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/ 2005 Iraq
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US
- International
- Iraq
- 
Secret
- 
GOV
- 
Terrorism
- 
Intelligence
- Telecommunications
- E-Mail
- 
Privacy
- 
Politics
- 
Media
- 
Enforcement
- "US
investigates leak of spy program: Prosecutors focus
on disclosure to New York Times." ... "The Justice Department has opened
a criminal investigation into recent disclosures about a controversial
domestic eavesdropping program that was secretly authorized by President
Bush after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said yesterday."
... "Justice Department prosecutors will focus on whether classified information
about the program was unlawfully disclosed to The New York Times, which
reported two weeks ago that Bush had authorized the National Security Agency
to monitor the international telephone calls and e-mails of people in the
United States without court-approved warrants, officials said." ... "The
case is the latest in a series of clashes between the media and the Bush
administration, which has aggressively enforced restrictions on classified
information and has frequently complained about media disclosures related
to terrorism or the war in Iraq." -By Dan Eggen -WashingtonPost
via -BostonGlobe
Iraq
- "Iraqi
protests continue in Kirkuk." ... "About 350 Arab
and Turkmen demonstrators took to the streets of Kirkuk on Thursday, protesting
preliminary results of the Dec. 15 parliamentary election and condemning
what they claim are Kurdish attempts to control the city, according to
Kirkuk Police Chief Torhan Abdul Rahman." ... "The protest is only the
latest of widespread demonstrations across the country, including one on
Wednesday in Samarra, north of Baghdad in the Sunni heartland." ... "There
has also been uproar among Sunni Arabs, secular Shiites and others over
what they say is fraud in the polling process." -Contributed
to by Mohammed Tawfeeq -CNN
US
- Iraq
- Police
- "U.S.
Seeks To Escape Brutal Cycle In Iraqi City: 3rd Try
at Pullout Depends on Police." ... "On one of his last days in Iraq, Sgt.
Dale Evans looked out over the turbulent city from a rooftop tower piled
high with sandbags, manning a machine gun. Below him, rows of Bradley Fighting
Vehicles stood at the ready. Dusty streets were lined with coiled barbed
wire and abandoned houses pockmarked from gunfire -- a protective no-man's
land around a base that U.S. commanders describe as their "battleship"
in downtown Samarra." ... "This month, Evans and his company from the 3rd
Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, will leave Patrol Base Uvanni, beginning
a third attempt in as many years by U.S. forces to hand this Sunni city
over to Iraqi police. It's a major test for the U.S. military in Iraq,
and one U.S. commanders here say they can't afford to fail." ... "Since
2003, Samarra has come to symbolize the trials and errors of U.S. strategy
in Iraq -- a cycle of military offensives, lulls and new waves of lethal
insurgent attacks." (1, 2)
-By Ann Scott Tyson -WashingtonPost
Iraq
- Politics
- "Iraq
Contingent May Grow if Attacks Persist, Pace Says."
... "Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace said Sunday that the
number of U.S. troops in Iraq could increase next year, not decrease, if
the insurgency continued." ... "The four-star Marine general said that
any decision to withdraw or deploy additional troops in Iraq would depend
mostly on whether the insurgency continued to launch deadly attacks against
U.S.-led forces and friendly elements of the fledgling Baghdad government."
-By Josh Meyer -LAtimes
Iraq
- Terrorism
- Police
- Politics
- "Gunmen
kill Iraqi forces, bombs shake Baghdad." ... "Guerrillas
killed 10 Iraqi policemen and soldiers in attacks north of Baghdad on Monday,
while the capital itself was rocked by five major explosions that left
at least eight dead." ... "It was one of the bloodiest days in Iraq since
the largely peaceful election on December 15, when rival ethnic and sectarian
groups took part in a vote for a new parliament. By nightfall, at least
20 were killed and over 40 injured." -By Deepa Babington
with contributions by Faris al-Mehdawi in Baquba, Aseel Kami and Gideon
Long -Reuters.co.uk
US
- Iraq
- "A
look at U.S. military deaths in Iraq." ... "As of
Sunday, Dec. 25, 2005, at least 2,168 members of the U.S. military have
died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an
Associated Press count." ... "Since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared
that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 2,029 U.S. military members
have died, according to AP's count." -AP
via -SeattlePI.NWsource
US
- Iraq
- "Rumsfeld
suggests some U.S. troops will be heading home from Iraq."
... "The reductions would bring U.S. troop levels down from about 158,000
to slightly under 130,000. But Rumsfeld warned that "until it's announced,
the government's decision hasn't been announced. Therefore it's not final.""
-By Richard Sisk -MercuryNews
Iraq
- "Objections
to Iraq vote grow louder: Sunnis, secularists join
forces in call." ... "Sunni Arab and secular political groups joined forces
yesterday to decide whether to call for a repeat of parliamentary elections
that gave the Shi'ite religious bloc a larger than expected lead." ...
"The main Sunni coalition has said the elections were tainted by fraud,
including voting centers failing to open, shortages in election materials,
reports of multiple voting, and forgery." ... "The election commission,
known as the IECI, has said it received 1,250 complaints about violations
during the Dec. 15 elections, 25 of which it described as serious. But
the commission says it does not expect the complaints will change the overall
result, to be announced in January." -By Patrick Quinn
-AP via -BostonGlobe
Iraq
- Religious
- "Shiite
Alliance Leads In Partial Iraq Count: Secular Parties
Failing to Win Broad Support." ... "The first results from Iraq's national
parliamentary election showed powerful support for the leading Shiite Muslim
religious alliance, and suggested that the country's splintered politics
have coalesced into a few large political groups divided along ethnic and
religious lines." ... "Election officials announced unofficial results
Monday from 11 of Iraq's 18 provinces and Baghdad, the largest city, showing
the Shiite alliance leading overwhelmingly in central and southern Iraq.
As expected, a coalition of Kurds dominated the north, while votes from
the mainly Sunni Muslim western provinces have not been reported." ...
"The results, which elections officials said were incomplete and subject
to challenge, appeared to dash the hopes of secular parties that voters
would reject the religious and ethnic-based groups." (1, 2)
-By Doug Struck with contributions by Jonathan Finer
and Omar Fekeiki and K.I. Ibrahim -WashingtonPost
Iraq
- US
- Intelligence
- "Official:
Al-Zarqawi Caught, Freed." ... "Iraqi security forces
caught terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the Fallujah area last year
but released him because they didn't realize who he was, the deputy interior
minister said in an interview broadcast Friday." ... "CNN broadcast a similar
report late Thursday, but it could not be confirmed. But a U.S. official
said in Washington that American intelligence believed it was plausible."
-AP via-CBSNews
US
- Iraq
- 
Military
- Intelligence
- "Bush
Admits Mistakes but Defends War: He accepts responsibility
for acting on flawed intelligence but says the invasion was justified.
Aides hope his candor will boost his ratings." ... "President Bush said
Wednesday that he accepted responsibility for deciding to wage war in Iraq
in part on the basis of faulty intelligence, but that he remained convinced
history would conclude he had done the right thing." ... "Speaking hours
before Iraqis began arriving at the polls to elect a new government, Bush
acknowledged miscalculations and mistakes before and after the U.S.-led
coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003." ... ""It is true that much of the
intelligence turned out to be wrong," Bush told a group of political leaders
and scholars at the nonpartisan Woodrow Wilson Center. "As president, I'm
responsible for the decision to go into Iraq, and I'm also responsible
for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities.""
-By Warren Vieth
-LAtimes
Iraq
- "With
delight and fervour, Iraqis cast ballots." ... "There
may not be the same sense of history this time round, but the joy and determination
of Iraqi voters emerging from dictatorship is still evident." ... "Young
and old, able-bodied and infirm, they streamed to polls for the third time
in 11 months on Thursday, this time to elect a four-year parliament." ...
"While not as novel as the first post-Saddam Hussein election in January,
participation was more widespread. Sunni Arabs, who boycotted the earlier
poll for an interim assembly, flocked to vote this time, determined not
to miss out on power again." -By Luke Baker
-Reuters via -AlertNet.org/Newsdesk
US
- World
- Iraq
- Death
Penalty - 
UN
- "Rice
Scolds Holdouts on Iraq Trial: Nations not aiding
the Hussein proceedings are ducking duty to law and human rights, she says."
... "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sharply criticized other nations
Tuesday for failing to provide support for the trial of Saddam Hussein,
saying that the world community's "effective boycott of Saddam's trial
is only harming the Iraqi people."" ... "U.S. officials have differed with
many other governments almost from the outset of the war on how to conduct
trials of Hussein and top aides. The U.S. and its Iraqi allies wanted the
trials to be overseen by national authorities in Iraq, whereas officials
with the U.N. and from many other countries favored hybrid proceedings
with a larger international component." ... "Officials of other governments,
including many in Europe, have said they would avoid a proceeding they
feared could be seen as an American-run show trial. They also have been
put off by the possible death penalty, which is legal in Iraq and the United
States but banned in much of the world." -By Paul
Richter with contributions by Richard Boudreaux
-LAtimes
Iraq
- 
TV
- "Iraqis
Grasp the Art of TV Debate, With Gloves On: The airwaves
are rife with candidate forums featuring polite speech in a nation torn
by war." ... "For the first time, the televised campaign debate has come
to Iraq, and it has brought with it a level of civility and political discourse
far different from that found on the nation's often bloody streets." ...
"Across Iraq, politicians of all stripes moved with fear as they campaigned
for Thursday's parliamentary election. On Tuesday, a Sunni Arab candidate
was slain in Ramadi, the fourth office-seeker to be assassinated in recent
weeks." ... "But in Iraqi TV studios, it's a different story." ... "Politicians
are now free to use the medium of televised debates to expose voters to
their styles, images and rhetorical flourishes. And here, the tone has
been polite." (1, 2)
-By Louise Roug with contributions by Shamil Aziz,
Saif Rasheed and Asmaa Waguih -LAtimes
Iraq
- Prison
- "Fatal
Torture of Inmates Suspected: Security forces may
have physically abused or starved two detainees, the head of an inquiry
says. In Ramadi, a Sunni Arab candidate is slain." ... "Detainees told
investigators that the two inmates were tortured or starved to death, but
prison officials say the pair died of natural causes." ... "U.S. Ambassador
Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters Tuesday that in all, at least 120 prisoners
had allegedly been abused by Iraqi security forces, more than previously
disclosed by the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari. As many as
18 may have died at a Baghdad detention center that was first identified
last month in a Los Angeles Times report." -By Borzou
Daragahi and Louise Roug with contributions by Richard Boudreaux
-LAtimes
US
- Iraq
- World
- Intelligence
- Politics
- "Peace-making
a core mission in new Pentagon policy." ... "After
years of internal debate, the Pentagon has embraced a fundamental change
in policy which calls for the U.S. armed forces to be equally adept at
waging war and making peace." ... "The new course, announced in a Pentagon
directive, follows widespread criticism of the conduct of the war in Iraq,
where U.S. forces scored a swift, decisive victory over conventional opponents
but found themselves ill-equipped to deal with post-combat chaos and an
increasingly effective insurgency." ... "The directive says that establishing
order and security, restoring essential services and meeting the humanitarian
needs of the population of a vanquished country were a "core U.S. military
mission.""" ... "The directive specifies the need for better language skills,
more regional expertise, better intelligence and counterintelligence, more
emphasis on studying foreign cultures and more coordination with foreign
governments, international organizations and nongovernmental organizations."
(1, 2) -By Bernd Debusmannn -Reuters
US
- Iraq
- Military
- Politics
- "Bush
Estimates 30,000 Iraqis Killed in War." ... "In a
rare, unscripted moment, President Bush on Monday estimated 30,000 Iraqis
have died in the war, the first time he has publicly acknowledged the high
price Iraqis have paid in the push for democracy." ... "``I would say 30,000,
more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing
violence against Iraqis,'' Bush said. ``We've lost about 2,140 of our own
troops in Iraq.''" ... "The U.S. military does not release its tally of
Iraqi dead, but there is some consensus from outside experts that roughly
30,000 is a credible number. White House counselor Dan Bartlett said Bush
was not giving an official figure but simply repeating public estimates."
-By Nedra Pickler -AP
via -Guardian.co.uk
Iraq
- 
Law
- US
- Military
- "Early
Voting Begins in Iraq; Nine Killed." ... "Thousands
of Iraqi forces will be protecting polling stations, with U.S. and other
coalition troops ready to help in case of a major attack." ... "Most attention
has focused on Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted the Jan. 30 election
to protest the continued U.S. military presence. That enabled the Shiites
and Kurds to dominate parliament, a move that sharpened communal tensions
and fueled the Sunni-dominated insurgency." ... "This time, more Sunni
Arab candidates are in the race, and changes in the election law to allocate
most seats by province instead of based on a party's nationwide total all
but guaranteed a sizable Sunni bloc in the next assembly." -By
Qassim Abdul-Zahra -AP
via -Guardian.co.uk
Books
- US
- Iraq
- Military
- Religion
- "Iraq
war debate enters new phase." ... "You might not
expect a West Point graduate, Vietnam vet and career soldier to come out
with a book titled "The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Addicted
to War." But that's what Andrew Bacevich, who now directs the program in
International Relations at Boston University, has done." ... "A self-described
conservative, Bacevich argues that Americans have fallen prey to a "military
metaphysic." By that he means all international problems are seen as military
problems and the likelihood for finding a solution except through military
means is discounted. The result is war as a permanent condition with the
only acceptable plan for peace a loaded pistol. One has only to consider
the relative weight given to the Pentagon and the State Department to get
the point." ... "As a pastor what most interested me is Bacevich's careful
tracing of the role of leading religious conservatives in promoting a "crusade
theory of warfare," to replace the more long-standing and cautious doctrine
of just war. A crusade theory of warfare provides the mindset and justification
for offensive military action, for so-called preventive wars like the current
war in Iraq. The just war ethical tradition mandates the use of force for
defensive, not offensive, purposes." -By Anthony B.
Robinson -SeattlePI.NWsource
US- Iraq
- "A
tale of 2 scarred cities: Najaf and Mosul." ... "Although
President Bush said Wednesday that residents in Najaf and Mosul are "gaining
a personal stake in a peaceful future," critics in the two Iraqi cities
cite corruption, undemocratic institutions, persistent violence and stalled
reconstruction." ... "Najaf is a largely peaceful Shiite city 100 miles
south of Baghdad that has not suffered from the sectarian attacks ravaging
other parts of the country. But rivalries between Shiite factions have
occasionally become violent, and many complain that militant political
parties and militias dominate city government and security forces." -By
Alaa al-Morjani and Sindbad Ahmed -AP
via -ChicagoTribune
US
- Iraq
- Politics
- Police
- "Bus
bombing kills 30 in Baghdad: A suicide attacker has
detonated a bomb on a bus in Baghdad, killing at least 30 people, Iraqi
police said." ... "The vehicle was leaving al-Nahda bus station heading
south for the Shia town of Nasiriya when the attack occurred." ... "Witnesses
said the bus was gutted and left in flames by the explosion. Another 25
people are reported injured." ... "Iraq has been bracing for an increase
in violence by anti-US insurgents ahead of the election next Thursday for
the first full-term post-Saddam parliament." ... "Police believe the attacker
waited until the bus was pulling away slowly from the station and jumped
on board to avoid security checks." -BBC
/News
Japan
- Iraq
- "Japan
extends Iraq troops mission: Japan has extended its
military deployment in Iraq for another year." ... "The decision, announced
after a meeting of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet, means the
troops can stay until 14 December 2006." ... "Japan has about 500 troops
in Samawa in southern Iraq, training Iraqi security forces and helping
with reconstruction, but not engaging in combat roles." ... "However, there
was media speculation that the troops could be pulled out before their
new mandate is fully up." ... "The Japanese troops could be pulled out
before the new expiration date if conditions change, either on the ground,
or in the make-up of the coalition forces, Kyodo news agency said on Wednesday."-BBC
/News
US
- Iraq
- Military
- Terrorism
- Intelligence
- Opinion
- 
Economy
- "Poll:
Bush's Ratings Bump Up." ... "The President’s overall
approval rating has risen from 35 percent in October to 40 percent now,
and his ratings on handling the economy and the war in Iraq have also improved."
... "The Bush Administration continues to face criticism from many Democrats
and other war opponents about the way pre-war intelligence was handled,
and whether there truly was a compelling connection between Iraq and the
terror threat to the United States. Fifty-two percent of Americans think
the Bush Administration deliberately misled the public in making the case
for war, while 44 percent say it did not." ... "An overwhelming majority
of Americans think this Congress should be asking questions about pre-war
intelligence. Fifty-six percent call it a very important line of questioning,
and another 24 percent call it somewhat important."
-CBSNews
Iraq
- "Hussein
Trial Resumes in Ousted Dictator's Absence (Update1)."
... "The Baghdad trial of Saddam Hussein resumed today without the ousted
Iraqi dictator after a four-hour break caused by his refusal to attend."
... "``The court will continue the proceedings and will inform the defendant
about procedures during his absence,'' Chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin
told the tribunal trying Hussein and seven codefendants." ... "The statutes
of the court trying Hussein entitle defendants to be tried in their presence,
while Iraq's 1971 law on criminal proceedings allows a trial to continue
in a defendant's absence if the person violated court rules." ... "Amin
cited the criminal proceedings law, saying it permitted the judges to continue
the trial in Hussein's absence." -By Alex Morales
-Bloomberg
US
- Iraq
- 
Niger
- Lewis
Libby
- Dick
Cheney - Military
- Politics
- Law
- "Plame
Is Set to Leave the CIA." ... "[Valerie] Plame, 42,
worked undercover for the CIA tracking weapons proliferation but saw her
clandestine career imperiled after she was identified as an agency operative
in the summer of 2003 in a syndicated column by Robert Novak." ... "Plame
is married to Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, who was sent by
the CIA to Africa in February 2002 to evaluate claims that Saddam Hussein
was trying to buy weapons-grade uranium in Niger. Wilson found the claims
unverifiable and publicly criticized the intelligence used by the administration
to justify the war against Iraq." ... "Administration officials began a
campaign to discredit Wilson and identified Plame in conversations with
several journalists, potentially violating a law against unmasking undercover
agents. A federal grand jury recently indicted former [Vice President Dick]
Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on charges that he repeatedly lied
to investigators." -By Richard B. Schmitt
-LAtimes
Japan
- Iraq
- "Japan
Should Keep Troops in Iraq, Al-Jaafari Says (Update1)."
... "Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al- Jaafari said Japan should extend
its deployment of troops in his country." ... "Japan has about 600 troops
in Samawah helping rebuild hospitals and schools and their term ends on
Dec. 14. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi intends to extend the mission
for another year, Kyodo News reported today, citing a copy of the government's
new deployment plan." -By John Brinsley -Bloomberg
Iraq
- Political
- 
History
- "Hussein
faces victims amid shouts, chaos: As trial's first
witnesses take the stand, ex-Iraqi leader 'not afraid to be executed'."
... "The first witnesses took the stand Monday in Saddam Hussein's trial
and gave gripping accounts of torture and mass executions as the defiant
ex-president and other defendants tried to intimidate those testifying."
