IraqFrontNews : Messages : 84-113 of 18022

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030801/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_us_attacks_fallujah

1 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

~ Bring Them Home ~

Four Iraqis killed, three US troops wounded as attacks mount

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - Four Iraqi men were killed and three US troops were lightly wounded in separate attacks against American forces near the town of Fallujah, amid a rise in violence in the flashpoint region, the US military told AFP.

The Iraqis died in a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) assault on a US convoy.

"Four Iraqis were killed and nobody from the American side was injured" in the 8:33 am (0433 GMT) attack, Sergeant Keith O'Donnell said Friday.

It was not immediately clear if the RPGs missed their mark or soldiers inside their vehicles were unhurt in the explosions.

US forces arrested nine people in the clash, seven of whom O'Donnell said were carrying grenades while two were found with suspect documents bearing photographs of ousted president Saddam Hussein.

He said eight attackers ambushed the Americans as they patrolled Fallujah's outskirts on reconnaissance.

Witnesses at the scene, in the village of Albu Alwan seven kilometres (four miles) west of Fallujah, earlier said two Iraqis had been killed while an undetermined number of US soldiers were wounded during the attack and a subsequent gunbattle.

"I was arrested for two hours by American forces and I saw 12 (US) soldiers on the ground," said Majid Ibrahim Allawi, adding that the gunbattle lasted 90 minutes.

"They were driven in the direction of camp al-Habaniya," a former base of the Iraqi army now used by US forces.

O'Donnell said the clash was the latest in a growing number of attacks in the region considered a stronghold of resistance to the US-led occupation.

"It was one of eight attacks in the last 24 hours west of Baghdad, the most extensive attacks in a while," O'Donnell said.

In a separate incident, three US soldiers were lightly wounded when their vehicle was struck by a mine blast near the Habaniya base.

"Three Americans were slightly injured by a mine at 9:45 (0545 GMT) this morning near al-Habaniya," O'Donnell said. The extent of their injuries was not immediately known.

And at 10:30 am (0630 GMT), an AFP correspondent witnessed an explosion on the road in Albu Alwan which occurred 15 metres (yards) from a US patrol, but there were no casualties.

Anti-US sentiment has run high in Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim bastion 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Baghdad, ever since US troops shot dead at least 16 demonstrators in April.

A US special task force has been operating in the region hunting for Saddam, whose ability to elude capture since his regime was toppled April 9 has been seen as a spur for continued attacks on the US-led coalition.

Polish troops under fire in Iraq
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,6847753%255E401,00.html

A BASE housing Polish troops in Iraq came under mortar fire overnight but there were no casualties or damage, the defence ministry said on Friday.

It said that US special forces had tried but failed to capture the assailants.
The ministry said five mortar shells were fired in the early hours at a logistics base in the town of Hilla, near Baghdad, but all of them fell at the edge of the facility.

"Our men were immediately evacuated to a shelter, while US special forces and gendarmes set off to chase the assailants," ministry spokesman Eugeniusz Mleczak said.

However, the assailants escaped, he said.

The attack was the first reported against Polish troops in Iraq, where about 300 military personnel are working to prepare for the deployment of a multinational division under Polish command.

US troops in Iraq have been coming under almost daily attack since May 1, when President George W. Bush said that main combat operations were over in the country.

Army Sends Teams to Probe Iraq Illness

By PAULINE JELINEK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2978293,00.html

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Army is trying to figure out what is causing a rash of serious pneumonia cases, including two fatalities, among soldiers serving in Iraq.

A six-person team of specialists was en route to Iraq Friday to investigate 14 cases of pneumonia serious enough that the soldiers had to be put on ventilators to breathe and evacuated from the region, the Army Surgeon General's office said Friday.

Two soldiers died, nine recovered and three were still hospitalized as of Thursday, spokeswoman Lyn Kukral said.

The team on its way to Iraq includes infectious disease experts, laboratory officers and people who will take samples of soil, water and air.

So far, officials have identified no infectious agent common to all the cases. There is no evidence any of the cases were caused by exposure to chemical or biological weapons, environmental toxins or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), officials said.

A two-person team already has gone to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where most of the cases were treated after evacuation. The two teams also will review patient records and laboratory results and interview health care workers and patients, if possible, said a statement from the Army Surgeon General and U.S. Army Medical Command.

The teams will be looking for similarities among the cases, which so far have hit troops in geographically dispersed areas and from different units, said the Thursday statement. They also were spread over time, with two in March, three in April, two in May, three in June and four in July.

Though only 14 cases were considered serious, there have been 100 cases altogether since March 1 among troops that began deploying late last years to the Persian Gulf.

Army-wide, pneumonia cases serious enough to warrant hospitalization happen in about 9 of 10,000 soldiers per year. Given the number of troops deployed, the 100 cases ``do not exceed expectations,'' the surgeon general's office said.

~ Fool Me Once ~

MARTIN CLEAVER/AP

British newspapers trumpet the death and controversy involving former Iraq weapons inspector Dr.David Kelly.

Blair to face Hutton inquiry
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3115243.stm

The judge investigating the events surrounding the death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly has opened his inquiry and confirmed he intends to call Tony Blair as a witness.

Lord Hutton began by telling a packed court room that the inquiry had been prompted by a "very tragic death" and that it would be fitting to stand for a minute's silence.

The senior judge spent the first 35 minutes of the session explaining how he will conduct the inquiry and who he will call to give evidence, including the prime minister, the Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan and Dr Kelly's widow.

He gave a brief synopsis of events leading up to the apparent suicide of the government scientist who was found dead a few days after appearing before a committee of MPs.

Lord Hutton said his task was to investigate the circumstances surrounding his death, quickly and fairly.

He also revealed that Dr Kelly's body had been found with four electrocardiogram pads on his chest - one of the issues he wished to resolve.

Dr Kelly had a coronary artery disease which may have sped up his death though not caused it, the pathologist reported.

And Lord Hutton said that the post mortem investigation found that Dr Kelly had removed his watch and glasses before he died, which suggested deliberate self harm.

He died days after giving evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee which was investigating the government's justification for war with Iraq.

He told them he did not think he was the main source for a BBC report alleging the government had "sexed-up" a dossier on weapons of mass destruction.

But after his death the BBC confirmed he was the source - although his name had already been widely circulated in the media before he died.

A letter from Dr Kelly to his line manager confirming he had met Andrew Gilligan was revealed by the inquiry on Friday.

In it he said he believed his account to the journalist may have been "embellished".

The Hutton inquiry will aim to establish how Dr Kelly's name was made public and what precisely he told journalists.

At the first session Lord Hutton set out the powers of the inquiry and gave a brief run through of the facts of the case established so far.

He also detailed some of the questions that the key players in the case would have to answer.

He cannot force anyone to appear before him but said he would also be seeking evidence from Donald Anderson, the chairman of the foreign affairs select committee.

Lord Hutton said he was inclined to allow a certain amount of cross-examination of witnesses where he believed that it would be "helpful" to the inquiry.

But he stressed that he was not in the business of conducting a trial.

Tony Blair is set to become only the second serving prime minister to appear in public before an official inquiry when he gives evidence to Lord Hutton.

He will follow in the footsteps of John Major who appeared before Sir Richard (now Lord) Scott's long-running inquiry into the arms-to-Iraq affair.

TV cameras were allowed to film Lord Hutton's opening statement but the inquiry then went off air as Geoffrey Robertson QC, representing ITN and Sky, made an application for the evidence of key witnesses to be broadcast.

Mr Robertson argued that 65% of the public received news from the television, which, he said, is capable of portraying the tone of voice and body language of witnesses - something which cannot be represented in newspapers.

But Jeremy Gompertz QC, for the Kelly family, opposed the application, saying the presence of TV cameras at the inquiry would only "intensify their ordeal".

He also said they did not wish anyone else to undergo the intense scrutiny that Dr Kelly experienced prior to his death.

Lord Hutton, a former Lord Chief Justice in Northern Ireland, who is familiar with politically sensitive issues, delayed a decision on whether to allow the application until the inquiry reconvenes on 11 August. He then adjourned the first session.

Full transcripts from each day's session will be published on the inquiry's website.

It is hoped Lord Hutton's findings will be reported before the end of the year.

Al Qaeda link to attacks in Iraq -UK source
http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters08-01-104049.asp?reg=MIDEAST

LONDON, Aug. 1 — Members of groups linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network may have taken part in attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, a British diplomatic source said on Friday.

The source said that while the attacks were largely the work of Iraqis loyal to deposed dictator Saddam Hussein ''there is some evidence that they've been joined by groups that are loosely connected with the al Qaeda network.''

The source, who asked not to be named, did not specify the evidence, but said there were undoubtably ''some foreign elements'' targeting U.S. and allied troops in Iraq. He said there was nothing to show that Saddam, who is thought to be in hiding, or his two sons, killed by American troops last week, had been directly organising the attacks.

''I haven't seen any signs that Saddam Hussein or his sons were responsible for orchestrating that activity,'' he said.

The United States has accused die-hard Saddam loyalists and some foreign fighters, possibly including al Qaeda operatives, of waging a guerrilla campaign that has killed 52 U.S. troops since Washington declared major combat over on May 1.

Nineteen of those soldiers have been killed in the last two weeks and the U.S. army says the guerrillas are becoming more sophisticated and more deadly.

In the latest attack, a U.S. soldier was killed and three were wounded on Thursday when their armoured personnel carrier hit a landmine on the road to the U.S. base at Baghdad airport.

The British source acknowledged that the U.S.-led occupying forces in Iraq had failed to react quickly enough to the volatile security situation after the war.

''We had a hesitant start,'' he said. ''We did not hit the ground running as we should have done.''

He said, however, that the Americans and British had made up lost ground and were now on track to oversee a successful transition to peaceful, democratic rule in Iraq. Washington says it will end the occupation as soon as an elected Iraqi government is in place.

~ Hearts and Minds ~

'Briton's abuse by US in Iraq'
http://www.channel4.com/apps26/news/news_story.jsp?storyId=417455

A British man who was arrested in Iraq while searching for his young daughter has claimed he was badly treated by US troops.

Michael Todd, 33, travelled to the region shortly before the outbreak of war to find the 19-month-old child named Sajida.

He had a relationship with her mother, known only as Abla, when she was a student in Leeds three years ago but she left the UK shortly after becoming pregnant despite the couple's plans to marry.

The street performer from York was held captive by US forces for 22 days after he was arrested in the northern Iraqi town of Sulaymaniyah on July 4 having stumbled across a military operation.

He was held along with soldiers from the Turkish special forces and claims he was badly treated.

He said a bag had been placed over his head and his hands were tied behind his back before being spat at and punched.

At one stage he thought he was going to be killed when the lights went out and he heard the click of machine guns.

He has arrived back in the UK on board a military transport plane bringing home British soldiers serving in Iraq.

Minutes after touching down at Teesside International Airport he spoke of his ordeal.

"I still don't feel free, even though I am supposedly free, because if someone can go to Iraq with a heart full of love searching for his child to give out soft toys then to be physically abused, mentally tortured and held as a terrorist and an enemy prisoner of war, why?

"People need to wake up and ask some serious internal questions, because if this can happen to me, then how safe are honest, loving citizens?

Mr Todd went on to describe how he was thrown into the back of a truck and driven to Tikrit where he was questioned further about his presence in northern Iraq.

"I was given an orange suit. At that time I knew I was effectively labelled as a serious, serious threat to the American presence.

"I was treated as a enemy prisoner of war, a terrorist suspect."

He said it was only when he was transported to Baghdad and held at the airport that he was treated well.

Eventually British authorities in Baghdad arranged for Mr Todd's release.

He said he is considering his legal position and is determined to return to Iraq in a bid to find his daughter.

He added: "The Americans have done their best to scar me mentally but they will never destroy my soul, that is the thing that has kept me strong.

"Whatever they did to me, it wasn't pleasant but I had to think that people were getting killed every day.

"They jeopardised my chances of finding my daughter. She could have been here now playing around. They took one month out of my life."

Troops given another cross to bear
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/27/1059244488784.html

A row has broken out in Spain after the country sent its first troops to patrol Iraq wearing on their shoulders the Cross of St James of Compostela - popularly known in Spain as the Moor Killer.

Patches bearing the cross, the symbol of a saint who allegedly guided the medieval Christian reconquest of Spain from the Muslims, are to be worn by a 2000-strong Spanish brigade in central Iraq that will patrol the sacred Shia city of Najaf.

The uniforms will carry an emblem showing a red cross. The triangular top and arrow-like arms of the cross identify it as that of St James, who is believed to have miraculously appeared to Christians fighting Moors in 19th Spain. Muslims ruling large parts of Spain were expelled after 800 years by the reconquest in 1492.

While newspapers and radio stations reacted with astonishment at the choice of symbol, politicians avoided the argument.

"If we start debating this subject the risks surrounding the mission will only be increased," said Jesus Caldera, a spokesman for the opposition Socialist party.

The newspaper El Mundo said the Government was under fire over the uniforms because they showed the cross of a Christian saint who was a "Muslim-killer" . Shiites in Iraq might not appreciate the crusader crosses of the Spanish-speaking soldiers, it said.

"To put the Cross of St James of Compostela on the uniforms of Spanish soldiers supposes an absolute ignorance of the society in which they will have to carry out their mission," El Mundo said in an editorial.

"It would be difficult to come up with any symbol more offensive to the Shia population than this cross."

Spaniards, unaccustomed to seeing their soldiers take part in what many see as an army of occupation, already view the Iraq mission with concern.

For Iraqi family, ‘no other choice’
Villagers force execution of informer by father, brother
By Anthony Shadid

http://www.msnbc.com/news/946837.asp

THULUYA, Iraq, Aug. 1 — Two hours before the dawn call to prayer, in a village still shrouded in silence, Sabah Kerbul’s executioners arrived. His father carried an AK-47 assault rifle, as did his brother. And with barely a word spoken, they led the man accused by the village of working as an informer for the Americans behind a house girded with fig trees, vineyards and orange groves.

HIS FATHER raised his rifle and aimed it at his oldest son.

“Sabah didn’t try to escape,” said Abdullah Ali, a village resident. “He knew he was facing his fate.”

The story of what followed is based on interviews with Kerbul’s father, brother and five other villagers who said witnesses told them about the events. One shot tore through Kerbul’s leg, another his torso, the villagers said. He fell to the ground still breathing, his blood soaking the parched dust near the banks of the Tigris River, they said. His father could go no further, and according to some accounts, he collapsed. His other son then fired three times, the villagers said, at least once at his brother’s head.

Kerbul, a tall, husky 28-year-old, died.

“It wasn’t an easy thing to kill him,” his brother Salah said.

In his simple home of cement and cinder blocks, the father, Salem, nervously thumbed black prayer beads this week as he recalled a warning from village residents earlier this month. He insisted his son was not an informer, but he said his protests meant little to a village seething with anger. He recalled their threat was clear: Either he kill his son, or villagers would resort to tribal justice and kill the rest of his family in retaliation for Kerbul’s role in a U.S. military operation in the village in June, in which four people were killed.

Sabah Salem, the dead man's father, sits in his home in the Iraqi village of Thuluyah.

“I have the heart of a father, and he’s my son,” Salem said. “Even the prophet Abraham didn’t have to kill his son.” He dragged on a cigarette. His eyes glimmered with the faint trace of tears. “There was no other choice,” he whispered.

In the simmering guerrilla war fought along the Tigris, U.S. officials say they have received a deluge of tips from informants, the intelligence growing since U.S. forces killed former president Saddam Hussein’s two sons last week. Acting on the intelligence, soldiers have uncovered surface-to-air missiles, 45,000 sticks of dynamite and caches stashed with small arms and explosives. They have shut down safe houses that sheltered senior Baath Party operatives in the Sunni Muslim region north of Baghdad and ferreted out lieutenants and bodyguards of the fallen Iraqi president, who has eluded a relentless, four-month manhunt.

But a shadowy response has followed, a less-publicized but no less deadly theater of violence in the U.S. occupation. U.S. officials and residents say informers have been killed, shot and attacked with grenades. U.S. officials say they have no numbers on deaths, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the campaign is widespread in a region long a source of support for Hussein’s government. The U.S. officials declined to discuss specifics about individual informers and would not say whether Kerbul was one.

Lists of informers have circulated in at least two northern cities, and remnants of the Saddam’s Fedayeen militia have vowed in videotaped warnings broadcast on Arab satellite networks that they will fight informers “before we fight the Americans.”

The surge of informants has also provoked anger in Sunni Muslim towns along the Tigris. Some residents say informants are drawn to rewards from U.S. field commanders of as little as $20 and as much as $2,500. The informants are occasionally interested in settling their own feuds and grudges with the help of soldiers, the residents said. Others contend that the informers are exploiting access with U.S. officials to emerge as power-brokers in the vacuum that has followed the fall of the government on April 9.

“Time’s running out. Something will happen to them very soon,” said Maher Saab, 30, in the village of Saniya.

...

CALLS FOR REVENGE

Residents of Thuluya said they had no doubt about Kerbul. After the operation in the village, dubbed Peninsula Strike, a force of 4,000 soldiers rounded up 400 residents and detained them at an air base seven miles north. An informer dressed in desert camouflage with a bag over his head had fingered at least 15 prisoners as they sat under a sweltering sun, their hands bound with plastic. Villagers said they soon recognized his yellow sandals and right thumb, which had been severed above the joint in an accident.

“We started yelling and shouting, ‘That’s Sabah! That’s Sabah!’ ” said Mohammed Abu Dhua, who was held at the base for seven days and whose brother died of a heart attack during the operation. “We asked his father, ‘Why is Sabah doing these things?’ ”

In the raid, three men and a 15-year-old boy were killed, all believed by villagers to have been innocent. Within days, many focused their ire on Kerbul, who had served a year in prison for impersonating a government official and was believed to have worked as an informer after he was released. Young children in the street sang a limerick about him: “Masked man, your face is the face of the devil.” Calls for revenge — tempered by the fear of tribal bloodletting getting out of hand — were heard in many conversations.

Kerbul’s family said U.S. forces took him to Tikrit, then three weeks later, he went to stay with relatives across the Tigris in the village of Alim. As soon as word of his release spread, his brother Salah and uncle Suleiman went there to bring him back.

Abdullah Ali, a retired colonel whose brother was also killed in a U.S. raid in June, demanded Kerbul's father kill his son for working as an informer.

“We sent a message to his family,” said Ali, a retired colonel whose brother was among those killed during the operation. “You have to kill your son. If you don’t kill him, we will act against your family.”

His father appealed, Ali recalled, saying he needed permission from U.S. forces.

“We told him we’re not responsible for this,” Ali said. “We told him you must kill your son.”

Kerbul’s body was buried hours after the shooting, his father said, carried to the cemetery in a white Toyota pickup. He said he and Kerbul’s brother accompanied the corpse. Salah, his son who fired the fatal shots, said he stayed home.

Neither U.S. military officials in Thuluya nor Tikrit said they were aware of the killing.

“It’s justice,” said Abu Dhua, sitting at his home near a bend in the Tigris. “In my opinion, he deserves worse than death.”

Bush Blames Media For Hyping `March To War' Before Iraq

By Alex Keto, Dow Jones Newswires

http://news.nasdaq.com/news/newsStory.aspx?&cpath=20030801\ACQDJON200308011242DOWJONESDJONLINE000693.htm

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Casting about for new events to blame for the sluggish performance of the economy so far in his administration, President George W. Bush Friday blamed news organizations for hyping the prospects of the war with Iraq.

During a brief interchange with reporters following a meeting with his cabinet, Bush was asked if he was surprised that three large tax cuts and 12 rate cuts by the Federal Reserve hadn't done more to get the economy on track.

As he has done in the past, Bush said the economy has had to overcome a number of obstacles in the past three years. He said these include a sharp drop in share prices on the stock market, a recession, the Sept. 11 attacks and the corporate accounting scandals.

However, Bush added a new culprit - the press corps in general and television networks in particular.

"And then, as you may remember,... we had... a steady drumbeat to war. As I mentioned in my press conference the other day, on our TV screens there was... - on some TV screens there was a constant reminder of the American people - 'March to war.' Now war is not a very pleasant subject in people's minds. It's not conducive for the investment of capital," Bush said.

However, beginning in August 2002 with two speeches by Vice President Dick Cheney in which he said that war might be the only option in dealing with Saddam Hussein, numerous administration officials talked about the possibility of going to war with Iraq.

Bush also pushed the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution that left open the possibility of war with Iraq and then unsuccessfully pressured key allies such as France and Germany to be ready to go war.

Bush himself told the nation during his State of the Union speech that time was running out for Saddam to comply with U.N. sanctions and avoid an attack.

Saddam's Daughters Express Love for Dad
By JAMAL HALABY

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-saddams-daughters,1,1120379.story?coll=chi-news-hed

AMMAN, Jordan -- Saddam Hussein's daughters, in interviews Friday, expressed deep affection for their father but said they didn't know where he is and that they last saw him a week before the Iraqi war started.

Raghad Saddam Hussein and Rana Hussein, who received sanctuary a day earlier in Jordan, appeared relaxed as they spoke with CNN and the Arab satellite station al-Arabiya at a royal palace in Amman, where they are staying with their nine children.

They described tearfully leaving Baghdad the day the capital fell to coalition forces April 9. The sisters were poised but appeared to choke up somewhat as they talked about their family.

"He was a very good father, loving, has a big heart," Raghad Hussein, wearing a fashionable white headscarf showing part of her light brown hair, told CNN. Asked if she wanted to give a message to her father, she said: "I love you and I miss you."

"He had so many feelings and he was very tender with all of us," Rana said in the same interview. "Usually the daughter is close to her mother, but we would usually go to him. He was our friend."

They refused to discuss their brothers Odai and Qusai, who were killed in a shootout with U.S. forces in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on July 22.

Before arriving in Jordan, Raghad and Rana had reportedly been living in humble circumstances in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, since their father's ouster.

The two daughters had lived private lives and -- unlike their brothers -- were not believed to be wanted for crimes linked to their father's brutal regime. Instead, the women were seen by some as victims of Saddam, who ordered their husbands killed in 1996.

Raghad told al-Arabiya that the swift fall of the Iraqi capital on April 9 came as a "great shock" and she blamed it on a betrayal by associates of the deposed leader.

"With regret, those my father trusted, whom he had put his absolute confidence in and whom he had considered on his side -- as I understood from the newspapers -- betrayed him," Raghad said.

She did not say who betrayed Saddam in the portion of the interview that was broadcast.

Rana said she last saw her father a week before the war started.

Raghad said she spent the night before Baghdad fell to coalition forces listening to the radio in the upscale Mansour district of the Iraqi capital in the company of Rana and their children.

"I used to pray and then tell my sister Rana, 'I think that everything is over,' " she said. "I was convinced that everything was over."

At noon the day Baghdad fell, she said her father sent a car from the special security forces, "who told us to leave." She said the Qusai Hussein's wife and her children were with them.

"The farewell moments were terrible," she said. "The boys were hugging each other and crying. We left Baghdad. Then I met my mother after a few hours and Hala (younger sister)."

She said they were put in a house on Baghdad's outskirts.

"There was almost no link with (my) father and brothers because everything was over."

~ White Man's Burden ~

Iraqi gas pipeline on fire after blast - UPDATE

http://www.iii.co.uk/shares/?type=news&articleid=4712323&action=article

BAIJI, Iraq (AFX) - A gas pipeline supplying a key Baghdad power station IS reported on fire this morning near the northern Iraqi refinery town of Baiji, following an overnight explosion, an Agence France-Presse correspondent on the scene reported.

"It was a gas pipeline going from Kirkuk (in northern Iraq) to Tadji" power station, an engineer in Baiji said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

US military helicopters have been seen hovering over the fire 4 km west of Baiji.

The site is one of strategic pipelines in Iraq's massive oil and gas sector.

Witnesses said they heard an explosion last night near Baiji, some 200 km north of Baghdad.

"Last night after 8.00 pm prayers we heard one loud explosion here," said resident Ali Jassan.

It is not immediately known what caused the blast and the resulting fire, which this morning is still too hot to tackle.

The engineer said the pipeline "is very old, it could be a leak," but he has not ruled out sabotage.

Sabotage and looting have plagued the oil and gas sectors, with pipelines suffering crippling damage and just 150 of 700 oil wells currently in working order, officials have said.

Iraq's oil reserves, the second largest in the world, are estimated at 112 bln barrels, while its gas reserves are the world's tenth largest, according to the US-led coalition occupying Iraq.

While the fire was on a gas line, the incident heightens concerns over Iraq's capability to maintain safety and security in its lucrative oil industry.

Oil is crucial to the coalition's plans to rebuild Iraq.

The coalition is banking on sales of 3.4 bln usd this year, which would supply half the 6 bln usd state budget it announced earlier in the month.

Baiji is part of the so-called Sunni triangle, known for its support of ousted president Saddam Hussein.

Oil prices spurt after Iraq pipeline blast
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030801/ts_afp/oil_price

NEW YORK (AFP) - Oil prices put on a late surge in anxious pre-weekend trade, marked by supply fears and yet another pipeline sabotage in Iraq, analysts said.

New York's benchmark light sweet crude contract for delivery in September leapt 1.77 dollars to 32.31 dollars a barrel.

In London, Brent North Sea crude oil for September delivery was up 1.53 dollars at 29.90 dollars.

"First we had reports of reduced output from Nigeria, then there are worries about a Venezuelan refinery and also reports of a pipeline being hit again," said Refco analyst Jim Still.

Supplies were tight, a return of Iraqi oil appeared far off, and the jitters triggered a wave of buying by traders who had bet heavily on an imminent decline in prices, he said.

Fears were raised after saboteurs blew up part of a key oil pipeline in northern Iraq on Thursday night.

The blaze in the northern refinery hub of Baiji, still seen raging on Friday, is another blow to US plans to resuscitate Iraq's massive but crippled energy sector.

"We have seen the same strong close every Friday for the past few weeks," said Barclays Capital analyst Orin Middleton in London.

"The market doesn't want to be short ahead of the weekend, given the political uncertainty in Iraq and other countries," he said.

"If we come through the weekend unscathed, we will go down early Monday morning."

A meeting of ministers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Vienna Thursday had opted to keep crude production unchanged.

The gathering had been called amid OPEC fears that the return of Iraqi crude to world markets following the end of the war to unseat Saddam Hussein could send prices plunging.

However production in Iraq has been slow to resume, hit by dilapidated infrastructure and looting, as well as the poor security situation.

1 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

#85

From: "Jim Galasyn" <jim@...>
Date: Mon Aug 4, 2003 12:33 am
Subject: Cheney's office declined to explain the omission (3 August 2003)

barrett808

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/international/worldspecial/03BAGH.html?ex=1060862559&ei=1&en=d099345ef9aa9020

3 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

~ Bring Them Home ~

Americans Killed Near Baghdad
By ROBERT F. WORTH

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 2 — A homemade bomb exploded under a convoy this morning, killing two American soldiers and their interpreter, and a grenade attack Friday night left another American dead, military officials said today.

At least four other soldiers were wounded in the attacks.

In Friday night's attack, soldiers with the Fourth Infantry Division were struck by a rocket-propelled grenade about 10:30 p.m. while traveling in a convoy near the town of Shumayt, 40 miles north of the capital, said Specialist Nicole Thompson, a military spokeswoman in Baghdad. One soldier was killed and three were wounded.

Today, two soldiers and their interpreter were killed between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. when a homemade bomb exploded under their convoy on the outskirts of Baghdad, striking two Humvees, said Pfc. Jose Belen, with the First Armored Division.

It was not clear whether the bomb was detonated on command or merely left in the road for the convoy to strike, Private Belen said. Some witnesses at the scene said a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the convoy as well, he added.

A sniper then sprayed the Humvees with machine-gun fire, and one soldier was struck and wounded in the neck, Private Belen said. A group of soldiers with the First Armored Division who happened to be in the area pursued the attackers but did not find anyone, he added.

The attack took place under an overpass on a highway near Al Muthara bridge, on the capital's northern outskirts. By late afternoon, all wreckage had been cleared away and no witnesses to the attack could be found.

The soldiers who died were with a civil affairs unit, Private Belen said, though he declined to say what division they belonged to. The deaths brought to 55 the number of soldiers killed since President Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1.

In Baghdad today, the American military, working with a private contractor, began removing the fuel from 74 Russian-made antiaircraft missiles that had been placed at various points in the capital before and during the war by the former government, officials said.

Stray bullet kills US soldier in Iraq
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,6851381%255E25777,00.html

A US soldier with the First Armoured Division died in Baghdad today from a gunshot wound received the day before, apparently by accident, US Central Command said in a statement.

"The soldier was standing outside when a bullet, fired from a celebrating Iraqi, struck him," the statement said.

"The soldier was evacuated to the 28th Combat Support Hospital and subsequently died."

The incident occurred at approximately 7.30pm local time (1.30pm AEST) yesterday. The statement gave no further details.

Since US President George W Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1, the US-led coalition says 52 US soldiers have been killed in guerrilla attacks, while at least 56 have died in non-combat incidents.

[Interactive map of US casualties: http://www.mapbureau.com/usersites/repatriot/hometown/]

~ Fool Me Once ~

MI6 chief to quit after split on Iraq

Succession battle over Blair 'favourite'

David Rose
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1011404,00.html

Britain's top spymaster has decided to retire early, dealing a damaging new blow to the Government's credibility over its presentation of intelligence on Iraq.

Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, is thought to be dismayed by the visible rift between his organisation and Downing Street.

At 58, he had been widely expected to stay in post for another two years, but is now likely to have left by early next year, a little more than four years after he started the job in September 1999.

The move is likely to worsen MI6's crisis of confidence over Downing Street's alleged manipulation of information over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and to plunge the Prime Minister and the intelligence services into a covert battle over the choice of Dearlove's successor.

Retired and serving MI6 officers have told The Observer that they favour an internal candidate - someone who would be seen as a standard-bearer for the freedom from political interference the service has traditionally sworn to uphold.

But Whitehall sources say Tony Blair is seriously considering John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee - viewed by some professionals as 'fatally tainted' because he endorsed the claim in the Government's dossier last September that Saddam could deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes.

Scarlett was a trusted member of Blair's inner circle throughout the Iraq crisis, and has now become a personal friend.

He is to give evidence to Lord Hutton's judicial inquiry into the death of the Ministry of Defence biological weapons expert Dr David Kelly, who is said to have questioned the 45-minute assertion in his briefings to BBC journalists.

'Scarlett put his name to the dossier which included the 45-minute claim, and Blair has repeatedly cited his support in telling people it had the intelligence services' backing,' one source told The Observer. 'It is now uncomfortably apparent that this claim was exaggerated. He is going to be placed in a very difficult position.'

Dearlove last month effectively named his own choice as his successor in the job of MI6's 'C' by appointing a deputy. The post of MI6 deputy chief is normally left vacant, and is filled only when the serving 'C' has announced his departure and wants to groom his successor.

The identity of the new deputy is known to The Observer, but we are not publishing it because he remains undercover. Equally respected for his intellect and operational skill, he has served as a spy in Asia and South America. More recently, he led MI6's attempts to gather intelligence on Iraq. He and his colleagues are said not to dispute the main substance of the Government's September dossier, only its presentation and emphasis. Sources say that they remain confident that overwhelming evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programmes will in due course emerge.

Meanwhile Dearlove, a graduate of Queen's College, Cambridge, has told friends that after retirement he would like to be considered for a job as Master of an Oxbridge college.

Widely admired for his swift and decisive response to the terrorist attacks on America on 11 September, 2001, Dearlove restructured MI6 to focus on Islamist extremism, and began a big recruiting drive for more Arabic speakers and Muslims. But while he was close to Blair in the period after the attacks, accompanying him on trips to build support for the anti-terrorist coalition, there were signs that, once the Government began to concentrate mainly on Iraq, his influence had waned.

He was rarely seen in Blair's company, and his presence on diplomatic missions ceased. In the index to a recent book by former Times editor Peter Stothard, who was granted constant fly-on-the-wall access to Blair during the Iraq crisis, Dearlove's name does not appear. There are, however, numerous references to Scarlett.

Scarlett is a former MI6 man who served there with distinction, leading the operation which saved the life of MI6's agent inside the Soviet KGB, Oleg Gordievsky. But intelligence sources are scathing about his association with Blair's media adviser, Alastair Campbell, who has described him as a 'mate', and by his public endorsement of the September dossier.

The fiercest criticism relates to the fact that Scarlett allowed Campbell, a political appointee with no intelligence training or expertise, to chair a meeting which discussed the dossier and the raw intelligence behind it before publication.

This is being seen within the intelligence community as a historic breach of long-established constitutional principles. A retired senior officer said: 'Rather than allow that to happen, Scarlett should have resigned.'

The Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs has already condemned Campbell's chairing of the 9 September meeting, saying: 'It was wrong for Alastair Campbell or any other special adviser to have chaired a meeting on an intelligence matter, and we recommend that this practice cease.'

Reports last week said MI6 was warned explicitly by the CIA that it would not be wise to publish the 45-minute claim.

Appointing Scarlett, a close friend of Washington ambassador Sir David Manning and Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's ambassador to the UN, would be another breach of precedent, but the job of 'C' is entirely within the Prime Minister's gift.

David Kelly suicide: Electrodes on chest 'unusual'

http://www.americanfreepress.net/08_01_03/Prisoners_Brutalized/prisoners_brutalized.html

Heart experts today said it was 'unusual' for someone to wear electrode pads while walking following revelations that David Kelly had four of the special monitors on his chest when his body was found.

Dr Kelly - the BBC's source for a report claiming the government altered the contents of a dossier about Iraq - had probably been wearing a 24-hour electro-cardiogram recorder, also known as a Holter monitor, medical experts said.

But it was odd that the pads that are connected to the device had not been removed by doctors and were left attached to his chest, they said.

Niger demands formal exoneration of Bush's Iraq-uranium allegation

http://cbsnewyork.com/international/Niger-Iraq-Uranium-ai/resources_news_html

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) Niger's president demanded the U.N. nuclear agency exonerate it of any claims it had any uranium dealings with Iraq, a widely discounted accusation included in President Bush state of the union address.

Ahead of the U.S.-led of invasion of Iraq, Bush said British intelligence possessed a document showing that Iraq had approached Niger to obtain uranium. The claim was used to suggest Iraq was pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

U.N. officials have called the document a forgery, and Bush administration officials have since said it should not have been cited in the president's speech.

``This affair represents nothing other than accusations without foundation,'' Niger President Mamadou Tandja said in a televised address late Saturday in the arid West African nation.

The Vienna-based U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency should ``publicly wash Niger of all suspicions before the U.N. Security Council,'' Tandja declared.

``Without that, our country can only remain harmed and hampered by a situation in which it isn't implicated in any way,'' Tandja said in the speech, which marked the 43rd anniversary of Niger's independence from France.

The U.N. agency said Sunday it had not heard from the president and that it did not have an official response yet to his comments.

``It's an unusual request,'' a spokeswoman for the agency, Melissa Fleming, said in Vienna. ``We'd have to get it formally in writing and then see what we would do with it.''

Fleming pointed to a March 7 statement to the Security Council in which the agency's chief said the charges against Niger were unfounded.

Niger, a landlocked, largely Muslim nation, is the world's third-largest producer of mined uranium. Uranium is the country's leading export.

America silences Niger leaders in Iraq nuclear row
By David Harrison in Niamey, Niger
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/08/03/wwmd03.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/08/03/ixnewstop.html

America has warned the Niger government to keep out of the row over claims that Saddam Hussein sought to buy uranium for his nuclear weapons programme from the impoverished West African state.

Herman Cohen, a former assistant secretary of state for Africa and one of America's most experienced Africa hands, called on Mamadou Tandja, Niger's president, in the capital Niamey last week to relay the message from Washington, according to senior Niger government officials.

One said: "Let's say Mr Cohen put a friendly arm around the president to say sorry about the forged documents, but then squeezed his shoulder hard enough to convey the message, 'Let's hear no more about this affair from your government'. Basically he was telling Niger to shut up."

The dramatic American intervention reflects growing concern about the continuing row over claims that America and Britain distorted evidence to justify the war against Iraq.

It follows The Telegraph's exclusive interview with Hama Hamadou, Niger's prime minister, last week. Mr Hamadou said that the Niger government had never had discussions with Iraq about uranium and called on Tony Blair to produce the "evidence" he claims to have to confirm that Iraq sought uranium from Niger in the 1990s.

American officials denied that there had been any attempt to "gag" the Niger government. The Niamey official, however, said that there was "a clear attempt to stop any more embarrassing stories coming out of Niger".

He said that Washington's warning was likely to be heeded. "Mr Cohen did not spell it out but everybody in Niger knows what the consequences of upsetting America or Britain would be. We are the world's second-poorest country and we depend on international aid to survive."

Mr Cohen's intervention suggests that Washington is keen to draw a line under the "uranium from Africa" affair, although The Telegraph has also learned that senior American soldiers were in Iraq last week to investigate the movement of Niger's uranium.

Iraq's 'gold' mostly copper

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/214/nation/Iraq_s_gold_mostly_copper+.shtml

WASHINGTON -- Gold-colored bars seized by US forces in Iraq appear to be melted-down shell casings made mostly of copper, rather than gold, the White House said in a report obtained yesterday.

The US military announced the discovery of truckloads of the gold-colored bars in May.

One haul was estimated to be worth as much as $500 million. Another was estimated at $100 million, though the driver said the bars were actually copper.

In a report to Congress detailing US reconstruction efforts, the White House budget office said 1,100 gold-colored bars were recovered in Iraq and that samples were taken to Kuwait for testing.

The report said the bars were 64 percent copper and 34 percent zinc.

This story ran on page A12 of the Boston Globe on 8/2/2003.

Questions grow over Iraq links to Qaeda

By Peter S. Canellos and Bryan Bender, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, 8/3/2003

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/215/nation/Questions_grow_over_Iraq_links_to_QaedaP.shtml

WASHINGTON -- Shortly after his now-discredited report that Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy uranium in Africa, President Bush asserted in his State of the Union address that ''evidence from intelligence sources, secret conversations, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaeda.''

The link between Hussein and Al Qaeda was a component of Bush's larger assertion that Hussein was an imminent threat to the United States -- that ''secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists.''

But a review of the White House's statements and interviews with current and former intelligence officials indicate that the assertion was extrapolated from nuggets of intelligence, some tantalizing but unproven, some subsequently disproved, and some considered suspect even at the time the administration was making its case for war.

Unconfirmed reports -- such as a Czech assertion of a meeting in Prague between Sept. 11 terrorist Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi agent, as well as a captured Al Qaeda member's assertion that Iraq had provided chemical weapons training to Al Qaeda members -- were presented as facts at various points by Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

''I know this,'' Cheney said on Nov. 14, 2001, when asked on the television news show ''60 Minutes II'' about the alleged Atta meeting with a Hussein aide. ''In Prague in April of this year, as well as earlier . . .''

The following March, Cheney acknowledged the White House was still working to ''nail down'' the Atta connection, although national security adviser Condoleezza Rice depicted it last September as part of ''a picture that is emerging that there may well have been contacts between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime.''

Last week, congressional investigators declared in their major report on the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that after tracing Atta's movements for two years, including trips made under all known aliases, there was no evidence of the Prague meeting. A former intelligence official in the Bush administration told the Globe the CIA obtained evidence soon after the Czech report that the Iraqi agent was elsewhere at the time of the purported meeting.

''The CIA had proof that Iraqi guy was not in Prague at the time,'' said the official, who asked not to be named. ''The mystery here is why did the CIA allow that story to live when it could disprove it with hard information.''

The administration now says the justification for Bush's reference in the State of the Union Address was intelligence showing that Abu Mussab Zarqawi, a terrorist associated with Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, operated out of Baghdad after coming to the Iraqi capital to receive medical treatment last year. Intelligence agencies contend Zarqawi recruited a terror cell in Baghdad and helped engineer the killing of State Department official Lawrence Foley in Jordan last October.

The administration does not contend it has evidence of ties between Zarqawi and the Iraqi government. Instead, Bush's statement that Hussein ''aids and protects'' known Al Qaeda operatives is based on the assumption that Hussein's police would have to know the comings and goings of a terrorist, a point emphasized by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in the months leading up to the war.

But two senior intelligence officials who asked that their names not be used said they were never convinced that Hussein knew Zarqawi's whereabouts, noting that some stretches of Iraq's borders are notoriously porous. And they said other countries' intelligence agencies have questioned the extent of the link between Zarqawi and Al Qaeda, suggesting he is an Al Qaeda associate but not a member.

Ten days ago, Cheney offered a forceful defense of the administration's case for war, intended to quell growing criticism about the discredited uranium report. But he surprised many political leaders by making no mention of a link between Hussein and Al Qaeda.

Cheney's office declined to explain the omission.

Mike Anton, spokesman for the National Security Council, said Bush never declared an ''alliance'' between Hussein and Al Qaeda, only contacts.

''It's not an alliance,'' Anton said. ''It was midlevel contacts, in some cases high-level contacts, going back a decade. That's a fact. No one's ever debunked it.''

Indeed, intelligence agencies tracked contacts between Iraqi agents and Al Qaeda agents in the '90s in Sudan and Afghanistan, where bin Laden is believed to have met with Farouk Hijazi, head of Iraqi intelligence. But current and former intelligence specialists caution that such meetings occur just as often between enemies as friends. Spies frequently make contact with rogue groups to size up their intentions, gauge their strength, or try to infiltrate their ranks, they said. The United States sometimes seeks such contacts, they said.

''While there have been a number of promising intelligence leads hinting at possible meetings between Al Qaeda members and elements of the former Baghdad regime, nothing has been yet shown demonstrating that these potential contacts were historically any more significant than the same level of communication maintained between Osama bin Laden and ruling elements in a number of Iraq's Persian Gulf neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Qatar, and Kuwait,'' said Evan Kohlman, senior terrorism analyst at the Investigative Project, a Washington think tank credited with compiling the largest archive on Muslim militants.

Last week, several prominent Democratic senators invoked the alleged link between Hussein and Al Qaeda as part of an administration pattern of inflating the case for war. Senator Barbara Boxer of California produced a government map from late 2001 on which the administration identified 45 ''countries where Al Qaeda has operated'' -- but Iraq was not among them.

Boxer introduced the map into the Congressional Record at a hearing at which Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz testified. Wolfowitz did not respond at the hearing, and the State Department did not respond to questions about the map.

Senator Russell Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said, ''Even though they were selling us something else -- selling us an invasion and occupation of a major Middle Eastern country even though intelligence did not reveal solid ties to Al Qaeda -- the administration incorporated references to Al Qaeda in its hard sell.''

Some former intelligence officials are even more critical.

Greg Thielmann, the director of the strategic, proliferation, and military affairs division in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research until last September, was charged by Bush officials with determining where Al Qaeda might acquire expertise and materials for weapons of mass destruction.

''Based on the terrorism experts I met with during my period of government, I never heard anyone make the claim there was a significant tie between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein,'' he said. The Bush administration, he added, was ''misleading the public in implying there was a close connection.''

Daniel Benjamin, who directed counterterrorism efforts on the National Security Council in the Clinton administration, said: ''No one disputes that there have been contacts over the years. In that part of the America-hating universe, contacts happen. But that's still a long way from suggesting that they were really working together.''

In 1998, Benjamin said, he was part of a National Security Council exercise aimed at critically examining the CIA's assessment that Al Qaeda would not team up with Iraq.

''This was a red-team effort,'' he said. ''We looked at this as an opportunity to disprove the conventional wisdom, and basically we came to the conclusion that the CIA had this one right.''

Bush, when asked at his news conference last week whether the administration was amassing proof of the alleged link between Hussein and Al Qaeda, said it was examining ''literally miles of documents.''

''And it's just going to take a while, and I'm confident the truth will come out,'' Bush said. ''And there is no doubt in my mind . . . that Saddam Hussein was a threat to United States security, and a threat to peace in the region.''

But some current and former intelligence officials say whatever the ultimate verdict on the link between Hussein and Al Qaeda, the administration erred in presenting raw intelligence as part of an argument for its own policy rather than as a subject for analysis. In some cases, officials did not provide a context for the material. For instance, they said, only in the rarest instances did an administration official refer to a large amount of evidence that Hussein and bin Laden were on bad terms and therefore unlikely to join forces.

''In my judgment, Saddam assessed Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda as a threat rather than a potential partner to be exploited to attack the United States,'' said Judith Yaphe, who worked on counterterrorism at the CIA for three years, specializing in Iraq during the administration of George H.W. Bush. ''Bin Laden wanted to attack Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990 rather than have the Saudi government depend on foreign military forces.''

In other cases, current and former intelligence officials said, the administration presented promising leads as fact. During his presentation of the US case for war before the United Nations on Feb. 5, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said one captured ''senior terrorist operative'' from the high ranks of Al Qaeda reported that the terror network had sought training in ''chemical or biological weapons'' from Iraq in 2000, and that the Al Qaeda agent charged with making contact with Iraq declared his mission a success.

Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former chief of counterterrorism operations and analysis, said the allegation was intriguing but remains unproven. ''We know this guy said it,'' said Cannistraro, but ''the question is where it would have happened.''

But by Feb. 6, when Bush followed Powell's presentation with comments of his own, the captured operative's account was presented as fact.

''Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct, and continuing ties to terrorist networks,'' the president declared. ''Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and Al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. . . . Iraq has also provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training.''

Michael Kranish, Anne E. Kornblut, and Robert Schlesinger of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

VP's prewar role drawing attention; some allege misuse of Iraq intelligence
BY DOUGLAS HOLT
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/politics/6444861.htm

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Unlike CIA Director George Tenet and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who have taken responsibility and expressed regret for allowing President Bush to make an erroneous claim in his State of the Union address, Vice President Dick Cheney in recent days has staked out an unapologetic defense of the war in Iraq.

Last week, the president took personal responsibility for the claim that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Africa, an assertion that rested partly on forged documents. But a day later, Cheney was basking in applause during a speech to conservative state legislators with a line suggesting little doubt about the war's justifications or results.

"In Iraq, a dictator with a deep and bitter hatred of the United States - who built, possessed and used weapons of mass destruction and cultivated ties to terrorists - is no more," Cheney said.

As the White House fends off questions about whether the administration misused prewar intelligence, lawmakers and analysts are increasingly scrutinizing the role played by Cheney. Some are asking if Cheney, one of the most powerful figures in the administration and perhaps the most influential vice president in history, went too far in making the case for war.

Cheney has drawn attention for several reasons, among them his prewar visits to CIA analysts, which some say pressured those analysts to exaggerate the Iraqi threat; his involvement in the claim that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from Niger; and his strong prewar statements, some of which are now in question, on Iraq's weapons programs.

