History > 2006 > USA > War > Iraq (VI)

Video from Iraqi state television showed

a noose being placed around Saddam Hussein’s neck before his hanging early Saturday.

Iraqi Television, via Associated Press        NYT        December 30, 2006

 Dictator Who Ruled Iraq With Violence Is Hanged for Crimes Against Humanity        NYT        30.12.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/world/middleeast/30hussein.html

Texas soldier's death raises U.S. toll in Iraq to at least 3,000 dead        UT        31.12.2006
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-12-31-us-death-toll-3000_x.htm 

Texas soldier's death

raises U.S. toll in Iraq to at least 3,000 dead

Updated 12/31/2006 8:05 PM ET
USA Today
AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — American deaths in the Iraq war reached the sobering milestone of 3,000 on Sunday even as the Bush administration sought to overhaul its strategy for an unpopular conflict that shows little sign of abating.

The latest death came during one of the most violent periods during which the Pentagon says hate and revenge killings between Iraq's sects are now a bigger security problem than ever.

The death of a Texas soldier, announced Sunday by the Pentagon, raised the number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq to at least 3,000, according to an Associated Press count, since the war began in March 2003.

The grim milestone was crossed on the final day of 2006 and at the end of the deadliest month for the American military in Iraq in the past 12 months. At least 111 U.S. service members were reported to have died in December.

President Bush is struggling to salvage a military campaign that, more than three-and-a-half years after U.S. forces overran the country, has scant support from the American public. In large part because of that discontent, voters gave Democrats control of the new Congress that convenes this week. Democrats have pledged to focus on the war and Bush's conduct of it.

Three thousand deaths are tiny compared with casualties in other protracted wars America has fought in the last century. There were 58,000 Americans killed in the Vietnam War, 36,000 in the Korean conflict, 405,000 in World War II and 116,000 in World War I, according to Defense Department figures.

Even so, the steadily mounting toll underscores the relentless violence that the massive U.S. investment in lives and money — surpassing $350 billion — has yet to tame, and may in fact still be getting worse.

A Pentagon report on Iraq said in December that the conflict now is more a struggle between Sunni and Shiite armed groups "fighting for religious, political and economic influence," with the insurgency and foreign terrorist campaigns "a backdrop."

From mid-August to mid-November, the weekly average number of attacks in the country increased 22% from the previous three months. The worst violence was in Baghdad and in the western province of Anbar, long the focus of activity by Sunni insurgents, said a December report.

Though U.S.-led coalition forces remained the target of the majority of attacks, the overwhelming majority of casualties were suffered by Iraqis, the report said.

The American death toll was at 1,000 in September of 2004 and 2,000 by October 2005.

Bush told an end-of-the-year press conference that the deaths distress him.

"The most painful aspect of the presidency is the fact that I know my decisions have caused young men and women to lose their lives," Bush said.

Asked about the 3,000 figure, deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanzel said Sunday that the president "will ensure their sacrifice was not made in vain."

"We will be fighting violent jihadists for peace and security of the civilized world for years to come. The brave men and women of the U.S. military are fighting extremists in order to stop them from attacking on our soil again," Stanzel said.

In a statement Bush released Sunday to wish the troops and all Americans a happy new year, the president said the nation depends on the men and women in the armed services and are mindful of their dedication and sacrifice.

"Last year, America continued its mission to fight and win the war on terror and promote liberty as an alternative to tyranny and despair," Bush said in the statement released from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he and first lady Laura Bush are spending New Year's Eve with friends.

"In the New Year, we will remain on the offensive against the enemies of freedom, advance the security of our country, and work toward a free and unified Iraq," he said. "Defeating terrorists and extremists is the challenge of our time, and we will answer history's call with confidence and fight for liberty without wavering."

In an interview on Dec. 21 with The Associated Press, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the war was "worth the investment" in American lives and dollars.

In his strategy reassessment, Bush has consulted Iraqis, his uniformed and civilian advisers, an outside bipartisan panel that studied the failing war, and other defense and foreign policy experts. New Defense Secretary Robert Gates journeyed to Iraq in his first week on the job in December to confer with American commanders and Iraqi leaders.

Among the president's options was a proposal to quickly add thousands of U.S. troops to the 140,000 already in Iraq to try to control escalating violence in Baghdad and elsewhere.

Others believe too much blood and money already have been sacrificed. Democrats have wanted Bush to move toward a phased drawdown of forces, while the bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended removing most U.S. combat forces by early 2008 while shifting the U.S. role to advising and supporting Iraqi units.

Having launched the war against the advice of a number of nations, the Bush administration never got a huge international contribution of troops, meaning foreign forces helping the Iraqis are overwhelmingly American.

The death toll shows it. As of late December, the British military has reported 126 deaths in the war so far; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 18; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; and Denmark, six. Several other countries have had five or less.

    Texas soldier's death raises U.S. toll in Iraq to at least 3,000 dead, UT, 31.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-12-31-us-death-toll-3000_x.htm 

Hussein Video Grips Iraq; Attacks Go On

December 31, 2006
The New York Times
The By JOHN F. BURNS

BAGHDAD, Sunday, Dec. 31 — After nearly three decades of living with the brutal repression of Saddam Hussein and the violent aftermath of his overthrow by American troops, Iraq responded with a mixture of rejoicing, violence and muted reflection on Saturday to the news that their former dictator had been hanged in one of the grimmest of his own execution chambers.

This nation of 27 million people spent much of the day crowding around television sets to watch mesmerizing replays of a videotape that showed the 69-year-old Mr. Hussein being led to the gallows at dawn by five masked executioners, and having a noose fashioned from a thick rope of yellow hemp lowered around his neck. In the final moments shown on the videotape, he seemed almost unnaturally calm and cooperative.

The message seemed to be that he had lived his final moments with unflinching dignity and courage, reinforcing the legend of himself as the Arab world’s strongman that he cultivated while in power. But the videotape, released by the government, offered only a partial sense of how Mr. Hussein went to his death, according to accounts given later by some of the 25 people who attended the execution, including senior officials of the new Shiite-led government.

In their telling, the ousted ruler, a Sunni, spent much of his last half-hour, after arriving at the execution block at the Khadimiyah prison in northern Baghdad, in querulous and at times irascible exchanges with the Shiite guards and executioners assigned to hang him and with some of the Shiite witnesses.

His bitter defiance, in the last moments of his life, was focused on his old enemies: the United States, Iran and their “spies,” a word commonly used at the height of his tyranny to justify the merciless persecution of his domestic opponents.

Early Sunday morning, an official in the governor’s office in Salahaddin, Mr. Hussein’s home province, said the former leader had been buried in Awja, near Tikrit, his hometown at 3:30 a.m. Also buried there are his two sons, Uday and Qusay, who were killed when American troops stormed their hideout in the northern city of Mosul in July 2003. But an Iraqi government official said earlier that the body would be kept hidden for the time being.

The death sentence was to be carried out within 30 days of the rejection of his appeal, but the hanging was completed by the end of the fifth day, which took some officials in Washington by surprise and left some American legal officials, who have worked with the Iraqi court, uncomfortable.

Within hours of the execution, at least 75 people were killed in nine bombing attacks of the kind that Sunni insurgents commonly carry out against Shiites. In the mainly Shiite districts of Hurriyah and Sayidah in Baghdad, separate sequences in which car bombs detonated in close succession caused at least 39 deaths. Two other car bombings hit Baghdad before nightfall, one outside a children’s hospital in the Iskan neighborhood, and another that killed two people outside a mosque in the mainly Sunni district of Adhamiya, the Interior Ministry said.

Another vehicle bomb detonated in a popular fish market in the Shiite holy town of Kufa, 100 miles south of Baghdad, killing 34 people and wounding 38 others, the ministry said. In the Kufa attack, an angry mob set on the suspected bomber and beat him to death, the police said. Five more victims died in a suicide bombing in the northern city of Tal Afar, another center of violence between Sunnis and Shiites.

The United States military command announced six more combat deaths, bringing the number of American troops killed in December to 109, the deadliest month for American deaths since November 2004, according to Reuters.

With bombing attacks a long-established feature of the struggle for power across Iraq, it was impossible to say whether the Saturday bombings were connected to the execution.

But statements by remnants of the ousted Baath Party, the political vehicle Mr. Hussein rode to power, had promised retaliation, in the form of a new wave of bombings, if the death sentence passed by an Iraqi court eight weeks ago was carried out.

American military commanders took the threat seriously enough to put troops in volatile areas on high alert. On Saturday, a statement on the party’s Web site urged Iraqis to strike at the United States and Iran to avenge Mr. Hussein, but cautioned that they must avoid full civil war, Agence France-Presse reported.

From accounts given by witnesses, the hanging had strong sectarian overtones. Within minutes of arriving at the execution block from the American detention center near the airport, where he spent more than 1,000 days in solitary confinement, Mr. Hussein, who may have been the only Sunni present, argued with the guards and executioners.

The men who guided him to the gallows were drawn from the country’s Shiite south, identifiable by their darker skins and accents. The Shiites of southern Iraq harbor a strong hatred for Mr. Hussein for his repression of uprisings there, a repression that killed tens of thousands of Shiites.

The execution block scenes offered a grim echo of the sectarian struggle now convulsing Iraq, as Sunni insurgents and Shiite death squads engage in a implacable cycle of revenge that has killed as many as 3,700 civilians a month this year, and prompted many Iraqis to say that the killings ushered in by the overthrow of Mr. Hussein are becoming as brutal, and numerous, as anything he inflicted.

Even the decision to hasten Mr. Hussein to the gallows took on a sectarian edge, as Iraq’s new Shiite leaders presented the hanging as a message to Sunnis that their days as Iraq’s rulers are gone forever.

The message was clear in a statement issued by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, whose “national unity” government of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds has splintered into ethnic factions, with the Shiite religious groups that swept last December’s elections increasingly assertive of their majority rights.

The statement, which he signed before a battery of Iraqi television cameras, amounted to a warning to the Sunnis that their hopes of ever regaining power are lost. “Saddam’s execution puts an end to all their pathetic gambles on a return to dictatorship,” he said, referring to the former Baathists at the core of the Sunni insurgency. “I urge followers of the ousted regime to reconsider their stance, because the door is still open to anyone who has no innocent blood on his hands to help in rebuilding Iraq.”

At his death, Mr. Hussein had ceased to be much of a major rallying point, even among diehard Sunnis, whose battles in the past three years have been less about restoring Mr. Hussein to power — a chimerical goal, considering that the former leader was America’s most closely-guarded prisoner in Iraq — than about reversing the political transition from Sunni to Shiite rule.

Mr. Maliki short-circuited a bitter internal debate within the government over how quickly to send Mr. Hussein to the gallows by signing an order for the execution on Friday night, voiding a procedure that would have required the three-man presidency council — composed of a Kurd, a Sunni and Shiite — to all vote for the hanging.

Mr. Hussein and two of his associates were sentenced to death on Nov. 5 for their roles in the persecution of the Shiite town of Dujail, where an alleged assassination attempt against Mr. Hussein in 1982 was followed by the execution of 148 Shiite men and teenage boys. After the three men’s convictions, Mr. Maliki led the push for a hanging before the end of the year.

After the sentencing, American officials were confident that appeals might delay the hanging until the spring. But Mr. Maliki pressed for a speeded appeal process, and secured a confirmation of the death sentences within three weeks.

A senior Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Saturday that the Kurds had called for a delay, so the former Iraqi dictator could be prosecuted for crimes against them. But the official said there was no desire from the United States to seek a delay in the execution.

Administration officials said President Bush had gone to sleep before Mr. Hussein’s hanging, but had been told it was imminent. He awoke Saturday at 4:40 a.m. Central Time, said a White House spokesman, David Almacy, and at 5:55 a.m. received a 10-minute telephone briefing about the execution from his national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley. The president and Mr. Hadley discussed the execution and the worldwide reaction to it.

“The president remarked that he was pleased with the culmination of the Iraqi judicial process, and justice was done,” Mr. Almacy said.

During the 1980s, the United States had supported Iraq under Mr. Hussein in its war with Iran.

Among Shiites elsewhere in Iraq, there were sporadic eruptions of joy at the hanging, marked by dancing in the streets and the firing of automatic weapons into the air, as the early morning radio and television bulletins carried word that Mr. Hussein was dead. But the more general mood, even among Shiites, was one of subdued reflection, as if millions of Iraqis had exhausted their emotional and psychological reserves during the long years of violence.

Apart from the bombings, the most palpable Sunni reaction to the hanging took the form of scattered protests, some of them violent, that swept through Tikrit, Mr. Hussein’s hometown, and across Anbar Province, west of Baghdad, the principal heartland of the Sunni insurgency.

In one major insurgent stronghold, Ramadi, American troops were reported to have fired in the air to scatter demonstrators, who were marching through the streets hoisting portraits of Mr. Hussein and firing automatic weapons into the air. In Falluja, 30 miles west of Baghdad, witnesses said crowds of angry men took to the streets within 90 minutes of the hanging, attacking a police station and a courthouse and setting them ablaze.

Among those Iraqis who watched and re-watched the government’s video of the hanging, there seemed to be a widespread view that Mr. Hussein accepted his fate, at the end, with a composure and courage at odds with the psychotic figure he cut during his 24 years in power. In that time, he ordered the killings of thousands of his fellow citizens, many of whom ended up in mass graves scattered across Iraq’s oil-rich deserts.

Throughout Saturday, Iraqi government officials put out conflicting signals as to what they planned to do with Mr. Hussein’s body. An official in the governor’s office in Salahaddin Province said that a delegation led by the governor, Hamad Shegata, and including and the head of Mr. Hussein’s Albu-Nasir tribe, Sheikh Ali Al-Nida, had traveled to Baghdad during the day to arrange the handover of the body for burial in Awja. Muslim tradition requires that burials be completed before dusk on the day of death.

But a political adviser to Prime Minister Maliki, Bassam al-Husseini, said there were no plans to hand over the body until the risk of violence over Mr. Hussein’s hanging subsided, a period that he said could run for weeks or months.

In the meantime, he said, the body would be kept in “a secret place,” where it would be secure against desecration by his enemies. “If we bury him in Tikrit, people will dig him up and tear the body apart,” he said.

Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting from Crawford, Tex.

    Hussein Video Grips Iraq; Attacks Go On, NYT, 31.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/world/middleeast/31iraq.html?hp&ex=1167627600&en=7094cd23f82fca87&ei=5094&partner=homepage

On the Gallows, Curses for U.S. and ‘Traitors’

December 31, 2006
The New York Times
By MARC SANTORA

BAGHDAD, Dec. 30 — Saddam Hussein never bowed his head, until his neck snapped.

His last words were equally defiant.

“Down with the traitors, the Americans, the spies and the Persians.”

The final hour of Iraq’s former ruler began about 5 a.m., when American troops escorted him from Camp Cropper, near the Baghdad airport, to Camp Justice, another American base at the heart of the city.

There, he was handed over to a newly trained unit of the Iraqi National Police, with whom he would later exchange curses. Iraq took full custody of Mr. Hussein at 5:30 a.m.

Two American helicopters flew 14 witnesses from the Green Zone to the execution site — a former headquarters of the Istikhbarat, the deposed government’s much feared military intelligence outfit, now inside the American base.

Mr. Hussein was escorted into the room where the gallows, with its red railing, stood, greeted at the door by three masked executioners known as ashmawi. Several of the witnesses present — including Munkith al-Faroun, the deputy prosecutor for the court; Munir Haddad, the deputy chief judge for the Iraqi High Tribunal; and Sami al-Askari, a member of Parliament — described in detail how the execution unfolded and independently recounted what was said.

To protect himself from the bitter cold before dawn during the short trip, Mr. Hussein wore a 1940s-style wool cap, a scarf and a long black coat over a white collared shirt.

His executioners wore black ski masks, but Mr. Hussein could still see their deep brown skin and hear their dialects, distinct to the Shiite southern part of the country, where he had so brutally repressed two separate uprisings.

The small room had a foul odor. It was cold, had bad lighting and a sad, melancholic atmosphere. With the witnesses and 11 other people — including guards and the video crew — it was cramped.

Mr. Hussein’s eyes darted about, trying to take in just who was going to put an end to him.

The executioners took his hat and his scarf.

Mr. Hussein, whose hands were bound in front of him, was taken to the judge’s room next door. He followed each order he was given.

He sat down and the verdict, finding him guilty of crimes against humanity, was read aloud.

“Long live the nation!” Mr. Hussein shouted. “Long live the people! Long live the Palestinians!”

He continued shouting until the verdict was read in full, and then he composed himself again.

When he rose to be led back to the execution room at 6 a.m., he looked strong, confident and calm. Whatever apprehension he may have had only minutes earlier had faded.

The general prosecutor asked Mr. Hussein to whom he wanted to give his Koran. He said Bandar, the son of Awad al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court who was also to be executed soon.

The room was quiet as everyone began to pray, including Mr. Hussein. “Peace be upon Mohammed and his holy family.”

Two guards added, “Supporting his son Moktada, Moktada, Moktada.”

Mr. Hussein seemed a bit stunned, swinging his head in their direction.

They were talking about Moktada al-Sadr, the firebrand cleric whose militia is now committing some of the worst violence in the sectarian fighting; he is the son of a revered Shiite cleric, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, whom many believe Mr. Hussein ordered murdered.

“Moktada?” he spat out, mixing sarcasm and disbelief.

Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser, asked Mr. Hussein if he had any remorse or fear.

“No,” he said bluntly. “I am a militant and I have no fear for myself. I have spent my life in jihad and fighting aggression. Anyone who takes this route should not be afraid.”

Mr. Rubaie, standing shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Hussein, asked him about the killing of the elder Mr. Sadr.

They were standing so close to each other that others could not hear the exchange.

One of the guards, though, became angry. “You have destroyed us,” the masked man yelled. “You have killed us. You have made us live in destitution.”

Mr. Hussein was scornful: “I have saved you from destitution and misery and destroyed your enemies, the Persians and Americans.”

The guard cursed him. “God damn you.”

Mr. Hussein replied, “God damn you.”

Two witnesses, apparently uninvolved in selecting the guards, exchanged a quiet joke, saying they gathered that the goal of disbanding the militias had yet to be accomplished.

The deputy prosecutor, Mr. Faroun, berated the guards, saying, “I will not accept any offense directed at him.”

Mr. Hussein was led up to the gallows without a struggle. His hands were unbound, put behind his back, then fastened again. He showed no remorse. He held his head high.

The executioners offered him a hood. He refused. They explained that the thick rope could cut through his neck and offered to use the scarf he had worn earlier to keep that from happening. Mr. Hussein accepted.

He stood on the high platform, with a deep hole beneath it.

He said a last prayer. Then, with his eyes wide open, no stutter or choke in his throat, he said his final words cursing the Americans and the Persians.

At 6:10 a.m., the trapdoor swung open. He seemed to fall a good distance, but he died swiftly. After just a minute, his body was still. His eyes still were open but he was dead. Despite the scarf, the rope cut a gash into his neck.

His body stayed hanging for another nine minutes as those in attendance broke out in prayer, praising the Prophet, at the death of a dictator.

Ali Adeeb and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting from Baghdad.

    On the Gallows, Curses for U.S. and ‘Traitors’, NYT, 31.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/world/middleeast/31gallows.html?hp&ex=1167627600&en=9b617230ec600c9d&ei=5094&partner=homepage

News Analysis

Hussein Divides Iraq, Even in Death

December 31, 2006
The New York Times
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

BAGHDAD, Dec. 30 — Saddam Hussein was dead, but his legacy was more alive than ever.

As Iraqis across the country awoke to the news that the former dictator had been hanged, the bitter remains of his rule defined their responses.

For Shiites, long oppressed, it was a moment of intense release. “This chapter of Iraqi history is over,” said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the national security adviser, speaking on national television early Saturday. “Let us forget it and live with each other.”

Sunni Arabs were skeptical. After three years of grinding violence and abuses by the Shiite government security forces, trust has all but fallen away, and few feel genuinely represented by the government. Most, in fact, are afraid of it. “I’m not part of their world,” said Yusra Abdul Aziz, a teacher in the Sunni Arab enclave of Mansour. “They are not speaking about Iraq. They are speaking about themselves.”

Their reactions showed just how far Iraqis have drifted apart in the three years since Mr. Hussein’s capture. And while he has long faded from relevance in the life of everyday Iraq, in many ways, the country is living the legacy that he built.

The new Iraq appears capable of inflicting only more of the abuse it suffered for so long, perpetuating it with overwhelming brutality. People disappear in the night. Bodies with drill holes surface in trash heaps. Government forces moonlight as killing squads.

As vicious as he was, Mr. Hussein also held the country firmly together. Beyond military control, there was a subtle social glue: Iraqis of all sects loved to hate Saddam together. Now that he is gone, Shiites are afraid to joke with Sunnis about him, and Sunnis feel they are being blamed for his crimes.

Ahmed Hillu, a 32-year-old tailor, whose suits hung on the walls of his narrow shop in Sadr City like a mute chorus, recalled watching from a hiding spot in an empty area in northeastern Baghdad as elite members of Mr. Hussein’s government gunned down large groups of Shiite opposition members. He was 6 at the time.

That area, an old dam called Qasr Attash, is now one of the most common body-dumping grounds for Shiite militias.

Mr. Hussein spared almost no one in his murderous ways, but Shiites were particularly abused as a group. That systematic mistreatment seems to have left lasting scars that carry through to the current day, infusing neophyte leaders with an uncompromising and emotional approach to running things.

“When they put the rope on his neck, did he remember how many innocent people he killed?” said Husam Abdul Hussein Jasim, a watch store owner in Sadr City, whose wall was swinging with synchronized pendulums. “He’s like a Satan.”

Mr. Hillu, sitting behind a counter piled high with a television, plastic flowers and cellphone cards, said: “He didn’t represent anything for me. He was just a death grip imposed on our neck.”

Even though their oppressor had been hanged, Shiites in northeastern Baghdad were giving no parties. Blocks had none of their usual bustle. Even the office of the cleric Moktada al-Sadr was closed.

The response was markedly different than the reaction after the November verdict sentencing Mr. Hussein to death, when Silly String and sweets were plied in equal measure.

For some Iraqis, previous humiliations were enough to feel justice had been done. Smeisam, a teacher in the largely Shiite area of Binouk, said her mother, whose parents had been murdered by the government, said the moment of revenge came sweetly for her when she saw the footage of American soldiers pulling Mr. Hussein out of the spider hole near Tikrit in December 2003.

“It was when I saw him hidden just like a mouse,” she said by telephone, while assembling ingredients for dolma, rice-stuffed grape leaves, for her family’s holiday dinner.

Her husband, Mukaram, was completely unsentimental.

“Truly I feel nothing,” he said. “He executed so many people. Now it is his turn. For me he died when he was arrested, so he was not important at all.”

Indeed, the violence left behind has taken on a life of its own. In Kufa, a Shiite holy city south of Baghdad, a bomb in a fish market killed 34 people on Saturday, Iraqi authorities said, and a mob on the scene killed a man suspected to be the bomber. In the Hurriya district of Baghdad, a series of car bombs killed 36 people.

Depressing new realities did not dampen the Shiites’ joy, but they were still subdued in expressing it. Mr. Hillu, who lost two brothers to Mr. Hussein, said he brought boxes of cookies and chocolate to his neighbors in the morning, when he learned about the execution. A stranger brought free orange juice into his and other shops along his block.

Mr. Hussein’s execution took place early on a day that for Sunni Arabs was the beginning of the Id al-Adha holiday. (Shiites will begin celebrating on Sunday.) Mr. Hillu said the death “adds some more taste.”

If Shiites saw the hanging as a gift, most Sunnis were revolted that, in what appeared to be a violation of Iraqi law, the execution was scheduled on a holiday of forgiveness.

“Actually, I felt angry,” Ms. Abdul Aziz said. “It’s not a proper time. I assure you, those who are feeling that this is a good time and a good judgment, they are not Iraqis.”

Others, namely Kurds, opposed the quick hanging. Now, Mr. Hussein will not testify in other important genocide cases, especially the trial over the Anfal military campaign against the Kurds, in which he is accused of unleashing mass killings and chemical attacks that killed tens of thousands of villagers.

“The truth of what happened in al-Anfal has been buried,” said Abu Abdul Rahman, a 38-year-old Kurdish taxi driver. “What happened in al-Anfal? Who took part in it?”

Others were less bothered by the speed of his execution.

“I think it’s too strong to say that I’m cheated,” said Bakhtiyar Amin, a Kurd who is a former Iraqi minister of human rights. “He deserves what he got.”

The suffering Mr. Hussein inflicted was almost inconceivable, and it caused entire population shifts — of equal intensity but in opposite directions to moves taking place today.

At a bakery down the block from Mr. Hillu’s tailor shop, two Shiites, a man and his uncle, told their story of fighting against Mr. Hussein in the ill-fated Shiite uprising of 1991. In the southern city of Nasiriya, where they lived, they fought for 37 days, said Ali Muhammad, bouncing his nephew on his knee as workers holding large trays of cookies moved gracefully through the shop.

After it was over, 10 members of their family had been killed. Another eight, all members of the opposition Shiite Dawa Party, had been murdered by Mr. Hussein’s henchmen. The family fled to Baghdad and began working in a bakery in Sadr City, then called Saddam City. Now families follow some of the same patterns, only this time in reverse.

The bakery smelled of sesame. Almost everyone was smiling.

“I feel like my mother delivered me for the first time,” said Abdel Ali Jasim, Mr. Muhammad’s 46-year-old uncle. “It’s my birthday.”

But that area is Shiite, insulated from the outside by Shiite militias that are much more effective than government forces, and are sometimes a part of them, too. Life there flows somewhat more easily than in Sunni areas.

Still, car bombs regularly intercede, shattering the calm. In response, Iraqis of both sects attempt to draw circles around the chaos in their own minds. As a result, they tend to generalize about the other, coming up with conspiracy theories, to make the violence easier to explain and accept.

“If we got rid of the terrorists, there would be no country better than Iraq,” Mr. Jasim said. “It’s the non-Iraqis that are against the Shiites.”

Ms. Abdul Aziz, who refuses to state her sect, saying only that she is a Muslim, lives closer to the center of the war. Her area, Mansour, is one of the most heavily contested by the Shiite and Sunni militias now.

In September, her son Omar was shot and wounded, they think because of his name, which is Sunni. Her other son was detained by the police. She was able to secure his release because she spoke English and an American soldier agreed to help her find him. She has since moved one of them to Syria.

Mr. Hussein may be gone, but the fear that succeeded him is what defines her life today.

“Where can I live, if Baghdad is divided?” she said in English. “In the Shiite sector or Sunni sector?”

“I have to run away. It’s not a place to live in anymore.”

Wisam A. Habeeb contributed reporting.

    Hussein Divides Iraq, Even in Death, NYT, 31.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/world/middleeast/31voices.html?hp&ex=1167627600&en=4d2b4339ba96dcca&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bomb Kills 31, Wounds 58 in Iraqi Town

December 30, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:03 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A bomb planted on a minibus killed 31 people in a fish market in a mostly Shiite town south of Baghdad on Saturday, and the man blamed for parking the vehicle was cornered and killed by a mob as he walked away from the explosion.

There was no indication that the explosion, in Kufa, a Shiite town 100 miles south of the Iraqi capital, was related to the execution of Saddam Hussein. The attack came on the eve of when Iraq's Shiites begin celebrating Eid al-Adha, the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar. Shoppers had crowded the market to buy supplies for the four-day festival.

At least 58 people were wounded, said Issa Mohammed, director of the morgue in the neighboring town of Najaf.

Television footage showed hundreds of men in traditional Arab headdresses swarming around the vehicle's charred frame, toppled on its side in the street. Ambulances and fire trucks pulled up to the site, and a coffin could be seen being loaded onto the top of a car.

The U.S. military announced the deaths of three Marines and two soldiers, making December the year's deadliest month for U.S. troops in Iraq with the toll reaching 108.

The Marines, all assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5, died Thursday of wounds from fighting in western Anbar province, the U.S. military said. A soldier assigned to 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division and also died in combat in Anbar, and another was killed by a roadside bomb in northwest Baghdad, the military said.

Their deaths pushed the toll past the 105 U.S. service members killed in October. At least 2,997 members of the U.S. military have been killed since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an AP count.

Saddam was hanged early Saturday, after his conviction last month for crimes against humanity in connection with the 1982 killings of 148 Shiites. Despite concerns about a spike in unrest, Saturday's violence was not unusually high.

Curfews were enforced in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and in Samarra, both in the predominantly Sunni Salahuddin province north of Baghdad.

On Friday, a suicide bomber killed at least nine people near a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, and 32 tortured bodies were found across the country.

American troops killed six people and destroyed a weapons cache in separate raids Friday in Baghdad and northwest of the Iraqi capital, the U.S. military said. One of the raids targeted two buildings in the village of Thar Thar, where U.S. troops found 16 pounds of homemade explosives, two large bombs, a rocket-propelled grenade, suicide vests and multiple batteries, the military said.

Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops entered a mosque southeast of Baghdad, capturing 13 suspects and confiscating weapons, the U.S. military also said.

December was also shaping up to be one of the worst months for Iraqi civilian deaths since The Associated Press began keeping track in May 2005.

Through Thursday, at least 2,139 Iraqis have been killed in war-related or sectarian violence, an average rate of about 76 people a day, according to an AP count. That compares to at least 2,184 killed in November at an average of about 70 a day, the worst month for Iraqi civilians deaths since May 2005. In October, AP counted at least 1,216 civilians killed.

The AP count includes civilians, government officials and police and security forces, and is considered a minimum based on AP reporting. The actual number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported.

    Bomb Kills 31, Wounds 58 in Iraqi Town, NYT, 30.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html

Military Families Express Satisfaction and Skepticism at Hussein’s Death

December 30, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:38 a.m. ET
The New York Times

CHICAGO (AP) -- Stephanie Dostie says she thinks it's ironic that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was executed on the one-year anniversary of her husband's death. ''I think it was a very generous death for him,'' said Dostie, whose husband, Sgt. 1st Class Shawn Christopher Dostie, was killed in Iraq in a blast from an improvised explosive device on Dec. 30, 2005. ''He got his last prayer. He got his last meal.''

As word of Saddam's execution spread across the globe, soldiers and family members still grieving over the loss of relatives said they found little comfort in the death of the man the military once called High Value Target No. 1.

''Does it mean the mission is accomplished? Does it mean our soldiers can leave Iraq? Does it mean no more soldiers have to die?'' said Jane Bright of Los Angeles, whose son, Army Sgt. Evan Ashcraft, was killed in Iraq on July 24, 2003.

''I don't know what it accomplishes,'' she said. ''It has nothing to do with sympathy toward Saddam Hussein, I just don't understand where's the value in what we've done.''

Nancy Hollinsaid, 54, from Malden, Ill., knows Saddam's death will not bring back her son, Army Staff Sgt. Lincoln Hollinsaid, who was killed in a grenade attack early in the war.

Before Saddam's execution, Hollinsaid said she wanted to see the former Iraqi leader dead. Afterward, she said she hopes some good will come from his death.

''It's closure for a lot of people,'' she said. ''It maybe brings everyone a little closer to some kind of peace or relief.''

Soldiers and relatives of those killed in Iraq offered mixed assessments of what Saddam's death will mean for the future of the war and the Iraqi people.

''The court system in Iraq made its own decision. They are their own government now,'' said Capt. Mike Conner, 31, of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. ''It proves that they're capable of coming to their own judgment and upholding their own court ruling. We just stepped out of the way and let them do what they saw fit.''

Capt. Hiram Lewis, who served with the West Virginia National Guard's 111th Engineer Group in Iraq, said it's important that the sentence came from an Iraqi court, rather than from the U.S.

''I think, ultimately, justice was served,'' he said.

Saddam's death probably will not mean a quick end to the fighting in Iraq, said Maj. Antonio D. Vega, 45, of Gary, Ind.

''Like the president said when we started this, it's going to take a long road,'' he said. ''It probably means for the Iraqi people they can close this chapter and move on to a more democratic government.''

For some families of those who died in Iraq, Friday's execution helped quell their grief.

Martin Terrazas, whose son, Marine Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, was killed in Iraq in 2005, said it makes his loss a little easier to accept.

''It makes me feel good about it,'' Terrazas, of El Paso, Texas, said before the execution. ''I hope a lot of families get closure to their loss.''

Dostie said her two children, a 6-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son, watched television with her as word of Saddam's death spread.

''My son just said that he was glad that Saddam was gone,'' she said. ''They understand it and they feel justification behind it.''

Associated Press National Writer Adam Geller in New York and Associated Press writers Alicia Caldwell in El Paso, Texas and Erin Gartner in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.

    Military Families Express Satisfaction and Skepticism at Hussein’s Death, NYT, 30.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Saddam-Military-Families.html

Iraqi - Americans Cheer Saddam's Death

December 30, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:36 a.m. ET
The New York Times

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) -- With tears in his eyes and a grin on his face, 13-year-old Ali Al-Najjar watched his father celebrate the death of Saddam Hussein.

The Dearborn resident was emotional Friday night -- not only did his dream of the former Iraqi president's execution come true, but he said he was witnessing a rare occurrence.

''This is the first time I've seen my dad this happy,'' he said as he watched the crowd of about 200 Iraqi-Americans cheer outside a Detroit-area mosque as drivers honked horns in jubilation. ''I've been praying for this all my life.''

His father, Imam Husham Al-Husainy, the director of the Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center mosque, had gathered some of the men earlier in the night, praying for the death of the former Iraqi dictator.

The crowd swelled until the announcement of Saddam's execution rippled throughout the gathering, leading some to dance and sing and others to fall to their knees and cry. Many draped Iraqi and American flags on their heads, shoulders and car hoods.

Chants of ''Now there's peace, Saddam is dead'' in English and Arabic rang into the night.

''This is our celebration of the death of Saddam,'' said Al-Husainy while standing on top of a car following reports that Saddam had been hanged. ''The gift of our New Year is the murder of Saddam Hussein.

''If you want to share the Iraqi people's happiness for the death of Saddam, raise your voice and your hands.''

The crowd responded with resounding cheers.

The Detroit area contains one of the nation's largest concentrations of people with roots in the Middle East, including an Iraqi community of Chaldeans, who are Catholic, Arabs and Kurds. Many from Iraq fled their homeland during the rule of Saddam.

In Dearborn, Dave Alwatan was among those who gathered at the Karbalaa center. He wore an Iraqi flag around his shoulders and grinned. He flashed a peace sign at everyone he passed.

''Peace,'' he said, smiling and laughing. ''Now there will be peace for my family.''

Alwatan, 32, an Iraqi-American, said Saddam's forces tortured and killed family members that were left behind when he left Iraq in 1991.

Others expressed a similar sense of relief.

''I feel like I lost something all my life and today it is found,'' said Moshtaq al-Bazaz, of Windsor, Ontario, who used to live in Dearborn and still prays at the mosque.

Some local Arab-American leaders predicted that Saddam's execution will increase violence overseas and leave the Iraqi people unsettled.

Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News and chairman of several local Arab-American groups, said Saddam's death sentence is one more casualty in a war that has killed thousands, and it will not solve the power struggle among Iraqi religious groups.

''The execution might bring some amusement and accomplishment to the Bush administration, but it will not help the Iraqi people,'' Siblani said.

Edward Odisho, 68, an Iraqi refugee since 1981 who now lives in Morton Grove, Ill., said it will take time for Iraqis to recover from Saddam's reign.

''It will take one to two generations to eradicate the garbage left over from Saddam Hussein and to re-establish a healthy generation,'' said Odisho, a linguistics professor at Northeastern Illinois University.

Rauf Naqishbendi, 53, an Iraqi Kurd from Halabja who now lives a few miles south of San Francisco moved to the U.S. in 1977.

Naqishbendi said he was pleased that Saddam was being executed, but lamented that it will not bring back family members who he said were gassed by the dictator's henchman in 1988.

''Psychologically the execution is good news, and people will feel that justice has been served,'' he said. ''But the reality is that it's not going to bring back my family members who he killed.''

Associated Press writers David Runk in Detroit, Carla K. Johnson in Chicago and Jason Dearen in San Francisco contributed to this report.

    Iraqi - Americans Cheer Saddam's Death, NYT, 30.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraqi-Reaction.html

U.S. soldier killed in Baghdad, 3,000 mark nearing

Sat Dec 30, 2006 1:17 AM ET
Reuters



BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Friday, the U.S. military said on Saturday, bringing the number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq since the beginning of the war to at least 2,996.

Earlier, the U.S. military reported the deaths of three U.S. marines from wounds suffered in combat in Iraq's western Anbar province.

(Editing by Richard Williams)

    U.S. soldier killed in Baghdad, 3,000 mark nearing, R, 30.12.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-12-30T061719Z_01_IBO021942_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-USA-SOLDIER.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L3-Top+NewsNews-3

 

This file photo shows former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
during his trial in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone on April 5.

By David Furst, AFP/Getty Images

Former dictator's dream was to unite all Arabs

Updated 12/30/2006 1:12 AM ET
USA Today
By Barbara Slavin

Saddam Hussein, 69, was the Middle East's most feared dictator, a dreamer who vowed to unite all Arabs as the "Lion of Babylon," and the loser of three major wars.

"He wanted to take Iraq into the 20th century. But if that meant eliminating 50% of the population of Iraq, he was willing to do it," biographer Said Aburish once told PBS Frontline.

Saddam ruled Iraq from 1979 until U.S.-led forces overthrew him in 2003. He sought to become the undisputed leader of the Middle East — an epic figure like the biblical conqueror Nebuchadnezzar or the medieval Saladin. He admired and studied Josef Stalin, building a cult of personality, assembling a brutal police state and tailoring it for Iraq's tribal and clan-centered society.

"Don't get rid of Abdullah, get rid of his whole family, because one member of his family might assassinate us," Aburish quoted the Iraqi dictator as saying.

Saddam started two conflicts that ruined his country — the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war and 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War — and gave orders that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Iranians, Kuwaitis and others.

The bloody course he charted contributed to the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq in March 2003. President Bush and his aides argued, mistakenly it later turned out, that Saddam had hidden, attempted to buy, or tried to rebuild nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. They also asserted that the Iraqi dictator had links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror organizations, though links were never proven.

Nearly 3,000 American troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in the current conflict. Its effects have rippled through the region, contributing in some measure to an emboldened hard-line regime in Iran, civil strife in Lebanon and near civil war in the Palestinian territories.

"Everything we see today is in a sense, a function of his idiotic decisions, his megalomania and cruelty," said Rashid Khalidi, director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University.

Iraqi Shiites, a majority long persecuted by Saddam, himself a Sunni Muslim, celebrated his demise even before the hanging. In a sermon Friday, Sheik Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, called the execution "God's gift to Iraqis."

"Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done! He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighboring countries and he is responsible for mass graves. Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam," Qubanji said.

Iraq's minority Sunnis, the country's traditional elite, had a different view. "The Sunnis see this as yet another example of how they have lost power," said Kenneth Katzman, an Iraq expert at the Congressional Research Service. He predicted a new spike in violence, led by Sunni insurgents.

Other experts said Saddam had lost most of his relevance to Iraq during his three-year captivity.

"He won't be mourned so much as used," said Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "In many ways, he is already yesterday's man."

The last of a generation of secular dictators who seized power in the Middle East after the fall of Western-backed monarchies, Saddam sought to portray himself as a martyr and victim of Iraq's still-evolving system of justice.

Yet while in power, he dispatched his enemies in mass killings and summary executions that were stunning in their brutality, going so far as to demand that the relatives of those he killed pay for the bullets used to kill them, said Joseph Wilson, the last U.S. diplomat to serve in Baghdad under Saddam's rule.

Wilson lived in Iraq from 1988 to 1991 and met Saddam several times. He later challenged the Bush administration's case for war — and accused it of deliberately leaking word that his wife was a CIA officer — but his view of Saddam was chilling.

"He was a sociopath," Wilson said. "He always said you had to rule Iraq with an iron fist and he certainly did that."

Biographers such as Phebe Marr attributed Saddam's cruelty to his difficult upbringing and the violent history of his country.

He was born on April 28, 1937, in a mud hut near the village of Tikrit, about 100 miles north of Baghdad. Saddam never knew his father, who died or abandoned the family. One brother also died and Saddam's mother was in such a state of depression that she contemplated aborting Saddam, according to the Israeli scholar of Iraq, Amatzia Baram.

Saddam's mother remarried a man so brutal that Saddam fled Tikrit to live with his maternal uncle, Khayrallah Tulfah, a schoolteacher in Baghdad. There he imbibed his uncle's hatred for the British, who then controlled Iraq's monarchy, and for the new Jewish state of Israel. As ruler of Iraq, Saddam reprinted one of his uncle's political pamphlets: "Three Whom God Should Not Have Created: Persians, Jews and Flies."

Marr and others wrote that Saddam committed his first murder while still in his teens, assassinating a Communist supporter of Gen. Abdul Karim Qassim, the officer who led a 1958 coup that overthrew the Iraqi monarchy. The killing displayed Saddam's lack of family feeling; the victim was also his brother-in-law. (Saddam later ordered the execution of his two sons-in-law in after they had defected to Jordan and, believing his false promises of safety, returned to Baghdad.)

In 1957, Saddam joined the Baath party, a movement that had been founded in Syria in the 1940s. It combined elements of socialism, fascism and pan-Arab nationalism.

In Baathism, Saddam found "an ideology that both justified his violent hatreds and harmonized his inner turmoil," according to Tahseen Bashir, a late Egyptian diplomat.

Two years later, Saddam was part of a hit squad that tried to assassinate Qassim. The plot failed and a wounded Saddam escaped to Egypt. The four years he spent there in exile were the only sustained period he would spend outside Iraq in his life.

Saddam returned to Baghdad and spent a decade as second-in-command to Iraq's nominal leader, Gen. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, a distant relative. Saddam became the regime enforcer, crafting the Arab world's most feared secret police force, Khalidi said.

Saddam's emergence as the real power in Iraq became clear in 1979 at a meeting of senior Baathist officials. The meeting was called so one of the officials could "confess" to plotting a coup against the new government. After the confession, Saddam lit a cigar and between puffs, read the names of 20 other party officials who were asked to stand and leave the room. The 21 officials were later killed. The incident was videotaped and circulated widely, said Peter Sluglett, an Iraq expert at the University of Utah.

Unchallenged at home, Saddam built a cult of personality with few parallels. Giant portraits and statues filled every public square, portraying him as a soldier, statesman and scholar. On one of his birthdays in the 1980s, Baghdad residents woke to see giant helium-filled balloons painted to resemble Saddam's mustachioed face grinning down from skies over the capital.

Saddam also instituted social policies that for a time, made Iraq relatively prosperous. Iraq developed an educational system and a modern infrastructure of roads and utilities that were the envy of the Arab world. Women were also among the most liberated in the region.

But in 1980, Saddam committed the first of two major blunders. Tempted by chaos in Iran, which had just gone through an Islamic revolution, he sent Iraq's army into Iran's oil-rich province of Khuzistan.

Two years later, the Iranians succeeded in expelling the Iraqi invaders. Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini prolonged the conflict in hopes of overthrowing Saddam and installing an Islamic republic governed by Iraq's majority Shiites. The war killed or wounded an estimated one million Iraqis and Iranians.

The war was also a opportunity for Iraq to improve ties with the West. The United States, which had broken relations with Iraq because of it's support for Palestinian terrorists, put an embassy back in Baghdad and sent Donald Rumsfeld to meet Saddam in 1983 to offer strategic cooperation. The U.S. provided satellite photos and other intelligence that enabled Iraq to survive repeated human-wave attacks by the Iranians. The U.S. and Germany also helped Saddam obtain chemical agents that he used against the Iranians and, at the end of the war, against rebellious Iraqi Kurds.

In August 1990, Saddam invaded Kuwait, seeking new oil fields in what he saw as his reward for defending the Arab nations of the Persian Gulf from the Iranian revolution.

Wilson, who met with Saddam four days after Iraq had overrun Kuwait, said the Iraqi leader believed he would have U.S. support for the invasion, just as he had had for the Iran-Iraq war.

"He offered us a deal," Wilson said. "He said, 'I'll serve as the policeman of the Gulf, I won't invade Saudi Arabia and I'll give you all the oil you want at a good price.' "

The first Bush administration rejected the deal and assembled a multinational coalition that expelled Iraq from Kuwait but left Saddam in power. United Nations economic sanctions and U.S.-patrolled "no fly zones" over northern and southern Iraq kept Saddam in check for the next decade.

In the early 1990s, U.N. arms inspectors discovered and destroyed Saddam's arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological arms and equipment, but were never able to declare definitively that they had found all of them.

In 1998, Saddam expelled the inspectors and the Clinton administration bombed Iraq. Concerns rose that Saddam was rebuilding weapons programs using the proceeds from oil smuggling and kickbacks from a U.N. program that allowed Iraq to sell oil and buy food and other necessities.

In fact, Saddam had not reconstituted the programs. Sluglett, author of the book, Iraq since 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship, said it is possible that Saddam did not know himself that the weapons were gone.

"I don't think anybody could really talk to him," Sluglett said. "With a man like that, you don't want to be the bearer of bad news."

The Bush administration began its 2003 invasion with airstrikes that it hoped would assassinate Saddam. He survived but was captured near Tikrit by U.S. forces on Dec. 13, 2003. They found him, bearded and disheveled, hiding in a hole beside a hut similar to the one in which he was born.

Despite his ignominious end, Katzman said Saddam will be remembered as the "most consequential leader" in the modern Middle East, exceeding even Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini.

Like Stalin, Saddam served U.S. interests at times and used fear to keep together a country that is now spiraling out of control. He did so at a huge cost in treasure and lives.

"For different people, Saddam will have different legacies," said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. For the West, he will be seen as "another 20th-century tyrant." For much of the Arab world, he will be seen "more favorably because of the nature of his country and the challenge posed by Iran."

Contributing: The Associated Press

    Former dictator's dream was to unite all Arabs, UT, 30.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-12-29-saddam-obit_x.htm

The Defiant Despot Oppressed Iraq for More Than 30 Years

December 30, 2006
The New York Times
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

The hanging of Saddam Hussein ended the life of one of the most brutal tyrants in recent history and negated the fiction that he himself maintained even as the gallows loomed — that he remained president of Iraq despite being toppled by the United States military and that his power and his palaces would be restored to him in time.

The despot, known as Saddam, had oppressed Iraq for more than 30 years, unleashing devastating regional wars and reducing his once promising, oil-rich nation to a claustrophobic police state.

For decades, it had seemed that his unflinching hold on Iraq would endure, particularly after he lasted through disastrous military adventures against first Iran and then Kuwait, where an American-led coalition routed his unexpectedly timid military in 1991.

His own conviction that he was destined by God to rule Iraq forever was such that he refused to accept that he would be overthrown in April 2003, even as American tanks penetrated the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in a war that has become a bitterly contentious, bloody occupation.

After eluding capture for eight months, Mr. Hussein became the American military’s High Value Detainee No. 1. But he heaped scorn on the Iraqi judge who referred to him as the “former” president after asking him to identify himself on the first day of his trial for crimes against humanity, which ultimately lead to his execution.

“I didn’t say ‘former president,’ I said ‘president,’ and I have rights according to the Constitution, among them immunity from prosecution,” he growled from the docket. The outburst underscored the boundless egotism and self-delusion of a man who fostered such a fierce personality cult during the decades that he ran the Middle Eastern nation that joking about him or criticizing him in public could bring a death sentence.

If a man’s life can be boiled down to one physical mark, Mr. Hussein’s right wrist was tattooed with a line of three dark blue dots, commonly given to children in rural, tribal areas. Some urbanized Iraqis removed or at least bleached theirs, but Mr. Hussein’s former confidants told The Atlantic Monthly that he never disguised his.

Ultimately, underneath all the socialist oratory, underneath the Koranic references, the tailored suits and the invocations of Iraq’s glorious history, Mr. Hussein held onto the ethos of a village peasant who believed that the strongman was everything. He was trying to be a tribal leader on a grand scale. His rule was paramount, and sustaining it was his main goal behind all the talk of developing Iraq by harnessing its considerable wealth and manpower.

Mosques, airports, neighborhoods and entire cities were named after him. A military arch erected in Baghdad in 1989 was modeled on his forearms and then enlarged 40 times to hold two giant crossed swords. In school, pupils learned songs with lyrics like “Saddam, oh Saddam, you carry the nation’s dawn in your eyes.”

The entertainment at public events often consisted of outpourings of praise for Mr. Hussein. At the January 2003 inauguration of a recreational lake in Baghdad, poets spouted spontaneous verse and the official translators struggled to keep up with lines like, “We will stimulate ourselves by saying your name, Saddam Hussein, when we say Saddam Hussein, we stimulate ourselves.”

While Mr. Hussein was in power, his statue guarded the entrance to every village, his portrait watched over each government office and he peered down from at least one wall in every home. His picture was so widespread that a joke quietly circulating among his detractors in 1988 put the country’s population at 34 million — 17 million people and 17 million portraits of Saddam.

Battles and Bloodshed

Throughout his rule, he unsettled the ranks of the Baath Party with bloody purges and packed his jails with political prisoners to defuse real or imagined plots. In one of his most brutal acts, he rained poison gas on the northern Kurdish village of Halabja in 1988, killing an estimated 5,000 of his own citizens suspected of being disloyal and wounding 10,000 more.

Even at the end, he showed no remorse. When four Iraqi politicians visited him after his capture in December 2003, they asked about his more brutal acts. He called the Halabja attack Iran’s handiwork; he said that Kuwait was rightfully part of Iraq and that the mass graves were filled with thieves who fled the battlefields, according to Adnan Pachachi, a former Iraqi foreign minister. Mr. Hussein declared that he had been “just but firm” because Iraqis needed a tough ruler, Mr. Pachachi said.

It was a favorite theme, one even espoused in a novel attributed to Mr. Hussein called “Zabibah and the King.”

At one point, the king asks the comely Zabibah whether the people needed strict measures from their leader. “Yes, Your Majesty,” Zabibah replies. “The people need strict measures so that they can feel protected by this strictness.”

Aside from his secret police, he held power by filling the government’s upper ranks with members of his extended clan. Their Corleone-like feuds became the stuff of gory public soap operas. Mr. Hussein once sentenced his elder son, Uday, to be executed after he beat Mr. Hussein’s food taster to death in front of scores of horrified party guests, but later rescinded the order. The husbands of his two eldest daughters, whom he had promoted to important military positions, were gunned down after they defected and then inexplicably returned to Iraq.

Continual wars sapped Iraq’s wealth and decimated its people. In 1980, Mr. Hussein dragged his country into a disastrous attempt to overthrow the new Islamic government in neighboring Iran. By the time the war ended in stalemate in 1988, more than 200,000 Iraqis were dead and hundreds of thousands more wounded. Iran suffered a similar toll. Iraq’s staggering war debt, pegged around $70 billion, soon had wealthy Arab neighbors demanding repayment. Enraged, he invaded Kuwait in August 1990, only to be expelled by an American-led coalition in the Persian Gulf war seven months later.

Yet in the language of his Orwellian government, Mr. Hussein never suffered a setback. After the gulf war ended with the deaths of an estimated 150,000 Iraqis, he called “the Mother of All Battles” his biggest victory and maintained that Iraq had actually repulsed an American attack.

