Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly -- yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.

Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force. And I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome but victory.

My fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.

President Bush - Operation Iraqi Freedom
March 20, 2003

The number of troops involved in Operation Swarmer is down from 1500 to 900. There was not one single firefight. Not one major terrorist nabbed. Nada.

The Republicans deserve to lose their edge on national security and foreign policy issues.

... "This is not the only poll that is showing significant problems for Republicans on the generic ballot, significant problems for the president," Bolger says. "We're in a hole, and we're at a point where we've got to start digging our way out, as opposed to digging deeper."

It's not uncommon to see polls where Democrats beat Republicans on domestic issues, such as the economy and jobs, health care and Social Security. But in this poll, when asked which party they trust more on issues such as the Iraq war, foreign ownership of U.S. ports and attention to homeland security, majorities chose the Democrats. ... GOP Losing Edge on Foreign Policy Issues

Unfortunately, Terror Guy's favorite toy is his shovel.

Three years after Bush launched a preemptive attack in Iraq, the Iraqi people have voted, they have a parliament, but chose not to choose a president or cabinet, and Saddam is on trial. What is there left for us to do? Pacification is not our problem. If the Iraqi people want peace they will have to fight for it themselves.

That said, I must admit I'm not a peaceful soul. We're a gun toting family and I was born in red state Missouri and raised on John Wayne. Give peace a chance has never been my refrain. I'm not bragging, believe me, just telling you the root of my rant. Frankly, I don't trust our neighbors around the world. Since we invaded Iraq I trust them even less. That's what has me so concerned. The mantra of the day for me is give strategic redeployment a chance. Three years later, I'm looking at Iran, North Korea and terrorists in other lands. I'm also starting to worry again about Afghanistan. Because while Bush has been playing preemption in Iraq, the Taliban are back, the weather is warming and things are going to get noisy.

But three years after preemption, we're in Iraq to "stay the course" until "victory" is achieved. We all remember the promises, the misinformation, the downright whoppers.

"To suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don't think is accurate. I think that's an overstatement." - Vice President Dick Cheney

“There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years...We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” - Paul Wolfowitz (Source: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03)

Q: Mr. Secretary, on Iraq, how much money do you think the Department of Defense would need to pay for a war with Iraq? Rumsfeld: Well, the Office of Management and Budget, has come up come up with a number that's something under $50 billion for the cost. - Donald Rumsfeld (Sunday, January 19, 2003)

The cost of the Iraq war is now estimated at $1 - 2 TRILLION.

And what of the mismanagement of the post war peace, the down right incompetence of President Bush and the Republicans to effectively prosecute the post war planning? I've got my own, but here's a sampling of Republican incompetence on Iraq.

Failing to build a real international coalition prior to the Iraq invasion, forcing the US to shoulder the full cost and consequences of the war.

Approving the demobilization of the Iraqi Army in May, 2003 – bypassing the Joint Chiefs of Staff and reversing an earlier position, the President left hundreds of thousands of armed Iraqis disgruntled and unemployed, contributing significantly to the massive security problems American troops have faced during occupation.

Not equipping troops in Iraq with adequate body armor or armored HUMVEES.

Ignoring the advice Gen. Eric Shinseki regarding the need for more troops in Iraq – now Bush is belatedly adding troops, having allowed the security situation to deteriorate in exactly the way Shinseki said it would if there were not enough troops.

Ignoring plans drawn up by the Army War College and other war-planning agencies, which predicted most of the worst security and infrastructure problems America faced in the early days of the Iraq occupation.

Making a case for war which ignored intelligence that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

Predicting Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction.

Wildly underestimating the cost of the war.

Disbanding the Sunni Baathist managers responsible for Iraq's water, electricity, sewer system and all the other critical parts of that country's infrastructure.

Including discredited intelligence concerning Nigerian Yellow Cake in his 2003 State of the Union.

Announcing that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended" aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, below a "Mission Accomplished" banner – more U.S. soldiers have died in combat since Bush's announcement than before it.

Having no real plan for the occupation of Iraq.

Shutting down an Iraqi newspaper for "inciting violence" – the move, which led in short order to street fighting in Fallujah, incited more violence than the newspaper ever had.

Three years of incompetence on Iraq from President Bush and the Republicans who control Congress. We, our country and our mighty military, simply cannot afford a fourth.

Firedoglake

leaving Iraq like giving Nazis Germany. Leaving Iraq now would be like handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis

If Nazis would have won Soviet Union, the USA would have anyway attacked the loser and attacked Soviet Union instead of German province of France.

-- Let your prophets run and sell the suckers!

Change of heartland
On the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, many Indianians are no longer strongly behind the war

By Charlie Savage, Boston Globe Staff | March 19, 2006

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The third anniversary of the Iraq invasion unleashed a surge of pessimism at a local farmers' market here, where stalwart Republicans, standing amid aisles of produce and miracle cures, said President Bush has messed up a war that looks more like Vietnam every day.

''It's chaos," said Roger Madaras, who voted twice for Bush. ''How many more people are going to be killed? We were going in to free the people of Iraq, but as far as I'm concerned, a lot of them are worse off today than they were under the dictatorship."

Madaras, the owner of a plumbing company, said he believed Bush when the president declared major combat to be over in May 2003, and is ''disgusted" that Bush's rhetoric was hollow. And he is far from alone.

Support for Bush and his handling of Iraq is sharply eroding across the American heartland, where the overcast skies and the muddy fields of late winter matched a sense of gloom about Bush and the war.

This month, the Indianapolis Star released poll findings that Bush's approval rating among Indiana voters stood at 37 percent -- a drop of 18 points over the past year. The numbers echoed national polls, but were particularly shocking in a state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, and where Democratic presidential contenders often do not bother to campaign.

''A 37 percent approval rating in Indiana for a Republican president is unheard of," said Brian Howey, who runs a newsletter for Indiana state political insiders. ''Those are Bill Clinton or John Kerry numbers in Indiana. So there is something seriously awry going on right now."

[MORE]

New York | March 18

AP & CP - Thousands of antiwar protestors took to the streets around the world Saturday, marking the third anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq with demands that coalition troops leave immediately.

Waleed Bader of the Arab Muslim American Federation addressed a crowd in Times Square from a flatbed truck parked near a recruiting station, which was guarded by police.

“We say enough hypocrisy, enough lies, our soldiers must come home now,” Bader said. Participants chanted, “Stop the U.S. war machine, from Iraq to Korea to the Philippines.”

At Dudley Square in Boston, a few hundred college-age protestors and baby boomers waved placards that read “Impeach Bush” and ``Stop the war.”

