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Pentagon   ¹ Accident in Iraq kills U.S. soldier 5.4.03   AP Doha, Qatar   A U.S. soldier died of a gunshot wound after an apparent accident involving his own weapon in northern Iraq , a U.S. Central Command statement said. The statement said the incident happened about midday Saturday, but did not provide further details or give the soldier's name. The soldier was assigned to the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade, deployed in the vicinity of Kirkuk, the statement released Saturday said. The 173rd is based in Vicenza, Italy.

Who fired the shots that killed Pat Tillman, and why?
Who insisted Tillman's platoon split and travel through dangerous territory in daylight, against its own policy? Who let the command slip away and chaos engulf the unit?
And perhaps most of all: Was a crime committed?

The long and complicated story of Pat Tillman's death and the investigations it spawned began 5 years ago, in the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center.
"It is a proud and patriotic thing you are doing," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote to Tillman in 2002, after Tillman, shocked and outraged by 9.11.01, turned down a multimillion-dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the elite Army Rangers.

The San Jose, Calif., native enlisted with his brother Kevin, who gave up his own chance to play professional baseball. The Tillmans were deployed to Iraq in 2003, then sent to Afghanistan.
The mission of their "Black Sheep" platoon in April 2004 sounded straightforward: Divide a region along the Pakistan border into zones, then check each grid for insurgents and weapons. They were to clear two zones and then move deeper into Afghanistan.

But a broken-down Humvee known as a Ground Mobility Vehicle, or GMV, stalled the unit on an isolated road. A mechanic couldn't fix it, and a fuel pump flown in on a helicopter didn't help. Hours passed. Enemy fighters watched invisibly, plotting their ambush.
Tillman's platoon must have presented an inviting target. There were 39 men, incl 6 allied Afghan fighters trained by the CIA, and about a dozen vehicles.
Impatience was rising at the tactical operations center at Forward Operating Base Salerno, near Khowst, Afghanistan, where officers coordinated the movements of several platoons. Led by then-Maj. David Hodne, the so-called Cross-Functional Team worked at a U-shaped table inside a 20-by-30-foot tent with a projection screen and a satellite radio.
Hodne, now a lieutenant colonel and executive officer for the 75th Ranger Regiment, declined to be interviewed on the record by the AP, as did nearly every person involved in the incident.

When the Humvee broke down, the Black Sheep were nearing the end of their assignment; all that was left was to "turn one last stone and then get out," Hodne would testify. The unit was then to head for Manah, a small village where it would spend the night.
The commanders had already given the Black Sheep an extra day to get into its grid zones. High-ranking commanders were "pushing us pretty hard to keep moving," said Hodne.
"We had better not have any more delays due to this vehicle," he told his subordinates.

At the operations center, the Black Sheep's company commander, then-Capt. William C. "Satch" Saunders, was feeling the heat to get the platoon moving.
"We wanted to make sure we had a force staged to confirm or deny any enemy presence in Manah the next day, so we would not get ourselves too far behind setting ourselves up for our next series of operations," he recalled later to an investigator.
The order came down to split the platoon in two to speed its progress.

Saunders initially told investigators that Hodne had issued the order, but later, after he was given immunity from prosecution, he acknowledged it was his decision alone. Hodne later said he was in the dark ; "I felt like the village idiot because I had no idea what they were doing," he recalled. The decision was foolhardy, he said.
Divided in two, "they didn't have enough combat power to do that mission" of clearing Manah, he testified. Other commanders have insisted that splitting the platoon was perfectly safe and a common practice.
One thing is clear: The order sparked a flurry of activity by the Black Sheep. One of the gunners who shot Tillman said his unit didn't even have time to look at a map before getting back on the road.
"We were rushed to conduct an operation that had such flaws," said Alders. "Which in the end would prove to be fatal."

"If anything, this sense of urgency was as deadly to Tillman as the bullet that cut his life short," Alders wrote in a lengthy statement protesting his expulsion from the Rangers. "We could have conducted the search at night like we did on the follow-up operations or the next morning like we ended up doing anyway. Why, I ask, why?"
An investigator, Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones, would later agree that an "artificial sense of urgency" to keep Tillman's platoon moving was a crucial factor in his death: "There was no specific intelligence that made the movement to Manah before nightfall imperative."

An officer involved in the incident told AP there was, however, general intelligence of insurgent activity in this region, historically a Taliban hotbed. That suspicion would be confirmed when the Black Sheep drove through a narrow canyon, its walls towering about 500 feet, and came under fire from enemy Afghans. Chaos broke out and communications broke down.
After the platoon split, the second section of the convoy roared out of the canyon, into an open valley and straight at their comrades a few minutes ahead. A Humvee packed with pumped-up Rangers opened fire, killing the friendly Afghan and Tillman, though he desperately sought to be recognized.

Later, at least one of the same Rangers turned his guns on a village where witnesses say civilian women and children had gathered. The shooters raked it with fire, the American witnesses said; they wounded two additional fellow Rangers, including their own platoon leader.

Had it happened in the United States, police would have quickly cordoned off the area with "crime scene" tape and determined whether a law had been broken. Instead, the investigations into Tillman's death have cascaded, one after another, for the past 30 months. For Mary Tillman, getting to the bottom of her son's death is more than a personal quest.
"This isn't just about our son," she said. "It's about holding the military accountable. Finding out what happened to Pat is ultimately going to be important in finding out what happened to other soldiers."
In the days after the shootings, the first officer appointed to investigate, then-Capt. Richard Scott, interviewed all four shooters, their driver, and many others who were there. He concluded within a week that the gunmen demonstrated "gross negligence" and recommended further investigation.
"It could involve some Rangers that could be charged" with a crime, Scott told a superior later.

Then-Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bailey, battalion commander who oversaw Tillman's platoon, later assured Tillman's family that those responsible would be punished as harshly as possible. But no one was ever court-martialed; staff lawyers advised senior Army commanders reviewing the incident that there was no legal basis for it.
Instead, the Army punished 7 people; four soldiers received relatively minor punishments known as Article 15s under military law, with no court proceedings. These four ranged from written reprimands to expulsion from the Rangers. One, Baker, had his pay reduced and was effectively forced out of the Army. The three other soldiers received administrative reprimands.

Scott's report circulated briefly among a small corps of high-ranking officers. Then, it disappeared.
Some of Tillman's relatives think the Army buried the report because its findings were too explosive. Army officials refused to provide a copy to the AP, saying no materials related to the investigation could be released.
The commander of Tillman's 75th Ranger Regiment, then-Col. James C. Nixon, wasn't satisfied with Scott's investigation, which he said focused too heavily on precombat inspections and procedures rather than on what had happened.
Scott "made some conclusions in the document that weren't validated by facts" as described by the participants, Nixon would tell later investigators. Nixon assigned his top aide, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, to lead what became the second investigation. Kauzlarich harshly criticized Baker and the men on his truck.

Among other things, Baker should have known that at least two of his subordinates had never been in a firefight, and should have closely supervised where they shot.
"His failure to do so resulted in deaths of Cpl. Tillman and the AMF soldier, and the serious wounding of two other (Rangers)," Kauzlarich concluded. "While a great deal of discretion should be granted to a leader who is making difficult judgments in the heat of combat, the command also has a responsibility to hold its leaders accountable when that judgment is so wanton or poor that it places the lives of other men at risk."

Still, the Tillman family complained that questions remained: Who killed Tillman? Why did they fire? Were the punishments stiff enough?
"I don't think that punishment fit their actions out there in the field," said Kevin Tillman, who was with his brother the day Pat was killed but was several minutes behind him in the trailing element of a convoy and saw nothing.
"They were not inquiring, identifying, engaging (targets). They weren't doing their job as a soldier," he told an investigator. "You have an obligation as a soldier to, you know, do certain things, and just shooting isn't one of your responsibilities. You know, it has to be a known, likely suspect."

In November 2004, acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee ordered up yet another investigation, by Jones.
The result was 2,100 pages of transcripts and detailed descriptions of the incident, but no new charges or punishments. The report, completed Jan. 10, 2005, was provided, with many portions blacked out or removed entirely, to the Tillman family. It has not been released to the public; the family found it wanting.
Pressed anew by the Tillmans, the Pentagon inspector general announced a review of the investigations in August 2005. And in March 2006, they launched a new criminal probe into the actions of the men who shot at Tillman.

The veteran Pentagon official who is overseeing these latest inquiries, acting Defense Department Inspector General Thomas Gimble, has called the Tillman probe the toughest case he has ever seen, according to people he recently briefed.
Investigators are looking at who pulled the triggers and fired at Tillman; they are also looking at the officers who pressured the platoon to move through a region with a history of ambushes; the soldiers who burned Tillman's uniform and body armor afterward; and at everyone in the chain of command who deliberately kept the circumstances of Tillman's death from the family for more than a month.

Military investigators under Gimble's direction this year visited the rugged valley in eastern Afghanistan where Tillman was killed. It was a risky trip; the region is even more dangerous today than it was in 2004.
According to one person briefed by investigators, the contingent included at least two soldiers who were there the day of the incident, Staff Sgt. Matthew Weeks, a squad leader who was up the hill from Tillman when he was shot, and the driver of the GMV that carried the Rangers who shot Tillman, Staff Sgt. Kellett Sayre.

When the current inquiry began, the Pentagon projected it would be completed by September 2006. Now Gimble and the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, known as CID, are aiming to finish their work by December, say lawmakers and other officials briefed by Gimble.
CID is probing everything up to and including Tillman's shooting. The inspector general's office itself has a half-dozen investigators researching everything that happened afterward, including allegations of a coverup. The investigators have taken sworn testimony from about 70 people, some of whom said they were questioned for more than six hours. But Gimble said investigators have been hindered by a failure to locate key witnesses, even some who are still in the active military.

Moreover, those who are now out of the Army, including three of the four shooters, can't be court-martialed. They could be charged in the civilian justice system by a U.S. attorney, but such a step would be highly unusual. The law that allows it, the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, has been invoked fewer than a half-dozen times since its enactment in 2000, said Scott Silliman, executive director of Duke Law School's Center on Law, Ethics and National Security and a high-ranking Air Force lawyer until his retirement in 1993.
The investigation, Gimble has said, is also complicated because of "numerous missteps" by the three previous investigators, particularly their failure to follow standards for handling evidence. Gimble promised lawmakers in a series of briefings this fall that his investigation "will bring all to light." He has committed to releasing his detailed findings to key legislators, Pentagon officials and the Tillman family, as well as a synopsis to the general public, congressional aides said.

To date, a total of seven soldiers have been disciplined in Tillman's death. Bailey, the 2nd Ranger Battalion commander who was camped out about two miles down the road with another unit the night Tillman died, surveyed the shooting scene hours after it occurred.
"I don't think there was any criminal act," he said. "It was a fratricide based upon a lot of contributing factors, confusion," he testified to an investigator in late 2004.
Some high-ranking officers, including Bailey, believe a lack of control in the field was to blame, starting with the platoon leader and including the soldiers who didn't identify their targets. Bailey, who approved punishments for several of the soldiers, said he disagreed with the platoon's protests that they were "doing what we asked them to do under some very difficult circumstances, and that there were mistakes made but they weren't negligent mistakes."

He also testified that "three gunners were, to varying degrees, culpable in what had happened out there." And he said he wanted a fourth soldier involved, squad leader Baker, "out of the military." Baker soon left the Army.
As for others involved:
• the three other shooters, Ashpole, Alders and Elliott, remained in the service initially but Elliott and Ashpole have since left. Elliott struck a deal with authorities; in exchange for his testimony to investigator Jones, the Army gave him immunity from prosecution "in any criminal proceedings."
• platoon leader, Lt. David Uthlaut, was later bumped down from the Rangers to the regular Army for failing to prepare his men prior to the shootings, according to Bailey.
"They didn't do communications checks. They didn't check out their equipt. So they'd been there 24 hours," Bailey testified. "For example, some of the weapons systems weren't even loaded with ammunition. Many of the soldiers didn't know where they were going. They didn't have contingency plans."
A non-commissioned officer on the ground that day, however, testified that the unit carried out required communications checks. Uthlaut was also wounded by fellow Rangers in the incident. He was awarded the Purple Heart and later promoted to captain.

• Saunders, the company commander, was given the authority to punish three soldiers, even though he himself was reprimanded for his own poor leadership. Both Saunders and Hodne received formal written reprimands for failing to "provide adequate command and control" of subordinate units, administrative punishments lighter than the Article 15s handed down to the soldiers who shot at Tillman. This obviously hasn't hurt Hodne's career; he has since been promoted.
"I thought it was (the commanders') fault, or part of their fault that we were even in this situation, when they're telling us to split up," said Ashpole.

Some lawmakers have warned that if this probe does not clear up all questions on Tillman's death, they may press for congressional hearings. Others have said Congress could call for an independent panel of retired military officers and other experts to conduct an outside probe.
Rep. Mike Honda, a Democrat who represents the San Jose district where Tillman's family lives, has pressed the Pentagon for answers on the status of its investigations.
"I'm very impatient and at times cynical," Honda said. But, he said, the honor of the military and the confidence of the public in the military and the govt are at stake.
"So if we pursue the truth and wait for it," he said, "it may be worthwhile."

Ft Carson soldier drowns in Iraq 7 injured by grenade attack 5.2.03   AP Ft Carson, CO   A Fort Carson soldier drowned when his tank plunged into a canal and 7 others were wounded by grenades in separate incidents in Iraq on Thursday, the U.S. military said. The tank, from the Ft Carson-based 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, drove into an artificial sand barrier and then dropped into the canal near the city of Fallujah, about 30 miles west of Baghdad, according to a briefing at the V Corps HQ. Efforts to resuscitate the soldier failed. The soldier's name was not made public pending notification of his next of kin. He was the first soldier from the regiment to die in Iraq. 5 other soldiers and Marines with Colorado ties have died during the war in Iraq. Three other crew members escaped from the tank, said regiment spokesman Capt. Bren Workman. None of the injuries in the grenade attack were life-threatening, said battery commander on the scene Capt. Bryan Webinger. Attackers lobbed two grenades into a walled compound in Fallujah where the soldiers were staying. "God was watching out for the guys," Webinger said. "We were fortunate." Their names were not released. Lt. Chris Haggard of was sleeping in his Humvee when he was awakened by the first grenade's loud bang. "The first thing I thought was … 'What was that?"' he told a Colorado Springs Gazette reporter with the regiment. "I thought, 'Where are my people and are they hurt?"' Troops inside the compound opened fire on men who fled after the attack, but no one was captured or believed hit, said 82nd Airborne Div. Capt. Frank Rosenblatt. The 82nd Airborne is handing over control of Fallujah to the 3rd Armored Cavalry. Officers said the attackers' identities were unknown. The attack came at about 1 a.m. Thursday, hours after the Americans fired on Iraqi protesters in the street outside, a U.S. intelligence officer reported. Local hospital officials said two Iraqis were killed and 18 wounded.

U.S. troops kill 13, wound 75 in Iraq protest ¹ ç 4.30.03   Ellen Knickmeyer AP Fallujah, Iraq   U.S. paratroopers fired on anti-American protesters during a nighttime demonstration, and a hospital reported Tue. that 13 Iraqis were killed and 75 wounded, incl 3 young boys. Soldiers said armed men had mixed into the crowd and fired at them from nearby buildings. The deaths outside a school in Fallujah, conservative Sunni Muslim city and Baath Party stronghold 30 miles west of the capital, highlighted tense, precarious balance as Americans try to keep the peace in Iraq. Americans & Iraqis gave sharply differing accounts of Monday night's shooting. U.S. forces insisted they opened fire only upon armed men, infiltrators among the protest crowd, according to Col. Arnold Bray, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 325 Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Div., whose troops were involved in the shooting. "Which school kids carry AK-47s?" Bray asked. "I'm 100% certain the persons we shot at were armed." Protesters insisted their demonstration was unarmed & peaceful. Fallujah general hospital dir. Dr. Ahmed Ghandim al-Ali said the clash killed 13 Iraqis and injured about 75. The dead included 3 boys ages 8 to 10, he said. Some residents put the death toll higher, at 15. Survivors said the dead were buried quickly Tuesday morning, in accord with Islamic custom. No Americans were injured. The shooting was the third reported fatal clash involving U.S. troops & Iraqi protesters in 2 weeks, underscoring problems soldiers face as they try to switch from fighting to peacekeeping. On April 15 and 16, Marines opened fire during angry demonstrations in the northern city of Mosul. Iraqis said 17 people were killed there, though details remained unclear and the Marines insisted they fired in self-defense. The shootings, widely reported by Arab news media, have fueled resentment of the U.S. military weeks after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. U.S. forces serving in the area said they have been trained in crowd control. About half the company headquartered at the school in Fallujah served in Kosovo peacekeeping operations, 2nd Lt. Devin Woods said. It was unclear whether the protest that sparked the shootings grew from general animosity toward Americans in Fallujah, a city long considered a stronghold of Saddam support and site of factories suspected of involvement in banned weapons programs. But it appeared a clash of cultures, at least, was involved. Residents repeatedly denounced battalion members' use of binoculars and night-vision goggles. They accused soldiers of spying on women from the school's upper floors & rooftop. Monday's protest started after evening prayers on Saddam's birthday, in the past an occasion for weeklong celebrations. Lt. Col. Eric Nantz said the demonstration involved no more than 200 people, an indication, Nantz said, of support for American forces. Iraqi dead & wounded in hospital wards & homes also incl women and children shot inside their walled homes in the neighborhood. "They shot everyone who moved," said Rafid Mahmoud, standing by the bed of his wounded brother at Fallujah hospital Tuesday. His brother's foot had been amputated. "Americans are criminals," said 37-year-old Ebtesam Shamsudein, her leg bandaged. Her 7 children surrounded her, one boy wearing clothes smeared with bloody palmprints. U.S. Central Command said paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Div. were fired on by about 25 armed civilians mixed within an estimated crowd of 200 protesters outside a compound troops were occupying. "The paratroopers, who received fire from elements mixed within the crowd and positioned atop neighboring buildings, returned fire, wounding at least 7 of the armed individuals," the Central Command statement said. Central Command spokesman Lt. Mark Kitchens, said coalition forces "have consistently demonstrated their efforts to avoid civilian casualties and practice restraint. Any allegations to the contrary are simply not based on fact." U.S. Central Command's operations dir. USAF Maj. Gen. Gene Renuart, , said the demonstration was apparently in celebration of Saddam's birthday. Some townspeople, however, said the crowd was objecting to the presence of troops, while others said students wanted the soldiers to leave the school so classes could resume. A company of the battalion's soldiers, 130 in all, had been based in the school since late last week. Some protesters carried AK-47 assault rifles, Nantz said. U.S. soldiers sent a loudspeaker-equipped truck to urge them to stop firing into the air, he said. As the chanting crowd milled about, soldiers said, U.S. forces used illumination rounds and a smoke grenade to try to keep gun-toting protesters away. At one point, Nantz said, soldiers sent out in an armored personnel carrier fired 2 rounds from a 50-caliber machine gun, also in warning. Eventually, soldiers of the company said, protesters closed to within no more than 10 ft of the schoolhouse wall. At that point, U.S. forces said, 3 men on a nearby roof fired into the school. "Everybody could see the muzzle flashes," said Sgt. Nkosi Campbell, who commanded the first Americans who fired. Even then, soldiers exercised restraint, Campbell said. "They turned around and said, "`Hey, sergeant, can we shoot? And that was when they were already under fire."' Nantz said soldiers fired automatic weapons for 20 to 30 minutes. Because residents carried away the dead and wounded quickly, Bray said troops had no idea about Iraqi casualties overall. On Tuesday, pools of blood remained outside homes across from the school. Walls of homes were bullet-pitted. No bullet holes from incoming fire were obvious at the school, although soldiers said windows had been shot out. At the hospital, Arab TV stations handed microphones to victims for interviews. Shamsudein's husband, the man whose foot was amputated, was wounded when he ran to close the gate to keep protesters out and his children in. Shamsuedein was shot trying to help him. One of her brothers-in-law came out to help. He was shot in the heart & died, relatives & doctors said. The men's mother, 65, stepped outside to see, and was shot in the shoulder. "They go out to save one another, you know," Mahmoud said. "They are brothers." Other developments Tuesday in Iraq: …   The U.S. Army paid several thousand Baghdad policemen $20 each and promised to bring in 4,000 more of their own officers, as Iraqis at a town hall-style meeting told the U.S. administrator that security is their top priority.   Professional thieves appear to have slipped in among the bands of looters in Iraqi museums, curators said as they urged U.S. authorities to tighten border security and stop the flow of stolen treasures.   … 6 Iraqi children killed playing with bomb 5.14.03   Reuters London   6 Iraqi children were killed and 10 injured when an Iraqi bomb they were trying to dismantle exploded, British Defense Ministry said Wed. The accident happened Monday in north of southern Iraqi city of Basra, under British control since end of U.S. invasion of Iraq. "It seems the children were trying to get the copper out of an Iraqi munition when it exploded," a spokeswoman said. In Basra itself, UN said the accident showed how serious the problem of unexploded bombs was in Iraq. "This tragedy highlights the terrible danger that unexploded ordnance represents for everybody, especially children," United Nations spokesman David Wimhurst told reporters. In Baghdad, father of an 11 yr old Iraqi boy said his son was killed Wed. in n eastern neighborhood of Baghdad called Ur when the boy & friends started playing with a round, khaki-colored object that looked like a mine. He said his son Wissam was killed 3 other boys injured & taken to hospital. "They were playing with it (the object) and it exploded. I ran to the noise. My son had died. They were all boys. They brought it with them from school," said the 38-year-old father, Hadi Diar. "I want to know who is responsible. I want to see them here in front of me … It could be Saddam Hussein. It could be the Americans. We don't know," he added. American & British forces are in process of collecting & destroying unexploded ammunition across the country."There are weapons everywhere. There is no security here," Diar said. The boy's uncle, Abbas Mohammed al-Aqabi, said: "Bush & his army are responsible for that." Other people in the neighborhood said it was up to the U.S. forces to clean the area of weapons & ordnance quickly. US officials insist Iraqi weapons will be found, but none seen so far   5.4.03   AFP Wash.D.C.   U.S. officials expressed confidence that weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq, although US troops have yet to turn anything up. "I never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country," Def.Sec. Rumsfeld told "Fox News Sunday." U.S. led a war to depose Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, saying he had hidden banned weapons from UN inspectors. "Saddam Hussein & his entire regime learned to live with UN inspections," Rumsfeld said. "Intelligence shows that they were systematically trying to prevent the inspectors from finding them." Rumsfeld said Iraqi prisoners would help US forces find the weapons of mass destruction. "We're going to find what we find as a result of talking to people, I believe, not simply by going to some site and hoping to discover it," he said. Asked if senior Iraqi officials now in US custody were providing information on chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, Rumsfeld said lower-ranking officials would likely provide the most interesting leads. "We're going to have to find people not at the very senior level, who are vulnerable, obviously, if they're in custody, but it will be people down below who had been involved in one way or another." Sec.State Powell said so far, U.S. forces have not found any nuclear weapons in Iraq but that "we will find weapons of mass destruction." "We haven't found any evidence of nuclear weapons in Iraq as a result of what we have been able to see thus far," he told NBC's "Meet the Press." "But a program is more than just a weapon. We didn't think he had a weapon. But he kept in place the infrastructure, and he never lost the infrastructure or the brain power assembled in a way to use that infrastructure, if he was ever given a chance to do so," Powell said. Rumsfeld said he still did not know whether the deposed Iraqi leader was alive. "If I had to guess, I would suspect that he may very well be alive," he said. "He & his crowd are gone. They're either in a tunnel someplace or in a basement hiding. We'll find them, if he's alive." According to an article 5.11.03 in Wash.Post, a major radioactive waste repository in Iraq located by a U.S. Defense Dept team had been looted;it was unclear whether nuclear materials were missing. Discovery at the Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility, second such since the end of the war, revealed heavy plundering that persuaded U.S. officials deadly materials may have been stolen, the Post said. Survey by U.S. Special Forces unit & 8 Pentagon nuclear experts offered evidence suggesting that Iraq's most dangerous technologies had been dispersed by the war, the article said. None of 7 sites linked with Iraq's nuclear program and visited by the Pentagon's "special nuclear programs" teams since the war ended last month have been found intact. Meanwhile, New Yorker magazine said U.S. insistence that Iraq has such weapons has been based on dubious intelligence from a shadowy Pentagon committee that now dominates US foreign policy. Pentagon's Office of Special Plans (OSP) has become Pres.GWBush's main intelligence source, particularly over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the country's links to al-Qaeda, the magazine reported 5.12.03. But OSP, brainchild of U.S. Deputy Def.Sec. Paul Wolfowitz, relied on questionable intelligence from the Iraqi National Congress (INC), exile group headed by Ahmad Chalabi. "The INC has a track record of manipulating intelligence because it has an agenda. It's a political unit, not an intelligence agency," former sr CIA official & MidEast specialist said in the Seymour Hersh article. Time magazine also reported that the U.S. military may have played down its use of cluster bombs during the war in Iraq. Sarin nerve agent bomb explodes in Iraq 5.17.04   Chris Torchia AP Baghdad, Iraq   A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday. 2 people were treated for "minor exposure," but no serious injuries were reported. "The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155mm artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," said chief military spokesman in Iraq Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy. "A detonation occurred before the IED could be rendered inoperable. This produced a very small dispersal of agent," he said. The incident occurred "a couple of days ago," he said. The Iraqi Survey Group is a U.S. organization whose task was to search for weapons of mass destruction after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in last year's invasion. The round was an old 'binary-type' shell in which 2 chemicals held in separate sections are mixed after firing to produce sarin, Kimmitt said. He said he believed that insurgents who rigged the artillery shell as a bomb didn't know it contained the nerve agent, and that the dispersal of the nerve agent from such a rigged device was very limited. "The former regime had declared all such rounds destroyed before the 1991 Gulf War," Kimmitt said. "2 explosive ordinance team members were treated for minor exposure to nerve agent as a result of the partial detonation of the round." In 1995, Japan's Aum Shinrikyo cult unleashed sarin gas in Tokyo's subways, killing 12 people and sickening thousands. In February of this year, Japanese courts convicted the cult's former leader, Shoko Asahara, and sentence him to be executed. Developed in the mid-1930s by Nazi scientists, a single drop of sarin can cause quick, agonizing choking death. There are no known instances of the Nazis actually using the gas. Nerve gases work by inhibiting key enzymes in the nervous system, blocking their transmission. Small exposures can be treated with antidotes, if administered quickly. Antidotes to nerve gases similar to sarin are so effective that top poison gas researchers predict they eventually will cease to be a war threat. IraqJournal.org Islamic news IViews Vincent Ferraro Bay of Pigs metaphor Bing West Hitchens gungho