“Iraq has punched a hole in the myth of American superiority and rubbed the nose of the United States in the dust,” Mr. Hussein said.

His defeat in Kuwait, followed by more than a decade of tense confrontations with the West over his suspected weapons programs, ultimately led to his overthrow. The extended bloodbath that followed the invasion, with the monthly death toll of Iraqi civilians estimated roughly at 3,000 by the end of 2006, made some nostalgic for even the oppressive days of Mr. Hussein, when public security was not an issue. His repressive ways were credited with keeping the fractious population of 26 million — including 20 percent Sunni Muslims, who dominated; 55 percent Shiite Muslims; 20 percent Kurds plus several tiny minorities including Christians — from shattering along ethnic lines.

The Pathway to Politics

Saddam Hussein was born on April 28, 1937, in a mud hut on stilts near the banks of the Tigris River near the village of Tikrit, 100 miles northwest of Baghdad. He was raised by a clan of landless peasants, his father apparently deserting his mother before his birth. (Government accounts said the father died.)

“His birth was not a joyful occasion, and no roses or aromatic plants bedecked his cradle,” his official biographer, Amir Iskander, wrote in “Saddam Hussein, the Fighter, the Thinker and the Man,” published in 1981.

Mr. Hussein told his biographer that he did not miss his father growing up in an extended clan. But persistent stories suggest that Mr. Hussein’s stepfather delighted in humiliating the boy and forced him to tend sheep. Eventually, he ran away to live with relatives who would let him go to school.

Mr. Hussein’s first role in the rough world of Iraqi politics came in 1959, at age 22, when the Baath Party assigned him and nine others to assassinate Abdul Karim Kassem, the despotic general ruling Iraq. Violence was a quick way for a young man who grew up fatherless in an impoverished village to get ahead; bloodshed became the major theme of his life.

During the failed assassination, Mr. Hussein suffered a bullet wound to the leg. The official version portrayed him as a hero who dug the bullet out with a penknife, while the other version suggests that the plot failed because he opened fire prematurely.

He sought asylum in Egypt, where President Gamal Abdel Nasser nurtured the region’s revolutionary movements. Soon after returning to Iraq, Mr. Hussein married his first cousin and the daughter of his political mentor, Sajida Khairallah Tulfah, on May 5, 1963. The couple had two sons, Uday and Qusay, and three daughters, Raghad, Rana and Hala. He had mistresses, including prominent Iraqi women, but never flaunted them.

His wife, three daughters and roughly a dozen grandchildren survive him. Uday and Qusay, along with Qusay’s teenage son, Mustapha, died in July 2003 during a gun battle with American forces in a villa in the northern city of Mosul. Denounced by an informant, they had been the two most wanted men in Iraq after their father.

The first years of Saddam Hussein’s marriage coincided with political tumult in Iraq, with at least six coups or attempted revolts erupting between the assassination of King Faisal II in 1958 and the July 1968 putsch that brought the Baath Party to power.

Mr. Hussein’s main role while still in his early 30s was organizing the party’s militia, the seed of the dreaded security apparatus. By November 1969, he had eliminated rivals and dissidents to the extent that President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr appointed him vice president and deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, as the cabinet was known. Mr. Hussein remained head of the intelligence and internal security agencies, in effect controlling Iraq.

The Arab Baath Socialist Party, whose name means “renaissance” in Arabic, had been formed in the 1930s to push a secular, socialist creed as the ideal path to achieving Arab unity. But that dogma proved a sinister excuse for the imprisonment, exile or execution of all potential rivals.

No other Arab despot matched the savagery of Mr. Hussein as he went about bending all state institutions to his whim. His opening act, in January 1969, was hanging around 17 so-called spies for Israel in a downtown Baghdad square. Hundreds of arrests and executions followed as the civilian wing of the Baath Party gradually eclipsed the Iraqi military.

Mr. Hussein staged perhaps his most macabre purge in 1979, when at age 42 he consolidated his hold on Iraq. Having pushed aside President Bakr, he called a gathering of several hundred top Baathists.

One senior official stepped forward to confess to having been part of a widespread plot to allow a Syrian takeover. After guards dragged the man away, Mr. Hussein took to the podium, weeping at first as he began reading a list of dozens implicated. Guards dragged away each of the accused. Mr. Hussein paused from reading occasionally to light his cigar, while the room erupted in almost hysterical chanting demanding death to traitors. The entire dark spectacle, designed to leave no doubt as to who controlled Iraq, was filmed and copies distributed around the country.

Firing squads consisting of cabinet members and other top officials initially gunned down 21 men, including five ministers. Iraq’s state radio said the officials executed their colleagues while “cheering for the long life of the Party, the Revolution and the Leader, President, Struggler, Saddam Hussein.”

Mr. Hussein invariably ensured that those around him were complicit in his bloody acts, which he masqueraded as patriotism, making certain that there would be no guiltless figure to rally opposition.

In an authoritative account of Mr. Hussein’s government called “The Republic of Fear,” the self-exiled Iraqi architect Kenaan Makiya (writing under the pseudonym Samir al-Khalil) estimated that at least 500 people died in the purge that consolidated Mr. Hussein’s power.

Mr. Hussein’s titles reflected his status as an absolute ruler modeled after one of his heroes, Josef Stalin of the former Soviet Union. They included president of the republic, commander in chief of the armed forces, field marshal and prime minister. In addition, the state-owned news media referred to him repeatedly as the Struggler, the Standard Bearer, the Knight of the Arab Nation and the Sword of the Arabs.

Mr. Hussein saw his first opportunity for Iraq to dominate the region in the turmoil that swept neighboring Iran immediately after its 1979 Islamic revolution. In September 1980, Mr. Hussein believed that by invading Iran he could both seize a disputed waterway along the border and inspire Iranians of Arab origin to revolt against their Persian rulers. Instead, they resisted fanatically. Mr. Hussein never acknowledged making a gross miscalculation; rather, he vilified the Iranian Arabs as traitors to the Arab cause.

Iraq fared badly in the war, not least because Mr. Hussein interfered in the battle plans despite a complete lack of military training, even issuing orders based on dreams. When strategies urged by Mr. Hussein failed, he often accused the commanders of betrayal, cowardice and incompetence and had them executed.

The Field Marshal

Mr. Hussein adored the macho trappings of the armed forces, appointing himself field marshal and dressing his ministers in olive-green fatigues. If he was a poor military strategist, he was fortunate in his first choice of enemy. The fear that an Islamic revolution would spread to an oil producer with estimated reserves second only to Saudi Arabia tipped the United States and its allies toward Baghdad and they provided weapons, technology and, most important, secret satellite images of Iran’s military positions and intercepted communications.

The war lasted for eight years until Iran accepted a cease-fire in July 1988, with both sides terrorizing each other’s civilian populations by rocketing major cities. But the March 1988 mustard gas attack on the Iraqi village of Halabja by its own government was perhaps the most gruesome incident.

Mr. Hussein waged war while investing in massive development that markedly improved daily life. Rural villages were electrified and linked by modern highways. Iraq boasted some of the best universities and hospitals in the Arab world — all free. Its painters, musicians and other artists, helped by government subsidies, were also the most accomplished in the region. Mr. Hussein had his own development methods. Anyone who avoided mandatory adult literacy classes in rural areas faced three years in jail.

Official corruption was unknown in Iraq in the 1980s, and religious worship somewhat free. Mr. Hussein occasionally took populist measures to underscore the importance of the public welfare. Once, for example, he decided that his ministers were too fat and he demanded that they diet, publishing their real weights and their target weights in the news media. Mr. Hussein’s own weight could fluctuate from chubby to relatively trim, although well tailored suits hid his paunch. Around six feet tall, he was stocky and wore a trademark moustache.

In keeping with a ruler who used violence to achieve and sustain power, Mr. Hussein’s most widespread investments were in his military. He ended the Iran-Iraq war with one million men under arms.

By then Iraq had embarked on extensive projects to acquire a homegrown arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Iraq had also become a regional power, and Mr. Hussein expected to dominate the Arab world. In March 1990, he threatened to “burn half of Israel” if it ever acted against Iraq, even though the Israeli Air Force had humiliated the Iraqi leader by destroying his country’s nuclear research center at Osirik in June 1981.

Mr. Hussein’s next target was another neighbor, Kuwait, which Iraq had long considered part of Iraq and coveted for its deep-water port. On Aug. 2, 1990, his army swiftly occupied the tiny, immensely wealthy emirate, provoking an international crisis. Mr. Hussein declared the country Iraq’s 19th province, installing a puppet government. Saudi Arabia and other conservative Arab states were shaken and outraged, while the United States and other Western countries feared for the oil fields ringing the Persian Gulf. The United Nations imposed a trade embargo and economic sanctions.

The United States and eventually 33 other nations deployed forces to the region and warned of a wider war if Mr. Hussein did not withdraw. He held onto Kuwait despite repeated threats from the United States, which dominated the military coalition by dispatching some 500,000 American soldiers. Mr. Hussein portrayed the invasion as the start of an Islamic holy war to liberate Jerusalem. He declared that the “throne dwarfs” of the gulf must be overthrown so their wealth could finance the Arab cause.

His public aims resonated among many Arabs in Jordan, Yemen and elsewhere, particularly because the brutality of Mr. Hussein’s government had never been detailed by the state-controlled media of other Arab states. In addition, Mr. Hussein’s Scud missiles crashing into Tel Aviv, however ineffective, created a stir in the Arab world.

Washington and its coalition allies hoped that the war would bring Mr. Hussein’s downfall. Even before the war ended, President George H. W. Bush encouraged the Iraqi people to overthrow him, but there was no coherent plan. The ground offensive against Iraq ended after 100 hours, partly out of concern that American troops not occupy an Arab capital, partly because Arab allies feared the disintegration of Iraq and partly because a “100-hour war” made a good sound bite. Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense, warned that sending American forces to Baghdad would get them stuck in a “quagmire.”

This decision enabled much of the elite Republican Guard to escape with minimal losses. The first Bush administration did little to support Shiite and Kurdish uprisings that erupted immediately after the war. Mr. Hussein crushed them.

Oil, Food and Weapons

For the next decade, Mr. Hussein repeatedly brought Iraq to the brink of renewed warfare by refusing United Nations weapons inspectors the access required to catalog and destroy Iraq’s arsenal of unconventional weapons, as specified in the cease-fire agreement.

The United Nations maintained strict economic sanctions against Iraq until 1996, when some oil exports were allowed to pay for food, medicine and war reparations. The sanctions, devastating to Iraqis, proved a boon to Mr. Hussein and his subordinates. The Government Accountability Office in the United States Congress estimated that the Iraqi leader siphoned at least $10 billion from the program by making oil trades off the books and demanding kickbacks.

Still, in an effort to end sanctions, Baghdad over the years offered at least five “full, final and complete” weapons disclosures, which the United Nations dismissed as incomplete. Some of the most extensive revelations emerged after the astonishing August 1995 defection of Mr. Hussein’s two sons-in-law and his two eldest daughters to Jordan. The Iraqi government was apparently worried that Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel al-Majid, a son-in-law and the minister in charge of weapons development, would disclose all that he knew. Six months later, the general and his brother abruptly declared they had accepted amnesty and returned. Within days, Mr. Hussein’s daughters divorced them, and they died in a violent shootout.

Although family feuds often descended into bloodshed, Mr. Hussein tried to maintain strict control of his own image. He dyed his hair black and refused to wear his reading glasses in public, according to interviews with exiles published in The Atlantic Monthly in March 2002. Because a slipped disc caused him to limp slightly, he was never filmed walking more than a few steps. Each of his 20 palaces was kept fully staffed, with meals prepared daily as if he were in residence to disguise his whereabouts. Delicacies like imported lobster were first dispatched to nuclear scientists to be tested for radiation and poison.

His wine of choice was Portuguese, Mateus Rosé, but he never drank in public to maintain the conceit that he was a strict Muslim. He even had genealogists draw a family tree that linked him to Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad.

He kept an immaculate desk, with reports from all the ministries neatly stacked. He usually read only the executive summaries, but would occasionally dig deeper and always complained that he was being deceived. He often was, with even his son Qusay telling military commanders to lie if Mr. Hussein thought something had been accomplished that was not.

He was particularly phobic about germs. Even top generals summoned to meet him were often ordered to strip to their underwear and their clothes were then washed, ironed and X-rayed before they could get dressed to see him. Mr. Hussein’s American jailers reported that he tried to maintain those precautions, using baby wipes to clean meal trays, his table and utensils before eating.

Rarely traveling abroad, and surrounded by often uneducated cousins, he had a limited worldview. He once reacted with wonder when an American reporter told him that the United States had no law against insulting the president. Former officials portrayed him as a vain, paranoid loner who no longer believed he was a normal person and considered compromise a sign of weakness.

Saad al-Bazzaz, an Iraqi writer and editor, said that Mr. Hussein, having risen so far beyond the village and cheated death so often, believed that God anointed him.

Mr. Bazzaz told The Atlantic that even Mr. Hussein’s speeches echoed Koranic texts. “In the Koran, Allah says, ‘If you thank me, I will give you more,’ ” Mr. Bazzaz said. “In the early ’90s, Saddam was on TV, presenting awards to military officers, and he said, ‘If you thank me, I will give you more.’ ”

Controlling a Nation

Iraq under Mr. Hussein had a stifled quality. Imprisonment, torture, mutilation and execution were frequent occurrences, at least for those who chose to dabble in anything vaguely political. Simple information like the weather report was classified. There was no freedom of expression — even foreign newspapers were banned — and no freedom to travel. Contact with foreigners was proscribed.

There were widespread reports that Mr. Hussein himself periodically carried out the torture or even execution of those he felt had crossed him. In the summer of 1982, for example, Riyadh Ibrahim Hussein, the health minister, suggested during a cabinet meeting that Mr. Hussein step down to ease the negotiation of a cease-fire with Iran. Mr. Hussein recommended that the two retire to another room to discuss the proposal. When they did, a shot rang out. Mr. Hussein returned to the cabinet meeting alone, although in later interviews he denied killing anyone. The minister’s widow was sent his dismembered corpse.

While assassinating Shiite Muslim religious leaders who opposed him, Mr. Hussein ordered mosques constructed around Baghdad on a scale not seen since it was the medieval capital of the Muslim caliphate. Perhaps the most striking was the Mother of All Battles mosque completed in 2001, the 10th anniversary of the Persian Gulf war. The minarets resembled Scud missiles, and the mosque held a Koran written with 28 gradually donated liters of Mr. Hussein’s blood.

Evidence from inside Iraq after the invasion confirmed what United Nations weapons inspectors anticipated before — that Mr. Hussein abandoned the attempt to develop nuclear, biological and chemical weapons after his 1991 defeat. Orders from Mr. Hussein to destroy vestiges of the program, interpreted before the 2003 invasion as an attempt to hide their development, turned out to be an effort to comply with the ban.

The fatal controversy over whether Iraq was still developing unconventional weapons stemmed in part from Mr. Hussein’s desire to convince different audiences of different things, a postwar study by the Defense Department concluded. He wanted the West to believe that he had abandoned the program, which he had. Yet he also wanted to instill fear in enemies like Iran and Israel, plus maintain the esteem of Arabs, by claiming that he possessed the weapons.

Some Bush administration critics argued that the accusations over unconventional weapons were a smoke screen, that government hawks were determined to topple Mr. Hussein as a way of reasserting American power. Richard Clarke, a former national security adviser to three presidents, described in his 2004 book “Against All Enemies” the scene in the White House in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against the United States, with President Bush and other senior officials trying to link Mr. Hussein directly to Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden’s organization. No such link was ever established.

Just before the invasion, Mr. Hussein, cigar in hand, appeared on television almost nightly, belittling American forces to small groups of Republican Guard commanders.

Yet his main concern was preserving his government, which the United States military discovered in interviews with his captured aides. Some of the unclassified results were published in a 2006 article in Foreign Affairs titled “Saddam’s Delusions: The View From the Inside.”

By 2003, Iraq’s military was anemic, weakened by sanctions and constant changes in command, not to mention the fact that Mr. Hussein, suspicious of coup attempts, barred any rigorous maneuvers and repeatedly created new popular militias. Commanders also constantly lied to him about their state of preparedness. The United States report quoted Mr. Hussein’s personal interpreter as saying that the president thought that his “superior” forces would put up a “heroic resistance and inflict such enormous losses on the Americans that they would stop their advance.”

Mr. Hussein cited both Vietnam and the hasty American withdrawal from Somalia in 1994 as evidence, and did not take the threat of regime change seriously. He so much believed his own publicity about his success in fighting the first gulf war that he used it as a blueprint for the second. Hence, his main worry during the invasion was to avoid repeating the Shiite and Kurdish internal rebellions of 1991. He did not blow up the bridges over the Tigris and Euphrates to slow the American advance, for example, out of concern that he would need to rush troops south to quell any uprising.

The war plan as described in the 2006 book “Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq” states that while Republican Guard troops were supposed to seal off the approaches to Baghdad, only the Special Republican Guard was permitted inside the capital, again as insurance against a coup. The collapse came so quickly that Mr. Hussein was still issuing orders to units that had ceased to exist.

After an April 9 sighting in public, he disappeared, apparently using up to 30 hiding places and the aid of loyal tribesmen to escape capture despite a $25 million reward. He often traveled as he had during the first gulf war, in a battered orange and white Baghdad taxi. He issued periodic messages encouraging the insurgency.

In a letter dated April 28 that was faxed to Al Quds al Arabi, an Arabic newspaper published in London, he blamed traitors for his ouster and urged Iraqis to rebel. “There are no priorities greater than expelling the infidel, criminal, cowardly occupier,” he wrote.

A Leader’s Legacy

In December 2003, his location was divulged by a clan member captured in a raid on a Baghdad house. Less than 11 hours later, 600 American soldiers and Special Operations forces supported by tanks, artillery and Apache helicopter gunships surrounded two farmhouses near the banks of the Tigris in Ad Dwar, a village about nine miles southeast of Tikrit, the tribal seat. The soldiers — no Iraqis were involved — found nothing on the first sweep. But on the second, more intensive search, under a trap door, Mr. Hussein was discovered lying at the bottom of an eight-foot-deep hole.

His first words when he emerged, nervous and disoriented, were, “I am Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq, and I am willing to negotiate,” in halting English.

A Special Operations soldier there shot back, “President Bush sends his regards,” the military said later. The main indication that the filthy, dilapidated concrete hut close by had been used by the former Iraqi president was a battered green metal suitcase holding $750,000 in neatly bundled bills.

Mr. Hussein, sporting a bushy salt-and-pepper beard, was first shown on television undergoing a medical exam for head lice. The pictures electrified and shocked Iraqis and the larger Arab world, with some cheering and some appalled to see a captive Arab leader put on undignified display.

He was imprisoned at Camp Cropper, near the international airport some 10 miles from Baghdad, on the grounds of a former palace complex that the United States military turned into a prison for senior members of the government. The prison consisted of three rows of single-story buildings surrounded by a double ring of razor wire.

Mr. Hussein was kept in solitary confinement — letters and care packages including cigars sent via the Red Cross from his wife and daughters living in Qatar or Jordan were his main contact with the outside world. He lived in a relatively spartan cell consisting of a bed, a toilet, a chair, a towel, some books and a prayer rug.

Some of his former American guards, interviewed for a July 2005 story in GQ magazine, said he acted in a fatherly way, offering advice on finding a good wife — “neither too smart nor too dumb, not too old nor too young” — and invited them to hang out in one of his palaces after he was restored to power. He claimed that President Bush had always known he had no unconventional weapons. His favorite snack was Doritos corn chips, his guards said.

Mr. Hussein was combative throughout his trial, using it as a platform to encourage the insurgents. The proceedings frequently seemed to slide toward chaos, with the star defendant and the judges shouting at each other. The trial, held in one of the grandiose buildings erected not far from Mr. Hussein’s former presidential palace, proved something of a security nightmare, with three defense lawyers assassinated.

At one point, something he said prompted guffaws from a spectator in an overhead gallery. Mr. Hussein turned and pointed a finger, saying, “The lion does not care about a monkey laughing at him from a tree.”

Mr. Hussein often tried to draw parallels between himself and the famous leaders of Mesopotamia, the earliest civilization in the region, as well as Saladin, the 12th-century Kurdish Muslim military commander who expelled the crusaders from Jerusalem.

What preoccupied him, he said, was what people would be thinking about him in 500 years. To the horror of historic preservationists, he had the ancient walls of the former capital, Babylon, completely reconstructed using tens of thousands of newly fired bricks. An archaeologist had shown him bricks stamped with the name of Nebuchadnezzar II in 605 B.C.

After the reconstruction, the small Arabic script on thousands of bricks read in part, “In the reign of the victorious Saddam Hussein, the president of the Republic, may God keep him, the guardian of the great Iraq and the renovator of its renaissance and the builder of its great civilization, the rebuilding of the great city of Babylon was done.”

    The Defiant Despot Oppressed Iraq for More Than 30 Years, NYT, 30.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/world/middleeast/30saddam.html?hp&ex=1167541200&en=a5df425b514a763c&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Iraqis Consider Fate of Hussein's Body

December 30, 2006
The New York Times
By MARC SANTORA

BAGHDAD, Saturday, Dec. 30 — After the hanging, the body remains.

While the verdict and death sentence for Saddam Hussein were swift and unambiguous, it was much less clear on Saturday what would be done with his body.

Privately, both American and Iraqi officials say that the subject has been raised at the highest levels, but no decisions have been made. There is wide disagreement on the subject of his body, according to interviews with several top Western and Iraqi officials, nearly all of whom insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The most discussed options include sending his body out of the country to his family in Jordan, where two of his daughters live; burying him in a secret location never to be made public; burying him in a secret location but, after a period of time, having him disinterred and sent to his family or tribe; or sending him immediately to his hometown of Tikrit to be buried with members of his tribe.

In fact, a top Sunni politician even raised the prospect of holding a state funeral for Mr. Hussein. That idea, a Western official said, had very little chance of becoming reality.

Salahedeen Hamad Humood, the governor of Salahedeen Province, which includes Tikrit, said, “We demand an official funeral for Saddam Hussein; he is the ex-president of Iraq, and he should be buried next to his sons.”

Mr. Hussein’s sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed by American troops after the invasion of Iraq. To convince the public that they were actually dead, graphic images of their bloodied faces were made public.

Similarly, Iraqi officials had said that the hanging of Mr. Hussein would be taped, although it was unclear on Saturday whether that had been done, and if so, whether the tape would be made public.

If Mr. Hussein were allowed to be buried in Tikrit, which had been his main base of support, it would be out of character with the way the remains of some of the 20th century’s other most notorious tyrants have been treated.

From Mussolini to Ceausescu, the vanquishers of the once powerful rulers have sought to ensure that memorials to them do not inspire the kind of passions they did in life.

Tojo, Japan’s leader during World War II, was unceremoniously cremated after going to the gallows. The location of the ashes was kept secret for nearly three decades, until the urn with his remains was secretly placed in the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where it remains today. The former Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, was buried secretly in a nondescript public graveyard. Although the grave markers bore fake names, the site was public knowledge within a year. He was killed by firing squad on Christmas Day in 1989.

Hitler’s bones, the source of endless morbid fascination, were buried in secret, dug up, moved across East Germany, buried again and dug up once more only to be cremated. A piece of his skull is kept in Russia.

Mussolini’s body traveled far after he was shot by a firing squad and then hanged upside down in a public square. Slivers of his brain were taken by American doctors to see if he had been driven mad by syphilis, while the rest of him was buried in an unmarked grave outside Milan. The site was soon discovered and a young neofascist dug up the remains, stuffed them in a steamer trunk and hid them in the mountains. Eventually, Mussolini was recovered and reburied in the Adriatic Sea town of Predappio, his home town.

Iraq’s leaders are obviously wrestling with the same questions as the victors who deposed other rulers. But in this case, it is complicated by the state of lawlessness that rules this country.

While many people here seem more concerned with just staying alive than worrying about the resting place of Mr. Hussein, government officials in this country built on the worship of martyrs are keenly aware of death’s ability to transform.

Alain Delaquérière contributed reporting from New York, and Khalid al-Ansary from Baghdad.

    Iraqis Consider Fate of Hussein's Body, NYT, 30.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/world/middleeast/30body.html

How Much Should Be Shown of a Hanging? Network Executives Wonder and Wait

December 30, 2006
The New York Times
By BILL CARTER

In the hours before the hanging of Saddam Hussein television news executives were thrown into hurried consultations yesterday over how to handle any images of his execution that might be released.

Though there was some question as to whether any video images would be issued any time soon, the network news divisions at ABC and CBS said that should the video become available, some visual documentation of Mr. Hussein’s death might be broadcast, but no overly graphic images, and certainly not the complete execution.

NBC News, however, indicated it might go further than its competitors. Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, said the network might show “a wide shot of Saddam hanging.” He said NBC would make its decision based on questions of taste and history.

“I think it might be appropriate at some point to see an image of Saddam after he is hanged,” Mr. Capus said, citing previous historic images of dictators who had been killed. “I think about that iconic image of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania, lying literally in the gutter. I want to do this with a measure of taste, but I don’t want to stand in the way of history.”

The cable channels CNN and Fox News were less definitive about what limits they might impose on any images of Mr. Hussein dead, saying they would decide what to display after they saw what was available. (MSNBC, the cable channel owned by NBC, will follow the policies of NBC News.)

None of this means that the complete hanging, if the Iraqi authorities videotaped it, will be unavailable. Executives throughout the television news business said they fully expected such images to turn up at least on Web sites.

“Somehow it will get out,” said Paul Friedman, the vice president of CBS News. “That video is going to be available somewhere on some channel or some site.” Mr. Friedman said he had met with the CBS News staff yesterday and had told them, “There will be a lot of pressure to use the pictures” of the actual hanging. But, he added, “CBS will not show it, no matter what.”

Bob Murphy, the senior vice president of ABC News, said, “I suspect there will be some form of video released that will confirm the death for the Iraqi people.”

ABC will “fulfill our obligations as journalists in documenting the event,” he said. But he emphasized: “We will absolutely not go too far in showing graphic images. Taste and propriety are the two key guidelines.”

Mr. Murphy also stressed that ABC News would not allow its Web site, ABCNews.com, to show anything more than what was permitted on television. “The decision will be for all of ABC News,” he said. “What is excluded for ABC News on television will be excluded for all ABC News outlets.”

Mr. Friedman said editors from CBS’s site, CBSNews.com, had also been told that they would be under the same restrictions as the broadcast network. Mr. Capus also said the choices of the MSNBC.com Web site would be governed by what the network decided.

David Rhodes, the vice president of news for the leading all-news cable network, the Fox News Channel, said questions of what the network might show were “still hypothetical at this point.”

Of what the channel might eventually show, he said, “If you could tell me exactly what we were going to get, I could give you an answer.”

As to whether the channel’s Web site, FoxNews.com, might be permitted to show more images than what appeared on television, Mr. Rhodes said, “We haven’t had the discussion yet about whether we should be doing anything different on the Web site.”

CNN released only a statement saying, “We will make our final call once we see what the Iraqi government releases.”

Most of the news outlets cited decisions they had made in the aftermath of the killing of the two sons of Mr. Hussein by United States troops. Mr. Murphy of ABC said the network had broadcast some still shots of the faces of the dead men but had excluded graphic video that showed multiple wounds.

A spokeswoman for CNN, Laurie Goldberg, noted that in the case of the sons, many questions were raised about their identities, and so more images were shown to make comparisons with previous pictures taken of the men.

Still unclear yesterday was what other news and video outlets might do if they gained access to video images of the hanging. Representatives for the Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera did not respond to telephone calls or e-mail messages. Jennifer Nielsen, the marketing manager for YouTube, said that that popular video Web site would not comment on videos it had not yet seen. In general, the site’s policy is to prohibit content that is deemed inappropriate by its users.

    How Much Should Be Shown of a Hanging? Network Executives Wonder and Wait, NYT, 30.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/business/media/30netw.html

Vatican spokesman denounces Saddam's execution as 'tragic'

Updated 12/30/2006 7:22 AM ET
AP
USA Today

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican on Saturday denounced Saddam Hussein's execution as "tragic" and said it risked fueling revenge and new violence in Iraq.

"An execution is always tragic news, reason for sadness, even in the case of a person who is guilty of grave crimes," the Holy See's spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, said in a statement released by the Vatican press office.

Earlier in the morning, Lombardi made similar comments on Vatican Radio.

"The position of the Catholic Church — against the death penalty — has been reiterated many times," the spokesman said in the statement, referring to the Vatican's overall opposition to capital punishment.

"Killing the guilty one is not the way to rebuild justice and reconcile society," the spokesman said. "On the contrary, there is the risk that the spirit of revenge is fueled and that the seeds of new violence are sown."

"In this dark time in the life of the Iraq people, one can only hope that all leaders truly make every effort so that in a dramatic situation glimmers of reconciliation and of peace finally can be seen," Lombardi said.

The Vatican's top official for dialogue between religions, Cardinal Paul Poupard, said: "We pray to the Lord and for the dead and the living so that this will not become an occasion for new violence."

"We are always sad when men take lives which belong to the Lord," Poupard told the Italian news agency ANSA.

In an interview published in an Italian daily earlier in the week, the Vatican's top prelate for justice issues, Cardinal Renato Martino, said executing Saddam would mean punishing "a crime with another crime."

In one of the late Pope John Paul II's encyclicals, "Evangelium Vitae" (The Gospel of Life) in 1995, the pontiff laid out the Catholic Church's stance against capital punishment, saying that in a modern world, with improved prison systems, cases in which the death penalty could be justified were "practically non-existent."

The staunch opposition was reiterated in 1997, in the Church's updated catechism, a compendium of Church doctrine.

    Vatican spokesman denounces Saddam's execution as 'tragic', UT, 30.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-12-30-vatican-saddam_x.htm

Dictator Who Ruled Iraq With Violence Is Hanged for Crimes Against Humanity

December 30, 2006
The New York Times
By MARC SANTORA, JAMES GLANZ and SABRINA TAVERNISE

BAGHDAD, Saturday, Dec. 30 — Saddam Hussein, the dictator who led Iraq through three decades of brutality, war and bombast before American forces chased him from his capital city and captured him in a filthy pit near his hometown, was hanged just before dawn Saturday during the morning call to prayer.

The final stages for Mr. Hussein, 69, came with terrible swiftness after he lost the appeal, five days ago, of his death sentence for the killings of 148 men and boys in the northern town of Dujail in 1982. He had received the sentence less than two months before from a special court set up to judge his reign as the almost unchallenged dictator of Iraq.

His execution at 6:10 a.m. was announced on state-run Iraqiya television. Witnesses said 14 Iraqi officials had attended the hanging, at the former military intelligence building in northern Baghdad, now part of an American base. Those in the room said that Mr. Hussein was dressed entirely in black and carrying a Koran and that he was compliant as the noose was draped around his neck.

“He just gave up,” said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser. “We were astonished. It was strange. He just gave up.”

He added: “Saddam Hussein is gone. All Iraqis will look to the future after the end of this era.”

At President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Tex., a White House spokesman, Scott Stanzel, said Mr. Bush had gone to bed before the execution took place and was not awakened. Mr. Bush had received a briefing from his national security adviser Friday afternoon, when he learned the execution would be carried out within hours, Mr. Stanzel said. Asked why Mr. Bush had gone to sleep before hearing the news, he said Mr. Bush “knew that it was going to happen.”

In a statement written in advance, Mr. Bush said Mr. Hussein “was executed after receiving a fair trial — the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime.”

“Saddam Hussein’s execution comes at the end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops,” Mr. Bush said. “Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror.”

There were conflicting accounts about whether two of Mr. Hussein’s co-defendants were also hanged. The Iraqi state television said the co-defendants, Mr. Hussein’s half-brother Barzan Ibrahim, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, were hanged after Mr. Hussein. But Mr. Rubaie could not confirm this.

Concerned that the execution could incite violence, United States forces were placed on stepped-up alert and Iraqi officials suggested that the daily curfews here might be extended throughout the weekend. Even as the executions appeared inevitable, many were skeptical or disbelieving that the noose could drop around Mr. Hussein’s neck so soon. One Western official said that some of the American legal advisers working on the case appeared stunned at the hasty pace of events late Friday as they walked through the corridors of the Republican Palace, once Mr. Hussein’s grandiose center of power.

When Mr. Hussein came to power three years before the Dujail killings, he ruled over an oil-rich country that was an economic and technical powerhouse in the Middle East with rising cultural and political influence. When he hurtled through the trap door of the gallows Saturday morning, the nation he left behind was a smashed and traumatized remnant, desperately trying to restore its own identity and its place in the world.

In between, Mr. Hussein invaded Iran and Kuwait in wars that cost over a million lives and left his military in a shambles, brutally suppressed a Shiite uprising in the south and saw his country become isolated and impoverished under the weight of United Nations-imposed sanctions. Finally, he was ousted by an American-led invasion force in 2003 and the country fell into a new round of internal violence as the rule of law disintegrated and the Western invaders proved unable to control a country in the aftermath of totalitarian rule.

Those developments, so unwelcome to the Americans who so easily conquered this nation, showed that Mr. Hussein was also a unifying force whose painful grip held together Iraq’s many ethnicities and sects. Now, three years after his fall, Iraq has descended further into chaos.

As Iraqis across the country were trying to process the scope of what had happened, early reactions mirrored the deep sectarian divide that has been driving much of that violence and threatens to pull the country apart.

“Today is the best day we have seen since the fall of Saddam’s regime,” said Ayad Jamal al-Deen, a moderate Shiite political leader. “The death of this man will help to release many Baathists from Saddam’s mafia. The violence will be reduced.”

But a Sunni tribal sheik expressed a thought typical of the hard-line Sunni minority, which has held tenaciously to the memory of being favored under Mr. Hussein.

“The execution of Saddam means that the flame of vengeance will be ignited and it will hurt the body of Iraq with unrecoverable wound,” the sheik said.


Mr. Hussein, in handcuffs, was given to the Iraqis by American troops. The Iraqis led him from his cell to a judge’s chamber and then to an execution room, a bare unadorned concrete room, according to a witness. It was only a few short steps up the gallows.


As the rope was placed around his neck, Mr. Hussein turned to Mr. Rubaie.


“He told me, don’t be afraid,” he recounted. “There was a conversation with him.”


He did not elaborate. He asked that his Koran be given to someone. Mr. Rubaie took note of the person’s name.


Iraqis have Mr. Hussein’s body but they have not agreed upon a place for burial.


As Mr. Hussein awaited the hangman, he was apparently unaware that the American military was already making plans to dispose of his personal effects.

Iraqi officials were vague to the end about when the execution would happen. “We will do it very soon,” said Munir Haddad, a judge on the Iraqi High Tribunal who represented the body at the execution.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki was still conferring with American officials late Friday night to work out the timing and resolve key details, like what to do with Mr. Hussein’s body, a Western official said.

But Mr. Maliki’s comments on Friday to the families of people who were killed while Mr. Hussein ruled left no doubt about where the prime minister stood on the time frame of the execution.

“Anyone who rejects the execution of Saddam is undermining the martyrs of Iraq and their dignity,” Mr. Maliki said. “Nobody can overrule the execution sentence issued against Saddam.”

Without specifying a time, date or place, he said, “There is no review or delay in implementing the execution verdict against Saddam.”

Esam al-Gazawi, another lawyer representing Mr. Hussein who is currently in Jordan, expressed the views of many by suggesting that the timing of the execution was determined by the highest levels of the American and Iraqi governments.

“No one knows when it’s going to happen except God and President Bush,” he said shortly before Mr. Hussein was executed.

Mr. Hussein spent his final hours in a dreary cell on an American base near the Baghdad airport, and there were indications that he was unaware that the end was drawing near.

Iraqi and American officials kept outsiders, including his legal team, from contacting him all day, according to Najib al-Nauimi, one of Mr. Hussein’s lawyers, who was in Qatar.

But the legal team received a request late Friday asking for formal requests from people who could receive Mr. Hussein’s effects, another of his lawyers said.

“I gave them a request that my colleagues and I are authorized to get Saddam’s personal stuff,” said the lawyer, Wadood Fawzi.

In Washington, a United States District Court rejected an emergency motion filed Friday afternoon by lawyers for Mr. Hussein seeking to halt the execution on the grounds that it would interfere with pending civil litigations against him. Judge Kathleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled shortly after 9 p.m. that her court did not have jurisdiction to intercede.

Mr. Hussein’s trial and conviction have been mostly welcomed by the Iraqi Shiites and Kurds who suffered under his rule, but it has angered Sunni Muslims, helped to fuel a Sunni-led insurgency and done nothing to calm the increasingly chaotic sectarian violence here.

Iraqi officials said the execution would be filmed, both for the historical record and as proof for those who may doubt the word of both the Americans and Iraqis.

As of late Friday, some Iraqi officials remained engaged in a heated debate about how swiftly to carry out Mr. Hussein’s death sentence.

An Iraqi official close to the negotiations expressed deep disappointment that, after years of forensic investigation, detailed litigation and careful deliberation, the process could be compromised in the final hours by politically driven haste.

“According to the law, no execution can be carried out during the holidays” said another official, “After all the hard work we have done, why would we break the law and ruin what we have built?”

The Muslim holiday of Id al-Adha begins Saturday for Sunnis and Sunday for Shiites, who now control the government.

Iraqi law seemed to indicate that executions were forbidden on the holiday.

But Judge Haddad was dismissive of those concerns, injecting some of the sectarian split that is pervading the country. “The official Id in Iraq is Sunday,” he said.

As for Mr. Hussein’s sect, he said, “Saddam is not Sunni. And he is not Shiite. He is not Muslim.”

Mr. Gazawi, the lawyer, said he was told that Mr. Hussein had met with two half-brothers, who are also in custody, but no other relatives.

“His sons are dead, and his daughters are here in Amman,” he said. Mr. Hussein’s two sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed by American soldiers after the 2003 invasion.

After his government collapsed, Mr. Hussein went into hiding and was eventually found in a hide-out near his hometown of Tikrit.

Once in custody, there were three cases brought against Mr. Hussein for crimes against humanity.

The first case to begin hearings, and the simplest in terms of details, involved the executions of residents of Dujail after an attack on his motorcade there. Mr. Hussein was found guilty on Nov. 5 and sentenced to die by hanging. An appeals court upheld the ruling on Tuesday and said the sentence had to be carried out within 30 days.

A trial on the far more sweeping charges that he directed the killing of 50,000 Kurds in an organized ethnic-cleansing campaign is still under way and will continue despite Mr. Hussein’s execution.

Reporting was contributed by Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi and Khalid al-Ansary from Baghdad, Eric Lichtblau from Washington and Jeff Zeleny from Crawford, Tex.

    Dictator Who Ruled Iraq With Violence Is Hanged for Crimes Against Humanity, NYT, 30.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/world/middleeast/30hussein.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Saddam Hussein executed, state-run TV reports

Updated 12/30/2006 6:06 AM ET
USA Today
By James Palmer, Special for USA TODAY

BAGHDAD — Saddam Hussein, the brutal dictator who ruled Iraq for nearly a quarter-century before being toppled by a United States-led coalition in 2003, was executed by hanging Saturday for crimes against humanity, state-run Iraqi television reported.

Al-Iraqiya, a government-backed network in Baghdad, said Hussein was executed by hanging at dawn Saturday. Hussein's death was witnessed by one of his lawyers, a doctor, and other government officials witnessed the execution, according to the network. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki was not present at the execution.

"Criminal Saddam was hanged to death," an al-Iraqiya announcer said. The station played patriotic music and showed images of national monuments and other landmarks.

Iraqi television showed what it said was the body of Saddam Hussein after his execution Saturday, his head uncovered and the neck twisted at a sharp angle.

The footage showed the man identified as Saddam lying on a stretcher, covered in a white shroud. His neck and part of the shroud have what appear to be bloodstains. His eyes are closed.

The footage was shown on the Massar and Biladi stations, which are affiliated with the Dawa party of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Earlier, state television showed footage of Saddam's guards wearing ski masks and placing a noose around the deposed leader's neck moments before the execution. The video shows the guards wrapping a piece of black cloth around Saddam's neck, as he approaches the gallows.

When one of the masked guards attempted to cover Hussein's head with a black hood, the former Iraqi dictactor appeared to calmly decline and the guard wrapped it around his neck.

In the final frames three of the guards close in around Hussein and slowly direct him toward a thick yellow rope which is then gently placed around his neck.

The video stops and freezes with Hussein standing upright with the noose secured tightly around his neck.

The U.S.-supported Al-Hurra TV station in Baghdad showed video of Iraqi nationals waving Iraqi flags and chanting in Dearborn, Mich., following the announcement of Hussein's death.

An Iraqi court convicted Hussein of killing 148 Shia men and boys in the Iraqi town of Dujail following a failed assassination attempt in 1982.

State-run Iraqiya television initially said Saddam's co-defendants — his half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court — also were hanged. But National Security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie, who attended the execution, later said that only Saddam had been executed and that the two other men would be hanged after an Islamic holiday that started Saturday and ends in the first week of January.

"We wanted (Saddam) to be executed on a special day," al-Rubaie told Iraqiya.

Asked if Saddam resisted, al-Rubaie said no. "He totally surrendered," he said.

He said a judge read the sentence to Saddam, who was taken in handcuffs to the execution room. When he stood in the execution room, photographs and video footage were taken, al-Rubaie said.

"He did not ask for anything. He was carrying a Quran and said: 'I want this Quran to be given to this person' a man he called Bander," he said. Al-Rubaie said he did not know who Bander was.

Mariam al-Rayes, a legal expert and a former member of the Shiite bloc in parliament, told Iraqiya television that the execution "was filmed and God willing it will be shown. There was one camera present, and a doctor was also present there."

Hussein and his two co-defendants were found guilty of the Dujail massacre on Nov. 5 and were sentenced to death by hanging.

In a statement, President Bush said Saddam " was executed after receiving a fair trial — the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime."

"Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror," Bush said.

The execution followed frantic hours of political and legal maneuvering, in which there were conflicting reports about whether Saddam had been transferred from U.S. to Iraqi custody. His physical transfer to Iraqi authorities was one of the last steps before his hanging.

A U.S. judge refused to stop his execution Friday, rejecting a last-minute court challenge by Saddam's attorneys.

The Iraqi government reinstated the death penalty by hanging in August 2004. Roughly 51 people have been executed since then.

The executions were carried out at the beginning of Eid-Al-Adha, an Islamic religious holiday marking the climax of the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. Eid begins today for Sunnis and tomorrow for Shias.

The Iraqi constitution prohibits executions during religious holidays.

The Iraqi government has not yet announced a daytime curfew. The government has imposed a daily curfew between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. local time.

There had been disagreements among Iraqi officials in recent days as to whether Iraqi law dictates the execution must take place within 30 days and whether President Jalal Talabani and his two deputies had to approve it.

In a farewell message to Iraqis posted Wednesday on the Internet, Saddam said he was giving his life for his country as part of the struggle against the U.S. "Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if he wants, he will send it to heaven with the martyrs," he said.

One of Saddam's lawyers, Issam Ghazzawi, said the letter was written by Saddam on Nov. 5, the day he was convicted by an Iraqi tribunal in the Dujail killings.

Reports of Saddam's death also were cause of celebration among some Iraqi-Americans. "Now there will be peace for my family," said Dave Alwatan, who was among dozens of Iraqi-Americans to gather Friday at the Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center in Dearborn, Mich. Alwatan, 32, said Saddam's forces tortured and killed relatives that were left behind when Alwatan left Iraq in 1991.

Imad Hamad, director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Dearborn, said the glee surrounding Saddam's death was laced with uncertainty about the future.

"The joy would have been complete if we were to see the healthy Iraq, the united Iraq, the safe Iraq," Hamad said. "Then everybody would be jumping up and down, celebrating."

Contributing: The Associated Press.

    Saddam Hussein executed, state-run TV reports, UT, 30.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-12-28-saddam_x.htm

Execution of a subdued Saddam was quick-witnesses

Sat Dec 30, 2006 6:32 AM ET
Reuters
By Mussab Al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A subdued Saddam Hussein was led shackled into a hall early on Saturday in Baghdad, a noose was placed around his neck and a guard pulled a lever that swiftly ended his life and a chapter of Iraq's history.

Sami al-Askari, a prominent Shi'ite politician close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, witnessed the event and told Reuters the process of Saddam's execution lasted about 25 minutes but once he was dropped through a trap door his death was very quick.

"One of the guards pulled a lever and he dropped half a meter into a trap door. We heard his neck snap instantly and we even saw a small amount of blood around the rope," Askari told Reuters.

"They left him hanging for around 10 minutes before a doctor confirmed his death and they untied him and placed him in a white bodybag," he added.

State-funded television channel Iraqiya showed the final moments of Saddam's life but stopped short of broadcasting the actual hanging or his corpse.

The footage showed a group of guards dressed in civilian clothes and wearing ski masks helping Saddam up a small metal staircase where a cloth was put around his neck before stepping onto the trap door. A red metal barrier, like a witness box, surrounded the trap door in the low-ceilinged, gray concrete, cell-like room.

The hangman, wearing a beige leather jacket, placed the thick rope over Saddam's head and tightened the noose on the left side of his neck. The hangman exchanged a few words with Saddam, who nodded in return.

Saddam wore a black coat over a black V-neck jumper and a white shirt and had black trousers and black shoes. Askari said he was told to take off a woolly black hat before his execution.

EXECUTED AT DAWN

Another official witness confirmed Saddam died instantly.

"He seemed very calm. He did not tremble," said the official, adding Saddam, 69, recited the Muslim profession of faith before he died: "There is no God but God and Mohammed is his prophet."

Askari said Saddam, executed for his role in the killing of 148 men and boys from the Shi'ite town of Dujail after a failed attempt on his life in 1982, was executed at 6:10 am (0310 GMT) according to his watch at an Iraqi army base in Kadhimiya.

The base was the former headquarters of Saddam's military intelligence where many of his victims were tortured and executed in the same dark gallows. The northern Baghdad district is also home to one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrines.

"After he entered the small hall, Saddam had a seat as a judge read him the details of the sentence. But as he saw the camera come in to record, he began shouting the same rubbish we have seen in court. Long live Palestine and other slogans," he said.

He said Saddam's hand-cuffs that tied his arms in front of his body when he came in were reversed when he was led to the noose with his arms tied behind his body.

Askari said about 15 people were present, including government ministers, members of parliament, relatives of victims and representatives from the special court and Justice Ministry. U.S. military and embassy officials declined to comment on whether any U.S. representative was present.

Askari said no cleric was present as Saddam had not requested one and that he had no final requests. Askari said those present remained silent during the execution, but congratulated each other after Saddam was confirmed dead.

An Iraqi television channel later showed footage of Saddam's body in a white shroud. The low-quality footage on Biladi, a Shi'ite-run channel, showed Saddam lying with his neck twisted at an awkward angle, with what appeared to be blood or a bruise on his left cheek.

The short clip appeared to have been filmed on a mobile phone or small camera by a visitor invited to view the corpse.

Jawad al-Zubaidi, a victim who testified at Saddam's trial and who was allowed to view the corpse during a private reception at Maliki's office, said: "When I saw the body in the coffin, I cried. I remembered my three brothers and my father who he had killed. I approached the body and told him: 'This is the well-deserved punishment of every tyrant',".

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny)

    Execution of a subdued Saddam was quick-witnesses, R, 30.12.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-12-30T113153Z_01_KHA021421_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L1-RelatedNews-4

Saddam hanged at dawn, bomb kills 36

Sat Dec 30, 2006 7:40 AM ET
By Mariam Karouny
Reuters

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein was hanged at dawn on Saturday for crimes against humanity, a dramatic, violent end for a leader who brutally ruled Iraq for three decades before he was toppled by a U.S. invasion in 2003.

In what looked like a swift response by Sunni insurgents loyal to Saddam, a car bomb killed 36 people in a Shi'ite town -- the sort of sectarian attack that has pitched Iraq toward civil war since U.S. troops broke Saddam's iron grip.

State television showed him looking composed and talking with the masked hangman who placed the noose around his neck on the gallows.

A Shi'ite-run channel aired grainy, low-quality film of the body in a white shroud, showing Saddam, who was 69, lying with his neck twisted at an awkward angle, with what appeared to be blood or a bruise on his left cheek.

"It was very quick. He died right away," one of the official Iraqi witnesses told Reuters, saying the ousted president, who was bound but wore no blindfold, had said a brief prayer.

"We heard his neck snap," Sami al-Askari, a political ally of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said after the indoor execution at a Justice Ministry building in northern Baghdad.

As Maliki's fellow Shi'ite Muslims, oppressed under Saddam, celebrated in the streets, the prime minister called on Saddam's Sunni Baathist followers to end their insurgency.

"Saddam's execution puts an end to all the pathetic gambles on a return to dictatorship," said Maliki.

State television showed him signing the order for the hanging which officials said he did not attend.

Police in Kufa, near the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, said 36 people were killed and 58 wounded by the car bomb at a market packed with shoppers ahead of the week-long Eid al-Adha holiday. They said a mob killed a man they accused of planting the bomb.

President Bush, who called Saddam a threat though alleged nuclear and other weapons were never found, said:

"Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself."

The deaths of four troops pushed the American death toll to just four short of the emotive 3,000 mark. Bush already faces mounting public dismay at the war as Iraq slides toward all-out civil war between Saddam's fellow Sunnis and majority Shi'ites.

MUTED REACTIONS

Popular reactions were fairly muted as Iraqis woke on the holiest day of the Muslim calendar to begin a week of religious holidays for Eid al-Adha. Unlike at previous times of tension, no curfew was imposed on Baghdad.

Shi'ites danced in the streets of the holy city of Najaf and cars blared their horns in procession through Baghdad's Shi'ite Sadr City slum.

The main Sunni television channel in the capital gave little coverage to the news -- though it did show old footage of Saddam meeting former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a time when Washington helped Iraq against Islamist Iran in the 1980s.

State broadcaster Iraqiya on the other hand ran graphic footage of Saddam's agents beheading and beating their victims.

Saddam was found guilty over the killing, torture and other crimes against the Shi'ite population of the town of Dujail after Shi'ite militants tried to assassinate him there in 1982. His appeal was rejected four days ago.

A trial witness from Dujail said he was shown the body at Maliki's office and wept for his dead relatives.

"When I saw the body in the coffin I cried. I remembered my three brothers and my father whom he had killed. I approached the body and told him: 'This is the well-deserved punishment for every tyrant'," Jawad al-Zubaidi told Reuters. "Now for the first time my father and three brothers are happy."

Before his death, the former president recited the Muslim profession of faith, one of a dozen official witnesses said.

Many Kurds will be disappointed that Saddam will not now be convicted of genocide against them in a trial yet to finish, but the rapid execution was a triumph for Maliki, whose grip on his fragile national unity coalition has been questioned.

After complaints of political interference in the trial, however, the speed of the execution may fuel further unease about the fairness of the U.S.-sponsored process.

Saddam became president in 1979, and the next year led his country into an eight-year war against Iran that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. In 1990 he invaded Kuwait, but U.S.-led forces drove the Iraqis out in 1991.

Saddam's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and former judge Awad al-Bander are to be hanged in January.

