Bombings, Attacks Kill 58 in Iraq

Monday July 30, 2007 1:16 PM

By KIM GAMEL

Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD (AP) - A minibus exploded Monday in a Baghdad market, killing at least six people - a brutal reminder of the dangers facing Iraqis, who only hours ago were joyously united after their underdog national soccer team won the prestigious Asian Cup.

The U.S. military also said three soldiers had been killed in fighting in Anbar province west of Baghdad last Thursday. The deaths raised to at least 3,651 members of the U.S. military who have died since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

In all, 58 people nationwide were killed by bombings and attacks.

In political developments, the largest Sunni Arab bloc said the government's response to its demands and threat to pull out of the Cabinet this week slammed the door to reforms.

The Iraq Accordance Front, which has six Cabinet members and 44 of parliament's 275 seats, has suspended its membership in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government and threatened to quit altogether this week if he doesn't meet certain demands.

The move would plunge the U.S.-backed government deeper into crisis as parliament prepares to begin a monthlong break in August without passing key legislation demanded by Washington to promote national unity and stem support for the Sunni-led insurgency.

The government has called the threat blackmail and said the Sunni bloc had contributed in creating some of the very policies it now criticized.

The Accordance Front said Monday that al-Maliki does not seem to have any intention of dealing constructively with their demands, which include a pardon for detainees not charged with specific crimes and the disbanding of militias.

``He is simply slamming shut the door for reform, and in the light of that the front will be justified if it goes ahead with its plan to quit the government,'' it said in a statement.

Black smoke rose into the air after the blast struck a transit point near Tayaran Square at about 1 p.m., damaging several cars and kiosks selling clothes, fruit and juice, police and hospital officials said. The minibus was waiting for passengers heading to predominantly Shiite areas in eastern Baghdad.

At least 31 people were wounded in addition to the six killed, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

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Michael E. O'Hanlon & Kenneth Pollack | Washington | July 30

NYT Viewed from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.

(Continued at link)

talking with Charles Ferguson, who produced and directed "No End in Sight" being released over the next weeks.

Charles Ferguson on His Documentary "No End in Sight"
Aired: Monday, July 30, 2007 10-11AM ET

We talk to filmmaker Charles Ferguson about his award-winning new documentary "No End in Sight," about how Washington ran Iraq after the fall of Baghdad.

Charles Ferguson, Director and Producer of "No End in Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq" (winner of the Sundance Film Festival special jury prize for documentary)

Drew Erdmann, former Director for Iran, Iraq and Strategic Planning at the National Security Council, former Coalition Provisional Authority Senior Advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education.

Last Updated: Monday, 30 July 2007, 17:50 GMT 18:50 UK

Taleban 'kill S Korean hostage'

A second South Korean from a group of 22 held by the Taleban in south Afghanistan has been killed, a spokesman for the militants has said.

The office of the governor of Ghazni and local police also told the BBC the killing had taken place, although neither had seen the victim's body.

The group were kidnapped nine days ago on the road between Kandahar and Kabul.

The leader of the group was shot by the Taleban on Wednesday. The militants want government prisoners released.

Afghan police find body of second Korean hostage

Matthew Weaver and agencies
Tuesday July 31, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

A second South Korean hostage has been found dead in central Afghanistan, as the Taliban threatened to kill more of the remaining 21 captives by tomorrow.
Police discovered the man's bloodstained body on a roadside this morning in the village of Arizo Kalley, six miles west of Ghazni city, in the Andar district.

The South Korean foreign ministry identified him as 29-year-old Shim Sung-min, a former information technology worker who volunteered with a church group on an aid mission to Afghanistan.

He appeared to have a gunshot wound to the right temple.

A purported Taliban spokesman claimed he was killed last night because the Afghan government failed to meet its demand for the release of Taliban prisoners.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, repeated the group's demand for an exchange of Taliban prisoners for the Christian volunteers.

The Taliban kidnapped 23 South Koreans travelling on a bus through Ghazni province on the main road between Kabul and Kandahar on July 19. It's the largest group of foreign hostages taken in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion.

"The Kabul and Korean governments are lying and cheating. They did not meet their promise of releasing Taliban prisoners," Mr Ahmadi said by phone from an undisclosed location.

He also set a new deadline for potentially all of the remaining hostages.

"If the Kabul government does not release the Taliban prisoners, then we will kill after 12 o'clock - we are going to kill Korean hostages," Mr Ahmadi said.

"It might be a man or a woman ... It might be one. It might be two, four. It might be all of them."

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The Independent, By Andrew Grice, July 31

Camp David - Gordon Brown has paved the way for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq by telling George Bush he would not delay their exit in order to show unity with the United States.

After four hours of one-to-one talks with the US President at his Camp David retreat, Mr Brown told a joint press conference he would make a Commons statement in October on the future of the 5,500 British troops in the Basra region.

The Bush administration, under mounting domestic pressure to produce an exit strategy from Iraq, has been nervous that a full British withdrawal would add to the criticism. But Mr Brown made clear - and President Bush accepted - that Britain would go its own way, even if that gave the impression the two countries were diverging.

