Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 15:32:11 -0400
Subject: 06/03/05 (IRAQ) "Worst" Environment; Oil Workers; Interior
Min. Jabr; Insurgency; Cobra Lightning; Brussels Mtg; France Inquiry;
Dinar; Biometric IDs?; Compensation?; US Soldiers; Draft; Crusade?
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X-Originating-IP: 69.138.236.33
1. UNEP: Postwar Iraq's environment a "worst case" scenario (Reuters) 06/02
2. Basra oil workers ready to fight privatisation (Guardian) 06/03
3. Interior Minister Jabr Interviewed on Sectarian Violence, Security, etc
(Associated Press) 06/02
4. Insurgent Violence Continues in Varied Attacks (Associated Press) 06/02
5. Gunmen Kill Turkmen City Official in Kirkuk (Associated Press) 06/03
6. Al Hayat: Kurds, Shia Differ on Meaning of Federalism (Informed
Consent) 06/03
7. Amidst Violence, Interior Minister Cites Casualty Figures (Washington
Post) 06/03
8. Shi'ite Cleric Assassinated In Basra (Reuters) 06/03
9. Sufi mystics smoked in suicide bombing; Iraqi general killed (Times) 06/03
10. Operation Cobra Lightning: Iraqis step to front in sweeping Baghdad
raid (Stars and Stripes) 06/03
11. Mixed Reviews so far for Operation Cobra Lightning (Reuters) 06/02
12. Two former Baathists detained in Karbala for 1991 Shiite massacre (AFP)
06/02
13. FM Zebari Appeals for Greater U.S. Role (Washington Post) 06/03
14. Statement by Sponsors of Brussels Summit on Iraq (US Dept. of State) 06/02
15. When Condi Hesitates, Luxembourg Invites Iran to Iraq Summit
(Associated Press) 06/02
16. France launches independent oil-for-food inquiry (Al Jazeera) 06/02
17. UK troops plan south Iraq security handovers in months (Financial
Times) 06/01
18. Health Ministry: Civilian deaths up in May (Associated Press) 06/01
19. US military units woo Sunnis in particular (Associated Press) 06/03
20. Calls for human rights to be respected during raids in Baghdad (IRIN) 06/02
21. Insurgency Through Iraqi Eyes (washingtonpost.com) 06/02
22. Kadhem al-Miqdad: Some Iraqis Resent Kurdish Officials' Actions
(Azzaman) 06/03
23. UK soldiers basic Arabic skills save life of armed Iraqi officer
(Times) 06/03
24. US-run assistance center struggles to help compensate Iraqis (Knight
Ridder) 06/02
25. US forces collect biometric ID data from insurgent suspects (Gulf News)
05/31
26. Credit cards soon available for Iraqi public (USA Today) 06/02
27. Value of Iraqi dinar defies spiraling violence (Azzaman) 06/03
28. Iraq exports 2m oil barrels through Turkey (Al Jazeera) 06/02
29. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad: In Baghdad, easy to be in wrong place at wrong time
(Guardian) 06/03
30. $1Billion spent for US diplomatic operations in Baghdad (UPI) 06/02
31. 3 US soldiers face court-martial in Iraqi general’s alleged suffocation
(Associated Press) 06/03
32. US Soldiers tell war stories through "Live from Iraq" rap album
(Associated Press) 06/02
33. Finding Work Hard for GI's Back From War (Associated Press) 06/03
34. US Army National Guard, Reserve Monthly Death Toll at High (Associated
Press) 06/03
35. Public fear of military draft rises despite government's assurances
(Washington Post) 06/02
36. Editorial: As military recruitment falters, draft increasingly possible
(Ledger) 06/03
37. Lawrence Korb: Bush Needs to Institute Draft for More Iraq Troops
(Dayton Daily News) 05/27
38. Military manpower crisis not solved by retaining worst soldiers
(Slate.com) 06/02
39. Gary Anderson: Desperation?: Insurgents' Power Play (Washington Post) 06/02
40. James Corum: War From the Top Down (New York Times) 06/02
41. Gwynne Dyer: Insurgency necessitates continued US presence
(Winston-Salem Journal) 06/02
42. Molly Ivins: Culture of Life? - Bush spews propaganda in US, Iraq (Fort
Worth Star-Telegram) 06/02
43. Erik Leaver: As US bases to close, new ones planned in Iraq (Atlanta
Journal Constitution) 06/03
44. Robert Novak: Book slams Bush's global crusade (Chicago Sun Times) 06/02
45. Tom Engelhardt: Return of the Body Count: the Metrics of Losing
(TomDispatch) 05/23
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Postwar Iraq paying heavy environmental price
Reuters
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
Jun 2, 2005
AMMAN - Iraq's environmental problems - among world's worst - range from a
looted nuclear site which needs cleaning up to sabotaged oil pipelines, a
U.N. official said on Thursday.
"An improvement is almost impossible in these security conditions.
Chemicals are seeping into groundwater and the situation is becoming worse
and creating additional health problems," said Pekka Haavisto, Iraq task
force chairman at the United Nations Environmental Programme.
"Iraq is the worst case we have assessed and is difficult to compare. After
the Balkan War we could immediately intervene for protection, such as the
river Danube, but not in Iraq," Haavisto, a former Finnish environment
minister, said on a visit to Jordan to meet with Iraqi officials.
Lack of spare parts and Iraq's inability to maintain pollution standards
during two previous wars and more than a decade of crushing sanctions have
damaged the environment, including the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where
most of Iraq's sewage flows untreated.
The situation became worse after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, in which
depleted uranium munitions were used against Iraq for the second time and
postwar looting and burning of the once formidable infrastructure caused
massive spills and toxic plumes, Haavisto said.
"The bombing and war carried a cost but the looting cost the environment
more, such as in the Dora refinery or Tuwaitha nuclear storage," Haavisto said.
"There has not been proper cleanup and only assessment work at some of
these sites. Very little has changed and Iraqi teams are in the process of
getting in some of these locations."
The U.N. official was referring to the 56 square km (22 sq mile) Tuwaitha
complex south of Baghdad where 3,000 barrels that stored nuclear compounds
were looted.
In the Dora depot on the edge of Baghdad, 5,000 barrels of chemicals,
including tetra ethylene lead, were spilled burned or stolen, a U.N. survey
showed.
Contaminated sites near the water supply also include a 200 square km (77
sq mile) military industrial complex, torched or looted cement factories
and fertilizer plants, of which Iraq was one of the world's largest
producers, and oil spills.
"Iraq was a modern industrial society in many ways. The chemicals are very
risky on its future. The more time passes the more consequences on health,"
Haavisto said.
He said postwar assessment of the environmental damage was proceeding
despite threats to the 1,000 staff of an Iraqi environment ministry, set up
as an independent unit after the American invasion.
The field studies will eventually include depleted uranium, a toxic, heavy
metal used to make bombs more lethal, of which the United States used an
estimated 300 tonnes in 1991 Gulf War and an unknown quantity during the
last invasion.
------
2) Iraq's other resistance: Basra oil workers ready to fight privatisation
Greg Muttitt
June 3, 2005
The Guardian
Faced with daily reports of car bombs and kidnappings, it's difficult to
feel optimistic about Iraq. But last week in the south of the country I
heard a very different story. A story of the movement that has formed to
rebuild the country's economy and national pride, to create an Iraq with
neither the tyranny of Saddam nor the pillage of military occupation.
Last week Basra saw its first conference on the threat of privatisation,
bringing together oil workers, academics and international civil-society
groups. The event debated an issue about which Iraqis are passionate: the
ownership and control of Iraq's oil reserves.
The conference was organised by the General Union of Oil Employees (GUOE),
which was established in June 2004 and now has 23,000 members. Focused as
much on the broader Iraqi public interest as on members' concerns, its
first aim was to organise workers to repair oil facilities and bring them
back into production during the chaos of the early months of occupation.
This effort by the workers required both courage - often in conflict either
with coalition troops or remnants of the Ba'athist regime - and
considerable ingenuity, putting back together a working oil industry with
minimal resources.
In maintenance too, the Iraqi workers have outmatched their private-company
counterparts. Walking round the Basra refinery, I pointed to the creaking
and rusty equipment and asked the manager whether there were a lot of
accidents, arising from failures of equipment under high pressure.
The refinery manager said that accidents were rare, because however old the
equipment it is constantly checked. "For an Iraqi refinery operator, the
refinery is part of him," he said.
Contrast this with the disastrous safety record of British and American
refineries. There, the frequent accidents are caused largely by lack of
maintenance and inspection - which are in turn caused by the drastic
downsizing of the workforce.
The occupation forces and their allies in the Iraqi government see things
differently. Plans are now afoot for sweeping changes to Iraq's oil sector,
to give western oil majors access to its reserves for the first time since
1972.
But they will face a challenge. While the workforce has shown itself to be
quite capable of running the industry, it has been equally effective at
shutting down that industry when threatened by the authorities.
In August 2003 oil workers' unions organised a strike that stopped all
production in southern Iraq for two days. The resulting bargaining power
has been impressive, with the unions - which later merged to become the
GUOE - successfully pushing for foreign workers to be replaced by Iraqis;
the role of US companies in the reconstruction to be reduced; and wages to
be raised to liveable levels.
And the GUOE is uncompromising in its views on oil privatisation. As one
oil worker told me, he and his colleagues have rebuilt their industry after
its destruction in three wars, and in the face of extreme adversity. As a
result they have a deep sense of ownership, which they will not willingly
relinquish.
· Greg Muttitt is a researcher at Platform, an organisation that campaigns
for social and environmental justice.
-------
3) Iraqi Interior Minister Jabr Interviewed; Denies Shiites Killing Sunni
Clerics
By HAMZA HENDAWI
Associated Press
June 2, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The man in charge of Iraq's police and security services on
Thursday dismissed accusations that Sunni Arab clerics are being
assassinated by a Shiite militia in which he played a leading role.
Interior Minister Bayan Jabr told The Associated Press in an interview that
more mosques and clerics from the Shiite majority have been attacked than
those belonging to the Sunni minority.
Jabr is a top member of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in
Iraq, the country's largest Shiite Muslim party, and he served as a senior
official in the party's militia, the Badr Brigade, before joining Iraq's
first postwar Cabinet in 2003.
Asked about allegations against the brigade made by Sunni Arab clerics and
repeated by lay Sunnis, Jabr said a police inquiry had produced nothing to
suggest the Shiite militia was involved in killing clerics.
Rather, he said, militants captured by security forces have confessed to
killing clerics from both sides in an effort to provoke sectarian strife.
Interviewed in one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces in the heavily
guarded Green Zone, Jabr said statistics he got from an Interior Ministry
research center indicate more than 80 percent of the approximately 12,000
Iraqi civilians killed the past 18 months were Shiites.
He acknowledged his findings weren't precise, however. He said he figured
the totals for Shiites and Sunnis by looking at which group was dominant in
the areas where victims lived rather than having a religious identification
for each individual.
Southern Iraq is overwhelmingly Shiite, while the center and north are
primarily Sunni. Baghdad's estimated 6 million residents are split roughly
between both communities. Shiites account for about 60 percent of Iraq's
estimated 26 million people, and Sunni Arabs and Kurds each make up 15
percent to 20 percent.
"The number of Shiite clerics killed is several folds (higher than) the
number of Sunni clerics (killed)," Jabr said without giving figures.
"Scores of Shiite mosques have been bombed. Not a single Sunni mosque is
known to have been bombed."
In the latest fatality from seemingly tit-for-tat Shiite-Sunni attacks in
recent weeks, a senior member of the Badr Brigade died Thursday of wounds
suffered three days earlier in Baghdad. The death of Safwan Ali Farhan,
also a cleric, was confirmed by his brother, Wasfi Ali Farhan, and Ridha
Jawad Taqi, a senior official of the militia's parent political party.
The killings have strained relations between the now dominant Shiite
majority and Sunni Arabs, who ruled for decades until the 2003 ouster of
Saddam, himself a Sunni. There are fears of sectarian strife, although
leaders from both sides insist historical bonds between them are strong
enough to prevent that.
The Shiite-led government has been reaching out to Sunni Arabs, naming
several to key Cabinet posts and inviting Sunni leaders to appoint
representatives to a parliamentary committee drafting an Iraqi constitution.
However, Jabr branded the fragmented insurgency as terrorist, suggesting he
might be pushing a tougher line against rebels than some of his colleagues.
On Wednesday, a Shiite cleric leading the constitutional drafting process
said the government is communicating indirectly with some insurgent
factions in hopes of persuading them to disarm.