Saddam's daughter Raghd, in exile in Jordan, wants her father buried in Yemen, a source close to the family said.

The governor from Saddam's home town of Tikrit said his tribe was negotiating with the government to have the body interred in the village of Awja, where Saddam's sons were buried in 2003, rather than in Baghdad as the government wanted.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Dubai and Mariam Karouny, Mussab Al-Khairalla, Ibon Villelabeitia and Claudia Parsons in Baghdad)

    Saddam hanged at dawn, bomb kills 36, R, 30.12.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-12-30T124028Z_01_IBO034602_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ.xml&src=123006_0751_TOPSTORY_saddam_executed

News Analysis

Joy of Capture Muted at the End

December 30, 2006
The New York Times
By JEFF ZELENY

CRAWFORD, Tex., Dec. 29 — The capture of Saddam Hussein three years ago was a jubilant moment for the White House, hailed by President Bush in a televised address from the Cabinet Room. The execution of Mr. Hussein, though, seemed hardly to inspire the same sentiment.

Before the hanging was carried out in Baghdad, Mr. Bush went to sleep here at his ranch and was not roused when the news came. In a statement written in advance, the president said the execution would not end the violence in Iraq.

After Mr. Hussein was arrested Dec. 13, 2003, he gradually faded from view, save for his courtroom outbursts and writings from prison. The growing chaos and violence in Iraq has steadily overshadowed the torturous rule of Mr. Hussein, who for more than two decades held a unique place in the politics and psyche of the United States, a symbol of the manifestation of evil in the Middle East.

Now, what could have been a triumphal bookend to the American invasion of Iraq has instead been dampened by the grim reality of conditions on the ground there. Mr. Hussein’s hanging means that the ousted leader has been held accountable for his misdeeds, fulfilling the American war aim most cited by the White House after Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction proved nonexistent.

But that war is now edging toward its fifth year, and the sectarian violence that has surged independent of any old Sunni or Baathist allegiances to Mr. Hussein has raised questions about what change, if any, his death might bring.

“Saddam’s face has been on this process from the beginning and here goes that face,” said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. “But in many respects, he’s a bit player now.”

Even as a bit player, though, the specter of Mr. Hussein remained intimately entwined with Mr. Bush and his father, George H. W. Bush. Two years after the Persian Gulf war, Mr. Hussein ordered an assassination attempt on the elder Bush, an act of spite that the 43rd president would never forget.

“There’s no doubt his hatred is mainly directed at us,” the current president said, speaking to a Republican fund-raising crowd in Houston on Sept. 26, 2002. “This is the man who tried to kill my dad.”

For his part, Mr. Hussein referred to the younger Mr. Bush as “son of the viper.” He delivered a famous snub of the 41st president, constructing a mosaic of the elder Bush’s face on the floor of the Rashid Hotel, perfectly positioned to be repeatedly stepped on. After the American troops reached Baghdad, they crushed the mosaic.

When Mr. Hussein was captured, the president said: “Good riddance, the world is better off without you.” But he dismissed suggestions that a family grudge played a role in shaping his Iraq policy or influenced his decision to go to war. “My personal views,” he said, “aren’t important in this matter.”

But Mr. Buchanan, a longtime observer of the Bush political family in Texas, said that these were no ordinary archenemies and that setting aside personal views entirely seemed impossible.

“I think the president will see this as justice done and may well feel some sense of vindication, in part because of the attempt on his father’s life,” he said. “It’s definitely part of the drama.”

Here in Crawford, where the president is spending the week between Christmas and New Year’s, aides planned for how the White House would respond to Mr. Hussein’s execution. They quickly ruled out the idea of putting the president in front of television cameras, fearful of sending a message that Mr. Bush was crowing or that the United States was orchestrating the execution, which officially was carried out by the Iraqi government. “We are reminded today of how far the Iraqi people have come since the end of Saddam Hussein’s rule and that the progress they have made would not have been possible without the continued service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform,” Mr. Bush said in his statement.

A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy, also acknowledged that the challenges in Iraq contributed to the president’s decision to simply issue the statement. The White House concluded that even a development as dramatic as Mr. Hussein’s hanging could not be used to renew support for the war.

“Americans have already taken that into account.” said Frank Newport, the editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. “The benefits of deposing Saddam Hussein are far exceeded by the cost of the war.”

Indeed, a Gallup poll taken Dec. 8 to 10 showed that 64 percent of Americans said the costs of the war outweighed the benefits. Only 33 percent disagreed, saying the benefits — including the ouster of Mr. Hussein — outweighed the costs.

It is a striking change in thinking, Mr. Newport said, considering that since the first Gulf war a wide majority of Americans have supported the removal of Mr. Hussein. It was a chief reason, he said, that polls showed that more than 60 percent of Americans initially supported the war in Iraq.

In June 1993, after the failed attempt by Iraqi government agents on the life of the elder Bush, 53 percent of Americans said of Mr. Hussein in a Gallup Poll that they supported “the extreme action of having him assassinated to remove him from power,” while 37 percent said they did not.

Those sentiments, of course, were expressed a full decade before the invasion that began the current war.

David Schmitz, a professor of history at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., who has written about parallels between the Iraq and Vietnam wars, said the execution of Mr. Hussein may offer a brief reprieve to the Bush administration as it works to create a revised Iraq policy.

“I don’t think it will have a long-term impact on changing the public’s increasing disillusion with the war,” Mr. Schmitz said. “If you looked at Vietnam, there were short-term bumps back up — rallying around the flag — but it never stopped the continual downward support for the war.”

    Joy of Capture Muted at the End, NYT, 30.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/world/middleeast/30assess.html

CHRONOLOGY-Life and death of Saddam Hussein

Fri Dec 29, 2006 10:23 PM ET
Reuters



(Reuters) - Saddam Hussein was hanged on Saturday for crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 Shi'ite men and boys in Dujail after a 1982 assassination attempt.

Following are key dates in the life of the former Iraqi president:

April 28, 1937 - Born in al-Awja village outside Tikrit, 150 km (90 miles) north of Baghdad.

October 1956 - Joins uprising against pro-British royalist rulers and then becomes a militant in the pan-Arab, secular Baath Party.

October 1959 - A year after overthrow of monarchy, takes part in attempt to kill Prime Minister Abdel-Karim Kassem. Flees abroad.

February 1963 - Returns to Baghdad when the Baath Party seizes power in a military coup but nine months later Baathists are toppled. Caught and jailed. Elected deputy secretary-general of the party while in prison.

July 1968 - Saddam helps plot the coup that puts the Baath Party back in power, deposing President Abdul-Rahman Aref.

March 1975 - As vice-president of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), signs border agreement with the Shah of Iran, who ends support for an Iraqi Kurdish revolt, causing its collapse.

July 16, 1979 - Takes power after President Ahmed Hassan al -Bakr steps aside as chairman of the RCC.

September 22, 1980 - Following border skirmishes, Saddam launches war on Iran that lasts eight years.

March 16, 1988 - Iraqi forces launch chemical attack on Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja, killing about 5,000 people.

August 20, 1988 - A ceasefire is officially implemented in the Iran-Iraq war. The campaign against Kurds continues.

August 2, 1990 - Launches invasion of Kuwait, prompting U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Iraq.

January 17, 1991 - U.S.-led forces start Gulf War with air attacks on Iraq and occupied Kuwait. Hostilities end on Feb 28 with eviction of Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

October 15, 1995 - Saddam wins a presidential referendum and is elected unopposed with more than 99 percent of the vote.

October 15, 2002 - Official results show Saddam wins 100 percent of votes in a referendum for a new term in office.

December 7, 2002 - Saddam apologises for invasion of Kuwait but blames the emirate's leadership. Kuwait rejects the apology.

February 2003 - In first interview in more than a decade, Saddam denies Baghdad has any banned weapons or links to al Qaeda.

March 20 - U.S. launches war against Iraq.

April 9 - U.S. forces sweep into the heart of Baghdad as Saddam's three-decade rule crumbles.

July 22 - U.S. military confirms Saddam's two sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed in gun battle in Mosul.

December 14 - U.S. officials announce capture of Saddam.

October 19, 2005 - Trial opens with Saddam charged with crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 Shi'ite men in Dujail after a 1982 assassination attempt. He pleads not guilty.

August 21, 2006 - Saddam refuses to enter a plea as the trial starts on charges of war crimes in the "Anfal" campaign that killed tens of thousands of Kurdish villagers in 1988.

November 5, 2006 - A court in Baghdad finds Saddam guilty of crimes against humanity and sentences him to hang for the deaths of 148 Shi'ite men in Dujail.

December 26, 2006 - An Iraqi appeals court confirms the guilty verdict and death sentence against Saddam in the Dujail case.

December 30 - Saddam is hanged.

    CHRONOLOGY-Life and death of Saddam Hussein, R, 29.12.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-12-30T032332Z_01_L29388028_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L1-RelatedNews-8

Text

President Bush's Reaction

December 29, 2006
The New York Times

Today, Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial — the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime.

Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical rule. It is a testament to the Iraqi people’s resolve to move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial. This would not have been possible without the Iraqi people’s determination to create a society governed by the rule of law.

Saddam Hussein’s execution comes at the end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops. Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself, and be an ally in the War on Terror.

We are reminded today of how far the Iraqi people have come since the end of Saddam Hussein’s rule — and that the progress they have made would not have been possible without the continued service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform.

Many difficult choices and further sacrifices lie ahead. Yet the safety and security of the American people require that we not relent in ensuring that Iraq’s young democracy continues to progress.

    President Bush's Reaction, NYT, 30.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/washington/30president.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1167481197-Fg7h8oQiuq0/MYht0rjG7A

Hussein Still in U.S. Custody, Iraqi Officials Say

December 29, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:27 p.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Saddam Hussein will be executed no later than Saturday, said an Iraqi judge authorized to attend his hanging. The former dictator's lawyers said he had been transferred from U.S. custody, but an Iraqi official said he was still in the hands of American guards.

The physical transfer of Saddam to Iraqi authorities was believed to be one of the last steps before he was to be hanged, although the lawyers' statement did not specifically say Saddam was in Iraqi hands.

''A few minutes ago we received correspondence from the Americans saying that President Saddam Hussein is no longer under the control of U.S. forces,'' according to the statement faxed to The Associated Press.

The statement said U.S. officials asked the lawyers to cancel a trip to Baghdad for a last meeting with Saddam, saying he was no longer in American custody.

Munir Haddad, a judge on the appeals court that upheld Saddam's death sentence, said he was ready to attend the execution.

''All the measures have been done,'' Haddad said. ''There is no reason for delays.''

In Baghdad, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has signed Saddam's death sentence, a government official said. The official, who refused to be identified by name because he was not authorized to release the information, said that Iraqi authorities were not yet in control of Saddam. The discrepancy could not be explained.

''We have agreed with the Americans that the handover will take place only a few minutes before he is executed,'' the official said.

The defense team statement called on ''everybody to do everything to stop this unfair execution.''

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said opposing Saddam's execution was an insult to his victims. His office said he made the remarks in a meeting with families of people who died during Saddam's rule.

''Our respect for human rights requires us to execute him, and there will be no review or delay in carrying out the sentence,'' al-Maliki said.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said U.S. forces were on high alert.

''They'll obviously take into account social dimensions that could potentially led to an increase in violence which certainly would include carrying out the sentence of Saddam Hussein,'' Whitman said.

On Thursday, two half brothers visited Saddam in his cell, a member of the former dictator's defense team, Badee Izzat Aref, told The Associated Press by telephone from the United Arab Emirates. He said the former dictator handed them his personal belongings.

A senior commander at the Iraqi defense ministry also confirmed the meeting and said Saddam gave his will to one of his half brothers. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Saddam's lawyers later issued a statement saying the Americans gave permission for his belongings to be retrieved. However, Raed Juhi, spokesman for the High Tribunal court that convicted Saddam, denied that the former leader's relatives visited him.

An Iraqi appeals court upheld Saddam's death sentence Tuesday for the killing of 148 people who were detained after an attempt to assassinate him in the northern Iraqi city of Dujail in 1982. The court said the former president should be hanged within 30 days.

There have been disagreements among Iraqi officials in recent days as to whether Iraqi law dictates the execution must take place within 30 days and whether President Jalal Talabani and his two deputies have to approve it.

In his Friday sermon, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf called Saddam's execution ''God's gift to Iraqis.''

''Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done! He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighboring countries and he is responsible for mass graves. Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam,'' said Sheik Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as SCIRI, the dominant party in al-Maliki's coalition.

With at least 72 more Iraqis killed Thursday in violence, U.S. officials and Iraqis expressed concern about the potential for even worse bloodshed following Saddam's execution.

In the latest violence, a suicide bomber killed nine people near a Shiite mosque north of Baghdad on Friday, police said. A round of mortar shells also slammed into al-Maidan square in central Baghdad, wounding ten people and damaging shops and buildings in the area, police said.

Gunmen killed two employees of an oil company and another civilian in Mosul, 250 miles northwest of Baghdad. Two civilians and a policeman were fatally shot in separate attacks in Musayyib, about 40 miles south of the capital, police said.

U.S. troops, meanwhile, killed six people and destroyed a weapons cache in separate raids in Baghdad and northwest of the Iraqi capital, the U.S. military said.

One of the raids targeted two buildings in the village of Thar Thar, where U.S. troops found 16 pounds of homemade explosives, two large bombs, a rocket-propelled grenade, suicide vests and multiple batteries, the military said.

Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops also captured 13 suspects and confiscated weapons in a raid on a mosque southeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Friday.

------

Associated Press writers Shafika Mattar in Amman, Jordan, and Salah Nasrawi in Cairo, Egypt contributed to this report.

    Hussein Still in U.S. Custody, Iraqi Officials Say, NYT, 29.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html

Speculation, Secrecy Shrouds Saddam's Final Hours

December 29, 2006
By REUTERS
Filed at 2:18 p.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - As he awaits his final hour in a dreary, U.S. military-run prison down the street from one of his former palaces, confusion and secrecy shroud when and how Saddam Hussein will be hanged.

A court this week upheld a sentence that the man who ruled Iraq with an iron fist for three decades until the 2003 U.S.-led invasion be sent to the gallows for crimes against humanity.

But speculation over the timing of the historic execution is flying thick and fast amid conflicting reports about Saddam's transfer to Iraqi authorities for his hanging.

As Iraq prepared to start a week-long religious holiday on Saturday that should halt executions under Iraq law, U.S.-backed al Hurra television quoted unnamed sources as saying workers were busy erecting gallows in the Green Zone by the Tigris.

A U.S. official in Baghdad late on Friday shot down reports that the U.S. military had handed the former president, saying: ''He is still in U.S. custody.''

Although legally in Iraqi custody, U.S. troops have kept guard over Saddam and are expected to hold on to him until the last minute to avoid security breaches.

Defense lawyers fueled speculation when they said they had been told to collect Saddam's belongings and that Saddam was allowed a visit by his brothers on Thursday -- a right a condemned man has before he is hanged.

Another defense lawyer said prison guards had taken away a small radio Saddam had been given several months ago and that the former strongman had sensed ``something was happening.''

FINAL LAST WORDS?

Saddam, who has said he is not afraid to die, was reported by his lawyer to be in ``very high spirits'' as he awaits his appointment with the hangman at the U.S. army's Camp Cropper at what was once Baghdad's Saddam International Airport.

The prison is down the street from a lavish palace Saddam built on an artificial lake which is now used as headquarters by U.S. generals.

Not only the date, but the hour of the hanging is a mystery. Executions since the death penalty was reinstated in Iraq have taken place at dawn but there is also speculation Saddam's could be at noon, or rushed through at any time. A Shi'ite politician said religious authorities were reviewing the case.

In court, Saddam has appeared wearing a white shirt and dark suit, his hair neatly trimmed and dyed black, a far cry from his disheveled appearance when he was captured by U.S. troops in December 2003, hiding in a hole near Tikrit.

If he is treated like other convicts, he could be hooded and dressed in green overalls with his hands bound behind his back.

Under Iraq's penal code, Saddam, who used his court appearances to launch bombastic attacks against his enemies, will be allowed to make a final statement if he wishes.

While a public execution is unlikely, Iraqis are likely to want proof that he is really dead, as when U.S. forces published graphic images of his dead sons and showed the bodies to journalists after they were killed in July 2003.

    Speculation, Secrecy Shrouds Saddam's Final Hours, NYT, 29.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iraq-saddam-scene.html

Iraq Prepares to Execute Hussein

December 29, 2006
The New York Times
By MARC SANTORA

BAGHDAD, Dec. 29 — The close of the final chapter on the brutal reign of Saddam Hussein drew ever closer last night, as Iraqi officials prepared the last legal notice necessary before his execution, a red card that will be presented to the former dictator to inform him that his end is near, Iraqi officials said.

“We will do it very soon,” said Muneer Haddad, a judge on the Iraqi High Tribunal who will represent that body at the execution. He said the execution would likely be “tonight or tomorrow.”

The pace of events left some of the American legal advisors working on the case stunned, according to one Western official. For all the guidance the Americans provided, in the end the dictator’s demise did not go the way they expected, the officials said.

“It just goes to show that the Iraqis call the shots on something like this,” the official said.

It is still possible that the execution could be delayed, Western and Iraqi officials cautioned. One senior Iraqi official said there may yet be other legal hurdles.

However, Mr. Haddad said that all that remained was the technical legal matter of court officials filling out “red card,” a formal notice of impending death created during the Saddam era and widely used by his much feared secret police.

“We have almost finished his red card,” Mr. Haddad said.

It was unclear whether the red card has been presented to Mr. Hussein or whether he knows that his death may be imminent.

Iraqi and American officials have kept outsiders, including his legal team, from contacting him, according to Najib al-Nauimi, one of Mr. Hussein’s lawyers who is in Qatar.

There has also been heated debate among Iraqi officials about how swiftly to carry out the death sentence, which was handed down on Nov. 5 and then upheld on Tuesday. The appeals court said that the hanging had to take place within 30 days.

An Iraqi official close to the negotiations on when to execute Mr. Hussein expressed deep disappointment that, after years of forensic investigation, detailed litigation, and careful deliberation, the process could be compromised in the final hours by politically driven haste.

“According to the law, no execution can be carried out during the holidays” said one official involved in the negotiations,” the official said. “After all the hard work we have done, why would we break the law and ruin what we have built.”

The Muslim holiday of Eid begins Saturday for Sunnis, which is Mr. Hussein’s sect, and Sunday for Shiites, who where oppressed under Mr. Hussein’s rule but now control the government.

Iraqi law seems to indicate that executions are forbidden on the holiday.

Mr. Haddad was dismissive of those concerns, injecting some of the sectarian split that is ripping this country apart into his response to a question on the subject.

“Tomorrow is not Eid,” he said. “The official Eid in Iraq is Sunday.”

As for Mr. Hussein’s being a Sunni, he said, “Saddam is not Sunni. And he is not Shiite. He is not Muslim.”

His comments seemed to reflect the views of the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose government is ultimately responsible for the final decisions regarding Mr. Hussein’s fate.

Speaking here today to the families people who were killed while Mr. Hussein ruled, Mr. Maliki was blunt in his desire to see Mr. Hussein dispatched quickly.

“Anyone who rejects the execution of Saddam is undermining the martyrs of Iraq and their dignity,” he said. “Nobody can overrule the execution sentence issued against Saddam”

Without specifying a time, date or place, he said, “There is no review or delay in implementing the execution verdict against Saddam.”

Esam al-Gazawi, another lawyer representing Mr. Hussein but who is currently in Jordan, said that while one of his colleagues in Baghdad was asked to collect Mr. Hussein’s personal belongings, he had no idea when the execution would actually take place.

“No one knows when it’s going to happen except God and President Bush,” he said.

Mr. Gazawi said he was told that Mr. Hussein had met with his two half-brothers, Sabawai and Wataban, who are also in custody, but no other family.

“His sons are dead and his daughters are here in Amman, so he met no one,” he said. Mr. Hussein’s two sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed by American soldiers after the 2003 invasion that toppled him from power.

After his government collapsed, Mr. Hussein went into hiding and was eventually found in a dirty little hole near his home town outside Tikrit.

Once in custody, there were three separate cases brought against Mr. Hussein for crimes against humanity.

The first case to begin hearings, and the simplest in terms of details, involved the killing of 148 Shiite men and boys in the small town of Dujail in 1982, after an attack on his motorcade there. Mr. Hussein, along with tk co-defendant, was found guilty on Nov. 5 and sentenced to die by hanging.

A trial on the far more sweeping charges that he directed the killing of 50,000 Kurds in an organized ethnic cleansing campaign is still ongoing. The final trial, involving the savage squelching of a Shiite uprising in which thousands died, has yet to go to trial.

Mr. Hussein has been being held in American custody by a team known as Task Force 134 at Camp Cropper, near the Baghdad Airport. It was unclear when or if the Iraqis had taken over formal custody, which would almost certainly be the very last step before he is walked up the gallows.

    Iraq Prepares to Execute Hussein, NYT, 29.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/world/middleeast/30saddamcnd.html?hp&ex=1167454800&en=dfc360a1beb67ea4&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Pentagon: U.S. Forces Ready for Violence

December 29, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:35 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon said Friday that U.S. forces in Iraq are braced for any violence that may follow the execution of former President Saddam Hussein.

''U.S. forces in Iraq are obviously at a high state of alert anytime because of the environment that they operate in and because of the current security situation,'' said spokesman Bryan Whitman. ''They'll obviously take into account social dimensions that could potentially led to an increase in violence which certainly would include carrying out the sentence of Saddam Hussein.''

Saddam has been in U.S. custody since he was captured in December 2003, and his lawyers said Friday that he had been handed over to Iraqi authorities. But there was conflicting information.

Tom Casey, deputy spokesman at the State Department, said in early afternoon that ''there has been no change in his status'' and that Saddam remained in American hands. In Baghdad, an Iraqi government official who refused to be identified by name because he was not authorized to release the information said authorities there were not yet in control of Saddam.

The White House declined to comment on the timing of the execution.

Deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanzel, talking to reporters Friday from Crawford, Texas, where President Bush was vacationing, said the hanging of Saddam was a matter for the sovereign Iraqi government. Earlier, the White House said the appeals court decision to uphold the sentence marked an important milestone for the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law.

Said Whitman: ''Our forces stay at a constant state of high readiness in Iraq and I would expect through this period they would do the same.''

He wouldn't comment further on any potential troop movements to strengthen security for the execution, but said the commanders in Iraq have the ability to move forces as they deem appropriate based on conditions on the ground.

Whitman also said he wouldn't comment on anything that President Bush might be contemplating in terms of changing U.S. war policy in Iraq or in connection with the intensive administration review now under way on American strategy there.

    Pentagon: U.S. Forces Ready for Violence, NYT, 29.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraq.html

Hussein Turned Over to Iraqis, His Lawyers Say

December 29, 2006
The New York Times
By JAMES GLANZ

BAGHDAD, Dec. 29 —United States officials have transferred Saddam Hussein to Iraqi custody, his lawyers said today in statements to Reuters and The Associated Press.

The physical hand-over of Saddam was believed to be one of the last steps before he was to be hanged.

"The American side has notified us that they have handed over the president to the Iraqi authorities," Khalil al-Dulaimi, head of Saddam’s defense team, told Reuters.

"They told us the president is no longer under the authority of the American forces and they requested us not to go to Baghdad," he said.

Munir Haddad, one of the judges on the appeals court that upheld Saddam’s death sentence, told The A.P: "Saddam will be executed today or tomorrow. All the measures have been done."

The judge is authorized to attend the execution on behalf of the judiciary. "I am ready to attend and there is no reason for delays," he said.

After upholding the death sentence against Mr. Hussein on Tuesday for the execution of 148 Shiite men and boys in 1982, an Iraqi appeals court ruled that he must be sent to the gallows within 30 days. In Iraq, where the Constitution requires that the Iraqi president and his two deputies sign all execution orders, officials said it was unlikely that legal formalities would stand in the way. The president, Jalal Talabani, had not received the documents by late Thursday.

But a government official familiar with the process said that little objection would be raised if the execution took place almost immediately. “Even if it happens tonight, no one is going to make an issue out of the procedure,” the official said.

Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the national security adviser, said there would be no advance notice of the execution because of fears that any announcement could set off violence. When asked who would be invited to attend the hanging, Mr. Rubaie said: “No television. No press. Nothing.”

He said that the execution would be videotaped but that it was unlikely the tape would be released.

Even with the security fears, there was little appetite among Iraqi officialdom to spare Mr. Hussein for much longer. “I hope the decision should be implemented very soon,” said Qasim Daoud, a former national security adviser. “Sooner is better because it sends a message that we are determined — we want to get ahead step by step to building a new Iraq, and these messages will help.”

Some rights advocacy groups have criticized the haste of the trial and the appeal. Mr. Hussein was sentenced to death on Nov. 5 by a court set up to judge his years in power, and the appeals court handed down its ruling less than two months later. Mr. Hussein, along with two co-defendants, received his death sentence on a case involving only the killings of the 148 Shiites, in the town of Dujail. More cases were pending.

Since the appeals court upheld the death sentences, rumors have swept Baghdad that the Iraqi government would move quickly to put Mr. Hussein to death. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has drawn protests of political meddling in recent months by suggesting publicly that the former dictator should die at the earliest possible date.

Public pronouncements by American officials have been much more muted, as all formal queries have been referred to the government of Iraq, or G.O.I. in Baghdad jargon.

One American official who works closely with the Iraqi justice system expressed frustration over the criticism that Mr. Hussein’s trial had received. Considering the difficult security situation in a country emerging from a dictatorship — Mr. Hussein’s — the trial has been conducted as fairly as possible by the Iraqis, the official said. “I’m sure they gave it full deliberation and I have full confidence in them,” the official said.

Sabrina Tavernise, Marc Santora and Abdul Razzaq al-Saeidi contributed reporting.

    Hussein Turned Over to Iraqis, His Lawyers Say, NYT, 29.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/world/middleeast/30saddamcnd.html?hp&ex=1167454800&en=dfc360a1beb67ea4&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Iraqi Sniper Fire Forces a Healer to Tend His Own Wound

December 29, 2006
The New York Times
By C. J. CHIVERS

Petty Officer Third Class Dustin E. Kirby, a Navy corpsman whose efforts to save a wounded marine in Iraq were covered in an article published Nov. 2 in The New York Times, was severely wounded by an Iraqi sniper on Christmas afternoon, his family and the Marine Corps said yesterday.

The bullet struck the left side of his face while he was on the roof of Outpost Omar, the position his unit occupies in Karma, a city near Falluja in Anbar Province.

His jaw and upper palate were damaged extensively, but after several operations he was conscious and on a ventilator in a military hospital in Germany, his battalion commander, Lt. Col. Kenneth M. DeTreux, said by telephone.

Petty Officer Kirby, 22, of Hiram, Ga., was assigned to Weapons Company, Second Battalion, Eighth Marines, serving as the trauma medic for the company’s Second Mobile Assault Platoon. It was his second tour in Iraq. He had married weeks before leaving the United States in July.

He was expected to arrive today at Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland, where his wife, Lauren Kirby, and his parents, Gail and Jack Kirby, planned to meet him.

Although Petty Officer Kirby cannot speak because of his injuries, his mother said she had communicated with him through his brother-in-law, a serviceman who is stationed in Germany and has been at his bedside, holding a phone to Petty Officer Kirby’s ear.

Petty Officer Kirby listened to his mother and replied by writing notes, which his brother-in-law read aloud.

“He told me, ‘Don’t cry, Mama,’ ” Ms. Kirby said by telephone. “I said, ‘I have to. I’m a mom. That’s what moms do.’ ”

She added, “He wrote, ‘Be strong for me and Lauren.’ ”

In another note, she said, he wrote, simply, “Milkshake.”

Colonel DeTreux said Petty Officer Kirby began writing within minutes of being shot, when he jotted a note to his platoon before being evacuated by helicopter.

In the first note he apologized to the company’s senior enlisted man for being wounded, the colonel said. He then refused a stretcher and insisted on walking to the helicopter.

“He’s tough,” Colonel DeTreux said. “He showed his character, walking onto the aircraft himself.”

The article last month was about the battlefield treatment Petty Officer Kirby provided, and the prayers he said, for a marine who had been shot through the head by an Iraqi sniper.

The marine, Lance Cpl. Colin Smith, had been his roommate in North Carolina before their unit returned to Iraq. Lance Corporal Smith was shot at the end of a raid both men participated in on Karma’s outskirts. He remains under treatment and evaluation for injuries to his skull and brain.

Petty Officer Kirby was wounded when a sniper fired one shot on an otherwise quiet Christmas afternoon, Colonel DeTreux said. He was near one of several rooftop bunkers the company staffs to defend Outpost Omar, which has been attacked by insurgents several times, including once by a truck bomb.

He was the second member of his family to be grievously wounded in Iraq. A cousin, Petty Officer Joseph D. Worley, lost his left leg and suffered gunshot wounds to his right leg in 2004. He also was a corpsman in a Marine Corps unit.

The National Envelope Corporation, of Austell, Ga., where Petty Officer Kirby’s father is a janitor, is taking donations to help his family.

Kathleen Childs, an executive assistant at the company who was helping to manage the donations, said collections began when it was uncertain whether the family could afford to visit Petty Officer Kirby from the moment he arrived in the United States.

Even before Gail Kirby arranged a plane ticket, Ms. Childs said, it was clear she was headed to his bedside, whether she had the money or not.

“His mother said there was no way she was going to stay at home while her boy was that close,” Ms. Childs said. “She was going to start out on foot and walk.”

    Iraqi Sniper Fire Forces a Healer to Tend His Own Wound, NYT, 29.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/world/middleeast/29kirby.html?hp&ex=1167454800&en=869b8e382f04c15c&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush Considers Up to 20,000 More Troops for Iraq

December 29, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID S. CLOUD and JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 — The Bush administration is considering an increase in troop levels in Iraq of 17,000 to 20,000, which would be accomplished in part by delaying the departure of two Marine regiments now deployed in Anbar Province, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

The option was among those discussed in Crawford, Tex., on Thursday as President Bush met there with his national security team, and it has emerged as a likely course as he considers a strategy shift in Iraq, the officials said.

Most of the additional troops would probably be employed in and around Baghdad, the officials said.

With the continuing high levels of violence there, senior officials increasingly say additional American forces will be needed as soon as possible to clear neighborhoods and to conduct other combat operations to regain control of the capital, rather than primarily to train Iraqi forces.

“The mission that most people are settling on has to do with using them in a security role to quell violence in Baghdad and the surrounding area,” said a senior Pentagon official involved in the planning.

Any plan to add to American forces in Baghdad would have to be negotiated with the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, which has expressed interest in using Iraqi forces, not American ones, to assert more control over the capital.

The idea of extending the deployments of two Marine units has emerged in part because most of the marines in Iraq are on seven-month rotations and keeping them there longer is considered more palatable than holding over Army brigades, which are already serving tours of a year or longer, one official said.

Additional troops would come from sending into Iraq a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division headed for the region next month and possibly by speeding up the deployment of several Army brigades now scheduled to go to Iraq by next spring.

But officials said a brigade of the First Armored Division now in Anbar Province would probably go home as planned in January, because the unit had already been kept in Iraq more than 40 days beyond its scheduled tour.

Other options remain under consideration, the officials said, noting that a decision to speed up deployment schedules would put more strain on Army and Marine equipment and personnel. But other options, like mobilizing reserve units, would take months, officials said.

After meeting with his top military and diplomatic advisers at his Texas ranch, Mr. Bush said his administration was making “good progress” in fashioning a revised Iraq strategy. But he said he intended to consult with Congress when it convenes next week before presenting his plan to the nation.

“I fully understand it’s important to have both Republicans and Democrats understanding the importance of this mission,” Mr. Bush said, speaking to reporters after a three-hour meeting. “It’s important for the American people to understand success in Iraq is vital for our own security.”

The meeting, according to a senior administration official, focused on the security, economic and political situation in Iraq. But the bulk of the discussions focused on the security issue and the option of sending more American troops to Baghdad, the official said.

Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, emerged from the meeting with the president. The national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, and his top deputy, J. D. Crouch, also attended the meeting and joined the others for a working lunch at the ranch.

The White House initially intended to announce a new Iraq policy before Christmas but delayed those plans so the president could consider a range of diverging views inside his administration. For weeks his advisers have been locked in internal debates about how to proceed, but it is an open question whether the meeting on Thursday brought clarity to the discussions.

“I’ve got more consultation to do until I talk to the country about the plan,” said Mr. Bush, who did not elaborate or take questions from reporters.

Mr. Bush said he had received a briefing from Mr. Gates, his new defense secretary, and General Pace, who recently returned from Iraq. White House aides said the president did not want to offer his new plan for Iraq before Mr. Gates had an opportunity to study conditions on the ground in Iraq.

“It’s an important part of coming to closure on a way forward in Iraq that will help us achieve our objective,” Mr. Bush said, “which is a country that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself.”

How additional American troops would be employed in Baghdad remains a central point of discussion among Mr. Bush’s top advisers and top ground commanders in Iraq, officials said. But two officials said there was growing agreement that most would not be attached to American teams training Iraqi Army and police units, because doing so would not necessarily yield the quick improvements in security the White House wants.

But it is also unclear to what extent the additional forces would be employed to curb the power of militias associated with Shiite groups that form a key constituency for Mr. Maliki.

The two units whose stay could be extended are the Marines’ Fifth and Seventh Regiment combat teams in Anbar Province, which are scheduled to begin leaving Iraq in February when two replacement regiments are due to arrive, officials said.

It is unclear which Army brigades could be sent early. A 3,500-soldier brigade of the Third Infantry Division, based at Fort Stewart, Ga., is scheduled to arrive in Iraq in mid-January, followed in subsequent months by units from the First Infantry Division, at Fort Riley, Kan., and the Second Infantry Division, at Fort Lewis, Wash.

The Third Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, based at Fort Benning, Ga., is scheduled to go to Iraq in the spring, according to a spokesman, Kevin Larson, who said he had not heard any discussion of accelerating that timetable. But he said, “We’re ready to answer whatever call may come up.”

How long beyond February the Marine units would remain is unclear, but officials emphasized that the goal was a temporary increase in the American presence. It is also unclear whether a decision to speed up the deployment of two Army brigades would mean that other units scheduled to be deployed would go to Iraq earlier than planned later next year. Currently there are about 134,000 American troops in Iraq.

David S. Cloud reported from Washington, and Jeff Zeleny from Crawford, Tex.

    Bush Considers Up to 20,000 More Troops for Iraq, NYT, 29.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/world/middleeast/29prexy.html

Crisis in Housing Adds to Miseries of Iraq Mayhem

December 29, 2006
The New York Times
By MICHAEL LUO

BAGHDAD — Along with its many other desperate problems, Iraq is in the midst of a housing crisis that is worsening by the day.

It began right after the toppling of Saddam Hussein, when many landlords took advantage of the removal of his economic controls and raised rents substantially, forcing out thousands of families who took shelter in abandoned government buildings and military bases. As the chaos in Iraq grew and the ranks of the jobless swelled, even more Iraqis migrated to squalid squatter encampments. Still others constructed crude shantytowns on empty plots where conditions were even worse.

Now, after more than 10 months of brutal sectarian reprisals, many more Iraqis have fled their neighborhoods, only to wind up often in places that are just as wretched in other ways. While 1.8 million Iraqis are living outside the country, 1.6 million more have been displaced within Iraq since the war began. Since February, about 50,000 per month have moved within the country.

Shelter is their most pressing need, aid organizations say. Some have been able to occupy homes left by members of the opposing sect or group; others have not been so fortunate. The longer the violence persists, the more Iraqis are running out of money and options.

Shatha Talib, 30, her husband and five children, are among about a thousand struggling Iraqi families that have taken up residence in the bombed-out remains of the former Iraqi Air Defense headquarters and air force club in the center of Baghdad. “Nobody should live in such a place,” she said. “But we don’t have any other option.”

With many families in such encampments or worse, and many others doubled or tripled up in friends’ or relatives’ homes, the deputy housing minister, Istabraq al-Shouk, puts the shortage at two million dwellings across Iraq.

Iraqi officials say that after security, housing is a priority, but plans to address the problem are minimal. The Housing Ministry is building 17 complexes with 500 apartments each across the country for government employees and families of those killed by militants, Mr. Shouk said. That would be 8,500 homes.

Housing officials hope to attract foreign contractors to build about 350,000 more over the next few years, he said, but that depends largely on whether conditions can be made safe enough for them to work.

The shortage exists in many parts of Iraq, Mr. Shouk said. In Kirkuk, many Kurds driven out by Saddam Hussein in the 1980s who returned after the American-led invasion live in tent cities or hastily built houses. A survey of displaced people in Kirkuk by the International Organization for Migration found that more than 20 percent squat in government buildings or improvised settlements.

In Najaf, a southern city, throngs of destitute Shiite families have claimed buildings abandoned by the Baath Party and the government. Any trip across Baghdad, where the problem is particularly acute, reveals dozens of encampments.

The crisis appears more pronounced among Shiites than Sunnis because of the years of economic marginalization they endured under Mr. Hussein. At least two dozen Shiite families are living in an abandoned army hospital in southern Baghdad, having fled Sunni Arab insurgents in the Abu Ghraib area to the west. Hundreds of other Shiite families are camped in other buildings on the sprawling former army base known as Camp Rashid.

Jabir Munther, his two wives and nine children live in a dank room in a building that used to be the base hospital’s radiology department. Rugs are the only furnishings. Outside Mr. Munther’s open window is a pond of raw sewage.

He showed a visitor a creased leaflet signed by a Sunni insurgent group that warned Shiites to leave the Abu Ghraib area. A Sunni friend warned him that he would be killed the next day, so he fled, with the help of the network of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

Mr. Munther earns about $120 a month as a guard for a government ministry, he said, about half of what he needs to rent an apartment. He is grateful that he found the hospital, which has spotty electricity but usually reliable running water.

“It’s better than living in a tent,” he said.

Other Shiite refugees at Camp Rashid include former residents of Ramadi and Falluja in Anbar Province, centers of the Sunni insurgency. The former hospital is in the center of a bizarre moonscape of rubble, the result of contractors dumping debris on the hospital grounds. Children play all day amid the piles. They cannot go to school because no school is nearby. At other encampments, people say they have trouble enrolling their children because they have no permanent address.

On a recent morning, water trucks from Baghdad’s municipal government arrived at the base; residents had been without water for a week after a pipe ruptured during construction of a nearby electrical substation. Women in black chadors flocked to the vehicles to fill their plastic containers.

One man who identified himself only by his nickname, Abu Firas, 54, said he was a member of the camp’s unofficial city council. Before the government’s fall, he lived in southern Baghdad. Laws under Mr. Hussein’s rule protected him from eviction, he said, but after the invasion his landlord kicked him out.

Dozens of poor Shiite families have built ramshackle shelters out of rubble, corrugated tin and other materials on an empty stretch of land northeast of Sadr City, the Shiite district. They have no electricity. For water, they fill giant cisterns at a nearby water pipe.

Jassim Muhammad Marid, 65, said most residents of the shantytown were victims of the spiraling cost of living and the shortage of adequately paying jobs.

Many Iraqi families who do have housing are now living with three or even four generations under one roof. A dispute with his wife’s family in Kut, a southern city, drove Ahmed Mishaan Battah, 22, and his wife to the former air force club.

In October, they moved onto the grounds, paying the previous occupants of their new home, the second floor of a severely damaged building, $50. It has become increasingly common for rooms in squatter encampments to be bought and sold like regular real estate.

The Battahs got one room with walls, where they sleep, but the others are exposed. They cook meals on a small gas burner, tiptoeing around a precipice. As Iraq’s winter chill sets in, the Battahs, who are expecting their first child in a few months, are worried.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do when the rains come,” Mr. Battah said.

Nearly every family living here has some Dickensian tale of woe to share. In one of the main buildings, there is the family of a police officer killed in late fall. He took the job to try to scrape together the cash to move his wife, four children and niece out of this netherworld of trash and raw sewage. But a bomb in a booby-trapped body killed him.

Jameela Hashim, 48, who lives downstairs from them, has sold her family’s heater, refrigerator and stove to help make ends meet. Her husband suffers from mental illness from his time in the military during the Iran-Iraq war. The couple guarded a hotel after the invasion in exchange for a place to live. But they lost that job and wound up at the air force club.

In an arrangement that is at once tragic and comic, Muhammad Ubaid, a carpenter; his wife, Ms. Talib; and their five children have ensconced themselves on the stage of the club’s former theater. Like so many others, Mr. Ubaid struggled to find work after the American-led invasion. The family at first moved from their home in Dora to a less expensive neighborhood. But they soon lost that home, as well as Mr. Ubaid’s carpentry shop.

A friend suggested they try the theater, which was unoccupied. Mr. Ubaid built a makeshift shelter for his family on the stage. It includes a front window that looks out on the empty auditorium with no seats. After the invasion, looters ripped out every one in a matter of hours.

Mr. Ubaid still takes occasional furniture orders from customers. A fancy set of sofas was parked on stage on a recent afternoon. But the meager income he earns is not enough to move his family out. The Ubaids remain on the stage, living out their own drama.

Wisam A. Habeeb and Qais Mizher contributed reporting.

    Crisis in Housing Adds to Miseries of Iraq Mayhem, NYT, 29.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/world/middleeast/29homeless.html?hp&ex=1167454800&en=fa29639552105244&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Hussein Still in U.S. Custody, Iraqi Officials Say

December 29, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:39 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Saddam Hussein's half brothers visited him in his jail cell and he gave them his will, Iraqi officials said Friday, indicating his execution may be approaching. But they said he had yet to be transferred to Iraqi custody.

The former president is being held at Camp Cropper, an American military prison where he is expected to remain until the day of his execution, at which point he is to be transferred to Iraqi authorities.

On Tuesday, an Iraqi appeals court upheld Saddam's death sentence for the killing of 148 people who were detained after an attempt to assassinate him in the northern Iraqi city of Dujail in 1982. The court said the former president should be hanged within 30 days.

''Nothing and nobody can abrogate the ruling,'' Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said in comments released by his office Friday.

''Our respect for human rights requires us to execute him, and there will be no review or delay in carrying out the sentence,'' Al-Maliki said.

The Iraqi prime minister said those who oppose the execution of Saddam were insulting the honor of his victims. His office said he made the remarks in a meeting with families of people who died during Saddam's rule.

On Thursday two half brothers visited Saddam, a member of Saddam's defense team said, citing another of Saddam's lawyers.

''Upon his request, his two half brothers ... were brought to him and spent some time in his cell,'' Badee Izzat Aref told The Associated Press in a telephone call from Dubai.

''Saddam handed his brothers his personal belongings,'' Aref said.

A senior commander at the Iraqi defense ministry also confirmed the meeting, and said that Saddam handed over his will to one of his half brothers. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

But Raed Juhi, spokesman for the High Tribunal court that convicted Saddam, denied that Saddam's relatives visited him.

The White House was preparing for Saddam's execution as early as this weekend, based on information that U.S. officials in Baghdad were receiving from the Iraqi government, a senior administration official said in Washington.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities have said he will be handed over to Iraqi officials prior to his execution.

An official close to al-Maliki has said Saddam would remain in U.S. custody until he is delivered to Iraqi authorities on the day of his execution. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Ibrahim said Friday that the transfer had yet to occur.

''Press reports that he has been handed over are not correct,'' he said late Friday morning local time.

On Thursday, Saddam's chief lawyer beseeched world leaders to prevent the United States from handing over the ousted dictator to Iraqi authorities.

''According to the international conventions, it is forbidden to hand a prisoner of war to his adversary,'' Khalil al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press.

''I urge all the international and legal organizations, the United Nations secretary-general, the Arab League and all the leaders of the world to rapidly prevent the American administration from handing the president to the Iraqi authorities,'' al-Dulaimi said.

Cardinal Renato Martino, Pope Benedict XVI's top prelate for justice issues and a former Vatican envoy to the U.N., condemned the death sentence in a newspaper interview published Thursday, saying capital punishment goes against the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

After Saddam's death sentence was handed down last month, Louise Arbour, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, urged Iraq to ensure a fair appeals process and to refrain from executing Saddam even if the sentence is upheld.

Some international legal observers and human rights groups have also called Saddam's trial unfair because of alleged interference by the Shiite-dominated government.

But State Department Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey said Thursday the Bush administration believes the trial was held in accordance with international and Iraqi laws.

''(The Iraqis) carried out their work in a transparent and open manner and they arrived at a verdict based on the facts in the case,'' Casey said.

News of Saddam's impending execution came as the U.S. military reported the deaths of eight more troops and announced that Iraqi forces, backed by American forces, captured an al-Qaida in Iraq cell leader believed responsible for the June kidnapping of two soldiers who were found tortured and killed.

With at least 72 more Iraqis killed Thursday in violence, U.S. officials and Iraqis expressed concern about the potential for even worse bloodshed following Saddam's execution. Al-Dulaimi, the lawyer, said transferring Saddam to Iraqi authorities could be the trigger.

''If the American administration insists in handing the president to the Iraqis, it would commit a great strategic mistake which would lead to the escalation of the violence in Iraq and the eruption of a destructive civil war,'' he said in a telephone interview.

On Friday, a round of mortar shells slammed into al-Maidan square in central Baghdad, wounding ten people and damaging shops and buildings in the area, a police officer at Rissafa Police Station said on condition of anonymity out of security concerns.

A roadside bomb wounded three civilians in Balad Ruz, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said.

------

Associated Press writers Shafika Mattar in Amman, Jordan, and Salah Nasrawi in Cairo, Egypt contributed to this report.

    Hussein Still in U.S. Custody, Iraqi Officials Say, NYT, 29.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html

Editorial

The Rush to Hang Saddam Hussein

December 29, 2006
The New York Times

The important question was never really about whether Saddam Hussein was guilty of crimes against humanity. The public record is bulging with the lengthy litany of his vile and unforgivable atrocities: genocidal assaults against the Kurds; aggressive wars against Iran and Kuwait; use of internationally banned weapons like nerve gas; systematic torture of countless thousands of political prisoners.

What really mattered was whether an Iraq freed from his death grip could hold him accountable in a way that nurtured hope for a better future. A carefully conducted, scrupulously fair trial could have helped undo some of the damage inflicted by his rule. It could have set a precedent for the rule of law in a country scarred by decades of arbitrary vindictiveness. It could have fostered a new national unity in an Iraq long manipulated through its religious and ethnic divisions.

It could have, but it didn’t. After a flawed, politicized and divisive trial, Mr. Hussein was handed his sentence: death by hanging. This week, in a cursory 15-minute proceeding, an appeals court upheld that sentence and ordered that it be carried out posthaste. Most Iraqis are now so preoccupied with shielding their families from looming civil war that they seem to have little emotion left to spend on Mr. Hussein or, more important, on their own fading dreams of a new and better Iraq.

What might have been a watershed now seems another lost opportunity. After nearly four years of war and thousands of American and Iraqi deaths, it is ever harder to be sure whether anything fundamental has changed for the better in Iraq.

This week began with a story of British and Iraqi soldiers storming a police station that hid a secret dungeon in Basra. More than 100 men, many of them viciously tortured, were rescued from almost certain execution. It might have been a story from the final days of Baathist rule in March 2003, when British and American troops entered Basra believing they were liberating the subjugated Shiite south. But it was December 2006, and the wretched men being liberated were prisoners of the new Iraqi Shiite authorities.

Toppling Saddam Hussein did not automatically create a new and better Iraq. Executing him won’t either.

    The Rush to Hang Saddam Hussein, NYT, 29.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/opinion/29fri1.html

U.S. Is Told Hussein Hanging Seems Imminent

December 29, 2006
The New York Times
By JAMES GLANZ

BAGHDAD, Dec. 28 — Preparations for the execution of Saddam Hussein began taking on a sense of urgency late Thursday as American and Iraqi officials suggested that he could be hanged within a span of days rather than weeks.

After upholding the death sentence against Mr. Hussein on Tuesday for the execution of 148 Shiite men and boys in 1982, an Iraqi appeals court ruled that he must be sent to the gallows within 30 days. But Mr. Hussein may not have even that long to live, officials said.

A senior administration official said that the execution would probably not take place in the next 24 hours, but that the timing would be swift. “It may be another day or so,” the official said.

Another senior administration official said later Thursday night that Iraqi officials had told the White House to expect the execution on Saturday, Baghdad time.

In Iraq, where the Constitution requires that the Iraqi president and his two deputies sign all execution orders, officials said it was unlikely that legal formalities would stand in the way. The president, Jalal Talabani, had not received the documents by late Thursday.

But a government official familiar with the process said that little objection would be raised if the execution took place almost immediately. “Even if it happens tonight, no one is going to make an issue out of the procedure,” the official said.

Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the national security adviser, said there would be no advance notice of the execution because of fears that any announcement could set off violence. When asked who would be invited to attend the hanging, Mr. Rubaie said: “No television. No press. Nothing.”

He said that the execution would be videotaped but that it was unlikely the tape would be released.

Even with the security fears, there was little appetite among Iraqi officialdom to spare Mr. Hussein for much longer. “I hope the decision should be implemented very soon,” said Qasim Daoud, a former national security adviser. “Sooner is better because it sends a message that we are determined — we want to get ahead step by step to building a new Iraq, and these messages will help.”

Some rights advocacy groups have criticized the haste of the trial and the appeal. Mr. Hussein was sentenced to death on Nov. 5 by a court set up to judge his years in power, and the appeals court handed down its ruling less than two months later. Mr. Hussein, along with two co-defendants, received his death sentence on a case involving only the killings of the 148 Shiites, in the town of Dujail. More cases were pending.

Since the appeals court upheld the death sentences, rumors have swept Baghdad that the Iraqi government would move quickly to put Mr. Hussein to death. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has drawn protests of political meddling in recent months by suggesting publicly that the former dictator should die at the earliest possible date.

Public pronouncements by American officials have been much more muted, as all formal queries have been referred to the government of Iraq, or G.O.I. in Baghdad jargon.

“Saddam Hussein is still in detention in a coalition facility,” the United States military in Baghdad said in a statement late Thursday, referring to the American-led coalition. “He will continue to remain in a coalition facility until G.O.I. determines to change that status.”

“This is primarily a G.O.I. issue. As for any potential transfer, we do not discuss any coordination” between American military forces and the Iraqis, the statement said.

One American official who works closely with the Iraqi justice system expressed frustration over the criticism that Mr. Hussein’s trial had received. Considering the difficult security situation in a country emerging from a dictatorship — Mr. Hussein’s — the trial has been conducted as fairly as possible by the Iraqis, the official said. “I’m sure they gave it full deliberation and I have full confidence in them,” the official said.

Sabrina Tavernise, Marc Santora and Abdul Razzaq al-Saeidi contributed reporting.

    U.S. Is Told Hussein Hanging Seems Imminent, NYT, 29.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/world/middleeast/29saddam.html?hp&ex=1167454800&en=a3dac03398ba63af&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Letter by Hussein, Written After Conviction, Urges Iraqis to Renounce Hatred

December 28, 2006
The New York Times
By MARC SANTORA

BAGHDAD, Dec. 27 — Saddam Hussein, who is expected to make the short walk up the gallows stairs to his death here sometime in the next 30 days, said he was prepared to die and sure of his place in heaven as a martyr, and he called on Iraqis to unite, according to a letter that his lawyers said Wednesday had been composed by the former dictator.

