Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2003 19:52:29 -0400
Subject: 06/01/03 (IRAQ/US POLICY) Troops?; Nasty Surprises; Weapons?;
Sunnis Fume; Admin Rift?; Ba'ath Plot; lran Role?; Criminal Freed;
Business; Oil; Contracts?; Airlines; Comp?; Dems; Penn


1. How Many US Troops is Enough? (New York Times) 05/30
2. Additional Peacekeeping Troops from Other Nations Lacking (USA Today) 05/30
3. New US Enemy in Iraq: The Nasty Surprise (New York Times) 06/01
4. Editorial: US Adjusting to Iraq (Washington Post) 06/01
5. US, UK Announce Amnesty for Turning Over Weapons (Reuters) 05/31
6. In Reversal, Iraqi Civilians Now Allowed to Keep Assault Rifles (New
York Times) 06/01
7. Once-Privileged Sunnis Increasingly See U.S. as Enemy (Washington Post)
06/01
8. What Rift? Top Aides Deny State Dept.-Pentagon Chasm (New York Times) 05/31
9. Pair of S.Carolina Natives at Forefront of Iraq Rebuilding (The State)
05/31
10. US Uncovers Ba’ath Plotters in New Police Academy (AFP) 05/31
11. US Claims Iran Hardliners Flocking To Iraq, SAIRI Denies (IslamOnline)
05/30
12. U.S.-Iran Rivalry Bodes Ill for Iraq (Reuters) 06/01
13. Rights Group. Iraqis Criticize US for Freeing War-Crimes Suspect
(Chicago Tribune) 05/30
14. US Has Big Plans for Wary Small Businesses in Iraq (Los Angeles Times)
05/31
15. First Wave of Foreign Entrepreneurs Plans for Future (Associated Press)
05/30
16. After Years of Stagnation, Iraqi Industries Falling to Wave of Imports
(New York Times) 06/01
17. Oil Giants Line Up at Iraqi Pump (New York Times) 05/30
18. Oil Companies Put Off Visiting Iraq on Security Concerns (Financial
Times) 06/01
19. Future Oil Sales May Be Pawned to Banks (Guardian) 05/31
20. Congress Seeks Details on Scope of Halliburton Contracts (Washington
Post) 05/30
21. Rumsfeld Queried on Off-Shore Banking Arrangements (American Reporter)
05/29
22. US Airlines Cleared to Fly to Iraq (Reuters) 05/30
23. Planes Landing in Iraq Under Fire: Holding Up Commercial Flights (AFP)
06/01
24. US Refuses to Compensate Iraqis for Lost Limbs, Property (Washington
Post) 05/31
25. Democrats Reluctant to Criticize Iraq War (Albany Times Union) 06/01
26. Sean Penn Ad in New York Times Totally Rags on Bush, War (Associated
Press) 05/30
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) How Many Troops Is Enough?
New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
May 30, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 30 Nearly two months after American tanks rolled into
Baghdad, the Bush administration is learning a simple if unwelcome lesson:
it will take more troops to police and secure Iraq than it did to destroy
the Saddam Hussein regime.

The toppling of Mr. Hussein's government was essentially carried out by two
to three divisions' worth of troops backed up by punishing air attacks. But
the number of troops trying to provide security in postwar Iraq is far
greater and includes almost half the divisions in the American Army.

In February, the Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, estimated that
it could take several hundred thousand troops to pacify the country after
Mr. Hussein was removed from power, an assessment that Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld dismissed as grossly inflated. The Army chief, civilian
Defense Department officials suggested, did not understand the Bush
administration's plan for Iraq and was ill-informed.

Predicting trends in Iraq is not easy. But with 160,000 American and
British troops now in Iraq and tens of thousands more providing logistical
support from Kuwait, General Shinseki seems to have got it more right than
the defense secretary.

Certainly, the initial Bush administration plans to reduce American forces
to less than two divisions by September, a force of 70,000 or substantially
less, including logistical support, now seems unrealistic.

Just this week, military commanders disclosed that the Third Infantry
Division, the unit that led the Army attack to Baghdad, was not going home
next month as expected. Instead, its duty in Iraq is being extended so it
can be deployed to hot spots outside Baghdad and serve as a reserve force
in the capital.

There are several reasons why the United States troop presence in Iraq
remains so formidable. Iraq is not a small Balkan state but a nation about
the size of California. Securing such a large area is a labor intensive
task. Two Army divisions have been deployed north of Baghdad to secure the
peace, a far greater presence than was sent to this area during the war.
Even so, the Army is having difficulty covering the northern part of the
country.

Another factor is the slow pace of efforts to rebuild Iraq's institutions.
The Defense Department seems to have assumed that Iraq's civil
administration would quickly snap back into place after the war, but it has
turned out to be a much slower process. Iraq's police force, for example,
needs to be re-established and retrained after long years of totalitarian rule.

Sharing the burden of stabilizing Iraq with other nations has also not been
an immediate option, since the military coalition was mainly limited to the
United States, Britain and Australia, and the Bush administration does not
welcome a strong United Nations role. Some nations, like Poland, Spain and
Italy, are expected to contribute some troops, but establishing new
multinational divisions and deploying them in Iraq is still a work in
progress.

There is a deeper lesson here, however, and one that has important
implications for the Bush administration's foreign policy and its program
to remake the American military. The nub of the issue is this: If the
administration is committed to a foreign policy of pre-emptive strikes and
occasionally "regime change," it must be prepared to cope with the power
vacuums that may follow.

Initially, the Bush administration argued that the purpose of the armed
forces was to fight the nation's wars, and that peacekeeping was a
distraction. But nation-building and peacekeeping, it seems, are not only
important for liberals who want to help end ethnic strife and respond to
humanitarian crises. Such missions are also useful tools for conservatives
who support unilateral military action by the United States and want to
consolidate hard-won strategic gains.

In Iraq, destroying Saddam Hussein's regime was a chief goal, but using
troops to hunt down remnants of his government and to police the country so
that hostile forces do not emerge is also vital. That may seem obvious, but
it has enormous implications for Pentagon planning. The main reason that
the dispute between General Shinseki and Mr. Rumsfeld over how many
peacekeeping troops are needed in Iraq was a sensitive issue is that it
reflected underlying differences over how large the Army should be, the
size of its budget and how it should be structured.

If the Pentagon considers only how many troops were used to defeat Mr.
Hussein's forces, it seems that the United States has more than enough
soldiers. The main attack on Baghdad was led by a single mechanized
division, the Third Infantry Division. That seems to support Mr. Rumsfeld's
notion that the Army has sufficient manpower and can be cut so that funds
can be freed up to develop high-tech weapons and reconnaissance systems.

But if the Army's postwar effort to stabilize Iraq is taken into account,
it would seem that the service needs more troops not less.

Certainly, the Army does not seem to have many forces to spare. Of the
Army's 10 divisions, more than 4 are deployed in Iraq. The Army's forces
deployed in Iraq include the Third Infantry Division, Fourth Infantry
Division, First Armored Division, 101st Airborne Division and a brigade of
the 82nd Airborne Division. Other forces in Iraq include the Second Armored
Cavalry Regiment and the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment.

Of the remaining Army divisions, the Second Infantry Division is in South
Korea, the 10th Mountain Division is headed to Afghanistan and a brigade of
the First Infantry Division is in Kosovo.

Only two divisions, the First Cavalry Division, which is based in Texas,
and the 25th Infantry Division, which is stationed in Hawaii, are not
spoken for at this time. As one Army officer put, they are the only "action
figures" left.

After General Shinskeki offered his estimate, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
D. Wolfowitz told Congress that a much small coalition peacekeeping force
would be needed. Explaining his thinking, Mr. Wolfowitz said that Iraqi
civilians would welcome an American-led peacekeeping force while many
expatriates would return home to help.

"I would expect that even countries like France will have a strong interest
in assisting Iraq in reconstruction," Mr. Wolfowitz said.

The clashing assessment of General Shinseki and the senior civilian
leadership at the Defense Department is part of a broader debate over the
size and structure of the Army. Iraq is an important test. At this point,
it is the civilians' predictions that now appear to be off-target.

When it comes to the Army it is not just combat operations that should
determine how many soldiers are enough. The Pentagon also needs to consider
how many troops are required to uphold the peace that follows.

-----

2) Relief for U.S. troops lacking
By Tom Squitieri,
USA TODAY
May 30, 2003

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's search for troops from other nations to replace
U.S.
soldiers in the force that is stabilizing postwar Iraq has fallen short of
expectations, and
U.S. officials face the prospect of keeping more U.S. forces in Iraq than
they had hoped,
diplomats and military officials say.

Despite efforts to prod other nations to send troops - and a United Nations
resolution on May 22 that cleared the way for countries to begin
contributing soldiers to the postwar effort - the United States and Britain
have gotten promises of just 13,000 troops from two dozen countries,
according to diplomats for the affected countries. The first significant
arrivals could come in July.

That's much fewer than the tens of thousands of troops U.S. planners want.
There are about 150,000 U.S. troops and 15,000 British troops in Iraq,
along with a smattering of soldiers from other nations. Pentagon officials
had hoped to begin substituting troops from other countries for some U.S.
troops as early as next month, when they had expected to send home most of
the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, which will now stay on.

Getting help from foreign troops is important for reasons beyond sending
home battle-weary U.S. forces. The Bush administration would like to put a
more multinational face on the occupation of Iraq by visibly involving a
broader group of nations. Foreign help also could cut U.S. costs at a time
when U.S. planners are facing an open-ended military mission in Afghanistan
plus other operations in the war against terrorism.

In a speech Tuesday to the Council on Foreign Relations, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld said 39 nations have contributed to the stabilization force
or "provided other assistance." But the Pentagon will not specify which
nations are contributing troops, or how many have been promised.

In his speech, Rumsfeld also said many U.S. troops will be required "for as
long as it takes" to create a secure atmosphere in Iraq.

The United Sates is getting enthusiastic help from Poland. Polish officials
said they are determined to take a lead role in the military security of
Iraq as well as demonstrate to the United States and other NATO nations
that it can be a good ally.

In Warsaw, 15 nations took part last week in talks on the force for Iraq.
Polish officials said they received commitments from enough nations to fill
out a 7,000-strong force for a sector of Iraq they will command.

Several countries the United States was hoping would send large numbers of
troops now say they can contribute small groups for a short period of time.
For example, Denmark says it was asked for 5,000 troops but will send 380.

Other nations that have participated in peacekeeping missions elsewhere
have declined to send troops because public opinion in their countries
heavily opposed the U.S. invasion and continues to oppose postwar
U.S.-British control. There are other snags:

NATO is preparing a force of 5,500 troops for peacekeeping duties in
Afghanistan. That is drawing European troops who might have helped in Iraq.

Worse-than-expected postwar lawlessness and violence in Iraq have forced
U.S. planners to keep more troops there, and have increased the anxiety of
some nations about committing their forces.
Some nations have few soldiers to send or a lack of money to pay for any
significant deployment.

Britain's 15,000 troops still in Iraq are down from 45,000 during the war,
and Britain has said it will continue to reduce the size of its force.

British Defense Minister Geoffrey Hoon said in an interview that a long
occupation would severely strain Britain's small military. "It is fair to
say we are stretched," Hoon said.

-----

3) There's a New Enemy in Iraq: The Nasty Surprise
New York Times
By PATRICK E. TYLER
June 1, 2003

BAGHDAD Within the Bush administration, expectations were high as American
forces advanced on Baghdad: Saddam Hussein's regime would collapse. The
Iraqis would be liberated. A few hundred technocrats would restart an
economy greased by the wealth of oil. A new and progressive democracy,
dominated initially by exiles returned from the West, would dawn in the
Arab world.

For many Iraqis, hopes were equally buoyant: With Mr. Hussein removed, they
would be free to govern themselves. Coalition forces would soon withdraw.
Prosperity would return with the bounty of oil and Iraq would reclaim its
destiny as a lion of culture and trade.

Things are not working out as either side planned. It is still early, and
no one can say the prospect of a more orderly and democratic Iraq is gone.
But most of the assumptions about how that would happen are being discarded.

The enormous task of recovery and reconstruction across a complex landscape
of ethnic and religious division has been complicated by the refusal of the
battlefield to go silent. Though Mr. Hussein is gone, nobody can say he is
dead. So a series of attacks on convoys that killed six American soldiers
has impelled military officials to re-examine assumptions about what kind
of behavior to expect from liberated Iraqis.

