http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...22/ixworld.html

US troops fighting losing battle for Sunni triangle
By Adrian Blomfield
(Filed: 22/10/2005)

The mob grew more frenzied as the gunmen dragged the two surviving Americans from the cab of their bullet-ridden lorry and forced them to kneel on the street.

Killing one of the men with a rifle round fired into the back of his head, they doused the other with petrol and set him alight. Barefoot children, yelping in delight, piled straw on to the screaming man's body to stoke the flames.

It had taken just one wrong turn for disaster to unfold. Less than a mile from the base it was heading to, the convoy turned left instead of right and lumbered down one of the most anti-American streets in Iraq, a narrow bottleneck in Duluiya town, on a peninsular jutting into the Tigris river named after the Jibouri tribe that lives there.

As the lorries desperately tried to reverse out, dozens of Sunni Arab insurgents wielding rocket launchers and automatic rifles emerged from their homes.

The gunmen were almost certainly emboldened by the fact that the American soldiers escorting the convoy would not have been able to respond quickly enough.

"The hatches of the humvees were closed," said Capt Andrew Staples, a member of the Task Force Liberty 1-15 battalion that patrols Duluiya and other small towns on the eastern bank of the Tigris, who spoke to soldiers involved.

Within minutes, four American contractors, all employees of the Halliburton subsidiary Kellog, Brown & Root, were dead. The jubilant crowd dragged their corpses through the street, chanting anti-US slogans. An investigation has been launched into why the contractors were not better protected.

Perhaps fearful of public reaction in America, where support for the war is falling, US officials suppressed details of the Sept 20 attack, which bore a striking resemblance to the murder of four other contractors in Fallujah last year.

Duluiya, located in the notorious Sunni triangle, is much smaller than Fallujah but no less violent, even if events here rarely make the news.

The violence here seems to encapsulate the growing difficulties the US military is facing in trying to defeat the insurgency. Pinned down by a constant stream of hit-and-run attacks from former Saddam regime loyalists, American soldiers are unable to focus their attention on the foreign extremists who pose a far more dangerous threat to the future of Iraq.

Yet it is here that the battle against the suicide bombers must be won.

The isolated towns east of the Tigris supply the foreign fighters and their allies and provide a haven where they can regroup after American offensives on their urban strongholds.

If the Americans do not close off these boltholes, it seems unlikely the war can be won.

But hopes for progress are growing more remote. The insurgency in eastern Salahuddin province is growing more intense, more deadly and more sophisticated.

Lt Col Gary Brito, the battalion's commanding officer, said that in recent months the number of roadside bombs targeting his men had increased by a third - even though journeys out of base have been cut back. They are having a more devastating effect too.

"Before only two out of 10 used to be effective," he said. "Now four or five have a catastrophic effect, blowing away a vehicle or causing casualties." In the past few months at least four American soldiers in this battalion alone have been killed. Another 39 have been wounded.

Even routine patrols are fraught with danger.

"What the hell was that," shouted Lt Chris Baldwin as a huge explosion rocked Baker Company's convoy of humvees trundling along a street in Dour, another town under Lt Col Brito's watch.

"Contact! Contact!" he bellowed into his radio as the gunners opened fire on a row of nearby houses from where the rocket-propelled anti-tank missile was fired.

As the gunfire died down, the soldiers burst into house after house, their facades peppered with bullet holes.

But, as is so often the case, the attacker had vanished down one of Dour's maze-like alleys.

Instead the Americans were confronted with sullen Iraqis, holding their terrified children to their sides. An old woman sat on her bed, clutching her heart, as the soldiers interrogated the family.

"They heard nothing, they saw nothing, same as ******* usual," said Sgt Jody Miller. Taking another deep drag from his cigarette, he turned to the company's translator.

"Tell them to tell us where the bad guys are so we stop frigging shooting up their houses," he said.

Nobody was hurt but the mutual distrust between the Americans and the local community deepened just a little bit more.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/krwashbureau/20051.../_usiraq_deaths

U.S. death toll in Iraq nears 2,000 By Drew Brown, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Fri Oct 21, 7:23 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military announced Friday the deaths of four Marines and one soldier, bringing the number of American servicemen and women who've died in Iraq since the war began two and a half years ago to 1,993.

Three of the Marines were killed Thursday by a roadside bomb west of Baghdad and the fourth died Wednesday in a car-bomb attack in Karbala. The soldier died of wounds sustained during a mortar attack Thursday on a base in Hit, northwest of the Iraqi capital.

With deaths coming at an average of more than two per day, it appears likely that the number of dead will reach 2,000 in a matter of days.

There's nothing inherently special about that number, but it provides a marker of sorts for the American effort to transform Iraq from dictatorship to democracy, and it's a sobering reminder of the human cost of the U.S. presence in that country, which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has suggested could last another 10 years.

The number of troops wounded in Iraq stands at 15,220, according to the Pentagon. Of those, 7,159 were so seriously hurt that they haven't returned to duty.

As the Bush administration vows to stay the course in Iraq, a poll earlier this month by the Pew Research Center found that 50 percent of American adults now think that invading Iraq was the wrong decision and 48 percent think that the United States should bring the troops home as soon as possible.

While few lawmakers, either Republican or Democratic, are calling for an outright withdrawal from Iraq, pressure is mounting for the Bush administration to cajole the Iraqis to reach a political settlement that will end the insurgency and come up with an exit strategy.

"There are many reasons to find a way out of Iraq sooner rather than later," Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said during a speech Friday to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. "First and foremost are the continuing casualties and the loss of brave servicemen and women who carry out their duties so professionally."

Who are these Americans who've made the ultimate sacrifice? A typical Pentagon casualty report reads like the following:

"Spc. Lucas A. Frantz, 22, of Tonganoxie, Kan., died in Mosul, Iraq, on Oct. 18, when he was hit by enemy fire while performing a combat mission. Frantz was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Fort Wainwright, Alaska."

According to statistics drawn from Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a Web site that compiles data on U.S. and allied casualties from Pentagon press releases and news reports:

-Combat had claimed the lives of 1,555 Americans as of Friday. Accidents, illnesses and other non-combat causes have killed 438. Only 139 of all the deaths occurred before President Bush's May 1, 2003, declaration that the combat phase of the war was over.

-Nearly 49 percent were soldiers; nearly 25 percent were Marines; more than 15 percent were members of the Army National Guard.

-More than 97 percent were male, though 46 women, or 2.33 percent, have been killed.

-More than 73 percent were white; 11 percent were Latino; 10.7 percent were African-American.

-More than half came from 10 states: California (10.6 percent), Texas (8.9 percent), Pennsylvania (5.2 percent), New York (4.7 percent), Ohio (4.6 percent), Florida (4.2 percent), Illinois (4 percent), Georgia (3 percent), Michigan (3 percent) and Virginia (2.7 percent).

-At least 80 percent held the rank of staff sergeant or below. The biggest percentage of those, 28 percent, were either specialists or corporals. Among officers, captains have been killed more than anyone else. At least 65 have died. At least six lieutenant colonels have been killed by hostile fire.

-Because of the heavy presence of National Guard troops in Iraq, the dead tended to be older. Only 18 percent were ages 18 to 20. Nearly 60 percent were ages 21 to 30, with 17.3 percent ages 31 to 40. Nearly 5 percent were ages 41 to 50, and at least six were older than 50.

-The oldest soldier killed in combat was a 54-year-old Tennessee National Guardsmen, shot by a sniper in the town of Mahmudiyah on July 9, 2003. A 60-year-old civilian woman, working as a finance officer for the Army, was killed during a mortar attack on the U.S. Embassy in August.

