posted August 05, 2005 12:04 AM            

quote:

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But less than five years into his eight years in office, Mr Bush is closing in fast on the record set by Ronald Reagan who spent 345 days - nearly one eighth of his presidency - at his Santa Barbara ranch ("It just seems a lot easier to sort out a problem when I'm on a horse," is how the Gipper defended his vacations in his autobiography).

This year's getaway is Mr Bush's 49th visit to Prairie Chapel ranch near Waco, and the 319th day that he has spent entirely or partially in Crawford since he was sworn in, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS radio reporter famous for keeping better records of the president's travel than the White House itself.

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posted August 05, 2005 12:13 AM            

BY TIMOTHY M. PHELPS
WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF

WASHINGTON -- When I was in Basra reporting for Newsday for three weeks last month, I was accompanied by at least one bodyguard armed with an AK-47 semiautomatic rifle, and sometimes by a whole group of bodyguards.

I never walked the streets. The one time I was invited out to dinner at a restaurant, my host, a tough political leader, sent two cars full of bodyguards to pick me up. Some sat in the street outside the hotel, others at the table next to us. My host picked up the tab for 10.

Steve Vincent, as a freelance writer, did not have access to bodyguards and full-time cars and drivers, and probably didn't want them. He grew a beard and bought local clothes to blend in. He refused to be confined to the Merbed Hotel, the rather shabby hotel where we both stayed. He told me jokingly that his bodyguard was his translator, Nour Weidi, a young, savvy Iraqi woman who always seemed to be able to talk them out of trouble.

Witnesses said she tried that again Tuesday night when masked men in a pickup truck seized them after they changed money at a shop outside the Merbed. The witnesses said Weidi was shouting at the men that they had better call her family in the Juneina district, implying that her father and brothers would come to avenge her.

Other foreign journalists besides Vincent did not use bodyguards in Basra, believing it was safer to keep a low profile. But Steve did one thing that no other Western journalist tried there: He stayed. Nearly every foreign journalist who has been in Basra this year was in and out in less than a week. Steve was in Basra for six months in 2003-2004 to write his first book on Iraq, and he had already been there for several months this trip when I got there in July. He admitted to me that things were much worse this time.

There are three levels of danger to a foreigner in Basra. The smallest threat there is the biggest one to people elsewhere in Iraq: the Sunni insurgency tied in with the former regime. Sunnis are a fearful - not feared - minority in Basra now, and their terrorist activities are limited.

A greater threat is from the criminal gangs that roam Basra almost unhindered, kidnapping Iraqis for ransom and hijacking their cars.

The greatest threat here for those with any political connections, past or present, are the religious militias that work for the political parties governing Basra - and Iraq - and overlap with the police force. They have undertaken a campaign of assassinations against former members of Saddam Hussein's regime, as well as intellectuals, secular politicians and women who work for the U.S. or British governments or companies.

Vincent wrote about this - not just last weekend, but over several months - and stayed to face the consequences.

At the same time, his close working relationship with his translator was attracting attention in the hotel and in the city. The militias have killed quite a few Iraqi women simply because they worked for foreigners, including two sisters who were killed last year for working in the laundry of the American Embassy office in Basra.

posted August 06, 2005 04:36 PM              

By ERIC SCHMITT
New York Times

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 - Many of the new, more sophisticated roadside bombs used to attack American and government forces in Iraq have been designed in Iran and shipped in from there, United States military and intelligence officials said Friday, raising the prospect of increased foreign help for Iraqi insurgents.

American commanders say the deadlier bombs could become more common as insurgent bomb makers learn the techniques to make the weapons themselves in Iraq.

But just as troubling is that the spread of the new weapons seems to suggest a new and unusual area of cooperation between Iranian Shiites and Iraqi Sunnis to drive American forces out - a possibility that the commanders said they could make little sense of given the increasing violence between the sects in Iraq.

Unlike the improvised explosive devices devised from Iraq's vast stockpiles of missiles, artillery shells and other arms, the new weapons are specially designed to destroy armored vehicles, military bomb experts say. The bombs feature shaped charges, which penetrate armor by focusing explosive power in a single direction and by firing a metal projectile embedded in the device into the target at high speed. The design is crude but effective if the vehicle's armor plating is struck at the correct angle, the experts said.

Since they first began appearing about two months ago, some of these devices have been seized, including one large shipment that was captured last week in northeast Iraq coming from Iran. But one senior military officer said "tens" of the devices had been smuggled in and used against allied forces, killing or wounding several Americans throughout Iraq in the past several weeks.

"These are among the most sophisticated and most lethal devices we've seen," said the senior officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate intelligence reports describing the bombs. "It's very serious."

Pentagon and intelligence officials say that some shipments of the new explosives have contained both components and fully manufactured devices, and may have been spirited into Iraq along the porous Iranian border by the Iranian-backed, anti-Israeli terrorist group Hezbollah, or by Iran's Revolutionary Guard. American commanders say these bombs closely matched those that Hezbollah has used against Israel.