... "The outbursts punctuated an extraordinary eight-hour session in which
Hussein faced victims of his government's massacres in court for the first
time. The first witness, Ahmad Hassan Muhammad, 38, riveted the courtroom
with the scenes of torture he had witnessed after his arrest in 1982, including
seeing a machine that "looked like a grinder" with hair and blood beneath
it." ... "Standing 10 feet from Hussein, he described Baath Party officials
hurling a young boy out a window to his death. At one point, Muhammad briefly
broke down in tears as he recalled how his brother was tortured with electrical
shocks in front of their 77-year-old father." ... ""There were mass arrests
of men and women and children," Muhammad said. "Even if a child was 1 day
old, they used to tell his parents, 'Bring him with you.' "" -By
Robert F. Worth -NYTimes
via SFGate.com
Iraq
- Political
- History
- "Accounts
of Brutality Roil Hussein Trial: The deposed leader
is confronted by witnesses who tell of torture and attacks on their village.
He threatens and spars with them and the judge." ... "The first witnesses
to take the stand against Saddam Hussein confronted him Monday with chilling
testimony about an aerial assault on their village, mass arrests, torture
by electric shock, and executions after the Iraqi leader survived an assassination
attempt there." ... "Two witnesses, men now in their 30s, stood glaring
at the deposed leader a few feet away as each outlined his memory of the
horrors suffered in their youth. Hussein and some of his seven co-defendants
being tried in the slayings of 146 villagers repeatedly disrupted the proceedings
and furiously disparaged the charges." ... "Hussein and his co-defendants
are accused of ordering or carrying out the roundup, interrogation and
torture of about 1,500 villagers in Dujayl after a small group of gunmen
opened fire on the presidential motorcade July 8, 1982. They are also charged
with criminal destruction of tens of thousands of acres of village land."
(1, 2)
-By Richard Boudreaux with contributions by Borzou
Daragahi -LAtimes
US
- Iraq
- Politics
- "Saddam's
defense team walks out of resumed trial." ... "The
court in the Saddam Hussein trial allowed former U.S. Attorney General
Ramsey Clark and another foreign defense lawyer to address the session
Monday, reversing a ruling that had led the defense to walk out." ... "After
a 90-minute recess, Chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin allowed Clark and
ex-Qatari Justice Minister Najib al-Nueimi to speak on the questions of
the legitimacy of the tribunal and safety of the lawyers."
-AP via -USATODAY
US
- Iraq
- Politics
- "10
Marines killed near Falluja: Marines conducting 'counter-insurgency'
operations in Falluja, Ramadi." ... "A roadside bomb Thursday killed 10
Marines while they were on "foot patrol near Falluja," the Marine Corps
said Friday." ... "Eleven Marines were also wounded in the incident, and
four of them have not yet returned to duty." ... "Marines have been conducting
"counterinsurgency operations" in the Falluja and Ramadi areas ahead of
the December 15 elections." ... "This brings the number of U.S. military
deaths in Iraq to 2,123." -Contributed to by Arwa
Damon and Mohammed Tawfeeq -CNN
US
- Iraq
- Prison
- Politics
- "General:
Americans Must Stop Iraqi Abusers." ... "The nation's
top military man, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, said American troops in Iraq
have a duty to intercede and stop abuse of prisoners by Iraqi security
personnel." ... "When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld contradicted
Pace, the general stood firm." ... "Rumsfeld told the general he believed
Pace meant to say the U.S. soldiers had to report the abuse, not stop it."
... "Pace stuck to his original statement." ... ""If they are physically
present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation
to try to stop it," Pace told his civilian boss." -By
William C. Mann -AP
via -WashingtonPost
US
- Iraq
- Military
- GOV
- Secrets
- "U.S.
Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press:
Troops write articles presented as news reports. Some officers object to
the practice." ... "As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S.
military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written
by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission
in Iraq." ... "The articles, written by U.S. military "information operations"
troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with
the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials
and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times." ... "Many of the articles
are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and
reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of U.S.
and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild
the country." ... "Though the articles are basically factual, they present
only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly
on the U.S. or Iraqi governments, officials said." (1, 2,
3)
-By Mark Mazzetti and Borzou Daragahi
-LAtimes
US
- Iraq
- Police
- Politics
- "Bush
Offers 'Strategy for Victory' in Iraq: The president
again rejects a timetable for troop withdrawal." ... "Moving to deflect
criticism of the war in Iraq and lay out new conditions that would allow
the departure of U.S. troops, President Bush said today he would settle
for "nothing less than complete victory" there, and defined that success
as creating an Iraq in which Iraqis could live in peace protected by their
own security forces." ... "The president devoted much of the roughly 35-minute
speech to presenting a picture of Iraqi police and military units increasingly
being able to carry on the campaign against those he called "rejectionists,
Saddamists and terrorists."" ... "But he did not address three ongoing
concerns about the security forces: their de facto division into three
segments made up separately of Kurds, Shiites and Sunni; the fact that
some Sunnis are accepting the U.S. training and then joining the insurgency;
and the infiltration of the Iraqi government's security forces by members
of ethnic militia loyal to leaders other than those of the government."
-By James Gerstenzang, Tyler Marshall and Mark Mazzetti
-LAtimes
Texas
- 
Thanksgiving
- US
- Iraq
- Military
- Politics
- Cindy
Sheehan
- "Sheehan
Back in Texas for War Protest." ... "The mother of
a fallen soldier whose vigil against the war in Iraq outside President
Bush's ranch returned to Texas, saying she is "heartbroken" that the troops
are not home." ... "[Cindy] Sheehan asked protesters to return to Crawford
this week during Bush's family Thanksgiving gathering. She was unknown
when she set up camp outside Bush's ranch during his August vacation, but
as the vigil drew thousands, she attracted national attention."
-AP via
-CBSNews
US
- Iraq
- Religion
- Military
- "Series
of blasts kills nearly 100 in Iraq: Mosques, hotel
area targeted." ... "Suicide bombers killed nearly 100 people yesterday
in one of the deadliest days of Iraq's insurgency, bringing houses down
on sleeping families in Baghdad and blowing up Shi'ite Muslim worshipers
in two mosques in the eastern part of the country just as the victims turned
their faces up to the preachers to hear their Friday sermons." ... "Nationwide,
the attacks were the deadliest since Sept. 14, when at least 14 insurgent
bombings in Baghdad killed more than 160 people. Al Qaeda in Iraq was believed
to have been involved in at least the Baghdad blasts yesterday. The insurgent
group said in a statement that the bombings represented retaliation for
a US military offensive still underway in far western Iraq." ... "As in
the September attacks, most of the victims yesterday were civilians." ...
"" -By Ellen Knickmeyer and Naseer Nouri -WashingtonPost
via -BostonGlobe
US
- Iraq
- Military
- "House
rejects Iraq pullout." ... "In a maneuver to strike
at Iraq war critics, the Republican-led House of Representatives engineered
a vote on Friday on a resolution to pull U.S. troops immediately from Iraq,
which was defeated nearly unanimously." ... "Democrats denounced it as
a political stunt and an attack on Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a
leading Democratic military hawk who stunned his colleagues on Thursday
by calling for troops to be withdrawn from Iraq as quickly as possible."
... "Unlike Murtha's proposal calling for troops to be withdrawn "as soon
as practicable," which he expected would be about six months, the Republican
resolution said deployment of the U.S. forces should be "terminated immediately.""
-Reuters
US
- Iraq
- GOV
- Business
- North
Carolina - Prison
- "Ex-Convict
Took Bribes in Iraq, U.S. Says." ... "A North Carolina
man who was charged yesterday with accepting kickbacks and bribes as a
comptroller and financial officer for the American occupation authority
in Iraq was hired despite having served prison time for felony fraud in
the 1990's." ... "The job gave the man, Robert J. Stein, control over $82
million in cash earmarked for Iraqi rebuilding projects." ... "Along with
a web of other conspirators who have not yet been named, Mr. Stein and
his wife received "bribes, kickbacks and gratuities amounting to at least
$200,000 per month" to steer lucrative construction contracts to companies
run by another American, Philip H. Bloom, an affidavit outlining the criminal
complaint says." (1, 2)
-By James Glanz -NYTimes
Iraq
- 
Oil
- Business
- UN
- Legal
- History
- "Scope
of oil-for-food fraud 'overwhelming'." ... "It began
with the best of intentions and achieved its major goals: feeding the Iraqi
people while keeping dangerous weapons out of Saddam Hussein's hands."
... "Along the way, the United Nations' oil-for-food program metastasized
into the worst corruption scandal in U.N. history." ... "Three weeks after
a scathing report detailed the scope of the fraud — implicating governments,
former diplomats, businessmen and corporations — a relatively small number
of criminal investigations and other probes have begun." -By
Barbara Slavin -USATODAY
US
- Iraq
- Prisons
- Military
- "U.S.
Troops Discover 173 Abused Detainees In Iraq Basement:
Sunni Arab prisoners were allegedly tortured by Iraqi captors." ... "The
same day that the [US] Senate passed a resolution barring cruel, inhuman
and degrading treatment of detainees in the war on terror, the Iraqi government
said Tuesday that it has ordered an investigation into the alleged abuse
of 173 detainees discovered by American troops over the weekend in the
basement of an Interior Ministry building in the Baghdad suburb of Jadriya."
... "For many Iraqis, the revelation of the secret torture center brought
back painful memories of the brutality of the Sunni-dominated Saddam Hussein
regime, blamed for killing hundreds of thousands of Shiites and Kurds[.]"
... "American officials were quick to condemn the treatment of the prisoners
with the American Embassy and U.S. military command calling the situation
"totally unacceptable," agreeing with Iraqi officials that "mistreatment
of detainees will not be tolerated."" -By Gil Kaufman
-MTV.com /News
US
- Iraq
- Military
- Politics
- 
Alaska
- "Greenfield:
Bush trying to turn the table on Dems: Campaign-style
rhetoric comes during eroding support for Iraq war." ... "President Bush
has gone on the offensive, stepping up his political rhetoric in the face
of the Iraq war's growing unpopularity." ... "In an address Monday at Elmendorf
Air Force Base in Alaska, President Bush accused war critics of "playing
politics with this issue and ... sending mixed signals to our troops and
the enemy."" ... "CNN Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield talked with anchor
Wolf Blitzer after the speech, analyzing the Bush administration's fresh
strategy to target opponents of his Iraq policies."
-CNN
US
- Iraq
- Military
- "Senate
Urges Bush to Report Progress on Ending War (Update2)."
... "The Senate today called on President George W. Bush to explain his
strategy for ending the war in Iraq and report every three months on progress
until all U.S. troops stationed there are redeployed." ... "The measure
calls on the administration to make 2006 a year of significant political
and military transition in Iraq that will allow a phased reduction of U.S.
forces." ... "None of these measures are in the House version of the defense
authorization bill, which means they'll be the subject of negotiation when
the two chambers hammer out compromise legislation." -By
Jeff St.Onge -Bloomberg
US
- Iraq
- 
Vietnam
- Military
- Political
- History
- "Poll:
American attitudes on Iraq similar to Vietnam era."
... "There are enormous differences between the war in Iraq and the one
in Vietnam that defined a generation. The current conflict hasn't lasted
as long, taken nearly as many American lives or sparked the sort of massive
protests that became common in the '60s and '70s." ... "But when it comes
to public opinion, Americans' attitudes toward Iraq and the proper course
ahead are remarkably similar to public attitudes toward Vietnam in the
summer of 1970, a pivotal year in that conflict and a time of enormous
domestic unrest." ... "Some political scientists and Vietnam War historians
predict the Iraq war, like the one in Southeast Asia a quarter-century
ago, will shape American attitudes long after it's over." -By
Susan Page with contributions by Andrea Stone
-USATODAY
US
- Iraq
- Military
- Intelligence
- Politics
- "The
Right Way in Iraq." ... "I was wrong." ... "Almost
three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told -- and what
many of us believed and argued -- was a threat to America. But in fact
we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our
forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in
some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda." ... "It was a mistake
to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake. It
has been hard to say these words because those who didn't make a mistake
-- the men and women of our armed forces and their families -- have performed
heroically and paid a dear price." ... "The world desperately needs moral
leadership from America, and the foundation for moral leadership is telling
the truth." ... "While we can't change the past, we need to accept responsibility,
because a key part of restoring America's moral leadership is acknowledging
when we've made mistakes or been proven wrong -- and showing that we have
the creativity and guts to make it right." -By John
Edwards-WashingtonPost
US
- Iraq
- Secret
- Military
- Terrorism
- Politics
- Law
- "Asterisks
Dot White House's Iraq Argument." ... "President
Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq
war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same
intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent
commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent
the intelligence." ... "But Bush and his aides had access to much more
voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent
on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited
by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure
intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized
to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those
conclusions." ... [Furthermore] "... Bush does not share his most sensitive
intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also,
the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's
views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before
the vote to authorize the use of force in that country." ... "In addition,
there were doubts within the intelligence community not included in the
NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used publicly
by members of Congress because the classified information had not been
cleared for release. For example, the NIE view that Hussein would not use
weapons of mass destruction against the United States or turn them over
to terrorists unless backed into a corner was cleared for public use only
a day before the Senate vote." -By Dana Milbank and
Walter Pincus-WashingtonPost
Jordan
- Iraq
- "Jordan
official: Suicide bombers belong to al-Qaeda." ...
"Three "non-Jordanian" suicide bombers belonging to al-Qaeda in Iraq carried
out Amman's triple hotel attacks that killed at least 57 people, Jordan's
deputy premier said Saturday." ... "Marwan Muasher said the three were
males and that no females were among them, replying to claims by Jordanian-born
militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror group that four Iraqis — including
a husband and wife — carried out the bombings." ... ""The conclusion has
arrived. al-Qaeda is behind the attacks and specifically Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's
people," Muasher told a packed press conference in Amman [Jordan]."
-AP via -USATODAY
US
- Iraq
- Military
- Intelligence
- Religious- Politics
- "Poll:
Majority questions Bush administration ethics." ...
"Most Americans say they aren't impressed by the ethics and honesty of
the Bush administration, already under scrutiny for its justifications
for an unpopular war in Iraq and its role in the leak of a covert CIA officer's
identity." ... "Almost six in 10 — 57 percent — said they do not think
the Bush administration has high ethical standards and the same portion
says President Bush is not honest, an AP-Ipsos poll found. Just over four
in 10 say the administration has high ethical standards and that Bush is
honest. Whites, Southerners and evangelicals were most likely to believe
Bush is honest." -AP
via -HoustonChronicle.com
US
- Iraq
- Military
- Intelligence
- Opinion
- History
- 
Pennsylvania
- "Bush
assails Iraq critics as skewing war history." ...
"President George W. Bush lashed out at critics of his Iraq policy Friday,
accusing them of trying to rewrite history about the decision to go to
war and saying their criticism was undercutting U.S. forces in battle."
... ""While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decisions or the
conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of
how that war began," the president said in a Veterans Day speech in Pennsylvania."
... "Bush delivered his speech as part of an effort to shore up his credibility
as he faces growing public skepticism about Iraq and accusations by Democrats
and others that he led the nation into war on false pretenses." ... "Those
accusations seem to be making a dent in public confidence in him, as public
opinion polls show more people questioning the president's honesty about
Iraq and about whether American troops should remain in the fight." -By
Maria Newman -NYTimes
via -IHT.com
US
- Iraq
- Military
- Intelligence
- Political
- History
- Pennsylvania
- "Newsview:
Bush Returns to Campaign Playbook." ... "President
Bush seems to be turning the clock back to Election Day 2004, parrying
with ex-rival John Kerry and harshly questioning his critics' commitment
to U.S. troops." ... "You can't blame him for being nostalgic for better
political times, when most Americans felt he was a strong, honest leader
and gave him the benefit of the doubt on Iraq." ... "That's certainly not
the sentiment these days. With his approval ratings plunging, even some
Republican leaders are showing signs of abandoning Bush's listing ship."
... ""Mistakes were made," Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania
said Friday of the war effort." ... "When the president visited Pennsylvania
to defend his Iraq policies on Friday, Santorum kept his distance, literally
and rhetorically. He was 120 miles away, telling reporters the war in Iraq
has been "less than optimal" and that "maybe some blame could be laid"
at the White House." -By Ron Fournier
-AP via-WashingtonPost
US
- Iraq
- Military
- Intelligence
- History
- "Bush
Fires Back at Critics of Iraq War." ... "Knocked
on the defensive over allegations that he launched the Iraq war based on
faulty intelligence, President Bush accused his critics today of trying
to rewrite the history of how and why the war began." ... ""Some Democrats
and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and
misled the American people about why we went to war," he added. "These
critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no
evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments
related to Iraq's weapons programs. They also know that intelligence agencies
from around the world agreed with our assessments of Saddam Hussein.""
... "The bipartisan Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the
United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction the panel headed
by Judge Laurence H. Silberman and former Sen. Charles S. Robb (D-Va.)
that examined the pre-war intelligence reported that U.S. intelligence
"was dead wrong in almost all of its prewar judgments" about Iraq's illicit
weapons." ... ""This was a major intelligence failure," the panel members
wrote." ... "However, it found no evidence that White House officials or
other administration figures pressured intelligence analysts to shade or
change their reports for political reasons." (1, 2)
-By Warren Vieth and James Gerstenzang
-LAtimes
Iraq
- Law
- "Second
Lawyer in Saddam Trial Assassinated." ... "Three
masked gunmen in a speeding Opel assassinated a second lawyer in the Saddam
Hussein trial Tuesday, casting doubt on Iraq's ability to try the case
and leading a prominent war crimes prosecutor to urge moving the proceedings
to another Arab country." ... "Adel al-Zubeidi, lawyer for former Vice
President Taha Yassin Ramadan, died when bullets were sprayed his car in
a largely Sunni Arab neighborhood of western Baghdad. The shots also wounded
Thamir al-Khuzaie, attorney for another co-defendant, Saddam's half brother
Barazan Ibrahim." -By Robert H. Reid
-AP via -Guardian.co.uk
US
- Iraq
- 
Syria
- "Troops
Fend Off Attacks in West: Four U.S. Soliders Die
in Suicide Strike South of Baghdad." ... "U.S. and Iraqi troops battled
house to house and street to street in the border town of Husaybah on Monday
in the third day of a campaign to clear out insurgents and stop the flow
of foreign arms and fighters from Syria into Iraq, the U.S. military said."
... "Troops "continue to be attacked by small groups of terrorists," the
military said, adding that there had been four incidents of insurgents
assaulting U.S. Marines and Iraqi soldiers from inside mosques and one
attack from inside a school." -By John Ward Anderson-WashingtonPost
US
- Iraq
- Dick
Cheney
- Military
- Intelligence
- Politics
- 
Listen
- "Cheney
Positions on Iraq, Detainees Under Scrutiny." ...
"Criminal charges against former White House aide I. Lewis Libby have focused
new attention on the man he worked for. Vice President Dick Cheney's support
for the Iraq war and for exempting detainees in the war on terror from
the conventional rules of treatment and interrogation has brought him in
conflict with strong forces elsewhere in the government, including Congress."
-By Don Gonyea -NPR
/News
US
- Iraq
- Listen
- "Attacks
on Road to Baghdad Airport Decrease." ... "Incidents
of violence on the road to Baghdad's airport are on the decline. The U.S.