The disclosure by Hummam Hammoudi, a member of Jabr's party, was confirmed
by the government's spokesman and a key Sunni Arab lawmaker. Both said the
contacts did not include Islamic extremist groups like al-Qaida in Iraq,
which are blamed for many of the deadliest attacks.
Jabr, however, was categorical in rejecting any differentiation.
"There's no resistance in Iraq, but only terrorism," he said when asked
about the contacts. "As an interior minister, I deal with everyone who
takes up arms and kill people on the land of Iraq as a terrorist."
The government has stepped up security operations in response to a surge in
insurgent violence that has killed more than 810 people in five weeks.
Jabr said a major sweep under way in Baghdad this week has captured more
than 700 terrorism suspects and killed 28 militants.
The operation has alienated some Sunni Arabs, who are convinced their
community is being singled out because of the Sunni role in the insurgency.
Jabr dismissed that idea, saying Sunni Arabs command army and police units
in the operation. And, he added, the crackdown's two other political
leaders are Sunni Arabs, Deputy Prime Minister Abed Mutlak al-Jiburi and
Defense Minister Saadoun al-Duleimi.
"People in Sunni areas are providing us with more intelligence than Shiite
areas," he said.
--------
4) Iraq Insurgents Kill 39 in Rapid Attacks
By PATRICK QUINN
Associated Press
June 2, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents killed 39 people in a series of rapid-fire
attacks Thursday, including three suicide car bombings within an hour and a
driveby shooting at a busy Baghdad market that ratcheted up the bloody
campaign to undermine Iraq's government.
In Tuz Khormato, a popular highway stop 55 miles south of the oil-rich town
of Kirkuk, a suicide car bomber targeted bodyguards for Iraq's Kurdish
deputy prime minister as they ate at a restaurant. The blast killed 12 people.
"I was sitting inside my restaurant when about six cars parked nearby and
their passengers came inside and ordered food," owner Ahmed al-Dawoudi
said. "Seconds later, I heard a big explosion and the restaurant was turned
into twisted wreckage and rubble. Blood and pieces of flesh were everywhere."
Earlier in Kirkuk, a suicide car bomber trying to attack a convoy of
civilian contract workers killed a young boy and three other Iraqi
bystanders and wounded 11 people.
Another suicide bomber killed four people and wounded four in Baqouba,
about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. Hours later, two parked motorcycles
rigged with bombs blew up near a coffee shop there, killing five Iraqis and
wounding 13.
In the capital, men in three speeding cars sprayed gunfire into a crowded
market in the northern neighborhood of Hurriyah, killing nine people, the
interior and defense ministries said. Two other attacks in the Baghdad area
killed four people and injured three.
As part of the campaign against insurgents, Iraq's government launched in
Baghdad on Sunday the biggest Iraqi offensive since Saddam Hussein's fall
two years ago.
Among those captured in Baghdad is the suspected leader of the National
Islamic Resistance/1920 Revolution Brigade terror group, the Defense
Ministry said.
Angry leaders of the Sunni Arab minority complained Thursday that their
community was being targeted by the crackdown and threatened to boycott the
drafting of Iraq's new constitution — a crucial document U.S. officials
hope will help stabilize Iraq.
"I swear by God that we'll demand none from now on to lay down his weapon,"
yelled Osam Al-Rawi, head of the Iraqi teachers union and representative of
the influential Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni group thought to be
close to the insurgency.
However, in a heartening sign, Sunni leaders did not slam the door on
al-Jaafari's efforts to bring them back into the political fold.
Members of the constitutional committee met with about 70 Sunnis, including
from the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Association of Muslim Scholars, to
discuss parliament's offer for 13 Sunnis to represent the minority on the
55-member charter panel. Just two Sunni Arabs are on the body now.
Abdul-Hamid said that despite his anger, he was not rejecting the political
process.
"We all are convinced, whether the government, occupation forces or
political parties, that channels should be opened with the Iraqi Islamic
national resistance, which defends Iraq and its independence," he said,
adding it was "very useful to reach out and find solutions for ending the
occupation and stop the blood letting."
In other developments Thursday:
_Sheik Safwan Ali Farhan, a senior member of the Shiite Badr Brigade
militia, died after being shot Monday in eastern Baghdad, police said.
_The U.S. military said two American soldiers were killed in combat near
Ramadi and another died of non-battle injuries in Kirkuk on Wednesday. At
least 1,666 U.S. military members have died since the war began in March
2003, according to an Associated Press count.
------
5) Gunmen Kill Turkmen City Official in Kirkuk
By PAUL GARWOOD
Associated Press
June 3, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen on Friday killed a city council official in Kirkuk,
a contractor renovating a mosque in Samarra and a man standing outside a
Baghdad hospital, while several car bombs that targeted U.S. convoys in the
capital wounded six civilians, authorities said.
Gunmen killed Brig. Sabah Qara Alton, a Turkman official at Kirkuk City
Council, after he left a mosque in the ethnically mixed northern city
following Friday prayers, police Capt. Sarhad Talabani said.
Earlier in the day, gunmen killed Razzouq Mohammed Ibrahim, an Iraqi
contractor in charge of renovating a mosque in western Samarra, and stole
his car, police Lt. Qassim Mohammed said.
Two Iraqi civilians, including a child, were killed early Friday when their
car swerved into a U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle near Khalis, 50 miles
north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.
Insurgents fired mortars at the Baghdad Medical City complex shortly after
midday, damaging one of the roof of a building. They then shot and killed
an Iraqi man standing outside the complex, U.S. military spokesman Maj.
David Abrams said.
A suicide car bomber wounded nine Iraqi soldiers and two women after
attacking an Iraqi army checkpoint near the U.S. 42nd Infantry Division
base in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, police Capt. Hakim al-Azawi
said. Police also pulled the body of a man, who had his hands bound and was
shot in the head, from the Tigris River, he added.
Car bombs targeted U.S. military convoys in the capital, one of which
wounded six Iraqi civilians in western Baghdad, police Capt. Mohammed Abbas
said. Another blast damaged an American tank, but caused no U.S.
casualties, the military said.
Late Thursday, a suicide car bomber targeted followers of the mystic
Islamic Sufi movement, killing at least nine Iraqis and wounding 12 in
Yethrib, a remote village near Balad, north of Baghdad, said Dr. Faiz
Shawqi, a local hospital official. The suicide bomber also died.
"I was among 50 people inside the tekiya (Sufi gathering place) practicing
our rites when the building was hit by a big explosion," said Ahmed Hamid,
one of the Sufis, who are regarded as heretics by Islamic extremists
believed responsible for suicide bombings. "Then, there was chaos
everywhere and human flesh scattered all over the place."
Some 25 other Iraqis, including a young child and deputy provincial leader,
were killed across northern Iraqi earlier Thursday in Tuz Khormato, Kirkuk,
Mosul and Baqouba.
In Baghdad, men in three speeding cars sprayed gunfire into a crowded
market in the northern neighborhood of Hurriyah, killing nine people, the
interior and defense ministries said. Two other Baghdad attacks killed four
people and injured three.
Gunmen killed Shiite cleric Ali Abdul Hussein outside his home in Basra,
340 miles southeast of Baghdad, police said. At least 10 Shiite and Sunni
clerics have been killed in the latest surge in violence.
Sheik Taj El Din al-Hilaly arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday to continue his
mission to secure the release Wood, a California-based Australian engineer.
The Egyptian-born mufti has said his Iraqi contacts urged him to return to
prepare for Wood's possible release.
Separately, Australia's top Muslim cleric, who trying to secure the release
of 63-year-old Australian hostage Douglas Wood, said he hoped to receive
news of the captive's imminent release. He did not elaborate.
Wood was abducted in late April, shortly before a militant group, calling
itself the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq, released a video May 1
showing him pleading for Australia to withdraw its 1,400 troops from Iraq.
The Australian government has refused to bend to terrorists' demands.
"We are here for a humanitarian mission to gain the freedom of the
Australian engineer and we hope, God willing, that within the next few
hours to hear news about the hostage's (imminent) release," al-Hilaly told
The Associated Press after attending a Friday prayer service at a Baghdad
mosque. The Egyptian-born cleric said he made "indirect contacts" with the
kidnappers, but provided no further details.
---------
6) Warring Visions of Iraqi Federalism: "Sumer" Rises in South
Informed Comment (Blog by Prof. Juan Cole)
June 2, 2005
Al-Hayat says that its sources in Iraq describe an ongoing dispute between
the Kurds, who want an Iraqi federalism that gives "states' rights" only to
Kurdistan but not to other provinces, and the Shiites, who want a
federalism that would apply geographically throughout the country. The
Shiites want to create a southern super-province to serve as a counter
weight to Kurdistan. Shiite leaders are planning a congress that can
establish the instrumentalities for creating the region of "Sumer" in the
south, which will consist of 3 consolidated provinces.
This information came in part from Abdul Karim Mahud al-Muhammadawi, the
Marsh Arab leader and head of the Marsh Arab Hizbullah Party. Maysan, Dhi
Qar and Basra provinces will form one subregion. Likewise, Wasit, Diwaniyah
and Samawah will join into a region, as will Karbala, Najaf and Hillah.
Apparently "Sumer" is the planned name for all three (i.e. for 9 provinces
as Iraq is presently constituted). He maintained that the United Iraqi
Alliance, the coalition of Shiite religious parties that dominates
parliament, will work to implement this vision of general geographical
federalism-- as long as there are guarantees that it will not threaten the
unity of Iraq.
He said that there are also consultations behind closed doors by
parliamentarians on the issue of whether a special federal court is needed
to resolve disputes between these super-provinces and between them and the
central government in Baghdad. He said there was general agreement in the
UIA and between it and the Kurds that the reorganization of the southern
provinces would proceed. He said that the plan had not been officially
endorsed by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf, but that it had been
passed by him, and there was an unofficial go-ahead. Al-Muhammadawi said
that the plan was also popular among some MPs from the Iraqiyah list of
Iyad Allawi. Al-Muhammadawi himself says he does not support the idea of
Shiite super-provinces.
The plan is opposed by Iyad al-Samarra'i of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party,
who said that the IIP is willing to recognize a Kurdistan but that
otherwise the present provincial boundaries should be kept. He said that if
the Kurds and Shiites did go ahead with their schemes for large federal
regions, the Sunni Arabs would be forces to consider creating one for
themselves, as well.
The Shiites' use of "Sumer" as the name of the southern confederation is a
reference to the earliest civilization in Mesopotamia, based in the south
near the Gulf, who had writing as early as 3500. It is always a bad sign
when people revive ancient place names, since it points to a romantic
nationalism, the most virulent, false and ugly kind. (The people of
southern Iraq didn't even know about Sumer two centuries ago-- modern
archeologists recovered that part of history. It was perhaps the one
success of Saddam's educational system that he instilled a craze for
ancient Iraqi civilization in the students, as part of his nationalist agenda).
--------
7) Iraq Puts Civilian Toll at 12,000: Insurgency Claiming About 20 People a Day
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post
June 3, 2005; A01
BAGHDAD, June 2 -- Insurgent violence has claimed the lives of 12,000
Iraqis in the past 18 months, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said Thursday,
putting the first official count on the largest category of victims from
bombings, ambushes and other increasingly deadly attacks.
At least 36 more Iraqi civilians, security force members and officials were
killed Thursday in attacks that underscored the ruthlessness and growing
randomness of much of the violence. The day's victims included 12 people
killed when a suicide attacker drove a vehicle loaded with explosives into
a restaurant near the northern city of Kirkuk.
In Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a market area crowded with civilians,
killing nine, the Defense Ministry said.
The U.S. military reported that two soldiers were killed Wednesday, by a
bomb and by small-arms fire, in the western city of Ramadi.
Thursday's violence demonstrated the ability of insurgents to keep up
attacks despite a week-old security operation in Baghdad billed as the most
aggressive yet by Iraq's new government, in office for less than two months.
The checkpoints and raids that leaders have dubbed Operation Lightning have
brought all roads in and out of the capital under government control, said
Jabr, the minister in charge of Iraq's police forces. The actions are meant
to expose insurgent hideouts in the city, he told reporters from some
foreign news organizations, adding, "Within the next few months, we can
deal with all of the killings and assassinations."
There have been 1,663 U.S. military deaths since the United States led the
invasion of Iraq in March 2003, according to the Pentagon's official count.