Mr Brown's willingness to pursue an independent British policy in Iraq will be seen as an important break with Tony Blair. Mr Brown said the two leaders had had "full and frank discussions" - diplomatic code for some disagreements.

Colonel says news reports overinflate disagreements
Stars and Stripes, By Joseph Giordono, July 31

A top military spokesman in Iraq is disputing reports that Gen. David Petraeus and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s relationship is so strained that Maliki has considered calling for Petraeus’ ouster.

In a story by The Associated Press (published in Stars and Stripes on July 30), a lawmaker from the al-Sadr bloc who was quoted anonymously reported hearing al-Maliki tell Petraeus he would demand that Washington replace the general, who took overall command of the U.S. effort in Iraq this February.

U.S. Army Col. Steven Boylan did say in an e-mail to Stars and Stripes that Petraeus and al-Maliki “have very frank, open, and perhaps direct conversations and continue to do so. Based on what is at stake here, that is what is needed and it should be expected that both are able to have very open and frank dialogue.”

The Associated Press quoted by name an al-Maliki aide as saying “it is possible that we may demand \[Petraeus’\] removal.

[...]

The Associated Press defended its story, citing a previous Petraeus interview, in which the U.S. commander noted that in discussions with Maliki, “I’m going to speak up. And I have on occasion. And on a couple of occasions have demonstrated the full range of emotions.”

Kurdish Leader Warns of Iraqi Civil War

Tuesday July 31, 2007 7:16 PM

BAGHDAD (AP) - The leader of Iraq's Kurdish region warned Tuesday of a ``real civil war'' if the central government does not implement a constitutional clause on the future of Kirkuk, the oil-rich city claimed by the Kurds.

Control over the city and the surrounding oil wealth is in dispute. Kurds are trying to annex the region. Iraq's Arab majority and a Turkish minority that lives in Kirkuk oppose that move.

Massoud Barzani, speaking in an interview with U.S.-funded Alhurra television, complained that the Baghdad government was dragging its feet on holding a referendum that could put Kirkuk under control of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

``There is procrastination (by the government) and if this issue is not resolved, as I said before, all options are open. ... Frankly I am not comfortable with the behavior and the policy of the federal government on Kirkuk and clause 140,'' he said.

The constitutional clause calls for a referendum in Kirkuk to decide its future status by the end of the year. Before the vote, the clause says Kurds expelled from the city during Saddam Hussein's rule must be allowed to return. A census would then be held to determine which ethnic group was a majority of the population.

Tens of thousands of Kurds have returned to the city since Saddam's ouster in 2003, but a census has not been conducted.

``If clause 140 is not implemented, then there will be a real civil war,'' Barzani said, promising to visit Baghdad shortly to discuss the matter with the central government.

``That issue must be completely resolved or, as I said, all options are open.''

Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney acknowledged on Tuesday he was wrong in 2005 when he insisted the insurgency in Iraq was in its "last throes."

It was Cheney's most direct public admission of how badly the administration had underestimated the strength of America's enemies in the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq.

But Cheney, an architect of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, otherwise gave no ground in an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live" as he defended President George W. Bush's Iraq policy.

He said the Bush administration would still send troops into Iraq if it could do it all over again, even knowing what it knows now, including that more than 3,000 U.S. military personnel would be killed.

"I firmly believe," Cheney said, "that the decisions we've made with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan have been absolutely the sound ones in terms of the overall strategy."

But Cheney made clear he no longer held to a May 2005 assessment, widely mocked by political satirists and Democratic politicians, in which he said, "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

Since then, unrelenting attacks have brought Iraq to the brink of civil war.

Cheney's words were among many oft-cited quotes marking the U.S. pursuit of the war, which has damaged U.S. credibility around the world. They include Bush's taunting insurgents after the invasion by declaring "Bring 'em on!" and the banner stating "Mission Accomplished" behind Bush as he spoke aboard an aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003.

Cheney Says He Was Wrong

Cheney, known for his secretive ways and rarely one to admit mistakes publicly, said:

"My estimate at the time -- and it was wrong, it turned out to be incorrect -- was the fact that we were in the midst of holding three elections in Iraq, elected an interim government, then ratifying a constitution, then electing a permanent government, that they had had significant success, we'd rounded up Saddam Hussein.

"I thought there were a series of these milestones that would in fact undermine the insurgency and make it less than it was at that point. That clearly didn't happen. I think the insurgency turned out to be more robust."

Cheney said it had also been made before al Qaeda in Iraq had stepped up attacks, including the 2006 bombing of a Shi'ite mosque that sparked a wave of sectarian killings.

The Bush administration is facing growing pressure from a Democratic-led Congress and a war-weary American public for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, something Bush firmly rejects.

In a further blow to Bush's strategy, Iraq's parliament went into summer recess for a month on Monday after political leaders failed to agree on a series of laws that Washington sees as crucial to stabilizing the country.

"It's better than taking two months off, which was their original plan," Cheney said. "I made it clear, for example, when I was there in May that we didn't appreciate the notion that they were going to take a big part of the summer off and they did cut that in half."

