History > 2007 > USA > War > Iraq (V)

Beth Pyritz,

an Army wife in Virginia, has joined an antiwar group.

NYT

July 14, 2007

Photograph; Steve Ruark

for The New York Times

Even as Loved Ones Fight On, War Doubts Arise

NYT        15.7.2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/us/15protest.html

Pentagon Announces Iraq Troop Rotations

July 31, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:16 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nearly 20,000 U.S. troops based in the United States will begin departing for Iraq in December as part of the regular rotation of combat forces there, the Defense Department announced Tuesday.

These Army and Marine Corps units are not related to the buildup of American troops announced by President Bush in January, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

Scheduled to deploy later this year and early in 2008 are the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force headquarters, Camp Pendleton, Calif.; Marine Regimental Combat Teams One and Five, also out of Camp Pendleton; and the 3rd Brigade of the Army's 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

''These forces are replacement forces for the level of effort of 15 combat brigades, which was the standing level of effort prior to the surge,'' Whitman said. ''They are not forces identified to replace surge forces.''

The surge brought the number of combat brigades in Iraq to 20. Each combat brigade has roughly 3,500 troops.

Whitman would not say what units would be replaced.

There are 159,000 U.S. forces in Iraq. Those levels could vary between now and December depending on ongoing reviews by Army Gen. David Petraeus and other top commanders in Iraq.

Petraeus is scheduled to deliver a report to Congress in September on the impact the surge has had.

Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, the Bush administration's nominee to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has told the Senate Armed Services Committee that if confirmed he will immediately ''go to the theater in order to more clearly understand conditions on the ground.''

The Army troops will deploy for 15 months. The Marine combat teams typically spend seven months overseas and the headquarters unit will be deployed for a year.

Pentagon Announces Iraq Troop Rotations, NYT, 31.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraq-Troops.html

Op-Ed Contributor

A War We Just Might Win

July 30, 2007
The New York Times
By MICHAEL E. O’HANLON and KENNETH M. POLLACK

Washington

VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.

Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.

Everywhere, Army and Marine units were focused on securing the Iraqi population, working with Iraqi security units, creating new political and economic arrangements at the local level and providing basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people. Yet in each place, operations had been appropriately tailored to the specific needs of the community. As a result, civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began — though they remain very high, underscoring how much more still needs to be done.

In Ramadi, for example, we talked with an outstanding Marine captain whose company was living in harmony in a complex with a (largely Sunni) Iraqi police company and a (largely Shiite) Iraqi Army unit. He and his men had built an Arab-style living room, where he met with the local Sunni sheiks — all formerly allies of Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups — who were now competing to secure his friendship.

In Baghdad’s Ghazaliya neighborhood, which has seen some of the worst sectarian combat, we walked a street slowly coming back to life with stores and shoppers. The Sunni residents were unhappy with the nearby police checkpoint, where Shiite officers reportedly abused them, but they seemed genuinely happy with the American soldiers and a mostly Kurdish Iraqi Army company patrolling the street. The local Sunni militia even had agreed to confine itself to its compound once the Americans and Iraqi units arrived.

We traveled to the northern cities of Tal Afar and Mosul. This is an ethnically rich area, with large numbers of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens. American troop levels in both cities now number only in the hundreds because the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi Army troops cover the countryside. A local mayor told us his greatest fear was an overly rapid American departure from Iraq. All across the country, the dependability of Iraqi security forces over the long term remains a major question mark.

But for now, things look much better than before. American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable partners (at least for as long as American forces remain in Iraq).

In addition, far more Iraqi units are well integrated in terms of ethnicity and religion. The Iraqi Army’s highly effective Third Infantry Division started out as overwhelmingly Kurdish in 2005. Today, it is 45 percent Shiite, 28 percent Kurdish, and 27 percent Sunni Arab.

In the past, few Iraqi units could do more than provide a few “jundis” (soldiers) to put a thin Iraqi face on largely American operations. Today, in only a few sectors did we find American commanders complaining that their Iraqi formations were useless — something that was the rule, not the exception, on a previous trip to Iraq in late 2005.

The additional American military formations brought in as part of the surge, General Petraeus’s determination to hold areas until they are truly secure before redeploying units, and the increasing competence of the Iraqis has had another critical effect: no more whack-a-mole, with insurgents popping back up after the Americans leave.

In war, sometimes it’s important to pick the right adversary, and in Iraq we seem to have done so. A major factor in the sudden change in American fortunes has been the outpouring of popular animus against Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups, as well as (to a lesser extent) against Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

These groups have tried to impose Shariah law, brutalized average Iraqis to keep them in line, killed important local leaders and seized young women to marry off to their loyalists. The result has been that in the last six months Iraqis have begun to turn on the extremists and turn to the Americans for security and help. The most important and best-known example of this is in Anbar Province, which in less than six months has gone from the worst part of Iraq to the best (outside the Kurdish areas). Today the Sunni sheiks there are close to crippling Al Qaeda and its Salafist allies. Just a few months ago, American marines were fighting for every yard of Ramadi; last week we strolled down its streets without body armor.

Another surprise was how well the coalition’s new Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams are working. Wherever we found a fully staffed team, we also found local Iraqi leaders and businessmen cooperating with it to revive the local economy and build new political structures. Although much more needs to be done to create jobs, a new emphasis on microloans and small-scale projects was having some success where the previous aid programs often built white elephants.

In some places where we have failed to provide the civilian manpower to fill out the reconstruction teams, the surge has still allowed the military to fashion its own advisory groups from battalion, brigade and division staffs. We talked to dozens of military officers who before the war had known little about governance or business but were now ably immersing themselves in projects to provide the average Iraqi with a decent life.

Outside Baghdad, one of the biggest factors in the progress so far has been the efforts to decentralize power to the provinces and local governments. But more must be done. For example, the Iraqi National Police, which are controlled by the Interior Ministry, remain mostly a disaster. In response, many towns and neighborhoods are standing up local police forces, which generally prove more effective, less corrupt and less sectarian. The coalition has to force the warlords in Baghdad to allow the creation of neutral security forces beyond their control.

In the end, the situation in Iraq remains grave. In particular, we still face huge hurdles on the political front. Iraqi politicians of all stripes continue to dawdle and maneuver for position against one another when major steps towards reconciliation — or at least accommodation — are needed. This cannot continue indefinitely. Otherwise, once we begin to downsize, important communities may not feel committed to the status quo, and Iraqi security forces may splinter along ethnic and religious lines.

How much longer should American troops keep fighting and dying to build a new Iraq while Iraqi leaders fail to do their part? And how much longer can we wear down our forces in this mission? These haunting questions underscore the reality that the surge cannot go on forever. But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.

Michael E. O’Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Kenneth M. Pollack is the director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings.

    A War We Just Might Win, NYT, 30.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/opinion/30pollack.html

In Baghdad, Justice Behind the Barricades

July 30, 2007
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

BAGHDAD, July 26 — In a city plagued by suicide bombers and renegade militias, the Americans and the Iraqi government have turned to an unusual measure to help implant the rule of law: they have erected a legal Green Zone, a heavily fortified compound to shelter judges and their families and secure the trials of some of the most dangerous suspects.

The Rule of Law Complex, as it is known by the Iraqi government, is in the Baghdad neighborhood of Rusafa and held its first trial last month.

For Iraqi officials, working at the compound is so fraught with risk that it often requires separating themselves and their families from life outside the complex’s gates.

“Our work is really a challenge,” said a judge who lives in the compound with his wife and children and whose identity is protected by the court’s security procedures. “I have not seen Baghdad for three months.”

The court’s first defendant was a Syrian militant, Ramsi Ahmed Ismael Muhammed, known by the nom de guerre Abu Qatada. Tried on charges of kidnapping, killing his hostages and carrying out other bloody attacks, he was convicted in the complex’s high-surveillance courtroom and sentenced to death.

The utility of the fortified complex, however, depends on more than a single high-profile case. Ultimately, it will depend on the Iraqis’ ability to expand their capacity to try cases at the complex as well as their track record in applying justice evenhandedly to Shiites and Sunnis alike.

The notion of helping the Iraqis establish protected legal enclaves is an important element of the American campaign plan prepared by Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Iraq. The hope is that a network of legal complexes will be established in other parts of Iraq, starting with the capital of Anbar Province, Ramadi, where work is expected to begin in the next several months.

The Rusafa complex, across the Tigris River to the east of the government Green Zone in central Baghdad, is still in its early days. Since the court began hearing cases in June it has tried 43 suspects, a rate of about one suspect a day.

The United States provides criminal investigators, lawyers and a paralegal staff to train the Iraqis to run the complex, which also includes accommodations for witnesses, investigators, the Baghdad Police College and an expanding number of detainees. The 55-member American team includes Justice Department and military personnel as well as contractors, and there are only four Iraqi investigators.

But an additional 26 Iraqi investigators are being trained by the F.B.I., according to Michael F. Walther, a senior United States Justice Department official who runs the American military’s Law and Order Task Force. And by next March, the small courtroom where Abu Qatada was tried is to be replaced by an $11 million court built with American reconstruction funds.

The Central Criminal Court in Baghdad is expected to conduct about 5,000 trials this year. Col. Mark S. Martins, the staff judge advocate for General Petraeus’s military command, estimates that once the new Rusafa court is built the complex will be able to handle about one third of that caseload. The Iraqi government will take over the cost of protecting and operating the complex next month and has approved $49 million for the effort.

Despite its status as a protected area for trying Iraq’s most infamous terrorists and militants, the Rule of Law Complex is not immune from the many problems roiling Iraq’s legal system. They include the crush of detainees that has emerged with the surge of American and Iraqi military operations. To try to reduce the backlog of cases, detainees from overcrowded jails in Kadhimiya and elsewhere have been transported to Rusafa, where they are fingerprinted and given retina scans.

The Rusafa prison’s capacity, which started at 2,500, will expand by more than 5,000 by the end of the summer. The main detention building at Rusafa is cleaner and less malodorous than many Iraqis jails, but with 15 detainees in each cell the conditions had reached maximum capacity under international standards.

When a reporter was escorted by the Iraqi prison director through one of the newly erected tent-covered jails a short drive away, a detainee who gave his name as Dawood Yousef, 46, pressed his way to the bars and yelled that he had been picked up in a sweep of Abu Ghraib and had spent five months in various jails, including a month in Rusafa, without being told why he had been arrested or when his case would go to trial. Colonel Martins took down the details.

An Iraqi investigator at the Rusafa complex raised another concern: sectarian agendas at the Interior Ministry. The investigator, who cannot be identified under the complex’s security procedures, said ministry officials had made him the subject of an inquiry when he expressed his intention to marry a Sunni woman. “What kind of investigation is that?” he said with undisguised contempt.

Under Iraqi procedures, the main phase for recording evidence takes place before the trial when an investigative judge questions witnesses and prepares a report for the panel of judges to review. The trials themselves seem relatively brief to observers familiar with the American system. With the extensive security at Rusafa, it is not easy for Iraqis to attend the trials, so videotapes of the proceedings are made.

In a legal system that has relied heavily on confessions and less on forensic investigations at the crime scene, there are often allegations of torture. In a July 3 trial at the Rusafa court, the judges acquitted four defendants of murder and rape on the grounds that their confessions appeared coerced. Medical reports pointed to possible torture, and physical evidence was lacking. The stunned defendants received the verdict with enormous relief, according to a videotaped record of the trial.

The Americans say they have been encouraged by the tenacity with which the investigators pursued Abu Qatada, in particular. “We called him the wolf,” said a judge who was involved in investigating the case. “It was not easy to get him to talk.”

The investigators relied heavily on witnesses, who were taken through a special entrance in the court offices so they could be interviewed confidentially. Their statements were entered in a file that only the judges were allowed to read. The evidence in the file was enough to persuade the panel of three judges, one Sunni and two Shiites, to convict Abu Qatada on two counts: possessing weapons as part of an armed group opposing the state, which led to a 30-year sentence, and terrorist crimes, which were deemed a capital offense. His conviction and punishment are being appealed.

A more demanding test of the impartiality of the system will come soon when a Shiite national policeman comes to trial. Identified only as Lt. Col. A, he is being tried on charges that he assaulted and tortured dozens of Sunni captives in his custody on behalf of a Shiite militia.

    In Baghdad, Justice Behind the Barricades, NYT, 30.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/world/middleeast/30military.html?hp

US: Attackers in Iraq Have Improved Aim

July 26, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:14 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD (AP) -- The U.S. military has noted a ''significant improvement'' in the aim of attackers firing rockets and mortars into the heavily fortified Green Zone in the past three months that it has linked to training in Iran, a top commander said Thursday.

Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top day-to-day U.S. commander in Iraq, also expressed cautious optimism over a decline in the number of American troops killed this month.

At least 60 U.S. troops have died in Iraq as July draws to a close after the death toll topped 100 for the previous three months, according to an Associated Press tally based on military statements.

Odierno said it appeared that casualties had increased as fresh U.S. forces expanded operations into militant strongholds as part of the five-month-old security operation aimed at clamping off violence in the capital, but were going down as the Americans gained control of the areas.

''We've started to see a slow but gradual reduction in casualties and it continues in July,'' he said at a news conference. ''It's an initial positive sign, but I would argue we need a bit more time to make an assessment whether it's a true trend.''

The commander said networks continue to smuggle powerful roadside bombs and mortars across the border from Iran despite Tehran's assertions that it supports stability in Iraq.

He also said the military believes training of extremists is being conducted in Iran.

Odierno's remarks came two days after the U.S. and Iranian ambassadors to Iraq met in Baghdad and agreed to establish a security committee to jointly address the violence amid Washington's allegations that Tehran is fueling the violence by support Shiite militias.

''One of the reasons why we're sitting down with the Iranian government ... is trying to solve some of these problems,'' Odierno said at a news conference in the Green Zone, which is home to the U.S. Embassy and the Iraqi government headquarters.

''We have seen in the last three months a significant improvement in the capability of mortarmen and rocketeers to provide accurate fires into the Green Zone and other places and we think this is directly related to training that is conducted in Iran,'' Odierno said. ''So we continue to go after these networks with the Iraqi security forces.''

