From the AFP via ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Radical Islamist groups in Iraq said in an Internet statement Thursday they considered democracy “farcial and un-Islamic” and warned that no-one who took part in next month's polls would be safe.

”Those who participate in this dirty farce will not be sheltered from the blows of the mujahedeen,” said a statement posted on an Islamist website signed by the Al Qaeda linked Ansar Al-Sunna, the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Army of the Mujahedeen.
[…]
“Democracy is a word of Greek origin meaning the sovereignty of the people… this concept is considered apostasy, contrary to the doctrine of one God and Sharia (Islamic law),” the statement from the three groups said.

“Democracy is a farce created by our enemies to confer what they call legitimacy on the new government which is subservient to the crusaders and executes their orders.”

“To try to ensure these elections succeed would be the greatest gift to America, the enemy of Islam and the tyrant of our time,” it added.

The group said democracy could lead to the adoption of laws considered un-Islamic, such as homosexual marriage. “By virtue of democracy, members of parliament become gods themselves.”
[…]
Earlier Friday Iraq's electoral commission, charged with administering the country's January 30 polls, vigorously denied an al-Jazeera television report that its 700 members had resigned in the troubled northern city of Mosul fearing attacks.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) : A mortar or rocket strike has set fire to Baghdad's Dura oil refinery, according to an Interior Ministry official and the US military.

After an initial blaze, the fire was contained, a US military spokesperson said.

Two civilians were treated for smoke inhalation in what the US military called a probable rocket attack.

Earlier, an interior ministry official said Baghdad firemen were struggling to douse the fire.

The attack occurred at 10:00 pm local time, the official said.

From the AFP via The Australian :

US-led forces in Iraq have captured a senior member of the al-Qaeda-linked network led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Iraqi Government said today.

Fadil Hussain Ahmed al-Kurdi was captured along with two other suspected insurgents, the Government said.

Kurdi, a 26-year-old Iraqi Kurd also known as Ridha, was the brother of Umar Baziyani, a Zarqawi lieutenant captured in May, it said.

“Ridha was responsible for facilitating communications between al-Qaeda and the Zarqawi terror networks as well as coordinating the movement of terrorists in and out of Iraq,” a Government statement said.

“Both Ridha and Umar Baziyani remain in detention and are being questioned by Iraqi and coalition forces.”

The Government did not say when the arrests were made.

US forces said three weeks ago they had seized unidentified “trans-national terrorists” in Baghdad.
[…]
The Government said this week another senior member of Zarqawi's network was captured in Mosul.

[by Dan Darling]

Reading through the rants of Osama bin Laden is not the way I imagine most people would want to spend the week before New Year's, but I figure somebody has to it, so why not yours truly?

And my is there a lot of a bile to sort through this time around, so I apologize in advance for the length of this post. All the same, I've been out of circulation for awhile so I hope to make it worth your while. This set of excerpts deals specifically with Bin Laden's taped message to the Iraqi people, and al-Qaeda's operations in Iraq.

The Iraqi Tape

• Bin Laden's message to the Iraqi People
• The Saudi Fatwa Calling for Jihad in Iraq
• Orders to the Iraqi al-Qaeda
• Zarqawi & the Iraqi Elections

Etc.

• And While I'm At It… Comments & Notes from the Global WoT

From News Ltd :

Armed men burst into a house in the upscale Baghdad neighbourhood of Mansour overnight and seized two Lebanese businessmen, police said.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

US troops backed by warplanes have battled insurgents in the Iraqi city of Mosul, killing about 25 guerrillas in fierce clashes after being attacked by suicide bombs and rocket-propelled grenades.

Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paul Hastings said a suicide vehicle bomb exploded near a US military outpost in Mosul, and a second suicide attack targeted a US patrol responding to the first blast.

The patrol also had to negotiate several roadside bombs and when it reached the combat outpost, it came under attack from around 50 insurgents firing assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

“Close air support was called in. Initial estimates are 25 enemy killed,” Lieutenant Hastings said.

He said 15 US troops were wounded in the clashes, none of whom had returned to active duty.

Witnesses said the first suicide attack was a bomb in a fuel truck that was detonated at a house in Mosul that has been occupied by US troops since last month, when insurgents overran several police stations in the city and looted them of weapons and equipment.

From The Australian :

Another contingent of Australian soldiers has left for Iraq as part of the next rotation of a security detachment.