He insisted that since the U.S. Congress takes the month of August off, "I don't think we can say that they (Iraqi lawmakers) shouldn't go home at all."

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSYAT71336220070801

Tue Jul 31, 2007 11:14PM EDT

By Peter Graff

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The buildup of extra troops in Baghdad may be bearing fruit, U.S. commanders said on Tuesday, as they welcomed word that July was the least deadly month for their forces in Iraq since November.

Comment: While this is good news, some recent historical context may provide some needed perspective:

Looking at recent July casualty figures in Iraq ( http://icasualties.org/oif/ ) there has been a significant mid-Summer dip in coaltion casualties each of the last three years.

In 2006, There were 63 coalition soldiers killed in June, and 66 in August, but only 46 in July, 2006.

Similarly, in 2005, there were 83 coalition casualties in June, and 85 killed in August, but only 58 deaths in July, 2005.

Finally, in 2004, 50 coalition soldiers died in June, 58 in July, but 75 in August and 84 in May. (In other words, there was a dip in casualties that included both June and July, not just July.)

I think we need to see August's casualty figures before we attribute July's reduction in coalition troops deaths (which appears to at 82 for July) to real progress based on the surge.

3 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Baghdad
The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 1, 2007; 3:38 AM

BAGHDAD -- Three U.S. soldiers were killed and six wounded by a sophisticated armor-piercing bomb in eastern Baghdad, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

An explosively-formed penetrator, or EFP, detonated near the soldiers' patrol during combat operations on Tuesday, the military said in a statement.

The victims' names were withheld pending family notification

Main Sunni bloc says it withdraws from Iraq govt

BAGHDAD, Aug 1 (Reuters) - The main Sunni Arab political bloc said on Wednesday it was withdrawing from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's coalition government over his failure to meet a list of demands.

The move is likely to complicate efforts by Maliki's shaky government to agree on a series of laws which Washington sees as crucial to bringing minority Sunni Arabs more closely into the political process and quelling sectarian violence.

The Accordance Front, which last week suspended the work of its six ministers in government, had wanted a greater say in security matters and had accused Maliki's Shi'ite led-coalition government of failing to consult it on key issues.

"The Accordance Front is announcing that is withdrawing from the government of Nuri al-Maliki and its deputy prime minister and the five ministers will present today their resignations," Accordance Front official Rafei Issawi told a news conference.

Six ministers loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr also quit Maliki's government in June in protest over his refusal to set a timetable for a U.S. troop withdrawal. They have not yet been replaced.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L01753545.htm

posted under fair use

U.S. officials: Shiite militias are the main threat to Iraq

Mark Seibel and Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: July 31, 2007 06:51:40 PM

BAGHDAD — Despite President Bush's recent insistence that al Qaida in Iraq is the principal cause of this country's violence, senior American military officers here say Shiite Muslim militias are a bigger problem, and one that will persist even if al Qaida is defeated.

"The longer-term threat to Iraq is potentially the Shiite militias," one senior military officer said, echoing concerns that other American officials raised in recent interviews with McClatchy Newspapers.

Military officers hail the fact that violence is down as evidence that their campaign against al Qaida in Iraq is succeeding. But there's no sign of reconciliation between Sunni Muslims and Shiites, the rationale the Bush administration cites for increasing the number of U.S. troops in the country.

The Shiite Mahdi Army militia continues to drive Sunni residents from neighborhoods in Baghdad, a development that one American officer called "disappointing." Shiite politicians show little sympathy for the expelled Sunnis or interest in stopping the expulsions. In interviews, they argued that the drive against Sunnis is a justified response to Sunni campaigns to drive Shiites from their neighborhoods, a position that American military officers reject.

American officials say they're hopeful about the recent decision by some Sunni insurgent groups to cooperate with U.S. troops to defeat al Qaida in Iraq. But some of America's new Sunni allies warn that once they've disposed of the religious extremists in their midst, they'll return to battling rival Shiites — and American occupiers.

Meanwhile, Sunni politicians are boycotting the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and threatening to withdraw permanently if 12 demands aren't met, including an end to Shiite militias' infiltration of Iraqi security forces.

More alarming, American officers say that battles for supremacy among armed Shiite groups will be the next challenge, and that U.S. forces are likely to be drawn into those disputes. Already, the U.S. is taking sides, sending attack aircraft to back Iraqi security forces against radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army.

Combating the influence of Shiite militias had long been a cornerstone of American policy in Iraq. But that position changed last January, when President Bush, facing rising congressional and public opposition to the war in Iraq, pronounced al Qaida the No. 1 cause of violence there and said he was dispatching more than 20,000 additional troops to confront the problem.

In the months since, as congressional criticism grew, Bush has gone even further, calling al Qaida in Iraq "the same people" responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, though al Qaida in Iraq didn't form until after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has at best only hazy ties to the al Qaida of Osama bin Laden.

