The Command Post was created for, and built upon, coverage of the war in Iraq. When I consider the past year, several Iraq posts stand out in my mind … and here they are for your reminiscence.

Posted 20 March 2003:

We only thought the Gulf War was well televised. This one is incredible. I am glued to my television. I prefer to watch it without the sound though. That way I can choose the music. I'm working my way towards Wagner, not there yet, but I'm working that direction. I really don't care what Ted Koppel or the other embedded ones have to say. I want to watch our warrior class, men and women, move their machines. About every 5 minutes I have to hit myself in the chest and tell myself to breathe.

Posted 27 March 2003:

I JUST SPOKE TO A WOMAN FROM CNN who said that The Command Post is very popular in their newsroom today. I love that.

Peter Arnett, "The First War Plan Has Failed" ... FoxNews (no link yet) just reported that Peter Arnett has given an interview to Iraqi state television, in which he utters not only the quote that titles this post, but went on to talk about how the increased resistance of the Iraqi fighters (no word if Arnett believes its a voluntary resistance) is encouraging the anti-war movement back home.

Media Source Tip: CENTCOM Briefing Will Involve POW Developments ... A tip to The Command Post from a source "in the business" ... note I can't confirm this nor link, as the CENTCOM briefing has not hit yet ... [this ended up being the rescue of Jessica Lynch]

Just moments ago The Command Post registered its millionth visit ... a goal reached in roughly 14 days, three hours.

Michael Kelly, the Atlantic Monthly editor-at-large and Washington Post columnist who abandoned the safety of editorial offices to cover the war in Iraq, has been killed in a Humvee accident while traveling with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division.

According to CNN's Rym Brahimi, sources in Baghdad report that the city is "eerily calm" with no explosions or shooting, no signs of soldiers or militia in the city and no signs government officials at the Palestine hotel. Update: Even the "minders" from the information ministry failed to show up for work at the Palestine hotel this morning.

CNN is reporting that no Information Ministry personnel showed up this morning at the Palestine Hotel. This means not only no Baghdad Bob, but no minders.

So either they are fading into the mist (most likely), or they have something really bad planned for the Palestine Hotel.

Indication of the former is that the government in Baghdad appears to have vanished. People driving around town are not finding the usual checkpoints.

Sky News just showed raw uncut footage of an older man with glasses overwhelmed with joy in front of a government building in Baghdad. He was holding a banner of Saddam's face that had been ripped down and was beating the picture of Saddam in his face with his shoe.

Sky had Iraqi analyst Hamid Ali Alikfay in the studio and he did free translation of what this man was yelling.

"Saddam has killed millions of us....this is the day we have been waiting for. We are Iraqis, but we are with the United States. We are Americans."

UPDATE : He's down... and the crowd goes Wild!

U.S. troops are investigating whether Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay were among those killed or captured during a firefight with American troops in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, Pentagon officials told CNN.

Saddam Hussein has been captured alive in his hometown of Tikrit, a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council said Sunday.

A New Year's Eve car bomb ripped through a restaurant in Baghdad, killing at least five people.

At least 25 people were injured in the explosion at Nabil Restaurant Arasat Al-Hindiya, an upscale section of Baghdad.

U.S. soldiers were seen heading to the scene after the blast and several witnesses report hearing gunfire.

An unnamed source says there were about 400 pounds of artillery packed into the car that drove into the restaurant.

Nabil Restaurant was a popular destination for journalists and tourists. There was a New Year's Eve party going on inside - with about 50 people in attendance - at the time of the blast.

[Various sources]

DJ News: A car bomb exploded as a U.S. convoy passed on a street full of shops in Baghdad Wednesday, destroying one Humvee, police said. An eight-year-old Iraqi boy was killed and 11 other Iraqi bystanders were being treated for injuries, hospital doctors said.

AP: Gunfire erupted Wednesday as hundreds of Arab and Turkmens marched in protest over fears of Kurdish domination in the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, and police said two people were killed.

DJ Newswire: Hundreds of pages of Iraqi military documents, bills, customs forms, ledgers and shipping orders reveal that for much of its conventional weaponry - such as the Volga/SA-2 missile engine - Iraq turned to rusting military hardware in Poland and elsewhere in the former Soviet Bloc, the Los Angeles Times reported in its Wednesday editions.

Interesting interview at MSNBC with notorious French attorney Jacques Verges , who has offered to defend Saddam Hussein: If things stay the way they are, I could also defend Saddam because you can defend the same people if they are being prosecuted for the same reasons… The charges against Saddam Hussein are likely to be part of larger, more global ones of Iraqi authorities. Yes, read the whole thing.

U.S. forces operating in the so-called Sunni Triangle -the region of Iraq most loyal to captured former dictator Saddam Hussein - found a significant weapons cache that included al Qaeda literature and videotapes, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

This could be a very interesting story to follow.

Also found in the cache were ammunition, mortar rounds, mortar tubes, RPGs, assault weapons, TNT and C4.

[CNN]

Central Command is pointing to signs that former officials of Saddam's Ba'ath Party have decided to help them out:

MOSUL, Iraq – Two second-tier Ba’ath Party leaders in northwest Iraq handed over weapons Dec. 29 to Coalition Forces with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

The two Farahs, once answerable to the close circle of senior Ba’athists around Saddam Hussein, turned in 48 AK-47 rifles, 59 magazines, and a bag of loose 7.62-millimeter ammunition to Tallafar police.

Also continuing to turn over weapons were fourth-tier Firqa Ba’athists.
The Tallafar chief of police reported that two Firqas turned in one AK-47 rifle each after hearing that Ba’ath Party personnel were turning in weapons. They said they wanted to be helpful, according to the report.

This is one of the first reports of a Ba'athist turnabout since Saddam's capture, and comes on a day when other significant signs of progress in the Coalition effort were bubbling to the surface.

(Cross-posted at Late Final.)

Victor Davis Hanson has a pretty fair assessment of the war on terrorists to date:

In liberating 50 million people from both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein it has lost so far less than 500 soldiers -- some of whom were killed precisely because they waged a war that sought to minimalize not just civilian casualties but even the killing of their enemies. Contrary to the invective of Western intellectuals, the American military's sins until recently have been of omission -- preferring not to shoot looters or hunt down and kill insurgents -- rather than brutal commission. While the United States has conducted these successive wars some 7,000 miles beyond its borders, it also avoided another terrorist attack of the scale of September 11 -- and all the while crafting a policy of containment of North Korea and soon-to-be nuclear Iran.

Thus by any comparative standard of military history, the last two difficult years, despite setbacks and disappointments, represent a remarkable military achievement. Yet no one would ever gather even the slightest acknowledgment of such success from our Democratic grandees. Al Gore dubbed the Iraqi liberation a quagmire and, absurdly, the worst mistake in the history of American foreign policy. Howard Dean, more absurdly, suggested that the president of the United States might have had foreknowledge of September 11. Most Americans now shudder at the thought that the former might have been president in this time of crisis -- and that the latter still could be.

After several paragraphs assessing the views of leftist pundits and Middle Eastern Islamists, Hanson argues

The so-called Arab street and its phony intellectuals sense that influential progressive Westerners will never censure Middle Eastern felonies if there is a chance to rage about Western misdemeanors. It is precisely this parasitic relationship between the foreign and domestic critics of the West that explains much of the strange confidence of those who planned September 11. It was the genius of bin Laden, after all, that he suspected after he had incinerated 3,000 Westerners an elite would be more likely to blame itself for the calamity -- searching for "root causes" than marshalling its legions to defeat a tribe that embraced theocracy, autocracy, gender apartheid, polygamy, anti-Semitism, and religious intolerance. And why not after Lebanon, the first World Trade Center bombing, the embassies in Africa, murder in Saudi Arabia, and the USS Cole? It was the folly of bin Laden only that he assumed the United States was as far gone as Europe and that a minority of its ashamed elites had completely assumed control of American political, cultural, and spiritual life.

Cross-post from OTB

Today's Iraq news from StrategyPage:

Five men were arrested as suspects in the December 27th attacks in Karbala. Their nationality was not given, but Shia leaders say they believe the attacks were carried out by Sunni Arabs and al Qaeda foreigners. There has been little, or no, political violence in the Shia areas since Saddam's government fell. The Shia are not intimidated by the Sunnis any more, and the attacks of the 27th just made more Shias determined to meet violence with violence if the Sunnis continue to use violence against other Iraqis.

Cross-posted from OTB

Posted By at 01:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

The Washington Post has a very distressing report about the Bush administrations abandonment of liberal reforms in Iraq for the sake of "stability" (of course).

Full Article here.

My commentary here.

Via IraqNet Information Network. By Amir Taheri, Arab News Staff.

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An officer from the new Iraqi police force inspects munitions confiscated in a recent raid in Baghdad.

Published on Monday, December 29, 2003, in the New York Post.

Via Lucianne.com.

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AP: U.S. forces hunting top and midlevel leaders of the Iraqi insurgency are close to unraveling a network of five powerful clans that have funneled money, weapons and instructions to street gunmen and bombmakers, according to a U.S. Army commander.

Dow Jones News: Government officials said Monday that despite five soldiers being killed in Karbala Saturday, Bulgaria would remain a firm member of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. "Keeping our military contingent in Iraq is a matter of principle," Prime Minister Simeon Saxcoburggotski said.

Anchorage News/AP: Rebels lobbed a grenade and fired on U.S. soldiers searching homes for insurgents in the northern city of Mosul on Monday, triggering a firefight that left three Iraqis dead and two U.S. soldiers wounded. The Iraqis killed were suspected of belonging to Ansar al-Islam, an Islamic militant group in northern Iraq believed to have ties to al-Qaida, the military said.

Fox: Providing a critical boost to the U.S. campaign to win debt relief for Iraq, major creditor Japan pledged Monday to forgive "the vast majority" of its Iraqi debt if other Paris Club nations do the same. China later said it would consider the idea.

From The Australian :

[member of the Governing Council]Iyad Allawi told the Arab dailies Asharq Al-Awsat and Al-Hayat that Saddam, who was captured two weeks ago, "has started to give information on Iraqi money that he invested abroad ... which the Iraqi Governing Council estimates at $US40 billion ($A54.04 billion)" placed in Switzerland, Japan, and Germany among others, under fictitious company names."
"Now questioning is focused on his relations with terrorist organisations. He has given the names of people who know the location of hidden arsenals used in terrorist attacks against coalition forces and the Governing Council," Allawi added.

Allawi put the number of "terrorists coming from abroad who are carrying out attacks in Iraq" at more than 5,000.

The Seattle Times has posted a WaPo story offering some background on Paul Wolfowitz. The lead:

In September, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz appeared in Manhattan at an event sponsored by The New Yorker magazine. As he began to speak, he was interrupted by shouts of "War criminal!" and "Murderer!"

"I can't resist," he said evenly. "This is what is wonderful about this country. It is ... "

Another shout: "Shame on you."

Wolfowitz drove on: " ... and what is finally wonderful is 50 million, roughly 50 million Afghans and Iraqis, are finally able to speak this way without having their tongues cut out."

A U.S. soldier and two Iraqi children were killed when a roadside bomb exploded in Baghdad.

The blast also injured nine Iraqis and five U.S. soldiers.

[Source: Fox]

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

A twin bomb blast in the Iraqi capital Baghdad has killed one United States soldier and wounded five others.

