Judge, Lawyer on Saddam Tribunal Killed

Updated 9:54 AM ET March 2, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88it7e00&src=ap

By TODD PITTMAN

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Gunmen killed a judge and lawyer working for the tribunal that will try Saddam Hussein and members of his former regime, a day after the secret court referred five of the ousted dictator's aides to trial for alleged crimes against humanity, officials and a relative of the slain men said Wednesday.

While a tribunal official indicated the shootings may have been due to a personal dispute, one of the judge's surviving sons disagreed. He said the two were assassinated either because they worked for the court, or because they were minority Kurds.

News of the deaths came as two car bombs exploded in the capital, killing 10 Iraqi soldiers and wounding dozens of others. The first blast targeted an Iraqi army base in central Baghdad, killing six troops and wounding at least 25. A second car bomb an hour later at an army checkpoint in south Baghdad killed four soldiers, police said.

The two slain men were judge Barwez Mohammed Mahmoud al-Merwani and his son, lawyer Aryan Barwez al-Merwani, according to one of the judge's son, Kikawz Barwez Mohammed al-Merwani. He said gunmen in a speeding car raked the pair with gunfire as they were trying to get into a vehicle outside their home. Police Capt. Ali al-Obeidi said three gunmen were in the car, a green Opel.

Andrew J. Bacevich: Covertly, America has abandoned the goal of victory in Iraq
Wednesday, March 02, 2005

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05061/464863.stm

....Tacitly -- unnoticed even by the war's critics -- the Bush administration has all but given up any expectation of defeating the enemy with whom we are engaged....

Indeed, today the Bush administration's aim is not to win but to relieve itself of responsibility for waging a war that it began but cannot finish. Debate in national security circles focuses not on deploying war-winning technologies or fielding innovative tactics, but on how we can extricate ourselves before our overstretched forces suffer irreparable damage.

Optimists are placing their hopes on a crash program to create a new Iraqi security force that just might permit us in a year or so to begin reducing the size of our garrison. Pessimists have their doubts. But virtually no one is predicting we will be even remotely close to crushing the insurgency. The decisive victory promised by the war's advocates back in March 2003 -- remember all the talk of "shock and awe"? -- has now slipped beyond our grasp....

....today a low-tech enemy force estimated at about 10,000 fighters has stymied the mightiest military establishment the world has ever seen. To be sure, the adversary cannot defeat us militarily. But neither can we defeat it. In short, U.S. troops today are no longer fighting to win, but simply to buy time: This has become the Bush administration's substitute for victory. Worse, in a war such as in Iraq, time is more likely to work in the other guy's favor.

Whether this reality has yet to fully sink in with the majority of the American people is unclear. No doubt President Bush hopes the citizenry will continue to snooze.....

.....the actual limits of American power now lie exposed for all to see. Our adversaries, real and potential, are no doubt busy contemplating the implications of those limits.

So too must we. Our effort to do so should begin with the admission that the idea that through the aggressive use of military power the United States might transform the Islamic world and cement U.S. global pre-eminence was a dangerous delusion. It remains a delusion today.

Talks on Iraqi Coalition Government Falter
Updated 7:21 PM ET March 2, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88j5gr80&src=ap

By RAWYA RAGEH

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Talks aimed at forging a coalition government faltered Wednesday over Kurdish demands for more land and concerns that the dominant Shiite alliance seeks to establish an Islamic state, delaying the planned first meeting of Iraq's new parliament......

Shiite and Kurdish leaders, Iraq's new political powers, failed to reach agreement after two days of negotiations in the northern city of Irbil, with the clergy-backed candidate for prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, leaving with only half the deal he needed.

The Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, which has 140 seats in the 275-member National Assembly, hopes to win backing from the 75 seats held by Kurdish political parties so t can muster the required two-thirds majority for post top posts in the new government.

Al-Jaafari indicated after the talks that the alliance was ready to accept a Kurdish demand that one of its leaders, Jalal Talabani, become president.

"We, the United Iraqi Alliance, and I personally respect the Kurdish choice for Jalal Talabani to be their nominee for the presidential post. I will convey this honestly to my brothers in the alliance," he said.

However, he would not commit to other demands, including the expansion of Kurdish autonomous areas south to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

Kurdish leaders have demanded constitutional guarantees for their northern regions, including self-rule and reversal of the "Arabization" of Kirkuk and other northern areas. Saddam Hussein relocated Iraqi Arabs to the region in a bid to secure the oil fields there.

Politicians had hoped to convene the new parliament by Sunday. But Ali Faisal, of the Shiite Political Council, said the date was now "postponed" and that a new date had not been set.....

In another twist, alliance deputy and former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi was to meet Thursday with interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose party won 40 seats in the assembly. It was unclear why the meeting between the two rivals was taking place.

Both Allawi and Chalabi are secular Shiites opposed to making Iraq an Islamic state. Concerns over a possible theocracy are especially pertinent because the main task of the new assembly will be to write a constitution.

[planning a coup?]

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88j5gr80&src=ap

Naaa, just counting the number of chickens left in the shack before retiring to Dubai or Florida with a couple of billions Halliburton "lost".

U.S. Troops Deaths in Iraq Top 1,500

Updated 8:33 AM ET March 3, 2005
By TODD PITMAN

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq has topped 1,500, an Associated Press count showed Thursday after the military announced the deaths of three Americans, while car bombs targeting Iraqi security forces killed at least three people in separate attacks.

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88jh46g0&src=ap

Is this freedom for the Iraqis?
Amid the violence, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi extended the state of emergency, first announced nearly four months ago, for another 30 days until the end of March. The order remains in effect throughout the country, except in northern Kurdish-run areas.

The emergency decree includes a nighttime curfew and gives the government extra powers to make arrests without warrants and launch police and military operations when it deems necessary.

Democracy is messy----

Talks aimed at forging a new coalition government faltered Wednesday over Kurdish demands for more land and concerns that the dominant Shiite alliance seeks to establish an Islamic state, delaying the planned first meeting of parliament.

Shiite and Kurdish leaders, Iraq's new political powers, failed to reach agreement after two days of negotiations in the northern city of Irbil, with the clergy-backed candidate for prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, leaving with only half the deal he needed.

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88jh46g0&src=ap

Elsewhere, Saddam Hussein's lead lawyer said Tuesday's shooting deaths of a judge and his lawyer son, both appointed to the Iraqi Special Tribunal to try the former Iraqi leader and his top henchmen, show the country remains too dangerous for such trials. The shootings marked the first time any legal staff working for the court have been killed.

"I can't imagine how the court would begin," Ziad al-Khasawneh told the AP in Tokyo. "The streets are burning, the judges are killed. ... The advocates and the judge, they need a quiet area to read, to study, to discuss. It is impossible to make these things this year, or after this year."

It looks like we will be there a long time.

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88jh46g0&src=ap

One of my Alma Maters.....good job!

N.Y. Exhibit Gives Faces to Fallen Troops

Updated 8:20 AM ET March 3, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88jgu8g0&src=ap

By WILLIAM KATES

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) - It's hard to forget the face of a fallen soldier. Imagine the impression created by 1,483 of them.

Portraits of American servicemen and women killed in Iraq go on display Thursday on a 200-foot stretch of wall in Syracuse University's Shaffer Art Building. The 5-by-7-inch images will stay up until April 1.

"It's a powerful sight to take in," said Syracuse University professor Stephen Zaima, who teaches painting. "It's not about the artists or their styles. It's not about the war or politics. It's about these people who have given their lives."

The exhibition, "To Never Forget: Faces of the Fallen," builds on the work done last year by students and faculty at The College of Marin in California, who produced 1,109 portraits.

Political Factions Haggle in Iraq
Updated 8:29 AM ET March 4, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88k65go0&src=ap

By PATRICK QUINN

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Six police officers were killed and 15 wounded in new car bomb attacks on Iraq's security services, as political factions wrangled over putting together a government.

Attackers shot and killed the police chief of the central Iraqi town of Budayr early Friday, the Polish military said. A woman was also wounded in the attack.

The Shiite Muslim-dominated United Iraqi Alliance and a Kurdish coalition, which emerged from the Jan. 30 elections with the two biggest blocks of seats in the National Assembly, made little headway in their talks on combining forces to select the leaders of the new government.

Meanwhile, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose party finished third, denied rumors he had given up his effort to stitch together support from other groups, including the Kurds, that would allow him to remain prime minister.....

Violence that has killed hundreds of people the past three weeks led Allawi on Thursday to extend a state of emergency until the end of March. First announced nearly four months ago, the order affects all of Iraq except Kurdish-run areas in the north.

The emergency decree includes a nighttime curfew and gives the government extra powers to make arrests without warrants and launch police and military operations when it deems necessary.

More than a month after the elections, negotiations between the cleric-supported United Iraqi Alliance and the coalition of Kurdish parties are struggling and plans for convening the 275-member National Assembly this week have been suspended.....