Critics say Cheney's role may have helped mask significant disputes within the U.S. intelligence community. Those disputes have been raised anew given the failure to find chemical or biological weapons in Iraq or evidence of a reconstituted nuclear weapons program.

Officials at the CIA and the vice president's office have explained Cheney's personal visits to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., as a healthy indication of his attention to their work, and not an attempt to skew conclusions to fit a policy goal of toppling Saddam Hussein.

The vice president was accompanied by his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on the visits, which supplemented the daily intelligence briefings for Cheney and those he attends with Bush.

"He's got a deep interest in intelligence and engages actively with our folks on it," one CIA official said. "That is something which we welcome."

But Greg Thielmann, who retired in September as director of strategic, proliferation and military affairs in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, said he saw no similar curiosity from Cheney about the State Department's intelligence shop, known as INR.

That agency was far more skeptical than the CIA about claims that Iraq possessed threatening weaponry.

"One would think if Cheney was on some sort of noble pursuit of the truth and really wanted to get into details, he would have noticed that INR had very loud and lengthy dissents on some critical pieces of Iraq intelligence," Thielmann said.

"You'd think he might want to hear from us," he added. "It never happened, of course, because Cheney wasn't engaged in an academic search for truth."

The State Department bureau concluded last October there was no compelling evidence Iraq had rebuilt its nuclear weapons program, according to recently declassified portions of a National Intelligence Estimate, a top-level synthesis of U.S. intelligence reports.

INR also characterized as "highly dubious" claims that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Africa. "We thought the nuclear section of the estimate was so flawed that we thought we needed to have a whole special treatment of it to explain our views," Thielmann said.

An official in Cheney's office said CIA analysts offered the government's most authoritative information on Iraq and other intelligence matters, and dismissed the State Department's dissent as a small minority view in the intelligence community. Cheney's office also declined to specify how many times the vice president visited with analysts, or to describe what was discussed.

But some say Cheney's visits contributed to an atmosphere that pressured the CIA to conform with an administration policy bent on regime change in Iraq.

"These visits were unprecedented," wrote three Democratic members of Congress in a July 21 letter to Cheney. "Normally, vice presidents, yourself included, receive regular briefing from (the) CIA in your office and have a CIA officer on permanent detail. There is no reason for the vice president to make personal visits to CIA analysts."

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said two weeks ago at a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee that he knew of "at least three" intelligence analysts who said they felt pressured to draw dramatic conclusions about Iraq.

A senior intelligence official said Cheney may have not intended to apply pressure. "But whatever (Cheney) was saying, analysts certainly felt there was pressure," the official said. "There was an outcome, and they were being driven to get stuff to support that outcome."

In the year preceding the war, unclassified CIA intelligence assessments provided to Congress went from expressing low-level concern about Iraq's weapons capability to expressing the same information in "alarmist" terms, said Joseph Cirincione, director of the non-proliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

At the same time, officials including Cheney began voicing their views of Iraq's illegal weapons in more certain terms.

Regarding nuclear weapons, Cheney said in a speech last August to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, "We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons." Yet that was a less-than-unanimous view in the intelligence community.

Cheney's role in the controversial uranium claim began in early 2002, when his aides acknowledge he asked the CIA about sketchy intelligence reports indicating Iraq may have sought the material from Niger for a nuclear bomb.

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson was sent by the CIA to check out the report and was told of Cheney's interest. He concluded there was too much oversight from an international consortium for the sale to have occurred, and that is what he reported back.

"The vice president's office asked a serious question," Wilson wrote in a newspaper account last month. "I was asked to help formulate the answer."

Tenet and Cheney's office said the vice president was never briefed on the results of Wilson's trip, or even of the CIA's doubts about the claim.

Cheney also apparently did not know that Tenet had telephoned a Bush aide and sent two memos to White House officials asking them to remove the uranium reference from a speech Bush gave in Cincinnati on Oct. 7. The White House revealed the existence of the memos on July 22.

"I don't think he was aware the CIA had pulled that out of the Cincinnati speech," the Cheney aide said.

Cheney was among those who reviewed the president's State of the Union address before Bush delivered it Jan. 28. But Cheney knew nothing of the CIA's doubts about the uranium claim so it raised no red flags, the official said.

Some outside the administration find it hard to believe Cheney could be so deeply enmeshed in intelligence issues but be left out of the loop regarding the uranium claim, especially because it was a subject in which Cheney took interest.

"The vice president became very interested in this whole story of (uranium) coming from Africa to Iraq," said Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president. "I can't believe that the CIA did not provide to the vice president, since he was the one that requested it, all the information that they gathered about Niger."

Before the war, Cheney also emphasized as a "fact" that Iraq had imported high-strength aluminum tubes needed for a restarted nuclear weapons program. The same day last September that The New York Times ran a story on the tubes, attributed to unnamed Bush administration officials, Cheney appeared on "Meet the Press."

Citing the newspaper story, Cheney said: "It's now public that, in fact, (Saddam) has been seeking to acquire . . . the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge" needed to enrich uranium for a bomb.

But according to information declassified last month, the State Department's INR cited technical experts at the Energy Department "who have concluded that the tubes Iraq seeks to acquire are poorly suited for use in gas centrifuges to be used for uranium enrichment."

The "alternative view" expressed in a National Intelligence Estimate last year said it was "far more likely" the tubes were intended for the production of artillery rockets.

Cheney's backers say he never misled the public or went beyond the majority views of the intelligence community at the time of his comments. And they insist the use or misuse of intelligence to justify war will likely fizzle as an issue with voters.

And Cheney has been adept in defending the administration politically. In a speech to the conservative American Enterprise Institute two weeks ago, he emphasized the point that a murderous dictator had been stopped.

Swedish researchers claim to have found proscribed weapons in Iraq

http://blogs.salon.com/0001561/2003/08/03.html#a3148

A group of Swedish researchers, travelling to Iraq without the knowledge of the Swedish government, is announcing that they have found missiles for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in a house in Baghdad.

The finds will be presented in a forthcoming production by World Television Network (WTN). The information supposedly came to Swedish WTN reporter Maria Wera Cedrell, who has worked in Iraq for 15 years, through an Iraqi scientist. She was assisted by former arms inspector and WMD expert �ke Sellstr�m from Swedish Defence Research Agency (Totalf�rsvarets forskningsinstitut, FOI).

"I think we have found "a smoking gun." But that is not up to me to decide."

Sellstr�m describes this as pieces of a puzzle. But the researchers will not reveal any details before the find is presented in a TV production and a book project (possible red alert here).

Swedish authorities, deeply critical to US policy in Iraq, is not amused about military scientists going to Iraq to conduct private investigations without informing them first.

(From a Swedish article in Expressen: http://www.expressen.se/expressen/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=442&a=51623

Update: just heard on the radio (NRK) that these scientists have also received information that Saddam had a programme for production of anthrax weapons even while the latest inspections were going on. Sellstr�m is presented as a well-renowed expert in the field who has worked with Hans Blix. A TV production about the find will be presented on Swedish TV tonight.

Update 2: Glenn Reynolds (http://www.instapundit.com/archives/010753.php) the InstaPundit linked this item, and was also able to locate an English-language site (http://watch.windsofchange.net/) that provides a translation of parts of the Swedish newspaper article (Sorry, I can't find a permalink to it).

~ Hearts and Minds ~

U.S. forces shoot Iraqi woman after bomb attack

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/4865908.htm

BAGHDAD, Aug 2 (Reuters) - An Iraqi woman was killed when U.S. forces opened fire in Baghdad after a bomb was thrown at their convoy, a military spokeswoman said on Saturday.

She said a bomb was dropped from an overpass on a six- vehicle 1st Armoured Division convoy on Friday evening.

"Soldiers opened fire in self-defence," she said. "An Iraqi woman was nearby and she was killed."

The spokeswoman had no information on whether the victim was suspected of involvement in the attack.

Guerrilla attacks on U.S. forces have killed 53 American soldiers since Washington declared major combat over on May 1. A number of Iraqi civilians have also been killed in attacks, or been caught in the crossfire as U.S. soldiers shoot back, but the U.S. army says it keeps no tally of Iraqi casualties.

Prisoners Brutalized In Baghdad Gulag Prison

Former prisoners and aid workers provide insight into the brutal living conditions of those held in makeshift prison camps in Iraq.

Exclusive to American Free Press

By Gordon Thomas

http://www.americanfreepress.net/08_01_03/Prisoners_Brutalized/prisoners_brutalized.html

Each prisoner receives six pints of dank, tepid water a day. He uses it to wash and drink in summer noonday temperatures of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. He is not allowed to wash his clothes. He is provided with a small cup of delousing powder to deal with the worst of his body infestation.

For the slightest infringement of draconian rules he is forced to sit in painful positions. If he cries out in protest his head is covered with a sack for lengthy periods.

This is daily life in America’s shameful Gulag—Camp Cropper on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport.

Except for guards and prisoners, only the International Red Cross is allowed inside. They are forbidden to describe what they see.

But some of its staff have broken ranks—to tell Amnesty International (AI), the London-based human rights watchdog, of the shocking conditions the 3,000 Iraqi prisoners are held under.

None had been charged with any offense. They are listed as suspected “looters” and “rioters.” Or listed as “loyal to Saddam Hussein.”

Every day more prisoners are crowded into the broiling, dusty compound. Surrounded by 10-foot-high razor wire, they live in tents that are little protection against the blistering sun. They sleep 80 to a tent on wafer-thin mats.

Each prisoner has a long-handled shovel to dig his own latrine. Some are too old or weak to dig the ordered depth of three feet. Others find they have excavated pits already used.

The overpowering stench in this hellhole is suffocating. “Add to sleep deprivation and physical abuse you have highly degrading conditions which are tantamount to torture and gross abuse of human rights,” said Curt Goering, deputy director of AI.

He confirmed that AI had received “credible reports” of detainees who had died in custody, “mostly as a result of shooting by members of the coalition forces.”

Camp Cropper also houses a growing number of what are listed as “special prisoners.” They include the former deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, Saadiun Hammadi, the former speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, and Ezzar Ibrahim, the son of Saddam’s second in command on the Revolutionary Command Council.

A woman “special” is Huda Ammash—known as “Chemical Sally,” because she was a key member of Saddam’s chemical and biological weapons program.

The week before he allegedly committed suicide, Dr. David Kelly, the English scientist, had prepared questions he planned to put to her when he returned to Iraq to assist in the search for weapons of mass destruction.

“Chemical Sally” sleeps in a tent with other women members of the Ba’ath Party. Like the men, they are not allowed to wash their underwear—and several have developed sores, according to a Red Cross visitor.

After two months incarceration none of the “special prisoners” has been told what charges he or she will face—though several, like Aziz, had surrendered voluntarily to the Americans.

A glimpse of his life now has come from one of the few prisoners to be released, Adnan Jassim.

“Tariq Aziz has aged very much in the past months in the camp. He shuffles and has a stoop,” said Jassim. “This may be because he has to dig his own toilet hole. It is forbidden for anyone to help him to do this. He is treated just like anyone else—an animal to be driven wherever the guards want him.

“His hair has grown. It is very dirty. He gets no special treatment: The same terrible food. Mostly he eats very little of it. It is hard to believe he was second to Saddam, the most powerful man in Iraq,” said Jassim.

Jassim was arrested the day after the war officially ended. He insists that he was stopped for speeding.

“The Americans just fired at my car. Then they threw me into a truck and took me to the camp. At the gate I had a badge pinned to my shirt. It said ‘presumed killer.’ I have never even fired a gun, let alone killed anyone,” Jassim insisted.

AI’s human rights workers and Red Cross officials have gathered statements from the few prisoners who have been released. One detainee, Suheil Laibbi Mohammed, who used to work as a mechanic, repairing Saddam’s fleet of cars, said he had seen prisoners repeatedly hit with rifle butts.

Detainees described being given food that is inedible to Muslims. Most of the meat was pork. “But it was either eat it or starve,” said Rafed Adel Mehdi.

Aziz’s wife, Zureida, and his two sons fled to Jordan when the war ended.

In London their family lawyer, Dr. Abdul Haq al-Ani, wants to serve a writ of habeas corpus on Britain’s embattled Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, arguing that his client is being held in contravention of the Geneva Convention and the Human Rights Act.

“I spent a week in Baghdad, but I was not allowed to see my client,” said al-Ani. “I know the conditions he is being held under from those who have been released. It is outrageous what is happening.”

“Chemical Sally’s” family is also planning legal moves to have her freed. They have submitted evidence to the Americans that she has breast cancer and has to continue treatments.

Her mother, Kasmah Ammash, a frail 70-year-old, said: “My daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer in the late ’80s. She went to Pittsburgh for chemotherapy and underwent a mastectomy. Before she was arrested she was undergoing further follow-up treatment. How can they be so cruel?”

AI said it urged the coalition forces to look into allegations and to convict those found guilty of offenses.

“The Americans have acknowledged there are some serious problems,” said Goering. “But there is a difference of opinion on what laws apply.”

Nada Doumani, the International Red Cross spokesman in Baghdad, said: “We never comment on the conditions at the detention centers.”

Doumani added: “The Geneva Convention is clear about the obligations that exist for legal advice and visits. If someone is being held as a POW, then there is a legal obligation to allow him or her access to legal advice. But if they are held as a civilian, that does not apply. A tribunal has been set up to decide which category each person in the camp fits into. Until their work is complete, we can say no more.”

~ White Man's Burden ~

Two Iranian journalists arrested, other foreign media harassed

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=7678

Reporters Without Borders today deplored the worsening attitude of US troops towards journalists in Iraq and called for US Administrator Paul Bremer to explain exactly why two Iranian newsmen, Said Aboutaleb and Soheil Karimi, of the public TV station IRIB, have been held since 1 July for alleged "security violations."

It said confiscations of equipment, arrests of journalists and incidents between the media and US soldiers had increased in recent days.

"The US-British forces must provide convincing evidence that the Iranians have violated security or else release them at once," said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert M�nard. He expressed concern at worsening conditions for journalists and recent statements by US deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz accusing pan-Arab satellite TV stations Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya of putting out reports encouraging violence against US troops.

IRIB's bureau chief in Baghdad, Gholem Reza Kutchak, said his two journalists, as well as an Iraqi interpreter and a driver, were arrested on 1 July by American troops and taken to US army headquarters in the southern town of Diwaniah. They were working on a documentary around Al-Kut and Diwaniah. On 7 July, US soldiers went to the hotel in Kerbala where they had stayed and took away their belongings. The Iranian consul in Baghdad was told by US forces on 15 July that they had been transferred to the Baghdad airport detention camp.

A spokesman for the US-British forces said they had been arrested for "security violations" and that when they were picked up they were not behaving like journalists.

Kazutaka Sato, of Japan's Nippon Television Network, was beaten on 27 July by US soldiers in Baghdad and detained for an hour until other foreign journalists came to find him. He was thrown on the ground and kicked after filming a US army attack in the city's Al-Mansur district in which five civilians were killed in a raid on a house where former President Saddam Hussein was believed to be. His camera was returned to him. "It seems they had something to hide, perhaps the bodies of civilians," he said.

The newspaper Al-Adala, organ of Iraq's main Shiite party, said its Baghdad offices were recently ransacked by US troops.

Four Turkish journalists -Yal�in Dogan, �zdemir Ince, Faruk Baliki�i and Ferit Aslan - were detained for an hour and a half by US troops on 26 July. Their equipment was returned but the photos they had taken of soldiers with a digital camera were erased.

Al-Jazeera's correspondent in Mosul, Nawaf Al-Shahwani, was arrested on 26 July with his driver and held by US troops until the night of 27-28 July. Their film was confiscated. Iraqi police had briefly detained a four-man Al-Jazeera team on 22 July while they were filming protests against the US-British presence. The station said Iraqi police had arrested the four at the request of the US army.

On 29 July, deputy defense secretary Wolfowitz charged on the US Fox TV network that Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya were putting out "false and slanted reports that are an incitement to violence" against US troops. The two stations have protested against the accusations.

A report called "The Iraqi media three months after the war : a new but fragile freedom" published by Reporters Without Borders on 23 July, expressed concern about possible misuse of the June order by US Administrator Bremer about "inimical media activity."

3 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

#86

From: "Jim Galasyn" <jim@...>
Date: Tue Aug 5, 2003 2:25 am
Subject: This is the ruling of God (4 August 2003)

barrett808

http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20030804-121425-6485r.htm

Six wounded in Baghdad as coalition looks for international security force
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030804/ts_afp/iraq_us_030804191358

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Five US soldiers and an Iraqi translator were wounded in attacks and a police station was torched as the US-led coalition scoured the globe for nations willing to replace some of its combat-weary troops.

Iraqi civilians were also being struck down in the low-level war between US troops and loyalists of Saddam Hussein, while a military spokesman acknowledged four people were killed by US fire during a hunt for the fugitive strongman in Baghdad's upmarket neighborhood of Mansur last week.

In a bold move, insurgents wounded three soldiers and an Iraqi translator in an anti-tank rocket and bomb attack Monday near the heavily-fortified Baghdad police headquarters, the nexus for law enforcement in the city of five million.

It was the second attack of the day after soldiers were again ambushed on the lethal route to Baghdad airport, where convoys regularly come under fire.

"Today, at 9:25 am (0525 GMT), on the airport road, an improvised explosive device was thrown on a convoy of the Third Armoured Division," Sergeant Marc Ingham said. "Two soldiers were wounded and one Humvee disabled."

In a third clash on Monday, Iraqi police opened fire on armed men who fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a US military vehicle and accompanying police in Khalidiya, 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Baghdad.

Residents protesting the presence of US troops attacked the Khalidiya town hall and a police station, which they set alight, as the US army called in helicopter-backed reinforcements to restore order in the town, considered a hotbed of support for the former regime.

It was a setback for the US-led coalition's efforts to rehabilitate the country's security services, as training for the post-war Iraqi army was due to get underway this week.

And a 75-year-old farmer was shot dead and his son wounded Sunday after being turned back at a coalition checkpoint west of Fallujah, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, the farmer's family told AFP. ...

War casualties overflow Walter Reed hospital
By Jon Ward

Officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center are referring some outpatients to nearby hotels because casualties from operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have overloaded the hospital's convalescence facility.

"We have an informal agreement with any number of hotels in the area. If we come to this point, they will take [patients] for us," said Walter Reed spokesman Jim Stueve. "They're very supportive and cooperative when we need that assistance."

Mr. Stueve could not specify how many soldiers are in hotels, but said Walter Reed is referring about 20 patients or their relatives to hotels each day. Hotels in Silver Spring, just across the D.C. line, offer discounted rates for outpatients and their families, and the military pays the bill.

However, the hotel arrangement has not compromised the quality of care for incoming wounded, Mr. Stueve said.

"The staff is highly motivated to get these troops mended and on their way," he said.

A hospital spokeswoman said: "We haven't turned away any injured soldiers. We are treating all of them."

The Army hospital and its convalescence facility, Mologne House, are at maximum occupancy capacity, with 96 percent of their outpatient beds filled with war wounded.

Walter Reed has been at maximum capacity since Operation Enduring Freedom began in Afghanistan in 2001, Mr. Stueve said, adding that the hospital's 3,900 staffers have "put in a substantial amount of overtime."

Before Enduring Freedom, the hospital's occupancy rate had held steady at 83 percent for five years.

"We haven't been average here for well over a year. We've been really busy. They've been rolling in here real regular," Mr. Stueve said.

The Mologne House is a 280-bed facility for outpatients who need continued care or rehabilitation, as well as their families.

"Anybody who comes here and wants to stay there can't," said a hospital spokeswoman.

The hospital has 40 of 250 beds available for inpatients, but must continually open beds for new arrivals from Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany or the U.S. Naval Hospital in Rota, Spain.

"We have flights coming in almost every night from Landstuhl, so you don't book that sucker up solid so when you have your No. 1 priority come in, you say, 'You can't stay here,' " Mr. Stueve said.

Walter Reed has treated about 750 patients from Operation Iraqi Freedom since the war began, 185 of whom have been battle casualties. Of the 185 battle casualties, 135 have been treated as inpatients and 50 as outpatients. The total number of battle casualty patients discharged is 111, including one death, leaving 24 currently at the medical center as inpatients.

One of the hospital's best known patients — Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch — left Walter Reed last month to return to her family's home in West Virginia.

A current inpatient is still in critical condition. Two others remain in critical but stable condition. Walter Reed physicians describe the conditions of other inpatients as ranging from fair to good. The patients have broken bones, orthopedic injuries, gunshot wounds and other minor injuries.

The hospital received seven battle casualties this week. Four are in serious but stable condition, one is in fair condition, and one is in satisfactory condition. The seventh received treatment as an outpatient.

President Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1. But U.S. troops there continue to come under attack almost daily by resistance fighters, especially in cities north and west of Baghdad, where Sunni Muslims were the strongest supporters of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

Death marches at double in Iraq but US public unaware
By Julian Borger in Washington

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/04/1059849347169.html

United States military casualties in Iraq are running at more than twice the number most Americans have been led to believe they are. The public is largely unaware of a high number of accidents, suicides and other non-combat deaths.

Since May 1, when President George Bush called an end to combat operations, 52 of his troops have been killed by hostile fire, according to Pentagon figures.

But the total of deaths from all causes is much higher at 112.

The other unreported cost of the war for the United States is the number of wounded - 827.

But unofficial figures put the total in the thousands. Many of the wounded have lost limbs.

The number of US combat deaths since the start of the war is 166, which is 19 more than the toll in the first Gulf war.

The passing of that benchmark last month scotched the perception that the US had scored an easy victory. The death toll this time is 248 when accidents and suicides are included.

According to a Gallup poll, 63 per cent of Americans still think Iraq was worth going to war over, but a quarter want the troops out now, and another third want a withdrawal if the casualty figures mount.

Military observers say it is unusual, even in a "low-intensity" guerilla war, for non-combat deaths to outnumber combat casualties.

The Pentagon does not tabulate the cause of those deaths, but according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a website that tracks official reports, 23 US soldiers have died in car or helicopter accidents since May 1, and 12 have been killed in accidents with weapons or explosives.

Three deaths have been categorised as possible suicides, three have died from illness and three from drowning. The rest are unexplained.

Wounded US soldiers continue to be flown back to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington at a relentless rate.

The Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington was so overwhelmed by the influx that it had taken over beds normally reserved for cancer patients, a CBS report said.

The Pentagon figure for wounded in action in Iraq is 827, but here again the total of injuries appears much higher.

The estimate given by central command in Qatar is 926, but Lieutenant-Colonel Allen DeLane, in charge of the airlift of wounded into Andrews Air Force Base, argues that too is understated. "Since the war has started, I can't give you an exact number because that's classified information, but I can say to you over 4000 have stayed here at Andrews, and that number doubles when you count the people that come here to Andrews and then we send them to other places . . ." Colonel DeLane told National Public Radio.

Ninety per cent of injuries were directly war-related, he said.

"When the facility where I'm at started absorbing the people coming back from theatre [in April], those numbers went up significantly - I'd say over 1200. That number even went up higher in the month of May, to about 1500, and continues to increase."

~ Fool Me Once ~

No 10 dismisses Kelly as a 'Walter Mitty'
By Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=430354

Downing Street will seek to defend itself over the death of David Kelly by portraying the scientist as a Walter Mitty character who exaggerated his role in the Government's intelligence case against Iraq.

Coming shortly before Dr Kelly's funeral on Wednesday, the description of one of Britain's most respected weapons experts as a fantasist is certain to spark fury among friends and former colleagues.

But, in what appears to be a change of tactics by the Government, a senior Whitehall source told The Independent that Dr Kelly had misled the Ministry of Defence and the BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan over claims that a dossier used to justify war against Saddam Hussein had been "sexed up".

According to the insider, Dr Kelly told Mr Gilligan more than he knew and then failed to tell his employers the whole truth of his contacts with journalists. "This guy was a Walter Mitty," he said.

Once his name became public and he was questioned by MPs over the affair, Dr Kelly became worried about his statements to the BBC, the insider said.

A reason for his suicide was the decision by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee to recall Mr Gilligan to comment on his own evidence, the source added. Dr Kelly went missing at about the time the journalist gave evidence. His body was found a day later near his Oxfordshire home.

The Downing Street version of events is sure to be seized on by the BBC as an admission that Dr Kelly had indeed given Mr Gilligan good reason to make his claims about "sexing up" intelligence.

But the scientist's family and friends are sure to be appalled at the Walter Mitty description of a man who was nominated for the Nobel prize and who was about to join the US-led Iraq survey group's hunt for weapons in Baghdad.

MoD sources have also revealed that Dr Kelly was being investigated for his contacts with journalists long before the dispute over Mr Gilligan's broadcast began. Downing Street will also seek to persuade the Hutton inquiry, which begins its formal hearings next week, that it and the MoD had been forced to publicise Dr Kelly's name by a parliamentary committee.

With Tony Blair, Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, and Alastair Campbell, Downing Street's director of communications, all due to give evidence, the stakes could not be higher for the Government. But a main plank of its defence will be that the Intelligence and Security Cabinet Committee (ISC), which is holding its own inquiry into the intelligence case on Iraq, left it with no option but to confirm Dr Kelly's identity.

Sir Kevin Tebbit, the permanent secretary at the MoD, and Sir David Omand, No 10's head of intelligence and security, approached the committee's chairwoman, Ann Taylor, on 8 July to suggest she might want to call Dr Kelly as a witness.

But Ms Taylor is understood to have told them that while the committee would be willing to question the scientist, it could not act "blind". The MoD would first have to issue a public statement that an unnamed official had approached his line manager and was claiming to be the potential source for Mr Gilligan's report. The committee was worried that it might be accused of a cover-up if Dr Kelly's approach was to be made public late.

After the ISC's response, Mr Hoon and Sir Kevin decided on the infamous "confirmation strategy", in which the MoD would issue a statement saying that an employee had come forward and given clues to Dr Kelly's identity. By the next day, it had confirmed his name to journalists.

Since Downing Street also issued its own clues about the identity of the official, a crucial part of Lord Hutton's inquiry will be to discover exactly who authorised such statements.

Kelly comments 'not approved'
Dr Kelly's funeral will be held on Wednesday

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3122779.stm

Downing Street has distanced itself from a report that the government saw weapons expert Dr David Kelly as a "Walter Mitty" character.

Tony Blair's spokesman was commenting on a newspaper report which quoted a "senior Whitehall source" saying Dr Kelly had misled the government and BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan over Iraq's weapons programmes.

Walter Mitty is a character in a story by US author James Thurber who fantasised about being a hero.

According to the insider, reported in the Independent newspaper, Dr Kelly had not revealed the extent of his contacts with Mr Gilligan to Ministry of Defence officials.

And the report quoted the source as saying the scientist had told Mr Gilligan more than he would have known.

But Mr Blair's spokesman said on Monday: "I don't know where this comment has come from, but we do want to make it absolutely clear that nobody with either the prime minister's or anybody else in Downing Street's approval would say such a thing.

"The prime minister has called for restraint from the outset while Lord Hutton carries out his inquiry and I would like to repeat that today, as it has got particular resonance with the funeral this week."

But Paul Waugh, the Independent's deputy political editor, said he stood by his story.

"I rang a senior person within Downing Street who then was very forthcoming, almost with a pre-prepared line about Walter Mitty," he told BBC Radio 4's the World at One programme.

"I know for a fact, subsequently, I wasn't the only person who was sold this line as a result."

Mr Waugh said his paper hesitated about printing the "appalling description", "but then ultimately we decided that if this is possibly a government smear against an eminent scientist, then may be it should be out there".

Mr Waugh would not confirm or deny that he had taped the telephone call, but added: "I can tell you for a fact they did say such a thing and if I, for example, had a tape of the conversation, then the whole world would know that Number 10 did say such a thing."

Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats foreign affairs spokesman, said if the report was accurate, "then it seems someone in Number 10 Downing Street has taken leave of their senses".

"This is the most tasteless intervention one could imagine at a time when Dr Kelly's funeral has not yet taken place."

Mr Campbell said Lord Hutton would not be very impressed if anybody tried to pre-empt his inquiry.

Richard Butler, the former head of the Iraqi weapons inspection team Unscom, said he did not recognise the Walter Mitty description of Dr Kelly, who was "an Englishman, an Oxford man, a scientist, a man who I saw was welded to the truth".

And Alistair Hay, Professor of Environmental Toxicology at Leeds University and a friend of Dr Kelly, said he was "appalled" by the reported comments.

"I thought the prime minister was calling for some decency and for people to hold off and wanting Lord Hutton to investigate this issue," he told Radio 4's PM programme.

"So the fact that this seems to be some attempt to undermine Dr Kelly, who of course is not in a position to defend himself, is incredible.

"But I also find the claims about Dr Kelly staggering."

Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon has come under fire in some newspapers for going ahead with a family holiday in America rather than staying in the UK for Dr Kelly's funeral on Wednesday.

Instead, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott will attend the funeral.

But Mr Blair's spokesman said: "There have been discussions with Mrs Kelly and the family and, in the circumstances, it has been decided that the deputy prime minister will be there representing the country at the very highest level.

"My understanding is that the family are happy with the arrangements that have been made and we feel it is appropriate that the deputy prime minister attends.

"It is a family funeral and it would be inappropriate for anybody to suggest who should be there and who should not be there. It is up to the family. It's their day."

Dr Kelly is thought to have committed suicide after speculation - later confirmed by the BBC - that he was the source of stories that raised concerns over the way the government presented its case for war with Iraq.

~ Hearts and Minds ~

With Iraqi Courts Gone, Young Clerics Judge
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/04/international/worldspecial/04COUR.html?hp

AJAF, Iraq, July 30 — An obviously agitated young man walked into the Islamic court of Najaf and confessed to the sheik serving as chief judge that he had killed his mother.

"I was merciful with her: I emptied a full magazine because I didn't want to make her suffer," explained the man, Mukdar Jabar Ali. He did it, he said, because he was sure his mother had been sullying the family name by committing adultery since he was a boy. He got a gun two weeks ago, he said, and did what he had wanted to do for years.

Sitting on the carpeted floor of a tiny chamber in a former theological school, the judge, Sheik Ahmed Shaibani, listened carefully, asking for details but not pressing when Mr. Ali said that what he had witnessed his mother doing on the roof with a man years ago was too horrible to recount.

Sheik Shaibani ordered a scribe sitting beside him to write three letters. One went to the police asking them for whatever files they might have on the killing. A second went to the local sheik in a neighboring town to prevent the mother's family from exacting revenge, and a third summoned the mother's family to tell its side of the story.

When Saddam Hussein disappeared in the face of the American invasion, the entire Iraqi state disappeared with him. Those who want to establish an Islamic system of government in Iraq similar to the one in neighboring Iran stepped quickly into the vacuum, establishing courts in this holy city and in Baghdad to deal with a welter of legal problems.

Their docket covers all types of criminal and civil cases that normal courts would hear if they were functioning: murder, divorce, spouse abuse, property disputes. The religious courts have also asserted a special right to grant permission sought by people seeking revenge against the former ruling Baath Party of Mr. Hussein.

The Islamic court's decisions, which include permission to kill, could have dubious legality in the regular court system, assuming it is restored.

Nonetheless, many aggrieved Iraqis, feeling that they have no other place they can trust for legal rulings, have flocked to these courts. It does not seem to matter that the courts have no enforcement power and are not recognized by either the American occupation forces or Iraq's other Muslim religious authorities.

In this holy city, the fact that a group of upstart young clerics has established a court system is cause for scandal. The grand ayatollahs either deliberately ignore the institution or say its decisions lack religious significance because no local senior cleric advises them.

Officials of the regular court system, still trying to recover under American tutelage, expect the religious courts inevitably to fade.

Asked for a comment on the Islamic courts, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most respected cleric in Iraq, responded tersely in a written response a few days after the question was submitted to his office.

"The religious marjaia have no relation to these `courts,' " his answer said, using the term for the half dozen senior ayatollahs whose rulings carry the weight of law. "It is run by some unqualified `students.' "

Sayyid Muhammad Hussein al-Hakim, the spokesman for his father, another grand ayatollah, was equally dismissive. "They should not even call them Islamic courts," he said, adding that to have true religious authority, the decisions must come from the marjaia.

In the secular courthouse, operating with a skeleton staff, Raid al-Saedi, an investigative judge, said the police should not turn over any files to the Islamic court. He would not move against the courts, though.

"We didn't open those courts in the first place, so it's not up to us to shut them down," he said. "I think when the political situation is stable and the judicial system effective, people will stop going there because those courts don't have the means to implement their rulings."

Whether or not the Iraqis end up with Islamic courts is a constitutional question that they themselves will have to settle, a spokesman for the American occupying authority said.

Sheik Shaibani insists the court is here to stay. The 33-year-old cleric, the Friday Prayers leader in the southern city of Diwaniya, is a close aid to Sayyid Muqtada Sadr, the scion of an renowned clan of clergymen. His revered father, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadeq al-Sadr, was an opponent of Mr. Hussein and is believed to have been assassinated by the government in 1999.

Mr. Sadr and the young clerics around him have broken with the more conservative, senior clergymen in Najaf by openly calling for opposition to the American occupation and for the establishment of a theocracy mirroring that in Iran.

Sheik Shaibani said an important purpose of the Islamic courts was to investigate the killing of Ayatollah Sadr. His group seized all the local records from the secret police and is slowly working through them.

They have also given religious approval to those who wish to kill members of the old Baathist government. The sheik would not say how many had sought such permission, and emphasized that the court would not carry out any death sentences itself. But he said such rulings were based on guidelines issued by the grand ayatollah in the Iranian holy city of Qum. That alone gives the court the proper standing, he argued.

The ruling states that the lowest ranks of the Baath Party, like students who joined in order to graduate, should not be killed, but it makes fair game of informants, torturers, major party figures and current saboteurs, the sheik said.

But the court is more commonly occupied with the travails of Iraqis seeking redress from daily problems. Situated up a narrow dirt alleyway from the gold-domed tomb of Imam Ali, the founding caliph of Shia, it is housed on the second story of a former religious school. The five judges hear cases in tiny rooms that can hold about 12 people. Sometimes every inch seems taken.

Junan Abdullah, 26, was there to try to get a divorce from the man she said had been beating her since she married him at age 13. Because he was an army officer under Mr. Hussein, there was no hope of getting a divorce in the regular courts before.

This was her third visit to the Islamic court, and she was hoping that her divorce would be granted today. "I can't stand the sound of his name," she said. "If you force me to go back, he will beat me."

The judge decided that he needed to investigate and asked her to return another day. She refused to be discouraged. "The old system pretended to grant women their rights, but it was just a facade," Mrs. Abdullah said. "This court is better. It will give women their religious rights."

Mr. Ali, 25, also expressed the belief that his chances of getting a fair ruling from the religious court were better than they would be from a regular court. His slain mother's relatives said they would exact a terrible revenge on him and his four brothers unless they turned over their house, two female relatives from the father's side of the family for marriage and blood money.

Mr. Ali said he owed the mother's family nothing, because he was restoring the family honor after the adultery he said had driven his father insane. He told the judge that the local police were still corrupt Baathists, demanding bribes to make sure the case ended in his favor.

Sheik Shaibani promised a fair mediation.

Mr. Ali said: "This court will rule according to our Shiite traditions. This is the true court. This is the ruling of God."

~ White Man's Burden ~

War's unintended effects
Use of depleted uranium weapons lingers as health concern

By LARRY JOHNSON

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOREIGN DESK EDITOR

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/133581_du04.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The ideal legacy of the war in Iraq is a free and democratic society, but a sinister legacy of another kind is possible as well -- cancers and birth defects.

Depleted uranium weapons used by the U.S.-led forces in the war have left battle sites throughout Iraq contaminated with abnormally high levels of radiation.

Although there is no firm consensus, nuclear experts and laymen alike generally agree that depleted uranium, which is toxic as well as radioactive, is at the very least a potential cause of cancers and birth defects. Some Iraqi physicians and others blame depleted uranium weapons used in the 1991 Gulf War for a major increase of cancers and birth defects that occurred a few years later. It is also a prime suspect for the Gulf War Syndrome that has sickened and killed thousands of U.S. veterans.

The Pentagon and United Nations estimate that U.S. and British forces used 1,100 to 2,200 tons of armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium during attacks in Iraq in March and April -- far more than the estimated 375 tons used in the 1991 Gulf War.

U.S. tanks, Bradley fighting machines, A-10 attack jets and Apache helicopters routinely used depleted uranium rounds, but in the recent war, the ammunition was used in and near heavily populated areas, not just in the desert.

There are some studies under way that could shed more light on the effects of depleted uranium, a highly complex and poorly understood subject. Critics say DU shouldn't be used until the studies have been completed, while supporters, primarily the military, say it is critical to success on the battlefield.

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., has introduced legislation requiring the U.S. government to conduct studies of DU's effects on health and the environment, and cleanup of DU contamination in the United States. The bill, co-sponsored by 23 other Democrats, remains in committee.

He said DU may well be associated with increased birth defects.

"We continue to get these sporadic reports of various places where a lot of people are getting sick, and nobody is willing to connect the dots yet," he said. "I'm afraid we're going to have a lot of people get sick before they finally admit that depleted uranium really causes a problem for us (U.S. veterans and their families) as well as for the Iraqis."

After NATO's use of DU weapons in Kosovo in 1999, the Council of Europe parliamentarians called for a worldwide ban on the manufacture, testing, use and sale of weapons using depleted uranium, asserting that NATO's use of DU weapons would have "long term effects on health and quality of life in South-East Europe, affecting future generations." The call went unheeded.

An independent policy analyst on the use and effects of DU, in a June 24 report, was critical of both the British and the Americans for not doing more to protect their troops and civilians from DU in Iraq. But the report held criticism for those on all sides of the DU issue.

"What is clear ... is that elements of the U.S. government will manipulate information and even lie about the health of U.S. combat veterans to avoid liability for DU's health and environmental effects," said Dan Fahey, who has testified on DU at a number of congressional hearings. "Equally as clear is the willingness of some anti-DU activists to promote theories as fact, fabricate data and manipulate statistics, and exploit the suffering of people to further political or financial interests."

In June, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer conducted tests at six sites from Basra to Baghdad, and found elevated levels of radiation at all of them. One destroyed tank near Baghdad was 1,500 times more radioactive than normal background radiation. Another was 1,400 times more radioactive than background.

To get additional evidence that DU was used on these tanks, the P-I used swabs of cloth to gather samples of residue from the blackened bullet holes on two tanks on the outskirts of Baghdad, and from the black ash on a tank in Kut.

Bruce Busby, radiation safety officer for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle analyzed the swabs. Although stressing that far more sophisticated equipment and tests are required to positively identify DU and precisely measure contamination levels, he was able to determine that the swabs had elevated levels of radioactive contamination, consistent with DU. Still, Busby is not convinced it is a severe problem in Iraq. " ... Considering all the other hazards those people are exposed to, this is a small risk," he said.

"... if you found it (DU), it's possible kids could get it on their hands by playing on tanks, and adults could inhale re-suspended dust if salvaging equipment," Fahey said.

Tedd Weyman, deputy director of the Uranium Medical Centre, an independent research group in Canada and Washington, D.C., was also concerned about DU in Iraq.

"... Alpha emitters -- DU is one -- are carcinogenic and . . . inhalation exposure of low quantities of low-level radioactive material is a well-established risk," Weyman said. "Externally, the radioactivity travels a very short distance -- centimeters -- before fully releasing all its energy and disintegrating, (But) if inhaled and lying adjacent to cells in the body, it is a serious hazard."

Although the Pentagon has said depleted uranium is the material of choice because its density allows it to slice through heavy tank armor, the Army is currently looking at an alternative. A Florida company, Liquidmetal Technologies, says it can get comparable performance from ammunition using an exotic alloy of tungsten, and if the Army decides to switch, the new rounds could be in service within two years.

The Pentagon has sent mixed signals about the effects of depleted uranium, saying there have been no known health problems associated with the munition. At the same time, the military acknowledges the hazards in an Army training manual, which requires that anyone who comes within 25 meters of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain wear respiratory and skin protection, and says that "contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption."

According to the Army Environmental Policy Institute, holding a spent DU round would expose a person to about 200 rem per hour. That's a level of radiation equivalent to receiving eight chest X-rays per hour, said to Tom Carpenter, director of the Government Accountability Project's Nuclear Oversight Campaign. That's also twice the annual radiation exposure limit allowed by the Washington state.

The Environmental Protection Agency Web site says, "There is no firm basis for setting a 'safe' level of exposure (to radiation) above background. Most regulatory and advisory bodies around the world (including EPA) assume that any exposure carries some risk and that the risk increases as the exposure increases."

The April issue of New Scientist magazine reported that Alexandra Miller, a radiobiologist with the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., has discovered the first direct evidence that radiation from DU can damage chromosomes. "The chromosomes break, and the fragments reform in a way that results in abnormal joins. Both the breaks and the joins are commonly found in tumor cells," the article says. The implication is that it could cause cancer.

Miller's work suggests that the toxic nature of DU, combined with its radioactivity, could produce effects more dire than either of those characteristics acting alone.

"I think that we assumed that we knew everything that we needed to know about uranium. (But) This is something we have to consider now when we think about risk estimates," the article says.

The U.S. and British use of DU during the latest conflict, also alarms doctors in Iraq. Cancer had already increased dramatically in southern Iraq. In 1988, 34 people died of cancer; in 1998, 450 died of cancer; in 2001 there were 603 cancer deaths. The rate of birth defects also had risen sharply, according to doctors in Iraq.

Now, doctors in Iraq say, the number of cancers and birth defects may be "devastating."

"This is the right time for active support to help prevent the catastrophic effects of the bombing," said Dr. Alim Yacoub, on his last day as dean of the Al Mustansiriya Medical School in Baghdad.

"It is the right time for our U.S. friends to alleviate the consequences of depleted uranium and dirty weapons," he said.

"If there isn't a centralized health plan soon, the consequences could be devastating," said Yacoub, the foremost Iraqi authority on the effects of DU. Yacoub has tracked the rise of cancer in Iraq for years, and places the blame squarely on DU.

"For the past 12 years, we have only been able to watch what's going on in this country, now it is time for a comprehensive health plan for cleaning up DU and for treating cancer," he said. Yacoub has carefully preserved his studies and is eager to present them to other researchers.

From the cancer ward at the Mother and Child Hospital in Basra, Dr. Janan Ghalib Hassan has also tracked the rise in cancer in Iraq, primarily in the south, for years. It is a phenomena that she also says is most likely caused by the DU used by U.S. forces in the Gulf War in 1991.

"I worked here in this hospital in 1980 and never saw so much cancer, but after 1991, I started to see many more cancer cases," Hassan said.

She said that because the incubation period for cancer is about five years, the effects of the latest war should start showing up in 2008. "I think the number of cancer cases will be as much as 10 times or more higher," she said. "It is a crime; a crime."

FOR MORE INFORMATION
DEPLETED URANIUM

WHAT IT IS:
Depleted uranium is a highly dense, toxic and radioactive metal that is the byproduct of the process during which fissionable uranium used to make nuclear bombs and reactor fuel is separated from natural uranium. The U.S. uses it for bullets and shells.

WHAT IT DOES:

Depleted uranium contains the highly toxic U-238 isotope, which has a radioactive half-life of about 4.5 billion years. As U-238 breaks down, an ongoing process, it creates protactinium-234, which radiates potent beta particles that may cause cancer as well as mutations in body cells that could lead to birth defects.

HOW IT SPREADS:

When a depleted uranium round hits a hard target, as much as 70 percent of the projectile can burn on impact, creating a firestorm of depleted uranium particles. The toxic residue of this firestorm is an extremely fine insoluble uranium dust that can be spread by the wind, inhaled and absorbed into the human body and absorbed by plants and animals, becoming part of the food chain. Once in the soil, it can pollute the environment and create up to a hundredfold increase in uranium levels in ground water, according to the U.N. Environmental Program.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Dan Fahey report

New Scientist article

Uranium Medical Research Centre

U.S. Department of Defense

National Gulf War Resource Center

A P-I special report on Iraq:

P-I foreign desk editor Larry Johnson can be reached at 206-448-8035 or larryjohnson@...

4 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/middleeast/view/46062/1/.html

4 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

~ Bring Them Home ~

Iraqis storm police station after firefight with US soldiers

An angry crowd on Monday stormed and ransacked a police station in the town of Khaldiya, some 80 kilometres west of Baghdad.

According to eyewitnesses, the trouble started when a group of Iraqi insurgents laid an ambush for a US military convoy passing through the town.

Eyewitnesses claim seeing at least one US soldier hurt, who was then carried inside the local police station.

US soldiers responded to the attack with gunfire, and hit several local people, including children, according to eyewitnesses.

An angry armed crowd then assembled at the spot and attacked the police station, whose officers had come to rescue the US soldiers.

The station was then stormed and ransacked after a fierce gunbattle.

The fate of the US soldiers and Iraqi policemen inside the station was still unclear, but it was thought they had escaped.

The jubilant crowd burned police vehicles and shouted anti-American slogans, and armed insurgents were seen driving through the town, shooting into the air.

The crowd dispersed when US Kiowa helicopters appeared overhead and hovered over the scene.

Hours later, Iraqi police reinforcements arrived and reclaimed the gutted police station building.

#87

From: "Jim Galasyn" <jim@...>
Date: Wed Aug 6, 2003 1:40 am
Subject: The generals love napalm (5 August 2003)

barrett808

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030805/ts_nm/iraq_raids_dc

5 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

~ Bring Them Home ~

Guerrillas Wound Two U.S. Soldiers in Iraq Attack

By Faleh Kheiber

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - A rocket-propelled grenade attack on a police station west of Baghdad on Tuesday wounded at least two U.S. soldiers, the latest victims of a guerrilla war that has killed 53 American troops in the last three months.

In Baghdad, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq warned that lack of security could deter donors from providing desperately needed aid to keep the country afloat in 2004.

The grenade slammed into a police station in the restive town of Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of the capital. Two U.S. soldiers were taken away in an ambulance as a crowd gathered, chanting their support for deposed president Saddam Hussein.

"We sacrifice our blood and our souls for you, Saddam," they shouted. The fugitive dictator has so far evaded capture despite a $25 million price on his head.

The U.N. official, Ramiro Lopez da Silva, said persistent insecurity and concerns about bankrolling a military occupation could make donors wary of committing funds.

He said $5 billion was needed from an October aid conference merely to keep Iraq's creaking infrastructure and basic services from grinding to a halt next year.

Iraq needed to spend a minimum of $20 billion in 2004, and income from the ramshackle oil industry and other sources was unlikely to exceed $15 billion. Donors must supply the rest.

"That is just to keep things going," da Silva told reporters. "If you want a qualitative leap, a quantum leap in living standards and conditions, you would need much more."