Iraq grenade attack hurts 7 U.S. soldiers 5.1.03   Charles J. Hanley AP Fallujah, Iraq   Attackers lobbed 2 grenades into a U.S. Army compound Thursday, wounding 7 soldiers just hours after the Americans had fired on Iraqi protesters in the street outside, a U.S. intelligence officer reported. The incident, latest in a series of clashes & deadly shootings involving U.S. troops in Fallujah, came as President Bush prepared to address to the American public from a homeward-bound aircraft carrier, declaring that major combat in Iraq is finished. None of the injuries to soldiers of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Fallujah was life-threatening, said Capt. Frank Rosenblatt. Troops inside the walled compound, a former police station, opened fire on men fleeing the area, but no one was captured or believed hit, said Rosenblatt. The attack, at 1 a.m. Thursday, came after soldiers in the compound and in a passing Army convoy opened fire Wednesday on anti-American demonstrators massed outside. … American officers said that barrage was provoked when someone fired on the convoy from the crowd. Wed. march was to protest earlier bloodshed Monday night, when 16 demonstrators and bystanders were killed and more than 50 wounded, according to hospital counts. In that clash, an 82nd Airborne company, whose members said they were being shot at, fired on a protest outside a school occupied by U.S. soldiers. Some Fallujah residents said they had heard relatives of victims vow to avenge Wednesday's shootings, and many in the city have declared they want the American troops to leave. Army V Corps chief of staff Brig. Gen. Dan Hahn said U.S. forces had solid intelligence that the "bad actors" in Fallujah were members of Saddam Hussein Baath Party who were using crowds as cover during demonstrations. "The people in the city want to get rid of this problem. We have people in the city coming up to tell us who the bad actors are," Hahn said. "In every instance, our soldiers have shown discipline & restraint." In the future, he said, tear gas and other riot control measure might be used to quash violent demonstrations. Fallujah, a city of 200,000 people 30 miles west of Baghdad, benefited more than most Iraqi towns from Saddam's regime. The regime built chemical & other factories that generated jobs for Fallujah's workers and wealth for its businessmen. Many of its young men joined elite regime forces such as the Republican Guard & Special Republican Guard. U.S. military officials met Wednesday with local religious & clan leaders on the security situation. "We asked the commanding officers for an investigation and for compensation for the families of the dead and injured," said new, U.S.-recognized mayor of Fallujah Taha Bedaiwi al-Alwani. Residents told reporters they were troubled by soldiers looking at Fallujah women, and some believed the Americans' goggles or binoculars could "see" through curtains or clothing. Despite the clashes in Fallujah, U.S. military commanders in Baghdad said the overall situation in Iraq is improving. If you look at the country as a whole, it is stable," said Hahn. However, he said massive amount of arms & ammunition being uncovered daily across Iraq posed a major problem. "The entire country is almost like an ammunitions & weapons dump. And they've placed them in places you would not expect," he said. "There are weapons here from every country in the world that makes weapons." In the northern city of Mosul, 153 arms caches had already been found, one containing 1.2 million mortar rounds and 65,000 artillery shells. Some 150 arms & ammunition sites have been discovered in Baghdad, officials said. In a Thursday radio broadcast, U.S. ground forces commander in Iraq urged citizens to help move the country forward by going back to work, stopping looting and cooperating to improve postwar security. Lt. Gen. David McKiernan made the statement through Information Radio, the U.S.-led coalition's station, which is being broadcast across Iraq. "I call for putting an end to all acts of sabotage & criminal acts including plundering, looting and attacking coalition forces," he said in remarks read by an announcer in Arabic. Information Radio has been running frequent announcements exhorting Iraqis to accept U.S. forces, and warning any foreign fighters in Iraq to leave or face arrest. McKiernan also said that any checkpoints not supervised by coalition forces are unauthorized. In other developments:   A group of civil engineers were shot at while working in a gas-oil separation plant in southern Iraq's Rumeila oil fields, according to the U.S. Central Command. No injuries were reported; Central Command did not give the nationality of the engineers or any details about the assailants.   A key oil refinery was restarted near Basra, Iraq's second-largest city. Southern Iraq had been running out of gasoline & propane; the plant will produce around 28,000 barrels a day of refined product, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. John Forslund.   Britain will establish its first diplomatic presence in Iraq for 12 years when a team of officials travels to Baghdad this weekend, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Thursday. The four-member diplomatic mission will set up an office to prepare for reopening an embassy once a new govt is in place. The British embassy in Baghdad closed 1.12.91, 4 days before Operation Desert Storm launched the Gulf War. U.S. soldiers save lions at Baghdad palace 4.25.03   Reuters Baghdad   U.S. troops came to the rescue Friday of 6 young lions & 2 cheetahs languishing uncared for in the private zoo of Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday. Under the watch of a dozen armed soldiers, the animals were coaxed into cages with lumps of raw meat and taken by military truck from the fenced compound in Uday's section of his father's Baghdad palace to a new home in the city's main zoo. Uday, known for his love of fierce animals, fast cars and beautiful women, has owned several lions, tigers and cheetahs, some of them gifts from friendly foreign govts. Like his father, he disappeared without trace during the U.S.-led invasion. South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony, who organized the operation with Iraqi & Kuwaiti zoo workers and U.S. soldiers, said the patch of grass lined with cages was "cruelly unsuitable" for the lion cubs & cheetahs. "It's nothing more than a macho game reserve," he said. "The animals are in a bad way." U.S. soldiers have secured Baghdad zoo since it was looted of most animals in the mayhem after Saddam's rule collapsed. The thieves left the zoo's lions & tigers alone, but the big cats went unfed for days and U.S. soldiers shot dead 4 hungry lions when they escaped from their enclosure last weekend. Anthony said a lioness at one of Uday's other residences had given birth to cubs which were in danger of being crushed by male lions in a cage too small for them. "The problem is we don't have the key," said Lawrence. "We're going to have to break the lock." Children suffer on Baghdad streets   5.29.03   Matthew Chance CNN Baghdad, Iraq   Since collapse of Iraqi regime, homeless children, often drug-addicted & hungry, have become a common sight on the streets of Baghdad. There are no exact statistics, but aid workers say looting of orphanages in the days after the fall of the capital has worsened the problem. Walking through the city I saw a few of Baghdad's unwanted children splashing in a polluted city fountain. It looked like fun, but the water was stagnant and contaminated with raw sewage. They risked disease for a few laughs. Since the war there are too few schools to keep them off the streets and aid workers say homelessness among Baghdad's young has exploded. UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Carol Derooy said: "Definitely, we know of institutions that have been looted. Institutions where children have been residing, many of these children have left. "Some have come back to the institutions but the state of the institutions is not good at all and children are on the street, definitely." Save The Children Charles MacCormack said he had seen schools littered with rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and weapons. "Until the schools cleared of this ordinance, it will be impossible for children to resume normal activities," he said. One 8 yr old boy called Haider told me both his mother & father died long ago and that his orphanage was smashed & looted in the days after Baghdad fell. Now he sleeps in shop doorways. A few steps from our hotel, Amr Ibrahim could tell us his name, but little else. The bag of glue at his mouth has robbed him of his memories. Passers by rarely intervene; with so many problems of their own, few care. U.S. soldiers, out of pity, try to find homes for a few. Some Iraqis say they blame these forces for failing to protect their country's most vulnerable. Aid agencies say they are pressing the authorities running Iraq into working out ways of prevention and getting those already homeless & addicted into care. Under Saddam, the problem of unwanted children was taboo and kept hidden; children on the streets went to orphanages, even jail. But this life on the streets seems hardly better.

Bomb kills head of Iraqi governing council 5.17.04   Christopher Torchia AP Baghdad, Iraq   The head of the Iraqi Governing Council was killed in a suicide car bombing near a checkpoint outside the coalition headquarters in central Baghdad on Monday, dealing a blow to U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq ahead of a handover of sovereignty on June 30. Abdel-Zahraa Othman, also known as Izzadine Saleem, was the second & highest-ranking member of the U.S. appointed council to be assassinated. He was among 9 Iraqis, incl the bomber, who were killed, Iraqi officials said. A suicide bomber was responsible, the military said. A previously unknown group, the Arab Resistance Movement, claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying in a Web site posting that 2 of its fighters carried out the operation against "the traitor and mercenary" Saleem. The car bomb had the "classic" hallmarks of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ¹ ª, Kimmitt said, but he acknowledged that the claim of responsibility meant that U.S. authorities will have to investigate further before determing responsibility. Al-Zarqawi, Jordanian-born militant with links to al-Qaida, is believed responsible for many of the vehicle bombs in recent months and for the death of U.S. civilian Nicholas Berg, whose decapitation was videotaped and posted on the Web last week. U.S. administrator of Iraq L. Paul Bremer called Saleem's killing a "shocking & tragic loss.The terrorists who are seeking to destroy Iraq have struck a cruel blow with this vile act today, But they will be defeated … The Iraqi people will ensure that his vision of a democratic, free and prosperous Iraq will become a reality." The council president's position rotates monthly. Saleem's death occurred about 6 weeks before U.S. plans to transfer power to Iraqis and underscores the risks facing those perceived as owing their positions to the Americans. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Saleem's death should not deter the transfer of power. "What this shows is that terrorists & insurgents in Iraq are trying to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power from the occupiers to the Iraqi people, and these terrorists are enemies of the Iraqi people themselves," Straw said in Brussels, Belgium, at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers. Saleem, the name he went by most frequently, was a Shiite who led the Islamic Dawa Movement in the southern city of Basra. He was a writer, philosopher and political activist, and edited several newspapers & magazines. Governing Council member Salama al-Khafaji said the bombing appeared to be an effort to foment sectarian divisions in Iraq and disrupt the transfer of political power. Another member, Naseer Kamel al-Chaderchi, blamed the bombing on the same groups that have conducted other attacks, including the August bombing of U.N. HQ in Baghdad that killed 22 people, incl U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello. The council selected Sunni Muslim civil engineer Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer from the northern city of Mosul to replace Saleem. Al-Yawer will lead the council until 6.30.04. Al-Yawer said the council would continue "the march toward building a democratic, federal, plural and unified Iraq." "God willing, the criminal forces will be defeated despite all the pain they are causing to our people and their heroic leaders," he said. Speaking at World Economic Forum in Southern Shuneh, Jordan, Iraq foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari said the killing of Saleem shows that council members "are the prime targets of these terrorist attacks and those antidemocratic forces who want to deviate this process. We will not be intimidated and we will continue the path of a new Iraq." Council member Ahmad Chalabi said terrorists are using the insurgent Sunni stronghold of Fallujah, where U.S. Marines stopped patrols last month and allowed an Iraqi security force to oversee security, to prepare car bombs like the one that killed Saleem. "The terrorists are free to roam around and they have been given sanctuary in Fallujah," Chalabi said. "The garage is open and car bombs are coming repeatedly." Health Ministry official Ammar al-Saffar said the victims included 5 people in Saleem's entourage and 2 members of Iraqi security forces. 14 Iraqis and an Egyptian were injured, he said. 2 U.S. soldiers also were slightly injured in the bombing near coalition HQ, which is called the Green Zone, Kimmitt said. 3 cars waiting in line at HQ were destroyed. Abdul Razaq Abdul Karim, gardener, was on the street near the checkpoint when a convoy with a police escort arrived moments before the blast. A red Volkswagen blew up in front of him. "All I could see was a ball of fire rising into the air and there were body parts all around. We picked up the pieces and some of them were burned," he said. A resident of the area, Shirin Mohammad, said she was awakened by the blast and heard gunfire. "Our windows were blown out," she said. Kimmitt said the bomb might have consisted of a couple of artillery rounds placed in the back of the vehicle, possibly in the trunk. Saleem, on his way to a daily council meeting, was in a convoy of 5 vehicles, and the car carrying the bomb was adjacent to the council chief's car when it exploded, said witness Mohammed Laith. Aquila al-Hashimi, another Shiite and one of 3 women on the 25 member Governing Council, was mortally wounded 9.20.03 when gunmen in a pickup truck ambushed her car as she drove near her Baghdad home. She died 5 days later. A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent also exploded recently near a U.S. military convoy in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt confirmed Monday, saying 2 explosives experts were treated for "minor exposure" but no other casualties were reported. Kimmitt said he believed it was the first case in which U.S. forces had found an artillery shell containing sarin. The sarin explosion was confirmed by the Iraqi Survey Group, U.S. organization whose task was to search for weapons of mass destruction after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in last year's invasion. The sarin was inside an artillery shell that had been rigged as a bomb. It was discovered by a U.S. convoy and exploded before it could be defused. The explosion released a very small amount of sarin, Kimmitt said. The incident occurred "a couple of days ago," he said. Kimmitt said he believed that insurgents who rigged the artillery shell as a bomb didn't know it contained the nerve agent. "The former regime had declared all such rounds destroyed before the 1991 Gulf War ," Kimmitt said. Meanwhile, fighting persisted in the Shiite heartland in southern Iraq, where American jets bombed militia positions in the city of Nasiriyah early Monday after fighters loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr drove Italian forces from a base there on Sunday. 7 fighters were killed in overnight battles, residents said. On Monday, an Italian soldier died of wounds suffered during an attack on the base of the Carabinieri paramilitary police the day before in Nasiriyah, the Defense Ministry in Rome said. The soldier was the 20th Italian to die in Iraq, a suicide truck bomb in Nasiriyah killed 19 11.12.03. At least 9 other Italian troops were injured in the clashes with armed supporters of al-Sadr, who launched an uprising against the coalition last month and faces an arrest warrant in the killing of a rival moderate cleric last year. Despite the overnight bombing, militiamen controlled some govt buildings in Nasiriyah, and some people looted cars, residents said. U.S. jets also bombed targets in Karbala, and there were clashes in the city, witnesses said. The bodies of 6 militiamen were seen in the streets Monday. There also were intermittent blasts & gunfire overnight in Najaf, al-Sadr's base of operations. Amid the ongoing violence, U.S. is looking to move some of its 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea to bolster forces in Iraq. "U.S. govt has told us that it needs to select some U.S. troops in South Korea and send them to Iraq to cope with the worsening situation in Iraq," said South Korean Foreign Ministry's North American Bureau head Kim Sook. A sr U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said any shift in troops from South Korea would be part of the next rotation of American troops in Iraq, set to begin this summer. At the World Economic Forum in Jordan, King Abdullah II said Jordan will not send peacekeeping troops to Iraq, and neither should any other neighboring nations because it could be too tempting to use them to improperly influence Iraqi society. Also Monday, 2 Russian workers were freed in Iraq after a week as hostages, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri 12.2.03   Reuters Hawija, Iraq   U.S. military denied reports that Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, most wanted man in Iraq after Saddam Hussein and alleged mastermind of guerrilla resistance, had been captured in a raid Tuesday. It said 27 suspected guerrillas were caught when up to 1,000 soldiers stormed into the small town of Hawija near the northern city of Kirkuk before dawn, but the man with a $10 million price on his head wasn't one of them. "He was definitely not captured in today's mission," Major Doug Vincent told reporters who accompanied troops on the raid that aimed to find suspects behind guerrilla attacks on U.S. forces in the "Sunni triangle" region of fiercest resistance. Earlier, sources in Iraq's Governing Council had said Ibrahim had been either seized or killed. … A U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb near the tense town of Samarra Tuesday, the 189th to die in fighting since President GWBush declared major combat over 5.1.03. Kirkuk's police chief, speaking as the Hawija raid went on late into the day, had not given up hope Ibrahim had been found. "The possibility we have Izzat Ibrahim is more than 80%, but I can't say for sure whether he has been killed or captured yet," Torhan Abulrahman said, He said U.S. forces & Iraqi police had mounted the joint sweep after information from one of Ibrahim's wives, captured earlier this month, suggested he was in the area. Ibrahim's detention would have been a major coup for the U.S.-led coalition. A veteran political ally of Saddam, he is sixth on the U.S. list of top Iraqi fugitives, and all in the top 5 except for Saddam have been killed or captured. The U.S. military said last month he was directly involved in attacks on U.S. troops and put the bounty on his head. A reward of $25 million is still on offer for information leading to the capture or death of Saddam. Hawija, a cold, muddy town of mainly Sunni Arabs, was full of anti-U.S. & pro-Saddam graffiti & posters, with slogans like "Saddam is the pride of the Arabs," "Death to the agents," and "Don't be armor for the Americans." … Weekend attacks also killed two South Korean contractors, two Japanese diplomats, their Iraqi driver, a Colombian contractor and two U.S. soldiers. U.S. troops said they killed 54 guerrillas in a battle on Sunday to fend off ambushes on armored convoys carrying banknotes in the Iraqi town Samarra. … Troops nab Iraqi fugitive's kin 11.26.03   AP … Wednesday spokesman Lt. Col. William MacDonald said troops of the U.S. 4th Infantry Div. in Samarra, 70 miles north of Baghdad, arrested the wife & daughter of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, top Saddam deputy suspected of masterminding attacks on U.S. troops. Under Saddam, al-Douri was vice chair of the ruling Revolutionary Command Council, and shortly before the war began 3.20.03, Saddam placed him in charge of defenses in northern Iraq. U.S. officials have said they believe al-Douri has planned some of the attacks against U.S. forces, and last week offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture. Al-Douri is No. 6 on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis. … Saddam's defense chief gives up; blast in Baghdad 9.19.03   Reuters Mosul, Iraq   Iraq's former defense minister, seen at Saddam Hussein's side in what is thought to have been the ousted dictator's last public appearance as Baghdad fell, surrendered to U.S. forces on Friday. Sultan Hashim Ahmed, number 27 on Washington's wanted list of Iraqi fugitives, turned himself over to U.S. troops in the northern city of Mosul and was met by 101st Airborne Div. commander Maj.Gen David Petraeus. In Baghdad, a large explosion sent a plume of smoke over the city center on Friday evening, but Iraqi police and U.S. officers at the scene said there were no casualties. A U.S. military policeman said it appeared a roadside bomb had been detonated, one of the most common methods used by guerrillas to attack occupying troops in Iraq. News of Ahmed's surrender was a boost for U.S. forces after they suffered their deadliest ambush for weeks on Thursday night. Guerrillas near Saddam's hometown of Tikrit killed 3 4th Infantry Div. soldiers from the and wounded 2. Washington hopes the capture of Saddam's defense minister will close the net on the deposed former president, who remains on the run despite a $25 million price on his head. The U.S. Army said Ahmed was taken to Baghdad for questioning. The surrender was negotiated through an intermediary after Petraeus sent a letter to Ahmed last month offering him "a simple yet honorable alternative to a life on the run." The mediator, local human rights official Dawood Bagistani, told a news conference he had received assurances that Ahmed would be removed from the list of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis and would not be charged with war crimes. But the U.S. Army said only that he would be treated "decently and humanely." U.S. officers in Tikrit said 60 suspected guerrillas had been captured during a night-long battle that followed the attack on American troops. The ambush brought to 76 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in guerrilla attacks since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1. "We were involved in direct firefights throughout the night," said 4th Infantry Div. Col. James Hickey at the U.S. base in Tikrit. "We feel confident we now have under our control the individuals who attacked our patrol." Also on Thursday evening, a car carrying Pietro Cordone, an Italian diplomat who is the senior adviser on culture for the U.S.-led authority, was shot at by U.S. troops near Tikrit. Cordone, who has been leading efforts to recover priceless antiquities looted from museums and archaeological sites since Saddam's fall, was unhurt, Italian Foreign Ministry sources said. But his Iraqi interpreter was killed, in the latest in a series of fatal blunders by American troops. U.S. military sources said the car was shot at after it repeatedly tried to overtake a U.S. convoy. Soldiers warned the car several times not to overtake, the sources said, and opened fire when they thought the vehicle was trying to ram them. Washington is seeking a new United Nations resolution to clear the way for foreign forces and cash to back up its own commitment of 150,000 troops and billions of dollars in Iraq while also remaining in the drivers seat. The leaders of U.S. supporter Britain and Iraq war critics France and Germany meet in Berlin on Saturday for a summit that could boost prospects for a U.N. resolution. Critics of Washington however want the country handed back to Iraqi rule as quickly as possible. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was quoted on Friday as saying in an interview with Germany's Die Welt newspaper that a U.N. mandate and timetable for handing power to the Iraqi people were conditions for deeper EU involvement in Iraq's reconstruction. In Dubai meeting of IMF & World Bank, IMF managing dir. Horst Koehler said progress in rebuilding Iraq's economy would become visible as early as 2004 if a donor conference at the end of October in Madrid was successful. He said billions of dollars would be needed, but he did not want to second-guess numbers until the World Bank had completed an assessment of Iraq's needs.

