Two car bombs exploded in an outdoor market in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 33 people in the deadliest attack since U.S. and Iraqi forces began a major security push around the capital.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/02/18/iraq-bombing.html

Los Angeles Times, By Borzou Daragahi, Feb 18

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- At least 60 Iraqi civilians were killed and scores more wounded Sunday in a spate of ferocious bomb and gun attacks targeting mostly Shiite areas of capital, ending days of relative calm since the start of the latest U.S.-Iraqi effort to quell violence and restore order.

Two more American troops were reported killed Sunday in weekend fighting around Baghdad.

At the same time, Iraqi officials say the Baghdad security plan has significantly lowered the number of killings attributed primarily to Shiite militias around the capital.

The daily number of bodies found with bullet holes and dumped in desolate lots or waterways has continued a weekslong decline, plummeting dramatically from peaks of 60 or 70 per day in December to an average of 13 a day over the last week, according to unofficial hospital and police reports.

[...]

"The reason behind the decline is the security plan and the fleeing of militants to other places," said one ranking east Baghdad police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of policies that bar law enforcement from speaking to the media without authorization. "Even those who've remained don't feel free to move these days. We don't see armed groups these days."

U.S. fighter jets screeched above the capital as Operation Enforcing the Law, as it is being called by Iraqi and American officials, continued for a sixth day.

Regnant Mayhem: Mike Davis on the car bomb

Over the last week, car bombs have struck in Canada, Algeria, Iran and Iraq. That's a very short-range sample. How about since 2000? We'd have to add Indonesia, Tunisia, Chechnya, Russia, Colombia, Pakistan, Israel, Peru, Saudi Arabia, India, Kenya, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, Thailand, and Turkey. If we went back to 1990, we'd have to include the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Argentina, Spain, Italy, the north of Ireland, Dagestan and Tanzania. There is not a continent aside from Antarctica on which the car bomb hasn't struck in the last thirty years. Indeed, as Mike Davis discusses in his new book Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb, it is a technology that has been everywhere since its first deployment by the anarchist Mario Buda in Wall Street in 1920, and is still going places. I say 'car bomb', although as often it involves trucks, vans or in the first instance, a wagon. Davis clarifies that he uses the term as short-hand for what the Pentagon refers to as a "Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device". One could therefore include the attacks on the World Trade Centre in the same category: a car bomb "with wings" as Davis puts it.

