History > 2007 > USA > War > Iraq (VIII)

Dwayne Booth

cartoon

Mr. Fish        Cagle        5 December 2007

L to R :

President George W. Bush,

Secretary of State Rice,

Vice-President Dick Cheney

Iraq Attacks Fall 60 Percent,

Petraeus Says

December 30, 2007
The New York Times
By STEPHEN FARRELL and SOLOMON MOORE

BAGHDAD — The top American military commander in Iraq said Saturday that violent attacks in the country had fallen by 60 percent since June, but cautioned that security gains were “tenuous” and “fragile,” requiring political and economic progress to cement them.

The commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, said the “principal threat” to security remained Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown insurgent group that American intelligence officials say is foreign led.

Speaking to reporters in an end-of-year briefing at the American Embassy in Baghdad, General Petraeus said that coalition-force casualties were down “substantially,” and that civilian casualties had fallen “dramatically.”

“The level of attacks for about the last 11 weeks or so has been one not seen consistently since the late spring and summer of 2005,” he said. “The number of high-profile attacks, that is car bombs, suicide car bombs and suicide vest attacks, is also down, also roughly 60 percent” since their height in March.

During his 100-minute briefing, General Petraeus used a series of charts showing trends in overall weekly and monthly attacks, car and suicide bombs, weapons-cache finds and Iraqi civilian deaths.

Although the data showed a sharp fall in civilian deaths from their peak between mid-2006 and mid-2007, the rate of decline appeared to level off in the past two months.

The figures were based on American military statistics, but included some joint Iraqi-coalition data.

However, he conceded that while attacks were down in the rest of the country, they had not fallen in the northern province of Nineveh, which includes Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city, with a population of 1.7 million.

He said that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia remained active in northern Iraq, where it was pushed after offensive operations in Baghdad and Anbar Province, and that the rate of attacks in Nineveh “has just been variable and probably slightly up.”

One reason for the continuing violence, he said, was that the area remained “very important” to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia because it is crossed by the routes into Iraq from Syria and Turkey.

Also on Saturday, Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, flew to Britain for unspecified medical treatment. Yassin Majeed, a senior aide to Mr. Maliki, said only that the visit was for “routine” tests.

Iraqiya, the state television channel, showed Mr. Maliki boarding a jet at Baghdad International Airport. “Some time ago I tried to carry out these tests to be sure about some health matters,” he told reporters. “Now I have the chance.”

Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told reporters in a separate briefing that 75 percent of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia’s networks and safe havens had been destroyed. He said that 18,000 people had been killed by violence so far in 2007, and that insurgent attacks had declined from 25 a day in February in Baghdad to as few as one during some days in December.

The general did not elaborate on the methodology used to determine any of the statistics he reported to the news media.

General Khalaf said the turning point was the rise of the so-called Sunni Awakening Councils in Anbar Province, the insurgents’ former stronghold. He said that once the tribal groups turned against the militants there, the Interior Ministry was able to focus on Baghdad. The general acknowledged, however, that Diyala Province had remained difficult to control because of continuing insurgent attacks.

“That’s the coming fight,” he said of Diyala and other troublesome areas north of Baghdad.

General Petraeus acknowledged that while Iraq had been brought back from “the brink of a civil war” in 2007, Iraqi and American commanders “clearly have more work to do in certain areas in the weeks and months ahead.”

General Petraeus identified numerous reasons for the fall in violence, namely the increase in American troops and the decision to move them to smaller bases where they are “living among those we are trying to protect.” He cited aggressive offensive operations, using a mixture of conventional and special forces, to focus on the insurgents’ strongholds and networks.

He also credited the Iraqis’ own “surge” of more than 100,000 soldiers and police officers, the rejection of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia by the Sunni awakening movement in former insurgent strongholds, and the cease-fire by the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia loyal to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr, although he said some “splinter elements” continued to operate.

The general said outside factors included the decisions by some countries to curb the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq, singling out Syria.

Regarding Iran, he noted a fall in attacks using what he described as Iranian-provided “signature weapons”: RPG 29 rocket-propelled grenades, the sophisticated roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, large-caliber rockets and portable air-defense systems.

He said he hoped Iran “will live up to the promises its senior leaders made to Iraq’s senior leaders” to stop what the Americans claim are the training, financing, arming and directing of “special groups” within Shiite militias that have attacked coalition forces.

Iran has consistently denied helping militias attack coalition forces in Iraq.

For his part, General Khalaf said that Iraq’s Interior Ministry, which he conceded had been infiltrated by Shiite militias in the past, was gradually integrating more Sunni Arabs into its ranks and weeding out officers believed to have dubious allegiances.

Iraq Attacks Fall 60 Percent, Petraeus Says, NYT, 30.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/world/middleeast/30iraq.html

Graffiti, flowers

on anniversary of Saddam execution

Sun Dec 30, 2007
9:15am EST
Reuters
By Sabah al-Bazi and Ghazwan al-Jubouri

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - Black graffiti lauding Saddam Hussein appeared overnight in his home town and small groups of mourners turned out at his grave on Sunday, the first anniversary of the former Iraqi leader's execution.

"There is no life without the sun and no dignity without Saddam," read one painted slogan in his home town, Tikrit, north of Baghdad. "Paradise for the hero Saddam," read another.

The graffiti appeared on buildings including the town's police station and its agriculture and electricity directorates.

Saddam was hanged for crimes against humanity in a rushed execution criticized by the international community. Fellow Sunni Arabs were also angered by illicitly filmed footage that showed Shi'ite officials taunting him on the gallows.

In Awja, the village near Tikrit that is Saddam's birthplace and his final resting place, Reuters Television filmed men, women and children crowding around his flower-covered tomb in a hall attached to a mosque.

Seven poets recited poetry praising Saddam near his grave, and a group of about 25 men sat talking about life under Saddam and how Iraq had changed since his execution.

"A year has passed since the death of the leader but no positive changes have taken place. Things are worse -- we are ruled by Iran and America. The leader has been killed to satisfy Iran," said Adnan Jassim, 38, from Tikrit.

At the time of Saddam's execution Iraq was racked by sectarian violence that pushed the country to the brink of civil war. One year on, violence has dropped sharply, in part because of a new counter-insurgency strategy adopted by U.S. forces and a rebellion by Sunni tribes against al Qaeda.

STEPPED-UP SECURITY

Security was stepped up in predominantly Sunni Arab provinces, witnesses and security officials said, in anticipation of possible attacks by die-hard supporters of the former Iraqi leader and his Arab nationalist Baath Party.

The head of the security committee in Saddam's native Salahuddin province, Ahmed Saleh al-Jubouri, said Iraqi security forces were on alert.

Curfews were enforced in Tikrit and the oil refinery city of Baiji to the north, although the curfew in Tikrit was later lifted. Residents also reported more checkpoints in the town and Iraqi security forces were protecting government buildings.

But the potential for violence appeared slight given that many former pro-Saddam Sunni Arab insurgents have joined forces with the U.S. military in the months since his execution to fight Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.

"We have not seen any increased violence associated with his death," U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith said.

Saddam, toppled in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, was convicted of killing scores of Shi'ite men in the town of Dujail after an attempt on his life there in 1982.

His half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, former judge Awad al-Bandar and Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan followed him to the gallows earlier this year.

His feared cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majeed, known as "Chemical Ali" for his use of poison gas against Iraq's minority Kurds, and two other former regime officials have been convicted of genocide in a separate trial and are awaiting execution.

Their execution, however, has been delayed by a legal wrangle between Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who opposes the death penalty, and Sunni Arab Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi.

(Writing by Ross Colvin; Editing by Alison Williams)

    Graffiti, flowers on anniversary of Saddam execution, R, 30.12.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSCOL03143220071230

U.S. Troops Kill 11 in Mahdi Army

December 27, 2007
The New York Times
By SOLOMON MOORE

BAGHDAD — American soldiers raided a neighborhood in the southern Iraqi city of Kut early Thursday morning, killing 11 members of the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to hardline Shiite cleric Moktada Sadr.

Leaders of the Sadr movement, which has abided by a ceasefire for several weeks, condemned the operation but said that they would not conduct any reprisal attacks.

Eyewitnesses said detonations, thumping helicopters and bursts of automatic weapons-fire echoed through the neighborhood of Al Jameea for at least three hours as United States forces fought Mahdi militiamen. At least four people were injured during the clash.

“The American helicopters shelled our neighborhood for three hours,” said Jameel Mohammed, a 27-year-old construction worker. “Dead bodies were scattered here and there. Houses and cars were set on fire, and people were scared and running all over the place.”

Hassan Jassim, a shop owner, said that his sister-in-law was injured in the fighting and walked out of his house to see three dead bodies lying in the street.

