Civil war spreads across Iraq as bomb at Shia mosque kills 59

By Patrick Cockburn

19 July 2006

A civil war between Sunni and Shia Muslims is spreading rapidly through central Iraq, with each community seeking revenge for the latest massacre. Yesterday a suicide bomber driving a van packed with explosives blew himself up outside the golden-domed mosque in Kufa, killing at least 59 and injuring more than 130 Shia.

In the past 10 days, while the world has been absorbed by the war in Lebanon, sectarian massacres have started to take place on an almost daily basis, leading observers to fear a level of killing approaching that of Rwanda immediately before the genocide of 1994. On a single spot on the west bank of the Tigris river in north Baghdad, between 10 and 12 bodies have been drifting ashore every day.

In Kufa, a city on the Euphrates 90 miles south of Baghdad, the suicide bomber drove his vehicle into a dusty square 100 yards from a Shia shrine at 7.30am. He knew that poor day-labourers gathered there looking for work. He reportedly said: “I need labourers” and they climbed into his van, which exploded a few moments later, killing them and other workers near by. “Four of my cousins were killed,” said Nasir Feisal, who survived the blast. “They were standing beside the van. Their bodies were scattered far apart by the blast.”

The severe escalation in sectarian killings started nine days ago when black-clad Shia militiamen sealed off the largely Sunni al-Jihad district in west Baghdad and slaughtered every Sunni they identified, killing more than 40 of them after glancing at their identity cards. Since then there has been a tit-for-tat massacre almost every day.

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Iraqis: U.S. Shares Blame for Death Toll

Wednesday July 19, 2006 7:31 PM

AP Photo BAG112

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi officials said Wednesday that U.S. and coalition forces as well as an increase in sectarian violence were behind the surge in civilian casualties cited in a U.N. report.

The report by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq said nearly 6,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in May and June in a wave of assassinations, bombings, kidnappings, torture and intimidation.

However, deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie blamed U.S. and other coalition forces for much of the violence, saying their troops were responsible for about half the deaths due to ``raids, shootings and clashes with insurgents.''

``They came to protect the people and democracy and all the problems we have today are because of them. It is a loss for Iraq,'' said al-Zubaie, a Sunni Muslim.

He also said Iraq's Interior and Defense Ministries had been infiltrated by militiamen who are responsible for many deaths.

Kurdish legislator Mahmoud Othman said the U.N. report makes clear that if the situation continues, ``catastrophe will hit the country..''

``The U.N. report is a warning to officials and politicians that the situation is very bad and they have to be careful and solve it but the government cannot find a solution,'' Othman said.

Sectarian violence increased sharply after the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra. Since then, thousands of Shiites and Sunnis have been slain.

A Shiite member of parliament, Hassan al-Suneid, blamed the death toll on sectarian tensions and on the failure of the security plan for Baghdad declared by the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Al-Suneid, a member of the parliament's security committee, also said the June 7 killing of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had made ``the terrorists...wild for revenge.''

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Gloom descends on Iraqi leaders as civil war looms
Fri Jul 21, 2006 2:16 PM BST
By Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi leaders have all but given up on holding the country together and, just two months after forming a national unity government, talk in private of "black days" of civil war ahead.

Signalling a dramatic abandonment of the U.S.-backed project for Iraq, there is even talk among them of pre-empting the worst bloodshed by agreeing to an east-west division of Baghdad into Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim zones, senior officials told Reuters.

Tens of thousands have already fled homes on either side.

"Iraq as a political project is finished," one senior government official said -- anonymously because the coalition under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki remains committed in public to the U.S.-sponsored constitution that preserves Iraq's unity.

One highly placed source even spoke of busying himself on government projects, despite a sense of their futility, only as a way to fight his growing depression over his nation's future.

"The parties have moved to Plan B," the senior official said, saying Sunni, ethnic Kurdish and majority Shi'ite blocs were looking at ways to divide power and resources and to solve the conundrum of Baghdad's mixed population of seven million.

"There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into east and west," he said. "We are extremely worried."

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Friday, July 21, 2006

Delay granted in Iraq murder/rape trial
Other cases need the evidence first

By Kay Stewart
kstewart@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

Federal prosecutors have won a delay in the indictment and arraignment of an Iraq War veteran on charges that he raped and murdered an Iraqi woman after killing three members of her family.

Steven D. Green, 21 -- a former Army private first class who was honorably discharged in May for a severe personality disorder -- won't be indicted until at least mid-October, under a motion granted yesterday in U.S. District Court in Louisville.

Prosecutors requested his arraignment be rescheduled from Aug. 8 to Nov. 8.

The timing of military prosecutions of five other soldiers in Iraq who also are charged in the case presents potential conflicts, prosecutors said in the motion, approved by U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell.

Their cases are scheduled for a military hearing in Iraq beginning Aug. 6, the motion said. Green's case is in the federal court system in the Western District of Kentucky -- which includes Fort Campbell, home of Green's former unit, the 101st Airborne Division -- because the charges were brought after his discharge.

