http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-01-rumsfeld_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Coming off one of the deadliest months for American troops, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld indicated Tuesday that the number of U.S. forces in Iraq could rise temporarily as Iraqis prepare to vote in mid-December parliamentary elections.

"We have had a pattern of increasing the number of coalition forces during periods when there was an expectation that the insurgents and terrorists would like to try to disrupt the political process," Rumsfeld told Pentagon reporters.

Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said they expect insurgents to expand their attacks as the elections approach, but would not say exactly how they plan to protect U.S. soldiers from the growing number of roadside bombs.

"We'll decide what we're going to do about December as we go along, but it would not be a surprise to me that the commanders would want to have some sort of an overlap there" between arriving and departing units, Rumsfeld said.

U.S. troop levels rose to a peak of 161,000 before the Oct. 15 election on the new constitution, but dipped to 158,000 as of Tuesday. There were 159,000 U.S. troops in Iraq for the January elections.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13054844.htm

Posted on Tue, Nov. 01, 2005

By Drew Brown

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The stubborn insurgency in western Iraq can be brought "to an acceptable level," but that effort is going to depend on building Iraqi security forces and gaining the confidence of the people in the region, a top Marine Corps general said Tuesday.

Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said he couldn't estimate the level of support that insurgents have in Sunni-dominated al Anbar province, where U.S. troops are frequently attacked. But he suggested that the insurgency wouldn't subside until the "thugs and intimidators" behind it were eliminated from the local populace, which only Iraqi forces can accomplish.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/02/international/middleeast/02military.html

By ERIC SCHMITT

Published: November 2, 2005

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 - Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq, is so concerned that the military's counterinsurgency training must be sharpened in the face of increasingly flexible and deadly attackers that he has ordered the formation of a new school in Iraq for officers, according to senior military officials.

The school, which will open in the next few days at the Iraqi military base in Taji, north of Baghdad, will be for Army and Marine battalion and company commanders immediately after they arrive.

It is seen as a clearinghouse where field commanders can pass on the latest tactics and situations in the country. Among the topics will be patrol methods, techniques to find and destroy roadside bombs, and education on the various insurgent factions. And in the long term, it is hoped that the format can be passed on to the new Iraqi Army and security forces.

http://www.gadsdentimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051102/API/511020580&template=variable

The Associated Press

A U.S. Marine attack helicopter crashed Wednesday near Ramadi, killing two crew members, after insurgents fought with American ground forces in the city and destroyed at least one of their Humvees, police said.

Associated Press Television News video from the streets of Ramadi showed a burning civilian vehicle and what appeared to be the wreckage of the destroyed Humvee.

A crowd of Iraqis gathered at the site, and one man, who waved a damaged machine gun in the air, said the attacks caused U.S. casualties. Police Capt. Nassir al-Alousi said insurgents used guns, rockets and roadside bombs to attack U.S. patrols late Tuesday.

The U.S. military in Baghdad said it had no immediate information of ground fighting in Ramadi on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.

But the U.S. command said the AH-1W Super Cobra went down about 8:10 a.m. near Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, killing the two crew members.

The military said the cause of the crash was being investigated. APTN quoted another Iraqi man who said he saw the crash and that insurgents "fired at the helicopter and shot it down."

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/13061587.htm

Associated Press

NEW YORK - The Bush Administration's prewar claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction were "manipulated, at least" to mislead the American people, former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday.

The decision to go to war was the culmination of a long-term plan to attack Iraq that resulted from the first President Bush not taking out Saddam, Carter said on NBC's "Today" show.

Carter also said he supports the move by Senate Democrats to force an update on the investigation into prewar intelligence on Iraq, and says Republicans have been dragging their feet on the investigation.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/26-11022005-564014.html

By LIZ SIDOTI

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The White House sought to deflect politically charged questions Wednesday about President Bush's use of prewar intelligence in Iraq, saying Democrats, too, had concluded Saddam Hussein was a threat.

"If Democrats want to talk about the threat that Saddam Hussein posed and the intelligence, they might want to start with looking at the previous administration and their own statements that they've made," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

He said the Clinton administration and fellow Democrats "used the intelligence to come to the same conclusion that Saddam Hussein and his regime were a threat."

Link to LA Times Article

2:00 PM PST, November 2, 2005

By Janet Hook and Ronald Brownstein, Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON -- For months, the politics of the Iraq war have been frozen in place, with stalwart Republicans defending President Bush's policy and most Democrats shunning a direct challenge.

Now, the ice has begun to crack.

In the face of solidifying public opposition to the war, a mounting U.S. body count and a renewed focus on the faulty intelligence used to justify the war, Democratic lawmakers and candidates have sharpened their critique of the administration's policy and, in some cases, urged a withdrawal of U.S. troops.

"The mood has really shifted," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who in August became the chamber's first member to call for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. "We are in a whole different period."

Link to AFP Article

SAADA, Iraq (AFP) - For people in the desert town of Saada, near the Iraqi border with Syria, the choice is stark and, for some, very unwelcome -- Sunni fundamentalists known as Salafists or troops of the US Marine Corps.

Perched on a US vehicle, an Iraqi soldier tells residents: "The government has decided, along with the help of the Iraqi army and the marines, to give you some medical assistance and a food distribution."

A civil affairs unit from the marine regiment stands by to help.

"We have been without help for almost five months," says local mayor Mohammed Badawi. "The clinic is closed and we can't leave the village.

"When the routes are not blocked by military checkpoints, bandits rule. So I asked the marines for help."

One elderly man complains querously: "We haven't received our pensions for months. You have to go to Husayba where we might be killed because our tribe has been accused of collaborating with the Americans."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1102/p07s01-woiq.html

In Iraq's Shiite heartland, tensions remain high between Moqtada al Sadr and Iraq's ruling party SCIRI.