Fears that the announcement upholding his death penalty on Tuesday would set off violence appeared not to be immediately borne out. But officials were still concerned about possible public reaction to the execution itself, and some speculated that the hanging would take place in secret and be announced only after the fact. American and Iraqi officials said nothing definitive about the execution’s details on Wednesday.

Mr. Hussein is being held at Camp Cropper, an American base near the Baghdad Airport. Although the site of the hanging has yet to be announced, the main execution center in Baghdad is near his cell. In a drab concrete building, a set of steel stairs leads to a platform, about 15 feet above the ground. There, nooses fashioned from hemp ropes are slipped around the necks of the condemned before a steel trapdoor swings down.

In his latest letter, Mr. Hussein displayed none of the bombast that had defined his court appearances. He was convicted Nov. 5 of crimes against humanity for his part in the execution of 148 men and boys in the northern town of Dujail, and he wrote his farewell letter at the time of his conviction, his lawyers said.

“I say goodbye to you, but I will be with the merciful God who helps those who take refuge in him and who will never disappoint any honest believer,” the letter said. “I call on you not to hate, because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking.” The letter, which was posted on a Baath Party Web site and received extensive coverage on Arabic TV news stations, seemed to cause little public stir here.

American forces continued Wednesday to focus on the Mahdi Army militia, loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. In Najaf, which is the second holiest city for Shiite Muslims, American and Iraqi forces raided the home of a Sadr loyalist, Sahib al-Amiri, and shot him dead.

Mr. Amiri led a well-known social organization in Najaf called the Shahid Allah Foundation and was personally close to Mr. Sadr, Iraqi officials in Najaf said. While thousands of angry supporters marched in Mr. Amiri’s funeral procession, Mr. Sadr urged his followers in the city to remain calm. At the same time, he released a statement that praised attacks on American forces.

“We heard that Bush, the enemy of God, is crying over the killing of American soldiers in Iraq,” the statement said. “We ask God to extend his crying. We tell him that the killing of any Iraqi by the hands of his Army is a source of pride for us.”

Americans handed control of security in Najaf Province to the Iraqis in an elaborate ceremony last week, but local leaders questioned the significance of the transfer if Americans could still direct raids there.

“When Iraqis were feeling happy about the approval of the execution of the dictator Saddam Hussein, they were surprised today with the raid on the house of Sahab al-Amiri and killing him in front of the eyes of his family and his children,” said Abdul Hussein al-Musawi, the head of Najaf’s governorate council. “This horrible act shows how reckless the raiding forces are.”

American military officials said Mr. Amiri was responsible for planning and directing attacks using improvised explosive devices. They said that the raid was conducted with the Iraqi Eighth Army Division and that Mr. Amiri tried to flee when soldiers entered the house. He ran to the roof, was pursued and then aimed an assault rifle at an Iraqi officer. At that point, a soldier shot him dead, the military said in a statement.

There was also increased pressure on Sadr loyalists in Baghdad on Wednesday. Throughout the day, American and Iraqi troops engaged in actions against militia members around the Sadr City district in the capital, according to witnesses and Iraqi officials. Clashes between Iraqi security forces and militiamen were reported in a half dozen other Baghdad neighborhoods. Government forces killed at least 32 people and arrested 39 more, Iraqi officials said.

Separately, around 2:30 p.m., a car bomb exploded near a restaurant downtown and killed at least 10 civilians, an Iraqi official said. One hour later, another car bomb exploded near a bridge, killing four more people, the official said. The bodies of 50 people, many apparently tortured, were found around the city.

In Anbar Province, where American forces are battling Sunni Arab insurgents, a marine was killed in fighting, according to the military.

In Washington on Wednesday, a District Court judge refused to intervene in the death-penalty case for Mr. Hussein, turning down a request by American defense lawyers to temporarily block the execution. Lawyers for Awad al-Bandar, a former Iraqi judge sentenced to death along with Mr. Hussein, had filed a writ of habeas corpus on his behalf in United States District Court seeking to halt the execution on the grounds that he did not receive a fair trial.

The lawyers, including Ramsey Clark, the former United States attorney general who served on the defense team in the Baghdad trial, maintained that the federal court had jurisdiction because Mr. Bandar was effectively being held in American military custody in Iraq.

The judge, Reggie B. Walton, rejected the claim, saying he did not have jurisdiction. But he did allow the defense lawyers to appeal the issue in hopes of persuading the American courts to intervene.

Noting that the Iraqis had set up the tribunals by which Mr. Hussein and Mr. Bandar were tried, Judge Walton asked, “Why should I step in and interfere with the operations of a sovereign nation?”

Mr. Clark said in an interview that he had filed the petition at the request of Mr. Bandar’s son after Mr. Hussein refused to allow him to do so. In a conversation in Iraq at the time of Mr. Hussein’s sentencing last month, Mr. Clark said he tried to persuade the deposed leader to appeal to the American courts to block the execution. “He said it would be interpreted as his seeking mercy from the United States,” Mr. Clark said, “and he would never permit it.”

Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Najaf, and Suevon Lee from Washington.

    Letter by Hussein, Written After Conviction, Urges Iraqis to Renounce Hatred, NYT, 28.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html

U.S. Says Captured Iranians Can Be Linked to Attacks

December 27, 2006
The New York Times
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

BAGHDAD, Dec. 26 — The American military said Tuesday that it had credible evidence linking Iranians and their Iraqi associates, detained here in raids last week, to criminal activities, including attacks against American forces. Evidence also emerged that some detainees had been involved in shipments of weapons to illegal armed groups in Iraq.

In its first official confirmation of last week’s raids, the military said it had confiscated maps, videos, photographs and documents in one of the raids on a site in Baghdad. The military confirmed the arrests of five Iranians, and said three of them had been released.

The Bush administration has described the two Iranians still being held Tuesday night as senior military officials. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell IV, the chief spokesman for the American command, said the military, in the raid, had “gathered specific intelligence from highly credible sources that linked individuals and locations with criminal activities against Iraqi civilians, security forces and coalition force personnel.”

General Caldwell made his remarks by e-mail in response to a query about the raids, first reported Monday in The New York Times. “Some of that specific intelligence,” he said via e-mail, “dealt explicitly with force-protection issues, including attacks on MNF-I forces.”

MNF-I stands for Multinational Force-Iraq, the official name of the American-led foreign forces there.

American officials have long said that the Iranian government interferes in Iraq, but the arrests, in the compound of one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite political leaders, were the first since the American invasion in which officials were offering evidence of the link.

The raids threaten to upset the delicate balance of the three-way relationship among the United States, Iran and Iraq. The Iraqi government has made extensive efforts to engage Iran in security matters in recent months, and the arrests of the Iranians could scuttle those efforts.

Some Iraqis questioned the timing of the arrests, suggesting that the Bush administration had political motives. The arrests were made just days before the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution imposing sanctions on Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.

The Bush administration has rejected pressure to open talks with Iran on Iraq.

The Iraqi government has kept silent on the arrests, but Tuesday night officials spoke of intense behind-the-scenes negotiations by Iraq’s government and its fractured political elite over how to handle the situation.

Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, had invited the two Iranians during his visit to Tehran, his spokesman said Sunday, but by Tuesday, some Iraqi officials began to question if Mr. Talabani had in fact made the invitation. His office was unavailable for comment Tuesday night.

“We know when they caught them they were doing something,” said one Iraqi official, who added that the Iranians did not appear to have formally registered with the government.

Some political leaders speculated that the arrests had been intended to derail efforts by Iraqis to deal with Iran on their own by making Iraqis look weak.

But the military seemed sure of what and whom it had found.

At about 7 p.m. on Wednesday, the military stopped a car in Baghdad and detained four people — three Iranians and an Iraqi. The military released two of them on Friday and the other two on Sunday night, General Caldwell said. The Iranian Embassy confirmed the releases.

But the more significant raid occurred before dawn the next morning, when American forces raided a second location, the general said. The military described it as “a site in Baghdad,” but declined to release further details about the location.

Iraqi leaders said last week that the site was the compound of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite political leaders, who met with President Bush in Washington three weeks ago. A spokesman for Mr. Hakim said he had not heard of a raid on the compound.

A careful reading of General Caldwell’s statement makes it clear, however, that the location itself was of central importance. The military gathered “specific intelligence from highly credible sources that linked individuals and locations with criminal activities,” it said. The crimes were against Iraqi civilians, security forces and Americans.

In that raid, American forces detained 10 men, 2 of them Iranians. They seized documents, maps, photographs and videos at the location, the military said. The military declined to say precisely what the items showed, nor did it specify if the Iranians themselves were suspected of attacking Americans, or if the Iraqis arrested with them were suspected, or both.

Some Iraqis questioned the American motives, saying the operation seemed aimed at embarrassing Mr. Hakim, the driving force behind a new political grouping backed by the United States to distance militants from the political process.

One Iraqi politician suggested that the tip for the raid had come from a source within Mr. Hakim’s own party, known by the acronym Sciri, in an effort to weaken or unseat him.

However it had been led there, the military said it had found evidence of wrongdoing. By questioning the detainees and investigating the materials, the military found evidence that connected some of those detained “to weapons shipments to armed groups in Iraq,” General Caldwell said.

The military did not specify the types of weapons.

The allegation, if true, would make this the first incident since the American invasion in which Iranian military officials were discovered in the act of planning military action inside Iraq. American officials have long accused them of supplying arms and money from Iran, but never of traveling to Iraq and taking part in plotting violent acts here.

American officials accused Iran of designing and shipping new powerful, armor-piercing bombs to Iraq as early as summer 2005.

American officials have on occasion offered evidence of Iranian involvement: A weapons shipment bearing serial numbers believed to belong to an official Iranian manufacturer was intercepted last year. The most recent allegations, if true, would appear to draw a line back to Tehran more directly than ever.

General Caldwell said that the detainees were still in American custody and that the military was “engaged in ongoing discussions with the government,” about their status. An official in the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad said its diplomats had tried to see the detainees but were not allowed to, a refusal that violated international rules, the official said.

James Glanz contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Michael R. Gordon from Washington.

    U.S. Says Captured Iranians Can Be Linked to Attacks, NYT, 27.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/27/world/middleeast/27iranians.html

Iraqi Court Says Hussein Must Die Within 30 Days

December 27, 2006
The New York Times
By JAMES GLANZ

BAGHDAD, Dec. 26 — An Iraqi appeals court on Tuesday upheld the death sentence against Saddam Hussein and ruled that the man whose brutal reign began in 1979 and ended with the American-led invasion in 2003 must go to the gallows within 30 days.

It was the court of last resort for Mr. Hussein, who received his death sentence on Nov. 5 from the Iraqi High Tribunal, a court set up specifically to pass judgment on his years in power. No further appeals are possible, and his final legal recourse appears to be a clause in the Constitution stating that the Iraqi president must approve all death sentences.

That clause offers Mr. Hussein only the slenderest of hopes. Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi president, has said he is formally against the death penalty, but he has permitted the hangings of many Iraqis convicted of capital crimes. And the Constitution may be trumped by an article in the charter of the tribunal stating that its sentences may be commuted by no one, not even the president.

The appeals verdict, covering one case involving the execution of 148 men and boys in the northern town of Dujail in 1982, came even as Mr. Hussein was facing trial on charges that he ordered the killing of tens of thousands of Kurds, whose bodies have in some instances been exhumed from grisly mass graves and minutely described in the courtroom.

The decision of the nine-judge appeals court was announced on short notice by the chief judge, Aref Shahen, after another day of the numbing violence that has gradually engulfed this country after the bursts of optimism that followed Mr. Hussein’s fall from power in March 2003 and his capture by American forces in December of that year.

Judge Shahen delivered the verdict to a few reporters assembled at the Council of Ministers building within the heavily guarded Green Zone as the rest of the country settled into its nighttime curfew. There were none of the theatrical outbursts contrived by Mr. Hussein to disrupt the trial and the appeal, because he was not present to hear the verdict.

The judge said simply that the appeals court had approved the verdict against Mr. Hussein, who was formally charged with crimes against humanity, and two co-defendants, who had also received death sentences in the Dujail killings, and that they now faced “execution by hanging until death” within 30 days.

The court also approved lesser sentences against three other defendants and the tribunal’s acquittal of a fourth, Judge Shahen said. In addition, the court sent the case of one man, Taha Yassin Ramadan, back to the tribunal, saying his life sentence was too lenient “compared to the crimes that were committed.”

The entire session, which was televised, took no more than 15 minutes, and after taking a few questions Judge Shahen abruptly rose from his seat and left the room.

Before leaving, he left no doubt about where he stood on the issue of constitutional approval of the decision. “Nobody is entitled, including the president, to exempt or commute the verdict issued by this court,” he said. “The punishment is mandatory and should be executed within 30 days from the date it was issued.”

Hiwa Osman, a media adviser for Mr. Talabani, said shortly after the verdict that the president’s office was still studying the decision and had not yet come to a conclusion on whether approval was needed.

The decision capped a day of searing violence in Iraq. The police found 41 bodies dumped around Baghdad, apparently the victims of death squad killings, and at least 45 people died in bombings, including a triple car-bombing in the Baghdad neighborhood of Baya.

The American military announced that five more American service members had died as a result of roadside bombs. A single bomb near a patrol northwest of Baghdad killed three soldiers on Tuesday, the military said, and another bomb killed two soldiers southwest of the capital the day before, on Christmas.

After the Baya bombings, a bus driver, Husam Abdul Wahid, 18, was shivering in a blanket at Yarmouk Hospital after receiving wounds to his abdomen, foot and hand. He said he had been waiting for passengers when he heard a blast to one side of an intersection and rushed, unhurt, with others into nearby shops.

“After a while we came out to see what happened,” Mr. Wahid said.

“Another car detonated about 30 meters away,” plunging shrapnel into his body, he said.

Reaction to the appeals court verdict appeared to be muted in neighborhoods across Iraq that were occupied with far more immediate concerns. In Kirkuk, where Kurdish and Shiite neighborhoods celebrated the Nov. 5 verdict against Mr. Hussein while Sunni areas protested, the streets were quiet, residents said.

In the heavily Shiite southern city of Basra, the police deployed everywhere but largely withdrew when little reaction materialized.

And the scene was tense but quiet in Sadr City, the Shiite slum in northwestern Baghdad, as American military vehicles patrolled the outskirts and local militiamen moved along the streets.

The verdict was criticized by some groups, including Human Rights Watch, which said that it “was imposed after a deeply flawed trial” and recommended that the decision to execute Mr. Hussein be reversed.

A similar view was expressed by Miranda Sissons, leader of the Iraq program at the International Center for Transitional Justice in New York, who said the haste of the decision indicated that it could not have been thoroughly considered.

“This judgment is not surprising, but the speed is very troubling,” Ms. Sissons said. The verdict in the Dujail case “deserved a careful review process, but the signs today are that that hasn’t happened,” she said.

Ms. Sissons said it was also unfortunate that a death sentence meant that trials on other suspected crimes would never go forward, denying justice to other victims of Mr. Hussein’s brutality.

But at the American Embassy in Baghdad, a spokeswoman, Ginger Cruz, praised the “courageous effort” of the Iraqi judges and others at the tribunal, which she said ensured “that justice prevails for the atrocities Saddam Hussein and his regime committed against the Iraqi people.”

Some Iraqis said they feared that when Wednesday dawned and the overnight curfew lifted, the sealing of Mr. Saddam’s fate would spark violence. But there was little evidence to support those worries late Tuesday, even in places most prone to those problems.

In Adhamiya, a mostly Sunni neighborhood that might have been expected to protest the decision, the streets were quiet after a particularly horrific afternoon in which a family of five was trapped in a burning car after a bomb exploded.

The father, screaming for help, escaped the car as residents tried to extinguish the flames with blankets and water. But two young children and an infant died with their mother in the fire.

Reporting was contributed by Khalid al-Ansary, Wisam A. Habeeb and Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi in Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Basra.

    Iraqi Court Says Hussein Must Die Within 30 Days, NYT, 27.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/27/world/middleeast/27iraq.html?hp&ex=1167282000&en=881331b15873037c&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Biden Opposes a Troop Increase in Iraq, Foreshadowing a Fight With the Bush Administration

December 27, 2006
The New York Times
By HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON, Dec. 26 — Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Tuesday rejected a troop increase for Iraq, foreshadowing what could be a contentious fight between the Bush administration and Congress.

Mr. Biden, a Democrat, announced that he would begin hearings on Iraq on Jan. 9 and expected high-ranking officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to appear.

As President Bush flew to his Texas ranch on Tuesday, a spokesman for the National Security Council urged the senator to wait for Mr. Bush to present his new Iraq policy next month before passing judgment.

“President Bush will talk soon to our troops, the American people and Iraqis about a new way forward for Iraq that will lead to a democratic, unified country that can govern, defend and sustain itself,” said Gordon Johndroe, the council spokesman.

The date has not been scheduled, but administration officials said it would be before the State of the Union address on Jan. 23. Mr. Bush, who intends to write the speech this week, is to hold a National Security Council meeting on Thursday at his ranch to discuss Iraq policy. Vice President Dick Cheney, Ms. Rice, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, are expected to attend.

One plan under consideration is to send an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq in a bid to restore order. “I totally oppose this surging of additional American troops into Baghdad,” Mr. Biden said. “It’s contrary to the overwhelming body of informed opinion, both inside and outside the administration.”

Mr. Biden, who said he planned to run for president in 2008, made his critique during a teleconference call with reporters. He continued to press his proposal for a partitioning of Iraq into three autonomous states — controlled by Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds — to be sustained with what he called an equitable distribution of the country’s oil wealth.

He did not say what he would do if the administration went ahead with a temporary increase in American combat forces, and it is unclear whether the Democrats have the power to stop such a move.

While Congress could hold up funding for the war in Iraq, the administration retains the upper hand in determining the American course there, especially since it is unlikely that a Congress that is so evenly split between Republicans and Democrats will speak with a unified voice.

One thing remains certain, though: President Bush will remain under pressure to talk to Iran and Syria about the deteriorating situation in Iraq in particular and the Middle East in general, as is called for by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, led by James A. Baker III, the former Republican secretary of state, and Lee H. Hamilton, the former Democratic congressman.

While the Bush administration has indicated that American officials will not heed the suggestion that they enlist help from Iran and Syria, there continues to be a drumbeat of calls for the United States to talk to those countries.

Earlier this month, three Democratic senators — Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, Bill Nelson of Florida and John Kerry of Massachusetts — ignored protests from the Bush administration and flew to Damascus to meet with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. On Tuesday, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania became the first Republican to follow suit.

Mr. Specter said before leaving the United States that other Republican lawmakers might follow him to Damascus. He said there was growing concern that the administration’s policies in the Middle East were not working.

Although the United States still has an embassy in Damascus, it has been represented there by a chargé d’affaires since Mr. Bush recalled the ambassador, Margaret Scobey, after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, in February 2005.

Since then contact between the two governments have been kept to low-level officials, and last week Ms. Rice reiterated that the United States planned to keep its associations with Damascus in the deep freeze.

Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting.

    Biden Opposes a Troop Increase in Iraq, Foreshadowing a Fight With the Bush Administration, NYT, 27.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/27/washington/27diplo.html

U.S. military death toll in Iraq exceeds number of deaths in Sept. 11, 2001, attacks

Updated 12/26/2006 1:40 AM ET
AP
USA Today

BAGHDAD (AP) — Two more American soldiers were killed in Iraq, officials said Tuesday, pushing the U.S. military death toll to at least 2,974 — one more than the number killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The tragic milestone came with the deaths of the two soldiers Monday in a bomb explosion southwest of Baghdad, the military said.

The deaths — announced Tuesday — raised the number of troops killed to 2,974 since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes at least seven military civilians.

The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks claimed 2,973 victims in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Opponents of President Bush have criticized him for raising the attacks as a justification for the protracted fight in Iraq.

"The joint patrol was conducting security operations in order to stop terrorists from placing roadside bombs in the area," the military said in a statement on the latest deaths. "As they conducted their mission, a roadside bomb exploded near one of their vehicles."

Another soldier was wounded in the explosion, the military said.

On Monday, the U.S. command announced the deaths of two other soldiers and a Marine. It said one soldier died and two were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. military vehicle in southern Baghdad on Monday. An American soldier and a Marine died Sunday from combat wounds suffered in Anbar province.

Prior to the deaths announced Tuesday, the AP count was 15 higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. ET. At least 2,377 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

The British military has reported 126 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 18; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, six; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Romania, one death each.

On Monday, British soldiers backed by tanks raided a police station in the southern city of Basra, killing seven gunmen in an effort to stop renegade Iraqi officers from executing their prisoners, the British military said.

After the British stormed the Basra police station, they removed the prisoners, who showed evidence of torture, then evacuated the building before blowing it up.

The operation showed how closely aligned some police units are with militias and death squads — and the challenges coalition forces face as they transfer authority for security to Iraqis.

In Baghdad, police found 40 bodies, apparent victims of sectarian violence. A car bomb exploded beside a market and a suicide bomber struck a bus in separate attacks that killed 14 civilians and wounded at least 33.

In the Basra raid, the British set out to arrest officers with the station's serious crimes unit who were suspected of involvement with Shiite death squads. Seven members of the rogue police unit were apprehended three days ago in other raids, said a British spokeswoman, Royal Navy Lt. Jenny Saleh.

"We had intelligence to indicate that the serious crimes unit would execute its prisoners in the coming days, so we decided to intervene," Saleh said.

British troops were fired on as they approached the station and their return fire killed seven gunmen, said Maj. Charlie Burbridge, another British military spokesman.

British and Iraqi forces transferred all 76 prisoners at the station to another facility in downtown Basra, he said. Some prisoners had "classic torture injuries" such as crushed hands and feet, cigarette and electrical burns and gunshot wounds in the knees, Burbridge said.

The British demolished the building in an effort to disband the unit. "We identified the serious crimes unit as, frankly, too far gone," Burbridge said. "We just had to get rid of it."

The unit's members, he alleged, were involved in tribal and political feuds in southern Iraq, which is mostly Shiite. They were not, he said, engaged in the kind of sectarian reprisal killings that have terrorized mixed neighborhoods of Baghdad.

Most of Britain's 7,200 troops in Iraq are based in the Basra area.

Mohammed al-Askari, a spokesman for Iraq's Defense Ministry, said the operation was coordinated with the Iraqi government. "Multinational forces got approval for this raid from this ministry and with participation of the Iraqi army," he said.

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who is in charge of training Iraqi forces, said in Washington last week that efforts were underway to weed out Iraqi national police believed to be sympathetic to the militias.

Up to a quarter are thought to be aligned with the militias, which are engaged in sectarian violence.

The establishment of a viable Iraqi police force is vital to the U.S.-led coalition's goal of handing responsibility for security to Iraqis, so foreign troops can return home.

In another sign of lawlessness in Basra, gunmen on Monday robbed $740,000 from a bank about half a mile from the raided police station.

The car bomb in Baghdad, meanwhile, struck a mostly Shiite district to the east that attracts crowds of shoppers and laborers looking for work.

In another part of eastern Baghdad, a suicide bomber exploded in a minibus, killing three people and injuring 19, police said.

Another suicide bomber killed two policemen at a checkpoint at a university entrance in Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, a stronghold of the Sunni-dominated insurgency.

The deaths came a day after Iraq's interior minister said attacks targeting police had killed some 12,000 officers since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein.

Christians attended Christmas services in Baghdad and northern Iraq, home to most of Iraq's 800,000 Christians. Some in Baghdad stayed home, however, fearing violence.

Christians are on the fringes of the conflict, which mostly involves Shiite Muslims and Sunni Arabs — but they have been targeted by Islamic militants.

"I hope next year will bring good things and unite all Iraqis because there is no difference between Christians and Muslims," said Abu Fadi, a worshipper who does not use his Christian name because he fears for his safety. "May God bring relief from this."

In another sign of escalating diplomatic tensions between the U.S. and Iran, the White House said Monday that U.S. troops in Iraq detained at least two Iranians and released two others who had diplomatic immunity.

U.S. officials have charged that Iran provides training and other aid to Shiite militias in Iraq — including the equipment used to build roadside bombs. The Tehran regime says it only has political and religious links with Iraqi Shiites.

But Iran is believed to be expanding its shadowy role in Iraq, partly to counter U.S. influence in the region.

In Baghdad, a spokesman for Iraqi President Jalal Talabani confirmed that U.S. troops had detained two Iranians who were in Iraq at his invitation. "The president is unhappy about it," said Hiwa Osman, Talabani's media adviser.

He gave no further details, and the U.S. military said it had no comment.

"We suspect this event validates our claims about Iranian meddling, but we want to finish our investigation of the detained Iranians before characterizing their activities," White House spokesman Alex Conant said Monday. "We will be better able to explain what this means about the larger picture after we finish our investigation."

He said that a routine raid on suspected insurgents netted the Iranians. Two had diplomatic immunity and were released to the Iraqi government, which then released them to Iran, Conant said.

    U.S. military death toll in Iraq exceeds number of deaths in Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, UT, 26.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-12-25-iraq_x.htm

U.S. highlights Iran-meddling charge in Iraq

Tue Dec 26, 2006 1:13 AM ET
Reuters
By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said on Monday the arrest in Iraq of alleged Iranian provocateurs, including two diplomats, underscored U.S. concerns about "meddling" amid rising U.S.-Iranian strains.

U.S.-led forces detained the Iranians during operations "against those planning and plotting attacks against multinational forces, Iraqi forces and Iraqi citizens," the State Department said.

"In the course of those operations, multinational forces recently picked up groups of individuals involved in these kinds of activities, including Iranians operating inside Iraq," it said.

U.S. military and civilian officials in Baghdad and Washington did not respond to questions about any evidence the arrested Iranians were plotting attacks.

"We suspect this event validates our claim about Iranian meddling," said Alex Conant, a White House spokesman, "but we want to finish our investigation of the detained Iranians before characterizing their activities."

"We will be better able to explain what this means about the larger picture after we finish our investigation," he added in an e-mailed reply to questions from Reuters.

Two of the Iranians arrested had diplomatic credentials, Conant said. He said they were handed to the Iraqi government which released them to the Iranian government.

Details of the arrests were sketchy. The New York Times, which first reported the arrests on Sunday, said the Iranians were picked up in a pair of raids in central Baghdad late last week.

At least four Iranians were still being held by the U.S. military, including some described as senior military officials, the paper said.

The arrests were highly sensitive for the three governments involved as tensions have risen over Iran's nuclear program and its support for hard-line, anti-U.S. forces in the Middle East.

On Saturday, UnderSecretary of State Nicholas Burns called for an end to "business as usual" with Iran to bolster U.N. Security Council sanctions adopted earlier in the day aimed at rolling back Iran's nuclear program.

Iran, along with Syria, has been undermining "the government of Iraq's political process by providing both active and passive support to anti-government and anti-Coalition forces," the U.S. Defense Department said in its latest quarterly report to Congress, released last Monday.

"Eliminating the smuggling of materiel and foreign fighters into Iraq is a critical task and a formidable challenge," the Pentagon said.

Earlier this month, Pentagon officials said they were weighing a request from the command responsible for U.S. military operations in the Middle East to send a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf area, partly to deter Iran from "provocative" actions.

    U.S. highlights Iran-meddling charge in Iraq, R, 26.12.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-12-26T061212Z_01_N25363463_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-USA-IRAN-WHITEHOUSE.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-politicsNews-3

Washington Memo

War Critics See New Resistance by Bush

December 26, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, Dec. 25 — Immediately after the beating his party took in November, President Bush indicated that he had received the message that voters wanted change, and that he would serve some up fast. He ousted his defense secretary, announced a full-scale review of his war plan and contritely agreed with critics that progress in Iraq was not happening “well enough, fast enough.”

But in the last two weeks, the critics and even some allies say, they have seen a reversal. Mr. Bush has shrugged off suggestions by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group that he enlist the help of Iran and Syria in the effort to stabilize Iraq. Countering suggestions that he begin thinking of bringing troops home, he has engaged in deliberations over whether to send more. And he has adjusted the voters’ message away from Iraq, saying on Wednesday, “I thought the election said they want to see more bipartisan cooperation.”

In a way, this is the president being the president he has always been — while he still can.

With Congress out of session, Mr. Bush has sought to reassert his relevance and show yet again that he can chart his own course against all prevailing winds, whether they be unfavorable election returns, a record-low standing in the polls or the public prescriptions of Washington wise men.

He has at least for now put the Iraq war debate on terms with which he is said to be more comfortable, if only because they are not the terms imposed on him by Democrats and the study group.

That stance could be short-lived.

Democrats warn — and some Republicans privately say they fear — that Mr. Bush is in for a dousing of cold water when he returns from his ranch in Crawford, Tex., in the new year to face a new, Democratic-controlled Congress ready to try out its muscle. His recent moves have already caused a fair degree of crankiness among his newly empowered governing partners.

“I’ve seen very few tea leaves in the mix that would give you any sense of hope or confidence that he is getting it so far,” said Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who supports the study group’s advice that the administration seek help from Iran and Syria in Iraq. “The bottom line is this president can’t afford not to change course. The time is up.”

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a former Army ranger who is a member of the Armed Services Committee, said, “I don’t think he’s given up the sort of sloganizing and the simplistic view of what’s happening there.”

“I think the American people’s message was deep concern about Iraq, deep skepticism about his policies, and what they want is a resolution of Iraq,” said Mr. Reed, who supports a steady withdrawal that is fundamentally at odds with any idea of an increase in troops there.

If the president does call for such an increase, he will have a potentially powerful Republican ally in Senator John McCain of Arizona, a leading contender for the 2008 presidential nomination. But other Republicans have warned that they cannot support that step now that several military commanders have expressed reservations about placing more American troops between warring factions in Baghdad. That Mr. Bush would even consider a military plan at variance with the wishes of some of his commanders has added to an increasing sense of his isolation from his own party.

“I’m growing more disturbed every night by how isolated George W. Bush has become,” the former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough said on his MSNBC program last week. “Shouldn’t more Americans be disturbed at this unprecedented example of a White House that’s in — and you can only call it this — a bunker mentality?” The screen below him read, “Bush: Determined or Delusional?”

White House officials, who note that Mr. Scarborough has been finding fault with the president for months, say critics are getting ahead of themselves, given that Mr. Bush has not yet said what his next move in Iraq will be.

“This is all background noise for the American people right now,” a senior administration official said. “Most people are going to wait and see exactly what the president’s going to say.”

This official, who insisted on anonymity as a condition of discussing internal White House thinking, said the administration calculated some of that “background noise” into the mix when it decided to postpone any announcement on Iraq until the new year.

“We know we’re just in this period of purgatory where there are things surfacing and being debated,” he said.

One member of the study group, Leon E. Panetta, who was chief of staff to President Bill Clinton when the Republicans took control of Congress in the 1994 elections, said the White House seemed to be in a period of postelection mourning in which it had not yet fully comprehended a new reality.

“What always happens with an election in which you lose badly or your party loses badly is that you spend a little time in shock,” Mr. Panetta said. “And then you reach out with the words of cooperation, and then you go into a period where you start to basically spin things in a way that says, ‘Whatever happened is really not our fault.’ And you use that to rationalize that what you’re doing is right.”

But, he said, “at some point you move into a different phase: the harsh realities come home.”

One Republican close to the White House said that moment was fast approaching.

“Jan. 4 is a new day,” this Republican said of the official shift of power in Congress, “and they still think they can control the calendar and the timing. But that’s no longer at their discretion.”

In an interview last week, Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who will become chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he was planning three hearings on Iraq in January. Speaking of the president, Mr. Levin said, “He’s got to now come to Congress with a policy he’s got to adopt, and it’s controlled by people who are pressing for a change in direction in Iraq.”

    War Critics See New Resistance by Bush, NYT, 26.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/26/us/politics/26bush.html

Hundreds Disappear Into the Black Hole of the Kurdish Prison System in Iraq

December 26, 2006
The New York Times
By C. J. CHIVERS

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq — The inmates began their strike with an angry call. “Allahu akbar!” they shouted, 120 voices joining in a cadence punctuated by whoops.

They thrust their arms between the metal bars and ripped away the curtains and plastic sheets covering the windows facing the prison courtyard. Their squinting faces were exposed to light.

Their Kurdish guards gathered, ready to control a prison break. There was no break. The inmates were able only to shove their bunks against the doors and barricade themselves in their cells. They settled into a day of issuing complaints.

They were not allowed the Koran, they said. Their rations were meager and often moldy. Sometimes the guards beat them, they said, and several inmates had disappeared. The entire inmate population had either been denied trials or had been held beyond the terms of their sentences, they said — lost in legal limbo in the Kurdish-controlled region of Iraq.

The prison strike here, on Dec. 4, ended when the local authorities agreed to transfer three unpopular guards and to allow copies of the Koran in the cells. But it exposed an intractable problem that has accompanied Kurdish cooperation with the United States in Iraq.

The Kurdish prison population has swelled to include at least several hundred suspected insurgents, and yet there is no legal system to sort out their fates. So the inmates wait, a population for which there is no plan.

The Kurdish government that holds the prisoners says they are dangerous, and points out that the population includes men who have attended terrorist or guerrilla training in Iraq or Afghanistan. But it also concedes to being stymied, with a small budget, limited prison space and little legal precedent to look back on.

“We have not had trials for them,” said Brig. Sarkawt Hassan Jalal, the director of security in the Sulaimaniya region. “We have no counterterrorism law, and any law we would pass would not affect them because it would not be retroactive.”

The problems reach back to before the American-led invasion, when northern Iraq was a Kurdish enclave out of Saddam Hussein’s control.

At the time, the Kurds in northeastern Iraq were fighting Ansar al-Islam, a small insurgent and terrorist group that seized control of a slice of territory along the Iranian border in 2002.

The Kurds captured several prisoners and suspected terrorists, but had no clear idea what to do with them, other than to hold them in cells.

Several weeks after the war started in 2003, an attack by American special forces and Kurdish fighters pushed Ansar al-Islam off Kurdish turf. But the border with Iran had not been sealed before the attack. Most of the insurgents escaped.

In the years since, Ansar al-Islam’s ideological war has spread throughout Sunni Arab regions of Iraq, becoming a far more dangerous insurgency. Kurdish jails have swelled with people accused of participating in it.

Many of the detained men exude menace. But others claim they are innocent. And Kurdish officials say they have a limited capacity to disentangle the groups.

Brig. Hassan Nouri, the Kurdish security official responsible for the prisons in northeastern Iraq, said the detainees are in a status resembling that of the American-held detainees in Guantánamo Bay. “We cannot let them go, and we will hold them as long as we have to,” he said.

The population’s size is unclear. In this prison run by the local security service on a Kurdish military base at Sulaimaniya’s outskirts, 120 accused insurgents are held.

Hania Mufti, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who has investigated the prison conditions and the absence of due process for the inmates, said that about 2,500 people are being held by the security services of the two ruling Kurdish parties. She estimated that two-thirds of them are accused of participating in the insurgency.

Ms. Mufti said she has encouraged Kurdish political leaders to set up an independent commission to review each of the accused insurgents’ cases.

“We’re not saying, ‘throw open the doors of the prisons,’ ” she said, but rather are suggesting that the Kurds create a means to examine the merits of each man’s detention, and to determine why and whether each of them should be held and for how long, and under what conditions.

Kurdish officials have not yet developed such a policy; the detainees are essentially warehoused. The strike in early December exposed the strains the unresolved status has placed on the Kurdish government and the inmates alike.

The four visible cells here, spaces of about 7 yards by 8 yards, each were packed with 30 men. The men shared a toilet on the floor outside the cells, in a hall. The group seethes. One inmate shouted at two journalists through the bars. “Stop your hatred toward Islam!” he said. “Otherwise we will kill you!”

Speaking from a law enforcement perspective, Mr. Jalal said the close quarters and evident anger had made many of the inmates more radical, and that the prison serves as an insurgents’ nest.

The detainees themselves blame the Kurds. As the disruption began, one inmate who had been outside the cells to meet a family member was swiftly pushed into a guard bunkroom and left with two journalists.

The man, Yunis Ahmad, 34, of Kirkuk, said he had been held two years without being charged. He was briefly detained, he said, by the American military, and then turned over to the Kurds.

Behind him on the wall of the guard’s room hung two pieces of heavy electric cable, a common tool for beatings.

Mr. Ahmad said that the Americans had treated him decently, interviewing him politely and giving him food and juice. But since being in Kurdish custody, he said, he had been tortured, including having a bed placed on him and then being nearly crushed with weights and having his arms almost pulled from his shoulder sockets by the guards.

“I promise you, if they pulled your arms like that, you will confess to being in Al Qaeda,” he said.

He was an Islamic cleric, he said, and his brother was an insurgent. He said he did not know the reasons for his incarceration. “The people who are here don’t know why they are here,” he said.

Later, other prisoners spoke through their windows and cell doors.

One man, Ahmed Jamal, 24, said he was an Australian citizen and had been held without being charged since he was arrested by Kurdish authorities in Aug. 2004.

“They don’t give us enough to drink,” he said. “They don’t give us medicine.” He pointed to a middle-aged man who was moaning on a bunk, semi-conscious, and said that the authorities would not provide the man with medical treatment.

Mr. Jamal’s own journey into custody appeared strange. Kurdish authorities said that Mr. Jamal came to Iraq to join the insurgency, a topic Mr. Jamal was evasive about.

He said he had flown to Baghdad in 2004 because he planned to drive into Jordan illegally, and was then arrested in Mosul by the Kurds. He could not fly directly to Jordan, he said, because the Jordanian government considered him a terrorist, which he said he was not.

Asked how he ended up in Mosul, which is not on the way to Jordan from Baghdad, he shrugged, and said, “My plans changed.”

Andrew S. Todd, a senior spokesman for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, confirmed by telephone that Mr. Jamal is an Australian citizen. He added that he had been visited by consular officials, who have been discussing his circumstances with the Kurdish authorities. He declined to discuss the case further, citing diplomatic protocol.

Another inmate, Haqi Ismail Ibrahim, an Iraqi Arab who had trained with the Taliban in Afghanistan before the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, said he had been held without charges or a legal hearing for more than five years. (Mr. Ibrahim has been held since at least 2002, when he was previously interviewed by The New York Times.)

He said 10 to 15 other inmates have vanished, and that he feared they had been executed. “We asked the Red Cross to search for these people,” he said through the bars. “But they do not know where they are.”

One of the prisoners who Mr. Ibrahim said was now missing, Qais Ibrahim Khadir, was captured in 2002 after an assassination attempt against Barham Salih. Mr. Salih was then the prime minister of the eastern Kurdish enclave and is now a deputy prime minister of Iraq. Five Kurdish guards were killed in the attempt.

Mr. Salih later said he wanted to spare Mr. Khadir’s life, as part of an example of official restraint and respect for life in a country that had endured unchecked state violence under Mr. Hussein. Other Kurdish officials, in interviews in 2002 and 2003, dismissed such notions as fancy, and said Mr. Khadir would be executed.

Mr. Khadir’s fate has never been disclosed. Mr. Jalal and Mr. Nouri would say publicly only that he is no longer in his custody.

The International Committee for the Red Cross has an office in Sulaimaniya. Its head of mission declined to comment about the prisoners’ allegations, other than to say that the organization visits the prison and the inmates and is in contact with the Kurdish authorities.

The United States military said it was also not directly involved in these jails. “We just don’t have that role in the Kurdish legal system,” said Maj. Derrick W. Cheng, a spokesman for the Third Brigade, 25th Infantry Division. “We have security overwatch in the area, but we don’t have an immediate or direct role in the prisons.”

    Hundreds Disappear Into the Black Hole of the Kurdish Prison System in Iraq, NYT, 26.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/26/world/middleeast/26kurdjail.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

12,000 Iraqi policemen killed since '03; 6 U.S. soldiers killed

Updated 12/24/2006 9:12 PM ET
AP
USA Today

BAGHDAD (AP) — Some 12,000 Iraqi policemen have been killed since the ouster of Saddam Hussein, the country's interior minister said Sunday, as clashes, a suicide bomber and weekend explosions killed more than a dozen Iraqi officers and six American soldiers.

At a news conference in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani said despite the thousands of police deaths "when we call for new recruits, they come by the hundreds and by the thousands."

Among the deaths Sunday were seven police officers killed when a suicide bomber hit a police station in Muqdadiyah, northeast of the capital. The bombing was followed by six mortar rounds. In Mosul, a drive-by shooting killed two policemen.

Police and police recruits have been frequent targets of insurgent attacks. In one of the worst single attacks, a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives near a line of national guard and police recruits waiting to take physicals in February 2005. The blast in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, killed 125.

Another bombing killed 60 civilians lining up to apply for police jobs in the Kurdish city of Irbil in northern Iraq in 2005.

Police have also been blamed for violence. Gunmen in Iraqi army and police uniforms have been responsible for recent bank robberies in Baghdad and the kidnapping of more than 40 workers and volunteers at the Iraqi Red Crescent.

Al-Bolani vowed to rid his ministry of rogue officers.

"We formed committees to clean and purge ... to dismiss the bad elements from the ministry and build our institutions," al-Bolani said.

The Iraqi Ministry of Health estimated in November that 150,000 Iraqi civilians been killed in the war that began in 2003. Other estimates put the figure as low as 51,000 or as high as 600,000. Iraq's health ministry is responsible for estimates of civilian deaths, while the interior ministry keeps track of the number of police killed.

In other violence, five Iraqi officers died battling Shiite militiamen in a provincial capital in southern Iraq just months after British troops ceded control of the province to Iraqi security forces. Three days of fighting in Samawah, capital of the Muthana province, posed a challenge for Iraqi forces whose responsibilities are increasing as part of a U.S. plan to put more Iraqi provinces under local control.

Fighters linked to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr fired rocket-propelled grenades at police headquarters and state buildings in Samawah, before government reinforcements arrived and a curfew fell on the city, police said. Masked gunmen lined rooftops.

Al-Bolani sought to downplay three days of clashes in Samawah, which lies on the Euphrates River about 230 miles southeast of Baghdad

"We know the (Iraqi) forces there can face these outlaw groups, but we want to tell the people that the government is present everywhere," al-Bolani said.

He refused to identify the groups, but police said they were members of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

The anti-American cleric has lost control of some elements of his militia, and it was unclear whether the gunmen considered themselves loyal to the cleric or were a renegade group intent on local control.

About 40 suspected militiamen were captured, a police official said on condition of anonymity out of concern for his safety.

Muthana was under control of British forces until July, when it became the first province to revert to Iraqi control.

"No multinational forces are there at all," said Maj. Charlie Burbridge, spokesman for British forces in the neighboring province of Basra.

A string of bombings claimed the lives of six U.S. soldiers in an around Baghdad.

Three members the U.S. 89th Military Police Brigade were killed Saturday in east Baghdad when a roadside bomb detonated, the U.S. military said.

A fourth soldier, assigned to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, died Saturday in an explosion in Diyala, east of the Iraqi capital.

Two more U.S. soldiers were killed Saturday in separate roadside blasts near Baghdad, the U.S. military said. One of them died when a bomb exploded southeast of the capital near a patrol searching for "suspected terrorists," the military said. Four other soldiers were wounded in that incident.

The sixth U.S. soldier was killed when a bomb exploded southwest of Baghdad, near a patrol delivering supplies to units in the area.

With their deaths, at least 2,969 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

American troops hunting house-to-house for Shiite militia leaders in Baghdad described Christmas as just another day in Iraq.

"In the back of your mind you think about it, but there are no holidays in Iraq," said Staff Sgt. Brandon Scott, a 35-year-old from Woodbridge, Va., and the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, which is part of the Army's 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division.

Iraq's Christians quietly celebrated behind closed doors, afraid to identify themselves in an Iraqi public increasingly divided along religious and sectarian lines. Some Christmas Eve church services in Baghdad were canceled because of security concerns.

Police found the handcuffed, tortured bodies of 38 men throughout the country on Sunday, more apparent victims of sectarian violence.

    12,000 Iraqi policemen killed since '03; 6 U.S. soldiers killed, UT, 24.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-12-24-iraq-violence_x.htm

Commander Said to Be Open to More Troops

December 24, 2006
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 — The American military command in Iraq is now willing to back a temporary increase in American troops in Baghdad as part of a broader Iraqi and United States effort to stem the slide toward chaos, senior American officials said Saturday.

President Bush and his advisers were told Saturday of the new position when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates met with them at Camp David, an administration official said.

Until recently, the top ground commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., has argued that sending more American forces into Baghdad and Anbar Province, the two most violent regions of Iraq, would increase the Iraqi dependency on Washington, and in the words of one senior official, “make this feel more like an occupation.”

But General Casey and Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who has day-to-day command of American forces in Iraq, indicated they were open to a troop increase when Mr. Gates met with them in Baghdad this week.

“They are open to the possibility of some increase in force,” a senior Defense Department official said. “They are supportive of taking steps to support the Iraqis in their plan, including the possible modest augmentation in U.S. combat forces.”

“Nobody has decided anything yet and they have not made a formal recommendation,” the official continued. “They are open to the idea of such an option and are weighing how best to execute it and what the traffic will bear with the Iraqis.”

The possible increase in troops, officials said, ranges from fewer than 10,000 to as many as 30,000.

Politically, winning the support of American generals for the additional troops is crucial to Mr. Bush if he hopes to make the increase part of the new strategy he is expected to announce in early January.

Over the past two weeks, Mr. Bush has appeared at odds with the generals in some of his comments, as the White House veered toward strategies that involve a greater show of force and some members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff questioned whether a “surge” in forces would make a lasting difference.

The Camp David meeting convened by President Bush included Mr. Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, for what the White House called a chance for Mr. Gates, who took office this week, to report on his findings. Mr. Bush plans to convene a full meeting of the National Security Council on Thursday at his ranch in Crawford, Tex.

The key to any new strategy, some officials said, would be a binding commitment by the Iraqi government that it would provide far more troops as well, and take other steps to try to slow the sectarian violence. The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has repeatedly stressed the desire to take charge of the security situation in Baghdad, but failed to send most of the reinforcements the Americans requested this summer during a beefed-up effort to quell the violence.

It is unclear how Mr. Bush plans to enforce any commitments from Mr. Maliki, but Mr. Gates said in Baghdad before flying home that he sensed “a broad strategic agreement between the Iraqi military and Iraqi government and our military.”

“There is still some work to be done,” he said. “But I do expect to give a report to the president on what I’ve learned and my perceptions.” Mr. Gates was joined on his Iraq tour by officials from the White House and other parts of the government.

Administration officials, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations, said that General Casey had not yet submitted a formal recommendation to Mr. Gates and Mr. Bush. Mr. Gates, they said, asked General Casey to enter into final discussions with Iraqi officials on the specifics of their role.

But officials said General Casey was coming closer to the position of General Odierno that a greater a show of force would be critical to the effort to contain the Sunni insurgency and tamp down the violence by Shiite militias. The shift in the general’s position was first reported in The Los Angeles Times on Saturday.

General Casey has long argued that the principal emphasis of American policy should be on training Iraqi security forces, and handing over responsibility to the Iraqi military and police. In a plan General Casey presented in Washington in June, he anticipated reducing some American combat troops in September. But his plan was shelved after the surge in violence in Iraq.

As the sectarian killings escalated, the White House began to explore the option of sending more troops as a broader strategy to secure Baghdad. The idea was raised in a November memo prepared by Mr. Hadley. Mr. Bush discussed the option during a recent meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff that was organized as part of the administration’s Iraq strategy review.

Some generals appeared notably unenthusiastic. Some members of the Joint Chiefs appeared worried about the strain it would place on the Army and the Marines. Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American commander for the Middle East, told Congress last month that adding 20,000 troops would improve security, but argued that the effect would only be temporary because the United States military was not large enough to sustain such an increase indefinitely.

As for General Casey, he suggested Wednesday that he was neither the originator of the idea nor actively lobbying for it. At the same time, he indicated that he was not adamantly opposed to it. “Additional troops have to be for a purpose,” the general said. “I’m not necessarily opposed to the idea, but what I want to see happen is, if we do bring more American troops here, they help us progress toward our strategic objectives.”

Should Mr. Bush decide to send more troops, General Casey’s backing for a such a step would help the president deal with Congressional critics, who have pressed the administration to begin a withdrawal. It would also aid him with Republicans, some of whom were taken aback this week when Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state who also served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Mr. Bush had not yet clearly defined a role for additional troops that made it worth the projected casualties and deeper American involvement.

Mr. Gates said during the trip that he did not believe that Iraqi leaders were deeply split on the question of an increase in the American presence. Mr. Maliki proposed a plan to Mr. Bush in their meeting last month in Amman, Jordan, under which the Iraqis would assume direct command of its 10 Army divisions and a National Police division by June.

The Iraqi prime minister also proposed that his government assume the primary responsibility for security in Baghdad over the next several months while most American forces would move to the periphery of the city. The idea of moving American troops to the capital’s outskirts is consistent with General Casey’s long-term plan, but the Iraqi time frame is far more compressed. Some of Mr. Bush’s aides have expressed concern that the Iraqis’ desire for control outstrips their capacity.

However, as a political matter, officials said, it is crucial that Mr. Bush be able to announce that any increase in American troops will be made in parallel with a similar commitment by the Iraqis, and that the eventual goal of the strategy is to put the Iraqis in the lead. The Iraqis promised to send two brigades of Iraqi Army troops this summer, but most of the troops never arrived.

Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who oversees the training of Iraq’s security forces, said this week that he was overhauling his training efforts so that Iraqi Army units would be easier to deploy, including providing more pay.

“We’ve got two or three brigade headquarters and six additional battalions that are scheduled now over the next couple of months to come to Baghdad,” he said. An Iraqi battalion nominally has more than 700 soldiers, but the actual number is often far less, since many soldiers are on scheduled leaves or absent without leave.

    Commander Said to Be Open to More Troops, NYT, 24.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/world/middleeast/24military.html?hp&ex=1167022800&en=0f22d0e5fe9661ed&ei=5094&partner=homepage

8 Marines Charged With Iraq Murders

December 23, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:04 a.m. ET
The New York Times

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) -- With eight Marines charged in connection with the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians, the Marine Corps sent a clear message to its officers: They will be held accountable for the actions of their subordinates.

In the biggest U.S. criminal case involving civilian deaths to come out of the Iraq war, four of the Marines -- all enlisted men -- were charged Thursday with unpremeditated murder.

But the remaining four Marines in the case are officers, the highest ranking among them a lieutenant colonel. They were charged with dereliction of duty for failing to report or properly investigate the killings in the Iraqi town of Haditha last year.

The case marks the largest number of U.S. officers to be charged in an alleged crime since the start of the Iraq war, said John Hutson, a former Navy judge advocate general.

''The honorable thing is not to 'protect' your subordinates,'' said Hutson, who is now president of New Hampshire's Franklin Pierce Law Center. ''The honorable thing is to look above that and realize they have a greater responsibility to the Marine Corps and military justice system.''

Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, 42, of Rangely, Colo., was charged with failing to accurately report and thoroughly investigate a possible violation and dereliction of duty. He could face dismissal and up to two years in prison.

Hutson said officers play an integral role in the way crimes are reported and how military justice is handled. He said if the officers did fail to properly investigate the deaths, their failures were more enduring ''than these guys who allegedly murdered people.''