"The same evidence and witnesses are necessary components in both prosecutions," the motion said, adding "it is unreasonable to expect that witnesses and evidence from Iraq will be available almost simultaneously to military prosecutors in Iraq and the Department of Justice prosecutors in … Kentucky."

More time is also needed for Army and FBI investigators in the United States and Iraq to coordinate efforts, the motion said.

It said that information about the alleged offenses "was first disclosed to the Army's Criminal Investigation Division just three weeks ago" and "important statements taken in Iraq" by Army investigators "have been provided just within the last two weeks."

The U.S. government also plans to submit a request for evidence to the government of Iraq by Aug. 15, another justification for more time, the motion said.

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Iraq ban extended as attacks rise

The US military says attacks on security forces in Baghdad have risen
A daytime traffic curfew has been extended in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in a bid to curb increasing violence.

The ban, enforced on Fridays to prevent attacks on mosques during weekly prayers, now covers most of the day.

It comes as two bomb attacks on mosques in Baghdad and the town of Khalis, north of the capital, killed two people and injured at least four others.

Meanwhile, the US military says three people, including a child, have been killed during a raid in Baquba.

The US military said soldiers were searching for what it called senior al-Qaeda in Iraq members. It said two suspected militants were also killed in the raid and 23 others were injured.

In a statement, it said it "regretted" the civilian deaths.

Increased violence

Authorities hope the extended traffic ban in Baghdad will curb violence in the capital which has increased over the past few weeks.

The traffic ban will now end at 1900H (1700 GMT) instead of at 1500H, just two hours before the daily night-time curfew begins.

The BBC's Jane Peel in Baghdad says after a bloody week with car bombings and sectarian killings in and around the capital, Friday has so far been quieter.

The city is increasingly a dangerous place to live, our correspondent says.

According to official figures, 1,000 bodies have been taken to the city mortuary so far this month, of which 80% are said to be the victims of violence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5203786.stm

Soldiers in Murder Case Claim They Were Ordered to 'Kill All Military Age Males' in Iraq Raid

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

EL PASO, Texas - Four U.S. soldiers accused of murdering suspected insurgents during a raid in Iraq said they were under orders to "kill all military age males," according to sworn statements obtained by The Associated Press.

The soldiers first took some of the men into custody because they were using two women and a toddler as human shields. They shot three of the men after the women and child were safe and say the men attacked them.

"The ROE (rule of engagement) was to kill all military age males on Objective Murray," Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard told investigators, referring to the target by its code name.

That target, an island on a canal in the northern Salahuddin province, was believed to be an al-Qaida training camp. The soldiers said officers in their chain of command gave them the order and explained that special forces had tried before to target the island and had come under fire from insurgents.

Girouard, Spc. William B. Hunsaker, Pfc. Corey R. Clagett, and Spc. Juston R. Graber are charged with murder and other offenses in the shooting deaths of three of the men during the May 9 raid.

Girouard, Hunsaker and Clagett are also charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly threatening to kill another soldier if he told authorities what happened.

In sworn statements obtained this week by the AP, Girouard, Hunsaker, Clagett, and a witness, Sgt. Leonel Lemus, told Army investigators they were ordered to attack an island in northern Salahuddin province on May 9 and kill anti-Iraqi fighters with ties to al-Qaida.

All four soldiers charged are members of the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. They have been jailed in Kuwait since their June arrests. Their first hearing is Aug. 1 near Tikrit, Iraq.

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Iranian Ambassador: We Support Turkey's Possible Cross-Border Operation

Source:Iran and the PKK Terrorism

By Harun Celik

ANKARA - The Iranian Ambassador to Ankara, Firouz Dowlatabadi, has said Iran will support Turkey in case of a possible military operation against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq.

In an interview with Cihan News Agency concerning recent developments in the region, Dowlatadabadi said Turkey’s offensive against PKK terror is perfectly legitimate.

The Iranian ambassador estimates Turkey’s entrance into northern Iraq to eradicate terrorist hideouts will not affect Iran.

“Turkey has the right to annihilate terrorists wherever they are found. Iran is ready to do its best to help Turkey,” Dowlatabadi continued.

Ambassador Dowlatabadi said the American approach to the PKK is an example of a double-standard, noting, “Israel began to strike Palestine using captured Israeli soldiers as their excuse.”

Turkey has a good case to fight against the separatist terror organization which martyrs Turkish soldiers every day.

“Countries that do not hesitate to kill dozens of people in revenge for the capture of two soldiers, do not have the right to prevent Turkey from suppressing terrorism in northern Iraq,” Dowlatadabadi said in regard to America’s “double standard.”

Concerning the recent pro-Palestine demonstration in Diyarbakir, Dowlatadabadi noted, “The demonstration in Diyarbakir illustrated that Kurds in Turkey do not share the same political tendencies with the PKK.”

“Kurds expressed their anger towards Israeli policies despite the strategies Israel followed in South East Anatolia,” said Dowlatadabadi.