By Jill Carroll | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

NAJAF, IRAQ - On a recent Friday night here families thronged the brightly lit shops to buy clothing, jewelry, and religious trinkets on streets absent of foreign troops.

It was a scene of startling normalcy for Iraq where few people venture out after dark for fear of insurgent attacks, coalition firefights, or plain criminality. But while nightlife has returned to this southern city largely free of insurgent bombs, the civil strife between Shiites is brewing just below the surface.

The political fight for the control of the country's Shiite holiest city turned Najaf into a battlefield last summer when forces loyal to rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr engaged in fierce firefights with US forces. And in August, skirmishes involving Mr. Sadr's supporters turned Najaf's streets violent again, this time clashing with the militia of the ruling Shiite religious party the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).

Today, in the shadow of the city's gold dome and tile porticoes of the Imam Ali shrine that makes Najaf Shiite Islam's capital, a barely restrained tension between SCIRI and Sadr supporters continues.

Link to AFP Article

HUSEYBAH, Iraq (AFP) - Barbed wire marking the Syrian-Iraqi frontier is crushed in places, ripped apart elsewhere, or simply buried in the sand. "It looks like Swiss cheese," says a US marine.

Trying to control the 600-kilometer (370-mile) border in this desert region is a tall order for US forces, who regularly accuse     Syria of doing too little to prevent insurgents crossing into     Iraq.

The area is also renowned for illegal trade, with cross-border smuggling a way of life for many of the local tribes.

"They have smuggled for thousands of years and they will still do it" in the future, says Colonel Stephen W. Davis.

"The region is a general supply point for everything. They smuggle whiskey, cigarettes, peanuts. It's a tribal business," he adds.

But the smuggling routes are also open to foreign insurgents, mainly from other Arab countries, albeit crossing in small numbers, he says.

"They do not bring battalions, they bring the leadership, the financial man, the demolition expert," says Davis.

Link to Reuters Article

Wed Nov 2, 2005 10:13 PM ET

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States risks losing sight of some key foreign policy issues, including relations with China and the Muslim world, because of its "single-minded focus" on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a former senior Pentagon official said.

"We have to put the search radar on again for the rest of the world," said Suzanne Patrick, who resigned as defense undersecretary for industrial policy in July.

She was the latest of a number of former officials to criticize the Bush administration, which is on the defensive over the war in Iraq and domestic issues including mounting gas prices and its slow response to Hurricane Katrina.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/02/AR2005110202123.html

By Richard Cohen

Thursday, November 3, 2005; Page A21

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

In short, and not taking into account the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, the war in Iraq has hardly made this area more stable. It's true, of course, that nothing catastrophic has yet occurred in the region, but the casual assurance that nothing will happen must now be held to a new post-Iraq standard: Just about everything Washington said was happening (weapons of mass destruction) and would happen (an easy occupation) has turned out to be utterly false.

One could almost forgive President Bush for waging war under false or mistaken pretenses had a better, more democratic Middle East come out of it. But just as the 1991 Persian Gulf War introduced an element of instability in the region -- the rise of al Qaeda in response to the stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia -- so might this one do something similar. A Shiite arc is forming, Iraq is infested with terrorists and coming apart, Syria might be going from bad to worse, and Saudi Arabia is complaining loudly that the war's only winners are the Shiites and Iran. From here, it looks like a war that is already going badly for America could go even worse for much of the Middle East.

Mission accomplished?

Link to NYT Article

By EDWARD WONG

Published: November 3, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 2 - The Iraqi government called Wednesday for the return of junior officers from the disbanded army of Saddam Hussein, openly reversing an American directive issued in 2003.

The move is aimed at draining the insurgency of recruits and bolstering the Iraqi security forces, Iraqi officials said.

The Defense Ministry, with the support of the American military, has quietly recruited a few thousand former officers over the last 18 months. But this is the first time it has offered an open invitation to broad classes of former officers to rejoin the armed forces.

The move could represent a political overture by the Shiite-led government to disaffected Sunni Arabs, possibly to drum up support before the December legislative elections.

With the announcement on Wednesday, any former officers up to the rank of major are eligible for reinstatement by applying in November at recruitment centers in six cities across Iraq.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/2005-11-02-iraq-art_x.htm

Posted 11/2/2005 10:42 PM

By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY

If truth is war's first casualty, the Iraq Museum in Baghdad has the scars to prove it.

More than two years after the museum, home to the remains of mankind's most ancient cities, was pillaged by an army of looters, thousands of the stolen objects have yet to be recovered.

And it appears that civilian and military experts may never agree on exactly what happened at one of the world's most prized museums or on who should have protected these treasures.

Matthew Bogdanos, a Marine Reserve colonel and the U.S. military's lead investigator into the thefts, details the assault on the museum and its aftermath in his new book, Thieves of Baghdad (Bloomsbury, $29.95), written with thriller author William Patrick.

The book, released last week, is the civilian world's most detailed look at how the thefts unfolded and the behind-the-scenes efforts to recover the priceless antiquities.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1103/p04s02-woiq.html

Al Qaeda's presence stunned Iraq's moderate north.

By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

ARBIL AND SULAYMANIYAH, IRAQ - In the gathering dark inside the cavernous mosque, Mullah Omar Sweri takes his time leading the last Muslim prayer session of the day.

The Sunni preacher speaks of moderation, a message commonly heard in the officially monitored mosques of the Kurdish north. The contrast could not be greater, measured against the harsh rhetoric of the Sunni militants to the south, who drive Iraq's insurgency.

So it was a surprise to many Kurds that small Al Qaeda and Ansar al-Sunna cells were among six groups of extremists arrested in Arbil this summer - and that nearly all the militants were home-grown Kurds.

