952 replies to this topic

[DJS]

"Bogged down, quagmire, another Vietnam..." -- These predictions are beginning to fade away. The naysayers have once again been silenced. I only wonder how many more times we will have to silence them...

Fall of Baghdad 'Just Days Away'
U.S. tanks smash into presidential palace complex


JOHN DANISZEWSKI AND TONY PERRY
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

BAGHDAD — U.S. Marines nearly 25,000 strong linked up with thousands of Army infantry soldiers and isolated this faltering capital yesterday, as U.S. military intelligence said the collapse of President Saddam Hussein's regime is only days away.

"No bad guys are coming (out)," Marine Capt. Joe Plenzler said. "No bad guys are going in.''

Intelligence reports said a number of high-level officials from Saddam's Baath party were trying to flee the city. The reports said Saddam's ability to control Baghdad was slipping.

"Regime collapse is a matter of days, not weeks," one report concluded.

Two U.S. tanks smashed into a presidential palace compound in central Baghdad today, witnesses said.

"Two tanks are in the presidential compound," a Reuters correspondent said from a vantage point about 500 metres away from a main palace of President Saddam Hussein. "They are right in the heart of the city."

Shortly before dawn today, a series of heavy explosions shook downtown buildings, echoing from the southern outskirts of the capital.

Intermittent explosions were heard throughout the night, along with periodic anti-aircraft fire. As the capital shook from continued allied bombing, Iraqi state television broadcast a statement attributed to Saddam, urging soldiers who had been separated from regular units to join up with any unit they could locate.

The statement also said that anyone who destroys an allied tank, armoured personnel carrier or artillery would be awarded about $12,000.

After night fell, two C-130 Hercules transport aircraft landed at Baghdad's international airport, demonstrating that the allies were now ready to put the recently captured tarmac to their own use.

Around Baghdad, elements of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, including Cyclone Company of the 4th Battalion, 64th Armour Regiment, were in action yesterday. As the unit moved north toward Baghdad, it destroyed 12 Iraqi tanks within the distance of about 6 kilometres.

Farther east, nearly the entire 1st Marine Division was massing at a string of encampments across the Tigris River from Baghdad, less than 8 kilometres from the Iraqi capital.

Despite his government's losses, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said Sahaf insisted at a news conference that Saddam's government would triumph. "Republican Guards are still tightening the noose around the U.S. enemy in the area surrounding the airport," he said. "We destroyed six tanks and damaged 10 others and killed 50 of the enemy forces."

U.S. military sources said as many as 3,000 Iraqis were killed during Saturday's firefight, part of a major U.S. probe into Baghdad. "We have not seen any examples of organized combat action,'' said Brig-Gen. Vincent Brooks, deputy director of operations at Central Command.

He said counterattacks in and around the capital and at the airport consisted of "small pockets" of company-sized units rarely exceeding 20 to 40 vehicles. They were manned by paramilitary groups and Baath arty members.

Edited by Kissinger, 07 April 2003 - 11:35 PM.

[bobdrake12]

http://news.bbc.co.u...ast/2925375.stm



Monday, 7 April, 2003, 14:53 GMT 15:53 UK

'Chemical Ali' reported dead (excerpts)


British officials say they believe that General Ali Hassan al-Majid, the Iraqi commander better known as "Chemical Ali", has been killed in a coalition air strike in the southern city of Basra.



The discovery of the body sparked a new British offensive


He was given the name "Chemical Ali" after a gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds in 1988.


Campaign against Kurds



General Majid, believed to be in his 50s, hailed like Saddam Hussein from the northern city of Tikrit, and was considered the leader's right-hand man.

He led the 1988 campaign against Kurds in northern Iraq in which whole villages were wiped out and an estimated 100,000 Kurds were killed.

His notoriety was assured when on 16 March, 1988, Iraqi jets swooped over the town of Halabja and for five hours sprayed the city with mustard gas and the nerve agents Tabun, Sarin and VX.

It is believed 5,000 people were killed.

New York-based Human Rights Watch, in a report this year, said General Majid was responsible for the deaths or disappearances of around 100,000 non-combatant Kurds.

In 1991, he reportedly suppressed the Shiite Muslim uprising that erupted after then US President George Bush exhorted Iraqis to rid themselves of President Saddam Hussein in the wake of the first Gulf War.

[DJS]

Tone Deaf
Another letter to my European friend, Caro Rinaldo.

Dear Caro Rinaldo,

The strangest disease afflicts our pacifists over here, Rinaldo, and I see by the e-mail you sent me that it afflicts Italian pacifists, too. Especially among theologians. Our pacifist theologians are always speaking of "peace," but the tone in which they write, especially of those who disagree with them, is bombastic, fiery and murderously polemical. They are not content to disagree civilly. They describe their opponents as evil, venal, and brainless. They calumniate.

I was disappointed to read the article you sent me by the renowned and holy monk Enzo Bianchi. It is written in a tone of denunciation and invective that is unworthy of him. Actually, he does not offer any arguments. He merely heaps scorn on those who hold different views.

Is this what is known as "theological dialogue" on the continent? Things used to be better than this.

For instance, the only motive that the good and holy monk sees for the U.S. invasion of Iraq is oil. But President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have already pledged that all the oil revenues from the Iraqi oil wells must be put in a trust for the benefit of the Iraqi people. That will be the economic foundation for Iraq's recovery from the ruination of Saddam and its future free society.

If the United States had wanted Iraqi oil, we could have seized it all in 1991.

Does Father Bianchi really think that the United States is that kind of power? Is that how we treated Italy in 1945? Did we seize Italian soil, or Italian resources? Well, we did request sufficient land to bury our dead at Anzio and elsewhere.

No doubt Fr. Bianchi keeps close track of worldwide markets in crude oil. I certainly don't, but with a little research I learned that the United States now imports most of its crude oil from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela. These nations are much closer to us than the Middle East. From the Middle East, we now purchase less than 28 percent of our crude oil.

I was especially disappointed with the crude language Father Bianchi used for the president of the United States, George W. Bush. However one may disagree with President Bush politically, the record shows that no President has ever stayed closer to the Catholic clergy and people of America than he has. He has supported the Church on questions of abortion, euthanasia, cloning, tax vouchers for parental choice of schools, compassionate social policies, public recognition of faith and prayer, and many other policies. He has visited regularly with several of the cardinals. He accepts many invitations from them for appearances at important Catholic events, such as the dedication of the John Paul II Center in Washington, D.C., where he gave the best pro-life speech of any president ever.

The university entrance exams of George W. Bush ranked him higher in aptitude than either Senators Bill Bradley (a Rhodes Scholar) or Al Gore. No one who has watched Mr. Bush in action since 9/11 2001 can doubt his intellect, bravery or determination. He is a much loved, much trusted, and highly popular president.

This is not to say that President Bush is beyond criticism, or that people overseas have to like him as much as Americans do. But he has earned respect, and ought to be shown it. Argue with him if you must. Yet it is more admirable to present arguments than to display mere emotions.

Does Fr. Bianchi doubt that Saddam Hussein has inflicted horrific tortures on scores of thousands of the people of Iraq? Does he deny the annual reports of Amnesty International and the Middle East Rights Watch on the barbarous abuses of human rights in Iraq these past 25 years? I don't think that Fr. Bianchi really aligns himself with Saddam Hussein. Or even with those who maintain silence about his crimes, and acquiesce in the sufferings of the Iraqi people. Fr. Bianchi is not that kind of man.

Nor, I suspect, does Fr. Bianchi deny the fact that a huge camp for terrorists in Northern Iraq was recently overrun by the Kurdish liberation army and the American special forces. More likely, he would warn doubters to be careful, because whole caves full of files and a number of computers have now been seized, along with stores of materials for chemical and biological welfare.

Father Bianchi is such a humane and prayerful man that one poorly argued column, one unfortunate display of unworthy passions, should not be held against the body of his work.

[DJS]

April 7, 2003
At Salman Pak
Iraq’s terror ties.


Confirming that Operation Iraqi Freedom is an integral part of the war on terror, soldiers of the 7th Marine Regiment destroyed a suspected terrorist camp early Sunday en route to Baghdad. Located a mile east of the Tigris River, the Salman Pak base was exactly where U.S. terrorism experts and Iraqi defectors said it would be.

Ex-CIA Director James Woolsey, Clinton Iraqi policy adviser Laurie Mylroie, former Iraqi nuclear chief Khidir Hamza and émigré Iraqi army colonel Sabah Khodada are among those who say that Saddam Hussein used Salman Pak to instruct terrorists in bomb making, assassination, and hijacking (see "The 9/11 Connection"). Key to this objective was an airplane fuselage in which Islamic extremists honed their air-piracy skills. Initial reports from the camp vindicate those suspicions.

"The rusted shell of an old passenger jet sat out in a field, its tail broken off," an Associated Press dispatch reported Sunday. "Good for hijacking practice, U.S. Marines speculated Sunday as they examined an Iraqi training base about 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Baghdad."

Nessman added: "The passenger plane's sun-bleached fuselage lay alone in a large, barren field. A fire engine sat at one intersection. Elsewhere, the twisted metal wreck of a double-decker bus stood near three decrepit green and red train cars." These latter details bolster charges that Salman Pak also showed terrorists how to seize buses and trains.

The Marines shelled then entered Salman Pak — named after a 7th Century Persian convert to Islam who was the prophet Mohammed's barber — after it was discussed by Egyptian and Sudanese fighters caught elsewhere in Iraq.

As the U.S. Army's stoic and crisp Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told reporters Sunday, "The nature of the work being done by some of those people that we captured, their inferences to the type of training that they received, all of these things give us the impression that there was terrorist training that was conducted at Salman Pak."

American GIs also searched the facility's buildings.

"We're trying to find anything of intel value, to see how they train and possibly their terrorist tactics," Gunnery Sergeant Scott Stalker — the 7th Marines 28-year-old intelligence chief from Baypoint, California — told the AP.

As soldiers press on to victory, analysts now will sift through Salman Pak and its papers to find dots to connect to terrorist activities and groups, possibly including al Qaeda. A key question for them is whether the September 11 conspirators practiced their hijacking chops at this base.

"We'll pull documents out of it and see what the documents say, if there's any links or indications," General Brooks said. "We'll look and see if there's any persons that are recovered that may not be Iraqi. All of that is detailed and deliberate work that happens after the fact."


— Mr. Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service.

[bobdrake12]

This is a follow-up to today's BBC article, "'Chemical Ali' reported dead", posted on the previous page.

bob



http://www.hrw.org/p...01/iraq0117.htm






Prosecute Iraq's "Chemical Ali" (excerpts)

Saddam Hussein Aide Accused of Atrocities Against Kurds


New York, January 17, 2003) Human Rights Watch called today for the immediate arrest and prosecution of Iraqi General Ali Hassan al-Majid, the architect of the 1988 genocidal "Anfal" campaign against the Iraqi Kurds, who is currently traveling through the Middle East.


