continued .....

Bush also tried to defend himself from criticism that he has not done enough to protect U.S. mass transit and other domestic targets against a similar attack. He noted that he tripled funding for homeland security since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and created a new cabinet-level department to protect against another strike on U.S. soil.

Many congressional Democrats say it's not enough and that local authorities like police and fire fighters are underfunded and underequipped to deal with another terrorist attack as federal money is sent instead to fight the war in Iraq.

"The president cannot escape responsibility for the fact that this decision to go to war in Iraq has made it even more likely, not less likely, that we will fight the terrorists in America," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Kennedy protested that the Bush administration did not meet Monday's deadline for a report on the war in Iraq. In the report, required as part of a war spending bill passed two months ago, the Defense Department was supposed to update the progress of training Iraqi security forces and give Congress an estimate of how many troops will be needed in Iraq through 2006.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the report is in the final stages and that Pentagon officials are consulting with Congress about the timing for submitting it.

Preparations to Establish the First Independent Iraqi News Agency
Baghdad – A group of experienced and young Iraq journalists have gathered to establish the first independent Iraqi news agency, within the programs of the civil community organizations in Iraq.


Dr. Kazem Al Rikabi, the media official in this new agency in Iraq that it is a national Iraqi news agency. It would be known with its initials of the English translation, i.e. NINA. It is an independent news agency, whose program is within the program of the civil community and is supported through the provision of financial support by the USAID. Al Rikabi told Al Sharq Al Awsat that the agency is in the phase of training the journalists.

Al Sharq Al Awsat

NEWS RELEASE
HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND
7115 South Boundary Boulevard
MacDill AFB, Fla. 33621-5101
Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894

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

July 9, 2005
Release Number: 05-07-06


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


OPERATION SCIMITAR CONTINUES

CAMP BLUE DIAMOND, Iraq -- Marines from 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, Regimental Combat Team-8, detained 22 suspected terrorists during targeted raid operations near Fallujah.

Operation Scimitar (Qmtia) began July 7th in Zaidon, 30 km southeast of Fallujah. Approximately 100 Iraqi Security Force Soldiers and 500 2nd Marine Division forces are conducting security operations to deny anti-Iraqi sanctuary for planning, training and storing ammunition.

Operation Qmtia follows a series of counter-terrorism operations initiated by Marines in Al Anbar. These operations are designed to disrupt terrorist activity and help end their campaign of fear and intimidation against Iraqi citizens.

The last large-scale Marine Operation Saif (Sword) was conducted in the Hit-Haditha corridor June 28 to July 7.

More information will be released on this operation as it becomes available.

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT THE II MARINE EXPEDITIONARY FORCE PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE AT PoolJS@gcemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil

>"Getting The Occupiers Out Of Iraq"
>
>Jul. 12, 2005 BY AAMER MADHANI, Chicago Tribune
>
>In many ways, life in Sadr City is on the mend. But peace in this slum
>that is home to 2.5 million is fragile, and anti-American sentiment
>[translation: anti-U.S. Occupation] holds firm.
>
>"This is like halftime in a soccer match," said Sheik Ghaith al-Kadhemi, an
>imam and al-Sadr loyalist in the slum. "The Americans are adjusting their
>strategy, and Muqtada al-Sadr is also making adjustments to what our
>strategy will be in getting the occupiers out of Iraq."
>
>On Sadr City's main streets, portraits of al-Sadr angrily waving an index
>finger are posted everywhere. Residents complain that U.S. soldiers
>periodically sweep through the neighborhood tearing down the posters.
>[Welcome to liberated Iraq, where the assholes in command of the Occupation
>Army tell you whose picture you can display.]
>
>The U.S. military and al-Sadr reached a detente last year. Al-Sadr's
>al-Mahdi Army was to put its weapons down and disband. But in Sadr City,
>residents say the militiamen are in the background and can instantly be
>called to action.
>
>"Instead of pulling down posters, they should be fixing the water," said
>Ali Jabbar Hanish, 23, a laborer in Sadr City, of the U.S. soldiers.
>"Because of Mahdi Army, these are the safest streets in all of Baghdad."
>
>In his sermons and messages to his acolytes, which are most often delivered
>by his deputies, al-Sadr claims that no Iraqi government can be considered
>legitimate while there is an outside military in the country.
>
>"The Sayid (meaning direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad) Muqtada Sadr
>will never participate, he will never give legitimacy to a constitution
>written under this occupier government," Nasser al-Suadi, a member of the
>transitional National Assembly said. "But in the end, Muqtada Sadr's
>thoughts will be brought (to) the table and will be represented."

Letters to the editor: 7/14/05
Thursday, July 14, 2005

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05195/537439.stm

The London bombs reveal flaws in the Iraq argument

When Bush supporters are asked why we preemptively struck Iraq, they will tell you terrorism must be stopped. When you point out that Iraq had no link to 9/11, they then argue the people of Iraq deserve to be free.

When you note Bush's hypocrisy in not freeing the peoples of the Sudan, North Korea, Cuba or a host of other countries, they then state that a democratic Iraq is key to a peaceful Middle East.

When you point out that the European states of the 20th century failed miserably in turning their Middle Eastern colonies into democracies or that America's experiment in nation-building, Vietnam, ended tragically with thousands dead and a communist state, they then answer circularly by claiming, yet again, that terrorism must be stopped.

Terrorism, however, is not being stopped, as shown by the recent events in London. It has been almost four years since 9/11 and two since we invaded Iraq. Bin Laden is free, young men are dying every day and the terrorism seen in London and Madrid, which is still equally possible here today, continues to occur.

If only America's educators actually taught how erroneous, ideological thinking leads to events like Vietnam, last year's election may have been different. More importantly, if President Bush actually learned such lessons, he would see the disconnect between his own argument and the actual results of Iraq.

11 U.S. Troops Charged With Abuse in Iraq

Updated 1:04 PM ET July 16, 2005
By SAMEER N. YACOUB

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8bcjseg0&src=ap

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Eleven U.S. soldiers have been charged with assaulting detainees in Iraq, the military said Saturday, while three British soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in a rare attack in the relatively stable southern part of the country.

Also Saturday, suicide attackers killed at least nine Iraqi forces in separate attacks in Baghdad and just south of Mosul as insurgents kept up their campaign against the nation's U.S.-trained security force.....

The U.S. military said in a statement that the charges against the 11 troops, who served in the Baghdad area but were not otherwise identified, were filed Wednesday after another soldier complained about the alleged assaults.

"None of the insurgents required medical treatment for injuries related to the alleged assault," the statement added. "Only one of the suspected terrorists remains in custody of coalition forces at this time."

The soldiers had been assigned to the Army's Task Force Baghdad but were taken off-duty pending the investigation, the military said, adding that the Army's Criminal Investigation Division would determine whether they should face trial by court-martial.

"Allegations of illegal activities will always be thoroughly investigated," said Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, a Task Force Baghdad spokesman.

U.S. commanders have been especially sensitive about alleged mistreatment of detainees since the abuse of inmates at Abu Ghraib prison resulted in a major scandal involving America's handling of prisoners both here and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba....

Suicide Blast at Iraq Gas Station Kills 54

Updated 8:00 PM ET July 16, 2005

By ROBERT H. REID

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8bcpvfg1&src=ap

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - An insurgent suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body Saturday, triggering a huge explosion at a gas station near a mosque south of Baghdad and killing at least 54 people. The attack capped a string of three major bombings over the past four days that killed at least 120. ....

Fuad Ma'soum : The Kurds won't Give up the Federation. Iraq Republic is Federal not Arab nor Islamic
London - The constitution council in the Iraqi National Assembly is holding a full board meeting, 55 original members, in addition to 15 Arab Sunni members, who have been added to the board.


The constitution drafting council has encountered various problems, the most prominent of which are represented in the objections of the Arab Sunnis, who have complained of the small number of their representatives, which led them to threaten of refraining from participation in the draft, and consequently boycotting the plebiscite on it. Nevertheless, the various meetings and deliberations have led to increasing the number of the Arab Sunnis in the council, in addition to the issue of the belonging of Kirkuk and whether the idioms Arab or Islamic would be included in naming Iraq.
Yesterday, Al Sharq Al Awsat has called Dr. Fuad Ma'soum, first deputy president of the constitution drafting committee in his office in Baghdad, who said, "Tomorrow (Today), the constitution council would be able to have a full board meeting, of its 70 members, for the first time, as there is usually absence of members during the council meetings." He pointed out that the most important issue that would be discussed is the application of article 58 of the state administration code, which deals with the application of relations in the city of Kirkuk.
Ma'soum said, "The Arab Sunnis have requested the increase of the number of their 15 representatives, but those 15 members never attended, as only half of them or 9 usually attend as a maximum." Ma'soum added, "In tomorrow's (today's) meeting, we would discuss the subcommittees in the council, which are 6 committees, each is specialized in one aspect of the constitution, such as: the general principles, freedom, the law of parties, elections law, etc." He stressed that the council would not discuss what has been achieved or agreed upon, but would discuss the disagreements to discuss them and reach agreement points. The deputy president of the constitution committee confirmed, "What matters the most in this meeting is listening to the opinions and suggestions of the Arab Sunnis and their final opinion, as they had held a meeting the day before yesterday. Today, they would inform us of their views and suggestions, so as to advance in drafting the constitution."
Ma'soum stressed that the Kurds, "insist on the application of Article 58 of the state administration code for the interim period, which is currently considered as the considered as the interim constitution." He said, "Yes, we insist on the application of this article before the plebiscite on the constitution."
Article 58 of the state administration code stresses the significance of the naturalization of conditions in Kirkuk city. This means the return of Kurds, Turkmen or any other races to their city of Kirkuk, after Saddam Hussein's regime has displaced them to various regions in Iraq and replaced them with Arabs from central and southern Iraq for the purpose of the Arabization of the city of Kirkuk and erasing its real identity.
He said, "The process of normalization should be finished before submitting the constitution draft for plebiscite. This process is relating to the identity of Kirkuk city and its belonging." He referred to the significance of solving the issue of Kirkuk city before the plebiscite. He added, "I do not say that we join Kirkuk to Kurdistan but I am stressing on naturalization first, and hence we shall discuss the belonging of Kirkuk city through the constitution."
The MP denied that they discussed the issue of naming Iraq in the National Assembly and said, "No member has suggested adding the term Arabic or Arab to the name of Iraq republic. The names that are subject for discussion are Iraq Republic, or Iraqi Republic, or the Federal Iraqi Republic." He ruled out adding the Islamic aspect to the name. He said, "We are not in favor of adding (Islamic) to the Iraq Republic. It is ruled out, for us, as there are religions other than Islam in Iraq."
Ma'soum pointed out, "As long as the definition of (Iraqi Republic) means federation, then the system should be federal and that means that Iraq would consist of various federations, i.e. there would be a federation in the south and another in the center, in addition to the federation of Kurdistan. Or that Kurdistan would be a federation and the other Iraqi region would be the Rafedein Federation, as some MPs have suggested." He pointed out, "The Kurds are insisting on their federation, and this is a matter that would never be refrained from."
In his words, Ma'soum concluded that it is necessary to finish drafting the constitutions on time, which is the middle of next month. "We are exerting our best efforts for that and so that we are not delayed in submitting the project of the Iraqi permanent constitution for plebiscite on time, at the beginning of next October," he said.
The first deputy president of the constitution drafting committee added, "Tomorrow's (Today's) meting would specify how fast we are in achieving the constitution, especially as there are suspended problems as I stated, such as the execution of Article 58 of the state administration code, as to finish the issue of the belonging of Kirkuk city, in addition to the final approval that Kurdistan region would enjoy a federal government and the issue of the elections' law, whether Iraq would be considered as one electoral district or would be divided into various regions according to provinces."