[Comment: more at link. Also, I'm struck by the small size of the protests. ~ JPD]

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

A Sliding Scale for Victory
As the conflict in Iraq enters its fourth year and civil war threatens, the Bush administration is again working to lower expectations.

By Doyle McManus, LA Times Staff Writer
March 19, 2006

WASHINGTON — Three years ago, as they ordered more than 150,000 U.S. troops to race toward Baghdad, Bush administration officials confidently predicted that Iraq would quickly evolve into a prosperous, oil-fueled democracy. When those goals proved optimistic, they lowered their sights, focusing on a military campaign to defeat Sunni-led insurgents and elections to jump-start a new political order.

As the conflict enters its fourth year today, the Bush administration faces a new challenge: the prospect of civil war. And, in response, officials again appear to be redefining success downward.

[MORE]

"Plan for a New American Century":

http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

(more below):

Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President

By Neil Mackay

A SECRET blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' even before he took power in January 2001.
The blueprint, uncovered by the Sunday Herald, for the creation of a 'global Pax Americana' was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice- president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says: 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'

The PNAC document supports a 'blueprint for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests'.

This 'American grand strategy' must be advanced for 'as far into the future as possible', the report says. It also calls for the US to 'fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars' as a 'core mission'.

The report describes American armed forces abroad as 'the cavalry on the new American frontier'. The PNAC blueprint supports an earlier document written by Wolfowitz and Libby that said the US must 'discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role'.

The PNAC report also:

l refers to key allies such as the UK as 'the most effective and efficient means of exercising American global leadership';

l describes peace-keeping missions as 'demanding American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations';

l reveals worries in the administration that Europe could rival the USA;

l says 'even should Saddam pass from the scene' bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently -- despite domestic opposition in the Gulf regimes to the stationing of US troops -- as 'Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has';

l spotlights China for 'regime change' saying 'it is time to increase the presence of American forces in southeast Asia'. This, it says, may lead to 'American and allied power providing the spur to the process of democratisation in China';

l calls for the creation of 'US Space Forces', to dominate space, and the total control of cyberspace to prevent 'enemies' using the internet against the US;

l hints that, despite threatening war against Iraq for developing weapons of mass destruction, the US may consider developing biological weapons -- which the nation has banned -- in decades to come. It says: 'New methods of attack -- electronic, 'non-lethal', biological -- will be more widely available ... combat likely will take place in new dimensions, in space, cyberspace, and perhaps the world of microbes ... advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool';

l and pinpoints North Korea, Libya, Syria and Iran as dangerous regimes and says their existence justifies the creation of a 'world-wide command-and-control system'.

Tam Dalyell, the Labour MP, father of the House of Commons and one of the leading rebel voices against war with Iraq, said: 'This is garbage from right-wing think-tanks stuffed with chicken-hawks -- men who have never seen the horror of war but are in love with the idea of war. Men like Cheney, who were draft-dodgers in the Vietnam war.

'This is a blueprint for US world domination -- a new world order of their making. These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to control the world. I am appalled that a British Labour Prime Minister should have got into bed with a crew which has this moral standing.'

Web report: Iraq

15 September 2002

http://www.sundayherald.com/27735

(This article was found on the PNAC Information Center website. For more on Rumsfeld's "Plan for a New American Century," the website is below:

http://pnac.info/

[British] Soldiers going Awol have trebled since the invasion of Iraq
By Severin Carrell, The Independent
Published: 19 March 2006

The number of soldiers absconding from the British Army has trebled since the invasion of Iraq, raising fears that the military is facing a crisis in morale.

The Independent on Sunday can reveal that last year more than 380 soldiers went absent without leave and have since failed to return to duty - marking a dramatic increase since the invasion of Iraq three years ago.

Military lawyers and campaigners said that these figures suggested significant levels of disaffection in the ranks over the legality of the occupation, and growing discontent about the coalition's failure to defeat the Iraqi insurgency.

An RAF doctor was last week taken to a court martial for refusing to serve in Iraq, claiming the occupation is illegal, and a former SAS trooper, Ben Griffin, revealed he had quit the army in protest at the war.

Mr Griffin was among the 20,000 anti-war protesters, including a number of families of serving soldiers, who marched in London yesterday to mark the third anniversary of the war in Iraq.

[More]

March 19, 2006

Reuters

LONDON - Iraq is in a state of civil war and is nearing the point of no return when the country’s sectarian violence will spill over throughout the Middle East, former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said on Sunday.

Three years after the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, Iraq is in turmoil with a raging insurgency and a surge in sectarian bloodletting between Sunni Arabs and majority Shiite Muslims.

“It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is,” he told the British Broadcasting Corp.

'In the middle of a crisis’
There are 133,000 U.S. troops and 8,000 British soldiers in Iraq trying to maintain security and train local security forces to keep a lid on the violence. Both countries reject claims Iraq has already slid into civil war.

“Iraq is in the middle of a crisis. Maybe we have not reached the point of no return yet. But we are moving towards this point. We are in a terrible civil conflict now,” Allawi said.

He said that if Iraq were to crumble, sectarian violence would spread throughout the Middle East with Europe and the United States also feeling the impact.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11906068/

... always trotting out this stupid and utterly ridiculous Nazi Germany analogy. When they started doing this before the war they already blatantly advertised that they had no understanding of Iraq and history in general. Germany had a democratic tradition to fall back on. It was ethnically very homogenous and the Nazis had virtually no support any more after the war - even the most die hard had nothing to hold on to after Hitler's suicide. To assume that Germany would have slid back to fascism without the presence of foreign troops is nonsense. Communism maybe, but the Nazis were finished.

NYT

March 19
Eric Schmitt & Carolyn Marshall

As the Iraqi insurgency intensified in early 2004, an elite Special Operations forces unit converted one of Saddam Hussein's former military bases near Baghdad into a top-secret detention center. There, American soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government's torture chambers into their own interrogation cell. They named it the Black Room.

In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball. Their intention was to extract information to help hunt down Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Defense Department personnel who served with the unit or were briefed on its operations.

Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, "NO BLOOD, NO FOUL." The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: "If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it."

website to get a passport renewal form and came across this howler.

Cheney: Iraq Not in Midst of Civil War

Mar 19 11:09 AM US/Eastern

By NEDRA PICKLER

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday that Iraq is not in the midst of a civil war, but instead described the violence as a desperate tactic by terrorists in the country to stop the move to democracy.

"What we've seen is a serious effort by them to foment a civil war," Cheney said in an interview on "Face the Nation" on CBS on the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. "But I don't think they've been successful."

Cheney said he disagrees with Iraq's former interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, who said in an interview Sunday that the increasing attacks across his country can only be described as a civil war.

"It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more," Allawi told the British Broadcasting Corp. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."

