By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq -     Iraq's election commission announced Monday that officials were investigating "unusually high" numbers of "yes" votes in about a dozen provinces during Iraq's landmark referendum on a new constitution, raising questions about irregularities in the balloting.

Word of the review came as Sunni Arab leaders repeated accusations of fraud after initial reports from the provinces suggested the constitution had passed. Among the Sunni allegations are that police took ballot boxes from heavily "no" districts, and that some "yes" areas had more votes than registered voters.

The Electoral Commission made no mention of fraud, and an official with knowledge of the election process cautioned that it was too early to say whether the unusual numbers were incorrect or if they would affect the outcome.

...Election officials in many provinces have released their initial counts, indicating that Sunni attempts to defeat the charter failed.

But the commission found that the number of "yes" votes in most provinces appeared "unusually high" and would be audited, with random samples taken from ballot boxes to test them, said the commission's head, Adil al-Lami.

The high numbers were seen among the nine Shiite provinces of the south and the three Kurdish ones in the north, al-Lami told The Associated Press.

Those provinces reported to AP "yes" votes above 90 percent, with some as high as 97 and 98 percent.

Two provinces that are crucial to the results -- Ninevah and Diyala, which have mixed Sunni, Shiite and Kurd populations -- were not among those that appeared unusual, al-Lami said. He said their results "were reasonable and balanced according to the nature of the population in those areas."

But the official with knowledge of the counting process said the unexpected results were not isolated to the Shiite and Kurdish provinces and were "all around the country." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the count.

Sunni opponents needed to win over either Diyala or Ninevah to veto the constitution. Sunnis had to get a two-thirds "no" vote in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces to defeat the charter, and they appeared to have gotten it in western Anbar and central Salahuddin, both heavily Sunni.

Ninevah and Diyala are each believed to have a slight Sunni Arab majority. But results reported by provincial electoral officials showed startlingly powerful "yes" votes of up to 70 percent in each.

Allegations of fraud in those areas could throw into question the final outcome. But questions of whether the reported strong "yes" vote there is unusual are complicated by the fact that Iraq has not had a proper census in some 15 years, meaning the sectarian balance is not firmly known.

A prominent Sunni Arab politician, Saleh al-Mutlaq, claimed Diyala in particular had seen vote rigging. He said he was told by the manager of a polling station in a Kurdish district of Diyala that 39,000 votes were cast although only 36,000 voters were registered there...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051018/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AobrElRDR8.Rh0h5oegbGNSs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDM
TA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

Two provinces that are crucial to the results -- Ninevah and Diyala, which have mixed Sunni, Shiite and Kurd populations -- were not among those that appeared unusual, al-Lami said. He said their results "were reasonable and balanced according to the nature of the population in those areas."

In Ninevah province the increase in voter turnout over January's election, was more than the total votes cast in January.

According to these figures, ALL of the Sunnis that boycotted Januarys election decided to vote this time. And that ALL of them voted 'Yes' to the Constitution!

Not bloomin' likely

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article320343.ece

18 October 2005

Army sources are warning that the mood among soldiers of all ranks is at its gloomiest since the invasion in March 2003. The outlook has become darker as the war proves increasingly intractable and much more dangerous than troops had expected.

A string of incidents in the past week has contributed to the sense of crisis:

• The Ministry of Defence has launched an inquiry into the apparent suicide of Captain Ken Masters, a military police investigator who was found hanged at his barracks in Basra.
• A decision by Private Troy Samuels, who was awarded a Military Cross seven months ago for his bravery under fire in Iraq, to abandon the military rather than return for another tour of duty.
• Seventy soldiers from Private Samuels' battalion, the Princess of Wales Regiment (1PWRR), have also decided to leave the Army during the past year rather than return to Iraq
• An RAF officer, Flt-Lt Malcolm Kendall-Smith, said he was prepared to face jail rather than serve in Iraq, in a war he considers to be illegal. He is to be court-martialled for "refusing to obey a lawful command" and is the first British officer to face criminal charges for challenging the legality of the war.

The increasingly desperate position of British troops in southern Iraq was highlighted last night by the former cabinet minister Clare Short. "The Government are putting the armed forces into an impossible position," she said. "It is obviously affecting morale."

Ms Short, who resigned over the war, is introducing a Bill on Friday to compel the Government to seek parliamentary approval before going to war again. She added: "An army officer stopped me in the street in Whitehall and said his job was talking to parents of those who had been killed in Iraq. He said he supported what I was doing. He said that his job was unbearable. I think the time has come to get a negotiated timetable for an end to the occupation."

Such a move seems unlikely, however. Recent comments by the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, that British forces might have to stay in an increasingly volatile conflict for up to 10 more years have exacerbated fears among British forces that the conflict in which they are engaged is open-ended and lacking a credible exit strategy. There are currently 8,500 British troops in Iraq, most serving a six-month tour of duty. Claims have been made that many of those being sent out feel they do not have the experience to cope with the pressures.

According to Combat Stress, the military charity dedicated to helping soldiers suffering psychological problems, the seemingly indefinite struggle has created the greatest crisis of morale among British troops for decades.

Commodore Toby Elliott, the chief executive of Combat Stress, told The Independent that many soldiers were leaving the Army early in the hope that its psychological effects ­ flashbacks, nightmares and guilt that they had survived while colleagues had not ­ would abate. Commodore Elliot said: "The effects of the Iraq situation are comparable to serving in Northern Ireland during the worst of the Troubles when they were subjected to car-bomb attacks."

The incidents are symptomatic of a general malaise. One corporal said: " This has been a hard, hard tour. I would be glad not to be back in Iraq for a while." Another NCO added: "Mr Blair keeps on saying that everything is getting better here. Perhaps he would care to come and see for himself. He is pretty good at sending other peoples' sons to Iraq."

Pte Samuels' decision to leave the Army may be a particularly significantlandmark. A war hero, he was decorated for saving lives during the ambush which earned his comrade Pte Johnson Beharry a Victoria Cross. But he told The Independent yesterday that he decided to leave the moment he was told his unit would be returning to Iraq.

"I couldn't do that," he said, "Not straight away like that. It would be different if they were sending me to somewhere like Afghanistan ­ but not Iraq, right now. The stress for the guys out there is immense. They are seeing so much bad stuff. I owed it to my family to call it a day."

The current intensity of day-to-day combat is evident in the recent incident logs for Pte Samuel's regiment which show that soldiers have faced 109 individual attacks in a single day.

Capt Masters, 40, with 24 years' experience, had been involved in investigations of alleged mistreatment of detainees by British soldiers. Army sources have reported that the stress of investigating colleagues may have contributed to his death.

Pte Samuel's decision to leave showed that "psychological injuries" could affect the bravest of officers, said a spokesman for Combat Stress, which is helping 57 soldiers from the conflict.

Paul Beaver, a defence analyst with close links to senior staff, said: " There's obviously a disappointment that things have not gone better. But the main difference between army morale now and 12 months ago is that there is a resignation among the soldiers that they are in it for the long haul. There is also recognition that some of the elements [the Iraqi police] that they trusted can no longer be trusted and that they must fall back on their own resources."