Ma'd Fayadh
Al Sharq Al Awsat

http://www.almendhar.com/english_4589/news.aspx

Al Ja'fari in a Historical Visit to Iran to Sign an Agreement to Connect Basra Oil with Abadan Refinery
Tehran – Ibrahim Al Ja'fari, Iraqi Prime Minister, started an official visit to Iran for three days. This is his third visit after the elections to a regional capital after Turkey and Kuwait, and the first after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.


In his visit to Tehran, Al Ja'fari would be accompanied by a big delegation. On the other hand, as soon as Al Ja'fari has reached Tehran he stated that the relations between the two countries "are very important for us". The Iranian vice president, Mohammed Riza Aref, who received him, said "The visit opens a new page in our relations on all levels."
This visit is important for both the Iraqi and Iranian parties, especially as it came after the visit of Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi, to Baghdad. The Iraqi party hopes to settle a number of suspended files between the two countries, the most significant of which is setting practical framework for mutual cooperation in economic fields, especially establishing an oil pipe line that connects the Iraqi southern oil wells in Basra with Abadan refinery and transporting oil products to Iraq to fulfill the needs of Iraqi market.
Among the most significant issues that are facing al Ja'fari in his visit are solving the dilemma of the planes that the former regime has sent to Iran, during the war of liberating Kuwait, and Iran refused to return them, for the excuse of settling the war compensations between the two countries.
Sources in the Iraqi delegation have disclosed that Al Ja'fari would not deal with this issue in his talks with the Iranians, as "the former regime bears the responsibility". They added that at this stage, Iraq is seeking to get rid of its due debts and it is unable to pay additional compensations.
The Iraqi party is hoping to achieve advancement in this file arising from the friendly relations that are connecting Iraqi leaders in the ministry and outside it with Iran. The same sources added that Al Ja'fari's visit to Iran is expressing "a new trend in the Iraqi government that stresses the necessity of reinforcing relations with the neighboring countries and that Al Ja'fari's visits to regional capitals have strategic dimensions, as selecting Turkey as the first stop has expressed an Iraqi desire to open towards Europe, while his visit to Kuwait has limited the sensitivity and complications of the past relations and the Arab gate for Iraq."
In reference for "Al Wifaq" movement, headed by the former Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, the sources added "through some recently launched statements about Algeria agreement 1975 between Iran and Iraq, some Iraqi forces were seeking to frustrate the visit in accordance of their tendencies when they were in charge of the regime before the elected government, as they excluded Iran and preferred to establish its regional and international relations arising from Jordan."
As regards the agreements that would be signed between the two parties, the Iraqi source stated that the understanding memorandum that was reached by the two defense ministers of the two countries last week has been restricted to the necessity of the surveillance of borders, preventing armed sneakers and fighting smuggling. Nevertheless, the most significant dimension, which represents a vital issue, is to establish an oil pipeline between Basra and Abadan and the electrical connection process between southern Iraq and Iran.
In relation to whether Al Ja'fari's visit was not away from the American sight, ministerial sources in the Iraqi delegation have stated that the coming stage would witness a transfer of security responsibilities from the American to Iraqi forces, as an introduction to shrinking the American presence in Iraq and reducing its losses, which ensures the Iranians that Iraq would not be a source of security and military worry for them in the future."

Hassan Fahs
Al Hayat

http://www.almendhar.com/english_4615/news.aspx

Now doesn't this just make your heart bleed?

Saddam General, Son Found Dead After Arrest
BAGHDAD— A former general in Saddam Hussein’s army and his son were found shot dead in Baghdad after being detained by police commandos, an Interior Ministry official told AFP yesterday, raising new question marks over the discipline of the elite force.


Akram Ahmed Rasul Al-Bayati, a major general in the old regime’s disbanded military, was arrested at his east Baghdad home last Sunday along with two of his sons - Ali, a policeman, and Omar, the official said.
Omar was later released and one of his uncle’s offered to pay $7,000 for the release of the other two. The money was handed over Friday afternoon, said the official, asking not to be identified. Later in the evening, the uncle went to the Talaba district where his brother and nephew were to be released.
The general and his son, along with a third unidentified man, arrived in a civilian car, were taken out onto the street and shot dead, the official said. There was no immediate word of any official investigation into the incident, one of a growing number that raise suspicions of serious misconduct by the interior ministry force.
Made up of former Special Forces from Saddam’s military, the 12,000-strong commandos have been deployed in Sunni Arab insurgent bastions like Ramadi and Mosul and are lionized in a nightly show on state television called “Terrorists in the Grip of Justice” that shows confessions extracted from detainees.
But a commando unit deployed to the central city of Samarra was pulled out in April after what US officers said were repeated incidents of looting, culminating in the torching of a home. And a spate of executions of civilians in recent weeks has sparked new accusations against the force.
Hussein Ali Kamal, deputy minister for intelligence at the Interior Ministry, told AFP earlier this week it was not known who was responsible for the killings. “The minister (Bayan Solagh) has issued orders that nobody be arrested without a warrant,” he said.
“Every day we find innocent people killed and their bodies dumped in the streets. We don’t know who’s responsible. The minister has ordered that a special committee be set up to look into this very explosive issue. “There are people who dress up in police or commandos’ uniforms to carry out, even at night, horrible attacks which are then blamed on police,” Kamal said.

Agence France Presse

http://www.almendhar.com/english_4628/news.aspx

Iraqi Civil Community Institutions Prepare a Project for Enlightening Iraqis Constitutionally
Baghdad – The Iraqi civil community institutions have started the execution of a project, simultaneously all over Iraq, relating to the constitutional awareness of all Iraqis. The project was called "the project of constitutional dialogue"

This project has already started, due to the close date of the plebiscite on the constitution. It is supervised by the Iraqi organization in the center of Iraq, the Kurdish institute for elections in Kurdistan region and the north of Iraq, the society of human rights watch in the south central region and the southern organization for constitutional studies and human rights in the southern region.

Haydar Najm
Al Sharq Al Awsat

http://www.almendhar.com/english_4609/news.aspx

C-span read an article today that said the Bush administration asked teh CIA to interfere in the recent January elections. They were supposed to promote certain candidates for a U.S friendly outcome. The articel said Bush got "cold feet" and told the CIA to back off... but the CIA didn't answere whether they still interfered with political parties in Iraq.

C-span also had on an author today who said that the WH interfered in the constitution after the election when they told the Iraqis to include Sunnis who were not elected in January. The insurgents see through this "fake democracy" process.

Zibari : The Iranian-Iraqi Closeness is not Aiming at the Arab Sunnis
Baghdad – The Iraqi Prime Minister's visit to Iran has aroused so much misunderstanding between the Iraqi parties and the political forces.While some institutions have considered it as "gaining power" from Iran against the Arab Sunnis, other governmental and Shiite forces have seen it as a "good step" towards reinforcing Iraqi relations with its neighbors.


Hoshiar Zibari, the foreign affairs minister, said that the closeness of his country to Iran, "would not lead to reinforcing the security solution against the regions of the arab Sunnis". He added, "This matter is non-existent at all and there is no need for this kind of fears." He denied the existence of any divisions in the situations of the political class with regard to the relation with Iran.
Within the same context, Mowafaq Al Robe'i, consultant for national security, considered that the fears of some Arab Sunnis regarding the closeness of Al Ja'fari's government to Iran "have no reason". He said, "The current Iraqi politicians would not allow any neighboring country to support one element "sect" of the Iraqi people at the expense of other elements." He added, "It is in favor of Iran that the Iraqi situation heads to settlement."
He pointed out that the government "is elected and legitimate and its positive policies towards Iran stem from the choices of the street that elected it, contrary to the former Iyad Allawi's government, which has adopted enhancing situations against the Islamic republic and it was not an elected government." He stressed that al Ja'fari's current visit to Iran would stress on "achieving economic gains for Baghdad in matters, the most prominent of which are exporting Iraqi oil through Iranian ports, transporting goods through Iran to Iraqi lands, importing Iranian oil products and reinforcing the harbors through the Gulf waters." He diminished the importance of the political issues, especially the file of "Mujahedi Khalq".
On the other hand, the vice president of "the Islamic Party", Iyad Al Samera'e, told that the Iranian interference in the Iraqi matters is "rejected". He added "we have enough of the American interference". He believed that in case the Iraqi-Iranian closeness "leads to controlling the borders and stopping sneakers, it would be a positive matter."

