History > 2006 > USA > War > Iraq (I)

Maj. Greg Paul of the Army

in a complete set of armor Wednesday after a Senate briefing on protecting troops.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images        NYT        January 12, 2006

 Army Sending Added Armor to Iraq Units        NYT        12.1.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/12/national/12armor.html

US forces kill 2 Iraqi women "by mistake": report

Wed May 31, 2006 11:17 AM ET
Reuters

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A joint Iraqi-U.S. security body said on Wednesday U.S. forces had killed "by mistake" two women who were en route to a maternity hospital north of Baghdad.

News of the deaths came a day after Iraq's prime minister told Reuters his patience was wearing thin with "excuses" from U.S. troops that they kill civilians by "mistake".

The U.S. military is also under pressure over revelations that U.S. Marines may have killed 24 civilians in the town of Haditha during an unprovoked attack last November.

An incident report by the joint body of the Iraqi army and U.S. forces in Salahaddin province said the two women were shot and killed in the small town of al-Mutasim on Tuesday.

A brief statement from the Joint Coordination Center named them as Saleha Mohammed, 55, and Nabiha Nasif, 35.

"U.S. forces killed two women by mistake ... when they were heading to a maternity hospital in a taxi," it said, without specifying if either of the women was pregnant.

A police source said the driver of the car was wounded.

The U.S. military said a car had entered a "clearly marked prohibited area" near an observation post.

"As the vehicle neared the observation post and failed to stop despite repeated visual and auditory signals, shots were fired to disable the vehicle," Lieutenant Colonel Ed Loomis told Reuters in an e-mail in response to a question.

"The vehicle stopped, changed directions and quickly departed the area."

He said the military later received Iraqi police reports that two women had died from gunshot wounds at the hospital in the town of Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad.

"The loss of life is regrettable and coalition forces go to great lengths to prevent them," he said. "The incident is under investigation."

The U.S. military, targeted in numerous suicide bombings since the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, says people often drive too fast and ignore clear warning signs.

Ordinary Iraqis complain that U.S. soldiers manning checkpoints are too quick to open fire at approaching vehicles, at times leading to the loss of innocent civilians.

    US forces kill 2 Iraqi women "by mistake": report, R, 31.5.2006, http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-05-31T151652Z_01_DAH138765_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L1-RelatedNews-5

In another town, Iraqis say US killed civilians

Wed May 31, 2006 11:00 AM ET
Reuters

SAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. forces denied on Wednesday a new accusation, from Iraqi officers, that American troops killed unarmed civilians in their home this month.

Amid mounting public interest in the United States in an inquiry into a suspected massacre at Haditha, the allegations about the deaths of three people at Samarra are among many that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said this week were trying his patience with the U.S. military's "excuses" over "mistakes".

Iraqi army and police officers and several people who said they were witnesses and relatives of the dead said U.S. soldiers killed two women, aged 60 and 20, and a mentally handicapped man in their home on May 4 after insurgents fired on the troops.

Spokesmen for the 101st Airborne Division, which controls Samarra and Salahaddin province north of Baghdad, said soldiers from its 3rd Brigade Combat Team killed two unnamed men and a woman in a house who had "planned to attack the soldiers".

In an initial statement on May 5, the unit had said troops killed three people who had already fired on them from a roof.

A senior Iraqi police officer from the province's Joint Coordination Center (JCC), a unit that liaises between the U.S. and Iraqi security forces, said: "There was shooting outside the house. Samarra police told us that American soldiers went inside and shot three people, including a mentally handicapped man.

"They were not armed and there were no gunmen in the house," said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted by insurgents who routinely kill policemen.

There are frequent disputes over incidents between U.S. military and Iraqi officials in Salahaddin, where the Sunni Arab revolt against occupation and the Shi'ite-led government has been strong. U.S. officers have complained of "disinformation" from police as part of an insurgent campaign to discredit them.

RELATIVES' STATEMENTS

On May 6, Army Colonel Fadhil Muhammed, assistant manager of the JCC, said in a statement: "Multinational forces raided the house of a citizen and killed three people and wounded two from one family at 7 p.m. on May 4." He described the dead as "martyrs", indicating the authorities believed them innocent.

In his family home in the Sikaak district of Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, Zedan Khalaf Habib told a Reuters reporter that the soldiers killed his 60-year-old wife, Khairiya Nisiyif Jassim, his son Khaled Zedan Khalaf, 40, who was mentally handicapped, and daughter Anaam Zedan Khalaf, 20.

Habib, 66, said he was hit in the arm when soldiers fired from a doorway into a room where 15 people had taken refuge in his house after a gunfight broke out nearby. Another daughter said soldiers placed a rifle next to her brother's body and took photographs to suggest he had been armed when killed.

"I was sitting next to my house when clashes erupted between gunmen and U.S. forces," said Habib, sitting in his home three weeks later. "I went indoors with my family to a safe room."

U.S. soldiers then broke down the door, he said: "Four soldiers stood at the door of the room where we were hiding. There were 15 of us. They started firing. I was shot in the arm and then one of the soldiers dragged me out.

"The firing went on against my family. I was lying face down in another room and they dragged one of my relatives over me."

Habib said he woke from a faint as someone called his name: "It was a policeman. He was crying. The room was full of blood. A few minutes later he showed me the bodies of my relatives.

"They were in black body bags," he said, providing a home video showing the room streaked with blood.

"STAGED EVIDENCE"

Shireen, his 36-year-old daughter, said: "After they killed my brother Khaled they shot him three more times in the chest and they put a rifle between his legs to show he was armed and they took a photograph of him."

Asked to comment on the allegation, Master Sergeant Terry Webster of the 101st Airborne said the soldiers came under fire from a rooftop after arresting three people nearby who were suspected of planting roadside bombs:

"The troops suppressed the rooftop fire, entered and cleared the home. Three people in the home, one woman and two men, were killed in the ensuing firefight. A second woman was injured and transported to a nearby hospital," Webster wrote in an e-mail.

"The injured woman confessed that the three people killed had planned to attack the soldiers as they drove by the house.

"No Coalition forces were injured during the engagement."

The unit's initial statement on May 5 said that the three dead were those who had opened fire from the roof: "As the soldiers began to leave the area with the detainees, they came under attack with small arms fire from a nearby rooftop.

"The troops suppressed the rooftop fire and entered and killed the three attackers from the rooftop. An Iraqi citizen was injured during the firefight, but still provided the soldiers with information about the rooftop firers."

The White House pledged on Tuesday to provide full details once investigations are complete into whether Marines killed up to 24 unarmed civilians in Haditha, a Sunni city in the west, and whether they tried to cover it up.

(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy and Alastair Macdonald in Baghdad)

    In another town, Iraqis say US killed civilians, R, 31.5.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-05-31T145905Z_01_MAC149206_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L1-RelatedNews-4

Investigation

Military Inquiry Is Said to Oppose Account of Raid

May 31, 2006
The New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID S. CLOUD

WASHINGTON, May 30 — A military investigator uncovered evidence in February and March that contradicted repeated claims by marines that Iraqi civilians killed in Haditha last November were victims of a roadside bomb, according to a senior military official in Iraq.

Among the pieces of evidence that conflicted with the marines' story were death certificates that showed all the Iraqi victims had gunshot wounds, mostly to the head and chest, the official said.

The investigation, which was led by Col. Gregory Watt, an Army officer in Baghdad, also raised questions about whether the marines followed established rules for identifying hostile threats when they assaulted houses near the site of a bomb attack, which killed a fellow marine.

The three-week inquiry was the first official investigation into an episode that was first uncovered by Time magazine in January and that American military officials now say appears to have been an unprovoked attack by the marines that killed 24 Iraqi civilians. The results of Colonel Watt's investigation, which began on Feb. 14, have not previously been disclosed.

"There were enough inconsistencies that things didn't add up," said the senior official, who was briefed on the conclusions of Colonel Watt's preliminary investigation.

The official agreed to discuss the findings only after being promised anonymity. The findings have not been made public, and the Pentagon and the Marines have refused to discuss the details of inquiries now underway, saying that to do so could compromise the investigation.

When Colonel Watt described the findings to Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the senior ground commander in Iraq, on March 9, they raised enough questions about the marines' veracity that General Chiarelli referred the matter to the senior Marine commander in Iraq, who ordered a criminal investigation that officials say could result in murder charges being brought against members of the unit.

Colonel Watt's findings also prompted General Chiarelli to order a parallel investigation into whether senior Marine officers and enlisted personnel had attempted to cover up what happened.

Colonel Watt's inquiry included interviews with marines believed to have been involved in the killings, as well as with senior officers in the unit, the Third Battalion of the First Marine Regiment.

Among them were Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, whom officials had said was one of the senior noncommissioned officers on the patrol, and Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, the battalion commander, the senior official said. Colonel Chessani was relieved of his command in April, after the unit returned from Iraq.

In their accounts to Colonel Watt, the marines said they took gunfire from the first of five residences they entered near the bomb site, according to the senior military official.

The official said the marines had recalled hearing "a weapon being prepared to be used against them."

Colonel Watt also reviewed payments totaling $38,000 in cash made within weeks of the shootings to families of victims.

In an interview Tuesday, Maj. Dana Hyatt, the officer who made the payments, said he was told by superiors to compensate the relatives of 15 victims, but was told that rest of those killed had been deemed to have committed hostile acts, leaving their families ineligible for compensation.

After the initial payments were made, however, those families demanded similar payments, insisting their relatives had not attacked the marines, Major Hyatt said.

Major Hyatt said he was authorized by Colonel Chessani and more senior officers at the marines' regimental headquarters to make the payments to relatives of 15 victims.

Colonel Chessani "was part of the chain of command that gives the approval," Major Hyatt said.

"Even when he signs off on it," the major added, "it still has to go up to" the unit's regimental headquarters.

Colonel Chessani declined to comment on Tuesday when visited at his home at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

The list of 15 victims deemed to be noncombatants was put together by intelligence personnel attached to the battalion, Major Hyatt said. Those victims were related to a Haditha city council member, he said. The American military sometimes pays compensation to relatives of civilian victims.

The relatives of each victim were paid a total of $2,500, the maximum allowed under Marine rules, along with $250 payments for two children who were wounded. Major Hyatt said he also compensated the families for damage to two houses.

"I didn't say we had made a mistake," Major Hyatt said, describing what he had told the city council member who was representing the victims. "I said I'm being told I can make payments for these 15 because they were deemed not to be involved in combat."

The military began its examination of the killings only after Time magazine presented the full findings of its investigation to a military spokesman in Baghdad in early February.

General Chiarelli, an Army officer who took command of American ground forces in Iraq in January, learned soon after the spokesman was notified that the Marines had not investigated the incident, according to the senior military official.

On Tuesday, the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said President Bush first became aware of the episode after the Time magazine inquiry, when he was briefed by Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser. "When this comes out, all the details will be made available to the public, so we'll have a picture of what happened," Mr. Snow said.

    Military Inquiry Is Said to Oppose Account of Raid, NYT, 31.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/31/world/middleeast/31haditha.html?hp&ex=1149134400&en=ba9330564ff54260&ei=5094&partner=homepage

On a Marine Base, Disbelief Over Charges

May 30, 2006
The New York Times
By CAROLYN MARSHALL

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., May 29 — In this "company town" where everything and everyone caters to the well-being of the Marine Corps, there is no shortage of people, both military and civilian, who are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the troops accused of unjustified killings last November in Haditha, Iraq.

Denial and utter disbelief are the overwhelming reaction to reports of the killings involving marines based here. If there is any truth to the accusations, some say, then the troops must have been acting on direct orders, responding as they were trained to do.

Lawrence Harper, 36, now retired, served in the Marine Corps for more than 15 years, and was in the Persian Gulf war.

"Many times you see a situation the next day and wonder, how did my brain think this was dangerous?" Mr. Harper said, while shopping for gear at G.I. Joe's, a military supply shop in Oceanside.

Mr. Harper expressed doubt that the marines knowingly committed crimes in Haditha, saying that they undoubtedly acted on instinct, as trained, in the heat of battle.

"When a bullet comes at you and you turn around and half your buddy's head is blown off, it changes the way you think forever," he said.

Jerry Alexander, the owner of G.I. Joe's and a Navy man who served with the Marines for a dozen years, had much the same perspective, saying, "If I saw my buddy laying there dead, there is no such thing as too much retaliation."

While Mr. Alexander said "unacceptable kills" should not be covered up, he worried about the unfairness of judging those who were in Haditha.

"In the heat of combat, you cannot hesitate; he who hesitates is lost," he said. "I would not prosecute these young men because they were just doing their jobs."

On this Memorial Day, in this military community, people will concede that any marine who committed illegal acts must be punished and that the Pentagon must take responsibility.

But conversation quickly returns to emotional and earnest explanations of the need for understanding for what one former marine described as "these 19-year-old kids who get paid 900 bucks a month to put their lives on the line."

The marines and several senior officers assigned to the Third Battalion of the First Marine Division are the focus of criminal investigations looking into the deaths of 24 people who lived in the Subhani district of Haditha, an insurgent stronghold in Iraq.

A preliminary inquiry indicated that the civilians were killed during a four- to five-hour sweep, led by a handful of marines angry over the death of Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, Tex., who was killed as his patrol drove through the area.

Appearing Monday on the CNN program "American Morning," Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, "We want to find out what happened and we'll make it public."

He added, "If the allegations, as they are being portrayed in the newspaper, turn out to be valid, then of course there will be charges. But we don't know yet what the outcome will be."

The family of Corporal Terrazas was interviewed Monday morning on "Morning Edition" on National Public Radio. His uncle, Andy Terrazas, a former marine who is now a border patrol agent, said, "I hope this is over soon so they can just let him rest in peace. I hope these marines come out clean, but I guess it's not looking too good, right?"

None of the active and former marines interviewed for this story knew Corporal Terrazas or the members of the unit at the center of the probe. But most of them had seen combat, recently or in the Gulf war.

"In Iraq, everything you do has to be cleared with a commanding officer," said Cpl. Michael Miller, 25, who has served two tours of duty and fought in Falluja and Ramadi. "You just can't go clearing houses without the permission of higher-ups."

Corporal Miller said he believed that the marines would be vindicated in the inquiry. "I just think the marines did what they had to do," he said. "I don't know why innocent people are dead, but someone must have seen a gun." Several retired senior officers agreed. Col. Ben Mittman of the Air Force, interviewed as he got his regular military buzz cut at the Beachcomber Barber Shop in Oceanside, worried that the young servicemen were being made scapegoats.

"If this thing really happened, they had to radio communication and get the go-ahead," he said. "The frontline grunts these days do not do anything without the commanders knowing, especially something like that."

The Los Angeles Times reported Friday that photographs taken by a Marine intelligence team sent into Haditha showed execution-style killings, including gunshots to the head. As more details about the Haditha deaths incident surface, it has conjured disturbing memories of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam for many former marines and in other circles of war veterans. "I would draw the same parallel," Mr. Alexander said. "The young guys took the heat for the higher-ups there too."

Most of those "young guys," the active-duty marines who are the peers of those under scrutiny in the Haditha deaths, were off base this weekend on a five-day holiday leave.

It is those marines and their leaders who were the focus of other remarks by General Pace in his interview on "Morning Edition."

"We should, in fact, as leaders take on the responsibility to get out and talk to our troops and make sure that they understand that what 99.9 percent of them are doing, which is fighting with honor and courage, is exactly what we expect of them," he said, adding, "Because regardless of where this investigations goes, we want to ensure that our troops understand what's expected of them."

    On a Marine Base, Disbelief Over Charges, NYT, 30.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/world/middleeast/30voices.html

Revving Their Engines, Remembering a War's Toll

May 29, 2006
The New York Times
By ALAN FEUER

Lt. Michael L. Licalzi's funeral cortege moved through Nassau County, slowly and a hundred cars strong.

It moved through Garden City, where purple ribbons adorned the trees of Poplar Street, which was his street. It moved up the Southern State Parkway, where many of the drivers kept from the road seemed annoyed to have been stopped by a hearse.

At the head of the procession were those who suffered most — friends and family — though riding point out front was a group of strangers who, if they had not suffered personally, had at least decided they would not forget.

To forget is to die, as someone said, and if there had been death that day, the strangers saw to it that on May 20, when Lieutenant Licalzi was lowered in the earth, there would be no forgetting. They were bikers — most in beards, most on Harley-Davidsons and most flying the flag. It is not easy to forget half a hundred bikers, in leather and straddling their engines — which seemed to be the point.

For the last six months, these bikers, called the Patriot Guard Riders, have attended funerals from Florida to Alaska, waging a chrome-lined war against the ebb of memory that often follows death.

"When we show up with a couple hundred bikes as complete strangers and stand there and show respect, it's incredible," said Kurt Mayer, who rides a 1989 Yamaha Venture Royale and is one of the founding members of the group. "We show families in grieving communities that America still cares."

The Patriot Guard was formed last fall in response to protests staged by the Westboro Baptist Church, a Christian splinter group from Topeka, Kan., whose 75 parishioners have been turning up at military funerals across the country with placards reading "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and tattered American flags. They use death to promote their message — that the nation and its armed forces condone homosexuals, who are invariably described with a shorter, crueler term.

Mr. Mayer said that with free speech being what it is, the Westboro Church has all the right in the world to protest when and where it wants. Of course, the Patriot Guard, too, has the right to call upon its own faithful and to smother hateful slogans in a Harley engine's word-obscuring roar, he said.

"You got to give credit to the Westboro Baptist Church," said Jeff Brown (Suzuki Intruder 1500 LC), a software salesman and former Air Force sergeant from Oklahoma, and another founding member of the club. "Give the devil his due, so to speak."

It was, after all, Mr. Brown who first thought to bring together disparate groups like Rolling Thunder (which rides on behalf of soldiers missing in action and prisoners of war), the Blue Knights (law enforcement officers), the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association, the In Country Vets Motorcycle Club, the Christian Motorcyclists Association and the American Legion Riders into one Web-connected crew.

At the group's Internet site, patriotguard.org, members of the guard can check on "missions" both confirmed and completed (about 200 so far), and each time the Pentagon announces a death, the name is added to the "Watch List." Mr. Mayer said that state captains worked through a military officer to reach out to the family and seek permission to ride.

The Web site also has archived letters written to the guard from grieving mothers and gracious servicemen. The following was written by Sgt. First Class Karl B. Henderson, of the 82nd Airborne Division, who on April 21 served as a military escort at the funeral of Cpl. Shawn Ross Creighton in North Carolina:

"One thing I'll never forget is riding up that rural country road with the family and seeing six barefoot little girls run out of their farmhouse right up to the edge of that highway just to render a salute as the soldier passed their house. I suppose the rumble of all of those V-twin engines leading the procession gave them ample notification that something big was about to pass their farm."

Something big passed the Licalzi house, too, nine days ago: 50 bikers in a rolling phalanx with roars escaping from their Thunderhead pipes. Lieutenant Licalzi, 24, died May 11, when his Marine Corps M1A1 tank rolled off a bridge into a canal in Anbar Province in Iraq.

There were no protesters at his funeral Mass, nor at Long Island National Cemetery, in Farmingdale, where he was buried — though, if there had been, the Patriot Guard would have been ready. Scott Deale, the New York state captain, rallied his troops a few hours after dawn in the parking lot of Best Buy off the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn.

"They filed for a permit for a funeral a few weeks ago in Queens," said Mr. Deale (1994 Yamaha Virago), a former marine who wears a red, white and blue bandanna and whose cellphone rings with the Marine Corps Hymn. The Patriot Guard came to the funeral in Queens for Sgt. Jose Gomez of the Army, but the Westboro group was nowhere in sight.

"Sometimes they don't even bother showing up if they know the guard's going to be there in numbers," Mr. Deale said.

From Best Buy, the riders rode to a second rally point, to join more motorcyclists, then on to St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Garden City. There, they lined up in formation at the curb, talking of traffic jams and bad storms until the Mass was finished.

For some, the chance to ride for the dead puts to sleep old ghosts.

"In my era, you came back from the war and you didn't talk about it," said Roger Jacobsen (2005 Harley Ultra Classic), a reinsurance salesman who served with the Fourth Infantry Division in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in 1967 and 1968. "We're here to show respect and thank the families. To do for these people what wasn't done for us."

Like leading 100 cars down Poplar Street, where a gardener working on a lawn put aside his mower and stood at attention as the cortege passed. Or leading it past Sprung Monuments and Ye Olde Friendly Flower Shoppe ("Last Florist Before Cemetery") and through the iron gates.

Green grass, blue sky, white headstones — and the Patriot Guard, in line, in leather, holding up their flags. A color guard. A salute from Marine Corps rifles. Taps.

"Who are you masked men?" asked an old-timer in the red garrison cap of the Marine Corps League.

"Patriot Guard Riders," Mr. Deale explained.

"Well, it's impressive," the old-timer said. "Very impressive."

Then the dead man's mother walked the line of riders and, with her son's flag tucked beneath her arm, shook each and every hand.

    Revving Their Engines, Remembering a War's Toll, NYT, 29.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/29/nyregion/29patriot.html


 

Mariah May made a frame for two photographs of her father, Don.

Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times        May 28, 2006

After Loss of a Parent to War, a Shared Grieving        NYT        29.5.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/29/us/29grief.html?hp&ex=
1148961600&en=1ef0addffca5dd01&ei=5094&partner=homepage
 

After Loss of a Parent to War, a Shared Grieving

May 29, 2006
The New York Times
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ

ARLINGTON, Va., May 28 — Jacob Hobbs, 10, did not mince words about the death of his father.

"He was in a Humvee, driving at night on patrol, and a homemade bomb blew up on him so bad it killed his brain," Jacob said of his father, Staff Sgt. Brian Hobbs, 31, of the Army. "But he wasn't scratched up that much. And that's how he died."

Sitting across from Jacob in a circle at a grief camp over Memorial Day weekend, Taylor Downing, a 10-year-old with wavy red hair and a mouthful of braces, offered up her own detailed description. "My dad died four days after my birthday, on Oct. 28, 2004," Taylor said quietly of Specialist Stephen Paul Downing II. "He got shot by a sniper. It came in through here," she added, pointing to the front of her head, "and went out there," shifting her finger to the back of her head.

"Before he left," Taylor said, "he sat me on his knee and he told me why he had to go: because people in Iraq didn't have what we did. They didn't have enough money. They couldn't go to school. And they didn't have homes."

An estimated 1,600 children have lost a parent, almost all of them fathers, to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, nearly 150 of these children gathered at a hotel here in this Washington suburb for a yearly grief camp run by the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, a nonprofit group founded in 1994 that helps military families and friends cope with death and talk about their loss.

Burying a parent is never easy for a child, but losing a father in a violent way, in a far-off war, is fraught with a complexity all its own.

The children receive hugs from strangers who thank them for their father's courage; they fight to hold back tears in front of whole communities gathered to commemorate their fathers; they sometimes cringe when they hear loud noises, fret over knocks at the door and appear well-versed in the treachery of bombs.

And often the children say goodbye not just to their fathers but to their schools and homes, since families who live on a military base must move into the civilian world after a service member dies.

At the camp, their drawings of their fathers are never mundane, they are mythic: a father as hero, in uniform, with medals trailing across his chest and an American flag floating high above.

"Before my dad left, he said he wasn't afraid to die," Jacob said of Sergeant Hobbs, who was killed in a bomb blast in Afghanistan on Oct. 14, 2004. His father was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, Jacob explained. "He saved his commander from an exploding tank," he said.

Many of these children are old enough to remember their fathers, but now the images are slipping away in fragments.

One memory few will ever forget is the moment they learned that their fathers would not come home. Paul R. Syverson IV, a 10-year-old with a blond crew cut and his father's face, saw a soldier at the door. "My mom saw him and started crying," said Paul, trying hard to stifle tears as he recounted how he was sent next door to play.

His father, Maj. Paul R. Syverson III, 32, a Green Beret, had been killed by a mortar round inside Camp Balad, Iraq — or as Paul put it, "He was eating breakfast, and he was shot by Iraqis."

Later, "I cried," he said. "I played with my soldiers. And then I went to the basement because my dad was a collector of 'Star Wars' stuff. I took those out, and I played with them."

Brooke Nyren, 9, whose father, Staff Sgt. Nathaniel J. Nyren, died in a vehicle accident in Iraq on Dec. 28, 2004, told her story in a writing assignment at the camp. When two Army men showed up at the door, "I was really scared," Brooke wrote. "The two Army men asked my mom, please can you put your daughter in a different room. So I went in my room. The only thing I was doing was praying."

"My hart was broken," she wrote.

Paul, the blond 10-year-old, recounted how his father was injured by a bomb in Afghanistan in 2001. The blast broke his father's back, Paul said, but not his eagerness to fight again. Paul's drawing features his father, with his green beret, and the words, "Men will jump and die."

And Jacob, who wants to be a soldier, remembers his father saying that he had to go off and fight. "But he didn't like my mom crying," Jacob said. "She always cried when he left because she didn't want him to die."

The violence of their fathers' deaths, and its public nature, can be especially troublesome for children. "'It's a traumatic grief that is highly publicized," said Linda Goldman, a grief specialist. "Dad was murdered in a public way. This heightens the sense of trauma because it never goes away."

The children's mothers say the deaths have had expected repercussions, like plummeting grades and mood swings. But they have also seen unexpected reactions. Madison Swisher, 8, who sleeps in her father's T-shirt, is afraid of loud noises; her dad died in Iraq from an improvised bomb. She and her younger brother talk a lot about bombs in general. They call the Iraqis the "bad guys" and are afraid the bad guys will arrive any minute.

Several mothers said they worried that their children's hero worship, a healthy balm in the beginning, could turn problematic if they tried to follow in their fathers' footsteps.

Teenagers, in particular, have trouble adjusting. Scott Rentschler, 14, was living on a military base in Germany when his father, Staff Sgt. George Rentschler, was killed in Iraq in 2004 by a rocket-propelled grenade. His life, Scott said, "is a roller coaster." Scott's grandmother, Lillian Rentschler, said that moving off a military base was difficult for him, and that society and schools make few allowances for children in their second year of grief.

"People think he should be all fixed up," Ms. Rentschler said.

The outpouring that families receive after a death is mostly comforting to them. But in time, it can verge on stifling, some parents said. Jenny Hobbs, 32, Jacob's mother, said that in their hometown, Mesa, Ariz., her three children were "embraced as heroes. It was cool to know them."

But there was a downside, Ms. Hobbs said, and ultimately she moved the family to Ohio. "The death is in the public eye," she said. "It is hard to let go. The war is still going on, and you are reminded of it. One reason I had to move is that it was hard to be normal."

Ms. Hobbs continued: "He was no longer ours and human. We needed him to be ours."

Parents and mentors say they try to help the children stay connected to their fathers and grieve in intimate ways, far from the public eye. They post photographs all over the house, make teddy bears out of their dads' shirts and encourage them to write letters.

Eddie Murphy, 10, whose father, Maj. Edward Murphy, 36, died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan in April 2005, did just that one day at grief camp. "Summer is coming up," he wrote to his father. "It won't be the same without you. You won't believe it but I'm in Washington."

He signed off: "I love you. Hi to Heaven."

    After Loss of a Parent to War, a Shared Grieving, NYT, 29.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/29/us/29grief.html?hp&ex=1148961600&en=1ef0addffca5dd01&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Iraqis' Accounts Link Marines to the Mass Killing of Civilians

May 29, 2006
The New York Times
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and MONA MAHMOUD

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 28 — Hiba Abdullah survived the killings by American troops in Haditha last Nov. 19, but said seven others at her father-in-law's home did not. She said American troops shot and killed her husband, Rashid Abdul Hamid. They killed her father-in-law, Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali, a 77-year-old in a wheelchair, shooting him in the chest and abdomen, she said.

Her sister-in-law, Asma, "collapsed when her husband was killed in front of her eyes," Ms. Abdullah said. As Asma fell, she dropped her 5-month-old infant. Ms. Abdullah said she picked up the baby girl and sprinted out of the house, and when she returned, Asma was dead.

Four people who survived the killings in Haditha, including some who had never spoken publicly, described the killings to an Iraqi writer and historian who was recruited by The New York Times to travel to Haditha and interview survivors and witnesses of what military officials have said appear to be unjustified killings of two dozen Iraqis by marines. Some in Congress fear the killings could do greater harm to the image of the United States military around the world than the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

The four survivors' accounts could not be independently corroborated, and it was unclear in some cases whether they actually saw the killings. But much of what they said was consistent with broad outlines of the events of that day provided by military and government officials who have been briefed on the military's investigations into the killings, which the officials have said are likely to lead to charges that may include murder and a cover-up of what really happened.

The name of the Iraqi who conducted the interviews for The Times is being withheld for his own safety, because insurgents often make a target of Iraqis deemed collaborators.

Haditha, a sand-swept farming town flecked with date palms on the upper Euphrates River, is in one of Iraq's most dangerous areas, ridden with insurgents in the heart of Sunni-dominated Anbar Province.

Three months earlier, 20 Marines from a different unit were killed around Haditha over a three-day span. Fourteen were killed by a bomb that destroyed their troop carrier. Six others, all snipers, were ambushed and killed on a foot patrol. Insurgents appeared later to rejoice and boast about the sniper ambush, releasing a video over the Internet that appeared to show the attack and the mangled and burned body of a dead American serviceman.

Haditha is under the control of insurgents that include Tawhid and Jihad, a name that has been used by the terrorist organization of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said Miysar al-Dulaimi, a human rights lawyer who has relatives in Haditha and who returned there two days after the killings and spoke to witnesses and neighbors. Mr. Dulaimi said that outside their bases, the Americans control almost nothing.

"People are so scared," he said. "They have lost confidence in the Americans. If the Americans show up in the neighborhood the insurgents will come and take away people they accuse of being stooges of the Americans."

But just over six months ago, 24 people in the Subhani district of Haditha faced a different death, witnesses and survivors say.

The killings began after 7:15 a.m., as the neighborhood was stirring awake, when insurgents detonated a roadside bomb in Subhani that killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas of El Paso, Tex., as his patrol drove through the area.

According to one United States defense official, who declined to be named because details of the investigation are not supposed to be revealed, most of the subsequent killings are believed to have been committed by a handful of Marines led by a staff sergeant who was their squad leader, although other Marines are also under investigation.

In the home Ms. Abdullah escaped from, she said American troops also shot in the chest and killed a 4-year-old nephew named Abdullah Walid. She said her mother-in-law, Khumaysa Tuma Ali, 66, died after being shot in the back. Two brothers-in-law, Jahid Abdul Hamid Hassan and Walid Abdul Hamid Hassan, were also killed, she said.

In addition to Ms. Abdullah and Asma's baby, two others survived: One, 9-year-old Iman Walid Abdul Hamid, said she ran quickly, still clad in her pajamas, to hide under the bed covers with her younger brother, Abdul Rahman Walid Abdul Hamid, when she saw what was happening.

. "We were scared and could not move for two hours. I tried to hide under the bed," she said, but both her and her brother, Abdul Rahman, were hit with shrapnel.

Abdul Rahman, 7, said very little about that day. "When they killed my father Walid, I hid in bed," he said.

Hiba Abdullah assumed the two children had died, but she said they were later found at a local hospital.

One Haditha victim was an elderly man, close to 80 years old, killed in his wheelchair as he appeared to be holding a Koran, according to the United States defense official, who described information collected during the investigation. An elderly woman was also killed, as were a mother and a child who were "in what appeared to be a prayer position," the official said. Some victims had single gunshot wounds to the head, and at least one home where people were shot to death had no bullet marks on the walls, inconsistent with a clearing operation that would typically leave bullet holes, the official added. Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, pledged Sunday to hold hearings on the Haditha killings as soon as the military investigation is concluded.

"I'll do exactly what we did with Abu Ghraib," he said on ABC's "This Week," referring to hearings. He added that there were serious questions of "what was the immediate reaction of the senior officers in the Marine Corps."

Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and former marine who has become a fierce critic of the Iraq war, said he has no doubt marines killed innocent civilians in Haditha and tried to cover up the deaths. Marine Corps officials, he said on the same TV program, have told him that troops shot one woman "in cold blood" who was bending over her child begging for mercy.

In all, 19 people were killed in three separate homes in Haditha, and 5 were killed after they approached the scene in a taxi, survivors and people in the neighborhood said.

Hiba Abdullah said that after the killings in her father-in-law's home the American troops moved to the house of a neighbor, Younis Salim Nisaif. She said he was killed along with is wife, Aida, and Aida's sister, Huda. She said five children were also killed at that home, all between ages of 10 and 3.

There was one survivor, Safa Younis Salim, 13, who in an interview said she lived by faking her death. "I pretended that I was dead when my brother's body fell on me and he was bleeding like a faucet," she said. She said she saw American troops kick her family members and that one American shouted in the face of one relative before he was killed.

Military officials declined Sunday to comment on details of the killings described by survivors. "The investigations are ongoing, therefore any comment at this time would be inappropriate and could undermine the investigatory and possible legal process," said Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, a Marine spokesman.

David P. Sheldon, a defense lawyer advising a marine under investigation in the case, said what is publicly known about the case "raises a disturbing picture, but I think the situation was very confusing." He added that "the insurgent pressure in that part of Iraq has been particularly virulent" which caused "a very stressful environment."

Three days before a roadside bomb attack that preceded the Nov. 19 killings, another marine from the same unit had been killed when a bomb detonated under his vehicle in Haditha. It was the first combat death that the unit, the First Marine Regiment's Third Battalion, had suffered on that deployment to Iraq.

Neighbors said that in the third home assaulted on Nov. 19, four brothers were killed by American troops. The wife of one of the brothers, who would only identify herself as the widow of a brother named Jamal, said the four victims were all between the ages of 20 and 38.

The troops forced women in the home to leave at gunpoint, the widow said. Afterward, she said the women heard gunshots coming from the home, but the troops forbade them from returning. Eventually, she said, they went inside and found the bodies of Jamal and three brothers, Marwan, Jassib and Kahatan.

Mr. Dulaimi, the human rights lawyer who traveled to Haditha two days after the killings, said neighbors told him the father of the four victims and owner of the home was Ayad Ahmed al-Gharria, who does odd jobs and has a shop in Haditha. The neighbors, Mr. Dulaimi said, told him the troops killed Marwan first. The three other brothers were killed after they came to see what was happening, he said.

Five more Iraqi men died that day after they approached the American troops in a taxi, according to people in the neighborhood. Four of the men were students and the fifth was the driver of the taxi, and all were between the ages of 18 and 25, they said.

After the killings, Mr. Dulaimi said Haditha clerics and elders led a protest march on the American base near a dam on the Euphrates. From the city's mosques, Mr. Dulaimi said, clerics condemned the killings and said the Americans "promise they will bring peace and security to this country, but what has happened is they are spreading panic, fear and terror among the people."

One person from the neighborhood, Salim Abdullah, said relatives from two of the families had taken compensation payments of as much as $2,500 per victim from American officials who later visited. Relatives of other victims have not taken payments, he said.

The United States defense official said the payments were also a focus of investigators trying to determine whether the killings were improperly covered up. On "This Week," Representative Murtha suggested that the decision to make payments was strong evidence that Marine officers up the chain of command had knowledge of the events. "That doesn't happen at the lowest level," he said. "That happens at the highest level before they make a decision to make payments to the families."

The Marines also face an inquiry into the killing of an Iraqi man on April 26 near Hamandiyah, west of Baghdad. A preliminary inquiry found "sufficient information" for a criminal investigation, the Marines said. Representative Murtha said a marine fired an AK-47 rifle so there would be spent cartridges near the body, making it look as if the victim had been firing a weapon.

A spokesman for the First Marine Division, Lt. Lawton King, said several marines suspected of involvement in the incident have been put in the brig at Camp Pendleton, Calif., or restricted to the base.

An Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Haditha for this article, and David S. Cloud and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.

    Iraqis' Accounts Link Marines to the Mass Killing of Civilians, NYT, 29.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/29/world/middleeast/29haditha.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1148875200&en=76854c985dc60d9e&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

Official: Evidence in criminal probe of Iraqi deaths points toward murder by Marines

Updated 5/27/2006 2:57 AM ET
USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — Military investigators probing the deaths last November of about two dozen Iraqi civilians have evidence that points toward unprovoked murders by Marines, a senior defense official said Friday.

The Marine Corps initially reported 15 deaths and said they were caused by a roadside bomb and an ensuing firefight with insurgents. A separate investigation is aimed at determining if Marines lied to cover up the events, which included the deaths of women and children.

If confirmed as unjustified killings, the episode could be the most serious case of criminal misconduct by U.S. troops during three years of combat in Iraq. Until now the most infamous occurrence was the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse involving Army soldiers, which came to light in April 2004 and which President Bush said Thursday he considered to be the worst U.S. mistake of the entire war.

The defense official discussed the matter Friday only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly about the investigation. He said the evidence found thus far strongly indicated the killings in the insurgent-plagued city of Haditha in the western province of Anbar were unjustified. He cautioned that the probe was not finished.

Once the investigation is completed, perhaps in June, it will be up to a senior Marine commander in Iraq to decide whether to press charges of murder or other violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Three officers from the unit involved — 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif. — have been relieved of duty, although officials have not explicitly linked them to the criminal investigation.

In an indication of how concerned the Marines are about the implications of the Haditha case, their top officer, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, flew to Iraq on Thursday. He was to reinforce what the military said was a need to adhere to Marine values and standards of behavior and to avoid the use of excess force.

"Many of our Marines have been involved in life or death combat or have witnessed the loss of their fellow Marines, and the effects of these events can be numbing," Hagee said a statement announcing his trip. "There is the risk of becoming indifferent to the loss of a human life, as well as bringing dishonor upon ourselves."

A spokesman at Marine Corps headquarters in the Pentagon, Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas, declined to comment on the status of the Haditha investigation. He said no information would be provided until the probe was completed.

According to a congressional aide, lawmakers were told in a briefing Thursday that it appears as many as two dozen civilians were killed in the episode at Haditha. And they were told that the investigation will find that "it will be clear that this was not the result of an accident or a normal combat situation."

Another congressional official said lawmakers were told it would be about 30 days before a report would be issued by the investigating agency, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Both the House and Senate armed services committees plan to hold hearings on the matter.

The New York Times reported on Friday that the civilians killed at Haditha included five men who had been traveling in a taxi and others in two nearby houses. The newspaper quoted an unidentified official as saying it was a sustained operation over as long as five hours.

Hagee met with top lawmakers from those panels this week to bring them up to date on the investigation.

"I can say that there are established facts that incidents of a very serious nature did take place," Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Senate panel, said Thursday. He would not provide details or confirm reports that about 24 civilians were killed. He told reporters he had "no basis to believe" the military engaged in a cover-up.

Separately, the Marines announced this week that a criminal investigation was underway in connection with an alleged killing on April 26 of an Iraqi civilian by Marines in Hamandiyah, west of Baghdad. No details about that case have been made public.

In the Haditha case, videotape aired by an Arab television station showed images purportedly taken in the aftermath of the encounter: a bloody bedroom floor, walls with bullet holes and bodies of women and children. An Iraqi human rights group called for an investigation of what it described as a deadly mistake that had harmed civilians.

On May 17, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a former Marine, said Corps officials told him the toll in the Haditha attack was far worse than originally reported and that U.S. troops killed innocent women and children "in cold blood." He said that nearly twice as many people were killed as first reported and maintained that U.S. forces were "overstretched and overstressed" by the war in Iraq.

Pentagon spokesman Eric Ruff said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was being kept apprised. Ruff said he did not expect any announcements in the next few days.

    Official: Evidence in criminal probe of Iraqi deaths points toward murder by Marines, UT, 27.5.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-26-marine-probe_x.htm


 

The military is looking into civilian deaths in Haditha, Iraq.

Lucian Read/WorldPictureNetwork        NYT        May 25, 2006

Military Expected to Report Marines Killed Iraqi Civilians        NYT        26.5.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26haditha.html?hp&ex=
1148702400&en=b7363380ed080aa4&ei=5094&partner=homepage

 

The Investigation

Military Expected to Report Marines Killed Iraqi Civilians

May 26, 2006
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER, ERIC SCHMITT and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

This article is by Thom Shanker, Eric Schmitt and Richard A. Oppel Jr.

WASHINGTON, May 25 — A military investigation into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis last November is expected to find that a small number of marines in western Iraq carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians, Congressional, military and Pentagon officials said Thursday.

Two lawyers involved in discussions about individual marines' defenses said they thought the investigation could result in charges of murder, a capital offense. That possibility and the emerging details of the killings have raised fears that the incident could be the gravest case involving misconduct by American ground forces in Iraq.

Officials briefed on preliminary results of the inquiry said the civilians killed at Haditha, a lawless, insurgent-plagued city deep in Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, did not die from a makeshift bomb, as the military first reported, or in cross-fire between marines and attackers, as was later announced. A separate inquiry has begun to find whether the events were deliberately covered up.

Evidence indicates that the civilians were killed during a sustained sweep by a small group of marines that lasted three to five hours and included shootings of five men standing near a taxi at a checkpoint, and killings inside at least two homes that included women and children, officials said.

That evidence, described by Congressional, Pentagon and military officials briefed on the inquiry, suggested to one Congressional official that the killings were "methodical in nature."

Congressional and military officials say the Naval Criminal Investigative Service inquiry is focusing on the actions of a Marine Corps staff sergeant serving as squad leader at the time, but that Marine officials have told members of Congress that up to a dozen other marines in the unit are also under investigation. Officials briefed on the inquiry said that most of the bullets that killed the civilians were now thought to have been "fired by a couple of rifles," as one of them put it.

The killings were first reported by Time magazine in March, based on accounts from survivors and human rights groups, and members of Congress have spoken publicly about the episode in recent days. But the new accounts from Congressional, military and Pentagon officials added significant new details to the picture. All of those who discussed the case had to be granted anonymity before they would talk about the findings emerging from the investigation.

A second, parallel inquiry was ordered by the second-ranking general in Iraq to examine whether any marines on the ground at Haditha, or any of their superior officers, tried to cover up the killings by filing false reports up the chain of command. That inquiry, conducted by an Army officer assigned to the Multinational Corps headquarters in Iraq, is expected to report its findings in coming days.

In an unusual sign of high-level concern, the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, flew from Washington to Iraq on Thursday to give a series of speeches to his forces re-emphasizing compliance with international laws of armed conflict, the Geneva Conventions and the American military's own rules of engagement.

"Recent serious allegations concerning actions of marines in combat have caused me concern," General Hagee said in a statement issued upon his departure. The statement did not mention any specific incident.

The first official report from the military, issued on Nov. 20, said that "a U.S. marine and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb" and that "immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire."

Military investigators have since uncovered a far different set of facts from what was first reported, partly aided by marines who are cooperating with the inquiry and partly guided by reports filed by a separate unit that arrived to gather intelligence and document the attack; those reports contradicted the original version of the marines, Pentagon officials said.

One senior Defense Department official who has been briefed on the initial findings, when asked how many of the 24 dead Iraqis were killed by the improvised bomb as initially reported, paused and said, "Zero."

While Haditha was rife with violence and gunfire that day, the marines, who were assigned to the Third Battalion, First Marines, and are now back at Camp Pendleton, Calif., "never took what would constitute hostile fire of a seriously threatening nature," one Pentagon official said.

Women and children were among those killed, as well as five men who had been traveling in a taxi near the bomb, which killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas of El Paso.

Although investigators are still piecing together the string of deaths, Congressional and Pentagon officials said the five men in the taxi either were pulled out or got out at a Marine checkpoint and were shot.

The deaths of those in the taxi, and inside two nearby houses, were not the result of a quick and violent firefight, according to officials who had been briefed on the inquiry.

"This was not a burst of fire, but a sustained operation over several hours, maybe five hours," one official said. Forensic evidence gathered from the houses where Iraqi civilians died is also said to contradict reports that the marines had to overcome hostile fire to storm the homes.

Members of the House and Senate briefed on the Haditha shootings by senior Marine officers, including General Hagee and Brig. Gen. John F. Kelly, the Marine legislative liaison, voiced concerns Thursday about the seriousness of the accusations.

Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican who is a retired Marine colonel, said that the allegations indicated that "this was not an accident. This was direct fire by marines at civilians." He added, "This was not an immediate response to an attack. This would be an atrocity."

The deaths, and the role of the marines in those deaths, is being viewed with such alarm that senior Marine Corps officers briefed members of Congress last week and again on Wednesday and Thursday.

The briefings were in part an effort to prevent the kind of angry explosion from Capitol Hill that followed news of detainee abuse by American military jailers at Abu Ghraib prison, which had been quietly under investigation for months before the details of the abuse were leaked to the news media. "If the accounts as they have been alleged are true, the Haditha incident is likely the most serious war crime that has been reported in Iraq since the beginning of the war," said John Sifton, of Human Rights Watch. "Here we have two dozen civilians being killed — apparently intentionally. This isn't a gray area. This is a massacre."

Three Marine officers — the battalion commander and two company commanders in Haditha at the time — have been relieved of duty, although official statements have declined to link that action to the investigation.

Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, said he expected senators would review investigators' evidence, including photographs by military photographers that Mr. Warner said were "taken as a matter of routine in Iraq on operations of this nature when there's loss of life."

Lawyers who have been in conversations with the marines under investigation stressed the chaotic situation in Haditha at the time of the killings. And they expect that the defense will stress that insurgents often hide among civilians, that Haditha on the day of the shootings was suffering a wave of fluid insurgent attacks and that the marines responded to high levels of hostile action aimed at them.

Much of the area around Haditha is controlled by Sunni Arab insurgents who have made the city one of the deadliest in Iraq for American troops. On Aug. 1, three months before the massacre, insurgents ambushed and killed six Marine snipers moving through Haditha on foot. Insurgents released a video after the ambush that appeared to show the attack, and the mangled and burned body of a dead serviceman. Then, two days later, 14 marines were killed when their armored vehicle was destroyed by a roadside bomb near the southern edge of the city.

The Marines also disclosed this week that a preliminary inquiry had found "sufficient information" to recommend a criminal probe into the killing of an Iraqi civilian on April 26 near Hamandiyah, a village west of Baghdad.

Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt reported from Washington for this article, and Richard A. Oppel Jr. from Baghdad, Iraq.

    Military Expected to Report Marines Killed Iraqi Civilians, NYT, 26.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26haditha.html?hp&ex=1148702400&en=b7363380ed080aa4&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Schrank

The Independent on Sunday        Comment        28.5.2006

Politics

Bush and Blair Concede Errors, but Defend War

May 26, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER and JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, May 25 — President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, two leaders badly weakened by the continuing violence in Iraq, acknowledged major misjudgments in the execution of the Iraq war on Thursday night even while insisting that the election of a constitutional government in Baghdad justified their decision to go to war three years ago.

Speaking in subdued, almost chastened, tones at a joint news conference in the East Room, the two leaders steadfastly refused to talk about a schedule for pulling troops out of Iraq — a pressure both men are feeling intently. They stuck to a common formulation that they would pull troops out only as properly trained Iraqi troops progressively took control over more and more territory in the country.

But in an unusual admission of a personal mistake, Mr. Bush said he regretted challenging insurgents in Iraq to "bring it on" in 2003, and said the same about his statement that he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." Those two statements quickly came to reinforce his image around the world as a cowboy commander in chief. "Kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people," Mr. Bush said. "I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner." He went on to say that the American military's biggest mistake was the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, where photographs of detainees showed them in degrading and abusive conditions. "We've been paying for that for a long period of time," Mr. Bush said, his voice heavy with regret.

Mr. Blair, whose approval levels have sunk even lower than Mr. Bush's, said he particularly regretted the broad decision to strip most members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party of their positions in government and civic life in 2003, leaving most institutions in Iraq shorn of expertise and leadership.

The news conference, in the formal setting of the East Room, was notable for the contrite tone of both leaders. Mr. Bush acknowledged "a sense of consternation" among the American people, driven by the steady drumbeat of American casualties.

The meeting came at a low moment in Mr. Bush's presidency and Mr. Blair's prime ministership, at a time when the decisions that they made to invade Iraq and that they have defended ever since have proved a political albatross for both.

Just as they joined in the drive to war in 2003, the two leaders on Thursday evening seemed joined by a common interest in arguing that things had finally turned around in Iraq. Mr. Blair, who was in Iraq earlier this week, ventured the closest to a prediction about a timetable for disengagement, saying that he thought it was possible that Iraq's new prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, was accurate in his prediction that Iraqi forces could control security in all of the country's provinces within 18 months.

But Mr. Bush quickly fell back to his familiar insistence that he would not begin a drawdown until his commanders said it was possible, and he noted that troops were recently called up from Kuwait to help stabilize Baghdad. He said that in the end he would insist on victory over both insurgents and terrorists linked to Al Qaeda, and he dismissed as "press speculation" reports of tentative Pentagon plans to bring American troop levels to about 100,000 by the end of this year. "A loss in Iraq would make this world an incredibly dangerous place," Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Bush said he and Mr. Blair had spent "a great deal of time" discussing their next challenge: how to put together the right mix of penalties and incentives to force Iran to suspend the production of uranium and give up a program that both men had said clearly pointed to a desire to build a nuclear bomb.

Mr. Bush bristled at a question about whether he had "ignored back-channel overtures" from the Iranians over possible talks about their nuclear program. Mr. Bush said that "the Iranians walked away from the table" in discussions with three European nations, and that a letter sent to him by Iran's president "didn't address the issue of whether or not they're going to continue to press for a nuclear weapon." Some in the State Department and even some of Mr. Bush's outside foreign policy advisers have said that Mr. Bush missed a diplomatic opening by deciding not to respond to the letter, though others say it is still not too late.

But the overwhelming sense from the news conference was of two battered leaders who, once confident in their judgments on Iraq, now understood that misjudgments had not only affected their approval ratings, but perhaps their legacies. The British news magazine The Economist pictured the two on a recent cover under the headline "Axis of Feeble."

And while both men sidestepped questions about how their approval ratings were linked to Iraq, at one point Mr. Bush seemed to try to buck up his most loyal ally, who is expected to leave office soon and may be in the midst of his last official visit to Washington, by telling a British reporter, "Don't count him out."

Outside the White House gates, a smattering of protesters gathered, blowing whistles and chanting, "Troops out now."

Mr. Bush called the terrorists in Iraq "totalitarians" and "Islamic fascists," a phrase he has used periodically to give the current struggle a tinge of the last great American-British alliance, during World War II. But he acknowledged that the war in Iraq had taken a significant toll in public opinion. "I mean, when you turn on your TV screen and see innocent people die day in and day out, it affects the mentality of our country," Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Blair tried to focus on the current moment, saying that he had heard the complaint that "you went in with this Western concept of democracy, and you didn't understand that their whole culture was different." With a weak smile, he suggested to Mr. Bush that those who voted in Iraq had amounted to "a higher turnout, I have to say — I'm afraid to say I think — than either your election or mine."

Mr. Bush did not budge from his long-stated position that conditions in Iraq and the ability of Iraqi security forces to assume greater responsibilities would dictate whether the United States reduced the 133,000 American forces there. He said he would rely on the recommendations of Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq. In an effort to cajole the new government even while he was praising it, Mr. Bush twice mentioned that it had yet to appoint a defense minister with whom to discuss troop cuts, one of the glaring gaps in the Iraqi cabinet that is symbolic of the continuing struggle over power. "We'll keep the force level there necessary to win," Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Blair acknowledged that some of the 260,000 Iraqi security forces, especially the police, suffered from corruption and the influence of militias. But he said a new Iraqi government would be more able than allied officials to cope with these problems.

For those who trace Mr. Bush's own reluctance to acknowledge errors in Iraq, his statements on Thursday night seemed to mark a crossing of a major threshold. In an interview with The New York Times in August 2004, Mr. Bush said that his biggest mistake in Iraq had been underestimating the speed of initial victory over Mr. Hussein's forces, which allowed Iraqi troops to melt back into the cities and towns. When pressed, he said he could think of no other errors.

Over the winter, as public support for the war eroded, he acknowledged other mistakes — failing to plan sufficiently for the occupation and rebuilding of the country, or to execute the plans that had been made. But he described these as tactical mistakes that had been fixed.

His answer on Thursday evening, though, harked back to the two statements — "bring them on" and "dead or alive" — that his wife, Laura, had been particularly critical about. While he had apologized before for the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib, his statement on Thursday was his starkest admission to date of the damage that the episode did to the image of the United States.

But Mr. Bush emphasized that American soldiers had been punished for the abuses. "Unlike Iraq, however, under Saddam, the people who committed those acts were brought to justice," he said. Mr. Bush's critics have noted that the prosecutions have focused on low-level soldiers and have not held senior officers accountable.

Mr. Blair, while saying that the coalition had misjudged the de-Baathification process, added: "It's easy to go back over mistakes that we may have made. But the biggest reason why Iraq has been difficult is the determination of our opponents to defeat us. And I don't think we should be surprised at that."

    Bush and Blair Concede Errors, but Defend War, NYT, 26.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26prexy.html

The White House

Covering a Friend's Back: Leaders Reverse the Roles

May 26, 2006
The New York Times
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

Tony Blair has always served as the world's Bush-whisperer, but at their joint news conference last night, it was almost the reverse. Mr. Blair, the normally silver-tongued prime minister, seemed stiff and defensive, and it was Mr. Bush who tried to smooth things over and help Mr. Blair out.

British political analysts have repeatedly predicted that Mr. Blair, a lame duck whose popularity in Britain has never been lower, will be out of office as early as next year. But when a British reporter actually suggested that this was his last official Washington visit, he looked dismayed and tongue-tied.

Mr. Bush jumped in, saying with a laugh, "Don't count him out, let me tell it to you that way." He also asked the British to give his friend another chance. "I want him to be here so long as I'm the president."

That role reversal was as good a sign as any of how the two friends' political standing has eroded since they made the case together for war in Iraq. Last week even The Economist, a British magazine that has been more favorable to Mr. Blair than most, called his partnership with Mr. Bush the "Axis of Feeble."

In the past, Mr. Blair always raced to Washington to buck up Mr. Bush with his eloquence and aplomb, spending his own political capital to enhance that of the American. Mr. Bush was obviously grateful for his ally's support, yet last night he hinted that if he had to go it alone, he could take it from here — even in the realm of the English language.

Asked what he most regretted, Mr. Bush replied that he was sorry he had used terms like "bring it on" and "dead or alive," and that he had learned to express himself in a "little more sophisticated manner."

It was never an even-steven friendship; Mr. Blair risked his popularity in Britain when he stood by Mr. Bush and supported the war. In return he received gratitude, but little else.

One reason Mr. Blair's reputation is so tattered is his critics dismiss him as a poodle, doing his master's bidding. It did not help that before the war, Mr. Blair was unable to persuade his American friend to seek a second United Nations resolution authorizing military action.

He did not have much luck with other issues important to Europeans, from an effort to double aid to Africa to the need to take steps to avert global warming. (It probably did not help Mr. Blair's morale that "Stuff Happens," a play by David Hare that focuses on the imbalance of power between the White House and 10 Downing St., is on the New York stage.)

No one has been a better bedfellow for George Bush than Tony Blair, but last night the steadfast British prime minister tugged the covers to his side, adding his own, broader agenda to the subject at hand.

He spoke of "the importance of trying to unite the international community behind an agenda that means, for example, action on global poverty in Africa, and issues like Sudan; it means a good outcome to the world trade round, which is vital for the whole of the civilized world, vital for developing countries, but also vital for countries such as ourselves; for progress in the Middle East; and for ensuring that the global values that people are actually struggling for today in Iraq are global values we take everywhere and fight for everywhere that we can in our world today."

Mr. Blair came to Washington to help the president, but this time, perhaps for the first time, he looked like he needed the president's help.

    Covering a Friend's Back: Leaders Reverse the Roles, NYT, 26.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26tvwatch.html

White House downplays troop withdrawals

Posted 5/24/2006 12:43 PM ET
AP
USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House said Wednesday the establishment of Iraq's new government was an opportunity to reassess the need for American military forces but that it was premature to talk about troop withdrawals.

The violence in Iraq and the need for coalition forces will be a primary topic when President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair meet at the White House on Thursday. Both leaders have dropped sharply in the polls and are under pressure to make troop cutbacks. Bush and Blair will hold a news conference at 7:30 p.m. ET Thursday.

"I do not believe that you're going to hear the president or the prime minister say we're going to be out in one year, two years, four years — I just don't think you're going to get any specific prediction of troops withdrawals," presidential spokesman Tony Snow said. "I think you're going to get a restatement of the general principles under which coalition troops stay or go."

In Baghdad, the new prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said Iraqi forces are capable of taking control of security in all of Iraq within 18 months, but still need more recruits, training and equipment.

Snow, at a White House briefing, said al-Maliki was "an energetic prime minister who has said he wants Iraqi troops to be in the forefront as soon as possible."

He said U.S. troops are in Iraq at the invitation of the government. "If he says he doesn't need us, we're not going to stick around," Snow said.

Bush said at a news conference Tuesday evening that the swearing in of Iraq's new government has opened a door for change. The new Iraqi leaders will assess the country's security needs and forces, then work with U.S. commanders, he said.

"We haven't gotten to the point yet where the new government is sitting down with our commanders to come up with a joint way forward," the president said Tuesday. "However, having said that, this is a new chapter in our relationship. In other words, we're now able to take a new assessment about the needs necessary for the Iraqis."

Bush spoke in response to a question about whether he is confident he can start withdrawing troops at the end of the year. He did not give a direct answer to the question, raised at a press conference with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, but signaled that change is coming.

He used similar language in Chicago on Monday, when he gave his first speech since the new government was sworn in over the weekend.

"As the new Iraqi government grows in confidence and capability, America will play an increasingly supporting role," Bush said during that address.

Pressed Tuesday on how he can expect Iraqis to bring down the violence when the most powerful military in the world has not been able to, Bush suggested that reducing the suicide bombings that have terrorized the country will not be the main factor for bringing U.S. troops home.

"It is a difficult task to stop suicide bombers," Bush said.

"So I view progress as: Is there a political process going forward that's convincing disaffected Sunnis, for example, to participate?" the president asked. "Is there a unity government that says it's best for all of us to work together to achieve a common objective, which is democracy? Are we able to meet the needs of the 12 million people that defied the car bombers? To me, that's success."

And he made it clear that stopping many of the suicide bombers ultimately will be a problem for Iraqis, although the United States still is helping and "we're doing a pretty good job of it, on occasion."

"What the Iraqis are going to have to eventually do is convince those who are conducting suiciders who are not inspired by al-Qaeda, for example, to realize there is a peaceful tomorrow," Bush said. "And those who are being inspired by al-Qaeda, we're just going to have to stay on the hunt and bring al-Qaeda to justice. And our army can do that and is doing that right now."

Iraq hangs heavily over Bush's presidency. More than 2,450 members of the U.S. military have died since Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq more than three years ago. The war is a major factor in Bush's slump in the polls to the lowest point of his presidency. There are 132,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

    White House downplays troop withdrawals, UT, 24.5.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-24-bush-iraq_x.htm

INQUIRY

U.S. Urged to Stop Paying Iraqi Reporters

May 24, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID S. CLOUD

WASHINGTON, May 23 — A Defense Department investigation of Pentagon-financed propaganda efforts in Iraq warns that paying Iraqi journalists to produce positive stories could damage American credibility and calls for an end to military payments to a group of Iraqi journalists in Baghdad, according to a summary of the investigation.

The review, by Rear Adm. Scott Van Buskirk, was ordered after the disclosure last November that the military had paid the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based Pentagon contractor, to plant articles written by American soldiers in Iraqi publications, without disclosing the source of the articles. The contractor's work also included paying Iraqi journalists for favorable treatment.

Though the document does not mention the Lincoln Group, Admiral Van Buskirk concluded that the military should scrutinize contractors involved in the propaganda effort more closely "to ensure proper oversight is in place." He also faulted the military for failing to examine whether paying for placement for articles would "undermine the concept of a free press," in Iraq, according to the summary.

It was not clear on Tuesday whether the report would have any immediate effect on the military's actions in Iraq. In interviews this week, several Pentagon officials said the Lincoln Group and other contractors were still involved in placing propaganda messages in Iraqi publications and on television. Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a senior military spokesman in Iraq, said Tuesday that he could not comment on the report. William Dixon, a spokesman for the Lincoln Group, also declined to comment on Tuesday.

Pentagon officials have said that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is considering ordering a further policy review to clarify existing policy and rules on military communications and information operations.

Over all, the report concludes that American commanders in Iraq did not violate military regulations when they undertook a multipronged propaganda campaign beginning in 2004 aimed at increasing support for the fledgling Iraqi government, the three-page summary says. That conclusion has been previously reported, but the portions of the report that raise questions about the effort or that are critical have not been previously disclosed.

The most critical portion of the report concerns the military's creation in 2004 of an entity called the Baghdad Press Club, in which Iraqi journalists were paid if they covered and produced stories about American reconstruction efforts, such as openings of schools and sewage plants.

The military's "direct oversight of an apparently independent news organization and remuneration for articles that are published will undoubtedly raise questions focused on 'truth and credibility,' that will be difficult to deflect, regardless of the intensions and purpose of the remuneration," the report says.

Disclosures last November that the Lincoln Group had received tens of millions of dollars from the Pentagon to place news articles and produce television advertisements prompted an outcry in Washington, where members of Congress said the practice undermined American credibility, and military and White House officials disavowed knowledge of it. President Bush was described by Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser, as "very troubled" about the matter.

But since then, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, appointed Admiral Van Buskirk to look into the practice. He has also made clear in public statements that he favored aggressive use of Iraq's media to influence public opinion there, and that he would continue unless told by more senior officials to stop. Paying for publication of positive stories is a delicate issue among some Pentagon officials, especially the military's public affairs officers, who worry that their efforts to supply the public with facts will be tainted by the military's practice of paying to place stories.

But defenders of the practice say that in a environment like Iraq, that is the only way to get information out to Iraqis who would dismiss statements from American military sources.

Several senior Pentagon officials complained that General Casey's staff in Iraq delayed public disclosure of the findings for months. While Admiral Van Buskirk found the practice of hiding the American military's responsibility for the articles "appropriate," he also recommended new guidelines for propaganda operations that would "determine when attribution may be appropriate."

Officers involved in the propaganda effort were often confused about the boundaries between public affairs work, which is supposed to be strictly factual, and what the military calls "information operations," which can employ practices like deception and the paying of journalists to defeat an enemy, the review found.

The report is not the only recent one to criticize the military's propaganda operation in Iraq. An unreleased study for the Pentagon completed in February by the RAND Corporation, a research organization in Santa Monica, Calif., says such operations have been conducted "in fits and starts without a sustained, coherent process."

The study adds, "The key to the suppression of the insurgency and a successful transition to Iraqi governance is changing the mindset of ordinary Iraqis to include 'paid-for-hire' insurgents and potential foreign recruits through a much more aggressive" information operations campaign.

    U.S. Urged to Stop Paying Iraqi Reporters, NYT, 24.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/world/middleeast/24propaganda.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Law and Disorder

Misjudgments Marred U.S. Plans for Iraqi Police

May 21, 2006
The New York Times
By MICHAEL MOSS and DAVID ROHDE

As chaos swept Iraq after the American invasion in 2003, the Pentagon began its effort to rebuild the Iraqi police with a mere dozen advisers. Overmatched from the start, one was sent to train a 4,000-officer unit to guard power plants and other utilities. A second to advise 500 commanders in Baghdad. Another to organize a border patrol for the entire country.

Three years later, the police are a battered and dysfunctional force that has helped bring Iraq to the brink of civil war. Police units stand accused of operating death squads for powerful political groups or simple profit. Citizens, deeply distrustful of the force, are setting up their own neighborhood security squads. Killings of police officers are rampant, with at least 547 slain this year, roughly as many as Iraqi and American soldiers combined, records show.

The police, initially envisioned by the Bush administration as a cornerstone in a new democracy, have instead become part of Iraq's grim constellation of shadowy commandos, ruthless political militias and other armed groups. Iraq's new prime minister and senior American officials now say the country's future — and the ability of America to withdraw its troops — rests in large measure on whether the police can be reformed and rogue groups reined in.

Like so much that has defined the course of the war, the realities on the ground in Iraq did not match the planning in Washington. An examination of the American effort to train a police force in Iraq, drawn from interviews with several dozen American and Iraqi officials, internal police reports and visits to Iraqi police stations and training camps, shows a cascading series of misjudgments by White House and Pentagon officials, who repeatedly underestimated the role the United States would need to play in rebuilding the police and generally maintaining order.

Before the war, the Bush administration dismissed as unnecessary a plan backed by the Justice Department to rebuild the police force by deploying thousands of American civilian trainers. Current and former administration officials said they were relying on a Central Intelligence Agency assessment that said the Iraqi police were well trained. The C.I.A. said its assessment conveyed nothing of the sort.

After Baghdad fell, when a majority of Iraqi police officers abandoned their posts, a second proposal by a Justice Department team calling for 6,600 police trainers was reduced to 1,500, and then never carried out. During the first eight months of the occupation — as crime soared and the insurgency took hold — the United States deployed 50 police advisers in Iraq.

Against the objections of Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, the long-range plan was eventually reduced to 500 trainers. One result was a police captain from North Carolina having 40 Americans to train 20,000 Iraqi police across four provinces in southern Iraq.

Throughout Iraq, Americans were faced with the realization that in trying to rebuild the Iraqi force they were up against the legacy of Saddam Hussein. Not only was the force inept and rife with petty corruption, but in the wake of the invasion the fractious tribal, sectarian and criminal groups were competing to control the police. Yet for much of last year, American trainers were able to regularly monitor fewer than half of the 1,000 police stations in Iraq, where even officers free of corrupting influences lacked basic policing skills like how to fire a weapon or investigate a crime.

While even a viable police force alone could not have stopped the insurgency and lawlessness that eventually engulfed Iraq, officials involved acknowledge that the early, halting effort to rebuild the force was a missed opportunity.

Frank Miller, a former National Security Council official who coordinated the American effort to govern Iraq from 2003 to 2005, conceded in an interview that the administration did not put enough focus on the police.

"More attention should have been paid to the police after the fall of Baghdad," said Mr. Miller, one of the officials who objected to the original proposal to deploy thousands of advisers. "That is obvious. Iraq needed law and order established."

What attempts there were to train the police were marred by poor coordination, civilian and military officials said. During the first two years of the war, three different government groups developed three different plans to train Iraq's police, all without knowing of the existence of the other.

Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner sent to Iraq in 2003 to lead the police mission, said Pentagon officials gave him just 10 days notice and little guidance.

"Looking back, I really don't know what their plan was," Mr. Kerik said. With no experience in Iraq, and little time to get ready, he said he prepared for his job in part by watching A&E Network documentaries on Saddam Hussein.

Field training of the Iraqi police, the most critical element of the effort, was left to DynCorp International, a company based in Irving, Tex., that received $750 million in contracts. The advisers, many of them retired officers from small towns, said they arrived in Iraq and quickly found themselves caught between poorly staffed American government agencies, company officials focused on the bottom line and thousands of Iraqi officers clamoring for help.

When it became clear that the civilian effort by DynCorp was faltering, American military officials took over police training in 2004, relying on heavily armed commando units that had been established by the Iraqis. Within a year, members of the Sunni Muslim population said some units had been infiltrated by Shiite Muslim militias and were kidnapping, torturing and executing scores of Sunni Muslims.

In interviews, White House and Pentagon officials defended their decisions, saying that it would have been impossible to find thousands of qualified trainers willing to go to Iraq and that deploying large numbers of foreign officers would have angered Iraqis and bred passivity.

"Where it was possible to have a light footprint, that was preferable to a heavy-handed approach," the National Security Council said in a written response to questions. "The strategy was to support the Iraqis in every way possible and to enable them to do their jobs, not to take over their jobs."

Administration officials say that the insurgency, more than any other factor, has slowed their progress. While field training has been limited, they point out that most of the 152,000 police officers have attended nine new training academies, some for as long as 10 weeks.

This spring, three years after administration officials rejected the large American-led field training effort, American military commanders are adopting that very approach. Declaring 2006 the year of the police, the Pentagon is dispatching a total of 3,000 American soldiers and DynCorp contractors to train and mentor police recruits and officers across Iraq.