Even if money is pledged it may not materialize -- much of the cash promised to Afghanistan has yet to arrive.

"If we want to attract something close to $5 billion as support for Iraq next year, donors will have the present security environment very much in mind," da Silva said.

U.S. officials say remnants of Saddam's militias and security forces, as well as some foreign fighters, are behind the guerrilla campaign that has killed 53 U.S. troops since Washington declared major combat over on May 1. Officials also blame Saddam loyalists for sabotage of oil pipelines.

U.S. forces have mounted a series of raids in the rebellious "Sunni triangle" region north and west of Baghdad to hunt down the attackers and search for Saddam.

An army spokesman in Saddam's home town of Tikrit said nine suspects had been captured in raids over the past 24 hours.

"They were a combination of Fedayeen and Baath party or just anti-coalition," the spokesman said at a U.S. base in one of Saddam's former palaces overlooking the Tigris river. "They included four targeted individuals."

Scores of Iraqis have been detained in the recent raids. Most have been middle-ranking officials, rather than close associates of Saddam on a most-wanted list of 55 top officials.

Of the 55, 18 are still on the run. The rest have been captured or killed. Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay were killed last month in a U.S. raid on their hideout in northern Iraq.

Arab television networks have broadcast several taped messages purportedly recorded by Saddam, exhorting Iraqis to fight a holy war to expel U.S. troops. CIA officials say the most recent tapes were probably genuine.

'We don't feel like heroes anymore'

Isaac Kindblade

http://www.oregonlive.com/commentary/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1060084742325390.xml

I am a private first class in the Army's 671st Engineer Company out of Portland. I just wanted to let you know a little bit of what we are up to, maybe so that you can have another opinion of what's going on over here in Iraq.

We have been in country since Feb. 14 and were a part of the Third Infantry Division's march into Baghdad. In fact, as a result of some serious miscommunications, we were the front line of the charge on two very distinct occasions.

We haven't been a huge part of the war. We are bridge builders, and we were here in the event that the Iraqis blew up the bridges on their retreat. They didn't, so we didn't have to do much.

We were scheduled for 13 missions at the start of the war. We did three or four bridge-related missions. We fill in where we are needed, whether it be guarding enemy prisoners of war, operating traffic control points, patrols on the Tigris River or guard duty of police stations. Our primary mission at this point is transportation, because we happen to drive very large trucks.

A lot is being said about poor morale. That seems to be the case all over the place. It's hot, we've been here for a long time, it's dangerous, we haven't had any real down time in months and we don't know when we're going home.

I think a big aspect has been the people here. When the war had just ended, we were the liberators, and all the people loved us. Convoys were like one long parade. Somewhere down the line, we became an occupation force in their eyes. We don't feel like heroes anymore.

We are doing the best we can, trying to get this place back on its feet so we can go home -- making friends with the locals and trying to enforce peace and stability.

A lot is made of our military's might. Our Abrams tanks, our Apache helicopters, computers, satellites, this and that. All that stuff is great, but it's essentially useless in peacekeeping ops. It is up to the soldiers on the ground armed with M-16s and a precious few words of Arabic.

The task is daunting, and the conditions are frightening. We can't help but think of "Black Hawk Down" when we're in Baghdad surrounded by swarms of people. Soldiers are being attacked, injured and killed every day. The rules of engagement are crippling. We are outnumbered. We are exhausted. We are in over our heads.

The president says, "Bring 'em on." The generals say we don't need more troops. Well, they're not over here.

It would take a group of supermen to do what's been asked of us. Maybe people back home think we are. Hell, maybe we are. I'm 20, and I can't help but think that serving in a war is a rite of passage, earning my generation a place in the history books.

I'm honored to be over here, and I realize that this is the experience of a lifetime. All the same, we are ready to come home.

Pfc. Isaac Kindblade of Cornelius enlisted in the Army at age 17 before his graduation from Valley Catholic High School in Beaverton.

~ Fool Me Once ~

U.S. Accused of Intimidation in Iraq Uranium Flap
By Tabassum Zakaria

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030805/pl_nm/iraq_usa_intelligence_dc

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a key figure in the Iraq (news - web sites)-Niger uranium controversy, accused the Bush administration on Monday of using intimidation tactics to stifle criticism about its handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Wilson was sent by the CIA (news - web sites) to Niger in 2002 to investigate a report that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from the African country, but returned to say it was highly doubtful such a transaction had occurred.

President Bush (news - web sites) made the Iraq-uranium claim in his January State of the Union speech. Critics have said the Iraq-Niger assertion, which later was found to be based partly on forged documents, showed the administration had tried to hype intelligence to make a case for going to war.

Wilson, on a panel of speakers at the National Press Club, said there had been several attempts to discredit him, but mainly through an article by Chicago columnist Robert Novak that said two senior administration officials said Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the uranium report. Novak's column named Wilson's wife and said she was a CIA operative on weapons of mass destruction.

Wilson would only speak about his wife's employment in hypothetical terms without confirming her place of work. But he said if Novak's column was true, then the Bush administration had breached national security by revealing the name.

"Any time that a senior administration official leaks the name of a CIA operative, even one in the weapons of mass destruction business, what that senior administration official is doing is a breach of national security," Wilson said.

"The reason for it was not to smear me or to even smear my wife," Wilson said. "The reason was to intimidate others from coming forward."

He said when intelligence analysts see attempts to discredit him and the suicide of David Kelly, a British weapons expert on Iraq, they will be reluctant to step forward.

Kelly became embroiled in the biggest political crisis for British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites)'s government after the BBC used the former U.N. weapons inspector as its main, anonymous source for an explosive report that the British government had exaggerated the case for war in Iraq.

Democrat senators Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Charles Schumer of New York last week called for an investigation into who exposed Wilson's wife.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, during a briefing last month, dismissed claims administration officials had revealed a CIA operative's identity.

"That is not the way this president or this White House operates," he said in addressing a question about the Novak column. "There is absolutely no information that has come to my attention ... that suggests that there is any truth to that suggestion. No one in this White House would have given authority to take such a step."

Wilson said that analysts seeing stories about him and his wife and about Kelly would question whether to talk to lawmakers who might hold investigations on the Iraq war.

Congressional sources have said the Senate Intelligence Committee has not received complaints from analysts about the administration's handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq.

"So that's what it was designed to do, it was clearly designed to intimidate," Wilson said.

Iraqis Deny al-Qaida Fighting U.S. Troops
By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press Writer

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030805/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_foreign_fighters

RAMADI, Iraq - Senior American officials are sending a message that violence against U.S. soldiers in Iraq is increasingly the work of foreign fighters — by implication, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

But Iraqis and American officers on the ground say the evidence is stronger that Iraqis angry at American occupation and Saddam Hussein loyalists are behind most attacks.

The U.S. officers blamed the persistent resistance on disgruntled Iraqis or officials of Saddam's Baath Party who lost out when his regime crumbled. Iraqis say American heavy-handedness in conducting searches and making arrests were recruiting local people to the insurgency.

Still, a drumbeat of comments by Bush administration officials depict the U.S.-led campaign in Iraq as part of the larger war on terrorism and seek to turn the focus away from the threat of Saddam's still unfound weapons of mass destruction.

In the past week, the Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff; Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq; and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz all have made statements suggesting foreign terrorists were an increasing problem for American forces.

"Iraq now is the central battle in the war on terrorism," Wolfowitz declared on Fox television.

Sanchez spoke of foreign fighters infiltrating the country, and Myers said U.S. officials were getting good intelligence in Iraq on al-Qaida

However, their statements offered no figures on the number of infiltrators from elsewhere in the Arab or Muslim world, and U.S. authorities have yet to put any captured foreign fighters on display.

In Anbar Province west of Baghdad, a hotbed of resistance to the U.S. occupation, army spokesman Capt. Mike Calver said intelligence suggested "ex-regime (figures) and loyalists, who have a lot of weapons and information, are paying young men" to carry out the attacks on Americans .

"We think Saddam Fedayeen are operating in this area," he said, referring to a loyalist militia. "We suspect there are ex-regime loyalists — people who are much disenfranchised with the loss of the regime."

Calver said the existence or depth of foreign intervention was not clear. "We suspect that this may be true, but I don't think we can quantify at this time how many attacks are carried out by al-Qaida or Saddam loyalists," he said.

He added that captured resistance fighters "are still being processed" and that the army is "building a profile" on them.

A second commander in the region around Ramadi, the Anbar provincial capital 60 miles west of Baghdad, said disgruntled residents — some of them religious people offended by the presence of non-Muslim U.S. forces — and former Baath Party members were behind the attacks on Americans.

"There are different pictures on each level, different elements function in different places," said Lt. Col. Henry Kievernaar commander of the 3rd Squadron of Third Armored Cavalry.

"I am not sure if it's a real organized resistance. It's individual," he said.

Dozens of Iraqis interviewed in the region — many of whom said they had links to the resistance — insisted none of the attacks on Americans was the work of foreigners. They said that most of the 4,000 to 6,000 Arab fighters who flooded into the country before the war began have either been killed or fled.

Those interviewed said U.S. officials wanted show the world that Iraqis supported the American occupation and therefore were blaming foreign fighters for the insurgency.

"They are claiming there are al-Qaida fighters in order to justify to their people their invasion and occupation of Iraq," said Sheik Diyab Younis Zo'ebi, 62, a tribal leader in Fallujah, about 18 miles east of Ramadi.

"We and al-Qaida are two opposite things. Bin Laden (fighters) cannot come into Iraq ... because we will not let them. They are enemies of our religion," he said.

Abdel-Karim Jabar Salman, a staff officer in Saddam's Republican Guard, said that if the Americans had captured attackers who belong to al-Qaida, "Why haven't they paraded them on television?"

But even if there is no evidence of a major foreign or al-Qaida presence, Iraq would appear to be a lure to extremists in the long run because of the large numbers of Americans in the country and the ease of entering the still chaotic country.

In interviews with The Associated Press in the Ramadi and Fallujah region, men hinted at ties to the resistance but feared exposure if they claimed outright to be part of the insurgency.

"We don't give out information about the resistance or even talk about it because we are afraid of spies who work for the Americans," said Mohammed, a 21-year-old university student.

Others, when asked if they had carried out attacks against Americans, said they would when the time was right. The older men said the true resistance had not yet begun.

"These are simple operations. It's the work of juveniles. But the professionals are waiting and are ready to act with the slightest signal," said Salman, the former senior officer with the Saddam's Republican Guard.

The young men, with their university or high school exams just ended, said they were now ready to join the resistance.

Of the scores interviewed, only Mohammed, the 21-year-old student in Fallujah, claimed he had heard of Afghans and Syrians linked to al-Qaida living in his town. He had not seen any of them, he said, but had been asked by a fellow Iraqi to raise money for the fighters. He maintained many of the town's businessmen donated money or sold weapons to the guerrillas.

"It's for a good cause," he said.

~ Hearts and Minds ~

Iraqi Shiite voices rise against U.S.
Anger at perceived disrespect replaces gratitude.
By Hannah Allam
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/front/6458644.htm

KUFAH, Iraq - Iraqi mothers raise their children with an ancient superstition against handling the white drapes that Muslims wear to the grave. These days, however, the burial shrouds are slung across shoulders and waved high in the air by thousands of Shiite men as a chilling symbol of their willingness to die rather than succumb to the U.S.-led occupation of their homeland.

Iraq's majority Shiite Muslims, who suffered for decades under Saddam Hussein's Sunni Muslim-dominated regime, initially expressed gratitude to the American military for toppling the dictator and restoring their right to worship. In turn, they were awarded a majority of the seats on the 25-member interim governing body that U.S. administrators assembled last month.

But recent U.S. raids on religious centers, the reported arrests of Shiite scholars, the stationing of troops near shrines, and other perceived cultural missteps have turned America's potentially powerful Iraqi ally into the greatest potential threat to the U.S. effort to rebuild the country and reshape the Middle East.

"We are now carrying burial shrouds always to remind us of death," said Sheik Raysan al-Assadi, the keeper of the oldest mosque in the Shiite holy city of Kufah, south of Baghdad. "We must be ready to sacrifice our lives if Americans attack our religion or traditions."

The most worrisome scenario for the United States is that Shiite resentment, especially if it is armed and financed by neighboring Iran, could merge with Iraqi nationalism and with secular anger at the failure to restore order and basic services into an Iraqi version of the 1979 revolution that toppled the shah of Iran, who had been a longtime U.S. ally.

A second danger is that rising Shiite anger could fracture Iraq, a nation that in the past has been unified only by force, into a Shiite south, a Sunni Muslim center, and a Kurdish north. That would encourage Iran, Iraq's Arab neighbors and Turkey to intervene to protect their interests.

The most worrisome figure for American officials is Muqtada al-Sadr, a fiery young Shiite cleric whose father was a venerated ayatollah who was murdered by Hussein's regime in 1998.

Sadr, said to be in his 20s, seeks to make Iraq a Shiite theocracy like Iran, and he called recently for forming a religious army to protect Iraqis from what he described as brutal American forces. Sadr's speeches regularly draw thousands, but Iraqis do not agree on whether his followers truly believe in him or show up out of respect for his father.

"Muqtada al-Sadr does not represent most Shiites," said Ahmed Sabah, 22, who sells scarves around the corner from Sadr's headquarters in the southern holy city of Najaf. "He's too young to lead us. He doesn't yet have the wisdom of a leader."

A spokesman for U.S.-led forces in Iraq, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Sadr was walking a thin line between freedom of speech and incitement to violence, a charge invoked by U.S. officials who shut down an anti-American newspaper in Baghdad last month.

"As long as he does not create an armed militia, he's welcome to collect support around him," the spokesman said.

All signs indicate that Sadr plans to form a full-fledged Shiite army, though some of his assistants admitted they were having difficulty gathering weapons and signing up volunteers. So far, mosque records show, about 10,000 men have registered for service in the "Mehdi" army, named after a Shiite imam who vanished hundreds of years ago and is expected to return to slay infidels.

Cloaked in a white burial shroud, Sadr appeared before about 7,000 people in Kufah on Friday and delivered a blistering sermon in which he urged men to join his army instead of the new Iraqi military overseen by American troops. He joined in chants of "No to America" but stopped short of urging attacks on the U.S. military.

"When people joined the Iraqi army established by the United States, they wronged themselves and they wronged Muslims," Sadr told the cheering crowd. "They joined for money, but material things are not more important than ethics and morals. I pray that they will leave this army and follow God's order."

Sadr may be the loudest voice calling for Shiite resistance, but the two most respected Shiite clerics also are expressing growing hostility toward the American presence.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who occupies the highest Shiite post in the world, advocates a strict separation of religion and politics. He refused an invitation to meet with U.S. civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer in a move that made clear his position on U.S. forces in Iraq.

The other key cleric, Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, has advocated a secular government through his Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and has a brother on the Governing Council. Many Iraqi and American officials are concerned about Hakim's ties to Iran, where he spent the last 20 years in exile.

U.S. officials accused Hakim's group of creating false identifications for Iraqis streaming in from Iran, and conducted three raids on SCIRI offices. Ghaleb Zanji, the editor of the group's Al Adala daily newspaper, said the only weapons that American troops found in the raids were two rifles that were properly licensed to employees. Zanji said the troops seized computers, notebooks and photos, hampering publication of the newspaper.

"We don't know how to act with them; we don't know what they're thinking," Zanji said. "We know for a fact we're on the Governing Council, we know freedom of the press is guaranteed in America, but we didn't know the Americans have two standards. It's freedom for the United States and injustice here. They're unpredictable in their behavior, so they have lost the support of most Iraqi people."

The spokesman for U.S.-led forces disagreed that most Shiites harbored anti-American feelings. "We don't feel threatened at all by the Shiites," the spokesman said. "They are enjoying political and religious freedom, and working with us on the Governing Council. These people are coming out into the light and blinking at the brightness that's out there."

Iraqis get protest warning
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/05/1060064188960.html

The US-led coalition occupying Iraq issued a stark warning that violent demonstrations in the war-ravaged country will be met with force.

The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) posted dozens of posters near the gates to its Baghdad headquarters, stating that protests must be peaceful.

The area has been the scene of dozens of demonstrations by Iraq's bloated community of unemployed and other groups taking advantage of the freedom of speech that came with the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April.

"Liberty equals responsibility," the posters read. "After the liberation, you have the right to demonstrate without fear, but with this right you have the responsibility to protest peacefully.

"Violence against citizens, Iraqi police or coalition forces will not be tolerated and will be dealt with forcibly," it added.

The posters appeared at the end of a week of daily protests outside CPA headquarters by a group calling itself the Union of the Unemployed and boosted by ultra-leftist Communist groups, demanding jobs or financial support from the occupying coalition.

A handful of protests have turned deadly in Iraq since Saddam's regime collapsed April 9, while many other tense stand-offs between demonstrators and coalition troops saw violence narrowly averted.

Americans shot dead at least 16 Iraqi demonstrators in late April in the flashpoint town of Fallujah.

Iraqis increasingly view U.S. troops as foreign occupiers
By DREW BROWN
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/6463815.htm

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Nearly four months after the defeat of Saddam Hussein's regime, the euphoria most Iraqis expressed over their leader's ouster largely has evaporated, replaced by growing resentment of the American presence.

The discontent suggests that, even as U.S. officials claim they are closing on in the deposed dictator with a $25 million bounty on his head, capturing or killing Saddam won't help restore order in the country the way some U.S. leaders have suggested.

Many Iraqis increasingly view American troops as foreign occupiers. And as attacks against U.S. troops continue, the low-level guerrilla war that American military officials say is being waged by former regime loyalists, foreign terrorists and criminals threatens to escalate into a wider nationalist struggle.

"The killing or capture of Saddam Hussein will do nothing," said Mungith M. Daghir, the vice president of the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies, an analysis group that Baghdad University professors founded after Saddam was ousted from power.

Omar Abid al Mugeeth doesn't care whether Saddam is still alive or gone for good. Since U.S. troops liberated the Iraqi capital in April and forced the former dictator into hiding, the 31-year-old moneychanger has been robbed at gunpoint twice, losing thousands of dollars on both occasions.

"When the Americans first came, trust in them was 100 percent," Mugeeth said, as he sat with his friends in his cramped, sweltering shop in downtown Baghdad. "But now there is none. There is no security. There is no electricity. There is no water. At least we had these things under Saddam. Before, I hated Saddam. But right now, he is better than the Americans. I swear if I get hurt by the Americans again, I will take up a gun against them myself."

AMERICAN 'PROVOCATIONS'

Daghir said a poll by his research center found that 32 percent of 1,000 Iraqis surveyed believe that former regime loyalists are behind the attacks, but a sizable 22 percent blame the attacks on American "provocations," including nighttime raids on people's homes, U.S. soldiers searching women and violating other Muslim taboos and the killing of innocent civilians in the ongoing military operations.

Nearly 25 percent think the struggle has become one of "national liberation."

Only 10 percent say foreign terrorists and other outsiders are responsible for the attacks. Another 10 percent say people who have "personal reasons" for fighting the Americans are waging the guerrilla war.

"We think the American forces ... want to believe ... that Saddam Hussein is responsible for everything," Daghir said. "But they don't want to admit that they are responsible for some things because of their hasty decisions or the bad advice they've been given."

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, estimated the strength of the guerrilla resistance at 5,000 fighters.

"We're fighting a low-intensity conflict that is multifaceted," he said, listing disparate groups including "criminals," Saddam loyalists and "radicals" who oppose the American presence.

Sanchez said the use of timed, rocket-propelled grenades, trip wires and packed explosives bore the marks of al-Qaida. He added that Iraq is a magnet for foreign terrorists. U.S. intelligence officials say Syrians, Saudi Arabians, Algerians and even a few Albanians have turned up to battle American troops in Iraq.

"This is the place to come," Sanchez said.

GROUPS CLAIM RESPONSIBILITY

A number of groups with no apparent links to Saddam have claimed responsibility for attacking American troops. One extremist Muslim group said on Arab satellite networks that it was planning attacks on U.S troops and American officials. Other anti-U.S. groups have sprung up, including the Return Party and the Iraqi Liberation Army, which claim to have no allegiance to the former regime.

Several radical Islamic groups, claiming ties to al-Qaida, have taken responsibility for attacks in the restive towns of Ramadi and Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

Extremist clerics of Saddam's Sunni branch of Islam from those towns have visited Najaf, a center of the Shiite branch of Islam, attempting to enlist Shiite clerics in the fight against the Americans, said Lt. Col. Chris Conlin, the commander of a small contingent of Marines stationed in the city. Shiites are a majority of the Iraqi population.

"So far, the clerics have rejected them," said Zaid Mohammed, 34, an unemployed mechanical engineer. "They told them that we Shiites were suppressed for too long by Saddam, so we don't want any trouble now. The clerics say they are willing to give the coalition forces one year to see if things improve, and after that they will issue a fatwa (religious declaration), but no one knows what it will be."

Even so, the U.S. honeymoon with the Shiites could be ending as radical clerics clamor for power. Moqtada al Sadr, a fiery young cleric and the son of a respected religious leader whom Saddam's forces assassinated following the Shiite uprising after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, has called for creating an Islamic army to oppose the American presence and the U.S.-appointed Iraq Governing Council.

"The people are just waiting for any word from the clerics to fight the Americans," said Amar Ali, 28, an unemployed former police officer.

IRAQI COUNCIL DISTRUSTED

The creation of Iraq's Governing Council in July was an attempt by the U.S.-led interim authority to give Iraqis more ownership of their country's future. The council is charged with writing a new constitution and holding free elections, something that L. Paul Bremer, the American administrator for Iraq, predicted could happen by mid-2004.

But the unelected council - whose members Bremer picked and who are subject to his veto - is widely distrusted.

"The people are watching and waiting now," said Sadiq al Monssawi, a political adviser to Sheik Sharif Ali Bin al Hussein, the 56-year-old son of King Faisal II, who was overthrown and murdered along with most of the royal family in 1958. "But if they don't see improvements within the next couple of months, you will see opposition in the streets."

A team of outside experts that the Pentagon sent to Iraq in early July concluded that unless Iraqis see quick improvement in the next three months in security, delivery of basic services, new jobs and more Iraqi involvement in the political process, the situation probably will deteriorate. Its report recommended dramatically expanding Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, including more international personnel, and a massive infusion of cash from Congress.

"We are sparing no effort to improve security in Iraq," coalition spokesman Charles Heatley said. "We understand it underlies everything else."

At least 60,000 new police officers have been hired and more joint patrols are taking place with U.S. troops. More than 5,000 applicants signed up the day after recruiting centers for the new Iraqi army opened July 19. Officials hope to train and field 12,000 Iraqi soldiers this year, with a target of 40,000 over the next two years, Heatley said. Officials expect to field the first battalion of about 850 men by the end of September.

With automatic-weapons fire ringing out every night in the capital and banditry widespread, many Iraqis say they've seen little improvement so far. Nearly four months after liberation, drivers spend hours waiting for gasoline in lines that can stretch up to a half-mile. Electric power runs for two hours at a time, then goes out for four hours of sweltering heat before returning. Water still hasn't been restored in some areas. Unemployment is still soaring, with millions out of work.

There's anger every time U.S. soldiers kick in a door in the middle of the night or search a woman. And outrage when innocent civilians die because an American soldier at a checkpoint gets jumpy and fires a volley from his automatic weapon.

RAID BOTCHED

On July 27, U.S. commandos stormed the wealthy al Mansour district home of Prince Rabia Mohammed al Habib, 72, the leader of 140 Iraqi tribes and chief of the Iraqi Social Party.

The troops acted on a false tip that Saddam was in the house. Eyewitnesses said seven people were shot and killed by American troops when they approached a nearby security checkpoint in their cars.

The U.S. military still hasn't apologized for the incident or offered to pay for damages. Rabia has been forgiving about it and has urged restraint among his followers, but adds that what happened at his home illustrates how American troops risk losing Iraqi good will every time they raid the wrong home or arrest the wrong person.

Later, a crowd of 1,500 to 2,000 demonstrators protested in front of his house, awaiting a call to action. Some were armed, Rabia said.

Qaism Hadi, an organizer with the Union of Unemployed in Iraq, estimated that 6 million to 8 million Iraqi adults are unemployed. Iraq's total population is 24 million. The group wants the coalition to give each of those who are unemployed $100 a month until they can find jobs, and it wants something done to kick-start the economy.

"There are people here who are ready to kill themselves because they've had no job, no money, nothing for the last three months," Hadi said. "They've had to sell everything they own."

Underground militant organizations are willing to pay 75,000 Iraqi dinars a month ($50) for anyone who joins them and 1 million dinars ($670) for every attack in which they participate, Hadi said.

"If the Americans can't provide us with jobs or money, it is possible that many people will soon join these terrorist organizations," he said.

"If the situation is still like this in a few months, then the death or capture of Saddam will not affect the attacks on the Americans in any way," said Ali Rahia, 40, an unemployed laborer. "We will fight them forever because of what they have done to us."

(Hannah Allam of the St. Paul Pioneer Press contributed to this article from Baghdad.)

Officials Confirm Dropping Firebombs on Iraqi Troops
Results are 'remarkably similar' to using napalm
by James W. Crawley

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0805-01.htm

American jets killed Iraqi troops with firebombs - similar to the controversial napalm used in the Vietnam War - in March and April as Marines battled toward Baghdad.

Marine Corps fighter pilots and commanders who have returned from the war zone have confirmed dropping dozens of incendiary bombs near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris River. The explosions created massive fireballs.

"We napalmed both those (bridge) approaches," said Col. James Alles in a recent interview. He commanded Marine Air Group 11, based at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, during the war. "Unfortunately, there were people there because you could see them in the (cockpit) video.

"They were Iraqi soldiers there. It's no great way to die," he added. How many Iraqis died, the military couldn't say. No accurate count has been made of Iraqi war casualties.

The bombing campaign helped clear the path for the Marines' race to Baghdad.

During the war, Pentagon spokesmen disputed reports that napalm was being used, saying the Pentagon's stockpile had been destroyed two years ago.

Apparently the spokesmen were drawing a distinction between the terms "firebomb" and "napalm." If reporters had asked about firebombs, officials said yesterday they would have confirmed their use.

What the Marines dropped, the spokesmen said yesterday, were "Mark 77 firebombs." They acknowledged those are incendiary devices with a function "remarkably similar" to napalm weapons.

Rather than using gasoline and benzene as the fuel, the firebombs use kerosene-based jet fuel, which has a smaller concentration of benzene.

Hundreds of partially loaded Mark 77 firebombs were stored on pre-positioned ammunition ships overseas, Marine Corps officials said. Those ships were unloaded in Kuwait during the weeks preceding the war.

"You can call it something other than napalm, but it's napalm," said John Pike, defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.com, a nonpartisan research group in Alexandria, Va.

Although many human rights groups consider incendiary bombs to be inhumane, international law does not prohibit their use against military forces. The United States has not agreed to a ban against possible civilian targets.

"Incendiaries create burns that are difficult to treat," said Robert Musil, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a Washington group that opposes the use of weapons of mass destruction.

Musil described the Pentagon's distinction between napalm and Mark 77 firebombs as "pretty outrageous."

"That's clearly Orwellian," he added.

Developed during World War II and dropped on troops and Japanese cities, incendiary bombs have been used by American forces in nearly every conflict since. Their use became controversial during the Vietnam War when U.S. and South Vietnamese aircraft dropped millions of pounds of napalm. Its effects were shown in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Vietnamese children running from their burned village.

Before March, the last time U.S. forces had used napalm in combat was the Persian Gulf War, again by Marines.

During a recent interview about the bombing campaign in Iraq, Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Jim Amos confirmed aircraft dropped what he and other Marines continue to call napalm on Iraqi troops on several occasions. He commanded Marine jet and helicopter units involved in the Iraq war and leads the Miramar-based 3rd Marine Air Wing.

Miramar pilots familiar with the bombing missions pointed to at least two locations where firebombs were dropped.

Before the Marines crossed the Saddam Canal in central Iraq, jets dropped several firebombs on enemy positions near a bridge that would become the Marines' main crossing point on the road toward Numaniyah, a key town 40 miles from Baghdad.

Next, the bombs were used against Iraqis near a key Tigris River bridge, north of Numaniyah, in early April.

There were reports of another attack on the first day of the war.

Two embedded journalists reported what they described as napalm being dropped on an Iraqi observation post at Safwan Hill overlooking the Kuwait border.

Reporters for CNN and the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald were told by unnamed Marine officers that aircraft dropped napalm on the Iraqi position, which was adjacent to one of the Marines' main invasion routes.

Their reports were disputed by several Pentagon spokesmen who said no such bombs were used nor did the United States have any napalm weapons.

The Pentagon destroyed its stockpile of napalm canisters, which had been stored near Camp Pendleton at the Fallbrook Naval Weapons Station, in April 2001.

Yesterday military spokesmen described what they see as the distinction between the two types of incendiary bombs. They said mixture used in modern firebombs is a less harmful mixture than Vietnam War-era napalm.

"This additive has significantly less of an impact on the environment," wrote Marine spokesman Col. Michael Daily, in an e-mailed information sheet provided by the Pentagon.

He added, "many folks (out of habit) refer to the Mark 77 as 'napalm' because its effect upon the target is remarkably similar."

In the e-mail, Daily also acknowledged that firebombs were dropped near Safwan Hill.

Alles, who oversaw the Safwan bombing raid, said 18 one-ton satellite-guided bombs, but no incendiary bombs, were dropped on the site.

Military experts say incendiary bombs can be an effective weapon in certain situations.

Firebombs are useful against dug-in troops and light vehicles, said GlobalSecurity's Pike.

"I used it routinely in Vietnam," said retired Marine Lt. Gen. Bernard Trainor, now a prominent defense analyst. "I have no moral compunction against using it. It's just another weapon."

And, the distinctive fireball and smell have a psychological impact on troops, experts said.

"The generals love napalm," said Alles, who has transferred to Washington. "It has a big psychological effect."

~ White Man's Burden ~

U.N.: Iraq Needs $5 Billion from Donors for 2004
By Andrew Marshall

http://news.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=PNUA4PLESFS3WCRBAEZSFFA?type=topNews&storyID=3220085

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq will need $5 billion from a planned meeting of international donors in October just to keep its creaking infrastructure going and basic services from grinding to a halt, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday.

Ramiro Lopez da Silva, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, told a small group of journalists that Iraqi Finance Ministry officials estimate the cost of keeping the country's institutions and services running at $20 billion for 2004. That includes recurring costs covered in the annual budget.

On the revenue side, da Silva said, Iraq could expect little income beyond what its ramshackle oil industry can earn, although debt forgiveness and the repatriation of seized and frozen funds may also help ease the burden.

Given Iraq's problems in cranking up oil exports, most estimates forecast total income of $15 billion or less in 2004 -- - leaving a gap of at least $5 billion that donors must fill.

"That is just to keep things going," da Silva said. "If you want a qualitative leap, a quantum leap in living standards and conditions, you would need much more."

But donors may be reluctant to commit funds given the lack of security in Iraq and concerns about bankrolling a military operation. Even if money is pledged it may not materialize -- much of the cash promised to Afghanistan has yet to arrive.

"How realistic it is to expect an inflow of $5 billion is something we will have to see in October," da Silva said.

Before the war many U.S. officials said Iraq would quickly be able to pay for its own reconstruction, largely through oil revenues. Some U.N. officials say Washington was taken by surprise by the extent of disruption to the country caused by the war, and by the high cost of reconstruction.

Da Silva said the security situation in Iraq was a key concern for donors. If the current lawlessness persisted, few countries would be keen to commit funds.

"If we want to attract something close to $5 billion as support for Iraq next year, donors will have the present security environment very much in mind," da Silva said.

Lack of security was having a "very serious impact" on humanitarian efforts in Iraq, he said.

"There are areas where we cannot allow staff to go," he said. Most of the no-go areas were in the "Sunni triangle" west and north of Baghdad, where support for Saddam Hussein is widespread and U.S. troops have come under repeated attack.

Da Silva said the goal of restoring Iraqi living standards by the end of 2003 to the level they were at just before the U.S.-led invasion was still achievable -- if there was a swift improvement in law and order.

"You need to have a dramatic improvement fast," he said.

But restoring living standards to the levels of the 1980s, when Iraq was reasonably prosperous, could take years.

The human and monetary cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq is mounting -- 53 American soldiers have been killed since major combat was declared over on May 1, and the U.S. bill for policing the country is running at some $4 billion a month.

Washington and its allies have said they may turn to the United Nations to persuade more countries to help. Some of the countries which opposed the war say they are willing to aid reconstruction only under a new U.N. mandate.

Da Silva said a new resolution was not necessarily needed to persuade donors to come up with $5 billion, but countries wanted the money to be administered by a fund run by a multilateral agency rather than the occupying powers.

The World Bank is working on its own assessment of Iraq's needs for 2004, which is due to be presented to the October conference. But Bank officials say lack of security and the difficulty of gathering of data are hampering their efforts.

U.S. Puts $1.14 Billion Price Tag on Restoring Iraqi Oil

http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?id=11928

WASHINGTON - The cost of restoring Iraq's oil and gas industry is about 1.14 billion dollars and rising amid sabotage and looting, according to a final work plan received Tuesday.

The bulk of the money -- 652 million dollars in total -- would be funneled through two major contracts already put out to tender for oil fields in the north and south of Iraq, it said.

The estimates were drawn up in a 33-page final work plan by officials of the Iraq Ministry of Oil, Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and contractor Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR).

The officials met in Baghdad from July 6 to 9 and considered two reports; one by the Iraqi oil ministry and one by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers task force.

"Both plans considered not only actual damage from the war but also post-war looting, damage and sabotage," said an executive summary of the final work plan for restoring the industry to its pre-war state.

Iraq's oil infrastructure had been further degraded since the plan was discussed, however, it said.

"Of particular note are the continued and continuing attacks on pipelines and the electrical grid which services production, refinding, processing and distribution facilities," the summary said.

"The attacks continue to lengthen the time required and increase the cost to restore production capacity."

Last month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it would issue one contract for the fields in the north of Iraq and another for the south, each worth from 500,000 dollars to a maximum 500 million dollars.

According to the final work plan, the total costs for a North Oil Company were estimated at about 320 million dollars, and a South Oil Company 332 million dollars.

The final work plan was released by the Army Corps of Engineers among documents made available to bidders for the two major Iraqi oil restoration contracts.

Poles getting cold feet over mission in Iraq

Populace wary about peacekeeping duties
BY TOM HUNDLEY

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-10/105997534425580.xml

WARSAW, Poland -- When the Bush administration asked Poland about commanding one of the three military stabilization zones that the United States envisioned for postwar Iraq, the flattered Polish government quickly said yes.

But that was months ago, when Poles thought they were signing up for a peacekeeping mission. Now it appears that Poland is sending its sons off to fight in a war, and public support for the mission is eroding rapidly.

"It's a natural reaction," said Stanislaw Koziej, a retired general and former national security adviser. "People see that the security situation in Iraq is getting worse and worse, and the time for our soldiers to go is getting closer and closer. The moment of truth is approaching.

"Another big problem is we have no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Some people are thinking the war was not justified," he said.

A survey released last week by CBOS, the country's leading polling organization, showed that 55 percent of the Polish population opposed sending troops to Iraq and 36 percent supported the idea. That represented a dramatic turnaround from a CBOS survey a month earlier in which 50 percent were in favor of sending troops and 33 percent were against.

The Warsaw government has not flinched from its commitment, and senior commanders in the Polish military speak enthusiastically of the challenges that await. Koziej and other military analysts see a unique opportunity to sharpen the Polish army's professional skills and raise its profile in NATO.

Polish troops already have extensive peacekeeping experience in places such as Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lebanon and the Golan Heights. About 200 Polish special forces troops were involved in combat operations during the Iraq war, but regular Polish ground troops have not seen combat in more than half a century, and Polish officers never have commanded multinational forces.

The Poles will be responsible for a 28,000-square-mile swath of southern Iraq that includes the potentially troublesome Shi'a religious centers of Karbala and Najaf as well as a stretch of the Iranian border.

After agreeing to the U.S. request, the Polish government asked fellow NATO members to contribute troops. Germany publicly ridiculed the idea of its troops serving under Polish command.

Only Spain, Denmark and Hungary agreed to participate, and only Spain will dispatch a significant number of troops, a 1,300-man brigade. Poland is sending 2,300 soldiers, its biggest military deployment since World War II. They are scheduled to depart for Iraq next week and officially begin their duties Sept. 1.

Other countries contributing troops that will serve under Polish command include Mongolia, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Latvia and Fiji. Ukraine has agreed to send a large contingent, but Ukrainian troops have a poor record as peacekeepers.

"No one is going to rely on Mongolia. Their role is for international political correctness," said Grzegorz Kostrzewa-Zorbas, a senior foreign policy adviser in previous Polish governments.

"The real responsibility will rest on the midsized countries: Poland, Spain and Ukraine. Among these, only Ukraine is a question mark," he said.

The ragtag composition of the troops in the Polish stabilization zone underscores the difficulties the Bush administration has had in mustering international support for rebuilding Iraq.

Arabs snub US over Iraq troops
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3126515.stm

Arab League foreign ministers have ruled out sending troops to help US forces to stabilise Iraq.

The ministers, meeting in Cairo on Tuesday, agreed that sending Arab forces "cannot be considered in the current circumstances," the organisation's secretary-general Amr Moussa said.

"We should work to put an end to the occupation and allow the Iraqi people to form a national government," the AFP news agency quoted him as saying.

The ministers from 11 Arab states and the Palestinian Authority also refused to recognise the US-backed Iraq Governing Council as a legitimate government.

"The Council is a start but it should pave the way for a legitimate government that can be recognised," Mr Moussa said.

The Council did not send any representatives to the Cairo meeting.

The BBC's Magdi Abdelhadi in Cairo says the US intervention in Iraq has plunged the 22-member Arab League into one of its worst ever crises.

Some members - notably Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain - offered facilities for the US-led invasion, but Syria and others strongly opposed it.

An Arab League spokesman quoted by AFP said the United States had asked 70 countries to send forces to help stabilise Iraq.

The Cairo meeting will most likely spark fresh complaints about the Arab League's failures on issues close to Arab hearts: the Palestinians and Iraq, our correspondent says.

The Iraq war prompted various initiatives to reform the organisation, including a mechanism to resolve Arab conflicts, a pan-Arab court of justice and a pan-Arab parliament.

But critics say that, without an explanation for the Arab League's chronic failure to implement its own resolutions, such proposals will not be worth the paper they are written on.

And the fall of the Baathist regime in Baghdad has discredited ruling elites across the Arab world, our correspondent says.

Calls for democratic reforms have become widespread, but there is little agreement on where to start or on the content of such reforms, he adds.

Critics argue that without democratic reforms within Arab societies, the League will continue to reflect the failures of these societies: a lack of accountability and failure to uphold the rule of law.

The Arab League members attending Tuesday's meeting were: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen and the Palestinian Authority.

American Civilian Is Killed in Iraq
http://www.620ktar.com/news/article.aspx?article_id=191947&cc=012345

An American civilian contractor was killed Tuesday when a bomb was detonated under the truck he was driving north of Tikrit, the U.S. military said.

The contractor was employed by Kellog Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, a Houston-based oilfield-services and construction company. Halliburton is the former company of Vice President Dick Cheney which has major contracts for reconstruction in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Maj. Brian Luke, of the 4th Infantry Division, said the five vehicle convoy was traveling from Baghdad, 193 kilometers(120 miles) to the south when it was attacked.

Kellog Brown & Root had been doing work at the Baiji refinery and pipeline terminus about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Tikrit, the hometown of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein.

The military said the destination of the convoy was not immediately known, and that the name of the civilian was being withheld until relatives were notified.

Lt. Col. William MacDonald, also of the 4th Infantry, said the contractor died after being taken to a U.S. military field hospital at an air base north of Tikrit.

By midafternoon Tuesday, American forces were well into a fourth straight day without losing a U.S. soldier to hostile fire, after a two week period in which American forces were being killed at a rate of nearly one a day.

All of the deaths were occurring in the Sunni Triangle, the region north and west of Baghdad where support for Saddam's ex-regime remains especially strong. Tikrit, where Saddam's slain sons Odai and Qusai were buried Saturday, sits in the region and has proven especially hostile to the American occupation.

The sons died in a shootout with American forces July 22 in the northern city of Mosul, where they were hiding in a villa. The villa's owner was believed to have betrayed the brothers. The informant, whomever it was, has already been paid a US$30 reward for the information and taken into hiding outside Iraq by American authorities.

It was not immediately clear if the civilian contractor killed Monday was the first to die in Iraq, but he was certainly among the first.

Cheney's former company already has garnered more than $600 million in military work related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and potentially could earn billions more without having to compete with other companies.

As the Army's sole provider of troop support services, Kellogg Brown & Root has received work orders totaling $529.4 million related to the two wars under a 10-year contract that has no spending ceiling.

Rather than put the Iraq work up for bidding, the government has used the 2001 Halliburton contract to place the various work orders in Iraq, prompting criticism from some Democrats that Cheney's former company is receiving favored treatment.

U.S. contractors more wary after Iraq death
By Sue Pleming

http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters08-05-113906.asp?reg=MIDEAST

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 — U.S. contractors working in Iraq said on Tuesday they would examine even more closely the security of their employees there after an American civilian contractor was killed by an anti-tank mine.

''We are monitoring the situation very, very carefully. We are taking every precaution. This is a dangerous place to work in,'' said Alison Abbott, spokeswoman for Bechtel, a California engineering firm working in Iraq for the U.S. government.

The civilian killed on Tuesday near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit worked for engineering firm Kellogg Brown & Root under a contract with the U.S. military. He was believed to be the first U.S. civilian contractor killed in Iraq since Saddam was toppled.

For lead contractors working on projects in Iraq, either for the U.S. military or the United States Agency for International Development, security is the No. 1 issue and the main stumbling block in getting their work done.

Many say privately they fear they, along with humanitarian workers, will become ''soft targets'' of former Baathist Party officials wanting to destabilize Iraq further.

Ambushes in recent weeks have killed a British journalist, a Sri Lankan technician with the International Committee of the Red Cross, an Iraqi driver for the United Nations, and an Iraqi translator working with U.S. troops.

''These Baathists, as they get increasingly desperate, are targeting our successes, and they are targeting soft targets,'' said one U.S. defense official, adding there had also been a spate of attacks on Iraqis working with the U.S. military.

All the major private contractors hire their own security and live under 24-hour protection, described by one contractor as a ''real budget breaker.''

North Carolina company Research Triangle International, said Tuesday's death brought its security plans under even greater scrutiny.

''We always take a look at all of our procedures any time anything like this happens,'' said Sally Johnson, vice president of corporate affairs for the company, which has a contract to promote Iraqi participation in reconstruction.

Creative Associates, which has a contract to get Iraq's schools back on their feet, said staff members were always accompanied by a guard and an Arabic speaker.

Robert Gordon, director of operations for the Washington-based firm, said his staff had ''several close calls,'' including a shooting incident he witnessed last month. ''The shooter was very close (to my car) -- a Baath Party member. My guard actually disarmed and arrested him.''

''Of great concern to us is the pace of attacks on humanitarian workers,'' said Sid Balman, spokesman for Interaction, which represents about 165 relief groups.

Kenneth Bacon of Refugees International said aid groups felt security was worsening. ''They are feeling more like soft targets. Early on, all the attacks seemed to be on the military, but in the last three or four weeks there have been increasing attacks on NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) and U.N. people,'' said Bacon, a Pentagon spokesman during the Clinton administration.

Law of the road crumbles in Baghdad

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=18294

Sergeant Suhail Naji is not having a good day. He has got a whistle in his mouth and is blowing on it for all he's worth, but the yellow and green truck making its way towards him clearly has no intention of stopping. Neither has the taxi coming from the other direction -- nor, for that matter, has the line of traffic arriving at speed from the left.

Before long the intersection on Bab al-Sharqi, one of Baghdad's main thoroughfares, is a stationary mass of vehicles each playing a part in a deafening symphony of tooting horns, screaming drivers and revving engines.

It is a familiar scene in post-Saddam Baghdad. Even by the low standards of other Middle Eastern cities, the traffic in the Iraqi capital is off the scale. Everyone ignores the traffic lights; roundabouts are driven around according to whichever route seems quickest; and the lane markings might as well not exist.

A few blocks away from where Sgt Naji is fighting his losing battle, Rashid Hamid, also a sergeant, has given up and is hiding from the punishing glare of the afternoon sun in a shelter. Next to him sits a white Suzuki motorcycle which he once used to chase traffic offenders. He doesn't bother with that any more.

"What is the point? People take no notice of us. They have no respect for us because they know we cannot take any action because there is no law and there are no courts," he said. "Before, when we could fine people, everybody kept to the law. Now they just swear at us. Insulting a traffic policeman used to get you six months in jail."

Most of all Sgt Hamid, who has been a traffic policeman for 18 years, wanted his gun back -- which the US authorities in Iraq will not allow. "How will people take us seriously unless we have a gun?"

According to him some of the drivers causing mayhem on Baghdad's roads probably do not even know they are breaking the law. The directorate of traffic was looted during the conflict, and driving licences can now be bought on any street cornerfor a few dinars.

Add to that the huge influx of cars into Iraq since the fall of the regime, all of them tax free and duty free, and you have a recipe for traffic chaos.

Many Iraqis seem to believe the only reason the Americans search their cars is in case Saddam Hussein is hiding in the boot. One driver, Bader Gate, said: "The Saddam checkpoints cause chaos and always at the busiest times. And they have blocked off one of the main bridges with their tanks and one lane of the road by the river. What do they expect to happen?"

Walid Kadem, who has been a taxi driver in Baghdad for 10 years, agreed the traffic in Baghdad had never been worse, and was in no doubt who was to blame. "The traffic police, there are not enough of them. And they all go home early - if they turn up at all."

Mr Kadem also claimed to be the only driver in Baghdad who never jumped the traffic lights -- except perhaps in exceptional circumstances. "Sometimes with the sunlight," he said, pointing at the sky, "it is difficult to see if the lights are working. Then, what can you do?"

Chief of Staff Calls for Army Increase
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030805/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/army_strength

By HARRY DUNPHY, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Troop commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched the U.S. Army and its size may need to be increased, acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. John Keane said Tuesday.

He also said a second international division, led by Poland, should be in Iraq by next month.

"There's no doubt" more troops are needed, Keane told reporters. "I've just told you we're short of infantry, we're short of chemical-biological soldiers, we're short of military police."

But he said before military leaders can come up with a number for an increase in combat troops, they have to see what military slots can be converted to civilian slots. He also said combat support services have to be improved.