Al-Majid commanded Iraq's notorious "Anfal" campaign, which resulted in the murder and "disappearance" of some 100,000 Kurds and was marked by the use of chemical weapons, according to a Human Rights Watch book on that campaign, Genocide In Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds (http://www.hrw.org/r...1993/iraqanfal/). Al-Majid is widely known in Iraq as "Chemical Ali" for his repeated use of outlawed chemical warfare. He was later in charge of Iraq's brutal military occupation of Kuwait.

"Al-Majid is Saddam Hussein's hatchet man. He has been involved in some of Iraq's worst crimes -- including genocide and crimes against humanity," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "Bringing him to justice is an essential priority."

Who is Ali Hassan al-Majid?


Ali Hassan al-Majid, as secretary general of the Northern Bureau of Iraq's Ba'th Party, held authority over all agencies of the state in the Kurdish region from March 1987 to April 1989, including the 1st and 5th Corps of the army, the General Security Directorate, and Military Intelligence. This included the period of the "Anfal" genocide against the region's Kurdish residents. One of his orders, dated June 20, 1987, directed army commanders "to carry out special bombardments [a reference to chemical weapon use]...to kill the largest number of persons present in...prohibited zones."

Named after a Koranic verse, justifying pillage of properties of infidels, the "Anfal" campaign unfolded as the 1980-1988 Iran/Iraq war was winding down. The Anfal campaign, under al-Majid's command, resulted in the murder and "disappearance" of some 100,000 noncombatants, the use of chemical weapons against non-combatants in dozens of locations, and the near-total destruction of family and community assets, including agricultural and other infrastructure, throughout the rural Kurdish areas. Documents captured from Iraqi intelligence services demonstrate that the mass killings, "disappearances," forced displacement, and other crimes were carried out in a coherent and highly centralized manner under al-Majid's direct supervision. Ali Hassan al-Majid was subsequently in charge of Iraq's military occupation of Kuwait and led forces that suppressed the popular uprising in the south of the country in March 1991. All of these campaigns were marked by executions, arbitrary arrests, "disappearances," torture and other atrocities.

"Chemical Ali posing as a peace envoy is like Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladic lecturing on human rights," said Roth. "He should be received by prison guards, not heads of state."

According to Iraqi opposition activists and refugee testimony, al-Majid also played a leading role in the campaign against Iraq's Marsh Arab population in the 1990s, a campaign that included the systematic bombardment of villages, torture, "disappearances," forced displacement, which reduced a community that once numbered over a quarter of a million people to less than 40,000 today.

"Chemical Ali" in his own Words

According to a 1988 audiotape of a meeting of leading Iraqi officials published by Human Rights Watch, al-Majid vowed to use chemical weapons against the Kurds, saying:

"I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? Fuck them! the international community, and those who listen to them!

"I will not attack them with chemicals just one day, but I will continue to attack them with chemicals for fifteen days."

The Legal Basis for a Prosecution

According to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon are state parties, these government are under an international legal obligation to prosecute -- or to extradite for prosecution -- persons on its territory accused of torture, no matter where the torture was committed. Similarly, under the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria have ratified, these governments undertook to prevent and to punish acts of genocide. Finally, all four countries have ratified the Geneva Conventions, which prescribes that states parties must search for persons alleged to have committed war crimes, and bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before their own courts.


© Copyright 2003, Human Rights Watch

Edited by bobdrake12, 08 April 2003 - 12:21 AM.

[bobdrake12]

If a regime commits atrocities, might that regime also lie?

bob


southnews

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf


http://www.foxnews.c...3,83385,00.html

Iraq's Information Minister Denies Baghdad Siege

Monday, April 07, 2003



BAGHDAD, Iraq — With U.S. tanks rolling into central Baghdad, Iraq's information minister denied in a rooftop news conference Monday that the Americans were in the city, declaring: "Be assured Baghdad is safe, secure and great."

"They are sick in their minds. They say they brought 65 tanks into center of city. I say to you this talk is not true. This is part of their sick mind," Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf said. "There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad at all."

Sahhaf, speaking outside the Palestine Hotel to a crowd of foreign reporters, said amid sirens and clouds of dust that Saddam Hussein's forces had given invading coalition forces "poison and bitterness."

"Their forces committed suicide by the hundreds. ... The battle is very fierce and God made us victorious. The fighting continues," he said. "Yesterday, we slaughtered them and we will continue to slaughter them."

Sahhaf said coalition forces pushed one of the armored carriers and tanks into the city and "we killed most of them and we will get of rid of them soon. Baghdad will be their graveyard."

Reacting to reports that the U.N. Security Council was to meet Monday, he called on the United Nations to denounce the war "before the United Nations becomes a place for prostitution under the feet of the Americans."


Copyright 2003 FOX News Network

Edited by bobdrake12, 08 April 2003 - 12:38 AM.

[bobdrake12]

BBC

http://msnbc.com/news/870749.asp


Saddam, sons targeted in airstrike (excerpts)

U.S. officials tell NBC News some or all could be dead

April 8 — A U.S. Air Force warplane dropped four enormous bombs on a residential complex where “extremely reliable” intelligence indicated that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and one or both of his two sons were attending a meeting, senior administration officials told NBC News late Monday. The sources would not rule out the possibility that Saddam could have moved before the bomber struck, but they said it was likely that he and his sons were dead.

[bobdrake12]

http://www.indict.or...icle=news180303

See men shredded, then say you don't back war (excerpts)

The Times (London), 18 March 2003, by Ann Clwyd


"There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food . . . on one occasion, I saw Qusay [President Saddam Hussein’s youngest son] personally supervise these murders.”

This is one of the many witness statements that were taken by researchers from INDICT — the organisation I chair — to provide evidence for legal cases against specific Iraqi individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. This account was taken in the past two weeks.

Another witness told us about practices of the security services towards women: “Women were suspended by their hair as their families watched; men were forced to watch as their wives were raped . . . women were suspended by their legs while they were menstruating until their periods were over, a procedure designed to cause humiliation.”

The accounts INDICT has heard over the past six years are disgusting and horrifying. Our task is not merely passively to record what we are told but to challenge it as well, so that the evidence we produce is of the highest quality. All witnesses swear that their statements are true and sign them.

For these humanitarian reasons alone, it is essential to liberate the people of Iraq from the regime of Saddam. The 17 UN resolutions passed since 1991 on Iraq include Resolution 688, which calls for an end to repression of Iraqi civilians. It has been ignored. Torture, execution and ethnic-cleansing are everyday life in Saddam’s Iraq.

Were it not for the no-fly zones in the south and north of Iraq — which some people still claim are illegal — the Kurds and the Shia would no doubt still be attacked by Iraqi helicopter gunships.

For more than 20 years, senior Iraqi officials have committed genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. This list includes far more than the gassing of 5,000 in Halabja and other villages in 1988. It includes serial war crimes during the Iran-Iraq war; the genocidal Anfal campaign against the Iraqi Kurds in 1987-88; the invasion of Kuwait and the killing of more than 1,000 Kuwaiti civilians; the violent suppression, which I witnessed, of the 1991 Kurdish uprising that led to 30,000 or more civilian deaths; the draining of the Southern Marshes during the 1990s, which ethnically cleansed thousands of Shias; and the summary executions of thousands of political opponents.

Many Iraqis wonder why the world applauded the military intervention that eventually rescued the Cambodians from Pol Pot and the Ugandans from Idi Amin when these took place without UN help. They ask why the world has ignored the crimes against them?

All these crimes have been recorded in detail by the UN, the US, Kuwaiti, British, Iranian and other Governments and groups such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and INDICT. Yet the Security Council has failed to set up a war crimes tribunal on Iraq because of opposition from France, China and Russia. As a result, no Iraqi official has ever been indicted for some of the worst crimes of the 20th century. I have said incessantly that I would have preferred such a tribunal to war. But the time for offering Saddam incentives and more time is over.

© INDICT, 2003

Edited by bobdrake12, 08 April 2003 - 03:34 AM.

[DJS]

The lies by Iraqi Disinformation Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf are becoming more and more transparent. I would find it humorous to have him giving another one of his "news conference" telling the Arab world that US forces were no where near Baghdad when US troops walk in the room and take him away. lol

Also, has anyone heard any info on

1). Possible ricin attack on Cohn film festival planned by the terrorist organization that was taken out in North Iraq (I forgot its name). It is said the attack was planned to be a massive terror attack designed at taking out prominent members of the film industry and the Jewish community.

2). Retired Russian generals were hired out as "contractors" by the Baath party. Supposedly they helped out the Iraqis with logistics over the past few weeks, as well as providing tactical info on US troop deployment using Russian satellite resources. Most of these contractors were "accidentally killed" by US forces in a gun battle that lasted between 30 and 40 minutes. Rumors floating that Condi Rice made a secrete emergency trip to Moscow to meet with Putin to appraise him of the situation. Stratfor.com confirms the Rice trip, and claims that both parties wanted the trip to be "low key".

Heard both stories on Batchelor and Alexander Show tonight, but can't find any confirmation info. If anyone hears anything please post.

Thanks
Kissinger

Edited by Kissinger, 08 April 2003 - 05:16 AM.

[Lazarus Long]

http://story.news.ya...d=540&ncid=1480
Bush Choice for Postwar Iraq Questioned
13 minutes ago

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The retired Army general who will oversee the rebuilding of Iraq signed a statement that accused Palestinians of filling their children with hate and that praised Israel — comments that could complicate his new job in the tinderbox Persian Gulf.

Arab and Muslim leaders say retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner's involvement with the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs — including the document he signed and a trip he took to Israel — raises questions about whether he is the right person to oversee Iraq's reconstruction.

"I honestly think when Iraqis find out (about the statement) they are going to be genuinely appalled," said Hussein Ibish, a spokesman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Garner was one of more than 40 retired U.S. military leaders to sign his name to a letter 2 1/2 years ago amid renewed Mideast violence. The letter strongly supported Israel for exercising "remarkable restraint" and blamed the crisis on Palestinian leaders.

A Palestinian tactic to "use civilians as soldiers in a war is a perversion of military ethics," the statement said.

Palestinian leaders taught children the mechanics of war while "filling their heads with hate," and Palestinian police and military commanders were "betting their children's lives on the capabilities and restraint" of Israeli defense forces, the statement added.

The Palestinians are "callously using the inevitable casualties as grist for their propaganda mill," it said.