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

My notes:

US led Iraq reconstruction staff gave a press conference from Iraq today and didn't answer many questions about the number of civilian contractors killed, the costs for security for reconstruction, the number and location of new military bases, the percent time that electricity is on, and what happened to the $9 billion misplaced funds. Congress gave them $20 billion two years ago and they have only assigned contracts for $5 billion (assigned is not spent monies). They say they report quarterly to congress and they might have answers to the reporter's questions in the next quarterly report. They said the military bases are for the Iraqi military and police.

We still control most that goes on there.

Ind. Man Allegedly Tried to Sell Spy Names
Updated 10:01 AM ET March 4, 2005

By JEANINE IBRAHIM

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A federal grand jury has indicted an Indiana man on charges he tried to sell names of U.S. intelligence operatives in Iraq to Saddam Hussein's government before the U.S. invasion.

Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban, 52, was charged with agreeing to act as a foreign agent for Iraq and with immigration violations, federal prosecutors said Thursday following Shaaban's arrest.

Shaaban traveled in late 2002 from Chicago to Baghdad, where he agreed to sell the names of U.S. intelligence agents to Saddam's government for $3 million, said Susan Brooks, the U.S. attorney for southern Indiana. The Iraqi government paid for the trip, the indictment alleges.

"The deal was never consummated," Brooks said.

Shaaban sought the names from foreign sources, but investigators believe he never obtained them, Brooks said. Investigators believe Shaaban acted alone.

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88k7gi80&src=ap

Letter to editor 3/4/2005
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05063/465978.stm

The Iraq war has been devastating

There has been tremendous outrage, rightfully so, concerning the carnage where more than 120 innocent Iraqi civilians were killed in a suicide bombing ("Suicide Bomber Attacks Recruits; 122 Killed," March 1). Ironically, some of that outrage has come from the Bush administration. Ironic because in this war it is now reported that more than 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed by us -- as in the leaders of the United States, as in the Bush administration. And more than half of them are children. That's one out of every three people in Pittsburgh -- killed.

Who will be outraged for these people? As titillating as an Iraqi election might be, ends do not justify means. A good election does not right a wrong war. War is full of unintended consequences, and we are now just realizing some of their bitter realities.

American and Iraqi families have lost loved ones; millions of people are affected by the recent budget cuts; 1,500 U.S. military killed and counting; more than 11,000 U.S. military wounded and counting; more than $200 billion spent by us -- as in you and me -- to date on the war, and that number increases by more than $200 million per day! Add it all up and the results are devastating.

After two years at war, the end to bloodshed is still not in sight. Before the war began, this war was called "illegal, immoral and unjust." Now, we are beginning to understand why.

Why is this figure still being thrown around? Methinks it's because there be many that want to believe it and aren't bothered by the fact it's been discredited. We just got a report (linked to in the Reporting Aboard thread) that the figure now deemed most likely based on Iraqi and foriegn sources is more likely in the 12,000 to 15,000 range. Still too many methinks, but in consideration of the efforts made to keep these deaths from happening certainly more acceptable than the horrific carnage being erroneously or falsely touted by those who seem to want to denigrate American efforts in Iraq, eh?

This article from Slate, certainly not a tool of the NEOCONS, does a good job of discussing it. Methinks we got to step back, take a deep breath and stop grasping at any piece that tends to support our own philosophy so quickly just because it exists.

war stories
100,000 Dead—or 8,000
How many Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, Oct. 29, 2004, at 3:49 PM PT


The authors of a peer-reviewed study, conducted by a survey team from Johns Hopkins University, claim that about 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war. Yet a close look at the actual study, published online today by the British medical journal the Lancet, reveals that this number is so loose as to be meaningless.

The report's authors derive this figure by estimating how many Iraqis died in a 14-month period before the U.S. invasion, conducting surveys on how many died in a similar period after the invasion began (more on those surveys later), and subtracting the difference. That difference—the number of "extra" deaths in the post-invasion period—signifies the war's toll. That number is 98,000. But read the passage that cites the calculation more fully:

We estimate there were 98,000 extra deaths (95% CI 8000-194 000) during the post-war period.

Readers who are accustomed to perusing statistical documents know what the set of numbers in the parentheses means. For the other 99.9 percent of you, I'll spell it out in plain English—which, disturbingly, the study never does. It means that the authors are 95 percent confident that the war-caused deaths totaled some number between 8,000 and 194,000. (The number cited in plain language—98,000—is roughly at the halfway point in this absurdly vast range.)

This isn't an estimate. It's a dart board.

Imagine reading a poll reporting that George W. Bush will win somewhere between 4 percent and 96 percent of the votes in this Tuesday's election. You would say that this is a useless poll and that something must have gone terribly wrong with the sampling. The same is true of the Lancet article: It's a useless study; something went terribly wrong with the sampling.

The problem is, ultimately, not with the scholars who conducted the study; they did the best they could under the circumstances. The problem is the circumstances. It's hard to conduct reliable, random surveys—and to extrapolate meaningful data from the results of those surveys—in the chaotic, restrictive environment of war.

However, these scholars are responsible for the hype surrounding the study. Gilbert Burnham, one of the co-authors, told the International Herald Tribune (for a story reprinted in today's New York Times), "We're quite sure that the estimate of 100,000 is a conservative estimate." Yet the text of the study reveals this is simply untrue. Burnham should have said, "We're not quite sure what our estimate means. Assuming our model is accurate, the actual death toll might be 100,000, or it might be somewhere between 92,000 lower and 94,000 higher than that number."

Not a meaty headline, but truer to the findings of his own study.

Here's how the Johns Hopkins team—which, for the record, was led by Dr. Les Roberts of the university's Bloomberg School of Public Health—went about its work. They randomly selected 33 neighborhoods across Iraq—equal-sized population "clusters"—and, this past September, set out to interview 30 households in each. They asked how many people in each household died, of what causes, during the 14 months before the U.S. invasion—and how many died, of what, in the 17 months since the war began. They then took the results of their random sample and extrapolated them to the entire country, assuming that their 33 clusters were perfectly representative of all Iraq.

This is a time-honored technique for many epidemiological studies, but those conducting them have to take great care that the way they select the neighborhoods is truly random (which, as most poll-watchers of any sort know, is difficult under the easiest of circumstances). There's a further complication when studying the results of war, especially a war fought mainly by precision bombs dropped from the air: The damage is not randomly distributed; it's very heavily concentrated in a few areas.

The Johns Hopkins team had to confront this problem. One of the 33 clusters they selected happened to be in Fallujah, one of the most heavily bombed and shelled cities in all Iraq. Was it legitimate to extrapolate from a sample that included such an extreme case? More awkward yet, it turned out, two-thirds of all the violent deaths that the team recorded took place in the Fallujah cluster. They settled the dilemma by issuing two sets of figures—one with Fallujah, the other without. The estimate of 98,000 deaths is the extrapolation from the set that does not include Fallujah. What's the extrapolation for the set that does include Fallujah? They don't exactly say. Fallujah was nearly unique; it's impossible to figure out how to extrapolate from it. A question does arise, though: Is this difficulty a result of some peculiarity about the fighting in Fallujah? Or is it a result of some peculiarity in the survey's methodology?

There were other problems. The survey team simply could not visit some of the randomly chosen clusters; the roads were blocked off, in some cases by coalition checkpoints. So the team picked other, more accessible areas that had received similar amounts of damage. But it's unclear how they made this calculation. In any case, the detour destroyed the survey's randomness; the results are inherently tainted. In other cases, the team didn't find enough people in a cluster to interview, so they expanded the survey to an adjoining cluster. Again, at that point, the survey was no longer random, and so the results are suspect.

Beth Osborne Daponte, senior research scholar at Yale University's Institution for Social and Policy Studies, put the point diplomatically after reading the Lancet article this morning and discussing it with me in a phone conversation: "It attests to the difficulty of doing this sort of survey work during a war. … No one can come up with any credible estimates yet, at least not through the sorts of methods used here."

The study, though, does have a fundamental flaw that has nothing to do with the limits imposed by wartime—and this flaw suggests that, within the study's wide range of possible casualty estimates, the real number tends more toward the lower end of the scale. In order to gauge the risk of death brought on by the war, the researchers first had to measure the risk of death in Iraq before the war. Based on their survey of how many people in the sampled households died before the war, they calculated that the mortality rate in prewar Iraq was 5 deaths per 1,000 people per year. The mortality rate after the war started—not including Fallujah—was 7.9 deaths per 1,000 people per year. In short, the risk of death in Iraq since the war is 58 percent higher (7.9 divided by 5 = 1.58) than it was before the war.

But there are two problems with this calculation. First, Daponte (who has studied Iraqi population figures for many years) questions the finding that prewar mortality was 5 deaths per 1,000. According to quite comprehensive data collected by the United Nations, Iraq's mortality rate from 1980-85 was 8.1 per 1,000. From 1985-90, the years leading up to the 1991 Gulf War, the rate declined to 6.8 per 1,000. After '91, the numbers are murkier, but clearly they went up. Whatever they were in 2002, they were almost certainly higher than 5 per 1,000. In other words, the wartime mortality rate—if it is 7.9 per 1,000—probably does not exceed the peacetime rate by as much as the Johns Hopkins team assumes.