"Clearly we're stretched and we know we're short certain skill sets we've got to fix," he said. "That's as specific as I can get until we do the rest of the analysis" over the next weeks and months.

Keane, who said morale in the Army was the best he has seen in 37 years, is scheduled to retire this summer.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tried to persuade Keane to take over the chief of staff slot when Gen. Eric Shinseki retired last June, but Keane declined for family reasons, officials said. Rumsfeld then picked Peter J. Schoomaker, a retired Special Operations general for the job. He is awaiting confirmation hearings.

Speaking about deployment of international forces in Iraq, Keane said a British-led division already was operating with Italian, Dutch and Romanian components.

He said a Polish-led division would start operations in September with troops from the Ukraine and Spain.

Keane said negotiations were underway with 11 other nations to establish a third international division that would replace the U.S. 101st Airborne.

He said if these negotiations did not succeed by the fall, U.S military leaders must examine use of some other force either from the Army or the reserves.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., reminded Schoomaker that Bush has said the United States will remain in Iraq no longer than needed to bring stability to the country.

At a Senate Foreign Relations hearing last week, Keane said there are about 148,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, a figure unlikely to change much in the near future even if some foreign troops arrive.

Peace Activists Target War Profiteers and "Corporate Looters" of Iraq
http://www.commondreams.org/news2003/0805-01.htm

DURHAM, N.C.- August 5 - Leading anti-war activists and organizations launched a new campaign today calling for an end to war profiteering by military contractors, and challenging what they call the “second invasion” of Iraq by powerful corporate interests seeking to control the country’s oil, water and other resources.

The Stop the War Profiteers Campaign, initiated by the North Carolina-based Institute for Southern Studies, has been endorsed by several leading veteran, faith, labor, peace and other organizations, as well as prominent scholars and activists across the country.

“A handful of Bush-connected corporations are poised to make billions in profits while U.S. troops are killed almost daily, and Iraq plunges deeper into a colonial nightmare,” said Dr. Rania Masri, a campaign coordinator and program director at the Institute.

“Halliburton, Bechtel, MCI and other war profiteers are part of a larger invasion by outside corporate interests hoping to control the wealth and resources of Iraq – wealth and resources that belong to the Iraqi people,” Masri added.

Veterans for Peace, New York Labor Against the War, Global Exchange, United for Peace and Justice, Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, and other groups have signed on to the campaign’s founding statement, as well as well-known activist authors Noam Chomsky, Jim Hightower, and Howard Zinn.

The campaign calls on elected leaders to take several steps to stop war profiteering at taxpayer expense and to end the “corporate looting” of Iraq, including:

Holding congressional hearings to investigate war profiteering and the secretive, closed-bid “reconstruction” contracts in Iraq given to a handful of corporations close to the Bush administration. The hearings would be modeled on those held in the 1930s by Sen. Gerald Nye to investigate the role of the “munitions industry” in warping foreign policy.

Reigning in war profiteering by military contractors – such as the $400 million in taxpayer-funded profits promised in Halliburton’s biggest contract – through an “Excess Profits Tax,” similar to those during the Civil War, both World Wars, and the Korean War

Halting the U.S.-led drive to hand over Iraq’s industries, services and resources to powerful multinational corporations – such as efforts by occupying forces to privatize public services and strip down rules on foreign investment, before Iraq’s indigenous government is allowed to take part in decision-making.

The campaign opens a new front of opposition to the Bush Administration’s war in Iraq, adding to charges at home of manipulation of intelligence to justify the war, and fierce resistance in Iraq to the U.S.-led occupation and delay of self-rule.

“The U.S. is rushing to open Iraq to a flood of outside corporate interests, before the country’s own government can take power,” said Chris Kromm, director of the non-profit Institute. “If the Iraq war was really about democracy, why won’t they wait and let the Iraqi people decide what to do with their economy?”

Campaign leaders point to a strong historical precedent for Congress to take action against corporate interests seeking to profit off the suffering of war.

Tara Purohit, an Institute associate working on the campaign, noted that during World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said “I don’t want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this disaster,” and then-Senator Harry Truman denounced war profiteering as “treason.” Earlier in the century, Sen. Robert LaFollette called war profiteers “enemies of democracy in the homeland.”

“Our country has a proud history of leaders who have stood up to the war profiteers,” said Purohit. “Now it’s time for today’s leaders to stand up to the new merchants of misery and corporate war looters.”

For more information or to endorse the Stop the War Profiteers Campaign, visit www.southernstudies.org or contact the Southern Peace Research and Education Center at 919-419-8311 x27 or sprec@...

Founded in 1970 by civil rights veterans, the Institute for Southern Studies is a research, education and action center based in Durham, North Carolina. The Southern Peace Research and Education Center is a program of the Institute designed to explore the South’s unique ties to foreign policy and the military-industrial complex. The Institute also publishes Southern Exposure, the award-winning journal of politics and culture.

5 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

#88

From: John Lyons Beck <moonh2o@...>
Date: Thu Aug 7, 2003 12:13 am
Subject: Fw: The "Army's most decorated soldier" disses the Iraq war effort

moonh2o@...

>
> http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/08/04/hackworth/index.html
>
> The war according to David Hackworth The retired colonel calls Donald
> Rumsfeld an "asshole" whose bad planning mired U.S. troops in an ugly
> guerrilla conflict in Iraq. His sources? Defiant soldiers sending
dispatches
> from the front.
>
> By Jonathan Franklin
>
> Aug. 4, 2003  |  Retired U.S. Army Col. David Hackworth is a cocky
American
> military commander who for half a century was at the front lines of the
> Army's most important battles. Most recently, though, Hackworth has
been at
> the front lines of a domestic war: the debate over U.S. military
strategy in
> Iraq, and whether the Bush administration planned well enough to
achieve a
> decisive military victory and keep the postwar peace.
>
> Hackworth was everywhere on cable television during the first days of
the
> war, when early military setbacks convinced him and other retired
military
> leaders that the administration, whose backers sold the conflict as a
> "cakewalk," hadn't sent enough troops to quell Iraqi resistance. He
wrote a
> widely quoted column headlined "Stuck in the Quicksand" in early April
--
> just as the tide seemed to turn and the pace of victory picked up
again.
> Though he is a colonel by rank, Hackworth was counted among the
so-called
> "television generals" the administration blasted after Baghdad fell,
and
> many conservative admirers turned against him.
>
> But now, with American soldiers still dying almost daily in Iraq, the
tide
> of opinion may be turning again, in favor of Hackworth's argument that
the
> administration was unprepared for what's turning out to be a long-term
> guerrilla resistance in Iraq. Today the primary front of Hackworth's
war of
> opinion isn't cable television, but a pair of Web sites -- Soldiers for
the
> Truth and his own site, Hackworth.com -- where he's campaigning to
document
> the dire fate of U.S. troops in Iraq. The sites have quickly become a
> repository for the gripes and fears of America's beleaguered combat
troops.
>
> On a typical day Hackworth receives hundreds of e-mails, letters and
faxes
> from American soldiers, complaining about everything from silk-weight
> underwear to the weapons they've been assigned. "Pistols suck," wrote
one
> soldier. "Bring and use every weapon. Shotguns are great at close
ranges."
> At a time when soldiers have been disciplined for griping to the media,
> Hackworth is providing a fascinating outlet for what they're really
> experiencing. Among the more evocative messages:
>
> "Soldiers are living in the dirt, with no mail, no phone, no contact
with
> home, and no break from the daily monotony at all. I practically got in
a
> fist fight with this captain over letting my private send an e-mail
over his
> office's internet. This clown spends his days sending flowers to his
wife
> and surfing the net. Fucking disgraceful and all too typical of today's
> Army."
>
> "Soldiers get literally hundreds of flea or mosquito bites and they
can't
> get cream or Benadryl to keep the damn things from itching ... .I am
not
> talking about bringing in the steak and lobster every week. I am
talking
> about basic health and safety issues that continue to be neglected by
the
> Army."
>
> "We did not receive a single piece of parts-support for our vehicles
during
> the entire battle ... not a single repair part has made to our vehicles
to
> date ... my unit had abandoned around 12 vehicles ... .I firmly believe
that
> the conditions I just described contributed to the loss and injury of
> soldiers on the battlefield."
>
> "We have done our job and have done it well, we have fulfilled our
> obligation to this operation, but we are still here and are still being
> mistreated and misled. When does it end? Do we continue to keep the
> liberators of Iraq here so they can continue to lose soldiers
periodically
> to snipers and ambushes? My unit has been here since September and they
have
> no light at the end of the tunnel. How many of my soldiers need to die
> before they realize that we have hit a wall?"
>
> Although the controversial Hackworth has his critics, no one disputes
his
> half-century of military accomplishment. During World War II the
15-year-old
> Hackworth lied about his age to fight in Italy. During Vietnam he
designed
> and implemented unconventional warfare tactics -- allegedly including a
> private brothel for his troops -- and wrote the Vietnam Primer,
considered
> by many to be the leading book on guerrilla warfare tactics in Vietnam.
> Wounded eight times (his left leg still carries a bullet from the
Vietnam
> War), he racked up enough medals, he says, to declare himself the
"Army's
> Most Decorated Soldier" -- though he admits the U.S. Army has no such
title.
> No one denies that Hackworth has seen more combat and taken more
bullets
> than almost any American soldier still alive.
>
> Today, the bestselling author -- his books include "Steel my Soldiers'
> Hearts," "Price of Honor" and "About Face" -- writes a column for the
> conservative site World Net Daily.
>
> He's starting to feel his years. His bullet-ridden leg propped up on
pillows
> at his home in suburban Connecticut, Hack is far from the action. So he
> chose another tactic: He brought the front home. In a conversation with
> Salon, he termed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld an "asshole" who
> "misunderstood the whole war" and he predicted that American troops
could be
> stuck in Iraq for "at least" another 30 years.
>
> How long do you think U.S. troops will be needed in Iraq?
>
> God only knows, the way things are going. At least 30 years. Tommy
Franks
> [recently retired commander of U.S. troops in Iraq] said four to 10
years.
> Based on Cyprus and other commitments in this kind of warfare, it is
going
> to be a long time -- unless the price gets too heavy. We say it is
costing
> the U.S. $4 billion a month; I bet it is costing $6 billion a month.
Where
> the hell is that money going to come from?
>
> How do you see the combat situation evolving in Iraq?
>
> There is no way the G [guerrilla] is going to win; he knows that, but
his
> object is to make us bleed. To nickel and dime us. This is Phase 1. But
what
> he is always looking for is the big hit -- a Beirut [-style car-bomb
attack]
> with 242 casualties, something that gets the headlines! The Americans
have
> their head up their ass all the time. All the advantages are with the
G; he
> will be watching. He is like an audience in a darkened theater and the
U.S.
> troops are the actors on stage all lit up, so the G can see everything
on
> stage, when they are asleep or when his weapons are dirty. The actor
can't
> see shit in the audience.
>
> For many weeks your Web site has described conditions in Iraq as being
far
> more chaotic and unstable than generally reported. Why did the Pentagon
try
> to downplay the problems instead of playing it straight and saying this
is a
> long- term problem for America?
>
> Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz made a very
> horrible estimate of the situation. They concluded that the war would
be
> Slam Bam Goodbye Saddam, followed by victory parades with local Iraqi
folks
> throwing flowers and rice and everything nice, then the troops would
come
> home.
>
> When I examined the task organization, my estimate was totally contrary
to
> this asshole Rumsfeld, who went in light and on the cheap, all based
upon
> this rosy scenario. I never thought this would be a fight without
> resistance. And there was another guy who thought the same way I did;
his
> name is Saddam Hussein. He looked at the awesome array of forces being
set
> up against him and said, "Wait a minute, no way can I prevail, I tried
that
> in '91 and just saw in Afghanistan what happened to Taliban and
Al-Qaida, I
> will run away for another day."
>
> Saddam is saying, "I am going to copy Ho Chi Minh and the Taliban and
go
> into a guerrilla configuration." It [the invasion of Baghdad] did go
Slam
> Bam Goodbye Saddam, but we are in there so light that we don't have
> sufficient force to provide the stability after the fall of the regime.
We
> can't secure the banks, the energy facilities, the vital installations,
the
> government, the ministry, the museums or the library. The world was
witness
> to this great anarchy, the looting and rioting that set over Baghdad.
There
> was that wonderful quote by Rumsfeld. "Stuff happens," he said. He
flipped
> it off.
>
> Do you see any similarities to the U.S. engagement in Vietnam?
>
> The mistake in Vietnam was we failed to understand the nature of the
war and
> we failed to understand our enemy. In Vietnam we were fighting World
War II.
> Up to now in Iraq we have been fighting Desert Storm with tank brigade
> attacks. The tanks move into a village, swoop down, the tank gunner
sees a
> silhouette atop a house, aims, fires, kills and it turns out to be a
> 12-year-old boy. Now, the father of that boy said, "We will kill 10
> Americans for this." This is exactly what happened in Vietnam; a
village was
> friendly, then some pilot turns around and blows away the village, the
> village goes from pro-Saigon to pro-Hanoi.
>
> What kind of weapons would you be using in this war if you were running
it?
> Would you trade the pistols for grenade launchers? Would you bring in
more
> Apache helicopters, more snipers, what?
>
> You have to use surgical weapons, not weapons that can reach out and
strike
> innocents. The American Army is trained to break things and kill people
--
> not the kind of selective work that is needed. You don't use a tank
brigade
> to surround a village; instead, you set up ambushes along the route. It
is
> all so similar to what I saw in Vietnam, this tendency to be mesmerized
by
> big-unit operations. But if you fight like a G, everything is under the
> table, in the dark, done by stealth and surprise; there is no great
glory --
> except the end result. America has never been capable of fighting the
G;
> from [Gen.] Custer who fucked it up, you can fast-forward to today. [In
> Iraq] they are proving it again. The U.S. military never, never learns
from
> the past. They make the same mistake over and over again.
>
> What other changes would you say need to happen in Iraq?
>
> Get rid of the conventional generals; these guys in Iraq are tank
generals,
> but they don't have any experience in fighting an insurgency. Reminds
me of
> Vietnam when the artillery commanders wanted to build bases everywhere
to
> fire their cannons. These tactics do not work against the G. I said in
a
> recent piece: "Fire these fuckers and get a snake eater."
>
> Snake eater -- where does that term come from?
>
> That is an old expression from the beginning of Special Forces. They
would
> have demonstrations at Fort Bragg [U.S. Special Forces headquarters in
North
> Carolina] to demonstrate their animalism and they would bite the head
off a
> chicken or bite a snake in half.
>
> Gen. John Abazid -- a snake eater -- has just come in and admitted this
is a
> classic guerrilla war. What kind of new strategy can we expect to see?
>
> The guy is extremely bright and a fighter -- a very rare combination.
> Generally the fighters are Rambo types who can't walk and chew gum at
the
> same time. There are on occasions the Rommel and Patton who are
brilliant
> fucking guys who can also duke it out with you, they understand the
street
> fighter. You got that with Abazid.
>
> How is it that you, a retired soldier in suburban Connecticut, appear
to
> have a better take on the soldiers' mood than the generals in the
Pentagon
> or in Baghdad?
>
> I have incredible sources -- on average I get 500 e-mails a day from
kids
> around the world that have read my work and know that I am not going to
blow
> the whistle on them; a lot of that shit you see on my Web site comes
from
> those kids.
>
> This is the first war with e-mail. You have asked U.S. soldiers to
emulate
> Winston Churchill and act as war correspondents by sending you
dispatches
> from the front. What has been the response?
>
> Very, very favorable. The soldiers know the traffic is being monitored
by
> the Pentagon, that Big Brother is monitoring everything they write. But
> still my sources keep coming from Afghanistan and Iraq. I very seldom
get
> direct sources -- remember before we deployed, they [soldiers] were at
home
> and could send e-mail from personal Yahoo accounts, now they have to
use
> military accounts and are paranoid that these are being read. The
[direct]
> traffic I get now are from guys who don't give a fuck, who are not
going to
> stay in [the military], who don't give a shit about the consequences of
> sounding off. But remember -- you can never outsmart a convict in
prison or
> a soldier on the battlefield. They both live by their wits, so what
they do
> is write home and say "Hey dad I love you, we are having a few problems
with
> tanks, etc. If this letter should happen to find itself into the e-mail
of
> Hackworth at www.Hackworth.com it wouldn't disappoint me." I am getting
30
> to 40 of these letters.
>
> American troops in Iraq are complaining of basics like clean clothes,
hot
> food and mail from home. Is there anything wrong with the Pentagon's
famous
> supply chain?
>
> This goes back to the shitty estimate on the part of Rumsfeld. He did
not
> provide enough troops or the logistical backup, because his Army was
not
> staying, it was coming home. So who needs a warehouse full of shit?
>
> One letter I got today, written by a sergeant in a tank unit, said that
of
> its 18 armored vehicles -- Bradley or Abrams -- only four are
operational.
> The rest were down because of burned-out transmissions or the tracks
eaten
> out. So it is not just the shitty food and bad water -- a soldier can
live
> with short rations -- but spare parts, baby! If you don't have them,
your
> weapons don't work. Most of the resupply is by wheeled vehicles, and
the
> roads and terrain out there is gobbling up tires like you won't
believe.
> Michelin's whole production for civilians has been stopped [at certain
> plants] and have dedicated their entire production to the U.S. military
in
> Iraq -- and they can't keep up!
>
> Do you think there is any truth to the sense that British soldiers are
> better at nation-building than the Americans?
>
> I would say so. They have a long history -- going back to the days of
the
> colonies. If you look at their achievements in some places where they
have
> established solid governments -- in Africa, in India, they have done a
very
> good job. They were very good at lining up local folks to do the job
like
> operating the sewers and turning on the electricity. Far better than us
--
> we are heavy-handed, and in Iraq we don't understand the people and the
> culture. Thus we did not immediately employ locals in police and
military
> activities to get them to build and stabilize their nation. (Pauses)
Yeah,
> the Brits are better.
>
> What would you tell Rumsfeld if you could talk to him?
>
> In mid April, I wrote a piece that asks for Rumsfeld to be fired, to be
> relieved. I took enormous heat for that. He went in light, on the
cheap, he
> has misunderstood the whole war, he should go ... Rumsfeld is an
arrogant
> asshole. That's a quote, by the way.
>
>
>
> About the writer Jonathan Franklin covered the first Gulf War from
inside
> the Pentagon's "Desert Storm" mortuary. He is a reporter with the
Guardian
> of London.
>
> ======================
>
> FAIR USE NOTICE: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. � 107, this material is
> distributed on a strictly nonprofit basis to recipients who previously
have
> indicated their interest in receiving such information for educational
> and/or research purposes.

#89

From: "Jim Galasyn" <jim@...>
Date: Thu Aug 7, 2003 4:10 am
Subject: It's very typical of everything the Americans get involved in (6 August 2003)

barrett808

http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=186846&site=3

6 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

~ Bring Them Home ~

IRAQI REBELS TRAP BRITISH IN AMBUSH
By Tom Newton Dunn Defence Correspondent

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=13260019_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-IRAQI%2DREBELS%2DTRAP%2DBRITISH%2DIN%2DAMBUSH-name_page.html

BRITISH troops in Iraq fought a two-hour gun battle after their outpost was surrounded by an armed gang yesterday.

The 12-man unit was trapped inside a building with Iraqi policemen as around 20 gunmen opened fire with AK47s in what appeared a planned attack.

They were rescued when a Quick Reaction Force of 40 troops in a Chinook helicopter answered radio calls for help.

Armoured Warrior vehicles were also sent to the area and the gunmen pulled back.

No British soldiers were injured but it is believed the gunmen suffered casualties.

All coalition troops were ordered to leave Al-Husaia, which is just 15 miles from Majar-al-Kabir - where six Military Police officers were murdered six weeks ago.

Both towns are in a fiercely independent area where tensions are growing over the British presence.

Last night, an Army spokesman said an investigation into the attack on the unit of King's Own Scottish Borderers had been launched.

He said: "It is too early to say who these individuals were and what their motives were in carrying out this unprovoked attack, but we will find out.

"Thankfully, none of our soldiers were injured."

The attack is the third in the south of the country in six weeks and represents a rise in violence against the British.

A month ago, an officer was shot in the upper leg by a suspected sniper while on a night patrol in Basra.

The British had prided themselves on not facing the levels of violence experienced by the US in the north.

US soldier falls to death in Iraq
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6874883%255E1702,00.html

A US soldier fell off a roof to his death in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the military said tonight.

"A soldier from the 101st Airborne Division was killed when he fell from a roof of a fixed site at 7:30 pm (0030 AEST) August 5 in Mosul," according to a statement released in Baghdad.

"The soldier was evacuated to 23rd combat support hospital and was pronounced dead at approximately 8:15 pm," it added.

At least 57 American troops have now died in non-combat incidents since US President George W. Bush declared major combat operations in Iraq over on May 1, while 53 US soldiers have been killed in guerrilla-style attacks.

Pentagon makes moves to contain complaints from US troops in Iraq
Written by Douglas Quenqua

WASHINGTON: After several troops made some highly publicized negative comments to the media about the war effort in Iraq, the Pentagon has taken steps to keep the frustrations of both soldiers and their families out of reports.

According to a story in the July 25 edition of Stars and Stripes, the military appears to be curtailing its much-touted embedded-journalist program, which has allowed reporters almost unfettered access to military units throughout the war and occupation.

The 3rd Infantry Division, from where many complaints have arisen, has expelled many of its embedded reporters, and its troops are no longer allowed to talk to the media outside of pre-approved news features.

Lt. Col. Michael Birmingham, 3rd ID spokesman in Baghdad, told the military paper that the division is "no longer embedding for short stays." According to the report, exceptions to the policy have been made for three journalists who were embedded during the war and have returned to Iraq.

Soldiers' families are also being advised not to complain to the media, according to news reports.

After being told that 3rd ID soldiers would be staying in Iraq longer than expected, families received an e-mail message from a rear-detachment commander warning against contacting the press "in a negative manner regarding the military and this deployment."

The sharpest and most widely reported criticism by troops came on July 16, when a handful of tired and seemingly disillusioned troops from the 3rd ID offered scathing remarks about top Pentagon brass to an ABC News reporter. One called on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign, and another said, "I've got my own most-wanted list," which included Rumsfeld and President Bush.

Back in the US, there have been several accounts of frustrated military families who are upset about their loved ones' long deployments in Iraq.

Vaccine link raised in U.S troops' deaths
By MARK BENJAMIN, UPI Investigations Editor

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash2.htm

WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The U.S. Army should look at whether the anthrax vaccine is behind the unexplained cluster of pneumonia cases among soldiers in Iraq, according to the co-author of a government-sponsored study that last year found the vaccine was the "possible or probable" cause of pneumonia in two soldiers.

Dr. John L. Sever of George Washington University Medical School told United Press International Tuesday that he expects the military to consider the anthrax vaccine, among other possibilities, as it investigates pneumonia among soldiers in and around Iraq, where troops have been widely vaccinated against anthrax.

The Pentagon announced Tuesday it is investigating 100 cases of pneumonia among soldiers in Iraq and southwestern Asia. Two have died. Fifteen have had to be placed on respirators.

"As physicians, I would think they would be looking at all possible causes. I would think vaccines would be part of that," said Sever, a medical professor at George Washington who was one of six authors of the study. Col. Robert DeFraites from the Army Surgeon General's office told reporters at the Pentagon briefing Tuesday that biological warfare -- including smallpox or anthrax -- was unlikely to be the cause of the pneumonia. He did not mention vaccines as a possible cause, and the issue was not raised by reporters.

DeFraites and spokeswoman Virginia Stephanakis of the Army Surgeon General's office did not return calls Tuesday asking whether the Pentagon was looking into a possible vaccine connection.

Sever said the anthrax vaccine study, printed in the May 2002 issue of Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, found that the vaccine was the "possible or probable" cause of pneumonia among two soldiers. The Department of Health and Human Services convened the group, called the Anthrax Vaccine Expert Committee, which studied 602 reports of possible reactions to the vaccine among nearly 400,000 troops who received it, Sever said.

In addition to identifying pneumonia and flu-like symptoms among troops who received the vaccine, the group also looked at four other cases of potentially serious reactions, including severe back pain and two soldiers who had sudden difficulty breathing in a possible allergic reaction to the vaccine.

Sever described the two cases of pneumonia as "wheezing and difficulty breathing going into a pneumonia-like picture."

To conduct the study, the Anthrax Vaccine Expert Committee examined reports from the U.S. military to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; they are anecdotal reports and do not necessarily show a cause-and-effect relationship.

DeFraites said the two deaths under investigation by the Army Surgeon General occurred in June and July and that both soldiers had been in Iraq. He said the investigation began as soon as the first death occurred. In a case apparently not included in that total, 22-year-old Army specialist Rachael Lacy of Lynwood, Ill., died at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., on April 4 of what one doctor diagnosed as pneumonia, after receiving anthrax and smallpox vaccinations but without ever having been deployed.

Dr. Eric Pfeifer, the Minnesota coroner who performed the autopsy, told the Army Times that the smallpox and anthrax vaccines "may have" contributed to her death. "It's just very suspicious in my mind...that she's healthy, gets the vaccinations and then dies a couple weeks later." He listed "post-vaccine" problems on the death certificate.

Moses Lacy, Rachael Lacy's father, told the Army Times that she called in March and said she had chest pains and breathing problems and had been diagnosed with pneumonia.

One service member who was deployed to Kuwait and received the four-shot anthrax series told United Press International Tuesday he developed bronchitis and a severe cough after receiving his shots, and that about a fifth of the troops he was deployed with had similar symptoms and were prescribed medicine to treat them. His symptoms continued after he returned to the U.S., and he sought further treatment at a base clinic. He got better, but believes he nearly came down with pneumonia.

The Pentagon dispatched two teams to look into the pneumonia: one to Iraq and another to a U.S. military base in Landstuhl, Germany, where some sick soldiers are treated.

Type O Blood Donors Badly Needed
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug2003/n08062003_200308061.html

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6, 2003 – The Armed Services Blood Program needs eligible Type O blood donors to support ongoing military operations worldwide and to replenish the military's frozen blood reserves.

"Type O donors are the first line of defense for trauma victims. Until a blood type can be verified, Type O blood is used to keep trauma victims alive," said Air Force Lt. Col. Ruth Sylvester, Armed Services Blood Program director. "Once their blood type is determined, type-specific blood is transfused. But without Type O blood available, many patients would never make it until the test results came back."

A single battlefield injury victim can require more than 40 units of blood in an emergency. Type O donors are especially important to readiness because their blood can be transfused safely for all blood types, especially in remote areas where it's not possible to test for blood type.

The Armed Services Blood Program also needs Type O blood to maintain its frozen blood reserve. The military maintains a supply of frozen red blood cells to use when fresh blood is not immediately available. Since frozen blood can be safely stored for up to 10 years, it ensures that blood is always readily available to meet the military's needs worldwide.

Extending the shelf life of blood from 42 days (for liquid red cells) to 10 years in strategic locations enables the blood program to make frozen blood available until the supply of liquid blood begins to flow. But storage requirements and thawing equipment needed to use frozen blood prevent it from being used everywhere.

Making the present need more acute is that the military blood donor centers can only collect blood from active duty service members, government employees, retirees and military family members. That excludes many Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans, who are deferred from donating for one year because they served in areas where malaria is endemic. This makes regular donations from eligible donors critical.

"We're always thankful to our donors," Sylvester said. "We know that blood donations save lives every day. Repeat donors and those who ask that we call them when their blood type is needed help ensure we have a consistent supply of all blood types. They're literally lifesavers when an urgent need arises."

Blood program officials encourage potential donors or those who could sponsor a group blood drive to contact their local military blood collection facility.

(Based on a release from Army Surgeon General's office, executive agent for the Armed Services Blood Program.)

Kit criticised over Gulf death
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/3124953.stm

The stepfather of a soldier killed in the Gulf War says his son would still be alive if he had had the right equipment.

Desert Rats tank commander Steven Roberts, 33, from Wadebridge, Cornwall, was shot through the chest during a riot in Al Zubayr, near Basra, three days after the conflict began.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is holding an inquiry and more details are beginning to emerge about his death.

The MoD confirmed Sergeant Roberts was issued with body armour but had to take it off - because it was needed by infantry soldiers.

His family said Sergeant Roberts' pistol jammed after he had fired two warning shots, and a tank's gun also failed.

Stepfather Malcolm Chapman said: "My feeling is that he should never have gone into the battle zone without the correct equipment.

"Steven was a very professional soldier. I've known him very well for the last five years and I feel that if he had had the correct equipment, he would still be here today."

The MoD said the continuing Royal Military Police investigation and the forthcoming board of inquiry would deal with issues relating to weapons.

Sergeant Roberts, of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, was raised and went to school in Wadebridge.

He and his wife Sam were living in Shipley, West Yorkshire, before he was deployed to the Gulf. He had a child from a previous marriage.

The Chapmans say they hope to find out more from their son's colleagues when they attend a memorial service at his base in Germany early next month.

~ Fool Me Once ~

Number 10 admits Walter Mitty slur on Kelly
By George Jones and Michael Smith
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/08/05/nkell05.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/08/05/ixnewstop.html

Downing Street was forced to admit last night that a senior official had tried to discredit the Iraq weapons expert David Kelly by describing him as a Walter Mitty fantasist.

The embarrassing climbdown came after No 10 had spent the day denying that the Prime Minister had authorised any attempt to undermine the credibility of the scientist, whose funeral takes place tomorrow.

The Government already faces accusations that the leaking of his name by the Ministry of Defence contributed to his death.

John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, who will represent the Government at the funeral, had earlier ordered civil servants not to comment further about Dr Kelly.

Mr Prescott is in charge while Tony Blair is on holiday. He was said to be "fulminating" that the Government had been laid open to charges that it was trying to blacken Dr Kelly's name.

The episode brought into sharp focus the spin machine at No 10 and will lead to accusations that the Government is trying to manipulate the media over Iraq's weapons.

Opposition MPs and colleagues of Dr Kelly, who is believed to have committed suicide after being caught up in a war of words between the Government and the BBC, reacted angrily to the smear.

Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said it appeared that someone at No 10 had "taken leave of their senses".

He told Radio 4's World at One: "This is the most tasteless intervention one could imagine at a time when Dr Kelly's funeral has not yet taken place."

Richard Butler, who headed the United Nations weapons inspection team when Dr Kelly was part of it, told the programme: "This man was wedded to the truth and had a deep experience in Iraq."

The Independent said yesterday that a senior official at No 10 had compared Dr Kelly to James Thurber's fictional Mitty, a character with delusions of grandeur.

The source claimed that Dr Kelly had told Andrew Gilligan, the Radio 4 Today programme reporter, more than he knew then failed to admit to the MoD the full extent of his contacts with journalists.

"This guy was a Walter Mitty", the official was quoted as saying.

It is understood that one of Mr Blair's official spokesmen, named last night as Tom Kelly, gave two other newspapers off-the-record briefings about Dr Kelly last week.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman issued a carefully worded statement insisting that Mr Blair had not authorised someone senior at No 10 to dismiss Dr Kelly as a fantasist who exaggerated his role in the Government's case against Iraq. The statement stopped short of a categorical denial that an official had briefed against Dr Kelly.

At 11am Mr Blair's spokesman said: "I don't know where this comment has come from, but we do want to make it absolutely clear that nobody with either the Prime Minister's or anybody else in Downing Street's approval would say such a thing."

The newspaper stuck by its report, saying that a senior person at No 10 had been "very forthcoming, almost with a pre-prepared line about Walter Mitty".

Shortly after 6pm, after it became clear that the row was growing, No 10 issued a revised statement acknowledging that someone there had spoken to the newspaper. It stressed, however, that the conversation was not intended as an expression of the Government's view of Dr Kelly.

The smear coincided with continuing confusion at the MoD over how to explain the removal by the Metropolitan Police of a document relating to Dr Kelly that officials had planned to destroy.

Despite a spate of denials over the weekend, MoD officials admitted privately that the document was "a media plan" on how to handle stories about Dr Kelly.

They insisted that it was not relevant to the Hutton inquiry investigating the circumstances leading to Dr Kelly's death. Defence sources familiar with the incident, which occurred on a Sunday evening three days after Dr Kelly's body was found, said the document was apparently classified secret.

~ Hearts and Minds ~

Iraqis flock to Mahdi's Shia army
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/08/06/wirq06.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/08/06/ixhome.html

A militia of mostly Shia men is growing in response to a call to arms made by a maverick young cleric. Harry de Quetteville in Baghdad reports on Muqtader al-Sadr's army against US occupation.

As evening falls in the poor Shia suburb of Baghdad once known as Saddam City, dozens of volunteers queue under the watchful gaze of a local imam to sign up for the army.

But this is not the new Iraqi army sponsored and approved by the American-led administration. These soldiers will receive no monthly salary of �40. Here, prospective warriors are ready to serve, and die, for nothing.

This is "Mahdi's army", a growing militia of mostly Shia men who have responded to the fiery call to arms made by a maverick young cleric, Muqtader al-Sadr, two weeks ago in the Shia holy city of Najaf.

Since then al-Sadr has led anti-US demonstrations and encouraged worshippers to resist the US "invaders" and Iraq's "Zionist" governing council, appointed by the coalition.

Now the ranks of this religious army, named after an ancient imam who Shias believe will return to save the world, have swollen into tens of thousands, perhaps more.

"On the very first day after the call, up to 1 million people signed," claimed Sheikh Hassan al-Zurgani, a Baghdad representative of the Hawza, a Shia seminary based in Najaf.

"The official Iraqi army is the puppet of the USA," he added. "Now our people are willing to be martyrs and the USA must fear us."

For the moment Muqtader al-Sadr, the son of a revered Shia ayatollah murdered four years ago by Saddam Hussein, has not issued any order for mobilisation against the United States.

But there is no doubt that Mahdi's army has the potential to be a heavily armed force. "We do not need to issue weapons," said Sheikh Qais al-Kaza'ali, who oversees Baghdad's main rallying point for signatures from a religious centre in Saddam City. "Everybody has their own gun."

The US administration has dismissed al-Sadr and his Mahdi army as nothing more than a nuisance. But on the rundown streets of Saddam City, Shia who were despised and oppressed by the former regime believe they have found a new oppressor.

From their crumbling concrete tenements, they have come in droves to Sheikh al-Kaza'ali's office every night between 6 and 8 pm since al-Sadr's Najaf sermon.

"We are not scared of the Americans," said Ali Hadi, a 13-year-old boy who signed up yesterday evening. "Iraq is our country and we must fight to protect it and our religion."

Everyone in this district of Baghdad claims to have signed up for the army, encouraged by their friends and by community leaders.

"My friends told me about this 10 days ago," said Salah Hassan. "They have all signed, so I came down this evening to sign up too."

The process of volunteering is simple. A signature on a neatly printed form is enough to commit a volunteer to service.

As pen is repeatedly put to paper outside his office, Sheikh al-Kaza'ali insisted that it did amount to a real army.

"Most of the former Iraqi army were Shias," he said. "They have enormous experience of battle. And we are already sorting the names we have into army divisions. This is not a symbolic army. You would be astonished how ready people are to die.

"One man came with his five-year-old son to put both their names on the list and we said that his son was too young. The man said, 'No, I am ready to sacrifice him for this army'."

Such is the fervour boiling in this shabby neighbourhood that some may be willing to carry out their boastful threats of self-sacrifice and take an American life too.

But for the moment the only army patrolling the streets around what was once called Saddam City is under the control of President George W Bush, not Muqtader al-Sadr.

Even the Americans admit however, that this poor Shia district will never be known again as Saddam City. Now it is known to one and all as Sadr City instead.

Voice of free Iraq walks out on US

Brian Whitaker
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1013109,00.html

A broadcaster who became known as "the voice of free Iraq" after the fall of Saddam Hussein has walked out of his job, saying the United States is losing the propaganda war.

Failure to invest in the new Iraqi broadcasting service means foreign channels are gaining popularity at the expense of the US, Ahmed al-Rikabi, the American-appointed director of TV and radio said yesterday.

"The people of Iraq, including the Sunni Muslims, are not about to turn against their liberators, but they are being incited to do so. These [foreign] channels contribute to tension within Iraq," he said.

Saddam is scoring propaganda successes over the Americans by sending audio tapes to Arab satellite channels, Mr Rikabi continued.

"Saddam is doing better at marketing himself, through al-Jazeera and al-Arabiyya channels," he said, referring to the deposed Iraqi leader's recent messages which have been broadcast throughout the Middle East.

Last April Mr Rikabi, who had been head-hunted by the Americans, announced the overthrow of the Iraqi regime from a tent near Baghdad airport. Many Iraqis still recall his exact words: "Welcome to the new Iraq. Welcome to an Iraq without Saddam, Uday or Qusay."

He then helped to recruit a team of journalists that started TV transmissions lasting up to 16 hours a day. But the channel was dogged by a lack of money and resources.

The station was provided with only three studio cameras and five portable cameras, Mr Rikabi said. For the five portable cameras, they were allowed only 10 rechargeable batteries lasting 15 minutes each.

The best-paid journalist got a salary of $120 a month, compared with the minimum of $500 a month paid by other Arab networks, he added.

There was also a clothing allowance for newsreaders, but only to clothe the visible top half of their bodies.

Stephen Claypole, who was a public affairs adviser to Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, said: "It's very typical of everything the Americans get involved in. They announce large budgets and the money is never released."

Americans in Iraq adopt local blood money custom
By Kim Ghattas
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1059478737704

Every morning, dozens of Iraqis go to the Falluja city council headquarters and enter a room across the hall from the mayor's office. On the door, a notice invites residents to claim compensation for "damages caused by US armed forces by mistake or through negligence".

Some have had their cars impounded or their houses damaged in raids. But the most noteworthy are the claims of relatives of Iraqis killed by American soldiers.

"This compensation money will put an end to attacks against US soldiers by relatives of those killed by Americans," explains Taha Bdawi, the city's US-backed mayor. "This is a tribal, traditional society, where the principles of tha'r (revenge) and fidya (blood money) are still in force."

Tribal custom demands that for every man killed, four men from the enemy tribe must die, or one man if it was an accidental death. But a vendetta can be avoided through financial compensation - the current price tag is 1m Iraqi dinars (about �388) for an accidental killing and 4m dinars for premeditated murder.

Mr Bdawi says he explained to the US soldiers that they would be no exception to that tradition in Falluja, a town with a lot of deaths to avenge.

Located in the so-called Sunni triangle, where many of the attacks against US troops have taken place, the town has been seething with anger since April 28, when US soldiers shot at demonstrators, killing 18 Iraqis and wounding 78. Two days later a demonstration against the killings saw the deaths of two more Iraqis.

It has been relatively quiet since mid-July but yesterday Falluja police station, staffed by US-trained policemen, was attacked with anti-tank rockets. Soon after, some 200 people protested in front of the building, chanting: "With our blood and with our soul, we will defend you, Saddam!"

Now 26 families have received blood money for their losses in April's incident: $500 (�310) for an injury and $2,500 for a fatality, with $1,500 as a first instalment. The money comes from Iraqi funds abroad frozen during the Gulf war.

Other US initiatives to win over Falluja's residents include spending about $2m from a discretionary officers' fund to help rebuild infrastructure and the withdrawal of US troops from inside the city to the outskirts. The blood-money scheme seems to have been adopted in other parts of Iraq as well. Coalition authorities say they have already received 2,500 claims, 1,168 of which have been dealt with and $262,263 has already been paid out in compensation for fatalities.

Lt Chris Haggard from the US army's 3rd Armored Cavalry, who handles claims at the Falluja council offices, says the "hearts and minds" operation has had results.

"There are a lot more friendly faces, fewer attacks and less hostility on the streets. I don't feel threat ened any more driving into the town," said Lt Haggard. "People are starting to understand that we're here to help them, not hurt them." But on the streets of Falluja, friendly faces were nowhere to be seen. Muthanna Ali, who lives across the street from the school, lost a leg after being shot in the ankle during a demonstration. His brother was killed trying to rescue a demonstrator. His wife, mother and another brother were also wounded by the barrage of American bullets.

Mr Ali, a taxi driver, has just received compensation but says it is not enough. "I have seven children, my car was destroyed during the shooting, my leg was amputated, $500 is nothing," he said. "Nothing can replace my brother, especially not $1,500, if this is all we're getting. I'll return the money, because it's an insult. The Americans have done nothing good for us."

Asked about the US troops' efforts to rebuild the town's infrastructure, Falluja's residents insist they have seen no improvements, while the mayor and US officers say services such as power and water are back at pre-war levels and in some cases better.

The only action by the Americans that seems appreciated by residents is the troops' withdrawal from the town. "There were always problems when they were inside the town - shootings, and bad security. With their special glasses they used to look through our women's clothes," said Gurji Hays Ali from the Mallah tribe, referring to a popular myth held by some Iraqis.

"Now that they're outside the town, it's much better, but they have to leave Iraq completely."

~ White Man's Burden ~

Halliburton Profits from Work in Iraq
By Erwin Seba

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030731/bs_nm/energy_halliburton_earns_dc_3

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Oilfield service giant Halliburton Co. (NYSE:HAL), said on Thursday it reversed big losses from last year and made money in the second quarter as revenues jumped largely due to logistical support work for the U.S. military in Iraq.

The company reported net income of $26 million, or 6 cents a share, up from a loss of $498 million, or $1.15 a share, a year earlier.

Revenues jumped to $3.6 billion, from $3.24 billion in 2002, with $292 million of that coming from operations in Iraq.

Halliburton works with the military in keeping supplies flowing to the troops. It also had a contract to fight oil well fires early in the Iraq war.

The company has come under fire for its Iraq work, with critics charging that it got the contracts because of ties to its former chief executive, Vice President Dick Cheney. The charges have been denied.

Halliburton apparently did not make much money in Iraq because the engineering and construction group leading operations there reported a $148 million loss for the quarter.

"All of the hullabaloo about Iraq and, at the end of the day, they don't make money on it and it doesn't help the stock," said Brad Handler, analyst with Blaylock & Partners L.P.

Traditionally, the company has said, margins for government support work are narrow. But the biggest part of the unit's loss was a $104 million charge for problems with an offshore drilling and production complex under development in Brazil for Petroleo Brasileiro S.A.

The company warned in June of the Brazil writeoff and said it would take a 24 cents per share bite out of earnings. That led analysts to drop their forecasts from 25 cents per share for the quarter to 2 cents per share, according to Reuters Research, a unit of Reuters Group Plc.

Countering those problems were a robust performance by Halliburton's energy services group, which had $235 million in operating income on revenues of $1.78 billion, up from $70 million and $1.76 billion a year ago.

"The results are generally very good," said Prabhas Panigrahi, analyst with Kevin Dann & Partners LLC. "They've already exceeded our expectations."

With the earnings upswing and the Brazil charge now dealt with, he said various clouds hanging over Halliburton were beginning to clear.

"Now they can rise above the noise and focus on oilfield services," he said. "There are a lot of opportunities out there for them."

But Handler said all is not resolved, especially a proposed $4 billion settlement package for hundreds of thousands of asbestos liability claims arising from a subsidary's manufacturing. The asbestos issue has been the biggest drag on Halliburton in the past year.

"There is greater comfort among investors, but they haven't closed the book on all of those issues," Handler said.

Halliburton has said the cost of the settlement package may go beyond $4 billion and investors are curious if the company may benefit from a bill making its way through Congress to create a national asbestos injury fund to pay those claiming harm from asbestos exposure.

Halliburton is also under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for accounting issues.

The company painted an optimistic picture for the remainder of the year, with revenue and earnings growth expected in all its business segments.

It said third quarter earnings from continuing operations of at least 32 cents a share were likely.

Analyst forecasts for Halliburton's earnings for the current quarter ranged from 26 cents to 35 cents per share, with an average estimate of 31 cents per share, according to Reuters Research.

Halliburton's stock was up over 4.5 percent and trading beyond $22 per share Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.

U.S. Finds Cache in Series of Iraq Raids
U.S. Forces Arrest 19 Suspected Resistance Members in Iraq, Find Weapons in Series of Raids

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20030806_838.html

TIKRIT, Iraq Aug. 6 — U.S. forces said Wednesday they arrested 19 suspected members of the anti-U.S. resistance and killed another, and found a huge stockpile of weapons in a series of raids in northern Iraq. But the big prize Saddam Hussein remained elusive.

Iraq's postwar recovery continued: In Baghdad, the U.S.-installed Governing Council asked for U.S. help in creating desperately needed jobs, while to the south in Diwaniyah, Spanish soldiers began setting up a base for troops from Spain and four Latin American countries to replace U.S. forces heading home.

For the fifth straight day, no U.S. military personnel were reported killed in attacks. Military combat deaths had been coming almost daily, with 52 U.S. soldiers killed in combat since May 1, when U.S. President George W. Bush declared major combat over.

The U.S. military announced the arrest of a man it said was organizing guerrilla attacks against American soldiers. The man, nabbed Sunday by Iraqi police officers, was the brother of a Saddam bodyguard captured by U.S. forces on July 29, said Lt. Col. Steve Russell of the 4th Infantry Division.

Russell did not identify the man, but said he was the brother of Adnan Abdullah Abid al-Musslit, who was believed to have detailed knowledge of Saddam's hiding places.

Eighteen other suspected guerrillas were arrested in seven overnight raids across north-central Iraq, Maj. Josslyn Aberle said.

She also said soldiers uncovered a large weapons cache 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, on Sunday. It included two 7-meter-long (20-foot) missiles, 3,000 mortar rounds, 250 anti-tank rockets and almost 2,000 artillery rounds.

She said an Iraqi informant led soldiers to the cache.

Russell said a man tried to attack soldiers with a rocket-propelled grenade in downtown Tikrit, but soldiers killed him before he could fire.

"He was sneaking through an alley way and we engaged him. Soldiers saw him fall," Russell said, adding: "We will engage or kill anyone with RPGs."

U.S. military sources reported a failed raid last week near the northern city of Mosul to capture one of Saddam Hussein's most trusted aides and No. 6 on the U.S. list of most-wanted, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.

The Governing Council asked the U.S. civilian administrator, L. Paul Bremer, to meet with it to discuss a job-creation plan. Creating jobs is seen as one of the most crucial tasks in reducing rising crime and restoring normalcy in Iraq.

In Diwaniyah, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Spanish Brig. Gen. Alfredo Cardona set up a base camp for troops from Spain, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic scheduled to arrive within weeks.

"We're repairing old barracks, setting up tents and installing air conditioners. We should be ready by Sept. 1," he said. He didn't let journalists tour the base.

Their arrival will let U.S. troops head home from the region.

But new U.S. troops prepared to deploy. The 10th Mountain Division at New York's Fort Drum said Wednesday it would deploy another 600 troops to Iraq. The entire 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, will "prepare for future contingencies as may be directed," the Army said.