There are whispers, too, that the Baath Party, with its record of
underground survival, is organizing a new guerrilla campaign, including
sabotage against public services the coalition is rushing to bring back on
line.

The clashes last week were cause for alarm because, it seemed, accidents
and missteps by coalition forces were being taken as acts of aggression or,
worse, disrespect for Muslims. The possibility of rebellion is now likely
to be a constant concern. If attacks on American troops continue, soldiers
who were tossing candy to welcoming children in April will be kicking down
more doors and setting up roadblocks to seize heavy weapons from a culture
inured to guns for self protection. Mandatory disarmament begins today.

The coalition army here is also growing, not shrinking. There are 140,000
troops in Iraq, more than 55,000 of them in Baghdad, carrying out a police
function that few were trained for. The capital has become a virtual
parking lot for American armor, but that begs the question: How do you walk
a beat in an M-1 tank?

The obvious cure for that problem would be an Iraqi police force. But the
police trained under Mr. Hussein are so discredited that Bernard Kerik, New
York's former police commissioner, cannot predict when a new force can be
built. "It's going to take time," he said last week, adding that the days
of torture during investigation are over.

Government of, by and for the Iraqis was always part of the postwar plan,
but that plan changed significantly when President Bush sent L. Paul Bremer
III to Baghdad to become the chief civilian administrator.

Mr. Bremer, who arrived in Baghdad three weeks ago, soon told the leaders
of the Iraqi exile movement that they would not be assuming power as a
provisional government, rescinding a promise made by his predecessor, Jay
Garner, only weeks before.

Many analysts saw this as a proxy vote of no confidence from the Bush
administration in the Iraqi opposition's ability to establish law and order
and organize the rebuilding of Iraq. Others defended it as a pragmatic
effort to win Security Council backing for lifting sanctions on Iraq,
unfreezing assets and getting oil flowing again to prime a collapsed economy.

But another factor, fear of Iran, is also at play, and members of the Iraqi
opposition believe it may have been the deciding factor in Mr. Bush's
decision against empowering them.

A year ago, when the Central Intelligence Agency helped coalesce squabbling
Iraqi factions into a unified opposition, Washington reached out to the
largest Shiite Muslim exile group, which was under the leadership of
Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, then in Iran. His group, which was backed
by Tehran, agreed to join the anti-Hussein effort under the umbrella
Washington had extended, opposition officials say.

Ever since, the ayatollah has been a full member of the opposition's
leadership council, along with the secular Shiite Ahmad Chalabi and the
Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani, Massoud Barzani and Iyad Alawi.

YET once the war ended, the prospect that Ayatollah Hakim's voice would
speak for Iraq's Shiite majority in a provisional government added to
Washington's jitters about turning over power to the exiles. To some
analysts, it seemed a slippery slope toward Iranian political hegemony a
piggyback ride for Tehran on the American invasion.

Mr. Chalabi, however, is now saying that "it was an over reaction," if
Washington allowed its fears of Ayatollah Hakim to extend occupation rule.

In any case, Mr. Bush and Mr. Bremer are now working against the clock and
the tide of expectations. It may be a year or more before the Iraqis get
power back into their own hands, after Washington has been assured that the
ground is prepared for a stable pro-Western democracy strong enough to fend
off any nefarious influences from the east. Until then, American and
British administrators will keep the main responsibility for maintaining
order, restoring services, reviving the economy and otherwise returning
life to normal.

But this course, while it avoids the risks associated with turning over
power prematurely to a shaky band of exiles, one of whom has ties to Iran,
entails a whole new set of risks. Those will only recede if the authorities
can deliver on promises of security and prosperity. If they can, the Bush
administration may be able to deliver on its greatest expectation the
transformation of a region that couldn't imagine anyone assuming all the
risks associated with ejecting the tyrant of Baghdad.

American ingenuity will be tested this month when Mr. Bremer and the
generals set out to disarm a country still entirely unsure when power will
be returned to it and not very sure that the occupation authorities can
maintain order in a strange land.

------

4) Editorial: Adjusting to Iraq
Washington Post
June 1, 2003

THE U.S.-LED provisional administration in Iraq at last appears to making
progress toward restoring order and basic services and restarting the
country's economy. During the past two weeks, thousands of additional
troops from the U.S. 1st Armored Division have arrived in Baghdad and
embarked on street patrols; meanwhile, engineers have doubled the city's
power supply, and tons of garbage have been picked up. L. Paul Bremer III,
the no-nonsense diplomat who took command of the occupation nearly three
weeks ago, has quickly taken decisive measures, from disbanding the Iraqi
army and banning all members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to regulating
firearms and other weapons. He also sensibly slowed the chaotic rush to
install an Iraqi provisional government, making clear to the country that
for now he is in charge. Some of his steps may prompt more disorder in the
short term: Some of the violence recently directed at U.S. forces may have
come from military or party officials stripped of their posts and pensions,
while various would-be Iraqi leaders are angrily protesting the political
slowdown. But the overall mood may have been captured by a survey recently
conducted by one of Baghdad's new newspapers: Eighty-five percent of
respondents said coalition forces had done a bad job maintaining order
after the war; 65 percent said they should not yet leave Iraq.

Like Iraqis themselves, Bush administration officials appear to be grimly
-- and belatedly -- accepting the magnitude of the challenges. "The war has
not ended," said the commanding general of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen.
David D. McKiernan, on Thursday. His statement came 28 days after President
Bush declared the war over in a dramatic appearance aboard an aircraft
carrier; since that day, 20 American servicemen have died in Iraq.
Acknowledging the continuing security problems, the Pentagon has postponed
the departure of the 3rd Infantry Division, meaning that the U.S. troop
level in Iraq will remain at 150,000 for a few months at least. Mr. Bremer
appears to have recognized that constructing a new Iraqi leadership that is
both representative and free of Baath loyalists or Islamic extremists will
also take time: "Occupation," he told The Post's Scott Wilson last week,
"is an ugly word, not one Americans feel comfortable with, but it's a
fact." Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has also changed his tune:
Last week he published a sober article in the Wall Street Journal promising
to restore order by force if necessary and acknowledging that "the
transition to democracy will take time and may not always be a smooth road."

Such statements by senior administration officials, like the stepped-up
efforts on the ground, are welcome, even if overdue. But it's still not
clear that President Bush and his aides have fully accepted the scale of
the commitment that postwar Iraq will require, or explained it clearly to
the public and Congress. Officials still speak of plans to replace many
U.S. troops with foreign forces this summer and to fund Iraqi
reconstruction with the country's own assets or foreign donations. But only
modest help is on the way from U.S. allies -- a Polish-led force scheduled
to arrive next month will comprise only 7,000 troops -- and it could be
years before the Iraqi oil industry generates sufficient revenue to pay for
more than the basic needs of Iraq's 23 million people. The reality is that
tens of thousands of U.S. troops will likely be in Iraq for years to come,
and the country will not recover without extensive investment by the United
States and other international donors. The administration has made a start
at adjusting its policy and its public rhetoric to fit those facts -- but
as the people still waiting for electricity in Baghdad would attest, it has
a ways to go.

-----

5) Troops bank on Iraq arms amnesty
Reuters
May 31, 2003

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. and British forces in Iraq plan to launch a
weapons amnesty to try to get Iraqis to hand over guns which have flooded
the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein's government.

A U.S. military spokesman told a news conference on Saturday Iraqis would
be encouraged to put their weapons in plastic bags and drop them off at
police stations.

People will be allowed to keep weapons such as AK-47 assault rifles and
pistols at home but carrying them on the streets will invite prosecution.

The weapons control campaign will be broadcast on radio stations and on
loudspeakers. Leaflets will also be distributed.

It could be a daunting task in a country where AK-47 assault rifles have
been selling in street markets beside vegetable stalls since U.S. and
British troops toppled Saddam in April.

Iraqis complain that the failure of U.S. and British troops to restore
order following the war has fuelled the weapons trade and endangered
ordinary people who crave a normal life free of the crackle of gunfire.

Members of Saddam's deposed Baath party who have not been arrested still
possess arms. Militia groups with weapons are also a problem.

"That is a risk," said a spokesman for the Office of Reconstruction and
Humanitarian Assistance, the body charged with rebuilding Iraq.

------

6) Allied Officials Now Allow Iraqi Civilians to Keep Assault Rifles
New York Times
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
June 1, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 31 In a significant retreat in American efforts to
seize weapons held by Iraqi citizens, American and British officials said
today that Iraqis would be allowed to keep AK-47 assault rifles in their
homes and businesses.

While American officials gave no public explanation for amending what had
been a much tougher plan to rid postwar Iraq of heavy weapons, military
officials have said they recognize the difficulties in disarming citizens
at a time when Iraqis feel their security is still at risk.

The civilian disarmament policy is central to efforts by the American and
British occupation authorities to reduce the high level of violent street
crime here. The policy is also aimed at stopping sporadic guerrilla attacks
that have killed or injured American soldiers in recent weeks.

The continuing threat was evident today when American troops arrested 15
high-ranking Iraqi police officers, including six generals, and charged
them with trying to reorganize elements of the once-ruling Baath Party.

American officials said that the group's apparent leader was Maj. Gen.
Akram Abdul Razak, dean of Iraq's national police academy, and that the
group had been holding clandestine meetings at the academy every Saturday
morning.

Today's developments highlighted the contradictory demands of restoring
security in Iraq. On the one hand, American officials are urgently trying
to restore law and order by building police forces and banning weapons. At
the same time, law-abiding Iraqis are vociferously complaining that they
need to defend their homes and businesses. Potentially undermining all
these security efforts is the specter of former high-ranking Baathists who
may be seeking to destabilize the country.

The disarmament policy was announced in general terms on May 22 by L. Paul
Bremer III, the top civilian administrator in Iraq. According to a draft of
the directive given to leaders of Iraqi's main political groups, the
original plan sought to impose a broad ban on the owning or trading of
"automatic firearms of any caliber" by civilians.

The directive, however, did allow ordinary Iraqis to retain some light
arms, including pistols, rifles and shotguns.

At the time, the list of automatic weapons to be banned specifically
included AK-47 Kalashnikovs, the Russian assault rifles that are nearly
ubiquitous in Iraq. But that approach came under heavy criticism from many
Iraqis, who argued that families and business owners badly needed the
weapons to defend themselves from looters and organized criminal gangs.

That criticism apparently had an effect. Under a two-week amnesty program
that begins on Sunday, Iraqis are being urged to voluntarily bring in
prohibited weapons to police stations around the country. But an
Arabic-language flyer now being distributed in neighborhoods says Iraqi
citizens can keep certain automatic weapons inside their homes and businesses.

Asked today whether Iraqis would be allowed to keep assault rifles in their
homes, a spokesman for Mr. Bremer said, "Yes, they will be allowed to keep
their AK-47's."

"It is not a program for the disarmament of the Iraqi people," added the
spokesman, who requested anonymity. "It is a weapons-control program."

The nuances are confusing to many members of Baghdad's new police force. At
a police station in the Dora neighborhood today, Iraqi officers said they
had only learned the day before that an amnesty program for weapons was
about to begin.

Many officers struggled to interpret the instructions on the new flyer.
Some said the flyer only seemed to permit automatic weapons with a caliber
of less than 7.62 millimeters, which is the caliber of a standard
Kalashnikov. Others said the directive seemed to give a more general
approval for keeping automatic weapons at home.

Iraqis will still be allowed to keep handguns, rifles and shotguns. But the
new instructions contain a lengthy of list of much heavier weapons that
would be prohibited to most people: machine guns, rocket-propelled
grenades, shoulder-fired missiles, antiaircraft guns, mortars, land mines
and grenades.

The new weapons policy appears to be the outcome of a debate among top
military officials in Iraq. Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, commander of
allied land forces in Iraq, told reporters two weeks ago that he was
skeptical about simply trying to disarm Iraqi civilians.

"For one thing, I don't think it would be enforceable," General McKiernan
said at the time.

But Mr. Bremer, keenly aware that his political priority in Iraq is to
restore law and order, strongly suggested that he wanted to prohibit most
weapons in civilian hands.

Today's arrest of the Iraqi police officers reflected a similar quandary on
the issue of what American officials call "de-Baathification." Almost
immediately after his arrival last month, Mr. Bremer issued a tough new
decree banning senior Baath party members from jobs in the new government.