Garner, who 12 years ago oversaw U.S. efforts to aid Kurds in northern Iraq after the first Gulf War (news - web sites), is among more than 250 retired American military officers who have traveled to Israel with JINSA over the years. Garner, 64, served two tours in the Vietnam War and was the commanding general of the Army Space and Strategic Defense Command before retiring in 1997.

The three-decade-old JINSA, which aims to educate the public about American defense policy and officials about Israel's importance, said the statement and Garner's travel to Israel should have no bearing on his new job.

"A distinguished general spends 31 years of his life in the military and because he spent 10 days of his life in Israel, they question his ability to serve the president in Iraq," JINSA spokesman Jim Colbert said Tuesday.

Some Arab critics predict Garner's selection for the reconstruction job by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld will be met with strong objections in the Middle East.

"There have been well over 2,000 Palestinians killed in the past 2 1/2 years and the Iraqis know who killed them," said University of Chicago Professor Rashid Khalidi, who specializes in Middle Eastern history.

Sarah Eltantawi, spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, called the choice of Garner "very unwise — it will not reinforce among the Iraqis the sentiment that their leadership is representative."

Garner probably will respond to such criticism when he begins holding news conferences in Kuwait, where he is setting up his operations, said spokesman Capt. Nathan Jones.

Richard Murphy, assistant secretary of state for Near East and South Asian relations during the Reagan administration, said, "The assumption unfortunately in Iraq and in the region is that we're in Iraq to seize oil and push it to sign a peace treaty with Israel."

That assumption is "a challenge to all of the people sent out there," including Garner, Murphy said.

In the end, Iraqis will judge Garner on the job he does on their behalf, not by a statement he signed more than two years ago, said Murphy.
The statement strongly urged America to remain "a friend of Israel" in the face of the Palestinian uprising while remaining a facilitator in the efforts to bring peace to the region.

"The Palestinian-initiated violence in Israel now strongly tells us that the necessary good faith is sorely lacking on the Palestinian side," the statement added.

___

On the Web:

Copy of JINSA letter: http://www.jinsa.org.../3,650,122,1043

[Lazarus Long]

http://www.denverpos...1308415,00.html
Basra collapses into death, disorder
By Bruce Finley

BASRA, Iraq - They died in the mud at the edge of a pond - a dozen paramilitary fighters with rocket-propelled grenades, rifles and blankets.
Some were Iraqis. Others came from Syria and Saudi Arabia. One of them, making this last stand for Saddam Hussein, apparently had tried to sleep, burrowing into a berm.

Bullets tore into them, a head here, thigh there, chest, neck. Now Iraqi Red Crescent volunteers wearing clear plastic gloves, mouths and noses covered, waded into the mud and lifted out the bloated bodies.

These men are "martyrs," said Enas, 24, a schoolteacher who helped lug a bloodstained stretcher. "They were resisting," she said. "My heart is broken for these dead soldiers."

Monday brought many sorry scenes like this, as coalition tanks and paratroopers punched into the heart of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city.

While the Red Crescent workers loaded their dead onto a pickup, British soldiers nearby lay on their bellies. "Apparently there's mortars coming in," Rob Hammond, 26, said as he flattened himself at the side of the road.

The British targeted local militiamen, "small bands but vicious when they catch you," said British army Sgt. Maj. Pat Geraghty, 37, standing nearby after ordering a bulldozer to raze an empty home.

The dozen fighters who died by the pond were typical of the trouble, Geraghty said. British troops captured an Algerian among them, he said, as well as an Iraqi who pretended to be dead. Red Crescent workers said the dead also included Saudis and Syrians.

Geraghty, too, was heartbroken Monday. "I lost two of me boys," he said softly.

Tanks roared. At noon, two Cobra helicopters clattered overhead, "a fly-by to see if they can see anything we can't," said U.S. Marine Cpl. Steve Salicos, gripping his black M-16, moving on the ground past a defaced portrait of Hussein. Troops advanced across the city, then focused on mop-up patrols across a landscape of black smoke plumes, rubble, and twisted Iraqi tanks and trucks.

Basra, population 1.3 million, more or less fell by sunset. Where the city will ultimately land is the question. Residents erupted in a frenzy of looting - gutting their university, oil ministry and premier hotel at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Law and order no longer seemed to matter.

Inside the University of Basra, men and boys scavenged through shattered glass and flames. Portraits of Hussein were defaced. Marauders snatched swivel chairs, shelves, appliances - almost anything of value down to wood. Ali Hatu, 31, opened a white sack showing empty soft drink bottles and blue curtains.

Some looters rode in from surrounding farm towns. One farmer whipped his white donkey, towing a refrigerator on his tiny cart. At Basra's fanciest hotel, once a Sheraton, black smoke billowed from the back. A smiling man strode away from the entrance carrying a large satellite dish on his head.

Retired Iraqi Petroleum Co. manager Amir Humadi, 67, concentrated on finding a new house. After 40 years supervising shipping, he'd never been given a house or car. Hussein's elite, "they always have a good house, a car, a comfortable life," Humadi said.

But two years ago, when he retired, he moved his family from Basra west to dusty Zubayr. His son-in-law had to move to Germany for work to support the family.

Now Humadi was determined to put things right. He found and occupied "a big house, a company house," he declared proudly. "I am entitled."

The man next door had done the same. Now this "neighbor" hopefully would watch Humadi's place while he rushed home to persuade his wife and daughter to move. "I told the neighbor to keep an eye out." Humadi said as he searched for a ride to Zubayr.

Iraqis here generally welcomed the British-U.S. takeover. A few carried flowers and confetti.

Some whispered messages to visitors: "Saddam Hussein is a son of a bitch," one said - reluctant to identify themselves fully because loyalists still control pockets of the city.

"Saddam Hussein killed my two brothers and father," said Mohamad, 28. "And he cut my ears." He slowly lowered a tightly wrapped head scarf to show the gashes - a common punishment for army deserters.

Then Mohamad pulled from his back pocket some photos. They showed dead bodies, burnt, flayed. "Look!" One photo showed three smiling men at a banquet table. "Look! The militia of Saddam."

Troops said imposing law and order here could be hard.

"This is wrong. It isn't civilized, is it?" said British infantryman Bruce De'ath, 21, on patrol just west of the university.

Early in the day, a boy with a burned face sought help from British paratrooper Matthew Penney, 29. The memory of that boy lingered with Penney, he said, as he led Monday's push with other paratroopers, murmuring into their microphones, stopping at intersections and looking into their telescopic rifle sites in search of militiamen.

"These things happen," he said of the child.

And some Iraqis acknowledged the ugliness during what could have been a day of pure celebration.

"Life now will be better, because we have freedom now. I feel sorry for the dead, and I am against this stealing," said Mohamad al-Mayde, 31, a father of two. "But people here are very poor. They are lucky to eat one meal a day. They suffer too much for Saddam. This gives people an excuse."

[Lazarus Long]

http://story.news.ya..._street_battles
Still Descends on Iraqi Capital After Raging Street Battles
Tue Apr 8, 8:58 AM ET
By JOHN F. BURNS The New York Times

BAGHDAD, Tuesday, April 8 - A still descended on the city after raging battles that lasted all morning and left the Americans in firm control of an area encompassing the principal seats of governmental power.

American forces held an area stretching upwards of a mile and a half along the western bank of the Tigris River, and inland at least a mile deep. That area contains several presidential palaces and ministries, including the Information and Planning departments, the radio and television center and the Al Rashid and Mansour hotels. The Americans also took at least one of the three bridges across the Tigris.

The day's battle lasted six or seven hours and appeared to have involved American tanks and infantry moving north from the Republican palace which the Americans seized in a raid from the airport at dawn on Monday.

Overnight these forces battled through pitched blackness, without a moon and with the city's electrical system shut down. Iraqi forces fought back from inside the palace and suicide bombers threw themselves against tanks.

At the Palestine Hotel, a thousand yards away, sounds of fire were heard and flashes from tanks were seen lighting up the gates and gardens of the palace. At dawn, the Americans moved north from the palace which lies on a bend in the Tigris up the riverbank toward the rest of the presidential compound, crossing through areas that have been heavily bombed in the past 18 days.

The toll on Iraqis appeared to have been severe, and senior Iraqi officials at the Palestine Hotel were seen clutching each other with tears rolling down their faces, whether for concern about their personal safety or about the pounding being taken by Iraqi forces could not be known. That pounding includes a devastating assault Monday that targeted Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and his two sons at a large residential compound in the Mansour district.

Iraqi television devoted its broadcasts through Tuesday morning, at the height of the battle in the presidential compound, to old film of Mr. Hussein being greeted by an adoring crowd accompanied by choirs singing praises to him and his sons, routine fare for Baghdad TV, and thus no firm indicator of whether the leader had survived.

The TV went off the air in the late morning after American troops pushed out of the presidential compound and made their way up a boulevard about a thousand yards further north, to the area of the Information Ministry and broadcast center.

The battle heightened as American troops reached the point where the compound abuts the Al Jumhiriya bridge, one of three midtown bridges. Bursts of fire escaped from the muzzles of Abrams tanks, and Iraqi defenders fought back with machine gun and rocket fire. American A-10 Warthog tank-buster aircraft hovered in the dense black smoke above the battle, diving every few minutes and releasing bombs on Iraqi positions.

At about 8:45 a.m., three Abrams tanks moved onto the bridge and advanced about 500 yards toward the eastern bank, halting for three hours at the first bridge support. The tanks could be seen firing shells at Iraqi targets on the bank, including a 10-story building south of the bridge, from which rifle, rocket and machine gun fire had been directed at the tanks.

Resistance from the building appeared to subside after the Americans fired about a dozen shells. The tanks later turned their barrels across the river and to the south, in the direction of Iraqi targets a mile or more away.

At this point reporters in the Sheraton Hotel adjacent to the Palestine could see an intensive battle raging along Al Rashid military airfield about five miles away; that apparently was the point of the furthest advance of American marines, who crossed a tributary of the Tigris on Monday.

In the early afternoon a shell evidently struck the Palestine Hotel, destroying a room on the 15th floor on the east side with a view to the battle that was raging across the river at the presidential compound. Five journalists in the room at the time were injured including four Reuters staff members and a Spanish television cameraman.

The wounded were carried out of the hotel and taken by car to Iraqi hospital, where their injuries were described as serious. One was a woman carried out wrapped in a bloodied sheet.

An American general, Gen. Buford Blount, commander of the Third Infantry Division, was quoted on the Reuters news wire shortly after the incident saying that an American tank had fired a single round at the hotel.

``The tank was receiving small arms fire and RPG fire from the hotel and engaged the target with one tank round,'' the general said, referring to rocket-propelled grenades.