-Roadside bombs, which the military calls "improvised explosive devices," account for nearly 28 percent of the deaths, more than any other cause. Firefights account for another 24 percent. Forty soldiers were killed by IEDs in August, the most for any month; 35 have been killed by IEDs so far in October.

-Nearly 23 percent of all American deaths have occurred in Anbar province, the heart of the so-called Sunni Muslim triangle, west of Baghdad. Another 22 percent have occurred in Baghdad. Mosul, a mixed-ethnicity city in northern Iraq, accounts for 5 percent of U.S. deaths.

-The highest death toll for U.S. troops was in November 2004, during the second offensive on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, when 137 Marines and soldiers were killed; 135 were killed in April 2004, when American troops first battled insurgents in Fallujah and faced a simultaneous uprising by Shiite Muslim militants in southern Iraq under Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical cleric.

U.S. casualty rates in Iraq have averaged 2.2 killed per day over the course of the war, according to a study released Friday by Anthony Cordesman, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, a national-security research center.

But according to Cordesman, the news media focusing solely on the rising death toll without including the wounded "grossly understates the sacrifice and cost of war in an era of advanced medical services and weapons" and often disguises the intensity of combat that American soldiers face.

"Frankly, anybody who watches the pattern of combat and looks at the suffering it inflicts has got to look at the wounded figures and realize they are far more serious in terms of the numbers affected than the numbers killed," he said.

Complete information on the kinds of wounds sustained wasn't available. According to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center amputation database, 404 servicemen and women had had limbs amputated because of wounds as of June 30, the most current date for which information was available. At least 44 of those had lost multiple limbs, according to the Army Medical Command.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051022/wl_mi...fp/usiraqraphel

US diplomat points to neocon ideology behind actions in Iraq 1 hour, 50 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A veteran US diplomat who served as a government adviser in Iraq says US policy in the country at the initial stage of the occupation was driven by neoconservative ideology rather than careful preparation and clear understanding of issues.

Raphel, who has been with the foreign service since 1977 and once served as assistant secretary of state, delivered her unusually candid remarks in a July 2004 interview for a relatively obscure history program at the US Institute of Peace.

It has remained unnoticed until now, when increasing numbers of Americans began to question the Bush administration's involvement in Iraq.

Raphel, who served as a trade adviser to the Iraqi government from April to August 2003, took particular issue with decisions by then administrator Paul Bremer to launch debaathification of the country and disband Saddam Hussein's military.

"What one needs to understand is that these decisions were ideologically based," the diplomat argued. "They were not based on an analytical, historical understanding. They were based on ideology. You dont counter ideology with logic or experience or analysis very effectively."

She said political pressure on professional foreign service officers was "huge" and "pervasive."

"The ideology was what has come to be called neoconservatism and the whole belief that this would be an easy war, that we would be welcomed with open arms," Raphel pointed out.

She insisted this view was cultivated by expatriate Iraqis, who had their own agenda, which they tried to impose on US officials.

Raphel said it became quickly obvious to her that the United States could not run a country that Americans did not understand.

"We were a bunch of amateurs largely except for the engineers, and even they didnt have a professional means to interface with the Iraqis, so they were missing," she said. "There was very much the sense that we were getting in way over our heads within weeks."

The US diplomat said she believed the administration of President George W. Bush went into Iraq too soon and it should have waited until the United States was able to build an international coalition.

"But there were two pressures," she insisted. "One was the clear political pressure, election driven and calendar driven. And the other was, the troops were deployed forward for Afghanistan and to let that kind of fall back and then reenergize everybody is very difficult."

But according to Raphel, it was difficult for professional diplomats to express their views because of the administration's ideological enforcers present in the country.

"Oh, yes, there were political people round and about," she recalled. "One had to be careful."

http://ktla.trb.com/news/local/la-na-usira...oll=ktla-news-1


Official Says U.S. Rushed to War in Iraq

A top diplomat accuses the administration of sending the country to war too soon and poorly prepared because of 'clear political pressure.'

By Paul Richter
Times Staff Writer

October 22, 2005

WASHINGTON — A top U.S. official for aid to Iraq has accused the Bush administration of rushing unprepared into the 2003 invasion because of pressures from President Bush's approaching reelection campaign.

Robin Raphel, the State Department's coordinator for Iraq assistance, said that the invasion's timing was driven by "clear political pressure," as well as by the need to quickly deploy the U.S. troops that had been amassed by the Iraq border.

Soon after the invasion, Raphel said, it became clear that U.S. officials "could not run a country we did not understand…. It was very much amateur hour."

Her views appeared as part of an oral history project on the website of the congressionally funded U.S. Institute of Peace. Raphel's account is one of a number that have appeared on the website this year as former officials who were among the first sent into post-invasion Iraq have begun to publicly assess the first two years of the U.S. mission.

Although the officials' views vary widely — and some are positive about the U.S. effort — the accounts make clear that many of the veteran diplomats who were the first to be sent to Iraq had misgivings about the effort from the beginning, with their views foreshadowing criticisms that followed months and even years later.

Many analysts speculated in 2003 that the timing of the invasion might be affected by Bush's desire to complete the war before the beginning of the 2004 political campaign. But Raphel is apparently the first government official closely involved in the effort to publicly level such an accusation.

Raphel, a 28-year veteran of the State Department's foreign service and a former assistant secretary of State, said in her account that veteran diplomats who were sent to Iraq early in 2003 shared a view that "we were not prepared."

"We went too soon. We should have waited until we built an international coalition, which we could have done if we had waited six months," she said.

But the combined pressures of politics and military requirements "made us move before we were remotely ready for the post-conflict situation," said Raphel.

In her tour in Iraq, Raphel was one of a small group of veteran diplomats brought in to help retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, then L. Paul Bremer III, establish a new government. She was the senior U.S. advisor to the ministry of trade, which was one of the most important Iraqi government agencies because it imported food and other goods that the central government distributed to the population.

Raphel didn't fully explain what led to her conclusion that reelection politics compelled the decision to go to war in March 2003. The diplomat, who plans to retire soon from the foreign service, declined through a spokeswoman to discuss the views she expressed in the Institute of Peace project.

Her oral history account appeared on the website in the spring, but was little noticed until recently. It was based on an interview in July 2004, when the United States had just returned sovereignty to the Iraqis and was portraying the mission as highly successful.

A White House official, asked about Raphel's comments, said: "The president has made clear, in more venues and on more occasions than I can count, his rationale for the war." The official spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with White House rules.

Raphel said she had joked to colleagues early in her tour that "within weeks, we will be on our knees to the United Nations," asking them to take over leadership of the mission.

She said that key decisions from those days, including those to disband the Iraqi army and remove from government members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, were dictated by the neoconservative views held by hawkish senior administration officials and their Iraqi exile allies.

The decisions "were ideologically based," she said. "They were not based on analytical, historical understanding."

She said she believed officials with an ideological bent kept close watch on the others.

"There were political people round and about," she said. "One had to be careful."

As months passed, she said, it became clearer that the United States could not run Iraq, and officials began making preparations to return sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government in June 2004.

Another former official who served in Iraq with Raphel agreed in an interview that the veteran diplomats sent in at the time shared many of the same misgivings.

"It was a huge task and we were going about it in a fairly hapless fashion," said David J. Dunford, a State Department Middle East specialist who was put in charge of the Iraq foreign ministry in early 2003.

Among the veteran diplomats in the first group into Iraq, "we all felt pretty much the same," Dunford said.

"I don't remember thinking we went to war because of the reelection schedule, though that may have been the case," he said. Yet, "you could feel there was a drive to go to war no matter what, no matter what the facts."

Dunford said he opposed the war initially because he felt "the enormity of the task was beyond our capability."

Nevertheless, when he was asked to take part, he decided the question was: "Are you going to help, or sit on your hands?" He added: "I decided I would try to help."