American commanders now see the force, which is to increase to 190,000, as the linchpin of a new strategy to protect the population, secure reconstruction projects and help facilitate the withdrawal of American troops.

But moving ahead is complicated by Iraqi politics. The battle over who would run the Interior Ministry, which commands the country's police, stalled the creation of the new Iraqi government for weeks. Even yesterday, the new government was announced without the post being filled. Iraqi officials said they were determined that the new interior minister be politically independent, free of the taint of death squads, someone who could reassure Iraq's Sunnis that the police are not their enemy.

And conditions on the ground make progress even more difficult.

Col. Muhammad Raghab Fahmy, a police commander in Baghdad, said the police struggled to perform the most basic duties. "They need weapons," he said, and they need to learn "how to use their vehicles, how to operate a checkpoint, writing skills and how to react when being attacked."

The Prewar Plan

In March 2003, three weeks before American forces invaded Iraq, Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, who retired from the Army in 1997, met with senior National Security Council officials to brief them on his plans to manage the country after the overthrow of Mr. Hussein.

Plucked from his civilian job at a defense contracting company six weeks earlier, General Garner, a blunt 64-year-old who led relief operations in northern Iraq after the Persian Gulf war in 1991, was scrambling to put together a staff and a plan to control a fractious nation the size of California.

General Garner and his aides said they believed that a large number of American and European police officers would be needed to train a new Iraqi force and help it police a country they feared could quickly slip into lawlessness.

In the March meeting, General Garner raised an ambitious plan by Richard Mayer, a Justice Department police-training expert on his staff, to send 5,000 American and foreign advisers to Iraq. Mr. Mayer said his detailed, inch-and-a-half-thick plan included organizational tables, budgets and schedules.

The proposal was sweeping but not unprecedented. In Kosovo, one-tenth the size of Iraq, the United Nations fielded about 4,800 police officers. In Bosnia, 2,000 international police officers trained and monitored local forces.

Two lessons had emerged from the Balkans, Mr. Mayer said. "Law and order first," a warning that failing to create an effective police force and judicial system could stall postwar reconstruction efforts. Second, blanketing local police stations with foreign trainers also helped ensure that cadets applied their academy training in the field and helped deter brutality, corruption and infiltration by militias, he said.

General Garner said he and others on his staff also warned administration officials that the Iraqi police, after decades of neglect and corruption, would collapse after the invasion. The police were "at the bottom of the security food chain," General Garner said in an interview. "They didn't train. They didn't patrol."

In February, Robert M. Perito, a policing expert and a former official at the National Security Council and the State and Justice Departments, recommended to the Defense Policy Board that 6,000 American and foreign police officers be dispatched to Iraq. The board advises Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

But at the meeting with N.S.C. officials, General Garner's proposal was met with skepticism by council staff members, who contended that such a large training effort was not needed. One vocal opponent was Mr. Miller.

"He didn't think it was necessary," General Garner said in an interview.

Mr. Miller, who left the government last year, confirmed his opposition. He said the assessment by the C.I.A. led administration officials to believe that Iraq's police were capable of maintaining order. Douglas J. Feith, then the Defense Department's under secretary for policy, said in an interview that the C.I.A.'s prewar assessment deemed Iraq's police professional, an appraisal that events proved "fundamentally wrong."

But Paul Gimigliano, a spokesman for the C.I.A., said the agency's assessment warned otherwise. "We had no reliable information on individual officers or police units," he said. The "C.I.A.'s written assessment did not judge that the Iraqi police could keep order after the war. In fact, the assessment talked in terms of creating a new force."

A copy of the document, which is classified, could not be obtained.

John E. McLaughlin, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2000 to 2004, said intelligence officials made it clear in prewar planning sessions that the police were troubled.

"I left these meetings with a clear understanding that this police force was not one that we could rely on in the sense that we think of a Western police force," Mr. McLaughlin said. "I don't remember the agency, or intelligence more broadly, reassuring people about the police force."


Administration officials also contended that the missions in Bosnia and Kosovo had shown that finding enough trainers would be difficult, Mr. Miller said.

Moreover, the officials said they wanted to minimize the American presence and empower Iraqis. "The strategic thought that we had is that we are going to get into very big trouble in Iraq if we are viewed as our enemies would have us viewed," Mr. Feith said. "As imperialists, as heavy-handed and stealing their resources."

Even before General Garner presented his case, Pentagon officials were criticizing reconstruction efforts known as nation building. In a speech on Feb. 14, 2003, Mr. Rumsfeld warned that international peacekeeping operations could create "a culture of dependence" and that a long-term foreign presence in a country "can be unnatural."

At the White House meeting, Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, said the administration would revisit the issue after Mr. Hussein was removed from power, General Garner said. The meeting then moved on to other issues.

"We settled for, 'Don't make the decision not to do this yet,' " General Garner recalled. "Let us get there and then make the decision on what was needed."

Ms. Rice did not respond to a request for comment.

On March 10, 2003, Mr. Bush approved guidelines for how the United States would govern postwar Iraq, Mr. Miller said. One of them was that only a limited number of American advisers would be sent. They would not have the power to enforce the law. That would be left to the Iraqi police.

A Security Vacuum

As American forces advanced across Iraq in late March and early April of 2003, Iraqi police officers abandoned their posts by the tens of thousands. In the resulting security vacuum, mobs looted and burned police stations and government ministries.

American troops stood by, having received no orders to stop the looting. When General Garner and other American officials arrived in Baghdad, 16 of 23 major government ministries were stripped shells.

General Garner, though, would never have the chance to raise his police training proposal again. Three weeks after arriving in Baghdad, he was replaced by L. Paul Bremer III, a retired career diplomat and counterterrorism expert. Mr. Bremer said he participated in no prewar planning and was never told of General Garner's plan.

"I had only two weeks to get ready for the job," Mr. Bremer said. "I don't remember being specifically briefed on the police."

Two days after Mr. Bremer's appointment, Mr. Kerik, who had never trained police officers outside the United States, received his assignment from the Pentagon. He also said he was never told of General Garner's plan.

When Mr. Bremer landed in Baghdad on May 12, 2003, a month after the city fell, government offices were still burning and looting had not stopped. That night, Mr. Bremer gave his first speech to his staff.

"I put the very first priority on police and law and order," he recalled. "I said we should shoot the looters."

After Mr. Bremer's speech leaked to the press, American military officials promised him an additional 4,000 military policemen in Baghdad.

Three days later, a 25-member Department of Justice assessment team arrived in Baghdad to draw up a plan to rebuild Iraq's police and its court and prison systems.

One team member, Gerald Burke, a 57-year-old retired Massachusetts State Police major, drove onto the grounds of the Baghdad police academy. Thousands of people, some civilian crime victims in search of aid, others police officers in search of orders, besieged a small group of American military policemen.

"We had people drive in with bodies lashed to the hood and lashed to the trunk," Mr. Burke said. "It was the only police facility that was open. People didn't know what to do."

Nationwide, 80 percent of Iraq's police had not returned to duty, the team estimated. Iraqis hailed Mr. Hussein's ouster but bitterly complained that the United States was not doing enough about spiraling crime. A population that had lived in a police state with virtually no street crime for 25 years was dismayed as murder, kidnapping and rape soared.

On May 18, Mr. Kerik arrived in Baghdad and found "nothing, absolutely nothing" in place. "Twelve guys on the ground plus me," he recalled. "That was the new Ministry of Interior."

Mr. Mayer, the author of General Garner's police training plan who worked in the Department of Justice, had fallen ill in the United States, and the Justice Department team was apparently unaware of his prewar plan. Working from scratch, the team pulled together a new plan to train 50,000 to 80,000 members of an Iraqi police force.

"If you took all of the postconflicts from the 1990's and combined them together, it would not equal what you're up against in Iraq," recalled R. Carr Trevillian IV, the senior Justice Department official on the team. "Even if it were a benign environment."

At first, members suggested that Iraqi police recruits receive six months of academy training, the amount trainers settled on in Kosovo. Mr. Kerik said he "started laughing," and calculated that it would take nine years to train the force.

The team reduced academy training to 16 weeks, and eventually 8 weeks. Later, a 2005 State Department audit found that translating classes from English to Arabic ate up 50 percent of training time. With translation, Iraqi recruits received the equivalent of four weeks of training.

To make up for the shortened classes, the Justice Department team proposed a sweeping field training program similar to Mr. Mayer's. The team calculated that more than 20,000 advisers would be needed to create the same ratio of police trainers to recruits in Iraq as existed in Kosovo.

Deeming that figure unrealistic, they recommended placing 6,600 American and foreign trainers in police stations across the country to train Iraqis and, if necessary, enforce the law.

DynCorp, the Texas company that was to provide the trainers, had already located 1,150 active and retired police officers who had expressed interest about serving in Iraq.

Two weeks after the Justice Department team arrived in Baghdad, they submitted their proposal to Mr. Bremer. The administration now had a second plan for training the Iraqi police. On June 2, Mr. Bremer approved it, he and Mr. Kerik said.

A Plan Begins to Unravel

The 6,600 police trainers never showed up.

Over the next six months, just 50 police advisers arrived in Iraq, officials said, even as the widening insurgency was presenting an additional, and much more lethal, set of problems.

Officials at the State and Defense Departments blame one another for the police plan unraveling.

"We and DynCorp were ready to go by June," said a senior State Department official involved in the police training effort who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to comment. "But no money was provided for this purpose."

Mr. Miller, the former National Security Council official, said Mr. Bremer never made the need for field trainers a major issue in Washington.

"If at any point Mr. Bremer had said, 'I just saw a report and I need 6,600,' that would have made this a front burner issue," Mr. Miller said. "I don't recall that as an issue."

Mr. Bremer said he repeatedly pushed for more trainers during the summer of 2003 but was told that no foreign countries were willing to send large numbers of police officers, and that DynCorp was unable to find Americans.

"DynCorp was not producing anybody," Mr. Bremer said. "We were doing the best we could with what we had."

Mr. Kerik and two dozen retired American police officers and other workers, meanwhile, tried to reopen academies and stations, screen thousands of Iraqis claiming to be policemen and choose new police chiefs. Across Baghdad, 2,600 military policemen carried out joint patrols with Iraqis and tried to secure a city twice the size of Chicago.

Outside Baghdad, American military commanders desperate for police support declared local tribal leaders new police chiefs or welcomed repentant former supporters of Mr. Hussein back on the job. Enterprising American soldiers began ad hoc police training programs that varied from three days to three weeks.

Working frantically as insurgent attacks intensified, advisers managed to bring back 40,000 Iraqi police officers nationwide and reopen 35 police stations in Baghdad. But as time passed it became clear that large problems existed with the fledgling Iraqi police force. Insurgents and former criminals were successfully posing as policemen, corruption was rampant and some officials chosen on the fly to be police chiefs were mistrusted by large parts of the population.

By August, the field training plan had shrunk. Mr. Bremer said his staff, frustrated by the inability to get enough manpower, dropped the target number to 3,500 trainers from 6,600. By September, it fell to 1,500.

By the end of the year, the State Department opened a sprawling center in Jordan that would train 25,000 police recruits in the next 12 months, but few field trainers would be in place to monitor them once they took up their posts.

At the same time, no American officials publicly sounded the alarm about the troubled situation. After spending three and a half months in Iraq, Mr. Kerik returned to the United States and praised the police during a news conference with President Bush on the South Lawn of the White House.

"They have made tremendous progress," Mr. Kerik said. "The police are working."

American military officials in Iraq, meanwhile, became frustrated with the slow pace of the civilian-led police effort. In October, American military officials announced that their training programs had produced 54,000 police officers around the country and that they planned to train another 30,000 in 30 days.

Mr. Bremer said he repeatedly complained in National Security Council meetings chaired by Ms. Rice and attended by cabinet secretaries that the quality of police training was poor and focused on producing high numbers.

"They were just pulling kids off the streets and handing them badges and AK-47's," Mr. Bremer said.

As 2003 came to a close, criminals running rampant in Baghdad diminished popular support for the American-led occupation, Mr. Bremer said.

"We were the government of Iraq, and the most fundamental role of any government is law and order," Mr. Bremer said. "The fact that we didn't crack down on it from the very beginning had sent a message to the Iraqis and the insurgents that we were not prepared to enforce law and order."

Mr. Burke, the retired Massachusetts State Police major, said he was impressed by the eagerness of Iraqi police officers to build a professional new force but appalled by the American effort.

"We had such a golden opportunity in the first few months," he said. "These people were so willing. Even the Sunni policemen wanted change."

By January 2004, Mr. Bremer himself viewed the field training program as impractical. With the insurgency in full force, American military officials did not have enough troops to guard civilian trainers posted in isolated police stations, particularly in the volatile Sunni Triangle, he said.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesmen, said it would have been irresponsible to deploy lightly armed American police officers with little combat experience in Iraq.

Mr. Bremer and his staff backed a plan to reduce the number of field trainers to 500 from 1,500, and use the remaining funds to intensively train senior Iraqi police officials.

Mr. Powell and Richard L. Armitage, then the deputy secretary of state, said in e-mail and phone interviews that they both fought the reduction. They argued that the police trainers could still operate in safer areas outside the Sunni Triangle.

They lost the fight in Washington in March 2004. The field training of a new Iraqi police force — at this point some 90,000 officers — was now left to 500 American contractors from DynCorp.

A Contractor Takes Over

When DynCorp trainers landed in Iraq in 2004, they had hopes of being "part of an emerging democracy, part of history," as one of them said.

Those hopes were quickly doused.

A year and a half after the invasion, the police barely functioned. American trainers had to attend to the most elementary needs, like designing forms for crime reports. Reed Schmidt, a police chief from Atwater, Minn., said he was teaching the police in Najaf his two-cop method for pulling a driver over when they told him they preferred their own method — the one that involved two pickup trucks with seven officers in each to surround the car with 14 guns.

When Mr. Schmidt realized that if any of the Iraqi police opened fire they would shoot one another, he said he asked, "Aren't you worried about hitting another officer?"

Mr. Schmidt recalls them replying, "Sometimes that happens."

In northern Iraq, Ann Vernatt, a sheriff's investigator from Eastpointe, Mich., said she and five other trainers checked on 55 stations each month. The hourlong visits left her impressed by the officers' motivation, but dismayed by the bleak conditions.

"They had rusted Kalashnikovs, which they cleaned with gasoline. Most of their weapons did not work. And they got paid very little," she said. "They'd sell their bullets to feed their families."

Several DynCorp employees said their greatest frustration was simply having too many police officers to train.

Jon Villanova, a North Carolina deputy sheriff hired by DynCorp, said he was promoted to manage other trainers in southern Iraq four months into his yearlong stint. Under the plan drawn up by the Justice Department team, he would have commanded a battalion of at least 500 trainers.

What he got instead was a squad of 40 men to train 20,000 Iraqi policemen spread through four provinces. He said he could not even dream of giving them the kind of one-on-one mentoring that American police cadets received. His team struggled merely to visit their stations once a month.

"That hurt," he said in a recent interview at his home in Mebane, N.C. "You need a lot of time to develop relationships and rapport so they trust you and are receptive to what you are trying to teach them."

David Dobrotka, the top civilian overseeing the DynCorp workers, said he did not seek to hire more trainers, even though there were only 500 in Iraq, because some were not even getting out of their camps because of security concerns. "Early in the mission, 500 were too many," he said. "Some were just sitting." DynCorp executives also said that they knew the federal program only allowed for 500 trainers.

In some ways, officials and trainers said, the entire training operation was short on manpower. That was true as well for the officials assigned to oversee DynCorp.

Two government employees and one contractor in Baghdad monitored the performance of the 500 DynCorp police advisers in Iraq, State Department officials said.

Government investigators are examining reports of criminal fraud by DynCorp employees, including the sale of ammunition earmarked for the Iraqi police, said a senior government official who requested anonymity because the investigation is continuing. After one of its subcontractors working at the police training academy in Jordan stole fuel worth $600,000 in 2003, the company failed to install proposed fraud controls, federal auditors said.

Anne W. Patterson, the State Department official who assumed oversight of DynCorp's work in December, said she ordered a "top to bottom" review of all of DynCorp's contracts with the State Department.

DynCorp officials said they fired the employees involved in the fuel theft and reimbursed the government, and put the controls in place. They said the company kept close watch on ammunition.

"We'd be very surprised if any of the U.S. officers we hired to train Iraqis are involved in anything like this," said Greg Lagana, a company spokesman. "If there is an investigation, we'll cooperate vigorously."

Richard Cashon, a DynCorp vice president, said the company billed the government about $50 million a month for its police trainers, including their $134,000-a-year salaries as well as security and other operating costs.

DynCorp officials, who noted that they never received field reports from their trainers, said they were not to blame for the inadequacies in police training.

"We are not judged on the success or failure of the program as they established it," Mr. Cashon said. "We are judged on our ability to provide qualified personnel."

Whatever impact the police training program was having on law enforcement was being weakened by the toll the insurgency was taking on the police. Increasingly, police officers and recruits were targets of violence. From September 2004 through April this year, 2,842 police officers were killed and 5,812 were injured, according to American records, which are not available for the first 17 months of the war. Twenty DynCorp employees involved in police training have also been killed.

By December 2004, there were also signs that the police were being drawn into the evolving sectarian battles. Senior officers in the police department in the southern city of Basra were implicated in the killings of 10 members of the Baath Party, and of a mother and daughter accused of prostitution, according to a State Department report.

By then there was a growing sense among American officials that the civilian training program was not working, and the United States military came up with its own plan. It was the Americans' third strategy for training the Iraqi police, and it would run into the worst problems of all. Basra was just the beginning.

Max Becherer contributed reporting from Baghdad, Iraq, for this article, and Christopher Drew from New York.

    Misjudgments Marred U.S. Plans for Iraqi Police, NYT, 21.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/world/middleeast/21security.html?hp&ex=1148270400&en=c361b73f04b294a5&ei=5094&partner=homepage

As Death Stalks Iraq, Middle-Class Exodus Begins

May 19, 2006
The New York Times
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 18 — Deaths run like water through the life of the Bahjat family. Four neighbors. A barber. Three grocers. Two men who ran a currency exchange shop.

But when six armed men stormed into their sons' primary school this month, shot a guard dead, and left fliers ordering it to close, Assad Bahjat knew it was time to leave.

"The main thing now is to just get out of Iraq," said Mr. Bahjat, standing in a room heaped with suitcases and bedroom furniture in eastern Baghdad.

In the latest indication of the crushing hardships weighing on the lives of Iraqis, increasing portions of the middle class seem to be doing everything they can to leave the country. In the last 10 months, the state has issued new passports to 1.85 million Iraqis, 7 percent of the population and a quarter of the country's estimated middle class.

The school system offers another clue: Since 2004, the Ministry of Education has issued 39,554 letters permitting parents to take their children's academic records abroad. The number of such letters issued in 2005 was double that in 2004, according to the director of the ministry's examination department. Iraqi officials and international organizations put the number of Iraqis in Jordan at close to a million. Syrian cities also have growing Iraqi populations.

Since the bombing of a shrine in Samarra in February touched off a sectarian rampage, crime and killing have spread further through Iraqi society, paralyzing neighborhoods and smashing families. Now, on the brink of a new, permanent government, Iraqis are expressing the darkest view of their future in three years. "We're like sheep at a slaughter farm," said a businessman, who is arranging a move to Jordan. "We are just waiting for our time." The Samarra bombing produced a new kind of sectarian violence. Gangs of Shiites in Baghdad pulled Sunni Arabs out of houses and mosques and killed them in a spree that prompted retaliatory attacks and displaced 14,500 families in three months, according to the Ministry for Migration.

Most frightening, many middle-class Iraqis say, was how little the government did to stop the violence. That failure boded ominously for the future, leaving them feeling that the government was incapable of protecting them and more darkly, that perhaps it helped in the killing. Shiite-dominated government forces have been accused of carrying out sectarian killings.

"Now I am isolated," said Monkath Abdul Razzaq, a middle-class Sunni Arab, who decided to leave after the bombing. "I have no government. I have no protection from the government. Anyone can come to my house, take me, kill me and throw me in the trash."

Traces of the leaving are sprinkled throughout daily life. Mr. Abdul Razzaq, who will move his family to Syria next month, where he has already rented an apartment, said a fistfight broke out while he waited for five hours in a packed passport office to fill out applications for his two young sons. In Salheyah, a commercial district in central Baghdad, bus companies that specialize in Syria and Jordan say ticket sales have surged.

Karim al-Ani, the owner of one of the firms, Tiger Company, said a busy day last year used to be three buses, but in recent months it comes close to 10. "Before it was more tourists," he said. "Now we are taking everything, even furniture."

The impact can be seen in neighborhoods here. While much of the city bustles during daytime hours, the more war-torn areas, like in the south and in Ameriya, Ghazaliya, and Khadra in the west, are eerily empty at midday. On Mr. Bahjat's block in Dawra, only about 5 houses out of 40 remain occupied. Empty houses in the area are scrawled with the words "Omar Brigade," a Sunni group that kills Shiites.

Residents have been known to protest, at least on paper. In an act of helpless fury this winter, a large banner hung across a house in Dawra that read, "Do God and Islam agree that I should leave my house to live in a camp with my five children and wife?"

"Shadows," said Eileen Bahjat, Mr. Bahjat's wife, standing with her two sons and describing what is left in the neighborhood. "Shadows and killing."

In Dawra, one of the worst areas in all of Baghdad, public life has ground to a halt. Four teachers have been killed in the past 10 days in Mr. Bahjat's area alone, and the Ahmed al-Waily primary school where the Bahjat boys, ages 12 and 8, studied, may not be able to hold final exams because of the killings. And three teachers from the Batoul secondary school were shot in late April.

Trash is collected only sporadically. On April 3, insurgents shot seven garbage collectors to death near their truck, and their bodies lay in the area for eight hours before the authorities could collect them, said Naeem al-Kaabi, deputy mayor for municipal affairs in Baghdad. In all, 312 trash workers have been killed in Baghdad in the past six months.

"Sunnis, Shiites, Christians," said Mr. Bahjat, a Christian who this month moved his family to New Baghdad, an eastern suburb, to live with a relative, before leaving for Syria. "They just want to empty this place of all people."

"We must start from zero," he said. "Maybe under zero. But there is no other choice. Even with more time, the security will not improve."

It is more than just the killing that has sapped hope for the future. Iraqis have waited for five months for a permanent government, after voting in a national election in December, and though political leaders are on the brink of announcing it, some Iraqis say the amount of haggling it took to form it makes them skeptical that it will be able to solve bigger problems.

Abd al-Kareem al-Mahamedawy, a tribal sheik from Amara in southern Iraq who fought for years against Saddam Hussein, compared the process to "giving birth to a deformed child."

As if to underscore the point, a scene of sorrow unfolded just outside Mr. Mahamedawy's gate, where an extended family gathered, full of nervous movement, and absorbed the news of the strangling death of their 13-year-old boy by kidnappers. A woman brought her hands to her head in the timeworn motion of mourning.

Even with the resolve to leave, many departing Iraqis said they consider the move only temporary and hope to return if Iraq's fractious groups are united and stem the tide of the killings.

Cars and furniture are sold, but those who can afford it, like the Abdul Razzaq family, hang on to their properties. In Khadra in western Baghdad, Nesma Abdul Razzaq, Mr. Abdul Razzaq's wife, has spent the past months carefully wrapping their photographs, vases and furniture in cloth and packing them in boxes. She spoke of the sadness of the empty rooms and the pain of having to build a new life in a strange place.

"I have a rage inside myself," Mrs. Abdul Razzaq said by telephone, as her area, since last autumn, has become unsafe for a Western reporter to visit. "I feel desperate."

"I don't want to leave Iraq. But I have to for the kids. They have seen enough."

In a quiet block in Mansour, a wealthy neighborhood in central Baghdad, where stately, gated homes are lined with pruned hedges, the Kubba family spends most of its time indoors. They have hung onto their lifestyle: three of their children study violin, flute, and ballet in an arts school outside the neighborhood despite encroaching violence.

Last fall, a foul smell led neighbors to the bodies of seven family members in a house several doors down from the Kubbas. They had been robbed. Fehed Kubba, 15, went to buy bread last year and saw a crowd near the bakery that he assumed was watching a backgammon game. When he pushed in to look, he saw a man who had just been shot to death.

But it was the increasingly sectarian nature of the violence, deeply painful to Iraqis who are proud of their intermarried heritage, that tipped the scales as Falah Kubba and his wife, Samira, considered leaving with Fehed, Roula, 13, and Heya, 12.

"The past few months convinced us," said Mr. Kubba, a businessman whose wife is Sunni. "Now they are killing by ID's. The killing around Americans was something different, but the ID's, you can't move around on the streets."

"At the beginning we said, 'Let's wait, maybe it will be better tomorrow,' " Mr. Kubba said.

"Now I know it is time to go."

Mona Mahmoud, Sahar Nageeb and Qais Mizher contributed reporting for this article.

    As Death Stalks Iraq, Middle-Class Exodus Begins, NYT, 19.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/world/middleeast/19migration.html?hp&ex=1148097600&en=27cafcfc5a99f506&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Inquiry Implies Civilian Deaths in Iraq Topped Initial Report

May 19, 2006
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, May 18 — An official military investigation into allegations that American marines killed innocent Iraqis last November has uncovered evidence that the number of dead civilians is higher than the 15 originally reported, Congressional and Defense Department officials said.

The inquiry, which Pentagon officials said was still weeks from completion, has already raised fundamental questions about the propriety of actions by the troops, one Defense Department official said. But the official said that a characterization this week by a member of Congress that the Iraqis had been killed "in cold blood" was an extreme description of the incident.

In the incident, marines patrolling Haditha, in western Iraq, in November opened fire after being hit by a roadside bomb and coming under small-arms fire from a nearby house, the military says. One marine was reported killed by the bomb.

But details of the incident went unreported until March, when Time magazine said Iraqi human rights advocates had accused the marines of killing civilians and after the military had opened an inquiry and admitted that 15 Iraqi civilians had been killed in the cross-fire.

Another Pentagon official said Thursday that the marines had come under fire but that evidence gathered so far indicated the hostile fire had not come from the house where the civilians were killed. Defense Department officials had to be promised anonymity to discuss the case because of the continuing inquiry.

On Wednesday, Representative John P. Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, talked about the investigation at a news conference on Capitol Hill. "Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood," he said. "And that's what the report is going to tell."

He said he had not read the official findings of the inquiry, but had been told about them by officers he identified as commanders.

Mr. Murtha said the number of Iraqi civilians killed was about twice the initial report of 15. Defense Department officials said Thursday that evidence indicated that more than 15 had been killed, but that the inquiry had not confirmed his estimate of double that number.

A leading Congressional critic of the Iraq war, Mr. Murtha served in Vietnam in the Marine Corps and was known as a hawk on military issues before becoming a leader of Democratic Party efforts to withdraw American troops from Iraq.

"Now, you can imagine the impact this is going to have on those troops for the rest of their lives and for the United States in our war and our effort in trying to win the hearts and minds," Mr. Murtha said. "We can't sustain this operation."

A spokesman for Marine forces in the Middle East, Lt. Col. Sean D. Gibson, said Wednesday that he could not comment on the substance of Mr. Murtha's statements because the inquiry was not complete.

    Inquiry Implies Civilian Deaths in Iraq Topped Initial Report, NYT, 19.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/world/middleeast/19haditha.html

Despite Political Pressure to Scale Back, Logistics Are Pinning Down U.S. in Iraq

May 14, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID S. CLOUD and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, May 13 — Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld regularly says he wants major troop withdrawals from Iraq, if possible this year. But he rarely mentions the daunting challenges beyond the volatile security situation that are preventing a rapid withdrawal.

Discussions of when, how fast and how far to draw down American troops in Iraq will no doubt be influenced by the domestic political mood, with Congressional elections approaching in November. Yet those pushing for significant withdrawals will run into an undeniable law of military operations: the American combat troops who remain in Iraq, and the growing number of Iraqi security forces, will still require substantial numbers of supporting American forces to remain, too, to supply food, fuel and ammunition and otherwise support combat operations.

As the Bush administration considers how and when to draw down the nearly 133,000 American troops still in Iraq, those logistical factors, among many other pressures and counterpressures, will weigh heavily toward keeping a sizable force there, delivering supplies, gathering and analyzing intelligence and providing air support to Iraqi security forces.

President Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld have always insisted that decisions on withdrawals will be based on the security situation in Iraq and the readiness of the new Iraqi Army, and that they will be made only after recommendations from senior commanders, including General George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq, and General John P. Abizaid, the overall American commander in the region.

Senior officers are aware of the growing political pressure on the Bush administration to carry out withdrawals. Many are sympathetic with the goal, worried that the demands of keeping many more than 100,000 troops in Iraq for several more years could do long-term harm to the military and holding out hope that a permanent Iraqi government would do much to stabilize the country.

But despite the political pressures, and despite the argument by senior officials like Mr. Rumsfeld and General Abizaid that a large American presence may actually be fueling the insurgency, commanders are discussing whether the volatile security situation would allow any significant withdrawals at all in the short term, according to interviews with Pentagon officials and officers in Iraq in recent weeks.

Indeed, a trend of American troops pulling back to their bases and letting Iraqi troops take the lead has had to be scaled back, and the Americans have had to resume more active operations to help stop the widespread sectarian violence that has killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians in the past few months, a senior officer said. At the same time, attacks on American troops in March and April were at their highest point since last fall.

"General Casey is feeling the pressure. He knows how hard this is on the Army, but he's getting pulled in two directions," said a general who recently served in Iraq. Like some other officers and officials interviewed for this article, he was granted anonymity because he said he had been ordered not to discuss troop levels. Lt. Gen. Robert Fry, a British Royal Marine and the deputy ground commander in Iraq, said that insurgents have increased their attacks in an attempt to disrupt formation of a permanent Iraqi government for fear it could attract widespread support among Iraqis.

"We are about to enter a phase here which is likely to be decisive in terms of the political transformation of this country," he told Pentagon reporters in a video briefing from Iraq on Friday. "The opposition knows this just as well as we do."

For that reason, the next few months is the wrong time for a reduction in American combat troops, some officers say.

Despite that evaluation, political pressures appear to have had some effect on the number of troops available to fight the insurgency, commanders say.

The Pentagon recently announced that an armored brigade would not, at least not immediately, deploy to Iraq, a decision that one senior officer said was unpopular with some commanders below General Casey's level.

"Not enough troops on the ground keeps us pinned down in one place, only holding terrain or jumping from fire to fire," the officer said. "But with midterm elections coming up no one wants it to seem like we're amassing soldiers when everyone has been told we're drawing down troops."

The decision to delay deployment of a brigade means fewer troops will be available to plug holes in places like Ramadi, a violence-ridden city west of Baghdad. There, American and Iraqi troops are in almost daily combat, and insurgents have been carrying out a "very effective murder and intimidation campaign" against residents who help American or Iraqi authorities, said Maj. Gen. Richard C. Zilmer of the Marines.

One of General Zilmer's infantry brigades, now stationed in Ramadi, is scheduled to rotate home next month, but he said he still had not been assigned another unit to replace the roughly 3,500 departing soldiers.

Such decisions are usually made months in advance, but with the Pentagon announcement that the brigade scheduled to arrive next month had been halted, American troops in the country will likely have to be shifted from another region in Iraq. Another brigade, equipped with Stryker armored vehicles, that is scheduled to arrive in late summer could also be sent early, two Army officers said.

The 15 combat brigades now in Iraq total roughly 60,000 combat troops. The rest of the American soldiers there deliver supplies, gather intelligence, staff headquarters, fly helicopters and other jobs. Thousands also assist in training and supplying Iraqi units, though all can find themselves in combat because of the unconventional nature of the conflict.

It takes anywhere from three to five soldiers to support every combat soldier, and some of the support mission for American troops in Iraq is based elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region. But a senior Army planner at the Pentagon said that in Iraq, even a sharp initial reduction in combat units would not immediately bring a corresponding reduction in support troops.

Soldiers who remain will still require all the services that the larger force did, and Iraqi troops will rely on Americans for many tasks for the foreseeable future, like air support. "Even though the brigade combat teams may roll back in number, the obligation to support U.S. and Iraqi forces remains, and that's a bill that most people don't really focus on," the senior Army planner said.

In the longer term, reducing the American presence too quickly could threaten Iraq's ability to build a military capable of standing up to the insurgency and keeping its soldiers supplied and paid, officers said.

One of the most detailed assessments available in the public domain came in a report filed by Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired Army commander, who teaches international affairs at West Point and spent a week in the region last month interviewing senior American and Iraqi officers.

"We need at least two to five more years of U.S. partnership and combat backup to get the Iraqi Army ready to stand on its own," General McCaffrey wrote in a seven-page memorandum that circulated widely within the military after his return.

"The Iraqi Army is real, growing, and willing to fight," he said. But he cautioned that "they are very badly equipped, with only a few light vehicles, small arms, most with body armor and one or two uniforms. They have almost no mortars, heavy machine guns, decent communications equipment, artillery, armor" or any air cargo transport, helicopter troop carriers or strike aircraft in their own inventory.

As for the ability of the Iraqi security forces to provide indigenous combat support or service support, he wrote, "Their logistics capability is only now beginning to appear."

Maj. Gen. Thomas R. Turner II, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, is the senior American commander for security across the northern part of the country, an area where Iraqi security forces have made steady gains.

In assessing the ability of the Iraqi military to take over the security mission, he said, "The major inhibitor to independent operations is lack of equipment, manpower, their inability to sustain themselves and a lack of systems or policies in place to manage the organization."

    Despite Political Pressure to Scale Back, Logistics Are Pinning Down U.S. in Iraq, NYT, 14.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/world/middleeast/14troops.html

At Falwell's University, McCain Defends Iraq War

May 14, 2006
The New York Times
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

LYNCHBURG, Va., May 13 — With the Rev. Jerry Falwell at his side, Senator John McCain offered a spirited defense of the Iraq war on Saturday, telling graduating students at Liberty University that victory there was crucial to world security. But Mr. McCain urged opponents of the war to vigorously "state their opposition" in the interest of critical debate on this increasingly unpopular conflict.

"If an American feels the decision was unwise, then they should state their opposition and argue for another course — it is your right and obligation," Mr. McCain said, adding, "But I ask that you consider the possibility that I, too, am trying to meet my responsibilities, to follow my conscience, to do my duty as best as I can, as God has given me light to see that duty."

Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican and a likely presidential candidate in 2008, made his remarks to 2,500 graduates in a high-profile appearance at the university, which was founded by Mr. Falwell, a conservative religious leader whom he once described as an agent of "intolerance" and a threat to the Republican Party.

The appearance came as Mr. McCain — trying to establish an early dominance in the Republican presidential nomination battle — has sought to ease tensions with Republican conservatives who have long been suspicious of his commitment to conservative ideals, a perception that was stirred by his difficult history with Mr. Falwell.

Though the two men shared a stage here on Saturday, greeting each other warmly and drawing applause from the festive audience, Mr. McCain made only a brief mention of Mr. Falwell in his 28-minute speech. And Mr. McCain, who is normally eager to talk to reporters, left immediately after finishing his speech and before Mr. Falwell offered his greeting to graduates. Mr. McCain's aides said that he had to catch a plane for a speech later Saturday to the Utah Republican Party.

Nearly 50 reporters came here to cover Mr. McCain's remarks, a showing that university officials described as huge for a commencement address in this remote central Virginia town.

Mr. McCain is also the scheduled speaker at the graduation on Friday at the New School in New York. He intends to deliver the same remarks, his aides said, with the expectation that they may draw a less-than-enthusiastic reaction there, given that school's liberal nature. His planned appearance has caused an uproar among students and faculty because of his conservative positions on issues like Iraq.

At a time when polls show public support for the war falling, and with calls on Capitol Hill for the United States to figure out a way to withdraw, Mr. McCain argued for staying in Iraq, even as he acknowledged the toll it had taken on the nation.

"Americans should argue about this war," he said. "It has cost the lives of nearly 2,500 of the best of us. It has taken innocent life. It has imposed an enormous financial burden on our economy."

But he said he had not varied in his own support.

"I stand that ground not to chase vainglorious dreams of empire; not for a noxious sense of racial superiority over a subject people; not for cheap oil," he said. "I stand that ground because I believed, rightly or wrongly, that my country's interests and values required it."

Notably, Mr. McCain made no mention of his conservative positions on social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.

Mr. McCain's speech offered pleas for civility to an increasingly divided nation.

"Ours is a noisy, contentious society, and always has been, for we love our liberties much," he said. "And among those liberties we love most, particularly so when we are young, is our right to self-expression. That passion for self-expression sometimes overwhelms our civility, and our presumption that those with whom we have strong disagreements, wrong as they might be, believe that they, too, are answering the demands of their conscience."

Referring to his own brash political ways as a younger man, he said: "It's a pity there wasn't a blogosphere then. I would have felt much at home in the medium."

    At Falwell's University, McCain Defends Iraq War, NYT, 14.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/washington/14mccain.html

Army Concerned About HBO War Film

May 14, 2006
The New York Times
By EDWARD WYATT

Senior Army officials have scaled back their planned participation in an advance screening of a documentary about an Army Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad out of concern that its grim medical scenes could demoralize soldiers and their families and negatively affect public opinion about the war, Army officials said Friday.

Two senior Army officers, who were granted anonymity to publicly discuss the private deliberations of Army leaders, said the secretary of the Army, Francis J. Harvey, had declined to attend the screening by HBO, scheduled for Monday night at the National Museum of American History in Washington.

High-ranking military officers, including Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, who is the Army chief of staff, and Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, the surgeon general of the Army, had been expected to attend the screening but now will not, people involved in preparations for the event said.

The documentary, titled "Baghdad ER," chronicles two months at the 86th Combat Support Hospital, where filmmakers were given broad access to follow doctors, nurses, medics and others as they treated soldiers wounded by roadside bombs and in combat. As one nurse, Specialist Saidet Lanier, says in the film: "This is hard-core, raw, uncut trauma. Day after day, every day."

The Army officials said that concerns about the documentary — which includes footage of an amputation and of wounded soldiers undergoing surgery and, in some cases, dying — were also raised by the wives of top Army officers who had seen the film.

"Given the subject matter, it's not something you're going to cheer at the end," said one senior Army official.

Richard L. Plepler, an executive vice president at HBO, said the screening would take place as planned on Monday, but he said he expected far fewer people to attend than the 300 or so that Army officials told him to expect after an initial screening at the Pentagon.

"We had discussed a larger degree of participation from senior members of the Army when we first visited the Pentagon in March," Mr. Plepler said. "One retired general who was there told us the film 'captured the soul of the United States Army.' Therefore, we're a little surprised by the change in plans."

Paul Boyce, a public affairs specialist at the Pentagon, said the screening on Monday was planned as a tribute to the medical personnel featured in the film and did not require the participation of senior Army officials.

Several doctors featured in the film are planning to attend the screening, Mr. Boyce said.

A screening has also been scheduled at Fort Campbell, Ky., where the 86th Combat Support Hospital is based, and the documentary has been sent to medical teams at about 20 other bases for screenings.

The film, directed by Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill, will be shown May 21 on HBO.

HBO has been promoting the documentary as a tribute to the heroism of the soldiers and medical personnel who are shown working under severe stress. But the producers acknowledge that its harrowing scenes could be interpreted differently.

"Anything showing the grim realities of war is, in a sense, antiwar," said Sheila Nevins, president of HBO's documentary and family unit. "In that way, the film is a sort of Rorschach test. You see in it what you bring to it."

David S. Cloud and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting for this article.

    Army Concerned About HBO War Film, NYT, 14.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/us/14hbo.html

In a Dispute, Army Cancels Rebuilding Contract in Iraq

May 13, 2006
The New York Times
By JAMES GLANZ and DAVID ROHDE

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 12 — The Army Corps of Engineers said Friday that it had canceled the work remaining on a $70 million project to refurbish 20 hospitals in Iraq, deepening a dispute with one of the largest American contractors operating here and seriously threatening an ambitious United States-led effort to improve Iraqi health care.

Brig. Gen. William H. McCoy Jr., commander of the corps division that administers the projects, said the cancellation would affect mainly work on eight hospitals that he said the contractor, Parsons, had not completed on time, adding that Iraqi companies would be used to finish those jobs. He said Parsons had finished most or all of the work on 12 of the hospitals.

The move follows by less than two weeks a federal audit of work by Parsons on a $243 million program to build health care clinics around Iraq that found that just 20 of the original 150 clinics would be completed without new financing.

Together, the programs constitute the most important American effort to improve Iraq's dilapidated health care system, and are widely regarded as crucial to showing ordinary Iraqis that the invasion has improved their lives.

General McCoy had disputed many of the findings in the audit, which laid much of the blame for poor workmanship and cost overruns on the clinics to lax oversight by the corps.

On Friday, the general said in an interview that while he did not think all the problems with the hospitals were the fault of the contractor, Parsons, he had no choice but to act. "I'm not trying to deflect blame here; I'm responsible for construction in Iraq," he said. "But this contractor was not performing, and we took aggressive action."

The abrupt cancellation of the hospital project appeared to stun company officials, who said the corps had done nothing after receiving repeated warnings that money was running low and that serious missteps by corps managers had undermined certain projects. The audit on the clinics, which was carried out by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, found that the corps had made similar mistakes in that case.

The Parsons officials cited one case in April when, they said, frustrated doctors wanted to move into a new residence hall that Parsons had completed next to a maternity hospital in Najaf, but could not open it until corps inspectors approved the work. When inspectors did not arrive, the doctors finally stormed the building, breaking locks and overrunning guards, the officials said, showing pictures of what they said was the incident.

Among the other challenges that the company faced, it said, was a strangely structured agreement with the corps that paid construction costs from one contract and administrative costs — things like living quarters, security and the salaries of Parsons managers in Iraq — from a separate contract.

For the full range of the Parsons work on clinics, hospitals and a few related things like Iraqi ministry buildings, the costs on the administrative contract alone have risen above $100 million, the company said. With the delays in completing the hospitals, the corps says, those costs have risen too far.

For its part, the company says that it was clear about what the job would cost, but that the corps did not provide the necessary support to finish the work.

"There have been many reasons for delay," said Earnest Robbins, a senior vice president at Parsons, citing a proliferation of government contracting entities in Iraq, rapid turnover in the corps staff and difficulties in dealing with Iraqi ministry officials. But among the main problems, Mr. Robbins said, was that "we were never funded to provide the level of management, of oversight, that we told the government it would take to complete those projects."

The residence hall was not the only work scheduled at the Najaf maternity hospital, which is one of the eight that will not be completed under the Parsons contract. Two other maternity hospitals in the south, in Nasiriya and Hilla, also will not be finished, along with three hospitals in Baghdad, one north of the capital and one in Ramadi.

Among them, those hospitals contain 2,125 beds, the company said. Although Parsons and the corps disagree on how much of the work has already been completed in those hospitals, both say that all of them are at least 60 percent finished.

The construction work has been carried out with Iraqi subcontractors, several of which Parsons said had been difficult to manage. But the corps said it planned to take the extraordinary step of finishing the job by hiring many of the same subcontractors that Parsons had been working with already — in effect, cutting out the middleman.

"In all cases, from our point of view, these contractors have the capacity to do the job," General McCoy said.

Many of the projects in the hospitals involve interior renovations and some new construction. But the original contract for all 20 hospitals also called for 57 elevators, 19 water purifiers and 19 incinerators for burning medical waste. Most of the equipment installation has been completed, the company said.

To date, there has been no comprehensive audit of the hospital program, as there has been of the clinics.

But last year an Iraqi reporter and producer, Ali Fadhil, visited one of the original 20 hospitals in Diwaniya, in the south, as the refurbishment was nearing completion and shot film of the site. Some of it was used in "Iraq's Missing Billions," a British documentary, and shows things like an open manhole leaking sewage in the garden of the hospital and sewage backed up in the hospital kitchen.

Mr. Fadhil said in an interview that he could smell raw sewage in the changing room for one operating room.

Mr. Fadhil said he saw shoddy work in other parts of the hospital, including new light fittings that had melted and pipes that had not been connected. Inside another operating room, floor tiles had not been properly glued down and ants were crawling around.

Parsons officials conceded difficulties with the project, which was later completed, but said the problems stemmed mainly from delays by corps inspectors and interference by the Iraqi Ministry of Health, which constantly demanded new work. During the delays, Iraqis began using the hospital and clogged the sewage system by using it to dispose of solid trash, like bags of used syringes, that it was not meant to carry, the officials said. "The sewage system was not designed as a garbage dump," a Parsons official said.

Mr. Fadhil said that the Iraqi subcontractor working with Parsons made similar claims, but that it appeared that most of the problems had been caused by the use of poor quality materials. "I had a hope that the American presence, that they would do something good for us," he said. "The opposite happened."

This week Parsons officials produced photographs of waiting rooms and other areas that seemed to be clear of damage.

As word of the cancellation of the hospital contract began making its way around Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, Stuart W. Bowen Jr., who heads the office of the Special Inspector General, said that the Parsons work had caught his attention. "The more I look and hear about different issues, the more I'm interested in taking a wider look at their activities," he said.

James Glanz reported from Baghdad for this article, and David Rohde from New York.

    In a Dispute, Army Cancels Rebuilding Contract in Iraq, NYT, 13.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/13/world/middleeast/13reconstruct.html

Grief Compels Marine's Dad to Support War

May 13, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:02 a.m. ET
The New York Times

FAIRFIELD, Ohio (AP) -- A soft-spoken suburban real-estate broker, John Prazynski didn't consider himself political and never expected to become a public figure, much less a pro-war activist. But in the year since his son Taylor, a Marine, died in Iraq, Prazynski has devoted much of his time to supporting the troops through fundraisers, two trips to Camp Lejeune, N.C., and interviews backing the war effort.

''I could easily have gone the other way,'' Prazynski said. He says his activism is a tribute to his son, trying to ''make something positive happen out of something so negative. That's what Taylor would want us to do.''

Marine Lance Cpl. Taylor Prazynski, 20, died May 9, 2005, of shrapnel wounds from a mortar shell that exploded near him during combat in Anbar Province. In his last phone calls, the fun-loving, popular man who had spent much of his senior year of high school helping special-needs students told his father he wanted to become a special education teacher.

Since his son's death, Prazynski, 43, has been interviewed repeatedly about the war while organizing a series of 5-kilometer runs and motorcycle rides to raise money for scholarships for students who attend his son's high school.

''I do this to keep Taylor's memory alive,'' Prazynski said.

On opening day of the baseball season in Cincinnati, he joined President Bush and two wounded soldiers on the field in pregame ceremonies. Prazynski said he wanted to thank Bush for his support ''and give him two thumbs up with his positive stance on security, military and veterans' issues.''

The former Air Force tech school instructor shares the pain -- but not the viewpoint -- of Cindy Sheehan, who became a high-profile war protester after her son Casey was killed in Iraq in April 2004.

''She's grieving, as we are,'' Prazynski said. ''She's chosen to direct her energies in a different direction. I say God bless her.

''My son died for the Constitution that allows her to do what she's doing. Her son died, and God bless him, too, to support and defend the Constitution that gives her the right to speak freely, and I'm all for that right.

''I just don't think that I clearly understand what her agenda is.''

Sheehan, who helped found Gold Star Families for Peace, has called for the impeachment of Bush, whom she says duped America into invading Iraq.

Prazynski understands the constant hurt of losing a child, and why such a loss has turned some grieving parents against the war. Even now, he said, ''Every day is painful.''

The father searched the Internet and found several groups he felt he could support, but chose Impact Player Partners because it was based in nearby Cincinnati. The nonprofit group, an advocate for wounded and disabled veterans, invited Prazynski to take part in the opening day presentation with Bush.

Prazynski also works with the Washington-based Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors and hopes to raise donations for its activities by running in the Marine Corps Marathon in October.

''We're so grateful for his participation,'' said TAPS founder Bonnie Carroll. ''It's an incredible opportunity to honor and help all those who are grieving the loss of a loved one.''

Prazynski's last trip to Camp Lejeune -- some 700 miles on a motorcycle -- was another step.

''That's part of the healing process, to meet parents of other Marines and soldiers who died and just be able to talk to them,'' he said.

On his way home, Prazynski made a spur-of-the-moment 300-mile side trip.

''I went up to Arlington (National Cemetery) and visited Taylor's grave, and the other Cincinnati fallen heroes and the other men he served with. That's part, I guess, of how I deal with things,'' he said.

''I spent most of Saturday afternoon in Arlington. It's just peaceful; I could probably sit there for days, seriously.''

------

On the Net:

Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors: http://www.taps.org

Impact Player Partners: http://www.impactahero.org

Gold Star Families for Peace: http://www.gsfp.org

    Grief Compels Marine's Dad to Support War, YT, 13.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Marines-Dad.html

Sympathy Flows at Soldier's Funeral in Queens

May 11, 2006
The New York Times
By MICHELLE O'DONNELL

At Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church in Corona, Queens, Mary, the mother of God, weeps at the feet of her son in the mural over the altar. Yesterday, Maria, the mother of Sgt. Jose Gomez of the United States Army, wept from her seat in the first pew.

"You, more than anyone, understand the pain of the mother of Christ," the Rev. Thomas Healy said in Spanish to Maria Gomez, whose slender shoulders slumped into the Army officer seated to her right as her husband, Felix Jimenez, wrapped an arm around her. "We are all with you in your pain."

But she was really alone and she seemed to know it, weeping and staring blankly at her son's coffin in the center aisle. She had brought him to the United States from the Dominican Republic when he was 3. Twenty years later, on April 20, he was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, during a second tour of duty there.

His death came 31 months after his fiancée, Analaura Esparza-Gutierrez, 21, an Army private from Houston, was also killed by a roadside bombing in Tikrit, Iraq. Three springs ago, Sergeant Gomez had proposed to her. Now both were gone.

Yesterday, church and state rose up, each in its ritualistic glory, to honor the brief life and sudden death of Sergeant Gomez. Father Healy tenderly anointed his coffin with incense, and gave the young man his final blessings. The ladies of Corona — some in veils — filled the pews. Army officers flanked the right side of the church, and a two-star general presented Mrs. Gomez with the purple star and bronze star that President Bush had authorized her son to receive.

Yet it all seemed to do little to lessen the grief of Mrs. Gomez, who appeared to grow smaller as those by her side supported her.

The loss of Sergeant Gomez hit her especially hard because he had always strived to take care of his mother. He was saving to buy her a house. He had called home on April 19, the day before he died, to have flowers sent to her for Mother's Day.

And he had invented a tale that he was working and studying in Texas to hide the fact that he had been ordered to serve a second tour in Iraq, where the danger had been driven home by Private Esparza-Gutierrez's death.

Father Healy told Sergeant Gomez's family to persevere. His new fiancée, Marie Canario, dabbed her eyes with a sodden tissue.

"Remember Jesus' words," Father Healy said in Spanish and English. "There is no greater love than to give your life for your friends."

Maj. Gen. Bill Grisoli spoke. He called Sergeant Gomez a hero. He read a letter from an officer who wrote how, on April 20, after another Army vehicle was damaged by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, Sergeant Gomez and Staff Sgt. Bryant A. Herlem, 37, had moved their vehicle forward.

"It was in the act of protecting their friends that the second blast occurred," General Grisoli said.

Mrs. Gomez bore it all quietly. All Jose had wanted, she said in an interview last week, was to study mathematics and become an accountant. Raised in Corona, amid a warren of brick and clapboard delis, barbershops and bodegas, Jose quickly learned one uncompromising sum: his family's bank accounts could never support his schooling.

"We're poor," Mrs. Gomez had said. She works packaging air fresheners in a factory, and her husband, Mr. Jimenez, is a truck driver. "And if you go in the Army to get your degree, well that used to work out."

For most of the funeral, Mrs. Gomez kept her head bowed.

The funeral ended, and Sergeant Gomez's final trip through Queens began. His hearse slipped past the El Nuevo Amanecer restaurant, the Valdez Deli, the mural of the unfurled American flag painted on the side of a building.

Then it was into East Elmhurst, where children played at recess on a rooftop along Astoria Boulevard, and a small jet wobbled its descent to La Guardia Airport. At St. Michael's Cemetery along the Grand Central Parkway, a leader led mourners down the wrong path. They scurried around the cemetery until they found Sergeant Gomez's coffin.

It lay on a small hill covered with green burlap. Mrs. Gomez and Ms. Canario sat weeping as a man in an orange shirt led a prayer. Mr. Jimenez wiped his face. The twin wails of mother and fiancée rose above the din of traffic in an inconsolable dirge.

Mrs. Gomez was supported to the side of the coffin.

"Mi Jose! Mi Jose! Mi hijo!" she wailed. "O Dios!"

She sobbed, and added, moaning in Spanish, "Why did it have to be my son?"

At the church, Father Healy said he was concerned about Mrs. Gomez. He stood near the altar, below a statue of the Virgin of Sorrow.

"Twenty-five hundred of these around the country," he said. "Can you imagine?"

    Sympathy Flows at Soldier's Funeral in Queens, NYT, 11.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/11/nyregion/11funeral.html

US holds back troops, mulls broader Iraq force cut

Mon May 8, 2006 6:58 PM ET
Reuters
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon announced on Monday it was putting off next month's scheduled deployment of a Germany-based Army brigade to Iraq, as officials pondered a broader cut in the U.S. force in the second half of the year.

The decision to keep the roughly 3,500 soldiers of the 2nd Brigade of the Army's 1st Infantry Division at their base in Schweinfurt, Germany, comes as Pentagon leaders work toward a decision in a few weeks on a blueprint for U.S. troop levels, defense officials said.

Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman, cautioned against interpreting this as a harbinger of larger force cuts.

"This is a very narrow decision to hold one brigade and to give the commanders on the ground additional time to continue their assessments," Whitman said.

"Obviously, there's been a degree of political progress that's been made in the last couple of weeks," Whitman added, noting that Iraq's prime minister designate, Nuri al-Maliki, appeared close to naming a cabinet.

The combat brigade had been slated this week to start loading its equipment for transport to Iraq, and the soldiers had been scheduled to arrive in Iraq in June and assume their operational responsibilities in July, officials said.

The United States has about 133,000 troops in Iraq. The decision to hold back this brigade does not immediately cut the U.S. force, but a reduction would come in July if this unit does not arrive to replace another one scheduled to rotate home at that time.

'READY TO GO'

Officials said it was possible this brigade will not deploy or might simply deploy later than planned.

"This unit is very much ready to go, obviously. So I don't know that I would make the assumption that they're not going to go. In fact, they may go in lieu of somebody else, later on," said a defense official who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of decision-making on troop levels.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said the United States should be able to reduce its troop presence in Iraq -- there are about 30,000 fewer now than in December -- as U.S.-trained Iraqi government security forces assume responsibility for more territory.

A decision on troop cuts might come in five or six weeks, the defense official said, also allowing more time to gauge security conditions amid an insurgency raging more than three years into the war.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said earlier on Monday that Britain expects to make an announcement about cutting the size of its force in Iraq within the next few weeks. It has about 8,000 troops in Iraq, mainly in the more peaceful south.

Rumsfeld said last week he expected recommendations from Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, on future force levels sometime after Iraq's cabinet is named, a development expected in the coming weeks. Rumsfeld also said U.S. officials will consult with Maliki's government.

Defense officials previously have mentioned the possibility of dropping to about 100,000 troops later this year but said other possibilities included a smaller cut or none at all.

The deployment of another U.S. Army brigade already designated to rotate into Iraq in the coming months also could be put on hold pending the larger decision on troop levels, officials said.

Units designated to deploy include: the 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, Washington; the 3rd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina; the 3rd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii; and the 2nd Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, New York.

    US holds back troops, mulls broader Iraq force cut, R, 8.5.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-05-08T201814Z_01_SP130614_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-PAKISTAN-USA.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L3-Top+NewsNews-9

A wounded Iraqi was taken away in Basra on Saturday after British troops fired shots near a crashed helicopter.

Nabil al-Jurani/Associated Press        NYT        May 7, 2006

Clashes Roil Basra After Deadly British Copter Crash        NYT        17.5.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/world/middleeast/07iraq.html

Clashes Roil Basra After Deadly British Copter Crash

May 7, 2006
The New York Times
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 6 — A British military helicopter crashed in the southern city of Basra on Saturday, apparently after being hit by a rocket, drawing crowds of cheering local residents who threw stones and Molotov cocktails, Iraqi officials said. As many as five service members were killed, and at least four Iraqis died in the ensuing chaos, witnesses and hospital officials said.

An official in the Basra governor's office said the helicopter had been struck by an antiaircraft rocket and crashed into three residential buildings in the Saee neighborhood about 1:50 p.m. Witnesses, including an owner of one of the houses, reported seeing five bodies, though Maj. Sebastian Muntz, a spokesman for the British military in Basra, did not confirm the number of casualties or say how many people were on board. Defense Secretary Des Browne of Britain later confirmed that "a number of British service personnel" had been killed in the crash.

News of the crash comes at an already tense time for Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Labor government, who have been hurt by the war's unpopularity in Britain and just went through a poor election showing and cabinet shuffling.

The crash in Basra drew crowds of young men and boys, who cheered and waved shirts in a celebratory spectacle as smoke rose from behind several houses, where the helicopter had gone down. In scenes broadcast on Al Jazeera television, men were seen lobbing stones at the crash site and at British soldiers who had rushed to it.

Witnesses said soldiers crouched behind several sport utility vehicles until two armored personnel carriers arrived with reinforcements. The crowd then turned on the vehicles, throwing Molotov cocktails at them and setting at least one on fire.

The Basra official said that at least two mortar shells were fired into the area, but it was unclear whether they hurt anyone.

At Basra Hospital, an official said that at least four Iraqis, including two children, were killed and more than 19 wounded in the violence after the crash. Major Muntz said a small number of live rounds were fired by British troops in self-defense, but he said he did not know whether they caused any casualties. The Basra provincial official said that British troops won control of the crash site by 4 p.m. An 8 p.m. curfew was imposed to keep people off the street, a British military spokesman said.

Basra, the largest city in Iraq's Shiite south, had long been one of the quietest areas for coalition forces, but over the past year has become more deadly as the city's many Shiite militias have vied for power.

Many of the chanting Iraqis were from the Tweisa neighborhood, where support for the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr runs high. Mr. Sadr has frequently channeled the anger of impoverished Shiites against American and British forces.

Last September, for instance, British forces fought gun battles with Mr. Sadr's militia after two undercover British soldiers were seized.

The owner of one of the houses near the crash site said he had seen the bodies of five people whom he believed were crew members. "One of them belonged to a major, I could see his rank," said the man, who agreed to speak on the condition that he be identified only by his Iraqi nickname, Abu Zaid. "I saw the remains of the others."

Sunni Arab insurgents struck Saturday as well. A suicide bomber dressed as an Iraqi Army officer walked into a base in western Tikrit, a city north of Baghdad, and blew himself up around 8 a.m., officials said, killing three army officers and wounding one.

The bomber was allowed inside after telling a guard at the gate that he was an officer who had been moved to the base, said an official in the governor's office of Salahuddin Province. He was wearing the uniform of a captain or major, the official said, when he walked up to several officers standing outside a building that is part of a battalion headquarters of the Fourth Iraqi Army Division.

The dead included a lieutenant colonel, a major and a lieutenant, the official said. The battalion commander, Staff Brig. Dakhel al-Jibouri, was wounded in the blast.

Public confidence in Iraq's security forces has plummeted, as reports mount of militias and criminal gangs conducting raids dressed in police and army uniforms. At a news conference on Saturday, Gen. Mahdi Sabih al-Gharawi, the commander of the country's Public Order Brigade, part of its paramilitary forces, said the national police would receive new uniforms in June to help fight the problem.

In other violence, three Ministry of Interior commandos were kidnapped in Mahawel, south of Baghdad, while they were on their way to work at 6:30 a.m., an official in the ministry said. In another incident of kidnapping by men dressed as police officers, two truck drivers were taken in Boshear, also south of Baghdad.

Two children were killed and one was wounded in Shuala, the Shiite slum in northern Baghdad, when a rocket struck the area around 9:30 a.m., the ministry official said.

An American soldier was killed in Baghdad on Friday when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb, the American military said Saturday.

Reporting for this article was contributed by Ali Adeeb, Khalid al-Ansary and Qais Mizherfrom Baghdad, an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Basra and Alan Cowell from London.

    Clashes Roil Basra After Deadly British Copter Crash, NYT, 17.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/world/middleeast/07iraq.html

Not All See Video Mockery of Zarqawi as Good Strategy

May 6, 2006
The New York Times
By C. J. CHIVERS

An effort by the American military to discredit the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by showing video outtakes of him fumbling with a machine gun — suggesting that he lacks real fighting skill — was questioned yesterday by retired and active American military officers.

The video clips, released on Thursday to news organizations in Baghdad, show the terrorist leader confused about how to handle an M-249 squad automatic weapon, known as the S.A.W., which is part of the American inventory of infantry weapons.

The American military, which said it captured the videotapes in a recent raid, released selected outtakes in an effort to undermine Mr. Zarqawi's image as leader of the Council of Holy Warriors, formerly Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and suggested that his fighting talents and experience were less than his propaganda portrays. But several veterans of wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, as well as active-duty officers, said in telephone interviews yesterday that the clips of Mr. Zarqawi's supposed martial incompetence were unconvincing.

The weapon in question is complicated to master, and American soldiers and marines undergo many days of training to achieve the most basic competence with it. Moreover, the weapon in Mr. Zarqawi's hands was an older variant, which makes its malfunctioning unsurprising. The veterans said Mr. Zarqawi, who had spent his years as a terrorist surrounded by simpler weapons of Soviet design, could hardly have been expected to know how to handle it.

"They are making a big deal out of nothing," said Mario Costagliola, who retired as an Army colonel last month after serving as the operations officer for the 42nd Infantry Division in Tikrit, Iraq.

An active-duty Special Forces colonel who served in Iraq also said that what the video showed actually had little relationship to Mr. Zarqawi's level of terrorist skill. "Looking at the video, I enjoy it; I like that he looks kind of goofy," said the Special Forces officer, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on military matters. "But as a military guy, I shrug my shoulders and say: 'Of course he doesn't know how to use it. It's our gun.' He doesn't look as stupid as they said he looks."

The release of the captured video reflected the dueling public relations efforts between the American-led forces fighting in Iraq and the terrorists and insurgents. It also reflected increasing interest by the military and civilian strategists in trying to ridicule Mr. Zarqawi.

"In Arab and Muslim societies, pride and shame are felt much more profoundly than they are in Western culture," said J. Michael Waller, a professor at the Institute of World Politics, a graduate school in Washington. "To find video like this that can cut him down to size and discredit him is a real way of fighting terrorism." A paper written by Professor Waller advocating the use of ridicule against the insurgents has been circulating at the Pentagon and among military commanders with experience in Iraq recently, according to several military officers.

But the retired and active officers said the public presentation of the tape did not address elements that were disturbing, not amusing: the weapon was probably captured from American soldiers, indicating a tactical victory for the insurgents. And Mr. Zarqawi looked clean and plump.

"I see a guy who is getting a lot of groceries and local support," said Nick Pratt, a Marine Corps veteran and professor of terrorism studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany. "You cannot say he is a bad operator." He added, "People should be careful who they poke fun at."

David S. Cloud contributed reporting from Washington for this article.

    Not All See Video Mockery of Zarqawi as Good Strategy, NYT, 6.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/06/world/06zarqawi.html

U.S. Uses Iraq Insurgent's Own Video to Mock Him

May 5, 2006
The New York Times
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and DAVID S. CLOUD

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 4 — The videotape released last week by the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi showed him firing long bursts from a machine gun, his forearms sprouting from beneath black fatigues, as he exuded the very picture of a strong jihadist leader.

But in clips the American military released on Thursday and described as captured outtakes from the same video, Mr. Zarqawi, head of the Council of Holy Warriors, cut a different figure.

In one scene, Mr. Zarqawi, the most wanted terrorist in Iraq, appears flummoxed by how to discharge the machine gun in fully automatic mode. Off camera, one aide is heard ordering another, "Go help the sheik." A man walks over and fiddles with the weapon so Mr. Zarqawi can fire it in bursts.

Another sequence shows Mr. Zarqawi handing the weapon off to other aides and striding away, revealing white jogging shoes beneath his black guerrilla attire. One insurgent later appears to grab the machine gun absent-mindedly by its scalding-hot barrel and drop it.

In an effort to turn Mr. Zarqawi's own propaganda against him by mocking him as an uninspiring poseur, the American military released the selected outtakes at a news briefing in Baghdad. A senior military spokesman said that American troops had discovered the tape among a trove of information captured last month in Yusufiya, a town just south of Baghdad regarded as sympathetic to the insurgency.

Documents found in that raid also laid out a plan to "cleanse" Shiites from Sunni-dominated areas in Iraq and to provoke sectarian warfare, according to the American military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch.

Intelligence and military officials in Washington said that Mr. Zarqawi, who was once thought to be roaming across western and northern Iraq, was tracked to Yusufiya after tips indicated that his men had been behind the downing of an Apache helicopter near there in early April.

During an early morning raid on a suspected safe house in the town just south of Baghdad on April 16, soldiers killed five occupants and captured five more in a fierce gunfight. The officials said they were later told by Iraqis captured in the raid that Mr. Zarqawi was only blocks away at the time.

General Lynch added that in several raids in the area, soldiers killed at least 31 foreign fighters, possibly destined to become suicide bombers.

The video outtakes and the plans to drive out Shiites, among other documents, were found in the house, General Lynch said, confirming an account first reported in Army Times.

Mr. Zarqawi, a Sunni, long ago declared war on Shiites, whom he considers apostates. The captured documents disclosed at the carefully orchestrated news briefing described a plan to "reduce the attacks on Sunni areas" and instead "be dedicated to cleansing them, calmly, of spies and Shias," according to the American military's translation.

The goal, they said, is to "move the battle to the Shia depths and cut off the paths from them by any means necessary to put pressure on them to leave their areas."

The captured documents further suggested a strategy, perhaps temporary, of shifting the terrorist group's firepower away from attacks on American forces in Sunni regions to attacks in the capital.

"We will leave or reduce our operations against them in our areas for the near future, and will perform our work against them in the areas of Baghdad itself, as well as the surrounding areas," the military's translation said.

General Lynch said that even as Mr. Zarqawi was "zooming in on Baghdad, we're zooming in on Zarqawi, and it's focused now in Yusufiya, in the areas around Baghdad."

"Zarqawi's center of gravity for his operations are in Baghdad," the general said. "We believe it's only a matter of time until Zarqawi is taken down. It's not if, but when."

But the military has made such predictions before, only to have Mr. Zarqawi slip away from them. Moreover, officials' view of Mr. Zarqawi as the main architect of violence in Iraq is more convenient than the possibility that much of the mayhem is committed not by foreign jihadists but by Iraqi-born Sunni Arabs — who can easily find shelter in the cities and villages along the Euphrates.

Questioned on Thursday about how much insurgent activity is actually directed by Mr. Zarqawi, General Lynch acknowledged that "there's no pure science here."

"So for me to give you some mathematical formula that says this many belong to Zarqawi, and this many belong to the Iraqi rejectionists, and this many belong to the Saddamists, I can't do," he said.

The torture and killing of young men believed to be the latest victims of sectarian violence have continued unabated in the capital.

On Thursday, at least 9 Iraqis were killed and 44 wounded when a suicide bomber attacked a crowd of people outside a courthouse in Baghdad. The attack followed the discovery a day earlier of the bodies of about three dozen men dumped around Baghdad. All had been tortured and shot in the head.

Several reports also said several civilians were killed in Ramadi by American forces on Thursday. The military said it killed eight insurgents there after marines were attacked by rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun fire. Two American soldiers were also killed Thursday morning by a roadside bomb in south central Baghdad.

Mr. Zarqawi and his organization have taken responsibility for scores of car bombings, beheadings and other atrocities, many of which have been videotaped, posted on the Internet and shown on Arab satellite television channels.