But most if not all of those arrested today had retained their jobs after
American and British forces took control of Iraq. In addition to General
Razak, the dean of the police academy, the officers arrested included three
generals who also worked in the academy and a number of others whose jobs
were unclear but whose ranks ranged from colonel to sergeant.

American officials said the arrests had been made based on information
provided by lower-ranking officers at the police academy. The officials did
not disclose what they believed that those arrested were trying to
accomplish, but said they had been found with documents bearing the
letterhead of the Baath Party.

------

7) Iraq's Once-Privileged Sunnis Increasingly See U.S. as Enemy
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post
June 1, 2003

SAMARRA, Iraq, May 31 -- Near a wall bearing the words "God, nation and the
leader Saddam Hussein," a convoy of nearly a dozen cars sped through the
dark streets celebrating the marriage of Harith Ahmed. The crowd of young
men was boisterous, the mood was exuberant. And as is custom at Iraqi
weddings in a country where nearly everyone possesses a gun, witnesses
said, a teenager fired one or perhaps three celebratory shots from an
antiquated rifle.

What followed last Monday night in this city turned smoldering resentment
at the seven-week U.S. occupation into unrelenting anger, a window on
sentiments expressed more and more often in interviews across this region
of central Iraq, long home to the country's Sunni Muslim minority.

Witnesses said a patrol of American soldiers was standing across the city
circle, a dirt expanse with a crumbling traffic post painted white and
blue. At the sound of the gunshots, witnesses said, the American soldiers
fired at a crowded blue pickup truck at the tail end of the convoy. "Go,
go, they're trying to kill us!" Abdel-Salam Jassim, 17, recalled shouting
from the back of the truck, as the staccato bursts of gunfire rang out. In
the confusion, he said, another partygoer in the truck shouted, "Stop, stop!"

By the time the shooting ended five minutes later, a 17-year-old Iraqi had
fallen in the street dead. A 16-year-old, mortally wounded, hung from the
back of the truck as it sped away, his hands dragging along the pavement.
Two others, ages 13 and 14, lay dead in the truck. Seven were wounded,
including Jassim, who was recovering last week at the Samarra General
Hospital from a wound to the stomach.

Soldiers with the Army's 4th Infantry Division in Samarra said today that
they were not authorized to discuss the incident. But a statement from U.S.
Central Command said the soldiers had been fired on by the convoy. When
they returned fire, the statement said, the car sped away. Of the Iraqi
casualties, it said: "The exact cause of their deaths are unknown."

But across a once-privileged swath of Iraq that stretches west along the
Euphrates River and north along the Tigris River, the shooting has served
as one more rallying cry in an already restive region, where U.S. soldiers
face daily attacks and residents are increasingly bold in their predictions
of more strife and bloodshed as long as the Americans stay.

"God will take revenge on them," Jassim said from his hospital bed.

"This whole tragedy is because of the Americans," said Maan Lufta, a doctor
standing nearby. "They are invaders of our city. For what? Can you tell me
why they came? Do you think they really came to liberate us? Who believes
that? Nobody believes that."

In an uncertain country, Iraq's Sunni Muslims are deeply unsettled. In
cities like Samarra, Fallujah, Ramadi and Tikrit, once relatively wealthy
towns along well-watered fields and orchards, there is a fear of the
future, often revealed most clearly in a nostalgia for the past. During his
three-decade rule, Hussein's fellow Sunni Muslims dominated the country and
Shiites were largely repressed.

Among some, Hussein is still given the title "president" -- a symbol of
utter authority in a country with little of it remaining. Graffiti
celebrate his rule -- "Yes, yes to the beloved leader Saddam" -- and some
of his portraits remain.

In interviews this week in this region, many Iraqis were quick to declare
the United States the enemy; its tanks and helicopters are the face of the
occupation most often seen in these towns. But beyond the open resentment,
there is growing introspection among Sunni Muslims about the fate of a
minority that -- by virtue of its wealth, education and the favoritism of
overlords -- has ruled Iraq for centuries. To many, the Arab nationalism
that once bound them together rings hollow. Religion, an untested movement
in a country whose official ideology was secular, has become more prominent.

"Every humble Iraqi has the same opinion," said Mohammed Hussein, the owner
of the Hajj Hussein Restaurant in Fallujah, serving the kebab for which the
city is famous. "We haven't seen anything better than what was provided
under Saddam."

On the walls of the restaurant are portraits of 22 elderly men from
Fallujah. "People who had dignity," as Mohammed Hussein put it. In the
dusty town, along buildings of concrete and cinder block, dignity is a
trait celebrated along with notions of honor and morality, a tribal code
born of the desert that still runs deep in provincial towns and the
countryside outside Baghdad.

Many in Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, complain that U.S. forces are
denying them those traditions. They said troops hassle them at checkpoints,
urinate in the streets, keep their fingers on their triggers as they
approach and spy on women with binoculars. Families sleep on the roofs of
their homes to withstand the sweltering summer heat, but complain of
helicopters flying low to get a bird's-eye view of women and children.
Rumor or not, the perceptions are so ingrained as to qualify as reality,
the subject of conversation after conversation in restaurants like
Hussein's. Graffiti along a wall declare that "Fallujah will remain a fire
burning the invaders."

"If there's one way, there are 100 ways they make us mad," said Jassim
Mohammed Saleh, a 48-year-old customer dressed in a traditional gray
dishdasha, or robe. "We wish they would leave tomorrow."

Saleh quoted an Iraqi proverb that translates literally as "the mud is
becoming wetter." It means things are getting worse. Saleh and Mohammed
Hussein said they distrust Iraq's political parties, many of whose members
spent years in exile or are beholden to the United States. They complain
that lawlessness remains, despite the U.S. presence. Speaking in veiled
terms, they worried about the resurgence of groups representing Shiite
Muslims, who make up about 60 percent of the population.

The two men said they long for Hussein's rule. Not the man necessarily,
they added, but the authority he provided. They insisted no one else can
rule a country renowned for divisiveness.

"The first thing he did was provide us security," Saleh said. "At any hour,
I could wander anywhere in the province. When the dregs of society heard
Saddam's name, they were frightened. Now, they're in charge."

Mohammed Hussein, a stocky man with a thick mustache and three days of
stubble, nodded his head. "I'm not an admirer of Saddam, I'm not an admirer
of the Baath Party," he said. "But we need an alternative for Iraq. Until
now, there is no one other than Saddam. The Americans have left everything
in suspension." He paused, then added, "You'll see in the future what will
happen."

The legacy of the fallen president still casts a long shadow across this
region so central to the Sunni Muslims of Iraq. On buildings that line
four-lane highways here, where trucks are laden with clover and roadside
stands sell the region's famed watermelon, newly painted slogans scrawled
in black read: "Saddam Hussein is the builder of the glory of Iraq."
Another reads: "Saddam Hussein, we will never let you down."

It was in this crescent of territory that Hussein built the ranks of the
Baath Party, the suffocating instrument of his rule. Early on, he drew not
on the Sunni elite that held sway in Baghdad, cultivated by the Ottomans,
then the British. He instead relied on the ranks of poor, disenfranchised
Sunnis like himself, the neglected from cities such as Tikrit and Samarra.

In Tikrit -- a region that is home to the village of Auja where Hussein was
born -- the nostalgia expressed in Fallujah is overshadowed by fear, a
lurking sentiment that Hussein remains, that he might still return.

Even now, when many Iraqis revel in a newfound freedom of expression,
Tikrit remains largely silent. As in the Baath Party days, residents
responded to questions in monosyllabic answers, fearful of interviews with
journalists. They pronounced the situation zain, fine.

"Some people are still afraid," said a 40-year-old engineering professor at
Tikrit University, who asked that his name not be used. He pointed out a
slogan on a white cement pedestal where a statue of Hussein once stood.
"Anyone who deals with the Americans will be killed," it said. Nearby more
graffiti read, "Bush, you dog, Saddam remains." The professor said the
slogans had inspired fear, although it is not known who wrote them.

The people of Tikrit "are trying to avoid any problems," he said. "Because
of the past, they are scared, and they don't trust anyone."

The U.S. military attributes the almost daily attacks on its forces to
remnants of the Baath Party, and some residents suggest that its cadres
remain underground and organized. Many of the attackers have used small
arms or rocket-propelled grenades. But some of the attacks bear the
hallmarks of relatively more sophisticated weaponry -- a remote-controlled
explosive that killed a U.S. soldier near the Baghdad airport last week,
for example, or a volley of mortars hurled at U.S. forces in Samarra the
night after the wedding party spiraled into violence. After these
incidents, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. David D.
McKiernan, declared that "the war has not ended."

In the void left by the ouster of Hussein, Arab nationalism, the ideology
of the Baath Party, appears largely discredited. Some Iraqis quip that
Hussein treated other Arabs better than he treated Iraqis -- he once
imported entire Moroccan and Egyptian villages to farm Iraq's rich but
fallow farms -- and he long aspired to be the region's strongman, viewing
his country as the Prussia of the Arab world.

In Ramadi, a town 60 miles west of Baghdad, Sunni Muslims were furious at
what they saw as Arab neutrality or even complicity in the U.S.-led
invasion. "All the Arab countries are traitors!" shouted Salman Hayani, a
47-year-old teacher. A crowd gathered around him as people tried to outdo
one another in their denunciations. "If I see a Kuwaiti, even a child, I
will slaughter him," said Khaled Yassin.

Instead of Arab nationalism, a new religious fervor is evident in the town.
At the Great Sheikh Abdel-Malik Mosque, worshipers filled the hall,
spilling out the door in rows three deep. Along its walls were leaflets
offering religious courses twice a week. "We should fight the invaders and
the occupiers," declared the prayer leader, Sheik Anis Abdel-Halim.

In his sermon, he worried that Iraqi society had started to crumble since
the government's collapse. He appealed to a Muslim tradition of charity and
implored wealthy worshipers to help the poor. Businessmen should give to
the disadvantaged, he said, and doctors should provide health care for
free. Pharmacists should cut prices of prescriptions for the needy.

"Together we can overcome these obstacles and difficult times," he said.
"Once we overcome them, God will be with us."

After the prayers, Hamad Qadduri stood in his auto parts store, a dusty
hovel off a muddy street. Dressed in a white dishdasha, buttoned to the
collar, he railed against the Baath Party for surrendering to the
Americans, at Hussein for deserting Baghdad. With principles and morals,
grounded in faith, he said he believed Iraqis could have rid the country of
Hussein.

But the 51-year-old retired teacher gave the Americans no chance. They were
kaffirs, he said, unbelievers.
"We can't like kaffirs, whatever services they provide us, whatever they do
for us," he said. "This is our law."

------

8) What Rift? Top Aides Deny State Dept.-Pentagon Chasm
New York Times
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
May 31, 2003

WASHINGTON, May 30 American presidencies have often been riven by feuds
between hard-liners at the Pentagon and diplomats at the State Department.
Yet the chasm between the two under President Bush is often so wide that to
outsiders it can appear they are conducting two entirely different foreign
policies.

In recent back-to-back interviews, though, two of the most senior insiders
involved in the policy debates discounted that widely held view. Paul D.
Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, dismissed it as "sophomoric," and
Richard L. Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, called it "utter nonsense."

To some extent, tensions are inevitable and healthy. The State Department
emphasizes negotiations with allies and an aversion to confrontation,
especially military, on trouble spots ranging from Iraq to North Korea, the
Middle East and Iran. The Defense Department takes a tougher stance on
these same problem areas, even if it alarms close allies.

The State and Defense departments are also squabbling over which should be
the primary power in the occupation of postwar Iraq.

Because the Pentagon favors a vigorous projection of American power at a
time when that power is unrivaled, and because the State Department sees
most immediately the price paid for American assertiveness in terms of lost
sympathy overseas, the current differences often appear unique in their
acuteness. They are certainly the talk of Washington, where Secretary of
State Colin L. Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are often
portrayed as rival jousters in a contest where the Pentagon seems to have
the upper hand.

Henry A. Kissinger, the former Secretary of State, joked recently to a
group of businesspeople in New York that Secretary Powell was viewed abroad
as "a small country that occasionally does business with the United
States," according to someone in the room.

But Mr. Armitage insisted that he had seen worse tensions. He recalled that
when he served in the Reagan administration, he attended breakfast meetings
between Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and Secretary of State
George P. Shultz.

"Now there was a constant battle," he said. "We used to sit there and
cringe. I've never seen Powell or Rumsfeld be dismissive or rude to each
other."

