...is how much the Mariam foundation used to give to Mariam. Plus another 800 a year for rent. From the UK Telegraph

The father of Mariam Hamza, the 11-year-old Iraqi leukaemia victim championed by George Galloway, said yesterday that he was worried his daughter's life was in danger because funds promised by the Scottish MP's Mariam Appeal had failed to arrive.
Hamza Abd Mittab said that the monthly allowance of £65 that the family of seven has received for three years from the appeal, to pay for Mariam's food and travel expenses, had last been paid in January. Speaking at the family home in Baghdad yesterday, he said: "Mariam's drugs are almost finished now and my daughter will die if she doesn't receive assistance."
The family has been told that Mariam, 11, who contracted acute lymphocytic leukaemia in 1997, must be treated regularly until she is 18. She is due to travel to Jordan for chemotherapy treatment in June, but Mr Hamza says he cannot afford to make the journey.
Mariam recently suffered a 15-minute shaking fit, which has happened once previously when Mr Hamza was two days late for a hospital appointment in Jordan.
The family has also been threatened with eviction from its house, whose annual rent of £800 has always been paid by the appeal. They are already 25 days in arrears after the lease expired on April 1 and the property's owner has demanded that they continue the previous arrangement of paying a year in advance. Money for the rent has not been received from the Mariam Appeal.

As for Mr Galloway, he's now appealing for donations to help his libel actions. From the Guardian

George Galloway yesterday launched an appeal to fund his high court libel battle against two newspapers that claimed he received money from Saddam Hussein's regime.
...
The MP, who earns about £70,000 a year as a columnist for the Mail on Sunday as well as his £55,000 parliamentary salary, is estimated to have won more than £200,000 from previous libel cases.
...
He is awaiting an independent translation of the Arabic files the Daily Telegraph said it found in a bombed Baghdad building, which allegedly show he received up to £375,000 a year from the Iraqi regime.
...
The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, is also considering whether to investigate the running of the Mariam Appeal, which was founded by Mr Galloway to treat a young Iraqi leukaemia sufferer but later transformed into an anti-sanctions campaign. It received £1m over four years, including £500,000 from the United Arab Emirates and £100,000 from Saudi Arabia, with most of the rest coming from a Jordanian businessman, Fawaz Zureikat.

The appeal set up by George Galloway to treat a sick Iraqi child spent more than £800,000 on political campaigns and expenses, including a direct salary payment to his wife, the MP admitted yesterday.
Dr Amineh Abu Zayyad, Mr Galloway's Palestinian wife, was paid around £18,000 by the appeal fund to "look after" Mariam Hamza, the girl who received treatment for leukaemia in Britain and America.
The activities of the Mariam Appeal, established in 1998 to raise £100,000 to treat the child, are being investigated by the Charity Commission. Mr Galloway disclosed basic details of the appeal's expenditure to the Mail on Sunday, from which he receives £75,000 for a weekly column.
He said the fund's accounts, when fully revealed, would show that, after spending £100,000 on Mariam's treatment, it spent £860,000 on anti-sanctions campaigns, expenses and administration.
Four times as much money was spent on renting offices in central London and in paying staff salaries as went on treating Mariam.
...
Mr Galloway has said his regular visits to Baghdad were on Mariam Appeal business and to check on life in the country under UN sanctions. The appeal was set up in 1998 to raise £100,000 to treat Mariam. Mr Galloway said at the time: "The balance after Mariam's hospital bills have been paid will be sent as medicine and medical supplies to the children she had to leave behind."
But he now admits that, after spending £100,000 on treating Mariam, the fund spent £200,000 on a Big Ben-to-Baghdad double decker bus publicity trip and £60,000 on a sanctions-busting flight to Baghdad.
London offices accounted for £125,000 while £300,000 was spent on wages.

AP/Guardian

France is ready to join the reconstruction of Iraq and help ensure self-rule is quickly restored despite U.S. resistance to a prominent French role, the foreign minister said Wednesday.

``France wants to be present at the side of the Iraqi people,'' Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said, adding the reconstruction effort should be supervised by the United Nations.

A French diplomat, whom de Villepin did not identify, is in Baghdad to begin discussions with the various political and religious factions vying for power there, he said.

[AP via WaPo]

A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a former congressman alleging that President Bush violated the 1973 War Powers Act by attacking Iraq.

Former Rep. Clair Callan had no legal standing to file the court action and failed to show that he would be personally injured by Bush's actions, U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf ruled.

The judge also said the issues raised involved foreign policy and military decisions that are outside the jurisdiction of the judicial branch.

Full story...

[KFWB]

The Defense Department, following a law meant to detect Gulf War Syndrome in returning troops, said Wednesday it will collect blood from soldiers leaving Iraq and then conduct more comprehensive health evaluations.

Blood samples will be taken within 30 days of the soldiers' departure from countries where troops went as part of the war effort, the Pentagon said.

The department also said it has improved its process for assessing soldiers' health after they were sent to the Gulf region.

Full story...

Sky News - Iraqi spin doctor Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf - the man dubbed Comical Ali - is alive and well in Baghdad, it is reported.

And he wants to give himself up.

But US forces have refused to arrest him because he is not on the American list of the regime's 'most wanted', an Arabic newspaper published in London has reported.

Asharq Al-Awsat said the man who famously denied the presence of US troops in Baghdad had wanted American troops to "protect him".

The paper said al-Sahhaf was living with his auntie on Palestine Street in the capital and had sent relatives to negotiate his surrender with US troops.

Obviously, Sky News standards are slipping. If they read CP, they'd know it's Baghdad Bob, not some comical Ali...

BBC - US President George W Bush is set to declare that the fighting in Iraq is essentially over in a speech he will make on Thursday. He will say that "the major combat operations have ended and... reconstruction has begun", White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

The US leader will make the declaration in a televised address aboard a US aircraft carrier on Thursday evening, the spokesman added. But Mr Fleischer also warned that the president's speech would not mark the end of hostilities "from a legal point of view".

Under the Geneva Conventions, once war is declared over, the victorious army must release prisoners-of-war and halt operations targeting specific leaders. Coalition forces are still pursuing leading members of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime and the former dictator himself.

"Whoever stands against Iraq and plots against it shall not enjoy peace relying on American support."

A letter from Saddam Hussein to the Iraqi people and the Arab nation, translated by MEMRI:

The London Arabic-language daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, known for its ideological affinity with the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, published a letter, allegedly from Saddam addressed to the Iraqi people and the Arab nation on the occasion of his birthday, April 28. According to the paper, "sources close to Saddam confirmed the authenticity of his handwriting and signature and noted that the conditions of his hiding place do not currently permit more than a written letter, for security reasons." The paper also published a picture of the first lines of the letter, and of Saddam Hussein's signature on it. In the letter Saddam calls upon the Iraqi people to set aside the differences between Shiites and Sunnis and concentrate on ‘fighting the occupation’. He claims that the defeat was caused by betrayal and calls for boycotting the American administration in Iraq. Following is the letter in its entirety:(1)

“In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful:
'Indeed, [before the battle began] they swore an oath to Allah that they would not turn back in flight, and an oath to Allah must needs be answered for.’”(2)

Iraq, April 28, 2003
"From Saddam Hussein to the Great Iraqi People, and the Sons of the Arab and Islamic Nation, and men of honor everywhere: Peace be upon you, and Allah's mercy and blessings."

'This Is No Victory As Long as There is Resistance In Your Hearts'
"Just as Hulagu entered Baghdad, so did the criminal Bush enter Baghdad, with the help of [traitor from within] 'Alqami(3) – indeed, even more than one 'Alqami."

"They did not vanquish you, you who refuse to accept occupation and humiliation, and you, who have Arabism and Islam in your hearts and minds, [they did not defeat you] except through treachery."

"By Allah, this is no victory, as long as there is resistance in your hearts."

"What we used to say has now become fact. We do not live in peace and security as long as the monstrous Zionist entity is on our Arab land, and therefore there should be no split in the unity of Arab struggle."

"Oh sons of our great people, rise up against the occupier and do not put your trust in those who speak of Sunnis and Shiites, because the only problem that the homeland, your great Iraq, is experiencing now is occupation."

"There are no priorities [now] other than the expulsion of the cowardly, murderous infidel occupier. No honorable hand would be extended to shake his, except that of traitors and collaborators."

"I say to you that all the countries surrounding you are against your resistance – but Allah is with you, because you are fighting disbelief and defending your rights."
“The traitors have allowed themselves to proclaim their treachery, although this is a shameful thing. You should now proclaim your rejection of the occupier for the sake of the great Iraq and the nation, and for Islam and humanity."

"Iraq shall triumph, and with it the sons of the nation and men of honor. We shall restore the archeological artifacts they stole, and we shall rebuild Iraq, that they want to divide into separate parts, may Allah bring shame upon them."

Palaces Not Registered In My Name – I Moved to a Small House Long Ago
"Saddam had no property registered in his own name and I challenge anyone to prove that the palaces were not registered in the name of the Iraqi state. I abandoned them long ago and went to live in a small house."

"Forget everything and resist occupation. The sinful error begins when there are priorities other than the occupier and his expulsion. Remember that they aspire to bring in the conflicting parties so that your Iraq will remain weak, so they can plunder it as they have been doing."

"Your party, the party of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath, is proud that it has not it did not extended its hands to the Zionist enemy and did not make concessions to the cowardly American or British aggressor."

"Whoever stands against Iraq and plots against it shall not enjoy peace relying on American support."

"Blessings to every man of the resistance, every honorable Iraqi citizen, and to every woman, child, and elderly person in our great Iraq."

"Unite and the enemy will flee from you, and with him the traitors that entered with him."

"Know that he who came with the invading forces and he whose planes flew in order to kill you will not send you anything but poison."

"Allah willing, the day of liberation and victory will come, for us, for the nation, and for Islam above all else. This time, as always when right triumphs, the days to come will be better."

"Safeguard your property, your departments, and your schools, and boycott the occupier. Boycott him, as this is your duty towards Islam, the religion, and the homeland."

"Long Live Great Iraq and its people"

"Long Live Palestine, free and Arab from the river to the sea,"

"Allah Akbar"

"Disgrace upon the despicable ones."

"Saddam Hussein
26 Safar, 1424
April 28, 2003"

Notes:
(1) Al-Quds Al-Arabi (London), April 29, 2003. Subheadings added by MEMRI.
(2) Koran 33 (Chapter Al-Ahzab):15
(3) Muhammad Al-Din ibn Al-'Alqami was the vizier of the last Abassid caliph Al-Mu'tasim. Ibn Al-'Alqami reportedly assisted the Mongol army led by Hulago to take Baghdad in 1258

This may be the last one for a while. All Captain Steve posts have been listed under the category "Captain Steven" on Command Post, and cross-posted on my blog. (Yes, he's real. The email header is from the USAF servers.)

Endings and Beginnings

Last night's sortie was uneventful, but what we lacked in mission activity was made up for with spectacular sights. First was a night refueling under clear skies. If you're tired of reading about in-flight refueling, it's only because I've failed to describe what an impressive event it is. I won't bore you further with it other than to say that it is even more amazing at night under a sky streaked with falling stars.

With air superiority so solidly in our grasp, we no longer fly south to refuel over the Saudi desert. It's safe enough for tankers to meet us deep inside Iraq, and now as we take our gas we see cities glowing beneath us that we'd seen before only on our charts.

After taking about 45,000 pounds of gas, we overflew Baghdad on the way to our orbit. As I watched the lights of the city slide by below I thought of how just a couple weeks ago the same airspace was defended by one of the world's deadliest integrated air defense systems. Now we fly above it unarmed and unafraid.

After dawn I got to spend a few minutes in the copilot's seat. The scattered clouds cast steeply slanting shadows across the dramatic landscape below us. To the east the serpentine Tigris glinted silver and a long low mountain range was notched by saw-toothed ridges, purple shadows nestled in their folds. After months of unbroken flat desert, mountains are breath-taking.

As the sun rises higher, more colors resolve themselves below us, and we see that the mountainsides and cultivated fields are covered with the tender green of new spring growth. We realize how long it's been since we've seen green in any amount.

***

Amazing luck. I've been picked to join a team headed into Iraq. Not sure how long I'll be there, but there's a good chance I'll get home at about the same time I would have anyway.

It's short notice. I'm scrambling to pack my gear while attending planning meetings, getting refresher training on the 9mm pistol and the M-16. I've also got to pick up gear issued for the trip - sleeping bag, mosquito net, flak vest, knee and elbow pads, ruck sack. Somehow I'll find room for cameras and my painting gear. This will be a far cry from my comfy seat on the jet. I'm excited and scared. Two of my favorite emotions.

My leaving early parts me from my crew, filling me with emotions I'm not so fond of. If you've been reading these letters for a while you probably think I'm a sentimental type of guy, but for the most part I'm not. I have to admit though, when I saw the new roster for my crew - a roster with a different name on my seat - I felt a little choked up. I've come a long way with these folks. They've been remarkably patient with me and taught me more than I ever thought I would know - about our mission, and about being a member of a team. I'll miss working and griping and arguing with them.

I know I'll see them in a few weeks when we're all back in the world, but we'll never be all one crew again, and I can't help feeling a little lost when I think of that. How will I ever share a jet with people who haven't gone through these things with me?

I'll leave you with that for now. I don't know if I'll have access to email or not where I'm going. When I do find myself in front of a computer I'll drop you a line and let you know how things are up north.

Steven

From the ABC(Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

US troops serving in the Iraq war will be required to give a blood sample and complete a detailed medical questionnaire after coming home, the Pentagon said, in an acknowledgment that too little was done after the 1991 Gulf War to track the health of veterans.
Many veterans of the 1991 war suffered a variety of illnesses after returning home that have been labelled Gulf War Syndrome, with experts inside and outside the US Government struggling to produce an explanation.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

An Arab television network says it wants to give a job to former Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, whose colourful daily briefings during the US-led invasion won him a cult following.
Ali al-Hadethi, supervisor of the Dubai-based al-Arabiya satellite channel, says Mr Sahaf is welcome to join the network immediately as a commentator and analyst.
Mr Sahaf does not figure on Washington's list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis.
Mr Hadethi says he does not know the former minister's whereabouts, and is asking him to contact Arabiya to take up his job.
"We want to benefit from the experience of Mr Sahhaf and his analysis of the current situation and the future of Iraq," Mr Hadethi said, without giving details of the job package.

From The Australian

The US plans to divide Iraq into five administrative zones, one of which could be managed by Poland, the (Polish-AEB) daily Rzeczpospolita said quoting a NATO source.

BBC - United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is making an unannounced visit to Baghdad, three weeks after US troops seized control of the Iraqi capital.

Mr Rumsfeld said in an address to be broadcast to the people of Iraq that American troops would stay only as long as it took to ensure there was a democratic government.

JP - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday rejected the idea of imposing democracy in Iraq by force and said it would not lead to the democratization of the rest of the region.

In an annual speech in Cairo marking Labor Day, Mubarak said that imposing foreign standards on Iraq would not necessarily lead to democracy and reforms in the Arab and Islamic world or lessen fanaticism.

He said the perpetrators of such thinking were "intentionally ignoring ... that Arab nations are working hard to achieve democracy according to their own standards." "We reject the philosophy of imposing democracy by force," Mubarak said.

[AP via Telus]

U.S. troops opened fire Wednesday on anti-American demonstrators for the second time this week, during a march to protest the previous shooting. The local hospital said one person was killed and at least 16 others wounded.