"Kurds are religious people, but they have never been extremists - God does not need extremists," says Mullah Sweri. "Extremism is not an action, it is a reaction. So the more injustice grows in a society, the more extremism there will be."

While the cells were small, they were lethal. Among them were militants deemed responsible for suicide bombings on May 4 and June 20 that killed more than 75 people in Arbil, mostly police recruits. In confessions shown on TV, some described mortar attacks on South Korean coalition troops, and a botched remote-controlled bombing.

http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/breaking_news/13070935.htm

ARIEL DAVID

Associated Press

ROME - Italian lawmakers questioned Premier Silvio Berlusconi's top aide and an intelligence chief Thursday about allegations that Italy knowingly gave the United States and Britain forged documents suggesting Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa.

Cabinet Undersecretary Gianni Letta and Nicolo Pollari, the director of Italy's SISMI intelligence agency, were questioned by members of a parliamentary commission overseeing secret services.

The hearing in Rome was not open to the public, but commission members were expected to talk to reporters later.

Link to Full Gulf Times Article

Published: Thursday, 3 November, 2005, 12:19 PM Doha Time

BAGHDAD: It has become a routine. Iraqi insurgents blow up one of the North Oil Company's facilities out in the scrubland. Engineers go and patch it up. The guerrillas fire on them and they beat a retreat.

It has happened regularly for the past two years and is happening now as North Oil tries to repair a gathering centre hit last week by four explosions. At this rate, officials say, it will take at least a month to restart exports.  Ever since Saddam Hussain's forces burned oil pumped into pits to try to stall invading US troops in 2003, Iraq's main industry has been a favoured proxy target for opponents of its new, US-backed rulers. There is no sign that will change soon.

It is not just infrastructure that is the target. In late October, a North Oil assistant manager was shot dead in Kirkuk.

Nov 4, 2005  

 Iraq's forgotten war

By Michael Schwartz

So much of the Iraq war operates below the radar screen of the mainstream media that we rarely glimpse what is really going on - either in the daily lives of Iraqis or in the daily life of the war itself. The news we do get is generally filled with moments when large numbers of soldiers, policemen and civilians are killed in suicide attacks; or with the surreal machinations of American and Iraqi politicians so disconnected from Iraqi reality that they can hardly venture outside Baghdad's hermetically sealed "Green Zone", even with convoys of armed guards.

In the meantime, Western reporters in Iraq are, by and large,

locked into their own little Green-Zone-style situations, held back from anything like normal reporting by the dangers they face. Fortunately, there are significant exceptions to this rule. Many reporters do venture outside their protective cocoons - often at great peril to themselves - to chase down stories, do real investigative journalism, or explore as best they can the daily lives of Iraqis and the nature of the Iraqi resistance.

By normal journalistic standards, their reports should be plastered across front pages and dominate the TV news about Iraq; but, alas, they all too often are relegated to the inside pages or obscure locations on the Internet. And most Americans consequently get, at best, the briefest glimpses of any deeper Iraqi reality.

Nevertheless, some of the larger picture is out there, even if in hard to find places and so accessible only to those of us with the time and persistence to dig it up. Take, for example, Maysan province, a small Shi'ite area in southeastern Iraq abutting Iran. Maysan is not in the Sunni triangle, so it is not in the eye of the Sunni resistance hurricane. It is not occupied by American troops, but the British Staffordshire Regiment, renowned for its non-aggressive approach to occupying Iraq.

The region's only claim to newsworthiness has been its status as the historical home of the Marsh Arabs, infamously dispersed by Saddam Hussein when he drained the marshes that cover a substantial portion of the province. In 2003, there was a brief flurry of Maysan coverage when, just after the invasion, the marshes were partially re-flooded and some of the Marsh Arabs returned to their ancestral home.

lots more, really interesting

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GK04Ak03.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/03/60minutes/main1007984.shtml

The Road To Baghdad

Nov. 3, 2005

(CBS) Lt. Col. Geoffrey Slack's job, keeping a six-mile stretch of road open between downtown Baghdad and the city's airport, was one of the most dangerous you could have in Iraq, a job he likened to a "vicious knife fight in a dark room."

60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan goes on patrol with Col. Slack and his men as they defend what has become known as the world's most dangerous road, this Sunday, Nov. 6, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

On one patrol, Logan watches as Slack approaches a slit-open fuel can in the road that turns out to be a bomb. "It's either I do it or they do it," says Slack, referring to his men.

He's lost four of them over seven months, but almost as frustrating to Slack is the fact that the road is still not secure. "I would have to tell you that by the purest definition of secure, I still haven't been successful. [Securing the road] is a work in progress," he says.

http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=784214

MIL-U.S.-IRAQ

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 (KUNA) -- The United States continues to make "substantial progress" in organizing, training, and equipping Iraqi security forces, said Lieutenant General James Conway of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during a Pentagon briefing on Thursday. Iraqi forces "continue to grow in capability and confidence," he said. There are more than 210,000 members in the Iraqi security forces that have been trained and equipped now, a number that represents more than 90 Iraqi police and army battalions "in the fight," Conway said. "One division headquarters, four brigades, and 24 battalions actually own battle space." In October, Iraqi security forces independently conducted 35 percent of the major operations throughout Iraq, and on Wednesday the Iraqi 9th Army Division personnel prepared for off-load of 77 T-72 tanks that have been reconditioned in Hungary and sold to the Iraqi government, Conway said.

U.S. troop levels in Iraq currently are just short of 160,000, he said, which is probably the base-line figure that will likely remain in place through the Dec. 15 Iraqi elections.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/politics/13074088.htm

TOM RAUM

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - President Bush's job approval has fallen to the lowest level of his presidency amid worries over the Iraq war, a fumbled Supreme Court nomination, the indictment of one White House aide and uncertainty about another.