"The devices we're seeing now have been machined," said a military official who has access to classified reporting on the insurgents' bomb-making abilities. "There is evidence of some sophistication."

American officials say they have no evidence that the Iranian government is involved. But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the new United States ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, complained publicly this week about the Tehran government's harmful meddling in Iraqi affairs.

"There is movement across its borders of people and matériel used in violent acts against Iraq," Mr. Khalilzad said Monday.

But some Middle East specialists discount any involvement by the Iranian government or Hezbollah, saying it would be counter to their interests to support Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgents, who have stepped up their attacks against Iraqi Shiites. These specialists suggest that the arms shipments are more likely the work of criminals, arms traffickers or splinter insurgent groups.

"Iran's protégés are in control in Iraq right now, yet these weapons are going to people fighting Iran's protégés," said Kenneth Katzman, a Persian Gulf expert at the Congressional Research Service and a former Middle East analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. "That makes little sense to me."

American commanders say they first saw the use of the new explosives in the predominantly Shiite area of southern Iraq, including Basra, but their use by insurgents steadily migrated into Sunni-majority areas north and west of Baghdad. It was unclear how the transfers were taking place.

The seizure of the recent arms shipment from Iran was first reported on Thursday night by NBC News and CBS News.

The influx of the new explosives comes as allied commanders are stepping up efforts to stop the infiltration of fighters, weapons and equipment along Iraq's porous borders with Iran and Syria. Ten days ago, for instance, Iraqi border enforcement agents seized a major shipment of weapons, apparently small arms, that officials suspect may have come from Iran, Maj. Gen. J. B. Dutton of the British Marines, commander of allied forces in southern Iraq, told reporters on Friday in a conference call from Basra.

More troubling are the broad array of roadside bombs that range from the improvised explosives made from modified 155-millimeter artillery shells and other materials to antitank mines like those that military officials say caused the blast on Wednesday that killed 14 marines and an Iraqi civilian in western Iraq.

American troops and the insurgents have been engaged for months in an expanding test of tactics and technology, with the guerrillas building bigger and more clever devices and the Americans trying to counter them at each turn.

"The terrorists are trying to adapt to that level of protection that our forces have; they have been motivated to try to find a way to get advantage," Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said at a news conference on Thursday. "And occasionally, we're seeing I.E.D.'s that are sufficiently lethal as to challenge some of the level of protection."

Military officials say they are thwarting about 40 percent of the roadside bombs before they detonate, employing a range of countermeasures from jamming devices that disrupt the frequency of the explosives' triggers, to heightened patrols. Last week, the military successfully cleared 115 roadside bombs, General Alston said. But such bombs remain the No. 1 killer of American troops in Iraq.

"It's not just about the armor that you carry," he said. "It's about your tactics, and it's about how you evolve and develop those and try to defend yourself before those things detonate as well."
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050806/ZNYT03/508060437

posted August 13, 2005 06:52 PM              

Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces raided an insurgent facility that may have been producing an unspecified type of chemicals, the U.S. military said Saturday. It was unclear what was being produced or whether the materials were intended for weapons, the statement added.

U.S. troops, acting on a tip from detainees under interrogation, raided a "suspected insurgent chemical production facility" in northern Iraq last Tuesday, the statement said. It did not specify the location.

However, the military cautioned that ongoing testing at the facility was "insufficient to determine what the insurgents had been producing." The military said the military was also investigating which insurgent group was operating the facility.

The military has found many suspected chemical sites in the past, none of which ended up containing chemical or biological weapons. Testing of such sites can take several days.

The U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003 to destroy Saddam Hussein's purported weapons of mass destruction. None were ever found.

The statement said officials were examining chemical evidence, but did not say if chemicals were stored at the facility.

"We are continuing to investigate the production and storage facilities to determine what type and quantities of chemicals were produced at the facility," said Col. Henry Franke, a Multi-National Corps' Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Officer.

posted August 20, 2005 09:22 PM              

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 20 - Iraqi leaders trying to complete a new constitution moved Saturday toward deals on such contentious issues as Shiite autonomy, sharing oil revenues and Kurdish self-rule. But as they progressed on those fronts, a tentative agreement that would have given Islam an expanded role in the state and in family disputes appeared to unravel.

"Islam is back on the table," said a person close to the negotiations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the talks.

Under a deal brokered Friday by the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, Islam was to be named "a primary source of legislation" in the new Iraqi constitution, with the proviso that no legislation be permitted that conflicted with the "universal principles" of the religion. The latter phrase raised concerns that Iraqi judges would have wide latitude to strike down laws now on the books, as well as future legislation.

At the same time, according to a Kurdish leader involved in the talks, Mr. Khalilzad had backed language that would have given clerics sole authority in settling marriage and family disputes. That gave rise to concerns that women's rights, as they are enunciated in Iraq's existing laws, could be curtailed.