Few officials on the front lines, moreover, think that defeating the terrorist organization would end Iraq's troubles. They paint a far more complex vision of the violence than is evident in Washington-based pronouncements about al Qaida's involvement.

In an interview with McClatchy, Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top American military commander in Iraq, said the military offensive had decimated al Qaida in Iraq's leadership, not only in Baghdad but also in other key locations such as Diyala province. He cited a decline in massive car-bombings in the capital as one sign that al Qaida has been unable to find experienced operatives to replace leaders who've been killed or detained in the current U.S.-led offensive.

But Petraeus acknowledged that he'd just returned from a meeting with prominent Shiite politicians to discuss Shiite militias' infiltration of the security forces and their role in death squads that have been targeting Sunnis.

Other U.S. military officers, who agreed to speak only if they weren't named because of the sensitive nature of the subject, point out that Shiite militias regularly battle one another in largely Shiite southern Iraq, where there's never been much of an al Qaida presence.

Adding to concerns is a realization among American officials that they don't know the Mahdi Army's intentions in Baghdad. Will Sadr's group be satisfied with driving Sunnis into traditionally Sunni districts or will it seek to purge those districts too?

"A lot of what goes on in the wee hours of the morning, whether it's Shiite death squads or Sunnis in al Qaida in Iraq, we don't know about," a senior military official said. "Single-sect neighborhoods tend to be more stable. It may not be ethical and moral the way they're created, but the results are undeniable."

Although they're Maliki's most powerful supporters, American officials aren't certain about the prime minister's intentions, either. One officer said his primary question remained whether Maliki wanted an Iraqi society in which members of all sects participated equally.

While Maliki has promised to rein in militias, prominent members of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite alliance that dominates Iraq's parliament, have expressed little outrage that Shiite militias are targeting Sunnis. They say the attacks are merely payback for years of oppression by Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led dictatorship and for Sunni insurgent car bombs in predominately Shiite areas.

"There are more Shiites in camps (for displaced persons) than Sunnis," said Sheik Homam Hammoudi, the head of Iraq's constitutional reform committee and a prominent member of the Shiite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, often referred to as Iraq's largest political party.

The two largest militias, Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, are tied to prominent Iraqi families whose rivalries date back generations. Both militias have infiltrated the security forces.

Badr, which has never openly battled American forces, generally gets credit for being the more astute player of the two. "The Badr corps understood the game from the beginning and incorporated itself into the security forces," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said.

A senior U.S. military official described American support for Badr — an Iranian-funded organization that many think still conducts targeted assassinations — as the only option since many of its members have been absorbed into the Iraqi security forces.

"Badr has decided to join the government, and they gave up their weapons and became part of the state," the senior military official said. "If we're not going to support al Qaida in Iraq and not going to support Jaysh al Mahdi (the Mahdi Army) and we can't support the security forces, then why are we here?"

Sadr, who also receives aid from Iran, is popular among Iraq's Shiite poor and controls the largest Shiite bloc in parliament. The Mahdi Army attacked U.S. forces in 2004 and was almost eradicated in August of that year after U.S. troops besieged the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf. Sadr since has urged his followers not to attack American forces, though the head of his parliament bloc said attacks could still be justified.

"This does not mean that if there is bad conduct by Americans that they can't attack Americans," said Nassar al Rubaie, the head of Sadr's bloc in parliament. "Avenging dignity is part of the Arab identity. As long as Americans (treat us with disrespect) we will attack."

While Sunni groups that once opposed the American presence here are fighting alongside U.S. forces to eradicate al Qaida in Iraq, many Sunnis fear that once the extremist Islamic group is gone, they'll be sitting ducks for Shiite militias.

In the town of Khalis in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, as U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces pursue al Qaida in Iraq, the Mahdi Army has taken over. One woman from Diyala related the story of her extended family members. They opened their homes to a Sunni family on the run from the Mahdi Army, hiding them until they could flee the next day. The Mahdi Army found out and threatened the head of the family and his sons. Now the family has fled, and its members are hiding throughout the country.

"We are worried about a power vacuum," said Salim Abdullah, spokesman for the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front. "We have cases now . . . where people started to believe that al Qaida was what provided their security. We struck al Qaida in one place, and the militias became active. . . . We asked the army not to let militia activity increase al Qaida's popularity among people."

(McClatchy Newspapers Special Correspondent Mohammed al Dulaimy contributed to this report.)

McClatchy Newspapers 2007

01 Aug 2007 11:12:18 GMT
Source: Reuters

DEATH TOLL FROM SUICIDE TRUCK BOMB IN WEST BAGHDAD RISES TO 50 - POLICE

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L01496085.htm

Hostage rescue bid begins in Afghanistan-official

By Yousuf Azimy

GHAZNI, Afghanistan, Aug 1 (Reuters) - A military operation to rescue the remaining 21 Korean hostages held by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan began on Wednesday, hours after a Taliban deadline expired, a provincial official said.

"The operation has started," said Khowja Seddiqi, the district chief of Ghazni's Qarabagh district, where the Taliban kidnapped 23 Korean Christian volunteers nearly two weeks ago.

He did not give more details or say which forces were involved.