Concerned that the president has lost his footing, some influential Republicans are urging Bush to shake up his staff and bring in new blood.

A new AP-Ipsos poll found Bush's approval rating was at 37 percent, compared with 39 percent a month ago. About 59 percent of those surveyed said they disapproved.

The intensity of disapproval is the strongest to date, with 42 percent now saying they "strongly disapprove" of how Bush is handling his job - twice as many as the 20 percent who said they "strongly approve."

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/world/13074101.htm

BY ZAINEB OBEID

Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Hani Hashem Salen crowded into a small square outside the al Nosoor prison near Baghdad's Mansour district and joined 127 other men who were stealing longing glances at three white pickups.

The men were dusty and gray, barefoot - their clothes little more than rags. The pickups would take them to freedom, after months of wrongful imprisonment.

"For two months I sat in that dirty, dim cell and cursed the day I was born," Salen whispered as he waited earlier this week for official word that he was free. "I did nothing, yet I wasn't allowed even to see my family. They don't even know I'm getting out today. Why did this happen to me?"

The answer is simple: Iraq can't process the thousands of people who are being arrested these days. It can't even come close. Even wrongly accused men such as those in the square wait months - sometimes more than a year - before their cases are investigated, helping to erode any confidence in Iraq's government.

"The problem is that we have far more detainees than the judges can get around to," Human Rights Minister Nermeen Othman said. "We have talked to the justice minister about this issue, but, as you know, getting the proper number of qualified judges is not easily accomplished."

Othman is talking about Iraqi jails, not the U.S.-run prisons where prisoner abuse has been reported.

http://www.kgw.com/sharedcontent/iraq/dispatches2/DN-independence_27int.ART.North.Edition2.c52022a.h
tml

Kurds see democracy as means to gain independent state

04:28 PM CST on Thursday, November 3, 2005

By TOD ROBBERSON / The Dallas Morning News

SULAYMANIA, Iraq - Washington's plan was to use democracy as the glue to unify Iraq's disparate ethnic and religious groups, but in practice, Iraqis say democracy could actually be splitting their nation apart.

Violence spiked again this week amid accusations of fraud by Sunni Muslim politicians angry over voters' approval of a new constitution in an Oct. 15 referendum. The constitution grants broad new federal powers to the Arab Shiite south and Kurdish north, and both regions appear to be using their new powers to distance themselves further from the central government in Baghdad.

Ethnic Kurds say they view the constitutional process not as a tool for unification but as a means of achieving their ultimate goal: breaking away from Iraq entirely to form a Kurdish state.

Theirs is just one of the ways in which Iraqis, from this northern provincial capital all the way to the southern port city of Basra, are using the democratic process in unplanned and potentially war-provoking ways.

Shiites in southern Iraq have interpreted democracy as the right to elect hard-line Shiite clerics into the government, put militias in control of the police and tightly regulate people's behavior through sharia, or Islamic law. The new constitution, at their insistence, lists sharia as a reference point for Iraqi law.

Kurds interpret democracy as self-determination and the right to seek independence. Aside from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Middle East analysts say, no other issue has greater potential to provoke regional war than that of Kurdish independence.

Link to LA Times Article

A new task force is planned to target the most lethal weapon of the Iraqi insurgency.

By Mark Mazzetti, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- With Iraqi insurgents building ever-more powerful homemade bombs, the Pentagon is finalizing plans to put a high-level general in charge of a new task force that will try to harness the expertise of the CIA, FBI, businesses and academics to combat the guerrillas' most lethal weapon.

The Pentagon has devoted two years to finding ways to combat the makeshift bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Yet in the view of some senior generals, the IED problem remains a low priority in Washington. "The field commanders are saying: 'This country can put a man on the moon. Why can't it solve this problem?' " said one senior Defense official, who requested anonymity.

The officials said some military leaders -- such as Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East -- have been pushing for a more focused, government-wide effort to address the largest threat facing U.S. troops in Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/03/AR2005110301971.html

By David Ignatius

Friday, November 4, 2005; Page A23

It's a telling fact that the hot book among Iraq strategists this season is "A Better War," an upbeat account of American counterinsurgency policy in the last years of the Vietnam conflict. I noticed that the head of Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, was reading it when I traveled with him in September. The influential State Department counselor Philip Zelikow read the book earlier this year. And I'm told it can be found on the bookshelves of senior military officers in Baghdad.

Perhaps it's a measure of just how badly things are going in Iraq that the strategists are looking to Vietnam for models of success. But it's interesting that the Iraq team, like its predecessors in Vietnam 35 years ago, is getting serious about counterinsurgency doctrine after making costly initial mistakes.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/13080625.htm

BY THOMAS F. EAGLETON

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Let's face the truth - the whole truth:

Our military leaders know that we cannot adequately train an Iraqi army that will be able to respond immediately and effectively to insurgent attacks now or even two years from now.

What do we do? Do we repeat what happened when we finally withdrew from Vietnam? Do we pull out on our own? "We are not ready," President Nguyen Van Thieu begged us. President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger crossed their fingers and hoped for the best but knew the chances that the Thieu regime could survive were, to say the least, thin.

We cannot repeat that subterfuge with Iraq. We have made Iraq a vital American interest in a region of geopolitical importance, not least because of its supply of oil. So any withdrawal from Iraq will not be total; a residual force will remain. Further, more U.S. forces could well be activated if needed. Having turned Iraq into the world's largest base for terrorists, we are stuck there. As to threats posed by Syria or Iran, the fact is that the United States, for now at least, has practically no capability to engage in another land war.