The selected outtakes released late Thursday were not shown on the most popular Arab channels, Al Jazeera and Arabiya, although Arabiya mentioned them in a newscast later. But they were broadcast on state-run Iraqi television.

In releasing the outtakes, the American military sought to show that Mr. Zarqawi is a phony who cannot even fire a basic infantry weapon without help and who walks around the desert in comfortable Western jogging shoes.

"What you saw on the Internet was what he wanted the world to see," General Lynch said. "Look at me, I'm a capable leader of a capable organization, and we are indeed declaring war against democracy inside of Iraq, and we're going to establish an Islamic caliphate."

"What he didn't show you were the clips that I showed, wearing New Balance sneakers with his uniform, surrounded by supposedly competent subordinates who grab the hot barrel of a just-fired machine gun," he said.

"We have a warrior leader, Zarqawi, who doesn't understand how to operate his weapon system and has to rely on his subordinates to clear a weapon stoppage," the general said. "It makes you wonder."

Richard A. Oppel Jr. reported from Baghdad for this article and David S. Cloud from Washington.

    U.S. Uses Iraq Insurgent's Own Video to Mock Him, NYT, 5.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/05/world/middleeast/05iraq.html?hp&ex=1146888000&en=34e0bdc40194e682&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Program to rebuild Iraq troubled

Posted 5/1/2006 12:53 AM ET
USA TODAY
By Rick Jervis

BAGHDAD — The $21 billion U.S. rebuilding campaign in Iraq has made "substantial progress" but will leave a legacy of unbuilt projects and unfulfilled promises, says a report issued today by the U.S. reconstruction watchdog.

The report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction details the repair or construction of schools, police stations, electrical facilities, hospitals, roads and other infrastructure.

The document is the most sweeping look at President Bush's ambitious rebuilding drive, the largest endeavor of its kind since the post-World War II Marshall Plan to rebuild a shattered Europe.

In his review, Special Inspector General Stuart Bowen says the Iraq rebuilding effort is in its "close-out phase." He describes a substantial gap between projects promised by U.S. officials and those likely to be completed before U.S. funds are exhausted.

The reconstruction campaign has made clean drinking water available to an additional 3.1 million Iraqis and sewer service to 5.1 million more, the report says. "Most completed projects have delivered positive results," it concludes.

Even so, projects in some of the most critical areas — water, electricity, and oil and gas — are less than half complete and would take two more years to finish.

In most cases, Iraq will have to pay its own way soon: all U.S. rebuilding funds have been allocated; more than 60% of the money has been spent, the report says.

Bowen cites several instances where key initiatives were derailed by security issues, corruption and mismanagement. Among them:

•U.S. officials spent millions on medical equipment for health clinics in Iraq that are unlikely to ever be built. Reconstruction officials purchased $70 million in medical equipment — X-ray machines, dental equipment and other gear — for 150 planned clinics.

Despite spending $186 million to build clinics, only six have been completed; 14 others will be finished, the report says.

•Task Force Shield, the $147 million program to train Iraqi security units to protect key oil and electrical sites, failed to meet its goals, the report says. A fraud investigation is underway. "The lack of records and equipment accountability raised significant concerns about possible fraud, waste and abuse ... by U.S. and Iraqi officials," the report says.

•Hundreds of civilian contractors — 516 since March 2003 — have been killed on the job. Last year, 235 contractors died in reconstruction-related activities; 62 fatalities were U.S. citizens, the report says. In the first three months of this year, 49 have been killed; 17 were U.S. citizens.

    Program to rebuild Iraq troubled, UT, 1.5.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-05-01-iraq-rebuilding_x.htm

Mock Iraqi Villages in Mojave Prepare Troops for Battle

May 1, 2006
The New York Times
By DEXTER FILKINS and JOHN F. BURNS

FORT IRWIN, Calif. — Three years into the conflict in Iraq, the front line in the American drive to prepare troops for insurgent warfare runs through a cluster of mock Iraqi villages deep in the Mojave Desert, nearly 10,000 miles from the realities awaiting the soldiers outside Baghdad and Mosul and Falluja.

Out here, 150 miles northeast of Los Angeles, units of the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, N.Y., are among the latest war-bound troops who have gone through three weeks of training that introduce them to the harsh episodes that characterize the American experience in Iraq.

In a 1,000-square-mile region on the edge of Death Valley, Arab-Americans, many of them from the Iraqi expatriate community in San Diego, populate a group of mock villages resembling their counterparts in Iraq. American soldiers at forward operating bases nearby face insurgent uprisings, suicide bombings and even staged beheadings in underground tunnels. Recently, the soldiers here, like their counterparts in Iraq, have been confronted with Sunni-Shiite riots. At one village, a secret guerrilla revolt is in the works.

With actors and stuntmen on loan from Hollywood, American generals have recast the training ground at Fort Irwin so effectively as a simulation of conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 20 months that some soldiers have left with battle fatigue and others have had their orders for deployment to the war zones canceled. In at least one case, a soldier's career was ended for unnecessarily "killing" civilians.

"We would rather you got killed here than in Iraq," said Maj. John Clearwater, a veteran of the Special Forces who works at the training center.

The troops who come here are at the heart of a vast shift in American war-fighting strategy, a multibillion-dollar effort to remodel the Army on the fly. Here, the Army is relearning how to fight, shifting from its historic emphasis on big army-to-army battles to the more subtle tactics of defeating a guerrilla insurgency.

The changes in the Army's emphasis are among the most far-reaching since World War II, all being carried out at top speed, while the Iraqi insurgency continues undiminished and political support for the war ebbs at home.

American commanders say publicly that they still believe they can win the war, especially now with a more coherent strategy to combat the insurgency and train their soldiers to fight it.

The lack of such planning — indeed, the refusal in the first months after the invasion to acknowledge the presence of the insurgency — is at the heart of the criticism leveled recently at Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld by six former generals.

Beneath the public veneer, some American officers say they believe that public support for the war will probably run out before the changes will begin to make a major difference. The more probable chain of events, they say, is a steady drawdown of American forces from Iraq, long before the insurgency is defeated.

Education in Counterinsurgency

For the first time in more than 20 years, military planners are revising the Army's counterinsurgency manual, adding emphasis on nation-building and peacekeeping — subjects once belittled by the Bush administration.

At the Army's Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., officers are being required for the first time to complete a course in counterinsurgency. In Iraq, American officers entering the country are now required to spend their first week at the sprawling military base at Taji, on the northwestern edge of Baghdad, attending a crash course in counterinsurgency.

Junior officers are being encouraged to take greater initiative to adjust to local circumstances. An old military tradition of chronicling the lessons learned on the front and passing them on to other units has found a vital new outlet in password-protected Internet sites where platoon commanders and more senior officers can exchange combat experiences.

The aim is to see that any new techniques adopted by the insurgents, especially in mounting the roadside bombing attacks that accounted for more than half of all American casualties in Iraq, are made known to all units as quickly as possible, often within 24 hours.

One third of the American troops now stationed in Iraq have been through the course here, and entire brigades — each with 4,000 soldiers, sometimes more — are processed through here every month. But it is still unclear how much effect the new training is having in the field.

Indeed, even as the new training strategy moves forward, American units are substantially withdrawing from Iraq's streets. With the country sliding closer to civil war, Iraqi military units, many of them of uncertain quality, are now taking the leading combat role in nearly half of Iraq's territory.

Plans are in the works to reduce the American troop commitment, to possibly fewer than 100,000 by the end of the year from around 130,000 now.

On some bases, far from trying out a new strategy, American soldiers are staying back more than ever, and grumbling, in some cases, that they spend more time watching videos and eating at base canteens than fighting.

"There is a paradox in the approach," said Kalev Sepp, a former Special Forces officer and one of the most vocal proponents for changing the Army. "The training in the United States and in Iraq is teaching all the right things — decentralization of authority and responsibility to the lowest levels, engagement with the Iraqi population, cultural awareness and political sensitivity — the full broad range of measures needed to defeat the insurgency."

"But on the ground," Mr. Sepp said in an interview, "the troops are being moved onto these large consolidated bases and being drawn away from the population just at point that they have been trained to engage them." Nowhere are the changes in the Army's thinking more visible than at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin.

Established as a gunnery range during World War II, Fort Irwin served for half a century as the setting for mock warfare that replicated the most threatening scenarios of the cold war.

The Krasnovians, a giant invading force modeled after the Soviet Army, advanced across the valley floor here, simulating an offensive through the Fulda Gap in central Europe.

Riding in American-made Sheridan tanks done up to resemble T-72's, they seized swathes of territory and sparked tank battles so large that they shook the ground for miles.

Today, in a desert region nearly the size of Rhode Island, the network of 12 virtual Iraqi villages are eerie in their likeness to the real things. That is the idea, of course: that American soldiers will find the environment so real that they will make their mistakes here first, so they do not make them in Iraq.

One of the villages is Medina Jabal, a hamlet of wooden huts and gravel roads at the base of a ravine about 35 miles from Death Valley.

It is a marriage of military technology and Hollywood fakery; some 350 Arabic-speaking Iraqi-Americans and plainclothes Nevada National Guardsman live here almost year-round to offer American trainees what one officer described as "a vortex of chaos." The insurgents even get acting lessons, coached by Carl Weathers, best known for his portrayal of the boxer Apollo Creed in the "Rocky" films.

A single afternoon in Medina Jabal crystallizes all the confusions and ambiguities of fighting in Iraq. None of the villagers of Medina Jabal are allowed to speak English, and all encounters must be carried out with an interpreter.

Insurgents lurk inside the town, but as in Iraq, they are invisible. The guerrillas maintain a underground tunnel network, smuggle in weapons, and plot nearly continuous attacks on American forces.

The closest American base, where most of the trainees sleep, is only a few hundred yards away, and the insurgents shoot mortar shells at it every night — just as they do in places like Ramadi.

They plant roadside bombs, booby-trap dead dogs, kidnap soldiers who get separated from their patrols, and drive suicide bombs into American checkpoints. The simulations are so real that they have impressed even those who have seen the real thing up close.

"This is good training for guys who haven't been there yet," said Sgt. Matthew Boone, 25, from Anderson, Ind., while standing atop a desert peak inside the training ground. "I never got anything like this before I went to Afghanistan."

When fighting breaks out, Army trainers who act as referees immediately decide who will be recorded as wounded or killed.

But scoring kills is not the main objective at Medina Jabal; gaining the trust of the locals is. When an American soldier loses his cool and kills Iraqi civilians, a simulated television crew from "Al Jazeera" scurries out to videotape the screaming and grieving Iraqis. The inflammatory video is then broadcast over and over on the villages' television network, just as in Iraq.

"It's very realistic here," said Sgt. Shawn Stillabower of the 10th Division, a Houston native who is going back for his third tour in Iraq after he finishes the training course. "Sometimes, it's really got me thinking, 'Am I in Iraq?' "

In Medina Jabal, nothing is entirely clear, and that is the point.

The Deadly Mr. Hakim

The most prolific killer of American trainees, for instance, is Mansour Hakim, the Iraqi pseudonym for Staff Sgt. Timothy Wilson, 42, a probation officer from Sparks, Nev. In Medina Jabal, Sergeant Wilson, in an Arab dishdasha robe and checkered kaffiyeh headdress, plays the part of a village hot dog salesman who sells his provisions from a stand called "Kamel Dogs Cafe."

To the amazement of American trainers, Sergeant Wilson has found that nearly every American unit entering the training course falls for his tricks — usually leading to catastrophic results. He figures he has "killed" hundreds of American servicemen in his time here. The trap works like this: When the American soldiers first enter Medina Jabal, they usually head straight for the Kamel Dogs stand for a snack. Chatting up the soldiers, "Mr. Hakim" asks if the Americans might let him sell his hot dogs inside the nearby American camp, called Forward Operating Base Denver, to make some extra money for his family. The soldiers inevitably agree, and before long, Mr. Hakim is ferrying huge loads of hot dogs and charcoal briquettes onto the American base.

In the first few days of the venture, everything proceeds safely; the American soldiers, suspicious of Mr. Hakim, search his truck thoroughly. But after four or five days, having decided that he is one of the "good Iraqis," the soldiers begin to wave him and his truck through their checkpoints.

And that is when he strikes. One day, he replaces the charcoal briquettes with Hollywood-grade pyrotechnics, drives the truck deep into the American base and blows it up.

One of the referees appears on the scene with a "God gun" to determine the radius of the blast. The last time Sergeant Wilson got through, in February, the referees determined that 18 Americans were killed and dozens more wounded. The subterfuge has worked seven times. "I'm a bad guy," Sergeant Wilson said with a grin. "And I'm looking for any weakness I can exploit."

On other occasions, American soldiers patrolling Medina Jabal have wandered off alone to get a soda or a hot dog at Mr. Hakim's stand. When that happens, the locals seize the soldier, drag him into one of their tunnels, videotape his interrogation for "Al Jazeera" and sometimes kill him.

The lesson for American solders is clear: never trust any Iraqis, no matter how friendly they seem. It is a lesson that, unlearned, has killed many American soldiers on combat duty in Iraq. And if any of the soldiers insist, as they sometimes do, that they really had been searching Mr. Hakim's hot-dog truck, it is easy enough to check: videocameras watch over virtually every square inch of Medina Jabal. American trainers can review every attack and every interaction between an American and a villager to see what really happened.

Despite the elaborate fictions of the place, reality sometimes intrudes. Most of the Iraqi-American actors have family in Iraq, and are terrified of having their identities publicized lest those family members be killed by insurgents back home. None would agree to be interviewed for this article.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the war games is that the insurgent force usually exacts enormous death tolls on the Americans. As in Iraq and Afghanistan, the insurgents at Fort Irwin know the territory better. "It's not even close," said Fuad Bahi al-Jabouri, whose real name is Specialist Anthony Manzanares. He is 46, a native of San Francisco and a disguised insurgent in the villages here. "It's a massacre. We know the terrain. It's our home turf."

The Looming Challenge

The Iraq war, and to a lesser extent the conflict in Afghanistan, looms over every aspect of the revamped military training, in the classroom and on the training ground. It is the reality against which all the lessons and all the fictions are measured.

At a recent classroom seminar on counterinsurgency at Fort Leavenworth, about 25 Army majors discussed the conduct of the French in the Algerian War of 1954 to 1962. The French, who were trying to hold their colony, lost to the Algerian resistance, even after some French officers endorsed the use of torture to extract intelligence from the insurgents.

In a vigorous classroom debate, the Army majors discussed how and why the French lost. Iraq came up often; four of the majors had already served there and a half-dozen others were scheduled to be deployed there at the end of the academic year. One of the lessons, for instance, is that torture does not work, because of the resentment it generates among the civilian population. The widespread abuse of Iraqi and Afghan prisoners, some of it apparently with official approval, did not come up in class. "Is it applicable to Iraq?" Maj. Sean Smith, a member of the class, said afterward. "That's why we do that in every class."

On the training ground, even though it is fiction, the results can be real and lasting. One battalion commander, a lieutenant colonel whose unit came under attack by insurgents in Medina Jabal, called in an Air Force bombing run on a building from which insurgents had attacked his men. The attack, simulating the dropping of a 500-pound bomb, killed more than 20 civilians, the referees determined. Al Jazeera recorded the scene and broadcast it over and over on the local station. The battalion commander, the American trainers here said, learned his lesson, and he turned out to be one of the savviest graduates of the course.

Not so for another soldier who recently took part in the course. While on patrol in one of the Iraqi villages, the soldier wandered off alone, and suddenly found himself surrounded by Iraqi civilians. He panicked and opened fire, killing several of the villagers. The soldier was given a psychological evaluation and dismissed from the Army, for fear that he would have duplicated the behavior with live ammunition in Iraq. "If a soldier can't be trusted in this environment, then he can't be trusted in Iraq," said Brig. Gen. Robert Cone, who runs the base.

Potent Lessons

Despite the trouncing that the American soldiers were taking from the fake insurgents, there were signs that the American soldiers were catching on.

One of them came shortly after "Mr. Jabouri" — Specialist Manzanares — was caught trying to evade an American checkpoint. Driving a battered sport utility vehicle, Mr. Jabouri and his companion, Pvt. Lontae Bell, from Newberry, N.C., were impersonating geologists. But when a group of American soldiers spotted Mr. Jabouri in his truck, they pulled him over and searched his vehicle. The soldiers found wire, tools and a Global Positioning System that had the exact coordinates of the American base that had been hit by mortar shells the night before. The Americans decided to detain Mr. Jabouri — a good call, because, as an insurgent, his real mission was to scout the area for weapons that were to be used in an insurgent uprising in three of the villages.

To keep the exercise as real as possible, Specialist Manzanares and Private Bell were ordered locked up and interrogated for at least two days at a nearby American base. The soldiers put flexicuffs on Sergeant Manzanares in a makeshift cage of razor wire on the desert floor, where he sat, looking disgusted with himself. Asked whether he was angry that his cover had been broken so quickly, he shook his head.

No, he said. "This means I'm going to miss the Giants game tonight."

    Mock Iraqi Villages in Mojave Prepare Troops for Battle, NYT, 1.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/world/americas/01insurgency.html?hp&ex=1146542400&en=f27a27b279df80b1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Powell advised Bush to send more troops to Iraq

Sun Apr 30, 2006 5:41 PM ET
Reuters
By Vicki Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday defended the Bush administration's Iraq war planning after her predecessor, Colin Powell, said he had made a case to send more troops to deal with the war's aftermath.

Rice also said she did not "remember specifically" what instance Powell was referring to on his recommending to President George W. Bush that more troops be sent.

In an interview with a private British television station on Sunday, Powell said there had been debates about the size of the force and how to deal with the aftermath.

"I don't think we had enough force there to impose order," he said on ITV's Jonathan Dimbleby program.

"The aftermath turned out to be much more difficult than anyone had anticipated," said Powell, adding he had favored a larger military presence to deal with the unforeseen.

"I made the case to General (Tommy) Franks, to (Defense) Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld and to the president that I was not sure we had enough troops," Powell said. But he said the military leaders felt they had the appropriate number.

Powell's comments come amid concern about the rising death toll in Iraq, which has been a factor in driving Bush's approval ratings to the lowest of his presidency.

Since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, the U.S. military death toll in Iraq has grown to nearly 2,400. Iraqi military deaths are estimated at up to 6,370 and Iraqi civilian deaths at up to 38,600.

Rice, appearing on several Sunday talk shows, was responding to the Powell's comments that fanned the controversy over the administration's plans for the invasion's immediate aftermath. Critics say violence and looting set the stage for a bloody insurgency and sectarian killings over the last three years.

Asked on CNN's Late Edition if she remembered Powell's dissent, Rice said, "I don't remember specifically what Secretary Powell may be referring to, but I'm quite certain that there were lots of discussions about how best to fulfill the mission when we went into Iraq."

She said Bush relied on his military advisers, and that he "asked time and time again" whether everything needed to execute the plan was available, "and he was told 'yes'."

Rice added that there would have been "potentially a lot of problems with a very, very big footprint of coalition forces at the time of the liberation of Iraq."

On CBS' Face the Nation, she said, "I'm quite certain that there are things that, in retrospect, we would do differently. But that's the nature of any big complicated operation."

After the invasion, Rumsfeld said U.S. military commanders believed there were sufficient troops to contain insurgents and establish peace.

However, troop levels were later increased amid escalating violence and to establish security in time for elections.

Bush has not set a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal, saying American soldiers will pull out as Iraqi forces take over fighting Sunni rebels and sectarian violence which has pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.

Rice praised progress made by Iraq's own forces. But to start withdrawing troops, she said on CNN, "We really do want it to be based on conditions on the ground; so do the Iraqis. If there is anything that they recognize, it's that they are not quite ready for these tasks. But they want to take that responsibility, and we should want them to take it.

(Additional reporting by Madeline Chambers in London)

    Powell advised Bush to send more troops to Iraq, R, 30.4.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2006-04-30T214110Z_01_L30563994_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-POWELL.xml

Tens of thousands in NYC protest war

Updated 4/29/2006 8:50 PM ET
USA Today

NEW YORK (AP) — Tens of thousands of protesters marched Saturday through lower Manhattan to demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, just hours after this month's death toll reached 70.

Cindy Sheehan, a vociferous critic of the war whose soldier son also died in Iraq, joined in the march, as did actress Susan Sarandon and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

"End this war, bring the troops home," read one sign lifted by marchers on the sunny afternoon, three years after the war in Iraq began. The mother of a Marine killed two years ago in Iraq held a picture of her son, born in 1984 and killed 20 years later.

One group marched under the banner "Veterans for Peace."

The demonstrators stretched for about 10 blocks as they headed down Broadway. Organizers said 300,000 people marched, though a police spokesman declined to give an estimate. There were no reports of arrests.

"We are here today because the war is illegal, immoral and unethical," said the Rev. Al Sharpton. "We must bring the troops home."

Organizers said the march was also meant to oppose any military action against Iran, which is facing international criticism over its nuclear program. The event was organized by the group United for Peace and Justice.

"We've been lied to, and they're going to lie to us again to bring us a war in Iran," said Marjori Ramos, 43, of New York. "I'm here because I had a lot of anger, and I had to do something."

Steve Rand, an English teacher from Waterbury, Vt., held a poster announcing, "Vermont Says No to War."

"I'd like to see our troops come home," he said.

The march stepped off shortly after noon from Union Square, with the demonstrators heading for a rally between a U.S. courthouse and a federal office building in lower Manhattan.

The death toll in Iraq for April was the highest for a single month in 2006. At least 2,399 U.S. military members have died since the war began. An Army soldier was the latest victim, killed Saturday in a roadside explosion in Baghdad.

That figure is well below some of the bloodiest months of the Iraq conflict, but is a sharp increase over March, when 31 were killed. January's death toll was 62 and February's 55. In December, 68 Americans died.

    Tens of thousands in NYC protest war, UT, 29.4.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-29-protest_x.htm

Death Toll for Americans in Iraq Is Highest in 5 Months

April 29, 2006
The New York Times
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 28 — The military announced the death of one American soldier on Friday, bringing the death toll so far in April to 69, the highest in five months. The monthly figure disrupted a trend of steadily falling American fatalities that had begun in November.

The bulk of American deaths in April occurred in Baghdad and in the insurgent-controlled western province of Anbar, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent group that compiles casualty figures based on information provided by the American military.

Deaths in April could still climb, but are not likely to top the 84 American deaths in November. The April figure is more than double the 31 troops killed in March, one of the lowest monthly tolls of the war, according to the group's statistics.

Though American deaths have fluctuated since the invasion in 2003, they had been falling since November, when the toll fell to 84 from 96 the previous month.

American deaths reached a peak in April and November of 2004, topping 100 in both months, when the military fought operations in Najaf and Falluja.

The soldier, whose name had not yet been released, was killed at 7:15 p.m. on Thursday in an explosion that tore into his vehicle when it hit a roadside bomb north of Baghdad.

The military also announced the death of a man it identified as a senior Al Qaeda leader in the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad. An assault force of American troops killed the man, identified as Hamadi Abd al-Takhi al-Nissani, as he tried to flee a house about nine miles north of the city on Friday, the military said in a statement. Two other men inside the house were also killed, it said, one as he tried to throw a grenade at American forces.

The death toll continued to rise from a coordinated series of insurgent attacks on Thursday near Baquba, 30 miles northeast of Baghdad, which led to street battles with Iraqi government forces.

The fighting began around 1:30 p.m., when insurgents fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at five police checkpoints, a police station and an Iraqi Army building, officials said.

The series of attacks, unusual in their intensity and duration — the American military said in a statement that one attack involved more than 100 insurgents — seemed aimed at gaining control over a swath of fertile land that is central to the security of the capital.

Local residents, predominantly Sunni Arabs, have been staunchly opposed to the American occupation, and the area has long been a haven for Sunni Arab guerrilla fighters.

Earlier tallies put the death toll at 36, including 21 insurgents, 11 Iraqi police officers and soldiers, and two civilians. The Associated Press on Friday cited an Iraqi police official, Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Awad, as saying the toll had climbed to 58.

On Friday, the city was placed under a curfew, but fighting continued in some areas. The Associated Press reported that witnesses saw at least two wounded police officers being carried away.

The insurgents who staged the Baquba attacks were drawn from four groups from Diyala Province, said a Baquba police official who declined to be identified because he feared reprisals.

In Baghdad, authorities found the bodies of two men. In the northern city of Kirkuk, a child was killed and two were injured when a roadside bomb aimed at American forces exploded, said Col. Mahmoud Hussein of the Kirkuk police. In Falluja, west of Baghdad, gunmen killed two Iraqi police officers around 9 p.m. on Thursday.

One of Iraq's vice presidents, Adel Abdul Mahdi, offered a new count of Iraqis who have been displaced because of sectarian violence. Speaking in the southern city of Najaf, Mr. Mahdi said about 100,000 families had been forced to flee their homes nationwide, Reuters reported. Previously, the Iraqi government estimated that about 11,000 families had been forced to flee.

Omar al-Neami and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting for this article.

    Death Toll for Americans in Iraq Is Highest in 5 Months, NYT, 29.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/29/world/middleeast/29iraq.html

Abuse Charge Set for a U.S. Colonel

April 26, 2006
The New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, April 25 — The Army plans to charge Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, the former head of the interrogation center at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, with dereliction of duty, lying to investigators and conduct unbecoming an officer, a lawyer for the officer said on Tuesday.

Colonel Jordan would be the highest-ranking officer at Abu Ghraib to face criminal charges in connection with the abuses at the prison. Ten low-ranking soldiers who served at the prison outside Baghdad have been convicted.

Colonel Jordan was the last major figure from Abu Ghraib whose status remained unresolved two years after the graphic accounts and photographs of detainees being abused and sexually humiliated became public. Other more senior officers have been reprimanded, fined and relieved of command.

The Army said only that charges were being considered.

The highest-ranking officer convicted in relation to the prisoner abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan is Maj. Clarke A. Paulus of the Marine Corps, who was found guilty in 2004 of dereliction of duty and the maltreatment of a prisoner who was found dead at a Marine-run jail in Iraq. Major Paulus was discharged from the military but did not serve any jail time.

Colonel Jordan led the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib from its creation in September 2003 to December 2003, struggling to meet the soaring demands from the Pentagon and the American military headquarters in Baghdad for better intelligence to combat the rising Iraqi insurgency. That was also when the worst abuses occurred at Abu Ghraib.

Samuel L. Spitzberg, a former Army lawyer who served as Colonel Jordan's lawyer in Baghdad in 2004, said a lawyer for the Military District of Washington, Lt. Col. John Tracy, had told him about the impending charges, but that he had not seen the exact details. Mr. Spitzberg, an assistant district attorney in Albany, said he expected to represent Colonel Jordan again.

"We've not had an opportunity to review the evidence, and look forward to doing that and determining whether there is a direct link with the abuses at Abu Ghraib," Mr. Spitzberg said in an interview.

Colonel Jordan, a reservist who has been on active duty for three years, is stationed in the Washington area, Mr. Spitzberg said, adding that the officer was not making any public statement. Mr. Spitzberg said the Army also planned to accuse Colonel Jordan of fraud, a charge unrelated to detainee treatment involving reimbursed expenses.

An Army spokesman, Maj. Wayne Marotto, said in an e-mail message, "The disposition of alleged offenses against LTC Jordan are still under consideration by the chain of command." An additional spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Shawn Jirik, said if charges were filed, it could happen as early as next week.

If Colonel Jordan is charged, the next step will be the military equivalent of a grand-jury investigation to determine whether he will face court-martial, administrative punishment or no penalty. Maj. Gen. Guy C. Swan 3rd, the commander of the Army's Washington district, would decide.

By his own account, Colonel Jordan was ill-equipped to oversee the interrogations task force at Abu Ghraib. He was trained as a civil affairs officer and was assigned to set up a database for tracking information gleaned from the prisoners.

"I've no training on the military side of what constitutes interrogations operations," Colonel Jordan told Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, a senior Army investigator who led an inquiry into abuses at the prison.

A second oversight panel, led by James R. Schlesinger, former defense secretary, concluded that Colonel Jordan was a weak leader who did not have experience in interrogation and who ceded core responsibilities to subordinates. The panel said he failed to provide personnel appropriate training and supervision.

A third investigation, by three high-level Army generals, recommended in August 2004 that the Army punish the top two military intelligence officers at the prison, Colonel Jordan and his immediate supervisor, Col. Thomas M. Pappas, saying they bore responsibility even though they were not directly involved in abusing prisoners.

Colonel Pappas was fined $8,000 and issued a written reprimand for dereliction of duty, but did not face criminal charges. He was recently granted immunity from further disciplinary action or prosecution so he could testify for the defense in the cases of two military dog handlers who were accused of using their Belgian shepherds to terrorize detainees. An Army official said Tuesday that it was likely Colonel Pappas would be granted the same immunity to testify against Colonel Jordan.

In June 2004, the commander of the military police company whose members have been charged with abusing prisoners testified at a hearing in Iraq that someone he referred to as Jordan was present one night in November 2003 among a group of people in a room at the prison with the bloodied body of an Iraqi prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi, who had died during interrogation.

It was not clear from the testimony of the commander, Capt. Donald Reese, whether he was referring to Colonel Jordan. Captain Reese testified that the man he identified as Jordan ordered a lower-ranking officer to "get some ice out of the chow hall" to store the body.

The body of the detainee, pictured wrapped in plastic and packed in ice, became one of the most infamous images in the abuse scandal.

Human rights advocates applauded the steps the Army was preparing to take against Colonel Jordan. "It's about time that someone at a higher level is being held accountable for the wrongdoing," said Hina Shamsi, a senior counselor for Human Rights First in Manhattan. "This is at the heart of command responsibility, which has been absent so far in this."

    Abuse Charge Set for a U.S. Colonel, NYT, 26.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/26/us/26abuse.html?hp&ex=1146110400&en=11edeb3c8fa42f27&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Rumsfeld and Rice Visit Baghdad

April 26, 2006
The New Tork Times
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN and DAVID CLOUD

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 26 – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, seeking to put past differences behind them, paid a surprise joint visit to Iraq today to mobilize diplomatic and security forces and bolster the new government of Prime Minister Jawad al-Maliki.

"We really want to be ready to hit the ground running with this new government when it's ready to go," Ms. Rice told reporters on her way here from Ankara, Turkey, early in the morning.

"The turning point here is that Iraq now has its first permanent government, and that it is a government of national unity, and it gives Iraq a real chance to deal with the real vexing problems that it has faced," she added.

Ms. Rice and Mr. Rumsfeld planned a day of joint appearances and briefings that administration officials say reflected a need for the United States to send a signal that their two departments will try harder to work together to help the new government avert a further slide toward civil war.

There was an atmosphere in her entourage that this visit offered perhaps a last chance to reverse some of the mistakes of the last three years in providing security for Iraq, getting the oil and power systems back and curbing sectarian hatreds and corruption within the Iraqi government.

The key, aides to the Secretary said, was to make sure that Mr. Maliki does not stumble in his first weeks in office and to achieve a quick record in improving the lives of Iraqis.

"Clearly this new Iraqi government must perform on behalf of the Iraqi people," said James Wilkinson, a senior adviser to the Secretary, who helped plan the trip. "But the new government also gives us a chance to correct our mistakes and do our part to make Iraq work."

Mr. Rumsfeld arrived early in the morning on a direct flight from Washington, and he spent the first part of the day meeting with the senior American commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey and other senior commanders.

"This is a sovereign country, and they're making impressive progress," he said, adding that the government that Mr. Maliki is trying to assemble will be composed of "people who are competent, people who understand the importance of running ministries, not as sectarian ministries but as ministries for the whole country."

Ms. Rice also planned to work on getting American officials more involved in helping Iraq's ministries deliver services, particularly in the country's 18 provinces. A system of American teams for each province has had trouble getting off the ground and exists in only five provinces, including Baghdad.

This was Ms. Rice's fourth visit to Iraq as Secretary of State but according to her aides, by far her most important. State Department officials have been alarmed in recent weeks as sectarian killings have increased and the previous Iraqi government seemed incapable of dealing with the violence.

Of particular concern to the Bush administration has been the infiltration by Shiite militias of Iraq's security and military forces. In some cases, the militias have carried out their own killings, in retaliation against Sunni-sponsored attacks, setting off a cycle of Sunni-Shiite violence.

Ms. Rice and her aides followed the recommendation of Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad in Baghdad and took the unusual step earlier this year of letting it be known that it had lost confidence in Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who was seeking to become Iraq's first permanent prime minister.

Under American pressure, Mr. Jaafari stepped aside earlier this month and his Shiite bloc designated Mr. Maliki, a relatively unknown and untested leader, as the person to try to form a new government. Mr. Maliki has yet to fill the critical posts of ministry of interior and defense, however.

Ms. Rice said she believed that Mr. Maliki and his aides understand the importance of appointing ministers that are not allied with Shiite militias.

"The mindset that is nonsectarian will be very important," she said on the plane flying here. "They understand and they want ministries that are not sectarian, because that's the only way they can govern the country. "

The joint visit of the secretaries of defense and state was considered highly significant because there have been almost constant squabbles over issues large and small between the two departments since the beginning of planning for the Iraq war in 2002.

Over the objections of the State Department, Mr. Rumsfeld took control of Iraqi reconstruction and made key decisions, such as disbanding the Iraqi Army and banning members of Saddam Hussein's former Baath Party from positions of responsibility in the new Iraqi government.

More recently, there have been disputes between the two departments over the setting up of so-called "provincial reconstruction teams" in Iraq. These teams of 60 or more military and civilian personnel are to function in each province and work with local governments to provide services.

But after a major announcement last fall that they would be set up in all 18 provinces, they were slow to get started because of a lack of agreement on who would provide security for them. Many in the military said they were too overstretched to provide security for teams that would have such a marginal impact.

State Department officials say this main problem, and an array of smaller ones, have been worked out and that Ms. Rice and Mr. Rumsfeld were pleased with the cooperation on reconstructing Iraq.

Nevertheless, an air of tension persists between the two departments and, despite denials, between the two secretaries. It was manifested last month when Ms. Rice commented that the United States had made "thousands of tactical errors" in Iraq and Mr. Rumsfeld said he did not know what she was talking about.

Aside from about 130,000 American troops, there are about 5,300 non-military personnel in Iraq reporting to Ambassador Khalilzad, including 1,100 members of the foreign service, making it the largest American embassy in the world.

Asked about the latest video of the insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that labeled Mr. Maliki's government a sham, Ms. Rice said: "I think Zarqawi knows very well that 11 million people went out and voted for this government." She said the government's legitimacy posed "the greatest threat to his efforts" in Iraq.

Of the provincial reconstruction teams, Ms. Rice said that delays in setting them up were to be expected. "We have indeed to work very hard to find the proper staffing for them, because this is a new kind of arrangement," she said. "We had to work out some important details. These are not easy to stand up. I'm actually pleased with the progress we've made."

    Rumsfeld and Rice Visit Baghdad, NYT, 26.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/26/world/middleeast/26cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1146110400&en=d7bfc673abb8b8ac&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Rumsfeld Makes Surprise Baghdad Visit

By REUTERS
Filed at 0:05 a.m. ET
April 26, 2006
The New York Times

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sought to show U.S. support for Iraq's new leadership on Wednesday, making a surprise visit to Baghdad just days after Shi'ite politician Jawad al-Maliki was chosen as prime minister.

Rumsfeld swooped into the capital aboard a military cargo plane for his first visit to Iraq in 2006.

In addition to Iraqi political developments, Rumsfeld's trip comes as U.S. military commanders contemplate reducing the number of American troops in the country in the coming months. There are about 132,000 American troops in Iraq at present.

Rumsfeld indicated earlier this week that the Pentagon intended to stick with plans to reduce the size of the U.S. military presence, but he gave no specific numbers nor a timetable.

Opinion polls show U.S. public support for the three-year-old Iraq war eroding, which is contributing to a drop in President George W. Bush's job approval ratings.

Rumsfeld himself has weathered a storm of criticism from six retired generals who have demanded his dismissal, accusing him of disregarding military advice, ruling by intimidation and making strategic blunders in Iraq.

    Rumsfeld Makes Surprise Baghdad Visit, NYT, 26.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-iraq-rumsfeld.html

Kerry: Opposing Iraq war is patriotic

Posted 4/23/2006 1:02 AM ET
USA Today

BOSTON (AP) — Those who disagree with the Bush administration's policies in Iraq face the same scornful charges that they are unpatriotic as Sen. John Kerry did 35 years ago when he spoke out against the Vietnam War, the Massachusetts Democrat said Saturday.

"I have come here today to reaffirm that it was right to dissent in 1971 from a war that was wrong. And to affirm that it is both a right and an obligation for Americans today to disagree with a president who is wrong, a policy that is wrong, and a war in Iraq that weakens the nation," Kerry said to a standing ovation Saturday at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall.

Kerry's speech came 35 years to the day after he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to call for an end to the Vietnam war.

"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Kerry said in 1971, a line that helped propel the decorated Navy combat veteran and Yale graduate onto the national stage.

The same question applies today as Americans wrestle with the mounting death toll in Iraq, Kerry said, speaking before about 500 supporters who punctuated his speech at least 20 times with ovations.

"Lives have been lost to bad decisions," Kerry said. "Not decisions that could have gone either way, but decisions that constitute basic negligence and incompetence. And lives continue to be lost because of stubbornness and pride."

Kerry also blasted those who question the motivation of retired generals who have recently called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"That is cheap and shameful," he said. "How dare those who never wore the uniform in battle attack those who wore it all their lives."

A few scattered chants of "run" and "2008" were heard both before and after the speech. Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president, has not announced whether he would run in 2008.

In response to Kerry's speech Saturday, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee denied the party questioned anyone's patriotism.

"While we have never questioned Democrats' patriotism, we do question John Kerry's motives, considering his eagerness to engage in political theatrics as he ponders a presidential run," Tracey Schmitt said.

Kerry reiterated his position that American troops should be withdrawn by the end of the year, saying that Iraqi politicians only respond to deadlines.

Kerry said while Iraq is different from Vietnam, there are some critical parallels.

"We are in the same place as we were when I came home from Vietnam and spoke out against the civilian leaders who were willing to sacrifice America's best in the interest of political self-preservation," he said.

    Kerry: Opposing Iraq war is patriotic, UT, 23.4.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-23-kerry-iraq_x.htm

Outrage at Funeral Protests Pushes Lawmakers to Act

April 17, 2006
The New York Times
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ

NASHVILLE, April 11 — As dozens of mourners streamed solemnly into church to bury Cpl. David A. Bass, a fresh-faced 20-year-old marine who was killed in Iraq on April 2, a small clutch of protesters stood across the street on Tuesday, celebrating his violent death.

"Thank God for Dead Soldiers," read one of their placards. "Thank God for I.E.D.'s," read another, a reference to the bombs used to kill service members in the war. To drive home their point — that God is killing soldiers to punish America for condoning homosexuality — members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., a tiny fundamentalist splinter group, kicked around an American flag and shouted, if someone approached, that the dead soldiers were rotting in hell.

Since last summer, a Westboro contingent, numbering 6 to 20 people, has been showing up at the funerals of soldiers with their telltale placards, chants and tattered American flags. The protests, viewed by many as cruel and unpatriotic, have set off a wave of grass-roots outrage and a flurry of laws seeking to restrict demonstrations at funerals and burials.

"Repugnant, outrageous, despicable, do not adequately describe what I feel they do to these families," said Representative Steve Buyer, an Indiana Republican who is a co-sponsor of a Congressional bill to regulate demonstrations at federal cemeteries. "They have a right to freedom of speech. But someone also has a right to bury a loved one in peace."

In the past few months, nine states, including Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Indiana, have approved laws that restrict demonstrations at a funeral or burial. In addition, 23 state legislatures are getting ready to vote on similar bills, and Congress, which has received thousands of e-mail messages on the issue, expects to take up legislation in May dealing with demonstrations at federal cemeteries.

"I haven't seen something like this," said David L. Hudson Jr., research attorney for the First Amendment Center, referring to the number of state legislatures reacting to the protests. "It's just amazing. It's an emotional issue and not something that is going to get a lot of political opposition."

Most of the state bills and laws have been worded carefully to try to avoid concerns over the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech. The laws typically seek to keep demonstrators at a funeral or cemetery 100 to 500 feet from the entrance, depending on the state, and to limit the protests to one hour before and one hour after the funeral.

A few states, including Wisconsin, also seek to bar people from displaying "any visual image that conveys fighting words" within several hundred feet or during the hours of the funeral. The laws or bills do not try to prevent protesters from speaking out.

Constitutional experts say there is some precedent for these kinds of laws. One case in particular, which sought to keep anti-abortion picketers away from a private home, was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1988.

"A funeral home seems high on the list of places where people legitimately could be or should be protected from unwanted messages," said Michael C. Dorf, a constitutional law professor at Columbia University Law School.

The Westboro Baptist Church, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps, is not affiliated with the mainstream Baptist church. It first gained publicity when it picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay man who was beaten to death in 1998 in Wyoming.

Over the past decade, the church, which consists almost entirely of 75 of Mr. Phelps's relatives, made its name by demonstrating outside businesses, disaster zones and the funerals of gay people. Late last year, though, it changed tactics and members began showing up at the funerals of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, has put it on its watch list.

Embracing a literal translation of the Bible, the church members believe that God strikes down the wicked, chief among them gay men and lesbians and people who fail to strongly condemn homosexuality. God is killing soldiers, they say, because of America's unwillingness to condemn gay people and their lifestyles.

Standing on the roadside outside Corporal Bass's funeral here under a strikingly blue sky, the six protesters, who had flown from Topeka, shook their placards as cars drove past or pulled into the funeral. The 80-year-old wife of Mr. Phelps, slightly stooped but spry and wearing her running shoes, carried a sign that read "Tennessee Taliban." She is often given the task of driving the pickup trucks that ferry church members, a stack of pillows propping her view over the dashboard.

Next to her stood a cluster of Mr. Phelps's great-grandnephews and great-grandnieces, smiling teenagers with sunglasses, digital cameras and cellphones dangling from their pockets and wrists. They carried their own signs, among them, "You're Going to Hell."

Careful not to trespass on private property, the group stood a distance down the hill from the Woodmont Hills Church of Christ. Police cars parked nearby, keeping watch, but mostly making sure no one attacked the protesters.

"God is punishing this nation with a grievous, smiting blow, killing our children, sending them home dead, to help you connect the dots," said Shirley Roper-Phelps, the spokeswoman for the group and one of Mr. Phelps's daughters. "This is a nation that has forgotten God and leads a filthy manner of life."

At the entrance of the church, Jonathan Anstey, 21, one of Corporal Bass's best friends, frowned as he watched the protesters from a distance. Corporal Bass, who joined the Marine Corps after high school, died with six other service members when his 7-ton truck rolled over in a flash flood in Iraq. His family was reeling from grief, Mr. Anstey said.

"It's hurtful and it's taking a lot of willpower not to go down there and stomp their heads in," Mr. Anstey said. "But I know that David is looking down and seeing me, and he would not want to see that."

Disturbed by the protests, a small group of motorcycle riders, some of them Vietnam War veterans, banded together in October to form the Patriot Guard Riders. They now have 22,000 members. Their aim is to form a human shield in front of the protesters so that mourners cannot see them, and when necessary, rev their engines to drown out the shouts of the Westboro group.

The Bass family, desiring a low-key funeral, asked the motorcycle group not to attend.

"It's kind of like, we didn't do it right in the '70s," said Kurt Mayer, the group's spokesman, referring to the treatment of Vietnam veterans. "This is something that America needs to do, step up and do the right thing."

Hundreds of well-wishers have written e-mail messages to members of the motorcycle group, thanking them for their presence at the funerals. State legislatures, too, are reacting swiftly to the protests, and the Westboro group has mostly steered clear of states that have already enacted laws. While Corporal Bass's family was getting ready to bury him, the Tennessee House was preparing to debate a bill making it illegal for protesters to stand within 500 feet of a funeral, burial or memorial service.

The House joined the Senate in approving it unanimously on Thursday, and the bill now awaits the signature of the governor.

"When you have someone who has given the ultimate sacrifice for their country, with a community and the family grieving, I just don't feel it's the appropriate time to be protesting," said State Representative Curtis Johnson, a Republican who was a co-sponsor of the bill.

Ms. Roper-Phelps said the group was now contemplating how best to challenge the newly passed laws. "This hypocritical nation runs around the world touting our freedoms and is now prepared to dismantle the First Amendment," she said. "A piece of me wants to say that is exactly what you deserve."

    Outrage at Funeral Protests Pushes Lawmakers to Act, NYT, 17.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/17/us/17picket.html?ex=1149048000&en=424bf2e5bb48c56c&ei=5070

U.S. sees spike in Iraq deaths

Updated 4/16/2006 11:09 PM ET
USA TODAY
By Kimberly Johnson and Kathy Kiely

BAGHDAD — U.S. military deaths in Iraq have increased sharply in April after reaching the lowest level in two years last month. The increase was fueled largely by recent fighting in volatile Anbar province, west of Baghdad.

The U.S. military said Sunday that four Marines died over the weekend. In the first half of April, 48 American troops died in Iraq, according to Pentagon statistics.

In March, 30 U.S. forces died in Iraq, the fewest in a month since February 2004.

Anbar province, which stretches from west of Baghdad to the Syrian border and includes the former insurgent strongholds of Ramadi and Fallujah, has long been a challenge to pacify. At least 26 of this month's U.S. deaths occurred in Anbar.

U.S. forces and their Iraqi counterparts have been waging an aggressive fight in the region.

"There have been ongoing operations to secure the area, and (they) have been going on for several months," military spokesman Lt. Col Barry Johnson said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have launched operations in recent months to interdict the supply of insurgent fighters moving along the western Euphrates valley from Syria into Baghdad and central Iraq.

In a February report to Congress, the Pentagon said the insurgency is confined to a region that includes Baghdad and Anbar.

"Approximately 83% of insurgent attacks are in four of Iraq's 18 provinces, containing less than 42% of the population," according to the report.

The recent increase in U.S. deaths also come as Iraqi politicians struggle to create a government following Dec. 15 parliamentary elections.

In the months after elections were held, U.S. deaths declined.

The average monthly U.S. death toll during 2004 and 2005 was about 70, according to a USA TODAY database. In the first three months of this year the average dropped to 48.

"As long as there is no government, Iraqis tend to view the situation as one of occupation," said military analyst Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

The United States has urged Iraqi politicians to reach agreement on forming a new government.

"Their country is teetering on the brink of chaos, and they are still dithering," Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., said Sunday on ABC's This Week.

Kiely reported from McLean, Va. Contributing: Wire reports

    U.S. sees spike in Iraq deaths, UT, 16.4.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-04-16-pm-session_x.htm

In Iraqi Divide, Echoes of Bosnia for U.S. Troops

April 16, 2006
The New York Times
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

JURF AS-SAKHR, Iraq — As Lt. Col. Patrick Donahoe scans the horizon through the mud-splattered, inch-thick windows of his armored Humvee, he can almost see Bosnia through the palm trees.

It is not there yet, Colonel Donahoe said, but the communal hatred he has witnessed in this area of Iraq, the blindingly ignorant things people say, the pulling apart of Shiite and Sunni towns that were once tightly intertwined are all reminiscent of what he saw years ago as a young Army captain on a peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslavia.

"You talk to people here and it's literally the same conversations I heard in Bosnia," Colonel Donahoe said. "I had a police colonel tell me the other day that all the people in Jurf," a predominantly Sunni town, "are evil, including the children."

Jurf as-Sakhr, also known as Jurf, is 40 miles south of Baghdad. It is a community of crumbly dirt farms and dilapidated weapons factories and boys selling fluffy white chickens alongside the road. It sits right on a sectarian fault line that in the past few months has cracked wide open, and Colonel Donahoe is now back to playing peacekeeper.

The work is emblematic of a new role for the American soldier in Iraq, because as the threat has shifted, so has the mission. Sectarian violence is killing more people and destabilizing Iraq more than the antigovernment insurgency ever did. In response, American commanders, especially those in mixed Sunni-Shiite areas like Jurf, are throwing their armor, troops and money directly into the divide, trying to keep Iraq from violently partitioning the way Bosnia did.

What complicates their new mission is that the insurgency is far from over. It keeps mutating, finding new recruits and even new weapons; one soldier in Jurf was recently shot in the arm by an arrow.

Commanders have to simultaneously wage war and push peace, and Colonel Donahoe, along with other American officials, said the outcome of the entire American enterprise might hinge on how well they pulled off this balancing act.

"This is the critical year," Colonel Donahoe said. "If we don't turn things around, if we don't get the Shiites and Sunnis to stop killing each other, I'm not sure there's much else we can do."

Colonel Donahoe is experimenting with a number of tactics, like microloans to re-establish trade between Shiite and Sunni merchants; a political program to restore Sunni participation; and joint police patrols — not joint American-Iraqi, but joint Shiite-Sunni.

He was trained to maneuver tanks, but he spends much of his time parked on carpets, chatting with sheiks, trying to ease suspicions one glass of tea at a time.

His soldiers have an even harder adjustment to make. Many are on their second tour in Iraq, and they have returned to a different war. When they were here before, in 2004, it was all about crushing the Sunni-led insurgency. Now, it is all about checking Shiite power.

Back then, if a lieutenant in his 20's went out to meet with a gray-bearded elder, it was to coax him to cooperate with the Americans, not with his neighbor.

The soldiers' quality of life, if it can be called that, may have improved. During the previous tour, the men cooked chicken in ammunition boxes and showered with hoses, if at all. Now they make Baskin-Robbins ice cream floats in the mess hall and sleep in air-conditioned bliss.

But this does not necessarily translate into higher morale. Peacekeeping, no matter what the stakes, is not war-fighting, many soldiers said. It does not deliver the same sense of adventure or the same sort of bonds.

"I'll never forget those guys I crossed the border with," said Command Sgt. Maj. Elijah King Jr., who is on his second tour. "It's not like that anymore."

The troops in Jurf are part of the First Battalion, 67th Armor, based at Fort Hood, Tex. The battalion, part of the Fourth Infantry Division, has about 1,000 soldiers and first came to Iraq in 2003 as part of the invasion force before rolling north of Baghdad for counterinsurgency patrols that continued through early 2004.

The battalion returned to Iraq in December 2005 and is now thinly spread over 2,700 square miles between Iskandariya to the north and Karbala to the south. Because of all the insurgent activity, the military includes this area in what it refers to as the Triangle of Death.

One of the hottest spots is Jurf, once home to lush date plantations, a Scud missile testing site and the Medina Division of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard. After the invasion, Jurf, with its concentration of former officers, Baathists, weapons experts and leaders of the powerful Janabi tribe, predictably festered, becoming a terrorist sanctuary.

Just south of Jurf is Hamiya, a mostly Shiite farming town that never enjoyed Jurf's whiff of privilege. While Jurf farmers drove tractors, Hamiya farmers swung hoes, and in an atmosphere of rising sectarian tensions, these deep-seated class rivalries eventually exploded. South of Hamiya are the almost purely Shiite towns of Musayyib and Sedda.

By the time the battalion arrived in December, insurgents had established an island hideaway near Jurf on a swampy spit of land between the Euphrates River and an irrigation canal. They stashed thousands of artillery shells there and ran a clandestine court, where insurgent judges would try, torture and execute collaborators, the Iraqi police said. Mutilated bodies were often found bobbing in the swamps.

Colonel Donahoe's soldiers soon discovered wires from roadside bombs snaking back to the island. On Jan. 10, they invaded, blowing up homes and unearthing an enormous weapons cache, though the insurgents apparently caught wind of the operation because by the time the tanks rumbled ashore, they had vanished. The bomb attacks continued, and in February, soldiers in a Bradley fighting vehicle fired on two suspects who they said tried to blow up a convoy and took off running, right past a house.

When the soldiers arrived at the house, the colonel said, a woman was screaming in the driveway, waving the severed leg of her daughter. The girl had been hit by an American shell and bled to death in front of the soldiers.

The troops have also been enmeshed in strange local dynamics. A few weeks ago, a schoolgirl came to them with an armload of books that included a chemical weapons training manual. She led the soldiers to her father, a former Iraqi Army colonel suspected of being an insurgent. After the soldiers detained him, they gave the girl a chocolate bar.

They have also gone on raids with local security forces. But this, too, has its risks.

One night last month, American troops helped police officers from Hamiya, the working-class Shiite town, aggressively round up 10 men, all Sunnis, from Jurf.

"I left thinking, wait a sec, were we just part of some sort of sectarian revenge?" the colonel said.

As things quieted down with the Sunnis, more problems emerged with the Shiites. Shiite-led police forces began detaining Sunnis and refusing to release them even after American commanders concluded they were innocent.

Yassir Naameh Naoufel, a Sunni elder in Jurf, said Sunnis could no longer visit Musayyib, a Shiite town. "If we do, we might disappear," he said.

Meanwhile, the Mahdi Army, a force of armed men loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, has been pushing into Musayyib, introducing a harsh brand of Islamic law.

According to Staff Sgt. Joseph Schicker, a psychological operations soldier, Mahdi militiamen recently threw battery acid on a woman whose ankles were showing and dragged a man accused of being gay through the streets.

Colonel Donahoe draws on the Balkans for an easy metaphor.

"Moktada is like Milosevic," he said, referring to the former Serbian leader. "He'll do anything to stay in power."

Colonel Donahoe, 38, calls Bosnia his "formative military experience," and it seems that the nine months he spent there in 1996 has been as valuable for him in Iraq as the 15 years he trained as a tank commander.

At a recent meeting he organized between Shiite and Sunni imams, the colonel shared one of his Bosnian lessons. "Those people were intermarried just like you," he said. "They lived together just like you. But certain leaders trying to grab power ripped that country apart." The imams nodded, the Shiites on one side of the room, the Sunnis on the other.

The colonel said he wanted to "reintegrate" local politics. The Musayyib district council, which oversees all the towns in an area with a total population of around 200,000, was a mix of Shiites and Sunnis before the war. Now it is run by 17 Shiites, the majority of whom support Mr. Sadr, with two nonvoting Sunni members.

To make matters worse, elders in Hamiya, which is technically part of the Jurf subdistrict but is mostly Shiite, now want to secede from Jurf, even though Hamiya has been part of Jurf for decades. The colonel said what he needed more than anything was a bona fide expert on governing.

"What do I know about running a district council?" he said.

He is also trying to revive trade links by using some of the battalion's $495,000 in reconstruction money to start a microloan program. The problem is, many merchants in Jurf and Musayyib are too frightened to travel from one area to the other to do the business they used to.

Tip-toeing through these issues is far more delicate than hunting insurgents, and the colonel seems to sense the difficulties of keeping his rank and file engaged. He tells all of his soldiers that they are now diplomats, and he uses them to interview merchants, for example, and protect the construction site of a new police station in Jurf. Insurgents blew up the last one, and the colonel is waiting to rebuild before taking on the delicate task of intermingling police forces.

"The only way this is going to work is if the patrols are 50-50, Shiite-Sunni," he said.

Shiite police officials have agreed, in theory, but have hired few Sunnis so far.

The colonel cited signs of progress. Bomb attacks are down. More shops are open. Fewer bodies are found bobbing in the swamp.

But it is not clear how receptive Shiites and Sunnis are to the reconciliation efforts. Often, the only common ground is anti-American anger, or at least disappointment.

Salah al-Shimeri, an Iraqi police official and a Shiite, told American soldiers during a recent meeting, "I just wish you could put this country back to the way you found it."

Sometimes, the colonel said, he is unsure whether that can be done. "How will it end?" he said one night. "I don't know."

"I think it will come down to an attrition of spirit. Either they'll get tired of fighting and quit. Or we will."

    In Iraqi Divide, Echoes of Bosnia for U.S. Troops, NYT, 16.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/world/middleeast/16peacekeeping.html?hp&ex=1145246400&en=4673befb6b07f1c1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

John Sherffius        St Louis, MO        Cagle        14.4.2006
http://cagle.msnbc.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/sherffius.asp

George Washington        1732-1799

First President (1789-1797) of the United States
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/gw1.html
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More Retired Generals Call for Rumsfeld's Resignation

April 14, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID S. CLOUD and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, April 13 — The widening circle of retired generals who have stepped forward to call for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's resignation is shaping up as an unusual outcry that could pose a significant challenge to Mr. Rumsfeld's leadership, current and former generals said on Thursday.

Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., who led troops on the ground in Iraq as recently as 2004 as the commander of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, on Thursday became the fifth retired senior general in recent days to call publicly for Mr. Rumsfeld's ouster. Also Thursday, another retired Army general, Maj. Gen. John Riggs, joined in the fray.

"We need to continue to fight the global war on terror and keep it off our shores," General Swannack said in a telephone interview. "But I do not believe Secretary Rumsfeld is the right person to fight that war based on his absolute failures in managing the war against Saddam in Iraq."

Another former Army commander in Iraq, Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who led the First Infantry Division, publicly broke ranks with Mr. Rumsfeld on Wednesday. Mr. Rumsfeld long ago became a magnet for political attacks. But the current uproar is significant because Mr. Rumsfeld's critics include generals who were involved in the invasion and occupation of Iraq under the defense secretary's leadership.

There were indications on Thursday that the concern about Mr. Rumsfeld, rooted in years of pent-up anger about his handling of the war, was sweeping aside the reticence of retired generals who took part in the Iraq war to criticize an enterprise in which they participated. Current and former officers said they were unaware of any organized campaign to seek Mr. Rumsfeld's ouster, but they described a blizzard of telephone calls and e-mail messages as retired generals critical of Mr. Rumsfeld weighed the pros and cons of joining in the condemnation.

Even as some of their retired colleagues spoke out publicly about Mr. Rumsfeld, other senior officers, retired and active alike, had to be promised anonymity before they would discuss their own views of why the criticism of him was mounting. Some were concerned about what would happen to them if they spoke openly, others about damage to the military that might result from amplifying the debate, and some about talking outside of channels, which in military circles is often viewed as inappropriate.

The White House has dismissed the criticism, saying it merely reflects tensions over the war in Iraq. There was no indication that Mr. Rumsfeld was considering resigning.

"The president believes Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a very fine job during a challenging period in our nation's history," the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, told reporters on Thursday.

Among the retired generals who have called for Mr. Rumsfeld's ouster, some have emphasized that they still believe it was right for the United States to invade Iraq. But a common thread in their complaints has been an assertion that Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides too often inserted themselves unnecessarily into military decisionmaking, often disregarding advice from military commanders.

The outcry also appears based in part on a coalescing of concern about the toll that the war is taking on American armed forces, with little sign, three years after the invasion, that United States troops will be able to withdraw in large numbers anytime soon.

Pentagon officials, while acknowledging that Mr. Rumsfeld's forceful style has sometimes ruffled his military subordinates, played down the idea that he was overriding the advice of his military commanders or ignoring their views.

His interaction with military commanders has "been frequent," said Lawrence Di Rita, a top aide to Mr. Rumsfeld.

"It's been intense," Mr. Di Rita said, "but always there's been ample opportunity for military judgment to be applied against the policies of the United States."

Some retired officers, however, said they believed the momentum was turning against Mr. Rumsfeld.

"Are the floodgates opening?" asked one retired Army general, who drew a connection between the complaints and the fact that President Bush's second term ends in less than three years. "The tide is changing, and folks are seeing the end of this administration."

No active duty officers have joined the call for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation. In interviews, some currently serving general officers expressed discomfort with the campaign against Mr. Rumsfeld, which has been spearheaded by, among others, Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, who headed the United States Central Command in the late 1990's before retiring from the Marine Corps. Some of the currently serving officers said they feared the debate risked politicizing the military and undercutting its professional ethos.

Some say privately they disagree with aspects of the Bush administration's handling of the war. But many currently serving officers, regardless of their views, say respect for civilian control of the military requires that they air differences of opinion in private and stay silent in public.

"I support my secretary of defense," Lt. General John Vines, who commands the Army's 18th Airborne Corps, said when questioned after a speech in Washington on Thursday about the calls for Mr. Rumsfeld to step down. "If I publicly disagree with my civilian leadership, I think I've got to resign. My advice should be private."

Some of the tensions between Mr. Rumsfeld and the uniformed military services date back to his arrival at the Pentagon in early 2001. Mr. Rumsfeld's assertion of greater civilian control over the military and his calls for a slimmer, faster force were viewed with mistrust by many senior officers, while his aggressive, sometimes abrasive style also earned him enmity.

Mr. Rumsfeld's critics often point to his treatment of Gen. Eric Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff, who told Congress a month before the 2003 invasion of Iraq that occupying the country could require "several hundred thousand troops," rather than the smaller force that was later provided. General Shinseki's estimate was publicly dismissed by Pentagon officials.

"Rumsfeld has been contemptuous of the views of senior military officers since the day he walked in as secretary of defense. It's about time they got sick and tired," Thomas E. White, the former Army secretary, said in a telephone interview on Thursday. Mr. White was forced out of his job by Mr. Rumsfeld in April of 2003.

Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold of the Marine Corps, who retired in late 2002, has said he regarded the American invasion of Iraq unnecessary. He issued his call for replacing Mr. Rumsfeld in an essay in the current edition of Time magazine. General Newbold said he regretted not opposing the invasion of Iraq more vigorously, and called the invasion peripheral to the job of defeating Al Qaeda.

General Swannack, by contrast, continues to support the invasion but said that Mr. Rumsfeld had micromanaged the war in Iraq, rather than leaving it to senior commanders there, including Gen. George W. Casey Jr. of the Army, the top American officer in Iraq, and Gen. John P. Abizaid of the Army, the top officer in the Middle East. "My belief is Rumsfeld does not really understand the dynamic of counterinsurgency warfare," General Swannack said.

The string of retired generals calling for Rumsfeld's removal has touched off a vigorous debate within the ranks of both active-duty and retired generals and admirals.

Some officers who have worked closely with Mr. Rumsfeld reject the idea that he is primarily to blame for the inability of American forces to defeat the insurgency in Iraq. One active-duty, four-star Army officer said he had not heard among his peers widespread criticism of Mr. Rumsfeld, and said he thought the criticism from his retired colleagues was off base. "They are entitled to their views, but I believe them to be wrong. And it is unfortunate they have allowed themselves to become in some respects, politicized."

Gen. Jack Keane, who was Army vice chief of staff in 2003 before retiring, said in the planning of the Iraq invasion, senior officers as much as the Pentagon's civilian leadership underestimated the threat of a long-term insurgency.

"There's shared responsibility here. I don't think you can blame the civilian leadership alone," he said.

Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, a retired Army general, called for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation in March.

The criticism of Mr. Rumsfeld may spring from multiple motives. General Zinni, for example, is in the middle of a tour promoting a new book critical of the Bush administration.

General Riggs, who called for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation in an interview on Thursday with National Public Radio, left the Pentagon in 2004 after clashing with civilian leaders and then being investigated for potential misuse of contractor personnel.

But there were also signs that the spate of retired generals calling for Mr. Rumsfeld's departure was not finished. Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, who is retired from the Marine Corps, said in an interview Thursday he had received a telephone call from another retired general who was weighing whether to publicly join the calls for Mr. Rumsfeld's dismissal.

"He was conflicted, and when I hung up I didn't know which way he was going to go," General Van Riper said.

Thom Shanker contributed reporting for this article.

    More Retired Generals Call for Rumsfeld's Resignation, NYT, 14.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/14/washington/14military.html?hp&ex=1145073600&en=bdbb556e9e293705&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush statement on WMD in Iraq based on intelligence that was later debunked

Posted 4/12/2006 12:42 PM ET
USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush's claim three years ago that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq was based on U.S. intelligence that was later proved false, the White House acknowledged on Wednesday.

Spokesman Scott McClellan vigorously denied suggestions that Bush was making claims that already had been debunked when he said that two small trailers seized in Iraq were mobile biological laboratories.

McClellan did not directly answer questions about whether Bush, when he made his statement, was aware that a team of experts had already concluded the trailers were not involved with WMD manufacturing.

"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," McClellan said.

He said Bush was relying on information from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency that said the trailers were used to produce biological weapons — information that later proved false.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that experts on a Pentagon-sponsored mission who examined the trailers concluded that they had nothing to do with biological weapons and sent their findings to Washington in a classified field report on May 27, 2003.

One day later, the CIA and DIA publicly issued an assessment saying the opposite — that U.S. officials were confident that the trailers were used to produce biological weapons. The assessment said the mobile facilities represented "the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program."

The very next day, Bush declared in a Polish television interview, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories."

McClellan said information for public reports from the CIA comes from many sources and takes time to vet.

"It's not something that, they will tell you, turns on a dime," McClellan said.

McClellan dismissed the Post article and a report based on it that aired on ABC News Wednesday morning as irresponsible. He specifically called on ABC to apologize for reporting Bush knew that what he was saying was false.

The actions of the special team were described to a Washington Post reporter in interviews with government officials and weapons experts who participated in the mission or had direct knowledge of it. The final report remains classified.

The trailers along with aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq for what was believed to be a nuclear weapons program — were primary pieces of evidence offered by the Bush administration before the war to support its contention that Iraq was making weapons of mass destruction.

Intelligence officials and the White House have repeatedly denied claims that intelligence was exaggerated or manipulated in the months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The Iraq Survey Group concluded in 2004 that there was no evidence that Iraq produced weapons of mass destruction after 1991.

    Bush statement on WMD in Iraq based on intelligence that was later debunked, UT, 12.4.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-12-bush-intel_x.htm

Retired US Iraq general demands Rumsfeld resign

Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:44 PM ET
Reuters
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A recently retired two-star general who just a year ago commanded a U.S. Army division in Iraq on Wednesday joined a small but growing list of former senior officers to call on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign.

"I believe we need a fresh start in the Pentagon. We need a leader who understands teamwork, a leader who knows how to build teams, a leader that does it without intimidation," Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the Germany-based 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, said in an interview on CNN.

In recent weeks, retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton and Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni all spoke out against Rumsfeld. This comes as opinion polls show eroding public support for the 3-year-old war in which about 2,360 U.S. troops have died.

"You know, it speaks volumes that guys like me are speaking out from retirement about the leadership climate in the Department of Defense," Batiste said.

"But when decisions are made without taking into account sound military recommendations, sound military decision making, sound planning, then we're bound to make mistakes."

Batiste, a West Point graduate who also served during the previous Gulf War, retired from the Army on November 1, 2005. While in Iraq, his division, nicknamed the Big Red One, was based in Tikrit, and it wrapped up a yearlong deployment in May 2005.

Critics have accused Rumsfeld of bullying senior military officers and disregarding their views. They often cite how Rumsfeld dismissed then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki's opinion a month before the 2003 invasion that occupying Iraq could require "several hundred thousand troops," not the smaller force Rumsfeld would send.

Many experts believe that the chaos that ensued and the insurgency that emerged just months later vindicated Shinseki's view.

Batiste told CNN "we've got the best military in the world, hands down, period." He did not say whether he felt the war was winnable.

'LACK OF SACRIFICE'

"Whether we agree or not with the war in Iraq, we are where we are, and we must succeed in this endeavor. Failure is frankly not an option," Batiste said.

Batiste said he was struck by the "lack of sacrifice and commitment on the part of the American people" to the war, with the exception of families with soldiers fighting in Iraq.

"I think that our executive and legislative branches of government have a responsibility to mobilize this country for war. They frankly have not done so. We're mortgaging our future, our children, $8 to $9 billion a month," he said, referring to the cost of the war.

He defined success in the war as "setting the Iraqi people up for self-reliance with their form of representative government that takes into account tribal, ethnic and religious differences that have always defined Iraqi society."

"Iraqis, frankly, in my experience, do not understand democracy. Nor do they understand their responsibilities for a free society," Batiste said.

Newbold, the military's top operations officer before the Iraq war, said in a Time magazine opinion piece on Sunday that he regretted having not more openly challenged U.S. leaders who took the United States into "an unnecessary war" in Iraq. Newbold encouraged officers still in the military to voice any doubts they have about the war.

On Tuesday, Marine Corps Gen. Pete Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, defended Rumsfeld from the criticism.