The second problem with the calculation goes back to the problem cited at the top of this article—the margin of error. Here is the relevant passage from the study: "The risk of death is 1.5-fold (1.1 – 2.3) higher after the invasion." Those mysterious numbers in the parentheses mean the authors are 95 percent confident that the risk of death now is between 1.1 and 2.3 times higher than it was before the invasion—in other words, as little as 10 percent higher or as much as 130 percent higher. Again, the math is too vague to be useful.

There is one group out there counting civilian casualties in a way that's tangible, specific, and very useful—a team of mainly British researchers, led by Hamit Dardagan and John Sloboda, called Iraq Body Count. They have kept a running total of civilian deaths, derived entirely from press reports. Their count is triple fact-checked; their database is itemized and fastidiously sourced; and they take great pains to separate civilian from combatant casualties (for instance, last Tuesday, the group released a report estimating that, of the 800 Iraqis killed in last April's siege of Fallujah, 572 to 616 of them were civilians, at least 308 of them women and children).

The IBC estimates that between 14,181 and 16,312 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war—about half of them since the battlefield phase of the war ended last May. The group also notes that these figures are probably on the low side, since some deaths must have taken place outside the media's purview.

So, let's call it 15,000 or—allowing for deaths that the press didn't report—20,000 or 25,000, maybe 30,000 Iraqi civilians killed in a pre-emptive war waged (according to the latest rationale) on their behalf. That's a number more solidly rooted in reality than the Hopkins figure—and, given that fact, no less shocking.

Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate. He can be reached at war_stories@hotmail.com.

Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2108887/

I beleive the 100,000 number... and it keeps rising.

---------------------------
So much for illusions
Despite the election, ordinary Iraqis face a daily struggle to survive attacks, kidnappings and killings

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1432026,00.html
Haifa Zangana
Monday March 7, 2005
The Guardian

Behind the facade of post-election political process, despite Tony Blair's desire to move on and George Bush's attempt to mend fences with Europe, in Iraq the atrocities continue to mount. Some, like the Hilla attack, are Zarqawi-style, with hundreds dead and wounded. Others are more mundane and sustained, like US warplanes bombing suspect houses in Ramadi, Hit, or Mosul, roadblock killings in Najaff, or post-curfew hunting by snipers in Sammara.

Despite all the rhetoric about "building a new democracy", daily life for most Iraqis is still a struggle for survival, with human rights abuses engulfing them. A typical Iraqi day begins with the struggle to get the basics: petrol, a cylinder of gas, fresh water, food and medication. It ends with a sigh of relief: Alhamdu ilah (thanks, God), for surviving death threats, violent attacks, kidnappings and killings.

For ordinary Iraqis, simply venturing into the streets brings the possibility of attack. Most killings go unreported. With no names, no faces, no identities, they cease to be human beings. They are "the enemy", "collateral damage" or, at best, statistics to argue about. ....

In his message broadcast to Iraqis last April, Tony Blair said: "Our aim is to help alleviate immediate humanitarian suffering, and to move as soon as possible to an interim authority run by Iraqis ... which represents human rights and the rule of law and spends Iraq's wealth not on palaces and WMD, but on you and the services you need."

So much for illusions. Charred bodies, the massacre of children in a wedding party, the killing of detainees, shootings at demonstrations, kidnappings of civilians - these are the features of that "better future".

Occupation troops are responsible for an increasing list of abuses, including the torture and killing of Iraqi prisoners. Seeing a corpse photographed with grinning US soldiers at Abu Ghraib shocked the moral sensibility of people around the world. Taking snaps of Hazim's charred body has shaken his family's belief in the humanity of the Americans, as well as the British and the Iraqis working with them.

Following the US and British governments' line on human rights, members of the interim Iraqi government have sought to play down the violations committed by occupation troops - either by recalling that similar abuses were committed under Saddam's regime or by labelling the victims as terrorists.

Under Iyad Allawi's regime, the newly trained Iraqi police are torturing detainees. Last week, leaders of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq accused the police of torturing and killing three of their members because of their political and religious affiliations, and demanded an immediate investigation.

Facing these daily atrocities, what do we expect an oppressed Iraqi to do?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1432026,00.html

RAF Iraq death inquiry

Mark Townsend and Jamie Doward
Sunday March 6, 2005
The Observer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1431600,00.html

A member of the Royal Air Force is at the centre of a murder investigation into the deaths of five women in Iraq. The case could witness the first RAF serviceman ever to be charged with the murder of civilians.

SAS member is among 50 soldiers facing Iraq abuse inquiry

Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday February 28, 2005
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1426984,00.html

An SAS member is among 50 British soldiers being investigated after fresh allegations of the murder, manslaughter, and assault of Iraqis, it was disclosed yesterday.

The brutal truth
The outrages of Abu Ghraib are no accident, says Stephen Sedley

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1430686,00.html

Saturday March 5, 2005
The Guardian

The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib edited by Karen J Greenberg and Joshua L Dratel (900pp, Cambridge, £27.50)
Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror by Mark Danner (650pp, Granta, £16.99)

How cruelly is a captor allowed to treat a captive before the pain and fear amount to torture? According to advice given by US Assistant Attorney-General Jay S Bybee to President's Counsel Alberto Gonzales in August 2002, it "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death". With the sanction of such morally and legally ignoble advice, the US has been interrogating, and from time to time killing, an unknown number of captives in Guantánamo, Afghanistan, Iraq and almost certainly elsewhere.

Meanwhile the author of the advice had been made a judge of the ninth circuit federal appeal court, and the presidential counsel who accepted and adopted it is now the United States attorney general. The solitary governmental voice apparently raised against it was that of Colin Powell, who is no longer secretary of state.

Blair still took us to war on a lie

To insist that the ends now justify the means is morally disgraceful

Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Saturday March 5, 2005
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1431069,00.html

from the March 07, 2005 edition
What Iraq's checkpoints are like
By Annia Ciezadlo | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

http://csmonitor.com/2005/0307/p01s04-woiq.html

............You're driving along and you see a couple of soldiers standing by the side of the road - but that's a pretty ubiquitous sight in Baghdad, so you don't think anything of it. Next thing you know, soldiers are screaming at you, pointing their rifles and swiveling tank guns in your direction, and you didn't even know it was a checkpoint.

If it's confusing for me - and I'm an American - what is it like for Iraqis who don't speak English?

In situations like this, I've often had Iraqi drivers who step on the gas. It's a natural reaction: Angry soldiers are screaming at you in a language you don't understand, and you think they're saying "get out of here," and you're terrified to boot, so you try to drive your way out.
'Stop or you will be shot'

Another problem is that the US troops tend to have two-stage checkpoints. First there's a knot of Iraqi security forces standing by a sign that says, in Arabic and English, "Stop or you will be shot." Most of the time, the Iraqis will casually wave you through.

Your driver, who slowed down for the checkpoint, will accelerate to resume his normal speed. What he doesn't realize is that there's another, American checkpoint several hundred yards past the Iraqi checkpoint, and he's speeding toward it. Sometimes, he may even think that being waved through the first checkpoint means he's exempt from the second one (especially if he's not familiar with American checkpoint routines).

I remember one terrifying day when my Iraqi driver did just that. We got to a checkpoint manned by Iraqi troops. Chatting and smoking, they waved us through without a glance.

Relieved, he stomped down on the gas pedal, and we zoomed up to about 50 miles per hour before I saw the second checkpoint up ahead. I screamed at him to stop, my translator screamed, and the American soldiers up ahead looked as if they were getting ready to start shooting.

After I got my driver to slow down and we cleared the second checkpoint, I made him stop the car. My voice shaking with fear, I explained to him that once he sees a checkpoint, whether it's behind him or ahead of him, he should drive as slowly as possible for at least five minutes.

He turned to me, his face twisted with the anguish of making me understand: "But Mrs. Annia," he said, "if you go slow, they notice you!"

Under Saddam, idling was risky

This feeling is a holdover from the days of Saddam, when driving slowly past a government building or installation was considered suspicious behavior. .....

Iraqis Set Opening for New Parliament
Updated 2:10 AM ET March 7, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88lvstg1&src=ap

By PATRICK QUINN

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi politicians set March 16 for the opening of the country's first democratically elected parliament in modern history as a deal hardened Sunday to name Jalal Talabani, a leader of the minority Kurds, to the presidency.

The more powerful prime minister's job will go to Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a deeply conservative Shiite who leads the Islamic Dawa party. His nomination, which the Kurds have agreed to, has been endorsed by the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq _ Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani....

Officials have said the post of speaker probably would go to a Sunni Arab _ either interim President Ghazi al-Yawer or interim Minister of Industry Hajim al-Hassani.

A Sunni Arab speaker would go far toward appeasing the minority, which is believed to make up the core of the insurgency and, like the Kurds, represents 15-20 percent of Iraq's estimated 26 million people. But unlike the Kurds, Sunni Arabs largely stayed away from the election to protest the U.S. presence in the country.