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/nation/12931003.htm

Posted on Tue, Oct. 18, 2005

By Seth Borenstein

KNIGHT RIDDER

WASHINGTON - The chief Pentagon agency in charge of investigating and reporting fraud and waste in Defense Department spending in Iraq quietly pulled out of the war zone a year ago -- leaving what experts say are gaps in the oversight of how more than $140 billion is being spent.

The Defense Department's inspector general sent auditors into Iraq when the war started more than two years ago to ensure that taxpayers were getting their money's worth for everything from bullets to meals-ready-to-eat.

The auditors were withdrawn in the fall of 2004 because other agencies were watching spending, too.

Yet experts say those other agencies don't have the expertise, access and broad mandate that the inspector general has -- and don't make their reports public.

That means that the bulk of money being spent in Iraq doesn't get public scrutiny, leaving the door open for possible waste, fraud and abuse, experts say.

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/politics/12935546.htm

Posted on Tue, Oct. 18, 2005

BY SETH BORENSTEIN

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration cannot fulfill all its grand promises to rebuild Iraq because soaring security costs, mismanagement and poor planning have cost billons of dollars, federal auditors said Tuesday.

Some projects - including those to provide clean water for Iraqis - have been cancelled as a result.

In one case, security costs for a U.S. Agency for International Development program on economic reform increased from $894,000 to $37 million, an auditor told Congress. And hundreds of millions of dollars is being diverted to pay for training for Iraqis and for the maintenance of new facilities - expenses overlooked in the initial U.S. planning for the reconstruction, auditors said.

Add to that the rising prices for materials, cost overruns and delays, and there's far less money to rebuild Iraq as the Bush administration envisioned, said Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. He called the shortfall "the reconstruction gap."

"Though the causes may be numerous and valid, the existence of the gap simply means that the completion of the U.S.-funded portion of Iraq's reconstruction will leave many planned projects on the drawing board," Bowen told the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations.

Bowen said he'd know how big the reconstruction gap is in two weeks.

http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=124786&Sn=WORL&IssueID=28213

LONDON: Iraq scored 2.2 marks out of 10 to become the most corrupt country in the Middle East, a report published today said.

Bangladesh and Chad are among the most corrupt countries in the world, rife with bribery and nepotism which condemns millions of people to poverty.

The two states came bottom in Transparency International's (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index for 2005, which drew on 16 surveys from 10 independent institutions to produce a "poll of polls" on corruption levels in 159 countries.

Russia, a member of the Group of 8 leading industrial powers, was perceived to be as corrupt as Niger and Sierra Leone, while Turkmenistan, with one of the most authoritarian governments in central Asia, slipped into the bottom five. Iceland scored 9.7 to top the least corrupt nations' list, which awards marks out of 10 to each country, displacing last year's winner Finland. The US scored 7.6, making it 17th in the list. While TI says the index deals only with perceptions of graft rather than actual proof.

http://stripes.com/article.asp?article=32346

Infighting plagues GIs, Sunnis and Shiites who guard facility

By Anita Powell, Stars and Stripes

Mideast edition, Wednesday, October 19, 2005

KHARK WATER TREATMENT PLANT, Iraq -- The desolate Khark Water Treatment Plant, located in a dusty corner of northern Baghdad Province, is not an obvious front in this nation's war on terror.

Yet the plant, which pumps the nation's most vital resource to more than 70 percent of Baghdad's residents, is a microcosm of the enduring struggle Americans and Iraqis face in bringing stability to this country.

The facility -- under the constant specter of attack from outside insurgents -- is secured by three separate security details: one predominantly Sunni, one predominantly Shiite and, between them, U.S. forces.

The two Iraqi groups distrust, dislike and often try to kill each other, often incorporating outside insurgent groups to do so. American forces -- Company C of 1st Battalion, 13th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division, of Fort Riley, Kan. -- are stuck in the middle. The soldiers are trying to deflect the groups' attacks against each other while also staving off attacks from outside fighters.

In July, insurgents attacked the plant's power distribution control center. Insurgents also have attacked two water distribution points that relay the water to Baghdad. Mortars and small-arms fire are common.

"For centuries, there has been an unwritten rule in this region that you don't attack water," said battalion commander Lt. Col. Eric Wesley. "And what are they attacking? The water supply. That just indicates the level of depravity we're working with."

If the plant were incapacitated, officials say, chaos would ensue in Baghdad.

"If you're at home and your power goes out and your water goes out, who are you going to blame? Anybody," said Lt. James Rippee, Company C fire support officer.

The company guards the plant around the clock.

"We put a lot of money and resources into this," Rippee said. "Ultimately, the goal here is to get them self-sufficient where the Iraqis can self-police this place."

The Khark Water Treatment Plant was built in 1985, during the height of the Iran-Iraq war. In the last 13 years, says plant supervisor Ahmed Abd Homaadi, the facility functioned largely without incident. The plant pumps about 300 million gallons of water a day from the Tigris River to Baghdad, said engineer Khalid Khodir Salih.

Homaadi and Salih attributed the plant's current security problems to the American presence.

Battalion officials dispute the accusation, saying that the plant's problems also are caused by growing unrest between its two sets of guards: the Sunni-dominated Force Protection Service, a civilian group; and the Shiite-dominated Iraqi army. Both groups have been known to harbor insurgents or collaborators, Rippee said.

The plant's civilian guard corps, hired by the Mayorality of Baghdad, are also quick to assign blame.

"When the Americans came here, the terrorists came here too," said guard Mustafa Esmaeel Abdulla, 22, who said he has worked at the plant for six years.

Nor, guards said, do they feel safe with the area's 100-plus Iraqi army security force.

"I don't trust them," said guard Mohammed Ahmed Mahmood.

The Iraqi army, for its part, says it has trouble holding down such an important target in such a hostile area.

"The civilians that live around here, they don't like the [Iraqi] army," said Col. Raad Rasam Ali, a Shiite resident of Baghdad. "They like Saddam Hussein. We can't trust the FPS. No one can trust the FPS. I can't trust anyone. No one can defend the country except the Iraqi army."

American advisers say they doubt that assessment.

"I don't completely trust the Iraqi army," said 1st Sgt. Mike Summers. "I don't trust them to protect me. They have a lack of discipline."

American soldiers at the water plant -- many of whom live in its aging, dilapidated confines -- say the fight to keep the peace is a constant one.

"There might be a few days when it's quiet, but it's very rare," said Sgt. Charles Richardson, 22, a native of Front Royal, Va., and a member of Platoon B, 4th Battalion, 1st Field Artillery, which is attached to Company C. "We could use more people. It's stressful out here."

Of four Platoon B soldiers interviewed, all had earned Combat Action Badges, though one soldier had only been stationed at the plant for three months.

Some soldiers said they wanted to persist.

"That would be the worst-case scenario: us coming here, turning this place upside down, and leaving without accomplishing anything," said Pvt. Lawrence Jatker, 27, of Paterson, N.J. "I support what we're doing here and I'd come back for it."

The enormity and difficulty of the task is perhaps the only point on which all three groups at the water treatment plant can agree.