Rumsfeld said that "there's nothing wrong with people having opinions," and that criticism should be expected during a war as controversial as this one.

    Retired US Iraq general demands Rumsfeld resign, R, 12.4.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2006-04-12T184439Z_01_N12340006_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-USA-GENERAL.xml

Deaths of U.S. Soldiers Climb Again in Iraq

April 12, 2006
The New York Times
By EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 12 — The death toll for American troops is rising steeply this month, with the military today announcing the deaths of three more soldiers, bringing the number of troops killed this month to at least 36. That figure already surpasses the American military deaths for all of March, and could signal a renewed insurgent offensive against the American presence here.

When 31 service members died last month, it was the second lowest monthly death toll of the war for the Americans, and the fifth month in a row of declining fatalities, according to statistics from the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent organization.

But deaths have begun to rise quickly. Many of the fatalities this month have taken place in the parched Anbar Province, the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency. The province was rated "critical" in a confidential report written recently by the American Embassy and the military command in Baghdad.

Though sectarian violence has recently overshadowed anti-American attacks in much of central Iraq, there are relatively few Shiites in Anbar, so much of the insurgency's venom is directed at the Americans there.

The capital also remains a virulently hostile place. The three soldiers who died today were killed in two separate roadside bomb explosions — two were hit by a blast south of Baghdad, and one to the east, the military said. Three soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb explosion north of Baghdad on Tuesday. A soldier died Monday from wounds sustained the previous day in combat in Anbar, and a soldier was killed Sunday by a roadside bomb near Balad.

As the insurgency raged, political talks in the capital remained moribund. The temporary speaker of Parliament, Adnan Pachachi, announced today that he would convene the second session of the legislature next week, even in the absence of a new government. The venerable Mr. Pachachi made his statement at a news conference attended by many Iraqi reporters, even though a new meeting of Parliament by itself would mean little. Mr. Pachachi's symbolic gesture showed how desperate Iraqi officials are to convey a sense of movement in the stagnant political process.

The man at the center of the storm, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaari, on Tuesday unleashed a tirade against what he called anti-Shiite remarks from the Egyptian president. Mr. Jafaari said that Iraq would boycott a conference of Middle East foreign ministers in Cairo being held today.At a news conference, Mr. Jafaari said that the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, had defamed Iraq and its majority Shiite population by saying in a television interview last Saturday that the Shiites here are more loyal to Iran than to Iraq.

"We hope that others would remind themselves to support the Iraqi people and never spoil the Arab identity of Iraq," Mr. Jaafari said. The Shiites in Iraq are mostly Arabs, while those in Iran are primarily Persians. Many Iraqi Shiites fought against Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988. A million people died.

Even so, the Iranian government gave refuge to several prominent Shiite political parties that were oppressed during Saddam Hussein's rule. One was Mr. Jaafari's party, the Islamic Dawa Party. Another was Dawa's main rival, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is now trying to unseat Mr. Jaafari as the prime minister.

Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric who is a key supporter of Mr. Jafaari, also released a statement today condemning Mr. Mubarak's remarks and stressing the loyalty of Iraqi's Shiite population.

"Iraq is going through a difficult phase," Mr. Sadr said, "and such statements serve only the enemy and contributes in starting the fire of civil and sectarian wars."

Iraqi Shiite officials said Tuesday that they had still not resolved the dispute over the post of prime minister. Talks to form a new government are deadlocked over the issue, because the Sunni Arab, Kurdish and secular blocs — as well as some Shiites — are demanding the withdrawal of Mr. Jaafari's nomination. The biggest bloc in the 275-member Parliament, in this case the Shiites, has the constitutional right to nominate a prime minister, who then must be approved by Parliament.

Mr. Jaafari won the nomination in February after a closely contested vote among the 130-member Shiite bloc. Now, in light of opposition to Mr. Jaafari, several Shiite groups have announced they are ready to put forward their own candidates. These groups include the Supreme Council and the Fadhila Party.

Shiite leaders met Tuesday but did not reach any agreement on the issue, said Redha Jowad Taki, a political officer for the Supreme Council.

One independent member of the Shiite bloc who declined to speak for attribution said that some Dawa officials were ready to withdraw Mr. Jaafari's nomination but that Mr. Jaafari insisted on keeping his job.

As the talks inch along, other Iraqi leaders say the country has already spiraled down into civil war. One of them is Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister and a White House ally. He told Reuters on Tuesday that the "new form of terrorism" here is "ideological, political and sectarian terror."

"We must be aware and not bury our head in the soil and say the situation in Iraq is good," he said.

This morning, a police officer and three civilians were killed in Baghdad when a roadside bomb struck a police patrol, and another police officer was shot dead while on his way to work, an official at the Iraqi Interior Ministry said. And the bodies of three men who had been shot in the head were found in different neighborhoods this morning, the official said.

A bomb hidden in a minibus exploded in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least three people and wounding nine, an Interior Ministry official said.

Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi contributed reporting for this article.

    Deaths of U.S. Soldiers Climb Again in Iraq, NYT, 12.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/world/13cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1144900800&en=367630fb5e3cb849&ei=5094&partner=homepage

White House hotly denies report on Iraq WMD

Wed Apr 12, 2006 12:10 PM ET
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Wednesday angrily denied a newspaper report that suggested President George W. Bush in 2003 declared the existence of biological weapons laboratories in Iraq while knowing it was not true.

On May 29, 2003, Bush hailed the capture of two trailers in Iraq as mobile biological laboratories and declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The report in The Washington Post said a Pentagon-sponsored fact-finding mission had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. The newspaper cited government officials and weapons experts who participated in the secret mission or had direct knowledge of it.

The Post said the group's unanimous findings had been sent to the Pentagon in a field report, two days before the president's statement.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the account "reckless reporting" and said Bush made his statement based on the intelligence assessment of the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), an arm of the Pentagon.

Bush cited the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction as the prime justification for invading Iraq. No such weapons were found.

A U.S. intelligence official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, confirmed the existence of the field report cited by the Post, but said it was a preliminary finding that had to be evaluated.

"You don't change a report that has been coordinated in the (intelligence) community based on a field report," the official said. "It's a preliminary report. No matter how strongly the individual may feel about the subject matter."

McClellan said the Post story was "nothing more than rehashing an old issue that was resolved long ago," pointing out that an independent commission on Iraq had already determined the intelligence on alleged Iraqi biological weapons was wrong.

'RECKLESS REPORTING'

When an ABC reporter pressed McClellan on the subject at his morning briefing, McClellan upbraided the network for picking up on the report.

"This is reckless reporting and for you all to go on the air this morning and make such a charge is irresponsible, and I hope that ABC would apologize for it and make a correction on the air," he said.

The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were classified and shelved, the Post reported. It added that for nearly a year after that, the Bush administration continued to publicly assert that the trailers were biological weapons factories.

The authors of the reports -- nine U.S. and British civilian experts -- were sent to Baghdad by the DIA, the newspaper said.

A DIA spokesman told the paper that the team's findings were neither ignored nor suppressed, but were incorporated in the work of the Iraqi Survey Group, which led the official search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

The team's work remains classified. But the newspaper said interviews revealed that the team was unequivocal in its conclusion that the trailers were not intended to manufacture biological weapons.

"There was no connection to anything biological," one expert who studied the trailers was quoted as saying.

    White House hotly denies report on Iraq WMD, NYT, 12.4.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2006-04-12T161027Z_01_N11262021_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-USA-LABS.xml

US shelved evidence discounting Iraq's WMD: report

Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:15 AM ET
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration publicly asserted that two trailers captured by U.S. troops in Iraq in May 2003 were mobile "biological laboratories" even after U.S. intelligence officials had evidence that it was not true, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

On May 29, 2003, President George W. Bush hailed the capture of the trailers, declaring "We have found the weapons of mass destruction".

But a Pentagon-sponsored fact-finding mission had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons, the Post reported, citing government officials and weapons experts who participated in the secret mission or had direct knowledge of it.

The Post said the group's unanimous findings had been sent to the Pentagon in a field report, two days before the president's statement.

Bush cited the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction as the prime justification for invading Iraq. No such weapons ever were found.

A U.S. intelligence official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity confirmed the existence of the field report but said it was a preliminary finding that had to be evaluated.

"You don't change a report that has been coordinated in the (intelligence) community based on a field report," the official said. "It's a preliminary report. No matter how strongly the individual may feel about the subject matter."

The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were classified and shelved, The Washington Post reported. It added that for nearly a year after that, the Bush administration continued to public assert that the trailers were biological weapons factories.

The authors of the reports -- nine U.S. and British civilian experts -- were sent to Baghdad by the Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA, the newspaper said.

A DIA spokesman told the paper that the team's findings were neither ignored nor suppressed, but were incorporated in the work of the Iraqi Survey Group, which led the official search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

The team's work remains classified. But the newspaper said interviews revealed that the team was unequivocal in its conclusion that the trailers were not intended to manufacture biological weapons.

"There was no connection to anything biological," one expert who studied the trailers was quoted as saying.

    US shelved evidence discounting Iraq's WMD: report, R, 12.4.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2006-04-12T061439Z_01_N11262021_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-USA-LABS.xml

Top officer defends Rumsfeld

Wed Apr 12, 2006 1:39 AM ET
Reuters
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. military officer on Tuesday defended Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld against three retired generals demanding his ouster, and denied that the United States invaded Iraq without sufficiently weighing its plan.

Standing next to Rumsfeld at a Pentagon briefing, Marine Corps Gen. Pete Pace said critics could legitimately question the defense secretary's judgment but not his motives.

"People can question my judgment or his (Rumsfeld's) judgment," Pace said. "But they should never question the dedication, the patriotism and the work ethic of Secretary Rumsfeld."

Retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton and Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni have recently separately called for Rumsfeld to be replaced. This comes as opinion polls show eroding public support for the 3-year-old war in which about 2,360 U.S. troops have died.

"I don't know how many generals there have been in the last five years that have served in the United States armed services -- hundreds and hundreds and hundreds," said Rumsfeld, whom critics have accused of bullying senior military officers and stifling dissent.

"And there are several who have opinions, and there's nothing wrong with people having opinions. And I think one ought to expect that when you're involved in something that's controversial as certainly this war is," he said.

Newbold, the military's top operations officer before the Iraq war, said he regretted not speaking up more forcefully against what he now regards as an unnecessary war and a diversion from "the real threat" posed by al Qaeda.

In a Time magazine opinion piece on Sunday, Newbold encouraged officers still in the military to voice any doubts they have about the war.

"My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions -- or bury the results," Newbold wrote.

Newbold said he went public with the private encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership.

Pace, chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, questioned whether Newbold knew all the facts about the invasion plans, noting he retired in September 2002, six months before the invasion took place.

"It's also important to go back and take a look, when you look at people talking: When did their personal knowledge end?" Pace said, noting that the war plan changed many times after Newbold's departure.

'NOT SHY'

Pace said the war plan was thoroughly vetted before the operation was launched.

"We had discussions in the department, we had discussions in the National Security Council, we had discussions with the president. And they were extensive discussions. An awful lot of people around were not shy about giving their views," he said.

Pace said when now-retired Central Command head Gen. Tommy Franks presented the final invasion plan "we were satisfied that he had a good, executable plan, and we so told the secretary of defense and the president of the United States."

Rumsfeld said he was unaware that Newbold had publicly or privately questioned the war plan.

Eaton, in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003-2004, wrote in a New York Times opinion piece last month that Rumsfeld had put the Pentagon at the mercy of his ego.

"In sum, he has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq. Mr. Rumsfeld must step down," he wrote.

Pace said he did not know whether Eaton ever voiced his concerns before leaving the military.

    Top officer defends Rumsfeld, R, 12.4.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-04-12T053935Z_01_N11242897_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-USA-RUMSFELD.xml

American students favor Iraq troop reduction

Tue Apr 11, 2006 6:04 PM ET
Reuters
By Jason Szep

BOSTON (Reuters) - Three out of five American college students support a U.S. troops reduction in Iraq and nearly three quarters think the United Nations and other countries should take the lead in solving future global crises, according to a poll released on Tuesday.

The findings were contained in a nationwide telephone survey of 1,200 college students conducted March 13-27 by Harvard University's Institute of Politics. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

About 60 percent of the students said the United States should begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, up 20 points from a survey last November. But only 12 percent favored a complete end to the U.S. military presence there.

The survey suggested that students were slightly more negative about the war than the general public. An ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Tuesday found 52 percent of respondents saying the United States should begin withdrawing forces from Iraq.

"One important finding among the students is that 39 percent identified Iraq as their number one concern, which is higher than the country as a whole," Jeanne Shaheen, director of Harvard's Institute of Politics, said in an interview.

In the poll, which included students from 250 colleges, nearly three out of four wanted the United States to let the United Nations and other countries take the lead in solving global crises and conflicts.

"There's definitely a world view among college students that appreciates the need to act in the international community," said Shaheen.

Some 53 percent of students opposed President George W. Bush's program of domestic eavesdropping of suspected terrorists. Other polls have shown a majority of all Americans approve of the tactic.

Bush's personal approval rating was at a record low in the 6-year-old survey at 33 percent, having dropped 8 percentage points from the last survey in November. In the ABC/Washington Post poll of all voters, it was 38 percent.

In a hypothetical race for the White House in 2008, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York emerged as frontrunners, each with 40 percent support among students.

About 70 percent of students said religion played an important role in their lives but most were uncomfortable mixing religion with politics.

The poll showed 32 percent of students said the United States should prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, using unilateral military force if necessary. But 37 percent were unsure and 29 percent opposed military force in Iran.

    American students favor Iraq troop reduction, R, 11.4.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2006-04-11T220410Z_01_N11366089_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH-POLL-STUDENTS.xml

Third Retired General Wants Rumsfeld Out

April 10, 2006
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, April 9 — The three-star Marine Corps general who was the military's top operations officer before the invasion of Iraq expressed regret, in an essay published Sunday, that he did not more energetically question those who had ordered the nation to war. He also urged active-duty officers to speak out now if they had doubts about the war.

Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, who retired in late 2002, also called for replacing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and "many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach." He is the third retired senior officer in recent weeks to demand that Mr. Rumsfeld step down.

In the essay, in this week's issue of Time magazine, General Newbold wrote, "I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat — Al Qaeda."

The decision to invade Iraq, he wrote, "was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions — or bury the results."

Though some active-duty officers will say in private that they disagree with Mr. Rumsfeld's handling of Iraq, none have spoken out publicly. They attribute their silence to respect for civilian control of the military, as set in the Constitution — but some also say they know it would be professional suicide to speak up.

"The officer corps is willing to sacrifice their lives for their country, but not their careers," said one combat veteran who says the Pentagon's civilian leadership made serious mistakes in Iraq, but has declined to voice his concerns for attribution.

Many officers who served in Iraq also say privately that regardless of flawed war planning or early mistakes by civilian and military officers, the American public would hold the current officer corps responsible for failure in Iraq. These officers do not want to discuss doubts about the mission publicly now. General Newbold acknowledged these issues, saying he decided to go public only after "the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership" and in order to "offer a challenge to those still in uniform."

A leader's responsibility "is to give voice to those who can't — or don't have the opportunity to — speak," General Newbold wrote. "Enlisted members of the armed forces swear their oath to those appointed over them; an officer swears an oath not to a person but to the Constitution. The distinction is important."

General Newbold served as director of operations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2000 through the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the war in Afghanistan. He left military service in late 2002, as the Defense Department was deep into planning for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

"I retired from the military four months before the invasion, in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11's tragedy to hijack our security policy," General Newbold wrote.

His generation of officers thought it had learned from Vietnam that "we must never again stand by quietly while those ignorant of and casual about war lead us into another one and then mismanage the conduct of it," General Newbold wrote.

The "consequence of the military's quiescence" in the current environment, he wrote, "was that a fundamentally flawed plan was executed for an invented war, while pursuing the real enemy, Al Qaeda, became a secondary effort."

A senior Pentagon official on Mr. Rumsfeld's staff said Sunday that the Pentagon leadership provided ample opportunity for senior officers to voice concerns.

"It is hard for the secretary and the rest of the policy leadership to understand the situation if they are not getting good, unvarnished advice from military commanders," the civilian official said.

While General Newbold said he did not accept the rationale for invading Iraq, he wrote that "a precipitous withdrawal would be a mistake" because it would tell the nation's adversaries that "America can be defeated, and thus increase the chances of future conflicts."

General Newbold's essay follows one on March 19, by another retired officer, Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, who commanded the training of Iraqi security forces in the year after Baghdad fell. General Eaton wrote an Op-Ed article in The New York Times criticizing Mr. Rumsfeld's management of the war, adding, "President Bush should accept the offer to resign that Mr. Rumsfeld says he has tendered more than once."

When asked about that essay, President Bush rejected the call to dismiss Mr. Rumsfeld, repeating as he often has that he was satisfied with Mr. Rumsfeld's performance.

On April 2, Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, who previously led the military's Central Command, responsible for operations in the Middle East, said in a television interview that Mr. Rumsfeld, among others, should be held accountable for mistakes in Iraq and that he should step down.

General Newbold has been quoted previously describing his concerns about Iraq planning, including in "Cobra II," a book by Michael R. Gordon, chief military correspondent for The New York Times, and Bernard E. Trainor, a retired Marine lieutenant general who is a former military correspondent for the newspaper. In the book General Newbold is described telling fellow officers that he considered the focus on Iraq to be a strategic blunder and a distraction from the real counterterror effort. He is also quoted as expressing concern about Mr. Rumsfeld's influence on war planning, in particular his emphasis on assigning fewer troops to the invasion.

    Third Retired General Wants Rumsfeld Out, NYT, 10.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/world/middleeast/10military.html

Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is seen in this undated file photo.
The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to overstate the threat to stability
posed by the al Qaeda leader in Iraq, The Washington Post reported on Monday.

REUTERS/Petra/File photo

 US propaganda magnifies Zarqawi threat: report        R        10.4.2006
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=
2006-04-10T091529Z_01_N10395950_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-ZARQAWI.xml

US propaganda magnifies Zarqawi threat: report

Mon Apr 10, 2006 5:15 AM ET
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to overstate the threat to stability posed by the al Qaeda leader in Iraq, The Washington Post reported on Monday.

Some senior military intelligence officers believe the importance of the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may have been exaggerated, the newspaper reported, citing military documents and officers familiar with the program.

According to the article, Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq, told a U.S. Army meeting last summer: "Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will -- made him more important than he really is, in some ways."

"The long-term threat is not Zarqawi or religious extremists, but these former regime types and their friends," Harvey said in a transcript of the meeting at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the Post reported.

Harvey said at the meeting that, while Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have carried out deadly bombing attacks, they remain "a very small part of the actual numbers," according to the newspaper.

Largely aimed at Iraqis, the Zarqawi campaign began two years ago and was believed to be ongoing, the Post said. It has included leaflets, radio and television broadcasts and at least one leak to an American journalist, the newspaper said.

Another military officer familiar with the program told the newspaper that the material was all in Arabic. But the officer said the Zarqawi campaign "probably raised his profile in the American press's view," the report said.

Zarqawi has a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head.

Officers familiar with the propaganda program were cited as saying that one goal was to drive a wedge into the insurgency by emphasizing Zarqawi's terrorist acts and foreign origin.

"Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response," a U.S. military briefing document from 2004 stated, the Post reported.

    US propaganda magnifies Zarqawi threat: report, R, 10.4.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-04-10T091529Z_01_N10395950_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-ZARQAWI.xml

Iraq Findings Leaked by Cheney's Aide Were Disputed

April 9, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER and DAVID BARSTOW

WASHINGTON, April 8 — President Bush's apparent order authorizing a senior White House official to reveal to a reporter previously classified intelligence about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain uranium came as the information was already being discredited by several other officials in the administration, interviews and documents from the time show.

A review of the records and interviews conducted during and after the crucial period in June and July of 2003 also show that what the aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr., said he was authorized to portray as a "key judgment" by intelligence officers had in fact been given much less prominence in the most important assessment of Iraq's weapons capability.

Mr. Libby said he drew on that report, the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, when he spoke with the reporter. However, the conclusions about Mr. Hussein's search for uranium appear to have been buried deeper in the report in part because of doubts about their reliability.

The new account of the interactions among Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby was spelled out last week in a court filing by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case. It adds considerably to a picture of an administration in some disarray as the failure to discover illicit weapons in Iraq had undermined the central rationale for the American invasion in March 2003.

Against the backdrop of what has previously been disclosed, the court filing sheds particular light on how Mr. Bush and some of his top deputies had begun to pull in different directions. Even as some officials, including Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, started to reveal deep doubts that Mr. Hussein had sought uranium to reconstitute his nuclear program, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby were seeking to disseminate information suggesting that they had acted on credible intelligence, while not discussing their actions with other top aides.

Mr. Fitzgerald, in his filing, said that Mr. Libby had been authorized to tell Judith Miller, then a reporter for The New York Times, on July 8, 2003, that a key finding of the 2002 intelligence estimate on Iraq was that Baghdad had been vigorously seeking to acquire uranium from Africa.

But a week earlier, in an interview in his State Department office, Mr. Powell told three other reporters for The Times that intelligence agencies had essentially rejected that contention, and were "no longer carrying it as a credible item" by early 2003, when he was preparing to make the case against Iraq at the United Nations.

Mr. Powell's queasiness with some of the intelligence has been well known, but the new revelations suggest that long after he had concluded the intelligence was faulty, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby were still promoting it.

Much remains unknown about that period. In his filing, Mr. Fitzgerald recounted a prosecutor's summary of Mr. Libby's testimony to the grand jury. Mr. Libby was, in turn, describing conversations with Mr. Cheney that included the vice president's description of discussions he had had with Mr. Bush. The White House is not commenting on the issue, saying it is still pending in court, but it has not disputed any of the assertions in the court filing. Mr. Libby has also not disputed the assertions.

The events took place at a time when the administration's failure to find illicit weapons in Iraq had raised serious questions about the credibility of prewar intelligence. The White House was finding itself under fire from critics, like former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who were suggesting that the administration's claims about Iraq's efforts to acquire uranium, featured in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address in 2003, had been exaggerated.

The court filing asserts that Mr. Bush authorized the disclosure of the intelligence in part to rebut claims that Mr. Wilson was making, including those in a television appearance and in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on July 6, 2003. The filing revealed for the first time testimony by Mr. Libby saying that Mr. Bush, through Mr. Cheney, had authorized Mr. Libby to tell reporters that "a key judgment of the N.I.E. held that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium."

In fact, that was not one of the "key judgments" of the document. Instead, it was the subject of several paragraphs on Page 24 of the document, which also acknowledged that Mr. Hussein had long possessed 500 tons of uranium that was under seal by international inspectors, and that no intelligence agencies had ever confirmed whether he had obtained any more of the material from Africa.

A report by the British in 2004, however, concluded that there was a reasonable basis to conclude that Mr. Hussein had sought to obtain uranium from Africa. Once enriched, uranium can be used for weapons fuel.

In addition to Mr. Powell, other administration officials, speaking on a not-for-attribution basis in early July 2003, were also acknowledging that the intelligence was widely known as seriously flawed. Ari Fleischer, then the White House spokesman, acknowledged as much publicly in a White House briefing on July 7, 2003.

But if the new court filing is correct, the next day, Mr. Libby, on behalf of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, provided an exaggerated account of the intelligence conclusions.

The court filing by Mr. Fitzgerald does not assert exactly when the conversation between Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney took place, or exactly when Mr. Cheney communicated its contents to Mr. Libby, except that it was before July 8, 2003. The context of Mr. Fitzgerald's assertions makes clear, however, that the conversation took place in late June or early July 2003.

Mr. Libby also described the intelligence estimate to Bob Woodward of The Washington Post earlier, on June 27, 2003.

Mr. Fitzgerald's latest filing also describes the degree to which senior White House officials kept information from one another. Even as the president was dispatching Mr. Libby to disclose what until then had been classified intelligence to Ms. Miller of The Times, other White House officials, including Stephen J. Hadley, now Mr. Bush's national security adviser, were debating whether this same information should be formally declassified and made public, prosecutors assert.

But Mr. Libby "consciously decided not to make Mr. Hadley aware of the fact that defendant himself had already been disseminating the N.I.E. by leaking it to reporters while Mr. Hadley sought to get it formally declassified," Mr. Fitzgerald's motion states. Mr. Hadley's spokesman declined to comment on the filing on Friday.

But a senior official close to Mr. Hadley said that "it appears that the only three people who knew about the instant declassification were Dick Cheney, George Bush and Scooter Libby." The official refused to be named because he was not authorized to discuss the issue.

Why those three men were acting so quietly remains a mystery, and Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have never discussed it in public. Aides to Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney were beginning to suggest at the time that any exaggerations about Iraq's weapons program had been the fault of the C.I.A., not the White House.

Mr. Fitzgerald argued in his filing to the court last week that by July 8, Mr. Libby was trying to rebut the Op-Ed article in The Times, published by Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson reported in that article that he had been sent to Niger by the C.I.A. to search for evidence of the transaction, and reported back that there was insufficient evidence that any serious effort had taken place.

"The evidence will show that the July 6, 2003, Op-Ed by Mr. Wilson was viewed in the Office of the Vice President as a direct attack on the credibility of the vice president (and the president) on a matter of signal importance: the rationale for the war in Iraq," Mr. Fitzgerald argued.

But in interviews, other former and current senior officials have offered alternative explanations.

"Remember, this was taking place in the middle of the White House-C.I.A. war," one former White House official who witnessed the events said this week, refusing to be named because he was not authorized to discuss the subject.

As the controversy arose early that summer over why Mr. Bush had included mention of Iraqi uranium in his 2003 State of the Union address, the official recalled, White House officials were convinced that the C.I.A. was placing the blame on the president, suggesting he had politicized the intelligence.

By releasing Mr. Libby to discuss the conclusion in the National Intelligence Estimate, the official said, "they were dumping this back in Langley's lap," making it clear that Mr. Bush had relied on information provided by the intelligence agencies. The C.I.A. headquarters are in Langley, Va.

Later that week, George J. Tenet, then the C.I.A. director, took responsibility for the error, saying he had never read over the draft of the State of the Union address that had been sent to him.

According to Mr. Fitzgerald's motion, Mr. Libby testified that he was directed by Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush to describe the uranium allegations to Ms. Miller of The Times as a "key judgment" of the National Intelligence Estimate. Citing intelligence as a "key judgment" in such estimates carries great weight with policy makers, because the reports are meant to highlight the most important and solid judgments of the government's intelligence agencies.

"Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the N.I.E. held that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium," prosecutors wrote.

In fact, the estimate's key judgments, which were officially declassified 10 days after Mr. Libby's meeting with Ms. Miller, say nothing about the uranium allegations. The key judgments on Iraq's nuclear program — namely, that Iraq was again trying to build a bomb — were based instead on other intelligence, like the assertion that Iraq was seeking high-strength aluminum tubes for nuclear centrifuges. Ms. Miller authored no newspaper article about the leaked weapons information.

In an interview with The Times in 2004, a senior intelligence official involved in drafting the estimate said the uranium allegations were excluded from the key judgments because the drafters knew there were serious doubts about their accuracy.

As a result, the official said, the drafters cast the uranium allegations as a minor element in the overall assessment of Iraq's nuclear capabilities. The assertion that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure" uranium was mentioned on the bottom of Page 24 of the 90-page document. The drafters also noted, in an annex attached to the end of the document, that State Department intelligence officials considered the uranium allegation "highly dubious."

    Iraq Findings Leaked by Cheney's Aide Were Disputed, NYT, 9.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/washington/09leak.html?hp&ex=1144641600&en=bc85efcb03b580b2&ei=5094&partner=homepage

At Least 71 Die as Bombers Hit Mosque in Baghdad

April 7, 2006
The New York Times
By KIRK SEMPLE

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 7 — Three suicide bombers detonated their explosives today at a crowded Shiite mosque in Baghdad as worshippers were leaving Friday prayers, killing at least 71 people and wounding 140, Iraqi officials said.

Two of the suicide bombers, both men, managed to enter the mosque before setting off their explosives, and the third, a woman, blew herself up at the building's entrance, witnesses said.

The mosque is the religious bastion of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country's most powerful Shiite party.

The attack came a day after a car bomb killed at least 10 people and wounded dozens in the heart of Najaf, one of the holiest centers in Shiite Islam.

In Baghdad today, the dead were taken away in pickup trucks and on handcarts as the city council issued an appeal for blood donations to treat the many wounded.

The imam at the mosque, Sheik Jalaladeen al-Sagheir, is a senior party leader who last weekend became the first high-ranking Shiite to join Sunni and Kurdish politicians in calling for Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari to step aside to end a stalemate that has prevented the formation of a new government.

Iraqi security officials said they had tightened security around the city before the blast after receiving intelligence that seven car bombings were planned to coincide with Friday prayers, The Associated Press reported. A statement released by the Interior Ministry warned citizens to "be cautious, and to avoid gatherings or crowds while leaving markets, mosques and churches."

The statement also warned that measures would be taken against "any security official who fails to take the necessary procedures to foil any terrorist attack in his area," the news service said. The ministry faces accusations of militia infiltration in its ranks.

Also today, the American military announced the deaths of two soldiers. One died today of wounds suffered from small-arms fire while on patrol in the Baghdad area, and the other died on Thursday after his convoy hit a roadside bomb near Bayji in northern Iraq.

American officials, including President Bush, have described attacks on mosques as an insurgent tactic meant to drive the country into civil war. After insurgents blew up a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra in late February, hundreds of people died in reprisal killings.

But Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric, today blamed the Najaf bombing on "the occupation forces and their death squads" and called for American forces to pull out of Iraqi cities.

Mr. Sadr has long been a thorn in the side of American officials, and the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to him, clashed with American forces in Najaf in 2004. Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, has recently singled out the Mahdi Army as a source of instability, and has worked to block Mr. Jafaari, who received crucial backing from Mr. Sadr.

During weekly prayers at a mosque in Kufa, Mr. Sadr blamed coalition forces for the rising level of violence in general and the Najaf bombing in particular.

Mr. Sadr, who in the war's earlier phases had demanded the immediate departure of American forces, called for a phased withdrawal.

"To begin with, they should exit the cities and take positions outside the cities and hand over security to the Iraqi forces," he said.

The bomb that exploded in Najaf on Thursday struck a crowd of pilgrims and merchants at the entrance to the city's cemetery. The site is just a few hundred yards from the mosque, which is one of the most important Shiite shrines in the world. The bomb exploded on a street connecting the mosque and the cemetery, a route along which Shiites from around the country carry relatives' bodies for burial.

Iraqi security forces immediately sealed off the neighborhood, which is at the center of the Shiite holy city and contains the headquarters of Mr. Sadr and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most revered Shiite leader.

After the blast, lieutenants in the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to Mr. Sadr, gathered in Al Hay mosque in Najaf and urged their foot soldiers to be patient pending further guidance from their top commanders.

Car bombs are rarely detonated in Najaf, which is tightly controlled by the Shiite religious authorities and by Shiite militias, who supplement Iraqi and American security forces there. On Aug. 29, 2003, in one of the first car bombings in Iraq after the invasion, an explosion outside the Imam Ali mosque killed nearly 100 people, including Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, one of the most prominent Shiite clerics.

In Karbala, another Shiite holy city north of Najaf, the governor, Akeel al-Khuzai, said he was suspending relations with the American authorities to protest the detention of two people suspected of belonging to the Mahdi Army, Iraqi officials said.

"The governor announced that all dealings in the field of security and construction with the American side are suspended," according to a news release issued by the national government. The Americans suspect that the detainees blew up a Humvee, Karbala officials said.

Also on Thursday, in the 19th session of Saddam Hussein's trial on charges of crimes against humanity, the former chief judge of Mr. Hussein's Revolutionary Court said he had fairly condemned 148 Shiites to death for trying to assassinate Mr. Hussein in Dujail in 1982.

The former judge, Awad al-Bandar, who is one of Mr. Hussein's seven co-defendants, said the Revolutionary Court had appointed only one lawyer to represent all the Dujail defendants in that case and took 16 days to convict them. Prosecutors in Mr. Hussein's trial are trying to show that the Revolutionary Court held a hasty, unjust trial for the defendants. "There was proof that they had taken part in the case," Mr. Bandar told the court. "They were all found guilty. If you had the case in front of you, you would have had completely the same verdict."

"The defendants in our court were always treated with justice," he said.

Mr. Hussein did not appear in court on Thursday, and the trial was adjourned until April 12. The judges might deliver a verdict and sentence in June or July, according to an American official who spoke to journalists on Thursday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the Iraqi court.

Officials from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a Kurdish political party, announced the discovery of eight mass graves near Kirkuk that contained at least 800 bodies. The majority of the victims were Kurdish, the party said, and they were thought to have been caught in one of Mr. Hussein's repression campaigns. This week, the Iraqi court charged Mr. Hussein with genocide for the military attacks in 1988 that killed at least 50,000 Kurdish civilians.

The American military said Thursday that it had captured Muhammad Hila Hammad Obeidi, who the military says is the commander of a militant group in Babil Province and was an aide to the chief of staff of intelligence under Mr. Hussein. American officials believe Mr. Obeidi was involved in the kidnapping of the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena last year, as well as other kidnappings and assassinations. Ms. Sgrena was released after a month.

In comments to the news media on Thursday, Mr. Jaafari hinted that he might be willing to abandon his bid to remain prime minister in the next government. For weeks he has been defiant in the face of multipartisan demands that he make way for a candidate who is more popular among all sectarian groups. But on Thursday, he seemed to signal that he would be amenable to a decision on the matter by the National Assembly.

"For me, the position means nothing at all," Mr. Jaafari said. "If they would agree inside the Parliament on a legal way for me to step down, I would step down. The people elected a group of blocs to represent them in the Parliament, and whatever these blocs say, I welcome."

Iraqi employees of The New York Times in Najaf, Karbala and Kirkuk contributed reporting for this article, and John O'Neil contributed reporting from New York.

    At Least 71 Die as Bombers Hit Mosque in Baghdad, NYT, 7.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/07/world/middleeast/07cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1144468800&en=c01de98fd3393c3f&ei=5094&partner=homepage

White House Tries to Quell Anger Over Leak Claim

April 7, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, April 7 — The White House tried today to quell the furor over the leaking of sensitive prewar intelligence on Iraq, as President Bush's spokesman insisted that any release of information was "in the public interest" rather than for political reasons.

The spokesman, Scott McClellan, said a decision was made to declassify and release some information to rebut "irresponsible and unfounded accusations" that the administration had manipulated or misused prewar intelligence to buttress its case for war.

"That was flat-out false," Mr. McClellan said.

Mr. McClellan was barraged at a news briefing by questions over assertions by I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, that President Bush authorized him, through Mr. Cheney, in July 2003 to disclose key parts of what was until then a classified prewar intelligence estimate on Iraq.

At the time, the Pentagon had hardly finished basking in the easy military victory when it was caught up in questions over the failure to find deadly unconventional weapons in Iraq — the main rationale for going to war.

One of the findings in the prewar intelligence data was that Saddam Hussein was probably seeking fuel for nuclear reactors.

Mr. McClellan said the Democrats who pounced on Mr. Libby's assertions, contained in a court document filed on Wednesday, were "engaging in crass politics" in refusing to recognize the distinction between legitimate disclosure of sensitive information in the public interest and the irresponsible leaking of intelligence for political reasons.

Meanwhile, Democrats continued to assail the administration.

"This is a serious allegation with national security consequences," Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader, said today on the Senate floor. "It directly contradicts previous statements made by President Bush, it continues a pattern of misleading by this Bush White House, and it raises somber and troubling questions about the Bush administration's candor with the Congress and the public."

Mr. Reid said it was time for the president to say whether, in fact, he authorized the disclosure of the prewar intelligence, as Mr. Libby said he had. "He must tell the American people whether the Bush Oval Office is the place where the buck stops, or the leaks start," Mr. Reid said.

Mr. McClellan was in the somewhat odd position of not disputing that President Bush was involved in the disclosure of hitherto classified information, while describing any such disclosure as being in the public good.

Mr. McClellan, who has noted before that a president has the authority to declassify intelligence, said today that he was "not getting into confirming or denying things, because I'm not commenting at all on matters relating to an ongoing legal proceeding."

He was alluding to the trial of Mr. Libby, the vice president's former chief of staff, on charges that Mr. Libby committed perjury and engaged in obstruction of justice in connection with an inquiry over who unmasked Valerie Wilson, an undercover officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, in the summer of 2003.

The unmasking occurred shortly after Ms. Wilson's husband, the former diplomat Joseph Wilson, wrote in The New York Times that he doubted reports that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Niger.

Some Democrats accused the White House at the time of destroying Ms. Wilson's cover to retaliate against her husband, but the White House repeatedly denied the accusations.

Mr. McClellan was asked today whether the president's own words at the time ("If there's a leak out of this administration, I want to know who it is") and Mr. Libby's recent assertion demonstrated inconsistency, at best.

Not at all, Mr. McClellan said. "Declassifying information and providing it to the public when it is in the public interest is one thing," he said. "But leaking classified information that could compromise our national security is something that is very serious. And there is a distinction" — a distinction Democrats refuse to see, he said repeatedly.

    White House Tries to Quell Anger Over Leak Claim, NYT, 7.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/07/washington/07cnd-leak.html?hp&ex=1144468800&en=a43af062d1a708ac&ei=5094&partner=homepage

The Survivors

Families of Army's War Dead Are Hurt Again at Notification

April 7, 2006
The New York Times
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ

After Neil Santorello heard the news that his son, a tank commander, had been killed in Iraq, from the officer in his living room, he walked out his front door and removed the American flag from its pole. Then, in tears, he tore down the yellow ribbons from his tree.

Rather than see it as the act of a man unmoored by the death of his 24-year-old son, the officer, an Army major, confronted Mr. Santorello, saying, "Don't be disrespectful," Mr. Santorello recalled. Then, the officer, whose job it is to inform families of their loss, quickly disappeared without offering any comfort.

Later, the Santorellos heard a piece of crushing but inaccurate news: They would not be allowed to look inside their son's coffin. First Lt. Neil Santorello, of Verona, Pa., had been killed by an improvised bomb. His body, the family was told, was unviewable.

The Santorellos eventually learned that families have the right to see a loved one's body.

"I asked them to open the casket a few inches so I could reach in and touch his hand," recalled Mr. Santorello, who is still struggling with his son's death, in large part because he was not allowed to see him.

"The government doesn't want you to see servicemen in a casket, but this is my son. He is not a serviceman. You have to let his mother and I say goodbye to him."

Scores of families whose loved ones have died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan have gone head-to-head with a casualty system that, in their experience, has failed to compassionately and competently guide them through the harrowing process that begins after a soldier's death.

When the system works smoothly, and it often does, families say they feel a profound sense of comfort. But others have seen their hurt deepen. They have complained about coffins placed in cargo bays alongside crates, personal belongings that disappear, questions about how their loved ones died that go unanswered for months or even years, and casualty assistants, assigned to help families after they are notified of a death, who are too poorly trained to walk them through the labyrinth of their anguish.

After three years of war in Iraq, with the number of active-duty deaths there surpassing 2,330, the military is scrambling to improve the way it cares for surviving relatives and honors soldiers who have been killed in battle. Even senior officials, including the secretary of the Army, have acknowledged flaws in the system.

Not since the Vietnam War have so many service members in dress uniforms knocked on so many doors to deliver somber news.

The military services have different policies concerning casualties. The Marine Corps, steeped in tradition, has received few complaints, despite having lost nearly 680 marines since the war began. But the Army, which has suffered the largest number of deaths, 1,589 as of March 28, has faced an enormous challenge and has received the sharpest criticism for its treatment of surviving families and soldiers killed in action.

Now it is rushing through new regulations to overhaul the casualty process, which has been tinkered with, but not fully revised, since 1994. "We take it to heart whenever something is not done properly and are painfully aware of the additional grief it brings to the family concerned," said Col. Mary Torgersen, the director of the Army's Casualty and Memorial Affairs Operation Center, in an e-mail response to questions, adding that some changes have already been put in place.

For some grieving families, the cracks in the system have deepened their distress and many have been turned to Congress, state officials and private lawyers for help.

Many wonder why it has taken the military so long to address their concerns. The answer appears straightforward: The military did not expect to be fighting this long. It also did not expect to lose this many soldiers.

Lapses in the past few years run from the heart-wrenching to the head-scratching. Families have said that items like cameras and computers containing treasured e-mail messages and photographs have been lost or damaged.

Gay and Fred Eisenhauer, whose son, Wyatt, an Army Ranger, was killed last May in Iraq by an improvised bomb, are still hoping to receive their son's watch, eyeglasses and cellphone. The phone is precious because it holds a recording of their son's voice. A combat patch they were promised has never arrived.

"I know these are little things," Mrs. Eisenhauer said. "What makes it important to me is that my son was good enough to go over there to fight, but he is not important enough to get his stuff back to his family."

Colonel Torgersen said the Casualty and Memorial Affairs Operation Center "aggressively monitors the movement" of personal effects. Mortuary specialists inventory, photograph, clean and then ship belongings to the center via Federal Express.

Soldiers, in their coffins, usually arrive from Dover Air Force Base in the belly of a commercial flight. But honor guards have not always been present as the coffins come off the plane.

The Eisenhauers had hoped to take comfort in the military rituals. Instead, the airline placed Wyatt Eisenhauer's coffin in a cargo warehouse with crates and boxes stacked high around it. There was no ceremony, no flag over the coffin.

Only the airport firefighters did their bit to honor him, hoisting flags on their ladder trucks.

"I just wanted to scream," Mrs. Eisenhauer said. "My son was owed that. He was owed that."

When Joan Neal of Gurnee, Ill., went to the airport for the body of her son, Specialist Wesley Wells, 21, she was aghast. "To glance over and see your child's casket on a forklift is not really the kind of thing you want to see," Ms. Neal said.

News of a death has also been delivered at awkward times. Ms. Neal, was at work, when she was notified in September 2004 that her son had been killed in Afghanistan, and Mrs. Eisenhauer's 6-year-old niece was in the room when Mrs. Eisenhauer received the news.

As parents to a married son, the Santorellos experienced something that is commonplace: The Army focuses on the spouse and has often left parents to fend for themselves.

The Santorellos were not assigned a casualty officer, and were expected to pay their own way to a memorial ceremony in Fort Riley, Kan., and to find transportation to the burial at Arlington Cemetery.

"We were not considered next of kin," said Mr. Santorello, who with his wife, Dianne, opposes the war. "He was my son for 25 years. He was her husband for 22 months, and I had no say."

Recognizing the distress of parents with married children, the Army in mid-February began assigning casualty assistants to mothers and fathers.

Unanswered Questions

Some families say that the most upsetting aspect of the casualty process may be the lack of information about how the loved ones died.

In a 2005 survey of 50 military families by The Military Times, about half of the families said they did not know enough about their loved ones' deaths.

Parents and spouses crave details to help them cope, particularly because they cannot visit the spot where loved ones died: Who held his hand? Did he say anything?

"You know what my casualty assistant said? 'These are just questions you will never get answers to,' " Ms. Eisenhauer said. "But there were men there. Why can't I get answers?"

The Santorellos were told by the Army that their son had died instantly. A few weeks later, they received a letter saying he had lived for four hours.

Mrs. Santorello learned the time of death by reading the autopsy report. "I don't think anyone should be forced to read an autopsy report to find out when their son died," she said.

Ms. Neal's casualty officer told her that her son had been killed in action by a gunshot wound to the chest. After her son's funeral, Ms. Neal learned that he might have been killed by his own forces.

She had been told that she would be notified in 30 days. Seven months later, when she still had not received further news, she took a plane to Hawaii, where her son had been stationed, to talk with his superiors, who greeted her warmly.

"They did confirm he was killed by American bullets," she said. "The autopsy was done within a week of his death. They knew that when they did the autopsy."

A Personal Apology

Karen Meredith's son Lt. Ken Ballard, 26, a fourth-generation Army officer and a tank commander, was killed in Iraq in May 2004.

Her experience went so awry that she received a personal letter of apology last September from the secretary of the Army, Francis J. Harvey.

The problems began when her casualty officer abandoned her after 10 days, just as the process was beginning. It also took five months to receive Lieutenant Ballard's personal belongings. His clothes were returned washed, which might have made some families thankful, but devastated her. But there was worse to come.

The week her son died, Ms. Meredith was told that he had been killed by enemy fire.

Fifteen months later, there was a knock on the door. Ms. Meredith was told by an Army casualty official that her son's death had been accidental. Her son had been killed when his tank backed into a tree branch, setting off an unmanned machine gun.

"It was not a secret," said Ms. Meredith, now an outspoken critic of the war. "It was incompetence."

"The subliminal assumption is that they take care of everything," added Ms. Meredith, who credits the Army for responding to her complaints and working to fix the system. "They don't. I was tenacious."

Even when soldiers are alive, it can be difficult to get answers. Laura Youngblood, 27, was seven months pregnant with their second child in New York last July when her husband was wounded by an improvised bomb in Iraq.

Because of the pregnancy, she said, the corpsman assisting her did not want to tell her that her husband was "very seriously injured." When she was finally told he was off his ventilator, she recalls saying, "Good, because you never told me he was on one."

Six days after being wounded, he died.

A Sensitive Duty

Many casualty assistants say they recognize the sensitive nature of their task and are assiduous about getting it right. At times, they have become the focus of a family's anger. Sometimes they suffer emotionally, watching as wives crumble or children hysterically cry "Daddy."

Afterward, some casualty assistants seek counseling.

"It's hard," said Sgt. First Class Julio Correa, 44, who is based at Fort Bragg, N.C., and has notified two families of deaths and assisted two others. "You see the kids screaming. You think, 'It could be my kids.' "

But typically the Army's notification officers, who bring news of the death, and its casualty assistants are picked simply because they are nearby. Their training often amounts to reading a manual and watching a video. Casualty duty is a side jobs. The officers and assistants are told to focus on families as long as needed, typically six weeks. Sometimes they retire or are reassigned midstream. Eric K. Schuller is a senior policy adviser for the Illinois lieutenant governor, Pat Quinn, whose office has dealt with distraught families, including the Eisenhauers and Ms. Neal.

"This had to be fixed," Mr. Schuller said. "There were so many of them over a large period of time."

Still, the casualty process has improved since the Vietnam War, when it amounted to little more than face-to-face notification of a death.

"It is dramatically different now in terms of how they respond and the number of survivor benefits," said Morton Ender, a West Point sociology professor. "They really embrace the family."

The Army acknowledges that more can be done. Mr. Harvey, the Army secretary, ordered an investigation last September to help address families' concerns.

The report, issued in January, included suggestions that the Army is planning to implement, including upgrading training materials, creating a 24-hour hot line and sending mobile casualty assistance training teams across the country.

The Army now requires commanders to telephone families within a week of a death and to cross-check casualty reports.

Congress has asked for an investigation by theGovernment Accountability Office.

These instances, Colonel Torgersen said, "do cause us to reflect on our processes."

She added, "In the end, however, this work is carried out by human beings and however hard we may strive, none of us are invulnerable to error on occasion."

    Families of Army's War Dead Are Hurt Again at Notification, NYT, 7.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/07/us/07notify.html?hp&ex=1144382400&en=250067bfd885f22d&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein argues with Chief Judge Raouf Rashid Abdel-Rahman
in his trial held April 5, 2006, in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.

By David Furst, Getty Images        USA Today        5.4.2006

Saddam says Shiites plotted to kill him
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-04-05-saddam-trial_x.htm

 

Saddam says Shi'ite-run ministry kills thousands

Wed Apr 5, 2006 12:14 PM ET
Reuters
By Mussab al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Ousted President Saddam Hussein, on trial for crimes against humanity, accused Iraq's new Shi'ite-run Interior Ministry of killing and torturing thousands of Iraqis when he returned to court on Wednesday.

Sunni Arabs, who were dominant during his rule, accuse the ministry of running death squads and Saddam said it was now the "side that kills thousands in the street and tortures them".

Saddam, who could face death by hanging, remained defiant one day after the court announced new charges that he ordered genocide against the ethnic Kurds in the late 1980s.

When the judge interrupted him, Saddam said: "If you're scared of the interior minister, he doesn't scare my dog."

The trial was adjourned until Thursday.

Saddam may be in the dock again for another trial as early as next month, potentially leading to a drawn-out legal process in a country where most people want closure on a bloody past and a future free of bloodshed that has raised fears of civil war.

Iraqi politicians and court officials are already sending mixed signals on whether he would be executed if found guilty in one trial, or be tried on new charges in another first.

And the latest outbursts suggested chances of accelerating proceedings were slim.

SCREAMING

Chief judge Raouf Abdel Rahman and one of Saddam's lawyers, Bushra Khalil, had several heated exchanges which resulted in her being thrown out of court.

Guards escorted her out after she held up what appeared to be a picture of a pile of prisoners at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison, scene of a prisoner abuse scandal in 2004.

"This is what the Americans did to Iraqis in Abu Ghraib," said the Lebanese lawyer who was told to stop screaming.

She was visibly angered by a black and white video that showed a younger Saddam saying: "Those who die in interrogation have no value."

Saddam, whose word was law in Iraq for decades, seemed unfazed by it all, sitting in the dock and telling the judge: "There was no need for you to do that."

Saddam, who still calls himself the president of Iraq, also challenged chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi, a member of the Shi'ite Muslim community Saddam is accused of torturing and putting in mass graves.

"If you want to put the whale into the net, which I don't think you do, you have to tell the truth," he told Moussawi.

"Don't be upset with me. I am older than you and I have a higher rank and better history and yet I am not upset with you."

Moussawi held up the plastic-coated identification cards of Iraqi teenage boys he said were executed under Saddam's orders; names such as Mahdi Hussein, 14, and Fouad al-Aswady, 15.

Saddam, who ruled Iraq for three decades, dismissed the identification cards, saying they could easily be forged in any market.

"I can find some identity cards from Mureydi market."

Saddam refused to sign documents, saying that only an international court would be fair, and denounced the Interior Ministry as he faced cross examination for the first time.

Interior Minister Bayan Jabor is a hate figure among Sunnis, who accuse him of waging a sectarian war against them and allowing Shi'ite militias to run hit squads with impunity. He denies the accusations.

Saddam was the only defendant in the chamber, where he has prompted the judge to censor proceedings in a country where communal violence has raised fears of civil war.

GENOCIDE CHARGES

Saddam and seven co-accused are charged with killing 148 Shi'ite men and teenagers after an attempt on his life in the town of Dujail in 1982.

Prosecutors hoped the Dujail case would produce a swift sentence because the charges are less complicated than others such as genocide. But the trial has faced many setbacks, including the chief judge's resignation and killing of two defense lawyers.

The tribunal said on Tuesday Saddam would face charges of genocide against the Kurds, who accuse him of killing more than 100,000 people and destroying thousands of their villages in the late 1980s in the Anfal campaign.

Saddam engaged in verbal sparring with the judge, whose impartiality has been questioned because he is a Kurd from the village of Halabja, where Saddam's forces were accused of killing 5,000 people in a poison gas attack in 1988.

    Saddam says Shi'ite-run ministry kills thousands, G, 5.4.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-04-05T161432Z_01_GEO542487_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-SADDAM.xml&archived=False

FACTBOX-Criminal cases Saddam Hussein could face

Wed Apr 5, 2006 5:41 AM ET
Reuters

(Reuters) - Saddam Hussein returned to court on Wednesday. The toppled leader remained defiant one day after the court announced that he would face new charges of genocide against the ethnic Kurdish population in the late 1980s.

Following are details of the two criminal cases for which Saddam now faces trial and details of others for which he could ultimately be tried:

* DUJAIL MASSACRE

Saddam and seven others, including his half-brother, are charged with ordering and overseeing the killing of 148 Shi'ite men from the town of Dujail after an attack on the presidential motorcade as it passed through the village, 60 km (35 miles) north of Baghdad, in July 1982.

-- The retribution is alleged to have also included jailing hundreds of women and children from the town for years in desert internment camps and destroying the date palm groves that sustained the local economy.

* KURDISH GENOCIDE AND ETHNIC CLEANSING

Iraqi government forces launched a drive in 1987 and 1988 to reassert government control over Kurdish areas in the north. The campaign, dubbed "Anfal" or "Spoils of War", saw entire villages flattened, farming destroyed and inhabitants forcibly removed.

-- Kurdish authorities say hundreds of thousands of Kurds were displaced and tens of thousands killed. A mustard- and nerve-gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja killed as many as 5,000 people in March 1988. Saddam's cousin, General Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali", is accused of carrying out the worst of the atrocities. He has said the crackdown was to punish Halabja for its failure to resist Iranian incursions during the Iran-Iraq war.

* OTHER POSSIBLE TRIALS:

* INVASION OF KUWAIT

Saddam is accused of violating international law by ordering the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. A U.S.-led coalition demanded Iraq's withdrawal and went to war on January 17, 1991, after Saddam refused to comply with UN resolutions. The Gulf War ended on February 28 after Iraq's expulsion from the emirate.

-- During the occupation Iraqi soldiers are alleged to have tortured and summarily executed prisoners, looted Kuwait City and taken hundreds of Kuwaiti captives back to Baghdad. Iraqi soldiers also set more than 700 oil wells ablaze and opened pipelines to let oil pour into the Gulf and other water sources.

* MARSH ARABS

The Iraqi army, under Saddam's orders, is alleged to have systematically destroyed the livelihood of Iraq's Marsh Arab people, who have inhabited southeastern marshlands at the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers for nearly 5,000 years.

-- Saddam accused the Marsh Arabs of desertion and fighting against his forces during the 1980-88 war with Iran, of harboring criminals and dissenters, and of joining the Shi'ite uprising in 1991. Saddam targeted the Marsh Arabs early in his rule when he ordered their habitat to be drained.

* POLITICAL KILLINGS

Saddam and his security forces have been accused of numerous politically motivated killings and other human rights abuses, including the execution of five Shi'ite religious leaders in 1974, the murder of thousands of members of the Kurdish Barzani clan in 1983 and the assassinations of political activists.

* POLITICAL REPRESSION

Saddam is accused of brutally suppressing uprisings by majority Shiites in southern Iraq and ethnic Kurds in the north.

-- Scores of mass graves south of Baghdad are said to contain the bodies of Shiites. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled to Iran and Turkey. There are Kurdish mass graves in the north and in deserted areas of the south.

    FACTBOX-Criminal cases Saddam Hussein could face, R, 5.4.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-04-05T094104Z_01_L27486644_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&related=true

CHRONOLOGY-Saddam Hussein's trial

Wed Apr 5, 2006 5:51 AM ET
Reuters

(Reuters) - Saddam Hussein returned to court on Wednesday. The former president remained defiant one day after the court announced that he would face new charges of genocide against the ethnic Kurdish population in the late 1980s.

Here is a chronology of the main events so far in his trial.

October 19, 2005 - Saddam charged with crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 Shi'ite men in Dujail after an assassination attempt against him in 1982. Pleads not guilty.

October 20 - Saadoun Janabi, lawyer for co-defendant, former judge Awad al-Bander, is seized from office and killed.

November 8 - Gunmen fire on car carrying Adil al-Zubeidi, who is killed, and Thamer Hamoud al-Khuzaie, who is wounded. Both are on team defending Saddam's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and former Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan. Khuzaie flees Iraq.

December 7 - Saddam stays away after telling tribunal to "go to hell" the night before. Hearing continues without him.

December 21 - Saddam complains he was tortured in U.S. custody. Four days later defense seeks inquiry into the claims.

January 10, 2006 - Chief judge Rizgar Amin submits resignation.

January 16 - Court asks Amin's deputy Sayeed al-Hamashi to step in. Two days later, Iraq's Debaathification Commission says Hamashi is former member of Baath party and should be barred; he denies it.

January 23 - Raouf Abdel Rahman named temporary chief judge and Hamashi moved to another court.

January 29 - Chaos erupts when trial resumes. Barzan al-Tikriti is ejected after refusing to keep quiet and calling the trial "a daughter of a whore". Saddam and his team walk out in protest.

February 1 - Saddam and four co-accused refuse to attend, along with their defense team, saying they will not return until the chief judge they accuse of bias resigns. Rahman says he will proceed and court-appointed lawyers replace Saddam's team.

February 13 - Saddam appears as trial resumes, rejects new lawyers appointed by court to replace boycotting defense team.

February 14 - Saddam walks into court shouting slogans, says he and co-accused have been on hunger strike for three days.

February 28 - Trial resumes and Saddam returns to court. His lawyers walk out after their pleas for an expulsion of the judge and a postponement are rejected.

March 1 - Saddam acknowledges he ordered trials that led to execution of dozens of Shiites in the 1980s but says he acted within law. "Where is the crime?" he asks.

March 13 - Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court who oversaw the original trial of the 148, says in court he had personally issued a death warrant for them and insisted it was legal.

March 15 - Saddam takes the stand, denounces court as a "comedy" and urges Iraqis to fight "invaders", prompting the judge to bar reporters from the court.

April 4 - The court declares the investigations are completed in the case called the Anfal campaign in which thousands of Kurdish women, children and men were killed in the late 1980s.

-- The court charges that the former Iraqi leader committed genocide against the Kurds, paving the way for a new trial. The Anfal hearings could run in parallel to the existing trial.

April 5 - Saddam returns to court and immediately accuses the Shi'ite-run Iraqi Interior Ministry of killing and torturing thousands of Iraqis.

    CHRONOLOGY-Saddam Hussein's trial, R, 5.4.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-04-05T095113Z_01_L13766115_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&related=true

Hussein Charged With Genocide in 50,000 Deaths

April 5, 2006
The New York Times
By EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 4 — The Iraqi court trying Saddam Hussein announced Tuesday that it had charged him with genocide, saying he sought to annihilate the Kurdish people in 1988, when the military killed at least 50,000 Kurdish civilians and destroyed 2,000 villages.

The case is the first against Mr. Hussein to address the large-scale human rights violations committed during his decades in power, the same acts the Bush administration has publicized in explaining the American invasion of Iraq. Six other defendants also face charges. Mr. Hussein is already being tried for the torture and killings of 148 men and boys in the Shiite village of Dujail.

Since the United Nations adopted the genocide convention in 1948, very few courts have charged defendants with genocide, the attempt to annihilate an ethnic, religious, national or political group in whole or in part.

Convictions have been handed down in the tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia. This is the first time that a Middle Eastern ruler has been charged with it.

"It was during this campaign that thousands of women, children and men were buried in mass graves in many locations," Raid Juhi, the chief judge of the Iraqi High Tribunal's investigative court, said at a news conference.

Judge Juhi said it would be up to other judges to decide when the genocide trial against Mr. Hussein would start, and whether it would overlap with the Dujail case. Defense lawyers must be given 45 days to review the case files.

The court defines the bloody Anfal campaign, whose name means "the spoils" from a favorite Koranic verse of Mr. Hussein's, as eight military operations in 1988 in the mountainous Kurdish homeland of northern Iraq. Families who escaped death squads or were allowed to live were forced to relocate into the hinterlands or in neighboring countries.

The Kurds, who make up a fifth of Iraq's people, tried to fight back, but Mr. Hussein used chemical weapons, including mustard gas and nerve agents.

Judge Juhi said the court had gathered enough evidence, like documents and mass graves, to prosecute the defendants in the deaths of at least 50,000 civilians. Kurdish officials and human rights advocates said the death toll had been much higher. They also said the Anfal campaign began years earlier, with other massacres and forced migrations.

The parties agree that at the very least, hundreds of thousands were arrested, tortured, relocated or killed.

All seven defendants are charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes related to an internal armed conflict. Mr. Hussein and one other defendant, Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical Ali, also have been charged with genocide, which legal experts say is difficult to prove. Mr. Majid was one of Mr. Hussein's most feared aides and oversaw the north during the Anfal campaign.

The other defendants include military commanders and senior intelligence officials.

"These charges should not be addressed to President Saddam," Khalil al-Dulaimi, Mr. Hussein's chief lawyer, said in a telephone interview. "They should be addressed to the American and British forces, because they are killing the Iraqi people and using weapons of mass destruction against the Iraqi people."

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who for years led militiamen in northern Iraq, praised the court's decision to bring the Anfal charges, and promised that he and other government officials would not try to influence the trial.

It has taken years to assemble the evidence for the Anfal case. American officials say the Dujail crimes were selected as the first ones to try Mr. Hussein on because that case was not nearly as complicated as some others. It is also easier in the Dujail case to establish a clear chain of command between Mr. Hussein and those who carried out the executions, the officials say.

But they say that the Anfal massacres and the suppression of the Shiite uprising of 1991, which resulted in up to 150,000 deaths, are the two cases that go much more directly to the heart of Mr. Hussein's murderous rule, and could prove more cathartic for a vast majority of Iraqis.

The Dujail trial, expected to resume Wednesday with a cross-examination of Mr. Hussein, is entering its final phase, in which the court will review formal charges and hear arguments from the defense lawyers.

If a death sentence is handed down to Mr. Hussein, it is unclear whether the court would carry out the execution before other cases begin or are concluded. Any death sentence is automatically appealed.

There is no deadline for a decision, but if the appeal is denied, then the statutes of the tribunal mandate that the defendant must be executed within 30 days. Even the president's office, which is supposed to approve all death sentences, would be able to do little to delay that, said American legal experts advising the tribunal.

Many Iraqis who despise Mr. Hussein, especially Shiites and Kurds, have denounced the tribunal and called for Mr. Hussein's immediate execution, while some officials, like President Talabani, have said they want Mr. Hussein to stay alive long enough to face trial on all possible charges.

There are about a dozen investigations under way, all of which may result in individual sets of charges. The operations of the tribunal and its oversight of the Dujail case have been tumultuous, plagued by the assassinations of a judge and lawyers, political pressure from the Iraqi government and power struggles among the judges.

Questions have been raised about why the tribunal was never set up in an international venue, where security would not be as great a concern. American and Iraqi officials have struggled to endow the trial with legitimacy, but many foreign governments and human rights advocates have continued to view it as a show court.

The bringing of charges in Anfal brings a new set of problems, they say. If the trial were to proceed concurrent with the trial on the Dujail killings, then Mr. Hussein's defense team could be placed at an unfair disadvantage, unless Mr. Hussein hired more lawyers. The prosecutors and judges do not have that problem; a separate prosecutor and five-judge panel will oversee Anfal.

With Mr. Hussein needing to focus on final arguments in Dujail, a concern is "how he could do all that and then simultaneously prepare for a larger and more complex litigation — it goes to issues of fairness," said Marieke Wierda, a senior associate at the International Center for Transitional Justice, a New York-based advocacy group.

The other seven defendants in the Dujail trial are all different than those in the Anfal case.

Kurdish officials often say that 180,000 people were killed in the Anfal campaign, but the actual number is closer to 80,000, according to Joost Hiltermann, the Middle East director of the International Crisis Group, an advocacy group.

The scope of the trial is generally limited to the eight military operations from February to August 1988, but the court will also examine evidence starting from March 1987, when Mr. Hussein chose Mr. Majid as the top official in northern Iraq.

In the years preceding Anfal, Kurds in Iraqi villages near Iran were forced to abandon their homes. Those areas were labeled "prohibited," and anyone living there was deemed to be an Iranian agent or saboteur. The Anfal campaign was undertaken to deal with those who had moved back or had not moved.

The other defendants in the Anfal case are Sultan Hashem Ahmed, the military commander of the campaign and the defense minister starting in 2001; Sabir Abdul-Aziz al-Duri, the director of military intelligence; Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti, the deputy of operations for the Iraqi forces; Tahir Tawfiq al-Ani, a governor of Mosul; and Farhan Mutlak al-Jubouri, the head of military intelligence in the north.

Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi and Kirk Semple contributed reporting for this article.

    Hussein Charged With Genocide in 50,000 Deaths, NYT, 5.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/05/world/middleeast/05iraq.html

The Insurgency

Americans in Iraq Face Their Deadliest Day in Months

April 4, 2006
The New York Times
By KIRK SEMPLE

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 3 — In the deadliest day for American forces since the beginning of the year, at least nine members of the military were killed in the insurgent stronghold of Anbar Province, including four in a rebel attack and at least five when their truck accidentally flipped over, the American military command said Monday.

Three marines and one sailor were killed on Sunday in the rebel assault, the military reported, offering no further information. It was the largest number of American deaths in a single attack in more than a month.

In another part of Anbar on Sunday, a flash flood toppled a seven-ton truck, killing five marines riding inside it and wounding one, the military said. Two marines and one Navy corpsman in the truck were missing, officials said.

Wrapping up a quick visit here, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, pressed Iraqi leaders for a second day on Monday to form a coalition government as quickly as possible, in order to end a power vacuum in which insurgent attacks, sectarian violence and general lawlessness have flourished.

Underscoring their concerns, three car bombs exploded in predominantly Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, killing 13 people and wounding at least 19. One car bomb exploded near a Shiite mosque in the Shaab neighborhood, killing 10 people and wounding 13, an official at the Interior Ministry said. Another detonated in Talibiya, killing one civilian and wounding six, the official said.

And a third exploded in Sadr City, killing two people including a 9-year-old boy, the Associated Press reported.

The American command said the truck that rolled over in Anbar had been part of a logistics convoy. Two of the missing marines were assigned to the First Marine Logistics Group and the third was assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7, the military authorities said.

The death toll was the highest since Jan. 5, when 11 Americans were killed in several different attacks. At least 13 members of the American military have died so far this month, setting a pace that could interrupt a trend of steadily declining casualties over the past five months. The monthly tally of at least 31 deaths in March was the second lowest since the invasion of Iraq three years ago.

The declining American casualties have coincided with a sharp increase in Iraqi civilian deaths, reflecting a significant shift in the nature of the conflict as insurgent groups and sectarian death squads have focused primarily on civilian targets. The American military reported last week that from Feb. 22 to March 22, 1,313 civilians were killed, many in sectarian violence, while 173 civilians died in car bombings, a hallmark of the insurgency.

But the sudden spike in deaths among American troops in the past few days was a stark reminder that the American-led forces still remain a primary target. This situation is particularly true in the predominantly Sunni Arab region of Anbar, where the conflict is almost entirely a fight between the Sunni-led insurgency and American forces.

The latest American deaths were reported as representatives of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari frantically lobbied other political leaders in an attempt to salvage his bid to retain his post in the next government.

But opposition to his candidacy continued to mount Monday as his political adversaries reaffirmed their stance against him, including members of the dominant Shiite bloc, who on Sunday publicly demanded that he resign, and Kurdish and Sunni Arab leaders, who for weeks have been pushing for another candidate.

In their scramble to shore up support for Mr. Jaafari, representatives of his Islamic Dawa Party met with Kurdish leaders in a futile effort to persuade them to back the embattled prime minister, according to Hiwa Osman, a spokesman for President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. "They exchanged views on the gridlock that's going on now," Mr. Osman said. "The Kurdish side explained their side, which hasn't changed."

The Kurds, and particularly President Talabani, have been at the forefront of an effort to oust Mr. Jaafari. Mr. Talabani was incensed after Mr. Jaafari visited Turkey in late February; Turkish leaders have repeatedly threatened to invade Iraqi Kurdistan if the Kurds tried to secede.

During a news conference on Monday morning, at the end of their unusual joint visit, Mr. Straw and Ms. Rice repeatedly deflected questions about their views of Mr. Jaafari.

Though Ms. Rice and Mr. Straw said they did not intend to intervene in the dispute, the Bush administration has been quietly pressuring Shiite leaders to drop Mr. Jaafari and choose another candidate. The two diplomats appeared tense during a photo session with the prime minister on Sunday, but relaxed and enthusiastic at other meetings.

The fracturing of the Shiite bloc became clear on Sunday when the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country's most powerful Shiite party, publicly announced it would put forward another candidate. Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Supreme Council member, lost to Mr. Jaafari by one vote in a secret ballot for the bloc's nomination in February.

On Monday, Ms. Rice and Mr. Straw had breakfast with Mr. Mahdi and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Shiite bloc and head of the Supreme Council. It was the second time Ms. Rice and Mr. Straw had met with Mr. Mahdi during their trip and the third time they had met with Mr. Hakim. In contrast, they only met once with Mr. Jaafari.