In the hours before the strike, Iraqi fighters had taken positions in buildings adjacent to the Palestine and Sheraton hotels to fire against the Americans.

The attack led to scenes of near panic inside the Palestine Hotel, with journalists rushing down darkened stairwells to the hotel forecourt, many in flight jackets and helmets.

Some senior Iraqi officials appeared to have abandoned the hotel where they took up residence during the first 20 days of the war in an apparent attempt to find safety for themselves in a building they assumed would be immune from bombing and ground fire. Journalists tempted to leave the immediate area were ordered to remain.

Despite the ferocious fighting, some elements of normal daily life continued. Taxis painted their regulation orange and white could be seen cruising for fares, and a horse-drawn dray moved slowly down the street behind the Palestine Hotel delivering water supplies to homes and businesses.

People could be seen clustering under building eaves, seeking protection from the battle, while others dashed across the street, glancing to the battles in the north. By lunchtime, as the battle subsided, government workers appeared to check through the neighborhood for damage.

http://www.iraqbodyc...t/bodycount.htm

[Lazarus Long]

http://www.thestate....ion/5583406.htm

U.S. must be ready for postwar diplomatic world
By DONALD J. PUCHALA
Posted on Tue, Apr. 08, 2003
Guest columnist

The diplomatic disarray at the United Nations that preceded the U.S.-British go-it-alone invasion of Iraq was not entirely the result of American unreasonableness, ineptitude or insensitivity. Those governments that hid behind the facade of "inspections for the sake of inspections" sent all the wrong messages to Saddam Hussein, and, in so doing, rendered impossible the "political settlement" they were seeking.

Still, American diplomacy was clumsy: High-level consultation was too limited, the domestic political pressures facing other governments were too little appreciated, and manifest U.N. vote buying was distasteful. Most of all, the Bush administration failed to make a persuasive case for removing Saddam Hussein and dismantling his regime. Disarming Saddam garnered a great deal more international support than dethroning him, and few others accepted that it was really necessary to dethrone him in order to disarm him.

A good part of the American failure to rally support for removing Saddam Hussein followed from Washington's inability to project a credible vision of what the Middle East might look like after the menace of Saddam was removed. Postwar environments typically create opportunities for bold diplomatic initiatives, and the time for grasping such opportunities may be near at hand.

It first needs to be demonstrated that those prophesying chaos in a post-Saddam Iraq are mistaken, that the peoples of Iraq are capable of governing themselves and that Iraq is no longer a threat to its neighbors. Whatever its shortcomings as a peacemaker, the U.N. has proven to be a competent peacekeeper, and it has established a respectable track record as humanitarian caregiver and a rebuilder of collapsed states. Washington needs now to recognize the continuing role of the United Nations in Iraq, and to support and generously finance U.N. efforts to rehabilitate the country.

Three more diplomatic initiatives must then follow. Most importantly, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict needs to be removed from the world agenda, or, at the very least, the United States needs to put forth a sincere effort to remove it. American partiality toward Israel is a chief grievance among Muslims all over the world: It is a principal reason given for widespread anti-Americanism across much of the Third World, and it is also a main reason why Islamic fundamentalist terrorists are targeting the United States. Because the United States has levers of influence over Israel, and because the United States is still listened to by Palestinians, only the United States can mount the outside pressure that may move the contending parties toward settlement.

The United States must start exercising whatever influence it has to moderate the policies of the Israeli government. A workable settlement has to include a Palestinian state, the removal of Israeli settlements from Palestinian areas and the sharing of Jerusalem. It must also include a security guarantee for Israel. A settlement in Palestine would render the Middle East more stable and the United States more secure.

It is also time to re-establish a normal relationship with Iran. The Iranian Revolution is long past and rapidly fizzling around its radical edges. The hostage crisis is similarly a historical artifact, regrettable but hardly relevant today. Reformist tendencies are creeping into Iranian politics, middle-class consumerist culture is on display in Iranian cities, and Iran is among OPEC's moderates these days. Iranian military capabilities contribute to maintaining, not upsetting, the geostrategic equilibrium of Western Asia.

There is no reason why Washington and Tehran should remain estranged. Reconciling American-Iranian differences would diminish needs for large and continuing U.S. military deployments in the Persian Gulf; create opportunities for commercial dealings; diminish Iranian appetites for nuclear weapons; contribute to overall stability in the Middle East; and possibly move Iran farther along the way to democracy.

Finally, there is Saudi Arabia. In a postwar, post-Saddam world, there is no compelling reason why the United States needs to station military forces in this intensely Islamic, politically traditional, Arab country. Instead, there are important reasons to remove these forces as soon as possible.

They are unwelcome in the eyes of the people of Saudi Arabia, and their presence foments opposition to the Saudi government that reluctantly hosts them. They symbolize ties to the United States that invite terrorist attacks, they nurture the notion that America's main concern in the Middle East is oil, and they depict an American imperial vocation for those who want to see things this way. Withdrawing forces from Saudi Arabia would diminish American military clout in western and south Asia, but it would also contribute importantly to heightened American political influence in the Middle East. It also might contribute to the longer-term stability of the Saudi government.

Pacification in Iraq, conflict resolution in Palestine, reconciliation with Iran and military withdrawal from Saudi Arabia, accomplished in combination, might contribute to creating the "new Middle East" that pundits are today talking about. What too few of these analysts note, however, is that the changes in policy necessary to create this new Middle East will have to be changes in American policy.

[Lazarus Long]

http://www.miami.com...ion/5581256.htm

Democracy could bring unexpected
Posted on Tue, Apr. 08, 2003
Max Castro

The staunchest supporters of this war believe that it will bring democracy to Iraq and, by extension, to the entire Middle East. Leaving aside the dubious assumptions on which this hope rests, such as the idea that democracy can be imposed on other countries and cultures by force of arms, what would democracy in the Middle East mean and would the United States be able to live with it?

Latin America's mass revulsion with the U.S. invasion of Iraq might offer a sobering preview.

For decades, the United States supported Latin American dictators and democrats alternatively, depending on who was more willing to do its bidding. In the late 1970s, the Carter administration introduced a more-principled approach based on human rights.

Thereafter, promotion of democracy became an important element of U.S. policy toward Latin America. That was a major positive change, despite the fact that implementation of the policy has varied, depending on the administration in power, and has not always been consistent with the democratic principle.

An important consequence of democracy is that public opinion counts. Public opinion in Latin America often is at odds with U.S. policies, especially those of hard-line administrations such as this one. This is a problem even for governments who desperately want good relations with Washington.

Democracy in Latin American has brought the development of a civil society of organized citizens who manifest their opinions forcefully and in ways that cannot be ignored by their leaders.

In the bad old days, the United States was able to cut deals with Latin American dictators that in no way reflected the sentiments of their people or the interests of their countries. The United States was able to obtain support from the weak democracies and military dictatorships of Latin America for the diplomatic isolation of Cuba in 1962 and the invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965. By the 1980s, Latin America was changing, and the United States was forced to carry out the invasions of Grenada and Panama without the veneer of legitimacy afforded earlier interventions by the Organization of American States.

The war in Iraq has brought to a head the growing contradiction between a democratic Latin America and an imperious United States. Despite plenty of arm-twisting, the United States was unable to obtain the U.N. Security Council votes of Chile and Mexico for its Iraq war resolution. Both nations have extremely friendly relations with the United States, and both know the importance of U.S. goodwill to their economies.

One needn't look further than a recent opinion poll published in Chile's conservative daily, El Mercurio, for a reason behind the Chile-Mexico rebellion. The poll showed 98 percent of Chileans oppose the invasion of Iraq. Little wonder that in Latin America the United States has been able to rally only seven governments -- Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama -- behind it. It's a coalition of the very dependent and the very opportunistic.

The depth of opposition in the region derives in part from the fact that, from the Latin American perspective, the world suddenly has become like Latin America in two respects: One, the United States is now asserting, on a global scale, the same ''right'' to intervene unilaterally and with only the thinnest veneer of legality it long exercised in Latin America. Two, widespread rejection of U.S. arrogance, once a Latin American specialty, has now become global as well, reinforcing the Latin American attitude.

Be careful what you wish for. With the Arab world now more outraged at the United States than Latin America, democracy in the Middle East could bring U.S. hawks some unpleasant surprises.

maxjcastro@yahoo.com

[Lazarus Long]

http://story.news.ya...d=540&ncid=1480
Bush, Blair Vow Iraqis Will Rule Iraq
12 minutes ago
By RON FOURNIER, AP White House Correspondent

HILLSBOROUGH, Northern Ireland - Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) is losing his grip on power "finger by finger," President Bush (news - web sites) said Tuesday as he sought with ally Tony Blair (news - web sites) to ease concerns that their conquering alliance will dominate postwar life in oil-rich Iraq (news - web sites).

"I hear a lot of talk here about how we're going to impose this leader or that leader. Forget it," Bush said at a news conference with the British prime minister outside Belfast. "Iraqis are plenty capable of running Iraq and that is precisely what is going to happen."

Blair said the U.S.-British role was merely to help in the transition from years of dictatorship to self-rule.

"This new Iraq that will emerge is not to be run either by us or, indeed, by the U.N. That is a false choice," Blair said. "It will run by the Iraqi people."

Addressing reporters in the gilded throne room of an 18th century castle, Bush and Blair offered personal assessments of the war — all positive.

The two leaders also said they would cede power in the country as soon as possible, involve Iraqi citizens from the outset in the creation of a transitional government and give a "vital role" to the United Nations in reconstruction.

But the leaders — meeting for the third time in three weeks — offered few details about the exact U.N. role or the makeup of the interim governing authority. Bush said his word should be good enough.

"Evidently, there's some skepticism here in Europe about whether or not I mean what I say. Saddam Hussein clearly now knows I mean what I say," Bush said.

Questions about the U.N.'s role persisted. "I don't think we have a clearer sense of what that role might be," said Fred Eckhard, spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites). He said, "It would be in everyone's best interest if the international community were brought to play in the establishment" of a postwar Iraqi government or authority.

As Bush spoke, U.S. military intelligence officials were using several means, including DNA testing, to determine whether Saddam or his sons survived a Monday night attack on a Baghdad restaurant. Four bunker-busting bombs left a smoking crater 60 feet deep.

Bush said the fate of the Iraqi president's regime is certain, regardless of the success of the strikes.

"Saddam Hussein will be gone," the president said. "It might have been yesterday. I don't know. But he'll be gone."

The comment reflected a desire by Bush and Blair, since the first day of the war, to convince Iraqis that coalition forces will not stop short of ousting Saddam as they did in the 1991 Persian Gulf War (news - web sites) led by Bush's father.