In his oral history, Dunford said he believed the administration didn't adequately plan for a rebuilding because it didn't believe that the job would be a U.S. responsibility.

At the time of the war, there was a "great struggle between the State Department and the Pentagon about who would run post-war Iraq," and the Pentagon eventually won, Dunford said, agreeing with many assessments of administration divisions in the war's early days.

"Basically, their strategy was we would be showered with flowers, and the Iraqis would welcome us and we would turn over power within weeks to a government headed by [Iraqi exile] Ahmad Chalabi," he said. "And we would get out of Dodge."

But Dunford added that "that strategy sort of fell apart as reality set in" and senior U.S. officials came to the view that handing the country immediately to the exile leadership would not work.

Others have criticized the involvement of Defense Department planners. In a speech in Washington on Wednesday, Lawrence Wilkerson, who was former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's chief of staff, charged there was a "cabal" led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to usurp foreign policy decisions.

"Now it is paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret, but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences," said Wilkerson, a frequent critic of the Bush administration's foreign policy and handling of intelligence.

Government veterans who were sent to Iraq as part of the U.S. mission also were convinced that "we cannot remake other countries in our image in terms of democracy or capitalism or things like that," said Dunford in his oral history account. "That should come naturally from the citizens of the country."

The oral histories show that, in the chaos of Iraq after the invasion, American officials didn't always have to follow high-level decisions they opposed.

David Nummy, a former assistant U.S. Treasury secretary who was assigned to run the Iraqi Finance Ministry, told in his account about how he simply ignored the "de-Baathification" order, which he believed would lead to chaos.

"I came to the conclusion that if I had executed the de-Baathification order, it would unravel everything that had been accomplished," Nummy said. "So I essentially ignored the order."

Yet he added, "It was not clear to me that there was a really high degree of importance being placed on implementing the order; it was more important to announce" it.

In another of the oral history accounts, a Defense Intelligence Agency official who served 13 months in postwar Iraq said that in seeking transformation of the region, the American "strategic assumptions … were very wrong."

Col. Philip J. Dermer, who helped organize local governments and the Iraq defense ministry, said the United States needed far more advance planning.

"We barely got into the planning for what would happen afterward," he said. "And by the time we did, it was too much, too fast, ad hoc."

Other former officials who gave oral histories praised many of the early U.S. decisions, as well as the efforts of U.S. and Iraqi leaders, and predicted a more positive outcome for the mission.

Frederick C. Smith, a retired Pentagon official who then was senior advisor to the Iraq Defense Ministry, defended the de-Baathification program and said: "I don't think anybody could have done a better job" than Bremer, the American official who headed the now-disbanded Coalition Provisional Authority, a temporary governing agency.

Even so, Smith said, the United States needed more troops, better security and advance planning.

"One lesson is clear, he said. "We should have been better prepared with better planning."

*


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times staff writer T. Christian Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeas..._world_on_iraq/

Blix says US misled itself, the world on Iraq
WMD reports, satellite photos called lacking
By Russell Contreras, Globe Staff | October 22, 2005

MEDFORD -- Bush administration officials misled themselves on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and ''then they misled the world," Hans Blix, the former United Nations chief weapons inspector said yesterday.

Breaking News Alerts Speaking at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Blix criticized the administration's actions before invading Iraq in March 2003, but stopped short of saying it intentionally fooled the public on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

''I've never maintained that the [Bush] administration deliberately misled" the public, said Blix, who headed the inspection team before the US-led military action in Iraq. ''I think they misled themselves, that we can see. And then they misled the world."

Asked at a press conference later what he meant, Blix said the administration interpreted satellite pictures and Iraqi defectors' information as evidence that weapons existed in Iraq when that information was, in his opinion, inconclusive.

''They took things they saw as conclusive," he said. ''They were not critically thinking. They wanted to come to these conclusions."

Hans Blix at The Fletcher School
Hans Blix speaks on the Bush Adminstration's actions leading up to the Iraq, UN weapons inspectors in Iraq and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's recent visit to North Korea.

Invoking Roman mythology to describe the contrasting US and European approaches to Iraq before the war, Blix said the United States was ''like an impatient Mars quick to use its strong military force to solve problems, while Europe [was] like a patient Venus," opting for diplomacy.

A Bush administration official said the White House had not heard Blix's remarks and could not comment. But, the official said, ''the president has been very clear before on the reasons for going into Iraq."

In addition to the Bush administration, Blix criticized the news media for ''not devoting enough critical thinking" leading up to the Iraq war. Asked about New York Times reporter Judith Miller's recent admission that she and other journalists got it wrong on weapons of mass destruction, Blix said of the UN inspectors, ''We were not wrong."

In a story published Sunday in the Times, Miller was quoted as saying: ''WMD -- I got it totally wrong. The analysts, the experts, and the journalists who covered them -- we were all wrong."

Blix said, ''We did not say there aren't any weapons of mass destruction, partly for being cautious." But, he said, the inspectors had been to more than 700 sites in 500 places in Iraq, and ''we didn't find anything."

On the current attempts to negotiate an agreement on North Korea's nuclear program, Blix said it was ''positive" that Pyongyang said it was fully committed to nuclear disarmament talks in November and is showing flexibility on conditions for obtaining a light-water reactor. North Korea made those assurances this week, according to the governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, who visited the country.

Blix, of Sweden, said there has to be a ''phasing in of trust" between the United States and North Korea before more progress can be made between the two countries.

On Iran, Blix said he doesn't think referring Iran to the UN Security Council would succeed in pressuring Iran to reach an agreement to restrict its nuclear program. Instead, Blix said, European countries need to sit down with Iran and offer it assurances like the ones North Korea is getting.

© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.

Reporter describes Baghdad abduction Boston Globe
An Irish reporter who was abducted by Shi'ite extremists in Baghdad and freed 36 hours later said yesterday he had braced himself for the prospect of several months in captivity -- or a beheading.
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Iraq heading towards a new constitution despite Sunni rejection Scotland on Sunday
PARTIAL results from the Iraqi referendum suggest that voters have said 'yes' to the new constitution. Initial returns indicate that just two provinces, the overwhelmingly Sunni Salahuddin and Anbar areas, have rejected the constitution, but that in other areas which were narrowly Sunni, voters have approved the deal. The Kurdish and Shia areas are widely expected to have voted massively in favour. Results are expected later this week, but a team of international and Iraqi election experts have pored over initial results from one of the most crucial provinces, Ninevah, trying to determine if there were irregularities in an unexpectedly high number of 'yes' votes. Electoral Commission officials, however, insisted that no fraud had been uncovered and no major complaints had been lodged through its system for filing grievances. Safwat Rashid, a member of the commission, said: "We did not find any significant violations that would have any effect on the final results of the referendum." Commission member Adel al-Lami announced partial results from 13 provinces based on half the votes cast in each. They showed strong 'yes' votes above 90% in seven southern Shi'ite provinces. Two Kurdish provinces in the north, Sulaimaniyah and Dohuk, had 'yes' votes of 98.95% and 99.11% respectively. In Salahuddin, 81.15% voted 'no', a level expected to remain about the same. The partial results indicated 'yes' votes of 78% in Baghdad, 51% in Diyala, and 62% in Tamim. But those provinces have highly mixed populations, so the other half of the vote there could change the final figures, depending on whether Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurd regions remain to be counted. With a majority of Iraqis expected to approve the constitution, its Sunni Arab opponents needed to get a two-thirds 'no' vote in any three provinces. It appeared to have received it in Salahuddin and Anbar. With Diyala looking to have narrowly voted 'yes', the constitution's opponents need Ninevah, which has a slight Sunni Arab majority but large Shi'ite and Kurdish communities. Initial results from there showed a 70% 'yes' vote but later estimates put it at a closer 55% 'yes'. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government has promised to step up security for defence lawyers in Saddam Hussein's trial after one was kidnapped and killed by men wearing security forces' uniforms. But the attorneys rejected an offer of Iraqi guards, because of a lack of trust in the country's interior ministry. The murder of Saadoun al-Janabi scared the 12 remaining lawyers who appeared at the first session of Saddam's trial last Wednesday, representing the ousted dictator and seven officials from his Ba'athist regime. "We have decided to take some measures to protect the lawyers," deputy interior minister General Hussein Ali Kamal said yesterday. But one of Saddam's two lawyers said the entire defence on Friday night had rejected an offer of guards from the Iraqi interior ministry. Meanwhile, the freed kidnap victim Rory Carroll was expected to return home to Dublin this weekend for an emotional family reunion. Gunmen snatched the Guardian journalist from a Baghdad suburb last Wednesday but he was released unharmed on Thursday night after 36 hours in captivity. Carroll's father Joe said he expected his 33-year-old son to visit his Blackrock home to see his mother Kathy and sister Karina.
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An angry mob of insurgents attacked a convoy of American contractors last month when they got lost in a town north of Baghdad, killing four and wounding two, the US military said on Sunday.
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Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa has held a second day of meetings in Baghdad with Iraqi leaders to help promote reconciliation efforts among Iraq's divided communities.
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Poll shows Iraqis back attacks on UK, US forces :