To some Iraqi leaders, the visiting diplomats conveyed their message clearly.

"I don't know if I consider it an arm twisting or a kissing on the cheeks — it's politics — but I think the results are the same," said Hassan al-Bazzaz, a leader of the Iraqi Consensus Front, a Sunni Arab bloc opposed to Mr. Jaafari's nomination. "Basically they came to convince Jaafari of the idea of stepping away."

Numerous efforts to reach representatives of Mr. Jaafari and his party for comment on Monday were unsuccessful.

In Baghdad, an investigative judge referred a new case against Saddam Hussein to the chief prosecutor of the Iraqi High Tribunal in connection with the massacre of about 80,000 Kurds in the late 1980's, according to the prosecutor, Jaafar al-Mousawi.

Joel Brinkley and Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi contributed reporting for this article.

    Americans in Iraq Face Their Deadliest Day in Months, NYT, 4.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/04/world/middleeast/04iraq.html

Civilians in Iraq Flee Mixed Areas as Killings Rise

April 2, 2006
The New York Times
By EDWARD WONG and KIRK SEMPLE

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 1 — The war in Iraq has entered a bloodier phase, with American casualties steadily declining over the past five months while the killings of Iraqi civilians have risen tremendously in sectarian violence, spurring tens of thousands of Iraqis to flee from mixed Shiite-Sunni areas.

The new pattern, detailed in casualty and migration statistics and in interviews with American commanders and Iraqi officials, has led to further separation of Shiite and Sunni Arabs, moving the country toward a de facto partitioning along sectarian and ethnic lines — an outcome that the Bush administration has doggedly worked to avoid over the past three years.

The nature of the Iraq war has been changing since at least late autumn, when political friction between Sunni Arabs and the majority Shiites rose even as American troops began to carry out a long-term plan to decrease their street presence. But the killing accelerated most sharply after the bombing on Feb. 22 of a revered Shiite shrine, which unleashed a wave of sectarian bloodletting.

About 900 Iraqi civilians were killed in March, up from about 700 the month before, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent organization that tracks deaths. Meanwhile, at least 29 American troops were killed in March, the second-lowest monthly total since the war began.

The White House says that little violence occurs in most of Iraq's 18 provinces. But those four or five provinces where most of the killings and migrations take place are Iraq's major population and economic centers, generally mixed regions that include the capital, Baghdad, and contain much of the nation's infrastructure — crucial factors in Iraq's prospects for stability.

The Iraqi public's reaction to the violence has been substantial. Since the shrine bombing, 30,000 to 36,000 Iraqis have fled their homes because of sectarian violence or fear of reprisals, say officials at the International Organization for Migration in Geneva. The Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration estimated at least 5,500 families had moved, with the biggest group, 1,250 families, settling in the Shiite holy city of Najaf after leaving Baghdad and Sunni-dominated towns in central Iraq.

The families are living with relatives or in abandoned buildings, and a crisis of food and water shortages is starting to build, officials say.

"We lived in Latifiya for 30 years," said Abu Hussein al-Ramahi, a Shiite farmer with a family of seven, referring to a village south of Baghdad that is a stronghold of the Sunni Arab insurgency. "But a month ago, two armed people with masks on their faces said if I stayed in this area, my family and I would no longer remain alive. They shot bullets near my feet. I went back home immediately and we left the area early next morning for Najaf."

Mr. Ramahi's family and other migrants are now squatting in a derelict hotel in the holy city.

"It's almost a creeping polarization of Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

In the chaos, he said, "we see a slow, steady loss of confidence, a growing process of distrust which you see day by day as people at the political level bicker. Everything has become sectarian and ethnic."

The shifting violence and new migration patterns are fueling discussion about whether Iraq is devolving into civil war. Although that determination may be impossible to make in the short term, the debate itself could increase the pressure President Bush is facing at home to draw down the force of 133,000 American troops here. Even if American deaths keep falling, polls show the American public has little appetite for engagement in an Iraqi civil war.

Commanders in Iraq say the insurgent groups in the country, particularly Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, have shifted the focus of their attacks in an effort to foment civil war and undermine negotiations to form a four-year government. "What we are seeing him do now is shift his target from the coalition forces to Iraqi civilians and Iraqi security forces," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a senior spokesman for the American command. "The enemy is trying to stop the formation of this national unity government; he's trying to inflame sectarian violence."

Dozens of bodies, garroted or executed with gunshots to the head, are turning up almost daily in Baghdad alone. The gruesome work is usually attributed to death squads or Shiite militias, some in Iraqi police or army uniforms. Meanwhile, powerful bombings, a favorite tactic of the Sunni Arab-led insurgency, continue to devastate civilian areas and Iraqi bases or recruitment centers.

The number of kidnappings of Iraqis is surging because of an explosion of criminal gangs working for their own gain or with armed political groups. Scores of civilians are abducted every week, usually for ransoms of $20,000 to $30,000. In recent weeks, masked men have stormed offices in Baghdad and hauled away all the workers.

At the same time, American commanders have decreased the number of their patrols and have tried to push the Iraqi security forces into a more visible role.

That shift, along with improved armor and bomb detection, may partly explain the drop in deaths. Last October, 96 American troops died. That number has decreased every month since, but fell most sharply between February and March — to 29 in March from 55 in February.

Iraqi civilian deaths generally increased in the same period, from 465 in October, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, which tallies deaths from a range of news reports, a method believed to give rough though excessively low estimates.

The broad trend is also supported by statistics on the number of attacks. A senior Pentagon official said that attacks on Americans, Iraqi forces and Iraqi civilians remained around 600 per week since last September but that the focus of the attacks had changed. In September, 82 percent of attacks were against American-led forces and 18 percent against Iraqis; in February, 65 percent were against the foreigners and 35 percent against Iraqis.

Top American officials are concerned that despite the growing number of trained and equipped Iraqi security forces being fielded, and the large number of insurgents killed or captured in the past six months, the number of overall attacks has not declined, the Defense Department official said.

"It should be worrisome to us that it's still at the same level," said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the trend. "With the number of operations that are occurring and the number of people we are detaining growing, and truly with the number of tactical successes that we're having, you would expect to see a reduction in the trend."

American officials say the solution to the sectarian bloodshed lies in the Iraqis' quickly forming a national unity government, with representatives of all major groups checking one another through compromise.

But with each political milestone — the transfer of sovereignty in 2004, two sets of elections in 2005, the referendum on the constitution — the Americans have asserted that the country would stabilize. Instead, the violence has continued unabated, sometimes changing in nature, as it is doing now, but never declining. And as the resulting migration continues, Iraq's political groups could have even less incentive to compromise with one another, as they separate into their enclaves.

Many Iraqis say they are fleeing out of fear of increasingly partisan Iraqi security forces.

The police and commando forces are infested with militia recruits, mostly from Shiite political parties, and are accused by Sunni Arabs of carrying out sectarian executions. One Sunni-run TV network warned viewers last week not to allow Iraqi policemen or soldiers into their homes unless the forces were accompanied by American troops.

"The militias are in charge now," said Aliyah al-Bakr, 42, a Sunni Arab schoolteacher who had two male relatives abducted and executed by black-clad gunmen in Baghdad on Feb. 22. "I'm more afraid of Iraqi militias than of the Americans. But the American presence is still the cornerstone of all the problems."

Some of the migration is happening within Baghdad, with families moving from one block to the next, from neighborhood to neighborhood, increasingly segregating the capital.

Others are fleeing across wide swaths of desert. At least 761 families have settled in Baghdad after moving from Anbar Province and other Sunni-dominated areas to the west, according to Iraqi government statistics. The same is happening on the Sunni Arab end — there are reports of 50 families moving from Baghdad to the Sunni city of Falluja.

Aid groups have been handing out mattresses, blankets, cooking sets and other gear to families throughout central and southern Iraq.

Jemini Pandya, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration, says it is a short-term response to what could be a more lasting issue. "We've been doing emergency work," she said. "The situation for those displaced won't be resolved anytime soon."

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington for this article, Khalid W. Hassan from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Najaf.

    Civilians in Iraq Flee Mixed Areas as Killings Rise, NYT, 2.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/world/middleeast/02iraq.html?hp&ex=1144040400&en=10ddebce43b7a3fd&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Freed reporter says forced into anti-US video

Sat Apr 1, 2006 8:01 PM ET
Reuters
By Jason Szep

BOSTON (Reuters) - Describing her captivity in Iraq as horrific, freed American hostage Jill Carroll disavowed on Saturday critical statements she made about the United States, saying she had been forced to make a propaganda video.

In the video made before her release and posted on a jihadist Web site that also showed beheadings and attacks on American forces, Carroll denounced the U.S. presence in Iraq and praised the militants fighting American forces there.

"Things that I was forced to say while captive are now being taken by some as an accurate reflection of my personal views. They are not," she said in a statement read in Boston by Richard Bergenheim, editor of The Christian Science Monitor, the Boston-based employer of the 28-year-old journalist.

Carroll, who was abducted in Baghdad on January 7 and released 82 days later on Thursday, said in her first public statement since leaving Iraq that her captors forced her to make the video during her last night of captivity.

"They told me they would let me go if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and wanted to go home alive. I agreed," she said in the statement made while she is in Germany.

Wearing a traditional Islamic head scarf, Carroll looked relaxed in the broadcast that has drawn criticism from some conservative commentators, describing U.S. policy in Iraq as built on a "mountain of lies" and saying U.S. President George W. Bush "doesn't care about his own people".

"CRIMINALS AT BEST"

In her statement on Saturday, she said she been threatened repeatedly and described her captors as "criminals at best." She also recanted statements she made in an interview given to the Iraqi Islamic Party shortly after her release.

"The party had promised me the interview would never be aired on television, and broke their word. At any rate, fearing retribution from my captors, I did not speak freely. Out of fear I said I wasn't threatened," she said.

"In fact, I was threatened many times."

She said at least two false statements about her had been widely aired: that she refused to travel and cooperate with the U.S. military and that she refused to discuss her captivity with U.S. officials. "Again, neither is true," she said.

"I want to be judged as a journalist, not as a hostage."

"Let me be clear: I abhor all who kidnap and murder civilians, and my captors are clearly guilty of both crimes."

Carroll was due to fly into Boston on Sunday morning from Germany, where she arrived on Saturday at Ramstein U.S. air base aboard a U.S. military transport plane from Iraq.

Television showed Carroll stepping off the plane wearing jeans, a camouflage jacket and without the Islamic head scarf she had worn in several videos while held hostage in a darkened, soundproofed room she has described as like a cave.

"I'm happy to be here," she said in Germany.

In the statement, Carroll described her captivity as "horrific" for her and her family, and thanked her supporters around the world for rallying on her behalf after she was kidnapped by the militants who also killed her Iraqi interpreter.

"Now, I ask for the time to heal," she said. "This has been a taxing 12 weeks for me and my family. Please allow us some quiet time alone, together."

    Freed reporter says forced into anti-US video, NYT, 1.4.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-04-02T000105Z_01_N01377726_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-CARROLL.xml

Rice Concedes Errors in Iraq, Elsewhere

March 31, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:36 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BLACKBURN, England (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice conceded Friday that the United States probably has made thousands of ''tactical errors'' in Iraq and elsewhere, but said it will be judged by its larger aims of peace and democracy in the Middle East.

The U.S. diplomat met loud anti-war protests in the streets and skeptical questions about U.S. involvement in Iraq at a foreign policy salon Friday, including one about whether Washington had learned from its ''mistakes over the past three years.''

Rice replied that leaders would be ''brain-dead'' if they did not absorb the lessons of their times.

''I know we've made tactical errors, thousands of them I'm sure,'' Rice told an audience gathered by the British foreign policy think tank Chatham House. ''But when you look back in history, what will be judged will be, did you make the right strategic decisions.''

She said she remains firmly convinced that it was the right strategic decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq three years ago, and that it required an invasion to do it.

Saddam ''wasn't going anywhere without military intervention,'' she said.

Demonstrators organized marches to call America's top diplomat a war criminal and human rights abuser as she joined British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on a tour of his adopted northern England working-class home.

Rice said she was not surprised by the depth of opposition in Britain, President Bush's strongest ally in Iraq, to the war and other American policies.

''I've seen it in every city I've visited in the United States,'' Rice said earlier Friday. ''People have strong views.''

''People have the right to protest, that's what democracy is all about,'' Rice told reporters at a British aerospace plant. ''I would say to those who wish to protest, by all means.''

Rice also said the United States was ready to send humanitarian assistance to Iran following deadly earthquakes there on Friday, but she made it clear there would be no accompanying U.S. diplomatic overture to Tehran.

Straw, Rice's host for her two-day visit, said Britain would send a condolence letter to the Tehran government.

The United States has no diplomatic relations with Iran.

At a high school visited by Rice and Straw, about 200 protesters stood across the street with banners and signs, chanting ''Condoleezza Rice, Go Home!'' One demonstrator held a yellow hand-lettered sign that read ''How Many Lives Per Gallon?''

Rice toured a high school math class and visited Ewood Park, the home stadium of Straw's favored soccer team, Blackburn Rovers.

About 50 of Pleckgate School's students ''skived off'' their classes Friday to protest Rice's visit, said student Jabbar Khan, 16, who shook Rice's hand as she entered.

The protests awaiting Rice on Friday were the reverse of the warm reception she received last fall when Straw accompanied her on a down-home tour of her native Alabama. Then, elderly white women lined up to shake the hand of a black native daughter made good, football fans cheered and the tantalizing possibility of a run for president -- something she discounts -- surrounded Rice.

''It's one thing to say this is a cultural visit, but others see it as a council of war,'' said Carmel Brown, an anti-war protester in Liverpool.

Rice's planned visit to a mosque in Blackburn was canceled Thursday after anti-war protesters planned to heckle her during prayer time, a mosque leader said. A prominent poet and actress pulled out of planned appearances at a Liverpool Philharmonic concert Rice was attending Friday in protest of U.S. policies.

Straw's Blackburn district has the country's third highest Muslim population. Rice also is to meet Muslim leaders and the town's mayor, Ugandan immigrant Yusuf Jan-Virmani, on Saturday.

Straw's visit to Alabama was intended to show a different side of America to a visiting foreign leader and friend. Many people he met in Alabama, and a few who introduced him at events, had never heard of the British diplomat.

Rice is far better known, as the two days of protests planned over U.S. policies in Iraq, Iran and the war on terrorism attest.

Opponents of the Iraq war set up a Web site, condiwatch.co.uk, that listed times and locations for marches and gatherings. Protesters planned to distribute T-shirts that read, ''Fab Four, Not War,'' in reference to Liverpool's most famous export, The Beatles.

    Rice Concedes Errors in Iraq, Elsewhere, NYT, 31.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Rice.html

Iraq conflict grows ever more confusing

Fri Mar 31, 2006 9:30 AM ET
Reuters
By Michael Georgy, - ANALYSIS

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen in police uniform kill and kidnap at electronics shops. A mosque raid draws government charges that U.S. troops run Iraqi forces beyond its control. Bodies turn up on streets as militia death squads roam freely.

This week's violence in Iraq suggests the conflict has entered an ominous new stage where crime gangs, Sunni Arab insurgents and pro-government Shi'ite militias overlap as violence pushes the country closer to sectarian civil war.

What began with a murky Sunni revolt against occupation and then the U.S.-backed interim government has exploded into a communal and criminal battlefield where determining who is killing whom -- let alone why -- is getting harder every day.

"The Sunni insurgency is now complemented by the Shi'ite militias who are getting very powerful and are able to wreak havoc on the Sunnis," said Martin Navias, at the Center for Defense Studies at King's College in London.

"The various groups are killing each other and kidnapping but not openly doing it. It is a type of ethnic cleansing. But it is not an open civil war."

Iraqi leaders are struggling to form a unity government more than three months after elections, raising concerns that a widening political vacuum will foster ever more violence.

Analysts say that while the new trends were alarming, there were no signs that the violence is about to spill over into open warfare with street battles between Iraq's main Shi'ite, Arab Sunni and ethnic Kurdish groups.

A fall in American casualties since last summer suggests that U.S. troops, with growing numbers of Iraqi allies, have made gains over insurgents. March should show one of the lowest monthly U.S. death tolls of the war, possibly the lowest in two years.

But measuring success in those terms on that conventional military front is easier than gauging progress in the battle against a complex network of criminals, militias and insurgents -- all of whom can show up in police or army uniforms.

UNCLEAR ENEMIES

Gunmen dressed as police commandos -- precise accounts of the uniforms varied -- killed nine people in an attack on an electronics store in Baghdad on Wednesday, one of a series of raids against lucrative businesses in the capital this week.

Workers, including women, were rounded up and then killed.

On Monday and Tuesday, a total of 35 people were abducted in four attacks, including two on electronics dealers and one on a money-changer where the attackers also stole $50,000.

Determining whether they were criminals or insurgents seeking funds seems impossible in Iraq's chaos.

Police officers in the area where the raids were carried out said they had no idea who was responsible.

"Many security groups work in Iraq and nobody knows who they are or what they are doing," said one police lieutenant colonel, who would give his name only as the familiar Abu Mohammed for fear of reprisals from his shadowy adversaries.

"There are now many organised crime groups working under formal cover, as militias or security companies. It's hard to figure out who they are, let alone who is behind them."

One businessman who said he was familiar with some of the businesses targeted said several belonged to one man, suggesting attacks by racketeers. That could not be confirmed, however.

Hazim al-Naimi, a politics professor at Baghdad's Mustansiriya University, said the raids were another disturbing sign that the conflict has been escalating since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine last month touched off bloody reprisals.

Since then, hundreds of bodies have turned up in the streets, many shot or strangled with signs of torture.

"The crisis has become very complicated now. We are seeing raids on electronics shops that make no sense. It could be a campaign to wreck the economy so Iraqis don't set up businesses. It's hard to tell," said Naimi.

Al Qaeda's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who has been most predictable in Iraq's conflict, has been keeping a low profile.

His suicide bombers have eased off, leading Interior Minister Bayan Jabor to conclude Zarqawi is no longer a threat.

But U.S. officers say he is shifting attacks away from American soldiers and Shi'ite civilians to Iraqi security forces and more targeted killing, raising fears of new violence as the authorities try to grapple with deepening mayhem.

Long-term stability ultimately depends on whether Iraqi forces can take on militants and insurgents on their own.

U.S. commanders have been praising Iraqi special forces for a raid on a Baghdad mosque compound on Sunday night which left what they said were 16 "terrorists" dead.

But as government-run state television showed lengthy footage of the bullet-ridden bodies, Shi'ite leaders accused the Americans of a massacre of unarmed worshippers and directing Iraqi forces without a green light from the Iraqi government.

Police and local residents said the compound was a base for the Mehdi Army, a Shi'ite militia. But the U.S. military says it still has no idea who the 16 were despite extensive intelligence work ahead of the raid and the rescue of a tortured hostage.

"People ought to be focused on the fact that 50 members of the Iraqi special operations forces planned and conducted this. And it was flawless. Flawless," U.S. Major General Rick Lynch told a news conference on Thursday.

But of the identity of the militants he said: "Right now, if I were to tell you something, I'd be hazarding a guess."

(Additional reporting by Omar al-Ibadi)

    Iraq conflict grows ever more confusing, R, 31.3.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-03-31T143033Z_01_GEO146870_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&related=true&src=cms

Iraq Shi'ite ayatollah wants US envoy sacked

Fri Mar 31, 2006 12:39 PM ET
Reuters
By Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A leading Iraqi Shi'ite cleric on Friday demanded the United States sack its envoy and accused him of siding with fellow Sunni Muslims in the country's growing sectarian conflict.

The call by Ayatollah Mohammed al-Yacoubi came as political leaders, urged on by the U.S. ambassador, held their latest round of negotiations to form a new government after parliamentary elections in December.

Yacoubi said in a sermon read out at mosques for Friday prayers Washington had underestimated the conflict between Shi'ites and the once dominant Sunni Arab minority, which many fear could trigger a civil war.

"They are either misled by reports which lack objectivity and credibility submitted to the United States by their sectarian ambassador to Iraq ... or they are denying this fact," Yacoubi said in the message, later issued as a statement.

"It (the United States) should not yield to terrorist blackmail and should not be deluded or misled by spiteful sectarians. It should replace its ambassador to Iraq if it wants to protect itself from further failures."

After the imam of Baghdad's Rahman mosque read that line, worshippers chanted "Allahu Akbar" -- God is Greatest, in an apparent declaration of agreement.

MOUNTING PRESSURE

Iraq's political leaders held Friday's talks under mounting pressure at home and from the United States to form a government of national unity embracing Shi'ites Sunnis and Kurds to end sectarian violence and avert civil war.

Afghan-born ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the highest ranking Muslim in the U.S. administration, has been in Iraq ten months and has spearheaded urgent U.S. efforts to press politicians to form a government.

The Shi'ite-Sunni bloodshed has worsened dramatically since a major Shi'ite shrine in the city of Samarra was bombed on February 22, sparking a wave of violence and poisoning the political atmosphere during the negotiations.

Hundreds have died since and more than 30,000 people have fled their homes as Shi'ite and Sunni militias seek to cleanse their neighborhoods.

Yacoubi is the spiritual guide for the Fadhila party, one of the smaller but still influential components of the dominant Islamist Alliance bloc. He is not part of the senior clerical council around Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf.

Nonetheless, Shi'ite politicians said his comments reflected widespread disenchantment among them with the ambassador.

"It's a very good statement," one senior official in the Alliance, not from Fadhila, said of Yacoubi's sermon.

Khalilzad has been criticized by Shi'ite leaders who say they resent his championing of efforts to tempt Sunnis away from armed revolt into a coalition government.

Yacoubi said: "The American ambassador and the tyrants of the Arab states are giving political support to those parties who provide political cover for the terrorists."

TACTICAL ERRORS

Alliance leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim accused Khalilzad last month of provoking the Samarra bombing by making remarks critical of "sectarian" tendencies among the Shi'ite leadership.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has also criticised U.S. "interference" this week in Iraq's political process. Jaafari's nomination to a second term by the Alliance is a major sticking point in talks with Sunnis and ethnic Kurds on a government.

Shi'ite politicians say Khalilzad has delivered messages from U.S. President George W. Bush to both Hakim and Sistani in the past week urging them to drop Jaafari, whose nomination was secured with the support of Iranian-backed cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr. U.S. diplomats deny taking sides.

But analysts say it is a major issue.

"The fact that the Americans, Khalilzad and Bush, expressed their concerns over Jaafari and the Americans so visibly injected themselves into an Iraqi issue suggested their level of concern was high," said Martin Navias, of the Center of Defense Studies at King's College in London.

Khalilzad is now planning talks with Iran, Washington's old enemy in the region, to try to ease the crisis in Iraq. The United States accuses Shi'ite Iran of fomenting violence.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accepted on Friday the United States had probably made thousands of errors in Iraq but defended the overall strategy of removing Saddam Hussein.

"Yes, I know we have made tactical errors, thousands of them," she said in Blackburn, England, in answer to a question over whether lessons had been learned since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Friday's political talks appeared to make no major progress.

There is haggling over a Sunni demand for a security veto and the issue of who gets what job remains wide open.

Further highlighting the growing divide between U.S. forces and some Shi'ite leaders, a Sadr aide demanded soldiers involved in a joint Iraqi-U.S. raid on a Baghdad mosque compound be prosecuted and the more than a dozen people arrested be freed.

"We want those who joined the occupation forces in the raid to be sent to courts and to be tried fast," Hazim Al-Araji told a news conference.

At least 16 people died in the raid. The U.S. military says it targeted militants but Shi'ite leaders say unarmed worshippers were killed.

(Additional reporting by Hiba Moussa, Seif Fouad, Terry Friel and Alastair Macdonald)

    Iraq Shi'ite ayatollah wants US envoy sacked, R, 31.3.2006, http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-03-31T173906Z_01_L30585020_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ.xml

American Reporter Kidnapped in Baghdad Is Released

March 30, 2006
The New York Times
By KIRK SEMPLE and JOHN O'NEIL

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 30 — Jill Carroll, the American reporter who was kidnapped in Baghdad nearly three months ago, was released today.

Ms. Carroll, whose abduction generated international attention, said in an interview shown on Baghdad television that her captors "never hit me and never even threatened to hit me."

Asked what message she wanted to send to the United States, she said firmly, "I was treated very well, it's important for people to know that.

Wearing gray Arabic robes, tucking her hair up under a gray and green headdress, Ms. Carroll said that she was told this morning that she was going to be free "and that is what happened."

"They didn't tell me what was going on," she said.

She appeared strong and confident and waited patiently for the interviewer to ask his questions before answering, sometimes asking for clarification. She said that she did not know where she had been held, adding that her room had a window but that it was obscured, and that she had been allowed to walk to a shower nearby. She had been able to watch television once and had seen a newspaper once, she said, but was not aware if there were any negotiations.

"All I can say right now is I am very happy," Ms. Carroll said. "I am happy to be free and I want to be with my family."

Ms. Carroll was dropped off today at the headquarters of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a predominantly Sunni group, in western Baghdad.

Dr. Tariq Al-Hashemi, the party's general secretary, said in a news conference that Ms. Carroll walked in to the office dressed in Islamic garb and handed officials there a paper written in Arabic.

"The message said, 'This is the kidnapped American journalist and we ask you to take her to an official party,' " Mr. Al-Hashemi said.

Mr. Al-Hashemi said that Ms. Carroll had interviewed party leaders before, but that he had no idea why she was delivered to their office. He said his group had joined in the condemnation of the kidnapping.

Party officials contacted American authorities, who whisked her to the heavily fortified Green Zone.

Richard Bergenheim, the editor of The Christian Science Monitor, for which Ms. Carroll was reporting at the time of her kidnapping, said that there had been "absolutely no negotiations for her release" and had never been any contact with her captors.

David Cook, an editor in the Washington bureau of The Christian Science Monitor, said that Ms. Carroll had called her father this morning to tell him she was safe.

Ms. Carroll, 28, was abducted Jan. 7 in western Baghdad. Her intepreter, Allan Enwiyah, 32, was shot dead at the scene.

In the weeks afterward, her captors released three videotapes, which showed her in increasing distress. The kidnappers, who called themselves the Vengeance Brigade, issued a statement through a Kuwaiti television station in February demanding that the Americans and Iraqis release all imprisoned women by Feb. 26 or she would be killed. While several female prisoners were released shortly before then, Iraqi and American officials insisted that it was not because of the demand, and a few other female prisoners remained in jail.

That kidnapper's deadline passed, and there was no further word of Ms. Carroll.

On Feb. 28, Iraq's interior minister told ABC News that Ms. Carroll was still alive, that he knew who had kidnapped her and that he believed she would be released soon.

Ms. Carroll was kidnapped less than 300 yards from the office of Adnan Dulaimi, a prominent Sunni Arab politician, whom Ms. Carroll had been intending to interview that morning. In an interview with The New York Times on Wednesday, Mr. Dulaimi repeatedly expressed concerns about Ms. Carroll. In recent months, he made public appeals for her release.

Many other Iraqi politicians, along with as well as Ms. Carroll's family members had made repeated appeals for her freedom. Her twin sister, Katie, said in a statement read on the Al-Arabiya network that "I've been living a nightmare, worrying if she is hurt or ill."

Kidnappings in Iraq are increasingly common, and thousands of Iraqis are believed to have been taken, most simply for ransom. More than 200 foreigners have been abducted, and several American captives have been killed.

But no kidnapping drew the kind of attention that Ms. Carroll's did. In addition to the fact that she was the only American woman to be abducted, her youth and what her family described as her desire to publicize the hardships facing the Iraqi people. Her plight also hit home for the journalists in Iraq who covered it.

Mr. Bergenheim, the Monitor editor, took note of the wider problem during a press conference outside the paper's Boston headquarters, saying that "the world doesn't hear the voice" of kidnapped Iraqis.

"We can't imagine what it would be like to live in a city where 30 or 40 people a day are being kidnapped," he said, and he hoped that the effort to free Ms. Carroll had led to a greater awareness of the suffering caused by such crimes.

Ms. Carroll, who grew up in Michigan and speaks some Arabic, had been reporting in the Middle East since late 2002, mostly in Iraq.

Her father, Jim, released a statement saying, "We are thrilled and relieved at the safe return of my daughter, Jill."

"We want to thank the thousands of people that prayed and especially the people at The Christian Science Monitor who did so much to keep her alive," the statement said. Ms. Carroll, a freelance writer, had been reporting for the Monitor at the time of her abduction.

Mr. Bergenheim also praised the efforts of people inside Iraq and throughout the world. "The chorus of Muslim leaders condemning this kidnapping was larger and louder than has been heard for some time," he said.

The American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said in a televised briefing that he had met with Ms. Carroll, whom he described as being in "good health and great spirits."

He took the occasion to praise Iraqi leaders for working for her release, and the Islamic party for its role after she was freed.

"We are going to work as hard as we can to help her get home as soon as possible," he said.

Speaking in Berlin a a meeting on the Iranian nuclear program, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed "great delight and great relief" at the release of Ms. Carroll, news services reported.

Kirk Semple reported from Baghdad for this article and John O'Neil reported from New York. Ali Adeeb contributed reporting from Baghdad and Christine Hauser and Carla Baranauckas contributed reporting from New York.

    American Reporter Kidnapped in Baghdad Is Released, NYT, 30.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/30/international/31iraqcnd.html?hp&ex=1143781200&en=3c9ce3e26b18954f&ei=5094&partner=homepage


 

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, at the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld,
explaining a map of the mosque compound assaulted by Iraqi and American troops on Sunday.

Yuri Gripas/Reuters        NYT        March 29, 2006

Beleaguered Premier Warns U.S. to Stop Interfering in Iraq's Politics        NYT        30.3.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/30/international/middleeast/30iraq.html

Beleaguered Premier Warns U.S. to Stop Interfering in Iraq's Politics

March 30, 2006
The New York Times
By EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 29 — Facing growing pressure from the Bush administration to step down, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari of Iraq vigorously asserted his right to stay in office on Wednesday and warned the Americans against interfering in the country's political process.

Mr. Jaafari also defended his recent political alliance with the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, now the prime minister's most powerful backer, saying in an interview that Mr. Sadr and his militia, now thousands strong, are a fact of life in Iraq and need to be accepted into mainstream politics.

Mr. Jaafari said he would work to fold the country's myriad militias into the official security forces and ensure that recruits and top security ministers abandoned their ethnic or sectarian loyalties.

The Iraqi government's tolerance of militias has emerged as the greatest source of contention between American officials and Shiite leaders like Mr. Jaafari, with the American ambassador contending in the past week that militias are killing more people than the Sunni Arab-led insurgency. Dozens of bodies, garroted or with gunshots to the head, turn up almost daily in Baghdad, fueling sectarian tensions that are pushing Iraq closer to full-scale civil war.

The prime minister made his remarks in an hourlong interview at his home, a Saddam Hussein-era palace with an artificial lake at the heart of the fortified Green Zone. He spoke in a languorous manner, relaxing in a black pinstripe suit in a dim ground-floor office lined with Arabic books like the multivolume "World of Civilizations."

"There was a stand from both the American government and President Bush to promote a democratic policy and protect its interests," he said, sipping from a cup of boiled water mixed with saffron. "But now there's concern among the Iraqi people that the democratic process is being threatened."

"The source of this is that some American figures have made statements that interfere with the results of the democratic process," he added. "These reservations began when the biggest bloc in Parliament chose its candidate for prime minister."

Mr. Jaafari is at the center of the deadlock in the talks over forming a new government, with the main Kurdish, Sunni Arab and secular blocs in the 275-member Parliament staunchly opposing the Shiite bloc's nomination of Mr. Jaafari for prime minister.

Senior Shiite politicians said Tuesday that the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, had weighed in over the weekend, telling the leader of the Shiite bloc that President Bush did not want Mr. Jaafari as prime minister. That was the first time the Americans had openly expressed a preference for the post, the politicians said, and it showed the Bush administration's acute impatience with the political logjam.

Relations between Shiite leaders and the Americans have been fraying for months and reached a crisis point after a bloody assault on a Shiite mosque compound Sunday night by American and Iraqi forces.

Mr. Jaafari said in the interview that Ambassador Khalilzad had visited him on Wednesday morning but did not indicate that he should abandon his job.

American reactions to the political process can be seen as either supporting or interfering in Iraqi decisions, said Mr. Jaafari, the leader of the Islamic Dawa Party and a former exile. "When it takes the form of interference, it makes the Iraqi people worried," he said. "For that reason, the Iraqi people want to ensure that these reactions stay in a positive frame and do not cross over into interference that damages the results of the democratic process."

According to the Constitution, the largest bloc in Parliament, in this case the religious Shiites, has the right to nominate a prime minister. Mr. Jaafari won that nomination in a secret ballot last month among the blocs' 130 Shiite members of Parliament. But his victory was a narrow one: he won by only one vote after getting the support of Mr. Sadr, who controls 32 seats.

That alliance has raised concern among the Americans that Mr. Jaafari will do little to rein in Mr. Sadr, who led two fierce rebellions against the American military in 2004. Mr. Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, rampaged in Baghdad after the Feb. 22 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra and after a series of car bomb explosions on March 12 in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood. The violence left hundreds dead and Sunni mosques burnt to the ground.

After the secret ballot last month, Sadr politicians said Mr. Jaafari had agreed to meet all their demands in exchange for their votes. Mr. Sadr has been pushing for control of service ministries like health, transportation and electricity.

Mr. Jaafari did not say in the interview what deals he had made, but he insisted that engagement with the cleric's movement was needed for the stability of Iraq. He said he had disagreed with L. Paul Bremer III, the former American proconsul, when Mr. Bremer barred Mr. Sadr and some Sunni Arab groups from the Iraqi Governing Council in 2003.

"The delay in getting them to join led to the situation of them becoming violent elements," he said.

"I look at them as part of Iraq's de facto reality, whether some of the individual people are negative or positive," he said.

Mr. Jaafari used similar language when laying out his policy toward militias: that inclusion rather than isolation was the proper strategy.

The Iraqi government will try "to meld them, take them, take their names and make them join the army and police forces."

"And they will respect the army or police rather than the militias."

Recruiting militia members into the Iraqi security forces has not been a problem under the Jaafari government. The issue has been getting those fighters to act as impartial defenders of the state rather than as political partisans. The police forces are stocked with members of the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization, an Iranian-trained militia, who still exhibit obvious loyalties to their political party leaders.

Police officers have performed poorly when ordered to contain militia violence, and they even cruise around in some cities with images of Mr. Sadr or other religious politicians on their squad cars.

There is growing evidence of uniformed death squads operating out of the Shiite-run Interior Ministry, and Ambassador Khalilzad has been lobbying the Iraqis to place more neutral figures in charge of the Interior and Defense Ministries in the next government. That has caused friction with Shiite leaders, and some have even accused the ambassador of implicitly backing the Sunni Arab-led insurgency.

But Mr. Jaafari said he supported the Americans' goal.

"We insist that the ministers in the next cabinet, especially the ministers of defense and the interior, shouldn't be connected to any militias, and they should be nonsectarian," he said. "They should be experienced in security work. They should keep the institutions as security institutions, not as political institutions. They should work for the central government."

In the first two years of the war, Mr. Jaafari emerged as one of the most popular politicians in Iraq, especially compared with other exiles like Ahmad Chalabi, the former Pentagon favorite. A doctor by training and well-versed in the Koran, Mr. Jaafari comes from a prominent family in Karbala, the Shiite holy city. But since taking power last spring, Mr. Jaafari has come under widespread criticism for failing to stamp out the insurgency and promoting hard-line pro-Shiite policies.

    Beleaguered Premier Warns U.S. to Stop Interfering in Iraq's Politics, NYT, 30.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/30/international/middleeast/30iraq.html

Report Adds to Criticism of Halliburton's Iraq Role

March 29, 2006
The New York Times
By JAMES GLANZ

Even as a Halliburton subsidiary was absorbing harsh criticism of its costs on a 2003 no-bid contract for work in Iraq, the government officials overseeing a second contract wrote that the company was running up exorbitant new expenses on similar work, according to a report issued yesterday by the staff for the Democrats on the House Government Reform Committee.

The report, prepared for a frequent critic of Halliburton, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, is based on previously undisclosed correspondence and performance evaluations from 2004 and 2005.

The documents show that the government's contracting officers became increasingly frustrated as they tried to penetrate what they considered to be inaccurate or misleading progress reports and expense vouchers filed by the subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root.

In August 2004, one of the officers wrote to the company that "you have universally failed to provide adequate cost information as required."

A few months later, after the company was served with a "cure notice," in which the government threatened to terminate the contract if performance was not improved, or "cured," another officer said he was writing "in sheer frustration with the consistent lack of accurate data."

Kellogg Brown & Root's second contract, awarded in January 2004 for rebuilding oil infrastructure in southern Iraq, has a maximum value of $1.2 billion. A company spokeswoman, Melissa Norcross, said that the report was "as devoid of context as it is new information" and that many of the issues raised by the contracting officers had been resolved.

The company, Ms. Norcross said, was forced to work with an ever-shifting cast of oversight organizations and at least 15 government contracting officials. "With each change, the company adjusted to meet the needs of its customer," she said, "all while operating in an extremely hostile war zone."

But Mr. Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said the report showed that the company had "actually done a worse job under its second Iraq oil contract than it did under the original no-bid contract."

William L. Nash, a retired Army general who is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on post-conflict zones, said the unusually revealing documents laid bare "a microcosm of all the ills" of the Iraq rebuilding effort. "This a continuing example of the mismanagement of the Iraq reconstruction from the highest levels down to the contractors on the ground," he said.

The second contract was not terminated after the cure notice, and contracting officers later noted improvements in some areas. But the company received what appears to be a rebuke when it was given nothing out of a possible $7.9 million in socalled award fees for its first year of work on the contract. The award fees are incentives given by the government to reward good performance.

An award fee given for a later period, roughly the first half of 2005, was about 20 percent of the maximum, which Mr. Nash, who has been involved in determining such fees, described as extraordinarily low.

Both Kellogg Brown & Root contracts called for things like repairing oil wells and pipelines, installing power generators at oil facilities and importing fuel to Iraq. The first contract, worth $2.4 billion, generated enormous controversy after Pentagon auditors questioned more than $200 million in fuel delivery costs.

Critics like Mr. Waxman called the challenged costs overcharges, a description rejected by the company, which claimed a measure of vindication last month when the Army overruled the auditors and reimbursed nearly all of the delivery charges.

The new report, which says that Pentagon auditors have questioned $45 million of the $365 million in costs they reviewed, may revive the battle. A spokesman for the Defense Contract Audit Agency confirmed those figures.

Responding to the numbers, an official with Kellogg Brown & Root said, "Audits are part of the normal contracting process, and it is important to note that the auditors' role in the process is advisory only."

But what are likely to be seen as the most striking portions of the report are those that cite the variously stern, heated and even anguished language of contracting officers trying to bring the company to heel.

"As I have said in numerous meetings, KBR's lack of cost containment and funds management is the single biggest detriment to this program," one officer, Maj. Michael V. Waggle, wrote in the cure notice. He noted that the company had listed an impossibly high cost overrun of $436,019,574 on one job, charges of $114,308 for an oil spill cleanup that failed to remove any oil and another set of tasks in which the overruns were 36.9 percent of all costs.

The slides used in presentations during the deliberations of the board that determined the first award fee are almost equally eye-catching. On one slide, covering the company's success at meeting its planned schedules, a section labeled "Strengths" bears only the notation "N/A," presumably meaning no answer or not applicable. The "Weaknesses" section contains four detailed items.

    Report Adds to Criticism of Halliburton's Iraq Role, NYT, 29.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/international/middleeast/29halliburton.html

Bush Opposes Iraq's Premier, Shiites Report

March 29, 2006
The New York Times
By EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 28 — The American ambassador has told Shiite officials that President Bush does not want the Iraqi prime minister to remain the country's leader in the next government, senior Shiite politicians said Tuesday.

It is the first time the Americans have directly expressed a preference in the furious debate over the country's top job, the politicians said, and it is inflaming tensions between the Americans and some Shiite leaders.

The ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the head of the main Shiite political bloc at a meeting on Saturday to pass on a "personal message from President Bush" to the interim prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said Redha Jowad Taki, a Shiite member of Parliament who was at the meeting.

Mr. Khalilzad said Mr. Bush "doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept" Mr. Jaafari as the next prime minister, according to Mr. Taki, a senior aide to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Shiite bloc. It was the first "clear and direct message" from the Americans on a specific candidate for prime minister, Mr. Taki said.

The Shiite bloc, which won a plurality in the parliamentary election in December, nominated Mr. Jaafari last month to retain his post for four more years.

American officials in Baghdad did not dispute the Shiite politicians' account of the conversation, though they would not discuss the details of the meeting.

A spokeswoman for the American Embassy confirmed that Mr. Khalilzad met with Mr. Hakim on Saturday. But she declined to comment on what was said.

"The decisions about the choice of the prime minister are entirely up to the Iraqis," said the spokeswoman, Elizabeth Colton. "This will be an Iraqi decision."

In Washington, the State Department said it would not comment on diplomatic conversations, but Adam Ereli, the deputy spokesman, reiterated American support for "a government of national unity with strong leadership that can unify all Iraqis."

The Americans have harshly criticized the Jaafari government in recent months for supporting Shiite militias that have been fomenting sectarian violence and pushing Iraq closer to full-scale civil war.

Mr. Khalilzad has sharpened his criticism in the last week, saying the militias are now killing more people than the Sunni Arab-led insurgency. American officials have expressed growing concern that Mr. Jaafari is incapable of reining in the private armies, especially since Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric who leads the most volatile militia, is Mr. Jaafari's most powerful backer.

Haider al-Ubady, a spokesman for Mr. Jaafari, said the prime minister had received the ambassador's message and accused the Americans of trying to subvert Iraqi sovereignty.

"How can they do this?" Mr. Ubady said. "An ambassador telling a sovereign country what to do is unacceptable."

Tensions between Shiite leaders and the American government, which had been rising for months, boiled over after an assault on Sunday night by American and Iraqi forces on a Shiite mosque compound in northern Baghdad.

Shiite leaders say at least 17 civilians were killed in the battle, most of them members of a Shiite political party. American commanders say the soldiers fought insurgents.

The reported American pressure over Mr. Jaafari's nomination is another sign of White House impatience over the deadlocked talks to form a new government. American officials say the impasse has created a power vacuum that has encouraged lawlessness and civil conflict.

The nomination has become one of the most contentious issues in those talks, with the main Kurdish, Sunni Arab and secular blocs calling for the Shiites to replace Mr. Jaafari. On Monday, Shiite leaders suspended their participation in the negotiations, saying they were enraged by the assault on the mosque complex.

In Baghdad on Tuesday, at least 21 people were abducted in four separate incidents in the biggest wave of kidnappings in a month, an Interior Ministry official said. In one incident, 15 men in Iraqi Army uniforms dragged at least six people from a money exchange shop and stole nearly $60,000. In two other cases, people wearing Interior Ministry commando uniforms snatched victims from two electronics shops.

The police in western Baghdad discovered 14 bodies on Tuesday, all killed execution-style with gunshots to the head, apparently the latest victims of sectarian bloodletting. On Monday, Iraqi forces found 18 bodies near Baquba with similar wounds. Earlier reports of 30 beheaded bodies found in that area were wrong, the Interior Ministry official said.

An American soldier was killed Tuesday by small-arms fire in Baghdad, and another was killed and three were wounded by a roadside bomb outside Habbaniya, the American military said.

The Iraqi security minister, Abdul Karim al-Enizi, said on the state-run Iraqiya network on Tuesday night that the Iraqi forces who had raided the mosque compound in Baghdad were not part of the Interior or Defense Ministry. A survivor said the soldiers did not speak Arabic well, implying they may have been Kurdish militiamen working with Americans, Mr. Enizi said.

At the Pentagon, senior officials defended the raid, releasing photographs they said proved that weapons and bomb-making materials had been seized inside the compound, which they described as a school complex that had been turned into a base for a "hostage ring."

When the soldiers entered the compound, "they found that there was a building there that had a small minaret and a prayer room inside it," said Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Some people are calling that a mosque."

The surge in violence has shaken confidence in Mr. Jaafari, who has been widely criticized by Iraqis for failing to smash the Sunni-led insurgency, letting Shiite death squads run rampant and doing little on reconstruction.

Mr. Jaafari won the Shiite bloc's nomination for prime minister by one vote in a secret ballot of its members of Parliament, beating out the deputy of Mr. Hakim, the bloc's leader. As the largest bloc, with 130 of the 275 seats, the Shiites have the right to nominate the prime minister.

But a two-thirds vote of Parliament is required for approval of the new government. As long as the other major blocs oppose Mr. Jaafari, the process is at a standstill.

Thom Shanker and Steven R. Weisman contributed reporting from Washington for this article.

    Bush Opposes Iraq's Premier, Shiites Report, NYT, 29.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/international/middleeast/29iraq.html?hp&ex=1143608400&en=78384c8a9f82fae6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Soldiers flee to Canada to avoid Iraq duty

Tuesday March 28, 2006
The Guardian
Duncan Campbell

Hundreds of deserters from the US armed forces have crossed into Canada and are now seeking political refugee status there, arguing that violations of the rules of war in Iraq by the US entitle them to asylum.

A decision on a test case involving two US servicemen is due shortly and is being watched with interest by fellow servicemen on both sides of the border. At least 20 others have already applied for asylum and there are an estimated 400 in Canada out of more than 9,000 who have deserted since the conflict started in 2003.

Ryan Johnson, 22, from near Fresno in California, was due to be deployed with his unit to Iraq in January last year but crossed the Canadian border in June and is seeking asylum. "I had spoken to many soldiers who had been in Iraq and who told me about innocent civilians being killed and about bombing civilian neighbourhoods," he told the Guardian.

"It's been really great since I've been here. Generally, people have been really hospitable and understanding, although there have been a few who have been for the war." He is now unable to return to the US. "I don't have a problem with that. I'm in Canada and that's that."

Mr Johnson said it was unclear exactly how many US soldiers were in Canada but he thought 400 was a "realistic figure". He had been on speaking tours across the country as part of a war resisters' movement and had come across other servicemen living underground.

Jeffry House, a Toronto lawyer who represents many of the men, said that an increasing number were seeking asylum. "There are a fair number without status and a fair number on student visas," he said, and under UN guidelines on refugee status they were entitled to seek asylum.

The first test cases involve Jeremy Hinzman, 26, who deserted from the 82 Airborne Division and Brandon Hughey from the 1st Cavalry Division. A decision on their applications is due within the next few weeks. If they are turned down the case will be taken to the federal appeal court and the Canadian supreme court, according to Mr House, a process that would last into next year at least.

All deserters, past and present, are placed on an FBI wanted list. Earlier this month, Allen Abney, 56, who deserted from the US marines 38 years ago during the Vietnam war, was arrested as he crossed into the US, a journey he had taken many times before without problem. He was held in a military jail in California for a few days, then discharged.

"They have resuscitated long-dormant warrants," said Mr House. "I know 15 people personally who have crossed 10 or more times without problems and then all of a sudden they are arresting people. It seems like it would be connected to Iraq."

Lee Zaslofsky, 61, the coordinator of the War Resisters' Support Campaign in Toronto, said that he was impressed by the young men who were seeking asylum. "Some have been to Iraq and others have heard what goes on there," he said. "Mainly, what they discuss is being asked to do things they consider repugnant. Most are quite patriotic ... Many say they feel tricked by the military."

During the Vietnam war between 50,000 and 60,000 Americans crossed the border to avoid serving.

    Soldiers flee to Canada to avoid Iraq duty, G, 28.3.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1740987,00.html

Iraqi Documents Are Put on Web, and Search Is On

March 28, 2006
The New York Times
By SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON, March 27 — American intelligence agencies and presidential commissions long ago concluded that Saddam Hussein had no unconventional weapons and no substantive ties to Al Qaeda before the 2003 invasion.

But now, an unusual experiment in public access is giving anyone with a computer a chance to play intelligence analyst and second-guess the government. Under pressure from Congressional Republicans, the director of national intelligence has begun a yearlong process of posting on the Web 48,000 boxes of Arabic-language Iraqi documents captured by American troops.

Less than two weeks into the project, and with only 600 out of possibly a million documents and video and audio files posted, some conservative bloggers are already asserting that the material undermines the official view. On his blog last week, Ray Robison, a former Army officer from Alabama, quoted a document reporting a supposed scheme to put anthrax into American leaflets dropped in Iraq and declared triumphantly: "Saddam's W.M.D. and terrorist connections all proven in one document!!!"

Not so, American intelligence officials say. "Our view is there's nothing in here that changes what we know today," said a senior intelligence official, who would discuss the program only on condition of anonymity because the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, directed his staff to avoid public debates over the documents. "There is no smoking gun on W.M.D., Al Qaeda, those kinds of issues."

All the documents — available on fmso.leavenworth.army.mil /products-docex.htm — have received at least a quick review by Arabic linguists and do not alter the government's official stance, officials say. On some tapes already released, in fact, Mr. Hussein expressed frustration that he did not have unconventional weapons.

Intelligence officials had serious concerns about turning loose an army of amateurs on a warehouse full of raw documents that include hearsay, disinformation and forgery. Mr. Negroponte's office attached a disclaimer to the documents, only a few of which have been translated into English, saying the government does not vouch for their authenticity.

Another administration official underscored the political logic: "If anyone in the intelligence community thought there was valid information in those documents that supported either of those questions — W.M.D. or Al Qaeda — they would have shouted them from the rooftops."

But Representative Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who led the campaign to get the documents released, does not believe they have gotten adequate scrutiny. He said he wanted to "unleash the power of the Net" to do translation and analysis that might take the government decades.

"People today ought to be able to have a closer look inside Saddam's regime," Mr. Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, said.

He said intelligence officials resisted posting the documents, which he overcame by appealing to President Bush and by proposing legislation to force the release.

The timing gives the documents a potent political charge. Public doubts about the war have driven President Bush's approval rating to new lows. A renewed debate over Saddam Hussein's weapons and terrorist ties could boost the president's standing, both critics and supporters believe.

"As an historian, I'm glad to have the material out there," said John Prados, who has written books on national security, including one that accuses the administration of distorting pre-war intelligence. He said the records are likely to shed new light on the Iraqi dictatorship. Some of the documents, also included in a new study by the United States military, already have caused a stir by suggesting that Russian officials passed American war plans to Mr. Hussein's government as the invasion began.

But Mr. Prados said the document release "can't be divorced from the political context. The administration is under fire for going to war when there was no threat — so the idea here must be to say there was a threat."

That is already the assertion of a growing crowd of bloggers and translators, almost exclusively on the right. So far they have highlighted documents that refer to a meeting between Osama bin Laden and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Sudan in 1995; a plan to train Arab militants as suicide bombers; and a 1997 document discussing the use of "special ammunition," chemical weapons, against the Kurds.

But the anthrax document that intrigued Mr. Robison, the Alabama blogger, does not seem to prove much. A message from Iraq's Al Quds Army, a regional militia created by Mr. Hussein, to Iraqi military intelligence. It passes on reports picked up by troops, possibly from the radio, since the information is labeled "open source" and "impaired broadcast." No anthrax was found in Iraq by American search teams, in leaflets or anywhere else.

"No offense, but the mainstream media tells people what they want them to know," said Mr. Robison, who worked in Qatar for the Iraq Survey Group, which did an exhaustive search for weapons in Iraq.

The document release may help the president, he said, but that's not the point. "It's not about politics," Mr. Robison said. "It's about the truth."

The truth about pre-war Iraq has proven elusive. The February 2003 presentation by then Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to the United Nations that appeared to provide incontrovertible proof of Iraqi weapons. But the claims in the speech have since been discredited.

Given that track record, some intelligence analysts are horrified at exactly the idea that excites Mr. Hoekstra and the bloggers — that anyone will now be able to interpret the documents.

"There's no quality control," said Michael Scheuer, a former Central Intelligence Agency specialist on terrorism. "You'll have guys out there with a smattering of Arabic drawing all kinds of crazy conclusions. Rush Limbaugh will cherry-pick from the right, and Al Franken will cherry-pick from the left."

Conservative publications, led by The Weekly Standard, have pushed for months to have the documents made public. In November, Mr. Hoekstra and Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked Mr. Negroponte to post the material on the Web.

When that request stalled, Mr. Hoekstra introduced a bill on March 3 that would have forced the posting. Mr. Negroponte began the release two weeks later.

Under the program, documents are withheld only if they include information like the names of Iraqis raped by the secret police, instructions for using explosives, intelligence sources or "diplomatically sensitive" material.

In addition, the senior intelligence official said, documents known to be forgeries are not posted. He said the database includes "a fair amount of forgeries," sold by Iraqi hustlers or concocted by Iraqis opposed to Mr. Hussein.

In previous Internet projects, volunteers have tested software, scanned chemical compounds for useful drugs and even searched radiotelescope data for signals from extraterrestrial life.

The same volunteer spirit, though with a distinct political twist, motivates the Arabic speakers who are posting English versions of the Iraqi documents.

"I'm trying to pick up documents that shed light on the political debate," said Joseph G. Shahda, 34, a Lebanese-born engineer who lives in a Boston suburb and is spending hours every evening on translations for the conservative Free Republic site. "I think we prematurely concluded there was no W.M.D. and no ties to Al Qaeda."

Mr. Shahda said he is proud he can help make the documents public. "I live in this great country and it's a time of war," he said. "This is the least I can do."

    Iraqi Documents Are Put on Web, and Search Is On, NYT, 28.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/28/politics/28intel.html

Shiite Leaders Suspend Talks Over Government

March 28, 2006
The New York Times
By KIRK SEMPLE

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 27 — Frayed relations between Iraq's Shiite leadership and the American authorities came under increased strain on Monday as Shiite leaders angrily denounced a joint American-Iraqi raid on a Shiite compound and suspended negotiations over a new government.

The raid on Sunday evening, which killed at least 16 people, also prompted the governor of Baghdad to announce a halt in cooperation with the American authorities, and Shiite militiamen to brandish their weapons in the streets of eastern Baghdad and declare their readiness to retaliate against American troops.

The suspension of the difficult talks over the formation of a full four-year government prolonged a power vacuum that American and Iraqi officials said had created a fertile environment for a recent surge in lawlessness and sectarian violence.

In the village of Kasak, between Mosul and Tal Afar, a man wrapped in explosives detonated himself at an army recruitment center on Monday, killing at least 40 people and wounding at least 30, an official at the Interior Ministry said. The center is situated in front of a joint American-Iraqi base, though the American military said that no American troops had been wounded.

President Jalal Talabani said he would lead a joint Iraqi-American committee to investigate the Sunday evening raid, as American and Iraqi authorities continued to offer wildly conflicting accounts of it. Shiites said the victims were civilians gathered in a mosque, while the Americans said they were insurgents holed up in a guerrilla headquarters. Iraqi leaders said they would reassess the pause in political talks on a day-by-day basis.

The tension between the American authorities and the Shiite political leadership has many sources. The United States ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been pressing the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, to crack down on Shiite militias and rid the Interior Ministry of militia influence.

The militias, and their fighters working within the government's security forces, have been accused of conducting a dirty war against Sunni Arabs through kidnappings and executions, and thereby helping to push the country toward all-out civil war.

In addition, Mr. Khalilzad has been urging the Shiite leaders to be more politically accommodating to Sunni Arabs. In the aftermath of the bombing of a major Shiite shrine last month, Shiite leaders began to lash out at the ambassador for his insistence on working with the Sunnis and defended their use of militias for self-defense.

Some Shiite leaders warned that the raid had been widely interpreted among their constituents as a strong-arm tactic to cow them into making political concessions, including forcing the largest Shiite bloc to drop Mr. Jaafari as its nominee for prime minister in the new government. They demanded that the American authorities give a public and transparent accounting of the raid. "There was something tragically wrong, and it's got to be explained or it's going to be seen by many to be a crackdown on certain political factions in Iraqi politics," said Haydar al-Abadi, a top adviser to Mr. Jaafari. "We are facing a crisis."

President Talabani said at a news conference that Gen. George W. Casey Jr. agreed to the formation of the joint investigative committee, which was confirmed by a spokeswoman for the American Embassy. "I will personally supervise, and we will learn who was responsible," the president said. "Those who are behind this attack must be brought to justice and punished."

The governor of Baghdad, Hussein al-Tahaan, said he was suspending cooperation with the American authorities "due to the aggression that the innocent people and worshipers were subjected to." The practical effects of the move remained unclear, though it would likely have symbolic resonance.

The raid on Sunday happened at the Mustafa husayniyah, a small Shiite community center and mosque in Ur, a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in northeastern Baghdad.

The mosque, with a small minaret, is built around a central open-air courtyard and was frequented by followers of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia. Mr. Sadr led two major armed uprisings against American troops in 2004 and has become one of the most powerful political forces in the country.

An imam at the mosque, Sheikh Safaa al-Tamimi, said he fled the building when the troops arrived Sunday evening, but returned after the shooting was over and saw bodies in several different rooms. Adel Abu al-Hassan, 34, the supervisor of the mosque and a prayer caller, was outside the mosque during the siege but said he, too, returned to find bodies scattered around the complex.

On Sunday, the Interior Ministry reported that an 80-year-old imam had been among those killed at the compound.

A reporter visiting the mosque on Monday saw blood stains in rooms and on rugs that had been hauled into the courtyard, bullet-pocked walls and even a piece of human brain in a pool of blood on the tile floor of an office used by a Shiite political party, the Iraq Branch of the Islamic Dawa Party.

In a conference call with reporters in Baghdad late Monday, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, commander of the day-to-day operations of the multinational forces in Iraq, said the building was "an office complex," and not a mosque. He said the raid, which involved about 50 troops from the Iraqi Special Forces, assisted by about 25 American advisers, explosives technicians and medical personnel, singled out an insurgent group that was using the building as a base of operations for conducting kidnappings and executions.

General Chiarelli said that as the troops approached the complex, they came under fire from "several buildings" in the area. The troops killed 16 insurgents, wounded three, detained 18 other people, discovered a weapons stockpile and freed a dental technician who was being held hostage there, he said.

The soldiers were met with gunfire from many rooms in the building, American commanders said. "The Iraqi forces did the fighting, make no bones about it," the general said, adding that the dead were all killed by Iraqi troops.

General Chiarelli said he did not know which organization the insurgents represented. "What I know is that we had a terrorist organization that's involved in executions and murders and was holding a hostage," he stated.

The general said he believed that the scene was disrupted after the raid to make the building look like something other than a terrorist headquarters, although he did not give details on how it was done. "After the fact someone went in and made the scene look different than it was, for whatever purposes," he said.

But Iraqi government officials and political leaders vociferously disputed the American command's version of events, insisting that Iraqi and American troops had raided a mosque, not a fortified office complex, as a political party meeting was under way and unarmed worshipers gathered for evening prayer.

Khudair al-Khuzaie, the spokesman for the Iraq Branch of the Islamic Dawa Party, said he knew of 16 victims, all of whom had been attending a meeting in the party's office at the time of the raid. The office is accessible through a doorway from the mosque's courtyard. Of the victims, he said, 13 were party members and 3 were civilians.

Jawad al-Maliki, a deputy to Prime Minister Jaafari's Dawa Party, accused the American command of committing "an ugly crime" that "has dangerous political and security dimensions intended to ignite the fire of civil war."

In the hours after the attack, an official in the office of Mr. Sadr claimed that members of his Mahdi Army were among the victims. But on Monday, another Sadr representative said no Mahdi Army fighters died in the raid.

Mahdi fighters brandishing weapons took to the streets in Ur and Sadr City in a show of force and warned they were prepared to attack American troops. Many accompanied a solemn and tense funeral cortege for the victims through the streets of Ur.

But Shiite leaders, including Mr. Sadr, urged calm.

"We are ready to resist the Americans and strike their bases," vowed Katheer Abdul-Ridha, 22, a member of the Mahdi Army, who was guarding a roadblock in Sadr City. "The Sunnis have nothing to do with this, and we shouldn't accuse them of everything that's going on."

Mr. Khalilzad has been pressuring Iraqi leaders to rein in the militias. On Saturday, he declared that more Iraqis were dying from militia violence than from the insurgency.

In the carnage at the northern recruitment center, Gen. Muhammad al-Dosaki, deputy commander of the Third Division of the Iraqi Army, said the suicide bomber waded into a crowd of about 70 applicants who had gathered outside the center and detonated a vest of explosives.

And in Baghdad, Iraqi police recruits stumbled across nine bodies, all garroted, an official in the Interior Ministry said. At least 267 bodies showing signs of execution-style killings have been recovered in Baghdad in the past three weeks.

In southern Baghdad, a missile hit a building containing two offices of the Shiite-led Fadhila and Dawa parties, killing 6 people and wounding 12, an Iraqi police official in Zafaraniya said.

Reporting for this article was contributed by Khalid al-Ansary, Hosham Hussein, Qais Mizher, Abdul Omar al-Neami and Razzaq al-Saiedi from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Mosul.

    Shiite Leaders Suspend Talks Over Government, NYT, 28.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/28/international/middleeast/28iraq.html?hp&ex=1143522000&en=89c63d0a3fe99675&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Lifesaving knowledge, innovation emerge in war clinic

Posted 3/27/2006 12:01 AM
USA TODAY
By Gregg Zoroya

AD DULUIYAH, Iraq — Even with 10 milligrams of morphine, Army Sgt. Robert Mundo lay in agony after a sniper's bullet pierced his thigh and blasted through his groin.

Mundo gripped the hand of another GI as medic Bridgett Joseph surveyed the bloody damage. Then Joseph reached into her bag for a bandage no other war has seen.

Made with an extract from shrimp cells, the HemCon bandage creates a tight bond that stopped the bleeding almost instantly. Seconds later, Mundo, 24 — a widower from Colorado Springs and the father of two young girls — was airlifted to the Air Force Theater Hospital in Balad, 10 miles away. He got there in five minutes.

New ways of healing are as much a product of war as are new ways of killing. To save lives on the battlefield, medical innovations are born in days rather than in years, military and civilian doctors say. And as with wars past, the new ways of treating the injured and sick in Iraq and Afghanistan — soldiers such as Mundo — could have benefits beyond the battlefield. (Related gallery: See and hear the busiest hospital in Iraq)

Civilian emergency care experts such as Thomas Judgesay medical technicians in the USA are beginning to use the HemCon bandage and new battlefield tourniquets to treat trauma patients. A portable heart-lung machine developed in Germany and not yet approved for use by U.S. doctors is helping wounded soldiers breathe.It is small — not much larger than a laptop computer — and connects to blood vessels in the groin to filter out poisonous carbon dioxide while filtering in oxygen. Military doctors in Balad also are using an expensive clotting drug, licensed for use on hemophiliacs, to help stem massive hemorrhaging in troops torn apart by roadside bombs.

Not all advances come easily. Civilian doctors complain that the military sometimes fails to share information on the success of a new drug or technology. Military doctors disagree over the effectiveness of some new products. The Army, for instance, favors the HemCon bandage even though Navy and Marine doctors question whether it works as well as a cheaper bandage developed by the Navy.

Some innovations, such as the HemCon, result from government-sponsored research. Others come from the ingenuity of battlefield doctors who seek new ways to use existing medicines, or try untested technology when all else fails.

"The military has to try things that nobody has tried before," said Judge, immediate past president of the Association of Air Medical Services, an air ambulance trade group. "Some of the greatest advancements of medicine only come about from war."

Controlled chaos

When Mundo arrived at Balad at 11:45 a.m. on March 5, a rickshaw-like gurney carried him from the helipad into the controlled chaos of the Air Force Theater Hospital emergency room. Nurses, medical technicians and doctors — some of them with 9mm pistols slung from shoulder holsters — swarmed over each patient wheeled inside. (They're under orders to carry weapons, even during surgery.)

As patients arrive, doctors and nurses poke, prod and inspect; they cut away clothing, shout out blood pressure readings, insert oxygen tubes and wheel up portable X-ray machines. Helicopter medics, helmets under their arms, squeeze into the scrum to recite how each soldier fell on the battlefield.

Bloody linens and body fluids collect on the floor. The clatter of arriving or departing helicopters, beating against the hospital tents, muffles conversation.

"You got kids?" Air Force Lt. Col. Jay Bishoff, a urologist, asked Mundo. "I have kids," Mundo answered apprehensively. "But if I get home, I may want more."

"Well," Bishoff replied, "you'll be able to have a lot more."

About 20 minutes after entering the ER, Mundo was wheeled into one of three operating rooms. There, Bishoff began knitting the soldier back together. "We'll rebuild everything," Bishoff said through his surgical mask. "We're going to reconstruct it. Save it."

Simple, effective design

The Air Force hospital in Balad is one of the two largest military hospitals in Iraq. The other is an Army facility in Baghdad. The 300 staff members at Balad treat about 9,000 patients a year: Americans, coalition troops, Iraqis, even captured insurgents. The caseload rivals any major trauma center in the USA, said Air Force Col. Tyler Putnam, chief of intensive care.

Its 37,000 square feet lie under a series of tents, and surgeons here are particularly proud of the hospital's simple design. Combat casualties pass from emergency room to CT scan and into surgery.

"It's this 100 yards from the ER doors to the operating room. It's just a straight shot. There are no corners, no turns — you just go straight down the hallway," said Air Force Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bailey, 49, of St. Louis, the chief of trauma here.

Because a major airbase sits within the Balad installation, almost all sick and wounded Americans from across Iraq flow through the hospital on their way home.

American casualties here fall into two categories. Those with mild ailments —kidney stones, for example — are treated and recuperate here, then return to their units.

The severely wounded undergo surgery, then are quickly placed aboard aircraft for flights to the Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Mundo would join this river of casualties soon.

After Mundo underwent almost two hours of surgery, his battalion and company commanders and other soldiers visited to wish him well. They joked about his bravely "taking one for the team." A Purple Heart and a Combat Infantryman Badge were pinned to his pillow.

Bishoff, 44, of San Antonio, said it was the 16th groin injury he has repaired since arriving in Iraq more than a month ago.

"Every time I do it, I get better, I get faster, I learn more," he said. "In prior wars, he would have likely lost both of his testicles."

Doctors have learned about the extent of damage caused by high-velocity bullets and bomb blasts. They have taught themselves how to better identify dead tissue and reconnect what can be saved.

Applying the lessons

The lessons from treating complex battle wounds can form the basis for seminars and published papers to educate doctors at home.

Almost every war has given rise to medical achievements. After yellow fever killed soldiers during the Spanish-American War, military doctors were the first to prove that mosquitoes carried the disease. Among those doctors: Maj. Walter Reed, namesake of the famous Army hospital in Washington, D.C.

Large-scale blood transfusions began during World War I. And medical evacuations by helicopter originated during the Korean War and became common in Vietnam.

Today, the Pentagon is asking civilian researchers to develop dehydrated blood products that can be stored up to two years; a portable battlefield device that stops internal bleeding with ultrasound; a non-addictive painkiller as powerful as morphine, and prosthetics that respond to brain waves.

"Many, if not all, of these will have civilian uses," said Brett Giroir, a deputy director at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which does research and development for the Pentagon.

Even more important, doctors say, are further advances in trauma care, the long-term process of saving, healing and rehabilitating the wounded and injured. Traumatic injuries remain the No. 1 killer of Americans under age 45. The speed and efficiency of trauma care, improved upon recently by civilian medicine, are being pushed even further in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Things come from civilian medicine, and then we take it into the cauldron of the war and focus it, test it and evaluate it, and then use it many, many, many more time than the civilians have. And then whatever spits out in the end is better," said Army Col. John Holcomb, commander of the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research.

At the Balad hospital, Air Force Maj. Paul "Chip" Gleason, 35, of Springboro, Ohio, heads orthopedic surgery. Advances in body armor protect the abdomen and upper chest of soldiers. But the legs, arms, faces and lower abdomens remain vulnerable to bullets and explosions. Orthopedic surgeons stay busy. In surgery, Gleason uses a small digital camera to record images for future lessons. A key task is recognizing and removing dying tissue eviscerated by bullets or shrapnel. Dead tissue can cause infection.