"Everyone now tries to be in charge," said Ali, the Iraqi army colonel. "It's difficult to control."

http://www.techcentralstation.com/101805A.html

_{Can Saddam Hussein get a fair trial?}

CSM - PARIS - When the curtain goes up on Saddam Hussein's first trial Wednesday, the audience will stretch far beyond the Baghdad courtroom where the former Iraqi president is on trial for his life.

Advocates of international justice, anxious to spread the law's reach to dictators everywhere, will be watching to see how the Iraqi Special Tribunal copes as judges try the gravest crimes in the world's statute books.  

"This is one of the most important trials of our lifetimes," says Michael Scharf, a law professor at Case Western University in Cleveland, because of "the number of victims ... the status of the defendant ... and the fact that the whole world went to war against this man in 1991."

(full story at link)

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2005-10-19T074238Z_01_KNE9
27727_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ-BRITAIN.xml

October 20

LONDON (Reuters) - A British soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq late on Tuesday night, the Ministry of Defence said.

A ministry spokesman told Reuters he had died in Basra "as a result of injuries sustained from a roadside bomb at 2323 local time. We will be revealing more details once next of kin have been informed."

This brings brings the British death toll in Iraq to 97. Of those, 64 died as result of hostile action. Britain has more than 8,000 troops in southern Iraq.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/columnists/12939792.htm

I make it a point every morning to read the latest names of the American soldiers who died in Iraq. I do this to remind myself of the real cost to this nation of the war in Iraq. I think of the husbands, wives, parents, children and friends left behind to comprehend their loss.

The constitutional referendum in Iraq this past weekend is yet another moment to step back and ask whether the war has been worth this price. The other costs of this war are no less real: the tax dollars spent and the massive public debt that is building; the erosion of American prestige around the world; the breeding of a new generation of Islamist terrorists; and the visible weakening of American will and power to tackle more serious threats elsewhere.

But most of all, it is mounting American casualties, now closing in on 2,000 dead and 15,000 wounded, that is wearing away support for the war. This follows a pattern of the two previous times since 1945 that Americans have suffered significant casualties in war -- Korea and Vietnam.

``The only thing remarkable about the current war in Iraq is how precipitously American public support has dropped off,'' argues Ohio State political scientist John Mueller, in an important new article in Foreign Affairs.

``Casualty for casualty, support has declined far more quickly than it did during either the Korean War or the Vietnam War. And if history is any indication, there is little the Bush administration can do to reverse this decline,'' concludes Mueller, an expert on war and public opinion.

The Bush administration inner circle believed that conquering Iraq would be the death, finally, of ``the Vietnam syndrome,'' the fear of foreign entanglement that crippled the use of American power. It is darkly ironic then that the war has given birth to what Mueller calls ``the Iraq syndrome.'' Potential support for a fresh front, whether it is in Iran, Syria or North Korea, is disappearing rapidly.

``In part because of the military and financial overextension in Iraq (and Afghanistan), the likelihood of any coherent application of military power or even of a focused military threat against the remaining entities on the Bush administration's once-extensive hit list has substantially diminished,'' writes Mueller.

Those foes are all too well aware of the Iraq syndrome. Iran and North Korea's defiant pursuit of nuclear weapons is clearly prompted by their sense of the post-Iraq limits on American power. The administration tries to clothe its sense of weakness by trumpeting its new belief in the virtues of diplomacy -- but that new faith rings a bit hollow.

The Iraq syndrome rests on the growing perception in this country that Iraq is a war with even less purpose and less at stake than the previous unpopular wars in Korea and Vietnam. That skepticism has been fed by the administration's string of changing reasons for the war.

The threat that initially sold the war -- weapons of mass destruction, potentially in the hands of terrorists -- proved false. The lingering support for the war rests mainly on the administration's persistent claim that Iraq is part of the response to Sept. 11. Increasingly, however, Americans see Iraq as more a spur to terror than a front on which to defeat it.

What is left is the administration's justification that this is a war to end tyranny and bring democracy to Iraq. However appealing, there is no evidence that the American people, if they had been asked, would give the lives of their sons and daughters for that cause.

The administration clings to the belief that good news -- such as the constitutional vote -- will eventually swing opinion back in their favor. It could slow the decline in support but it is unlikely to change people's minds, says Mueller. No string of good news, he says, could conceivably yield a clear-cut victory.

Seeking to rally support, the administration falls back on its final argument -- that retreat will only embolden the enemy and leave an even worse situation behind. As in Vietnam, there is a counterargument that withdrawal may have little impact on the outcome. The Iraqi authorities in any case may eventually conclude that the American presence does more to fuel the insurgency than contain it. For an American public weary of the daily toll, the case for withdrawal becomes increasingly compelling.

In the end, Iraq did not reverse decades of retreat and appeasement. Rather, it has sapped American will, becoming a graveyard of American power measured by the daily list of American dead.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20051019-08470400-bc-us-iraqillness.
xml

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- A Pentagon assessment of troops returning home from Iraq shows more than one in four require medical or psychiatric treatment, USA Today reported Wednesday.

The newspaper obtained the report from the Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, which said nearly 1,700 troops returning from the war this year said they harbored thoughts of hurting themselves or that they would be better off dead. Nearly 20,000 reported nightmares or unwanted war recollections; more than 3,700 said they had concerns that they might "hurt or lose control" with someone else.

About 28 percent, or 50,000 troops this year, reported problems ranging from lingering battle wounds to suicidal thoughts or strained marriages, the report said.

Jim Benson, a spokesman at the Department of Veterans Affairs, says comparable data from previous wars don't exist.

The Pentagon's official Iraq casualty count as of Tuesday was 1,971 U.S. troops dead and 15,220 wounded.

Guardian journalist believed kidnapped in Baghdad

Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:40 PM BST

LONDON (Reuters) - Rory Carroll, Baghdad correspondent of the Guardian, is believed to have been kidnapped in the Iraqi capital, his paper said.

Carroll, an Irish national aged 33, was on assignment in Baghdad on Wednesday when he went missing. He may have been abducted by a group of armed men, the Guardian said in a statement.

Carroll has been in Iraq for nine months.

No other details were immediately available but the Guardian said it was urgently seeking to establish what had happened to its correspondent.

His father, Joe Carroll, a former foreign correspondent for the Irish Times, told state broadcaster RTE his son had been careful, but Baghdad was a dangerous place for journalists.

bit more

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-10-19T184010Z_01_MCC9
47730_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ-IRELAND.xml

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1231332

Rice Won't Rule Out U.S. Troops' Presence in Iraq in 10 Years, or Using Force Against Syria, Iran

By ANNE GEARAN AP Diplomatic Writer

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON Oct 19, 2005 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declined on Wednesday to rule out American forces still being needed in Iraq a decade from now. Senators warned that the Bush administration must play it straight with the public or risk losing public support for the war.

Pushed by senators from both parties to define the limits of U.S. involvement in Iraq and the Middle East, Rice also declined to rule out the use of military force in Iran or Syria, although she said the administration prefers diplomacy.

