CNN:

The U.S. Consulate on Friday urged Americans to take precautions amid rumors of a "day of resistance" this weekend in the Iraqi capital.

Attacks against U.S. forces and Iraqi police have escalated recently, with the most dramatic and bloodiest day coming Monday. More than 30 people were killed then in four suicide bombings in Baghdad, including an assault on the International Committee of the Red Cross headquarters.

................

Acknowledging talk that news organizations have heard in recent days, the U.S. Consulate issued a statement saying that "U.S. citizens are encouraged to continue to maintain a high level of vigilance and continue to take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness."

A number of dates have been mentioned for possible attacks, but the common one is for Saturday.

Full story

First of all, "Boo!"

That said, here's some news ... you decide how frightening it is. From the AP:

American troops clashed with rioters carrying Saddam Hussein's picture Friday in a Baghdad suburb, and a heavy smoke billowed from the mayor's office in a city west of the capital following a strong explosion.

In northern Iraq, American troops sealed off Saddam's birthplace and began issuing identity guards to the villagers to allow them free movement. The New York Times reported Friday that U.S. commanders believe the ousted leader is actively plotting some of the attacks against the coalition.

A grisly videotape showing acts of torture carried out by Iraqi Republican Guard and Saddam Fedayeen militiamen has been declassified and obtained by Fox News.

After the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in April, an Iraqi in Baghdad gave the tape to the U.S. Army's 308th Civil Affairs Brigade, V Corps. He told the soldiers he had more videos and was directly involved in their taping, having been ordered to do so by the Republican Guard.

The 23-minute long tape contains several scenes of Saddam Fedayeen fighters carrying out corporal punishment and at least one execution, probably of a Saddam Fedayeen member.

Full story and video at Fox

Iraq was hit by a string of explosions Thursday that set a freight train on fire, killed a U.S. soldier in a military convoy and ripped through Baghdad's Old Quarter. Another blast injured two U.S. soldiers on a military police patrol.

The attacks came as international organizations continued their exodus from Iraq and the U.N. secretary-general warned of ``a new phase'' in postwar violence.

A top U.S. diplomat blamed al-Qaida for recent attacks, and in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, U.S. soldiers raided six houses after receiving tips that the inhabitants were helping establish a ``new terrorist network'' there, a military spokesman said.

Full story at NYT

The life of an impoverished Baghdad Family in pictures, from the BBC.

Hat Tip: Reader Max

Also from the BBC, pictures of an awards ceremony:

In Iraq it is medals that are being handed out - 49 Medals of Valour and 124 Medals of Sacrifice are being awarded to Iraqi policemen and their relatives.

Posted By Zoe Brain at 10:19 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Welcome! Our goal is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from Iraq that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. Our "Winds of War" coverage of the global War on Terror is a separate briefing today, and both are brought to you by Dan Darling of Regnum Crucis.

Top Topics

* Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, former Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, may well be leading the Baathist fighters in Iraq. And that's not all he's doing - captured Ansar al-Islam members say that al-Douri is is working with al-Qaeda (probably meaning Zarqawi) to fight the US.

* Another suicide bombing has occurred in Iraq, this time in Fallujah.

* The 4 simultaneous suicide car bombings in Baghdad that killed 40 on Monday are said to be the work of al-Qaeda, possibly with help from neighboring states. Zeyad over at Healing Iraq concurs - and he's pissed.

* Baghdad deputy mayor Faris Abdul al-Assam has been assassinated

Other Topics Today Include: Iraqi police may have had a warning about Monday's attack; Syrian suicide bomber captured; Abu Fares dead; an al-Qaeda company involved in Iraqi reconstruction; Red Cross mulls over pulling out of Iraq; Daniel Drezner on progress in Iraq; Bangladesh and Portugal won't send troops; Calpundit crunches the numbers and wonders why the media can't; Kesher Talk gives a troop round-up; General Clapper on Iraqi WMDs; and Salon on the anti-war movement.

read the rest...

From UPI:

* * *

* * *

Via the Drudge Report.

From the CPA Website :

Key Findings

• Iraqis in these seven cities divide on whether a democracy, an Islamic state or a mix of the two is best for Iraq’s future. But regardless of their preferences for a political system, large majorities emphasize the importance of free and fair elections, the rule of law, the right to criticize the government and inclusiveness in politics.
• The main difference between those who support a democracy and those who support an Islamic state is their views on the appropriate role of religion in politics.
• Historical experience has sullied the image of political parties, especially outside of Northern Iraq where no more than one third express confidence in parties. In addition, when asked to volunteer the name of a leader they trust most, two-thirds do not name anyone.
• In the new political environment, emerging leaders are still relatively unknown. Majorities have not heard enough to evaluate most members of the Governing Council, and religious leaders have better name recognition and ratings. But Iraqis place greater value on expertise and experience in staffing their government than they do on sectarian or ethnic interests.

Strong Consensus on Value of Free Elections and Fair Representation
In all seven cities in the Office of Research poll, large majorities support what are generally considered to be democratic values. Nine in ten think it is very or somewhat important that people vote in free and fair elections (95%), that people abide by the law and criminals are punished (94%), that people can criticize the government (86%), and that major nationality (89%) and religious groups share power (87%). Majorities also value media that are independent of government censorship (78%) and rights for women that are equal to those of men (71%) [...]There is very little, if any, variation among the cities on these components, and there are only minor differences between men and women in their attitudes toward gender equity.

From The Australian :

SevenUkrainian peacekeepers were wounded when militants attacked their patrol in southern Iraq, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said today.

Two armored personnel carriers with 17 Ukrainian peacekeepers were ambushed Tuesday night near As Suwayrah, northwest of their base at Kut in southern Iraq, said Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Kostiantyn Khivrenko. Three mines exploded under the vehicles, and militants then opened fire.

Khivrenko said that the wounded soldiers' condition was stable. Five of them were hospitalized in Baghdad, and the two others suffered only slight injuries.

A Ukrainian peacekeeper died earlier this month when the vehicle he was riding in turned over.

Some 1,650 Ukrainian troops are serving in the Polish-led stabilization force patrolling southern Iraq.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

There have been further attacks in Iraq on US-led coalition forces and on Iraqi police.

At least two civilians are reported to have been killed and others injured when a police station in the northern city of Mosul came under fire.

In Tikrit, witnesses said an American soldier was wounded in an attack on a US military base.

Two 4th Infantry Division soldiers were killed and one was wounded when their tank was hit by an undetermined explosive north of Baghdad, the US military said today.

The three crewmembers of the Abrams tank were en route to a guard post when the explosion occurred Tuesday night near Balad, 70 kilometers north of Baghdad, according to the division spokeswoman, Maj. Jossyln Aberle.

The wounded soldier was evacuated to a U.S. military hospital in Germany, she said.

In two unrelated incidents today:

Unknown gunmen assassinated a deputy mayor of Baghdad in an apparent hit-run shooting, the U.S. occupation authority reported Tuesday.

And:

An editor of an Iraqi weekly newspaper was shot and killed Tuesday on the roof of his office's building, police said. His daughter said he had been threatened because of his writings.

Two men followed Ahmed Shawkat, editor of the independent "Without Direction," to the roof -- where he went to make a phone call -- and one of them shot him, police said.

[Both stories from Newsday]

by Armed Liberal

Somehow this has been briefly commented on, but not given a lot of play in the blogs I've seen. This story about the suicide bomber who was foiled yesterday is on page A6 of this morning's L.A. Times (requires registration, use 'laexaminer'/'laexaminer') - which itself is positive news. And if true, suggests that the war in Iraq is in fact a lot more complex than those who suggest that it is the "natural resistance" of the Iraqi population to foreign invaders. Here's why this story matters:

read the rest...

Capt. David Spencer is an officer with the 173rd Airborne, stationed in Northern Iraq. His father wrote the Niagara Falls Reporter and asked them to help his son out by sending him books for the troops.

"Lots of guys here read novels," he wrote his father. "A lot of them spend time sitting in safe houses where they have time to read. I've heard mention of a book exchange, where people could drop off and pick up books. I'm getting a bookcase to put in our front 'lobby,' and now we will need some books.

"I will have room for up to about 200 novels or so, and would like to get a bunch of books to start them. Suppose they don't all have to be novels, as long as it's interesting reading. Classics are fine, as these guys read just about anything they can get their hands on."

     CPT David Spencer
     Task Force 1-63 Armor
     c/o 173rd Airborne Brigade
     APO AE 09347

While one might disagree with the Niagra Falls Reporter's editorial stance on the war, it's hard not to agree with the final sentiment of the linked article:

You also might want to include a little note thanking Capt. Spencer and his comrades for their sacrifices.

Cross-posted at Ipse Dixit

The BBC's security correspondent has some sensible analysis (which is Intel-speak for "guesses backed by evidence").

Who is behind the continuing attacks in Iraq?

We have to distinguish here between the frequent, low-level hit-and-run attacks on US forces on the one hand, and the far more sinister suicide car bombings which have killed so many civilians, on the other.

Those behind the roadside bombings, the snipings and the RPG attacks on coalition troops are thought to be a mixture of Saddam loyalists, untrained Arab volunteers and ordinary Iraqis with a score to settle with the US military which may have killed members of their family during the war.

Those behind the big car bomb attacks are believed to include al-Qaeda affiliates, possibly working in collaboration with members of the former regime.

(Why didn't they use such professional analysts before?)

Hat Tip: Reader Max.

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

At least six people, including school children, have been killed after a car bomb exploded near a police station in the flashpoint town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad in Iraq, an AFP correspondent at the scene has reported.

The blast occurred when a pick up truck, belonging to the Fao construction company, exploded at 1:15pm local time, about 150 metres from the police station in Fallujah, 50 kilometres west of Baghdad, where American soldiers come regularly under attack.

Bodies were severely charred and mutilated.
[...]
Earlier, Reuters had reported that it was a suicide bomber who blew up the car near the police station in Fallujah, killing himself and four civilians, Reuters had quoted as police as saying.

Reuters report police officers said a small car driven by one man exploded 100 metres from the main police station in the town west of Baghdad, outside a boy's secondary school.

"Four civilians were killed," Major Assad Abdul Karim had said.

Meanwhile, a US military spokeswoman in Baghdad said she had no immediate information on the incident.

From AFP via Yahoo:

An explosion boomed across Baghdad just after midday (0900 GMT), AFP correspondents reported.

There was no immediate confirmation on the exact location of the blast which rocked the southwestern sector of the capital a day after five suicide bombers left 43 dead and more than 200 wounded in Baghdad.

Fox has no link yet, but is reporting in their website headline that four people have been killed in what appears to be a suicide bombing.

[UDPATE]: Six people have been killed in this latest bombing that took place in Fallujah:

Witness Hamid Ali said the bomb was located in a Toyota parked in front of the Fallujah power station and about 30 yards from a school and 100 yards from a police station

US military spokesman, Brigadier General Mark Hertling said:

"[A] man shot as he was trying to carry out another attack on a police station was carrying a Syrian passport."

The general stressed that, although co-ordinated, the attacks - on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan - were "not synchronised" and "not very professional".

Which differs from this report from Fox:

Defense officials said they believe loyalists of fallen Iraqi President Saddam Hussein were responsible for the wave of bombings. At the Pentagon, officials described the two days of violence as a significant spike in attacks that showed some level of coordination -- though how much was still unclear.