"He has ruled by fear, but as the knowledge sinks in that we will get the job done, the people realize there's not going to be a repeat of 1991," Blair said.

Bush said coalition troops have steadily loosened the grip "Saddam had around the throats" of Iraqis: "I can't tell you if all ten fingers are off the throat, but finger by finger, it's coming off."

The weapons of mass destruction that Saddam is believed to possess and were the justification for war — but which have not yet been found — received scant mention. Blair said, "We know that as the regime collapses, we will be led to them."

The summit drew protests in Belfast, a British city a dozen miles away from the meeting site that has been torn by decades of conflict. Outside City Hall, about 100 anti-war protesters blocked traffic, shouted slogans, banged drums and carried signs sympathetic to the Iraqis such as, "You dare to call them terrorists as you bomb their homes."

Police contained the demonstration, arresting about half a dozen protesters as hundreds of pedestrians watched at midday.

Bush traveled to Northern Ireland at Blair's behest to embrace the prime minister's peace blueprint, due out later this week. It was a political payback; Blair backed the president's Iraqi policies despite fierce opposition at home.

Blair has been pushing Bush to give the United Nations significant authority in postwar Iraq, partly to ease criticism from allies who fear the two leaders will rule Iraq alone.

Pressed to define the U.N.'s role, Bush said it can provide humanitarian assistance, raise money and make suggestions about the makeup of the interim authority. It was nothing near the broad mandate some allies have sought, though Blair and Bush stressed the points on which they agree and largely ignored those on which they do not.

In their joint statement, Bush and Blair said an interim authority will be formed by Iraqi people working with the coalition and the United Nations.

"As the coalition forces advance, civilian Iraqi leaders will emerge who can be part of such an interim authority," the statement read.

The White House has said military leaders will control Iraq in the first postwar stage, while security is still tenuous. The interim authority will slowly evolve after taking root early, perhaps even before Baghdad falls.

It will take months, likely years, before Iraq is self-governing, U.S. officials said.

[Lazarus Long]

http://story.news.ya...0&e=1&ncid=1480
IRAQ: A Divided Opposition Heads Back
13 minutes ago
Sanjay Suri,Inter Press Service

LONDON, Apr 8 (IPS) - A visibly divided Iraqi opposition leadership is heading back to take up political life in the name of the people.

The divisions emerged Tuesday even before confirmation of the fate of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). A group of opposition leaders sat together at a press conference in London and frequently contradicted one another.

Members of the Iraqi opposition groups seemed to agree only that they will meet in the southern Iraqi city Nasiriyah Saturday. "We hope all opposition groups will be represented," Dr. Ghassan Atiyyah, editor of the publication Iraqi File told media representatives.

But if the differences that arose in London are anything to go by, they seem set to be multiplied in Nasiriyah.

"The majority want the monarchy as the best guarantee of the return of democracy," said Sharif Ali Hussain, a cousin of the former king and now head of the Monarchist Constitutional Movement. He did not say how he had assessed this to be the majority view. Not even the majority on the panel seemed to agree.

Sharif Ali said opposition groups have been working closely with the United States government for a long time. This will continue for some time, he said. "In the immediate phase the British and American forces will be in charge on the ground, arresting people, fixing the water supply etc.," he said. "Then an internal authority will be created."

Later the Iraqis will elect their own government, he said. In the immediate the U.S. and British forces "are under a legal obligation to take care of the welfare of the Iraqi people." He said the interim phase when the Americans and the British take charge "could be a few months, it could be two years."

Atiyyah immediately challenged him. "The Americans are planning everything, but they have not dealt yet with the Iraqi opposition and Iraqis as a whole as partners," he said. "We hope that this situation will be rectified in the near future."

Iraqis will have to find a new constitution, he said, "but not under the authority of Americans occupying our land." He said that if in any way the Americans and the British "try to recolonize Iraq (news - web sites), the people of Iraq will oppose them, and the move will be self-defeating."

Syed Mohammad Bahr Uloom, a leader from the Islamic Ahl al Bayt Foundation said the U.S. forces must leave immediately after the military operation. "We do not accept governorship by the coalition forces," he said. "Right after they have finished their military work, we will tell them thank you, it is time now for the Iraqi people to rule Iraq."

Dr. Latif Rashid, representative of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in London said "we will not accept a U.S. general ruling over us for a long period of time." The U.S. forces must stay "for a short period of time to establish peace and security and then hand over to a broad-based national coalition government."

If there was one thing that seemed to unite the Iraqi opposition leaders, it was their sensitivity to exploitation of oil resources by British or U.S. firms.

"Iraqis do not need foreign expertise in production, surveying, refining or marketing oil," said Dr Salah Shaikhy of the Iraqi National Accord. "We have been running our own oil sector for 33 years. The Americans did not bring more than 100,000 troops to Iraq because our oil sector was not doing well. Their declared aim is to search for weapons of mass destruction."

Areas like oil, banking, finance, and agriculture "should be left to Iraqis and to Iraqis alone," he said. "We are quite capable of running our country." Sharif Ali said the Americans will have to "be careful in appointing people to handle sensitive positions like oil."

The Iraqi National Congress (INC) is inevitably more aligned to the U.S. "It would be too optimistic to say that we can begin to exercise democracy from the day after," said Riyad Al-Yawar from the INC.

"They have a role as an occupying force, there are many duties and obligations they need to fulfill," he said. "We do not want premature democracy. If a baby is delivered before the end of a normal pregnancy term, the baby will suffer."

INC leader Ahmad Chalabi, who is close to the U.S. administration, is being prepared to play a major role in Iraq. Chalabi claims to have sent a force of 700 men to provide local assistance to U.S. troops. Chalabi is among many opposition leaders who have already begun to campaign for a place for themselves in southern Iraq.

Shia leader Abdel Majid al-Khoei and tribal leader Youssef al-Khairallah are at least two other leaders also preparing for leadership of sorts in Iraq. The exiled leaders from London are headed for southern Iraq to join the fray. The leaders all say they speak for the people of Iraq, but the people of Iraq have still not spoken.

[Limitless]

Any evidence that confirms my suspicions about war's general inability to do what it purports to do (or what the aggressors in this case claim it will do), (except for defense purposes) is welcome in my camp.

Apr. 8, 2003. 01:00 AM - Toronto Star Website


Afghan war embers flare up again

THOMAS WALKOM


It's been relegated to a back-of-the-paper story. But as the war against Iraq thunders on, that other war — the one that we're supposed to have won — is quietly reigniting.

That other war is the invasion of Afghanistan. Canada, along with most of the world, supported that war in the fall of 2001 as an angry United States took revenge lol for what it called Afghan complicity in the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

At the time, it wasn't clear how bombing Afghanistan would deal with a terrorist plot cooked up in Hamburg and carried out by Saudis and Egyptians. But most countries bought the U.S. explanation that the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan were too close to the terrorist Al Qaeda network and, even if they had nothing to do with Sept. 11, deserved to be overthrown anyway.

Within three months, the U.S. and its friends won that war — or so we were told.

Taliban fighters (at least those who were not shipped to Cuba in chains) took off their black turbans and donned pork pie hats. Girls went back to the school from which they had been banned by the fundamentalist misogynists of the old regime.

And a new government was declared under the leadership of Hamid Karzai, a well-connected, American-trained Afghan with close ties to the oil industry — and a brother who owns a Baltimore restaurant.
It seemed a clear success for U.S. President George W. Bush and his muscular new foreign policy. Fifteen months later, the victory seems less clear-cut.

The so-called government has no control outside the capital, Kabul. Indeed, it has little control in Kabul.

In parts of Afghanistan, schools for girls have been quietly closed again under pressure from the same Islamic zealots who were thought to have been subdued.

Opium production, abolished under the Taliban, has soared. According to the United Nations, Afghanistan has regained its place as the world's number one source of heroin. [wacko] ( not recommended for life-extensionists. ) [wacko]

And with no effective central authority, warlords are back in control. Throughout the country, they battle one another, sometimes with the aid of U.S. troops.

On March 24, for example, U.S. special forces reportedly joined in a feud between two southern warlords in which 10 Afghans were killed.

Two days later, another warlord battle, this time in the northwest, ended with a village put to the torch.

These were exactly the conditions of lawlessness that drove Afghans to support the Taliban in the first place. So perhaps we should not be surprised that the Taliban is back.

On March 27, some 100 Taliban fighters attacked a government outpost in the country's southeast. On March 29, four gunmen ambushed a U.S. patrol, killing two. Elsewhere, gunmen executed an El Salvadoran Red Cross worker, warning Afghans that anyone caught aiding foreigners would suffer the same fate.

Shortly after, the headquarters of the U.N. International Security Assistance Force in Kabul was hit by its first-ever rocket attack. (The ISAF, incidentally, is the force Canadian troops are being sent to join this summer.)

In the Taliban's first formal interview since the fall of Kabul, senior military commander Mullah Dadullah told a Pakistani newspaper that forces of the ousted regime had regrouped and were planning more attacks.

On Thursday, one of Karzai's close allies was assassinated.

Officials say that Taliban troops based in neighbouring Pakistan have hooked up with the forces of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister and one-time U.S. ally.

The U.S. likes to downplay this. Washington's state department refers to Taliban fighters as "remnants." American forces sent in to fight this renewed threat are described as engaging in "mopping-up" operations against "hold-outs."

But so far, the Americans have been unable to eradicate these "remnants" who, when challenged, flee across the border to Pakistan.

In some cases, there are reports of U.S. forces and Pakistani border guards exchanging gunfire.
Meanwhile, the Kafkaesque attempts to reconstruct Afghanistan continue.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has just awarded a $39.9-million (U.S.) contract to an American consulting firm to develop trade and taxation planning for an Afghan government that, essentially, does not exist.

Indeed, at one point Karzai explained that his government can't pay the salaries of its cabinet ministers, much less those of bureaucrats engaged in budget planning.

In late March, as a gesture of goodwill, the U.S. released 18 Afghans it had been holding for 18 months at its Guantanamo Bay prison camp. The 18, Washington said, posed no threat to American security.

Yet there was no apology offered for their having been snatched, manacled, flown to Cuba and imprisoned against all international law.

Instead, in a kind of metaphor for the entire Afghan adventure, the men were dropped in Kabul with no money and left to make their own way home — to wherever in the country they happened to live.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Walkom's column appears on Tuesday. twalkom@thestar.ca.




More detailed information, via the Globe and Mail, -is on the way.....when I find the time. [B)]


Thank you. lol lol

[bobdrake12]

http://story.news.ya...on_030408163048

Jailed Iraqi children run free as marines roll into Baghdad suburbs (excerpts)

Tue Apr 8,12:30 PM ET

BAGHDAD (AFP) - More than 100 children held in a prison celebrated their freedom as US marines rolled into northeast Baghdad amid chaotic scenes which saw civilians loot weapons from an army compound, a US officer said.