Because of endless opportunities to examine torn flesh, "I've noticed a steady progression in my ability to judge what's viable, what's living and what's been too damaged," Gleason said.

Back in the USA, experts such as Andrew Pollak, an associate professor of orthopedics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said the knowledge gained in Iraq will prove priceless.

"If you see these injuries in numbers of one and two, you never gain any experience," Pollak said. "When you do a high volume ... you can teach people what works and what didn't work."

Air Force Lt. Col. David Powers, 42, of Louisville, is a facial surgeon at Balad. He already has helped publish a guide based on his experience treating the wounded. One lesson: Hold off on surgery until three-dimensional models of the face can help guide doctors on what lies beneath the damage.

A medical journey

From the moment the sniper shot Mundo in a market in Ad Duluiyah, his world changed rapidly. After the five-minute helicopter ride to Balad and almost two hours in surgery, he was recuperating.

By 5 a.m. the next day, he was strapped to a litter and loaded onto a C-17 aircraft headed for Germany.

The Air Force's system of using specially configured aircraft to move thousands of casualties from war zones almost daily is another crucial innovation. The technology didn't exist during Vietnam, the last war in which large numbers of casualties were routinely evacuated to the USA. In those days, doctors typically waited up to six weeks for patients to become stable enough to complete the triphome, said Dale Smith, a professor of medical history at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.

Now, because of new treatment methods and technology on the aircraft, the most critically injured patients can make the trip in a few days. "They've really thought about this very carefully, no wasted moments, no wasted movements," Judge said of the military. "It's very, very focused."

He and others say the long-distance air evacuation process — with its speed and flying care centers — would prove invaluable should a terrorist attack or natural disaster overwhelm local medical facilities, as happened with Hurricane Katrina last year. After Katrina, hundreds of patients from flooded hospitals were moved to other cities by Air Force medical crews. The White House investigation into the hurricane recommended that disaster response plans better integrate military air evacuations

Rather than try to re-create in Iraq or Afghanistan sophisticated hospitals such as Landstuhl, the military has built smaller field hospitals where patients are treated and stabilized. Doctors in Iraq now leave many wounds open and vacuum-sealed with plastic. That also was not possible in Vietnam. "Now the sickest of sick patients can get on that airplane," said Air Force Maj. Timothy Woods, a general surgeon at Landstuhl.

A hospital in the sky

On a recent C-17 medical evacuation flight from Balad to Landstuhl, 32 patients rested comfortably, many of them in litters stacked three high on aluminum racks. Among them: burn patients; an amputee; soldiers with broken bones, a shoulder sprain and back injuries; one with a blood disorder; two psychiatric cases; and a servicemember stricken with lung cancer. Two in critical condition were hooked to ventilators.

Like flight attendants, the nurses, medical technicians and doctors circulated throughout the plane, offering water, oxygen and medication to relieve the pain. They also kept a close eye on monitors.

"The civilians are always amazed at how we do this," said Air Force Reserve Maj. Ken Winslow, 49, a flight nurse from Issaquah, Wash.

About 65 hours after he was shot — and after a stop in Germany — Mundo arrived at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington. From there, he headed to Walter Reed.

"It was great because I didn't really feel like I needed to be that far away from home. I wanted to get here to Walter Reed and start doing my rehab," he said.

Within eight days of his return, Mundo had been reunited with his daughters, JoLyne, 3, and Shania, 1, and flew home to Colorado. The two girls had lost their mother, Rachel, to lupus in November, just days before their father shipped out for Iraq. In his absence, Mundo's sister-in-law, Jessie Mundo, cared for them.

The children were thrilled to see him and curious about his wound.

"I didn't want to tell them about the sniper or anything," Mundo said. "As far as they know, it was just a nice little doctor's shot."

Contributing: Paul Overberg, Robert Davis, Liz Szabo in McLean, Va.

    Lifesaving knowledge, innovation emerge in war clinic, UT, 27.3.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-03-26-war-clinics_x.htm

Shiite Officials Express Anger Over U.S. Clash With Militia

March 27, 2006
The New York Times
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN and JOHN O'NEIL

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 27 — Shiite officials reacted angrily today to a clash that pitted American and Iraqi government forces against Shiite militiamen in Baghdad on Sunday night.

Iraqi security officials Sunday night said that 17 people had been killed in a mosque, including its 80-year-old imam. The American military, which denied that American forces had entered the mosque, said Sunday night that 16 insurgents had been killed and 15 captured in a combat operation near the mosque against a terrorist cell.

But other Iraqi officials today put the death toll higher. Abdul al-Karim al-Enzi, the national security minister, said that 37 people were killed and charged that they were all unarmed. "Nobody fired a single shot" at the troops, Mr. al-Enzi told Reuters.

And Interior Minister Bayan Jabr called the incident "unjustified aggression against the faithful at prayer in a mosque," news services reported.

At a funeral procession today for victims of the clash, the mood was tense and members of the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, kept their weapons on prominent display. Shiite leaders demanded a full investigation of the incident, and the governor for Baghdad's provincial government, Hussein Al-Tahan, said today that he was suspending all cooperation with American forces until an investigation was completed.

Mr. Al-Tahan said at a press conference that he would start "restricted measures to protect the dignity of the Iraqi citizen."

In other incidents, at least 40 Iraqis were killed today and 20 were wounded when a car bomb exploded at a police recruiting station between the cities of Tal Afar and Mosul in the country's north. The bodies of 45 men who had been executed were found in three separate locations, according to Iraqi and American officials.

Those killings came on top of the discovery of 10 bodies in Baghdad on Sunday. But the shootout with the Shiite militiamen who have come to control much of the capital raised tensions in a way that the steady stream of bombings and executions did not.

In its statements after the militia clash, the American military was clearly worried about exacerbating a combustible situation that many Iraqis are already describing as civil war.

The differing versions of what happened seemed to raise a broader question about who is in control of Iraq's security at a time when Iraqi politicians still have not formed a unified government, sectarian tensions are higher than ever and mutilated bodies keep surfacing on the streets. American officials are now saying that Shiite militias are the No. 1 problem in Iraq, more dangerous than the Sunni-led insurgents who for nearly the past three years have been branded the gravest security threat.

Shiite militias have been accused of running death squads that kidnap and brutalize Sunni men, and on Sunday the American militay said the cell its forces raided had kidnapped Iraq civilians.

But the deadly clash could reopen an old wound. The Iraqis who were killed had apparently worked for Mr. al-Sadr, who has led several bloody rebellions against American forces.

Mr. Sadr has recently become much more politically aggressive and he is considered a pivotal force in the maneuvering over the delayed formation of a new government.

Earlier on Sunday, a mortar shell nearly hit Mr. Sadr's home in the southern holy city of Najaf. Immediately he accused the Americans of trying to kill him.

American officials have been more overt in the past week than ever in blaming Mr. Sadr's militia for a wave of sectarian bloodshed that seems to have no end.

On Sunday night, American and Iraqi Army forces surrounded a mosque in northeast Baghdad used by Mr. Sadr's troops as a headquarters, Iraqi officials said. Helicopters buzzed overhead as a fleet of heavily armed Humvees sealed off the exits, witnesses said, and when soldiers tried to enter the mosque, shooting erupted, and a heavy-caliber gun battle raged for the next hour.

The Interior Ministry said 17 people had been killed, including the mosque's 80-year-old imam and other civilians.

Sheik Yousif al-Nasiri, an aide to Mr. Sadr, said that 25 people had been killed and that American troops had shot the mosque guards and then burst inside and killed civilians.

American officials provided few details about the raid on Sunday night.

A short news release said that Iraqi Special Forces soldiers, advised by American Special Forces personnel, conducted a raid to "disrupt a terrorist cell" and that "no mosques were entered or damaged during this operation."

The release also said no American soldiers had been hurt in the raid, and one prisoner being held by the gunman had been freed.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington, an Army spokesman, said he could not comment on any reports of civilian casualties, including the imam.

Iraqi television showed what appeared to be a prayer room filled with more than a dozen bodies. Several looked well beyond military age. Some had identification cards on their chests, with jagged bullet holes drilled through the plastic.

The discovery of large numbers of dead bodies is becoming more common around the country. This morning, Iraqi police discovered 18 men, all Shiites, who had been kidnapped from a village in Nahrawan in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad. All of the men had been shot. A similar find — 18 men, all shot — was made in Baquba, where earlier reports had described 30 men who had been beheaded.

On Saturday, Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, urged Iraqi leaders to crack down on militias.

"More Iraqis are dying from the militia violence than from the terrorists," he said. "The militias need to be under control."

Both Shiites and Sunnis have militias. But the Shiite militias are much bigger, much better organized and, most critically, much better connected to the Iraqi security forces.

Shiites make up a majority in Iraq, and two rounds of elections have tightened their grip on power, including over the police and commando forces.

The widespread suspicion is that Shiite militias are running death squads and focusing on Sunni Arab civilians in a wave of sectarian revenge.

Witnesses have said that they have seen Shiite militiamen and officers in the Shiite-controlled police force abduct Sunni men, often in daylight and in public. Their bodies surface days later, many tortured — eyes gouged, toes cut, faces splashed with acid. Few, if any, cases are investigated.

Mr. Sadr has complicated the picture in two ways. His militia, called the Mahdi Army, has shown an almost messianic zeal to fight American forces, including a long and costly battle in Najaf in the summer of 2004.

Now, his militia is being blamed at least in part for the new problem, the death squads.

Mr. Sadr's top aides deny any connection to the killings, but lower-level Mahdi Army commanders have boasted of vigilante justice.

In Baghdad on Sunday, Iraqi officials said that American forces raided a small, secret jail and found several foreign prisoners, possibly people suspected of being terrorists. The soldiers detained the jail guards, though it is not clear for how long, and American officials did not provide any information about the incident.

The Associated Press quoted Interior Ministry officials as saying that the prison was legitimate and that the detainees had not been abused. Mr. Sabr today said that the detainees were foreigners who were being held separately from other prisoners prior to their deportation.

American-led forces have been turning over more and more security responsibility to the Iraqis, but there are still substantial doubts that Iraqi forces are up to the job. American commanders have sent more troops into Baghdad in the past few weeks and increased their patrols.

Also on Sunday, a Kurdish writer was sentenced to a year and a half in jail for criticizing Kurdish leaders. The writer, Kamal Sayid Qadir, who also uses the name Kamal Karim, had published stories on a Kurdish Web site accusing one of the most powerful men in Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, of corruption.

Mr. Qadir was originally sentenced to 30 years for defaming Mr. Barzani, but he was retried. A judge on Sunday said he was giving him a lenient sentence because Mr. Qadir was a college professor.

    Shiite Officials Express Anger Over U.S. Clash With Militia, NYT, 27.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/international/27cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1143522000&en=49997229b254a332&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Military

Shiite Fighters Clash With G.I.'s and Iraqi Forces

March 27, 2006
The New York Times
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 26 — American and Iraqi government forces clashed with Shiite militiamen in Baghdad on Sunday night in the most serious confrontation in months, and Iraqi security officials said 17 people had been killed in a mosque, including its 80-year-old imam.

The American military, clearly worried about exacerbating a combustible situation that many Iraqis are already describing as civil war, denied that American forces had entered the mosque. But it said in a statement that 16 insurgents had been killed and 15 captured in a nearby combat operation against a terrorist cell.

The differing versions of what happened seemed to underscore growing friction between the American-led military forces and the fractious Iraqi government, on a day that was punctuated with rising sectarian tensions, deepening leadership problems and at least 40 mutilated bodies surfacing in the streets — 30 of them beheaded.

American officials are now saying that Shiite militias are the No. 1 security problem in Iraq, more dangerous than the Sunni-led insurgents held responsible for many of the suicide bombings, homemade bombs, kidnappings and other attacks since American-led forces ousted Saddam Hussein three years ago.

The deadly clash in Baghdad on Sunday could also reopen an old wound: the Iraqis who were killed had apparently worked for Moktada al-Sadr, a young radical Shiite cleric with ties to Iran who has led several bloody rebellions against American forces.

In recent months Mr. Sadr has become much more politically engaged and is considered a pivotal force in the maneuvering over the delayed formation of a new Iraqi government.

Earlier on Sunday, Mr. Sadr's home near the southern holy city of Najaf was apparently the intended target of a mortar attack from an unidentified source, and he accused the Americans of trying to kill him.

American officials have been more overt in the past week than ever in blaming Shiite militias, in particular Mr. Sadr's, for a wave of sectarian bloodshed that seems to have no end.

American and Iraqi Army forces surrounded a mosque in northeast Baghdad on Sunday night that is also used as a headquarters for Mr. Sadr's militia, Iraqi officials said. Helicopters buzzed overhead as a fleet of heavily armed Humvees sealed off the exits, witnesses said, and when soldiers tried to enter the mosque, shooting erupted, and a heavy-caliber gun battle raged for the next hour.

The Interior Ministry said 17 people were killed, including the mosque's 80-year-old imam and other civilians.

Sheik Yousif al-Nasiri, an aide to Mr. Sadr, said that 25 people were killed and that American troops shot the mosque guards and then burst inside and killed civilians.

American officials said they could not provide many details on Sunday night.

A short news release said that Iraqi Special Forces, advised by American Special Forces, conducted a raid to "disrupt a terrorist cell" and that 16 insurgents were killed and 15 suspects captured.

The news release said "no mosques were entered or damaged during this operation."

Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington, an Army spokesman, said he could not comment on any reports of civilian casualties, including the imam.

Iraqi television showed what appeared to be a prayer room filled with more than a dozen bodies. Several of them looked well beyond military age. Some had identification cards lying on their chests, jagged bullet holes cut through the plastic.

Just one day earlier, Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, urged Iraqi leaders to crack down on militias.

"More Iraqis are dying from the militia violence than from the terrorists," he said. "The militias need to be under control."

But few expect Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, to do anything soon.

He is embroiled in negotiations over who will serve in the next government, and despite continuous American prodding, little progress has been made.

To a large extent, Mr. Jaafari needs the support of Shiite militia members in Parliament to hold on to his job.

Both Shiites and Sunnis have militias. But the Shiite militias are much bigger, much better organized and, most critically, much better connected to the Iraqi security forces.

Shiites make up a majority in Iraq, and two rounds of elections have tightened their grip on power, including over the police and commando forces.

Tensions between Shiites and Sunnis have been steadily building, but an attack on a Shiite shrine in Samarra on Feb. 22 unleashed a new level of sectarian fury.

Shiite mobs rampaged through Baghdad, burning Sunni mosques and killing Sunni civilians. Some Sunnis fought back, killing Shiites.

The situation eventually calmed, at least on the surface. Then the bodies starting turning up. The Interior Ministry says that the bodies of at least 200 men, many handcuffed and tortured, have been found, but others put the number much higher.

The widespread suspicion is that Shiite militias are running death squads and focusing on Sunni Arab civilians in a wave of sectarian revenge.

Witnesses have said that they have seen Shiite militiamen and officers in the Shiite-controlled police force abduct Sunni men, often in daylight and in public. Their bodies surface days later, many tortured — eyes gouged, toes cut, faces splashed with acid. Few, if any, cases are investigated.

The growing belief is that Shiite militias are trying to get even for the Shiite civilians who have been killed by the thousands and have borne the burnt of terrorist attacks in Iraq. Sunni terrorists are thought to be responsible, and now it seems that Sunni civilians are paying the price.

"It's hard sometimes to sort out who's killing who," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, an American military spokesman. "But there's no doubt there's a significant Shiite impact on all this."

Mr. Sadr has complicated the picture in two ways. His militia, called the Madhi Army, has shown an almost messianic zeal to fight American forces, including the long and costly battle in Najaf in the summer of 2004.

Now, his militia is being blamed at least in part for the new problem, the death squads.

Mr. Sadr's top aides deny any connection to the killings, but lower-level Madhi Army commanders have boasted of vigilante justice.

Two weeks ago, Madhi Army militiamen hanged four men, whom they called terrorists, from lampposts in Baghdad.

Mr. Sadr has been quick to lash out at the Americans, whom he calls occupiers. After the mortar attack near his home on Sunday, he said in a statement that American forces " either overlook these attacks or they do it themselves."

The mortar wounded a child and a guard.

Other mortar attacks and bombings across Iraq on Sunday killed at least three people, including two children.

The most gruesome report of violence for the day came from officials in Baquba, who said Sunday evening that 30 men had been beheaded and dumped near a highway.

Interior Ministry officials said a driver discovered the bodies heaped in a pile next to the highway that links Baghdad to Baquba, a volatile city northeast of Baghdad that has been racked by sectarian and insurgent violence.

Iraqi Army troops waited for American support before venturing into the insurgent-controlled area to retrieve them.

"It's too dangerous for us to go in there alone," said Tassin Tawfik, an Iraqi Army commander.

Later, Baquba officials said they were unable to find the bodies but would continue the search at daybreak.

In Baghdad, Iraqi officials said that American forces raided a small, secret jail and found several foreign prisoners, possibly people suspected of being terrorists. The soldiers detained the jail guards, though it is not clear for how long, and American officials did not provide any information about the incident. The Associated Press quoted Interior Ministry officials as saying that the prison was legitimate and that the detainees had not been abused.

Also on Sunday, a Kurdish writer was sentenced to a year and a half in jail for criticizing Kurdish leaders. The writer, Kamal Sayid Qadir, who also uses the name Kamal Karim, had published stories on a Kurdish Web site accusing one of the most powerful men in Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, of corruption.

Mr. Qadir was originally sentenced to 30 years for defaming Mr. Barzani, but he was retried. A judge on Sunday said he was giving him a lenient sentence because Mr. Qadir was a college professor.

    Shiite Fighters Clash With G.I.'s and Iraqi Forces, NYT, 27.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/international/middleeast/27iraq.html?hp&ex=1143435600&en=2576108f335c6b89&ei=5094&partner=homepage

  In an Election Year, a Shift in Public Opinion on the War        NYT        27.3.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/politics/27war.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

In an Election Year, a Shift in Public Opinion on the War

March 27, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and ADAM NAGOURNEY

ALBUQUERQUE, March 25 — Neil Mondragon watched with approval at an auto repair shop recently as Representative Heather A. Wilson, a New Mexico Republican visiting her district, dropped into the pit and drained the oil from a car.

Afterward, Mr. Mondragon recalled how he had backed Ms. Wilson, a supporter of the Iraq war, in her race for Congress two years ago. He, too, supported the war.

But now, Mr. Mondragon said, it is time to bring the troops home. And he is leaning toward voting for Ms. Wilson's opponent, Patricia Madrid, who has called for pulling the troops out of Iraq by the end of the year.

"The way I see the situation is, we have done what we had to," said Mr. Mondragon, 27, whose brother fought in the war and returned with post-traumatic stress disorder. "I don't see the point of having so many guys over there right now. We can't just stay there and baby-sit forever."

Mr. Mondragon is far from alone in reassessing his view of the war that has come to define George W. Bush's presidency.

Mr. Bush is pressing ahead with an intensified effort to shore up support for the war, but an increasingly skeptical and pessimistic public is putting pressure on Congress about the wisdom behind it, testing the political support for the White House's determination to remain in Iraq.

The results have been on display over the past week as members of Congress returned home and heard first-hand what public opinion polls have been indicating.

"We have been there now for three years, and we have suffered more losses than I think most people thought we would see," Representative Steve Chabot, an Ohio Republican from a relatively conservative district near Cincinnati, said in an interview on Friday. "You may have the president or others now who say we always knew this would be a long slog, but I think most people did not expect it to be as hard as it has been."

In Connecticut, Representative Christopher Shays, a Republican who is one of the Democrats' top targets this year in the midterm elections, has distanced himself from the White House even as he has emphasized his support for the war, saying the administration has made "huge mistakes" by allowing looting, disbanding the Iraqi army and failing to have enough troops on the ground

Senator Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican who is also facing a tough re-election challenge, said that "people are not optimistic about what they see."

Even Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican who has made her support for the war a centerpiece of her campaign, said the public seemed "to be losing patience" with the war.

Interviews with voters, elected officials and candidates around the country suggest a deepening and hardening opposition to the war. Historians and analysts said this might mark a turning point in public perception.

"I'm less optimistic because I see the fatalities every day," said Angela Kirby, 32, a lawyer from St. Louis who initially supported the war. "And the longer it goes on, the less optimistic I am."

Here in New Mexico, Dollie Shoun, 67, said she had gone from being an ardent supporter of the war and the president to a fierce critic of both.

"There has been too many deaths, and it is time for them to come back home," Ms. Shoun said. Speaking of Mr. Bush, she added: "I was very much for him, but I don't trust him at this point in time."

Polls have found that support for the war and expectations about its outcome have reached their lowest level since the invasion. A Pew Research Center poll this week found that 66 percent of respondents said the United States was losing ground in preventing a civil war in Iraq, a jump of 18 percent since January.

The Pew poll also found that 49 percent now believed that the United States would succeed in Iraq, compared with 60 percent last July. A CBS News poll completed two weeks ago found that a majority (54 percent) believed Iraq would never become a stable democracy.

Richard B. Wirthlin, who was the pollster for President Ronald Reagan, says he sees the beginning of a decisive turn in public opinion against the war. "It is hard for me to imagine any set of circumstances that would lead to an enhancement of the public support that we have seen," he said. "It is more likely to go down, and the question is how far and how fast."

Even more problematic for the administration, pollsters have found, is that Americans who have soured on the war include many independent voters and some self-described Republicans.

William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, argued that views on the war remained fluid and that the White House could still rally support for the effort if Americans "are convinced we can win."

A perception of progress on the ground could help turn public opinion back toward Mr. Bush's way, some analysts said. As it is, a significant number of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, want Mr. Bush to continue the war.

"Bush is right in being optimistic," said Susan Knapp, 64, a Florida Republican. "I listened to the news this morning and there are people who think he's out of touch with reality, but in fact I think he knows better than most of us about what is going on, and he does know the situation."

And in interviews, some respondents said they agreed with Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that journalists were exaggerating the bad news. "I have quite a few friends who have served over there and they come back with a different story than the media portrays," said Jerry Brown, a Republican in Fairfield County, Conn.

For Mr. Bush today, as it was for Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon decades ago, the question is how long can he continue fighting an unpopular war without it crippling his presidency by eroding trust in his judgment and credibility.

"Once the public loses confidence in a president's leadership at a time of war, once they don't trust him anymore, once his credibility is sharply diminished, how does he get it back?" said Robert Dallek, a historian who has written biographies of Johnson and Nixon.

The anxiety about the war could be seen in contested districts around the country. In recent weeks, Representative Wilson of New Mexico has been sharply critical of the administration on issues like domestic surveillance and its public projections about the war. Ms. Wilson said she worried that public opinion could turn decisively against the war in Iraq as it did during the Vietnam War. "Wasn't it Kissinger who said the acid test of foreign policy is public support?" she said.

In Connecticut, Diane Farrell, a Democrat challenging Mr. Shays, said she had consistently run into voters who drew comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam.

"People are throwing up their hands between the civil unrest, the number of deaths and the cost to taxpayers," Ms. Farrell said. "People feel worn out by the war, and they don't see an end. "

At the Capitol recently, Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who was the secretary of the Navy during part of the Vietnam War, was introduced to a visiting Iraqi. Mr. Warner proceeded to lecture her about the need for Iraqis to form a new government, and fast.

"The American people have a mind of their own," he told her, recalling how he watched during the Vietnam War as public opinion turned against the conflict — and inevitably Congress followed. In a later conversation, Mr. Warner said that such a moment had not been reached yet, but he warned that he sensed a "certain degree of impatience" in the country and around the world.

David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Albuquerque, N.M., for this article, and Adam Nagourney from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Coke Ellington in Alabama, Ellen F. Harris in St. Louis, Stacey Stowe in Connecticut, and Andrea Zarate in Miami.

    In an Election Year, a Shift in Public Opinion on the War, NYT, 27.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/politics/27war.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Leaders

Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says

March 27, 2006
The New York Times
By DON VAN NATTA Jr.

LONDON — In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.

But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.

"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.

"The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March," Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. "This was when the bombing would begin."

The timetable came at an important diplomatic moment. Five days after the Bush-Blair meeting, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was scheduled to appear before the United Nations to present the American evidence that Iraq posed a threat to world security by hiding unconventional weapons.

Although the United States and Britain aggressively sought a second United Nations resolution against Iraq — which they failed to obtain — the president said repeatedly that he did not believe he needed it for an invasion.

Stamped "extremely sensitive," the five-page memorandum, which was circulated among a handful of Mr. Blair's most senior aides, had not been made public. Several highlights were first published in January in the book "Lawless World," which was written by a British lawyer and international law professor, Philippe Sands. In early February, Channel 4 in London first broadcast several excerpts from the memo.

Since then, The New York Times has reviewed the five-page memo in its entirety. While the president's sentiments about invading Iraq were known at the time, the previously unreported material offers an unfiltered view of two leaders on the brink of war, yet supremely confident.

The memo indicates the two leaders envisioned a quick victory and a transition to a new Iraqi government that would be complicated, but manageable. Mr. Bush predicted that it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups." Mr. Blair agreed with that assessment.

The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein.

Those proposals were first reported last month in the British press, but the memo does not make clear whether they reflected Mr. Bush's extemporaneous suggestions, or were elements of the government's plan.

Consistent Remarks

Two senior British officials confirmed the authenticity of the memo, but declined to talk further about it, citing Britain's Official Secrets Act, which made it illegal to divulge classified information. But one of them said, "In all of this discussion during the run-up to the Iraq war, it is obvious that viewing a snapshot at a certain point in time gives only a partial view of the decision-making process."

On Sunday, Frederick Jones, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said the president's public comments were consistent with his private remarks made to Mr. Blair. "While the use of force was a last option, we recognized that it might be necessary and were planning accordingly," Mr. Jones said.

"The public record at the time, including numerous statements by the President, makes clear that the administration was continuing to pursue a diplomatic solution into 2003," he said. "Saddam Hussein was given every opportunity to comply, but he chose continued defiance, even after being given one final opportunity to comply or face serious consequences. Our public and private comments are fully consistent."

The January 2003 memo is the latest in a series of secret memos produced by top aides to Mr. Blair that summarize private discussions between the president and the prime minister. Another group of British memos, including the so-called Downing Street memo written in July 2002, showed that some senior British officials had been concerned that the United States was determined to invade Iraq, and that the "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" by the Bush administration to fit its desire to go to war.

The latest memo is striking in its characterization of frank, almost casual, conversation by Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair about the most serious subjects. At one point, the leaders swapped ideas for a postwar Iraqi government. "As for the future government of Iraq, people would find it very odd if we handed it over to another dictator," the prime minister is quoted as saying.

"Bush agreed," Mr. Manning wrote. This exchange, like most of the quotations in this article, have not been previously reported.

Mr. Bush was accompanied at the meeting by Condoleezza Rice, who was then the national security adviser; Dan Fried, a senior aide to Ms. Rice; and Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff. Along with Mr. Manning, Mr. Blair was joined by two other senior aides: Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff, and Matthew Rycroft, a foreign policy aide and the author of the Downing Street memo.

By late January 2003, United Nations inspectors had spent six weeks in Iraq hunting for weapons under the auspices of Security Council Resolution 1441, which authorized "serious consequences" if Iraq voluntarily failed to disarm. Led by Hans Blix, the inspectors had reported little cooperation from Mr. Hussein, and no success finding any unconventional weapons.

At their meeting, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair candidly expressed their doubts that chemical, biological or nuclear weapons would be found in Iraq in the coming weeks, the memo said. The president spoke as if an invasion was unavoidable. The two leaders discussed a timetable for the war, details of the military campaign and plans for the aftermath of the war.

Discussing Provocation

Without much elaboration, the memo also says the president raised three possible ways of provoking a confrontation. Since they were first reported last month, neither the White House nor the British government has discussed them.

"The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colours," the memo says, attributing the idea to Mr. Bush. "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."

It also described the president as saying, "The U.S. might be able to bring out a defector who could give a public presentation about Saddam's W.M.D," referring to weapons of mass destruction.

A brief clause in the memo refers to a third possibility, mentioned by Mr. Bush, a proposal to assassinate Saddam Hussein. The memo does not indicate how Mr. Blair responded to the idea.

Mr. Sands first reported the proposals in his book, although he did not use any direct quotations from the memo. He is a professor of international law at University College of London and the founding member of the Matrix law office in London, where the prime minister's wife, Cherie Blair, is a partner.

Mr. Jones, the National Security Council spokesman, declined to discuss the proposals, saying, "We are not going to get into discussing private discussions of the two leaders."

At several points during the meeting between Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair, there was palpable tension over finding a legitimate legal trigger for going to war that would be acceptable to other nations, the memo said. The prime minister was quoted as saying it was essential for both countries to lobby for a second United Nations resolution against Iraq, because it would serve as "an insurance policy against the unexpected."

The memo said Mr. Blair told Mr. Bush, "If anything went wrong with the military campaign, or if Saddam increased the stakes by burning the oil wells, killing children or fomenting internal divisions within Iraq, a second resolution would give us international cover, especially with the Arabs."

Running Out of Time

Mr. Bush agreed that the two countries should attempt to get a second resolution, but he added that time was running out. "The U.S. would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would twist arms and even threaten," Mr. Bush was paraphrased in the memo as saying.

The document added, "But he had to say that if we ultimately failed, military action would follow anyway."

The leaders agreed that three weeks remained to obtain a second United Nations Security Council resolution before military commanders would need to begin preparing for an invasion.

Summarizing statements by the president, the memo says: "The air campaign would probably last four days, during which some 1,500 targets would be hit. Great care would be taken to avoid hitting innocent civilians. Bush thought the impact of the air onslaught would ensure the early collapse of Saddam's regime. Given this military timetable, we needed to go for a second resolution as soon as possible. This probably meant after Blix's next report to the Security Council in mid-February."

Mr. Blair was described as responding that both countries would make clear that a second resolution amounted to "Saddam's final opportunity." The memo described Mr. Blair as saying: "We had been very patient. Now we should be saying that the crisis must be resolved in weeks, not months."

It reported: "Bush agreed. He commented that he was not itching to go to war, but we could not allow Saddam to go on playing with us. At some point, probably when we had passed the second resolutions — assuming we did — we should warn Saddam that he had a week to leave. We should notify the media too. We would then have a clear field if Saddam refused to go."

Mr. Bush devoted much of the meeting to outlining the military strategy. The president, the memo says, said the planned air campaign "would destroy Saddam's command and control quickly." It also said that he expected Iraq's army to "fold very quickly." He also is reported as telling the prime minister that the Republican Guard would be "decimated by the bombing."

Despite his optimism, Mr. Bush said he was aware that "there were uncertainties and risks," the memo says, and it goes on, "As far as destroying the oil wells were concerned, the U.S. was well equipped to repair them quickly, although this would be easier in the south of Iraq than in the north."

The two men briefly discussed plans for a post-Hussein Iraqi government. "The prime minister asked about aftermath planning," the memo says. "Condi Rice said that a great deal of work was now in hand.

Referring to the Defense Department, it said: "A planning cell in D.O.D. was looking at all aspects and would deploy to Iraq to direct operations as soon as the military action was over. Bush said that a great deal of detailed planning had been done on supplying the Iraqi people with food and medicine."

Planning for After the War

The leaders then looked beyond the war, imagining the transition from Mr. Hussein's rule to a new government. Immediately after the war, a military occupation would be put in place for an unknown period of time, the president was described as saying. He spoke of the "dilemma of managing the transition to the civil administration," the memo says.

The document concludes with Mr. Manning still holding out a last-minute hope of inspectors finding weapons in Iraq, or even Mr. Hussein voluntarily leaving Iraq. But Mr. Manning wrote that he was concerned this could not be accomplished by Mr. Bush's timeline for war.

"This makes the timing very tight," he wrote. "We therefore need to stay closely alongside Blix, do all we can to help the inspectors make a significant find, and work hard on the other members of the Security Council to accept the noncooperation case so that we can secure the minimum nine votes when we need them, probably the end of February."

At a White House news conference following the closed-door session, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair said "the crisis" had to be resolved in a timely manner. "Saddam Hussein is not disarming," the president told reporters. "He is a danger to the world. He must disarm. And that's why I have constantly said — and the prime minister has constantly said — this issue will come to a head in a matter of weeks, not months."

Despite intense lobbying by the United States and Britain, a second United Nations resolution was not obtained. The American-led military coalition invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003, nine days after the target date set by the president on that late January day at the White House.

    Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says, NYT, 27.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/international/europe/27memo.html?hp&ex=1143435600&en=b6593aee0e01d384&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Iraqis killed by US troops ‘on rampage’

March 26, 2006
The Sunday Times 
Hala Jaber and Tony Allen-Mills, New York

Claims of atrocities by soldiers mount

THE villagers of Abu Sifa near the Iraqi town of Balad had become used to the sound of explosions at night as American forces searched the area for suspected insurgents. But one night two weeks ago Issa Harat Khalaf heard a different sound that chilled him to the bone.

Khalaf, a 33-year-old security officer guarding oil pipelines, saw a US helicopter land near his home. American soldiers stormed out of the Chinook and advanced on a house owned by Khalaf’s brother Fayez, firing as they went.

Khalaf ran from his own house and hid in a nearby grove of trees. He saw the soldiers enter his brother’s home and then heard the sound of women and children screaming.

“Then there was a lot of machinegun fire,” he said last week. After that there was the most frightening sound of all — silence, followed by explosions as the soldiers left the house.

Once the troops were gone, Khalaf and his fellow villagers began a frantic search through the ruins of his brother’s home. Abu Sifa was about to join a lengthening list of Iraqi communities claiming to have suffered from American atrocities.

According to Iraqi police, 11 bodies were pulled from the wreckage of the house, among them four women and five children aged between six months and five years. An official police report obtained by a US reporter for Knight Ridder newspapers said: “The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 people.”

The Abu Sifa deaths on March 15 were first reported last weekend on the day that Time magazine published the results of a 10-week investigation into an incident last November when US marines killed 15 civilians in their homes in the western Iraqi town of Haditha.

The two incidents are being investigated by US authorities, but persistent eyewitness accounts of rampaging attacks by American troops are fuelling human rights activists’ concerns that Pentagon commanders are failing to curb military excesses in Iraq.

The Pentagon claims to have investigated at least 600 cases of alleged abuse by American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to have disciplined or punished 230 soldiers for improper behaviour. But a study by three New York-based human rights groups, due to be published next month, will claim that most soldiers found guilty of abuse received only “administrative” discipline such as loss of rank or pay, confinement to base or periods of extra duty.

Of the 76 courts martial that the Pentagon is believed to have initiated, only a handful are known to have resulted in jail sentences of more than a year — notably including the architects of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.

Most other cases ended with sentences of two, three or four months. “That’s not punishment, and that’s the problem,” said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch, which is compiling the study with two other groups.

“Our concern is that abuses in the field are not being robustly investigated and prosecuted, and that they are not setting an example with people who cross the line,” said Sifton. “There is a clear preference by the military for discipline with administrative and non-judicial punishments instead of courts martial. That sends the message that you can commit abuse and get away with it.”

Yet the evidence from Haditha and Abu Sifa last week suggested that the Pentagon is finding it increasingly difficult to dismiss allegations of violent excesses as propaganda by terrorist sympathisers.

It was on November 19 last year that a US marine armoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb that killed a 20-year-old lance-corporal. According to a marine communiqué issued the next day, the blast also killed 15 Iraqi civilians and was followed by an attack on the US convoy in which eight insurgents were killed.

An investigation by Time established that the civilians had not been killed by the roadside bomb, but were shot in their homes after the marines rampaged through Haditha. Among the dead were seven women and three children.

One eyewitness told Time: “I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny.”

A Pentagon inquiry has reportedly confirmed that the civilians were killed by marines. But it said the deaths were the result of “collateral damage” and not, as some villagers alleged, murder by marines taking revenge for the death of their comrade. The case has been handed over to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to determine if the rules of war were broken.

In Abu Sifa last week, Khalaf’s account was corroborated by a neighbour, Hassan Kurdi Mahassen, who was also woken by the sound of helicopters and saw soldiers entering Fayez’s home after spraying it with such heavy fire that walls crumbled.

Mahassen said that once the soldiers had left — after apparently dropping several grenades that caused part of the house to collapse — villagers searched under the rubble “and found them all buried in one room”.

“Women and even the children were blindfolded and their hands bound. Some of their faces were totally disfigured. A lot of blood was on the floors and the walls.”

Khalaf said he had found the body of his mother Turkiya with her face unrecognisable. “She had been shot with a dumdum bullet,” he claimed.

While many allegations of US atrocities have later turned out to be exaggerated or false, the Abu Sifa incident was supported by hospital autopsy reports that said all the victims had died from bullet wounds. A local Iraqi police commander — supposedly co-operating with US forces — confirmed that the bodies had been found with their wrists tied.

The US military put the number of civilians killed at four: two women, a child and a man. A spokesman said troops had gone to the house in response to a tip that a member of Al-Qaeda was there. The terrorist was found and arrested. The spokesman insisted that coalition forces “take every precaution to keep civilians out of harm’s way” and that it was “highly unlikely” that the Abu Sifa allegations were true.

Some villagers were quoted as confirming that an Al-Qaeda member was visiting the house. “But was my six-month-old nephew a member of Al-Qaeda?” asked Khalaf. “Was my 75-year-old mother also from that organisation?” While the Pentagon is investigating the incident, the soldiers involved remain on active duty.

Sifton acknowledged that human rights activists needed to distinguish between cases of detainee abuse — invariably carried out in cold blood — and incidents that occur on a dangerous and volatile battlefield.

“We are not unsympathetic to the stresses of battlefield situations,” he said. “There’s a saying in the military that it’s better to be judged by 12 (a jury) than be carried by six (coffin-bearers). We would hesitate to second-guess a soldier’s reactions under fire. But there’s a limit to how much leniency you can give troops because of the fog of war. You can’t give the US military a free pass.”

He added: “If they are pissed off because a buddy got killed and they want revenge, that’s a violation of the rules of war.”

Senior officers have argued that insurgents are targeting the civilian population in order to blame coalition forces, and that troops are trained to take all reasonable precautions to prevent civilian casualties while defending themselves against attack.

The problem for the Pentagon is that every new incident involving civilian deaths triggers a new wave of anti-American fervour.

Last week Jalal Abdul Rahman told this newspaper about the death in January of his 12- year-old son Abdul. It was a Sunday evening and father and son were driving home after buying a new game for the boy’s PlayStation.

They were a few hundred yards from their home in the Karkh neighbourhood of Baghdad when — according to Rahman — US forces opened fire on the car, killing Abdul.

Soldiers approached the car and told Rahman he had failed to stop when ordered to do so. Rahman said he had never heard an order to stop. The soldiers searched the car and, as they departed, they threw a black body bag on the ground.

“They said, ‘This is for your son,’ and they left me there with my dead son,” he added.

Rahman claimed he had had nothing to do with the insurgency until that moment. “But this is America, the so-called guardian of humanity, and killing people for them is like drinking water. I shall go after them until I avenge the blood of my son.”

Additional reporting: Ali Abdul Rahman, Abu Sifa, and Hamoudi Saffar and Ali Rifat, Baghdad

SPIES JUST CONFUSED SADDAM

A stream of US military intelligence allegedly passed to Saddam Hussein by Russian spies before the 2003 invasion of Iraq was either ignored or served to confuse him, according to former Republican Guard commanders, writes Tony Allen-Mills.

One commander told the Pentagon that Saddam and his sons dismissed accurate warnings that the main US force was bypassing southern cities and striking directly at Baghdad.

The leaks appeared to have served the coalition cause so successfully that military analysts speculated that they were part of a deliberate strategy of “fog generation” aimed at “obscuring the minds of Iraq’s senior leadership”.

    Iraqis killed by US troops ‘on rampage’, STs, 26.3.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2103695,00.html



 

Bound, Blindfolded and Dead: The Face of Atrocity in Baghdad        NYT        26.3.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/international/middleeast/26bodies.html?hp&ex=1143435600&en=94974425090a0c2a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bound, Blindfolded and Dead: The Face of Atrocity in Baghdad

March 26, 2006
The New York Times
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 25 — Mohannad al-Azawi had just finished sprinkling food in his bird cages at his pet shop in southern Baghdad, when three carloads of gunmen pulled up.

In front of a crowd, he was grabbed by his shirt and driven off.

Mr. Azawi was among the few Sunni Arabs on the block, and, according to witnesses, when a Shiite friend tried to intervene, a gunman stuck a pistol to his head and said, "You want us to blow your brains out, too?"

Mr. Azawi's body was found the next morning at a sewage treatment plant. A slight man who raised nightingales, he had been hogtied, drilled with power tools and shot.

In the last month, hundreds of men have been kidnapped, tortured and executed in Baghdad. As Iraqi and American leaders struggle to avert a civil war, the bodies keep piling up. The city's homicide rate has tripled from 11 to 33 a day, military officials said. The period from March 7 to March 21 was typically brutal: at least 191 bodies, many mutilated, surfaced in garbage bins, drainage ditches, minibuses and pickup trucks.

There were the four Duleimi brothers, Khalid, Tarek, Taleb and Salaam, seized from their home in front of their wives. And Achmed Abdulsalam, last seen at a checkpoint in his freshly painted BMW and found dead under a bridge two days later. And Mushtak al-Nidawi, a law student nicknamed Titanic for his Leonardo DiCaprio good looks, whose body was returned to his family with his skull chopped in half.

What frightens Iraqis most about these gangland-style killings is the impunity. According to reports filed by family members and more than a dozen interviews, many men were taken in daylight, in public, with witnesses all around. Few cases, if any, have been investigated.

Part of the reason may be that most victims are Sunnis, and there is growing suspicion that they were killed by Shiite death squads backed by government forces in a cycle of sectarian revenge. That allegation has been circulating in Baghdad for months, and as more Sunnis turn up dead, more people are inclined to believe it.

"This is sectarian cleansing," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of Parliament, who has maintained a degree of neutrality between Shiites and Sunnis.

Mr. Othman said there were atrocities on each side. "But what is different is when Shiites get killed by suicide bombs, everyone comes together to fight the Sunni terrorists," he said. "When Shiites kill Sunnis, there is no response, because much of this killing is done by militias connected to the government."

The imbalance of killing, and the suspicion the government may be involved, is deepening the Shiite-Sunni divide, just as American officials are urging Sunni and Shiite leaders to form an inclusive government, hoping that such a show of unity will prevent a full-scale civil war.

The pressure is increasing on Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, but few expect him to crack down, partly because he needs the support of the Shiite militias to stay in power.

Haidar al-Ibadi, Mr. Jaafari's spokesman, acknowledged that "some of the police forces have been infiltrated." But he said "outsiders," rather than Iraqis, were to blame.

Now many Sunnis, who used to be the most anti-American community in Iraq, are asking for American help.

"If the Americans leave, we are finished," said Hassan al-Azawi, whose brother was taken from the pet shop.

He thought for a moment more.

"We may be finished already."

The human rights office of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a mostly Sunni group, has cataloged more than 540 cases of Sunni men and a few of Sunni women who were kidnapped and killed since Feb. 22, when a Shiite shrine in Samarra was destroyed, unleashing a wave of sectarian fury.

As the case of Mr. Azawi shows, some were easy targets.

Mr. Azawi was the youngest of five brothers. He was 27 and lived with his parents. He loved birds since he was a boy. Nightingales were his favorite. Then canaries, pigeons and doves.

During Saddam Hussein's reign, he was drafted into the army, but he deserted.

"He was crazy about birds," said a Shiite neighbor, Ibrahim Muhammad.

A few years ago, Mr. Azawi opened a small pet shop in Dawra, a rough-and-tumble, mostly Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad.

Friends said that Mr. Azawi was not interested in politics or religion. He never went to the Sunni mosque, though his brothers did. He did not pay attention to news or watch television. That characteristic might have cost him his life.

On Feb. 22, the Askariya Shrine in Samarra was attacked at 7 a.m. But Mr. Azawi did not know what had happened until 4 p.m., his friends said. He was in his own little world, tending his birds, when a Shiite shopkeeper broke the news and told him to close. He stayed in his house for three days after that. His friends said he was terrified.

The day of the shrine attack, Shiite mobs began rampaging through Baghdad, burning Sunni mosques and slaughtering Sunni residents. Some Sunnis struck back and killed Shiites. The mayhem claimed hundreds of lives and exposed tensions that until then had been bubbling just beneath the surface.

Two Shiite militias, the Badr Organization, which once trained in Iran, and the Mahdi Army, the foot soldiers of a young, firebrand Shiite cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, were blamed for much of the bloodshed. Mr. Sadr's men often wear all-black uniforms, and many of the relatives of kidnapped people said men in black uniforms had taken them. Many people also said the men in black arrived with the police.

Around 9 on the night of the shrine bombing, a mob of black-clad men surrounded the Duleimi brothers, family members said.

The brothers lived in New Baghdad, a working-class neighborhood that is mostly Shiite. They were all gardeners and religious men who prayed five times a day. They had relatives in Falluja, in the heart of Sunni territory.

Where a family hails from in Iraq often reveals whether it is Sunni or Shiite. Nowadays, because of the sectarian friction, people are increasingly aware of the slight regional differences in accent, dress and name. Some first names, like Omar for Sunnis, or Haidar for Shiites, are clear giveaways. Others, like Khalid, are not. Tribal names can also be a sign.

A cousin of the Duleimi brothers, who identified himself as Khalaf, said the four men were taken at gunpoint from the small house they shared. The next day, their bodies turned up in a drainage ditch near Sadr City, a stronghold of the Mahdi Army. All their fingers and toes had been sawed off.

That same day Mushtak al-Nidawi, 20, was kidnapped. According to an aunt, Aliah al-Bakr, he was chatting on his cellphone outside his home in Bayah when a squad of Mahdi militiamen marched up the street, shouting, "We're coming after you, Sunnis!"

Ms. Bakr said they snatched Mr. Nidawi while his mother stood at the door. His body surfaced on the streets seven days later, his skin a map of bruises, his handsome face burned by acid, his fingernails pulled out.

"I told his mother he was shot," Ms. Bakr said.

Sheik Kamal al-Araji, a spokesman for Mr. Sadr, said "the Mahdi Army does not commit such crimes."

He also said the militiamen would soon change their uniforms so they would no longer be confused with thugs.

The question of who exactly is behind these collective assassinations has become a delicate political issue. So has the disparity in the killings.

Many Sunni politicians, including secular ones like Methal al-Alusi, accuse the Shiite-led government of backing a campaign to wipe out Sunnis. Many Shiite leaders, including Prime Minister Jaafari, blame "foreign terrorists," without being more specific. It seems that Shiite militias, unable to strike back against the presumably Sunni suicide bombers who kill Shiite civilians, are now victimizing Sunni civilians. There is no evidence that the Sunnis who have been kidnapped and killed are connected to terrorists.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, is now saying that militias are Iraq's No. 1 security threat. But he has been careful to paint the problem in broad strokes, implying both sides are at fault.

There are a few Shiite victims, like Mohammed Jabbar Hussein, who lived in a mostly Sunni area west of Baghdad. He disappeared on Feb. 26 and was found four days later, shot in the head.

But the militias under the greatest suspicion, and the ones with the strongest ties to the government, are Shiite. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a spokesman for the American military, said Shiite militias have played a role in the killings and "the government of Iraq has to take action."

Then there is the question of prosecution. While countless Sunni insurgents have been arrested and tried on murder charges, very few Shiite militiamen have been apprehended.

Thamir al-Janabi, who is in charge of the Interior Ministry's criminal investigation department, declined to comment. So did several other Interior Ministry officials.

A new round of revenge attacks began March 12, around 6 p.m., when a string of car bombs exploded in Sadr City, killing nearly 50 civilians. Most security officials, Shiite and Sunni, blamed Sunni terrorists.

An hour and a half later, half a dozen gunmen arrived at Mr. Azawi's pet shop.

Wisam Saad Nawaf was playing pool across the street. He said that a man wearing a ski mask arrived with the gunmen, who were not wearing masks, and that when they grabbed Mr. Azawi, the masked man nodded. "He must have been an informant from the neighborhood," Mr. Nawaf explained.

Mr. Azawi got into a car. The gunmen closed the doors. The next morning Mr. Azawi's body was found at the sewage plant. Autopsy photos showed how badly he had been abused. His skin was covered with purple welts. His legs and face had drill holes in them. Both shoulders had been broken.

His brother Hassan carries the autopsy photos with him, along with a pistol. "I cannot live without vengeance," he said.

Hassan said there were a few Shiites at his brother's funeral, which he took as a grim speck of hope.

One week later, on March 20, the body of Mr. Abdulsalam, another Sunni, was found under a bridge. Mr. Abdulsalam, 21, worked with his father in a real estate office. His family said he was last seen in his BMW, stopped at a Mahdi Army checkpoint.

    Bound, Blindfolded and Dead: The Face of Atrocity in Baghdad, NYT, 26.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/international/middleeast/26bodies.html?hp&ex=1143435600&en=94974425090a0c2a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Tactics

Iraq Qaeda Chief Seems to Pursue a Lower Profile

March 25, 2006
The New York Times
By DEXTER FILKINS

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist and the head of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, has sharply lowered his profile in recent months, and his group claims to have submitted itself to the leadership of an Iraqi.

In postings on Web sites used by jihadi groups, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the terrorist network's arm in Iraq, claims to have joined with five other guerrilla groups to form the Mujahedeen Shura, or Council of Holy Warriors. The new group, whose formation was announced in January, is said to be headed by an Iraqi named Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi. Since then, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has stopped issuing its own proclamations.

The Mujahedeen Shura, which continues to call for attacks against American and Iraqi forces, has stopped taking responsibility for large-scale suicide attacks against civilians, and it has toned down its fierce verbal attacks against Iraq's Shiite majority.

Mr. Zarqawi's group also appears to have stopped, at least for now, the practice of beheading its captives. Since last summer, the group has begun to carry out attacks outside Iraq.

The activities seem to follow closely the advice in a letter believed to have been written last year by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's second in command.

Previously, Mr. Zarqawi's group celebrated large-scale civilian massacres, and often made videos of the attacks and of beheadings and posted the videos on jihadi Web sites. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which is dominated by followers of Islam's Sunni sect, also boasted of the mass killing of Shiite civilians, whom it labeled derogatorily as "converters."

While it is impossible to verify the claims on the Web sites, experts believe it significant that Mr. Zarqawi apparently feels the need to send such signals, which offer clues about what he and other senior jihadi leaders might be thinking and doing.

Since the announcement of the Mujahedeen Shura in January, Mr. Zarqawi has stayed largely out of view. His last public statement, released a few days before the announcement, ranted in typical fashion against Americans and Jews but gave no sign that changes were afoot.

American and Iraqi officials, as well as independent terrorism experts, are divided on the signals from Al Qaeda. Most believe that Mr. Zarqawi is alive, in Iraq, and still in charge of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. They say the group remains the leading suspect in the Feb. 22 attack against the Shiite shrine in Samarra, which set off a wave of sectarian violence. No group has taken responsibility for that attack.

Sectarian attacks have helped bring Iraq to the brink of full-scale civil war. A document obtained by the Americans in January 2004, and believed to have been written by Mr. Zarqawi, calls for attacks on Shiites in order to bring about a sectarian bloodbath.

American and Iraqi officials concede that they know little about the Mujahedeen Shura or of Mr. Baghdadi or, indeed, whether they exist at all. The officials say the proclamations by Al Qaeda and the Mujahedeen Shura, as well as the claim that an Iraqi is in charge, are probably ploys to give the illusion of changes that have not taken place.

"Propaganda is a critical component of his efforts, and that's what's involved here," said an American intelligence official. "It's a shift in tactics, not a real change."

In the letter thought to have been written by Mr. Zawahiri, an Egyptian physician believed to be hiding along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Mr. Zarqawi was told that he needed to cultivate local support in Iraq to ensure the survival of his movement. The letter was captured by the Americans last summer.

The letter suggested a role for a council that would unite the various insurgent groups and help lay the political groundwork for the day the Americans depart.

It also questioned Mr. Zarqawi's emphasis on killing Shiites, suggesting that such killings alienated Iraqis and detracted from the larger goal of driving out the Americans. For the same reasons, the letter said, it was not necessary to cut off the heads of captives. "We can kill the captives by bullet," the letter said.

The letter also called for Mr. Zarqawi to "extend the jihad to secular countries neighboring Iraq." In recent months, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has taken responsibility for a number of attacks outside the country, including the suicide bombing of three hotels in Amman, Jordan, in November, which killed more than 57 people. The group has also said it fired rockets from Lebanon into Israel last December, and a pair of missiles at American naval vessels in Aqaba, Jordan, last August.

"Zarqawi wanted to hand over Al Qaeda to the Iraqis so he could move on to the next phase of jihad," said Rita Katz, the director of the SITE Institute, which tracks violent Islamist groups. Ms. Katz recently made such an argument in an opinion article in The Boston Globe.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorist expert at the Rand Corporation's Washington office, said he believed that the Mujahedeen Shura and Mr. Baghdadi were real, but was unconvinced that Mr. Zarqawi had ceded control of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Having brought the country to the brink of civil war, Mr. Zarqawi may have decided that it was a good time to step back as events in Iraq unfold, Mr. Hoffman said, "like a poker player."

There are other reasons why Mr. Zarqawi might want to take a less prominent role in Iraq. As a Jordanian, Mr. Zarqawi is a foreigner in Iraq, where family and blood lines count for a lot. In recent months, evidence has surfaced that Iraqi guerrillas resent the dominance of foreigners in the insurgency.

In addition, there have been growing indications that the large-scale suicide bombings directed at civilians were alienating Arab backers outside the country as well as ordinary Iraqis. Mr. Zarqawi is believed to depend heavily on money provided by Arabs from outside of Iraq.

The suicide attacks on the three Jordanian hotels set off a wave of popular anger so furious that Mr. Zarqawi released an audio tape to explain his actions. Mr. Zarqawi did not apologize for the attacks — far from it — but he was clearly stunned by the vehemence of the reaction. "As for those Muslims who were killed," Mr. Zarqawi said on the tape, "we have not thought for even one moment about targeting them, even if they are sinful people."

Ms. Katz, the director of SITE, which provided the translations of his statements, said that even if he had stepped back, Mr. Zarqawi was probably still the dominant force in Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

Mr. Zarqawi has long made it clear that he sees Iraq as a stepping stone to the larger goal of overthrowing what he believes to be corrupt and secular regimes across the Arab world and re-establishing the Islamic Caliphate that reigned over the Middle East for centuries.

Whatever Mr. Zarqawi is up to, the successor organization, the Mujahedeen Shura, has lost no vehemence. In one of its most recent communiqués, it celebrated an attack on an American Humvee it claimed to have carried out this week in Miqadadiya, Iraq.

"A car bomb was detonated on a Crusader support patrol, resulting in the destruction of the Humvee and all who were in it," the statement said. "Thanks unto God."

Scott Shane and Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington for this article.

    Iraq Qaeda Chief Seems to Pursue a Lower Profile, NYT, 25.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/25/international/middleeast/25zarqawi.html?hp&ex=1143349200&en=39e0ea4dd8c5e899&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Espionage

U.S. Inquiry Finds Russians Passed Spy Data to Iraq in '03

March 25, 2006
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, March 24 — Captured Iraqi documents describe a Russian spy operation that was aimed at the United States Central Command in the early days of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to a new American military report. The report says information on war plans and troop movements was passed through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad.

Revelation of the operation, contained in the public version of a Joint Forces Command classified study, the Iraqi Perspectives Project, may have more political than military significance because American forces overwhelmed the underequipped and poorly led Iraqi Army to oust Saddam Hussein.

The information in the military study, an analysis based on captured documents and interviews with Iraqi military and political leaders, makes it difficult to get a clear picture of the Russian spy operation. It says a captured Iraqi document cited "information that the Russians have collected from their sources inside the American Central Command in Doha," in Qatar.

But the study notes that some information obtained by Iraq from Russian sources was false, raising at least the possibility that it was circulated as part of a deliberate American campaign intended to fool or demoralize Iraqi troops and leaders. Military officers have disclosed separately that false war plans were part of the campaign, and it remains unclear whether any Russians may have played into that strategy.

The Central Command, responsible for American military actions from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, led the Iraq war from headquarters in Qatar, where access was highly restricted. But the documents cite the Qatar headquarters as the source of the intelligence.

"Significantly, the regime was also receiving intelligence from the Russians that fed suspicions that the attack out of Kuwait was merely a diversion," the report states, citing a document sent to Mr. Hussein on March 24, 2003.

The Russian report stated — inaccurately — that the coalition thrust into Baghdad would come from the west and would await the Fourth Infantry Division, whose entry from the north was vetoed by Turkey. In fact, the main lines of the offensive moved from Kuwait in the south before the arrival of the Fourth Infantry.

An author of the study, Kevin M. Woods, said during a Pentagon news conference that there was no obvious reason to doubt the authenticity of the documents.

At the same briefing, Brig. Gen. Anthony Cucolo, in charge of the unit that conducted the study, said any intelligence-gathering by the Russians was very likely motivated by economic ties with Iraq.

    U.S. Inquiry Finds Russians Passed Spy Data to Iraq in '03, NYT, 25.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/25/international/europe/25spy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Steve Bell        The Guardian        p. 37        24.3.2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/archive/0,,1284265,00.html

From L to R: US President George W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Setting: Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq.
Related:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-04-27-abu-ghraib-changes_x.htm

US troops in Iraq for another three years
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington        The Guardian        Wednesday March 22, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1736471,00.html 

Challenge for U.S.: Iraq's Handling of Detainees

March 24, 2006
The New York Times
By EDWARD WONG

CAMP JUSTICE, Iraq — The blindfolded detainees in the dingy hallway line up in groups of five for their turn to see a judge, like schoolchildren outside the principal's office.

Each meeting lasts a few minutes. The judge rules whether the detainee will go free, face trial or be held longer at this Iraqi base in northern Baghdad. But Firas Sabri Ali, squeezed into a fetid cell just hundreds of yards from the judge's office, has watched the inmates come and go for four months without his name ever being called.

He is jailed, along with two brothers and his father, solely as collateral, he says. The Iraqi forces are hunting another brother, suspected of being an insurgent. The chief American medic here says that he believes Mr. Ali to be innocent but that it is up to the Iraqi police to decide whether to free him. The Iraqis acknowledged that they were holding Mr. Ali until they captured his brother.

"I hope they catch him, because then I'll be released," said Mr. Ali, 38, a soft-spoken man who until his arrest worked for a British security company to support his wife and three sons. "They said, 'You must wait.' I told them: 'There's no law. This is injustice.' "

Such is the challenge facing the American military as it tries to train the Iraqi security forces to respect the rule of law. Three years after the invasion of Iraq, American troops are no longer simply teaching counterinsurgency techniques; they are trying to school the Iraqis in battling a Sunni-led rebellion without resorting to the tactics of a "dirty war," involving abductions, torture and murder.

The legacy of Abu Ghraib hampers the American military. But the need to instill respect for human rights has gained a new urgency as Iraq grapples with the threat of full-scale civil war and continuing sectarian bloodletting. It is not uncommon now for dozens of bodies, with hands bound and gunshot wounds to the heads, to surface across Baghdad on any given day.

The Americans are pushing the Shiite-dominated Iraqi forces to ask judges for arrest warrants, restrain their use of force and ensure detainees' rights.

The Iraqi officers at this base, the headquarters of the Public Order Forces, a police paramilitary division with a history of torture and abuse, are gradually changing their behavior, American military advisers say. Cases of detainee abuse have declined in recent months, they say.

But detainees can still languish for months without any hope of a legal appeal because of a shortage of judges or, in the case of Mr. Ali, an unwillingness by the Iraqi police to allow detainees to see a judge. Overcrowding is chronic, because the Justice Ministry has been slow in building new prisons.

"The tradition in this country of a law enforcement agency that had absolute power over people, we've got to break them of that," said Maj. Andrew Creel, the departing joint operations officer here. "I think it'll take years. You can't change a cultural mind-set overnight."

Control of the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, has become one of the stumbling blocks in forming the new national government, with Sunni Arab politicians accusing Shiite leaders of running militias and death squads from the ministry.

Last fall the American military raided at least two police prisons where it said detainees had been abused. This year's State Department human rights report noted that the police, especially the paramilitary forces, had been accused of torture and killings.

Those forces number 17,500. This base — in the heart of Kadhimiya, just blocks away from a golden-domed Shiite shrine — serves as the headquarters for one of the two major paramilitary branches, the 7,700-member Public Order Forces. An 11-member American military team began advising the Iraqi commanders here last spring. It moved into the base in October and is now handing over its duties to a new team.

Here, 650 prisoners are packed into four spartan rooms. They complain of a lack of food and regular access to showers and toilets. A foul odor wafts from each holding pen. To cope with the overcrowded conditions, the police converted the dining hall into a cell; the three other areas were originally built as storage rooms.

Camp Justice was never meant to hold prisoners for more than a few weeks. Iraqi law says prisoners to be tried are to be transferred to a Justice Ministry penitentiary after interrogation. But the ministry has been unable to build enough jails to keep pace with arrests. It has 10 centers across Iraq, which hold 7,500 detainees, and an additional 7 are expected to be built, a ministry spokesman said.

So the detainee population at temporary police prisons like the one here, separate from those of the Justice Ministry, has ballooned to more than 10,000 in Baghdad alone, spread across a shadowy network of about 10 centers, an Interior Ministry official said.

That has ignited concerns among American officials. But Col. Gordon Davis Jr., the head of Camp Justice's departing advisory team, praised the Iraqi commander here, Maj. Gen. Mehdi Sabih Hashem al-Garawi, for showing a willingness to embrace human rights. The general has, for instance, assigned the Iraqi division's only medic to look after the detainees.

"I won't say he's gone 180, but he's realized that the best way of getting information is not to beat or abuse detainees," Colonel Davis said as he stood in the operations room, the walls plastered with maps of Baghdad.

"The current generation has been brought up with a certain code and a certain tolerance for abuse," he said in another interview. "They've got to be constantly worked on."

The academy for recruits to the Public Order Forces has increased the time spent on human rights training to 20 hours from about eight last October, the colonel said.

Lt. Col. Dhia al-Shammari, the chief interrogator and a supervisor of detainee operations, said: "Beating or insults, any policeman can do. Professionals don't use them. This is not allowed, and I myself reject it."

Certain Public Order units have had fearsome reputations, and residents of Baghdad and nearby towns have complained of abuse and torture. From April to June of last year, American advisers found prisoners with bruises at the headquarters of the Second Brigade every couple of weeks, Colonel Davis said.

When confronted with incidents of abuse, the colonel said, the Iraqi brigade commander told the Americans, "Are you more worried about our enemies or about us?"

That officer was replaced at the urging of the Americans. So was a commander of the Third Brigade, in Salman Pak. Prisoner abuse has been relatively rare here at the division level, the advisers say, and became even scarcer after the American team moved in last fall. Before that, the advisers had been living at an American base. If the Americans saw a bruised prisoner back then, they often kept quiet for fear of alienating the Iraqi officers, said Master Sgt. Joseph Kaiser, a medic who regularly examines the detainees.

Now the Americans can be more direct, advisers say. The Americans have trained a 32-man guard force. Sergeant Kaiser helps supervise the Iraqi medic who examines the detainees daily.

The Iraqi division's intelligence chief "said we have to treat detainees, since they're subjected to visits by the press and human rights groups," said the medic, Hazem, 32, who declined to give his full name for security reasons. "He said to me, 'Your main job is to treat the patients, not to check if they're terrorists.' If I know they're terrorists and I'm told to kill them, I'd kill them. But I do what my job requires."

Checking on the Detainees

On a balmy afternoon, as Sergeant Kaiser walked up to a holding pen to make one of his daily health checks, a blindfolded man in a brown leather jacket squatted outside the metal door. The man was awaiting interrogation, said several guards with Kalashnikov rifles.

The guards went into the cell and brought out Mr. Ali, the man whose brother is being hunted by the Iraqi police. Dressed in a blue and pink tracksuit and a black ski cap, he shuffled up to the sergeant. Because Mr. Ali speaks English, he serves as an unofficial cellblock leader.

"How are the people inside?" Sergeant Kaiser asked.

"We need to have more food," Mr. Ali said. Mr. Ali said he dreaded the idea of American advisers leaving this base one day. "That's bad," he said, shaking his head. "That's very bad. We need the sergeant or another American officer here. When we see them we say, 'Please stay here.' "

A reporter asked Mr. Ali whether detainees had been abused or tortured. "Don't ask these questions," he said, lowering his voice. "You know that."

Sergeant Kaiser said that since September, when he joined the advisory team, he had found only "a few" cases of abuse. He recalled two that he had written up. Prisoners have been brought in with baton marks, he said, but they might have been resisting arrest.

Sergeant Kaiser and Mr. Ali stepped into the cell. Some sunlight streamed in through three small windows near the roof. Three ceiling fans whirred. The 140 detainees mostly sat up on blankets; there was not enough room for them to lie down without touching each other. By the door, one detainee used an electric hair clipper to shave the head of another. A man with glasses sat reading the Koran.

The detainees complained that family visits occurred only once every couple of months. The sick lay on blankets. Sergeant Kaiser gave medicine for diarrhea to a man in gray robes and tablets for oral fungus to an inmate with yellowing teeth. He poked at the torso of a man with rib pains.

"Some are innocent," said a guard, Sabah Ali, 21, as he looked around the room. "But some have given their confessions and they are guilty. Those who are innocent, we'll release them."

But those detainees sometimes end up waiting months before being freed, because the division prefers to release detainees in large groups.

Prisoners from the division's field units are funneled to this base "so you can exploit intelligence and take any opportunity for abuse out of the field," said Lt. Col. John Shattuck, the deputy commander of the advisory team.

Seeking Arrest Warrants

Since his appointment to Camp Justice in February, Judge Majid has come for several hours almost every day. He is a nervous man dressed in a dark suit who prefers that his full name not be printed.

Detainees are marched from cells in groups of five to see him in an office. The ringing of his cellphone can keep him up at all hours — he is expected to be on call around the clock to approve an arrest warrant if the Iraqi forces suddenly come up someone they want to detain.

Arrest warrants were mandated by Interior Ministry officials starting last July to provide some accountability, especially among the paramilitary forces. It is unclear, though, how closely field units stick to the requirement.

The Iraqi operations officer at Camp Justice says warrants are needed only for apprehending people on the Interior Ministry's wanted list, not for instances in which the police may be responding to a report of suspicious activity.

Colonel Davis says the warrant policy has had some effect. Because of it, and because the Iraqis are improving their intelligence gathering, the Public Order Forces no longer round up hundreds of people on each raid, he said. On a typical operation, he added, they may take in a dozen.

After being brought here, the detainees are fingerprinted and have their retinas scanned. A photograph is taken, partly to record their condition at the time of arrest. The Americans have asked the Iraqis to deliver a daily report accounting for all detainees held throughout the division; one recent printout listed 896.

The law says detainees are entitled to have their cases reviewed by a judge every two weeks, but there are not enough judges, said Colonel Shammari, the chief interrogator.

The main question, one impossible to answer for now, is whether respect for rule of law will become deeply rooted in the Iraqi forces, despite a tradition of tyranny in this country, as the guerrilla war continues to rage.

Outside one of the prison cells, a blue-uniformed guard, Salim Abdul Hassan, 35, watched as his colleagues led blindfolded detainees to a row of outdoor toilets.

He said that the American training had been of great help, but that "it would be much better if the Iraqis worked on their own without the Americans."

"We wouldn't be tied down," he said. "Three-quarters of the terrorists ask for the help of the Americans. They want to be in the care of the Americans, not the Iraqis."

Khalid al-Ansary and Max Becherer contributed reporting for this article.