In Baghdad, about 5,000 members of Iraq's Turkmen minority demonstrated in front of the main U.S. military and political base to demand broader representation for their ethnic minority in the U.S.-appointed governing council. Only one of the council's 25 members is Turkman.

The protesters, most of whom came by bus from heavily Turkman areas in northern Iraq, also accused Kurds of immigrating to traditionally Turkman areas.

Iraq has a tense mix of religions and ethnicities, and many minorities are worried about their treatment and influence in Iraq's still forming state.

The grandson of the late Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in Baghdad to set up a Shiite Muslim seminary movement, praised the U.S. war and said he hoped Iraq's newfound freedoms could spread to neighboring Iran. The grandson, Seyed Hussein Khomeini, has been critical of the Islamic revolution his grandfather led in 1979.

"As an Iranian, I see it as a liberation from oppression and dictatorship and tyranny which was never known before in history," he told Associated Press Television News. "This was their salvation from their suffering."

But the former chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix, denounced the war in his strongest language yet, saying the United States had better options than war and questioning its logic that war was needed to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

"Personally, I found it peculiar that those who wanted to take military action could with 100-percent certainty know that the weapons existed, and at the same time turn out to have zero percent knowledge of where they were," Blix told a Swedish radio program.

The United States has yet to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or to find their biggest prize, Saddam himself.

A series of raids have captured many of Saddam's top aides and killed his powerful sons Odai and Qusai, but Saddam has slipped away every time.

EDITOR'S NOTE Associated Press Writers Matt Moore in Mosul, Tarek al-Issawi in Diwaniyah and Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad contributed to this report.

US Secures Only Half Foreign Troops Sought
By Tom Squitieri
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/occupation/2003/0805secures.htm

New foreign peacekeeping troops are set to begin arriving in Iraq in mid-August, but months of U.S. arm-twisting have produced only about half the soldiers the Pentagon was counting on. As of now, there won't be enough foreign troops to permit the replacement and withdrawal of some U.S. forces planned for early next year.

The Pentagon has said it expected some 30,000 foreign troops to replace war-weary U.S. combat forces. But dozens of interviews with foreign political and military officials found that so far, 29 countries have committed only about 15,500 troops.

About a third of those are either unqualified for combat or deliberately barred from combat operations by their governments, the foreign officials say. That could limit their usefulness in the violent, guerrilla-style war coalition forces are now waging in Iraq. Asked Monday whether the foreign troops headed to Iraq were "militarily significant," Paul Bremer, the U.S. envoy to Iraq, replied, "Some are...some more than others."

"The issue is the quality of forces, and are they ready for combat," says Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution specializing in U.S. defense strategy. "In the Sunni triangle (an area north of Baghdad where Saddam Hussein loyalists have attacked U.S. troops aggressively), you need to have top caliber U.S. or NATO forces. In the north and the south, you can probably use (the others)."

There are now 146,000 U.S. troops and 11,000 British troops in Iraq, plus a smattering from other nations. British forces were never part of the plan to replace U.S. troops. Pentagon officials have said at least 160,000 troops will be needed in Iraq for the foreseeable future.

Under a rotation plan announced recently by the Pentagon, the Marine's 1st Expeditionary Force is to be replaced in September or October by a multinational division led by Poland. That rotation appears to be on schedule.

Of more concern to military planners are future multinational units, including one that is scheduled to replace the Army's 101st Airborne Division next February or March. No country has emerged to lead that division, and no forces have been identified to replace the 101st, now in northern Iraq.

On Tuesday, Army Deputy Chief of Staff Gen. John Keane told reporters that negotiations are underway with 11 nations to get troops to replace the 101st. If the negotiations don't succeed by the fall, he said, U.S military leaders will have to consider using U.S. troops from the Army or the Army Reserve.

Without more foreign troops, the Pentagon has limited options. Forcing current U.S. troops to stay indefinitely seems unlikely because of a rising clamor among families and the troops themselves to rotate home. Other options include sending more National Guard or Reserve units, reducing troop strength in Iraq or shifting troops from other missions, experts say.

"The Defense Department is putting together a way of dealing with Iraq that is plausible but highly perishable," says Andrew Krepinevich, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C. "Extending tours of duty to one year and calling up more National Guard units will plug the gap, but are not likely sustainable over the long term, even with a modest increase in ally contributions."

Pentagon officials remain hopeful they can pry significant numbers of troops out of India, Pakistan, Portugal, Russia, France and Germany, but many or all of those have signaled they are unlikely to participate unless the United Nations adopts a specific new resolution creating a peacekeeping force — something the Bush administration has indicated it will not ask for. And hopes of participation by a prominent Arab nation were set back Tuesday, when Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo said they would not send peacekeeping troops.

Nor is the Pentagon likely to get any immediate help from NATO, which takes over responsibility for peacekeeping in Afghanistan on August 11. NATO also has ongoing operations in Kosovo and Bosnia.

Who's Committing Forces
So far, more than two dozen U.S. allies have committed to send roughly 15,500 peacekeeping troops to Iraq only about half the number the Pentagon wants. Countries and troop totals shown below. The three countries marked with asterisks are still negotiating whether to send troops, and how many; those numbers are not included in the total.

Albania: 100-200
Azerbaijan: 150
Bulgaria: 500
Czech Republic: 300
Denmark: 380
Dominican Republic: 300
Estonia: 43
El Salvador: 360
Fiji: 700
Georgia: 190
Honduras: 370
Hungary: 300
Italy: 2,800
Japan: up to 1,000
Latvia: 144
Lithuania: 100
Macedonia: 30
Mongolia: 70
Netherlands: 1,100
New Zealand: 40
Nicaragua: 230
Norway: 140
Philippines: 350
Poland: 2,300
Portugal: 120
Romania: 405
Slovak Republic: 85
South Korea: 670
Spain: 1,300
Thailand: 450-500
Turkey: up to 5,000
Ukraine: 1,800

USA Today research

6 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

#90

From: "Jim Galasyn" <jim@...>
Date: Fri Aug 8, 2003 3:30 am
Subject: Ten or 20 people is more than adequate (7 August 2003)

barrett808

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=4YC5Q1UFM5OD0CRBAELCFFA?type=topNews&storyID=3238547

7 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

~ Bring Them Home ~

Grenade sets U.S. Humvee ablaze in central Baghdad
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07637145.htm

BAGHDAD, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Iraqi guerrillas fired a rocket- propelled grenade that set ablaze a U.S. military vehicle in central Baghdad on Thursday, inflicting U.S. casualties, witnesses said.

Reuters photographer Oleg Popov who was at the scene said U.S. soldiers opened fire after the attack, killing at least one man who appeared to be a bystander.

The witnesses said the Humvee was driving near the Palm Hotel when guerrillas fired the grenade. Four soldiers were inside the vehicle when it was hit and they suffered serious wounds, they said.

A U.S. force engaged the attackers, exchanging intense small arms fire.

There was no immediate comment on the incident from the U.S. military in Baghdad.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed and one was wounded, along with an Iraqi interpreter, in a gunbattle in Baghdad on Wednesday night.

Saddam's Followers Raise Bounty for Dead Americans
By Alastair Macdonald

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - Killing an American may now be worth $5,000 to an Iraqi in Saddam Hussein's heartland -- a quadrupling of the bounty that the U.S. commander in the region said is a sign of desperation among guerrilla diehards.

"The word is the price has quadrupled for doing attacks on U.S. forces," Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno told a news conference on Thursday at his headquarters in Saddam's hometown, Tikrit.

Rates some weeks ago were about $250 for an attack and $1,000 for a "successful" one, he said: "We believe now that's gone to about $1,000 and $5,000, something in that area."

U.S. officers accuse middle-ranking members of Saddam's Baath party and Fedayeen militia movement of funding and arming young men to resist the American occupation of Iraq.

Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, said an aggressive U.S. policy toward these organizers was bearing fruit and fewer Iraqis were willing to take the risk of facing up to the Americans -- with a resulting rise in the price.

"I see these somewhat as desperate acts," he said.

He did not believe they were being coordinated by Saddam, who has a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head and who Odierno said was probably moving his hideout several times a day.

Across his task force's area of operations, taking in much of north central Iraq including the traditionally pro-Saddam "Sunni triangle" north of Baghdad, hundreds of people have been detained and many killed in raids over the past few weeks.

In the past day, 49 suspects were held, including a possibly senior fedayeen organizer in Tikrit itself and two associates of Saddam's late son Uday in Kirkuk, officers said. Two, possibly four, Iraqi guerrilla suspects were killed.

The man arrested in Tikrit overnight was seized in a raid that saw nearly 400 soldiers backed by Abrams battle tanks and helicopters seal off a city block and force more than three dozen men from their beds into the street, handcuffed.

Odierno said he was aware of the need to balance aggression against enemies with care not to alienate other local people.

"It's a fine balance," he said. "If there's a threat to our soldiers we'll go in heavily armed and a little bit heavier."

"We understand the importance of maintaining the cultural ways of life here," he said. "But if I err, I will always err on protecting my soldiers.

"It's important that we are offensive in nature so we preemptively deter attacks on our forces."

Asked whether he had concerns that his forces faced not just Saddam's loyalists but other anti-American groups, Odierno said: "We have had some intelligence reports that there could be some people that might be associated with al Qaeda trying to move into the region...We continue to watch that very closely."

U.S. troops left in lurch left adrift by civilians
Some contractors no-shows in Iraq
By DAVID WOOD

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2034902

WASHINGTON -- U.S. troops in Iraq suffered through months of unnecessarily poor living conditions because some civilian contractors hired by the Army for logistics support failed to show up, Army officers said.

Months after the troops settled into occupation duty, they were camped out in primitive, dust-blown shelters without windows or air conditioning. The Army has invested heavily in modular barracks, showers, bathroom facilities and field kitchens, but troops in Iraq were using ramshackle plywood latrines and living without fresh food or regular access to showers and telephones.

Even mail delivery, which is also managed by civilian contractors, fell weeks behind.

Though conditions have improved, the problems raise new concerns about the Pentagon's growing reliance on defense contractors for everything from laundry service to combat training and aircraft maintenance.

Civilian contractors may work well enough in peacetime, critics say. But what about in a crisis?

"We thought we could depend on industry to perform these kinds of functions," Lt. Gen. Charles Mahan, the Army's logistics chief, said in an interview.

One thing became clear in Iraq. "You cannot order civilians into a war zone," said Linda Theis, an official at the Army's Field Support Command, which oversees some civilian logistics contracts. "People can sign up to that -- but they can also back out."

As a result, soldiers lived in the mud, then the heat and dust. Back home, a group of mothers organized a drive to buy and ship air conditioners to their sons. One Army captain asked a reporter to send a box of nails and screws to repair his living quarters and latrines.

For almost a decade, the military has been shifting its supply and support personnel into combat jobs and hiring defense contractors to do the rest. This shift has accelerated under relentless pressure from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to make the force lighter and more agile.

"It's a profound change in the way the military operates," said Peter Singer, author of a new book, Corporate Warriors, a detailed study of civilian contractors.

"When you turn these services over to the private market, you lose a measure of control over them," said Singer, a foreign policy researcher at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington.

Because of overlapping contracts and multiple contracting offices, nobody in the Pentagon seems to know precisely how many contractors are responsible for which jobs -- or how much it all costs. That's one reason the White House can only estimate that it is spending about $4 billion a month on troops in Iraq.

Last fall the Army hired Kellogg Brown & Root, a Houston-based contractor, to draw up a plan for supporting U.S. troops in Iraq, covering everything from handling the dead to managing airports. KBR, as it's known, eventually received contracts to perform some of the jobs, and it and other contractors began assembling in Kuwait for the war.

But as the conflict approached, insurance rates for civilians skyrocketed -- to 300 percent to 400 percent above normal, according to Mike Klein, president of MMG Agency Inc., a New York insurance firm. Soldiers are insured through the military and rates don't rise in wartime.

It got "harder and harder to get (civilian contractors) to go in harm's way," Mahan said.

Patrice Mingo, a spokesman for KBR, declined comment.

Don Trautner, an Army official who manages a major logistics contract with KBR for troop support in Iraq, said he knew of "no delays" by KBR civilian contractors.

Dead U.S. soldiers come home to Delaware air base

By Niala Boodhoo

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N04157983.htm

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del., Aug 7 (Reuters) - When the cargo planes land at this air base on the coast of Delaware, people nearby stand at attention to honor the dead.

Fifty-three soldiers have been killed in guerilla-style attacks in Iraq since President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat there on May 1. Since March 20, when the U.S.-led war on Iraq began, an additional 114 U.S. soldiers have been killed in hostile action.

This quiet base about a mile (1.6 km) inland from Delaware Bay is where all the American soldiers who die in Iraq come home.

Dover Air Force Base has the largest Department of Defense port mortuary and the only one in the United States. Since the Vietnam War, wartime casualties have come through here.

Recently, the mortuary prepared the remains of the astronauts killed in the Columbia shuttle diaster and the Pentagon victims from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Since March, when the U.S.-led war against Iraq began, the staff at the Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs have been at their brutal but delicate task nonstop, with 10- to 12- hour days and rotations sometimes without days off for weeks.

"What I tell my family is, if you see reports of fatalities, then that means we're working," said Karen Giles, who heads the mortuary.

FACES GETTING YOUNGER

Giles and her colleagues have learned to avoid those news reports, in part to avoid developing attachments to soldiers who they may have to tend to.

You have to be careful when watching the news, she said, as she walked through the mortuary, a hangar-like building with cement floors and a pastel-colored partitions. The military is finishing construction on a new, larger facility next to the old one and hopes to move next month.

Giles, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel who performed similar duties during the 1991 Gulf War and again in 2001 for Sept. 11 deaths, said that the job was always difficult.

"I absolutely have a perspective on the cost of war," she said. "I look at the faces that come through, and they're younger."

But Giles and others said they there is still a lot of pride involved in their job.

"We'd love nothing more than to never have to do this," said Air Force Maj. Jeff Yocum, commander of the services squadron that oversees the mortuary.

"(We) take great amount of pride in ensuring that that dignity, honor and respect is provided throughout their time at Dover," he said. "Our overriding concern to ensure that they return with dignity and respect to their families and loved ones."

FLOW OF DECEASED 'STEADY'

From March 29 through August 5, the remains of about 250 soldiers have been delivered to Dover from Iraq. That figure includes all troops who have died on duty, regardless of cause.

The planes, C-5s, C-17s and sometimes C747s, arrive at all hours of the day or night. They are met on the runway by a military honor guard that accompanies each casket on a short walk from the runway to mortuary, a nondescript beige building at one corner of the base.

At the height of operations in Iraq, the permanent peacetime mortuary staff of seven swelled to 200, including members from each division of the armed forces, as well as the FBI and the Department of Defense.

That number has since been trimmed to about 50 workers, although the flow of causalities remains "very steady," according to Giles.

It take can hours to identify some remains. The examiners also determine the cause of death and collect data for military records. The bodies are then prepared to the family's request and placed, in full dress uniform, into a casket.

In one room, bags and boxes of military ribbons, medals and uniforms, for the Army, Air Force, Marines and Navy, are kept to properly outfit the deceased.

After the body is embalmed and placed in a casket, it is moved to a blue-carpeted room where an escort sits with the flag-draped coffin. The escort, usually a member of the deceased's division, accompanies the body, via plane or car, until it can be handed over to a family member.

Throughout the process, a host of psychological support staff are nearby to assist the workers.

Sometimes, Giles said, especially when going through the soldier's personal effects, coming across letters and photos: "People start to get quiet," she said, adding they just stare.

Dignitaries and other officials who occasionally come through the mortuary find that war is not abstract, Giles said. "The decisions have consequences and you can see the consequences here," she said.

[In case you're wondering why we don't see more coverage of the returning dead soldiers:

Pentagon Keeps Return of Iraqi War Dead from Media

Mar 28, 6:11 pm ET
http://news.excite.com/politics/article/id/313753%7Cpolitics%7C03-28-2003::18:24%7Creuters.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon has no plans to allow media access to a U.S. Air Force base receiving the bodies of American soldiers killed in Iraq, a Defense Department spokeswoman said on Friday.

The remains of 18 soldiers killed in the Iraq campaign and six who died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan have arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware since Tuesday. Each time, a military chaplain has uttered prayers and an honor guard has carried flag-draped aluminum coffins to waiting vehicles.

In some past conflicts, news cameras and reporters were allowed to record the transfer of soldiers' remains at the Dover base, which houses the U.S. military's largest morgue.

But a Defense Department spokeswoman said a policy in place since the 1991 Gulf War shields the return of war dead from the media spotlight and encourages family members not to attend. She said the policy was adopted at the urging of soldiers' families.

"No major conflict dating back to the Gulf War has permitted media coverage during a remains transfer," she said.

An exception was made in 1996 when the White House requested media coverage after a plane carrying U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 32 others crashed in Croatia, killing everyone on board. The Pentagon has no plans to deviate from the policy during the war in Iraq.

Dover Air Force Base has been receiving military remains since 1955, including military victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It also handled remains of astronauts killed in the Feb. 1 crash of the space shuttle Columbia.]

~ Fool Me Once ~

BLIX BLASTS 'ILLEGAL' US WAR ON IRAQ

By Mark Ellis, Foreign Editor

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=13263825_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-BLIX%2DBLASTS%2D%2DILLEGAL%2D%2DUS%2DWAR%2DON%2DIRAQ-name_page.html

FORMER United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix yesterday blasted the US-led war on Iraq as a violation of international law.

He said: "I do not see the action as compatible with the UN charter."

Speaking on Swedish radio, Blix questioned whether Saddam Hussein had posed an immediate threat to his neighbours and the US.

He said: "I found it peculiar that those who wanted to take military action could - with 100 per cent certainty - know that the weapons existed and turn out to have zero knowledge of where they were."

Blix said President Bush must have had other reasons for the invasion. He added: "An important element surely was the need to show striking power after the terror attack of September 11, 2001." Blix said it was becoming increasingly improbable that US and British forces would find WMD in Iraq

Meanwhile, one person was killed and 19 arrested in a swoop on Iraqi rebels by US soldiers yesterday. They also found a haul of weapons during raids in Tikrit, northern Iraq.

The Pentagon has some explaining to do
By KAREN KWIATKOWSKI

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/editorial/outlook/2023830

After eight years of Bill Clinton, many military officers breathed a sigh of relief when George W. Bush was named president. I was in that plurality. At one time, I would have believed the administration's accusations of anti-Americanism against anyone who questioned the integrity and good faith of President Bush, Vice President Cheney or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

However, while working from May 2002 through February 2003 in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Near East South Asia and Special Plans (USDP/NESA and SP) in the Pentagon, I observed the environment in which decisions about post-war Iraq were made.

Those observations changed everything.

What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of "intelligence" found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense. I can identify three prevailing themes.

�Functional isolation of the professional corps. Civil service and active-duty military professionals assigned to the USDP/NESA and SP were noticeably uninvolved in key areas of interest to Under Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld. These included Israel, Iraq and to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia.

When The New York Times broke the story last summer of Richard Perle's invitation to Laurent Muraviec to brief the Defense Policy Board on Saudi Arabia as the next enemy of the United States, this briefing was news to the Saudi desk officer. He even had some difficulty getting a copy of it, while receiving assignments related to it.

In terms of Israel and Iraq, all primary staff work was conducted by political appointees, in the case of Israel a desk officer appointee from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and in the case of Iraq, Abe Shulsky and several other appointees. These personnel may be exceptionally qualified; Shulsky authored a 1993 textbook Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence. But the human resource depth made possible through broad-based teamwork with the professional policy and intelligence corps was never established, and apparently never wanted by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld organization.

� Cross-agency cliques: Much has been written about the role of the founding members of the Project for a New American Century, the Center for Security Policy and the American Enterprise Institute and their new positions in the Bush administration. Certainly, appointees sharing particular viewpoints are expected to congregate, and that an overwhelming number of these appointees have such organizational ties is neither conspiratorial nor unusual. What is unusual is the way this network operates solely with its membership across the various agencies -- in particular the State Department, the National Security Council and the Office of the Vice President.

Within the Central Intelligence Agency, it was less clear to me who the appointees were, if any. This might explain the level of interest in the CIA taken by the Office of the Vice President. In any case, I personally witnessed several cases of staff officers being told not to contact their counterparts at State or the National Security Council because that particular decision would be processed through a different channel. This cliquishness is cause for amusement in such movies as Never Been Kissed or The Hot Chick. In the development and implementation of war planning it is neither amusing nor beneficial for American security because opposing points of view and information that doesn't "fit" aren't considered.

� Groupthink. Defined as "reasoning or decision-making by a group, often characterized by uncritical acceptance or conformity to prevailing points of view," groupthink was, and probably remains, the predominant characteristic of Pentagon Middle East policy development. The result of groupthink is the elevation of opinion into a kind of accepted "fact," and uncritical acceptance of extremely narrow and isolated points of view.

The result of groupthink has been extensively studied in the history of American foreign policy, and it will have a prominent role when the history of the Bush administration is written. Groupthink, in this most recent case leading to invasion and occupation of Iraq, will be found, I believe, to have caused a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress.

I am now retired. Shortly before my retirement I was allowed to return to my primary office of assignment, having served in NESA as a desk officer backfill for 10 months. The transfer was something I had sought, but my wish was granted only after I made a particular comment to my superior, in response to my reading of a February Secretary of State cable answering a long list of questions from a Middle Eastern country regarding U.S. planning for the aftermath in Iraq. The answers had been heavily crafted by the Pentagon, and to me, they were remarkably inadequate, given the late stage of the game. I suggested to my boss that if this was as good as it got, some folks on the Pentagon's E-ring may be sitting beside Saddam Hussein in the war crimes tribunals.

Saddam is not yet sitting before a war crimes tribunal. Nor have the key decision-makers in the Pentagon been forced to account for the odd set of circumstances that placed us as a long-term occupying force in the world's nastiest rat's nest, without a nation-building plan, without significant international support and without an exit plan. Neither may ever be required to answer their accusers, thanks to this administration's military as well as publicity machine, and the disgraceful political compromises already made by most of the Congress. Ironically, only Saddam Hussein, buried under tons of rubble or in hiding, has a good excuse.

Kwiatkowski is a recently retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who spent most of her final three years of military service in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Under Secretariat for Policy.

Cheney 'not named due to Iraq war'

By Sheila McNulty in Houston

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ft/20030807/bs_ft/1059478768228

Dick Cheney, US vice-president, was not named as a defendant in an accounting fraud lawsuit against Halliburton, where he was formerly chief executive, because of political sensitivities with the country at war, a lead plaintiff in the case has said.

Neil Rothstein, counsel for Scott + Scott, said in documents obtained by the Financial Times that Richard Schiffrin of Schiffrin & Barroway and lead counsel in the case, "admitted that Cheney may have risk involved in this lawsuit but he was not named as a defendant because it would be inappropriate to do so in a 'time of war'."

The charge is one of many Scott + Scott is levelling against Schiffrin & Barroway in an attempt to remove the firm as lead counsel.

Terrence O'Donnell, private counsel to Mr Cheney, said: "We have never requested anyone to forego litigation against the vice-president because the country was at war."

In court papers, Mr Schiffrin admits meeting with Mr Cheney's attorneys but said: "Lead counsel acknowledges only that these discussions were conducted at a time when this country was focused on its war efforts against Iraq (news - web sites)."

In an interview, Mr Schiffrin said he had sought the meeting to explain, as a courtesy, that the vice-president would not be named in the lawsuit. "My point was that there was no basis to name him as a defendant," he said. "Particularly in a time of war."

Because the case centres on an accounting issue, and Mr Cheney was chief executive, there was nothing that tied him into the decision-making process on the alleged fraud, Mr Schiffrin said. Nonetheless, his firm named David Lesar, who replaced Mr Cheney as CEO, in the lawsuit. Mr Schiffrin told the Financial Times yesterday that he "honestly can't remember" why Mr Lesar was named. The class action covers May 1998 to May 2002, a period in which both men led the company.

Mr Schiffrin said Scott + Scott had not named Mr Cheney as a defendant in its initial lawsuit. Mr Rothstein said it could have added him as the investigation proceeded.

"Numerous clients who are class members, including US military stationed in Kuwait, find it offensive and presumptuous that any law firm would unilaterally decide to make a political decision regarding a shareholder securities fraud action," Mr Rothstein said in an interview.

~ Hearts and Minds ~

U.S. holding Iraqis at notorious prison
Families are barred from Abu Ghraib and very few inmates have been allowed to see lawyers
By Alex Rodriguez

http://www.majority.com/news/prison.html

ABU GHRAIB, Iraq -- Once one of Iraq's notorious prisons where Saddam Hussein had political prisoners tortured and hanged, Abu Ghraib has become a makeshift jail at the heart of the U.S. military's struggle to give Iraqis a new sense of justice.

About 500 Iraqis are detained here and, like detainees in U.S. prison camps across Iraq, none has been allowed family visits. Only one out of 10 has been allowed to see a lawyer.

The five compounds in the prison were ransacked after Hussein freed virtually all of Iraq's prisoners last October, so the detainees are penned in tents behind rolls of razor wire. On some days, the camp roasts under a midday sun that produces temperatures as high as 130 degrees.

On Monday, dozens of Iraqi detainees sprinted from their tents at the sight of a group of journalists in a convoy and began screaming.

"What did we do? We didn't do anything!" a shirtless inmate shouted.

"We want to leave from here!" another yelled.

"We are kind of in a box," said Col. Marc Warren, a judge advocate general and the Army's ranking legal officer in Iraq. "We have got this huge backlog trying to get these guys into the Iraqi court system."

The sprawling Abu Ghraib complex has the largest capacity of the U.S. military's Iraqi detention camps. Under Hussein's regime, it was a much-feared prison where inmates were routinely tortured with everything from electric shock to beatings on the soles of their feet.

Though much of the prison was looted, the compound for the condemned and an adjoining death chamber are intact. A length of thick rope remains tied to the ceiling where political prisoners were hanged; the levers used to activate the gallows still function.

Messages in Arabic scrawled by condemned prisoners on cell walls will not be painted over, military officials said.

"Death is better than shame," one message read.

"We had extraordinary concerns about using a facility with this kind of reputation," said Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who oversees the detention of prisoners in Iraq. "But it was the facility with the largest capacity capability, and we had no other options."

The much larger problem, U.S. officials acknowledge, is ensuring Iraqi detainees are afforded basic legal rights.

As of Monday, 5,000 people were being held by U.S.-led coalition forces. About 200 detainees are Iraqi prisoners of war who remain in custody because they are suspected of war crimes or because they were officialsin the Hussein regime and might have valuable intelligence for coalition forces.

About a fourth of the prisoners held in Iraq are "security detainees," accused of committing politically motivated crimes such as guerrilla attacks on coalition forces or acts of sabotage.

The rest are Iraqis charged with civil crimes ranging from curfew violations to weapons charges to murder. In many instances, those detainees have yet to be brought to an Iraqi court for a preliminary appearance, according to the human-rights group Amnesty International.

In many other cases, civilians charged with crimes and held by the U.S. have been brought before an Iraqi judge who has set bail, but bail rulings have been ignored by U.S. forces.

After spending 29 days at Abu Ghraib and at the military's detention camp near Baghdad's airport, Kaith Moussa Kadhem, who was being held on a weapons possession charge, had his bail set at $62 by an Iraqi judge.

U.S. officials ignored the ruling, and Kadhem spent 27 more days at Abu Ghraib. He was released July 23 without any finding of guilty or not guilty. He and three friends had been arrested by U.S. soldiers May 28. Kadhem said guns found in their car belonged to his friends.

"When I was inside the prison, I was thinking, `Am I going to stay all my life in here?' " said Kadhem, 26.

The U.S. also has not devised a way for Iraqi families to learn where relatives are in custody, said Said Boumedouha of Amnesty International. The military has begun supplying names of detainees to the International Committee of the Red Cross, but Red Cross officials say the list is incomplete.

Iraqi families simply go from prison to prison, hoping to find their relatives. On Monday, Asuma Shakhir appeared at the gates of Abu Ghraib looking for his brother, Thaar Shakhir, 31, who was arrested 12 days ago and accused of having a gun in his car.

U.S. soldiers told him to go to the Red Cross office, but Red Cross workers had told him a week ago that they had no information about his brother.

"We just need to know where he is and whether he is all right," Shakhir said. "Maybe I will stay here until I find out what happened to my brother."

Iraq war's 20,000 wounded civilians ignored -group
By Andrew Cawthorne

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07427411.htm

LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Around 20,000 civilians were wounded in the Iraq war and the U.S.-British occupiers are ignoring their suffering, a research group said on Thursday in what it termed the first study of the conflict's casualty toll.

"The maimed civilians of Iraq have been brushed under the carpet," the Iraq Body Count (IBC) said.

The Anglo-American group of academics and peace activists chided U.S. and British postwar administrators for failing to set up programmes for the wounded or pay them compensation.

"A sizeable if as yet unknown proportion of Iraqi families will contain a relative whose life was ended or put on hold by the U.S. or British forces," it said in a report seen by Reuters prior to publication on its website, www.iraqbodycount.net.

"Even if only in self-interest, the U.S. and UK administrations should be putting the needs of the injured at the very heart of its strategy to 'win hearts and minds'."

The report, titled "Adding Indifference to Injury", said the IBC had calculated civilian casualties known so far as between a minimum of 16,439 and maximum 19,733.

Incomplete information about casualties meant that the maximum figure was likely to be a closer approximation to the real total and might itself be an under-estimate, it said.

The IBC's figures were based on media reports and counting projects from independent investigators up to July 6.

The group has also for months been publishing a running total of estimated civilian deaths from the Iraq war, with its latest calculation a minimum of 6,086 and a maximum of 7,797.

The IBC said the U.S. and British military's reluctance to calculate the number of civilian wounded was inexcusable.

"There is indeed a possibility that not every death can be accounted for," it said. "Injuries are another matter. The injured are alive, perhaps receiving treatment, and the cause, nature and extent of their injuries will appear in medical, official, and informal records."

The need for investigation and assessment "is particularly urgent, for many of the injured may still be suffering and their condition may be improved if we act promptly," it added.

The United States and Britain have repeatedly said their forces tried to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, but have declined to give any estimates.

A spokesman for Britain's Ministry of Defence said it was impossible to say whether the IBC estimate was accurate.

"The conflict was aimed at minimising civilian casualties," he said. "But it's very difficult to assess figures."

The spokesman said U.S. and British efforts to bring about an Iraqi administration and resurrect infrastructure, including medical facilities, would benefit the wounded. Compensation claims should be taken up with the interim authority, he added.

The occupiers' only attention to wounded civilians has been in high-profile cases like Ali Ismaeel Abbas, the 12-year-old boy airlifted out for medical treatment after losing both arms, or limited care from some units after battles, the IBC said.

That has left the wounded relying on vandalised and depleted Iraqi hospitals and "a few charities and aid agencies, which have struggled against U.S. obstruction to gain a foothold for their work with the sick and injured," the report said.

Twenty thousand injury compensation claims at $10,000 each would cost the occupiers $200 million -- less than the United States spends every two days on the occupation, the group said.

"What excuse can the U.S. possibly have for declining this opportunity to do some good for those who desperately need it (and for whose hurt it is responsible), and in the process, win back some of that "goodwill" it has lost in Iraq and much of the world?"

~ White Man's Burden ~

Blast rocks Jordanian Embassy

By ANDREW ENGLAND

http://www.canoe.com/CNEWS/World/2003/08/07/155147-ap.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A powerful car bomb exploded outside the Jordanian Embassy on Thursday, hurling vehicles in the air and killing at least 11 people, including a woman and two children, morgue officials said. More than 50 people were wounded in the blast.

Later Thursday, a fierce gunbattle broke out in central Baghdad, wounding at least two U.S. soldiers. The violence followed a firefight the night before in which two American soldiers were killed, the military announced.

The deaths Wednesday night ended a four-day period in which no U.S. forces had been killed and brought to 55 the number of U.S. troops killed in combat since May 1, when President Bush declared major fighting over. The two were killed in a battle in the Al Rashid section of Baghdad, and their translator was wounded, the U.S. Central Command said.

Thursday's gunbattle erupted when a U.S. Humvee was attacked by rocket-propelled grenades, wounding two soldiers and destroying the vehicle, witnesses said.

The Americans responded with an assault on the source of the fire, a nearby two-story building, trading machine gun and automatic rifle fire with those inside. At least at 20 Humvees and eight Bradley fighting vehicles joined the counterattack, while three helicopters hovered overhead.

The military allowed about 20 civilians inside to come out with their hands in the air, some carrying white handkerchiefs. U.S. forces then stormed the building and emerged about five minutes later carrying a soldier, who was evacuated from the firezone. It was not known if the soldier was killed or wounded.

After the soldiers attacked, the building began burning and was gutted.

Elsewhere, U.S. forces captured four suspected leaders of the anti-U.S. resistance in pre-dawn raids Thursday, the military said, a day after the Americans netted 18 suspected Saddam Hussein loyalists and found a huge stockpile of weapons.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, called the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy a "terrorist" attack and said it was the worst against a non-military target "in terms of casualties" since Baghdad fell to American forces April 9.

The blast blew down one wall of the embassy and gutted nearby cars, hurling the mangled remains of one onto the roof of a nearby building. Two bodies were seen still sitting in some of the vehicles damaged in the blast.

Shortly after the blast, young Iraqi men stormed the embassy gate and began destroying pictures of Jordanian King Abdullah II and his late father, King Hussein. They were shouting anti-Jordanian chants, but were quickly dispersed by American forces and Iraqi police.

The bomb was believed to have been planted in a minibus parked outside the walled embassy compound and detonated remotely.

At least four Iraqi policemen were among the dead, said police Sgt. Hakmat Ibrahim Obidi, who was injured. Sanchez said eight people were confirmed dead, but morgue officials put the death toll at 11. Hospital officials said at least six Jordanians were wounded, including the consul, Karim Shushan.

"I was sitting in the reception. I heard the first explosion, I ran out and then there was another explosion. Many employees were inside the embassy as well as Iraqis and Jordanians. Smoke filled the street," said Shaheed Mazloum, 50, an Iraqi guard at the embassy, who was treated at the al-Kharkh Hospital.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said the attack against the Jordanian Embassy in Iraq strengthens U.S. resolve to "unite the world in this campaign against terrorism."

"The terrorists need to know that we will not be deterred," Powell said at the Foreign Press Center in Washington. "We are ever more determined to go after them wherever they are until this scourge is dealt with."

In Jordan, Information Minister Nabil al-Sharif condemned the "cowardly terrorist attack."

"This criminal act will only boost our determination to continue our support for the brotherly Iraqi people," he said.

Tensions between the neighboring countries have been high because of Jordan's support for the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

While Jordan is a major entry point into Iraq and remains a large trading partner, many Iraqis are resentful that Jordan dropped its support for Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War, and allowed U.S. troops to use its soil as a base during the latest war.

King Abdullah II last week granted "humanitarian asylum" to two daughters of Saddam, whose husbands fled to Jordan in 1996 but were lured back home and killed by Saddam's regime in 1996.

In Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, the U.S. military said one of the four Iraqis captured Thursday allegedly organized cells and paid and armed guerrilla fighters for attacks on U.S. forces in the town.

Also among the captured were two former Iraqi generals suspected of organizing guerrilla attacks nationwide and a suspected Fedayeen militia ringleader, said Lt. Col. Steve Russell of the 4th Infantry Division, which carried out the raids.

Russell declined to name any of them, but said one of the leaders was known as "The Rock."

In one of the raids, about 100 soldiers backed by four battle tanks surrounded a hotel while Apache attack helicopters circled overhead and

The troops brought 39 men out of the hotel and some neighboring buildings, releasing all but one after questioning them.

"If you fight against your government, we will hunt you down and kill you," Russell told the freed men through an interpreter.

US says troops unlikely to guard Baghdad embassies

By Charles Aldinger

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N07244026.htm

WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - American troops are not likely to take over protection of foreign embassies from Iraqi police in Baghdad, the United States said on Thursday after a deadly truck bombing outside the Jordanian Embassy there.

"It is far more likely that Iraqis will guard embassies of other nations in Baghdad," Air Force Lt. Gen. Norton Schwartz told reporters at the Pentagon in response to questions.

"As you know, we have roughly 33,000 Iraqi police on duty in Iraq -- several thousand in Baghdad -- and that is the way to address the problem. That is internal security provided in Iraq by Iraqis," added Schwartz, director of operations for the U.S. military's Joint Staff.

He spoke at a news briefing hours after the truck bomb exploded outside the Jordanian compound guarded by Iraqi police, killing at least 11 people, wounding 65 and strewing gutted cars and body parts across the street. Five Iraqi policemen were reported to be among those killed.

Schwartz said the United States was training Iraqis to guard sites such as water and power plants previously protected by U.S. troops.

No Americans were killed in the bombing, but the 148,000 U.S. troops in Iraq face almost daily attacks.

"The notion here is to have Iraqis defend those installations that they are capable of doing," Schwartz said.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, at a separate briefing, said: "Maybe what you want to do is stand back a little bit more and let Iraqis, local officials ... protect installations so that you don't need a coalition military organization protecting that installation."

Acting Defense Department spokesman Larry Di Rita told reporters that it was virtually impossible to defend against such attacks on "soft" targets except to actively seek out those who are fighting the American presence.

"You really don't defend against it. You stay on offense," Di Rita said.

"I think it is interesting that this clearly was an action targeted at innocents," Schwartz added. "And we have, obviously, the presence of terrorists in Iraq, along with the Baathists that have resisted us and foreign fighters and so on. And so the truth is that this is a complex environment."

Schwartz held out the possibility that Ansar al-Islam, which he called an al Qaeda-related group, was involved.

"I think the one organization that we have confidence that we know is in Iraq and in the Baghdad area, is Ansar al-Islam. And it is unknown whether this particular organization was associated with the events of this morning. Perhaps that will become clearer as we go down the road."

Schwartz indicated that despite the toll caused by the bombing, a large organization was not necessarily responsible.

"Ten or 20 people is more than adequate to accomplish what occurred this morning with the Jordanian embassy," he said. (Additional reporting by Will Dunham)

Bush administration considers reducing U.S. role in maintaining Iraq security
By Barry Schweid, Associated Press, 8/7/2003 15:27

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/219/wash/Bush_administration_considers_:.shtml

WASHINGTON (AP) The steady loss of American troops and the terror bombing at the Jordanian Embassy are pushing the Bush administration to revise the U.S. security role in Iraq, shifting some responsibility to emerging local forces.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday, ''It may be what you want to do is to stand back a little bit more and let Iraqis, local officials ... protect installations.''

That way, he said, ''you don't need a coalition military organization protecting that installation.''

Powell said at a news conference that the United States intends to use whatever techniques are appropriate against Saddam Hussein's followers and other anti-American fighters, some of whom have crossed into the country.

''We have to be nimble, flexible, call audibles as the situation changes,'' he said.

Two U.S. soldiers were wounded in a fierce gunbattle Thursday in central Baghdad. On Wednesday night, two American soldiers were killed in a firefight in the Al Rashid section of the capital.

The deaths brought to 55 the number of U.S. troops killed in combat since May 1, when President Bush declared major fighting over.

Outside the Jordanian Embassy on Thursday a powerful car bomb exploded, hurling vehicles in the air and killing at least 11 people. Many more people were wounded.

Powell said he had telephoned Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher of Jordan to express his regrets over the loss of Jordanians and innocent Iraqis who happened to be on the street.

Powell said, ''The terrorists need to know we will not be deterred.''

''We intend to not stay any longer than we have to, but we will stay long enough to make sure that we allow the Iraqi people ... to put in place a representative form of government,'' he said.

At the Pentagon, spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said there were probably 40,000 or more armed Iraqis ''protecting things in a variety of different ways.''

''It's going to take time to get to the really robust numbers that Iraq needs, but it's going in the right direction,'' he said.

In Dallas, Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, said, ''The road ahead is hard.''

''Remnants of the regime and other extremists are attacking progress, just as they did today in the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy,'' Rice said at a convention of the National Association of Black Journalists.

''Coalition soldiers continue to face mortal dangers and to sacrifice for our peace and security in the future,'' she said.

Similarly, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said at Bush's Texas ranch, ''There are remnants of the former regime in Iraq and there are foreign terrorists in Iraq, both of whom are enemies of the Iraqi people. We will continue to pursue them and root them out.''

In the meantime, Powell said, more nations are contributing peacekeeping forces and Iraqi police and security units can be built up to guard facilities ''and not tie up coalition forces doing that.''

''Iraqis have started to create security forces that will protect installations,'' he said.

The death of Saddam Hussein's two sons does not, by itself, resolve the security situation, Powell said. And neither would resolving the fate of the deposed president.

''There are still individuals within Iraq, leftover Baathists, Fedayeen there are some coming in from outside who are determined to deny the Iraqis their desire for peace and a better life for a new country,'' he said.

Immunity for Iraqi Oil Dealings Raises Alarm
Some contend Bush’s order grants U.S. firms a broad exemption, a view the government rejects.

By Lisa Girion, Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-order7aug07,1,3452639.story?coll=la-home-todays-times

An executive order signed by President Bush more than two months ago is raising concerns that U.S. oil companies may have been handed blanket immunity from lawsuits and criminal prosecution in connection with the sale of Iraqi oil.

The Bush administration said Wednesday that the immunity wouldn't be nearly so broad.

But lawyers for various advocacy organizations said the two-page executive order seemed to completely shield oil companies from liability — even if it could be proved that they had committed human rights violations, bribed officials or caused great environmental damage in the course of their Iraqi-related business.

"As written, the executive order appears to cancel the rule of law for the oil industry or anyone else who gets possession or control of Iraqi oil or anything of value related to Iraqi oil," said Tom Devine, legal director for the Washington-based Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit group that defends whistle-blowers.

Taylor Griffin, a Treasury Department spokesman, dismissed that interpretation, saying the president issued Executive Order 13303 to protect proceeds from the sale of Iraqi crude oil, which are supposed to go into a special fund that the United Nations set up in May to help rebuild the war-torn country.

"This does not protect the companies' money," Griffin said. "It protects the Iraqi people's money."

For instance, administration officials said, if an American energy company received a shipment of Iraqi crude, the money to pay for the oil would be off limits in any litigation. That way, they explained, the proceeds would be sure to find their way to where they belonged: the Development Fund for Iraq.

Administration officials said the intent of the executive order would become clear once regulations, now being drafted by the Treasury Department, were issued. "Rules are forthcoming ... that will deal with some of these issues in greater specificity," Griffin said.

But Devine and others said the administration's stated intentions were not borne out by the sweeping language in the executive order.

"Unless they offer a different, credible translation for plain English, it's no solace that the administration meant something different," Devine said.

According to the order, "any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment or other judicial process is prohibited, and shall be deemed null and void, with respect to the following:

"(a) the Development Fund for Iraq and

"(b) all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein, and proceeds, obligations or any financial instruments of any nature whatsoever arising from or related to the sale or marketing thereof, and interests therein, in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons."

The order defines "persons" to include corporations, and covers "any petroleum, petroleum products or natural gas originating in Iraq, including any Iraqi-origin oil inventories, wherever located."

Betsy Apple, an attorney for Earthrights International, which brings lawsuits on behalf of alleged victims of human rights abuses abroad, said the scope of the order goes far beyond the way the Treasury Department has billed it.

"It's very disingenuous to suggest that the only thing that's being protected here are development funds for Iraq," she said. "That's trying to hide the fact that it's the oil companies who are doing that work and generating those proceeds."

Devine of the Government Accountability Project suggested that the wording of the order was so broad that it could apply to anything from exploration and production of Iraqi oil to advertising and sales at U.S. gas pumps.

"Let's say I work at a Madison Avenue firm that engages in false advertising" as part of a campaign to market gasoline that was made from Iraqi crude, Devine said. The way the executive order is drawn, it appears that the ad agency "can lie to consumers as much as they want ... without any recourse by the Federal Trade Commission."

Devine added that if an oil company employee working in Iraq was fired in retaliation for blowing the whistle on wrongdoing allegedly committed by his employer, the executive order could make it impossible for him to collect damages from the company.

Similarly, an operator of an oil tanker that suffered a major spill while hauling Iraqi crude could be immune from liability, thanks to the executive order, lawyers said.

"That oil was shipped out of Iraq and it's protected," Apple said. "The company that failed to ensure it was using up-to-date tankers is not going to be held accountable.... There is nothing that anybody can do for any recourse."

Treasury Department officials said the order would not protect an oil company under such a scenario.

But Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, an assistant professor of international and administrative law at Stanford University, wasn't so sure.

The executive order is "extremely broad," Cuellar said. "If they were really trying to narrowly tailor this" to protect the Development Fund for Iraq, he said, it would have made more sense to spell out that a company is shielded from liability "inasmuch as that entity still owes money" to the fund.

Bush signed Executive Order 13303 on May 22. It then was published in the Federal Register, where it went largely unnoticed before being unearthed a few weeks later by Jim Vallette, a researcher with the nonprofit Sustainable Energy and Economy Network.

A lawyer for the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's main trade group, said he wasn't familiar with the executive order.

Jamin Raskin, a professor of constitutional law at American University, said the order appeared to improperly negate occupational safety laws aimed at protecting workers in the oil industry and to strip U.S. citizens of their right to sue.

He cited in particular the part of the order that says "judicial processes" are "null and void."

That language "seems to destroy the prospect of any enforcement of civil or criminal liability," Raskin said. "People are saying of Iraq, 'It's a jungle out there,' and this order kind of makes that the law."

Raskin said Wednesday he was heartened to hear that the administration was disavowing an expansive reading of the order. "This does remind me of the extremely broad language of the executive order with respect to military tribunals that the administration later sharply refined by regulation after public protest," he said. "One can only hope that is what happens here."

7 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

#91

From: "Jim Galasyn" <jim@...>
Date: Sun Aug 10, 2003 11:52 pm
Subject: I want to drink Bush's blood (10 August 2003)

barrett808

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030810/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_a_deadly_night

10 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

~ Bring Them Home ~

Family shot dead by panicking US troops
Firing blindly during a power cut, soldiers kill a father and three children in their car
By Justin Huggler in Baghdad
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=432202

The abd al-Kerim family didn't have a chance. American soldiers opened fire on their car with no warning and at close quarters. They killed the father and three of the children, one of them only eight years old. Now only the mother, Anwar, and a 13-year-old daughter are alive to tell how the bullets tore through the windscreen and how they screamed for the Americans to stop.

"We never did anything to the Americans and they just killed us," the heavily pregnant Ms abd al-Kerim said. "We were calling out to them 'Stop, stop, we are a family', but they kept on shooting."