The gunfire came less than 48 hours after a shooting during a demonstration Monday night that hospital officials said killed 13 Iraqis. There was no immediate indication of American casualties. The clashes in Fallujah, a conservative Sunni Muslim city and Baath party stronghold 50 kilometres west of Baghdad, reflect the area's increasing tensions as American troops try to keep the peace in Iraq.

Full story....

Abu Mazen

From the Kansas City Star / AP:

High-ranking Iraqi prisoners are uniformly denying Saddam Hussein's government had any weapons of mass destruction before the war, U.S. officials familiar with their interrogations said Tuesday.

The officials said they believe many of the prisoners are lying to protect themselves.

A London-based Arabic newspaper claims to have received a letter signed by Saddam Hussein. In it he calls for resistance to the occupiers.

The letter is dated April 28 (his 66th birthday).

Full article is here.

Reported widely; this account from the New York Times:

The United States said today that it would withdraw all combat forces in Saudi Arabia by this summer, ending more than a decade of military operations in this strategic Middle East nation that is America's largest oil supplier.

The American presence here began as a joint operation to contain Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Persian Gulf war, but increasingly became dangerous for the American troops involved because Osama bin Laden and fellow terrorists resented their presence in the land of Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina. Twenty-four American soldiers died in two separate terrorist strikes here in 1995 and 1996.

The New Yorker's Jon Lee Anderson has posted his latest dispatch from Baghdad, and it's excellent, just like those before it. The focus of this article: his realtionship with Ala Bashir ... a plastic surgeon who had had an unusually friendly relationship with Saddam for twenty years and was also a member of the medical team responsible for his care. You can read the article here.

[Bloomberg]

Deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein will make a statement to the people of Iraq in three days, Agence France-Presse cited the London-based Arabic language al-Quds newspaper as saying.

Hussein hasn't been seen since April 9, when Iraqi television broadcast videotape of him in the north of the capital. He is the focus of a manhunt by coalition forces in Iraq.

"President Saddam Hussein was not killed,'' a statement from a group calling itself Iraqi Resistance and Liberation said in a letter published by al-Quds, according to AFP. "He is still alive. He is going to address a message to Iraqis and to the nation within 72 hours.''

No further information was immediately available.

AP/Seattle P-I

The United States is donating 30,800 tons of wheat to Iraq through Jordan, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement Tuesday.

It said the M/V Free Atlas, which left Galveston, Texas, on April 4, was due to arrive at the Red Sea port of Aqaba Wednesday. The U.S.-grown wheat - enough to feed 4.5 million people for a month - will be handed over to World Food Program representatives for transport and distribution in Iraq.

A similar shipment of 31,350 tons of wheat was sent to Iraq through Turkey five days ago.

A third shipment of rice was expected to arrive Wednesday at the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr. The rice was purchased in Pakistan from a recent U.S. donation of $200 million to the World Food Program, the statement said.

UPI

Iran has asked its citizens not to travel to Iraq, even for religious purposes, until an Iraqi government is established in Baghdad, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Tuesday.

The decision is seen as a reconciliatory gesture towards the United States, which had accused Iran of sending its agents to Iraq in an effort to undermine U.S. reconstruction efforts.

Hamid Reza Asefi, a spokesman for the Iranian ministry for foreign affairs, told reporters in Tehran that Iran has advised its citizens "not to visit Iraq even for pilgrimage to Shiite shrines."

The British government has said that the risk of terrorist attacks in the short term has been heightened due to the war in Iraq. Despite this the Foreign Office said the removal of Saddam Hussein will make the world a safer place in the long run because of Saddam's support of "rejectionist terror organisations."

CNN reports:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senior Bush administration officials Tuesday said a member of an al Qaeda-affiliated terror group operating in Iraq has been captured by U.S. forces.

Sources said the individual is a member of a group operating in western Baghdad under the leadership of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian believed by the United States to have been the mastermind behind the assassination of American diplomat Lawrence Foley in Amman last October.

Zarqawi was said to have received medical treatment in Baghdad in May and June of 2002 after being wounded in Afghanistan during the war. His leg was amputated, U.S. officials say, by a surgeon in Iraq.

From the Register UK:

Chief executive for the Recording Industry Association of America, Hilary Rosen, is helping draft copyright legislation for the New Iraq, according to investigative journalist Gregory Palast.

"Who's really going to win this war? It looks like Madonna," Palast told Democracy Now radio. "Where before, they feared Saddam Hussein, now they have to fear Sony Records will chop off their hands if they bootleg a Madonna album..."

Iraq does not have a reciprocal copyright agreement with the United States, which means that US works are not protected...

And [Rosen] will want to stiffen the penalties for infringement:- one hundred dinars, or three hundred for repeat offenders.

Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin, setting himself at odds with Washington, said on Tuesday that U.N. sanctions against Iraq should not be lifted until the existence of illegal weapons had been cleared up.

Speaking after talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the U.S. main ally in the war on Iraq, Putin focused on the issue of weapons of mass destruction, the original justification for the U.S.-led invasion of the Arab country.

"So far we have no answers and as long as we have no answers we cannot feel safe. We need to have a legal basis to put an end to this," the Kremlin leader told a news conference, adding that the United Nations was the only body competent to do this.

"Sanctions were imposed on Iraq on the basis of suspicions that it held weapons of mass destruction. Sanctions can only be removed if there is no suspicion and it is only the Security Council that can remove these sanctions because it imposed them in the first place," he said.

[Sky News - Update to previous stories]

US Central Command has admitted its soldiers in the Iraqi town of Falluja opened fire on a crowd, claiming they came under attack.

At least 13 Iraqis were killed as they demonstrated against US presence at a school in the town 30 miles west of Baghdad, according to some reports from local residents.

A Central Command spokeswoman said: "Members of the 1st Battalion of the 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division came upon a group of Iraqis armed with AK-47s last night.

"The Iraqis fired on them. The troops returned fire."

Full story...

US rule splits Iraq

But there were sharp divisions over the duration of the US occupation, as well as the role Islam should play in a new government. While some, including many exiles, appeared to favour a quick US exit, others who endured Saddam's brutal rule were sceptical over their own readiness to lead the nation.

"We prefer the Americans to rule us in the interim period. We are not ready to handle this yet," said Suheil al-Suheil, a Baghdad lawyer. "Saddam's orphans are still alive."

Reuters.

Haaretz.

Sky News reports that Saddam Hussein's Basra governor has surrendered, according to the Iraqi National Congress.

UPDATE: Sky now has the full story:

"Accompanied by his father, they just drove themselves in their vehicle from the place where they were hiding in Baghdad to the INC office," spokesman Zaab Sethna said.

"He was met by officials from the INC and American officials from the Department of Defence," he added, saying that US officials were now interrogating Tawfiq.

Walid Hamid Tawfiq al-Tikriti was number 44 on the most wanted list. His card was the Eight of Clubs.

[You can see a scorecard of the deck of cards here]

Walla cites London's Arabic paper Asharq al-Awsat, saying that in the leaflets Saddam is accusing the Iraqi army of treason, and is promising to punish the traitors.

[Courier Mail...breaking storyl]

A HUGE explosion was heard in Baghdad and a massive plume of black smoke could be seen pouring into the sky.

The blast came from the south-east of the city but it was not immediately possible to determine its exact origin.

An AFP reporter on the scene said an oil trench, of the kind lit by Saddam Hussein's regime to block the visibility of coalition warplanes, was burning but nearby residents said there had been no blast there.

They claimed that children had set the trench on fire.

Full story...

via War Liberal

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by American soldiers in the battle for Baghdad, Fahd, an 18-year-old Syrian student, reserves any bitterness solely for the Iraqi Republican Guards, "traitors," he says, who yielded the Iraqi capital without a fight. All across the Arab world, young men who rallied to defend Iraq are returning home, many of them disillusioned and embittered by the swift collapse of Iraqi resistance and the sometimes hostile reception they received from ordinary Iraqis.

Reuters -

RIYADH (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday it was ending military operations in Saudi Arabia and removing virtually all of its forces from the kingdom by mutual agreement following the Iraq war.

The move, announced before Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld began talks with Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz, followed Riyadh's refusal to allow air strikes by the 100 U.S. aircraft based in Saudi Arabia during the conflict.

The move effectively ends a relationship dating back to 1991 when Washington used Saudi Arabia as a launch pad for the Gulf War to oust Iraqi troops from Kuwait and then as a base to police a "no-fly" zone over southern Iraq.

U.S. military personnel in Saudi Arabia, which doubled to 10,000 from 5,000 during the Iraq war, have starting pulling out, the officials said.

Asked if Saudi Arabia had requested the move, a senior U.S. official told reporters accompanying Rumsfeld on a tour of Gulf states: "It was by very mutual agreement."

Ha'aretz - The two British commandos recently freed from Syrian custody after they crossed up to 100 miles on foot through enemy Iraqi territory and desert waste, were members of a group of Special Boat Service troops ambushed by Iraqi soldiers while on a secret mission in northern Iraq in early April, British media reported Tuesday.

The story of the their release was first made public by Haaretz military editor Ze'ev Schiff, whose account in the Monday paper was widely quoted in the British and international media.

Times - One of the most stirring escape stories yet to emerge from the Iraq war ended with the two men being taken into custody by the Syrians, and the Prime Minister sending a personal envoy to Damascus to win their release. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence refuse to comment on an episode that had begun with the disastrous ambush of a secret British mission behind enemy lines, but details divulged to The Times suggest it was another case of triumph over adversity. Major Charles Heyman, Editor of Jane’s World Armies, said: "There’s no doubt whatsover this is the sort of high standard of evasion of the enemy on the ground we’ve come to expect of our special forces. It’s still pretty remarkable."

Continue reading 'Two SBS survive ambush, desert trek and Syria jail'

Military sources said that on about April 2, in the second week of the war, a squadron of between 30 and 40 Special Boat Service commandos were dropped by helicopter into northern Iraq to carry out reconnaissance and sabotage operations around Mosul. They split up into patrols, driving Land Rovers.

One of the patrols of about 10 SBS commandos spotted a suspected Iraqi reconnaissance patrol, but did not open fire because of doubts over whether it was an Iraqi Army unit or Kurdish soldiers. That SBS patrol ran into an Iraqi ambush and came under heavy fire. The commandos were forced to abandon their vehicles and head off across rough terrain into the hills. All survived the ambush. An emergency call summoned a Chinook helicopter to rescue them, but two were missing.

Al-Jazeera television subsequently showed pictures of jubilant Iraqis jumping on one of the British Land Rovers. Baghdad claimed that 10 soldiers from the SAS had been killed. The MoD made a brief statement in which it confirmed that British soldiers had had to be "extracted" from northern Iraq, but made no mention of the two missing commandos.

The two SBS men set off for the Syrian border, seeking what a military source called a "safe haven". They would have had desert clothing and hoods, as well as night-vision goggles. Their survival kit would have included a personal global positioning system the size of a mobile telephone, a map and other basics.

They would have travelled by night and hidden by day. Initially, at least, they would have been crossing country infested by Iraqi troops guarding oilfields. Later they would have crossed sparsely-populated desert. Once in Syria, they were almost certainly picked up by border guards.

On April 14 - the day the war effectively ended with the fall of Tikrit - Tony Blair sent Mike O’Brien, a Foreign Office minister, to Damascus to exploit Mr Blair’s cordial relations with President Assad, of Syria, to win the commandos’ release. They flew home without publicity.

The commandos’ story bears a strong resemblance to the escape of Chris Ryan, the SAS trooper in the ill-fated Bravo Two Zero patrol during the 1991 Gulf War.

In that instance the eight-man SAS patrol ran into Iraqi troops while hunting Scud missiles in Iraq. One was killed in the subsequent firefight, four were captured and the other three tried to escape. Two died of hypothermia but Ryan managed to reach Syria.

(Update to this previous story)

Several news outlets are reporting that anywhere from 7-15 Iraqis were killed when U.S. coalition forces fired on a crowd of protesters. Some of the reports say that the crowd - made up of armed school children - fired on the schoolhouse where the troops were headquartered.

Most reports are quoting an AP wire story:

U.S. soldiers opened fire on Iraqi protesters in a town west of Baghdad after being shot at and least seven demonstrators were hit, a U.S. officer said Tuesday. Residents said at least 15 people were killed.

The shooting took place Monday night in the town of Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad. Col. Arnold Bray of the 82nd Airborne Division gave the U.S. account of the clash, but could not confirm the Iraqi deaths.

Local Iraqis said the demonstration was conducted by students between the ages of 5 and 20, but Bray said some of them were armed.

Al Jazeera (Arabic site only) has pictures.

Sky News is the only news source so far to have something besides the AP wire story, but they were quoting Al Jazeera:

Angry witnesses who were burying their dead after the shooting on Monday night in Falluja, 30 miles from the capital, said dozens more people had been wounded and the protesters were not armed.

"Our soul and our blood we will sacrifice to you martyrs," the mourners chanted as they buried six of the dead at a cemetery while US helicopters flew overhead.

At least one person said 17 people were killed in the shooting. Others put the death toll at between 13 and 17.

Arab satellite TV station al Jazeera said the toll could as high as 15 dead and 50 injured.

UPDATE:

[Update to previous posts]

Fox News:

While the U.S. maintains it was responding to incoming gunfire, Al-Jazeera (search) television quoted local residents as saying U.S. troops began shooting after someone threw a rock at a building they were stationed in.

Dr. Ahmed Ghanim al-Ali claims that three boys under 11-years-old were among those killed. He also said his medical crews were shot at when they went to retrieve the injured.

Col. Arnold Bray of the 82nd Airborne Division gave the U.S. account of the clash, but could not confirm the Iraqi deaths.

The demonstrators reportedly were protesting U.S. troops' presence in Fallujah.

No, not another story about George Galloway, this one's about Military Police. From The Australian

The US Army would deploy up to 4000 extra military police and infantrymen in Baghdad in the next week to 10 days to help stem the looting and lawlessness that have plagued the Iraqi capital since the removal of the old regime, a top general said.
"We'll also begin this coming week a training program with volunteers coming back to the Baghdad police force," Major General Glenn Webster, deputy commander of US ground forces in Iraq, said.

3 Crooks with guns met some Aussies. From The Australian

Australian soldiers have exchanged fire with three gunmen in Baghdad.
Defence spokesman Brigadier Mike Hannan said today an ADF security patrol came across the three men on Sunday.
Rather than engage in a street battle, the patrol broke off contact after a few shots were fired.
"The three men appeared to be criminally motivated," Brigadier Hannan said.
None of the Australians was injured in the incident.

Abu Hamza: A Political Profile.

Update: Thanks to an eagle-eyed reader for finding the correct link.

Al-Jazeera continues to emphasise the American killing of Iraqi civilians in its news reporting. Today's top story bears the headline "Killing of Ten Iraqis by American Force's Fire in Faluja". The story reports that in response to a call from the Imams in the city's mosques, a group of Iraqis came out to protest for the removal of American forces from Iraq. The Americans fired on the protesters, killing ten and wounding seven.

In another incident, according to the Al-Jazeera reporter, the US forces killed an unarmed civilian in the At-Tahrir Square in the centre of Baghdad. He forces believed he was hiding weapons under his robes. The soldiers took the body away and wouldn't let any of the locals approach the area.

Another story, including pictures, describes how, in spite of the American presence, many residents of Tikrit celebrated Saddam's birthday. Al-Jazeera still refers to Saddam as "the Iraqi President".

The story reports (and shows) that signs appeared on many of Tikrit's walls reading, "Yes, yes, to the leader Saddam Hussein, and death to the Americans and the Zionists". Other signs read "Happy Birthday Saddam Hussein" and "Saddam We Love You".