Army attributes the downturn in attacks to new, more-comprehensive security
operations. Jackie Spinner of The Washington Post tagged along with the
unit charged with securing the road." -WashingtonPost-NPR
/News
US
- Iraq
- Military
- Politics
- Listen
- "Former
Aide's Criticisms Ignite Iraq War Debate." ... "The former
chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell has accused the administration
of allowing a small group of senior officials to control the pre- Iraq
war intelligence and post-war planning." -PBS
/NewsHour
US
- Iraq
- Lewis
Libby
- Dick
Cheney- Intelligence
- Politics
- 2006
Election - "Ex-Cheney
aide pleads not guilty in CIA leak case." ... "Vice
President Dick Cheney's former top aide [I. Lewis Libby Jr.] pleaded not
guilty Thursday to five criminal charges of lying to or impeding investigators
in the case of the leaked identity of a covert CIA agent whose husband
was a prominent critic of the Iraq war." ... "It was left unclear when
a trial - in which Cheney and other top officials might be called to testify
- would begin. But chances appeared considerable that it would unfold over
several weeks next year, which is a midterm election year in the United
States, giving Democrats a prime opening to assail the Bush administration's
handling of Iraq war intelligence." -By Brian Knowlton
-IHT.com
US
- Iraq
- Military
-Secrets
- Politics
- "Democrats
Force Secret Senate Session: Democrats Force Secret
Senate Session to Highlight Differences Over How Iraq Intelligence Handled."
... "Unable to win their way with votes, outnumbered Democrats used a rarely
invoked Senate rule to force a secret session as a way to dramatize their
assertions that the Bush administration misused intelligence in the run-up
to war in Iraq." ... "Republicans angrily derided the use of Rule 21 which
dates back to 1795 as a political stunt but agreed two hours later to have
a bipartisan group check on how the Senate Intelligence Committee is coming
along in its investigation of prewar intelligence." ... "The Senate is
authorized to have secret sessions by the Constitution." (1, 2)
-By Liz Sidoti -AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
US
- Iraq
- Military
- Politics
- 
Kansas
- "White
House ducks prewar intel questions." ... "The White
House sought to deflect politically charged questions Wednesday about President
Bush's use of prewar intelligence in Iraq, saying Democrats, too, had concluded
Saddam Hussein was a threat." ... "Democrats sought assurances that Intelligence
Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan. [Kansas], would complete the second
phase of an investigation of the administration's prewar intelligence -
as he said he was doing anyway." ... "A six-member task force - three members
from each party - was appointed to review the Intelligence Committee's
work and report to their respective leaders by Nov. 14." -By
Liz Sidoti -AP
via -SeattlePI .NWsource
US
- Iraq
- Lewis
Libby
- Dick
Cheney
- Military
- Intelligence
- Nevada
- "Secret
Senate session keeps up pressure on Bush over Iraq war."
... "Democrats accuse rivals of colluding on WMD reports." ... "In an attempt
to keep pressure on the Bush administration that drew a furious reaction
from Republicans, the Democratic leader, Harry Reid [Nevada], said the
American people and US troops deserved to know the details of how the country
became engaged in the war, particularly in light of last week's indictment
for perjury of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to the vice-president,
Dick Cheney." ... ""They [Republican senators] have repeatedly chosen to
protect the Republican administration rather than get to the bottom of
what happened and why," Mr Reid said. He accused the chairman of the Senate
intelligence committee, Pat Roberts, of failing to follow through on a
promise to conduct a thorough inquiry into prewar intelligence, including
how the White House had used or misused it." ... ""The Libby indictment
provides a window into what this is really all about, how this administration
manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq
and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions," Mr
Reid said before invoking Senate rules that led to the closed session."
-By Jamie Wilson -Guardian.co.uk
US
- Iraq
- "October
ends as 4th deadliest month of the war for U.S. troops."
... "The U.S. military announced the deaths of seven American soldiers
and marines near Baghdad on Monday, making bringing the number of Americans
killed in October to 92, the highest monthly toll since January, when 106
U.S. troops were killed in violence ahead of national elections." ... "Also
on Monday, at least 13 people were killed and 55 wounded when a car packed
with explosives detonated near a restaurant in the southern city of Basra,
the spokesman for the Basra police department said." -By
Sabrina Tavernise with contributions by Qais Mizher and Eric Schmitt -NYTimes
via -IHT.com
US
- Iraq
- Lewis
Libby
- Dick
Cheney
- Military
- Intelligence
- Politics
- "Cheney's
top aide indicted in leak case." ... "Lewis "Scooter"
Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff and a key architect
of the Iraq war, was indicted Friday on felony charges of perjury, making
false statements and obstruction of justice for allegedly impeding the
grand jury investigating the CIA leak case." ... "The five-count indictment
alleges that Libby lied to FBI agents who interviewed him on two occasions,
perjured himself during two appearances before the grand jury, and obstructed
justice when he "knowingly and corruptly endeavored to influence, obstruct
and impede" the grand jury's efforts to find out who leaked Valerie Plame's
status as a covert agent to reporters during the spring of 2003." ... "Within
minutes of the indictment, Libby resigned his post." -By
Zachary Coile -SFGate.com
Global
- US
- Iraq
- Lewis
Libby
- Dick
Cheney
- Politics
- "Libby
was a driving force behind Iraq war: Cheney's aide
sought to justify pre-emptive strikes to prevent threats." ... "In high-level
policy meetings at the White House, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was often
in the background, a deputy listening to the views of principals such as
his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney." ... "But behind the scenes, those
who know Libby say he was a driving force in major decisions --including
the invasion of Iraq --and one of the key architects of what has become
known as the "Bush doctrine."" ... "He's a foreign policy hawk -- a "neocons'
neocon," as Salon magazine called him -- who was a founding member of the
Project for the New American Century, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank
created in 1997 that supports bigger defense budgets and promotes America's
dominant role in global affairs." -By Zachary Coile
-SFGate.com
Iraq
- "Iraqi
Sunni parties form alliance: Three Iraqi Sunni parties
have announced the formation of an alliance to contest upcoming legislative
elections in December." ... "The three parties hope to increase Sunni representation
in a national assembly that is currently dominated by Shia Arab and Kurdish
parties." ... ""The leaders of the following political blocs, the Iraqi
Peoples Gathering, the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Iraqi National Dialogue,
have agreed to run on one list under the name Iraqi Accord Front," a joint
statement said." -BBC
/News
Iraq
- "Iraqi
constitution passes, officials say: Vote was close
in key Sunni Arab province of Nineveh." ... "The Iraqi draft constitution
has passed, according to final results released Tuesday by Iraqi election
officials." ... "More than 78 percent of 9.8 million voters in the October
15 referendum approved the document, officials said. Turnout was 63 percent
of eligible voters." -Contributed to by Nic Robertson
and Ingrid Formanek -CNN
US
- Iraq
- 
Nuclear
- Journalist
- Law
- Politics
- "Cheney
Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Lawyers Report." ...
"I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first
learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation
in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public
in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday." ... "Notes of the previously
undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003,
appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that
he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists,
the lawyers said." ... "The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation,
for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White
House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was
questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's
nuclear program to justify the war." (1, 2)
-By David Johnston, Richard W. Stevenson, and Douglas
Jehl -NYTimes
Iraq
- Journalist
- Military
- "Three
Blasts Shake Hotels Used by Foreigners in Baghdad."
... "Three suicide vehicles, one of which appeared to be a cement mixer
packed with explosives, exploded this evening near a government ministry
and two prominent hotels popular with foreign journalists and contractors,
killing at least six people and wounding scores, the authorities said."
... "According to an Iraqi Army officer, the triple attack began when a
suicide car bomb exploded next to an outer security wall surrounding the
Palestine Hotel, which sits next to the Sheraton Hotel. Both buildings
are prominent features on the east side of the Tigris River and, since
the invasion in 2003, have housed many foreign journalists and contractors."
-By Kirk Semple -NYTimes
US
- Iraq
- Niger
- Military
- 
People
- "Cast
of characters grows in CIA leak drama." ... "It began
with a clumsy forgery, led the president to backtrack on his own State
of the Union address, already has sent one person to jail and has ruined
another's career as a covert operative." ... "Up until three years ago,
Joe and Valerie Wilson looked like just another upscale couple on the Washington
scene, juggling serious jobs while keeping up with 2-year-old twins. He
was a former ambassador turned international business consultant. She was
an analyst for a Boston-based energy company - a working soccer mom, in
the view of one of her neighbors." ... "As it turns out, Valerie really
was a clandestine CIA agent and an expert on weapons of mass destruction,
exactly the threat that Bush held out as the primary justification for
going to war in Iraq. And, as it turns out, Joe's experience as an African
envoy also made him a player." ... "In a way, the whole Wilson saga can
be traced back to Cheney and Bush. It was Cheney's interest in the alleged
Iraq-Niger deal that led the CIA to dispatch Wilson to Africa. And it Bush's
use of the debunked claim in his State of the Union address that led Wilson
to publish his doubts." -By Nancy Benac
-AP via -SeattlePI.NWsource
US
- Iraq
- Karl
Rove
- Government
- Law
- Media
- Military- Politics
- Secrets
- "CIA
Leak Queries Look at Disclosure Of Classified Data."
... "Yesterday, one former administration official said Karl Rove, the
deputy White House chief of staff, had discussed former diplomat Joseph
Wilson and the role of his wife, Ms. Plame, with White House staffers in
2003. That buttresses the possibility that Mr. Fitzgerald is investigating
charges related to leaking classified information." ... "The former official
said Mr. Rove had these discussions after Mr. Wilson went public with claims
that the Bush administration had twisted intelligence to build support
for the Iraq war. Mr. Rove discussed discrediting Mr. Wilson, the former
official said, adding that Mr. Rove didn't necessarily name Ms. Plame or
make her a key talking point in conversations with other White House officials."
... "The Plame investigation, originally sought by Central Intelligence
Agency officials, began in September 2003 after her name appeared in the
media in July. Critics, including Mr. Wilson, accused the White House of
leaking her identity in an effort to undercut his claim that the administration
had manipulated intelligence to support the Iraq war." -By
John D. McKinnon, Anne Marie Squeo, and Joe Hagan -WSJ.com
Iraq
- Police
- Terrorism
- History
- "Defense
lawyer in Saddam trial abducted in Baghdad." ...
"A lawyer for one of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants was kidnapped from
his home on Thursday, a day after he sat in the dock next to the former
president on the opening day of their trial for crimes against humanity."
... "His client is former judge Jawad al-Bander, a senior legal source
involved in the trial told Reuters." ... ""Saadoun Janabi was kidnapped
this evening around 8.30 p.m. (1730 GMT) from his office, which is also
his home, in the Shaab district by eight armed men," the source said."
... "Police and Interior Ministry sources confirmed the kidnapping. There
was no immediate claim of responsibility." ... "Saddam and seven others
went on trial on Wednesday on charges of crimes against humanity connected
to the killing of 148 Shi'ites from the village of Dujail in the 1980s."
(1, 2,
3)
-By Michael Georgy and Mariam Karouny with contributions
by Ibon Villelabeitia, Alastair Macdonald, Faris Mehdawi, Aref Mohammed,
and Khaled Yacoub Oweis -Reuters
US
- Iraq
- 
Iran
- Syria
- Politics
- "Rice:
U.S. May Still Be in Iraq in 10 Years." ... "Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice declined on Wednesday to rule out American forces
still being needed in Iraq a decade from now. Senators warned that the
Bush administration must play it straight with the public or risk losing
public support for the war." ... "Pushed by senators from both parties
to define the limits of U.S. involvement in Iraq and the Middle East, Rice
also declined to rule out the use of military force in Iran or Syria, although
she said the administration prefers diplomacy." -By
Anne Gearan -AP
via -SFGate.com
Iraq
- "Stealing
Votes in Iraq? Allegations of ballot-stuffing may
have irreversibly tainted the outcome in Sunni eyes." ... "The wild numbers
forced the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq to act. On Monday,
it announced it would audit all "unusually high" returns in 12 Shi'ite
and Kurdish provinces, and disavowed numbers released earlier. The audit
would delay the results of the referendum by a few days, the commission
said in a statement. "We are doing work according to international standards,"
said Dr. Farid Iyar, commission spokesman." ... "The Electoral Commission
plan is an attempt to reestablish the legitimacy of the poll, but the real
outcome of the voting may no longer matter. Iraqi political discussion
is often ruled by conspiracy theories and tribal passions rather than by
evidence and cool reason. Whatever the findings of the Electoral Commission,
the constitution will likely be viewed as compromised by many Sunnis, its
passage seen as proof that the political process has been rigged against
them from the start." -By Christopher Allbritton
-TIME.com
US
- Iraq
- Military
- Intelligence
- Politics
- "Cheney's
Office Is A Focus in Leak Case: Sources Cite Role
Of Feud With CIA." ... "As the investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's
name hurtles to an apparent conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald
has zeroed in on the role of Vice President Cheney's office, according
to lawyers familiar with the case and government officials. The prosecutor
has assembled evidence that suggests Cheney's long-standing tensions with
the CIA contributed to the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame." ... "In
grand jury sessions, including with New York Times reporter Judith Miller,
Fitzgerald has pressed witnesses on what Cheney may have known about the
effort to push back against ex-diplomat and Iraq war critic Joseph C. Wilson
IV, including the leak of his wife's position at the CIA, Miller and others
said. But Fitzgerald has focused more on the role of Cheney's top aides,
including Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, lawyers involved in
the case said." (1, 2)
-By Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus-WashingtonPost
US
- Iraq
- Karl
Rove
- Intelligence
- Politics
- Secrets
- "Cheney
May Be Entangled in CIA Leak Investigation, People Say."
... "A special counsel is focusing on whether Vice President Dick Cheney
played a role in leaking a covert CIA agent's name, according to people
familiar with the probe that already threatens top White House aides Karl
Rove and Lewis Libby." ... "The special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, has
questioned current and former officials of President George W. Bush's administration
about whether Cheney was involved in an effort to discredit the agent's
husband, Iraq war critic and former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson, according
to the people." ... "Fitzgerald has questioned Cheney's communications
adviser Catherine Martin and former spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise and
ex-White House aide Jim Wilkinson about the vice president's knowledge
of the anti-Wilson campaign and his dealings on it with Libby, his chief
of staff, the people said. The information came from multiple sources,
who requested anonymity because of the secrecy and political sensitivity
of the investigation." -By Richard Keil
-Bloomberg
Iraq
- Political
- Terrorism
- "Iraq
Sunni party attacked after backing constitution."
... "Militants mounted a series of attacks on the offices of one of Iraq's
main Sunni Arab political parties after it called on Iraqis to vote "Yes"
in Saturday's referendum on a new constitution." ... "Attacks started on
Wednesday night when gunmen fired at an empty office of the Iraqi Islamic
Party in the western city of Falluja, a hotbed for Sunni insurgents, and
left leaflets calling its members "apostates"." ... "On Friday a group
of gunmen returned to the office and set it on fire, officials said."
-Reuters via -AlertNet.org/Newsdesk
US
- Iraq
- Military
- Terrorism-
"Iraq
to amend charter before vote, bomber kills 30." ...
"Iraq's parliament is to amend a draft constitution on Wednesday in a bid
to defuse sectarian feuding just three days before the text is put to a
referendum." ... "As ruling Shi'ites and Kurds formally announced concessions
that persuaded one prominent Sunni political group to back the text, a
suicide bomber detonated among a crowd of Iraqi army recruits in Tal Afar
in the north, killing at least 30." ... "It was the second bloody attack
in as many days in a town where U.S. and Iraqi forces said they had flushed
out insurgents in a major offensive last month. At least 24 died on Tuesday."
-By Waleed Ibrahim -Reuters.co.uk
US
- Iraq
- "Ready?
Or Not? U.S. soldiers say their Iraqi counterparts
have made huge strides but aren't prepared yet to take control of security
and tackle the insurgency." ... "Although the nascent Iraqi army is said
to be almost 200,000 strong, Gen. George Casey, commander of U.S. and allied
forces in Iraq, recently told Congress that out of 86 Iraqi army battalions,
only one is fully ready for combat without the help of U.S. forces. The
homegrown units still lack the armored vehicles, weaponry and ability to
coordinate quickly that are needed to combat a cunning insurgency that
has made the Iraqi security forces one of its primary targets." ... "Because
the Iraqi army remains so exposed, U.S. soldiers in this area [near Tikrit,
Iraq] take on the more dangerous missions or provide armed support
for Iraqis on patrol." -By Anna Badkhen
-SFGate.com
US
- Iraq
- Military
- Politics
- "CIA
review faults prewar plans." ... "A newly released
report published by the CIA rebukes the Bush administration for not paying
enough attention to prewar intelligence that predicted the factional rivalries
now threatening to split Iraq." ... "Policymakers worried more about making
the case for the war, particularly the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction, than planning for the aftermath, the report says. The report
was written by a team of four former CIA analysts led by former deputy
CIA director Richard Kerr." ... ""In an ironic twist, the policy community
was receptive to technical intelligence (the weapons program), where the
analysis was wrong, but apparently paid little attention to intelligence
on cultural and political issues (post-Saddam Iraq), where the analysis
was right," they write." -By John Diamond
-USATODAY
Iraq
- 
Australia
- US
- Business
- "Iraq
snubs Australia, buys U.S. wheat." ... "Iraq will
buy one million tons of U.S. wheat in the next few days under a policy
that puts the government rather than the suppliers in charge of shipping
the cargo, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi said on Sunday." ... "The
Iraqi government, among the world's major buyers of commodities, chose
U.S. wheat after Australia failed to make offers under the new Free on
Board (FOB) system, Chalabi, a key official behind procurement decisions,
told Reuters" (1, 2)
-By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
-Reuters
US
- Iraq
- New
York
- Transportation
- MIL
- Police
- Intelligence
- "New
Yorkers Baffled Over Differing Stances on Terrorist Threat."
... "Less than 24 hours after Bloomberg made a dramatic, late afternoon
announcement about an "imminent" subway bombing plot, the nation's largest
transit system was operating smoothly, New York City officials said. Police,
many in riot gear, were deployed in greater numbers than usual at many
of the city's 468 stations." ... "One senior federal law enforcement official
said the threat reporting was based on "third party information," or conversations
among men in Iraq that were overheard by others; this led to men being
detained over comments they had allegedly made about traveling to New York
to detonate bombs in the subway." ... "The official, who spoke on the condition
of anonymity, said the information was gleaned from an ongoing military
operation in Iraq, passed to the National Counter-terrorism Center at the
CIA, and then disseminated to participating law enforcement and intelligence
agencies-including Homeland Security." -By Josh Getlin
and Josh Meyer
-LAtimes
US
- 
Afghanistan
- Iraq
- Guantanamo
Bay - 
Cuba
- Military
- Intelligence
- "Senate,
bucking White House, backs detainee protections."
... "In a sharp rebuke to the White House, the U.S. Senate agreed Wednesday
to regulate the detention, interrogation and treatment of prisoners held
by the U.S. military." ... "Over two dozen retired senior military officers
- including Colin Powell, and John Shalikashvili, two former chairmen of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff - endorsed the amendment, which would ban the
"cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" of anyone in U.S.
custody. It would restrict troops to using interrogation techniques outlined
in a new U.S. Army field manual but would not cover those used by the CIA."
... "Republicans and Democrats on Wednesday passionately debated the measure,
which supporters said would clarify a jumble of conflicting standards and
cast a spotlight on the treatment of detainees at U.S. prisons in Afghanistan,
Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba." -By Eric Schmitt
with contributions by Carl Hulse -NYTimes
via -IHT.com
US
- Iraq
- Military
- Intelligence
- 
Arizona
- "Senate
sets standards on detainees: Lawmakers defy Bush
to overwhelmingly OK McCain bill in response to Abu Ghraib." ... "In a
break with the White House, the Republican-controlled Senate overwhelmingly
approved a measure Wednesday that would set standards for the military's
treatment of detainees, a response to the [Iraq prison] Abu Ghraib scandal
and other allegations that U.S. soldiers have abused prisoners." ... "Sen.