We report. You decide.

[Thanks to Anton in the comments on the previous post for the heads up on the BBC report]

The death toll has risen above 30 as of 8:30 this morning (EST), the first day of Ramadan. The dead include two American soldiers and an Iraqi policeman.

It appears to have been a series of three or four bombs, with another attempt thwarted.

Throughout the morning, four other vehicles exploded at police stations in the Baghdad area. Ambulances, sirens wailing, crisscrossed the city all morning.
"From what our indications are, none of those bombers got close to the target," U.S. Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling said.

Officers stopped a fifth would-be homicide bomber at another police station in central Baghdad before he detonated his Land Cruiser. "He was shouting, 'Death to the Iraqi police! You're collaborators!"' said police Sgt. Ahmed Abdel Sattar.

It's been confirmed that all five bombings were suicide attacks.

UPDATE: U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling said that "foreign fighters" appear to be behind the wave of bombings.

In addition to the amount of deaths already reported, at least 200 people have been injured.

An Update on USAID Reconstruction Activities in Iraq, from Andrew S. Natsios, U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator :

A huge amount has been accomplished in a very short period of time. I've been involved in more than ten reconstruction efforts in the last 14 years. This is the fastest and most massive that's occurred anywhere in the world during that time period. In fact, AID has spent about $2 billion of the $2.5 billion, which was appropriated by the Congress in the first supplemental budget.

We have never spent that much money in one country since the Marshall Plan.

This is a huge undertaking, and that is both for the food that goes into the food distribution system education sector, health sector, electricity and the other sectors. But let me just mention some of the accomplishments.

School just opened on the 4th of October. 1,000 -- more than 1,600 schools have been reconstructed, refurbished. That means that the electrical wiring has been replaced, new fans have been put in, new electrical lights, windows have been repaired, the latrines -- the bathrooms -- have been repaired, the plumbing's been put back on. And there are more than 1,600 of these schools across the country.

We've printed, working with UNICEF and UNESCO-- two UN agencies-- 5.6 million textbooks in math and science, and 76 different textbooks, but it's in the math and science area. They have been purged of propaganda and they were done through the UN mechanisms that are used all over the world for producing textbooks for these areas, but of course, they're in Arabic and they are sensitive to the cultural context in which they're produced. They worked with the Ministry of Education career Iraqi staff.

We also produced a million and a half back-to-schoolbags for every high school student. There are a million and a half high school students going back to school and they have a canvas bag with a calculator in it and a compass and pencils and paper and rulers and that sort of thing.

We've trained over 50,000 teachers in a more Socratic method of questions and answers, of debates in class as opposed to rote learning, which is not the best kind of educational mechanisms to use in our view, particularly in a democratic society. And so school buildings, textbooks, training of teachers -- there's a new direction for school and school now is back up to or exceeds the enrollment levels that had existed prior to the conflict.
[...]
Secondly, in the electricity sector, we're now back up to -- we were as of two weeks ago -- 4400 megawatts was the pre-war production of electrical energy in the country. And we've taken a couple of plants offline in the last week in order to preventative maintenance on them. The peak demand is in the summertime and we're now witnessing lower level temperatures in Baghdad and the central part of the country, so there's less demand.

We've also installed new electrical generators in the water -- the sanitation and water plants around the country in order to take those plants off the power grid, which will make the -- if there are problems with power transmission -- the water and sewer systems will still function because they will not be dependent on the electrical grid for electrical power. They will be -- they would get their power generated locally. This is an added security measure.

We also have initiated a massive reconstruction of the water infrastructure of the country, which is in terrible condition, which is one reason that the child mortality rate is so high in Iraq -- it's mainly because of filthy water. We have begun a whole reconstruction effort for the pumping stations, the water pumping stations, and the treatment plants and then the sewerage treatment plants.
[...]

The piping has been repaired in many of the cities. The last thing I would mention is something that is not widely known, which is that the great bulk of the contracts, sub-contracts, have gone to Iraqi firms. And that was because Ambassador Bremer asked that we employ as many Iraqis as possible. We have about 72 USAID staff in Iraq. There are another 600 contractor staff who are expatriates -- they're from other countries -- working for American contractors or subcontractors. And there are 55,000 Iraqis who are paid a daily wage to work in carrying out the subcontracts on rebuilding the 1600 schools, rebuilding dozens of hospitals, rebuilding 70 health clinics around the country, working on the water and sewerage treatment plants, working on community development projects.

We have also given out more than 800 small grants to these new municipal councils that have been formed. And the councils decide what the priorities are, and how they will spend the money, and then we work with them in developing capacity-building training programs for these new municipal councils on how you write a capital budget, an operating budget, how you develop an accounting system for money, how you prevent money from being stolen in the public sector, how you do proper procurement, so everybody can participate in it.

That training is going on now, but these 800 small grants are also meaning that the city councils and town councils at the local level are beginning their own reconstruction effort on smaller projects at the village and the city level. So anyway, those are some of the things going on. A lot of activity is taking place, and the fact that 55,000 Iraqis are now working on these projects is a testament to how the Iraqi people themselves are engaged in the reconstruction of their own country.

QUESTION: Hi, my name is Khaled Abdel Kareem with Middle East News Agency of Egypt, and my question is: You just told us about the goods news, and that's great. But can we get back for a moment to the bad news? What are the aspects when the construction processes are still lagging behind, and why, in your view? That's first.

And second, can you brief us on the extent of Arab contribution to the reconstruction process? Are the Arab companies providing any services over there? Thank you.

MR. NATSIOS: Well, in terms of the -- I could give you the subcontract breakdown from Bechtel. Okay?

There are 109 Iraqi companies that now have subcontracts with Bechtel. There are seven Kuwaiti companies, five Saudi companies. I don't -- there are three other. I don't know what the others are. But the great bulk, the great bulk of the contracts are going to Iraqi companies and other Middle Eastern companies because they're in the region, and we want as many Iraqis employed as possible.

Two, the reconstruction process is not lagging behind. The perception in the media, particularly in the Middle East, is that nothing's happening. That's simply not true. And I spent a week there in June, and my staff is there every day. 72 of them are giving me reports every single day. There's a massive reconstruction effort in the country going on right now. And if you want tours of these facilities with the local governing councils, to show what the facilities looked like before, we have photographs of before and after.

Many of these schools, by the way -- none of this damage we're talking about -- almost none of it, is from the war. It's from a deterioration of infrastructure because money was not put by the Baathist Party into public infrastructure from before the Iran-Iraq War. They put a lot of money in the late 1970s, and the early 1980s, in schools, hospitals, clinics, and once the war with Iran started, all that money got sucked into the military, and they haven't recovered from that. They have not recovered from that since 1983 -- 20 years ago. The port of Um Qasr is now one of the most modern ports in the entire Middle East. It's completely dredged, which has not taken place since 1983.

We've taken out the equivalent of 23 football fields of silt out of it. We've taken out 19 sunken ships and 250 pieces of unexploded ordnance, or bombs, out of the facility. Now, any large ship can go into it without any trouble at all, which was not the case, and hasn't been, again, since the early '80s.
[...]
QUESTION: Michael Backfisch, Germany Business Daily, Handelsblatt. Could you provide us some more key data about the progress which has been made, compared to pre-war level? As I understand, 89 percent of electricity is at pre-war level. What's the equivalent in water supply, health care and other areas? And what's the percentage of the country which is sort of back to normal right now? And in contrast to that, what are your worries in the problem areas?

MR. NATSIOS: Well, electrical power is at 100 percent of pre-war levels as of a week ago. What we did in the last week is there are two plants we had to take offline ourselves. It was not because of sabotage or breakdown, but we had to conduct preventative maintenance that had not been done in a couple years on those plants. And so the important thing is, is there enough power being generated for the requirements of the country? The peak low in Iraq is during the summer months -- July, August -- June, July, August are the top months. Now we're into October and the demand is much lower because the heat has diminished, you know.
[...]
That is beyond us now. That is behind us. And the plan is to increase the number of kilowatts from 4400, which is what it was before the war, to 6,000 by next summer, because we will have another peak next summer and we expect a lot of industries to come back online, because pouring all this money into the economy is having an effect.

We've got factories working just to build desks for the Iraqi ministries that were looted. We've got 2,000 Iraqis working full time building desks and tables for Iraqi government ministries.
[...]
In the area of water, water supply now is above pre-war levels in all the major cities: in Baghdad, in Basra, we could go down the list. The question is not how much water, but the purity of the water. We do not have a really good, accurate indication of what the purity level is of the water, but you can tell from the child mortality rates. They're extremely high. The child death rate in Iraq, according to data that was provided by the UN agencies prior to the conflict, were about 129 - 131 per 1,000 of the kids died before they were five. The comparable rate in India, for example, is 102. Half of Africa is lower than 100. Jordan it's 27. In Western Europe and the United States, it's about 10 kids die before their fifth birthday.

So Iraq has an extraordinarily high rate. Why is that? Because of poor immunizations. We've immunized, now, 3 million Iraqi children under the age of five from the major diseases, which is what they were dying from.
[...]
We've rehabilitated 20 delivery hospitals serving 300,000 residents in Basra. We have about 100,000 pregnant and nursing mothers and malnourished children who are receiving high protein biscuits which will raise their nutrition level, because they had very poor -- a very serious problem with iron deficiencies, anemia. 50 percent of the women who were pregnant had severe anemia and they were not being treated properly.

And so, you can go through the list, and in the health sector, things are improving. We've also distributed, I think, 3 or 4 million doses or oral re-hydration salts, which is what a kid should take if they get diarrhea, severe diarrheal disease from dirty water. There were almost none in the country that were being used before. I was shocked at the low level of usage. Probably the lowest level in the world was in Iraq. And apparently there was a real problem in getting the oral re-hydration salts distributed -- UNICEF had terrible problems with the Iraqi Government in allowing the stuff out of the, out of the warehouses.
[...]
QUESTION: How much of the country would you say is back to normal?

MR. NATSIOS: I would say that at least 70 percent of the country is back to normal. In fact, in many areas, it's substantially improved over what it was before the war: in terms of the markets functioning, in terms of public services being provided, like water and like health services. Health services are far better now than they were before the war. The budget for Iraq for health was $10 million for the whole country before the war. It's now $200 million a year.

QUESTION: Alan Beattie from Financial Times. Mr. Natsios, as you know, there's been quite a lot of criticism of the lack of transparency of the -- of USAID's and the CPA's operations in Iraq --

MR. NATSIOS: I'm not aware of any criticism of AID. I don't know about anybody else.

QUESTION: Okay, about CPA --

MR. NATSIOS: --and everything that we've done has been completely transparent. It's on our website, it's been on our website for eight months. Anybody who wants to see it, just look up the website. All the contracts are there, all the subcontracts are there, all the budgets are there. They've been there all along. Anybody who wanted to could look them up.

QUESTION: Okay. Can I -- if I can broaden this out --

MR. NATSIOS: Sure.

QUESTION: -- to the, you know, the general reconstruction. I mean, in view of, for example, the fact that open tendering for contracts still haven't been introduced and --

MR. NATSIOS: Sir, you say these things, and I read some of the stuff in the Financial Times. It's simply inaccurate. You keep repeating these things, they are not accurate, and I think it's really deceptive to do it. So I would urge you to get your facts straight.