“American helicopters fired on our houses,” he said.

The Mahdi Army, which also has a strong presence in Iraq’s security forces, has been linked to the deaths of thousands of Sunni Arabs in Baghdad, Diyala, and Basra other provinces. The militia has also attacked American and British forces.

In recent weeks, however, such attacks have dramatically decreased because of, in part, a ceasefire imposed by Moktada Sadr. The militant Sadr movement is one of several leading Shiite political groups in Iraq and arguably has the largest paramilitary force in the country.

Abu Sadik, a leader of the movement in Kut, condemned the raid but said that it will not affect the ceasefire.

“The truce is still valid and in accordance with the orders of our leader Sayyid Moktada Sadr,” he said.

    U.S. Troops Kill 11 in Mahdi Army, NYT, 27.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/world/middleeast/27cnd-iraq.html?hp

At Christmas, Iraqi Christians Ask for Forgiveness, and for Peace

December 25, 2007
The New York Times
By DAMIEN CAVE

BAGHDAD — Inside the beige church guarded by the men with the AK-47s, a choir sang Christmas songs in Arabic. An old woman in black closed her eyes while a girl in a cherry-red dress, with tights and shoes to match, craned her neck toward rows of empty pews near the back.

“Last year it was full,” said Yusef Hanna, a parishioner. “So many people have left — gone up north, or out of the country.”

Sacred Heart Church is not Iraq’s largest or most beleaguered Christian congregation. It is as ordinary as its steeple is squat, in one of Baghdad’s safest neighborhoods, with a small school next door.

But for those who came to Sacred Heart for Mass on Christmas Eve, there seemed to be as much sadness as joy. Despite the improved security across Iraq, which some parishioners cited as cause for hope, the day’s sermon focused on continuing struggles.

Iraq’s Christians have fared poorly since the fall of Saddam Hussein, with their houses or businesses frequently attacked. Some priests estimate that as much as two-thirds of the community, or about one million people, have fled, making Sacred Heart typical. Though a handful have recently returned from abroad, only 120 people attended Mass on Monday night, down from 400 two years ago.

The service began with traditional hymns. Some songs were sung in Aramaic, the language of Jesus. It was a reminder of the 2,000-year-old history of Iraq’s largest Christian group, the Chaldeans, an Eastern Rite church affiliated with Roman Catholicism.

Initially the sermon seemed equally traditional, beginning as many do with phrases like “This day is not like other days.”

Yet the priest, the Rev. Thaer al-Sheik, soon turned to more local themes. He talked about the psychological impact of violence, kidnapping and a lack of work. He condemned hate. He denounced revenge.

“We must practice being humane to each other,” he said. “Living as a Christian today is difficult.”

A few moments later he asked, “If the angel Gabriel comes today and says Jesus Christ is reborn, what do we do? Do we clap or sing?”

His parish, quiet and somber — with the drab faces of a funeral, not a Mass on Christmas Eve — took the question seriously. And responded.

“We ask him for forgiveness,” said a woman, her head covered by a black scarf. Her voice was just loud enough for everyone to hear.

Then another woman raised her voice. “We ask for peace,” she said.

Father Sheik looked disappointed. “We are always like beggars, asking God for this or that,” he said. “We shouldn’t be this way. First, we should thank God for giving us Jesus Christ. He would say, ‘I came to live among you. I want to teach you how to be compassionate. I want to teach you how to be more humane.’”

The people listened intently. No one smiled.

Communion followed. A stream of people — the choir’s keyboardist, a woman in black with eyes pink from crying through the service, an attractive young woman in thick makeup — came forward. They moved slowly down the center aisle, stepping onto what appeared to be Persian rugs, a few feet from an artificial Christmas tree in the corner with flashing red and green lights.

A woman ran wooden rosary beads through her fingers, which without the small cross on the end, looked exactly like Muslim prayer beads.

And among some, there was hope. Mary Hannawi, 50, said before the service that coming to church always made her happy, regardless of the circumstances outside its guarded walls.

But even Father Sheik could not resist asking God for a little help. He ended his sermon with a request that all Iraqis would love to see fulfilled.

“We call on God for equality, freedom — an end to war and an end to hunger,” he said. “We only demand from God peace for all of you.”

Wisam A. Habeeb contributed reporting.

    At Christmas, Iraqi Christians Ask for Forgiveness, and for Peace, NYT, 25.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/world/middleeast/25iraq.html

US Military Deaths in Iraq at 3, 897

December 24, 2007
Filed at 7:28 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

As of Monday, Dec. 24, 2007, at least 3,897 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians. At least 3,171 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

The AP count is three higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EST.

The British military has reported 174 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia, three; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, South Korea, one death each.

------

The latest deaths reported by the military:

-- No deaths reported.

------

The latest identifications reported by the military:

-- No identifications reported.

------

On the Net:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/ 

    US Military Deaths in Iraq at 3, 897, NYT, 24.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Iraq-US-Deaths.html

U.S. soldiers find mass graves in Iraq

20 December 2007
USA Today

BAGHDAD (AP) — U.S. soldiers found mass graves north of Baghdad next to a torture center where chains were attached to blood-spattered walls and a metal bed frame was still connected to an electrical shock system, the military said Thursday.

Separately, at least 13 Iraqis were killed when a suicide bomber targeted a group of people who had gathered around U.S. soldiers handing out holiday gifts, local authorities said. It was not immediately known if any soldiers were killed or injured.

In the capital, a car bomb exploded outside a liquor store in central Baghdad, killing three civilians and wounding another nine, police said.

The grisly discoveries of the mass graves and torture center near Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, came during a Dec. 8-11 operation that also saw multiple battles between American troops and militants. The military said it killed 24 insurgents and detained 37 others during the operation.

The torture center, which the military said it thinks was run by al-Qaeda in Iraq, was found based on tips from local Iraqis. Graves containing 26 bodies were found nearby.

"We discovered several (weapons) caches, a torture facility that had chains, a bed — an iron bed that was still connected to a battery — knives and swords that were still covered in blood as we went in to go after the terrorists in that area," said Army Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, the top U.S. commander in northern Iraq.

Soldiers found a total of nine caches containing a surface-to-air missile launcher, sniper rifles, 130 pounds of homemade explosives and numerous mortar tubes and rounds, among other weapons.

Despite a nationwide decrease in violence of nearly 60%, Diyala province, where the torture center was found, is still turbulent — largely because the summer influx of U.S. troops in Baghdad, a freeze on activities by the Mahdi Army militia and the rise of Sunni anti-al-Qaeda "awakening" groups have pushed militants into the area.

"Yes, there are still some very bad things going on in that province," Hertling said. "We are slower in coming around because ... some of the extremists have been pushed east from Anbar province as they've seen the awakening movement there and north from Baghdad as the surge operations took place there."

Hertling did point out, however, that the number of roadside bombings against coalition and Iraqi troops in the area had decreased between 40% and 50% since the summer. He said there were 849 such attacks in November as compared to 1,698 in June.

But he also warned that al-Qaeda in Iraq was still capable of massive violence.

"You know, there's going to be continued spectacular attacks," Hertling said. "We're trying, along with the Iraq Army, to protect all the infrastructure of Iraq. These people who are fighting us, who are fighting the Iraqi people, continue to just destroy with no intent to contribute to what Iraq is trying to be."

In Baghdad, shops were closed and the streets were empty as the Eid al-Adha holiday was observed.

Eid al-Adha is a holy celebration for Muslims, commemorating the prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son for God. According to Muslim tradition, after Abraham expresses his willingness, God sends the prophet two sheep instead for slaughter.

Violence this week has been down across Iraq — even in comparison to the recent drops in attacks — perhaps as a result of the holiday. On Wednesday, only one body was found in Baghdad and there was just one reported killing.

However, 13 civilians were killed Thursday east of Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, when a man wearing an explosives vest blew himself up amid a crowd that had gathered around U.S. soldiers handing out holiday gifts, a local policeman said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to release the information.

It was not clear if the attack near Kanaan, a Shiite-dominated town about 13 miles east of Baqouba, killed or wounded any of the soldiers. At least 18 people were hurt in the attack.

Separately, the U.S. military said that its preliminary investigation into a Dec. 17 incident in which a Marine killed an Iraqi policeman as they manned a joint security station north of Ramadi showed both men suffered cuts during a fight. It was not clear what sparked the altercation.

The military said the Marine, who was not identified and was treated at a hospital and released after the fight, was not yet facing charges, but that the investigation was ongoing.