Attacks against the sprawling complex along the Tigris River in the center of Baghdad have increased in recent months, adding to the concern over the safety of key Iraqi and international officials and thousands of U.S. soldiers and contractors who live and work there.

On July 10, a barrage of more than a dozen mortars or rockets struck the area, killing at least three people, including an American, and wounding 18. In a report last month, the United Nations office in Baghdad said the ''threat of indirect fire'' -- meaning rockets and mortars -- into the Green Zone had increased, adding that the barrages had become ''increasingly concentrated and accurate.''

    US: Attackers in Iraq Have Improved Aim, NYT, 26.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq-US-Military.html

President Links Qaeda of Iraq to Qaeda of 9/11

July 25, 2007
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG and MARK MAZZETTI

CHARLESTON, S.C., July 24 — President Bush sought anew on Tuesday to draw connections between the Iraqi group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the terrorist network responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, and he sharply criticized those who contend that the groups are independent of each other.

At a time when Mr. Bush is trying to beat back calls for withdrawal from Iraq, the speech at Charleston Air Force Base reflected concern at the White House over criticism that he is focusing on the wrong terrorist threat.

Mr. Bush chose to speak in the city where Democrats held their nationally televised presidential debate on Monday, a forum at which the question was not whether to stay in Iraq but how to go about leaving.

“The facts are that Al Qaeda terrorists killed Americans on 9/11, they’re fighting us in Iraq and across the world and they are plotting to kill Americans here at home again,” Mr. Bush told a contingent of military personnel here. “Those who justify withdrawing our troops from Iraq by denying the threat of Al Qaeda in Iraq and its ties to Osama bin Laden ignore the clear consequences of such a retreat.”

Kevin Sullivan, the White House communications director, said the speech was devised as a “surge of facts” meant to rebut critics who say Mr. Bush is trying to rebuild support for the war by linking the Iraq group and the one led by Mr. bin Laden.

But Democratic lawmakers accused Mr. Bush of overstating those ties to provide a basis for continuing the American presence in Iraq. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said Mr. Bush was “trying to justify claims that have long ago been proven to be misleading.”

The Iraqi group is a homegrown Sunni Arab extremist group with some foreign operatives that has claimed a loose affiliation to Mr. bin Laden’s network, although the precise links are unclear.

In his speech, Mr. Bush did not try to debunk the fact — repeated by Mr. Reid — that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia did not exist until after the United States invasion in 2003 and has flourished since.

His comments also reflected a subtle shift from his recent flat assertion that, “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on Sept. 11.”

The overall thrust of the speech was that the administration believes that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has enough connections to Mr. bin Laden’s group to be considered the same threat, that its ultimate goal is to strike America and that to think otherwise is “like watching a man walk into a bank with a mask and a gun and saying he’s probably just there to cash a check.”

Mr. Bush referred throughout his speech to what his aides said was newly declassified intelligence in his effort to link Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the central Qaeda leadership that is believed to be operating from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. Although the aides said the intelligence was declassified, White House and intelligence officials declined to provide any detail on the reports Mr. Bush cited.

In stark terms, Mr. Bush laid out a case that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia had taken its cues from the central Qaeda leadership, and that it had been led by foreigners who have sworn allegiance to Mr. bin Laden.

Mr. Bush acknowledged that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian founder of the Iraq group, at first was not part of Al Qaeda. But, he said, “our intelligence community reports he had long-standing relations with senior Al Qaeda leaders, that he had met with Osama bin Laden and his chief deputy, Zawahri,” referring to Ayman al-Zawahri.

Mr. Bush acknowledged differences between Mr. Zarqawi and Mr. Zawahri over strategy.

But he recounted Mr. Zarqawi’s pledge of allegiance to Mr. bin Laden in 2004 and promise to “follow his orders in jihad” and how Mr. bin Laden “instructed terrorists in Iraq to ‘listen to him and obey him.’ ”

Mr. Bush quoted from what aides said was a previously classified intelligence assessment, saying, “The Zarqawi-bin Laden merger gave Al Qaeda in Iraq quote, ‘prestige among potential recruits and financiers.’ ” He added, “The merger also gave Al Qaeda’s senior leadership ‘a foothold in Iraq to extend its geographic presence.’ ”

Officials agree that the membership of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is mostly Iraqi but insist that it is foreign-led. Mr. Bush noted that Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian, had led the group since United States forces killed Mr. Zarqawi in June 2006.

He listed several other foreigners in the Qaeda in Mesopotamia leadership structure, including a Syrian who he said was the Qaeda emir in Baghdad, a Saudi he said was its spiritual adviser, an Egyptian he said had met with Mr. bin Laden, and a Tunisian who helps manage the foreign fighters in Iraq.

Mr. Bush cited information of the foreign leadership structure gleaned from the recent capture of Khalid al-Mashadani, an Iraqi terrorist leader whom American officials say linked Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and Al Qaeda’s leaders in Pakistan.

Last week, the top American military spokesman in Iraq, Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, said Mr. Mashadani funneled information from Mr. bin Laden’s network to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia about strategic direction and provided other guidance.

Yet General Bergner said at the time that he could not point to specific attacks in Iraq directed by Mr. bin Laden’s group.

Some administration officials have been more conservative in their assessments of any ability and desire that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia might have to carry out attacks here.

“When you look at how they are arraying their capabilities, those capabilities are being focused on the conflict in Iraq at this time,” Edward M. Gistaro, one of the principal authors of a recent National Intelligence Estimate on terrorist threats to the United States, said last week.

Jim Rutenberg reported from Charleston, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington. Richard A. Oppel Jr. contributed reporting from Baghdad.

    President Links Qaeda of Iraq to Qaeda of 9/11, NYT, 25.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/washington/25prexy.html

Bush and Iraqi: Frequent Talks, Limited Results

July 25, 2007
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG and ALISSA J. RUBIN

WASHINGTON, July 24 — Once every two weeks, sometimes more often, President Bush gathers with the vice president and the national security adviser in the newly refurbished White House Situation Room and peers, electronically, into the eyes of the man to whom his legacy is so inextricably linked: Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq.

In sessions usually lasting more than an hour, Mr. Bush, a committed Christian of Texas by way of privileged schooling in New England, and Mr. Maliki, an Iraqi Shiite by way of political exile in Iran and Syria, talk about leadership and democracy, troop deployments and their own domestic challenges.

Sometimes, said an official who has sat in on the meetings, they talk about their faith in God.

“They talk about the challenges they face being leaders,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss private conversations. “They, of course, also share a faith in God.”

The official declined to elaborate on the extent of their religious discussions, but said, “It is an issue that comes up between two men who are believers in difficult times, who are being challenged.”

In the sessions, Mr. Bush views Mr. Maliki’s crisp image on a wall of plasma screens. Aides say the sessions are crucial to Mr. Bush’s attempts to help Mr. Maliki through his troubled tenure. The meetings are also typical of the type of personal diplomacy Mr. Bush has practiced throughout his presidency, exemplified by the way he warmed to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — misguidedly, in the view of some policy analysts — after Mr. Putin showed him a cross he wears that his mother gave him.

So far, the sessions with Mr. Maliki appear to have pointed up the limits of the personal approach, with questions persisting about Mr. Maliki’s ability — and desire — to strike the hard deals that could ultimately bring political reconciliation to his violently fractured country.

In Mr. Maliki, Mr. Bush has a partner who is neither known for great political skills nor for showing any real desire to move against the interests of his Shiite supporters, who still harbor deep suspicions of their Sunni Arab compatriots. In the sessions, aides say, Mr. Bush has tried to play many simultaneous roles — friend, counselor and ally, but also guide, instructor and even enforcer — as the United States has tried to hold Mr. Maliki to his commitments.

In recent months, White House officials say, Mr. Bush has spoken more frequently with Mr. Maliki than just about any other foreign leader besides those of Britain and Germany.

Administration officials say the sessions have given Mr. Bush a forum to persuade Mr. Maliki to make more of a public show of being a leader to all Iraqis, not just his fellow Shiites. It was in the teleconferences, aides said, that Mr. Bush prevailed upon Mr. Maliki to implore his colleagues in Parliament to reduce their planned two-month vacation this summer, though their grudging concession to take just one month has not done much to quiet criticism.

The White House also believes that Mr. Maliki has made good on pledges to commit three new Iraqi brigades to Baghdad, the official said, and has given American and Iraqi forces more leeway to go after Shiite militias, though the official acknowledged that Shiite security officials sometimes block their pursuit.

John R. Bolton, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations, cautioned against relying too much on a single Iraqi leader. “It’s not a question of faith in one person at this point,” he said. “The issue for the Iraqis is whether they’re going to find a way to live together.”

Despite Mr. Bush’s perception that he knows Mr. Maliki, he has sometimes appeared to misread the Iraqi leader and the political world in which he operates. Mr. Maliki may agree with Mr. Bush on the steps that need to be taken in Iraq to achieve stability, such as bringing more ex-Baathists back into government. But if he is perceived as going too far in accommodating former Baathists loyal to Saddam Hussein, he could splinter his already divided Shiite base of support.

Shiites put their faith in Mr. Maliki because of his own history as a staunch anti-Baathist. Mr. Maliki comes from a political party, Dawa, that for decades operated clandestinely to avoid torture or death at the hands of Mr. Hussein.

“With that kind of background it’s hard to move to the broader political stage and be open in your dealings and be inclusive,” said an American official in Baghdad who agreed to speak about Mr. Maliki only on condition of anonymity.

Mr. Maliki fled Iraq in 1979 after being sentenced to death for his political affiliation. When the Hussein government fell, Mr. Maliki became a leader on the commission to purge Baath Party members from government — efforts now deemed to have gone too far. And he opposed early efforts to bring some of them back.

Critics of Mr. Maliki in the Bush administration say that the Iraqi leader’s history shows he is more capable, and less hapless, than he may want to show. Detractors can point to his Shiite allegiance as evidence that he is simply telling Mr. Bush what he wants to hear just to keep American troops in place for the time being.

Last fall Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, wrote in an internal White House memo, “We returned from Iraq convinced we need to determine if Prime Minister Maliki is both willing and able to rise above the sectarian agendas being promoted by others.”

Aides say that Mr. Bush has used the videoconferences to discuss those doubts, and steps that can be taken to allay them, with Mr. Maliki.

“There was a lot of that discussion about the importance for Maliki to show not only to the communities in Iraq but to all of his neighbors that while it was a Shiite-led government, it was a government for all Iraqis,” a senior administration official familiar with the meetings said.

President Bush’s first point, the official said, was, “ ‘You need to do this to be a leader for all of Iraq,’ but secondly, ‘As you do this, it will also send a message to the region which will help you with your Sunni neighbors but, quite frankly, it will help me here at home.’ ”

Mr. Bush has said that he has seen signs of improvement. Describing his regular contact with Mr. Maliki , Mr. Bush said in April, “I’ve watched a man begun to grow in office,” adding, “I look to see whether or not he has courage to make the difficult decisions necessary to achieve peace. I’m looking to see whether or not he has got the capacity to reach out and help unify this country.”

Jim Rutenberg reported from Washington, and Alissa J. Rubin from Baghdad.

    Bush and Iraqi: Frequent Talks, Limited Results, NYT, 25.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/washington/25maliki.html?hp

U.S. Is Seen in Iraq Until at Least ’09

July 24, 2007
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

BAGHDAD, July 23 — While Washington is mired in political debate over the future of Iraq, the American command here has prepared a detailed plan that foresees a significant American role for the next two years.

The classified plan, which represents the coordinated strategy of the top American commander and the American ambassador, calls for restoring security in local areas, including Baghdad, by the summer of 2008. “Sustainable security” is to be established on a nationwide basis by the summer of 2009, according to American officials familiar with the document.

The detailed document, known as the Joint Campaign Plan, is an elaboration of the new strategy President Bush signaled in January when he decided to send five additional American combat brigades and other units to Iraq. That signaled a shift from the previous strategy, which emphasized transferring to Iraqis the responsibility for safeguarding their security.

That new approach put a premium on protecting the Iraqi population in Baghdad, on the theory that improved security would provide Iraqi political leaders with the breathing space they needed to try political reconciliation.

The latest plan, which covers a two-year period, does not explicitly address troop levels or withdrawal schedules. It anticipates a decline in American forces as the “surge” in troops runs its course later this year or in early 2008. But it nonetheless assumes continued American involvement to train soldiers, act as partners with Iraqi forces and fight terrorist groups in Iraq, American officials said.

The goals in the document appear ambitious, given the immensity of the challenge of dealing with die-hard Sunni insurgents, renegade Shiite militias, Iraqi leaders who have made only fitful progress toward political reconciliation, as well as Iranian and Syrian neighbors who have not hesitated to interfere in Iraq’s affairs. And the White House’s interim assessment of progress, issued n July 12, is mixed.

But at a time when critics at home are defining patience in terms of weeks, the strategy may run into the expectations of many lawmakers for an early end to the American mission here.

The plan, developed by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior American commander, and Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador, has been briefed to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. William J. Fallon, the head of the Central Command. It is expected to be formally issued to officials here this week.

The plan envisions two phases. The “near-term” goal is to achieve “localized security” in Baghdad and other areas no later than June 2008. It envisions encouraging political accommodations at the local level, including with former insurgents, while pressing Iraq’s leaders to make headway on their program of national reconciliation.

The “intermediate” goal is to stitch together such local arrangements to establish a broader sense of security on a nationwide basis no later than June 2009.

“The coalition, in partnership with the government of Iraq, employs integrated political, security, economic and diplomatic means, to help the people of Iraq achieve sustainable security by the summer of 2009,” a summary of the campaign plan states.

Military officials here have been careful not to guarantee success, and recognized they may need to revise the plan if some assumptions were not met.

“The idea behind the surge was to bring stability and security to the Iraqi people, primarily in Baghdad because it is the political heart of the country, and by so doing give the Iraqis the time and space needed to come to grips with the tough issues they face and enable reconciliation to take place,” said Col. Peter Mansoor, the executive officer to General Petraeus.