Basel Mohamed
Al Hayat

http://www.almendhar.com/english_4614/news.aspx

Iraqi Official Says Countrymen Cannot Achieve Liberty Alone
By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service


WASHINGTON, July 18, 2005 – "The Iraqi people cannot achieve their liberty and democracy by themselves alone. They need the support of the United States," the inspector general of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense said during an interview here.
The senior Iraqi government official, Layla Jassim Al-Moktar, was commenting on Benjamin Franklin's famous call for unity. "We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately," Franklin said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

Iraq, America and the coalition "need to hang together" to continue the fight against terrorists operating in Iraq and around the world, Moktar asserted.

Moktar believes her countrymen will ultimately defeat terrorists in Iraq. "But at the same time," she added, the new Iraqi government and security forces now require "the support of the other friendly countries."

Moktar said there is "a very small percentage of Iraqis who don't want Iraq to be democratic and free." Those people "are the losers who lost much of their interests" after Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003, she said.

She also acknowledged that insurgents "from other countries, maybe from the adjacent countries to Iraq, are coming inside Iraq to fight."

Moktar compared the insurgency in Iraq to an infection, noting, "when you get a small cold or flu, the whole body doesn't feel well." Iraq has 25 million people, and the insurgency amounts to "a small sickness or illness" in the populace, Moktar said.

The security situation in Iraq today "looks a little bit better than before," Moktar reported. To further improve security, she said, her country's new army and other security forces require more training, weapons and supplies. In the later years of Saddam's rule the Iraqi Army was poorly outfitted and supplied, she said.

Acquiring new and modern weapons would provide Iraq with "a good army" that will be used for national defense and not to wage war on neighbors, Moktar said.

Moktar said she believes things will get better in Iraq in the coming months and years. "Iraqis want that to happen," she said.

The people of the United States and members of its armed forces have Moktar's thanks for starting "a great mission in Iraq," she said.

She also asked Americans to remain Iraq's ally in the war against terrorism and "to complete this mission, appropriately and properly, until the end."

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2005/20050718_2107.html

Iraq Constitution Chapter May Anger Women

Updated 6:44 AM ET July 26, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8bj17ug0&src=ap

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A chapter of Iraq's draft constitution obtained by The Associated Press gives Islam a major role in Iraqi civil law, raising concerns that women could lose rights in marriage, divorce and inheritance.

The proposal also appears to rule out non-governmental militias, an area addressed Monday by the new U.S. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad. Urging Iraqis to build national institutions, he said there is no place for factional forces that "build the infrastructure for a future civil war."

The civil law section, one of six to make up Iraq's new charter, covers the rights and duties of citizens and public and private freedoms. The language in the chapter is not final, but members of the charter drafting committee said there was agreement on most of its wording.

Committee members have been rushing to complete the constitution so the Iraqi National Assembly can set the final wording by Aug. 15. Parliament's version would be put to a public vote by mid-October, and if approved, elections would follow by the year's end.

The drafting panel's efforts got a boost Monday when its 12 Sunni Arab members ended a boycott, easing fears the document might be rejected by the ethnic community at the heart of the insurgency.

Sunni Arab support is crucial because the charter can be scuttled if voters in three of Iraq's 18 provinces reject it by a two-thirds majority _ and Sunni Arabs are a majority in four provinces. Sunni Arabs make up about 20 percent of Iraq's 27 million people but dominate areas where the insurgency is raging.

A Sunni member of the constitutional commission, Saleh al-Mutlaq, told AP that he and his 11 colleagues agreed to resume work after receiving assurances from the government that their grievances would be addressed.

Those concerns included better security after last week's assassination of two colleagues, which triggered the boycott, and for an expanded role for the Sunni Arab minority in the constitutional deliberations.

On Tuesday, Iraq's most feared terrorist group warned Sunni Arabs against taking part in the October referendum on the constitution, saying their participation would make them infidels _ and therefore subject to the same treatment as occupation forces.

In a statement posted on the Internet, al-Qaida in Iraq slammed recent calls by some Sunni leaders encouraging the religious minority, who form the core of the current insurgency, to get involved in the political process.

Most worrying for women's groups has been the section on civil rights in the draft constitution, which some feel would significantly roll back women's rights under a 1959 civil law enacted by a secular regime.

In the copy obtained by AP on Monday, Article 19 of the second chapter says "the followers of any religion or sect are free to choose their civil status according to their religious or sectarian beliefs."

Shiite Muslim leaders have pushed for a stronger role for Islam in civil law but women's groups argue that could base legal interpretations on stricter religious lines that are less favorable toward women.

Committee members said Monday they had taken account of women's concerns, but said they were not planning to make changes since the National Assembly will have final say on the wording.

Committee member Khudayer al-Khuzai said Muslims would be free to choose which Islamic sect they want to be judged by under the proposed civil law.

"We will not force anyone to adopt any sect at all. People are free to choose the sect they see as better or more legitimate. This is implemented in marriage, inheritance and all civil rights," he said.

Not all Shiite laws are disadvantageous for women. Many Sunni Muslims who have only daughters prefer to follow Shiite religious law when it comes to inheritance since daughters inherit everything their parents leave. Under Sunni rules, daughters have to share their inheritance with uncles, aunts and grandparents.

While not specifically addressing militias, the draft chapter would permit Iraqis to form only political parties and would ban individuals from possessing weapons.

"There is no place for militias," said al-Khuzai, a Shiite. "We have even made it clear for non-governmental organizations that they should not have any secret or military activities."

Earlier in the day, the U.S. ambassador spoke against militias _ a clear signal to groups in Iraq's dominant Shiite Arab and Kurdish communities that have maintained armed groups since they were in opposition to Saddam Hussein's regime.

Khalilzad, who took up his ambassador's post over the weekend, told reporters the U.S. government believes Iraqis must focus on building strong national institutions.

"Regarding the militias, of course, our position is clear," he said. "... We don't want to do anything that creates longer term problems for Iraq in terms of the problem of warlordism or the problem of building an infrastructure for a future civil war."

In other areas, the chapter obtained by AP would make the judiciary independent, require public trials, ban torture and require a judicial order to detain anyone. Child labor, which flourished in the 1990s after the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq, would be banned.

Also, the draft would prevent tens of thousands of Iraqi Jews who emigrated to Israel in the 1950s from getting back their Iraqi citizenship. It says only Iraqis who lost their citizenship after Saddam's Baath Party came to power in 1963 "will be allowed to get it back."

In other developments:

_In separate attacks in Baghdad, gunmen fatally shot a police officer as he was driving from his home in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City, while a Health Ministry employee was shot multiple times during a morning attack in the eastern suburb of Maamil.

_Gunmen in southern Basra attacked a police patrol, killing a policeman and a civilian.

Iraq Sunnis to end constitution committee boycott

BAGHDAD - Sunni Arabs said they would return to the bargaining table to hammer out a constitution for Iraq, ending a standoff that threatened to torpedo the political process .



The parliament announced the compromise in a statement signed by parliament speaker Hajem al-Hassani.
They said they would call off their boycott after their demands for better security and a probe into the assassination .
"We will definitely return tomorrow," said Saleh Mutlaq, spokesman for the Sunni umbrella group Iraqi National Dialogue.
Abdul Nasser al-Jenabi, a committee member from another Sunni group, also said the demands had been met.
Reuters
http://www.almendhar.com/english_4829/news.aspx

A few days ago, Iraqis asked for a 6 month extension on the constitution. Today, the newspapers report that the WH pressured the Iraqis to meet the August deadline even though many issues will not be worked out (e.g. women's issues)

See the other Iraq news forum for the previous news links.

Iraq Hopes to Finish Constitution on Time

Updated 9:15 AM ET August 1, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8bn20oo0&src=ap

By BASSEM MROUE

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Bowing to intense U.S. pressure, the head of the commission writing Iraq's new constitution agreed Monday to stick to the Aug. 15 deadline to complete the draft on condition that political leaders can exert their influence to overcome remaining differences.

Chairman Humam Hammoudi told parliament that he had recommended the commission formally ask the National Assembly for more time after the members deadlocked on such issues as the role of Islam, federalism and distribution of the national wealth.

But U.S. authorities ratcheted up pressure Sunday to stick by the deadline, which Washington considers essential to maintain political momentum, undermine the insurgency and pave the way for the Americans and their coalition partners to draw down troops next year.

After meeting with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, President Jalal Talabani said Sunday that all efforts must be made to stick by the timetable and finish the charter by Aug. 15. Intense meetings took place late into the night to find a way out of the impasse.

The deadline for the commission to ask for an extension was Monday. Appearing before parliament Monday, Hammoudi said that if political leaders meet this week to resolve the differences, "on Aug. 15 we can be able to conclude the constitution."

Hammoudi added one condition: "that the leaders of the bloc meet on Aug. 5, and on Aug. 12, we receive the results of their discussion. If there are any points of disagreement among the leaders, they will be brought forward to the National Assembly in order for them to solve it."

Khalilzad told reporters after Hammoudi's announcement that the United States was sure that compromises could be made.

"There are options that can be identified," he said. "If there is good will and preparedness to compromise, then it can be arrived at. I urge the leaders to come with that spirit."

But a prominent Sunni Arab member was less optimistic, listing at least four major areas of disagreement, including proposals to reserve certain jobs for specific ethnic or religious groups, to allow Iraqis to hold dual citizenship and whether Arabic alone should be considered an official language. The Kurds want their language to have equal status.

"We, the Sunni Arabs, call for an Arab Iraq with Islam as the source of legislation and we reject assigning government positions along sectarian lines," Mohammed Abed-Rabbou said. "If they want a constitution for all Iraqis, it can be done on the 15th. But if they insist on sectarian divisions of posts, then it is difficult."

The interim constitution, which forms the legal framework for all current Iraqi government activities, states that parliament must approve the draft by Aug. 15 _ not simply that the committee produce the document.

If the political leaders cannot reach agreement before parliament receives the document, legislative approval could slip beyond the deadline. Once the document receives parliamentary approval, the charter goes to the voters for approval in a referendum in mid-October.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld flew to Baghdad on Wednesday to insist that the Iraqis finish the constitution on time. The deliberations took place against the backdrop of continuing violence.