Elements of the Brisbane-based 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, the Darwin-based 2nd Cavalry Regiment and the Sydney-based 1st Military Police Battalion left today to take up their new role with the Australian Embassy Security Detachment (SECDET).

They will provide protection and support to the Australian Embassy in Baghdad.

The group, which will work under Operation Catalyst, was farewelled by family and friends at a ceremony at Brisbane's Enoggera Barracks.
[…]
The soldiers will form part of a security detachment of about 120 personnel, including Australian Light Armoured Vehicles and an explosive ordnance detachment, to provide protection and escort for Australian government personnel for six months.

The detachment will also be responsible for the protection of the Australian Army Training Team Iraq.

From The Australian :

Former US attorney general Ramsey Clark is to join the defence team of Saddam Hussein, a spokesman for the toppled Iraqi president's lawyers said today.

Mr Clark, who held the office of attorney general under US president Lyndon B. Johnson, “is one of the members of the defence team of president Saddam Hussein,” Ziad Khassawneh said.

“This honours and inspires us.”
[…]
Mr Clark also said the US itself must be tried for the November assault on Fallujah, destruction of houses, torture in prisons and its role in the deaths of thousands of Iraqis in the war.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Ukraine will withdraw its 1,400-strong military contingent from Iraq by the end of next year, Defence Minister Oleksander Kuzmuk was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

”Next April we will be sending only a reinforced battalion rather than a brigade and by the end of 2005 we will complete our pullout of the contingent,” Mr Kuzmuk's press service quoted him as saying.

The statement said a battalion would be made up of about 500 servicemen.

Ukraine's original contingent sent to Iraq was made up of some 1,600 servicemen. It has suffered nine dead and 30 injured.

The withdrawal is supported by all political forces in Ukraine.

Liberal Viktor Yushchenko, winner of this week's presidential election re-run of one that had been declared rigged, favoured the pullout as did his defeated rival, Viktor Yanukovich.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terrorist group, al-Qaida in Iraq formerly Tawhid and Jihad, has claimed credit for the failed assassination attempt on top Shiite leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim that killed 15 and wounded 50. The statement was posted to an internet website.

Yahoo/AP

The group of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility Tuesday for the assassination attempt against the leader of Iraq's largest Shiite Muslim party that killed and wounded dozens of people.

"On Monday morning, one of the lions of the martyrdom seekers brigades, belonging to the military wing of al-Qaida in Iraq launched an attack in order to wipe out one of the symbols of treason for the Americans," the statement said.

It added that "We tell you Hakim that if one arrow missed you we have many more arrows."

Tipped by: Chad at In The Bullpen (Crossposted to The Jawa Report). Chad has more to say on this.

Originally posted at Diggers Realm

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A powerful blast has destroyed a house and killed 28 people in western Baghdad during a night-time police raid.

Seven police are among the dead.

Police say the house had been raided because it is a suspected base for foreign militants.

As police burst in, a blast tore through the building, destroying it and five nearby houses.

By dawn, US and Iraqi troops had sealed off the site.

Some locals say they believe the house had been used by foreign Arab fighters.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Over 350 foreigners are among about 10,000 detainees being held in US-run prisons in Iraq, Iraq's Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin Over says.

”US forces told us on December 23 that they are holding 353 foreign terrorists,” Mr Amin said.

He says they include: 61 Egyptians, 59 Saudis, 56 Syrians, 40 Jordanians, 35 Sudanese, 22 Iranians, 10 Tunisians, 10 Yemenis, eight Palestinians and five Lebanese, among others.

US military detainee operations spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnston refused to comment on the figures.

“I will not confirm numbers of specific nationalities held among foreign fighters,” Lt Col Johnston said.

“As a matter of policy, we only share those numbers with government officials.”

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

“My guess is right about now 8,000 people have returned,” Brigadier General Erv Lessel told AFP.

He stressed that while some of those admitted had opted to stay in the city, most had left after viewing their homes.

So far, only residents of the central commercial district of Al-Andalus are being admitted while the rest of the city remains closed.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Roadside bombs have killed two United States soldiers and wounded five in two separate blasts in Iraq, the US military has said.

An attack on a US military patrol in Samarra, about 100 kilometres north of the capital, killed one soldier and wounded another overnight, it said in a statement.

A second soldier was killed and four wounded by another blast in Baghdad early on Monday morning, it said.

“An improvised explosive device detonated at approximately 7:45am (local time) Monday, killing one soldier and wounding four others,” the statement said.

