From WaPo:

Three U.S. soldiers were killed and six were injured in a traffic accident in northern Iraq, the military said Saturday.

The statement said the soldiers were with the Army's 101st Airborne Division, and that the accident happened Friday on the road between the cities of Mosul and Tikrit. It said they were traveling in a "light-medium tactical vehicle."

The volume of press related to the Pentagon Office of Special Plans continues to grow ... this story comes from Independent Online (South Africa):

A growing number of American national security professionals are accusing the Bush administration of slanting the facts and hijacking the $30-billion intelligence apparatus to justify its rush to war in Iraq.

A key target is a four-person Pentagon team that reviewed material gathered by other intelligence outfits for any missed bits that might have tied Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to banned weapons or terrorist groups.

This team, self-mockingly called the Cabal, "cherry-picked the intelligence stream" in a bid to portray Iraq as an imminent threat, said Patrick Lang, a former head of worldwide human intelligence gathering for the Defence Intelligence Agency, which coordinates military intelligence.

From CNN.com:

The search for Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction is being stepped up as international pressure mounts for the coalition to produce evidence that would support its decision to wage war on Iraq.

A task force of more than 1,300 experts has been formed in an expansion of efforts to find proof that Iraq had a program of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons.

How well are we doing in Iraq? This well-researched article compares the occupation of Iraq to previous US ocupations of Germany and Japan at the end of WWII in an attempt at perspective on the inevitable snafus, misunderstandings and outright blunders that accompany such a complex endeavor.

From Reuters:

U.S. intelligence was "simply wrong" in leading military commanders to believe their troops were likely to be attacked with chemical weapons in the Iraq war, the top U.S. Marine general there said on Friday.

But Lt. Gen. James Conway said in a teleconference with reporters at the Pentagon that it was too early to say whether the United States also was wrong in charging that Iraq had chemical and biological arms when the invasion began 2-1/2 months ago.

If you haven’t noticed, the past several days have been positively slow for news on the stories we follow. We expect today to be no different, and given the generally playful tone in our comments today, Michele and I thought perhaps it might be time to have some fun.

After all … it’s a beautiful, warm spring day here in Philadelphia and New York, and while we’re certainly hard at work, it’s a day that just BEGS for distraction.

So here’s the proposal: You likely noticed that last weekend we added an “Evildoer” photo and snarky caption to the top-right-column of this page. We’d like to change that snarky caption, and thought today may be a fine day for a caption contest. The “rules”:

The photo will stay the same

No obscenity or vulgarity (this is, after all, a quasi-family site)

The caption should in some way glorify our contributors or the idea behind the Command Post (i.e., citizen triangulation of the media). If you want to single out a particular contributor for glorification, that’s fine, but Michele and I recuse ourselves (we get enough glory as it is ... if that's what you call whatever it is we get)

From The Guardian:

The most gripping account of the Iraq conflict came from a web diarist known as the Baghdad Blogger. But no one knew his identity - or even if he existed. Rory McCarthy finally tracked him down, and found a quietly spoken, 29-year-old architect. From next week he will write fortnightly in G2

This should foster arguments about slipperly slope, no? From The Mercury:

Facing continued attacks on U.S. soldiers and a growing number of confrontations between Americans and Iraqis, U.S. military officials on Thursday said they would begin sending more soldiers on patrols in areas where anti-American sentiment is rising.

The decision came as U.S. officials debate whether the U.S. military force in Iraq needs to be larger and to remain in Iraq longer than Pentagon officials had anticipated and whether the U.S. civil administration in Iraq should be overhauled for the second time in a month.

Begin Point/Counterpoint. From Reuters:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denied on Thursday that the Iraq war was waged under a false pretext even though U.S. search teams have failed to find the chemical and biological weapons cited as justification for the invasion.

During a radio interview, Rumsfeld expressed fresh confidence that such weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq, and offered several explanations for why they have not been located.

Reuters is pumping out the Iraq news today:

The police station in the tense Iraqi town of Hit smoldered on Thursday, a day after it was set alight in what residents said was a riot over intrusive weapons searches by Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers ...

... Another resident, 24-year-old Amer Aziz, who said he represented the young men of Hit, told Reuters the trouble began when police and American troops began a house-to-house search for guns on Wednesday morning.

"The Iraqi police were very rough with our women," he said. "They forced their way into houses without knocking, sometimes when women were sleeping. This is a very conservative town."

Uproar ensued in the Sunni Muslim town of 155,000 as angry residents surged into the streets, burning police cars and throwing stones and handmade grenades at the Americans.

This was just reported on CNN TV, and here's an online report from ABC (US):

A U.S. soldier was killed by hostile fire Thursday while traveling on a main supply route in Iraq, a military statement said.

The brief statement released by the U.S. Central Command said the soldier was evacuated to 21st Combat Support Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

It gave no further details or the soldier's name.

Notice that the Iran/Iraq comparison ... with al Qaida, with WMD, with the US approach to each ... are a significantly more prominent over the last day. This comes from VOA:

U.S. National Security Advisor Condolezza Rice says Washington remains concerned about Iran's nuclear program and its alleged harboring of al-Qaida members.

But Ms. Rice told reporters in Washington Wednesday that the United States is committed to taking a multilateral approach to the situation. She said President Bush plans to discuss the matter with Russian and Chinese leaders during an upcoming trip to Europe.

While the United States went to war with Iraq, citing its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorism, Ms. Rice said similar concerns about Iran may require a different approach. She stressed that in the case of Iraq, Saddam Hussein had ignored U.N. resolutions for more than a decade.

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

Faced with armed resistance that has killed four American soldiers this week, allied military commanders now plan to keep a larger force in Iraq than they had anticipated and to send war-hardened units to trouble spots outside Baghdad, senior American officials said Wednesday.

Instead of sending home the 3rd Infantry Division, which led the charge on Baghdad, revised plans call for most of its troops to extend their stay to quell unrest and widen American control.

Allied officials said about 160,000 U.S. and British troops were in Iraq and that the vast majority were likely to stay until security improves and other nations ease the burden by contributing troops.

Our commentor Don is going to love this report from the BBC:

A dossier compiled by the government on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction was rewritten to make it "sexier", a senior British official has told the BBC.

The claim - hotly denied by Downing Street - came as Prime Minister Tony Blair became the first Western leader to visit post-conflict Iraq.

Hmmm ... lots happening today. This from Reuters:

British Prime Minister Tony Blair became the first Western leader on Thursday to visit Iraq since the war that toppled Saddam Hussein, but flew straight into controversy over Iran and weapons of mass destruction ...

... Sawers told reporters Blair was briefed by Bremer on economic problems, crime, remaining members of Saddam's Baath party, and most importantly the "growing concern about Shia Islamism which is clearly being supported by Iranian elements."

From Reuters:

Iran Thursday dismissed U.S. charges it was stirring up trouble in post-war Iraq and said it was determined not to interfere in its neighbor's affairs.
Iran has repeatedly pleaded its innocence in answer to a stream of charges from Washington that Tehran is trying to unhinge the U.S. hold on Iraq, develop nuclear weapons and is giving refuge to top al Qaeda fugitives.

"We are determined not to interfere in Iraq's internal affairs and impose a government on the Iraqi people or say what kind and model of government they should have," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

From the Pacific News Service:

One of Saddam Hussein's top generals was not included in the U.S. card deck of 55 most-wanted Iraqis. Now stories are circulating in European, Middle Eastern and other foreign press that he was paid off to ensure the quick fall of Baghdad.

On May 25, the French paper Le Journal du Dimanche, citing an unnamed Iraqi source, claimed that General Maher Sufian al-Tikriti, Saddam's cousin and a Republican Guard commander, made a deal with U.S. troops before leaving Iraq on a U.S. military aircraft. Allegedly the deal had been secured in advance by the CIA, but by prearrangement was implemented only after U.S. troops reached Baghdad's airport on April 4. Sufian was said to have left Iraq, along with a 20-man entourage, on April 8 -- the day before U.S. forces captured Baghdad without resistance.

An Arab diplomat told Le Journal that the CIA had hatched the plot more than a year before. "Many suitcases filled with dollars were floating around," the diplomat said.

From the Arab News (Saudi Arabia):

US troops detained a Palestinian diplomat in Baghdad yesterday ...

... Soldiers handcuffed charge d’affaires Najah Abdul Rahman and four other men outside what ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s government recognized as the Palestine Embassy. The troops said the men had illegal weapons, but it was not clear what had prompted them to disarm a Palestinian diplomat in a city awash with arms seven weeks after Saddam’s overthrow.

From MSNBC:

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov moved on Thursday to help heal his country's bruised relationship with the United States, following Russia's adamant opposition to the invasion of Iraq.

''We can confidently say that Russian-U.S. relations have passed another serious test,'' Ivanov wrote in a column in London's Times newspaper.

From IHT (France):

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said Wednesday that he planned to visit Iraq this week, making him the first Western head of state to set foot in Iraq since the U.S.-led war with the country ended last month.

Blair, who may be arriving in Iraq as early as Thursday from Kuwait before leaving the same day for Poland, said the purpose of his visit is to congratulate British troops for their contribution to the war effort.

From the Daily Telegraph:

Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, has suggested for the first time that chemical and biological weapons might not be found in Iraq, saying Saddam Hussein may have destroyed them before the war began.

Echoing President George W Bush and Tony Blair, American officials continue to say firm evidence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction will be found, but there has been a noticeable shift in their statements.

Mr Rumsfeld, responding to a question after a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Tuesday evening, said the rapid American advance towards Baghdad might have stopped Iraqi forces using weapons of mass destruction.

The hunt for the weapons had been under way for only seven weeks, he said. Iraqi scientists were still being interviewed and there were still hundreds of suspected chemical and biological weapons sites to be examined. But he added: "It is also possible that they decided that they would destroy them prior to a conflict."

Note: I am just the messenger. From FOXNews.com:

The U.S. commandos refused a key and instead broke down doors and went in with guns drawn. They carried away the prisoner in the dead of night with helicopter and armored vehicle backup - even though there was no Iraqi military presence and the hospital staff didn't resist ...

... An Associated Press reporter spoke to more than 20 doctors, nurses and other workers at the hospital. In interview after interview, the assessment was the same: The dramatics that surrounded Lynch's rescue were unnecessary. Some also said the raid itself was unneeded because they were trying to turn Lynch over, although they conceded they made no attempt to notify U.S. troops of that effort.

From Reuters:

Two truck-trailers found in Iraq were "ingeniously simple" mobile biological weapons factories, with other as-yet-undiscovered trailers holding the end of the production chain, the CIA said on Wednesday.

No trace of biological weapons has been found in either of the trailers, but there is little question they were constructed to make such toxins as anthrax and botulinin in quantities that potentially could kill thousands of people, U.S. intelligence officials said in telephone conference called to discuss a new report by the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency.

"Our experts who are in the field right now ... have said this is an ingenious, unique and Iraqi design, not the way anyone else would have manufactured biological agent," one official said. "It's probably not how you would want to design a biological weapon. It was designed to evade inspection, not to be efficient."

[CSM]

Kirkuk's new city council will select a mayor Wednesday, making the city the second in Iraq to take this step toward democracy since the end of the war. But like its northern neighbor, Mosul, oil-rich Kirkuk faces a daunting challenge: to create a functioning society while excluding most of the people who once made the country tick - members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party

Full story...

[Sky News]

Four US soldiers have been killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq, according to al Jazeera television.

The Arab station said it came down during violent clashes in the town of Hit, 90 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The violence flared after armed residents attacked a local police station because Iraqi police had helped US troops with house to house searches for weapons.

Full story....

[Fox News]

LONDON — An Arabic newspaper in London claims to have received another letter from Saddam Hussein -- this one saying the former Iraqi dictator is "hunting the cowardly American and British enemy." The Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper has published other letters purported to have come from the ex-Iraqi president. Many people have been skeptical of them because photos of them displayed in the paper contained handwriting different from Saddam's.

Full story...

From CENTCOM

CAMP DOHA, Kuwait -- An updated report confirmed that another soldier was killed and two more injured following the attack on a U.S. Army unit in Al Fallujah early this morning.

An initial report indicated only one soldier was killed and seven others wounded. This brings the total to two soldiers killed and nine wounded.
...
U.S. Army soldiers responded decisively with concentrated fire from Bradley Fighting Vehicles, crew-served weapons and small arms. They killed two attackers and captured six others.

Initial reports indicate the attackers fired from a mosque in the city.

In a tersely-worded statement, CENTCOM has reported that:

MACDILL AFB, FL – Sayf al-Din al-Mashhadani (#46), Ba’ath Party Regional Chairman for al-Muthanna and Sad Abd al-Majid al-Faysal (#55), Ba’ath Party Regional Chairman for Salah al-Din were captured by Coalition Forces on Saturday.

From the BBC:

After two decades in hiding, an Iraqi man has finally emerged back into the real world - squinting at the unaccustomed light.

Twenty-one years ago, Saddam Hussein placed an execution order on Jawad Amir for supporting an outspoken Shia cleric.

Mr Amir escaped - not into a far-off town or neighbouring country, but into a space sandwiched between two walls in his parents' home. He said for the whole of his hiding he never left that small, dark space and had only a tiny peephole to view the outside world.

Through internal e-mails The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reports on an argument between NY Times Baghdad bureau chief John Burns and bioterrorism reporter Judith Miller. We discover that Miller's major source about Iraqi WMDs is Ahmad Chalabi.