Finally, according to the person close to the negotiations, Mr. Khalilzad had been backing an arrangement that could have allowed clerics to have a hand in interpreting the constitution. That arrangement, coupled with the expansive language for Islam, prompted accusations from the Kurd that the Americans were helping in the formation of an Islamic state.

The American Embassy has declined to comment on the negotiations.

Much of the Shiite leadership favors the establishment of an Islamic state, but several Iraqi leaders, including most of the Kurds and many Shiites, oppose it.

Mr. Khalilzad has taken an active role in trying to secure a constitution that could be agreed to by Iraq's three main groups, the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds.

In Washington, a senior State Department official acknowledged that Iraqi leaders were considering a concession to Shiite leaders on religious authority over personal law, but he cautioned that "nothing is done until everything is done," and that the final charter needed to be judged by all its pieces, not just one.

"This piece might be there," the official said, referring to language that would give authority over family and other matters to religious leaders.

Iraqi leaders spent much of Saturday discussing a formula for sharing Iraq's vast oil wealth. As on Friday, Mr. Khalilzad was the primary catalyst in the negotiations, shuttling between the Shiite and Kurdish camps. The discussions over oil stretched past midnight.

Though no deal on oil was struck, the bargain under consideration would involve some mix of federal and local control over oil, said the person close to the negotiations.

Iraqi leaders said they had reached a tentative deal on the contentious issue of a Shiite autonomous region in southern Iraq. Under the arrangement, the voters of each province would be allowed to decide the matter by referendum.

Such a deal would appear to clear the way for the establishment of the federal region envisioned by Abdul Aziz Hakim, the powerful Shiite leader, who publicly endorsed the formation a nine-province Shiite autonomous area.

"It's done," said Bahaa Al Araji , a Shiite member of the constitutional committee. "Iraq will be a federal state."

A federal Iraq would sharply conflict with the desires of the country's Sunni leaders, who oppose allowing the Shiites to form their own autonomous area. The Sunni leaders argue that Shiite autonomy, coupled with that already enjoyed by the Kurds, could lead to the dissolution of Iraq.

Sunni leaders complained Saturday that they were being left out of the negotiations. Indeed, it appeared that an American-Iraqi strategy was to strike a deal between the Shiites and the Kurds first, and then present it to the Sunnis as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.

The Sunnis have few members in the national assembly, which is supposed to approve the constitution, because of a widespread Sunni boycott of the January elections. It has been a principle of American policy to make sure the Sunnis are included in any deal on the constitution, since Sunnis form the backbone of the insurgency.

"We were waiting, but there was no meeting," said Saleh Mutlak, one of the Sunni leaders. "No one invited us."

Several Shiite leaders said they understood that the Kurds had dropped their insistence on language that would allow them to secede from Iraq under certain circumstances. But there was no official confirmation from the Kurdish camp.

Steven R. Weisman contributed from Washington for this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/international/middleeast/21iraq.html?ei=5094&en=c893972f1714a5a9&hp=&ex=1124596800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1124586782-z04I28yTWQpgOgAbOg mvpQ

posted August 21, 2005 01:02 AM              

By ROBERT BURNS
The Associated PressThe Associated Press

WASHINGTON Aug 20, 2005 — The Army is planning for the possibility of keeping the current number of soldiers in Iraq well over 100,000 for four more years, the Army's top general said Saturday.

In an Associated Press interview, Gen. Peter Schoomaker said the Army is prepared for the "worst case" in terms of the required level of troops in Iraq. He said the number could be adjusted lower if called for by slowing the force rotation or by shortening tours for soldiers.

Schoomaker said commanders in Iraq and others who are in the chain of command will decide how many troops will be needed next year and beyond. His responsibility is to provide them, trained and equipped.
Top Stories

About 138,000 U.S. troops, including about 25,000 Marines, are now in Iraq.

"We are now into '07-'09 in our planning," Schoomaker said, having completed work on the set of combat and support units that will be rotated into Iraq over the coming year for 12-month tours of duty.

Schoomaker's comments come amid indications from Bush administration officials and commanders in Iraq that the size of the U.S. force may be scaled back next year if certain conditions are achieved.

Among those conditions: an Iraqi constitution must be drafted in coming days; it must be approved in a national referendum; and elections must be held for a new government under that charter.

Schoomaker, who spoke aboard an Army jet on the trip back to Washington from Kansas City, Mo., made no predictions about the pace of political progress in Iraq. But he said he was confident the Army could provide the current number of forces to fight the insurgency for many more years. The 2007-09 rotation he is planning would go beyond President Bush's term in office, which ends in January 2009.

Schoomaker was in Kansas City for a dinner Friday hosted by the Military Order of the World Wars, a veterans' organization.

"We're staying 18 months to two years ahead of ourselves" in planning which active-duty and National Guard and Reserve units will be provided to meet the commanders' needs, Schoomaker said in the interview.

The main active-duty combat units that are scheduled to go to Iraq in the coming year are the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., and the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Hood, Texas. Both did one-year tours earlier in the war.