QUESTION: Okay, I'm asking you --

MR. NATSIOS: There is open tendering for all AID contracts, sir. There was open tendering prior to this, okay? Under the Federal Contracting Law, we did do tendering. One, since the war started, there have been full and fair competitions for these contracts. We just awarded an agriculture contract. It was full and fair competition. It was on the website. Anybody could bid on it, and they did. And it was awarded. And we've just bid another one for a major $1.5 billion construction contract. That was also on the Web.

QUESTION: When you say Internet, does that include all international companies or just U.S. companies?

MR. NATSIOS: No. We are following federal law, and that is not a matter of transparency, sir. It's a matter of federal statute. And it's a public statute. And other donor governments like the British Government, and the European Governments and the European Union do exactly the same thing. I've seen no criticism in your articles, sir, about any European countries that do exactly the same thing. The French Government has always done only French companies bidding. But you never mention that in your articles.

QUESTION: Okay. I don't want to get into a back and forth, because it's not true that we've never criticized hired aid and other countries. U.K. Government, by the way, has abolished hired aid. But if I can just -- if we can just, if we can just now push it forward, a large proportion -- I don't think the Administration's yet given the amount, but I think it's --

MR. NATSIOS: Let me just go back to this. It is a function of federal law, so it's irrelevant what -- what you think should be the case. The fact is there are federal laws AID must comply with.

QUESTION: Sure. Can I -- but let me just put this forward.

MR. NATSIOS: Yes.

QUESTION: AID -- I think the Administration said a large part, or much, but haven't given the proportions of the U.S. contribution of $20 billion or so --

MR. NATSIOS: I'm sorry?

QUESTION: -- will be, will be -- the U.S. contribution to reconstruction will be spent bilaterally --

MR. NATSIOS: That's correct.

QUESTION: -- and a small part will be through the trust fund. Can you just say what causes you to give that breakdown? Why not put it all through the trust fund?

MR. NATSIOS: Why would we put any of it through the trust fund? The trust fund is not designed for major donors. We're the largest aid agency in the world. We're larger, by far, than any UN agency.
[...]
...AID spent $14.9 billion last year. I mean, if we put all that money in trust funds, the trust funds would break down because they can't handle that much money.
[...]
A lot of our money directly goes not from trust funds from AID through UN agencies. We put $200 million in cash through the World Food Program that ran the food program, the public distribution system, from the time the conflict began until this November. That was in cash from the U.S. Government, plus 500,000 tons of food.

We've given UNICEF, I think, $50 million. We've given UNESCO $10 million. We've given the World Health Organization $10 million. And so rather than put money in these trust funds, we move it directly into the UN agencies that are operating on the ground, that have high levels of transparency and competence in their programming, and that we've worked with around the world. So there is an integrated international effort that is going on in Iraq, even though it may not be highly visible.

That's OK - it's on the website. You just have to know where to look.

Half of the rockets that hit the Baghdad hotel over the weekend - killing an American colonel, a British citizen, and 17 others - and almost hitting Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz...

... were modern - post-embargo - French munitions.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

The Associated Pressreports::

A series of explosions rocked Baghdad early Monday, including one in front of the international Red Cross building that police said killed at least two people and injured several others. The blasts came a day after after insurgents attacked a heavily guarded hotel, killing an American colonel.

One witness said Monday's bomb at the Red Cross was packed in an ambulance but there was no confirmation from police.

Iraqi police Lt. Sultan Mohammed said the blast was caused by a car bomb. He said the driver and perhaps a passerby were killed. Two cars could be seen burning in front of the building.

A Red Cross staffer, Mahdi Saad, said several people were believed to have been killed or injured inside the building, which appeared to have suffered some damage.

Three other blasts could be heard throughout the city Monday following the Red Cross blast, which occurred after 8:30 a.m. Witnesses said one blast was in the al-Khadra neighborhood, where the relief organization CARE is located. Another was in the al-Shaab district, another witness said.

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. Today's "Winds of War" is brought to you by Andrew Olmsted of Andrew Olmsted dot com.

TOP TOPICS

• Al Qaeda scored a big propaganda victory over the weekend with a rocket attack on the Al Rasheed hotel that succeeded in killing an American Colonel and wounding at least 18, while driving U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary out of the hotel. The attack marked a new facet in terrorism, using a cart loaded with RPGs to launch a barrage of rockets against the hotel. Although minimally effective in terms of damage inflicted, the success in striking such a high-profile target and escaping unharmed will probably help the anti-U.S. groups to recruit additional terrorists to their side.

• JK: Phil Carter has some great stuff on global terrorist financing from the United States to the Middle East.

read the rest...

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

A US Army Black Hawk helicopter was shot down today by ground fire near Tikrit, a centre of Iraq's anti-US insurgency, injuring five soldiers, US officials said.

Two helicopters were flying overhead when the second one in the formation was hit by a projectile, believed to be a rocket propelled grenade, witnesses said.

The stricken chopper circled, swayed then came down in a farming area while the other hovered overhead, they said.

"A helicopter did go down," Captain Jefferson Wolfe, a spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division, said. "We can confirm it. It was a Black Hawk. We are investigating."

In Baghdad, the US military command said the five people on board were injured but were "safely evacuated". The command did not say why the helicopter went down but added that after it crashed it received ground fire.

According to Reuters:

Anti-American guerrillas blasted the Baghdad hotel where U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying with a barrage of rockets on Sunday, but the No. 2 Pentagon official survived unharmed, U.S. officials said.

A defiant Wolfowitz vowed that the United States would not be cowed into abandoning Iraq after the brazen attack that he said may have killed one American.

Up to 15 people were wounded in the strike that is a setback for the Bush administration, undermining its insistence that the United States is winning the guerrilla war in Iraq.

The blast of the rockets hitting the Rashid Hotel at about 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) echoed across the city as a clear, rapid series of explosions. Several guests were thrown from their beds by the impact.

Some people were carried out of the hotel on stretchers and others walked away with blood on them after at least six rockets slammed into the building, destroying rooms a few stories below Wolfowitz's on the 12th floor, witnesses said.

Wolfowitz, a major force behind the United States invading Iraq, was led away by security forces and appeared composed after descending a stairwell past thickening smoke and blood stains, witnesses said.

"These terrorist attacks will not deter us from completing our mission, which is to help the Iraqi people free themselves from the types of criminals who did this and protect the American people from this kind of terrorism," Wolfowitz told reporters hours after the attack.

From Defend America:

* * *

* * *

Commanders have been working with Iraqi Police, Facility Protection Services, and the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps to search for weapons and weapons-making materials hidden inside Iraqi religious sites, said Capt. Tyson Voelkel, commander of Company A, 3rd Battalion, 325th AIR.

The threat these extremists pose is extremely difficult to counter, said Fuller, but the majority of the Iraqi people are making tremendous progress towards forming a representative government and setting the conditions for peace and prosperity.

From Marine Corps News:

* * *

* * *

Ortega recalled the situation he and his Marines were faced with that day as he was serving as a squad leader moving in an armored column along Highway 1 in Iraq.

* * *

From The Australian :

The coalition-backed police chief of the southern Iraqi city of Amarah was shot dead as he left a mosque after prayers, officials said today.

Brigadier Hamid Hadi Hassan al-Abe was leaving the al-Hussein mosque after Friday prayers when he was gunned down by assailants firing from several locations, according to police Major Kathim Mohsen Hamadi.

The assailants escaped, Hamadi said. Several hundred men, many of them armed with rifles and pistols, turned out today for the funeral of al-Abe, whose body will be buried in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

The overnight curfew that has been in effect in Baghdad for the past six months will be lifted on Sunday, in time for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, authorities announced.

"Coalition authorities have informed the Baghdad City Council that the curfew in Baghdad will be lifted beginning 4am on October 26," council chairman Adnan Abdul Sahib Hassan said.

"Despite some highly publicised attacks by terrorists and supporters of the former regime, the overall security situation in Baghdad has improved," he said.

The official said that lifting the curfew was "a great step forward for the people of Baghdad during the blessed month of Ramadan".

From the BBC (British, no longer Baghdad, Broadcasting Corporation) :

The international community has been disclosing how much money it will provide for Iraqi reconstruction, with donations proving more generous than expected.

Although the total pledged at the donors' conference in Madrid is likely to fall far short of the estimated $56bn needed to rebuild the war-torn country, substantial amounts have already been promised.

Japan became the biggest donor after the United States by pledging $3.5bn in low-interest loans, on top of $1.5bn in grants already announced.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait each pledged $1bn, while the US has already promised $20bn.
[...]
The new fund is designed to lure donors wary of US control, although some aid groups have reportedly questioned whether it will be able to make decisions on the ground.

The BBC's Katya Adler in Madrid says the mood has been more upbeat on the conference's final day, with the outcome less bleak than expected.

Our correspondent says the sums involved will be enough to kick-start Iraqi reconstruction, although they are unlikely to cover all the country's medium-term needs.

The World Bank has said $36bn is needed for rebuilding Iraq, while the US-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority says nearly $20bn more will have to be spent on security and the oil sector.
[...]
Countries such as France, Germany and Russia, which opposed the US-led war with Iraq, have said they will not donate more than they have already pledged.
[...]
Pledges already made include:

$20bn from the United States
$5bn from Japan
$3bn-$5bn from the World Bank
$1bn from Saudi Arabia
$1bn from Kuwait
$835m from Britain
$300m from Spain
$231m from the European Union
$200m from South Korea
$174m from Italy
$150m from Canada
$32.6m from Sweden
$5.9m from Belgium

And from the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The Australian Government will contribute up to $20 million in additional reconstruction assistance for the people of Iraq.

Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs Chris Gallus made the announcement at the International Donors' Conference in Madrid.

"The $20 million will contribute to Iraqi needs in agriculture, water resources, food security, health and education, and be channelled through a multi-donor trust fund established by the United Nations and the World Bank," she said.

"Our aid is addressing the immediate needs of the Iraqi people and has helped avert a humanitarian crisis."

Ms Gallus said the contribution added to the $100 million Australia has already committed to Iraq.

And remember, you can always donate Toys to Iraq. FLASH Fedex is now donating FREE SHIPPING from the US to Iraq for at least some of them. All you have to do is get them to the OPERATION GIVE warehouse.

That address:

Operation Give
7155 Columbia Gateway Drive
Columbia, MD 21046

Please see this site for a list of culturally acceptable toys.

A mate of mine (as mentioned in a previous post) is with the 299th Engineering Battalion, 4th Infantry Division. (Considering the record of the Aussie SASR in Iraq, my appreciation in that post was reasonably accurate, given that it had been written over a year before the war began).

A quote from an MSNBC reporter's personal blog detailing what the 299th has been doing recently: namely, blowing things up.

Saturday morning just east of Baji; the combat engineers of Battalion 299 Charlie Company are doing what they like doing best: blowing things up.

Today's cache is a bunch of Russian-made SA2 surface to air missiles strewn across the desert like pixie stix.

The 299's laid-back commanding officer, Lt. Colonel Mark Huron says the mission, though typical, is an important one.

"They contain certain components," he says, "and if they fall into the wrong hands could be fashioned into an I.E.D."

That's Army lingo for improvised explosive device...
[...]
In postwar Iraq these guys are the Hail Mary squad;ready to do what their asked, from treating drinking water, to building bridges, to destroying weapons caches which could be used against coalition forces.
[...]
Taking the lead from their commanding officer and their Sgt. Major, they seem to me the calmest, most even tempered men in the Army.