"Intra-Times Battle Over Iraqi Weapons"

From Reuters:

Al-Jazeera television said on Tuesday it would replace its chief executive officer but insisted the decision had not been due to allegations the channel had been infiltrated by Iraqi intelligence.

Spokesman Jihad Ballout said CEO Mohammed Jassem al-Ali, who headed the channel since its launch eight years ago, would remain on the board of directors but would hand over the day-to-day running to someone else.

"Mohammed Jassem al-Ali was seconded from Qatar Television to set up and run Al Jazeera and what has been decided is that this secondment be ceased and for him to go back to his normal job," Ballout said.

From Reuters:

The United States will not allow Iraq's neighbors to create an Iran-style Islamic republic there after the toppling of Saddam Hussein by U.S. forces, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in comments published on Tuesday.

Rumsfeld's comments in an article for the Wall Street Journal Europe were published ahead of a meeting of senior U.S. officials to discuss Iran, branded by Washington as part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and North Korea.

• Assert authority. Our goal is to put functional and political authority in the hands of Iraqis as soon as possible. The Coalition Provisional Authority has the responsibility to fill the vacuum of power in a country that has been a dictatorship for decades, by asserting authority over the country. It will do so. It will not tolerate self-appointed "leaders."

• Provide security. Among the immediate objectives are restoration of law and order for the Iraqi people and provision of essential services. The coalition is hiring and training Iraqi police, and will be prepared to use force to impose order as required -- because without order, little else will be possible.

• Commitment to stay; commitment to leave. The coalition will maintain as many security forces in Iraq as necessary, for as long as necessary, to accomplish the stated goals -- and no longer. Already 39 nations have offered stabilization forces or other needed assistance for the postwar effort, and that number is growing. Together, coalition countries will seek to provide a secure environment, so that over time Iraqis will be able to take charge of their country.

(Baghdad, Iraq-AP) May 27, 2003 -- Gunmen ambushed a US military convoy in northern Iraq on Monday, killing an American soldier and wounding another.

In a separate incident, another US soldier was killed and three were injured when a Humvee ran over a land mine in an apparent attack in Baghdad.

In a city 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, US soldiers shot and killed a woman who tried to approach them carrying two hand grenades. The shooting took place immediately after unknown attackers threw handheld explosives at US soldiers guarding a former base of a pro-Iranian military unit.

From ABC News in the US:

West Baghdad police chief Abdul Razak al-Abbassi was dismissed Sunday, said Lt. Col. Richard Vanderlinden, commander of the U.S. Army's 709th Military Police Battalion.

Al-Abbassi was found to have had full membership in Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, disqualifying him from any of the three top positions in an Iraqi government bureaucracy, Vanderlinden said.

A 33-year veteran of the force, Al-Abbassi helped coax Baghdad police to return to work and rebuild their looted station houses, and restarted patrols in a city under siege from Kalashnikov-wielding carjackers and looters.

More from the Boston Globe:

Though the Bush administration has not disclosed an estimate for the costs of reconstruction in Iraq, private research institutes have said it could be $100 billion.

Here is some of the Iraqi, U.S. and international money American officials say they'll have to spend on the effort:

$1.7 billion in Iraqi funds frozen in 1990 by the United States under economic sanctions. Some $200 million has been drawn from the account so far.

$1.1 billion in Iraqi funds frozen by other nations since the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

$1 billion in American bills taken from Iraq's central bank by the former regime and found hidden around the country.

That's the headline from the Beeb in reporting the same Bremer news conference that I noted in the post immediately below this. (You'll notice the Guardian had a different spin.) Here's the BBC story:

The deputy head of the Anglo-American administration in Iraq has said that there are too few troops in the country to bring order.

Major General Tim Cross, the British number two in the Office of Reconstruction and Human Assistance, said there were particular problems in Baghdad although he insisted they were being addressed.

From the Guardian (UK):

Two weeks after taking the reins of the U.S. administration here, L. Paul Bremer said Monday that occupying American forces have done much to restore stability in postwar Iraq, and he pledged to help the oil-rich nation rebuild its economy.

"A free economy and a free people go hand in hand,'' said Bremer, a former State Department anti-terrorism official who took over the civilian operation in Iraq on May 12.

Bremer announced a program, funded by Iraq's central bank and several private financial institutions, to supply credit to encourage exports to Iraq in coming weeks. The program, he said, will ``symbolically indicate to the world that Iraq is open for business again.''

The worst kind of reminder that in the States it's Memorial Day. From the Boston Globe / AP:

Gunmen ambushed a U.S. military convoy in northern Iraq on Monday, killing an American soldier and wounding four others. Also, four soldiers were wounded in what appeared to be a land-mine attack in a wealthy Baghdad neighborhood, military officials and witnesses said ...

... The command said the ambush happened at 6:15 a.m. and that the troops belonged to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

Boston Globe Online / Nation | World / Kurds' aims threaten Iraq stability effort

For the first time in at least 40 years, the Kurds of northern Iraq face no enmity or repression from the government of the country. Their joy and relief are exuberant.

Crowds throng the streets of major cities like Sulaymaniyah and Erbil, buying, selling, talking politics, and embracing any American they find to express gratitude for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Pictures of President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain are displayed alongside those of Kurdish leaders.

But mixed with this joy are other emotions that could cause serious problems for US efforts to keep Iraq at peace, and in one piece.

From butchers and stationers to teachers and peshmerga fighters, it is hard to find anyone in northern Iraq who does not long for Kurdish independence, despite the newfound freedoms they are enjoying in the post-Hussein era. But Turkey threatens to use force to stop the rise of an independent Kurdistan. Civil war over the cities of Kirkuk and Mosul would be likely. What would remain of Iraq would be nothing more than warring mini-kingdoms.

The Kurds, according to international human rights groups, constitute the largest people in the world without a state of their own; they long passionately and openly for the creation of an independent Kurdistan that would redress the wrongs done to them during Hussein's long, brutal rule.

''It is a dream of every Kurd,'' said Shalaw Ali Askary, minister of foreign affairs for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan government in the eastern section of the region, ''and I believe we will reach it.''

From Reuters:

Iraq illegally stashed away billions of dollars in cash from oil deals with foreign firms in Lebanese and Jordanian banks and some of the money is still there, senior Iraqi and Arab bankers said.

The government transferred most of the cash it received from companies, including possibly Western firms, to Baghdad where it was feared lost in the looting that erupted after U.S.-led forces toppled president Saddam Hussein last month.

But Iraqi government accounts still have at least $500 million in Lebanon and significantly more in Jordan while other funds are now beyond recovery in private hands, said the bankers, some of whom represented Iraq in dealing with foreign banks.

From the Beeb:

Tony Blair has appointed backbench MP Ann Clwyd as a special envoy to Iraq on human rights. Ms Clwyd plans to travel to Iraq on Tuesday and will visit sites where the victims of Saddam Hussein's regime were buried.

She will also have talks with Iraqis who hope to form part of the interim administration to lead the country towards democracy.

From Reuters:

The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said on Monday its inspectors could return to Iraq this week to investigate reports of looting at the country's main nuclear site.

Diplomats said the United States had limited the mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, who quit Iraq two months ago on the eve of the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The IAEA said its experts would check whether uranium had been spilled or taken from storage buildings near the Tuwaitha nuclear research center, south of Baghdad, where it has been sealed under IAEA safeguards since after the 1991 Gulf War.

Iraqis Unhappy With U.S. Signals (washingtonpost.com)

Putting Iraqi television back on the air has proved to be no simple matter, from the electrical outages to the makeshift staff assembled in the postwar chaos. Telephones do not work, and news is hard to confirm. And then there is the dispute over the editorial influence of U.S. occupation authorities.

The U.S. ambassador to Morocco, Margaret Tutwiler, was dispatched to Baghdad to polish and package the U.S. occupation. But she triggered a rebellion earlier this month when she and a young White House aide in Baghdad, Dan Senor, intervened with strong judgments about programs and said that broadcasts would be reviewed in advance by the wife of a prominent Kurdish militia leader, according to several people involved.

Iraqis and U.S.-paid television consultants called it censorship. They protested that the supervision by Tutwiler and Senor violated the concepts of liberty and independence that President Bush said would undergird Iraq's future. Most of all, they objected to the idea that the Americans thought they knew what was best for Iraqi viewers.

"Dependence on any governmental body, whether it is Iraqi or non-Iraqi, will lead to another dictatorship and will kill democracy," said Ahmad Rikabi, 33, a foreign-born Iraqi recruited from exile to become a network anchor. "If we really want democracy, we should protect this child that is the Iraqi media."

Familiar Logo On Unfamiliar Eateries in Iraq (washingtonpost.com)

This dusty town near the Iranian border does not yet have a McDonald's. But it does have a MaDonal, as well as a Matbax, both of which sell cheeseburgers and french fries using an unmistakably familiar pair of golden arches. It is the only city in Iraq with mobile telephone service and has dozens of shops selling electronics. It has liquor stores with shelves full of Tennessee whiskey and Dutch beer, plus Internet cafes offering espresso.

This ethnically Kurdish town in the rounded mountains of northern Iraq has, in short, a thriving private economy, albeit one not fully calibrated to the finer points of international copyright. Its free-flowing, free-market ways are the result of the independence it has known for the past decade from the rule of Saddam Hussein.

Now, with Hussein gone and market forces beginning to seep into Iraq, the Kurdish areas of the north seem likely to take the lead in the development of a private sector, serving as a sort of incubator for capitalism in the rest of the country. Trading networks are already established here, with merchants well versed in how to move products into Iraq from neighboring Turkey and Iran. Goods have traveled overland the other way as well, reaching Iran after transiting here from the port of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, by way of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey.

BBC NEWS | Business | Iraq halts Russian and Chinese oil deals

The US-run Iraqi administration has cancelled or suspended three oil contracts with Russian and Chinese firms signed by the ousted government of Saddam Hussein.

Thamir Ghadhban, the US-appointed de facto Iraqi oil minister, said on Saturday all pre-war contracts would be re-evaluated and new deals announced soon.

"We will examine each one on its legal, economic merits," he said.

But he added that Russia's biggest oil company Lukoil had already lost a contract in West Qurna while a Chinese deal to develop the al-Ahdab field was suspended by "mutual agreement".

No details were given about the third contract.

His comments come just days after the UN Security Council lifted sanctions against Iraq.

French, Russian and Chinese companies all won contracts in recent years for work in Iraq. Their governments opposed US war plans at the UN Security Council.

The Observer | Special reports | Red Cross denied access to PoWs

The United States is illegally holding thousands of Iraqi prisoners of war and other captives without access to human rights officials at compounds close to Baghdad airport, The Observer has learnt.

There have also been reports of a mutiny last week by prisoners at an airport compound, in protest against conditions. The uprising was 'dealt with' by the Americans, according to a US military source.

The International Committee of the Red Cross so far has been denied access to what the organisation believes could be as many as 3,000 prisoners held in searing heat. All other requests to inspect conditions under which prisoners are being held have been met with silence or been turned down.

There is circumstantial evidence that prisoners are being gagged and hooded, in the manner of the Afghans and other captives held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba - treatment in itself questionable under international law.

Unlike the Afghans in Cuba, there is no doubt about the status of these captives, whether PoWs or civilians arrested for looting or other crimes under military occupation: all have the right, under the laws of war, to be visited and documented by the International Red Cross. 'There is no argument about the situation with regard to the Iraqi armed forces and even the Fedayeen Saddam,' said the ICRC's spokeswoman in Baghdad, Nada Doumani.

'They are prisoners of war because they have been captured during a clear conflict between two states. If they served in the armed forces or in a militia with distinctive clothing which came under the chain of command of one of the warring states, they are protected under article 143 of the Geneva Convention.'

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

A US soldier was killed and another injured in an explosion at a facility containing Iraqi ammunition south of Baghdad, the United States Central Command says.

The statement says the explosion at Ad Diwaniyah, about 120 kilometres south of Baghdad, occurred on Sunday morning local time while the soldiers were on guard duty.

Centcom says an investigation is under way to determine the cause of the explosion, but it is not believed to be due to hostile action.

The injured soldier was taken to a medical field hospital where he underwent surgery.

Both soldiers' names are being withheld pending notification of next-of-kin.

As of the end of April, 24 US troops had been killed and 66 injured in non-combat situations in Iraq since the US-led war began, according to figures announced by US, British and Iraqi authorities.

[World Tribune]

The United States plans to increase its military force in Iraq in an effort to stabilize the country.

U.S. officials said nearly 20,000 troops would arrive in Iraq over the next few weeks. This would increase the U.S. force level to about 163,000 troops. Currently, about 145,000 U.S. soldiers are deployed in Iraq.

Full story...

From Newsday:

A surface-to-air missile left over from Saddam Hussein's regime fell off a trailer and exploded Sunday, killing three people and injuring at least two others, residents of a poor Baghdad neighborhood said.

From Reuters:

U.S. troops have disarmed a militia group affiliated with pro-American Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi, as part of a campaign to impose law and order in Iraq, a political official said Sunday.

But fighters of the biggest Muslim Shi'ite group, trained by Washington's bitter foe Iran, reacted warily to the U.S. military's June 14 ultimatum for Iraqis to surrender their weapons.

From Reuters:

British troops in control of southern Iraq said Sunday they had disbanded Basra's city council, headed by a controversial local leader accused by many residents of having close links to Saddam Hussein's regime ...