Eighty-two percent of those polled said they were "strongly opposed" to the presence of the troops.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10720.htm

U.S. Military Claims To Have Killed 20 "Insurgents" Near Syrian Border:

The U.S. military said soldiers and warplanes killed 20 insurgents and destroyed five "safe houses" in Iraq.
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/5150539/detail.html

Ten Iraqis, including seven members of Iraqi security forces killed:

Ten Iraqis, including seven members of Iraqi security forces, were killed in various insurgent attacks in the country, security sources said. An Iraqi civilian was killed and eleven others wounded in ...Kirkuk
http://tinyurl.com/8jrnk

Insurgency Stays Strong After Vote
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iraq-05zzzzw.html

Washington (UPI) Oct 21, 2005 - The Iraq referendum last Saturday did not take the wind out of the insurgency there. On the contrary, the rate of casualties inflicted upon U.S. and allied Iraq troops actually increased significantly in the following days.

Iraqi Forces Coming Along, Slowly
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iraq-05zzzzu.html

- Wilkerson's Speech: Blasting The 'Cabal'
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iraq-05zzzzv.html


Levin Pushes New Plan For Iraq
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iraq-05zzzzx.html

Baghdad Explosions Kill 11 at Journalists' Hotel Bloomberg
Eleven people were killed today in three explosions near a hotel used by foreign and Iraqi journalists in central Baghdad, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan said. The number of people wounded in the blasts has yet to be established, the Kurdish political party said in a statement on its Arabic Language Web site. Seventeen people were killed, according to the Associated Press, citing the Interior Ministry. The explosions occurred near the Palestine Hotel, according to the statement.
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Walker's World: Bush At Bay
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iraq-05zzzzy.html

Washington (UPI) Oct 23, 2005 - The CIA leak inquiry that threatens senior White House aides has now widened to include the forgery of documents on African uranium that started the investigation, according to NAT0 intelligence sources.

Scowcroft Speaks Out In New Yorker
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iraq-05zzzzz.html

Commentary: Dumb, But Smart Feith
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iraq-05zzzzza.html

IEDs: Iraq Rebels' Deadly Weapon Against US Troops
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iraq-05zzzzzb.html

Iraq says 'yes' to constitution Times Online
By Sam Knight and agencies. The people of Iraq have accepted the country's draft constitution after its opponents failed to overturn the blueprint in referendum results announced today. Overall, 78 per cent
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19 Killed In Continuing Violence:

Three corpses of Iraqi army soldiers wearing civilian clothes were found in Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L25632747.htm

Four foreigners killed by roadside bomb in western Iraq:

Four foreign nationals believed to be U.S. security staff were killed by a roadside bomb targeting a convoy close to the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, police said Tuesday.
http://tinyurl.com/7hczb

Two More U.S. Marines Killed:

These two Marines are in addition to those announced in Combined Press Information Center press release #A051022e, Oct. 22. Due to the circumstances of the incident, positive identification could not be made in time for earlier reporting. The attack killed a total of four service members.
http://tinyurl.com/868nk

Bomb Misses U.S. Troops, Kills Young Child:

The bomb missed the soldiers but killed the 7 year old boy, who was selling cans of black-market gasoline on a street.
http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/news/5169240/detail.html

US death toll in Iraq hits 2,000 :

For the first time, a majority of Americans believe the Iraq war was the "wrong thing to do", according to a poll published in The Wall Street Journal.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051025/ts_af...aq_051025110145

Soldiers Lost in Iraq Top Those Lost in First Four Years in Vietnam; :

"The nearly 2,000 Americans killed in combat (1,998 on October 24, 2005) in Iraq since 2003 are more than were lost in Vietnam combat in the first four years of U.S. combat (1961-1965, when just over 1800 died). This total is more than were lost in the last two years of combat (1971-1972, when just over 1600 died),"
http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?a....120319&time=13

Iraq voters approve US-backed constitution:

Iraq's Electoral Commission, revealing final results from the October 15 referendum, said 79 percent of voters backed the constitution against 21 percent opposed in a poll split largely along Iraq's sectarian and ethnic lines.
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=20098

Sunni leaders reject Iraq charter:

Arab Sunni leaders rejected a referendum which ratified a new Iraqi constitution on Tuesday, saying "fraudulent" results would discourage them from taking part in December elections and fuel insurgent violence.
http://tinyurl.com/948pj

Group: U.S. troops not leaving Iraq soon:

"This is a long-term proposition, and I would expect the next U.S. administration to have forces inside Iraq at a fairly large number for some years to come."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/110...q_Forecast.html

Bush: Iraq war will require more sacrifice:

President George W. Bush, bracing for the fallout when the U.S. death toll in Iraq reaches 2,000, said on Tuesday the Iraq war will require more sacrifice and rejected critics calling for a U.S. pullout.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051025/pl_nm/iraq_bush_dc

===
In case you missed it:

Theory of Perpetual War: America needs good wars.

The nation has to be kept on its toes: - This is why 9/11 was a ‘gift’ from heaven! - It put the country in the ‘proper’ mood.
http://iraquna2.blogspot.com/2005/06/theor...petual-war.html

Iraqi interior ministry accused of assassinating defence lawyer in Hussein trial:

The interior ministry of the pro-US government in Iraq is being directly accused of carrying out the murder of Sadoun Antar Nudsaif al-Janabi, a key defence lawyer in the trial of Saddam Hussein and seven others that began on October 19.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10763.htm

God, Iraq and the power of the President's PR :

Mark Borkowski on the worrying rise and rise of Karen Hughes, George W Bush's 'ambassador for public diplomacy' and the woman behind the throne
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/st...1598485,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1843277,00.html
The Times October 26, 2005

Iraq votes 'yes' but Sunnis warn of backlash
From James Hider in Baghdad
Constitution victory hailed as milestone



IRAQI voters have approved the country’s draft constitution, election officials announced yesterday, an outcome hailed in Washington and London as a milestone on the road to democracy.

Passage of the constitution paves the way for parliamentary elections on December 15.



The result was denounced as a fraud by opponents and Sunni leaders gave warning that the charter could fuel yet more violence.