The Army has changed the way it arranges troop rotations.
Top Stories

Instead of sending a full complement of replacement forces each 12-month cycle, it is stretching out the rotation over two years.

The current rotation, for 2005-07, will overlap with the 2006-08 replacements. Beyond that, the Army is piecing together the plan for the 2007-09 switch, Schoomaker said.

With the recent deployments of National Guard brigades from Georgia and Pennsylvania, the National Guard has seven combat brigades in Iraq the most of the entire war plus thousands of support troops.

Along with the Army Reserve and Marine Reserve, they account for about 40 percent of the total U.S. forces in Iraq. Schoomaker said that will be scaled back next year to about 25 percent as newly expanded active-duty divisions such as the 101st Airborne enter the rotation.

August has been the deadliest month of the war for the National Guard and Reserve, with at least 42 fatalities thus far. Schoomaker disputed the suggestion by some that the Guard and Reserve units are not fully prepared for the hostile environment of Iraq.

"I'm very confident that there is no difference in the preparation" of active-duty soldiers and the reservists, who normally train one weekend a month and two weeks each summer, unless they are mobilized. Once called to active duty, they go through the same training as active-duty units.

In internal surveys, some in the reserve forces have indicated to Army leaders that they think they are spending too much time in pre-deployment training, not too little, Schoomaker said.

"Consistently, what we've been (hearing) is, `We're better than you think we are, and we could do this faster,'" he said. "I can promise you that we're not taking any risk in terms of what we're doing to prepare people."
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1054992&page=1

posted August 26, 2005 06:00 PM            

By Michael Georgy
Fri Aug 26,11:36 AM ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A hundred thousand Iraqis across the country marched on Friday in support of a maverick Shi'ite cleric opposed to a draft constitution that U.S.-backed government leaders say will deliver a brighter future.

The protest could reinforce the opposition of Sunni Arabs who dominate the insurgency and are bitterly against the draft.

Supporters of young Shi'ite firebrand Moqtada al-Sadr, who has staged two uprisings against U.S. troops, also protested against poor services during their marches, stepping up the pressure on the government.

A hundred thousand Sadr supporters marched in eight cities, including 30,000 people who gathered for a sermon delivered on his behalf in a Baghdad slum district.

They hardly noticed a huge government poster which read "One Nation, One People, One Constitution," instead seeking guidance from Sadr who inspires fierce devotion in his followers.

Sadr returned to center stage this week after his fighters fought a rival Shi'ite militia, the Badr organization, raising fears of a new front in Iraq's relentless cycle of violence.

He is stirring hopes among his vast following at a time when Iraq's divided politicians have missed a series of deadlines for reaching a consensus on the constitution, which is expected to be put to a referendum in October.

Sadr has also come out in support of Sunni opposition to the federal state that his Shi'ite rivals in government, with their Kurdish allies, have outlined in the charter.

"Bush and America out," yelled cleric Abdel-Zahra al-Suwaidid, reading a statement on Sadr's behalf in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City which is named after his revered father, a cleric allegedly killed by Saddam Hussein's agents.

Another widespread complaint was written simply on banners: "We want water, we want electricity."

The young cleric has gained followers by portraying himself as a champion of the poor. Sadr's cult-like popularity means he can quickly mobilize his fighters if a full-scale conflict with the Badr movement breaks out.

CULT VERSUS CONSTITUTION

Young boys wore T-shirts with images of Sadr and his father as others played a song on a scratchy cassette which repeated "Oh Moqtada, Oh Moqtada" over and over.

"I like Sayyid Moqtada," said eight-year-old Montadhir Taei, using Sadr's religious title.

It was clear his elders have been influencing him: "Iraqis should write the constitution, not the Americans," he said.

The image of Sadr, a burly figure with a turban, was pasted on a water tank carried by a teenager spraying cool water at the crowd of tens of thousands under a cruel sun in Baghdad.

Sadr, who has denied U.S. and Iraqi government accusations he ordered the killing of a rival cleric, assumed a low profile after a U.S. offensive against his forces last year in Najaf.

Now he faces the Iranian-trained Badr movement, which some Iraqis accuse of operating in hit squads alongside government forces. Badr officials and the government deny the accusations.

Sadr's supporters say Badr militiamen attacked his office in Najaf on Wednesday, and clashes then erupted in several cities. A Badr official denied any involvement. Eight people were killed, health officials said.

"These people just want power and money. You go ask the Interior Ministry who did this," said Hussein Saleh, referring to the Badr movement.

The fighting between the two groups across several cities raised the spectre of a new security crisis in Iraq, already ravaged by a Sunni Arab insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqi police and soldiers, civilians and U.S. troops.

At the Baghdad protest, fighters in Sadr's Mehdi Army stood alert on rooftops with assault rifles as speakers condemned the United States.

Some of Sadr's authority comes from credentials of his slain father, Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr.