Deaths in Iraq

04 Nov 2005 14:55:28 GMT

Source: Reuters

Nov 4 (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier from a supply unit died on Thursday of "non-battle related causes" near Tallil, a major base in southern Iraq, the military said.

The following are the latest figures for military deaths in the Iraq campaign since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, in line with the most recent information from the U.S. military.

U.S.-LED COALITION FORCES:

United States 2,038

Britain 97

Other nations 94

IRAQIS:

MILITARY Between 4,895 and 6,370#

CIVILIANS Between 26,797 and 30,163*

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L25566968.htm

November 04, 2005

Military officials to brief family

of `missing-captured' soldier

Associated Press

The family of the only soldier the Army lists as missing-captured in Iraq will get a face-to-face meeting with military officials on the status of their son, days after the Ohio family complained about a lack of information from the government.

The parents of Army Reserve Sgt. Keith "Matt" Maupin of Batavia, Ohio, are being flown to Washington for a Pentagon briefing Friday. Maupin has been missing since April 9, 2004, when his fuel truck convoy was ambushed by insurgents west of Baghdad after leaving camp.

"We're bringing the family to the Pentagon to provide them with a progress report on the ongoing search for their son," said Army spokesman Col. Joseph G. Curtin. He said Maupin's status is unchanged.

The Army is also paying for the family to stay in a hotel overnight. Curtin said the Army wanted to bring Maupin's parents to the Pentagon so they could speak in person and ask questions.

Parents Carolyn and Keith Maupin complained earlier this week when they learned about a new search for their son through the news media -- not the Pentagon.

more

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1222456.php

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-04-militarycuts_x.htm

Posted 11/4/2005 10:28 AM

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Struggling to pay for a costly war in Iraq, the Pentagon is considering as much as $15 billion in cuts to aircraft, shipbuilding and other weapons purchases as it begins to craft a budget for next year.

Defense analysts and congressional staff say such reductions could hamper efforts to replace equipment worn out in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and outdated Cold War-era weapons systems. Any proposed cuts are likely to set up a fierce battle, as members of Congress -- including majority Republicans -- strive to protect programs that pour millions of dollars and thousands of jobs into their local economies.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1281302

By SAMEER N. YACOUB Associated Press Writer

The Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq Nov 4, 2005 -- Sunni-led insurgents killed 11 Iraqi security forces and wounded 14 in two separate attacks Friday, as Shiites began celebrating a major Muslim holiday. Al-Qaida in Iraq threatened more attacks on diplomats here.

Also Friday, the U.S. military said it killed five senior al-Qaida in Iraq figures during an airstrike Oct. 29 in Husaybah near the Syrian border. The five, including at least one North African, were responsible for bombings of U.S. and Iraqi forces, the announcement said.

Friday's worst attack by insurgents occurred at an Iraqi police checkpoint in Buhriz, 35 miles north of Baghdad.

The militants fired mortar rounds, then arrived in eight cars and opened fire, a police officer said. At least six policemen were killed and 10 wounded in the ensuing gunbattle, and it was not immediately known if any militants were hurt, the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of concern for his own safety.

In the town of Tuz Khormato, 130 miles north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb hit an Iraqi convoy, killing five police commandos working with Iraq's Interior Ministry and wounding four others, said police Brig. Sarhad Qadir.

http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?Category=14&ID=250984&r=0

Friday, November 4, 2005 By Robert J. Caldwell Copley News Service

First the press and then the public (could there be a connection?) soured on an Iraq war now in its third year with a casualty count nearing 2,000 American dead. Predictably, then, too little has been made of the most recent events that point to eventual success for the U.S. mission and vindication of the heroic sacrifice made by America's soldiers and Marines.

Ten million Iraqis, defying terrorist threats and calls for a boycott, trooped to the polls Oct. 15 to vote in a national referendum on the new constitution drafted by Iraq's transitional government. Unofficial returns show this commendably democratic charter passing by huge margins in the Shiite and Kurdish areas that together encompass 80 percent of Iraq's population. Most -- but, significantly, not all -- minority Sunnis voted no. Yet, their participation in the election signifies at least tacit acceptance of the democratic process that is empowering Iraqis to govern themselves after decades of dictatorship.

Four days later, an Iraqi court put Saddam Hussein on trial for crimes against humanity committed against his own people.

These are unprecedented events in an Arab world of strong-arm regimes and despotic leaders. Obviously, neither could have occurred without the Anglo-American decision to remove Saddam by force and help Iraqis create, in the very heart of the Middle East, the first democracy in the Arab world. It's safe to say that millions of ordinary people in the nations around Iraq's periphery -- especially in terrorist-spawning Iran and Syria, and in autocratic Saudi Arabia -- are watching this dawning exercise in self-government with the most intense interest.

politeness reigns as usual on the House floor...

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

Liz Sidoti | Associated Press  |  November 4

WASHINGTON -- Democrats tried unsuccessfully yesterday to force the House to take up a measure condemning Republicans for ''their refusal to conduct oversight" of the Bush administration's Iraq war policy and to order investigations into it.

The House voted, 220 to 191, to set aside a resolution offered by House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California.

''I think it brings shame to the House for this Congress to be engaged in a coverup when it comes to revealing what's happening in Iraq," Pelosi said.

A smattering of Republicans on the House floor yelled objections in response. None took the floor to address Pelosi's charges, and Representative Phil Gingrey, Republican of Georgia, who was presiding over the chamber at the time, ruled her effort out of order on procedural grounds.

Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, dismissed Pelosi's effort. ''The minority leader is a few days late and plenty of politics short," he said. ''She's trying to grab cheap headlines after she saw the Senate Democratic leader attempt to."

Pelosi's effort to shine a spotlight on the Iraq war was made two days after her counterpart in the Senate, Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, forced that chamber into an unusual closed session for more than two hours to discuss Iraq and prewar intelligence.

