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)

Post your suggestions in the comments to this post; we’ll select a winner in the next day or so and update the page accordingly!

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

Read the rest, and thanks to Dave for the tip.

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.

Read the rest ...

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.

Another soldier is reported to have drowned in an unrelated swimming accident.

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.

The 3 of Clubs and 3 of Spades, which makes 27 out of the top 55 captured so far. Nearly half way.

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.

Any seconds?

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.

I read the WSJ piece this morning; it's more than this headline suggests, and is in fact an articulation of the "core principles" by which the Bush administration will foster Iraqi redevelopment. It's the free editorial artcile today at OpinionJournal.com, and you can read it here. (Note that if you aren't registered, registration for the article is free.) An example:

• 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.

Read the rest ...

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.

And how exactly did these funds end up "beyond recovery?"

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 spokeswoma