Mr. Wolfowitz asserted that disputes are healthy, not personal, and that
they should reassure rather than alarm Americans.

"At the risk of offending some people, there's a kind of sophomoric view,
even among relatively sophisticated people, that every decision in
Washington has to be seen as a victory of one agency or another," Mr.
Wolfowitz said.

"What people fail to understand," he added, "is that members of this
administration are encouraged by the president to debate their views
forcefully. When the decision gets made, we all pull together and there is
enormous respect for the people you're arguing with."

Mr. Armitage, across the Potomac River at the State Department, gave a
similar view.

"It's utter nonsense," he said of all the talk about animosity. "Paul and I
talk every day. Look, we've been colleagues and friends for 20-odd years.
Of course we have our differences, but they are not personal. We've got
different bureaucracies with different missions."

Nonetheless, when Mr. Rumsfeld dismisses France, Germany and others
critical of the war in Iraq as "old Europe," Mr. Powell's aides wince. When
Mr. Powell extols the virtues of the United Nations, Mr. Rumsfeld's
supporters say he is naive.

When President Bush spoke recently at the commencement ceremonies of the
United States Coast Guard Academy, calling for a global drive against
poverty, starvation and disease, an aide to Mr. Powell scored it as a victory.

"That was the Bush-Powell agenda the president was talking about," Mr.
Armitage said. "This administration stands for more than finding another
country to go to war against."

But since war against Afghanistan, Iraq and against Al Qaeda cells around
the world has been at the core of Mr. Bush's foreign policy, many people
see Mr. Powell as a marginalized figure.

Mr. Armitage said it was absurd to generalize that the Bush administration
favors war as the primary means to solve problems.

He argued that the highly publicized National Security Strategy of last
year devoted only one small section to "pre-emptive" military
action attacking in the face of a perceived threat amid many other pages
about diplomacy's value in dealing with threats to the country.

"What people remember is that pre-emption doctrine, instead of the umpteen
chapters on the need for bilateral and multilateral cooperation," said Mr.
Armitage. He said that diplomacy with others was now the focus of
administration policy on Iran, Syria and North Korea, among other problem
areas.

Mr. Wolfowitz agreed.

"Iraq lent itself much more to use of force than other problems we face,"
he said. "On North Korea, the key is confronting them with a unified force
from Russia, Japan, South Korea and to a lesser extent, China."

Iran, Mr. Wolfowitz said, "is more a matter of figuring out how to use the
opening provided by the fact that a great many Iranian people are not happy
with their government." But other officials have suggested that a push by
the Pentagon for the administration to adopt "regime change" as its policy
for Iran has caused tensions with the State Department.

Asian diplomats say that they have a picture of an administration divided
on North Korea, at least.
Two diplomats who have dealt with Washington on the issue say they often
have trouble telling which approach diplomacy advocated by the State
Department or threats of confrontation advocated by the Pentagon was Mr.
Bush's preference.

But Mr. Wolfowitz asserted that for many years he had advocated diplomatic
pressure on the North Korean government. "I was writing in early 1994 that
the key to the North Korea problem rests on unity of approach among us and
our major allies," Mr. Wolfowitz said.

Another longstanding point of contention within the Bush administration is
the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Secretary Powell is known to have favored forceful engagement in getting
Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians and to make concessions to them.
Israeli leaders bridle at what they consider to be pro-Arab sentiments at
the State Department, and are said by European diplomats to prefer to deal
with the Defense Department or Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Mr. Wolfowitz, asked about this split, at first said he did not want to
talk about it.

"I mean, there is an interesting point to be made here," he added. "Let me
just say that it is convenient for other people to claim there are splits,
because that might serve their own purposes. But I know for a fact that the
president is deeply committed to the Middle East peace process and believes
there's a heightened need for diplomacy at this moment."

Some of President Bush's aides say that, in the weeks following the end of
the Iraq war, White House political advisers favored a kind of pause in the
talk of war. The public, these aides say, is not prepared for yet another
war in the months between now and the next election.

Asked if he agreed that the United States was in a season now of diplomacy,
not war, Mr. Armitage replied: "To the extent that there's a pause, the
pause has been that we've been at war since 9/11, and now it appears we've
got a breather from that. We're not at the same urgent fever pitch."

But he argued that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have wrongly obscured
the administration's diplomatic record the last two years not simply
trying to engage North Korea, Iran, Syria and other nations, but expanding
the membership of NATO and reaching arms accords with Russia.

"When people talk in shorthand about hawks and doves, unilateralists versus
multilateralists, these labels really miss the point," he said. "There's
full agreement that this is an unparalleled moment for the United Nations,
and we've got to use it for the good of the world."

"The question is, what are the most effective tools for us to use?" he
added. "Is it diplomacy, force or foreign assistance? Carrots or sticks?
That's a useful debate to have, and it's encouraged by this president."

-----

9) Pair of S.C. natives at forefront of rebuilding Iraq
By LAUREN MARKOE
The State (South Carolina)
May 31, 2003

George Wolfe, who usually spends his days in the gilded Washington offices
of the Treasury Department, rode down Baghdad's equivalent of Wall Street
last week in a convoy of Humvees protected by machine gunners.

"There were tanks at both ends of the street," the Columbia native said
this week in a phone call from Baghdad. "We walked into the Central Bank.
It was badly looted and burned before the conflict ended.

"It looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic world. There were
burned and charred Iraqi dinars blowing around in the breeze."

From this, Wolfe and his team are charged with establishing a national
banking system in which Iraqis can place their confidence.

As the deputy financial coordinator for the Office of Reconstruction and
Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq, Wolfe also is charged with creating a tax
system, establishing a currency that does not bear the face of Saddam
Hussein and setting up the mechanism for turning Iraqi oil into capital to
rebuild the country.

He has been in Iraq for less than three weeks and is due to return to
Washington in September. Then he will resume his usual job - deputy counsel
at the Treasury Department.

Christopher Harvin, another Columbia native, has been working in the same
downtown Baghdad palace for about the same length of time. From his palace
office, where the walls are pockmarked with bullet holes, he directs the
press operation for the American authority.

He also sleeps in the palace - with a South Carolina flag hung proudly over
his bed.

Before Iraq, Harvin traveled to more than 30 states, working for the Bush
presidential campaign, and to more than 50 countries as a Pentagon press
officer, often accompanying Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

But as much as he had seen in his travels, Harvin, like Wolfe, describes
his life in Iraq as other-worldly - a series of scenes from a bizarre movie.

They live, after all, in a palace that catered to the taste of Saddam
Hussein. Today, more than 1,000 Americans, Britons and others trying to
rebuild the nation have made it their temporary home.

"Think Vegas in the 1950s," Harvin said. "Giant gold doors. Crystal
chandeliers. There are four big Saddam busts on the roof, as big as town
houses. Have you seen the movie 'Casino'? It's living like that."

And now - finally - the palace cafeteria serves a down-home favorite.

"This is sweet tea! This is South Carolina sweet tea!" he announced to his
buddies when he discovered just what he was drinking. "No joke. This has
the sugar boiled right into it."

Harvin found out the source of the tea was an American cook whose mother
hails from Lake City.

Harvin has been in Baghdad for three weeks. He has "no clue" when he will
return to Washington.

In the meantime, he said, his job is to serve the Iraqi people, the
American cause here - and L. Paul Bremer, head of the American authority in
Iraq.

"My role is to image Bremer, to make him look presidential, to give the
media access to him."

Both Harvin and Wolfe are putting in up to 20-hour days under trying
conditions. Electricity is not always reliable. Harvin sleeps under
mosquito nets. Wolfe said everything he wears is sweaty and dusty.

They can't leave the palace - once called the Republican Guard Palace -
without an armed escort. And they are chilled by the recent spike in
American casualties. Five soldiers died this week; four more were wounded.

Wolfe, once a partner in the Columbia law firm Nelson, Mullins, Riley and
Scarborough, wears a bulletproof vest and a helmet whenever he ventures
outside the compound, three or four days a week.

He often returns with stories that astound him.

In the Southern city of Hillah, for example, Wolfe interviewed a group of
local bankers to "take a sounding" of the industry in the region. He wanted
to know about their deposits and withdrawals and whether they were making
loans and collecting payments.

When he asked about security, one banker told him it could be better.

"Three weeks ago," Wolfe recalled, "two guys come into his bank with
machine guns and grenades and said if he didn't give them change, they
would blow up the bank."

Wolfe explained: The 10,000 Iraqi dinar note is in plentiful supply. But
the 250-dinar note is far more useful and in very short supply. The armed
men didn't want to steal anything; they just wanted change for their 10,000's.

The devalued Iraqi currency is now strengthening as reconstruction efforts
proceed. Last week, the United Nations lifted economic sanctions that had
been imposed on Iraq since the Gulf War.

But neither Wolfe nor Harvin will deny the nation is still a dangerous
place and that some Iraqis - still lacking electricity and a sense of
personal security - are angry with Americans.

Still, these South Carolinians are optimistic.

Of the Iraqi children he sees begging for candy in the streets of Baghdad,
Harvin said: "These kids don't know how good they're going to have it if we
can make this work."

Wolfe said Iraq will change, comparing it to Japan and Germany after World
War II.

"It took five years in Japan," said Wolfe, adding quickly, "not that it
will take that long here."

----

10) US uncovers Baath cell in new Iraqi police academy, 15 arrested
AFP
May 31, 2003

BAGHDAD (AFP) - US forces arrested 15 senior Iraqi police officers who had
been holding secret meetings of Saddam Hussein's Baath party at the
showpiece Baghdad police academy.

Bernard Kerik, the new US policing supremo brought in from New York to help
tackle the lawlessness that has gripped the capital since Saddam's fall on
April 9, said they were detained in a raid at the academy after a tip-off
earlier this week.

"Fourteen people were arrested for taking part in an illegal activity and
one for resisting arrest," he told reporters Saturday. The activity was
Baath party membership, he said.

Those detained included the dean of the academy, Major General Akram Abdul
Razak, five brigadier generals, three colonels and a lieutenant colonel.

The Baath party, which helped Saddam rule the country with an iron fist,
has been declared illegal by the US-led occupation administration here,
which has been trying to ally fears among Iraqis that it could claw its way
back to power.

Kerik defended the coalition's failure to detect what the large number of
senior officers had been up to since the US administration started to
assemble a new police service to replace Saddam's discredited force.

"If you are a member of the top few ranks and you are going to be weeded
out, you are going to lie," said Kerik, who arrived here last week to take
up his post as senior advisor at the interior ministry.

He said the raid was greeted with applause by more than 100 other officers
at the academy who apparently had been afraid of stepping forward to
denounce the Baath loyalists.

The effort to get Iraqi police officers back on the streets has been touted
as one of the key initiatives of the administration but many have not yet
been paid and only a handful are back on the beat.

The US-led coalition has also had to make a U-turn on police uniforms after
it initially said only minor changes to the old versions would be
acceptable, only to see Iraqis reject them as too closely linked to the old
regime.

Iraq's US overseer Paul Bremer barred top Baath members from civil service
jobs and his administration outlawed the party. Kerik said the police
officers had been holding Baath meetings at the academy for weeks.

"On May 26 ... members of my office received information that there was
Baath party activity and Baath party meetings by several members of the
Iraqi police service.

"An investigation was conducted over the next few days during which we
found documents in the police academy on Baath party stationery identifying
the people who were taking part," he said.

"It was very clear at that stage that there were meetings being held every
week on Saturdays in the police academy, including this week."

He blamed intimidation by those concerned for the coalition's failure to
uncover the underground sleeper cell sooner, despite the tough crackdown on
the party.

"There was huge applause by police officers. I think they knew this was
going on but were afraid to come forward."

He said he could not give details of what activities the Baath officials
had been planning in their meetings, but that the investigation was
continuing.

An occupation administration spokesman said: "A lot of people are
concealing their membership of the Baath party to stay in their jobs or to
maintain their jobs for purposes of keeping the Baath party alive."

He said rooting them out was "going to take a long time."

----

11) U.S. Claims Hardliners Flocking To Iraq, SAIRI Gainsay
IslamOnline.net & News Agencies
May 30, 2003

BAGHDAD- Amid mounting criticism over its failure, and sometime inaction,
to restore law and order in Iraq, the U.S.-led occupation power claimed
Friday, May 30, that foreign hardliners were crossing into Iraq to
destabilize the country, an allegation repudiated by the main Shiite group,
the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution (SAIRI).