The story of how Adel abd al-Kerim and three of his children were killed emerged yesterday, exactly 100 days after President George Bush declared the war in Iraq was over. In Washington yesterday, Mr Bush declared in a radio address: "Life is returning to normal for the Iraqi people ... All Americans can be proud of what our military and provisional authorities have achieved in Iraq."

But in this city Iraqi civilians still die needlessly almost every day at the hands of nervous, trigger-happy American soldiers.

Doctors said the father and his two daughters would have survived if they had received treatment quicker. Instead, they were left to bleed to death because the Americans refused to allow anyone to take them to hospital.

It happened at 9.30 at night, an hour after sunset, but long before the start of the curfew at 11pm. The Americans had set up roadblocks in the Tunisia quarter of Baghdad, where the abd al-Kerims live. The family pulled up to the roadblock sensibly, slowly and carefully, so as not to alarm the Americans.

But then pandemonium broke out. American soldiers were shooting in every direction. They just turned on the abd al-Kerims' car and sprayed it with bullets. You can see the holes in the front passenger window and in the rear window. You can see the blood of the dead all over the grey, imitation velvet seat covers.

A terrible misunderstanding took place. The Americans thought they were under attack from Iraqi resistance forces, according to several Iraqi witnesses. These are the circumstances of most killings of Iraqi civilians: a US patrol comes under rocket-propelled grenade attack and the soldiers panic and fire randomly.

This time there was no attack. Another car, driven by an Iraqi youth, Sa'ad al-Azawi, drove too fast up to another checkpoint further up the street. Al-Azawi and his two passengers did not hear an order to stop, as their stereo was turned up too loud. The US soldiers, thinking they were under attack, panicked and opened fire.

In the darkness of one of Baghdad's frequent power cuts, other US soldiers on the street heard gunfire and thought they were under attack. They, too, reacted by opening fire, though they could not see what was going on. Soldiers manning look-out posts on a nearby building joined in, firing down the street in the dark.

It was then that the abd al-Kerims drew up to the checkpoint. The panicking US soldiers turned on their car and shot the family to pieces.

"It was anarchy," said Ali al-Issawi, who lives on the street and witnessed the whole thing. "The Americans were firing at each other."

There was plenty of evidence lying in the street under the hot sun. Empty bullet casings lay everywhere. Bullet holes marked the walls and gates of nearby houses. Several parked cars were riddled with bullet-holes, their windows smashed and tyres shredded. From the spread of the bullet holes all over the street, it was clear the soldiers had fired in every direction.

Sa'ad al-Azawi, the driver of the other car, was killed. The Americans dragged his two passengers out and beat them, still thinking they were resistance, Mr al-Issawi said. Watching from his house nearby, Mr al-Issawi did not know that al-Azawi was dead, and when the car burst into flames, he tried to rush over to help the young man.

"The Americans did not let me," he said. "A soldier came over and told me 'Inside'. He pushed me, even though my eight-year-old daughter was with me. They didn't let us get the young guy's body out of the car until he looked like he had been cooked."

Further down the street, Anwar abd al-Kerim, who was heavily pregnant and had somehow managed to escape injury in the car as bullets rained all around her, got out of the car, holding her wounded eight-year-old daughter Mervet, and sought help from her brother, who lived down the road.

She had to leave in the car her injured daughters, 16-year-old Ia and 13-year-old Haded, along with her husband, Adel, who was bleeding badly and groaning. Her 18-year-old son, Haider, was already dead. A bullet went between his eyes.

"I saw my sister running towards me with her daughter in her arms and blood pouring from her," said Ms abd al-Kerim's brother, Tha'er Jawad. "She was crying out to me 'Help, help, go and help Adel'." I put them in my car and tried to drive to the car but the American soldiers pointed their guns at me and the people shouted out to me 'Stop! Stop! They will shoot!'

"We could see the other girls and their brother lying on the back seat of the car. They would not let us go to the hospital." Ia was not as badly injured as the others. "After a while they released her and let her come to us," Mr Jawad said. "But when they finally let us go to the hospital, Mervet died. The doctors checked her injuries and told us she would have lived if we had brought her sooner.

"At 10.45 we heard the Americans had taken Adel and his other girl to another hospital. We went there at six the next morning, when the curfew was lifted, and they told us they both died in the hospital.

"The doctors said they might have lived if they got there sooner: the main cause of death was bleeding. The Americans left them to bleed in the street for hours."

Jittery U.S. Soldiers Kill 6 Iraqis

By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The night air hung like a hot wet blanket over the north Baghdad suburb of Slaykh. At 9 p.m., an electrical transformer blew up, plunging the neighborhood into darkness.

American soldiers, apparently fearing a bomb attack, went on alert. Within 45 minutes, six Iraqis trying to get home before the 11 p.m. curfew were shot and killed by U.S. forces.

Anwaar Kawaz, 36, lost her husband and three of four children. "We kept shouting, 'We're a family! Don't shoot!' But no one listened. They kept shooting," she told The Associated Press. She's expecting another child this month.

When asked about Friday's shootings, Lt. Col. Guy Shields, coalition military spokesman, said, "Our checkpoints are usually marked and our soldiers are trained and disciplined. I will check on that. That is serious."

Confronted by daily guerrilla attacks that have claimed 56 American lives since May 1, U.S. troops are on edge. Iraqis complain that many innocent people have died at surprise U.S. checkpoints thrown up on dark streets shortly before the curfew. Drivers hurrying home say they don't see the soldiers or hear their orders to stop.

The Kawaz family left the home of Anwaar's parents on Bilal Habashi Street at 9:15 p.m. for the 10-minute drive home. They had traveled only a half-mile when they reached the intersection where they said the American bullets took their terrible toll.

A few yards in front of them, two soldiers standing near two Humvees were shooting at the family's white Volkswagen, she said. Two other soldiers near a Humvee to the right of the car also fired, she said.

Witnesses told the AP one of the soldiers fell to the ground screaming in pain, apparently a victim of friendly fire.

"They killed us. There was no signal. Nothing at all. We didn't see anything but armored cars," Anwaar said Sunday, two days after the confrontation.

"Our headlights were on. He (her husband) didn't have time to put his foot on the brake. They kept shooting. He was shot in the forehead. I was still sitting next to him. I got out of the car to get help. I was shouting, 'Help me! Help me!' No one came."

Witnesses said her husband, Adel Kawaz, survived for at least an hour, still sitting in the car after being hit in the head and back.

Ibrahim Arslan, whose house is on the corner where the Kawaz car came under fire, said Kawaz cried out for help.

Arslan said he and a neighbor tried to remove the wounded Kawaz from the car, but the door was jammed. Then they fled when automatic rifle fire again split the air.

"The next day we heard he had died," Arslan said.

Ali Taha, who lives across the street, said Haydar Kawaz, 18, was sitting up in the back of the car with a bullet wound in his head. His sister, 17-year-old Olaa, slumped dead into his arms.

When the shooting stopped and the American soldiers were gone, Taha said, he and other neighbors ventured out about 11 p.m. and took the bodies of the brother and sister from the car, placed them on the pavement and covered them with a sheet.

The Americans had taken the bodies of Adel, the husband, and another child, 8-year-old Mirvet. Two days later, the family still did not know where the bodies were taken.

A fourth child, a 13-year-old Hadeel, survived.

"I was sitting in the middle, between my brother Haydar and sister Olaa," Hadeel said, her head bandaged.

"I felt blood coming down my head. I tried to drag myself out of the car. An American pulled me out. I kept telling them that my father and my brother were in the car. There was a translator with them.

"My father was shouting, 'We are still alive!' but no went to help him.

"The Americans told me to go with them but I was afraid they would hurt me. I didn't trust them. So I ran to my grandparents' house," Hadeel said. She told the story sitting in her grandparents' home, crying quietly, surrounded by family.

Lt. Sean McLaughlin, stationed at a base near Slaykh, could only express sympathy, although he said his unit was not involved.

"No one feels worse than us. We want to build a safe Iraq (news - web sites) for the Iraqis. It's a difficult situation here," McLaughlin said.

A few blocks from where the car was shot up, 19-year-old Sayf Ali was shot and killed as he drove home with a cousin and a friend. He, too, didn't see the American checkpoint, survivors in the car said. Soldiers opened fire on the blue Opel station wagon, which kept moving after Ali was shot. The cousin and the friend jumped out. Soldiers kept firing until the car caught fire incinerating Ali's body, according to one of the witnesses, Arslan.

About the same time nearby, Ali Salman, 31, was driving home, also unaware of the unannounced American checkpoints. He apparently didn't see the soldiers either and was killed.

Ghaleb Laftah, 24, who was sitting in the back of Salman's Honda, and Wisam Sabri, sitting in the front passenger seat, were wounded.

"There was no light. We didn't see the Americans," said Laftah, limping from a leg injury as he walked to Salman's wake that was being held under a tent on Bilal Habashi Street.

"We didn't hurt anyone. We didn't break the law," Laftah said, speaking with difficulty because of four broken teeth from the shooting.

"My son, ... the Americans killed him," said Salman's father, Hikmat, who broke down in sobs. "He was on his way home and was caught up in the shooting. He was afraid, got out of the car and they still shot him. He was frightened, then he died. I only have one (son)," he said.

Family members were also holding a wake for Sayf Ali. The men sat under a tent outside the house and the women were indoors, according to Iraqi tradition.

Sabah Azawmi, an uncle and a Sunni Muslim, said his tribe would seek revenge on the Americans.

"They set fire to the car while he was inside," said Azawmi.

"They are terrified of the Iraqis. If they weren't afraid, they wouldn't behave this way," he said.

But Hikmat Salman, Ali Salman's father and a Shiite Muslim, said he was not interested in revenge. He said he would leave that to God.

The Kawaz family, also Shiites, also said they would leave revenge to God.

"I wish Saddam (Hussein) would return and kill all Americans," Anwaar Kawaz said. Under Saddam, "we used to go out at one in the morning. We went out at 9 now and they killed us.

"I want to drink Bush's blood. They are all criminals," she said, beating her chest.

Gurkha shot dead in Basra ambush
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L10502848.htm

BASRA, Iraq, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Iraqi gunmen shot and killed a Nepalese Gurkha security officer in an ambush in central Basra on Sunday, a spokesman for southern Iraq's British-run administration said.

The dead man, who worked for the private security contractor Global Security, was in a vehicle that had been delivering mail for the United Nations. Nepalese Gurkha soldiers who have retired from service in the British army are widely employed by security firms in Iraq.

The spokesman said two or three armed Iraqis had signalled two Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) vehicles to slow down on a street in central Basra in mid-afternoon after mail had been delivered at a hotel.

"The cars continued driving, shots were fired and several rounds hit a car and wounded the Gurkha in the shoulder," he said. "The cars made it back to CPA building and the wounded man received first aid but unfortunately he died shortly afterwards."

A CPA Southern Region statement described the incident as a "terrorist attack".

Last week an American truck driver was killed by a roadside bomb while on a mail run for the U.S. military near Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.

Employees for the United Nations and the Red Cross have also been killed in attacks as well as 55 U.S. soldiers and six British troops since major hostilities were declared over on May 1.

Basra has erupted into violence over the weekend, with Iraqis enraged by fuel shortages rioting in the city for two days running.

British troops fired warning shots again on Sunday over crowds attacking vehicles and burning tyres in an effort to quell some of the worst unrest seen since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

At least one Iraqi was killed and two others were wounded in the violence, reporters in the city said. It was not clear who had fired the shots which struck them.

Hundreds of young men barricaded roads in the second city with blazing tyres and hurled chunks of concrete at passing cars. British tanks patrolled the streets and armoured vehicles guarded petrol stations where increasingly frustrated drivers queued for hours in 50 degree (120 Fahrenheit) heat.

Anxious to keep a lid on tempers in Shi'ite Muslim southern Iraq, the British have blamed oil smugglers, looters and saboteurs for power cuts and a shortage of diesel that has meant little electricity even for those with household generators. But that has done little to soothe the anger.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led administration in Baghdad said damage to the power systems around Basra were part of a deliberate attempt by Saddam loyalists to sow discontent.

In other violence in Iraq on Sunday, two U.S. soldiers and a journalist were wounded in a grenade attack in Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said. Further north, two soldiers were wounded in a bomb attack.

'Bring us home': GIs flood US with war-weary emails

An unprecedented internet campaign waged on the frontline and in the US is exposing the real risks for troops in Iraq. Paul Harris and Jonathan Franklin report on rising fears that the conflict is now a desert Vietnam

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1015711,00.html

Susan Schuman is angry. Her GI son is serving in the Iraqi town of Samarra, at the heart of the 'Sunni triangle', where American troops are killed with grim regularity.

Breaking the traditional silence of military families during time of war, Schuman knows what she wants - and who she blames for the danger to her son, Justin. 'I want them to bring our troops home. I am appalled at Bush's policies. He has got us into a terrible mess,' she said.

Schuman may just be the tip of an iceberg. She lives in Shelburne Falls, a small town in Massachusetts, and says all her neighbours support her view. 'I don't know anyone around here who disagrees with me,' she said.

Schuman's views are part of a growing unease back home at the rising casualty rate in Iraq, a concern coupled with deep anger at President George W. Bush's plans to cut army benefits for many soldiers. Criticism is also coming directly from soldiers risking their lives under the guns of Saddam Hussein's fighters, and they are using a weapon not available to troops in previous wars: the internet.

Through emails and chatrooms a picture is emerging of day-to-day gripes, coupled with ferocious criticism of the way the war has been handled. They paint a vivid picture of US army life that is a world away from the sanitised official version.

In a message posted on a website last week, one soldier was brutally frank. 'Somewhere down the line, we became an occupation force in [Iraqi] eyes. We don't feel like heroes any more,' said Private Isaac Kindblade of the 671st Engineer Company.

Kindblade said morale was poor, and he attacked the leadership back home. 'The rules of engagement are crippling. We are outnumbered. We are exhausted. We are in over our heads. The President says, "Bring 'em on." The generals say we don't need more troops. Well, they're not over here,' he wrote.

One of the main outlets for the soldiers' complaints has been a website run by outspoken former soldier David Hackworth, who was the army's youngest colonel in the Vietnam war and one of its most decorated warriors. He receives almost 500 emails a day, many of them from soldiers serving in Iraq. They have sounded off about everything from bad treatment at the hands of their officers to fears that their equipment is faulty.

The army-issue gas mask 'leaks under the chin. This same mask was used during Desert Storm, which accounts for part of the health problems of the vets who fought there. My unit has again deployed to the Gulf with this loser,' ranted one army doctor.

Some veterans have begun to form organisations to campaign to bring the soldiers home and highlight their difficult conditions. Erik Gustafson, a veteran of the 1991 Gulf war, has founded Veterans For Common Sense. 'There is an anger boiling under the surface now, and I, as a veteran, have a duty to speak because I am no longer subject to military discipline,' he said.

A recent email from Iraq passed to Gustafson, signed by 'the Soldiers of the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division', said simply: 'Our men and women deserve to see their loved ones again and deserve to come home. Thank you for your attention.'

Another source of anger is government plans to reverse recent increases in 'imminent danger' pay and a family separation allowance. These moves have provoked several furious editorials in the Army Times, the normally conservative military newspaper. The paper said the planned cuts made 'the Bush administration seem mean-spirited and hypocritical'.

Tobias Naegele, its editor-in-chief, said his senior staff agonised over the decision to attack the government, but the response to the editorials from ordinary soldiers was overwhelmingly positive.

A further critical editorial is planned for this week. 'We don't think lightly of criticising our Commander-in-Chief,' Naegele said 'The army has had a rough couple of years with this administration.'

Mainstream veterans' groups too are angry about cuts being proposed at a time when politicians have heaped praise on the army's performance in Afghanistan and Iraq and want to launch a recruitment drive.

Veterans plan protests to highlight the issue. 'We are going to show them that veterans are people who know how to vote,' said Steven Robinson, a veteran and executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Centre, one of the websites where veterans' issues are raised.

Susan Schuman too is planning a protest. This week she plans to join members of a new group, Military Families Speak Out, who will travel to Washington to make their case for their sons, daughters, husbands and wives, to be brought home from Iraq.

With soldiers dying there almost daily, comparisons have already been drawn with the Vietnam war and the birth of the protest movements there that divided America in the Sixties and Seventies.

Political scientists, however, think the war will have to get much worse before anything similar happens over Iraq. 'To put it crudely, I think the country can accept this current level of casualties,' said Professor Richard Stoll, of Rice University in Houston, Texas.

That is little comfort to Schuman, who says she just wants to see her son, Justin, return alive from a war she believes is unjust. 'It is a quagmire and it is not going to be easy to get out,' she said. 'That's where the parallel with Vietnam is.'

~ Fool Me Once ~

Powell's battle cry fails test of time
Six months after his case swung opinion toward attacking Iraq, his intelligence file looks thin.
By Charles J. Hanley
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/front/6496667.htm

One evening in February, in a stifling Baghdad conference room, Iraqi bureaucrats, European envoys and foreign reporters crowded before television screens to hear the reading of an indictment.

Half a world away, in the hushed U.N. Security Council chamber in New York, U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was unleashing an avalanche of allegations, speaking of "the gravity of the threat that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction pose to the world."

Powell marshaled what were described as intercepted Iraqi conversations, reconnaissance photos of sites, defectors' accounts, and other intelligence sources.

In the United States, his intelligence file swung opinion toward war.

But in Baghdad, when the satellite broadcast ended, Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi, science adviser to Saddam Hussein, appeared before the audience and dismissed the U.S. case as "stunts" aimed at swaying the uninformed.

How does Powell's Feb. 5 indictment look today? He has said several times since then that he stands by it, the State Department said last week. Here is an Associated Press review of major elements, based both on what was known in February and what has been learned since:

Satellite photos. Powell presented satellite photos of industrial buildings, bunkers and trucks, and suggested they showed Iraqis moving prohibited missiles and weapons to hide them. At two sites, he said trucks were "decontamination vehicles" associated with chemical weapons.

These and other sites had undergone 500 recent inspections. Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix had said a day earlier that his experts found no contraband and no sign that items had been moved. Nothing has been reported found since.

Addressing the Security Council a week after Powell, Blix used one photo scenario as an example and said it could be showing routine as easily as illicit activity. Inspector Jorn Siljeholm told the Associated Press on March 19 that "decontamination vehicles" that U.N. teams were led to turned out to be water or fire trucks.

Audiotapes. Powell played three audiotapes of men speaking in Arabic of a "modified vehicle," "forbidden ammo," and "the expression 'nerve agents' " - said to be intercepts of Iraqi army officers discussing concealment.

Two of the brief, anonymous tapes, otherwise not authenticated, provided little context. It couldn't be known whether the vehicle, however "modified," was even banned. A listener could only speculate about the cryptic mention of nerve agents. The third tape seemed natural, an order to inspect scrap areas for "forbidden ammo." The Iraqis had just told inspectors they would search ammunition dumps for stray, empty chemical warheads left over from years earlier. They later turned over four.

Powell's rendering of that third conversation made it more incriminating by saying an officer ordered the area "cleared out." In fact, according to the official U.S. translation, the taped voice said only that the area be "inspected."

Anthrax. Powell noted that Iraq had said it produced 8,500 liters of the biological agent anthrax before 1991, but U.N. inspectors estimated it could have made up to 25,000 liters. None, he said, has been "verifiably accounted for."

No anthrax has been reported found. The Defense Intelligence Agency, in a recently disclosed confidential report, said last September that although it believed Iraq had biological weapons, it did not know their nature, amounts or condition. Three weeks before the invasion, an Iraqi report of scientific soil sampling supported its contention that it destroyed its anthrax at a known site, the U.N. inspection agency said May 30.

Bioweapons trailers. Powell said defectors told of "biological weapons factories" on trucks and in train cars. He displayed artists' conceptions of such vehicles.

After the invasion, U.S. authorities said they found two such truck trailers, and the CIA said it concluded they were part of a bioweapons production line. But they bore no trace of biological agents, Iraqis said the equipment made hydrogen for weather balloons, and State Department intelligence rejected the CIA's conclusion.

The trailers have not been submitted for U.N. verification. No "bioweapons railcars" have been reported found.

"Four tons" of VX. Powell said Iraq produced four tons of the nerve agent VX. "A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons," he said.

Powell did not note that most of that four tons was destroyed in the 1990s under U.N. supervision. Before the invasion, the Iraqis made a "considerable effort" to prove they had destroyed the rest, doing chemical analysis of the ground where inspectors confirmed VX had been dumped, the U.N. inspection agency reported May 30.

Experts at Britain's International Institute of Strategic Studies said any pre-1991 VX most likely would have degraded anyway. No VX has been reported found since the invasion.

"Embedded" capability. "We know that Iraq has embedded key portions of its illicit chemical weapons infrastructure within its legitimate civilian industry," Powell said.

No "chemical weapons infrastructure" has been reported found. The newly disclosed Defense Intelligence Agency report of last September said there was "no reliable information" on "where Iraq has - or will - establish its chemical warfare agent-production facilities."

Chemical agent. "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has... between 100 and 500 tons of chemical-weapons agent," Powell said.

Powell gave no basis for the assertion, and no such agents have been reported found. An unclassified CIA report in October made a similar assertion without citing concrete evidence. The Defense Intelligence Agency reported confidentially last September that there "is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons."

Chemical warheads. Powell said 122-mm chemical warheads found by U.N. inspectors in January might be the "tip of an iceberg."

The warheads were empty, which Powell did not note. Blix said June 16 that the dozen stray rocket warheads, never uncrated, were apparently "debris from the past," the 1980s. No others have been reported found.

Deployed weapons. "Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons... . And we have sources who tell us that he recently has authorized his field commanders to use them," Powell said.

No such weapons were used and none was reported found after the United States and allied military units overran Iraqi field commands and ammunition dumps.

Nuclear program. "We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program," Powell said.

Chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei told the council two weeks before the invasion, "We have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear-weapons program in Iraq." On July 24, Foreign Minister Ana Palacio of Spain, a U.S. ally on Iraq, said there were "no evidences, no proof" of a nuclear-bomb program before the war. No such evidence has been reported found since the invasion.

Scuds, new missiles. Powell said "intelligence sources" indicated Iraq had a secret force of up to a few dozen prohibited Scud-type missiles. He said it also had a program to build 600-mile-range missiles, and had roofed a test facility to block the view of spy satellites.

No Scud-type missiles have been reported found. In the 1990s, U.N. inspectors had reported accounting for all but two. No program for long-range missiles has been uncovered. Powell did not note that U.N. teams were repeatedly inspecting missile facilities, including looking under that roof, and reporting no violations.

Wolfowitz Lets Slip
Iraq Was Not Involved in 9/11; No Ties to Al-Qaeda
By JASON LEOPOLD

http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold08072003.html

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, one of the main architects for the war in Iraq, admitted for the first time that Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11 terrorist attacks, contradicting public statements made by senior White House and Pentagon officials whose attempt to link Saddam Hussein and the terrorist organization al-Qaeda was cited by the Bush administration as one of the main reasons for launching a preemptive strike in March against Iraq.

In an interview with conservative radio personality Laura Ingraham, Wolfowitz was asked when he first came to believe that Iraq was behind the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

"I'm not sure even now that I would say Iraq had something to do with it," Wolfowitz said in the interview, aired Friday.

Wolfowitz's answer confirms doubts long held by critics of the Iraq war that the Bush administration had no evidence linking Iraq to 9-11 or al-Qaeda, but simply used the horrific terrorist attacks as a reason to overthrow Saddam Hussein and his Baathist regime.

"I think what the realization to me is -- the fundamental point was that terrorism had reached the scale completely different from what we had thought of it up until then. And that it would only get worse when these people got access to weapons of mass destruction which would be only a matter of time," Wolfowitz said in the interview. "...What you really got to do is, eliminate terrorist networks and eliminate terrorism as a problem. And clearly Iraq was one of the country -- you know top of the list of countries actively using terrorism as an instrument of national policy."

Since the United States invaded Iraq 111 days ago, no chemical or biological weapons have been found in the country.

A spokesman for Wolfowitz would not return repeated calls for comment.

During the buildup to the war in Iraq, the Bush administration successfully convinced the public and members of Congress that Iraq had played some role in the 9-11 terrorist attacks, according to numerous polls that showed a majority of the American public believe Iraq was involved in 9-11 attacks, despite the absence of evidence to support the allegations.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld last year boasted that the Pentagon and CIA had "bulletproof" evidence linking Iraq to al-Qaeda, although Rumsfeld refused to declassify any of the intelligence he had to support his claims. Shortly after the attacks, however, the administration claimed that Mohammed Atta, the suspected ringleader of the 9-11 attacks, met with an Iraqi agent in Prague in early 2001, suggesting a possible connection with Saddam Hussein.

Reports of the meeting were based primarily on accounts of Czech officials like Prime Minister Milos Zeman, who discussed it with officials in Washington in November. But

Federal law-enforcement officials concluded in May that no such meeting took place.

Since Bush declared in May an end to major combat in Iraq, Wolfowitz has given numerous interviews contradicting the administrations rationale for starting the war. Most notably, Wolfowitz told a reporter for Vanity Fair a few months ago that: "the decision to highlight weapons of mass destruction as the main justification for going to war in Iraq was taken for bureaucratic reasons...."

But despite the obvious contradictions about the reasons cited for war and unanswered questions as to whether the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to build a stronger case for striking Iraq, the president and his senior staff maintains that the war was justified.

But Democrats in Congress, a majority of who supported a resolution authorizing the use of military force to overthrow Saddam Hussein, said they are particularly interested in questioning Wolfowitz and other Pentagon officials about its use of intelligence information that critics claim the Pentagon hyped to show Iraq not only played a part in 9-11, but that the country had a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons that it planned to use against the U.S.

Republican lawmakers, however, in an attempt to protect the White House from further embarrassment about the accuracy of its use of prewar intelligence, are thwarting efforts by Democrats to launch such a probe.

At issue is a secret Pentagon committee headed by Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, that is widely believed to be responsible for gathering much of the erroneous intelligence information used by President Bush and senior White House officials on the so-called Iraqi threat, specifically, its ties to al-Qaeda.

The Pentagon unit, called the Office of Special Plans, was formed, according to published reports, after the 9-11 terrorist attacks to find links between Iraq and al-Qaeda. It was disbanded late last year, Feith said during a briefing with reporters in May. About a dozen former CIA intelligence officials have been quoted as saying that the Office of Special Plans cherry-picked intelligence, much of which was gathered by unreliable Iraqi defectors, to make a stronger case for war and delivered directly to Vice President Dick Cheney's office and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice without first being vetted by the CIA.

Congressman David Obey, D-Wisconsin, is planning on writing a letter to the General Accounting Office sometime this week urging the agency to immediately launch an inquiry into the group to find out if Wolfowitz and his underlings in the Special Plans Office knowingly manipulated intelligence to help the White House win support for a war in Iraq.

Jason Leopold can be reached at: jasonleopold@...

Iraq 'supplied al-Qaeda with WMDs'
http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,6898651%255E1702,00.html

A HIGH-RANKING al-Qaeda operative in custody disclosed that Iraq supplied the Islamist militant group with material to build chemical and biological weapons, the White House said today.

"A senior al-Qaeda terrorist, now detained, who had been responsible for al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, reports that al-Qaeda was intent on obtaining (weapons of mass destruction) assistance from Iraq," the White House said in a report.

The 25 page document was released as US President George W Bush holidayed at his Texas ranch.

The Bush administration cited links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Baath party regime as justification for attacking Iraq to oust Saddam. The administration also insisted Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and was pursuing nuclear weapons.

The report quoted the unnamed prisoner as saying al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden turned to Iraq after concluding his group could not produce chemical or biological weapons on its own in Afghanistan.

"Iraq agreed to provide chemical and biological weapons training for two al-Qaeda associates starting in December 2000," the report said.

"Senior al-Qaeda associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi came to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment, along with approximately two dozen al-Qaeda terrorist associates.

"This group stayed in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq and plotted terrorist attacks around the world."

The report, quoting the US State Department, also says the fallen regime of Saddam Hussein "provided material assistance to Palestinian terrorist groups, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, Hamas and the Palestine Islamic Jihad".

The Saddam regime, says the report, "posed a threat to the security of the United States and the world. With the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime, a leader who pursued, used and possessed weapons of mass destruction is no longer in power".

Since May 1, when Bush declared the combat in Iraq effectively over, occupation forces have found no conclusive evidence of Baghdad's banned weapons programs in spite of intensive searches.

Discovering WMD
Robert Novak (archive)

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20030809.shtml

WASHINGTON -- Former international weapons inspector David Kay, now seeking Iraqi weapons of mass destruction for the Pentagon, has privately reported successes that are planned to be revealed to the public in mid-September.

Kay has told his superiors he has found substantial evidence of biological weapons in Iraq, plus considerable missile development. He has been less successful in locating chemical weapons, and has not yet begun a substantial effort to locate progress toward nuclear arms.

Senior officials in the Bush administration believe Kay's weapons discoveries should have been revealed as they were made. However, a decision, approved by President Bush, was made to wait until more was discovered and then announce it -- probably in September.

GRILLING THE NSC

The two senior staffers of the National Security Council (NSC), who have been reported responsible for the famous 16 words in President Bush's State of the Union address, were cross-examined privately by congressional interrogators on Aug. 1.

Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley was questioned briefly by bipartisan aides of the Senate and House intelligence committees. Robert Joseph, the senior NSC staffer who actually wrote the 16 words reporting alleged Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa, was then grilled for over three hours.

The congressional staffers came downtown to question Hadley and Joseph at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to the White House. The president had refused to permit NSC officials to be interrogated in public or to go to Capitol Hill for the questioning.

IRAQ'S NUCLEAR FILE : Inside the Prewar Debate
Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence

By Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39500-2003Aug9.html

His name was Joe, from the U.S. government. He carried 40 classified slides and a message from the Bush administration.

An engineer-turned-CIA analyst, Joe had helped build the U.S. government case that Iraq posed a nuclear threat. He landed in Vienna on Jan. 22 and drove to the U.S. diplomatic mission downtown. In a conference room 32 floors above the Danube River, he told United Nations nuclear inspectors they were making a serious mistake.

At issue was Iraq's efforts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes. The U.S. government said those tubes were for centrifuges to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb. But the IAEA, the world's nuclear watchdog, had uncovered strong evidence that Iraq was using them for conventional rockets.

Joe described the rocket story as a transparent Iraqi lie. According to people familiar with his presentation, which circulated before and afterward among government and outside specialists, Joe said the specialized aluminum in the tubes was "overspecified," "inappropriate" and "excessively strong." No one, he told the inspectors, would waste the costly alloy on a rocket.

In fact, there was just such a rocket. According to knowledgeable U.S. and overseas sources, experts from U.S. national laboratories reported in December to the Energy Department and U.S. intelligence analysts that Iraq was manufacturing copies of the Italian-made Medusa 81. Not only the Medusa's alloy, but also its dimensions, to the fraction of a millimeter, matched the disputed aluminum tubes.

A CIA spokesman asked that Joe's last name be withheld for his safety, and said he would not be made available for an interview. The spokesman said the tubes in question "are not the same as the Medusa 81" but would not identify what distinguishes them. In an interview, CIA Director George J. Tenet said several different U.S. intelligence agencies believed the tubes could be used to build gas centrifuges for a uranium enrichment program.

The Vienna briefing was one among many private and public forums in which the Bush administration portrayed a menacing Iraqi nuclear threat, even as important features of its evidence were being undermined. There were other White House assertions about forbidden weapons programs, including biological and chemical arms, for which there was consensus among analysts. But the danger of a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein, more potent as an argument for war, began with weaker evidence and grew weaker still in the three months before war.

This article is based on interviews with analysts and policymakers inside and outside the U.S. government, and access to internal documents and technical evidence not previously made public.

The new information indicates a pattern in which President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their subordinates -- in public and behind the scenes -- made allegations depicting Iraq's nuclear weapons program as more active, more certain and more imminent in its threat than the data they had would support. On occasion administration advocates withheld evidence that did not conform to their views. The White House seldom corrected misstatements or acknowledged loss of confidence in information upon which it had previously relied:

• Bush and others often alleged that President Hussein held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, but did not disclose that the known work of the scientists was largely benign. Iraq's three top gas centrifuge experts, for example, ran a copper factory, an operation to extract graphite from oil and a mechanical engineering design center at Rashidiya.

• The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of October 2002 cited new construction at facilities once associated with Iraq's nuclear program, but analysts had no reliable information at the time about what was happening under the roofs. By February, a month before the war, U.S. government specialists on the ground in Iraq had seen for themselves that there were no forbidden activities at the sites.

• Gas centrifuge experts consulted by the U.S. government said repeatedly for more than a year that the aluminum tubes were not suitable or intended for uranium enrichment. By December 2002, the experts said new evidence had further undermined the government's assertion. The Bush administration portrayed the scientists as a minority and emphasized that the experts did not describe the centrifuge theory as impossible.

• In the weeks and months following Joe's Vienna briefing, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others continued to describe the use of such tubes for rockets as an implausible hypothesis, even after U.S. analysts collected and photographed in Iraq a virtually identical tube marked with the logo of the Medusa's Italian manufacturer and the words, in English, "81mm rocket."

• The escalation of nuclear rhetoric a year ago, including the introduction of the term "mushroom cloud" into the debate, coincided with the formation of a White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, a task force assigned to "educate the public" about the threat from Hussein, as a participant put it.

Two senior policymakers, who supported the war, said in unauthorized interviews that the administration greatly overstated Iraq's near-term nuclear potential.

"I never cared about the 'imminent threat,' " said one of the policymakers, with directly relevant responsibilities. "The threat was there in [Hussein's] presence in office. To me, just knowing what it takes to have a nuclear weapons program, he needed a lot of equipment. You can stare at the yellowcake [uranium ore] all you want. You need to convert it to gas and enrich it. That does not constitute an imminent threat, and the people who were saying that, I think, did not fully appreciate the difficulties and effort involved in producing the nuclear material and the physics package."

No White House, Pentagon or State Department policymaker agreed to speak on the record for this report about the administration's nuclear case. Answering questions Thursday before the National Association of Black Journalists, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said she is "certain to this day that this regime was a threat, that it was pursuing a nuclear weapon, that it had biological and chemical weapons, that it had used them." White House officials referred all questions of detail to Tenet.

In an interview and a four-page written statement, Tenet defended the NIE prepared under his supervision in October. In that estimate, U.S. intelligence analysts judged that Hussein was intent on acquiring a nuclear weapon and was trying to rebuild the capability to make one.

"We stand behind the judgments of the NIE" based on the evidence available at the time, Tenet said, and "the soundness and integrity of our process." The estimate was "the product of years of reporting and intelligence collection, analyzed by numerous experts in several different agencies."

Tenet said the time to "decide who was right and who was wrong" about prewar intelligence will not come until the Iraqi Survey Group, the CIA-directed, U.S. military postwar study in Iraq of Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs is completed. The Bush administration has said this will require months or years.

Facts and Doubts

The possibility of a nuclear-armed Iraq loomed large in the Bush administration's efforts to convince the American public of the need for a preemptive strike. Beginning last August, Cheney portrayed Hussein's nuclear ambitions as a "mortal threat" to the United States. In the fall and winter, Rice, then Bush, marshaled the dreaded image of a "mushroom cloud."

By many accounts, including those of career officials who did not support the war, there were good reasons for concern that the Iraqi president might revive a program to enrich uranium to weapons grade and fabricate a working bomb. He had a well-demonstrated aspiration for nuclear weapons, a proficient scientific and engineering cadre, a history of covert development and a domestic supply of unrefined uranium ore. Iraq was generally believed to have kept the technical documentation for two advanced German centrifuge designs and the assembly diagrams for at least one type of "implosion device," which detonates a nuclear core.

What Hussein did not have was the principal requirement for a nuclear weapon, a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium or plutonium. And the U.S. government, authoritative intelligence officials said, had only circumstantial evidence that Iraq was trying to obtain those materials.

But the Bush administration had reasons to imagine the worst. The CIA had faced searing criticism for its failures to foresee India's resumption of nuclear testing in 1998 and to "connect the dots" pointing to al Qaeda's attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Cheney, the administration's most influential advocate of a worst-case analysis, had been powerfully influenced by his experience as defense secretary just after the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

Former National Security Council official Richard A. Clarke recalled how information from freshly seized Iraqi documents disclosed the existence of a "crash program" to build a bomb in 1991. The CIA had known nothing of it.

"I can understand why that was a seminal experience for Cheney," Clarke said. "And when the CIA says [in 2002], 'We don't have any evidence,' his reaction is . . . 'We didn't have any evidence in 1991, either. Why should I believe you now?' "

Some strategists, in and out of government, argued that the uncertainty itself -- in the face of circumstantial evidence -- was sufficient to justify "regime change." But that was not what the Bush administration usually said to the American people.

To gird a nation for the extraordinary step of preemptive war -- and to obtain the minimum necessary support from allies, Congress and the U.N. Security Council -- the administration described a growing, even imminent, nuclear threat from Iraq.

'Nuclear Blackmail'

The unveiling of that message began a year ago this week.

Cheney raised the alarm about Iraq's nuclear menace three times in August. He was far ahead of the president's public line. Only Bush and Cheney know, one senior policy official said, "whether Cheney was trying to push the president or they had decided to play good cop, bad cop."

On Aug. 7, Cheney volunteered in a question-and-answer session at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, speaking of Hussein, that "left to his own devices, it's the judgment of many of us that in the not-too-distant future, he will acquire nuclear weapons." On Aug. 26, he described Hussein as a "sworn enemy of our country" who constituted a "mortal threat" to the United States. He foresaw a time in which Hussein could "subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail."

"We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons," he said. "Among other sources, we've gotten this from firsthand testimony from defectors, including Saddam's own son-in-law."

That was a reference to Hussein Kamel, who had managed Iraq's special weapons programs before defecting in 1995 to Jordan. But Saddam Hussein lured Kamel back to Iraq, and he was killed in February 1996, so Kamel could not have sourced what U.S. officials "now know."

And Kamel's testimony, after defecting, was the reverse of Cheney's description. In one of many debriefings by U.S., Jordanian and U.N. officials, Kamel said on Aug. 22, 1995, that Iraq's uranium enrichment programs had not resumed after halting at the start of the Gulf War in 1991. According to notes typed for the record by U.N. arms inspector Nikita Smidovich, Kamel acknowledged efforts to design three different warheads, "but not now, before the Gulf War."

'Educating the Public'

Systematic coordination began in August, when Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. formed the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, to set strategy for each stage of the confrontation with Baghdad. A senior official who participated in its work called it "an internal working group, like many formed for priority issues, to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities."

In an interview with the New York Times published Sept. 6, Card did not mention the WHIG but hinted at its mission. "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August," he said.

The group met weekly in the Situation Room. Among the regular participants were Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser; communications strategists Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio; and policy advisers led by Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, along with I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff.

The first days of September would bring some of the most important decisions of the prewar period: what to demand of the United Nations in the president's Sept. 12 address to the General Assembly, when to take the issue to Congress, and how to frame the conflict with Iraq in the midterm election campaign that began in earnest after Labor Day.

A "strategic communications" task force under the WHIG began to plan speeches and white papers. There were many themes in the coming weeks, but Iraq's nuclear menace was among the most prominent.

'A Mushroom Cloud'

The day after publication of Card's marketing remark, Bush and nearly all his top advisers began to talk about the dangers of an Iraqi nuclear bomb.

Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair conferred at Camp David that Saturday, Sept. 7, and they each described alarming new evidence. Blair said proof that the threat is real came in "the report from the International Atomic Energy Agency this morning, showing what has been going on at the former nuclear weapon sites." Bush said "a report came out of the . . . IAEA, that they [Iraqis] were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need."

There was no new IAEA report. Blair appeared to be referring to news reports describing curiosity at the nuclear agency about repairs at sites of Iraq's former nuclear program. Bush cast as present evidence the contents of a report from 1996, updated in 1998 and 1999. In those accounts, the IAEA described the history of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program that arms inspectors had systematically destroyed.

A White House spokesman later acknowledged that Bush "was imprecise" on his source but stood by the crux of his charge. The spokesman said U.S. intelligence, not the IAEA, had given Bush his information.

That, too, was garbled at best. U.S. intelligence reports had only one scenario for an Iraqi bomb in six months to a year, premised on Iraq's immediate acquisition of enough plutonium or enriched uranium from a foreign source.

"That is just about the same thing as saying that if Iraq gets a bomb, it will have a bomb," said a U.S. intelligence analyst who covers the subject. "We had no evidence for it."

Two debuts took place on Sept. 8: the aluminum tubes and the image of "a mushroom cloud." A Sunday New York Times story quoted anonymous officials as saying the "diameter, thickness and other technical specifications" of the tubes -- precisely the grounds for skepticism among nuclear enrichment experts -- showed that they were "intended as components of centrifuges."

No one knows when Iraq will have its weapon, the story said, but "the first sign of a 'smoking gun,' they argue, may be a mushroom cloud."

Top officials made the rounds of Sunday talk shows that morning. Rice's remarks echoed the newspaper story. She said on CNN's "Late Edition" that Hussein was "actively pursuing a nuclear weapon" and that the tubes -- described repeatedly in U.S. intelligence reports as "dual-use" items -- were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs."

"There will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons," Rice added, "but we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Anna Perez, a communications adviser to Rice, said Rice did not come looking for an opportunity to say that. "There was nothing in her mind that said, 'I have to push the nuclear issue,' " Perez said, "but Wolf [Blitzer] asked the question."

Powell, a confidant said, found it "disquieting when people say things like mushroom clouds." But he contributed in other ways to the message. When asked about biological and chemical arms on Fox News, he brought up nuclear weapons and cited the "specialized aluminum tubing" that "we saw in reporting just this morning."

Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press," also mentioned the tubes and said "increasingly, we believe the United States will become the target" of an Iraqi nuclear weapon. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, on CBS's "Face the Nation," asked listeners to "imagine a September 11th with weapons of mass destruction," which would kill "tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children."

Bush evoked the mushroom cloud on Oct. 7, and on Nov. 12 Gen. Tommy R. Franks, chief of U.S. Central Command, said inaction might bring "the sight of the first mushroom cloud on one of the major population centers on this planet."

'Literary License'

In its initial meetings, Card's Iraq task force ordered a series of white papers. After a general survey of Iraqi arms violations, the first of the single-subject papers -- never published -- was "A Grave and Gathering Danger: Saddam Hussein's Quest for Nuclear Weapons."

Wilkinson, at the time White House deputy director of communications for planning, gathered a yard-high stack of intelligence reports and press clippings.

Wilkinson said he conferred with experts from the National Security Council and Cheney's office. Other officials said Will Tobey and Susan Cook, working under senior director for counterproliferation Robert Joseph, made revisions and circulated some of the drafts. Under the standard NSC review process, they checked the facts.

In its later stages, the draft white paper coincided with production of a National Intelligence Estimate and its unclassified summary. But the WHIG, according to three officials who followed the white paper's progress, wanted gripping images and stories not available in the hedged and austere language of intelligence.

The fifth draft of the paper was obtained by The Washington Post. White House spokesmen dismissed the draft as irrelevant because Rice decided not to publish it. Wilkinson said Rice and Joseph felt the paper "was not strong enough."

The document offers insight into the Bush administration's priorities and methods in shaping a nuclear message. The white paper was assembled by some of the same team, and at the same time, as the speeches and talking points prepared for the president and top officials. A senior intelligence official said last October that the president's speechwriters took "literary license" with intelligence, a phrase applicable to language used by administration officials in some of the white paper's most emotive and misleading assertions elsewhere.

The draft white paper precedes other known instances in which the Bush administration considered the now-discredited claim that Iraq "sought uranium oxide, an essential ingredient in the enrichment process, from Africa." For a speechwriter, uranium was valuable as an image because anyone could see its connection to an atomic bomb. Despite warnings from intelligence analysts, the uranium would return again and again, including the Jan. 28 State of the Union address and three other Bush administration statements that month.

Other errors and exaggerations in public White House claims were repeated, or had their first mention, in the white paper.

Much as Blair did at Camp David, the paper attributed to U.N. arms inspectors a statement that satellite photographs show "many signs of the reconstruction and acceleration of the Iraqi nuclear program." Inspectors did not say that. The paper also quoted the first half of a sentence from a Time magazine interview with U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix: "You can see hundreds of new roofs in these photos." The second half of the sentence, not quoted, was: "but you don't know what's under them."

As Bush did, the white paper cited the IAEA's description of Iraq's defunct nuclear program in language that appeared to be current. The draft said, for example, that "since the beginning of the nineties, Saddam has launched a crash program to divert nuclear reactor fuel for . . . nuclear weapons." The crash program began in late 1990 and ended with the war in January 1991. The reactor fuel, save for waste products, is gone.

'Footnotes and Disclaimers'

A senior intelligence official said the White House preferred to avoid a National Intelligence Estimate, a formal review of competing evidence and judgments, because it knew "there were disagreements over details in almost every aspect of the administration's case against Iraq." The president's advisers, the official said, did not want "a lot of footnotes and disclaimers."

But Bush needed bipartisan support for war-making authority in Congress. In early September, members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence began asking why there had been no authoritative estimate of the danger posed by Iraq. Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) wrote Sept. 9 of his "concern that the views of the U.S. intelligence community are not receiving adequate attention by policymakers in both Congress and the executive branch." When Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), then committee chairman, insisted on an NIE in a classified letter two days later, Tenet agreed.

Explicitly intended to assist Congress in deciding whether to authorize war, the estimate was produced in two weeks, an extraordinary deadline for a document that usually takes months. Tenet said in an interview that "we had covered parts of all those programs over 10 years through NIEs and other reports, and we had a ton of community product on all these issues."

Even so, the intelligence community was now in a position of giving its first coordinated answer to a question that every top national security official had already answered. "No one outside the intelligence community told us what to say or not to say," Tenet wrote in reply to questions for this article.

The U.S. government possessed no specific information on Iraqi efforts to acquire enriched uranium, according to six people who participated in preparing for the estimate. It knew only that Iraq sought to buy equipment of the sort that years of intelligence reports had said "may be" intended for or "could be" used in uranium enrichment.

Richard J. Kerr, a former CIA deputy director now leading a review of the agency's intelligence analysis about Iraq, said in an interview that the CIA collected almost no hard information about Iraq's weapons programs after the departure of IAEA and U.N. Special Commission, or UNSCOM, arms inspectors during the Clinton administration. He said that was because of a lack of spies inside Iraq.

Tenet took issue with that view, saying in an interview, "When inspectors were pushed out in 1998, we did not sit back. . . . The fact is we made significant professional progress." In his written statement, he cited new evidence on biological and missile programs, but did not mention Hussein's nuclear pursuits.