    U.S. soldiers find mass graves in Iraq, UT, 20.12.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-12-20-iraq-thursday_N.htm 

5th Trial in Iraqi Rape Case Drags On

December 19, 2007
Filed at 7:39 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) -- They were convicted one after another -- four U.S. soldiers who helped gang rape and kill a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in one of the war's worst atrocities.

In exchange for leniency, each struck deals to testify against a fifth man, a troubled former Army private who allegedly killed the family and planted the idea of raping the girl.

But the case against Steven D. Green has dragged slowly forward in the 18 months since the allegations surfaced. It's a pace, military legal experts note, that bears stark contrast to swift prosecutions of nearly every other crime to come from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Green, 22, is accused of being a central figure in slaying the family in Mahmoudiya, a village about 20 miles south of Baghdad. He was charged in federal court because he was discharged from the Army for anti-social personality disorder before being accused of the crimes.

On Tuesday, his trial was set for April 13, 2009, in Paducah, Ky.

Defense attorneys and federal prosecutors in the case have fought each other on the reach of federal courts into military affairs, the access civilian attorneys have to classified military evidence, and, most recently, what constitutes enough time to prepare for trial.

Some legal experts say the delays and infighting suggest challenges ahead in trying the last chapter of what many regard as the worst atrocity committed by U.S. military personnel in Iraq.

''You've got some very smart people trying a type of case that they normally don't,'' said Charles Rose, a law professor at Stetson University and former deputy military judge advocate. ''Federal criminal courts are designed for paper-driven cases. They don't do violations of the laws of war.''

Unlike his co-accused, Green, 22, of Midland, Texas, is the only soldier charged in civilian court for the March 2006 slayings, where he faces a possible death sentence if convicted.

Green pleaded not guilty in November 2006 to charges of rape and murder.

Four Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne Division soldiers have since been convicted for their roles in targeting the girl from a checkpoint near Mahmoudiya, a village 20 miles south of Baghdad, and helping rape and kill her. They were given sentences in courts-martial ranging from five to 110 years under agreements with prosecutors.

Two of the soldiers testified they took turns raping the girl while Green shot and killed her mother, father and younger sister. Green shot the girl in the head after raping her, they said. The girl's body was then set on fire with kerosene to destroy the evidence, according to previous testimony.

At the core of Green's trial is the law used to charge him in U.S. District Court. The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act allows prosecutors to try military personnel in federal court if they no longer are in the service and are charged for a crime punishable by at least a year in prison.

Described as a catchall for the military, the law has been used rarely, and never before on a high-profile case.

But the law has dissolved Green's chances of receiving a sentence comparable to those of the other defendants if he is convicted, attorneys have argued. Each soldier was charged identically, but those convicted in the military have a chance for parole in 10 years no matter the sentence they received.

While legal experts say disparity in sentencing is not unusual, Green's attorneys have argued there is a fundamental issue of fairness that is lost by the government's insistence on trying Green outside of the reaches of the military.

A telephone message seeking comment was left Tuesday at Assistant U.S. District Attorney Marisa Ford's Louisville, Ky., office. Green's attorney, Patrick Bouldin, declined to comment Tuesday night.

Green, who was also a member of the 101st, had been honorably discharged from the military with anti-social personality disorder when he was arrested by U.S. marshals in June 2006 after attending the military funeral of a friend.

Delays are expected in a federal death penalty case, where proceedings have lasted as long as three years, legal experts say. As an example, it took federal prosecutors two years to convict Timothy McVeigh and sentence him to death for the April 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City.

But Gary Solis, a law professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., remains baffled that prosecuting the Mahmoudiya slayings has lingered when so many other crimes in Iraq have come to a close.

The allegations of rape and murder at the hands of U.S. soldiers in July 2006 enraged the world community, including Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who demanded full accountability.

The U.S. military promised justice.

Solis said trying Green in U.S. District Court undoubtedly reflects political pressure to ensure the most severe punishment for the crime's alleged ringleader.

''The death sentence is a dead letter in the military,'' Solis said. ''If tried in the military, Green probably would not be sentenced to death. And if sentenced to death, it's questionable the sentence would ever be carried out.''

------

On the Net:

Fort Campbell: http://www.campbell.army.mil

    5th Trial in Iraqi Rape Case Drags On, NYT, 19.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Iraq-Rape-Slaying.html

Senate Adds $70 Billion for Wars in Spending Bill

December 19, 2007
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Tuesday night to approve a sweeping year-end budget package after adding $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the objections of Democrats who have been stymied all year in their efforts to change the course of the conflict in Iraq.

By an overwhelming 70-to-25 vote, senators moved to provide the money sought by President Bush after the defeat of two Democratic-led efforts to tie the money to troop withdrawals.

“We have come to a very successful conclusion of this year’s Congress,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, who pushed for the added war financing.

The $555 billion budget plan, which finances all federal agencies except the Pentagon, passed 76 to 17 despite some Republican complaints about excessive spending. It goes back to the House for a final vote, expected Wednesday, on the war money.

If the measure clears the House, Mr. Bush has indicated he will sign the spending bill, which will end his standoff with the Democratic-controlled Congress.

Democratic leaders conceded they were not happy with having to accept the war money and hew to the president’s limit on spending. But they noted they were able to steer money to their priorities, win some spending against White House wishes, and complete all the spending bills, which they saw as a victory in itself.

“You usually recognize that you have something that’s O.K. when both negotiators are unhappy with what they’ve gotten,” said Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada and the majority leader.

In addition to the budget bill, lawmakers sought to dispose of a few other issues as the Congressional year drew to a close.

The Senate again refused to pay the $50 billion costs of freezing the alternative minimum income tax for 2007 taxes, providing the House with a take-it-or-leave-it proposition of either joining the Senate or allowing the tax to hit millions of middle-income workers. House Democratic leaders have called for the temporary relief to be offset by closing tax loopholes elsewhere, but Republicans have objected. The House will take up the issue Wednesday.

The Senate approved a plan to temporarily block a planned cut in Medicare payments to doctors and maintain a children’s health insurance program that has been the subject of a policy fight for months. House approval was expected as soon as Wednesday.

Congress sent the president a bill intended to strengthen the federal Freedom of Information Act. The bill would put more teeth in the requirement that agencies respond within 20 days to information requests and directs agencies to establish systems to allow those seeking information to check on their requests via the Internet.

The war debate, which captured the divisions that have defined Congress all year, was part of a choreographed exercise intended to meet Mr. Bush’s demand for more war financing while sparing antiwar Democrats from having to back the money to secure approval of the budget bill.

Two withdrawal plans were defeated. One requiring that most troops be redeployed in nine months was rejected, 71 to 24. A second, less-binding plan calling for the transition of combat troops to more limited missions by the end of next year was defeated, 50 to 45; it required 60 votes for approval.

Mr. Bush had previously threatened to veto the overall spending measure if it did not include what he considered enough money for Iraq and Afghanistan, a result that could have caused a shutdown of federal agencies or forced federal agencies to operate at this year’s spending level.

Mr. McConnell called for the $70 billion to be devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that troops were making progress there and that any uncertainty about the financing needed to be eliminated.

“Even those of us who have disagreed on this war have always agreed on one thing: troops in the field will not be left without the resources they need,” he said.

But Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said the Iraqi government has not been taking advantage of a lessening of violence to reach a political settlement. He said it was time for the United States to begin an orderly withdrawal immediately of the 160,000 troops expected to remain in Iraq into next year.

“What are we supposed to tell them and their families?” Mr. Feingold asked. “To wait another year until a new administration and a new Congress starts listening to the American people and brings this tragedy to a close?”

The overall spending bill encountered opposition from conservative Senate Republicans who were unhappy with the more than 8,000 home-state projects inserted into the legislation by lawmakers and the rush to passage.

“As we approach the end of the year, Congress once again finds itself on a last-minute spending spree, approving billions of dollars of new spending with few questions asked, no amendments allowed and little debate, discussion or inspection permitted,” said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma.

But his colleagues defended the bill and said it fell within the spending limits set by the president and had been stripped of many of the Democratic policy provisions on abortion, construction wages and domestic partnerships opposed by the administration. They said approving the bills was superior to what occurred last year, when the Republican-led spending process collapsed.

“Last year, we had a large appropriations train wreck,” said Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi, the senior Republican on the spending committee. “But we’ve brought together a bill this year, despite new rules, hard negotiations and renegotiations.”

If Congress does not act on the health care bill approved by the Senate, Medicare payments to doctors would be cut 10 percent on Jan. 1. Instead, under the deal reached Tuesday, payments to doctors will be increased by one-half of 1 percent from January through June 2008. Lawmakers said they would revisit the issue next spring.

Dr. Edward L. Langston, chairman of the American Medical Association, said, “We are disappointed that the Senate could only agree on a six-month action because it creates great uncertainty for Medicare patients and physicians.”