Short violent life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
How a video-store clerk and small-time crook reinvented himself as America’s nemesis in Iraq
6.8.06   Mary Ann Weaver Atlantic Monthly

On a cold, blustery evening 12.99, Huthaifa Azzam, teenage son of the legendary Jordanian-Palestinian mujahideen leader Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, went to the airport in Peshawar, Pakistan, to welcome a group of young men. All were new recruits, largely from Jordan, and they had come to fight in a fratricidal civil war in neighboring Afghanistan, outgrowth of the CIA-financed jihad of the 1980s against the Soviet occupation there.
The men were scruffy, Huthaifa mused as he greeted them, and seemed hardly in battle-ready form. Some had just been released from prison; others were professors and sheikhs. None of them would prove worth remembering, except for a relatively short, squat man named Ahmad Fadhil Nazzal al-Khalaylah. He would later rename himself Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Once one of the most wanted men in the world, for whose arrest the U.S. offered a $25 million reward, al-Zarqawi was a notoriously enigmatic figure, a man who was everywhere yet nowhere. I went to Jordan earlier this year, 3 months before he was killed by a U.S. airstrike in early June, to find out who he really was, and to try to understand the role he was playing in the anti-American insurgency in Iraq.
I also hoped to get a sense of how his generation, foreign fighters now waging jihad in Iraq, compare with the foreign fighters who 20 years ago waged jihad in Afghanistan.

Huthaifa Azzam, whom I first met twenty years ago in Peshawar, bridges both worlds. He first went into battle at age 15, fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan with his father and Osama bin Laden (to whom his father was a spiritual mentor); 3 years later, on that December night at the Peshawar airport, he met al-Zarqawi for the first time.
The two Azzams & bin Laden had fought against the Soviets in the early days of the jihad; al-Zarqawi would fight in the war’s second phase, after the Soviets had pulled out. Both Huthaifa Azzam & al-Zarqawi would eventually leave Afghanistan to pursue very different lives, but their paths would once again cross on the battlefields of jihad in Iraq, after the U.S. invasion of 2003.

A self-described jihadist, one who believes in struggle, or, more loosely, holy war, Azzam now lives in the Jordanian capital, Amman, where he is at work on a doctorate in classical Arabic literature, but he moves routinely between Jordan and Iraq.
Seeing him again for the first time since he was a teenager, I was struck, as we chatted in a friend’s drawing room, by how little he resembled the conventional image of a jihadist. He wore jeans, a light denim jacket, and an open-necked shirt, and his light-brown beard was neatly trimmed.

I asked Azzam if he knew who was funding al-Zarqawi’s activities in Iraq.
He thought for a moment, and then replied without answering, “At the time of jihad, you can get vast amounts of money with a simple telephone call. I myself once collected three million dollars, which my father had arranged with a single call.”
“A bank transfer?” I asked.
“No. I collected it on my motorbike. I was in Syria when the war in Iraq began. People were arriving in droves; everyone wanted to go to Iraq to fight the Americans. I remember one guy who came and said he was too old to fight, but he gave the recruiters $200,000 in cash. ‘Give it to the mujahideen,’ was all he said.”

He then told me about a young boy he had met in the early days of the war.
“He was from Saudi Arabia and had just turned thirteen. I noticed him in the crowd at a recruiting center near the Syrian-Iraqi frontier. People would come and register in the morning, then cross the border in the afternoon by bus. I first saw him at the registration desk. The recruiters refused to take him because he was so young, and he started to cry.
I went back later in the day, and this same small guy had sneaked aboard the bus. When they discovered him, he started to shout Allahu Akhbar!, ‘God is most great!’ They carried him off. He had $12,000 in his pocket, expense money his family had given him before he set off. ‘Take it all,’ he pleaded. ‘Please, just let me do jihad.’”

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, barely forty and barely literate, a Bedouin from the Bani Hassan tribe, was until recently almost unknown outside his native Jordan.
Sec, State Colin Powell catapulted him onto the world stage 2.5.03. Addressing the U.N.to make the case for war in Iraq, Powell identified al-Zarqawi, mistakenly as it turned out, as the crucial link between al-Qaeda & Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Subsequently, al-Zarqawi became a leading figure in the insurgency in Iraq; he brought his jihadist revolution back home, as the architect of three lethal hotel bombings in Amman 11.05. His notoriety grew with every atrocity he perpetrated, yet Western and Middle Eastern intelligence officials remained bedeviled by a simple question: Who was he?
Bush admin argued repeatedly he was al-Qaeda’s point man in Iraq. A retired Israeli intelligence official told me not long ago, a staunch rival of bin Laden’s, whose importance the U.S. exaggerated in order to validate a link between al-Qaeda and pre-war Iraq, and to put a non-Iraqi face on a complex insurgency.

Early one morning, with a driver who would also serve as my interpreter, I set out from my hotel in Amman for the 45 minute drive to Zarqa, industrial city where al-Zarqawi was born 10.66 into a large family, and from which he took his new name.
As we sped along the highway, I tried to recall the often contradictory descriptions I had heard of the man. U.S. officials, for example, had often reported that in 2002, al-Zarqawi had had one of his legs amputated in Baghdad, a claim presumably meant to substantiate a link between al-Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein’s regime.
But he was later seen walking in a videotape, clearly in possession of both his legs.

Some Bush administration officials called him a Jordanian-Palestinian, but in fact he came from one of the Middle East’s most influential Bedouin tribes. He was often reported dead, only to rise again. In recent years, some even suggested that he didn’t exist at all. The man was hard to distinguish from the myth.
One thing that brought me to Jordan was a desire to find out as much as possible about al-Zarqawi’s relationship with Osama bin Laden. The two men had little in common: bin Laden, like most of his inner circle, is a university graduate from an influential family; al-Zarqawi, like many who follow him, was from an anonymous family (even though they are members of a significant tribe) and an anonymous town, a man who was fired from a job as a video-store clerk and whose background included street gangs and, according to Jordanian intelligence officials, prison for sexual assault.

He was a ruthless self-promoter who, U.S. officials claim, killed or wounded thousands of people in the past 3 years in suicide bombings, mass executions, and beheadings that have been videotaped. He developed a mythic aura of invulnerability. He was not the terrorist mastermind that he was often claimed to be.

Zarqa is a shambolic industrial city of some 850,000 people, a sprawl of factories, open fields, and dust. 25 miles northeast of Amman, it is Jordan’s third-largest city, and one of its most militant. For years it has been a magnet for Islamic activists.
Along with the cities of Irbid and Salt, it has sent the largest number of Jordanian volunteers to fight abroad, first in Afghanistan and now in Iraq.
al-Zarqawi was born & raised in the al-Masoum neighborhood of Zarqa’s old city, which sprawls somewhat haphazardly into the al-Ruseifah Palestinian refugee camp. (More than 60 percent of Jordan’s 5.9 million inhabitants are Palestinian, as are some 80 percent of the inhabitants of old Zarqa.)

When we entered the al-Masoum neighborhood, the first thing that struck me was the sight of 3 “Afghan Arabs,” as the Arab veterans of the jihad in Afghanistan are called. They were easily identifiable by the shalwar kameezes they wore, long shirts and bloused trousers that are Afghanistan’s national dress, and by their long, unkempt beards.
Squatting outside a tiny neighborhood shop, they paid us little heed.

Until his death, al-Zarqawi kept a home on a quiet lane in Zarqa. It was indistinguishable from its neighbors, a two-story white stucco building surrounded by a whitewashed wall. The house was empty, a neighbor told us; al-Zarqawi’s sisters, who still live in Zarqa, would come by to look after it. At one point I glanced up at a window, which was slightly ajar. Someone abruptly slammed it shut.
I learned that the first of al-Zarqawi’s 2 wives had lived in the house until recently. She was his cousin, whom he had married when he was twenty-two. They had 4 children, two boys and two girls. But not long before my visit, al-Zarqawi had sent an unknown man to drive them across the border to be with him in Iraq.
His second wife, a Jordanian-Palestinian whom he had married in Afghanistan, and with whom he has a son, was reported to be with him in Iraq as well.

al-Zarqawi’s mother Omm Sayel, whom he adored and who had traveled to Peshawar with him when he joined the jihad, died of leukemia in 2004; although he was the most wanted man in Jordan at the time of her death, al-Zarqawi returned to Zarqa in disguise to attend her funeral.
I wandered with my driver around the al-Masoum neighborhood, visiting the al-Falah mosque, a tiny green-latticed structure where al-Zarqawi had been “returned” to Islam; searching for the cemetery that had been his favorite childhood playground (which we never found).
Talking to al-Zarqawi’s neighbors and friends, it became clear to me that although govt officials in Amman had said that al-Zarqawi’s popularity had plummeted since he had bombed the hotels there, Zarqa, at least, still appeared to be his town.

We met 3 little boys riding their bicycles down an empty lane. When we asked for directions to al-Zarqawi’s house, they told us where to go, then, with large grins on their small faces, they flashed the victory sign. An old man who ran a local grocery looked at us knowingly when we walked in. “You’re here for Zarqawi,” he said, a statement of fact rather than a question. When we responded that we were, he insisted on giving us free soft drinks and potato chips.
Everyone I spoke with readily acknowledged that as a teenager al-Zarqawi had been a bully & a thug, a bootlegger and a heavy drinker, and even, allegedly, a pimp in Zarqa’s underworld. He was disruptive, constantly involved in brawls.   [ same story as Malcolm X & Adam Clayton Powell Sr, ]

When he was fifteen (according to his police record, about which I had been briefed in Amman), he participated in a robbery of a relative’s home, during which the relative was killed. Two years later, a year shy of graduation, he had dropped out of school. Then, in 1989, at age 23, he traveled to Afghanistan.
It was the first time he had ever been out of Jordan, and for him it changed everything.

Jordanian of Palestinian descent Salah al-Hami was al-Zarqawi’s brother-in-law and one of his closest friends. We met him outside the garden of his Zarqa home. Dressed in a long blue robe, and with a red-and-white-checkered kaffiyeh hanging loosely from his head, he sported a full Islamist beard. He was polite but refused to be interviewed; after every interview he’d given, he said, he’d been arrested.
But being arrested wasn’t what bothered him most. What bothered him was that he had been misquoted repeatedly. As a journalist himself, he was fed up.

I told him that I simply wanted to verify a few dates and facts, and was interested in talking to him not about Iraq but about Afghanistan. He looked at me skeptically but agreed to chat as we stood at his garden gate.
He & al-Zarqawi had met in Afghanistan, he said, during al-Zarqawi’s first stay there, from 1989 to 1993.
al-Zarqawi was based initially in the border town of Khost, which, after both the Americans and the Soviets had left Afghanistan, was the site of intense and heavily contested battles between the mujahideen and the pro-Soviet Najibullah regime.

At the beginning, al-Hami continued, al-Zarqawi had not been a fighter but had tried his hand at being a journalist. He had worked as a reporter for a small jihadist magazine, Al-Bonian al Marsous, while al-Hami was a correspondent for Al-Jihad magazine, which the mujahideen published in Peshawar.
One day al-Hami stepped on a land mine and lost one of his legs. During al-Zarqawi’s visits to the hospital, he & al-Hami became close friends.
I didn’t ask al-Hami any personal questions, but I had been told earlier by another of al-Zarqawi’s friends that one day in the hospital, al-Hami had spoken of the impossibility of ever having a family or a wife.
“A one-legged man?” al-Hami reportedly said to al-Zarqawi. “Who would want to marry him?”
In response al-Zarqawi offered him the hand of one of his sisters, and al-Hami agreed. So did the sister.

The two were married in Peshawar, in a lavish ceremony presided over by al-Zarqawi, whose father had died when he was young. The video of the reception was the only authenticated footage of al-Zarqawi ever publicly seen until this April, when, for the first time, al-Zarqawi released a videotape of himself.
al-Hami moved to Zarqa when he returned from Afghanistan. For a number of years now he has looked after al-Zarqawi’s family, as well as his own, while his brother-in-law traveled on a path that took him to prison, back to Afghanistan, then to Iran, northern Kurdistan, and, finally, Iraq.

“If you want to understand who Zarqawi is,” a former Jordanian intelligence official had told me earlier, “you’ve got to understand the 4 major turning points in his life: his first trip to Afghanistan; then the prison years [from 1993 to 1999]; then his return to Afghanistan, when he really came into his own; and then Iraq.” He thought for a moment. “And, of course, the creativity of the Americans.”
"He was an ordinary guy, an ordinary fighter, and didn’t really distinguish himself,” Huthaifa Azzam said of al-Zarqawi’s first time in Afghanistan. “He was a quiet guy who didn’t talk much. But he was brave. Zarqawi doesn’t know the meaning of fear. He’s been wounded 5 or 6 times in Afghanistan & Iraq.
He seems to intentionally place himself in the middle of the most dangerous situations. He fought in the battles of Khost & Kardez and, in April 1992, witnessed the liberation of Kabul by the mujahideen. A lot of Arabs were great commanders during those years. Zarqawi was not. He also wasn’t very religious during that time. In fact, he’d only ‘returned’ to Islam 3 months before coming to Afghanistan.
It was the Tablighi Jamaat [a proselytizing missionary group spread across the Muslim world] who convinced him that it was time to cleanse himself. He had 37 criminal cases against him by then.”
  [ the usual motive: life in prison or cannon fodder ]

A Jordanian counterterrorism official expanded on al-Zarqawi’s time in Afghanistan for me.
“His second time in Afghanistan was far more important than the first. But the first was significant in 2 ways. Zarqawi was young & impressionable; he’d never been out of Jordan before, and now, for the first time, he was interacting with doctrinaire Islamists from across the Muslim world, most of them brought to Afghanistan by the CIA.
It was also his first exposure to al-Qaeda. He didn’t meet bin Laden, of course, but he trained in one of his and Abdullah Azzam’s camps: Sada camp near the Afghan border inside Pakistan. He trained under Abu Hafs al-Masri.”
The reference was to the nom de guerre of Mohammed Atef, an Egyptian who was bin Laden’s military chief and, until he was killed in an American air strike 11.01 in Afghanistan, no. 3 official in al-Qaeda.

Abu Muntassir Bilah Muhammad is another jihadist who spent time fighting in Afghanistan and who would later become one of the co-founders of al-Zarqawi’s first militant Islamist group.
“Zarqawi arrived in Afghanistan as a zero,” he told me, “a man with no career, just floundering about. He trained and fought and he came back to Jordan with ambitions and dreams: to carry the ideology of jihad. His first ambition was to reform Jordan, to set up an Islamist state.
There was a cachet involved in fighting in the jihad. Zarqawi returned to Jordan with newfound respect. It’s not so much what Zarqawi did in the jihad, it’s what the jihad did for him.”

With an eye to the future, al-Zarqawi also used the jihad years to begin the process of cultivating friendships that would eventually lead to the formation of an international support network for his activities.
“Particularly when he was in Khost, his primary friendships were with the Saudi fighters and others from the Gulf,” Huthaifa Azzam told me. “Some of them were millionaires. There were even a couple of billionaires.”

Perhaps as important as anything else, it was in Afghanistan that al-Zarqawi was introduced to Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi (whose real name is Isam Muhammad Tahir al-Barqawi), revered militant Salafist cleric who moved to Zarqa following mass expulsion of Palestinians from Kuwait in the aftermath of the Gulf War.
The Salafiya movement originated in Egypt, at the end of the nineteenth century, as a modernist Sunni reform movement, the aim of which was to let the Muslim world rise to the challenges posed by Western science and political thought.

Since the 1920s, it has evolved into a severely puritanical school of absolutist thought that is markedly anti-Western and based on a literal interpretation of the Koran. Today’s most radical Salafists regard any departure from their own rigid principles of Islam to be heretical; their particular hatred of Shiites, who broke with the Sunnis in 632 A.D. over the question of succession to the Prophet Muhammad, and who now constitute the majority in Iran and Iraq, is visceral.
Over the years, al-Maqdisi embraced the most extreme school of Salafism, closely akin to the puritanical Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia, and in the early 1980s he published The Creed of Abraham, the single most important source of teachings for Salafist movements around the world. al-Maqdisi would become al-Zarqawi’s ideological mentor and most profound influence.

“It’s not surprising that Zarqawi embraced Salafism,” I was told by West Point Combating Terrorism Ctr research dir. Jarret Brachman. “Jihadi Salafism is black & white; so is everything that Zarqawi’s ever done. When he met al-Maqdisi, he was drifting, trying to find an outlet, and very impressionable. His religious grounding, until then, was largely dependent upon whose influence he was under at the time. Since his father had died when he was young, he’d been seeking a father figure. al-Maqdisi served both needs.”
al-Zarqawi and al-Maqdisi left Afghanistan in 1993 and returned to Jordan. They found it much changed. In their absence the Jordanians and the Israelis had begun negotiations that would lead to the signing of a peace treaty in 1994; the Palestinians had signed the Oslo Accords of 1993; and the Iraqis had lost the Gulf War. Unemployment was up sharply, the result of a privatization drive agreed to with the International Monetary Fund, and Jordanians were frustrated and angry.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the kingdom’s only viable opposition political force, which had agreed to support King Hussein in exchange for being allowed to participate in public and parliamentary life, appeared unable to cope with the rising disaffection. Small underground Islamist groups had therefore begun to appear, composed largely of men who had fought in the Afghan jihad, and who were guided by the increasingly loud voices of militant clerics who felt the Muslim Brotherhood had been co-opted by the state.
After the two men returned home, al-Maqdisi toured the kingdom, preaching & recruiting, and al-Zarqawi sought out Abu Muntassir, who had already acquired a standing among Islamic militants in Jordan.
“We talked a lot, over a couple of days,” Abu Muntassir told me. “He was still pretty much a novice, but very willing, very able, and keen to learn about Islam. I was teaching geography at the time in a govt school, so it was easy for me to teach Islam as well. After some time, Zarqawi asked me to work with him in an Islamic group; al-Maqdisi was already on board. The idea was there, but it had no leadership and no name. First we called it al-Tawhid, then changed the name to Bayat al-Imam [Allegiance to the Imam]. We were small but enthusiastic, a dozen or so men. Our primary objective, of course, was to overthrow the monarchy and establish an Islamic govt.”

Despite their enthusiasm, al-Zarqawi, al-Maqdisi, and Abu Muntassir did not appear to be natural revolutionaries. Their first operation was in Zarqa, in 1993, a former Jordanian intelligence official told me, when al-Zarqawi dispatched one of their men to a local cinema with orders to blow it up because it was showing pornographic films. But the hapless would-be bomber apparently got so distracted by what was happening on the screen that he forgot about his bomb. It exploded and blew off his legs.
In another botched operation, al-Maqdisi (according to court testimony that he denied) gave al-Zarqawi 7 grenades he had smuggled into Jordan, and al-Zarqawi hid them in the cellar of his family’s home. Al-Maqdisi was already under surveillance by Jordan’s intelligence service by that time, because of his growing popularity. The grenades were quickly discovered, and the two men, along with a number of their followers, found themselves for the first time before a state security court.

al-Zarqawi told the court that he had found the grenades while walking down the street. The judges were not amused. They convicted him and al-Maqdisi of possessing illegal weapons and belonging to a banned organization. In 1994, al-Zarqawi was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He would flourish there.
Swaqa prison sits on the southern desert’s edge, 60 miles south of Amman, and its political prisoners, both Islamist & secular, are housed in 4 wings. al-Zarqawi embraced prison life in the extreme, as he appears to have embraced everything. According to fellow inmates of his with whom I spoke, his primary obsessions were recruiting other prisoners to his cause, building his body, and, under the tutelage of al-Maqdisi, memorizing the 6,236 verses of the Koran.

He was stern, tough, and unrelenting on anything that he considered to be an infraction of his rules, yet he was often seen in the prison courtyard crying as he read the Koran. He was fastidious about his appearance in prison; his beard and moustache were always cosmetically groomed and he wore only Afghan dress: shalwar kameez and a rolled-brim, woolen Pashtun cap.
One former inmate who served time with him told me that al-Zarqawi sauntered through the prison ward like a “peacock.” Islamists flocked to him. He attracted recruits; some joined him out of fascination, others out of curiosity, and still others out of fear.
In a short time, he had organized prison life at Swaqa like a gang leader.

“Zarqawi was the muscle, and al-Maqdisi the thinker,” journalist & editor Abdullah Abu Rumman who had been in prison with al-Zarqawi, told me one morning over tea. Abu Rumman had been held for 3 months in 1996, for a series of articles he wrote that were considered unflattering toward King Hussein.
“Zarqawi basically controlled the prison ward,” Abu Rumman went on. “He decided who would cook, who would do the laundry, who would lead the readings of the Koran. He was extremely protective of his followers, and extremely tough with prisoners outside his group. He didn’t trust them. He considered them infidels.”

There were also confrontations & altercations with prison officials & guards. Whether al-Zarqawi was ever tortured is a matter of dispute: some of his followers say he was; Jordanian govt officials, perhaps predictably, say he was not.
When Abu Rumman entered Swaqa, al-Zarqawi was in isolation following a prison brawl.
“It was quite extraordinary,” Abu Rumman said. “My first glimpse of Zarqawi was when he was released. He returned to the ward as a hero surrounded by his own bodyguards. Everyone began to shout: Allahu Akhbar! By that time Zarqawi was already called the ‘emir' or ‘prince'. He had an uncanny ability to control, almost to hypnotize; he could order his followers to do things just by moving his eyes.”

al-Zarqawi controlled not only his followers but also the ward’s television sets. No one could really watch them, however, since he had covered them with black cloth to prevent the display of female forms. All the inmates could do was listen, and only to the evening news at 8 pm.
“Zarqawi & his followers had scant interest in political affairs, except for what was happening in Algeria and Afghanistan,” Abu Rumman said. “At the pre-arranged hour, they’d all rush into the television room. When shouts of ‘Allahu Akhbar!’ reverberated through the ward, we all knew that the Taliban was meeting with success.”

al-Zarqawi & al-Maqdisi’s Bayat al-Imam continued to grow, both inside prison and in Zarqa, Irbid, and Salt. al-Zarqawi used his Bedouin credentials to good effect, as his own profile began to ascend. His Bani Hassan tribe is one of the Middle East’s most prominent, and its tribal lands spill across the borders dividing Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. In Jordan, many of its members hold high-level positions in the govt, the army, and the intelligence service.
As a result, many of the prisoners, and many of Swaqa’s guards, deferred to al-Zarqawi. al-Maqdisi, a Palestinian, was also accorded special treatment, but largely as a result of his links to al-Zarqawi & the Bani Hassan. Between mentor and pupil, the roles had subtly begun to shift inside the prison walls. As al-Zarqawi recruited, al-Maqdisi preached, and using the Internet, they broadcast their message of jihad across 3 continents.