Mobile, covert and deadly, this mode of destruction was pioneered by insurgent movements, but has also been globalised by state-intelligence networks in Vietnam (where the technique was first used by the CIA), Algeria (where it was used by the OAS with some assistance from the CIA), Ireland (where strong evidence suggests that MI5 planned and conducted a deadly series of bombings in Dublin in 1972), Afghanistan (where the CIA's assets used it against the Soviet invaders), Lebanon (where the CIA paid local assets to try and knock of Hezbollah's leaders) and Iraq (where the CIA's assets, the Iraqi National Accord, blew up schoolbuses in the 1990s). Shin Bet were also involved in car bombings in Lebanon in 1982, as were Syrian intelligence, who bombed the Iraqi embassy in retaliation for Hussein's support for the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brothers. Insurgent groups using the weapon include the Zionist Stern Gang, the Palestinian resistance to the Zionists (in which blue-eyed British deserters participated), the Viet Minh, Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), the IRA, Hezbollah, ETA (Basque separatists), various Iraqi resistance groups and the LTTE (Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers). Criminals using it include the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. These three groups overlap in various ways: what is sometimes called "black globalization" can involve both insurgent outfits and intelligence units deriving funding from massive criminal activity (clearly, the opium business whether in the Golden Triangle or Afghanistan fits this bill beautifully), while at the same time insurgencies are often either sponsored or heavily infiltrated by intelligence departments.
...
The advantages of this weapon impress themselves upon the urban guerilla warrior: they are the "poor man's air force", because they are "stealth weapons of surprising power and destructive efficiency"; because they are "'loud' in every sense", carrying an impactful message alongside the operational function; because they are cheap, inasmuch as it costs only a few thousand dollars to inflict billions of dollars of damage in the cases of both the attack on the FBI headquarters in Oklahoma and the 1993 WTC attack; they are easy to organise and information on how to do so is simple to obtain; being indiscriminate, they are ideal for the purpose of creating a strategy of tension and demoralising whole societies; they are very anonymous, leaving little forensic evidence; finally, most importantly, they enfranchise marginal forces with neither significant constituencies nor mass legitimacy, and add "claws" to resistance groups with genuine support.
...
And this is where we come to Iraq, for there is no doubt that the resistance is entitled to resist and is entitled to do so with force. Yet while most of the resistance attacks have been characterised by roadside attacks on military convoys, mortars, rockets and gunfire exchanges, the bloodiest ones have been car bombs. These have been directed largely by "foreign fighters", the transnational takfiri elements such as the supporters of the late Zarqawi, and their relationship with the goals of the domestic resistance is complex. The earliest wave of such attacks seriously undermined several props of the occupation such as the United Nations, the presence of several foreign armies and staff. They also drove the occupiers into their heavily fortified Green Zone in the first place and seriously undermined the attempts to build up a client state, by attacking police and army recruitment stations. The military logic of such attacks is transparent, even if the cost in civilian lives has been enormous.
...
The car bomb's horrendous career in Iraq is setting a disastrous precedent: the recent escalation of its use by anti-occupation fighters in Afghanistan indicates, according to Davis, that the transnational Islamist movements have decided to create "one, two, three, many Iraqs!" And it works: there are no magic bullets coming soon. If someone wants to rip apart soft targets in any capital city in the world, they can do so. As long as blizzards of imperialist violence and repression create the recruits for the movements using this tactic, and as long as people can be persuaded to have their arm handcuffed to a steering wheel and their foot taped to an acceleration pedal as they speed toward their immolation, we have not seen the half of it. As long as intelligence agencies are free to destabilise societies and combat insurgencies in secrecy, the car bomb will continue to tear up our global red zone with increasing frequency.
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/02/regnant-mayhem-mike-davis-on-car-bomb.html

Rather strong meat here, from a radical, anti-imperialist perspective, to be sure, but the point is well-taken: there is no weapon more violent, murderous, and psychologically debilitating than car-bombings, and to which I alluded in another thread. I ask you, what has been the most destructive and calamitous device used in Iraq today - and since the invasion in 2003 - IEDs and their ilk, or car-bombs? If you direct your answer purely from the perspective of occupation soldiers, you may well say the IED and its congeners; however, from the standpoint of net casualties, car-bombing wins hands-down, as just a brief viewing of the Iraq news the past 3 days can testify to. The tactic is simply unstoppable, and discredits governments and occupation forces alike for that reason. There is no effective security against the use of this weapon - and it truly is a "weapon of mass destruction" - and, if anything, the incidences have increased dramatically in Iraq over the past couple of years, calling into serious question the use of any countermeasures short of abolishing completely motor vehicle traffic in cities and towns throughout Iraq.

Privatizing Iraq's oil and splitting Iraq into three regions are just two negative features of this new law.

Read it here: ICH

I did inhale.

Five US troops die in Iraq raids

US troops are taking part in intensified security in Baghdad
Five US soldiers have been killed in two attacks in Iraq on a day that violence claimed more than 25 lives across the country.

The violence comes despite an intensified security operation in the capital, Baghdad, and across Iraq.

Twelve people, including five police officers, died in a car bomb attack near Ramadi in western Anbar province.

A mortar attack in the Shia area of Abu Dishair in Baghdad killed one person and injured two, police told the BBC.

Other sources put the death toll as high as 11.

Leader's home

Three US soldiers on patrol were killed and two wounded by an "improvised explosive device" south-west of Baghdad on Monday, the US military said.

Two more US soldiers were killed and 17 others were wounded in a suicide attack on a "combat outpost" north of Baghdad.

The US has created these outposts in several districts as part of the new security plan.

The aim is for troops to live, work and conduct operations from these outposts rather than return to US military bases.