... British military spokeswoman Captain Jo Bowlt said the city council would be replaced by two bodies -- an interim committee dealing with the technical tasks of reconstruction, and a civic forum of political leaders which will work on setting up a democratic local government.

From the Gulf Daily News (Bahrain):

Iraq's US administrators yesterday began paying wages to state employees for the first time since the fall of Baghdad, as a contested election in the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk put in place a city council.

The payments to Iraq's civil workers, the first payment of backwages since the US coalition took control of the country on April 9, came amid increasing local frustration with the occupying forces.

The first tranche of payments, some $180,000 and 739 million Iraqi dinars, was delivered to staff representatives at a power station in south Baghdad, and by tomorrow another 28,000 power workers were due to be paid.

From the Kansas City Star / AP:

Arabs and Turks in Iraq's main northern oil city threatened Sunday to boycott a vote for mayor as an American general approved six final members of a city council charged with healing ethnic feuding that threatens the region's stability.

Bitter squabbling prevented the six from being sworn in a day earlier, and the intervention by Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, did little to calm ethnic passions that roiled the first meeting of the 30-person city council.

Arabs and ethnic Turks immediately threatened to boycott the expected vote for mayor, saying the post is certain to go to a Kurd.

[News 24]

One of Saddam Hussein's cousins, Special Republican Guard chief Maher Sufian al-Tikriti, betrayed the deposed Iraqi leader by ordering his elite forces not to defend Baghdad.

This happened after he made a deal with the United States, the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche reported on Sunday.

Citing an Iraqi source close to Saddam's former regime, the newspaper said that the general, responsible for defending the Iraqi capital, left Baghdad aboard a US military transport plane, bound for a US base outside Iraq.

Full story

[CNN]

The U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship USS Nassau headed home Saturday without one of its sailors, who fell overboard in what the ship's captain called a "freak accident."

Returning from a nine-month deployment to the Persian Gulf, Capt. Russell Tjepkema said, "This 24-hour period was the hardest 24-hour period of the entire deployment."

Full story...

[Fox News]

The U.S.-led coalition officially ordered Iraqis on Saturday to disarm by mid-June, part of a high-profile effort to get weapons off the streets and return public security to cities under American occupation. Anyone found with unauthorized weapons after June 14 will be detained and face criminal charges, U.S. Central Command in Florida said, quoting a "national order" from the top civilian administrator, L. Paul Bremer of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.

Full story...

A selection from the collection.

This from ABC News (US):

The acting oil minister of postwar Iraq predicted Saturday that crude production would double within a month and oil exports would resume "within three weeks."

Thamer al-Ghadhban said Iraq was currently producing 700,000 barrels of oil a day and working hard under U.S. occupation to increase that number as quickly as possible.

"It is a matter of a few weeks, and we can reach 1.3 or 1.5 million barrels a day," al-Ghadhban said at a coalition-sponsored news conference in the capital. Prewar production under Saddam Hussein was about 3 million barrels daily.

Democracy! Whiskey! Sexy! The New York Times reports that:

Mr. Hussein shuttered Basra's dance halls and bars in the early 1990's, though he allowed the minority Christian population to keep their liquor stores open under government oversight. Since his fall, however, the owners of the liquor outlets have seen their livelihoods victimized by a series of attacks on the alcohol industry.

One store owner recently had a firebomb thrown into his shop. At least two others have been shot dead and several have received warnings from armed men that the new Iraq does not allow alcohol.

FYI, he's Brazilian, and until now was the UN high commissioner for human rights (see its website here). From the New York Times:

Sérgio Vieira de Mello, a longtime United Nations executive who made his reputation in recent years helping repair the havoc caused by the world's nastiest regional conflicts, is Secretary General Kofi Annan's choice as the United Nations special representative in Iraq.

Mr. Annan informed the Security Council of his choice in a letter that was released to reporters this afternoon.

From Bill Gertz/Washington Times:

A U.S. military intelligence team in Iraq has uncovered a dozen French passports, and defense officials believe other French passports from the same batch were used by Iraqis to flee the country.

Defense officials are still investigating whether the passports were provided covertly by the French government, or were stolen or forged by Saddam Hussein's regime, said defense officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

France's government has denied that it provided any passports to fleeing Iraqi officials and called news reports of French collaboration with Saddam's regime U.S. "disinformation..."

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security this week concluded an intelligence investigation that said that reports of France's role in providing passports to former Iraqi officials could not be confirmed...

The official said the passports themselves do not mean that France provided the documents and that the passports may have been looted from the French Embassy... According to numerous U.S. press accounts from Iraq, however, the French Embassy in Baghdad was not looted. [...they could have been forged too...]

France has denied past allegations of helping Iraqis escape; see "France's open letter to the U.S."

Here's something worth reading, found via the Atlantic Monthly's Primary Sources:

A monograph recently published by the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College lays out in comprehensive detail the many obstacles that will confront coalition forces after presumed military victory in Iraq. Written by Conrad C. Crane, the director of the U.S. Army Military History Institute, and W. Andrew Terrill, the SSI's Middle East specialist, the report points out that U.S. forces will have to prevent Sunnis from fighting Shiites, secular Iraqis from fighting religious ones, returned Iraqi exiles from fighting non-exiles, Kurds from fighting Turkomans or establishing an independent state, tribes within all these groups from fighting one another, Turkey from invading from the north, Iran from invading from the east, and the defeated Iraqi army—which may be the only national institution that can keep the country from being ripped apart—from dissolving. All that (the easy part) is merely a prelude to the hard work of nation-building...

... The report includes, as an appendix, a "mission matrix for Iraq": a list of 135 tasks that must be accomplished, including securing weapons of mass destruction, training a new Iraqi army, stabilizing the currency, training indigenous lawyers to work in new courts, and operating orphanages.

Now that the war on Iraq is winding down, exiled Iraqi Jews, from the wealthy community dating back to the Babylonian Exile of 587 BCE, are considering compensation claims for their property expropriated 50 years ago by Saddam's predecessors.

. . . in 1950, the Iraqi parliament stripped Jews of their citizenship if they registered to leave the country. And later legislation effectively confiscated the property of those who had declared their intention to leave. “Detailed regulations limited the items which emigrating Jews were permitted to take with them. Even the permitted number of pairs of shoes and sets of underwear was set out in the law,” she said. “As a result of these legislative confiscations, an estimated $150 million to $200 million worth of Jewish property was left behind in Iraq.”

As is currently being showed on Fox, via an occaisional live feed from onboard one of the ships.

The feed shows a gray, overcast, with light rain. From my vantage point here in the local area, I can report that the rain is quite light, and the temperature is fairly warm. Looking out over the Back River, the sea state appears quite calm, even out towards the open water.

The sailors lining the rails, well, something tells me that the weather isn't really a concern of theirs at all right now.

Welcome home, Navy. Well done.

[Sky News]

US soldiers in Iraq have seized a truck loaded with what was believed to be 2,000 gold bars worth as much as $500m at a routine search at a checkpoint near the Syrian border, the US military said.

"The bars may have a total worth of $500m dollars, depending on carat weight and purity," the US Central Command said.

Soldiers from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment stopped the Mercedes truck and its two occupants Thursday in Al Qaim.

They found 40-pound bars, measuring four inches by five inches by 10 inches.

"The occupants told the soldiers that they had been paid a total of 350,000 Dinars ($350) to pick up the truck in Baghdad and drive it to an unnamed individual in Al Qaim," US Central Command said in a statement.

Full story...

[Newsday]

Throughout the 13 years of UN sanctions on Iraq that were ended yesterday, Iraqi doctors told the world that the sanctions were the sole cause for the rocketing mortality rate among Iraqi children.

"It is one of the results of the embargo," Dr. Ghassam Rashid Al-Baya told Newsday on May 9, 2001, at Baghdad's Ibn Al-Baladi hospital, just after a dehydrated baby named Ali Hussein died on his treatment table. "This is a crime on Iraq."

It was a scene repeated in hundreds of newspaper articles by reporters required to be escorted by minders from Saddam Hussein's Ministry of Information.

Now free to speak, the doctors at two Baghdad hospitals, including Ibn Al-Baladi, tell a very different story. Along with parents of dead children, they said in interviews this week that Hussein turned the children's deaths into propaganda, notably by forcing hospitals to save babies' corpses to have them publicly paraded.

Full story....

From Reuters:

The fulfillment of a long-awaited Iraqi dream went almost unnoticed in Baghdad Friday, where many ordinary people said the lifting of U.N. sanctions made little difference in the absence of a homegrown government.

"We expected this to happen after the fall of Saddam Hussein," said Hameed Hashim, a teacher, adding gloomily that the U.S.-led occupation meant "Iraq is now the state number 51" of the United States.

"Till now there is no government, so the decision is useless," Hashim said. "But we hope that America and Britain will use the decision for the benefit of the Iraqi people."

From WCVB:

The chief U.N. weapons inspector says he's starting to suspect Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

Hans Blix told a German newspaper, Der Tagesspiegel, that Saddam Hussein's evasive behavior may have only been related to his need to control - and wasn't about hiding weapons of mass destruction.

Blix notes in the interview that the man whom officials identified as the leader of Iraq's unconventional weapons program surrendered, and told the United States there were no weapons of mass destruction.

Blix says the Iraqi is likely telling the truth because he no longer fears retaliation by Saddam.

From the Wichita Eagle / AP:

The United States does not intend to punish France for its opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but would review joint cooperation "in the light of changed circumstances," Secretary of State Colin Powell said Friday.

Powell and French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin emerged from a breakfast meeting saying they would like to put the feud over Iraq behind them. Powell added that the United States wants to "work out any remaining sharp edges ... that are still there as a result of this disagreement."

From ABS CBN (Philippines):

With the UN Security Council’s adoption Thursday of a resolution lifting sanctions on Iraq, diplomats and industry experts predicted that small shipments of Iraqi oil could resume as early as the next week or the week after.

By recognizing the US-led coalition’s authority over Iraq and its oil revenue, the resolution clears a major hurdle to restarting oil exports, which have been shut down since hostilities began on March 20. Iraqi oil likely will just trickle out in the early stages, with larger shipments following.

Personally, I think our folks in uniform should get a finder's fee for things like this ... say 6%? From The Wilmington Morning Star / AP:

American troops confiscated gold bars valued at $34 million from a truck in northern Iraq, defense officials said Friday.

The truck carrying 1,600 gold bars was stopped at a military checkpoint near Qaim, a northwestern city near Iraq's border with Syria, Pentagon officials said.

A take on the post-UN vote US response, from Norwegian news source Aftenposten:

The US administrator in Iraq acted swiftly on America's overwhelming victory at the United Nations over its plans to rebuild the oil-rich country, dissolving several key Baathist ministries and bodies on Friday.

Only hours after the Security Council voted to end 13-year-old crippling sanctions, Washington's man in charge of Iraq, Paul Bremer, sacked hundreds of thousands of public employees and soldiers by abolishing the defense and information ministries and military and security courts.

From the Toronto Sun:

Iraq's military and the security organizations that supported Saddam Hussein's regime have been officially dissolved, and a new defense force "representative of all Iraqis" will be set up to replace them, the U.S. civil administrator announced Friday.

Fox News (TV), quoting the Wall Street Journal, is reporting that Uday Hussein is negotiating a surrender.

UPDATE: The story is now on FOXNews.com, which you can read here ...

Saddam Hussein's son Uday is considering surrendering to U.S. forces, but so far has been reluctant to do so because of a tough negotiating posture by the U.S. government, according to a third party with knowledge of the discussions, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

U.S. officials in Washington had no comment, the paper said.

Uday Hussein, who is hiding in a Baghdad suburb, wants to know what the charges against him will be and the process for interrogation and custody, the source told the Journal.

U.S. officials don't seem especially interested in cutting a deal, because they assume Uday will be caught sooner or later, the source told the paper.

Saddam Hussein is also alive and in suburban Baghdad, the person familiar with Uday's surrender discussions said he has been told by a Saddam relative. He added that the deposed leader is in questionable mental health. The U.S. government has asked intermediaries for help in finding him or negotiating a surrender, but this person knows of no progress.

From Reuters:

U.S. military forces in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk have detained two Arab candidates for the provincial council days ahead of elections to the body, an army spokeswoman said on Thursday.

Lawyer Mijbil al-Sheikh Isa is being held following allegations he was from the upper echelons of Saddam Hussein's once all-powerful Baath Party.

The second of the six Arab candidates, Burhan Muzher al-Asi, was detained after U.S. forces received intelligence which alleged he was involved in supplying weapons ahead of a fierce clash between U.S. troops and Arab gunmen on Sunday. He was later released without charge.

Ladies and gentlemen: The US Army presents the King of Diamonds! From WaPo:

The U.S. military said Thursday that its forces had captured a former regional commander in Saddam Hussein's Baath Party who is on Washington's list of most-wanted Iraqis.

The U.S. Central Command said in a statement that Aziz Salih Numan was a Baath Party regional command chairman responsible for west Baghdad. He was also a former governor of the southern cities of Karbala and Najaf.

The Development Executive Group reports:

The Iraqi Reconstruction Conference - Part II

A second Equity International Iraqi Reconstruction Conference has been announced for 1-2 July 2003, to be held in Washington.