“If eventually the Iraqi government and the various sects and groups do not come to some sort of agreement on how to share power, on how to divide resources and on how to reconcile and stop the violence, then the assumption on which the surge strategy was based is invalid, and we would have to re-look the strategy,” Colonel Mansoor added.

General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker will provide an assessment in September on trends in Iraq and whether the strategy is viable or needs to be changed.

The previous plan, developed by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., who served as General Petraeus’s predecessor before being appointed as chief of staff of the Army, was aimed at prompting the Iraqis to take more responsibility for security by reducing American forces.

That approach faltered when the Iraqi security forces showed themselves unprepared to carry out their expanded duties, and sectarian killings soared.

In contrast, the new approach reflects the counterinsurgency precept that protection of the population is best way to isolate insurgents, encourage political accommodations and gain intelligence on numerous threats. A core assumption of the plan is that American troops cannot impose a military solution, but that the United States can use force to create the conditions in which political reconciliation is possible.

To develop the plan, General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker assembled a Joint Strategic Assessment Team, which sought to define the conflict and outline the elements of a new strategy. It included officers like Col. H. R. McMaster, the field commander who carried out the successful “clear, hold and build” operation in Tal Afar and who wrote a critical account of the Joint Chiefs of Staff role during the Vietnam War; Col. John R. Martin, who teaches at the Army War College and was a West Point classmate of General Petraeus; and David Kilcullen, an Australian counterinsurgency expert who has a degree in anthropology.

State Department officials, including Robert Ford, an Arab expert and the American ambassador to Algeria, were also involved. So were a British officer and experts outside government like Stephen D. Biddle, a military expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The team determined that Iraq was in a “communal struggle for power,” in the words of one senior officer who participated in the effort. Adding to the problem, the new Iraqi government was struggling to unite its disparate factions and to develop the capability to deliver basic services and provide security.

Extremists were fueling the violence, as were nations like Iran, which they concluded was arming and equipping Shiite militant groups, and Syria, which was allowing suicide bombers to cross into Iraq.

Like the Baker-Hamilton commission, which issued its report last year, the team believed that political, military and economic efforts were needed, including diplomatic discussions with Iran, officials said. There were different views about how aggressive to be in pressing for the removal of overtly sectarian officials, and several officials said that theme was toned down somewhat in the final plan.

The plan itself was written by the Joint Campaign Redesign Team, an allusion to the fact that the plan inherited from General Casey was being reworked. Much of the redesign has already been put into effect, including the decision to move troops out of large bases and to act as partners more fully with the Iraqi security forces.

The overarching goal, an American official said, is to advance political accommodation and avoid undercutting the authority of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. While the plan seeks to achieve stability, several officials said it anticipates that less will be accomplished in terms of national reconciliation by the end of 2009 than did the plan developed by General Casey.

The plan also emphasizes encouraging political accommodation at the local level. The command has established a team to oversee efforts to reach out to former insurgents and tribal leaders. It is dubbed the Force Strategic Engagement Cell, and is overseen by a British general. In the terminology of the plan, the aim is to identify potentially “reconcilable” groups and encourage them to move away from violence.

However, groups like Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a Sunni Arab extremist group that American intelligence officials say has foreign leadership, and cells backed by Iran are seen as implacable foes.

“You are not out there trying to defeat your enemies wholesale,” said one military official who is knowledgeable about the plan. “You are out there trying to draw them into a negotiated power-sharing agreement where they decide to quit fighting you. They don’t decide that their conflict is over. The reasons for conflict remain, but they quit trying to address it through violence. In the end, we hope that that alliance of convenience to fight with Al Qaeda becomes a connection to the central government as well.”

The hope is that sufficient progress might be made at the local level to encourage accommodation at the national level, and vice versa. The plan also calls for efforts to encourage the rule of law, such as the establishment of secure zones in Baghdad and other cities to promote criminal trials and process detainee cases.

To help measure progress in tamping down civil strife, Col. William Rapp, a senior aide to General Petraeus, oversaw an effort to develop a standardized measure of sectarian violence. One result was a method that went beyond the attacks noted in American military reports and which incorporated Iraqi data.

“We are going to try a dozen different things,” said one senior officer. “Maybe one of them will flatline. One of them will do this much. One of them will do this much more. After a while, we believe there is chance you will head into success. I am not saying that we are absolutely headed for success.”

    U.S. Is Seen in Iraq Until at Least ’09, NYT, 24.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/world/middleeast/24military.html?hp

Generals: Troops Need to Stay in Iraq

July 21, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:29 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD (AP) -- U.S. military commanders said Friday the troop buildup in Iraq must be maintained until at least next summer and they may need as long as two years to ensure parts of the country are stable.

The battlefield generals' pleas for more time come in the face of growing impatience in the United States and a push on Capitol Hill to begin withdrawing U.S. troops as soon as this fall.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said in an interview that if the buildup is reversed before next summer, the military will risk giving up the security gains it has achieved at a cost of hundreds of American lives over the past six months.

''It's going to take through summer, into the fall, to defeat the extremists in my battle space, and it's going to take me into next spring and summer to generate this sustained security presence,'' said Lynch, who commands U.S. forces south of Baghdad.

U.S. forces are working to build the Iraq military's ability to hold the gains made during the latest combat operations.

The White House said it still expects top commanders to deliver a report in September assessing the progress in Iraq, including whether the Iraqi government and its security forces have met 18 political and security benchmarks.

Pressure has reached a high level from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress for a change of course in the war -- which is in its fifth year and has claimed the lives of more than 3,600 U.S. troops.

''There may be various generals or various politicians or others who want to mention some other key time, but I think the key time for the vast majority of my members is September,'' Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Friday. ''And it certainly is for me.''

In Washington, White House officials said the timetable for assessing progress in Iraq has not changed and that September remains the next critical time frame for judging the course of the war. President Bush, who met with veterans and military families, accused Democrats of delaying action on money to upgrade equipment and give troops a pay raise.

However, the legislation is not an appropriations bill that feeds military spending accounts but a measure used by Congress to influence the management of major defense programs, set goals and guide the 2008 military spending bill. It is needed to authorize military pay raises, although Congress typically does not finish the bill before fall and then makes pay raises retroactive.

A military analyst said there is an obvious disconnect between a military focused on future success and politicians gripped by past failures.

''The Army generals in Iraq believe that it is only now that they are implementing the right strategy for securing the country, so they deserve more time to do the job right, despite the four years of failure,'' said Loren Thompson of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute.

Commanders have said they fully expect to provide the September report, but it may take much longer to determine whether the improvements are holding and the country is becoming stable.

Maj. Gen. W.E. Gaskin, U.S. commander in the Anbar province, said it would take two years before Iraqis can be self-sufficient in running their government and security forces.

Speaking to Pentagon reporters by video conference from Iraq, Gaskin said coalition efforts ''have turned the corner ... broken the cycle of violence in Anbar.'' But, he added, ''you cannot buy nor can you fast-forward experience. It has to be worked out.''

The point was driven home by Gen. James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, who said in an address Friday at the National Press Club that a premature withdrawal could fuel Islamic extremists, spread terrorism and force the U.S. back into the fight.

''If you lose the first battles of a long war, the war gets tougher. If you win the first battles, you've got momentum on your side, and, guess what, the war is shorter,'' said Conway. ''My concern is if we prematurely move, we're going to be going back. ... I tend to think it's better to get it done the first time.''

Lynch, in an interview with two reporters who traveled with him by helicopter to visit troops south and west of Baghdad, said he had projected in March, when he arrived as part of the troop buildup, that it would take him about 15 months to accomplish his mission, which would be summer 2008.

He expressed concern at the growing pressure in Washington to decide by September whether the troop buildup is working and to plan for an early start to withdrawing all combat troops.

Under Lynch's command are two of the five Army brigades that Bush ordered to the Baghdad area in January as part of a revised counterinsurgency strategy. The three other brigades are in Baghdad and a volatile province northeast of the capital with the purpose of securing the civilian population.

Officials hope that reduced levels of sectarian violence will give Sunni and Shiite leaders an opportunity to create a government of true national unity.

Lynch said Iraqi security forces are not close to being ready to take over for the American troops. So if the extra U.S. troops that were brought in this year are to be sent home in coming months, the insurgents -- both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups -- will regain control, he said.

''To me, it would be wrong to take ground from the enemy at a cost -- I've lost 80 soldiers under my command, 56 of those since the fourth of April -- it would be wrong to have fought and won that terrain, only to turn around and give it back,'' he said.

Lynch said there is a substantial risk that al-Qaida in Iraq, a mostly Iraqi Sunni extremist group, will try to launch a mass-casualty attack on one of the 29 small U.S. patrol bases south of Baghdad in hopes of influencing the political debate in Washington.

''We've got him on the run,'' Lynch said, referring to the insurgents. ''Some people say we've got him on the ropes. I don't believe that. But I believe we've got him on the run.''

Lynch also said the Iraqi government needs to put about seven more Iraqi army battalions and about five more Iraqi police battalions in his area in order to provide the security now provided by U.S. forces.

Ultimately, he said, success or failure will be determined by the Iraqis themselves, and the outcome will not come quickly.

''This is Iraq. Everything takes time,'' he said.

Baldor reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek, also in Washington, contributed to this report.

    Generals: Troops Need to Stay in Iraq, NYT, 21.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Iraq-US-Troops.html

2 U.S. Soldiers Charged With Murder of an Iraqi

July 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:18 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Sunni lawmakers ended their five-week boycott of parliament Thursday, raising hopes the factious assembly can make progress on benchmark legislation demanded by Washington. The U.S. said two American soldiers have been charged with killing an Iraqi.

Also Thursday, the U.S. command announced the deaths of five American soldiers. Four soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter were killed Wednesday in a roadside bombing in east Baghdad and one soldier was killed Friday by small arms fire near Rusdi Mulla, just to the southwest of the city.

The 44 members of the Iraqi Accordance Front attended Thursday's session after striking a deal with other blocs to reinstate the Sunni speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, who was ousted by the Shiite-dominated assembly last month for erratic behavior.

Al-Mashhadani is expected to gracefully resign after presiding over a number of sessions. Shiite legislator Hassan al-Suneid, an aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said al-Mashhadani's return came after secret conditions that should not be made public.

However, one official said al-Mashhadani has until Wednesday to step down or parliament will force him out. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

''We all have to work together to rescue Iraq from the catastrophe which has befallen it,'' Sunni leader Adnan al-Dulaimi told parliament. ''This is the first step in solving the Iraqi problem and in stopping the bloodshed.''

The Sunnis ended their walkout two days after Shiite lawmakers loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ended their boycott after officials accepted their demands for rebuilding a Shiite shrine damaged by bombings.

Those two boycotts had paralyzed the 275-member parliament, which is under strong criticism from U.S. critics for failing to approve key legislation and for plans to take a month's vacation in August at a time when American and Iraqi troops are dying on the battlefield.

The sensitivities displayed by both the Accordance Front and al-Sadr's allies indicates the depth of suspicion and sectarian rivalry prevalent in Iraq after more than four years of war.

The U.S. military said an Army lieutenant colonel had been relieved of command in connection with the murder charges, which were filed this week against two soldiers -- Sgt. 1st Class Trey A. Corrales of San Antonio and Spc. Christopher P. Shore of Winder, Ga.

Each was charged with one count of murder in the death, which allegedly occurred June 23 near the northern city of Kirkuk, the U.S. said.

Lt. Col. Michael Browder, who was their battalion commander, is not a suspect and has not been charged with any offense but was fired for leadership failure, the U.S. said.

The statement noted that the charges are allegations and neither of the two soldiers has been convicted.

The charges were announced one day after a U.S. Marine was convicted of kidnapping and conspiracy to murder in connection with the death of an Iraq last year in Hamdania. Cpl. Trent Thomas was acquitted of the most serious charge of premeditated murder during a trial at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Meanwhile, American and Iraqi forces were continuing operations to clear Sunni extremists from the eastern part of Baqouba, 35 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. said.

U.S. troops killed three al-Qaida suspects Thursday as they tried to slip out of the city, Iraqi security officials said. Clashes occurred during the day as American and Iraqi forces moved through the streets, securing buildings and clearing explosives.

One insurgent explosives expert led U.S. and Iraqi troops to a bombs cache hidden in two homes of Shiites who had fled sectarian tension, police said.

U.S. troops regained control of the western half of the city last month and launched operations into the rest of Baqouba on Tuesday.

Since last month, the Americans said they have killed at least 67 al-Qaida operatives in Baqouba, arrested 253, seized 63 weapons caches and have destroyed 151 roadside bombs.

In Baghdad, suspected Shiite militiamen blew up the minaret on a Sunni mosque in the city's Jihad area, police said. The bodies of two men with bullets in their heads were found dumped near the mosque, police said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Gunmen firing from a speeding car killed a bodyguard of a Sunni parliament member in Mosul, police said. A Kurdish political party member was ambushed and killed in eastern Mosul, police also said, speaking on condition of anonymity for the same reason.

In western Iraq, residents said assailants blew up two bridges in Haditha overnight. The bridges connect Haditha with Anah, about 160 miles northwest of the capital. The American forces are blocking the area now looking for those involved in the operation.

The residents spoke on condition of anonymity out of fears for their safety.

    2 U.S. Soldiers Charged With Murder of an Iraqi, NYT, 19.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html

US: Top al - Qaida in Iraq Figure Captured

July 18, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:15 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD (AP) -- The U.S. command said Wednesday the highest-ranking Iraqi in the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq has been arrested, adding that information from him indicates the group's foreign-based leadership wields considerable influence over the Iraqi chapter.

Khaled Abdul-Fattah Dawoud Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, also known as Abu Shahid, was captured in Mosul on July 4, said Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a military spokesman.

''Al-Mashhadani is believed to be the most senior Iraqi in the al-Qaida in Iraq network,'' Bergner said. He said al-Mashhadani was a close associate of Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born head of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Bergner said al-Mashhadani served as an intermediary between al-Masri and Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.

''In fact, communication between the senior al-Qaida leadership and al-Masri frequently went through al-Mashhadani,'' Bergner said.