On its Baghdad radio station, the occupation authority argued
"fundamentalists under foreign command have entered Iraq with aggressive
intent and it is in the interest of the Iraqi people to help the
coalition," in hunting them down, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

It asked Iraqis to inform the occupation power of the names and whereabouts
of any infiltrators in their areas and said those who come forward should
have no fear of speaking out.

"If necessary the coalition can protect you and your family. Do what is
right for your family, your neighbors and your future," the announcement said.

"Untrue"

The SAIRI spokesman in the city of Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province
along the border with Iran, branded as "completely untrue," the U.S.
accusations.

"We're all Iraqis and those who have come from Iran are sons of the
country," said the spokesman, who declined to give his name.

SAIRI, a Shiite group that was based in Tehran until after Saddam Hussein's
ouster, has become a major political and social force since its return to
Iraq.

The spokesman, whose group holds a seat on a U.S.-sanctioned seven-member
leadership council working with the occupation power to establish a future
Iraqi government, said SAIRI had suffered "brutal" treatment at the hands
of U.S. forces.

"We are not terrorists and we don't understand why the Americans are so
hard with us," he complained.

"Ten days ago, coalition troops asked all political parties set up in
government buildings to leave their sites but with us they used force,"
charged SAIRI spokesman.

He said Anglo-American troops had killed a member of the group and arrested
around 40 others.

"We were surprised because they gave us no advance warning to leave. There
are 19 people still in prison," he said.

The U.S.-British forces have stepped up pressure on Iran in recent days and
the top British official in Iraq, John Sawers, told British Prime Minister
Tony Blair, who was visiting the southern city of Basra Thursday, May 29,
that the Islamic regime was active there.

"There is clear evidence of the Iranians trying to put in place a mechanism
for them to exert influence," he claimed.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld charged Thursday that Iran was
trying to stir up opposition to U.S. and British forces in Iraq with radio
broadcasts and by sending Revolutionary Guards into the country.

Washington claims Iran is supporting the SAIRI’s armed wing, the Badr
Brigade, in a bid to allegedly undermine the Anglo-American attempt to
establish law and order, an accusation denied by Tehran.

Rumsfeld blamed the uncertain security situation in Iraq in part on the
Iranian regime, claiming the presence of Revolutionary Guards was "a major
source of adverse influence.

"The Iranians are beaming in radio programs trying to stir up people in
Iraq to oppose the coalition. How successful they will be is not something
we can measure in advance."

The U.S. turned up more heat on Iran Tuesday, May 27, with serious warnings
over Iran’s alleged harboring of fugitive Al-Qaeda leaders, intervention in
Iraq and quest for nuclear arms.

-----

12) U.S.-Iran rivalry bodes ill for Iraq
Reuters
By Wafa Amr
June 1, 2003

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's long-suppressed Shi'ite Muslims want to shape
their own future after Saddam Hussein's downfall, not set up an
Iranian-style Islamic republic, Iraqi Shi'ite leaders and analysts say.

Meanwhile, Washington's growing hostility towards Iran may antagonise
Iraq's Shi'ite majority, harm prospects for Iraq's postwar stability and
even prompt Tehran to meddle in earnest.

"We are Iraqis, not Iranians," said Adel Abdel-Mehdi, an aide to Ayatollah
Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).

"If the Shi'ites take their fair share in governing Iraq, there will be
stability in this country," he told Reuters.

"But if our isolation continues under different pretexts, such as being
influenced by Iran, then chaos will prevail."

The United States and Britain have recently turned up the heat on Iran,
accusing it of interfering in Iraq.

Tehran has dismissed the charges, which fatten an already thick dossier of
U.S. complaints against Iran.

Washington also accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, backing
international terrorism and undermining Middle East peace efforts.

Iran's grievances against Washington include what it sees as a long history
of U.S. interference in its affairs, U.S. support for Israel and for Iraq
in its 1980-88 war with Iran.

It also complains that its "reward" for cooperating with U.S. policy in
Afghanistan was membership in President George W. Bush's "axis of evil".

Iraq's top U.S. administrator Paul Bremer said on Wednesday he was troubled
by increased Iranian activity in Iraq which could result in serious
problems for Iran if it went too far.

He said Iran was sending guerrillas across the border, who under the mask
of restarting social services would form an armed movement.

U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, often identified with Washington
hawks who want a tough policy against Iran, said he would not let Iraq's
neighbours create an Iranian-style theocracy in the country.

SHI'ITE DIVERSITY

But Rumsfeld's presumption that Iran wants to replicate its troubled ruling
system in Iraq and that Iraqi Shi'ites would happily follow Tehran's lead
are open to challenge.

"I don't believe Iranians are so naive as to intervene in Iraq's affairs.
This would be like gambling in a losing game," said Fateh Kashef al-Ghata,
representative of al-Hawza, the highest Shi'ite theology school in the
shrine city of Najaf.

He said Iraqi Shi'ites had gradually diverged from the path trodden by
their co-religionists in Iran after the 1990 death of Iranian revolutionary
leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei.

"In 1980, yes, we wanted an Iranian-style state in Iraq, but after 1990,
Iran's role began to erode," Ghata said.

"Now, in 2003, no, we don't want an Islamic state. Even Iran doesn't want
an Islamic state now."

He said Iran knew that trying to intervene in Iraq would cripple its long
efforts to end the international and regional isolation it incurred after
the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Few among Iraq's diverse community of Shi'ites, who have little social or
political cohesion, want to confront U.S. and British forces that defeated
their deadly foe Saddam.

But many fear they could be victims again if U.S. forces start seeing them
as a fifth column for Iran's supposed ambitions -- much as Saddam's
Sunni-dominated Baathists did.

"We welcomed America's war against Saddam who cruelly oppressed the
Shi'ites," said a member of a Shi'ite armed group, who asked not to be named.

"But we are worried that America will now repress us, either to stop the
natural flow of our strength -- and we are strong -- or because it has
problems with Iran," he said.

The spectre of Iraqi Shi'ite power has long alarmed the West and the
Sunni-dominated Arab world.

The Shi'ites, aware the world's eyes are on them, are taking a pragmatic
line towards the U.S.-led forces now ruling Iraq, but are quietly preparing
for possible confrontation.

About a million Iraqi Shi'ites took refuge in Iran or were deported during
35 years of Baathist rule. Many of them married and built their lives
there. U.S. accusations that Iran has sent agents flooding across the
border bemuse Iraqi Shi'ites.

"Iran has not sent anybody from Iran into Iraq. It is we Iraqis who
returned from Iran," said a member of SCIRI's Badr Brigade militia, trained
by Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

Iraqi analyst Wamidh Nazmi said there was no sign of Iranian infiltration,
but U.S. accusations could become a self- fulfilling prophecy if Tehran
really felt threatened.

"If Iran was sure Washington would attack it, Iran could use its influence
to make the Shi'ite groups resist U.S. forces and it would make Iraq a
battlefront. I fear this could happen," Nazmi told Reuters.

------

13) Human-rights group criticizes U.S. for freeing war-crimes suspect
BY PAUL SALOPEK
Chicago Tribune
May 30, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq - (KRT) - An international human-rights group sharply
criticized the U.S. military in Iraq on Friday for mistakenly releasing a
major war-crimes suspect.

Human Rights Watch, a New York-based watchdog group, said the bungled
handling of Mohammed Jawad An-Neifus, a tribal leader implicated in the
execution of thousands of Iraq's southern Shiites after the 1991 Persian
Gulf war, may make it difficult to stanch revenge killings in the
strife-torn country.

"This is about the worst thing that could have happened to U.S. efforts to
convince the locals to put some faith in international justice," said Peter
Bouckaert, a researcher for the rights group. "We're talking about a guy
who has helped fill mass graves. He's not a little fish."

An-Neifus, the sheik of the pro-government Albu-Awan tribe and one of
deposed President Saddam Hussein's top henchmen in southern Iraq, is
accused of bloodily suppressing Shiite uprisings around the town of Mahawil
12 years ago. Since major combat in the U.S.-led war in Iraq ended, nearly
3,000 skeletons, including those of women and children, have been removed
from collective graves in the area.

The U.S. military announced Thursday that it had erroneously freed
An-Neifus on May 18 after taking him into custody last month.

An official with the Pentagon's Judge Advocate General's Corps, or JAG,
authorized the suspect's release from the Bucca internment camp in southern
Iraq after failing to recognize the prisoner's significance.

"When he appeared for his initial screening, there was nothing unusual
about the story he told that alerted the JAG officer to his true identity,"
a military press release stated. "Therefore, he was cleared for release."

U.S. officials said they are launching an investigation into the handling
of An-Neifus' case. They are now offering a $25,000 reward for his recapture.

According to eyewitnesses, An-Neifus accepted cash and new cars from Saddam
in exchange for carrying out killings.

"The Shiite clerics have been very pro-active in telling their people not
to take justice into their own hands, to avoid revenge attacks against
these mass murderers, to let international justice proceed," said
Bouckaert. "This sort of destroys that."

Bouckaert said he first learned of An-Neifus' release when local Shiites
began approaching him angrily, saying their leaders had tried to see
An-Neifas in prison but the Americans couldn't produce him.

U.S. Marines took An-Neifus into custody on April 26. At that time they had
to rescue him from local authorities who wanted to put him on trial and
execute him.

-----

14) Big Plans for Small Business in Iraq
The U.S. wants to build confidence in a wary private sector by boosting
imports.
By Warren Vieth
Los Angeles Times
May 31, 2003

BAGHDAD Before the United States can rebuild Iraq's economy, it will have
to rebuild Sabah Abdul Rehman's confidence, one brick at a time.

Rehman, a 48-year-old civil engineering technician in the southern city of
Basra, is the kind of entrepreneur-in-waiting who U.S. experts say is
needed to revive Iraq's shriveled private sector. Years ago, he started a
construction business, but his ambition was a casualty of Saddam Hussein's
aggression and the everyday thuggery engendered by the dictator's regime.

And he's not certain he would fare better now that U.S. authorities are
occupying the president's palace.

"This decision is very dangerous," said Rehman, who is once again weighing
the security of salaried work against the allure of business ownership.
"Losing anything is very horrible to me."

As the U.S.-led coalition turns its attention from toppling an abusive
regime to establishing an acceptable replacement, experts say the Bush
administration must move quickly to convince ordinary Iraqis that they too
can profit from Hussein's removal, that foreigners will not reap all the
rewards of Iraq's reconstruction and that upward mobility won't be reserved
for the privileged few.

U.S. officials acknowledge the need to sow the seeds of a new
entrepreneurial class in Iraq, where private businesses were heavily taxed
and regulated and sometimes shut down during the 24 years of Hussein's rule.

"Saddam Hussein deliberately tried to create this situation," said Humam
Shamaa, a senior professor of economics and finance at Baghdad University.
"He tried to minimize the private sector and increase the number of people
who depend on the salary of the state."

The coalition has taken several steps in recent days to resuscitate Iraq's
business sector.

U.S. and British military units have increased security patrols to deter
the rampant looting that has crippled many industrial facilities and kept
some businesses from staying open. They're conducting training programs for
oil company police and other security personnel and allowing them to carry
automatic rifles at key locations.

Within two weeks, allied authorities plan to launch a trade credit program
to help Iraqi businesses buy merchandise from other countries. Iraqi
importers will deposit their purchase payments in Iraq's central bank,
which will guarantee the transactions. International banks will supervise
the transfer of funds.

They have also declared a temporary "tariff holiday" that will allow
essentially all goods to enter and exit Iraq duty-free. The goal is to
stimulate the economy by boosting imports. Details are still being worked
out, but the holiday is expected to last until the end of the year.

More private-sector initiatives are under discussion by the allies'
economic reconstruction team.

"We have other plans to help small businesses, a variety of programs," a
top official with the U.S. Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian
Assistance said this week. "We'll be moving in the not-too-distant future
into that phase."

'It's So Degrading'

Sajed Younis Dabbagh hopes that day arrives soon.

Dabbagh, 55, closed his wholesale import business, Al Yaktin General
Trading, when U.S. bombs began falling on Baghdad in March. It was a good
thing: During the fighting for control of Iraq's capital, Dabbagh's
warehouses and showrooms were struck by bullet sprays, tank shells and at
least one missile.