Republicans decried the effort as a political stunt and accused Democrats of trying to change the subject from the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-11/05/content_3735140.htm

November 5

BAGHDAD, Nov. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- The US military launched a major operation in a town near Syria on Saturday, the US command said.

    About 2,500 US Marines, soldiers and sailors, along with an unspecified number of Iraqi forces, participated in the "Operation Steel Curtain" offensive, according to the military.

    "Operation Steel Curtain marks the first large-scale employment of multiple battalion-sized units of Iraqi army forces in combined operations with coalition forces in the last year," the military said in a statement.

    The offensive is aimed to remove insurgents and al-Qaida members from the town of Husaybah, a stronghold of insurgency in the western province of Anbar, ahead of Iraq's parliamentary election on Dec. 15.

    The military said that insurgents threatened to kill residents of Husaybah who work with US or Iraqi forces.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040607fa_fact1

This food for thought was written by Jane Meyer was published in the New Yorker circa over a year ago.  

<SNIP, SNIP SNIP waaay DOWN THE ARTICLE>

"In retrospect, one detail of Chalabi's operation seems particularly noteworthy. In 1994, Baer said, he went with Chalabi to visit "a forgery shop" that the I.N.C. had set up inside an abandoned schoolhouse in Salahuddin, a town in Kurdistan. "It was something like a spy novel," Baer said. "It was a room where people were scanning Iraqi intelligence documents into computers, and doing disinformation. There was a whole wing of it that he did forgeries in." Baer had no evidence that Chalabi forged any of the disputed intelligence documents that were used to foment alarm in the run-up to the war. But, he said, "he was forging back then, in order to bring down Saddam." In the Los Angeles Times, Hugh Pope wrote of one harmless-seeming prank that emerged from Chalabi's specialty shop: a precise mockup of an Iraqi newspaper that was filled with stories about Saddam's human-rights abuses. Another faked document ended up directly affecting Baer. It was a copy of a forged letter to Chalabi, made to look as if it were written on the stationery of President Clinton's National Security Council. The letter asked for Chalabi's help in an American-led assassination plot against Saddam. "It was a complete fake," Baer said, adding that he believed it was an effort to hoodwink the Iranians into joining a plot against Saddam; an indication of American involvement, Chalabi hoped, would convince them that the effort was serious. Brooke acknowledged that the I.N.C. had run a forgery shop, but denied that Chalabi had created the phony assassination letter. "That would be illegal," he said. To Baer's dismay, the letter eventually made its way to Langley, Virginia, and the C.I.A. accused him of being involved in the scheme. Baer said he had to pass a polygraph test in order to prove otherwise."

Time is GMT + 8 hours

Posted: 05 November 2005 0219 hrs

Al-Qaeda tells Iraq diplomats to leave or face death

DUBAI : Al-Qaeda's branch in Iraq, which has threatened to kill two Moroccan hostages, called on diplomats in Baghdad to "pack their bags and leave" or face certain death, according to an Internet statement.

"We reiterate our warning to those who insist on maintaining so-called diplomatic missions in Baghdad," said the statement whose authenticity could not be independently verified.

"Let them pack their bags and leave," said the statement signed by "the military wing of the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Land of the Two Rivers," headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The statement accused Washington's "small agents in the region," including the "treacherous Moroccan government" of maintaining diplomatic missions in Baghdad in order "to grant political and security backing that would provide legitimacy" to the Iraqi government.

The new warning was addressed "to those who still do not understand and challenge the will of the mujahedeen (fighters), and especially the missions of countries which have pledged to cooperate with the (Iraqi) apostate government installed by the invading Crusaders (US-led forces)."

"We will not spare any effort in tracking them down and punishing them, whoever they are and wherever they are, just as we have done with their predecessors," it said.

The group, considered the bloodiest of the insurgent groups in Iraq, has claimed responsibility for kidnapping and executing two Algerian diplomats and Egypt's head of mission in Baghdad, Ihab al-Sherif, all abducted in July.

"And let them know that we do not make any difference between the head of the mission and the smallest employee as long as they have agreed to ... back the criminal government of the (Shiites) and their American master," it said.

more

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/177020/1/.html

Link to Full NYT Article

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

Published: November 5, 2005

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

In a city of daylight assassinations and regularly exploding cars, it is perhaps surprising that the most pervasive daily headache comes in the far more ordinary form of snarled lines of traffic.

With the virtual collapse of the state, rules have fallen away and the city seems almost to have caved in on itself in an egocentric free-for-all. Drivers shove past one another under broken traffic lights. Policemen gesture frantically to try to control them.

And while in other capitals a traffic jam may cause you to miss a meeting, in Baghdad it may get you kidnapped or even killed.

Consider a few basic statistics. For protection against car bombs and other attacks, 30 percent to 40 percent of the city's major roads are blocked, often over the objections of city authorities. Officials maintain that something like half the city's 146 traffic lights are operative, but to the casual observer, none ever seem to work. Perhaps that is because they run on power supplies that are available just a third of the day, and not necessarily during peak traffic periods.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051105/ap_on_re_mi_ea/travel_in_iraq

By SAMEER N. YACOUB

Associated Press

ANBAR DESERT, Iraq - The four-lane highway from Baghdad to Iraq's borders with Syria and Jordan is among the most dangerous in the country, so the unexpected improvements along the road were hard to believe at first.

New restaurants and gas stations have opened, and some are busy with Iraqi customers making the grueling five-hour drive from Baghdad to the borders.

Some of the gas pumps and eateries remain open after dark, even though few people risk driving the highway at night.

During a recent roundtrip drive from Baghdad to Damascus, the road also appeared to be guarded by more U.S. military patrols than ever before, each one made up of several Humvees and armored vehicles.