On Sunday, the U.S. military announced that five more American service members died in a pair of explosions in Baghdad the day before. Their deaths brought the number of Americans killed in the last week to 16.

Members of the drafting committee had been warning for weeks that although 90 percent of the document was completed, the 71 members could not agree on a handful of key issues, including federalism, the role of Islam, distribution of national wealth and the name of the country.

The Shiites were pressing for language declaring Islam the main source of legislation, whereas the Kurds wanted religious teachings to be one of a number of sources.

The Kurds were holding out for federalism, which many Sunnis fear will lead to the breakup of the state. Even among those who support federalism, broad differences exist on such details as the limits of regional power and a formula for distributing oil wealth.

A Western official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said he believed the Aug. 15 deadline can be met.

But the official acknowledged the option of requesting an extension for submitting the charter to the parliament. He said as long as Iraqi leaders can hold the referendum in mid-October, the political process will be on track.

If two-thirds of the people in any three of the 18 provinces vote against it during the October referendum, the constitution will be defeated. Kurds form an overwhelming majority in three provinces and Sunni Arabs hold sway in at least four.

In Basra, a brawl erupted when about 5,000 people showed up unannounced at an army recruiting center to volunteer for the Iraqi military. But officials said they had no instructions to take so many recruits. Disappointed, the crowd responded by throwing stones and empty drink bottles at the headquarters building. Guards opened fire, wounding at least three people, officials said.

This is about 90% bluff, the Sunnis are outnumbered by over 2 to 1 by the Shi'a. People who belittle this process only have to look at our own constitution for strange compromises, Take the following for an example: (Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.) "Three fifths of all other Persons" was a nice way the founding father had of saying we would only count three fifths of the black slaves. Now how many folks here think the were right?

Al Jabouri: The Sunnis would Fight the Regime and the Occupation in Case their "Three" reservations are not respected in the Constitution

Damascus: Mash'an al Jabouri, Iraqi MP, has warned from the possibility of a "civil war" in Iraq. He said that approving a permanent constitution, away from the "three reservations" means that the Arab Sunnis would resort to "resisting the regime and the occupation."
In an interview with Al Hayat in Damascus, Al Jabouri said, "The Arab Sunnis have reservations on the constitution, including their adherence to not referring to the Persian race as one of the Iraqi races, the necessity of alienating religion from regime, and that Iraq does not convert to a federal union, but becomes a federation of Arabs and Kurds." During his special visit to Damascus, the head of "United National Party" said "Our biggest worry is from the statements that recently appeared. Before Iraqi becomes a federation, people started to speak about the necessity that the south keeps 60% of the oil revenues. In addition, the Kurds are demanding 20%. Therefore, the objective is making the Arab Sunnis starve, for sectarian reasons." After noting the existence of a tendency towards, "making an agreement to pass a constitution that responds to the demands of the Kurds and Shiaas, regardless of the will of the Arab Sunnis," he said that the approval of such a constitution, would result in that "the Arab Sunnis would find themselves in a situation, not only opposing the occupant, but both the occupant and the regime. They would all get involved in confrontation with the two parties, to return the political process to the zero square, so as to draft a constitution that is approved by everyone, which means a civil war."

He referred to "a new strategy, adopted by Americans in Iraq, which is based on "pressure on the regime so as not to eradicate the Arab Sunnis." He added that the Americans would withdraw "from all cities to four bases, which are Al Baghdadia, Balad, Al Musel or Erbil, and Tikrit, so as to alleviate their losses." He pointed out, "Whoever believes that the Americans would have a comprehensive withdrawal is mistaken, as the victory of the "Jihadis" would cause the disaster."

Within the same context, an Iraqi security-diplomatic delegation, headed by an Iraqi foreign ministry official, is supposed to arrive in Damascus, to discuss the resuming the diplomatic relations and the security file between the two countries.

Ibrahim Hemeidi
Al Hayat
http://www.almendhar.com/english_4967/news_print.aspx

14 U.S. Marines Are Killed in Iraq

Updated 10:53 AM ET August 3, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...803_471&src=abc

A Marine amphibious assault vehicle on patrol during combat operations near the Syrian border hit a roadside bomb Wednesday, and 14 Marines were killed in one of the deadliest single attacks in Iraq against American forces.

A civilian interpreter also was killed in the bombing, which came two days after seven Marines died in the same area during combat with insurgents. At least 1,820 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Also, an American freelance journalist was found dead in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the U.S. Embassy said. Steven Vincent had been shot multiple times after he and his Iraqi translator were abducted at gunpoint hours earlier, police said.

The Marines killed Wednesday were assigned to Regimental Combat Team 2, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), the military said. One Marine also was wounded in the attack.

The explosion occurred just outside Haditha, which is 140 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The Marines were riding in an amphibious assault vehicle, which is designed to carry troops from ship to shore and on land. It has a road speed of about 45 mph and can carry up to 25 Marines. It is not as heavily armored as the Bradley fighting vehicles that the army uses.

The names of those killed were not released.

The latest losses come on the heels of the deaths of seven U.S. Marines in combat two days ago in the volatile Euphrates Valley of western Iraq, where American forces are trying to seal a major border infiltration route for foreign fighters.

One of the Marines died in a suicide car bombing in Hit, 85 miles northwest of Baghdad. The other six were killed Monday in Haditha, 50 miles from Hit, while battling insurgents. They all were attached to the same suburban Cleveland unit.

The American deaths come as the Bush administration is talking about handing more security responsibility to the Iraqis and drawing down forces next year.

At least 39 American service members have been killed in Iraq since July 24 all but two in combat. In addition, the Iraqi Defense Ministry said that since the beginning of April, more than 2,700 Iraqis about half of them civilians had been killed in insurgency-related incidents.

The extremist Ansar al-Sunnah Army claimed responsibility for killing the six Marines on Monday.

Masked gunmen showed up in the Haditha public market Monday afternoon displaying helmets, flak jackets and other equipment they said were taken from the bodies of the dead Marines.

Fighting has intensified in recent weeks in Haditha, Hit and other dusty towns along the Euphrates River as American forces step up efforts to seal off the approaches to the Syrian border.

The Marines launched a series of operations in the region in May and June in hopes of pacifying the area so Iraqi military and civilian forces could assume effective control. But the insurgents have proven resilient.

Iraqi police said Vincent, a writer who had been living in New York, had been staying in Basra for several months working on a book about the city's history.

Vincent and was abducted along with his female translator at gunpoint Tuesday evening, police said. His translator, Nour Weidi, was seriously wounded.

They were seized by five gunmen in a police car as they left a currency exchange shop, police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi said.

In an opinion column published July 31 in The New York Times, Vincent wrote that Basra's police force had been heavily infiltrated by members of Shiite political groups, including those loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Vincent quoted an unidentified Iraqi police lieutenant as saying that some police were behind many of the assassinations of former Baath Party members that have taken place in Basra.

Vincent's body was discovered on the side of the highway south of Basra later. He had been shot in the head and multiple times in the body, al-Zaidi said.

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 46 journalists and 20 media support workers have been killed while covering the war in Iraq since March 2003. Insurgent actions are responsible for the bulk of deaths.

The Vienna, Austria-based media watchdog International Press Institute condemned Vincent's killing and urged Iraqi authorities to conduct a speedy and thorough investigation.

The death underscored how "Iraq continues to be the most dangerous country in the world in which to work as a journalist," the group said.

News from recent C-span programs:

50000 private security forces are used to protect the visitors, elected officials and some military reconstruction units. This is the largest force next to the U.S. troops. many of these security forces are from the UK and Scandanavian countries.

15000 detainees in Iraq; human rights groups say 80-90% were picked up in error and many have been held for 2 years.

Every household has machine guns to protect their family.

When relatives are killed, other relatives join the insurgents to get the military out. A minor amount are forign fighters. The U.S. can't tell the Iraqis from Suadis, Afghanis or other Arabs. The Iraqis know who these insugents are and are protecting them to fight the U.S. But if the U.S. leaves, then the Iraqis will turn on the foriegners and the Iraqi fighters will go back to their jobs.

The new leader elected in January asked the U.S to leave in 9 months. The U.S. is ignoring the new government and undermining their legitimacy with the Iraqi people. The people went to vote because the political platform by the new leader was he would get the U.S out of Iraq. The Iraqis also wanted a 6 month extension to finish the constitution - Rumsfeld told them last week that they had to finish this month no matter what.

The inspector general for the Iraqi reconstruction funds worked for Bush in Texas and in the White House. He whitewashed the missing $9 billion during Bremer's tenure as CPA chief because it was "Iraqi oil money" not U.S. money. He is only concerned about U.S. money. Only about $3 billion has been spent on reconstruction and 30% is for private security forces.

The Bechtel electricity fixes are nonexistant. Electricity is off and on except in the U.S. protected zones.

The Brown & Root/Halliburtin oil industry fixes are nonexistant. UK oil supply contractors for the Iraqi government bring their own equipment from Kuwait because B&R has not fixed the storage/unloading locations. The equipment is still the 30 year old stuff before the war.

What are we spending $1 billion per day on? Who is monitoring the Pentagon costs?

C-Span press conference on now - is reporting that an Iraqi insurgent web site has just posted a dead U.S. soldier shot at close range. The Pentagon wouldn't comment.

The inspector general Reconstruction reports can be found at:

http://www.sigir.mil/audit_reports.html

see also

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...ST&f=16&t=34929

Bush: Iraq Attack a Grim Reminder of War

Updated 6:29 PM ET August 3, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...03_1438&src=abc

President Bush lamented the deaths of 14 Marines in Iraq Wednesday, calling the deadly attack a "grim reminder" America is still at war. [These 14 were from Ohio, where republicans trashed Hackett, an Iraqi war veteran.]

"These terrorists and insurgents will use brutal tactics because they're trying to shake the will of the United States of America. They want us to retreat," Bush told some 2,000 state lawmakers, business leaders and public policy experts gathered here.

The president spoke on a day when a Marine amphibious assault vehicle patrolling during combat operations in the Euphrates River valley hit a roadside bomb, killing 14 Marines from the same Ohio battalion that lost six men two days ago.