Reconstruction agency officials told Dabbagh to keep his doors shut, his
warehouses empty and his 17 employees at home until the issue of damage
compensation can be resolved.

Dabbagh, whose import manifest includes refrigerators, luggage,
electronics, meat, cheese and margarine, has been conferring with fellow
Baghdad traders.

They want U.S. officials to set up a screening process to certify
legitimate traders. They want coalition forces to step up security to keep
looters at bay. But most of all, they want reconstruction officials to make
their plans known, then carry them out.

The other day, Dabbagh stood in line for four hours in blistering heat for
an opportunity to ask an ORHA representative what to expect next. He got
less than a minute of her time and no new information.

"It's so degrading," he said.

It will take time to nurture a private sector decimated by two decades of
wars, sanctions and government misconduct. In the meantime, some Iraqis
express fear that outside financial interests will overrun local
businesses, and that the country may conclude it would be better off with
another command-and-control economy than with Western-style capitalism.

"I think the United States did not calculate the psychological factor,"
Baghdad University economist Waleed Dankasly said. "The Iraqi people need
to feel better about themselves. The factor of confidence is very
important. There has to be encouragement."

Potential Market Huge

Before the war, Bashaar Jawad Shualy made a living by importing used
computers and other consumer electronics from Dubai and selling them to
Iraqis out of Baghdad Computer Co., a storefront operation in Basra, Iraq's
second-largest city.

Two days after Hussein's regime fell, Shualy received his first shipment of
satellite television receivers from Kuwait. The competition is fierce, but
the potential market huge. Under Hussein, only a handful of trusted cronies
were allowed access to the global village. Now, any Iraqi with money to
burn can get his MTV.

By the end of six weeks, Shualy had already sold 70 dishes for $150 to $250
apiece. Even though he's off to a running start, Shualy said many Iraqi
business owners will need U.S. hand-holding and financial backing to make
the transition successfully.

He said small trading companies such as his have been importing goods on
consignment, obligating them to pay only if they are able to sell. It would
be better to buy merchandise in bulk with no strings attached, he said, but
that would require expanded access to capital and more confidence in the
economy.

"Some people are scared to use their own money because the future is
unstable," Shualy said. "When trade is open, small business will need
money. The United States should play a leading role."

For Rehman, the civil engineering technician, a few reassurances would help
too.

In 1988, Rehman and two colleagues borrowed money from friends and
relatives so they could launch Al Zaitoon Engineering Bureau, a start-up
construction firm. .

They got a government license, rented an office and advertised their
services. They began by renovating existing homes. Eventually, they got a
contract to design and oversee construction of a small building to house
several retail shops and apartments.

Rehman and his partners decided to expand into light manufacturing. They
bought three machines to make concrete blocks and hired 12 Sudanese workers
to operate them. They rented space in an industrial zone and begin churning
out cinderblocks for another building under construction in Basra.

Rehman kept his day job as a site preparation specialist for the
state-owned Southern Oil Co., but his evenings and weekends were
increasingly devoted to nurturing the demands of his new business and
dreams of future prosperity. "We worked day and night," he said.

Things started to get shaky after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. The
man paying for the retail and apartment complex decided to halt
construction until the threat of war had passed.

About the same time, disaster struck the block-making business. One night,
a band of armed thugs stormed the site, chasing off two security guards and
beating and blindfolding a third.

They took everything: the bricks, the machines, 60 tons of cement. Rehman
and his partners didn't have enough capital to keep the project going or
even cover their office rent. For several years, he set aside a portion of
his salary to pay off his debts.

"I decided at that time to leave work with contracts. It's very dangerous
But now, if I get a chance, maybe I'll start again," said Rehman, who
provides for his wife, Athraa, and four daughters, Israa, Noor, Russul and
Duaa.

"Security is the foundation," he said. "You can't start a building without
a sound base."

And bricks that don't disappear in the middle of the night.

----

15) First wave of foreign entrepreneurs in Iraq plans for what's to come
Associated Press
May 30, 2003

Companies specializing in security, construction, energy and
telecommunications will benefit first from the lifting of economic
sanctions in Iraq, where U.S. government contracts offer chances for big
profits.

But judging by the brisk business in the streets of Baghdad for everything
from satellite dishes to washing machines, there will be lots of other
opportunities for Western companies once some law and order is brought to
the country's unruly marketplace.

Hundreds of U.S. businesses are lining up, while some entrepreneurs and
well-connnected contractors already are moving in, making deals in an
environment marked by violence and shady characters and paving the way for
the many to follow.

With few official channels so far for international commerce, the wheeling
and dealing is taking place in the lobbies of unassuming apartment
buildings and in the dining rooms of hotels. Secretive businessmen mingle
with U.S. government officials - and shoo away unexpected visitors.
Ammunition for firearms is carried out in the open.

It is under these conditions that people like Rubar Sandi, 49, currently
operate. An Iraqi Kurd who left in 1976 and now the chief executive of a
Washington-based investment bank, Sandi is initiating a host of ventures in
this oil-rich country just weeks after the military conflict officially ended.

He is investing $20 million to build a Baghdad convention center with a
hotel, tennis courts and a pool. He is cobbling together an array of
products and services future wheeler-dealers might need when they arrive:
armor-plated SUVs, security guards, interpreters and market analysts, to
name a few.

``Business is so corrupt and everything is bribes,'' Sandi explained
Thursday in an interview at the Hotel Ekal, which was packed with advisers
to the U.S. government and guarded by Iraqis in civilian clothes. ``And you
get threatened. Everything is whom you know and what you pay.'' Sandi
professes to be squeaky clean as far as bribes go.

Contacts in the region are also paying off for New Global Initiatives, a
Bethesda, Md.-based company founded by Americans and Iraqi emigres that has
a reconstruction subcontract valued at $2.6 million.

With additional grants from the U.S. government, NGI imported a
prefabricated building from Kuwait to serve as a town council in the
southern port city of Umm Qasr and it helped renovate a firehouse in
Kirkuk, an oil-producing city to the north.

NGI's chief executive, Bob Adams, who participated in humanitarian work for
decades before founding NGI, said he is motivated by a desire to help the
people of Iraq. But he's also pragmatic and knows his early participation
in the reconstruction of Iraq will likely yield further dividends down the
line.

``We hope to develop very good relations with whatever government is
erected out of all this,'' Adams said. He added: ``We'll build 10,000 homes
if that is what they want.''

The recent lifting of sanctions against Iraq has been a particular boon for
Globalstar, a San Jose, Calif.-based satellite-phone provider that, while
sanctions were in place, had to block service to customers once they
entered Iraq.

``When we threw the switch and turned on service, we went from no business
at all there, to the highest volume of usage in any country in the world''
served by Globalstar, company spokesman Mac Jeffery said.

Globalstar's customer base in Iraq includes U.S. forces and companies, and
is on pace to log nearly 1 million minutes of service this month. Calls to
Kuwait cost $1 per minute, while calls to London, Canada or anywhere in the
United States are $1.20 per minute.

The real money, Jeffery said, will come when the U.S. military presence
dwindles and the country is more easily navigable by foreign businessmen.
``In Afghanistan, it was after the war that our business took off and it is
still climbing today,'' Jeffery said. ``The same story is playing out in
Iraq.''

As interest in doing business in Iraq grows, a cottage industry is
sprouting up around it.

For example, World Trade Executive, a Concord, Mass.-based publisher last
month launched a twice-monthly newsletter called ``Iraq Reconstruction
Report,'' a partnership with Dow Jones, and Pillsbury Winthrop, an
international law firm based in San Francisco, recently created a team of
attorneys dedicated specifically to Iraq-related business.

``A handful of people have approached us, but we expect there will be a lot
more,'' said Ayaz Shaikh, a partner in the law firm who refused to name
clients.

While the U.N. Security Council's recent decision to lift sanctions in Iraq
formally makes the country open for business, the reality is that Iraq is
still impenetrable for most Western companies - save for the oil trade and
those tied to the reconstruction effort led by Bechtel, the San Francisco
engineering firm that was awarded a U.S. government contract that could be
worth $680 million.

There is no passenger airline serving Iraq, no central bank and no justice
system, although these institutions are being developed with the help of
U.S. companies and officials. First, however, is the need to make Iraq safe.

One recent evening, Sandi stood outside the Ekal Hotel to get a signal for
his satellite phone when a gun battle broke out on a nearby street. ``I've
got to run because there's a shootout, and it's right here!'' he told a
caller, and then hung up.

Thousands of miles away, many U.S. businessmen are scrambling merely to
figure out how they can participate in the reconstruction and development
of Iraq.

``I'd just like to have the opportunity for somebody to see our product,''
said James Williams, chief financial officer of Compact International, a
Los Angeles-based manufacturer of commercial and industrial furniture whose
customers include Home Depot.

``I'm just hoping that it's who's got the best deal, the best price,'' he
said. ``I'm hoping we can go in there and get even a small contract and
show what we can do.''

``I don't think that you've got to know somebody, but it might help,'' he
said.

Williams hopes to learn more in early July, when the U.S.-Iraq Business
Council - of which Sandi is the president - holds a seminar in Washington
titled ``The Iraqi Reconstruction Conference.'' Representatives of USAID,
the United Nations and other agencies are scheduled to explain how
contracts are awarded.

``Since the sanctions have been lifted, the interest has been tremendous,''
said Emine Cetinkaya, one of the council's directors.

With ``very fierce'' competition for government contracts, Cetinkaya said
more and more companies are sending representatives to the region to make
contacts locally.

These freewheeling types may gain an edge on some rivals by getting to Iraq
first, Cetinkaya said, but they are also taking huge risks with their lives
and their businesses.

Despite widespread poverty in Iraq, there is demand for TVs, computers,
electrical heaters, car parts and even fresh fruit. It's just that few
people can afford to buy these products.

Abdul Rahman Al-Tahir, a 72-year-old Baghdad resident who has worked as a
construction supervisor and an engineer and is now a hotel clerk, has a bit
of advice for Western businessmen: ``If you bring more, prices will drop
down, and people will be able to buy.''

-----


16) After Years of Stagnation, Iraqi Industries Are Falling to a Wave of
Imports
New York Times
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
June 1, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 31 Shakir Thiab and his Al Bayltha candy factory
survived the American military invasion without a scratch. But the invasion
that followed has all but shut him down.

When the war ended in early April, a two-pound bag of his Fenom line of
fruit-flavored hard candies sold for 3,000 dinars, or about $1.50. Today,
faced with a flood of duty-free imports from Iran, he can only charge 1,000
dinars.

Cutthroat pricing is not the only problem. Opening a pack of his
Garnaata-brand cream-filled wafers, Mr. Thiab noted gloomily that his
wafers had congealed into an unappetizing mess a result, he said, of the
inferior flour available to him. By contrast, imported Tasteful Wafers from
Iran were fresh and crisp.

"We dropped our prices to keep selling, but we cannot do business," said
Mr. Thiab, who shut down most of his aging machinery three weeks ago.
"Iraqis only want to buy foreign products now. They don't trust anything
made in Iraq."

Mr. Thiab's problems are a foretaste of a much broader economic shock in
Iraq. After 12 years of trade sanctions imposed by the United Nations, and
30 years of economic mismanagement under Saddam Hussein, Iraq's cloistered
industry suddenly faces the full fury of globalization and international
competition.

In the seven weeks since American forces seized Baghdad, Iraq has been
transformed from one of the world's most isolated economies into a huge new
free-trade zone.

Open-air markets and stores here are being flooded with television sets
from South Korea, refrigerators from Iran and China, toasters from Germany,
and packaged food from almost everywhere.

For Iraqis with any money to spend, the free-for-all has brought a dazzling
range of new choices. Satellite telephones and portable kerosene stoves,
badly needed to cope with the absence of normal telephones and the lack of
cooking gas, are so plentiful that prices have declined.

But the downside is also taking hold. Iraqi manufacturers, which employed
more than one-tenth of all workers before the war, are almost powerless to
match the new competition.

Their equipment is badly outdated. Their sense of marketing has atrophied.
In many cases, their image among Iraqi consumers is abysmal.

The free-market shocks are even bigger for Iraq's state-owned industrial
companies, which produce everything from packaged foods to electrical
equipment and employ more than 100,000 people.

Adding to the stress for manufacturers, the Iraqi dinar has unexpectedly
soared in value since the end of the war. The strength of the dinar, which
has increased to about 1,300 to the dollar from 3,000, has pushed down the
cost of imports just as customs duties were disappearing.