But on the day Iraq ushered in its new constitution, the US military death toll in the country reached another milestone. The Pentagon said the 2,000th fallen trooper was Staff Sergeant George Alexander, 34, who died of injuries sustained when a roadside bomb exploded next to his Bradley vehicle in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

Even as final results revealed an overwhelming endorsement of the constitution, which was drawn up under the guidance of the Shia and Kurdish interim government, the insurgency reached the normally quiet Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah. Twelve people were killed in two car bombings against Iraq’s former human rights minister and an army base.

The referendum results had been delayed by ten days after charges of vote-rigging in the key swing province of Ninevah prompted a wide-ranging audit of the ballot. Officials said that they had found no evidence to support the Sunni accusations.

The final results showed 79 per cent of those taking part across the country backed the constitution and 21 per cent opposed it, with a 63 per cent turnout. Although voters in three Sunni-dominated provinces rejected the charter, the "No" vote in Ninevah fell short of a two thirds majority. The charter would have failed if two thirds of voters had rejected it in three or more provinces.

A spokesman for the electoral commission, Farid Ayyar, said: "It is a civilised step that puts Iraq on the path to democracy, to rebuilding our new Iraq." Laith Kubba, spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, said the results marked a victory for the political process.

But Sunni leaders were bitter at the outcome, which thwarted their attempts to vote the constitution down after they had rallied their community — about 20 per cent of the population — to vote. The large turnout was the first time the once-dominant minority had mobilised to participate in the post-war political process, having boycotted previous ballots.

Saleh Mutlaq, a prominent Sunni politician who had briefly taken part in the drafting of the constitution, called the approved charter an American document that had nothing to do with the Iraqi people. He said: "It is clearly a forgery. No respectful forger would produce such an obvious fake that could be seen through so easily, it is not professional work by the forgers."

His comments reflected wider fears that Sunnis were again disillusioned with the political process. Many fear that if Sunnis cannot be wooed into taking part in December’s elections for Iraq’s first permanent post-war government, the bloody insurgency could drag on indefinitely.

Hussein al-Falluji, another Sunni politician, cautioned that the passage of a constitution that Sunnis saw as being manipulated by Washington could only lead to more bloodshed.

Mr Mutlaq said that in Ninevah’s provincial capital, Mosul, 80 per cent of the population had rejected the charter, which Sunnis believe could lay the groundwork for the disintegration of Iraq by allowing a loose form of federalism.

"Violence is not the only solution, if politics offers solutions so that we can move in that direction. But there is very little hope that we can make any gains in the elections," Mr Mutlaq said. "I call on the free world. I call on the United Nations to intervene."

Carina Perelli, the United Nations official overseeing the polling, praised a "very good job" by election auditors and said that Iraq should be proud of the commission.

London and Washington appeared to brush aside the Sunni objections, describing the constitution as another step towards a stable, democratic Iraq. "The Iraqi people have shown again their determination to defy the terrorists and take part in the democratic process," said Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, hailing the result as "an important step in the development of a democratic, stable and inclusive Iraq".

"It’s a landmark day in the history of Iraq," said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman. "We congratulate the Iraqi people."

www.timesonline.co.uk/iraq

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102405B.shtml

Another Iraq War Legacy: Badly Wounded US Troops
Reuters

Sunday 23 October 2005

Washington - U.S. Army Sgt. Joey Bozik remembers coming out of a coma at Walter Reed Army Medical Center not fully understanding why he was there.

"I knew something had happened to me, I just didn't know what," Bozik said.

He first inquired about his family, then about himself.

"I had an above-the-knee amputation of my right leg and a below-the-knee amputation on my left leg. I had a below-the-elbow amputation on my right arm. And on my left hand, my thumb and pinkie were fractured and the metacarpals in my hand were fractured and I fractured my wrist," Bozik said.

The human toll for the U.S. military in the Iraq war is not limited to the nearly 2,000 troops deaths since the March 2003 invasion. More than 15,220 also have been wounded in combat, including more than 7,100 injured too badly to return to duty, the Pentagon said. Thousands more have been hurt in incidents unrelated to combat.

Bozik, a 27-year-old from Wilmington, North Carolina, recounted what happened to him, as he used his left hand and a prosthetic right hand to pedal a stationary hand bike in the physical therapy room at Walter Reed. His 25-year-old wife, Jayme, stood watchfully behind.

On October 27, 2004, Bozik was in the front passenger seat in a vehicle on patrol south of Baghdad, checking for insurgent roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Coming down a highway overpass, his driver steered the truck more widely than the two vehicles in front.

It rolled over an anti-tank mine with two mortar rounds attached. The explosion blew two other soldiers free of the vehicle. But Bozik was trapped inside.

Military doctors say U.S. troops are surviving wounds in Iraq that would have been fatal in previous wars due to advances in medical care and body armor.

Military statistics showed that while 23 percent of U.S. troops wounded in combat in World War Two died and 17 percent in the Vietnam War, 9 percent of those wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan died. Without the advances since Vietnam, the U.S. death toll in Iraq would be nearly double the current total.

But military doctors said some troops who may have died in previous wars are surviving, but with grievous injuries such as multiple limb amputations. More than 300 troops have undergone at least one limb amputation. By far the single biggest cause of combat wounds are blasts from IEDs.

'A Miracle'

"We look at patients oftentimes and feel like it's a miracle that they're alive," said Lt. Col. Paul Pasquina, chief of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Walter Reed, which has treated more than 4,400 troops hurt in Iraq.

"Someone who loses one limb is a challenge to get back to a meaningful, functional lifestyle," Pasquina said. "But somebody who loses three limbs, on top of other types of soft tissue wounds, fractures, head injury, spinal-cord injury, paralysis...?"

Pasquina and Lt. Col. Warren Dorlac, chief of trauma surgery and critical care at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany cited several factors for why a larger percentage of wounded U.S. troops were surviving:

advances in body armor, with torso armor better protecting the chest and abdomen, heart and lungs and helmets better protecting the brain;

better trained and prepared battlefield medics;

improved in-country surgical capabilities allowing patients to be stabilized so they can be quickly flown out of Iraq.
Moving patients to U.S. hospitals usually took 45 days during the Vietnam War, but has been reduced to as little as 36 hours now. Most troops flown out of Iraq are then treated at Landstuhl before being sent along to facilities in the United States including Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas or Walter Reed in Washington.

For the first anniversary of the blast that wounded him, Bozik and his wife are planning a celebration with friends.

"We'll call it my 'life-day,"' Bozik said, wearing red shorts and a white T-shirt with an athletic gear manufacturer's slogan, "Just Do It."

"He's always got that positive attitude," his wife said.

"The way I look at it is I've been given a second chance on life," Bozik said. "Everybody always wants to know what the meaning of life is. I'm not saying I have the answer. But I can tell you one thing, I have a better understanding of what life's about."