''Along with al-Masri, al-Mashhadani co-founded a virtual organization in cyberspace called the Islamic State of Iraq in 2006,'' Bergner said. ''The Islamic State of Iraq is the latest efforts by al-Qaida to market itself and its goal of imposing a Taliban-like state on the Iraqi people.''

In Web postings, the Islamic State of Iraq has identified its leader as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, with al-Masri as minister of war. There are no known photos of al-Baghdadi.

Bergner said al-Mashhadani had told interrogators that al-Baghdadi is a ''fictional role'' created by al-Masri and that an actor is used for audio recordings of speeches posted on the Web.

''In his words, the Islamic State of Iraq is a front organization that masks the foreign influence and leadership within al-Qaida in Iraq in an attempt to put an Iraqi face on the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq,'' Bergner said.

He said al-Mashhadani was a leader of the militant Ansar al-Sunnah group before joining al-Qaida in Iraq 2 1/2 years ago. Al-Mashhadani served as the al-Qaida media chief for Baghdad and then was appointed the media chief for the whole country.

Al-Qaida in Iraq was proclaimed in 2004 by Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who led a group called Tawhid and Jihad, responsible for the beheading of several foreign hostages, whose final moments were captured on videotapes provided to Arab television stations.

Al-Zarqawi posted Web statements declaring his allegiance to bin Laden and began using the name of al-Qaida in Iraq. Al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Diyala province in June 2006 and was replaced by al-Masri.

The degree of control and supervision between bin Laden's clique and the Iraq branch has been the subject of debate, with some private analysts believing the foreign-based leadership plays a minor role in day to day operations.

However, the U.S. military has released captured letters from time to time, suggesting the foreign-based leaders provide at least broad direction.

    US: Top al - Qaida in Iraq Figure Captured, NYT, 18.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq-Al-Qaida.html

Attacks in Kirkuk and Diyala Kill More Than 100 Iraqis

July 17, 2007
The New York Times
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ALI ADEEB

BAGHDAD, July 16 — A suicide bomber in the volatile northern city of Kirkuk on Monday crashed his truck into a compound that includes offices of a major Kurdish political party, killing 85 people. Many victims were women and children, shopping in the busy market next to the political offices, who were engulfed by a large fireball.

Hours later, the Iraqi authorities said, men wearing Iraqi military uniforms stormed into a village in Diyala Province and killed 29 men, women and children. An Iraqi security official, Col. Ragheb Radhi al-Umiri, said the gunmen surrounded the victims and fired into the crowd. The attack occurred in a remote village north of Baquba, he said, and the bodies of some victims were “desecrated” before the attackers fled.

In response to questions, an American military spokesman in Baghdad said via e-mail that American forces had received a report from the Diyala Provincial Joint Coordination Center that men “wearing Iraqi army uniforms attacked Adwala village, killing 29 civilians and wounding four civilians,” and that the attackers rode in new Iraqi police trucks. The coordination center serves as a clearinghouse for emergency response services in the province.

No other information was available about the attack. If the Iraqi authorities’ accounts are correct, they suggest that the attackers either were able to steal official Iraqi uniforms and vehicles or that they may have themselves been members of the security forces.

The Kirkuk attack was the latest to stoke fears that intensified American military operations in Baghdad may have led insurgents to move their operations to locations that can more easily be attacked. The explosion flung bodies throughout the outdoor market and left some of the 185 people who were wounded shouting wildly for help as they ran through the streets with their clothes and hair on fire, witnesses said.

Nine thousand pounds of explosives were used, a senior local police official said, gouging a crater into the ground several yards deep while destroying buildings and scores of shops and cars. One of the buildings, the police said, belonged to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party that controls southeastern Kurdistan and whose leader is the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani. There was no report on casualties among party members.

A witness, Sherzad Abdullah, was a few hundred yards away when the truck ram into the perimeter of the compound and explode, he said. Stunned and slightly wounded, Mr. Abdullah said he watched the fireball “devour the cars passing on the road.”

One passenger bus burst into flames. “The whole bus was on fire,” he said, “and the passengers were jumping up and down inside.”

It was the single deadliest post-invasion blast in Kirkuk, a city rich in oil and ethnicity. Ambitious and organized Kurds are pushing for the city to join the neighboring Iraqi Kurdish region, while Turkmen and Arabs are trying to prevent a full-scale Kurdish takeover.

The enormous payload in the attack was similar to that of a July 7 blast in Amerli, a poor Shiite Turkmen village 50 miles south of Kirkuk, that killed dozens of families who were crushed as their fragile clay-walled homes collapsed.

No group claimed responsibility for Monday’s blast in Kirkuk. But it bore the signs of Sunni Arab extremists and reinforced fears that militants who eluded newly fortified American units closer to Baghdad have turned their lethal focus to places far from the five-brigade troop buildup.

The additional troops have been deployed mainly in Baghdad, Diyala and areas just south of the capital, where the Third Infantry Division on Monday began an operation to cut insurgent supply lines into Baghdad from sanctuaries in the area.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki seemed to acknowledge that the blast could be the work of insurgents who fled central Iraq for easier targets. “The enemy, with his outrageous crimes against civilians, is trying to open the blockade imposed upon him in Baghdad, Diyala and Anbar,” Mr. Maliki said in a statement, referring to offensives by American-led forces and tribal leaders.

The Kirkuk police said the target of the blast was a building housing men from the Kurdish party’s intelligence and security branch. But a party official later said that was not true, saying the bomb struck near a building housing a sports committee and another containing a party relief organization.

The bomber rammed his truck into the blast walls of the compound just after noon, as the adjoining street market was flooded with people heading for lunch or midday shopping. Rescue workers frantically dug through the concrete and rubble and rushed those they found still breathing to hospitals.

But many were turned away, told there was no more room because of the wounded still recovering from the Amerli bombing, which killed 150 people and wounded several hundred more. Many people wounded on Monday were diverted to hospitals in Erbil and Sulaimaniya, the two largest cities in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Two more blasts hit Kirkuk later. A bomb in a parked car exploded about a half-mile from the first attack, wounding one person. Another suicide bomber driving a Volkswagen attacked a police patrol in southern Kirkuk, killing one policeman and seriously wounding 10 others, the police said.

Ethnic tensions have been on the rise in Kirkuk, 160 miles north of Baghdad. Kurds have aggressively moved into the city since the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq, angering Turkmen and Arab residents who feel they are being driven out. The government of Saddam Hussein had resettled many Arabs in the city, but Kurds believe that Kirkuk belongs in the Kurdish region, which has its own security and in many ways operates separately from the rest of Iraq.

Meanwhile, two American soldiers died Sunday: one in Diwaniya in southern Iraq, who died from what the American military described as a “non-battle related cause,” and another killed by an explosion in Nineveh Province in northern Iraq.

In Baghdad, 25 unidentified bodies were found around the city, an Interior Ministry official reported. An improvised bomb also killed five Iraqi soldiers. Mortars killed two people in the city, while a car bomb killed one. Gunmen also killed three policemen south of Falluja, the Iraqi police said.

Qais Mizher contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Kirkuk and Diyala.

    Attacks in Kirkuk and Diyala Kill More Than 100 Iraqis, NYT, 17.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/world/middleeast/17iraq.html

2 Suicide Car Bombings Kill Scores in Kirkuk

July 16, 2007
The New York Times
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

BAGHDAD, July 16 — Two suicide bombers struck the volatile northern city of Kirkuk this morning, killing 73 people and wounding 178 more, the Kirkuk police said. One bomb severely damaged a headquarters building of one of the main Kurdish political parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, but early reports did not indicate how many of those injured were affiliated with the party.

The death toll is expected to rise as rescuers frantically dig through concrete and rubble in hopes of finding survivors.

The first bomb contained an estimated four tons of explosives, the police said, and was detonated late this morning just outside the P.U.K. building. The explosion also destroyed 10 shops and at least 25 cars. The P.U.K. controls the southeastern portion of Iraqi Kurdistan. The party’s leader, Jalal Talabani, is the president of Iraq.

The second blast struck less than an hour later at a busy market in central Kirkuk within a mile of the first explosion, the police said. A senior Iraqi police official in Kirkuk confirmed the total casualty numbers for both blasts but he did not break down the number of deaths and injuries caused by each attack.

The attacks come amid increasing ethnic tensions in Kirkuk, an oil-rich city 150 miles north of Baghdad and 60 miles west of Sulaymaniyah, the largest city in the P.U.K.-controlled region of Kurdistan. Kurds have aggressively moved into Kirkuk since the 2003 invasion, angering Turkmen and Arab residents who feel they are being driven out.

Under Saddam Hussein, the government resettled many Arabs to the city. But the Kurds firmly believe that Kirkuk belongs in Kurdistan, the autonomous northern region that has its own security and is in many ways almost a separate country from the rest of Iraq.

The Kurds have made officially reclaiming Kirkuk a top political priority. A referendum is scheduled for later this year on whether or not Kirkuk should join the Kurdistan Regional Government.

    2 Suicide Car Bombings Kill Scores in Kirkuk, NYT, 16.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/world/middleeast/16cnd-Iraq.html?hp

U.S. General in Iraq Speaks Strongly Against Troop Pullout

July 16, 2007
The New York Times
By JOHN F. BURNS

BAGHDAD, July 15 — An American general directing a major part of the offensive aimed at securing Baghdad said Sunday that it would take until next spring for the operation to succeed, and that an early American withdrawal would clear the way for “the enemy to come back” to areas now being cleared of insurgents.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commanding 15,000 American and about 7,000 Iraqi troops on Baghdad’s southern approaches, spoke more forcefully than any American commander to date in urging that the so-called troop surge ordered by President Bush continue into the spring of 2008. That would match the deadline of March 31 set by the Pentagon, which has said that limits on American troops available for deployment will force an end to the increase by then.

“It’s going to take us through the summer and fall to deny the enemy his sanctuaries” south of Baghdad, General Lynch said at a news briefing in the capital. “And then it’s going to take us through the first of the year and into the spring” to consolidate the gains now being made by the American offensive and to move enough Iraqi forces into the cleared areas to ensure that they remain so, he said.

The general spoke as momentum is gathering in Congress for an early withdrawal date for the 160,000 American troops, as well as an accelerated end to the troop buildup, which have increased American combat casualties in the past three months to the highest levels of the war. In renewed debate over the past week, Congressional opponents of the war have demanded a withdrawal deadline, with some proposing that Congress use its war-financing powers to end the troop increase much sooner, possibly this fall.

General Lynch, a blunt-spoken, cigar-smoking Ohio native who commands the Third Infantry Division, said that all the American troops that began an offensive south of Baghdad in mid-June were part of the five-month-old troop buildup, and that they were making “significant” gains in areas that were previously enemy sanctuaries. Pulling back before the job was completed, he said, would create “an environment where the enemy could come back and fill the void.”

He implied that an early withdrawal would amount to an abandonment of Iraqi civilians who he said had rallied in support of the American and Iraqi troops, and would leave the civilians exposed to renewed brutality by extremist groups. “When we go out there, the first question they ask is, ‘Are you staying?’ ” he said. “And the second question is, ‘How can we help?’ ” He added, “What we hear is, ‘We’ve had enough of people attacking our villages, attacking our homes, and attacking our children.’ ”

General Lynch said his troops had promised local people that they would stay in the areas they had taken from the extremists until enough Iraqi forces were available to take over, and said this had helped sustain “a groundswell” of feeling against the extremists. He said locals had pinpointed hide-outs of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, an extremist group that claims to have ties to Osama bin Laden’s network, that had been used to send suicide bombers into Baghdad and they had helped troops locate 170 large arms caches. The general said the locals had started neighborhood patrol units called “Iraqi provincial volunteers” that supplied their own weapons and ammunition.

The general declined to be drawn into what he called “the big debate in Washington” over the war, saying American troops would continue to battle the enemy until ordered to do otherwise. But he made it clear that his sympathies were with the Iraqis in his battle area, covering an area about the size of West Virginia, mostly between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, that extends about 80 miles south of Baghdad and includes 4 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. The offensive he commands is part of a wider push by American and Iraqi forces in the areas surrounding Baghdad, and in the capital, that began in February.

“What they’re worried about is our leaving,” he said. “And our answer is, ‘We’re staying,’ because my order from the corps commander is that we don’t leave the battlespace until we can hand over to the Iraqi security forces.” To hold on to recent gains, he said, would require at least a third more Iraqi troops than he now has, and they would have to come from other battle areas, or from new units yet to complete their training. “Everybody wants things to happen overnight, and that’s not going to happen,” he said.

General Lynch’s outspoken approach contrasted with the more cautious remarks made recently by other senior American officers, including the top American commander here, Gen. David H. Petraeus. General Petraeus has said in recent interviews that the troop buildup has made substantial gains. But he has declined to say whether he will urge a continuation of it when he returns to Washington by mid-September to make a report on the war to President Bush and Congress that was made mandatory by war-financing legislation this spring.

General Lynch said he was “amazed” at the cooperation his troops were encountering in previously hostile areas. He cited the village of Al Taqa, near the Euphrates about 20 miles southwest of Baghdad, where four American soldiers were killed in an ambush on May 12 and three others were taken hostage. One of the hostages was later found dead, leaving two soldiers missing. Brig. Gen. Jim Huggins, a deputy to General Lynch, said an Iraqi commander in the area had told him on Saturday that women and children in the village had begun using plastic pipes to tap on streetlamps and other metal objects to warn when extremists were in the area planting roadside bombs and planning other attacks.

“The tapping,” General Huggins said, was a signal that “these people have had enough.”

General Lynch also challenged an argument often made by American lawmakers who want to end the military involvement here soon: that Iraqi troops have ducked much of the hard fighting, and often proved unreliable because of the strong sectarian influence exercised by the competition for power between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political factions.

“I don’t know,” he said, how American war critics had concluded that the new American-trained Iraqi Army was not up to the fight. “I find that professionally offensive,” he said, after noting that there were “many Iraqi heroes” of the fighting south of Baghdad. “They’re competent,” he said. “There’s just not enough of them.”