The Iranian ambassador estimated that Israel and America are responsible to some extent for the terrorist acts in East and Southeast Anatolia.

Firouz Dowlatabadi said: “Haaretz newspaper threatened Turkey with ‘supporting the PKK’ following the Hamas visit to Turkey, which shows that Israel has a hand in the latest terrorist incidents. These kinds of threatening expressions have an influence on the bloody events currently occurring in Turkey. America and Israel opened the way for the attacks against the Turkish army.”

Cihan News Agency, 20 July 2006
Journal of Turkish Weekly http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=35170

By Patrick Lang

ALEXANDRIA, VA. – American forces in Iraq are in danger of having their line of supply cut by guerrillas. Napoleon once said that "an army travels on its stomach." By that he meant that the problem of keeping an army supplied is the prerequisite for the very existence of the force.

A 21st-century military force "burns up" a tremendous volume of expendable supplies and continuously needs repairs to equipment as well as medical treatment. Without a plentiful and dependable source of fuel, food, and ammunition, a military force falters. First it stops moving, then it begins to starve, and eventually it becomes unable to resist the enemy.

Can force fell Hizbullah?

In 1915, for example, this happened to British forces that had invaded Mesopotamia. A British-Indian force traveled up the line of the Tigris River, advancing to Kut, southeast of Baghdad. They became besieged there after their line of supply was cut along the river to the south. Some 11,000 troops ultimately surrendered, after the allies suffered another 23,000 casualties trying to rescue them.

American troops all over central and northern Iraq are supplied with fuel, food, and ammunition by truck convoy from a supply base hundreds of miles away in Kuwait. All but a small amount of our soldiers' supplies come into the country over roads that pass through the Shiite-dominated south of Iraq.

Until now the Shiite Arabs of Iraq have been told by their leaders to leave American forces alone. But an escalation of tensions between Iran and the US could change that overnight. Moreover, the ever-increasing violence of the civil war in Iraq can change the alignment of forces there unexpectedly.

Southern Iraq is thoroughly infiltrated by Iranian special operations forces working with Shiite militias, such as Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades. Hostilities between Iran and the United States or a change in attitude toward US forces on the part of the Baghdad government could quickly turn the supply roads into a "shooting gallery" 400 to 800 miles long.

At present, the convoys of trucks supplying our forces in Iraq are driven by civilians - either South Asians or Turks. If the route is indeed turned into a shooting gallery, these civilian truck drivers would not persist or would require a heavier escort by the US military.

It might then be necessary to "fight" the trucks through ambushes on the roads. This is a daunting possibility. Trucks loaded with supplies are defenseless against many armaments, such as rocket-propelled grenades, small arms, and improvised explosive devices. A long, linear target such as a convoy of trucks is very hard to defend against irregulars operating in and around their own towns.

The volume of "throughput" would probably be seriously lessened in such a situation. A reduction in supplies would inevitably affect operational capability. This might lead to a downward spiral of potential against the insurgents and the militias. This would be very dangerous for our forces.

Are there alternatives to the present line of supply leading to Kuwait? There may be, but they are not immediately apparent.

A line of supply consists of the route and the facilities at both ends. Our present line of supply now originates in Kuwait with its ports, stevedores, warehouses, etc.

A new line of supply leading from Turkey or Jordan would require similar facilities. Turkey has not been very cooperative in this war, and a supply line leading from Jordan would have to pass through Anbar Province, the very heart of the Sunni Arab insurgencies. Creating new facilities in these countries would be possible but politically difficult, and it would take time.

Few of the permanent requirements for uninterrupted resupply can be satisfied out of the local economy. Iraq lacks reserves of these supplies, and there would not be anything like enough "left over" for our forces to subsist on.

What about air resupply? It appears that only 5 to 10 percent of day-to-day military deliveries into Iraq are currently transferred by air. Inside Iraq, local deliveries by air probably amount to more. In a difficult situation, the tonnages delivered could be increased, but given the bulk in weight and volume of the needed supplies, it seems unlikely that air resupply could exceed 25 percent of daily requirements. This would not be enough to sustain the force.

Compounding the looming menace of the Kuwait-based line of supply is the route followed by the cargo ships en route to Kuwait. Geography dictates that the ships all pass through the Strait of Hormuz and then proceed to the ports at the other end of the Gulf. Those who are familiar with the record of Iran's efforts against Kuwaiti shipping in the Iran-Iraq War will be concerned about this maritime vulnerability.

Potential adversaries along the line of supply include many combat-experienced and well-schooled officers and former officers. We can be sure that they are acutely aware of this weakness in our situation.

The precarious nature of our supply line is well-known to our military leadership. Unfortunately, this is one of the many problems in Iraq that has not been adequately addressed because of a shortage of troops. We should start building ourselves another line of supply as a backup, and we should do it soon.

CS Monitor

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Comments: Sadr has on several occasions supported Hizbulla in Lebanon. Is it only a matter of time before his militia begins firing on the US and coalition troops in Iraq? It isn't 'if', it's 'when' will the shooting begin.