Reuters reports:

U.S.-led forces said on Tuesday they were holding Amer Rashid Muhammad, a former Iraqi oil minister who was also a presidential adviser to Saddam Hussein.

U.S. Central Command in Qatar said in a statement the former minister surrendered on Monday and was in custody. It gave no other details.

He was number 47 on a U.S. list of the 55 most wanted members of Saddam's administration and the six of spades in a deck of cards issued to U.S. troops hunting Iraqi leaders.

Here is the AP story.

From The NY Times

The United States still has about 300,000 air, land and naval forces in the gulf region, including 135,000 in Iraq. But that is already down from a peak of 350,000 during the Iraq war, and the number shrinks every week.

Only two of the five aircraft carriers made available for the war are still sending out gulf-related air missions. More than 100 Air Force planes have left the region for home. A brigade of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division has flown home, and several thousand marines are preparing to load back onto their ships.

But military commanders say the United States will still keep perhaps 75,000 to 125,000 troops -- and possibly more -- in Iraq for the next several months to two years, helping secure the country to allow an interim civilian Iraqi authority to form, and then have a new elected Iraqi government take root.

Not that this would surprise you. From ABC (US):

America will not impose any government or culture on Iraq but will be a "steady friend" in forming a new democracy to replace Saddam Hussein, President Bush said Monday in a speech broadcast across the Arab world.

"The Iraqi people will choose their own leaders and their own government," Bush told an exuberant crowd that twice chanted "U-S-A, U-S-A," in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit with deep Middle Eastern ties.

"The days of oppression from any source are over," he said. "Iraq will be democratic."

Many Iraqi Americans know the horrors of Saddam Hussein's regime firsthand. You also know the joys of freedom you have found here in America. (Applause.) You are living proof the Iraqi people love freedom and living proof the Iraqi people can flourish in democracy. (Applause.) People who live in Iraq deserve the same freedom that you and I enjoy here in America. (Applause.) And after years of tyranny and torture, that freedom has finally arrived. (Applause.)

The Economist has it's take on today's gathering of Iraqi leaders here. As is the case with most Economist content, it's a solid account of an intellectual quality above much of what else is out there (politics aside). Worth the read. It also has this tidbit, which I've not seen elsewhere (it could very well have been posted here at TCP, but I can't ever seem to read everything):

The biggest task facing a new government will be reconstructing the country and getting the economy moving. America has pledged to use Iraq’s oil revenues to help finance this. Yet depending on how the oil revenue is used—which in turn depends on how the United Nations resolves its squabbles over lifting Iraqi sanctions—James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank, has estimated that countries will still have to raise another $2 billion-$3 billion a year to help meet the costs.

News24 (South Africa)

Baghdad - Some of Iraq's most celebrated writers and thinkers met openly for the first time here on Monday since the fall of Saddam Hussein and told how the ousted regime treated them as criminals.

From the Guardian:

The embattled Labour MP George Galloway acted as the secret 'emissary' for a British-based Islamic dissident who purchased a satellite phone supplied to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
The phone was used by Osama bin Laden and his associates to plan the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya...

A former media adviser to Saudi dissidents in London has told The Observer that Galloway, who last week denied that he had received money from Saddam Hussein's regime, flew to Morocco on 2 February 1996 for a secret meeting to discuss the political situation in Saudi Arabia. Only two others were present: Crown Prince Mohammed (now the King) and a senior Moroccan intelligence official.

The meeting was arranged by the Moroccan embassy in London to explore the possibility of negotiations between the Saudi dissidents in the UK, including al-Fagih and the House of Saud. Galloway has always spoken out against bin Laden and Islamic terrorism and there is no suggestion he supported al-Fagih's relationship with al-Qaeda.

However the disclosure of this secret meeting raises further concerns over his involvement with foreign political interests. Speaking from Portugal, Galloway refused to comment on this trip or his relationship with al-Fagih.

Galloway was unaware that, just months after his trip to Morocco on al-Fagih's behalf, the Saudi purchased an 'Exact-M' satellite phone on behalf of bin Laden's representative in London, Khalid al-Fawaaz...

[Note that this is in the new 'GeorgeGallowayMP' category.]

Reuters

Iraqi tribesmen near the Syrian border denied on Monday that they had given sanctuary to Saddam Hussein's wife and daughters -- but said that if they did arrive and ask for protection, they would get it.

The tribesmen said relatives of several senior Iraqis had passed through the northern region during the war. But they refused to say who they were, or where they had gone.

Some media reports have said members of Saddam's family fled to Syria during the war and were later sent back to Iraq, where they were being sheltered by the Shamar tribe.

Additionally from the Reuters article,

Arabic channel Al Arabiya quoted sources as saying the group included Saddam's wife Sajida, and his three daughters -- Raghd and Rana whose husbands he ordered killed in 1996, and Hala, whose husband Jamal Mustafa Sultan al-Tikriti surrendered to U.S. troops last week after returning from Syria.

Fener Ahmed Sfook al-Faisal, a Shamar tribe sheikh in Rabia, dismissed the reports.

"We heard this report on Arabiya television and were astonished. We deny this and if they stayed in this place we would know about it," he told Reuters.

But asked what would happen if Saddam's wives and daughters came to the tribe for protection, he said: "If they came here we would show them hospitality because that is our custom as Arabs. It is Saddam who is wanted, not his family."

He added that U.S. officers had last visited the area about two weeks ago to meet tribal elders and local officials.

AP/The Straits Times

Kurdish paramilitary forces face a Monday deadline to halt armed patrols in this key northern Iraqi troops as US Army troops try to calm rising tensions between the city's Arabs and Kurds.

From the Times (UK):

Mr Aziz, a confident English-speaking minister who defended Iraq through three wars, was a loyal but ailing public servant, victimised by the regime, [his daughter] said. He fought for moderation and certainly never regarded Saddam Hussein as a friend.

The description might sound like a convenient rewriting of history for a man who served the Baath party for 25 years, sat on the ruling Revolutionary Command Council and may end up on trial for crimes against his people.

Nevertheless, Zaineb and Amel Tariq Aziz, the former Deputy Prime Minister’s younger sister, insisted that he had no blood on his hands and, as the only prominent Iraqi Christian in government, was largely excluded from the abuses committed by Saddam’s family and clan.

From force to democracy, courtesy the US Green Berets. From the Melbourne Herald Sun:

US Special Forces soldiers worked secretly with Iraqis in a Baghdad suburb for months before the war began, military officials have revealed.

Soldiers from the 5th Special Forces Group entered Abu Ghurayb, on the western outskirts of the Iraqi capital, and developed a rapport with the town's elders before the war, US Central Command said today ...

... In a news release from Baghdad, Central Command officials also described the role of the soldiers - known as the Green Berets - in helping the people of Abu Ghurayb elect a city council last week.

Central Command said it was the first free election in recent Iraqi history.

[Reuters]

Up to one million Iraqi civil servants returning to work under a U.S. civil administration could qualify for a one-off $20 payment each within a week, a U.S. official said on Sunday.

Accountants from Saddam Hussein's former government were set to deliver documents on Monday that could allow payments to 650,000 workers, mainly in central Iraq, the official told Reuters on the sidelines of a U.S. briefing on the Iraqi economy.

Full story...

From the paper that made Michele famous (as opposed to infamous, which she's been for some time), Newsday:

Warsaw, which supported the United States' position and sent about 50 command troops to fight during the war, is weighing sending fewer than 3,000 troops to Iraq and can't afford the cost on its own, the defense minister said.

AP/KRON4

Army Sgt. Edward John Anguiano, the last U.S. soldier missing in Iraq, was found dead, family members and the Pentagon said Monday.

Anguiano, 24, disappeared after his convoy was attacked March 23 near Nasiriyah in southern Iraq. Anguiano's grandfather and an aunt said military officials notified the family late Sunday.

Al Bawaba

U.S. forces fought suspected paramilitaries loyal to Saddam Hussein in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul Monday night and said at least six Iraqis were killed.

Heavy gunfire erupted in Mosul, and U.S. officers said two of their positions in the city came under sustained fire.

In the heaviest fighting in the country for days, U.S. units hit back with heavy machine guns and lit up the night sky with red flares to direct their fire before calling in helicopter gunships.

The shooting subsided after about 45 minutes but U.S. officers said at least six Iraqis were killed, including five, who allegedly opened up with AK-47 assault rifles from in and around a crowd.

"It was Fedayeen paramilitaries or Ba'ath Party loyalists making a statement against the United States," said Captain J.P. Swoopes of the 101st Airborne Division, which took over control of the city last week.

But another officer said it was possible the initial firing was celebratory and had been mistaken for a coordinated attack on the two Army camps.

WaPo reports that our plan is to convene a conference within four weeks to set up an interim government for Iraq.

Iraqi Delegates Agree to Meet Within a Month to Pick Leaders

In a sign of new cooperation, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an Iran-based group of Shiite Muslim exiles, sent a low-level delegation to the Baghdad conference. The council had boycotted the first meeting on April 15, and high-ranking members refused to attend Monday's conference in protest of its U.S. sponsorship, said Hamid al-Bayati, a London spokesman for the group. (/blockquote>

Posted By PoliticaObscura at 02:16 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

[Washington Times ]

Iraqi civilians are preparing a complaint to present in court in Belgium accusing allied commander Gen. Tommy Franks and other U.S. military officials of war crimes in Iraq, according to the attorney representing the plaintiffs.

The complaint will state that coalition forces are responsible for the indiscriminate killing of Iraqi civilians, the bombing of a marketplace in Baghdad, the shooting of an ambulance, and failure to prevent the mass looting of hospitals, said Jan Fermon, a Brussels-based lawyer. He is representing about 10 Iraqis who say they were victims of or eyewitnesses to atrocities committed during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Full story....

While the US investigates the possibility that Lieutenant Commander Michael Scott Speicher may still be alive in Iraq, the Kuwaiti government is still searching for thousands of its own captured by Iraq during Saddam's 1990 invasion.

Chairman of a voluntary team assigned to look for Kuwaiti POWs in Iraq, Lawyer Naser Al-Duwailah renewed here Sunday hopes that Kuwaiti POWs are alive in Iraq. Al-Duwailah said in a press conference after returning from the search for Kuwaiti POWs in Iraq, "during our trip we received information that a number of Kuwaiti POWs were in one of the Iraqi areas, two weeks before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom."

He explained that such information gives hope that the POWs are still alive after 13 years of detention by the Iraqi forces.

Al-Duwailah called for forming a team of special Kuwaiti forces including no more than 25 soldiers and an officer accompanying a liaison officer from the coalition forces and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to be concentrated in Samara or the surrounding areas, since information is flowing from these areas.

Kuwait supported the coalition's efforts in Iraq more firmly and unequivocally than any other Arab nation. It is now positioning itself to both assist Iraq's rebuilding and benefit from the new economic opportunities in Iraq.

Kuwait's Council of Ministers Sunday approved the idea of building a free trade zone near the country's northern borders with Iraq. Minister of Commerce and Industry Salah Khorshid presented to the Cabinet a report on the project to set up warehouses for the Customs Department near Kuwaiti borders with Iraq. The project includes building warehouses and fairgrounds for exhibitions and light industries and free trade fairs.

Gulf News

The mystery of who looted Iraq's archaeological treasures is rich with suspects and clues, such as the belly dancer who many believe became Saddam Hussain's mistress or the skeleton of a man who was thrown down a well almost 3,000 years ago.

Taken together, Iraqi archaeologists say, the evidence convinces them that the very people entrusted with protecting some of history's most significant relics are responsible for some of the worst plundering of ancient artefacts.

Thieves left a long trail, with many twists and turns, which runs back at least to 1991, when Saddam's defeat in the Gulf War reduced Iraq's antiquities to booty for his cronies to steal, the archaeologists charge.

"The gang started in the early 1990s, with the support of Saddam Hussain himself," said Junayd Fakhri, an archaeologist who claims the 1990 discovery of a royal Assyrian treasure buried in a palace well, perhaps in 8th century B.C.

The Scotsman

AS THEY roared north to Baghdad, US forces knew that they had a powerful secret weapon on their side - finely-honed insults that would make Iraqi troops’ blood boil.

Through enormous loudspeakers mounted on their humvees, troops broadcast messages proclaiming that Iraqi men were impotent.

The insult had been carefully chosen to so enrage Iraqi troops that they could not resist rushing from their defensive positions to attack the American troops in open battle, with terrible consequences.

According to Newsweek, US Central Command was delighted that the carefully constructed plan "to mess with their heads" seemed to be working so well. The strategy is one of many aspects of a war that went almost un-noted - the hidden psychological and special forces operations that helped win the war.

Reuters

More than 100 people have removed the remains of their loved ones from the Al Khirka Islamic Cemetery over the past few days.

The victims were executed by Saddam Hussein's regime and buried with no trace of their whereabouts. Only Iraq's shadowy intelligence agencies had the records.

Many families feared they could risk their own lives if they asked questions so they suffered in silence.

Workers said more than 900 people had been buried in the cemetery, about 20 miles west of Baghhdad, since 1981. Their relatives only learned the truth after U.S. troops toppled Saddam's rule.

A group of 20 Iraqis with missing relatives raided intelligence agencies and found and distributed lists of people who had been executed.

Now the relatives stand watching cemetery workers drive shovels into graves with numbers like 642, 744 and 765. That's only in one cemetery in a country where human rights groups and ordinary Iraqis say Saddam ordered thousands of summary executions.

Many of those buried at Al Khirka had spent time in the nearby Abu Ghraib prison, notorious for its brutal conditions.

Haaretz.

[This is London]

The Foreign Office is today investigating reports that Saddam's Hussein's wife and daughters have been kicked out of Syria.

The family are said to be back in Iraq and are under the protection of a tribal leader in the city of Mosul.

Their expulsion follows intense American pressure on Damascus to stop protecting the remnants of Saddam's regime.

Full story....

USA Today.

Why it's Called the "Mean Time"

From my limited experience, war seems to consist of moments of action and purpose set in sharp relief against weeks of paperwork and waiting. As this campaign draws down we are flying fewer and shorter sorties (only 11 hours last night) and spending more and more time on paperwork. We're writing our lists of lessons-learned and recording the good work of our people for their performance reports and medal write-ups. It's important work to be sure, but it's painfully boring.

A poll taken today might indicate that most of us would prefer to go back to being shot at occasionally.

We expect to hear any day now which of us will be going home soon, and who will be staying a bit longer. In spite of the commander's admonishments to the contrary, people are going wild with speculation. They seize on every odd gesture or unusual choice of words as an omen of impending joy or sorrow.

In the mean time I'm keeping my ear to the ground hoping to find my way into Iraq. Whether it's to help keep order or distribute aid or establish the interim government, I would like to get on the ground over there. Years ago the Air Force invested a considerable amount of Arabic language training in me - an investment they compound from time to time with refresher training - and I would love to be able to provide a return on that investment now. Of course the prospect of visiting Mesopotamia might have something to do with wanting to get there.

Of course that desire is at odds with the growing ache to be home again with my family. All I can do is make myself available in case there is a need for my skills. If I'm not called, I can return home in good conscience whenever my turn comes up.

***

The Services Squadron held a big party today, beginning with a 5K race this morning at 0500. I was still in the air, so I didn't race. In fact, I missed just about all the festivities. I got back to my room and hit the sack at about 0800 and slept for 11 hours. That's a personal record. By the time I woke the talent show was over and the bar-b-que chicken and steak were things of the past. The only thing left was a dance in the theater tent (I have a personal policy about that - never let the people you work with see you dance.) and the Daewoo 100.