John McCain, R-Ariz. [Arizona], a victim of torture while a prisoner during
the Vietnam War, won approval of the measure that would make interrogation
techniques outlined in the Army Field Manual the standard for handling
detainees in Defense Department custody and prohibit "cruel, inhuman or
degrading" treatment of U.S.-held prisoners." -By
Richard Simon
-LAtimes via -SFGate.com
US
- Iraq
- Guantanamo
Bay - Cuba
- Military
- Terrorism
- Intelligence
- "Senate
supports setting interrogation limits: Amendment
seeks rules on detainees." ... "The Senate defied the White House yesterday
by voting to set new limits on interrogating detainees in Iraq and elsewhere,
underscoring Congress's growing concerns about reports of abuse of suspected
terrorists and others in military custody." ... "Forty-six Republicans
joined 43 Democrats and one Independent in voting to define and limit interrogation
techniques that US troops may use against terrorism suspects, the latest
sign that alarm over treatment of prisoners in the Middle East and at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, is widespread in both parties. The White House had fought to
prevent the restrictions, with Vice President Dick Cheney visiting key
Republicans in July and a spokesman yesterday repeating President Bush's
threat to veto the larger bill that the language is now attached to --
a $440 billion military spending measure." -By Charles
Babington and Shailagh Murray -WashingtonPost
via -Boston/Globe
Iraq
- Iran
- 
UK
- "Blair
Says Bombs Used in Iraq May Be Linked to Iran (Update2)."
... "U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair today said that there is evidence tying
Iran to bombings in neighboring Iraq in the first public accusation that
the Shiite Muslim country is supporting militants in Iraq." ... "``There
have been new explosive devices used against British troops and elsewhere,''
Blair said. ``The particular nature of those devices leads us to either
Iranian elements or Hezbollah that is funded and supported by Iran." ...
"``We can't be certain of this at this time,'' he told a news conference
in London with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, carried live by international
broadcasters. ``Obviously, we will continue our investigations'' and ``discussions''
with Iran." -By Caroline Alexander
-Bloomberg
Iraq
- US
- Military
- Religion
- "25
Killed In Iraq Mosque Bombing." ... "A bomb exploded
at the entrance of a Shiite Muslim mosque south of Baghdad as worshippers
gathered for prayers ahead of the breaking of the fast on the first day
of Ramadan, killing at least 25 people and wounding 87, police and hospital
officials said." ... "Meanwhile, President Bush vowed to prevent insurgents
in Iraq from disrupting next week's vote on a new constitution. After a
briefing from top U.S. commanders, the president said the goal of terrorists
is to "stop the progress of democracy."" ... "The explosion hit the Ibn
al-Nama mosque in Hillah, a Shiite town that has been the scene of frequent
deadly insurgent attacks." (1, 2)
-CBSNews
Iraq
- Law
- UN
- "Iraq
reverses last-minute changes to voting laws: U.N.
had criticized referendum rules as unfair to Sunni minority." ... "Iraq's
National Assembly voted on Wednesday to reverse last-minute changes it
had made to rules for next week's referendum on a new constitution following
criticism by the United Nations that the rules were unfair to the Sunni
minority." ... "After a brief debate, the Assembly voted 119-28 to restore
the original voting rules for the referendum, which will take place Oct.
15." -AP via
-MSNBC
Iraq
- "Iraq
poll monitors throw out bid to favour Yes side."
... "Iraqi and international election monitors have flatly rejected a surprise
ruling by Iraq's parliament that aimed to tilt the odds even further against
the No side in next week's referendum on the constitution." ... "Trying
to fine-tune vote counting procedures, the National Assembly decided this
week to adopt two different definitions for "voter", creating a built-in
bias in favour of passing the draft constitution." ... "For the referendum
to pass, only half of those who vote must tick the Yes box, the assembly
confirmed." ... "However, Shia and Kurdish legislators, aiming to make
a No victory even harder, opted for a wider definition of "voter", based
on registered, rather than actual, voters." -By Neil
MacDonald -FT.com
US
- Iraq
- "U.S.
Military Launches New Offensive in Iraq." ... "U.S.
Marines accompanied by more than 1,000 Iraqi troops today began a second
major offensive in four days in western Iraq, moving to recapture a cluster
of Euphrates River towns at the hub of an insurgent infiltration route
from Syria." ... "The U.S. military said five Marines died Monday; four
were hit by a roadside bomb outside the town of Haqlaniya on the eve of
the latest assault and one was killed on the third day of fighting near
the town of Karabla. They were the first American casualties of the two
offensives in Al Anbar province, an insurgent staging ground for attacks
throughout Iraq." -By Richard Boudreaux
-LAtimes
US
- Iraq
- "U.S.
Generals Now See Virtues of a Smaller Troop Presence in Iraq."
... "The U.S. generals running the war in Iraq presented a new assessment
of the military situation in public comments and sworn testimony this week:
The 149,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq are increasingly part of the
problem." ... "During a trip to Washington, the generals said the presence
of U.S. forces was fueling the insurgency, fostering an undesirable dependency
on American troops among the nascent Iraqi armed forces and energizing
terrorists across the Middle East." ... "For all these reasons, they said,
a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops was imperative." -By
Mark Mazzetti-LAtimes
Iraq
- Military
- Politics
- "Car
bomb attacks kill 99 in Iraq." ... "Three suicide
attackers exploded near-simultaneous car bombs in the heart of a bustling,
mainly Shiite town [Balad, Iraq] Thursday, killing at least 99 people and
wounding 124 amid a new surge of violence before an Oct. 15 referendum
on Iraq's constitution." ... "Apparently aimed at killing a large number
of Shiite civilians, the string of bombings started just before sunset
when the first blast ripped through an open-air market crowded with Iraqis
buying vegetables. The next bomb exploded at a bank just yards away, followed
by a third on a nearby street of clothing shops." ... "Sunni insurgents
have vowed to wreck the referendum, whose passage is crucial to prospects
for starting a withdrawal of American troops. Al-Qaida in Iraq has declared
''all-out war'' on the Shiite majority that dominates Iraq's government,
and moderate Sunni Arab leaders called on their community to reject the
constitution, saying it will fragment Iraq and leave them weak compared
to Shiites and Kurds." -AP
via -IHT.com
US
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Military
- Terrorism
- History
- "US
trying to understand Iraq insurgency -Negroponte."
... "U.S. intelligence is still struggling to understand the nature of
Iraq's insurgency more than two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein,
U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte said on Thursday." ... "The Iraq
insurgency, which U.S. forces have yet to stamp out despite repeated attempts,
began months after the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003 and spans a
disparate collection of groups from Baathists and former regime elements
to the Al Qaeda-linked network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi." ... "The CIA has
also warned in a classified report that Iraq was becoming a more effective
training ground for foreign terrorists than Afghanistan was during the
war against Soviet occupation in the 1980s, which gave rise to Osama bin
Laden's al Qaeda." -By David Morgan
-Reuters via -AlertNet.org/Newsdesk
US
- Iraq
- Military
- Intelligence
- "The
'Second' Man: The slain Abu Azzam may not have been
Zarqawi's top deputy after all. Will his death have any effect on the Iraq
insurgency?" ... "U.S. intelligence officials and counterterrorism analysts
are questioning whether a slain terrorist-described by President Bush today
as the "second-most-wanted Al Qaeda leader in Iraq"-was as significant
a figure as the Bush administration is claiming." ... "In a brief Rose
Garden appearance Wednesday morning, Bush seized on the killing of Abu
Azzam by joint U.S-Iraqi forces in a shootout last Sunday as fresh evidence
that the United States is turning the tide against the Iraqi insurgency."
... "But veteran counterterrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann said today there
are ample reasons to question whether Abu Azzam was really the No. 2 figure
in the Iraqi insurgency." ... "Three U.S. counterterrorism officials, who
asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject, also
told NEWSWEEK today that U.S. agencies did not really consider Abu Azzam
to be Zarqawi's "deputy" even if he did play a relatively high-ranking
role in the insurgency." (1, 2)
-By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball -MSNBC/Newsweek
Iraq
- Police
- MIL
- 
Woman
- "Woman
suicide bomber strikes Iraqi police." ... "A woman
suicide bomber blew herself up at an Iraqi police recruitment centre in
the former rebel bastion of Tal Afar in one of a string of attacks today,
killing five people, police said." ... "Another bomber killed a civilian
in an attack on a police checkpoint in the town of Baquba northeast of
Baghdad, just a day after a similar attack on a police recruitment centre
there killed 10 people." ... " ... "Attacks by female suicide bombers are
rare in Iraq but insurgents have repeatedly targeted army and police recruitment
centres." -AFXNews
via -Forbes
-
- 
- "Iraq
Blasts Kill at Least 160, Wound 570." ... "A spasm
of retaliatory violence, claimed by al-Qaida in the name of Sunni insurgents,
ripped through Baghdad on Wednesday. At least 160 people were killed and
570 wounded in more than a dozen highly coordinated bombings - the capital's
bloodiest day since the end of major combat." ... "The massive bombing
campaign terrorized the capital for more than nine hours. The first attack,
at 6:30 a.m., was the deadliest: a suicide car bombing which tore through
assembled day laborers in the predominantly Shiite Muslim neighborhood
of Kazimiyah." ... "In what was believed to be a new tactic, the bomber
set off the explosive after calling the laborers to his small van and enticing
them with promises of work, a witness said. At least 112 people were killed
and more than 200 were wounded, Iraqi Health Ministry officials said."
-By Steven R. Hurst -AP
via -Guardian.co.uk
-
-
- "Wave
of violence kills at least 97 in Baghdad: Bush meets
with Iraqi president." ... "A pair of deadly attacks in Baghdad early Wednesday
killed at least 97 people and wounded 162 others, Iraqi police said." ...
"A suicide car bomb exploded near a gathering of laborers in Kadhimiya,
a Shiite area of north-central Baghdad. Hospital officials told police
that at least 75 people were killed and another 162 wounded." ... "A second
suicide car bomb detonated near a U.S. Army convoy in eastern Baghdad,
wounding a pair of U.S. Soldiers and setting their Humvee on fire, a military
spokesman and police said." -Contributed to by Arwa
Damon -CNN
-
-
- 
-
- "American
Envoy Says Syria Assists Training of Terrorists."
... "The United States ambassador to Iraq lashed out at Syria on Monday,
saying that its government continued to allow terrorists to operate training
camps within Syria that have sent hundreds of insurgents into Iraq." ...
"While other administration officials made similar accusations early this
year, the focus of American attention to Syria in recent months has been
its occupation of Lebanon. Over the summer, Syria said that it had cracked
down on insurgents operating within its territory." ... "But Mr. Khalilzad,
in remarks to reporters in Washington, made it clear that the United States
believed that Syria was providing assistance to insurgents operating in
Iraq and that such help might have increased." -By
Joel Brinkley -NYTimes
-
- "Tal
Afar 'big warehouse' for arms." ... "Iraq's defense
minister has called Tal Afar -- the latest object of a U.S. and Iraqi counter-insurgency
offensive -- a "big warehouse for weapons."" ... "Speaking in a press briefing
on Sunday, Sadoun al-Dulaimi said several weapons caches and tunnels have
been found during the offensive -- part of what the U.S. military calls
Operation Restoring Rights." ... ""We discovered a factory to make IEDs
(improvised explosive devices)," said al-Dulaimi, who gave an update on
the offensive, in its second day." ... ""The technology used in this factory
is high-level technology," an indication that foreigners are behind the
work of the insurgency." -Contributions by Kevin Flower
Enes Dulami, Mike Mount, Kianne Sadeq and Mohammed Tawfeeq -CNN
-
-
- Hurricane
Katrina - Alabama
- Mississippi
- Louisiana
- "National
Guard Stretched Thin." ... "About 41,000 Guard members
are scattered across Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, along with 17,000
active-duty troops. About 30,000 Guard members are serving in Iraq, with
smaller numbers in Afghanistan, Kosovo and elsewhere overseas." ... "The
head of the National Guard Bureau said Friday the assignment of thousands
of Guard troops from Mississippi and Louisiana to Iraq delayed those states'
initial hurricane response by about a day." ... ""Had that brigade been
at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and capabilities could have been
brought to bear," said Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, the bureau's chief." ... "The
Pentagon has said the response was swift and another 319,000 Army National
Guard and Air National Guard personnel are available if needed."
-AP via
-CBSNews
-
- "A
daily look at U.S. deaths in Iraq." ... "As of Tuesday,
Sept. 6, 2005, at least 1,893 members of the U.S. military have died since
the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated
Press count." ... "Since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared that
major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 1,754 U.S. military members
have died, according to AP's count." -AP
via -SeattlePI.NWsource
- "Saddam
reportedly defends attack on Kurds." ... "Former
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein acknowledged ordering deadly retribution against
Kurds in the north of the country and boasted that the killings were legal
and justified, an official of the Iraqi Special Tribunal said Wednesday."
... "The official's remarks appeared to diminish Tuesday's claim by President
Jalal Talabani that Saddam confessed to killings and other "crimes" committed
during his regime. The tribunal official said the former dictator only
acknowledged taking retribution, which was legal under his regime." -By
Robert H. Reid -AP
via -SeattlePI.NWsource
-
- Hurricane
Katrina - Louisiana
- "Troops
Head Home To Another Crisis: State Force to Leave
on Schedule, But No Special Transfers Planned." ... "The 3,700 Louisiana
National Guard members in Iraq will begin heading home within about a week
as part of normal troop rotations, but there are no mass Guard movements
back to the United States planned to aid hurricane relief, U.S. military
officials in Baghdad said Thursday." ... ""Everyone we have here, and every
piece of equipment we have here, is needed here," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch,
senior spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq." ... "Exceptions will be made
on a case-by-case humanitarian basis to allow Guard members whose families
have been hit especially hard by Hurricane Katrina to return, Lynch said."
-By Ellen Knickmeyer -WashingtonPost
-
-
- Hurricane
Katrina - Louisiana
-
- "Katrina
poses key test for stretched National Guard: Part-time
soldiers - having served in Afghanistan and Iraq - are now called up for
duty in Gulf Coast disaster." ... "If the Iraq war showcases how Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has recast the National Guard - turning it from
a reserve deployed only in times of crisis to an active, operational force
- then the aftermath of hurricane Katrina will go a long way toward determining
whether this new mission is spreading America's part-time soldiers too
thin, further taxing an already stressed force and endangering the nation."
... "Though Iraq has strained the National Guard, Defense officials have
insisted that there are enough soldiers at home to deal with any domestic
disaster. Now, with some Guard members comparing New Orleans [Louisiana]
to Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein - gripped by chaos and looting
- the Pentagon will have to prove its calculations correct." ... "It comes
at a time when 138,000 troops - including 80,000 members of the National
Guard - are deployed in Iraq." -By Mark Sappenfield
-CSMonitor
-
- Hurricane
Katrina - Louisiana
- Arkansas
-
- "La.
governor warns troops will "shoot and kill"." ...
"Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco warned rioters and looters in New Orleans
on Thursday that National Guard troops are under her orders to "shoot and
kill" to end the rampant violence in the city in the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina." ... "Announcing the arrival of 300 Arkansas National Guard troops
in New Orleans fresh from service in Iraq, Blanco said, "these troops are
battle-tested. They have M-16s and are locked and loaded."" ... ""These
troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will," she said."
-Reuters
-
- TX
- 
CA
- Cindy
Sheehan
-
- "Sheehan,
war protesters leave Texas camp." ... "After a 26-day
vigil that ignited the anti-war movement, Cindy Sheehan took her protest
on the road Wednesday, while a handful of veterans pledged to continue
camping off the road leading to President Bush's ranch until the war in
Iraq ends." ... "Rather than heading home to California, the mother of
a 24-year-old soldier who died in Iraq boarded one of three buses heading
out on tour to spread her message." ... "The group plans to stop in 25
states during the next three weeks, then take Sheehan's "Bring Them Home
Now Tour" to the nation's capital for a Sept. 24 anti-war march." -By
Angela K. Brown -AP
via -BostonGlobe
-
-
-
- Disaster
- "Baghdad
Stampede Kills 800 Shiite Pilgrims." ... "Panicked
by rumors of a suicide bomber, thousands of Shiite pilgrims broke into
a stampede on a bridge during a religious procession Wednesday, crushing
one another or plunging 30 feet into the muddy Tigris river. About 800
died, mostly women and children, officials said." ... "The tragedy was
the single biggest loss of life known in Iraq since the March 2003 U.S.-led
invasion." ... "The marchers were commemorating the death in the year 799
of Imam Moussa ibn Jaafar al-Kadhim, one of the 12 principle Shiite saints
who is buried in a mosque in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kazimiyah."
... "Television reports said about 1 million pilgrims from Baghdad and
outlying provinces had gathered near the shrine on Wednesday." -By
Sameer N. Yacoub with contributions by Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Omar Sinan
-AP
via -SFGate.com
-
-
-
- Religion
-
-
- "Iraq's
constitutional trap." ... "At worst, the constitutional
mess signals prolongation of the bloody insurgency that prevents the establishment
of bearable living conditions in much of Iraq, could lead to civil war
and could stall a hoped- for U.S. withdrawal." ... "The draft constitution,
though containing guarantees of religious freedom and other individual
rights, departs from Western ideas of secular democracy by making Islam
the official religion and "a main source of legislation," and giving clergy
a role in family matters like marriage, divorce and inheritance. Women
under Islamic law would lose rights." -SFGate.com
-
-
- "Iraq
Draft Constitution Has Strong Federal Theme." ...
"The Transitional National Assembly (TNA) yesterday approved Iraq's draft
constitution for public ratification in a referendum in October. The substance
of the draft constitution and the process used to create it will have a
strong influence on the short- and long-term stability of the Iraqi state."
... "Developed largely by the Shia and Kurdish blocs, the draft constitution
uses an extremely strong form of federalism to paper over many of the fundamental
issues that could not be agreed upon by the two factions. The result is
a constitution that makes it both easy and attractive to form other multi-province
regional governments. Each of these regional administrations can choose
to wield greater legal and executive powers than the federal government."
-OxAn.com via -Forbes
- "Sunnis
face dilemma on Iraq constitution." ... "Rebuffed
in the constitution deliberations, Sunni Arabs now face a dilemma: boycott
the Oct. 15 referendum on a new charter and hand the Shiites a landslide
victory, or take part in a vote that demographics suggest they'll lose."
... "But the Shiite community itself is divided over the constitution,
and interviews on Baghdad streets indicate the key federalism proposal
may be a hard sell to many on both sides." ... "About 2,000 people, mostly
Sunnis, marched Monday against the constitution in Saddam Hussein's hometown
of Tikrit. Some carried pictures of Saddam and repeated chants heard in
countless stage-managed protests during his regime: "We sacrifice our souls
and blood for you, Saddam."" ... "Others carried pictures of radical Shiite
clerics Muqtada al-Sadr and Jawad al-Khalisi, who have joined the Sunnis
in opposing the constitutional draft because of federalism - which critics
fear will lead to the disintegration of Iraq." -By
Robert H. Reid -AP
via -Miami/Herald
-
-
- Cindy
Sheehan
- "Sheehan
planning antiwar bus tour." ... "Cindy Sheehan said
yesterday that the antiwar vigil she started nearly three weeks ago near
President Bush's ranch won't end when she and other protesters pack up
their camp next week." ... "Sheehan, whose son died in the Iraq war, said
that the day after she leaves Crawford on Aug. 31, she will embark on a
bus tour ending in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 24. Then the group will start
a 24-hour vigil there." ... "''I am not alone," she said at a news conference
yesterday. ''There's the people standing behind me here, but there's thousands
of military families . . . who want the same answers to the same questions.""