As Colonel Lang notes, there isn't another supply line other than Kuwait. Turkey can pretty well be ruled out--that doesn't leave another route. The longer Israel is in Lebanon the more certain Iraq will explode into violence against the US.

Bush Says U.S. Will Shift More Troops to Baghdad (Update5)

July 25 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said the U.S. will shift some troops to Baghdad from other areas of Iraq as sectarian violence in the capital surges, defying Iraqi efforts since May to contain it.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, working with U.S. military commanders in Iraq, has agreed to embed more American military police in Iraqi units to establish control in Baghdad neighborhoods, Bush said at a joint news conference with the Iraqi leader today in Washington.

``Our military commanders tell me that this deployment will better reflect the current conditions on the ground in Iraq,'' Bush said. ``And obviously, the violence in Baghdad is still terrible, and therefore there needs to be more troops.''

Bush and Maliki met as U.S. attention is being diverted by the battle between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. As with Lebanon, Iraq's religious militias threaten to undermine the government there. While acknowledging their differences on the conflict, both leaders drew parallels between Maliki's attempt to take control of his country and the Lebanese government's inability to reign in Hezbollah.

The battle for Baghdad, again
By Rick Jervis and David Jackson, USA TODAY, July 25

BAGHDAD — The battle for Iraq's future has come down to this: Can the country's U.S.-supported government control escalating violence in the streets of its capital?

Tuesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met at the White House with President Bush, where they announced a plan to dispatch more U.S. and Iraqi troops to Baghdad to try to salvage a faltering security plan for Iraq's war-ravaged capital.

Without providing specifics, the leaders said the redeployment will respond to a surge in violence that has claimed more than 100 civilians a day since Bush's surprise visit to Baghdad six weeks ago.

About 9,000 of the 125,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are in Baghdad, a city of 6 million where centuries-old tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims have exploded into increasingly difficult-to-control violence. The chaos is being fueled by rogue militias and foreign Arab fighters such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the extremist group trying to undermine U.S.-led efforts to establish a democracy in Iraq.

Bush said additional U.S. troops will be sent to Baghdad from elsewhere in Iraq and will help train Iraqi security forces to eventually take over the job of protecting the capital.

"Our strategy is to remain on the offense, including in Baghdad," Bush said. "We still face challenges in Baghdad, yet we see progress elsewhere in Iraq."

'Waiting to Get Blown Up'
Some Troops in Baghdad Express Frustration With the War and Their Mission

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 27, 2006; A01

BAGHDAD, July 26 Army Staff Sgt. Jose Sixtos considered the simple question about morale for more than an hour. But not until his convoy of armored Humvees had finally rumbled back into the Baghdad military base, and the soldiers emptied the ammunition from their machine guns, and passed off the bomb-detecting robot to another patrol, did he turn around in his seat and give his answer.

"Think of what you hate most about your job. Then think of doing what you hate most for five straight hours, every single day, sometimes twice a day, in 120-degree heat," he said. "Then ask how morale is."

Frustrated? "You have no idea," he said.

As President Bush plans to deploy more troops in Baghdad, U.S. soldiers who have been patrolling the capital for months describe a deadly and infuriating mission in which the enemy is elusive and success hard to find. Each day, convoys of Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles leave Forward Operating Base Falcon in southern Baghdad with the goal of stopping violence between warring Iraqi religious sects, training the Iraqi army and police to take over the duty, and reporting back on the availability of basic services for Iraqi civilians.

But some soldiers in the 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division -- interviewed over four days on base and on patrols -- say they have grown increasingly disillusioned about their ability to quell the violence and their reason for fighting. The battalion of more than 750 people arrived in Baghdad from Kuwait in March, and since then, six soldiers have been killed and 21 wounded.

"It sucks. Honestly, it just feels like we're driving around waiting to get blown up. That's the most honest answer I could give you," said Spec. Tim Ivey, 28, of San Antonio, a muscular former backup fullback for Baylor University. "You lose a couple friends and it gets hard."

"No one wants to be here, you know, no one is truly enthused about what we do," said Sgt. Christopher Dugger, the squad leader. "We were excited, but then it just wears on you -- there's only so much you can take. Like me, personally, I want to fight in a war like World War II. I want to fight an enemy. And this, out here," he said, motioning around the scorched sand-and-gravel base, the rows of Humvees and barracks, toward the trash-strewn streets of Baghdad outside, "there is no enemy, it's a faceless enemy. He's out there, but he's hiding."

"We're trained as an Army to fight and destroy the enemy and then take over," added Dugger, 26, of Reno, Nev. "But I don't think we're trained enough to push along a country, and that's what we're actually doing out here."

"It's frustrating, but we are definitely a help to these people," he said. "I'm out here with the guys that I know so well, and I couldn't picture myself being anywhere else."
'Never-Ending Battle'

After a five-hour patrol on Saturday through southern Baghdad neighborhoods, soldiers from the 1st Platoon sat on wooden benches in an enclosed porch outside their barracks. Faces flushed and dirty from the grit and a beating sun, they smoked cigarettes and tossed them at a rusted can that said "Butts."