Cheney said he did not think optimistic statements that he has made about the war have contributed to Americans' skepticism about the war. For instance, the vice president predicted that invading U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators and then said 10 months ago that the insurgency is in its last throes, even though violence still rages. Cheney said the optimistic statements "were basically accurate, reflect reality."

He said most Americans have a negative perception of Iraq because they keep seeing daily violence in the news instead of the progress being made toward democracy.

"There is a constant sort of perception, if you will, that's created because what's newsworthy in the car bomb in Baghdad," he said. "It's not all the work that went on that day in 15 other provinces."

The top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said Sunday that U.S. troops likely will remain there for the next few years though the numbers will be scaled back as Iraqi forces gain strength.

"I see a couple of more years of this with a gradually reducing coalition presence here in Iraq ... as the Iraqi security forces step forward," Gen. George W. Casey said.

Casey said he did not think at the time the war began that the insurgency in Iraq would have been as robust as it has been.

Casey, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," said he did not believe Iraq was in danger of falling into civil war, although he said it remained a possibility because of increased sectarian tensions and violence.

"The situation here is fragile," he said. "I suspect it will remain fragile here until we get a new government, a government of national unity, formed."

Citing training of Iraqi security forces and elections over the past year, Casey said good progress was being made politically and militarily in Iraq.

"What the long-term nature of our presence here might be is a subject for a discussion with the new government of Iraq," he said.

A prominent opponent of the war, Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, repeated his call for redeploying U.S. troops over a six-month period to take them out of what he called a civil war.

"We have to say to the Iraqis, 'This is your war. This is no longer our war. You've got an elected government. This is up to you now to settle this thing,'" Murtha said.

Murtha, also appearing on NBC, said he didn't see progress in Iraq in terms of the slow training of security forces and the low levels of employment, fresh water, electricity and oil production.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/03/19/D8GEO4SO0.html

Patrick Cockburn in Arbril
Published: 20 March 2006

Iraq is a country paralysed by fear. It is at its worst in Baghdad. Sectarian killings are commonplace. In the three days after the bombing of the Shia shrine in Samarra on 22 February, some 1,300 people, mostly Sunni, were picked up on the street or dragged from their cars and murdered. The dead bodies of four suspected suicide bombers were left dangling from a pylon in the Sadr City slum.

The scale of the violence is such that most of it is unreported. Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, said yesterday that scores were dying every day. "It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more," he said. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."

Unseen by the outside world, silent populations are on the move, frightened people fleeing neighbourhoods where their community is in a minority for safer districts.

There is also a growing reliance on militias because of fears that police patrols or checkpoints are in reality death squads hunting for victims.

Districts where Sunni and Shia lived together for decades if not centuries are being torn apart in a few days. In the al-Amel neighbourhood in west Baghdad, for instance, the two communities lived side by side until a few days ago, though Shias were in the majority. Then the Sunni started receiving envelopes pushed under their doors with a Kalashnikov bullet inside and a letter telling them to leave immediately or be killed. It added that they must take all of their goods which they could carry immediately and only return later to sell their houses.

The reaction was immediate. The Sunni in al-Amel started barricading their streets. Several Shia families, believed to belong to the Shia party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), were murdered later the same day the threatening letters were delivered.

"The local Sunni suspected those Shias of being behind the letters," said an informant. "Probably they called in the local resistance and asked them to kill the Sciri people."

One effect of the escalating sectarian warfare is to strengthen the Sunni insurgency as their own community desperately looks to its defences.

It is not as if life was not already hard enough before the latest escalation in communal violence. Three years ago, most Iraqis were glad to see the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, even if they did not like the US occupation, because they wanted normal lives. They had been living in a state of war since 1980 when the Iraqi leader invaded Iran. They then had eight years of bloody conflict followed by the invasion of Kuwait, defeat by the US-led coalition, the Shia and Kurdish uprisings of 1991 and then 12 years of UN sanctions.

Instead of improving, life in Baghdad has become far more dangerous than it was under Saddam Hussein. Every facet of daily living is affected.

In the last few days, temperatures have started to soar in Iraq and people would normally be buying summer clothes. But in the shopping district of al-Mansur last week few people were on the streets. Many shops were closed because their owners are too frightened to leave their homes.

But even staying in your own house carries problems. In the torrid heat of the Iraqi summer people are dependent on air conditioning to make life tolerable. But Baghdad gets only three or four hours of electricity a day. Almost everybody has a generator, large or small, depending on what they can afford. But the price of petrol, still heavily subsidised by the government, tripled before Christmas. One friend called Mohammed complained: "Either I wait seven or eight hours in a queue to buy the fuel or I get it on the black market. But black market fuel means that I would have to spend $7-8 a day to run my generator and I simply can't afford that." Mohammed added that he had just spent 10 hours, 5 am until 3pm, queuing to buy a bottle of gas which he, like most Iraqis, use for cooking.

Iraqis have been compelled to find ways of going on living even in the most testing conditions but even their resolution is beginning to weaken.

Mohammed's brother had a job in a company selling air-conditioning units. Since this is the beginning of the summer on the Mesopotamian plain - one of the hottest places on earth - it should be a good business, but the brother has just lost his job. The company he worked for was owned by a Kurd. His life was threatened and he shut down the company before moving to Jordan with his family.

Iraqi political parties have now spent three months since the election on 15 December trying to form a government. But ask an Iraqi on the street what he wants from a new government and many reply: "What government? It never does anything for us." Supply of electricity, clean water and sewage disposal are all down from 2003. The only improvement is in electricity supply outside Baghdad but even this is sporadic. In Kurdistan, the only peaceful part of Iraq, electrical supply is currently only a few hours a day. Everywhere there are men beside the road selling black-market petrol smuggled in from Iran. Turkey has cut off supplies of refined fuel because it has not been paid.

All Iraq is suffering, but Baghdad and the central provinces are turning into a slaughter house. Normal life has long been impossible. The symbol of post-Saddam Iraq is the blast wall, giant grey concrete blocks placed end to end to create fortifications of medieval appearance. They have come to dominate Baghdad and most other Iraqi cities. They protect US positions, police and Iraqi army posts and all government buildings. They also strangle streets leading to traffic gridlock at notorious choke points.

Some Iraqis are living better than before 2003. Teachers and government officials are earning $200 a month where they used to earn $10.

There are also Kurds and Shia inhabiting provinces north and south that they wholly dominate. But elsewhere, Iraqis live lives of chromic insecurity.

In al-Khadra, a Sunni neighbourhood in west Baghdad, for instance, the insurgents are waging two wars at the same time, one against the Americans and the other against Shia militiamen, some of whom work for the Ministry of the Interior.