Daewoos are tiny Korean trucks we use here. They are too small to pass US safety standards so you won't see them at home, but they are cheap and relatively durable so the DoD uses them overseas. (That's right. They're too dangerous to sell to farmers and small business owners who need cheap transport, but we buy them for 19 year-olds to tear around in overseas.) They are so small that when I was in Korea it was a popular diversion for 3 or 4 men to walk around base picking up parked Daewoos and carrying them to hiding places. After a while so many man-hours were wasted by people searching for their cars that the Wing Commander had to forbid the sport.

Here, instead of carrying them around, we push them, engines off, along a 100 foot race course. Three pushers and one driver constitute a team, and 2 trucks race down the center of our compound at a time. It draws a big enthusiastic crowd and most importantly, it kills a couple of hours.

In the hopes of killing time yesterday, I went to the theater tent and saw the movie, "The Fast And The Furious." Unfortunately, instead of making time go more quickly, this film made it pass more slowly. It's a story about an undercover cop who penetrates the street-racing world, hoping to break up a ring of thieves. It's been done before, and it's been done better. But if it ever has to be done again, it should be done like the Daewoo races.

***

Our Friendly Hosts

I got a priority mail package from home today. My wife mailed it on the 18th of March. Why a collection of newspaper clippings and family photos took more than a month to get here I can't say, but I'm willing to bet it has something to do with the "Inspected by Host Nation Customs" sticker on the outside. I wonder how long it sat in their warehouse, and whether the delay occurred before or after they cut the ragged hole in the box and patched it half-heartedly with a single piece of tape.

Our enlightened hosts are not burdened with the infidels' sense of property rights. Items have been known to disappear from our packages. The excuse is offered that the item was somehow objectionable. When we deployed here customs agents confiscated every single DVD that came with us, theoretically to assure themselves they contained no pornography. We'll never know if they assured themselves or not. All we know is we'll never see those DVDs again. Somewhere along a road off base there is probably a little guy in a tent selling them at a discount.

***

CNN Can't Get it Right

CNN seems to be getting a kick out of reporting on Shiites protesting American "occupation" and predicting all sorts of obstacles to a republican form of government. There are just a few problems with that. First, CNN has no credibility. They gave up any attempt at journalistic integrity years ago, and even admit now that they sat on first-hand knowledge of Saddam's butchery in order to keep a presence in Iraq. (Their admission of complicity in Saddam's regime might be the first actual reporting they've done in years.) Also, their bias is obvious. Over here we've been entertaining ourselves for weeks by comparing CNN's headlines with those of other news agencies covering the same stories. A headline from the Brit news source Sky News might read, "Allies win the War," but CNN would say, "Suffering in Iraq Continues."

The other problem is that CNN implies these protests are being led by everyday Iraqis. I find this very unlikely. I suspect that the protests are the work of militant Shiites coming across the border from Iran, eager to spread the power of the Ayatollahs. The vast majority of Iraqis are thrilled to be released from Saddam's power and are looking forward to the establishment of a secular republican government. They are in no hurry to exchange one dictator for another, and they are well aware of the repressive conditions that exist in Iran, where a Shiite theocracy is struggling against growing demands for freedom. Besides, you can't tell me that after nearly 30 years under a government that tolerated no dissent the Iraqis aren't struck by the fact that America's presence in Iraq is exactly what enables people to protest. Instead of "Iraqi's Protest American Occupation" maybe the headline should be, "Iraqis Sample Freedom," or if they really wanted to be journalists, "Iranian Shiites Oppose Free Iraq."

Nice try, CNN. No wonder you're hemorrhaging market share.

***

A crew tradition is a top 10 list for every flight. I'll leave you with the list from last night's sortie:

Top 10 Reasons Saddam was Hiding Millions of Dollars

10 - Looking for really good tax shelter
09 - Going to build new line of baby milk factories
08 - Saving to have unsightly body hair removed
07 - Just holding it for Noble Iraqi People
06 - Expecting Hans Blix to resume UN inspections
05 - Chirac ended up being a lot cheaper than expected
04 - Didn't want it wasted on crackpot schemes like buying food, water, or medicine
03 - Was part of statue-cleaning fund
02 - None of your business you war-mongering capitalist imperialist with your heart set on Iraqi oil

And the number one reason Saddam was hiding millions of dollars:

The information minister assures us that there is no money, and anyone who says differently is a Zionist puppet.

Steven

THE SUN: Tariq Aziz Offered Mansion, New Identity for Info

From Reuters:
U.S. Launches Talks to Create New Iraq
Iraqi Islamic Party Sees Bright Future - Without US

Rumsfeld Fires Barbs at Critics of Iraq Invasion

Donald Rumsfeld took a few moments to "critique" critics of the war at a speech to troops in Qatar:

"There were a lot of hand-wringers around, weren't there?" he said with a grin to cheers from military headquarters troops.

Noting Churchill's remark about the Battle of Britain against Nazi Germany that "never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few," Rumsfeld said of critics of the war: "Never have so many been so wrong about so much."

AP via JP reports:
Update on this posting.

A representative of a key Iraqi Shiite group said Monday that his movement will boycott US-led talks on forming a new government in Iraq.

Hamid al-Bayati said the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq opposed American involvement in choosing an administration to replace the Saddam Hussein regime.

The "all-faction" conference in Baghdad, the second in a series of talks expected to extend well into May, is presided over by the US civil administrator for Iraq, retired general Jay Garner.

"We are not attending because it is organized by the Americans, because it is an attempt to select an Iraqi administration under Gen. Jay Garner," the London-based Al-Bayati told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Continue reading 'Iran-based Shiite group to boycott US-led talks in Iraq'

"We would like to see Iraqis organize and call their own meetings and select an Iraqi independent government," he said.

The Iran-based Supreme Council shunned a first round of talks on Iraq's political future on April 15 in the southern city of Ur. It had indicated it was ready to participate in the second round starting Monday, but al-Bayati quashed hopes of any involvement by the Shiite group.

"If they do not want us to have an independent government, then we would rather not be part of an administration under American rule. That would be a matter of principle," he said.

"We cannot be part of an American administration or American rule, and our people would not expect that from us, and we would not want to be isolated from our people."

The documents uncovered by the Telegraph in the UK have now revealed yet more examples of French-Iraqi collaboration.

France colluded with the Iraqi secret service to undermine a Paris conference held by the prominent human rights group Indict, according to documents found in the foreign ministry in Baghdad.
Various documents state that the Iraqis believed the French were doing their utmost to prevent the meeting from going ahead.
Ann Clwyd, the Labour MP who chairs Indict, said last night that she would be demanding an apology from the French government for its behaviour, which she described as "atrocious".
The files, retrieved from the looted and burned foreign ministry by The Telegraph last week, detail the warmth and strength of Iraqi-French ties.
...
A month after the meeting, a letter headed "Role of Southern France" (sic) from Saddam's office authorised the finance ministry to pay $383,439 to undisclosed beneficiaries.
Perhaps the most damning document is from the Iraqi intelligence service, Iris. The service, known as the Mukhabarat in Iraq, operated as the domestic secret police and as an external intelligence agency.
Its role abroad was to collect intelligence, murder opponents and maintain relations with friendly groups. The document, dated March 28, 2000, is from the head of Iris to Saddam's office.
At the time the organisation was run by Tahir Jalil al-Habbush, number 14 on America's wanted list. The letter appears to be written by a different hand from one revealed last week purporting to record that George Galloway benefited from contracts under the oil for food programme. But it carries the same signature.
It states that "one of our sources" met the "deputy spokesman" of the French foreign ministry, "with whom he has good relations".
It claims that the spokesman from the justice and interior ministries had sought to find a legal way of preventing the Indict meeting.
The paper said it had been agreed that no Iraqi opposition leaders would be granted visas for France to attend the conference. It is not clear if Iraqis living outside the country were granted visas.
...
Victims of Saddam's regime gave evidence at the conference and filming was strictly forbidden because they feared being identified.
But someone smuggled in a camera and started filming, Miss Clwyd said.
"The police were called. But they could not take the film from the man because he was an Iraqi accredited to the Moroccan embassy."
The French foreign ministry denied collusion.
A Quai d'Orsay source said it should not come as a surprise that French officials met Iraqi intelligence officers in Baghdad. But he denied accusations of specific collaboration to disrupt the conference.

BBC

While the United States vigorously searches for former members of the Iraqi regime, it still has not decided what to do with those it has caught. One thing is certain. The Americans will not send them to the International Criminal Court or set up any new international tribunal.

[...]

The official policy is that the US will help set up new Iraqi courts to try leaders accused of crimes against their own people.

That has already brought loud protests, not just from human rights groups, but from members of Congress. Leading Democratic Senator Joe Biden said recently that it would be a tragic mistake for the US not to set up an international court.

Albawaba reports:

An official at Iraq's leading opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress (INC) has disclosed to Al Bawaba that in the past two days there has been contacts with Mohammad Said al-Sahaf, Saddam Hussein's Information Minister, regarding his surrender. According to Nabil al Musawi, the deal will be completed soon.

Musawi said that although al-Sahaf's name is not included on the list of most wanted Iraqis by US forces, "he is wanted by the Iraqis".

Last week, the Portuguese daily Diario de Noticias reported that the minister whose briefings made him a worldwide celebrity during the recent war, tried to hand himself in via a contact with Portuguese journalists.

The Associated Press reports:

Iraqi delegates - dressed in business suits and clerics' robes - assembled Monday morning behind a wall of U.S. Army tanks surrounding Saddam Hussein's showcase convention hall to work on the difficult process of forming a government to replace the longtime dictator.

One prominent exile said many delegates were discussing a "presidential council" rather than naming a single leader.

The "all-faction" conference, second in a series expected to extend well into May, was presided over by the U.S. civil administrator for Iraq, retired general Jay Garner.

In a sign of the disorganization and communications problems that have plagued the U.S. occupation in its first days, dozens of delegates drove in circles around traffic-jammed central Baghdad, repeatedly blocked by Army checkpoints from entering the conference site, a grand convention hall built by Saddam more than 20 years ago but rarely used.

Prominent exile Saad al-Bazzaz, a former Iraqi publisher, said he expected the conference to produce a "a sort of government, a sort of authority."

"I'm not expecting one person as president. I'm expecting a presidential council" of three to six members, said al-Bazzaz. "We have been discussing this, many of us."

Such a structure could accommodate, at least temporarily, the ethnic and religious divisions in Iraqi society.

It was not immediately known if a key Shiite Muslim faction - the Iran-based Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq that shunned a first session April 15 in the southern city of Ur - was present for this second round of talks. Between 300 and 400 delegates from political organizations that opposed Saddam and from other Iraqi interest groups were expected, Bodine said in advance of the meeting. The Supreme Council had indicated it was ready to participate.

Fewer than 100 Iraqis, many of them exiles, participated in the first meeting, as some Shiites and others stayed away in protest of potential U.S. influence over selection of a new Iraqi president.

NYT - (free reg required)
This article details the movement of focus from the Combined Air Operations Center in Saudi Arabia to the new facility in Qatar, shifting away from a reliance on Saudi permission for US military activities in the region. Additional moves to be on the watch for as signs of a decresed presence in Saudi - the movement of assetts (aircraft) currently at the same facility to facilities in neighboring countries.

The United States is shifting its major air operations center for the Middle East from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, the first step in what is likely to be a significant reduction of American forces in Saudi Arabia and a realignment of American military presence in the region, senior military officials said today.

The day-to-day responsibility for overseeing hundreds of air missions in Iraq and the Middle East will be transferred this week from Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to a backup headquarters the United States built last year at Al Udeid Air base in Qatar, senior officials said.

A formal decision about whether to make this arrangement permanent has yet to be made by President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

But with the war in Iraq winding down and continued unease in Saudi Arabia about a large American military presence in the kingdom, American commanders believe that the time is right to see if the Qatar base can serve as the United States Central Command's air operations center of the future.

The center in Qatar has already had its 'test drive' - it covered ongoing ops in Afghanistan while the Saudi center focused on operations in Iraq. See the entry 'Rulers of the air' for details on this.

From The Weekly Standard:

....Before the recent conflict, says Tareq al-Mezrem from the Kuwaiti Information Office, the Iraqi regime gave journalists luxury "villas in Jordan, Tunisia, and even Lebanon."

Some of the transactions were straightforward cash payments, often in U.S. dollars, handed out from Iraqi embassies in Arab capitals--luxury cars delivered to top editors, Toyotas for less influential journalists. "This was not secret," says Salama Nimat, a Jordanian journalist who was jailed briefly in 1995 in that nation for highlighting the corruption. "Most of it was done out in the open."

Other transactions were surreptitious or deliberately complex--coveted Iraqi export licenses for family members of politicians, oil kickbacks through third parties, elaborate "scholarship" arrangements. In a region where leaders count their fortunes by the billion and workers by the penny, such payoffs are common. The Saudis, of course, have financed public works throughout the Middle East and Africa. But no one played the game like Saddam Hussein.

Not Bruce Dickinson singing Number of the Beast. A real iron maiden.

A bad day on the field for a player on the national soccer squad could result in savage retribution: Players had their feet scalded and toenails ripped off for failing to win tournaments. Allegations of torture had even resulted in investigations by international sports governing bodies, most notably soccer's FIFA, but these had failed to produce conclusive evidence — hardly surprising, since no player would dare admit to suffering such abuse, for fear of even worse.

On Saturday, however, TIME found what may be the first tangible evidence pointing to torture in Uday's own backyard, the administrative compound of the Iraqi national Olympic committee in central Baghdad. Hidden in a pile of dead leaves, not 20 yards from the building housing the Iraqi Football Association, was that must-have appliance of every medieval dungeon: an iron maiden.

Full story at Time.com

link via Spleenville

[ed note: This is an update of the post here that hinted at the story - the Time link on this post is the full story]

The Telegraph reporter who discovered the documents supposedly linking Saddam with al Qaeda, Inigo Gilmore, describes how he was able to get the documents here:

For me, however, the difficulty was sweet-talking the American soldiers from the 3rd Infantry division who now manage the bombed-out premises. Soldiers were slumbering on a tank turret as I attempted to play the innocent. "Just wanted to take a little look around," I told the burly lieutenant who challenged me at the gates.

My request was considered for a few moments - as were the bona fides of Amir, my interpreter, who had wearily trawled around various government buildings with me all week. As the soldiers idly fingered their trigger-guards, our hearts pounded in the sweltering heat: then the lieutenant waved us through...

It was impossible to get through the main entrance but we were able to clamber through a hole at the side where a door had once been... Rifling through the box folders we found one or two that appeared to be interesting... We stuffed some papers into a bag and headed out before we were discovered...

Inigo Gilmore also found the Galloway-Iraq documents.

Walla, citing IBA radio: Hundreds of US forces supported by helicopters have removed several barricades/checkpoints [?] erected by the Kurdish fighters in the Northern city of Mosul. Some of the kurds tried to resist, but gave up after being threatened with helicopter gunfire. The US forces are now occupying those positions.

Saddam Hussein, the former President of Iraq, was born on April 28, 1937.

From The Australian in Tikrit:

Supporters in the hometown and last bastion of Saddam Hussein have declared their loyalty to the toppled tyrant on his 66th birthday. While, some portraits have been torn down and statues smashed, slogans such as "Happy Birthday, Saddam Hussein" and "Saddam, we love you" could be seen in the city today.

Obscene insults directed at US President George W. Bush were also daubed on walls.