--------------------
Steady Rise Defines Trajectory of Troop Fatalities in Iraq
--------------------

By Doug Smith and P.J. Huffstutter
Times Staff Writers

October 25 2005, 7:56 PM PDT

U.S. officials repeatedly have claimed progress during 31 months of war in Iraq, but the death toll of American troops has continued to rise inexorably, eroding support for the war and for the president who is so closely associated with it.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...-home-headlines

--------------------
Bush Tries to Revive Support for Iraq War
--------------------

By DEB RIECHMANN
Associated Press Writer

October 25 2005, 7:59 PM PDT

WASHINGTON -- President Bush tried Tuesday to begin reviving U.S. support for the war in Iraq and reinvigorating his troubled presidency as the U.S. military death toll topped 2,000.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wi...0,7854309.story

US Casualty Toll Hits 2000 in Iraq Chosun Ilbo
The US military death toll in Iraq officially reached two thousand on Tuesday, with the announcement of the death of a soldier who was injured last week. The figure includes 427 troops whose deaths were not directly related to combat operations. Speaking shortly before the announcement, President Bush said the American sacrifice in Iraq has been worthwhile, and more sacrifice will be needed before the war against terrorism is finally won. His name was George T. Alexander Junior. He was a 34-year-old staff sergeant from Texas, President Bush's home state. Sergeant Alexander died on Saturday at a military hospital not far from his home, of injuries he received five days earlier in the Iraqi town of Samarra. Like many of the other U.S. casualties in Iraq, his death was caused by a roadside bomb that detonated near his vehicle.
US military death toll in Iraq hits 2,000 Aljazeera.com
US deaths at 2,000 in Iraq San Jose Mercury News
Boston Globe - Quad City Times - Guardian Unlimited - Melbourne Herald Sun - all 930 related »

Kerry urges post-election troop reduction in Iraq Kron4.ocm
Senator John Kerry says the U-S should bring 20-thousand troops home for Christmas if the December elections are successful. He also urges more pullouts as power shifts to Iraqi officials. The former presidential candidate's comments are in a speech prepared for delivery today at Georgetown University in Washington. It comes just one day after the number of U-S troops killed in Iraq reached the two-thousand mark. Kerry says a large U-S presence deters peace efforts in Iraq. But he says he has a plan that would stabilize the country and end America's military presence there. It calls for a "reasonable time frame" for pulling back troops rather than a full-scale withdrawal that some other Democrats want. Kerry could make another run for the White House in 2008.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051026/...ts_the_fuse.php
Iraqi Vote Lights The Fuse
Robert Dreyfuss
October 26, 2005


Robert Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone. His book, Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, will be published by Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books in the fall.

To no one’s surprise, on the day that U.S. deaths in Iraq passed the symbolic 2,000 mark, the U.S.-installed Iraqi government announced, fully 10 days after the October 15 referendum, that voters in Iraq had backed the ersatz constitution. And so now the fuse is lit. Though the vote is being lavishly praised by the spokesmen for the Bush administration, it is in fact the prelude to the final unraveling of Iraq.

No one but the most credulous can believe that the vote tally in Iraq is an accurate one. Province after province racked up Saddam Hussein-like totals, with 95 percent or more of voters in 12 provinces—those heavily populated by Kurds and Shiite Arabs—voting “Yes.” In Anbar province, in western Iraq, 97 percent of voters cast “No” ballots, the election commission in Iraq said, and in Salahuddin province, nearly 82 percent voted “No.”

The election turned on the mixed provinces of Nineveh and Diyala, where 55 and 48 percent, respectively, also voted “No.” Since the referendum would have rejected the constitution had any three provinces voted “No” by a two-thirds majority, the mostly Sunni opponents of the constitution thus failed—at least, if the election commission is to be believed. Naturally, opponents are charging that the vote was rigged—with some merit. Even the Iraqi Islamic Party, a branch of the International Muslim Brotherhood, is claiming that the election in Nineveh was stolen, presumably by mostly Kurdish militiamen who control parts of that mostly Sunni district. (Of course, the idea of calmly looking into allegations of vote fraud in a province where it is unsafe for most people to venture out of their homes is absurd on its face.)

Consider the steps that got Iraq to its current impasse.

The constitution itself was supposed to have been ready by August 1—but it wasn’t. Persistent and illegal delays—not vetted by Iraq’s parliament—dragged out the debate over the document’s most controversial provisions far past the legal deadline. And parliament never got to make a proper vote authorizing the final draft.

There in fact was never a final draft at all. Not only did Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad scramble to provide drafts of entire articles of the constitution in the days and weeks after the August deadline, according to intelligence sources, but the various Iraqi factions squabbled over them until deep into October, up to the very eve of the vote. In fact, virtually no one in Iraq had any idea of what they were actually voting on.

Printed copies of the constitution did not reach Iraqi voters at all, in most cases. Despite assertions by the White House spokesman that “tens of millions” of copies of the constitution were printed and distributed—in a nation with only 15 million total voters!—in fact, hardly any reached voters, especially in disputed or violence-racked areas.

And the civil war and U.S. offensive military operations raged before and during the vote, and then during the drawn-out counting of votes, creating conditions that under no circumstances can be viewed as conducive to anything resembling a democratic process.

The lit fuse is the result of the two factors: First, the constitution’s inherently divisive provisions—an extreme version of federalism, the apportioning of all of Iraq’s revenues from newly found oil to provinces that are likely to be controlled by Shiites and Kurds, the institutionalization of Sharia-style Islamic law, and a provision that guarantees an ever-expanding Kurdistan, among others—will lead to intensified Sunni Arab anger. That anger will be made even greater by the fact that Sunni voters so overwhelmingly opposed the constitution, and yet it passed anyway.

And second, promises that were made by Khalilzad and by the Shiite-Kurdish alliance that the constitution might be amended by the Iraqi government that takes over after scheduled December 15 elections are fool’s gold. The absolute dominance of the Shiite-Kurdish majority will simply combine to vote down any and all efforts to amend the document on behalf of Sunni Arab interests. So, expect anger at the unfairness of the constitutional process to lead to an intensified insurgency, more violence and eventually something that looks a lot like a full-scale civil war.

The potential for violence is made worse by the fact that those Sunnis who did, in fact, support the constitution—such as the Iraqi Islamic Party—now stand discredited. Far more credibility has been retained by the militant Sunni opponents of the constitution. In fact, after its decision to support the draft, the offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) in Baghdad and several other cities were bombed, and some IIP branches openly broke with the decision by the party’s Baghdad leadership. And so the IIP’s decision to support the constitution may have been its final undoing. Meanwhile, the resistance goes on unchecked.

The Bush administration can applaud the approval of the constitution all it wants. But the constitution represents a "landmark day" in Iraq not because it is a step toward democracy, but because it is a step toward civil war.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GJ27Ak01.html
COMMENTARY
The Sunni option
By Ehsan Ahrari

The draft constitution of Iraq has been approved by 78% of voters nationwide. As expected, the Sunni Arabs were unable to defeat it by getting at least two-thirds of the voters in three provinces to vote against it. The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq reported that about 63% of Iraq's 15.5 million registered voters cast ballots.

Sunnis are not only viewing this reality as a permanent loss of power, but also as a way to partition their country into three parts. What are they to do now? They will do whatever a losing side does in an Arab polity that does not know how political battles are won or lost in a democracy. They will bide their time and attempt to sabotage the system, unless they are assured that the new Iraq is not just a euphemism for a permanent loss of their power.

Considering that a majority of voters in three provinces voted against the constitution, but one of them failed to reach the two-thirds threshold, there is hope on the Sunni side that they may be



able to change their bargaining position come December, when elections are due.

The greatest Sunni fear is that their country is well on its way to being split into three regions - the Kurdish north, well-endowed with oil, the Shi'ite south, equally enriched with oil, and the center, which has little to no oil. Even if there were to be no threats of an imminent splitting of Iraq, the Sunnis are wary about not having access to these resources and remaining at the mercy of the Kurds and the Shi'ites for future funding.

Here is the crux of the problem: The Sunnis were at the peak of power throughout the modern existence of Iraq as a state, despite the fact that they were in the minority. Now, they perceive themselves to be living in a system that will victimize them.

But while the Sunnis know they have lost a battle, the war is still there to be fought. From the Sunni perspective, the victory of the Shi'ites and the Kurds will be a temporary one, unless the US decides to stay in the country for at least the next decade or so, to guarantee the survival of the system that it has created.

(Ironically, October 25, the day the official ratification of the Iraqi construction was announced, coincided with the the American media reporting the 2,000th American soldier killed in Iraq.)