Bombings and other insurgent strikes have killed thousands of Iraqi
security force members. No official totals have been released for those
dead, or for the total number of civilian casualties since the start of the
war. The U.S. military says it does not keep a comprehensive tally of
people it has killed in combat, although it has released numbers of dead in
major operations and has acknowledged civilians it has killed if it has
become generally known that those people died during a U.S. firefight or
attack.
Jabr said the government figures showed that Shiites had suffered the bulk
of insurgent attacks. No Sunni Muslim mosques, for example, had been
destroyed, he said.
Iraq's insurgency is led largely by members of the Sunni Arab minority that
was toppled from power with Saddam Hussein. Foreign Arab fighters are
largely blamed for the suicide bombings that now claim most of the lives.
Jabr, in some of his first extended remarks to reporters since becoming
interior minister, said he saw no legitimacy in the cause of the Sunni Arab
fighters. "I have not seen any 'resistance,' " Jabr said in response to a
question about clemency for so-called resistance fighters who lay down
their arms. "There is terror, and all sides have agreed that anyone raising
guns and killing Iraqis is a terrorist."
Jabr denied that the police operation in Baghdad was unduly focusing on
Sunnis, saying many of the operation's commanders were Sunnis.
He also said the new government was trying to reform the Interior Ministry,
including expelling officials and officers found to have tortured detainees
or others.
As an opposition member under Hussein, he said, he had lost 10 members of
his family to torture. "I would not accept that anyone practice torture
against anyone," he said, adding that he would "personally follow up" on
all such allegations.
Jabr also denied reports that members of the Badr militia, Shiite fighters
trained in exile in Iran, were complicit in the killing of Sunni clerics
last month. Investigation showed that no Badr members were involved, he
said. The true killers are "terrorists who are killing Shiite clerics and
Sunnis to incite strife," he said.
The day's violence included two car bombs near the northern oil city of Kirkuk.
A bomb attack at a roadside restaurant apparently targeted bodyguards of
one of Iraq's deputy prime ministers, Rosh Nouri Shaways, said Col. Abbas
Mohammed Amin, police chief of Tuz, where the attack occurred. Shaways, an
ethnic Kurd, was not present, but five of his guards and seven other people
were killed, according to police and defense officials.
Two more people died at Arafah, the site of one of Iraq's first oil wells.
A suicide car bomber there detonated his explosives at the entrance to a
compound for the national oil company and the U.S. and British consulates,
Lt. Col. Adel Zain Abidin said.
In Baqubah, in central Iraq, a suicide car bomber killed Hussein Alwan
Tamimi, the deputy chairman of the Diyala provincial council, as he was
accompanying his ill sister to the hospital, according to a fellow council
member, Khadija Khuda Yakhsh. Four of the official's bodyguards also died.
The sister was wounded.
In Mosul, also in the north, attackers blew up two motorcycles rigged with
explosives next to a coffee shop frequented by police officers, killing
five people, the Associated Press reported.
Gunmen firing randomly from three speeding cars killed nine Iraqis in a
crowded market area in Baghdad, a Defense Ministry official told the AP.
Interior Ministry officials gave a slightly different account, saying the
victims had been waiting at a bus stop.
A bomb caused the deaths of three motorists at Mahmudiyah, 15 miles south
of Baghdad, and attackers with guns and a bomb killed a woman in Baghdad's
Dora neighborhood, police and hospital officials told the AP.
In political developments, negotiators were unable to find a formula by
which more Sunni Arabs would help draft the country's constitution.
Writing a new constitution is the main mandate of Prime Minister Ibrahim
Jafari's government, which faces a mid-August deadline to finish a draft
that can be put before voters.
Sunnis largely boycotted Jan. 30 elections for the National Assembly and as
a result are underrepresented on the constitution-writing committee. Sunni
blocs came forward for the first time last month to say that they wanted a
role.
The drafting of the charter has started while negotiators decide whether
political parties, regional votes or other means should be used to pick
Sunni delegates.
"National Assembly members are willing to make this succeed," a Sunni
negotiator, Salih Mutlak, said after talks Thursday.
"They cannot write the constitution in the absence of the Sunni
representation," he added. "If they do, it will be rejected by the people."
Special correspondents Salih Saif Aldin in central Iraq, Marwan Ani in
Kirkuk and Bassam Sebti and Khalid Saffar in Baghdad contributed to this
report.
--------
8) Iraqi Shi'ite Cleric Assassinated In Basra
REUTERS
June 3, 2005
BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunmen have assassinated a Shi'ite cleric in the
southern Iraqi city of Basra, police and relatives said on Friday.
Skip to next paragraph Reuters
They said Ali Abdul-Hussein, the imam of a Shi'ite mosque in Basra, was
shot outside his house on Thursday night by two gunmen who then escaped in
a car.
Dozens of Shi'ite and Sunni clerics have been assassinated in recent
months, and some religious groups say the killings are an attempt to
provoke sectarian civil war in Iraq.
--------
9) Sufi mystics killed in Iraq suicide bombing
By Sam Knight
Times (London) Online
June 03, 2005
Ten followers of the mystic Islamic Sufi movement were killed last night in
a suicide bombing in a remote village north of Baghdad.
And on Friday, four Iraqis, including an army Brigadier, are reported to
have been killed as government security forces and the US military
continued their operations to clear insurgents from Baghdad.
According to a US military briefing, the crowd of Sufi worshippers was
attacked by a suicide car bomber in the village of Saud, near the town of
Balad, about 425 miles north of Baghdad, late last night. The explosion
completed a bloody day in which nearly 50 people were killed in shootings
and bombings across the country.
Sufi mystics are a target of Islamic extremists, who dispute their
interpretation of the Koran. Twelve people were also injured in the explosion.
Ahmed Hamid, a Sufi witness told the Associated Press: "I was among 50
people inside the tekiya (Sufi gathering place) practicing our rites when
the building was hit by a big explosion. Then, there was chaos everywhere
and human flesh scattered all over the place."
----------
10) Iraqi troops step to the front in sweeping Baghdad raid
By Teri Weaver
Stars and Stripes
June 3, 2005
BAGHDAD — It was 1:40 a.m., and a convoy of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers had
just pulled into a Hurriya neighborhood.
The soldiers were starting a 72-hour sweep called Operation Cobra
Lightning, a combined mission calling for the search of entire city blocks
for the insurgents whose bombs and guns are killing and maiming American
troops and Iraqi people.
On early Tuesday morning, however, the mission was delayed by a half hour.
Half of the trucks in the convoy parked in the wrong place, and moving them
in the dark, narrow alleys took awhile. The confusion continued as U.S.
troops tried to assign tasks to the Iraqis. For a few minutes, a U.S.
lieutenant directing the mission mistakenly thought he had left a squad of
Iraqi soldiers back at the base.
Finally, sometime after 2 a.m., the Iraqi soldiers began knocking on doors.
An hour later, they were only halfway done with the block.
Capt. Damian Marquith, commander of the U.S. troops who come from a company
of New York Guardsmen from the 101st Cavalry, looked on patiently. The
mission was running more than two hours behind.
“It’s going to work,” said Marquith, a 32-year-old General Electric project
manager from Tampa, Fla., who graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at
West Point. “It just takes time.”
The coordinated effort between the two armies stalled and stumbled a few
times during the midnight-to-noon shift. But neither side was to blame for
the slow pace, Marquith and others said.
Instead, the frustrations showed how challenged and how dedicated both
sides are to building a capable Iraqi military so that it can protect its
country and American troops can return home, soldiers said.
Some of the challenges are simple. The differences between the armies’
structures — “How many soldiers are in each squad?” one U.S. officer asked
an Iraqi officer of his platoon — had to be learned.
Some are obvious. The constant need for translators made talking and giving
orders slow, even confusing, at times.
Some problems were just logistical. Trying to shut down entire city blocks
— both in the darkness of the early morning and in the daylight with dozens
of curious onlookers — tested everyone’s patience.
But, in the end, the troops detained seven people for questioning,
including one person who is a named suspect in the insurgency. They found
evidence that other insurgents were living in a home but had fled, leaving
forged identity papers and some anti-American material. And they finished
their mission — three complete searches in three parts of Hurriya — right
on time.
The Iraqis played a key role in that success, Marquith said. They conducted
the searches and initial interviews themselves, guarded the streets to keep
curious neighbors inside, and pointed out other houses thought to hide
suspected insurgents, all jobs the Americans admitted the Iraqis can do far
better in their own country and language.
The Iraqis’ presence played into the Americans’ goal for the three-day
mission: to catch insurgents, to train the Iraqis in basic soldiering
skills such as setting perimeters and searching without destroying
property; and to show the Iraqi people that Iraqi soldiers are part of the
face of coalition forces.
“The people have complained they don’t see enough Iraqi forces,” Marquith
said. “This is a first attempt for them to do the mission and for us to be
behind the scenes.”
The Americans were more shoulder-to-shoulder with the Iraqis on Tuesday,
the first of three raids these six platoons would do together during the
next three days.
American sergeants accompanied the Iraqis in each house. An American
platoon leader, Lt. Aaron Lefton, 29, of New York City, gave the orders to
the Iraqis. U.S. soldiers made the final call on whether to send a suspect
to a nearby military base for further questioning.
By the second stop, at 6:12 a.m., the soldiers parked their trucks in the
right place. One U.S. platoon leader had created an assembly line of sorts
for the searches: the Iraqis knocked, searched and gathered their suspects,
then the U.S. soldiers conducted additional interviews while the Iraqis
went on to the next house.
But Marquith grew a little worried when the Iraqi commander asked if his
troops could stop to eat breakfast. The American captain never considered
saying no, but he wondered how long a meal break meant for the Iraqi soldiers.
The Iraqis ate their flatbreads, took a drink, and were back in formation
before the U.S. soldiers were ready. Instead of waiting, the Iraqis asked a
family near the search area if they could use their roof to watch for attacks.
By the third stop, at 9:45 a.m., Marquith asked a few Iraqi soldiers if
they were tired. A handful shook their heads no.
“They lie,” one soldier said, through an interpreter. Then the crowd
laughed. The truthful soldier didn’t realize he was talking to an American
captain.
Marquith just smiled. He was tired, too.
“This whole mission, this is their story,” Marquith said. “This is why
they’re here. This is why we’re here.”
---------
11) Iraq security offensive tests government's mettle
Reuters
June 2, 2005
BAGHDAD - Iraq's Operation Lightning, designed to crush insurgents in
Baghdad with a
40,000-strong force, may not be living up to its name and Iraqis longing
for stability have
mixed views over its chances of success.
"There have been small successes, incremental successes that will hopefully
lead to a complete success," government spokesman Laith Kubba said on Thursday.
Described as the biggest Iraqi-led security crackdown since the fall of
Saddam Hussein, the offensive was meant to show voters that their new
government is taking control in the battle against a raging insurgency.
Under the plan, Iraqi army troops and police were to fan out across the
capital and set up hundreds of checkpoints, raid houses for weapons and
kill or capture insurgents and foreign fighters undermining national security.
Iraqi officials have declined to comment on the exact size of the
contingency in the capital, saying only that all 40,000 troops may not
necessarily be deployed at once. Photographers who have toured several
parts of Baghdad said they did not see a significant number of personnel or
widespread checkpoints.
"I cannot discuss the numbers of troops. Forty thousand may not be out
there at once. There are different units doing different tasks, such as
setting up checkpoints," said a defense ministry spokesman.
As soon as Operation Lightning was announced in a blaze of publicity last
week, there were doubts about whether 40,000 Iraqis could be mobilized
given that there are barely that number of trained Iraqi troops in the
region around the capital.
Iraqis are desperate for security after two years of war, suicide bombings,
shootings, kidnappings and rampant crime. Millions who risked threats of
death to vote in January elections have seen a surge in violence and little
other change.
Insurgents have escalated attacks since the new government was announced in
late April, killing more than 700 people with suicide car bombings that are
difficult to prevent.
PRESSURE TO DELIVER
Lightning, described as the first phase of a national crackdown, could
further erode confidence in the government's ability to improve security
unless it delivers tangible results.
Insurgents have made such inroads in the capital that they have workshops
that can produce a car bomb an hour, the government has said.
One security official said an army unit had arrested 32 "top" terrorists in
the western Karkh area of Baghdad in the offensive. He did not elaborate.
Another security official, who like others asked to remain anonymous, said
400 suspects had been arrested in the operation so far. The figures could
not be independently confirmed.
Iraqi officials, who hear growing complaints about abuses and corruption,
insist troops are under strict orders to respect Iraqis' human rights, a
turnaround from Saddam Hussein's time.