All this poses a complex challenge for American and British officials.
Hoping to improve business and investment in Iraq, American officials plan
to announce a six-month tariff holiday on imports in the next few days. For
the longer term, they speak grandly about hammering out a free-trade
agreement between Iraq and the United States.

At the same time, American officials are desperate to get people back to
work. That goal will be badly frustrated, though, if Iraq's manufacturing
enterprises crumble in the face of new competition.

L. Paul Bremer III, the civilian administrator in charge of postwar
reconstruction, hinted at the quandary at a recent news conference.

"Because the economy was so tightly controlled and so interlinked, you find
that when you move one part of it, everything else moves with it," Mr.
Bremer remarked. "You have to move quickly, but carefully."

The experience of postcommunist countries in Central Europe and Russia
suggests that Iraq's traditional industrial enterprises will either
collapse quickly or be propped up by political leaders at great cost to the
economy as a whole.

But unlike Poland or the Czech Republic, whose leaders made their own
decisions, the decision-making responsibility here lies overwhelmingly with
the American administrators under Mr. Bremer.

Both Iraqi industry and agriculture declined sharply during the past two
decades. Racked with inflation as Mr. Hussein printed money to pay for wars
against Iran and Kuwait, Iraqi companies could not afford to import new
equipment or to invest in improving their operations.

The trade sanctions imposed by the United Nations after the Persian Gulf
war in 1991 aggravated the problem, making it difficult for companies even
to get permission to import new equipment.

"We have not enjoyed political stability for more than 20 years," said Mr.
Thiab, whose father started Al Bayltha. "As a result, Iraqi industry has
stayed stagnant, backward in comparison with other countries."

All the machines in Mr. Thiab's candy factory are more than 25 years old,
antiquated even in comparison with those in Iran or Syria much less those
in the United States or Europe. The machines have been kept functioning
only through ersatz replacement parts cobbled together by local machine shops.

In the Jamila industrial district, home to Mr. Thiab's company, at least a
half-dozen other candy producers have essentially halted production.
Electricity problems were one reason, but business owners said the biggest
issue was competition.

"If you go to the markets, you will see the Iranian, Syrian and Turkish
products," said Abid al-Karim, manager of Al Zayzafoon, a company that
produces Queen Cocktail toffees.

Mr. Karim's toffees sell for slightly less than Iranian rivals, he said,
but he has halted production for the time being because, he said, "Nobody
wants to buy them."

As for the state-owned companies, they enjoyed heavy protection from
imports, and the United Nations trade embargo left them with very little
competition in the first place.

"Before the war, people had to line up to buy our equipment," said Khalil
al-Asadi, technical manager at the State Company for the Electrical
Industry, a company whose most important products were motors in
air-conditioners.

Today, appliance stores around Baghdad offer trim new air-conditioners by
Samsung and Daewoo of South Korea, as well as by Japanese and Chinese
conglomerates.

With postwar reconstruction picking up speed, and summer temperatures
rising to more than 110 degrees, demand for air-conditioning systems is
very high.

But Mr. Asadi's state-owned company is still barely functioning. The
company headquarters was destroyed by looters, only one assembly line is in
operation, and only one-tenth of the company's 3,000 employees are actually
working.

Furthermore, the factory, which makes motors for water-cooled air systems,
has deteriorated sharply since it was built in 1986. "This used to be very
automated, but now it's largely manual," Mr. Asadi said, pointing to a vast
dark building full of machinery. "We couldn't get the parts we needed."

American officials, trying to decide what to do with Iraq's 52
government-owned companies, are seeking advice from experts in Poland who
went through that country's transition from communism to capitalism.

American officials and some Iraqis clearly want to privatize the
state-owned manufacturers, and they see it as the only way to attract
private investors.

But Ramsi Youssef Jiddou, a returning Iraqi exile who is advising the
ministry, recently warned that privatizing the companies might be
tantamount to dismantling them.

"We sold companies in the past, but it was not a good experience," Mr.
Jiddou said. "Investors who bought the companies treated them like scrap
material."

That would be consistent with what happened in some formerly communist
nations. But state-owned or private, Iraqi manufacturers know they are too
weak to stand on their own.

Mr. Asadi, at the state-owned electric manufacturer, is hoping for a
partnership with an American company like Carrier, which makes
air-conditioners.

Mr. Thiab pleaded for American officials to close off the border to
imports, at least temporarily.

"I know Americans believe in free markets and globalization, but this does
not work in all cases," Mr. Thiab contended. "If Americans don't protect
Iraqi industry, we will all be unemployed."

-----

17) Oil Giants Line Up at Iraqi Pump
New York Times
By NEELA BANERJEE
May 30, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 29 - Several of the world's biggest petroleum companies
have approached the Iraqi Oil Ministry hoping to buy the first oil exports
after the lifting of United Nations sanctions, Iraqi officials said today.

"You just name it and they have been in touch with us," said Muhammad
al-Jiburi, director general of the State Oil Marketing Organization, the
arm of the ministry responsible for exports. Mr. Jiburi declined to
identify the companies that had called.

Under the United Nations oil-for-food program, ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco
and Valero, an independent refining company, were among the biggest
American buyers of Iraqi oil through international traders.

Bids will be accepted starting Friday, and the exports will begin in about
two weeks, an Oil Ministry official said.

Traders at ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco were unavailable for comment. A
spokeswoman for Valero said that the company was interested in future
purchases of Iraqi oil, but that the lack of telephone service in Iraq so
far had prevented it from getting through to officials.

BP, the world's third-largest oil company, confirmed that it had made
inquiries about purchasing the oil.

"Following last week's
U.N. decision to resume Iraqi oil sales, we have been studying the
situation and are still deciding whether to buy Iraqi crude when it returns
to the market," said Toby Odone, a London spokesman for BP. "We, like
others, have been trying to get information on the process for oil sales."

The first Iraqi oil for export will consist of about 10 million barrels
that were pumped into storage at two ports at the start of the war.

About eight million barrels are in tanks at the Turkish Mediterranean port
of Ceyhan and 1.3 to 1.5 million barrels are in the Iraqi Persian Gulf port
of Mina el-Bakr.

Oil Ministry officials previously said regular oil exports of about one
million barrels a day would resume by mid-June. Before the war, Iraq had
exported about two million barrels a day.

The contact between Iraq and the oil companies indicates a return to Iraq's
practice before the 1991 Persian Gulf war of selling oil directly to the
companies that refine it, rather than going through traders.

Under the oil-for-food program, which regulated Iraqi exports, Iraq was
compelled to sell its oil to middlemen who in turn sold it to major
international traders. The traders then dealt with the major oil companies.

The system created an opportunity for abuse, with Saddam Hussein's
government demanding the middlemen pay a surcharge to export the oil.

----

18) Oil companies put off vsiting Iraq
Financial Times
By Carola Hoyos, Energy Correspondent
June 1, 2003

International oil companies are postponing visits to Iraq because of
continued insecurity there, potentially setting back by weeks or even
months the timing of reconstruction of the country's oil production and
exports.

With every day the sector's recovery is delayed, the country loses millions
of dollars of revenue it needs to get back on its feet. Meanwhile, looters
cause more damage as they steal oil and smuggle it across the Gulf.

"We are still looking to get people on the ground, but we are not going to
put anyone in there before we do a full-scale security audit," said one
official from a large oil company looking to get involved in the refining
sector. "We were perhaps a bit too optimistic at first."

The US Pentagon has warned companies hoping to operate in Iraq that they
will have to provide their own security and that their movements will be
restricted. The first to arrive in the country will be oil services
companies such as Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root,
which have already won contracts from the US.

Subcontractors, such as Fluor, are expected to bid for some of the action,
which will include rebuilding damaged infrastructure in oil fields, along
pipelines, at ports and refineries.

Wendy Hall, an official at Halliburton, said: "The safety and security of
all employees is the company's top priority." But she declined to reveal
Halliburton's assessment of the security in Iraq.

Thamir Ghadhban, US- appointed head of Iraq's oil ministry, predicted oil
exports would begin in the first half of this month and said Iraq's daily
production, which he currently estimates at 700,000 barrels, would double
by the end of the month. But those predictions might be too optimistic,
analysts said, adding that significant repairs would be needed to take Iraq
beyond its pre-war production level of about 3m b/d.

Iraqi officials say the first substantial sales will come from the 8m
barrels held in storage at the Turkish port of Ceyhan. But restarting a
steady flow of significant export volumes will depend on the improvement of
security so that Iraqi engineers can get back to work and international oil
companies can join them to repair the damage cause by war, looting and 13
years of sanctions.

Meanwhile, however, some companies, including Italy's Agip, have already
begun to send mid-level managers to Baghdad in the hope of making initial
contact with the new authority.

However, any large-scale development of the Iraqi oil sector, which would
probably involve oil super-majors such as ExxonMobil, Royal/Dutch/Shell and
BP and could eventually total more than $40bn (€34bn, £24bn), will have to
wait.

The fourth Geneva convention prohibits companies from striking long-term
deals with transitional authorities. And with the public spotlight so
squarely on Iraq, executives at BP and Shell have said they will not get
involved until the country has a transparent and clear political and legal
framework.

-----

19) Future oil sales may be pawned to banks
David Teather in New York
May 31, 2003
The Guardian

American officials are considering a plan to use Iraq's future oil and
gas revenues as collateral to raise cash to rebuild the country.

Several US companies, including Halliburton and Bechtel, which are
jostling for the lucrative reconstruction contracts, are reportedly
pushing the scheme to expedite the commissioning process.

Although the UN security council approved the resumption of oil exports
from Iraq last week, production has been hampered by looting.

But the plan raises questions about whether the interim authority, which
is under US auspices, should tie up the country's future oil and gas
revenues. It may also create problems for the permanent Iraqi authority,
which may seek to examine the contracts handed out by its forerunner.

Under the proposals, the loans would be made by government-backed
agencies in the US, Britain and Australia, as well as the commercial
banking sector. Iraq's annual oil exports could reach $25bn (£15bn).

It was disclosed yesterday that Halliburton, the oil services company
formerly run by the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, has already received
contracts worth $500m related to Iraq.

The Democratic congressman Henry Waxman, who has called for an inquiry
into the links between Halliburton and the Bush administration, obtained
the $500m figure from the US army. He warned that the company's future
revenues in Iraq were "limitless".

Halliburton has completed about $71m of work to extinguish oil-well
fires lit during the conflict. It has also earned $425m in Iraq-related
projects under a wide-ranging contract awarded at the end of 2001.

"It is simply remarkable that a single company could earn so much money
from the war in Iraq," Mr Waxman said in a letter to Les Brownlee, the
acting secretary of the army.

-----

20) Waxman Seeks Details on Halliburton
Lawmaker Questions Scope Of Iraq-Related Contracts
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post
May 30, 2003

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) continued to push for details about
Iraq-related contract work given to Halliburton Co., charging yesterday
that the Houston-based firm has been able to profit "from virtually every
phase of the conflict."

In a letter to acting Army secretary Les Brownlee, which was posted on his
congressional Web site, Waxman said Defense Department data indicate that
Halliburton has been paid $496.3 million for Iraq-related work under a
general logistics contract the firm won through a competitive bid in
December 2001.

"It is simply remarkable that a single company could earn so much money
from the war in Iraq," Waxman said in the letter.

A spokesman for Halliburton called the allegation "an affront to all
hard-working, honorable Halliburton employees, who are dedicated to serving
our customers and doing what is right."

"U.S. government contracts are awarded not by politicians, but by
government civil servants," Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said in a
prepared statement. "Government civil servants are well aware of and
consistently abide by the requirements of the process."

Halliburton's ties to Vice President Cheney, who was its chief executive
from 1995 until 2000, have made the company a target of some Democrats. The
firm, a longtime defense contractor, has been awarded three contracts under
the Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, which was established in
1992 to deal with contingencies. Similar contracts have been awarded to
other companies, including DynCorp of Reston, a Halliburton rival.

The Defense Department did not return a telephone call late yesterday
seeking comment.

Waxman has also questioned a no-bid contract the Army Corps of Engineers
awarded to KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary formerly known as Kellogg Brown &
Root, to repair and operate oil wells in Iraq. According to the Corps of
Engineers, that work is worth about $71.3 million.

Waxman and Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) have asked the General Accounting
Office to investigate.