Besides Chessani, officers charged in connection with how the incident was investigated or reported included 1st Lt. Andrew A. Grayson, 25; Capt. Lucas McConnell, 31, of Napa, Calif., and Capt. Randy W. Stone, 34, a military attorney.

The charges followed an investigation into Iraqi allegations that Marines went on a rampage after one of their own was killed by a bomb.

Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, 26, was charged with the unpremeditated murder of 12 people, and the murder of six others by ordering Marines about to enter a house to ''shoot first and ask questions later,'' according to court papers released by his attorney, Neal Puckett. He faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted.

Puckett said his client carried out the killings in accordance with his training.

''There's no question that innocent people died that day, but Staff Sergeant Wuterich believes, and I believe, they did everything they were trained to do,'' he said.

Wuterich was also charged with making a false official statement and soliciting another sergeant to make false official statements.

Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz, 24, of Chicago, was accused of the unpremeditated murders of five people and making a false official statement with intent to deceive.

Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, 22, of Canonsburg, Pa., was accused of the unpremeditated murder of three Iraqis. Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum, 25, of Edmund, Okla., was charged with the unpremeditated murders of two Iraqis, negligent homicide of four Iraqi civilians and a charge of assault upon two Iraqis.

The Marines, who are based at Camp Pendleton, have been under investigation since March. None will be placed in pretrial confinement, because they are not deemed a flight risk or a danger to themselves or others, said Col. Stewart Navarre, chief of staff for Marine Corps Installations West.

The Iraqis were killed in the hours following a roadside bomb that rocked a Marine patrol on the morning of Nov. 19, 2005. The blast killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas of El Paso, Texas, and injured two others. The Marine Corps said again Thursday that insurgents fired guns after the blast.

In the aftermath, five men were shot as they approached the scene in a taxi and others -- including women and children -- died as Marines went house to house in the area, clearing homes with grenades and gunfire.

Terrazas' father denounced the charges.

''What they are doing to our troops ... it's just wrong,'' he told The Associated Press in Texas. ''I feel for their families. They are in my prayers.''

Defense attorneys have said their clients were doing what they had been trained to do: respond to a perceived threat with legitimate force. The Marines remained in combat for months after the killings.

A criminal probe was launched after Time magazine reported in March, citing survivor accounts and human rights groups, that innocent people were killed.

The Marine Corps initially reported that 15 Iraqis died in a roadside bomb blast, and Marines killed eight insurgents in an ensuing fire fight. That account was widely discredited and later reports put the number of dead Iraqis at 24.

Lt. Gen. James Mattis, commanding general of the Marine Corps Central Command, said Thursday that the Corps' initial news release, which said the civilians in Haditha had been killed by an improvised explosive device, was incorrect.

''We now know with certainty that the press release was incorrect, and that none of the civilians were killed by the IED explosion,'' Mattis said in another release.

------

On the Net:

Marine Corps Iraq Investigations: http://www.usmc.mil/lapa/iraq-investigations.htm

------

Associated Press writers Allison Hoffman at Camp Pendleton, Alicia Caldwell in El Paso, Texas, and Saad Abdul Kadir in Baghdad contributed to this report.

    8 Marines Charged With Iraq Murders, NYT, 23.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Marines-Haditha.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Shiites Remake Baghdad in Their Image

December 23, 2006
the New York Times
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

BAGHDAD, Dec. 22 — As the United States debates what to do in Iraq, this country’s Shiite majority has been moving toward its own solution: making the capital its own.

Large portions of Baghdad have become Shiite in recent months, as militias press their fight against Sunni militants deeper into the heart of the capital, displacing thousands of Sunni residents. At least 10 neighborhoods that a year ago were mixed Sunni and Shiite are now almost entirely Shiite, according to residents, American and Iraqi military commanders and local officials.

For the first years of the war, Sunni militants were dominant, forcing Shiites out of neighborhoods and systematically killing bakers, barbers and trash collectors, who were often Shiites. But starting in February, after the bombing of a shrine in the city of Samarra, Shiite militias began to strike back, pushing west from their strongholds and redrawing the sectarian map of the capital, home to a quarter of Iraq’s population.

The Shiite-dominated government publicly condemns violence against Sunnis and says it is trying to stop the militias that carry it out. But the attacks have continued unabated, and Sunnis have grown suspicious.

Plans for a new bridge that would bypass a violent Sunni area in the east, and a proposal for land handouts in towns around Baghdad that would bring Shiites into what are now Sunni strongholds underscored these concerns.

Sunni political control in Baghdad is all but nonexistent: Of the 51 members of the Baghdad Provincial Council, which runs the city’s services, just one is Sunni.

In many ways, the changes are a natural development. Shiites, a majority of Iraq’s population, were locked out of the ruling elite under Saddam Hussein and now have power that matches their numbers.

The danger, voiced by Sunni Arabs, is that an emboldened militant fringe will conduct broader killings without being stopped by the government, or, some fear, with its help. That could, in turn, draw Sunni countries into the fight and lead to a protracted regional war, precisely the outcome that Americans most fear.

“They say they’re against this, but on the ground they do nothing,” said Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the speaker of Parliament, a Sunni. He moved his family to the better-protected Green Zone in October.

The debate reaches to the heart of the American enterprise here. While President Bush is considering more troops, some in the Shiite-dominated government say the Americans should stay out of the sectarian fight in Baghdad and let the battle run its course. Getting involved would simply prolong the fight, they say.

At an army base in northern Baghdad, an Iraqi general moved his hand across a map of the capital. The city is dividing fast, he said, writing, “Sunni” and “Shiite” in graceful Arabic script across each neighborhood.

“Now we face a new style of splitting the neighborhoods,” said the general, a Shiite. “The politicians are doing this.”

Neighborhoods in the east — most vulnerable to Shiite militias from Sadr City, the largest eastern district and one of its poorest — have lost much of their minority Sunni populations since February. Even the solidly middle-class neighborhoods of Zayuna and Ghadier, very mixed as little as six months ago, are starting to lose Sunnis.

In Baladiyad, a once-mixed area of eastern Baghdad, workers smoothed mortar onto brick. A Shiite mosque was taking shape.

On the same block, a half-finished Sunni mosque stood deserted, its facade hung with peeling posters of last year’s leaders. Less than a mile away, another mosque has never been used.

“They can’t come here now,” a Shiite worker said. “They are Sunni.”

Further south, in the neighborhood of Naariya, a Shiite refugee family sat in a darkened living room in a house they recently occupied.

The house belonged to a Sunni family, but they had fled after a spate of killings, and the local office of Moktada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric, had arranged for Shiites to move in.

The new family’s scant belongings hung on the wall: a portrait of the father, now dead, and a broken revolver. Somebody else’s clock chimed. Mattresses and couches of the previous owners packed the room.

“They told us it’s safe here, it’s a Shiite neighborhood,” said Mustafa, one of the sons. “The Mahdi Army is protecting the area,” he said, referring to Mr. Sadr’s militia. Family members declined to give their name for safety reasons.

The family has no sympathy for the Sunnis. They fled Baquba, a relentlessly violent town north of Baghdad, after Sunni militants killed their father, a man in his 70’s; kidnapped a brother; and shot another brother dead.

Around 400 Shiite families have fled from Baquba to Naariya and a nearby neighborhood, Baghdad Jedidah, over the past few months, said Mustafa, citing local officials in Mr. Sadr’s office.

“We are a ship that sank under the ocean,” said his mother, Aziza, 46.

Besides, Mustafa said, Shiite militias pursue only Sunnis with suspicious affiliations. The Sunni militias, on the other hand, “are killing anyone who is Shiite,” Aziza said. (A relative in a separate conversation said one of Aziza’s sons had killed more than 10 Sunnis since coming to Baghdad this fall. The family denied any involvement in militias.)

Aziza added, “My husband was an ordinary man.”

But a divided Iraq can destroy ordinary people.

A Sunni man named Bassim, his Shiite wife and their three small children said Shiite militiamen forced them to leave their home in Huriya, west of the Tigris, one chilly afternoon this month. Bassim left two jobs as a butcher and a hospital cleaner because they were in very Shiite neighborhoods.

“My husband is a Sunni, but he has nothing to do with insurgents,” said his wife, Zahra Kareem Alwan, holding her sobbing daughter on her hip in a school in Adel, a Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad where families took temporary refuge. Boxes of water were stacked in a corner.

Last week, the family was moved to an empty house farther west. They did not know the owner.

Shiite leaders argue that the Iraqi Army would not allow massacres. They say Americans will be embedded with units as a safety check.

In Huriya, it was an Iraqi Army unit that helped Ms. Alwan and other families into trucks and brought them to Adel. An American colonel advising the Iraqi Army unit that controls the area said that Shiites occupied the houses within 48 hours. Americans counted about 180 families who had fled. The Iraqi general said it was 50.

Shiite political leaders were skeptical.

“These are lies,” said Hadi al-Amiri, head of the security committee in Parliament and of the Badr Organization, the armed wing of one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite parties.

“It’s merely propaganda to create fears among Arabs,” he added, a reference to Sunni Arab countries.

The main problem, Mr. Amiri said, was Sunni insurgents and their suicide bombs.

“They want to go back to the old equation, when they were the officers and the Shia were just soldiers and slaves,” Mr. Amiri said, with an intensity that spoke of deep scars inflicted by the past government, referring to the loyalists to Saddam Hussein. “This will never happen again. They should believe in the new equation.”

Using the unlikely analogy of Mr. Hussein draining the marshes in southern Iraq to destroy the marsh Arabs, Mr. Amiri talked about ways that Baghdad could be encircled to choke off the supply lines of Sunni militants, for instance, by fortifying a network of rivers, a dam, and several highways.

“He divided it, drained the water, and within two to three years it was a desert,” he said. “I believe Baghdad will be like this.”

Militias are already doing their part to defend Shiites. In a Shiite mosque in northern Baghdad, refugees from the embattled northern village of Sabaa al-Bour, many of them women in black abayas, gathered in October asking for food and shelter.

Killings of Shiites in the town had enraged leaders in Baghdad. But weeks had dragged on, and one morning in October, a volunteer walked through the refugees telling them to go back home.

The Mahdi Army was there now, she said. The town was now safe for Shiites.

Shiites are also making inroads on local and federal levels. Baghdad’s municipal government is taking bids for designs of a bridge that would connect Greyat with Kadhimiya, two major Shiite areas in northern Baghdad on opposite sides of the Tigris River. Adhamiya, a Sunni area where the bridge is now and where it has been closed, would be bypassed altogether.

“The former regime refused to make the connection because it would strengthen the Shia,” said Naem al-Kaabi, a deputy mayor of Baghdad.

In another plan that appears intended to repopulate heavily Sunni-controlled areas with Shiites, the Ministry of Public Works has proposed giving land to victims of violence inflicted by Mr. Hussein and by insurgents since 2003. The plots would be in six towns outside Baghdad — Abu Ghraib, Taji, Salman Pak, Husseiniya, Mahmudiya and Latifiya, according to a local official familiar with the plan.

Sunni militants now control the towns and have conducted brutal campaigns to eliminate Shiites. Mr. Hussein gave favors to Sunni tribes there to protect against Shiites from the south. Few Sunnis claim compensation as victims of violence, since the application requires visits to police stations and hospitals, places no longer safe for Sunnis.

It was not clear how soon the plan would be carried out. A previous proposal, made by the Iraqi cabinet last year, would give some land in heavily Sunni west Baghdad to about 3,000 families, but names are still being registered.

In another indication of the current mood, a popular cellphone ring in eastern Baghdad, now largely Shiite, is a tune with the words: “If you can’t beat me, don’t fight me.”

The Sunni houses in Naariya did not empty easily. A college student with a Sunni name said he hid in his house, as Shiite militiamen went into homes on his block in late September and marched people away. A few days later, his uncle, a 35-year-old refrigerator repairman, was taken. The body was found in Ur, a Shiite stronghold in north Baghdad.

But unlike a bomb blast, where everybody remembers how someone died, the Sunnis’ losses seems to melt away. The Mahdi Army-controlled police station had no record of them.

Terrified, the men of the family scattered, settling on couches and in a garage of friends and family.

The student, Omar, is keeping a diary.

“One day I’ll be a teacher,” he said. “I should teach children what we passed through.”

Qais Mizher and Hosham Hussein contributed reporting.

    Shiites Remake Baghdad in Their Image, NYT, 23.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/23/world/middleeast/23shiites.html?hp&ex=1166936400&en=6031d8c62485cd4f&ei=5094&partner=homepage

U.S death toll in Iraq creeps closer to 3,000 mark

Fri Dec 22, 2006 11:25 AM ET
Reuters
By Kristin Roberts and Ross Colvin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military reported the deaths of five more soldiers on Friday, bringing the U.S. death toll closer to 3,000, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates ended a two-day visit aimed at finding a new strategy for Iraq.

Four U.S. servicemen were killed in action on Thursday in the restive Anbar province, heartland of the unrelenting Sunni insurgency against U.S. forces and the Iraqi government and the most dangerous place in Iraq for American soldiers.

A fifth was killed and another wounded west of Baghdad on Friday when their patrol came under machinegun and mortar fire. At least 71 U.S. soldiers have died so far this month.

The deaths brought the total U.S. death toll in Iraq to 2,960, creeping closer to the 3,000 mark and adding more pressure on President Bush to find a strategy that will allow the eventual withdrawal of 135,000 U.S. troops.

Bush has said he will announce a new strategy in January after listening to the advice of his military commanders, State Department officials, Iraqi leaders and Gates, who said he would report back to the president this weekend.

Gates would not say whether he will recommend a short-term troop surge, one of the options Bush has said he is considering. Military commanders have raised doubts about increasing troop strength, saying it will only delay a handover to Iraqis.

Gates said whatever strategy was decided, the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government must take the lead in curbing sectarian violence between minority Sunnis and majority Shi'ites that has killed thousands of Iraqis, many in the Iraqi capital.

"The situation in Baghdad is obviously difficult. Clearly success will only be achieved by a joint effort with Iraqis taking the lead," he told reporters.

"They do have some concrete plans in mind, and putting flesh on those bones is exactly what General Casey and his team and the Iraqis will be doing in the days ahead," he said, referring to the U.S. commander in Iraq, General George Casey.

But critics of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki say he has done little to rein in the militias, which are tied to parties within his ruling Shi'ite Alliance and operate with impunity.

Maliki is weakened by infighting in a fractious government between different factions and a boycott by supporters of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al Sadr. The Sadrists, key backers of Maliki, want a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal.

POLITICAL PILGRIMAGE

Officials in the Shi'ite Alliance said leaders would head to Najaf, home to Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite clerics, within two days to seek their help in uniting the Shi'ite factions.

The alliance was created with the blessing of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shi'ite cleric.

"There will be a total review of the Alliance and the government's situation," said Haidar al-Ibadi, a member of parliament in the Alliance.

The Pentagon said this week that Sadr's Mehdi Army militia had overtaken Sunni Islamist al Qaeda as the greatest threat to Iraq's stability. Sadr's supporters say it is for self-defense only and does not launch revenge attacks against Sunni Arabs.

Revenge was on the minds of angry residents of Haditha northwest of Baghdad on Friday. They demanded the execution of four U.S. Marines charged with murder on Thursday over the killing of 24 unarmed civilians there in November 2005.

"Those soldiers killed 24 people. They killed women and children, isn't that enough for them be executed? Just so that the family can have peace," said Khaled Salman, whose sister Asmaa was among those killed.

None of the murder charges carries a possible death sentence because the Marines are charged with unpremeditated murder, and the maximum possible sentence is life in prison.

Iraqi witnesses say enraged Marines shot the civilians in their homes to retaliate for the death of a popular comrade who was killed by a bomb that hit a convoy in the town.

Defense lawyers dispute the Iraqi witnesses' version of events and say the Marines were engaged in a furious battle in Haditha and the civilians may have been killed during the chaos.

(Additional reporting by Majid Hameed in Haditha)

    U.S death toll in Iraq creeps closer to 3,000 mark, R, 22.12.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-12-22T162531Z_01_IBO034602_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ.xml&src=122206_1150_TOPSTORY_u.s._death_toll_nears_3%2C000_in_iraq

5 U.S. Troops Die West of Baghdad

December 22, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:38 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Five more American troops were killed in fighting west of Baghdad, the military said Friday, pushing the U.S. death toll since the war began closer to 3,000.

In December, 76 American troops have been killed; at the current rate, the number of U.S. combat deaths this month could meet or exceed the previous monthly record for 2006.

At least 2,964 American troops have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told The Associated Press on Thursday that Iraq was ''worth the investment'' in American lives and dollars and said the U.S. can still win a conflict that has been more difficult than she expected.

''I don't think it's a matter of money,'' Rice said. ''Along the way there have been plenty of markers that show that this is a country that is worth the investment, because once it emerges as a country that is a stabilizing factor you will have a very different kind of Middle East.''

Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrapped up his trip to Iraq, saying he hopes to give a report to President Bush this weekend on what he learned during his three days of meetings with military and political leaders here.

Gates declined to say whether he plans to recommend a short-term increase in U.S. troop levels. But he said he believes the U.S. and Iraqis have ''a broad strategic agreement between the Iraqi military and Iraqi government and our military.''

Bush is considering whether to quickly send thousands of additional U.S. troops to the country to control the violence. There are 140,000 American troops in Iraq.

One U.S. soldier died and another was wounded Friday when their patrol came under fire west of Baghdad, the military said in a statement. On Thursday, three Marines and one U.S. sailor died from wounds sustained in combat in western Anbar province, the military said.

Poland, which has 900 soldiers in Iraq, agreed Friday to extend its mission until the end of 2007. The Poles focus mainly on training Iraqi security forces and are based in an area south of Baghdad that is calmer than the capital.

On the Iraqi side, officials close to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said the militia leader has agreed to allow supporters to rejoin the Iraqi government after a three-week boycott, even as political rivals pushed to form a coalition without him.

It was unclear whether a new coalition taking shape among Shiites, Kurds and one Sunni party would be able to govern effectively without the backing of al-Sadr's 30 loyalists in the 275-member parliament, and his six ministers in the 38-member Cabinet.

The cleric's followers had boycotted politics to protest the prime minister's recent meeting with Bush, but appear to have decided to go back to parliament to strengthen their bargaining power -- backed up by a militia army -- and avoid political isolation.

Shiites from parliament's largest bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, met Thursday in the holy city of Najaf to seek approval for a coalition that crosses sectarian lines from the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a revered cleric who holds sway over many Iraqi Shiites and is said to be alarmed at the sectarian bloodshed sweeping swathes of the country.

''The al-Sadr movement will return to the government and parliament,'' said Abdul Karim al-Anizi, a Shiite lawmaker from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa faction, which had relied on al-Sadr for political support.

The walkout by al-Sadr's supporters had prevented the government from passing laws, contributing to a sense of political crisis alongside a deteriorating security situation. The United Iraqi Alliance had 130 seats, including those of al-Sadr until his supporters walked out.

On Friday, a parked car bomb killed two people and wounded four in Samarra, some 60 miles north of Baghdad, police said. A roadside bomb struck a police patrol near the national theater in Baghdad, wounding two policemen.

U.S.-led forces launched multiple raids across Iraq, killing one terrorist and capturing 25 terror suspects, the military said.

The operations targeted foreign fighters and the al-Qaida in Iraq network, the military said. The suspects were believed to be responsible for the movement of foreign fighters, car bombs and direct attacks on Iraqi civilians and coalition forces, it said.

An al-Qaida in Iraq financier was also captured, the statement said.

The U.S. military also announced that Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops captured at least 17 suspected insurgents in raids on Thursday, including two suspected leaders of an al-Qaida in Iraq cell.

A militant umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for a suicide bomber who killed 15 people and wounded 15 others in a crowd of police volunteers in eastern Baghdad on Thursday. The claim appeared on an Islamic Web site, and was signed by the ''Islamic state in Iraq,'' a so-called Islamic government that al-Qaida in Iraq and several other Iraqi Sunni Arab insurgent groups declared earlier this year.

    5 U.S. Troops Die West of Baghdad, NYT, 22.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html

President, Mrs. Bush visit wounded soldiers at Walter Reed

Posted 12/22/2006 11:10 AM ET
AP
USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush made bedside visits to troops on Friday, continuing an annual pre-Christmas tradition of comforting soldiers that he began after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Bush and first lady Laura Bush traveled to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, visiting with 38 patients among those being treated there for injuries suffered in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Along the way, the president awarded 16 Purple Hearts.

Afterward, they were joining Girl Scouts from Maryland and Virginia and children of hospital staff to briefly wrap and sort presents that will be given to families and children of wounded military personnel on Christmas Day.

Later Friday, Bush was to head for Camp David, where he planned to remain with his family through Christmas.

New Defense Secretary Robert Gates, due back Friday night from a three-day Iraq trip, said he would report to the president over the weekend on what he learned during consultations there with military officials, troops and Iraqi leaders.

    President, Mrs. Bush visit wounded soldiers at Walter Reed, UT, 22.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-12-22-bush_x.htm

Haditha Residents on Charged Marines: Let Us Have Them

December 22, 2006
The New York Times

Here are excerpts from interviews with residents of Haditha, Iraq, and two adjacent towns about the announcement of charges against four American marines in connection with the killings of two dozen Iraqi civilians there last year. Four other Marine officers were charged with failing to properly report information about the killings. The interviews were conducted by an Iraqi employee of The New York Times.

Dr. Waleed Al-Obeidi, 41, the director-general of Haditha hospital

“If they plan to implement justice, then we welcome this step to refer the eight marines to the court, but we have our doubts in American justice. The verdict will be life sentences for four of them and the other four will be released, according to what we heard in the media. They blamed one soldier in the killing of a whole family, while it was carnage. The Iraqi government should have summoned those soldiers and executed them.”

•

Tahseen Al-Hadithi, 51, cleric and imam of the Haditha mosque

“I prefer they won’t be executed, and to be handed over to Haditha people to get the punishment they deserve.”

Mr. Hadithi said this was not the only crime committed by American forces in Haditha, and noted that charges had been brought in similar incidents elsewhere in the country:

“This is the culture of the occupying marines in our country. If we go back and remember the funeral, and if President Bush could see the family, the children and the women and how the soldiers were moving from one house to another, killing them, what would his comment be? Execution is insufficient punishment to them, and I think they won’t be executed.”

•

Sheikh Bairam Affan, 69, leader of the Al-Mawali tribe in the nearby town of Barwana

“I went to the U.S. forces in my capacity as a tribal sheikh along with other sheikhs after the massacre and asked the Americans to leave because we can not stop the resistance from attacking them in this area. I said to one of the American commanders if you kill people the same way as you did whenever you are attacked then no one will remain in Haditha.’

“They should get the death sentence because they carried out planned executions.”

•

Abu Ali, 29, a shop owner in the nearby town of Haqlaniya

“We don’t want them executed in the U.S. Let them bring them here in Haditha and we will tear them apart.”

•

Noor Laeq, 34, a lawyer who owns a computer and stationary shop in Haqlaniya

“I believe that the sentence will be issued against four of the accused, only. They will cover for the others. The accused will get life sentences, and it is not enough. The whole unit should be put into trial. We expect the same thing that happened in Abu Ghraib, when they convicted low-ranking officers and the higher ones got away. We demand that George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and the Iraqi government should be tried.”

    Haditha Residents on Charged Marines: Let Us Have Them, NYT, 22.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/22/world/middleeast/22cnd-reax.html

Soldiers in Iraq urge Gates to send more troops

Thu Dec 21, 2006 11:07 AM ET
Reuters
By Kristin Roberts

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. soldiers in Iraq urged new Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday to send reinforcements but generals expressed concern that deploying more troops might delay the time when Iraqis take control.

Stung by defeat at mid-term elections last month, President Bush is expected to announce a new strategy in January for the unpopular war, which has so far killed nearly 3,000 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

Bush has said one option is a short-term increase in U.S. troop levels but that he had not yet made up his mind.

Gates, in his first week on the job after replacing Donald Rumsfeld, is consulting widely for advice on Iraq. After meeting U.S. commanders, he met Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Defense Minister Abdel Qader Jassim on Thursday.

He told a news conference that he had emphasized Washington's support for the government but that talks with his Iraqi counterpart had not focused on troop numbers.

"No numbers of additional troops were discussed. The focus was mainly on an overall approach including the possibility of some additional assistance," he said.

"The success of our partnership cannot happen without the security of the Iraqi people and to that end we discussed a wide range of options and, as we said yesterday, all options are on the table," Gates added.

FRONT-LINE TROOPS WANT REINFORCEMENTS

Gates had breakfast with U.S. soldiers to hear their views.

"Sir, I think we need to just keep doing what we're doing," Specialist Jason Glenn told Gates.

"I really think we need more troops here. With more presence on the ground, more troops might hold them (the insurgents) off long enough to where we can get the Iraqi army trained up."

None of the soldiers present said U.S. forces should be brought home, and none said current troop levels were adequate.

A senior defense official in Baghdad said U.S. commanders were concerned a surge in the number of troops would make the Iraqis feel less under pressure to take full responsibility for security.

"Look, the Iraqis are smart. They see what we do, and if we surge, they can step back," the official said.

Gates said it was not surprising troops wanted reinforcements. "We have to take into account the views of the Iraqi government the views of our own leadership, the views of our own military leadership in taking that into account."

Training and building up Iraqi security forces is a key pillar of U.S. and Iraqi hopes of transferring responsibility to Iraqi authorities and allowing U.S. troops to go home.

But in a reminder of the challenge, a suicide bomber killed 15 people and wounded another 15 at a police recruitment center in Baghdad on Thursday, the U.S. military said.

Soldiers told Gates that Iraqi security forces were improving but that many did not show up for work.

They also cited the challenge of training Iraqis who have ties to sectarian militias and who give those groups information about upcoming operations. One soldier said members of the Iraqi army see themselves as Iraqis but that local police identify themselves as Shi'ite or Sunni Arab.

The U.S. military reported three more deaths on Thursday, two in the restive western province of Anbar and one killed by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad.

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan in Washington, Mariam Karouny, Claudia Parsons and Ross Colvin in Baghdad)

    Soldiers in Iraq urge Gates to send more troops, R, 21.12.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-12-21T160659Z_01_IBO034602_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ.xml&src=122106_1126_TOPSTORY_send_more_troops%2C_soldiers_tell_gates

Bush Concedes Iraq War More Difficult Than He Expected

December 20, 2006
The New York Times
By JOHN HOLUSHA

President Bush acknowledged today that the war in Iraq has been more difficult than he anticipated, but insisted that it could still be won. He said the “extremists and radicals” behind the bombing and attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq “can’t run us out of the Middle East.”

Speaking at a White House news conference, Mr. Bush said he would await the results of a review of the administration’s policy on Iraq before announcing a new strategy for the “war on terrorism.”

But he said he would support a measure to send a surge of fresh troops to the country, as long as there was “a specific mission” for the additional forces. He also said it was essential to “adjust tactics” in Iraq and have Iraqis “do more soon.”

The president also said he had asked his new defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, to explore increasing the “permanent size” of the United States Army and the Marine Corps.

“We have an obligation to ensure our military has the capacity to sustain this war over the long haul,” the president said.

He acknowledged that his hand might be forced by the Democratic-controlled Congress when it convenes in January. “People in Congress are interested in this issue,” he said.

Although his tone was restrained, Mr. Bush did express confidence in the ultimate outcome in Iraq. Responding to a question about a remark he made in an interview with The Washington Post that America is not winning, he said, “I believe we are going to win. I believe that — and, by the way, if I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t have our troops there. That’s what you got to know. We’re going to succeed.”

On the domestic front, Mr. Bush said he would support a $2.10 increase in the minimum wage, a top Democratic issue, over two years, as long as it was coupled with tax and regulatory relief for small business.

On Iraq, Mr. Bush said he would not make predictions about 2007 other than to say that the war “would require difficult choices and additional sacrifices because the enemy is merciless and violent.”

The president said he was willing to talk to Iran and Syria, as advocated recently by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, but only with conditions. He said Iran would have to stop its program to enrich uranium, which could allow it to develop nuclear weapons, before discussions could begin.

Syria, he said, would have to stop sending funds to insurgents in Iraq and stop interfering in neighboring Lebanon.

Mr. Bush said he was willing to study what went wrong in Iraq as part of the effort to adjust tactics in the country. The “sectarian violence is brutal” between the country’s Islamic sects, he said.

The president is expected to announce the specifics of the administration’s new plan for Iraq early next year.

As the president spoke, his new defense secretary was in Baghdad, where he planned to meet with military leaders and Iraqi officials to assess the situation as the administration considers new strategies.

Mr. Gates has warned that an American failure in Iraq could lead to a wider regional conflict in the Middle East.

    Bush Concedes Iraq War More Difficult Than He Expected, NYT, 20.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/washington/20cnd-prexy.html?hp&ex=1166677200&en=51f2a36039e215ed&ei=5094&partner=homepage

White House Memo

A New Phrase Enters Washington’s War of Words Over Iraq

December 21, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 — First there was the “mission accomplished” banner. Then, last year, there was a “plan for victory” and, just this past October, the presidential assertion, “Absolutely, we’re winning.” Now that President Bush is seeking “a new way forward” in Iraq, he is embracing a new verbal construction to describe progress there: “We’re not winning. We’re not losing.”

The latest shift in the official language of the war is begging the question: Well, which is it? A tie? A draw? Something else?

Mr. Bush essentially endorsed the not-winning-not-losing assessment in an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday by way of attributing it to Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When asked if the United States was winning in Iraq, Mr. Bush said, “An interesting construct that General Pace uses is, ‘We’re not winning; we’re not losing.’ ” To those who closely follow the president’s rhetoric on the war, the answer was something of a dodge.

“This is pretty weak, but they have pretty weak material to work with at this point,” said Christopher F. Gelpi, a political scientist at Duke University whose research on public opinion and the war has been studied by the administration. “He’s in a difficult rhetorical situation because he stuck so long with the ‘we’re making progress’ argument, yet clearly he does finally understand this is his last chance to make a major policy correction in Iraq.”

At his news conference Wednesday Mr. Bush was emphatic that victory in Iraq was achievable and that winning was what he had in mind even when he referred to General Pace’s remarks.

Yet, by the generally accepted David-versus-Goliath rules of counterinsurgencies, the insurgents are winning so long as the counterinsurgents are not.

“The basic theory of counterinsurgency warfare is that the defenders must demonstrate momentum towards victory or success,” said Loren B. Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, a military policy organization in Virginia. “If you can’t prove you are making progress then by definition you are losing.”

White House officials say that in this war there are insurgents attacking other insurgents as well as counterinsurgents; there are terrorists, armed gangsters and an occupying force — the United States-led coalition — all fighting each other too, and so the usual rules and definitions do not apply.

In short: a dizzying mix of forces in Iraq has resulted in a dizzying mix of definitions of winning and losing as the administration has sought to recalibrate expectations for a public that was initially promised a swift victory and now just seems to want to hear it straight.

“When they say, ‘We’re not winning; we’re not losing,’ that’s being ‘realistic,’ ” said William Safire, whose column, “On Language,” appears in The New York Times Magazine. “And ‘realistic’ is a word that’s being kicked around now,” he said.

This week began with a debate over what former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell meant when he said on “Face the Nation” Sunday, partly quoting the Iraq Study Group report, “So if it’s grave and deteriorating and we’re not winning, we are losing.” But he also said, “We haven’t lost.”

Addressing that comment on Monday the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said: “Look, what Colin Powell is saying, ‘We’re not winning, so therefore we must be losing,’ and then he says, ‘all is not lost.’ So I’m just — I’m not going to get — what I am saying is that we will win, and we have to win.”

Vexed at continued questions, he finally resorted to giving a grammar lesson: “You’re trying to summarize a complex situation with a single word or gerund, or even a participle,” he said. “And the fact is that what you really need to do is to take a look at the situation and understand that it is vital to win.”

    A New Phrase Enters Washington’s War of Words Over Iraq, NYT, 21.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/washington/21memo.html

U.S. military: Senior al-Qaeda leader was captured in Mosul

Updated 12/20/2006 7:58 AM ET
AP
USA Today

BAGHDAD (AP) — U.S.-led forces captured a senior al-Qaeda leader who was responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths and housed foreign fighters who carried out suicide bombings, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

The leader, who was not identified, was arrested in a raid in Mosul on Dec. 14, the military said in a statement.

"The terrorist leader was attempting to flee from the location when Coalition Forces chased him across a street and detained him," the statement said.

It said the suspect served as al-Qaeda's military chief in Mosul in 2005, and then took up the same job in western Baghdad.

"During that time, he coordinated car vehicle-borne improvised explosives device attacks and kidnap for ransom operations in Baghdad," the military said. It cited reports that said he organized an attempt to shoot down a U.S. military helicopter in May this year.

"After a few months he fled Baghdad due to Coalition Forces closing in on him," the statement said.

The military said the capture would lead them closer to Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who took over as leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq after his predecessor, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in June.

Mouwafak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi government's national security adviser, said this month that 60% of al-Qaeda in Iraq's leadership has now been captured or killed.

    U.S. military: Senior al-Qaeda leader was captured in Mosul, UT, 20.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-12-20-mosul-capture_x.htm

Al-Zawahri: U.S. is talking to wrong people in Iraq

Updated 12/20/2006 8:13 AM ET
AP
USA Today

CAIRO (AP) — The deputy leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, told the United States on Wednesday that it was negotiating with the wrong people in Iraq, strongly implying in a video broadcast on Al-Jazeera that Washington should be talking to his terror group.

"I want to tell the Republicans and the Democrats together ... you are trying to negotiate with some parties to secure your withdrawal, but these parities won't find you an exit (from Iraq) and your attempts will yield nothing but failure," al-Zawahri said on the tape, sections of which were aired in successive news bulletins.

"It seems that you will go through a painful journey of failed negotiations until you will be forced to return to negotiate with the real powers," he said, without identifying these powers.

The video — which bore the logo of al-Qaeda's media production house, al-Sahab — was the 15th time this year that al-Zawahri has sent out a statement. In Wednesday's tape, he appeared exactly as in previous videos that have been authenticated by CIA analysts. He wore a black turban and white robe and pointed his finger at the camera for emphasis. As usual, he had a rifle behind his right shoulder that was leaning against a plain brown backdrop.

Al-Zawahri appeared to be trying to mobilise support against a range of Middle Eastern players — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, his Hamas opponents, Iran and its Shiite allies in Iraq and elsewhere.

He attacked the proposal of Abbas to hold early elections to resolve the contest between the Fatah and Hamas parties, which has degenerated to daily gunbattles in the streets of Gaza.

In the clips broadcast by Al-Jazeera, al-Zawahri did not say how the two parties should settle their dispute, but he scoffed at elections, saying: "Any way other than holy war, will lead us only to loss and defeat."

He did not say whom the Palestinians should fight, but previously he has always recommended "holy war" against Israel and the West.

He described Abbas as "America's man in Palestine," and warned that if Palestinians accepted him as their president, it would be "the end of holy war."

In what appeared to be a reference to Abbas and his Fatah party, al-Zawahri said: "Those who are trying to liberate the Islamic territories through elections based on secular constitutions, or on decisions to hand over Palestine to the Jews, will not liberate one grain of sand of Palestine."

He also criticized the militant Hamas party — although he did not name it — which has condemned the proposal for early elections. He accused Hamas of making a number of concessions that would ultimately lead to "the recognition of Israel."

He said these concessions began with Hamas' signing "the truce" with Israel last year, then the group took part in the January elections "based on a secular constitution," and recognized Abbas as the head of the Palestinian authority.

Al-Zawahri rebuked Hamas particularly for not pushing for an Islamic constitution before it contested the elections.

"Aren't they an Islamic movement? Aren't they campaigning for the word of God to be supreme?" he said, adding the party should have insisted on the drafting of "an Islamic constitution for Palestine."

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum brushed off al-Zawahri's criticism and defended the party's electoral policy.

"Our Palestinian institutions are in need of reform, and to fix them we need to participate in the parliament and other institutions," Barhoum said.

"We are not responding to al-Zawahri so much as we are affirming who we are as a movement," Barhoum added.

Al-Zawahri's comments were expected to have little influence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Hamas has distanced itself from al-Qaeda, saying its struggle is against Israel, not the West at large.

"I don't think it would have any impact," said analyst Diaa Rashwan of the tape.

Rashwan, an expert on militant groups at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, said Hamas is a strong critic of al-Qaeda, although both groups call for Israel's destruction.

Abbas has accused al-Qaeda of infiltrating the Palestinian territories, but Palestinian security officials say there is no hard evidence of that. They accuse local groups of fabricating links to al-Qaeda as a diversion.

Al-Zawahri criticized Iran and Shiites abroad who supported the U.S.-backed governments in Iraq and Afghanistan while they also backed the anti-Israeli forces in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

"How come the rush to deal with the two governments appointed by the occupier in Iraq and Afghanistan — support them, celebrate them, defend them, challenge their oppositions — while cooperation with the Zionist enemy in Lebanon and Palestine is labelled a betrayal?" he said.

Al-Jazeera staff declined to comment on how and when they obtained the tape.

The broadcast came two days after a posting on a militant Islamic website announced that a message from al-Zawahri was coming.

    Al-Zawahri: U.S. is talking to wrong people in Iraq, UT, 20.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-12-20-al-qaeda-palestinians_x.htm

Editorial

Only the Jailers Are Safe

December 20, 2006
The New York Times

Ever since the world learned of the lawless state of American military prisons in Iraq, the administration has hidden behind the claim that only a few bad apples were brutalizing prisoners. President Bush also has dodged the full force of public outrage because the victims were foreigners, mostly Muslims, captured in what he has painted as a war against Islamic terrorists bent on destroying America.

This week, The Times published two articles that reminded us again that the American military prisons are profoundly and systemically broken and that no one is safe from the summary judgment and harsh treatment institutionalized by the White House and the Pentagon after 9/11.

On Monday, Michael Moss wrote about a U.S. contractor who was swept up in a military raid and dumped into a system where everyone is presumed guilty and denied any chance to prove otherwise.

Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago, was a whistle-blower who prompted the raid by tipping off the F.B.I. to suspicious activity at the company where he worked, including possible weapons trafficking. He was arrested and held for 97 days — shackled and blindfolded, prevented from sleeping by blaring music and round-the-clock lights. In other words, he was subjected to the same mistreatment that thousands of non-Americans have been subjected to since the 2003 invasion.

Even after the military learned who Mr. Vance was, they continued to hold him in these abusive conditions for weeks more. He was not allowed to defend himself at the Potemkin hearing held to justify his detention. And that was special treatment. As an American citizen, he was at least allowed to attend his hearing. An Iraqi, or an Afghani, or any other foreigner, would have been barred from the room.

This is not the handiwork of a few out-of-control sadists at Abu Ghraib. This is a system that was created and operated outside American law and American standards of decency. Except for the few low-ranking soldiers periodically punished for abusing prisoners, it is a system without any accountability.

Yesterday, David Johnston reported that nearly 20 cases in which civilian contractors were accused of abusing detainees have been sent to the Justice Department. So far, the record is perfect: not a single indictment.

Administration officials said that prosecutors were hobbled by a lack of evidence and witnesses, or that the military’s cases were simply shoddy. This sounds like another excuse from an administration that has papered over prisoner abuse and denied there is any connection between Mr. Bush’s decision to flout the Geneva Conventions and the repeated cases of abuse and torture. We hope the new Congress will be more aggressive on this issue than the last one, which was more bent on preserving the Republican majority than preserving American values and rights. The lawless nature of Mr. Bush’s war on terror has already cost the nation dearly in terms of global prestige, while increasing the risks facing every American serving in the military.

    Only the Jailers Are Safe, NYT, 20.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/opinion/20wed1.html

General Opposes Adding to U.S. Forces in Iraq, Emphasizing International Solutions for Region

December 20, 2006
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 — As the new secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, takes stock of the war in Iraq this week, he will find Gen. John P. Abizaid, the senior commander in the Middle East, resistant to increasing the American fighting force there.

General Abizaid, who is completing the final months of a highly decorated military career, acknowledges that additional American forces, favored by some of President Bush’s top advisers, might provide a short-term boost in security. But he argues that foreign troops are a toxin bound to be rejected by Iraqis, and that expanding the number of American troops merely puts off the day when Iraqis are forced to take responsibility for their own security.

While American forces may be repositioned within Iraq to meet growing security challenges, especially in Baghdad, the answer is not solely military, and even the leading role in combat cannot long rest on American forces, General Abizaid says.

“The Baghdad security situation requires more Iraqi troops,” he said in a recent interview as he traveled around Iraq, meeting with American commanders.

His assessment, which includes plans to increase the number of American trainers embedded with Iraqi units, is supported by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, as well as by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who must provide the forces and have resisted an increase without first clearly defining the goals it would try to achieve on the ground.

But the generals are facing a different assessment from a growing number of civilian officials in the Bush administration, who see a sharp increase in troop strength as an effective means to stabilize Baghdad and as a dramatic initiative for the president to announce in January.

General Abizaid argues for a broader approach to Iraq than that of looking solely to putting out the fires in Baghdad.

“You have to internationalize the problem,” General Abizaid said. “You have to attack it diplomatically, geo-strategically. You just can’t apply a microscope on a particular problem in downtown Baghdad and a particular problem in downtown Kabul and say that somehow or another, if you throw enough military forces at it, that you are going to solve the broader issues in the region of extremism.”

His views are out of sync with those of some officials in Washington.

General Abizaid has been pounded by senators of both parties for what they said was status quo advice on force levels in Iraq, and for sharing responsibility over a strategy that the Iraq Study Group said was failing. At the same time, he rankled many of his civilian bosses by not sticking to administration talking points for the war, offering accurate, if blunt, public assessments of the Iraq mission since taking charge of Central Command in July 2003.

General Abizaid was the first to label Iraq a guerrilla war, even when the White House and Pentagon dismissed the description. And he was the first four-star general to warn that the rise of sectarian violence in Iraq, after the mosque bombing in Samarra in February, had replaced terrorism and Sunni insurgents as the greatest security challenges there, telling Congress that Iraq risked sliding toward civil war.

But in a bitter exchange last month during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, told the general, “I’m of course disappointed that basically you’re advocating the status quo here today, which I think the American people in the last election said is not an acceptable condition.”

General Abizaid’s reluctance to endorse a spike in American forces is not born of philosophical differences over questions like whether the United States can rely on fewer troops in combat zones abroad because of advanced technology. General Abizaid, who is of Lebanese descent, served a tour with United Nations forces in Lebanon, attended the University of Jordan and earned a master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies from Harvard.

He emphasizes that the threat to American national security interests ranges far beyond any one country in his area of responsibility.

“When you take a look at the reach of the extremism as exemplified by Al Qaeda, it’s not just in Afghanistan, it’s not just in Iraq — it’s in Pakistan, it’s in Saudi Arabia, it’s in Great Britain, it’s in Spain,” he said. “It attacked the United States. It is organized in the virtual world in a way that is very unique, very modern, very dangerous.”

Ask for a solution to Sunni insurgents in Anbar Province, and he talks about their supporters in Syria and implications should Saudi Arabia overtly take sides against the Shiites of Iraq.

On the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, General Abizaid says the only course includes understanding tribal loyalties in Pakistan. Turn the conversation to Middle Eastern terrorists, and he describes the military’s efforts to preclude their establishing havens in ungoverned corners of Africa.

General Abizaid is credited with coining the phrase, “the long war,” to describe the challenge of combating terrorism, especially radical Islamic terrorism. He still uses, but no longer favors, the label, according to his aides, because too many people focused only on “war” and a military solution.

He says the United States government is inadequately organized for the new type of threat, and that success in the counterterrorism mission, in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond, requires all of the government to go to war, and not just the military.

“I think our structures for 21st-century security challenges need to adapt to this type of an enemy,” he said. “The 21st century really requires that we figure out how to get economic, diplomatic, political and military elements of power synchronized and coordinated against specific problems wherever they exist.”

Long before the Iraqi Study Group advocated a solution for Iraq that included negotiations with Iran and Syria, General Abizaid argued that combating Islamic extremism required a regional approach. The general declined to disclose his private advice to the White House, Pentagon and State Department on direct negotiations with Iran and Syria, or on future force levels for Iraq.

    General Opposes Adding to U.S. Forces in Iraq, Emphasizing International Solutions for Region, NYT, 20.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/world/middleeast/20abizaid.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Iraq Executes 13 Prisoners, Shows Video

December 19, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:49 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq executed 13 men convicted of murder, kidnapping and other crimes, the government said Tuesday.

Video released by the government showed the men wearing hoods and green jumpsuits, and standing against a wall shortly before they were hanged. Some images showed two men standing together on a gallows with nooses around their necks.

The sentences were carried out in a Baghdad jail, said Busho Ibrahim, undersecretary of the Justice Ministry.

''They included terrorists and other criminals convicted of abduction and murder as well as assassination plots in several provinces,'' he said. An appeals court and the presidency had approved the verdict, he said.

    Iraq Executes 13 Prisoners, Shows Video, NYT, 19.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq-Executions.html


 

NYT        December 18, 2006

 Attacks in Iraq at Record High, Pentagon Says        NYT        19.12.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/world/middleeast/19military.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Attacks in Iraq at Record High, Pentagon Says

December 19, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID S. CLOUD and MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 — A Pentagon assessment of security conditions in Iraq concluded Monday that attacks against American and Iraqi targets had surged this summer and autumn to their highest level, and called violence by Shiite militants the most significant threat in Baghdad.

The report, which covers the period from early August to early November, found an average of almost 960 attacks against Americans and Iraqis every week, the highest level recorded since the Pentagon began issuing the quarterly reports in 2005, with the biggest surge in attacks against American-led forces. That was an increase of 22 percent from the level for early May to early August, the report said. [Full Text: The Report (pdf)]

While most attacks were directed at American forces, most deaths and injuries were suffered by the Iraqi military and civilians.

The report is the most comprehensive public assessment of the American-led operation to secure Baghdad, which began in early August. About 17,000 American combat troops are currently involved in the beefed-up security operation.

According to the Pentagon assessment, the operation initially had some success in reducing killings as militants concentrated on eluding capture and hiding their weapons. But sectarian death squads soon adapted, resuming their killings in regions of the capital that were not initially targets of the overstretched American and Iraqi troops.

Shiite militias, the Pentagon report said, also received help from allies among the Iraqi police. “Shia death squads leveraged support from some elements of the Iraqi Police Service and the National Police who facilitated freedom of movement and provided advance warning of upcoming operations,” the report said.

“This is a major reason for the increased levels of murders and executions.”

The findings were issued on the day Robert M. Gates was sworn in as defense secretary, replacing Donald H. Rumsfeld.

At an afternoon ceremony at the Pentagon attended by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Gates said he planned to travel to Iraq shortly to consult with military commanders as part of a broad administration review of Iraq strategy.

“All of us want to find a way to bring America’s sons and daughters home again,” Mr. Gates said. “But as the president has made clear, we simply cannot afford to fail in the Middle East. Failure in Iraq would be a calamity that would haunt our nation, impair our credibility and endanger Americans for decades to come.”

Over all, the report portrayed a precarious security situation and criticized Shiite militias for the worsening violence more explicitly than previous versions had.

It said the Mahdi Army, a powerful Shiite militia that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal Al-Maliki has not confronted despite American pressure to do so, had had the greatest negative impact on security. It is likely that Shiite militants are now responsible for more civilian deaths and injuries than terrorist groups are, the report said.

But the report also held out hope that decisive leadership by the Iraqi government might halt the slide toward civil war.

While noting that efforts by Mr. Maliki to encourage political reconciliation among ethnic groups had shown little progress, it said that Iraqi institutions were holding and that members of the current government “have not openly abandoned the political process.”

The Pentagon assessment, titled “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” is mandated by Congress and issued quarterly.

The new report, completed last month, noted two parallel trends.

On the one hand, the Iraqi security forces are larger than ever, with 322,600 Iraqi soldiers, police officers and other troops, an increase of 45,000 since August. Iraqi forces also have increasingly taken the lead responsibility in many areas.

The growth in Iraqi capabilities, however, has been matched by increasing violence. That raises the question of whether the American strategy to rely on the Iraqi forces to tamp down violence is failing, at least in the short term.

The Bush administration has decided to step up substantially the effort to train and equip the Iraqi forces. A major question being pondered by Mr. Bush is whether that is sufficient, or whether more American troops are needed in Baghdad to control the violence and stabilize the city.

According to the Pentagon, the weekly average of 959 attacks was a jump of 175 from the previous three months. As a consequence, civilian deaths and injuries reached a record 93 a day.

Deaths and injuries suffered by Iraq’s security forces also climbed to a new high, 33 a day, while American and other allied deaths and injuries hovered at 25 a day, just short of the record in 2004, when the United States was involved in battles in Falluja and elsewhere.

The increase in violence coincided with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when there had previously been a temporary spike in attacks, but also reflected the deeper sectarian passions that have flared since an attack in February 2006 on a Shiite shrine in Samarra.

According to Pentagon data used in formulating the report, there were 1,028 sectarian “executions” in October. That was a slight dip from July, when there were 1,169 executions, but a major increase since January, when there were 180. During this period, “ethno-sectarian incidents” have steadily risen, the report noted.

Security difficulties varied in different parts of the country. While sectarian strife was the biggest problem in Baghdad, in Anbar Province it was attacks by Sunni militants. North of Baghdad, in Diyala and Bilad, terrorists linked to Al Qaeda have been battling the Mahdi Army, it says.

While Shiite militias are active, the group known as Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is still a major threat, despite the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, its leader. “The emergence of Abu Ayub al-Masri as leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq demonstrated its flexibility and depth, as well as its reliance on non-Iraqis,” the report noted.

Indications of progress were few. The report credited the Iraqi government with taking “incremental” steps at assuming more responsibility and said its security forces “have assumed more leadership in counterinsurgency and law enforcement operations.” But it remained “urgent” for the Iraqi government “to demonstrate a resolve to contain and terminate sectarian attacks.”

In a briefing for reporters, Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, a senior aide to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Baghdad operation had been constrained because the Iraqi government had not allowed American and Iraqi troops to “go in and neutralize Sadr City,” the base for the Mahdi Army.

Crude oil output was 2.3 million barrels a day, 7.5 percent higher than in August but still below the government’s goal of 2.5 million barrels.

Proponents of sending more troops to Iraq cited the report to argue that only Americans could ensure security in the short term and that more were needed. Critics said it showed that the initial effort by the American military to reinforce Baghdad had failed to stop the killing.

Gen. James T. Conway, who took over this fall as commandant of the Marine Corps, told reporters in Missouri on Saturday that among other options, President Bush was considering sending five or more combat brigades to Iraq, or about 20,000 troops.

General Conway said he believed that the Joint Chiefs would support such an increase as long as “there is a solid military reason for doing so.” He said sending more troops just to be “thickening the mix” in Baghdad would be a mistake.

Representative Ike Skelton, Democrat of Missouri, the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he was opposed to more troops. “Everything I’ve heard and everything I know to be true lead me to believe that this increase at best won’t change a thing,” he said, “and at worst could exacerbate the situation even further.”

Carl Hulse contributed reporting.