The commanders in Baghdad and the Pentagon are "looking at the big picture all the time, but for us, we don't see no big picture, it's just always another bomb out here," said Spec. Joshua Steffey, 24, of Asheville, N.C. The company's commanding officer, Capt. Douglas A. DiCenzo of Plymouth, N.H., and his gunner, Spec. Robert E. Blair of Ocala, Fla., were killed by a roadside bomb in May.

Steffey said he wished "somebody would explain to us, 'Hey, this is what we're working for.' " With a stream of expletives, he said he could not care less "if Iraq's free" or "if they're a democracy."

"The first time somebody you know dies, the first thing you ask yourself is, 'Well, what did he die for?' "

"At this point, it seems like the war on drugs in America," added Spec. David Fulcher, 22, a medic from Lynchburg, Va., who sat alongside Steffey. "It's like this never-ending battle, like, we find one IED, if we do find it before it hits us, so what? You know it's just like if the cops make a big bust, next week the next higher-up puts more back out there."

"My personal opinion, I don't speak for the rest of anybody, I just speak for me personally, I think civil war is going to happen regardless," Steffey responded. "Maybe this country needs it: One side has to win. Be it Sunni, be it Shiite, one side has to win. It's apparent, these people have made it obvious they can't live in unity."

It was dark now save for one fluorescent light and the cigarette tips glowing red.

"I mean, if you compare the casualty count from this war to, say, World War II, you know obviously it doesn't even compare," Fulcher said. "But World War II, the big picture was clear -- you know you're fighting because somebody was trying to take over the world, basically. This is like, what did we invade here for?"

"How did it become, 'Well, now we have to rebuild this place from the ground up'?" Fulcher asked.

He kept talking. "They say we're here and we've given them freedom, but really what is that? You know, what is freedom? You've got kids here who can't go to school. You've got people here who don't have jobs anymore. You've got people here who don't have power," he said. "You know, so yeah, they've got freedom now, but when they didn't have freedom, everybody had a job."

Steffey got up to leave the porch and go to bed.

"You know, the point is we've lost too many Americans here already, we're committed now. So whatever the [expletive] end-state is, whatever it is, we need to achieve it -- that way they didn't die for nothing," he said. "We're far too deep in this now."
'Our Biggest Fear'

The largest risk facing the soldiers is the explosion of roadside bombs, known among soldiers as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, the main killer of U.S. troops in Iraq. Battalion commanders say they have made great strides clearing the main highways through their southern Baghdad jurisdiction, including the north-south thoroughfare they call Route Jackson, but insurgents continue to adapt.

"We do an action, he counters it. It's a constant tug of war," said Sgt. 1st Class Scott Wilmot, an IED analyst with the battalion. "From where I sit, the [number of] IEDs continually, gradually, goes up."

Each day, U.S. and Iraqi soldiers patrolling neighborhoods such as Sadiyah, al-Amil and Bayaa -- an area of about 40 square miles where about half a million people live -- encounter an average of one to two roadside bombs, often triggered remotely by someone watching the convoys, he said.

"Motorola radios, cellphones, garage door openers, remote-controlled doorbells. Anything that can transmit, they can, in theory, use," Wilmot said. "Anybody who thinks they're stupid is wrong."

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Raw Story - Wednesday July 26, 2006

As Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki spoke to the U.S. Congress, he was interrupted by an anti-war protester. The protester, a woman wearing a pink shirt that read, "troops home now," was quickly restrained and removed from the room.

Some Democrats have objected to Maliki's address, as the Iraqi government has thus far failed to condemn the actions of Hezbollah, which has captured Israeli soldiers.

A partial transcript of the incident follows the video.

link

MALIKI: ... they have stated over and over again with their inked-stained fingers waving in pride that they will always make the same choice. (Applause.)

Hope over fear --

HECKLER: The Iraqis want the troops to leave! Bring them home now! Iraqis want the troops to leave! Iraqis want the troops to leave! Bring them home now!

REP HASTERT: Our guest would suspend for the -- a moment. The chair notes a disturbance in the gallery. The sergeant of arms will secure order by removing those engaging in disruption.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Iraqis want the troops to leave! Bring them home now! (Unintelligible) -- bring the troops home now!

REP HASTERT: The gentleman may proceed...

July 28, 2006
Sergeant Tells of Plot to Kill Iraqi Detainees
By ROBERT F. WORTH

For more than a month after the killings, Sgt. Lemuel Lemus stuck to his story.

“Proper escalation of force was used,” he told an investigator, describing how members of his unit shot and killed three Iraqi prisoners who had lashed out at their captors and tried to escape after a raid northwest of Baghdad on May 9.

Then, on June 15, Sergeant Lemus offered a new and much darker account.