Mr. Bush has twice vetoed bills to expand the child health program. With no agreement in sight, Congressional leaders decided to continue current policy through March 2009. Without such action, 21 states would have exhausted their allotments of federal money next year.

The public records bill sent to the White House would create clearer penalties for agencies that fail to meet deadlines and set stricter requirements for reporting to the Justice Department and Congress cases in which federal agencies are found to have acted “arbitrarily or capriciously” in rejecting requests.

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, a leading sponsor of the bill, said it would provide much-needed improvements.

David M. Herszenhorn and Robert Pear contributed reporting.

    Senate Adds $70 Billion for Wars in Spending Bill, NYT, 19.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/washington/19spend.html?hp

Bush Appeals to Congress for Iraq Funds

December 16, 2007
Filed at 5:03 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush appealed to Congress on Saturday to give him real cash for the war, not just a pledge to fund the troops.

''A congressional promise -- even if enacted -- does not pay the bills,'' Bush said in his weekly radio address. ''It is time for Congress to provide our troops with actual funding.''

The broadcast is the president's latest shot in a battle the White House is having with Congress over spending bills.

The Senate on Friday passed a defense policy bill for the 2008 budget year. It authorizes $696 billion in military spending, including $189 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it does not actually send any money to the Pentagon.

''Congress has had plenty of time to consider the emergency funds our troops need,'' Bush said. ''Time is running out, and Pentagon officials say that continued delay in funding our troops will soon begin to have a damaging impact on the operations of our military.

''Congress' responsibility is clear: They must deliver vital funds for our troops -- and they must do it before they leave for Christmas,'' Bush said.

Next week, Democrats are expected to let Senate Republicans attach tens of billions of dollars for the Iraq war to a $500 billion-plus government-wide spending bill. That move would be in exchange for GOP support on a huge spending measure that would fund the government.

The war money would not be tied to troop withdrawals, as Democrats want. But it would let Democrats wrap up their long-unfinished budget work and go on vacation before Christmas. It also would spare them from being criticized by Bush during the holiday recess for leaving work without providing money for the troops.

Without the money, the Defense Department said it would start delivering pink slips to thousands of civilians this month.

Congress passed just one spending bill before the end of the fiscal year in October, so most of the government is being run under a temporary continuing resolution.

Congressional negotiators are working to cut hundreds of federal programs, big and small, as they fashion the catchall government funding bill.

But while agreement with the White House remained elusive, negotiations went ahead on the assumptions that Democrats would largely accept Bush's strict budget for domestic programs and that he would ease up a bit if additional funding for Iraq is approved.

In the meantime, the House passed a bill to keep the federal government open for another week to give negotiators time to work on the omnibus spending bill, pass it in both the House and Senate and then adjourn for the year.

    Bush Appeals to Congress for Iraq Funds, NYT, 16.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush.html

Iraqi City Poised to Become Hub of Shiite Power

December 16, 2007
The New York Times
By ALISSA J. RUBIN

NAJAF, Iraq — A millennium after Najaf first became a magnet for Shiite pilgrims, leaders here are reimagining this city, long suppressed by Saddam Hussein, as a new hub of Shiite political and economic power, not just for Iraq but for the entire Middle East.

That shift would further weaken the Iraqi central government and complete Najaf’s transformation from a dusty, conservative town known mostly for its golden-domed shrine and soaring minarets into the undisputed center of a potentially semiautonomous Shiite region, with some of the country’s richest oil reserves.

And although Najafis will say little about it, Iran is playing a significant role in the plan, helping to improve the city and its holy sites, especially the golden- domed shrine to Imam Ali, the figure most associated with the founding of the Shiite sect, who is said to be buried here.

Money from Iran is financing some of the shrine expansion projects as well as contributing to the construction of a major electrical power-generating plant whose output will be shared between Najaf Province and its neighbor, Karbala, which is also the home of two important Shiite shrines.

“What we have tried to do is put in place a plan to allow Najaf to recover its political and strategic position in Iraq and the region, the Asharq al-Awsat, Iran and the Middle East,” said Abdul Hussain Abtan, the deputy chairman of the Najaf Provincial Council, referring to the city’s role historically as a center of pilgrimage and Shiite learning.

“We have made contacts with countries which have large Shia communities, Iran and Bahrain, to encourage them to send their visitors here,” he said.

American officials say they want Iraq to remain united, but they are not averse to the formation of semiautonomous regions as long as Iraqis abide by the Constitution, which requires a referendum before a province joins a regional bloc.

Increasingly, officials have come to understand the provinces’ difficulties in getting the central government to deliver services and money for local projects.

Shiite pilgrims are Najaf’s lifeblood, supporting local businesses and leaving behind valuable donations, which give the province a source of income that helps in its effort to gain a measure of independence from Baghdad, the capital. More than a million pilgrims come each year — a number that the city fathers would like to see multiplied to three million or four million over the next decade, shrine officials said.

Najaf’s governor, Asaad Abu Gulal, says his mission is to prepare the city to become the premier place in southern Iraq. “If we happen to have a southern region, Basra may be the commercial capital, but Najaf would be the political capital,” he said. “We have the political leadership, and we have the religious authority.”

Behind the decision to expand the shrine is the implicit goal of raising Iraq’s profile as a Shiite state. An expansion of the shrine to Imam Ali, the Prophet Muhammad’s son-in-law, would be the most visible symbol of the Shiite victory over Mr. Hussein, whose government persecuted the sect. Under Mr. Hussein, Najaf was kept a provincial backwater, and the number of pilgrims was strictly regulated because Mr. Hussein feared that the charismatic power of the Shiite ayatollahs could inspire a popular revolt against him.

Now Shiites call the shots across Iraq, and Najaf is the center of Shiite religious power, which, in the case of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, cannot be entirely separated from political power. Kurdish and Sunni political leaders, as well as Shiites, regularly come here to discuss their moves with the grand ayatollah before making them public.

Furthermore, the most powerful Shiite Party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, led by the cleric Abdul Aziz Hakim, runs the city. The council has been the most vigorous proponent of creating a semiautonomous southern superregion similar to the Iraqi region of Kurdistan, even though its political ally, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, has been trying to head off the diffusion of Baghdad’s power.

“Now still we have a problem with centralization, with the government ministers,” Mr. Gulal, the governor, said, echoing Mr. Hakim’s views. “We need good, decent decentralization for local government in Najaf and in Iraq. We want to make Najaf self-sufficient so that it would not have to depend on Baghdad.”

The mantra of independence from Baghdad — heard over and over on a recent visit — indicates a profound change in Iraq: the capital was once seen as a magnet; now it is more of a millstone.

“I suffer nowadays from Baghdad because any decision I want to take I have to return to Baghdad,” Mr. Gulal said. “I don’t like this. Now I have had three years in Najaf and I have suffered from the centralized situation.”

The depth of the city’s sense of its separate identity becomes clear when a driver enters the greater city limits. The security controls are akin to crossing an international border. “The Islamic State of Najaf,” joked one driver recently as he waited in one of five lines where a phalanx of local and national policemen checked each car for bombs and illegal guns. Anyone with a “foreign” license plate, meaning a plate from outside the Najaf Province, is subject to a thorough search and is required to go to a nearby police station to register.

In pursuit of self-sufficiency, Najaf is building an airport, an electrical plant to increase the city’s power, hospitals and small refineries to help increase the city’s supply of fuel for automobiles and cooking. Construction of the $75 million power plant will begin this month and will take two years to complete. Much of the financing for the project has been donated by the Iranian government, said Iraq’s minister of electricity, Karim Wahid.

One project already completed, with help from the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the Health Ministry in Baghdad, was the overhaul of the Sadr Hospital, now one of two well-equipped medical centers in the city. The five-story hospital, with 300 doctors and 448 beds, has sophisticated technology and is cleaner and offers more services than almost any hospital in Baghdad.

But it is the shrine that stands at the center of Najaf’s expansion plan, bringing the city not only its mystique, but also its money. It is often described as the third most visited site in the Muslim world, behind Mecca and Medina.

The latest proposal by the shrine authorities and the city fathers would triple the area of holy space over the next 10 years: adding two buildings, vastly expanding the space for pilgrims and adding rest houses and courtyards surrounded by shops, said Salah Hassan al-Saraf, director of the shrine’s Intellectual and Cultural Affairs Department.

According to sketches, many of the hotels and markets will be knocked down to make room for the expanded shrine. The central government has allocated $25 million to compensate property owners, whose investments will be wiped out. New hotels will be built a little farther away.