After all the SA2's are rigged, Charlie Company needs to put in a blast request to Division Command. It's much more than a Fourth of July fireworks show - so airspace has to be cleared along with people, houses, and flocks of sheep. The engineers once detonated dozens of warheads in one shot. The explosion was so large it was seen on NASA's satellites.

But there's a problem. They are in a desert valley and their radio communications won't reach Division headquarters in Tikrit. They send a four-man squad up the hill in a Humvee to try and make radio contact.

But as they're driving, three men firing from a nearby ravine ambush the squad. Luckily the attackers are bad shots. AK-47 rounds go wide and a rocket propelled grenade sails overhead. The engineers return fire with the guttural thumping of the 50-caliber machine gun mounted on the vehicle. The suspected attackers flee, but are quickly captured. No weapons are found in the ravine, but there are dozens of spent shell casings.

Within minutes the Iraqi men, all in their early to mid-twenties, begin to turn on each other. They not only admit their guilt; but also point out a nearby house where they say they have accomplices.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

The US occupation authority in Iraq rejected claims that billions of dollars earmarked for rebuilding the country had gone missing in "opaque" bank accounts.

Coalition Provisional Authority head Paul Bremer said all funds were being spent or transferred in a "completely transparent" way.

"The entire accounts of the Development Fund for Iraq will be posted on the internet and made available on a regular basis to the members of the international board," Bremer said.

He said the CPA had moved to hire its own independent auditor to go over the fund's accounts and that its findings would be made public.

"There is absolutely no question about transparency," Bremer told reporters at an international donors conference for Iraq, at which the US and others are expected to pledge billions in assistance.

"I have absolutely no qualms about it, I don't think we have anything to apologise for. There are no secrets about it."

The British-based charity Christian Aid alleged that $US4 ($A5.69) billion out of an estimated $US5 ($A7.11) billion had "disappeared into opaque bank accounts" administered by the CPA.

From The Australian :

One Iraqi was killed and six wounded in a mortar or rocket attack at an outdoor market in the capital's Dura neighborhood, police Colonel Abbas Nasser Hussein said.

"At 8:00 pm (0300 AEST) yesterday, two shells fell in Dura, one on a market, where it killed one and wounded six, and the other on an empty construction site," Hussein said Friday.

"The dead man was handicapped and was selling cigarettes," he said, adding the others had been taken to hospital.

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from Iraq that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. Today's Iraq Report and Winds of War coverage of the global War on Terror are brought to you by Dan Darling of Regnum Crucis.

TOP TOPICS

* As my esteemed colleague Andrew Olmsted noted in his last Iraq Briefing, suicide bombers have struck Baghdad yet again, this time in Sadr City, leaving 8 dead. At the same time, Spanish diplomat Jose Antonio Bernal Gomez was gunned down outside his Baghdad home.

* Sgt. Stryker has a number of interesting thoughts and articles on Iraq that you have to read for yourself.

Other Topics Today Include: Al-Sadr's latest antics; arrests in Tikrit; #3 in Ansar al-Islam captured; thwarted assassination on Iraqi oil minister; new Iraqi blogger; the first Iraqi Burger King; free media in Tikrit; US troops learning the ropes of Iraqi society; Governing Council elections in 2004; $36 billion needed for Iraqi reconstruction; Shi'ite in-fighting in Karbala; 71% of Baghdadis want the US to stay; no timetable on Iraq; US-Turkish cooperation; South Korean to send troops; Iraqi newspaper says Saddam Hussein trained al-Qaeda; and Saddam's slush fund in Syria.

read the rest...
 

Continuing the BBC's new, improved and Unspun look comes this report :

Almost every Iraq story in the news in the United States focuses on the cost of the war and occupation - in terms of lives and dollars.

Officials seem to hope that will change for a few days, even if nothing else comes out of the Madrid donors' conference.

At the most basic level, the aim of the two-day international conference is to get pledges of financial support for the rebuilding and regeneration of post-Saddam Iraq.

But the largest donations have already been announced and administration chiefs including Secretary of State Colin Powell admit they expect no surprise gifts from countries such as France and Russia.

So instead, officials are changing their definitions of success for Madrid, while highlighting the good news stories they say are already happening in Iraq.

At one of several briefings ahead of the start of the conference Al Larson, the Undersecretary of State for economic, business and agricultural affairs, said promises of donated dollars were less important than the overall impression given.

"My definition of success for the conference is whether the Iraqi people, the Iraqi representatives at this meeting leave with a sense of confidence that they have the support of the international community behind them and that, working together, they are going to be able to achieve this vision for the new Iraq," he said.

[...]

REBUILDING PLEDGES

US - $20bn
World Bank - $3bn-$5bn
Japan - $1.5bn
UK - $835m
Spain - $300m
EU - $231m

[...]

While there may be positive outcomes from the Madrid conference, Andrew Natsios, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), insists that great advances are being made in the following the end of Saddam Hussein's regime.

He said new partnerships would be announced in Spain, but there were already projects where international agencies were co-operating with private companies and Iraqis to get things done.

He told a briefing at the American Enterprise Institute that USAID was making advances in many "good news" projects, such as supplying school kits to children, including paper, a calculator and a pair of compasses - as well as rebuilding schools and putting generators at each water plant so any power cuts did not affect vital water and sewage systems.

He said tens of thousands of Iraqis were now employed in regeneration projects and that helped to engender security and boost the economy.

If people were employed they would not be roaming the streets looking for trouble and their income could be spent in the growing private sector, such as on satellite TV dishes, he said.

Hat Tip : Reader Max

From The Australian :

Iraqi police said today they arrested the "mastermind" of recent attacks against US-led coalition troops and police around the northern city of Kirkuk.

"Police arrested Ali Mohamed Ali, 35, the mastermind of the attacks against US forces and local police over the past three weeks," said Lieutenant Nooman Omar, who runs Al-Oruba police station in Kirkuk, 260 kilometres north of Baghdad.

The man was arrested overnight and hails from the northern Nineveh province, Omar said.

"In his first confession, he claimed he was responsible for many of the attacks that targeted the Americans and Iraqi police," he said, adding that the suspect was handed over to US forces who took him to Kirkuk airport.

Omar said police were now searching for four of the man's accomplices, who are suspected of being behind a rocket attack yesterday that hit the house of the police commander who arrested Ali.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Two US soldiers were wounded in a bomb attack on a convoy in Baghdad on Wednesday, a military spokeswoman said.

"Two 1st Armoured Division soldiers were wounded in an improvised explosive device attack against a military vehicle convoy in Baghdad at approximately 6:45 am," she said.

The pair were treated in hospital, she said, giving no details on their condition.

The BBC has not been exactly a fanatical supporter of either the Liberation of Iraq, or any pretence at balanced reporting.

This may be changing.

Exhibit 1 : From the BBC :

The teachers at Al-Hadif primary school in Baghdad were out on the front steps, ready to greet children for the start of a new term - and a new era in Iraqi education. But few came.

This was just an informal meet-and-greet day. A chance for teachers, parents and children to get to know each other. They were not expecting a busy day.

Even so, the newly-painted classrooms and hallways at Al-Hadif were quiet, except for the occasional crack of gunfire from a skirmish not far away.

Maida Sabah has taught English at Al-Hadif for 15 years. But as far as she was concerned, this year would be the start of something good in Iraq's schools.

She was already thinking about how to spend her pay rise. Under Saddam Hussein, she was paid the equivalent of $4 a month. Under the Coalition Authority, she is getting a monthly wage of $120.
[...]
Outside, old furniture and a blackboard lay propped up at one end of the schoolyard. Broken desks and other pieces of junk were piled high along the side of the yard.

The yard itself was covered in the mucky residue of builder's cement.

I bumped into a senior figure in Iraq's new education ministry, who happened to be visiting the school. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he expressed his anger that the renovation work at the school had not been finished in time for the new term.

Persuading parents that the streets are safe enough to take their children to school was one problem, he hinted. Making the schools decent places to learn and play was another.

Like so much else in Iraq, education is clearly a work in progress.

Exhibit 2 : Also from the BBC, the Photo Journal of an Iraqi Police Officer. Some quotes :

As part of a BBC News Online series about people's daily lives, Baghdad police officer Muhammad Abd Hussein describes a day in Iraq's recently re-formed police service.

I have been working at this station in central Baghdad for more than two years, during which time I've experienced the abuses by Saddam Hussein's security forces, the destruction of public buildings after the war and the rebuilding of this station as a place providing real services to the neighbourhood.
[...]
The area in front of the station has been fortified with large sandbags, lots of razor wire and tank traps, and half the two-lane road has been blocked.

All this is to stop attacks on targets connected to the new Iraqi Government by forces who don't want a return to stability.
[...]
Morale at the station is high. The public are responding well to the new service we are providing.

One good thing is our new blue uniforms - before we wore olive green and were indistinguishable from the army or Saddam's security forces.
[...]
The American military police (MPs) arrive at the station from their camp at about 0900.

They are here to help protect the premises and help us solve any problems we might have. But most of the work serving the Iraqi public we do ourselves.
[...]

The station is being refurbished, having been completely vandalised and looted in the days after the fall of the old regime.

The builders are nearly finished, with just some painting and other odd jobs to do.

I understand why people wanted to destroy things connected to the regime, but I'm angry at looters who did stupid things like stealing water tanks or smashing toilets.

And finally, another photo journal, this time from a US Reservist.

As part of a BBC News Online series about people's daily lives, American reservist Frank O'Farrell talks about his work helping destitute Iraqis in Baghdad on behalf of the US Army Civil Affairs section.

I've been in Baghdad since April, working on projects to alleviate some of the problems the Iraqis had after the war.

In wartime, it's the job of Civil Affairs to mitigate interference between the military and civilian worlds. Afterwards it's our job to "secure the victory".
[...]
We were based at the Canal Hotel compound, where UN headquarters are. But it was the target of two bombings so we had to move.
[...]

I carry an M16 rifle and recently we've been assigned a 9mm handgun for personal protection. Outside the base we wear body armour and helmet.

I've fired only five rounds since I arrived here, to blow out the tires of a truck whose occupants were looting a hospital.

With the nature of our work, which mainly takes place inside buildings, the M16 is not that suitable a weapon. I'd prefer an M4, which is shorter and less cumbersome.
[...]
Lots of other reservists have been griping about how our tour of duty here has been lengthened, from a year to a year in theatre - that is in the Mid-East. But I'm happy to stay as long as I'm needed. This is what I enlisted for.

(Hat Tip: Reader Max, whose monitoring of the Beeb has been exceptional)

The new Baghdad Burger King is in the TOP TEN IN THE WORLD in sales!

You ain't free until you can get a cheap burger just the way you like it!

Next: A Starbucks in Tehran and a Quiznos in Pyongyang...

Via trying to grok.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A US soldier was killed and five were wounded in an attack in the Iraqi city of Fallujah Monday, a coalition statement said.

"At 1:00 pm today in Fallujah, a patrol from the 82nd Airborne Division was attacked," the statement said.

It said the attack involved an explosive device "followed by small arms fire".

"One was killed in action and five were wounded."