In a lengthy sworn statement, he said he had witnessed a deliberate plot by his fellow soldiers to kill the three handcuffed Iraqis and a cover-up in which one soldier cut another to bolster their story. The squad leader threatened to kill anyone who talked. Later, one guilt-stricken soldier complained of nightmares and “couldn’t stop talking” about what happened, Sergeant Lemus said.

As with similar cases being investigated in Iraq, Sergeant Lemus’s narrative has raised questions about the rules under which American troops operate and the possible culpability of commanders. Four soldiers have been charged with premeditated murder in the case. Lawyers for two of them, who dispute Sergeant Lemus’s account, say the soldiers were given an order by a decorated colonel on the day in question to “kill all military-age men” they encountered.

Many questions remain about the case, which is scheduled for an Article 32 hearing on Tuesday in Iraq. But whatever the truth about that day, Sergeant Lemus’s sworn statement — which was obtained by The New York Times — provides an extraordinary window into the pressures American soldiers face in Iraq, where wartime chaos and the imperative of loyalty often complicate questions of right and wrong.

When investigators asked why he did not try to stop the other soldiers from carrying out the killings, Sergeant Lemus — who has not been charged in the case — said simply that he was afraid of being called a coward. He stayed quiet, he said, because of “peer pressure, and I have to be loyal to the squad.”

The mission that led to the killings started at dawn on May 9, when soldiers with the Third Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division landed in a remote area near a former chemical plant not far from Samarra, according to legal documents and lawyers for the accused soldiers. It was the site of a suspected insurgent training camp and was considered extremely dangerous.

Just before leaving, the soldiers had been given an order to “kill all military-age men” at the site by a colonel and a captain, said Paul Bergrin and Michael Waddington, the lawyers who are disputing Sergeant Lemus’s account. Military officials in Baghdad have declined to comment on whether such an order, which would have been a violation of the law of war, might have been given.

The colonel, Michael Steele, is the brigade commander. He led the 1993 mission in Somalia made famous by the book and movie “Black Hawk Down.”

The two lawyers say Colonel Steele has indicated that he will not testify at the Article 32 hearing — the military equivalent of a grand jury hearing — or answer any questions about the case. Calls and e-mail messages to a civilian lawyer said to be representing Colonel Steele were not returned.

It is very rare for any commanding officer to refuse to testify at any stage of a court-martial proceeding, said Gary D. Solis, a former military judge and prosecutor who teaches the law of war at Georgetown University.

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the comment title is what google had up

July 27, 2006

172nd Stryker Brigade tour extended

By Sean D. Naylor
Staff writer

In a reaction to worsening violence in Baghdad, the Defense Department is extending the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s tour in Iraq for up to 120 days.

The move is a blow to morale of the unit’s soldiers and their families back home at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, but it is an acknowledgment that the brigade’s experience and combat savvy are badly needed in the Iraqi capital.

The 172nd has spent the past year headquartered in Mosul, and had already begun its redeployment to Alaska when word came of the redeployment to Baghdad. The move to extend the brigade was leaked by Pentagon officials to the Associated Press and confirmed by officers in Iraq.

The decision throws into turmoil plans that the brigade’s approximately 4,000 soldiers had made for their return.

“How is the spouse going to tell the kids that Dad isn’t going to be there for the first day of school?” said one senior enlisted member.

Weddings and vacations must now be postponed. Some soldiers who were due to move to new assignments elsewhere upon their return to Alaska will find that the Army isn’t willing to wait for them to get back from their extended deployment, and the job they had their heart set on will go to someone else.

Officers said it was unclear whether soldiers whose families had booked vacations in anticipation of their return would be entitled to a refund for money spent on plane tickets. “That’s going to be a challenge,” a battalion-level commander said.

The blow to morale was compounded by the fact that many 172nd soldiers and their families learned of the extension via news reports from the U.S., rather than through command channels.

“I’ve got reports that some wives found out before I even knew, and that’s just the reality of the story being leaked to the press,” the battalion-level commander told his troops.

A small portion of the brigade has already returned to Alaska. Officers said it was unknown whether those soldiers would be ordered to bid farewell to their families again and fly back to the combat zone.

Several 172nd soldiers seemed unfazed by the announcement that their return had been put on indefinite hold.

“This my third tour over here, so it doesn’t bother me,” said Staff Sgt. David Cowin, a communications NCO in the 172nd. “For my guys, they’re a bit upset because they had plans.”

“I’m okay with it, because I’ve got nothing better to do,” said Capt. Neal Prendergast, a signals officer who is unmarried.

However, he said, the late notice had vastly complicated the business of reorganizing his unit’s signals equipment for the fight in Baghdad. “If we could have found out just a week earlier, it would have been much better,” he said.

The battalion-level commander gathered about 50 of his officers and noncommissioned officers in the unit chapel to steel their hearts and focus their minds on the mission ahead.

“The word is, our nation has asked us to stay and fight,” he told them. “Baghdad has some problems and they need the 172nd to go in and clean house.”