More than 600 top corporate executives, government officials, humanitarian leaders, and foreign diplomats attended the first Iraqi Reconstruction Conference, held in Washington on May 5. Hosted and organized by Equity International, the international conference was co-sponsored by BearingPoint, Hellmann World Wide Logistics, and The Development Executive Group.

In his welcoming remarks, Equity International President William Loiry told the 5 May conference, "There is so much interest in this conference is a result of the urgency in the relief, reconstruction, and development of Iraq, the largest such undertaking since the end of World War II."

U.S. Congressman Christopher Shays (R-CT), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations opened the conference. Over 25 countries were represented, including 21 foreign embassies and ministries. At least 22 U.S. federal agencies were represented, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of Defense. Among the humanitarian organizations at the conference were the International Committee of the Red Cross, the American Red Cross, Save the Children and Relief International.

Corporate participation included top executives of BearingPoint, Halliburton KBR, Hellman Worldwide Logistics, The Development Executive Group, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Rockwell Automation, Honeywell, Textron, ITT Industries, Nortel Networks, Jordan National Bank, Arab Banking Corporation, World Trade Center in Ankara Turkey, Confederation of Danish Industries, Austrian Airlines, Virgin Atlantic Airlines, and numerous small and medium sized companies.

Similarly high-caliber participants are expected at the second Iraqi Reconstruction Conference. To ensure that you receive an invitation, please visit The Center for Homeland and Global Security to register.

Some numbers recently published about the Ops in Iraq

• Total personnel deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom (466,985) was approximately equivilant to the population of Albaquerque, N.M.
• Total amount of fuel passed via airborne refuelling - 417,137,233 lbs. Enough to keep a single Boeing 737-300 airborne for 11.9 years
• If you lined up all of the leaflets dropped, end to end, they would stretch from Ft Worth, TX, to Anchorage, AK; alternately, you could have 120,454 rolls of toilet paper
• Approximate costs for the air operations portion - $917,744,361.55, or roughly 46 minutes, 10.5 seconds of the 2001 US Gross Domestic Product
• 1,801 aircraft flew sorties in support of ops in Iraq, for a total of 41,404 missions (excluding Army Helicopter flights)
• There were over 30,000 discrete Desired Mean Points of Impact (targets) nominated during OIF, 19,898 were struck (attacked), of those, over 15,000 were Close Air Support strikes in support of ground forces.
• 29,199 munitions (bombs, rockets, missiles) were expended; 19,948 guided (68%), 9,251 unguided (32%). 328,498 rounds of 20mm and 30mm ammunition was fired from Coalition aircraft.

[Fox News]

Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded the American-led coalition campaigns that won wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is retiring. Defense officials made the announcement Thursday, but it was not immediately clear when Franks, 57, would retire. Senior officials said the departure from U.S. Central Command was not imminent.

Full story....

[Sky News]

The United Nations Security Council has overwhelmingly approved a resolution lifting sanctions on Iraq.

It has also agreed to allow the US-led coalition to continue running the country until a recognised government takes over.

Voting on the resolution - sponsored by the United States, Britain and Spain - was 14-0.

Syria, the 15th member of the Security Council, did not attend the meeting.

Full story....

From WaPo:

Months after France said it would veto a U.N. resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq, forcing the United States to withdraw the measure and go to war without it, realpolitik has overcome resentment in most of the Bush administration. Although there is little desire to cuddle up with Paris, officials at the White House and the State Department say they are willing to work with the French on issues where views coincide, and work around or oppose them when they disagree.

But the Pentagon apparently is not ready to move on. A Defense spokesman said yesterday that slots for foreigners in Red Flag, an exercise held with a rotating group of allies several times a year, in which France has participated annually since the 1980s, "are going to be reserved for those with whom we will likely be participating in operations in the future."

Related to this post, from the Advertiser (Australia):

The Iraqi Health Ministry has ordered an immediate health survey around the country's largest nuclear facility amid fears for locals after looting.

US military officials, who are conducting a damage assessment at the Tuwaitha plant, have said a fifth of the radioactive materials knnown to have been stored there are missing...

... Villagers nearby have begun reporting ill effects they attribute to contact with hazardous waste.

Menem Abed Ali, who lives in the village of al-Mansia adjacent to the plant, said that since the looting took place he had been suffering from exhaustion and skin irritation.

From CBC News:

A Canadian Forces officer has suffered minor injuries in an explosion near the Baghdad airport, the Defence Department said on Wednesday.

The officer was injured last Friday when a grenade exploded near a convoy the soldier was travelling in. He suffered shrapnel scrapes on one arm and temporary hearing loss, the military said. The officer has returned to duty.

An update on this post, from The Scotsman:

A US officer is behind allegations about the conduct of a high-profile British Army officer during the war in Iraq, it emerged today.

The Ministry of Defence is investigating Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins, who commanded the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Rangers during the war against Saddam Hussein’s forces.

From the CSM:

Evidence is mounting to suggest that between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi civilians may have died during the recent war, according to researchers involved in independent surveys of the country.

None of the local and foreign researchers were willing to speak for the record, however, until their tallies are complete.

Such a range would make the Iraq war the deadliest campaign for noncombatants that US forces have fought since Vietnam.

From MSNBC:

All 60,000 U.S. Marines now in Iraq and Kuwait are expected to leave the Gulf and return to home bases in the United States and elsewhere by the end of August, the Marine Corps commandant said on Wednesday ...

... While up to 100,000 or more U.S. Army troops are expected to remain in Iraq to help keep peace and stability, Hagee said that Marines - now in southern Iraq - were likely to be replaced by forces volunteered by other nations.

From Reuters:

Four explosions rocked a U.S. command post near the Iraqi town of Fallujah and a U.S. tank was ablaze, Qatar-based al-Jazeera television reported on Wednesday, citing witnesses at the scene.

U.S. officials at the Pentagon and at U.S. central command said they had no information on anything happening in Falluja, west of Baghdad.

Up with the Coalition of The Willing To Help Out Afterwards! From Reuters:

France, Germany and Russia have decided to back the latest draft of a U.S.-proposed resolution lifting U.N. sanctions on Iraq, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said Wednesday.

"Even if this text does not go as far as we would like we have decided to vote for this resolution... This is because we have chosen the path of unity of the international community," Villepin said at a joint news conference with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov.

For our international readers: The US Presidential campaign now begins two full years prior to the official election cycle. From ABC (US):

Sen. Robert Byrd accused the Bush administration of using "false premises" to get Americans to accept what he said was an illegal and unprovoked attack on Saddam Hussein's government.

His remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday made for some of the toughest criticism of the Iraq war from Congress.

Referring to turmoil in postwar Iraq, Byrd, D-W.Va., said: "If the situation in Iraq is the result of liberation, we may have set the cause of freedom back 200 years."

And what if it was Germany, 1945? From the Guardian:

Leaked advice from the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, reveals that he warned Tony Blair two months ago that attempts at postwar reconstruction of Iraq by US-British occupying authorities would be unlawful without a further UN resolution.

Lord Goldsmith, the government's chief law officer, told the prime minister that the longer the occupation went on and the more the actions of the occupying authorities departed from their main task of disarmament, the harder it would be to justify the occupation as lawful.

An update on this post, from VOA:

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher says Washington and the International Atomic Energy Agency have agreed to send a joint team to the Tuwaitha nuclear research center as soon as it is ready to go.

Folks ... apologies for the light Iraq posting today ... lots of Global War On Terror activity and we wanted to make certain we stayed on top of it, and none of this was eased by my being in airports today. That said, I'll now try to get us up to speed, and thanks for reading the Post.

From ABC (US):

The lawyer who filed a war crimes complaint against the commander of U.S.-led forces in Iraq said Wednesday he will appeal a government decision to refer the case to the United States.

The government late Tuesday, acting on the advice of Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, used a recently approved amendment to Belgium's universal jurisdiction law that allows a case to be sent to the country of the accused if it has a democratic and fair legal system.

Attorney Jan Fermon, who represents 19 civilians wounded or bereaved in the Iraq war, said the case could not be handled fairly by the U.S. legal system since Washington had already taken such a clear stance in defense of U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks.

Sorry to give you this news ... but here it is, and hopefully it's benign. From icNorthernIreland:

As much as 20% of the known radioactive material stored at Iraq's biggest nuclear facility is unaccounted for, a senior US commander said today.

Col Tim Madere said US experts have also found radioactive patches on the ground where looters emptied barrels believed to hold hazardous substances.

But Madere, a specialist in unconventional weapons for the US army's V Corps, said the great majority of dangerous waste at the Tuwaitha nuclear complex was still secure and was not leaking radiation.

Tom Friedman of the New York Times has posted a brief account of conditions in Baghdad. While it's on the Times Op-Ed page, I think it's better posted here rather than on our own Op-Ed page. You can read it here.

Most Important Statistic I Heard: Iraq is 60 percent Shiite. Of those 60 percent, maybe 30 percent would favor a Khomeini-like Islamic republic. That's only 18 percent of the country. As such, two things seem clear: the next president of Iraq will be Shiite, and Iraq will not be Iran.

Most Eagerly Asked Question From an Iranian Journalist I Met in Iraq: When are the Americans going to take over Iran?

Most Eagerly Asked Question From a Lebanese Journalist in Iraq: When are the Americans going to take over Syria?

The headline above is from Fox ... it's interesting to note that some other media outlets have led with a headline describing this as a "delay." Draw your own conclusions; I posted the Fox lead only because it's the first I found. From FOXNews.com:

Initially, Iraq's U.S.-led administration had planned to convene a conference of Iraqi political figures and form an interim government by early June. But that date seems to have been pushed back at least a month.

"I don't think it will be in June," Bremer told reporters. "We're talking now like sometime in July to get a national conference put together."

When pressed further, Bremer replied: "Mid-July."

More support from the Coalition Of Those Willing To Help Afterwards. From MSNBC:

Japan said on Wednesday it would donate about $50 million in aid to help war-ravaged Iraq rebuild schools, hospitals and an electric power distribution system. Foreign minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said Japan would extend more aid after security was secured, a provisional government was established and Iraq's debt issue was resolved.

From VOA:

The NATO alliance is expected Wednesday to approve Poland's request for technical support in administering an area of Iraq as part of the post-war stabilization program.

Ambassadors from the 19 NATO member countries, meeting in Brussels, are to consider a proposal to give Poland limited logistical aid. The assistance would involve intelligence sharing, communications, and troop coordination in Iraq.

God help us if they spend more time negotiating than they do investigating. From WaPo:

The United States has started discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency to make arrangements for IAEA teams to return to Iraq to determine what may have been stolen from nuclear sites, a State Department official said yesterday.

The negotiations apparently began one day after IAEA General Secretary Mohamed ElBaradei issued a statement saying he was concerned that "nuclear and radioactive materials may no longer be under control" in Iraq, particularly at the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center 30 miles south of Baghdad. Radioactive materials were stored at the site under IAEA supervision before the war.

This is interesting ... the first or only one of its kind? From CNN International:

A senior British army officer is being investigated over alleged war crimes in Iraq, UK defense officials said Wednesday.

Defense sources identified the officer as Lt. Col. Tim Collins, whose stirring speech to troops on the eve of battle drew praise from Prince Charles and U.S. President George W. Bush.

The sources said the army's Special Investigations Branch is investigating allegations that Collins may have broken the Geneva Convention in his treatment of Iraqis.

From the Pakistan News Service:

The United Nations Security Council has scheduled more consultations for Tuesday on a draft resolution concerning the post-war future of Iraq, the President of the 15-member body Ambassador of Pakistan Munir Akram said Monday.

[NYT]

Iraq's main political groups said tonight that they were drafting a formal statement of protest to the American and British authorities over their plans to declare an occupation authority in Iraq, which would delay the rapid turnover of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government.

Iraqi political figures who attended a meeting tonight with David Manning, the foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, said they wanted to work in partnership with Washington and London. But they said they were strongly opposed to the reversal in policy announced to them Friday.

Full story...

According to Reuters:

The U.S. Central Command said in a statement that Ugla Abid Sighar al-Kubeiysi was a Baath Party regional chairman in Maysan governorate and was number 50 on the wanted list.

"(He) is now in custody of coalition forces," the statement said without giving further details.

The United States issued a list of most-wanted Iraqis after ousting Saddam on April 9, three weeks after U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq. Kubeiysi's surrender brings to 24 the number of the 55 wanted fugitives now in U.S. custody.

His arrest follows the surrender of one of Saddam's most trusted generals, the former secretary of the feared Republican Guard, to U.S. forces on Saturday.

Kamal Mustafa Abdallah Sultan al-Tikriti, who is also Saddam's cousin, became only the second top 10 figure from a U.S. list of 55 wanted fugitives to be taken into U.S. custody.

Tikriti was 10th on the list, one place behind former deputy prime minister Mohammed Hamza al-Zubeidi who was captured by Free Iraqi Forces last month.

By Joshua Davis, Wired Magazine.

This is a reporters eye view of the networking and communications technology used in Iraq.

The history of warfare is marked by periodic leaps in technology - the triumph of the longbow at Crécy, in 1346; the first decisive use of air power, in World War I; the terrifying destructiveness of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, in 1945. And now this: a dazzling array of technology that signals the arrival of digital warfare. What we saw in Gulf War II was a new age of fighting that combined precision weapons, unprecedented surveillance of the enemy, agile ground forces, and - above all - a real-time communications network that kept the far-flung operation connected minute by minute.