"Make no mistake about it," Bush said. "We are at war."

The latest deaths come as his administration is talking about handing more security responsibility over to the Iraqis and drawing down U.S. forces next year. At least 1,820 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Bush reiterated that he will not set a timetable for withdrawal. He said troops could return home once Iraqi forces have been adequately trained. "As Iraqis stand up, American and coalition forces will stand down," he said.

He said the families of fallen troops can know that the United States government will "honor their loved ones' sacrifice by completing the mission."

"The violence in recent days in Iraq is a grim reminder of the enemies we face," Bush said......

Just for everyone's information out there. This Marine National Guard Unit represented Marines from Columbus, Oxford, Dayton, and the Greater Cincinnati area. The meeting area was Columbus only, the men were from surrounding areas.

Makes me wish Hackett had won last night even more.

Who says American troops are not innovative?

August 26, 2005
Release Number: 05-08-25


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


SUCCESSES THIS WEEK IN IRAQ (19-25 AUG., 2005)

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Coalition forces continued to help Iraqi citizens with humanitarian missions and to help train Iraqi security forces to bring stability to the country. Iraqi Soldiers and police worked with local citizens to create a safer environment, and reconstruction projects like new police and fire stations are building the security infrastructure. Other reconstruction projects were able to provide potable water to citizens who otherwise didn’t have access to it.

Coalition forces turned over Camp Zulu in As Suwayrah, Iraq, to the Iraqi Army on Aug. 21. The division’s 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade will be permanently housed there. This is the twenty-fourth base to be turned over to the Iraqis, returning the land to the government elected by the people.

The 5th Infantry Battalion of the Bulgarian Army trained Iraqi Army Soldiers in engineering and medical responses, and held a live-fire exercise this week. Medics from the Bulgarian contingent also provided regular assistance to local citizens who needed medical treatment.

Ukrainian military advisers and instructors completed training for the 3rd Battalion of 3rd Infantry Brigade of the Iraqi Army, which will take control from the Ukrainians in the Wassit Province next month. Currently, ISF are manning joint-security checkpoints and conducting patrols with the Ukrainian troops.

A new Salvadorian contingent started its duty in the central-south region of Iraq on Aug. 20. The 380 soldiers, stationed at Al Hillah, will focus on civil-military cooperation , humanitarian assistance and training and advising the ISF. The last rotation of Salvadoran soldiers organized and conducted 85 projects to help Iraqi people, including water supply and sewage systems, education, health care, public security and transportation.

Early this week, workers completed rehabilitation of the domestic water network in Sulaymaniyah. This project is to rehabilitate the potable water system, intended to improve the efficiency of the system there by 20 percent. The Maissa potable water system, a $21,000 project in Mosul to replace a failed water line, was also completed. Also this week; the $27 million water treatment project in Balad Rooz District of Diyala Province will provide 40km of transmission piping and increase the water treatment plant’s capacity to serve 72,000 families, compared to the current capacity of 1,136 families. The $958,000 Al Baida water supply project, which will provide a new water line from the water tower in Al Warka to the community of Al Baida, began on the 22nd.

Approximately 25,000 Iraqis in the Dahuk, Babylon and Wassit Provinces will get treated potable water, thanks to three million dollars released for local projects. The projects will upgrade 15 systems, each including water wells, compact potable water treatment plants and pumps. Completion dates for the 15 projects vary, but are all scheduled to be finished by January of 2006.

Construction has restarted on Sadr City’s $902,000 Al Sadr Fire Station project, after a recent construction collapse while concrete was being placed. The project is scheduled for completion in March of 2006. This three-story structure is almost 10,000 square feet and features five bays; three for ladder trucks and two for SUVs. It includes a dormitory area for 20 firefighters, dining room for 30, commercial-grade kitchenette to feed 40 people, a training room for 20, a locker room, a control room and a chief’s office.

Construction also started on two new police station projects in Fallujah and one in Muthanna Province. Each of the two-story facilities in Fallujah measures more than 35,000 square feet and includes a dorm area for 100 police officers, offices, a holding cell, conference room, kitchenette, armory and covered courtyards.

The Al Khider Police Station construction project in Muthanna Province provided new perimeter walls, replaced roof systems, installed a 528-gallon water tank and piping for potable water storage, and restored electrical and masonry work to the existing police station in Al Khider.

Phase III of the $10 million Najaf Teaching Hospital project began this week with a symbolic “ground-breaking” ceremony on the second floor of the hospital. This phase of the project includes civil, mechanical, electrical and plumbing rehabilitation throughout the facility. The contract also includes a physicians’ residence building, sewer treatment plant, a morgue, storage and garages, and remodeling of the main entrance to the hospital.

Five hundred children in a community west of Al Hillah will start school in a newly renovated school, thanks also to the Coalition forces in the Central-South Division, who finished work on the Abu Gharaq School this week. Other Coalition forces built a playground Aug. 19 for the children of the Tesin Orphanage in Kirkuk. Soldiers built the playground out of discarded auto parts, welding the various parts together. Coalition civil affairs Soldiers spent a busy day with the local leaders, delivering school supplies and then assessing the Musala and Al Sader Primary Schools.

Six school construction and renovation projects were started this week, while two others in Dahuk Province were completed.

Coalition forces rescued a hostage being held by terrorists, captured the kidnappers, and seized weapons from a terrorist safe-house during a cordon-and-search operation Aug. 18 in the Muthana Zayuna district of central Baghdad.

Iraqi security forces were busy as well, discovering two improvised explosive devices while on patrol in Mugdadiyah. An Iraqi explosive ordnance disposal team disarmed the device and removed it for later destruction, making the area safe.

Iraqi Army Soldiers, manning a traffic control point, detained one anti-Iraq force member after searching a vehicle in Mosul and finding a light machine gun and 2,500 rounds of ammunition. Soldiers of the Iraqi Highway Patrol were doing their part, as well, when they discovered an improvised explosive device 29 kilometers northwest of Bayji. An Iraqi EOD team was called in to neutralize the threat and make the area safe for the public. Iraqi Police Service officers in Mosul found two 120mm rounds, which they turned over to an Iraqi EOD team for disposal.

Iraqi Department of Border Enforcement officers and Coalition forces interdicted a small group of smugglers and a large mule train crossing the Syrian border northwest of Tal Afar on Aug. 19 when they discovered five or six men leading over 200 mules carrying fuel pods into Iraq. The smugglers were able to escape back into Syria with some of the mules, but Iraqi and Coalition forces captured 145 of the mules and their fuel loads.

Iraqi citizens continued to augment security forces this week by providing information about insurgent activity. Iraqi Police Service officers on patrol received a tip from a local citizen concerning a suspected weapons cache in the Zohour District of Baghdad. Police uncovered 68 mortar rounds buried in a field. The munitions were transported to Boob Al Sham Police Station. This was the second significant cache find in the same area in two days – 32 mortar rounds were discovered Aug. 21.

Coalition Soldiers seized an opportunity to help Iraqis who had been injured in a head-on traffic accident near Tuz while returning from a combat patrol. The Soldiers provided first aid until an Iraqi ambulance arrived to transport the victims to a hospital.

As part of a Coalition and Iraqi stability-and-support operation, several truckloads of humanitarian assistance rolled out from a forward operating base in southern Baghdad to provide Horajeb residents with basic food items, medical supplies, and recreational items Aug. 17. Toys and soccer balls were donated by friends and family members of the U.S. forces.

The mayor of Muqdadiyah, Coalition forces and Iraqi Soldiers delivered critical medical supplies to the Muqdadiyah Women and Children’s Hospital.

Since the beginning of their mission in Iraq, Ukrainian forces have given medical aid to approximately three thousand Iraqis. Locals from the Wassit Province are treated for routine injuries on the spot, or taken to the medical contingent’s hospital.

Coalition medics helped train the Iraqi Army in combat medical skills this week. Class enrollment tripled since the unit first offered the training. Other forward operating bases throughout the Baghdad area are scheduling combat medic courses to assist in increasing the survivability of the Iraqi Army as they assume responsibility for their own security.

In the Combat Leaders Course at the Diyala Regional Training Facility, Coalition Soldiers worked with their Iraqi counterparts to train soldiers from the Iraqi Army’s 5th Division to be better battlefield leaders. Training during the 14-day course builds on the Iraqi soldiers’ basic military knowledge and skills. Most of the instruction is performed by Iraqi cadre, and Coalition Soldiers are more supervisors, observing and instructing when needed.

The development of Iraqi Security forces is cultivating a more secure environment for Iraqis, and through help from many Coalition partners and Iraqi citizens, Iraq is progressing toward a stable and prosperous country.


For information on this release, contact the Combined Press Information Center's Press Desk at cpicpressdesk@iraq.centcom.mil.




http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/News_Re...se=20050825.txt

The Iraq War is Over, and the Winner Is... Iran


Hamstrung by the Iraq debacle, all Bush can do is gnash his teeth as the hated mullahs in Iran cozy up to their co-religionists in Iraq.

Iraq's new government has been trumpeted by the Bush administration as a close friend and a model for democracy in the region. In contrast, Bush calls Iran part of an axis of evil and dismisses its elections and government as illegitimate. So the Bush administration cannot have been filled with joy when Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and eight high-powered cabinet ministers paid an extremely friendly visit to Tehran this week.

The two governments went into a tizzy of wheeling and dealing of a sort not seen since Texas oil millionaires found out about Saudi Arabia. Oil pipelines, port access, pilgrimage, trade, security, military assistance, were all on the table in Tehran. All the sorts of contracts and deals that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney had imagined for Halliburton, and that the Pentagon neoconservatives had hoped for Israel, were heading instead due east.

Jaafari's visit was a blow to the Bush administration's strategic vision, but a sweet triumph for political Shiism. In the dark days of 1982, Tehran was swarming with Iraqi Shiite expatriates who had been forced to flee Saddam Hussein's death decree against them. They had been forced abroad, to a country with which Iraq was then at war. Ayatollah Khomeini, the newly installed theocrat of Iran, pressured the expatriates to form an umbrella organization, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which he hoped would eventually take over Iraq. Among its members were Jaafari and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. On Jan. 30, 2005, Khomeini's dream finally came true, courtesy of the Bush administration, when the Supreme Council and the Dawa Party won the Iraqi elections.