Around 150 children spilled out of the jail after the gates were opened as a US military Humvee vehicle approached, Lieutenant Colonel Fred Padilla told an AFP correspondent travelling with the Marines 5th Regiment.

"Hundreds of kids were swarming us and kissing us," Padilla said.

"There were parents running up, so happy to have their kids back."

"The children had been imprisoned because they had not joined the youth branch of the Baath party," he alleged. "Some of these kids had been in there for five years."

The children, who were wearing threadbare clothes and looked under-nourished, walked on the streets crossing their hands as if to mimic handcuffs, before giving the thumbs up sign and shouting their thanks.

It was not clear who had opened the doors of the prison.

[bobdrake12]

Might a regime that commits atrocities also lie?

bob



BBC

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf


http://www.bayarea.c...raq/5586781.htm


Posted on Tue, Apr. 08, 2003

Iraqi Information Minister Uses Insults

SAM F. GHATTAS - Associated Press


DOHA, Qatar - The television pictures of U.S. tanks in Baghdad seemed undeniable, but Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's spokesman denied them anyway - with his usual flair for insult.

"There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad," Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf asserted outside Baghdad's Palestine Hotel on Monday.

A day later, when the hotel came under U.S. tank fire, the Iraqi information minister had to admit to the journalists staying there that coalition forces were in the capital. But, smiling, he made it sound like it was all part of Iraq's plan:

"We blocked them inside the city. Their rear is blocked," he said in hurried remarks that were a departure from his daily news conference.

Across the region, Arabs hoping for victory over the United States - hated for its support of Israel and portrayed as attacking Iraq only for its oil - embrace al-Sahhaf's version. And even when they can't believe what he is saying, they like the way he says it.

They get a kick out of the way he ridicules President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in daily news conferences, broadcast live. Some call it the "al-Sahhaf show."

Al-Sahhaf has even introduced insults virtually unknown to the Arab public. His use, for example, of "uluj," an obscure and particularly insulting term for "infidel," sent viewers leafing through their dictionaries and calling TV stations for a definition.

His enemies are never just the Americans or the British. They are "outlaws," "war criminals," "fools," "stooges," an "international gang of villains."

Al-Sahhaf has singled out Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, describing him as a "crook" and "the most despicable creature."

Al-Sahhaf's face, clean-shaven in contrast to most Iraqi officials who sport Saddam-style mustaches, has become a TV fixture, along with his black beret and green Baath party uniform.

"American cruise Tomahawk missiles bomb Iraq, and al-Sahhaf missiles of words deafen the American and allied ears," read a headline in the Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat.

Viewers don't "pause at what he (al-Sahhaf) says as much as they are eager to listen to his funny words," wrote Faisal Salman, managing editor of the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir, in his daily column.

Some Arab commentators have dubbed al-Sahhaf the "Iraqi Goebbels," after Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's master propagandist.

Al-Sahhaf is no stranger to the media and its impact - and to Iraq's rough politics.

He was studying to be an English teacher when he got his start in politics in 1963 by joining a violent group led by Saddam that targeted opponents of the Baath party. After a 1963 coup, he revealed the whereabouts of his brother-in-law, an army general and the country's military prosecutor, who was then killed by Baath party militias. By handing over his relative, al-Sahhaf proved his loyalty to the Baath party.

A Baathist regime was overthrown in another coup the same year, but the party came back five years later. Al-Sahhaf was put in charge of securing the radio and television stations and then put at the helm of both. He was known for his temper - even kicking TV and radio employees who displeased him.

Al-Sahhaf, who is in his early 60s, has been information minister since 2001. Before that, he was foreign minister, from 1993 to 2001. He also has served as Iraq's ambassador to India, Italy and the United Nations.

Although al-Sahhaf has become the most prominent face of the regime of late, he does not have the political or military clout of Saddam's relatives and clansmen.

Al-Sahhaf is from Iraq's majority Shiite Muslim community, long dominated by Sunnis like Saddam. He has middle-class roots - the family name refers to his father's bookbinding craft - and comes from Hilla, south of Baghdad, not Saddam's Tikrit power base.

Still, it was al-Sahhaf who delivered a recent message in Saddam's name calling for jihad, or holy war, and urging Iraqis to fight on.

Saddam also used al-Sahhaf to deliver some of his more conciliatory messages. Late last year, al-Sahhaf apologized in a statement in the president's name to the people of Kuwait for the 1990 Iraqi invasion. The statement, though, went on to criticize the Kuwaiti leadership for relying on American help.

__

EDITOR'S NOTE - Associated Press correspondents Salah Nasrawi and Maamoun Youssef contributed to this report from Cairo, Egypt.

[bobdrake12]

http://www.guardian....,932750,00.html


Saddam survived attack on building say British intelligence sources (excerpts)

Richard Norton-Taylor, Oliver Burkeman in Washington, and Rory McCarthy in Camp As Sayliya, Qatar
Wednesday April 9, 2003
The Guardian

Saddam Hussein survived an attack on a building in Baghdad in which he was reported to have been meeting his sons Uday and Qusay on Monday afternoon, British intelligence sources said last night.

"He was probably not in the building when it was bombed," a well-placed source said. The source added it was believed that President Saddam had been in the building earlier.

The American pilot of a B-1 bomber circling nearby was told the Iraqi president had entered the building. Twelve minutes later, the pilot dropped four 2,000lb joint direct attack munition bombs on it.

Edited by bobdrake12, 09 April 2003 - 01:57 AM.

[DJS]

In case anyone was wondering which side the troops were on...

'Angry' Ark Royal crew switch off BBC

The BBC has been axed from the nation's flagship naval vessel following claims of pro-Iraqi bias.



The Navy says it has switched off News 24 aboard HMS Ark Royal after complaints by the crew.

It is one of a handful of task force ships which receives live TV direct from Britain.

Rolling news plus two entertainment channels are beamed into the warship.

A BBC correspondent has been on board but the crew say they have no gripe with his reports.

However they were annoyed by the comments of presenters and commentators reporting on the carrier's Sea King tragedy a fortnight ago.

The BBC suggested poor levels of maintenance played a hand in the deaths of seven fliers.

Sailors also believe the news organisation places more faith in Iraqi reports than information coming from British or Allied sources.

One senior rating said: "The BBC always takes the Iraqis' side. It reports what they say as gospel but when it comes to us it questions and doubts everything the British and Americans are reporting. A lot of people on board are very unhappy."

Ark has replaced the BBC with rival broadcaster Sky News.

Edited by Kissinger, 09 April 2003 - 12:05 PM.

[Lazarus Long]

http://story.news.ya...d=540&ncid=1480
U.S.: Saddam No Longer Controls Baghdad
4 minutes ago
By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer

CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar - Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s government is no longer in control of Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said Wednesday.

"The capital city is now one of those areas that has been added to the list of where the regime does not have control," said Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks.

However, Brooks said that Saddam loyalists were holding out in the north, including Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and still posed a threat, including the possible use of weapons of mass destruction

"Today the regime is in disarray and much of Iraq is free from years of oppression," Brooks said.

He said the coalition was planning for possible resistance in other cities. U.S. troops have tried to block the roads from Baghdad to Tikrit to stop Iraqi leaders from fleeing there.

A mix of Republican Guards and militia fighters were also holding out in the oil centers of Mosul and Kirkuk, he said.

"We certainly are focused on Tikrit," Brooks said at the U.S. Central Command headquarters in Qatar "I'm not going to predispose to say when will go in.

"There is still work to be done."

Noting scenes of celebration in the Iraqi capital, Brooks said there were still some "engagements" in the center of the city around bridges.

"We're not finding hostile behavior from the population," he said. "We believe the population recognizes that the end is near (for Saddam's government)."

Street celebrations erupted Wednesday in Baghdad, especially in Shiite Muslim neighborhoods, after fighting subsided overnight. People ripped down pictures of President Saddam Hussein and looted government buildings of furniture and appliances.

"With every day that passes we break more of the grip of the regime," Brooks said.

[Lazarus Long]

http://story.news.ya...ministration_dc

U.S. Administrators in Iraq Want to Earn Trust
42 minutes ago
By William Maclean

KUWAIT (Reuters) - A fledgling U.S.-led civil administration preparing to steer Iraq (news - web sites) through the immediate postwar period said on Wednesday it wanted to earn Iraqis' trust by facilitating a steady flow of aid.

"In many ways we are learning as we go," said Major Jeff Jurgensen of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), speaking a day after a team of ORHA officials arrived in the southern port of Umm Qasr to set up operations.

"You have to earn the trust of local people by talking to them, finding out what they need and then showing them you can consistently deliver on those needs."

Jurgensen, a U.S. Marine, is one of a team of about 30 ORHA officials drawn from a range of U.S. government departments who will set up ORHA's southern region. He said humanitarian relief was the team's first priority.

ORHA's mission is to provide humanitarian assistance, work on reconstructing Iraq and prepare for the eventual creation of an interim government by Iraqis themselves.

It will be split into a northern, central and southern region and is headed by retired U.S. General, Jay Garner, who made a preliminary visit to Umm Qasr last week.

Speaking by telephone from Umm Qasr, Jurgensen said the issue of which Iraqis ORHA should regard as local leaders was being discussed by the U.S. and British governments. But there was a general understanding that ORHA should work with as broad a range of society as possible including Muslim clerics.

"There's a lot of strategic big picture decisions that are in the final stages of being made and those decisions will then flow back down to our level," he said.


DEEP SUSPICION

Asked whether his team would deal with members or officials of President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s Baath Party, he replied: "That's one of the decisions that is still being negotiated."

U.S. military officers conducting humanitarian aid missions in other parts of the south have said they are prepared to deal with members of the Baath Party.

Many civic leaders belong to the party, out of conviction, because they are forced to by party leaders or because membership grants them favored access to services.

Garner's presence in Kuwait has prompted deep Arab suspicion about Washington's motives and widespread calls that the United Nations (news - web sites) be given the job instead.

The ORHA team has said it wants to hand over to Iraqis quickly, but Arab analysts say ordinary Iraqis are unlikely to accept rule by foreigners.

The United States launched a military invasion on March 20 to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

On the broad task of managing the transition to some future government, he said: "To get it done right we have to proceed with caution ... Here what we do in Umm Qasr will be a test case of how these operations will be conducted."

He said his team would eventually expand its operations north to Basra and other areas of the south.

He said most people in Umm Qasr were living in poverty.

"I'm standing on a berm in Umm Qasr as I talk to you right now -- I can look in one direction and see a modern port facility that is capable of generating a lot of economic activity. Clearly this has the makings of an affluent, successful society.