Healing Iraq

Add this to your other bloggey sources of first-hand information,

Salem Pax (The Original Baghdad Blogger)

Baghdad Burning (Excellent Links to other Iraqi sites)

G in Baghdad (No 3 on the Hit Parade)

Ishtar Talking (The Bi-Lingual Basra Blogette)

Thanks to reader Pass the Gas for pointing me to the last one.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Two US Marine reservists have been charged with negligent homicide in connection with the June death of an Iraqi prisoner of war.

Major Clark Paulus and Lance Corporal Christian Hernandez were among a group of eight Marine reservists charged in connection with allegations of mistreatment of prisoners of war.

The eight are now back in the United States.

Major Paulus and Corporal Hernandez were also charged with dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, and assault.

More from The Australian :

The eight fought in Iraq as part of the First Marine Division during the campaign to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein and were detailed to guard a prisoner-of-war camp called Camp Whitehorse outside the southern city of Nasiriyah.

"These men have been charged in connection with maltreatment of Iraqi prisoners of war," said Marine spokesman Staff Sergeant Bill Lisbon, adding that the charges ranged from negligent homicide to assault and dereliction of duty.

All eight have now been moved to Camp Pendleton, a Marine Corps base outside San Diego, California, where they are going through various pretrial hearings, Lisbon said.

The homicide and other charges were formally filed on Thursday, but no date for a court martial has been set.

Military prosecutors allege that an Iraqi man named Nagem Sadoon Hatab died at Camp Whitehorse in early June following a possible beating by US guards. Details of the incident remain unclear.

The most serious and sweeping accusations are being leveled against Major Clark Paulus, who has been charged with negligent homicide, assault, cruelty and maltreatment, dereliction of duty and making false statements, Lisbon said.

The other officer involved in the case, Major William Vickers, faces just one count of dereliction of duty, he said.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has conceded for the first time that Ankara might abandon plans to send troops to Iraq if they are not wanted in the war-ravaged country.

"If we are wanted we will go, if we are not wanted we will not. We have not made a 'must' decision," Anatolia news agency quoted Mr Erdogan as saying.

"Iraq is our neighbour and will continue to be so in the future. We will not undertake anything that may lead to problems. The demands of the Iraqi people are very important for us."

Iraq Policy Spurs Criticism of Bush Doctrine was a piece on National Public Radio this morning by Mike Shuster. The piece plays segments from several recent Bush administration speeches (Rice, Bush, Cheney and Powell) and then gives commentary by critics of the Bush Administration's "strike-first" foreign policy.

I don't have a transcript at this time, but hope to secure one soon. It's worth a listen to see what "experts" are going to be saying about the Iraq war.

[CNN]

fierce gunbattle near a mosque in the holy Shiite city of Karbala continued Friday, after three U.S. military police and two Iraqi police were killed by a previously unknown faction, according to coalition officials.

Five U.S. military police and two Iraqi police were wounded in the attack, which involved rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 gunfire, U.S. Maj. Ralph Manos said.

Manos did not specify the circumstances of the attack in his official coalition account of what happened.

"While on routine patrol, Iraqi police and American MPs (military police) were attacked by 20 to 30 Iraqis," Manos said. There were no other coalition casualties, he added.

Full story...

[Fox News]

In a slam-dunk vote, the U.N. Security Council approved Thursday a U.S.-drafted resolution to help reconstruct Iraq.

All 15 Security Council members -- including Syria -- voted in favor of the measure to authorize a multinational force under U.S. command and call for troop contributions from other countries. The measure also seeks "substantial pledges" from the 191 United Nations member states.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan commended the council members for having reached a "significant agreement on what obviously is an important resolution to address a complex situation in Iraq.

"The process has been difficult but the outcome is a clear demonstration of the will of all the members of the Security Council to place the interests of the Iraqi people above all other considerations."

That decision -- announced by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at a European summit in Brussels -- marked a dramatic shift by the three European countries, who had bitterly opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Full story...

From The Australian :

Two US soldiers died in a military vehicle accident in Baghdad and another was found dead, floating in the Euphrates river in the northwestern Iraqi town of Haditha, coalition forces said.

"Two 1st Armored Division soldiers were killed and one was injured in a military vehicle accident with a civilian vehicle" in Baghdad Monday, the US-led coalition said in a statement.

It also said a 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment soldier was found dead in the Euphrates river, in Haditha, 250 kilometres northwest of Baghdad.

"The soldier was found floating in the river approximately 20 minutes after being reported missing" on Monday evening, the statement said.

It said doctors tried to revive the soldier at the scene.

[Fox News]

At least one person was killed and two or three injured Tuesday when a car bomb exploded at the gates of the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad, witnesses and U.S. soldiers said.

Last week, Turkish lawmakers approved the deployment of Turkish troops to Iraq as part of a peacekeeping force, despite widespread Iraqi opposition. Turks ruled Iraq for several hundred years until the Ottoman Empire collapsed during World War I.

The private Turkish television station CNN-Turk reported that two people had been injured in the blast. Turkish NTV television said the two were embassy employees.

Iraqi police said one person was dead, presumably the bomber, and that there had been no damage to the embassy building itself. Reporters were being kept 200 meters away from the scene, which was completely cordoned off, and military helicopters were flying overhead.

Full story....

Welcome! Our goal is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from Iraq that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. Today's Iraq Report and Winds of War coverage of the wider conflict are brought to you by Andrew Olmsted of Andrew Olmsted dot com.

TOP TOPICS

• Suicide bombers continue to strike at soft targets in Baghdad, detonating two car bombs that killed six on a commercial street. The silver lining, such as it is, was that guards prevented the bombers from reaching a crowded hotel, indicating good security, but it's next to impossible to prevent the bombers from detonating their devices somewhere.

• JK: With everything that's going on in Iraq, it's natural to try and fit it all together. Dan Drezner suggests that it doesn't necessarily all go together: why it's hard to get a clear story out of Iraq and bad news vs. good news.

read the rest! »
 

From The Australian :

Several people have been arrested in connection with yesterday's deadly bomb blast at a central Baghdad hotel, US-led coalition spokesman Charles Heatley said today.

"We have some people in detention since yesterday in relation with the hotel bombing," Heatley told journalists.

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

One Iraqi has been killed and three others wounded in a firefight with US forces near the town of Baqubah, north-east of Baghdad, a police officer said.

The shoot-out occurred after US troops arrested 20 people during a house-to-house search in the village of Zagenia, 15 kilometres north of Baqubah, police officer Taha Abdul Kader said.

He said the Americans removed the body of the man killed in the firefight.

The officer also said a policeman was among the three wounded.

CNN:

U.S. Army Col. Peter Monsoor said he was aware of at least six dead and 10 wounded and all but one were Iraqis. The exception was a U.S. service member who was treated for minor injuries and released, he said.

"As far as I know there were no casualties inside the hotel and the building was undamaged," Monsoor said.

Initial reports had indicated the hotel had sustained damage, but Monsoor said Iraqi police forces fired on the car as it sped through a checkpoint, keeping the vehicle from reaching its apparent target.

[CNN]

An "extremely powerful" explosion on Sunday hit the Baghdad Hotel -- where U.S. officials are based -- reducing parts of it to rubble.

It is not clear how many people may have been injured or killed.

Video of the scene showed part of the Baghdad Hotel knocked down, apparently by the force of the blast, as well as parts of nearby buildings.

According to witnesses, the blast was the result of a suicide car bomb.

One witness said he saw two vehicles drive up to the hotel, and one of them crashed into the concrete barrier surrounding the building, and explode. It was not clear what happened to the other vehicle, but CNN Correspondent Harris Whitbeck said he and others heard only one explosion.

Fearing a secondary blast, U.S. forces erected a barrier of concertina wire, clearing the area to most bystanders and allowing rescue and fire workers access to the scene.

Video showed one white car engulfed in fire. Part of the hotel was on fire, sending clouds of smoke into the Baghdad skyline.

Full story...

UPDATE: Fox is reporting it was two car bombs and at least 14 are dead. It is believed that the hotel housed CIA employees.

UPDATE 2: Death tolls are sketchy. Some reports have up to 14 people dead; others say two are dead but many injured. We'll have more as it comes in.

Of course some of those were disused. From the AFP via The Australian :

Two explosions caused large fires at two parallel oil pipelines in northern Iraq today, the director general of Iraq's Northern Oil Co said.

The first explosion started a fire at 7:15pm on a pipeline linking the northern city of Kirkuk with al-Debs oil fields, further to the north, Adel Gazzaz told AFP.

A second blast at 8:30pm started a fire on a parallel pipeline running at about five metres from the first, he said.

Firefighters rushed to the area in an attempt to extinguish the fires, Gazzaz added.

The first explosion was caused by a bomb planted on the pipeline and the second pipeline blew up because of the heat, firefighters said.

Earlier today, unknown assailants hurled hand grenades at a disused portion of an oil pipeline outside Kirkuk, starting a small fire, police and oil company officials said.

Police commander Jawdat Mohammad told AFP that gunmen threw the grenades at about 5am at the pipeline near the village of Hattin, about 45km north of Kirkuk.

Iraqi police, firefighters and coalition troops converged on the area to put out the fire and search for the assailants, Mohammad said, adding no arrests had been made so far.

Mannaa Abdullah al-Ubaidi, director general of Iraq's northern oil company, confirmed "there was no major damage, just a small fire started by oil remnants in the pipeline, which has not been in use and was targeted at dawn with hand grenades".

The Olympian (Washington State) has picked up this Gannett News Service story describing how different newspapers around the country are getting letters from soldiers describing a favorable picture of Iraqi reconstruction.

There's only one catch: The letters are largely identical.

Here's the lead:

Letters from hometown soldiers describing their successes rebuilding Iraq have been appearing in newspapers across the country as U.S. public opinion on the mission sours.

And all the letters are the same.

A Gannett News Service search found identical letters from different soldiers with the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, also known as "The Rock," in 11 newspapers, including Snohomish, Wash.

The Olympian received two identical letters signed by different hometown soldiers: Spc. Joshua Ackler and Spc. Alex Marois, who is now a sergeant. The paper declined to run either because of a policy not to publish form letters.

Six soldiers reached by GNS directly or through their families said they agreed with the letter's thrust. But none of the soldiers said he wrote it, and one said he didn't even sign it.

Marois, 23, told his family he signed the letter, said Moya Marois, his stepmother. But she said he was puzzled why it was sent to the newspaper in Olympia. He attended high school in Olympia but no longer considers the city home, she said. Moya Marois and Alex's father, Les, now live near Kooskia, Idaho.

A seventh soldier didn't know about the letter until his father congratulated him for getting it published in the local newspaper in Beckley, W.Va.

"When I told him he wrote such a good letter, he said: 'What letter?' " Timothy Deaconson said Friday, recalling the phone conversation he had with his son, Nick. "This is just not his (writing) style."

Yahoo News has posted this NTY article about the consequences increasing Shiite anger may have for US troops. Here's the lead:

Shiite Muslim anger against Americans spilled into Friday Prayers in Sadr City, the poor Baghdad district where two Iraqis and two American soldiers were killed Thursday night.

The violence and subsequent public outrage raised fears of new dangers to United States troops from the followers of Moktada al-Sadr, a young anti-American Shiite cleric. Up to now, the main threat to American forces has come from loyalists to Saddam Hussein.