That is a point they are trying to drive home during the security
offensive. Iraqi forces hand Iraqis documents asking whether they were
treated properly during raids on their homes.
For now, Iraqis can only wonder if the security crackdown will stem
insurgent carnage or give guerrillas fresh incentive.
"It makes us feel good because we feel like the security forces are making
an effort. What we care about more than anything is security. We want that
before proper electricity or water," said Reda, a 28-year-old electrical
engineer.
Others were skeptical.
Sitting in his sprawling furniture shop, Abu Abdullah said the security
crisis had taken a heavy toll on business. He has not sold a single item in
two weeks.
"Better security depends on Iraqis giving the police information. But how
can we cooperate with the police when they do things like steal when they
raid houses?" he asked.
---------
12) Two Iraqi Baathists detained for 1991 Shiite massacre
AFP
2 June 2005
KARBALA, Iraq - Police have arrested two former Baath party members accused
of killing 43 Iraqi Shiites during the 1991 revolt against deposed dictator
Saddam Hussein, a police source said on Thursday.
“Adnan Nassar and Kazem al-Ukaili, accused of killing 43 inhabitants of
Karbala during the Shiite uprising, were arrested by police,” said General
Abbas Fadel al-Hassani, head of the force in this city 110 kilometers (70
miles) south of Baghdad.
“The two men who had fled Iraq have admitted the crimes,” he added.
Ukaili said that after Saddam’s fall in April 2003, “relatives of the
victims discovered reports written by these two people about crimes they
had committed in the Baath party headquarters in Karbala.”
“Nassar is accused of murdering 20 people and Ukaili of 23 others.”
Iraqi Shiites staged their uprising after Saddam’s troops were
expelled from Kuwait by coalition forces during the first Gulf war, but the
rebellion was brutally crushed.
Meanwhile, a local government source near Nassiriyah, also in southern
Iraq, said police had arrested the brother of the former Baath party chief
of Diyala province -- north of Baghdad -- along with three other suspects.
“Police arrested Anwar Abdel Karim al-Saadun in Al-Dabitiyah, south of
Nassiriyah,” he said, adding that Saddun was a low-ranking Baath party member.
His brother, Abdel Baqi Abdel Karim, is on the US list of 55
most-wanted former regime figures and is still on the run.
-------
13) Iraqi Official Appeals for Greater U.S. Role
By Robin Wright
Washington Post
June 3, 2005
To prevent the breakdown of Iraq's troubled transition and a potential
civil war, Iraq's new government appealed to the Bush administration
yesterday to take a much more assertive role, particularly on four key
political and military issues, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.
In talks with Vice President Cheney yesterday and Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari requested
greater U.S. and coalition help in crafting a new constitution. The
deadline is now less than three months away, but deliberations have been
slowed as Iraq still works on the composition of a constitutional committee.
With time running out for writing the constitution and then holding
elections in December for a permanent government, Zebari warned that the
United States has withdrawn too much, leaving the new government struggling
to cope and endangering the long-term prospects for success.
"This entire project -- of regime change and building democracy and
encouraging reforms and American prestige -- has really reached a critical
mass for us and for them," Zebari said in an interview yesterday. "We've
come through difficult times and made a great deal of progress, at a great
cost and loss. If we are unable to write a constitution with consensus,
what is the alternative? This process would be prolonged and people will
start to walk away. Walking away means the possibility of chaos, division
or even civil war. There are people who are fomenting that [conflict] now."
Iraq's current interim government, which was elected in January but was
unable to select a cabinet and to take over until last month, asked
Washington to help bring the Sunni minority into the political process.
Zebari asked the administration to use its leverage with major Sunni
leaders, such as Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King
Abdullah, to weigh in with Iraq's Sunni leaders to get them to end a
virtual boycott of the political process.
Zebari also asked the United States for additional staff and resources to
accelerate the creation of a new Iraqi army and police force, particularly
with insurgent attacks increasingly targeting the new Iraqi security forces.
Finally, the Iraqi government asked Washington to speed up the confirmation
of its new ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad. Iraq has been without a
top U.S. envoy since John D. Negroponte returned to Washington in mid-March
to become the administration's new director of national intelligence.
Khalilzad, who until recently was ambassador to Afghanistan, is due to
appear in Senate confirmation hearings next week, according to the State
Department. "This is a critical period and he is not there," Zebari said.
The number two diplomatic post in Baghdad, the largest U.S. embassy in the
world, has also gone through a transition over the past month.
In general, Zebari said the United States has pulled back too much in Iraq,
after what many Iraqis considered heavy-handed leadership during the
14-month U.S. rule of Iraq. "There is something between too much and not
enough," Zebari said. Washington, he said, now needs to be "more focused
and more engaged" and not say "this is yours, hands off." Failing to meet
established deadlines for the democratic transition would be "the end of
trying to transform Iraq," he warned.
U.S. officials said the administration is working on getting Khalilzad
confirmed, but it is still unclear when he will be dispatched to Baghdad.
After the talks with Rice, a senior U.S. official said the administration
is aware of the Iraqi concerns and is working on ways to address the other
three issues in light of the time constraints, but he did not provide
specifics.
The Bush administration has attempted to orchestrate a phased transfer of
authority in Iraq since the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003. In the first
phase, the occupation government led by U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer
lasted for 14 months. It was followed by an appointed Iraqi government that
ruled with U.S. assistance from June 2004 through the elections in January
and the formation of the interim government last month.
The current, third phase is supposed to last through the writing of a
constitution, due in mid-August; a constitutional referendum in October;
and the elections for a permanent government in December. There is a
provision to extend this phase for six months, but Iraqi and U.S. officials
want to stick to the schedule.
Zebari's request comes as U.S. experts on Iraq, including former U.S.
officials in Iraq, also express concern that the momentum generated by
Iraq's historic January elections is being lost.
"Since the election, Iraq has been in a period of political deadlock and
drift, which has not fully been resolved even with the formation quite late
in the game of a transitional government led by Ibrahim Jafaari," said
Larry Diamond, who worked in the occupation government last year and is the
author of a new book, "Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the
Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq."
"We have been hurt quite badly by the prolonged absence of a U.S.
ambassador," he said.
U.S. analysts say the Bush administration now faces a tough balancing act
-- helping Iraq with its political transition without appearing to be
dictating the outcome, particularly of a new constitution, in ways that
would trigger challenges to its legitimacy.
"We're in a dilemma. We want it to appear that the Iraqis are making all
the decisions -- and pretty much they are. As long as U.S. interests are
not directly at stake, we've allowed Iraqis to run the show and make their
own mistakes and be responsible. The problem is when there aren't results,
we're blamed," said Judith Yaphe, a former CIA analyst now at the National
Defense University.
"If this fails, it's our fault. If it succeeds, it's their success. That's
the reality," she said.
---------
14) Sponsors of Iraq Conference Hold Preparatory Meeting in Cairo
More than 80 nations scheduled to participate in June 21-22 conference
US Department of State
June 2, 2005
Representatives from the United States, the European Union, Egypt, Japan,
Russia
and the United Nations met in Cairo, Egypt, June 2 to discuss preparations
for an
international conference on Iraq to be held in Brussels, Belgium, June 21-22.
The conference will allow the government of Iraq to outline its
priorities for addressing political, economic and security issues. The
conference participants, representing more than 80 nations, will discuss
ways they can coordinate their efforts to assist Iraq.
Following is a press release issued following the Cairo preparatory meeting:
(begin text)
Office of the Spokesman
Cairo, Egypt
June 2, 2005
Following is the text of a joint statement by the United States, the
European Union and Iraq.
BEGIN TEXT:
Representatives from Iraq, the United States, the European Union, joined
by their colleagues and counterparts from the Arab Republic of Egypt,
Japan, the Russian Federation and the United Nations, met in Cairo today to
discuss arrangements for the International Conference on Iraq, to be held
in Brussels on June 21-22, 2005.
The purpose of the Brussels International Conference on Iraq, which will
be co-hosted by the US and the EU at the request of the government of Iraq,
will be two-fold: first, the Iraqi delegation will enunciate and articulate
their vision and priorities for the transition period leading up to the
next round of elections along three different, but interconnected themes
outlined in UN Security Council Resolution 1546: the continuation of the
political process (including the drafting of a new Iraqi constitution),
meeting economic challenges and reconstruction needs, as well as
strengthening public order and the rule of law). The Iraqi representatives
will present their national priorities in an effort to better coordinate
and rationalize international efforts in support of the work of the Iraqi
Transitional Government and its institutions.
Second, delegations from over 80 nations will respond by presenting their
views on the future of Iraq and enunciating their expectations about the
country's forward progress towards good governance, a reform agenda and
inclusiveness in the political process.
The preparatory meeting that took place today was a productive discussion
that covered the organizational, logistical and operational aspects of the
Brussels International Conference.
Today's Iraqi-led discussions with the U.S., EU and others demonstrates
our mutual commitment to achieving the objectives outlined in the three
themes articulated above. The Brussels Conference will be a positive step
in meeting those objectives.
----------
15) Luxembourg Invites Iran to Iraq Summit
By ANNE GEARAN
Associated Press
June 2, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The United States didn't invite Iran to an international
conference on Iraq reconstruction, which became awkwardly clear Thursday
when a European diplomat said Iran is welcome in spite of long-standing
enmity between Washington and the Islamic regime in Tehran.
The European Union and Iraq are joining the United States in hosting the
conference on June 22 in Brussels. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
announced plans for the conference last month while in Iraq, and the State
Department released details this week. Iran's participation had not been
mentioned until a reporter asked about it during a press conference with
European diplomats at the State Department.
Rice gave no direct response. Instead, she ticked off U.S. and
international complaints about Iran, including allegations that Iran
supports terrorists, thwarts Mideast peace and may be developing a nuclear
weapon. Iran and the United States have had no diplomatic relations since
the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran by Iranian students in 1979.
"We don't have relations with Iran. Everybody understands that. And we have
our differences with Iran," she said.
Then Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, noting that his country
has the presidency of the European Union, told reporters: "Luxembourg has
relations with Iran. Iran are invited."
Rice quickly followed Asselborn's statement by saying the United States has
no objection to including Iran. "We want Iran and Iraq to have good,
neighborly, transparent relations. And to the degree that this serves that
cause, we're all for it," she said.
It is not clear whether Iran will attend the one-day conference.
Separately, Rice said the United States has a heavy joint agenda with
Europe that should not be affected by the European Union's stumble over
ratification of a common constitution. Voters in France and the Netherlands
rejected the constitution, which would have streamlined operations of the
25-member alliance.
"We understand that this has been a difficult period and that there will be
some period of reflection going forward, but we continue to hope for an
outward-looking Europe, not an inward-looking one," Rice said.
EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner tried to be
reassuring. A united Europe will continue to work alongside the United
States to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians and on Iraq,
she said.
"We are able to work with you as well today as we did yesterday. And some
people have suggested we will now be too absorbed in our own crisis to
pursue our external policies. I promise you, this will not be the case."
Rice also offered a skeptical view about Iranian presidential elections
scheduled for later this month. Iran's hard-line watchdog Guardian Council
has severely limited the number of candidates who can participate, although
it recently bowed to pressure and allowed two reformist candidates to run.
"I mean, it's ... not a very pretty picture of this election,
quote-unquote, that is going to take place in a couple of weeks when
candidates have been summarily dismissed by an unelected Guardian Council,"
Rice said.
Iran shares a long border with Iraq, and the two nations fought a lengthy
war in the 1980s. They share many historical, religious and cultural bonds,
however, and some members of Iraq's new government have old ties to Iran.
The United States has said little in public about Iranian influence over
Iraq since the successful Iraqi elections in January, but Rice brought it
up Thursday.
"I have never believed that the Iraqi people, having thrown off the yoke of
Saddam Hussein, now wish to subject themselves to the rule of the Guardian
Council of Iran," she said. "And so I really do believe that the Iraqis,
left to their own devices, will find their own path."
Rice said she discussed Iran with the Iraqi foreign minister during a
meeting in Washington on Wednesday.
"We would like nothing better than for Iran to be devoted to a stable Iraq
in which Iran is not trying to interfere in Iraq's internal affairs," Rice
said.
--------
16) France launches independent oil-for-food inquiry
Al Jazeera
June 2, 2005
French prosecutors will launch a separate investigation into oil-for-food
kickback allegations involving French diplomats and businessman, a local
report said on Thursday.
According to France's Le Figaro, French investigating magistrate Philippe
Courroye is set to launch an inquiry into charges that former Interior
Minister Charles Pasqua and others benefited from the United Nations
Oil-for-Food program under the rule of the former Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein.