[620KTAR]

The U.S. military arrested a political pretender in Baghdad on Sunday, while a Shiite Muslim group signaled a new willingness to cooperate on the eve of a pivotal U.S.-sponsored conference to help form a provisional government for Iraq. The arrest of Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi reflected U.S. determination to brook no interlopers in its effort to build a consensus for administering Iraq. Timed just before Monday's high-profile conference, it sent a clear message: Don't meddle.

Full story...

From Reuters

KUT, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. forces have imposed their will on the strategic eastern Iraqi city of Kut, forcing out a cleric who had taken charge and seizing the mayor's office in a symbolic show of power.

Marines stood guard on the perimeter walls at Kut city hall on Sunday and a U.S. administrator held meetings inside it, after self-styled mayor Abbas Abu Ragef -- also known as Saed Abbas -- quit town.

Read the rest.

Update - ABC has more, including an American colonel's beliefs that Abbas was supported by some Iranian groups.

Well maybe. I've not seen the Fox program on which these comments were made, and I can't find a reference to it on Fox yet. This article from from News 24.com is a summary of Chalabi's comments on Fox News. I'm putting it up, but I suggest taking it with a grain of salt.

Washington - Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi said on Sunday that ousted president Saddam Hussein likely knew about the 9/11 terror attacks before they occurred.

Asked by the US television network Fox News whether Saddam Hussein was involved in some way in planning the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, Chalabi said he suspected there was.

Read the rest.

LA Times

The Iraqi Intelligence Service established a unit to assassinate Saddam Hussein's enemies at home and abroad that claimed 66 successful "operations" between 1998 and 2000, according to documents obtained by The Times.

Found on the floor of a looted Intelligence Service villa on the east bank of the Tigris River here, the six-page file described the program and contained suggestions for improving its effectiveness — including obtaining poisonous gas disguised as perfume or explosives that would detonate when the car of the target passed by.

None of the assassination targets was specified in the documents, dated April and May 2000, but the period mentioned was a time when prominent Shiite leaders were killed in suspicious circumstances in Iraq and a number of Iraqi dissidents abroad were at least targeted.

AP: BAGHDAD, Iraq -Four U.S. soldiers conducting a public-health assessment were wounded Sunday morning when their Humvees were ambushed in downtown Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said.

The soldiers, in two Humvees, were stopped in midmorning traffic when an assailant approached and fired at them from a small-caliber weapon, said Capt. David Connolly, a military spokesman in Baghdad. One of the soldiers' injuries were serious, he said without elaborating.

"There are still some small pockets of resistance in Baghdad," Connolly said. He did not know whether the soldiers returned fire or whether the shooter was apprehended.

The soldiers, who were taken to a combat support hospital, were on a public health mission when the attack occurred, Connolly said. Their names were being withheld pending notification of family.

From FOXNews:

Before the fall of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein obtained bomb vests from Iraq's intelligence service and was trained on how to use them, a longtime Iraqi opposition figure said Sunday.

In television interviews, Ahmad Chalabi said he couldn't speculate on whether Saddam getting vests like those used by suicide bombers (search) meant the ousted Iraqi leader had decided to kill himself to avoid capture.

From Reuters:

Jay Garner, the retired U.S. general overseeing postwar Iraq, meets 300 to 400 prominent Iraqis in Baghdad on Monday to try to identify potential leaders and pave the way for the creation of an Iraqi government.

U.S. officials hope groups which boycotted an initial meeting near the southern city of Nassiriya on April 15 will attend the second session, a much larger gathering of Iraq's religious, ethnic and political forces.

Fayetteville (NC) Observer: Troops support Iraqi police

FALLUJAH, Iraq - Two Humvees sat on opposite sides of a street as five Iraqi police officers got ready to kick open the gate at a house used by a gang of gun runners.

The gang was believed to have killed a policeman in Fullajah on Saturday.

...

"We are putting the authority back into the Iraqi police force," said Capt. Rob Boone, a 34-year-old from Spring, Texas. He is the commander of the battalion's gun trucks.

The unit featured in this article is the 1st Battalion of the 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment.

AP reports that the U.S. have found a dozen 55-gallon drums of what appears to be nerve gas in Iraq.

AP/WaPo

U.S. forces on Sunday arrested an Iraqi exile who had proclaimed himself Baghdad's mayor, saying he was exerting authority he didn't have.

Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi was arrested at 5 p.m. in downtown Baghdad "for his inability to support the coalition military authority and for exercising authority which was not his," said U.S. military spokesman Capt. David Connolly, speaking in Baghdad.

Soldiers arrested seven others found with al-Zubaidi, Connolly said without identifying them.

Wasington Times -

This article gives a partial insight into the conduct of the air campaign in Iraq.

Bombing by the numbers for the first time helped pilots find targets fast. In one case, a B-1B bomber crew needed only 20 minutes to change mission and hit a building thought to hold Saddam.
"I knew Baghdad almost like the back of my hand — more than I ever wanted to," said Marine Corps Maj. Mike Cederholm, an air planner at the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia

Air planners developed a new way to hunt mobile ballistic missiles.
In the 1991 Gulf war, Iraq launched Scud missiles into Israel, while the United States fruitlessly hunted for the launchers. In this war, planners mapped out 6 million acres of possible sites, then blanketed them with B-1B bombers, F-16 fighters, A-10 tank-killing jets and an array of surveillance planes. The Iraqis failed to launch a single missile into Israel.
"I think they knew there was no way they could get it set up and get a shot off without being killed," a senior allied officer said.
In all, the allies dropped 27,000 munitions at more than 20,000 "aim points," as strategists call a single target or multiple points within a target. More than 18,000 of the munitions were precision-guided, or nearly seven in 10, compared with one in 10 in the Gulf war.
In the 1991 conflict, only about 15 percent of strike aircraft were capable of dropping precision-guided munitions, compared with 100 percent in this war. A major advancement came with the Joint Direct Attack Munition, the first satellite-guided bomb. It zeroes in on coordinates provided by a global positioning system and can be reprogrammed in flight.
Col. Carpenter dubbed his campaign "mass precision."

..says Brigadier General Steve Hawkins. From the AFP, via the Sydney Morning Herald

The priority is to get Iraq's infrastructure "back and running as it needs to, to support this great nation and its people," US Major General Carl Strock, the deputy coordinator for reconstruction, told journalists.
Strock, an army engineer advising Jay Garner, the retired US general now running Iraq, outlined several areas of concern, starting with security.
"We are working very hard to create a secure environment," he said, although he did not outline any steps being taken.
He said hard work was being put into restoring power to provide Iraqis with electricity and water and that "tremendous efforts" were being exerted to "get the oil fields up and running."
Senior oil adviser Gary Vogler, meanwhile, said refineries were operational in northern Iraq and in the Baghdad area, and that he hoped they would be up and running in the south of the country within a week.
"We may have to import oil, although there is enough in the south to cover needs until now," Vogler said.
Brigadier General Steve Hawkins, who is heading a task force to repair basic power, water and sewage networks, forecast Baghdad's electricity grid would be fully operational within one to two weeks.
He said 65 to 70 percent of city had access to running water, with hospitals earmarked as a priority.

"They were merely security guards". From The Australian

Turkey has denied it had sent special forces and arms into Kurdish-held northern Iraq in a bid to fuel unrest and pave the way for a Turkish peacekeeping mission.
Time Magazine on Friday quoted US military sources as saying that they had earlier in the week intercepted a unit of Turkish commandoes attached to a humanitarian aid convoy in a bid to reach the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
The sources said that the mission of the commandoes - caught with an arsenal of automatic rifles and grenades - was to increase tension between the Turkmen and Kurdish population in Kirkuk to justify a Turkish military intervention in the area.
But Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said today security officials, and not special forces, were accompanying aid convoys crossing into Iraq from Turkey.
"To provide the security of the convoys, there was an accompaniment of officials and people were aware of this," Gul told reporters here.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

One US soldier was killed and another injured when their tanks (actually IFVs - Infantry Fighting Vehicles - AEB) rolled over as they headed to a coalition checkpoint in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, the US Central Command has announced.
The two members of the Fourth Infantry Division were travelling in Bradley fighting vehicles and were part of a quick response team that had been called to assist soldiers at a coalition checkpoint.
"The checkpoint had recently come under enemy fire," Centcom said.
"As the Bradleys were moving forward to assist with security at the checkpoint, two of the vehicles rolled over."

The latest from Gallup, courtesy Foreign Policy magazine. The data are from polling conducted April 22-23. Highlights:

An April 22-23 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll finds 71% of Americans saying they favor the U.S. war with Iraq, while 26% oppose it. Support has remained in the 70% range across the seven times Gallup has asked the public this question since the war in Iraq began.

Americans have become less likely to think the United States will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The percentage of Americans who say the war has made the United States safer from terrorist attacks increased from 51% on April 10 to 58% in the latest poll.

More than 7 in 10 Americans believe that Saddam Hussein is alive.

Badly burnt Iraqi child to be treated in Israel

[Sky News]

The chief Iraqi liaison with UN weapons inspectors, Lt. Gen. Hossan Mohammed Amin, is in coalition custody, says US Central Command.

Amin, the former Iraqi National Monitoring Director, was No 49 on the US list of the 55 most wanted figures from the regime of Saddam Hussein.

(Amin is the Six of Clubs in the most wanted deck of cards)

UPDATE Fox has more:

The general was among the key figures in Saddam's weapons programs and would have detailed knowledge of any illegal armaments.

For more than a decade as head of the monitoring commission, the former air force communications engineer has earned a reputation as a loyal officer who has fulfilled Saddam's expectations.

Amin and his troops refused to allow U.N. inspectors into presidential palaces and other "sensitive sites" during the first round of U.N. inspections that ended in 1998.

Full story...

Detailed accounts of the horrors of the Saddam Hussein regime, and official information on Operation Iraqi Freedom, are available at this Whitehouse site.

. . . . there's a fag stall of all flavours every 10 metres and almost as many sidewalk vendors of alcohol: Johnnie Walker, Dimple, Bells, Absolut, all $25 (U.S.) a bottle. Suddenly, tubs of ice-cold Heineken and Amstel have appeared, replacing the Turkish-brewed Efes Pilsener that was the suds-of-choice (actually, no choice) in Saddam's hermetically sealed Iraq.

Where did all this contraband come from, almost overnight? But then Iraqis, after 12 years of United Nations-imposed sanctions, have become expert at smuggling and bootlegging. Oil, spirits, what's the dif?

. . . There was a time — and many Baghdadis will remember it, or have a vestigial sense of it — when this Westernized capital was a racy metropolis indeed. Before it became, in the last decade of the Saddam regime, a sort of Albania of the desert, all greasy gloom and dreary, Baghdad knew how to frolic.

. . . and here's another Baghdad slice-of-life from Toronto Star reporter Rosie Di Manno.

At one local police station the other day, reporters found a stash of curious documents. Nothing earth-shaking, just a list of local barbers and hairdressers, all of whom had to sign agreements with the authorities in exchange for their licences promising to provide to security agencies all the idle gossip overheard in their establishments: Who might have made a disparaging remark about Saddam's wife, who was rumoured to have a little too much money in her handbag, whose son had perhaps slipped out of the country — anything that might be used to threaten and punish.

The regime survived so long because it made tattle-tales and conspirators out of everybody. Iraqis were enslaved by their own betrayals and the conviction that all others were doing the same. There were jins — mean spirits — down every telephone line and telex machine. This is my favourite story: A United Nations worker from Ethiopia phones a colleague in New York, switching in mid-conversation from English to his native Amharic. At which point a voice cuts in, instructing the gentlemen to "please continue in a language we can understand.''

The Guardian

While the horrific images of streets strewn with bodies shook the world, many Iraqi Arabs remain unaware of Saddam Hussein's gas attack that killed thousands of Iraqi Kurds 15 years ago.

And those Arabs who heard rumors of the slaughter in the northern city of Halabja say they did not believe them at the time. Some remain unconvinced today...

...It was easy for Saddam's repressive regime, which enforced strict censorship, to keep news of the slaughter from spreading. As a result, very few people in the village of Manqouba, 155 miles west of Halabja, had heard of the chemical massacre there. And even fewer believed it.

Iraqi Arabs in other towns in northern Iraq's oil-producing province of Kirkuk showed similar disbelief, even though Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen live side by side in the region. In fact, until Iraqi security documents were seized during the Kurdish uprising of 1991, even many Kurds of northern Iraq had not heard of the Halabja attack or didn't know details of it.

The Director of Public Prosecutions is considering prosecuting George Galloway for treachery under Section 1 of the 1934 Disaffection Act.

This latest twist comes as The Observer reveals details of a secret trip Galloway made to Morocco for the British-based Saudi dissident Saad al-Fagih, an Islamic fundamentalist who purchased a satellite phone used by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Judith Miller of the New York Times reports:

Nissar Hindawi, a leading figure in Iraq's biological warfare program in the 1980's, says the stories and explanations he and other scientists told the United Nations about the extent of Iraq's efforts to produce poisons and germ weapons "were all lies."

Dr. Hindawi, imprisoned during the final weeks of Saddam Hussein's rule, is now free to talk about his experiences in the program, in which he says he was forced to work from 1986 to 1989 and again sporadically until the mid-1990's.

Iraq, as it belatedly acknowledged, he says, "produced huge quantities" of liquid anthrax and botulinum toxin, which it concentrated 5 to 10 times with sulfuric acid and other preservatives.

"There were orders to destroy it," Dr. Hindawi said during interviews conducted today and on Friday. "They destroyed some ? whether all or not, I can't say."

He said that while he worked in the program or was ordered to brief the inspectors on it, Iraq made 8.9 cubic meters of concentrated liquid anthrax, one of the deadliest and most durable germ weapons, and even larger quantities of botulinum toxin, one of the most lethal poisons.

Even so, he added, there is little need for concern if American military teams hunting for unconventional weapons stumble across such stockpiles. The arsenals would have degraded quickly, he maintains.

"Even if it's all kept until now, don't worry about it," he said.

In addition, he said, Iraq was never able to make dried anthrax, a medium that would have made the lethal spores far more durable and easier to disseminate. He thought he had devised a way to turn liquid anthrax into the even more lethal powder, he said, but he did not do it. "I kept the method secret," he said. "History would have cursed me."

Several United Nations inspectors questioned his assertion that Iraq had not made a powdered form of anthrax. They said that in 1989 Iraq imported two drying ovens that could have made powdered anthrax and that at least one other senior scientist in the program appeared to know the required techniques.

An update on a prior post, this time via the Rutland Herald (Vermont), picking up a Knight Ridder story reported widely. The new development: three initial tests have come back positive. Highlights:

Lt. Victoria Phipps of Sherwood Ark., who heads the chemical reconnaissance team from the 10th Cavalry at the site, said three tests verified the presence of cyclosarin, a nerve agent, as well as a blistering agent, most likely mustard gas in liquid form, mixed together in a toxic slurry.

The tests, she said, are 98 percent accurate.

“There was so much intensity in that area it was hard to test further,” she said. “The levels were very high.”

From CNN:

"I think it is fair to say the journalists grew to respect the skill and bravery and decency of the men and women who wear our nation's uniform," Bush said, prompting applause from the audience. "And I am certain that our military gained greater respect for the journalists traveling with them, who showed a tenacity and courage of their own," he said, prompting more applause.

"Because of journalists who accepted risk and hardship, the first draft of history has been vivid and has been moving," Bush said.