Any attempt to rescue the hostages is fraught with risk, as the kidnappers have split the 18 women and three men into small groups and are holding them in different locations across the mainly flat terrain.

The Taliban could not be immediately be contacted, but spokesmen for the radical Islamist movement have repeatedly said any use of force would jeopardise the lives of the hostages.

Earlier the army had dropped leaflets warning civilians of an assault.

"The national army has dropped leaflets from helicopters telling people in several districts to evacuate their houses because it wants to launch an operation," said Khowja Seddiqi, district chief of Qarabagh, in Ghazni province.

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IRAQ: IDP camp in south closes to new arrivals

01 Aug 2007 13:17:51 GMT
Source: IRIN

NAJAF, 1 August 2007 (IRIN) - An internally displaced persons (IDP) camp just outside the southern Iraqi city of Najaf has closed to new arrivals, forcing hundreds of Iraqis fleeing violence in Baghdad and neighbouring governorates to look elsewhere for refuge.

Families trying to access Najaf's al-Manathera camp told IRIN they were desperately searching for a place to stay as their children were getting sick in the hot weather and they had no food or shelter.

"We have been trying to get access to a camp in Najaf for the past five days… but so far no one has offered us help and my two smallest children are getting sick," said Um Abir, mother of four, recently displaced due to sectarian violence in Baghdad.

"It is hard for us to see people getting full assistance inside the camps while we are outside hungry, tired and dirty," Um Abir said, adding: "Someone should look after us before we get shot, or die in this terrible hot weather, because we don't have anywhere to shelter and have to cover our heads with newspaper."

However, Muthana Ali Zeid, media officer in the Najaf Governorate Council, said they could not afford to provide any more assistance to new arrivals.

"Many camps are completely full and, if we allow families to come in, existing IDPs will lose the assistance they are getting," Zeid said.

Al-Manathera camp

The al-Manathera camp is in an old wood factory near the Abu Skhear Silo, Al-Manathera District, about 18km south of Najaf city. The camp is one kilometre down a dirt track off the main road linking Al-Manathera with Najaf city.

The Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration (MoDM) set up the camp in January 2007 in cooperation with the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) to house families who had been squatting in settlements that had been demolished, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in its June/July update report on IDPs in camps in Iraq.

The camp is currently managed by the Najaf branch of the MoDM and hosts 230 families - about 1,150 people.

Zeid said a new security fence around the camp made it almost impossible for new arrivals to get in. "We understand that people need to save their lives but we also need to realise that too many families in a camp is even worse," he said.

"We cannot let more children die in the camp. If more people come in, the possibility of diseases spreading will be higher," Zeid said.

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Child abuse more likely during deployments

By Karen Jowers - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Aug 1, 2007 5:46:27 EDT

In Army enlisted families with at least one incident of child abuse, the children are far more likely to be abused during deployments, researchers have found.

And the type of abuse is likely to be child neglect at the hands of their mothers, according to a study to be published in the Aug. 1 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association by researchers at RTI International and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health.

The study looked at Army families with at least one substantiated report of child abuse and had at least one combat-related deployment during the 40-month period between September 2001 and December 2004. Within those families, the rate of child abuse during soldier deployments was 42 percent higher than when the soldier was not deployed.

Only enlisted families are represented in the study; the data included only 49 officer families, too small a sample to analyze, the researchers stated. For the same reasons, they excluded 156 families in which the soldier was not married to the civilian parent, and nine families in which both husband and wife were soldiers. Thus, out of 1,985 families who met the initial criteria, 1,771 families were included in the study.

“The greatest increase we see during deployments is the increase in child neglect,” which is a category of child abuse, said Deborah Gibbs, a senior health analyst at RTI and the study’s lead author. The study was funded by the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command.

The civilian mother committed child abuse during the time the soldier-husband was deployed at a rate three times greater than when he was not deployed. The rate of child neglect was four times greater. Rates of child abuse for male civilian parents were not greater, researchers noted, suggesting that the two groups may be different in terms of the stress they experience, or how they mobilize resources to help them during deployments.

There may be several reasons for the increase in child neglect among civilian mothers, Gibbs said. “Maybe male parents are more likely to commit child physical abuse. Or, one of the ways the civilian parent left at home responds is by getting overwhelmed with the situation, and may not be keeping up with the child’s needs or supervising the child.”

She said the Army is also more stringent in its regulations about child abuse than civilian communities, “to the credit of the Army. They take seriously leaving a child alone in an apartment, or alone in a parked car at a convenience store.”

It’s understandable that young mothers with young children may find it difficult to manage when the soldier leaves, she said, “which is not to say this is trivial. It’s clear there’s a need for preventive and supportive services.”

Gibbs said she has been on several different installations and has talked about her findings with those who deal with child abuse. “They were not surprised. They are aware of this. They are working hard on it, but their resources are stretched thin. There is also the likelihood that those most in need are not going to seek the services.”