General Lynch said that he and other American commanders were worried that extremist groups under attack by the buildup might retaliate with a spectacular, focused attack on American troops aimed at tipping the argument in Washington in favor of withdrawal.

    U.S. General in Iraq Speaks Strongly Against Troop Pullout, NYT, 16.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/world/middleeast/16commander.html

Even as Loved Ones Fight On, War Doubts Arise

July 15, 2007
The New York Times
By IAN URBINA

FORT EUSTIS, Va., July 11 — Cpl. April Ponce De Leon describes herself and her husband as “gung-ho marines,” and in two weeks she deploys to Iraq, where her husband has been fighting since March.

But she says she stopped believing in the war last month after a telephone conversation with him.

“He started telling me that he doesn’t want me to go and do the things he has been doing,” said Corporal Ponce De Leon, 22, speaking by telephone as she boxed up her belongings in their apartment near Camp Lejeune, N.C.

“He said that ‘we have all decided that it’s time for us to go home.’ I said, ‘You mean go home and rest?’ And he said, ‘I mean go home and not go back.’

“This is from someone who has been training for the past nine years to go to combat and who has spent his whole life wanting to be a marine,” she continued. “That’s when I realized I couldn’t support the war anymore, even though I will follow my orders.”

In voicing her shifting view on the war in Iraq, Corporal Ponce De Leon is not alone. In the past few weeks, President Bush has faced defections within his own party over his handling of the war by Republicans who have cited a growing weariness among military families as having played a central role in changing their opinions. At a news conference last week, Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, who had been a staunch supporter of the president’s handling of the war, said he had sensed a shift among some military families. He recounted how a father he spoke to recently said his son was proud to serve.

“But then this man said, ‘I’m asking you if you couldn’t do a little extra to get our troops back,’ ” Mr. Domenici said, recalling the conversation. “I heard nothing like that a couple years ago.”

Experts cite three causes of eroding morale among military families: longer and multiple deployments, the continued chaos in Baghdad, and the growing death toll — April, May and June were the deadliest three months for American troops since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Among military members and their immediate families who responded to a national New York Times/CBS News poll in May, two-thirds said things were going badly, compared with just over half, about 53 percent, a year ago. Fewer than half of the families and military members said the United States did the right thing in invading Iraq. A year ago more than half held that view, according to the a similar poll taken last July. The May poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 7 percentage points.

Recruiting efforts are also suffering. Despite granting more waivers for recruits with criminal backgrounds, offering larger cash bonuses, loosening age and weight restrictions, and accepting more high school dropouts, the Army said it had missed its recruiting targets in May and June. Pentagon officials say resistance from families is a major recruiting obstacle. Membership is also increasing among antiwar groups that represent the active military and veterans. Military Families Speak Out, one such group, which was started in the fall of 2002, now has about 3,500 member families. About 500 of them have joined since January.

Nancy Lessin, a founder of the group, said it was noteworthy that about a hundred military wives living on bases had joined in the last three months. Wives living on bases, she said, are more reluctant than parents of soldiers to speak out.

For Beth Pyritz, 27, who recently joined the group, the turning point came last month when her husband, an Army specialist, left for Iraq for his third deployment.

“I voted for Bush twice,” said Ms. Pyritz, seated with her five children in their home at Fort Eustis near Virginia Beach. “I backed this war from the beginning, but I don’t think I can look my kids in the eyes anymore, if my husband comes home in a wooden box, and tell them he died for a good reason.”

She said her views began changing late last year as the administration seemed slow to release information about the chaos unfolding in Baghdad and crystallized when military deployments were extended to 15 months from 12 months.

Paul Jones, 51, a social worker who for three years has been counseling members of the National Guard and Army Reserve, said he had seen a growing number of troops who were angry and on edge, which is fueling dissent within military families.

“The soldiers have come home from a war zone with a whole different perception of how things are,” said Mr. Jones, 51, who did not want to divulge the base where he works to protect the soldiers’ confidentiality.

In the past six months, he said, among the units he counsels there have been 14 drunken driving incidents involving military members, compared with two incidents a year ago; four soldiers per unit divorcing, compared with two a year ago, and six soldiers per unit struggling to interact appropriately with their children, compared with one case a year ago.

Although some military members return from Iraq with a renewed sense of focus, he said, “a lot of them have what we call ‘the thousand mile stare.’ ”

He continued, “A pothole gets them jittery because it reminds them of potential bombs. They wake up with night terrors and shove their spouse out of bed while still partially asleep.”

The military has taken steps to try to deal with the growing strain among the troops. Some who are re-enlisting have been given the option of picking locations outside Iraq, including the United States, Europe and Korea, and others are allowed to choose a military school for retraining in a different job classification.

Many military families still support Mr. Bush and his handling of the war. Outspoken dissent from soldiers overseas is rare. Dissent, including among some members of the military and their families, was wider spread during the Vietnam War, in part because of the draft. Although soldiers have varied views on the war and on the Iraqis’ ability to resolve their differences, most focus on dealing with the threats they face, staying alive and carrying out their orders.

On Tuesday, the Army chief of staff, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., said the Army would soon announce plans to give more money to programs that help family members of deployed soldiers cope with the long deployments.

For some, the Army’s efforts have come too late. Penny Preszler, 46, a furniture refurbisher in Phoenix, said she had stopped wearing red on Fridays as she had done for the past year to honor the war effort. “It was when my son started saying he wished he could be injured so he could come home,” Ms. Preszler said.

“There was no pride left in his voice, just this robotic sense of despair,” she said, describing a telephone conversation with her son, Skyler, 24, an infantryman on his second tour of duty in Iraq. “Mom, we killed women on the street today. We killed kids on bikes. We had no choice,” she recounted his saying.

The same week, she said, her son told her he thought he had seen the worst when he had to pick up the body parts of his dead buddy, but then he saw an Iraqi boy picking up what was left of his dead father.

Jaine Darwin, a psychologist and a director of Strategic Outreach to Families of All Reservists, said many families she counseled said they felt trapped.

“Some of them say they fear we can’t leave Iraq because the job isn’t done,” said Ms. Darwin, whose organization, which is apolitical, offers free mental health therapy to military families. “But they still feel like it’s time to get out.”

Their frustrations have led some soldiers to take drastic steps.

Iraq Veterans Against the War, started in July 2004, has grown to 500 members, with 100 joining in the past two months. The Appeal for Redress Project, which since last September has been advising active duty military members and reservists on how to write to their representatives in Congress expressing their opposition to the war, has about 2,000 members, almost half of whom have joined in the past six months.

Michelle Robidoux, an organizer with the War Resisters Support Campaign in Toronto, which advises Americans who have deserted or crossed the border to avoid military service, said in recent months the group has received calls that included two Army sergeants and a Navy chief petty officer.

In the 2006 fiscal year, the Army reported that 3,196 soldiers had deserted, compared with 2,543 in fiscal year 2005 and 2,357 soldiers in fiscal year 2004. In the first quarter of the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, 871 soldiers deserted.

    Even as Loved Ones Fight On, War Doubts Arise, NYT, 15.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/us/15protest.html?hp

Iraq PM: Country Can Manage Without U.S.

July 14, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:33 p.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday that the Iraqi army and police are capable of keeping security in the country when American troops leave ''any time they want,'' though he acknowledged the forces need further weapons and training.

The embattled prime minister sought to show confidence at a time when congressional pressure is growing for a withdrawal and the Bush administration reported little progress had been made on the most vital of a series of political benchmarks it wants al-Maliki to carry out.

Al-Maliki said difficulty in enacting the measures was ''natural'' given Iraq's turmoil.

But one of his top aides, Hassan al-Suneid, rankled at the assessment, saying the U.S. was treating Iraq like ''an experiment in an American laboratory.'' He sharply criticised the U.S. military, saying it was committing human rights violations, embarassing the Iraqi government with its tactics and cooperating with ''gangs of killers'' in its campaign against al-Qaida in Iraq.

Al-Suneid's comments were a rare show of frustration toward the Americans from within al-Maliki's inner circle as the prime minister struggles to overcome deep divisions between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish members of his coalition and enact the American-drawn list of benchmarks.

In new violence in Baghdad on Saturday, a car bomb leveled a two-story apartment building, and a suicide bomber plowed his explosives-packed vehicle into a line of cars at a gas station. The two attacks killed at least eight people, police officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorize to release details of the attacks.

Thursday's White House assessment of progress on the benchmarks fueled calls among congressional critics of the Iraqi policy for a change in strategy, including a withdrawal of American forces.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari warned earlier this week of civil war and the government's collapse if the Americans leave. But al-Maliki told reporters Saturday, ''We say in full confidence that we are able, God willing, to take the responsibility completely in running the security file if the international forces withdraw at any time they want.''

But he added that Iraqi forces are ''still in need of more weapons and rehabilitation'' to be ready in the case of a withdrawal.

On Friday, the Pentagon conceded that the Iraqi army has become more reliant on the U.S. military. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, said the number of Iraqi batallions able to operate on their own without U.S. support has dropped in recent months from 10 to six, though he said the fall was in part due to attrition from stepped-up offensives.

Al-Maliki told a Baghdad press conference that his government needs ''time and effort'' to enact the political reforms that Washington seeks -- ''particularly since the political process is facing security, economic and services pressures, as well as regional and international interference.''

''These difficulties can be read as a big success, not negative points, when they are viewed under the shadow of the big challenges,'' he said.

In the White House strategy, beefed-up American forces have been waging intensified security crackdowns in Baghdad and areas to the north and south for nearly a month. The goal is to bring quiet to the capital while al-Maliki gives Sunni Arabs a greater role in the goverment and political process, lessening support for the insurgency.

But the benchmarks have been blocked by divisions among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders. In August, the parliament is taking a one month vacation -- a shorter break than the usual two months, but still enough to anger some in Congress who say lawmakers should push through the measures.

Al-Suneid, a Shiite lawmaker close to al-Maliki, bristled at the pressure. He called Thursday's report ''objective,'' but added, ''this bothers us a lot that the situation looks as if it is an experiment in an American laboratory (judging) whether we succeed or fail.''

He also told The Associated Press that al-Maliki has problems with the top U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus, who works along a ''purely American vision.''

He criticized U.S. overtures to Sunni groups in Anbar and Diyala, encouraging former insurgents to join the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. ''These are gangs of killers,'' he said.

''There are disagreements that the strategy that Petraeus is following might succeed in confronting al-Qaida in the early period but it will leave Iraq an armed nation, an armed society and militias,'' said al-Suneid.

He said that the U.S. authorities have embarrassed al-Maliki' government through acts such as constructing a wall around Baghdad's Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah and repeated raids on suspected Shiite militiamen in the capital's eastern slum of Sadr City. He said the U.S. use of airstrikes to hit suspected insurgent positions also kills civilians.

''This embarrasses the government in front of its people,'' he said, calling the civilian deaths a ''human rights violation.''

    Iraq PM: Country Can Manage Without U.S., NYT, 14.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html

Iraq War Report Implies Longer US Surge

July 13, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:50 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- While many in Congress are pushing President Bush to alter course in Iraq by September if not sooner, his new status report on the war strongly implies that the administration believes its military strategy will take many more months to meet its goals.

The report cited no specific timeframe, but its language suggests what some U.S. commanders have hinted at recently: The troop reinforcements that Bush ordered in January may need to remain until spring 2008.

That's a military calculation at odds with an emerging political consensus in Washington on bringing the troops home soon.

The disconnect between the military and political views on the best way forward is a symptom of four-plus years of setbacks in Iraq -- not only missteps by the U.S. government but also by Iraqi political leaders, who have fallen far short of their stated aim of creating a government of national unity.

In the view of some members of Congress -- and not just Democrats -- the time has long passed for the Iraqis to show that they can parlay U.S.-led military efforts into progress on the political front.

''That government is simply not providing leadership worthy of the considerable sacrifice of our forces, and this has to change immediately,'' Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said after the White House delivered its war report to Congress on Thursday. Warner was the author of legislation requiring the report.

Hours after the report's release, the House, on a 223-201 vote, approved a Democratic measure requiring U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by spring. House Democrats pursued the vote despite a veto threat from Bush.

The president apparently has made the calculation that he can ward off political pressure to change course before the next required progress report, set for mid-September. That's when Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, plans to lay out his assessment of whether the counterinsurgency strategy he launched in February is working and recommends to Bush whether to stick with it into the coming year.

By extending troop deployments in Iraq from 12 months to 15 months, the Army has made it possible for Bush to maintain the troop buildup until about April 2008. But if he wanted to go beyond that it would require some even more painful moves by the Army, at the risk of reaching a breaking point.

Although the war is increasingly unpopular, Bush does have support in some prominent quarters for continuing his current military strategy, not only for the remainder of this year but into 2008. John Keane, a retired four-star Army general, said this week that security progress, though slow, is gaining momentum.

''The thought of pulling out now or in a couple of months makes no sense militarily,'' Keane said.

Between now and September the battle for Baghdad will intensify, likely costing hundreds of American troops' lives, and the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will be pressured to do more to weed out sectarian influences in the Iraqi security forces and to pass legislation designed to promote reconciliation.

The U.S. casualty rate has increased in recent months, and total U.S. deaths in Iraq since the war began in March 2003 now exceed 3,600.

Petraeus hopes that by September the U.S.-led counteroffensive will have reduced the level of violence enough to create an atmosphere in which political progress can be made, while Iraqi security forces move measurably closer to the point where they can sustain the security gains made by U.S. forces.

''We should expect, however, that AQI will attempt to increase its tempo of attacks as September approaches in an effort to influence U.S domestic opinion about sustained U.S. engagement in Iraq,'' Bush's report said. AQI is an acronym for the al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq that U.S. officials say has a small number of fighters but an outsized ability to accelerate sectarian violence in Baghdad and elsewhere.

At a White House news conference, Bush pleaded for patience, saying that as difficult and painful as the war has become, the consequences of giving up and withdrawing the troops now would be even worse.

His report to Congress acknowledged shortcomings while asserting that the ''overall trajectory'' of the military and political effort in Iraq ''has begun to stabilize, compared to the deteriorating trajectory'' in 2006.