The estimate's "Key Judgment" said: "Although we assess that Saddam does not yet have nuclear weapons or sufficient material to make any, he remains intent on acquiring them. Most agencies assess that Baghdad started reconstituting its nuclear program about the time that UNSCOM inspectors departed -- December 1998."

According to Kerr, the analysts had good reasons to say that, but the reasons were largely "inferential."

Hussein was known to have met with some weapons physicists, and praised them as "nuclear mujaheddin." But the CIA had "reasonably good intelligence in terms of the general activities and whereabouts" of those scientists, said another analyst with the relevant clearances, and knew they had generally not reassembled into working groups. In a report to Congress in 2001, the agency could conclude only that some of the scientists "probably" had "continued at least low-level theoretical R&D [research and development] associated with its nuclear program."

Analysts knew Iraq had tried recently to buy magnets, high-speed balancing machines, machine tools and other equipment that had some potential for use in uranium enrichment, though no less for conventional industry. Even assuming the intention, the parts could not all be made to fit a coherent centrifuge model. The estimate acknowledged that "we lack specific information on many key aspects" of the program, and analysts presumed they were seeing only the tip of the iceberg.

'He Made a Name'

According to outside scientists and intelligence officials, the most important factor in the CIA's nuclear judgment was Iraq's attempt to buy high-strength aluminum tubes. The tubes were the core evidence for a centrifuge program tied to building a nuclear bomb. Even circumstantially, the CIA reported no indication of uranium enrichment using anything but centrifuges.

That interpretation of the tubes was a victory for the man named Joe, who made the issue his personal crusade. He worked in the gas centrifuge program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the early 1980s. He is not, associates said, a nuclear physicist, but an engineer whose work involved the platform upon which centrifuges were mounted.

At some point he joined the CIA. By the end of the 1990s, according to people who know him casually, he worked in export controls.

Joe played an important role in discovering Iraq's plans to buy aluminum tubes from China in 2000, with an Australian intermediary. U.N. sanctions forbade Iraq to buy anything with potential military applications, and members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a voluntary alliance, include some forms of aluminum tubing on their list of equipment that could be used for uranium enrichment.

Joe saw the tubes as centrifuge rotors that could be used to process uranium into weapons-grade material. In a gas centrifuge, the rotor is a thin-walled cylinder, open at both ends, that spins at high speed under a magnet. The device extracts the material used in a weapon from a gaseous form of uranium.

In July 2001, about 3,000 tubes were intercepted in Jordan on their way to Iraq, a big step forward in the agency's efforts to understand what Iraq was trying to do. The CIA gave Joe an award for exceptional performance, throwing its early support to an analysis that helped change the agency's mind about Iraq's pursuit of nuclear ambitions.

"He grabbed that information early on, and he made a name for himself," a career U.S. government nuclear expert said.

'Stretches the Imagination'

Doubts about Joe's theory emerged quickly among the government's centrifuge physicists. The intercepted tubes were too narrow, long and thick-walled to fit a known centrifuge design. Aluminum had not been used for rotors since the 1950s. Iraq had two centrifuge blueprints, stolen in Europe, that were far more efficient and already known to work. One used maraging steel, a hard steel alloy, for the rotors, the other carbon fiber.

Joe and his supporters said the apparent drawbacks were part of Iraq's concealment plan. Hussein's history of covert weapons development, Tenet said in his written statement, included "built-in cover stories."

"This is a case where different people had honorable and different interpretations of intentions," said an Energy Department analyst who has reviewed the raw data. "If you go to a nuclear [counterproliferation official] and say I've got these aluminum tubes, and it's about Iraq, his first inclination is to say it's for nuclear use."

But the government's centrifuge scientists -- at the Energy Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and its sister institutions -- unanimously regarded this possibility as implausible.

In late 2001, experts at Oak Ridge asked an alumnus, Houston G. Wood III, to review the controversy. Wood, founder of the Oak Ridge centrifuge physics department, is widely acknowledged to be among the most eminent living experts.

Speaking publicly for the first time, Wood said in an interview that "it would have been extremely difficult to make these tubes into centrifuges. It stretches the imagination to come up with a way. I do not know any real centrifuge experts that feel differently."

As an academic, Wood said, he would not describe "anything that you absolutely could not do." But he said he would "like to see, if they're going to make that claim, that they have some explanation of how you do that. Because I don't see how you do it."

A CIA spokesman said the agency does have support for its view from centrifuge experts. He declined to elaborate.

In the last week of September, the development of the NIE required a resolution of the running disagreement over the significance of the tubes. The Energy Department had one vote. Four agencies -- with specialties including eavesdropping, maps and foreign military forces -- judged that the tubes were part of a centrifuge program that could be used for nuclear weapons. Only the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research joined the judgment of the Energy Department. The estimate, as published, said that "most analysts" believed the tubes were suitable and intended for a centrifuge cascade.

Majority votes make poor science, said Peter D. Zimmerman, a former chief scientist at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

"In this case, the experts were at Z Division at Livermore [Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory] and in DOE intelligence here in town, and they were convinced that no way in hell were these likely to be centrifuge tubes," he said.

Tenet said the Department of Energy was not the only agency with experts on the issue; the CIA consulted military battlefield rocket experts, as well as its own centrifuge experts.

Unravelings

On Feb. 5, two weeks after Joe's Vienna briefing, Powell gave what remains the government's most extensive account of the aluminum tubes, in an address to the U.N. Security Council. He did not mention the existence of the Medusa rocket or its Iraqi equivalent, though he acknowledged disagreement among U.S. intelligence analysts about the use of the tubes.

Powell's CIA briefers, using data originating with Joe, told him that Iraq had "overspecified" requirements for the tubes, increasing expense without making them more useful to rockets. That helped persuade Powell, a confidant said, that Iraq had some other purpose for the tubes.

"Maybe Iraqis just manufacture their conventional weapons to a higher standard than we do, but I don't think so," Powell said in his speech. He said different batches "seized clandestinely before they reached Iraq" showed a "progression to higher and higher levels of specification, including in the latest batch an anodized coating on extremely smooth inner and outer surfaces. . . . Why would they continue refining the specification, go to all that trouble for something that, if it was a rocket, would soon be blown into shrapnel when it went off?"

An anodized coating is actually a strong argument for use in rockets, according to several scientists in and out of government. It resists corrosion of the sort that ruined Iraq's previous rocket supply. To use the tubes in a centrifuge, experts told the government, Iraq would have to remove the anodized coating.

Iraq did change some specifications from order to order, the procurement records show, but there is not a clear progression to higher precision. One tube sample was rejected because its interior was unfinished, too uneven to be used in a rocket body. After one of Iraq's old tubes got stuck in a launcher and exploded, Baghdad's subsequent orders asked for more precision in roundness.

U.S. and European analysts said they had obtained records showing that Italy's Medusa rocket has had its specifications improved 10 times since 1978. Centrifuge experts said in interviews that the variations had little or no significance for uranium enrichment, especially because the CIA's theory supposes Iraq would do extensive machining to adapt the tubes as rotors.

For rockets, however, the tubes fit perfectly. Experts from U.S. national labs, working temporarily with U.N. inspectors in Iraq, observed production lines for the rockets at the Nasser factory north of Baghdad. Iraq had run out of body casings at about the time it ordered the aluminum tubes, according to officials familiar with the experts' reports. Thousands of warheads, motors and fins were crated at the assembly lines, awaiting the arrival of tubes.

"Most U.S. experts," Powell asserted, "think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich uranium." He said "other experts, and the Iraqis themselves," said the tubes were really for rockets.

Wood, the centrifuge physicist, said "that was a personal slam at everybody in DOE," the Energy Department. "I've been grouped with the Iraqis, is what it amounts to. I just felt that the wording of that was probably intentional, but it was also not very kind. It did not recognize that dissent can exist."

Staff writers Glenn Kessler, Dana Priest and Richard Morin and staff researchers Lucy Shackelford, Madonna Lebling and Robert Thomason contributed to this report.

CIA warned administration of postwar guerrilla peril

Officials defend rebuilding plan

By Bryan Bender, Globe Correspondent, 8/10/2003

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/222/nation/CIA_warned_administration_of_postwar_guerrilla_peril+.shtml

WASHINGTON - In February, the CIA gave a formal briefing to the National Security Council, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and President Bush himself: ''A quick military victory in Iraq will likely be followed by armed resistance from remnants of the Ba'ath Party and Fedayeen Saddam irregulars.''

The administration seemed unmoved. In the weeks leading up to the Iraq war, top Bush administration officials made glowing predictions that Iraqis would welcome US troops with open arms, while behind the scenes they did little to prepare for a guerrilla war.

''My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators,'' Cheney said on NBC's ''Meet the Press'' on March 16. ''I've talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House.''

''I imagine they will be welcomed,'' Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, a key architect of the White House's Iraq strategy, said in an interview April 3, two weeks into the war, with CBS's ''60 Minutes II.''

''I think there's every reason to think that huge numbers of the Iraqi population are going to welcome these people ... provided we don't overstay our welcome, provided we mean what we say about handing things back over to the Iraqis,'' Wolfowitz said.

The February report was not the only warning Bush received that a guerrilla war was in the offing. According to US intelligence officials who compiled or contributed to the reports, and provided excerpts to the Globe, on multiple occasions in the months before the war the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency warned that fighting would probably continue after the formal war. The assessments went so far as to suggest that guerrilla tactics could frustrate reconstruction efforts.

But intelligence officials, former military officers, and national security specialists say the administration instead clung to the optimistic predictions of the Iraqi National Congress, an exile group headed by Ahmed Chalabi, who left Iraq in 1958. Chalabi, who is now a member of Iraq's US-backed Governing Council, is a close Rumsfeld and Cheney ally who had the ears of top administration officials in the months before the war.

''I think there was a general sense of how the postconflict phase would go, and it didn't work out that way,'' said a former deputy defense secretary, John J. Hamre, who recently returned from a Pentagon fact-finding mission to Iraq. ''That general sense probably caused them to pass over intelligence assessments that differed from expectations.''

''The obvious critique is that they ignored this beforehand because it didn't fit their expectations,'' Hamre said. But he cautioned against definitive conclusions about the warnings. ''The great problem I see these days is a tendency to take a single report or document and use it as proof to make a point,'' he said. ''When it comes to the world of intelligence, you have to take a much wider sampling of many inputs and make a reasoned judgment.''

The National Security Council did not respond to a request for a comment.

Last month, Wolfowitz defended the administration's planning for the aftermath of the war. ''There's been a lot of talk that there was no plan,'' he said. ''There was a plan, but as any military officer can tell you, no plan survives first contact with reality. Inevitably, some of our assumptions turned out to be wrong.''

Wolfowitz acknowledged that the administration had expected Iraqi military units to defect. ''No army units, at least none of any significant size, came over to our side so that we could use them as Iraqi forces with us today,'' he said. ''Second, the police turned out to require a massive overhaul. Third, and worst of all, it was difficult to imagine before the war that the criminal gang of sadists and gangsters who have run Iraq for 35 years would continue fighting.''

Yet the CIA in particular forewarned policymakers of some of the problems likely to arise, according to one intelligence official who asked not to be identified. The reports, for example, predicted that armed insurgents would attack coalition forces. One prewar report, he said, forecast that after the war ''things would get worse before they get better'' and that there would be a high likelihood of ''backsliding'' - progress followed by setbacks.

In the early days of the war, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's internal spy agency, warned that Ba'ath Party loyalists - many of whom escaped the major invasion - were showing signs of regrouping, said an intelligence official who asked not to be identified. ''We wrote in early April that we were picking up hints of guerrilla forces gearing up,'' the official said.

Since President Bush declared an end to major hostilities on May 1, at least 118 US soldiers have been killed, nearly half of them in ambushes, sniper and rocket attacks, and by improvised explosives. Nearly half of the 256 US soldiers who have died since the war began on March 20 have been killed since major hostilities ended.

Still, many Iraqis have expressed relief to see the brutal dictatorship of Hussein recede into history. News dispatches from Iraq focus on US troop casualties, and therefore do not always reflect the progress and milestones reached, according to a government consultant who returned recently from Iraq. The consultant pointed to the local city councils that are up and running in many parts of the country and the relative stability in the Shi'ite Muslim regions of southern Iraq.

But the precarious security situation in the so-called Sunni Triangle - which has been a drag on efforts to restore water, electricity, and other basic services - raises questions about whether the Bush administration could have been better prepared to address what its own spies said American forces might have to contend with, according to specialists.

''I think that what you might have done differently would have been to put more civil affairs units, more military police, and the training of the Iraqi police forces in place much faster,'' said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, a think tank based in Alexandria, Va. He said US officials had a model: the NATO war against Serbia in 1999, which placed early emphasis on deploying civil affairs and police units into the province of Kosovo to fill the void.

''I would have thought that they would have had every military police unit in the Guard and Reserve just sitting and waiting to go in'' to Iraq, Pike said.

Hamre, who as president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies last month completed a report for the Pentagon on postwar challenges, said that his assessment was that the troops in Iraq feel they were not sufficiently prepared to tackle the postwar problems. ''The reaction over there from folks closer to the ground was that they were not given very good preparation for what they encountered,'' he said.

A senior Pentagon official, who asked not to be identified, bristled at the suggestion that Bush administration leaders had ignored the intelligence about postwar challenges, noting that they had bigger things on their minds. ''We worried about the catastrophic stuff,'' he said, including the fear of massive oil fires, the use of weapons of mass destruction by Iraqi forces, and a widespread humanitarian disaster. ''None of those things happened.''

Four months after the US invaded Iraq, the guerrilla attacks, amid growing concerns that terrorists are going on the offensive, have tempered the views of administration officials, who are now describing the US commitment to Iraq as requiring many years of work.

The national security adviser, Condoleeza Rice, on Thursday likened the rebuilding of Iraq and the Middle East region to the postwar efforts in Europe after World War II.

''The historical analogy is important,'' she said in a speech to the National Association of Black Journalists in Dallas. ''We must have the patience and perseverance to see it through.''

This story ran on page A25 of the Boston Globe on 8/10/2003.

~ Hearts and Minds ~

Three Killed in Second Day of Violence in Basra
By Joseph Logan

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3252145

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - A foreign security guard and two Iraqis were killed in a second day of violence in Basra on Sunday in which British troops fired warning shots as crowds attacked vehicles and blocked streets with burning tires.

The British troops in Iraq's second city patrolled streets in tanks as hundreds of Iraqis went on the rampage to protest against fuel and power shortages, but a tense calm later settled over the city. Iraqi frustrations over basic services have been exacerbated by temperatures above 120 degrees.

The violence was some of the worst in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was toppled by U.S.-led forces on April 9 and occurred in a city at the heart of the mostly Shi'ite Muslim south, which has been relatively peaceful in the wake of Saddam's fall. Iraq's Shi'ite majority was repressed under Saddam.

Southern Iraq's British-run administration said the security guard, a Nepalese Gurkha working for Global Security, was killed by gunmen while in a vehicle delivering mail for the United Nations. Retired Gurkha soldiers from the British army are widely employed by security firms in Iraq.

Reporters in Basra said one Iraqi was killed by gunfire. It was not immediately clear who had fired the shots in a city, which like the rest of Iraq, is awash with weapons. Two other Iraqis were wounded by gunfire.

Czech troops operating alongside British forces said they also had to resort to warning shots and that another Iraqi was killed when he fell while trying to climb onto a truck.

The Czech Defense Ministry in Prague said in a statement the troops fired the shots after Iraqis threw stones at a convoy carrying drinking water to a Czech field hospital. It said a military vehicle was damaged.

In a separate incident, British forces said they returned fire from gunmen.

Young Iraqi men hurled chunks of concrete at vehicles during the unrest, while British armored vehicles guarded petrol stations where frustrated drivers queued for hours in the sweltering summer heat.

The British have blamed oil smugglers, looters and saboteurs for power cuts and a shortage of diesel that has meant little electricity even for those with household generators.

"(The British) did not give us what they promised, and we have had enough of waiting," said student Hassan Jasim, 19.

Influential clerics, some of whom want an Iranian-style Shi'ite theocracy, have warned they are impatient for the running of the country to be returned to Iraqi hands.

In a repeat of some of the violence Saturday, cars from nearby Kuwait were targeted. Basra residents accuse Kuwaitis of involvement in smuggling cheap Iraqi oil out of the country.

TWO U.S. SOLDIERS WOUNDED IN BAGHDAD

Most of the violence in the four months since Saddam was ousted has been concentrated in the former Iraqi president's Sunni Muslim heartlands in the Baghdad area and other parts of central Iraq where U.S. forces are stationed.

Two U.S. soldiers and a journalist were wounded in a grenade attack in Baghdad Sunday, a U.S. military spokesman said. Al Jazeera television said one of its cameramen was hurt along with U.S. soldiers when a grenade was thrown at a U.S. patrol from an upper story window at Baghdad University.

Further north, the U.S. spokesman said, two soldiers were wounded in a bomb attack. On a road near Tikrit, Saddam's home town some 110 miles north of the capital, a Reuters correspondent saw a wrecked U.S. truck beside a crater which a soldier at the scene said was caused by a mine.

In the western town of Hit, relatives of two men buried on Sunday said the pair were shot by U.S. troops Saturday.

The U.S. military said a soldier died of apparent heat stress while traveling in a convoy.

Fifty-five U.S. and six British troops have been killed since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1. Several foreign civilians have been killed as well.

U.S. commanders mainly blame Saddam's die-hard loyalists for attacks on their troops, but say there is evidence of foreign terrorists coming to Iraq to target Americans.

They believe they are closing in on Saddam himself and are stamping out the raids by killing and rounding up fighters.

FBI investigators are helping to track down the perpetrators of a truck bomb attack on the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad last week in which 17 people were killed.

Paul Bremer, top U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, said hundreds of fighters from Ansar al-Islam, an al Qaeda-linked group once based in the Kurdish-controlled north during Saddam's reign, now planned major attacks in Iraq.

Bremer, an anti-terrorism expert, told the New York Times the Jordanian embassy bombing could have been the work either of Saddam loyalists or a mainly foreign group like Ansar.

Iraqis riot in Basra, one protester dead
By Joseph Logan

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/4909566.htm

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqis enraged by fuel shortages rioted in Basra on Sunday, forcing British troops to fire warning shots for a second day in an effort to quell some of the worst unrest seen since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

At least one Iraqi involved in protests was killed and two others were wounded, but it was not clear who had fired the shots which struck them, reporters in the city said.

"They did not give us what they promised, and we have had enough of waiting," said 19-year-old student Hassan Jasim.

The south has been relatively quiet since the war as Iraq's 60-percent Shi'ite majority savours the end of the repression it suffered under Saddam. But influential clerics, some of whom want an Iranian-style Shi'ite theocracy, have warned the British and Americans they are impatient to rule themselves.

Violence in the four months since the U.S.-British invasion force toppled Saddam has been concentrated in the former leader's American-controlled Sunni heartlands further north.

Two U.S. soldiers and a journalist were wounded in a grenade attack in Baghdad on Sunday, a U.S. military spokesman said. Al Jazeera television said one of its cameramen was hurt along with U.S. soldiers when a grenade was thrown at a U.S. patrol from an upper storey window at Baghdad University.

Further north, the U.S. spokesman said, two soldiers were wounded in a bomb attack. On a road near Tikrit, Saddam's home town 170 km (110 miles) north of the capital, a Reuters correspondent saw a wrecked American truck beside a crater which a soldier at the scene said was caused by a mine.

In the western town of Hit, relatives of two men buried on Sunday said they were shot by U.S. troops the day before.

A soldier died of apparent heat stress while riding in a convoy north of Ad Diwaniyah, which lies about 75 miles south of the capital, the U.S. military said.

"TERRORIST THREAT"

U.S. commanders, who are hunting Saddam himself in the area, blame his diehard loyalists for the violence.

But they say they are winning the guerrilla war, killing fighters and rounding up their leaders.

The U.S. military said it had detained Saddam's interior minister, Mahmud Dhiyab al-Ahmad, whose defiant news conference wielding a chrome-plated Kalashnikov was one of the images of the war.

A U.S. spokesman in Baghdad shrugged off the fact that his capture had already been announced a month earlier, saying that now U.S. officials were sure they had their man.

With the field of suspects still wide open for a truck bomb attack on the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad last week, the U.S. authorities are also concerned that other groups, including al Qaeda, may be ready to strike American interests in Iraq.

Paul Bremer, the country's U.S. administrator, told the New York Times that hundreds of fighters from Ansar al-Islam, an al Qaeda-linked group once based in the Kurdish-controlled north during Saddam's reign, now planned major attacks in Iraq.

Bremer, an anti-terrorist expert, said Thursday's bombing, which killed 17 people, could have been the work of a mainly foreign group like Ansar or of supporters of Saddam.

In the latest of a series of similar appearances, al Jazeera aired a tape on Sunday recorded earlier in the week of a group of armed and masked men calling for armed resistance against the U.S. and British occupation.

BRITAIN BLAMES SABOTEURS

A spokesman for the U.S.-led administration in Baghdad said damage to the power systems around Basra were part of a deliberate attempt by Saddam loyalists to sow discontent.

"The sabotage operations, particularly on electricity, are being conducted and encouraged by those who are deliberately trying to cut off the electricity to raise the temperature, of tempers and in people's houses," Charles Heatly said. "This is designed to hurt the Iraqi people by members of the old regime."

On Saturday, troops fired in the air, donned riot gear and loosed off rubber bullets at crowds who torched a Kuwaiti tanker truck and Kuwait-registered cars. Local people accuse Kuwaitis of conniving at smuggling out cheap Iraqi oil.

Heatly said a tanker laden with smuggled diesel, seized by British marines off the Iraqi coast, had been confiscated and was due to dock at nearby Umm Qasr later on Sunday.

(Additional reporting by Abdel Razzak Hamid in Basra, Hassan Hafidh and Andrew Marshall in Baghdad and Luke Baker in Tikrit)

Angry young Iraqis target Kuwaitis, British

By Joseph Logan

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/4909708.htm

BASRA, Iraq, Aug 10 (Reuters) - A dozen men, their faces and bodies drenched with sweat, surround a car and force it to a halt.

A fist pounds the driver's window until it opens, and an enraged young man thrusts his head inside and asks: "Are you Kuwaiti? We killed one already."

Rioters who took to the streets of Iraq's second city on Sunday, furious over power cuts and shortages of fuel for cars and generators in the blazing summer heat, blame British forces and Kuwaitis for their plight.

"They did not give us what they promised, and we have had enough of waiting," said Hassan Jassim, a 19-year-old student at Basra's vocational school, as a crowd behind him hurled stones at a passing water truck and a Kuwaiti registered car.

They accuse Kuwaitis of stealing fuel they desperately need. There has long been mutual resentment between Iraq and the smaller, wealthier neighbour it invaded in 1990.

British commanders blame the fuel shortages on smuggling, sabotage and looting.

At least one Iraqi involved in the second day of protests was killed on Sunday and two others were wounded, reporters in the city said. It was not clear who had fired the shots that hit them.

A privately employed Nepalese security officer was also killed when his vehicle was ambushed as he delivered mail for the United Nations.

BURNING TYRES

Hundreds of young men barricaded roads with blazing tyres and hurled chunks of concrete at passing cars. British tanks patrolled the streets in the 50 degree Celsius (120 Fahrenheit) heat.

Troops in helmets and body armour, atop armoured vehicles and tanks, guarded petrol stations where increasingly frustrated drivers queued for hours.

"It's not political. We don't have gas, power or salaries. I am not against this coalition, all I want is water," said Fadil Salman, a driver.

On Saturday, a military spokesman said trouble had erupted outside at least four petrol stations and that troops had had to rescue the occupants of a Kuwaiti tanker that had been torched.

Soldiers perched on the roof of a hospital watched as a schoolbus, its windows shattered by stones, screeched to a halt at its entrance on Sunday. Its occupants poured out of the vehicle carrying a man with an apparent gunshot wound.

"They just shot him, those animals. Idiots," said one man who helped carry the injured man, referring to the rioters.

Rioters warned against lumping them in with "terrorists" and loyalists of the deposed Iraqi leader whom the United States says are attacking U.S. soldiers and trying to undermine security in a doomed attempt to drive Iraq's occupiers out.

"When you write about me, don't tell people terrorists or the Fedayeen Saddam are doing this," said Jassim. "This is the Iraqi people doing this."

US admits it used napalm bombs in Iraq
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=432201

American pilots dropped the controversial incendiary agent napalm on Iraqi troops during the advance on Baghdad. The attacks caused massive fireballs that obliterated several Iraqi positions.

The Pentagon denied using napalm at the time, but Marine pilots and their commanders have confirmed that they used an upgraded version of the weapon against dug-in positions. They said napalm, which has a distinctive smell, was used because of its psychological effect on an enemy.

A 1980 UN convention banned the use against civilian targets of napalm, a terrifying mixture of jet fuel and polystyrene that sticks to skin as it burns. The US, which did not sign the treaty, is one of the few countries that makes use of the weapon. It was employed notoriously against both civilian and military targets in the Vietnam war.

The upgraded weapon, which uses kerosene rather than petrol, was used in March and April, when dozens of napalm bombs were dropped near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris river, south of Baghdad.

"We napalmed both those [bridge] approaches," said Colonel James Alles, commander of Marine Air Group 11. "Unfortunately there were people there ... you could see them in the [cockpit] video. They were Iraqi soldiers. It's no great way to die. The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect."

A reporter from the Sydney Morning Herald who witnessed another napalm attack on 21 March on an Iraqi observation post at Safwan Hill, close to the Kuwaiti border, wrote the following day: "Safwan Hill went up in a huge fireball and the observation post was obliterated. 'I pity anyone who is in there,' a Marine sergeant said. 'We told them to surrender.'"

At the time, the Pentagon insisted the report was untrue. "We completed destruction of our last batch of napalm on 4 April, 2001," it said.

The revelation that napalm was used in the war against Iraq, while the Pentagon denied it, has outraged opponents of the war.

"Most of the world understands that napalm and incendiaries are a horrible, horrible weapon," said Robert Musil, director of the organisation Physicians for Social Responsibility. "It takes up an awful lot of medical resources. It creates horrible wounds." Mr Musil said denial of its use "fits a pattern of deception [by the US administration]".

The Pentagon said it had not tried to deceive. It drew a distinction between traditional napalm, first invented in 1942, and the weapons dropped in Iraq, which it calls Mark 77 firebombs. They weigh 510lbs, and consist of 44lbs of polystyrene-like gel and 63 gallons of jet fuel.

Officials said that if journalists had asked about the firebombs their use would have been confirmed. A spokesman admitted they were "remarkably similar" to napalm but said they caused less environmental damage.

But John Pike, director of the military studies group GlobalSecurity.Org, said: "You can call it something other than napalm but it is still napalm. It has been reformulated in the sense that they now use a different petroleum distillate, but that is it. The US is the only country that has used napalm for a long time. I am not aware of any other country that uses it." Marines returning from Iraq chose to call the firebombs "napalm".

Mr Musil said the Pentagon's effort to draw a distinction between the weapons was outrageous. He said: "It's Orwellian. They do not want the public to know. It's a lie."

In an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Marine Corps Maj-Gen Jim Amos confirmed that napalm was used on several occasions in the war.

~ White Man's Burden ~

Pakistan Islamists to seek fatwa on troops to Iraq
By Zeeshan Haider
http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters08-09-095644.asp?reg=ASIA

ISLAMABAD, Aug. 9 — Pakistan's hardline Islamic groups, locked in a bitter standoff with the pro-military government, said on Saturday they would seek a fatwa or religious decree against dispatching Pakistani troops to Iraq.

Pakistan, a key ally in what Washington calls its ''war on terror,'' has been asked by the United States to send around 10,000 soldiers to Iraq to help secure the post-war peace.

Fazal-ur-Rehman, a central leader of the main anti-U.S. Islamic alliance, said a council of top religious scholars had been set up to issue the fatwa next week.

''A council has been formed to issue a fatwa that serving of Muslim troops under the command of the United States is un-Islamic,'' he told a news conference.

''The military rulers have no constitutional, religious and legal right to send troops to Iraq.''

Islamabad, which backed the United States in its war against the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan, says it has agreed in principle to send troops to Iraq. But military President Pervez Musharraf said last month he would prefer his troops to serve under the auspices of the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Conference or another legitimate international body.

''We condemn the government's decision to send troops to Iraq,'' Rehman said.

The condemnation by the radical Islamic coalition came as a senior British government minister was quoted on Saturday as saying that Britain wanted to make it easier for countries including India, Pakistan and Turkey to join a U.N.-backed multilateral peacekeeping force.

International Development Secretary Baroness Valerie Amos told the Daily Telegraph that the United States and Britain were ready to support a new U.N. resolution that would give these countries the domestic cover they needed to contribute troops.

Hardline Muslim groups that made stunning gains in last October elections by tapping anti-American sentiments over the U.S.-led war in neighbouring Afghanistan strongly oppose Musharraf's close ties with the United States.

The Islamists are also locked in a long-running standoff with Musharraf over the military's dominant role in politics.

They want him to step down as chief of army staff or as president and withdraw controversial constitutional amendments he made before returning civilian rule in the country.

The constitutional changes, or Legal Framework Order (LFO), give powers to Musharraf to dismiss an elected parliament and appoint a military-civilian National Security Council to oversee affairs of the government.

''There is no change in our principled stand that LFO is not part of the constitution,'' Rehman said. ''It cannot be incorporated into the constitution through force.''

Curiouser and Curiouser
Iraq’s mysteries are of two kinds: no one knows, and no one says
By Rod Nordland
http://www.msnbc.com/news/949735.asp?cp1=1

Baghdad has become the capital of the unknowable. After the car bombing of the Jordanian Embassy, a small crowd of young men stormed the smoldering wreckage, darting among the scattered debris and body parts, to rip down posters of Jordan’s King Abdullah II and chant “Kill all the Jordanians.”

WHY? NO ONE dared to interview them in that ugly mood, or to point out the obvious to the brainless, that the dead were only Iraqis, mostly guards and passersby. What sense does any of this make?

Such questions come at us from all sides these days. You could stand on a rooftop in Baghdad this afternoon and see the deep black plume of smoke rising from that car bomb, off to the northeast and then look to the southwest and see a similar plume, narrower and blacker but just as high. It rose from an American Humvee that had just been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade on a busy commercial street in the Kerida neighborhood. Black Hawk helicopters circled overhead, two dozen Humvees and Bradley fighting vehicles full of troops stormed the scene, shooting into a two-story building. Though the firing went on a long time, the unmistakable sound of return fire from weapons of a different make was lacking.

Exactly what happened here? No one seemed to know, and the troops were too busy shooting to talk. Witnesses say two American soldiers were wounded in their vehicle, but that’s not confirmed. Later CENTCOM will issue its usual terse press release, a few lines to say however many soldiers were shot or killed, with hardly any detail. The release on this one isn’t out yet, but the night before, CENTCOM said, two soldiers from the First Armored were killed in a firefight when they were ambushed somewhere in Baghdad. Where? By whom? Did they get away (as they usually do)? Was it provoked or an accident?

Iraq’s mysteries are of two kinds: no one knows, and no one says. Where is Saddam? The military says he’s in Iraq, but how do they know that? Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, head of the U.S. Army’s Fourth Division that’s hunting him in Tikrit, says Saddam is moving every three or four hours to evade the manhunt. How does he know this, and if his information is that good, why haven’t they caught him by now? A hunted man is much more vulnerable on the run than in a bolthole. Is Saddam directing the resistance that we’re seeing, or just inspiring it? Right up the chain back to Rummy in Washington, the mantra is that it’s a local or sometimes regionally coordinated resistance, but not centrally directed. Then yesterday the Fourth announced that they had arrested one of the national leaders of the resistance. And if it’s so local, how do they seem to manage to strike, as they did last week, on successive days two different points on the just-reopened railway, separated by hundreds of miles?

Another unknowable is just what the resistance’s strategy is. For a while it looked like they intended to limit their attacks to just Coalition troops; even the case of the British journalist killed a month ago, in broad daylight on a Baghdad street, was put down to the fact he was wearing military-style clothing. Then the week before last two strikingly similar killings opened a new dimension. Both, which took place near Hilla, south of Baghdad, had the same modus operandi. An armed man riding shotgun in a car pulled up on the left of the target vehicle and shot the occupants. In the first case, it was a United Nations-marked vehicle belonging to the International Organization of Migration. One worker was killed. Well, the old regime has plenty of gripes against the U.N., people thought. But then the next day an International Committee of the Red Cross vehicle, emblazoned with the well-known red emblems, was hit the same way; again, one staffer was killed. So are all foreigners targets now? Then the head of the Baghdad University was assassinated in front of his family in his home. Pro-Baathists, or anti? They both had a motive to kill a former top Baathist official now cooperating with the Coalition. Two days ago, an American civilian contractor was killed when his car ran over a mine. The Jordanian Embassy was another soft target, and this was the first time the attackers employed a car bomb (or what Gen. Ricardo Sanchez charmingly referred to today as a “remote-controlled, vehicular-mounted, improvised explosive device”).

One thing is clear now. The lull is over, and the killers are not going to take August off, however hot it may be (125 degrees). That lull lasted for all of five days, during which not a single American soldier died in combat, after months of what seemed like a kill-a-soldier-a-day campaign. We started thinking that perhaps the relentless house raids, roundups and busts up and down the country were finally having an effect. But that came to a convincing end today. Now at least 55 Americans have been killed in action since President Bush declared major combat operations over May 1. And soldiers and civilians, Iraqis and foreigners, aid workers and journalists, all of us know that when it comes down to it, what’s going to happen next is just another unknowable.

10 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

#92

From: "Jim Galasyn" <jim@...>
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 4:04 am
Subject: The generosity has ended (11 August 2003)

barrett808

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1016856,00.html

11 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

~ Bring Them Home ~

U.S. soldier is killed in restive Iraqi town
2 others are wounded in bomb attack

http://www.iht.com/articles/105910.html

BAGHDAD An American soldier was killed and two others wounded in a bomb attack in the central Iraqi town of Baquba, the U.S. military said on Monday, as tensions simmered in the British-run southern city of Basra.

The attack on the 4th Infantry Division in the restive town of Baquba, which lies in the "Sunni triangle" area northeast of Baghdad, occurred at around 10 p.m. on Sunday.

The death brings to 56 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in hostile action in Iraq since President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

In Basra, the scene of violent protests over the weekend, scores of unemployed men staged a noisy demonstration on Monday morning.

A foreign security guard and two Iraqis were killed over the weekend in the southern Shiite city after smuggling, sabotage and breakdowns of decrepit equipment caused chronic power and fuel shortages, leaving residents at the mercy of searing summer temperatures and stifling humidity.

The city was calmer on Monday morning. On Saturday and Sunday, residents barricaded roads with burning tires and attacked vehicles with stones and chunks of concrete. British and Czech troops in the city fired warning shots, and in one incident returned fire at protesters.

One Iraqi was killed by gunfire during Sunday's unrest, but it was not clear who fired the shots. Another Iraqi was crushed to death under the wheels of a truck.

A Nepalese Gurkha working as a private security guard was killed by gunmen as he drove through the city delivering mail for the United Nations. Officials from the U.S.-led administration for Iraq initially described the killing as terrorism, but they said Monday that it could have been a bungled robbery or carjacking.

The weekend violence was some of the worst in Iraq since Saddam was toppled on April 9 and occurred in a city at the heart of the mostly Shiite Muslim south, which had been relatively peaceful in the wake of his fall. British troops have responsibility for securing Basra and surrounding areas.

On Monday, the British military presence on the streets of Basra was less overt and the city was quieter. A group of harbor workers, who said they had been let go in the final months of Saddam's rule, gathered outside the Iraq administration headquarters demanding jobs and back pay.

"Everyone here has at least 10 years' service, and what they are doing to us now is persecution," said one of the protesters, Nazim Abdul-Hussein Thahir. "They got rid of our tyrant, and thank God for that. But if they play with our salaries they are playing with our food and water."

Officials in Iraq's U.S.-led administration say the frequent power cuts are due to the sabotage of cables linking Basra to the national grid and equipment breakdowns at ramshackle power stations. They say the sabotage of pipelines and rampant oil smuggling have led to the shortage of fuel.

Highlighting Basra's problems, the country's main southern oil refinery in the city stopped processing completely on Sunday night due to a power failure, the general manager of the southern refineries company said Monday.

Thair Ibrahim said there hadn't been any electricity since the night before. "The generators are not working," he said. "We are planning to install a new turbine, but this could take until the end of September."

The violence in Basra came as a surprise, as most unrest and attacks in recent months have been concentrated in the deposed president's Sunni heartlands in central Iraq, where U.S. forces are stationed.

The attack on U.S. troops in Baquba late on Sunday followed a grenade attack on the city's hospital last month, when three soldiers were killed.

In Baghdad, two Iraqis were slightly wounded overnight when grenades were hurled at two trucks driving near the British Embassy, the U.S. military said.

"The attack was in the vicinity of the British Embassy, but it did not target in any way the embassy," a spokesman said.

On Thursday, a truck bomb outside the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad killed at least 17 people. The top U.S. general in Iraq has blamed the attack on "professional terrorists" and says that investigations are under way to find those responsible.

U.S. commanders primarily blame Saddam's die-hard loyalists for attacks on their troops, but say there is also evidence of foreign fighters coming to Iraq to target Americans. Officials say they are confident of catching Saddam, who remains on the run despite a $25 million price on his head. Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed last month when U.S. forces stormed their hideout in the city of Mosul.

Explosions rock US base in flashpoint Iraqi town
http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/weekly/newsnat-12aug2003-5.htm

Six huge explosions have rocked a US military base in Ramadi, 100 kilometres west of Baghdad, as mysterious assailants fired on the compound, an eyewitness has told AFP.

Faras Mustafa, 34, said he saw smoke rising from the base after the blasts.

There was no immediate comment from the US army, but earlier Monday local time, Colonel Guy Shields, the coalition's top military spokesman, said the base in Ramadi had come under repeated mortar attack the previous few nights.

The town is considered a stronghold of sympathisers of Saddam Hussein's regime, who hailed from the same Sunni Muslim community, now embattled in the post-war Iraq era as the country's Shiite majority asserts its will.

~ Fool Me Once ~

Saddam ordered chemical attack, inspector to claim

Saddam 'ordered chemical attack'

Julian Borger in Washington

The former UN inspector hired by the Bush administration to find evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction will claim in a report next month that Iraqi forces were ordered to fire chemical shells at invading coalition troops, according to US reports.

But David Kay, who heads the 1,400-strong Iraq Survey Group, has admitted he has found no trace of the weapons themselves, and cannot explain why they were never used.

One possibility is that the orders were part of an elaborate bluff, in the hope that they would be intercepted by the US and deter an attack.

According to US officials, all the Iraqi scientists now in custody have insisted that Saddam's arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons was destroyed years before the Iraqi invasion.

The Boston Globe reported that Mr Kay, who was hired by the CIA in June to direct the search, had made the claim in a classified briefing to two Senate committees.

The newspaper quoted officials who had seen a summary of his report as saying that Republican Guard commanders had been ordered to launch chemical-filled shells at troops.

"They have found evidence that an order was given," a senior intelligence official said, adding there was no explanation of why the weapons were not used.

After his congressional briefing, Mr Kay told journalists he was making "solid progress", but said he would not make it public until he completed his work and found "conclusive proof". He is under pressure from the White House to go public as soon as possible and administration officials say he is expected to publish a report within weeks.

Prewar claims by the Blair government that Iraqi forces were ready to fire chemical weapons at 45 minutes' notice, and US reports in March that chemical artillery shells had been sent to Republican Guard units ringing Baghdad, were ridiculed when no such ordnance was fired or found.

It is not clear what evidence Mr Kay will present to support his claims.

At the time he was hired by the CIA to direct the hunt for weapons, Mr Kay was working for a hi-tech engineering firm and appearing regularly on television to argue that the Iraqi dictator had a significant arsenal.

Some of his former UN colleagues have said he has a powerful personal incentive to show he was not entirely wrong.

After the war he suggested that the weapons had been dumped in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers but no evidence of this was found to back up the allegation.

Mr Kay believes that the Baghdad regime destroyed or hid its weapons, telling reporters: "The active deception programme is truly amazing once you get inside it."

The Bush administration is hoping that the Kay report will bolster its defences against an expected onslaught of Democratic party criticism over the Iraq war once as the 2004 presidential election campaign gathers pace next month.

The White House weathered two weeks of intense media scrutiny last month after it admitted including an unsubstantiated claim about the Iraqi nuclear programme in the president's state of the union address in January.

The intensity of the coverage has let up considerably while Congress is on holiday this month.

But the Washington Post on Sunday published a three-page investigation on how the administration exaggerated available intelligence on the Iraqi nuclear programme.

"On occasion, administration advocates withheld evidence that did not conform to their views," the investigation found.

"The White House seldom corrected misstatements or acknowledged loss of confidence in information upon which it had previously relied."

The report focused on administration claims that Iraq was trying to import aluminium tubes to build a gas centrifuge for uranium enrichment, despite persuasive evidence that the specification of the tubes made it much more likely they were intended for the construction of rockets, as the Baghdad regime had claimed.

Iraq dossier blow for Blair

� Doubts raised by two more officials
� Kelly portrayed as key expert
� Words 'not wrong but lots of spin'
� Charge against Campbell rejected

Richard Norton-Taylor, Vikram Dodd and Nicholas Watt
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/kelly/story/0,13747,1016878,00.html

The government's attempts to bolster its case for the war against Iraq suffered a heavy blow on the first day of the Hutton inquiry yesterday when it was revealed that unease about the dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons programme ran much deeper than Downing Street has claimed.

Evidence presented to the inquiry into the apparent suicide of the Ministry of Defence scientist David Kelly showed that concerns expressed by Dr Kelly about the language of the government's dossier was shared within the intelligence community, even at a senior level.

In a further undermining of Tony Blair's case, the inquiry heard that Dr Kelly's status was much more significant than the government has admitted, a direct rebuttal of last week's description of the dead scientist by a No 10 press officer as a Walter Mitty fantasist.

The inquiry, under the law lord, Lord Hutton, also heard that Dr Kelly's role in advising officials on the dossier was far more extensive than has hitherto been acknowledged.

Intelligence officials were sufficiently concerned about the wording of the dossier that they expressed worries to their superiors. Some said they were unhappy about the way it was claimed that Iraq could deploy some chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes of an order to do so - the claim at the heart of the row between No 10 and the BBC.

One unnamed official, now retired, expressed concern to Martin Howard, the deputy chief of defence intelligence, in a letter which was read out. The official wrote: "As probably the most senior and experienced intelligence community official working on 'WMD', I was so concerned about the manner in which intelligence assessments for which I had some responsibility were being presented in the dossier... that I was moved to write... recording and explaining my reservations."

The inquiry heard evidence that one defence intelligence official had discussed a claim in the dossier about growth media for Iraq's biological weapons programme. After speaking to Dr Kelly as the September dossier was being drawn up, the intelligence official wrote: "The existing wording is not wrong - but it has a lot of spin."

Sir David Omand, the government's security coordinator, had recently told the parliamentary intelligence and security committee in private evidence about concern relating to the dossier's language, the inquiry heard.

A document was read out by James Dingemans QC, the inquiry counsel, noting that some defence intelligence officers had expressed concerns about the "level of certainty" relating to the 45 minute claim, including the dossier's foreword, igned by Mr Blair.

Mr Howard conceded "a wide variety of views" had been expressed about the dossier's language. The final text, which had been worked on for seven months, was agreed by the joint intelligence committee - whose chairman, John Scarlett, is to testify to the inquiry.

But yesterday's witnesses, including Whitehall officials, rejected the allegation that Alastair Campbell, the prime minister's communications director, had insisted on the insertion of the 45 minute claim against the wishes of the intelligence agencies.

Lord Hutton heard yesterday that Dr Kelly, a senior UN weapons inspector in Iraq in the 1990s, was a widely respected biologist who had advised MI6, the CIA and British armed forces before the invasion of Iraq.

Dr Kelly's knowledge of the dossier and the advice he gave was much more extensive than the government has admitted, the inquiry heard. It has painted him as a middle-grade official whose advice on the dossier was limited to a his torical section on Iraq's early banned weapons programme.

But Dr Kelly gave advice on the "current position" in Iraq as well as the regime's human rights record while the dossier was being drawn up, Patrick Lamb, a senior Foreign Office official told the inquiry.

And the inquiry heard that in private reports, the MoD described Dr Kelly as giving "excellent, authoritative, and timely advice" on chemical and biological weapons.

"Dr Kelly is a recognised authority on all aspects of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and held in high regard," it said. Despite this, the inquiry heard that Dr Kelly had had no pay rise for three years and privately expressed worries about his status and pension.

The BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan, who said, after meeting Dr Kelly, that Downing Street had "sexed up" the dossier, will give evidence to the inquiry today.

At the start of yesterday's hearing, Lord Hutton ended the mystery about why four electrocardiogram pads were found on Dr Kelly's chest when his body was discovered. He said they had been placed by ambulance paramedics who had tried to resuscitate the weapons expert.

The government wasted little time last night in mounting a damage limitation exercise on concerns about Downing Street's use of intelligence. Eric Joyce, the MP who defended No 10 during the Iraq war, told Channel 4 News that two "relatively junior" officials had complained about the dossier on "purely technical" grounds.

New Doubts On Iraq Nuke Claims

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/25/iraq/main560449.shtml

(CBS/AP) The Bush administration continued to make claims concerning Iraq's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons even as the evidence behind those charges grew thinner, a newspaper reports.

Iraq's potential nuclear threat has been at the center of the controversy over whether the intelligence used to justify the war was accurate, and portrayed accurately. No weapons have been found in four months since Baghdad fell.

Last month, the White House retracted one claim it had made against Saddam Hussein: that his government sought uranium in Africa. The claim, leveled in the president's State of the Union speech, referred to British evidence of a suspected deal in Niger.

Documents supporting the allegation were later proven false by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The White House has depicted the Niger claim as a 16-word gaffe resulting from botched communications between the CIA and the National Security Council.

But administration figures made no less than six references to the same allegation in the days around the State of the Union.

And that came after a U.S. envoy largely dismissed the claims in early 2002. The CIA asked the British to omit the claim in September, and later kept a reference to the claim out of an October speech by the president.

The Washington Post says administration figures pushed other shaky allegations, withheld contrary evidence and rarely corrected misstatements.

For example, President Bush often referred to meetings between Saddam and his nuclear advisers, without noting that the top three nuclear experts in Iraq had non-weapons roles: one ran a copper factory, another a graphite plant and a third an engineering design center.