A seething throng of perhaps 10,000 people gathered on Friday to pay respects to the two men they believe were killed by American forces the night before.

"No, no, to America!" they chanted as wooden coffins holding the remains of the men were paraded along a main street in this impoverished neighborhood of some two million people, once called Saddam City and now renamed Sadr City in part for Mr. Sadr's father, a popular cleric who was assassinated in 1999 on what many believe were Mr. Hussein's orders.

/Darth Vader/This is CNN:/End Darth Vader/

U.S. troops have detained six people in three separate raids near Tikrit, suspected of manufacturing improvised explosive devices, according to coalition officials.

U.S. forces also confiscated AK-47 assault rifles and one shotgun in the raids.

The raids were conducted early Saturday in the town of Ca'desseeya, near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.

Hello, all. It seems Dick Cheney has joined the offensive. This from the Boston Globe:

Vice President Dick Cheney said the United States still faces enemies that could inflict hundreds of thousands of American deaths in a single day, and he defended the Iraq invasion as a critical strike against such terror.

"We could not accept the grave danger of Saddam Hussein and his allies turning weapons of mass destruction against us or our friends and allies," Cheney told the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation yesterday.

Cheney struck back at criticism of the Iraq war that has built over the months since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1. His speech picked up where Bush left off a day earlier, when the president told listeners in Portsmouth, N.H., "The challenges we face today cannot be met with timid actions or bitter words."

Yet Cheney offered no new evidence that Hussein posed an imminent threat as the administration claimed before the war. The vice president's 25-minute speech also largely dismissed the continuing violence in Iraq, the lack of broad international collaboration, and the failure so far to find any weapons of mass destruction, mentioning only in passing the "difficulties we knew would occur."

From a transcript of a Press Conference on 9th October given by L.Paul Bremer, Coalition Provisional Authority Administrator.

The Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large and small, as part of our strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq. That plan has four elements:

• Create a Secure Environment.
• Begin Restoration of Essential Services.
• Begin to Transform the Economy.
• Begin the Transformation to Democracy.

Before taking your questions I would like to review briefly some of the progress in each of these areas.

Create a Secure Environment.

Six months ago there were no police on duty in Iraq.

• Today there are over 40,000 police on duty, nearly 7,000 here in Baghdad alone.
• Last night Coalition Forces and Iraqi police conducted 1,731 joint patrols.

Six months ago those elements of Saddam's military that had not been destroyed in combat had buried their airplanes and melted away.

• Today the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty.
• Across the country over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.

Six months ago there were no functioning courts in Iraq.

• Today nearly all of Iraq’s 400 courts are functioning.
• Today, for the first time in over a generation, the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.

As today's events have made clear, much remains to be done to establish an acceptable security environment. Even so, things have improved enough to ease the curfew in Baghdad to only four hours.

Begin Restoration of Essential Services.

Six months ago the entire country could generate a bare 300 megawatts of electricity.

• On Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts; exceeding the pre-war average.
...
• If we get the funding the President has requested in his emergency budget, we expect to produce enough electricity for all Iraqis to have electrical service 24 hours daily - something essential to their hopes for the future.

Six months ago nearly all of Iraq's schools were closed.

• Today all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
• Many of you know that we announced our plan to rehabilitate one thousand schools by the time school started; well, by October 1 we had actually rehabbed over 1,500.

Six months ago teachers were paid as little as $5.33 per month.

• Today teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.

Six months ago the public health system was an empty shell. During the 1990's Saddam cut spending on public health by over 90 percent with predictable results for the lives of his citizens.

• Today we have increased public health spending to over 26 times what it was under Saddam.
• Today all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
• Today doctors' salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.
• Pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.
• Since liberation we have administered over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq's children.

Six months ago three-quarters of Iraq's 27,000 kilometers of irrigation canals were weed-choked and barely functional.

• Today a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of those canals. They now irrigate tens of thousands of farms. This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.

Additionally, we have restored over three-quarters of pre-war telephone services and over two-thirds of the potable water production.

Before the war there were 4,500 Internet connections and important services, such as instant messaging were forbidden.

• Today there are 4,900 full-service connections.
• We expect 50,000 by January first.

Begin to Transform the Economy.

Six months ago Iraq's economy was flat on its back.

• Today anyone walking the streets can see the wheels of commerce turning. From bicycles to satellite dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities and towns.

Six months ago all banks were closed.

• Today 95 percent of all pre-war bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily.
• Today Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.
• Today the central bank is fully independent.
• Today Iraq has one of the world's most growth-oriented investment and banking laws.

Six months ago Iraq had two currencies.

• Next week Iraq will get a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.

Begin the Transformation to Democracy.

Six months ago there was no freedom of expression. Satellite dishes were illegal. Foreign journalists came on 10-day visas and paid mandatory and extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for "minders" and other government spies.

• Today there is no Ministry of Information.
• Today there are more than 170 newspapers.
• Today you can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street corner.
• Today foreign journalists and everyone else are free to come and go.

Six months ago Iraq had not one single element: legislative, judicial or executive-- of a representative government.

Today in Baghdad alone residents have selected 88 advisory councils. Baghdad's first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened when the city council elected its new chairman.

Today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.

Today 25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in Iraq's history, run the day-to-day business of government.

Today the Iraqi government regularly participates in international events. Since July the Iraqi government has been represented in over two dozen international meetings, including those of the UN General Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank and IMF and, today, the Islamic Conference Summit. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs today announced that it is reopening over 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.

Six months ago Shia religious festivals were all but banned.

• Today, for the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.

In six short months we have accomplished a lot.

We are also aware that the progress we have made is only a beginning. A quarter century of negligence, cronyism and war mongering have devastated this country. Such profound damage cannot be repaired overnight.

Bringing Iraq up to minimum self-sufficiency will require the full $20 billion the President has asked of Congress in his supplemental budget request.

We are fighting terrorism here and we will continue to fight it until it no longer threatens the hopes of Iraqis, the hopes of the world.

The importance and urgency of this task was underscored for all of us today when terrorists car-bombed a police station and assassinated a Spanish diplomat.

As the President just said, "We will wage the war on terror until it is won."

Allsci  Full story »»

Raymond Zilinskas, the director of the chemical and biological weapons nonproliferation program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, was convinced that before the invasion of Iraq that the country had no stockpiled weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Dr. Zilinkas, in this interview, briefly highlights why he thinks so. In addition, he discussed why he thinks that it was very difficult for Iraq to restart their illicit weapon’s production, and the difficulties of working as a weapon’s inspector.

Welcome! Our goal is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from Iraq that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. Today's Iraq Report and Winds of War coverage of the wider conflict is brought to you by Dan Darling of Regnum Crucis.

Top Topics:

• The BBC is reporting that the US and Turkey have reached an agreement to move against the Kurdish PKK.

read the rest! »
 

From the BBC :

There has been an explosion at the main British military headquarters in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

A British military spokesman said it appeared to have been a mortar attack.

There are not thought to be any casualties or damage to the base, Saddam Hussein's former palace in the city and now used by 19 Mechanised Brigade.

But it is the first such attack in Basra in months.

[...]

Major Charlie Mayo told BBC News 24: "I believe it's likely to have been a very small mortar, just one explosion, no casualties at all and as far as I know no damage to any infrastructure. "

Hat Tip : reader Max

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

A Spanish intelligence officer posted to Baghdad was murdered early today as he left his home in the Iraqi capital, the foreign ministry said.

The dead man was Jose Antonio Bernal Gomez, a military attache and intelligence official, the ministry said.

The Baghdad correspondent of the daily newspaper El Pais, interviewed on the private radio station Cadena Ser, said Mr Bernal Gomez was cut down by machine gun fire as he left his residence.

[Fox News]

A homicide car bomber sped through the gates of an Iraqi police station in northeast Baghdad Thursday, killing at least 10 people according to police and the U.S. military.

The attack hit a police facility in the Shiite Muslim slum known as Sadr City.

Capt. Sean Kirley, of the 2nd Armored Cavalry, said three policemen and five civilians were killed in addition to the attacker, and at least 28 were wounded.

Full story...

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Three US soldiers and an Iraqi translator have been killed in two separate bomb attacks, about 35 kilometres west of the capital Baghdad.

The latest fatalities raise to four the death toll from attacks over a 24-hour period.

Two soldiers attached to the 82nd Airborne Division were killed, and two others were wounded in al-Haswah, while an Iraqi interpreter was also killed in the attack.

Earlier, a military spokesman said one US soldier was killed and one was wounded in a bomb attack near the flashpoint town of Ramadi, about 110 kilometres west of Baghdad.

Welcome! Our goal is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. Today's "Winds of War" is brought to you by Andrew Olmsted.

The materials that follow are excerpts from the Iraq section of yesterday's report:

• David Kay didn't find any incontrovertible evidence of Iraqi WMDs, but he hasn't ruled out such a discovery yet. Meanwhile, his report certainly unearthed a host of circumstantial evidence, despite the common reports that nothing was found.

• Iraq had no WMD programs, but apparently someone in Iraq is killing Iraqi scientists just in case. This certainly doesn't prove Iraq did have such programs, but it's certainly some damning circumstancial evidence. Hat tip: Pejman Yousefzadeh.

• Check out this fascinating account of a US raid on an Iraqi counterfeiting operation, written by one of the last embedded reporters in Iraq. Some depressing words regarding the new Iraqi police force, but some interesting reports regarding US efforts in Iraq. Hat tip: Lexington Green.

• Japan is considering providing $1.5 billion in aid to Iraqi reconstruction over the next two years. It's a drop in the bucket, but some foreign assistance would be a godsend for the Bush Administration.

• Which "cards" have we captured so far? The CENTCOM list. And the visual version of "Ba'ath Poker."

• The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops. American, British and Australian. Anyone out there with more information, incl. the Poles and Czechs? [updated April 1, 2003]

read the rest! »
 

There's an old canard about some Dinosaurs having intelligences so meagre that a Tyrannosaurus could be chomping away at their tails, and they'd only become aware of it minutes later.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A United Nations peacekeeping mission says it has wound up its mandate to patrol the border between Iraq and Kuwait after 12 years, because Iraq is no longer a threat to its smaller neighbour

The UN Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission (UNIKOM) says in an advertisement in Kuwaiti newspapers that its mandate officially expired on Monday, but that its offices in Kuwait would stay open until the end of October.

The UN Security Council established UNIKOM in April 1991 following the ouster by a US-led coalition of Iraqi forces that occupied Kuwait in August 1990.

[...]

The UN Security Council voted in July to phase out the peacekeeping mission, saying it was "no longer necessary to protect against the threats to international security posed by Iraqi actions against Kuwait".

Well, traffic Chaos anyway.

From The Australian :

Large portions of Baghdad were in turmoil today after attackers fired an explosive charge into the Foreign Ministry compound, former intelligence officers demanding back pay or jobs hurled paving stones at American forces and US solders confronted a big demonstration of Shi'ite Muslims after closing a mosque and allegedly arresting the imam.

There were no known injuries in any of the incidents, but traffic in the centre of the capital was at a near standstill...

From The Australian :

The Turkish government on Monday opted to send troops to neighbouring Iraq and called on parliament to approve the measure.

The government's spokesman, Justice Minister Cemil Cicek, told reporters that all ministers had signed a motion calling on parliament to authorise the dispatch of Turkish soldiers to Iraq, in response to a US request for military help in the increasingly turbulent country.