Pasqua was among several other international personalities who were accused
in a recently published U.S. report of receiving some $10 billion dollars
worth of oil-for-food kickbacks.
But Pasqua denied the allegations.
Courroye reportedly will study similar allegations involving 10 other
French diplomats, including former employees of the French oil group, Total.
The toppled Iraqi government was permitted under the UN oil-for-food
programme to sell oil to buy food and other civilian goods to help ease the
sufferings of the Iraqi people that resulted from sanctions imposed by the
UN on the country in 1990 after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
Meanwhile, UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, fired a senior staff member
for involvement in the oil-for-food scandal, UN spokesman said.
This is the first UN staff dismissal in the investigation of the program.
Yesterday, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that Annan had dismissed
Joseph Stephanides, head of the Security Council Affairs Division, who had
been scheduled to retire in September, "in accordance with United Nations
staff regulations" and after a "thorough review of all aspects of the
case." The dismissal took effect immediately, Dujarric said.
But in a telephone interview on Wednesday, Stephanides denied any
wrongdoing and said he was "very upset and disappointed" by the Secretary
General’s decision.
Stephanides had retained a lawyer to appeal his dismissal through the UN
system.
It is noteworthy that dismissals of UN staff members are rare. Annan
dismissed only 40 people, including Stephanides, since taking the top post
in 1997.
Four months ago Stephanides was suspended after a panel appointed by Annan
to investigate accusations of corruption in Iraq’s oil-for-food program
accused him of helping to steer an inspection contract to a British company.
In its report, the Independent Inquiry Committee, led by Paul Volcker, a
former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said that Stephanides violated
UN procurement rules by taking actions that "prejudiced and pre-empted"
competitive bidding for the contract.
--------
17) UK plans south Iraq security handover in months
Financial Times
By Jimmy Burns in London
June 1 2005
British troops in southern Iraq expect to hand over control of security to
local Iraqi defence and police forces within a year, according to the
senior British police officer overseeing their training.
“I would expect that within the next six to nine months in certain areas
under British military control, the day to day running of security will be
handed over entirely to the Iraqis,” said Paul Kernaghan, the British
police force's main spokesman on international affairs.
Mr Kernaghan was speaking fresh from an inspection of British police who
are training Iraqi police and defence forces and acting as security
advisers in southern Iraq.
While he refused to go into operational details, his prediction appears to
coincide with plans being put in place at the Ministry of Defence for the
deployment of extra British troops to Afghanistan, with the suggestion that
this will involve a reduction in the British military presence in Iraq.
According to other security sources, the military plan is for a two-phase
programme of British demilitarisation in the southern area of Iraq.
Under a first phase expected to be under way by March of next year, British
troops would withdraw to main army bases from forward operational duties,
with the capacity to offer support to Iraqi police and defence forces if
needed.
A second phase would involve a phased withdrawal of British troops from
Iraq, although a final decision on this has yet to be taken, and will
depend on what progress is made in stabilising security. Mr Kernaghan
described security in southern Iraq as “relatively stable” compared with
Baghdad, where “you cannot safely go by road from the airport to the city
centre”.
He said British trainers and advisers were making a contribution to the
development of an accountable local police force, an effort he said was not
adequately recognised back in the UK.
The 24-strong team of British police in southern Iraq is supported by 70
civilian private security staff employed by Armor Holdings, who are under
contract with the British Foreign Office.
In a report to the British government following his return from Iraq
earlier this month, Mr Kernaghan argued that British police involvement in
Iraq deserved service “medals” and greater recognition that such duties
were beneficial to officers' career prospects.
Earlier this year Mr Kernaghan, who combines his international brief with
his duties as Chief Constable of Hampshire police force, gave evidence to
the House of Commons defence select committee in which he criticised the
lack of planning that preceded the decision to deploy British police to
Iraq from the spring of 2003.
---------
18) Health Ministry official: Civilian deaths in May up nearly a third from
last month
By Bushra Juhi
Associated Press
June 1, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) Iraqi civilian deaths in May from the insurgency
increased nearly a third from the previous month, a Health Ministry
official said Wednesday.
Separately, an Interior Ministry official said 151 police were killed in
May, compared with 86 in April, up 75 percent. He added that at least 325
policemen were wounded in May, compared with 131 in April.
Dr. Sabah al-Araji of the Health Ministry said 434 civilians were killed in
May, up from 299 killed in April.
Some 775 civilians also were wounded last month, compared with 598 in
April, al-Araji said. The figures were based on people's identity cards and
other documentation.
A Defense Ministry official said 85 Iraqi soldiers were killed in May,
compared with 40 in April. Another 79 soldiers were wounded, compared with
63 in April, he said.
The increases coincide with the April 28 announcement of Iraq's new
Shiite-led government, which was followed by a wave of violence
particularly suicide attacks believed launched by Sunni insurgents
targeting Iraqi security forces and civilians.
It was unclear if the three ministries were working with the same set of data.
A separate count by The Associated Press since April 28 puts the number of
slain Iraqi civilians and security personnel, as well as American troops,
at 765, with 261 insurgents killed. The figure of 765 dead includes 66 U.S.
military personnel, two British soldiers and two U.S. contractors killed in
insurgent-related violence.
Defense Ministry spokesman Radhi Badir, who has been collating the figures
of insurgents killed in Iraq, told the AP that more than 260 insurgents
were killed in May.
''The figure is more than 260, especially if you consider the 125 killed in
Qaim and those killed in Haditha and the many suicide bombings this
month,'' Badir said.
He was referring to two U.S. military operations, dubbed Matador and New
Market, in and around the western Iraqi cities of Qaim and Haditha last
month aimed at rooting out insurgents allied to Jordanian-born militant Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi. The military said 125 insurgents were killed in Qaim and
14 in Haditha. U.S. officials said there were at least 66 suicide bombers
last month.
The largest police attacks included Monday's twin-suicide bomb attack that
killed at least 27 policemen and wounded 118 in Hillah, about 60 miles
south of Baghdad. Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack.
The government has never released an overall inclusive figure for Iraqi
deaths.
---------
19) U.S. military woos Sunnis
By ANTONIO CASTANEDA
Associated Press
June 3, 2005
RUBAYDAH, Iraq - The trouble in the village started when an Iraqi boy threw
a rock that hit an American soldier in the head. Next, insurgents planted a
roadside bomb. Then another bomb tore into a humvee, killing a U.S. soldier.
In this unconventional war, the U.S. military's response took on an added
layer of complexity. It opted against a heavy-handed response, but warned
the villagers that restraint had its limits and they should turn in the
militants in their community.
At the heart of the approach was an acknowledgment that overwhelming
firepower - and limited intelligence - have not cracked a resilient
insurgency hidden in an unfamiliar society.
Their approach would have to be balanced; Rubaydah, the mudbrick village of
800 people near the city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq is Sunni Arab, and
outright threats could push them to side with militants. But the soldiers
also wanted to leave an impression that the attacks had crossed a line.
And so, on a recent spring day, a group of U.S. soldiers of the 116th
Brigade, 42nd Infantry Division arrived in a convoy double its usual size
and asked to meet with the village mukhtar, or leader.
As he sat cross-legged on a rug facing a handful of tribal elders, Lt.
Dwight Cathcart II, a native of Columbia, S.C., delivered a message
stripped of the usual niceties to the mukhtar, Nezhar Bagdhar.
"Coalition forces do things two ways - the easy way and the hard way,"
Cathcart said through an interpreter. "The hard way is when we go into a
village and search every single home and talk to every single person."
"People in this village have information, and you need to ask yourself if
you want to aid and abet those doing these stupid, threatening acts that
don't do any good."
Bagdhar, a man much older than any of the soldiers in the room, denied his
villagers had been involved. At the same time, his village is one of many
in the area reeling from the fallout from the U.S.-led invasion that
inverted the political order, ended centuries of Sunni supremacy and
effectively handed power to the Shiites and Kurds in the Jan. 30 election.
While the Sunni Arabs are feeling alienated, the once-repressed Kurdish
population in this region of Iraq is riding a development wave and has
allied with a powerful Shiite coalition in the new government. Just down
the road stand rows of new Kurdish homes painted light blue, testimony to
the Kurds' newfound power.
"We don't have this problem in Kurdish villages," Cathcart told the
mukhtar. But he and other soldiers also were careful not to praise the
Kurds too much, knowing their real task is to bring Sunni Arabs into the
political fold.
"I want to make sure everyone is treated equally," stressed Lt. Col. Dan
McCabe, whose La Grande, Ore.-based battalion patrols the area. It is a
priority, he said, to "make sure (Sunni Arabs) are getting equal shakes as
the Kurds or Turkomen."
McCabe, speaking from the sprawling U.S. military base at the Kirkuk
airport, said his battalion was trying to convince Sunni Arabs that they
could still recover the ground they lost when they heeded boycott calls and
threats of violence and stayed away from the polls in droves.
Sunni Arabs make up about 20 percent of the population but have just 6
percent of the members of the 275-seat parliament.
"Right now we have to make political groups understand that just because
you won or lost, doesn't mean you lost or won it all," said McCabe.
As the village meeting continued, Cathcart took a softer tone, saying his
soldiers would help improve things in the impoverished village - if it
named insurgents. In the zone assigned to his soldiers, the Army has
provided $4 million in reconstruction aid.
"Very soon I want to be delivering school supplies and generators,"
Cathcart told Baghdhar. "But I'm not going to do that until (you) meet me
halfway."
Bagdhar promised his villagers would tell the Iraqi police about any known
insurgents. Not good enough, said Cathcart; the tipoffs should go straight
to the U.S. military. Agreed, said Bagdhar.
Cathcart said his soldiers would be waiting and would return soon for any
information.
"I've treated other villages very well when they've provided me with
information," Cathcart told the village chief.
Then he and his soldiers left to conduct a foot patrol in the village, the
outcome still unclear.
-------
20) Calls for human rights to be respected during raids in Baghdad
IRIN
02 Jun 2005
BAGHDAD, 1 June (IRIN) - Human rights organisations have called on Iraqi
and US forces to respect humanitarian law when raiding houses and searching
people, after a massive campaign was launched to hunt down insurgents in
the capital.
"The Iraqi and US soldiers should act with humanitarian procedures and not
hurt innocent families psychologically or physically," Said Douha, the
Middle East spokesperson for Amnesty International (AI), speaking to IRIN
from the UK.
According to Douha, no security group has the right to break into houses,
participate in raids or to arrest people without first issuing a warning.
"The Iraqi army or police have the right to make searches in streets but
they should remember to treat people well and not make confusion between
insurgents and civilians," he added.
"US and Iraqi forces have the right to search for insurgents to keep
security in the capital and all over the country. The Iraqi people were
already warned about the operation taking place," a spokesman for the US
forces, Lt-Col Steven Boylan, told IRIN.
"Operation Lightning" is considered the biggest security crackdown since
the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003 and forces have sealed off
Baghdad in the hunt for insurgents since 29 May.
According to Ministry of Defense (MoD) officials, 675 checkpoints have been
set up in the capital by 40,000 Iraqi police and army officers backed by
10,000 US troops from the US Army's 3rd Infantry Division.
They have blocked major routes into Baghdad and are searching the city
district by district, looking for foreign Arab fighters and Iraqi militants.
Iraqi families who have had their homes searched, have complained of rough
treatment.
"They entered my home and captured my two sons saying that they need to be
interrogated. Both of them were studying for their final exams in the
college when they raided our house," Fadia Muhammad, from the Ghazaliya
district in the capital, told IRIN.
"They behave brutally when entering homes and even animals deserve more
respect," she added.
Others also called on the government to respect their rights.
"Iraqi lives mean nothing to the Iraqi government. They should learn how to
behave with human beings without the unacceptable brutal way that is being
used during raids, swearing and beating people," Kamal Sirdan, from the
Dora district, told IRIN.
But the Iraqi government stands firm and said the raids have been very
successful so far and will be to the benefit of Iraqi people in the long term.
"Since the operation and raids started last Sunday, we have captured more
than 700 people who were found with suspected weapons in their homes. I can
say that it's going to be a success and we are being careful not to capture
the wrong people. Our officers have been well trained for the operation,"
an Iraqi government spokesman, Leith Kubba told IRIN.
Kubba added that this was the best way to stop insurgency in the country
which has killed about 700 people in the past month.