The role of the Iranians in helping the province is largely unacknowledged by Najaf’s politicians, most of whom are members of the Supreme Council. Although the party’s roots are in Iran, it has forged a strong allegiance with the United States and appears eager to keep at arm’s length — at least publicly — from its former sponsor. Najaf officials said they had refused most of the help the Iranians offered, because they felt it could be too controversial politically. They did say they had made a deal with Iran to organize tours that would bring several million more pilgrims to the city each year.

“Iran would like to help us with many things, but we are not giving them the chance because of the tensions with America,” said Mr. Abtan, the Provincial Council chairman. “We don’t really want to shift the battle between Iran and America to Najaf. We want Najaf to become a very powerful commercial city, and this policy means you have to stay out of sensitive positions.”

However, Iranian engineers have helped build two large new wells at one of the shrine’s entries so that many more pilgrims can complete the ritual washing before praying and drink pure water. They are also constructing expanded restroom facilities for them, according to hotel keepers near the shrine who housed the Iranian engineers working on the project. It was not clear whether the Iranian engineers were from a private firm or associated with the Iranian government.

Despite the Iranian support there appears to be genuine ambivalence about Tehran’s role. Twice, when reporters for The New York Times produced video cameras and telephoto lenses outside Grand Ayatollah Sistani’s office, the cleric’s security detail pounced immediately, demanding to know: “Are you Iranians?”

Even with much of the construction just now getting under way, the city is already a showcase for the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which controls Najaf’s governorship and Provincial Council. In the relatively short time it has been in power, the party appears to have largely eradicated security problems and erased public signs of strife with the Shiite faction led by the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr. His militia occupied the shrine and battled American and Iraqi troops in 2004. Mr. Sadr remains a formidable populist force elsewhere in the south.

Despite all the politics, the shrine has the mystical aura of great places of worship the world over. It is most unmistakable at dusk, when the fading light reflects off the colored tiles, making the whole place shimmer as if it were a jewel box. Even those who work in the shrine every day occasionally stop as they walk through the courtyards, struck by the way the light falls on a mosaic or a doorway.

In the minds of Najafis, their city is already a capital.

Riadh al-Najafi, an earnest young man who works for the administrative office that manages the shrine, walked visitors through the enormous complex on a recent day, pointing out architectural details and recounting stories of Imam Ali. As the visitors turned to go, Mr. Najafi, in a tone full of confidence, said, “You have never seen anything like this, have you?”

Stephen Farrell contributed reporting.

    Iraqi City Poised to Become Hub of Shiite Power, NYT, 16.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/world/middleeast/16najaf.html?hp

3 Car Bombs Kill 27 in Southern Iraq

December 13, 2007
The New York Times
By DAMIEN CAVE

BAGHDAD — At least 27 people died and about 100 were wounded Wednesday when three car bombs ripped through a southern Iraqi city where rival Shiite groups have been battling for control of oil and power.

Iraqi security officials said the blasts in Amara, the capital of Maysan Province, came in quick succession around 10 a.m., collapsing buildings, charring cars and filling hospital hallways with bloody victims.

It was the deadliest attack in Iraq in months and it highlighted both the volatility of the south and the potential risks of turning over security to Iraqi forces in areas where tensions still run high. British troops handed control of Maysan Province to the Iraqi authorities in April, as part of the planned drawdown of troops throughout the region.

On Wednesday, despite this latest attack, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki announced that later this week Iraqi forces would take responsibility for security in the last British-controlled part of Basra, further south.

In a statement, the government said the Amara attack was a “desperate attempt” to distract the public from broader security improvements in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq. Interior Ministry officials also said they would fire the local police chief.

It was not clear, however, who was responsible for the car bombs.

Typically, Sunni extremist groups are blamed for dramatic car bombs here but Amara is tightly controlled by Shiites. Sitting in an oil-rich region near the Iranian border, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, it is the home of rival Shiite militias — the Mahdi army, loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, and gunmen aligned with the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and the Fadhila Party, another Shiite political party.

Recent clashes among the three groups have been concentrated in Basra and Diwaniya, two nearby southern cities, but violence has frequently broken out in Maysan since at least 2003. Last October, gun battles in Amara between militiamen and the police left at least 25 people dead and forced the Iraqi army to dispatch 2,300 soldiers to the area.

British military officials put the death toll for Wednesday’s blasts at 20, according to Reuters, but the attacks suggested a high level of coordination, and a desire to kill as many people as possible.

Witnesses said the first car bomb exploded in a parking garage on one of the city’s busiest streets. When crowds rushed to help the victims, the second and third bombs — in parked cars nearby — exploded.

The local security forces immediately locked down the city with a vehicle ban.

Abdul Karim Mahoon, a prominent local leader and former member of the Amara district council, said that at least five suspects had been arrested by the end of the day. He said that the police appeared to have found two other car bombs that did not explode.

“They are trying to disturb the stability and security of our province because it has been safer than others,” he said.

In violence elsewhere in Iraq, at least 11 people were killed or found dead Wednesday. A car bomb in Baghdad near the country’s main tax office left at least five people dead and 13 wounded, an interior ministry official said.

In Diyala Province, north of the capital, three unidentified bodies were found in and around Baquba. A pair of gun battles in the city, the authorities said, also killed two civilians and wounded five.

Further north in Kirkuk, where Kurds have been battling Sunni Arabs for control of the area’s oil, a roadside bomb killed at least one person and wounded two others.

Captain Haiwa Abdullah of the Kirkuk police said the blast occurred around noon in the heart of the city.

Iraqi employees of the New York Times contributed reporting from Diwaniya, Najaf, Hilla and Baghdad

    3 Car Bombs Kill 27 in Southern Iraq, NYT, 13.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html?hp

Letters

The Staggering Cost of a Long War

December 7, 2007
The New York Times

To the Editor:

In deploring our continued involvement in Iraq, Bob Herbert wrote in his Dec. 4 column, “Now and Forever”: “A country that can’t find the money to provide health coverage for its children, or rebuild the city of New Orleans, or to create a first-class public school system, is flushing whole generations worth of cash into the bottomless pit of a failed and endless war.”

Those are words to keep in mind as we choose a new president and Congress next year. The Bush administration’s arrogance and disastrous misjudgment have highlighted the longstanding need for a change in our national priorities.

We should hope that our next president believes that the chief role of government is not to project military power abroad but to safeguard our liberties at home and provide the services for its citizens that make for a strong and healthy society. Rachelle Marshall

Stanford, Calif., Dec. 4, 2007

•

To the Editor:

Bob Herbert wrote about the tremendous cost of the Iraq war that people are not talking about enough. Most of the Republican candidates and others keep saying that the surge is working, and therefore the war will be won.

But the truth of the matter is that even if American troops are able to hold down the violence, and who knows how long they will have to stay there to keep the violence down, the close to 4,000 American troops killed will not be brought back to life, the close to 30,000 troops seriously injured will not be made whole again, and the trillion dollars or more this will end up costing will not be returned.

This war is lost, and was lost a long time ago, because of the tremendous cost to America. The threat was nonexistent, and the payoff is not worth all of our precious resources.

George Edward

Portland, Me., Dec. 4, 2007

•

To the Editor:

Bob Herbert asks: “Seriously. How long do we want this madness to last?”

My answer: No longer! What I can’t understand is why Congress — and I’m throwing the blame to my fellow Democrats, too — can’t say no to the White House. Do not vote for any more budget bills that finance this futile, illegal and immoral war. Stop it now!

Doesn’t the fact that President Bush has gotten every nickel he’s asked for make you as sick as it does me? Who out there can even fathom a trillion dollars wasted? Wouldn’t you rather rejoice that we had a trillion to spend on health care and education? To think that we could have! Sherrie Matza

San Francisco, Dec. 4, 2007

•

To the Editor:

Bob Herbert bemoans the incredible waste of our resources in the Iraq war and endorses Senator Charles E. Schumer’s advice to get our troops out of the country as early as possible. This echoes the opinion of many. It was a terrible mistake to begin the war, but we cannot just cut and run now that the damage is done.

In an act that can be described as wanton madness, the United States made an unprovoked attack on the sovereign country of Iraq. In the war that followed, much of Iraq’s infrastructure was destroyed and its government was eliminated. The country, without a functioning army, police force and government is vulnerable to internal violence and attack from foreign countries for the foreseeable future.

It is shameful to suggest that we can now withdraw our troops from the country, leaving the population to cope with the destruction we have wrought.

John H. Sweeney

Arlington, Mass., Dec. 4, 2007

•

To the Editor:

What are the dimensions and duration of the United States’ involvement in Iraq as contemplated — and planned for — by the Bush administration? An answer is at hand, though it has been largely overlooked by members of Congress and the news media.