Sheikh Abu Qatada, a Palestinian cleric who is one of Salafism’s leading ideologues, was also one of al-Maqdisi’s closest friends. The two men had been together in Kuwait, then in Zarqa, then Afghanistan. Abu Qatada, after leaving Afghanistan, had moved to London (where he is currently under arrest, awaiting possible deportation to Jordan).
al-Maqdisi’s religious tracts were smuggled out of Swaqa by prisoners’ wives & mothers, with help from sympathetic prison guards, and they were sent on to Abu Qatada, who posted them on the Web sites of Salafists & jihadists throughout Europe, MidEast & Persian Gulf.

al-Zarqawi’s own religious views became increasingly severe, as did his intolerance of anyone he believed to be an infidel. al-Maqdisi sometimes angrily disagreed with him, first portent of what lay ahead. al-Zarqawi began to eclipse his mentor in prison, and would continue to do so over coming years. Their final public break occurred11.05 when, on Al-Jazeera, al-Maqdisi criticized his former protégé for the hotel bombings in Amman.
Despite their prison disagreements, al-Maqdisi, from time to time, permitted al-Zarqawi to draft his own religious tracts. Abu Muntassir, who would also later break with al-Zarqawi, was his editor. al-Zarqawi was “a terrible writer,” he told me, “and didn’t really understand the Koran. He had learned it by rote.”
al-Zarqawi never learned to write a fatwa, Abu Muntassir said, and as a result had to set up his own fatwa committee in Iraq.

In 1998, three or four of al-Zarqawi’s tracts were posted on the Internet, after heavy editing. Soon they came to the attention of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. It was the first time he had ever heard of al-Zarqawi.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II, newly enthroned after the death of his father King Hussein, declared a general amnesty 5.99, and al-Zarqawi was released from Swaqa. He had made effective use of his time there. As he had done nearly a decade before when he befriended wealthy Saudi jihadists in Khost, he had expanded his reach and his appeal during his prison years. Among fellow inmates he converted to Salafism and brought into the Bayat al-Imam were a substantial number of prisoners from Iraq.

After returning for a few months to Zarqa, al-Zarqawi left again and traveled to Pakistan. He may or may not have known that Jordan was about to declare him a suspect in a series of foiled terrorist attacks intended for New Year’s Eve of 1999. The plan, which became known as the “Millennium Plot", involved the bombing of Christian landmarks and other tourist sites, along with the Radisson Hotel in Amman. Had it succeeded, it would have been al-Zarqawi’s first involvement in a major terrorist attack.
al-Zarqawi planned ahead before he left for Pakistan. He arrived bearing a letter of introduction from Abu Kutaiba al-Urduni, one of Jordan’s most significant leaders during the jihad in Afghanistan. Al-Urduni had been a key deputy to and chief recruiter inside Jordan for Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, Huthaifa Azzam’s father.

Having worked for years in Peshawar as the leader of the Service Office, or the Maktab al-Khidmat, the sheikh had become the pivotal figure in the Pan-Islamic recruitment of volunteers for the jihad. al-Urduni’s letter was the first endorsement that al-Zarqawi had received from such a senior figure, and the letter was addressed to Osama bin Laden.
al-Zarqawi crossed the border into Afghanistan 12.99; later that month he met bin Laden at the Govt Guest House in the southern city of Kandahar, de facto capital of the ruling Taliban. As they sat facing each other across the receiving room, a former Israeli intelligence official told me, “it was loathing at first sight.”

According to several different accounts of the meeting, bin Laden distrusted & disliked al-Zarqawi immediately. He suspected the group of Jordanian prisoners with whom al-Zarqawi was granted amnesty earlier in the year had been infiltrated by Jordanian intelligence; something similar had occurred not long before with a Jordanian jihadist cell that had come to Afghanistan.
bin Laden also disliked al-Zarqawi’s swagger and the green tattoos on his left hand, which he reportedly considered un-Islamic. al-Zarqawi came across to bin Laden as aggressively ambitious, abrasive, and overbearing. His hatred of Shiites also seemed to bin Laden to be potentially divisive, which, of course, it was.

bin Laden’s mother, to whom he remains close, is a Shiite, from the Alawites of Syria. al-Zarqawi would not recant, even in the presence of the legendary head of al-Qaeda.
“Shiites should be executed,” he reportedly declared. He also took exception to bin Laden’s providing Arab fighters to the Taliban, the fundamentalist student militia that, although now in power, was still battling the Northern Alliance, which controlled some 10 percent of Afghanistan. Muslim killing Muslim was un-Islamic, al-Zarqawi is reported to have said.

Unaccustomed to such direct criticism, the leader of al-Qaeda was aghast. Had Saif al-Adel, now bin Laden’s military chief, not intervened, history might be written very differently. A former Egyptian army colonel who had trained in special operations, al-Adel was then al-Qaeda’s chief of security and a prominent voice in an emerging debate gripping the militant Islamist world.
Who should the primary target be, the “near enemy”, Muslim world’s “un-Islamic” regimes, or the “far enemy”, primarily Israel & U.S.?
al-Zarqawi was a near-enemy advocate, and although his obsession remained the overthrow of the Jordanian monarchy, he had expanded his horizons slightly during his prison years and had now begun to focus on the area known as al-Sham, or the Levant, which includes Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and historic Palestine.

As an Egyptian who had attempted to overthrow his own country’s army-backed regime, al-Adel saw merit in al-Zarqawi’s views. Thus, after a good deal of debate within al-Qaeda, it was agreed that al-Zarqawi would be given $5,000 or so in "seed money” to set up his own training camp outside the western Afghan city of Herat, near the Iranian border. It was about as far away as he could be from bin Laden. Saif al-Adel was designated the middleman.

In early 2000, with a dozen or so followers who had arrived from Peshawar & Amman, al-Zarqawi set out for the western desert encircling Herat. His goal: to build an army that he could export to anywhere in the world. al-Adel paid monthly visits to al-Zarqawi’s training camp; later, on his Web site, he would write that he was amazed at what he saw there.
al-Zarqawi’s fighters multiplied from dozens to hundreds during the following year, and by the time the forces evacuated their camp, prior to 10.01 U.S. air strikes, the fighters & their families numbered some 2,000 to 3,000.

According to al-Adel, the wives of al-Zarqawi’s followers served lavish Levantine cuisine in the camp. In Heart, al-Zarqawi formed the militant organization Jund al-Sham, or Soldiers of the Levant. His key operational lieutenants were mainly Syrians, most of whom had fought in the Afghan jihad, and many of whom belonged to their country’s banned Muslim Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood’s exiled leadership, which is largely based in Europe, was immensely important in recruiting for the Herat camp, although whether it also supplied funds remains under debate. What is clear, however, is that al-Zarqawi’s closest aide, Syrian Sulayman Khalid Darwish or Abu al-Ghadiyah from the city of Hama, was considered to be, until his death last summer on the Iraqi-Syrian frontier, one of al-Zarqawi’s most likely successors.

I asked a high-level Jordanian intelligence official how important the Herat camp was.
“For Zarqawi, it was the turning point,” he replied. “Herat was the beginning of what he is now. He had command responsibilities for the first time; he had a battle plan. Even though he & bin Laden never got on, he was important to them. Herat was the only training camp in Afghanistan that was actively recruiting volunteers specifically from the Sham.
Zarqawi, for his part, is very conceited and likes to show off.
  [ Typical gangster; hardly pious self-effacement before God ]
In Herat, he called himself the ‘Emir of Sham’!”

At least 5 times in 2000 & 2001, bin Laden called al-Zarqawi to come to Kandahar and pay bayat, take an oath of allegiance, to him. Each time, al-Zarqawi refused. Under no circumstances did he want to become involved in the battle between Northern Alliance & Taliban.
He also did not believe that either bin Laden or the Taliban was serious enough about jihad.
When the United States launched its air war inside Afghanistan 10.7.01, al-Zarqawi joined forces with al-Qaeda & the Taliban for the first time. He and his Jund al-Sham fought in and around Herat and Kandahar. al-Zarqawi was wounded in an American air strike, not in the leg, as U.S. officials claimed for 2 years, but in the chest, when the ceiling of the building in which he was operating collapsed on him.

Neither did he join Osama bin Laden in the eastern mountains of Tora Bora, as U.S. officials have also said. bin Laden took only his most trusted fighters to Tora Bora, and al-Zarqawi was not one of them.
Accompanied by some 300 fighters from Jund al-Sham, al-Zarqawi left Afghanistan once again, and entered Iran 12.01. During the next 14 months, al-Zarqawi based himself primarily in Iran and in the autonomous area of Kurdistan, in northern Iraq, traveling from time to time to Syria and to the Ayn al-Hilwah Palestinian refugee camp in the south of Lebanon that became his main recruiting ground according to the former Jordanian intelligence official.

More often, however, al-Zarqawi traveled to the Sunni Triangle of Iraq. He expanded his network, recruited & trained new fighters, and set up bases, safe houses & military training camps. In Iran, he was reunited with Saif al-Adel, who encouraged him to go to Iraq and provided contacts there. For a time, al-Zarqawi stayed at a farm belonging to the fiercely anti-American Afghan jihad leader Gulbaddin Hekmatyar.
In Kurdistan he lived & worked with separatist militant Islamist group Ansar al-Islam, ironically in an area protected as part of the “no-fly” zone imposed on Saddam Hussein by Washington.

One can only imagine how astonished al-Zarqawi must have been when Colin Powell named him as the crucial link between al-Qaeda & Saddam Hussein’s regime. He was not even officially a part of al-Qaeda, and ever since he had left Afghanistan, his links had been not to Iraq but to Iran.
“We know Zarqawi better than he knows himself,” the high-level Jordanian intelligence official said. “And I can assure you that he never had any links to Saddam. Iran is quite a different matter. The Iranians have a policy: they want to control Iraq. And part of this policy has been to support Zarqawi, tactically but not strategically.”
“Such as?” I asked.

“In the beginning they gave him automatic weapons, uniforms, military equipt, when he was with the army of Ansar al-Islam. Now they essentially just turn a blind eye to his activities, and to those of al-Qaeda generally. The Iranians see Iraq as a fight against the Americans, and overall, they’ll get rid of Zarqawi and all of his people once the Americans are out.”
In the summer of 2003, 3 months after the American invasion, al-Zarqawi moved to the Sunni areas of Iraq. He became infamous almost at once. 8.7.03 he allegedly carried out a car-bomb attack at the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad. 8.19.03 he was linked to the U.N. headquarters bombing in which 22 people died.

8.29.03, in what was then the deadliest attack of the war, he engineered the killing of over a hundred people, incl revered cleric Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim in a car bombing outside Shia Islam’s holy shrine in Najaf.
The suicide bomber in that attack was Yassin Jarad, from Zarqa. He was al-Zarqawi’s father-in-law.
“Even then, and even more so now, Zarqawi was not the main force in the insurgency,” the former Jordanian intelligence official, who has studied al-Zarqawi for a decade, told me. “To establish himself, he carried out the Muhammad Hakim operation, and the attack against the UN. Both of them gained a lot of support for him with the tribes, with Saddam’s army and other remnants of his regime. They made Zarqawi the symbol of the resistance in Iraq, but not the leader. And he never has been.”

He continued, “The Americans have been patently stupid in all of this. They’ve blown Zarqawi so out of proportion that, of course, his prestige has grown. As a result, sleeper cells from all over Europe are coming to join him now.” He paused for a moment, then said, “U.S. govt is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Western & Israeli diplomats to whom I spoke shared this view. Washington Post reported April 2006 on Pentagon documents that detailed a U.S. military propaganda campaign to inflate al-Zarqawi’s importance. Then, the following month, the military appeared to attempt to reverse field and portray al-Zarqawi as an incompetent who could not even handle a gun. But by then his image in the Muslim world was set.

No one did more to cultivate that image than al-Zarqawi himself. He committed some of the deadliest attacks in Iraq, though they still represent only some 10 percent of the country’s total number of attacks. In May 2004, he inaugurated his notorious wave of hostage beheadings; he also specialized in suicide & truck bombings of Shiite shrines & mosques, largely in Shiite neighborhoods. His primary aim was to provoke civil war.
“If we succeed in dragging [the Shia] into a sectarian war,” he purportedly wrote in a letter intercepted by U.S. forces and released 2.04, “this will awaken the sleepy Sunnis who are fearful of destruction and death at the hands of the Shia.” The authenticity of the letter came into question almost immediately.

al-Zarqawi courted chaos so that Iraq would provide him another failed state to operate in after the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan. He became best known for his videotaped beheadings. One after the other they appeared on jihadist Web sites, always the same. In the background was the trademark black banner of al-Zarqawi’s newest group: al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad, or Monotheism and Jihad. In the foreground, a blindfolded hostage, kneeling and pleading for his life, was dressed in an orange jumpsuit resembling those worn by the detainees at Guantánamo Bay. al-Zarqawi’s first victim was a Pennsylvania engineer named Nicholas Berg. In the video, 5 hooded men, dressed in black, stand behind Berg. After a recitation, one of the men pulls a long knife from his shirt, steps forward, and slices off Berg’s head. U.S. military quickly announced that the executioner was al-Zarqawi himself, and although no one doubts that he planned the operation, questions soon arose: the figure seems taller than al-Zarqawi, and he uses his right hand to wield the knife. al-Zarqawi was said to be left-handed. Regardless of his growing notoriety in Iraq, al-Zarqawi never lost sight of his ultimate goal: the overthrow of the Jordanian monarchy. His efforts to foment unrest in Jordan incl 2002 assassination of the U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley, and, on a far larger scale, disrupted plot in 2004 to bomb Jordanian intelligence services headquarters, a scheme that, according to Jordanian officials, would have entailed the use of trucks packed with enough chemicals and explosives to kill some 80,000 people. Once it was uncovered, al-Zarqawi immediately accepted responsibility for the plot, although he denied that chemical weapons would have been involved. Oct. 2004, after resisting for nearly 5 years, al-Zarqawi finally paid bayat to Osama bin Laden, but only after 8 months of often stormy negotiations. After doing so he proclaimed himself to be the “Emir of al-Qaeda’s Operations in the Land of Mesopotamia,” a title that subordinated him to bin Laden but at the same time placed him firmly on the global stage. One explanation for this coming together of these two former antagonists was simple: al-Zarqawi profited from the al-Qaeda franchise, and bin Laden needed a presence in Iraq. Another explanation is more complex: bin Laden laid claim to al-Zarqawi in the hopes of forestalling his emergence as the single most important terrorist figure in the world, and al-Zarqawi accepted bin Laden’s endorsement to augment his credibility and to strengthen his grip on the Iraqi tribes. Both explanations are true. It was a pragmatic alliance, but tenuous from the start. “From the beginning, Zarqawi has wanted to be independent, and he will continue to be,” Al-Quds Ctr for Political Studies dir. Oraib Rantawi, in Amman, said to me. “Yes, he’s gained stature through this alliance, but he only swore bayat after all this time because of growing pressure from Iraqis who were members of al-Qaeda. Even then he signed with conditions that he would maintain control over Jund al-Sham & al-Tawhid, and that he would exert operational autonomy. His suicide bombings of the hotels in Amman” in which 60 some civilians died, many while attending a wedding celebration, “was a huge tactical mistake. My understanding is that bin Laden was furious about it.” The attacks, which represented an expansion of al- Zarqawi’s sophistication and reach, also showed his growing independence from the al-Qaeda chief. They came only 13 months after he had sworn bayat. The alliance had already begun to fray. The signs were visible as early as the summer of 2005. In a letter purportedly sent to al-Zarqawi in July from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian surgeon who is bin Laden’s designated heir, al-Zarqawi was chided about his tactics in Iraq. it was released by the office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence Though some experts have cast doubt on the letter’s authenticity, few would dispute its message : al-Zarqawi’s hostage beheadings, his mass slaughter of Shiites, and his assaults on their mosques were all having a negative effect on Muslim opinion, both of him and, by extension, of al-Qaeda around the world. ] In one admonition, al-Zawahiri allegedly advised al-Zarqawi that a captive can be killed as easily by a bullet as by a knife. During my time in Jordan, I asked a number of officials what they considered to be the most curious aspect of the relationship between the U.S. & al-Zarqawi, other than the fact that the Bush administration had inflated him. One of them said, “The six times you could have killed Zarqawi, and you didn’t.” When Powell addressed the U.N., he discussed the Ansar al-Islam camp near Khurmal, in northern Kurdistan, which he claimed was producing ricin and where al-Zarqawi was then based. On at least 3 occasions, between mid-2002 and the invasion of Iraq the following March, the Pentagon presented plans to the White House to destroy the Khurmal camp, according to a report published by 10.04 Wall St Journal. The White House either declined or simply ignored the request. More recently, three times during the past year, the Jordanian intelligence service, which has a close liaison relationship with the CIA, provided the U.S. with information on al-Zarqawi’s whereabouts, first in Mosul, then in Ramadi. Each time, the Americans arrived too late. After I returned from Jordan, in mid-March, what had appeared to be a growing challenge to al-Zarqawi from local Sunni insurgent groups, which had reportedly expelled hundreds of his fighters from the troubled western province of al-Anbar alone, seemed to have been put aside. Upsurge in Sunni-Shiite killings, as result of 2.06 bombing of Samarra’s Askariya Shrine (one of Shia Islam’s holiest sites), had led, at least for the moment, to a newfound unity between al-Zarqawi and the Sunni insurgency. Then, in early April, Huthaifa Azzam announced that the “Iraqi resistance’s high command” had stripped al-Zarqawi of his political role and relegated him to military operations. It was the second time that al-Zarqawi’s profile had seemingly been lowered, or that he had lowered it, this year. The first had come in Jan. 2006, when it was announced that al-Qaeda in Iraq had joined 5 other Sunni insurgent groups to form a coalition called the Mujahideen Shura Council. By early May, U.S. counterterrorism analysts were still puzzling over what the two events meant and what changes they could portend. As they debated, al-Zarqawi sprang to life again, in a video posted on the Internet on 4.24.06. It was the first time he had appeared in a jihadist videotape, and the first time he had shown his face. Dressed in black fatigues & black cap, he had ammunition pouches strapped across his chest. He appeared fit, if overweight, as he posed in the desert firing an automatic weapon and as he sat with a group of masked aides, apparently plotting strategy. It seemed an extremely risky thing for him to do, and yet it also appeared to be very deliberate. It was a useful tool for recruitment, intending to show al-Zarqawi as both a flamboyant fighter and a pensive strategist. More important than anything else, however, it was meant to show the world that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, brash young man who had come of age in the rough-and-tumble of Zarqa, remained relevant. Before leaving Amman, 3 months before al-Zarqawi’s death, I had asked the high-level Jordanian intelligence official with whom I met whether al-Zarqawi, in his view, was a potential challenger to Osama bin Laden. “Not at all,” he replied. “Zarqawi had the ambition to become what he has, but whatever happens, even if he becomes the most popular figure in Iraq, he can never go against the symbolism that bin Laden represents. If Zarqawi is captured or killed tomorrow, the Iraqi insurgency will go on. There is no such thing as ‘Zarqawism.’ What Zarqawi is will die with him. bin Laden, on the other hand, is an ideological thinker. He created the concept of al-Qaeda and all of its offshoots. He feels he’s achieved his goal.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Osama bin Laden is like Karl Marx. Both created an ideology. Marxism still flourished well after Marx’s death. Whether bin Laden is killed, or simply dies of natural causes, al-Qaedaism will survive him.”

Al-Qaida in Iraq names new leader 6.12.06   Nadia Abou El-Magd, Jasper Mortimer AP Cairo, Egypt   al-Qaida in Iraq named a successor Monday to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and said he would stick to the slain leader's path, attacks on Shiites as well as on U.S. and Iraqi forces. The new leader, identified by the nom de guerre Abu Hamza al-Muhajer in a statement posted on the Web, appeared to be a foreign Arab, like his predecessor. But otherwise he is an unknown. The name has not appeared in previous al-Qaida in Iraq propaganda or on U.S. lists of terrorists with rewards on their heads, suggesting he is a lower-level figure or someone more prominent who has taken a new pseudonym. The lack of detail appeared to reflect a new emphasis on secrecy by the group. U.S. forces have launched a series of raids against al-Qaida in Iraq based on intelligence found in the safehouse where al-Zarqawi was killed by an American airstrike Wednesday. The group may fear infiltration or that al-Zarqawi's public stance led to his downfall. "Al-Qaida in Iraq's council has agreed on Sheik Abu Hamza al-Muhajer to be the successor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the leadership of the organization," the group said. The authenticity of the statement could not be independently confirmed. It was posted on an Islamic militant Web forum where al-Qaida in Iraq often posts messages. The posting said al-Muhajer was "a beloved brother with jihadi (holy war) experience and a strong footing in knowledge. We ask Almighty God to strengthen him that he may accomplish what Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, God have mercy on his soul, began," it said. That could mean he will continue the strategy the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi followed: a campaign of brutal attacks on Shiite civilians, aimed at sparking a Sunni-Shiite civil war. The attacks sparked tensions between al-Zarqawi's group and some Iraqi insurgents who felt the bloodshed hurt the image of their resistance against U.S. forces. They wanted to focus attacks on American and Iraqi troops. Iraqi insurgents loyal to Saddam Hussein made a rare public acknowledgment of disputes with al-Zarqawi in a condolence letter posted on the same Web site. "Although there were many matters we differed with him on and him with us, … what united us was something greater," said the statement by the Fedayeen Saddam. It said the group had "the honor" of fighting alongside al-Zarqawi and that "our determination is only increased for waging jihad." al-Zarqawi's death raised speculation the group might turn to an Iraqi leader to smooth over the differences with Iraqis. al-Zarqawi's deputy is an Iraqi known as Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi. U.S. military told AP Monday he was not a man identified as "Abdul-Rahman" who was killed with al-Zarqawi. The U.S. military had predicted a militant named Abu Ayyub al-Masri would become al-Qaida in Iraq's leader. Al-Masri, an Egyptian associate of al-Zarqawi, has a $50,000 reward on his head. Rohan Gunaratna, a terror expert at Singapore's Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, said the choice of a non-Iraqi means the group is "likely to continue the foreign operations." al-Zarqawi had sought to expand his campaign beyond Iraq, including a triple suicide bombing against hotels in Jordan last November that killed 60 people. Al-Zarqawi also had links to al-Qaida's branch in Saudi Arabia, which in a statement Monday thanked him for helping its fight against the kingdom's rulers. "We will not forget his favors to jihad and the mujahedeen in the prophet's peninsula," the group said. The name al-Muhajer, Arabic for "immigrant," suggested the new leader was not Iraqi. The name is often used by foreign Arab militants, referring to the "muhajereen," Islam's early converts who fled persecution in Mecca to join the Prophet Muhammad in Medina. Militants usually adopt a pseudonym made up of a nickname called a "kunya" in Arabic, "Abu," meaning "father of," plus a name that sometimes refers to an actual child of the militant. The second part of the pseudonym is usually an adjective denoting the militant's nationality. al-Zarqawi was born Ahmad Fadhil Nazzal al-Khalayleh, but took a pseudonym from Zarqa, his hometown in Jordan. He had a child named Musab, so took the kunya of "Abu Musab." The secrecy surrounding the new leader could hurt the group's ability to carry out attacks, said Egyptian analyst Diaa Rashwan. Al-Zarqawi built a reputation as a holy warrior, helping draw foreign militants to carry out suicide bombings. "al-Zarqawi's charisma was very important factor for many to join his organization," Rashwan said. "All al-Zarqawi had was car bombs and people ready to blow themselves up." "My feeling is that they are going to have establish a persona for him," said New York based terror consultant and founder of globalterroralert.com Evan Kohlmann. "They're going to have to introduce this fellow to the world." U.S. identifies al-Zarqawi's successor 6.15.06   Kim Gamel AP Baghdad, Iraq   The U.S. military said Thursday the man claiming to be the new al-Qaida in Bottom of Form Iraq leader succeeding Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian with ties to Osama bin Laden's deputy. U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said al-Masri apparently is the same person that the terrorist group identified in a Web posting last week as its new leader, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, a nom de guerre. al-Muhajer, Arabic for "immigrant," claimed to have succeeded al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a June 7 U.S. airstrike, and vowed to avenge him in a threatening Web statement Tuesday. The military showed a picture of al-Masri, who was named in a most-wanted list issued 2.05 by U.S. command and has a $50,000 bounty on his head, wearing a traditional white Arab headdress. "We think they are one in the same at this point. We'll continue to do further analysis," Caldwell said. The Afghanistan-trained explosives expert is a key figure in the al-Qaida in Iraq network with responsibility for facilitating the movement of foreign fighters from Syria into Baghdad, Caldwell said. He has been a terrorist since 1982, "beginning with his involvement in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad," which was led by bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, Caldwell said. Caldwell, citing recently declassified intelligence, said the military believes al-Masri first went to Afghanistan in 1999 to receive training and give Islamic lectures to other militants. al-Masri became an explosives expert there specializing in building roadside bombs, skills he used in Fallujah and Baghdad, according to the spokesman. Caldwell said al-Masri "originally began to work with Zarqawi in Fallujah and then later became, we think, basically the emir of southern Iraq for al-Qaida in Iraq." The spokesman added that raids in April and May in southern Baghdad recovered material confirming his high-level involvement in the facilitation of foreign fighters. "al-Masri's intimate knowledge of al-Qaida in Iraq and his close relationship with (al-Zarqawi's) operations will undoubtedly help facilitate and enable them to regain some momentum if, in fact, he is the one that assumes the leadership role," Caldwell said. He said, however, that al-Masri's ability to exert leadership over al-Qaida cells remained unclear and there were other "al-Qaida senior leadership members and Sunni terrorists" who might try to take over the operations. Caldwell singled out Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi, who in the past had been identified as al-Qaida in Iraq's deputy leader in statements by the group, and Abdullah bin Rashid al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Mujahedeen Shura Council, 5 allied groups in the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency. Al-Masri issued a Web statement on Tuesday, vowing to avenge al-Zarqawi's death and threatening horrific attacks "in the coming days. Don't be overcome with joy about killing our sheik Abu Musab (al-Zarqawi), God bless his soul, because he has left lions behind him". President Bush, who made a surprise visit to Iraq on Tuesday, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have said the new terrorist leader would join the ranks of those sought by the U.S. "I think the successor to Zarqawi is going to be on our list to bring to justice," Bush said