--------
21) Insurgency Through Iraqi Eyes
By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com
June 2, 2005
As Iraqi insurgents have mounted bloody suicide attacks on civilians in
recent weeks, the Iraqi press has become preoccupied with the specter of
"sectarian conflict" -- and the difference between U.S. and Iraqi news
coverage has become clearer.
Iraqi news organizations show less interest than their Western counterparts
in individual suicide bombings, U.S. casualties, and Bush administration
policy. The U.S. military presence is often criticized in the Baghdad
press, but polemics about Washington's war on terrorism do not seem central
to Iraqi political discussion. (A State Department survey of global media
reaction to allegations of Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay found not a single
commentary on the subject from Iraq.)
It is hardly surprising that foreign journalists in Iraq, many of whom are
based in the Green Zone in the heart of Baghdad and have a more difficult
time operating safely in dangerous areas of the country, would see events
differently than Iraqi journalists who were born, live and work there.
For them, the big story in Iraq the past week has been negotiations between
the Shiite-dominated government and Sunni organizations to head off a
religious war, according to the Iraqi Press Monitor, a British-based
service that translates excerpts from Baghdad's leading papers every day.
A much-publicized dispute between the Badr organization, a leading Shiite
militia, and the Association of Muslim Scholars, a leading Sunni group, has
been resolved, according to Al Mutamar, a newspaper founded by one-time
American ally Ahmed Chalabi. The same day a prominent Sunni leader told
Baghdad, a daily newspaper published by the Iraqi National Accord, that the
dispute had been exaggerated by the media and urged his co-religionists to
"avoid sectarian conflict."
Another source for Iraqi news in English is the Foreign Broadcast
Information Service, an office of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency,
whose translations are available for a fee from World News Connection.
The Shiite daily Al-Adala carried a page-one editorial last week praising
the imams who in their Friday sermons "urge Iraqis to avoid sectarian
strife," according to FBIS. The editorial called on Iraqis to adopt a "code
of honor" and activate "national dialogue" in order to establish a "social
contract."
"Their killers are neither Sunni nor Shia," said Al-Sabah, an independently
owned daily.
"They hate Iraq and oppose its struggle for a free and fair life under the
umbrella of a democratic, constitutional and stable state. Iraq consists of
different spectrums: Sunni, Shia, Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, Christians and
Muslims. We were shy to ask people whether they were Shia or Sunni, because
we consider all Iraqis as being part of one nation regardless of their
ethnic background. . . . This third party seems unwilling to have Iraq
united and stable. They tried bombing, explosions, and assassinations and
are now trying a sectarian war. They will be disappointed because Iraqis
know that strength lies in unity."
Fear of sectarian differences is one reason why Iraq's relations with
neighboring Iran receive close coverage.
Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari will visit the Islamic republic later this
month, the Baghdad daily Addustour reported Tuesday. The announcement
follows the Iranian foreign minister's visit to Iraq last month. The
Iranian visitor, noted the Chinese news agency Xinhua, received something
no U.S. official in Iraq has ever been granted: a personal meeting with
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.
After the meeting, Sunni leaders accused Iran of meddling in Iraq's
affairs, according to columnist Mustafa Amara of Azzaman.
"We need action and not words from Iran," declared an Azzaman editorial.
The paper said that Iran should pledge not to interfere in Iraqi affairs
and forget its demands for reparations for the eight-year war that former
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein started in 1980. Indeed, one Iraqi lawyer,
writing in the Arabic daily Al-Zaman says that Iran should compensate Iraq
for the war.
The U.S. role in Iraq is rarely presented in positive terms in the Iraqi press.
Sa'd Sallal Lami, a doctor writing in Al-Sabah, recently called on all
Iraqis to "support" the "good-willed powers" that are working to establish
democracy and peace in Iraq, according to an FBI report.
But skepticism, if not hostility, is much more common. A columnist for the
Al-Zaman daily strongly criticized "US forces for defiling the Al-Quds
Mosque in Al-Ramadi and hundreds more throughout Iraq." According to the
FBIS translation, the writer also criticized Iraqi officials "who justify
the misconduct of US forces and allege that mosques are being used by
insurgents."
The al-Furat newspaper carried an article criticizing President Bush for
"dealing leniently" with the U.S. officials who are charged with "abusing
detainees" in Iraq and other places.
And the recent spate of stories about the possible wounding of insurgent
leader Abu Musab Zarqawi was a deliberate distraction, says Fatih
Abdulsalam in Azzaman.
"For many Iraqis the name 'Saddam Hussein' has been replaced by 'Zarqawi'.
The only difference is that while they could easily verify the footage, the
speeches and sound bites of the former, many of them believe the latter is
the product of the U.S. propaganda machine," Abdulsalam wrote.
"There is no doubt once the name Zarqawi disappears from the Iraqi scene,
the forces that helped create it will waste no time in introducing another
appellation and soon turn it into a new scourge," he said.
"Another Zarqawi will need to be made because neither the U.S. nor its
allies in the government are ready to rectify their deadly errors," he
concluded.
Some Iraqi commentators unfavorably compare Iraq today to the Saddam
Hussein era.
"Many Iraqis say the distribution of food rations is not as efficient as it
was under the former regime of Saddam Hussein," Azzaman reported recently.
"They say they are getting less food than before and the quality of food
items has been deteriorating"
In a front-page editorial for Al-Furat, chief editor Shakir al-Juburi, said
the country's southern provinces are suffering from negligence. "No great
changes have taken place" since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, he wrote.
Iraqi children are the victims, said Azzaman columnist Jassem Murad
"Iraqi children bore the brunt of the brutal polices the former leader
Saddam Hussein pursued in his three-decade rule. Today their sufferings
have aggravated and [they] have become the main victims of the new era,"
Murad wrote.
There has been commendable journalism from Iraq by reporters of all
nationalities done at great risk, but there's no disputing Iraq's ordeal
looks different when seen through Iraqi eyes.
-------
22) The ‘different’ sides of the Iraqi coin
By Kadhem al-Miqdadi
Azzaman
June 2, 2005
It is hard for a piece of news to grab a lot of attention in Iraq today as
many Iraqis say conditions can never be as worse as they are now.
Car bomb attacks in which at least 700 innocent Iraqis have lost their
lives in only two months are part of their news menu, which is not very
surprising.
For this reason, there was no popular reaction, whether negative or
positive, to news reports that Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari shook hands
and exchanged greetings with former Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben
Eliezer.
No one took to the street in protest and the National Assembly (the
parliament) ignored what many saw as “an important political event.”
But for many Iraqis the impact of the unexpected encounter is less than
that of a traffic incident on the congested streets of Baghdad.
In the past two years Iraqis have grown to ignore or better disdain their
politicians and their actions because the paradise they and the U.S. had
promised to build on arriving here has turned into real hell.
Iraqis no longer care because they see no light at the end of their dark
tunnel. They simply have no trust in the captains assigned to save their
sinking ship.
Therefore there was no word of protest when their President Jalal Talabani,
in a trip to northern Iraq, did not bother to be photographed and filmed
standing before the Kurdish flag instead of the National Flag.
Can you imagine an elected president of a country not honoring the
National Flag?
And from Washington, we saw pictures of our Planning Minister Burham Saleh
strolling in the corridors of the Pentagon.
Analysts were surprised to see the economic planning minister inspecting
the Pentagon. Perhaps Saleh’s visit had something to do with “the planning
(weapons) of mass destruction.”
And in Baghdad our defense and interior ministers stoond before the cameras
to announce their Operation Lightning, a massive effort that has so far
resulted in more roadblocks, checkpoints and destruction.
As the troops step up their operation, reports show that pollution has
reached dangerous levels in the capital and that the city of One Thousand
and One Nights has turned into One Thousand and One Dunghills.
Amid the odor of the rubbish dumps dotting the streets of Baghad, no one
among the Baghdad’s nearly five million people feels secure.
If you are a hair dresser, you will need to meet hand-written instructions
Islamic militants hand out now and then or face certain death.
Hair dressers are not the only victims of militant demands. The wave of
terrror has now engulfed almost all sectors of the society – retailers,
professionals, government officials, police and army officers, etc.
So who would care if Zebari shakes hands with Ben Eliezer, or Talabani
ignores the National Flag and Saleh draws the country’s economic plans in
the aisles of the Pentagon.
---------
23) Guardsman's language skills save life of armed Iraqi officer
The Times (London)
By Michael Evans, Defence Editor
June 03, 2005
ARMED with an SA80 rifle and an adequate command of Arabic, a sergeant in
the Welsh Guards played a dramatic role in preventing a gun-wielding Iraqi
police officer from being shot dead by a British patrol.
The Iraqi, who had already fired his weapon as he approached a night patrol
of Welsh guardsmen, could have been shot under British Army rules of
engagement, which allow soldiers to shoot back in self-defence.
However, Lance Sergeant Steve O’Brien, who dropped out of school at the age
of 12, had managed to pick up enough of the local language to shout out a
warning to the police officer to stop and put down his gun: “Waqaf! Nazzil
al-silah aal al-ard!” “I’m very pleased to have been able to save the
Iraqi’s life. It would have haunted me for the rest of my days if we had
had to shoot him,” he said.
For his intervention Sergeant O’Brien has been commended by his commanding
officer for “outstanding conduct”. The Welsh Guards have recently returned
from a six-month tour of Iraq.
The 29-year-old sergeant from Cardiff recalled the night he spotted the
approaching Iraqi police officer who was dressed in civilian clothes.
Sergeant O’Brien told the Welsh Daily Post that the man was firing his gun
in the air, posing a potential risk to the Welsh Guards patrol. The
incident took place in al-Uzayr, southern Iraq, where there have been many
violent confrontations with British troops in the past.
The father of two, who returned from Iraq four weeks ago and is now on
leave, said: “Without thinking I shouted at him (the police officer) in
Arabic. Somehow I managed to get him to stop and put down his weapon.
“I could have killed him using the rules of conduct but I chose to speak to
him instead.”
He added: “I know I spared his life by using a few simple words. He had a
gun and I could have ended it there and then. But I don’t consider myself a
hero. I was just doing what came naturally.”
Although never acquiring any language skills at school, Sergeant O’Brien
said that he became interested in learning Arabic when he arrived in Iraq.
“I got fed up at not being able to ask Iraqi people things. I wanted to
understand them,” he said.
He added: “Iraq was a life-changing experience for me and I’m so glad I went.”
Cath O’Brien, his mother from Gwynedd in North Wales, said: “I didn’t think
for a second that he had the aptitude to learn the language.”
She added: “When they arrive in Iraq they get a basic three-day course in
Arabic, learning to say things like ‘Stop’, ‘Go’ and ‘Who goes there?’. But
I was amazed that he’d managed to become a competent speaker of the
language, especially after dropping out of school at just 12.”
Mrs O’Brien said that she was proud of what he had achieved. “To save a
human life is one of the most noble things anyone can do,” she said.
-------
24) American-run assistance center struggles to help Iraqis
By Alaa al Baldawy
Knight Ridder Newspapers
June 02, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq - As soon as Morooj Abdul Lateef's husband returned from
morning prayers at his Baghdad mosque, a group of soldiers knocked on the
door of their house and politely asked to detain him. They would be back in
10 minutes, the soldiers promised.
That was on May 14. She hasn't seen him since, and with a mix of American,
Iraqi and private militia forces securing the country, she didn't know who
came for her husband or where to start looking for him.
She canvassed the neighborhood, tried searching the area prisons and asked
to speak to someone at the Ministry of Interior, which runs the police
department. But no one could help her.
Desperate, she went to the Iraqi Assistance Center, an American-run office
based in Baghdad that's designed to help Iraqis find arrested relatives,
get medical care, get compensation for those wronged by American soldiers
and find jobs. Opened two years ago, it has become ever more valuable as
one of the few assistance centers that can navigate through U.S. and Iraqi
bureaucracies.
Iraqis must get through five checkpoints to find the center, which is based
in the Green Zone, where National Assembly members hold their meetings.
Once the families get there, they are helped by one of the 35 Iraqi
staffers - including a doctor.
The center receives 7,000 requests a month, said the director of the
National Iraqi Assistance Center, Army Col. Chester Wernicki, of the 353rd
Civil Affairs Command from Staten Island, N.Y. Iraqis often hear about the
assistance center through other groups. Lateef first heard about it when
she went to the Red Cross looking for her husband.
So far, the group has helped get 50 sick people out of the country for
better care in Jordan, Kuwait and the United States, Wernicki said.
The center depends on donated plane tickets to get sick people to better
medical care or for a hospital to make space for someone. As a U.S.
military-funded organization, it can't accept cash donations, Wernicki said.