A US military spokesman says an improvised explosive device was used in the attack.

The wounded were taken to a hospital, but there are no further details at this stage.

The death toll from earlier attacks in the southern holy city of Kerbala has
risen to 18, after five Iraqis died from wounds they received.

Four Bulgarians and two Thais were also killed in the multiple attacks blamed on suicide bombers.

A series of coordinated attacks on coalition forces killed eleven, "including six Iraqi police officers and four coalition soldiers, military and hospital officials said."

The three attacks - all in Karbala - were carried out using mortars, car bombs and machine guns. Two men have been detained in connection with the car bomb, which went off in front of the main police station in Karbala.

According to The Nation, four of the dead were with a Polish mutli-national force and may have been Bulgarian. The Nation is also reporting that there were four attacks, not three.

Iraqi terrorists launched several attacks in the southern city of Karbala on Saturday, and there were 25 coalition casualties, a military spokesman said.

The attackers struck with a car bomb, mortars and machine guns in separate places in Karbala, said U.S. Maj. Ralph Manos, a spokesman for the Polish-led multinational force responsible for security in the area.

"There were different types of attacks at different places," he said. The attackers targeted two military coalition camps at the city's university and at a police station, as well as the mayor's office.

[Fox]

Update: Four were killed in the attacks; the unofficial word is that they were all Bulgarian soldiers.

Iraqi insurgents shelled an American base northeast of Baghdad, killing two U.S. soldiers on a day of grenade, rocket and mortar attacks on the capital, the military said Friday.

Four other soldiers were wounded from the attack on the base in Baqouba, 30 miles northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, Maj. Josslyn Aberle of the 4th Infantry Division said.

[Full story]

Reports that it was the U.S. forces that hit the Sheraton Hotel in Baghad yesterday were erroneous. It was insurgents who hit the hotel with a mortar shell. There were no injuries in that attack.

Hours later, the hotel was hit again when a grenade crashed through the atrium, followed by a gunfight.

There were several more rocket or grenade attacks during the night, many aimed at the Baghdad Hotel.

In northern Iraq, four civilians were killed and 101 people injured in a suicide bombing.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed near Samarra when a roadside bomb exploded as their convoy passed.

Insurgents had threatened increased attacks on Christmas, even passing out leaflets to Iraqi citizens telling them to stay home.

[Various sources]

A US armoured vehicle secures the area of a gas station in Baghdad

Per Iraq Information Network:

[Iraq's] interim oil minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum told AFP that output from Iraq's southern fields had reached two million barrels per day, the same level as before the US-led invasion.

The Sheraton Ishtar Hotel in Baghdad, a major hotel for Westerners, was rocked by an unidentified blast Wednesday and one U.S. military spokesman said the explosion may have been caused by Americans.

Fox News TV is confirming that the blast was caused by U.S. Troops, most likely by a rocket propelled grenade.

Updates to follow.

Part of discussion over Iraq between U.S. Ambassador in Egypt David Welch and some Al-Ahram Weekly journalists, as reported via FrontPage Magazine :

Nevine Khalil: And what if there is democracy in the region and the people decide to elect governments that are not friendly to the US? What would you do about that?

Welch: You mean like France?

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A roadside bomb killed two United States soldiers in Baghdad on Monday, hours after troops captured a former general in Saddam Hussein's once-feared security services on charges of recruiting ex-soldiers to attack Americans.

The blast that ripped through a military convoy in the late morning also killed an Iraqi interpreter and wounded two other soldiers, the US military said in a statement.
[...]
The US military said eight soldiers were wounded during raids in the mainly Sunni Muslim al-Anbar province which netted 40 "enemy personnel".

It did not say how the soldiers were hurt but added that one was evacuated to a combat support hospital.

A military convoy was hit with an explosive device near the town of Habbaniyah, seriously wounding one soldier.

Another three soldiers had minor wounds, a military statement said.
[...]
A US soldier was wounded by small arms fire in an attack in the northern town of Mosul on Monday morning, the US military said.

According to Australia's The Sunday Mail:

Saddam Hussein was captured through the demands of the one woman he still trusted. She is Samira Shahbander, the second of his four wives.

On December 11 she contacted Saddam from an Internet cafe in Ba'albeck, near Beirut.

Samira and Saddam's only surviving son, Ali, have lived under assumed names in Lebanon since leaving Baghdad months before the war started.

[...]

Instead, she went to a pre-arranged hideout ? a villa ? in the Beirut suburbs. That's where the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad found her.

Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, sent a team of surveillance specialists to bug Samira's every move.

[...]

Then she started to call Saddam.

Supported by Israeli Air Force surveillance planes, Mossad tracked the calls close to the Syrian border.

"The calls were affectionate. It was clear there was a close relationship still between them," said a high-ranking Mossad source in Tel Aviv after Saddam had been captured.

[...]

Mossad ? not for the first time ? decided to keep to itself the information it was gleaning from the surveillance of Samira. But on Thursday, December 11, that changed.

The Mossad team picked up a conversation between Samira and the man they were now certain was Saddam. He told her he would meet her close to the Syrian border. Details of the meeting were enough to have the Israelis finally alert Washington.

In the meantime, US forces had received their own tip-off and Samira and Ali heard the news of Saddam's capture on the radio. She burst into tears. Ali's reaction is not known.

(via Matt Drudge)

Per The Weekly Standard:

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Via the Drudge Report.

A British newspaper is claiming that the Kurds found Saddam first and then drugged him and left him for U.S. soldiers.

Saddam came into the hands of the Kurdish Patriotic Front after being betrayed to the group by a member of the al-Jabour tribe, whose daughter had been raped by Saddam's son Uday, leading to a blood feud, reported the Sunday Express, which quoted an unnamed senior British military intelligence officer.

The newspaper said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi president's capture on December 13 near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq, "exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete".

None of the sources of this version of the event were named.

Update: I've been told that Sunday Express is a tabloid, much like the National Enquirer. So take the story with quite a few grains of salt.

From The Australian :

US troops detained a former Iraqi general suspected of recruiting ex-soldiers to attack American forces, the military said.

Ex-army Gen. Mumtaz al-Taji was discovered Sunday night in a house in Baqouba, about 50 kilometers north of Baghdad.

"Tonight we were on a mission to capture a former Iraqi intelligence service general who we believe is recruiting former military members of the Iraqi army to conduct attacks against US forces," Maj. Paul Owen of the 588th Engineer Battalion told Associated Press Television News.

"He runs a very active cell in our sector and hopefully what we have done tonight is to stall some of his efforts," Owen said. More than 30 soldiers took part in the raid and that they also seized a rifle, a pistol and ammunition, he said.

Iraqi police have arrested four men who were allegedly planning to blow up a five-million litre fuel reservoir in the country's north.

The four men, who were allegedly caught with anti-tank rockets, mortar shells and 100 kilograms of explosives near the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk, have been handed over to US forces.

Iraqi police claim the men were planning to attack a fuel reservoir near the country's biggest oil refinery, as well as launch strikes at US forces based at Kirkuk airport.

"Forces encountered resistance to entry in one target location and used a door breaching charge to gain access to the target through a reinforced steel door," the US military said.

"The blast resulted in the death of one Iraqi female and injuries to two other females in the house."

The military said the incident, which occurred in the western Iraqi town of Rawa, was under investigation.

So says the British Defense Minister, reported here by VOA.

Mr. Hoon said he does not think Libya's decision can be separated from the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last March.

He said the use of force in Iraq showed that the United States and Britain "mean business" when it comes to weapons issues. He said he hopes Libya and other countries have learned that lesson.

The question: “Do you think going to war with Iraq was the right thing for the US to do or the wrong thing?”

The results (and thanks to all who voted):

Accusations of national chauvinism aside, the readers have spoken. The winner of our Saddam Caption Contest is Peter. Peter, enjoy your 15 minutes, and thanks to all who entered and voted.

Although the announcement wasn't supposed to be made until later tonight, the word is out: Time's Person of the Year is The American Soldier.

They swept across Iraq and conquered it in 21 days. They stand guard on streets pot-holed with skepticism and rancor. They caught Saddam Hussein. They are the face of America, its might and good will, in a region unused to democracy. The U.S. G.I. is TIME's Person of the Year.

....To have pulled Saddam Hussein from his hole in the ground brings the possibility of pulling an entire country out of the dark. In an exhausting year when we've been witness to battles well beyond the battlefields—in the streets, in our homes, with our allies—to share good news felt like breaking a long fast, all the better since it came by surprise. And who delivered this gift, against all odds and risks? The same citizens who share the duty of living with, and dying for, a country's most fateful decisions.

Read more at Time (you have to be a subscriber to see the whole article)

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

Gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on former Baath official Lamia Abbas al-Chill early on Saturday as he walked his son to school, police Lieutenant Raed Jawad Abdel Sadeh said.

The son died instantly and Mr Chill was wounded in the head and chest, Lt Sadeh said.

Mr Chill was said to have been a close aide to Ali Abdullah al-Dhalimi, the former regional chief of the deposed Baath party who was beaten and shot dead by an angry crowd near Najaf on Wednesday.

Mr Dhalimi was suspected of helping to repress a Shiite insurrection in 1991.

Another former Baath party official was killed on Friday evening in a separate attack in Najaf, which lies about 130 kilometres south of Baghdad, Lt Sadeh said.

Gunmen killed Ali Qassem al-Tamimi, a former local official under the Baathist regime, and Mohammad Mokhtar Khdayr inside an electric supply store in Najaf, he said.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar paid a surprise visit to Iraq on Saturday, flying in with his defence minister to inspect Spanish troops deployed in the south of the country, national radio reported.

Mr Aznar left Madrid on Friday for Kuwait where he went by helicopter to Diwaniyah, the radio's special correspondent said
[...]
A delegation of 17 people, among them the Spanish Defence Minister Federico Trillo, accompanied Mr Aznar for this visit of several hours to the city 160 kilometres south-east of Baghdad.

The prime minister was to lunch with Spanish soldiers and meet with local authorities before flying back to Madrid in the afternoon.

From the AFP via The Australian :

Three Iraqi policemen, mistakenly taken for guerrillas, were killed overnight by US troops near Salman Pak south of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, an Iraqi policeman said.

"The police had a roadblock on the road linking Kirkuk and Baghdad. An American patrol arrived around 2am (10am) and opened fire, taking the police to be guerrillas," said Second Lieutenant Salam Zankana.
[...]
The US army told AFP it was investigating the incident.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The United States civilian administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, says he escaped an assassination attempt in Baghdad early this month.

An American television network had reported earlier that Mr Bremer escaped unharmed when his convoy hit an explosive device and came under small-arms fire as it drove from Baghdad airport.

It says the convoy was able to speed away and no one was injured.

From The Australian :

A US military tanker exploded on a road outside Baghdad today. Witnesses said two US soldiers were killed and another was wounded.

The casualty reports could not be immediately confirmed.

Television footage showed clouds of black smoke rising from the tanker, near Abu Ghraib about 30km outside the capital on the road to Fallujah.

U.S. Army units in Baghdad rounded up a Fedayeen cell in northern Baghdad on Friday, seizing a significant number of explosive devices that were readied for a strike against coalition forces, Fox News has learned.

The raid is believed to have been launched based on leads from the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the military said.

From The Corner.

Via Silflay Hraka.

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Preparing the mind for battle

Via the Baltimore Sun
December 18, 2003

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Saddam agents infiltrated U.S. Command in Iraq; provided intelligence to insurgents.