Jaafari, a Dawa Party activist working for an Islamic republic, had been in exile in Tehran from 1980 to 1989. A physician trained at Mosul, the reserved and somewhat inarticulate Jaafari studied Shiite law and theology as an auditor at the seminaries of Qom. His party, Dawa, was briefly part of SCIRI but in 1984 split with it to maintain its autonomy.

Iraq has a Shiite Muslim majority of some 62 percent. Iran's Shiite majority is thought to be closer to 90 percent. The Shiites of the two countries have had a special relationship for over a millennium. Saddam had sealed the border for more than two decades, but throughout centuries, tens of thousands of Iranians have come on pilgrimage to the holy Shiite shrines of Najaf and Karbala every year. Iraqis likewise go to Iran for pilgrimage, study and trade. Although neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz maintained before the Iraq war that Iraqis are more secular and less interested in an Islamic state than Iranians, in fact the ideas of Khomeini had had a deep impact among Iraqi Shiites. When they could vote in January earlier this year, they put the Khomeini-influenced Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq in control of seven of the nine southern provinces, along with Baghdad itself.

It was not only history that brought Jaafari to the foothills of the Alborz mountains. The Iraqi prime minister was attempting to break out of the box into which his government has been stuffed by the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement. Jaafari's government does not control the center-north or west of the country and cannot pump much petroleum from Kirkuk because of oil sabotage. Trucking to Jordan is often difficult. The Jaafari government depends heavily on the Rumaila oil field in the south, but lacks refining capability. Iraq lacks a deep water port on the Gulf and needs to replace inland "ports" like Amman because of poor security. An initiative toward the east could resolve many of these problems, strengthening the Shiites against the Sunni guerrillas economically and militarily and so saving the new government.

The last time Iran and Iraq had really warm relations was the mid-1950s. Iraq then had a British-installed constitutional monarchy, and Prime Minister Nuri as-Said was fanatically pro-Western. The CIA had put Mohammad Reza Shah back on the throne in 1953, deposing the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh (who had angered the United States when he nationalized the Iranian oil industry). In 1955 Said and the shah both signed on to the Baghdad Pact, a U.S.-sponsored security agreement against the Soviet Union and Arab nationalist Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. The pact proved ill-fated, however. A popular revolution overthrew the Iraqi monarchy in 1958, and Nuri's corpse was dragged in the street. Another popular revolution overthrew the shah in 1979. In 1980-1988, Iran-Iraq relations reached their nadir, as Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and Khomeini's Revolutionary Guards slugged it out on battlefields of a dreary horror not seen since World War I. Jaafari's visit was designed to erase the bitter legacies of that war.

Iraq's Eastern Policy does not come without at least symbolic costs. On Saturday, Jaafari made a ceremonial visit to the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini, on which he laid a wreath. In a meeting with Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei on Monday, according to the Tehran Times, Jaafari "called the late Imam Khomeini the key to the victory of the Islamic Revolution, adding, 'We hope to eliminate the dark pages Saddam caused in Iran-Iraq ties and open a new chapter in brotherly ties between the two nations.'" The American right just about had a heart attack at the possibility (later shown false) that newly elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been among the militants who took U.S. diplomats hostage in 1979. But the hostage takers had been blessed by Khomeini himself, to whom Jaafari was paying compliments.

When Jaafari met the head of the Iranian judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi, on Tuesday, the two discussed expanding judicial cooperation between the two countries. Shahrudi said that cooperation with Iran's Draconian "justice system" has had a positive impact on other Muslim countries. He called for Iraq to coordinate with something called the "Islamic Human Rights Organization" -- an Orwellian phrase in dictatorial Iran, a state that tortures political prisoners and engages in other acts of brutality. And he urged the Iraqi government to put greater reliance on "popular forces" (local and national Shiite militias) in establishing security.

Jaafari was probably only indulging his clerical host, but his Dawa Party certainly does hope to have Islamic law play a greater role in Iraqi society. The New York Times revealed on Wednesday that the new draft of the Iraqi constitution will put personal status matters, many of them affecting women, under religious courts.

For his polite forbearance as his Iranian hosts boasted of the superiority of their Islamic government and grumbled about all those trouble-making American troops in the Iraqi countryside, Jaafari was richly rewarded. Iran offered to pay for three pipelines that would stretch across the southern border of the two countries. Iraq will ship 150,000 barrels a day of light crude to Iran to be refined, and Iran will ship back processed petroleum, kerosene and gasoline. The plan could be operational within a year, according to Petroleum Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, whose father is a prominent Shiite cleric.

In addition, Iran will supply electricity. Iran will sell Iraq 200,000 tons of wheat. Iran is offering Iraq use of its ports to transship goods to Iraq. Iran is offering a billion dollars in foreign aid. Iran will step up cooperation in policing the borders of the two countries. Supreme Jurisprudent Khamenei has called for the preservation of the territorial integrity of Iraq. In fact, Iran is offering so much for so little that it looks an awful lot like influence peddling.

The previous week, Defense Minister Saadoun Dulaimi had made a preparatory trip to Tehran, exploring the possibility of military cooperation between the two countries. At one point it even seemed that the two had reached an agreement that Iran would help train Iraqi troops. One can only imagine that Washington went ballistic and applied enormous pressure on Jaafari to back off this plan. The Iraqi government abandoned it, on the grounds that an international agreement had already specified that out-of-country training of Iraqi troops in the region should be done in Jordan. But the Iraqi government did give Tehran assurances that they would not allow Iraqi territory to be used in any attack on Iran -- presumably a reference to the United States.

Iranian leaders pressed Jaafari on the continued presence in Iraq of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian terrorist organization with ties to the Pentagon, elements in the Israeli lobby, and members of the U.S. Congress and Senate. Saddam had used the MEK to foment trouble for Iran. Jaafari promised that they had been disarmed and would not be allowed to conduct terrorist raids from Iraqi soil.

Not surprisingly, the warming relations between Tehran and Baghdad have greatly alarmed Iraq's Sunni Muslims. They know that Iranian offers of help in training Iraqi security officers, and Iranian professions of support for a united, peaceful Iraq are code for the suppression by Shiite troops and militias of the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement. Many Iraqi Sunnis believe that the Sunni Arabs are the true majority, but that millions of illegal Iranian emigrants masquerading as Iraqi Shiites have flooded into the country, skewing vote totals in the recent elections. This belief, for all its irrationality, makes them especially suspicious of Shiite politicians cozying up to the ayatollahs in Tehran. A recent BBC documentary reported that the Sunnis of Fallujah despise Iraqi Shiites even more than they do the Americans, in part because they code them as Persians (in fact they are Arabs).

Although officials in Washington felt constrained to issue polite assurances that they want good relations between Iraq and Iran, the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and hawks in the Bush administration all have a grudge against Iran, and would as soon overthrow the mullahs as spit at them. But thanks to the Iraq debacle, that is no longer a viable option. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack revealed the true amount of influence Washington has in Baghdad when he admitted that the Bush administration has not "had a chance" to discuss Jaafari's trip to Iran with the prime minister.

The Iranians hold a powerful hand in the Iraqi poker game. They have geopolitical advantages, are flush with petroleum profits because of the high price of oil, and have much to offer their new Shiite Iraqi partners. Their long alliance with Iraqi president Jalal Talabani gives them Kurdish support as well. Bush's invasion removed the most powerful and dangerous regional enemy of Iran, Saddam Hussein, from power. In its aftermath, the religious Shiites came to power at the ballot box in Iraq, bestowing on Tehran firm allies in Baghdad for the first time since the 1950s. And in a historic irony, Iran's most dangerous enemy of all, the United States, invaded Iran's neighbor with an eye to eventually toppling the Tehran regime -- but succeeded only in defeating itself.

The ongoing chaos in Iraq has made it impossible for Bush administration hawks to carry out their long-held dream of overthrowing the Iranian regime, or even of forcing it to end its nuclear ambitions. (The Iranian nuclear research program will almost certainly continue, since the Iranians are bright enough to see what happened to the one member of the "axis of evil" that did not have an active nuclear weapons program.) The United States lacks the troops, but perhaps even more critically, it is now dependent on Iran to help it deal with a vicious guerrilla war that it cannot win. In the Middle East, the twists and turns of history tend to make strange bedfellows -- something the neocons, whose breathtaking ignorance of the region helped bring us to this place, are now learning to their dismay.

More than two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, it is difficult to see what real benefits have accrued to the United States from the Iraq war, though a handful of corporations have benefited marginally. In contrast, Iran is the big winner. The Shiites of Iraq increasingly realize they need Iranian backing to defeat the Sunni guerrillas and put the Iraqi economy right, a task the Americans have proved unable to accomplish. And Iran will still be Iraq's neighbor long after the fickle American political class has switched its focus to some other global hot spot.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/072105L.shtml

On Target in Southern Iraq

By Tom Clarkson Gulf Region Division U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Baghdad, Iraq - One could say Larry McCallister was a cattleman from just outside of Houston down Texas way, and they would be somewhat correct. But then again a person would be much more accurate in saying that he grew up on his parent’s farm where they raised beef cattle in Texas County outside of Houston, Missouri.

An individual could also say that as a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Colonel, he is the quintessential, military professional. In that they’d be right on target.

This slender, physically fit, 49 year old Soldier heads the U.S. Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region South (USACE-GRS) out of Camp Adder on what was once called Tallil Air Force Base in Iraq. His responsibilities are massive; the accomplishments of his team are huge.

His native State’s reputation for spawning those of dogged determination and hard work, such as President Harry Truman, could not be more appropriate. His is one with well honed skills and a determined drive who capably leads his team in a wide array of Iraqi reconstruction projects.

In not much over a one-year period, the Gulf Region South (GRS) team has completed new or rehabilitation efforts on 309 of 355 schools, are presently working on 60 medical clinics with another 21 projected, and have completed three hospitals while laboring on nine more. In addition to those efforts, they have completed six of 45 oil related projects, 23 of 64 border forts, four of 12 courthouses or prisons, seven of 16 Iraqi military projects, 19 of 29 fire stations and 121 of 198 police stations.