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http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1982906.php

Shiite Cleric Calls Maliki Visit to U.S. a Betrayal
The premier's failure to condemn American policy helped neither Iraq nor Lebanon, the sheik says.
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Times Staff Writer
July 29, 2006

BAGHDAD — In a sermon rich with bloody imagery and religious struggle, an influential Shiite Muslim cleric Friday condemned Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's trip to Washington this week as a betrayal of Islam and a humiliation to his people at the hands of U.S. and Israeli aggressors.

Sheik Aws Khafaji intertwined the bloodshed in Iraq and Lebanon, calling it a design by Christians and Jews to defeat the Muslim world. He criticized Maliki's speech before the U.S. Congress and asked: "What forced you to eat with the occupiers? Is that your reward? You know more than anybody else that the car bombings, terrorism, explosions and bloodletting in Iraq are under the protection of Zionist-American plans."

The sermon during Friday prayers in Baghdad came as U.S. and Iraqi forces planned a wider crackdown to stop the unrelenting sectarian violence that has pushed this nation into an undeclared civil war. Khafaji's comments also added another sensitive dynamic to Iraqi politics — the sheik is a confidant of Muqtada Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric whose movement controls a well-armed militia and 30 seats in parliament.

Sadr and his followers often use overheated rhetoric to attack Iraq's leaders, but Khafaji's sermon was a pointed attempt to link the recent bloodshed in Lebanon with the violence that has beset this country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The sheik said that Maliki had sold his soul by traveling to Washington to meet with President Bush and gain applause from Congress.

"Islam is aloof from you," Khafaji said, referring to Maliki.

Shortly after Khafaji and other clerics finished their sermons, the sounds of violence reverberated across Iraq. A bomb exploded outside the Sunni Ali Adheem mosque and youth center located in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, killing four civilians and wounding nine others.

In the Tikrit region, five gunmen in two cars opened fire on a house, killing two men believed to have been employed at a nearby U.S. base.

In a separate incident, the U.S. military said a Marine was killed Thursday during fighting in Al Anbar province in western Iraq. U.S. officials also reported that American and Iraqi forces killed 33 militants this week in a daylong firefight in Musayyib. A news release said the battle began after militants attacked a police station. The U.S. called in an Abrams tank and an Apache helicopter, which fired on a fuel truck suspected of carrying explosives.

Maliki's government has been unable to stop the killing that has paralyzed businesses and turned neighborhoods into blocks of fear. During his Washington trip, the prime minister announced that U.S. and Iraqi forces would soon crack down on death squads and insurgents in Baghdad. The number of American troops in the city is expected to increase from 9,000 to more than 13,000. U.S. officials announced this week that 3,500 troops scheduled to be rotated home would stay another four months in Iraq.

On Friday, one of the country's leading Shiite figures, Abdelaziz Hakim, told followers in the holy city of Najaf that he opposed an increase in U.S. forces.

"We must activate the project of popular committees to secure the neighborhoods," said Hakim, whose Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq is one of the biggest factions in the country's coalition government. "The security file should be handed over to the Iraqi forces and no one should interfere with it. The interference in the work of Iraqi security forces prevents them from catching terrorists."

A Sunni Arab cleric in Fallouja, Tariq Hamd, said that "sectarian intolerance will no doubt lead to the breakup of society and make it unable to face the enemy of God…. All the sectarian actions have been the creation of the Zionists" and the Iranians.

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AP Blog: Future of Iraqi Defense Unclear

Saturday July 29, 2006 3:46 PM

By The Associated Press

AP Correspondent Robert H. Reid covers Iraq events from Baghdad for The Associated Press.

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Saturday, July 29, 2006, 9:30 a.m. local time

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Eight months ago, it all seemed quite different. The Iraqis were going to ``stand up,'' and American troops were going ``to stand down.''

Sure, the Iraqis may not have the firepower nor all the fancy computer gadgetry of the high-tech American fighting force, U.S. officials said last year. And the potbellies all too familiar at Iraqi recruiting stations might not pass muster at Fort Benning.

But the Iraqis were going to bring something else to the equation that American and other international troops in Iraq never could.

``Bringing skills and knowledge to the fight that coalition forces cannot, Iraqi troops know their people, language, and culture,'' the White House said in a November 2005 fact sheet entitled Training Iraqi Security Forces.

``They know who the terrorists are and are earning the trust of their countrymen. As Iraqi forces grow in size and capability, they are helping to keep a better hold on cities and are increasingly taking the lead.''

Things look different now - after 6,000 Iraqis were killed in May and June alone, according to the United Nations.

``Undoubtedly the Iraqi people have lost confidence in the police,'' Britain's outgoing ambassador to Iraq, William Patey, told the British Broadcasting Corporation last Thursday.

On the same day, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was lengthening the tours of about 3,500 members of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team for up to four more months as part of a plan to bolster U.S. troop strength to shore up Iraqi security

MORE>AP

July 29, 2006
Violence in Iraq Is Creating Chaos in Bank System
By JAMES GLANZ

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 28 — The two armored vans left a branch of the Warka Bank on Thursday around noon, loaded with 1.191 billion dinars, or nearly $800,000. Almost immediately, on a busy street near the Baghdad zoo, the drivers spotted an oncoming Iraqi Army convoy, led by a shiny new Humvee. They followed standard procedure and pulled over.