By Martha Raddatz
ABC News

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Via the Drudge Report.

From MSNBC :

A widely publicized Iraqi document that purports to show that September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta visited Baghdad in the summer of 2001 is probably a fabrication that is contradicted by U.S. law-enforcement records showing Atta was staying at cheap motels and apartments in the United States when the trip presumably would have taken place, according to U.S. law enforcement officials and FBI documents.

The new document, supposedly written by the chief of the Iraqi intelligence service, was trumpeted by the Sunday Telegraph of London earlier this week in a front-page story that broke hours before the dramatic capture of Saddam Hussein. TERRORIST BEHIND SEPTEMBER 11 STRIKE WAS TRAINED BY SADDAM, ran the headline on the story written by Con Coughlin, a Telegraph correspondent and the author of the book "Saddam: The Secret Life."

Coughlin's account was picked up by newspapers around the world and was cited the next day by New York Times columnist William Safire. But U.S. officials and a leading Iraqi document expert tell NEWSWEEK that the document is most likely a forgery - part of a thriving new trade in dubious Iraqi documents that has cropped up in the wake of the collapse of Saddam's regime.

"It's a lucrative business," says Hassan Mneimneh, codirector of an Iraqi exile research group reviewing millions of captured Iraqi government documents. "There's an active document trade taking place - You have fraudulent documents that are being fabricated and sold" for hundreds of dollars a piece.

Mneimneh said he hadn't seen the Telegraph document that purports to place Atta in Baghdad. But he, along with senior U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence officials, said the claims of an Atta trip to Iraq in the months before the September 11 attacks were highly implausible, and contradicted by a wealth of information that has been collected about Atta's movements during the period he was plotting the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

One U.S. soldier died and a soldier and interpreter were injured in a Baghdad ambush today.

The Hindustan Times reports that a 70 year old woman was so overcome with grief after seeing pictures of a captured Saddam that she died.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi approves plan to send 1,000 troops to Iraq.

Kurds discuss ways to punish Saddam. Suggestions include being dragged by a car and putting him in a cage to be mocked.

Saddam loyalists kill Shiite leader.

And, the parody of the day, brought to you by Scrappleface : Saddam is insane, deserves unsupervised visits.

Today's blast, originally thought to be an act of terrorism, has now been re-classified as a traffic accident between a bus and fuel truck.

The police at first said the vehicle was a tractor trailer cab that was apparently going to try to breach the concrete barriers and barbed wire around the station. But it hit a bus and exploded, the police said.

But later in the day a United States military spokesman, Capt. Jason Beck, was quoted by Reuters as saying that investigators had found "no evidence of explosives. It was a fuel truck that simply had a traffic accident."

From a Fox News Transcript:

MORT KONDRACKE: "I was here at Fox News, Madeleine Albright, former secretary of state was in the Green Room getting made up for a different show. And she said do you suppose that the Bush administration has Usama bin Laden hidden away somewhere and will bring him out before the election?"

MARA LIASSON: "The October Surprise."

KONDRACKE: "The October -- she was -- she was not smiling, you know."

BRIT HUME: "What did you say?"

KONDRACKE: "I said you can't seriously believe that. And she said, well, she thought it was a possibility. I mean, you know, that is just unthinkable. That's irrational. It's -- but they will believe anything about George Bush, the Democratic Party. And this is not some kid in sandals, you know, working in the Dean campaign. This is the former secretary of state."

The video of the exchange is here.

From The Australian :

A Truck loaded with explosives rammed into a small bus and exploded near a Baghdad police station today, killing at least 10 people, an Iraqi deputy minister said.

Earlier reports said at least 17 people, and possibly as many as 22, had died.

The blast happened early today in Baghdad's Bayya'a district, police said. Two cars nearby were destroyed in the blast.

Ahmed Kadhim Ibrahim, deputy interior minister, said the death toll was 10 and that the truck was speeding towards a police station, but collided with a bus in the way.

Bassem Naiem, a policeman at the scene, earlier put the toll at 22, but authorities later revised the toll.

Taking a harsh view of the inability of quarreling members of the Security Council to endorse military action in Iraq, Mr. Zebari said, "One year ago, the Security Council was divided between those who wanted to appease Saddam Hussein and those who wanted to hold him accountable.

"The United Nations as an organization failed to help rescue the Iraqi people from a murderous tyranny that lasted over 35 years, and today we are unearthing thousands of victims in horrifying testament to that failure."

Read the whole thing.

SMH reports:

A roadside bomb exploded next to a fuel truck in Baghdad today, creating a huge fire ball that engulfed a minibus, killing 17 people inside.

Police confirmed the toll, adding that the explosion in the Bayya'a neighbourhood also wounded several people.

Baghdad police director Hamid Sabah Fahed later told AFP: ``This was an act of terrorism because there was no (military) target here.'' He said the blast went off at 6am local time (1400 AEDT).

BBC World is reporting "2 Huge Explosions" in Baghdad. No Links yet.

UPDATE: Not any more they're not. Nothing on Google News either. As You Were.

Haaretz [ Full story »» ] reports:

Sayeret Matkal, the IDF General Staff's elite special-operations force, trained in 1992 to assassinate Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in a daring operation that would have landed commandos in Iraq and fired sophisticated missiles at him during a funeral. The attempt was called off after five soldiers were killed during a training accident.

Documents found with Saddam Hussein link the captured dictator to Baghdad guerrilla cells connected to "Mohammed's Army," (search) which has mounted resistance operations around Tikrit, Fox News learned Tuesday.

These documents are leading to the arrest of other resistance fighters and regime members, according to U.S. military officials.

The documents led to today's arrest of a Fedayeen leader and 78 others.

The nature and details of the papers could lead to more charges against Hussein when he goes to trial.

AP via Guardian

American soldiers arrested a rebel leader and 78 other people during a raid north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

The raid, which began Monday, took place in the village of Abu Safa, near Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. Insurgents in Samarra ambushed U.S. forces on Monday, and the U.S. military said its troops killed 11 attackers.

At 4:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, troops from the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division arrested Qais Hattam, described as the No. 5 fugitive on the division's list of ``high value targets,'' said Capt. Gaven Gregory of the 4th Infantry's 3rd Brigade.

Hattam is not on the U.S. list of the 55 most wanted Iraqis. Thirteen fugitives from that list are still at large after the capture over the weekend of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Soldiers also seized bomb making material, Gregory said.

It was not immediately known if the raid was linked to intelligence gleaned from Saddam, who is under interrogation in U.S. military custody.

Saddam already has at least two lawyers ready to take his case.

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark was quoted on an Islamic Web site saying he would take the job. French lawyer Jacques Verges, who defended Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and assassin Carlos the Jackal, also offered his services.

[This news better left without comment from this editor]

Too bad, I was going to call this guy and see if he wanted the job.

Update: Here's a link to the IslamOnline story with Ramsey's quote.

Last time we heard from Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Washington), he was hanging out in Baghdad.

Yesterday, he appeared on a Seattle radio station where he had these lovely things to say:

- They could have caught Saddam a long time ago, if they really wanted to.
- The capture was timed to help Bush in the polls

"I don't know that it was definitely planned on this weekend, but I know they've been in contact with people all along who knew basically where he was. It was just a matter of time till they'd find him. "

"It's funny, when they're having all this trouble, suddenly they have to roll out something."

Democrats joined Republicans in denouncing McDermott.

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash: "...[T]o criticize them on the capture of Saddam, when it's such a big thing to our troops, is just ridiculous."

In a phone interview, Raghad, 35, told the Arabic-language channel that the family believes Saddam was drugged after he surrendered to American troops.

"This is not our father," [daughter Raghad] said. "This is not how he would act."

Perhaps she expected a samurai-like ending, where her father falls upon his sword, committing a honor suicide.

Raghad said her family is seeking a fair trial for their father. They are now looking to hire an attorney.

Perhaps Mark Geragos is available.

We had a great response to the Caption Contest, with over 150 entries, and even garnered a "big media" reference from the Philadelphia Inquirer. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth we have the list down to 10 ... not the 10 best in everyone's mind, I'm sure, but we felt these 10 were either quite funny, or best reflected the Command Post Ethos.

So ... here's the picture, and below that is the poll. We'll keep voting open for at least a day, and again, 15 minutes of fame to the winner.

Caption Contest: Which is your favorite Saddam caption?
	Great Fashion Failures : Santa Claus Goes Goth (Alan E Brain)
	I am announcing my candidacy for Governor of Vermont. (nikita_demosthenes)
	Once I'm acquitted, I'll start to look for the real genocidal dictator. (A Reader)
	I think I pooped myself, oh ho wrong hand … now I got it in my beard.... (rumcrook)
	WMDs? No idea where they are, but I've got some creamed corn in here somewhere... (Mike)
	President-elect of the Republic of France (Peter)
	Did they have to take away my cardboard sign, "Will tyrannize for food?” (Limpet)
	That depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is. (Faith)
	All my palace are belong to U.S. (Del Simmons)
	Hey that turkey isn't real! (Butthead)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

AFP:

KUWAIT CITY : Saddam Hussein's fugitive number two, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, may have surrendered to US-led coalition forces in Iraq, Kuwait Television reported on Tuesday, quoting its correspondent in Baghdad.

The correspondent said on air that "the information is not confirmed and is confusing."

He said that according to the information, Duri had given himself up on Tuesday morning and that no more details were available.

An official at Kuwait Television later told AFP that the station's correspondent was quoting Iraqi sources that had told him Duri had surrendered.

Number six on the US wartime list of most wanted Iraqi officials, Duri is now the highest-ranking official of the former regime still at large.

He has a US$10 million bounty on his head.

Ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was captured by US forces near his hometown of Tikrit on Saturday. - AFP

Update: At the bottom of this report Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff denied this report:

Myers cast doubt on regional news reports about the arrest of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who is the highest-ranking member of Saddam's former regime still at large and is thought to be organizing anti-U.S. attacks.

"We heard the same thing. We chased that down. We are not aware that has taken place," he said.

In contrast to events in Ramadi, even Saddamites in Mosul are starting to get the Idea of this Democracy thing. From The Australian :

Some 1,000 students protested peacefully Tuesday in Iraq's northern capital Mosul in support of captured ex-president Saddam Hussein, a correspondent reported.

The demonstrators marched from the university through the city shouting slogans against the US-led occupation and US-installed Governing Council.

Police were on standby but did not intervene.

Marchers carried portraits of Saddam and banners proclaiming "Yes, yes to the leader", "Iraq will remain free".

They shouted "No to traitors, no to Ahmad Chalabi", a pro-US member of the governing council who returned home with the invasion.

University teachers went on strike in Mosul on Tuesday demanding higher salaries.

From my hometown Philadelphia Inquirer:

Worldwide chatter about Saddam Hussein erupted in the blogosphere within minutes of his capture and was still at fever pitch yesterday.

Warbloggers rejoiced. Anti-war bloggers searched for clouds behind the silver lining. Iraqi bloggers praised Allah.

And a soldier who's a translator and interrogator and goes by the nom de blog Baghdaddy (whosyourbaghdaddy.blog-city.com) compared reaction there to a Star Wars movie.

"The celebratory fire, and the smiles on everyone's faces, is reminiscent of the victory scene at the end of Return of the Jedi, when the Death Star was destroyed signifying the end of the Empire," wrote Baghdaddy. It was, he said, "worthy of a John Williams soundtrack!"