The State Department is currently overseeing the construction of the largest United States embassy in the world, by far. It occupies 104 acres, is 10 times the size of the second largest, in Beijing, is designed to be completely self-contained and to cost $1 billion a year to maintain. Its construction budget was originally $600 million, but the latest estimates place its cost at $1 billion.

Such a project is a clear indication that the United States’ involvement in Iraq will be extended and extensive.

David Hill

Mill Valley, Calif., Dec. 4, 2007

•

To the Editor:

In his column about the staggering costs of the war in Iraq, Bob Herbert writes that “youngsters who were just starting high school when the U.S. invaded Iraq are in college now.” I wonder if the war would be continuing in its current way if those children had been eligible for the draft. Michael Gibbons

Woodside, Queens, Dec. 4, 2007

    The Staggering Cost of a Long War, NYT, 7.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/opinion/l07herbert.html

Iraqis Protest Attacks That Killed 45

December 6, 2007
Filed at 6:30 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Shiite villagers paraded empty coffins at mock funerals near Baghdad on Thursday, in protest of alleged al-Qaida in Iraq attacks that killed as many as 45 people in a single village in recent months.

Hundreds of residents and Muslim sheiks from Dwelah, a Shiite enclave about 45 miles north of Baghdad, held a huge procession in the Bawya area south of the capital because they feared reprisals if they did so in their hometown.

Dust blew through crowded streets as men hoisted flag-draped coffins over their heads, chanting, ''We remember the victims!''

Another rally snaked through thoroughfares in Baghdad's mixed Karradah neighborhood, where Dwelah residents and their Shiite brethren from the capital demanded more protection from the Iraqi government.

''We are holding this symbolic funeral procession for our sons who were killed by Sunni extremists. It all happened because of the government's ignorance and incompetent local security authorities,'' said sheik Ghalib al-Furaiji.

''We call on the prime minister to intervene. Local authorities are concentrating only on Baqouba, and ignoring outlying villages,'' he said.

Dwelah is one of several Shiite villages on the northern outskirts of Baqouba, the Diyala provincial capital that has seen some of the war's harshest fighting. Sectarian attacks and displacement of civilians has left the once-mixed city overwhelmingly Sunni, and many Shiites who once had freedom of movement throughout Diyala are now hunkered down in their villages.

Protesters on Thursday said Dwelah has come under constant attack by al-Qaida-linked militants, who once claimed Baqouba as the capital of an Islamic shadow government in Iraq.

Iraqi police said at least 13 people were killed Saturday when suspected al-Qaida militants showered the enclave with mortar rounds and then stormed the streets, torching homes and forcing hundreds of families to flee.

''We denounce this hideous crime by the gangsters against our sons. Those terrorists do not fear God,'' said sheik Qassim Hizam al-Bawi, leader of the al-Bawi tribe in Dwelah. ''Forty-five of our sons have been killed in attacks like this,'' he said.

The U.S. military could not confirm Saturday's attack, saying American aircraft searched the area for several hours and found no evidence of the killings. Iraqi ground forces approached Dwelah but came under small arms fire, said Maj. Peggy Kageleiry, a spokeswoman for U.S. forces in northern Iraq.

Meanwhile, the American military issued a statement saying its troops killed three suspected insurgents and captured 19 Thursday in raids targeting al-Qaida in Iraq along the Tigris River valley. One of the operations took place near Dwelah, but was apparently unrelated to recent killings there.

Drive-by shootings killed at least two people, police said, describing separate attacks Thursday in Baghdad and Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of the capital.

One of the dead was a bus driver shuttling female college students to school during the morning rush hour in western Baghdad, police said. One of the girls was wounded.

In Muqdadiyah, suspects gunned down a volunteer guard, police said. Hundreds of mostly Sunni tribesmen have taken to the streets across Iraq in recent months, partnering with U.S. forces in an effort to oust militants from their towns.

Clashes raged early Thursday in southern Baghdad's Saydiyah neighborhood, and three Iraqi soldiers were wounded there, police said.

The fighting began when Iraqi troops approached a house where militants were believed to be hiding. The suspects tossed hand grenades out from the windows, toward the soldiers outside. Gunfire erupted, and the militants fled the house after about 30 minutes, police said.

Police had no information about insurgent casualties, but said the men were believed to have escaped.

------

Associated Press Writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.

    Iraqis Protest Attacks That Killed 45, NYT, 6.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html

Pushed Out of Baghdad, Insurgents Move North

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

MOSUL, Iraq, Dec. 5 — Sunni insurgents pushed out of Baghdad and Anbar Provinces have migrated to this northern Iraqi city and have been trying to turn it into a major hub for their operations, according to American commanders.

A growing number of insurgents have relocated here and other places in northern Iraq as the additional forces sent by President Bush have mounted operations in the Iraqi capital and American commanders have made common cause with Sunni tribes in the western part of the country.

The insurgents who have ventured north include Abu Ayyub-al Masri, the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a predominantly Iraqi group that American intelligence says has foreign leadership. American officials say the insurgent leader has twice slipped in and out of Mosul in Nineveh Province to try to rally fellow militants and put end to infighting.

“We have seen some migration of Al Qaeda,” said Col. Stephen Twitty, the commander of the Fourth Brigade Combat Team, First Cavalry Division, which is returning to the United States after 13 months here. “What has driven that are the operations down south.”

The Americans and Iraqis have responded to the influx of militants with operations to cut off the insurgents’ financing and by pursuing insurgent leaders, including Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia’s emir for the eastern side of the city who was killed in a raid late last month.

American and Iraqi units have been able to hold off the insurgents and disrupt their planning. But they have not been able to decrease the rate of attacks in Mosul, which has held stubbornly steady over the past year even as attacks have fallen in Baghdad and Anbar Province, according to an analysis by American officers.

That has prompted American and Iraqi commanders to propose the return of two Iraqi battalions that were sent from western Mosul earlier this year to bolster Iraqi forces in Baghdad. Such a move would increase the Iraqi troop strength here by 1,400 troops or more, according to estimates by American officers, and enable the Iraqis to establish more outposts in some of the more violent areas of the city.

“We are in the process of seeing what might come out of the situation in Baghdad as they consolidate down there,” said Col. Tony Thomas, the deputy commander of the First Armored Division, which has responsibility for northern Iraq. “Our biggest push, to be honest, as we looked at Mosul security is to ask for an emphasis on getting those Iraqi battalions back here.”

There are no plans to send additional American units to Nineveh Province, though the replacement of Colonel Twitty’s unit by the somewhat larger Third Armored Cavalry Regiment has led to a small troop increase. But Colonel Thomas noted that other regions north of Baghdad, like Samarra and Baiji in Salahuddin Province, and Muqdadiya in Diyala Province, had been under pressure from insurgents.

He added that his division’s leadership had been “in dialogue” with Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the second-ranking American in Iraq, to see if reinforcements might be provided to “address our problem areas.”

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who visited Mosul on Wednesday before flying to Baghdad, said that American commanders had suggested to him that they could use more combat power in the north and would welcome the return of the Iraqi battalions, but that they had not asked him for additional American troops.

“They did indicate to me that they are having a continuing challenge up there,” he said.

Mosul, a city of 1.7 million, has often been buffeted by the fighting in other parts of Iraq. When American forces prepared to reclaim Falluja in 2004, many insurgents streamed north. In late 2004, the local police in Mosul fled their posts in the face of an insurgent assault, leaving much of the city under the militants’ control until Kurdish pesh merga fighters helped restore order. The province is 65 percent Sunni and also home to a diverse array of ethnic groups, including Kurds, who dominate the Nineveh provincial government.

Unlike Baghdad, Mosul was never scheduled to receive American reinforcements under Mr. Bush’s plan. The mission of the American troops here has been to prevent the city from falling again into the insurgents’ hands and to partner with Iraqi forces, while the main effort was focused on stabilizing Baghdad.

The result is that Mosul is secured by about 6,500 Iraqi soldiers and policemen and a much smaller American contingent of about 1,000, Colonel Twitty said. The relatively small concentration of American forces in Nineveh has attracted insurgents, who have long sought to exploit ethnic tensions in the region by portraying themselves as the defenders of Sunni interests against Kurdish expansionism. Mosul is also close to Syria, which has often been a conduit for foreign fighters.

Insurgents from Baghdad, Diyala and Ramadi first appeared in the western part of Nineveh six months ago and later in Mosul, Colonel Twitty said.

To finance their activities here, the insurgents have been diverting oil shipments from the Baiji refinery in northern Iraq, and skimming funds from a host of other enterprises, including a local cement plant and car dealerships, according to Lt. Col. Eric Welsh, the commander of the Second Battalion, Seventh Cavalry Regiment, which recently completed its tour of duty here.