    Challenge for U.S.: Iraq's Handling of Detainees, NYT, 24.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/24/international/middleeast/24detain.html?hp&ex=1143262800&en=9281cf8a84fc3329&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Iraq Abuse Trial Is Again Limited to Lower Ranks

March 23, 2006
The New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT

With the conviction on Tuesday of an Army dog handler, the military has now tried and found guilty another low-ranking soldier in connection with the pattern of abuses that first surfaced two years ago at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

But once again, an attempt by defense lawyers to point a finger of responsibility at higher-ranking officers failed in the latest case to convince a military jury that ultimate responsibility for the abuses lay farther up the chain of command.

Some military experts said one reason there had not been attempts to pursue charges up the military chain of command was that the military does not have anything tantamount to a district attorney's office, run by commanders with the authority to go after the cases.

"The real question is, who is the independent prosecutor who is liberated to pursue these cases," said Eugene Fidell, a specialist in military law. "There is no central prosecution office run by commanders. So you don't have a D.A. thinking, I'm going to follow this wherever it leads."

Among all the abuse cases that have reached military courts, the trial of the dog handler, Sgt. Michael J. Smith, had appeared to hold the greatest potential to assign accountability to high-ranking military and perhaps even civilian officials in Washington. Some military experts had thought the trial might finally explore the origins of the harsh interrogation techniques that were used at Abu Ghraib; at the Bagram detention center in Afghanistan; and at other sites where abuses occurred.

Sergeant Smith, who was convicted Tuesday for abusing detainees in Iraq with his black Belgian shepherd, had said he was merely following interrogation procedures approved by the chief intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib, Col. Thomas M. Pappas. In turn, Colonel Pappas had said he had been following guidance from Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, commander of the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who in September 2003 visited Iraq to discuss ways to "set the conditions" for enhancing prison interrogations, as well as from superiors in Baghdad.

General Miller had been dispatched to Guantánamo Bay by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to improve the interrogation procedures and the quality of intelligence at the compound in Cuba.

But in Sergeant Smith's trial, General Miller was never called to testify. Colonel Pappas acknowledged that he had mistakenly authorized a one-time use of muzzled dogs to keep prisoners in order outside their cells, but he said that he had no idea that dog handlers were using unmuzzled dogs to terrorize detainees as part of the interrogation process. Colonel Pappas had previously been reprimanded and relieved of his command, but was permitted to testify under a grant of immunity.

Previous defendants who have tried and failed to win approval from military judges to summon high-ranking officers to explain their own role in abuse cases include Charles A. Graner Jr. and Lynndie R. England, two of the Army reservists who were convicted in 2005 for their misconduct at Abu Ghraib. In denying defense requests for testimony from witnesses including Mr. Rumsfeld and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, formerly the top American commander in Iraq, an Army judge, Col. James Pohl, ruled that their actions did not have any direct bearing on the reservists' conduct.

In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Maj. Wayne Marotto, an Army spokesman, said that more than 600 accusations of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan since October 2001 had been investigated, and that 251 officers and enlisted soldiers had been punished in some way for misconduct related to prisoners. To date, the highest-ranking officer convicted in relation to the abuses is Capt. Shawn Martin of the Army, who was found guilty last March of kicking detainees and staging the mock execution of a prisoner. He was sentenced to 45 days in jail and fined $12,000.

Sergeant Smith had faced a maximum sentence of eight and a half years, but on Wednesday was sentenced to just under six months (179 days) in prison.

"A mere tap on the wrist for abusing prisoners gives the appearance that once again that the United States is not serious about its responsibility to discipline those convicted of human rights violations," Curt Goering, Amnesty International's senior deputy executive director for policy and programs, said in a statement.

Sergeant Smith will also be demoted to private, fined $2,250 and will be released from the Army with a bad-conduct discharge after serving his sentence.

Several generals and colonels have received career-ending reprimands and have been stripped of their commands, but there is no indication that other senior-level officers and civilian officials will ever be held accountable for the detainee abuses that took place in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The toughest official criticism Mr. Rumsfeld has faced was a relatively mild admonishment in August 2004 from a panel led by former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger, which faulted Mr. Rumsfeld for not exercising sufficient oversight.

But when Mr. Schlesinger was asked at the time if Mr. Rumsfeld or other high-ranking officials should resign in an ultimate act of accountability, he said that the secretary's "resignation would be a boon for all of America's enemies." President Bush later declined to accept Mr. Rumsfeld's two offers to resign.

Congress has largely retreated from any meaningful effort to hold senior officials accountable. Last year, Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, vowed to hold hearings on senior-level accountability. But Mr. Warner later backed off his promise, saying it would have to wait until judicial and nonjudicial proceedings were exhausted, a process that could take several more months.

The Senate Armed Services Committee has delayed General Miller's scheduled retirement, and Mr. Warner said in an interview on Tuesday that he would call both Colonel Pappas and General Miller to testify before the committee once all court proceedings that could involve them are complete.

Two other cases may yield new information. Army officials are still reviewing a possible criminal case against Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, another former senior intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib.

The trial of a second dog handler, Sgt. Santos A. Cardona, is scheduled to begin on May 22, and it may offer another occasion for defense lawyers to try to direct blame at higher levels. Sergeant Cardona's lawyer, Harvey Volzer, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that his defense would include information not revealed in Sergeant Smith's trial. Mr. Volzer said he would seek to have Mr. Rumsfeld, Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander of American forces in the Mideast, and General Sanchez all testify at Sergeant Cardona's trial.

Kate Zernike contributed reporting for this article.

    Iraq Abuse Trial Is Again Limited to Lower Ranks, NYT, 23.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/politics/23abuse.html

Bush raises possibility of years-long Iraq presence

Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:09 PM ET
Reuters
By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush held out the possibility on Tuesday of a U.S. troop presence in Iraq for many years, saying a full withdrawal would depend on decisions by future U.S. presidents and Iraqi governments.

Bush, struggling to rebound from low job approval ratings that he blamed largely on the war, was asked at a news conference if there would come a time when no U.S. troops are in Iraq.

"That, of course, is an objective. And that will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq," said Bush, who will be president until January 2009.

Three years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, there are 133,000 U.S. troops in the country.

Bush has laid the groundwork for possible U.S. troop reductions by the end of the year, saying he aims to get Iraqi forces sufficiently trained to take over by then.

But until now he had not given a prediction on how long there might be an American presence. Many Arabs are concerned that the United States might want a permanent presence in Iraq, and those concerns were likely to be heightened by Bush's comments.

Opinion polls show Americans have become increasingly dissatisfied over a war in which more than 2,300 U.S. troops have died. Democrats have seized on this in a congressional election year to criticize the Republican president's handling of the war.

Appearing for nearly an hour at his second formal solo news conference of the year, Bush mixed his prognosis of progress in Iraq with a realistic description of events, reflecting a recent White House pattern of admitting mistakes have been made in the war.

He acknowledged errors in the Iraqi reconstruction effort had cost valuable time in rebuilding and said the U.S. military was adjusting to insurgent tactics.

But he insisted that his bedrock belief remained that Iraq can become a beacon of democracy in the Middle East.

"I'm optimistic we'll succeed," he said. "If not, I'd pull our troops out. If I didn't believe we had a plan for victory, I wouldn't leave our people in harm's way."

Bush said insurgent attacks that have killed hundreds of Iraqis in recent weeks were designed in part by the attackers to create horrific images for U.S. television screens and generate doubts about the mission among Americans.

"Please don't take that as criticism," Bush told reporters. "But it also is a realistic assessment of the enemy's capability to affect the debate, and they know that."

Bush also said he disagreed with those who said Iraq had fallen into a civil war.

Asked whether he agreed with former Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's comments that Iraq was already in civil war, Bush said: "I do not, there are other voices coming out of Iraq."

"We all recognize that there is violence, that there is sectarian violence," Bush said. "The way I look at it the Iraqis took a look and decided not to give in to civil war."

A Newsweek magazine poll conducted last week showed Bush's approval rating fell to 36 percent, down 21 points from a year ago, amid discontent about Iraq. The survey said 65 percent of Americans were dissatisfied with Bush's handling of the war.

"I fully understand the consequences of this war. I understand people's lives are being lost," Bush said.

"But I also understand the consequences of not achieving our objective by leaving too early. Iraq would become a place of instability, a place from which the enemy can plot, plan and attack," he added.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria)

    Bush raises possibility of years-long Iraq presence, R, 21.3.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-03-21T170849Z_01_N20244851_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH.xml

Abu Ghraib dog handler found guilty of abuse

Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:45 AM ET
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Army dog handler was found guilty on Tuesday of abusing detainees at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison and faces up to eight years and nine months in prison, an Army spokeswoman said.

The sentencing hearing for Army Sgt. Michael Smith, 24, was set to begin later today, Lt. Col. Shawn Jirik said.

Smith was charged with using his dog to harass and threaten inmates at Abu Ghraib in order to make them urinate and defecate on themselves in 2003 and 2004.

His lawyers said he was unfairly lumped in with others on the night shift who physically abused detainees or allowed their dogs to bite them, and was acting at the request of interrogators and prison authorities.

Disturbing photos of dogs barking and growling at inmates were seen around the world in the abuse scandal, which cut into Washington's efforts to win support for its war in Iraq.

    Abu Ghraib dog handler found guilty of abuse, R, 21.3.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-03-21T164503Z_01_N21260522_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-ABUSE.xml

Bush: troop pullout from Iraq decided in future

Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:05 AM ET
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Tuesday refused to give a timetable for the pullout of American troops from Iraq and suggested they many remain there beyond his term in office.

Asked about full troop withdrawal from Iraq, Bush told a news conference: "That of course is an objective and that will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq."

He reiterated that troop withdrawal decisions would be made by commanders on the ground.

    Bush: troop pullout from Iraq decided in future, R, 21.3.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-03-21T160411Z_01_N21215697_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&related=true&src=cms

Bush disagrees that Iraq in civil war

Tue Mar 21, 2006 10:49 AM ET
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Tuesday said he disagreed with those who said Iraq had fallen into a civil war.

Asked whether he agreed with former Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's comments that Iraq was already in civil war, Bush said: "I do not, there are other voices coming out of Iraq."

"We all recognize that there is violence, that there is sectarian violence," Bush said at a press conference. "The way I look at it the Iraqis took a look and decided not to give in to civil war."

Public opinion polls show Americans have become increasingly dissatisfied with Bush's handling of the Iraq war in which more than 2,300 U.S. troops have been killed.

    Bush disagrees that Iraq in civil war, R, 21.3.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-03-21T154816Z_01_N20244851_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH-IRAQ.xml&archived=False&src=cms

Bush Defends Decisions on Iraq, but Concedes Public's Unease

March 21, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:34 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Tuesday the decision about when to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq will fall to future presidents and Iraqi leaders, suggesting that U.S. involvement will continue at least through 2008.

Acknowledging the public's growing unease with the war -- and election-year skittishness among fellow Republicans -- the president nonetheless vowed to keep U.S. soldiers in the fight.

''If I didn't believe we could succeed, I wouldn't be there. I wouldn't put those kids there,'' Bush declared.

He also stood by embattled Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

''I don't believe he should resign. He's done a fine job. Every war plan looks good on paper until you meet the enemy,'' he said.

In his second full-blown news conference of the year, Bush confronted his political problems by addressing them directly.

''Nobody likes war. It creates a sense of uncertainty in the country,'' he said. ''War creates trauma.'' He acknowledged that Republicans are worried about their political standing in November.

''There's a certain unease as you head into an election year,'' Bush told a wide-ranging news conference that lasted nearly an hour.

More than 2,300 Americans have died in three years of war in Iraq. Polls show the public's support of the war and Bush himself have dramatically declined in recent months, jeopardizing the political goodwill he carried out of the 2004 re-election victory.

''I'd say I'm spending that capital on the war,'' Bush quipped.

When asked about his failed Social Security plan, he simply said: ''I didn't get done.'' But the president defiantly defended his warrantless eavesdropping program, and baited Democrats who suggest that he broke the law.

Calling a censure resolution ''needless partisanship,'' Bush challenged Democrats to go into the November midterm elections in opposition to eavesdropping on suspected terrorists. ''They ought to stand up and say, `The tools we're using to protect the American people should not be used,''' Bush said.

The news conference marked a new push by Bush to confront doubts about his strategy in Iraq. A day earlier, he acknowledged to a sometimes skeptical audience that there was dwindling support for his Iraq policy and that he understood why people were disheartened.

''The terrorists haven't given up. They're tough-minded. They like to kill,'' he said Tuesday. ''There will be more tough fighting ahead.''

The president said he did not agree with former interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who told the British Broadcasting Corporation Sunday, ''If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.''

Bush said others inside and outside Iraq think the nation has stopped short of civil war. ''There are other voices coming out of Iraq, by the way, other than Mr. Allawi, who I know by the way -- like. A good fellow.''

''We all recognized that there is violence, that there is sectarian violence. But the way I look at the situation is, the Iraqis looked and decided not to go into civil war.''

Nearly four out of five Americans, including 70 percent of Republicans, believe civil war will break out in Iraq, according to a recent AP-Ipsos poll.

Bush said he's confident of victory in Iraq. ''I'm optimistic we'll succeed. If not, I'd pull our troops out,'' he said, warning that abandoning the nation would be a dangerous mistake.

''So failure in Iraq, which isn't going to happen, would send all kinds of terrible signals to an enemy that wants to hurt us and people who are desperate to change the condition in the broader Middle East,'' Bush said.

He said he agreed to U.S. talks with Iran to underscore his point that Tehran's attempts to spread sectarian violence or provide support to Iraqi insurgents was unacceptable to the United States.

His opening remarks were designed to steel Americans for more fighting in Iraq and put an optimistic spin on the state of the U.S. economy.

''Productivity is strong. Inflation is contained. Household net worth is at an all-time high,'' Bush said, crediting his administration's policies.

On Iraq, Bush bristled at a suggestion that he had wanted to wage war against that country since early in his presidency.

''I didn't want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong ... with all due respect,'' he told a reporter. ''No president wants war.'' To those who say otherwise, ''it's simply not true,'' Bush said.

Asked about former supporters who now oppose him and the war, Bush said he's trying to win them over by ''talking realistically to people'' about the war and its importance to the nation.

''I can understand how Americans are worried about whether or not we can win,'' Bush said, adding that most Americans want victory ''but they're concerned about whether or not we can win.''

Bush scoffed at a question suggesting he should reshuffle or shake up his White House staff to help raise his sagging poll standings. But he did hint that he might bring in an experienced Washington insider to work with a disgruntled Congress.

''I'm not going to announce it right now,'' Bush said, adding that he's satisfied with the staff he's surrounded himself with.

    Bush Defends Decisions on Iraq, but Concedes Public's Unease, NYT, 21.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush.html?hp&ex=1143003600&en=2d6b6e2cfeb353cf&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Iraqi police claim US troops executed family

· Women and children shot in raid, says official report
· Marines accused after 15 died in separate incident

Tuesday March 21, 2006
Guardian
Julian Borger in Washington

Iraqi police have accused American soldiers of executing 11 Iraqi civilians, including four children and a six-month-old baby, in a raid on Wednesday near the city of Balad, it was reported yesterday.

The allegations are contained in an Iraqi police report on the killings, obtained and published by the Knight Ridder news agency. The report emerged at a time when a US navy criminal investigation is under way into a previous incident, in November, in which marines are accused of killing 15 Iraqi civilians in Haditha in reprisal for a bomb attack on a US patrol.

Last week's incident in the village of Abu Sifa, near Balad, stand out because of the seriousness of the accusations and the fact that they appear on an official police report signed by Iraqi officers.

After listing other incidents in the area, the report for March 15 states: "American forces used helicopters to drop troops on the house of Faiz Harat Khalaf situated in the Abu Sifa village of the Ishaqi district. The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 people, including five children, four women and two men, then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animals." Among victims the report lists two five-year-old children, two three-year-olds and a six-month-old baby.

The US military say that the deaths occurred when US troops raided a house in pursuit of an al-Qaida suspect and that only four people were killed. Major Tim Keefe, a US military spokesman in Baghdad said: "A battle damage assessment, the initial reports, said that what they saw were four people killed - a woman and two children and an enemy - and they detained an enemy."

Brigadier General Issa al-Juboori, who runs the joint coordination centre in Tikrit, stood by the report and said he knew the police officer running the investigation. "He's a dedicated policeman, and a good cop," Gen Juboori told Knight Ridder. "I trust him."

Both accounts of the incident agree there was a firefight in the early hours of the morning when US troops raided a house which an al-Qaida suspect was suspected to be visiting. The American account said the house collapsed as a result of the firefight, killing two women, a child, and a man believed to have al-Qaida links. The suspect survived and was captured. But the Iraqi police report suggests that the killings took place when the house was still standing. A local police commander, Lieutenant Colonel Farooq Hussain, said hospital autopsies "revealed that all the victims had bullet shots in the head and all bodies were handcuffed".

Maj Keefe said: "I saw those [autopsy] photos and it didn't appear there were any handcuffs."

In last year's Haditha incident, US troops are accused of killing civilians after a bomb attack. An initial marine report on the incident said a roadside bomb on November 19 last year killed a lance corporal and 15 Iraqi civilians. But further investigation revealed that the civilians had been shot with marine weapons after the blast.

A nine-year-old survivor, Eman Waleed, who lived in a house 150 metres from the roadside bomb attack told Time magazine that after the explosion her father began reading the Qur'an. "First, they went into my father's room, where he was reading the Qur'an, and we heard shots," she said. "I couldn't see their faces very well, only their guns sticking into the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny."

Time quoted officials familiar with the investigation as saying the marines thought they heard a gun being cocked inside the house and feared they were about to be ambushed so they broke down two doors simultaneously and opened fire.

    Iraqi police claim US troops executed family, G, 21.3.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1735748,00.html

Bush Defends His Iraq Record, but Concedes Some Setbacks

March 21, 2006
The New York Times
By ELISABETH BUMILLER

CLEVELAND, March 20 — President Bush on Monday held out the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar as an example of American success in the war, but he also acknowledged in remarks that were as grim as they were hopeful that the city's improvements were not matched in other parts of Iraq.

In the second of a series of speeches meant to build up sagging support for the war, Mr. Bush said American forces had driven insurgents from Tal Afar in 2004, only to see them move back in two months later. The Americans learned from their mistakes, he said, and in 2005 worked with Iraqi forces to retake lost ground and begin to bring the city back to life.

"I wish I could tell you that the progress made in Tal Afar is the same in every single part of Iraq," he told the City Club of Cleveland at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel. "It's not."

Over all, Mr. Bush's speech was a positive message that conceded some of the setbacks on the ground, a formulation meant to portray the president as not living in a fantasy world about the three-year-long war.

"In the face of continued reports about killings and reprisals, I understand how some Americans have had their confidence shaken," he said. "Others look at the violence they see each night on their television screens and they wonder how I can remain so optimistic about the prospects of success in Iraq. They wonder what I see that they don't."

To answer that, Mr. Bush told his audience his story of Tal Afar, a city of 200,000 near the Syrian border that was a crucial base of operations for the Iraqi insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The insurgents had turned the city into a nightmare of violence, he said, with beheadings, kidnappings and mortars fired into soccer fields filled with children.

"In one grim incident, the terrorists kidnapped a young boy from the hospital and killed him, and then they booby-trapped his body and placed him along the road where his family would see him," he said. "And when the boy's father came to retrieve his son's body, he was blown up."

But Mr. Bush recounted how American and Iraqi forces initiated a major military offensive against the insurgents last fall, including the construction of an eight-foot dirt wall around the city to cut off escape routes. After successful combat operations were over, he said, more than 1,000 Iraqi forces were deployed to keep order. "In short, you see a city coming back to life," he said.

Military analysts do not dispute Mr. Bush's version of events, and correspondents on the ground say that the security situation in Tal Afar is significantly better than it was before the military operation last fall.

But the analysts also say that the offensive required so many American troops — 5,000 — that it would be difficult if not impossible to replicate in other parts of Iraq, particularly in Baghdad, and that success in Tal Afar does not translate into improved security for most Iraqis.

Democrats used Mr. Bush's speech to step up their criticism on the three-year anniversary of the war, saying that the White House was on the verge of trading a brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein, for chaos.

"That outcome looks increasingly likely because of the dangerous incompetence of this administration," Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, said in a statement. "We went to war without letting the weapons inspectors finish their job, without the support of our major allies, without enough troops to prevent a security vacuum, and without a plan to win the peace."

After Mr. Bush concluded his remarks, he took numerous questions from the City Club, a nonpartisan group that calls itself the oldest free-speech forum in America and prides itself on asking sharp questions. Members of the audience queried him about the administration's secret eavesdropping program and the failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq, among other topics.

Mr. Bush appeared relaxed throughout, and in a question about Iraq segued to Iran. "The threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel," he said, adding, "I made it clear, I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally, Israel."

The crowd broke into applause and then Mr. Bush said, "At any rate, our objective is to solve this issue diplomatically."

    Bush Defends His Iraq Record, but Concedes Some Setbacks, NYT, 21.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/21/politics/21prexy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

On Anniversary, Bush and Cheney See Iraq Success

March 20, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, March 19 — On the third anniversary of a war that they once expected to be over by now, President Bush and senior officials argued Sunday that their strategy was working despite escalating violence in Iraq, even as a former Iraqi prime minister once favored by the White House declared a civil war had already started.

Displaying a carefully calibrated mix of optimism about eventual victory and caution about how long American troops would be involved, the officials who marked the day — including Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld — sounded much as they had on the first anniversary of the invasion. At that time, the rebuilding effort had just begun, the insurgency was far less fierce, and the American occupation had suppressed, temporarily, the sectarian violence scarring Iraq today.

The picture painted by the administration clashed with that of the former interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, once hailed by Mr. Bush as the kind of fair-minded leader Iraq needed. He declared in an interview with the BBC that the country was nearing a "point of no return."

"It is unfortunate that we are in civil war," said Mr. Allawi, who served as prime minister after the American invasion and now leads a 25-seat secular alliance of representatives in Iraq's 275-seat National Assembly. "We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people through the country, if not more."

"If this is not civil war," he said, "then God knows what civil war is."

Mr. Allawi's assessment was contradicted by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, who said on CNN's "Late Edition" that "We're a long way from civil war."

As Iraqi politicians in Baghdad moved incrementally forward on Sunday on forming a unified government, at least 15 more bodies were discovered around the capital, bringing to more than 200 the number of people believed killed in sectarian violence in the past few weeks. [Page A10.]

The war has taken more than 2,300 American lives, and those of 33,000 to 37,000 Iraqis, according to the estimates of the Iraq Body Count Project, an independent group that monitors the news media.

Mr. Rumsfeld dismissed calls for withdrawal by comparing the current battle to the two great struggles of his generation: World War II and the cold war. "Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis," he wrote in an op-ed article published in The Washington Post. "It would be as great a disgrace as if we had asked the liberated nations of Eastern Europe to return to Soviet domination."

Mr. Bush is entering the fourth year of the war able to declare success in the dismantling of Saddam Hussein's tyrannical government and in providing a framework for democratic elections, though the country has so far failed to put together the institutions to make a democracy work.. Mr. Bush's approval rating, which soared in the early days of the invasion as Americans rushed to Baghdad, has sunk to the low-to-mid 30 percent range as the chaos and number of Iraqis meeting violent deaths has escalated.

Mr. Cheney, in an interview on the CBS News program "Face the Nation," was challenged on his statement three years ago that "we will be greeted as liberators" and his assertion 10 months ago that the insurgency was in its "last throes."

He insisted that in both cases his facts were right, but that the news media had created a different perception with vivid imagery of killing.

"I think it has less to do with the statements we've made, which I think were basically accurate and reflect reality, than it does with the fact that there's a constant sort of perception, if you will, that's created because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad," he said.

The administration could take heart this weekend from the relatively small antiwar protests around the country, compared with protests held on the previous two anniversaries of the Iraq invasion. An estimated 7,000 people demonstrated in Chicago on Saturday and smaller protests were held over the weekend in Boston, San Francisco and other cities. In Times Square, the figure was about 1,000.

Television was the forum where the administration's representatives and opponents marshaled the statistics that they believe made their cases. Mr. Bush argued last week that by the end of the year, Iraqi forces would be in control of more than half of the country; Representative John P. Murtha, the long-hawkish Pennsylvania Democrat who late last year called publicly for American withdrawal, said Sunday on NBC News' "Meet the Press" that the statistic was meaningless.

"I flew for an hour and 15 minutes over desert," he said of a recent trip. "Wasn't a soul. And that's the territory I guess they're talking about." Meanwhile, he noted, unemployment has soared in the areas hardest hit by sectarian violence. Oil production, which the administration once said would pay for the rebuilding of Iraq, was markedly below last year's levels.

As midterm elections approach, the White House is concerned that support for the war is ebbing fastest among Republicans who supported the war, including some influential conservatives who argue that the job of liberation is done, and American troops should not be left in the crossfire of civil strife.

Mr. Bush talked about the war in a two-minute statement on Sunday when he returned to the White House from Camp David, urging Iraq to form a unity government, and saying, "I'm encouraged by the progress." Then, ignoring reporters who met his helicopter, he entered the White House with his wife, Laura.

He offered no answers to questions about the gap between his expectations three years ago and the realities of Iraq today, seemingly underscoring the problem the White House faced in explaining the war. He successfully put a floor under eroding support for his Iraq strategy last December, explaining his military, political and economic strategy and admitting some early errors. But that was before the images of Shiites fighting Sunnis began a new erosion of support.

On the critical political question — how long American forces will stay — General Casey has said a significant presence will be required for "a couple more years," and "over 2006, we will continue to see a gradual reduction in coalition forces."

When the war was launched three years ago, the Pentagon expected a short conflict. Its classified plans called for the withdrawal of the majority of American troops by the fall of 2003. Today there are roughly 133,000 still there.

As of Friday, 2,313 American military personnel and Defense Department civilians had died during the Iraq effort; of that figure, 1,811 were killed in action and 502 died in non-hostile events, like accidents, a Pentagon spokesman said Sunday. The spokesman also cited statistics that 7,912 American military personnel had been wounded so severely in action in Iraq that they could not return to duty, and that 9,212 had been wounded in action but were able to return to duty.

Mr. Rumsfeld, whose refusal to send larger numbers of troops into Iraq after the initial invasion has made him a lightning rod for critics, said in his published remarks on Sunday that terrorists, not the American-led coalition, are losing in Iraq, a message repeated by Mr. Cheney. "I believe that history will show that to be the case."

And like Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rumsfeld insisted the problem was the imagery created by a 24-hour news cycle. "Fortunately, history is not made up of daily headlines, blogs on Web sites or the latest sensational attack," Mr. Rumsfeld wrote. "History is a bigger picture, and it takes some time and perspective to measure accurately."

    On Anniversary, Bush and Cheney See Iraq Success, NYT, 20.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/20/politics/20war.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1142830800&en=f3c0c5b8c7ee2700&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

US objectives in Iraq prove elusive

Sun Mar 19, 2006 8:30 PM ET
Reuters
By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's only superpower has learned some hard lessons during three years of war in Iraq and there is increasing skepticism about whether it can ever achieve its objectives there.

President George W. Bush's stated rationale for invading in March 2003 -- ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction -- quickly proved illusory. No such arms were ever found.

Three years later, as bodies are dumped daily on the streets of Baghdad and civil war is very possible, longer term U.S. ambitions for a stable and democratic Iraq also seem shaky, experts say.

"It's quite clear, the United States did not achieve its objectives in Iraq" because they were "fundamentally wrong," said Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon official who once worked for Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

Iraq had "no serious weapons of mass destruction program ... so we went to war for the wrong reason to deal with a threat that didn't exist," he told Reuters.

Rather than ridding the Middle East of Islamic extremists, the U.S. invasion has strengthened them, and there is "much more threat from al Qaeda in Iraq," said Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Although U.S. officials remain upbeat about Iraq's prospects, public opinion polls show deep division among ordinary Americans. Bush's popularity has sunk to its lowest point in his six years in office, support for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq has plummeted and there is deepening concern about Iraq's future.

U.S. political leaders are so worried they created a high-powered bipartisan study group last week to look at alternatives for U.S. policy in Iraq that could unite Americans. Participants, who acknowledged their task would be extremely difficult, did not set a deadline for completing the work.

Judith Yaphe, an Iraq specialist at the National Defense University, noted the invasion succeeded in ousting Saddam Hussein and bringing the dictator to trial.

But Iraq is far from being a stable democracy that could serve as a model for regional change, and it definitely was not the U.S. aim to trigger civil war, she said.

REPEATED WARNINGS IGNORED

"It was simplistic of people to think that you could get rid of Saddam and things would be fine. ... The U.S. government understood very little about Iraq and how easily and quickly it is for a country which was held together by 35 years of repression to spin out of control," Yaphe added.

Yet in the run-up to war, Bush and his foreign policy team -- one of the most experienced in modern U.S. history -- were warned repeatedly -- by allies, experts and other U.S. officials -- about the difficulties Iraq presented.

Danielle Pletka of the conservative American Enterprise Institute acknowledged that building a stable U.S.-style democracy in Iraq is probably out of reach.

But "if the goal is to create a relatively stable democracy and a slow but improving security environment for the Iraqis, then I think we're on our way," she insisted.

There is broad consensus among experts that the U.S. failure to plan for the postwar period was a major flaw that allowed the insurgency to take hold.

The administration tried to correct that in part by establishing a State Department office to coordinate postwar stabilization and reconstruction efforts in future crises, but it has run into bureaucratic problems.

Other lessons are showing up in U.S. policy documents. The just-released National Security Strategy and a recent defense planning paper emphasize working with allies and play down the kind of unilateral tendencies the United States displayed in Iraq, Cordesman said.

"We've learned a great deal and it's been a set of painful lessons," he said.

Those lessons include the need for U.S. forces that fight conventional wars and conduct counterinsurgency operations; a vigorous nation-building capability; and a stronger State Department that can manage diplomacy as well as aid for training police in post-conflict situations, he said.

Another realization is that "military options can create as many problems as they solve," he added.

Pletka said the administration also realized the importance of having a lower-key chief representative in Iraq -- like U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad -- and that "reinforcing existing fissures" in Iraqi society by including sectarian militias in the army is not a good idea.

    US objectives in Iraq prove elusive, R, 19.3.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-03-20T013028Z_01_N17263130_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-USA-OBJECTIVES.xml

Cheney: Iraq not in civil war, predicts success

Sun Mar 19, 2006 12:49 PM ET
Reuters
By Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday said Iraq had not fallen into civil war despite extremist attempts to foment one, and warned that allowing the insurgents to succeed would leave the country a failed state.

Three years after the U.S. invasion, bombings, killings and kidnappings continue the unabated violence in Iraq.

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on BBC television that Iraq was nearing the "point of no return" and had already plunged into sectarian civil war.

Cheney said "terrorists" like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, and others were trying to stop the formation of a democratically elected government in Iraq by violence such as the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra on February 22, one of the holiest Shi'ite sites.

"What we've seen is a serious effort by them to foment civil war, but I don't think they've been successful," Cheney said on CBS television's "Face the Nation."

Increasing public discontent over the Iraq war in which more than 2,300 American troops have died has helped push President George W. Bush's approval ratings to the lowest of his presidency.

Bush has repeatedly said that U.S. forces will not pull out until Iraqi forces can take over security operations.

Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, also said a civil war had not started in Iraq and nor was it imminent or inevitable. "Is there terrorist violence in Iraq? Yes there is ... But we're a long way from civil war," he said on CNN's "Late Edition."

"But I don't want to sugar-coat it either. This is a very fragile time," Casey said, adding that people were getting killed as the extremists try to derail the political process.

'A LOT AT STAKE'

Democrats sharply criticized the administration's Iraq policies.

"I think that the political leaders in Washington have failed when it comes to our policy in Iraq. They misled us into believing there were weapons of mass destruction and connections between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. None of that existed," Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said on "Fox News Sunday."

"Here we are, on the third anniversary, with no end in sight," he said.

Cheney said it was important for the whole region and the security of the United States that the insurgency in Iraq does not succeed.

"There's a lot at stake here. It's not just about Iraq, it's not about just today's situation in Iraq, it's about where we are going to be 10 years from now in the Middle East," he said.

"If they ("terrorists") succeed then the danger is that Iraq will become a failed state as Afghanistan was a few years ago when it was governed by the Taliban," he said. That enabled Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network to launch attacks against the United States and its allies, Cheney said.

He said the "biggest threat" faced now was not another September 11 attack in which hijacked planes were used as weapons, but the danger of extremists having nuclear or biological weapons to use against the United States.

Cheney attributed the administration's "aggressive, forward-leaning strategy" in going after extremists since the September 11 attacks as one of the main reasons the United States had not been struck again at home.

"I think we are going to succeed in Iraq, I think the evidence is overwhelming," Cheney said.

(Additional reporting by Doug Palmer)

    Cheney: Iraq not in civil war, predicts success, R, 19.3.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-03-19T174904Z_01_N19198417_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-USA.xml

Rumsfeld: leaving Iraq like giving Nazis Germany

Sun Mar 19, 2006 8:24 AM ET
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaving Iraq now would be like handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a column published on Sunday, the third anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.

"Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis," he wrote in an essay in The Washington Post.

Rumsfeld said "the terrorists" were trying to fuel sectarian tensions to spark a civil war, but they must be "watching with fear" the progress in the country over the past three years.

In London, former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on Sunday that Iraq is in a civil war and is nearing the point of no return when the sectarian violence will spill over throughout the Middle East.

"It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is," he told BBC television.

Rumsfeld's view was that the Iraqi insurgency was failing.

"The terrorists seem to recognize that they are losing in Iraq. I believe that history will show that to be the case," he wrote.

He said 75 percent of all military operations in Iraq include Iraqi security forces.

"Today, some 100 Iraqi army battalions of several hundred troops each are in the fight, and 49 percent control their own battle space," Rumsfeld wrote.

Thousands of anti-war protesters gathered in cities around the world for demonstrations on Saturday to mark the anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Doubts about the Iraq war have helped drive down President George W. Bush's approval ratings to their lowest level.

In a Newsweek poll released on Saturday, only 36 percent of Americans said they approved of his performance as president. Sixty-five percent disapprove of his handling of the situation in Iraq, once one of his strongest suits.

Bush used his weekly radio address on Saturday to urge Americans to resist a temptation to retreat from Iraq, but opposition Democrats pressed him to offer a plan for drawing down U.S. troops and said Iraq was moving closer to a civil war.

Rumsfeld wrote that if U.S. forces leave Iraq now, "there is every reason to believe Saddamists and terrorists will fill the vacuum -- and the free world might not have the will to face them again."

A recent Le Moyne College/Zogby poll showed 72 percent of U.S. troops serving in Iraq think that the United States should exit within a year. Nearly one in four said the troops should leave immediately.

    Rumsfeld: leaving Iraq like giving Nazis Germany, R, 19.3.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-03-19T132421Z_01_N19209143_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-RUMSFELD.xml

Demonstrations Mark Third Anniversary of Iraq Invasion

March 19, 2006
The New York Times
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

About 1,000 people gathered near Times Square yesterday, in one of dozens of energetic and often unfocused rallies held in cities across the United States and around the world to protest the third anniversary of the United States invasion of Iraq.

Yesterday's protests, like those held to mark each of the two previous anniversaries of the March 2003 invasion, were vigorous and peaceful but far smaller than the large-scale marches that preceded the war, despite polls showing lower public support for the war than in years past and anemic approval ratings for President Bush, himself a focus of many of the protesters.

But the Iraq war itself — though the obvious inspiration for the march — was noticeably less central to the proceedings than in previous years. The rally in Times Square featured dozens of speakers on topics ranging from relations with Iran to the treatment of Hurricane Katrina refugees.

"No group owns the day," said Dustin Langley, a spokesman for the Troops Out Now Coalition, which helped organize protests in New York, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles, Atlanta and other cities. "Whoever you are, be out there on the streets."

Tens of thousands of people marched in Rome, while officials in London reported a crowd of 15,000. Other demonstrations occurred in Greece, Turkey, Spain, Brazil, Australia and Canada.

One of the biggest protests in the United States was held in San Francisco, for decades a hub of antiwar sentiment. The police there estimated the crowd gathered outside City Hall at 6,000. Many chanted slogans opposing Mr. Bush, and most appeared to hail from a distinctly grayer demographic than that of other protest events.

"There are not enough young people here," said Paul Perchonock, 61, a medical doctor from the Bay Area. "They don't see themselves as having a stake."

In his weekly radio address, President Bush defended the administration's record in Iraq, saying that the country's decision to depose the regime of Saddam Hussein was "a difficult decision—and it was the right decision." He pledged to "finish the mission" despite calls for withdrawal.

Today marks the third anniversary of the invasion.

In Washington, a relatively small crowd of about 300 people gathered at the United States Naval Observatory, where Vice President Dick Cheney lives.

Debbie Boch, 52, a restaurant manager from Denver, said she and two friends bought plane tickets to Washington two months ago, before the demonstration had been planned. It was the fifth protest march she attended since the war began, she said, and among the smallest.

"It's very disappointing, especially in Washington, D.C.," she said. "You think this is the place where people come to make things happen. I'm just not sure why there aren't more people hear today."

But other marchers took solace from recent opinion polls showing public opinion slowly drifting against the war.

"Three years ago, folks thought we were crazy; two years ago, people still thought we were crazy," said the Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler, a minister at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington. "We know now that most of the American people do not believe that we are crazy anymore."

In New York, protesters gathered on three lanes of Broadway south of 42nd Street, after the city denied the organizers permission to set up near an armed services recruitment office. Mounted police patrolled the avenue, while dozens of police officers attempted to keep traffic moving on the street and sidewalk.

The demonstrators, bundled against the cold and confined by police fences to a two-block stretch, came from as close as Chelsea and as far away as South Korea. Quakers mixed with communists and labor organizers with high school students, as antiwar entrepreneurs hawked T-shirts under the sultry gaze of a Calvin Klein model, reclining in a massive billboard advertisement overhead.

"I am just sick and grief stricken that we are continuing this war in Iraq," said Julie Finch, 63, who lives in Manhattan. "I mourn every soldier that dies. This war was based on lies."

A nearby Starbucks — a chain once disparaged by the anti-globalization protesters from which today's antiwar movement draws some inspiration — served as a warming hut and bathroom station for the protesters, even serving up a latte or two to placard-brandishing customers. Journalists conducted interviews in the heated vestibule of a Gap store on 42nd Street until a security guard asked them to move.

A recorded message from Mumia Abu-Jamal, an inmate in Pennsylvania and a left-wing cause célèbre, drifted across the speakers as garbled as the service announcements emanating from subway speakers in the station below ground.

Around 2:30 p.m., the rally turned into a march, as those gathered walked around the corner down 42nd Street, bound for the United Nations. They moved slowly, sprawling the length of two crosstown blocks, with a few Katrina refugees at the column's front. At the back, Devin Kyle, 26, and Tonia Shoumatoff, 50, carried a 20-foot banner reading, simply, "May Peace Prevail."

"Rather than fight hatred with hatred," Mr. Kyle said, "I came here to be a peaceful presence."

Reporting for this article was contributed by Lakiesha R. Carr and Lynette Clemetson in Washington, Carolyn Marshall in San Francisco and Colin Moynihan in New York.

    Demonstrations Mark Third Anniversary of Iraq Invasion, NYT, 19.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/nyregion/19protest.html

Task Force 6-26

Before and After Abu Ghraib, a U.S. Unit Abused Detainees

March 19, 2006
The New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT and CAROLYN MARSHALL

As the Iraqi insurgency intensified in early 2004, an elite Special Operations forces unit converted one of Saddam Hussein's former military bases near Baghdad into a top-secret detention center. There, American soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government's torture chambers into their own interrogation cell. They named it the Black Room.

In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball. Their intention was to extract information to help hunt down Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Defense Department personnel who served with the unit or were briefed on its operations.

The Black Room was part of a temporary detention site at Camp Nama, the secret headquarters of a shadowy military unit known as Task Force 6-26. Located at Baghdad International Airport, the camp was the first stop for many insurgents on their way to the Abu Ghraib prison a few miles away.

Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, "NO BLOOD, NO FOUL." The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: "If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it." According to Pentagon specialists who worked with the unit, prisoners at Camp Nama often disappeared into a detention black hole, barred from access to lawyers or relatives, and confined for weeks without charges. "The reality is, there were no rules there," another Pentagon official said.

The story of detainee abuse in Iraq is a familiar one. But the following account of Task Force 6-26, based on documents and interviews with more than a dozen people, offers the first detailed description of how the military's most highly trained counterterrorism unit committed serious abuses.

It adds to the picture of harsh interrogation practices at American military prisons in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as well as at secret Central Intelligence Agency detention centers around the world.

The new account reveals the extent to which the unit members mistreated prisoners months before and after the photographs of abuse from Abu Ghraib were made public in April 2004, and it helps belie the original Pentagon assertions that abuse was confined to a small number of rogue reservists at Abu Ghraib.

The abuses at Camp Nama continued despite warnings beginning in August 2003 from an Army investigator and American intelligence and law enforcement officials in Iraq. The Central Intelligence Agency was concerned enough to bar its personnel from Camp Nama that August.

It is difficult to compare the conditions at the camp with those at Abu Ghraib because so little is known about the secret compound, which was off limits even to the Red Cross. The abuses appeared to have been unsanctioned, but some of them seemed to have been well known throughout the camp.

For an elite unit with roughly 1,000 people at any given time, Task Force 6-26 seems to have had a large number of troops punished for detainee abuse. Since 2003, 34 task force members have been disciplined in some form for mistreating prisoners, and at least 11 members have been removed from the unit, according to new figures the Special Operations Command provided in response to questions from The New York Times. Five Army Rangers in the unit were convicted three months ago for kicking and punching three detainees in September 2005.

Some of the serious accusations against Task Force 6-26 have been reported over the past 16 months by news organizations including NBC, The Washington Post and The Times. Many details emerged in hundreds of pages of documents released under a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union. But taken together for the first time, the declassified documents and interviews with more than a dozen military and civilian Defense Department and other federal personnel provide the most detailed portrait yet of the secret camp and the inner workings of the clandestine unit.

The documents and interviews also reflect a culture clash between the free-wheeling military commandos and the more cautious Pentagon civilians working with them that escalated to a tense confrontation. At one point, one of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's top aides, Stephen A. Cambone, ordered a subordinate to "get to the bottom" of any misconduct.

Most of the people interviewed for this article were midlevel civilian and military Defense Department personnel who worked with Task Force 6-26 and said they witnessed abuses, or who were briefed on its operations over the past three years.

Many were initially reluctant to discuss Task Force 6-26 because its missions are classified. But when pressed repeatedly by reporters who contacted them, they agreed to speak about their experiences and observations out of what they said was anger and disgust over the unit's treatment of detainees and the failure of task force commanders to punish misconduct more aggressively. The critics said the harsh interrogations yielded little information to help capture insurgents or save American lives.

Virtually all of those who agreed to speak are career government employees, many with previous military service, and they were granted anonymity to encourage them to speak candidly without fear of retribution from the Pentagon. Many of their complaints are supported by declassified military documents and e-mail messages from F.B.I. agents who worked regularly with the task force in Iraq.

A Demand for Intelligence

Military officials say there may have been extenuating circumstances for some of the harsh treatment at Camp Nama and its field stations in other parts of Iraq. By the spring of 2004, the demand on interrogators for intelligence was growing to help combat the increasingly numerous and deadly insurgent attacks.

Some detainees may have been injured resisting capture. A spokesman for the Special Operations Command, Kenneth S. McGraw, said there was sufficient evidence to prove misconduct in only 5 of 29 abuse allegations against task force members since 2003. As a result of those five incidents, 34 people were disciplined.

"We take all those allegations seriously," Gen. Bryan D. Brown, the commander of the Special Operations Command, said in a brief hallway exchange on Capitol Hill on March 8. "Any kind of abuse is not consistent with the values of the Special Operations Command."

The veil of secrecy surrounding the highly classified unit has helped to shield its conduct from public scrutiny. The Pentagon will not disclose the unit's precise size, the names of its commanders, its operating bases or specific missions. Even the task force's name changes regularly to confuse adversaries, and the courts-martial and other disciplinary proceedings have not identified the soldiers in public announcements as task force members.

General Brown's command declined requests for interviews with several former task force members and with Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who leads the Joint Special Operations Command, the headquarters at Fort Bragg, N.C., that supplies the unit's most elite troops.

One Special Operations officer and a senior enlisted soldier identified by Defense Department personnel as former task force members at Camp Nama declined to comment when contacted by telephone. Attempts to contact three other Special Operations soldiers who were in the unit — by phone, through relatives and former neighbors — were also unsuccessful.

Cases of detainee abuse attributed to Task Force 6-26 demonstrate both confusion over and, in some cases, disregard for approved interrogation practices and standards for detainee treatment, according to Defense Department specialists who have worked with the unit.

In early 2004, an 18-year-old man suspected of selling cars to members of the Zarqawi terrorist network was seized with his entire family at their home in Baghdad. Task force soldiers beat him repeatedly with a rifle butt and punched him in the head and kidneys, said a Defense Department specialist briefed on the incident.

Some complaints were ignored or played down in a unit where a conspiracy of silence contributed to the overall secretiveness. "It's under control," one unit commander told a Defense Department official who complained about mistreatment at Camp Nama in the spring of 2004.

For hundreds of suspected insurgents, Camp Nama was a way station on a journey that started with their capture on the battlefield or in their homes, and ended often in a cell at Abu Ghraib. Hidden in plain sight just off a dusty road fronting Baghdad International Airport, Camp Nama was an unmarked, virtually unknown compound at the edge of the taxiways.

The heart of the camp was the Battlefield Interrogation Facility, alternately known as the Tactical Screening Facility and the Temporary Holding Facility. The interrogation and detention areas occupied a corner of the larger compound, separated by a fence topped with razor wire.

Unmarked helicopters flew detainees into the camp almost daily, former task force members said. Dressed in blue jumpsuits with taped goggles covering their eyes, the shackled prisoners were led into a screening room where they were registered and examined by medics.

Just beyond the screening rooms, where Saddam Hussein was given a medical exam after his capture, detainees were kept in as many as 85 cells spread over two buildings. Some detainees were kept in what was known as Motel 6, a group of crudely built plywood shacks that reeked of urine and excrement. The shacks were cramped, forcing many prisoners to squat or crouch. Other detainees were housed inside a separate building in 6-by-8-foot cubicles in a cellblock called Hotel California.

The interrogation rooms were stark. High-value detainees were questioned in the Black Room, nearly bare but for several 18-inch hooks that jutted from the ceiling, a grisly reminder of the terrors inflicted by Mr. Hussein's inquisitors. Jailers often blared rap music or rock 'n' roll at deafening decibels over a loudspeaker to unnerve their subjects.

Another smaller room offered basic comforts like carpets and cushioned seating to put more cooperative prisoners at ease, said several Defense Department specialists who worked at Camp Nama. Detainees wore heavy, olive-drab hoods outside their cells. By June 2004, the revelations of abuse at Abu Ghraib galvanized the military to promise and better treatment for prisoners. In one small concession at Camp Nama, soldiers exchanged the hoods for cloth blindfolds with drop veils that allowed detainees to breathe more freely but prevented them from peeking out.

Some former task force members said the Nama in the camp's name stood for a coarse phrase that soldiers used to describe the compound. One Defense Department specialist recalled seeing pink blotches on detainees' clothing as well as red welts on their bodies, marks he learned later were inflicted by soldiers who used detainees as targets and called themselves the High Five Paintball Club.

Mr. McGraw, the military spokesman, said he had not heard of the Black Room or the paintball club and had not seen any mention of them in the documents he had reviewed.

In a nearby operations center, task force analysts pored over intelligence collected from spies, detainees and remotely piloted Predator surveillance aircraft, to piece together clues to aid soldiers on their raids. Twice daily at noon and midnight military interrogators and their supervisors met with officials from the C.I.A., F.B.I. and allied military units to review operations and new intelligence.

Task Force 6-26 was a creation of the Pentagon's post-Sept. 11 campaign against terrorism, and it quickly became the model for how the military would gain intelligence and battle insurgents in the future. Originally known as Task Force 121, it was formed in the summer of 2003, when the military merged two existing Special Operations units, one hunting Osama bin Laden in and around Afghanistan, and the other tracking Mr. Hussein in Iraq. (Its current name is Task Force 145.)

The task force was a melting pot of military and civilian units. It drew on elite troops from the Joint Special Operations Command, whose elements include the Army unit Delta Force, Navy's Seal Team 6 and the 75th Ranger Regiment. Military reservists and Defense Intelligence Agency personnel with special skills, like interrogators, were temporarily assigned to the unit. C.I.A. officers, F.B.I. agents and special operations forces from other countries also worked closely with the task force.

Many of the American Special Operations soldiers wore civilian clothes and were allowed to grow beards and long hair, setting them apart from their uniformed colleagues. Unlike conventional soldiers and marines whose Iraq tours lasted 7 to 12 months, unit members and their commanders typically rotated every 90 days.

Task Force 6-26 had a singular focus: capture or kill Mr. Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant operating in Iraq. "Anytime there was even the smell of Zarqawi nearby, they would go out and use any means possible to get information from a detainee," one official said.

Defense Department personnel briefed on the unit's operations said the harsh treatment extended beyond Camp Nama to small field outposts in Baghdad, Falluja, Balad, Ramadi and Kirkuk. These stations were often nestled within the alleys of a city in nondescript buildings with suburban-size yards where helicopters could land to drop off or pick up detainees.

At the outposts, some detainees were stripped naked and had cold water thrown on them to cause the sensation of drowning, said Defense Department personnel who served with the unit.

In January 2004, the task force captured the son of one of Mr. Hussein's bodyguards in Tikrit. The man told Army investigators that he was forced to strip and that he was punched in the spine until he fainted, put in front of an air-conditioner while cold water was poured on him and kicked in the stomach until he vomited. Army investigators were forced to close their inquiry in June 2005 after they said task force members used battlefield pseudonyms that made it impossible to identify and locate the soldiers involved. The unit also asserted that 70 percent of its computer files had been lost.

Despite the task force's access to a wide range of intelligence, its raids were often dry holes, yielding little if any intelligence and alienating ordinary Iraqis, Defense Department personnel said. Prisoners deemed no threat to American troops were often driven deep into the Iraqi desert at night and released, sometimes given $100 or more in American money for their trouble.

Back at Camp Nama, the task force leaders established a ritual for departing personnel who did a good job, Pentagon officials said. The commanders them with two unusual mementos: a detainee hood and a souvenir piece of tile from the medical screening room that once held Mr. Hussein.

Early Signs of Trouble

Accusations of abuse by Task Force 6-26 came as no surprise to many other officials in Iraq. By early 2004, both the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. had expressed alarm about the military's harsh interrogation techniques.

The C.I.A.'s Baghdad station sent a cable to headquarters on Aug. 3, 2003, raising concern that Special Operations troops who served with agency officers had used techniques that had become too aggressive. Five days later, the C.I.A. issued a classified directive that prohibited its officers from participating in harsh interrogations. Separately, the C.I.A. barred its officers from working at Camp Nama but allowed them to keep providing target information and other intelligence to the task force.

The warnings still echoed nearly a year later. On June 25, 2004, nearly two months after the disclosure of the abuses at Abu Ghraib, an F.B.I. agent in Iraq sent an e-mail message to his superiors in Washington, warning that a detainee captured by Task Force 6-26 had suspicious burn marks on his body. The detainee said he had been tortured. A month earlier, another F.B.I. agent asked top bureau officials for guidance on how to deal with military interrogators across Iraq who used techniques like loud music and yelling that exceeded "the bounds of standard F.B.I. practice."

American generals were also alerted to the problem. In December 2003, Col. Stuart A. Herrington, a retired Army intelligence officer, warned in a confidential memo that medical personnel reported that prisoners seized by the unit, then known as Task Force 121, had injuries consistent with beatings. "It seems clear that TF 121 needs to be reined in with respect to its treatment of detainees," Colonel Herrington concluded.

By May 2004, just as the scandal at Abu Ghraib was breaking, tensions increased at Camp Nama between the Special Operations troops and civilian interrogators and case officers from the D.I.A.'s Defense Human Intelligence Service, who were there to support the unit in its fight against the Zarqawi network. The discord, according to documents, centered on the harsh treatment of detainees as well as restrictions the Special Operations troops placed on their civilian colleagues, like monitoring their e-mail messages and phone calls.

Maj. Gen. George E. Ennis, who until recently commanded the D.I.A.'s human intelligence division, declined to be interviewed for this article. But in written responses to questions, General Ennis said he never heard about the numerous complaints made by D.I.A. personnel until he and his boss, Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, then the agency's director, were briefed on June 24, 2004.

The next day, Admiral Jacoby wrote a two-page memo to Mr. Cambone, under secretary of defense for intelligence. In it, he described a series of complaints, including a May 2004 incident in which a D.I.A. interrogator said he witnessed task force soldiers punch a detainee hard enough to require medical help. The D.I.A. officer took photos of the injuries, but a supervisor confiscated them, the memo said.

The tensions laid bare a clash of military cultures. Combat-hardened commandos seeking a steady flow of intelligence to pinpoint insurgents grew exasperated with civilian interrogators sent from Washington, many of whom were novices at interrogating hostile prisoners fresh off the battlefield.

"These guys wanted results, and our debriefers were used to a civil environment," said one Defense Department official who was briefed on the task force operations.

Within days after Admiral Jacoby sent his memo, the D.I.A. took the extraordinary step of temporarily withdrawing its personnel from Camp Nama.

Admiral Jacoby's memo also provoked an angry reaction from Mr. Cambone. "Get to the bottom of this immediately. This is not acceptable," Mr. Cambone said in a handwritten note on June 26, 2004, to his top deputy, Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin. "In particular, I want to know if this is part of a pattern of behavior by TF 6-26."

General Boykin said through a spokesman on March 17 that at the time he told Mr. Cambone he had found no pattern of misconduct with the task force.

A Shroud of Secrecy

Military and legal experts say the full breadth of abuses committed by Task Force 6-26 may never be known because of the secrecy surrounding the unit, and the likelihood that some allegations went unreported.

In the summer of 2004, Camp Nama closed and the unit moved to a new headquarters in Balad, 45 miles north of Baghdad. The unit's operations are now shrouded in even tighter secrecy.

Soon after their rank-and-file clashed in 2004, D.I.A. officials in Washington and military commanders at Fort Bragg agreed to improve how the task force integrated specialists into its ranks. The D.I.A. is now sending small teams of interrogators, debriefers and case officers, called "deployable Humint teams," to work with Special Operations forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Senior military commanders insist that the elite warriors, who will be relied on more than ever in the campaign against terrorism, are now treating detainees more humanely and can police themselves. The C.I.A. has resumed conducting debriefings with the task force, but does not permit harsh questioning, said a C.I.A. official.

General McChrystal, the leader of the Joint Special Operations Command, received his third star in a promotion ceremony at Fort Bragg on March 13.

On Dec. 8, 2004, the Pentagon's spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, said that four Special Operations soldiers from the task force were punished for "excessive use of force" and administering electric shocks to detainees with stun guns. Two of the soldiers were removed from the unit. To that point, Mr. Di Rita said, 10 task force members had been disciplined. Since then, according to the new figures provided to The Times, the number of those disciplined for detainee abuse has more than tripled. Nine of the 34 troops disciplined received written or oral counseling. Others were reprimanded for slapping detainees and other offenses.

The five Army Rangers who were court-martialed in December received punishments including jail time of 30 days to six months and reduction in rank. Two of them will receive bad-conduct discharges upon completion of their sentences.

Human rights advocates and leading members of Congress say the Pentagon must still do more to hold senior-level commanders and civilian officials accountable for the misconduct.

The Justice Department inspector general is investigating complaints of detainee abuse by Task Force 6-26, a senior law enforcement official said. The only wide-ranging military inquiry into prisoner abuse by Special Operations forces was completed nearly a year ago by Brig. Gen. Richard P. Formica, and was sent to Congress.

But the United States Central Command has refused repeated requests from The Times over the past several months to provide an unclassified copy of General Formica's findings despite Mr. Rumsfeld's instructions that such a version of all 12 major reports into detainee abuse be made public.

    Before and After Abu Ghraib, a U.S. Unit Abused Detainees, NYT, 19.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/international/middleeast/19abuse.html?hp&ex=1142744400&en=9efb5b3a1aa3d685&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Cited as Symbol of Abu Ghraib, Man Admits He Is Not in Photo                        Related

March 18, 2006
The New York Times
By KATE ZERNIKE

In the summer of 2004, a group of former detainees of Abu Ghraib prison filed a lawsuit claiming that they had been the victims of the abuse captured in photographs that incited outrage around the world.

One, Ali Shalal Qaissi, soon emerged as their chief representative, appearing in publications and on television in several countries to detail his suffering. His prominence made sense, because he claimed to be the man in the photograph that had become the international icon of the Abu Ghraib scandal: standing on a cardboard box, hooded, with wires attached to his outstretched arms. He had even emblazoned the silhouette of that image on business cards.

The trouble was, the man in the photograph was not Mr. Qaissi. [Editors' Note, Page A2.]

Military investigators had identified the man on the box as a different detainee who had described the episode in a sworn statement immediately after the photographs were discovered in January 2004, but then the man seemed to go silent.

Mr. Qaissi had energetically filled the void, traveling abroad with slide shows to argue that abuse in Iraq continued, as head of a group he called the Association of Victims of American Occupation Prisons.

The New York Times profiled him last Saturday in a front-page article; in it, Mr. Qaissi insisted he had never sought the fame of his iconic status. Mr. Qaissi had been interviewed on a number of earlier occasions, including by PBS's "Now," Vanity Fair, Der Spiegel and in the Italian news media as the man on the box.

This week, after the online magazine Salon raised questions about the identity of the man in the photograph, Mr. Qaissi and his lawyers insisted he was telling the truth.

Certainly, he was at Abu Ghraib, and appears with a hood over his head in some photographs that Army investigators seized from the computer belonging to Specialist Charles Graner, the soldier later convicted of being the ringleader of the abuse.

However, he now acknowledges he is not the man in the specific photograph he printed and held up in a portrait that accompanied the Times article. But he and his lawyers maintain that he was photographed in a similar position and shocked with wires and that he is the one on his business card. The Army says it believes only one prisoner was treated in that way.

"I know one thing," Mr. Qaissi said yesterday, breaking down in tears when reached by telephone. "I wore that blanket, I stood on that box, and I was wired up and electrocuted."

Susan Burke, a lawyer in Philadelphia who is representing Mr. Qaissi and other former prisoners in a lawsuit against civilian interrogators and translators at Abu Ghraib, said that Mr. Qaissi had been abused in the same way as the man in the photo. "The sad fact is that there is not only one man on the box," she said.

Using a name that Mr. Qaissi is often called, she said, "Haj Ali is but one of many victims of the torture by Graner and the others."

In the interview for the article, Mr. Qaissi pointed to his deformed hand and said it matched the hand in the photograph. A close look at the photograph, however, is inconclusive.

Whether he was forced to stand on a box and photographed is not clear, but evidence suggests that he adopted the identity of the iconic man on the box, the very symbol of Abu Ghraib, well after he left the prison.

Records confirm that Mr. Qaissi became inmate 151716 sometime after the prison opened in June 2003, but do not give firm dates; Mr. Qaissi, a 43-year-old former Baath Party member and neighborhood mayor in Baghdad, said he arrived at Abu Ghraib in October 2003 and was released in March 2004, two months after the Army began an investigation into the abuse.

And he suffered mistreatment and humiliation at the hands of the same people who photographed the man on the box: photographs investigators seized show him forced into a crouch, identifiable by his mangled hand, with the nickname guards gave him — "The Claw" — scrawled in black marker across his orange jumpsuit.

But if he was the hooded man on the box, he did not mention it on several key occasions in the first months after the scandal broke.

In the spring of 2004, Mr. Qaissi approached Muhammad Hamid al-Moussawi, the deputy director of the Human Rights Organization of Iraq, and proposed that the men set up a group for prisoners of the occupation, Mr. Moussawi said this week. Yet Mr. Qaissi never claimed at the time that he had been the man in the photograph, Mr. Moussawi recalled.

A journalist who interviewed Mr. Qaissi three times that May and June about what happened at Abu Ghraib similarly said he never mentioned the pose or the photograph. The journalist, Gert Van Langendonck, said Mr. Qaissi mentioned the other cruelties he described in the Times profile.

A lawsuit Mr. Qaissi joined, filed on July 27, 2004, also made no allegation that he was shocked with wires or forced to stand on a box. That allegation appeared only on an amended version of a complaint he later joined, filed last month, which said he had been forced to stand on the box and fell off from the shocks of the electrocution: "They repeated this at least five times."

Another man had already been publicly identified as the man on the box in May 2004, when documents including logbooks and sworn statements from detainees and soldiers were leaked to The Times.

On May 22, 2004, The Times quoted the testimony of a detainee, Abdou Hussain Saad Faleh: "Then a tall black soldier came and put electrical wires on my fingers and toes and on my penis, and I had a bag over my head. Then he was saying, 'Which switch is on for electricity?'"

Specialist Sabrina Harman, one of the soldiers later convicted of abuse, identified the man by his nickname, Gilligan, in her statement.

She left some room to believe that others were subjected to the same treatment. "The wires part," she said, was her idea, but she said Specialist Graner and Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II had forced detainees to stand on a box to stay awake, and did so at the request of military intelligence officials. Abu Ghraib photographs show more than one example of a hooded man forced to stand on boxes.

But Chris Grey, a spokesman for the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, said that the military believed that Mr. Faleh had been the only prisoner subjected to the treatment shown in the photo. "To date, and after a very thorough criminal investigation, we have neither credible information, nor reason to believe, that more than one incident of this nature occurred," he said.

Mr. Qaissi's lawyer, Ms. Burke, countered, "We do not trust the torturers."

Mr. Qaissi seems to have first begun identifying himself as the hooded man in the fall of 2004, by which point he had started his prisoners' group out of a politically charged mosque in Baghdad.

In an article in the February 2005 issue of Vanity Fair, Donovan Webster identified Mr. Qaissi as Haj Ali, the likely man on the box, based on an extensive investigation of military records. Soon, Mr. Qaissi was featured in numerous profiles, including in Der Spiegel, reprinted by Salon, as well as on the PBS current affairs program "Now," where he described being shocked: "It felt like my eyeballs were coming out of my sockets."

With his soft voice and occasionally self-deprecating humor, he has impressed interviewers as affable and credible. He told his story with a level of detail that separated it from that of many others.

Most of his assertions and details could be confirmed, Mr. Webster and others stress. In his three-hour interview with The Times, Mr. Qaissi did not veer from reported details and appeared confident in his discussion, punctuating his story with bitter laughter and occasionally, tears. But he never raised the possibility that another man may have also been photographed in the same pose.

Human rights workers were compelled by his story, as well. Reporting the Saturday article, The Times relied in part on their statements that he could well be the hooded man, as well as on prison records and interviews with friends and his lawyers, who say they have Mr. Qaissi's blanket, the same one, they said, draped over the man in the photograph. Army officials at the time refused to confirm or refute Mr. Qaissi's claims, citing privacy protections in the Geneva Convention.

Abdel Jabbar al-Azzawi, who now lives in Baghdad and says he was in the prison with both Mr. Qaissi and the man named Gilligan and has joined the lawsuit, says he saw Mr. Qaissi wearing the blanket fashioned into a poncho depicted in the photograph, though he did not see the photographs being taken.

Mr. Qaissi's lawyers also stress that the iconic photograph is not the basis of his case. In court papers, he also says he was punched, kicked, hit with a stick and chained to his cell while his captors poured cold water over his naked body.

Meanwhile, it is not clear what happened to the real hooded man, Mr. Faleh. An Army spokesman said he was released from American custody in January 2004. Tribal leaders, and the manager of a brick factory next to the address where prison records say he lived, said they had never heard the name. Besides, they said, detainees often make up identities when they are imprisoned. Mr. Qaissi's attorneys said they have not attempted to search for him.

Hassan M. Fattah contributed reporting from Beirut for this article, Eric Schmitt from Washington and employees of The New York Times from Iraq.

    Cited as Symbol of Abu Ghraib, Man Admits He Is Not in Photo, NYT, 18.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/18/international/middleeast/18ghraib.html?hp&ex=1142744400&en=f5a8a35705134516&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Editors' Note

March 17, 2006
The New York Times

A front-page article last Saturday profiled Ali Shalal Qaissi, identifying him as the hooded man forced to stand on a box, attached to wires, in a photograph from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal of 2003 and 2004. He was shown holding such a photograph. As an article on Page A1 on Saturday makes clear, Mr. Qaissi was not that man.

The Times did not adequately research Mr. Qaissi’s insistence that he was the man in the photograph. Mr. Qaissi’s account had already been broadcast and printed by other outlets, including PBS and Vanity Fair, without challenge. Lawyers for former prisoners at Abu Ghraib vouched for him. Human rights workers seemed to support his account. The Pentagon, asked for verification, declined to confirm or deny it.

Despite the previous reports, The Times should have been more persistent in seeking comment from the military. A more thorough examination of previous articles in The Times and other newspapers would have shown that in 2004 military investigators named another man as the one on the box, raising suspicions about Mr. Qaissi’s claim.

    Editors' Note, NYT, 17.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/international/18editors.note.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

U.S.-Led Forces Continue Sweep for Insurgent Bases in Iraq

March 17, 2006
The New York Times
By EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 17 — The United States military and Iraqi security forces continued to search for insurgent bases today, the second day of a large-scale assault that included helicopters and ground forces outside Samarra, a city north of Baghdad where the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine last month sent sectarian violence soaring in Iraq.

About 50 suspects were detained, with 17 later released after questioning, said a spokesman, Lt. Col. Edward Loomis, a spokesman for the 101st Airborne. Caches of weapons including mortars, rockets and bomb-making materials were uncovered, he said.

The assault outside Samarra, which was led by the 101st Airborne Division but also included other American and Iraqi ground units, started on Thursday with more than 50 aircraft for transport and air cover, hundreds of armored vehicles, and about 1,500 American and Iraqi troops, military spokesmen said. The Sunni Arab-dominated area has long been troubling for the American military, which has repeatedly raided it with little lasting effect on the insurgency.

The American military called the new operation the largest air assault — a military term for the insertion of soldiers by helicopters — since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But in terms of overall scale, it did not involve relatively large number of soldiers: for comparison, one of the armored sweeps in Anbar Province late last year involved about 3,500 American and Iraqi troops.

There were no reports of casualties on either side.

The American military did not say whether the operation was connected to the bombing last month that destroyed the golden mosque dome at the Askariya Shrine, one of Shiite Islam's holiest sites, and spurred Shiite militiamen to rampage across eastern Baghdad and cities in the south, leaving hundreds dead.

On Thursday, Baghdad police officials said that 36 bodies, all killed with gunshots to the head, had been discovered in various parts of the capital since Wednesday morning.

The raids in northern Iraq are being conducted across wide swaths of land around three villages east of Samarra, said an Iraqi Army official at an operations center in the city.

Most of the aircraft being deployed are Black Hawk and Chinook transport helicopters and Apache attack helicopters that are being used for air cover, said Colonel Loomis.

He did not specify whether any airstrikes with missiles or bombs had been launched.

Iraqi officials have announced the arrests of suspects connected to the bombing of the Askariya Shrine. On Sunday, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr gave details of the attack, saying 20 men placed 475 pounds of explosives throughout the mosque between 8 p.m. and 5:40 a.m. The explosives were then remotely detonated.

The violent aftermath of that attack continues to roil Iraq. American and Iraqi officials fear that a prolonged political battle over the formation of the government could widen sectarian rifts and fuel the Sunni Arab-led insurgency. As large-scale sectarian reprisals continue, Pentagon officials are revisiting plans to draw down the force of 133,000 American troops in Iraq this year.

In Baghdad, Iraqi legislators convened the long-awaited first session of the new Parliament on Thursday. The body's 275 members, all elected in December, were sworn in, and leaders delivered speeches calling for unity before adjourning the session and rushing to continue negotiations to form a full government.