Gunmen with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons ambushed a U.S. patrol Monday afternoon in the town of Samarra (search), 60 miles north of Baghdad, a military statement said. The attack caused no casualties to the patrol, which called in reinforcements.

A company commander on the scene said 11 insurgents were killed in the ensuing firefight.

An earlier attempted ambush occurred when two men on a motorcyle, using children as cover, fired at a passing U.S. patrol.

In Ramadi, U.S. forces were fired upon as nearly 750 pro-Saddam Iraqis gathered at the Governance Center. One U.S. soldier was injured; two protesters were killed.

France Pledges to Help Reduce Iraq's Debt

France said Monday it will work with other nations to cancel billions of dollars in Iraqi debt and suggested that Saddam Hussein's capture would open the way toward mending relations with Washington.

Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin of France, one of the most persuasive and persistent critics of the U.S. decision to wage war in Iraq said he hopes the capture will allow the international community to "regain its unity."

France's commitment toward reducing the outstanding debt came a day before U.S. special envoy James A. Baker was to arrive in Paris, one of five European capitals he will visit this week as part of an effort to encourage such moves.

It appears US pressure has worked:

The establishment of a sovereign government will allow international solidarity to fully express itself," French President Jacques Chirac said, according to spokeswoman Catherine Colonna. "We now need to look to the future."

Mending relations with Washington and persuading the Bush administration to hand decision-making power over to the Iraqis could also bolster France's ability to influence Iraq's future -- and its chances of participating in the lucrative reconstruction of Iraq.

France, in the most concrete gesture to Washington, will join other members of the Paris Club of creditor nations to look for ways of restructuring or forgiving huge debts Iraq owes them, de Villepin said.

"France could envisage the cancellation of appropriate debts," he said at a news conference after meeting a delegation of visiting Iraqi ministers. He did not provide any figures.

Cross-posted at OTB

A mountain of evidence may delay trial: "You have an entire country that's a crime scene," a U.S. official told Fox News.

**

Professor Ruth Wedgewood talks with Wolf Blitzer about Saddam's treatment:

BLITZER: So he could be a detainee?

WEDGEWOOD: He's a detainee three ways till Sunday.

**

Koffi Annan: ''The U.N. does not support death penalty. In all the courts we have set up (U.N. officials) have not included death penalty."

**

The new Most Wanted man in Iraq: With the capture of Saddam Hussein, U.S. forces are focusing more attention on Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a longtime deputy of Hussein and the leading target on the shrinking list of Iraqi officials who have eluded capture. He is one of 13 ex-regime members who are at large from the U.S. list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis, and the only one with a $10-million bounty on his head.

**

Complete list of who is and isn't accounted for the in the infamous deck of cards.

**

Saddam Says...

**

Gallery of celebration pictures

From The Australian :

US troops killed two Iraqis after Saddam Hussein loyalists sacked regional government offices and insurgents attacked police stations yesterday in a show of force after the capture of the former dictator.

The pair of Iraqis were shot dead in the Sunni rebel stronghold of Fallujah 60km west of Baghdad, police and journalists at the scene said.

The pair were shot inside a car, Iraqi police Lieutenant Hamid Ali Bardi said.

A US military spokeswoman in Baghdad said she was checking on the report but had no confirmation.

The shooting occurred about 9:00pm (0300 AEDT), just after an explosion in the town, a centre of anti-coalition resistance.

Earlier, pro-Saddam demonstrators sacked Fallujah's regional government offices, forcing police guards to flee, journalists at the scene said.
[...]
In Baghdad, a pro-Saddam demonstration degenerated into fighting and attacks on two police stations in the Sunni Muslim quarter of Adhamiyeh in the northern part of the city yesterday afternoon.

"About 100 assailants attacked two police stations in the district with automatic weapons and RPGs from along the roofs and in the street," Lieutenant Haidar Zuheir said.

The attack came after police fired into the air to disperse the loyalists approaching one station, said Ali Abdul Jaber, a witness. The protesters scattered into adjacent streets but then began to aim at the police station.

Neither police nor a local hospital reported any casualties.
[...]
About 200 people protested in Adhamiyeh on Sunday evening with portraits of the deposed leader. "Saddam is the glory of our country," they chanted.

In Ramadi, 100km west of the capital, protesters took to the streets and stormed the governor's building and put up Saddam posters.

In Tikrit, 300 students demonstrated in support of Saddam.

"With our blood, with our soul, we defend you Saddam Hussein," they chanted.

As mainstream media is just starting to realise, that was left to eyewitnesses who blogged it with photos.

Reuters:

Russia yesterday played down the importance of the weekend capture of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, with a top diplomat describing the event as “mainly symbolic”.

In a stance that contrasts starkly with Western euphoria, Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov made it clear Russia was unhappy about US attempts to deny post-war contracts in Iraq to states that opposed the US-led offensive against Iraq.

“We are talking here about what is mainly a symbolic event,” Fedotov said of Saddam’s capture, in remarks to Itar-Tass news agency.

The Jordanian Bar Association is calling for lawyers to defend Saddam Hussein:

The Jordanian Bar Association said Monday that lawyers should step forward to defend Saddam.

"The Jordanian Bar Association considers President Saddam Hussein as the head of the resistance to liberate a dear part of our occupied Arab land," said the bar's president, Hussein Mejali. He urged the world, and Arab leaders in particular, to provide Saddam with "the legitimate protection he deserves as a leader of a liberation movement against occupation."

Every lawyer's dream job, right? FOX News has more on international reaction to putting the dug-up dictator on trial.

The Wall Street Journal (link for subscribers only) has more details on the Jordanian announcement, including the observation that "Jordanian professional associations, including the Bar Association, have long supported Saddam."

The jokes are already doing the round. It's Dutch language, but the graphics and captions are English: Mohammed Saïd -- "that isn't Saddam!" -- al-Sahaf and more..

Good afternoon. Yesterday, December the 13th, at around 8:30 p.m. Baghdad time, United States military forces captured Saddam Hussein alive. He was found near a farmhouse outside the city of Tikrit, in a swift raid conducted without casualties. And now the former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions.

The capture of this man was crucial to the rise of a free Iraq. It marks the end of the road for him, and for all who bullied and killed in his name. For the Baathist holdouts largely responsible for the current violence, there will be no return to the corrupt power and privilege they once held. For the vast majority of Iraqi citizens who wish to live as free men and women, this event brings further assurance that the torture chambers and the secret police are gone forever.

And this afternoon, I have a message for the Iraqi people: You will not have to fear the rule of Saddam Hussein ever again. All Iraqis who take the side of freedom have taken the winning side. The goals of our coalition are the same as your goals -- sovereignty for your country, dignity for your great culture, and for every Iraqi citizen, the opportunity for a better life.

In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over. A hopeful day has arrived. All Iraqis can now come together and reject violence and build a new Iraq.

The success of yesterday's mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq. The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator's footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime, and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people. Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate them.

I also have a message for all Americans: The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq. We still face terrorists who would rather go on killing the innocent than accept the rise of liberty in the heart of the Middle East. Such men are a direct threat to the American people, and they will be defeated.

We've come to this moment through patience and resolve and focused action. And that is our strategy moving forward. The war on terror is a different kind of war, waged capture by capture, cell by cell, and victory by victory. Our security is assured by our perseverance and by our sure belief in the success of liberty. And the United States of America will not relent until this war is won.

May God bless the people of Iraq, and may God bless America. Thank you.

A tour of Saddam's hole in the ground reads like a visit to a college dorm: candy bars, soda, dirty laundry, old textbooks strewn on the floor and dirty dishes in the sink.

At least college students don't have to go to the bathroom in a ditch, like Saddam did. And they probably don't have a poster of Noah's Ark hanging over the bed.

This is quite a pathetic ending for a man who once weilded such power.

Bush takes a few digs at Saddam:

Bush said that, if given the chance to talk to Saddam, he'd say: "Good riddance, the world is better off without you Mr. Saddam Hussein. I find it very interesting that when the heat got in, you dug yourself a hole and crawled in it."

On bringing Saddam to trial he said:

"Iraqis need to be very much involved -- they were the people who were brutalized by this man … We'll work with the Iraqis to develop a process," Bush said. Of course we want it to be fair and of course we want the world to say, 'he got a fair trial.'

"I've got my own personal views on how he ought to be treated but I'm not an Iraqi citizen, it's got to be up to the Iraqis," Bush continued. "My personal views aren't important in this matter."

[Full story]

And, apparently, the trial - which some are saying could happen anywhere from within a few weeks to March - will be televised.

Looks like Saddam was leading the charges from his hole in the ground after all:

U.S. military officials said Monday they had arrested several resistance leaders in Baghdad based on documents found when Saddam Hussein was captured.

Officials said that some of the documents detailed a meeting of resistence cell leaders -- and included their names.

-Full story at CNN-

Update: We'll keep the caption contest open until 5:00 PM EST today. 15 minutes of fame for the winner. Post your entry in the comments (and please try to keep it clean). And given the number of quality entries, we may use a Command Post Poll to pick the winner (and celebrate the democratic process).

Click each image to enlarge.

Jeff Parker for Florida Today

Mehdi of Persitoons (Cartoons from Iran)

Mike Keefe - Denver Post

Jeff Danziger - L.A. Times

Chris Muir - Day by Day

Most images found at Daryl Cagle's Professional Cartoonist Index

The deposed Iraqi leader, whose arrest stunned the world on Sunday, is expected to be questioned about his former regime's weapons of mass destruction, alleged humanitarian crimes and alleged pilfering of Iraq's wealth. But the U.S.-led coalition (search) was placing priority on information about attacks on the occupation, which have often come in the form of homicide car bombings.

"He is talking, but he is portraying himself and his country as victims and is not cooperating," a U.S. official told Fox News.

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. Our "Winds of War" coverage of the global War on Terror is a separate briefing today, and both are brought to you by guest blogger Robin Burk. Note that these entries are a private effort, and do not represent the official position of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

TOP TOPICS

• Now that Saddam is taken alive without resistance, more details may begin to leak out about the run up to the war and about secret alliances. For instance, the Iraqi Governing Council has produced a document which claims the Saddam regime had ties to the 9/11 plotters. Donald Sensing has more on this story, and Dan Darling has been saying this for a while now. Powerline is dubious. We'll see.

• CPO Sparkey has a friend heading over to the Iraq, and he's asking for lessons learned. We've got a whole bunch of lessons learned, from his military comrades-in-arms around the globe.

• In addition, the 2nd article in Robin's Special Report on Haliburton & DoD contracting is out. Part two of three.

Read The Rest...

We may have captured Saddam Hussein, but this isn't over. Sparkey over at Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing has a friend who is deploying to Iraq. He asks:

bq. "...he and his shipmates would appreciate any other "lessons learned" from those who've gone before or are already there."