    Attacks in Iraq at Record High, Pentagon Says, NYT, 19.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/world/middleeast/19military.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Op-Ed Contributor

A War That Abhors a Vacuum

December 18, 2006
The New York Times
By BEN CONNABLE
Washington

THE niceties are up for debate: phased or partial withdrawal from Iraq would entail pulling troops back to their bases across the country, or leapfrogging backward to the nearest international border, or redeploying to bases in nearby countries.

But whatever the final prescription, the debate must include a sober look at the street-level impact of withdrawal. What will become of Iraqi villages, towns and cities as we pull out? Although past is not necessarily prologue, recent experience in Anbar Province may be instructive.

American units have already withdrawn from the western Euphrates River valley — twice, in fact. As the insurgency heated up in early 2004, the Seventh Marine Regiment pulled up stakes and went to fight insurgents in eastern Anbar, leaving the rest of the province in the hands of a battalion of troops. The Marines balanced obvious risk against the possible reward of overwhelming some of the insurgent groups in the east.

The consequences were immediate and bloody. Insurgents assumed control of several towns and villages. They tortured and executed police officers, local politicians, friendly tribal leaders and informants. They murdered contractors who had worked with the Americans or the Iraqi government. They tore down American-financed reconstruction projects and in a few cases imposed an extreme version of Islamic law. Many Iraqi military units collapsed in the absence of United States support.

The insurgents celebrated their self-described victory and exploited the withdrawal for propaganda purposes. Baathist-led insurgents used the opportunity to establish training camps and weapons caches in the farmland and along the river banks while other groups, including Al Qaeda, smuggled in fighters, suicide bombers and money to support operations in Ramadi, Falluja and Baghdad. Western Iraq became a temporary haven for criminals, terrorists and thousands of local thugs who made up de facto mini-regimes in the absence of a stabilizing force.

When the Seventh Marines returned to western Anbar it was essentially forced to retake some of the towns it once controlled. Many local Iraqis were openly hostile; the battle for the hearts and minds of the population was set back months, if not years. With the politicians murdered, local civil administration was almost nonexistent and any influence held by the central government was lost.

The Seventh Marine Regiment pulled up stakes again in November 2004 to join the second fight for Falluja. Conscious of the damage done by the earlier withdrawal, the Marines left behind more troops in an effort to stem the inevitable surge of insurgent and criminal gangs; Iraqi forces were not yet ready to assume control.

Despite this Marine presence, the results were similar. What had been rebuilt in the summer crumbled in the fall.

The two withdrawals left the western Euphrates River valley in a shambles. At the end of 2005 the Marines were forced to conduct sweep and clear operations from Anbar’s capital, Ramadi, to the Syrian border town of Husayba. As they pushed west they uncovered hundreds of weapons caches, elaborate insurgent propaganda centers, carefully camouflaged training camps, suicide vehicle factories and complex criminal networks that were feeding a steady stream of money to insurgents and terrorists across the country. Marine units settled back in, spread out and brought attack levels to unprecedented lows.

Since 2005, the situation in Anbar has significantly deteriorated. But as bad as things have become, American and Iraqi forces retain some degree of control in even the most turbulent areas. The border cities of Husayba and Qaim are relatively stable and have effective security and government. Falluja, also stable, is a model for Iraqi-American military cooperation. Advisers are embedded with Iraqi units across the province. American-supported tribes are beginning to combat Al Qaeda in Iraq in the east. Anbar is down but not out, thanks to the American troops along the Euphrates River.

American presence might be likened to a control rod in a nuclear reactor: Leave it in place and the potential energy of the insurgents and criminals is mostly kept in check; remove it and the energy becomes kinetic. Withdrawal of United States presence from any town or city in Anbar will almost certainly lead to the creation of safe havens for western Iraq’s impenetrable snarl of foreign fighters, nationalist insurgents and local thugs. Many abandoned cities and towns would come to closely resemble the Falluja of mid-2004.

If American forces conduct even a phased withdrawal before the full certification of Iraqi Army battalions, those units incapable of sustaining independent operations would be forced to pull back alongside their minders, or collapse as their logistics and fire support lifelines disappeared. Most local police forces would scatter, be co-opted or slaughtered wholesale, as they were in 2004.

Insurgents of all stripes would make the most of the combined American and Iraqi withdrawal, harassing the departing convoys with homemade bombs and small-arms fire. Videos of insurgents dancing in the streets would become prevalent on the Internet and international television. No public relations campaign could succeed in painting an early phased withdrawal as anything but a strategic defeat.

“Redeployed” in large bases far from the enemy centers of gravity, American troops wouldn’t be able to keep insurgent groups from forming semi-conventional units. This pattern has repeated itself countless times across Iraq and follows historic guerrilla-warfare models: insurgents exploit any safe haven to strengthen and train their forces. The longer they are left alone, the stronger they become. As our presence in the countryside diminishes, our ability to gather intelligence and to protect valuable infrastructure, communications lines and friendly tribal areas will deteriorate rapidly.

Should the Iraqi Army stay in place as American units withdraw, the American advisers embedded within these units probably would have to be removed, leaving nobody to control air support, coordinate unit pay from Baghdad, supervise the monthly convoys to take troops home on leave, prevent gross violations of the Geneva Convention or shore up shaky leadership. Given patient support, most of these units eventually will develop the capacity to conduct independent operations. However, some adviser teams already report that their Iraqi counterparts have said they intend to desert if the Americans leave too soon.

Although Anbar may be the most violent province in Iraq per capita, it is relatively free of the sectarian tensions found in Baghdad and the center. The confusion caused by withdrawal would be compounded as religious, militia and political loyalties divided inadequately prepared military and police units. Full-scale ethnic killing would become a very real possibility.

For some, the collapse of Iraqi society into Hobbesian mayhem is inevitable no matter how many American troops remain on the ground. A few argue that disintegration of the Iraqi state actually would bring about the national catharsis that seems so elusive today — that absolute civil war would be a greater good.

This cold calculus ignores the very real impact of an American withdrawal on the people we now protect. Any debate that does not consider the bloody reality we would leave in our wake does a disservice to the people of Iraq and the troops who have fought so hard to defend them.

Ben Connable is a major in the Marine Corps.

    A War That Abhors a Vacuum, NYT, 18.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/opinion/18connable.html

Former U.S. Detainee in Iraq Recalls Torment

December 18, 2006
The New York Times
By MICHAEL MOSS

One night in mid-April, the steel door clanked shut on detainee No. 200343 at Camp Cropper, the United States military’s maximum-security detention site in Baghdad.

American guards arrived at the man’s cell periodically over the next several days, shackled his hands and feet, blindfolded him and took him to a padded room for interrogation, the detainee said. After an hour or two, he was returned to his cell, fatigued but unable to sleep.

The fluorescent lights in his cell were never turned off, he said. At most hours, heavy metal or country music blared in the corridor. He said he was rousted at random times without explanation and made to stand in his cell. Even lying down, he said, he was kept from covering his face to block out the light, noise and cold. And when he was released after 97 days he was exhausted, depressed and scared.

Detainee 200343 was among thousands of people who have been held and released by the American military in Iraq, and his account of his ordeal has provided one of the few detailed views of the Pentagon’s detention operations since the abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib. Yet in many respects his case is unusual.

The detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor. He wound up as a whistle-blower, passing information to the F.B.I. about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked, including what he said was possible illegal weapons trading.

But when American soldiers raided the company at his urging, Mr. Vance and another American who worked there were detained as suspects by the military, which was unaware that Mr. Vance was an informer, according to officials and military documents.

At Camp Cropper, he took notes on his imprisonment and smuggled them out in a Bible.

“Sick, very. Vomited,” he wrote July 3. The next day: “Told no more phone calls til leave.”

Nathan Ertel, the American held with Mr. Vance, brought away military records that shed further light on the detention camp and its secretive tribunals. Those records include a legal memorandum explicitly denying detainees the right to a lawyer at detention hearings to determine whether they should be released or held indefinitely, perhaps for prosecution.

The story told through those records and interviews illuminates the haphazard system of detention and prosecution that has evolved in Iraq, where detainees are often held for long periods without charges or legal representation, and where the authorities struggle to sort through the endless stream of detainees to identify those who pose real threats.

“Even Saddam Hussein had more legal counsel than I ever had,” said Mr. Vance, who said he planned to sue the former defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, on grounds that his constitutional rights had been violated. “While we were detained, we wrote a letter to the camp commandant stating that the same democratic ideals we are trying to instill in the fledgling democratic country of Iraq, from simple due process to the Magna Carta, we are absolutely, positively refusing to follow ourselves.”

A spokeswoman for the Pentagon’s detention operations in Iraq, First Lt. Lea Ann Fracasso, said in written answers to questions that the men had been “treated fair and humanely,” and that there was no record of either man complaining about their treatment.

Held as ‘a Threat’

She said officials did not reach Mr. Vance’s contact at the F.B.I. until he had been in custody for three weeks. Even so, she said, officials determined that he “posed a threat” and decided to continue holding him. He was released two months later, Lieutenant Fracasso said, based on a “subsequent re-examination of his case,” and his stated plans to leave Iraq.

Mr. Ertel, 30, a contract manager who knew Mr. Vance from an earlier job in Iraq, was released more quickly.

Mr. Vance went to Iraq in 2004, first to work for a Washington-based company. He later joined a small Baghdad-based security company where, he said, “things started looking weird to me.” He said that the company, which was protecting American reconstruction organizations, had hired guards from a sheik in Basra and that many of them turned out to be members of militias whom the clients did not want around.

Mr. Vance said the company had a growing cache of weapons it was selling to suspicious customers, including a steady flow of officials from the Iraqi Interior Ministry. The ministry had ties to violent militias and death squads. He said he had also witnessed another employee giving American soldiers liquor in exchange for bullets and weapon repairs.

On a visit to Chicago in October 2005, Mr. Vance met twice with an F.B.I. agent who set up a reporting system. Weekly, Mr. Vance phoned the agent from Iraq and sent him e-mail messages. “It was like, ‘Hey, I heard this and I saw this.’ I wanted to help,” Mr. Vance said. A government official familiar with the arrangement confirmed Mr. Vance’s account.

In April, Mr. Ertel and Mr. Vance said, they felt increasingly uncomfortable at the company. Mr. Ertel resigned and company officials seized the identification cards that both men needed to move around Iraq or leave the country.

On April 15, feeling threatened, Mr. Vance phoned the United States Embassy in Baghdad. A military rescue team rushed to the security company. Again, Mr. Vance described its operations, according to military records.

“Internee Vance indicated a large weapons cache was in the compound in the house next door,” Capt. Plymouth D. Nelson, a military detention official, wrote in a memorandum dated April 22, after the men were detained. “A search of the house and grounds revealed two large weapons caches.”

On the evening of April 15, they met with American officials at the embassy and stayed overnight. But just before dawn, they were awakened, handcuffed with zip ties and made to wear goggles with lenses covered by duct tape. Put into a Humvee, Mr. Vance said he asked for a vest and helmet, and was refused.

They were driven through dangerous Baghdad roads and eventually to Camp Cropper. They were placed in cells at Compound 5, the high-security unit where Saddam Hussein has been held.

Only days later did they receive an explanation: They had become suspects for having associated with the people Mr. Vance tried to expose.

“You have been detained for the following reasons: You work for a business entity that possessed one or more large weapons caches on its premises and may be involved in the possible distribution of these weapons to insurgent/terrorist groups,” Mr. Ertel’s detention notice said.

Mr. Vance said he began seeking help even before his cell door closed for the first time. “They took off my blindfold and earmuffs and told me to stand in a corner, where they cut off the zip ties, and told me to continue looking straight forward and as I’m doing this, I’m asking for an attorney,” he said. “ ‘I want an attorney now,’ I said, and they said, ‘Someone will be here to see you.’ ”

Instead, they were given six-digit ID numbers. The guards shortened Mr. Vance’s into something of a nickname: “343.” And the routine began.

Bread and powdered drink for breakfast and sometimes a piece of fruit. Rice and chicken for lunch and dinner. Their cells had no sinks. The showers were irregular. They got 60 minutes in the recreation yard at night, without other detainees.

Five times in the first week, guards shackled the prisoners’ hands and feet, covered their eyes, placed towels over their heads and put them in wheelchairs to be pushed to a room with a carpeted ceiling and walls. There they were questioned by an array of officials who, they said they were told, represented the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

“It’s like boom, boom, boom,” Mr. Ertel said. “They are drilling you. ‘We know you did this, you are part of this gun smuggling thing.’ And I’m saying you have it absolutely way off.”

The two men slept in their 9-by-9-foot cells on concrete slabs, with worn three-inch foam mats. With the fluorescent lights on and the temperature in the 50s, Mr. Vance said, “I paced myself to sleep, walking until I couldn’t anymore. I broke the straps on two pair of flip-flops.”

Asked about the lights, the detainee operations spokeswoman said that the camp’s policy was to turn off cell lights at night “to allow detainees to sleep.”

A Psychological Game

One day, Mr. Vance met with a camp psychologist. “He realized I was having difficulties,” Mr. Vance said. “He said to turn it into a game. He said: ‘I want you to pretend you are a soldier who has been kidnapped, and that you still have a duty to do. Memorize everything you can about everything that happens to you. Make it like you are a spy on the inside.’ I think he called it rational emotive behavioral therapy, and I started doing that.”

Camp Rule 31 barred detainees from writing on the white cell walls, which were bare except for a black crescent moon painted on one wall to indicate the direction of Mecca for prayers. But Mr. Vance began keeping track of the days by making hash marks on the wall, and he also began writing brief notes that he hid in the Bible given to him by guards.

“Turned in request for dentist + phone + embassy letter + request for clothes,” he wrote one day.

“Boards,” he wrote April 24, the day he and Mr. Ertel went before Camp Cropper’s Detainee Status Board.

Their legal rights, laid out in a letter from Lt. Col. Bradley J. Huestis of the Army, the president of the status board, allowed them to attend the hearing and testify. However, under Rule 3, the letter said, “You do not have the right to legal counsel, but you may have a personal representative assist you at the hearing if the personal representative is reasonably available.”

Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel were permitted at their hearings only because they were Americans, Lieutenant Fracasso said. The cases of all other detainees are reviewed without the detainees present, she said. In both types of cases, defense lawyers are not allowed to attend because the hearings are not criminal proceedings, she said.

Lieutenant Fracasso said that currently there were three Americans in military custody in Iraq. The military does not identify detainees.

Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel had separate hearings. They said their requests to be each other’s personal representative had been denied.

At the hearings, a woman and two men wearing Army uniforms but no name tags or rank designations sat a table with two stacks of documents. One was about an inch thick, and the men were allowed to see some papers from that stack. The other pile was much thicker, but they were told that this pile was evidence only the board could see.

The men pleaded with the board. “I’m telling them there has been a major mix-up,” Mr. Ertel said. “Please, I’m out of my mind. I haven’t slept. I’m not eating. I’m terrified.”

Mr. Vance said he implored the board to delve into his laptop computer and cellphone for his communications with the F.B.I. agent in Chicago.

Each of the hearings lasted about two hours, and the men said they never saw the board again.

“At the end, my first question was, ‘Does my family know I’m alive?’ and the lead man said, ‘I don’t know,’ ” Mr. Vance recounted. “And then I asked when will we have an answer, and they said on average it takes three to four weeks.”

Help From the Outside

About a week later, two weeks into his detention, Mr. Vance was allowed to make his first call, to Chicago. He called his fiancée, Diane Schwarz, who told him she had thought he might have died.

“It was very overwhelming,” Ms. Schwarz recalls of the 12-minute conversation. “He wasn’t quite sure what was going on, and was kind of turning to me for answers and I was turning to him for the same.”

She had already been calling members of Congress, alarmed by his disappearance. So was Mr. Ertel’s mother, and some officials began pressing for answers. “I would appreciate your looking into this matter,” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois wrote to a State Department official in early May.

On May 7, the Camp Cropper detention board met again, without either man present, and determined that Mr. Ertel was “an innocent civilian,” according to the spokeswoman for detention operations. It took authorities 18 more days to release him.

Mr. Vance’s situation was more complicated. On June 17, Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, a spokesman for the American military’s detention unit, Task Force 134, wrote to tell Ms. Schwarz that Mr. Vance was still being held. “The detainee board reviewed his case and recommended he remain interned,” he wrote. “Multi-National Force-Iraq approved the board’s recommendation to continue internment. Therefore, Mr. Vance continues to be a security detainee. We are not processing him for release. His case remains under investigation and there is no set timetable for completion.” Over the following weeks, Mr. Vance said he made numerous written requests — for a lawyer, for blankets, for paper to write letters home. Mr. Vance said that he wrote 10 letters to Ms. Schwarz, but that only one made it to Chicago. Dated July 17, it was delivered late last month by the Red Cross.

“Diana, start talking, sending e-mail and letters and faxes to the alderman, mayor, governor, congressman, senators, Red Cross, Amnesty International, A.C.L.U., Vatican, and other Christian-based organizations. Everyone!” he wrote. “I am missing you so much, and am so depressed it’s a daily struggle here. My life is in your hands. Please don’t get discouraged. Don’t take ‘No’ for answers. Keep working. I have to tell myself these things every day, but I can’t do anything from a cell.”

The military has never explained why it continued to consider Mr. Vance a security threat, except to say that officials decided to release him after further review of his case.

“Treating an American citizen in this fashion would have been unimaginable before 9/11,” said Mike Kanovitz, a Chicago lawyer representing Mr. Vance.

On July 20, Mr. Vance wrote in his notes: “Told ‘Leaving Today.’ Took shower and shaved, saw doctor, got civ clothes back and passport.”

On his way out, Mr. Vance said: “They asked me if I was intending to write a book, would I talk to the press, would I be thinking of getting an attorney. I took it as, ‘Shut up, don’t talk about this place,’ and I kept saying, ‘No sir, I want to go home.’ ”

Mr. Ertel has returned to Baghdad, again working as a contracts manager. Mr. Vance is back in Chicago, still feeling the effects of having been a prisoner of the war in Iraq.

“It’s really hard,” he says. “I don’t really talk about this stuff with my family. I feel ashamed, depressed, still have nightmares, and I’d even say I suffer from some paranoia.”

    Former U.S. Detainee in Iraq Recalls Torment, NYT, 18.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/world/middleeast/18justice.html?hp&ex=1166504400&en=75f8d6f0ce303868&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Powell Doubts Need to Raise Troop Levels

December 18, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON. Dec. 17 — Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state and former chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that the Army was “about broken” and that he saw nothing to justify an increase in troops in Iraq.

“I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purposes of suppression of this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work,” he said in an interview on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

“But if somebody proposes that additional troops be sent,” Mr. Powell said, “if I were still chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my first question to whoever is proposing it: what mission is it that these troops are to accomplish?”

Mr. Powell said heavy demands on the Army had meant “a backlog of equipment that is not being repaired” and “repetitive tours” for soldiers assigned to Iraq. “So if you surge now,” he said, “you’re going to be bringing in troops from the United States who have already been kept there even longer.”

Mr. Powell said the United States should be talking directly with the governments of Syria and Iran in an effort to stabilize the region — a contrast to the policy of the Bush administration, which has not engaged in such talks.

In a separate interview on the ABC News program “This Week,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the incoming Democratic majority leader, said he could support a troop increase only if it were temporary. “If it’s for a surge, that is, for two or three months, and it’s part of a program to get us out of there as indicated by this time next year, then, sure, I’ll go along with it.”

Mr. Reid added: “The American people will not allow this war to go on as it has. It simply is a war that will not be won militarily. It can only be won politically.”

    Powell Doubts Need to Raise Troop Levels, NYT, 18.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/world/middleeast/18powell.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Military Considers Sending as Many as 35,000 More U.S. Troops to Iraq, McCain Says

December 15, 2006
The New York Times
By JOHN F. BURNS

BAGHDAD, Dec. 14 — Senator John McCain said Thursday that American military commanders were discussing the possibility of adding as many as 10 more combat brigades — a maximum of about 35,000 troops — to “bring the situation under control” while Iraq’s divided political leaders seek solutions to the worsening bloodshed here.

After talks in Baghdad with Gen. George W. Casey Jr. and other top American generals, Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, said a substantial United States troop increase was one of the strategy changes the generals were considering as they reviewed what he called “a steadily deteriorating situation.”

He said meetings with Iraqi government leaders showed that they, too, “have certainly not ruled out the option of more troops.”

“Five to 10 additional brigades is what is being discussed,” Mr. McCain said, outlining an increase that could bring overall American troop strength to the highest levels since the invasion in March 2003. While American combat brigades vary, Pentagon officials say they average about 3,500 soldiers. At present, there are 15 combat brigades in Iraq, amounting to about 50,000 of the total American force of about 140,000.

“The American people are disappointed and frustrated with the Iraq war, but they want us to succeed if there is any way to do that,” Mr. McCain told a news conference. Unlike some American military commanders who have said any troop increase should be temporary, he said any increase should last “until we can get the situation under control, or until it becomes clear that we can’t.”

Mr. McCain spoke as the leader of a Congressional delegation that included five senators who have been strong backers of the war, among them Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, who won re-election in Connecticut last month as an independent after losing the Democratic nomination to an antiwar challenger. Mr. Lieberman, too, spoke strongly in favor of a substantial troop increase, saying, “A failed state in Iraq will be a disaster for the region and the world.”

Two other Republican senators in the group, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Thune of South Dakota, said they also backed troop increases, but Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said she had yet to make up her mind. “I for one am not yet convinced that additional troops will pave the way for a peaceful Iraq,” she said. “My fear is that if we have more troops sent to Iraq, we will just see more injuries and more deaths.”

The trip amounted to a high-stakes campaign appearance by Mr. McCain, who is all but building his presidential campaign on the issue of Iraq. A leading contender for the Republican nomination in 2008, Mr. McCain strongly supported the original invasion but has shifted to criticizing the war’s execution. He now holds the politically risky position that the Bush administration should send in more troops, or withdraw entirely.

But Mr. McCain said personal ambition would not guide his Iraq policy.

“I take the position I’m taking with the full knowledge that only 15 to 18 percent of the American people agree with my position that we need more troops,” he said. Still, he said he supported the troop increase to stabilize the situation in Baghdad and other turbulent areas and give Iraqi leaders time to work out compromises to bring the Sunni insurgency and Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence under control.

The visit by Mr. McCain came at a time of disarray in Washington and across the United States over how to proceed in Iraq. Mr. McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is effectively doubling down his bet on the war, figuring that embracing a strong resolution in Iraq will give him an effective campaign cudgel. If the administration sends more troops, Mr. McCain can hope for a speedy resolution in Iraq that allows him to claim partial victory; if President Bush pulls back and chaos persists, he could contend that his advice was ignored.

Without a troop increase, Mr. McCain said at the news conference, “the results are going to be inevitable, in my view” — a defeat for America and for its Iraqi allies that would create a terrorist haven that could be used as a base for attacks in the United States.

He contrasted the situation with the Vietnam War, saying, “when we came home, the war was over.” But now, he said, Iraq’s Islamic militants “will follow us home” if the American effort fails.

Even Mr. McCain, a decorated Vietnam hero, acknowledged the perils of his approach. He described a troop increase as “the least bad option” and said it could cost him his shot at the presidency. “I happen to feel that I have to do what my many years of life involved in the military dictate to me,” he said. As if to emphasize his military credentials, he and other members of the delegation left Baghdad by helicopter after the news conference to fly to an embattled Marine base at Ramadi, 85 miles west of the capital, which is considered one of Iraq’s deadliest places.

Although Mr. McCain did not say so, American commanders here are divided on the recommendations they will present to Mr. Bush, who has said he will announce a new strategy for the war in early January, officials familiar with the generals’ discussions say.

General Casey, the top commander here, is said to be cautious, arguing that an increase could lower violence in Baghdad, at least temporarily, but that it could also encourage Iraq’s feuding political leaders to delay tough decisions needed to stem the slide toward anarchy.

Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the second-highest-ranking American officer in Iraq, has been the allied forces’ operational commander for the past year, and he has resisted a troop increase, the officials say, believing an American-financed job creation program could do as much to weaken the insurgents and political militias.

General Chiarelli’s successor, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who took over at a ceremony in Baghdad on Thursday, is bullish, seeing a troop increase as a way for American and Iraqi troops to gain the upper hand in Baghdad and Anbar Province, a desert region virtually overrun by Sunni insurgents, the officials say.

Another cautionary voice has been that of Gen. John P. Abizaid, leader of the Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. General Abizaid has said increasing troop strength, especially in Baghdad, could have an impact on the mounting cycle of revenge in which Sunni suicide bombings of Shiite civilian targets have set off murderous attacks on Sunni civilians by Shiite death squads. But General Abizaid, like General Casey, has said the impact would be temporary if Iraqi politicians failed to end sectarian feuding.

Iraq’s growing anarchy was highlighted Thursday by another mass kidnapping in central Baghdad that appeared to have been driven by sectarian motives. Masked gunmen in elite police uniforms abducted dozens of men in the morning from the Sinak neighborhood, an area of automobile spare-parts shops close to the Shiite working-class district of Sadr City, an Interior Ministry official and witnesses said.

The neighborhood is not far from the site of a suicide bombing on Tuesday in which at least 70 Shiite day laborers were killed and more than 230 wounded.

The gunmen drove up in cars with police markings and brandished automatic rifles, witnesses said. “People were in a panic,” said a 36-year-old spare-parts merchant. “Some people were trying to close their shops and leave. Others were just trying to slip away. I walked away as fast as I could. A few seconds later, I heard heavy shooting.”

Another merchant said he broke free from the gunmen before they could shove him into a car. “They seemed to know who they wanted to kidnap because they’d take one person and leave others behind,” he said.

The men were blindfolded and driven off to a building in an unknown location, a Shiite man who was later freed said. He said the captives were shackled and kept in a poorly lighted room. The kidnappers asked the victims whether they were Sunni or Shiite, and whether they had ties to any terrorist groups.

By late Thursday, at least 25 abductees had been freed, all Shiites, the Interior Ministry official said. It was unclear how many others — presumably Sunnis, though that was impossible to determine — were still being held.

In the area of the predominantly Shiite city of Kut in southern Iraq, 17 bodies were found by a stream, police officials said. All the victims had been shot dead after being tortured.

In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded near an Iraqi Army patrol, killing two people, including one soldier and mortar rounds killed a woman, according to Interior Ministry reports.

Edward Wong contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Anne E. Kornblut from Washington.

    Military Considers Sending as Many as 35,000 More U.S. Troops to Iraq, McCain Says, NYT, 15.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/15/world/middleeast/15iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Troops in Iraq to get fire-resistant uniforms

Updated 12/14/2006 11:25 PM ET
USA Today
By Tom Vanden Brook

WASHINGTON — Flame-resistant uniforms will be standard issue for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan by early 2007, Pentagon officials say.

More than 160,000 suits made of the flame-retardant fabric NOMEX will be sent to combat zones, said Thomas Edwards, assistant deputy chief of staff for Army logistics.

The Pentagon moved quickly, Edwards said, because Iraqi insurgents are using homemade bombs and targeting the fuel tanks of vehicles. The bombs, called improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are the top killer of U.S. troops in Iraq.

"Guys in the area of operations said, 'Give us all the fireproof uniforms you can find and then kick up production,' " Edwards said.

After receiving the Army's request Sept. 21, the Pentagon shipped 70,000 suits by Oct. 13 to outfit troops who patrol outside U.S. bases, Edwards said. It will cost about $70 million for the uniforms, hoods and gloves.

NOMEX, a DuPont-manufactured fiber, resists burning for about 9 seconds, long enough to allow troops to escape from a burning vehicle, Edwards said.

Troops are urged to drink extra liquids to keep from overheating because of the suits' added layer of protection, said Lt. Col. Carl Ey, an Army spokesman.

Margo Hughey, a 68-year-old grandmother from Columbus, Ind., said she has raised $2,000 to buy the suits for troops after learning of attacks with diesel-soaked explosives from relatives serving in Iraq. She and friend April Johnson, 41, also contacted Indiana's two senators — Republican Richard Lugar and Democrat Evan Bayh — because they did not believe the Pentagon had acted quickly enough.

"When I learned our own family members were in extreme danger, and it did not look like they would be supplied by the DOD (Department of Defense) or the Army I knew I must do something," Hughey said.

Lugar contacted the Pentagon but had not received a response, spokesman Andy Fisher said.

Edwards said the Pentagon moved quickly: "I don't know how long it took Granny to raise that two thousand bucks, but it couldn't have been a helluva lot faster than we did in getting these uniforms."

    Troops in Iraq to get fire-resistant uniforms, UT, 14.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-12-14-safer-uniforms_x.htm

Democrats Plan to Take Control of Iraq Spending

December 14, 2006
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 — Frustrated by the Bush administration’s piecemeal financing of the Iraq war, Democrats are planning to assert more control over the billions of dollars a month being spent on the conflict when they take charge of Congress in January.

In interviews, the incoming Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Budget Committees said they would demand a better accounting of the war’s cost and move toward integrating the spending into the regular federal budget, a signal of their intention to use the Congressional power of the purse more assertively to influence the White House’s management of the war.

The lawmakers, Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Representative John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, said the administration’s approach of paying for extended military operations and related activities through a series of emergency requests had inhibited Congressional scrutiny of the spending and obscured the true price of the war.

“They have been playing hide-the-ball,” Mr. Conrad said, “and that does not serve the Congress well nor the country well, and we are not going to continue that practice.”

Mr. Spratt, who along with Mr. Conrad is examining how the Democratic Congress should funnel the war spending requests through the House and Senate, said, “We need to have a better breakout of the costs — period.” He is planning hearings for early next year on the subject even as the White House readies a new request for $120 billion or more to pay for the war through Sept. 30, in addition to the more than $70 billion in emergency appropriations already spent this year.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, spending on the military outside of the regular budget process, primarily for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has totaled more than $400 billion. For the 12 months ended Sept. 30, spending on the Iraq war alone ran at an average rate of $8 billion a month, according to a study by the Congressional Research Service.

Congressional control over the money for the war is one of the most powerful weapons Democrats will have in trying to influence administration policy toward Iraq. They can use both the budget and subsequent spending bills to impose restrictions on how the money is spent and demand more information from the White House.

While the leadership has repeatedly said it will not cut off money for military operations, senior Democratic officials said lawmakers were considering whether to add conditions to spending bills to force the administration to meet certain standards for progress or change in Iraq. Democrats have also said they intend to investigate spending and suspicions of corruption, waste and abuse in Iraq contracting.

Since the beginning of the war, the White House has said that costs should be considered outside the routine federal budget because they are unpredictable and military demands can change quickly. Republicans have also said that wars have traditionally been treated as emergency spending, but the costs of the extended Vietnam War, for instance, were eventually absorbed into the normal budget.

But Mr. Bush has decided not to include the costs of the war in the budget request he sends to Congress each February. The Republican Congress has acceded to his request that money be appropriated for the conflict on an expedited, as-needed basis that sidesteps much of the process by which the House and Senate normally debate spending priorities.

But the newly completed report of the Iraq Study Group stated that the “costs for the war in Iraq should be included in the president’s annual budget request,” beginning with the budget to be submitted early next year.

In addition, a little noticed provision added to a defense policy measure signed into law by Mr. Bush in October directed him to include in his budget a request for appropriations for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, an estimate of all money expected to be required for the year, and a detailed justification of the request.

“The law requires that it be done,” Mr. Conrad said, adding that he had told the incoming defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, that the administration must change its budgeting strategy.

But Sean Kevelighan, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, said the administration’s view was that Congress could not “bind how the president wants to put together the budget,” though he said the administration was trying to provide more information for Congress and moving toward a more regular budget plan.

“It is obviously difficult to predict the cost of the war 12 to 18 months out,” Mr. Kevelighan said. “But our goal is to provide more information to the American people as to how much, for what and when.”

Both Republicans and Democrats have objected to the administration’s refusal to add the war costs to the budget, particularly when the conflict has lasted almost four years. “It is hard to comprehend with an ongoing event like the war that there wouldn’t be something on it in the budget,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader.

In June, the Senate overwhelmingly approved a proposal by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, to require the president to spell out the expected war costs in his annual spending plan. At the time, some lawmakers expected that the provision would be eliminated from the final measure, but it survived and could be held up by Democrats as evidence that the administration was ignoring the law if it failed to comply.

Lawmakers have several objections to treating the war spending as a continuous emergency, which typically sends the request straight to the Appropriations Committee and bypasses the more policy-oriented Armed Services Committees. Mr. Spratt said he believed that the policy panels tended to give such requests a “closer scrub” than the appropriations panels.

Others say the emergency measures, known as supplemental appropriation requests, can become vehicles for lawmakers to win speedy approval of their own, unrelated pet projects. Members of Congress say the Pentagon has also increasingly seen the war measures as a route to winning financing for projects that should be subject to normal review. And there are complaints that the administration’s approach masks the true cost of the war by not providing a clear bottom line number and by not calculating such related expenses as increased veterans care and military equipment.

“We are now going on four years into this war and they are still funding it with these patchwork supplementals without oversight and without accountability,” Mr. Conrad said, “and that just has to stop.”

But adding the war costs to the annual budget could carry risks for Democrats who want to write a spending plan that meets their priorities but eliminates the deficit in five years or so. Adding the war spending at the same time Democrats want to enforce “pay as you go” budget rules would require some of that spending to be made up by reductions elsewhere.

And if Mr. Bush’s budget does not contain the spending and the Congressional plan does, the president’s blueprint could look better by comparison when it comes to deficit reduction. In addition, budget writers do not want Pentagon spending inflated by the war to become a permanent new floor for the military budget.

    Democrats Plan to Take Control of Iraq Spending, NYT, 14.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/washington/14budget.html?hp&ex=1166158800&en=34d5ab863b03423c&ei=5094&partner=homepage

General: Answer is jobs, not troops

Updated 12/12/2006 9:48 PM ET
USA Today
By César G. Soriano

BAGHDAD — Six months of military operations aimed at securing the Iraqi capital have made little headway in lessening insurgent attacks against U.S. forces or reducing sectarian violence, a top U.S. general said Tuesday.

"I'm not in any way happy with what I see in Baghdad — the level of violence is way too alarming," Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli said.

In June, U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a major offensive to secure the capital. U.S. troops in the city were boosted to about 12,000 from the 7,000 there before the offensive. The number of Iraqi police and soldiers in Baghdad was increased to 50,000 from 43,000.

Chiarelli doubts a further increase in troops alone will be enough to stop the daily attacks. The No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq said military power will succeed only if coupled with "little victories," such as creating jobs and improving basic services such as electricity and trash pickup.

He said the military has launched an economic development project to reopen state-owned factories. The plan will create more than 10,000 jobs across Iraq, Chiarelli said.

"I honestly believe … that if I could drive down unemployment in this country to something that was reasonable, I promise you our casualty figures would not be as high, nor would Iraqi casualties be as high, nor would the level of violence be as high as it is today," Chiarelli said.

In August, Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said the Baghdad offensive would "change the situation significantly prior to Ramadan," or by late September.

Violence in Baghdad has worsened. The Iraq Study Group Report, which was released last week, said violence in the capital increased by more than 43% between late summer and October.

So far this month, at least 51 U.S. troops have died in Iraq, including nine in Baghdad.

"The results of Operation Together Forward II are disheartening," the Iraq Study Group reported.

The battle for Baghdad is considered a pivotal fight. Success in the capital will have an impact on violence elsewhere in Iraq. Baghdad, with a population of about 6 million, is the country's largest city and seat of its government.

"Baghdad is the center of gravity for Iraq," Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, commander of the 1st Calvary Division, said last month when he assumed responsibility for U.S. troops in the capital.

Chiarelli made his comments during an interview to mark the end of his second year-long tour in Iraq.

Chiarelli declined to set a timetable on securing Baghdad or Iraq. "It's going to take however long it's going to take," he said. "This is the most important conflict that we've been involved in the last 50 years. No matter what we say back home it's going to take time."

Chiarelli said U.S. and Iraqi forces are conducting operations in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, a Shiite slum of 2 million people that is the base of support for Muqtada al-Sadr, an anti-American cleric who controls one of the largest militias in Iraq.

Asked whether the military should kill or capture al-Sadr, Chiarelli said, "Hopefully, that's something we won't have to do."

    General: Answer is jobs, not troops, UT, 12.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-12-12-chiarelli-comments_x.htm

Pa. soldier killed in Iraq awarded Silver Star

Posted 12/12/2006 8:48 PM ET
AP
USA Today

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Pfc. Ross McGinnis was perched in the gunner's hatch of a Humvee when a grenade sailed past him and into the truck, where four other soldiers sat during a Dec. 4 mission in Baghdad.

McGinnis shouted a warning to the other soldiers before hurling himself onto the grenade, lodged near the vehicle's radio, shortly before it blew up and killed him.

For saving the lives of the other soldiers and sacrificing his own, McGinnis, 19, of Knox, Pa., has been posthumously awarded the Silver Star, according to a U.S. military statement released in Iraq.

The medal is given to U.S. Army servicemembers who have been cited for gallantry in action.

McGinnis was the youngest soldier in his company. His platoon sergeant, Sgt. 1st Class Cedric Thomas, was quoted as saying that McGinnis yelled, "Grenade … it's in the truck!" before the explosion.

McGinnis chose to throw himself on the explosive even though he had enough time to jump out of the truck, Thomas said. "I looked out of the corner of my eye as I was crouching down and I saw him pin it down," he said.

The four other soldiers riding in the vehicle were wounded, but three have recovered and returned to duty. The fourth is being treated in Germany.

    Pa. soldier killed in Iraq awarded Silver Star, UT, 12.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-12-silver-mcginnis_x.htm

Marine becomes highest-ranking female servicemember killed in Iraq

Posted 12/12/2006 9:57 PM ET
USA Today
By William M. Welch

A major who rejoined the Marines so she could go to Iraq has become the highest-ranking female servicemember to be killed in the war.
Megan McClung, a 1995 graduate of the Naval Academy, was remembered Tuesday by family and friends as having steel-like constitution. She was a triathlete who organized and ran a marathon in Iraq and competed in six Ironman competitions — running, swimming and bicycling — around the world.

McClung, 34, was a public affairs officer with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Pendleton in California. She died Dec. 6. in Anbar province, a focus of insurgent violence in Iraq, the Department of Defense said. She was in a truck, escorting journalists on a story in downtown Ramadi, when a roadside bomb exploded.

'My guardian angel'

She is the first female Marine officer to be killed in Iraq. Her death has prompted outpourings of remembrances from military colleagues and reporters whom she helped cover the conflict. Many have been posted on military-related and media websites.

"Major Megan McClung is my guardian angel today," Lawrence Kaplan wrote in a column on The New Republic website. She "choreographed my present journey through Iraq," and reporters covering the war widely admired her, he wrote. "McClung did a difficult job cheerfully, and she did it well."

McClung's parents, Michael and Re McClung of Coupeville, Wash., said their daughter wanted to be in Iraq with the military and rejoined the service last year to go there.

She served in the Marine Corps until 2004, when she left active duty and went to Iraq as a public affairs officer with Kellogg, Brown and Root, a defense contractor and subsidiary of Halliburton.

Re McClung said that after that tour, her daughter "wanted to be with the Marines. She said the whole time she was there (with KBR), 'I should have been there as a Marine,' " the mother said. "She wanted to get the message out about the courageous folks who are there doing their job."

"It wasn't a tragic end," she said. "Megan died in service of her country doing very much what she believed in. She believed in the mission, that the Iraqi people had a right to their freedom. She wanted people to know that. She wanted to get the story out."

Oversaw embedded journalists

McClung was born in Hawaii, where her father was a Marine. She grew up in Mission Viejo, Calif., a suburb south of Los Angeles and north of Camp Pendleton. Her parents moved to their home on Whidbey Island, in Puget Sound in Washington state, last year.

"My wife and I remember Megan as a cheerful, full-of-life young girl, very easy to like," said her former next-door neighbors in Mission Viejo, Don Karpinen. "We grieve with her family."

Camp Pendleton spokesman Navy Lt. Cmdr. Cliff Carnes told the Associated Press the journalists she was with were not seriously injured, he said. She is the fourth female Marine to die in Iraq, according to the Pentagon.

Lt. Col. Bryan Salas, public affairs officer with the Multi-National Force-West in Iraq, told the North County Times of San Diego County that McClung was an advocate of news media covering military operations and managed the Marines' program of embedding journalists with troops. She organized a Marine Corps marathon in Iraq.

McClung, who was single, was in the final month of a year-long deployment to Iraq. She had been based with Marines in Cherry Point, N.C., Parris Island, S.C., and Virginia Beach, as well as at Camp Pendleton.

McClung's parents said their daughter prided herself on having no more possessions than she could carry in the trunk of her car, and that she was always ready to mobilize for her duty.

"She had a credo" as a public affairs officer, her father said. "That credo was, 'Be bold, be brief, be gone.' "

"She lived up to that credo," her mother said. "She made an incredible difference in the 34 years she was alive."

McClung is to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

    Marine becomes highest-ranking female servicemember killed in Iraq, UT, 12.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-12-12-marine-mcclung_x.htm

AWOL soldier builds a new life in Canada, has no regrets

Updated 12/11/2006 10:14 PM ET
AP
USA Today

TORONTO — He was on his way to his hometown of Buffalo, he had told his military superiors, to see whether the Bills' unproven quarterback, J.P. Losman, was "the real deal."

But on that long bus ride from Clarksville, Tenn., last year, the soldier vomited twice, maybe three times — and it wasn't football that had him so unnerved.

As he rolled north, Army Sgt. Patrick Hart was veering off a road he'd been on for nearly 10 years.

Every mile he traveled led away from the Army.

Away from his wife Jill, who worked in the commander's office at his Fort Campbell, Ky., base, and away from their young son.

"I knew I was at a turning point," said Hart, 33.

From Buffalo, Hart would cross into Canada. His parents, who were in on his secret, drove him across the Peace Bridge and delivered him to a network of Canadian supporters who welcome disillusioned U.S. troops with open arms, a place to stay and legal advice.

Hart became one of at least 25 U.S. servicemembers who have applied for refugee status.

Back at Fort Campbell, an unsuspecting Jill Hart picked up the phone at the house she had decorated in red, white and blue. Her husband of five years said he was not coming home.

Within days, Patrick Hart was listed as AWOL.

Jill Hart, who had thrown herself into the military life, was told the Army would stop health benefits for her epileptic son, then 3.

"I thought we had this great relationship," she recalled of her life within the military. "It made it very clear I'd been living in this world seeing what I wanted to see."

She flew to Toronto, where the family was reunited in September 2005, a month after her husband crossed the border. Jill Hart decided to give it a year. "Three days later I was fine," she recalled.

More than a year since he wore the uniform, Patrick Hart has no regrets: "I have no desire to go back."

The Harts have been active with peace groups, the Toronto Epilepsy Association and visible critics of the war in Iraq that he calls a "war of aggression."

"If you want to support the troops, bring them home," said Patrick Hart, who was in the Army 9½ years and served nearly a year in Kuwait in 2003. He left a month before he was to be sent to Iraq.

Army representatives did not return calls seeking comment.

Supporters estimate there are more than 200 U.S. deserters in Canada who have not sought protection. The Canadian government, which has troops in Afghanistan but not Iraq, has so far denied refugee status to today's U.S. troops.

"The limbo in which American war resisters are living in Canada is rather overwhelming, in that the Canadian government has not taken a position of welcome," said Bruce Beyer, who was given immigrant status by Canada after he fled induction into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. He lived there five years before President Carter issued an amnesty for those who left.

In October, two of the self-described war resisters returned to the USA and turned themselves in. Kyle Snyder, 23, of Colorado Springs, was ordered to return to his unit. He has since disappeared. Darrell Anderson, 24, of Lexington, Ky., received an other-than-honorable discharge.

    AWOL soldier builds a new life in Canada, has no regrets, UT, 11.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-11-awol_x.htm

Truck Bombing Kills at Least 56 in Baghdad

December 12, 2006
The New York Times
By QAIS MIZHER and JOHN O’NEIL

BAGHDAD, Dec. 12 — At least 56 people, most of them Shiite laborers looking for work, were killed today when a pickup truck packed with explosives was detonated in a crowded square in the city’s center this morning, Iraqi officials and witnesses said. At least 220 more were wounded.

Also today, a bomb was discovered at the Golden Shrine in Samarra, a holy site for Shiites, the American military reported. A large bomb that was detonated there in February by Al Qaeda severely damaged the shrine and set off waves of sectarian killings and reprisals across the country.

The bomb found today by the Iraqi police went off while it was being removed, causing minor damage to a doorway but no injuries, the military said.

In Baghdad, the latest of a series of bombings aimed at the city’s Shiites took place in Tarayan Square, a market across the Tigris River from the government Green Zone that has become an informal hiring site, luring mostly workers come from the city’s eastern, predominantly Shiite side. It has been the site of previous blasts.

In recent weeks, American military officials have described the battle for control of Baghdad as a steady stream of individual killings of Sunnis carried out by Shiite death squads, punctuated by bombings and larger attacks carried out by Sunni insurgents or Al Qaeda members against Shiites.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, denounced the blast as the work of Sunni extremists and “their Saddamist allies.” The speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, Mahmud Mashhadani, a Sunni, also condemned the attack, and called on all armed groups within the country to observe a two-month truce.

Some accounts of the attack carried by news services asserted that two vehicles were involved — the pickup truck and a car parked nearby with a bomb inside, detonated at nearly the same time.

Two witnesses interviewed at the scene today described only the pickup truck, which they said was loaded with bags of wheat. Abu Hussein, a 45-year-old laborer who survived the blast, said that the driver had gotten out of the truck and shouted that he needed workers to help him unload.

“When the workers gathered around him, the vehicle blew up,” he said.

Maitham Ali, 41, described bodies flying through the air after the blast. He said he saw one wounded survivor searching for his brother and then carrying him out of the wreckage before both were taken to the hospital.

At the Kindi Hospital, where many of the survivors were taken, Kadhim Thijil, a 40-year-old construction worker from Nasiriyah in southern Iraq, said that he had gone to the market to look for work, as he has often done over the past two years.

Lying in a hospital bed with blood dried over his left hand, Mr. Thijil said he was waiting in a crowd of laborers when he heard a “huge bang.” Workers around him collapsed, he said, and he fell and lost consciousness. When he awoke in the hospital, he was told that he needs surgery to remove shrapnel from his left arm.

Mr. Thijil said he makes an average of $11 a day, and spends about half of it on food and lodging, sending the rest to his family in Nasiriyah.

The acting director of the hospital, Dr. Flayeh Hassan, said that 53 survivors and 43 dead bodies had been brought to the emergency room there, an influx that presented a challenge to an already struggling institution.

“We suffer a lot because of lack of medical appliances as well as medicine,” Dr. Hassan said. “We suffer from lack of sufficient number of staff to take care of the cases admitted every day. Most of them have left the country.

“We didn’t get our salaries yet, and also the amount which we are supposed to receive from the ministry to enable us to buy supplies from the local market, such as beds and other necessities, hasn’t been received yet.”

Also today, the A.P. announced that one of its cameramen, Aswan Ahmed Luftallah, was shot by insurgents while covering clashes in the northern city of Mosul. He is the third employee of the news agency to be killed in Iraq.

A tally kept by the Committee to Protect Journalists shows that 89 journalists and 37 media support workers had been killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, prior to Mr. Luftallah’s death, the news agency said.

Qais Mizher reported from Baghdad and John O’Neil from New York. Wisam A. Habeeb contributed reporting from Baghdad.

    Truck Bombing Kills at Least 56 in Baghdad, NYT, 12.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/world/middleeast/13iraqcnd.html?hp&ex=1165986000&en=2b17b55192ffd800&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Iraqis Consider Ways to Reduce Power of Cleric

December 12, 2006
The New York Times
By EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Dec. 11 — After discussions with the Bush administration, several of Iraq’s major political parties are in talks to form a coalition whose aim is to break the powerful influence of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr within the government, senior Iraqi officials say.

The talks are taking place among the two main Kurdish groups, the most influential Sunni Arab party and an Iranian-backed Shiite party that has long sought to lead the government. They have invited Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to join them. But Mr. Maliki, a conservative Shiite who has close ties to Mr. Sadr, has held back for fear that the parties might be seeking to oust him, a Shiite legislator close to Mr. Maliki said.

Officials involved in the talks say their aim is not to undermine Mr. Maliki, but to isolate Mr. Sadr as well as firebrand Sunni Arab politicians inside the government. Mr. Sadr controls a militia with an estimated 60,000 fighters that has rebelled twice against the American military and is accused of widening the sectarian war with reprisal killings of Sunni Arabs.

The Americans, frustrated with Mr. Maliki’s political dependence on Mr. Sadr, appear to be working hard to help build the new coalition. President Bush met last week in the White House with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Iranian-backed Shiite party, and is to meet on Tuesday with Tariq al-Hashemi, leader of the Sunni Arab party. In late November, Mr. Bush and his top aides met with leaders from Sunni countries in the Middle East to urge them to press moderate Sunni Arab Iraqis to support Mr. Maliki.

The White House visits by Mr. Hakim and Mr. Hashemi are directly related to their effort to form a new alliance, a senior Iraqi official said.

Last month, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, wrote in a classified memo that the Americans should press Sunni Arab and Shiite leaders, especially Mr. Hakim, to support Mr. Maliki if he sought to build “an alternative political base.” The memo noted that Americans could provide “monetary support to moderate groups.”

Iraqi officials involved in the talks said they had conceived of the coalition themselves after growing frustrated with militant politicians.

“A number of key political parties, across the sectarian-ethnic divide, recognize the gravity of the situation and have become increasingly aware that their fate, and that of the country, cannot be held hostage by the whims of the extreme fringe within their communities,” said Barham Salih, a deputy prime minister and senior member of one of the major Kurdish parties.

Mr. Sadr’s relationship with Mr. Maliki has shown signs of strain. On Nov. 30, Mr. Sadr withdrew his 30 loyalists in Parliament and 6 cabinet ministers from the government. Mr. Maliki called for them to return, but they said they would do so only if Mr. Maliki and the Americans set a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops. Mr. Sadr reiterated the demand with a fiery message on Sunday.

Any plan to form a political alliance across sectarian lines that isolates Mr. Sadr and Sunni Arab extremists carries enormous risks. American and Iraqi officials have worked to try to persuade Mr. Sadr to use political power instead of force of arms to effect change. Though it is unclear whether Mr. Sadr has total control over his militia, if he thinks he is being marginalized within the government, he could ignite another rebellion like the two he led in 2004.

Some senior American commanders say that the efforts to make peace with Mr. Sadr through politics may have failed, and that a military assault on Sadr strongholds may be inevitable.

Falah Shanshal, a legislator aligned with Mr. Sadr, on Monday denounced the idea of a new coalition. “We’re against any new bloc, new front or new alliance,” he said. “We have to make unity between us, to be one front against terrorism and to liberate the country from the occupation.”

Iraqi officials say that the other main risk is a potential backlash against the parties involved in the talks from other leaders in their own ethnic or sectarian populations.

For Mr. Hakim and Mr. Maliki, any bid to join Sunni Arabs in an alliance against Mr. Sadr could invoke the wrath of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq. Since the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the ayatollah has worked hard to bring various feuding Shiite factions into one greater Shiite coalition to rule Iraq. That coalition, including Mr. Sadr’s allies, is the dominant bloc in the 275-member Parliament.