"I can look in the other direction and I see a community living in abject poverty."

[DJS]

That other war is the invasion of Afghanistan. Canada, along with most of the world, supported that war in the fall of 2001 as an angry United States took revenge lol  for what it called Afghan complicity in the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

You can argue all you want about the effectiveness of coalition troops in post war Afghanistan. But to claim that the attacks were revenge is bullshit. Stay in Canada where you belong, peacenik.

Edited by Kissinger, 09 April 2003 - 12:10 PM.

[Lazarus Long]

http://uk.news.yahoo...8/80/dx9eo.html
Mystery over bin Laden's deathly silence
By Simon Denyer and Sayed Salahuddin

ISLAMABAD/KABUL (Reuters) - All over the world, Muslim voices have united to condemn the U.S.-led war on Iraq. Yet one man has been strangely silent.

Nearly three weeks after war broke out, Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and the self-styled leader of an anti-American jihad or holy war, has not said a word.

Government officials and analysts have begun to wonder -- is he plotting something in some remote cave in the Afghan mountains, or could he be dead?

One thing is certain. If the bearded Islamic radical is alive, he will be smiling. His dream of a confrontation between ordinary Muslims and the United States seems to be coming true.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak says the war will produce "one hundred new bin Ladens".

"He (Osama) will be very happy - he will see this as a vindication of what he has been saying," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a senior Pakistani journalist who has interviewed bin Laden twice. "But I am surprised he hasn't reacted yet. That creates doubts he's alive."

As images of Iraqi civilian deaths flood television screens across the Muslim world, bin Laden's call for jihad is echoing out across the Middle East and parts of Asia.

Perhaps bin Laden is letting others do the talking for him. Pakistan's government says it is too early to draw any conclusions, but across the border in Afghanistan officials are beginning to sound the "all clear".

"The reason why he has not given any reaction to the Iraq issue is very important. It leaves no doubt that he has died," Afghan presidential spokesman, Sayed Fazl Akbar, told Reuters.

"In the past, he would issue statements, audio or video tapes on very small issues. Why hasn't he spoken about such a big issue which dominates the world's politics and news headlines?"


TOO EARLY TO SAY

Yet others are not so sure. The U.S. military, which is searching Afghanistan for remnants of bin Laden's al Qaeda network and their Taliban allies, maintains it has no conclusive proof whether bin Laden is alive or dead.

And in February, a U.S. intelligence official told Reuters the CIA had established that an audiotape broadcast by al Jazeera satellite television was "almost certainly" made by bin Laden.

On that occasion the al Qaeda leader exhorted Muslims in Iraq to fight the "American enemy". Since then, silence.

"The silence could be pregnant," said retired Pakistani Brigadier Shaukat Qadir. "I am not certain that he is alive, but if he is alive it could be that he is plotting something. He could be planning some grandstanding activity somewhere."

Senior Pakistani intelligence official, Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, said it was too early to draw any firm conclusions. "Maybe he is not alive, possibly he is not communicating intentionally, or perhaps it is not safe for him to communicate."

Cheema said the arrests of several senior al Qaeda officials in Pakistan this year indicated that the net was closing in around bin Laden. "Every day that passes, it is becoming increasingly difficult for him to communicate," he said.

Alive or dead, the bin Laden myth remains a powerful one. The tragic irony of the war in Iraq is that another myth is about to be born, according to Qadir.

"With Saddam Hussein, he has so many lookalikes, we may never know which one has been killed," he said. "The tragedy of this war is that Saddam is also becoming a hero."

[DJS]

Steady as We Go
Do not take counsel of your fears.


1. Shouldn't we be afraid of unending terrorism in the streets of Baghdad after our victory?

Not really. The model of occupation need not be Stalingrad, Beirut, or Mogadishu. In fact, usually there is not prolonged terrorism following the fall of most cities, whether Constantinople, Richmond, or even Saigon. The key is either the use of overwhelming force or proof of liberation — or, as in our case, preferably both. In street-to-street fighting so far Americans, not Iraqis, have turned out to be the real scary fighters — and Baghdad is more an open suburban environment without high-rises and the winding streets of medieval cities. The resistance is not grassroots, but made up of desperate Saddamites who have nowhere to go, fearing their own oppressed more than they do us.

2. But why aren't the Iraqis all coming out en masse to support us?

Many are. But given our recent history in not backing the Shiites and Kurds, Saddam's oppressed, like Germans on the Rhine in 1945, gauge how long they are going to keep their dictator's pictures on the wall by the ebb and flow of battle. Who in the first few days would be so reckless to profess affinity for us as we race by, only to deal with Baathist holdouts behind? Remember that professed support for Saddam will not draw reprisals from us while proof of revolt means death from him.

3. But what about the jihadists from Syria, Egypt, or Jordan? Won't we be swarmed by thousands from the Arab Street?

They may meet the same fate as those who left Pakistan to join the Taliban in Afghanistan. Jihadists are much more vulnerable in transit in the desert than terrorists traversing the Khyber Pass. News of their fate in Iraq when they met U.S. Marines will be a powerful argument for others to stay put. And a small, non-nuclear Syria or Jordan is far more receptive to American pressure to keep its citizens out than was Pakistan.

4. Shouldn't we worry about suicide bombers?

Of course. Yet there are only a limited number of people willing to kill themselves for a dictator. The present cohort of self-professed killers so far lacks the zeal of the West Bank murderers and the state infrastructure of the Kamikazes. If anything, their sporadic presence only cements the case that Iraq was a terrorist state and was seen as such by fellow terrorists.

5. But won't the Baathists retreat to strongholds and wage war for years?

They said that about Hitler's National Redoubt. Some Union generals feared fanatics like Nathan Bedford Forrest would wage guerrilla war for generations. In fact, it is rare for the defeated to press on in a hopeless cause against a democratic victor. Remember that noisy Iraqi Baathist elites who have experienced little pain in the war but greatly fear the peace are rarely accurate barometers of what their soldiers who have suffered will do.

6. Shouldn't we worry about the torching of the northern oil wells or some such last final nightmare?

So far the speed of the American advance and its skill, not just Baathist restraint, has saved the bridges, dams, and oil fields. We essentially overran the country in ten days; and while that seemed slow (!) to Americans, it may well have caught the Iraqi demolition units off guard. The wonder was not that bridges and wells were mined, but that they were not exploded. Iraqis may not profess love for Americans, but that does not mean they will blow up their own treasures on orders from an impotent tyrant. The very fact that we spared infrastructure in a strange way proved a restraining force on Saddam's own henchmen, who in worry over public outcry or eventual moral accounting feared that they should not do what we would not.

7. Aren't we losing the propaganda war?

Anytime we bomb, of course, we will be criticized. But the looming end of the war will begin to the reverse the dynamic of the coverage — as reports emerge of mass graves, torture chambers, weapons of mass destruction, interviews with Saddam's victims, tons of American food and aid, and the birth of reform government. And it could shift quite radically once shocked Iraqis accept that Saddam is gone, and that the buildings and homes of their oppressors are in shambles and their own are mostly spared — a gradual improvement in public opinion will allow us a year or so to establish a legitimate government. The worry should not be about Arab public opinion but rather about the American Street — which is slowly simmering and may, if we are not careful, wish to tire of the Middle East and its current insanity altogether.

8. But didn't all the hard fighting and destruction of Saddam's forces ensure years of bitterness?

The opposite is more likely. Don't assume that Baathists, Republican Guardsmen, and terrorist gangs were remotely popular. In fact, tragic as it is given the human costs, the ruin of most of these groups will make the reconstruction easier than had they just given up or escaped. The problem in Afghanistan was that too many Taliban simply surrendered or fled rather than fought and perished — and so are reconfiguring as we let down our guard. We may not wish to accept the brutal nature of man, but the very fact that American troops have fought so well and proved so deadly will have a positive effect in discouraging resistance — the opposite, in other words, of being blown up in Beirut and then retreating from Lebanon.

9. Don't we have too few ground troops to finish off Saddam and occupy the country?

Probably not. And unlike Saddam's forces our numbers are growing, not shrinking. No one yet has calibrated the force multiplying effect of precision-guided bombs dropped in tactical situations against individual tanks, guns, and trucks. But obviously 1,000 planes streaking over Iraq seems to be worth an armored division at least and maybe much more. The very sight of American aircraft in the sky and the knowledge of the accuracy of their bombs have had a frightening psychological effect upon thousands of Iraqi soldiers. The current diplomatic wrangling is over various groups abroad wanting to rush in and establish a presence in postwar Iraq, not their isolationism.

10. How can we restore order with casual shooting?

As the methodical British approach suggests, by containing hostile pockets, restoring civil society and being almost disdainful of the presence of remnant enemies, we in fact further isolate resistance. Critics allege that we are moving too fast with humanitarian aid before the shooting stops; but as Afghanistan teaches us, the key is to move faster than slower both as a way of winning hearts and minds and isolating and discrediting enemy holdouts. In this regard, don't believe simplistic allegations that we are insensitive cowboys unlike the more experienced British; at times British troops are forced to storm into private homes while Americans emerge from tanks to wade in amid children — and vice versa.

These are difficult times of jarring, instantaneously broadcast images of friendly fire, civilian casualties, the tragic deaths of brave journalists, accidents, and wrongheaded analyses of discredited politicians and pundits. But if we keep our heads, stay true to our values, and persevere in our military mission, we will get through this final stage fine — and have done a great and rare good both for us and millions abroad.

[Lazarus Long]

http://story.news.ya...ea/war_us_kurds
U.S. Faces Big Postwar Tests in N. Iraq
Wed Apr 9, 1:44 AM ET
By GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - In the post-Saddam era, American finesse will have to replace firepower as U.S. envoys attempt to sort out the politically sensitive self-rule demands of Iraqi Kurds and the future of Iraq's oil wealth.

At present, the Kurds are assuring U.S. officials they are not interested in independence and will be content with a measure of autonomy in the new Iraq.

The old Iraq led by Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) oppressed the 4 million Kurds of Northern Iraq. The worst moment came in 1988, when Saddam's legions are believed to have killed 150,000 Kurds, using chemical weapons against some. Since the end of the first Iraq war, U.S.- and British-enforced no-fly zones over Kurdish territory have prevented Saddam from reclaiming the area.

As victims of Baghdad-inspired assaults, some Iraqi Kurds naturally think of separatism. And neighboring countries have been concerned for months that a U.S.-led war against Iraq would incite these tendencies among Iraqi Kurds and stateless Kurds elsewhere in the neighborhood, especially Turkey.

The Kurds have been dismissing such concerns, perhaps mindful that moves toward independence would provoke a military response from all directions, and strong resistance from the United States itself.