Ask, and ye shall receive. Winds of Change.NET has run or linked to a whole bunch of useful materials over the last few months. I searched through our archives, and came up with the following items from Iraq and beyond that may be of help:

• The Battle of Thunder Run (Dec. 12, 2003)
  
• Lessons Learned from a LTC in Tikrit (WoW - Sept. 22, 2003)
  
• Post-war Lessons Learned Report from 3rd ACR, and also one from TM C/3-15 Infantry, Task Force 1-64 Armor "Desert Rogues" during Operation Iraqi Freedom. (Sept. 17, 2003)
  
• God is in the Details analyzes the weapons problems of the 507th. See also the comments section (June 24, 2003)
  
• AARs from the Marines on their gear, and another related to small unit engagements in Operation Iraqi Freedom (June 3, 2003)
  
• Real Men Wear Pantyhose! No, this isn't a joke. (June 3, 2003)
  
• V Corps Lessons Learned (April 4, 2003)
  
• Israeli historian and army reservist Yagil Henkin on Israeli urban tactics (WoW - April 3, 2003)
  
• Master Sgt. Rudy Romero's Letter from Afghanistan (Feb. 18, 2003)
  
• 4GW: Small Wars (July 9, 2002)
  
• A very comprehensive account of the battle of Jenin offers some lessons on tactics, as well as some indicators of what to prepare for.

There were stunning revelations in The Telegraph on Saturday.

Dr Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-man Presidential Committee, reported on a top secret memo that has been recovered. The memo, dated July 1, 2001, is to Saddam Hussein from Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. The memo details: (1) Saddam's aid in training September 11 terrorist, Mohammed Atta, and (2) Saddam's successful effort to obtain uranium from Niger, Africa.

As reported in The Telegraph:

* * *

* * *

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Part I is here.

***

Rep. Dick Gephardt: "I supported this effort in Iraq without regard for the political consequences because it was the right thing to do. I still feel that way now and today is a major step toward stabilizing Iraq and building a new democracy."

***

Time: When asked “How are you?” said the official, Saddam responded, “I am sad because my people are in bondage.” When offered a glass of water by his interrogators, Saddam replied, “If I drink water I will have to go to the bathroom and how can I use the bathroom when my people are in bondage?”

***

The view from China: Saddam's capture gives Bush huge boost.

***

Tomorrow's covers, via Jeff Jarvis:

***

Karl Marx?

***
Persian Journal: Born Arab, live & ruled like an Arab and captured like an Arab.

***

I will be adding links and updates through the evening and then again tomorrow. Most recent links will be on top.

***
Saddam has left the building.

***
The 4th ID takes a victory lap.

***
Capture sends Tel Aviv stock market soaring.

***
Death to Saddam! Death to Saddam!

Here is an Associated Press report filed within the past half-hour, asserting that Saddam has been removed from Iraq. Within the past ten minutes, however, Geraldo Rivera announced that the White House is directly refuting that report.

So, don't get confused. Try to follow the bouncing bum

Japan stocks up 2.7% at midday after Saddam news.

Still some bad news coming out of Iraq:

Just 12 hours after Saddam Hussein was captured, a car bomb exploded Sunday outside the police station in this town 60 miles west of Baghdad, and military officials said at least 17 people had been killed and 33 wounded. It was the deadliest attack on American-led forces since two police stations near Baghdad were hit with car bombs three weeks ago.

OK, the Celebrations are just beginning. And the Media is spinning. But amidst the hoo-ha, there are omens and portents that may get lost in the shuffle unless someone keeps a cool head. Which the US Military is doing. They do the "Cool Head" bit very well. From Time magazine :

Along with the $750,000 in cash, two AK 47 machine guns and pistol found with Saddam, the U.S. intelligence official confirmed that operatives found a briefcase with Saddam that contained a letter from a Baghdad resistance leader. Contained in the message, the official said, were the minutes from a meeting of a number of resistance leaders who came together in the capital. The official said the names found on this piece of paper will be valuable and could lead to the capture of insurgency leaders around the Sunni Triangle.

Charles Manson and Saddam Hussein: Seperated at birth?

Go here to visit the website of the 4th Infantry Division, the US unit who snagged the Ace of Spades. Want to say "thanks?" Do so at the 4ID Guestbook. There are also a number of messages from regular 4ID readers worth reading in the Forum, which you may visit here.

ABC News: Saddam Capture Could Boost Holiday Sales.

[The newest links are on top ... ]

Aaaand we're back. The latest:

KFSN: Palestinians Mark 'Black Day' of Saddam Capture. (Feh.)

***

ABC (Australia) has a nice summary of the day's quotes here. A taste:

A US soldier at the 4th Infantry Division base in Iraq, shouting in the pause after US administrator Paul Bremer announced the capture of Saddam: "That's right, we got Elvis, we know where he is and he's going back to Vegas."

CNN: Saddam To Face War Crimes Tribunal

***

Iraqi blog Iraq at a Glance: [S]hare us our great day.. I can’t express my feelings.. thanks to the coalition forces and all the honest people who helped in that great operation….thank you thank you thousand times..

The life and times of Saddam: A timeline.

***

Mack Owens: So much for a quagmire.

***

18 days that changed a war.

***

Howard Dean: I think the first order of business is to say this is a great day -- I congratulate the Iraqi people -- and to say that this is a great day for both the American military and the American people and for the Iraqi people.

***

Gen. Wesley Clark: I could not be prouder of the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces for capturing this horrible despot. This is a testament to their courage and determination. I'd also like to congratulate Lt. General Sanchez and the intelligence community for the crucial role they played. We've been due good news from Iraq and the world is a safer and better place now that he is in custody.

***

CNN TV reports that the US is "stepping up" security at the embassy in Egypt.

***

Canadian PM Paul Martin: "Now that he has been captured there's no doubt in my mind that we are now going to be ale to move to a very, very different level of reconstruction . ... This is a great victory, obviously, for the coalition forces. But the biggest winners out of all of this are going to be the people of Iraq."

***

Iraqi journalist Fatah: "When I saw Saddam's long beard, how he looked like a defeated man, it reminded me of the two years I spent in jail, how his agents tortured me in every way you could imagine."

***

NZ Bear asks: Now that he has been found to be alive, I'd ask this to those who considered this an illegitimate war: will you now stand up and demand that Hussein be placed back in power? He was, after all, the "legal" ruler of Iraq. Good question.

***

President Bush will make a live address at 12 noon (EST). Note: Through the wonder of TiVo Alan will Simulblog the President's address for those without access to TV or radio.

***

A rather skimpy history of Saddam from Aljazeera/

Official CENTCOM press release/.

Get them while you can: Saddam's lice up for sale on eBay! (Wow, these pranksters work fast!) via Damian Penny, who notes that George Galloway is mourning Saddam's capture.

***

LT Smash (a veteran of this war) blogs his reaction.

***

Iraqi blogger Omar: Thank you American, British, Spanish, Italian, Australian, Ukrainian, Japanese and all the coalition people and all the good people on earth.
The Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority has updates on their home page as well as Saddam's before and after mug shots.

***

Another Iraqi blogger: Long live the great alliance of Mesopotamia and the United States of America and her allies. Now is the time, now is the time; Do not delay; unleash the Counter Terror.

***

Iraqi citizens celebrate, dance in the streets>

***

Iraqi Blogger Hammorabi: CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL AND HAPPY NEW YEAR (2004) WITHOUT THE TYRANT!

***

World leaders react>

***

Palestinians "saddened" by Saddam's capture.

***

Chirac's statement:

"The president is delighted at the arrest of Saddam Hussein. This is a major event which should strongly contribute to the democratisation and the stabilisation of Iraq and allow the Iraqis to once more be masters of their destiny in a sovereign Iraq," Chirac said in remarks transmitted by telephone by his spokeswoman Catherine Colonna.

***

The Iraqi photographers started yelling and whooping again at the press conference when they showed the video of Saddam. More wild applause. Some of them sound like they're crying.

***

Jeff Jarvis has a great roundup of links and reactions.

***

Fox has two videos up: The announcement of Saddam in custody and the Bremer press conference.

***

Another Iraqi blogger says:
The celebratory fire, and the smiles on everyones faces is reminisent of the victory scene at the end of Return of The Jedi, when the Death Star was destroyed signifying the end of the Empire. The scene here in Baghdad is truly one worthy of a John Williams soundtrack! My mood is one of joy, thankfulness, and brotherhood with the Iraqi people (for whom we have laboured long to free of this tyrant and his cohorts). GOD BLESS AMERICA, AND GOD BLESS IRAQ!

[This post will be updated as new stories come in]

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Full text: prime minister's statement
I think it only proper to include a portion of our greatest ally's speech on the capture of Saddam Hussein. Thank you Tony Blair.

Where his rule meant terror and division and brutality, let his capture bring about reconciliation and peace between all the people in Iraq.

Saddam is gone from power. He will not be coming back. That the Iraqi people now know, and it is they who will decide his future.

And in Iraq today we work hard, the coalition forces from 30 different nations and Iraqis who love their country and who work hard with us to rebuild Iraq to nurture its wealth for all its people.

In the timetable we have established, power will be handed over to the Iraqis to run Iraq as a sovereign, independent state, based on the principles of justice, democracy and the rule of law.

[....]

The rebirth of Iraq is the death of their attempt to sell the lie that we are fighting Muslims. Muslims were Saddam's victims. Muslims, today in Iraq, the beneficiaries of his demise.

Let's remember all those Iraqis who died under Saddam. The remains of 400,000 human beings already found in mass graves.

So this is a time for celebration, but it is also a time to look forward, to unify and to reconcile.

Our thanks go to the coalition forces and the intelligence services who brought about Saddam's capture. Once again, they have proved their professionalism, their courage, and their commitment.

CNN is reporting live shots of smoke and a loud explosion in Baghdad, near the Palestine Hotel (where the press corps stays).

Update: CNN citing Reuters as saying this was a car bomb, right near the Reuters office

Update: Now CNN is saying this was an explosion of fuel canisters on a truck in Baghdad.

FOX: Brit Hume referred to the captured Saddam (Ace of Spades in the Coalition Deck of the Wanted) as:

Here's the full text, posted just moments after the President's remarks, thanks to a TiVo-powered Simulblog:

Yesterday, December the 13th, at around 8:30 PM Baghdad time, United States military forces captured Saddam Hussein alive.

He was found near a farm house outside the city if Tikrit, in a swift raid, conducted without casualties, and now the former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions.

The capture of this man was crucial to the rise of a free Iraq. It marks the end of the road for him, and for all who bullied and killed in his name.

For the Baathist holdouts largely responsible for the current violence, there will be no return to the corrupt power and privilege they once held. For the vast majority of Iraqi citizens who wish to live as free men and women, this event brings further assurance that the torture chambers and secret police are gone forever.

And this afternoon I have a message for the Iraqi people: You will not have to fear the rule of Saddam Hussein ever again. All Iraqis who take the side of freedom have taken the winning side. The goals of our coalition are the same as your goals: sovereignty for your country, dignity for your great culture, and for every Iraqi citizen, the opportunity for a better life.

In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over. A hopeful day has arrived. All Iraqis can now come together and reject violence and build a new Iraq. The success of yesterday’s mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq. The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator’s footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies, have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime, and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people.

Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our armed forces and I congratulate them. I also have a message for all Americans: The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq. We still face terrorists who would rather go on killing the innocent than accept the rise of liberty in the Middle East. Such men are a direct threat to the American people, and they will be defeated.

We’ve come to this moment through patience and resolve and focused action, and that is our strategy moving forward. The war on terror is a different kind of war, waged capture by capture, cell by cell, and victory by victory. Our security is assured by our perseverance, and by our sheer belief in the success of liberty, and the United States of America will not relent until this war is won.

May God bless the people of Iraq, and may God bless America.