But the risks remain clear on a highway that passes through the empty desert in Iraq's most dangerous province, skirting militant "hot spots" such as Ramadi. When this reporter stopped at a gas station at dusk to get fuel, an employee refused.

"There is little gas left. We are saving it for mujahadeen," he said, referring to the insurgents. "You better leave now."

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/iraq/13091618.htm

JAMAL HALABY

Associated Press

AMMAN, Jordan - A U.N. auditing board has recommended that the United States reimburse Iraq up to $208.5 million for contracting work carried out by KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, in the last two years.

The International Advisory and Monitoring Board of the Development Fund for Iraq said in a report that the work, paid for with Iraqi oil proceeds, was either overpriced or done poorly by the Virginia-based company.

Compiled from an array of Pentagon, United States government and private auditors, the report did not specify how or what work has been done poorly.

Link to Reuters Article

Sat Nov 5, 2005 11:08 AM ET

By Paul Majendie

LONDON (Reuters) - The former British ambassador to the United States, delivering yet another political blow to British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the end of a turbulent week, said the war in Iraq had fueled home-grown terrorism in Britain.

Christopher Meyer, who was heavily involved in the planning that led up to the war, said he disagreed with Blair's view that joining the United States in the 2003 invasion of Iraq had not exposed Britain to terrorist attacks.

Islamist suicide bombers killed 52 people in coordinated attacks on the London transport system four months ago.

"There is plenty of evidence around at the moment that home-grown terrorism was partly radicalized and fueled by what is going on in Iraq," Meyer told Saturday's Guardian newspaper in an interview ahead of his memoirs being published.

"There is no way we can credibly get up and say it has nothing to do with it. Don't tell me that being in Iraq has got nothing to do with it. Of course it has," Meyer said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-graves29nov05,1,95733.story?coll=la-headlines-wo
rld

As mourners descend on a vast cemetery in Najaf, burial workers say it's difficult to cope with the large numbers of victims of insurgent violence.

By Solomon Moore, Times Staff Writer

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Shiites are especially at risk traveling on roads from Baghdad south toward Najaf. Abbas Jabr Aardhi, a gravedigger, said Shiites on their way to bury their dead were easy targets for hijackers because they often traveled with coffins strapped to the roof of their vehicles.

The dangers have led some families to bury their relatives closer to home, said Aardhi, 35. Others have taken more drastic measures.

"I have known some people who take the corpse inside the car with them," Aardhi said. "They sit them up so they look like they're alive."

Although some Shiites are giving up on burying their dead in Najaf out of security concerns, gravedigger Nasr Hassan isn't short of business. He has one of the largest funeral operations in Najaf, handling about six bodies a day at his shop and dozens more at other locations run by his relatives.

He has used his earnings to build a hotel to cater to the many Iranian pilgrims who come to Najaf to visit the Shrine of Imam Ali, the founder of the Shiite sect.

After the August stampede, Hassan said, he buried 30 people in one day. "All the bombings and violence gives us a lot of work," he said.

Iraq: Al-Sadr Militia Taking Law Into Own Hands

By Kathleen Ridolfo

Imam Al-Mahdi fighetrs during the August 2004 standoff in Al-Najaf

(AFP)

Militiamen loyal to Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have increasingly adopted a policing role in recent months. In both Baghdad and Al-Basrah, al-Sadr's Imam Al-Mahdi Army has claimed to have fought alongside police forces against terrorists, and has carried out its own operations to free hostages from terrorist safe houses.

In other towns like Samawah, Al-Najaf, and Al-Kufah, al-Sadr militiamen have clashed with police, and the militia also continues to engage U.S. and U.K. troops in combat, going so far as to kidnap two undercover British soldiers in Al-Basrah in September.

Militia Takes Control

In the months following the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime, Al-Mahdi Army fighters wrested control from police in a number of Shi'ite cities, including Al-Kut, Al-Kufah, and Al-Najaf. Police in these cities abandoned their stations or stood aside as the gunmen roamed the streets. Following the Al-Mahdi Army's occupation of Al-Najaf in August 2004, makeshift courts containing "mutilated bodies and torture machines" were discovered (see "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 10 September 2004).

Since that time, al-Sadr's militia appears to have solidified its control over some Shi'ite cities through it's militia's presence on the ground and its infiltration of local police forces (see "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 28 March 2005). Moreover, the militia has carried out dozens of arrests in Baghdad, Al-Basrah, Karbala, Al-Kut, and Al-Musayyib, according to published Iraqi media reports. In reality, the figures may be much higher.

While some of the militia's activities appear aimed at increasing grassroots support for the cleric, there is much to fear from a militia that increasingly believes in its right to level its own brand of justice outside the rule of law. A number of recent incidents testify to this activity.

must read, they have been busy little beavers

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/11/35b8bb23-2a15-4275-99ee-b368fde58b0a.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/politics/06intel.ready.html

By DOUGLAS JEHL

Published: November 6, 2005

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 -- A top member of Al Qaeda in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.

The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, "was intentionally misleading the debriefers'' in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda's work with illicit weapons.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200511/s1498911.htm

A spokesman for the multi-national force in Iraq, Brigadier General Donald Alston, says a number of prominent Al Qaeda operatives have been killed.

"Additional coalition airstrikes last week in and around Qusayba destroyed several safe houses, killed several foreign fighters and caught an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) cell in the act of placing roadside bombs," he said.

"Killed in the strike was Abu Asseil, a north African terrorist.

"He was the senior Al Qaeda in Iraq foreign fighter facilitator in the al Qaim region, and an associate of Zarqawi."

Link to LA Times Article

The U.S. chose Ziad Cattan to oversee military buying because he could get things done. He did, but now he faces corruption charges.