feyadeen Saboteurs undermining efforts in Iraq, U.S. says   5.15.03   Mark Fineman L.A. Times Baghdad   Attacking American soldiers to sabotaging Iraq's power grid, well-armed remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime are waging a campaign stalling U.S. reconstruction and undermining popular support for its presence in Iraq, sr U.S. civilian & military officials here say. "There are still regime elements out there that are actively, aggressively seeking to impede, discredit or disrupt coalition operations," U.S. ground forces in Iraq commander Army Lt. Gen. David McKiernan said Wed. "They destroy infrastructure repairs made by the coalition & the Iraqis." So effective is the campaign that McKiernan signaled that it may prolong the U.S. military presence here. "They are committed to a long fight that will complicate the mission of the coalition," he said. "We will stay until a secure environment is achieved." Although McKiernan gave no specifics on the campaign, sr U.S. advisors & mid-level military commanders in recent days have likened it to guerrilla warfare and said the nation's power grid is a key battleground. Restoring electricity to Iraq is crucial to U.S. efforts to win the peace. Iraqi & American engineers are working alongside contractors from San Francisco-based Bechtel Group to repair the grid, but officials say they have been plagued by sabotage, attacks and thefts by hard-line members of Hussein's Baath Party. In the last 2 weeks, officials said, saboteurs have shot out key insulators & power lines using AK-47s & rocket-propelled grenades, looted critical parts from power plants & relay stations, stolen more than 40 cars from the national Electricity Commission, carjacked one of its commissioners at gunpoint and staged night looting raids on construction sites for 26 new transmission towers needed to restore the backbone of Iraq's power grid. The lack of full electrical service is the single-biggest cause of delays in the effort to rebuild the oil-rich country and win the public's confidence, say U.S. officials & a broad sampling of Iraqis. Hours-long blackouts have encouraged a crime wave that is plaguing the capital. The crippled grid also is to blame for the maddening, mile- long lines to buy gasoline. Most of the nation's power plants run on fuel oil or diesel, which are byproducts of making gasoline. The oil refineries can produce only limited quantities of gasoline now because their pipelines & storage tanks are full and there's nowhere to put fuel oil & diesel that is being made but not used. "They want to keep the chaos going. It's a way to leverage and retake power," said U.S. Agency for Intl Development official in charge of Iraq's power sector Jim Lanier, in blaming Baathist saboteurs for delaying repairs. "Their strategy is, 'Let's keep the coalition crippled.' They know what they're doing." McKiernan said it isn't clear whether the resistance is centrally organized but that it includes "Baathist hard-liners, perhaps [secret police], perhaps Fedayeen." The Fedayeen Saddam was a black-uniformed militia loyal to Hussein. "It's like an insurgency," said Col. David Perkins, who commands the U.S. Army brigade that took Baghdad more than a month ago and has been trying to hunt down the regime's remnants. "The process of de-Baathification of the members of the party who want this [reconstruction] to fail is one of the most critical things we can do, It's a huge task, validating who's who. We're trying to stand back up a country. We're trying to build goodwill with a country we just invaded & killed a lot of their people." Perkins & other commanders have teamed up with Iraqis who worked within the former regime to track down not only the 55 ex-officials on U.S.' most-wanted "black list" but also more than 3,000 others on a "gray list." 2 Iraqis who have helped capture some of the most-wanted independently told The Times that members of Hussein's intelligence agencies & other Baathists are regrouping and staging attacks, from armed robberies & rapes to the raids on the power system. Scores of Iraqis interviewed in Baghdad in the last 2 weeks say intelligence agents; party leaders who terrorized them for years remain in their houses and move about the city, heavily armed, with impunity.

U.S. forces arrest 260 in Iraq raid 5.16.03   David Rising AP   abridged Ad-Dawr, Iraq   Heavily armed U.S. Army forces stormed into a village near the northern city of Tikrit before dawn Thursday, seizing more than 260 prisoners, incl one man on the most-wanted list of former Iraqi officials. U.S. troops encountered no resistance during the 5 hour sweep, officers said. About 230 of those detained were being released later in the day, the military said. … Silverman said no one shot at U.S. forces during the maneuver. Among the 200 people taken into custody were some teenage boys and elderly men. Each was zip-cuffed, hands tied w/ plastic, and ordered to sit or kneel on the roads outside their homes. Many were kept in custody outside a large mansion with high walls. 18 Bradley fighting vehicles, 12 Howitzers and 35 armored Humvees secured the area as forces moved in. 6 boats patrolled the nearby Tigris River during the maneuver, and Apache helicopters hovered. 17 bricks of plastic explosive were seized from one house, military officials said, and one man was apprehended in a sniper's perch toting an AK-47 assault rifle. A large stack of brand-new Iraqi currency was found at another house, the military said. At another, a soldier emerged carrying a camouflage military uniform top. 2 explosions were heard after the raid from an area close to the village. Military officials said they believed they were mortar rounds but the blasts caused no damage. "It went a lot smoother than we thought," said Lt. Col. Mark Woemper. Patrols had been discreetly combing the streets of the village to gather intelligence, while a drone surveillance aircraft has been providing up-to-date photographs and real-time video of the area for 2 days. Silverman said the raids should make clear to people in areas around Tikrit what they should do. "If they don't want their lives disrupted, they can just tell us where the bad guys are," he said. "Because it's our job to find them, one way or another." In other developments:   In Umm Qasr, British forces formally turned over control of the port city to a civilian government, the first such handover since the war ended. … Also Thursday, new U.S. civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer held his first news conference, saying American forces are working hard to improve security and promising to fight remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime. He said 300 criminals have been arrested around the country this week.   U.S. forces on the Tigris River north of Tikrit fired a warning flare at a boat after it was seen being loaded early Thursday with cases of unidentified materials. The Americans said they came under fire from the boat and fired back, killing everyone on the vessel.   In Mosul, a group of looters fired on 101st Airborne Assault Div. early 5.15.03, U.S. military officials said. Soldiers returned fire, in accordance with the rules of engagement, wounding one of the looters; 4 others escaped, it said. The soldiers sustained no casualties. The shooting came a day after military officials, who had been criticized about the continued lawlessness in Iraq, denied issuing a shoot-on-sight policy against looters.   Late 5.14.03, a V Corps soldier was grazed by a gunshot after responding to gunfire at a Mosul bus station, the military said. The gunman, who also wounded 2 Iraqi civilians, fled, military officials said. The soldier was able to return to duty.   U.S. ground forces commander Lt. Gen. David McKiernan said 5.15.03 coalition forces would begin arresting people possessing or selling firearms. He said the new administrators of Iraq will soon decree a set of laws aimed at re-establishing law & order throughout the nation. Tens of thousands of firearms, ranging from pistols and revolvers to Kalashnikov assault rifles, were distributed by Saddam's government to close supporters in the runup to the war. Many people purchased guns as the war approached, and thousands more guns were looted from abandoned armories in the aftermath of the regime's collapse.

Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who has led the overall Iraq war effort, has outlawed the Baath Party, and sr U.S. civilian advisors shepherding in a new govt are requiring candidates for key jobs to resign from the party and renounce it. Educated middle-class Iraqis say purging the Baathists is essential to America's image.

"We thought that when the Americans came, all of the Baathists would be arrested," said Baghdad's Secondary School for Girls teacher Sajda Nasser. "They are hateful people and they are still among us, terrorizing our neighborhoods & streets. The other day, I saw the Baathists stealing weapons from the National Security College. We are all still afraid."

Although McKiernan characterized the threat from Baathist holdouts as the most serious law enforcement issue facing coalition forces, he acknowledged that basic street crime also is a major problem. The U.S. intends to have 4,000 military police patrolling the city with Iraqi police by 61.03, he said. In the meantime, lawlessness has kept out many U.S. contractors USAID hired to do about $1 billion in civilian reconstruction work. The agency's contracts require "a permissive environment" before the agency will let them into the country, and areas such as Baghdad remain largely off-limits. The result is a vicious cycle of instability. "It's not going to get any more permissive than it is now until we get some of those projects up & running," Perkins said. USAID has waived the "permissive environment" requirement for such urgent work as recreating the power grid. Bechtel, which won a contract worth at least $680 million to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure to prewar levels, sent a small team of engineers to Baghdad 8 days ago to join the effort. Working under a separate grants program, the development agency also has committed more than $10 million to small emergency reconstruction projects nationwide, largely using Iraqi contractors. A small agency team launched a garbage collection & sewer-repair project Wednesday in the Baghdad slum formerly known as Saddam City. It is paying Iraqi companies to make repairs to looted & fire-gutted ministry buildings. It rushed supplies to a dam in Mosul to keep it from shutting down and risking a breach. "Basically, it's a Band-Aid," said Fritz Weden, who is running the team from a room in the former Hussein palace that now houses the Pentagon agency set up to rebuild Iraq. "It's all about the provision of basic needs & services," he said. "If the Iraqi people don't feel like these are being restored in a timely fashion, they're going to be that much more restless." Baghdad's most basic need at the moment is electricity. The capital is subject to blackouts and is getting only about half the power it had before the war. "We have always considered U.S. a superpower capable of anything and we expected them to get the power back on right away," said local orphanagedir. Aneeba Jabar. "But it's been more than a month now, and still we're in darkness most of the night." Retired Texas utilities engineer Lanier said it wasn't clear that coalition military action was to blame for knocking out the country's power grid. "Towers were damaged, destroyed or collapsed during the war," he said. "There was no targeting by the coalition, but whether it was collateral damage or sabotage, we just don't know." Baghdad was without power when Perkins' 3rd Infantry Div. 2nd Brigade captured Hussein's main palaces & other seats of power April 2003. Army engineers working with Iraqi Electricity Commission technicians restored partial power to the city within days. Army Corps of Engineers assessment teams fanned out across the country and identified the key towers & relay stations that had to be repaired to restore the national grid. British engineers in Basra repaired the nation's southern grid in a matter of weeks. Last weekend, the city had 24- hour-a-day electricity for the first time in 12 years, after an era under U.N. sanctions during which the regime took power from the south to ensure round-the-clock electricity in the capital. But because the national grid remains down, none of Basra's power can be shared with Baghdad until 26 critical transmission towers scattered throughout the country, part of a nationwide network of 6,000, are restored. Army Corps of Engineers civilian Peter Gibson serving as sr U.S. advisor to Iraq's Electricity Commission, described strategic theft & vandalism as "one of our most serious problems. The Iraqis & our contractors are afraid of leaving their equipt out there for fear it will be looted," he said. "We've lost 40 cars in the last 2 weeks. We've had people shot. It's all coordinated & designed to slow us down. Some of it is little stuff; people will lasso a transformer on a pole and pull it down just to get the copper out of it and sell it. But the worst of it is organized & targeted." Gibson & Lanier said they hoped to restore full power to the capital in 2 weeks. "By 61.03, we should have the system tied back together," Gibson said, "depending on the vandalism." McKiernan said at Wed. news conference at Baghdad's convention center that the coalition is importing more than 1.5 million gallons of gasoline to Baghdad to at least ease the fuel shortages. As he answered a question about the long lines of motorists waiting to buy gasoline, the power failed in the center and everything went black Soldier faces Kuwait attack court-martial 7.16.03   AP Ft Campbell KY   A soldier charged in the grenade attack that killed 2 officers from 101st Airborne Div. in Kuwait will face a court-martial, the military announced Wednesday. Sgt. Hasan Akbar, 32, is charged with 2 counts of premeditated murder and 3 counts of attempted murder and could face the death penalty if convicted. 101st Airborne Div. commanding general Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, followed the recommendation made by an investigating officer 6.20.03 at the completion of an Article 32 hearing, which is akin to a civilian grand jury session. In his statement, released by the Ft Campbell public affairs office, Petraeus said the case is being transferred to Fort Bragg, NC, because the 101st continues be busy with operations in Iraq. Soldiers killed 3.23.03 were Army Capt. Christopher Scott Seifert, 27, of Easton, Pa., and Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone, 40, of Boise, Idaho. It's the first time since the Vietnam War that a U.S. Army soldier has been prosecuted for the murder or attempted murder of another soldier during a period of war, the Army said. At the Article 32 hearing at Ft Knox, investigators said a leg injury suffered by Akbar linked him to the attack scene, as did a fingerprint on a generator outside one of the 3 tents attacked. Prosecuting atty Capt. Harper Cook said Akbar stole 7 grenades from a Humvee he was guarding, then walked to the brigade operations area an hour later to attack the officers. "He selected the weapons, he pulled the pins, he threw the grenades and he shot Maj. (Kenneth) Romaine with his rifle," Cook said. His attack plan "was well-thought out and executed with military precision," Cook said. Romaine was wounded in both hands & his left thigh. Akbar's atty Lt. Col. Victor Hansen, argued that no eyewitnesses placed the soldier at the scene, and that other soldiers were too quick to assume, as soon as it was reported that Akbar was missing, that he committed the crime because he is Muslim. "The Muslim portion is important," Hansen said. He added, "that's the theory they ran with." He pointed out that 2 soldiers testified they told investigators that Akbar was not the man they saw shoot Seifert. One witness said he saw a second shot fired that he thought came from a second shooter. Hansen said the probe was tainted when brigade commander Col. Ben Hodges told the arriving investigator that a soldier had confessed to the crime because he said American soldiers were going to rape & kill Muslims in Iraq. Marine admits tampering with parachute 8.6.03   Estes Thompson AP Camp Lejeune NC   A Marine charged with cutting the lines of parachutes that were to be used in a training jump pleaded guilty Wednesday to assault & reckless endangerment. Lance Cpl. Antoine D. Boykins, 21, of Baltimore pleaded guilty to 9 counts of reckless endangerment, 4 counts of aggravated assault and one count of destruction of govt property. Judge Col. Alvin Keller told Boykins he could face 31 years in prison, forfeiture of pay, reduction of rank and dishonorable discharge. The hearing was continuing Wednesday morning. The plea deal was approved last month by the commanding general of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, but kept confidential until the hearing. A court-martial scheduled last month was canceled. Boykins originally was charged with 13 counts of attempted premeditated murder, 13 counts of reckless endangerment, 13 counts of aggravated assault and other crimes. Charges against another Marine, Lance Cpl. Julian C. Ramirez, 25, of Los Angeles, were dismissed in April. A third Marine, Cpl. Clayton A. Chaffin, 28, an air delivery specialist from Franklin, Ohio, is charged with 31 counts, including reckless endangerment, aggravated assault, conspiracy and drug charges, the base announced Wednesday. He was in custody at the base. Air delivery specialists jump from aircraft with cargo. 3 Marines were injured 9.21.02 when their parachutes failed to open when they jumped from about 1,250 ft. Their reserve chutes deployed safely. Other jumps for that day's exercise were canceled, and investigators later found that 13 of the 22 parachutes had been sabotaged. At a March 2003 hearing, a military prosecutor said Boykins & Ramirez cut parachute suspension lines because they had been disciplined and were angry with their platoon commander. The charges against Ramirez were dismissed the following month after his attorneys argued that no forensic evidence linked Ramirez to the crime. 4 troops accused of stabbing unit member 11.12.03   AP Columbus GA   4 soldiers at Ft Benning have been arrested, accused of stabbing to death a member of their infantry unit, setting the body on fire and leaving it in the woods just days after their return from Iraq. Police said the soldiers had gotten mad at Spc. Richard R. Davis for insulting a dancer at a strip club and getting them kicked out of the place. Davis, 24, of St. Charles MO, was stabbed repeatedly in July. His skeletal remains were found Friday, nearly 4 months after he was reported missing. Ft Benning investigators had received a tip to search the woods near the Army post. 3 of the soldiers, Jacob Burgoyne, Mario Naverrete and Douglas Woodcoff, were arrested Friday and charged with murder. A judge on Monday reduced the charges against them to concealing a body, though prosecutors said they will press for murder charges. The fourth suspect, Alberto Martinez, is awaiting extradition from California on murder charges. Police said it was Martinez who stabbed Davis while he fought with Burgoyne & Naverrete. All of the suspects are 24. All 5 soldiers belonged to same company and had returned to Ft Benning from Iraq just days before the slaying. Their unit is part of the Army's 3rd Infantry Div., which led the assault on Baghdad. Ft Benning could not immediately provide the suspects' ranks, but Woodcoff's lawyer said he is a private. "They were upset with Mr. Davis for getting them thrown out of the club,'' Columbus Detective Andrew Tyner testified at a hearing Monday. Tynder said the soldiers began arguing after leaving the strip club, and a fistfight broke out in the woods. After Davis was killed, the soldiers drove to a convenience store and bought lighter fluid, and at least 2 of the men set the body on fire, police said. The 3 soldiers under arrest in Georgia remained jailed Wednesday on $25,000 bail. Mark Shelnutt, Woodcoff's lawyer, succeeded Monday in getting a judge to reduce the charges against the 3. Police testified that Woodcuff did not take part in the fight with Davis, but did nothing to stop it. Lanny Davis, the victim's father, said the military listed his son as AWOL for months after he was reported missing 7.14.03. "He survived Iraq, and then he goes out to party with people he probably trusted," he said. "The very next day, he came up missing." Davis served in Bosnia & Kuwait and then re-enlisted. The last time his parents saw him was November 2002, when he headed back to MidEast and eventually to Iraq.