Reuters [ Full story »» ] reports:

One Iraqi captured in recent days gave U.S. authorities information during interrogation that led to the capture of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, ending an intense manhunt since the fall of Baghdad in April. "The most recent final endgame was from one captured person who provided a lead which led them to that location," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. The captured Iraqi was not identified. "Over the past week or two there has been an increased effort to try to identify people who might be enabling him to keep hidden," the official said. U.S. intelligence agencies and the military launched "an analytic effort devoted to trying to find who from former bodyguards and other supporters might be in a position to help him hide out," the official said.U.S. forces including Task Force 121 was sent out to search for those supporters who had been identified. "These are not big time names," the official said. "Some of them couldn't be found but they could find people who were related to them, or knew them, and as they would scoop up some of these people they would interrogate them and ask them about the whereabouts of the other people they were looking for," the official said. "And so they kept moving closer and closer to the inner circle," the official said.

The profiles on Saddam Hussein are updated again:

• BBC
• CNN
• FoxNews
• Guardian
• Reuters

• Tales of Saddam's brutality


Posted By Oskar van Rijswijk at 11:47 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Here's a screen cap of the farm house where the 4ID captured Hussein:

... and a screen cap of the entry to his hole:

Click on each for larger versions. Oh ... and he had $750,000 cash. Wouldn't make a bad college fund for the kids of 4ID KIAs, don't you think?

JTA [ Full story »» ] reports:

Israel’s president called Saddam Hussein’s capture “an opening of hope for the free world.” Visiting China on Sunday, Moshe Katsav said “the free world has waged a battle over the right of people to live in the world without fear of terror has won.”

Fox reports, citing informed officials, that Saddam was NOT found via a tip. Rather, over the last several weeks there was an invigorated effort to "round up" the people who used to surround Saddam, as well as the their friends and associates, and in working leads from person to person they ultimately built up enough information to find him.

Not tips: Some analysts holed up in a room somewhere busting their butts.

Number 10 [ Source »» ] published:

"I very much welcome the capture last night of Saddam Hussein.
"I pay tribute to the work of the Coalition intelligence and military forces in capturing him.
"This is very good news for the people of Iraq.
"It removes the shadow that has been hanging over them for too long of the nightmare of a return to the Saddam regime.
"This fear is now removed.
"It also gives an opportunity for Saddam to be tried in Iraqi courts for his crimes against the Iraqi people.
"And it gives us an opportunity to take a step forward in Iraq.
"In particular I appeal for the Sunni community and former Ba'athist officials to grasp the opportunity for reconciliation.
"We should try now to unite the whole of Iraq in rebuilding the country and offering it a new future."

Whitehouse.gov has the transcript of this morning's "Press Gaggle" in which Scott McClellan briefed the Whitehouse press corp on how the President was alerted and how events unfolded thereafter. Read the whole thing here, and here's a highlight:

MR. McCLELLAN: Good morning. I want to run through a little bit of yesterday and today, how the President was informed about this.

Secretary Rumsfeld called the President at about -- approximately 3:15 p.m., yesterday. The President was at Camp David. The Secretary informed the President that U.S. forces believed that they had captured Saddam Hussein. Secretary Rumsfeld -- well, let me back up. The conversation began by Secretary Rumsfeld saying, something to the effect of: Mr. President, the first reports are not always accurate. The President interrupted the Secretary and said: This sounds like it's going to be good news. And Secretary Rumsfeld then continued and said: General Abizaid called me, he feels confident that we got Saddam Hussein. The President said: Well, that is good news. (Laughter.)

Sofia Morning News [ Full story »» ] reports:

Saddam Hussein's second wife, Samira Shahbandar, who has been described by those who know Saddam as being the closest to him of his four wives, has provided the Americans with information about the location of her husband's hide-out, sources told DPA agency.

ABC NewsOnline [ Full story »» ] reports:

"It is positive news. It's a positive development," Afghan Government spokesman Javid Loodin said.
Jakarta said it should help Iraqis to govern their own nation.
The Philippines, one of Washington's staunchest allies in Asia, also said it would help coalition forces leave Iraq sooner.
In Pakistan, the reaction was more guarded.

Mainichi Daily News [ Full story »» ] reports:

Japanese officials expressed delight over the detention of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein coming just after Tokyo's approval of a plan to send Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to Iraq. "It's a great victory for the international community in its efforts to liberate and rebuild Iraq," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said late Sunday after hearing of the former president's detention. "We appreciate the efforts and patience of countries such as the U.S. and Britain in bringing stability to Iraq."

If you missed Bremer's press conference and can't stream video very well, here's an audio clip I recorded of Bremer's announcement (and the reaction of the press corps in the room, which selfishly, is priceless).

Gerhard Schroeder: Saddam Hussein caused horrible suffering to his people and the region. I hope the capture will help the international community's effort to rebuild and stabilise Iraq.

Australian PM John Howard: Saddam's capture will lift a huge burden and remove a great fear from the people of Iraq.

Spanish PM Jose Maria Aznar: Saddam Hussein is the cause of all the poverty and suffering of the Iraqi people. Today, the moment has arrived for him to pay for his crimes.

Iran VP Mohammad Ali Abtahi: Saddam should be prosecuted because of the crimes he has committed against the Iraqi and Iranian people. Iranians have suffered a lot because of him and mass graves in Iraq prove the crimes he has committed against the Iraqi people. The news of the arrest of a criminal has made me very happy.

Kuwait Information Minister Mohammed Abulhassan: This is the minute we, and the whole world, have been waiting for - to see the arrest of this tyrant who has horrified his own people and many others in the world.

[Various sources]

Some handy links with news-dossiers on the Saddam Arrest:

• NewsNow
• Blogosphere (via: Feedster)
• Google News
• Yahoo News
• AllHeadline News
• NewsDigger
• World News
• BBC Special

Liveblogging of John Kerry on CBS with Dan Rather:

I'm delighted ... this represents the full decapitation of the regime. I voted to hold Saddam Hussein accountable, but I thought there was a better way to do it and I still believe there's a better way to do it ultimately. Capturing Saddam Hussein does not end the possibilities of al Qaeda insurgency, it doesn't end the possibilities of mischief or the difficulties between Shiia and Sunni and Kurds.

I think what it earns for all of us as Americans, and I hope the President will take advantage of this, is a new opportunity to bring more of the world to the table to share the risks and the costs of transforming Iraq ...

... This represents a great moment of leadership for the president, of leadership opportunity. Bring this now to the world, bring the world to the table, and we can transform Iraq together at lower risk and at lower cost to the American people ...

... [now] I think Governor Dean's lack of foreign policy experience now stands out more than ever ...

Watching live on Fox, some snippets:

It is a day of joy for Iraqis....Saddam will face justice, be tried for crimes in Iraq including crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.

More soon

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - American forces captured a bearded Saddam Hussein as he hid in a dirt hole under a farmhouse near his hometown of Tikrit, ending one of the most intensive manhunts in history. The arrest, eight months after the fall of Baghdad, was carried out without a shot fired and was a huge victory for U.S. forces. "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him," U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer told a news conference Sunday. "The tyrant is a prisoner."

Further to this previous post, from the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The head of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, says DNA tests had confirmed that a suspect detained in Iraq was ousted President Saddam Hussein.

"I have the pleasure to announce on behalf of the Iraqi people that Saddam Hussein has been detained," he told a joint news conference with Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio in Madrid.

"A DNA test has already been carried out."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has released a statement confirming the capture.

"I very much welcome the capture last night of Saddam Hussein," Mr Blair said in a statement, quoted by the British Press Association.

He said the arrest "removes the shadow" of his return and "gives an opportunity for Saddam to be tried in Iraqi courts."

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, speaking in Paris, says he also has confirmation Saddam Hussein has been arrested.

Mr Zebari says it is the news the Iraqi people have been waiting for.

"The news I have from Baghdad and from the north, from members of the Governing Council and other sources, in fact all are confirming that the person being arrested this early morning is Saddam Hussein himself," he said.

"It's not his double, it's himself and therefore this is the happiest news for the Iraqi people.

"This is the best news, we've waited for so long and I think this will have a dramatic effect on the security and political situation in Iraq."

Kurdish officials were the first to report the capture of the Saddam Hussein, eight months after he was chased from power by US-led forces.

The official IRNA newsagency in neighbouring Iran reports Saddam Hussein was taken into custody in his home town of Tikrit.

NEWS CONFERENCE IN A FEW MINUTES.

UPDATE: "Ladies and Gentlemen, WE GOT HIM"

(This update needed its own post)

AP / via MyWay News:

Dec 14, 6:48 AM (ET)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Saddam Hussein, trapped in a cellar, dug a hole and buried himself as U.S. soldiers moved into the house where he was hiding, an Iraqi official said Sunday.

"The American soldiers had to use shovels to dig him out," Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi, told The Associated Press.

Qanbar, basing his account on reports from members of the U.S.-led occupation authority, said Saddam had a salt-and-pepper beard when he was captured. Soldiers photographed him, shaved the beard and photographed him again before running DNA tests, he said.

"The DNA test confirmed 100 percent Saddam Hussein's identity," he said.

Qanbar said the capture took place "in a town very close to Tikrit," Saddam's hometown 100 miles north of Baghdad.

Associated Press, via MyWayNews:

Dec 14, 5:48 AM (ET)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Saddam Hussein has been captured alive in his hometown of Tikrit, a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council said Sunday.

Council member Dara Noor al-Din told The Associated Press that the council was informed of the former dictator's capture in a telephone call from L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq.

"Bremer has confirmed to the Governing Council that Saddam was captured in Tikrit," Noor al-Din said. "He spoke on the phone to several members, including Ahmad Chalabi."

Chalabi is a leading member of the council who has close links to the U.S. administration of President Bush.

Read the rest of the article here.

(Click on extended entry for UPDATE links)

Fox News has an article up online:
Saddam Hussein Believed Captured in Iraq

AP articles via MyWayNews:

Dec 14, 6:28 AM (ET) - Blair Welcomes Capture of Saddam Hussein

Dec 14, 6:31 AM (ET) - First Tests Show Captured Man Is Saddam

MSNBC has an article online now as well:
Saddam apparently captured in Tikrit (Updated: 6:32 a.m. ET Dec. 14, 2003)

AP articles via MyWayNews:

Dec 14, 6:44 AM (ET): Iraq Council Confirms Saddam Caught Alive

Dec 14, 6:48 AM (ET): Official: Saddam Dug Hole to Hide Himself

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A US army officer who led a battalion in northern Iraq has been found guilty of aggravated assault on a prisoner and has tendered his resignation.

Lieutenant Colonel Allen West was suspended from his post in August when he was charged with beating up and threatening to kill an Iraqi policeman he was interrogating about attacks on US forces.

In a closed hearing on Friday with the commander of the 4th Infantry Division and the officer acting as judge, West admitted violating army rules and asked to retire as of Spring next year, the US military said.

Lieutenant Colonel West was fined $US5,000 but escaped a full military trial.
[...]
At a hearing last month, West admitted he watched his men beat the detainee, Yahya Jhodri Hamoody, without intervening and said he fired a warning shot in the air from his pistol.

Mr Hamoody, a policeman, was brought in for questioning at Taji, just north of Baghdad, around August 20.

"If it's about the lives of my men and their safety, I'd go through hell with a gasoline can," Lieutenant Colonel West said at the hearing, referring to the need to get information on possible attacks.