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I've separated the India quotes out. Here's the rest of the Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson's summary comments

Dawn -

AFGHAN PROTEST: About Afghan government’s protest over the North West Frontier Province governor’s reported remarks about the Taliban militants inside Afghanistan, Ms Aslam said: “The statement issued by Afghanistan is based on distorted report of what the North West Frontier Province governor had said to a delegation of foreign journalists who had recently visited Peshawar and North Waziristan.”

Underscoring that the phenomenon of Talibanisation was a common threat to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the spokesperson noted: “We are taking all measures in our own interest to counter the threat of Talibanisation and extremism. Pakistan is also firmly committed not to allow its territory to be used for militancy and violence against Afghanistan.”

RICE’S STATEMENT: On the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s statement that the North Waziristan peace deal had not produced any results, Ms Aslam said: “We continue to keep the implementation of North Waziristan Agreement under review and would plug in any shortcomings or take firm action needed to ensure compliance.”

In this context she also recalled the president’s recent statement that the North Waziristan deal was worth pursuing even if it was not working 100 per cent.

IRAN: The spokesperson clarified that Pakistan’s ambassador to Iran was not summoned by the Iranian foreign ministry.

She claimed there was a meeting between Iranian foreign ministry officials and the Pakistani ambassador in Tehran to review the situation in border areas of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

She said the Pakistani ambassador had a meeting with ambassador Rasul Islami, Head of the Asia Desk at the Iranian Foreign Ministry on February 18 at which bomb blasts in Zahidan were discussed, which Pakistan condemned, and the two sides also discussed the cooperation between the two countries on counter-terrorism efforts.

“The Iranian side shared preliminary information about the bomb blasts, and discussed security cooperation with Pakistan to check criminals and terrorists operating in the border areas,” the spokesperson said.

Noting that Pakistan was aware of the nefarious activities of terrorists, criminals, drug paddlers and smugglers in the area where Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan borders meet, she added: “We will continue to fully cooperate with Iranian authorities to curb such elements.”

_{"at some point I'm hopeful I'll figure out something to put here"}

Iraq's Maliki orders security forces to crush foes
20 Feb 2007 21:18:29 GMT

By Claudia Parsons and Dean Yates

BAGHDAD, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki told his security forces on Tuesday to show no mercy towards insurgents in a security crackdown in Baghdad.

Making a rare foray into Baghdad's violent streets, Maliki called for an end to sectarian divisions that threaten to tip the country into full-scale civil war. A suicide bomber and two car bombs killed at least 17 people in the capital on Tuesday.

Iraqiya state television showed Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist leader, talking to an Iraqi soldier near an armoured vehicle in central Baghdad. The soldier pointed to an area from where he said insurgents had been firing at security forces.

"Don't just fire back, crush the place where the fire came from," Maliki replied. "Don't treat them with leniency. This is an armoured vehicle here, use it."

The prime minister met Iraqis who had been forced out of their homes by sectarian fighting that has increasingly split Baghdad along Shi'ite and Sunni fault lines. He told them they would return to their neighbourhoods as "heroes".

Maliki said on Friday the initial days of the U.S.-backed crackdown had been a "brilliant success" but a series of car bomb attacks that have killed scores of people has tempered any early optimism.

U.S. generals, mindful of the failure of similar crackdowns last year, had warned militants could lie low initially but were likely to adapt their tactics.

Shi'ite officials have said the failure of Operation Imposing Law could result in the collapse of the government and trigger even more bloodletting between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A cloud of deadly toxic gas engulfed an Iraqi town Tuesday, killing six people and leaving dozens of others choking on fumes after a tanker carrying chlorine exploded outside a restaurant.

An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said the blast in the town of Taji, 12 miles (20 km) north of Baghdad, was caused by a bomb on board the tanker.

There were contrasting figures on the casualty toll. Baghdad security plan spokesman Gen. Qassim Atta told state-run al-Iraqiya TV that five people died in the blast and 148 were poisoned by the gas.

Other attacks across the country pushed the daily death toll to at least 20. Several incidents occurred in Baghdad, where a major security crackdown has been launched to stem the bloodshed.