Kurdish demands include an autonomous Kurdistan as part of federal Iraq and a share of region's oil revenues. They also want to maintain their peshmerga militia and want a bigger share of the national budget.....

Insurgent Attacks in Iraq Leave 31 Dead

Updated 10:30 AM ET March 7, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88m77bo0&src=ap

By TODD PITMAN

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Guerrillas launched a series of attacks in Iraq on Monday that left 31 people dead and dozens wounded as the country took its first major step toward forming a government whose most crucial task will be dealing with the insurgency.

Bulgaria said one of its soldiers killed in Iraq on Friday was likely hit by friendly fire from coalition troops. The shooting came on the same day as U.S. troops fired on a car carrying Italian journalist Giulilana Sgrena, wounding her and killing an Italian intelligence officer who negotiated her release from insurgents.

Al-Qaida in Iraq purportedly claimed responsibility in an Internet statement for much of the bloodshed _ violence in and around Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, where 15 people died. Another car bomb killed 12 people in Balad, southeast of Baqouba.

Editorial: Iraqi horrors / It's another dreadful time in the combat zone
Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05067/467740.stm

......President Bush's current concentration on changing Social Security can be seen as a way to distract Americans' attention from the fact that the Iraq effort is going badly (another 18 Iraqis were killed yesterday in assorted attacks) and is unlikely to end well. It is the equivalent of a pet owner moving the dog's feeding dish to distract it from avid pursuit of the cat.

Whether there is a link between keeping Social Security on the front pages and keeping people's minds off Iraq, the U.S. presence there is no longer playing a positive role and it is time to declare a timetable for the withdrawal of the 150,000 U.S. forces. There is no longer any valid reason to continue to pay the price in American lives to prolong this nearly two-year-old Bush enterprise.

U.S. Military May Abandon Abu Ghraib

Updated 7:42 AM ET March 8, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88mpre00&src=ap

By RAWYA RAGEH

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Incessant attacks against Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison may force the U.S. military to return the facility to Iraq's government and take their own high-security inmates to a safer place, a U.S. military official said.

As the United States mulls a plan to pull out of the facility, located on the outskirts of the capital, U.S. military figures show that a crackdown against insurgents before and after the Jan. 30 landmark parliamentary election has bloated Iraq's prison system to the breaking point.

"The reason we would like to move our operations from Abu Ghraib is that it has been regularly targeted with attacks from insurgents. The new facility would be within the larger Baghdad International Airport complex, making it less susceptible to attacks," Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for Iraq Detention Operations, told The Associated Press.

Army: Young Blacks Less Willing to Join

Updated 3:32 AM ET March 8, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88mm6080&src=ap

By ROBERT BURNS

WASHINGTON (AP) - Young blacks have grown markedly less willing to join the Army, citing fear of being sent to fight a war in Iraq they don't believe in, according to unpublicized studies for the military that suggest the Army is entering a prolonged recruiting slump.

Fear of combat also is a leading reason fewer young women are choosing the Army, the studies say. Although female soldiers are barred by law from assignments in direct combat, they nonetheless have found themselves under attack by insurgents in Iraq, and 32 have died.

Iraqi Official: Saddam May Be Tried in '05
Updated 9:33 AM ET March 8, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88mrf900&src=ap

By SAMEER N. YACOUB

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Saddam Hussein could go on trial by the end of this year, Iraq's national security adviser said Tuesday.

"I will be surprised if I do not see Saddam in the box before the end of the year," Mouwafak al-Rubaie told reporters. "I am very much hopeful that Saddam will be in the box around September and October, before the general referendum."

[just in time for US senate campaigns and to remind the public how bad Saddam was and how justified Bush was for going to war even though Saddam had no WMDs.]

Senators: Why Do Troops Lack Tourniquets?

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr..._050308&src=abc

Updated 7:18 PM ET March 8, 2005

Two senators have sent a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asking why U.S. troops in Iraq are operating without inexpensive tourniquets that can potentially save lives.

The letter from Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., obtained by ABC News, refers to a report in Sunday's Baltimore Sun that there has been a delay in getting new first-aid kits containing tourniquets to the troops.

"A number of our bravest military personnel have reportedly bled to death on the battlefield, and the experts have determined that putting a tourniquet in the hands of every soldier is a vital life-saving measure," the letter states. "Holding up the fielding of a life-saving medical kit simply to optimize its carrying pouch suggests a mindset oblivious to the wartime needs of our soldiers."

Levin is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Durbin serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee. The senators likened the lack of tourniquets to other "underestimated" equipment requirements, including "body armor, vehicle add-on armor and the production of new, up-armored [Humvees.]"

The Baltimore Sun article said doctors and Army medical officials estimate as many as tens of thousands of soldiers are in combat without the simple medical devices, and that some bleed to death from injuries that would not otherwise be fatal if a tourniquet were applied. It also said the Pentagon has not placed an order for first-aid kits with tourniquets although the Army has approved their use, and the delay may have to do with the development of new training manuals and a pouch for holding the tourniquet.

The government wants over $600 million to build a new embassy in Iraq to house 1500 people. The money is in the supplemental bill $81 billion that the House is working on. The current facilities are not safe from RPGs. It doesn't look like Iraq will be safe soon. We will be in Iraq for years.

Security Forces Find 41 Corpses in Iraq

Updated 2:58 PM ET March 9, 2005

Iraqi officials said Wednesday that 41 bodies some bullet-riddled, others beheaded have been found at two separate sites, and they believe some of the corpses are Iraqi soldiers kidnapped and killed by insurgents.

Also Wednesday, Iraq's interim planning minister escaped an assassination attempt after gunmen opened fire on his convoy in the capital, police said. Mahdi al-Hafidh survived the attack, but one of his bodyguards was killed and two others were wounded, the police said on condition of anonymity.

In other violence, a suicide bomber detonated a garbage truck packed with explosives outside the Agriculture Ministry and a hotel used by Western contractors, killing at least three people, officials said. The bomber also died.

In an Internet statement, al-Qaida in Iraq purportedly claimed responsibility for the attack on the Sadeer hotel, calling it the "hotel of the Jews."

Two other car bombings were also reported. Police 1st Lt. Mohammed al-Duleimi said one car bomber targeted an American checkpoint outside a base in Habaniyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad. Another car bomb exploded near U.S. troops close to a U.S. base in Abu Ghraib, just west of the capital, police Lt. Akram al-Zubaie said....

Elsewhere, guerrillas struck a police patrol with a roadside bomb in the southern city of Basra, killing one policeman and wounding three more, Lt. Col. Karim Al-Zaydi said....

Authorities found 26 of the corpses late Tuesday in a field near Rumana, a village about 12 miles east of the western city of Qaim, near the Syrian border, police Capt. Muzahim al-Karbouli and other officials said.

Each of the bodies had been riddled with bullets apparently several days earlier. They were found wearing civilian clothes and one of the dead was a woman, al-Karbouli said.

South of Baghdad in Latifiya, Iraqi troops on Tuesday made another gruesome discovery, finding 15 headless bodies in a building inside an abandoned former army base, Defense Ministry Capt. Sabah Yassin said.

The bodies included 10 men, three women and two children. Their identities, like the others found in western Iraq, were not known.

Yassin said some of the dead men in Latifiya were thought to have been part of a group of Iraqi soldiers who were kidnapped by insurgents in the area two weeks ago, Yassin said.....

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...309_813&src=abc

Bush: No Timetable for Troops Coming Home

Updated 10:55 AM ET March 16, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88s5dl01&src=ap

By TERENCE HUNT

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush said Wednesday he understands the desire of U.S. coalition partners to withdraw troops from Iraq, but he declined to set a timetable for bringing American forces home.

"Our troops will come home when Iraqis are capable of defending themselves," Bush told a news conference....

He denied that what the administration has called the "coalition of the willing" was crumbling.

Blasts Mar First Iraq Assembly Meeting
Updated 10:46 AM ET March 16, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88s59rg0&src=ap

By RAWYA RAGEH

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq's first freely elected parliament in half a century began its opening session Wednesday after a series of explosions targeted the gathering. The opening marked a major milestone on the road to forming a new government in a country still beset by violence.

The parliament's 275 members, elected during Jan. 30 elections, convened in an auditorium amid tight security in the heavily guarded Green Zone with U.S. helicopter gunships hovering overhead.

Minutes before convening, at least a half dozen explosions detonated a few hundred yards away. The U.S. military said two mortar rounds landed inside the zone but caused no injuries....

Iraqi leaders have not yet agreed on a coalition government, and the leader of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, cleric Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, said his alliance hoped to "form a government whose motto is to serve the Iraqi people, a government of national unity and reconciliation."....

The alliance and a Kurdish coalition agreed last week to form a coalition government with Shiite politician Ibrahim al-Jaafari as prime minister. In return, Talabani will become Iraq's first Kurdish president, though the presidency is a largely ceremonial post.

To prevent suicide car bomb attacks against Iraq's new lawmakers, authorities stepped up security around the heavily fortified Green Zone. Two bridges leading to the zone were shut down Tuesday, and roadblocks were erected on other streets leading to the area......