At this juncture one might merely stand, mouth agape, in awe, at the scope, breadth and diversity of all of this work. But this USACE-GRS and the Project and Contracting Office (PCO) team - comprised of military, government service, and both U.S. and Iraqi contractors and local national workers - has done yet much more.

They are also working on four airports, three bridges, have completed three of seven port projects and have finished 3,767 miles of roads. In the pool of water projects, they have finished one of two irrigation efforts, a wastewater treatment facility, 22 of 25 water distribution projects and 26 of 28 water treatment plants.

This is one focused, busy and multi-faceted organization covering nine of Iraq’s 18 provinces, stretching from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf and from Iran to Saudi Arabia. But, so too, is its commander. With once dark hair now graying, his eyes have not lost that hint of humor and, perhaps suppressed mischief, when he smiles – something he does regularly. And to observe him one would note a typical, contemporary, military juxtaposition of a high-tech memory stick in his pocket, a tiny red night light hanging from his collar button hole and slung around his shoulders a black holster holding his 9mm pistol. Here is an excellent example of today’s technological warrior.

If he were to take a short break from his arduous duties, through the window behind his desk, he could see the dust blowing across a treeless compound of stark and uniformly aligned trailers. When the wind abates from its blustery 35 knots, however, he has a clear view of the nearly 5,000 year old Zigguarat of Nanna at the ruins of Ur. New, by comparison, is the building in which he and his staff are officed that was the former barracks for Saddam Hussein’s Republican National Guard. But he neither has, nor takes, much time to casually gaze about. He is helping direct the re-building of a country.

It’s a long way from when he was a Houston, Mo. high school graduate in the class of 1974, then attending the University of Missouri, at Rolla, where he majored in civil engineering and participated in the Army ROTC program which launched him into the Army. In the ensuing period, while in uniform, he picked up a masters of science from the same institution in Civil engineering and a Ph.D from the University of Texas at Arlington.

His military career has taken him to many posts and work in a wide array of countries. From tours in Korea, Japan, Somalia, Turkey and Israel – his favorite – he has spent duty time ranging from Albania, Turkey and Italy to Spain and Germany, in addition to duty in Saudi Arabia and, of course, now in Iraq.

During that tenure in Israel, of which he remembers so fondly, he says,” I showed up with only a suitcase and a laptop, said where’s my office and they turned me loose!” He was the U.S. Corps of Engineers Europe District Israel Program Manager in charge of over $350M and large duties. It was his responsibility to plan, program, start-up, and execute the USACE implementation of the Israeli Military Facilities Relocation Program. All this was to be done in accordance with the U.S. brokered 1998 Middle East Peace Initiative and the Wye Rive Accords. It was good training for the vast duties he now addresses in Iraq.

His wife, Lynn, is no traveling slouch either. With a PhD in Neurophysiology who taught medical school before choosing to be a stay at home mom, has home schooled their daughter Shannon. In addition to this she is an International Women’s Ministry Speaker which takes her all over the world as a guest speaker at international conferences. Dr. McCallister and Shannon patiently await their country-reconstructing Soldier in their residence at Yokota Air Base in Japan.

At this juncture in his life, Col. McCallister has his life comfortably in his sights – but then again he should. He is a NRA qualified rifle, shotgun and pistol instructor. Beyond that, to peruse his civilian and military schooling or observe the many awards and decorations is to only confirm the obvious – here is a professional civil engineer, consummate military leader and, clearly, the right man to help Southern Iraq re-build its infrastructure and construct a democracy.


http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/Stories/08_05/33.htm

Successes this week in Iraq (12-18 Aug., 2005)


BAGHDAD, Iraq – Some of the Iraqi citizens benefiting from reconstruction this week were school children. Several projects were completed across the country, including school buildings. The Iraqi Security Forces continued to display their capability, and local citizens contributed to the security of their communities.

Children in Dobak Tappak village of Al Tamim Province received much-needed school supplies, clothing and toys from the Nahrain Foundation, a non-governmental organization that focuses on providing proper nutrition, decent clothing and medical supplies to Iraqi women and children. The foundation received its supplies as part of a joint effort between American donations and a Coalition forces-run program known as “Operation Provide School Supplies,” which accepts donations from private citizens and corporations in the U.S.

More than 600 children will return to renovated or rebuilt schools in Maysan Province when school starts this fall. This week, renovation on the Al-Eethnar Mud School was completed, and the Al Eethar Mud School was replaced at a cost of $87,000, benefiting 500 students who attend classes there.

In addition to reconstruction on schools, eight newly constructed schools in Wassit and Babil Provinces are receiving new furniture before the start of the school year. Each of the school projects will receive office desks and chairs, file cabinets and new student desks. Collectively, 400 three-student desks will be proportionally divided among the schools, based upon the number of students.

More reconstruction projects in Sadr City started this week, including the $13 million electrical distribution project for sectors one through eight. When complete, an estimated 128,000 people will have a reliable source of electricity. The project includes installation of power lines, 3,040 power poles, 80 transformers, 2,400 street lights, and power connections to individual homes, complete with meters.

Construction started on the $3.8 million Al Rayash Electricity Substation project in Al Daur District of Salah Ad Din Province, located between Tikrit and Bayji. The project, which is expected to be completed in early December, will provide reliable service to 50,000 Iraqi homes and small businesses. An electric distribution and street lighting project in Daquq was completed on Aug. 17, providing new overhead distribution lines and street lighting in the community.

Approximately two million people will benefit from the Baghdad trunk sewer line, which was completed this week. Workers cleaned and repaired the Baghdad trunk sewer line and its associated manholes and pumping stations. The $17.48 million project restored principal sewage collection elements in the Adhamiya, Sadr City and 9-Nissan districts of Baghdad, and will provide for the intended sewer flows to the Rustamiya wastewater treatment plant.

In Basrah, construction is complete on phase one of the $865,000 Basrah courthouse project. This five-phase project is expected to be entirely complete in October of 2005. This main courthouse in Basrah, expected to hold a number of high profile trials, continues to operate during construction. Iraqi subcontractors are working on the project, and employing an average of 70 local Iraqi workers daily.

Iraqi security forces benefited from reconstruction projects this week as well. A patrol station in the Karkh district of Baghdad Province was completed, as was a $390,300 border-post project on the Saudi Arabian border. A division headquarters building for the Iraqi Army in Salah Ad Din Province was also completed this week. The $7 million project includes a single-story building with a concrete roof and interior office space to accommodate the unit. Additionally, a $2 million firing range in Taji was completed this week.

To accommodate additional detainees, a new prison project was started in Khan Bani Sa’ad, a mountainous municipality in the Ba’quba District of Diyala Province. The $75 million project will house up to 3,600 inmates. The entire site is approximately 550,000 square meters, which includes an educational center, medical facilities and administration buildings. The project will employ approximately 1,000 Iraqi workers during construction.

In another move that highlights the increasing turnover of security responsibilities to Iraqi forces, generals from Iraqi and Coalition forces joined local tribal leaders at a ceremony where Forward Operating Base Dagger in Tikrit, one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces, was officially handed over to the 4th Iraqi Army Division this week.

Iraqi Security Forces continued training this week. In Taji, Iraqi soldiers completed a Strategic Infrastructure Battalion Train-the-Trainer course. The 90 graduates will go on to serve as instructors at an Iraqi Army training base. A class of future IA non-commissioned officers graduated from their primary leadership development course on Aug. 15 in Tikrit. Iraqi Army unit training also included combat lifesaving, staff training, computer skills and weapons training.

This week, the 1st Iraqi Army Brigade succeeded at implementing the first Non-commissioned Officer Academy in the country. Iraqi soldiers from the most recent class were the last group to be instructed by the U.S. Soldiers who had developed the training. During Saddam Hussein’s regime, an NCO corps did not exist in the Iraqi Army. The class will continue after the U.S. instructors leave, and will be taught by NCOs from the 1st IA who assisted earlier courses.

Baghdad police continued to demonstrate their capabilities this week. Iraqi Police Service officers in the New Baghdad District conducted a variety of operations including raids involving over 450 officers. Police confiscated 30 AK-47 rifles, two hand guns, and one machine gun during the raids.

They also arrested 30 suspected insurgents, three of whom were targeted in the raids. In addition, police at the Al Khanssa Police Station in Baghdad captured a kidnapper involved in the abduction of a local physician, whose family paid a ransom to have the victim released. Following the arrest, police officers recovered the doctor’s vehicle as well as the ransom money paid by his family.

Iraqi Army soldiers found a weapons cache under a vehicle in Rawah this week. The cache contained two light machine guns and 3000 rounds of ammunition, nine AK-47 rifles and 500 rounds of ammunition, one NATO machine gun and 200 rounds of ammunition, four concussion grenades, one fragmentary grenade without fuses, and various other ammunition.

Based on two separate tips from Iraqis, Coalition forces discovered weapons caches that contained rocket-propelled grenades and two launchers, 16 mortar rounds and a launcher, and five boxes of anti-aircraft ammunition hidden in northwest Baghdad.

Another tip led Coalition forces to a large cache of artillery shells in the early hours of Aug. 16. The shells were apparently intended for use as improvised explosive devices. The 25 to 30 individual rounds, located inside a building within Al Anbar Province, were destroyed after security forces confirmed there was no one in the building.

After a local Iraqi identified his neighbors as insurgents, Iraqi Army soldiers and Coalition forces conducted a joint cordon and search operation in northwest Fallujah and detained two suspects.

Iraqi Security Forces killed terrorist Abu Zubair, also known as Mohammed Salah Sultan, in an ambush in the northern city of Mosul this week. Zubair, who was wearing a suicide vest when he was killed, was a known member of Al Qaeda in Iraq and a lieutenant in Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi’s terrorist operations in Mosul. He was being sought for his involvement in a July suicide bombing attack of a police station in Mosul that killed five Iraqi police officers. He was also suspected of resourcing and facilitating suicide bomber attacks against Coalition, Iraqi Security Forces and Iraqi citizens throughout the country.