In the 40-minute parliamentary session, Iraqi leaders gave frank assessments of the country's problems. "The country is going through dangerous times," said Adnan Pachachi, the newly appointed temporary speaker of Parliament. "Sectarian tensions have increased and begun to create a national crisis that could destroy Iraq. We have to prove to the whole world that there will not be civil war between the people of this country. The danger is still there, and our enemies are watching us."

With the start of Parliament, Iraqi leaders face a tight formal deadline to establish a government. The new Constitution says the Parliament must appoint the Iraqi president by a two-thirds vote within 30 days of its first sitting. No more than 15 days later, the president is supposed to assign the prime minister nominee, chosen by the largest bloc, to appoint a cabinet. The nominee then has 30 days to do that. The executive branch has to be approved by a majority vote of Parliament.

But the reality is that Iraqi leaders have missed deadlines throughout the political process. On Thursday, the more optimistic politicians said they expected the government to be formed within a month. But many others said the talks could drag on until the summer. The American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been urging quick resolution to the most contentious issues.

The negotiations only began in earnest on Sunday, after weeks of sniping between the political parties. Their biggest disagreement right now is over the prime ministerial nominee. The main Shiite bloc has backed Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the current prime minister, while a loose alliance of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and secular politicians is opposing him.

In a news conference after the parliamentary meeting, Mr. Jaafari said he would step aside if asked to do so. But the Shiites have banded together in support, and Mr. Jaafari said later in an interview with Iraqiya, the state-financed TV network, that the Shiites had chosen their nominee in a democratic process.

    U.S.-Led Forces Continue Sweep for Insurgent Bases in Iraq, NYT, 17.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/international/middleeast/17cnd-iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

U.S. Forces in Big Assault Near Samarra

March 17, 2006
The New York Times
By EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 16 — The United States military announced Thursday that it had begun a large-scale assault on insurgent bases outside Samarra, a city north of Baghdad where the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine last month sent sectarian violence soaring in Iraq.

In Baghdad, Iraqi legislators convened the long-awaited first session of the new Parliament. The body's 275 members, all elected in December, were sworn in, and leaders delivered speeches calling for unity before adjourning the session and rushing to continue negotiations to form a full government.

The assault outside Samarra, which was led by the 101st Airborne Division but also included other American and Iraqi ground units, involved more than 50 aircraft for transport and air cover, hundreds of armored vehicles, and about 1,500 American and Iraqi troops, military spokesmen said. The Sunni Arab-dominated area has long been troubling for the American military, which has repeatedly raided it with little lasting effect on the insurgency.

The American military called the new operation the largest air assault — a military term for the insertion of soldiers by helicopters — since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But in terms of overall scale, it did not involve relatively large number of soldiers: for comparison, one of the armored sweeps in Anbar Province late last year involved about 3,500 American and Iraqi troops.

Initial reports indicated that soldiers taking part in this latest operation, which is expected to last for several days, had come across insurgent hideouts with six stockpiles of artillery shells, explosives, bomb-making equipment and military uniforms, spokesmen for the 101st Airborne Division said. Soldiers also detained at least 40 men suspected of being insurgents. There were no immediate reports of casualties on either side.

The American military did not say whether the operation was connected to the bombing last month that destroyed the golden mosque dome at the Askariya Shrine, one of Shiite Islam's holiest sites, and spurred Shiite militiamen to rampage across eastern Baghdad and cities in the south, leaving hundreds dead.

On Thursday, Baghdad police officials said that 36 bodies, all killed with gunshots to the head, had been discovered in various parts of the capital since Wednesday morning.

The raids in northern Iraq are being conducted across wide swaths of land around three villages east of Samarra, said an Iraqi Army official at an operations center in the city.

Most of the aircraft being deployed are Black Hawk and Chinook transport helicopters and Apache attack helicopters that are being used for air cover, said Lt. Col. Edward Loomis, a spokesman for the 101st Airborne. The colonel did not specify whether any airstrikes with missiles or bombs had been launched. Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, told CNN that insurgents "had been trying to create another Falluja" in the area, a reference to the Sunni Arab city west of Baghdad that had been an insurgent stronghold until the Marines assaulted it in a ground offensive in late 2004. "After the Falluja operation many of the insurgents moved on to other parts of the country," Mr. Zebari said.

Iraqi officials have announced the arrests of suspects connected to the bombing of the Askariya Shrine. On Sunday, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr gave details of the attack, saying 20 men placed 475 pounds of explosives throughout the mosque between 8 p.m. and 5:40 a.m. The explosives were then remotely detonated.

The violent aftermath of that attack continues to roil Iraq. American and Iraqi officials fear that a prolonged political battle over the formation of the government could widen sectarian rifts and fuel the Sunni Arab-led insurgency. As large-scale sectarian reprisals continue, Pentagon officials are revisiting plans to draw down the force of 133,000 American troops in Iraq this year.

In the 40-minute parliamentary session on Thursday, Iraqi leaders gave frank assessments of the country's problems. "The country is going through dangerous times," said Adnan Pachachi, the newly appointed temporary speaker of Parliament. "Sectarian tensions have increased and begun to create a national crisis that could destroy Iraq. We have to prove to the whole world that there will not be civil war between the people of this country. The danger is still there, and our enemies are watching us."

With the start of Parliament, Iraqi leaders face a tight formal deadline to establish a government. The new Constitution says the Parliament must appoint the Iraqi president by a two-thirds vote within 30 days of its first sitting. No more than 15 days later, the president is supposed to assign the prime minister nominee, chosen by the largest bloc, to appoint a cabinet. The nominee then has 30 days to do that. The executive branch has to be approved by a majority vote of Parliament.

But the reality is that Iraqi leaders have missed deadlines throughout the political process. On Thursday, the more optimistic politicians said they expected the government to be formed within a month. But many others said the talks could drag on until the summer. The American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been urging quick resolution to the most contentious issues.

The negotiations only began in earnest on Sunday, after weeks of sniping between the political parties. Their biggest disagreement right now is over the prime ministerial nominee. The main Shiite bloc has backed Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the current prime minister, while a loose alliance of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and secular politicians is opposing him.

In a news conference after the parliamentary meeting, Mr. Jaafari said he would step aside if asked to do so. But the Shiites have banded together in support, and Mr. Jaafari said later in an interview with Iraqiya, the state-financed TV network, that the Shiites had chosen their nominee in a democratic process.

Iraqi officials imposed a travel ban across Baghdad on Thursday, as they had done in the days after sectarian violence erupted last month. In the late morning, Parliament members began arriving at the convention center inside the fortified Green Zone, protected by layers of concrete blast walls, miles of concertina wire, and Georgian soldiers and South American guards who speak neither English nor Arabic.

After a singing of Koranic verses, the speaker of the transitional assembly, Hajim al-Hassani, announced the appointment of Mr. Pachachi. At 83, Mr. Pachachi is the oldest member of Parliament and entitled, by Arab tradition, to assume the role of speaker until someone is appointed permanently.

Mr. Pachachi tried to outline the importance of the political talks, and said the appointment of ministers should not be done on the basis of sect. But he was interrupted by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the main Shiite bloc. "The first session of Parliament, according to the Constitution, should be for administering the oath of office and appointing a speaker," Mr. Hakim said, sitting in black robes in the front row. "These discussions should come later."

Mr. Hakim's outburst underscored the sectarian tensions that Mr. Pachachi had tried to highlight. Some Sunni Arab politicians later expressed fury at the interruption. Mr. Hakim's party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, is considered by many Sunnis to be one of Iraq's most dangerous elements. It has a conservative Shiite ideology and an Iranian-trained militia, the Badr Organization, that has seized top posts in the security forces.

Violence erupted in Diyala Province on Thursday when a bomb exploded at a school around the town of Khalis, killing three girls and wounding two others, police officials said. Near Miqdadiya, gunmen shot dead a man and a woman. In Mosul, a bomb aimed at an American convoy killed an Iraqi civilian.

Inquiry Into Marine Counterattack

By The New York Times

WASHINGTON, March 16 — The United States military is investigating whether a Marine squad ambushed in November near the Iraqi town of Haditha committed wrongdoing when its counterattack killed 15 civilians, military officials said.

Maj. Gen. Richard C. Zilmer, the top Marine commander in Iraq, ordered the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to examine the incident after a preliminary inquiry last month recommended further investigation "into whether Marine response to the insurgent attack was appropriate and whether proper procedures were followed," a military official familiar with the investigation said. Military officers said the marines were on patrol near the town when a roadside bomb detonated and they came under fire from nearby houses. Civilians were caught in the crossfire during the ensuing fight, the officers said.

The Iraqi deaths were attributed incorrectly in a news release issued after the incident to a roadside bomb blast, according to another officer. The investigation was first reported by CNN. Several officers who spoke about the inquiry were granted anonymity so that they could discuss an investigation that is in its early stages.

John O'Neil contributed reporting fromNew York for this article, and Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi and Omar al-Neami fromBaghdad.

    U.S. Forces in Big Assault Near Samarra, NYT, 17.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/international/middleeast/17iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Iraqi Parliament Convenes as U.S. Air Assault Begins

March 16, 2006
The New York Times
By EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 16 — The new Iraqi Parliament convened for the first time today with blunt speeches about the nation's problems that were underscored by the announcement of a large-scale American assault to clear out a new insurgent stronghold.

The military said in a statement that the air assault northeast of Samarra was the largest since the 2003 invasion, involving more than 50 aircraft along with 1,500 Iraqi and American troops using more than 200 vehicles. The statement said that raids would continue for several days, and that a number of insurgent weapons caches had been discovered. Samarra is home to the Shiite shrine whose destruction last month set off waves of violence, but the majority of its residents are Sunni. Repeated sweeps by American soldiers have failed to secure the city.

Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said in a televised interview on CNN that insurgents "had been trying to create another Fallujah" in the area, a reference to a former insurgent stronghold that was cleared by an American offensive that destroyed much of the city in the process.

"After the Fallujah operation many of the insurgents moved on to other parts of the country," Mr. Zebari said.

In Baghdad, the long-awaited gathering of legislators elected three months earlier began with its leaders acknowledging the rising sectarian tensions and the vacuum of power.

In the absence of any real authority, the Parliament adjourned after engaging in 40 minutes of ceremonial procedures, with party leaders hastening off to afternoon meetings to continue negotiations over forming the new, four-year government.

The remarks by the Iraqi officials were some of the frankest assessments in recent weeks of the country's problems.

"The country is going through dangerous times, it faces challenges, and the perils come from every direction," said Adnan Pachachi, the newly appointed temporary speaker of Parliament. "Sectarian tensions have increased. We have to prove to the whole world that there will not be civil war between the people of this country. The danger is still there, and our enemies are watching us."

Much is at stake in the turbulent political process. The talks began in earnest only this week, after weeks of bitter political sniping, and are deadlocked over several critical issues, including the nominee for prime minister. American and Iraqi officials fear that a prolonged political battle could fuel the Sunni-led insurgency and widen sectarian rifts, which in turn could push Iraq further down the path to full-scale civil war and affect the Bush administration's plans to start drawing down the 133,000 troops here.

The most optimistic politicians said today that they expected the government to be formed in a month, with the prime minister, president and cabinet positions appointed. But many others estimated the talks would drag on until the summer. The American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been urging quick resolution to the most contentious issues, and has shepherded several meetings himself.

In a sign of the precarious situation here, Iraqi officials imposed an extraordinary travel ban across Baghdad today, as they had done in the days after sectarian violence erupted last month. When the transitional parliament met last year, there was no such curfew, and streets were jammed with the cars of people going about their daily business.

The widening cycle of violence even touched Iraqi Kurdistan, long believed to be a haven of calm. In the northern town of Halabja, hundreds of protesters angry at lack of services took to the streets and burned down a museum that had been erected, with international financing, in memory of the 5,000 Kurds killed by Saddam Hussein's military in a gas attack in the 1980's. Protesters were injured and some may have been killed. The crowd was demonstrating against the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party that governs eastern Kurdistan and whose leader, Jalal Talabani, is president of Iraq.

In the late morning, members of Parliament began arriving at the convention center inside the fortified Green Zone, protected by layers of concrete blast walls, miles of concertina wire and Georgian soldiers who speak neither English nor Arabic.

The top party leaders stood in the front row of the assembly hall and shook hands with the legislators as they filed past. Ambassador Khalilzad walked in with Bayan Jabr, the interior minister — a much-maligned figure who has been criticized by the Americans for allowing Shiite militias into the police forces.

After a singing of Koranic verses, the speaker of the transitional assembly, Hajim al-Hassani, announced the temporary appointment of Mr. Pachachi to the new job. Mr. Pachaci took the lectern in a dark suit and blue tie, a white handkerchief poking out of a breast pocket. At 83, he is the oldest member of Parliament and entitled, by Arab tradition, to take the role of speaker until someone is appointed permanently.

Mr. Pachachi tried to outline what is at stake in the political talks, saying that the appointment of ministers should not be done on a sectarian basis.

But he was interrupted by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the main Shiite bloc. "The first session of Parliament, according to the constitution, should be for administering the oath of office and appointing a speaker," Mr. Hakim said, sitting in black robes and turban in the front row. "These discussions should come later."

Mr. Hakim's outburst underscored the very sectarian tensions that Mr. Pachachi had sought to highlight. Some Sunni Arab politicians later expressed fury at the interruption. Mr. Hakim and his party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, are viewed by many Sunnis as one of Iraq's most dangerous elements, because the party adheres to a conservative Shiite ideology and has an Iranian-trained militia, the Badr Organization, that has filled top posts in the security forces.

In a news conference afterward, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the prime minister, who has been nominated by the Shiites to keep his job, said he would step aside if asked to do so. But the Shiites have banded behind him in support, even though the main Sunni Arab parties, the Kurds and secular leaders are insisting on his departure.

Later, in an interview with Iraqiya, the state-financed television network, Mr. Jaafari affirmed his right to the nomination by saying the Shiites had chosen him in a fair vote last month.

Also today, a spokesman for the American military said that it had "no reason to doubt" the Iraqi report that 11 civilians were killed in a raid near the Sunni town of Balad on Wednesday.

The military on Wednesday had said that only three civilians had been killed by ground and air fire that had been called in when soldiers trying to capture an insurgent suspect came under fire from a farmhouse.

John O'Neil contributed reporting from New York for this article.

    Iraqi Parliament Convenes as U.S. Air Assault Begins, NYT, 16.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/international/middleeast/16cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1142571600&en=c0661470fcb43785&ei=5094&partner=homepage


 

Taking the witness stand Wednesday for the first time in his trial, Saddam Hussein argued with the judge.

Pool Photo by Jacob Silberberg        NYT        March 16, 2006

Hussein Urges Iraqis to Unify in War on U.S.         NYT        16.3.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/international/middleeast/16saddam.html
 

Hussein Urges Iraqis to Unify in War on U.S.

March 16, 2006
The New York Times
By EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 15 — Saddam Hussein took the witness stand on Wednesday for his first formal testimony in his trial and delivered an incendiary political diatribe that urged Iraqis to stop sectarian bloodshed and to carry on the war against the Americans. The presiding judge halted the session after Mr. Hussein, brandishing thick reading glasses, repeatedly lambasted the court.

Mr. Hussein's nearly 40-minute speech was the most riveting element so far in a trial that has already been punctuated by tirades from the defendants and searing testimony from victims. Mr. Hussein marched up to the defendants' lectern in the midafternoon, after his half brother had spent three hours proclaiming their innocence, and read from a yellow notepad.

He had delivered outbursts before, but his sense of decorum and calm manner on Wednesday showed he was keenly aware that this afternoon, at this hour, the spotlight was reserved for him. He was better dressed than in previous sessions, draped in a black suit and charcoal-gray vest with a white shirt. His hair was combed and parted.

He went on to do exactly what Iraqi and American officials had long feared he might — use the session, televised across the Middle East, to try to incite the Sunni-led insurgency to further violence.

"You've been great throughout history and you've been great in your resistance to the American and Zionist invasion and its followers," he said in a firm voice, after calling on Iraqis to stop the sectarian violence. "You've been great in my eyes."

"You're defending your country against the occupation," he continued. "I want you to stick to your virtues, your faith and your patience."

In sharp rejoinders, Mr. Hussein demonstrated a command of recent events in Iraq. Told by the judge that he was accused of killing innocent people, Mr. Hussein pointed to the scores of bodies found this week, the victims of sectarian killings. "Just yesterday, 80 bodies of Iraqis were discovered in Baghdad," he said. "Aren't they innocent?"

Not once did Mr. Hussein address the case at hand, in which he and seven co-defendants are charged with jailing, torturing and executing 148 men and boys from the Shiite village of Dujail in the 1980's. The expression on the face of the presiding judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman, turned from bemusement to fatigue to fury. After a few heated exchanges, and after cutting off the sound at least nine times, the judge barred reporters from the court for more than 90 minutes, allowing them to return only after Mr. Hussein had finished speaking.

Mr. Hussein was the last of the defendants to testify, marking the mid-way point of the trial. Judge Abdel-Rahman adjourned the court until April 5, when Mr. Hussein may return for cross-examination. The three-judge panel will then decide what formal charges to bring against each defendant, while lawyers for both sides prepare for further arguments. American officials say the trial will continue until at least late May.

Even before Dujail ends, investigative judges are expected to refer the next case against Mr. Hussein for trial. It covers what is known as the Anfal campaign, in which Mr. Hussein's government razed villages across Iraqi Kurdistan in the 1980's and killed about 80,000 Kurds.

Since October, when the Dujail trial opened, Iraqi and American officials have struggled to establish the legitimacy of the Iraqi High Tribunal in the eyes of international observers and ordinary Iraqis. Even before the first session, the court was plagued by the assassinations of a judge and defense lawyers; political machinations aimed at purging judges; and attempts by the Iraqi government to shape the trial. During the trial, the court has had to contend with disorderly defendants, ambiguous witness testimony and a reshuffling of judges, after the first presiding judge resigned over criticism that he was too lenient.

American and Iraqi officials have insisted that the trial be held in this country, in defiance of a growing chorus of human rights advocates and foreign observers who urge that it be moved to an international venue. In any case, those critics would be difficult to win over, because most of them oppose the death penalty, which is expected to be levied against Mr. Hussein and his top aides.

The trial took a serious turn on Feb. 28, when the lead prosecutor presented documents that, he argued, showed Mr. Hussein's signature on execution orders of the 148 victims, who were rounded up in Dujail after a failed assassination attempt on Mr. Hussein there in 1982. But Mr. Hussein's fiery speech on Wednesday threatened to plunge the trial back into the circuslike atmosphere that has dogged it.

Though Iraqis huddle around television sets during each court session, there are few in this country who have not already made up their minds about Mr. Hussein. His supporters, mostly Sunni Arabs, have been bolstered by his display of defiance. His detractors say that same defiance shows Mr. Hussein is unrepentant, and should have been marched to his death immediately.

"This is a farce," said Akil Mutar, 24, a worker in a cramped foodstuffs shop downtown. "A man like Saddam shouldn't be submitted to the court, but should instead be executed even without being questioned. Saddam, through his speech, thinks and talks as if he's still the president."

Judge Abdel-Rahman, though firm in previous sessions, appeared to stumble a bit on Wednesday on the tightrope he has walked between allowing the defendants their right to speak and silencing them when they grandstand. American and Iraqi officials say they need to find that balance because they are anxious to demonstrate that this is not just a show trial leading to an inevitable verdict.

Mr. Hussein's half brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, who oversaw the intelligence service during the Dujail massacre, strode into court before 11 a.m. on Wednesday in a gray robe and red-and-white head scarf, a statement in his hand. Six of the eight defendants had testified Sunday and Monday. Like the others, Mr. Ibrahim denied any wrongdoing and said that, during the Dujail incident, he had "released many detainees and shook hands with them."

He justified the trials of those rounded up from Dujail by saying they had conspired with Iran to try to assassinate Mr. Hussein.

Mr. Ibrahim also said that documentary evidence that the prosecution had unveiled in earlier sessions had all been forged. Court officials have not explained whether or how they are authenticating evidence.

After a recess, Mr. Hussein glided up to the lectern.

He spoke of the Feb. 22 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, and how "criminals" and not Iraqis were responsible. "This is part of a plan to divide the people instead of carrying out jihad," he said, brown-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. "We know the resistance against the occupation will organize and go on and on, and the government will stumble even if it's supported by the occupiers."

Judge Abdel-Rahman interrupted a couple of minutes later.

"This is rhetoric," he said. "What's its relation to the subject?"

"I am still the president of the state," Mr. Hussein said. "I am president."

"You were president of the state," the judge said. "Now you are a defendant."

Mr. Hussein responded, "This is what you say and this is according to you and your conscience. As for me, I hold my oath in front of my people until the people choose someone other than me."

He labeled the Americans "criminals who came under the pretext of weapons of mass destruction and the pretext of democracy."

The prosecutor, Jaafar al-Mousawi, shouted a harsh warning to Mr. Hussein. The defense lawyers and Mr. Hussein yelled back.

The judge pressed a button. Television screens across Iraq went silent. The reporters and cameramen inside the courtroom were asked to leave.

They were allowed back in for a few final remarks. Later, in the hallway, Mr. Mousawi told reporters that during the closed session, Mr. Hussein had "gone on saying what he wanted to say."

Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting for this article.

    Hussein Urges Iraqis to Unify in War on U.S., NYT, 16.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/international/middleeast/16saddam.html

Few Rules in Use of Abu Ghraib Dogs, an Officer Testifies

March 16, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

FORT MEADE, Md., March 15 — The Army lacked clear rules for using dogs in interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, its former military intelligence chief acknowledged Wednesday during a court-martial of a dog handler.

The officer, Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 and early 2004, was the highest-ranking witness scheduled to testify at the trial of the dog handler, Sgt. Michael J. Smith, who is charged with abusing detainees at the prison in Iraq.

Colonel Pappas, testifying for the defense under a grant of immunity, said he regretted having failed to set "appropriate controls" at the prison, where detainees were bitten by dogs and assaulted and sexually humiliated by guards.

"In hindsight, clearly we probably needed to establish some definitive rules and put out some clear guidance to everybody concerned," Colonel Pappas said. Nevertheless, he said under cross-examination that a photograph showing Sergeant Smith's unmuzzled dog straining at its leash just inches from the face of a terrified prisoner was not consistent with any policy or guidance.

Colonel Pappas provided few details about the genesis of harsh interrogation tactics that included exploiting "Arab fear of dogs," a technique recommended in a policy dated Sept. 14, 2003. But he said the dogs were to be used "to assist in setting conditions for interrogations."

The policy required interrogators to get case-by-case approval from Colonel Pappas's supervisor, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, and required dogs to wear muzzles and to be controlled by their handlers.

    Few Rules in Use of Abu Ghraib Dogs, an Officer Testifies, NYT, 16.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/international/middleeast/16dogs.html?hp&ex=1142571600&en=df1a4d85877d375a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Hussein Testimony Prompts Closure of Court to Public

March 15, 2006
The New York Times
By EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 15 - Saddam Hussein took the witness stand today for his first formal testimony in his trial, delivering a rambling political diatribe urging Iraqis to continue their resistance to the American occupation.

Mr. Hussein, the last of the defendants to testify, did not address the charges against him, concerning the torture and killing of Shiite villagers in the 1980's.

He walked into the court, neatly dressed in a black suit and dark gray vest over a white shirt, put on a pair of glasses and began his testimony by reading from a written statement that essentially was an address to the country's insurgents.

"In your resistance to the American-Zionist invasion, you are great, and you will always be great in my eyes," Mr. Hussein said. "You're defending your country against the occupation. I want you to stick to your virtues, your faith and your patience."

"It's only a question of time till the sun rises and you will be victorious," he declared

Mr. Hussein called on Iraqis to stop fighting each other and said that "criminals" were responsible for the bombing in Samarra that touched off waves of sectarian killings.

The trial's chief judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman, repeatedly interrupted Mr. Hussein, telling him to stick to the charges against him.

"This is a criminal court, we are not in politics," the judge said.

"If it wasn't for politics neither you nor I would be here today," Mr. Hussein retorted.

Later, when the judge reminded Mr. Hussein that he was charged with killing innocent people, Mr. Hussein replied. "Yesterday 80 people were found in Baghdad. Weren't they innocent?"

Finally, after more than half an hour, the chief judge ordered that the live broadcast of the trial be cut off. "This is something between you and the Americans," he told Mr. Hussein. "Don't involve the court in the struggle between you and the Americans."

Mr. Hussein's testimony concluded the second portion of the trial, in which he and seven other former government officials are charged with wrongly imprisoning and killing 148 men and boys from the Shiite village of Dujail after assassins there tried to gun down Mr. Hussein in 1982.

The prosecution ended its case last week. After months of repeated delays, outbursts from the defendants and changes in the judges hearing the case, the trial picked up speed earlier this month when prosecutors presented reams of documents, including what they described as Mr. Hussein's signature on execution orders.

The panel of judges will now consider what charges to proceed on, after which the defense will have an opportunity to present witnesses.

Mr. Hussein's testimony came after his half-brother, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, much feared and loathed among Iraqis, presented the first formal defense of his actions in court today, saying he had played no role in the villagers' deaths.

He walked into court in the morning dressed in a red headscarf and gray robes, and proceeded to read from a lengthy statement. On occasion, he looked up at the judge, thick glasses perched on his nose.

"I would rather be a victim than inflict injustice on others," said Mr. Ibrahim, who led the intelligence service in the early 1980's. "I appreciate you giving me time to defend myself."While denying any role in the massacre, Mr. Ibrahim said the government was justified in trying the villagers because they had worked with Iran in the assassination attempt.

In his meandering testimony, which began at a courthouse in the Green Zone before 11 a.m. and went on into the afternoon, Mr. Ibrahim said documents that had been presented as evidence had been forged; complained about his treatment in prison; asked the authorities to released his jailed son; and mocked the Americans for invading Iraq on false premises.

"Your honor, during the last three years, I was under torture both physically and mentally," Mr. Ibrahim said. "The total time of interrogation was about four hours, and the rest of the time I was sitting in my damp cell."

The American military is believed to be holding Mr. Ibrahim and his co-defendants at Camp Cropper, a small detention center near Baghdad International Airport. Mr. Hussein and others have complained about torture during the trial, but American officials have said the accusations are false, merely thrown out there by the defendants to bolster the circus atmosphere of the trial.

At times today, the judge showed impatience with Mr. Ibrahim, telling him to limit his pronouncements to the Dujail case.

Other defendants have already testified before the court. On Monday, Awad al-Bandar, a former judge in the Revolutionary Court, said the people from Dujail who were killed had received a proper trial and had confessed to trying to assassinate Mr. Hussein at the instigation of Iran.

On Sunday, lower-level Baath Party officials from Dujail said they had seen men being rounded up and carted off to prison in the hours after the assassination attempt, but denied playing any role in that.

    Hussein Testimony Prompts Closure of Court to Public, NYT, 15.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/15/international/middleeast/15cnd-hussein.html?hp&ex=1142485200&en=962231fdb9abeea2&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Pentagon Plans to Send Extra Troops to Iraq During Holiday

March 15, 2006
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, March 15 — The American military is planning to send a battalion of about 800 troops from Kuwait into Iraq to coincide with a surge of pilgrims expected to visit Muslim shrines in coming days, Pentagon officials said today.

In both 2004 and 2005, violence was sometimes directed at Shiite pilgrims during religious holidays. Officials involved in the discussions said the plan was to send in a battalion-size group, of about 800 troops.

Pentagon civilian and military officials said the extra forces would come from a brigade of about 3,500 to 4,000 troops now stationed in Kuwait for just such a need if conditions deteriorated.

The deployment — expected to last 30 to 45 days — would be the first time the brigade, a unit of the First Armored Division, left its standby status and entered the fight.

The officials who described the outlines of the deployment were granted anonymity because the troop movement has not been officially announced, and no deployment order is final until signed by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

But Mr. Rumsfeld hinted at the temporary increase in troop levels on Tuesday, as he described discussions he has held with Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior commander in Iraq.

"We move troops in and out depending on events, like we did for the referendum, the election," Mr. Rumsfeld said on Tuesday. "General Casey may decide he wants to bulk up slightly for the pilgrimage."

Mr. Rumsfeld did not specify which holiday or pilgrimage was prompting the security concern. The Muslim holy day of Arbaeen falls on March 20; it commemorates the 40th day after Imam Hussein's martyrdom, a key moment in the history of Shia Islam, and features travel to shrines at Karbala and Najaf.

The discussions on troop numbers come at a time of continuing sectarian violence in Iraq that senior military officials now say poses a greater security threat than terrorists or the insurgency.

Until the recent surge in violence, there had been talk of additional, incremental reductions in the numbers of American forces this spring and summer.

One reason for concern, Mr. Rumsfeld said, was the number of pilgrims from Iran who go to Iraq. President Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld and other officials have said in recent days that Iran is intervening in Iraqi affairs and fomenting attacks.

Mr. Rumsfeld avoided making predictions on Tuesday about future troop levels, saying they would fluctuate as the United States worked to reduce its forces by handing off security responsibilities to Iraqis, but he sought not to withdraw at such a pace that it invited sectarian, insurgent or terrorist violence.

"We're continuing to pull troops down," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "And we're continuing to shift our weight, as we've said, between the combat patrol aspects of it, over to the training and the equipping and providing the enablers."

The American troop presence in Iraq stood at 133,000 on Tuesday, according to Pentagon statistics.

Mr. Rumsfeld also said Tuesday for the first time that American intelligence agencies were analyzing the possibility of a civil war in Iraq, but he insisted that Iraq was not close to such widespread sectarian conflict.

"Is it true the people in the intelligence community are thinking about this and analyzing it and doing red team — A team/B team-type looks at it?" Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Sure they are. And they should be. Do I think we're in a civil war at the present time? No."

At the same news conference, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said both "the path toward civil war" and "the path to freedom and representative government and a prosperous future" are before the Iraqi people.

"I believe that they have looked at the path that leads to civil war and decided they do not want to go in that direction, and they're very much looking toward how can they have a unified government and move down that path," he said.

    Pentagon Plans to Send Extra Troops to Iraq During Holiday, NYT, 15.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/15/international/middleeast/15cnd-military.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Rumsfeld Hints at Troop Increase During Pilgrimage Surge

March 15, 2006
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, March 14 — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld gave a strong hint on Tuesday that American troop levels in Iraq might be increased in coming days, perhaps only slightly and temporarily.

At a Pentagon news briefing, Mr. Rumsfeld said any increase in troops would coincide with a surge of pilgrims expected to visit Muslim shrines in coming weeks. In both 2004 and 2005, violence was sometimes directed at Shiite pilgrims during religious holidays.

Three officials involved in the discussions said a leading proposal was to send in a battalion-size group, about 800 troops.

Pentagon civilian and military officials said any extra forces that might be ordered into Iraq would come from an armored brigade of about 3,500 to 4,000 troops now stationed in Kuwait for just such a need if conditions deteriorated.

If the deployment were to occur, it would be the first time the brigade, a unit of the First Armored Division, left its standby status and entered the fight.

Officials said neither Mr. Rumsfeld nor Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior commander in Iraq, had made a final decision on troop movements yet.

"We move troops in and out depending on events, like we did for the referendum, the election," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "General Casey may decide he wants to bulk up slightly for the pilgrimage." Mr. Rumsfeld did not specify which holiday or pilgrimage was prompting the security concern.

The discussions on troop numbers come at a time of continuing sectarian violence in Iraq that senior military officials now say poses a greater security threat than terrorists or the insurgency.

Until the recent upwelling of violence, there had been talk of additional, incremental reductions in the numbers of American forces this spring and summer.

One reason for concern, Mr. Rumsfeld said, was the number of pilgrims from Iran who come to Iraq. President Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld and other officials have said in recent days that Iran is intervening in Iraqi affairs and fomenting attacks.

Mr. Rumsfeld avoided making predictions about future troop levels, saying they would fluctuate as the United States worked to reduce its forces by handing off security responsibilities to Iraqis, but sought not to withdraw at such a pace that it invited sectarian, insurgent or terrorist violence.

"We're continuing to pull troops down," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "And we're continuing to shift our weight, as we've said, between the combat patrol aspects of it, over to the training and the equipping and providing the enablers."

The American troop presence in Iraq stood at 133,000 on Tuesday, according to Pentagon statistics.

Mr. Rumsfeld also said Tuesday for the first time that American intelligence agencies were analyzing the possibility of a civil war in Iraq, but he insisted that Iraq was not close to such widespread sectarian conflict.

"Is it true the people in the intelligence community are thinking about this and analyzing it and doing red team — A team/B team-type looks at it?" Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Sure they are. And they should be. Do I think we're in a civil war at the present time? No."

At the same news conference, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said both "the path toward civil war" and "the path to freedom and representative government and a prosperous future" are before the Iraqi people.

"I believe that they have looked at the path that leads to civil war and decided they do not want to go in that direction, and they're very much looking toward how can they have a unified government and move down that path," he said.

    Rumsfeld Hints at Troop Increase During Pilgrimage Surge, NYT, 15.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/15/politics/15military.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Bush, Conceding Problems, Defends Iraq War

March 14, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, March 13 — President Bush on Monday pushed back at critics on the left and right who had urged that American troops be withdrawn from Iraq before they were caught in a civil war, contending in the first of a new series of speeches that his strategy is working and declaring, "We will not lose our nerve."

Yet Mr. Bush acknowledged that the conflict that began three years ago next week, when he ordered the start of an invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, had taken on a different complexion with the recent acceleration of sectarian violence. Twice he used the words "civil war" in his speech, but only to describe the objectives of Sunnis, Saddamists and members of Al Qaeda seeking to keep a new government from forming, rather than to characterize the current state of events.

"I wish I could tell you that the violence is waning and that the road ahead will be smooth," Mr. Bush said in a speech before the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an institute created after the Sept. 11 attacks that has been supportive of Mr. Bush's agenda. "It will not. There will be more tough fighting and more days of struggle, and we will see more images of chaos and carnage in the days and months to come."

Mr. Bush's muted tone came less than 10 months after his vice president, Dick Cheney, said, "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

Mr. Bush has expressed concern that televised images of the continuing violence in Iraq, especially between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, is further undercutting support for the war. In advance of the speech, one of Mr. Bush's aides said last week that "at various moments, we have had to get the president out there to reassure people, re-explain the strategy, and make it clear that we have a long-term approach."

But the frequency of those presidential messages seems to be increasing as the situation in Iraq grows more volatile. When Mr. Bush last gave a series of speeches on Iraq in December — timed with the release of a National Security Council document called "Our National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" — the effort temporarily halted a decline in both his approval ratings and support for a short-term exit strategy. Both have fallen in the past month.

Monday's speech was in the same vein, but Mr. Bush was clearly seeking to manage expectations and answer a new group of critics — neoconservatives who have said that because Iraq is now liberated, it is up to the Iraqis themselves to defend the country and piece together a government acceptable to all factions. Among them have been William F. Buckley Jr. and Francis Fukuyama, who have expressed doubt about the speed with which the Iraqis will embrace democratic change.

In the speech, Mr. Bush gave no ground on that issue, repeating his conviction that the insurgents will be defeated. But he acknowledged new challenges, describing last month's attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra as "a clear attempt to ignite a civil war."

"We can expect the enemy will try again, and they will continue to sow violence and destruction designed to stop the emergence of a free and democratic Iraq," Mr. Bush said. "The enemies of a free Iraq are determined, yet so are the Iraqi people, and so are America and coalition partners. We will not lose our nerve."

Mr. Bush also included in his speech a specific accusation against Iran, accusing it of providing technology to improve the lethality of the bombs known as improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.'s. "Some of the most powerful I.E.D.'s we are seeing in Iraq today include components that came from Iran," he said. "Coalition forces have seized I.E.D.'s and components that were clearly produced in Iran." But he issued no warnings beyond his stock phrase that Iran's intervention in Iraq and its effort to process uranium that the United States contends could be used in a nuclear weapon "are increasingly isolating Iran."

"It was a very deliberate message at a very crucial moment," one of Mr. Bush's senior aides said of the president's comments on Iran. The aide noted that the United Nations Security Council was beginning to debate this week how to respond to the nuclear challenge.

But if Mr. Bush is turning attention to Iran, he seemed aware on Monday that Iraq was what was on American television screens. "Terrorists are losing on the field of battle, so they are fighting this war through the pictures we see on television and in the newspapers every day," he said. "They're hoping to shake our resolve and force us to retreat. They are not going to succeed."

But while he predicted victory, he made clear the consequences of defeat. "The enemy will emerge from Iraq one of two ways: emboldened or defeated," he said, allowing for a possibility he had not before discussed. "The stakes in Iraq are high. By helping Iraqis build a democracy, we will deny the terrorists a safe haven to plan attacks against America. By helping Iraqis build a democracy, we will gain an ally in the war on terror. By helping Iraqis build a democracy, we will inspire reformers across the Middle East. And by helping Iraqis build a democracy, we will bring hope to a troubled region, and this will make America more secure in the long term."

Mr. Bush set a loose goal of training enough Iraqi police and soldiers to control a majority of Iraq's territory by the end of this year. The target could be misleading, however, because the sectarian violence is concentrated in small but strategically crucial parts of the country.

Mr. Bush is using each speech to focus on an element of his strategy. On Monday he focused on reducing the threat of the improvised explosive devices.

    Bush, Conceding Problems, Defends Iraq War, NYT, 14.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/14/politics/14prexy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Dash to Baghdad Left Top U.S. Generals Divided

March 13, 2006
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and BERNARD E. TRAINOR

The war was barely a week old when Gen. Tommy R. Franks threatened to fire the Army's field commander.

From the first days of the invasion in March 2003, American forces had tangled with fanatical Saddam Fedayeen paramilitary fighters. Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, who was leading the Army's V Corps toward Baghdad, had told two reporters that his soldiers needed to delay their advance on the Iraqi capital to suppress the Fedayeen threat in the rear.

Soon after, General Franks phoned Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, the commander of allied land forces, to warn that he might relieve General Wallace.

The firing was averted after General McKiernan flew to meet General Franks. But the episode revealed the deep disagreements within the United States high command about the Iraqi military threat and what would be required to defeat it.

The dispute, related by military officers in interviews, had lasting consequences. The unexpected tenacity of the Fedayeen in the battles for Nasiriya, Samawa, Najaf and other towns on the road to Baghdad was an early indication that the adversary was not merely Saddam Hussein's vaunted Republican Guard.

The paramilitary Fedayeen were numerous, well-armed, dispersed throughout the country, and seemingly determined to fight to the death. But while many officers in the field assessed the Fedayeen as a dogged foe, General Franks and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld saw them as little more than speed bumps on the way to Baghdad. Three years later, Iraq has yet to be subdued. Many of the issues that have haunted the Bush administration about the war — the failure to foresee a potential insurgency and to send sufficient troops to stabilize the country after Saddam Hussein's government was toppled — were foreshadowed early in the conflict. How some of the crucial decisions were made, the behind-the-scenes debate about them and early cautions about a sustained threat have not been previously known.

¶A United States Marines intelligence officer warned after the bloody battle at Nasiriya, the first major fight of the war, that the Fedayeen would continue to mount attacks after the fall of Baghdad since many of the enemy fighters were being bypassed in the race to the capital.

¶In an extraordinary improvisation, Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile leader who was a Pentagon favorite, was flown to southern Iraq with hundreds of his fighters as General Franks's command sought to put an "Iraqi face" on the invasion; the plan was set in motion without the knowledge of top administration officials, including Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence.

¶Instead of sending additional troops to impose order after the fall of Baghdad, Mr. Rumsfeld and General Franks canceled the deployment of the First Cavalry Division;

General McKiernan was unhappy with the decision, which was made at a time when ground forces were needed to deal with the chaos in Iraq.

This account of decision-making inside the American command is based on interviews with dozens of military officers and government officials over the last two years. Some asked to remain unidentified because they were speaking about delicate internal deliberations that they were not authorized to discuss publicly.

Early Resistance Wasn't Foreseen

As American-led forces prepared to invade Iraq in March 2003, American intelligence was not projecting a major fight in southern Iraq. C.I.A. officials told United States commanders that anti-Hussein tribes might secure a vital Euphrates River bridge and provide other support. Tough resistance was not expected until Army and Marine troops began to close in on Baghdad.

Almost from the start, however, the troops found themselves fighting the Fedayeen and Baath Party paramilitary forces. The Fedayeen had been formed in the mid-1990's to suppress any Shiite revolts. Equipped with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms, they wore civilian dress and were positioned in southern Iraq. The first marine to die in combat, in fact, was shot by a paramilitary fighter in a Toyota pickup truck.

After Nasiriya, Lt. Col. Joseph Apodaca, a Marine intelligence officer in that critical first battle, drafted a classified message concluding that the Fedayeen would continue to be a threat. Many had sought sanctuary in small towns that were bypassed in the rush to Baghdad. The colonel compared the Fedayeen attacks to insurgencies in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Colombia, and warned that unless American troops went after them in force, the enemy would continue their attacks after Baghdad fell, hampering efforts to stabilize Iraq.

At the land war headquarters, there was growing concern about the Fedayeen as well. On March 28, General McKiernan, the land war commander, flew to the Jalibah airfield to huddle with his Army and Marine commanders. General Wallace reported that his troops had managed to contain the Iraqi paramilitary forces but that the American hold on them was tenuous. His concern was that the Fedayeen were threatening the logistics needed to push to Baghdad. "I am not sure how many of the knuckleheads there are," he said, according to notes taken by a military aide.

Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, the top Marine field commander, was also impressed by the fighters' tenacity. Bypassed enemy units were attacking American supply lines.

General McKiernan concluded that the United States faced two "centers of gravity": the Republican Guard, concentrated near Baghdad, and the paramilitary Fedayeen. He decided to suspend the march to the capital for several days while continuing airstrikes and engaging the Fedayeen. Only then, he figured, would conditions be right for the final assault into Baghdad to remove Mr. Hussein from power. To provide more support, General McKiernan freed up his only reserve, troops from the 82nd Airborne Division.

When he returned to his headquarters in Kuwait, there was a furor in Washington over General Wallace's comments to the press.

"The enemy we're fighting is a bit different than the one we war-gamed against, because of these paramilitary forces," General Wallace had said to The New York Times and The Washington Post. "We knew they were here, but we did not know how they would fight." Asked whether the fighting increased the chances of a longer war than forecast by some military planners, he responded, "It's beginning to look that way."

Relying on Speed Over Manpower

To General Franks, those remarks apparently were tantamount to a vote of no-confidence in his war plan. It relied on speed, and he had told Mr. Rumsfeld that his forces might take Baghdad in just a few weeks. In Washington, General Wallace's comments were seized on by critics as evidence that Mr. Rumsfeld had not sent enough troops. More than a year earlier, he had ridiculed the initial war plan that called for at least 380,000 troops and had pushed the military's Central Command to use fewer soldiers and deploy them more quickly. At a Pentagon news conference, the defense secretary denied that he had any role in shaping the war plan. "It was not my plan," he said. "It was General Franks's plan, and it was a plan that evolved over a sustained period of time."

Privately, Mr. Rumsfeld hinted at his impatience with his generals. Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker and a Rumsfeld adviser, forwarded a supportive memo from Col. Douglas Macgregor, who had long assailed the Army leadership as risk averse. In a blistering attack, Colonel Macgregor denounced the decision to suspend the advance. Replying to Mr. Gingrich, the secretary wrote: "Thanks for the Macgregor piece. Nobody up here is thinking like this."

General McKiernan, for his part, was stunned by the threat to fire General Wallace. "Talk about unhinging ourselves," he told Lt. Gen. John P. Abizaid, General Franks's deputy, according to military aides who later learned of the conversation.

At General Franks's headquarters in Qatar the next day, General McKiernan made the case against removing General Wallace, according to officers who learned about the episode. Gary Luck, a retired general and an adviser to General Franks, said General Wallace was not one to shrink from a fight. General Wallace survived, but the strategy debate was far from over.

General Franks did not respond to requests for comment for this article. An aide, Michael Hayes, a retired Army colonel, said that to his knowledge, the accounts of General Franks's threat to fire General Wallace and other conversations with his commanders were inaccurate, but he declined to address specifics.

Seeking an Iraqi Face for the War

Calculating the resistance would fade if the invasion had an Iraqi face, General Franks's command turned to an unlikely ally.

Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile leader who had been long been pushing for Saddam Hussein's ouster and was championed by some Pentagon officials, was based in northern Kurdistan with his fighters. An American colonel, Ted Seel, was assigned as a military liaison.

On March 27, he was asked to call General Abizaid's office. The general wanted to know how many fighters Mr. Chalabi had and if he would be willing to deploy them, according to Colonel Seel.

Mr. Chalabi said he could field as many as 1,000, but Colonel Seel thought 700 was more accurate. The United States Air Force could fly them in to the Tallil Air Base just south of Nasiriya.

Eager to reassure the White House that he had an Iraqi ally, General Franks told Mr. Bush in a videoconference that Iraqi freedom fighters would be joining the American-led forces. Franklin C. Miller, the senior National Security Council deputy for defense issues, was taken aback by the plan. Unlike a small group of Iraq exiles recruited by the Pentagon and trained in Hungary, these fighters had not been screened or trained by the American military.

He approached Mr. Tenet, the director of central intelligence. Who are these freedom fighters? he asked, according to an official who was present. Mr. Tenet said he had no idea.

When the airlift finally started in early April, about 570 fighters were ready. As the C-17's were being loaded, Mr. Chalabi wanted to go as well. General Abizaid objected, arguing in an exchange with Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, that the military command should not be taking sides in future Iraqi politics by flying a potential Iraqi leader to southern Iraq, but Mr. Wolfowitz did not yield. He said Mr. Chalabi's fighters did not want to go without their leader, according to officials familiar with the exchange. When General Abizaid awoke the next day, Mr. Chalabi was at Tallil. His fighters would never play a meaningful role in the war. They arrived without their arms and were not well supervised by the United States Special Forces. But Mr. Chalabi, now the deputy prime minister of Iraq, proved to be undeterred. After arriving at Tallil, he drove to Nasiriya and delivered a rousing speech. It was the beginning of his political comeback.

Harsh Criticism From a General

Determined to spur his ground war commanders to renew the push toward Baghdad, General Franks flew to General McKiernan's headquarters in Kuwait on March 31, where he delivered some harsh criticism.

Only the British and the Special Operations forces had been fighting, he complained, according to participants in the meeting. General Franks said he doubted that the Third Infantry Division had had a serious tank engagement and warned of the embarrassment that would follow if they failed. The resistance around Karbala on the Army's route to Baghdad was minor, he said, and easily crushed. He expressed frustration that neither General McKiernan nor the Marines had forced the destruction of Iraq's 10th and Sixth Army Divisions, units the Marines and General McKiernan viewed as severely weakened by airstrikes, far from the invasion route and posing little threat.

One of the most critical moments of the meeting came when General Franks indicated he did not want to be slowed by overly cautious generals concerned about holding casualties to a minimum, though no one had raised the issue of casualties. To dramatize his point, according to one participant, General Franks put his hand to his mouth and made a yawning motion.

After the session, General McKiernan approached Maj. Gen. Albert Whitley, his top British deputy. "That conversation never happened," General McKiernan said, according to military officials who learned of the exchange. By April 2, American forces were closing in on the capital. Even before the war, Mr. Rumsfeld saw the deployment of United States forces more in terms of what was needed to win the war than to secure the peace.

With the tide in the United States' favor, he began to raise the issue of canceling the deployment of the First Cavalry Division — some 16,000 soldiers. General Franks eventually went along. Though the general insisted he was not pressured to agree, he later acknowledged that the defense secretary had put the issue on the table. "Don Rumsfeld did in fact make the decision to off-ramp the First Cavalry Division," General Franks said in an earlier interview with The New York Times.

General McKiernan, the senior United States general in Iraq at the time, was not happy about the decision but did not protest.

Three years later, with thousands of lives lost in the tumult of Iraq, senior officers say that canceling the division was a mistake, one that reduced the number of American forces just as the Fedayeen, former soldiers and Arab jihadists were beginning to organize in what would become an insurgency.

"The Baathist insurgency surprised us and we had not developed a comprehensive option for dealing with this possibility, one that would have included more military police, civil affairs units, interrogators, interpreters and Special Operations forces," said Gen. Jack Keane of the Army, who is now retired and served as the acting chief of staff during the summer of 2003.

"If we had planned for an insurgency, we probably would have deployed the First Cavalry Division and it would have assisted greatly with the initial occupation. "This was not just an intelligence community failure, but also our failure as senior military leaders."

    Dash to Baghdad Left Top U.S. Generals Divided, NYT, 13.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/international/middleeast/13command.html?hp&ex=1142226000&en=6d9e5888362acdbb&ei=5094&partner=homepage

After Invasion, Point Man for Iraq Was Shunted Aside

March 13, 2006
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and BERNARD E. TRAINOR

As the Bush administration's envoy for Iraqi politics, Zalmay Khalilzad had considerable experience dealing with Iraqi opponents of Saddam Hussein.

Before the war, Mr. Khalilzad was the White House's point man in meetings with Iraqi exile leaders in London and Kurdistan. After the shooting started, he was a key figure at political gatherings in Baghdad and at Tallil air base to begin assembling a new Iraqi leadership.

So when the White House prepared to announce the appointment of L. Paul Bremer III as the chief civilian administrator in Iraq in May 2003, Mr. Khalilzad had every expectation that he would continue in his political role. But just before the announcement, he learned he was not going to Iraq with Mr. Bremer after all.

In fact, his Iraqi political portfolio was gone. The decision surprised not just Mr. Khalilzad, but also Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, according to former State Department officials who asked to remain anonymous because they were talking about private discussions. Why, Mr. Powell wondered, was the Bush administration excluding the one guy who knew all the players and was trusted by them?

Mr. Powell phoned Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, for an explanation. Ms. Rice replied she had had nothing to do with the decision. In a White House meeting with Mr. Bush, Mr. Bremer had insisted on sole control of the occupation authority as well as efforts to engineer a new government, Mr. Bremer notes in his book.

Gen. Jay Garner, who had served as the chief civilian administrator in Iraq before Mr. Bremer's appointment, said the decision to exclude Mr. Khalilzad was a mistake. "I thought it was absolutely tragic when Zal got edged out," General Garner said in an interview. "He was damn good as a diplomat and my sense was that the Iraqis trusted him."

While Mr. Bremer had experience on terrorism issues and was energetic, he had never served in the Middle East and had no nation-building experience. In Baghdad, he made several decisions that he vigorously defends, but which critics say proved fateful in slowing the rebuilding of the country and allowing violence to mount. He dissolved the Iraq Army and backed the White House policy of purging many Baath Party members from government positions.

Military officials complained he was not committed to local elections. When the United States Marines organized voting in Najaf, Mr. Bremer ordered the military to cancel it after concluding that a candidate he did not favor would win, according to senior Marine commanders. "When we denied Iraqis the opportunity to elect local officials," said Lt. Gen. James Conway, "we were increasingly seen as occupiers."

After Mr.Bremer went to Baghdad, Mr. Khalilzad, who grew up in Afghanistan, was appointed ambassador to his native country. After Mr. Bremer left Iraq, and after a short tour by John D. Negroponte, Mr. Khalilzad was appointed the United States ambassador in Baghdad. As a conservative strategist, Mr. Khalilzad was among those who pushed for tough action on Iraq. In his current role, he has drawn criticism from Shiites and Sunnis in recent weeks as sectarian violence has heightened the threat of civil war. But both sides also praise his negotiating skills and say he is essential to bring the factions together to form a new government. "He was very flexible," Mr. Garner said of Mr. Khalilzad's pragmatic approach. "If something did not work out, he would try another path."

For Mr. Powell and his aides, the decision to exclude Mr. Khalilzad demonstrated the administration's tendency to make important decisions without consulting key officials. Neither he nor Ms. Rice were told in advance of the decision to dissolve the Iraqi military, according to State Department officials.

As he was preparing to leave office, Mr. Powell told Mr. Bush that the national security process was broken, according to former officials who did not want to comment on the record about a private conversation.

    After Invasion, Point Man for Iraq Was Shunted Aside, NYT, 13.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/international/middleeast/13zalmay.html





 

In April 2003, Iraqi television showed what it said was Saddam Hussein in Baghdad while he was on the run from allied attacks.

Reuters        NYT        March 11, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/international/middleeast/12saddam.html?hp&ex=
1142226000&en=84de85596df57700&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Even as U.S. Invaded, Hussein Saw Iraqi Unrest as Top Threat        NYT        12.3.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/international/middleeast/12saddam.html?hp&ex=
1142226000&en=84de85596df57700&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Even as U.S. Invaded, Hussein Saw Iraqi Unrest as Top Threat

March 12, 2006
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and BERNARD E. TRAINOR

As American warplanes streaked overhead two weeks after the invasion began, Lt. Gen. Raad Majid al-Hamdani drove to Baghdad for a crucial meeting with Iraqi leaders. He pleaded for reinforcements to stiffen the capital's defenses and permission to blow up the Euphrates River bridge south of the city to block the American advance.

But Saddam Hussein and his small circle of aides had their own ideas of how to fight the war. Convinced that the main danger to his government came from within, Mr. Hussein had sought to keep Iraq's bridges intact so he could rush troops south if the Shiites got out of line.

General Hamdani got little in the way of additional soldiers, and the grudging permission to blow up the bridge came too late. The Iraqis damaged only one of the two spans, and American soldiers soon began to stream across.

The episode was just one of many incidents, described in a classified United States military report, other documents and in interviews, that demonstrate how Mr. Hussein was so preoccupied about the threat from within his country that he crippled his military in fighting the threat from without.

Only one of his defenses — the Saddam Fedayeen — proved potent against the invaders. They later joined the insurgency still roiling Iraq, but that was largely by default, not design.

Ever vigilant about coups and fearful of revolt, Mr. Hussein was deeply distrustful of his own commanders and soldiers, the documents show.

He made crucial decisions himself, relied on his sons for military counsel and imposed security measures that had the effect of hobbling his forces. He did that in several ways:

¶The Iraqi dictator was so secretive and kept information so compartmentalized that his top military leaders were stunned when he told them three months before the war that he had no weapons of mass destruction, and they were demoralized because they had counted on hidden stocks of poison gas or germ weapons for the nation's defense.

¶He put a general widely viewed as an incompetent drunkard in charge of the Special Republican Guard, entrusted to protect the capital, primarily because he was considered loyal.

¶Mr. Hussein micromanaged the war, not allowing commanders to move troops without permission from Baghdad and blocking communications among military leaders.

The Fedayeen's operations were not shared with leaders of conventional forces. Republican Guard divisions were not allowed to communicate with sister units. Commanders could not even get precise maps of terrain near the Baghdad airport because that would identify locations of the Iraqi leader's palaces.

Much of this material is included in a secret history prepared by the American military of how Mr. Hussein and his commanders fought their war. Posing as military historians, American analysts interrogated more than 110 Iraqi officials and military officers, treating some to lavish dinners to pry loose their secrets and questioning others in a detention center at the Baghdad airport or the Abu Ghraib prison. United States military officials view the accounts as credible because many were similar. In addition, more than 600 captured Iraqi documents were reviewed.

Overseen by the Joint Forces Command, an unclassified version of the study is to be made public soon. A classified version was prepared in April 2005. Titled "Iraqi Perspectives on Operation Iraqi Freedom, Major Combat Operations," the study shows that Mr. Hussein discounted the possibility of a full-scale American invasion.

"A few weeks before the attacks Saddam still thought the U.S. would not use ground forces," Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister, told American interrogators. "He thought they would not fight a ground war because it would be too costly to the Americans."

Despite the lopsided defeat his forces suffered during the Persian Gulf war in 1991, Mr. Hussein did not see the United States as his primary adversary. His greater fear was a Shiite uprising, like the one that shook his government after the 1991 war.

His concern for the threats from within interfered with efforts to defend against an external enemy, as was evident during a previously unknown review of military planning in 1995. Taking a page out of the Russian playbook, Iraqi officers suggested a new strategy to defend the homeland. Just as Russia yielded territory to defeat Napoleon and later Hitler's invading army, Iraq would resist an invading army by conducting a fighting retreat. Well-armed Iraqi tribes would be like the Russian partisans. Armored formations, including the Republican Guard, would assume a more modest role.

Mr. Hussein rejected the recommendation. Arming local tribes was too risky for a government that lived in fear of a popular uprising.

While conventional military planning languished, Mr. Hussein's focus on internal threats led to an important innovation: creation of the Fedayeen paramilitary forces. Equipped with AK-47's, rocket propelled grenades and small-caliber weapons, one of their primary roles was to protect Baath Party headquarters and keep the Shiites at bay in the event of a rebellion until more heavily equipped Iraqi troops could crush them.

Controlled by Uday Hussein, a son of the Iraqi leader, the Fedayeen and other paramilitary forces were so vital to the survival of the government that they "drained manpower" that would otherwise have been used by Iraq's army, the classified report says.

Mr. Hussein was also worried about his neighbor to the east. Like the Bush administration, Mr. Hussein suspected Iran of developing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Each year the Iraqi military conducted an exercise code-named Golden Falcon that focused on defense of the Iraq-Iran border.

The United States was seen as a lesser threat, mostly because Mr. Hussein believed that Washington could not accept significant casualties. In the 1991 war, the United States had no intention of taking Baghdad. President George H. W. Bush justified the restraint as prudent to avoid the pitfalls of occupying Iraq, but Mr. Hussein concluded that the United States was fearful of the military cost.

Mr. Hussein's main concern about a possible American military strike was that it might prompt the Shiites to take up arms against the government. "Saddam was concerned about internal unrest amongst the tribes before, during or after an attack by the U.S. on Baghdad," Mr. Aziz told his interrogators. Other members of Mr. Hussein's inner circle thought that if the Americans attacked, they would do no more than conduct an intense bombing campaign and seize the southern oil fields.

Steps to Avoid War

Mr. Hussein did take some steps to avoid provoking war, though. While diplomatic efforts by France, Germany and Russia were under way to avert war, he rejected proposals to mine the Persian Gulf, fearing that the Bush administration would use such an action as an excuse to strike, the Joint Forces Command study noted.

In December 2002, he told his top commanders that Iraq did not possess unconventional arms, like nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, according to the Iraq Survey Group, a task force established by the C.I.A. to investigate what happened to Iraq's weapons programs. Mr. Hussein wanted his officers to know they could not rely on poison gas or germ weapons if war broke out. The disclosure that the cupboard was bare, Mr. Aziz said, sent morale plummeting.

To ensure that Iraq would pass scrutiny by United Nations arms inspectors, Mr. Hussein ordered that they be given the access that they wanted. And he ordered a crash effort to scrub the country so the inspectors would not discover any vestiges of old unconventional weapons, no small concern in a nation that had once amassed an arsenal of chemical weapons, biological agents and Scud missiles, the Iraq survey group report said.

Mr. Hussein's compliance was not complete, though. Iraq's declarations to the United Nations covering what stocks of illicit weapons it had possessed and how it had disposed of them were old and had gaps. And Mr. Hussein would not allow his weapons scientists to leave the country, where United Nations officials could interview them outside the government's control.

Seeking to deter Iran and even enemies at home, the Iraqi dictator's goal was to cooperate with the inspectors while preserving some ambiguity about its unconventional weapons — a strategy General Hamdani, the Republican Guard commander, later dubbed in a television interview "deterrence by doubt."

That strategy led to mutual misperception. When Secretary of State Colin L. Powell addressed the Security Council in February 2003, he offered evidence from photographs and intercepted communications that the Iraqis were rushing to sanitize suspected weapons sites. Mr. Hussein's efforts to remove any residue from old unconventional weapons programs were viewed by the Americans as efforts to hide the weapons. The very steps the Iraqi government was taking to reduce the prospect of war were used against it, increasing the odds of a military confrontation.

Even some Iraqi officials were impressed by Mr. Powell's presentation. Abd al-Tawab Mullah Huwaish, who oversaw Iraq's military industry, thought he knew all the government's secrets. But Bush administration officials were so insistent that he began to question whether Iraq might have prohibited weapons after all. "I knew a lot, but wondered why Bush believed we had these weapons," he told interrogators after the war, according to the Iraq Survey Group report.

Guarding Against Revolt

As the war approached, Mr. Hussein took steps to suppress an uprising. Fedayeen paramilitary units were dispersed throughout the south, as were huge stashes of small-caliber weapons. Mr. Hussein divided Iraq into four sectors, each led by a member of his inner circle. The move was intended to help the government fend off challenges to its rule, including an uprising or rioting.

Reflecting Mr. Hussein's distrust of his own military, regular army troops were deployed near Kurdistan or close to the Iranian border, far from the capital. Of the Iraqi Army, only the Special Republican Guard was permitted inside Baghdad. And an array of restraints were imposed that made it hard for Iraq's military to exercise command.

Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai, Mr. Hussein's defense minister who had distinguished himself during the Iran-Iraq war, held an important title, for example. But he had little influence. "I effectively became an assistant to Qusay, only collecting and passing information," he told interrogators, referring to a son of Mr. Hussein.

To protect Baghdad, Mr. Hussein selected Brig. Gen. Barzan abd al-Ghafur Solaiman Majid al-Tikriti, a close cousin, to head the Special Republican Guard even though he had no field experience, had failed military staff college and was a known drunkard. Asked about his military skills, General Tai laughed out loud. Even so, the Special Republican Guard commander was closely monitored by Mr. Hussein's agents and later told American interrogators that he had held the most dangerous job in Iraq. "They watched you go to the bathroom," he said. "They listened to everything you said and bugged everything."

Once the war began, field commanders faced numerous restrictions, including bans on communications, to minimize chances of a coup.

"We had to use our own reconnaissance elements to know where the other Iraqi units were located on our flanks," the commander of the First Republican Guard Corps told interrogators. "We were not allowed to communicate with our sister units."

Even as the Americans were rapidly moving north, Mr. Hussein did not appreciate the seriousness of the threat. While the Fedayeen had surprised the allied forces with their fierce resistance and sneak attacks, Iraqi conventional forces were overpowered.

At an April 2 meeting, General Hamdani, the commander of the Second Republic Guard Corps, correctly predicted that the American Army planned to drive through the Karbala Gap on the way to Baghdad. General Tai, the Iraqi defense minister, was not persuaded. He argued that the attack in the south was a trick and that the main American offensive would come from the west, perhaps abetted by the Israelis. That day, Mr. Hussein ordered the military to prepare for an American attack from Jordan.

As a sop, General Hamdani received a company of Special Operations forces as reinforcements and was finally granted permission to destroy the Euphrates River bridge southwest of Baghdad. But it was too little, too late.

By April 6, the day after the first United States Army attack on Baghdad, the so-called thunder run, Mr. Hussein's desperate predicament began to sink in. At a safe house in the Mansour district of Baghdad, he met with his inner circle and asked Mr. Aziz to read an eight-page letter.

Mr. Hussein showed no emotion as the letter was read. But Mr. Aziz later told interrogators that the Iraqi leader seemed to be a defeated man, and the letter appeared to be his farewell. His rule was coming to an end.

"We didn't believe it would go all the way to Baghdad," a senior Republican Guard staff officer later told his interrogators. "We thought the coalition would go to Basra, maybe to Amara, and then the war would end."

    Even as U.S. Invaded, Hussein Saw Iraqi Unrest as Top Threat, NYT, 12.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/international/middleeast/12saddam.html?hp&ex=1142226000&en=84de85596df57700&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Iraqi Leader, in Frantic Flight, Eluded U.S. Strikes

March 12, 2006
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and BERNARD E. TRAINOR

Saddam Hussein turned to his sons. as American troops were fanning out across Baghdad. "We are leaving now," he said.

Mr. Hussein, the Iraqi leader, was determined to make his escape before more checkpoints were set up around the capital. He had not anticipated the fall of the city, and his plan was simple: drive west toward Ramadi, where there were few United States forces.

In an examination of Iraq's military strategy, the United States Joint Forces Command prepared a day-by-day reconstruction of Mr. Hussein's movements, which shows that his escape was desperate and improvised. The study also indicates that American intelligence knew little about his whereabouts during the early part of the war and that Mr. Hussein was nowhere near the site of two failed bombing raids intended to kill him.

For Mr. Hussein, the first strike was a surprise. Relying on Central Intelligence Agency intelligence, President Bush ordered a March 19 bombing at the Dora Farms complex southwest of Baghdad. A C.I.A. operative had reported that Mr. Hussein was in an underground bunker there, and Mr. Bush hoped to end the war with one blow.

Two F-117 Stealth fighters dropped bunker-busting bombs on the site, while warships fired nearly 40 cruise missiles. The fighters scored a direct hit, and for a while American officials believed that Mr. Hussein was wounded or dead. But the Iraqi leader was not at Dora Farms and had not visited it since 1995, according to statements made to American interrogators by Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, Mr. Hussein's personal secretary. The airstrike nonetheless appeared to rattle Mr. Hussein. After the attack, he arrived at Mr. Mahmud's home. The two men went to a safe house in Baghdad so the Iraqi leader could watch the international news reports and draft a statement to the Iraqi people.

After an Iraqi man with thick glasses read the televised speech, American officials speculated that he was a double. In fact, it was Mr. Hussein, according to the secretary's account. Typically, large text was printed on cue cards for him, but no printer was available and he needed glasses to read his writing. The tape was sent to the Information Ministry for broadcast.

For the next several weeks, Mr. Hussein moved among a network of safe houses. The United States bombed military command sites in the capital, but Mr. Hussein stayed in civilian neighborhoods. The United States never came close to killing him. "Most of the leadership strikes were offset from where Saddam stayed during the war, denying use of government buildings, but not threatening his life," the classified study says.

The Americans made a final attempt to kill Mr. Hussein on April 7 after the C.I.A. was tipped that he was in a safe house near a restaurant in Baghdad's Mansour district. A B-1 bomber dropped four 2,000-pound bombs. The blast killed 18 innocent Iraqis, according to Human Rights Watch. "Saddam was not in the targeted area at the time of the attack," the Joint Forces Command study notes. Mr. Hussein did have a close call. Early on April 7, he happened to be in a safe house one and a half miles from the route taken by United States troops on their second "Thunder Run" into Baghdad. Two days later, his situation was desperate. Army troops had moved into the western part of the city and marines were moving into the eastern part. He appeared before supporters in Baghdad. But after his convoy encountered American armored vehicles, Mr. Hussein and his aides were frantic, and forced their way into a Baghdad residence. As American troops searched, he hid there until morning.

Early on April 10, he decided to flee to Ramadi with his two sons and Mr. Mahmud, according to the account that Mr. Mahmud provided after American troops captured him. Earlier, Mr. Hussein thought that the main American attack might come from Jordan, but by now it was clear to the Iraqis that the United States did not have substantial troops in the west. The escape soon became an ordeal. That night, the Americans bombed a building next to a Ramadi house where he was hiding. Alarmed, Mr. Hussein, his sons and Mr. Mahmud got in their cars and drove toward Hit, spending the night in palm grove outside town.

The next morning Mr. Hussein decided they should split up to minimize the chances of capture. Qusay Hussein, Uday Hussein and Mr. Mahmud made their way to Damascus, Syria, according to a map of their journey in the Joint Forces Command report. Mr. Hussein's sons were apparently too hot for the Syrians to handle. The brothers went back to Iraq, eventually reaching Tikrit and Mosul, where American troops killed them in July 2003.

Mr. Hussein's first stop was Hit. In December 2003, American forces captured the unshaven Iraqi leader in a spider hole near Tikrit. On the wall of the dank hide-out was a poster of Noah's Ark; on the floor was a beat-up suitcase filled with clothes and a heart-shaped clock.

    Iraqi Leader, in Frantic Flight, Eluded U.S. Strikes, NYT, 12.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/international/middleeast/12escape.html?_r=1&oref=slogin





 

Ali Shalal Qaissi in Amman, Jordan,
recently with a picture of himself
standing atop a box and attached to electrical wires
in Abu Ghraib.

Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times

Symbol of Abu Ghraib Seeks to Spare Others His Nightmare
NYT        11.3.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/11/international/middleeast/11ghraib.html?hp&ex=
1142139600&en=762326e6cb35fa0d&ei=5094&partner=homepage