3 held over Iraq bombing, Russia backs UN force 8.30.03   Reuters Najaf, Iraq   U.S. forces said Saturday 3 people had been detained over a bombing that killed a top Iraqi cleric and scores of followers … No group has claimed responsibility for Friday's attack. Washington has blamed daily, often deadly raids on its troops & other targets mainly on Saddam Hussein loyalists, but has made increasing mention of al Qaeda & other foreign fighters. The car bombing triggered widespread intl condemnation, … Since Bush declared major combat over 5.1.03, 65 U.S. & 11 British soldiers have been killed by hostile fire and the U.S.-led administration in Baghdad has been plagued by sabotage to the country's protentially lucrative oil industry. Hospital officials said at least 95 people were killed in the car bombing in the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Najaf, most deadly attack in postwar Iraq and one that underscored the huge task U.S.-led forces face in trying to bring about peace. The slain cleric was Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, moderate Shi'ite Muslim religious & political leader who advocated cautious cooperation with the U.S.-led administration. Most Shi'ites blamed Saddam supporters for the attack, but some analysts have suggested rival Shi'ite factions opposed to Hakim's moderate stance could be to blame. Shi'ites make up around 60% of Iraq's 26 million population and were repressed under Sunni Muslim Saddam. After Friday's bombing, Najaf residents turned over to U.S. troops 2 people they believed looked like outsiders, U.S. Lt Col Chris Woodbridge told Reuters. "They are now being held by the coalition and have undergone questioning," said Woodbridge, adding Iraqi police had detained a suspect who would be handed over to U.S. forces. No other details were available on the detainees. Iraq's U.S.-led occupiers have had to deal lately with more sophisticated & larger attacks. Huge bomb attacks hit UN HQ in Baghdad and the Jordanian embassy earlier this month, killing scores of people. Like in Najaf, vehicles packed with explosives were used. Security experts have said in the past that these are a hallmark of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Tens of thousands of Shi'ites thronged Najaf Saturday to mourn those killed after Friday prayers at the city's Imam Ali mosque, one of holiest sites in Shi'ite Islam. In Baghdad, thousands marched to lament the death of Hakim. The marchers warned of dire consequences if their leaders or shrines were attacked again. "We were giving everyone a chance after the war. But we have lost our patience," shouted one man. Fellow marchers suggested revenge options, jihad (holy struggle), shootings, bombings. Hakim led the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq group, represented on the Iraqi Governing Council that Washington appointed as a first step toward achieving its goal of transforming Iraq into a democracy. The Governing Council, which includes Hakim's brother, declared 3 days of national mourning after the attack in Najaf, some 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad. Weeping relatives gathered to collect the bodies of loved ones from the mortuary and carried coffins wrapped in black shrouds with verses from the Koran through the streets. "This is the greatest crime ever against the Muslims in this holiest place," said Sheikh Ali Jabbar, a cleric at the Imam Ali mosque, as women dressed in black slapped their heads in grief. The mosque contains the tomb of Ali, son-in-law & cousin of Prophet Mohammed, founder of Islam. Thousands of shoes lay around the mosque, left behind by worshippers and scattered in all directions by the bomb. One cleric said Hakim's funeral would begin in Baghdad on Sunday morning and later move on to Najaf. Dubai- based Al Arabiya television said Hakim's body had arrived in Baghdad. 19 arrested in bombing of mosque in Iraq 8.30.03   AP Najaf, Iraq   Police arrested 19 men, many foreigners and all with admitted links to al-Qaida, in car bombing of Imam Ali shrine in the holy Shiite city of Najaf, sr Iraqi investigator told AP. 2 Iraqis & 2 Saudis grabbed shortly after the Friday attack gave information leading to the arrest of the others, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. They include 2 Kuwaitis & 6 Palestinians with Jordanian passports with the remainder Iraqis & Saudis, the official said, without giving a breakdown. Initial information shows the foreigners entered Iraq from Kuwait, Syria and Jordan, the official said, adding that they belong to the Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam. "They are all connected to al-Qaida," the official said. Wahhabism is the strict, fundamentalist branch of Sunni Islam from which al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden draws spiritual direction. Based in Saudi Arabia, its followers show little tolerance for non-Wahhabi Sunnis & Shiites. While backing the formation of an Islamic state in Iraq, al-Hakim had also urged unity among hostile Shiite factions and tolerance of the American-led coalition. "Our leader al-Hakim is gone. We want the blood of the killers of al-Hakim," a crowd of 4,000 men chanted, beating their chests. Tens of thousands of worshippers filled the shrine and the surrounding streets of Najaf, 110 miles southwest of Baghdad, for a funeral service for victims. Residents carried coffins on the tops of cars and backs of trucks. Police pointed to similarities between the mosque bombing and 2 recent attacks. The bomb at the Imam Ali shrine was made from the same type of materials used in 8.19.03 truck bombing U.N. Baghdad HQ, which killed 23 people, and 8.7.03 Jordanian Embassy vehicle bombing which killed 19, the Iraqi official said. U.S. officials have not confirmed any details of the arrests, which would substantiate Bush admin claims that bin Laden's followers have taken their Islamic militant war against the West to Iraq, where U.S. forces are struggling to maintain security. American authorities have not taken an active public role in the mosque investigation because of Iraqi sensitivity to any U.S. presence at the Najaf shrine, the most-sacred Shiite shrine in Iraq and third holiest in the world after Mecca & Medina. Hospital officials said 85 people died in the shrine bombing, including leading Shiite Muslim cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim. Earlier tolls were reduced after some deaths were found to have been reported twice.There was to be a service for al-Hakim in Baghdad early Sunday; his remains were to be buried Tuesday in Najaf, his birthplace and seat of the powerful al-Hakim family. Authorities said they have only found al-Hakim's hand, watch, wedding band and a pen. In response to the bombing, a highly respected Shiite cleric suspended his membership in the U.S.-chosen Iraqi interim Governing Council, citing a lack of security. Mohammed Bahr al-Uloum, in exile in London until Saddam's ouster, said Saturday that his return to the council depended on the U.S.-led coalition's handing security matters to Iraqis, so that Muslim shrines could be under Islamic protection. "This act has pushed me to postpone my membership in the governing council because it can't do anything concerning the security situation," he said. The men arrested claimed the recent bombings were designed to "keep Iraq in a state of chaos so that police & American forces are unable to focus" on the country's porous borders, which foreign fighters are said to be crossing, the Iraqi official said. The Najaf police official, who led initial investigation & interrogation of the captives, said the prisoners described plots to assassinate political & religious leaders and to damage vital installations such as power plants, water supplies and oil pipelines. In the latest sabotage, an explosion & fire Saturday struck the pipeline carrying oil from Iraq's northern Kirkuk fields to Turkey. The blaze further delayed resumption of the vital link which costs Iraqis an estimated $7 million each day it is out of operation. The blast was the fourth to hit the line since it briefly reopened earlier this month. In the shrine attack, 1,550 pounds of explosives were planted in 2 cars for the Imam Ali mosque attack, the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite broadcaster reported, quoting the Najaf governor. The U.N. bomb was about 1,000 pounds. FBI said the U.N. bomb was built from ordnance left over from Saddam's regime, most of it made in the Soviet Union. Many explosives were wired together, incl a 500 lb Soviet-era bomb, the agency said. The shrine investigation was being handled entirely by Iraqi police in Najaf, but the FBI would assist if asked, coalition spokesman Charles Heatley told reporters. "It's clearly in our interests that those responsible be brought to justice," he said. He said the coalition had sent $200,000 to Iraqi authorities in Najaf as a disaster relief fund and had earmarked $2 million for reconstruction in the city. The coalition rejects claims it is not providing adequate security in Iraq, Heatley said. The fundamentalist Wahhabists have a history of antagonism against Shiites and their ornate centers of worship, such as the Imam Ali shrine, with its gold dome and lavish blue mosaics. Based on the strict teachings of 18th century Saudi cleric Muhammad bin Abdel-Wahhab, Wahhabism was banned by Saddam. Now, scholars of Islam say the Wahhabis may be trying to cast themselves as protectors of the Sunnis, the minority that had ruled over the majority Shiites in Iraq. The string of attacks appear aimed at those who cooperate with U.S. The Jordanians have among the best ties with Washington of all Arab govts and have shown sympathy for the U.S.-picked interim Iraqi Governing Council. The UN was seen as a key to postwar reconstruction; its bombing caused many aid organizations to remove staff or whittle operations in a blow to improving daily life. Shiites leaders, while openly resentful of the American occupation, had recommended patience, if not cooperation with the coalition. The Shiites stood to benefit greatly under U.S. plans for rebuilding after decades of oppression under Saddam. The Najaf bombing set off a wave of criticism among Shiites for the U.S. inability to provide security nearly 4 months after President Bush declared major fighting. U.S. officials believe militants from Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran are entering Iraq to attack Western interests. Bush said earlier this month that more foreign "al-Qaida-type fighters" have moved in. FBI to join investigation of Iraq bombing 8.31.03   Sameer N. Yacoub & D'Arcy Doran AP Najaf, Iraq   Vowing revenge & beating their chests, more than 300,000 Shiites marched 8.31.03 behind the rose-strewn coffin of beloved cleric assassinated in a car bombing. The FBI said it would join the investigation into the Najaf bombing, which killed 125 people. Iraqi police said the bomb that exploded after noon prayers Friday at the vast Imam Ali mosque contained the equivalent of 1,650 pounds of TNT. In Washington, FBI spokesman John Iannarelli said the bureau will join the investigation in Najaf. He said the bureau will provide forensic analysis of the evidence and said it was still working out what other assistance the FBI, which has agents assigned to the region, would provide. Call for FBI to join investigation represented a shift after U.S. authorities took a hands-off approach out of deference to the sacredness of the mosque. … With a 110 mile march from Baghdad to the holy city of Najaf, Shiites honored Ayatollah al-Hakim. A 3 day mourning period began early Sunday with services at the al-Kadhimiya shrine in the capital. Marchers followed a flatbed truck carrying a symbolic coffin: Authorities said they found only the cleric's hand, watch, wedding band and pen in the wreckage of the enormous blast. Halfway along the route, at Karbala, second-holiest Shiite city after Najaf, 3,000 mourners gathered at a shrine to await the procession. They prayed, beating drums and flagellated themselves with chains as the ayatollah's coffin and the huge procession neared. His funeral is planned for Tuesday in Najaf, his birthplace. "Our revenge will be severe on the killers," read one of the many banners carried by mourners. Red & white roses were laid on the coffin and a large portrait of al-Hakim placed in front of it. U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority said Najaf Governor Haider Mehadi asked the FBI to join Iraqi police in the investigation, and that the American investigators would be traveling to Najaf shortly. FBI agents are leading the investigations into both 8.7.03 bombing of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad and attack on the U.N. headquarters 12 days later. … In Najaf, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines spokesman Maj. Rick Hall said the death toll now stood at 125 with 142 wounded, some seriously. He also said the Marine transfer of the south-central territory around Najaf to an intl force led by Poland, set for this week, had been put on hold. "We now want to stay here and assist as much as possible," Hall said. … Hall denied reports that the Marines would patrol around the mosque, citing Islamic sensitivities to having non-Muslims in or around the country's holiest Shiite shrine. He said U.S. forces had offered Marine patrols of the area to the interim Governing Council in Baghdad and religious leaders in Najaf. An answer was expected in the next day or two, he said. … A Saudi Foreign Ministry official, speaking Sunday on condition of anonymity, rejected reports that Saudi citizens were involved. "Saudi govt would like these sources to reveal the information they have and present it to the Saudi govt instead of making statements without any proof," the official told govt operated Saudi Press Agency.Hall said American forces had no access to those in Iraqi police custody, but said he had heard numbers ranging from 9 to 19. Police said there were similarities between the mosque bombing and recent attacks at the Jordanian Embassy & UN Baghdad HQ. Iraqi police said the bomb at the Imam Ali Shrine was made from the same type of materials used in the previous bomb attacks. The bombing in Najaf added urgency to U.S. plans to create a 7,500-strong Iraqi militia that would eventually take over civil defense duties in the country's cities. U.S. Central Command head Gen. John Abizaid announced 7.21.03 plans to create the new militia, called the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. A day before the bombing, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said mobilizing Iraqi militia, rather than bringing in more U.S. or coalition troops to Iraq, was the key to stabilizing the security situation in the country. A key figure in U.S. picked Governing Council wrote in a Wash.Post op-ed column Sunday that U.S. needed to include Iraqis in their own security. "America must reach out to its friends and allies in Iraq to share the burden of defeating Saddam once and for all," wrote Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi. "You have the firepower & mobility, we have the local knowledge & intelligence. Only if we work as true partners will we achieve the victory that is so vital to both our countries," he wrote. 4 bombing suspects released   U.S. forces cite a lack of evidence in the Najaf attack. No foreigners have been arrested.   9.9.03   P.J.McDonnell, R.Salman, S.Mohammed L.A. Times Najaf, Iraq   U.S. led occupation forces in this holy city have released 4 of 7 suspects arrested in the car bombing here last month that killed more than 100 people, and they have yet to find any direct evidence linking the blast to Al Qaeda or other foreign terrorist groups, officials said Monday. The 4 were released because of a lack of proof against them, said Lt. Col. Chris Woodbridge, who heads USMC battalion occupying Najaf. They were turned over to Iraqi police, Woodbridge said, but U.S. authorities are convinced they were not involved in the attack. The 3 suspects still held by U.S. forces remain in custody while authorities check inconsistencies in their statements, but they too may eventually be cleared, Woodbridge said. All 7 detainees appear to be Iraqis, despite initial reports that several foreigners were detained. "I'm not claiming by any stretch of the imagination that we've got the bombers," said Woodbridge, who commands 1st Battalion 7th Marine Regiment, based in Twentynine Palms, CA. Within a day of 8.29.03 bombing in Najaf, U.S. authorities in Baghdad told reporters that at least 4 of the suspected plotters were believed to have ties with the Al Qaeda terrorist network. The bombing killed a leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr Hakim. Bush admin said foreign terrorists entered Iraq to cause havoc. President Bush declared in a speech to the nation Sunday that Iraq had become the "central front" in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism. Early reports after the bombing said that as many as 19 suspects had been detained by Iraqi police, but U.S. officials now say that number appears to be inflated. At one point, Najaf police said 2 Saudis had been arrested. Another suspect was described as a Jordanian but turned out to be an Iraqi with business dealings in the neighboring Arab nation, Woodbridge said. Other reports circulating in Najaf pointed the finger at practitioners of the Wahhabi strain of Sunni Islam, fundamentalist faction now widely identified with Osama bin Laden. "Within one hour of the bombing, we heard it was the Iranians, it was the Wahhabis, it was Al Qaeda," Woodbridge said. "It was Saddam, we had 3 sightings of Saddam. Saddam in a white car, a black truck." Authorities now say those assertions linking the bombing to al Qaeda or foreigners appear to have been premature. "This bombing in Najaf could have been done by any number of groups, or even by people who just want to cause trouble and don't want stability in Iraq," chief FBI investigator in Baghdad Thomas Fuentes said Monday. The Najaf bombing has fed a sense of insecurity among Shiites. Since the attack, armed militiamen associated with rival Shiite groups have taken to the streets to fill a perceived void. On Monday, the Marines said they had ordered the groups off the streets by Friday, setting up a possible confrontation between U.S. forces & the gunmen. The FBI has been investigating the Najaf attack and 2 Baghdad bombings at the UN compound 8.19.03 and at Jordanian Embassy 8.7.03. But investigators have been unable to link the 3 attacks, Fuentes said. Both UN & Najaf bombings involved Soviet-era military ordnance, artillery shells & grenades, that was once part of the Iraqi army inventory but now is widely available in Iraq. The FBI official noted the Najaf & U.N. bombings had many differences: distinct wiring was used; the UN bomb was much larger; and the UN bombing is believed to have been a suicide attack, whereas the Najaf bomb is thought to have been set off by remote control. In Najaf, the FBI has examined evidence gathered at the scene and interrogated suspects in U.S. custody, Woodbridge said. However, officials say the blast scene was largely contaminated after the bombing, as thousands of stunned residents rushed to the site, many climbing over wrecked vehicles and standing in the bomb crater. There was no forensic isolation of the scene, as is common in U.S. crimes. In fact, Fuentes said, investigators gathered considerable evidence from shopkeepers and others who guarded pieces of shrapnel from the blast. Najaf is the spiritual capital of Iraq's Shiite Muslims, who make up about two- thirds of the country's population. Long repressed by the regime of Saddam Hussein, most Shiites initially welcomed U.S. troops as liberators. But many now complain about a lack of services & security. Hakim, who returned to Iraq after more than 2 decades in exile in Iran, was considered a moderate inclined to work with U.S. forces. Speculation about who may have sought to kill him includes Hussein loyalists or intl terrorists trying to create havoc in Iraq, rival Shiite groups jealous of Hakim's standing, and Iranians upset at his moderate stance toward U.S. But authorities stress that all these theories remain speculative. Meanwhile, Marines said a new, 400-member unit of the Najaf police will begin patrolling shrines in the city Friday, and they called on gunmen from Shiite groups to be off the streets by then. Most have agreed to leave their weapons behind, the Marines said. But armed followers of Muqtader Sadr, ¹ ª ² ³ î   a firebrand young cleric who has condemned the U.S.-led occupation, say they have no intention of disarming. Instead, they appear to be stepping up recruitment. The looming confrontation is potentially the most direct challenge yet by militant Shiites to the occupation. On Monday, the war of words escalated between U.S. occupying forces and Sadr, who often rouses crowds at Friday prayers with rounds of anti-U.S. chants and exhortations to join his Al Mahdi army, named after a prophet who, Shiites believe, will return one day to herald the arrival of a just world. Sadr has said his militia will not be armed, but gunmen linked to Sadr were manning roadblocks Friday in Kufa, the nearby city where Sadr delivers his sermons. The gunmen left after they were confronted by Marines, the U.S. military said. "We do not authorize or sanction armed militias in the city," Woodbridge said. "Those folks will be off the streets by Friday with their weapons." As an interim effort to bolster security, some political parties here had been allowed to post guards at the gold-domed shrine of Imam Ali, site of last month's bombing. But all have been told to leave by Friday, Woodbridge said. Anyone who violates the order will be subject to having his weapons confiscated and may face arrest, the military said.U.S. officials scoff at the notion that Sadr has a proper militia beyond his armed bodyguards. "His rhetoric is consistently extremist, consistently anti-American and consistently ignored by the residents of this city," Woodbridge said. Still, Sadr, son of a famed ayatollah assassinated in 1999, apparently by the Hussein regime, indisputably has a following. Several members of the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council recently came to Najaf and met with him & Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, foremost Shiite cleric in Iraq, Woodbridge said. What they discussed could not be determined. Little is known about Sadr's putative army, though few doubt his ability to galvanize thousands of angry young men. During Friday's prayers, Sadr urged members of his militia to listen to senior clerics before taking up "defense" positions. Sadr told reporters here Monday that he had no intention of giving up his army, though its purpose remained unclear.

At least 17 U.S. troops in Iraq have committed suicide   11.23.03   Randall Richard AP ¹ … Since April, the military says, at least 17 Americans, 15 Army soldiers and 2 Marines, have taken their own lives in Iraq. The true number is almost certainly higher. At least 24 non-combat deaths, some of them possible suicides, are under investigation according to an AP review of Army casualty reports. No one in the military is saying for the record that the suicide rate among forces in Iraq is alarming. Top American military commander in Iraq Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez was concerned enough, according to the Army Surgeon General's office, to have ordered a 12-person mental health assessment team to Iraq. Army spokesman Martha Rudd said that by the Army's calculations, its suicide rate in Iraq is roughly 12 per 100,000, well below the civilian suicide rate for U.S. men of 17.5 suicides per 100,000. But the comparison is misleading. The civilian rate is an annual figure, and the Iraq figure covers only about 7 months. Troops have not yet spent their first holiday season in Iraq, when the risk of suicide is traditionally highest. The troops include thousands of women, who typically have a lower suicide rate than men. The Army figure does not include possible suicides among the non-combat deaths yet to be explained. Whatever the 12-month suicide figure turns out to be, the Army is not satisfied that it is low enough. The Army has an extensive suicide prevention program, with soldiers "all the way down the chain" of command trained to recognize the warning signs of suicide and how best to intervene, Rudd said. "Zero suicides is our goal," she said. "We may not get there, but we're going to try." In all, 422 U.S. troops have died in Iraq. The military has characterized 129 of the deaths as "non-hostile," incl 105 since President Bush officially declared major hostilities over 5.1.03. Most if not all the confirmed suicides occurred after May 1, according to the military. According to an AP analysis of military reports, non-combat deaths include 13 caused by a weapons discharge, 2 from drowning, one from breathing difficulties and one described only as "medical." An additional 13 are listed with no cause given. … But the more she sobs, the clearer it becomes that Joseph D. Suell, posthumously promoted to sergeant, was in crisis the day he died, so desperate to come home that he even asked his wife to talk to his commanding officer. She did. She told him, she said, how life was so hard without her husband, how going to nursing school and working at Wal-Mart and trying to raise 3 children, all at the same time, was too much for her to bear alone. She told him how her husband had no sooner finished serving a year and half in Korea than he was sent to Iraq, that in 5 years as a soldier she had been with him less than 18 months. She told his commanding officer that their youngest daughter didn't even know her father, that he was away the day she was born, and that all her husband really wanted was to be at home with his family in Lufkin, TX for Christmas. Just a month or two, she begged, and then you can have him back. His commanding officer, she said, told her that the Army was doing everything it could to get him back to her but that he couldn't promise it would happen in time for Christmas. The Army will not talk about Suell's death, nor does it publish, out of concern for the families, the names of soldiers who have killed themselves in Iraq. But Rudd, the Army spokesman, said it is not unusual for family members to question whether a loved one's death was a suicide. It is for that reason, she said, that it often takes months to complete an investigation into a soldiers death. … In many respects, Joseph Suell does not fit the profile of a soldier who commits suicide. Typically, mental health experts said, such suicides are triggered by a "Dear John" message from home. Even among civilians, one of the common triggers "is a rupture of a relationship," said Columbia Univ. psychiatrist and former DoD consultant David Shaffer. But there are always deeper reasons, usually far murkier and far more complex, experts said. Like the wars they fight, no 2 soldiers who commit suicide face the same mix of potentially deadly stress. "In most previous conflicts you went, you fought, you came home," Rudd said. "In this one they went, they fought, they're still there." Rudd said she knows of no studies that show a definitive correlation between length of deployment and military suicide rates. Psychiatrist who studies deployment-related stress for the Navy Michelle Kelley said the longer the deployment, the greater the strain on a relationship with a loved one. The military, she said, needs to be especially watchful for anxiety & depression among its troops in the weeks ahead. For civilian & soldier alike, the Christmas season and depression go hand in hand, Kelley said. But for a soldier, she added, a weapon is always at hand. Soldiers, she said, must be encouraged to seek help when they need it. For that reason, she expressed concern about the case of Pfc. Georg-Andreas Pogany. The soldier, assigned to a Green Beret interrogation team, began throwing up after seeing the severed body of an Iraqi civilian 3 days after being deployed to Iraq. After seeking help for a self-described anxiety attack, he was ordered back to U.S. and became the first soldier since Vietnam charged with cowardice, charge later reduced to dereliction of duty. That, Kelley said, is "the last thing you want to do" if you want soldiers to seek help in times of stress … You need to make it clear to those people who have witnessed something traumatic that they need to talk about it, that they won't be stigmatized for doing so and that it's not going to follow them through their military career." Columbia Univ. psychiatrist Shaffer said it is not that simple. A commanding officer's decision to file a cowardice charge might, in some circumstances, even be a morale boost for the soldiers under his command, he said. Shaffer warned against drawing any conclusions based on the number of suicides in Iraq. Suicide rates vary greatly over time, he said, and also vary with race, ethnicity, religion and other factors. African Americans, for example, have a lower suicide rate than the general U.S. population. So do those who describe themselves as deeply religious. Drug use, alcoholism and a low education level, on the other hand, are correlated with higher suicide rates. A comparison of the suicide rate among troops in Iraq with troops in other wars such as Vietnam are meaningless, he said, because the makeup of the fighting forces were so different. (According to the Army, there are no reliable statistics on the suicide rate during the Vietnam War.) Shaffer said there is also some evidence that those who serve in the Army for a long time have a higher suicide rate than civilians. This is probably because "some longstanding servicemen do develop alcohol problems over time, and alcohol use is very strongly related to suicide," he said. Rudd, the Army spokesman, also adds something else to the mix: "Technology today allows people to connect with the home front much more quickly & intimately and often than in previous conflicts," she said. That's not necessarily a good thing if the news from home is bad. Young people can be impulsive, she said, "and Dear John letters and things like that can be very upsetting to a young soldier." For Rebecca Suell, who so badly wanted her husband back, there are still only questions. Why, she demands to know, her voice rising in anger, did the Army send her husband to Iraq after he had mangled his arm in Korea? After they discovered that his asthma was getting worse? She has taken her 4-year-old daughter, Jada, to the cemetery, she said. "I've told her, 'That's where your daddy lives now, right next to your grandfather. And that's where we will all live someday, next to the people we love most.' But she doesn't understand." …

Iran   links &

Baghdad   The U.S. military on Wednesday renewed its accusations that Iran is providing arms, training and other unspecified "support" to Shiite and Sunni Muslim factions in this country's ongoing civil war. Meanwhile, violence in Baghdad continued today with the bombing of a bridge that resulted in at least 10 deaths, authorities said.
Police said a truck loaded with explosives blew up on the Sarafiya bridge shortly after 7 a.m., severing the middle portion of the iron-frame structure. Witnesses said at least 5 cars tumbled into the Tigris River, and a search began for additional victims. The bridge, one of 10 that span the river as it winds through the capital, was built 70 years ago.

The accusations against Iran were leveled by top-ranking spokesman Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV at his weekly news briefing, and were based on recent raids that he said uncovered weapons bearing Iranian markings and dates that suggested they were delivered after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The charges could fuel U.S.-Iranian tensions already inflamed by the Islamic Republic's announcement this week that it has begun manufacturing "industrial" quantities of atomic fuel in violation of a United Nations resolution.

