Reuters:

BAGHDAD - Clerics from across the Muslim sectarian divide blasted the U.S. occupation of Iraq in Friday prayers as guerrilla hit-and-run attacks in the center of the country inflicted more American casualties.

Two U.S. soldiers and three Iraqi civilians were wounded when gunmen fired two rocket-propelled grenades at a small military convoy near the town of Balad, northeast of Baghdad.

"The Iraqis were treated at the scene and released while the soldiers were (evacuated) to a field hospital and are in stable condition," said Lieutenant-Colonel William MacDonald, spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division. "We have not yet captured the attackers."

This from NTV MSNBC:

The Turkish Embassy in Baghdad was sprayed with bullets fired at long range from a passing car on Thursday night.

The attackers then threw a sound bomb at the embassy building. The attacked was prevented from escalating by the Palestinian guards protecting the embassy, who fired back at the assailants, who then fled the scene.

Ankara has evaluated the attack as “ordinary” as full security and stability has not as yet been established in Iraq.

From ABC 2, Baltimore:

The militia will start off working with U.S. soldiers in joint patrols, but eventually will be responsible for defending key infrastructure and government buildings, Russell said.

The founding members of the new militia will be paid $125 a month - more than twice the salary of former Iraqi soldiers - and are expected to commit to joining the civil defense force for a minimum of a year, Russell said.

The U.S. military reported two crew members of an Apache helicopter were injured 9 miles outside Tikrit when their aircraft made an emergency landing during a maintenance test flight on Thursday. Both were hospitalized in serious but stable condition, a spokesman said.

Reader Rumcook has taken liberty to give contributor Alan E. Brain a bold, new look. See it here ... it's sort of an A. E. Brain meets Satan. Sure is purty ... but what's with the jacket?

In other non-Northeast US blackout news, the BBC offers an analysis of the continuing violence in Iraq here. Worth reading, although it offers no answer to the question; a sample:

According to a secret letter signed by the general director of the Intelligence Bureau (Mukhabarat al-Amma) shortly before the fall of Baghdad, officers were instructed to destroy documents, offices and any incriminating evidence. They were also directed "to join the Islamic parties" on both sides of the communal divide.

A second group actively involved in masterminding attacks is believed to be the Salafis, or Wahhabis. This is a radical Islamic group with strong anti-US ideological antipathy. Their concept of Jihad, holy war, is unique ...

...A third and possibly overlapping group are the Arab volunteers - mostly Islamic fundamentalists of Jordanian, Palestinian, Syrian, and possibly Yemeni origins. Baghdadi families said that hundreds of these Arab volunteers (of whom there are about 6,000-7,000 in total) have been trapped in Iraq ...

... A fourth type is a non-ideological, tribal avenger motivated by retaliation. In coalition raids and skirmishes, non-combatant civilian families and clans, who seek retaliation, have sustained loss of life. Indeed many civilians have been shot dead in the towns of Fallujah, Mosul, Baquba in Diyala province and al-Majar al-Kabeer village in Omara province.

A developing story from the BBC; thanks to Max for the tip; the full text of the story follows:

The Ministry of Defence is investigating an incident involving British troops in southern Iraq, it has confirmed.

Kuwait's state news agency Kuna said two British soldiers had been killed and two others wounded when gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) at their convoy on the outskirts of Basra.

An MoD spokeswoman could not confirm any deaths or injuries.

British military officials in Basra confirmed there had been some injuries, but could not confirm any deaths.

In an unrelated incident, the MoD confirmed a British soldier had been found dead in bed on Wednesday night.

More soon.

More on the oil & energy situation in-theater, this time from Reuters.

Sabotage and theft of power cables could bring southern Iraq's oil industry grinding to a halt, strangling exports crucial to rebuilding the economy, a senior oil ministry official said on Thursday.

Power shortages have already sparked violent protests in southern Iraq, and have halved the daily volume of oil exported from the region's ramshackle oil fields and refineries.

"Our big problem is the stealing of copper from power transmission lines," the official said. "If this problem is not resolved it could bring exports in the south to a standstill."

Tonnes of looted metal are smuggled out of Iraq each day, mostly copper typically used in underground power and communication cables, to be sold at lucrative scrap markets in neighboring countries, traders say.

"Since late May we have had 15 attacks on oil pipelines," Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told a news conference in Baghdad.

"Some of those are clearly sabotage aimed at disrupting the production of oil, but some of them are to tap into the oil lines in order to smuggle this product out of the country."

Forbes offers this report on fuel smuggling in the South ... the estimate is 2,500 tons daily ... and notes that some of recent sabatoge is aimed at facilitating smuggling operations, rather than crippling the oil industry.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a photograph of esteemed Command Post contributor and general smart-alek Alan E. Brain (not, of course, to be confused with me, Command Post Alan ... boy that sounds pretentious).

See him here!

From Yahoo / AP:

Gunmen claiming links to the al-Qaeda network left calling cards at the scene of a deadly shootout with US troops, as an Iraqi boy was killed in the first clash between US forces and Shiite Muslims in the capital since the war to oust Saddam Hussein ...