Welcome to the so-called revolution in military affairs, the new theory of war that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been promoting since he arrived at the Pentagon in 2001. Generals at Central Command, in Qatar, put the concept into practice as they sent troops racing toward Baghdad, hopscotching across Iraq, and sidestepping enemy assaults. If rear units were attacked, if supply lines were threatened - so the theory went - the technology would allow soldiers to spot the problem quickly enough to dispatch defenders, who would swarm to the rescue. Information would take the place of a massive troop presence on the ground. Dead sheep could be safely ignored. In short, the war was a grand test of the netcentric strategy in development since the first Gulf War.

At least, that's the triumphal view from the Pentagon briefing room. But what was it like on the ground? As Wired's war correspondent, I tracked the network from the generals' plasma screens at Central Command to the forward nodes on the battlefields in Iraq. What I discovered was something entirely different from the shiny picture of techno-supremacy touted by the proponents of the Rumsfeld doctrine. I found an unsung corps of geeks improvising as they went, cobbling together a remarkable system from a hodgepodge of military-built networking technology, off-the-shelf gear, miles of Ethernet cable, and commercial software. And during two weeks in the war zone, I never heard anyone mention the revolution in military affairs.

(Hat tip: Metapop)

The previous post "France Says It Is Target of Untruths" linked to a WaPo article that said, "The French government believes it is the victim of an "organized campaign of disinformation" from within the Bush administration, designed to discredit it with allegations of complicity with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein..."

The letter from France is here, and their (partial) list of "false accusations" is here. The following are very brief summaries of each:

1. NYT alleged "that in 1998, France and Germany had supplied Iraq with high-precision switches used in detonating nuclear weapons..."

2. Disputes the WaPo article saying that "France, along with Russia, Iraq and North Korea, possesses prohibited human smallpox strains..."

3. Disputes Bill Gertz' report "that two French companies had sold Iraq spare parts for airplanes and helicopters..."

4. Disputes William Safire's claim that France sold a missile propellant to Iraq.

5. Disputes MSNBC's Joe Scarborough claim that France sold Iraq ""planes, missiles, armored vehicles, radar equipment and spare parts for Iraqi fighter planes," and of offering to sell nuclear reactors, without mentioning specific dates..."

6. "On April 21, Newsweek reported the “possible” discovery of Roland 2 missiles by coalition forces in Iraq and implied that they had been manufactured in 2002. A charred Roland 3 missile launcher was also allegedly found..."

7. Disputes the story claiming that France provided passports to Iraqi leaders .

8. Disputes WashTimes' WashTimes reports that "France and Russia of seeking to sign oil contracts with Iraq just before the start of the war."

And, "A "military expert" asked by MSNBC about the coalition’s failure to discover banned weapons insinuated that "weapons could well have been discovered" and that they "could very well be French or Russian," which would have led the administration not to mention them "out of concern for easing tensions."

Some of these are hard to prove or disprove, but please leave links to additional information in the comments.

[Fox News]

Marine Corps transport helicopter crashed Monday in central Iraq near Karbala with at least four people aboard, and there were no indications of survivors, Pentagon officials said. Another servicemember drowned while trying to rescue the crew of the downed helicopter, a Pentagon official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Marine CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crashed into a canal southeast of Karbala, the official said. Lt. Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said there was no indication whether or not it was downed by hostile actio

Full story...

[Rueters via Yahoo]

Saddam Hussein is hiding in Iraq with a small group, probably including his sons, and issuing orders to trusted supporters as he plots a return to power, according to former Iraqi generals returned from exile.

The generals, who were in exile for years and now play a key role in working with U.S. forces to purge the Iraqi public service and security apparatus of Saddam die-hards, said the deposed president had ordered a name-change for his Baath party.

Maj. Gen. Tawfiq al-Yassiri told Reuters that Saddam had changed its name in the last few days to "Auda," meaning return.

Full story...

[Fox News]

Coalition forces in Iraq said Monday they captured the brother-in-law of toppled President Saddam Hussein. Luay Khayrallaha, No. 152 on the coalition's most-wanted list, was taken into custody Friday, said the U.S. Central Command.

He is the brother of Saddam's wife, a companion of Saddam's son, Uday and a representative of the former regime's intelligence and security apparatus, Central Command said in a statement.

Full story...

I previously posted about women's concerns about their rights in a post-Saddam Iraq. Now a crime wave is forcing many working women to stay in their houses.

A chaotic city filled with soldiers, thieves and carjackers, Baghdad often appears to be inhabited only by men. Alarmed by the lawlessness and now without jobs, most Iraqi women refuse to step outside their homes. The absence of women in public view is striking in a country where women have for decades held professional jobs and lived with a measure of independence unusual in Arab countries, fostered by the Baath Party philosophy of modern Arab nationalism.

More significantly, women are not participating in the newly opened-up political process.

Without television news or readily available newspapers, women have no way of knowing which parties are addressing their concerns. . .

"I'm a bit surprised myself that Iraqi women are not on the stage," said Tamara Daghistani, one of a handful of women working with the Iraqi National Congress, an exile organization seeking a political role in postwar Iraq. "Iraqi women are famous for being tough and decisive. But they went through three long and terrible wars. Women lost children, they lost husbands, they lost their sense of self-dependence. It takes time for them to readjust." . . .

. . . Salah left her husband behind in rural southern Iraq, where they had moved after she left her job a year ago, to return to Baghdad. She told him she wanted to visit her family. It was a ruse. As soon as she arrived in Baghdad a week ago, she hurried over to the cinema building to see if she could help clean up and ready the stage for an upcoming production of "Othello."

Excerpts from my weekly email from The Development Executive Group, an international aid consultant.

UN ROUND-UP: The U.S. May 9 presented a draft resolution to the Security Council, co-sponsored by Britain and Spain, that would immediately end 12 years of sanctions on Iraq and give Washington and its Allies control of Iraq's oil revenues and end the oil-for-food humanitarian program.

The resolution calls for oil revenues to be deposited in an "Iraqi Assistance Fund" whose advisory board would include officials appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the IMF, the World Bank and others. It also would provide for a U.S.-British occupation of Iraq for at least a year and give the coalition control of the country's oil wealth to use for rebuilding. The UN would have a limited, largely advisory role under the plan. . .

IMF & WORLD BANK ROUND-UP: World Bank President James Wolfensohn said the Bank would send a team to assess reconstruction needs in Iraq as soon as security permitted, another sign that the lack of security is delaying the first important steps toward recovery, The New York Times reports. He also said the bank was seeking clarification on its proposed role in handling oil revenues. Horst Koehler, IMF managing director, said that the fund also stood ready to help the Iraqi people and debt relief could be a "possible element." The heads of the twin Bretton Woods institutions spoke made the comments at a news conference in Geneva after meeting Supachai Panitchpakdi, director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO). . . .

UNITED STATES: U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said May 13 the Bush administration might need more money than it was allocated in a $79 billion Iraq war package from Congress to cover the cost of rebuilding Iraq. Mr. Snow also said he wished the World Bank would move faster toward sending a team to Iraq to assess the rebuilding task. The U.S. Treasury has sent a team of about 20 people to the country to begin reconstruction of the war-torn country. The World Bank and IMF have a team working in Washington but have yet to send a mission to Iraq.

In other news, The Financial Times (U.K.) reports the U.S. has announced plans to launch talks on free trade agreements with Egypt and Bahrain by early next year in the first stage of a sweeping program to boost trade and economic reform in Arab countries from North Africa to the Gulf. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said deals with those two countries would be the critical initial steps towards a Middle East free trade area that was proposed by President George W. Bush. The president's plan is aimed at providing a crucial economic component to U.S. efforts to use the victory in Iraq as a spearhead to promote larger political reforms throughout the region.

Meanwhile, the top UN relief official in Iraq met with the top U.S. civilian official there May 14 to discuss the lack of security hampering UN relief efforts, and the use of money from the UN Oil-for-Food program to pay Iraqi farmers for the upcoming spring harvest. Among issues discussed was the possibility of the UN World Food Program (WFP) paying Iraqi farmers for the current wheat and barley harvest with money from the Oil-for-Food program, under which sanctions-bound Baghdad was allowed to use oil revenues to buy humanitarian supplies. . .

UNITED KINGDOM: The resignation of the UK's former international development secretary should be regretted by all those who wish to see more effective aid and development policies pursued by industrial countries, writes The Financial Times (U.K.) in an editorial on Clare Short's resignation May 12. Ms. Short's position in the government had become untenable. In March she accused Tony Blair of being "reckless" in supporting the U.S. on Iraq without UN Security Council backing. Eventually, she was persuaded that resignation would have hindered the postwar reconstruction efforts.

The Guardian (U.K.) writes that Ms. Short quit after a weekend spent analyzing the British-sponsored draft UN resolution on the reconstruction of Iraq. She believed it stopped short of offering the vital role for the UN that the prime minister and U.S. President George Bush had promised. She was particularly angry that the UN has been written completely out of the increasingly contorted script of weapons inspection, the paper writes.

IRAQ: An American proposal on Iraq before the UN Security Council, co-sponsored by Britain and Spain, would immediately end 12 years of sanctions on Iraq and give Washington and its Allies control of Iraq's oil revenues and end the oil-for-food humanitarian program. The occupying forces would have "authority, responsibilities, and specific obligations" all within the context of international law, it says, while the UN would play a vital role in providing humanitarian aid, supporting the reconstruction of Iraq, and assisting with the formation of an Iraqi interim authority, to be put in place "by the Iraqi people, with help from the occupying authority" and until a permanent Iraqi government is established.

All trade and financial sanctions that were imposed on Iraq in August 1990 would be abolished immediately, with the exception of sanctions on arms and weapons. An "Iraqi Assistance Fund "is also to be created under the auspices of the Iraqi central bank. An international council consisting of representatives from the UN Secretary General, the IMF, and the World Bank would nominate independent auditors for the fund. Oil revenues would be paid into the fund until the creation of an Iraqi government is completed. The Un Security Council would "support the occupying authority for an initial period of 12 months, which can be extended if required."

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Powerful Shiite Muslim clergy have called on hundreds of thousands of their supporters to take to the streets of Baghdad and other cities today in what could be the biggest show yet of religious opposition to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

The call, made Sunday in a statement by a leading cleric in Baghdad and in leaflets posted in mosques in Shiite neighborhoods in the capital, marks an escalation in organized Shiite disenchantment with the U.S. occupation administration of L. Paul Bremer, who last week replaced retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner as the chief civilian administrator in Iraq.

From the New York Times:

One of Iraq's largest Shiite political groups accused the United States' new civilian administrator today of reneging on promises to support the rapid creation of an Iraqi-led interim government.

"We were talking about an interim government, with authority to make decisions," said Adel Abdel Mahdi, political adviser to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. But, he continued, a draft resolution sponsored by the United States at the United Nations is "clearly something else."

Action near Kirkuk. From the Orlando Sentinel:

U.S. soldiers on patrol about 25 miles west of Kirkuk were ambushed late Sunday night and found themselves in a fierce battle that left at least 16 enemy dead and one American soldier wounded.

"That's the worst fight anyone's been in in Kirkuk," said the patrol commander, Capt. Mario Soto, 26, of Atlanta.

And not just on ebay. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

The value of the Saddam dinar, which bears the former Iraqi dictator's likeness and is still the currency used in Iraq, has surged 100 percent against the U.S. dollar in the last week, the highest value in seven years.

From the French edition of the International Herald Tribune:

Taking a firsthand look at the country he has been entrusted to reconstruct, the top American civilian official went north Sunday and met with a city council he described as postwar Iraq's first elected body.

L. Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator of Iraq, also said the United States was committed to establishing an interim national government without delay.

I won't engage in the folly of hoping this is the last such post here at The Command Post. From the Toronto Star:

Volunteers with shovels excavated a mass grave in the Shiite holy city of Karbala yesterday, calling the bodies evidence of crimes committed by Saddam Hussein.

The remains of 45 bodies were pulled from the ground in about three hours at the site, located near the holy shrine of Hussein, the grandson of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.

From Reuters:

Three U.S. troops were killed and four were injured in three separate accidents in Iraq, the United States Central Command said on Sunday.
An American soldier was killed and three others were injured in the detonation of a piece of unexploded ordnance in Baghdad on Saturday.

On Sunday, a U.S. soldier died from a gunshot wound while a truck accident killed a U.S. Marine and injured another.

Condoleezza sez:

"Punish France, ignore Germany and forgive Russia."

. . . Tensions will be high when President George W. Bush and the leaders of Russia, France, Germany, Japan, Britain, Italy and Canada meet early next month at an economic summit in Evian, France.

[Newsweek]

U.S. military units have been breaking Saddam supporters with long sessions in which they’re forced to listen to heavy-metal and children’s songs. “Trust me, it works,” says one U.S. operative...The songs that are being played include “Bodies” from the Vin Diesel “XXX” movie soundtrack and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” “These people haven’t heard heavy metal before,” he explains. “They can’t take it.”

Full story...

[Gulf Daily News]

Full story... famous Iraqi singer who used to glorify deposed president Saddam Hussein was assassinated by armed men in his Baghdad home, neighbours said yesterday.

"I saw three people driving in a pickup truck around the neighbourhood on Saturday. One of them later came to the gate of the garden where Daoud Al Qaissi was standing and started talking to him," Samir Doush said.

"He was joined by an accomplice who fired at Al Qaissi's head. The bullet pierced through the glass of the house," he said, adding that the three then sped away.