Democrats Raise Concerns Over Iraq
Updated 8:20 AM ET March 16, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88s35580&src=ap

By LIZ SIDOTI

WASHINGTON (AP) - The House debate over a $81.4 billion spending package for war is providing Democrats a platform to assail President Bush's handling of Iraq.

"Why are we writing another check for a mission that's been so badly botched?" asked Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California, an anti-war Democrat who has proposed withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. "Who's being held responsible for the misuse of the money we've already approved?"

In spite of criticism of the administration's post-invasion strategy and what Democrats called lapses in accountability by the White House, the House was poised to give Bush much of what he wanted for combat and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Swift passage of the package with bipartisan support is expected in the House, possibly as early as Wednesday. The Senate won't craft its version until next month.

However, the president won't get $590 million to build a U.S. embassy in Baghdad. On Tuesday, the House approved an amendment _ on a 258-170 vote _ that bars money in the spending package from being used for embassy security, construction and maintenance......

While debating the bill, Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, criticized what he called the administration's failure to account for war costs and its lack of a coherent strategy for success in Iraq. "This is far from a perfect way of running Operation Iraqi Freedom," Skelton said.

Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said, "The full cost of this war is being revealed a little bit at a time on the installment plan."....

Man Accused of Selling Chemicals to Iraq

Updated 7:39 AM ET March 18, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88tcnuo0&src=ap

By TOBY STERLING

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A Dutch businessman accused of complicity in genocide for selling chemicals to Iraq in the 1980s knew that Saddam Hussein might use them as weapons, prosecutors said at his first public hearing Friday.

The case is seen as a landmark because it would be the first time a businessman has been prosecuted for war crimes by a national court.

Frans van Anraat, 62, was not required to enter a plea or make a statement at the pretrial hearing. His trial starts in November.

He has acknowledged that he sold chemicals to Saddam's regime, but said his actions were neither wrong nor illegal.

The chemicals dealer is said to have exported tons of chemicals between 1984 and 1988 that were turned into mustard and nerve gas, some of which was used in the 1988 attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja where more than 5,000 people died.

Prosecutor Fred Teeven said investigators had strong evidence that Van Anraat calmly went ahead with delivering such materials even after the gas attack on Halabja, the Dutch broadcaster NOS reported....

C-span 1 has on now a live show "Teach-In on Iraq War".

http://www.c-span.org

Anti-war groups

AP: U.S. to Probe Iraq Scientist's Death
Updated 1:52 PM ET March 24, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...891gou82&src=ap

By CHARLES J. HANLEY

NEW YORK (AP) - The U.S. Army says it has reopened an investigation into the suspected bludgeoning death of a key Iraqi scientist in American custody, a chemist who allegedly experimented with poisons on prisoners in the days of Saddam Hussein.

Mohammad Munim al-Izmerly, 65, is the only known weapons scientist among at least 96 detainees who have died in U.S. custody in Iraq. Questions have surrounded the death ever since his body was dropped off at a Baghdad hospital in February 2004, two weeks after he died.

When it first came to light in press reports last May, the U.S. military, newly under fire for prisoner abuse in Iraq, refused to answer queries about the chemist's death. Now, months later, the Army says an investigation has begun.

"The case was initially closed, but after further investigative review a determination was made to reopen the investigation," Army spokesman Christopher Grey told The Associated Press.

The Pentagon would say nothing about the timetable or thrust of the inquiry. But Rod Barton, an Australian member of the CIA-led teams that questioned al-Izmerly and other weapons scientists, says such prisoners may have been beaten during the futile U.S. hunt for banned arms in Iraq.

When al-Izmerly's body was delivered to Al-Kharkh Hospital, the Americans enclosed a death certificate saying he died of "brainstem compression," without saying what caused it, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported after viewing the document last year. A subsequent Iraqi autopsy determined he was killed by a blunt trauma injury, a blow to the head, Iraqi doctors told Baghdad reporters....

Iraq Workers Protest Insurgent Attacks

Updated 4:29 PM ET March 24, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...891j2800&src=ap

By TRACI CARL

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Hundreds of power workers shouting "No, no, to terror!" marched through Baghdad on Thursday to protest attacks that have killed dozens of their colleagues, while demonstrators in the south demanded that the new petroleum minister be from their oil-rich region.

The demonstrations came as negotiators for the two biggest factions in the new National Assembly worked out details of an Iraqi government that U.S. officials hope will pave the way for the eventual withdrawal of coalition forces.

Jawad al-Maliki, a negotiator from the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, said talks had progressed enough for Shiite Arab and ethnic Kurd officials to agree to hold parliament's second session early next week, although no date had been set. The 275-seat National Assembly met March 16 to swear in its members.......

Iraqis can't tell the good guys from the bad.....

Earlier, in Rabia, police mistook some Iraqi soldiers wearing civilian clothes and carrying guns to be insurgents, and opened fire, killing three soldiers, police chief Ahmed Mohammed Khalaf said. The soldiers shot back, killing two police officers. Eight officers also were wounded in the gunbattle, which lasted about 10 minutes.

In the former rebel stronghold of Fallujah, police imposed a late-afternoon curfew in part of the city, shouting through loudspeakers: "Close your stores and go home!" They also set up checkpoints and searched cars. The curfew may have been related to a firefight earlier in the city's Jolan neighborhood between unidentified gunmen and Iraqi security forces.

Also Thursday, the U.S. military said a prisoner died the previous day at the Camp Charlie internment facility. The man, in his early 30s, was found lying in his cell and attempts to revive him failed, the statement said. It said the cause of death was under investigation.

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...891j2800&src=ap

How many investigations do the public need to realize that this administration failed us on 9/11 and on Iraq WMDs?

WMD Report Unlikely to Praise Agencies

Updated 9:03 AM ET March 25, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8921k5o0&src=ap

By KATHERINE SHRADER

WASHINGTON (AP) - None of the 15 U.S. agencies that collected or assessed intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is likely to be commended for doing an exemplary job, according to officials familiar with a report being prepared by a presidential commission.

The nine-member panel led by Republican Laurence Silberman, a retired federal appeals court judge, and Democrat Charles Robb, a former Senator from Virginia, is expected to issue its report on weapons of mass destruction next week. It's unclear how much of the report, which may run into the hundreds of pages, will be available to the public.

"I think questions had to be answered as to why we were so wrong," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a member of the commission. "We needed to have recommendations as to how to prevent something like this from ever happening again."

The commission also is highly critical of the agencies' performance on Iran, North Korea and Libya, individuals familiar with its findings said on condition of anonymity......

same article as above...

In contrast to the Sept. 11 commission, the WMD commission's work has been done largely behind closed doors, with only brief press releases about witnesses who appeared.

McCain said he's learned much about the intelligence agencies and how they interact now and in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. He said he's gotten an understanding of the value of "human intelligence" _ or traditional spying _ and that the report was worth the $10 million Congress dedicated to it.

Final drafts of the commission's report are being circulated among the intelligence agencies for declassification. Historically, they have tried to use that process to keep secret some of the most embarrassing or critical details of investigative findings.

Commission spokesman Larry McQuillan said commissioners intend to release as much of the report as possible.

Insurgent Training Camp Found in N. Iraq

Updated 1:02 PM ET March 28, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr..._050322&src=abc

Iraqi commandos backed by U.S. ground and air fire uncovered an apparent insurgent training camp today that hosted fighters from as far away as the Philippines, senior officials tell ABC News.

The discovery was made after the members of Iraq's 1st Police Commando Battalion -- who are part of the fighting forces of Iraq's interim government -- were attacked while on a noontime patrol north of Baghdad, near Samarra.

As they approached a group of buildings, they were attacked by sustained heavy fire from RPG, small arms, and mortars.

Seven Iraqi commandos were killed and six were wounded. There were an estimated 70 to 100 attackers and they were in dug-in positions.

A U.S. military officer with the unit called in air support. Attack helicopters from Task Force Liberty's Aviation Brigade responded but sustained major structural damage and were forced to turn back. More helicopters came in and fired on insurgents.

Soldiers from the 1st Brigade Combat Team also responded in support. The U.S. military said an "undetermined number" of the attackers were killed," and no Task Force Liberty soldiers were reported killed or wounded.

The fight lasted about 90 minutes. Once the insurgents broke contact, they fled by either boats back toward nearby Lake Tharthar or into local areas by vehicle or on foot.

At the scene, the commandos found documents indicating that there were Syrians, Algerians, other Arabs and at least one Filipino among the insurgents. The "training camp" found nearby is being "exploited," officials said.

On Monday and today, 20 insurgents were detained in three separate operations in Mosul, the military said in separate statements.

Iraq Official Discourages Demonstrations

Updated 2:00 PM ET March 28, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...89458k00&src=ap

By TRACI CARL

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq's interior minister warned citizens Monday not to hold protests, saying the gatherings were an invitation for a large-scale terrorist attack. His comments came a day after government bodyguards opened fire on a group of employees demanding higher wages, killing one person.