The New York Times takes some glimpses of the lives of Iraqis in post war Iraq:

At the Bank
Medical Care
The Police

In reporter John Burns' introduction he says:

There is widespread gratitude to the United States for ending the brutal dictatorship of Mr. Hussein, though it is not always easy to hear it through the cacophony of voices. For the moment, the stage is held mainly by militant Shiite clerics demanding an Islamic republic; by ambitious carpetbaggers returning from long exile abroad to seek an instant ride to power; by supporters of the old government hoping to align themselves with the new power brokers; and most persuasively, by ordinary Iraqis whose daily lives were upended when the old system collapsed.

Many of these Iraqis have no wider ambitions for the moment than to get back, at least, to some semblance of the order they had under Mr. Hussein. They want to return to their jobs. They want their neighborhood schools and banks and groceries and cafes reopened. They want hospitals and clinics to operate normally again. They want effective police patrols back on their streets, and gunmen disarmed or behind bars. They want electrical power running to their wall plugs again, and water flowing from their taps.

Ask them their priorities, and the answer is invariably: order, order, order.

There are people, especially at moments of frustration and anger, who say that things were better under Mr. Hussein, that his straitjacket of fear was better than the chaos that followed the arrival of American troops. But catch the same people at less stressful moments, in the quiet of their homes, and they will say that they waited long years for the end of the old dictatorship, that only America had the power to bring that about, and that what they want now is what they expected from America: a civil society based on Western-style freedoms, but also Western-style security for the individual and the family.

After nearly 24 years of misery under Mr. Hussein, Iraqis have had only 18 days to taste life without him. There have been days of exhilaration and hope, but also of disappointment and despair.

From the Hindustan Times

If Saddam Hussein and his sons are alive, the most likely place to find them is inside Iraq, both US intelligence and Iraqi exiles agree. Until recently, it was assumed that the Iraqi leader had fled, but almost all the top Iraqis captured by the coalition have been found in Iraq.

[...]

The Guardian reports that the US is in secret contact with many of the Iraqi officials on its list of 55 most wanted, "either directly or through intermediaries to arrange terms for their surrender." A number of them are expected to give themselves up in the next several days. Many are believed to be in the Iraqi capital.

Some fugitives are desperate that it be publicly known they surrendered voluntarily and were not arrested by US troops. Others are trying to negotiate deals. One of them, a leading scientist, speaking through intermediaries, said "he wanted to give his side of the story to the media before handing himself in."

Read the rest.

The Telegraph is reporting Tariz Aziz was a mole for the allies.

The Guardian

Iraq may have to leave the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries so it can pump out extra oil to pay for the country's reconstruction, says a former Iraqi oil minister who is now a key adviser to the American government.

The extra oil needed would be more than twice Iraq's pre-sanctions Opec quota and almost triple the present output of about 7 million barrels a day, said Fadhil Chalabi, who rejected a US invitation to become interim head of his country's oil sector.

[NYT]

Turkish Special Forces soldiers were caught trying to smuggle grenades, night-vision goggles and dozens of rifles into this oil-rich city in northern Iraq earlier this week, American military officials said today. The officials said they believed that the weapons, which were hidden in an aid convoy, were bound for Turkmen living here.

Turkey has repeatedly said it may launch a military incursion into northern Iraq, citing what it says is abuse of Turkmen by both Arabs and Kurds inside Iraq. Turkmen make up less than 5 percent of Iraq's population.

Full story....

Here we go again..

[AFP via Yahoo]

US troops scouring northern Iraq for weapons of mass destruction have found drums with "suspicious" chemicals whose nature has yet to be determined, a Defense Department official announced.

There were were some suspicious drums found," Pentagon (news - web sites) spokeswoman Megan Fox told AFP, adding that a US mobile chemical laboratory had arrived at the location to conduct tests.

Full story...

The Sunday Times article is available only through paid subscription for those of us not living in the UK.

The Guardian reports, at the end of this story about the documents possibly revealing the Saddam-al Qaeda link discussed in these posts below,

Separately, The Sunday Times reported that its own journalists had found documents in the Iraqi foreign ministry that indicate that France gave Saddam Hussein's regime regular reports on its dealings with American officials.

The newspaper said the documents reveal that Paris shared with Baghdad the contents of private transatlantic meetings and diplomatic traffic from Washington.

One document, dated Sept. 25, 2001, from Iraqi foreign minister Naji Sabri to Saddam's palace, was based on a briefing from the French ambassador in Baghdad and covered talks between presidents Jacques Chirac and George W. Bush.

From the Telegraph:

Iraqi intelligence documents discovered in Baghdad by The Telegraph have provided the first evidence of a direct link between Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda terrorist network and Saddam Hussein's regime.

Papers found yesterday in the bombed headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's intelligence service, reveal that an al-Qa'eda envoy was invited clandestinely to Baghdad in March 1998.

The documents show that the purpose of the meeting was to establish a relationship between Baghdad and al-Qa'eda based on their mutual hatred of America and Saudi Arabia. The meeting apparently went so well that it was extended by a week and ended with arrangements being discussed for bin Laden to visit Baghdad.

The papers will be seized on by Washington as the first proof of what the United States has long alleged - that, despite denials by both sides, Saddam's regime had a close relationship with al-Qa'eda.

The Telegraph found the file on bin Laden inside a folder lying in the rubble of one of the rooms of the destroyed intelligence HQ. There are three pages, stapled together; two are on paper headed with the insignia and lettering of the Mukhabarat.

They show correspondence between Mukhabarat agencies over preparations for the visit of al-Qa'eda's envoy, who travelled to Iraq from Sudan, where bin Laden had been based until 1996. They disclose what Baghdad hopes to achieve from the meeting, which took place less than five months before bin Laden was placed at the top of America's most wanted list following the bombing of two US embassies in east Africa.

Perhaps aware of the sensitivities of the subject matter, Iraqi agents at some point clumsily attempted to mask out all references to bin Laden, using white correcting fluid. The dried fluid was removed to reveal the clearly legible name three times in the documents.

One paper is marked "Top Secret and Urgent". It is signed "MDA", a codename believed to be the director of one of the intelligence sections within the Mukhabarat, and dated February 19, 1998. It refers to the planned trip from Sudan by bin Laden's unnamed envoy and refers to the arrangements for his visit.

A letter with this document says the envoy is a trusted confidant of bin Laden. It adds: "According to the above, we suggest permission to call the Khartoum station [Iraq's intelligence office in Sudan] to facilitate the travel arrangements for the above-mentioned person to Iraq. And that our body carry all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden."

The letter refers to al-Qa'eda's leader as an opponent of the Saudi Arabian regime and says that the message to convey to him through the envoy "would relate to the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him."

According to handwritten notes at the bottom of the page, the letter was passed on through another director in the Mukhabarat and on to the deputy director general of the intelligence service.

It recommends that "the deputy director general bring the envoy to Iraq because we may find in this envoy a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden". The deputy director general has signed the document. All of the signatories use codenames.

The other documents then confirm that the envoy travelled from Khartoum to Baghdad in March 1998, staying at al-Mansour Melia, a first-class hotel. It mentions that his visit was extended by a week. In the notes in a margin, a name "Mohammed F. Mohammed Ahmed" is mentioned, but it is not clear whether this is the the envoy or an agent.

Intriguingly, the Iraqis talk about sending back an oral message to bin Laden, perhaps aware of the risk of a written message being intercepted. However, the documents do not mention if any meeting took place between bin Laden and Iraqi officials.

The file contradicts the claims of Baghdad, bin Laden and many critics of the coalition that there was no link between the Iraqi regime and al-Qa'eda. One Western intelligence official contacted last night described the file as "sensational", adding: "Baghdad clearly sought out the meeting. The regime would have wanted it to happen in the capital as it's only there they would feel safe from surveillance by Western intelligence."

Over the past three weeks, The Telegraph has discovered various other intelligence files in the wrecked Mukhabarat building, including documents revealing how Russia passed on to Iraq details of private conversations between Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, and how Germany held clandestine meetings with the regime.

A Downing Street spokesman said last night: "Since Saddam's fall a series of documents have come to light which will have to be fully assessed by the proper authorities over a period of time. We will certainly want to study these documents as part of that process to see if they shed new light on the relationship between Saddam's regime and al-Qa'eda.

Jordan Times

Many Iraqis say they are willing to pardon members of President Saddam Hussein's former ruling Baath Party but they cannot forget the repression and pain of the past.
The party which boasted millions of members and controlled every aspect of life in the country where it seized power in 1968 has totally disintegrated.

As US troops entered the capital, the Baathists melted away leaving the party buildings to opposition groups and other organisations.

The fate awaiting Baath officials now in hiding for fear of reprisals is unclear.

Washington wants to put senior members on trial, but emerging politicians of the new Iraq say they are ready to forgive.

Aid for Iraq is coming by air

A Kuwaiti airforce plane carrying humanitarian aid arrived at Baghdad International Airport on Saturday after a dust storm prevented it from landing a day earlier, the state KUNA news agency reported.

Under the directives of the President, His Highness Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the UAE Red Crescent yesterday sent a shipload of relief goods to Iraq's Umm Al Qasr port.

AFP/Khaleej Times

The main oil refinery in southern Iraq should resume operations for the domestic market within a week, a British military expert said on Saturday.

AFP/Arab Times

US forces seized an airfield in the northeastern Iraqi city of Baqubah on Saturday and began establishing a new operations base there for Diyala province along the border with Iran.

Officers with the Fourth Infantry Division said US troops had detained several Iraqis with weapons but met no resistance as they moved into the airfield on the northern edge of the city in the early morning.

"This was not a military target but it will most likely become a forward operating base for us where we will push logistical assets," said Lieutenant Colonel Robert Valdivia.

A spokesman for the People's Mujahedeen has said the truce agreement [with the US] allows the guerrillas to keep their arms and carry on their fight against Tehran.

[Reuters]

The Sunday Telegraph newspaper says it has discovered documents showing Iraqi intelligence hosted an envoy from Osama bin Laden in 1998 and sought to meet the alleged September 11 mastermind in person. The finding, if verified, would appear to support Washington's assertion of links between ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and bin Laden, one of the justifications for the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The paper said the documents, which its correspondent found in the wrecked headquarters of the Iraqi Mukhabarat intelligence service, showed Iraq brought a bin Laden aide to Baghdad in early 1998 from his former base in Sudan to arrange closer ties.

Full story....

[AP via CBS2]

Iran's government said Saturday it is neither seeking ``friction'' with Washington over Iraq's future government nor pushing for a religious administration in Baghdad.

However, Hasan Rowhani, secretary of the powerful Supreme National Security Council, said Iran does not support the presence of U.S. and British troops in Iraq or any attempt to install a ``puppet regime'' in Baghdad.

Full story....

A Marine sent back from Iraq to his home in Las Vegas due to an injury suffered in battle told a Review-Journal reporter his story of a battle outside the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. As a result of the article, the military is now trying to determine if his actions constituted war crimes.

Military officials on Friday declined to comment on Covarrubias' story beyond a statement released late in the afternoon by the Marine Forces Reserve headquarters in Quantico, Va.

"A preliminary inquiry has been initiated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to examine the circumstances surrounding the statements made by Gunnery Sgt. Covarrubias in an April 25, 2003 Las Vegas Review-Journal article," the statement reads.

"The preliminary inquiry will determine if the actions described by Gunnery Sgt. Covarrubias during combat operations met the established rules of engagement and complied with the law of war. The inquiry will be thorough and impartial and will determine whether a formal investigation is warranted."

On Friday, Covarrubias did not answer his phone or knocks at the door of his northwest Las Vegas home. Sgt. Richard Slider, a Las Vegas spokesman for the Marines, said Covarrubias would not be available for additional media interviews.

But at least one other Marine who fought and was injured alongside Covarrubias said he believes the Las Vegan's actions were not only warranted, but critical.

Here is my Op-Ed on this inquiry.

Democracy Whiskey Rummy Sexy! Coming to a Mid-East nation near you ... but when and where is a surprise. From CNN:

After sacking his Army secretary and declaring that the United States would not allow Iraqis to form a new government "in Iran's image," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld set off Saturday for the Middle East.

The Pentagon asked that Rumsfeld's itinerary not be released, but it was expected that he would meet with U.S. troops deployed in the region.

Fayetteville (NC) Observer: Fort Bragg troops halt protest in Ramadi

RAMADI, Iraq - Paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division, with help from a Special Forces team, defused an anti-American protest in Ramadi on Friday.

Earlier this week, two paratroopers were injured by a grenade during an anti-American protest. Both of the soldiers have returned to duty.

The 82nd unit currently in Ramadi is the 2nd Battalion of the 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment.

Fayetteville (NC) Observer: April 25th Photo slideshow

AP has more details on the ammunition dump story, including the local reaction. Nine people killed, including three babies. One U.S. soldier injured, according to local witnesses.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (no permalink yet)

At least five Iraqi civilians were believed killed and many badly wounded in a series of huge blasts at an arms dump on the outskirts of Baghdad, local witnesses said.
US troops blamed unidentified attackers who fired flares into the munitions store.
But a Reuters photographer at the scene said residents turned their anger on the Americans, throwing stones at soldiers who arrived to offer assistance.
A CNN correspondent at the scene quoted local people saying 14 people had been killed when an errant surface-to-surface missile from the arms storage dump struck a house.
One man who was hurt told Reuters that five people, four women and a child, were killed in the house next door to him in the Zaafaraniya suburb, on the southern edge of the capital.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (no permalink yet)

The civilian head of the United States army, Thomas White, has resigned.
No reason has been given for the departure of Mr White, whose official title was secretary of the army.
In the brief official announcement of Thomas White's resignation, the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld thanked him for his service.
But it clearly has not been a happy relationship between the two men who have been at odds over Mr Rumsfeld's plans to transform the US military into a lighter, more flexible force.

From the AP, via the Anchorage Daily News

The top U.N. human rights watchdog on Friday condemned abuses by Saddam Hussein's former regime and said the international community must do more to protect Iraqis in the future.
But a vocal minority of the 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission said U.S.-led coalition forces themselves should come under investigation for possibly violating the rights of Iraqis.
The resolution focusing on Saddam's regime won support from 31 countries, including the United States, Canada, Japan, European and Latin American nations.
It condemned the "all-pervasive repression and oppression sustained by broad-based discrimination and widespread terror" during Saddam's rule.
The commission also extended for a year the mandate of a U.N. investigator - consistently banned from visiting Iraq when Saddam was in power - and asks him to report to the commission next year, "focusing on newly available information about violations ... by the government of Iraq over many years."
Critics - including China, Libya, Cuba and South Africa - said the resolution put to the commission by European nations, the United States and Canada was one-sided and failed to address the coalition's role during the war and as an occupying power since Saddam's ouster.
...
Cuba, Malaysia and Zimbabwe voted against the resolution. Twelve countries abstained. Six - including China and South Africa - refused to vote, saying they would not be associated with any decision.

...while others, including Syrians, are being talked to. And some are talking back. From AP, via the Sydney Morning Herald

US officials are interrogating Iraqi officials who have been taken into custody and some of them are "providing information that is useful", Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.
Rumsfeld told a Defence Department briefing that between 7,000 and 7,500 Iraqis have been taken prisoner, but that lower level ones like foot soldiers are being released.
...
Rumsfeld expressed satisfaction that Tariq Aziz, the former deputy prime minister under Saddam Hussein, was among those in custody. Aziz surrendered.
A top Iraqi intelligence officer was the latest apprehension confirmed.
Aziz "clearly is a very senior person and was in that regime and we intend to discuss with him whatever he's willing to discuss with us", Rumsfeld said.
...
Rumsfeld said that along with the Iraqis taken into custody were some Syrians who were "in there doing things they shouldn't have been doing".
Overall, "We're keeping the hard cases separate for the most part. We're systematically going through less hard cases and releasing people." He said about 1,000 had been released so far.
"We obviously don't want to hold any more people than we have to," Rumsfeld said.