Mr. Hashemi, the Sunni Arab leader, risks alienating other members of the main Sunni bloc in Parliament. Sunni Arab insurgents could also decide to step up violence against Mr. Hashemi and his Iraqi Islamic Party. Three of Mr. Hashemi’s siblings have already been killed.

Sunni Arab politicians not involved in the talks said they were furious at the proposed alliance.

Because of those risks, Iraqi officials are still debating whether to try to create the alliance within Parliament or to do so outside Parliament, so that the existing coalitions would be preserved in name. An alliance formed outside Parliament might work with Mr. Maliki’s cabinet to make policy and bypass the legislature on important decisions.

“There’s no changing of blocs in the Parliament,” said Sheik Jalaladin al-Saghir, a senior Shiite legislator and cleric who is one of Mr. Hakim’s deputies. “We’re talking about political forces rallying in the street to support the political process.”

The parties involved in the talks fall short of being able to muster a two-thirds vote in Parliament to oust Mr. Maliki and install a new government, as required by the Constitution. If they pulled in other groups, like the centrist secular party headed by Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister, they might be able to get the required votes — a possibility, since they describe themselves as moderates.

If the parties move to replace Mr. Maliki as prime minister, one possible candidate would be Mr. Hakim’s deputy, Adel Abdul Mehdi, who was favored by the White House last spring to take the top job. He lost out when Mr. Sadr, whose family has long feuded with Mr. Hakim’s, threw his support behind Mr. Maliki’s group, the Islamic Dawa Party, in a vote within the Shiite coalition.

The parties trying to form the new alliance approached Mr. Maliki a couple of days ago to ask him to join them, said the Shiite legislator who is close to the prime minister. Senior officials in the Islamic Dawa Party balked, saying that such a move would break the Shiite coalition, anger Ayatollah Sistani and possibly pave the way for Mr. Hakim to push Mr. Maliki from his job in favor of Mr. Abdul Mehdi.

“Everyone knows Hakim wants Adel to be prime minister; it’s no secret,” said the legislator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Mr. Maliki’s deliberations. “Saying you want to pull Maliki away from the extremists might just be a beautiful cover for the real goal of dropping him.”

The political jockeying unfolded as violence continued in Iraq. The country’s largest oil refinery, in the town of Bayji, remained shut because of insurgent threats to workers. At least 46 bodies were discovered Monday across Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said. At least eight Iraqis were killed and more than a dozen wounded in other violent incidents. The American military announced that three soldiers had been killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Sunday.

Also in the capital, 20 gunmen wearing Iraqi Army uniforms robbed a bank truck carrying the equivalent of $1 million.

Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi and Qais Mizher contributed reporting.

    Iraqis Consider Ways to Reduce Power of Cleric, NYT, 12.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/world/middleeast/12iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Bush Delays Speech on Iraq Until January

December 12, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 — President Bush will wait until after the holidays to speak to the nation about a new strategy in Iraq, a spokesman for the National Security Council said today.

The spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said the president is continuing to ask detailed questions of his advisers, many on operational details involving military considerations under review, and that the answers will not be ready until after Christmas.

Mr. Johndroe’s announcement that Mr. Bush will address the American people in early January, rather than before Christmas as White House officials had indicated earlier, came shortly after the president held a video teleconference with several American commanders, the departing secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Iraq.

White House officials took pains to dispel any impression that the change in timing for the presidential address signaled indecision or dissension. They said there had always been a possibility that the complicated review process would simply not be done in time for a pre-Christmas speech.

The internal administration debate is focusing acutely on whether — and how — the United States should press the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to take more aggressive steps to crack down on militias, among other issues, following a specified timeline.

That course was among those recommended last week by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which called on the United States to link continued political and military support for Mr. Maliki’s government to benchmarks it would have to meet.

The administration has been generally opposed to putting overt pressure on Mr. Maliki, but on Monday Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, left open the possibility that the United States would seek a way to get Mr. Maliki’s government to achieve stability faster and get American troops home.

“There are going to be the best efforts to succeed as quickly as possible,” Mr. Snow said. “The president has made it clear to Iraqis and to the United States that we want to have this succeed, and we want it to succeed as quickly as possible.”

Mr. Snow refused to say whether the president remained firmly opposed to establishing timetables for American withdrawal — which would presumably coincide with Iraqis’ reaching certain benchmarks in securing the country. However, he indicated during his regular afternoon briefing with reporters that the president would address the issue during an expected speech laying out his plan. He later said he had meant to imply only that the president was open to various options.

The White House said Mr. Bush used meetings on Monday at the State Department with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the morning and in the Oval Office with a group of military and Iraq policy experts in the afternoon to review political and military options in Iraq as he attempts to chart what he has called “a new way forward.”

Mr. Bush was meeting today with the Iraqi vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi, the leader of the most powerful Sunni Arab party in Iraq. Aides said that Mr. Bush was “approaching the conclusion” of his deliberations. But officials said the semipublic nature of the meetings — which were put on Mr. Bush’s schedule last week — were also in part intended to show that he is urgently working on a solution to the worsening instability of Iraq at a time of heavy public pressure to show progress there.

That pressure has mounted from the incoming Democratic-led Congress, from some Republicans, and from the Iraq Study Group, whose report last week prescribed 79 recommendations to help reverse what it called a “grave and deteriorating” situation in Iraq.

A poll released by CBS News on Monday showed Mr. Bush had his lowest approval rating ever on the war, with just 21 percent of those surveyed saying they approve of his handling of Iraq.

But after a weekend in which members of the neoconservative wing of his party blasted the report for proposing what they considered to be veiled retreat, and in which administration officials described some suggestions as unrealistic and impractical, the White House said the report did not play a large role in Monday’s discussions.

Asked if the report came up at the State Department meeting, Mr. Snow said, “not really.” And, he said, he did not expect the panel of experts to discuss it much during the Oval Office session either, saying they were not going to the White House to present “a book review.”

In another indication that the White House is distancing itself from the report, four of the five experts at the Oval Office — retired four-star generals Barry McCaffrey and Jack Keane, and Eliot A. Cohen of Johns Hopkins University and Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations — have already publicly questioned the practicality of certain suggestions by the study group.

Still, the administration’s discussions center on many of the same issues the study group addressed. A senior official has said that among the most complicated questions facing the president is how to get Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, to move more aggressively against Shiite militias — including the one led by one of his most powerful patrons, Moktada al-Sadr — and to provide basic services more quickly.

The report has suggested threatening Mr. Maliki and his government with a loss of United States support should the prime minister fail to meet a set of milestones. That would differ from the president’s fundamental resistance to bringing United States troops home before the Iraqi government can “sustain, govern and defend” itself.

Officials investigated reports from Baghdad that some of Mr. Maliki’s fellow Shiites were plotting to push him from office and said that they were false.

And, after his meeting with Ms. Rice — which Vice President Dick Cheney attended as well — Mr. Bush said they had discussed the roles Iraq’s neighbors could play in stabilizing Iraq, which is a central suggestion of the study group’s report. But Mr. Bush continued to make it clear he did not believe Syria or Iran would play such roles.

“We believe that most of the countries understand that a mainstream society, a society that is a functioning democracy, is in their interests,” Mr. Bush said.

    Bush Delays Speech on Iraq Until January, NYT, 12.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/us/politics/13prexy.html

'Peace Mom' Convicted of Trespassing

December 11, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:39 p.m. ET
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- Peace activist Cindy Sheehan and three other women were convicted of trespassing Monday for trying to delivery an anti-Iraq war petition to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

A Manhattan Criminal Court judge sentenced them immediately to conditional discharge, which means they could face some form of penalty if they are arrested in the next six months, and ordered them to pay $95 in court surcharges.

Sheehan and about 100 other members of a group called Global Exchange were rebuffed last March when they attempted to take a petition with some 72,000 signatures to the U.S. Mission's headquarters across a street from the United Nations.

After Monday's sentencing, the women returned to the Mission; this time, their petition was accepted.

Prosecutors said they were arrested in March after ignoring police orders to disperse.

The four were acquitted of disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and obstructing government administration. They had faced up to a year in jail if convicted of all counts.

''We should never have been on trial in the first place,'' Sheehan said in a statement after the verdict. ''It's George Bush and his cronies who should be on trial, not peaceful women trying to stop this devastating war. This verdict, however, will not stop us from continuing to work tirelessly to bring our troops home.''

Sheehan, 49, of Vacaville, Calif., lost her 24-year-old son Casey in Iraq on April 4, 2004. She has since emerged as one of the most vocal and high-profile opponents of the war, drawing international attention when she camped outside President Bush's Texas ranch to protest the war.

The women, calling their campaign ''Women Say No To War,'' had hoped to give the petition to Peggy Kerry, the mission's liaison for non-governmental organizations and sister of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as they had in 2005.

Kerry refused to meet with the women in the presence of Sheehan and the news media. She testified during the trial that the presentation seemed like a publicity stunt.

The women ignored police orders to leave and were reading it aloud on the sidewalk when officers arrested them. The women sat on the sidewalk and were carried to patrol wagons.

Following Monday's court session, the women returned to the U.S. Mission to ask for an apology and resubmit the petition.

They were met by Richard A. Grenell, the mission's director of external affairs, but didn't have the petitions with them. After obtaining copies of the petition, they went back a second time and handed them over to Kerry and Grenell in the building's lobby.

Grenell did not explain why the petitions were accepted this time.

Sheehan's co-defendants were Melissa Beattie, 57, of New York; Susan ''Medea'' Benjamin, 54, of San Francisco; and Patricia Ackerman, 48, of Nyack, N.Y.

    'Peace Mom' Convicted of Trespassing, NYT, 11.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Peace-Mom-Trial.html

Rumsfeld Says Farewell to Troops in Iraq

December 10, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:15 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld paid a surprise visit to Iraq on Sunday and said U.S. forces should not quit the war until the enemy is defeated.

Just days after a U.S. bipartisan commission called the situation here ''grave and deteriorating'' and that the Bush administration's policy wasn't working, Rumsfeld showed no sign of backing down from his long-standing position that insurgent groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq must be crushed to keep them away from America.

''For the past six years, I have had the opportunity and, I would say, the privilege, to serve with the greatest military on the face of the Earth,'' Rumsfeld, 74, said in a speech Saturday to more than 1,200 soldiers and Marines at Al-Asad, a sprawling air base in Anbar province, the large area of western Iraq that is an insurgent stronghold.

''We feel great urgency to protect the American people from another 9/11 or a 9/11 times two or three. At the same time, we need to have the patience to see this task through to success. The consequences of failure are unacceptable,'' he was quoted as saying on the Department of Defense Web site. ''The enemy must be defeated.''

Rumsfeld also met with U.S. forces in Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, it said.

At least 2,930 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, many in and around Baghdad, and in hard-hit Anbar cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi.

Violence continued Sunday as clashes between Sunni and Shiite militants erupted in western Baghdad, a police officer said. One Shiite militiaman was killed and six people -- five Sunnis and one Shiite -- were wounded, the officer said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media.

The clashes broke out at 8:45 a.m. in Baghdad's mixed western Amil district when about 50 Shiite militiamen raided a Sunni neighborhood of the Janabat tribe, the officer said. The fighting ended when U.S. and Iraqi forces rushed to the area to contain it, he said.

The area is near a Sunni pocket of Hurriyah, another mixed neighborhood where fighting occurred Saturday.

Witnesses said Shiite militiamen entered Hurriyah after Sunnis warned the few Shiites living there to leave or be killed. Heavy machine gun fire was heard and three columns of black smoke rose into the sky, the witnesses said on condition of anonymity out of concern for their own safety.

Mohammed al-Askari, a Defense Ministry spokesman, said some people were chased from their homes, but Iraqi security forces drove off the attackers, handed out food to displaced people and persuaded most to return to their homes. But ''others are still frightened,'' he said.

Adnan al-Dulaimi, who heads a large Sunni bloc in parliament, went on a Sunni-run TV station to demand protection for the district's Sunnis. ''We appeal to the government and U.S. forces to rescue Sunni families in Hurriyah who are facing killings and displacement by militias.''

The surprise visit by Rumsfeld was a tightly guarded secret, with the U.S. military in Baghdad saying it couldn't even confirm he had visited U.S. forces in Iraq or how long he would remain in the country. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said it had no information since the military had handled the trip. The Pentagon refused to say whether Rumsfeld was still in Iraq or where he planned to travel next.

It was Rumsfeld's 15th trip to Iraq since the war began; he was last here in July.

Rumsfeld's trip follows an emotional farewell Friday at the Pentagon in Washington, where the defense secretary defended his record on Iraq and Afghanistan.

He said the worst day of his nearly six years as secretary of defense occurred when he learned of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse. Rumsfeld's Pentagon appearance and his trip to Iraq on Saturday were among the few public appearances he has made since President Bush announced on Nov. 8 that he was replacing the defense secretary. His last full day will be Dec. 17.

Rumsfeld's farewell tour to Iraq follows a grim picture of the war that was presented this week by a bipartisan commission headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton. The Iraq Study Group said its prescription for change is needed quickly to turn around a ''grave and deteriorating'' situation.

The commission called for direct engagement with Iran and Syria as part of a new diplomatic initiative and a pullback of all American combat brigades by early 2008, barring unexpected developments, to shift the U.S. mission to training and advising.

Bush's national security team is debating whether additional troops are needed to secure Baghdad -- a short-term force increase that could be made up of all Americans, a combination of U.S. and Iraqi forces, or all Iraqis, a senior Bush administration official said in Washington on Saturday.

Other options being debated include a revamped approach to procuring the help of other nations in calming Iraq; scaling back the military mission to focus almost exclusively on hunting al-Qaida terrorists; and a new strategy of outreach to all of Iraq's factions, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the disclosure of internal discussions had not been authorized.

    Rumsfeld Says Farewell to Troops in Iraq, NYT, 10.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html

R.J. Matson        NY        The New York Observer and Roll Call        Cagle        9.12.2006
http://cagle.msnbc.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/matson.asp

George W. Bush - 43rd President of the United States of America

Iraqis Line Up to Put Hussein in the Noose

December 9, 2006
The New York Times
By KIRK SEMPLE

BAGHDAD, Dec. 8 — One of the most coveted jobs in Iraq does not yet exist: the executioner for Saddam Hussein. The death sentence against Mr. Hussein is still under review by an appeals court, but hundreds of people have already started lobbying the prime minister’s office for the position.

They have sent messages through cabinet officials and their assistants, and by way of government guards and clerical workers. One candidate, an Iraqi Shiite living in London whose brother was killed by Mr. Hussein, telephoned an aide to the prime minister to say he was prepared to drop everything and fly to Baghdad to execute the former ruler.

“One of the hardest tasks will be to determine who gets to be the hangman because so many people want revenge for the loss of their loved ones,” said Basam Ridha, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

Mr. Hussein and two of his top associates, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad al-Bandar, were sentenced to “death by hanging” on Nov. 5 for their involvement in the arrest and killings of 148 men and boys after an assassination attempt against him in the town of Dujail in 1982. The nine-judge appeals bench has no time limit to issue its ruling, but if it upholds the death sentence, Mr. Hussein’s execution must be carried out within 30 days.

Iraqi judicial officials said they expected that the appeals process would be completed in a matter of weeks and, if the sentence is upheld, that Mr. Hussein’s hanging would take place between mid-January and mid-March.

The Shiite-led government has argued for a swift execution, saying that as long as Mr. Hussein is alive, he remains a powerful source of motivation for elements of the Sunni Arab insurgency fighting to restore him to power.

There are other critical issues the government will need to decide should the appeals court uphold the death sentence against Mr. Hussein, including where he will be executed.

Officials have considered staging a public hanging in Baghdad’s largest sports arena, Shaab Stadium, and filling the place with tens of thousands of spectators, according to a high-ranking government official involved in the executions process, who agreed to discuss the subject on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about it on the record.

But while such a spectacle might satisfy a communal need for closure, the authorities have rejected the idea for security reasons. A target that big, they say, would be highly vulnerable to attack by Sunni insurgents who might try to lob a few mortar shells into the crowd or ambush spectators on their way to and from the event.

Government hangings are now conducted in a prison complex in eastern Baghdad. Mr. Hussein, who is being held at Camp Cropper, an American military prison near Baghdad International Airport, could be transported to those gallows by helicopter. But officials worry that the trip would present an unnecessary opportunity for a rescue attempt by his sympathizers.

Most likely, officials say, Mr. Hussein will be hanged at gallows specially built for him at Camp Cropper.

The death penalty in Iraq, which applies to a range of crimes including terrorism and certain categories of murder, was suspended in 2003 by the American occupation authorities but reinstated in August 2004. Since then, 51 people — men and several women — have been hanged and about 170 are currently on death row awaiting execution or the outcome of their appeal, according to Hashim al-Shibli, Iraq’s justice minister.

Those are the official numbers. The high-ranking government official involved in the executions process said the actual number of hangings was far higher, though fewer than 100, because of three sets of hangings that took place between December 2005 and March 2006 and were never publicized.

Human rights groups have questioned the transparency of the criminal justice system in Iraq and the ability of defendants to get a fair trial. And the United Nations has requested that the Iraqi government commute the sentences of all the prisoners on Iraq’s death row. But Iraqi leaders have rebuffed calls for the abolishment of the death penalty, arguing that it serves as a deterrent to crimes.

“Maliki wants to show decisiveness that people should be punished,” said Mr. Ridha, Mr. Maliki’s adviser. “He is very anxious that these executions take place in a timely manner.” He added, “The number of executions that have taken place is not a great number compared to the number of insurgents in the country.”

The gallows are in a concrete building within a heavily guarded prison complex in eastern Baghdad, near the headquarters of the Interior Ministry. Two scaffolds made of steel sit side by side in an otherwise unadorned room, according to the high-ranking government official, who has attended hangings there. (The Justice Ministry and the Maliki administration denied requests to visit the prison and, citing security concerns, refused to give the precise location of the site.)

The government prefers to conduct several hangings in a day for the sake of efficiency. Men condemned to death are held on Iraq’s death row — a wing of rudimentary cells, separated from other inmates in the prison compound. Condemned women are held at a women’s prison in Khadamiya, a neighborhood in northern Baghdad.

The prisoners are told they will be hanged on the morning of their executions, officials said. They are led out of their cells in single file, dressed in orange jumpsuits, their ankles and wrists manacled, and taken to a room off the gallows chambers, where they are allowed to sit on floor cushions. There, they are permitted to pray. They can eat a last meal if they request it, or smoke a cigarette. They are given an opportunity to compose a last will and testament. Then, two by two and hooded, they are taken to the gallows.

The victims are led up a set of steel stairs to a platform, about 15 feet above the ground, and nooses fashioned from one-and-a-quarter-inch-thick hemp ropes are slipped over their necks. The executioners are different each time, drawn from among employees of the Justice Ministry who volunteer for the job. Many have lost relatives or friends in insurgent attacks, officials said.

With a tug of two large levers, the steel trapdoors drop open and the victims fall through. The doors make a loud clanging sound as they slam against the apparatus, according to people who have witnessed hangings. The jarring noise echoes off the cold, unadorned concrete walls.

Death is supposed to come instantly — a doctor is on hand to certify it — and the bodies are removed to a cooler where they are held before being handed over to the victims’ families. The entire process is recorded by a photographer and a video cameraman and the images are stored in a government archive.

But the hangings have not always gone smoothly.

Until the new gallows were built, the Iraqi government used an apparatus and an old rope left over from Mr. Hussein’s government, said the high-ranking government official. The rope had become so elastic that it would sometimes take as much as eight minutes to kill the convicted person.

On Sept. 6, the Iraqi authorities planned to hang 27 people. On the 13th hanging, according to an official who was there, the rope snapped and the convicted man plummeted 15 feet through the trap door onto the concrete floor. “God saved me!” the man cried. “God is great! I did not deserve this!” For an hour, he lay on the ground praying and shouting while prison guards and the executioner debated whether this constituted divine intervention and, if so, whether the man’s life should be spared. Once a new rope was rigged, however, the man was forced up the stairs once again and successfully hanged. The incident was first reported in Time magazine of Nov. 20.

The executions are conducted in secrecy to avert insurgent attacks. On March 9, a government convoy carrying a representative from the administration of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari was ambushed on its way to the gallows. It was an unsuccessful effort to stop the representative from observing the day’s hangings, including the execution of Shukair Farid, a murderous former police officer whom the government had nicknamed “the butcher of Mosul.”

On another execution day, word leaked out and insurgents pelted the prison facility with mortar shells. The Iraqi subcontractors who built the new gallows, under the auspices of an American contractor, were forced to interrupt work several times because of threats by insurgents, officials said.

The current hanging procedures are an improvement over the methods used by Mr. Hussein, who conducted mass executions in a hangarlike building at Abu Ghraib prison. According to human rights groups, hundreds of prisoners were executed in a span of a few weeks in the 1990s to address prison overcrowding.

Mr. Hussein himself asked the court to execute him by firing squad, the method used for soldiers sentenced to death. He said it was his right because he was commander in chief of Iraq’s armed forces at the time of the events in Dujail. His request was denied.

The protocols for his hanging have not yet been determined, including who will get to attend, Maliki administration officials said. In a standard Iraqi hanging, the attendance is limited to representatives from the Justice Ministry, the Interior Ministry and the prime minister’s office, and a doctor. Mr. Shibli, the justice minister, said the convict’s lawyer was allowed to attend, as well as a member of the clergy of the victim’s choice, though in practice they rarely do.

The usual videographer and photographer will probably be on hand, as well, to record the hanging, officials said, and excerpts of the event may be shown later on national television. Mr. Ridha says the Iraqi people will want to see it.

Abdul Razzaq al-Saeidi contributed reporting.

    Iraqis Line Up to Put Hussein in the Noose, NYT, 9.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/world/middleeast/09gallows.html?hp&ex=1165726800&en=c27e773665fd5d05&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Patrick Chappatte        Cartoons on World Affairs        Cagle        8.12.2006
http://cagle.msnbc.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/chappatte.asp

Reference

U.S. troops raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, by Joe Rosenthal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima

U.S. Troops May Be Able to Leave Iraq

December 8, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:19 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Significant U.S. combat troops could be pulled out of Iraq by early 2008 as long as the Iraqis meets specific goals toward establishing a unified government, a senior U.S. commander in Iraq said Friday.

''I think that's possible, if, in fact, we have interim steps that are agreed upon, with timelines that basically move us toward reconciliation,'' said Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who oversees U.S. military operations throughout Iraq. One key move, he said, would be to set a date for provincial elections, as well as critical economic improvements that would get the ''angry young men'' off the streets and out of the insurgency.

Asked if the U.S. is winning the war in Iraq -- a question incoming Defense Secretary Robert Gates answered with a flat no last week -- Chiarelli offered Pentagon reporters a more optimistic view.

''Militarily I can say without a doubt that we are winning. We've never been defeated on any battlefield, sir, in this conflict, nor will we be,'' he said.

Chiarelli added, ''The real question that I think we should be asking ourselves is, are we making the progress toward our strategic objectives? And I would have to give that answer a yes. Are we moving as fast as I wish we were and I know General Casey wishes we were, toward meeting those strategic objectives? We are not.''

Chiarelli, who has served two separate tours in Iraq, also acknowledged that this time he is ''leaving Iraq in a more uncertain and somewhat more tumultuous state than the last time I left.''

    U.S. Troops May Be Able to Leave Iraq, NYT, 8.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraq.html

Iraqis Say Air Strike Killed Civilians

December 8, 2006
By REUTERS
Filed at 5:58 a.m. ET
Reuters

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi police and local officials said at least six children and eight women were among 32 people killed in a U.S. air strike on Friday which the U.S. military said killed 20 al Qaeda militants, including two women.

Police Major Khedr Hussein said 32 people were killed at Ishaqi, 90 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad. Mayor Amer Alwan told Reuters U.S. aircraft bombed two homes around 1 a.m (2200 GMT). He said 32 people were believed to be inside and that of 25 bodies pulled so far from the rubble, eight were women and six children.

U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver said the raid in Ishaqi was one in which U.S. ground troops with air support killed 20 al Qaeda suspects in the Thar Thar area of Salahaddin province and recovered weapons.

    Iraqis Say Air Strike Killed Civilians, NYT, 8.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iraq-qaeda-town.html

Bush Backs Away From 2 Key Ideas of Panel on Iraq

December 8, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and KATE ZERNIKE

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — President Bush moved quickly to distance himself on Thursday from the central recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, even as the panel’s co-chairmen opened an intensive lobbying effort on Capitol Hill to press Mr. Bush to adopt their report wholesale.

One day after the study group rattled Washington with its bleak assessment of conditions in Iraq, its Republican co-chairman, James A. Baker III, said the White House must not treat the report “like a fruit salad,” while the Democratic co-chairman, Lee H. Hamilton, called on Congress to abandon its “extremely timid” approach to overseeing the war.

But Mr. Bush, making his first extended comments on the study, seemed to push back against two of its most fundamental recommendations: pulling back American combat brigades from Iraq over the next 15 months, and engaging in direct talks with Iran and Syria. He said he needed to be “flexible and realistic” in making decisions about troop movements, and he set conditions for talks with Iran and Syria that neither country was likely to accept.

The president addressed reporters after meeting in the White House with his closest ally in the war, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. In light of the report’s stark warning that the situation in Iraq was “grave and deteriorating,” Mr. Bush came close to acknowledging mistakes. “You wanted frankness — I thought we would succeed quicker than we did,” the president said to a British reporter who asked for candor. “And I am disappointed by the pace of success.”

But Mr. Bush, and to a lesser extent, Mr. Blair, continued to talk about the war in the kind of sweeping, ideological terms the Iraq Study Group avoided in its report. While the commission settled on stability as a realistic American goal for Iraq, Mr. Bush cast the conflict as part of a broader struggle between good and evil, totalitarianism and democracy.

If extremists emerge triumphant in the Middle East, Mr. Bush warned, “History will look back on our time with unforgiving clarity and demand to know, what happened? How come free nations did not act to preserve the peace?”


While the president said he would give the report serious consideration, he said he did not intend to accept all 79 recommendations. “Congress isn’t going to accept every recommendation in the report,” Mr. Bush said, “and neither will the administration.”

Three other reviews — one by the Pentagon, one by the State Department and one by the National Security Council — are under way, and Mr. Bush reiterated Thursday that while he believed that the nation needed “a new approach” in Iraq, he would make no decision until he received those reports. The current White House plan is for Mr. Bush to receive them over the next week to 10 days, then make a decision about what both he and the Baker-Hamilton commission are calling “the way forward” in Iraq. He intends to announce his plans in a speech before the end of the year, probably before Christmas, according to administration officials.

Pentagon officials are scheduled to brief Mr. Bush soon on the department’s recommendations for a strategy shift in Iraq. The department’s recommendations are likely to differ in some respects from the ideas presented by the Iraq Study Group, particularly over the role to be played by American combat troops over the next 12 to 18 months.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair have long stood side by side on the war in Iraq. The White House insisted that Mr. Blair’s appearance on Thursday was not timed to coincide with the release of the report, but it did help them underscore — as Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, put it — that “the president isn’t standing alone.”

The Pentagon recommendations, which are still being completed, are the product of discussions in recent weeks among ground commanders, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and civilian officials in the department. While department officials are likely to present Mr. Bush with one set of recommendations, differences remain.

Some officials still back the idea of a temporary surge in American troops, though the top commander in the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, has been urging recently that any troop shortfall to restore security in Baghdad should be filled by more Iraqi forces or by repositioning American forces now in Iraq.

Military officials are also concerned about the Iraq Study Group’s call for pulling back all American combat brigades over the next 15 months, a goal that some uniformed officials see as desirable but possibly unrealistic. Pentagon officials remain skeptical about the timetable, and they are leaning toward an approach that pulls back some combat brigades but keeps others in Baghdad and other violence-ridden areas of Iraq until Iraqi units can better handle the fight on their own.

Though the Iraq Study Group also called for keeping enough American troops in place to provide protection to expanded teams of American advisers attached to Iraqi Army units, Pentagon officials fear that the panel’s recommendations, if adopted, could lead to withdrawals of substantial American troops before the Iraqi units can stand on their own.

The study group said combat brigades could withdraw from Iraq by the first quarter of 2008 if conditions on the ground permitted. Some analysts say that phrasing gives Mr. Bush wiggle room to ignore the call for withdrawal, and on Thursday Mr. Bush seized on that “qualifier,” as he called it. “I thought that made a lot of sense. I’ve always said we’d like our troops out as fast as possible.”

Mr. Bush was sensitive about commenting on the military recommendations put forth by the Iraq Study Group until he heard from his own commanders, according to a senior administration official, who was authorized to discuss the president’s point of view. “When you have your military leadership who are tasked with fighting this war, who are in the process of giving him military advice, you also have to be deferential to that,” this official said.

On Iran and Syria, Mr. Bush stuck to the conditions he set long ago for talks: Iran must abandon its nuclear program, and Syria must give up its support for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. “If they want to sit down at the table with the United States, it’s easy — just make some decisions that will lead to peace, not to conflict,” he said.

The Baker-Hamilton panel — five Republicans and five Democrats — made an intense plea for a bipartisan consensus, and Mr. Bush’s aides say the president has taken at least that part of their effort to heart. He met Wednesday with leaders of committees that oversee foreign affairs, defense and intelligence, and plans to meet with Republican and Democratic leaders on Friday.

The Wednesday meeting opened with Mr. Bush making an overture to Democrats, the senior official said, and telling them that although they may believe he has made the wrong decisions, they needed to work together. “The president started by saying that, you know, there’s a lot of water under the bridge, but that while we may not share all the views of this report, we ought to use it as an opportunity to work together,” the official said, adding, “I’ve been through a lot of those meetings, and sometimes you feel like people are going through the motions. And I felt yesterday that there was really a sincere effort, both Republican and Democrat, to say this could provide us an opportunity to find common ground.”

On Capitol Hill on Thursday, Republican and Democratic senators pressed Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton for ways that Congress could be involved in shaping the president’s response to the report — noting that the original impetus for the study group had come from Capitol Hill. “We’ve now heard from the Iraq Study Group, but we need the White House to become the Iraq Results Group,” said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York.

Mr. Baker replied by asking Congress to accept the report, saying that would put pressure on the administration to do the same. “If the Congress could come together behind supporting, let’s say, utopianly, all of the recommendations of this report, that would do a lot toward moving things downtown, in my opinion,” he said. Both he and Mr. Hamilton argued that cherry-picking the suggestions would not work.

“I hope we don’t treat this like a fruit salad and say, ‘I like this but I don’t like that. I like this, but I don’t like that,’ ” Mr. Baker said. “This is a comprehensive strategy designed to deal with this problem we’re facing in Iraq, but also designed to deal with other problems that we face in the region, and to restore America’s standing and credibility in that part of the world.”

David S. Cloud contributed reporting.

    Bush Backs Away From 2 Key Ideas of Panel on Iraq, NYT, 8.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/world/middleeast/08prexy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Kevin Siers        North Carolina        The Charlotte Observer        Cagle        8.12.2006
http://cagle.msnbc.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/siers.asp

L: George W. Bush - 43rd President of the United States of America
R: Dick Cheney - Vice President

Iraq Study Group

Bush-Blair split over report's key proposals

President rejects talks with Iran and Syria

Friday December 8, 2006
Guardian
Julian Borger in Washington

George Bush yesterday rejected key recommendations made by the Iraq Study Group, revealing important differences with Tony Blair, who embraced the proposals put forward by the US bipartisan commission.

Those differences became clear after the two leaders met at the White House.

President Bush flatly contradicted the ISG's proposal that Iran and Syria be included in regional talks aimed at ending Iraq's worsening civil war. He restated the White House position that talks with Tehran were conditional on the Iranians stopping uranium enrichment, while contacts with Damascus would depend on an end to Syrian destabilisation of Lebanon and a cessation of arms and money flows over the border to Iraqi insurgents.

"We've made that position very clear. And the truth of the matter is that these countries have now got the choice to make," the president said.

"If they want to sit down at the table with the United States, it's easy. Just make some decisions that'll lead to peace, not to conflict."

Mr Blair, by contrast, welcomed the regional peace initiative put forward by the ISG, saying only that the basis for those discussions should be acceptance of UN resolutions on Iraq.

A Downing Street spokesman confirmed the British position of demanding a halt to uranium enrichment while continuing to talk to Iran on other issues. "In terms of our position, we continue to have diplomatic relations with Iran and have always done so," the spokesman said.

The difference in tone between the two leaders was also evident when they talked more generally about the report, which also called for a withdrawal of combat troops by early 2008, a switch in the use of US troops to an advisory role, in tandem with a comprehensive Middle East peace conference.

Mr Blair enthusiastically embraced the ISG's regional approach and the link it made between resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and bringing peace to Iraq. "There is a kind of whole vision about how we need to proceed that links what happens inside Iraq with what happens outside Iraq. And the report put this very simply and very clearly," he said. "I think the report is practical, it's clear, and it offers also the way of bringing people together."

President Bush praised the commission, headed by the retired politicians James Baker and Lee Hamilton, for its bipartisan approach, but appeared to put more emphasis on a separate assessment of the situation in Iraq expected in the next few days from the joint chiefs of staff.

"Baker-Hamilton is a really important part of our considerations," the president said. "But we want to make sure the military gets their point of view in. After all, a lot of what we're doing is a military operation."

The military report is not expected to propose substantial troop withdrawals and may even advocate a brief surge in the US military presence in Iraq. President Bush yesterday made it clear he was more likely to listen to that kind of advice. He said: "Our commanders will be making recommendations based upon whether or not we're achieving our stated objective."

He added that another political assessment was being readied by the state department and that after he had absorbed all the reports he would make a major policy speech announcing a new strategic direction.

Mr Bush has been under rising pressure since last week when the incoming defence secretary, Robert Gates, contradicted his assertion that the US was winning the war. Pressed by journalists, the president yesterday admitted "it's bad in Iraq", adding: "I do know that we have not succeeded as fast as we wanted to succeed. I do understand that process is not as rapid as I had hoped." But his rhetoric otherwise remained defiantly unchanged, and he continued to talk of eventual "victory".

The ISG members appeared before the Senate yesterday in an attempt to increase pressure on the president to accept the group's proposals.

Mr Baker, a close adviser and friend of the president's father, said that the ISG report "is probably the only bipartisan report [the president is] going to get and it's extremely important that we approach this issue in a bipartisan way".

"If the Congress could come together behind supporting - let's say, utopianly - all of the recommendations in this report, that would do a lot toward moving things downtown," he added, referring to the White House at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Mr Baker also flatly contradicted the president's claim that the ISG authors did not expect him to accept every recommendation. "I hope we don't treat this like a fruit salad, saying, 'I like this, but I don't like that,'" he said. "It's a comprehensive strategy designed to deal with the problems in Iraq, but also to deal with other problems in the region. These are interdependent recommendations."

In his remarks yesterday, the president did appear to give some hints on future military strategy, suggesting that the initial emphasis would be on a final effort to contain the sectarian violence centred in Baghdad, which may allow US troops then to concentrate on al-Qaida groups, which would be more palatable to US public opinion.

"We'll continue after al-Qaida. Al-Qaida will not have safe haven in Iraq. And that's important for the American people to know. We got special operators. We've got, you know, better intelligence," he said.

"The strategy now is how to make sure that we've got the security situation in place such that the Iraqi government's capable of dealing with the sectarian violence, as well as the political and economic strategies as well."

    Bush-Blair split over report's key proposals, G, 8.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1967285,00.html

M. e. Cohen        New Jersey        Freelance        Cagle        7.12.2006
http://cagle.msnbc.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/cohen.asp

5.30pm update

Bush: victory still important in Iraq

Thursday December 7, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Tran

A defiant George Bush today said he and Tony Blair agreed that "victory" in Iraq was important, just one day after the Iraq Study Group delivered a withering critique of his current policy.

In a joint press conference with the prime minister in Washington, Mr Bush said the recommendations from the ISG were "worthy of serious recommendation".

But the president sent out a clear signal to his critics that he thought victory was still possible, despite what the bipartisan panel described as a "grave and deteriorating" situation in Iraq.

"We will stand together and defeat the extremists and radicals and help a young democracy prevail in the Middle East," Mr Bush said in a long statement at the start of the press conference.

Mr Blair thanked the president for the "clarity of [his] vision" and called Iraq a "mission we have to succeed in and can succeed in". Both men portrayed the war in Iraq as part of a wider battle between the "forces that are reasonable" and extremists.

Mr Bush pointed out that the ISG report was not the only one before the White House, mentioning reviews from the Pentagon, the state department and the national security council. Asked whether the ISG report should carry more weight because of its bipartisan nature, Mr Bush ducked and weaved.

"It is certainly an important part of our deliberations," Mr Bush replied.

Even as Mr Blair and Mr Bush outlined their response to the ISG report, which called on the US to chart a new course, opposition MPs back in London were pressing for a Commons statement from the prime minister.

The Tory former defence spokesman Bernard Jenkin said Mr Blair was not involved in a "routine bilateral". He added that it was not acceptable for the prime minister to return to the UK without giving a statement to the House of Commons "about what amounts to a substantial change in public policy".

The Commons leader, Jack Straw, however, refused to promise either a statement or debate on the ISG report before Christmas. He told MPs to quiz the prime minister about it at question time next week, but was warned by some members of the opposition that this was unacceptable and would look bad to voters.

Mr Bush and Mr Blair find themselves increasingly isolated on Iraq, now that the US foreign policy establishment - embodied by the ISG co-chairmen former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton - has declared that the "current approach is not working and the ability of the United States to influence events is diminishing".

The Democratic senator Charles Schumer said the key question was whether Mr Bush was ready for a change of course.

"All eyes now are on this president," Mr Schumer said.

Mr Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, has said Bush will make his decision within weeks.

The ISG report made two key recommendations. The first was for the US to shift military priorities from combat to training Iraqi troops and start withdrawing combat troops early next year. The second was for the US to launch a diplomatic effort that would involve direct talks with Iraq's neighbours, Iran and Syria.

Mr Bush, however, has stubbornly stuck to his position that there will be no talks with Tehran unless it suspends its uranium enrichment programme. The administration is also in no hurry to talk to Damascus, accusing it of allowing insurgents to cross into Iraq from Syria.

Mr Blair last month used a high-profile speech to offer "partnership" to Damascus and Tehran if they stopped supporting terrorism and met international obligations not to pursue nuclear arms. The prime minister also wants the US to devote some energy to dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

On arriving in the US last night, Mr Blair went straight into a meeting on climate change with senators who included possible 2008 presidential candidate John McCain.

Mr Blair is also due to meet congressional leaders and members of the Senate armed services and foreign relations committees to discuss Iraq, the Middle East, trade, Darfur and Africa in general.

The group is likely to include the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for the 2008 presidential election, Hillary Clinton, and the rising star in the Democratic party, the black senator Barack Obama.

Downing Street said Mr Blair would stress the importance of maintaining momentum towards a post-Kyoto agreement on climate change after 2012 and on delivering on promises on aid and debt relief made to Africa at last year's G8 summit in Gleneagles.

    Bush: victory still important in Iraq, G, 7.12.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,1966554,00.html

Clay Bennett        The Christian Science Monitor        Boston        Cagle        7.12.2006
http://cagle.msnbc.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/bennett.asp

News Analysis

A Blueprint for Iraq: Will It Work in the White House?

December 7, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — In 142 stark pages, the Iraq Study Group report makes an impassioned plea for bipartisan consensus on the most divisive foreign policy issue of this generation. Without President Bush, that cannot happen.

The commissioners gave a nod to Mr. Bush, adopting his language in accepting the goal of an Iraq that can “govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself.” But the administration’s talk of Iraq as a beacon of democracy in the Middle East is absent, as is any talk of victory.

Instead, the report confronts the president with a powerful argument that his policy in Iraq is not working and that he must move toward disengagement. For Mr. Bush to embrace the study group’s blueprint would mean accepting its implicit criticism of his democracy agenda, reversing course in Iraq and throughout the Middle East and meeting Democrats more than halfway.

Assuming he is not ready to go that far, despite some recent signals of flexibility, he faces the more general question of whether he is ready to embrace the spirit of the report — not to mention the drubbing his party took in the midterm elections a month ago — and produce a new approach of his own that amounts to more than a repackaging of his current worldview.

“In a sense,” said Dennis Ross, who worked for both President Clinton and the first President Bush as a Middle East envoy, “what you have here offers the Democrats a ready handle to show, ‘We’re prepared to be bipartisan on the issue of Iraq, because we’ll embrace the bipartisan Iraq Study Group — are you prepared to be bipartisan as well?’ ”

The study group, for instance, calls for direct engagement with Iran and Syria; so far, Mr. Bush has refused. While Mr. Bush has steadfastly resisted a timetable for withdrawal, the report says all combat brigades “not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq” — note the careful use of the conditional — by the first quarter of 2008.

The report in effect calls on Democrats, at least those who have been pushing for a rapid withdrawal of troops, to show patience, warning that a fast pullout would lead to “a significant power vacuum, greater human suffering, regional destabilization and a threat to the global economy” — in effect, pushing Iraq into total anarchy.

But the real target of the Iraq Study Group was Mr. Bush. The president has already sought to play down the role the report would have in shaping his thinking. The administration has several reviews of its own under way, and Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, began saying as early as October that the White House was “not going to outsource the business of handling the war in Iraq.”

So while Mr. Bush called the report “an opportunity to come together and work together” after receiving it Wednesday, it was no surprise on Capitol Hill that many Democrats were quicker to embrace it than Republicans were. Members of the president’s party seemed to be adopting a kind of wait-and-see posture, praising the report for its seriousness and depth as they searched for clues about what Mr. Bush would do.

“I was impressed by the seriousness with which this group reached its conclusions and its plea that the level of partisanship we’ve seen in Iraq be toned down,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who will soon be the Republican leader. But Mr. McConnell cut short any conversation of what Mr. Bush should do. “I’m not going to give the president advice,” he said.

The president spent weeks trying to shape the political climate in which he would receive the report. He ordered up a Pentagon study and commissioned his own White House review. Last week, he went to Amman, Jordan, to meet with the prime minister of Iraq, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki; on Monday, he received a powerful Iraqi Shiite leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, at the White House.

Those moves have been aimed at giving Mr. Bush the flexibility he needs to do pretty much whatever he wants. But, meeting with him in the Oval Office on Wednesday morning, the commissioners made a pointed appeal for him to give their study greater weight than his own, if only because it has the backing of both parties.

“This is the only bipartisan advice you’re going to get,” the Democratic co-chairman of the panel, Lee H. Hamilton, told Mr. Bush, according to an account by Mr. Snow. Commissioners said afterward that the president seemed to absorb that plea.

“I don’t want to put too much in his mouth now,” said Lawrence S. Eagleburger, who was secretary of state under Mr. Bush’s father, “but there was not one bit of argument. He didn’t come back at us on anything.”

Mr. Bush has already been adjusting policy in modest ways — carrying out, for example, some of the recommendations made to him in late October by his national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, engaging other Iraqi leaders, like Mr. Hakim, and sending Vice President Dick Cheney for talks with the leaders of Saudi Arabia.

That is not the only sign the president will give serious consideration to the report. Mr. Bush’s new choice for defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, caught Washington by surprise on Tuesday when he testified in his confirmation hearings that the United States was not winning in Iraq. It may be no coincidence that Mr. Gates is a former member of the Iraq Study Group.

The report offered a little something for everyone, and took away a little something from everyone as well. The reaction was harshest at the ends of the political spectrum.

William Kristol, a neoconservative thinker and the editor of The Weekly Standard who pushed for the invasion, lambasted the recommendations as “a disguised surrender.” Representative John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat whose call for withdrawal touched off a firestorm last year, complained that the panel offered a prescription “no different from the current policy.”

The real question now is whether the report can generate what the panel’s Republican co-chairman, James A. Baker III, called the “tremendous amount of political will” necessary to prod Democrats and Republicans into genuine cooperation — and Mr. Bush into embracing policy prescriptions he thus far has shunned.

As he stood before the press corps Wednesday to unveil the long-awaited report, Mr. Baker, a longtime confidante of the Bush family, was asked if Mr. Bush had the capacity to “pull a 180,” as the report would seem to require. He ducked the question then, but later answered it in an interview with Brian Williams of NBC News.

“I don’t know what the president will do,” Mr. Baker said. “But I do know this. I know the president is conflicted by the situation there. I know the president would like to approach this in a bipartisan way and in a manner that would have the support of the American people. Here’s a vehicle to do that.”

    A Blueprint for Iraq: Will It Work in the White House, NYT, 7.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/world/middleeast/07assess.html?hp&ex=1165554000&en=50480e77eb126a99&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Steve Greenberg        The Ventura County Star, CA        7.12.2006        Cagle
http://cagle.msnbc.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/greenberg.asp

From L to R: James A. Baker, George W. Bush

Military Analysis

Will It Work on the Battlefield? Options Are Based on Hope

December 7, 2006
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

The military recommendations issued yesterday by the Iraq Study Group are based more on hope than history and run counter to assessments made by some of its own military advisers.

Ever since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States has struggled in vain to tamp down the violence in Iraq and to build up the capacity of Iraq’s security forces. Now the study group is positing that the United States can accomplish in little more than one year what it has failed to carry out in three.

In essence, the study group is projecting that a rapid infusion of American military trainers will so improve the Iraqi security forces that virtually all of the American combat brigades may be withdrawn by the early part of 2008.

“By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq,” the study group says.

Jack Keane, the retired Army chief of staff who served on the group’s panel of military advisers, described that goal as entirely impractical. “Based on where we are now we can’t get there,” General Keane said in an interview, adding that the report’s conclusions say more about “the absence of political will in Washington than the harsh realities in Iraq.”

The experience of American commanders shows the difficulties in rapidly handing over security responsibilities to Iraq. In June, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, developed a plan that called for gradually drawing down the number of American brigade combat teams by December 2007, to just 5 or 6 from the 14 combat brigades that were deployed at the time. In keeping with this approach, American troops in Baghdad began to cut back on their patrols in the capital, calculating that Iraqi security forces would pick up the slack.

But no sooner did General Casey present his plan in Washington than it had to be deferred. With sectarian violence soaring in Baghdad, the United States reinforced its troops there. More American soldiers are now involved in security operations in Baghdad than Iraqi troops.

Now, the Iraq Study Group is essentially taking General Casey’s plan off the shelf and carrying it further. The group’s final military recommendations were not discussed with the retired officers who serve on the group’s Military Senior Adviser Panel before publication, several of those officers said.

Military experts say there are several difficulties with the panel’s recommendation. First, it underestimates the challenge of building a capable Iraqi security force. After several years of desultory efforts, the United States has taken steps to upgrade and better prepare the teams of American advisers who are assigned to Iraqi units. But training the Iraqi Army is more than a matter of teaching combat skills. It requires transforming the character of the force.

“The new Iraqi Army will need years to become equal to the challenge posed by a persistent insurgency and terrorist threat,” Lt. Col. Carl D. Grunow, a former military adviser, wrote in a recent issue of Military Review, a journal published by the United States Army.

One big problem, Colonel Grunow notes, is that the Iraqi military is not proficient in counterinsurgency operations or sufficiently sensitive to the risk of civilian casualties.

“They are still fighting their last war, the high-intensity Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, a war with clear battle lines fought with mass military formations, and one in which civilians on the battlefield were a nuisance, and not a center of gravity,” he wrote. The Iraqi military, he added, “must learn to fight using strategies and tactics far different than those used in the past.”

Even if the number of American advisers is increased, it is highly unlikely that the Iraqi forces would be capable of assuming the entire responsibility for security throughout the country in little more than a year. It took four years, from 1969 to 1973, for the Nixon administration to make South Vietnamese forces strong enough to hold their own and withdraw American combat forces from Vietnam. Even so, when Congress withheld authority for American airstrikes in support of those forces in 1975, the North Vietnamese quickly defeated the South and reunified the country under Communist rule.

The rapid withdrawal of American combat forces would also deprive the Iraqi military of the opportunity to work as partners with the Americans in combined operations. “There is no meaningful plan for creating a mix of effective Iraqi military forces, police forces, governance and criminal justice system at any point in the near future, much less by 2008,” noted Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, referring to the group’s study.

Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired four-star general, said in an interview that the overall concept of withdrawing American forces as the Iraqis built up their military capability was sound. But he argued that the specific recommendations by the panel raised a second problem: if American combat brigades were withdrawn from Iraq, the thousands of American advisers who remained might find themselves dangerously exposed, particularly if the fighting in Iraq grew into a full-scale civil war. The advisers could be killed or taken hostage.

“They came up with a political thought but then got to tinkering with tactical ideas that in my view don’t make any sense,” General McCaffrey said. “This is a recipe for national humiliation.”

A last issue is that given the deterioration of security in Iraq, it may take the combined efforts of American combat units and Iraqi security forces to try to arrest the spiraling violence. In the end, that task may not be achievable. But since it is American forces that have often worked to curb the sectarian killings — and since many of the Iraqi forces have been infiltrated by sectarian militias — there is reason to believe that the civil strife will grow if the American combat forces soon begin to leave.

A preface to the report by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, the group’s chairmen, said that one aim of the report was “to move our country toward consensus.” The study contains all the ingredients of a Washington compromise. What is less apparent is a detailed and convincing military strategy that is likely to work in Iraq.

    Will It Work on the Battlefield? Options Are Based on Hope, NYT, 7.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/world/middleeast/07military.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

In Iraq, Reaction to Report Runs From Relief to Anger

December 7, 2006
The New York Times
By EDWARD WONG and ABDUL RAZZAQ AL-SAIEDI

BAGHDAD, Dec. 6 — They gathered Wednesday evening inside an office in the fortified Green Zone, the Iraqi prime minister and a handful of senior officials, awaiting word of the report that could shape American policy toward their embattled country.

The video screen sprang to life. There was the silver-haired James A. Baker III, a former secretary of state and one of the report’s main authors. He stared Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki in the eyes.

Mr. Baker wanted to lay out the basics of the report for Mr. Maliki before his news conference in Washington. So with his slight Texas drawl, Mr. Baker listed three conclusions that the Iraq Study Group had arrived at: the United States should continue to support the Iraqi government, the Iraqis should engage in high-level diplomacy with neighboring countries, and the 140,000 American troops here should switch from a combat mission to a support role while drawing down significantly.

A look of relief seemed to pass over Mr. Maliki’s face, said Sami al-Askari, a conservative Shiite legislator who was in the room.

“If the report is written in that way, it’s good,” Mr. Maliki said a little later, according to Mr. Askari. “But let’s wait to read all the details of the report.”

The prime minister had been pleased, Mr. Askari said, because the report seemed to affirm an argument that Mr. Maliki and other Shiite leaders had been making to President Bush — give the Iraqi government more control over the security forces, and the war could be won. Mr. Maliki was also glad, Mr. Askari said, that Mr. Baker had insisted on a regional dialogue and not a full-blown international conference, which Mr. Maliki fears could lead to undue interference here by foreign powers.

“The report was positive,” Mr. Askari said. “I think the Baker-Hamilton commission listened carefully and responded to what the Iraqi government wants.”

Not all Iraqi politicians were as optimistic. Reaction to the bipartisan commission’s recommendations on how to salvage the American enterprise varied among Iraqi politicians, who expressed appreciation, anger and ambivalence at sections of the report. Much depended on whether the study’s 79 points seemed to support their ethnic or sectarian group’s interests.