Interim Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib, likely to be out of job once the new government takes over, said the protest was among "attempts to destabilize the situation" in Iraq. He accused the protesters of trying to enter the office of Science and Technology Minister Rashad Mandan Omar and said the bodyguards where just doing their job by protecting the official.

Haithem Jassim, one of three people injured in the melee, said the demonstrators were unarmed......

Hello Fellow Patriots;

I had to come by and post this, as it was passed to me first hand:


I just had to pass this on to everyone who may or may not know just what’s going on in Iraq. The following was given to me first hand from someone who has a brother in Iraq. He is fighting in downtown Baghdad and sends these late comments on the war….

“Some days are better than others, but none are good. Everyone here is suspect, not the least of which include the “contractors”. You know what I’m talking about, the kind of men who are paid small six figure salaries for “protection” in a hostile environment. Men who signed up for a year or two to work for some company nobody’s ever heard of called Blackfoot Securities, or something like that. These guys come and go at will, and are treated by most in the military supply chain with cart blanch. They roll into camp from who knows where, usually in groups of two or three vehicles. Sometimes unmarked Hummers, sometimes in Jeep Grand Cherokees or stretch Suburbans, but always in groups of six to twelve men wearing paramilitary dress and usually no friendly markings other than the color of their skin. While most of the men hit the mess tent, a couple others head for the supply tents. After some time, usually when most of the larger group has eaten their fill, the others return with orders to pick up supplies and munitions here or there. I saw one group load the better part of a pallet of light ammo into the back of a turtleback hummer while others from the group stocked the other two vehicles with food, drink, and other essentials. When I first witnessed this I asked the supply officer in our company where these guys came from. He just pointed to the open desert and said “out there somewhere!” I still didn’t get it, and asked why they could just come in here and take our food and water and ammo, and was told “because they pay good money for it”.
I learned shortly after that they provide security for an oil drilling division of Brown and Route. So since then, I’ve come to understand just what this war is really all about!
“It’s all about the oil!” I have no will to protect the civilian population, putting my own life at risk, and for what? So Bush, Cheney, and Halliburtan can get rich off the spoils of war? Meanwhile, I sit here in the federal building waiting for another IED to go off down the street. The last one was so bad that it blew the doors in on the building. But who cares about that? It’s only the oil that counts. I just have to keep remembering that, Right?"

This was from a top fighting soldier in downtown Baghdad. We're looking at another VietNam IMHO....

Take care and remember what YOU are fighting for.... The Freedom of this country is supposed to be protected by the National Guard, but at this rate, we're sitting ducks!

Who said that.... I said that.... I'm;
TheWeedMan

Report finds Iraq arms, missiles missing or looted

[This confirms that we were too busy rushing to Baghdad to take care of the real known problems in Iraq. We also wasted $1 million on searching for WMDs and the search was incomplete. We have fueled the insurgency with our incomeptance.]

Sunday, March 27, 2005
By Charles J. Hanley, The Associated Press
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05086/478306.stm

Dozens of ballistic missiles are missing in Iraq. Vials of dangerous microbes are unaccounted for. Sensitive sites, once under U.N. seal, stand gutted today, their arms-making gear hauled off by looters, or by arms-makers.

All the world now knows that Iraq had no threatening "WMD" programs. But two years after U.S. teams began their futile hunt for weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has something else: a landscape of ruined military plants and of unanswered questions and loose ends, some potentially lethal, an Associated Press review of official reporting shows.

The chief U.N. arms inspector said outsiders are seeing only a "sliver" of the mess inside Iraq. Demetrius Perricos reports that satellite images indicate at least 90 sites in the old Iraqi military-industrial complex have been pillaged.

The U.S. teams paint a similar picture. "There is nothing but a concrete slab at locations where once stood plants or laboratories," the Iraq Survey Group said in its final report.

But that report from inside Iraq, though 986 pages thick, is at times thin on relevant hard information and silent in critically important areas.

Just days after the report was issued last fall, for example, news leaked that tons of high-grade explosives had been looted a year earlier from the Iraqi complex at Qaqaa. It was a potential boon to Iraq's car bombers, but the U.S. document did not report this dangerous loss.

Similarly, the main body of the U.S. report discusses Iraq's Samoud 2s, but doesn't note that many of these ballistic missiles haven't been found. Only via an annex table does the report disclose that as many as 36 Samouds may be unaccounted for in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion.

Seventy-five of the 26-foot-long, liquid-fueled missiles were destroyed under U.N. oversight before the war, because they too often exceeded the 93-mile range allowed for Iraqi missiles under the 12-year-old U.N. inspection regime. After the U.N. inspectors were evacuated on the eve of the U.S. invasion, they lost track of the remaining missiles.

The Iraq Survey Group, which ended its arms hunt in December, says a complete accounting of the Samouds "may not be possible due to various factors."

Besides the Samouds, up to 34 Fatah missiles -- a similar but solid-fueled weapon -- are also unaccounted for. And more than 600 missile engines may be missing; the U.S. document simply doesn't report their status.

Perricos, in an interview at his New York headquarters, expressed concern about the missiles. "If they have been destroyed, somebody should know they've been destroyed or not. Have they gone somewhere?" he asked.

The worry is not that Iraqi insurgents might field the missiles, he said, but that advanced Samoud or Fatah parts might secretly boost missile-building programs elsewhere in the region or beyond.

"The engines can easily be sold for a lot of money for the insurgency," he said.

Asked about gaps in Iraq Survey Group reporting -- specifically the silence on the Qaqaa explosives -- a CIA official replied, "Our focus and goal was to find WMD, not conventional explosives."

Led by CIA special adviser Charles A. Duelfer, the Iraq Survey Group discredited Bush administration claims of an Iraqi WMD threat by determining that Baghdad's programs to build nuclear, chemical and biological weapons were shut down in 1991 under U.N. inspection.

But paperwork discrepancies and stray pieces from past programs -- from artillery shells to test tubes -- have left a "residue of uncertainty," as the latest U.N. inspectors' report put it. On top of that, the disorder following the U.S.-led invasion exposed dangerous material and equipment, previously under U.N. seal, to theft.

Perricos said stray chemical ordnance may have lain unnoticed in ammunition dumps when the invasion began.

"We don't know if they have cleaned up, if they have visited, for example, the munitions depots," he said of the Iraq Survey Group.

The group's final report acknowledges, in fact, that "only a fraction of Iraq's total munitions inventory was identified and exploited for CW rounds" -- that is, checked for chemical weapons. In part, at least, this was because depots were stripped by looters after the Iraqi government was brought down in April 2003.

More than a year later, in the Netherlands and Jordan, U.N. inspectors found the first evidence of what had happened: More than 40 missile engines somehow had made their way out of Iraq and into foreign scrap yards, along with four specialized vessels from Iraq's Fallujah chemical plant, which made ingredients for poison gases.

But "we have just seen a very thin sliver" of the Iraqi materiel being bought and sold in the Middle East, Perricos said of those finds.

In U.N. Security Council discussions, Perricos has suggested his agency return to Iraq to help with arms verification, but the United States hasn't responded. Iraqi representatives say the inspection agency should be shut down.

Other unknowns in today's Iraq involve some of the most sensitive among the 90 or so ransacked sites:

Besides the 377 tons of high-grade explosives, whose disappearance went unreported by the U.S. teams, the huge site of Qaqaa south of Baghdad held thousands of pieces of equipment for making explosives, missile propellant and other military products. The U.N. inspectors worry that 800 pieces of specialized chemical equipment, long under U.N. monitoring, have been taken.

Satellite images show that many buildings at Iraq's premier nuclear site, south of Baghdad, were systematically dismantled. High-precision equipment long under U.N. monitoring was presumed stolen.

The cost of the fruitless U.S. weapons hunt was both financial and human.

The Iraq Survey Group's budget is classified, U.S. officials have said. But Duelfer's predecessor, David Kay, said a report that $600 million was appropriated for 2004 was correct. That doesn't include a reported $300 million spent on the weapons hunt before the 2004 fiscal year, and additional spending in late 2004.

Searching in the midst of war, for evidence that wasn't there, took four lives among the searchers, the CIA reports. Two Iraq Survey Group members died and five were wounded when a building exploded while they searched it, and two more died and one was wounded in an attack on a Duelfer convoy. He escaped injury.

US rejects Iraq malnutrition claim
Thursday 31 March 2005, 22:04 Makka Time, 19:04 GMT

Some studies say malnutrition increased among Iraqi children

A US human-rights delegation has rejected a UN monitor's claim that child malnutrition has risen in Iraq and said that, if anything, health conditions have improved in the country.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/054...A7CD4AED9DE.htm

Iraq Insurgents Using Children, Corpses for Bombs

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr..._050323&src=abc

Updated 9:34 AM ET April 1, 2005

Iraqi militants this week have suffered some of the heaviest single-day death tolls in the two-year insurgency. But ABC News has learned that a State Department document indicates the insurgency's tactics are continuing to evolve. These new techniques include using children to carry explosive devices and booby-trapping corpses with bombs.

In three days, U.S. and Iraqi troops have killed at least 128 militants nationwide, and military officials announced today that 85 insurgents died during a Tuesday raid in central Iraq.