Much of Washington assumes that leaving Iraq will lead to
a bigger bloodbath. It’s time to question that assumption.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0703.dreyfuss.html

Crashed helo was on spec ops mission

By Sean D. Naylor - Army Times Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Feb 20, 2007 21:18:09 EST

Sunday’s crash of a Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan killed eight special operations personnel.

The helicopter was an MH-47E from the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment’s 2nd Battalion, according to a source in the special operations community. The dead included the two pilots – both warrant officers – and five members of the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, as well as two members of the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment and an airman from the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron, the source said.

The Air Force identified the airman as Tech Sgt. Scott E. Duffman, 32, of Albuquerque, N.M.

Doug Garbs, the father of Pfc. Ryan Garbs, 20, told the Edwardsville (Ill.) Intelligencer that he had been notified that his son was among those killed in the crash. Ryan Garbs was a member of the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, located at Fort Benning, Ga.

The 160th, the Rangers and the 24th STS all support Joint Special Operations Command, which is headquartered at Pope Air Force Base, N.C., and is in charge of the most sensitive special operations missions. The 160th is headquartered at Fort Campbell, Ky., and the 24th STS is headquartered at Pope.

The helicopter was carrying 22 personnel, and while some of the survivors “did walk away,” several others are very seriously injured, the source said.

The helicopter was flying from Kandahar to Bagram at about 300 feet above the ground when it experienced a sudden loss of power, the source said. Initial speculation about the cause of the loss of power has centered on the possibility of engine icing, he said. But whatever caused the loss of power, “at 300 feet you don’t have a lot of space to recover,” the source added.

The helicopter appears to have come down aft end first, then bounced on its nose, causing the transmission assembly to come down on the cockpit, crushing the personnel at the front of the helicopter, according to the source.

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The Rape of Sabrine...
It takes a lot to get the energy and resolution to blog lately. I guess it’s mainly because just thinking about the state of Iraq leaves me drained and depressed. But I had to write tonight.

As I write this, Oprah is on Channel 4 (one of the MBC channels we get on Nilesat), showing Americans how to get out of debt. Her guest speaker is telling a studio full of American women who seem to have over-shopped that they could probably do with fewer designer products. As they talk about increasing incomes and fortunes, Sabrine Al-Janabi, a young Iraqi woman, is on Al Jazeera telling how Iraqi security forces abducted her from her home and raped her. You can only see her eyes, her voice is hoarse and it keeps breaking as she speaks. In the end she tells the reporter that she can’t talk about it anymore and she covers her eyes with shame.

She might just be the bravest Iraqi woman ever. Everyone knows American forces and Iraqi security forces are raping women (and men), but this is possibly the first woman who publicly comes out and tells about it using her actual name. Hearing her tell her story physically makes my heart ache. Some people will call her a liar. Others (including pro-war Iraqis) will call her a prostitute- shame on you in advance.

I wonder what excuse they used when they took her. It’s most likely she’s one of the thousands of people they round up under the general headline of ‘terrorist suspect’. She might have been one of those subtitles you read on CNN or BBC or Arabiya, “13 insurgents captured by Iraqi security forces.” The men who raped her are those same security forces Bush and Condi are so proud of- you know- the ones the Americans trained. It’s a chapter right out of the book that documents American occupation in Iraq: the chapter that will tell the story of 14-year-old Abeer who was raped, killed and burned with her little sister and parents.

They abducted her from her house in an area in southern Baghdad called Hai Al Amil. No- it wasn’t a gang. It was Iraqi peace keeping or security forces- the ones trained by Americans? You know them. She was brutally gang-raped and is now telling the story. Half her face is covered for security reasons or reasons of privacy. I translated what she said below.

“I told him, ‘I don’t have anything [I did not do anything].’ He said, 'You don’t have anything?’ One of them threw me on the ground and my head hit the tiles. He did what he did- I mean he raped me. The second one came and raped me. The third one also raped me. [Pause- sobbing] I begged them and cried, and one of them covered my mouth. [Unclear, crying] Another one of them came and said, 'Are you finished? We also want our turn.' So they answered, ‘No, an American committee came.’ They took me to the judge.