At least 43 people were killed as insurgents launched a string of attacks on the Iraqi security forces raising questions about their readiness to secure landmark elections next month.

The flurry of assaults followed the airing on Arabic television of a purported voice recording of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden naming fugitive Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi his Iraqi “emir” and calling for a boycott of the January 30 poll.

Outgoing US Secretary of State Colin Powell warned the deadly insurgency would rage on, no matter what the outcome of the election.

Read more..

Insurgents killed at least six Iraqi police officers and wounded five others Tuesday in five separate attacks in north-central Iraq, the U.S. military said.

Four of the attacks occurred near the town of Balad — about 50 miles south of Tikrit — killing five police officers and wounded three others, said Capt. Bill Coppernoll of the U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division.

A fifth insurgent attack at a traffic checkpoint near Tikrit killed an Iraqi police officer and wounded two others, Coppernoll said.

Six miles south of Baquba Tuesday, a suicide car bomber targeted Iraqi national guard troops at a traffic circle as they were working on the aftermath of an earlier roadside bombing, the U.S. military said.

Read more…

The Arabic-language satellite television channel al-Jazeera said Monday it had received a new audiotape in which Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden appeared to call on Iraqis to boycott the upcoming elections.

Al-Jazeera had not yet broadcast the audiotape, but said the voice proclaimed Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq.

Read more..

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Iraq's top Sunni Muslim party is withdrawing from January 30 elections, saying persistent violence would keep people from voting in the Sunni north and west.

”We are withdrawing,” Mohsen Abdel Hamid, head of the Iraqi Islamic Party, told a news conference on Monday.

“We are not calling for a boycott but we said we would take part only if certain conditions had been met and they have not.”

His party had threatened to boycott the election unless it was postponed by up to six months to ensure that voters across the country would be able to vote.

Violence in Sunni areas has raised fears that voters there will be too intimidated to cast their ballots.

The Iraqi Islamic Party had fielded a list of 275-candidates for the January 30 vote, which will choose a National Assembly to draft a constitution and appoint a government.

It was not clear if the party would appear on ballot papers.

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

Landmark elections planned for next month could be delayed in some parts of Iraq due to the fragile security situation, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in an interview with Chinese state media.

Mr Zebari told Xinhua news agency that with security still a major concern, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) may decide to delay the elections scheduled for January 30.

“Elections in dangerous regions like Mosul and around Baghdad may be delayed so that we can concentrate our security resources to destroy opponents' capacity to target and intimidate people,” Mr Zebari said.

Mr Zibari says the IEC will have the final say, but also stressed that there will be no significant changes to the pre-designed election schedule.

“Preparations are continuous and everyone is committed,” he said.

“We have security plans to defend the safety in most polling stations and lecture centres.

“Whatever situation we may face, we should not stop but move forward.”
[…]
Mr Zebari says that despite this, “14 to 15 of the 18 provinces in Iraq are relatively safe”.

Mr Zebari has been targeted by militants with three abortive car bomb attempts discovered by his guards within a month.

“It's dangerous,” he said. “It's no joke.”

“We are building our military, police and intelligence capabilities and trying to make the security situation tolerable.”

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from Iraq that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. This briefing is brought to you by Joel Gaines of No Pundit Intended and Andrew Olmsted of Andrew Olmsted dot com.

TOP TOPICS

• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited troops in Mosul, Tikrit and Fallujah over the weekend. The Secretary admitted that things looked 'bleak' in Iraq at the moment, but reiterated his confidence that the Coalition would prevail. Army Chief of Staff General Peter J. Schoomaker also visited troops in Iraq (link requires registration) and said that he felt the war there was going pretty well.

• An insurgent web site shows what they claim to be footage of the attack on the U.S. base in Mosul. The insurgents claim the bomber snuck in through a hole in the fence during a guard change, which is a mix of good news and bad news; if true, at least the bomber wasn't able to get through the checkpoint, but why did the security fail to detect the hole in the wire?

• StrategyPage has a look at the situation in Iraq and how it is being reported (and misreported) by the media.

Other Topics Today Include: Iraqi general says his troops will fight; economic difficulties in Iraq; elections report; Australians turn against the war; bad news of Abu Ghraib; the AP's 'lucky' photographer.

Read the Rest…

Updating a previous post, it seems the family killed by the bombing was that of the bomber. From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

An insurgent accidentally has killed himself and four members of his family in Iraq's southern city of Karbala.