U.S. reports referred to Iraq building new facilities on former nuclear sites, but didn't know what the buildings were for. In February, U.S. experts in Iraq confirmed nothing illegal was going on at the sites.

Officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, often referred to evidence from a key Iraqi defector, Hussein Kamel, in claiming Iraq was still pursuing nukes. But Kamel had told debriefers Iraq's program was active before the Gulf War, and not when he defected in 1995. Kamel was killed on his return to Iraq in 1996.

The White House also continued to push the theory that Iraq was importing aluminum tubes for enriching uranium to weapons grade, even though, according to The Post, experts told the government for more than a year that the tubes were not suited for that purpose. And there was evidence the tubes were perfectly suited for Iraq's stated purpose — to build rockets.

The IAEA also refuted the White House theory about the tubes.

Referring to a type of uranium Iraq was thought to possess, a senior policymaker told The Post "You can stare at the yellowcake (uranium ore) all you want. You need to convert it to gas and enrich it. That does not constitute an imminent threat, and the people who were saying that, I think, did not fully appreciate the difficulties and effort involved in producing the nuclear material and the physics package."

Doubts about the nuclear claims were reported in the National Intelligence Estimate completed in October. The State Department's intelligence arm was not convinced Iraq was actively restarting its program. Both State and the Department of Energy doubted the theory that the aluminum tubes had a weapons purpose.

CIA director George Tenet, in a lengthy statement published by The Post, defended the NIE and the administration's claims.

"Our judgments have been consistent on this subject because the evidence has repeatedly pointed to continued Iraqi pursuit of WMD and effort to conceal that pursuit," Tenet wrote.

He added that the allegations about uranium deals and aluminum tubes were not included as among the key findings in the NIE.

Committees in both houses of Congress are probing the prewar claims, as is an internal review by the CIA.

Before the war the administration claimed Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons. As weeks have passed without any finds, officials are instead pointing to a belief that Iraq ran weapons "programs."

However, confidence seems to have grown that new evidence will soon emerge.

CIA adviser David Kay, who is serving as a special adviser for the weapons search, told lawmakers last month that inspectors have found physical evidence of Iraqi activity on weapons of mass destruction.

Without offering any detail, he said investigators had made a "tactical and strategic decision" to focus on biological rather than on chemical or nuclear programs.

Agene France-Presse reports the British government plans to release a new report on evidence that Iraq has produced biological weapons.

But The New York Times reports Defense Intelligence Agency experts now think two trailers found in northern Iraq are not mobile biological weapons factories, as the White House claimed, but machines for producing hydrogen, as Iraq claimed.

State Department experts previously reached a similar conclusion. The CIA and DIA, however, stand by the earlier conclusion that the trailers were likely mobile bioweapons factories.

Meanwhile, a judicial inquiry into the death of a British weapons expert was under way Monday.

CBS News Correspondent Steve Holt says the official purpose of the hearing is to investigate David Kelly's apparent suicide. But the heart of the matter is the allegation that the Blair government hyped up its evidence about Saddam's forbidden weapons.

Shortly after Kelly was revealed to have expressed doubts about some of that evidence, in off-the-record briefings for reporters, he was found dead.

The list of witnesses goes all the way up to Prime Minister Tony Blair himself, who is under increasing pressure to justify his handling of the Kelly affair and his arguments in favor of war in Iraq.

Senator: Iraq Assumptions ‘Flawed’

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/11/iraq/main567580.shtml

(AP) Flawed assumptions by President Bush's advisers about postwar Iraq are contributing to Iraqis' resentment of the U.S. occupation and undermining its legitimacy, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Sunday.

Even the war itself has yet to be won, said Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind.

“Having said that,” Lugar said, “I reiterate we're there now. Whether they made a good choice or not in terms of tactics is irrelevant.”

Friday was the 100th day since Bush declared an end to major combat. In his radio address Saturday, he said the administration was “keeping our word to the Iraqi people by helping them to make their country an example of democracy and prosperity throughout the region.”

But Lugar and former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, once chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, looked back at the Iraq war in less rosy terms.

“Clearly this is a war that still has to be won. By that, I mean, militarily, we have to finally find the rest of the malefactors. We have to try to make sure other forces don't intrude -- that is, terrorists in the country. You're going to need the lights on in Baghdad,” Lugar said on NBC's “Meet the Press.”

“In other words, we really have to get conditions in the country such that the Iraqis know what we are doing, we communicate that to them, while we fight off those who are trying to disrupt the whole business.”

Lugar recently wrote a newspaper opinion piece that said the administration's postwar planning was so poor that Americans are contending in Iraq “with ethnic and religious rivalries; a long-repressed people; a war-damaged infrastructure already decayed from years of neglect and corruption; a lack of Iraqi democratic experience; and a host of extreme clerics, looters, gangsters and warlords-in-waiting.”

Asked Sunday how the planning was lacking, Lugar replied:

“I think a thorough misunderstanding of how complex the politics of Iraq are and continue to be; an inability to understand the decapitation theory — that is, getting rid of the top types while the workers continue — wasn't going to work,” he said.

“In other words, the basic assumptions, whoever was making them, at State, at NSC, at Defense, simply were inadequate to begin with.” NSC is the National Security Council.

He said the facts in Iraq show “that if we are theorists before the fact, we better all talk about it a great deal more.”

His committee's consultations with administration officials, Lugar said, “showed that the administration really was not prepared on those grounds.”

A major step the administration needs to take, Lugar said, is to come up with a five-year budget for the reconstruction of Iraq to include sources of the money.

“It could come from other countries,” he said. “We must be vigorous in trying to get that and a U.N. resolution to give us more legitimacy” as the lead occupying power.

“It is regrettable that some countries still believe that this is our mission entirely. And the U.N. legitimacy and the reaching-out to these other countries is of the essence, not only in the short term but in the intermediate term,” Lugar said.

Nunn agreed that a new resolution is singularly important, but no matter what, “We have got to see it through now. Whether you were for the war or against the war, America has a huge stake there now, and our allies have to understand it's in their best interest to really help us.”

Iran-Contra, Amplified
by Jim Lobe

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0811-01.htm

WASHINGTON - As Karl Marx might have said, ''A specter is haunting Washington -- the specter of Iran-Contra''.

Even some of the people and countries are the same. And the methods -- particularly the pursuit by a network of well-placed individuals of a covert, parallel foreign policy that is at odds with official policy -- are definitely the same.

Boiled down to its essentials, the Iran-Contra affair was about a small group of officials based in the National Security Agency (NSC) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that ran an ''off-the-books'' operation to secretly sell arms to Iran in exchange for hostages.

Taken collectively, what these officials describe and what is already on the public record suggest the existence of a disciplined network of zealous, like-minded individuals centered in Feith's office and around Perle in the DPB and operating with the approval of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, and Vice President Dick Cheney.

They used the proceeds to sustain the Nicaraguan contras -- U.S.-sponsored rebels fighting Managua's left-wing government -- in defiance of both a congressional ban and of official U.S. policy as enunciated by the State Department and President Ronald Reagan. It was never clear whether Reagan understood, let alone approved, the operation.

The picture emerging from the latest reports about the manipulation of intelligence in the drive to war with Iraq, as well as efforts by administration hawks to deliberately aggravate tensions with Syria, Iran, and North Korea in defiance of official State Department and U.S. policy, suggest a similar but much more ambitious scheme at work.

As with Reagan, in this case, too, it is difficult to determine whether Bush -- or even his NSC director, Condoleezza Rice -- fully understands, let alone approves, of what the hawks are doing.

There was some hint of a parallel policy apparatus dating back just after the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001. It was known early on, for example, that the Pentagon leadership, without notice to the State Department, the NSC, or the CIA, convened its advisory Defense Policy Board (DPB), headed by Richard Perle, to discuss attacking Iraq within days of the attacks.

The three agencies were also kept in the dark about a mission undertaken immediately afterward by former CIA director and DPB member James Woolsey to London to gather intelligence about possible links between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda, as if the CIA or the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) could not be trusted.

While Woolsey's trip recalls the more benign shenanigans of the Iran-Contra crowd, consider some of the more recent press reports.

Item: Iran-Contra alumnus Michael Ledeen (and close Perle associate) has renewed ties with his old acquaintance, Manichur Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms merchant who became the key link between the NSC's Oliver North, the operational head of Iran Contra, and the so-called ''moderates'' in the Islamic Republic.

To what end? It appears that certain elements in the Pentagon leadership, specifically Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, are trying to sabotage sensitive talks between Teheran and the State Department on co-operation over al-Qaeda and other pressing issues affecting Afghanistan and Iraq.

They think Ledeen's old friend Ghorbanifar can help, according to 'Newsday', which reported Friday that two of Feith's senior aides -- without notice to the other agencies -- have held several meetings with the Iranian, whom the CIA has long considered ''an intelligence fabricator and nuisance''.

Item: U.S. aircraft and Special Operations Forces (SOF) intercepted and destroyed a residential compound and two small convoys that were heading from Iraq into Syria in mid-June, killing as many as 80 civilians. They then subdued and arrested five Syrian guards across the border, taking them back to Iraq, where they were held and interrogated over the strong objections of the State Department for five days.

For what purpose? The Pentagon says it thought senior Hussein officials were trying to make a run for it on a smuggling route. But an expose last month by 'The New Yorker' suggested that the raid and arrests may have been part of a deliberate effort to inflame tensions with Damascus and thus put an end to remarkably close co-operation between Syria, the CIA and the State Department in the campaign against al-Qaeda.

Item: Certain ''high-level circles within the administration'' were reported by the right-wing 'Washington Times' Friday to be hoping to persuade Chinese military officers to co-sponsor a coup d'etat with their North Korean counterparts against leader Kim Jong Il.

While it is not clear the proposals have been acted on concretely, the Times noted that the Pentagon leadership disagrees strongly with the State Department's efforts to engage Kim in talks to persuade him to abandon his nuclear-weapons program in exchange for a non-aggression pledge.

Just before Korea agreed to resume talks last week, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, widely considered to be much closer to the Pentagon hawks than his superiors at State, delivered a blistering attack on Kim in what was seen by analysts here as a deliberate provocation.

Item: Anonymous ''senior administration officials'' informed a prominent conservative columnist of a covert CIA operative (whose name he then published) jeopardizing her career and possibly exposing numerous ongoing covert actions and agents who worked with her.

To what end? The agent is the wife of Joseph Wilson, a retired career foreign service officer who publicly exposed President George W. Bush's now-infamous assertion that Iraq had tried to buy uranium yellowcake in Africa as a fabrication.

While some analysts have said the disclosure of his wife's identity, a felony under U.S. law, was an attempt to discredit him, he charged this week that the move ''was clearly designed to intimidate others from coming forward'' to tell what they know about the administration's manipulation of intelligence.

No one knows yet whether such intimidation will work, but recently retired intelligence and foreign service officials and military officers, and a growing number of anonymous active-duty officials, have indeed been coming forward with consistent stories about the manipulation and exaggeration of intelligence in order to justify the war against Iraq and, more recently, efforts to hype evidence about the alleged unconventional threat posed by Syria.

This network includes high-level political appointees, such as Bolton, who are scattered around several other key bureaucracies, notably in the State Department, the NSC staff, and, most importantly, in Cheney's office.

Cheney, of course, has a direct link to Bush (and all the heads of agencies) independent of Rice, while his powerful chief of staff and national security adviser, I. Lewis ”Scooter” Libby, also enjoys exceptional access and influence.

Indeed, the two men's frequent visits (as well as those of another DPB member, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich) to CIA headquarters before the Iraq war have been cited by retired and anonymous intelligence officers as having exercised an intimidating influence on analysts who disagreed with the more sensational assessments about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda produced by Feith's office.

Newsday's disclosure that Feith's office has been used for secret contacts with Ghorbanifar suggests that its work goes well beyond assessing intelligence and making policy recommendations.

According to one career military officer who worked for eight months in the Near East/South Asia bureau (NESA) in that office, the political appointees assigned there and their contacts at State, the NSC, and Cheney's office tended to work as a ''network'' and often deliberately cut out, ignored or circumvented normal channels of communication both within the Pentagon and with other agencies.

''I personally witnessed several cases of staff officers being told not to contact their counterparts at State or the (NSC) because that particular decision would be processed through a different channel,'' wrote retired Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowsky last week. ''What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline.''

In an interview with IPS, she insisted that her views of Feith's appointees and operations were widely shared by other professional staff, and quoted one veteran career officer ''who was in a position to know what he was talking about'' as telling her before the Iraq war: ''What these people are doing now makes Iran-Contra look like amateur hour.''

''I think it's time for a serious investigation (of Feith's office),'' she said. ''I just hope Congress will take it on.''

~ Hearts and Minds ~

In Basra, Worst May Be Ahead
As Southern Iraq Bakes, British Also Frustrated by Shortages
By Anthony Shadid

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46432-2003Aug11.html

BASRA, Iraq, Aug. 11 -- Sabah Khairallah drove his rickety white Toyota Crown to a gas station in downtown Basra at 8 a.m. The line, two cars wide, already stretched a mile. Ten hours later, as dusk broke the summer heat, he was still waiting.

He had left shuttered his shop, which sold nets to fishermen plying the Shatt al Arab that flows through Basra. The night before, he recounted, he had spent another sleepless night in a sweltering apartment without electricity, buffeted by a humid wind blowing off the Persian Gulf. At one point, in desperation, he started his car, turned on its air conditioner and put his son inside to sleep.

One month, said the gaunt, unshaven and angry Khairallah. That's how long he gave the British forces occupying Basra to bring electricity, water and fuel. After that, more riots would ensue. "But not with rocks," he said, nodding his head. "With guns."

An uneasy calm returned to Basra today after two days of unrest -- some of the worst in Iraq since U.S.-led forces overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein on April 9. But no one in this weary southern city -- neither the British officials blamed for its plight, nor residents whose mounting frustration mirrors the spiraling temperatures -- seemed to think that the worst was behind them.

In interviews, residents of Iraq's second-largest city almost uniformly expressed anger and incredulity at the shortages of gasoline and electricity and the skyrocketing black-market prices that have accompanied them. British officials in Basra, openly frustrated themselves, questioned the priorities of the U.S.-led reconstruction. And many feared that remnants of Hussein's government or militant Shiite Muslim groups were prepared to capitalize on the disenchantment.

"There's no question in my mind that people's expectations were raised very high and they felt we had led them to expect dramatic improvements when Saddam was toppled," said Iain Pickard, a spokesman for the British-led occupation in Basra. "We've not managed to meet those expectations. Until we got here, we didn't appreciate the scale of the task."

Over the weekend, hundreds of people flooded into Basra's streets, taking British soldiers by surprise. Gangs of youths, some shirtless, barricaded roads with burning tires and threw rocks and chunks of concrete at the troops and vehicles thought to be owned by aid organizations and foreigners, in particular Kuwaitis, who are resented for their wealth and widely believed on the streets here to be smuggling oil out of the country.

British troops wearing riot gear fired shots into the air to disperse crowds. Two people were killed Sunday, witnesses and officials said, but some residents said the toll was higher.

British forces began releasing their own fuel reserves to alleviate the shortages, said Maj. Garry Pinchen, a spokesman. Troops today escorted fuel shipments to the city's 10 gas stations, where soldiers rationed gasoline at 25 liters (about 6 1/2 gallons) per car. After long droughts of electricity, power was restored to three hours on, three hours off.

"We have to solve one problem at a time," Pinchen said.

In a country devastated by war, more than a decade of sanctions and years of often willful neglect, Basra's problems are especially acute. British officials blame the loss of electricity -- at one point it was available 20 hours a day -- on looting, an increase in demand because of the hot weather and a breakdown in one of two major power stations. That, in turn, has slowed oil refining and delivery of fuel to gas stations. Backup generators are old and inefficient. Smuggling of fuel has made matters worse, they said.

The oil pipeline from Basra to Nasriyah was recently sabotaged, and silt has blocked half the main canal that brings drinking water to Basra. That has intensified residents' complaints that water, when available, is salty.

Pickard acknowledged that there was "an understandable degree of frustration" and complained that British officials' priorities in Basra -- power, water and fuel -- are not shared to the same degree by U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

"It seems so bureaucratic. It's so difficult to get things going," he said from a building that had been looted of everything but its windows before the British moved in. "We have not had a great deal of say. We don't feel we've been able to influence the reconstruction program."

He pointed to a U.S.-funded project to renovate 200 schools in the region. While admirable, Pickard said, "painting schools isn't going to stop people from rioting."

But U.S. officials in Baghdad say that restoring basic public services -- particularly electricity, water and fuel -- remains a top priority of the reconstruction effort. They said they have been importing large quantities of fuel from neighboring countries to compensate for reduced output at Iraqi refineries and are bringing in generators for hospitals, water treatment plants and oil facilities.

But like the British in Basra, the officials said their efforts have been plagued by continued sabotage and looting of Iraq's power and oil infrastructure.

At the Canary Restaurant, where customers lunched on chicken and the dates for which Basra is famous, owner Ali Fahd expressed sentiments heard often in the Shiite Muslim city. Residents welcomed the end of Hussein's repression, which was especially fierce in the south after the 1991 uprising that he crushed. For weeks after his overthrow, the city remained peaceful and patient, he said. But now conditions are, if anything, worse. The only thing plentiful, he said, are imported cans of Pepsi-Cola stacked in pyramids along the streets.

"People have waited all this time and they've found nothing. Nothing has gotten better," he said. Asked whether it would, Fahd paused, wiped his sweaty brow and said, finally: "I swear to God, I don't think it will improve."

Along Basra's Kuwait Street, the main commercial thoroughfare, Yassin Faris sat at a desk whose metal trim was almost too hot to touch. When the bombs fell and British troops besieged the city in March, he said, his was a voice of patience.

"I was always defending the Americans and the British. 'You should wait, you should be patient.' But it's slow, it's very slow," he said. When his two sons and three daughters complain now, he said, he has little to say.

In the middle-class neighborhood of Jamaiat, electricity had returned to the house of Alaa Qassem this afternoon. It had been a difficult week, she said. Her neighbor next door, Aseel, had told her how she had taken her sick mother to the roof every time the electricity went out, along with bedding and pillows. The night before, she made three trips.

Her neighbor across the street, Maysun, was eight months pregnant and had a small son. In a fit of desperation, she had tried to sell her jewelry and television set, hoping to move to a $20-a-night hotel until she gave birth. She was unable to raise the money, Qassem said, and instead put her son in a water-filled bathtub to cool off and spent the day crying.

"I said to her, 'God help you,' " Qassem recalled. "I cannot do anything for you."

Qassem said she had no nostalgia for Hussein's government. Her 18-year-old brother, Qusay, was executed in 1980 on suspicion of subversion, she said. Word of his demise came in a death certificate delivered to the family in 1983. Her father had fled to Iran.

With her $250-a-month salary from a Norwegian aid group, she now supports a brother, his wife and their two children. But prices have spiraled. A cylinder of butane that once cost 30 cents now goes for $4. The cost of a block of ice -- often the only means of refrigeration -- has jumped 16-fold to about $5.

"It's a filthy life. We cannot do anything. We can only complain to God," she said. "When the war happened, we dreamed of a different life. Today, I don't have any more dreams. Just dreams of electricity and water."

A few minutes later, the electricity went out again in their house. The air conditioner went silent. The ceiling fan swung slowly to a halt. And the room was left lit only by the glow of a setting sun.

Her sister-in-law Wasen smiled wryly. "The generosity has ended," she said.

Two Iraqi policemen shot dead by US soldiers
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/iraq_us_police_toll

BAGHDAD (AFP) - US soldiers in Baghdad on Saturday shot dead an Iraqi policeman they mistook for an attacker, killed another as he tried to surrender to them and beat a third, a survivor of the incident told AFP.

The three Iraqi officers were firing from their unmarked car at a suspect vehicle they were chasing when the Americans opened fire on them in a western suburb of the capital, Sergeant Hamza Atiya Muhsen, who said he was driving the car, told AFP on Monday.

Lieutenant Colonel Muayad Farhan, deputy head of Al-Yarmuk police station where the dead officers were based, confirmed that two of his officers had been shot by coalition forces.

The US military said it was aware of an incident but unable to provide information. But army spokesman Staff Sergeant J.J. Johnson said Sunday there had been a case of "blue on blue" on Saturday, a term for an incident where friendly forces fire on one another.

As the Al-Yarmuk deputy police chief spoke to AFP Monday, two US military police officers came to offer their condolences to him. They asked not to be named but said they believed the two officers had been shot by US troops after being mistaken for attackers.

Sergeant Muhsen said one of his colleagues was shot as he sat in the back seat of their white Hyundai car, which is the same make and colour as many other Iraqi police vehicles but did not have the blue markings and police numbering.

The third officer, who was uniformed, was shot as he got out from the front passenger seat and held his hands in the air, holding his coalition-issued yellow police badge and shouting "police, police," said Muhsen.

"The second time he said it he was shot. He was hit in the right eye. He was hit by a machine gun that was firing at us right from the start of the incident," said Muhsen, who said the incident took place outside a cement factory on the Abu Gharib Road.

Muhsen, who said he was in civilian clothes but wearing the large police armband and wearing the yellow police badge around his neck, said after the firing had stopped he got out of the car and held his hands up.

"Three soldiers surrounded me. I got down on my knees, hands in the air, holding my badge. One of them kicked me in the back and I fell to the ground. Another one kicked me twice in the face. They put their boots on my head and pressed it into the ground.

"I kept saying "police, police," I don't speak English but it's the same word in Arabic," said Muhsen, who said the beating lasted several minutes.

Muhsen showed AFP cuts to his nose and head, a black eye, and took off his shirt to display bruises over much of his back and on his chest.

A car the Al-Yarmuk deputy police chief said was the one involved in the incident was in the yard of the police station.

There were dark stains on the back seat and the vehicle had six bullet holes on the passenger side, 10 bullet holes in the front window, which had remained intact, one on the driver's side and one in the roof.

A U.S. television flop in Iraq
http://www.iht.com/articles/105840.html

If democracy is ever going to flourish in Iraq, one element will have to be lively, independent news media, professionally operated by Iraqis and featuring a broad range of political viewpoints. While new Iraqi news outlets are proliferating, their quality and credibility are far from ideal. Meanwhile, the television station representing the American occupation authority is an embarrassment.

Since television is something America is good at, one might have expected that at least this part of the occupation would run smoothly. So far, however, the Iraqi Media Network, run by a Pentagon contractor, has been a $5-million-a-month dud. Iraqis do not watch it, having judged its programming to be repetitive and larded with official propaganda, not exactly what you would think Iraqis were hungry for after years of state television under Saddam Hussein.

One reason the coalition network is not creating much buzz in Baghdad is the constant and meddlesome oversight the coalition authority bureaucrats inflict on it. Another is underfinancing. Yet another is unimaginative programming, accompanied by a heavy dose of public service announcements.

More money is now being spent on new equipment, and network officials say they will next turn their attention to developing more compelling fare. That should help, as would a little more freedom from bureaucratic interference. Occupation television is not going to be very effective at spurring Iraqi news outlets to become more professional until it starts broadcasting livelier news shows and generating some enthusiasm among Iraqi viewers.

Untold Story: U.S. Newspapers Ignore Iraqi Civilian Deaths
News Analysis, Mohamad Ozeir,
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=6adf3867ac8e8074f4535bc3e56b75ce

Editor's Note: International, Arab and even U.S. news services have reported and counted the deaths of Iraqi civilians since the official end of hostilities in Iraq -- but U.S. newspapers largely ignore the story.

Most reports coming out of Iraq are built around the casualties of American soldiers in post-war attacks. Deaths and injuries among Iraqi civilians, however, rarely make it to the pages of U.S. newspapers, even when the Iraqis are killed in the same incident -- and even when major international newswires report these casualties.

In late July, for example, the major story out of Iraq was the killing of Saddam's two sons, Uday and Qusay, and his grandson, Mustapha, in a raid on a house in the city of Mosul. But Western media missed a crucial aspect of the story.

Several reports of the sons' deaths mentioned that some Iraqis celebrated the news in a traditional Iraqi way: firing guns into the air. What was missing in the coverage was that many Iraqis lost their lives in the celebrations. Al Mu'tamar newspaper, published by the Iraqi National Conference -- the closest of American allies -- quoted medical and security sources in Baghdad citing that 31 civilians were killed and 76 injured as a result of the revelry gunfire. No U.S. media reported such news.

This kind of reporting not only gives American readers and viewers an incomplete story, but also furthers the mistrust of American media that is becoming more and more pervasive worldwide.

Whatever the reasons for this trend, it is not due to lack of information. The stories of Iraqi civilian casualties are published and broadcast in the Arab and other international media, and the sources for these stories are none other than Western news agencies such as Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France Press (AFP). But these wire services' reports of civilian deaths rarely appear in U.S. newspapers.

On June 6, for example, the Arab and international press published a report from Reuters estimating the average Iraqi casualty count due to U.S. cluster bombs at 15 per day. The report quoted an official at Mines Advisory Group, who said his organization counted 80 killed and 500 injured between April 10 and June 5, 2003. Another article published July 6, based on information from Reuters and AFP, described a bomb that killed seven Iraqis and injured 40 of the new Police Academy trainees. This incident went entirely unnoticed in American media.

Other ignored reports include the killing of a 70-year-old man and three of his sons by American soldiers in the town of Balad while the family was driving near an American patrol outpost on June 15, 2003.

A review of the Arab press -- counting only deaths that were a direct result of armed U.S. or British actions, and taking care not to double-count fatalities -- reveals that since May 1, the day President Bush announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq, 245 Iraqi civilians have been killed as a direct result of military action or war-related events.

This number is small when compared to the estimate of civilian deaths from the entire war, compiled by British-based Iraq Body Count, which put the number between 6,086 and 7,797. The extensive cross-checking and conservative methods used to obtain this estimate can be reviewed at www.iraqbodycount.org. From victims of remnant cluster bomblets -- mainly children -- to civilians caught in cross-fire or surprised by an American checkpoint, to victims of vengeful acts at the hands of the old regime's victims, Iraqis continue to lose their lives as a result of the war.

The ostensible American agenda in Iraq was to liberate the Iraqi people and bring democracy and accountability to the country. The military operation, after all, was named "Iraqi Freedom." During the days of Saddam's rule, no one in Iraq was allowed to say how many people were killed or why, but everyone knew. Ironically, now the information is available -- but it seems that no one wants to know.

PNS contributor Mohamad Ozeir (ozeirm@...) is a longtime journalist and former editor of the Arab American Journal.

~ White Man's Burden ~

Iraqi oil revenues not materializing
By David Isenberg

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EH12Ak02.html

The promise of oil revenues which US officials had counted on as an essential component of their plan to rebuild Iraq has not materialized, and it is beginning to look like it won't for at least two or three more years at best, even if continuing sabotage can be foiled.

While in mid-April various experts were predicting that oil exports could resume in a matter of weeks, that has not happened as quickly as it should have and oil facilities continue to be sabotaged today.

Oil industry experts have long known that a large share of the oil income would have to be spent to repair and upgrade those facilities. That means that the money for reconstruction efforts has to come from the international community and not from the Iraqi oil sector.

The reality is there won't be any surplus Iraqi oil income for at least three to five years under a best-case scenario. Considering that American administrator L Paul Bremer said, when last in Washington, that "oil revenues are 100 percent of our budget", that means that the Iraqi council next year that is going to be responsible for the 2004 budget is going to be allocating a deficit, and a huge one at that.

There was initial optimism because the worst-case scenario of damage to Iraqi oilfields from fighting during the war did not occur - a la the torching of Kuwaiti oil fields in 1991. Officially, by the end of the war only nine oil well fires were set by the retreating Iraqi forces, of out 1,800 in more than 500 oil fields in the southern region. The northern oil fields in Kirkuk and Mosul were not set afire.

But the cumulative effects of more than 20 years of underinvestment, mismanagement, neglect and lack of modernization due to sanctions have left Iraq's oil sector in a sorry state. Since before the war many US officials said reconstruction would be paid for by oil revenues, this is a huge problem. Iraq only earned $12.5 billion in oil exports in 2002, and its current export capacity may be down from over 2 million barrels a day in 2000 to around 800,000 - if there is no further sabotage.

Bremer said in a press interview on July 31 that it could take $50 billion to $100 billion to reconstruct Iraq, and a $1.6 billion plan to rehabilitate Iraq's oil industry was agreed to in late June.

According to a field review undertaken by members of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, oil revenue projections for the new few years are low - the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) expects production to reach 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) by the end of 2003 and 2.5 million bpd by the end of 2004. It is currently at around 600,000 bpd. The CPA expects to earn $5 billion in oil revenue by the end of 2003, but this projection may decrease if security problems persist and oil infrastructure continues to be targeted. Power shortages are also hampering efforts to restart oil production.

According to an analysis by Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, rather than conduct an open and transparent effort to rehabilitate Iraq's petroleum industry, with Iraq technocratic and political advice, the US acts on its own priorities and perceptions. Ordinary Iraqis come to feel their oil is being stolen and oil revenues are not used as the "glue" to unite Iraq's divided factions in some form of federalism.

Ideas like securitizing Iraq's oil revenues to make direct payments to Iraqi citizens deprive the new government the US is trying to create of any real financial power and leverage and Iraqis with no experience in dealing with such funds become the natural prey of Iraqis who know how to manipulate money and such payments, according to Cordesman's analysis.

Speaking at a July 24 symposium at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Edward C Chow, a visiting scholar in the Russian and Eurasian Program said, "So I have revised my own estimation of when production might resume back to the 2 million barrels per day or more rate pre-war, and I think, more importantly, the market has reassessed that as well. Right after combat was over, prices started moving lower in anticipation of higher Iraqi production. Since then, oil prices have resumed back to the $30 level."

In early May the US set up an advisory board headed by former Royal Dutch/Shell executive Phillip Carroll to oversee the rebuilding of Iraq's oil sector. An Iraqi oil industry professional, Thamer Ghadhban, was named to serve as head of the interim management team that will run Iraq's oil ministry and report to the advisory board. The fist exports began in late June 2003. In late July Iraq contracted to sell about 750,000 bpd. By comparison, its pre-war export rate was about 2.2 million bpd.

According to Carroll, a big increase in production is expected from Iraq's key southern oilfields around Basra, where output should more than double, to about 1 million barrels a day once repairs to a vital gas processing plant are concluded.

Last week, Iraqi and American officials said that they had agreed on a $1.6 billion plan to rehabilitate Iraq's oil industry over eight months. The plan focuses on pipelines, pumping stations and other plants that also suffered from a lack of spare parts and were disabled by widespread looting and sabotage after the war. Persistent looting and sabotage at oil installations have dogged production in both northern and southern Iraq. Security was significantly stepped up following recent attacks on pipelines feeding refineries and power stations. Last week oil prices rose to a level not seen since the end of the Iraq war on renewed fears that looting and sabotage were preventing Iraq from increasing its exports.

The pipeline through Kirkuk in northern Iraq to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, one of two main export lines for Iraqi oil, has been the target of sabotage since the end of the war in March, according to the Financial Times of London. Similarly, Iraq's North Oil Company, which produces 550,000 barrels of oil a day - currently two-thirds of Iraq's total - was unable to export because saboteurs blew up the pipeline for a second time last month.

[Recall the heady days of delusional optimism:

Iraq oil minister: Exports to resume within three weeks

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-05-24-iraq-oil_x.htm

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Iraq could double its production of crude oil within a month and resume oil exports within three weeks, the acting oil minister said Saturday.

Iraq currently is producing 700,000 barrels of oil a day and aiming to double that under U.S. occupation, Thamer al-Ghadhban said.

"It is a matter of a few weeks, and we can reach 1.3 or 1.5 million barrels a day," al-Ghadhban said at a coalition-sponsored news conference in the capital.

Prewar production under Saddam Hussein was about 3 million barrels daily.

The world's financial markets are watching closely to see when Iraq would resume its exports, and al-Ghadhban said it would not be long.

"Within three weeks we will be exporting," he said, adding an even more optimistic goal: "We hope in two weeks time we will be in the market."

Oil production is considered pivotal to the rebuilding of postwar Iraq, and the United States wants to use oil profits to fund the country's reconstruction.

The lifting of U.N. sanctions on Thursday paved the way for Iraqi oil sales overseas for the first time since the U.S.-led invasion began March 20.

Officials at Iraq's state-run oil companies have said in recent days that the country could pump 3.5 million barrels a day by the first quarter of next year, and some new oil fields in southern Iraq are just beginning to produce.

During the last seven years of Saddam's regime, U.N. sanctions permitted Iraq to sell unlimited amounts of its oil as long as the profits were used to buy food and medicine for its citizens. However, many accused Saddam of diverting the money to suit his own causes and of selling oil on the black market.]

Postwar Iraq Likely to Cost More Than War
By ALAN FRAM

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-iraq-costs,1,4838499.story?coll=chi-news-hed

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. bill for rebuilding Iraq and maintaining security there is widely expected to far exceed the war's price tag, and some private analysts estimate it could reach as high as $600 billion.

The Bush administration is offering only hazy details so far, and that is upsetting Republican as well as Democratic lawmakers.

The closest the administration has come to estimating America's postwar burden was when L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of occupied Iraq, said last month that "getting the country up and running again" could cost $100 billion and take three years.

He estimated that repairing Iraq's electrical grid alone will cost $13 billion and getting the water system in shape will require an additional $16 billion.

In a recent interview on CNBC's "Capital Report," Bremer said of rebuilding costs: "It's probably well above $50 billion, $60 billion, maybe $100 billion. It's a lot of money."

President Bush and other administration officials have refused to provide projections, saying too much is unpredictable. That has angered lawmakers of both parties, who are writing the budget for the coming election year even as federal deficits approach $500 billion.

"I think they're fearful of having Congress say, 'Oh, my God, this thing is going to be very costly,'" said Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that controls foreign aid.

More than three months after Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq, even the cost of the ongoing U.S. military campaign remains clouded in confusing numbers.

Defense Department officials have said U.S. operations are costing about $3.9 billion monthly. But that figure excludes indirect expenses like replacing damaged equipment and munitions expended in combat.

Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon's top budget official, has said that when all the costs are combined, he expects U.S. military activities in Iraq to total $58 billion for the nine months from last January through September. That includes part of the buildup, the six weeks of heaviest combat that began March 20, and the aftermath.

That sum, however, is what Congress provided this year for Defense Department activities not only in Iraq but also against terrorism worldwide -- including Afghanistan, where U.S. military costs are running about $1 billion a month, according to officials.

In a report last month, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that Pentagon costs in Afghanistan and Iraq plus other U.S. military efforts against terrorism around the globe could reach $59 billion next year.

"What is necessary is to achieve an overall strategy and whatever it takes to achieve the strategy, this administration is committed to," Bush told reporters Friday, adding that accurate cost projections would come "next year at the appropriate time."

Lawmakers, meanwhile, are girding for a White House request for another $40 billion to $50 billion for 2004.

While acknowledging the difficulty of predicting Iraq costs, even White House allies find political factors behind the administration's reluctance to discuss dollars.

"They've got one eye on the deficit and they're trying to make sure the conservatives stay with them," said James Dyer, Republican chief of staff for the House Appropriations Committee. "Having said that, we have to pay these bills whether there's a deficit or not."

Kolbe, who is traveling with other members of Congress to Iraq and Afghanistan later this month, said the administration's reticence is "undermining the credibility that might exist" for the U.S. reconstruction of Iraq. "We've got to get on with it here and start acknowledging what some of these costs are going to be."

Private groups have produced their own estimates on postwar costs in Iraq.

Brookings Institution fellows Lael Brainard and Michael O'Hanlon said in a Financial Times article this month that military and reconstruction costs could be from $300 billion to $450 billion.

Taxpayers for Common Sense said postwar costs over the next decade could range from $114 billion to $465 billion. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences projected 10-year expenses from $106 billion to $615 billion.

Whatever the costs, administration officials have resisted making estimates on how much of them will be shouldered by U.S. taxpayers. They cite several uncertainties: the future numbers and missions of U.S. troops, contributions by allies, and revenue from the hobbled Iraqi oil industry and seized Iraqi assets.

U.S. Launches New Mission to Hunt Saddam Loyalists
By Luke Baker

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=TUD3AA521N0ISCRBAEZSFFA?type=topNews&storyID=3257625

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. troops with Apache helicopters and Abrams tanks scoured a remote region north of Baghdad Monday to hunt Saddam Hussein loyalists, rounding up a dozen suspects and seizing five weapons caches.

The U.S. Army said one soldier was killed and two soldiers were wounded Sunday night in a bomb blast in Baquba, a restive town northeast of Baghdad.

Three other soldiers were wounded, one seriously, in a bomb and rocket-propelled grenade attack Monday near the town of Shumayt, north of Tikrit.

In Baghdad, U.S. soldiers said three Iraqis died after an American convoy was attacked with a grenade. One bloodstained body lay at the scene with at least three bullet wounds. Weeping relatives knelt down to kiss the corpse.

An American soldier said the Iraqis involved in the attack had been chased down and shot. Locals said the dead were innocent bystanders, and accused U.S. troops of firing wildly.

Fifty-six U.S. soldiers have died in guerrilla attacks since Washington declared major combat over on May 1. Most of the attacks have been concentrated in Baghdad and in the "Sunni triangle" north and west of the capital.

Support for Saddam, ousted as president in April in the U.S.-led attack on Iraq, remains strong in the region. Monday hundreds of Iraqis staged a pro-Saddam demonstration in Baquba, waving his picture and Iraqi flags as U.S. troops looked on.

IVY LIGHTNING

The 4th Infantry Division said it had launched a new mission, Operation Ivy Lightning, to hunt Saddam loyalists it believed had fled to isolated villages east of Saddam's hometown of Tikrit to escape repeated U.S. raids. "Ivy Lightning is a surgical strike in remote towns...to isolate and capture non-compliant forces and former regime loyalists who are planning attacks against Coalition forces," Lt. Col. William MacDonald told reporters in Tikrit. He said the operation was focusing on the area around Qara Tappa, around 80 miles north of Baghdad.

Saddam remains on the run despite a $25 million price on his head and the killing of his sons Uday and Qusay in a U.S. raid last month on their hideout in the northern city of Mosul.

Washington says it wants elections held in Iraq by the middle of next year so an Iraqi government can take over and the occupation can end. But a constitution must be drawn up before elections are held, and the process is just beginning.

The Iraqi Governing Council, a body appointed by the U.S.- led administration last month as an initial step on the road to self rule, named a committee Monday which will decide the mechanism for writing a constitution.

It had also been expected to name interim ministers this week, but said the decision could be three weeks away. The Council took two weeks to make its first decision -- choosing a leader -- and settled eventually on a rotating presidency. Critics say this does not bode well for swift progress.

ANGER IN BASRA

The southern Shi'ite city of Basra was calmer, after a weekend of violence when crowds angry at power and fuel shortages barricaded roads and attacked vehicles. British and Czech troops in the city fired warning shots during the unrest, and in one incident returned fire at protesters.

One Iraqi was killed by gunfire Sunday, but it was not clear who fired the shots. Another Iraqi was crushed to death under the wheels of a truck. A Nepalese Gurkha working as a private security guard was also killed, shot by gunmen as he drove through Basra delivering mail for the United Nations.

British forces distributed fuel to gas stations in 25 tankers Monday, and Iraqis who had queued for hours to fill their tanks clapped and cheered as the supplies arrived. But some were furious at rationing that restricted fuel supplies to 5.5 gallons of gasoline per car.

Officials in Iraq's U.S.-led administration say the frequent power cuts are due to sabotage of cables linking Basra to the national grid and equipment breakdowns at decrepit power stations. They say sabotage of pipelines and rampant oil smuggling have led to the shortage of fuel.

11 August 2003

News roundup by Jim Galasyn

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

#93

From: "Jim Galasyn" <jim@...>
Date: Tue Aug 12, 2003 5:27 am
Subject: Into Harm's Way with the Stryker

barrett808

http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=161&rnd=698.8579156063088

This is particularly poignant for me, because Isobel and I saw a convoy of about 20 Stryker units as we drove to my 20-year high school reunion on Saturday. The boys were sitting on top of these vehicles, smiling and waving at passing cars on the freeway. We smiled and waved back as we passed them, and all the while I could only wonder morbidly how many of them would be dead before Christmas.

Jim

Btw, I can confirm one aspect of this story: there were no main guns mounted on any of the Strykers.

---

08-06-2003

Guest Column: Into Harm’s Way with the Stryker

By Lonnie Shoultz

Despite the fact that it lacks its main weapon and has yet to be certified as a combat unit, the Fort Lewis-based “Stryker Brigade” will deploy on what amounts to a combat mission in Iraq in two months.

The announcement on July 23 by Acting Chief of Staff Gen. John Keane came as part of an overall Army plan to rotate the units stationed in Iraq since the start of the war for fresh units from the United States and Europe. Since Keane did not announce any lessening of the operational tempo for Army units in the Balkans, Afghanistan and elsewhere, his unit rotation plan was vague at its very best – a mixture of fact, fiction and fantasy.

Under the rotation plan, the Fort Lewis brigade will deploy to Iraq in October 2003, overlapping with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment for 5-6 months, after which the cavalry unit will return to the United States. The Stryker Brigade will remain in Iraq for 12 months, Keane announced.

Keane also announced assignments sending two “enhanced readiness brigades” from the Army National Guard to Iraq (see Keane’s “Army Update” presentation posted at SFTT.org). Army officials on July 26 announced that the 30th Infantry Brigade from North Carolina and the 39th Infantry Brigade from Arkansas have been alerted to deploy to Iraq. The 30th Infantry Brigade will be augmented with an infantry battalion from the 27th Infantry Brigade, New York ARNG. The 39th Infantry Brigade will be augmented with an infantry battalion from the 41st Infantry Brigade, Oregon ARNG.

The deployment of the Stryker brigade may come closer to fantasy than the two National Guard brigades, which at least can be expected to have their full suite of weapons.

As one who has watched carefully over the past three years the Army’s tortuous efforts to develop the eight-wheeled “Stryker” vehicle, the news that the Fort Lewis brigade has been earmarked for occupation duty in Iraq is shocking and disheartening. It reconfirms the fact that the operational tempo of the 1990s and post-9/11 era – combined with the Clinton administration’s rash force cuts – has bled the Army white. This also indicates that the current Army leadership is indifferent to the dangers in which it is placing the unit’s 3,600 troops.

What is rash about deploying the Stryker Brigade to Iraq? Plenty.

The main firepower intended to allow the Stryker Brigade to break through an ambush or to knock out a bunker stopping its infantry is the Main Gun System (MGS). The primary contractor for the Stryker Brigade, General Dynamics, claims to have built eight of the guns but the company has refused to release any data other than to confirm that the guns are not ready for deployment because they cannot be fired off the centerline of the Stryker vehicle. (If a target is directly in front of the MGS it can fire a round. If the barrel of the gun must be rotated to either side if the center line of the weapons carrier, firing the gun can flip the carrier over and render it unusable.)

Nobody in the U.S. defense industry seems to be surprised at the failure of General Dynamics to deliver the MGS. After all, the company has yet to deliver the armored gun system that it contracted to build for the Army in the 1980s.

When it became apparent that General Dynamics didn’t have a clue about the terminal date for building and delivering the MGS to the Stryker Brigade, the Army’s first alternate plan was to use a 106-mm recoilless rifle as a replacement. When it was determined that the back-blast from the 106 might do great harm to the men and other Strykers in the vicinity, Army officials approved a plan to use instead a TOW missile launcher that could be used for close-in fighting.

It is apparent that Keane and those on the Army staff who assisted him are not veterans of urban warfare where the buildings, vehicles, targets and infantry are all operating very close together. Shooting a TOW missile into that environment is liable to kill more of our troops than the enemy. The resulting shell and other blast fragments are also certain to cut the tires off any Stryker vehicles nearby.

Nor is the Main Gun System the only problem. The Stryker is an overweight, vehicle with insufficient internal space for the infantrymen packed into the rear troop compartment. Unofficial reports indicate it is so tight that those inside cannot even take out their canteens for a drink of water.

And its armor is dangerously ineffective: The armor plating on the top of the vehicle might stop a 7.62-mm round, but the thin armor behind the eight big wheels will not stop anything. Since the front four of the Stryker’s eight wheels are used for steering, there cannot be any RPG skirts attached to that area or they will impede the movement of the steering wheels, nor can the builder add appliqu� armor to its upper sections if an airlift is anticipated. Add-on armor of any type adds too much weight for this thing to be flown on the Air Force C-130.

That airlift capability was a prime selling point Shinseki used for gaining Congress’ approval for these brigades.

It became apparent from the time the bids were announced that Shinseki intended the new vehicle to be a wheeled armored car. He told the story in a speech with President Clinton’s Secretary of the Army, Louis Caldera, of watching a Russian armored car beat our forces to the Pristina Airport in Kosovo because it was so much faster on a highway.

That tortured reasoning deserves a response. If Shinseki were such a keen observer of the Russian Army, he would know that when they operated their tracked tanks and wheeled armored cars in Afghanistan from 1979 until 1986, they lost 147 tracked tanks and 1,314 wheeled armored personnel carriers.

That doesn’t indicate that the speed gained on a highway by wheeled armor is a good exchange for a tracked vehicle that is more survivable and can go cross-country to a fight. A wheeled vehicle cannot operate on rough, muddy, rocky or slippery terrain. And if you cannot get to a fight, you cannot win it.

The Stryker will find itself confined to the roads or rolling meadows. A tracked vehicle can close with and kill the enemy wherever he chooses to hide.

Shinseki also promised Congress that his light armored brigade would be “off the shelf” units that could deploy anywhere in the world on Air Force C-130s in 96 hours, arriving ready to fight. On March 15, 2001, the Air Force sent the Army its guidelines for vehicles allowed to fly in C-130s.

The guidelines cautioned the Army, “The design of combat vehicles for C-130 transport should be based upon the operational limitations, not on the maximum capabilities, of the aircraft… This means combat vehicles (including armor, fuel, ammunition, equipment and crew) weighing 29,000 to 32,000 pounds that can roll off the aircraft ready to fight.” As of now, the Stryker is only barely deployable by the C-130 "J" model, which constitutes only 10 percent of the Air Force’s C-130 fleet.

Unarmed, overweight and poorly armored, the Stryker is about to enter the Iraqi guerilla war. Say a prayer for the soldiers of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

Lonnie Shoultz is a former Special Agent with the U.S. Treasury Department who served in combat in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division and 5th Special Forces Group, where he received the Purple Heart medal on several occasions. He can be reached at lshoultz@....

#94

From: "Jim Galasyn" <jim@...>
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 2:31 am
Subject: Shut up and sit down (12 August 2003)

barrett808