Last week, Sunni guerrillas attacked a car which they claimed was carrying CIA agents in a road tunnel and killed those inside. Two days later, they ambushed a convoy of vehicles of the Badr Group, the Shia militia. Four of the militiamen were killed and petrol was poured over their bodies and set alight. Soon afterwards, a bus was spotted abandoned by a highway. At first it was thought it might contain a bomb. Instead it had a more grisly cargo, the bodies of 18 Sunni tortured and killed. In districts such as al-Khadra, the civil war has already begun

Independent

Tim Harper | Washington D.C. | March 20

The Toronto Star - Every day, Staff Sgt. Eugene Simpson is back in the pocket, looking for the open receiver downfield.

In his mind, he's there again, reliving his days as a high school football quarterback, a junior college cornerback and a point guard on the basketball team.

He can't suppress a grin, and that's the incongruous moment in his story, because this 29-year-old father of four with the upper body physique of the athlete he once was is sitting in his wheelchair in Washington's Veterans Administration hospital, paralyzed from the waist down, a graduate of the Iraq war, Class of 2004.

"I can't let this beat me," he says. "It's a competition, it's that competition left over from my days in sports."

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

Former top officials disagree with comparison

Sunday, March 19, 2006; Posted: 10:11 p.m. EST (03:11 GMT)

Donald Rumsfeld has served as defense secretary since President Bush took office.

(CNN) -- Former top officials in two presidential administrations -- one Democratic, one Republican -- disagreed Sunday with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's characterization of what would happen if the United States were to pull out of the war in Iraq.

"Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis," Rumsfeld wrote in an opinion piece published Sunday -- the third anniversary of the beginning of the U.S.-led war in Iraq -- in the Washington Post.

The anniversary came as officials from Iraq and the United States differed on whether there is all-out civil war there. (Full story)

Henry Kissinger, who served with U.S. forces in Germany at the end of World War II and who served as secretary of state under Republican Presidents Nixon and Ford, said the situations are not analogous.

"In Germany, the opposition was completely crushed; there was no significant resistance movement," the German-born diplomat told CNN's "Late Edition."

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as national security adviser under President Carter, a Democrat, was less charitable.

"That is really absolutely crazy to anyone who knows history," he said. "There was no alternative to our presence. The Germans were totally crushed. For Secretary Rumsfeld to be talking this way suggests either he doesn't know history or he's simply demagoguing."

Rumsfeld has been a lightning rod for complaints against the wars on terrorism and Iraq since shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. (Watch the debate over Rumsfeld -- 2:38)

He told CNN in February 2005 that he had twice offered President Bush his resignation during the height of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, but the president refused to accept it. (Full story)

His record in Iraq came in for fresh criticism Sunday from a man who worked under him.

"He has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq," said Paul D. Eaton, a retired Army major general who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004.

"Mr. Rumsfeld must step down," he wrote in an opinion piece published Sunday in the New York Times.

"Secretary Rumsfeld serves at the pleasure of the president," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a written statement Sunday. "Retired Gen. Eaton is certainly entitled to his opinion."

Eaton's opinion was shared by Sen. Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent critic of the defense secretary.

"Imagine what would happen if it were announced tomorrow in the headlines of the papers of America and throughout the world that Rumsfeld was fired," the Delaware senator told CNN.

"It would energize, energize the rest of the world, to be willing to help us. It would energize American forces, it would energize the political environment. Yes, he should step down."

Asked his opinion, Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, chose neither to defend nor to criticize Rumsfeld.

"If President Bush ever wants to visit with me privately about my counsel on his Cabinet, I am sure he will ask me, but it appears to me it would not be helpful for me to make a comment," the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said.

U.S. officials have expressed hopes that the number of troops in Iraq could be reduced later this year depending on the country's progress with security and politics.

Bush delivered a speech last week at George Washington University where he said "as more capable Iraqi police and soldiers come on line, they will assume responsibility for more territory with the goal of having the Iraqis control more territory than the coalition, by the end of 2006."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/19/rumsfeld.nazis/index.html

An Interactive Map of Coalition Military Fatalities and Estimated Iraqi Civilian Deaths in Iraq, 2003--2006:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11861155/site/newsweek/

Saddam’s foreign minister told CIA the truth, so why didn’t agency listen?

By Aram Roston, Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit
Updated: 7:36 p.m. ET March 20

In the period before the Iraq war, the CIA and the Bush administration erroneously believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding major programs for weapons of mass destruction. Now NBC News has learned that for a short time the CIA had contact with a secret source at the highest levels within Saddam Hussein’s government, who gave them information far more accurate than what they believed. It is a spy story that has never been told before, and raises new questions about prewar intelligence.

What makes the story significant is the high rank of the source. His name, officials tell NBC News, was Naji Sabri, Iraq’s foreign minister under Saddam. Although Sabri was in Saddam's inner circle, his cosmopolitan ways also helped him fit into diplomatic circles.

In September 2002, at a meeting of the U.N.’s General Assembly, Sabri came to New York to represent Saddam. In front of the assembled diplomats, he read a letter from the Iraqi leader. "The United States administration is acting on behalf of Zionism," he said. He announced that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that the U.S. planned war in Iraq because it wanted the country’s oil.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11927856/

Reuters

March 21

Guerrillas attacked the police headquarters and courthouse in the Iraqi town of Miqdadiya on Tuesday, killing at least 18 people and releasing prisoners, police said.

They said initial reports indicated 14 policemen were killed at the police headquarters in the town north of Baghdad and then two bodies were found at the courthouse after guards at the building came under attack.

Two other policemen were killed by a roadside bomb as their unit rushed to Miqdadiya from the nearby town of Baquba to help defend the headquarters, said police.

They said the attackers, equipped with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and AK-47 assault rifles, set fire to the headquarters and badly damaged it.

It was not immediately clear how many prisoners were released by the guerrillas, who draw support from Iraq's minority Sunni Arab community, dominant under Saddam Hussein.

The attack occurred as Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim, Kurdish and Sunni leaders struggled to form a national unity government more than three months after elections.

Such a coalition is widely seen as vital to avert any slide into an all-out sectarian war in the country.

Police say al Qaeda militants are active in Miqdadiya near Baquba, which is 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad.

A U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq hinges on the ability of Iraqi security forces to combat insurgents on their own.

Xinhua

March 21

FALLUJAH - U.S. troops were hit in separate roadside bombs and mortar attacks in western Iraq on Tuesday, causing casualties, local residents said.

"A roadside bomb went off at about 6:45 a.m. (0335 GMT) on the main road of Barwana town near Haditha city, some 250 km northwest of Baghdad," local residents told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The blast occurred as a U.S. military patrol was passing by, destroying a U.S. Humvee and prompting the U.S. troops to cordon off the scene and blocked the main road, they said.