Still the worries persist. Administration officials say Turkish officials have been venting their anxieties about Kurdish intentions to U.S. officials after seeing television images of Kurdish forces approaching the oil fields in Mosul and Kirkuk. Kurdish forces tightened their ring around Kirkuk on Tuesday.

Possession of the northern Iraq oil fields could give the Kurds the economic wherewithal to sustain a viable independent state. The Turks say they will not allow that to happen.

"Entering northern Iraq will not be on the agenda as long as Iraq's territorial integrity is preserved," said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

He said Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) gave him assurances last week that he need not fear a Kurdish split from Iraq.

But some analysts believe the U.S. presence in the area is insufficient to keep the Kurds at bay.

"It's important that the U.S. take some control over oil fields to keep Kurds from seizing them," says James Phillips, Middle East analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

How the United States handles the overall Iraqi oil issue once the shooting stops will be closely monitored throughout the region, given the widespread perception in the Arab world that the United States wants to control Iraqi oil.

Powell and other top U.S. officials have said American intentions are entirely benign. "The oil of Iraq belongs to the Iraqi people," Powell has said.

"Whatever form of custodianship there is ... it will be held for and used for the people of Iraq. It will not be exploited for the United States' own purposes," Powell said.

But Iraqis recall that foreigners controlled their oil for a good portion of the last century. As liberators or occupiers, U. S. forces would be able to assume that role once Saddam is gone. And, as the No. 2 country worldwide in proven oil reserves, Iraq is a huge prize.

Over the short term, an American role in overseeing the resuscitation of Iraq's oil industry is unavoidable. Last week, Philip J. Carroll, a former chief executive officer of Shell Oil Co., said he had been asked by the Pentagon (news - web sites) to take on that task.

Shell Oil is the U.S. arm of London-based Royal Dutch-Shell Group.

Phillips, of the Heritage Foundation, says a U.S. presence is essential to ensure that Iraq's oil wealth is kept in trust for whatever the Iraqi government emerges down the road. Otherwise, the country's oil wealth could be grabbed by local factions.

The notion that the U.S. seeks Iraq's oil wealth is a canard, Phillips says, noting that that the same concerns were raised at the time of Kuwait's liberation 12 years ago.

"Last time I looked, Kuwaiti oil was in Kuwaiti hands," Phillips says.
___

EDITOR'S NOTE — George Gedda has covered foreign affairs for The Associated Press since 1968.

[Lazarus Long]

http://story.news.ya...d=540&ncid=1480
France, U.K. Agree on U.N. Role in Iraq
9 minutes ago
By JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press Writer

PARIS - The foreign ministers of Britain and France, downplaying differences that preceded war in Iraq (news - web sites), said Wednesday the United Nations (news - web sites) must have a role in the country's reconstruction but gave no indication that they agree on details of how that might happen.

The British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said while the war coalition wants a democratic government in Iraq, military forces must stay in the country to ensure its security and stability.

Straw's French counterpart, Dominique de Villepin, agreed that coalition forces have "the primary responsibility" in securing Iraq. But de Villepin reiterated that the United Nations needs a "central place" in Iraq's reconstruction.

"We are, I think, in agreement that the United Nations has its full place in this process," the French minister said.

When Straw was asked whether he saw a difference between a "central" role for the United Nations and a "vital" role — a position supported Tuesday by British and American leaders — he responded, "I think it's more or less the same."

Both ministers expressed hope for a quick end to the war. But neither Straw nor de Villepin, speaking to reporters after a meeting in Paris, gave precise details about when or if coalition forces would hand over a major role to the United Nations.

Their meeting follows a period of intense strains in the long history of French-British relations. Britain is a close U.S. ally and sent troops to Iraq, while France led European opposition to the conflict.

Straw and de Villepin sought to give the impression that historical ties between Britain and France were stronger than the recent arguments that divided them.

"Life would be very boring if friends always agreed," Straw said. "This is a grown-up relationship."

"What unites us is stronger than what divides us," said de Villepin.

Aside from Iraq, the ministers said they discussed a wide range of subjects, including Middle East peace efforts, the Ivory Coast insurgency, Pakistan-India tensions and European affairs. Iraq dominated their short session with reporters.

Straw said the United States and Britain want to see a "representative, democratic Iraqi government" created as quickly as possible.

"That can't happen overnight," he said. "It's our responsibility to stay there until these other processes are through."

De Villepin appeared to concur.

"The forces on the ground have the primary responsibility in this phase," he said.

But for Iraq's reconstruction, "it is important that the legitimacy of the international community be upheld, and for this the United Nations needs a central place," the French minister said.

[Lazarus Long]

http://story.news.ya...ssia_meeting_dc
Chirac to Join Russia-Germany Talks on Iraq
Tue Apr 8, 3:47 PM ET By Ron Popeski

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Leaders of the main countries opposing the U.S.-led military action against Baghdad will meet this weekend and are expected to press for a major role for the United Nations in a postwar Iraq.

A Kremlin statement said French President Jacques Chirac would join Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at long scheduled talks in Russia's second city of St Petersburg on Friday and Saturday.

The statement on the meeting in Putin's home town made no mention of any agenda. But it is certain to be topped by discussion on how to proceed with reconstruction in Iraq after the U.S.-led war to remove President Saddam Hussein.

All three states have adopted a more conciliatory approach as U.S. and British troops advance through Iraq, but say they want the U.N. to be the principal body overseeing reconstruction efforts.

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday the United Nations should have a "vital role." But it was unclear how much power they believed the U.N. should have outside humanitarian matters.

A United Nations spokesman in New York denied initial reports, both by the Kremlin and the U.N. office in Moscow, that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) would join the talks on Saturday.

France, Germany and Russia formed the backbone of opposition to Washington's hawkish stance on Iraq, calling instead for diplomatic efforts through the United Nations to ensure the country was free of alleged weapons of mass destruction.


CENTRAL U.N. ROLE

Chirac acknowledged on Tuesday that Iraq had to pass through a "necessary phase of establishing security," but said it would then be up to the U.N. to spearhead efforts to rebuild the country.

"We are no longer in an era where one or two countries can control the fate of another country," he told a Paris news conference. "Therefore, the political, economic, humanitarian and administrative reconstruction of Iraq is a matter for the United Nations and for it alone."

Schroeder was equally forthright last week, saying the U.N. "must play the central role as far as the future of Iraq and the new political order is concerned."

Putin, vociferous in his initial denunciations over Washington's military action, has since said a U.S. defeat is not in Russian interests.

The Kremlin said at the weekend Putin had stressed in a telephone conversation with Bush "the importance of pursuing an intense political dialogue" to uphold Russia's new alliance with Washington, rooted in support for the U.S. anti-terror campaign.

But he has also said the Iraqi issue should remain for the U.N. to decide. Other Russian officials have said they hope existing contracts with Iraq, particularly in the oil sector, will be upheld regardless of who is in power in Baghdad.

In the months running up to the conflict, all three countries backed U.N. Security Council resolution 1441 last November. That led to the resumption of U.N. inspections for banned weapons which the United States accused Saddam of possessing.

Before hostilities began on March 20, the three issued joint statements criticizing any resort to force and opposing any new resolution endorsing military action.

[Lazarus Long]

http://www.nypost.co...nists/72898.htm
STATE: BUNGLING THE PEACE
By JOEL MOWBRAY
April 8, 2003 --

WITH war still raging, the State Department is planning to hold a "Baghdad Conference" a mere six weeks after the conflict ends to determine an interim leadership and to establish a framework for its new government - something that many inside the administration fear could give the House of Saud undue influence in a post-Saddam Iraq.

The plan is modeled after the Bonn Conference, which Zalmay Khalilzad, now U.S. special envoy to Iraq, oversaw to prepare a transitional government that eventually succeeded the Taliban.

Administration officials and various outside experts agree that a Baghdad Conference, if it happens, would be simply the latest attempt by State to undermine the umbrella organization of democratic Iraqi opposition groups, the Iraqi National Congress (INC).

State is already placing - or attempting to place - pro-Saudi individuals in important positions in a post-Saddam Iraq:

* Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Maura Harty recently tapped Beth Payne - who one senior State official says "enjoys a cozy relationship with the Saudis," even though her job has been to recover abducted American children trapped in the desert prison - to take over the consular section at the new Baghdad embassy.

* State last month forced the Pentagon to appoint longtime diplomat Barbara Bodine - who temporarily refused the FBI entry into Yemen to investigate the USS Cole - to be civilian administrator in Baghdad. Bodine has extensive ties to Iraqis - but not the right ones.

Notes a senior administration official, "She only knows the Ba'athists, because that's who she dealt with, and she's never bothered getting to know the democratic opposition very well." With a long career centered mostly in the Middle East, administration officials describe Bodine as an Arabist who favors traditional, "stable" Arab regimes - the kind where democracy does not flourish.

* State's top pick for ambassador to the post-Saddam Iraq is Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ryan Crocker, who shares Bodine's worldview.

But State may not get Bodine into Baghdad; the Pentagon is pushing back to get someone else in that position. And Crocker will undoubtedly run into opposition from the White House, where the president's vision of a democratic Iraq is diametrically opposed to Crocker's view of the Arab world.

Meanwhile, the House of Saud is openly backing Adnan Pachachi, the former foreign minister, for leadership of free Iraq. State sees Pachachi as the most viable alternative to the INC, and even gave its tacit approval to a conference he organized in London on Sunday as part of a campaign to undermine the staunchly pro-democracy INC.

One administration official says that Khalilzad is "so obsessed with Pachachi that he forced Jalal Talibani [leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, an INC member organization] to put Pachachi on the Iraqi opposition leadership council." But Pachachi was not interested, at least not in being part of the same leadership committee as Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the INC - and he said as much in a Financial Times column last month. Yet State persists in wooing Pachachi.

But perhaps the greatest threat to the INC and democracy - and the greatest boon for the House of Saud - is the proposed Baghdad Conference. If held soon after the smoke clears, only the Ba'athists would be likely to come forward.

Since anyone of significance in Iraqi society is a Ba'ath Party member, some party members will necessarily be in the new government - but weeding out Ba'athists will take longer than six weeks. Likely the only people willing to come forward from within Iraq right after the fall of Saddam's regime are people who were part of it because, as one administration official notes, "It takes time for the fear to wear off."

State's attempts to thwart the INC have gotten so bad that a group of five senators - Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) - sent a letter last week to President Bush, calling on him to "personally clear the bureaucratic road blocks from within the State Department" and get funding and other support to the INC. As they note in the letter, "American lives are at stake."

Joel Mowbray is a reporter for National Review.

E-mail: joel@nationalreview.com