... Several business-card-size leaflets were found by AFP and witnesses at the scene of the 7:00 pm (1500 GMT) firefight in downtown Baghdad, bearing the words "Death to the collaborators of America -- al-Qaeda."

... fugitive Jordanian national Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was at the centre of pre-war US efforts to establish a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda, has emerged as a key suspect in the August 7 deadly bombing of Jordan's Baghdad embassy.

Not a headline you hope to see. This report is from ABC News (US); note that US forces were apparently returning fire:

U.S. soldiers shot into a crowd of thousands of demonstrators in a Baghdad slum on Wednesday, killing one civilian and wounding four after a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at them, the military said. North of Baghdad, guerrillas killed two American troops.

In Sadr City, a Shiite Muslim slum, about 3,000 demonstrators gathered around a telecommunications tower where they said American forces in a helicopter tried to tear down an Islamic banner. U.S. military spokesman Sgt. Danny Martin said it was apparently blown down by rotor wash from a helicopter.

However, amateur video footage obtained by Associated Press Television News showed a Black Hawk helicopter hovering a few feet from the top of the tower and apparently trying to tear down the banner. Later, U.S. Humvees drove by and the crowd threw stones at them. Heavy gunfire could be heard and demonstrators were seen diving to the ground.

FedEx has added Iraq to it's global network, planning door-to-door pick up and delivery service in and out of Baghdad, Basra and Mosul. Read the account by the Hindu Business Line here. Perhaps this makes things even easier for Michele's TROOPTrax?

The Iraqis have opened their pipeline to Turkey; read a report here via the BBC. What's more, the flow has already had a positive (that is, downward) effect on world oil prices; read the take of the oil-focused Houston Chronicle here.

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

One US soldier has been killed and a second wounded when their four-vehicle convoy hit a roadside improvised explosive device north of Baghdad, a US military spokeswoman said.

"One 4th Infantry Division soldier was killed and one wounded when their vehicle struck an IED at approximately 7:00 am (local time) this morning near Baghdad," division spokeswoman Major Josslyn Aberle told AFP news agency.
"One soldier died of wounds at the hospital, while the other soldier is in a stable condition."

At least 59 American soldiers have now been killed in guerrilla-style attacks since the White House declared major combat operations in Iraq over on May 1.
Another 62 have died in non-combat incidents.

More on the Coalition Of Those Willing To Help Afterwards: 360 Salvadorans have left to participate in Iraqi peacekeeping forces. Read more at the South Australia Advertiser.

The Edmonton Sun is reporting that British troops restored electricity to parts of Basra and supervised distribution of gasoline yesterday after two days of protests.

Editorial observation: Scanning and posting the news every day, one begins to notice patterns in press coverage. On my home blog I occaisionally play The Numbers Game with these patterns by comparing the number off press citations one can get for various Google News searches. Let's do that now:

"basra+riots": 441 stories
"basra+'restore power'": 23 stories

The one-year tour of duty. Sound familiar to any of our regular commentators? From MSNBC:

All troops in Iraq should expect to serve for at least a year, with brief rest breaks in the region and possibly a few days at home, the commander of U.S. forces said Tuesday. That came as news to some soldiers.

Via Sky News. What's interesting is the level of coordination in this attack:

A US soldier has been killed after synchronised bomb attacks near an army convoy west of Baghdad.

Two more American troops were wounded in the onslaught in the town of Ramadi, a known hotbed for Saddam Hussein sympathisers.

A US Army spokeswoman said three bombs were timed to detonate simultaneously by a convoy on the outskirts of the town, 60 miles west of Baghdad.

They will be the first BA flights to Iraq in 13 years, and they will initiate service with flights to Basra. Departures twice a week, via Kuwait. Read more here at MSNBC.

The AP (courtesy the Austin American Statesman) is reporting that a senior R. Guard official was also among those rounded up earlier today in Tikrit.

From the BBC:

Arab countries cannot recognise the legitimacy of the US-appointed Interim Governing Council (IGC) in Iraq, Egyptian Foreign minister Ahmed Maher has said.

Mr Maher's remarks followed a meeting in Cairo with the Saudi and Syrian foreign ministers.

But Mr Maher said Arab states remained ready to meet members of the council on the same basis as they would meet members of any Iraqi political group.

By D'ARCY DORAN, Associated Press Writer

U.S. soldiers captured one of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s former bodyguards and an Iraqi general who was a senior Baath Party official in a series of raids Tuesday on the outskirts of Tikrit, the dictator's hometown, the U.S. military said.

A total of 14 men were detained in the three-hour operation in a southern suburb of Tikrit. All the men were members of the same family, which served as a pillar of support for Saddam's regime, said Lt. Col. Steve Russell, commander of the 22nd Infantry Regiment's 1st Battalion. He declined to name the detainees or specify the location of the raid.

"We were targeting a specific family — one of the four controlling families of the former regime," Russell said.

"They were trying to support the remnants of the former regime by organizing attacks, through funding and by trying to hide former regime members," Russell added.