"I don't think the president ever takes any of his options off the table concerning anything to do with military force," Rice said.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Iraq_Developments.html

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 · Last updated 2:27 p.m. PT

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Major developments Wednesday in Iraq:

- Sunni-led insurgents in Iraq kill 26 people in attacks, including six Shiites who were lined up at a materials factory and gunned down in front of their fellow workers in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, police say.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1120140,00.html

A Pentagon survey of returning U.S. soldiers finds many traumatized by the occupation

By MARK THOMPSON

Posted Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2005

The Iraq war is coming home, with more than one of every four returning vets complaining of mental or physical wounds caused by the conflict. The first time the U.S. went to war with Iraq, in 1991, ground combat lasted precisely 100 hours, but its impact on the U.S. troops who waged it, including physical and mental scars, was ignored and belittled by the Pentagon hierarchy for years. This time, with the war going much worse for U.S. forces, the Pentagon is paying much closer attention to the invisible wounds combat is leaving on soldiers.

According to an accounting by the Army's Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, nearly 1,700 troops returning from the war zone this year said they have thought of harming themselves or felt they would be better off dead (250 said they had such thoughts "a lot"). About 20,000 suffer from nightmares and other flashbacks. More than 3,700 said they feared they might hurt or "lose control" with another person. Another disturbing finding: Troops serving in Iraq are more than twice as likely to see their comrades--or civilians--killed or wounded than they are to see enemy dead or injured. And the trend is getting worse: Soldiers reported feeling more fear this year and last year while in Iraq, compared to those GIs who served in the initial invasion force in 2003. Twice as many serving in 2004-05 fired their weapons in combat compared to the 2003 soldiers.

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?article=32370

By Scott Schonauer, Stars and Stripes

Mideast edition, Thursday, October 20, 2005

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany -- Before U.S.-led forces invaded Baghdad in March 2003, Iraq's once-capable air force never got off the ground.

Actually, some airplanes didn't even get out of the ground.

Iraqi forces buried the few fighter aircraft left from the 1991 Persian Gulf War in the desert. American troops found the planes by accident in 2003.

Since the U.S. military dug up the first Russian-built MiG fighter from the sand, the resurrection of Iraq's air force has been painstakingly slow.

A U.S. assessment team led by an Air Force general visited Iraq last week to identify areas where the service could help. It found that the Iraqis have a long way to go.

"One of the things I recognize is that this is just going to take time," said Col. Mike Byrne, a member of the assessment team, by telephone from an undisclosed location in the Middle East. "There's a lot of people that are going to expect things to happen very quickly, and they have to recognize that's just not the case when you're dealing with something of this magnitude."

Rebuilding Iraq's air force has become one of the U.S. Air Force's top priorities in the country. The endeavor has proved to be an immense challenge because the Air Force is almost starting from scratch.

The aircraft Iraq has are not suited for Iraq's dry and dusty environment, spare parts are scarce, and most of the country's 360 pilots, navigators and mechanics are well over the age of 40 without many capable recruits to replace them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/20/international/middleeast/20kidnap.html?oref=login

By EDWARD WONG

Published: October 20, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 19 - At least 26 Iraqis, 5 American soldiers and a British soldier were killed in attacks late Tuesday and Wednesday, officials reported Wednesday.

*  *  *  *  *  *

The lethal attacks and the kidnapping may have been timed to the start of the trial. Two mortars landed in the fortified Green Zone before the trial began, and a string of explosions could be heard in central Baghdad after nightfall.

The Iraqi victims included Hatim Mirzah, a municipality official, who was gunned down with his driver on Wednesday morning.

U.S. May Seek Tehran's Help on Iraq

Officials are debating direct contact with Iran in an effort to defeat insurgents and stabilize Baghdad's government, Rice tells senators.

By Tyler Marshall, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that the Bush administration was considering opening direct contact with Iran as part of an effort to gain greater cooperation from neighboring countries in quelling Iraq's insurgency.

"We're considering whether that might be useful," Rice said in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She added that any contact probably would take place between embassies in Baghdad and would be restricted to the Iraq issue.

more

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-rice20oct20,1,5163852.story?coll=la-headlines-wo
rld

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4362378.stm

An Irish reporter kidnapped in Baghdad on Wednesday has been freed unharmed, the Guardian newspaper has said.

Rory Carroll, 33, was "safe and well" and was in the Iraqi capital's Green Zone, the Guardian's foreign desk said.

It said Mr Carroll was in good spirits and had spoken to his family and told the paper his captors had treated him well. Their identity is unclear.

Total Disconnect On Iraq Realities

CBS) This article was written by CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About the only benefit from not being able to move freely to report is that there is time to read about this place. But in doing so, one gets the impression that nobody in the U.S. government pays attention to what we do manage to report.

Or is it simply that the disconnect between the reality here and the preferred perception there is unbridgeable?

For example, in opening remarks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that part of the U.S. strategy for "winning" in Iraq was to hold and secure areas.

"We can implement this element of the strategy ... neighborhood by neighborhood," Rice said, adding: "and this process has already begun."

As evidence, she offered: "Compare the situation a year ago in places like Haifa Street in Baghdad ..."

Well, a year ago there was a sign at the Assassin's Gate exit from the Green Zone that read: "Haifa Street is Condition Red. Do Not Use Haifa Street." The sign is still there today, it just takes you longer to get to it as you leave the Green Zone because more barriers have been erected to keep the suicide bombers out.

Haifa Street begins about 500 yards from Assassin's Gate. I know this because our hotel is there. We take as much care in leaving it as we do the Assassin's Gate. Shortly after the polls closed in the referendum last weekend, there was a prolonged shoot-out just down the road.

In another example of how well things are going, Rice told senators: "Security along the once notorious airport road in Baghdad has measurably improved."

If that is the case, maybe they can remove the sign just beyond the last checkpoint on the way out. It reads: "You are Leaving a Secured Area ... All Weapons Red at This Point. Lock and Load."

more

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/20/listening_post/main959358.shtml

http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=HUMVEES-10-20-05&cat=WW

By TARA COPP

Scripps Howard News Service

October 20, 2005

WASHINGTON - Hundreds of new, top-of-the-line armored Humvees are parked in Texas and Kuwait and won't be shipped to troops in Iraq even though those soldiers face daily roadside bombs, the Army acknowledged Thursday.

The Army said it's keeping the vehicles out of Iraq until the 3rd Infantry Division's replacements, the 4th Infantry Division, arrive at the end of the year.

But with reports that more than one in four U.S. soldiers' deaths in Iraq have been caused by roadside bombs, members of Congress are incensed that 824 new Humvees wouldn't go straight to Iraq. The newer so-called "uparmored" Humvees have better technology to absorb roadside blasts.

"Let's not have them in parking lots, let's move them up to Baghdad, let's move them up with the 3rd ID or move them over to the Marines, who've taken 50 percent of the hits, yet have roughly 6 to 7 percent of the (uparmored) Humvees," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who chairs the House Armed Services Committee.

Link to Reuters Article

Fri Oct 21, 2005 8:14 AM ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three U.S. Marines were killed by a roadside bomb west of Baghdad and in a separate attack a U.S. soldier was killed in Hit, northwest of the capital, the U.S. military said on Friday.

The latest deaths bring the number of U.S. servicemen and women who have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to at least 1,992.