Police say a bomb he was making exploded inside his house.

A woman was also wounded in the blast.

From the New York Times and AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The United States is talking to Iraqi leaders about ways to guarantee minority Sunni Muslims a minimum level of top posts in Iraq's future government, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

The newspaper said Washington is lobbying Iraq to secure the broad Sunni participation, regardless of the outcome of the January 30 election.

Citing an unnamed Western diplomat, the newspaper said US officials had already raised with an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, the possibility of adding some top Sunnis to the 275-member legislature, even if they lose to non-Sunni candidates.

The diplomat said that some Shiite politicians fear even more instability if Sunni Arabs are shut out of power, The Times said.

A White House spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the report, saying Iraqi election authorities must decide the country's electoral process.

“It is up to the Iraqi Elections Commission to determine the rules,” deputy spokesman Trent Duffy told reporters.

For his part, Abdul Hussein Al-Hindawi, the head of the Iraq Independent Electoral Commission, said such a move would trespass on the powers of the electoral board and the integrity of the elections.

“It is a newspaper statement. It is not a reality. We know that the commission is the only authority in the country for elections,” Mr Hindawi told AFP.

“It is a newspaper statement. It is not a reality.” That about sums it up for the NYT for many people, not just in Iraq.

From the AFP via The Australian :

Islamist group Ansar al-Sunna meanwhile posted footage on its website claiming to show a masked man identified as Abu Omar al-Mosuli hugging comrades before heading off to carry out the attack on the Mosul base, that killed 22, including 14 US military personnel.

Another scene in the video showed a plume of white smoke that looks like the explosion that shook the military base mess hall on Tuesday.

He infiltrated “through a breach in the perimeter fence … during a changing of the guard, following prolonged surveillance,” said the statement read by one militant.

Terrorists targeted a Politician, Truck Drivers, and random civilians. From the AFP via The Australian :

Seven members of the same family were killed when a bomb blast in the Shiite holy city of Karbala levelled their home yesterday, police said.

Just two family members survived – an elderly woman and a seven-year-old girl who was out of the house at the time, police spokesman Rahman Meshari said.

Earlier, two people were arrested in Karbala – one with 3000 mortar shells and the second with explosives detonators, said police in the city where a bomb killed 14 people a week ago.

A politician critical of Syria, a civil defence force officer and one of his assistants were gunned down in shootings in the Baghdad area.

Three masked gunmen opened fire on Mohammed Abdul-Hussein from the Democratic Party of the Iraqi Nation as he left home, the organisation's leader, Mithal Alussi, said.

Mr Alussi, who blamed the former ruling Baath party and Syrian intelligence agents for the killing, and his party was recently expelled from a wider political coalition after he visited Israel.

Further north, a father and son were killed in a roadside bombing in Baiji, police said. A Turkish truck driver was also killed by armed men as he passed through the city.

From The Australian :

Insurgents shot dead five men in the restive Iraqi city of Ramadi overnight and left their corpses in the street with a handwritten note identifying them as police, witnesses said.

Residents said they found the bodies this morning. Reuters television footage showed them lying in jeans and sweaters in the centre of the western city that is a hotbed of insurgent activity against the US-backed government.

“This is a group of infidel police officers who came from Diyala province to pursue and capture mujahideen,” read a lined piece of paper, secured to one of the bodies with a brick.

“We were able with God's help to hunt them down.”

At least one of the dead men had his hands tied behind his back. Residents said they heard them being shot during the night. The note named each of the dead men. It was not immediately possible to confirm if they were police officers.

Nine people were killed and 40 others were wounded on Monday when a car bomb targeting top Shiite leader exploded in Iraq.

At least 40 people were wounded in the blast which occurred outside the offices of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) in Baghdad.

The son of top Shiite leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim told reporters that his father escaped the assassination bid.

Read more…

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

US marines say they have captured two leaders of a militant group linked to Al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq's restive city of Ramadi.

They say the men, Saleh Arugayan Khalil, also known as Abu Obaida, and Bassem Mohammad Hazim, also known as Abu Khattab, were captured on December 8 and December 12.

The pair were picked up during sweeps of the mainly Sunni Muslim province west of the capital.

“These individuals were cell leaders for a local Zarqawi-affiliated terrorist group that is operating in Ramadi and western Anbar province,” the marines said in a statement.