From the Sydney Morning Herald

The Sun, Britain's best selling daily tabloid, reported that Aziz had told his US interrogators that he was willing to tell all if he could have a new identity and was allowed to move to Britain.
Quoting an unnamed "insider", the Sun said Aziz feared being executed by Iraqis or being detained by US authorities.
A spokeswoman for Britain's Home Office said: "It is ridiculous to suggest asylum will be granted to an individual who has been involved in activities that have abused the human rights of others".
Governments normally have to consider all asylum applications but the 1951 Refugee Convention makes an exception of war criminals.
"We do not have to consider it," the Home Office spokeswoman said, as US officials questioned Aziz, looking for clues to the fate of toppled Iraqi president Saddam.

...that is, they get stripped naked and have their bodies written on. From the Dagblat (Norway) via AFP and The Australian

US soldiers stripped four suspected Iraqi thieves naked and burned their clothes before pushing them into the street, journalists from a Norwegian newspaper who witnessed the incident said today.
The soldiers also wrote "Ali Baba. Haram" in Arabic across the Iraqis' chests in a crude reference to the tale of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, said Line Fransson from the Oslo-based Dagbladet daily.
The phrase translates roughly as slang for "sinful thieves".
...
The commanding army officer at the scene, First Lieutenant Eric Canaday, confirmed his men had stripped the Iraqis.
He said he had been having trouble with young Iraqi men trying to steal light weapons being stored in the park.
He claimed he got the idea to strip them from people in the neighbourhood.
"They gave us the idea so we took their clothes and burned them and then we pushed them out with thief written on them," Canaday was quoted as telling the journalists. He confirmed their clothes had been set on fire with gasoline.
"It has actually been pretty successful," he said, claiming that as many as 100 people had been trying to steal the weapons, including Kalashnikov rifles, which are being stored to eventually re-arm Iraq's security services.
"It's not as bad as it seems," a laughing Canaday was quoted as saying, "we only do it to the people who are stealing weapons".
"A little public shaming; no physical damage and everything will be fine tomorrow," he said.
"Hopefully they will be embarrassed enough not to come back."

The New York Times reports:

The Pentagon has begun sending a team of Iraqi exiles to Baghdad to be part of a temporary American-led government there, senior administration officials said today.
The exiles, most of whom are said by officials to have a background in administration, are supposed to take up positions at each of 23 Iraqi ministries, where they will work closely with American and British officials under Jay Garner, the retired lieutenant general who is serving as Iraq's day-to-day administrator.

The group of technocrats was assembled two months ago and has been working from an office in suburban Virginia.

From Baghdad, General Garner has just begun to convene meetings of Iraqi notables to meet what senior administration officials described today as their longer-term goal of forming an interim Iraqi authority by the end of May - faster than at first planned.

But that process is proving fractious, with the largest group of Shiite Muslim exiles boycotting the talks so far and other exiles deeply suspicious of Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi National Congress official who is seen as a Pentagon favorite.
As that effort unfolds, the task of the exiles, organized as an Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council, will be to rebuild the structures of a government that would then be handed over to the new Iraqi authority, administration officials said.

General Garner said on Thursday that an interim Iraqi authority would be in place next week, but other senior American officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said the general's comments had been misinterpreted. A meeting of Iraqi notables is to be held in Baghdad on Monday, but American officials said the new goal agreed on at White House meetings this week for putting an interim Iraqi authority in place set the deadline as late May.
A consensus within the administration favors "moving faster rather than slower," a senior administration official said, in part `'because we want to remove the appearance of this being an American operation."

It can't all be hard news ... just in from tonight's Late Show with Dave Letterman ... Top Ten Things Said By The Iraqi Information Minister:

10. “We’re pulling down the statues of Saddam to have them cleaned.”
9. “Don’t believe that stuff you see on CNN … or NBC or CBS, ABC, FOX or MSNBC.”
8. “If you ask me who the winner is, it depends on what you definition of ‘is’ is.”
7. “Iraqi television is off the air because we didn’t want you to have to sit through ‘Becker.’”
6. “Do you know of any job openings for a lying weasel?”
5. “Wolf Blitzer and I are engaged.”
4. “Iraqis are in the streets celebrating Cher’s 40 fabulous years in show business.”
3. “Incoming!”
2. “Saddam’s not dead – he’s just out with a case of the shingles.”

… and Number 1 …

1. “War? What war?”

LA Times reporter Paul Watson was jumped by an Iraqi mob, pummeled, and stabbed in the buttock. But he didn't conclude that he deserved it.

I have some contacts at Michigan State University. This is part of an email sent out by President McPherson to those at the university.

As you perhaps know, there has been official news regarding MSU's role in the recovery in Iraq. I have been asked to help restore the finances and economy of Iraq. I expect to return this fall.

The Bush Administration has asked me to serve as Financial Coordinator for the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (OHRA) in Iraq. In this role, I will serve as the principal financial and economy policy advisor to OHRA Director Jay Garner. The MSU Board of Trustees has granted me a 130-day unpaid leave of absence so that I might accept this assignment.

Reuters

Kuwaitis seeking information about some 550 of their nationals who went missing from the 1990-1991 Iraqi occupation had hoped that new clues would emerge with the fall of Saddam Hussein's government.

But if the charred archives, heat-buckled shelves and ransacked offices of Baghdad's foreign ministry are any indicator, there is little hope of finding the vital information.

The ironies of being a Jewish American GI in Iraq.

The logistics of Passover seders in the theater of war.

The funeral of Marine Cpl. Mark Asher Evnin, the first Jewish American to die in the war in Iraq, grandson of a rabbi and nephew of a cantor, Harry Potter fan, buried with full military honors April 14 in Burlington VT, 11 days after he was killed in combat.

Jonathan Koopman, a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle embedded with Mark’s unit, witnessed and wrote about the soldier’s last moments: “A young corporal, standing next to one of the armored personnel carriers, fired a grenade launcher at an Iraqi bunker,” Koopman wrote. “He turned and caught a bullet in the gut. He went down. A medic went to work on him while the firefight continued 20 yards away. A unit commander says Evnin was awake and coherent, and angry about being hit.”

More than 1,000 people attended [the funeral], including Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas and Bishop Kenneth Angell of the Burlington diocese. Angell’s brother David, producer of the TV show “Frasier,” was aboard American Airlines Flight 11 that Al Qaeda hijackers crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Posted By at 10:19 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

NOW's report "The Good War?" documents the reaction of the Arab world to the war in Iraq. At the beginning of the war massive protests against the U.S. action took place in the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian towns and cities. The protests were carefully watched, and controlled, by the state security forces. But as correspondent Deborah Amos notes, not all the reaction has been unfavorable. In her report she talks to several influential Egyptian thinkers ... who believe the toppling of Saddam Hussein could lead to democratic change in other Arab countries including Egypt.

The View from Cairo

Bill Moyers. "NOW." Running a piece with interviews of people who see good coming out of the U.S. invasion.

The stories of Iraqi oppression under Saddam keep coming. And these by congregants at The Babylonian Jewish Center, from Queens, Great Neck, and Nassau, NY., some of whom were smuggled out of Iraq by Kurdish militiamen.

Of the thousands of Lebanese and other foreigners who ventured to Iraq to fight the coalition very few survived and have returned to their homes. Even fewer are willing to talk about their experiences. The Daily Star has found one.

“However, upon arrival in Baghdad, our enthusiasm started to wane. Despite air raids and heavy explosions and rocket firing that could be clearly heard in all parts of the city and images and news of hundreds of injured or dead civilians, people, in general, were acting normally and seemed uninterested with what was going on around them,” the volunteer said.

“It was my first shock. I expected to see people rushing around, constructing street barricades and digging holes in preparation for defending the capital city of Baghdad against the coming invasion or siege. The general scene was far from that.

“We were hosted at our Iraqi friend’s house for the first couple of days doing nothing and getting less and less enthusiastic. My Lebanese friend grew more restless and wanted to do anything that would justify his presence in Baghdad.

“The advice from the members of our host family was not to be foolish and to return to our country. It sounded more like a warning than advice. The older man in the family blamed their son for helping us come to Iraq,” he added.

“My Lebanese friend decided to go on his own and look for an opportunity to participate in the actual fighting, as he put it. Two days later, I saw him carrying a machine gun walking with a small group of people, all in civilian clothes, armed with light weaponry including anti-tank rocket-propelled grenades.

“Since that day, I haven’t seen him nor heard from him again. I hope he is safe wherever he might be now. Since my return, I cannot look straight into his mother’s eyes,” he said.

One of the sub-plots of this peculiar story appears to involve the arrest of the Iraqi National Congress soldiers discussed in this post.

Before he and his friends were hauled away in the back a U.S. military truck, the tall man in glasses said it was all a misunderstanding: They had only broken into the nice house at gunpoint because they wanted to help the United States liberate Iraq.

And at this crazy time in this dazed, dangerous city, it almost made sense.

A bizarre incident in one of Baghdad's finest residential neighborhoods Friday brought together some of the forces at work in a country caught between the fall of the old regime and the emergence of the new.

The cast of characters included Saddam Hussein loyalists who had fled for their lives; a young hustler seeking to buy a grand house on the cheap; political toughs showing their muscle; weary Baghdad residents desperate for peace, quiet and predictability; and well-intentioned U.S. troops, clueless about the political machinations whirring around them.

The break-ins and arrests also revealed some of the uncertainty over who holds property rights to what properties now that the Saddam days are over, and raised more questions about the activities of Ahmad Chalabi, a former Iraqi exile who founded a leading anti-Saddam opposition group and has powerful patrons within the U.S. Defense Department.

AFP/Arab Times

It was two boys fighting over what they thought was a toy. Only it wasn't a toy at all. "My brother picked it up first,'' ten-year-old Ahmed Abbas said. "He didn't give it to me, but I grabbed it from him.''

He spoke in a barely audible voice, from a hospital bed. sitting up halfway, he lifted his left hand, which was wrapped in a bloody bandage and missing four fingers. What injured Ahmed was stray ordnance, in his case left behind by the Iraqi army when it withdrew from the northern city of Mosul on April 11. These hazards of war, scattered all around Iraq, are proving to be a major concern, and human rights groups have been adamant about the need to clean up unexploded ordnance, particularly in populated areas.

The term 'Human shields' in this article does not refer to those non-Iraqis who volunteered for such duty but rather Iraqi civilians forced by the Fedayeen to perform that function. Many of them were killed; others were wounded and ended up in a US military field hospital in Tallil, where they told their stories.

[AP]

Farouk Hijazi was not among the U.S. military's 55 most-wanted Iraqis, but as a one-time spy for Saddam Hussein's regime, he may hold key information: Some call him the main link between Saddam and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network.

The former intelligence chief, whose capture was announced Friday, is suspected of meeting bin Laden in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 terror attacks, according to Washington officials.

Full story....

Gulf News

A senior aid source in this southern Iraqi city of Basra says that Baath members may be reactivating party cells and sabotaging local utilities. "The party is meeting," the source said under condition of anonymity. "Our people are telling us this. There are small circles of people in certain parts of town. I'm really not sure if it is an organised thing – they have this cell structure and these seem to be reforming."

"I'm not sure that it is wider, but the sabotage (of water, electricity and oil equipment) looks like it is quite orchestrated – by people who know the system too well. That is the impression we have, and the impression of British (military) engineers here."

It's always good to have someone in charge of special coordination. From the New York Times:

The Bush administration's foreign policy factions have begun to coalesce behind an omnibus proposal that would endorse the authority of the American-led forces to control Iraq and remove Iraq's oil revenues from the sole control of the United Nations, Security Council diplomats confirmed today.

One idea that may be included in the proposal, which is still under discussion and could yet be reconfigured, calls for the appointment of a United Nations "special coordinator" to play an as-yet-undetermined role in the creation of an interim Iraqi authority.

Are we there yet? Just a little further. From CNN:

President Bush will soon declare an official end to combat in Iraq, White House officials said Friday, previewing an address that also will outline his plans to rebuild the war-torn nation and sustain the global war on terrorism.

The speech may come as early as next week when the president visits an aircraft carrier returning to San Diego from Iraq war duty, officials said.

Again, from Radio Free Europe:

Sami Shoresh is a correspondent with RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq. He has been traveling in Iraq for more than a month, spending most of that time in the Kurdish-controlled north of the country.

Question: How do Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Mas'ud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) see the place of Kurdistan in Iraq?

Shoresh: For years the Kurds have [had] the idea of federalism for Iraq. They [have] insisted on this plan and in 1994 [the Kurdish] parliament agreed on the plan [for a federal Iraq]. They also tried to [convert] other factions in the Iraqi opposition [to this idea] of federalism. But, at the same time, the Kurds insist that federalism cannot exist in Iraq if there is not a democratic [state]. They know that the main condition [to implement this] is that democracy exists in the whole of Iraq. Kurdish political parties, especially the KDP and the PUK, have been very active in the Iraqi opposition in trying to find a way to establish democracy in Iraq because they regard democracy as an essential first step toward federalism.

From Radio Free Europe:

Question: What does the ordinary Iraqi think of Tariq Aziz? Is he considered to be a diplomat and a foreign-policy specialist? Or is he simply considered a henchman of Saddam Hussein and the regime?

Eshanova: What I've learned and heard from ordinary Iraqis -- doctors, teachers, merchants, housewives -- is that Tariq Aziz is not considered by a majority of them as a bad guy. They know what his position was, what he was responsible for -- that for a long time he was the foreign minister of Iraq -- and they know that he is a Christian. But they say there is no hatred directed toward Tariq Aziz. At the same time, they know that this man was one of the top officials of the regime, one of the top servants of this regime. But they consider Tariq Aziz a soldier ruled by very powerful generals, and a very powerful ruler. And they believe that he and other [officials] who were intellectuals couldn't do much to serve Iraqis' interests, to serve ordinary people. At the same time there are some voices saying that he's a part of this regime and he should be punished now for whatever this regime has done to the Iraqi people.

From Radio Free Europe:

Pakistan joined the United Nations Security Council as a temporary member in January at the height of the debate over military action against Iraq. It maintained a neutral position, but the council ended up polarized after the U.S.-led coalition launched a war against Saddam Hussein's regime. Pakistan is now set to assume the council presidency as the body tries to find consensus on the practical issues of postwar Iraq. Pakistan's UN ambassador, Munir Akram, spoke with RFE/RL about the future of Iraq, the ongoing needs of Afghanistan, and nonproliferation issues.

In the last few minutes The Command Post passed another milestone, reaching two million visitors since we started keeping track on March 21st.

We thank you for your support, and our contributors for all they do to keep the site current. It's been a great ride, and while the war in Iraq is winding down, we're excited about moving forward and reaching the next million!

All the best,

Alan & Michele

Deutsche Welle

Despite recent French overtures, the United States appears unwilling to forgive Paris for its refusal to back the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Some fear the rift could have long-term repercussions for transatlantic relations. (...) As perhaps a first sign of the new French pragmatism, France on Thursday said it was prepared to consider a role for NATO peacekeeping in Iraq, but that Paris would first wait for U.S. proposals before taking a final stance. Whether such moves will be enough to get Chriac an invitation to Bush’s ranch is, however, as yet unclear.