Al Qaissi, who was in his fifties, headed the union of Iraqi artists, and had mobilised singers, poets, actors and painters during the US-led war on Iraq to sing the praises of the Baath regime and the army.

Full story...

From the Herald Sun (Australia):

The accidental detonation of unexploded ordnance in the Iraqi capital killed one US soldier and wounded three others, US Central Command (Centcom) said.

Maybe now we have seen it all. From the Tuscaloosa News:

California newspapers devoted considerable resources to the war in Iraq, sending reporters and photographers into harm's way and trying to provide balanced, accurate and comprehensive coverage of battlefield and homefront developments.

But even some of the largest newspapers struggled to make sense of rapidly changing events and conflicting information, their editors acknowledged Saturday during the Associated Press News Executives Council's annual meeting ...

... Yarnold also remains troubled by coverage of the war's second week, when U.S. forces paused outside Baghdad, prompting criticism that military planners had underestimated the Iraqi resistance.

"I think what it really was, was the fog of war," he said. "I think we were very quick to criticize the military, and I'm not sure we had sufficient expertise to be doing that."

In keeping with its policy during the Gulf War, Al-Jazeera continues to publish atrocity pictures. This time, their web-site carries sickening photographs of this morning's terrorist attack on a Jerusalem bus (here and here). The photographs were supplied by Reuters.

From WGAL / AP:

Early this week, the United States, Great Britain and Spain are expected to bring the U.N. Security Council another version of a resolution to lift sanctions on Iraq. The sponsors probably have enough votes to get it passed. But U.S. officials say they'd like to get unanimous approval, after the bruising battles that preceded the war in Iraq. Russia, France and China have all asked for changes. But none is threatening to use the veto to block a resolution.

From the Advertiser (Australia):

US administrator Paul Bremer headed to northern Iraq today after announcing a host of new measures in a bid to restore order, but political moves have been put off and the economic plight of ordinary Iraqis appears to be worsening.

MSNBC

The head of Saddam Hussein’s Special Republican Guard turned himself into U.S.-led forces in Baghdad early Saturday, officials said. Gen. Kamal Mustafa al-Tikriti, No. 10 on the most-wanted list of Iraqi officials, had reportedly been in Syria but returned. His brother Jamal Mustafa al-Tikriti, Saddam’s only remaining son-in-law, was taken into custody last month.

MSNBC/AP

Searchers at an Iraqi military firing range have unearthed human bones and articles of clothing they say belong to a mass grave of people executed in the 1990s.

The BBC reports that the Jessica Lynch rescue was a deceptive, staged event, that there was dishonesty about the nature of her injuries, and that there was failure to report earlier, less dramatic, and more embarassing attempts to get her out of Iraq.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a story about the story, with some more information.

(Previous info on this story also appeared in The Guardian.)

WaPo brings us a story of returning normalcy.

"This is not a game for you only, but for all of Iraqi sports," Raad Hamoudi, the Iraqi national soccer team's star goalkeeper of the 1980s, told his old team, Police, before it took the field in the first professional match in Iraq since the war ended. "I want you to forget the hatred and any vengeance you may have in your heart. I want you to think about the present and the future."

The cartel will love this. From WaPo:

The U.S. executive selected by the Pentagon to advise Iraq's Ministry of Oil suggested today that the country might best be served by exporting as much oil as it can and disregarding quotas set by the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries. His comments offered the strongest indication to date that the future Iraqi government may break ranks with the international petroleum cartel.

Finis Flight

Splitting headache. Tired like never before. Still I'm not willing to acknowledge that I'm sick. I go to the chow hall and while I know I should be hungry, absolutely nothing there looks edible. I down a couple grapes and drink some iced tea. I head for the room and it's about 110 degrees out. I'm walking in the direct midday sun and I have chill bumps. I'm shivering. OK, now I'll admit it. I'm not quite feeling my best.

I've got some kind of flu. I get taken off flying status and confined to quarters for 24 hours. I take medicine and sleep, surfacing only to kick off covers when I'm drenched with sweat and pull them back on when I'm shivering. Even when I'm asleep I'm aware that I am profoundly miserable. If I'd seen a single mosquito in this place I'd suspect malaria.

Yesterday at 0500 the siren goes off and I hear an announcement going out over Giant Voice - the base public address system. I know it's got to be important but I can't hear. I have earplugs in to help me sleep, and for some reason I don't believe I can reach far enough to remove them. I burrow deeper under the blanket. Hours later I wake feeling a little more human. I'm not near 100% yet, but I don't have the urge to beg the first person I see for a merciful death, so I must be on the mend. The siren and the announcement are dismissed along with all the other feverish dreams.

I dress and decide to try the chow hall again. Still not hungry, but I know I have to drink something. There's a sign on the door saying we've gone to an advanced force protection condition. I head for the day room, turn on the news and see the bombings in Riyadh. As things wound down and we pulled up stakes we began to make a serious error in judgment. We'd all begun to think we'd won the war. Al Qaeda has just reminded us we've got one campaign behind us, but the war is far from over. It's a lesson we'll bear in mind.

***

By afternoon I've slept several more hours and am feeling still better, although I look like death on a cracker. I wheedle myself back onto flying status, trying to be chipper with the flight surgeon. She confirms that I can equalize pressure in my ears, so that if the jet undergoes rapid decompression my noggin won't explode. I can equalize with the best of them so she clears me for flying duties again. That's important because tonight's our last sortie. Our Finis Flight. My head feels like it's loosely tethered to my body and my skin hurts as if my flight suit were made of sandpaper. I swear my hair hurts, but there's no way I I'm missing this sortie.

The Security Forces folks provide our crew bus an armed escort as we transit the host-nation-controlled part of the base. We're on a 4-lane road with a wide palm-lined median, and the escort trucks keep traffic away from us. They try to stay just behind and beside us so no one will pass us from behind, but the local drivers are no respecters of such subtleties. One little pickup nips around the escort and draws even with us and I get a kick out of the expression on the driver's face when the Security Forces truck roars up to within a millimeter of his bumper and shoves him down the road, away from us. I don't think he had any idea what was going on.

I wouldn't provoke our SF troops. I have a feeling they're a little anxious these days. Add that to the fact that they probably feel cheated having missed out on all the ground action to the north. Again I draw the observer's seat for takeoff. It's an oven in the cockpit. I sit on a box of bottled water in the galley until the flight engineer illuminates the seatbelt sign, then I assume the position. I'm waiting until the last possible minute to put on my gloves because the sweat is trickling down my forearms. I open the gasper, the little vent, on my left, and it sends a furnace blast across my face. Despite all the discomfort, I'm once again enjoying the rhythm and the synergy of the flight crew as they run their checklists, start the engines, call for permission to taxi. And call again. And again. No answer from the tower. I check my watch. Evening prayer. We wait a few minutes until the tower is once again focused on earthly matters. We taxi. We launch. I strain my eyes at the ground for the fanatic with the shoulder-launched SAM, but he does not show. We spend the next 11.3 hours keeping watch over Iraq.

***

When we land the last of the French jets is gone. In fact this whole ramp, which used to be crammed with aircraft, is practically deserted. It's getting to be a ghost-town around here. We head for the debriefing shack, and all the chairs are gone. It's a little uncomfortable, but it's taken as further indication that we're on our way home, so no one really minds. After we debrief and get the latest words on our redeployment we head home and I catch several hours of uninterrupted sleep. I'm now recognizably human-feeling, and even have a bite to eat.

After the chow hall I go to the BX to have a look. None of the Third Country Nationals who've been working here are allowed on base now, so the gold shops and souvenir places are all closed. The BX is having an honest-to-goodness "Everything Must Go" sale. I don't need anything more to carry home, but I go for entertainment. As I approach a bunch of Frenchmen are coming out. They hold the door for me but I use the other one. I just can't bring myself to smile and exchange pleasantries with people who a few weeks ago were actively making it easier for Iraqis to kill my brothers and sisters.

The BX is loaded with them. I've never seen so many. Where do they come from? I wonder if it's a package shopping tour from a nearby base or something. They have their arms full of Levis and Nike hats and what-not. For people that feel superior to Americans they sure do like to dress like us.

***

But I wanted to end this on a positive note, because I believe this'll be my last communiqué (Ha, had to use a French word for irony) from our little oasis. My wife emailed me a picture from the news the other day. A buddy of mine who just got home is being greeted by his family. His little boy is completely overcome with emotion at the sight of him. I get soggy just thinking about it.

So this is it. I'm countable hours away from my own family. How to sum up the last 120-some days? 30 Sorties and 300-plus hours in less-than-friendly skies doesn't begin to capture all I've learned, all I've missed, and all I'm hoping. My son played a whole season of soccer. My daughter learned to walk. My wife ran our home and cared for our children doing all her own back-breaking chores and mine as well.

We mounted the greatest display of armed force the world has ever seen, and tempered it with restraint and compassion for noncombatants. We wrested a nation from the grip of a merciless tyrant and are bestowing liberty where there was none. I was privileged to be part of the most effective team of professionals I've ever seen. We flew and fought and cried together. We were supported by letters and emails and prayers of millions of Americans.

And now we're going home together.

Thank you. I'll see you at home.

Steven

(Note: Links to all of Capt. Steve's letters can be found here or here [listed under "News From the Front"].)

Pontifex ex Machina visited the site of the latest mass grave discovery:

The place smelled of death, of rot. The ground you walked on -- you could feel, in the pit of your stomach, that you were walking on somebody's grave. The faces, the wails...

Maybe it's superstition, or maybe old bones still can hold power over the earth, but I tell you, if evil has a texture, a feel to it, you could feel it there. And you could see everybody else around you feeling it, too.

[New Republic]

Thus far violence in Baghdad has been limited to unorganized gangs of looters carrying Kalashnikovs. But Iraqi security experts and other sources in the capital say that, under the nose of the American forces, Iraq's nascent political groups are forming armed militias and storing weapons as they prepare for a potential civil war for control of the country. In fact, The New Republic has learned, several Iraqis say even Hezbollah has formed a branch in Baghdad.

Full story..

[via Glenn Reynolds]

[CSM]

Five weeks after US troops entered Iraq's capital, reconstruction has taken a backseat to security. "There are a number of problems, in particular the problem of law and order in Baghdad," L. Paul Bremer, the new chief civilian administrator for Iraq, said yesterday. He appeared to be introducing a get-tough policy, pledging the US would beef up infantry and military police forces.

Full story..

[Reuters]

Saddam Hussein was in excellent health while he was Iraqi president and has the experience and brains to remain in hiding for years, according to his most trusted doctors.

The doctors, who refused to be identified, told Reuters Saddam, who was born in 1937, could be expected to live for many more years and was not the sort who would contemplate suicide, even if he was about to be captured.

Full story..

From the BBC:

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has called for sanctions against Iraq to be lifted "as soon as possible" after talks with the US secretary of state in Berlin.

"We are of the opinion that the sanctions that were levelled at the time no longer make sense in light of developments and should be lifted as soon as possible," Mr Schroeder said after his 30-minute meeting with Colin Powell.

The move is being interpreted as another sign that Germany is trying to repair relations with the US after months of bitterness over military action in Iraq.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell will meet German leaders on Friday seeking support for a United Nations resolution to end sanctions on Iraq with the offer of warmer bilateral relations in return.

Powell holds talks with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer on Friday morning, expected to start mending relations soured by disagreement over the U.S.-led Iraq war as long as Germany supports the United States on post-war Iraq.

The United States is looking for support for a U.N. Security Council resolution that would lift blocks on Iraqi oil exports and Powell made it clear he hoped for backing from Germany, one of the non-permanent members on the council.

Reuters via Yahoo News - Film uncovered after the fall of Saddam Hussein shows what seems to be new evidence of brutality under his rule -- three men being executed in gruesome fashion by being blown up with explosives packed around their bodies.

Convicted in 1985 of a bomb attack that killed children in Baghdad, Saddam's security police wired them up to explosives in the desert and simply blew them up, one by one - the whole proceedings captured on a film obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

The footage shows men in the uniforms of Iraqi security officers strapping what appears to be explosive to one of the blindfolded men and attaching wires to a large vehicle battery.

Full story...

Is this the real story behind Pvt. Lynch's rescue:

"It was like a Hollywood film. They cried, 'Go, go, go', with guns and blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show - an action movie like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan, with jumping and shouting, breaking down doors." All the time with the camera rolling. The Americans took no chances, restraining doctors and a patient who was handcuffed to a bed frame.

There was one more twist. Two days before the snatch squad arrived, Al-Houssona had arranged to deliver Jessica to the Americans in an ambulance. "I told her I will try and help you escape to the American Army but I will do this very secretly because I could lose my life." He put her in an ambulance and instructed the driver to go to the American checkpoint. When he was approaching it, the Americans opened fire. They fled just in time back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch.

I recall seeing the footage, and don't remember seeing any blank adaptors on weapons, so I am skeptical about the accuracy of this report.

(via Calpundit)

According to the BBC:

The US military says it has arrested another Iraqi on the United States' list of 55 "most wanted" former officials.

The man was picked up - along with dozens of other suspected supporters of Saddam Hussein - during a raid in a village near the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, the US army said.

The former official has not been formally identified, but local residents have named him as Abd al-Baqi abd Karim al-Sadun, a Baath Party official who is number 22 on the list.

I believe that he is also the 5 of Diamonds on the Iraq deck. The Command Post item about the original raid is here.