Army officials did not immediately comment on whether they are taking any actions as a result of the research. But officials have taken a variety of steps over the last few years, including increasing the availability of child care at deployed bases, implementing a 24-hour information and referral service through Military OneSource in addition to help available at Army Community Service centers, and adding more personnel to support families in deployed units.

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Sunni Political Group Withdraws From Iraq Cabinet

By Megan Greenwell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 1, 2007; 11:52 AM

BAGHDAD, Aug. 1 -- Iraq's largest Sunni political group formally withdrew from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government Wednesday, dealing a major blow to Maliki's efforts to build a cohesive government.

The Accordance Front announced that will vacate its six seats in Maliki's cabinet after the prime minister and other leading government officials failed to make progress on a list of demands the group issued last week. Accordance Front members said their decision came after Maliki failed to show a commitment to solving the problems of ordinary Iraqi people.

"The government is continuing with its arrogance, refusing to change its stand and slamming shut the door to any meaningful reforms necessary to save Iraq," said senior Accordance Front member Rafaa al-Issawi.

The announcement represents a setback not just for Maliki, but for President Bush, who is expecting a progress report from the top U.S. military commander in Iraq on Sept. 15. The discord within the government and the lack of legislative progress in parliament could undermine his assessment of conditions in Iraq and further decrease congressional support for the war.

The Accordance Front had demanded the release of thousands of detainees it says are unjustly imprisoned, the removal of all militia members from the Iraqi police force and the return of displaced families to their homes. The Sunnis also sought a greater role in security matters and further investigation into mass kidnappings and bombings of Sunni shrines.

Issawi said the group's demands will remain on the table and that its 44 parliament members will not withdraw. "The Front will remain active in the political process with the hope of reforming it and correcting its path in order to get rid of the appearances and the reasons behind the sectarian split," he said.

The announcement came on a violent day in Baghdad, as two car bomb attacks killed at least 70 people, police said. A fuel tanker exploded in the volatile western neighborhood of Mansour, killed at least 50 people and wounding 60 others. Meanwhile, a car bomb in Karrada, in central Baghdad, killed at least 20 people and injured 32 others, police said.

The attack in Karrada was at least the eighth such blast in that neighborhood in the past month. Although the busy shopping district was once considered one of Baghdad's safest areas, it has seen a dramatic increase in violence in the past several weeks.

Also Wednesday, the U.S. military announced that four American troops had been killed in two incidents on Tuesday. That brought the total number of U.S. deaths in July to 76, the lowest number since November 2006, according to icasualties.org.

Special correspondent Saad al-Izzi contributed to this report.

US 'loses' 190,000 weapons in Iraq
Article from: Agence France-Presse

From correspondents in Baghdad

August 01, 2007 10:49pm

THE US Government cannot account for 190,000 weapons issued to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, says the Government Accountability Office.

According to its July 31 report, the military “cannot fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armour and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi forces”.

The weapons disappeared from records between June 2004 and September 2005, as the military struggled to rebuild the disbanded Iraqi forces from scratch amid increasing attacks from Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.

Since 2004 the military “has not consistently collected supporting records confirming the dates the equipment was received, the quantities of equipment delivered, or the Iraqi units receiving the items,” the report said.

“Since 2006 the command has placed greater emphasis on collecting the supporting documents. However, GAO's review of the January 2007 property books found continuing problems with missing and incomplete records.”

US commanders often accuse foreign powers such as Iran of supplying arms to illegal militias fighting in Iraq, but the report shows they cannot fully account for the hundreds thousands of weapons they brought in themselves.

Last month, Turkey raised concerns over reports that separatist Kurdish guerrillas launching cross-border raids from northern Iraq had received US-supplied guns supposedly destined for Iraqi security forces.

Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, spokesman for the US-led military in Iraq, said the Americans were working hard with their Iraqi partners to improve accountability and increase the security of weapons.

“We are working very hard with the Government of Iraq and Iraqi security forces at every level to increase the accountability and to increase the security of the weapons that are provided to the Iraqi forces,” he said.

The US has spent $US19.2 billion (22.61 billion) on Iraq's security forces since the 2003 invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, with $US2.8 billion ($3.3 billion) devoted to equipping them.

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Are made in the US. Not in Iran.

Deplete all our bases around the world, provide american industry with
new weapons contracts, reinstitute the draft, make the world believe we
will crush our enemys with vigor and PROTECT THE innocent. Then sit back for two weeks and engage our enemys with earnest sincere peaceful options and be out in two years with some form of a government.

US military has a lose-lose dilemma in Iraq

By Michael Schwartz
Asia Times
3 August 2007

President George W Bush has called on Congress, the American public, the Iraqi people and the world to suspend judgment - until at least September - on the success of his escalation of the war in Iraq, euphemistically designated a "surge". But the fact is: it has already failed and it's obvious enough why.

Much attention has been paid to the recent White House report that recorded "satisfactory performance" on eight Congressional benchmarks and "unsatisfactory performance" on six others (with an additional four receiving mixed evaluations). Fred Kaplan of Slate and Patrick Cockburn of the Independent, among others, have demonstrated the fraudulence of this assessment. Cockburn summarized his savaging of the document thusly: "In reality, the six failures are on issues critical to the survival of Iraq while the eight successes are on largely trivial matters."