The U.S. military said the three Marines had been on patrol when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device.

"During the subsequent engagement, Marines killed two insurgents and detained four others suspected of involvement in the attack," the statement said.

The soldier killed in Hit died of wounds sustained in "an indirect fire attack", a term usually applied to mortar or rocket attacks.

Channel 4 News

Published: 21 Oct 2005

By: Lindsey Hilsum

Basra is slipping from the grasp of the British. They may contain or absorb some of the violence, but not for long.

The police chief had a jet-black moustache, a fat furry triangle on his upper lip. His eyes swivelled from side to side. He was sweating. He was a frightened man.

He had arranged to meet British troops from the Royal Anglian Regiment in his office, but when they arrived, a small group of angry men in plain clothes calling themselves the Investigation Support Unit barred the way.

[more of interest at link]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/21/politics/21wilkerson.html?pagewanted=all

By BRIAN KNOWLTON

Published: October 21, 2005

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - Secretary of State Colin Powell's former chief of staff has offered a remarkably blunt criticism of the administration he served, saying that foreign policy had been usurped by a "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal," and that President Bush has made the country more vulnerable, not less, to future crises.

The comments came in a speech Wednesday by Lawrence Wilkerson, who worked for Mr. Powell at the State Department from 2001 to early 2005. Speaking to the New America Foundation, an independent public-policy institute in Washington, Mr. Wilkerson suggested that secrecy, arrogance and internal feuding had taken a heavy toll in the Bush administration, skewing its policies and undercutting its ability to handle crises.

"I would say that we have courted disaster, in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran, generally with regard to domestic crises like Katrina, Rita - and I could go on back," he said. "We haven't done very well on anything like that in a long time."

Link to Full Article

By Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger Times Staff Writers

Fri Oct 21, 7:55 AM ET

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was so angry about the public statements of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, a Bush administration critic married to an undercover CIA officer, that he monitored all of Wilson's television appearances and urged the White House to mount an aggressive public campaign against him, former aides say.

Those efforts by the chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, began shortly after Wilson went public with his criticisms in 2003. But they continued into last year -- well after the Justice Department began an investigation in September 2003, into whether administration officials had illegally disclosed the CIA operative's identity, say former White House aides.

While other administration officials were maintaining a careful distance from Wilson in 2004, Libby ordered up a compendium of information that could be used to rebut Wilson's claims that the administration had "twisted" intelligence to exaggerate the threat from Iraq before the U.S. invasion.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cheney20oct20,0,5587019.story?coll=la-home-nati
on

The vice president's history of tension with the agency may help explain why his office is an area of interest in the blown-cover probe.

By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON -- For more than a decade, Dick Cheney has tussled with the CIA, first as secretary of Defense and later as vice president. Now that long and tortured history forms the backdrop of a federal probe into who named an undercover agency officer -- an inquiry that is centering in part on Cheney's office.

*  *  *  *  *  *

For example, CIA officials repeatedly told Cheney and others in his circle that they did not think Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta had met with Iraqi agents in Prague, Czech Republic, before the attacks.

Nonetheless, the agency continued to receive dozens of inquiries on the topic from top officials -- several times from Cheney himself. Despite the agency warnings, Cheney made reference to the Atta meeting as if it were a sure thing.

"It's been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack," Cheney said Dec. 9, 2001, on NBC's "Meet the Press."

The allegation was not backed up with reliable intelligence, as Cheney and his staff had been repeatedly told, according to a former CIA official. The matter was addressed in public when senators asked CIA Director Porter J. Goss during his confirmation hearings last year to assess the accuracy of Cheney's allegations.

"I don't think it was as well-confirmed perhaps as the vice president thought," said Goss, a Florida Republican who had been chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. "But I don't know what was in the vice president's mind, and I've certainly never talked with him about this. So I don't know how we came to that conclusion."

Asked by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) whether the assertion was "worthy of correction," Goss said he might have intervened had he been in charge at the time. "If I were confronted with that kind of a hypothetical, where I felt that a policymaker was getting beyond what the intelligence said, I think I would advise the person involved," Goss said.

her usual level of knowledge and attention to detail:

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/12962168.htm

U.S. diplomat defends Iraq war

CHRIS BRUMMITT

Associated Press

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Karen Hughes, who has faced a rocky road since being named Washington's public relations chief, answered tough questions Friday about the invasion of Iraq, and wrongly stated that Saddam Hussein gassed to death "hundreds of thousands" of his people.

Although the U.S. undersecretary for public diplomacy twice repeated the claim after being challenged by journalists, Gordon Johndroe, a State Department official traveling with Hughes, later called The Associated Press to say she misspoke.

Hughes, a longtime confidante of President Bush, was in the world's most populous Muslim nation to improve America's battered image after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

At a public debate with university students in Jakarta, she was repeatedly criticized over Washington's original stated rationale for the war in Iraq - Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction. No such arms were discovered.

"The consensus of the world intelligence community was that Saddam was a very dangerous threat," Hughes said.

"After all, he had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people," she told about 100 students in a small auditorium. "He had murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people using poison gas."

At least 300,000 Iraqis were reportedly killed during Saddam's decades-long rule, but only about 5,000 are believed to have been gassed - in a 1988 attack in the Kurdish north.

Fragmentation

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/12964182.htm

By Tom Lasseter

Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A week after a historic referendum on a new constitution, Iraq looks much as it did before the vote: Kurdish militias patrol the north, warring Shiite Muslim militias wrestle for control of the south and in the center, an insurgency supported by an angry Sunni Muslim Arab minority battles U.S. forces, the Iraqi government and the Shiites.

No one expected an overnight transformation. But it remains uncertain whether the new constitution and Wednesday's brief appearance of tyrant Saddam Hussein in a courtroom cage can halt or even slow the violence and sectarian divisions that have steadily gained momentum since the U.S.-led invasion 31 months ago.

"Today marks another momentous step toward the building of a new Iraq," U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said in a statement at the start of Saddam's trial. "Like the constitutional referendum we have just witnessed, the trials ... at the Iraq Special Tribunal will help pave the path to a democratic and independent Iraq, based on the rule of law."

Khalilzad's optimism may prove right, but the perennially sunny comments by U.S. leaders on past events, such as the capture of Saddam, the transfer of sovereignty and January's National Assembly elections, have been premature at best. And today's reasons for skepticism extend far beyond concern over the insurgency.

oil scandal       

Fri Oct 21, 2005

By Daniel Trotta

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors have charged a Texas oil tycoon and two Swiss executives and their companies with paying secret kickbacks to Iraq in the U.N. oil-for-food program.

Tycoon Oscar Wyatt, the former Coastal Corp. chairman, was arrested in Houston, Texas, on Friday, prosecutors said, becoming one of the highest profile figures ensnared so far in the scandal. The two Swiss nationals are being sought for extradition.

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York charged Wyatt along with Catalina del Socorro Miguel Fuentes, alias Cathy Miguel, and Mohammed Saidji. All three face up to 62 years in prison and heavy fines if convicted.

Wyatt's lawyer declined immediate comment, saying a statement would be issued later.