From the WaPo:

The French government believes it is the victim of an "organized campaign of disinformation" from within the Bush administration, designed to discredit it with allegations of complicity with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.

In a letter prepared for delivery today to administration officials and members of Congress, France details what it says are false news stories, with anonymous administration officials as sources, that appeared in the U.S. media over the past nine months. A two-page list attached to the letter includes reports of alleged French weapons sales to Iraq and culminates in a report last week that French officials in Syria issued French passports to escaping Iraqis being sought by the U.S. military.

The stories, all of which Paris has heatedly denied, are part of an "ugly campaign to destroy the image of France," a French official said. Officials said they have no doubt that the stories were spread by factions in the administration itself -- hard-line civilians within and close to the Pentagon are their primary suspects -- and that there was no visible effort by the White House or other departments to discipline those involved or even find out who they are...

(Via Matt Welch)

Reuters

Bremer said thousands of Iraqi police officers, backed and trained by U.S. forces, were back on the streets and had detained 300 suspects over the past 48 hours, 92 of them on Wednesday night. The release of 100,000 prisoners by Saddam in October had sent thousands of "violent criminals" back onto Iraqi streets, he added."It is time these people were put back in jail and that is where we will put them."

Ananova - Lebanon's central bank has located and secured Ł307 million in Iraqi funds, a Treasury official said. David Aufhauser, general counsel in the Treasury Department, said the disclosure by Lebanon was a sign of the progress being made in the worldwide search for Saddam's assets.

Aufhauser told the House Financial Services oversight subcommittee that the assets in Lebanon apparently came from Iraq's central bank and other sources. The United States has stressed that all recovered assets will be used to help the people of Iraq and rebuild the country. Much of the money was taken by Saddam and his family after the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq following the 1990-91 Gulf War.

[Fox News]

More than 200 prisoners were taken into custody Thursday in a pre-dawn U.S. Army raid near Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, including one man on the United States' "most-wanted" list of former Iraqi officials.

During the 5-hour sweep, officers said U.S. troops faced no resistance from Iraqis.

The northern city of Tikrit is Saddam Hussein's hometown and the region around it is known as a hotbed of Baath Party supporters and former high-ranking Iraqi military officials.

U.S. officials said one of those arrested Thursday was identified as being on the "top 55" list but did not give the suspect's name. Two other Iraqi army generals and one general from Saddam's security forces who had disguised himself as a shepherd were also caught.

Full story..

Ananova - German lawyers are suing George W Bush for starting a war of aggression in Iraq. The group of 14, from Cologne, have filed a lawsuit with the German attorney general. They accuse Bush, as well as members of the German and British governments, of violating international law.

The move is technically possible under a new German law which came into effect only last year. It allows the country's authorities to prosecute violations of international law, even if there is no direct connection to Germany.

UMM QASR, Reuters via Yahoo - British troops formally handed over control on Thursday of the first Iraqi town to a civilian authority since a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein's government.

Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Jones, commander of 23 Pioneer Regiment and former military governor of Umm Qasr was at the formal ceremony to hand over rule to a council of 12 Iraqis, who will govern the town next to Iraq's only deep water port.

The people of Umm Qasr are now in charge of their own destiny, for the first time in 35 years or longer.

The Manchester Union Leader has an additional report on mass graves holding as many as 15,000 bodies recently uncovered in Iraq.

This seems to be the same story as linked here earlier, except that it contains details not contained in the earlier stories. It's worth a read.

From the Hindustan Press:

India has conveyed to the US that "UN cover" is necessary for New Delhi to accept the invitation to join the proposed stabilisation force in post-war Iraq.

Official sources said both the US and Britain had invited India to join the proposed stabilisation force, similar to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) set up in Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban regime.

From MSNBC:

Most of about a billion dollars in currency taken by Saddam Hussein's son Qusay from the central bank in Baghdad just before the Iraq war has been recovered, a U.S. Treasury official said on Wednesday.

From USATODAY:

Amid signs that criminals roaming the capital are more violent and better organized than ever, top U.S. military officials said Wednesday that they will double the number of military police on city streets within two weeks.

It's "Small Local Paper Day" at The Command Post. Here's something from the Akron Beacon Journal / AP:

In a country where no one can imagine who the next president might be, a new name has emerged from the past.

Adnan Pachachi, a prominent Sunni Muslim opposition leader and elder statesman who claims to have no political ambitions, blew into a news conference Wednesday like a head of state at his first official public appearance in Baghdad.

From the Aberdeen American News / AP:

More than a month after Baghdad fell, American and British intelligence officers are knocking on the doors of top Iraqi scientists and asking whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq had chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

According to some of the scientists who once oversaw production of nerve agents and other programs - and who no longer need fear Saddam - the answer is a resounding no.

From the Ledger-Enquirer / AP:

The city council billed as postwar Iraq's first elected body moved Wednesday to purge Saddam Hussein's loyalists from top positions, sacking the head of the local university and agreeing to review ties between other senior officials and the overthrown government.

Also Wednesday, the police chief in this northern city asked district commanders to sign a declaration renouncing their ties with Saddam's Baath Party, U.S. officials said. Some 20 signed the agreement.

It ain't over til it's over, and apparently, it ain't over. From the Mercury / AP:

Heavily armed U.S. Army forces stormed into a village near the northern city of Tikrit in the pre-dawn darkness Thursday, seizing more than 65 prisoners in a hunt for two "most-wanted" former Iraqi officials and 13 others.

No one shot at U.S. forces during the raid, U.S. military officials said.

It was not clear whether the two targets - one of them in the U.S. "top 55" list and the other in the top 20 - were among those rounded up as some of more than 500 soldiers involved sealed off the town and went house to house. The targets were not identified.

From the Daily Times of Pakistan:

The United States, pushing for a UN vote on Iraq next week, said on Wednesday it would submit a “modified” resolution shortly in its quest to lift sanctions and control the country’s oil revenues.

Diplomats said revisions in the text would centre on the role of the United Nations in post-war Iraq as well as how the UN-run oil-for-food program would be phased out. US Ambassador John Negroponte, after council consultations, told reporters he expected to produce on Thursday “a modified text and attempt to take into account many of the comments that we have received.”

If you read this page regularly you saw this coming, but now it's official. From VOA:

The international body says it has confirmed four cases of cholera in three hospitals in the southern city of Basra.

The WHO says efforts are being taken to improve the safety of drinking water. It says the water supply system is being repaired and security is being put in place to protect water supply facilities.

From VOA:

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says Russia and the United States still disagree on whether to lift U.N. sanctions against Iraq.

Mr. Powell spoke to reporters in Moscow Wednesday after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. Mr. Powell said the two nations will work closely to reach agreement on lifting the sanctions. Russia has said U.N. weapons inspectors must certify that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction before the sanctions can be removed.

Lots of people "warming" to the idea ... must be the coming Summer. From Newsday:

After a historic divide within NATO over U.S. invasion plans for Iraq, alliance leaders are warming to the idea of committing their troops to help stabilize the country, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday.

From MSNBC:

Indonesia's president said on Wednesday she and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder wanted the United Nations to play a central role in rebuilding Iraq.

From Fox News Channel, a few interesting items that were approved for purchase under Iraq's oil for food program just prior to the US led invasion: a Mercedes Benz Sedan, TV Station Equipment, Boats, Bathroom Sets, Tiles, Teakwood. One purchase request which was not approved was a $20 million "Olympic stadium".

His penultimate letter (the last one from overseas will be posted later today or tomorrow)

Junk food and Critters

Another day sortie. It must have been 105 degrees as we boarded the bus this morning. It's so hot that our technicians wait until we're in the air before bringing up the computers on the back of the jet. They usually have this done before we board so we step onto a mission-ready aircraft, but today we enjoy a leisurely beginning to our sortie. There's nothing much to do until the techs have everything up and running.

Leisure is not as welcome as you might expect. In fact, we do everything we can these days to find ways to be busy. Time weights heavily otherwise. I'm always happy for a day or two between missions - I read or write to you or paint contentedly - but I am a minority of about one. Between flights, people experience a bit of cabin fever. It's so hot during the day that no one wants to go outside and do much of anything. Time slows to a crawl.

There's no shortage of snack food here though. When we first arrived it was impossible to find potato or tortilla chips at the exchange, so everyone wrote home asking for them. Now the packages are arriving. They may have taken a couple months to get here, but they make up in volume what they lack in punctuality. We are awash in junk food. Our dayroom tables are covered with it. During sorties every horizontal surface in the galley is covered with candy, chips, and cookies.

***

Last night I saw my first camel spider. I'd just climbed off the crew bus and was headed for bed when one scurried across the sidewalk in front of me. It was a windy, sand-stormy night, and I thought at first that I was just seeing a little dust cloud blowing along the ground. It gave me quite a start though, when it stopped in front of me and waved its long front legs threateningly. It seemed completely unafraid of me. I've spent enough time in West Texas to be used to tarantulas, but this spindly, sinister creature gave me the creeps. It was about 6 inches across, and heavy enough that, when I got the toe of my boot under it and flicked it off the sidewalk, I could hear it hit the ground and scramble off. I'm not a fan of camel spiders.

More to my liking are the lizards here. If you look closely enough, you see them everywhere. In between our dorm buildings are shaded pavilions where we sit on cool evenings. They're wooden decks with canvas covers . Wire-mesh fly traps are bolted to the decks, and most are occupied by the fattest little lizards I've ever seen. Like the flies, they found their way into the trap and can't get out. They are pale pinkish yellow - the color of the sand, and they appear perfectly happy to have given up their freedom for a never-ending supply of food. I think they must be democrats.

I saw a different type of lizard the other day. He was the same color but bigger; about 5 inches long. He was clinging upside down to the armory, just above the ground. I would never have noticed him had he not snatched a large black beetle off the ground just as I looked his way. It must've been a bad beetle, because with a quick shake of his head the lizard flung him about a foot. The beetle bounced once and landed on its back. It righted itself and carried on like nothing had happened. The lizard clung to the wall opening and closing its mouth as if trying to rid himself of a bad taste. I took advantage of his distraction and sneaked up and grabbed him, whereupon he grabbed me right back. I must've tasted better than the beetle because he bit down with all his strength and showed no sign of letting go. I let him go and still he clung to my finger. He goggled at me with bulging yellow eyes as he hung by his mouth. His vertical brown pupils narrowed at me as I raised him for a better look. He had broad flat round toes that looked like suction cups and his head seemed too big for his body. I gently pried his mouth open, freed my finger, and turned him loose.

And there are the big ones. The locals call these "Dub dub" and I've heard that they eat them. These guys are 2 to 3 feet long. I was walking a path where I had seen a couple before, hoping to get some photographs, when I spotted one on top of a small parched-looking shrub. He let me get quite close and I got some good pictures before he started to climb down and waddle away. Then, because he was so close and moving so slowly, I couldn't resist giving chase. We sprinted across the sand, the dub dub throwing his legs way out to the sides with every stride, and me in hot pursuit. He wasn't that quick, and I was in a good position to grab him, but I kept thinking of how the little lizard I'd caught had clamped down on my finger. I couldn't help wondering how much harder this one would bite, and noticing his long sharp claws. I didn't want to be the first to be removed from flying status due to a lizard bite. I eased off and he ran through a barrier of concertina wire to safety.

We have two cats that wander our compound freely. There are more around, but only these two, a black and white, and a tabby and white, show themselves around people. The others you only catch a glimpse of from a distance at night, but these two will follow you around and beg for food. If you sit at a pavilion one might lie next to you on a table or chair, hoping for a pat on the head. They are dirty and scabby from fights and we're not supposed to touch them but I pet them anyway. They purr loudly and will stay put as long as you're willing to give them attention. I scrounged a couple of resealable foil pouches of tuna fish from one of the care packages in our dayroom, and when I'm going to be walking around the compound I carry one with me. The cats are skinny, and they can use the protein. I hate to think about what will happen to them when we leave.

And leave we will. Our redeployment order has been published. We have to work out the details of which jets will leave on what days, but we finally have official word that our mission here is coming to an end. On one hand I'll be sad. Our crew will be permanently disbanded and I doubt I'll ever work as closely with such a great group of people as these. There won't be much time anymore for painting and writing. On the other hand, I'll be home again. I can almost hear my kids calling me and feel my arms around my wife. I can hardly wait.

I'll write again before I leave.

Steven

From the Al-Hayat, via the Sydney Morning Herald

Controversial Egyptian singer Shabban Abderrahim, who hit the headlines with a song called I hate Israel, once again plans to rock the pop world with the release of a single called Saddam's hell is better than America's paradise, the Al-Hayat newspaper reported.
In the song he refers to Iraqis being ungrateful because they tore down the statues of their former leader.
He has also dedicated a second song, A man full of dignity, on his forthcoming album to former Iraqi Information minister Mohammed Said al-Sahaf...

FOXNews TV just reported that two more US servicemen were killed today in Iraq, one in a "bunker accident" and one in a sniper attack.

From the New York Times:

United States military forces in Iraq will have the authority to shoot looters on sight under a tough new security setup that will include hiring more police officers and banning ranking members of the Baath Party from public service, American officials said today.

The far more muscular approach to bringing order to postwar Iraq was described by the new American administrator, L. Paul Bremer, at a meeting of senior staff members today, the officials said. On Wednesday, Mr. Bremer is expected to meet with the leaders of Iraqi political groups that are seeking to form an interim government by the end of the month.