Sprinkled through the report are phrases that make clear the administration believes its military strategy is the right one, that it should be given more time and that positive results are at least months away.

Some examples:

-- There are encouraging signs that should, ''over time,'' point the way to lower U.S. troop levels in Iraq.

-- Meaningful and lasting progress on national reconciliation may require a ''sustained period'' of reduced violence.

-- Pushing ''too fast'' for reforms to allow former Sunni Baathists to participate more fully in the government could make it harder to achieve reconciliation. Likewise, it said the time is not right to establish amnesty for those insurgents who fought against the government since 2003, although amnesty is a key goal. At the moment, the report said, ''a general amnesty program would be counterproductive'' because no major armed group has said it is willing to renounce violence and join the government.

-- The report listed eight ''core objectives'' that will be the main focus ''over 2007 and into 2008.'' These included defeating al-Qaida and its supporters and helping Iraqis regain control of Baghdad.

------

On the Net:

Iraq report: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070712.html

    Iraq War Report Implies Longer US Surge, NYT, 13.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Iraq-What-Next.html

Around 150, Death Toll in Iraq Attack Among War’s Worst

July 9, 2007
The New York Times
By STEPHEN FARRELL

BAGHDAD, July 8 — The death toll from a suicide truck bombing in a remote village in northern Iraq rose to around 150 on Sunday, making it one of the deadliest single bombings, if not the deadliest, since the 2003 invasion.

The attack, in the impoverished Shiite Turkmen village of Amerli, 100 miles north of Baghdad in Salahuddin Province, has highlighted fears that Sunni insurgents facing military crackdowns in Baghdad and Diyala Province are simply directing their attacks to areas outside the concentration of American troops.

The police in Amerli said that the truck used in Saturday’s attack concealed 4.5 tons of explosives beneath watermelons. The blast leveled dozens of houses and shops, trapping and killing many residents beneath the rubble.

Casualty counts conflicted. Some officials put the toll between 130 and 150, but Col. Abbas Mohammed Ameen, the police commander of Tuz Khurmato, a town about 15 miles away, said the toll was 155 dead and 265 wounded.

If that is correct, the Amerli attack would be the single worst bombing in the war, deadlier than the March truck bombing in Tal Afar that killed 152 people.

Tahsin Kahea, a member of the provincial council and a prominent member of the Turkmen community, said he believed that the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and religious extremists had “started to attack the Shiite towns outside the main cities after they have been suffocated in Baghdad and Diyala.”

“This happened previously in Daquq, Tal Afar and Bashir, and now in Amerli,” he said.

The American ambassador, Ryan C. Crocker, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the American forces in Iraq, issued a joint statement on Sunday in which they condemned the attack, praised the Iraqi security and emergency services, and promised to help the investigation. “We send our thoughts and prayers to the victims’ families and those injured,” the statement said. “This attack is another sad example of the nature of the enemy and their use of indiscriminate violence to kill innocent citizens.”

Near the town of Haswa, about 30 miles west of Baghdad, another suicide truck bomber killed more than 20 new Iraqi Army recruits and wounded 27 others on Sunday, Iraqi security officials said.

They said the recruits were killed as they were being driven to a recruitment center in Baghdad from Anbar Province. They were joining the Iraqi security forces as part of a drive by Sunni tribal leaders to fight the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which had seized control of some areas of the overwhelmingly Sunni province.

Two nearly simultaneous car-bomb blasts on Sunday in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada killed at least eight Iraqis and wounded 12, the United States military said.

On the outskirts of Amerli on Sunday, fluttering black flags bore the names of the dead — in some cases more than half a dozen from a single family.

In the middle of the sprawl of rubble that was once the town center, a 12-foot crater gaped. Villagers said 50 houses and 55 shops had been destroyed and scores more badly damaged, with debris piled alongside shattered buildings — a testament to where rescuers, their efforts now ended, had tried to dig out survivors. The town has been cut off from electricity and water since the blast.

The village’s medical services — one small treatment center — were immediately overwhelmed after the attack, and many of the wounded were sent to Tuz Khurmato, Kirkuk and Sulaimaniya. Some were even flown to Turkey.

The governor of Salahuddin Province, Hamed Hamoud, arrived along with his police commander to console residents on Sunday. But the villagers refused to meet with them, instead throwing stones and cursing them for failing to protect Amerli.

As he arrived at work in Amerli on Sunday, Imad Abdul Hussein, a policeman, said: “I came to do my job and to take revenge for my uncle killed yesterday. We will fight Al Qaeda organization to the last drop of our blood; we will destroy them or they will destroy us.”

No group claimed immediate responsibility for the attack, but Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the jihadist group Islamic State in Iraq, issued an audiotape warning Iran to stop supporting Iraq’s Shiites. The tape, posted on a Web site, said, “We are giving the Persians, and especially the rulers of Iran, a two-month period to end all kinds of support for the Iraqi Shiite government and to stop direct and indirect intervention.” He added, “Otherwise, a severe war is waiting for you.”

The attack on Amerli came 12 hours after a blast in a Shiite-dominated farming district in neighboring Diyala Province, close to the Iranian border. That attack, in Zakoosh, killed 17 people, and came as further evidence of the bombers’ ability to attack outside Baghdad and Baquba, where tens of thousands of American troops have been waging an offensive to reduce insurgent activity.

American commanders conceded that 80 percent of the insurgents’ leadership in Baquba evaded the siege and are thought to have escaped the city.

It is rare for insurgents to mount such large attacks in remote villages like Amerli, often preferring to strike in crowded city centers and at religious sites and Iraqi security forces. But since the start of the Baghdad security plan in February, they have frequently struck outside the capital within major cities or targets that are less well defended.

In May, for instance, two truck-bomb attacks in the Kurdish region — including one in the center of Erbil — killed at least 69 people. In April, two suicide car bombings about two weeks apart killed 42 and 71 people well south of the capital, near Shiite shrines in the holy city of Karbala. A month earlier a double car bombing in the Shiite town of Hilla killed 90 pilgrims, with 28 more killed elsewhere on the same day.

All these bombings came after the Feb. 14 start of the new Baghdad security plan, which brought tens of thousands more American troops into the city as part of the latest crackdown aimed at restoring order to the capital.

Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Amerli and Baghdad.

    Around 150, Death Toll in Iraq Attack Among War’s Worst, NYT, 9.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/world/middleeast/09iraq.html

Man Executed for Role in 2003 Iraq Blast

July 6, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:15 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD (AP) -- An alleged al-Qaida militant was executed for his role in one of the first and bloodiest bombings in Iraq, a 2003 blast that killed Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim and 84 other people, a Justice Ministry official said Friday.

Oras Mohammed Abdul-Aziz was executed by hanging Tuesday in Baghdad after being sentenced to death in October, Ministry Undersecretary Busho Ibrahim told The Associated Press.

The execution announcement was the first word that a suspect had been tried in the al-Hakim killing.

Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack -- a huge car bomb in August 2003 that went off outside the Shrine of Ali in Najaf, one of Shiite Islam's holist sites, and killed al-Hakim.

Al-Hakim was the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and was poised to become a major figure in Iraqi politics following the fall of Saddam Hussein only months before his assassination. His brother Abdulaziz al-Hakim now heads the group, the largest Shiite party in parliament.

Ibrahim said Abdul-Aziz, from the northern city of Mosul, was affiliated with al-Qaida in Iraq and confessed to other attacks, including the 2004 killing of Abdel-Zahraa Othman, the president of the Governing Council, the U.S.-appointed body that ran Iraq following Saddam's fall.

The al-Hakim slaying was one of the first major bombings in Iraq and foreshadowed the four-year insurgency that was to follow. It came 10 days after a bombing against the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad killed 23 people including the top U.N. envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, an attack also claimed by al-Qaida in Iraq.

    Man Executed for Role in 2003 Iraq Blast, NYT, 6.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq-Execution.html

G.I.’s Forge Sunni Tie in Bid to Squeeze Militants

July 6, 2007
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

BAQUBA, Iraq, June 30 — Capt. Ben Richards had been battling insurgents from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia for three weeks when he received an unexpected visitor.

Abu Ali walked into the Americans’ battle-scarred combat outpost with an unusual proposal: the community leader was worried about the insurgents, and wanted the soldiers’ help in taking them on.

The April 7 meeting was the beginning of a new alliance and, American commanders hope, a portent of what is to come in the bitterly contested Diyala Province.

Using his Iraqi partners to pick out the insurgents and uncover the bombs they had seeded along the cratered roads, Captain Richards’s soldiers soon apprehended more than 100 militants, including several low-level emirs. The Iraqis called themselves the Local Committee; Captain Richards dubbed them the Kit Carson scouts.

“It is the only way that we can keep Al Qaeda out,” said Captain Richards, who operates from a former Iraqi police station in the Buhritz sector of the city that still bears the sooty streaks from the day militants set it aflame last year.

The American military has struggled for more than four years to train and equip the Iraqi Army. But here the local Sunni residents, including a number of former insurgents from the 1920s Revolution Brigades, have emerged as a linchpin of the American strategy.

The new coalition reflects some hard-headed calculations on both sides. Eager for intelligence on their elusive foes, American officers have been willing to overlook the past of some of their newfound allies.

Many Sunnis, for their part, are less inclined to see the soldiers as occupiers now that it is clear that American troop reductions are all but inevitable, and they are more concerned with strengthening their ability to fend off threats from Sunni jihadists and Shiite militias. In a surprising twist, the jihadists — the Americans’ most ardent foes — made the new strategy possible. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a predominantly Iraqi organization with a small but significant foreign component, severely overplayed its hand, spawning resentment by many residents and other insurgent groups.

Imposing a severe version of Islamic law, the group installed its own clerics, established an Islamic court and banned the sale of cigarettes, which even this week were nowhere to be found in the humble shops in western Baquba to the consternation of patrolling Iraqi troops.

The fighters raised funds by kidnapping local Iraqis, found accommodations by evicting some residents from their homes and killed with abandon when anyone got in their way, residents say. A small group of bearded black-clad militants took down the Iraqi flag and raised the banner of their self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq.

“They used religion as a ploy to get in and exploit people’s passions,” said one member of the Kit Carson scouts, who gave his name as Haidar. “They were Iraqis and other Arabs from Syria, Afghanistan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. They started kicking people out of their houses and getting ransom from rich people. They would shoot people in front of their houses to scare the others.”

Collaborations like the one with the scouts in Baquba are slowly beginning to emerge in other parts of Iraq. In Baquba they face some notable obstacles, primarily from the Shiite-dominated provincial and Baghdad ministries that are worried about American efforts to rally the Sunnis and institutionalize them as a security force.

But with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government showing scant progress toward political reconciliation and the American military eager to achieve a measure of stability before its elevated troop levels begin to shrink, American commanders appear determined to proceed with this more decentralized strategy — one that relies less on initiatives taken by Iraqi leaders in Baghdad and more on newly forged coalitions with local Iraqis.

A West Point graduate, Idaho native and former Mormon missionary who worked for two years with Chinese immigrants in Canada, Captain Richards commands Bronco Troop, First Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment. When the 31-year-old officer was first sent to Buhritz in mid-March as part of a battalion-size task force, he encountered a deeply entrenched foe who numbered in the thousands.

Many of the members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia were ensconced in a sprawling palm grove-laden sanctuary south of Baquba and east of the Diyala River. The area, which is still under the group’s control, is still so replete with arms caches, insurgent leaders, fighters and their supporters that American soldiers have taken to calling it the Al Qaeda Fob, or forward operating base in American military jargon.

The insurgents also had a firm grip on the city, the provincial capital of Diyala, which Abu Musab al-Zarqawi made the center of his self-styled Islamic caliphate before he was killed in an airstrike near Baquba last year. The key supply and communications lines between the insurgents’ rural staging area and the city ran through the Buhritz, making it vital ground for Al Qaeda.

The militants’ hold on the region was facilitated, senior American officers now acknowledge, by American commanders’ decision to draw down forces in the province in 2005 in the hopes of shifting most of the responsibility for securing the region onto the Iraqis. That strategy backfired when the Iraqi authorities appointed overly sectarian Shiite army and police regional commanders, alienating the largely Sunni population, and otherwise showed themselves unable to safeguard the area.

“Up until Captain Richards went in and met the 1920s guys, we fought,” recalled Lt. Col. Mo Goins, the commander of the First Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, which held the line in Baquba until reinforcements began to arrive in March. “That is what we did. Small arms. Mortars. I.E.D’s.”

Captain Richards’s soldiers arrived in Buhritz in mid-March as part of a battalion-sized operation. Unlike many earlier operations, the Americans showed up in force and did not quickly withdraw. The residents saw an opportunity to challenge Al Qaeda, and for a week, the two sides battled it out in the streets.

Initially, the Americans stood on the sidelines, concerned that they might be witnessing a turf fight among insurgents and militias. “We were not sure what was going on,” Captain Richards recalled. “We were not sure we could trust the people not to turn on us afterwards.”

But after the militants gained the upper hand and more than 1,000 residents began to flee on foot, the Americans moved to prevent the militants from establishing their control throughout the neighborhood. The soldiers called in an airstrike, which demolished a local militant headquarters.

The meeting between the residents and the Americans was Abu Ali’s initiative. The locals wanted ammunition to carry on their fight. Captain Richards had another proposal: the residents should tip off the Americans on which Iraqis belonged to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and where they had buried their bombs.

At first, no more than a dozen of the several hundred Sunnis who were taking on the militants served as Kit Carson scouts, but they made a vital difference. Unlike Anbar Province, where the American military has formed similar alliances, Diyala lacks a cohesive tribal structure. Nor did another Sunni insurgent group, the 1920s Revolution Brigades, deliver fighters en masse.

Even so, some of the main obstacles that the Americans have faced in institutionalizing the arrangement with the scouts have come from the United States’ ostensible allies in the Iraqi government. According to Captain Richards, the provincial police chief, Maj. Gen. Ghanen al-Kureshi, repeatedly resisted efforts to hire the local Sunnis.