“This group is responsible for intimidating, attacking and murdering innocent Iraqi civilians, police, security forces and business and political leaders throughout the Anbar province.”
[…]
The marines say the men detained in Ramadi led a group that had kidnapped and killed 11 Iraqi National Guards in recent months as well as planting bombs and smuggling foreign militants into Iraq to fight US-led forces.

Information from local residents had helped the marines capture several members of the group, which the statement named as the hitherto unknown “Harun terrorist network”.

“Many foreign fighters were also detained,” it said.

“The detainees have provided information regarding the involvement of other individuals who are actively recruiting and smuggling foreign terrorists.”

Including at least one “own goal”. From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

…five Iraqis have been killed and another five wounded when a makeshift bomb exploded on a road frequented by US convoys in the volatile bastion of Samarra.

The Death toll described in a previous post has now been revised to 3.

A doctor at a clinic in Khan al-Nus, north of Najaf, says three Iraqis died and two have been wounded when a car bomb exploded in the path of a US military convoy, which escaped unscathed.

In a clutch of targeted assassinations, an Iraqi working as an interpreter for the US military and his wife were shot dead by gunmen near the northern city of Mosul.

Just north of the capital, gunmen mowed down a local council member and his friend, while another man died when the bomb he was planting on the side of a road near Balad exploded prematurely.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A car bomb killed five people on Saturday between the Iraqi Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala, sites of twin suicide car bombings a week ago, the chief of police in Najaf said.

Ghalib Al Jazairi said those killed were civilians but the bomb in the town of Khan Al Nus appeared to have been aimed at a US military convoy.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Gunmen shot dead the dean of Baghdad University's School of Dentistry on Saturday, the latest victim of post-war violence that has forced thousands of professionals to flee the country.

Hassan Al Rubaiei was driving along the western bank of the Tigris when gunmen pulled alongside and sprayed his car with automatic gunfire, a police official said.

Mr Rubaiei's wife was injured in the attack.

The motive for the attack was unknown but violence has become a hallmark of academic life in Iraq with professors killed or threatened for their political views or administrative decisions.

The attacks have included professors who attempted to uphold the country's secular tradition and managers of universities and state companies who replaced former ruling Baath Party members.

Updating a previous post, from Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Kidnappers have abducted a Turkish shipping magnate and three others in southern Iraq and demanded a $US25 million ransom, the Turkish private NTV television channel said on Saturday.

It said Kahraman Sadikoglu, one of Turkey's richest businessmen, had been seized in the southern Iraqi port of Umm Qasr alongside a boat captain and a driver, both Turks, and an unnamed bodyguard.
[…]
Mr Sadikoglu is head of Dubai-based International Marine Contractors which last year won a 92 million UAE dirham ($US25 million) contract to remove 19 sunken ships from Umm Qasr.

“We brought food to this country, we enabled the delivery of food. We fed many hungry people. That is what we did. If this is a crime, then we are ready to be punished,” he said.

Turkish television said Mr Sadikoglu was preparing to bid in a new $90 million UN tender for retrieving more sunken ships.

His family contacted the Turkish Foreign Ministry saying the kidnappers had demanded a ransom of $US25 million.

The channel quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying the group had been abducted as they travelled from Iran to Iraq and that US authorities had been alerted and British forces in the area had set up roadblocks around Umm Qasr.

From the AFP via The Australian :

The US Army has arrested 34 people and thwarted a car bombing in the northern city of Mosul in the aftermath of this past week's suicide bombing at a packed US military base, the bloodiest attack ever on the US in Iraq.

”Thirty-four were detained in Mosul and a car bomb was also discovered in Mosul,” said Sergeant Joseph Sanchez, a spokesman for the US contingent, Taskforce Olympia, assigned to Mosul and the Nineveh province.

In addition another four individuals were detained around the province.
[…]
The US military has appointed Brigadier General Richard Formica to investigate the suicide bombing of the military mess hall that killed 22 people - the deadliest attack ever against Americans in Iraq.

Brig-Gen Formica has previously investigated detainee abuse in Iraq.

The US military's second-in-command in Iraq, Lieutenant General Thomas Metz, ordered a special investigation of how an infiltrator managed to penetrate the heavily guarded US base in the northern city of Mosul and detonate his deadly charge.

An Al-Qaeda linked militant group, Ansar al-Sunna, claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing.

The top general for northern Iraq, Brigadier General Carter Ham, said it was likely the bomber was wearing an Iraqi army uniform when he blew himself up.