----

21) RUMSFELD QUERIED ON OFFSHORE BANKING REFORM
by Lucy Komisar
American Reporter
May 29, 2003

NEW YORK -- It hasn’t been reported in the U.S. press until here, now
but Milan, Italy's chief prosecutor has obtained thousands of
documents that show how for more than 20 years Saddam Hussein used the
Western bank and corporate secrecy system to launder bribes skimmed from
oil revenues to pay his security forces and buy Western arms during
international embargoes.

The key countries - whose governments openly allow these
money-laundering systems to exist were Switzerland, Liechtenstein,
Panama and Nassau. Corporate registrations and bank accounts there use
"straw men" and secrecy rules to cover up true owners of companies and
accounts.

On Tuesday (May 27), Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was at the
Council on Foreign Relations in New York, and I asked him what the U.S.
planned to do about this system that financed and armed Washington’s
latest nemesis.

This was the question:

"It’s been shown by investigations by the prosecutor of Milan in Italy,
which has gotten thousands of documents about banks accounts in Europe,
particularly Switzerland and Liechtenstein and then also Panama, that
these were the accounts through which Saddam Hussein hid the rake-offs
he was getting from Western companies that were buying his oil -- that
allowed him to get money for weapons over the 80s and 90s. This bank and
corporate secrecy is what allowed this to happen. I assume the Americans
know about this. Are you going to do anything about this system that
allows criminals like Saddam Hussein this was during the embargo, of
course - are you going to do anything about this system that allows them
to get weapons illegally?"

For the record, Rumsfeld's answer: "The Department of the Treasury has
been working with other countries and attempting to locate the assets
that the Saddam Hussein family and regime have placed in other
countries. They found some, and I’m sure they have not found additional
sums, and I’m sure they’re working on it."

Rumsfeld clumsily side-stepped the question, because the Bush
administration has reversed the Clinton-era policy that attempted at
least minimal reforms of the offshore system. It has blocked European
efforts to pierce bank secrecy by allowing tax authorities to share
information on non-residents' bank accounts. It does not want to change
the offshore system, because its corporate and wealthy supporters use it
to evade taxes.

Rumsfeld would know how that works, because he was CEO of G.D. Searle &
Co, a worldwide pharmaceutical company, and of General Instrument
Corporation, which deals in broadband technologies. International
corporations routinely use the offshore system for "transfer pricing" -
corporatespeak for the practice of moving bookkeeping entries around the
globe so they can report near-zero profits to the IRS.

He said that when funds are needed in Iraq, the U.S. "will rely on
frozen assets in the U.S. and other countries." But to be frozen, they
have to be found. And to be found, the U.S. will have to follow the
trails set out in the Milan documents to challenge the bank and
corporate secrecy of friendly allies such as Switzerland, Liechtenstein,
Panama and Nassau.

Rumsfeld says that in the new Iraq, "Market systems will be favored,"
the U.S. "will encourage moves to privatize state-owned enterprises" and
that it is "developing a plan for the oil industry based on
transparency."

The international oil business is notorious for using secret offshore
accounts to move profits and also to bribe government officials for
access to oil fields. Transparency would make that difficult.

Earlier this month, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) released documents
showing that Halliburton, while it was headed by Vice-President Dick
Cheney, set up offshore subsidiaries in places such as the Cayman
Islands to hide its dealings with Iraq, Iran, and Libya, which were
under U.S. embargo.

If the Bush administration is serious about transparency, if it's
serious about not wanting Iraq's new oil barons to use the same offshore
system that skimmed profits for their predecessors, it had better
reconsider its protective attitude toward shell companies and secret
bank accounts.

Lucy Komisar writes extensively on bank secrecy and money laundering,
She welcomes your comments at mailto:lkomisar@echonyc.com.

----

22) US Airlines Cleared to Fly to Iraq
Reuters
May 30, 2003

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Transportation Department cleared U.S. passenger
and cargo airlines on Friday to resume service to Iraq after sanctions
prohibited those operations for nearly 13 years.

The White House lifted most of the remaining economic sanctions against
Iraq earlier in the week, giving transportation officials the authority to
act.

Still, plans by any carrier wishing to serve Iraq and the United States
directly or via code share must first receive Transportation Department
approval.

Northwest Airlines is the only major U.S. carrier that has sought
government clearance for direct flights. United Airlines, a unit of UAL
Corp., has sought approval to code-share with Lufthansa AG (LHAG.DE) and
Austrian Airlines.

A Transportation Department spokesman said there was no timetable for
reviewing those applications. "We hope to move as quickly as possible,"
Bill Mosley said.

----

23) Planes in Iraq under fire
AFP
June 1, 2003

Baghdad - The US-led coalition in Iraq said Sunday its planes were coming
under regular fire when trying to land at airports across the country,
especially in Baghdad.

"Many coalition planes carrying humanitarian aid to Iraqi cities,
particularly Baghdad, Mosul and Tikrit, are regularly shot at as they
approach airports," it said on its Baghdad radio station.

"Those behind this deliberate fire are members of the former regime who
want to undermine the rebuilding campaign," it said.

"These criminal acts are a great danger, above all in the capital. That is
why Baghdad international airport will remain closed to commercial flights
as long as the shooting on the planes continues."

It asked for anyone with information about the shooting to come forward.

-----

24) Loss of Limbs, Livelihood in Iraq : Many Iraqis Say U.S. Is Not Making
Up for War Damage
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post
May 31, 2003

BAGHDAD -- Since U.S. forces ended their sprint up the Iraqi desert with a
violent pass through her quiet Baghdad neighborhood, Dina Sarhan has begun
a new life learning to make do.

Since she can no longer climb stairs, she has restricted herself to
coasting among the first-floor rooms where her life changed suddenly in a
moment of war. She has taken to sleeping in the dining room, where the
pink-and-white checked bedspread is out of place among the high-back chairs
and china cabinet.

What the family and people who witnessed the fighting say was a fragment
from a U.S. tank round smashed though the front door on the night of April
10 and into Sarhan's left leg, leaving it a tangle of exposed muscle and
bone. Doctors removed much of the leg. The amputation saved her life,
leading Sarhan, 22, to write poems of thanks to her surgeons. But now she
has been consigned to a wheel chair.

Never a supporter of the U.S. invasion, Sarhan has nonetheless forgiven the
anonymous soldiers who injured her in pursuit of an enemy adept at using
civilians as cover. Now she wants help from the United States in finding a
prosthetic leg. But she has been told during visits from U.S. military
officials and an army chaplain that none will be forthcoming. "They told
me, 'We don't have anything for you right now. It's up to a higher
authority.' "

The stub where her leg was still tingles from time to time. "I knew they
would hurt us," she said. "Mr. Bush said this would be a clean war. Is this
a clean war?"

Sarhan is one of thousands of Iraqis who embody the collateral damage of
that war, described by the Bush administration as a means of liberating the
country from former president Saddam Hussein.

To many who lost livelihoods and limbs in the process, a U.S.
reconstruction effort in its seventh week should be as much about
recompense as restarting electrical grids, pumping stations and a flattened
economy. But U.S. officials have made clear to Iraqis that they do not
intend to conduct a complete accounting of war damages, nor compensate
those who say the occupying army owes them something.

While sympathetic to individual hardships suffered as a result of war, U.S.
officials say they are wary of beginning a legal process that could entail
millions of claims against them.

U.S. officials have approached the issue in much the way they did in
Afghanistan, presenting Washington's multibillion-dollar commitment to
rebuilding Iraq as compensation enough. But international relief
organizations, including the Islamic Red Crescent Society, say the
conventions of war hold the United States responsible for paying out such
claims.

"The other thing that makes this difficult is the endemic fraud that would
creep into this," said John Kincannon, a spokesman for the Pentagon's
Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance that is overseeing the
civilian part of the postwar occupation. "How do you ascertain facts three
months after the incident, for example? And once word gets out that the
Americans are paying people for damages, where does it stop?"

Groups of Iraqis gather daily outside the palace compound being used by the
U.S. occupation authority, clutching receipts, letters and other personal
appeals for help. They can be found lingering outside virtually any public
event featuring a senior U.S. official. In most cases, they seek a few
thousand dollars to get lives running again.

Like Abdul Kareem Salman, however, most of them find no place to turn.

"Kareem Service Station Had Been Ruined In The War," reads the sign that
hangs outside the rubble-lined lot where his garage once stood. Salman said
he wrote the sign in English in the hopes that a U.S. official might happen
by and take an interest in his case.

Despite his objections, Iraqi military officials parked a truck carrying an
anti-aircraft gun on his lot before the war. He returned after Baghdad fell
to find his business in ruins, by all appearances the result of an
airstrike that left neighboring buildings intact.

Under a drizzling sky Friday, Salman said he needed $20,000 to rebuild the
garage. Behind him his 18 employees poured concrete and cleared debris,
work financed by $4,000 drawn from his now-exhausted savings. He has
appealed to family members for the rest after a fruitless visit to U.S.
occupation authorities seeking help.

"They told me a committee was assessing this and that I needed to go to the
Sheraton Hotel," he said. "I arrived and asked a soldier about the
committee and he told me there is no such thing, go to the Red Cross. I
went to the Red Cross and they said they had nothing to do with anything
like this."

Sarhan's hopes now rest with the Italian Red Cross, which operates a
medical center in a collection of green army tents near downtown Baghdad.
The ward was bustling this morning with recent victims, mostly children and
adolescents suffering burns and other injuries as the result of unexploded
ordnance.

Cosimo Prete, one of 10 Italian doctors working at the center, examined
Sarhan two days ago. He was trying to find her room on one of the agency's
weekly charter flights for Milan, where she could be fitted for a leg. He
flipped open a green folder on his desk thick with papers, a waiting list.

"There is a problem and a hope with her case," Prete said. "She is not
dying, and you can see we have some very bad cases. But I am hoping for
next week."

----

25) Democrats reluctant to criticize Iraq war
Leading presidential candidates mum on questions about necessity of invasion
Albany Times Union
By DAN FREEDMAN, Washington bureau
June 1, 2003

WASHINGTON -- Although the Bush administration faces a looming credibility
gap about why the United States invaded Iraq, leading Democratic
presidential contenders are reluctant to raise the issue.

One reason is that polls show Americans support the war and President Bush,
with or without clinching evidence that Iraq had an arsenal of weapons of
mass destruction. Another reason is the Democrats' historical fear that
voters may view them as wimpy on issues of national security.

In his campaign to rouse public support for an attack on Iraq, Bush called
Saddam Hussein's possession of banned weapons as a major reason for war and
sought to link the Iraqi dictator with the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Despite seven weeks of U.S. occupation of Iraq, no evidence has emerged to
support those contentions, leading Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last
week to drop his pre-war confidence about the weapons' existence. Perhaps
Iraq destroyed the weapons before the U.S. attack, he speculated.

None of the top three Democrats -- all supporters of the original Bush war
plan -- appears interested in charging the President with misleading
Congress and the American people.

While failure to find such weapons "would be upsetting," Sen. Joseph
Lieberman, D-Conn. -- a staunch war supporter -- said last week in Iowa,
their absence "doesn't undermine the purpose of the war or the credibility
of officials who supported it."

Another war supporter, former House Minority Leader Rep. Richard Gephardt,
D-Mo., said last month that he was confident that U.S. forces would
eventually find the weapons.

The prohibited weapons, he said, "were there, and they could have found
their way into the hands of terrorists and found their way to the United
States, and that's what we had to stop."

And Sen. John Kerry, who like Lieberman and Gephardt voted for the
congressional resolution last October authorizing war, also has refused to
challenge Bush on the weapons issue.

"I think we have to wait and see" whether weapons are discovered, Kerry
said on NBC two weeks ago. " ... I still think it is good that Saddam
Hussein is gone."

After U.S. forces seized Baghdad, searchers found two trailers that
intelligence officials say were likely used to mix biological toxins -- and
little else.

Tests showed no traces of biological agents on either trailer and
intelligence officials acknowledged they could not prove they had actually
been used to make biological weapons.

With Election Day 17 months away, Lieberman, Kerry and Gephardt lead the
pack of nine Democratic presidential aspirants, according to most polls.

Several of the six Democrats lagging in the polls have been bolder in
questioning whether the administration misled the public about Iraq's weapons.

"This administration led this nation into a war based on a pretext that
Iraq was an imminent threat, when it was not," Rep. Dennis Kucinich,
D-Ohio, said on the House floor May 21. The Bush White House "is still
refusing to account to the American people for its false and misleading
state