATION

"I've long stated that I enjoy making money, and I enjoy giving it away," energy tycoon Pickens, who is worth about $1 billion, said in his Giving Pledge letter. "I'm not a big fan of inherited wealth. It generally does more harm than good."

Buffett and Gates will hold several dinners later this year to recruit more billionaires, and members of The Giving Pledge also will meet annually to discuss their philanthropy.

The pair also are due to meet with some of the wealthiest people in China in September and India in March.

"We ... hope that this catches fire in some other countries," Buffett said. "If they want to take what we think is a good idea and run with it, we will be cheering."

Forbes said the United States is home to 403 billionaires, the most of any country. Individual Americans gave more than $227 billion in 2009, according to the Giving USA report by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, down just 0.4 percent from the previous year despite the U.S. recession.

"I have always thought that the best thing to do is to make the world better for your kids and your grandkids rather than just give them some money," Bloomberg, who is worth $18 billion, told reporters. "Your kids get more benefit out of your philanthropy than your will."

Buffett said none of the members of The Giving Pledge were driven by tax breaks. "Not one has talked to me about taxes," he said. "Anybody who is entitled to take a tax deduction takes it but I think the motivation goes far, far beyond taxes."

Real estate and construction billionaire Eli Broad, venture capitalist John Doerr, media entrepreneur Gerry Lenfest and former Cisco Systems Chairman John Morgridge joined Gates and Buffett when The Giving Pledge was launched in June. Another 34 members were announced on Wednesday.

Buffett pledged in 2006 to give away 99 percent of his wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and family charities. Bill and Melinda Gates have so far donated more than $28 billion of their fortune to their foundation.

The full list of billionaires and their letters can be seen at www.thegivingpledge.org.

(Editing by Bill Trott and Eric Walsh)