Col. West threatened to kill the Iraqi, who was a policeman in the town of Saba al Boor, unless he talked. Col. West said the tactic worked in that the Iraqi provided the names of insurgents who planned attacks on his men.

From The Australian (which normally has a pretty good record for straight reporting):

A series of explosions peppered the US headquarters in the Iraqi capital today after a US soldier died in a suicide truck bombing as mass resignations almost halved the first battalion of the new Iraqi army.

Repeated assurances from US top brass sit uneasily with the daily grind of blood and violence in Iraq where three suicide bombers have blown themselves up in as many days nearby American bases.

Four explosions followed by two very loud blasts had rung out in succession about half past midnight (0930 AEDT) in Baghdad followed by another big boom this morning.

"Two projectiles impacted in the vicinity of the Green Zone," a military spokesman said reporting no casualties.

"One caused minor damage to a building," he said. "An investigation is continuing."

Iraqi police on the edge of the zone told reporters it was probably a controlled explosion of ordnance. The US military had no immediate information about the blast.

One US soldier died and 14 others were wounded Thursday in a truck bombing outside the rebel town of Ramadi, 100km west of Baghdad.

"A furniture truck was driven by a suicide bomber" at about 1:30 pm (2130 AEDT) at Champion Main, 82nd Airborne Division Headquarters, in the vicinity of Ramadi," a statement said.

"It is believed three Iraqis driving the vehicle were killed in the explosion," another statement said.

American Forces Press Service: Iraqis Stage Sweeping Pro-Coalition Demonstrations.

Well, at least one news service other than Fox News picked up the story...

* * *

* * *

Will ABC, CBS, NBC, or CNN pick up the story now?

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

US troops have shot dead a senior officer of the paramilitary group Saddam Fedayeen after storming his house in the northern Iraq city of Mosul, his neighbours said.

The US Army confirmed there were raids in Mosul but refused to comment about the reported death of Col Ghanem Abdul-Ghani Sultan al-Zeidi.

Two of al-Zeidi's neighbours, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said US troops stormed his one-story house in Mosul's central neighbourhood of al-Sukar just before dawn and shooting was heard later. Helicopters took part in the operation, the neighbours said.

The gate of al-Zeidi's house have been locked. There were several bullet holes in the gate. A black banner nearby read: "The heroic martyr Colonel Ghanem Abdul-Ghani Sultan al-Zeidi was martyred during a blatant aggression by American forces at his house on 12/10/2003."

From the AAP via the Sydney Morning Herald :

Plans to deploy the first battalion of Iraq's new army are in doubt because a third of the soldiers trained by the US-led occupation authority have quit, US defence officials said.

Touted as a key to Iraq's future, the 700-man battalion lost some 250 men over recent weeks as they were preparing to begin operations this month, Defence Department officials said.

"We are aware that a third ... has apparently resigned and we are looking into that in order to ensure that we can recruit and retain high-quality people for a new Iraqi army," said Lt Col James Cassella, a Pentagon spokesman.
[...]
"Across the country, Iraqi security forces - now number close to 160,000 - are assuming more responsibility for the security of their country," Rumsfeld said for instance at a Pentagon press conference.

"In Kirkuk, (the US commander) reports that today nearly all crime is now dealt with by the 2,200 coalition-trained Iraqi security police," Rumsfeld said.

"Joint patrols have largely ended and Iraqis have stepped forward in that particular area to patrol on their own."

He didn't mention the problem with the army recruits. Officials said they were unaware of any other sizable resignations from the rest of the 160,000 new Iraqi security groups, which they said includes 68,000 police, 13,200 civil defence forces, 65,300 guards at facilities and infrastructure and 12,500 border police.

UPDATE: The Eagle-eyed Tim Blair has spotted this lonely sentence in a New York Times story :

In contrast, a heavily policed march in central Baghdad on Wednesday, organized peacefully by the country's major political parties, drew thousands of Iraqis to protest attacks by guerrilla fighters, which have injured and killed Iraqi civilians as well as occupiers.

This is to supplement Michele's earlier post here.

* * *

Iraqis stage large anti-terrorism protests in Baghdad - while mainstream media "journalists" order another gin & tonic...

Zeyad of Healing Iraq blog makes the mainstream media look like complete asses. Well - even more so than usual.

Zeyad's report on the anti-terrorism rally in Baghdad scoops all of the mainstream press - and does it for free. The rally was attended by some 10,000 Iraqis.

Someone remind me - why do we have the mainstream press again?

A portion of Zeyad's report from Baghdad:

* * *

* * *

A small sampling of Zeyad's photos from the rally:

"No to terrorism, Yes for peace and democracy"

"To Arab media: this is not resistance"

tribal leaders

school children demonstrating

* * *

The anti-terrorism, pro-democracy demonstrations were also blogged by Omar of Iraq the Model blog.

* * *

Via Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, and the Drudge Report.

P.S. Instapundit noted in his post that he was only able to find 2 reports in the mainstream press about this large pro-U.S.-coalition rally in downtown Baghdad. Oddly, as of this writing, neither of the links to these mainstream press stories are working. And my own Google search revealed no mainstream press stories on the Baghdad pro-democracy demonstration, as of this writing. Weird.

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

* A crowd of ~10,000 Iraqis (per Zeyad) held demonstrations against terrorism today in Firdus Square. Healing Iraq has pictures and more.

* The US is reportedly pulling together fighters from all of the major Iraqi militias to form an elite unit to fight the Baathists.

* The Iraqi Governing Council has voted to expel the the Iranian communist organization Mujahideen-e-Khalq, which fought for Saddam Hussein both during and prior to the war. This could serve as a possible means for members of the MEK to be turned over to Iran if they take the Jordanian offer on al-Qaeda seriously.

Other Topics Today Include: Raids near Mosul; roadside bombing in Duluiyah; raids near the Syrian border; car bombing in Tal Afar; 41 arrests in Spanish intelligence officers' murder case; Iraqi Civil Defense Corps formed; AFN to broadcast in Baghdad; the al-Dujaile Massacre; Iraqi war crimes tribunal; Basra revenge killings; Iraqi Air Force scrapped; source of the 45 minute claim

Read the Rest...

Blogger Zeyad of Healing Iraq:

The rallies today proved to be a major success. I didn't expect anything even close to this. It was probably the largest demonstration in Baghdad for months. It wasn't just against terrorism. It was against Arab media, against the interference of neighbouring countries, against dictatorships, against Wahhabism, against oppression, and of course against the Ba'ath and Saddam.

Read the rest. Zeyad also has plenty of pictures.

From Yahoo News:

* * *

* * *

This apparently comes from a reliable DoD source. . .

Received from: Ordnance Handling Officer USS ENTERPRISE (CVN 65)Tuesday,
Dec. 2, 2003 12:44 a.m. EST

Bagram GI: Troops Waited While Hillary Chowed Down

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton forced U.S. troops stationed at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan to wait for their Thanksgiving dinner last Thursday while she and her entourage arrived late, then cut in line and were served first.

A soldier who witnessed the scene tells NewsMax:

"Thanksgiving Dinner started at 3 p.m. that day, so the line was forming around 2:30 p.m. She didn't show up until around 3:30 p.m.

"Once she got there," our source maintains, "Clinton and her entourage bumped everyone in line, forcing them to wait almost an extra hour."

The brass at Bagram apparently had a hard time rounding up New Yorkers who wanted to have dinner with Clinton, D-N.Y. Only six GIs responded to an e-mail sent out last week that stated, "Looking for military members from New York and Rhode Island interested in meeting their Senator/Congressman."

People magazine was on hand to cover the event and wanted to interview the troops for reaction to Clinton's visit.

"But they were getting declined left and right," our source said. "People were actually telling the reporters, 'You don't want to print what I think about her and her visit.'"

After Clinton and her entourage departed, the only topics GIs wanted to talk about were "how great the food was and how fantastic they thought George Bush's visit to Iraq was."

* * *

Some links regarding this story are available at nikita demosthenes.

From The Australian :

Three Muslims died and two were wounded Tuesday when a bomb exploded in the courtyard of a Sunni mosque after morning prayers in the capital, police said.

US Lieutenant Colonel Frank German said from the scene that the explosion occurred shortly after dawn and appeared to have been inside the Ahbab al-Mustafa mosque in central Baghdad.

Posted By Zoe Brain at 06:38 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

One US soldier has died in a drive-by shooting while on duty near a petrol station in the northern city of Mosul.

In Mosul witnesses said a second soldier was wounded as they directed a large queue of traffic.

"We had a soldier today at approximately midday who was involved in an operation in the vicinity of a gas station," Brigadier General Kimmitt, the coalition's deputy director of operations in Iraq, told a press conference.

"There was a drive-by shooting by four, we believe, Iraqis who shot and killed him."

Brigadier General Kimmitt said the soldier died of gunshot wounds fired from the vehicle which had halted some 40 metres away to carry out the attack.
[...]
Witnesses in Mosul said they saw a gunman opening fire on the soldiers with an automatic rifle from the sunroof of a passing black BMW.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Japan's Cabinet has approved a plan to send non-combat troops to Iraq, a landmark decision that clears the way for what could be the biggest and most dangerous overseas mission by its military since World War II.

Trade Minister Shoichi Nakagawa told reporters the decision had been made at a specially convened Cabinet meeting.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will give a news conference tonight, explaining the controversial step, which some critics say violates the country's pacifist constitution.

Bombings at two U.S. bases in northern Iraq wounded at least 33 American soldiers in attacks staged less than three hours apart, U.S. military officials say.

An apparent suicide bomber tried to ram a car through the main gate of the U.S. Army's 101 Airborne division base in northern Iraq when the vehicle exploded, wounding 31 American soldiers Tuesday, U.S. military officials said.

Full story...

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 (with plenty of help from Joe) of Andrew Olmsted dot com.

TOP TOPICS

• The issue of Saudi support for terrorism has been an open secret since September 11. Now US News has blown into the issue and uncovered just how deep the problem is (Hat tip: Instapundit).

• The commander of American forces in Iraq expects attacks to increase as Iraq comes closer to national elections next summer. The logic is impeccable, but it suggests that November may be a harbinger of things to come rather than an aberration.

• JK: Photos from Iraq's mass graves. If you were for the war, you need to see this. If you were against it, you really need to see this.

Read The Rest...

By MICHAEL McDONOUGH
Associated Press Writer
Originally published December 7, 2003, 8:22 AM EST

LONDON

* * *

* * *

Via the Baltimore Sun.

Tim Blair: Who sexed-up the 45-minute claim? The media did.

Military says attacks on U.S. troops decline

By John Hendren
Los Angeles Times
Originally published December 7, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld saw firsthand the U.S.-led coalition's strategy of turning over security to Iraqis in a sweep through the nation yesterday, as military officials lauded a precipitous drop in attacks on American troops even as they acknowledged that it was likely the result of poor weather and the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

* * *

Via the Baltimore Sun.

The results of our latest Command Post Iraq Page Poll:

Thanks to all who voted, and note the new Command Post Iraq Page Poll in the right-hand column: Do you think going to war with Iraq was the right thing for the US to do or the wrong thing?