"We don't need a constitution because Mohammed al-Sadr's writing is our constitution," said Mohammed Ubeidi, 26, sitting below a wall-clock dominated by pictures of Moqtada and his father.

posted August 31, 2005 08:35 PM              

By SAMEER N. YACOUB
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq

Panicked by rumors of a suicide bomber, thousands of Shiite pilgrims broke into a stampede on a bridge during a religious procession Wednesday, crushing one another or plunging 30 feet into the muddy Tigris river. About 800 died, mostly women and children, officials said.

Hundreds of lost sandals littered the two-lane bridge while children floundered in the waters below, trying to reach dry land. The tragedy was the single biggest loss of life known in Iraq since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

"We heard that a suicide attacker was among the crowd," said Fadhel Ali, 28, barefoot and soaking wet on the riverbank. "Everybody was yelling, so I jumped from the bridge into the river, swam and reached the bank. I saw women, children and old men falling after me into the water."

The crowd was on edge because of the 110-degree heat, a mortar barrage near the Shiite shrine where they were headed and the ever-present fear of suicide bombers, etched into memories after repeated attacks against large religious gatherings. Seven people died in the mortar barrage three hours before the stampede, the U.S. military said.

Police later said they found no explosives at the bridge _ either on any individual or in any cars parked nearby. Instead, poor crowd control and the climate of fear in Iraq after years of bullets, bombings and bloodshed appeared largely to have caused the horrific carnage.

Marchers jammed up at a checkpoint at the western edge of the Imams bridge, which has been closed to civilians for months to prevent movement by extremists between the Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah and the Sunni district of Azamiyah across the river.

"This tragedy was the direct result of terrorism; hundreds of innocent people, mostly women and children, have died because of the fear and panic that terrorists are sowing in Iraq," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in a statement.

Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi, a Sunni, said three suicide bombers were stopped Wednesday some distance from the shrine, but "blew themselves up before reaching their destination."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington that he was not aware of any evidence that the stampede on the bridge was caused by a suicide bombing.

Others blamed the government and the U.S.-trained security forces.

"Early security measures should have been taken to protect the lives of citizens and organize their processions," Iraqi Communist Party leader Hameed Majid Mousa told Al-Arabiya television. "We all know that there are terrorists who lie in wait for such events and prepare to ambush the people. ... Why are the processions not organized?"

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, told state-run Iraqiya television that "the government should take measures for an honest investigation to determine how failures doubled the casualties."

The marchers were commemorating the death in the year 799 of Imam Moussa ibn Jaafar al-Kadhim, one of the 12 principle Shiite saints who is buried in a mosque in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kazimiyah.

Since the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, the Shiite political parties have encouraged huge turnouts at religious festivals to display the majority sect's power in the new Iraq. Sunni religious extremists have often targeted the gatherings to foment sectarian war, but that has not stopped the Shiites.

The ceremonies have often been chaotic, with huge crowds overtaxing the ability of police and security services to protect them. Television reports said about 1 million pilgrims from Baghdad and outlying provinces had gathered near the shrine on Wednesday.

Reflecting the confusion, casualty figures from various government agencies also varied widely. The Health Ministry said 769 people were killed and 307 wounded, while the Interior Ministry put the figure at 844 dead and 458 injured. The country's biggest Shiite party gave figures of 759 dead and 300 wounded. Other reports estimated the death toll would climb above 1,000.

"Pushing started when a rumor was spread by a terrorist who claimed that there was a person with an explosive belt, which caused panic," Interior Minister Bayn Jabr said. "Some fell from the bridge, others fell on the barricades" and were trampled to death.

No official offered any evidence that Sunni insurgents were directly responsible for spreading the false rumor.

Scores of bodies covered with white sheets lay on the sidewalk outside one hospital under the broiling sun because the morgue was packed. Many of them were women in black gowns, as well as children and old men.

Sobbing relatives wandered among the dead, lifting the sheets to try to identify their kin. When they found them, they would shriek in grief, pound their chests or collapse to the ground, sobbing.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, declared a three-day mourning period.

In other violence, a U.S. soldier was killed and three were wounded Wednesday when a bomb exploded in the city of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. The military also said another American soldier was killed Tuesday by a bomb in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad.

The several mortar and rockets fired at the Shiite neighborhood before the march struck about 600 yards from the Imam Kadhim shrine, the U.S. military said. U.S. Apache helicopters fired at the attackers.

In March 2004 suicide attackers struck worshippers at the Imam Kadhim shrine and a holy site in Karbala, killing at least 181 overall.

The head of the country's major Sunni clerical group, the Association of Muslim Scholars, told Al-Jazeera television that Wednesday's disaster was "another catastrophe and something else that could be added to the list of ongoing Iraqi tragedies."

"On this occasion we want to express our condolences to all the Iraqis and the parents of the martyrs, who fell today in Kazimiyah and all over Iraq," said the cleric, Haith al-Dhari.