By Solomon Moore and T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writers

BAGHDAD -- Ziad Cattan was a Polish Iraqi used-car dealer with no weapons-dealing experience until U.S. authorities turned him into one of the most powerful men in Iraq last year -- the chief of procurement for the Defense Ministry, responsible for equipping the fledgling Iraqi army.

As U.S. advisors looked on, Cattan embarked on a massive spending spree, paying hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi funds for secret, no-bid contracts, according to interviews with more than a dozen senior American, coalition and Iraqi officials, and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The money flowed, often in bricks of cash, through the hands of middlemen who were friends of Cattan and took a percentage of the proceeds.

Although much of the material purchased has proved useful, U.S. advisors said, the contracts also paid for equipment that was shoddy, overpriced or never delivered. The questionable purchases -- including aging Russian helicopters and underpowered Polish transport vehicles -- have slowed the development of the Iraqi army and hindered its ability to replace American troops, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.

Cattan, now facing corruption charges leveled by the Iraqi Justice Ministry, insists that he is innocent of any wrongdoing and the victim of a smear campaign. In interviews in Poland, where he now lives, Cattan said he had worked under pressure from U.S. and Iraqi officials to arm the Iraqi forces as quickly as possible.

07 Nov 2005 15:38:44 GMT

Source: Reuters

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KHA732289.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/international/middleeast/07sunni.html

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

Published: November 7, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 6 -A group of Iraqi tribal sheiks have formed a political party aimed at capturing votes in a national election in December, one of the first signs that Sunni Arabs outside mainstream parties are moving into grass-roots politics.

A large group of tribal leaders, academics and other professionals met Saturday in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, the only Iraqi province in which the population is almost entirely Sunni Arab, for a campaign kickoff by the new group, the National Public Democratic Movement, its leaders said Sunday.

The meeting, in the house of Sheik Hamid Turki al-Shawka, a prominent tribal leader from Ramadi, lasted for five hours and included Sunni Arabs from Qaim, near the Syrian border, Mosul, in northern Iraq, and Baquba, north of Baghdad, as well as some Kurds and a few Shiites, the leaders said. The leaders said they had quietly registered the movement with the electoral commission last month.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/06/AR2005110601014.html

By Peter W. Galbraith

Monday, November 7, 2005; Page A21

Although it was certainly not his intention, George W. Bush broke up Iraq when he ordered the invasion in 2003. The United States not only removed Saddam Hussein, but it also smashed, and later dissolved, the institutions that enabled Iraq's Sunni Arab minority to rule the country: the army, the security services and the Baath Party. Kurdistan, free from Hussein's rule since 1991, moved to consolidate its de facto independence. Iraq's Shiites, suppressed since the founding of the Iraqi state, have created a theocracy in southern Iraq and have no intention of allowing a central government in Baghdad to roll it back. Iraq's new constitution merely ratifies this result.

There is no reason to mourn the passing of the unified Iraqi state. For Iraq's 80-year history, Sunni Arab dictators held the country together -- and kept themselves in power -- with brutal force that culminated in Hussein's genocide against the Kurds and mass killings of Shiites. As a moral matter, Iraq's Kurds are no less entitled to independence than are Lithuanians, Croatians or Palestinians. And if Iraq's Shiites want to run their own affairs, or even have their own state, on what democratic principle should they be denied? If the price of a unified Iraq is another dictatorship, it is too high a price to pay.

Iraq's Kurds, Shiites and Sunni Arabs do not share the common values and aspirations that are essential to building a unified state. The country's Kurds are avowedly secular and among the most pro-American people in the world. Almost unanimously they want nothing to do with Iraq. Iraq's Shiites, whether we like it or not, have voted overwhelmingly for pro-Iranian religious parties. Iraq's Sunni Arabs, through their own choice, boycotted the constitutional assembly. Some of the leaders who claim to speak for the Sunnis say they want a unified state, though it seems their real concern is that they no longer rule Iraq. Even if it had been done competently, American-led nation-building could not overcome these divisions.

Four soldiers killed by suicide bomb in Iraq - U.S.

07 Nov 2005 20:03:37 GMT

Source: Reuters

BAGHDAD, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Four soldiers were killed when a suicide car bomber attacked their checkpoint on a road south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Monday.

The soldiers were attached to Task Force Baghdad, the statement said, but no other details were available. A military spokesman would not confirm if the soldiers were American.

The attack came on the same day that a suicide car bomber killed six Iraqi policemen and three civilians in Baghdad's southern Dora district

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/TAI772126.htm

Link to Full AP Article

By MARIAM FAM, Associated Press Writer

Sun Nov 6, 1:41 PM ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A factory owner is arrested on suspicion of abetting terrorists. A laundry worker goes to get his visa renewed and is thrown in jail. And a cook says some Iraqis now greet him with a clear message: Get out of our country.

They are all Arabs who migrated to oil-rich     Iraq years ago to find jobs and escape poverty and political instability at home. But some feel their welcome is wearing out because foreign Arab fighters are being blamed for many of the killings, bombings and kidnappings plaguing the country.

It's the flip side of the human dislocation caused by the war and the insurgency. While hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have fled to the safety of neighboring Arab countries, foreign Arabs in Iraq say some are treating them as terror suspects. Others resent jobs lost to the foreigners in an unemployment-stricken economy.

http://www.ktre.com/Global/story.asp?S=4084499&nav=2FH5

BAGHDAD, Iraq The military says five U-S soldiers have been charged with abusing detainees in Iraq.

According to the charges, the soldiers from the 75th Ranger Regiment allegedly punched and kicked detainees who were waiting to be moved to a detention facility.

The military statement says an investigation was launched immediately after the alleged incident in September was discovered.