But, according to the document, a disturbing new pattern is developing in the insurgents' use of improvised explosive devices.

According to the report, "vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices continue to be the weapon of choice for terrorists in Iraq who wish to inflict significant casualties and cause widespread damage." There have been 600 such attacks from May 2004 to January 2005, according to the U.S. Army's National Ground Intelligence Center.

In an effort to bypass standard security countermeasures, Iraqi militants are beginning to use service vehicles, such as garbage trucks, to mount attacks, and are stealing Iraqi national military vehicles to conduct kidnappings, the document says.

Iraqi militants are increasingly converting seemingly harmless objects into bombs as well.

At least five IEDs have been placed in mannequins sometimes dressed as U.S. or Iraqi military personnel, the report says. Human corpses -- and even dead animals -- have also been loaded with explosives and detonated when Iraqi or coalition forces attempt to remove the bodies.

Militants have also embedded explosive devices in "watermelons, trees, tree stumps and on guardrails," the report says.

Cover and Disguise
Insurgent forces have also disguised themselves in an effort to gain access to areas frequented by U.S. and allied forces, the report says.

Iraqi extremists reportedly once posed as a soccer team and played matches adjacent to areas where they intended to conduct ambushes against multinational convoys.

Others have acted as "sheep herders to conduct surveillance activity" and "used children to carry IEDs into sensitive areas."

Technological Focus
Insurgents also "routinely seek out new and improved technologies to create more effective IEDs and defeat security equipment," the document says.

Extremists reportedly have ordered a large number of remote-controlled toys to deliver and detonate bombs and have used remote-controlled airplanes for surveillance purposes.

They also use "garage door openers, cellular and satellite telephones, car alarms, and keyless entry systems as remote-controlled detonators for IEDs," the report says.

Even more troubling, the document concludes that the terrorist tactics now used in Iraq may soon become globalized. [Bush says he has reduced terrorism... this says he has not.]

Close Encounter
A military convoy accompanied by an ABC News crew encountered an IED today while on Baghdad's airport road. The company commander was informed of what appeared to be an improvised explosive device 175 yards down the road -- spotted by a member of the Iraqi army.

The soldiers immediately stopped traffic in both directions and called for explosives experts.

The Iraqi army was almost immediately suspicious of the object after a car pulled up to the side of the road, someone inside threw out what looked like a fire extinguisher, and the vehicle sped off.

It was, in fact, a fire extinguisher, but it was packed with plastic explosives.

About an hour after the device was found, a small robot was sent in so technicians could view the device remotely. It then dropped an explosives pack on the device so it could be destroyed in a controlled environment.

"Within the last month, we've come across approximately 10 IEDs. We hit three of them and found about seven of them," said Capt. Craig Gibson of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division.

The soldiers considered today a success -- one less roadside bomb and no injuries.

Poll: Americans Conflicted About Iraq War
Updated 3:41 PM ET April 4, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr..._050315&src=abc

Two years after the shooting began, Americans are deeply conflicted about the costs and benefits of the war with Iraq -- and broadly reluctant to enter into any similar military confrontation with either Iran or North Korea.

The public sees some benefits of the war -- but more for Iraq than for the United States, and, for many, not enough to justify its costs. Seven in 10 in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll call the level of U.S. casualties in Iraq unacceptable, and 53 percent, on balance, say the war was not worth fighting. .....

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

Bush: U.S. to Bear Burden of Iraq Costs
Updated 6:24 PM ET April 4, 2005
By NEDRA PICKLER

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...898rtcg0&src=ap

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush said Monday that seeing Iraq through reconstruction to a stable and secure democracy is a worthy cause that the United States will press regardless of whether its coalition partners remain there.

"The fundamental question is: Is it worth it? And the answer is, 'Absolutely, it's worth it for a free Iraq to emerge'," said Bush, standing alongside visiting Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who is pulling his country's 1,650 troops out of the country to fulfill a campaign promise.

"I fully understand that," Bush said. "But he also said he's going to cooperate with the coalition in terms of further withdrawals. And I appreciate that."

Two years after the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, the coalition has been crumbling. Dozens of countries have pulled out or begun bringing home troops......

Bush is out of touch with the citizens.

Protesters Call for U.S. Pullout in Iraq
Updated 10:16 PM ET April 9, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...89c8p5g0&src=ap

By TRACI CARL

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Tens of thousands of supporters of a militant Shiite cleric filled central Baghdad's streets Saturday and demanded that American soldiers go home, marking the second anniversary of Baghdad's fall with shouts of "No, no to Satan!"

To the west of the capital, 5,000 protesters issue similar demands in the Sunni Triangle city of Ramadi, reflecting a growing impatience with the U.S.-led occupation and the slow pace of returning control to an infant Iraqi government.

The protest in Baghdad's famous Firdos Square was the largest anti-American demonstration since the U.S.-led invasion, but the turnout was far less than the 1 million called for by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

"I do not accept having occupation forces in my country," said protester Ali Feleih Hassan, 35. "No one accepts this. I want them out. They have been here for two years, and now they have to set a timetable for their withdrawal."

President Bush has said he will not pull troops out of Iraq until the security situation has improved.

Tens of thousands of people spilled into the streets of central Baghdad, waving Iraqi flags and climbing onto an abstract sculpture said to represent freedom and built on the spot where Saddam Hussein's statue once stood.

The protest marked a return to the limelight for al-Sadr, who had been relatively quiet since his Mahdi Army militiamen signed truces last year with U.S.-led forces after deadly clashes. Officials said the cleric did not attend because of security concerns. He has stayed close to his home in the holy city of Najaf since the U.S.-led assault on his militia in August.

No major violence was reported during Saturday's demonstration, which the Iraqi Interior Ministry agreed to protect. U.S. soldiers kept watch from behind concrete-and-barbed wire barriers.

Mahdi Army militiamen searched people entering the demonstration area as Iraqi policemen stood to the side.

Protesters burned the U.S. flag as well as cardboard cutouts of Bush and Saddam. Three effigies representing Saddam, Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair _ all handcuffed and dressed in red Iraqi prison jumpsuits that signified they had been condemned to death _ were placed on a pedestal, then symbolically toppled like the Saddam statue two years before.

Others acted out reports of prison abuse at the hands of American soldiers. Photos released last year showing U.S. soldiers piling naked inmates in a pyramid at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison have tarnished the military's reputation both here and around the world.

"Force the occupation to leave from our country," one banner read in English.

The Shiite protesters called for a jailed Saddam to face justice, holding up framed photos of al-Sadr's father, a prominent cleric executed by the ousted Iraqi leader's regime.

Al-Sadr _ whose supporters are largely impoverished, young Shiites _ was once wanted by U.S forces after he urged his militia to fight American troops. Despite his popularity in some parts of Iraqi society, he has fewer followers than Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most revered Shiite cleric.

Shiites make up 60 percent of Iraq's estimated 26 million people but were targeted under Saddam. Thousands were killed by Iraqi security forces.

They have risen to power in Iraq's new interim government, which named Shiite Arab Ibrahim al-Jaafari as its prime minister Thursday.

Sunni Muslim clerics also called on their followers to protest Saturday, and a large crowd gathered in the central city of Ramadi, a Sunni stronghold. Iraq's Sunni minority was dominant under Saddam and is believed to make up the backbone of the country's insurgency.

Sheikh Harth Al-Dhari, the secretary general of the influential Association of Muslim Scholars, praised both the al-Sadr protest, as well as the Sunni demonstration, telling Al-Jazeera satellite television: "We hail the demonstrations organized by the Iraqi people on the second black anniversary of their country's occupation."

Also, a car bomb detonated near a police patrol in Mosul, killing at least two policemen and injuring 13 civilians, Dr. Baha al-Deen al-Bakry of the Jumhouri hospital said.

Brig. Gen. Watheq Ali, deputy police chief of the Nineveh province, said the blast was an assassination attempt against him, although he was unhurt. He said a suicide car bomber rammed a car into the rear vehicle in his seven-car police convoy while it was stopped at a traffic light.

At least five people were killed late Friday when gunmen opened fire on their bus in Latifiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, police and hospital officials said. Babil province police force spokesman Capt. Khalid Muthana said the victims were Iraqi soldiers dressed in civilian clothing, but Saleh Sarhan, the Defense Ministry spokesman, said the victims were civilians.

Also, U.S. Rep. Tom Osborne, R-Neb., visited Iraq and praised al-Jaafari.

"We feel that he is very optimistic about what is going to happen, and we are, too," he said.

Al-Jaafari said negotiators were still working out who would get key Cabinet posts, adding that a Kurdish candidate would lead the Foreign Ministry while the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance would get the Interior Ministry, which oversees security for the country.

"The concept of security during the Saddam era was different," al-Jaafari said. "So we have to redefine the concept of security, and from now on the security is the security of the citizen, factory, and shop _ not the ruler."

In a sign of the continuing battle to train the region's security forces, two traffic policemen in Fallujah got into a fistfight Saturday with Interior Ministry security forces, and one officer was fatally shot, Lt. Mohammed Odai said. It was unclear what caused the fight.