Anchorwoman: Sabrine Al Janabi said that one of the security forces videotaped/photographed her and threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the rape. Another officer raped her after she saw the investigative judge.

Sabrine continuing:
“One of them, he said… I told him, ‘Please- by your father and mother- let me go.’ He said, ‘No, no- by my mother’s soul I’ll let you go- but on one condition, you give me one single thing.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘[I want] to rape you.’ I told him, ‘No- I can’t.’ So he took me to a room with a weapon… It had a weapon, a Klashnikov, a small bed [Unclear], he sat me on it. So [the officer came] and told him, ‘Leave her to me.’ I swore to him on the Quran, I told him, ‘By the light of the Prophet I don’t do such things…’ He said, ‘You don’t do such things?’ I said, ‘Yes’.

[Crying] He picked up a black hose, like a pipe. He hit me on the thigh. [Crying] I told him, ‘What do you want from me? Do you want me to tell you rape me? But I can’t… I’m not one of those ***** [Prostitutes] I don’t do such things.’ So he said to me, ‘We take what we want and what we don’t want we kill. That’s that.’ [Sobbing] I can’t anymore… please, I can’t finish.”

I look at this woman and I can’t feel anything but rage. What did we gain? I know that looking at her, foreigners will never be able to relate. They’ll feel pity and maybe some anger, but she’s one of us. She’s not a girl in jeans and a t-shirt so there will only be a vague sort of sympathy. Poor third-world countries- that is what their womenfolk tolerate. Just know that we never had to tolerate this before. There was a time when Iraqis were safe in the streets. That time is long gone. We consoled ourselves after the war with the fact that we at least had a modicum of safety in our homes. Homes are sacred, aren’t they? That is gone too.
...
And yet, as the situation continues to deteriorate both for Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq, and for Americans inside Iraq, Americans in America are still debating on the state of the war and occupation- are they winning or losing? Is it better or worse.

Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It’s worse. It’s over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq’s first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile.
Riverbend link

But, then:

Iraqi police officers cleared of rape

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three officers of the Shiite-dominated police force have been cleared of allegations that they raped a Sunni woman in their custody, a government statement said Tuesday.

The statement by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office accused "certain parties" — presumably Sunni politicians — of fabricating the allegation to discredit the security forces during the ongoing Baghdad security operation.

The 20-year-old married woman said she was assaulted after police commandos took her into custody Sunday in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Amil, accusing her of helping insurgents. She said she was taken to a police garrison and raped.

"It has been shown after medical examinations that the woman had not been subjected to any sexual attack whatsoever and that there are three outstanding arrest warrants against her issued by security agencies," the government statement said.

"After the allegations have been proven to be false, the prime minister has ordered that the officers accused be rewarded," it said without elaborating.

There was no comment from Sunni officials, who expressed outrage over the woman's allegation and demanded swift punishment. Sunnis blame the police for many of the death squad killings of Sunnis over the past two years.
AP link

A non-stop descent into a Danteian Hell.

Sadr City remains security dilemma

By Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writer

7:07 PM PST, February 20, 2007

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. and Iraqi forces have moved aggressively in the past week to combat Sunni Arab insurgents in neighborhoods across the capital and to establish a stronger presence in religiously mixed districts plagued by sectarian violence.

But as the new security crackdown enters a second week, the forces face their most sensitive challenge: whether, when and how to move into the Shiite-dominated slum of Sadr City, stronghold of the Mahdi army militia.

Political pressure has mounted to crack down on the Baghdad neighborhood that harbors the militia loyal to radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Sunnis, who make up the backbone of the insurgency, have long accused Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of allowing Sadr City to remain a safe haven for militias in order to maintain popular support from al-Sadr's followers.

"We think that much of the Sunni violence that comes as result of operations emanating from Sadr City will be remarkably diminished if they crack down," said Ammar Wajuih, a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's main Sunni Arab political organization.