Three companies were also charged, including the Cyprus-based oil trading companies Nafta Petroleum Company Ltd. and Mednafta Trading Company Ltd, collectively known as the Wyatt Foreign Companies.

Those firms were operated by Miguel and Saidji in close consultation with Wyatt, the statement said.

Also charged was Sarenco, a Swiss consulting firm operated by Miguel and Saidji, prosecutors said in the statement.

"Wyatt, Miguel and Saidji obtained oil under the United Nations' oil-for-food program by paying millions of dollars in secret kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. These kickbacks were allegedly paid to the government of Iraq for oil allocated by the Saddam Hussein regime to the Wyatt Foreign Companies and the Coastal Corporation," prosecutors said.

Specifically they allege that Wyatt, Miguel and Saidji directed millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks to Saddam's government by depositing cash into a Jordanian bank account.

Wyatt also lobbied the United Nations to set an official selling price that would allow recipients of the oil to pay the kickbacks and still profit, the statement said.

Wyatt's Coastal Corp. was sold to natural gas pipeline company El Paso Corp. in 2001

A flamboyant personality in a typically conservative oil industry, Wyatt has had close ties with Iraq for years.

In December 1990, just before the Gulf War, he met Saddam and other senior Iraqi officials to secure the release of 32 American hostages who were subsequently flown back to the United States in a Coastal-chartered jet.

Before Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Coastal accounted for some 10 percent of Iraq's total crude sales.

FIRST SANCTIONS, THEN SCANDAL

The now-defunct oil-for-food program allowed Saddam to sell oil to buy food and medicine in order to ease the impact of U.N. sanctions. It ran from 1996 to 2003.

The program allowed Iraq to negotiate its own contracts, and mismanagement allowed Saddam to rake in more than $10 billion in oil smuggling profits, according to CIA reports last year.

An investigation led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker found that Secretary-General Kofi Annan, his deputy and the U.N. Security Council all share responsibility.

Volcker announced on Friday he would issue a final report on October 27 on the role of private companies in the scandal. South African Judge Richard Goldstone has said there is some evidence of wrongdoing among some 2,500 of the more than 4,000 companies involved in the program.

Federal prosecutors in New York have now charged six people and six companies involved in the program, and state prosecutors have pursued their own cases.

(Additional reporting by Deepa Babington, Irwin Arieff and Evelyn Leopold)

Reuters

http://www.columbiatribune.com/2005/Oct/20051022News029.asp

Forces lack support systems, officer says.

Published Saturday, October 22, 2005

WASHINGTON (AP) - It will take as long as two years for the Iraqi army to have the military leadership and supplies it needs to operate on its own, the commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad said yesterday.

Maj. Gen. William Webster Jr. told Pentagon reporters that the Iraqi security forces are continuing to grow but that their major need is for support systems, such as fuel and replacement parts.

"If we're talking about an army that can pick up and move and go out to the borders to defend the country and be able to sustain operations out in the open for a long period of time, it's probably going to be a year and a half, two years before that system is mature enough to operate on its own," Webster said from Baghdad.

Webster did not specify what impact his assessment would have on U.S. hopes for beginning a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/10/22/iraq-police051022.html

Last Updated Sat, 22 Oct 2005 09:25:51 EDT

CBC News

An Irish journalist who was kidnapped in Iraq while covering the trial of Saddam Hussein says the police in Baghdad have been infiltrated by militia.

Rory Carroll, a correspondent for The Guardian newspaper of Britain, was released unharmed on Thursday after being held for 36 hours.

He says that one of three cars involved in his kidnapping was a police land cruiser, and he says that when he was seized, a man in a police uniform pointed a pistol at his head.

"Senior police commanders have admitted that their police force has been infiltrated by militia members, especially on the part of the Shia militia."

"We know that police moonlight as kidnappers. Now, whether the men in police uniforms who abducted me were pretending to be police or were real police who happen to be moonlighting as kidnappers, I don't know."

Link to Article

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq said on Saturday it had found no instances of serious fraud in an October 15 constitutional referendum and was still verifying some results only because of statistical issues.

IECI commissioner Adil Al-Lami said it would take some days before there was a final announcement of results but gave no date.

He gave partial results for 13 of Iraq's 18 provinces, of which only one returned a two-thirds majority "no" vote. Two more provinces would need to do so in order to block the constitution.

Lami told a news conference only a small proportion of ballots had been brought to Baghdad and the results published so far were extremely limited.

"Let's pretend there are 100 ballot boxes in all Iraq. Well, 20 of those boxes have been brought to Baghdad and these results today represent half of those ..." Lami said. "These figures do not show anything much yet."

He gave no figures at all for five provinces, including the largely Sunni Anbar, which is expected to have voted no, and the mixed province of Nineveh, which is viewed as the only other one that could possibly give a two-thirds majority no vote.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Hunting_Zarqawi.html

Saturday, October 22, 2005

By KATHERINE SHRADER

ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON -- U.S. intelligence officials say Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has expanded his terrorism campaign in Iraq to extremists in two dozen terror groups scattered across almost 40 countries, creating a network that rivals Osama bin Laden's.

In interviews, U.S. government officials said the threat to U.S. interests from al-Zarqawi compared with that from bin Laden, whom al-Zarqawi pledged his loyalty to one year ago.

The director of the National Counterterrorism Center considers bin Laden a strategic plotter who is deep in hiding and out of regular contact with his followers, while al-Zarqawi is involved broadly in planning of scores of brutal attacks in Iraq.

"He is very much a daily, operational threat," said Scott Redd, who is in charge of the government's counterterrorism strategy and analysis.

In figures not made public before, counterterrorism officials say that Zarqawi's network of contacts has grown dramatically since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and now includes associates in nearly 40 countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe.

U.S. military says four contractors killed in Iraq

22 Oct 2005 17:58:49 GMT

Source: Reuters

BAGHDAD, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Four U.S. contractors for the U.S. military were killed in Iraq last month, the military said on Saturday, confirming an attack that a British newspaper said saw two of the men murdered in front of a jeering crowd.

A military spokesman said the attack occurred on Sept. 20 when insurgents fired rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at a convoy guarded by U.S. troops after it made a wrong turn in Duluiya, near Balad north of Baghdad.

"Task Force Liberty soldiers responded to assist the convoy, administered first aid to two wounded contractors and evacuated the remains of four contractors killed in the attack," the spokesman said in a statement.

No reason was given why the military had not released information on the attack earlier.

Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper gave an account of the incident which recalled the slaying of four contractors killed by a crowd in Falluja in March 2004, an incident which provoked the first of two major U.S. offensives last year against rebels in the city west of Baghdad.

The Telegraph, quoting a U.S. officer in the area who had spoken to soldiers involved, said the victims were American employees of Halliburton unit Kellog, Brown & Root, the biggest U.S. military contractor in Iraq.

At least two of the men were dragged alive from their vehicle, which had been badly shot up, and forced to kneel in the road before being killed, it said.

"Killing one of the men with a rifle round fired into the back of his head, they doused the other with petrol and set him alight," the newspaper report said.