But the convoy stopped, and an officer politely ordered the surprised drivers and guards to lay down their guns while his men searched the vans for bombs.

Within minutes all eight drivers and guards had been handcuffed and locked in the back of one of the vans on a suffocating 120-degree day, the cash had been stolen by the men in the convoy — whoever they were — and the Iraqi banking system marked another day of its slow slide into oblivion.

The only thing atypical about Thursday’s robbery, which was described by bank and Interior Ministry officials, is that most private banks try to avoid using armored vans, because they draw too much attention, and instead toss sacks of cash into ordinary cars for furtive dashes through the streets of Baghdad.

However the cash goes out, it risks being lost in the wash of robbery, kidnapping and intrigue that now plagues the system.

Praised by the United States as a success story as recently as a few months ago, that system has quickly become a wild landscape of clandestine cash runs, huge hauls by robbers dressed as police officers and soldiers, kidnappings of bank executives with ransoms as high as $6 million, American allegations of tie-ins with insurgent financiers, and legitimate customers turned away when they go to pick up their savings and flee the country.

“It is a crisis,” said Wisam K. Jamil, managing director of Iraq’s oldest private bank, the Bank of Baghdad, which lost $1.5 million in a literal case of highway robbery by men wearing police uniforms last December.

Because of that robbery, the bank lost much of its insurance coverage. Even more galling for Mr. Jamil, the insurance policy had a standard disclaimer saying that losses due to acts of war or terrorism were not covered, and as the Warka holdup on Thursday illustrated, no one can say if a theft in Iraq is committed by insurgents, bandits or genuine members of the security forces. So the insurance company has not paid Mr. Jamil’s claim.

The difficulty in moving cash has pushed Iraqi banks into business practices seen in few other places.

On a recent day in the basement of the Iraqi Middle East Investment Bank, Rahim al-Abadie, a bent, gnomelike man who has worked in banking for 54 years, shuffled into the cage next to his little desk and checked 100-pound sacks of cash to be loaded in an unmarked car and sped to its destination, which he declined to disclose. Just one of the bigger sacks held 1 billion dinars (about $650,000) in bank notes, Mr. Abadie explained, chuckling darkly.

Hussein al-Uzri, president and chairman of the Trade Bank of Iraq, a state-owned bank, said the risks of such deliveries had to be measured in relative terms. “Anywhere else in the world, throwing a few million dollars in the back of a Mazda and driving from the Central Bank is crazy,” he said. “But many people will say that living in Baghdad is crazy.”

Until the early 1990’s, when Saddam Hussein allowed private banks to open under tight restrictions, all of the country’s finances were handled by state-owned banks.

The popularity of the private banks soared after the 2003 invasion, as depositors fled the cumbersome and often distrusted state system in “a kind of exodus,” said Nafie Alais Aboo, managing director of the privately owned North Bank. But both have suffered major robberies, cash shortfalls and other problems, banking and government officials say.

Such problems have helped ignite an old-fashioned run on some banks, and several have had to turn depositors away, at least temporarily, telling them to come back another day for their money.

“People are withdrawing or transferring enormous amounts of money from the bank,” said Ahmed Younis Zeki, the assistant manager of the Iraqi Private Bank, which he said lost 1 billion dinars in a brazen holdup at what appeared to be a police checkpoint in central Baghdad on April 25.

Some bank executives say their problems have been compounded as well-to-do Iraqis and the companies they control flee the mayhem engulfing so much of the country. That flight has accelerated since sectarian tensions were heightened by the February bombing of a golden-domed mosque in Samarra, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines.

“If we count from the Samarra bombing, it’s been worse by the day,” said Mohammed F. al-Alossi, managing director of the Iraqi Middle East Investment Bank, adding that 3 billion of roughly 50 billion dinars in deposits at his bank had been withdrawn in the last two months alone.

The banks’ troubles have had a ripple effect. Iraqi companies, already struggling in a devastated economy, cannot get enough cash to meet their payrolls, said Hashim T. Atrikchi, acting manager of the Iraqi Federation of Industries and chairman of the Arab Federation of Plastic Manufacturers.

“Hard currency is often not available in the banks,” he said. “It may take two, three or even five days.”

The run of hard luck for private banks stretches at least back to May 2005, when American and Iraqi troops raided the home of Saad al-Bunnia, chairman of the Iraqi Bank Association and chairman of the bank that was robbed Thursday. During the raid, the Americans seized $6 million in cash, apparently on suspicion that the money was being used to finance the insurgency.

The bank certified that it had asked Mr. Bunnia to keep the money in his safe as a hedge against bank robberies, said Sheik Hathal Yonis Y. Aga, vice chairman of the bank. But more than a year later, the money remains frozen, he said.

“The problem is, these funds belong to our clients,” Mr. Aga said. “This has affected some of our business transactions.”

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