-By Angela K. Brown -AP
via -Boston/Globe
-
- "Bush
Steps In as Charter Talks in Iraq Reach Breaking Point."
... "Talks over the Iraqi constitution reached a breaking point on Thursday,
with a parliamentary session to present the document being canceled and
President Bush personally calling one of the country's most powerful Shiite
leaders in an effort to broker a last-minute deal." ... "Mr. Bush intervened
when some senior Shiite leaders said they had decided to bypass their Sunni
counterparts, as well as Iraqi lawmakers, and send the document directly
to Iraqi voters for their approval." ... "The calls by Shiite leaders to
ignore the Sunnis' request for changes to the draft constitution provoked
threats from the Sunnis that they would urge their people to reject the
document when it goes before voters in a national referendum in October."
(1, 2)
-By Dexter Filkins and James Glanz with contributions
by Steven R. Weismany -NYTimes
-
-
- Cindy
Sheehan
- "Sheehan
resumes protest vigil." ... "A day after she returned
to the helm of a protest against President Bush's policy in Iraq, Cindy
Sheehan expressed satisfaction Thursday about the peace movement she helped
invigorate." ... ""When I left, it thrived, and it grew, and it's because
I'm not alone," said the 48-year-old mother of Casey Sheehan, who was killed
last year while serving in Iraq. "I'm not the only one who wants answers
to these questions."" -CNN
-
-
-
- "'We
will stay, we will fight and we will win'." ... "President
Bush responded Wednesday to calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from
Iraq with an emphatic vow to stay there "until the terrorists have nowhere
to run."" ... ""So long as I am president, we will stay, we will fight
and we will win the war on terrorism," he told a supportive audience of
National Guard members and their families in a sports arena in this Boise
suburb. Pulling out now, he said, would "embolden the terrorists and create
a staging ground to launch more attacks against America."" ... "The speech
came in response to intensifying anti-war protests that have put Bush on
the defensive lately." -By Richard Benedetto and Judy
Keen -USATODAY
-
[PDF]
- "TEXT
OF THE DRAFT IRAQI CONSTITUTION." ... "(Translated
from the Arabic by The Associated Press)."
-AP via -BBC
/News
-
-
- "US
general sees significant withdrawal in Iraq." ...
"The US is expected to pull significant numbers of troops out of Iraq in
the next 12 months in spite of the continuing violence, according to the
general responsible for near-term planning in the country." ... "Maj Gen
Douglas Lute, director of operations at US Central Command, yesterday said
the reductions were part of a push by Gen John Abizaid, commander of all
US troops in the region, to put the burden of defending Iraq on Iraqi forces."
... "He denied the withdrawal was motivated by political pressure from
Washington." -By Peter Spiegel and Demetri Sevastopulo
-FT.com
- "Iraq's
draft constitution delayed - again: Just before the
midnight deadline, negotiators pulled the draft saying they need three
more days to resolve major disputes." ... "Shortly before missing a second
deadline in a week for finishing a draft constitution, Iraq's top political
leaders executed a legal maneuver to buy more time for negotiations without
explicitly calling it another delay." ... "At about 11:50 p.m. Hajim al-Hassani,
the chairman of Iraq's parliament, told Iraqi lawmakers at a hastily convened
session that a draft constitution was ready. But then he explained there
were three outstanding constitutional issues that will hopefully be resolved
in the next three days. No drafts were handed either to legislators or
journalists." ... "This appeared to be an attempt to fulfill rules set
last week that required a draft be submitted to parliament by midnight
Monday by taking advantage of the semantic ambiguity of the word "submitted"
and avoiding the embarrassment of a further official delay." -By
Dan Murphy and Jill Carroll -CSMonitor
-
- "Sunnis'
best friend in Iraq negotiations? The US: With a
midnight deadline, the US pushes for a constitution that includes Sunni
demands." ... "Saleh Mutlak is a lead negotiator for Iraq's Sunni Arab
community on the constitutional drafting committee and says he frequently
feels isolated and pushed around." ... "He says Iraq's majority Shiites
and politically powerful minority Kurds seem determined to ignore the concerns
of his community in the constitutional negotiations, which face a provisional
deadline of midnight Monday. He warns of the consequences if a constitution
is drafted over Sunni objections." ... "In fact, he says he'd despair completely
of the process if it weren't for the help of a surprising new ally: the
US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad." -By Dan
Murphy and Jill Carroll -CSMonitor
-
- Religion
-
-
- "US
relents on Islamic law to reach Iraq deal." ... "American
diplomats backed religious conservatives who threatened to torpedo talks
over the shape of the new Iraq unless Islam was a primary source of law.
Secular and liberal groups were dismayed at the move, branding it a betrayal
of Washington's promise to advocate equal rights in a free and tolerant
society." ... "According to Kurdish and Sunni negotiators, the US ambassador,
Zalmay Khalilzad, proposed that Islam be named "a primary source" and supported
a wording which would give clerics authority in civil matters such as divorce,
marriage and inheritance." ... "If approved, critics say that the proposals
would erode women's rights and other freedoms enshrined under existing
laws." -By Rory Carroll and Julian Borger
-Guardian.co.uk
-
- TX
- Salt
Lake City - Utah
-
- "Bush
Tells Veterans That Iraq Policy Will Make U.S. Safer."
... "President Bush defended his policy in Iraq today, a crucial moment
for that emerging country, telling a gathering of veterans in Utah that
the struggle to build a new nation amounts to "the first war of the 21st
century."" ... "The president left his ranch in Crawford, Tex. [Texas],
to fly to Salt Lake City [Utah], where he told an audience from the Veterans
of Foreign Wars that the sacrifices of Americans in Iraq would be remembered
just as the heroism shown in World War II and Korea was commemorated."
... "Oddly, Mr. Bush faced war protests in Utah, where he took 71 percent
of the vote in his 2004 re-election race, making it the reddest of Republican-red
states. But Salt Lake's mayor, Ross C. Anderson, a Democrat, organized
a protest in a park near the V.F.W. convention, calling on people who oppose
Mr. Bush's Iraq and environmental policies to gather around him." -By
David Stout -NYTimes
-
-
-
- "Bush
defends Iraq war policy to veterans group: Reaffirms
plan to stay the course." ... "President Bush defended the war in Iraq
on Monday in the face of growing skepticism, asserting that "a policy of
retreat and isolation will not bring us safety" from terrorism." ... "With
U.S. casualties rising and his approval rating falling, Bush urged Americans
to stand united in the war in Iraq and against terrorists everywhere."
... "While the United States has not been attacked since September 11,
2001, Bush said, "We're not yet safe. Terrorists in foreign lands still
hope to attack our country. We must confront threats before they fully
materialize."" ... ""The only way to defend to our citizens where we live
is to go after the terrorists where they live," Bush said in a speech to
the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars."
-CNN
-
-
- "Democrats
Split Over Position on Iraq War: Activists More Vocal
As Leaders Decline To Challenge Bush." ... "Democrats say a long-standing
rift in the party over the Iraq war has grown increasingly raw in recent
days, as stay-the-course elected leaders who voted for the war three years
ago confront rising impatience from activists and strategists who want
to challenge President Bush aggressively to withdraw troops." ... "Amid
rising casualties and falling public support for the war, Democrats of
all stripes have grown more vocal this summer in criticizing Bush's handling
of the war. A growing chorus of Democrats, however, has said this criticism
should be harnessed to a consistent message and alternative policy -- something
most Democratic lawmakers have refused to offer." (1, 2)
-By Peter Baker and Shailagh Murray-WashingtonPost
-
-
- Nebraska
-
- "Hagel:
Iraq war has destabilized Mideast, resembles Vietnam."
... "A leading Republican senator and decorated Vietnam War veteran said
Sunday the Iraq war has destabilized the Mideast and is looking more like
the Vietnam conflict a generation ago." ... "Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel,
who received two Purple Hearts and other military honors for his service
in Vietnam, reiterated his position that the United States needs to develop
a strategy to leave Iraq." ... "Hagel scoffed at the idea that U.S. troops
could be in Iraq four years from now at levels above 100,000, a contingency
for which the Pentagon is preparing." -AP
via -CNN
-
- CA
- TX
-
- "Soldier's
Mother Inspires Protests Across U.S.." ... "Antiwar
demonstrators staged candlelight vigils around the country Wednesday evening,
freshly energized by the tenacity of Cindy Sheehan, the California mother
of a fallen soldier, who has camped out for almost two weeks near President
Bush's central Texas ranch, demanding a face-to-face meeting with him."
... "In all, MoveOn.org, a liberal group that helped promote the vigils,
said that about 100,000 supporters of Sheehan would gather at more than
1,400 sites nationwide, though by Wednesday afternoon about 60,000 had
signed up on the organization's website." ... ""My experience is that the
number of people who attend is significantly higher than those who RSVP,"
said Tom Matzzie, MoveOn.org's Washington director. The vigils were not
even planned until four days ago, he said. Matzzie credited Sheehan with
helping to "personalize the cost of war."" ... "He said that until now,
the majority of the American people had been desensitized to the conflict."
-By Edwin Chen with contributions by Cynthia H. Cho,
Warren Vieth, and Veronica Torrejon
-LAtimes
-
-
- "Facing
Deadline, Iraqis Consider Bypassing Sunnis on Constitution."
... "Iraqi leaders remained deadlocked over major issues in the country's
new constitution, raising the possibility they would fail to meet today's
deadline and push the country toward a political crisis." ... "With several
questions unresolved, Shiite leaders have said that they were considering
asking the National Assembly to approve the document without the agreement
of the country's Sunni leaders. Such a move would probably provoke the
Sunnis, whose participation in the political process is seen as crucial
in the effort to marginalize the Sunni-dominated guerrilla insurgency."
... "American leaders fear that failing to bring the Sunnis along into
the political process would only further intensify the insurgency, which
is already attacking American forces an average of 65 times a day here."
(1,
2)
-By Dexter Filkins -NYTimes
- Religion
-
- "Iraq's
top political leaders labor over new constitution."
... "Iraqi's top political leaders huddled behind closed doors yesterday
to start a series of meetings aimed at settling remaining details of the
country's new constitution." ... "Held amid tight security at the central
Baghdad home President Jalal Talabani, the meeting brought together top
Kurdish, Sunni Arab and Shiite officials to take on topics including the
role of Islamic law and the relationship between central authorities and
Iraq's regions." ... "Shiite legislators have pushed for a constitution
that cites Islamic sharia law as the primary source of Iraq's legal code.
Kurds are seeking wording that guarantees the sweeping autonomy they have
enjoyed in the north since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991 as well
as control of the disputed oil-rich Kirkuk region." -By
Ashraf Khalil with contributions by Hassan Halawa -LAtimes
via -SeattleTimes.NWsource
-
-
-
- "Of
the Many Deaths in Iraq, One Mother's Loss Becomes a Problem for the President."
... "As the mother of an Army specialist who was killed at age 24 in the
Sadr City section of Baghdad on April 4, 2004, Ms. Sheehan's story is certainly
compelling. She is also articulate, aggressive in delivering her message
and has information that most White House reporters have not heard before:
how Mr. Bush handles himself when he meets behind closed doors with the
families of soldiers killed in Iraq." ... "In Ms. Sheehan's telling, though,
Mr. Bush did not know her son's name when she and her family met with him
in June 2004 at Fort Lewis. Mr. Bush, she said, acted as if he were at
a party and behaved disrespectfully toward her by referring to her as "Mom"
throughout the meeting." ... "By Ms. Sheehan's account, Mr. Bush said to
her that he could not imagine losing a loved one like an aunt or uncle
or cousin. Ms. Sheehan said she broke in and told Mr. Bush that Casey was
her son, and that she thought he could imagine what it would be like since
he has two daughters and that he should think about what it would be like
sending them off to war." -By Richard W. Stevenson
-NYTimes
-
- CA
- TX
-
- "Bush
Aides Meet Angry Mother of Fallen Soldier: The California
woman, unassuaged, says she'll wait in Texas to discuss Iraq with the president."
... "After her [Cindy Sheehan] conversation with national security advisor
Stephen Hadley and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin, Sheehan
said in an interview that she would remain in Crawford and continue to
seek a meeting with Bush. "I didn't change my mind at all," she said. "They
said the president really believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction," Sheehan said. "And I told them: 'I might be a grieving
mom, but you men are very intelligent, and I know you don't believe what
you're telling me.'"" ... "She told reporters here that she not only opposed
the war but objected to Bush's assertions that U.S. soldiers had died "for
a noble cause." "I don't want him to use my son's name, or my name, to
justify any more killings. And I want to tell the president that, and I
want to ask the president why my son died," Sheehan said, contending that
the war was "based on horrendous lies and deceptions."" -By
Edwin Chen -LAtimes
-
- CA
- TX
-
- "Anti-war
protesters go after Bush at home: Group, which included
mothers of soldiers killed in Iraq, is halted 5 miles from ranch." ...
"Some U.S. veterans of the Iraq war and mothers of men who died in combat
there joined an anti-war protest near President Bush's [Texas] ranch Saturday
and predictably were stopped from delivering to Bush their demand to bring
American troops home." ... "The demonstration by about 50 people was led
by Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville, Calif., who said her son Casey was killed
in Baghdad in April 2004. She said she was motivated to protest by Bush's
remark last week in Dallas that those who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan
sacrificed their lives for a noble cause." ... ""I want to ask George Bush
what noble cause my son died for," she said. "I don't want him to use my
son's name or my family's name to justify more killing."" -By
Michael Hedges -HoustonChronicle.com
-
- Ohio
- North
Carolina - "Unit
had asked for more Marines." ... "A Marine regiment
that took heavy casualties last week in western Iraq — including 19 killed
from a Reserve unit headquartered in Ohio — had repeatedly asked for about
1,000 more troops. Those requests were not granted." ... "Regimental Combat
Team 2 began asking for additional troops to police its volatile 24,000-square-mile
territory before most of its Marines deployed in February, said operations
officer Lt. Col. Christopher Starling, 39, of Jacksonville, N.C. [North
Carolina]" -By Kimberly Johnson with contributions
by Andrea Stone -USATODAY
-
- CA
- TX
-
- "Mom
Protesting Iraq War Meets Bush Aides." ... "Supported
by more than 50 demonstrators who chanted, "W. killed her son!" Cindy Sheehan
told reporters: "I want to ask the president, 'Why did you kill my son?
What did my son die for?'" Sheehan, 48, didn't get to see Bush, but did
talk about 45 minutes with national security adviser Steve Hadley and deputy
White House chief of staff Joe Hagin, who went out to hear her concerns."
... "Appreciative of their attention, yet undaunted, Sheehan said she planned
to continue her roadside vigil, except for a few breaks, until she gets
to talk to Bush. Her son, Casey, 24, was killed in Sadr City, Iraq, on
April 4, 2004. He was an Army specialist, a Humvee mechanic." -By
Deb Riechmann -AP
via-WashingtonPost
-
- -
"U.S.,
Iraqi troops repel coordinated attacks." ... "U.S.
and Iraqi troops repelled a series of coordinated insurgent attacks in
southern Baghdad, killing six rebels and capturing 12, the U.S. military
said Saturday. There were no U.S. casualties." ... "In the political arena,
Sunni Arab members of the committee drafting Iraq's new constitution rejected
Kurdish demands for a federal state Saturday, saying such a change should
not be implemented during foreign military occupation and an unstable security
situation." ... "The committee is rushing to complete the draft to meet
an Aug. 15 deadline for parliamentary approval."
-AP via-USATODAY
US
- Iraq
- 
Rove
- Government
- Intelligence
- Politics
- 
Ralston
- "2
Aides to Rove Testify in C.I.A. Leak Inquiry." ...
"Two aides to Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, testified last
Friday before a federal grand jury investigating whether government officials
illegally disclosed the identity of an undercover C.I.A. operative, according
to a person who has been officially briefed on the case." ... "The aides,
Susan B. Ralston and Israel Hernandez, were asked about grand jury testimony
given on July 13 by Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, the person
who was briefed said. Mr. Cooper has said that he testified about a July
11, 2003, conversation with Mr. Rove in which the C.I.A. officer was discussed."
... "At one point, the aides were asked why Mr. Cooper's call to Mr. Rove
was not entered in Mr. Rove's office telephone logs. There was no record
of the call, the person who has been briefed said, because Mr. Cooper did
not call Mr. Rove directly, but was transferred to his office from a White
House switchboard." ... "The aides have worked closely with Mr. Rove, screening
his calls and coordinating his activities with other White House officials.
Mr. Hernandez had been an aide to President Bush since his successful campaign
for governor of Texas in 1994, and Ms. Ralston is known as one of Mr. Rove's
most trusted associates." ... "Mr. Fitzgerald has focused on whether in
the identification of the officer, Valerie Wilson, there was a deliberate
effort to retaliate against her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his criticism
of the Bush administration's policy on Iraq." -By
David Johnston -NYTimes
Mauritania
-
- 
-
-
-
- "Troops
block Mauritania streets, president in Niger." ...
"President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, who was out of the country after
attending the funeral of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd in Riyadh on Tuesday,
arrived in Niger's capital Niamey hours after reports of the troop movements
in Nouakchott emerged." ... "Taya seized power in a 1984 coup. He has angered
many Arabs in the country, which straddles black and Arab Africa, by shifting
support from former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to Israel and Washington
in the 1990s." ... "Mauritania -- which hopes to start pumping oil early
next year -- is one of only three Arab League member states that have established
diplomatic ties with Israel." -By Ibrahima Sylla
-Reuters
-
- "Fourteen
Marines killed in bombing: Fighting in northwest
Iraq claims lives of 21 Marines in 3 days." ... "Fourteen Marines and a
civilian interpreter were killed Wednesday when their amphibious assault
vehicle struck an improvised explosive device about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles)
south of Haditha, Iraq, military officials said." ... "This week's Marine
deaths brought the number of American troops killed in the Iraq war to
more than 1,800, according to U.S. military reports."
-CNN
-
-
- Religion
- "New
Saudi king unlikely to change foreign policy." ...
"Saudi Arabia's new king, Abdullah, is unlikely to steer the world's largest
oil exporter away from its longtime alliances, despite his Arab nationalist
views." ... "Aged over 80, Abdullah has sometimes appeared pricklier and
less pro-Western than the late King Fahd, who died on Monday, but officials
say the two men varied more in style than policy." ... "The Sunni Muslim
royals fear that the rising power of Shi'ite Muslims in Iraq since the
overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-based regime will shift the regional
balance of power." -Reuters
via -AlertNet.org/Newsdesk
-
-
- Guantanamo
Bay -
- Religion
- "Carter:
Guantanamo Detentions Disgraceful." ... "Former President
Carter said Saturday the detention of terror suspects at the Guantanamo
Bay Naval base was an embarrassment and had given extremists an excuse
to attack the United States." ... "Carter also criticized the U.S.-led
war in Iraq as "unnecessary and unjust."" ... ""I think what's going on
in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A.," he told
a news conference at the Baptist World Alliance's centenary conference
in Birmingham, England. "I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but
it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at
our country and justify their despicable acts."" ... "Carter said, however,
that terrorist acts could not be justified, and that while Guantanamo "may
be an aggravating factor ... it's not the basis of terrorism."" -By
Cassandra Vinograd-WashingtonPost
-
- 
- Psychology
- "Survey:
30% of returning Iraq vets suffer mental ills." ...