___

posted September 13, 2005 11:41 AM            

But there's sure to be some head shaking and criticism as well, and this time from some unexpected corners.

Staunch supporters of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq have become more vocal and public with their concern over the way things are going there, prompting observers to suggest that even Republicans are getting nervous.

"The Administration is now starting to lose its base on the war, and if this continues, it will come under increasing pressure to accelerate our withdrawal," said Larry Diamond (search), senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and former adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority (search) in Iraq. He recently penned the book, "Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq."

"I have been struck that so many of the intellectual, neo-conservative supporters of the war have been quite critical of the Bush administration's management, or mismanagement, of the post-war situation in Iraq, both politically and militarily," Diamond told FOXNews.com.

Andrew Bacevich (search), a Vietnam veteran and professor of international relations at Boston University, said he sees a marked shift.

"There are people who view themselves on the Right, who were enthusiastic supporters of the war, who are now greatly concerned that the Bush administration or more in particular, the military, is losing its focus, its heart, and isn't fully committed," Bacevich said. "I think Bill Kristol (search) would be a good example of that."

Kristol, a FOX News contributor and editor of the Weekly Standard, advocated toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. But in the Aug. 15 edition of the magazine, Kristol accuses Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of "weakness and defeatism," for lowering the standards for success in Iraq and "emboldening" the enemy through his commanders' suggestion that U.S troops may come home as early as next spring if Iraqi forces are trained to secure the country in that time.

He also continues to blame Rumsfeld for not putting more U.S troops into Iraq at the start.

"The president knows we have to win this war. If some of his subordinates are trying to find ways to escape from it, he needs to assert control over them, overrule them or replace them," Kristol wrote. "What the president needs to do now is tell the Pentagon to stop talking about (and planning for) withdrawal, and make sure they are planning for victory."

President Bush has tamped down ideas of a spring withdrawal and has said repeatedly there will be no exit timetable. "As Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down," he said last month from his Crawford, Texas, ranch. "The important thing for Americans to know is that we are making progress."

Some of his supporters are now saying a more realistic view is necessary.

Ret. Col. David Hunt (search), a FOX News contributor, expressed frustration with how the administration is handling the war.

"This has been a terribly conducted war. It's been 28 months of this – it's time to get upset," he said. "We're getting shot at by people who put bombs in dead dogs. We’re not fighting it right."

Hunt said more troops are needed on Iraq's borders, but unlike Kristol, he advocates slimming down the force by 100,000 and putting in small special operations teams to counter the insurgency.

Ret. Col. Gary Anderson (search), another administration supporter, said, "I'm absolutely in agreement with the president" on not setting timetables for withdrawal, but he is also disappointed that clearer "milestones for success" haven't been established, particularly with regard to when the United States can start handing over security to the Iraqi forces.

"I do think there is some tension there, I think there is a need to hear from the field that at this point in time, we have stood up this many soldiers, and the reluctance to do that is causing some people to have some problems," he said.

"I think there are definite cracks" in the president's Republican support, said Peter Beinart (search), editor of The New Republic magazine, which has supported the invasion of Iraq from the beginning.

He said that aside from Republicans who have always been war critics, like Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, other Republicans have been more vocal about needing clarification on the war strategy and a better explanation to the American public.

‘‘Any effort to explain Iraq as ‘We are on track and making progress' is nonsense,'' former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (search) told the New York Times recently. "The daily and weekly casualties leave people feeling that things aren't going well.''

In July, Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (search), R-Md., a Vietnam War veteran who has supported the war in Iraq, became the fourth Republican to sign on to a bipartisan resolution urging the president to lay out a clear exit strategy, and has said publicly he's concerned about the effect of public opinion on congressional Republicans in 2006.

But David Winston (search), Republican pollster, cautioned against interpreting concern over war strategy as skittishness from the President's base and a lack of support for war overall.

"There is still support for this war," Winston said. What people are looking for from the President, he added, are more specifics and measures for success. "There is more demand for that right now."

Bush still has big guns to bolster his position, including the entire Republican leadership in Congress. Appearing on FOX News Sunday on August 14, Sen. John McCain (search), R-Ariz., warned of any whiff of troop withdrawal.

"I've got an idea for our Pentagon planners," he said. "The day I can land at the airport in Baghdad and ride in an unarmored car down the highway to the Green Zone is the day I'll start considering withdrawal from Iraq."

But Hunt told FOXNews.com that he believes "you will start seeing guys come out of Iraq before the 2006 elections" – and he isn't the only one.

"The conventional wisdom is the Republicans will have to reduce the force before the 2006 elections," said Harold Meyerson (search), editor-at-large for the conservative American Prospect magazine. He did not support the Iraq invasion.

posted April 14, 2006 07:55 PM              

In Iraq army, going AWOL is going with policy's grain

By Antonio Castaneda
Associated Press
Published April 14, 2006

ABU GHRAIB, Iraq -- U.S. and Iraqi commanders are increasingly critical of a policy that lets Iraqi soldiers leave their units virtually at will -- essentially deserting with no punishment. They say the lax rule drains Iraqi ranks confronting the insurgency, in some cases by 30 percent or even half.