He said they had also, with the complicity of local government officials, been involved in the illegal sale of homes abandoned by Sunni Iraqi Army officers when the United States pushed for an aggressive policy of removing from power all members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party soon after the 2003 invasion.

“Mosul continues to be a center of gravity for the insurgency,” Colonel Welsh said. “It is a financial hub.”

One of the insurgents’ most complex attacks in Nineveh came on May 16, when they mounted a synchronized assault using eight car bombs. The assaults destroyed a bridge, killed 10 Iraqi soldiers and policemen and wounded two American helicopter pilots, who were hit by small-arms fire. But the insurgents failed to blast open a major prison in the city, and unlike the situation in 2004, this time the Iraqi police stood their ground.

To counter the insurgents, American commanders had sought to establish tighter control over the oil shipments from the Baiji refinery and to detain officials and financiers in the illicit transactions. American and Iraqi forces have also conducted a series of raids against the insurgent leadership, killing or detaining six local emirs.

As a result of such efforts, the militants’ have not been able to carry out large-scale coordinated attacks, American officials say. Instead, they have been going after easier targets, like Iraqi police checkpoints, that are less well armed and protected than the Iraqi Army or the Americans.

“In the past, the enemy was able to mass their forces on particular targets at a particular time,” said Capt. Scott Linker, an intelligence officer. “We are not seeing those types of attacks anymore.”

Still, the overall number of attacks, including the number of “effective” attacks that destroy property or cause casualties, has been generally steady in past months. An American company commander and his driver were killed on Oct. 7 when a bomb flipped over the Bradley fighting vehicle they were in.

Last week, American officers said, the number of attacks in Nineveh soared to 103, from the 80 or so per week that occurred in recent weeks. The officers said that one reason for the increase was the transfer of control to the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment, which temporarily resulted in an increase in the number of Americans on patrol.

Achieving a long-term reduction of violence in Nineveh, Colonel Twitty said, requires political measures, especially provincial elections, that would allow Sunnis to attain better representation in a government that is dominated by a Kurdish minority. But American and Iraqi commanders also say that more Iraqi forces are ultimately needed to deal with a resilient, if somewhat uncoordinated, insurgent threat.

“We can hold Mosul,” Colonel Twitty said. “If you want it completely cleansed of insurgents then I say that you have to put more forces in to cleanse it.”
 

Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Baghdad.

    Pushed Out of Baghdad, Insurgents Move North, NYT, 6.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/world/middleeast/06mosul.html?hp

Gates in Iraq to Urge Political Progress

December 6, 2007
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER and GRAHAM BOWLEY

BAGHDAD, Dec. 5 — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates landed in Iraq early today in an unannounced visit, moving from the north in Mosul to Baghdad on a tour to assess progress from the American troop increase.

In Baghdad, Mr. Gates was to meet Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani as well as American commanders. Mr. Gates flew to Iraq from Afghanistan, where on Tuesday he heard appeals from senior Afghan leaders for more money and weapons to combat the recent rise in insurgent activity there. There were two suicide bombings in Kabul during his visit. The first, on Tuesday morning, injured 22 Afghan civilians; the second, early Wednesday, killed 7 Afghan soldiers and 6 civilians, and injured 17 others.

Mr. Gates arrival in Iraq also coincided with a number of car bombings around the country, which killed at least eight people, including a car bomb in Mosul that targeted an Iraqi police patrol, killing one civilian and injuring seven others, the Iraqi police said.

Still, overall violence in Baghdad is much reduced. And while American officials express great satisfaction over that , they say the big challenge is to sustain it while making sure violence does not increase in the rest of the country.

Mr. Gates is to urge leaders in the Iraqi capital that they must come up with political reconciliation at the national level that matches political progress underway at provincial levels and that sustains the improvements in the security situation.

Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte, a former ambassador to Iraq, visited Iraq a few weeks ago, and after a series of meetings with Iraqi provincial leaders he made a similar call for lawmakers to take advantage of the decline in daily violence in recent months to pass crucial legislation and improve basic government services.

Mr. Gates is due to hold a press conference later today.

During Mr. Gates’ visit, American commanders in northern Iraq said one new security risk was that the shift of Iraqi troops to Baghdad to fight Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown insurgent group, and sectarian militia might make the north more vulnerable.

Two Iraqi battalions, about 1,400 local troops, were moved from Mosul to Baghdad, and American commanders are eagerly awaiting their return in coming weeks to press forward with security operations in the north.

Mr. Gates, who visited Baghdad in September with President Bush, had not been to northern Iraq before this trip.

At least eight people were killed in the car bomb attacks around Iraq today. A car bomb exploded south of Kirkuk, killing two civilians and wounding eight others, the Iraqi police said. A suicide bomber blew up a car laden with explosives Baquba, killing five civilians and wounding 20 others, the police said.

At the end of his visit earlier this month, Mr. Negroponte said that if Iraq’s sharply divided Parliament did not reach a consensus “in the near future” on issues that would improve the lives of Iraqis, it risked losing the gains in security that had come in part because of the increased number of American combat troops.

Thom Shanker reported from Baghdad and Graham Bowley from New York. Employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Iraq.

    Gates in Iraq to Urge Political Progress, NYT, 6.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/world/middleeast/06gates.html?hp

About New York

From the Bronx to Iraq

to a Return Home,

Too Soon
 

December 5, 2007
The New York Times
By JIM DWYER

All afternoon, leaning into the wind, they trudged down Castle Hill Avenue in the Bronx, dressed in funeral parlor clothes. A car rolled up, and an older woman slowly unfolded from the front passenger seat, bracing her fingertips against the door frame, then pulling herself out deliberately, waving off a hand extended from the sidewalk. A young woman carried an infant seat out of a minivan. Soldiers from an Army honor guard, perfectly creased and practiced at their duties, had been among the first to arrive.

The remains of Pvt. Isaac T. Cortes, 26, a member of the 10th Mountain Division who died in a bombing last week in Iraq, were back in the Bronx yesterday for a wake at the Castle Hill Funeral Home. This morning, he will be buried after a Mass at St. Raymond’s Catholic Church. So far, at least 59 men and women from New York City have died in Iraq.

Private Cortes grew up in Parkchester, one of the sprawling apartment developments built by Metropolitan Life in the 1930s and ’40s, and attended Christopher Columbus High School.

Reina Rivera, 20, a cousin, said Isaac made return visits special after her family had moved from the city to Milwaukee.

“When we came back, even though he was older, he stood over at Grandma’s house with us and played cards,” she said. “He roughhoused my little brothers.”

After graduating, he got work as a ride operator at Playland Amusement Park in Rye, one in a series of jobs. “Like every ordinary young man, he was looking for things to do,” said Irma Cruz, his maternal grandmother.

The family helped. “I brought him to the head of caddies at Scarsdale Golf Club, and he worked there a while,” said Steve Toro, an uncle. “He seemed to be fine with it.”

Private Cortes’s mother, Emily Toro, who lives in Queens, has worked as a party promoter and now helps care for her grandchildren. His father, Isais Cortes, is on the maintenance staff at Parkchester. His brother, Chris, younger by one year, has two children.

Several years ago, Isaac Cortes met a young woman who had a child. “He helped raise her up,” said Wanda Toro, an aunt. “To him, she was no different than if she was his own daughter.”

Last year, he found work closer to home. “He got himself on as a security guard at Yankee Stadium,” said Uncle Steve.

Asked about his salary at the stadium, his grandmother laughed. “He really enjoyed the games,” Ms. Cruz said.

Even so, he had hopes that were larger than a string of seasonal jobs, said Donna Vasquez, a friend. “We spoke about this, that he wanted to be a police officer or go into the military,” Ms. Vasquez said. “He wanted to be a person of respect and dignity, to not have a street life. He never had any problems like that.”

Around the end of the baseball season last year, he enlisted in the Army and went to Fort Benning, Ga., for basic training.

“My mom sat us down and told us, and we all got panicked,” Cousin Reina said. “I spoke to him — no questions, no ifs, no buts.”

Back home this summer, his next move was clear: He would be one of the 30,000 additional soldiers that the Bush administration was sending to Iraq in hopes of quelling the violence. First, though, he visited his grandmother in the Soundview section of the Bronx.

“I didn’t want him to go,” she said. “I didn’t try to tell him not to. He went to make a better life. And to defend his country.”

He left in August. “He said it was the best decision he ever made,” Aunt Wanda said. “He spoke to his mother on Thanksgiving Day. He said it was really crazy, that he was very tired.”