About 250 soldiers surrounded and searched 20 homes, he said. Soldiers called out the names of the wanted men and carried away a safe, photographs, personal computerss that may be of intelligence value, he added.

The Army had been watching the family for weeks, after collecting intelligence that indicated they had been involved in recent attacks on soldiers in Tikrit, Russell said. They acted on Tuesday when they thought they could catch the maximum number of people, Russell said.

During his reign, Saddam depended on four families for support and rewarded them financially by giving them cash, prestige and land seized from other people, Russell said.

Tikrit has been one of the main centers where U.S. soldiers are intensely searching for Saddam, who the military believes is on the run, moving every three to four hours.

Ananova:

An inner city mosque in Birmingham named after Saddam Hussein has abandoned the title after public criticism that it honoured a tyrant.

The committee of the President Saddam Hussein Mosque in Aston, decided to rename the building as the Jame Masjid last month and signs at the site were replaced two days ago.

Treasurer Ahmed Kasi said in April that the committee believed the name change was advisable to be "sensitive to British feelings".

CNN:

TIKRIT, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. military said Monday that it has launched a major operation in Iraq against fugitive members of Saddam Hussein's regime -- a day after another U.S. soldier died in hostile action.

The assault -- dubbed Operation Ivy Lightning -- is the largest coalition deployment in the region since the end of major combat in the Iraqi war on May 1, according to Col. Bill MacDonald, a U.S. military spokesman.

The operation aims to capture former regime members who have fled recent U.S. raids in Tikrit, Balad and Ba'qubah, he said. It is centered around 70 miles (112 kilometers) east of Tikrit, Saddam's ancestral homeland.

Bomb attack; no word on the unit. Details here via VOA.

In today's "Winds of War", Andrew Olmsted writes:

bq. "Were the postwar issues the United States now faces in Iraq known beforehand? The CIA claims they predicted many of them back in February, adding fuel to the fire of why the United States seemed singularly unprepared for anything after the fighting stopped."

This report may add fuel to the fire, but neither this CIA claim nor the above reportage of it adds much to our understanding. Andrew's assertion may even turn out to be correct - but without some additional information, this paragraph and its linked piece don't even meet the standard of useful information.

Grasping why that's so will sharply improve your understanding of intelligence-related stories and planning in organizations, and so I present: [1] The foresight muddle and hindsight trap; [2] The bureaucratic imperative; and [3] a basic series of good after-action analysis questions.

read the rest! »

From the Sydney Morning Hearld:

Dhuluaiyah, Iraq: The tale is recounted only in whispers, but its horror still rings loud through the orchards of apples, dates and figs surrounding this small town.

Last month, townspeople say, tribal leaders gave a farmer named Salim Khaldoun a sobering choice: Kill your son, or watch your entire family be killed.

His son Sabah, 29, had committed a terrible crime. Eager for money, he had tipped off the Americans to a house where he said Saddam Hussein had stayed.

Ice to Rejkyavik, Sand to Riyadh and AK-47s to Baghdad. From the German Magazine "Der Spiegel" (Translation, warts and all, by Google) :

With the structure of the new Iraqi army American arms companies wanted to actually make a fast dollar. Now the US interim government in the Iraq through-crossed the plans of the compatriots.

Washington - the American weapon lobby is annoyed about the US interim government in the Iraq. Reason: The authority had written an order out over 34.000 rifles of the Russian type Ak-47.

In a nation awash with hundreds of thousands of AK-47 assault rifles, the U.S.-led occupation authority is planning to buy and import 34,000 more of the ubiquitous weapons to equip a new Iraqi army.

The plan has baffled some observers, not only because U.S. forces in Iraq have already seized and stockpiled thousands of the rifles since April, but because defense analysts have strongly recommended that the new Iraqi army be equipped with more modern, U.S.-made weapons.
...
"That's surprising," said Army Capt. Jeff Fitzgibbons, a task force spokesman in Baghdad. "It would seem to me odd that we're out there looking to buy more weapons for a place where we've already captured and set aside so many of them. It would raise a red flag for me, that's for sure."

But an official with the occupation authority in Baghdad, who asked not to be named, confirmed the plans and said the AK-47s would be used to equip a new Iraqi army being formed to replace the 400,000-strong military that was formally disbanded in May.

The U.S. Army and private American defense contractors, led by Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman, have begun to train the first Iraqi army recruits in Kirkuk under a $48-million Pentagon contract, and the Taji base is the supply point for that northern Iraqi city. The new force is expected to number 12,000 at the end of this year and 40,000 in three years.

In its Internet solicitation for the 34,000 weapons and accessories, technically called a request for proposals, the occupation authority specified that it wanted to buy "brand-new, never-fired, fixed-stock AK-47 assault rifles with certified manufacture dates not earlier than 1987."

The authority wants a new shipment of the weapons from a single source "so that they're all of the same standard, and they're all new and ready to use," the official said.
...
But the U.S. forces who seized control of Iraq in April have since discovered vast stockpiles of new, never-fired AK-47s, which U.S. military officials said have been deliberately warehoused for a future Iraqi army.