"Thirty percent of U.S. troops surveyed have developed stress-related mental
health problems three to four months after coming home from the Iraq war,
the Army's surgeon general said Thursday." ... "The survey of 1,000 troops
found problems including anxiety, depression, nightmares, anger and an
inability to concentrate, said Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley and other military
medical officials. A smaller number of troops, often with more severe symptoms,
were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, a serious
mental illness." ... "Military medical officials, however, cautioned against
people reading their data as suggesting the war had driven so many soldiers
over the edge. Instead, they characterized the anxiety and stress as normal
reactions to combat, seeing dead and mutilated bodies, and feeling helpless
to stop a violent situation." -AP
via-USATODAY
-
-
-
- "Survey:
25,000 civilians killed in Iraq war: 42,500 injuries
also recorded by Iraq Body Count." ... ""The Iraq Body Count -- a London-based
group comprising academics and human rights and anti-war activists -- said
on Tuesday that 24,865 civilians had died between March 20, 2003 and March
19, 2005." ... "The U.S. military in Iraq reacted to the report by saying
that "coalition forces have not targeted the Iraqi civilian population
during Operation Iraqi Freedom."" ... "The [Iraqi] prime minister's office
Tuesday said that:" ... ""The Iraqi Ministry of Health continually counts
the number of civilians killed and wounded and their most recent figures
show that 6,629 Iraqi civilians were killed and 23,838 wounded between
April 2004 and April 2005." ... ""Figures from the Ministry of the Interior,
which include casualties from Iraq's armed forces, show that 8,175 Iraqis
were killed in the 10 months between July 2004 and May 2005.""
-CNN
-
-
- "Egypt's
Iraq envoy murdered, Zarqawi group claims killing."
... "The Egyptian ambassador to Iraq has been murdered by his captors,
the office of President Hosni Mubarak said," ... "The killing was claimed
by the group of Al-Qaeda's Iraq frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi." ... "Ambassador-designate
Ihab al-Sharif, 51, who was the first foreign head of mission to have been
kidnapped and murdered since Iraq's hostage crisis began, was abducted
at the weekend while walking in a Baghdad street."
-AFXNews via -Forbes
-
- 
-
-
- "Iraq
Abductors Threaten to Kill Diplomat." ... "Kidnappers
linked to al-Qaida's branch in Iraq threatened Wednesday to kill Egypt's
top envoy here, as Iraq's prime minister called on other countries to stay
the course and keep their diplomats in Baghdad." ... "The threat to kill
Ihab al-Sherif, seized by gunmen in western Baghdad on Saturday, marks
a dramatic escalation in a campaign to isolate Iraq diplomatically in the
Arab and Muslim worlds. On Tuesday, gunmen fired on senior envoys from
Bahrain and Pakistan in apparent kidnap attempts." -Mariam Fam
-AP via -Guardian.co.uk
-
-
-
-
-
- "President
Addresses Nation, Discusses Iraq, War on Terror."
-President George W. Bush -Whitehouse.gov
-
-
-
-
- Dick
Cheney - "Audit
questions $1.4b in Halliburton bills: Expenses at
issue from Iraq contracts." ... "Internal Pentagon audits have flagged
about $1.4 billion in expenses submitted by Halliburton Co. for services
the firm is providing in Iraq, charges that include $45 cases of soda,
$100-per-bag laundry service, and several months preparing at least 10,000
daily meals for a US military base that the troops did not need and ultimately
went to waste, according to a report released yesterday by congressional
Democrats." ... "The Defense Contract Audit Agency, which reviews Pentagon
contracting, identified $1.03 billion in Halliburton invoices that it questioned
as excessive, and an additional $442 million in expenses the company reported
that the agency deemed to be insufficiently documented, according to the
report." ... "The report, which House and Senate Democrats made public
yesterday, gives a broad overview of questionable costs racked up by the
energy conglomerate once led by Vice President Dick Cheney." -By
Rick Klein -Boston/Globe
-
-
-
- "Saudi
Arabia Exempt From Nuke Inspections." ... "The U.N.
atomic watchdog agency approved a deal Thursday that keeps nuclear inspectors
out of Saudi Arabia despite an international push to scrap such arrangements
because they can be abused by proliferators." ... "In the past two decades,
the kingdom has been linked to prewar Iraq's nuclear program and to the
Pakistani nuclear black marketeer Abdul Qadeer Khan." -By
George Jahn -AP
via -Guardian.co.uk
- "23
killed, 80 hurt in suicide blast." ... "A man standing
in a line of people waiting for government paychecks in northern Iraq detonated
a bomb strapped to his waist Tuesday, killing himself and at least 23 others,
many of them elderly pensioners and children selling wares in a nearby
market." ... "The Ansar al-Sunna Army, one of the most violent insurgent
groups in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the bombing, The Associated
Press reported."
-ChicagoTribune
-
-
-
- "Alamo
[California] man rescued by Iraqis, troops." ...
"Iraqi and U.S. troops rescued an Alamo [California] man who had been held
by insurgents in Iraq for more than six weeks, authorities said today."
... "Australian Prime Minister John Howard said 63-year-old Douglas Wood,
an Australian native, had been rescued during a military raid in Baghdad
and that he was doing well. Wood's release followed weeks of negotiations
by Australian officials and that country's highest-ranking Muslim cleric."
... ""I am delighted to inform the House that the Australian hostage in
Iraq, Mr. Douglas Wood, is safe from his captors," Howard said to cheers
in the Australian parliament." -By Chuck Squatriglia
and Steve Rubenstein -SFGate.com
-
-
- "U.S.
death toll in Iraq doubles in past year: Two roadside
bombings kill 4, bringing the war total to 1,701." ... "One year ago, 825
members of the U.S. military had died since the beginning of the Iraq war
— nearly three-quarters of them in hostile action." ... "Since then, Iraq
has fulfilled a number of key goals set by the Bush administration, including
historic elections, a new government and the drafting of a new constitution.
And the number of U.S. forces to have died in Iraq has more than doubled
— as the insurgency that took shape with the fall of Saddam Hussein increased
in its violence." -By Paul Garwood
-AP via -HoustonChronicle.com
- "Kurdish
Assembly Elects KDP Leader Barzani as President."
... " The parliament in Iraq's Kurdistan region elected veteran guerrilla
leader Massoud Barzani as president Sunday, touching off horn-honking celebrations
by his supporters." -AP
via -LAtimes
-
-
- "U.S.,
Iraqi troops launch Tal Afar offensive." ... "U.S.
and Iraqi troops on Tuesday launched an offensive against insurgents in
the northwestern city of Tal Afar [Iraq] -- not far from the Syrian border."
... ""Dozens of tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and Apache helicopters
have moved in to a neighborhood in the town which is thought to be a stronghold
of insurgents," said senior Baghdad correspondent Jane Arraf, who is embedded
with U.S. troops." ... "Some 4,000 U.S. troops moved into the Tal Afar
area in recent weeks." -Contributed to by Kianne Sadeq
and Mohammed Tawfeeq -CNN
-
-
- "Insurgents
Kill at Least 34 Civilians in Latest Attacks." ...
"Insurgents killed at least 34 Iraqi civilians Thursday in a spree of attacks
that included three suicide bombings, booby-trapped motorcycles and a convoy
of militants who fired into a crowd at a Baghdad bus stop." ... "The insurgents'
attacks have intensified in the five weeks since a new elected government
took power on April 28. At least 800 people, mostly Iraqi civilians, have
died in the unrelenting barrage of bombings and shootings. More than 90
suicide attacks in the last month have accounted for the majority of the
casualties, U.S. authorities said." -By Carol J. Williams
with contributions by Louise Roug, Raheem Salman, and Ali Windawi,
et al. -LAtimes
-
- Memorial
Day
-
- "America
Lauds Fallen Soldiers." ... "The president's tribute
at Arlington came in sharply different circumstances from the Memorial
Day visit Mr. Bush made to the cemetery's Tomb of the Unknowns two years
ago, just as the nation's problems stemming from the Iraq war were becoming
apparent." ... "Before his Memorial Day remarks in 2003, Bush had declared
major combat operations at an end, the U.S. government confidently predicted
that weapons of mass destruction would be found and American generals said
troops were in the process of stabilizing Iraq." ... "At that time, some
160 American soldiers had been killed in Iraq. Today, the total is over
1,650." (1,
2)
-AP /
-CBSNews
-
-
-
- Memorial
Day
- "Parades,
solemn events to mark Memorial Day: Parades, official
ceremonies and solemn visits will mark Memorial Day 2005 across the United
States." ... "At Arlington National Cemetery, the formal wreath-laying
ceremony is scheduled for 11 a.m. ET at the Tomb of the Unknowns. President
Bush will be among those paying respects to the nation's war dead." ...
"Elsewhere, many cities across the nation will be holding their own Memorial
Day parades, honoring veterans and those still serving in Iraq, Afghanistan
and other spots around the globe." -AP
via -CNN
-
-
- New
York - "[New
York Senator Hilary] Clinton moves against limiting women in military."
... "Currently, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps operate under
a 10-year-old policy barring women from "direct combat on the ground" but
allowing the services discretion to open some jobs to women." ... "The
war in Iraq is redefining combat zones. Soldiers whose jobs are classified
as support, where most women in the U.S. military are found, often find
themselves under fire." ... "More than 60,000 women have been deployed
overseas in support of the war since December 2002." -By
Devlin Barrett -AP
via -Newsday.com
-
-
-
- "Lawmakers
Retreat on Women in Combat." ... "Commanders feared
that any new restrictions on women in combat would make it more difficult
to fill the ranks at a time when wars on two fronts have dampened enthusiasm
among young Americans to enlist and have left the Army missing its recruiting
targets." ... "As of Wednesday, 35 women were among the 1,649 American
troops who had been killed in Iraq, and six female troops had been killed
in Afghanistan." ... "Another 279 women in Iraq and three in Afghanistan
had been injured. Women comprise 22,020, or nearly 10%, of the 232,974
U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and surrounding regions." -By
John Hendren
-LAtimes
-
-
- Maine
- "Realities
vs. policy: Women face growing combat roles in Iraq."
... "Jennifer Guay went to war to be a grunt. And the 170-pound former
bartender from Leeds, Maine, with cropped red hair and a penchant for the
bench press, has come pretty close." ... "It was mid-February and Guay,
26, an Army specialist who was the first woman to be assigned as an infantry
combat medic, was spending 10 hours a day on missions with the 82nd Airborne
Division, dodging rockets and grenades in the crowded streets of Mosul
[Iraq]." ... "As American women in uniform patrol bomb-ridden highways,
stand duty at checkpoints shouldering M-16s and raid houses in insurgent-contested
towns, many have come to believe this war has rendered obsolete a decade-old
Pentagon policy barring them from serving with ground-combat battalions."
-By Ann Scott Tyson-WashingtonPost
via -SeattleTimes
-
-
-
- "Trial
Starts in Abu Ghraib Death: Navy SEAL Faces Charges;
CIA Agents Not Named in Case." ... "An alleged Iraqi insurgent, Manadel
Jamadi, died under intense CIA questioning at the notorious Abu Ghraib
prison outside Baghdad about 19 months ago." ... "The prosecution of a
decorated Navy commando following a killing that occurred under CIA auspices
has stirred resentment in military circles, with sailors concerned that
a naval officer is taking the fall for civilian misconduct." -By
T.R. Reid-WashingtonPost
-
- "Web
Posting: Iraq al-Qaida Leader Injured." ... "A Web
site that acts as the clearinghouse for messages from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
said Tuesday that Iraq's most-wanted militant had been wounded "for the
sake of God" and asked Muslims to pray for his recovery." ... "But U.S.
officials cautioned they did not know if the posting was authentic, and
privately said the information also may have been designed to mislead."
-By Sarah el Deeb -AP
via -SFGate.com
-
- "Car
bomb kills six in Baghdad; Nine U.S. troops killed."
... "In the last two days, the military announced that 14 American troops
have been killed since Sunday. Those reports came as insurgents carried
out a string of explosions, suicide attacks and drive-by shootings around
the country that also killed 49 Iraqis." ... "As of Tuesday, at least 1,643
members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq
war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count."
-AP via -USATODAY
Romania
-
-
-
-
- "Romanian,
Iraqi-American captives freed: Top-level Iraqi trade
official assassinated." ... "Three Romanian journalists and their Iraqi-American
translator were freed after nearly two months in captivity, a spokesman
for Romania's president said Sunday." ... "Journalists Marie Jeanne Ion,
32; Sorin Miscoci, 30; Ovidiu Ohanesian, 37; and Iraqi-American translator
Mohamad Munafhad were kidnapped March 28. They were then shown on video
broadcast on Arabic-language satellite news channel Al-Jazeera." ... "In
the video, the journalists appealed to the Romanian government to pull
its 800 U.S.-allied troops from Iraq, to ensure their release." -Contributions
by Mohammed Tawfeeq, Enes Dulami and Kevin Flower
-CNN
-
-
-
-
- Psychology
- "Why
Insurgents Seek Victory by Suicide Bomb: Iraq Fighters
Use Tried-and-True Method, But It Could Backfire." ... "The history of
suicide bombing is filled with success stories, according to Robert Pape,
author of a forthcoming book on suicide bombers, "Dying to Win."" ... "But
the strategy can backfire. The Japanese crossed a line by sending suicide
pilots, the kamikazes, crashing into U.S. ships toward the end of World
War II. But their self-sacrifice only stiffened the U.S. resolve for all-out
victory." ... "The suicide bombers in Iraq also may miscalculate locally.
Most of their victims, especially recently, have been Iraqi citizens, not
U.S. troops. And those citizens went to vote enthusiastically in their
first free election this winter despite threats of violence against them."
(1, 2,
3)
-Originally reported by John Donvan and Jim Sciutto
for "Nightline" -ABCNEWS.com
-
-
- "Iraq
Calls on Neighbors to Stop Insurgency." ... "Iraq's
prime minister called on Syria on Thursday to block the infiltration of
foreign fighters trying to start a civil war." ... "In a message aimed
at Syria, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said non-Iraqis in neighboring
countries filtering across the border were responsible for carrying out
"sabotage activities."" ... "His government will do its best "to preserve
relations between us and our neighbors, but there are red lines which are
that they don't interfere in our internal affairs, or allow people to cross"
into Iraq, he said after a meeting with visiting Deputy Secretary of State
Robert Zoellick." ... "Earlier this week, al-Jaafari pledged to use "an
iron fist" to prevent an outbreak of sectarian violence which he has accused
supporters of Iraq's top al-Qaida terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, of trying
to foment." (1, 2,
3)
-By Bassem Mroue with contributions by Sindbad Ahmed
-AP via -ABCNEWS.com
-
-
-
- "The
rising economic cost of the Iraq war: One estimate
of the military pricetag: $5 billion each month." ... "Fighting in Iraq
has been prolonged and remains intense enough that it has pushed the total
cost of US military operations since Sept. 11, 2001, close to that of the
Korean War." ... "Despite the yawning federal deficit, Congress hasn't
blinked at this price. And while annual defense spending is now as high
as it ever was during the Reagan buildup, the US economy as a whole is
much larger, making it easier, in economic terms, for the nation to shoulder
the bill." ... "Yet the costs for Pentagon operations are likely to pile
up in years ahead. By 2010, war expenses might total $600 billion, according
to the Congressional Budget Office. Much depends on when - and how many
- US military personnel can be withdrawn from the Iraqi theater of operations."
-By Peter Grier -CSMonitor
-
-
-
- Religion
- "Desecration
of Koran Had Been Reported Before." ... "Newsweek
magazine's now-retracted story that a military guard at the U.S. prison
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet has
sparked angry denunciations by the White House and the Pentagon, which
have linked the article to Muslim riots and deaths abroad." ... "But American
and international media have widely reported similar allegations from detainees
and others of desecration of the Muslim holy book for more than two years."
-By Carol D. Leonnig -WashingtonPost
- "50
bodies in 2 days in Iraq." ... "At least eight Iraqis
were found shot near a Baghdad dam and a slain Iraqi Kurd was left in a
garbage dump in northern Iraq, the police said Monday, raising the number
of bodies recovered in the past 48 hours to 50." ... "Few details were
available on the motives behind the killings. Insurgents regularly target
Iraqi security forces, government officials and others deemed to be collaborating
with U.S.-led forces in the country. Others are kidnapped and killed in
attempts to extort ransom. But there have also been a stream of retaliatory
attacks between armed Sunni and Shiite groups."
-AP via -IHT.com
-
-
-
- "Russia
Named in Iraqi Oil Scandal: Iraq's ex-vice president
said Hussein's regime gave Moscow [Russia] millions in fuel vouchers in
hopes of ending U.N. sanctions, a Senate panel reports." ... "Former Iraqi
Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told [US Senate] investigators that
the allocations were "compensation for support," according to a report
being released today by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
investigations subcommittee." -AP
via-LAtimes
-
-
- 
- "Russians
cited in oil-for-food probe: Senate panel accuses
politicians ahead of public hearing." ... "A Senate report released Monday
accuses top Russian politicians, including advisers to President Vladimir
Putin, of engaging in illicit transactions with Iraq during the U.N. oil-for-food
program." ... "The report found that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime
allocated 76 million barrels of crude oil to Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Russia's
deputy parliament speaker, and his political party between 1997 and 2002."
... "Not a drop of Iraqi oil entered Russia, which is a net exporter of
oil, investigators found. Instead, the crude was shipped to the North American
and European markets." -By Phil Hirschkorn with contributions
by Liz Neisloss -CNN
-
- 
-
-
-
- "Report:
Saddam's Aides Used Oil As Reward." ... "Russian
leaders received millions of dollars in Iraqi oil allocations from top
representatives in Saddam Hussein's former government in hopes of ending
U.N. penalties against Iraq, Senate investigators were told." ... "The
Senate investigators said their interviews and documents from the former
Iraqi government add to evidence in previous probes linking Russian officials
to abuses in the $64 billion U.N. program. It was designed to permit Saddam
to sell some oil and use the proceeds to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian
items." ... "Documents released by the panel last week claimed former French
Interior Minister Charles Pasqua and British politician George Galloway
also accepted allocations, charges both men deny." (1, 2)
-By Ken Guggenheim -AP
via-WashingtonPost
-
-
- "Abu
Ghraib Intelligence Chief Is Reprimanded." ... "The
Army officer in charge of interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq,
where prisoners often were abused and sexually humiliated, has been cited
for two counts of dereliction of duty, handed a formal reprimand and fined
$8,000, Army officials announced Wednesday." ... "But Army authorities
said no decision had been made whether to relieve Col. Thomas M. Pappas
of his command as head of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, a move
that would all but end his 24-year military career." ... "A second investigation
into intelligence failures at the prison, conducted by Lt. Gen. Anthony
R. Jones and Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, found that 23 intelligence soldiers
were involved in various ways in the abuse, and that 15 of them believed
their actions were sanctioned by Army supervisors." (1, 2)
-By Richard A. Serrano-LAtimes
-
-
- "60
Killed in Suicide Attacks Across Iraq." ... "Five
suicide attacks in three cities in Iraq killed more than 60 people Wednesday.