Five days later , Private Cortes and Specialist Benjamin Garrison, 25, of Houston, were driving through the village of Amerli, 100 miles north of Baghdad. In July, one of the deadliest bombings of the war had killed between 150 and 155 people there.

A roadside bomb killed Private Cortes and Specialist Garrison.

“Three and a half months he was there,” Aunt Wanda said.

A few blocks away, on Metropolitan Oval in Parkchester, a crew of workers were putting the final touches on the holiday decorations and sound system. The Cortes family apartment overlooks the oval. Every year of his life, from the time he believed in flying reindeer to the days when he fell full-face in love, Isaac Cortes had seen those decorations and heard that music.

Now, in the middle of the oval, near the giant wooden toy castles and the vinyl Santa Claus dolls bobbing and shuddering in the wind, was a memorial wreath above a portrait of Pvt. Isaac T. Cortes: son, brother, grandson and more.

    From the Bronx to Iraq to a Return Home, Too Soon, NYT, 5.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/nyregion/05about.html?hp

Op-Ed Columnist

Now and Forever

December 4, 2007
The New York Times
By BOB HERBERT

Most of the time we pretend it’s not there: The staggering financial cost of the war in Iraq, which continues to soar, unchecked, like a rocket headed toward the moon and beyond.

Early last year, the Nobel-Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimated that the “true” cost of the war would ultimately exceed $1 trillion, and maybe even $2 trillion.

Incredibly, that estimate may have been low.

A report prepared for the Democratic majority on the Joint Economic Committee of the House and Senate warns that without a significant change of course in Iraq, the long-term cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could head into the vicinity of $3.5 trillion. The vast majority of those expenses would be for Iraq.

Priorities don’t get much more twisted. A country that can’t find the money to provide health coverage for its children, or to rebuild the city of New Orleans, or to create a first-class public school system, is flushing whole generations worth of cash into the bottomless pit of a failed and endless war.

“The No. 1 reason that the war in Iraq should end,” said Senator Charles Schumer, chairman of the joint committee, “is the loss of life that is occurring without accomplishing any of the goals that even President Bush put forward.”

But “right below that,” he said, is the need to stop squandering incredible amounts of money that could be put to better use — helping to “make people’s lives better” — here at home. That colossal and continuing waste, he said, “should cause anxiety in anyone who cares about the future of this country. I know it causes me anxiety.”

President Bush’s formal funding requests for Iraq have already exceeded $600 billion. In addition to that, the report offers estimates of the war’s “hidden costs” from its beginning to 2017: the long-term costs of treating the wounded and disabled; interest and other costs associated with borrowing to finance the war; the money needed to repair or replace military equipment; the increased costs of military recruitment and retention; and such difficult to gauge but very real costs as the loss of productivity from those who have been killed or wounded.

What matters more than the precision of these estimates (Republicans are not happy with them) is the undeniable fact that the costs associated with the Iraq war are huge and carry with them enormous societal consequences.

Far from seeking a halt to the war, the Bush administration has been considering a significant U.S. military presence in Iraq that would last for many years, if not decades. There has been very little public discussion and no thorough analysis of the overall implications of such a policy.

What is indisputable, however, is that everything associated with the Iraq war has cost vastly more than the administration’s absurdly sunny forecasts. The direct appropriations are already roughly 10 times the amount of the administration’s original estimates of the entire cost of the war.

Senator Schumer and other Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee have been trying (not very successfully, so far) to get other policy makers and the public at large to focus on the sheer insanity of pumping hundreds of billions — if not trillions — of public dollars into a failed venture with no end even remotely in view.

There are myriad better ways to use the many millions of dollars that the U.S. spends on Iraq every day. Two important long-term investments that come to mind — and that would put large numbers of Americans to work — are the development of a serious strategy for achieving energy independence over the next several years and the creation of a large-scale program for rebuilding the aging American infrastructure.

To get to those, or any number of other important initiatives, the country’s leaders will have to somehow get past their bizarre reluctance to end this debilitating war.

I asked Senator Schumer how soon he thought U.S. forces should leave Iraq. He said: “You start withdrawing in three months and be out in a year. In my view, there would be a small force left — 10,000 or 15,000 — to deal with any Al Qaeda camps that might be set up. But that’s it.”

His words were echoed in another context by Senator Jim Webb, a Virginia Democrat (and also a member of the Joint Economic Committee), who said on “Meet the Press” on Sunday that “it’s not in the strategic interest of the United States” to have a long-term military presence in Iraq.

Youngsters who were just starting high school when the U.S. invaded Iraq are in college now. Their children, yet unborn, will be called on to fork over tax money to continue paying for the war.

Seriously. How long do we want this madness to last?

    Now and Forever, NYT, 4.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04herbert.html?ref=opinion

Op-Ed Contributor

A Microscopic Insurgent

December 4, 2007
The New York Times
By MARK D. DRAPEAU

Washington

LAST week the United Nations warned of a potential epidemic of deadly cholera in Baghdad, noting that there had been more than 101 cases. This was hardly a surprise: cholera, caused by a bacterium that produces severe diarrhea, broke out in Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, in August and has now spread to at least half of Iraq’s 18 provinces. At least 30,000 Iraqis have displayed cholera-like symptoms and more than 2,500 cases have been confirmed in Kirkuk alone.

In the West, diarrhea is a mild illness relieved by an over-the-counter pill. In the developing world, cholera is a rapid killer, with death due to dehydration coming as quickly as two to three hours. More typically, without treatment of water and electrolytes, shock occurs in less than 12 hours, with death within a day.

The threat is bad enough in the overcrowded communities of poor countries, but epidemics thrive in war zones. In dense areas like Baghdad or refugee camps, the Vibrio cholerae bacterium spreads quickly via untreated water or raw sewage. Latrines in these places often adjoin living quarters, making the spread of germs almost inevitable, and mothers commonly scavenge for leftover food to feed children — food that may be mixed with contaminated water or feces.

It’s no coincidence that Iraqi areas with the filthiest water and most raw sewage are breeding grounds for both V. cholerae and insurgents. In a perverse feedback loop, insurgents in these places are more likely to become ill, but conditions for the surrounding populace simultaneously deteriorate, increasing support for the insurgency. Another perverse circumstance is that chlorine is often used to treat cholera-infected water, but because insurgents have started using chlorine trucks in bombing attacks, restrictions on chlorine distribution have led to reduced water treatment and possibly increased the prevalence of cholera.

War and sickness are inextricably intertwined. Large groups of men living at close quarters on scant sleep are perfect carriers. Indeed, microbes have had a larger effect on the outcome of wars than many care to admit, from smallpox outbreaks in the French and Indian War to the pandemic influenza in World War I. As Clausewitz (who died from cholera in 1831) might have said, war is the continuation of disease by other means.

In Iraq, of course, it’s not only insurgents and civilians who are at risk of disease. Given the asymmetric nature of conflict, which group do we expect to be more affected by an epidemic: large, centralized conventional military forces or small, agile insurgent units? The answer is that a 10 percent loss within a 5,000-member brigade is far more devastating than losing two members of a 20-man terrorist cell. And suicide bombers don’t call in sick.

Disease doesn’t respect borders any more than it does sides in a conflict. Officials in Tehran reported last month that the cholera epidemic had crossed from Iraq into Iran. Syria, Jordan and Kuwait have stepped up border surveillance and disease-detection programs. Saudi Arabia has cited the disease in suspending trade with both Iraq and Iran, and in some cases has banned Muslim pilgrims from entering with food or water.

What can be done within Iraq to reduce the spread of cholera? Despite the general ineffectiveness of the Baghdad government, the Ministry of Health has begun a large cholera-awareness campaign outlining basic procedures for water decontamination. Still, while this is helpful, plastering cities with informative posters and having doses of vaccine on standby is an incomplete strategy. To stop the flow of cholera, the best solution is a clean-water program and better management of waste. The government and the American authorities need to improve sanitation, especially in Baghdad’s slums and in downtrodden rural areas.

Epidemics flowing through fragile new democracies are more than a medical problem. Iraq’s leaders need to decide now how they will preserve the continuity of government services in case of an overwhelming outbreak: Is the military prepared to step in if the civil and medical authorities are indisposed? How will security be maintained if army barracks or police stations succumb?

Cholera is a grave threat for the American project in Iraq, but also an opportunity to capture the hearts and minds of the population. The average Iraqi will feel truly secure only when the vicious disease-poverty-insurgent feedback loop is snapped. As we plan the post-surge phase of American operations, our leaders must bear in mind that healthy people make healthy decisions that serve as the bedrock for healthy societies.

Mark D. Drapeau is a fellow at the Center for Technology

and National Security Policy

at the National Defense University.

A Microscopic Insurgent, NYT, 4.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04drapeau.html