Another roadside bomb detonated Monday night near a U.S. patrol in the al-Zawiyah village near Haditha city, destroying a U.S. Humvee, they said, adding the U.S. soldiers surrounded the village and searched houses and detaining two suspects.

It was not clear whether there was any casualties among the U.S. soldiers in the two attacks as the troops sealed off the scenes, witnesses said.

In separate attack, insurgents lobbed three mortar rounds on a U.S. military base in east of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, witnesses told Xinhua.

"Three mortar rounds rocked the eastern part of Fallujah when they landed the U.S. base outside the city at about 7:00 a.m. (0400 GMT)," they said.

Ten minutes later, the U.S. troops fired back with artillery shelling at the source of the mortars, they said.

New Business Blooms in Iraq: Terror Insurance

By Robert F. Worth

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Twice in the past year, Muhammad Said has survived assassination attempts that left his car riddled with bullets. He works part time as a bodyguard for his father, a Baghdad city councilman, and helps a friend who has contracts with the American military. Both are very dangerous jobs.

So last month, Mr. Said, a slim, baby-faced 23-year-old, did what a small but growing number of Iraqis are doing: He walked into the offices of the Iraq Insurance Company and bought a terrorism insurance policy. It looked like an ordinary life insurance policy, but with a one-page rider adding coverage for "the following dangers: 1) explosions caused by weapons of war and car bombs; 2) assassinations; 3) terrorist attacks."

It cost him 125,000 dinars, about $90. Mr. Said paid more than most people because of his risky occupation. The payout, if he dies, is five million dinars, around $3,500, or about what an Iraqi policeman earns in a year.

That guarantee appears to be the first off-the-shelf terrorism policy in the world, insurance experts say. In most countries, of course, there is no need for it: death by terrorism is rare enough that it is usually covered by ordinary accident insurance. In Iraq it is not, partly because the state used to compensate the families of war victims directly. So the Iraq Insurance Company began stepping into the gap about a year ago.

[More]

Bush: Troops to Stay in Iraq for Years
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
3:41 AM PST, March 22, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said Tuesday that American forces will remain in Iraq for years and it will be up to a future president to decide when to bring them all home. But defying critics and plunging polls, he declared, "I'm optimistic we'll succeed. If not, I'd pull our troops out."

The president rejected calls for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, chief architect of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Listen, every war plan looks good on paper until you meet the enemy," Bush said, acknowledging mistakes as the United States was forced to switch tactics and change a reconstruction strategy that offered targets for insurgents.

He also rejected assertions by Iraq's former interim prime minister that the country had fallen into civil war amid sectarian violence that has left more than 1,000 Iraqis dead since the bombing last month of a Shiite Muslim shrine.

"This is a moment the Iraqis had a chance to fall apart and they didn't," Bush said, crediting religious and political leaders with restraint.

The president spoke for nearly an hour at a White House news conference, part of a new offensive to ease Americans' unhappiness with the war and fellow Republicans' anxiety about fall elections. He faced skeptical questions about Iraq during an appearance Monday in Cleveland, and plans another address soon on Iraq.

[More]

Charles Hanley | Balad | March 22

AP - The concrete goes on forever, vanishing into the noonday glare, 56,000 cubic metres of it, a slab a kilometre and a half long that's now the home of up to 120 U.S. helicopters — a "heli-park" as good as any back in the United States.

At another giant base, Al-Asad in Iraq's western desert, the 17,000 troops and workers come and go in a kind of bustling American town, with a Burger King, Pizza Hut and a car dealership, stop signs, traffic regulations and young bikers clogging the roads.

At a third hub down south, Tallil, they're planning a new mess hall, one that will seat 6,000 hungry airmen and soldiers for chow.

Are the Americans in Iraq to stay? Air force mechanic Josh Remy is sure of it as he looks around Balad.

"I think we'll be here forever," the 19-year-old airman from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., told a visitor to his base.

[Comment: When the lede is a 19 year old airman, that's maybe not a great sign credibility-wise. Colour me skeptical (it's sort of a puce colour) - I tend to think that Pat Lang's got the correct view on this issue. ~ JPD]

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

I do know the 'final' unit my step father belonged to was the Service Corps. They provided support...food, clerical, mechanical, cooks, mail carriers, etc ... those soldiers aren't fit to go beyond the wires of a compound. Surely you wouldn't ask them to be combat-ready like paratroopers and those who are in the artillery?

Logistics is a very big part in any movement of troops. They surely must outnumber troops who go out on patrols?

Before he became a member of the Service Corps, he was a royal marine in WWII and a trained paratrooper, then he was in the Canadian Provost Corps in Korea and had a couple of years of respite, and finished his career in the Service Corps.

Logistical support is every bit as important as being in the front lines. Without services, any army will be quickly defeated--Napoleon and every good general knows that and makes sure their troops have adequate support.

If that now includes places like Tim Horton's, so be it. It's psychologically important that troops not feel isolated from home. So, no it doesn't bother me that the bulk of troops don't go outside the wires of the compound. The base, Camp Borden, where my step father was stationed included air force personnel, planes and equipment. Not all pilots fly sorties, many, many just transport equipment, men and supplies. Without them combat troops and combat pilots would be useless. Then there's the medical corps that are absolutely indispensable.

By the way, here's a picture of the swimming pool at Balad:

Hope Harper pledged money for a similar one for our troops in Afghanistan.

IRAQ: Aid agencies unable to enter Samarra
22 Mar 2006 13:00:00 GMT
Source: IRIN

BAGHDAD, 22 March (IRIN) - Aid agencies say thay have been prevented from entering the city of Samarra, in central Iraq, where a major US and Iraqi military operation is underway.

"Our convoys sent on Sunday and Monday have been prevented from entering the city by US troops and our information from inside is that families are without food, power and potable water, particularly because they cannot leave their homes," noted Abdel Hameed, a spokesperson for the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS).

This, they say, has left hundreds of families without medical assistance and food supplies.

"Innocent people and especially children are suffering from a lack of supplies in and on the outskirts of Samarra," said Muhammad al-Daraji, Director of the Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq (MHRI).

"US and Iraqi military groups have prevented the entrance of local NGOs as well as the media to show the reality of human rights violation inside it," he added.

According to al-Daraji, no citizens have been allowed to leave the city, some 120 km north of the capital, Baghdad, since the operation began on 16 March. US forces along with Iraqi commandos say the operation is necessary to flush out insurgents in the area.

"We have been informed that they are taking the men for interrogation and leaving women and children alone in their homes afraid and desperate for supplies," al-Daraji added.