"Barefoot children, yelping in delight, piled straw on to the screaming man's body to stoke the flames."

more

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/QUI261138.htm

US troops fighting losing battle for Sunni triangle

By Adrian Blomfield

(Filed: 22/10/2005)

The mob grew more frenzied as the gunmen dragged the two surviving Americans from the cab of their bullet-ridden lorry and forced them to kneel on the street.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/22/wirq122.xml

http://www.dailyrepublic.com/articles/2005/10/22/ap/headlines/d8dd7av00.txt

By SAMEER N. YACOUB

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. soldiers and warplanes killed 20 insurgents and destroyed five "safe houses" Saturday during an operation against militants who shelter foreign fighters for al-Qaida in Iraq near the Syrian border, the military said.

http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/Casualty_Report.asp?CasualtyReport=20051030.txt

October 22, 2005

Release Number: 05-10-30C

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TWO MARINES KILLED BY IED NEAR AL AMARIYAH

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq - Two Marines assigned to Regimental Combat Team 8, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), were killed in action while conducting combat operations against the enemy when their vehicle was attacked with an improvised explosive device near al Amariyah on Oct. 21.

http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/Casualty_Report.asp?CasualtyReport=20051029.txt

October 22, 2005

Release Number: 05-10-29C

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MARINE KILLED BY EXPLOSION NEAR HAQLANIYAH

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq - A Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 2, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), was killed in action while conducting combat operations against the enemy when he was hit by an explosion in the vicinity of Haqlaniyah on Oct. 21.

During the subsequent engagement, Marines killed four insurgents and destroyed a bunker adjacent to their position with an unknown number of insurgents firing from inside.

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/world/12972252.htm

Posted on Sat, Oct. 22, 2005

ANTONIO CASTANEDA

Associated Press

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

"A lot of people don't want to be here, but they're here because it's their job," said Staff Sgt. Anthony Rayner, of Atlanta, as he slowly ate shrimp in a mess hall on a support base on the edge of Baqouba, a town of central Iraq plagued by insurgent attacks.

The factors that build morale look different whether you're looking from the center of the fight or from the more removed bases - though in a guerrilla-style conflict like Iraq, "front line" can have little meaning.

Those at the front sometimes look longingly for the amenities of the base; while some separated from the reality of urban warfare wish they were more in the heat of things. About 150,000 American troops are in the country.

Rayner said the conflict that had been abstract for some in his supply unit changed when they suffered casualties while traveling down dangerous roads.

"Then it's personal, and they want to go out there," said Rayner, referring to area towns where insurgents still lurk.

The U.S. military said Saturday that three U.S. Marines and an Army soldier were killed in three different areas of Iraq earlier this week, raising to at least 1,996 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/international/23ramadi.html?hp&ex=1130040000&en=042fd41fd3
9161a9&ei=5094&partner=homepage

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

Published: October 23, 2005

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Here in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, Sunni Arab insurgents are waging their fiercest war against American troops, attacking with relative impunity just blocks from Marine-controlled territory. Every day, the Americans fight to hold their turf in a war against an enemy who seems to be everywhere but is not often seen.

The cost has been high: in the last six weeks, 21 Americans have been killed here, far more than in any other city in Iraq and double the number of deaths in Baghdad, a city with a population 15 times as large.

"We fight it one day at a time," said Capt. Phillip Ash, who commands Company K in the Third Battalion, Seventh Marines, which patrols central Ramadi.

"Some days you're the windshield," he said, "some days you're the bug."

Ramadi is an important indicator of just how long it may be before an American withdrawal.

The city has long been a haven for insurgents, but it has never fallen fully into enemy hands, as Falluja did last fall, when marines could not even patrol before an invasion in November. Senior commanders here will not rule out a full invasion, but for now, the checkpoints and street patrols continue.

Because troop levels have stayed steady here, Ramadi also differs from Tal Afar, a rebel stronghold near the Syrian border, where Americans laid siege only to have to return later because they were unable to leave enough troops to secure it.

Still, more than two years after the American invasion, this city of 400,000 people is just barely within American control. The deputy governor of Anbar was shot to death on Tuesday; the day before, the governor's car was fired on. There is no police force. A Baghdad cellphone company has refused to put up towers here. American bases are regularly pelted with rockets and mortar shells, and when troops here get out of their vehicles to patrol, they are almost always running.

"You can't just walk down the street for a period of time and not expect to get shot at," said Maj. Bradford W. Tippett, the operations officer for the Third Battalion.

Link to Short Reuters Article

Sat Oct 22, 2005 5:49 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Forty-five percent of Iraqis believe attacks on U.S. and British troops are justified, according to a secret poll said to have been commissioned by British defense leaders and cited by The Sunday Telegraph.

Less than 1 percent of those polled believed that the forces were responsible for any improvement in security, according to poll figures.

Eighty-two percent of those polled said they were "strongly opposed" to the presence of the troops.

http://stripes.com/article.asp?article=32452

FOB Falcon-based 3rd Squadron patrols insurgent-infested region

By Anita Powell, Stars and Stripes

Mideast edition, Sunday, October 23, 2005

Iraq's fertile crescent, a scenic slice of waving fields of grain and palm groves just south of the capital, is, at first glance, an idyllic stretch of countryside.

But behind the elegant reeds and rolling berms lies one of Iraq's most entrenched and stubborn insurgencies.

The area, which is secured by the 3rd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment of Fort Carson, Colo., is thought to be home to several prominent insurgent groups, including al-Qaida in Iraq, extremist group Ansar Al Sunna and several fringe groups such as the unambiguously named "Death Company" and "Islamic Anger Group."

Since March, soldiers with the unit, operating out of Forward Operating Base Falcon, have patrolled the routes daily, peering into holes and through tall grasses as though participating in a demented Easter egg hunt -- though the loot here often includes 500-pound bombs, many of them salvaged from munitions caches from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

"This area's always been volatile," said squadron commander Lt. Col. Ross Brown. "For everyone. These guys fought Saddam. They fight us. They fight Iraqi security forces."

The area is the scene of nearly 100 attacks monthly. A map in squadron headquarters charts each with a pushpin. The main roads aren't visible under the mass of brightly colored pins.

Twelve soldiers from the squadron have died after bomb attacks on the sector's deadly roads. Seventy-five percent of the squadron has earned combat action badges, Command Sgt. Maj. Glen Dailey said.

The area has been given scant attention since U.S. forces entered Iraq in 2003, although insurgents in the area have been linked to attacks in Baghdad.

"We were pretty much the first forces to have a regular presence here," Brown said.

Unit officials say attempts to interact with local leaders have been met with wariness.

A linguist with the unit, Spc. Kais Escotto, 25, said he's received mixed reactions from locals.

"Some people, they like us, some people, no," he said. "I don't understand what they want exactly. They hate Saddam Hussein but at the same time, they hate Americans."

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?article=32435

Defense secretary enjoys give-and-take with servicemembers

By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes

Pacific edition, Sunday, October 23, 2005

YONGSAN GARRISON, South Korea -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld drew cheers at a town-hall meeting Friday afternoon for his praise of U.S. troops, his criticism of Iraq media coverage and his interest in an invitation to the annual Navy ball that night.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

He addressed the threat of losing control of Iraq to internal clashes, saying that Iraq eventually will have to use its own military and governmental leaders to quash threats.