At one compound of eight concrete warehouses that a company of the 10th Engineer Battalion found in central Baghdad in mid-April, Times reporters watched soldiers form a human chain to fill a truck bed with AK-47s so new the soldiers' hands turned orange from the packing grease.
...
The civil authority official, however, asserted that the makes and models of the new weapons seized have "slight differences" depending on the nation where they were made, and that the goal of the agency's AK-47 purchase is to standardize the arms.
...
The coalition authority's request for the rifles does specify that its supplier have "required licenses and credentials" that include an official registration with the State Department as a "broker" of defense products and a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Class III "license for U.S. companies," which permits the manufacture or sale of fully automatic assault weapons.

Such a license permits a U.S. company to sell the weapons only to U.S. law enforcement agencies. But if the company also is registered with the State Department's Defense Trade Controls Office, it can broker the sale of those weapons from a foreign manufacturer to another foreign buyer.

Independent analysts added that, given those specifications, the coalition's winning bidder probably would be a licensed U.S. arms broker or dealer who arranges the shipment to Iraq from a former Soviet Bloc country that makes AK-47s.

Hat tip to Karl Heinz Ranitzch.

Newsweek has released this "Newsweek Exclusive": Inside an Enemy Cell. In part, it notes The Army Of Mohammed, representatives of which met with Newsweek in an apartment in the Baghdad suburb of Amriyah,

claimed no wish for Saddam's return. "We want to make a new government, without Saddam but in the same style," said one. "We don't want to bring Saddam back."

A much bigger consideration is the group's hatred of America. Al-Rawi was carrying a prepared statement, which he read aloud: "The Americans have occupied our land under a false pretext, and without any international authorization. They kill our women and children and old men. They want to bring the Jews to our holy land in order to control Iraq, to achieve the Jewish dream." The document ended with a pledge of vengeance against the Americans. "We promise we will burn their tanks. They will die."

Differring facts, different groups, or did Newsweek get scooped on their own exclusive?

Did I mention it was good to be back and posting? Hope you've enjoyed this morning's news.

WaPo has more details on the riots the Brits are facing in Basra here. Note that

At least one Iraqi involved in protests was killed and two others were wounded, but it was not clear who had fired the shots which struck them, reporters in the city said.

That's the headline from Candada.com, which posts a Sunday Times of London piece reporting:

Al-Qaeda terrorists who have infiltrated Iraq from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries have formed a deadly alliance with former intelligence agents of Saddam Hussein to fight their common enemy, the U.S. forces.

The alliance, known as Jaish Muhammad -- the army of the prophet Muhammad -- is believed to be responsible for increasingly sophisticated attacks on U.S. soldiers.

In the past four months, it has smuggled millions of dollars, weapons and hundreds of Arab fighters across the desert border with Saudi Arabia.

The head of the group is a senior Saudi al-Qaeda officer, while most of the lieutenants and foot-soldiers are Iraqis who can move more easily among the local population.

The Sunday Times knows the name of the al-Qaeda leader, but has been asked not to publish it for fear of jeopardizing security operations. He does not direct every attack, but oversees training and ensures that cells follow his commands about targets.

He relies on two senior former Iraqi intelligence officials, including Muhammad al-Kudier, a former director of special operations in Mr. Saddam's mukhabarat security service, for planning, logistics and recruitment.

The Saudi al-Qaeda officer, who moves across the border but was believed to be in Iraq last week, is supported by wealthy Saudis rather than the Riyadh government.

From eTaiwan News:

A high-ranking al-Qaida operative in custody has disclosed that Iraq supplied the Islamist militant group with material to build chemical and biological weapons, the Bush administration said Friday.

"A senior al-Qaida terrorist, now detained, who had been responsible for al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, reports that al-Qaida was intent on obtaining (weapons of mass destruction) assistance from Iraq," the White House said in a report ...

... The report quoted the unnamed prisoner as saying al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden turned to Iraq after concluding his group could not produce chemical or biological weapons on its own in Afghanistan.

"Iraq agreed to provide chemical and biological weapons training for two al-Qaeda associates starting in December 2000," the report said.

"Senior al-Qaida associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi came to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment, along with approximately two dozen al-Qaida terrorist associates.

"This group stayed in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq and plotted terrorist attacks around the world."

(Two minutes pass as Alan searches the web.)

Just checked, and this claim is in the 100 Days of Progress report. Here's the link to the page at whitehouse.gov, and here's the actual text:

A senior al Qaida terrorist, now detained, who had been responsible for al Qaida training camps in Afghanistan, reports that al Qaida was intent on obtaining WMD assistance from Iraq. According to a credible, high-level al Qaida source, Usama Bin Laden and deceased al Qaida leader Muhammad Atif did not believe that al Qaida labs in Afghanistan were capable of manufacturing chemical and biological weapons, so they turned to Iraq for assistance. Iraq agreed to provide chemical and biological weapons training for two al Qaida associates starting in December 2000.