In the deadliest, a man with hidden explosives set them off in a line of
people outside a police and army recruitment center in northern Iraq, killing
30 and wounding 35, police said." ... "In Tikrit, meanwhile, a suicide
car bomb exploded in a small market near a police station, killing at least
27 people and wounding 75, police said." ... "Three car bombs also exploded
in Baghdad, killing at least four, police said." (1, 2)
-By Yahiya Ahmed -AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
-
-
-
-
-
- "Senate
passes war-spending bill 100-0: Bush 'looks forward'
to signing $82 billion legislation." ... "The $76 billion in war spending
drives the U.S. cost for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with other
global antiterror efforts, to more than $300 billion since the September
11, 2001, terror attacks. Most of that has been spent on the 2-year-old
war in Iraq." ... "Also in the package are provisions increasing the death
benefit for U.S. service members from $12,000 to $100,000; raising the
maximum life insurance benefit for service members from $250,000 to $400,000;
and authorizing $100,000 payments for troops who lose a limb or suffer
some other traumatic injury." -CNN
-
-
-
-
- "Japan
and Australia face Iraq hostage crises." ... "Two
staunch U.S. allies in Iraq grappled with hostage crises on Tuesday as
Japan confirmed one of its citizens was missing and a deadline set by the
captors of an Australian passed with no word on his fate." ... "Insurgents
launched two more suicide car bomb attacks in Baghdad, killing eight people
and wounding more than 20. Over the past two weeks a surge of guerrilla
bombings and ambushes has killed more than 300 Iraqis and wounded hundreds
more." ... "Both Australia and Japan have troops in Iraq backing up the
U.S. military. A new batch of 450 Australian soldiers is due to arrive
soon in southern Iraq, taking the total of Australian troops in and around
Iraq to about 1,400." ... "Japan has around 550 soldiers in Iraq, a largely
symbolic deployment as they are not allowed to take part in combat." (1,
2,
3)
-By Andrew Marshall with contributions by Linda Sieg
and Michelle Nichols -Reuters
-
-
- "U.S.
Attack in Iraq Kills 100 Insurgents." ... "American
troops backed by helicopters and war planes launched a major offensive
against followers of Iraq's most wanted insurgent, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
in a desert area near the Syrian border, and as many as 100 militants were
killed, U.S. officials said Monday." ... "Marines, sailors and soldiers
from Regimental Combat Team 2, 2nd Marine Division, were conducting the
offensive in an area north of the Euphrates River, in the al-Jazirah Desert,
a known smuggling route and sanctuary for foreign insurgents, the U.S.
military said." ... "The military also reported that two U.S. Marines were
killed in the area on Sunday and one on Monday." -By
Bassem Mroue -AP
via -Guardian.co.uk
-
-
- "Iraqi
premier names defence and oil ministers." ... "Ibrahim
al-Jaafari, Iraq's prime minister, yesterday named two important ministers
and three other cabinet members in a significant step towards ending three
months' wrangling between the country's main ethnic blocs over the formation
of Iraq's first postwar elected government." ... "Speaking before parliament,
Mr Jaafari named Saadoun al-Dulaimi, a Sunni Arab researcher, as his defence
minister, and Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, a Shia petroleum engineer, as oil minister.
Both were approved by 112 of 155 of the deputies present." ... "At least
250 people have been killed in attacks since the beginning of the month,
including two Americans working for a private security company killed in
a suicide car bomb attack at the weekend." -By Steve
Negus and Dhiya Rasan -FT.com
-
- "General
Demoted, But Cleared in Abuse Probe." ... "President
Bush approved yesterday an order demoting Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Janis
L.
Karpinski, the only general to be punished in connection with investigations
into detainee abuse at U.S. military prisons." ... "Karpinski's rank was
reduced to colonel, and she was issued a reprimand and relieved of her
command. But the Army's inspector general recommended the sanctions based
on a broad charge of dereliction of duty, as well as on a charge of shoplifting,
essentially clearing her of responsibility for the abuse at Abu Ghraib
prison. As commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, Karpinski oversaw
more than a dozen prison facilities in Iraq in 2003." -By
Josh White-WashingtonPost
-
- 
- "Audits
find flaws in U.S. handling of Iraq deals." ... "The
United States has carelessly, and possibly fraudulently, handled some Iraqi
money meant for rebuilding and poorly managed billions of dollars of U.S.-funded
contracts, said U.S. audits released on Wednesday." ... "In one area of
Iraq alone, nearly $100 million in cash used for rebuilding was unaccounted
for. Incompetence by U.S. procurement staff ranged from contractors being
paid twice to files being misplaced." (1, 2)
-Reuters
-
- -
- Secrets
- "Pentagon
analyst charged with disclosing secrets." ... "A
Defense Department analyst was arrested on Wednesday on charges of disclosing
top-secret information on potential attacks on American forces in Iraq
to two employees of a pro-Israel lobbying group." ... "Lawrence Franklin
surrendered to the FBI and faces charges of disclosing classified national
defense information in 2003 to two individuals who sources said worked
at the time at the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee
[AIPAC]." (1, 2)
-Reuters
-
-
-
-
- Sports
- "Army
Withheld Details About Tillman's Death: Investigator
Quickly Learned 'Friendly Fire' Killed Athlete." ... "The first Army investigator
who looked into the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan
last year found within days that he was killed by his fellow Rangers in
an act of "gross negligence," but Army officials decided not to inform
Tillman's family or the public until weeks after a nationally televised
memorial service." ... "Tillman's death was an enormous blow to the image
of the Army and the Special Forces because of his storybook personal narrative.
Tillman turned down a multimillion-dollar football contract with the Arizona
Cardinals to enlist in the Army after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
He and his brother joined the elite Army Rangers and deployed to Iraq and
later Afghanistan, hunting the Taliban and al Qaeda through mountainous
terrain." -By Josh White-WashingtonPost
-
-
-
- "Suicide
bomber kills 60 in Iraqi Kurd city." ... "A suicide
bomber struck the offices of a Kurdish party in northern Iraq on Wednesday
and the U.S. military said the blast killed about 60 people only a week
after a new government promising stability was formed." ... "In Baghdad,
insurgents kept up a relentless campaign of car bombings that have rattled
the country since a cabinet was named, mounting an attack that killed nine
National Guardsmen and wounded 20 people, police said." ... "Security guards
and witnesses said a crowd had gathered outside the Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP) office in Arbil, which served as a police recruiting center,
when the bomber struck. The American military said 150 people were also
injured." (1, 2,
3)
-By Shamal Aqrawi and Seb Walker
-Reuters
-
-
- "Old
brutality among new Iraqi forces: Allegations of
rights abuses have risen over several months." ... "Throughout the war
in Iraq, the brutality of the battlefield has occasionally spilled into
interrogation rooms and prisons. The central figure in the Abu Ghraib prison-abuse
scandal, Pfc. Lynndie England, pleaded guilty Monday to seven counts of
mistreating prisoners." ... "But with Iraqis taking a greater role in battling
the insurgency and patrolling their own streets as the new government begins
work, accusations of human rights abuses are shifting away from the Americans
and onto Iraqi police officers and soldiers." ... "The accusations of abuse
range from reports of prisoner torture and death of detainees to the arbitrary
arrest and abuse at the hands of inexperienced and untrained police officers."
-By Jill Carroll -CSMonitor
-
-
- "Pentagon
says Iraq war erodes military's abilities." ... "Operations
in Iraq and Afghanistan have constrained the military's ability to tackle
other potential conflicts, making any future war more likely to be longer
and bloodier, according to America's top general." ... "In an annual classified
report required by Congress, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said stress on manpower and equipment could
limit the ability to win other possible wars as quickly as the Pentagon
previously forecast, defense officials said on Tuesday." ... "Myers, due
to step down from his post in September, stated in the report that U.S.
armed forces would "succeed" in any future major conflict but "may be unable
to meet expectations for speed or precision," officials said." -By
Will Dunham -Reuters
via -AlertNet.org
-
- "Iraq
Swears In New Cabinet, but Some Posts Remain Unfilled."
... "Iraq's new cabinet members were sworn into office this evening, allowing
the country's first fully and freely elected government to take power."
... "But in a striking display of the divisions that plague the new government,
at least six cabinet positions, including the critical post of defense
minister, remained empty after Iraq's political leaders failed to agree
on who should fill them, despite days of difficult and polarized final
negotiations." -By Robert F. Worth and Richard A.
Oppel, Jr. -NYTimes
-
-
-
-
- "Australian
man living in California purportedly held by Iraqi militants."
... "Australia formed a team of diplomats, defense staff and police on
Monday who will attempt to free an Australian engineer who resides in California
seized by Iraqi insurgents. But the government had a blunt message for
the kidnappers: It will not remove its troops from Iraq or pay any ransom."
... "The kidnapping the first of an Australian since January, when journalist
John Martinkus was captured and briefly held by insurgents who later released
him unharmed came as Australia is boosting its troop presence in southern
Iraq." -By Mike Corder with contributions by
David Kravets -AP
via -Boston/Globe
-
-
- "Lynndie
England to plead guilty to abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib."
... "U.S. army Pte. 1st Class Lynndie England will plead guilty to abusing
Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison, her lawyer said late Friday, months after
photos of her sexually humiliating prisoners made her the face of a scandal
that damaged the credibility of the U.S. military." ... "England will plead
guilty in a military court Monday to seven of the nine counts against her:
two counts of conspiracy, four counts of maltreating prisoners and one
count of dereliction of duty, said Rick Hernandez, her civilian lawyer."
-AP via -CBC.ca
-
-
- "Six
killed in Baghdad car bomb; 123 killed." ... "A car
bomb exploded in an upscale shopping district of Baghdad on Monday, killing
at least six Iraqis and setting fire to an apartment building, police said,
continuing a string of attacks that's left at least 123 people dead since
Iraq's interim government appointed a partial Cabinet last week." ... "Since
Thursday, when Iraq's interim government finally appointed a partial Cabinet
after three months of political infighting, at least 123 people, including
11 Americans, have been killed in a slew of bombings, ambushes and other
attacks." -By Sinan Salaheddin
-AP via -Boston/Globe
- 
-
-
- "U.S.
Clears GIs In Italian Death." ... "A U.S. Army investigation
concluded American soldiers were not at fault in the death of an Italian
[intelligence] agent in Iraq and recommended no disciplinary action, according
to a report released Saturday." ... "The Italian government announced Friday
it was not signing off on the U.S. reconstruction of events; Italy has
launched a criminal inquiry into Calipari's death."
-AP with
-CBSNews
-
- "Insurgents
unleash second day of bombings; at least 18 more killed."
... "Insurgents unleashed a second day of deadly bombings in Iraq's capital
and beyond Saturday, staging a series of carefully coordinated and increasingly
sophisticated assaults that killed at least 65 over two days and appeared
timed to deflate hopes in Washington and Baghdad that the installation
of the nation's first democratically elected government would curb spiking
violence." ... "At least 17 Iraqis and one U.S. soldier were killed in
the bloodletting Saturday. The military also announced that six other U.S.
soldiers had been killed and six wounded in Iraq since Thursday."
-AP via -USATODAY
-
- 
-
-
- Executions
- "Sergeant
Sentenced to Death for Killing Two Officers in Iraq."
... "A military jury on Thursday sentenced Sgt. Hasan Akbar to die for
the 2003 murders of two officers in a grenade attack at an Army camp in
Kuwait during the opening days of the Iraq invasion." ... "The sentence
will be the subject of an automatic appeal. If Akbar is executed, it would
be by lethal injection." ... "The last U.S. military execution was in 1961."
-AP via-WashingtonPost
-
- "41
Dead In Stream Of Iraq Attacks." ... "Insurgents
unleashed a series of car bombings and other attacks across Iraq on Friday,
killing at least 41 people, including three U.S. soldiers, and wounding
dozens of people a day after the country's first democratically elected
government was approved." ... "At least 10 car bombs exploded in seven
areas in and around Baghdad on Friday, the U.S. military said. Four American
soldiers sustained minor injuries in the attacks. It provided no further
details." ... "The most serious of the attacks involved four suicide car
bombs, which exploded in quick succession in the Azamiyah section of central
Baghdad, Iraqi police chief Brig. Khalid al-Hassan said." (1, 2)
-AP with
-CBSNews
- "11
car bombings kill dozens in Iraq." ... "At least
39 people were killed in Iraq on Friday after 11 car bombings rocked Baghdad
and a nearby town." ... "Four car bombs killed 20 people in Baghdad's Aadhamiya
district, one striking a crowded restaurant." ... "Shortly after, two more
car bombs killed two people in the capital's New Baghdad area. The bomb
struck a National Guard convoy, and as people gathered to look at the wreckage,
a second bomb exploded." ... "Four more car bombs killed 13 people and
injured 20 in the town of Madaen, south of Baghdad."
-CBC.ca
- "Iraq
assembly OK's democratic Cabinet." ... "After nearly
three months of political infighting, Iraq's National Assembly yesterday
approved the country's first elected, democratic government in half a century."
... "But the new Shi'ite-dominated Cabinet already appeared to be set back
by the sectarian divisions that deepened during months of inconclusive
and often hostile negotiations over the government. The all-important defense
and oil ministries were filled with temporary selections because of lingering
disagreements." ... "Sunni politicians yesterday angrily decried ''sectarian
exclusion" of their minority group in the selection of the new Cabinet.
And one-third of the members of the transitional National Assembly did
not show up to approve the Cabinet ministers, whose selection had been
hammered out in recent weeks in back-room deals." (1, 2)
-By Thanassis Cambanis with contributions by Asmaa
Waguih and Sa'ad al-Izzi -Boston/Globe
-
-
- "Pentagon
Moves to Bar CIA 'Ghost' Detainees." ... "The CIA
will no longer be allowed to hold unregistered "ghost" detainees at U.S.
military prisons such as Iraq's Abu Ghraib, the Pentagon's top intelligence
official said on Thursday." ... "Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense
for intelligence, assured the U.S. Senate that new interim rules on military
interrogations eliminate the CIA's practice at Abu Ghraib of hiding detainees
and subjecting them to separate interrogation methods that critics say
were harsher than those employed by the military." -David
Morgan -Reuters
via -Wired
-
- "Iraqi
legislator gunned down by militants in her house."
... "After a postelection lull in violence, insurgents have staged a series
of well-coordinated attacks that have inflicted heavy casualties in recent
weeks." ... "Gunmen in Baghdad also opened fire on the convoy of Brig.
Gen. Jihad Luaibi, in charge of civil defense at the Interior Ministry,
as he was on his way to work, wounding him and killing two of his bodyguards,
Iraqi police said." ... "Meanwhile, Iraq's prime minister-designate presented
his proposal for a broad-based Cabinet that draws in the country's main
ethnic and religious groups to the presidential council on Wednesday in
a step toward ending a crippling political stalemate." - -AP
via -USATODAY
-
- 
-
-
- "US
at least seizes Zarqawi's laptop: Wanted terrorist
is believed to have fled a February raid on foot, but agents got key computer
files." .. "he United States military has not yet managed to catch Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, the top Al Qaeda-linked terrorist in Iraq. But they have
perhaps snagged the next best thing: his laptop." .. "In today's Internet
world even a brutal terror figure apparently carries his life on a personal
electronic device. A February raid by a covert US military unit came so
close to Zarqawi that he fled from the vehicle in which he was traveling
on foot, leaving his computer behind, say government sources."" -By
Peter Grier and Faye Bowers -CSMonitor
-
-
-
-
- 
- "Arms
Move to Syria 'Unlikely,' Report Says." ... "The
Bush administration's senior weapons inspector said in a report released
last night that it was "unlikely" that Saddam Hussein's forces moved weapons
to Syria, though he expressed concern about nuclear-related equipment that
was apparently removed after American-led forces invaded Iraq." ... "In
a 92-page addendum to a report issued last fall, Charles Duelfer, the head
of the former Iraq Survey Group, was also highly critical of the way key
Iraqi scientists were interviewed after their capture, suggesting opportunities
to mine information from them might have been lost." -By
David E. Sanger -NYTimes
-
-
-
-
- "Italian
Opposition Slams Iraq Killing Findings." ... "An
angry opposition branded a report that clears U.S. soldiers of blame for
killing an Italian agent in Iraq an insult to Italy Tuesday, but Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi rejected a call to discuss it in parliament."
... "Military intelligence officer Nicola Calipari died when troops at
a U.S. checkpoint opened fire late on March 4 as he was driving to Baghdad
airport with Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena after obtaining her release
from insurgent kidnappers." (1, 2)
-By Paul Holmes -Reuters
-
- "Missile
Fire Downs Chopper in Iraq; 11 Die: Insurgents Bring
Down Chopper With Missile Fire in Iraq, Crash Kills 11, Including 6 Americans."
... ""-By Thomas Wagner
-AP via -ABCNEWS.com
-
-
- Maine
- "Welcome
Stop for Warriors: Locals in Bangor, Maine, are on
a mission to greet every military plane, at any time, in any weather. Their
tally so far: 200,000 troops." ... "Tired and bleary-eyed, Marines of the
1st Battalion, 7th Regiment, based at Twentynine Palms, Calif. [California],
were finally back on U.S. soil after seven months on the front lines in
Iraq." ... "But they were still many miles and hours from their families
and the homecoming they longed for. Their officers told them they would
be on the ground for 60 to 90 minutes while their chartered plane was refueled."
... "So they disembarked and began walking through the airport terminal
corridor to a small waiting room." ... "That's when they heard the applause."
... "Lining the hall and clapping were dozens of Bangor residents who have
set a daunting task for themselves: They want every Marine, soldier, sailor
and airman returning through the tiny international airport here to get
a hero's welcome." -By Tony Perry -LAtimes
via -KTLA
-
-
- ""Rising
violence mars hopes in post-election Iraq." ... "Insurgent
attacks killed at least 12 people in Iraq on Tuesday as an increase in
violence piled pressure on politicians struggling to form a government
more than 11 weeks after elections." ... "In Baghdad, a suicide car bomber
killed four National Guardsmen in the Athamiya district, the police and
hospital officials said. Thirty-eight people were wounded in the blast
- the latest in a string of car bombings in the capital in the past week."
... "Another suicide car bomber detonated next to a U.S. Army convoy traveling
close to the capital's international airport, and witnesses said there
were many casualties. A U.S. military spokesman said he had no immediate
information." -AP
and -Reuters with -IHT.com
-
-
-
-
- "Noted
activist for war victims killed in car bomb attack:
Californian Marla Ruzicka championed humanitarian aid in Iraq." ... "A
car bomb attack near Baghdad has killed a well-known activist from Northern
California who entered war zones to record civilian deaths in Iraq and
Afghanistan and secure aid for those caught in the cross fire." ... "Marla
Ruzicka, 28, of Lakeport (Lake County), founder of CIVIC -- Campaign for
Innocent Victims of Conflict -- died with her driver on the Baghdad Airport
road Saturday when a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of security contractors
that was passing next to her vehicle, according to her family and news
reports quoting U.S. Embassy officials in Iraq." ... "Given the U.S. military's
policy of not accounting for civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq,
Ruzicka's work played a key role in drawing attention to the human tragedy
of the war and giving the world a well-researched accounting of the cost
in innocent lives." -By Charles Burress, Tanya Schevitz
with contributions by Matthew B. Stannard and Cecilia Vega
-SFGate.com
-
-
- "Iraqi
forces seal off town after hostage reports: Evidence
growing that incident was exaggerated." ... "Iraqi security forces backed
by U.S. troops had the town of Madain surrounded Sunday after reports of
Sunni militant kidnappings of as many as 100 Shiites residents, but there
were growing indications the incident had been grossly exaggerated, perhaps
an outgrowth of a tribal dispute or political maneuvering." ... "The town
of about 1,000 families, evenly divided between Shiites and Sunnis, sits
about 15 miles south of the capital in what the U.S. military has called
the "Triangle of Death" because it has become a roiling stronghold of the
militant insurgency." -AP
via -MSNBC
-
- "Raid
On Town Split By Kidnappers." ... "Iraqi security
forces raided a town in central Iraq on Sunday where Sunni militants were
holding dozens of Shiite Muslims hostage and threatening to kill them unless
all Shiites left the area, an Iraqi official said." ... "Security forces
surrounded the town of Madain and began raiding sites Saturday in search
of those abducted, said Qassim Dawoud, the minister in charge of national
security." ... "Early Sunday, Iraqi forces freed about 15 Shiite families,
said Haidar Khayon, an official at the Defense Ministry in Baghdad. He
said five hostage-takers were captured in a skirmish with light gunfire,
but no casualties were reported." (1, 2)
-AP
with -CBSNews
-
-
- "Eleven
Iraqis Break Out of U.S. Jail, 10 Recaptured." ...