AFP/Space War [ Full story »» ] reports:

Saddam Hussein deployed weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the US-led war on Iraq which could be used on the battlefield in less than 45 minutes, an Iraqi officer told a British Sunday newspaper. The informant, identified as Lieutenant Colonel al-Dabbagh, said he believed he was the source of a controversial claim in a British government dossier on Iraq which claimed some of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) could be deployed within 45 minutes

Vials: A total of 97 vials-including those with labels consistent with the al Hakam cover stories of single-cell protein and biopesticides, as well as strains that could be used to produce BW agents-were recovered from a scientist's residence.

Storage room in basement of Revolutionary Command Council Headquarters. Burned frames of PC workstations visible on shelves. All rooms sharing walls with this storage room were untouched from fire or battle damage.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The basement historical files were systematically selected and destroyed.

* * *

* * *

The foregoing is from "STATEMENT BY DAVID KAY ON THE INTERIM PROGRESS REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE IRAQ SURVEY GROUP (ISG) BEFORE THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEFENSE, AND THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, October 2, 2003," posted at Iraq: Special Report at whitehouse.gov.

A LEADING DEMOCRAT on the Senate Intelligence Committee has reiterated his support for the war in Iraq and encouraged the Bush administration to be more aggressive in its preemptive measures to protect Americans. Evan Bayh, a Democrat from Indiana and a leader of moderates in the Senate, responded to questions last week on the war in Iraq and a memo detailing links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden sent to the committee in late October by Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith and later excerpted in these pages.

* * *

Original story reported in The Weekly Standard by Stephen F. Hayes. Via Instapundit.

From the AAP via the Sydney Morning Herald :

An explosion outside Baghdad's mosque killed one man and injured 20 people, witnesses and hospital workers said.
[...]
It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion outside the al-Samarrai mosque. The injured were evacuated to al-Kindi hospital. Witnesses saw rescue workers removing the body of a man from the footpath.

In Mishada, 30 kilometres north of Baghdad, the US military said the fire that engulfed an armoured personnel carrier was an accident, not an attack.

Witnesses described a guerrilla attack, but Captain Brian Ridely said the explosion was caused by a faulty heater, which caused ammunition inside the vehicle to explode. There were no casualties, Ridely said.

From The Australian :

Gunmen shot dead today a former secret police general who had been in charge of western Baghdad under ousted strongman Saddam Hussein, a witness told said.

General Khalaf Alussi died at his home under a hail of bullets fired by four men, said Wissam Idan, a 24-year-old building worker at the house in the capital's al-Yarmuk area.

The general, who died on the spot, headed the feared secret police in the al-Kharkh district on the west bank of the Tigris river.

From The Australian :

Three gunmen shot and killed an Iraqi policeman on his way to work today in Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, police said.
[...]
The victim in Mosul was a 24-year-old recent graduate of a police academy that has received support and guidance from coalition forces.
[...]
In the northern province of Nineva, US troops captured 16 people, ten of whom were planning attacks against coalition forces, the US military said today. The other six included a weapons dealer and black market merchants, said Master Sgt Kelly Tyler.

She said that shortly before midnight yesterday, armed men in a car opened fire on a base of the 2nd Brigade of the 101 Airborne Division in central Mosul, the capital of Nineva. There were no injuries, and the attackers fled.

In Baghdad yesterday, L Paul Bremer, the top US official in Iraq, predicted that guerrillas will step up attacks in the next few months in an attempt to thwart a transfer of sovereignty from the occupation authority to a new Iraqi government.
[...]
Hours before Bremer spoke yesterday, a roadside bomb hit a US military convoy in Baghdad, killing one soldier. Two Iraqi civilians also died and 13 were wounded.

At a briefing, US Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt said that in the past week, there have been an average of 19 attacks daily on coalition forces and an average of two attacks daily against Iraqi security forces or civilians.

From AZ Central / USAToday:

Nearly 150 U.S. soldiers in Iraq have been diagnosed with a parasitic skin disease and hundreds more could unknowingly be infected, doctors reported Thursday.

Doctors fear that soldiers returning from the front may consult doctors in the United States who have never seen the disease. Complicating matters: The best drug used to treat it is not licensed in the United States.

Expatica reports that a group of about 20 commandos departed on Thursday for southern Iraq to help prevent terror attacks against the 1,100 Dutch troops serving on peacekeeping duties in the bloodied Islamic nation.

Seems some of our loyal readers are the good folks at WGBH, the famed PBS station in Boston. Today they sent this note along:

Alan,

I thought FRONTLINE's latest online project would be a great interest to you (and Command Post readers!). Follow along with Martin Smith and his team now filming in Iraq for their upcoming film "Beyond Baghdad." FRONTLINE will regularly publish dispatches from its team in Iraq throughout the filming.

I've pasted the full press release below. Also, note that you can now watch 27 full FRONTLINE documentaries online in both Real Player and Windows Media.

Best,
[Name withheld]

FRONTLINE Launches ‘Beyond Baghdad’ --
Online Dispatches From Its Team in Iraq
( http://www.pbs.org/frontline/shows/beyond/dispatches/ )

Visitors to FRONTLINE’s Web site can access first-hand accounts of post-war Iraq by FRONTLINE producer Martin Smith and his team as they travel through the country to which President Bush vows to bring democracy.

Through mid-December, these regular dispatches offer an inside look at the experiences and behind-the-scenes stories the three-member team encounter while making the FRONTLINE documentary “Beyond Baghdad,” which airs Thursday, January 29, at 9 P.M on PBS (check local listings).

Beginning with a dispatch from the chaotic border between Turkey and Iraq, the team that produced FRONTLINE’s recent “Truth, War and Consequences” and last year’s “In Search of Al Qaeda” are sending vivid updates of their journey into the Kurdish north, across the rebellious Sunni lands of central Iraq to Baghdad, and south to the sacred Shia cities of Karbala and Najaf.

“There’s a sense of enormous coordination, energy, and accomplishment,” Smith writes in a November 15 dispatch about a briefing at the Battalion Command Center of the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul. “As General Petraeus speeds through slide after slide, I am truly impressed.…The final slide says: ‘We are in a race to win over the people. What have you and your element done today?’”

“But in the waning minutes I am too aware of being seduced.…The reality is messy. And it is uncertain,” writes Smith. “Then something happens. Soldiers are running from the palace. There’s a look on their faces. Two Black Hawk helicopters have collided over Mosul.”

Since the initial launch of its Web site in 1995, FRONTLINE has produced over 140 distinct companion sites, each of which serves as a permanent Internet archive on such diverse topics as Shakespeare, the evolution of Christianity, the two U.S.-Iraq wars, terrorism, and the corporate/financial scandals of the late 1990s. In addition, twenty-seven FRONTLINE films can be watched online in both Real Player and Windows Media, including such classics as “The Farmer’s Wife” and “A Class Divided” as well as new favorites like “Truth, War and Consequences” and “The Merchants of Cool.”

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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

• As most everyone is probably aware of by now, US forces reported killed 46 Iraqi insurgents near the Iraqi town of Samarra. The Belmont Club has some useful analysis behind the significance of the event and Agonist has an account of the fighting from the perspective of a combat leader. General Kimmit has his own comments on the sequence of events that can be read here. According to CNN, the convoys that were attacked were carrying new Iraqi currency, which may indicate that the millions of stashed dinars with Saddam's mug on it that the Baathists are using to finance their attacks are pretty much Monopoly money these days...

  Other Topics Today Include: 82ed in al-Anbar; 3 al-Qaeda operatives captured; the Cage for foreign fighters; Saudi border patrol; Tikrit on a tight rein; al-Douri aide jugged; the media war in Iraq; Ays thanks Jeff Jarvis; Saddam's busts taken down; Governing Council sides with US over Sistani; more reconstruction work in Baghdad; a Japanese diplomat's diary; Spanish killings linked to traitors; Pentagon to pay GIs' travel expenses; and Saddam's deals with North Korea.

  Read The Rest...

  Posted By Winds of Change.NET at 10:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Or rather, the amalgamation of 5 existing forces. From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The American-led administration in Iraq is planning to create a paramilitary force to identify and pursue anti-coalition forces.

It will comprise members of the five main parties in the interim Governing Council.

The aim is to integrate the security forces from various Iraqi political parties.

One source close to the coalition said the battalion would help bring the militias off the streets.
[...]
With the security situation barely under control, it is hoped that the members of the new battalion will be able to use their local knowledge and help coalition troops track down insurgents.

From The Australian :

Three civilians and two policemen were wounded Thursday when a police station in the centre of this troubled town west of Baghdad came under attack, the deputy chief of police said.

"We were attacked by unknown people in a black BMW (car) using light weapons and RPGs," or rocket-propelled grenades, police Lieutenant Samir Habib Jalil said.

From The Australian :

US paratroopers killed one "enemy" and captured 63 in a series of patrols over the last 24 hours west of the Iraqi capital, the coalition said in a statement Thursday.

"The 82nd Airborne Division and subordinate units have conducted 161 patrols, including 10 joint patrols with the Iraqi Border Guard and Iraqi Police," said the statement datelined from Ramadi, a hotbed of loyalists to ousted president Saddam Hussein.

"During these operations, 63 enemy personnel were captured and one killed while suffering no US casualties," it said.

In one raid "Paratroopers conducted a cordon and search in Nassir Wa Al Salaam to capture six members of a Wahabbist cell," it said, referring to Islamic fundamentalists.

"Thirteen enemy personnel were captured and taken into custody for questioning. Also, several small arms weapons, various munitions, military uniforms, U.S. and Iraqi cash, counterfeit money, and improvised explosive device (IED)-making materials were confiscated during the mission."

Read this Al Bawaba story about Iraq's Governing Council ... and the critique of that council by Najeeb Al Salhi (Secretary General of Iraq's Free Officers and Civilians Movement political party and former Chief of Staff for a Rep. Guard Mech. Division).

Left me with a long "Hmmmm."

After reading the article, does it strike you as a good thing that Mr. Salhi is currently involved in helping putting together the Intelligence apparatus in Iraq?

Reuters reports that German authorities are investigating whether an Iraqi man arrested in Munich had been recruiting suicide bombers to attack U.S. troops in Iraq.

Theeyyre baaaack. Read more from this at The Hindu:

Despite being barred from Iraq by the United States led coalition, United Nations weapons inspectors are continuing to collect information on Baghdad's biological and chemical weapons and its missile programmes and preparing for a possible role in the future.

The world body has 51 inspectors on its staff and some of the Security Council members have suggested that they continue with their activities in future to ensure that Iraq does not acquire weapons of mass destruction.

Channel News Asia reports that when we missed Saddam's #2 the other day, we picked up "firebrand Iraqi Shiite leader" Amar al-Yasseri, operations director of Moqtada Sadr in Sadr City, who is believed to have been behind the ambush of coalition troops on October 9.

So say the SFC, although the headline is a bit misleading as it's not a done deal quite yet:

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has approved a plan to start sending 1,000 troops for non-combat duty in Iraq by the end of December, a newspaper reported Thursday ... Mainichi said Koizumi made the decision Wednesday after he was briefed about a military fact-finding mission's trip to Iraq. The Cabinet was expected to approve the dispatch plan next week and Japan's defense chief, Shigeru Ishiba, would have final say on when the 1,000 air, sea and ground forces would be sent, according to the report.

For those of you in the States and points West, good morning. Here's the first of several stories on the wires this hour, from VOA: In prepared remarks released ahead of a speech to NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Mr. Powell urges the 19-nation alliance to examine what it can do to support peace and stability in Iraq. He says peace and stability in the war-torn country are critical to all NATO member nations.