Senior al Qaida associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi came to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment along with approximately two dozen al Qaida terrorist associates. This group stayed in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq and plotted terrorist attacks around the world.

From the Washington Times:

The Bush administration plans to ask the U.N. Security Council to approve the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

Quoting diplomats from the world body, the Post said the administration will introduce a draft resolution on the issue this week.

The move is designed to enhance the legitimacy of the 25-member Iraqi body, which was established by the United States and its military allies last month to help administer the country.

Is Germany a possible addition to the Coalition Of Those Willing To Help Afterwards? Several sources (here ABC News - US) are reporting that in today's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung German Defense Minister Peter Struck comments that

"If U.N. resolutions are present and NATO is asked to take over a larger responsibility," then Germany would not have "a reason to contradict the commitment of the alliance to Iraq," Struck told the newspaper.

He did not exclude the deployment of German troops, adding that if "NATO resolutions are present, it could mean that we are asked" to send peacekeepers and it would then be up to "the government to give an answer."

I found the full text of Gore's recent speech online ... at Aljazeerah.info. Read it here. A sample:

In any case, what we now know to have been false impressions include the following:

(1) Saddam Hussein was partly responsible for the attack against us on September 11th, 2001, so a good way to respond to that attack would be to invade his country and forcibly remove him from power.

(2) Saddam was working closely with Osama Bin Laden and was actively supporting members of the Al Qaeda terrorist group, giving them weapons and money and bases and training, so launching a war against Iraq would be a good way to stop Al Qaeda from attacking us again ...

... (6) Even though the rest of the world was mostly opposed to the war, they would quickly fall in line after we won and then contribute lots of money and soldiers to help out, so there wouldn't be that much risk that US taxpayers would get stuck with a huge bill.

Now, of course, everybody knows that every single one of these impressions was just dead wrong.

So reports the Boston Globe, and it's the first time credit cards have been used in Iraq in more than a decade. I can hear the ads now ...

When you're in the mood for romance, there's no place hotter than the Al Rasheed in downtown Baghdad. The days are hot but the nights are hotter, and whether you're trying to buy new batteries for the SatPhone, or just trying to buy the latest "Thisisnottrue!" Baghdad Bob T-shirt, no place beats this jewel by the Tigris. But if you go, bring your Kevlar, and bring your Visa card. Because in Baghdad the Fedayeen don't take no for an answer, and the Al Rasheed doesn't take American Express.

VOA is reporting the casualties occurred in Baghdad (2) and Kirkuk (2). Details here.

From The Australian :

A US soldier died of heat stroke while travelling in blistering southern Iraq where temperatures regularly hit 50 degrees Celsius, a military spokesman said.

"He died of apparent heat stress on August 9, while riding in a convoy north of Ad-Diwaniyah," said Specialist Anthony Reinoso.

"Soldiers evacuated him to a medical facility where he was pronounced dead," Reinoso said.

The soldier belonged to the military's 3rd Corps Support Command.

The New York Times offers a report of US covert efforts before the shooting started, which you can read here. A sample:

Even after the war began, the Bush administration received word that top officials of the Iraqi government, most prominently the defense minister, Gen. Sultan Hashem Ahmed al-Tai, might be willing to cooperate to bring the war to a quick end and to ensure a postwar peace, current and former American officials say.

General Hashem's ministry was never bombed by the United States during the war, and the Pentagon's decision not to knock Iraqi broadcasting off the air permitted him to appear on television with what some Iraqi exiles have called a veiled signal to troops that they should not fight the invading allies.

But Washington's war planners elected not to try to keep him or other Iraqi leaders around after the war to help them keep the peace, a decision some now see as a missed opportunity.

A cast of hundreds. From SFGate:

A group of about 600 peace activists and veterans marched through the streets of San Francisco today demanding that the U.S. government pull all its troops out of Iraq immediately.

The protesters, sponsored by San Francisco's Global Exchange and the Bay Area chapter of the antiwar group Not in Our Name, started at Mission and 24th streets shortly before 1 p.m. Saturday and marched up to the intersection of Market Street and Van Ness Avenue in an hour.

They all simultaneously laid down in the middle of Van Ness Avenue, blocking traffic, and then got up and marched up Van Ness to a conference and memorial service being held by the Veterans for Peace at the San Francisco War Memorial Veterans Hall. Several members of the Veterans for Peace organization took part in the march.

Via Radio Australia:

Iraqis fed up with the slow pace of reconstruction have rioted in the British-controlled city of Basra.

The British military says seven soldiers and four Iraqi civilians were wounded.

The residents of Basra, tired of power outages and fuel shortages, hurled rocks and burned tires in the city's main streets.

In other developments, the British Navy says it has intercepted a ship trying to smuggle more than 1000 tonnes of oil out of Iraq.

Royal Marines boarded the ship, the Navstar One, in the northern Arabian gulf earlier this weekend and arrested its captain and crew.

From VOA:

Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer says the FBI has been brought in to probe a powerful car bomb explosion that took place Thursday outside the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad.