Last week, the Iranians ended a nearly 2 week standoff with Britain by releasing 15 British sailors and marines they had seized in a disputed area of the Persian Gulf.
Caldwell's assertions came as hopes faded for a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement in the aftermath of an Iraqi security conference that drew 17 delegations to Baghdad in March. U.S., Iranian and Iraqi representatives sat down in a rare effort to try to iron out their differences. Observers described the meeting as cordial but tense.

Previous charges that Iranian leaders were providing arms and training to Iraqi militants were denied by Tehran. U.S. critics of President Bush said those charges were part of a campaign to pave the way for an invasion, much as allegations that Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction preceded the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
But 2 academics who have criticized Bush policy say Iran, a predominantly Shiite nation, probably is hedging its bets with aid to various militant factions in Iraq.

"The goal of the Iranians is to be the dominant player in Iraq after the Americans have gone. By getting us out, and with enough ties to people who will be in power, they are guaranteeing their role," said University of Vermont Middle East studies dir. Gregory Gause.
Brookings Institution sr fellow Michael O'Hanlon in Wash. D.C. said he doubted that the Bush administration was repeating charges of Iranian interference to justify another invasion.
"As much as I tend to criticize the Bush administration, the claim that they are preparing for another invasion doesn't begin to hold water to a strategist. We don't have the forces. We don't have the rationale," O'Hanlon said.

In mid-February, Bush and Maj. Gen. Caldwell both distanced themselves from assertions made that month by unnamed U.S. officials that Iranian govt leaders had ordered the aid to militant groups. Bush instead blamed elements of the Iranian armed forces.
On Wednesday, Caldwell said Shiite militiamen had received training this month at undisclosed locations in Iran. Asked whether Iranian govt had conducted the training, Caldwell responded that "Iranian intelligence surrogates" had been responsible.

Caldwell and ordnance specialist Maj. Martin Weber also showed reporters a cache of a dozen mortar rounds, rockets and rocket-propelled grenades found in Baghdad on Monday. Their design and markings indicated they were manufactured either in Iran or China, and were painted over with Iranian stenciling, the officials said. They added that the weapons were similar to those used by Hezbollah, an Iranian-sponsored Islamic militant organization in Lebanon.
The cache, which was seized based on a citizen tip, also bore the years 2005 and 2006, referring to when they were made, Weber said. If those dates are accurate, they indicate that the arms could not have been part of weapons stockpiled before Hussein's overthrow in April 2003.

The arms were part of what Caldwell said was a 50% increase in the number of weapons seizures since February, to an average of 36 per week. He attributed the rise to improved military-citizen cooperation since U.S. and Iraqi forces began implementing a Baghdad security plan that month that includes more troop presence in neighborhoods.
Caldwell said Iran was helping both sides in the sectarian conflict. "We have found cases where Iranian intelligence services are giving Sunni insurgents some support," he said, declining to elaborate.

The U.S. had asserted that Iran was helping Iraqi Shiite militias with arms training, notably in the assembly of lethal explosive devices that can penetrate heavily armored tanks. Syria is also providing aid to the insurgency, Caldwell said.
Two of 14 insurgents detained over the weekend in a Baghdad sweep said during interrogation that they had received training in Syria, he said. Moreover, he added, the government in Damascus has been allowing 40 to 60 insurgents a month to cross into Iraq.

"Death and violence are bad enough without outside interference," Caldwell said.
The charges were made as the U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in Baghdad was about to enter its third month. The U.S. is deploying an additional 21,500 troops to Baghdad and other areas as part of the plan to quell sectarian violence. Caldwell said the results so far had been mixed at best, with violence in the capital down but the number of deaths rising elsewhere.
Statistics indicate that the surge in troops has done little to stem suicide bombings and civilian deaths. Instead, it has pushed them outside Baghdad. Caldwell said that more concrete results wouldn't be measured until the final deployment of troops by the end of May.

Two-thirds of all casualties in Iraq last month were civilians, whereas 14% were coalition forces and 19% Iraqi security forces, Caldwell said. The U.S. military on Wednesday reported the deaths of 2 more soldiers, victims of attacks in Baghdad on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The fatalities brought the U.S. military death toll to 3,294 since the war began 4 years ago, according to icasualties.org a website that tracks military and civilian casualties. In addition, the bodies of 16 Iraqi civilians were found in the Baghdad area, all thought to be the victims of sectarian death squads.
Meanwhile, police reported the assassination of the projects director of the Ministry of Electricity, Abdul Abas Hashim, who was slain along with his driver early Wednesday. The official had received threats before.

Admiration   Army specialist serving in Iraq calls it an important film 'everyone should see' 6.26.04   Diane De La Paz News Tribune Tacoma WA   For U.S. Army Spc. Edward Cruz, 23, it's been midnight in America for too long now. Cruz, a soldier on leave between deployments to Iraq, stood outside Tacoma's Grand Cinema early Friday morning, weeping. He was among the first screeners at the theater's 12:01 a.m. premiere of "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore's blistering indictment of President GWBush and the war in Iraq. After a moment of being unable to speak, Cruz, from Bremerton, sought to explain the transformation he's had. That transformation happened before Cruz saw "Fahrenheit." But the film, which he watched with fellow Spc. Andre Roberge, 21, did much to affirm both men's viewpoints about the war. "We shouldn't be over there," Cruz said. "But we can't leave now. We're stuck." Cruz, his girlfriend and Roberge had gone to see "Super Size Me" Thursday night, and on a spur of the moment decided to stay for "Fahrenheit." Cruz said he's on 3 week leave, so he can relax before he is sent back to Iraq. He's already served one tour of duty there. Cruz said he hopes Americans will turn their attention to what he considers clear-eyed views of the conflict. "Fahrenheit," with its footage of bloody corpses, devastated American and Iraqi mothers and a president Moore portrays as almost cavalier about sending troops into combat, is to Cruz one of the most important pictures ever made. "I think everyone should see this," he said. Cruz & Roberge said they joined the Army in hopes of earning a living, and not of becoming "heroes" by dying on a far-off battlefield. For them, the movie's footage of Flint MI families whose sons joined because they had few other options rang true. "I needed a job," said Cruz. Roberge also welcomed an Army recruiter's overtures, he said, because "I didn't want to be supported by my parents, and I wanted to get through college. There was no way I could have done that" without the kind of financial aid the military offered. Roberge's father was a military man, and Roberge went in with a positive view of an Army career. "The experiences I've had in the military have made me grow as a person," Roberge said. "It's not all negative." Yet he feels "a sense of hopelessness" about the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. He and Cruz say they feel trapped in a war they fear will descend into deeper tragedy for Americans and Iraqis. "It's apparent that this isn't necessary," Cruz said of the war. "It's apparent that there's no reason to keep sending people over there." He no longer believes the argument that the United States and its allies are in Iraq to "liberate" the people. The theater was nearly full for the midnight screening at the Grand. Scenes of President Bush golfing or looking bewildered got big laughs, but the room went silent as the movie turned to footage of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, maimed Baghdad children and a mother whose son was killed in Iraq. Many times, audience members exclaimed, "Oh, my God," or held their hands up to their faces as if assaulted by a cold wind. The guffaws, sighs and tears led to loud applause when the credits rolled. But not Rodney Grimes, 28, of Tacoma. "I'm sure I probably won't sleep tonight," he said, adding that he had to be at work in four hours. "I don't care. After seeing all that truth, my body will be running on that for a while." Grimes said he can't predict the film's effect, if any, on the November election. "The country's getting polarized," he said. "It's going to be really ugly."

Iran tries to resolve dispute with cleric 4.15.04   AP Baghdad, Iraq   An Iranian envoy headed to Najaf on Thursday to try to resolve the U.S. standoff with a radical Shiite cleric, an intervention by a nation Washington has tried to keep out of Iraqi affairs and a sign of the eagerness to avert a U.S. attack on the holy city. Hours after the announcement, gunmen killed a high-ranking diplomat from the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad. It was unclear whether the killing was linked to the mediation effort. Iranian Embassy first secretary Khalil Naimi was shot in the head in his car near the embassy, Foreign Ministry official Mohammad Nouri told AP in Tehran. Also Thursday, the military acknowledged it wants to boost its strength in Iraq, though it was unclear whether that meant requesting more troops. Top U.S. generals in MidEast & Iraq Gen. John Abizaid & Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez "decided they want more capability given the current security situation here in Iraq," said Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Gen. Richard B. Myers. Myers said the need to defend supply lines for U.S. forces was "part of the calculations" by Abizaid & Sanchez in making their request. Iraqi militants executed an Italian security guard who was taken hostage, first captive known to have been killed among dozens of foreigners kidnapped during in a surge of violence this month. 3 Japanese civilians seized a week ago and threatened with death if Tokyo didn't withdraw its troops from Iraq were released. Japanese PM Koizumi has stood firm in not backing down from his commitment to the U.S.-led coalition. Wave of kidnappings has sent a chill through the foreign community, incl aid workers, journalists, and private contractors. Many chose to leave the country. Kidnappers' identity, apparently a variety of small groups, has been unclear. A sr U.S. official said the military & coalition did not know who they were but suspected former intelligence officials from Saddam Hussein's regime or foreign militants. In the besieged city of Fallujah, U.S. warplanes struck guerrillas early Thursday, the latest in nightly fighting that has strained a 4 day truce called to allow Iraqi negotiators to try to end the violence. In houses around the city, Marines & insurgents have been digging in, preparing for the possible complete collapse of the cease-fire. Insurgents were launching increasingly sophisticated attacks on Marine positions at night, USMC commanders said. A soldier was killed Wednesday in an attack in the central city of Samarra, the military said. Another soldier earlier reported as killed in Mosul actually died of a heart attack, the military said. At least 88 U.S. soldiers have been killed in April 2004, making it the deadliest month for Americans in Iraq. More than 900 Iraqis also have been killed, the most since Saddam's fall. To try to keep the political process moving, a top U.N. envoy proposed that an Iraqi caretaker govt take power when U.S. officials hand over sovereignty 6.30.04. Lakhdar Ibrahimi's plan would dump the current Governing Council and set up an executive of highly respected Iraqis, including a prime minister, president and 2 vice presidents. The plan, for the first time, would give the UN a role in picking the new govt, in contrast to the entirely U.S.-picked Governing Council, which many Iraqis dismiss as lackeys of Washington. The executive would be chosen by the UN, Governing Council, coalition and a select group of Iraqi judges, according to the U.N. spokesman's NYC office. Party or ethnic affiliation would not be a factor in the choice, a distinct difference from the current council, carefully proportioned on ethnic lines. Washington has tried to keep the political process almost solely between it and the Iraqis, but sharp differences over how to move forward forced it to give UN a prominent role. Now, this month's violence was giving an entry to Iran. An Iranian delegation, headed by sr Iranian Foreign Ministry official Hussein Sedeqi, met Wednesday with current president of the Iraqi Governing Council Massoud Barzani.The talks were "positive" and the Iranians expressed their willingness to mediate the U.S. dispute with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said council member Mahmoud Othman. The Iranians headed to Najaf on Thursday, an al-Sadr aide said. Some 2,500 U.S. troops are massed outside Najaf, vowing to capture al-Sadr, located at his office next to the city's Imam Ali Shrine, holiest Shiite site in the world. A U.S. assault into the city could enflame Iraq's Shiite majority and push them closer to al-Sadr, whose militia launched a bloody uprising last week against coalition forces across the south. It would also fan anti-American sentiment in Shiite communities around the world, including mostly Shiite Iran. Iranian-U.S. relations over Iraq have been complex. Iran has great influence in mostly Shiite southern Iraq and has an interest in the success of the U.S.-led political process, which would likely produce a friendly Shiite-led govt. Tehran endorsed the U.S.-picked Governing Council, which has some close Iranian allies among its members, and has not tried to stir up Iraqi Shiites against the U.S.-led occupation. President Bush has denounced Iran as part of an "axis of evil", and U.S. officials frequently accuse Iran of allowing infiltrators into Iraq. Tehran & Washington have been holding behind-the-scenes communication on how to restore order in Iraq, Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said Wednesday, though he said they have been "going nowhere." Iraq's top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani persuaded al-Sadr to drop defiant demands he had put forward to Iraqi politicians mediating the standoff. Among other things, al-Sadr demanded U.S. troops withdraw from all Iraqi cities. Al-Sadr militiamen in Najaf appeared to be preparing for a fight, moving into buildings and onto rooftops on the outskirts, said Col. Dana J.H. Pittard, head of the 2,500 U.S. troops amassed outside the city, ready to move in against al-Sadr. On Tuesday night, insurgents launched near simultaneous attacks on several positions of a company of U.S. Marines controlling a few blocks in the northeast of Fallujah. In a 5 hour battle, one of two armored vehicles sent to resupply a front-line position got lost in an ambush and ended up inside the southern part of city. The vehicle, with 20 U.S. Marines inside, came under an even larger ambush. At least 100 gunmen opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades, hitting it at least 10 times, knocking out its communications and its engine. "They've been preparing for this the whole time. … We definitely stumbled into the wasp nest,'' said Capt. Jason Smith. At least 20 insurgents were killed in the battle, Marines said. In other violence: Around midnight, gunmen attacked the house of Iraqi Electricity Minister Ayham al-Samarie, sparking a gun battle with his guards. There were no casualties. A car bomb exploded near a U.S. patrol outside Baqouba, and witnessed reported U.S. casualties. There was no comment from the military.

U.S. uses lethal aircraft to try to break Sadr 8.19.04   Reuters Najaf, Iraq   U.S. military pounded positions held by radical clerical Moqtada al-Sadr's lightly armed militiamen early Friday, unleashing one of its most terrifying aircraft in a bid to break their will to fight. The unmistakable menacing buzz of the AC-130 gunship equipped with everything from rapid fire machineguns to deadlier howitzers was followed by thuds around a holy shrine and ancient cemetery where Sadr's men are holed up. Houses as far as 5km (3 miles) away shook as the fierce attacks sent up orange flashes. Bradley fighting vehicles could be heard firing, while armored machines advanced toward militants full of zeal & hatred but short on weapons that can repel that kind of pressure. As blasts rocked Najaf, the rallying cry of "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) was heard over loudspeakers from the direction of the shrine that is sacred to millions of Shi'ites around the world. It was not immediately clear if U.S. forces were advancing toward Imam Ali shrine and its adjacent vast cemetery. AC-130's rapid-fire light cannon, which sounds like a jack hammer, left little doubt that this could be Sadr's last chance to lay down his arms and disband his militia. U.S. backed Iraqi govt announced Thursday that Sadr was facing his final hours to meet its demands or face a major military offensive. One of his sr commanders & aides issued a flat rejection, raising fears of a blitzkrieg in the streets of Najaf, a traditional Shi'te center of learning where snipers are now sharpening their skills as Sadr wages a war of attrition. Pauses between air assaults keeps the militants guessing over the intentions of their enemy. Sadr's fighters are armed with AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and pistols they have vowed to use in a fight to the death. But so far they have not faced the overwhelming firepower of the AC-130 and have survived through urban guerrilla warfare that kept U.S. tanks on the edge of the old town of Najaf, a city of 500,000, until early Friday. Armored vehicles advanced toward the war zone but it was not clear whether they had penetrated any further toward the shrine, a sprawling structure guarded by hundreds of militiamen that dart out of alleyways and fire RPGs at the Americans. A 10-km (six-mile) smoke trail hung southwards over Najaf, evidence of what kind of force had been leveled at rebel positions around the cemetery.>br> Sadr may not be so worried about the AC-130s. He knows that any major damage to the shrine would infuriate millions of moderate Shi'ites and put U.S. its allies in the interim Iraqi govt in a difficult position. Iraqi govt said it had a plan to remove Sadr from the shrine but was intent on keeping the golden domed building preserved. AC-130s may be flying overhead and pounding Najaf for some time before the crisis is resolved, unless ground forces move in and storm the shrine. The aircraft was first used during the Vietnam war to destroy concentrations of enemy troops. U.S. warplanes bomb Sunni town of Falluja 8.19.04   Reuters Falluja, Iraq   U.S. warplanes bombed targets in the restive Sunni Muslim town of Falluja west of Baghdad, witnesses said. The raid on Falluja coincided with heavy aerial and ground U.S. bombardment in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf. U.S. warplanes have bombed Falluja almost daily over the past week. The city of 200,000 people is a hotbed of anti-U.S. insurgents.

funding   budget 1.23.02 Iraq estimates were too low, U.S. admits   Even addtl $87 billion sought falls short of rebuilding needs. Officials look abroad for funds, but donors may be few.   9.9.03   Warren Vieth & Esther Schrader L.A.Times Wash.DC   White House acknowledged Monday it substantially underestimated Iraq rebuilding cost and that even additional $87 billion it's seeking from a wary Congress falls far short of what is needed for postwar reconstruction. Administration officials said President Bush's emergency spending request, which would push the U.S. budget deficit above the half-trillion-dollar mark for the first time, still left a reconstruction funding gap of as much as $55 billion. "It is fair to say that the level of decay & underinvestment in the Iraqi infrastructure was worse than almost anybody on the outside anticipated," said one sr administration official. "We were all surprised," said another. Revised estimates underscored political challenge facing the president, who asked Americans on Sunday evening to prepare themselves for a longer & costlier engagement in Iraq, and members of Congress, who are being asked to more than double the financial commitment of U.S. taxpayers. Amid increasing 2004 election cycle clamor, concern is growing about wisdom of spending more money overseas when the U.S. economy is shedding jobs and the federal deficit is ballooning. Admin officials stressed they had no plans to ask Congress for more than the $87 billion during the coming fiscal year, which ends just before next year's presidential election. They said they would pressure other countries to come up with the additional funds needed to restore security in Iraq and repair its ravaged infrastructure. An intl donors conference is scheduled 10.23-24.03 in Madrid to solicit money for reconstruction. "Stability of Iraq, the stability of a different kind of MidEast, will serve well the interests of the entire intl community," national security advisor Condoleezza Rice said on CBS' "Early Show." "Therefore it is important that the entire intl community be involved in this heroic effort."   [ Absolute hypocrisy when the current and former Bush leadership have been the most destabilizing forces for Iraq. ] Some independent reconstruction specialists question whether other nations would be willing to dig deep to cover the rising costs of reconstruction following U.S.-led military intervention that many govts considered a mistake. "From what we have been hearing about the donors conference, they'll be lucky if they get $1 billion," said Post- Conflict Reconstruction Project co-dir. Bathsheba Crocker at Ctr for Strategic & Intl Studies. White House gave few details of how $87-billion appropriation for fiscal 2004 would be spent beyond saying that $16 billion would go to cover work in Afghanistan & elsewhere and the rest to Iraq. Of the $51 billion allocated for military operations in Iraq, it provided a breakdown for just $1.2 billion, prompting calls from lawmakers for more candor. "Their constantly updated demands for money without any specifics suggests either that there are no specifics to the administration's plan or that they are so unpalatable that they don't want them publicized," said Senate Armed Services Committee member Sen. Jack Reed D-RI. Pentagon officials said military is spending $3.9 billion per month on 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, or about $47 billion a year. In addition, the Pentagon is requesting $800 million to transport & support intl troops in Iraq, $300 million to buy body armor and $140 million for more heavily armored Humvees for U.S. forces. Of the $20 billion earmarked for nonmilitary reconstruction expenses in Iraq, $15 billion would be allocated for infrastructure improvements and $5 billion for security measures. Sr administration officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, conceded that their initial projections of reconstruction costs proved too low and their estimates of Iraqi oil export revenue were too high. Iraq is struggling to restore an oil industry debilitated by 3 decades of intermittent war, intl sanctions and govt neglect and, more recently, by looting, sabotage and power outages. Occupation authorities have lowered their estimates of next year's oil revenue from about $15 billion to $12 billion. All of that will be needed to finance the day-to-day operations of Iraq's govt, officials said, leaving none for investment in the nation's infrastructure. Admin officials say they believe a total of $50 billion to $75 billion is needed to restore the oil industry, repair the dilapidated electrical grid and rebuild water systems, roads, bridges, ports, railroads, airports, schools, hospitals and other public facilities. "Our estimate is based on what we think is necessary to put the Iraqi economy in the kind of shape where it can take off and generate substantial revenues without outside assistance," one official said. Bush is asking Congress to provide $20 billion of that amount. The remaining money, U.S. officials say, would have to come from other countries, intl financial institutions such as IMF & World Bank, and future oil earnings. Admin officials said lack of public information about prewar conditions in Iraq made it impossible to foresee the full extent of the country's reconstruction needs. $87 billion the president requested in his televised national address comes on top of $79 billion already appropriated for 2003, bringing total proposed spending to $166 billion over 2 years. $20 billion sought for reconstruction projects would be a substantial increase over the $2.5 billion provided by the 2003 spending bill for Iraq relief & reconstruction. One official said it represented "what is necessary and appropriate" for the U.S. to contribute toward the highest- priority reconstruction projects. Although some portion of the $87 billion would be spent after 2004, addtl outlays would increase next year's deficit from an estimated $475 billion to at least $525 billion, officials said. That would increase the deficit from 4.2% of the nation's gross domestic product to 4.7%, a level considered uncomfortably high but still below the records set during the Reagan administration in the 1980s. Despite swelling shortfall, officials said that they saw no need for additional tax increases or spending cuts beyond those that have already been proposed by the administration and that they would continue to press Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts that are scheduled to expire in future years.