Nearly 1,200 families have fled the city to Baghdad and are living in abandoned buildings and makeshift camps, according to local NGOs who are monitoring. Few of them have received assistance so far.

Dr Ibraheem Mahmoud, a clinician at the emergency department of the local hospital in Salahuddine governorate, said that they have received telephone calls from inside the city from residents who spoke of dead bodies in streets and injured people without assistance.

"They were desperate and cannot be taken out from there. According to the information we have women and children are also victims," Mahmoud added. "Children are reported to be falling ill with chronic diarrhea and serious stomach problems".

More than 40 people have been treated in the local hospital with injuries caused by the air-strikes and 22 bodies have been taken to the hospital since 17 March.

The Ministry of Interior said that no civilians causalities have been reported so far and more than 80 insurgents have been arrested since the operation began on Friday. "No casualties were reported among Iraqi security forces, civilians or coalition units" the US forces press service said.

Risky convoy duty seen as likely to stay U.S. responsibility

David Wood | Washington | March 22

Newhouse - No matter how many U.S. combat troops in Iraq eventually are replaced by Iraqis, an especially difficult and risky mission will remain an American responsibility: convoy duty.

The reality behind President Bush's assertion last week that Iraqi units are increasingly capable of standing on their own is that none can operate without heavy and sustained logistics support from the United States, according to military assessments.

This means the American soldiers who drive and guard convoys - troops drawn mostly from Army Reserve and National Guard units that already have seen hard duty in Iraq - will be exposed to highly dangerous conditions there for the foreseeable future.

[the Defense Department] warned that Iraq's forces remain "largely dependent" on the United States for logistics supply and support.

Mar 22, 5:09 PM (ET)

By VANESSA ARRINGTON

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Insurgents emboldened by a successful raid and jailbreak laid siege to another prison facility Wednesday, but police said U.S. troops and a special Iraqi unit overwhelmed the gunmen and captured 50 of them at the detention center south of Baghdad.

The pre-dawn attack came a day after 100 Sunni gunmen freed 33 prisoners and wrecked the jail, police station and courthouse in the town of Muqdadiyah northeast of the capital and about an hour's drive from the Iranian border.

Although Wednesday's raid failed, the insurgents' ability to put together such large and well-armed bands of fighters underlined concerns about the ability of Iraqi police and military to take over the fight from U.S. troops. Sixty militants participated in the second assault, which aimed to free more jailed insurgent fighters, police said.

The attack on the prison in Madain, 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, began with insurgents firing 10 mortar rounds. They then stormed the facility, which is run by the Interior Ministry, a predominantly Shiite organization and heavily infiltrated by members of various Shiite militias.

Four police officers - including the commander of the special unit - died in a two-hour gunbattle, which was subdued only after American forces arrived. Among the 50 captured, police said, was one Syrian.

The U.S. military did not respond to a request for comment about its role in the counterattack.

Madain is at the northern tip of Iraq's Sunni-dominated "Triangle of Death," a farming region rife with sectarian violence - retaliatory kidnappings and killings in the underground conflict between Sunnis and Shiites.

Police have discovered hundreds of corpses in the past four weeks, victims of religious militants on a rampage of revenge killing. At least 21 more bodies were found Wednesday, including those of 16 Shiite pilgrims discovered on a Baghdad highway, police said. Millions were returning home Wednesday at the conclusion of an important Shiite commemoration in the holy city of Karbala this week.

In the northern town of Beiji, meanwhile, a mortar fell on a government facility that Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi was visiting Wednesday, an aide said. Chalabi was not harmed and later returned to Baghdad, the aide said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. Chalabi, who is also the interim oil minister, was believed to have been visiting the refinery in Beiji, the nation's largest.

As U.S. officials step up pressure on Iraqi leaders to form a national unity government quickly, the United States' top military commander said he had underestimated the extent of Iraqi reluctance to come together.

"I think that I certainly did not understand the depth of fear that was generated by the decades of Saddam's rule," said Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "I think a lot of Iraqis have been in the wait-and-see mode longer than I thought they would."

Pace said one solution was for the Iraqis to do a better job of recruiting more Sunnis into the army and for police forces to balance Shiite domination.

"A unit that has all (sects of) Iraqis embedded in it is better able to handle whatever kind of strife comes along," the general said.

The Bush administration views formation of a broad-based government as a first step in quelling violence and allowing the start of an American troop withdrawal this summer.

While the U.S. military has touted its progress in training the Iraqi army and police, a top expert on Iraq said the forces remained poorly matched against the insurgency and al-Qaida.

"The police have almost no protected vehicles, few heavy weapons similar to those of insurgents, are often located in extremely vulnerable buildings, and have weak communications. Corruption is a major issue," Anthony H. Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in a position paper released this week.

Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Iraq, and Lolita Baldor in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, contributed to this report.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060322/D8GGSM808.html

US Features
Strategic Conundrum
By Arnaud De Borchgrave
Mar 22, 2006, 19:00 GMT

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- Chased out of one Iraqi town after another, the insurgents would wait for U.S. and Iraqi troops to depart and then slowly infiltrate back. They knew the coalition and the new Iraqi army did not have sufficient numbers to stick around in every major population center. This week President Bush said the growing strength of the Iraqi army had facilitated a new strategy -- clear, hold and build.

No sooner enunciated by Bush than the more flexible insurgency came up with a riposte -- recoil, redeploy and spoil. This was a leaf out the classic guerrilla textbook: attack only when you can overwhelm with superior force. If the shoe is on the other foot and the enemy has the numbers in his favor, melt away without contact.

Hit-and-run attacks against Iraqi police stations, local prisons, recruiting centers are standard tactics in every insurgency. Tracts, pamphlets, and al-Qaida web sites that attack the established U.S. order with grievances to sway public opinion in favor of the insurgents, are all part of the mix.

Almost all Iraqis tell inquiring journalists that while they feared and despised Saddam Hussein, fear of the unknown and uncertainty about the future amid a growing sense of insecurity, generated by indiscriminate nightly killings, is a great deal worse. Youth unemployment is driving many teenagers into the ranks of the insurgency.

While the coalition has double-timed the training and fielding of Iraqi forces, the insurgency`s ranks have grown correspondingly. The U.S. command`s estimate of enemy guerrilla fighters has grown from 5,000 to 15,000 to 30,000, with an estimated support group of some 200,000 civilians. Why that many? Electricity alone tells the story. Under Saddam Hussein, Baghdadis had 18 hours of electric power each day. Today, it`s 8. Drivers stay in line for several hours -- some days twelve hours -- to fill their gas tanks. Cheap gas was never a problem before liberation.