BBC NewsWho is who in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq »»

For a quick scan of this Friday in Iraq see

• Reuters: snapshot + slide shows
• Guardian: key developments
• Video: CBS i-video and Reuters rawvideo flash
• GlobalSecurity: Iraq special weapons news
• CentCom: news releases + multimedia
• DoD: headlines
• White House: updates and briefings

Saddam aide: Galloway document genuine

I'm sure OPEC is thrilled. From WPLG:

Oil is flowing again in northern Iraq for the first time since the war began.

An official with the agency that oversees postwar rebuilding says oil is pumping from a field near the city of Kirkuk and will supply fuel for power plants in the region.

U.S. officials on Thursday said the northern oil pumping would resume in a matter of days. The flow is expected to be about 60,000 barrels a day.

From today's New York Times:

"Do you want me to dig up everything or just the head?" the gravedigger asked. Mr. Jassim decided just to see the head, because he believed he could identify his brother by his two missing back teeth.

"There are so many graves that don't have numbers," he said. "We don't know what to do."

The dirt was dry and easily dug and soon the gravedigger held up a skull. "It's not him," Mr. Jassim said. "The teeth are complete."

At grave No. 444, a large family worked together to unearth Hamid Omran, who was 31 when he was arrested in 1994. As the family carefully lifted the bones onto fresh linen, his cousin, Farhan Jassim, 47, exploded in anger.

"I don't think there was a regime in the world that treated political prisoners the way Saddam did," he said. "You can't imagine such exaggerated injustice."

The jaw surfaced. Mr. Hussein, the cousin said, "hated every Iraqi. Believe me, he hated all Iraqis."

Then the family found the skull, which showed a crack in a temple. A guard kicked him when he was arrested, the family said.

Another cousin, Thaer Ghawi, 27, wept as he smoked a cigarette once the bones were out of the grave. "We are just people who opposed the regime," he said. "Why couldn't he just put political prisoners in prison?"

Mr. Hani, the man whose brother disappeared in 1995, spent three hours picking through the grave of his brother. It was laborious. After the teeth, a few small bones, perhaps from the feet or hands, were found. Finally, Mr. Hani had found enough to fill a small coffin. He did not find the skull.

"It is enough for me," he said as he loaded the coffin onto a truck. "I feel relieved. What worried me before was I didn't know if he was alive or dead. Now I know."

One town's test of Iraqi democracy
How the 'founding fathers' of Umm Qasr went from tyranny to town council in days.

The Scottsman:

IRAQI scientists claim they were ordered to destroy bacteria and equipment and hide more in their homes before visits by United Nations weapons inspectors ahead of the war.

Their accounts indicate that the government of Saddam Hussein may have had advance knowledge of at least some of the inspectors’ visits and that it was concerned about any material that could raise suspicion.

Australians Capture Bulk of Iraqi Air Force

The Al Asad airfield in the western Iraqi desert, captured by the Australian Special Air Service Regiment earlier this month, housed three fighter squadrons - the bulk of the Iraqi air force.

The Australians have so far found 57 fighter aircraft, mostly Soviet-era MiGs but also three advanced MiG 25 Foxbats, the fastest combat aircraft today.

Helicopters, radar systems, 18 million pounds of explosives, and a French-made Roland anti-aircraft missile system were also found.

The MiGs escaped detection during the coalition bombing campaign. Some were buried, others were parked in date palm tree groves or tucked in dried out riverbeds and covered with camouflage sheets.

Hunting Saddam's Hidden Treasure

U.S. investigators are seeking to locate millions of dollars worth of Iraqi wealth stolen by Saddam - money the U.S. hopes to spend on rebuilding Iraq.

Administration officials suspect large sums of illicit Iraqi money have moved through Syria, which for years helped Saddam's government evade UN sanctions by operating a black market in Iraqi oil.

International oil traders have also talked of illicit kickbacks paid to secret bank accounts in Jordan. U.S. officials note that Amman allowed Iraq's biggest financial institution, the Rafidain Bank, to continue operating despite sanctions.

[Reuters]

Former Iraqi spy chief Farouk Hijazi, accused of plotting to assassinate former President George Bush in the 1990s, was detained near Iraq's border with Syria, said a U.S. official on Friday.

"He (Hijazi) is in custody and was picked up in Iraq near the Syrian border yesterday (Thursday) Iraqi time. I have no more details about the circumstances (of his arrest)," the U.S. official, who requested anonymity, told Reuters.

Full story...

From Reuters:

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Friday echoed the U.S. government view that Saddam Hussein was at least wounded during the first night of bombing of Baghdad.

But he said nothing was certain about the Iraqi president's fate.

From Reuters:

After extending until June 3 emergency arrangements for Iraq's oil-for-food plan, the U.N. Security Council faces contentious U.S. demands that U.N. controls be struck entirely from the multibillion-dollar plan.

President Bush has said several times he wants the sanctions, imposed in 1990, lifted entirely and diplomats said the United States was crafting a resolution that would guarantee that proceeds from future oil sales be held in trust for an interim Iraqi authority rather than the United Nations.

The BBC is reporting that the Brits are considering closing a legal loophole that would make it easier to prosecute those selling Iraqi antiquities.

"At the moment if somebody tries to sell an artefact that has been stolen and you can prove who it was stolen from they can be prosecuted for handling stolen goods," [Richard Allan] told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Friday.

"But if it can't be tracked back to the original owner then they can't be prosecuted. That's the loophole we're trying to plug," he said.

Seems the capture of Aziz has broadened US hopes of getting more cards from the deck, given his access to intel. From ABC (US):

Aziz's prominence in the regime could make him a source for the best information yet on the fate of Saddam and his two sons, as well as the location of any hidden weapons of mass destruction.

The capture of top Iraqi figures could prompt other wanted officials to turn themselves in, Pentagon officials said. Information from the others already in custody also could lead to more on the wanted list, the officials said.

Looks like the Iraqi oil industry is getting back on it feet, according to this from the Kansas City Star / AP:

Engineers were pumping oil from a storage tank to a refinery in the key southern city of Basra.

It will be the first oil refined in southern Iraq since the start of the war, and a sign that production is coming back online. The flow to the refinery had been stymied by unexploded ordnance lying near one of the pipelines leading there.

From Canada.com:

The U.S. will not allow an Iran-style religious government to take hold in Iraq, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday. He also said Syria and others in the region will not be permitted to influence Iraq's future.

[Guardian]

In an editorial, former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter writes:

I know that Galloway helped set up the British-Iraqi friendship association. I know because he invited me to come to London and speak at the association's inaugural meeting. The message I heard him deliver that night was one of human kindness and compassion. He spoke out against the suffering of the Iraqi people under the effects of a decades-long economic embargo. I heard him decry the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. But I also heard him lambast the policies of his own country, and those of the US, which were subjecting the innocent people of Iraq to such suffering.

Full story...

Two people who attempted to unfurl a banner at today's ANZAC day march in Adelaide are protesting that they weren't protestors. From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Two men who were pulled aside by police after unfurling a banner at the Adelaide Anzac Day March say they were not trying to protest against anything.
As the march was underway, Steven Clarke and Paul Pryor held a banner saying, "don't forget about the lads in Iraq".
Police pulled the men aside and confiscated the banner.
Mr Clarke says he could not believe what happened.
"We were marching with the ex-servicemen, as you do ... how come peace protesters can march and do whatever they like?" he said.

A bit late, but here's the DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms.

From al-Rai al-Am (Kuwait) via the BBC

... a Kuwaiti newspaper, al-Rai al-Am, says it has now tracked down the farmer, albeit with considerable difficulty.
"It might be easier to find ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein than to get to Minqash who rose to instant stardom on the satellite TV channels," it commented.
'I rubbed my eyes...'
Minqash told the paper that he had come across the aircraft in his field early one morning.
"I didn't shoot down an Apache or anything else. All that happened was that I went to the field, as I usually do early in the morning, and was surprised to find some bodies on the ground.
"I began to rub my eyes to make sure that what I was seeing was true or whether I was imagining it," he said.
..
The paper said that Minqash lives in a simple brick house encircled by palm trees and surrounded by livestock on all sides. He also has a large family and circle of acquaintances "who protect him with their geniality and spontaneity".
The geniality obviously extends to jokes about his "feat".
One runs that the US decided to withdraw its fleet from the Gulf once it learned that Minqash planned to go fishing there.

The International Humanitarian Law Research Initiative has a site called Monitoring IHL in Iraq, with lots of news feeds and analyses. For example, here is an article on the responsibilities of an occupying power and whether the US in Iraq fits that designation.(Kofi Annan certainly thinks so.)

I get this weekly email newsletter from an international aid consulting firm. It has news roundups from various countries as they pertain to international development. Some of the following is old news to CP readers, but it's interesting seeing it come from a UN-friendly perspective.

Today's email:

UNITED STATES: Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon comptroller, said this week the Bush administration plans to call for an international donors conference to raise money for Iraq's rebuilding, but it has no current estimate of the final bill. Mr. Zakheim said he believed there would be more international interest in investing in Iraq's reconstruction than in the case of Afghanistan, which has less appealing prospects for economic revitalization. An international donors conference will be held after the World Bank gets a team of experts into Iraq to assess its needs. Mr. Zakheim said that assessment would take about six weeks. In total, about $1.7 billion in financial assistance, food, medicine and other relief products has been raised from various countries. In addition to the estimated $25 billion it has spent on fighting the war so far, the U.S. has pledged $550 million for reconstruction, and Britain has pledged $330 million, he said. Australia and Japan have pledged $100 million, Spain $56 million and Norway and the Netherlands $21 million each. France, Germany and Russia - countries that strongly opposed President Bush's decision to invade Iraq - haven't yet offered assistance. Meanwhile, the European Commission said April 22 it would examine a multimillion-dollar contract given to U.S. group Bechtel for rebuilding work in Iraq to determine whether it conforms to international trade rules. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) April 17 awarded the contract worth up to $680 million to the San Francisco-based Bechtel. The EU executive declined to comment more specifically, saying only that in "certain cases" the principle of non-discrimination had to be complied with when contracts were handed out. The Commission is concerned that EU companies may be frozen out of the lucrative rebuilding of roads, airports and oil terminals. London, meanwhile, has reportedly obtained a promise from Washington that up to 50 percent of subcontracting work should go to non-U.S. companies. Many are calling for an international institution to coordinate reconstruction.
....
FRANCE: The Paris club of creditor nations, which meets at the French finance ministry, was set to discuss Iraq's debts this week. The group has a set of well-worn formulas for dealing with indebted countries and the deal they offer Iraq is unlikely to be generous, writes the Guardian (U.K.). With the world's second largest oil reserves, Iraq ought to be a relatively well-off country. It will not qualify for the most generous debt forgiveness on offer to the poorest countries, and France and Germany as well as Russia favor restructuring the country's loans rather than writing them down. French Finance Minister Francis Mer suggested that African countries could lose out if Iraq gets a debt write-off. As the last remnants of Saddam regime crumbled in mid-April, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow declared Iraq's citizens should not have to pay back the debts racked up by their former dictator. Applying that principle around the world would save billions of dollars for citizens in countries such as the Philippines, South Africa and Democratic Republic of the Congo, the piece notes.
....
IRAQ: Jay Garner, the retired U.S. general responsible for civil administration in post-war Iraq, arrived April 21 in Baghdad, a city still disabled by looting and confusion over who is in charge, reports the Financial Times. He started setting up his office in a former presidential palace but was greeted with the angriest protests yet against the U.S. presence, and by a list of complaints and demands. With an initial team of 19 administrators, expected to grow to more than 450 in the coming days, Mr. Garner faces a daunting task in restoring security and stability and winning the confidence of ordinary citizens, the story says. In front of the Palestine Hotel, thousands of Shias angrily protested against the alleged arrest by U.S. forces of a cleric, Mohamed Fartousi. Mr. Garner's team insisted that it did not recognize the authority of a self-styled council instituted in the Iraqi capital by Mohamed Mohsen al-Zubaidi, a recently returned exile belonging to Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. The New York Times meanwhile adds that much of Baghdad remains without electricity and television, making it impossible for many Iraqis to know that General Garner had landed to take up his post as the head of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance created by Washington. In a separate report, AFP notes that experts said this week the cost of the US-led war in Iraq will weigh heavily on the economies of the Arab world despite the aid expected to flow in from Western countries and international organizations. The UN estimates that the war will extract $1 trillion in lost productivity on the economies of the Arab world, on top of the $600 billion lost due to the last Gulf war 12 years ago. In other news, a total of 18 international NGOs based in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, have joined together to coordinate their assistance efforts. All the members of the NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI) agreed on a set of principles, which included a commitment to operating neutrally and independently, avoiding duplication of efforts, and employing as many Iraqis as possible, the NCCI Chairman and Regional Coordinator for Premiere Urgence, Philippe Schneider, told IRIN from Baghdad.

[Fox News]

President Bush said in a television interview Thursday that there is some evidence suggesting Saddam Hussein is either dead or "at the very minimum was severely wounded." Bush also said U.S. troops would remain in Iraq "as long as necessary."

Full story...

Bubba's not back ... he never left! From the Guardian:

Tony Blair took repeated secret advice from the former American president Bill Clinton on how to unlock the diplomatic impasse between Europe and the US in the build-up to the war on Iraq, the Guardian can reveal.

In the crucial weekend before to the final breakdown of diplomacy in March, Mr Clinton was a guest of Mr Blair's at Chequers where the pair discussed the crisis.

From the Guardian:

Soldiers returning from the Gulf will be offered tests to check levels of depleted uranium in their bodies to assess whether they are in danger of suffering kidney damage and lung cancer as a result of exposure, the Ministry of Defence said last night.

The ministry was responding to a warning earlier in the day from the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific body, that soldiers and civilians might be exposed to dangerous levels. It challenged earlier reassurances from the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, that depleted uranium was not a risk.

Fayetteville (NC) Observer: Special Forces medic treats Iraqis

"We wanted to provide a little bit of something to show that we are here to do more than drop bombs and shoot people," Tracey said. "We've done wonders for the image of the U.S. forces in Iraq."

Besides winning hearts and minds, Tracey said his work has improved the team's security. "We've made a lot of friends," he said.

Fayetteville (NC) Observer: Freedom of Worship in Karbala

Scores of pilgrims have arrived in Karbala over the past four days, some walking barefoot from as far as Basra in southern Iraq to attend the Arbain pilgrimage. For the first time in 30 years, Shiite Muslims in Iraq are enjoying religious freedom.

More on media objectivity, this time from Ashleigh Banfield. From the Topeka Capital Journal:

War's sobering realities never reached American TV screens during the recent U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, according to NBC News correspondent Ashleigh Banfield.

"We didn't see what happen when Marines fired M-16s," Banfield said during a Landon lecture appearance today at Kansas State University. "We didn't see what happened after mortars landed, only the puff of smoke. There were horrors that were completely left out of this war. So was this journalism? Or was this coverage?"

On the other hand, she said, many U.S. television viewers were treated to a non-stop flow of images presented by "cable news operators who wrap themselves in the American flag and go after a certain target demographic."

According to the CSM story "Newly found Iraqi files raise heat on British MP":

A fresh set of documents uncovered in a Baghdad house used by Saddam Hussein's son Qusay to hide top-secret files detail multimillion dollar payments to an outspoken British member of parliament, George Galloway...

The leadership of Hussein's special security section and accountants of the President's secretive Republican Guard signed the papers and authorized payments totaling more than $10 million.

The three most recent payment authorizations, beginning on April 4, 2000, and ending on January 14, 2003 are for $3 million each. All three authorizations include statements that show the Iraqi leadership's strong political motivation in paying Galloway for his vociferous opposition to US and British plans to invade Iraq...

Click this for a list of the other Galloway stories.

(Via Instapundit and HubBlog)