Funding aside, it's still hard to help people. The Iraqi government is
fragmented, and information about arrests, accidents or medical procedures
is scattered.
Some people waiting at the center complained that their case files had been
lost. Others said the center demands too much evidence before it awards
compensation. The most common gripe: waiting for hours for little information.
Workers at the center conceded that getting help can be difficult but said
many applicants try to file false claims. A family that can show an
American soldier wrongly killed a relative can receive up to $15,000, a
worker at the center said.
Imad Mohsen Hasan, a 23-year-old Fallujah resident, said he fractured his
leg while escaping the city before the November standoff with U.S.
soldiers. He said he's been coming to the center to try to get money for
his medical care.
"I have been coming back and forth to this center, yet got nothing," Hasan
said. "If these people can't get me outside for treatment, they should at
least pay me some money to do it myself."
Wernicki said the organization is doing the best it can to give Iraqis
honest assessments.
"We have tried to build this organization so that people could feel they
could come here to us and get help. What we don't want to do is have
someone stretch that truth to make (Iraqis) feel that there is something we
can offer here when we really can't," Wernicki said.
Dr. Shwan Ali Abdelnaby, who's in charge of the medical section, said
sometimes people claim they need help just to get out of the country.
"Some don't just want to get treated. They want to leave the country. And
so they accuse me of not helping them getting outside the country when I
find a way for them to be treated in Iraq," Abdelnaby said.
The most common request is to help find a detained person, like Lateef's
husband. The center receives up to 100 requests a day, a worker at the
center said, but can only help find people in American prisons.
Staffers check a list of detainees they receive weekly from the American
prisons. The list is in English, so the staff must translate the names,
which isn't easy. Some people are listed under family names; others by
their tribes. And there can be several spellings for a name.
Staffers have no way of knowing if Iraqi forces are holding someone.
Lateef walked into the center and up to the desk. She first had to prove
that she was related to the man she was looking for. She then gave a worker
her husband's name: Ali Abdul Razaq Abdul Hameed. The worker went through
the list. He found nothing.
Lateef, frustrated, began to cry. Perhaps an Iraqi prison is holding him,
the worker said. Be patient, he told her, maybe he'll be on the list that
comes in next week.
None of his ideas placated Lateef, who said she wanted a better government
in place so she could go to a judge, not an American, to find out why he
was detained.
"I know my husband. He is not a terrorist," she said. "If he was a bad
person, I wouldn't come here."
For more information, see: http://www.natiac.org/common/index.aspx.
Al Baldawy is a special correspondent. Knight Ridder Newspapers
correspondent Nancy Youssef of the Detroit Free Press contributed to this
report.
--------
25) US forces issue hi-tech ID cards for insurgent suspects
Gulf News
By Phil Sands
May 31, 2005
Tikrit: Suspected insurgents are being issued with hi-tech identity cards
by US forces, Gulf News has learned.
Tagging will allow intelligence to keep track of suspects after their release.
The cards allow American intelligence services to keep track of people
taken into custody even if they are released because they are found to have
done nothing wrong.
Most militant suspects in north central Iraq are taken by US military
intelligence to a prison in Tikrit, part of Saddam Hussain's personal
palace complex and now a major military base.
Once there, they are immediately put through a series of tests to record
biometric data. Fingerprints are taken and iris scans carried out on both
eyes. Four digital photographs are then taken of the individual's face from
different angles.
Cutting-edge computer technology allows a three dimensional map of the
suspect's head to be drawn up from this information. That way, even if
external changes are made to a face, such as a beard, the computer will be
able to recognise the person from unchanging facial dimensions.
All suspects taken to the prison centre on Forward Operating Base Danger
have a detailed medical examination. Any evidence collected at the time of
their capture is also processed there, and specialist US Military
Intelligence officers interrogate them.
Information collected in this process is stored on a central computerised
database, accessible to US intelligence agencies across the globe.
Hundreds of Iraqis believed to be involved in the insurgency have been
tagged in this way including one man thought to have beheaded a British
hostage according to a Military Intelligence (MI) officer serving at the
centre. He spoke to Gulf News on condition of anonymity.
Each card has a unique barcode, enabling US soldiers to instantly patch
into that person's records. The MI officer said the cards were a key way of
keeping track of suspects.
-------
26) For first time, shoppers will have credit
By Mona Mahmoud
USA TODAY
June 2, 2005
BAGHDAD — Iraq has long been a cash economy, but plastic has just
established a foothold here.
The Trade Bank of Iraq recently issued 50 Visa cards to a handful of
government officials. In a few weeks, the cards will be available to the
public. Bank officials hope it will be the start of a full-scale plastic
invasion.
Hussein al-Uzeri, chairman of the Trade Bank of Iraq, says the Visa cards —
the first credit/debit cards in Iraq — are an important step to economic
recovery. The hope is the cards will entice people into using banks and
establishing credit.
Customers will pay a $35 fee to get a card and will be required to deposit
$1,000 in their accounts. The card will function initially as a debit card.
Customers can only make purchases that are covered by money in their accounts.
The Trade Bank plans to issue 30,000 cards by the end of this year. The
bank has also opened Iraq's first automated teller machine, at the bank's
headquarters, and hopes to open more throughout the country.
Some business owners say they are excited about the cards. The cards are
"very useful for not only businessmen but for common people as you do not
have to carry money with you," says Basil al-Hadithi, 42, an owner of
mobile phone shops.
The Trade Bank now needs to encourage businesses to accept the cards and
overcome Iraqis' natural aversion to anything but cold cash.
"I prefer cash as it is easier and quicker," says Fadhil Hassan Assim, 35,
who owns a market in Baghdad and dismisses the idea of using plastic.
--------
27) Iraqi dinar defies spiraling violence
By Intisar Maki
Azzaman
June 3, 2005
The upsurge in violence has worsened conditions for almost everyone and
everything in Iraq, but the new currency.
The Iraqi dinar is the winner as it has so far weathered the impact of
mounting violence and car bombs that would have sent any other country’s
currency tumbling.
Since its launch in October, 2003, the new dinar has preserved its value
vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar and other major countries.
It is probably the only symbol of stability in a car torn by wars, civil
strife and violence.
However, Iraqi economists are not surprised to see the currency fending off
the political turmoil and the descent into violence, a major characteristic
of the past two years.
Thanks, they say, are mainly due to the Central Bank, which is one of the
few government branches of the post-war era untainted by corruption.
“The (central) bank has pursued sound monetary policies,” says Thuraya
Khazraji, Baghdad University’s professors of economics.
Other factors leading to the currency’s stability, in her opinion, include
“the slight improvement in oil exports and the writing off of 90% of Iraq’s
foreign debts.”
In the 1970s one Iraqi dinar was worth more than three U.S. dollars as
Central Bank coffers were then stashed with hard cash, gold and other
assets to support the currency.
But the dinar started losing its shine in early 1980s mainly due to the
1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war.
And the currency began to decline drastically after the 1990 invasion of
Kuwait and plunged to nearly 3,000 to one U.S. dollar in mid 1990s.
A new currency was launched shortly after the fall of the former regime.
While Iraqis had no trust in the former currency, confidence is growing in
the new dinar which is currently changing hands at about 1,400 for one U.S.
dollar.
“The adoption of new monetary policies by the Central Bank … has led to
higher confidence locally, regionally and internationally in the new
currency,” said Khazraji.
Imad Ali, professor of fiscal economics at Baghdad University, said many
Iraqis were even turning to have their savings in the new dinar instead of
foreign currencies.
“The issuing of the new currency has been very important for the Iraqi
economy … it has offered Iraqis their first chance in nearly two decades to
have their savings in the dinar rather than other hard currencies,” he said.
Ali also praised Central Bank policies and its attempts to stabilize the
currency.
“Today demand for the dinar is higher than foreign currencies inside Iraq.
The (central) bank’s polices have given a big boost to the dinar,” he said.
Yahya Najar, of Baghdad University’s College of Economics and
Administration, said the new currency “is backed by foreign cash and gold
and has earned the trust of the public.”
The currency’s stability has been good news to public sector employees who
have seen substantial hikes in both wages and purchasing power.
The civil service is the largest employer in the country with some five
million Iraqis receiving monthly salaries from the government.
Under Saddam Hussein the average monthly salary of a civil servant was
7,500 dinars (about three U.S. dollars).
Today it has ballooned to nearly 300,000 (about $200).
----------------------
28) Iraq exports 2m oil barrels to Turkey
Al Jazeera
June 2, 2005
Iraqi state-owned oil marketer SOMO sold two million barrels of Kirkuk’s
crude for June delivery to Turkish refiner Turpas, trade sources said.
The oil has already been exported to the Turkish terminal of Ceyhan through
Iraq’s northern pipeline.
Sources said that Turpas signed a deal with SOMO to receive around 65,000
barrels per day (bpd) of Kirkuk crude from the Ceyhan terminal.
But production at Iraq’s northern pipeline and facilities has been
suspended due to violence.
However, exports from northern Iraq resumed on May 11, but a blast cut the
flow. Since then, exports have been intermittent.
Last week, Iraqi officials said that they halted exports to Turkey because
of production shortage in Kirkuk.
Iraqi officials say the country’s northern oil output has reached 500,000
barrels per day, of which about 380,000 barrels are being pumped to nearby
refineries for domestic use. The remaining 120,000 barrels are stored at
the pumping stations or at Beiji refinery.
Sources said there are 2.6 million barrels of crude in storage at Ceyhan.
The crude that Tupras receives is pumped through pipeline from Ceyhan to
its 113,000 bpd Kirikkale refinery.
---------
29) In today's Iraq, it's all too easy to find yourself in the wrong place
at the wrong time
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
The Guardian
June 3, 2005
A grey, drizzling morning in Mosul, northern Iraq. A column of four
American armoured vehicles moves slowly through the muddy, narrow, crowded
streets of the old souk. Eight US infantrymen and I sit knee-to-knee inside
one of the Strykers, guns resting between their thighs. Our helmets crack
on the metal hull of the vehicle as the eight-wheeled beast jumps and bumps
between carts, dogs and banana boxes.
Water drips in from the open hatches, soaking everything in a thin layer of
mud. Two men peer out of the hatches, pointing their guns nervously at the
people outside. Another three spread out a poster from a men's magazine and
gawp at the eight gorgeous models in their swimsuits. "I'll take the
blondie and the hot babe with the dark hair," says one of the three, who is
wearing black goggles.
It's too humid inside. I feel like Jonah trapped in the stomach of a metal
whale.
"Those poor bastards of the 101st still drive Humvees," says another soldier.
"I saw a Stryker that had the floor stuck to the ceiling, this space was
left," the goggled man says, his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "It
was hit with a car bomb."
Unconsciously I find myself buckling up my helmet strap. I look down at my
legs and wonder what will happen if we hit a bomb. Will I lose my feet
only, or all of my legs? I distract myself by looking towards the other end
of the Stryker, where the gunner and commander sit in front of three
flickering monitors.
One shows real-time monochrome pictures of the outside. People, animals and
car engines are black, inanimate objects white. It's a menacing view: the
everyday bustle of a fruit market becomes a scary world of moving shadows,
nudging close to the vehicle.
I can't think of taking pictures; I couldn't care less about Iraq, the
occupation or what the Americans are up to. I just want to stay alive,
preferably with my feet still attached to my body.
I have to kick myself to wake up from this black and white world and remind
myself how Iraqis (like me, usually) outside feel when a 60-tonne armoured
vehicle moves into their street. We feel scared and intimidated and try to
stay as far away as possible - especially when the gun is pointed at us.
Two years and two months after they were welcomed as liberators/ occupiers,
the dichotomy of mutual fear, distrust and hatred is now defining the US
army-Iraqi civilian relations: inside-outside, armed-unarmed.
Morning patrol on the outskirts of the city. One of the gunners spots a car
running over a dog. Four Strykers surround the car. The Strykers' back door
swings open with a thundering noise and a dozen soldiers jump out and drag
the man out on to the ground. His wife and frightened young daughter squat
next to the car, shivering. The woman gives a thumbs-up to the soldier,
trying to show him they are friendly.
"We are Kurds; we love America," she pleads in Arabic. Another soldier
tries to question the man in broken Arabic. "Dog why? Whoosh," he says,
trying to show the accident with gestures. The man doesn't understand. They
get fed up and let the man and his wife go.
Afterwards the frustrated soldier tells me they have been hit hard many
times and any abnormal behaviour catches their attention.