Captain Richards rejected a group of Shiite police recruits from Baghdad, fearing they might be penetrated by Shiite militias. Determined to get his scouts hired, he loaded 50 scouts and other residents on his Stryker vehicles and drove them to the provincial headquarters over the insurgent-threatened roads.

Today, the police number only 170, a fraction of the police force in adjoining areas. The small police force, made up of scouts and Sunni residents, was provided with only two trucks, seven radios and a paltry supply of ammunition that the Sunni residents have managed to supplement by buying ammunition on the black market from corrupt Interior Ministry officials in Baghdad. Another 150 scouts participate as unpaid monitors in a neighborhood watch program to guard key routes in and out of the area that Captain Richards oversees.

“The people in the community think that he is actively trying to prevent the Buhritz police from establishing themselves because the Shia government does not want a legitimate Sunni security force in Diyala Province,” Captain Richards said, referring to General Ghanen, the provincial police chief.

Colonel Goins had a more charitable view of the provincial chief’s actions, saying that he was coping with personnel and weapons shortages, as well as Interior Ministry guidance to build up the force in other areas. “Right now, his resources are extremely limited,” Colonel Goins said.

The new police and neighborhood watch monitors appear to work well with the local Iraqi Army unit and police officials. But a local Iraqi Army commander expressed doubts that the scouts, in uniform or not, amounted to a disciplined, military unit that could take and hold ground.

During a quick visit to two villages, Guam and Abu Faad, the Americans and their Iraqi allies tried to persuade welcoming but still wary residents that they needed to overcome their fears of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and provide tips for their own security.

The American military is trying to expand the alliance into the western sector of the city, which a Stryker brigade recently wrested back from Qaeda militants. During the recent American assault in the western sector, soldiers from Blackhawk Company got a glimpse of an alliance the Americans hope to see. An Iraqi seemingly emerged from nowhere, announced himself as a member of the 1920s Revolution Brigades and warned the soldiers that insurgents could be found on the far side of a sand berm around the corner. The tip was accurate.

    G.I.’s Forge Sunni Tie in Bid to Squeeze Militants, NYT, 6.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/world/middleeast/06military.html?hp

Marines face new probe over eight Iraq deaths

Thu Jul 5, 2007
7:43PM EDT
Reuters
By Marty Graham

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Up to 10 U.S. Marines are under investigation for the deaths of eight Iraqi prisoners during the November 2004 battle for Fallujah, marking the third war crimes probe of Marines at California's Camp Pendleton, a government spokesman said on Thursday.

Ed Buice, a spokesman for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said he could not disclose details of the inquiry at the U.S. Marine Corps base.

But he said none of the Marines under investigation are being held in detention.

Nat Helms, a Vietnam veteran who has written a book about the Marine Corp's battle for Fallujah in Iraq's Anbar Province, provided an account of the deaths on his Web site -- defendourmarines.com -- writing that eight Iraqi prisoners were executed.

According to Helms, Marines held eight unarmed Iraqi men in a house during the battle and executed them after receiving orders to move to a new location.

The allegation is another embarrassment for the U.S. military fighting in Iraq and Camp Pendleton, one the Marine Corps' largest installations in the United States.

In June 2006, seven Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman were charged in the April 2006 killing of a 52-year-old grandfather in Hamdania, Iraq.

According to testimony, the man was kidnapped from his bed and killed in a scenario planned to make his death look like he was planting a bomb.

All but three of the troops have pleaded guilty to reduced charges, while the remaining three Marines pleaded innocent to charges including kidnapping and murder and are awaiting court martial.

In December 2006, eight Marines from the same platoon being investigated in the Fallujah killings were charged in the November 2005 killings of 24 residents of Haditha, Iraq.

Four officers face charges for failing to investigate and accurately report the Haditha killings and three Marines face murder charges. Charges against a fourth Marine were dismissed in exchange for testimony.

The latest investigation began after a Marine admitted during a polygraph test for a job with the U.S. Secret Service that he participated in a wrongful death, according to Helms.

Helms says Corp. Ryan Weemer told him that after Marines captured the eight Iraqis, they received a radio order to move out. When asked what to do with the prisoners, a radio operator asked "Are they still alive?" The Marines took that as an order to execute the Iraqis and shot them to death, Helms says.

According to Helms, insurgents in Fallujah would run from firefights without weapons and rearm themselves at new locations because they knew Marines were barred from shooting the unarmed.

    Marines face new probe over eight Iraq deaths, R, 5.7.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0538154320070705

Qaeda Deputy Leader in Iraq Seen in New Video

July 5, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:34 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Al-Qaida's deputy leader sought to bolster the terror network's main arm in Iraq in a new video released Thursday, calling on Muslims to rally behind it at a time when the group is on the defensive, faced with U.S. offensives and splits with other insurgent groups.

Ayman al-Zawahri defended the Islamic State of Iraq -- the insurgent umbrella group headed by al-Qaida -- against critics among Islamic militant groups, saying it was a vanguard for fighting off the U.S. military and eventually establishing a ''caliphate'' of Islamic rule across the region.

Al-Zawahri, the top deputy of Osama bin Laden, called on Muslims to follow a two-pronged strategy: work at home to topple ''corrupt'' Arab regimes and join al-Qaida's ''jihad,'' or holy war, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia to fight and train ''to prepare for the next jihad.''

He urged Hamas not to compromise and bend under Arab and international pressure to end its rule in the Gaza Strip and make way for a unified Palestinian government that could pursue peace with Israel.

''As for the leadership of Hamas, I tell it: return to the truth, for you will only get something worse than what (late Palestinian leader Yasser) Arafat got'' from the Israelis in negotiations, he said. The peace process, he said, is a U.S. attempt to ''deceive the Islamic nation and say that America solved the issue of Palestine, so what need is there to fight it and wage jihad against it?''

In an earlier message after its seizure of Gaza, al-Zawahri urged Hamas to form an alliance with al-Qaida, a call the Palestinian militant group shunned.

The Egyptian militant did not mention last week's failed car bombing attempts in Britain, which British authorities are investigating for al-Qaida links. That suggested the video, posted Thursday on an Islamic militant Web site, was made before the events in London and Glasgow.

Al-Qaida's declaration of the Islamic State of Iraq last year was a dramatic move aimed at staking out its leadership of Iraq's insurgency. Allying itself with several smaller Iraqi Sunni insurgent groups, it presented the Islamic State as an alternative government within Iraq, claiming to hold territory.

The move quickly met resistance. Some Islamic extremist clerics in the Arab world said it was too soon to declare an Islamic state because the Islamic law qualifications were not yet met and argued that a true Islamic state is not viable while there are still U.S. forces in Iraq.

Several large Iraqi Sunni insurgent groups publicly denounced al-Qaida, saying its fighters were killing theirs and pressuring them to join the Islamic State. One group, the 1920 Revolution Brigades, has begun overtly cooperating with U.S. forces and Sunni tribal leaders to attack al-Qaida.

At the same time, increased U.S. forces sent to Iraq this year are waging a number of offensives in suspected al-Qaida strongholds north and south of Baghdad and in western Anbar province, claiming to have captured and killed a number of significant figures in the group.

The offensives have caused an increase in American casualties, but insurgent and militia attacks appear to have fallen in the past week. On Thursday, Baghdad was relatively quiet, with police reports of a policeman and a civilian killed in a shooting and bombing. A roadside bomb hit a police patrol in the northern city of Mosul, killing a civilian and wounding three police.

The U.S. military said a helicopter crash on Wednesday that killed an American soldier in western Iraq was caused when the craft hit electrical wires, adding that ground fire was not a cause. The Islamic State of Iraq said in a statement Wednesday the crash happened during a battle, and that ''God blinded'' the pilot, causing him to hit the wires.

Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish leaders on Thursday were trying to overcome a Sunni Arab boycott of the Cabinet of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which threatens to hold up a key new oil law. The United States is pressing hard for passage of the long-delayed oil law in hopes it will encourage Sunni support of the government.

Al-Zawahri spent much of the unusually long video -- at an hour and 35 minutes -- defending the Islamic State, criticizing those who refuse to recognize it ''because it lacks the necessary qualifications'' even while he acknowledged it had made unspecified mistakes.

''The Islamic State of Iraq is set up in Iraq, the mujahedeen (holy warriors) celebrate it in the streets of Iraq, the people demonstrate in support of it,'' al-Zawahri said, ''pledges of allegiance to it are declared in the mosques of Baghdad.''

He said Muslims around the world should ''support this blessed fledgling mujahid garrison state with funds, manpower, opinion, information and expertise,'' saying its founding brought the Islamic world closer to ''establishment of the caliphate, with God's permission.''

He urged critics to work with the Islamic State ''even if we see in it shortcomings,'' and said Islamic State leaders should ''open their hearts'' to consultations. ''The mujahedeen are not innocent of deficiency, error and slips,'' he said. ''The mujahedeen must solve their problems among themselves.''

Al-Zawahri appeared in the video -- first reported by IntelCenter and SITE, two U.S.-based groups that monitor militant messages -- wearing a white robe and turban and, as he often does, took a professorial tone, making points by citing Islamic history and by showing clips of experts speaking on Western and Arabic media.

He denounced Egypt, Jordan and Saudi at length. He warned Iraq's Sunni minority against seeing them as allies, saying they pretend to support the Sunni cause while allying themselves with the United States.

If Saudi Arabia controls Iraq or Sunni regions of Iraq, ''the Iraqis would then suffer the same repression and humiliation which the people suffer under Saudi rule under the pretext of combating terrorism -- i.e., combatting jihad and preserving American security,'' al-Zawahri said.

The al-Qaida deputy also laid out an al-Qaida strategy, saying in the near-term militant should target U.S. and Israeli interests ''everywhere'' in retaliation for ''attacks on the Islamic nation'' in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.

The long-term strategy calls for ''diligent work to change these corrupt and corrupting (Arab) regimes.'' He said Muslims should ''rush to the fields of jihad'' in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia ''to defeat the enemies of the Islamic nation'' and for ''training to prepare for the next jihad.''

    Qaeda Deputy Leader in Iraq Seen in New Video, NYT, 5.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html

US Troops in Iraq Mark July 4 Holiday

July 4, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:38 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Hundreds of U.S. troops marked the Fourth of July by re-enlisting in the military Wednesday while others took their oaths of American citizenship in ceremonies at the main U.S. headquarters in Iraq.

A total of 588 troops signed up for another stint in the military, according to a U.S. military statement. Another 161 became naturalized American citizens.

''No bonus, no matter the size, can adequately compensate you for the contribution each of you has made and continues to make as a custodian of our nation's defenses,'' the top U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus, told the audience at Camp Victory.

''Nor can any amount of money compensate you adequately for the sacrifices you make serving here in Iraq or the burdens your loved ones face at home in your absence. And we certainly cannot put a price on the freedoms you defend or those we are trying to help the Iraqis establish and safeguard here in the land of the two rivers.''

Petraeus dedicated the Independence Day ceremony to the memory of two soldiers who were killed in action before they could be sworn in as citizens.

They were Sgt. Kimel Watt, 21, of Brooklyn, N.Y., who was killed June 3 in Baghdad, and Spc. Farid Elazzouzi of Paterson, N.J., who died June 14 in a bombing near Kirkuk.

''Words cannot express the admiration I feel for these two men or the sadness I feel for our nation's loss and their families' sacrifice,'' Petraeus said.

Visiting Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., congratulated the new citizens and spoke of the hardships endured fighting in an unpopular war.

''You know that you who have endured the dangers and deprivations of war so that the worst thing would not befall us, so that America might be secure in our freedom,'' McCain said. ''As you know, the war in which you have fought has divided the American people. But it has divided no American in their admiration for you. We all honor you.''

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., led the new citizens in the Pledge of Allegiance.

At a U.S. base outside Baqouba, Sgt. Jesse Jones, 24, of Olympia, Wash., spent Independence Day by taking a shower and getting a haircut. His platoon was on break before heading back to fighting in Baqouba.

''Today I'm just basically relaxing and refitting, getting ready to go back into the city,'' he said. ''As much as I want to be home, I don't regret being here. This is a good place to celebrate the Fourth of July. Not only are we celebrating independence, we're fighting for independence, too.''

    US Troops in Iraq Mark July 4 Holiday, G, 4.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq-Fourth-of-July.html

Screening for Brain Injury Is Set for Illinois Veterans

July 4, 2007
The New York Times
By LIBBY SANDER

CHICAGO, July 3 — Frustrated with the federal government’s response to the mental health needs of soldiers, Illinois officials announced on Tuesday that members of the state’s National Guard would be routinely screened for traumatic brain injuries after serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The mandatory program, which appears to be the first in the nation, will also offer the screening to other veterans in the state and will include a 24-hour hot line providing psychological counseling to veterans of all military branches. The program is expected to cost $10.5 million a year.

“It’s been shown that the federal government simply was not prepared to deal with the number of war injured coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Tammy Duckworth, the director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs and a former Blackhawk helicopter pilot who lost both legs on active duty in Iraq.

“This is a way that we in Illinois can react much more quickly,” Ms. Duckworth said at a news conference with Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, a Democrat.

There are currently 1,100 members of the Illinois Army National Guard serving, or preparing to serve, in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Traumatic brain injuries afflict 14 percent to 20 percent of military service members, according to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, a federally financed program. The injuries, which are often caused by roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, are believed to be more common among soldiers who have served in those conflicts, the center estimates.

Veterans hospitals screen patients, including those who have served in the National Guard, for traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder, said Maureen Dyman, a spokeswoman for Hines Veterans Affairs Hospital in Chicago. Anybody who registers for first-time care must take part in the screening, Ms. Dyman said.

Ms. Duckworth said one goal of the new state program is to catch the milder form of brain injuries in National Guard veterans who show no other sign of injury and who would have no reason to seek care at a hospital. The program is mandatory only for National Guard members because the state has no authority over the military branches.

“It is obvious to everybody there is a need for more psychological care for our service members,” said Ms. Duckworth, a Democrat, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year.

Severe and even some moderate traumatic brain injuries are usually obvious and easy to detect, said Dr. Felise S. Zollman, medical director of the brain injury program at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, which will help the state carry out the new program. But mild brain injuries often go undetected, with their symptoms of irritability, headaches, dizziness and a foggy feeling in the head, Dr. Zollman said.