"We will probably send the motion to parliament this evening . . . The issue will be probably debated in parliament tomorrow," Cicek said.

The minister explained that the motion limited the term of the deployment to one year, but did not specify how many soldiers might be sent and to which region of Iraq.

Once the motion is adopted by parliament, the government will have a free hand in negotiating outstanding questions with the United States, he said.

Eager to win a say in the shaping of postwar Iraq and make up for its failure to back the war, Ankara has indicated it is willing to send up to 10,000 troops to help its US ally restore stability in its neighbour's territory.

From the Kuwait Times (last article under "Local News"):

* * *

* * *

So say the San Jose Mercury News:

Weapons hunters in Iraq are pursuing tips that point to the possible presence of anthrax and Scud missiles still hidden in the country, the chief searcher said Sunday.

David Kay told Congress last week that his survey team had not found nuclear, biological or chemical weapons so far. But he argued against drawing conclusions, saying he expects to provide a full picture on Iraq's weapons programs in six months to nine months.

While lacking physical evidence for the presence anthrax or Scuds, Kay said tips from Iraqis are motivating the search for them.

From the New York Times:

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia says the United States now faces in Iraq the possibility of a prolonged, violent and ultimately futile war like the one that mired the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

In an expansive interview on Saturday evening, Mr. Putin warned that Iraq could "become a new center, a new magnet for all destructive elements." He added, without naming them, that "a great number of members of different terrorist organizations" have been drawn into the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Taiwan News Day continues, with more from eTaiwan.com:

Two Iraqi scientists were shot in Baghdad after they talked to the U.S.-led team hunting weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and others believe they will be in danger if they collaborate in the search, Washington's chief weapons inspector David Kay said on Friday ...

... Some Iraqi scientists have sought relocation in the United States out of fear for the safety of their families, and others who want to stay in Iraq seek security guarantees, Kay told reporters on a conference call. "They believe they are in genuine danger ... if they collaborate with us," he said.

One scientist was "assassinated literally hours after meeting" with a member of the WMD-hunting team, killed by a single shot to the back of his head outside his apartment, Kay said. There were no signs of robbery.

Another scientist, who was "really golden for us," was shot six times but survived, he said. Kay declined to name them.

Are the Taiwan media the only folks covering this story? From the Taipei Times:

Both US President George W. Bush and US Secretary of State Colin Powell contend that a vial of botulinum bacteria found in Iraq is evidence of Saddam Hussein's weapons intent. But the chief US weapons inspector said the vial had been stored for safekeeping in an Iraqi scientist's refrigerator since 1993. He offered no evidence it had been used in a weapons program during the last decade.

Inspector David Kay also said on Friday that American weapons hunters had found no evidence that Iraq has recently tried to import a semirefined form of uranium from Niger or anywhere else. Bush cited that claim in his State of the Union address, although administration officials later acknowledged it was based on shaky intelligence and should not have been included.

Kay's search teams did locate documents suggesting another country in Africa -- which Kay refused to identify -- had offered uranium to Iraq, although it does not appear the deal went through. "We don't have any evidence it moved beyond what was probably an unsolicited offer," Kay said.

So says the eTaiwan.com headline. The lead:

Weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq in the form of a vial of botulinum bacteria discovered by U.S. arms inspectors, the State Department said Friday.

"Botulinum kills people, it kills people in large quantities," spokesman Richard Boucher said. "Botulinum is a weapon of mass destruction, yes."

"Anything that destroys on a massive scale is a weapon of mass destruction," he said.

His comments came in response to questions about comments made earlier by Secretary of State Colin Powell who said a report on Saddam Hussein's weapons programs released on Thursday by lead U.S. inspector David Kay had justified the decision to go to war against Iraq.

The Kay report, an interim assessment, said no actual weapons of mass destruction had yet been been uncovered but outlined discoveries of illicit arms programs and evidence that Saddam intended to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in defiance of the United Nations.

This has been reported in several places; this comes from the Huntsville Item:

Former Iraqi soldiers angry over rumors their pay would be cut off clashed Saturday with coalition troops in Baghdad and in the southern city of Basra in riots that left two Iraqis dead and dozens injured ...

... The trouble started in Baghdad when hundreds of ex-soldiers assembled Saturday morning at a U.S. base at the city's former downtown airport to collect their $40 a month stipend, which the coalition has been paying since Saddam's army was disbanded in May. The crowd began hurling stones at U.S. troops and Iraqi police, who fired shots to try to disperse them.

Some of the rioters moved to the nearby Mansour district, where they burned and looted four liquor stores and set fire to an Iraqi police car in the upscale neighborhood. Back at the U.S. base, an Iraqi police colonel finally persuaded most of the crowd to line up in an orderly fashion so they could receive their pay from the Americans.

General Sanchez says (my paraphrase) expect a long stay, and expect things to get worse before they get better. Here's the lead from the San Jose Mercury News:

The U.S. Army general who heads coalition forces in Iraq says it will be years before the United States is able to "draw down" its forces here and he warned Americans to brace for more casualties, including a "significant engagement where tens of American soldiers or coalition soldiers" are killed.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Chicago Tribune, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez gave a frank assessment of the military situation in Iraq. He said the coalition forces are winning the war here despite the daily drumbeat of news reports that suggest the military is encountering more trouble than its commanders had anticipated.

From the Telegraph:

An angry President Jacques Chirac of France yesterday forced the Polish government to withdraw claims that its troops had found four French anti-aircraft missiles, manufactured earlier this year, at a weapons dump in Iraq.

Poland's defence ministry expressed "regret" last night over the reports, first made on Friday evening, that it had uncovered missiles which could only have been supplied to Iraq in breach of the United Nations weapons embargo.

SHOCKER! From Reuters:

French President Jacques Chirac said on Saturday he was disappointed with a draft U.N. resolution on the future of Iraq circulated by the United States.
"I won't hide from you that it was a bit of a disappointment for us...there is fairly little progress," Chirac told a news conference at a European Union summit in Rome about the amended U.S. draft.

Chirac said France was willing to continue Security Council discussions in close cooperation with Russia and Germany. Paris has said it will not veto the text but might abstain.

I now return you to your regular programming …

After staying up into the wee hours of the morning to watch my beloved Utes defeat Oregon, I awoke today to see that headline above the fold on my morning Philadelphia Inquirer. Sleep in my eyes, I was sure … but no, there is indeed a story in today’s Inquirer about how the troops in Kirkuk are building a success story (while those in Baghdad are not). Read it here, and here’s the lead:

When they realized that the newly trained local police force desperately needed walkie-talkies, the U.S. troops who patrol Iraq's fourth-largest city didn't wait for civilian bureaucrats to buy them, as have their Baghdad counterparts.

The soldiers in Kirkuk found a dealer and ordered the radios with their emergency funds. They did the same with weapons, vehicles and office furniture.

Today, while many once-looted police stations in Baghdad remain sparsely furnished shells, the ones in Kirkuk, which also were gutted, are freshly painted and sparkling with renovations - including air conditioners, exercise equipment and cafeterias. And while police in the capital struggle with shortages, Kirkuk's force is among the best equipped in the country.

[Fox News]

An angry mob of former Iraqi soldiers charged at U.S. troops and Iraqi police on Saturday, throwing rocks during a protest to demand jobs and back pay -- prompting U.S. and Iraqi security to fire shots, killing at least one and wounding 25 according to witnesses and hospital officials.

Among the injured are two Iraqi policemen, said Dr. Abbas Jafaar, an official at a nearby hospital said.

Also Saturday, the military said that a 4th Infantry Division soldier was killed and one was wounded in an attack in southeast Baghdad. The patrol was hit Friday night with small arms fire and a rocket-propelled grenade in the As Sadiyah region.

The unrest, which began outside an American base in central Baghdad, spilled into the upscale Monsour (search) district, where four liquor stores were burned along with an Iraqi police car.

The Americans fired shots in the air to drive back the stone-throwing mob, and the Iraqi police fired into the crowd, witnesses said.

Full story...

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

A United States soldier has been killed and another wounded in an attack in south-western Baghdad, the US military said.

A statement said soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division were attacked about 6:45am AEST by at least one rocket-propelled grenade and small-arms fire.

One soldier was killed and another wounded, the statement said.

It gave no further details.

Meanwhile, two US soldiers have been wounded in a clash with former Iraqi soldiers seeking back pay, the US military said, but it could not confirm witness reports that six Iraqis had been injured.

A statement read by Sergeant Amy Abbott, a military spokeswoman, said:

"There was a demonstration at the Damascus Square. Two soldiers were wounded. No soldiers were killed. We have no confirmation on any Iraqi casualties."

From The Australian :

Three attacks were launched on Iraqi police officials and coalition forces early today in the northern oil centre of Kirkuk, but there were no reported casualties, a police official said.

At 10pm local time (5am Saturday AEST), a grenade was hurled at the home of the city's police chief, Sabah Bahlul Karatun, said Khattab Abdullah, director of Kirkuk's emergency police unit.

The blast blew out the windows of Karatun's home, but nobody was there at the time, Abdullah said.

Ten minutes later, an unknown assailant threw a grenade at the Al-Rashid kabab restaurant popular with US troops in Kirkuk, but it was not clear if anyone was injured.

The Al-Mikdad police station also came under attack when gunmen pulled up in a car and sprayed gunfire, provoking a 10-minute shoot-out. The car then sped away and no-one was hurt.

The US military had no immediate comment on the incidents.

Also from The Australian :

A US soldier from the army's 1st Armoured Division drowned in a swimming pool in Baghdad, the military said today.

A spokeswoman said the accident occurred at 10:55am (5pm AEST) yesterday and was under investigation.

The casualty brought to 98 the number of non-combat deaths among US soldiers in Iraq since May 1, when Washington declared major fighting over.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

Few people hoodwinked Saddam Hussein, but North Korea fleeced the former Iraqi strongman out of $US10 million ($A14.63 million), a leading US weapons expert said.

David Kay, who heads the Iraqi Survey Group (ISG) hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, said Saddam's regime handed over $US10 million ($A14.63 million) to North Korea for missile technology that was never delivered.

"The Iraqis actually advanced the North Koreans 10 million dollars. In late 2002, the North Koreans came to the Iraqis as a result of the Iraqis' inquiry: 'Where is the stuff we paid for?'

"The North Koreans said, 'Sorry, there's so much US attention on us that we cannot deliver it'," Kay added.

"The Iraqis said, 'well, we don't like this, but give us our 10 million dollars back',"

When the US-led invasion of Iraq started on March 19, the North Koreans were still refusing to give back the 10 million dollars, Kay said.

"It's a lesson of negotiating with the North Koreans," Kay joked on a telephone conference call with reporters.

And the end of the fight
Is tombstone white
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear,
"A fool lies here
Who tried to hustle the East."

From the Kuwait Times:

* * *

* * *

Yet, apparently, Kofi Annan doesn't care about what the Iraqi people want. (See the article titled, "Annan puts Iraq vote in doubt" half-way down the home page of the Oman Observer web site on October 4, 2003).

I guess Iraqi democracy is less important to Kofi than the thrill of international power politics.

There are many types of low-tech, old and obsolete weaponry on the International Black Market. 20-year-old Man-portable Surface-to-Air missiles can come from a variety of shady sources. But it's far more difficult to get the larger, vehicular-mounted types, like Roland and Rapier. To get straight-off-the-production-line latest-model armaments requires government co-operation or corruption at the highest level.