This is becoming a familiar and sobering refrain. From the New York Times:

When the buses and vans started coming twice a day in April 1991 to disgorge their loads of victims, Hassan Maki tried to keep a rough count of the Shiites who were disappearing before his eyes.

They were driven down a dirt road into the salt marshes next to a brick factory. They were forced out of the vehicles. Mr. Maki could barely see them in the distance because of the haze that often lies over the marshes here in central Iraq, about 50 miles south of Baghdad.

Then the gunfire began. The figures wilted onto the ground. A bulldozer came to cover them with earth in what appears today to be one of the largest mass graves uncovered in Iraq, with an estimated 3,000 bodies found. After the bodies were disposed of, the sequence started over with another busload.

An Australian officer who is about to leave the SAS (to be the Australian liason officer at the US Task Force HQ) agreed to an interview about his experiences in Iraq. The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

"Dare I say it - I'm pretty comfortable in that environment. Our special forces are the best in the world and our level of physical and psychological training is very high so we can cope with that sort of thing . . . easily, really. The Americans know that too and they love working with us for that reason. From our point of view, it is excellent to work with the Americans because . . . we get a reach into their intelligence and equipment, which is first rate."
Nonetheless, the approaches of the Australian and US special forces differ greatly, he said.
"The US special forces are very big and good at operating in chaos - and that's largely because creating chaos is one of their tactics. We often look for another way than always going in straight away with a lot of punch."
Another Australian special forces member, who declined to be named, said: "We look for different ways of doing things - you could say we are more lateral.
"We don't always see the way through as killing the opponent straight away, whereas the Americans almost certainly do - in this war we used a lot of psy ops [psychological operations] very successfully. I believe we managed to convince many [Iraqi soldiers] to go back to their families, to think again, not to fight . . . I'm not sure the Americans would claim to have done that."

This brings the total of victims that were buried by the Saddam regime to about 15,000 - that's just the bodies found in all the mass graves.

The remains of 15,000 people killed by the regime of Saddam Hussein have been found in mass graves in central Iraq.

The graves were discovered last week in the central city of Hilla, site of ancient Babylon, the Iraqi National Congress (INC) said.

The bodies are thought to date back to the Shiite uprising that followed the US withdrawal from Iraq in 1991.

"In the last week, four sites have been discovered in Al-Hilla city alone, with approximately 15,000 bodies," said Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman of the INC.

Full story at Sky News..

Reuters

U.S. forces in northern Iraq have found a suspected mobile biological weapons production laboratory that a top commander described on Tuesday as almost identical to another found nearby last month. Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, also raised the possibility that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's toppled government long ago destroyed its stocks of chemical and biological weapons.

Fox News Brett Baier: Initial reports from senior military sources are that Fadil Mahmud Gharib, 28th most wanted (on the list of 55) and the 3 of Hearts in the Iraq Deck, was captured by coalition forces.

To Those on the ship, politics played poorly

"Can you believe that?"

There was revulsion, not wonder, in the tone of the sailor's voice.

Only a few days had passed since President Bush had touched down on the USS Abraham Lincoln to tell a national TV audience and a grateful going-home group of sailors that the war in Iraq was pretty much over.

The Lincoln had been treading water off the California coast when Bush made a dramatic landing on the carrier's flight deck, his "Navy One" S-3B Viking catching the 4-wire, the last cable before about an 80-foot drop from the edge of the flight deck to the frigid Pacific.

But some politicians on the mainland, and on the other side of the political aisle, criticized the president's tail-hook landing as an overpriced photo opportunity.

Word about the partisan sniping traveled fast throughout the ship.

Many sailors couldn't quite believe it was happening, that the historical presidential visit was becoming cheapened by talk that it was just a well-choreographed display that would win the president votes in the next election.

Hat tip: Jim Miller on Politics via Instapundit

Some background information on Dr. Germ: [see this previous entry for details]

From an October 6, 2002 article on KansasCity.com:

Dr. Rihab Taha, 47, is said to be the most dangerous woman in the world.

Dubbed Dr. Germ by the press, Saddam Hussein's biological weapons chief has made enough doses of enough lethal germs to kill every human on the planet. Her handiwork is a large part of the reason America is planning to go to war again....

....The product of a well-heeled family, Rihab Rashida Taha graduated from the University of Baghdad and went to England in the late 1970s to study microbiology.

She spent five years studying plant diseases at the University of East Anglia and received her doctorate in tobacco pathogens in 1984.....

Full story...

[AP via KATV]

Iraqis pulled bound and blindfolded bodies out of a newly discovered mass grave outside this southern Iraqi city on Monday, excavating a site thought to contain the remains of up to 150 Shiite Muslims killed by Saddam Hussein's regime.

The first 32 coffins removed were lined up in Basra's al-Jumhuriya Grand Mosque, and relatives searched through them for loved ones who disappeared during Saddam's repression of a 1999 Shiite uprising.

The mass grave, located along a desolate stretch of highway that runs toward the city of Nasiriyah, appeared to be among the largest found in the south since Saddam's government was toppled by the U.S.-led invasion.

Full story...

FoxNews.com

Dr. Rihab Rashid Taha, better known as Iraq's "Dr. Germ," is in coalition custody, officials said Monday.

The notorious scientist, known for her work in creating weapons-grade anthrax, turned herself in over the last 48 hours, said Maj. Brad Lowell of the U.S. Central Command.[...]

She is not on the list of the 55 most wanted former members of Saddam Hussein's regime. But American forces have been trying to capture her and last month unsuccessfully raided her Baghdad home in the search for her and her husband.

Reuters via Yahoo (DUBAI) - Pro-American Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi says he has credible information that ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and his two sons are still alive and in Iraq. Chalabi told the Arabic-language Asharq al-Awsat daily in an interview in Baghdad:

"Our sources confirm that he (Saddam) has actually not left Iraq. He is here with his sons but they don't always travel together. I can't tell you how I know, but Saddam is travelling with a special escort and his former aides have no idea where he is or what he is doing."

Speculation about the whereabouts of Saddam and his two sons - Qusay and Uday - has swirled since the fall of Baghdad in April during the U.S.-led war on Iraq. Several senior aides of the deposed Iraqi leader are, however, in U.S. custody.

[Fox News]

Less than three weeks after the United States' reconstruction agency opened for business in the postwar chaos of Baghdad, one top U.S. official left her post Sunday, the chief administrator was preparing to leave and a new administrator arrived in the region, ready to take over. The departed official, former U.S. ambassador Barbara Bodine, was coordinator for central Iraq, including Baghdad, within the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.

Full story...

From the New York Times:

A team of experts searching for evidence of biological and chemical weapons in Iraq has concluded that a trailer found near Mosul in northern Iraq in April is a mobile biological weapons laboratory, the three team members said today.

Describing their four-day examination of the lab for the first time and on the condition of anonymity, the members of the Chemical Biological Intelligence Support Team-Charlie, or Team Charlie, said they had based their conclusion on a thorough examination of the gray-green trailer, with the help of British experts and a few American soldiers ...

... "The failure to disclose such equipment is a clear violation of United Nations sanctions and an indication of ill intent," said the team leader, a 20-year veteran of Special Operations forces and explosive ordnance work and a nuclear weapons expert.

He contended that this could be construed as the kind of "smoking gun" that his team was charged with finding to substantiate the Bush administration's allegations that Iraq was making biological and chemical weapons.

We have some regular readers who are going to love this. From Reuters:

Britain's Sunday Times newspaper said Iraqi intelligence agents infiltrated al-Jazeera, the Arab world's most widely watched television station, in an attempt to win favorable coverage.

Al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout told Reuters the network was unaware of "any member of al-Jazeera who is working for any foreign intelligence" organization.

The Sunday Times said documents uncovered by opponents of Saddam Hussein after he was ousted by a U.S.-led invasion force last month showed Iraq's intelligence service had three agents working inside Qatar's al-Jazeera television network.

According to the documents, one alleged agent passed on two letters written by Osama bin Laden, blamed for the 2001 attacks on the United States, to his Iraqi handlers. Two cameramen were also said to be Iraqi agents.

From Newsweek comes an interview between Senior Editor and Washington Post columnist Lally Weymouth and Syrian President Bashar Assad. I've posted some of his comments re: terrorism on the GWOT page, but he also comments on Iraq. A highlight:

Did you make a mistake in opposing the war with Iraq, keeping Iraqi oil flowing to Syria and allowing weapons to go across your border into Iraq?

We were not close to [Iraqi President] Saddam [Hussein] and did not have an embassy in Baghdad. I never met him or talked with him on the phone. What you said about the oil is true. We had economic relations with Iraq. What you said about this government allowing armaments to go to Iraq is not correct. [But] arms were smuggled into Iraq by individuals; the government had nothing to do with it.

Did Iraqi regime leaders come here during the war?

Yes, some of them came to the border. They weren’t allowed to come in. Some of them were captured by the Americans.

Didn’t some come here?

Somebody came before [the war].

Their families?

We allowed families to come to Syria, women and children. But we were suspicious of some of the relatives—that they had positions in the past and were responsible for killings in Syria in the ’80s ...

From Reuters:

Iran is demanding Washington extradite Iranian opposition guerrillas from Iraq, fearing the United States might try to use them to put pressure on Tehran, a newspaper said on Sunday.

On Saturday, the U.S. military said forces of the People's Mujahideen (MKO) group, or the Mujahideen-e Khalq in Farsi, had agreed to yield to U.S. forces in Iraq. The U.S. army's 5 Corps would take control over the group, it said in a statement.

From Reuters:

Iraq said on Sunday it was pushing back by about a month its oil production target of 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) after receiving a more detailed damage assessment following the war against Saddam Hussein.

Thamir Ghadhban, Iraq's recently appointed chief executive of the oil sector, had said earlier that Iraq aimed to boost output from current rates of about 200,000 bpd to half its pre-War rate of three million bpd by the end of May.

From the Akron Beacon Journal / AP:

A larger-than-life statue of Saddam Hussein on a horse and a family photo album of former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz are among items recently confiscated by Jordanian customs officers searching travelers from Iraq.

Officers at al-Karamah border post are finding and seizing archaeological treasures, artwork and manuscripts from "journalists, Iraqis, Jordanian sailors and drivers who either bought those items or looted them," Mahmoud Qteishat, director-general of Jordan's Customs Department, said Sunday.

Geeze ... just like that. From The Globe and Mail (Canada):

The American general who commanded the Iraq war issued a statement Sunday saying deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's Baath Party "is dissolved," ordering the political organization that ruled the country for 35 years to cease existence immediately.

From my old home rag, the Salt Lake Tribune:

Although he has yet to arrive, the newly appointed U.S. official charged with leading Iraq's transition has already begun to shake up the operation here -- including changing key officials -- in an attempt to overcome debilitating internal problems and cope with a dangerous volatility on the streets.

L. Paul Bremer III, a counterterrorism expert who will supplant retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner at the top of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, is expected to bring in several of his own people at high levels.

From Albawaba (Jordan):

A crisis has erupted in Iraq for Palestinian refugees living in that country. Following the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime, Iraqi (civilian) groups started removing Palestinians from their homes in Baghdad. Several hundred Palestinian families are now living in tents in Baghdad amid lack of security and fear of looters, gangsters and acts of revenge.

[AP via Yahoo]

The leader of the largest Iraqi Shiite Muslim group opposed to Saddam Hussein returned to his homeland on Saturday after two decades in exile and called for Iraq to become an Islamic state.

Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim condemned religious extremism in the same speech. He rejected any foreign-installed government for Iraq, but did not mention the United States directly.

Full story...

[AP]

Surrounded by American tanks, an Iranian opposition group agreed to turn over its weapons and submit to the demands of U.S. forces, Army officials said. The United States used the occasion to warn other forces not to assert power. Representatives of the Mujahedeen Khalq operating near Baqubah, 72 kilometers (45 miles) northeast of the capital, struck the agreement after two days of negotiations with U.S. forces. Their capitulation was reported by the U.S. Army's V Corps headquarters in Baghdad.

Full story...

[Asahi.com]

They wanted water containers; they may have killed the village.

Iraq-Villagers looted a nuclear power facility here during the waning days of the war and instead of treasure, may have made off with death-drums filled with radioactive uranium oxide concentrate, also called yellow cake.

According to officials with the Iraq nuclear energy commission, the storage facility at Zafaraniya was guarded by Iraqi troops until April 4. However, they fled in the face of approaching U.S. Marines.

Full story...

From the Kansas City Star / AP:

The top U.S. civilian official in Iraq on Saturday set a June 15 deadline to get much of Iraq's infrastructure up and running and normalize the country's health and educational systems.

From the People's Daily (China):

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov held consultations via telephone Friday evening on the Iraq issue ...

... Russia stands ready to keep consulting with China so as to make constructive efforts towards the solution of the Iraq issue, Ivanov said.

Li said the Iraq issue has entered a new stage and China shares quite a few common views with Russia on the issue.

Ahh, Spring ... when all things old are new again ... like the US Administration going to the UN with a resolution rearding Iraq and meeting with resistance from France and Russia. From Reuters:

Russia signaled its unease on Saturday over a U.S. draft resolution that would lift U.N. sanctions on Iraq and give Washington and its allies control over Baghdad's oil revenues.

Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said the draft had some positive aspects but "there are also a number of parts which are not sufficiently clear and which require serious work and clarification."

From