As it happens, though, these benchmarks are almost completely beside the point. They don't represent the key goals of the "surge" at all, which were laid out clearly by the president in his January speech announcing the operation:

Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs.

The success of such "benchmarks" can be judged relatively easily. As Bush himself put the matter: "We can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad's residents."

This was supposed to be accomplished through two major initiatives. Most visibly, the US military was to adopt a more aggressive strategy for pacifying Baghdad neighborhoods considered strongholds for the Sunni insurgency. Occupation officials blame them for the bulk of the vehicle bombs and other suicide attacks that have devastated mainly Shi'ite neighborhoods. The second, less visible (but no less important) initiative involved subduing the Mahdi Army of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr - the largest and most ferocious of the Shi'ite militias - which occupation officials blame for the bulk of death-squad murders in and around the capital.

These changes should have been observable as early as July. By then, as a "senior American military officer" told the New York Times, it would already be time to refocus attention on "restoring services and rebuilding the neighborhoods".

To judge the "surge" right now - by the president's real "benchmarks" - we need only look for a dramatic drop in vehicle and other "multiple fatality bombings" in populated areas, and for a dramatic drop in the number of tortured and executed bodies found each morning in various dumping spots around Baghdad.

By these measures, the "surge" has already been a miserable failure, something that began to be documented as early as April when Nancy Youssef of the McClatchy newspapers reported that there had been no decline in suicide-bombing deaths; and that, after an initial decline in the bodies discarded by death squads around the capital, the numbers were rising again. (These trends have been substantiated by the Brookings Institution, which has long collected the latest statistics from Iraq.)

A more vivid way to appreciate the nature of the almost instantaneous failure of the overall "surge" operation is anecdotally by reading news reports of specific campaigns - like the report Julian Barnes and Ned Parker of the Los Angeles Times sent in from Baghdad's Sunni-majority Ubaidi neighborhood, which was headlined "US troop buildup in Iraq falling short". It concluded ominously, "US forces so far have been unable to establish security, even for themselves."

Or we might note that, instead of ebbing, violence in Iraq was flooding into new areas, just beyond the reach of the US combat brigades engaged in the "surge". Or perhaps it's worth pointing out that, by July, the highly fortified Green Zone in the very heart of Baghdad - designed as the invulnerable safe haven for American and Iraqi officials - had become a regular target for increasingly destructive mortar and rocket attacks launched from unpacified neighborhoods elsewhere in the capital. According to New York Times reporters Alissa J Rubin and Stephen Farrell, the zone has been "attacked almost daily for weeks".

Or we could focus on the fact that the long supply lines needed to support the "surge" - massive convoys of trucks moving weapons, ammunition and supplies heading north from Kuwait into Baghdad - have become a regular target for insurgents. Embedded reporter Michael Yon, for instance, recently reported that, for convoys on this route, "it's not unusual to be diverted or delayed a half-dozen times or more due to real or suspected bombs".

In the end, though, perhaps the best indicator is the surging strength of the primary target of the "surge" in Shi'ite areas. Since the "surge" plan was officially launched in mid-February, according to the Times' Rubin, the Mahdi Army "has effectively taken over vast swaths of the capital".

Twenty thousand more American combat troops are now in and around the capital. (The rest of the 28,500 troops the president sent surging into Iraq have been dispatched to other provinces outside the capital.) This has meant a tripling of American troops on patrol at any given time, but it has failed to produce either significantly "fewer brazen acts of terror" or progress in "restoring services and rebuilding the neighborhoods". So it can be no surprise that the "surge" has failed to generate "growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad's residents".

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Water taps run dry in Iraq; suicide bomb kills 13

BAGHDAD (AP) — Much of the Iraqi capital was without running water Thursday and had been for at least 24 hours, compounding the urban misery in a war zone and the blistering heat at the height of the Baghdad summer.

Residents and city officials said large sections in the west of the capital had been virtually dry for six days because the already strained electricity grid can't provide sufficient juice to run water purification and pumping stations.

Jamil Hussein, 52, retired army officer who lives in northeast Baghdad, said his house has been without water for two weeks, except for two hours at night. He says the water that does flow smells and is unclean.

Two of his children have severe diarrhea that the doctor attributed to drinking what tap water was available, even after it was boiled.

"We'll have to continue drinking it because we don't have money to buy bottled water," he said.

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Four U.S. soldiers killed in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Four U.S. soldiers were killed in Baghdad on Thursday, three of them when their patrol was struck by a roadside bomb, the U.S. military said on Friday.

The roadside bomb attack took place as U.S. troops were conducting operations to disrupt insurgent and militia activities in eastern Baghdad, the military said.

A fourth soldier was killed in combat in western Baghdad.

The deaths took the U.S. death toll in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to at least 3,665.

Homecoming for Iraqi Soccer Team

Friday August 3, 2007 10:46 AM

By HAMID AHMED

Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq anxiously awaited the arrival of its Asian Cup soccer champs Friday, but most Baghdad residents would be barred from the homecoming celebration because of security.