One specialist asked why more soldiers weren't allowed to learn Arabic, rather than Korean.

"I'm with you," said Rumsfeld of the suggestion, and he took out a pen and made a note.

When asked how to stem misinformation from being disseminated through the media, especially in Iraq, Rumsfeld said it was a "test of wills" to see what stories would ultimately come out of that region of the world.

Some media sources, especially in Iraq, "have a lot of freedom to lie consistently," he said. "They are good at it. They know what they're doing."

He mentioned one famous face has been missing from the media for a while.

"We haven't seen Osama bin Laden on film for one whale of a long time," the secretary said. "Apparently if he's around, he's very busy hiding."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9756141/site/newsweek/

The CIA leak case isn't just about whether top officials will be indicted. A larger issue is what Judith Miller's evidence says about White House manipulation of the media.

By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball

Newsweek

Updated: 8:52 p.m. ET Oct. 21, 2005

But Miller wanted more specifics. She "pressed Mr. Libby to discuss additional information [about Iraq's nuclear program] that was in the more detailed, classified version of the estimate," Miller wrote, referring to the NIE. If the Times was going to do an article, "the newspaper needed more than a recap of the administration's weapons arguments."

Libby, though, "said little more than that the assessments of the classified estimate were even stronger than those in the unclassified version," Miller wrote.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-usiraq22oct22,1,1738582.story?coll=la-headlines-politics

A top diplomat accuses the administration of sending the country to war too soon and poorly prepared because of 'clear political pressure.'

By Paul Richter, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- A top U.S. official for aid to Iraq has accused the Bush administration of rushing unprepared into the 2003 invasion because of pressures from President Bush's approaching reelection campaign.

Robin Raphel, the State Department's coordinator for Iraq assistance, said that the invasion's timing was driven by "clear political pressure," as well as by the need to quickly deploy the U.S. troops that had been amassed by the Iraq border.

Soon after the invasion, Raphel said, it became clear that U.S. officials "could not run a country we did not understand.... It was very much amateur hour."

Her views appeared as part of an oral history project on the website of the congressionally funded U.S. Institute of Peace. Raphel's account is one of a number that have appeared on the website this year as former officials who were among the first sent into post-invasion Iraq have begun to publicly assess the first two years of the U.S. mission.

Although the officials' views vary widely -- and some are positive about the U.S. effort -- the accounts make clear that many of the veteran diplomats who were the first to be sent to Iraq had misgivings about the effort from the beginning, with their views foreshadowing criticisms that followed months and even years later.

Many analysts speculated in 2003 that the timing of the invasion might be affected by Bush's desire to complete the war before the beginning of the 2004 political campaign. But Raphel is apparently the first government official closely involved in the effort to publicly level such an accusation.

http://www.kuna.net.kw/Home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=781212

October 23

 BAGHDAD, Oct 23 (KUNA) -- Up to 15 Iraqis were killed and 18 others were injured Sunday in a car bomb explosion targeting an Iraqi police patrol in the heart of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

Iraqi police sources indicated that a suicide bomber, who was driving a booby-trapped vehicle blew it up near a police patrol killing 15 Iraqis and wounding at least 18 others, including policemen.

The police indicated that a vehicle for the police and several others civilians cars were set on fire, where several nearby shops were also destroyed.

The Iraqi police and army forces sealed off the scene while ambulances rushed the victims to hospital.

Meanwhile, sources in the Ministry of Interior indicated that a car explosion occurred near the finance ministry in Baghdad targeting a US patrol, during which two US soldiers were killed and another was injured, where also a vehicle was damaged.

Another bomb explosion occurred in an area between the ministry of culture and Maysaloon Square targeting a four wheeler convoy used by security workers and contractors for the reconstruction of Iraq.

The attack damaged one of the vehicles.

http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/12979196.htm

Posted on Sun, Oct. 23, 2005

HAMZA HENDAWI

Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq - With the grim milestone of the 2,000th U.S. military death looming in Iraq, many wonder about the direction of the insurgency that killed most of them.

Experts think the country's increasingly regional-oriented politics will fuel the insurgency and even spread it further inside Iraq. Others put forward a simple, disquieting scenario: So long as U.S. and other foreign troops remain in Iraq, the insurgency will continue.

"It will become more chaotic," predicted Magnus Ranstorp of the Swedish National Defense College in Stockholm, Sweden. "It is obvious that the United States is in Iraq to stay. If this is the case, the Shiites will likely join the Sunnis in the fight."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAC350469.htm

23 Oct 2005 16:50:41 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Alastair Macdonald

BAGHDAD, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Britain's envoy in Baghdad urged the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government on Sunday to address accusations that its security forces are operating clandestine "death squads" against minority Sunnis by mounting an inquiry.

The call by ambassador William Patey came after a week in which a journalist for a British newspaper was abducted by men driving a police car and a defence lawyer in the Saddam Hussein trial was shot by men claiming to be from the Interior Ministry.

"We have made clear that the way to deal with this is to have a properly independent investigation," Patey told reporters. "We feel it would be an important confidence-building measure for the communities who feel they are being targeted."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAR337761.htm

23 Oct 2005 13:24:07 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Four sabotage blasts have halted oil exports from northern Iraq and repairs could take up to a month, while bad weather in the south has stopped loading from the country's main terminal, industry sources said on Sunday.

"The exports to Ceyhan (Turkey) have stopped completely because of four blasts that hit a main gathering centre for at least four fields," an oil official told Reuters.

He said that oil from Kirkuk, Janbour, Bay Hassan, Khabaz and other northern fields were gathered at the centre.

Meanwhile, in the south of the country, high seas and thick dust have halted oil loadings from Iraq's main Basra terminal since Friday, a shipping source said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-berm23oct23,1,5426005.story?coll=la-headlines-wo
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U.S. forces say they put up the barrier to keep Samarra safe. Locals, however, feel trapped.

By Noam N. Levey and Zaydan Khalaf, Special to The Times

SAMARRA, Iraq -- When U.S. troops drove insurgents from this historic city northwest of Baghdad last fall, American commanders called the operation a model of efficiency and cultural sensitivity.

But a year later, Samarra has become a monument of a different sort.

Partially surrounded by a series of large earthen berms built by U.S. Army engineers this summer, Samarra's 200,000 mostly Sunni Arab residents have been walled in by U.S. forces who say they had to surround the city to keep it safe.

Security precautions for the Oct. 15 constitutional referendum were "at the heart of all these actions," said Maj. Richard Goldenberg, a spokesman for the 42nd Infantry Division, which has responsibility for Samarra and surrounding areas.

Goldenberg said the Army built the berms, some as high as 13 feet, to prevent insurgents from transporting weapons in and out of the city. "Our soldiers made every effort to minimize the impact the earthen berm would have on the Iraqi citizens of Samarra," he said, responding to written questions.

But some Iraqis in this area of the so-called Sunni Triangle see the berms as yet another imposition or, worse, a prelude to more violence.

U.S. forces built berms around Tall Afar before a September operation to flush insurgents from that northern Iraqi city.