Since World War II, insurgencies in different parts of the world have had the nasty habit of hanging around for an average of six years. Algeria`s guerrilla war of independence lasted 8 years. The IRA war against British loyalists in Northern Ireland never fielded more than 300 terrorists or freedom fighters (depending on one`s viewpoint), and they kept half the British army pinned down for a quarter of a century.

Bush has recognized these unpleasant verities when he said U.S. troops would be in Iraq past the 2008 presidential election year. Their departure would have to be decided by the next U.S. president. Bush urges his visitors to take the long view of history. He firmly believes what he is doing in the Middle East is comparable to the Truman-Acheson period in Europe after World War II and the Reagan-Bush 41 era with the implosion of the Soviet empire.

While failure in Iraq is not an option for president Bush, failure remains a real possibility, especially if Democrats recapture one or both houses of Congress next November.

Last week, U.S. and Iraqi forces launched Operation Swarmer, billed as the largest operation of the war. Some 50 helicopters and 200 tactical vehicles took some 1,500 troops to the Samarra area 80 miles north of Baghdad on the Tigris river. Intelligence had indicated a target-rich area of ten square miles. Apparently overlooked was that such an operation, at least two weeks in the planning, was bound to leak out in advance. Insurgency intelligence operatives are known to have given a high priority to infiltrating the ranks of the new Iraqi army, police and intelligence agency. A few insurgency suspects were taken prisoner and several arms caches uncovered. But the enemy had melted away.

In Jan. 1966, the U.S. army launched the largest operation of the Vietnam war. Operation Masher took three brigades of the First Air Cav division (16,000 men) by C-123 troop transports and helicopters from their camp at An Khe to an area near Bong Son on the South China Sea coast where they hoped to surprise a large Vietcong unit. We reporters had been notified off-the-record a week before to be in An Khe, the Air Cav`s base, \'next Thursday for a big one\' that would keep us in the field for several days. If the press knew in advance, chances were the enemy did too.

The only casualties in the opening phase of Masher were the 50 U.S. soldiers killed when their C-123 troop transport, the first one off the ground, crashed into a mountain. The Washington Post`s Ward Just and this reporter were bumped off the same aircraft to make room for two more troopers, and scrambled onto the next one.

Village after village was surrounded, but the only action was the occasional sniper round to slow down the U.S. advance as guerrillas vanished down spider holes and tunnels. Masher was a costly failure. And the last such operation spectacular of the Vietnam War.

The high-flown Operation Swarmer in Iraq was a mini replica of Masher 45 years ago. What the counter-insurgency campaign needs is a different historical parallel -- the 1952 arrival of Gen. Gerald Templer in Malaya (before it became Malaysia) with orders to crush a Communist insurgency.

As part of a wider, Soviet-inspired drive to gain strategic and economic control of key areas of Southeast Asia, Moscow had decided to launch the 1948 campaign of murder, sabotage and terrorist mayhem, which was designed to morph into an armed revolution. Templer`s recipe was part political, part psychological, part socio-economic initiatives, all with limited use of firepower.

Templer`s counter-insurgency comprised aerial drops of millions of \'strategic\' leaflets, including handwritten letters together with pictures of surrendered guerrillas; \'voice-aircraft\' with personalized messages from ex-terrorists; an intelligence service with lots of spare cash for informers. MI6 operatives fluent in local languages coordinated sophisticated psyops. Templer`s strategy paid off with total victory in 4 years.

In Iraq today, such an \'oil stain\' strategy of stability would require strong local police presence all over the country, beginning with the 14 Iraqi provinces that are relatively quiescent, before coopting the Sunni areas and splitting them from al-Qaida`s foreign imports. Four more years takes on a different meaning in Iraq.

22 March 2006 20:50 Home > News > World > Middle East
Insurgent doctor killed dozens of wounded soldiers

By Patrick Cockburn in Kirkuk
Published: 23 March 2006
When policemen, soldiers and officials in Kirkuk who were injured in insurgent attacks arrived in the emergency room of the hospital, they hoped their chances of surviving had gone up as doctors tended their wounds.

In fact, many of the wounded were almost certain to die because one of the doctors at the Republic Hospital was a member of an insurgent cell. Pretending to treat the injured men, he killed 43 of them by secretly administering lethal injections, a police inquiry has revealed.

"He was called Dr Louay and when the terrorists had failed to kill a policeman or a soldier he would finish them off," Colonel Yadgar Shukir Abdullah Jaff, a senior Kirkuk police chief, told The Independent. "He gave them a high dosage of a medicine which increased their bleeding so they died from loss of blood."

Dr Louay carried out his murder campaign over an eight to nine-month period, say police. He appeared to be a hard working assistant doctor who selflessly made himself available for work in any part of the hospital, which is the largest in Kirkuk.

He was particularly willing to assist in the emergency room. With 272 soldiers, policemen and civilians killed and 1,220 injured in insurgent attacks in Kirkuk in 2005, the doctors were rushed off their feet and glad of any help they could get. Nobody noticed how many patients were dying soon after being tended by their enthusiastic young colleague.

Dr Louay was finally arrested only after the leader of the cell to which he belonged, named Malla Yassin, was captured and confessed. "I was really shocked that a doctor and an educated men should do such a thing," said Col Jaff.

The murderous work of Dr Louay is symbolic of the ferocity of the struggle for the oil province of Kirkuk. The dispute over its fate is the most important reason why the political parties in Baghdad have failed to create a new government three months after the election on 15 December. The Kurds, expelled from Kirkuk and replaced with Arab settlers by Saddam Hussein, captured the city on 10 April 2003. They have no intention of giving it up. "We will never leave Kirkuk," said Rizgar Ali Hamajan, the former Kurdish peshmerga (soldier) who heads the provincial council. "It is part of Kurdistan."

more
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article353015.ece

The Guardian | Staff and agencies | March 22

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has given his backing to proposed talks between Tehran and Washington over Iraq.

It was the first time that Ayatollah Khamenei, who holds the final say on all state matters in Iran, has come out publicly in favour of the talks.