U.S. and Iraqi military commanders planning the next steps of the Baghdad security plan are concerned that if they move too aggressively, they could sabotage one of the few success stories in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Even amid the bloodshed across Baghdad, customers fill Sadr City's shops. Construction workers repair its streets and sewage lines. Children play soccer on its dusty fields and walk to school along newly prettified squares, verdant emblems of progress in one of Iraq's most long-deprived quarters.

"Sadr City has always been safe, with the exception of the suicide and roadside bomb attacks," said Talib Saad, a barber along the main thoroughfare through Sadr City.

Americans took heavy casualties when they tried to storm Sadr City in the spring and summer of 2004. For Americans, the street fights with black-clad teens holding AK-47s while running down the streets in slippers represented a nadir few want to relive. Rather than crush the Mahdi Army, the U.S. ultimately wound up bolstering al-Sadr's street credibility and undermining the popularity of pro-American Prime Minister Iyad Allawi

Army Gen. Jack Keane, a former Army vice chief of staff, and military analyst Frederick Kagan, who were among the most influential advocates of the current Bush administration plan to increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq by 21,500, have warned that a push into Sadr City would unnecessarily unite the country's splintered Shiite leadership.

"Attempting to clear Sadr City would almost certainly force the (Mahdi army) into (a direct) confrontation with American troops," they wrote in a January report for the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. "It would also do enormous damage to al-Maliki's) political base and would probably lead to the collapse of the Iraqi government."

But now at least one of the authors questions that view. In an interview Tuesday, Kagan said some early signs of success, including al-Sadr's recent disappearance from the public scene and successful sweeps of other heavily Shiite neighborhoods nearby, suggest that U.S. forces could move into Sadr City earlier than Keane and Kagan had advocated.

"It appears that I overestimated the Sadrists and underestimated Maliki," Kagan said. "Our troops have operated in these neighborhoods, and these neighborhoods are not resisting."

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_{• 1,000 troops out by May, all gone by end of 2008
• Pace of pullout much slower than anticipated}


Richard Norton-Taylor | February 21

Guardian - All British troops will be pulled out of Iraq by the end of 2008, starting with the withdrawal of 1,000 in the early summer, the Guardian has learned.

Tony Blair is to announce the moves - the result of months of intense debate in Whitehall - within 24 hours, possibly later today, according to officials.

The prime minister is expected to say that Britain intends to gradually reduce the number of troops in southern Iraq over the next 22 months as Iraqi forces take on more responsibility for the security of Basra and the surrounding areas.

Ministers have taken on board the message coming from military chiefs over many months - namely that the presence of British troops on the streets of Basra is increasingly unnecessary, even provocative. The reduction of just 1,000 by early summer cited by officials yesterday is significantly less than anticipated in reports that British troops in southern Iraq, presently totalling 7,200, would be cut by half by May.

A more cautious reduction may reflect concern expressed by the Iraqi and US governments about British intentions. The US has privately admonished Britain claiming it is interested only in Basra. British ministers and officials say the situation in the Shia-dominated south cannot be compared to Baghdad, which is plagued by Sunni-Shia sectarian violence.
MORE AT LINK

_{"at some point I'm hopeful I'll figure out something to put here"}

Another European leader has discovered the dangers of being a friend of Bush's America

John Hooper | February 21

Guardian - As Britons digested the implications of Tony Blair's pledge to pull British forces out of Iraq, Italians were pitched into a crisis over their own troops' presence in Afghanistan.

Less than an hour ago, Romano Prodi's centre-left government suffered a hugely damaging - and possibly lethal - blow when the Senate, the upper house of parliament, rejected a motion endorsing its foreign policy. The vote was 158 to 136 with 24 abstentions, but since abstentions count as "no" votes in the Senate, it amounted to a two-vote defeat.

Since it was not a formal vote of confidence, the government is not obliged to resign. But it is by no means clear it will survive.

Last night, the foreign minister, Massimo D'Alema, said a "no" vote would mean it was time for "everyone to go home". D'Alema himself - the formerly communist architect of a moderate, "realistic", and essentially pro-US, foreign policy - looked highly unlikely to survive.