Iraqi officials, however, say they have no choice but to allow the policy or they may gain virtually no volunteers.

The commander said a shortage of troops is the unit's biggest problem and pinned the blame on both the policy and unmotivated soldiers.

"Under the military agreement, they can leave anytime," said Col. Alaa Kata al-Kafage. "After [soldiers] get paid and save a little bit of money, they leave."

Some Iraqi officers believe the policy is a good thing because it helps morale among young soldiers who have never been away from home and joined mostly because they need money.

But al-Kafage and others said the policy must be changed.

"All the soldiers now, they don't care about the country. They care about the money," al-Kafage said. "It's too easy for them to quit. If someone punishes them, they can throw down their uniform and say, `Have a nice day."'
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0604140101apr14,1,413851.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

posted April 14, 2006 07:56 PM              

BAGHDAD: Tens of thousands of Iraqis have fled their homes or the country since the bombing of shrines of Imam Ali Naqi and Imam Hassan Askari in Samarra on February 23. At least 30,000 Iraqis have been displaced from their homes since then, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says.

The IOM, a leading international organisation that works on migration issues closely with United Nations agencies, says the number of fleeing refugees is increasing as more people begin to feel unsettled by the violence. The IOM estimate is in line with that of Iraq’s Ministry of Displacement and Migration. But this is only an official estimate. Many believe the number is far larger.

Under Saddam Iraqis fled the country for economic as well as political reasons. Under the occupation now, the primary cause of migration is a complete breakdown of security. Iraqis have much to be worried about, from lack of social services such as electricity and clean water, to rampant crime plaguing Baghdad and Iraq as a whole.

Iraqis fleeing the country have left mostly for Amman in Jordan. By official estimates, Amman now has more than half a million Iraqi refugees. Unofficial estimates put the number at one to two million.

“During the war we left Baghdad for Amman because there was such heavy bombardment of Baghdad,” 35-year-old Sundus al-Mashdani told IPS. “When the war ended we returned to our house in Baghdad, but we found US troops there, and they refused to leave.” Last year Sundus returned to Amman with her three children. Baghdad resident Osama Bahnam plans to leave. “I have been thinking about this for the last two years, but now I’m serious because of the killing between Sunni and Shias,” he said. “We can’t sleep at night, we all worry, there’s killing every day, just because of being Sunni or Shia.”

“There are many strange groups killing Shia people who live in Adhamiya, and they also do the same in Shia areas, killing Sunnis who live there.” Ammar Hussein, whose Sunni uncle was shot dead while out shopping in Shula, a predominantly Shia area of Baghdad, says the city is in the hands of militias.
http://www.dawn.com/2006/04/14/int18.htm

posted April 15, 2006 12:02 AM            

After all, they are leftists, dedicated to the proposition that America has no right to exist...to oppose their little leftist premise of leftist rule which includes the right of government to murder, oppress, repress and thwart the will of their own citizens.

posted April 15, 2006 01:26 AM              

its the people who refer to this war and say, 'hey, things are going great in iraq' who must be enjoying the death and destruction.....

posted April 15, 2006 01:53 AM              

i think theyre hoping to save their parties reputation and stay in power so they can continue the federal spending debacle theyre up to their ears in.....

**********

Gingrich warns Republicans Americans want change
Sun Apr 16, 2006 11:36am ET163

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican Party is in serious danger of losing political ground in November elections if it does not enact reforms that eliminate waste and hold the federal bureaucracy to higher standards, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on Sunday.

"I think they're in very serious danger of having a very bad election this fall," Gingrich said on Fox News Sunday.

"You have to respect the right of the American people to say they want change," he said, criticizing the federal government's bungled efforts to cope with Hurricane Katrina and the Republican-led Congress' failure to enact immigration reforms.

"Are they going to learn some lessons and get their act together?" Gingrich asked.

Republicans currently outnumber Democrats 231-201 in the House and have a 55-44 advantage in the Senate.

The former representative from Georgia said the "debacle" over measures to strengthen U.S. borders and create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants "was one more piece of the puzzle" for many voters who have lost faith in Republican leadership.

"The country absolutely wants control of the borders," Gingrich said. "The country absolutely wants us to insist that becoming an American citizen requires that you passed a test in English."

A well-designed guest worker program would have the support of 75 percent to 80 percent of the American people, he said.

With the federal budget deficit at record levels, Gingrich said Americans are losing patience with "pork," the discretionary spending earmarked to benefit local political constituencies.

"We were sent here to reform Washington, not to be co-opted by Washington," he said.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-04-16T153557Z_01_N16212029_RTRUKOC_0_US-GINGRICH.xml&rpc=22

posted April 15, 2006 02:39 PM              

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent Fri Apr 14, 4:58 PM ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The fortress-like compound rising beside the Tigris River here will be the largest of its kind in the world, the size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq's turbulent future.