And the Sunnis will be aware of the grave limitations on America's ability to remain in Iraq. Not just Iraq, but the entire Arab world was watching the American generals' testimonies in early October before the US Congress, and their somber faces, while they used bureaucratic gobbledygook to underplay the poor state of readiness and performance of Iraqi security forces. They also read the US public opinion polls that regularly tell them that the American people want their country to get out of Iraq.

The ghosts of Vietnam may be viewed as ghosts in Washington; they are very much alive in the memories of the Arab world, and the Arab media.

That is why the Sunnis can afford to lose now and expect to emerge victorious later. Even after the resounding ratification of the constitution, let no one think that the new Iraq is well on its way toward becoming a Shi'ite and Kurdish-dominated country.

Is there room for compromise in this palpably messy situation? Perhaps in the long run, but it has to be done on the basis of some of the most-basic demands of the Sunnis. The federal nature of Iraq is the biggest red flag. If there ever were to be a compromise, it would have to be on a unitary system, where the central government plays a powerful role, especially in the distribution of oil revenue. As the past rulers of Iraq, the Sunnis are accustomed to this notion.

If the Shi'ites and the Kurds are to come to grips with sharing power through a unitary system, then there is some hope. The US knows it, and, in fact, prefers that option, but cannot do anything about it at present.

So at least for now, the Sunnis have to live with the fact that the Shi'ites and the Kurds outplayed (and outnumbered) them. They will have to wait for their chance, and wait they will.

Ehsan Ahrari is an independent strategic analyst based in Alexandria, VA, US. His columns appear regularly in Asia Times Online. He is also a regular contributor to the Global Beat Syndicate. His website: www.ehsanahrari.com.

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing .)

http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives...ched%202000.htm


Sunni Iraqis Seek US Pullout as US Military Death Toll Reached 2000

Khaleej Times, 26 October 2005

BAGHDAD - Sunni Iraqi leaders said on Wednesday they would focus on pressing US forces to pull out after failing to block a controversial constitution, hoping a US death toll of 2,000 will encourage Washington to withdraw.

“Our political program will focus more on getting the Americans out of Iraq,” Hussein Al Falluji, a prominent Sunni who took part in talks on the constitution, told Reuters.

“Our message to the American administration is clear: get out of Iraq or set a timetable for withdrawal or the resistance will keep slaughtering your soldiers until judgment day.”

The death of an army sergeant pushed the US military death toll in Iraq to the symbolic figure of 2,000 on Tuesday, but President George W. Bush warned more sacrifices were needed before US troops could come home.

With a Friday deadline looming for parties and electoral coalitions to register on the ballot paper for the Dec. 15 vote, Sunni leaders face growing pressure to form a united strategy.

Sunni Arabs, once dominant under Saddam Hussein, mostly boycotted January elections which swept Shi'is and Kurds to power after decades of oppression.

Increasingly isolated since Iraq’s political process began moving forward, they lack a united leadership and it is not clear how much sway Sunni leaders have over insurgents bent on toppling the US-backed government.

The Pentagon said Staff Sergeant George Alexander, 34, died on Saturday of injuries sustained eight days ago when a roadside bomb blew up near his vehicle in the town of Samarra. It was the 2,000th US death announced by the Pentagon.

The toll was a reminder that although some progress has been made on Iraq’s political front, the fight against determined guerrillas could drag on for years.

Iraqi resistance fighters have resumed deadly attacks again after a relative lull in violence during the referendum and the trial of Saddam Hussein last week.

Gunmen opened fire on a convoy of bodyguards for Iraq’s minister of water resources in western Baghdad on Wednesday, wounding two people. Police said that the minister, Abdul Latif Rasheed, was not present.

Gunmen also killed an official at Iraq’s Ministry of Culture, Nabil Moussawi, and seriously wounded his driver in southern Baghdad.

Despite falling public support among the American public for the war, which has been one factor pushing down Bush’s popularity in public opinion polls, the president indicated on Tuesday there would be no change in strategy.

“This war will require more sacrifice, more time and more resolve,” he told military wives shortly before the Pentagon announcement.

The US army said the 2,000 American dead was an artificial mark, not a milestone.

“It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives,” said US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Steven A. Boylan.

More than 15,000 US troops also have been wounded in action.

“We call on the American people to bring home their troops to avoid a disaster,” said Falluji.

http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives...Fraudulent%20Re

Ninewah Province Rejects Constitution by 55% of the Vote, Three Sunni Provinces Reject it Together by 77%, Yet Commission Announced it Adopted, Sunnis Reject Fraudulent Results

Al-Jazeerah, October 25, 2005

According to their own rules, designers of the Iraqi constitution decided that it could be rejected if voters in three provinces reject it by two-third of votes. Well, voters in the three Sunni provinces of Salahuddin, Al-Anbar, and Ninewah, together, rejected the constitution by about 77% of the vote. However, the Electoral Commission announced the adoption of the constitution because voters who rejected it in one province did not do that with two-thirds of the vote, which is a controversial opinion that may be contested.

The Iraqi Electoral Commission announced today that voters in the Iraqi Sunni Province of Ninewah rejected the constitution by 55% of the vote. Previously, it announced that in the Salahuddin province, 81.5 percent of voters rejected the Constitution. It also announced that in the Sunni province of Al-Anbar, more than 97 percent voted against the new constitution.

Thus, the constitution was rejected in two Sunni provinces with more than two-third of voters. But because the rejection was very high, adding the rejection of the third province of Ninewah (55%) would still produce more than two-third of voters rejecting the constitution in the three provinces together, that is about 77%.

Despite this fact, the Electoral Commission announced that the Sunnis failed to reject the constitution in three provinces, which is not true.



Iraqi voters approve US-backed constitution

Khaleej Times, (Reuters)

25 October 2005

BAGHDAD - Iraqi voters have ratified a new US-backed constitution despite opposition in Sunni Arab areas, officials said on Tuesday.

Iraq’s Electoral Commission, revealing final results from the Oct. 15 referendum, said 79 percent of voters backed the constitution against 21 percent opposed in a poll split largely along Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic lines.

Several Shi'i and Kurdish regions voted between 95 and 99 percent “Yes”; in Sunni Anbar 97 percent said “No”.



Sunni leaders reject Iraq charter

Tue Oct 25, 2005 10:52 AM ET

By Michael Georgy

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Arab Sunni leaders rejected a referendum which ratified a new Iraqi constitution on Tuesday, saying "fraudulent" results would discourage them from taking part in December elections and fuel (the resistance).

"Violence is not the only solution, if politics offers solutions so that we can move in that direction. But there is very little hope that we can make any gains in the elections," said Sunni leader Saleh Mutlaq.

"I call on the free world. I call on the United Nations to intervene. We will not accept any referendum or election without international observers."

U.S. officials sponsoring the political process had described the election, in which many in the disaffected Sunni Arab minority took part, as a success for democracy.

But Mutlaq and other prominent Sunnis who had been involved in negotiations on the draft charter accused the Iraqi electoral commission of bowing to U.S. pressure and fixing results in favor of Shi'i and Kurdish leaders dominating the government

Prominent Sunni Hussein al-Falluji predicted more bloodshed after what he called a referendum manipulated by Washington.

"We all know that this referendum was fraud conducted by an electoral commission that is not independent. It is controlled by the occupying Americans and it should step down before elections in December," Falluji said.

"Politics is linked directly to security on the ground. The situation can only get worse now. I have just prayed to God to expose the truth about what is happening in Iraq."

(Additional reporting by Reuters Television)



Draft Constitution Adopted by Iraqi Voters

Oct 25, 2005 7:29 AM EDT

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq's landmark constitution was adopted by a majority of voters during the country's Oct. 15 referendum, as Sunni Arab opponents failed to muster enough support to defeat it, election officials said Tuesday.