At the moment of writing he and the other deputy prime minister, Francesco Rutelli, are locked away with Prodi in the prime minister's office in the centre of Rome.

The key issue at stake in the Senate was Italy's contribution to the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) force. The last Italian soldiers left Iraq last December. But there are almost 2,000 troops in ISAF and the funding for their continued presence has to be approved by mid-March.

The issue had become increasingly fraught over the past month or so as doubts grew among lawmakers on the left of Prodi's broad, nine-party coalition. Two of them did not cast a vote today (though their protest would not have had such an impact had not the ageing Giulio Andreotti, a life senator, not wrong-footed everyone by declaring he would vote "yes" then abstaining).

The reason Afghanistan became such an issue also had to do with discontent among rank-and-file supporters of the radical parliamentary left over plans to extend a US base at Vicenza in the north of the country. The two questions became inextricably linked as two aspects of growing public opposition to Italy's collaboration with American foreign policy.

Last Saturday, at least 70,000 people marched through Vicenza to protest at the base extension scheme. Prodi shrugged off the demonstration and said the project would go ahead no matter what.

British readers might just perhaps see a parallel there.

_{"at some point I'm hopeful I'll figure out something to put here"}

Army commanders wanted bigger and faster troop pullout

Presence on Basra streets seen as doing more harm than good

Richard Norton-Taylor, Michael Howard in Baghdad, and Will Woodward
Thursday February 22, 2007
The Guardian

Military chiefs had been pushing for much bigger cuts in the number of British troops in Iraq than those announced yesterday by Tony Blair, defence officials made clear last night.

For months, army commanders have suggested that their presence on the streets of Basra was doing more harm than good, that it was time to lower expectations and let Iraqi forces take charge of security. They were forced to agree to a more gradual reduction partly in deference to US sensitivities. They also recognised the importance of "managing risk", a senior defence source said.

"You don't want them to have to go back in," he added.

big snip

State of the coalition

Britain 7100

Albania 120 non-combat troops, mainly patrolling airport in Mosul; no plans to withdraw

Armenia 46 soldiers, serving as medics, engineers and drivers under Polish command; staying to end of 2007

Australia Around 550 troops training security forces in southern Iraq

Azerbaijan 150 troops; no plans to withdraw

Bosnia-Herzegovina 36 soldiers

Bulgaria 155 in total 120 non-combat troops guarding refugee camp near Baghdad, 35 support personnel

Czech Republic 99 troops

Denmark 460 troops patrolling Basra; to be withdrawn by August

El Salvador 380 soldiers in Hillah; no immediate plans to withdraw

Estonia 35 troops under US command in the Baghdad area

Georgia 900 combat, medical and support personnel under US command in Baqouba; no plans to withdraw or reduce contingent

Kazakhstan 27 military engineers; no plans to withdraw

Latvia 125 troops under Polish command in Diwaniya

Lithuania 60 troops, part of a Danish battalion near Basra

Macedonia 40 troops in Taji

Moldova 11 bomb-defusing experts returned home at end of January

Mongolia 160 troops; no plans to withdraw

Netherlands 15 soldiers as part of Nato mission training police, army officers; no plans to withdraw

Poland 900 non-combat troops; commands multinational force; mission extended to end of 2007

Romania about 600 troops, most serving under UK command; prime minister Calin Popescu-Tariceanu wants them withdrawn

Slovenia 4 instructors training Iraqi security forces

South Korea 2,300 troops in Irbil; plans to bring home 1,100; parliament insists on complete withdrawal by end of 2007

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq ~ lots of articles and history

lots more at The Independent

BBC coverage ~ links on side bar and in story

Iraqi insurgents use 2nd 'dirty' attack

By BRIAN MURPHY
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Insurgents exploded a truck carrying chlorine gas canisters Wednesday - the second such "dirty" chemical attack in two days - while a U.S. official said ground fire apparently forced the downing of a Black Hawk helicopter. All nine aboard the aircraft were rescued.

The attacks offer a sweeping narrative on evolving tactics by Sunni insurgents who have proved remarkably adaptable.