The mandatory screening would consist of a written questionnaire, an assessment by a medical professional, and a professional interpretation of the results, Dr. Zollman said. Service members believed to show symptoms of a brain injury would be referred for assessment and further treatment at a veterans’ center.

“This is really good news for veterans,” said Paul Sullivan, the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense in Washington, who served in the Army in the Persian Gulf war. “It’s limited in scope, but the State of Illinois is absolutely doing the right thing.”

It makes sense for states to take on the responsibility for the screening, Mr. Sullivan said.

“It’s much easier for the state to do this, because they only have tens of thousands — and in the larger states, hundreds of thousands — of new war veterans to deal with,” Mr. Sullivan said. “In contrast, the federal government has 1.6 million service members from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to try to screen.”

About half of the $10.5 million cost of the Illinois program would come from the current state budget, Mr. Blagojevich said, and the remainder is expected to be allocated in next year’s budget. The Legislature has been struggling to pass a budget for weeks, and on Thursday it will begin a special session that Mr. Blagojevich said would last “however long it takes” to pass an approved budget.

“Maybe I always see the glass as half full, but I can’t imagine why we wouldn’t get the money,” he said.

The Army, in the battery of tests it conducts on returning soldiers, looks generally for traumatic brain injuries, known as T.B.I., but the screening does not focus specifically on them, officials said.

“As the war has gone on and we realize that T.B.I. is one of the significant injuries of the war, we have put more initiatives in place to screen, diagnose and treat T.B.I.,” said Col. Elspeth C. Ritchie, the psychiatry consultant to the Army surgeon general.

Soldiers returning from active duty undergo health assessments as well as reassessments three months to six months later, Colonel Ritchie said.

    Screening for Brain Injury Is Set for Illinois Veterans, NYT, 4.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/04/us/04vets.html

Cutting Red Tape for Wounded Troops

July 3, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:11 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Every day for weeks, injured Army pilot Joseph Luciano talked to an answering machine at Walter Reed hospital, trying to get an appointment for a heart scan.

Then he called the Army's new Wounded Soldier and Family Hotline. Within six hours, he got the appointment -- along with an apology from the colonel who heads Walter Reed Army Medical Center's radiology department.

The hot line has logged more than 3,500 calls since it was set up three months ago following revelations that Walter Reed outpatients were languishing in shoddy housing and suffering bureaucratic delays in getting additional care, evaluations and compensation for wounds, mental problems and other health issues.

''It's totally needed,'' said Luciano, a 59-year-old Army National Guard Black Hawk helicopter pilot from Carlisle, Pa. ''There are ... plenty of soldiers who just don't know which way to turn when they've run into a frustrating problem.''

It solved Luciano's problem. ''Totally,'' he said.

The hot line -- 1-800-984-8523 -- is staffed 24 hours a day, every day, by 100 employees on three shifts.

They aim to get an answer for every caller within three business days -- not solving the problem themselves, but channeling it to the person or agency that can. The operation essentially cuts through red tape like no average caller could.

''We cut through it and get (the request) in the proper hands so people understand there is a sense of urgency,'' said Col. Robert Clark, deputy director of the call center. ''When a soldier calls us, he may have tried other avenues and not gotten an answer. So we attach a sense of urgency to everything we do.''

Callers have included soldiers, their relatives, veterans and members of other services. They call about missing records, questions over treatment, requests for surgery and help with the complicated evaluation process that judges their ability to continue in service and decides disability payments.

Though the hot line program was planned as a medical help line -- and more than half of calls are on that subject -- the issues are wide ranging. Callers want financial counseling, help finding a lawyer or to know why they didn't get a promotion or award they think they earned in their time overseas.

Some want simple information like phone numbers to call, directions to the hospital or Web sites to consult.

One soldier noticed money was being subtracted from his pay and wanted to know why. The call center tracked it down as deductions for an old student loan.

Callers are ''going to get an answer,'' Clark said, though it may not be the one they want.

A wife asked how to serve her soldier husband with divorce papers while he's at war. She was advised she couldn't, since he can't come home to represent himself in the case.

Another was ill and wanted her husband home from assignment in Europe. The hot line passed that on, and he got a two-week leave, but not a permanent homecoming.

To get the hot line up and running quickly, officials used borrowed space with staff borrowed from various offices, and so there is no figure yet on the cost of operating it, they said.

It is one piece in a broad effort the Army has scrambled to make across its health system since problems at Walter Reed surfaced in February.

In March, President Bush ordered creation of a presidential commission to investigate care given to wounded troops and apologized to some of them in person during a visit to Walter Reed. He visited the hospital again on Tuesday.

''There has been some bureaucratic, you know, red tape issues in the past that the military is working hard to cure,'' Bush told reporters there. ''But when it comes time to healing broken bodies, this is a fabulous place.''

A panel of Army officials reported to Congress last week on what progress has been made to upgrade military hospital care. They said work has been done toward repairing buildings, increasing funding, hiring more psychiatrists and other staff, improving training, mobilizing lawyers and assigning new teams to advocate for troops and their families.

Overall, the military's health system was unprepared for the unexpectedly high number of casualties in Iraq. Some 26,000 service members have suffered battle-related injuries and thousands more have been injured in accidents. They are treated at different facilities, and Walter Reed says it has received nearly 6,000 from Iraq and more than 500 from Afghanistan.

The Iraq campaign has lasted much longer than expected and many troops are suffering head trauma, mental stress symptoms, amputations and burns from roadside bombings.

''Our nation cannot ask our soldiers and their families to make these sacrifices and ... then endure an under-resourced or bureaucratic system when they get home,'' Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard A. Cody told lawmakers. ''We ... are committed to getting this right.''

Luciano, a warrant officer, was injured while in Kosovo as a medical evacuation helicopter pilot and battle captain with the First Battalion, 104th Aviation (attack helicopter), 28th Division, Pennsylvania Army National Guard. He suffered a hernia, displaced vertebra and elbow injury last November when troops were working at a local school where children were playing and a lumber pile began to collapse.

He had surgery and physical therapy but needed a heart scan to be cleared for flying. The appointment was impossible to get, he said.

''I started trying ... at the end of March,'' Luciano said. ''I'd call every day ... for several weeks.''

When the hot line interceded in late April, he says, he got a call from the radiology department's Col. Michael Brazaitis, who told Luciano he was sorry for the problem and personally set up the appointment for the following day.

------

On the Net:

Defense Department www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf

Walter Reed www.wramc.army.mil

    Cutting Red Tape for Wounded Troops, NYT, 3.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Wounded-Warrior-Hot-Line.html

3rd American Soldier Charged

in Murder of an Iraqi Civilian

July 3, 2007
The New York Times
By STEPHEN FARRELL

BAGHDAD, July 2 — A third American soldier has been charged with murdering an Iraqi civilian and planting a weapon in a shooting that the soldiers tried to cover up, the United States military said Monday.

The soldier, Sgt. Evan Vela, of Phoenix, Idaho, served in the headquarters unit of the First Battalion, 501st Infantry, of the 25th Infantry Division, based at Fort Richardson, Alaska. That is the same unit as Staff Sgt. Michael A. Hensley and Specialist Jorge G. Sandoval Jr., who were charged last week with killing three Iraqis and placing weapons near their bodies to make it seem as though they were combatants.

Sergeant Vela is charged with one count of premeditated murder, and also of placing a weapon with the body, obstruction of justice and making a false statement, according to a statement by the military.

The killings happened near Iskandariya, south of Baghdad, between April and June, the military said in a statement. All three soldiers have been detained and are awaiting trial.

The military said two soldiers and one marine were killed in western Anbar Province on Sunday, in addition to two soldiers whose deaths were reported earlier. Those follow 101 American military deaths in June, according to figures from the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, making the 331 fatalities from April through June the deadliest quarter yet for United States forces.

In Diyala Province, the scene of heavy recent fighting between Sunni militants and American forces, an Iraqi police official in Muqdadiya said the civilian death toll from terrorist attacks in the Sherween area on Sunday night had reached 16, with 30 wounded. However, Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim al-Rubaie, the Iraqi commander of operations in Diyala, said coalition and Iraqi forces had made significant advances during the recent large-scale operation to clear Al Qaeda from Baquba.

“The terrorists even targeted schools, as they wanted to halt the progress of science in these areas,” he said Monday. “Life has gradually started to go back to normality in these areas, and residents were happy with the military operations.”

In Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Qassim Atta, an Iraqi military spokesman, said the security crackdown there had led to a reduction in attacks on civilians but an increase in attacks on American-led forces. However, hours later a car bomb in Binouk, a district in northern Baghdad, killed four people and wounded 25, an Interior Ministry official said last night.

Farther south, American F-16s bombed buildings in Diwaniya after insurgents launched 75 rockets and mortar shells at a coalition base. Iraqi officials said the jets killed 10 civilians, including women and children, wounded 30 others and destroyed several houses.

A statement from the United States military said the jets “targeted and bombed the insurgent launch sites.” Accusing insurgents of using civilians as human shields, it said coalition forces were “reviewing the incident to ensure that appropriate and proportionate force was used.”

The strike led to a protest march by residents, some of whom opened fire on a government building, leading to an exchange in which a 17-year-old demonstrator and two security guards were killed.

Iraqi employees of the New York Times contributed reporting from Diyala Province and Diwaniya

    3rd American Soldier Charged in Murder of an Iraqi Civilian, NYT, 3.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/world/middleeast/03shiites.html

U.S. Ties Iranians

to Iraq Attack That Killed G.I.’s

July 2, 2007
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

BAGHDAD, July 2 — Iranian operatives helped plan a January raid in Karbala in which five American soldiers were killed, an American military spokesman in Iraq said today.

Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner, the military spokesman, also said that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has used operatives from the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah as a “proxy” to train and arm Shiite militants in Iraq.

American military officials have long asserted that the Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, has trained and equipped Shiite militants in Iraq. The Americans have also cited extensive intelligence that Iran has supplied Shiite militants with the most lethal type of roadside bomb in Iraq, a bomb called the explosively formed penetrator, which is capable of piercing an armored vehicle.

But today’s assertions, which were presented at a news briefing here, marked the first time that the United States has charged that Iranian officials have helped plan operations against American troops in Iraq and have had advance knowledge of specific attacks that have led to the death of American soldiers.

In effect, American officials are charging that Iran has been engaged in a proxy war against American forces for years, though officials today sought to confine their comments to the specific incidents covered in their briefing.

When the Karbala attack was carried out on January 20 this year, American and Iraqi officials said that it appeared to be meticulously planned. The attackers carried forged identity cards and wore American-style uniforms.

One American died at the start of the raid, but the rest of the American soldiers were abducted before they were killed.

Some officials speculated at the time that the aim of the raid might have been to capture a group of American soldiers who could have been exchanged for Iranian officials that American forces detained in Iraq on suspicion of supporting Shiite militants there.

But while Americans officials wondered about an indirect Iranian role in the Karbala raid, until today they stopped short of making a case that the Quds Force may have been directly involved in planning the attack.

General Bergner declined to speculate on the Iranian motivations. But he said that interrogations of Qais Khazali, a Shiite militant who oversaw Iranian-supported cells in Iraq and who was captured several months ago along with another militant, Laith Khazali, his brother, showed that Iran’s Quds force helped plan the operation.

Similar information was obtained following the capture of a senior Hezbollah operative, Ali Musa Daqduq, General Bergner said. The capture of Mr. Daqduq had remained secret until today.

“Both Ali Musa Daqduq and Qais Khazali state that senior leadership within the Quds force knew of and supported planning for the eventual Karbala attack that killed five coalition soldiers,” General Bergner said.

Documents seized from Qais Khazali, General Bergner said, showed that Iran’s Quds Force provided detailed information on the activities of American soldiers in Karbala, including shift changes and the defenses at the site.

More generally, General Bergner added, Iran’s Quds Force has been using Lebanese Hezbollah as a “proxy” or “surrogate” in training and equipping Shiite militants in Iraq.

The aim of the Quds force was to prepare the militant groups so they would attack American and Iraqi government force while trying to conceal an obvious Iranian role, he said.

There have long been reports that Hezbollah operatives have been working with the Quds Force to train Iraqi operatives in Iran and even Lebanon. But few details had emerged about specific Hezbollah officials.

According to General Bergner, Ali Musa Daqduq joined Hezbollah in 1983, commanded Hezbollah units in Lebanon and was involved in coordinating the protection of the group’s leader, Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah has been armed and funded by Iran.

In 2005, the Hezbollah leadership instructed Mr. Daqduq to go to Iran and help the Quds Force train Shiite Iraqi militants, General Bergner said. Mr. Daqduq went to Tehran in 2006 with Yussef Hashim, another Hezbollah operative who serves as the head of the group’s operations in Iraq. They met with the senior Quds force commanders and were directed to go to Iraq and report on efforts to train Shiite militants there, General Bergner said.

Groups of up to 60 Iraqi militants were brought to Iran for military instruction at three camps near Tehran and trained in using road-side bombs, mortars, rockets, kidnapping operations and in how to operate as a sniper. The Quds Force also provided up to $3 million in funding a month to the Iraqi militants, the American general said.

Mr. Daqduq was captured in March in Basra. To avoid giving away his Lebanese accent, he initially pretended that he was a deaf mute, General Bergner said. But he eventually began to speak under interrogation.

In Washington, Bush Administration officials have generally held open the possibility that the Quds Force activities might have been carried out without the knowledge of Iran’s senior leaders.

But military officials say that there is such a long and systematic pattern of Quds Force activity in Iraq, as well as a 2005 confidential American protest to Iranian leaders regarding Iran’s alleged supply of road-side bombs, that senior Iranian leaders must be aware of the Quds Force role in Iraq.

“Our intelligence reveals that the senior leadership in Iran is aware of this activity,” he said. When he was asked if Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could be unaware of the activity, General Bergner said “that would be hard to imagine.”

U.S. Ties Iranians to Iraq Attack That Killed G.I.’s, NYT, 2.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/02/world/middleeast/02cnd-iran.html