Kurdish leaders were outraged by proposals that could weaken Kurdish autonomy by delaying an opportunity for the Kurds to govern the contested oil city of Kirkuk, and by giving the central government control over all oil revenues. Sunni Arab legislators said they had wanted the report’s main points to push for a cleansing of Shiite chauvinist elements from the government and security forces.

That is all the more important, the Sunni politicians said, because if American combat units withdraw over the next year, as the report urges, then Shiite-led security forces could commit more atrocities against Sunni Arabs.


“These recommendations might be a solution for the American crisis in Iraq, but not a solution for the Iraqi crisis,” said Dhafir al-Ani, a conservative Sunni Arab member of Parliament. “The withdrawal of the American forces at a time when the Iraqi forces are still poorly trained is bad. There should first be a broad purging of the security elements because they were established on a sectarian basis, with militias. There is no assurance that they will enforce justice.”

“The Americans can leave and their problems will be finished,” he added, “but they will pay a price because all regional stability will disappear, as long as the situation in Iraq stays as it is.”

Some of the report’s proposals are clearly intended to assuage the fears of Sunni Arabs, like a recommendation that the Americans try to shift control of the elite police units, suspected of being rife with Shiite militiamen, to the Sunni-led Defense Ministry from the Shiite-led Interior Ministry. But Shiite leaders would almost certainly balk at any such move.

Another Sunni Arab legislator, Salim Abdullah, said the report placed too much emphasis on training Iraqi forces and not enough on monitoring those forces for sectarian loyalties.

“We think that improving the Iraqi troops will not be achieved through training only,” Mr. Abdullah said. “Corrupt individuals should be removed. The militias should be dealt with, and the security forces should be shielded from political influence.”

But Mr. Abdullah praised the report’s proposal that the American and Iraqi governments engage in direct talks with regional countries, especially Iran and Syria, to persuade them to stop interfering in Iraq. Iran and Syria are both suspected by the Americans of aiding various militant factions in Iraq. Fear of growing Iranian influence is especially rampant among Sunnis like Mr. Abdullah and Mr. Ani.

“The American administration should be decisive in tightening its grip on the regional countries that interfere in Iraq’s affairs, especially Iran and Syria,” Mr. Ani said.

A Kurdish legislator, Mahmoud Othman, praised the report when asked his opinion in the early evening. But as he and other Kurdish leaders scrutinized the details, they became more and more angry, he said in a later telephone interview. The report’s authors had recommended blocking the most important aims of the Kurds: having oil-rich Kirkuk vote next year on whether to join Iraqi Kurdistan, and taking control of oil revenues that come from future exploration in Kurdistan.

Mr. Othman said those goals were enshrined in the Iraqi Constitution. In fact, one of the recommendations that most angered Mr. Othman and his fellow Kurds was a call for a parliamentary committee to immediately start a review — and possible revision — of the Constitution. The Shiites and Kurds were the main authors of the Constitution and are opposed to any review.

“It’s sort of interference in Iraqi affairs, actually,” Mr. Othman said. “These points are really worrying for the Kurds.”

As Iraqi politicians debated the merits of the report, violence around the country underscored the Baker-Hamilton commission’s conclusion that “the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating.” Ten American soldiers were killed in four separate incidents on Wednesday, the American military said, without giving details. The military also said a soldier was killed Monday in Baghdad.

Officials said at least 34 Iraqis were killed on Wednesday and scores were wounded in mortar attacks, bombings and assassinations.

Kirk Semple, Ali Adeeb and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting.

    In Iraq, Reaction to Report Runs From Relief to Anger, NYT, 7.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/world/middleeast/07iraq.html

Panel Urges Basic Shift in U.S. Policy in Iraq

December 7, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — A bipartisan commission warned Wednesday that “the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating,” and it handed President Bush both a rebuke for his current strategy and a detailed blueprint for a fundamentally different approach, including the pullback of all American combat brigades over the next 15 months.

In unusually sweeping and blunt language, the panel of five Republicans and five Democrats issued 79 specific recommendations.

These included a call for direct engagement with Syria and Iran as part of a “new diplomatic offensive,” jump-starting the Israeli-Palestinian peace effort, and a clear declaration that the United States would reduce its support to Iraq unless Baghdad made “substantial progress” on reconciliation and security.

Mr. Bush has refused to deal with Syria and Iran, and as recently as last week, he assured Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki that the American commitment to Iraq would be undiminished until victory was achieved.

But the commission, led by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, argued that while Americans might be in Iraq for years, the Iraqis must understand that the American military commitment was not “open ended.” It is time, the panel said, for the United States to “begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly.”

The detailed prescription called for much more aggressive diplomatic efforts in the Middle East than the Bush administration has been willing to embrace. Its calls for reconciliation and reform in Iraq and an overhaul of the American military role would also mark major departures in the American strategy.

Members of the commission said they believed that their recommendations would improve prospects for success in Iraq, but they said there was no guarantee against failure.

“The current approach is not working, and the ability of the United States to influence events is diminishing,” Mr. Hamilton said at a news conference on Capitol Hill. “Our ship of state has hit rough waters. It must now chart a new way forward.”

Administration officials said they expected President Bush to announce his own “way forward” this month. They were careful not to take issue with the report’s findings in public, and said Mr. Bush had yet to make firm decisions. But some suggested that the diplomatic strategy in the report better fit the Middle East of 15 years ago, when Mr. Baker served as secretary of state.

What played out on Wednesday morning, from the White House to Capitol Hill, was a remarkable condemnation of American policy drift in the biggest and most divisive military conflict to involve American forces since Vietnam. It was all the more unusual because Mr. Baker was secretary of state to Mr. Bush’s father, and because the bipartisan group managed to come up with unanimous recommendations.

The report was delivered in an atmosphere of mounting anxiety about the war, a month after midterm elections that brought the Democrats to power in Congress and prompted Mr. Bush to oust Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary.

On Wednesday the Senate voted overwhelmingly to confirm Robert M. Gates as the next defense secretary, after hearings in which he acknowledged that the United States was not winning the war and that the region could be on the brink of much broader conflict.

Mr. Baker, Mr. Hamilton and their eight colleagues presented their recommendations to Mr. Bush and to leaders of Congress beginning early on Wednesday, and then spoke to Mr. Maliki via conference call. Mr. Bush called the assessment “tough” and said each recommendation would be taken “seriously.”

Mr. Bush, one commission member said, “was very gracious and did not push back.”

Commission members said they believed that their report, which was downloaded more than 400,000 times from the computer servers of the United States Institute of Peace in the first five hours after its release, had fundamentally changed the debate. Now, said one member, the former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, “it really is out of our hands.”

Leon E. Panetta, a commission member who served as chief of staff to President Clinton, said, “The country cannot be at war and as divided as we are today.”

The panel was careful to avoid phrases and rigid timelines that might alienate the White House. But the group also clearly tried to box the president in, presenting its recommendations as a comprehensive strategy that would work only if implemented in full.

That appeared to be a warning to Mr. Bush, who in recent days has said he would consider the independent panel’s findings alongside studies by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Security Council, and has suggested that he would pick the best elements of each.

The commission did not embrace the goal of “victory in Iraq,” which President Bush laid out as his own strategy a year ago, nor did its report echo the White House’s early aspiration that Iraq might be transformed into a democracy in the near future. “We want to stay current,” Mr. Hamilton said briskly.

As the stated goal in Iraq, the panel chose instead the formulation that Mr. Bush has adopted most recently: to establish a country that can sustain itself, govern itself and defend itself. “That was the latest elaboration of the goal,” Mr. Baker said, “and that’s the one we’re working with.”

The findings left Washington awash in speculation over whether Mr. Bush would embark on a huge policy reversal. To do so would mark an admission that three and a half years of strategy had failed, and that his repeated assurances that “absolutely, we’re winning” were based more on optimism than realism.

The committee rejected a stricter timeline for withdrawal advocated by one member, William J. Perry, a defense secretary under President Clinton, though Mr. Perry persuaded the commission to set clear goals for the withdrawal of troops.

Jack D. Crouch II, the president’s deputy national security adviser, was said by administration officials to be putting together options for Mr. Bush, and they said the president was determined to come up with an approach that, one senior aide said, “borrowed from the panel’s findings, but is distinctly his own.”

Democrats largely embraced the findings. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said the group had done “a tremendous and historic service” by declaring “there must be a change in Iraq, and there is no time to lose.”

But other Democrats were clearly disappointed that the commission did not embrace calls for a rapid withdrawal, as Representative John P. Murtha recommended a year ago, or a partition of the country, as Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Delaware Democrat soon to lead the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said is necessary.

Mr. Bush can easily accept some of the findings, including a call for a fivefold increase in American trainers working alongside Iraqi forces.

The commission’s report included blistering critiques of current policy. It said, for example, that intelligence agencies had far too few people with an understanding of the roots of the insurgency in Iraq.

“We were told there are fewer than 10 analysts on the job at the Defense Intelligence Agency who have more than two years’ experience in analyzing the insurgency,” the report said.

The speed and phasing of the military pullback was the most contentious issue with the commission, and the result is unlikely to satisfy critics on either side. The panel, for example, adopted the core of a proposal made by Mr. Perry to vastly increase training of Iraqi forces while simultaneously pulling back combat brigades, a “train and retreat” scenario that some in the military say is already under way.

Another Democratic member, former Senator Charles S. Robb of Virginia, argued for a surge of additional troops to stabilize Baghdad, an idea the commission was not willing to embrace fully. Instead, it left open the possibility of supporting a “short-term redeployment or surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad, or to speed up the training and equipping mission, if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective.”

But the key proposal, No. 21, is that the United States should tell the Iraqis that failure to meet their own milestones will only accelerate American withdrawal, or result in a reduction of American support.

“If the Iraqi government does not make substantial progress toward the achievement of milestones on national reconciliation, security and governance, the United States should reduce its political, military or economic support for the Iraqi government,” the report says.

Advocates of that approach said it was a long-overdue effort to shift responsibility onto the Iraqis. “If Iraq continues to fail, or failed worse, it means you have put the lion’s share of the blame on the Iraqis,” said Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a critic of the decision to invade Iraq when he served in the State Department.

Critics of the panel’s conclusion called the approach naïve. “The study group is threatening to weaken a weak government,” said Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, one of the groups that helped sponsor the study group, which was established by Congress. And, he added: “There is no ‘Plan B.’ The report does not address what happens if events spiral out of control.”

The most controversial element of the diplomatic strategy is the panel’s case for engaging Iran, though Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton, the chairmen, acknowledged in an interview that they thought it unlikely the Iranians would cooperate. Mr. Baker insisted that even if that effort failed, “the world would see their rejectionist attitude.”

Kate Zernike contributed reporting.

    Panel Urges Basic Shift in U.S. Policy in Iraq, NYT, 7.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/world/middleeast/07baker.html?hp&ex=1165554000&en=7d16d6098b1699d0&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Panel Backs Overhaul of Iraq Policy

December 6, 2006
The New York Times
By JOHN O’NEIL and BRIAN KNOWLTON

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — Saying that “the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating,” a bipartisan commission today urged stepped-up diplomatic and political efforts to stabilize that country, coupled with a shift in the mission of the American military to allow the United States to “begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly.”

This could allow all United States combat brigades “not necessary for force protection” to be out of Iraq by the first quarter of 2008, the Iraq Study Group’s report said.

The panel studying the war in Iraq presented its findings this morning to President Bush, who said he would take their ideas “very seriously” and act on them “in a timely fashion,” and then to Congressional leaders.

The report, by a 10-member commission headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d and former Representative Lee Hamilton of Indiana, urges a commitment by the United States to work with Iran, Syria and other nations to bring stability to the region.

“We do not recommend a stay-the-course solution,” Mr. Baker said pointedly at a question-answer session accompanying the report’s release. “In our opinion, that is no longer viable.” Those remarks were sure to be interpreted, at least by administration critics, as a rebuke to President Bush.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said the study group had done “a tremendous and historic service” by declaring that “there must be a change in Iraq, and there is no time to lose.”

But the White House could point to the commission’s refusal to advocate a quick withdrawal of American troops, an event that Mr. Hamilton said could touch off “a bloodbath” and a wider regional conflict.

Mr. Hamilton urged administration officials and lawmakers to tackle the study group’s recommendations quickly, or else, “Events in Iraq could overtake what we recommend.”

The executive summary of the report declares that its two main recommendations are “for new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region, and a change in the primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly.”

But it warned that “the most important questions about Iraq’s future are now the responsibility of the Iraqis,” and said Mr. Bush must make clear to the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki that the American commitment of large numbers of troops is not “open ended.”

American forces would remain after 2008, in units embedded with or otherwise supporting Iraqi troops, and in rapid reaction and special operations forces, the panel said.

The White House spokesman, Tony Snow, speaking to reporters after the president’s briefing, emphasized that the report’s 79 recommendations do not include either a firm timetable or a call for an immediate withdrawal.

“There is nothing in here about pulling back militarily,” he said.

But the report seems to hold little other comfort for Mr. Bush, describing the situation in Iraq as “grave and deteriorating,” and calling him to pursue moves he has resisted, including making diplomatic overtures to Iran and Syria. It also recommends that the administration “reduce its political, military or economic support for the Iraqi government” if it “does not make substantial progress toward the achievement of milestones on national reconciliation, security and governance.”

An attempt by American officials to set out such a timetable earlier this fall was angrily rejected by Mr. Maliki and led to heightened tensions between Baghdad and Washington, which Mr. Bush has since sought to smooth over.

The report also identified sectarian conflict as “the principal challenge to stability,” in contrast to Mr. Bush’s recent remarks describing Al Qaeda as the biggest cause of the continuing violence in Iraq.

“A slide toward chaos could trigger the collapse of Iraq’s government and a humanitarian catastrophe,” the report said. “Neighboring countries could intervene. Sunni-Shia clashes could spread. Al Qaeda could win a propaganda victory and expand its base of operations. The global standing of the United States could be diminished. Americans could become more polarized.”

The co-chairs, Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton, wrote in a joint letter accompanying the report that “there is no magic formula to solve the problems of Iraq.”

Among other things, the report recommended:

¶ Immediately launching a diplomatic offensive “to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region,” including “all of Iraq’s neighbors.”

¶ An effort to engage Iran and Syria “constructively.” It said Iran needed to stem the flow of arms and training to Iraq and respect its territorial integrity, while Syria should act to stem the flow of terrorists, insurgents and money in and out of Iraq.

¶ The Iraqi government should increase the number and quality of its army brigades.

¶ The United States should significantly increase the number of military personnel imbedded with or supporting Iraqi units.

¶ The United States could move most combat troops out of Iraq by early 2008, leaving a smaller force to focus on rapid-reaction, training, equipping, advising, and search-and-rescue operations.

“Miracles cannot be expected,” the review said, “but the people of Iraq have the right to expect action and progress.”As word of the likely recommendations leaked out in recent days, Mr. Bush moved to distance himself from the panel on some points, while emphasizing that his administration is already pursuing others, like handing responsibility for security to the Iraqi army next summer. The president has also requested a review of policy options from the Pentagon, and has made clear that he will regard the Study Group’s report as one input among many.

In particular, Mr. Bush has been adamant that he will not agree to a timetable for withdrawal and has dismissed the idea of a “graceful exit.”

He has also said repeatedly that he will not talk with Iran until the standoff with the United Nations over its nuclear program is resolved. The study group, however, called for keeping the nuclear question separate from efforts to persuade Tehran to provide help in Iraq.

Robert M. Gates, Mr. Bush’s choice to replace Donald H. Rumsfeld as secretary of defense, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that the commission’s report would be important, but not “the last word.”

Still, tremendous attention has focused on the group’s work, as members of both parties in Washington have come to the conclusion that a significant change in course on Iraq is needed. The prospect of the bipartisan report has also allowed Democrats, whose sweeping victories in the midterm elections have been attributed in large part to the public’s unhappiness over Iraq, to take a cautious tone on Iraq, with many saying they were waiting for the panel’s findings before pushing for changes.

Senator John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who called earlier this year for a firm timetable for withdrawing American forces in Iraq, said in a televised interview this morning that he thought the group’s recommendations amounted to a timetable in everything but name.

“I think they’re about as close as you can come without getting into a direct confrontation with the president,” he said on CNN.

He said that he hoped Mr. Bush will “embrace” the findings.

Senator Susan M. Collins, a Maine Republican, said on CNN that “it is clear that the current strategy in Iraq has failed and we need a new approach.”

She said that she did not think Mr. Bush “is going to be a rubber stamp for the commission recommendations.”

“But all of us expect and hope that the president and his advisers will look very carefully at what the commission recommends,” she said.

John O’Neil reported from New York, and Brian Knowlton from Washington. Christine Hauser contributed reporting from New York.

    Panel Backs Overhaul of Iraq Policy, NYT, 6.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/06/world/middleeast/06cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1165467600&en=4781220ebb343863&ei=5094&partner=homepage

U.S. Troops in Iraq Shifting to Advisory Roles

December 5, 2006
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER and EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Dec. 2 — American commanders in Iraq are already shifting thousands of combat troops into advisory positions with Iraqi Army and police units, especially in the capital, in their latest attempt to bring sectarian violence under control.

Changes in troop assignments over just the past three weeks included moving about 1,000 American soldiers in Baghdad from traditional combat roles to serve as trainers and advisers to Iraqi units, senior American officers said in interviews here. Commanders say they believe that a major influx of American advisers can add spine and muscle to Iraqi units that will help them to move into the lead in improving security.

The troops have been reassigned by commanders, who have not sought additional combat troops to replace them. While the troops have not been through the special program for trainers set up by the military, they are working in their areas of expertise, commanders said.

American generals in Iraq have made the reassignments in recent weeks even though President Bush and his senior national security advisers have not yet made a formal decision about whether to expand the American contingent sent to Iraq specifically to serve on military training teams.

Before the transfers began, between 4,000 and 5,000 troops had been assigned to about 400 training teams.

Increasing the number of American trainers for the Iraqi military and the police is among the recommendations expected on Wednesday from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which Mr. Bush has said he wishes to review before announcing a future course in Iraq.

Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American commander in the Middle East, told Congress last month that he envisioned doubling the number of American trainers, but senior military officers now say they are drawing up plans that would at least triple the number of troops assigned to training.

Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., the commander of the First Cavalry Division, which assumed control of Baghdad in the middle of November, pulled troops from his own force for those assignments without requesting replacements to make up for those joining Iraqi units, officers here said.

Similarly, Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, commander of the 25th Infantry Division, based in Tikrit in north-central Iraq, said he was planning to add 2,000 trainers to Iraqi units in his area by transferring troops from his combat ranks. General Mixon, who discussed his plan on Friday during a visit by General Abizaid to Tikrit, said he, too, believed he could increase the number of American trainers without asking for more American troops.

Before any expansions, the average number of troops serving on one of the teams was 11 members at the battalion level, 11 at the brigade level and 15 at the division level, said Brig. Gen. Dana J. H. Pittard, who oversees the Americans training the Iraqi Army, elite police units and border guards.

“We’re going to double, triple, quadruple the size of the transition teams,” General Pittard said on a recent visit to the main training base for the Iraqi Army, in a windswept area called Kirkush near the Iranian border.

At the training base, a 15-member team working with the top commanders of the Fifth Iraqi Army Division recently bolstered their numbers with a platoon from a combat unit of the 82nd Airborne Division. If security improves, American commanders might transfer more people from combat units to the training mission, said Col. David Puster, the leader of the division-level team. “They’ll have to come from resources in the country,” the colonel said. “As you stand up the teams, you stand down the combat units.”

The goal is to create platoon-size teams of 20 to 30 advisers for each Iraqi battalion. The larger teams would also have communications specialists capable of such tasks as calling in airstrikes and medical evacuations, Pentagon officials say. American officers in Iraq say expanding the teams could also allow trainers to work more intimately with Iraqi soldiers, down to the company level.

The teams would also be able to watch more closely for sectarian biases and human rights abuses.

At the same time, though, commanders acknowledge that the plan of moving American forces from direct combat roles to training and advising carries risks, especially as some Bush administration officials and military officers say the Baghdad security operation already is short by four Iraqi brigades, or approximately 5,000 Iraqi troops.

“Our plan is shaping up over the next three or four months where we will reposition troops within Iraq, perhaps to increase the numbers in Baghdad as needed,” said one senior military officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing future planning.

Asked whether stabilizing Baghdad would require pulling American forces from other contested areas to fill the deficit in forces — in particular whether American troops could be spared from the Sunni base of Anbar Province — the senior officer said only, “We will try and keep our head above water in Anbar.”

But General Abizaid said that any current shortage in combat troop numbers for the Baghdad security mission should be filled by Iraqi forces.

“The Baghdad security situation requires more Iraqi troops,” General Abizaid said in an interview. “And that’s the direction we are heading right now.”

Senior officers here said that the Iraqi Army, however imperfect, was better suited for quelling sectarian violence than Iraq’s national and local police, and that it was more respected by the Iraqi populace.

“The Iraqi Army has the opportunity to be the single institution that can elevate the narrative beyond regional, local, religious interests,” said Lt. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the senior commander of the training program. “And in most cases they are succeeding in doing so, in other words becoming that institution of national unity.”

Commanders say that national police units — which have been infiltrated by sectarian militias — are being pulled out of the fight unit by unit for retraining and, in some cases, the assignment of new commanders, with Iraqi Army units taking over their duties in the interim.

The risks to American troops of working as trainers away from the security of larger American units were underscored early last month, when a staff sergeant and two team leaders — a lieutenant colonel and his replacement — were killed in a single attack in Baghdad.

Another risk is that operations carried out with Iraqi security forces in the lead may be less effective and result in more casualties among Iraqi security forces and civilians than with the better-trained American troops. Thus, American units will step back from the frontlines, but would remain on standby to respond should Iraqi units get in trouble.

There is also some concern that pushing Iraqi units to the front may result in atrocities by corrupt or sectarian Iraqi units.

Commanders said they were drawing up a set of “red lines” that, if crossed by Iraqi forces, would require American troops to return to the fight in those areas. Officers declined to provide many details, but said that, for example, kidnappings or killings by units in Iraqi security uniforms would be countered by immediate American action.

Thom Shanker reported from Baghdad and Tikrit, and Edward Wong from Kirkush. David S. Cloud contributed reporting from Washington.

    U.S. Troops in Iraq Shifting to Advisory Roles, NYT, 5.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/05/world/middleeast/05strategy.html?hp&ex=1165381200&en=28652655647aa90a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

At Hearing, Gates Says U.S. Not Winning War in Iraq

December 5, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 — President Bush’s nominee to be Secretary of Defense said today that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq, and that an American failure there could help to ignite “a regional conflagration” in the Middle East. Robert M. Gates, who will succeed Donald H. Rumsfeld as Pentagon chief if he is confirmed as expected, told senators that the United States went to war in Iraq without enough troops, as some generals said at the outset of the conflict.

The statements about the situation in Iraq came during an exchange with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, during Mr. Gates’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“We are not winning the war in Iraq, is that correct?” Mr. McCain asked.

“That is my view, yes, senator,” Mr. Gates replied, adding shortly afterward that the United States is not losing the war either.

Mr. Gates said “there clearly were insufficient troops in Iraq after the initial invasion.” While he said that he envisions “a dramatically smaller” number of United States troops there, he said an American presence would be required “for a long time.”

Developments in Iraq “in the next year or two” will shape the future of the entire Middle East, Mr. Gates said in describing the possibility of a “regional conflagration” arising out of the Iraq bloodshed.

Mr. Gates told the senators at the outset that he is “open to a wide range of ideas and proposals” about what to do in Iraq, and that America’s overall goal should still be an Iraq that can “sustain itself, defend itself and govern itself,” the objective that President Bush has long set out.

But Mr. Gates said he believes the president “wants me to take a fresh look, and all options are on the table.” Indeed, as a member of the Iraq Study Group until he was nominated to succeed Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Gates had already been taking part in a sweeping review of the situation in Iraq.

Mr. Gates has been president of Texas A&M University, and he told the senators that he is not giving up that job, which he loves, to be anyone’s sycophant in Washington. “I don’t owe anybody anything,” he said, vowing to give not only the president but the Congress his unvarnished advice.

Mr. McCain has been among the few lawmakers who have been calling for more American troops in Iraq. Consequently, Mr. Gates’s comments about reducing American troop strength there while still working to forestall a regional catastrophe seemed likely to be a big part of the confirmation hearing, which was likely to end this afternoon.

Mr. Gates, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, seems assured of confirmation. Even Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who opposed his confirmation as C.I.A. head 15 years ago, promised “a fresh and fair look” at Mr. Gates’s record since then.

    At Hearing, Gates Says U.S. Not Winning War in Iraq, NYT, 5.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/05/washington/06gatescnd.html?hp&ex=1165381200&en=1b9dbeaafb4eeb50&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush to Meet With Head of Iraq Shiite Party

December 2, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER and EDWARD WONG

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 — The White House said Friday that President Bush would meet next week with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of one of the most powerful Shiite parties in Iraq, the latest step in a burst of new administration attempts to try different approaches to bolstering the fragile Iraqi government.

The effort is part of a White House strategy that calls for reaching out to a wider circle of Iraqi politicians to give greater support to the weak government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and lessen his dependence on Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric.

But it immerses Washington even deeper into Baghdad’s byzantine coalition politics, and it risks being interpreted in Baghdad as a sign that Mr. Bush is hedging his bets.

“If you think Maliki may not survive,” said one senior administration official, “you’d want to make sure that the president is talking to the guy who might well form the next government.”

Mr. Hakim heads a party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, that is closely tied to Iran, so much so that just a few years ago, Washington shunned it. The party, usually referred to by its acronym, Sciri, was founded in Iran and its armed wing, the Badr Brigade, fought against Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

The meeting comes at a time when the administration is overhauling its approach to dealing with Iraq’s leadership, though there are arguments over how deeply Washington can involve itself in the politics of a country in such political turmoil. One question is whether to tilt American support more heavily toward the majority Shiite government, rather than the minority Sunnis.

A senior Pentagon official said Friday that the Bush administration was also weighing whether to back away from efforts to reach out to Sunni extremists because the approach had not worked, and was alienating moderate Shiite groups.

But other administration officials insisted in interviews on Friday that they were not abandoning two years of efforts at reconciliation with the Sunnis, including former backers of Saddam Hussein.

Several officials involved in the many-layered internal discussions within the administration described its complex calculations about how to engage the various rivals in Baghdad; their common theme was that the White House needed to preserve its flexibility at a time of great flux in the administration’s policy, but none claimed to have a definitive explanation or would agree to be identified.

On Wednesday, Mr. Bush will receive the report of the Iraq Study Group, which includes a diplomatic strategy that calls on Mr. Bush to reverse policy and deal with the Iranians in an effort to stabilize Iraq. By meeting Mr. Hakim, Mr. Bush has a chance to open a channel to the Iranians and to pre-empt the study group’s criticism that he has been too slow to deal with American rivals in the region. Or, he could try to woo Mr. Hakim away from Tehran.

While administration officials suggested it was Mr. Hakim who sought the meeting, Mr. Hakim’s son, Amar al-Hakim, said in a telephone interview that the invitation came from Mr. Bush. The elder Hakim will discuss the Iraq situation with the president, conduct negotiations and visit Iraqis living in the United States, his son said, but he declined to talk in more detail. When asked whether Mr. Hakim was going to discuss matters related to Iran, with which Mr. Hakim has very close ties, his son said, “They’re only talking about Iraqi matters.”

The announcement of Mr. Hakim’s visit comes as the administration and American commanders are trying to get Mr. Maliki to distance himself from Mr. Sadr, whose militia, the Mahdi Army, has rebelled twice against the Americans and is widening the country’s sectarian rift through the killings of Sunni Arabs.

Mr. Maliki is beholden to Mr. Sadr because he lacks Mr. Hakim’s support. The Maliki-Sadr alliance was forged last spring when the religious Shiite coalition, which dominates the 275-member Parliament, held an internal vote to pick a candidate for prime minister. Mr. Sadr, who controls 30 seats in Parliament, threw his votes behind Mr. Maliki’s Islamic Dawa Party, to keep Mr. Hakim’s candidate from the top job. Mr. Sadr and Mr. Hakim are fierce rivals, stretching back to the days when their fathers, both prominent clerics, competed for influence.

Mr. Hakim ceded the fight, mostly because the senior Shiite ayatollahs in Najaf, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, have stressed the importance of unity to Shiite politicians.

The American reasoning, mentioned last month in a memorandum to Mr. Bush from his national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, was that if Mr. Hakim backed Mr. Maliki, then Mr. Maliki would not need Mr. Sadr. Mr. Hakim and Mr. Sadr, controlling 30 parliamentary seats each, have equal power in the Shiite coalition. While Mr. Hakim’s party is well organized, Mr. Sadr commands much greater popular support.

Though Mr. Hakim may want to undermine Mr. Sadr’s power, there are indications that he still wants his party to hold the position of prime minister, and so he might balk at supporting Mr. Maliki. In a recent interview, Mr. Hakim’s candidate for prime minister, Adel Abdul Mehdi, now a vice president, criticized Mr. Maliki’s soft approach to the problem of the Mahdi Army.

“The government should say they are going to take things into their own hands,” Mr. Abdul Mehdi said. “If it’s not going to, it should say, ‘I am weak,’ ” and, he implied, step aside for another Shiite leader.

American commanders rarely mention Mr. Hakim’s Badr Organization as a threat. In the first couple of years after the American invasion, many Sunni Arabs complained of abductions and killings by both it and the Mahdi Army. These days, the Sunnis and the Americans attribute militia violence almost exclusively to the Mahdi Army. Both Mr. Hakim and the Sunni leaders see Mr. Sadr as the biggest threat right now, and though they distrust each other deeply, they could decide to work together to oust Mr. Sadr.

Next month, President Bush is scheduled to meet with Tariq al-Hashemi, the Sunni Arab vice president and leader of the most powerful Sunni Arab party, a senior administration official said. Mr. Hashemi is a religious conservative and fiercely pro-Sunni. His political group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, often issues reports of atrocities by Shiite militants.

A wild card in any power struggle among the Shiites would be Ayatollah Sistani. The elderly cleric has generally remained silent in recent months, apparently reluctant to involve himself too deeply in the political quagmire of Iraq. But if it looked like a severe Shiite split might take place, the ayatollah could step in and force the parties to make peace.

This week, though, Ayatollah Sistani said nothing when Mr. Sadr withdrew officials loyal to him — 30 parliamentarians and six ministers — from Mr. Maliki’s government. Baha al-Aaraji, a leader of the parliamentarians, said the Sadr officials would not return until Mr. Maliki had wrested more control of Iraqi forces from the Americans and improved basic services. In a news conference after his meeting with Mr. Bush, Mr. Maliki urged the Sadr followers to rejoin the government.

At Least 12 Iraqis Killed in Attacks

BAGHDAD, Dec. 1 (AP) — Sectarian attacks continued Friday in Baghdad, with at least 12 Iraqis killed and a Sunni Arab mosque damaged.

The one-story Quds mosque, in west Baghdad, was empty when it was attacked by men armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades. In Sadiyah, a mainly Sunni area of Baghdad, a Shiite man was killed early on Friday and six relatives were wounded in twin bombings — one that drew them out of their house and a second that exploded outside, the police said. Later, bomb attacks in three areas of the capital killed six Iraqis and wounded 39, police said.

North of Baghdad, mortar rounds killed three civilians near Muqdadiya, and a suicide bomber attacking an American convoy killed two civilians in Kirkuk, the police said.

The bullet-ridden bodies of 14 Kurdish farmers were found west of the Syrian border, a provincial official said. Military officials said Friday that an American soldier was killed in Baghdad on Thursday.

David E. Sanger reported from Washington, and Edward Wong from Baghdad. David S. Cloud contributed reporting from Washington.

    Bush to Meet With Head of Iraq Shiite Party, NYT, 2.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/02/world/middleeast/02policy.html?hp&ex=1165122000&en=d5937348d3dc9541&ei=5094&partner=homepage

U.S. General in North Iraq Outlines Troop Shift

December 1, 2006
The New York Times
By JOHN O’NEIL

The general in charge of American forces in northern Iraq said today that next spring, after responsibility for security in the north is handed over to the Iraqi army, his troops will focus on hunting Al Qaeda members and on providing training and support to the Iraqi forces. Though many parts of the north are relatively peaceful, Iraq’s Interior Ministry said today that the number of civilian deaths in the country as a whole jumped by 44 percent in November, compared with October. The November figure of 1,850 dead continues a steady rise in casualties in recent months.

The trend shown in the Iraqi ministry’s figures parallels that seen in United Nations data, although U.N. officials have consistently reported a far higher casualty total.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of one of the two largest Shiite political parties in Iraq, will travel to Washington on Monday for talks with President Bush, Agence France-Presse reported. Mr. Hakim’s party fields a large militia of its own, and he is a rival to Moqtada al-Sadr, the outspokenly anti-American Shiite cleric whose militia dominates some areas of Baghdad and has become the subject of increasing American concern.

Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, the divisional commander for northern Iraq, said in a televised news briefing today that Iraqi forces in his area were on schedule to take primary responsibility for security in three to six months.

The area he commands includes the Kurdish-dominated provinces known as Kurdistan, which are largely peaceful, as well as some areas of sectarian division and strife, like the city of Mosul and Diyala Province, where killings remain common.

General Mixon described Diyala as “locked in a cycle of violence” and acknowledged that it would be the last part of his command area to be turned over to the Iraqi forces. He also noted that the situation was “complicated by corruption and sectarian influence in small elements of the army and police,” but said he was confident that the transition would nonetheless take place as scheduled.

Following the handoff, he said, “we will take less of an active combat role, but will continue to target Al Qaeda elements” and those placing roadside bombs and conducting attacks.

General Mixon said American forces would remain in the area for some time, conducting training and providing support, especially through air power. But after the switch to a more limited and less dangerous role, not as many of them may be needed. “Certainly I see a great opportunity to reduce the combat forces on the ground,” he said.

He declined to comment on reports that the Iraq Study Group, an independent bipartisan panel headed by James Baker, had decided to recommend that American forces pull back from a combat role and begin a gradual withdrawal from the country.

President Bush has flatly rejected any timetable for withdrawal, as well as the prospect of a swift exit, saying that American forces will step aside only as Iraqi forces are ready to take their place.

General Mixon’s comments appeared intended to show that in at least one large section of Iraq, that kind of transition is not far off.

Since General Mixon’s forces took over responsibility for the area in July, officers in his division have complained regularly about the quality of the Iraqi army and police and about links between the security forces and Shiite death squads in the area.

Last month, General Mixon was quoted as saying that operations conducted by the Fifth Iraqi Army in the Diyala area “seem to be focused strictly on the Sunnis.” And he said of the army’s commander, “He’s either failing to supervise closely enough to know what’s going on, or he’s directly involved in it.”

Asked today about those comments, General Mixon said that he had told the Iraqi commander how the local population viewed what was going on, and that the Fifth Army was now “focused on the enemy in his area.”

During the next three to six months, General Mixon said, he planned to assign more American soldiers to train the Iraqi army and police, and that would American combat units would be embedded in Iraqi units.

In Baghdad today, American helicopter gunships opened fire on targets in a Sunni neighborhood, in support of American and Iraqi ground forces fighting with insurgents there, The Associated Press reported; a bomb exploded in a pet market, killing three people.

The American military also announced today that an American soldier was killed on Thursday during combat operations in Baghdad.

    U.S. General in North Iraq Outlines Troop Shift, NYT, 1.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/01/world/middleeast/02iraqcnd.html?hp&ex=1165035600&en=579577379e43ddc1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

News Analysis

The Only Consensus on Iraq: Nobody’s Leaving Right Now

December 1, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 — In the cacophony of competing plans about how to deal with Iraq, one reality now appears clear: despite the Democrats’ victory this month in an election viewed as a referendum on the war, the idea of a rapid American troop withdrawal is fast receding as a viable option.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff are signaling that too rapid an American pullout would open the way to all-out civil war. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group has shied away from recommending explicit timelines in favor of a vaguely timed pullback. The report that the panel will deliver to President Bush next week would, at a minimum, leave a force of 70,000 or more troops in the country for a long time to come, to train the Iraqis and to insure against collapse of a desperately weak central government.

Even the Democrats, with an eye toward 2008, have dropped talk of a race for the exits, in favor of a brisk stroll. But that may be the only solace for Mr. Bush as he returns from a messy encounter with Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

In the 23 days since the election, the debate in Washington and much of the country appears to have turned away from Mr. Bush’s oft-repeated insistence that the only viable option is to stay and fight smarter. The most talked-about alternatives now include renewed efforts to prepare the Iraqi forces while preparing to pull American combat brigades back to their bases, or back home, sometime next year. The message to Iraq’s warring parties would be clear: Washington’s commitment to making Iraq work is not open-ended.

Yet if Mr. Bush’s words are taken at face value, those are options still redolent of timetables — at best, cut-and-walk. Standing next to Mr. Maliki on Thursday in Amman, Jordan, Mr. Bush declared that Iraqis need not fear that he is looking for “some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq.” But a graceful exit — or even an awkward one — appears to be just what the Iraq Study Group, led by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, tried to design in the compromise reached by Republicans and Democrats on the panel on Wednesday.

The question now is whether Mr. Bush can be persuaded to shift course — and whether he might now be willing to define victory less expansively.

“What the Baker group appears to have done is try to change the direction of the political momentum on Iraq,” said Stephen P. Cohen, a scholar at the Israel Policy Forum. “They have made clear that there isn’t a scenario for a democratic Iraq, at least for a very long time. They have called into question the logic of a lengthy American presence. And once you’ve done that, what is the case for Americans dying in order to have this end slowly?”

In the days just after the Republican defeat on Nov. 7, Mr. Bush had suggested that he was open to new ideas about Iraq. “It’s necessary to have a fresh perspective,” he said in nominating Robert M. Gates to succeed the ousted Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary.

But more recently, the president has, if anything, seemed to harden his position again. In Hanoi, Vietnam, nearly two weeks ago, he suggested that he would regard the recommendations from the Baker-Hamilton group as no more than a voice among many. In Riga, Latvia, two days ago he all but pounded the lectern as he declared, “There’s one thing I’m not going to do: I’m not going to pull the troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete.”

On the way home from Jordan, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, said Mr. Maliki was told that the Baker-Hamilton report “was going to be one input” — a clear signal that no matter how senior the group’s members, no matter how bipartisan the group, no matter how close Mr. Baker is to the president’s father, the recommendations would not be regarded as sacrosanct.

In private, some members of the Iraq Study Group have expressed concern that they could find themselves in not-quite-open confrontation with Mr. Bush. “He’s a true believer,” one participant in the group’s debates said. “Finessing the differences is not going to be easy.”

The group never seriously considered the position that Representative John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who is a leading voice on national security issues, took more than a year ago, that withdrawal should begin immediately. The group did debate timetables, especially after a proposal, backed by influential Democratic members of the commission, that a robust diplomatic strategy and better training of Iraqis be matched up with a clear schedule for withdrawal. But explicit mention of such a schedule was dropped.

In statements on Thursday, Democrats from former President Bill Clinton to Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, seemed to agree that hard timelines could invite trouble. Nonetheless, some areas of potential conflict with Mr. Bush seem clear.

“I think that what’s clearly being implied in the study group’s report is what some of us have been saying for a while,” said Senator Jack Reed, a hawkish Democrat from Rhode Island with a military record, which has made him a spokesman for the party on Iraq. “A phased redeployment — one that begins in six months or so — is where we need to head. And what’s different now is that redeployment has become the consensus view,” save for inside the White House. “The debate is at what pace.”

There is evidence that more and more Republicans are likely to line up with the Iraq Study Group’s conclusions, even if some find the military prescriptions vague and the group’s idea of talking directly to Iran and Syria repugnant. After all, the Republicans have little interest in facing another election, in two years, where Iraq becomes the overarching issue.

But Mr. Bush faces no more elections. And he has not been one to back down, even when offered a “graceful exit.” He has staked his presidency on remaking Iraq, and with it, the Middle East. Every day, the chances of that seem more remote. With only two years left, this may be his last moment for a real change of strategy.

    The Only Consensus on Iraq: Nobody’s Leaving Right Now, NYT, 1.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/01/world/middleeast/01assess.html?hp&ex=1165035600&en=23288604c88e981a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush, in Meeting on Iraq, Rejects a Quick Pullout

December 1, 2006
The New York Times
By JOHN M. BRODER and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 — President Bush on Thursday rejected the idea of a quick troop withdrawal from Iraq, even as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq said his country’s forces would be ready to take over substantial security responsibility by next June.

Mr. Bush, at a news conference with Mr. Maliki after a meeting in Jordan, directly referred to reports the day before that the bipartisan Iraq Study Group would recommend to him next week that the United States begin a substantial troop pullout in the near future. Some analysts have suggested that the report could offer a face-saving way for Mr. Bush to begin withdrawing from Iraq, but he adamantly rejected that view.

“I know there’s a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there’s going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq,” the president said. “This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever.”

The study group is said to be shying away from recommending a firm timetable, and it envisions a force of 70,000 or more American troops in Iraq for some time to come. And despite a Democratic election victory this month that was strongly based on antiwar sentiment, the idea of a major and rapid withdrawal seems to be fading as a viable option. [News analysis, Page A18.]

Mr. Maliki and other Iraqi leaders have given optimistic projections before about the strength of local forces and their ability to control the insurgency and the sectarian warfare. But senior Bush administration officials and American commanders continue to say that creating a competent Iraqi military from scratch will take an intensive training effort and years to accomplish.

Mr. Maliki lacks full operational control of the military, and he is menaced by numerous armed militias and insurgent cells operating with virtual impunity.

One approach expected to be put forward by the Iraq Study Group is that, as the size of the American combat force is reduced, the Pentagon would send thousands of additional trainers to assist in the building of Iraqi Army and police forces. Mr. Maliki seemed to embrace that idea on Thursday, saying that his government would be fully ready to take command by June 2007. Democrats in Congress have been demanding that the United States begin removing its troops in the next four to six months and give control of Iraq to the Iraqis.

“I can say that Iraqi forces will be ready, fully ready to receive this command and to command its own forces, and I can tell you that by next June our forces will be ready,” Mr. Maliki told ABC News after meeting President Bush in Jordan.

He said that the president had assured him that he was not preparing to remove American forces any time soon and that he would provide additional training and support for the Iraqi military. He said any decision on American troop withdrawals was up to the Bush administration.

For his part, Mr. Bush insisted that American troops would stay in Iraq unless the government asked them to leave. “We’re going to stay in Iraq to get the job done as long as the government wants us there,” he said.

Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, said that the United States was working diligently to improve the ability of the Maliki government to maintain some semblance of order in Iraq and to assume control of its own armed forces. He refused, however, to give any estimate of how long the task would take.

“Building a military, a successful and high-quality military, is something that, obviously, takes some time,” Mr. Hadley said in a briefing for reporters aboard Air Force One while returning to Washington from Jordan. “We’ve been at it for a while. There is going to be more work to do. But you can get units to the point that they can take increasing responsibility for security. That’s what we’ve been doing, that’s what we’ll continue to do.”

He said the United States and Iraq were speeding up the schedule under which Iraqi forces would come under Iraqi, and not American, command.

Mr. Hadley added that the Iraqis were aware both of the security problems that they faced and of the diminishing American public support for the military mission there.

“There is a real sense of urgency, but there is not a sense of panic,” Mr. Hadley said. “And that is a good thing for a government that’s under — has a lot of challenges before it.”

The meeting of Mr. Bush and Mr. Maliki, a two-hour session in Amman, Jordan, took place against a backdrop of rising sectarian violence in Iraq and increasing tensions between the leaders.

Earlier this week, news reports brought to a light a classified memorandum by Mr. Hadley in which he raised doubts about Mr. Maliki’s leadership. And on Wednesday evening, Mr. Maliki took the unusual step of backing out of a planned three-way meeting with the president that would have included the Jordanian leader, King Abdullah II.

But in their news conference, the two men appeared to be on the same page. During his appearance with Mr. Maliki, Mr. Bush offered to speed up the transfer of command of Iraqi forces to the Iraqi government. Mr. Maliki is under pressure at home to demonstrate more independence from the United States, but Americans, as well as Sunni Arab politicians in Iraq, have been concerned that the Iraqi troops would be used by the Shiite government against the Sunni populace.

The president also rejected the idea of partitioning Iraq to create buffers between the country’s main sectarian groups, an idea that Mr. Maliki has publicly opposed though some other Shiite leaders have backed it.

During his statement, Mr. Maliki issued a pointed message to its neighbors, Syria and Iran, whom the United States has accused of supporting militant groups in Iraq, not to interfere with Iraqi affairs. “Iraq is for Iraqis,” Mr. Maliki said.

The much-publicized meeting — a breakfast attended by aides including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq, followed by a 45-minute one-on-one session — took place as both leaders face intense pressure to bring the bloody sectarian violence in Iraq under control.

At the news conference afterward, Mr. Bush stood at Mr. Maliki’s side and showered him with praise, saying, “He’s the right guy for Iraq.”

In Washington on Thursday, Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat is to become chairman of the Armed Services Committee in January, welcomed the reported recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, saying they were similar to what he and other Democrats had been proposing for months.

“It sends a message to the Iraqis that our presence there is not open-ended and that we are going to pull back, redeploy in a reasonable amount of time,” Senator Levin said in an interview. “They share our premise that the Iraqis have got to feel a sense of urgency if they are going to reach a political settlement.”

He said that the panel’s recommendations, if they are adopted even in part by the White House, signaled an “important shift” in the debate on Iraq policy.

Senator John Cornyn, a Republican member of the Armed Services Committee from Texas, said he believed that it would be necessary to send tens of thousands more troops to Iraq in the short term to stabilize Baghdad and control the sectarian militias that were killing one another and Americans.

He said he was gratified to hear Mr. Maliki’s claim that his forces would be adequate to the task by the middle of next year, but said he did not think the Iraqi prime minister was being realistic.

“I would love to believe it,” Mr. Cornyn said in a telephone interview from Texas. “Perhaps it’s useful for him to set goals for his own security forces. But it’s pretty clear to me that, at least from a logistical standpoint, Iraqi troops will need to receive support from the United States for quite a long time.”

John M. Broder reported from Washington, and Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Amman, Jordan. Michael R. Gordon contributed reporting from Washington.

    Bush, in Meeting on Iraq, Rejects a Quick Pullout, NYT, 1.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/01/world/middleeast/01prexy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Having Pinned Little Hope on Talks, Many Iraqis Appear to Be Beyond Disappointment

December 1, 2006
The New York Times
By KIRK SEMPLE

BAGHDAD, Nov. 30 — Even if Sana al-Nabhani had cared about the summit meeting in Jordan on Thursday between Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and President Bush, she would not have been able to watch the news. As usual, Iraqis went without electricity from the national grid for most of the day and she could not find any gasoline to run her personal generator.

Told by a reporter later in the day about the meeting’s outcome, Ms. Nabhani, a 34-year-old homemaker, scoffed: “Is that all? Was that even worth the fuel consumed by their airplanes?”

Her dismay was common among Iraqis who managed to follow the news on Thursday. So was a range of other emotions that probably would not hearten Mr. Maliki or Mr. Bush, including disappointment, indifference and despair.

For many, the talks promised little and delivered less and reaffirmed a widespread loss of faith in the elected government’s ability to turn things around.

At a news conference after the meeting, Mr. Bush said he had agreed to speed up the transfer of authority over the security forces to the Iraqi government, as Mr. Maliki has wanted, though the two leaders did not spell out a timetable. Mr. Maliki reassured Mr. Bush that his government was committed to cracking down on outlaws and stabilizing the country.

These assurances amounted to nothing more than hollow promises in the opinion of Ahmed Khalaf, a 34-year-old Shiite who works as a taxi driver in Baghdad.

“It’s useless!” he roared as he inched through the traffic-clogged streets of central Baghdad after dusk. “It’s wasting time!”

Mr. Khalaf had one hand on the wheel; the other he alternately jerked around in the air for emphasis and pressed against his temple in a vain attempt to soothe a raging headache.

“Nothing will happen, and we will get no results and no solutions,” he went on. “We need a strong state that can make decisions, that can beat the bad guys, can beat the militias. This meeting is just for the media, and it’s not useful!”

The summit meeting in Jordan took place against a backdrop of disarray here. War-related deaths among Iraqi civilians have soared on the increasing momentum of revenge between Shiites and Sunnis. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been driven from their homes. Public services remain feeble, with millions of Iraqis going into the chill of a fourth desert winter with only a few hours of electricity a day. And the political process has almost completely ground to a halt.

In a news conference here following his return from Amman, Mr. Maliki called for an end to the parliamentary boycott by 30 legislators and six cabinet members loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric. Mr. Maliki had ignored their request to cancel the meeting with Mr. Bush.

“I wish they would reconsider their decision because it doesn’t represent a positive development in our political process,” he said. The prime minister urged the lawmakers to express their differences from within the framework of the Parliament.

The members of Mr. Sadr’s bloc said they would end their boycott on condition that Mr. Bush cede more authority over Iraqi security forces to Mr. Maliki, and that the government improve public services.

Falah Hassan Shensel, a member of the Sadr bloc, said Thursday that the Sadr loyalists were reaching across ethnic and religious lines to organize an alliance against the American military presence in Iraq. The group, he said, would demand a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops. “It’s a patriotic national group, it’s not sectarian or ethnic,” he said. “We need to be freed from the occupation.”

Mr. Sadr led his formidable Mahdi Army in two major uprisings against American forces in 2004 and, since then, has risen to become arguably the country’s most powerful politician. By lending his support to Mr. Maliki in the race for prime minister earlier this year, Mr. Sadr earned political capital that has complicated the prime minister’s efforts to disband the country’s militias.

The American military said Iraqi security forces found 28 bodies on Wednesday in a mass grave outside Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province. In Basra, gunmen killed Naser Kedami, a deputy in the Sunni Endowment, which oversees the country’s Sunni mosques, the police said.

Two American soldiers were killed during combat operations in the capital, one on Wednesday and one on Thursday, the American military command said.

Iraqis have grown frustrated with the government’s inability to solve the country’s worsening crises, and any good faith and optimism that greeted Mr. Maliki when he took office six months ago is quickly drying up.

“The solutions are so obvious that Maliki does not need Bush to tell him about them,” said Huda, a 40-year-old graphic designer in Baghdad, who would give only her first name out of concern for her safety.

“Mr. Maliki had many chances before to show his ability, but he failed,” she said. “We need a strong man and he is not like this at all.”

Mohammad Ridha, a 43-year-old Shiite who is an agricultural engineer in Najaf, said that he had followed the meeting in Amman, Jordan, and that it “didn’t make me feel any less depressed.”

But he left open the possibility, however slight, that the summit meeting might somehow lead to positive changes. “If I feel a real improvement in the street,” he said, dipping into his dwindling reserves of hope, “then I’ll say that the meeting was fruitful.”

Khalid W. Hassan, Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting.

    Having Pinned Little Hope on Talks, Many Iraqis Appear to Be Beyond Disappointment, NYT, 1.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/01/world/middleeast/01iraq.html