And they said that the biggest differences between Shia and Sunni was whether or not they washed their feet before they prayed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11965317/site/newsweek/

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
Updated: 7:40 p.m. ET March 22, 2006

March 22, 2006 - Andrew Natsios has taken a lot of flak over his role in Iraq. The longtime director of America's foreign-aid program has been pilloried for his April 2003 remark, in an ABC News interview, that the U.S. government would spend no more than $1.7 billion to rebuild Iraq. In the ensuing three years, Natsios, a lifelong Republican, has played the loyal soldier for the administration. He regularly defended the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq even as he was lumped with other errant prognosticators like Paul Wolfowitz (That's “wildly off the mark") and Dick Cheney ("We will be greeted as liberators"). After Natsios resigned in January to take a teaching post at Georgetown University, he maintained his silence about Iraq.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11965317/site/newsweek/

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
Updated: 7:40 p.m. ET March 22, 2006

March 22, 2006 - Andrew Natsios has taken a lot of flak over his role in Iraq. The longtime director of America's foreign-aid program has been pilloried for his April 2003 remark, in an ABC News interview, that the U.S. government would spend no more than $1.7 billion to rebuild Iraq. In the ensuing three years, Natsios, a lifelong Republican, has played the loyal soldier for the administration. He regularly defended the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq even as he was lumped with other errant prognosticators like Paul Wolfowitz (That's “wildly off the mark") and Dick Cheney ("We will be greeted as liberators"). After Natsios resigned in January to take a teaching post at Georgetown University, he maintained his silence about Iraq.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11962060/site/newsweek/

White House imagemakers are rewriting the 'war president' role. Meet George W. Bush, action hero.

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Howard Fineman
Newsweek
Updated: 4:28 p.m. ET March 22, 2006

March 22, 2006 - If you want to get ratings with the action drama that is the American presidency, you need a compelling plot and a hero with a stirring image.

Battered by bad news from Iraq and sagging poll numbers, President Bush is being more candid about the war. But is candor enough?

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey
Newsweek
Updated: 6:39 p.m. ET March 22, 2006

March 22, 2006 - For months, the White House has tried to argue that President George W. Bush "gets it" about the war in Iraq, that he understands why a growing number of Americans don't share his optimistic assessments about the war.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11965063/site/newsweek/

^{The price of apathy towards government is to be ruled by evil men.}

~Plato

Mar 23, 7:14 AM EST

By BASSEM MROUE

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A coalition force on Thursday freed three Christian peace activists taken hostage in Iraq, ending a four-month hostage drama in which an American among the group was shot to death and dumped on a Baghdad street.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry said the captives were rescued in a joint U.S.-British operation in rural area northwest of Baghdad, between the towns of Mishahda, 20 miles north of Baghdad, and the western suburb of Abu Ghraib, 12 miles from downtown.

British officials in Baghdad said those freed were Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32; and Briton Norman Kember, 74. The men - members of the Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker Teams - were kidnapped on Nov. 26 along with their American colleague, Tom Fox, 54, whose body was found earlier this month.

Speaking in Toronto, Doug Pritchard, co-director of the group, said no shots were fired during the operation and that the kidnappers were not present when the U.S.-British force freed the hostages. U.S. and British military officials did not provide details of the operation.

In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Kember was in "reasonable condition" in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. The two Canadians required hospital treatment, he said, but gave no further details.

Straw also gave few details of the operation, saying only that it followed "weeks and weeks" of planning.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said he was "delighted by the news" of the trio's release. "He is particularly pleased for those released and their families. He congratulates everyone involved in the operation to rescue the hostages," Downing Street said in a statement.

Loney's brother, Ed Loney, told CBC television that his mother had spoken with Loney on the phone and he sounded "fantastic."

"He's alert and he was asking how we were doing and said he was sorry for the whole situation," Ed Loney said. "My mom said, 'Don't worry about it - just get home and we'll talk about all that stuff when you get here.'"

The kidnapped men were shown as prisoners in several videos, the most recent a silent clip dated Feb. 28 in which Loney, Kember and Sooden appeared without Fox. Fox's body was found March 10 near a west Baghdad railway line with gunshot wounds to his head and chest.

The previously unknown Swords of Righteousness Brigades claimed responsibility for the kidnappings.

In a statement, the Christian Peacemaker Teams said the activists went to Iraq "motivated by a passion for justice and peace." The group called for coalition forces to remove their troops from the country.

"We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq," the statement said.

Other Americans taken hostage in Iraq and killed in addition to Fox were Ronald Schulz, 40, an industrial electrician from Anchorage, Alaska; Jack Hensley, 48, a civil engineer from Marietta, Ga.; Eugene "Jack" Armstrong, 52, formerly of Hillsdale, Mich.; and Nicholas Berg, 26, a businessman from West Chester, Pa.

Still missing is Jill Carroll, a freelance writer for The Christian Science Monitor who was kidnapped Jan. 7 in Baghdad. She has appeared in three videotapes delivered by her kidnappers to Arab satellite television stations.

The last hostage to be freed in a military operation was Douglas Wood, an Australian rescued in west Baghdad by U.S. and Iraqi forces on June 15 after 47 days in captivity.

IRAQ: Meat prices double as government bans chicken imports
23 Mar 2006 13:20:43 GMT

Source: IRIN

BAGHDAD, 23 March (IRIN) - Red meat prices have doubled in Iraq as demand has increased, following a ban on imported chickens announced after the death of two Iraqis from the H5N1 avian virus.

This has left many Iraqis unable to afford meat in their daily diet.

But the government says the ban was essential to stop the spread of the virus.

"We were accepting imports from very few countries," said Ra'ad Hamza, a senior trade ministry official. "But with the virus spreading to other continents, we can't be too sure about our safety."

According to Hamza, chickens were still being imported from Brazil and France up until Wednesday. But with recent reports of the flu in France and the rapid spread of the virus globally, imports from both countries have been halted, even though Brazil has not reported any cases. Iraq has been importing around 90 percent of its poultry needs since the bird flu outbreak.

Butchers countrywide have raised their prices for red meat. "We're selling lamb for double the price since the problem began," said Abdul Jabbar, a butcher in the capital, Baghdad. "For us, it's very good business because there are no chickens." The average price for a kilogram of lamb has jumped in recent weeks from the equivalent of US $4 to US $8.

But with most Iraqis reliant on monthly food rations, many people say they have little choice but to give up eating meat. "My family never went a day without eating meat," said Abdul Sattar, a Baghdad resident and father of four. "But now we can't afford it due to the huge price increases."

Some 2.5 million chickens have been culled since the first human case of bird flu was reported on 19 January in the northern governorate of Sulaimaniyah. Since then, a 15-year old girl and her uncle have both died due to contact with infected fowl.

Although bird flu cannot be contracted from cooked chicken, poultry farmers in the north have been largely unable to sell their birds. "I was selling chicken," said Ahmed Jabbar, a shopkeeper in the Mansour district of Baghdad. "Now I will have to close the doors and try to find another way to support my family."

"We understand this decision might be tough, but we have to be careful – at least until we're sure that the problem has been controlled," said Hamza. "It's just a preventive measure for Iraqis' safety."

Economists, meanwhile, say the temporary ban on importing chicken could cause an unexpected impact on the wider economy. "This decision was not well planned and could affect the Iraqi economy," said Baghdad-based economist Mounir Salah. "Every day that Iraqis don't buy chicken or meat can cause losses of thousands