"There actually were some FBI agents already in Iraq, who have begun working under the general direction of the Iraqi police in this investigation," he said. "The Iraqi police retain the authority and jurisdiction in this matter. It is a crime on Iraqi soil, and it therefore falls under the Iraqi police to investigate and eventually the Iraqi courts to prosecute anybody who is caught. They have asked for the FBI's assistance in the forensic analysis of the case."

Another article from the Independent:

A senior BBC journalist was told that Tony Blair was "involved" in sending the September Iraq dossier back to the Joint Intelligence Committee to harden up its content. The source of the report is understood not to have been the late David Kelly.

The likely existence of an additional intelligence source for the BBC's reports on the disputed Iraq weapons dossier comes as the Government fights a rearguard action to regain public trust on the eve of the Hutton inquiry.

That's the title of the Whitehouse's recent on-line Iraq spin, a page posted in conjunction with the 100 Days of Progress report referenced below. You can read the 100 Liberation Quotes here (at Whitehouse.gov). Examples:

"Freedom is much sweeter. I can get up in the morning and decide whether I want to shave or not; if someone in my family is sick, I can stay home with them. I don't need to ask permission."
Salim Kasim, one of Uday's chief mechanics, Los Angeles Times, 8/02/03

"We didn't believe these things, but we had to say them. Saddam was there in all the books, even the math books."
Ghada Jassen, a fifth grade teacher in Iraq, Chicago Tribune, 7/31/03

"We don't want patriotic education anymore. Nothing about war. We want flowers and springtime in the texts, not rifles and tanks."
Dunia Nabel, a teacher in Baghdad, Chicago Tribune, 7/31/03

That's the report from multiple news sources. For a typical account, read this article from ABC News (US). For additional color, read the President's radio address here.

Also, the Whitehouse has published a report titled "100 Days of Progress in Iraq," which you can read online here.

From the UK's Independent:

American pilots dropped the controversial incendiary agent napalm on Iraqi troops during the advance on Baghdad. The attacks caused massive fireballs that obliterated several Iraqi positions.

The Pentagon denied using napalm at the time, but Marine pilots and their commanders have confirmed that they used an upgraded version of the weapon against dug-in positions. They said napalm, which has a distinctive smell, was used because of its psychological effect on an enemy.

The New York Times is also reporting that

hundreds of Islamic militants who fled Iraq during the war have returned and are planning to conduct major terrorist attacks.

As reader Update noted in some recent comments, "Is everyone on holiday?" The answer is, well, "Yes." I've just returned from a week away (here, if you're interested, and yes, that's me in the snap), and am glad to be back and posting.

Let's start with this NYTimes article, forwarded by reader Anthony.

Engineering experts from the Defense Intelligence Agency have come to believe that the most likely use for two mysterious trailers found in Iraq was to produce hydrogen for weather balloons rather than to make biological weapons, government officials say.

The classified findings by a majority of the engineering experts differ from the view put forward in a white paper made public on May 28 by the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which said that the trailers were for making biological weapons.

Breaking on Fox:

Former Iraqi Minister of Interior Surrenders [no link yet, just a headline]

Mahmud Dhiyab al-Ahmad is number 29 on the Most Wanted list.

From the Boston Globe :

A top Bush administration weapons investigator told Congress in closed testimony last week that he has uncovered solid information from interviews, documents, and physical evidence that Iraqi military forces were ordered to attack US troops with chemical weapons, but did not have the time or capability to follow through, according to senior defense and intelligence officials.

The alleged findings by David Kay, a former UN weapons inspector now working for the United States, would buttress the administration's claim that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was concealing weapons of mass destruction -- a key component of President Bush's case for war that has since fallen into dispute.
Kay's report acknowledged that his team of 1,400 investigators had not yet found any such weapons, raising the possibility that Hussein either hid them, destroyed them, or was simply bluffing in his orders to the Republican Guard.
Kay told Congress his team is searching new sites almost daily, interviewing scientists and captured leaders, and sifting through thousands of pages of documents, officials said.

A summary of his report, described by officials who have seen it, said Republican Guard commanders were ordered by Hussein's regime to launch chemical-filled shells at oncoming coalition troops, and that Kay believes he will soon know why the shells weren't launched.

''They have found evidence that an order was given,'' but no definitive explanation for why the weapons weren't used, said a senior intelligence official with access to Kay's report who asked not to be identified.

Hat-Tip to reader UPDATE - who posted a comment about this Boston Globe article even before I did. "Curse those who say our words before us!"

Saddam's Chef is in custard -er- Custody. From The Australian

Saddam Hussein's onetime chef surrendered to US forces in the ousted president's hometown of Tikrit today, a relative said.

US troops raided the home of Major Qais Rajab in Tikrit overnight and searched the place, but the former chef was not there at the time, Rajab's brother-in-law, Walid al-Tikriti, said.

Rajab returned to his home this morning and decided to turn himself in, Tikriti, himself a former lieutenant in Saddam's elite Republican Guard, said.