From Reuters :

WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish troops in Iraq have found four French-built advanced anti-aircraft missiles which were built this year, a Polish Defense Ministry spokesman told Reuters Friday.

France strongly denied having sold any such missiles to Iraq for nearly two decades, and said it was impossible that its newest missiles should turn up in Iraq.

"Polish troops discovered an ammunition depot on Sept. 29 near the region of Hilla and there were four French-made Roland-type missiles," Defense Ministry spokesman Eugeniusz Mleczak said.

"It is not the first time Polish troops found ammunition in Iraq but to our surprise these missiles were produced in 2003."

The Roland anti-aircraft system is a short-range air defense missile in service with at least 10 countries, including France and Germany.

[...]

"Since July 1990, France has not authorized a single shipment of military equipment to Iraq," a French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told Reuters. Similar accusations surfaced in the U.S. media in April, she said.

In 1980-81, 13 Roland-1 missile systems were shipped to Iraq and from 1983 to 1986, 100 Roland-2 missile systems. The Roland-3 has never been exported to Iraq, she said.

"It is not credible to say that the Roland missiles found a few days ago were produced in 2003 and delivered just before the Anglo-American intervention," the spokeswoman said. "Let's be absolutely clear about this: no military exports to Iraq were licensed after July 1990."

It was unlikely that the missiles could be used 17-18 years after their delivery, she added.

Either the Poles have misidentified the missiles batch numbers, or someone in France was on Saddam's payroll. But if they were, wouldn't France have opposed US intervention in the UN? Oh wait....

UPDATE : And Instapundit got this story before I did. As usual. How does he do it?

UPDATE : It was misidentification of missile batch numbers. From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Poland has apologised to France for claiming that its troops had found advanced French-made missiles in Iraq that had been produced this year.

The report sparked strong criticism from French President Jacques Chirac, who called it wrong and drawn up without proper checks.

However, neither Polish nor French authorities denied that the Roland-type anti-aircraft weapons were discovered near the Iraqi town of Hilla in a zone controlled by the Polish-led military force.

UPDATE: Reason for the confusion? According to Polish News source Gazeta Wyborcza, the expiration date was read as the date of manufacture.
Hat Tip and Thanks for the Translation to Reader Maciej Ceglowski

From the AFP via The Australian :

Cargo flights are ferrying Iraq's new currency into this northern airbase daily in preparation for its launch later this month, a senior US military officer said today.

He said the new dinar banknotes were being guarded by a contingent of Fijians in a remote corner of Camp Qayyarah, 350 kilometres north of Baghdad, which was once used by ousted president Saddam Hussein's airforce.

"That's affirmative, the currency is being delivered here and looked after by the Fijians but it's a separate operation and has nothing to do with us," the officer, from the 101st Airborne Division, told AFP.

The old dinar, with Saddam's smiling face etched upon it, is destined for the dustbins of history within the next two weeks.

In July, the top US civil administrator Paul Bremer announced that new banknotes would be introduced from October 15.

If you want to hear what it's really like in Iraq at the moment, you can now read messages directly from the troops, at Front Line Voices. Here's an example:

In Karbala there was no infrastructure. The first thing we wanted to do was restore law and order. We established a police department....

It has been a while since I have written to my friends at First Lutheran Church about what's really going on here in Iraq. The news you watch on TV is exaggerated, sensationalized and selective. Good news doesn't sell.

The stuff you don't hear about on CNN?

Let's start with electrical power production in Iraq.....

I just got married July 2002, then in September 2002 I was deployed here to Kuwait....

Please strongly consider a suggestion that many of our most forward forces have repeatedly expressed to me: The people of Iraq, especially the children, will have a much greater need for the support of the American people than our forces, and the charity and caring of our nation will send a strong signal to a people desperately in need of help. Please consider establishing the same kind of support program for them that you have for us, especially towards clothes and shoes and school supplies for children. I am sure that many communities already have done so, and that there is plenty of information available for these ideas to come to fruition.

Who we are: My section is comprised of U.S. Army Military Intelligence soldiers located at a U.S. Air Force operations headquarters. There is little I can tell you about our work, but please rest assured it was incredibly effective against our enemy, far beyond our own expectations.

There are many problems within our nation's military establishment--please don't forget that when talking about our victory and when voting for our elected leadership. Our personnel management system is broken, much of our equipment is obsolete and unreliable, and our overall ability to maintain a sustained campaign for any significant length of time is questionable.

Here's the tremendously good news: Our people, especially our young people, are spectacular beyond belief. Our young men and women of the so-called Nintendo generation have just clearly proven they have the right stuff in a thousand ways. ....

Hat Tip : Evil Pundit

Andrew Sullivan points us back to the source, an increasingly necessary function in a world where the press are often the last people you can trust to get you the news. Naturally, it's titled "Read The Report." What a concept:

bq. "If you think that David Kay's report on Iraqi WMDs can be adequately summarized by idiotic headlines such as: "No Illicit Arms Found in Iraq," then you need to read this report. If you believe the following "news analysis" by David Sanger in today's New York Times summarizes the findings of David Kay, then you need to read this report."

He follows this up with more as one scrolls down, of course, including "The Money Quotes," more on the bio-warfare angle, the ability to compare what we find in a liberated Iraq with what we thought we knew (which then allows "walking back the cat" to improve future assessments - lord knows we could use that), and Kay's conclusions based on his work to date.

If you're at all serious about issues like WMD, proliferation, and the craft of intelligence, this is stuff you should read.

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. Today's "Winds of War" is brought to you by Venomous Kate of Electric Venom, and these excerpts concern matters in Iraq.

TOP TOPICS

• Have the Kuwaitis found the missing Iraqi WMDs or not? At this point, the rumors are flying. What fun. Trent Telenko notes that the common source appears to be an AP report, which in turn came from a story at Kuwait News Agency. Trent says it was on the site's front page.

• Speaking of WMDs... President Bush's $87 billion budget request for supplemental spending in Iraq and Afghanistan includes $600 million ear-marked to fund the search for the missing weapons, an amount which indicates the administration's intention to keep looking for the elusive WMDs despite the House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee declaring that evidence of an ongoing Iraqi arms program was deficient even prior to the war.

• Iraq's governing council has backed off its initial plan to permit 100% foreign ownership in most economic sectors. Dan Drezner - writing before the Governing Council's decision - has some excellent advice on why they need to stop waffling, and start embracing investors.

• Meanwhile, the Governing Council is preparing a war crimes tribunal to try members of Saddam's regime as well as Saddam himself, if he's taken alive.

• The hunt for Saddam continues. Latest Saddam sighting reports claim he was seen as recently as five days ago in Northern Iraq.

• As American casualties in Iraq continue to mount, the Feyadeen attacking our troops claim they aren't terrorists - they just want to kill Americans here, there and everywhere. Someday, perhaps, the peaceful members of Islam will speak out.

• Which "cards" have we captured so far? The CENTCOM list. And the visual version of "Ba'ath Poker."

• The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops. American, British and Australian. Anyone out there with more information, incl. the Poles and Czechs? [updated August 19, 2003]

Other Topics Today Include: Free markets in Iraq; the latest Saddam sighting; Iran's impending nuclearization; Iranian teachers fomenting Iraqi unrest; List of Iranians blogging in English; Los Alamos security woes; More Guantanamo; CAIR's comeuppance; Al-Qaeda's new Gulf leader; Hezbollah thinks they're winning; Bill Clinton's ties to 9/11; and what Tony Blair would tell the Brits if he could speak his mind.

read the rest! »
 

[CNN]

Three U.S. soldiers were killed in separate attacks on Wednesday. The la stet death occurred late Wednesday when a U.S. soldier was killed after his convoy was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade near Samarra, north of the Iraqi capital, according to the Coalition Press Information Center.

The convoy carrying the soldier from the 4th Infantry Division came under RPG attack around 9 p.m. (1 p.m. ET) near Samarra, about 75 miles [120 kilometers] north of Baghdad.

The soldier was evacuated to a nearby military hospital, and died later.

Another U.S. soldier from the 1st Armored Division was killed and another wounded by a gunman in the Al Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad, also late Wednesday.

"The soldiers were patrolling the neighborhood when they were shot with a small caliber handgun," a spokesman for the coalition forces told CNN.

Earlier in the day, a U.S. soldier was killed and three others hurt when an explosion rocked their convoy in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, a 4th Infantry Division spokeswoman said. The convoy was carrying supplies between two drop-off points, near the 4th Infantry Division's main Tikrit base.

Authorities said the explosion was caused by either a mine or an improvised explosive device at the side of the road.

Full story...

From the Hindustan Times:

Kuwaiti security authorities have foiled an attempt to smuggle $60 million worth of chemical weapons and biological warheads from Iraq to an unnamed European country, a Kuwaiti newspaper said on Wednesday.

The paper said the smugglers might have had accomplices inside Kuwait. It said Interior Minister Sheik Nawwaf Al Ahmed Al Sabah would hand over the smuggled weapons to an FBI agent at a news conference, but did not say when.

* * *

Rumsfeld had an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, and for those who have not yet seen it, here's the link to OpinionJournal. A taste:

I recently visited our forces in Tikrit, Mosul, Baghdad and Babylon. Their spirits are good, because they know their mission is important and they know they are making progress. Many recently got access to satellite television from the U.S.--and their first glimpse of the news coverage back home. Some expressed amazement at how few of their accomplishments are reflected in the news on Iraq. As one solider we met in Baghdad put it, "We rebuild a lot of bridges and it's not news--but one bridge gets blown up and it's a front-page story."
Their successes deserve to be told. Consider just a few of their accomplishments:

• Today, in Iraq, virtually all major hospitals and universities have been re-opened, and hundreds of secondary schools--until a few months ago used as weapons caches--have been rebuilt and were ready for the start of the fall semester.

• 56,000 Iraqis have been armed and trained in just a few months, and are contributing to the security and defense of their country. Today, a new Iraqi Army is being trained and more than 40,000 Iraqi police are conducting joint patrols with Coalition forces. By contrast, it took 14 months to establish a police force in post-war Germany--and 10 years to begin training a new German Army.

• As security improves, so does commerce: 5,000 small businesses have opened since liberation on May 1. An independent Iraqi Central Bank was established and a new currency announced in just two months--accomplishments that took three years in postwar Germany.

• The Iraqi Governing Council has been formed and has appointed a cabinet of ministers--something that took 14 months in Germany.

• In major cities and most towns and villages, municipal councils have been formed and are making decisions about local matters--something that took eight months in Germany.

• The Coalition has completed 6,000 civil affairs projects--with many more under way.

All this, and more, has taken place in less than five months.

The New York Times has an article about the rebuilding of the Iraqi education system that's worth the read. A highlight:

New Saddam-free textbooks are being printed, but they are not expected to be available until November. So students will open their books and face a variation of that old test question: identify the object that does not belong with the rest. The correct answers will require tearing out full-page pictures of Mr. Hussein and drawing lines through the paragraphs about the Baath Party's Great March.

"We want the exercise to teach students and teachers that the days of fear are finished," said Fuad Hussein, an adviser to the Ministry of Education, who has been supervising the de-Baathication of every textbook, from first-grade readers to high-school physics texts.