The new U.S. Embassy also seems as cloaked in secrecy as the ministate in Rome.

"We can't talk about it. Security reasons," Roberta Rossi, a spokeswoman at the current embassy, said when asked for information about the project.

A British tabloid even told readers the location was being kept secret — news that would surprise Baghdadis who for months have watched the forest of construction cranes at work across the winding Tigris, at the very center of their city and within easy mortar range of anti-U.S. forces in the capital, though fewer explode there these days.

The embassy complex — 21 buildings on 104 acres, according to a U.S.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee report — is taking shape on riverside parkland in the fortified "Green Zone," just east of al-Samoud, a former palace of
Saddam Hussein's, and across the road from the building where the ex-dictator is now on trial.

The Republican Palace, where U.S. Embassy functions are temporarily housed in cubicles among the chandelier-hung rooms, is less than a mile away in the 4-square-mile zone, an enclave of American and Iraqi government offices and lodgings ringed by miles of concrete barriers.

The 5,500 Americans and Iraqis working at the embassy, almost half listed as security, are far more numerous than at any other U.S. mission worldwide. They rarely venture out into the "Red Zone," that is, violence-torn Iraq.

This huge American contingent at the center of power has drawn criticism.

"The presence of a massive U.S. embassy — by far the largest in the world — co-located in the Green Zone with the Iraqi government is seen by Iraqis as an indication of who actually exercises power in their country," the International Crisis Group, a European-based research group, said in one of its periodic reports on Iraq.

State Department spokesman Justin Higgins defended the size of the embassy, old and new, saying it's indicative of the work facing the United States here.

"It's somewhat self-evident that there's going to be a fairly sizable commitment to Iraq by the U.S. government in all forms for several years," he said in Washington.

Higgins noted that large numbers of non-diplomats work at the mission — hundreds of military personnel and dozens of
FBI agents, for example, along with representatives of the Agriculture, Commerce and other U.S. federal departments.

They sleep in hundreds of trailers or "containerized" quarters scattered around the Green Zone. But next year embassy staff will move into six apartment buildings in the new complex, which has been under construction since mid-2005 with a target completion date of June 2007.

Iraq's interim government transferred the land to U.S. ownership in October 2004, under an agreement whose terms were not disclosed.

"Embassy Baghdad" will dwarf new U.S. embassies elsewhere, projects that typically cover 10 acres. The embassy's 104 acres is six times larger than the
United Nations compound in New York, and two-thirds the acreage of Washington's National Mall.

Original cost estimates ranged over $1 billion, but Congress appropriated only $592 million in the emergency Iraq budget adopted last year. Most has gone to a Kuwait builder, First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting, with the rest awarded to six contractors working on the project's "classified" portion — the actual embassy offices.

Higgins declined to identify those builders, citing security reasons, but said five were American companies.

The designs aren't publicly available, but the Senate report makes clear it will be a self-sufficient and "hardened" domain, to function in the midst of Baghdad power outages, water shortages and continuing turmoil.

It will have its own water wells, electricity plant and wastewaster-treatment facility, "systems to allow 100 percent independence from city utilities," says the report, the most authoritative open source on the embassy plans.

Besides two major diplomatic office buildings, homes for the ambassador and his deputy, and the apartment buildings for staff, the compound will offer a swimming pool, gym, commissary, food court and American Club, all housed in a recreation building.

Security, overseen by U.S. Marines, will be extraordinary: setbacks and perimeter no-go areas that will be especially deep, structures reinforced to 2.5-times the standard, and five high-security entrances, plus an emergency entrance-exit, the Senate report says.

Higgins said the work, under way on all parts of the project, is more than one-third complete.

___

posted April 17, 2006 11:08 PM              

The inner walls of the city of Babylon
Babylon was home to one of the ancient world's Seven Wonders
A senior US marine officer says he is willing to apologise for the damage caused by his troops to the ancient Iraqi site of Babylon.

US forces built a helicopter pad on the ancient ruins and filled their sandbags with archaeological material in the months following the 2003 invasion.

Colonel Coleman was chief of staff at Babylon when it was occupied by the First Marine Expeditionary Force.

Babylon's Hanging Gardens were among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Roof collapsed

Col Coleman told the BBC that if the Iraqis wanted an apology for the destruction caused by his men he was willing to give one.

The 2,000 troops who were deployed there did immense damage as they set up camp amidst the ruins of old temples.

A helicopter pad was constructed at the site. The vibration from landings led the roof of one building to collapse.

The soldiers also filled their sandbags with archaeological artefacts, just because they were lying around and easy to pick up.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4908940.stm

posted April 17, 2006 11:43 PM            

Here's the part you purposely left out.

"The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, is angry and says the mess will take decades to sort out.

Col Coleman argues that whatever his troops did, the alternative would have been far worse.

If they hadn't moved in, Babylon would have been left at the mercy of looters, he says."