From the AFP via The Australian :

An Iraqi was killed and three US soldiers wounded in an attack on a military vehicle in a main Baghdad shopping street today, a military source at the scene told AFP.
The three soldiers were hurt when their Humvee armoured vehicle came under fire on Karada Street and burst into flames, but the soldier at the scene did not specify the kind of arms used in the attack.

The Iraqi was killed in an exchange of fire that followed the attack, an AFP correspondent reported.

Witnesses said the soldiers had fired in the man's direction, after hearing a shot. People stood over the body screaming, blood forming a puddle behind his head, while the dying man rolled his eyes and his Adam's apple bobbed.

A US soldier said they suspected the man may have been one of the assailants and the crowd confiscated his gun - which the military says is a trend in the vicious insurgency pitting loyalists of Saddam Hussein against US soldiers.

A gunbattle then raged intermittently, the crackle of Kalashnikovs trading with booming US guns. The exchange prevented a US military helicopter buzzing overhead from landing and picking up the wounded.

A local grocer said he heard an explosion and ran out of his shop to see a Humvee in flames. Afterwards he said he saw people carrying a US soldier who had lost his legs in an explosion.
...
A three-storey building caught fire during the fighting, and a US soldier was seen escorting several children away from the structure as smoke billowed out. The army started to spray jets of water on the flaming yellow-brick building.
...
Yesterday night, two US soldiers were killed and one wounded in a firefight in Baghdad's Al-Rashid district.

"Two 1st Armoured Division soldiers were killed and one wounded in a small arms firefight ... at approximately 11pm," a Central Command statement said.

An interpreter was also hurt in the incident.

A total of 55 US troops have been killed in guerrilla-style attacks since US President George W Bush declared major combat over in Iraq on May 1, according to the US military.

Not US Soldiers, innocent Iraqi civilians. From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

At least eight people have been killed in an explosion outside a Jordanian embassy building in Baghdad, a US officer at the scene says.

The officer says the explosion is a suspected truck bomb attack.

Captain Robert Ramsey of the 1st Armoured Division said a truck exploded outside the building at around 11am (local time).
...
Some supporters of Saddam regarded Jordan as an ally of Washington and felt betrayed by a lack of support from Amman during the US-led invasion.

Not from Saddamite Werewolves though. The Australian Reports the first death as follows :

A US soldier deployed in Camp Doha, Kuwait, has died of an apparent heart attack, US Central Command said today.
The soldier complained Tuesday of having chest pains while performing convoy duties between two other coalition camps in Kuwait and later died, Centcom said in a statement.

A US soldier fell off a roof to his death in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the military said tonight.
"A soldier from the 101st Airborne Division was killed when he fell from a roof of a fixed site at 7:30 pm (0030 AEST) August 5 in Mosul," according to a statement released in Baghdad.
"The soldier was evacuated to 23rd combat support hospital and was pronounced dead at approximately 8:15 pm," it added.
At least 57 American troops have now died in non-combat incidents since US President George W. Bush declared major combat operations in Iraq over on May 1, while 53 US soldiers have been killed in guerrilla-style attacks.

The Army Times has a subscriber only story on the Army truck drivers in Iraq. The short form...

• 10 of the 50(+) combat deaths since major combat ended have been truckers
  
• There are not enough Military Police to guard truck convoys
  
• Traffic hazards, bandits and guerrilla attacks have reduced Army convoys to a single predictable main supply route; and
  
• A variety of measures including a return to Vietnam style "gun trucks" to counter the convoys' security problem.

read the rest! »

AP:

CAIRO, Egypt - Arab League members decided Tuesday not to recognize Iraq (news - web sites)'s U.S.-appointed Governing Council, saying they will wait until a government is elected.

Arab officials welcomed the council's creation as a first step toward new leadership in post-Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) Iraq. But the decision Tuesday showed that Arab governments are keeping some distance from the body — dismissed by many in Iraq and across the Arab world as a puppet of Iraq's U.S. and British occupiers.

The decision means Iraq's seat at the 22-member Arab League will remain empty for the time being.

Some positives from the Chicago Tribune:

If there is any hope that things may be going right in Iraq, it can be found beneath the whirling ceiling fans and tear-dropped chandeliers of the Shabandar cafe.

Iraqis thirsting for sweet tea and political talk have always stopped by the Baghdad cafe, even during years of tyranny. Now they come clutching fresh newspapers to openly talk about the future and, more important, what it means to be an Iraqi in these times of tumult.

...

"I haven't had electricity, and I can't read at night," said printer Qaisi Yassin, as he sipped a tiny tumbler of piping hot tea, defying yet another sweltering Baghdad morning. "And now, my child is like a bat. It's so hot he can only come out at night.

"But am I mad at the Americans? What does that mean? Were they supposed to come with a magic wand?"

...

Jafar Adel Amr is a tool salesman who has spent his Friday mornings sitting on wooden benches in the corners of Shabandar for more than 10 years. He remembers when people would cautiously size up the person next to them before speaking.