Results released by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq showed that Sunni Arabs, who had sharply opposed the draft document, failed to produce the two-thirds "no" vote they would have needed in at least three of Iraq's 18 provinces to defeat it.

Nationwide, 78.59 percent voted for the charter while 21.41 percent voted against, the commission said. The charter required a simple majority nationwide with the provision that if two-thirds of the voters in any three provinces rejected it, the constitution would be defeated.

"Whatever the results of the referendum are ... it is a civilized step that aims to put Iraq on the path of true democracy," Farid Ayar, an official with the electoral commission, said before reading the final results.

Two mostly Sunni Arab provinces - Salahuddin and Anbar - had voted against the constitution by at least a two-thirds vote. The commission, which had been auditing the referendum results for 10 days, said a third province where many Sunnis live - Ninewah - produced a "no" vote of only 55 percent.

Ninewah had been a focus of fraud allegations since preliminary results showed a large majority of voters had approved the constitution, despite a large Sunni Arab population there.

Election commission officials and U.N. officials, who also took part in the audit, "found no cases of fraud that could affect the results of the vote," Ayar said.

The constitution, which many Kurds and majority Shiites strongly support, is considered another major step in the country's democratic transformation, clearing the way for the election of a new Iraqi parliament on Dec. 15. Such steps are considered important in any decision about the future withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from Iraq.

Many Sunni Arabs fear that the constitution will create two virtually autonomous and oil-rich mini-states of Kurds in the north and Sunnis in the south, while leaving many Sunnis isolated in poor central and western regions with a weak central government in Baghdad.

Some fear that the Sunni Arab loss in the referendum could influence more of them to join or support Sunni-led insurgents who are launching attacks across the country against Iraq's mostly Shiite and Kurdish government and U.S.-led forces.

http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick10262005.html

October 26, 2005

A Divided Nation
Iraq Approves Constitution, Despite Sunnis
By PATRICK COCKBURN
in Baghdad

A majority of Iraqis have voted for the new federal constitution, which will divide the country into three regions and weaken central government.

The results, released by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, show that the Sunni Arabs largely voted against the constitution while the Shia and Kurds voted in favour. Overall, 78 per cent of Iraqis voted "yes" and 21 per cent voted "no''.

The Sunni, though only 20 per cent of the population, could still have defeated the referendum if two-thirds of voters in three provinces had voted no. The commission said yesterday that Nineveh--the one province that Sunnis opposed to the constitution had to win decisively--had voted against the constitution, but only by 55 per cent of the votes.

Anbar and Salahudin had earlier overwhelmingly rejected the constitution, with 97 per cent and 82 per cent voting against it respectively.

The United States and Britain as well as the Iraqi government will hope that the outcome will not be seen as a rebuff to the Sunnis, driving them into the arms of the resistance. Last-minute changes to the constitution allow a newly elected National Assembly to amend it by a majority vote next year, though the amendments will have to be voted on in a new referendum and can be vetoed once again by three provinces voting with two-thirds majorities against.

The constitution envisages a federal state in which Kurds and Shias will have important powers and the central government will be weakened. The Kurds will be able to maintain their own army in northern Iraq, local law will override federal law when the two are in conflict and oil developments will come under regional control. Existing oilfields will continue to be under the central government.

Many Sunnis see the constitution as, in effect, marking the break-up of Iraq. But it is unclear how far it will be implemented in the country outside Kurdistan--where the Kurds are already in control. They have no intention of giving up Kirkuk or lands from which they were driven under Saddam Hussein. Many Sunnis will claim that the result of the referendum was fixed but the commission said that it found no cases of violations that would have significantly affected the result. The result in Nineveh was uncertain because there are no clear figures for the breakdown between Sunni Arab, Kurd, Turkoman and Christian in the province.

Mosul itself is mostly Sunni Muslim but it is also a stronghold of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which at the last moment backed the constitution when concessions were made on amending it.

Iraq will now move towards an election on 15 December in which the Sunni Arabs, unlike in the election in January, are likely to participate. But the victors will still be the Kurds and the Shia, which together make up the present government. Although the Kurds are personally hostile to the government of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Prime Minister, they are determined to maintain the Kurdish-Shia alliance. They accuse Mr al-Jaafari of breaking pledges.

The referendum is unlikely to have much impact on the insurgency, which has sufficient support to continue regardless of developments in constitutional politics. On the other hand, the Sunni leadership is even further divided, with part of it wanting to boycott the referendum, some wanting to support the constitution and a majority against but wanting to vote it down.

A critical time for Iraq
Dear Friend,
Later today, I will deliver a major speech on the war in Iraq.
It asks a hard and essential question: how do we bring our troops home within a reasonable and responsible timeframe, while achieving what needs to be achieved in Iraq?
One thing is certain. It isn't by continuing to pursue the Bush administration's "stay for as long as it takes" rhetoric. And it isn't by blindly following their policy of cutting and running from the truth that underlies that rhetoric.
That's why my speech today will call on the Bush administration to immediately draw up -- and present to Congress and the American people -- a detailed plan with target dates for the transfer of military and police responsibilities to Iraqis so the majority of our combat forces can be withdrawn.
I hope you'll take a moment to read excerpts from this critically important call to action on Iraq.
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeche...2005_10_26.html
My speech today will assert that there is no reason Iraq cannot be relatively stable, no reason the majority of our combat troops can't soon be on their way home, and no reason we can't take on a new role in Iraq, as an ally not an occupier, training Iraqis to defend themselves by the end of 2006.
Today of all days, it is important to note that instead of attacking Ambassador Wilson's report, instead of attacking his wife to justify attacking Iraq, the Bush administration should have simply paid attention to what his report revealed.
As I write this, we are waiting to learn whether the administration's attacks will prove to be an indictable offense in a court of law. But for its CIA leaks, and for misleading a nation into war, the Bush administration will most certainly be indicted in the high court of history.
Sadly, there have been a legion of Bush administration miscalculations that have left us having far too few options in Iraq.
It is never easy to discuss what has gone wrong while our troops are in constant danger. I know this dilemma first-hand. After serving in war, I returned home to offer my own personal voice of dissent. I did so because I believed strongly that we owed it to those risking their lives to speak truth to power. We still do.
In fact, while some say we can't ask tough questions because we are at war, I say no -- in a time of war we must ask the hardest questions of all. No matter what President Bush says, asking tough questions isn't pessimism, it's patriotism. If you agree, I urge you to join me in demanding a new course in Iraq. You can start by making sure as many people as possible see this speech.
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeche...2005_10_26.html
The American people -- most importantly, the families of the brave men and women serving in Iraq -- can no longer tolerate George W. Bush's failure to spell out a reasonable and detailed plan of action on Iraq. If the President refuses to act, we must call on Congress to take the decision out of his hands.
I urge you to read the speech I plan to deliver at Georgetown University in a matter of hours -- and to forward it to as many people as possible. Most of all, I hope you will resolve to join the entire johnkerry.com community in the weeks ahead as we work to create an undeniable groundswell of public pressure for a detailed, date-specific plan of action on Iraq.
Sincerely,
John Kerry

As Toll Hits 2,001, Some Iraqis Sympathize :

Some Iraqis sympathized with U.S. forces on Wednesday after hearing the American death toll in the Iraq war had reached 2,000. But others noted that many more Iraqis had died in the conflict and said they hope the U.S. ``occupiers'' will soon go home.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/stor...5370924,00.html

Demand The Truth:

A must watch flash presentation
http://www.peacetakescourage.com/someones.html

Bitter Fruit: A photo essay on the soldiers killed in Iraq:

A war without casualties? A war where only the evil get hurt?
http://www.magnuminmotion.com/bitterfruit/player.html

Cartoon of the week:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebe...1600879,00.html