Military officials worry extremists may have recently gained more access to firepower such as shoulder-fired anti-aircraft rockets and heavy machine guns - and more expertise to use them. The Black Hawk would be at least the eighth U.S. helicopter to crash or be taken down by hostile fire in the past month.

The gas cloud in Baghdad, meanwhile, suggests possible new and coordinated strategies by bombers trying to unleash toxic - and potentially deadly - materials. "Terrorists are using dirty means," said Brig. Gen. Qassim Moussawi, an Iraqi military spokesman.

Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman, said initial reports indicated the chopper was brought down by "small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades" north of Baghdad, but gave no further details. All nine aboard were taken away on a rescue helicopter, he said.

In Baghdad, a pickup truck carrying chlorine gas cylinders was blown apart, killing at least five people and sending more than 55 to hospitals gasping for breath and rubbing stinging eyes, police said.

On Tuesday, a bomb planted on a chlorine tanker left more than 150 villagers stricken north of the capital. More than 60 were still under medical care on Wednesday. Chlorine causes respiratory trouble and skin irritation in low levels and possible death with heavy exposure.

In Washington, two Pentagon officials said the tactic has been used at least three times since Jan. 28, when a truck carrying explosives and a chlorine tank blew up in Anbar province. More than a dozen people were reported killed.

A third Pentagon official said the United States has been concerned about Iraqi militants' ability to get weapons like chlorine bombs and use them effectively. But the official cautioned that chlorine bombs are just one threat on a long list of possible attacks that Iraqi fighters may try to carry out.

It was unclear whether the confluence of new insurgent tactics - attacking isolated combat posts, targeting helicopters more intensely and using chlorine bombs - was coincidental or in response to the U.S. troop increase.

W. Patrick Lang, a former official at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the insurgents are always "seeking to achieve higher levels of effectiveness" and these new tactics are part of the normal "evolution of sophistication."

Lang said trucks filled with chlorine gas are "really quite deadly" because the gas is potent and spreads easily.

Some authorities believe militants could be trying to maximize the panic from their attacks by adding chlorine or other noxious substances.

"It is an indication of maliciousness, a desire to injure and kill innocent people in the vicinity," said Garver, who also predicted militants may begin to launch similar attacks because of the widespread mayhem caused by this week's chlorine clouds.

"If there is a particular success, we'll see copycats. ... They certainly pay attention to what they think is successful," he said.

In Najaf, meanwhile, a suicide car bomber killed at least 13 at a police checkpoint. The attack fit a pattern that's believed to drive much of Iraq's recent violence: Sunni militants seeking to provoke majority Shiites into a full-blown sectarian conflict that would leave Washington's plans in ruins.

It was the first major bombing in more than six months in Najaf, an important Shiite pilgrimage site 100 miles south of Baghdad and also the headquarters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, head of the Mahdi Army militia.

The Najaf blast hit while streets were filled with morning shoppers. At least seven of the victims were police and the rest civilians near a checkpoint - part of the city's security cordon that includes Mahdi Army militiamen, who battled U.S. forces in the area in 2004.

More than 40 people were wounded in the blast, which sent body parts and blood over a wide boulevard. Crews stuffed limbs and bits of flesh into cardboard boxes.

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Guardian Unlimited, By James Sturcke and agencies, Feb 22

Tony Blair today said that Britain should be proud of its involvement in Iraq and denied he should take responsibility for the "very grim situation" in the country.

The prime minister, who yesterday announced the withdrawal of 1,600 of Britain's 7,100 troops in southern Iraq, dismissed suggestions that he failed to plan for the security of the country after the removal of Saddam Hussein four years ago.

He appeared to leave the door open to the possibility of sending more British troops back to Iraq if the situation deteriorated.

"We have the full combat capability that is there, so if we are needed to go back in in any set of circumstances, we can. The whole purpose of us being in a support role is precisely to do that," he said.

Mr Blair insisted that the fact the Iraqi army had been "built up from scratch" to today's level of 130,000 showed the coalition had thought through the aftermath of the war. He said he disagreed with the former UK special envoy to Baghdad, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, that no one was thinking about the vacuum created by the removal of Saddam.