"You never knew who was sitting next to you," he said. "In the past no one would dare to just speak out. Now everybody is talking. About federalism, about a monarchy. ... I think our aims are just one, to eliminate persecution for anyone ever again."

Full Story

From the Sydney Morning Herald comes some news, and an interesting statistic :

US troops arrested at least 10 people in an early morning raid on farmhouses at Balad, 60 km north of Baghdad, the home of Saddam Hussein loyalists, a witness said.

At least 10 Iraqis were rounded up and put in US military vehicles, the witness said.

The coalition has conducted wave after wave of arrests in the Sunni Muslim triangle, north and west of Baghdad.

They hope to capture Saddam, whom they see as the chief inspiration for the deadly attacks, which have cost the lives of 53 soldiers since major combat was declared over on May 1.

Last week alone, the US military announced it had captured more than 700 people, amid a flurry of tips, since Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed on July 22 in the northern city of Mosul.

From The Australian :

Argentina would approach the US about sending troops to Iraq as part of a multinational peacekeeping force under the auspices of the UN, Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa said.

From The Australian :

US troops detained 24 people, including a "targeted leader", in a series of raids against people the US said were participating in the violent resistance to its occupation.

The Tampa, Florida-based US Central Command said yesterday's raids by the 3rd Armoured Cavalry in the so-called "Sunni Triangle" west and north of the capital netted "24 regime loyalists, including a targeted leader". It provided no details on the identities of the captives.

About 300 soldiers raided five sites on the outskirts of Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in a series of raids aimed at capturing men behind guerrilla attacks on US troops, Lieutenant Colonel Steve Russell, commander of the 22nd Infantry Regiment's 1st Battalion, said.

Soldiers failed to capture their two main targets in the raid, but detained a close associate one of the guerrilla organisers and obtained important documents and information, Russell said. The raids were launched after the Army received a tip that members of Saddam's regime would be meeting at one of the sites, but soldiers found no meeting, he said.

Very early reports are coming in that Swedish Journalists and Researchers have 'smoking gun' evidence of WMD production in Iraq as recently as last year. Unfortunately, I don't speak Swedish, but the news sources can be found here and here.

Watch, of the Winds of Change Blog, provides some translated excerpts:

"Experts from FOI [Swedish Defence Research Agency] accompanied the Monte Carlo based production company World Television Network, when they were doing a report in Iraq with a team fronted by the Swedish journalist Wera Maria Cedrell. Wera Maria Cedrell claims that she has evidence proving that Saddam's regime produced weapons of mass destructions as late as the last year."

[Fox News]

Have you seen this man? CENTCOM released on Friday, five altered images of Saddam, depicting what he may look like now, after life on the run.

You can see the images at Central Command's Web site.

Two photos show the usually shaven-cheeked Saddam with a heavy black beard. In one his face is framed by a white keffiyah headscarf of a tribal Arab, garb worn by millions of Iraqi men.

Three other photos show Saddam -- always assumed to have been either a dyed brunet or wearing a dark-brown toupee -- with hair more fitting to his 66 years, ranging from white to salt-and-pepper gray. In two of those photos, he has a mustache to match.

And looking strikingly similar to Uncle Ben.

Full story...

[Fox News]

A U.S. soldier was killed and three were wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on their convoy east of Baghdad, the military reported Saturday. The soldier, killed late Friday, was the 53rd to die in combat in Iraq since President Bush declared major fighting over on May 1. So far 167 soldiers have died in the Iraq War, 20 more than during the 1991 Gulf War.

The Arab satellite television broadcaster Al-Jazeera reported that one U.S. soldier also died Saturday morning in an attack north of the capital, but the military said it had no details on the incident.

Full story...

CNN:

TIKRIT, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. forces captured two supporters of Saddam Hussein on Friday in raids in Tikrit, the former Iraqi leader's ancestral home, military officials told CNN.

Troops from the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division raided two houses in Tikrit. Apache attack helicopters could be seen flying over the area.

The loyalists were detained and are being processed to determine whether they had any information on Saddam's whereabouts, CNN's Harris Whitbeck reported.

Military officials said that there are indications that Saddam possibly could be in the area.

ABC News Online:

Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite TV has aired what it says is a new message to the Iraqi people from ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, recorded four days ago.

In the audiotape, the speaker purported to be Saddam calls on Iraqis to safeguard the properties of the state and his toppled Baath Party until "things return to normal".

Ananova:

US teams hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have found dozens of fighter jets buried under the desert.

One Pentagon official said several Cold War-era MiG-25s interceptors and Su-25 ground attack jets were buried in sand at al-Taqqadum air field, west of Baghdad.

He said minimal effort had been taken to protect the aircraft from the sand, and that it was not clear if they would ever be able to fly again.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A soldier from the 1st Armoured Division was killed and three were wounded when their armoured personnel carrier hit a mine on the road to the US base at Baghdad International Airport.

In another daylight attack in central Baghdad, locals and US soldiers reported seeing a man fire a rocket-propelled grenade at a US tank, which missed, before fleeing.

Soldiers found a grenade launcher outside a nearby house and arrested a man inside.