"There are around 10,000 people in U.S. custody in Iraq. Most are being
held on suspicion of aiding the country's 2-year-old insurgency."-Reuters
-
- "Iraqi,
U.S. Forces Launch Hostage Rescue Operation." ...
"U.S. and Iraqi troops raided a town on Saturday to rescue 150 Shi'ite
hostages whom Sunni rebels have threatened to kill in a standoff that raised
fears sectarian violence in Iraq could spiral out of control." ... "Interim
National Security Minister of State Kassim Daoud said Madaen, near Baghdad
and in an area dubbed the "Triangle of Death" because of the frequency
of guerrilla attacks, was now under the control of Iraqi and U.S.-led multinational
forces." ... "Iraq's state-run al Iraqiya television said the guerrillas
had threatened to kill the hostages within 24 hours, and a senior Shi'ite
official in Baghdad said Iraqi and U.S.-led forces were expected to launch
a major overnight rescue bid." (1, 2,
3)
-By Waleed Ibrahim with contributions by Mariam Karouny,
Michael Georgy, Faris Mehdawi, and Majid Hameed -Reuters
-
-
- "Gains
in Iraq, but no 'tipping point': Despite recent bombings
and a kidnapping, insurgent attacks are down as are numbers of US troops
wounded." ... "For US forces in Iraq, the good news is that they appear
to be making progress in their battle against an entrenched insurgency.
The bad news is that the insurgents are far from defeated -and it will
be some time before Iraqi government forces can fight the rebels on their
own." ... "It's true, as President Bush noted in a speech this week, that
the new Iraqi government's own security forces now outnumber in-country
US troops. But experts note that the majority of these are police and lightly
armed security guards, and are not really comparable to US military personnel."
-By Peter Grier and Faye Bowers -CSMonitor
-
-
-
-
- Food
- "Texas
businessman indicted in U.N. oil-for-food probe."
... "Federal authorities on Thursday announced an indictment against Texas
businessman David Chalmers and the refinery company he heads, Bayoil, as
part of a U.S. probe of the United Nations' Iraq oil-for-food program."
... "According to the indictment, Chalmers faces three felony charges for
allegedly paying illegal surcharges to the former Iraqi regime of Saddam
Hussein on top of prices for Iraqi crude oil purchased under the U.N.-monitored
program." ... ""The defendants at Bayoil, led by Chalmers, paid inflated
commission" for oil to third parties, [U.S. Attorney David] Kelley said,
"knowing that a portion were earmarked for kickbacks to the Hussein regime.""
-By Phil Hirschkorn
-CNN
-
-
- "U.S.
Has No Exit Strategy for Iraq, Rumsfeld Says (Update1)."
... "The U.S. has no exit strategy or timetable for withdrawing its forces
from Iraq and a pull-out depends on the readiness of the Iraqi Security
Forces, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said." ... "The defense
secretary arrived in Iraq today to meet with Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari
and President Jalal Talabani, Captain Darren Luke, a U.S. military spokesman,
said by telephone from Baghdad. He'll press the two, who were both elected
by National Assembly members last week, to continue moves toward democracy,
the Associated Press reported." -By Caroline Alexander
ed. by Peter Torday -Bloomberg
-
- "Iraq
is becoming 'free fraud' zone: Corruption in Iraq
under US-led CPA may dwarf UN oil-for-food scandal." ... "" -By
Tom Regan -CSMonitor
- "Iraqis
Select Shiite Al-Jaafari as Prime Minister." ...
"Iraq's presidential council was sworn in today and named Shiite Arab Ibrahim
al-Jaafari as interim prime minister, the country's most powerful position,
giving Iraq its first freely elected government in 50 years and further
consolidating the postwar power shift." ... "Al-Jaafari has two weeks to
name his Cabinet, allowing the new government to begin work on its primary
task: drafting a permanent constitution that would pave the way for elections
for a permanent government in December." ... "Parliament speaker Hajim
al-Hassani said outgoing Prime Minister Ayad Allawi had turned in his resignation
but was asked to stay in a caretaker position until a new Cabinet is named."
-AP via-LAtimes
- "Shia
Islamist Jaafari named as Iraqi PM." ... "Iraq's
newly appointed presidential council on Thursday chose Shia Islamist Ibrahim
al-Jaafari to be prime minister, but the new leader indicated it might
be some time before he can form a government." ... "Iraq's president, Kurdish
leader Jalal Talabani who was himself elected by parliament only the day
before, informed Mr Jaafari that he should form a government, only minutes
after he and two vice-presidents took oaths of office." ... "Mr Jaafari's
selection is the penultimate step before the creation of Iraq's first postwar
elected government, an often acrimonious process that has taken over two
months. But the final stage the nomination and approval of a council of
ministers might take weeks." -By Steve Negus
-FT.com
-
- "Iraq
Parliament Elects Jalal Talabani as President (Update5)."
... "Iraq's National Assembly today named Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani
as the country's first democratically elected president in more than 50
years, breaking a two-month deadlock on forming a new government." ...
"Shiite Interim Finance Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi and former Sunni President
Sheik Ghazi al-Yawar were chosen as Talabani's two deputies." ... "The
presidential council has two weeks to name a replacement for Interim Prime
Minister Ayad Allawi." ... "The presidential council has veto power over
legislative bills and nominates cabinet members when a prime minister is
selected, according to TAL." -By Caroline Alexander
ed. by Peter Torday -Bloomberg
-
-
- "Follow
the Money: Watchdogs are warning that corruption
in Iraq is out of control. But will the United States join efforts to clamp
down on it?" ... "More than U.S. money is at stake. The administration
has harshly criticized the United Nations over hundreds of millions stolen
from the Oil-for-Food Program under Saddam. But the successor to Oil-for-Food
created under the occupation, called the Development Fund for Iraq, could
involve billions of potentially misused dollars. On Jan. 30, the
former CPA's own inspector general, Stuart Bowen, concluded that occupation
authorities accounted poorly for $8.8 billion in these Iraqi funds. "The
CPA did not implement adequate financial controls," Bowen said. U.S. officials
argue that it was impossible, in a war environment, to have such controls.
Yet now the Bush administration is either ignoring or stalling inquiries
into the use of these Iraqi oil funds, according to reports by Democratic
Rep. Henry Waxman, and others." (1, 2)
-By Michael Hirsh -MSNBC/Newsweek
-
- "Soldier
Killed in Iraq Battle Wins Medal." ... "Paul Ray
Smith's 11-year-old son, standing only chest-high to President Bush, accepted
the nation's highest award for valor on Monday for his late father, who
exposed himself to enemy fire in Iraq and saved at least 100 of his fellow
U.S. soldiers." ... "Outnumbered and exposed, Army Sgt. 1st Class Smith
stayed at his gun, holding back an advancing Iraqi force until a bullet
in his head claimed his life. Bush presented the Medal of Honor on the
second anniversary of the day Smith died in battle on April 4, 2003, near
Baghdad International Airport." -By Deb Riechmann
-AP via -SFGate.com
-
-
- "Justice
Dept. Says U.S. Law Applicable in Iraq Contracts."
... "The Justice Department gave critical support yesterday to whistle-blowers
in a federal lawsuit against a U.S. security contractor, concluding that
the company can be held liable for allegedly defrauding authorities in
Iraq of tens of millions of dollars." ... "The opinion came in response
to a request by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, who had asked for the
government's help in decoding a basic question at the heart of the case
against Custer Battles LLC: Does federal fraud law apply when the contract
was administered by the Coalition Provisional Authority, which governed
Iraq for a year after the U.S. invasion." -By Griff
Witte-WashingtonPost
-
-
-
- "Zarqawi
Associate Captured." ... "U.S. forces in Iraq are
holding a senior operative of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who
holds joint American-Jordanian citizenship, defense officials said Thursday."
... "The man was captured in a raid by U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq
late in 2004, said Matthew Waxman, the deputy assistant secretary of defense
for detainee affairs." -By John J. Lumpkin
-AP via
-CBSNews
-
-
-
- "Panel:
Agencies 'Dead Wrong' on Iraq WMDs: Presidential
Commission Reports That Spy Agencies Were 'Dead Wrong' in Judgments About
Iraqi WMDs." ... "In a scathing report, a presidential commission said
Thursday that America's spy agencies were "dead wrong" in most of their
judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before the war and that
the United States knows "disturbingly little" about the threats posed by
many of the nation's most dangerous adversaries." ... "The report was the
latest somber assessment of intelligence shortfalls that a series of investigative
panels have made since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Numerous
investigations have concluded that spy agencies had serious intelligence
failures before the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks against the United States.The
report implicitly absolves the Bush administration of manipulating the
intelligence used to launch the 2003 Iraq war, putting the blame for bad
intelligence directly on the intelligence community." ... ""The daily intelligence
briefings given to you before the Iraq war were flawed," the report said.
"Through attention-grabbing headlines and repetition of questionable data,
these briefings overstated the case that Iraq was rebuilding its WMD programs.""
(1, 2,
3,
4)
-By Katherine Shrader
-AP via -ABCNEWS.com
-
-
-
- [PDF]
- "The
Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States
Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction." ... "Report
to the President of the United States." ... "With this letter, we transmit
the report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United
States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. Our unanimous report is based
on a lengthy investigation, during which we interviewed hundreds of experts
from inside and outside the Intelligence Community and reviewed thousands
of documents. Our report offers 74 recommendations for improving the U.S.
Intelligence Community (all but a handful of which we believe can be implemented
without statutory change). But among these recommendations a few points
merit special emphasis." ... "We conclude that the Intelligence Community
was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction. This was a major intelligence failure. Its principal
causes were the Intelligence Community's inability to collect good information
about Iraq's WMD programs, serious errors in analyzing what information
it could gather, and a failure to make clear just how much of its analysis
was based on assumptions, rather than good evidence. On a matter of this
importance, we simply cannot afford failures of this magnitude." ... "After
a thorough review, the Commission found no indication that the Intelligence
Community distorted the evidence regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
What the intelligence professionals told you about Saddam Hussein's programs
was what they believed. They were simply wrong." -Co-Chairmen: Laurence
H. Silberman and Charles S. Robb - 3.4MB, 618
page report via -AP.org
-
- Food
- "Oil-food
inquiry clears U.N. chief: But Volcker report rips
Annan's son." ... "The commission investigating the oil-for-food program
in Iraq reported Tuesday that Secretary-General Kofi Annan did not influence
the awarding of a contract to the company that employed his son. But it
faulted him for not looking more aggressively into the company's relationship
with the United Nations once questions were raised." ... "Annan told a
news conference that he viewed the conclusions about him as an exoneration,
which he said he welcomed with "great relief" after "so many distressing
and untrue allegations." Asked if he thought the report's criticisms of
him for management failures meant that he should step down for the good
of the organization, he replied bluntly, "Hell, no."" -By
Warren Hoge -NYTimes
via -SFGate.com
-
- "A
Power Vacuum in Iraq? How rules designed to prevent
domination hobble the creation of a new government." ... "More than two
months have passed since 8 million Iraqis braved death to go to the polls,
but still they have no new government. The new National Assembly met for
a second time on Tuesday, with agreement on the makeup of a new executive
branch as elusive as ever." ... "But the reason for the deadlock is not
simply a failure of Iraq's elected leaders to achieve consensus. The rules
of Iraqi democracy, as bequeathed by outgoing U.S. administrator J. Paul
Bremer, require the support of a two-thirds majority in the Assembly for
the creation of a new government, a standard that the U.S. political system
might struggle to meet." -By Tony Karon
-TIME.com
-
- "[Iraq]
Lawmakers fail to find consensus: Top politicians
can't form government on eve of National Assembly's 2nd meeting." ... "After
wave of violence swept central Iraq late Sunday and Monday, leaving least
nine people dead, the country's leading political parties negotiated furiously
but apparently fruitlessly Monday, a day before a scheduled meeting of
the National Assembly." ... "The violence was concentrated in an area south
of Baghdad, known as the triangle of death for the regularity with which
Iraqi civilians and security personnel are gunned down by insurgents and
criminals. With Shiite pilgrims now heading through the area to Karbala
for a religious festival, attacks on them are expected to increase." -By
Edward Wong -NYTimes
via -SFGate.com
-
-
- "A
Jihadist's Tale: How a young Jordanian left his American
life and died an insurgent in Iraq." ... "In the two years since the invasion
of Iraq, thousands of young Arabs have poured into the country to take
up arms against U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies--and, in some cases,
to seek martyrdom through suicide bombings, of which there have been at
least 136 since May 2003. The lethality of the jihadists was highlighted
on Feb. 28 when a suicide bomber detonated himself outside a health clinic
in the city of Hilla, killing at least 125 people, the worst single massacre
since the U.S. invasion. On March 11 the Amman daily newspaper Al-Ghad
identified Ra'ed al-Banna as the attacker, in an article purporting to
describe the family's wedding-like celebration of his martyrdom." ... "The
accounts of the Bannas' reported exuberance at Ra'ed's funeral have been
refuted by other accounts of the event, which depict the family as distraught.
In interviews with TIME at their home in Amman, al-Banna's family members
denied that Ra'ed was the Hilla bomber; instead, they say, he died in an
insurgent operation in Mosul. They point out that Al-Ghad later retracted
its report citing Ra'ed as the culprit." (1, 2,
3)
-By Scott Macleod with contributions by Christopher
Allbritton and Saad Hattar
-TIME.com
- 
-
-
-
-
- Osama
bin Laden
- "The
New Head of Jihad Inc.? Intelligence Officials Say
Jordanian Terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi May Be Emerging as Osama Bin Laden
Successor." ... "However big a shock a recent suicide bombing in Doha was
to the Qataris, it was far from unexpected in Western capitals, where intelligence
agencies had discreetly put out a travel warning through their respective
embassies." ... "The emirate, a key ally in the Bush administration's war
on terror, has been high on the terrorist target list ever since it became
home to the U.S. Central Command's operational headquarters in early 2003."
... "What did surprise intelligence officials was the name of the
group which claimed responsibility for the bombing: Jund al-Sham ("Soldiers
of the Levant")." ... "Although the group said that this was its first
statement, Jund al-Sham is the same name as a group started by the Jordanian
terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Intelligence officials believe it may be
a sign that Zarqawi is beginning to attack targets outside Iraq, and may,
in fact, be emerging as a replacement to Osama bin Laden as the operational
leader of the global jihad. Analysts are concerned that Zarqawi may now
begin to redeploy his cadre of militants who, having gained important combat
experience in Iraq, are capable of carrying out deadly missions elsewhere."
(1, 2,
3,
4)
-By Alexis Debat -ABCNEWS.com
-
- "Insurgent
attacks on police leave eight dead across Iraq."
... "Insurgents gunned down a neighborhood police chief and set off a suicide
bomb near a patrol guarding a holy shrine, part of a series of attacks
Monday targeting Iraqi security forces that left at least eight people
dead, including four police officers." ... "Insurgents appear to be focusing
attacks on Iraqi security forces, who are slowly taking over the fight
against Iraq's insurgency in an effort that U.S. officials hope will pave
the way for an eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops." -By
Traci Carl -AP
via -Boston/Globe
-
- "Assailants
attack in Iraq's north and south as Christians celebrate Easter."
... "A roadside bomb hit an Iraqi police patrol Sunday in a southern city
and al-Qaida's arm in Iraq posted a video purportedly showing a kidnapped
Iraqi Interior Ministry official being killed, as Iraq's newly elected
lawmakers were summoned for their much-anticipated second session." ...
"A video posted Sunday on the Internet purportedly showed an Iraqi Interior
Ministry official hostage being shot dead by militants from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's
terror network." ... "There was no way to independently authenticate the
video, which was posted on a militant Web site." -By
Edward Harris -AP
via -Boston/Globe
-
- "Iraq
Police Fire on Protesters, Kill One." ... "Violence
persisted Sunday, with bodyguards for Science and Technology Minister Rashad
Mandan Omar opening fire on a crowd of protesters who had gathered in front
of the ministry's offices to demand their full wages, said Hamid Balasem,
an engineer at the ministry." ... "Balasem said about 50 ministry guards
were demonstrating because they said they were paid only part of their
wages. It was unclear why the guards opened fire." (1, 2)
-AP via -ABCNEWS.com
-
-
- "Iraq's
insurgents 'seek exit strategy'." ... "Many of Iraq's
predominantly Sunni Arab insurgents would lay down their arms and join
the political process in exchange for guarantees of their safety and that
of their co-religionists, according to a prominent Sunni politician." ...
"Sharif Ali Bin al-Hussein, who heads Iraq's main monarchist movement and
is in contact with guerrilla leaders, said many insurgents including former
officials of the ruling Ba'ath party, army officers, and Islamists have
been searching for a way to end their campaign against US troops and Iraqi
government forces since the January 30 election." -By
Steve Negus -FT.com
-
-
-
-
- "Blair
faces renewed pressure over legality of the Iraq war."
... "Prime Minister Tony Blair's government faced renewed pressure Thursday
to explain why its top legal adviser apparently changed his mind only days
before the Iraq invasion and ruled Britain's participation in the war would
be legal." ... "Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told lawmakers Thursday that
the attorney general reached his view independently. He accused the Conservatives
of using the row as a ''smoke screen'' to divert attention from the fact
that they too backed the war." -By Ed Johnson
-AP via -Boston/Globe
-
- "Iraqi,
U.S. forces overrun rebel base, kill 85." ... "After
a two-hour firefight, Iraqi forces and U.S. helicopters captured an insurgent
base north of Baghdad, killing 85 rebels, U.S. and Iraqi military officials
said Wednesday." ... ""A previous safe haven for planning attacks has been
removed," a U.S. military official said of Tuesday's battle." ... "Although
the Iraqi military said it killed 85 insurgents during the firefight, the
U.S. military said the number of rebel dead was "undetermined."" ... "The
battle follows Sunday's ambush on a U.S. convoy south of Baghdad that the
U.S. military said left 26 insurgents dead." -Contributions
by Aneesh Raman -CNN
- 
- 
-
- "U.S.
Unveils New Pact With Canada, Mexico." ... "President
Bush, seeking smooth relations with U.S. neighbors despite dustups over
immigration, trade and defense, announced on Wednesday a pact with Canada
and Mexico to broaden cooperation on security and economic issues." ...
"Neither Mexico nor Canada backed Bush's decision to invade Iraq, and that
chilled relations between Bush and the two nations early in his first term.
Relations have generally remained amiable, however, and all three leaders
— Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul
Martin — all appeared cordial when they met with reporters here after their
trilateral meeting." -By Jennifer Loven
-AP via -SFGate.com
-
- "Iraq
anniversary marked by more fighting." ... "The start
of the third year of U.S. military operations in Iraq was marked by continuing
violence by insurgents." ... "In one of the largest battles since the elections
Jan. 30, insurgents attacked coalition forces Sunday southeast of Baghdad.
The resulting clashes left 26 insurgents dead and six American soldiers
wounded, U.S. Central Command said." -By Elliot Blair
Smith -USATODAYwith
contributions by the AP