The next day, as a unit drives to inspect a couple of petrol stations,
reports come in that a police station is being attacked. The five-vehicle
column splits up and rushes to respond. As I sit locked down, in one of the
Strykers, I hear voices on the radio headset: "I said, 'Warning shots,'
stupid," cracks the voice of a Stryker commander.
"Sir, we have one injured and one KIA," he tells his lieutenant in another
vehicle.
"Morons," replies the lieutenant. After a few minutes of silence, the
lieutenant asks the sergeant again: "So let me get that straight: you
killed a man and injured another?" "Yes sir," replies the sergeant.
The lieutenant explains later that as they arrived at the scene, a taxi
with two men in it was seen driving away and was fired upon. The car
apparently had nothing to do with the attack; it was just in the wrong
place at the wrong time.
A week later a captain goes to the house of the dead man and sits sipping
tea, surrounded by the brothers of the dead taxi driver. The driver's
12-year-old son sits silently listening as the captain explains why the
driver's behaviour appeared suspicious. The family is paid $2,500.
----------
30) $1B spent on US diplomatic ops in Baghdad
UPI
June 2, 2005
Washington, DC -- Two years after the invasion of Iraq, the United States
has spent $990 million on U.S. embassy operations in Baghdad, a new
congressional report says. The war in Iraq has cost about $200 billion so far.
Congress in May approved another $592 million, the down payment on a $1.3
billion U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad to be built over the next two years.
That would make it one of the most expensive embassies ever built. It will
include not only business space but housing and a power plant, so the
complex can operate independently of Iraq's vulnerable and troubled power grid.
The U.S. government will turn over the buildings -- former palaces occupied
by Saddam Hussein and his regime -- to the Iraqi government and move into a
new compound within the "international zone" on the Tigris River.
The U.S. diplomatic presence in Iraq is already among the largest in the
world. There are about 1,000 U.S. personnel and another 300 to 400 Iraqis
employed in the mission.
The U.S. embassy in Iraq prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf war comprised 50
people and had an annual operating budget of about $3.5 million. Because
the security situation is so dire, all embassy staff must have all their
food, shelter and health care needs met at U.S. run facilities. Movement
around the country is only with armed guards or military aircraft.
----------
31) Three US soldiers to face court-martial in Iraqi general’s alleged
suffocation
AP
3 June 2005
DENVER - Three 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment soldiers have been ordered to
stand trial at Fort Carson for murder in the alleged suffocation death of
an Iraqi general.
Maj. Gen. Robert Mixon, commander of Fort Carson, ordered a court-martial
for Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer, Chief Warrant officer Jeff L.
Williams, and Spc. Jerry Loper, Army spokeswoman Kim Tisor said on Thursday.
They are accused in the death of Maj. Gen. Abed Mowhoush, who died during
an interrogation on Nov. 26, 2003.
The three soldiers also are charged with assault and dereliction of duty
during combat operations for their actions at a prison in western Iraq
called Blacksmith House. If convicted of all three charges, they face life
imprisonment without parole, forfeiture of all pay and dishonorable discharges.
No date was set for their court-martial.
Through their attorneys, all have denied wrongdoing, saying commanders had
sanctioned their actions.
A message left late Thursday for Welshofer’s lawyer, Frank Spinner, was not
immediately returned. William Cassara, lawyer for Williams, also did not
return a call. No number was immediately available for the lawyer
representing Loper.
Hearing officer Capt. Robert Ayers had recommended dismissal of all charges
against a fourth soldier, Sgt. 1st Class William Sommer.
Ayers presided over a preliminary hearing for Williams, Loper and Sommer in
April. Welshofer waived his right to a preliminary hearing. Welshofer and
Williams were interrogators, Loper a prison guard, and Sommer an interpreter.
Ayers recommended Sommer receive a reprimand for failing to protect
Mowhoush and be given immunity so he can testify against the other
soldiers, according to a report obtained last month by The Denver Post.
Ayers also recommended that Williams face reduced charges of involuntary
manslaughter and assault instead of murder charges.
“It is possible his actions were inherently dangerous, but more than likely
government counsel will only be able to prove at court-martial that CW2
Williams acted with culpable negligence,” Ayers wrote in his report dated
May 5.
Army prosecutors say Mowhoush had been put headfirst into a sleeping bag,
wrapped in electrical cord and knocked down. The soldiers then sat and
stood on him, prosecutors said.
Previously secret court testimony indicates the Iraqi general’s body was
badly bruised and he may have been severely beaten two days before he was
suffocated to death.
--------
32) Soldiers tell war stories through Live from Iraq rap album
By KRISTIE RIEKEN
Associated Press
June 2, 2005
KILLEEN, Texas — As Staff Sgt. Terrance Staves dodged bullets recovering a
burned-out Humvee in Baghdad's Sadr City, he heard a rocket-powered grenade
zooming toward him.
Fort Hood soldiers Mike Thomas, from left, Edward Gregory, Terrance Staves,
Neal Saunders and Mike Davis are telling their war stories on a new rap
album Live from Iraq.
All he could do was hold his breath, he recalled, when it crashed into the
armored Bradley vehicle sitting just feet in front of him.
Back at camp, Staves went to his makeshift recording booth to vent his
anger and fear by spitting rap lyrics.
Some of those lyrics were used on Live From Iraq, an album he and a few
other Fort Hood soldiers wrote, recorded and produced while on a one-year
deployment in Iraq.
On the 15-track album, soldiers voice frustration at what they call shabby
equipment and the lack of support they feel from the American public. The
album vigorously defends soldiers charged with crimes for actions committed
during the conflict.
"I was outside the gate a lot and had a lot of stuff happen to me," said
Staves, 26, of Houston. "So for me to ... be able to get in the booth and
let all my anger out was wonderful. Because sometimes you can't let all
your anger out there because you might endanger yourself, your brothers or
do something you're not supposed to do. It was a beautiful outlet."
The group, led by Sgt. Neal "Big Neal" Saunders, includes Sgt. Edward
"Greg-O" Gregory, Staves, Spc. Michael "Paperboi" Davis, Sgt. Ronin Clay
and Spc. Michael Thomas.
They were deployed with Taskforce 112 of the 1st Calvary Division at Fort
Hood on March 12, 2004, and returned exactly one year later.
Within two weeks, the CD was mastered and the group had 2,000 copies made.
The group has sold about 1,000 copies through its Web site and a regional
music store chain has agreed to sell it.
Saunders, who spent nearly $35,000 on the project, said the soldiers don't
have a group name and didn't include their names or pictures on the CD
because they wanted to focus on their comrades, both dead and alive.
The album opens with The Deployment, a heartbreaking tale of the moments
before they left and their emotions as they approached Iraq. Several
soldiers' wives cried when they heard the song, Saunders said.
"You would have really thought the world was coming to an end and for some
of us it was," Saunders says in the song. "You were literally prying your
loved ones off of you so you could make it out the door to the bus. I've
never seen so much emotion in one place before."
Another track, Holdin' My Breath, discusses how they conceal the horrors of
war from their families and a song called Dirty is about a soldier dealing
with a cheating spouse back home.
"Live from Iraq is the writing on the wall," said Davis, 21, of Lanett,
Ala., "It's that magnifying glass to that huge picture that's been painted
since this whole thing has begun. It's the attention to detail that has
been overlooked in everyday life."
Saunders, from Richmond, Va., said the soldiers often found inspiration for
their music during missions. But some of the songs recorded immediately
after battle had to be redone after the men had cooled down.
"A lot of times the first draft might not have been what you really wanted
to say," he said. "You may come off stupid because you didn't have your
thoughts together and you're just kind of rambling. So we would take time
to think because we didn't want to put out a stupid album."
The album's title track recounts a particularly bloody day last April when
eight of their fellow soldiers were killed in a fierce gunbattle:
"This here is blood of soldiers of which the streets are paved ... And
there is no reimbursement for the price that we pay."
Most of the rapping soldiers didn't know each other before they went to
Iraq, but all say they had an interest in music.
Saunders planned to put his musical aspirations on hold while he was
deployed, but soon after arriving at Camp War Eagle near the Baghdad
neighborhood of Sadr City, he came up with the idea for the album.
"I'd been trying to find my angle my whole life as an artist," he said. "If
I can't take this opportunity and have anything to say about probably the
most influential year of my life then I could never really consider myself
to be an artist."
Many soldiers answered his call for participants, but most lost interest
when they heard what he had in mind.
"Everybody wanted to do their own thing," Saunders said. "And when I gave
them the guidance and said, 'This isn't gonna be about 23-inch rims when
you're over here riding a Humvee ... they didn't like it."
Staves said some people actually laughed at the group and told them no one
would buy a rap album about Iraq.
"I told them it's not about the money. It's about the music," he said.
Thomas initially resisted the idea too, but relented when he realized how
serious they were about the project.
But first they had to get professional recording equipment to Iraq — a task
that took almost nine months. Saunders said he contacted dozens of
companies before he found one willing to ship the equipment.
His bunkmates gave up space for the improvised studio. Soundproof foam for
the room was too expensive, so the crew used exercise mats adorned with
flowers and foam padding used for shipping packages.
Saunders, whose job in Iraq was to provide personal security for the
commander, said the soldiers' superiors knew about their project but
underestimated the seriousness of the recordings.
"They just thought it was going to be a regular rap album," he said. "But
it wasn't. I think if they would have known the type of CD I was putting
out they wouldn't have let it come out."
--------
33) Finding Work Hard for GI's Back From War
By KIMBERLY HEFLING
Associated Press
June 3, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Nearly every day he was in Iraq, Army Staff Sgt. Steven
Cummings would get so shaken by mortar round explosions that, even now, a
year after his return home, he drops to the ground at the crackle of lightning.
Iraq had a big impact on Cummings in another way _ his finances. In his
absence, his wife took out two mortgages on their home in Milan, Mich. They
fell $15,000 in debt, as the pay Cummings earned during his 14 months
overseas was less than he had made as a civilian electrical controls engineer.
Looking back, those almost seem like the good times.
Cummings has been laid off from two jobs in the year since he left Iraq.
While other reasons were given for the layoffs, Cummings thinks both were
related to his duty in the Michigan National Guard and the time off it
requires.
Like some other veterans who have returned from Afghanistan and Iraq, he is
struggling to find work.
"I don't know what I'm going to do now. I'm in the exact position I was
when I came back from Iraq," said Cummings, a father of two. "I'm 50 years
old and I have a mortgage payment due. I'm tired of it."
Although many employers take pride in hiring veterans and make up any pay
an employee lost while deployed, some are reluctant to hire reservists and
Guard members who might have to deploy again, said Bill Gaul, chief officer
at Destiny Group, an online organization that seeks to match employers and
veterans.
Almost 490,000 troops from the Guard and reserve have mobilized since Sept.
11, 2001, overseas or for duty in-country. Of those, about 320,000 have
completed their mobilization.
The number of unemployed Guard members and reservists who served in Iraq is
unclear because the Labor Department will not begin gathering data
specifically on post-Sept. 11 veterans until August. The unemployment rate
for veterans of all wars was 4.6 percent last year, the department said,
compared with an overall unemployment rate of 5.5 percent.
Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., and Rep. Joe Schwarz, R-Mich., are
co-sponsoring legislation that would give companies up to $2,400 in tax
credits for each veteran from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars they hire.
That could be a "mini-windfall" for a small company, said Schwarz, a
Vietnam veteran. "It will make a difference."
The lawmakers said their proposed tax credit also would be extended to
companies that hire dependents of soldiers who died in combat and the
spouses of those in the Guard and Reserves who deployed longer than six months.
"This is a way to give respect to our servicemen and women who have
served," said Schwartz, daughter of a Korean War veteran.
There are laws designed to protect the civilian jobs of deployed Guard and
reserve troops, but some still come home unemployed if their companies
skirt the law or cut jobs for other reasons, such as the closure of a business.
Others looking for work were unemployed when they left or they are coming
off active military duty and entering the civilian job market for the first
time.
Some are changed by war, and find their old civilian jobs have become less
meaningful.
That was the case with Army Cpl. Vicki Angell, 32, who gave up her job as a
customer service supervisor for an equipment company to serve in Iraq with
the 324th Military Police Battalion out of Chambersburg, Pa. Upon her
return in 2004, it took a year for Angell to find satisfactory work. She is
now an editor at The Sheridan Press in Hanover, Pa.
"You send out a lot of resumes. You try to do everything you can do, but
it's really hard to account for the time you are in Iraq, and really to try
to make that, the things you were doing in Ira