The team, which hasn't played a home game in 17 years, was due to land at Baghdad's international airport Friday afternoon. Iraqi officials, led by the minister of sport and youth, would receive them, ministry spokesman Hassan Qassim said.

But three players - team captain Younis Mahmoud, Nashat Akram and Hawar Mulla Mohammed - would not be with them. Mahmoud, who scored the winning goal in Iraq's 1-0 Asian Cup final win over Saudi Arabia, had said he feared for his life if he returned to Iraq to celebrate the stunning victory.

Qassim said a welcome-home celebration would be held in a Baghdad hotel in the heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the U.S. Embassy and the Iraqi government headquarters.

``I wish the celebration would take place in al-Shaab stadium, but that is impossible for security reasons,'' said Mohammed Kadhom, 35, who works at the country's oil ministry. Al-Shaab is a huge, Saddam Hussein-era facility on the capital's east side.

``It is sad that we can't receive our national team in a public celebration as others do, I myself fear for their safety,'' Kadhom said.
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Aug 4, 2007

US demands Iran rein in Shi'ite militias
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - A little-noticed statement by US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker after last week's US-Iran meeting revealed that the main demand of the George W Bush administration to Iran is not to stop supplying weapons to Shi'ite militias but to use its influence with Shi'ites in Iraq to reduce their attacks on occupation forces.

That demand, which belies official assertions of certainty that the Iranian government is providing arms to the militias, is consistent with other evidence that the Bush administration was primarily

concerned with getting Iranian assistance in restraining its Shi'ite allies when its campaign over Iranian arms began early this year.

Crocker told reporters after the July 24 meeting on Iraq that he had held Iran responsible for Shi'ite militia attacks in Iraq, and that the US administration expects Iran to do something to reduce those attacks. He said he had "made very clear" to the Iranian diplomats "that over the roughly two months since our last meeting we've actually seen militia-related activity that could be attributed to Iranian support go up and not down".

Then Crocker added, "We made it clear to the Iranians that we know what they're doing [and] it's up to them to decide what they want to do about it."

The US diplomat's deliberate shift of focus away from the flow of arms to the Shi'ite militias to the number of attacks carried out by those groups strongly suggests that the Bush administration was never actually convinced that Iran was providing arms to its fellow Shi'ites in Iraq. If the administration were really concerned primarily with Iran's involvement in providing arms to the Shi'ites, it would certainly have taken advantage of the bilateral talks to focus on the demand for an end to that flow.

By issuing an open-ended invitation to Iran to "decide what they want to do about" the Shi'ite operations, however, the administration was clearly signaling that it really wants Iran to intercede with armed Shi'ite groups in Iraq to get them to exercise restraint.

Crocker's interest in Iran's ability to restrain armed Shi'ite groups is in line with an important speech last October by Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, the department's senior policymaker on Iran, which made it clear that the administration really wanted Iran to use its influence with the Shi'ites to calm the situation in Iraq.

After accusing Iran of providing "very sophisticated arms" to Shi'ite "insurgents" and "terrorists", Burns said, "We expect that Iran, given its obvious interest in Iraq, and given the degree of influence that it has over parts of the Shi'a community in Iraq, is going to now decide to act differently."

Burns was quite explicit about the primary demand on Iran. He went on to say, "Can you really say that Iran is using its political influence over some of the Shi'ite political groups to send a message of unity, of a unitary state and a unity among the three major groups competing for political power in Iraq? I don't see that Iran has used its influence in that way."

The Burns speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on October 11 came only a few days after Bush authorized the capture of members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, to create what senior officials described to the Washington Post's Karen DeYoung as "a sense of vulnerability among Iranian leaders".

In January, when the new, more aggressive policy against Iran was announced, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates began talking about the need for "leverage" on the Iranians "before we engage with the Iranians". If negotiations with Iran were to begin "right now", Gates lamented, "we would be the supplicant".

That sequence of events indicates that the publicity campaign around the alleged Iranian provision of arms to the militias was only a part of the larger strategy for increasing the pressure on Iran. For Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - but not for Vice President Dick Cheney - the objective was to get Iran's cooperation on its Iraqi Shi'ite allies.

Iran's support for Shi'ite militias in Iraq is generally believed to reflect its interest in maintaining good relations with all Shi'ite factions in the country.

Despite a Bush administration policy to emphasize the charge of Iranian official complicity in the supply of arms, there were telltale signs from the beginning that the Iranian arms charge was a political operation that reflected the neo-conservative penchant for creating evidence to serve the policy objective. Asked on February 3 whether there was evidence that the government in Tehran was behind the weapons obtained by Shi'ite militias in Iraq, Gates replied: "I don't know that we know the answer to that question."

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Middle East
Aug 4, 2007

Iraq bleeds US Treasury, enriches contractors
By Eli Clifton

WASHINGTON - In a report to US lawmakers this week, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found that the war in Iraq could cost US taxpayers more than a trillion dollars when the long-term costs of caring for soldiers wounde