Local Iraqi citizens, along with the growing Iraqi Security Forces, are contributing to the security of their communities. Reconstruction efforts also provided Iraqis with improved basic services, paving the way for a safe and secure environment.


http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/Stories/08_05/34.htm

What a Difference a Year Makes

By Col. John Ottenbacher

Baghdad, Iraq - From a bloody battlefield and one of the most dangerous places in Iraq to a safe, prosperous and growing community of over one-half million, the Najaf Teaching Hospital reflects the changes of the city of Najaf.

One year ago on August 27 the battle for Najaf ended.

A year ago the Najaf Teaching Hospital was closed. It had been looted and its medical equipment destroyed by the Sadr Militia who had used its eight floors as a military fortress. Its basement flooded, windows and walls riddled with bullet and mortar damage, to many in Najaf, the hospital looked hopeless.

Now the hospital is open, seeing hundreds of patients per day and housing 80 in-patients. It is a training hospital for 200 medical students, 50 pharmacy students, and 100 resident doctors who are looking forward to improved and expanded services.

This is a true success story brought about by a close partnership of Iraqi doctors and a U.S. team of doctors, engineers, project managers, contractors, and Soldiers and U.S Army Corps of Engineers civilians. When finished, the hospital will house a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, have computed tomography (CT) scan services, and have increased specialty surgical services including its first open heart surgical team.

The hospital will employ 1,250 people, in an area where good jobs are hard to come by.

There are many success stories in Najaf. A local television station teaming with local business and with coalition equipment support reported all the news including stories of U.S.-aided construction projects and humanitarian support. A local art show, the first in many years, might have a display showcased in Kansas City. A new clinic for a sheikh, a man imprisoned and tortured under Saddam, is a reality. This clinic was donated and refurbished by the Soldiers and contractors at Base Hotel, the base adjacent to Najaf.

Multiple humanitarian missions give food and medical care to the poorest of Najaf. There are daily working relationships with the Najaf government, police, and Iraqi army. Many U.S. funded projects for new schools, water projects, police and fire stations, have all contributed to an excellent working relationship and many friendships between U.S. Soldiers, civilians, and Iraqi people. All this and more have contributed to the success of Najaf.

Over 100 boxes of medical books, microscopes, and endoscopes have been sent from medical schools and hospitals all over the U.S. to Najaf. Churches have donated boxes of food, soap, clothes, and toys. The Mississippi Family Support Group has raised thousands of dollars to sponsor children needing heart surgeries and medical care in Baghdad.

As the camp surgeon, I was blessed by a working relationship with Dr. Safaa the director of the Najaf Teaching Hospital, Dr. Ferris the Najaf Minister of Health, and Governor Gelal, a patient of mine, and the Governor of Najaf Province. I also enjoyed knowing Col. Majab, the local army commander; and his father, both patients of mine. I could get things done in hours that would otherwise take weeks. Also my State Senator John Thune provided great support to me and the hospital.

I honestly believe that Najaf is the key. If successful all of Iraq has a chance.


http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/Stories/08_05/21.htm

August 29, 2005 edition

More costly than 'the war to end all wars'

By David R. Francis

Despite the relatively small number of American armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan (140,000), the war effort is rapidly shaping up to be the third-most expensive war in United States history.
This conflict has already cost each American at least $850 in military and reconstruction costs since October 2001.

If the war lasts another five years, it will cost nearly $1.4 trillion, calculates Linda Bilmes, who teaches budgeting at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. That's nearly $4,745 per capita. Her estimate is thorough. She includes not only the military cost but also such things as veterans' benefits and additional interest on the federal debt.

But even in stripped-down terms, looking only at military costs and using current dollars, the war's cost for the US already exceeds that of World War I.

That's in money, not in blood and tears. Fatalities from the combined Afghanistan-Iraq conflict now exceed 2,000. American participation in 1917-18 in World War I, a war infamous for its trench-warfare slaughter, resulted in 53,513 US deaths.

In constant inflation-adjusted dollars, the current conflict is the fourth most costly US war, behind World War II, Vietnam, and Korea. (See chart below.)

By the end of September, its projected military cost will be $252 billion. The amount spent on the war in Iraq ($186 billion) and Afghanistan ($66 billion) is "inching up" on the cost of the Korean War, says Steven Kosiak, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment in Washington. CSBA provided the estimate based on government data.

The chart below, researched by Yale University economist William Nordhaus just before President Bush launched the Iraq war (and now updated for inflation), estimates Korea's military cost at $361 billion.

Given the Iraq-Afghanistan war is costing from $80 billion to $100 billion a year, its price is likely to exceed that of the Korean War by late 2006 or 2007 - if it lasts that long.

Last week, President Bush told the Veterans of Foreign Wars that the US will "finish the task" in Afghanistan and Iraq to honor those already fallen. Some analysts say Bush's statement implies that he anticipates the war lasting a long time.

Before the war is over, military costs may reach $500 billion, reckons Gordon Adams, an expert at George Washington University in Washington. He wonders if President Bush will make an "electoral calculation" next spring by pulling 30,000 or so troops out of Iraq before the midterm congressional elections. That would lower costs.

In terms of expenditures per soldier, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are the most costly ever for the US, experts say. That's because of expensive technology and equipment, the Pentagon's heavy reliance on well-paid private contractors for some security operations, the higher pay and other inducements for an all-volunteer force, rising fuel costs, and difficulties in supplying troops in the Middle East.

Military costs run at least $6 billion per month, Mr. Adams calculates. Military estimates, he says, are based on oil costing $36 per-barrel, not the current $67. Fuel is a major bill in military operations, and the US must import much of the fuel it uses in Iraq.

Military costs are only one aspect. Spending for reconstruction and security, so far, add up to $24 billion for Iraq and $7 billion in Afghanistan, Kosiak figures. He puts the combined ongoing military and reconstruction costs at $7 billion to $8 billion per month.

In her estimate, Ms. Bilmes figures on $460 billion in military costs for the next five years, plus $315 billion in veterans' costs, $220 billion in added interest, and $119 billion for the economic impact of a $5 increase per barrel in the price of oil through July 2010. "I tried to be conservative," she says. (Her oil-cost estimate is based on the 15 percent reduction in Iraqi oil output since before the Iraq invasion and the increased instability in the Middle East.)

From one standpoint, the US economy should find it easier to absorb the present war. Today's defense budget is about 4 percent of gross domestic product, the nation's output of goods and services. That compares with 6.2 percent in the 1980s, 9.4 percent in 1960 (Vietnam), 14.2 percent in 1953 (Korea), and 38 percent in 1944 (World War II).

In that respect, today's war "is much cheaper," says Kosiak.


SOURCE: 'WAR WITH IRAQ' (AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS & SCIENCES); CSBA; SCOTT WALLACE - STAFF

heritage, the "SHRUB" lovers and the Yellow Magnetic Ribbon - Instant Patriots wouldn't dig those at all!

The truth has to hurt at times heritage - for sure!!

And those links may be cartoons but true as can be about Uncle Sammy Land under the "SHRUB" and his fiasco!

Good post, dynamite links!

Hang Tough ~

Cartoonist Rogers has been getting lots of negative mail from Bush supporters.

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

Is the President Taking Too Much Time Off?

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr..._050826&src=abc

Updated 12:02 PM ET August 29, 2005

President Bush is on pace to spend more time on vacation than any other president in modern times.

Today is the 342nd day he has spent at least some part of the day at his ranch, which means he's spent almost an entire year of his four and a half years in office at the ranch. That doesn't include time he's spent at his parents' place in Kennebunkport, Maine, or at Camp David.

If he stays at his Texas ranch until Sept. 3, as expected, the five-week stint away from the White House -- the 49th vacation he's taken at the ranch -- will surpass President Nixon's monthlong trip to Florida 36 years ago as the longest presidential retreat in the modern era.

Bush isn't the first president to take a lot of time off. His father, President George H.W. Bush, spent 153 days in Maine and 390 at Camp David; Dwight Eisenhower spent 222 days for 29 golf outings in Augusta, Ga., during his eight years in office; Harry Truman spent 175 days in Key West, Fla., over seven years; and Ronald Reagan famously loved his vacations, spending all or part of 335 days during his eight-year presidency at his Santa Barbara, Calif., ranch

The way Bush is going, he will surpass them all.

The White House has said the vacations "clear his mind," "it allows him to get back in touch with real America" and "he's earned it."

But with the average American receiving just two weeks off a year, are the president's lengthy vacations justified?

Rachel Maddow, a liberal radio show host who has her own show on Air America, and Joe Watkins, a conservative commentator who worked in the White House of the first President Bush, debated Bush's vacations today on "Good Morning America."

Vacation or Not?
Watkins: "I don't know any American that would say this is a vacation -- meeting with world leaders, being briefed every day, giving major speeches, signing legislation, traveling to other states. I mean, this is a busy guy. His vacation sounds like work, and it is."

Maddow: "The White House has gone to great lengths to make us all think that the Crawford ranch is a little White House, but it is really not. I mean, listen to the president himself talk about it. He says, 'I'm going fishing with my man, Barney. I'm taking a nap. I'm reading Elmore Leonard.' There are pictures of him fishing, clearing the brush and doing all this stuff. Meanwhile, the mothers of soldiers killed in Iraq are literally camped in a ditch outside his house waiting to meet with him, 68 soldiers died in Iraq since he has been there, the economy is in shambles, we have the biggest budget deficit, we have two wars going on ... I find it embarrassing as an American."

Working Hard Enough?
Maddow: "If I had an employee who came to me and asked to take one in every five days off, I would fire that employee. It is just embarrassing that the president needs to take this much time off. It may help him, but I think that he needs to be working harder."

Watkins: "You have to remember that wherever the president is, is where the Oval Office is. He never leaves his job. If a doctor is on-call 24 hours a day, certainly the president of the United States is on call 24 hours a day. He never stops being president."

Getting in Touch With Real America?
Watkins: "It gives him a chance to reconnect with Americans. I think it is a wonderfully refreshing thing for him to get a chance to go back to Texas and spend time with Americans from the heartland."

Maddow: "Have you seen him out there with his neighbors cutting brush? No. It is him and the press corps and C