Political cartoon on WMD intelligence

Dead Wrong
Saturday, April 02, 2005

http://www.post-gazette.com/robrogers/default.asp?id=4

Iraqi border patrolmen ready, prepared
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing
Story Identification #: 200549112743
Story by Cpl. Rocco DeFilippis



AL ASAD, Iraq (April 9, 2005) -- “It is written, ‘God will raise up strong men in difficult times.’ This is a difficult time and I believe that you are the strong men who will be the heroes of Iraq,” said Col. Kent W. Bradford to the graduating class of Iraqi Border Patrolmen.

After completing a three-week advanced course in tactics, techniques and
procedures, 45 Iraqi Border Patrolmen have earned the skills necessary to complete the
daunting task of patrolling the troubled borders of Iraq.

“I salute you as brave and honorable men who have chosen to serve your country
in a very important way,” Bradford, the guest of honor, said to the graduates through a
translator. “Your challenge ahead will not be an easy one. “Whether you serve on the
Kuwaiti, Jordanian or Syrian border there will be difficult times.”

With the help of the dedicated Marine instructors at the training academy, the
newest generation of patrolmen are ready to face the challenges that lie ahead.

“We volunteered to be here because we know the training will be fruitful,” said
Lt. Ferass Hatef, Iraqi Border Patrolman and recent graduate. “The border needs us. We
are eager to get back, because we know we are ready.”

The border patrol academy is comprised of Marine instructors who teach a
syllabus from the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior with the aid of Iraqi translators. The
Marines train the Iraqis seven days a week, with an emphasis on teamwork at the heart of
all they do.

“When they come to us, most have limited skills and experience in law
enforcement,” said Cpl. Thomas M. Chipman, instructor and native of Statesville, N.C.
“When we look at them now, we can see they are more focused, more intense and
working together as a team.”

During their time at the academy, the patrolmen completed courses is in many
areas of law enforcement. The classes included weapons handling, marksmanship,
vehicle searching, law enforcement ethics, defensive tactics and martial arts.

“The Marines are good men, serious in their work,” said Lt. Kaakem Zyarah, Iraqi
Border Patrolman and recent graduate. “They have taught us many things. Things that
will help us serve the country of Iraq against the terrorists and criminals.”

“The Marine instructors here understand the importance of their jobs,” said Chief
Warrant Officer Scott Reinhardt, director of the regional academy and native of
Tappahannock, Va. “They are focused and determined to provide the best training
possible.”

As the graduates left the academy to return to their home stations, the Marines
serving at the academy prepared for the next group, continuing their paramount task of
training Iraqis to defend themselves.

“[The border patrol] mission is critical,” Reinhardt said. “They are responsible for
stopping the flow of weapons and insurgents into this country. They are the first line of
defense.”

“They have trained very hard while they were here,” he continued. “As long as
they get the support they need out in the field, they will be very effective.”

This graduation of border patrolmen marks continued success for the Al Asad
Regional Police and Department of Border Enforcement Academy. With each graduating
class of Iraqi Police and Border Patrolmen, they advance closer and closer to a brighter
Iraq.


*For more information about the Marines or news reported on in this
story, please contact by e-mail defilippisrc@acemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil*
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf...81?opendocument

Iraqi children find friendship with Marines
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Division
Story Identification #: 200546124656
Story by Sgt. Stephen D'Alessio



CAMP BLUE DIAMOND, AR RAMADI, Iraq (April 04, 2005) -- Marines that make up the camp’s quick reaction force conducted another patrol down the dangerous streets here April 3.

This was no ordinary patrol, though. The Marines saddled up in their Humvees for a chance to do something for the children, instead of rooting out insurgent hideouts.

The gates of the camp were opened and the Marines of the friendship patrol trailed out into the sandy reaches of Ramadi to hand out soccer balls and stuffed animals to the children.

The toys were donations by patriotic students at Camp Lejeune High School in N.C., where the 2nd Marine Division is headquartered. The gifts were donated in the hopes that they would help the children of the war-torn city have a sense of normalcy.

Jazmine Hall, a student at the high school, spearheaded the toy drive as a testament of support for the well being of the citizens of Iraq from the families and friends of the Marines serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Immediately out of the gate, the Marines found themselves in a precarious position as they weaved through a Sunday street market. Usually on patrol, the force doesn’t get too close to the locals, for fear of suicide bombings, ambushes or improvised explosive attacks.

“We went through some danger areas, but I think doing things like this really makes a difference in our mission here,” said Sgt. Paul Suarez, a 22-year-old Santa Clara, Calif. native and squad leader for 2nd squad. “We really kept a close eye out for anything out of the ordinary and we were able to do something for the children at the same time.”

On their way into the narrow streets of central Ar Ramadi, Al Anbar’s provincial capital, the children popped their heads out of stony corridors and ran across fields to see why the Marines were in their neighborhood.

The convoy stopped in one neighborhood and dismounted. At first, there was an apprehension among the children who hid behind fences and rubble to observe the Marines with their heavy weaponry. But soon they knew there was nothing to be afraid of as the Marines lowered from their machinegun turrets and reappeared with a few soccer balls.

Soon women gathered to talk and young shepherds redirected their flocks to see the commotion and take part in the frenzy of dozens of children jumping for a chance to have their own ball or stuffed animal.

“We really saw first hand what a difference it could make to give one of the kids something as simple as a soccer ball,” said Suarez, a 2000 Fremont High School graduate.

The Marines boarded their Humvees and snaked through the alleyways to another neighborhood. All along the way, the children came out of hiding and followed the Marines.

The once quiet neighborhoods of Ar Ramadi quickly turned into a torrent of children laughing and skipping down the dirt roads in trail of the convoy. All of this was possible thanks to the Camp Lejeune High School students.

As the sun lowered on the horizon the houses were washed in a hazy, orange light. Locals waved goodbye to the Marines from their porches as their children kicked up dust and continued to play with their newfound toys.

“It was a change from what we’re used to doing out there and hopefully we can have a chance to do other missions like this in the near future,” said Suarez.

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf...0A?opendocument

Searching locals, making an impact
Submitted by: II Marine Expeditionary Force (FWD)
Story Identification #: 20054861916
Story by Cpl. Christi Prickett



CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (April 8, 2005) -- When women Marines first entered in the Marine Corps Reserve in 1918, they only worked in clerical positions. During the war on terror, women Marines have now found themselves in almost all aspects of the Marine Corps and are expected to succeed just as the Marines who have come before them.

This is a weight Lance Cpl. Megan L. Phuhl shoulders when she turns off her alarm at 5 a.m. every morning. Stationed with Communication Company, Headquarters Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, Phuhl and 15 other female Marines go out to eight different Entry Control Points in Fallujah to search female Iraqi women and children.

Encounters with the local population bring life to what could be a monotonous job.

“Our mission is to find any hazardous items on the women, but I think I’ve seen it all,” said the Harrisburg, Va., native. “People will bring farm animals in, dead or alive, and each person has their own style of clothing as well.”

Each day more than 400 women pass through the search area and the work hours can be long.

“We are given time off throughout the day to get out of the heat, and we also have one day off a week,” said Phuhl. “But I come back on my days off because I love my job.”

Phuhl isn’t the only one who feels this way.

“Even though I just finished my fourth day out at the ECPs, it was my turn in the rotation to have a day off. But I’m coming back out tomorrow. I wouldn’t miss it,” said Lance Cpl. Kimberly B. Lambert, Truck Company, Headquarters and Support Battalion, 2nd Marine Division.

Interacting with the people makes the Marines committed to the job. Communication through body language and a small amount of Arabic language training makes the relationships easier, too.

“During our chow breaks, I try to converse with the local Iraqi Police and Iraqi Security Forces who are training with us at the checkpoints,” said Lambert, native of South Hadley, Mass. “I also learned from other Marines like Lance Corporal Phuhl.”

Phuhl said that a smile is her key to successful searches.

“The majority of the time, they treat us the way we treat them. If we are nice, they are nice. We respect the women, so they respect us,” she said.

Gunnery Sgt. James G. Delao, Charlie Company gunnery sergeant, 6th Battalion, 1st Marine Division, thinks the Marines are setting high standards for themselves.

“The female Marines here are doing well,” he said. “I never hear complaints. They have stuck with us all along and they haven’t buckled under pressure. I’m proud of them.”

Some of the female Marines come to the job with very little training. It is essential to learn from others who have been at an ECP longer, said Lambert.

“I had a class about searching people, including women, but honestly, I never thought I’d be doing it, especially this many women,” said Phuhl. “We were given specific points to remember before we came out for the fist time and we are often reminded to do thorough inspections.”

The Marines are completing the mission each day; doing it with confidence and have passed every test handed them.

EDITOR’S NOTE
For more information about this article send e-mail to cepaowo@cemnf-wiraq.usm.mil

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf...15?opendocument

Mission impossible? Tell that to the Marines
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing
Story Identification #: 2005481855
Story by Cpl. Rocco DeFilippis



AL ASAD, Iraq (April 8