Senators want answers after $87-billion request 9.10.03   J.Hendren, J.Hook, R.Wright, E.Schrader L.A.Times Wash.DC   Democrats led a bipartisan attack Tuesday on Bush admin request for $87 billion in addtl funds mostly for postwar Iraq, calling it a virtual "blank check" to pay for ill-planned & undermanned reconstruction effort. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, lawmakers from both parties promised all the money it takes to finish the military task in Iraq. But critics used the occasion to take out weeks of frustration over what they called the administration's inept handling of the reconstruction since President Bush declared major combat over 5.1.03. Their main target was Deputy Def. Sec Wolfowitz, key architect of Iraq policy faulted for overly optimistic predictions that Iraq would embrace American soldiers and that its oil revenue would pay for much of the rebuilding. "You told Congress in March that 'we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon,' " Sen. Carl Levin D-MI told Wolfowitz at the hearing. "Talk about rosy scenarios." Sen. Robert C. Byrd D-WV vowed not to "rubber-stamp" what he called "a war we should not have fought," adding, "Congress is not an ATM." Although committee chair John W. Warner R-VA defended the administration, Democratic critics were joined by some high-profile GOP such as Sen. John McCain R-AZ, who said the administration "clearly underestimated the size of the challenge we would face" in Iraq. Since Bush disclosed the $87-billion figure Sunday, Democrats have begun criticizing his budget request on 2 fronts: They say it should be approved only after Congress gets more details about what the funds will be used for. And they are using it as a lever to criticize his domestic policy, juxtaposing Bush's willingness to seek budget-busting spending for Iraq while resisting increases for programs to help U.S. citizens, such as money for schools and port security. … Pointing to new reports that intelligence analysts had warned of coordinated postwar attacks on U.S. troops, Kennedy passionately told Wolfowitz & Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Gen. Richard B. Myers: "You & other officials in the administration responsible for this war were warned, yet you put tens of thousands of American troops in harm's way without adequate planning How do you possibly explain the inadequacy of that planning? And who's going to pay the price for the inadequacy of that plan?" Wolfowitz & Myers adamantly defended their preparation for postwar stability & reconstruction, saying Iraq's infrastructure was in far worse shape than expected and that the administration had not oversold the ease of the task. "I think we have done the planning, Sen. Kennedy, for our troops," Myers said. "I couldn't sit here if I didn't believe we have done everything we can do because we are dealing with our most precious treasure, and that's the blood of our sons & daughters." Added Wolfowitz: "No one said anything other than this would be very bloody, it could be very long and by implication it could be very expensive." Before the war, Wolfowitz said the cost of rebuilding Iraq could "range from $10 billion to $100 billion." Total proposed spending on the Iraq campaign and aftermath is so far $166 billion. Although administration officials have blamed Iraq's poor infrastructure for some of the unanticipated costs, $65.5 billion of the $87-billion request is earmarked for military operations including in Afghanistan, not rebuilding. Admin officials & their allies suggested appearance of division among Americans could aid the enemy. When Sen. Pat Roberts R-KS asked if such debate encouraged Saddam Hussein loyalists & their allies who "are watching closely what we do and say here today in Washington," Wolfowitz picked up the theme. "Well, the stakes are enormous, and they do have a lot of access to what goes on here," he said. While the debate is healthy, he added, "I do think it is important that we be able to project confidence." Even among GOP, however, there seems to be no hurry to close ranks behind the key architects of the admin Iraq policy. Sen. Charles Hagel R-NE, who criticized admin postwar planning, on Tuesday raised the prospect that the Bush admin might have to consider sacking high-profile war planners. Among those mentioned on Capitol Hill, though not by Hagel, were Def. Sec Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz. "This business is all about accountability," Hagel said. "Cabinet members are accountable." One sr U.S. official dismissed the prospect of the president firing Wolfowitz, who had warned about Iraq since the 1970s and is perhaps the person most closely identified with the plan to oust Hussein. "This administration doesn't do that," the official said. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, asked Tuesday about Rumsfeld's standing with the White House, said he "is doing a terrific job." Hagel, speaking earlier on CBS' "Early Show," also complained that the administration had failed to take Congress seriously as a partner in planning foreign policy. "I think they did a miserable job of planning for a post-Saddam Iraq," he said. "They treated many in Congress, most of the Congress, like a nuisance." Even non-mavericks in the GOP, who have little interest in tying Bush's hands, are clamoring for more details about what Bush wants the $87 billion for. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chair Roberts said he would scrutinize the request for $5.6 billion for intelligence programs, esp. in light of concerns about intelligence lapses before the war. "I want to know where the $5.6 billion is going," Roberts said. Hoping to satisfy such demands, Pentagon officials said Tuesday that of the $87 billion the administration is seeking, $65.5 billion would go to support military operations in Iraq. That is $14.5 billion more than the White House estimate released Monday. Specific line items were not detailed, but the general breakdown listed $32.3 billion for "day-to-day" operations, $18.5 billion to cover military personnel costs, $2.2 billion for coalition partners, $3.3 billion for depot maintenance, $1.9 million to buy armor and other equipment, $600,000 for health care, $400,000 for military construction and $6.3 billion in classified and other expenses. Rising criticism makes it likely that the administration will have to be more solicitous than usual in fielding congressional queries on Bush's big spending request, said Sen. Trent Lott R-MI. … Senators ask where $8.8 billion in Iraq funds went 8.19.04   Reuters Wash.D.C.   At least $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds that was given to Iraqi ministries by the former U.S. led authority there cannot be accounted for, according to a draft U.S. audit set for release soon. The audit by the Coalition Provisional Authority's own Inspector General blasts the CPA for "not providing adequate stewardship" of at least $8.8 billion from the Development Fund for Iraq that was given to Iraqi ministries. The audit was first reported on a web site earlier this month by journalist and retired Col. David Hackworth. A U.S. official confirmed the contents of the leaked audit cited by Hackworth were accurate. The development fund is made up of proceeds from Iraqi oil sales, frozen assets from foreign govts and surplus from the U.N. Oil for Food Program. Its handling has already come under fire in a U.N.-mandated audit released last month. Among the draft audit's findings were that payrolls in Iraqi ministries under Coalition Provisional Authority control were padded with thousands of ghost employees. In one example, the audit said the CPA paid for 74,000 guards even though the actual number could not be validated. In another, 8,206 guards were listed on a payroll but only 603 people doing the work could be counted. 3 Democratic senators,Ron Wyden D-OR, Tom Harkin D-IA and Byron Dorgan D-ND, demanded an explanation from DefSec Rumsfeld over the use of the funds by the CPA, which handed over authority to the Iraqis in June."The CPA apparently transferred this staggering sum of money with no written rules or guidelines for ensuring adequate managerial, financial or contractual controls over the funds," said the letter sent by the senators on Thursday. "Such enormous discrepancies raise very serious questions about potential fraud, waste and abuse," said the senators. A CPA Inspector General's office spokesman confirmed "field work" had been completed on the audit but declined to give specifics. He said auditors were awaiting comment from the Pentagon before releasing the final report, probably later this month. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to questions. An international audit report released last month that was requested by a U.N.-mandated monitoring body chided the CPA for oversight of spending of Iraq's oil revenue. While the Intl Advisory & Monitoring Board said the audit found no evidence of fraud in spending by the CPA after the U.S. invasion in March 2003, it said oversight was insufficient to ensure money was used for its intended purposes. One of the main benefactors of the Iraq funds was Texas-based firm Halliburton, which was paid more than a billion dollars out of those funds to bring in fuel for Iraqi civilians. The monitoring board said despite repeated requests it had not been given access to U.S. audits of contracts held by Halliburton, which was once run by VP Cheney, and other firms that used the development funds.

The real news in the Downing Street memos 6.23.05   Michael Smith L.A. Times It is now 9 months since I obtained the first of the "Downing Street memos," thrust into my hand by someone who asked me to meet him in a quiet watering hole in London for what I imagined would just be a friendly drink. At the time, I was defense correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph, and a staunch supporter of the decision to oust Saddam Hussein. The source was a friend. He'd given me a few stories before but nothing nearly as interesting as this. The 6 leaked documents I took away with me that night were to change completely my opinion of the decision to go to war and the honesty of PM Tony Blair & President Bush. They focused on the period leading up to the Crawford, Texas, summit between Blair & Bush in early April 2002, and were most striking for the way in which British officials warned the prime minister, with remarkable prescience, what a mess post-war Iraq would become. Even by the cynical standards of realpolitik, the decision to overrule this expert advice seemed to be criminal. The second batch of leaks arrived in the middle of this year's British general election, by which time I was writing for a different newspaper, the Sunday Times. These documents, which came from a different source, related to a crucial meeting of Blair's 7.23.02 war Cabinet. The timing of the leak was significant, with Blair clearly in electoral difficulties because of an unpopular war. I did not then regard the now-infamous memo, the one that includes the 7.23.02 meeting minutes, as the most important. My main article focused on the separate briefing paper for those taking part, prepared beforehand by Cabinet Office experts. It said that Blair agreed at Crawford that "the UK would support military action to bring about regime change." Because this was illegal, the officials noted, it was "necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action." But Downing Street had a "clever" plan that it hoped would trap Hussein into giving the allies the excuse they needed to go to war. It would persuade the U.N. Security Council to give the Iraqi leader an ultimatum to let in the weapons inspectors. Although Blair & Bush still insist the decision to go to the U.N. was about averting war, one memo states that it was, in fact, about "wrong-footing" Hussein into giving them a legal justification for war. British officials hoped the ultimatum could be framed in words that would be so unacceptable to Hussein that he would reject it outright. But they were far from certain this would work, so there was also a Plan B. American media coverage of the Downing Street memo has largely focused on the assertion by Sir Richard Dearlove, head of British foreign intelligence, that war was seen as inevitable in Washington, where "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." But another part of the memo is arguably more important. It quotes British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon as saying that "the U.S. had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime." This we now realize was Plan B.

Put simply, U.S. aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone were dropping a lot more bombs in the hope of provoking a reaction that would give the allies an excuse to carry out a full-scale bombing campaign, an air war, the first stage of the conflict.
British govt figures for the number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq in 2002 show that although virtually none were used in March and April, an average of 10 tons a month were dropped between May and August.
But these initial "spikes of activity" didn't have the desired effect. The Iraqis didn't retaliate. They didn't provide the excuse Bush and Blair needed. So at the end of August, the allies dramatically intensified the bombing into what was effectively the initial air war.

The number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq by allied aircraft shot up to 54.6 tons in September alone, with the increased rates continuing into 2003. In other words, Bush and Blair began their war not in March 2003, as everyone believed, but at the end of August 2002, 6 weeks before Congress approved military action against Iraq.

The way in which the intelligence was "fixed" to justify war is old news. The real news is the shady April 2002 deal to go to war, the cynical use of the U.N. to provide an excuse, and the secret, illegal air war without the backing of Congress.

"Only fools & profiteers ask for war, Gabriel; centaurs are neither."

Xena, Warrior Princess   re false flag provocation

Women at war ¹ ² ³ 4.8.03   David Behrens Newsday In the war in Iraq, American women & men are fighting side by side. Despite the dangers, women have sought access to the most risky combat jobs as pilots, members of bomber crews, missile-launching teams and Army & Marine supply units moving close to the front lines. In fact, the war already has claimed the life of its first U.S. servicewoman, Army Pfc. Lori Piestewa, 23, a mechanic & mother of 2. Her body was among those unearthed & identified at a southern Iraq hospital compound from which another member of her ambushed company, Pfc. Jessica Lynch, 19, was rescued last week. Still missing from the the same support company is Spc. Shoshana Johnson, 30, who was captured and became one of the first American prisoners of war. The cook & mother of a 2-year-old girl was shown on Iraqi television. The govt does not tally how many women are serving in the war zone. But the number of women in uniform has swelled since 1973, when the draft ended. Women made up 2 percent of the armed forces in 1973. That rose to almost 14 percent by last year, about 200,000 women. Military women have long sought equality in the war zone, arguing that the chance to serve in combat provides the experience needed to get better jobs and better pay in the military. Until modern times, women played no role at the scene of battle. But as the science of medicine and the craft of war both became more complicated, women moved closer to combat. In the 1800s, women worked only as nurses in field hospitals; Florence Nightingale became a symbol of modern nursing during the Crimean War in the 1850s. A decade later, nurses tasted the horrors of war during America's Civil War. In the 20th century, women began to play a larger role in the military. During World War I, some drove ambulances in France. In World War II, thousands of U.S. women enlisted in the WACS and WAVES, the all- female branches of the Army and Navy, filling clerical & secretarial positions. Their job, it was said, was "to free a fighting man for combat." A few brave women pilots were allowed to tow targets so anti-aircraft teams could practice their skills. But women were still barred from flying in combat through the Vietnam War era. By 1991, however, the nature of war had changed. Women still were not permitted to hold combat jobs, but modern weapons, such as missiles, had changed the definition of "front lines" in war. An Iraqi Scud missile, for instance, hit an Army barracks in Saudi Arabia, many miles from the battlefield, killing 28 soldiers. Three were women. Two other women were killed in that war, and two were held prisoner. Two years later, President Bill Clinton lifted the ban on women serving on Navy combat ships. Seven years later, two women sailors were killed in the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. Women are still barred from serving with units in direct contact with enemy fire. But in the 1990s, a presidential order allowed women to fly combat missions for the first time, and the Defense Dept dropped its policy of barring women from all assignments in which exposure to enemy fire was likely. In southern Iraq, for instance, a dozen women are now with a Marine support company carrying supplies to the front line. For the drivers trained to handle heavy trucks across the desert, it is an equal-opportunity test of nerves. US servicewomen fear Iraq role under threat 6.28.05   AFP US servicewomen fear their role in Iraq may be threatened by US lawmakers after two female marines and a woman sailor were killed and 11 others wounded in a suicide bombing in Fallujah last week. Republicans in the US House of Representatives put forward legislation on May 11 that would sharply curtail the role of women on the battlefield. Women in the US military are currently banned from combat by Pentagon policy, but often work in support roles. "Some of the folks think women shouldn't be here, this isn't going to help. We're here like everyone else," said Major Jennifer Snyder, a US military spokeswoman. "Congress is questioning women's role in combat. We're trained to the same standards as men already." Three male marines were also killed and two wounded Thursday in Fallujah, a western town which remains a hot spot despite a massive US-backed counter-insurgency operation late last year. The servicewomen were returning to base after conducting body searches of women at checkpoints around the city. In the face of massive Iraqi hostility to such searches being conducted by male soldiers in the early months of the occupation, US commanders ordered that women should carry them out wherever possible. Convoys of the sort the women were travelling in are so frequently targeted by insurgents that they blur the traditional distinction between frontline and support roles, Snyder said. "If you're in a convoy, you may kill someone, which may not be what you anticipated when you came here," she said. Since the March 2003 invasion, at least 6 women have received combat medals for their roles in fighting off insurgent attacks on convoys, according to army statistics. The number of combat medals awarded to women is believed to be the highest in any U.S. war, according to army historians. For Sergeant Misha King, women should be allowed to perform any role they are capable of, including combat. "I feel like if a woman wants to do something, then she should be allowed to do it," she said. "This is a war zone. We hear mortars and car bombs every day." Republic proponents of the draft legislation insist servicewomen would not be deprived of positions they currently hold or barred from applying for posts that are currently open to them. "Most women in the military want to make sure we are treated equally, not better and not worse," Snyder said. Although in principle Pentagon rules bar women from front lines, in reality they serve in all operating bases in Iraq, Snyder said. Women are also barred from serving in the special forces but some go out on house raids known as "cordon and search" operations. As of Friday, at least 37 women had been killed in action in Iraq and 304 wounded, according to US military statistics. Servicewomen, who make up just eight percent of US troop strength in Iraq, are seen as something of an oddity by Iraqi men, King said. "It's like a novelty. You don't see female soldiers every day, so they want to have their pictures taken with me." And men everywhere ogle the women, whether they are American, from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, or from the new Iraqi army, she added. "They look at me a little more than they do at the guys, but that's just like guys anywhere." Before coming to Iraq, Snyder chopped her straight brown locks to combat helmet length, since she has to put hers on every time she goes outside. King and others pull their long hair back in a bun. "I cut my hair for the helmet," Snyder said. "It's difficult to tell if we're females or not." Piestewa family assails video airing   Showing dying soldier on television called 'domestic terrorism' 1.1.04   Mark Shaffer AZ Republic Flagstaff   Family members of slain soldier Lori Piestewa lashed out at the media Wednesday for practicing "domestic terrorism" by televising video of the badly wounded Piestewa in an Iraqi hospital bed shortly before her death. "This terrorism was not from any foreign group wishing to harm the United States, but from our own people wanting to make a quick buck off the misfortune of two young women," a prepared statement from the Piestewa family said of NBC's decision to air the video on its Nightly News on Tuesday. Several cable channels picked it up, but local affiliate Channel 12 (KPNX) decided not to air the footage. The video shows a gravely wounded and unresponsive Jessica Lynch in a hospital bed next to Piestewa in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, where the Army's 507th Maintenance Company was ambushed March 23. Piestewa is shown with eyes shut and swollen and with a bandage around her head. She licks her lips as someone adjusts her head so the photographer can get a better shot of her. "We would guess that congratulations are in order," the Piestewa family's statement said sarcastically. "The media has again successfully created a sense of fear, anxiety and hurt among the family and friends of those who loved and continue to love Lori Piestewa." Piestewa's family has attended many memorial services and pro-military gatherings throughout the nation since Lori's death. But the statement contained some pointed anti-war criticisms of the Bush administration and military. The statement said the family hopes all top government officials get a copy of "Lori dying in agony so that they realize from the comfort of their homes that war is not the only option." The Piestewa family also wants a copy of the tape in the hands of legislators who supported the war "because they had to make sure someone (paid) for 9/11." The strongest criticisms were saved for commanders at Fort Bliss, Texas, where Piestewa and Lynch were stationed before their deployment to the Middle East. Each of the commanders should receive a copy of the tape "so they'll never again make the same mistake . . . and, if by chance they do, we hope they won't leave them behind to die the painful death Lori endured."

What about Private Lori?   For the last week America has been gripped by the 'Saving Private Jessica' mission. But nobody wanted to hear the sadder story of her friend & tentmate Private Lori Piestewa, who died in combat. ¹ 4.10.03   Gary Younge The Guardian Tuba City AZ   This is the tale of 2 privates. They were sisters-in-arms, 2 young women fighting for Uncle Sam. They were roommates at Ft Bliss military base in Texas; tentmates in the Gulf, and close friends at all places in between. Then they (and 13 other members of the US Army's 507th Maintenance Company) took a wrong turn in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya and were ambushed. One, Jessica Lynch, 19, was injured, hospitalised then rescued by Special Forces to emerge as poster girl for American resilience & camaraderie. The other, Lori Piestewa, 23, was killed, with the gruesome distinction of being the first native American in the U.S. army to be killed in combat and the only American servicewoman to die in this war. On the face of it, Piestewa, from the Hopi tribe, does not fit the bill for the all-American war hero or heroine. She was a single mother of 2 who left her 4 year old son, Brandon, and 3 year old daughter, Carla, with her parents who live in a trailer in Tuba City, AZ while she went to fight in the MidEast. But, in more ways than one, hers is the other American face of this war, fought by a military whose ranks have been swelled by poor, non-white women. A volunteer army comprising recruits who, whatever their patriotic credentials, have few other choices. Tuba City is home mostly to Navajo people although it sits on the edge of a Hopi reservation, a piece of land returned to native Americans by the federal govt. In theory, they are independent nations entering into bilateral treaties with the US govt; in practice most reservations are situated on poor land with limited independence and home to the most impoverished minority in the country. The Hopi land is no exception, a vast expanse of hundreds of miles of red rock & yellow sand peppered with trailers and brick housing that would not look out of place in a South African township. A nation of tumbleweed & tumbledown, where more than 50% of the inhabitants are unemployed. It was not just the poverty of the reservation that made the armed forces an attractive proposition for Piestewa. Serving in the military is a family tradition. Her father fought in Vietnam and her grandfather served in the second world war. As a 17-year-old, she was the commanding officer of the Junior ROTC (cadet) programme at Tuba City High School, leading dozens of students in drills. 2 years later she married a local man but divorced him shortly after Carla was born. She then joined the army partly out of an interest in the job, neighbours say, but primarily to provide a secure income with which to raise her children. This community of 8,200, which according to the census is almost 95% native American, is tight-knit & tight-lipped. Since just about everyone knew her or her parents, nobody has been unaffected. Since the immediate family do not wish to talk to the media, few outside it will venture anything beyond, "She was a great girl", "We are very proud" and "It's so sad", for fear of appearing to be exploiting her death. Evidence of her absence is everywhere. Small shrines with huge pictures of Piestewa have sprung up in the supermarket & outside her house. Shops have put donation buckets on display to raise money for her children, and 2 radio talk-show hosts in Phoenix are starting a trust fund to pay for the children's education. ¹ Even the centuries-long feud between the Hopi & the Navajo has abated. At a rally last week, leaders from the 2 tribes made a rare joint appearance as about 5,000 people gathered to pray for Piestewa and the other missing soldiers. "Navajo, Hopi, nobody cares now," says army veteran Archie Ortiz. "We are all together in remembering her." At least 45 Hopis are serving overseas and around 70 Navajos are in the MidEast. "You would think that the general history of native Americans would make them opposed to involvement in the military," says Tim Johnson, executive editor of the country's leading weekly paper on native American affairs, Indian Country Today. There has been no specific polling of native American attitudes towards the war, although Johnson believes it would be slightly higher than average. During the first Gulf war a group of native Americans in Oregon wrote an open letter to President George Bush Sr, ridiculing his pretext for attacking Iraq. "Dear President Bush," it read. "Please send your assistance in freeing our small nation from occupation. This foreign force occupied our lands to steal our rich resources … As in your own words, 'The occupation & overthrow of one small nation is one too many.' Yours sincerely, An American Indian." Moreover, the army's sensitivity to native American culture leaves much to be desired, says Johnson. "They still talk about 'going into Indian country', meaning enemy territory," he says. They continue to dwell on the stereotype of native Americans as warriors, giving their missiles names like Apache & Tomahawk. "On the one hand they think of us as fierce warriors and on the other they refer to us as being hostile to American interests." After African-Americans, native Americans are the ethnic group represented most strongly in the military. In the second world war, Navajo radio operators known as the Codetalkers used their complex language to devise a code for allied communications that the Japanese were never able to break. One of the soldiers raising the flag at Iwo Jima was a native American. Johnson, whose father fought in Vietnam, believes there are 2 main reasons why so many of his people join up. The first is political: "Native Americans have a great appreciation for freedom & liberty," he says. The second is economic: native Americans are the poorest of all ethnic & racial groups in America. "The military is one world where people can build lives and make something else of themselves," he says. This has made the American military more reliant on the poor, and therefore non-whites, than ever. In 1973, 23% of the military was from racial minorities; in 2000 it was 37%. While Hispanics remain underrepresented compared to the population as a whole, they are rapidly catching up. While the total number of military personnel dropped 23% in the last decade the number of Hispanics leaped 30%. This growth has been particularly marked among women. In the army, black women, who make up only 16% of the female civilian population, actually outnumber white women. "A survey of the American military's endlessly compiled & analysed demographics paints a picture of a fighting force that is anything but a cross-section of America, with minorities overrepresented and the wealthy & the underclass essentially absent," wrote the NY Times recently. The subject has become highly sensitive politically, with the Democratic congressman from Harlem, Charles Rangel, calling for the return of the draft. "It's just not fair that the people we ask to fight our wars are people who join the military because of economic conditions, because they have fewer options," he says. The family of Shawna Johnson, a black female prisoner of war in Iraq, say she wanted to be a chef but couldn't afford the training. Not long after Piestewa's disappearance became known, commanding officer of Tuba City high school's ROTC program told the Arizona Republic she was no longer so keen on the military. "This is definitely teaching me the reality of life," said 16-year-old Dezbah Begay. "Maybe I'll become a chef or a police officer or a doctor instead." If Piestewa was pulled by patriotism she was also, by all accounts, pushed by economics. From what she said in an interview before she left for Kuwait in February, it was clear that she would miss her children: "It's hard to leave them but they are going to be with their grandmother." However, it sounded as though she was heading for a big adventure rather than combat. "I'm excited to go see something new," she said. "I'm also going to learn a lot." The family received an email from her a few weeks ago, saying she was about to enter Iraq and it "felt good that she was not sitting around & waiting any more". Then came the news that soldiers had been captured, killed or were missing. 5 of her colleagues, including Johnson, were questioned on Iraqi television; the Pentagon confirmed the death of 2 others. The fate of the other 8, of whom Piestewa was one, was unknown. For more than a week families of the 2 women waited for news. All around Tuba City signs were hung out telling people: "Put your porch light on, show Lori the way home." They used white stone to spell her name on a 200 ft mesa just outside the town. News of Lynch's rescue last Tuesday raised hopes, but by Friday they were dashed again by a phone call from the army to say Piestewa was among the dead. The Lynch family heard the news just before boarding a flight to Germany to see Jessica. Lynch will come home to West Virginia on crutches, to the waving of American flags; Piestewa will return to the reservation in a coffin draped in an American flag.

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