Fourteen US military personnel, four US civilian contractors, three Iraqi soldiers and one unidentified body were counted among the dead.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

An Iraqi regional governor said today authorities had arrested the insurgents responsible for last week's devastating suicide bombing in the Iraqi Shiite holy city of Najaf.

”We have arrested the people behind the bombing of Najaf,” Governor Adnan Al Zurfi told Reuters. “Their names and identities will be announced in Baghdad in a week.”

From the Washington Post :

The U.S. military invaded Iraq without a formal plan for occupying and stabilizing the country and this high-level failure continues to undercut what has been a “mediocre” Army effort there, an Army historian and strategist has concluded.

”There was no Phase IV plan” for occupying Iraq after the combat phase, writes Maj. Isaiah Wilson III, who served as an official historian of the campaign and later as a war planner in Iraq. While a variety of government offices had considered the possible situations that would follow a U.S. victory, Wilson writes, no one produced an actual document laying out a strategy to consolidate the victory after major combat operations ended.

Looking at the chaos that followed the defeat of the Saddam Hussein regime, a military officer's study says, “The United States, its Army and its coalition of the willing have been playing catch-up ever since.”

“While there may have been 'plans' at the national level, and even within various agencies within the war zone, none of these 'plans' operationalized the problem beyond regime collapse” — that is, laid out how U.S. forces would be moved and structured, Wilson writes in an essay that has been delivered at several academic conferences but not published. “There was no adequate operational plan for stability operations and support operations.”

(Donning my professional hat here) Such an 'operationalized' plan would have required co-operation from the enemy of course. You can only plan so far, and “no battle plan survives contact with the enemy”. What he's saying in this draft is that with hindsight we should have done planning in more detail than we did, and given his credentials, he may well be right.

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

A Turkish television channel has aired footage showing a Turkish businessman who said he had been kidnapped along with a worker in Iraq by a group of unidentified militants.

The black-and-white video broadcast by the NTV news channel shows a man identifying himself both in Turkish and English as Kahraman Sadikoglu, the owner of a shipping company doing business in the southern Iraqi cities of Basra and Umm Qasr.

Sitting next to him is another man whom Sadikoglu identifies as Captain Ahmet.

NTV said the second man was a Turkish national working as a sea captain for the businessman.

Mr Sadikoglu is heard saying that the video was shot on December 23 and adds: “We were caught by a group (of militants) four or five days ago on the grounds that we have done some wrong business in Iraq”.

He added that his captors were carrying out an investigation and expressed hope that he and the other hostage will be released at the end of the probe.

Updating a previous post, from the AFP via The Australian :

At least eight people, including the suicide bomber, were killed and 19 wounded when an explosives-rigged fuel tanker blew up on Christmas Eve in western Baghdad, police and an AFP correspondent said.

The correspondent saw five bodies being lifted from the rubble of houses destroyed when a fuel tanker ripped a fireball in the affluent Mansur district in Baghdad early this morning.

Earlier, one person had been confirmed dead, while police said the suicide bomber was also killed in the blast. The remains of the suicide bomber were not thought to be among the bodies pulled out of the wreckage.

Rescue workers were digging through the rubble in the residential district, home to both Muslims and Christians, on Christmas morning, from where homes had been levelled by the powerful blast.

“My house was destroyed, five of my security guards were pulled out dead and two others are still buried under the ruins,” said Ahmad Mushraq, in shock, who had moved away from his home but had hired guards to watch the premises.
[…]
The rear of the tanker landed metres from the Libyan embassy, with flames knocking down the embassy's gates and smashing out windows on the front of the building.
[…]
At Yarmuk hospital the wounded, ranging from tiny girls to middle-aged men, lay in hospital beds, some with third degree burns, their faces puffed out black and their arms dangling listlessly.

A gas tanker truck wired with explosives blew up in a west Baghdad neighborhood Friday, killing one person, wounding 19 and lighting up the night sky with a fireball, just hours after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld left the capital.

There were no members of the multinational forces among the casualties, said Capt. Brian Lucas, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.

The butane truck was parked near the Libyan Embassy in the Mansour district, an upscale district where many foreigners live and embassies are located, police said. Residents said they could hear small-arms fire immediately after the blast.

Read more…

A First Hand Account :

It made my day, and I'm pretty certain it made theirs too. It's Christmas Eve, though it didn't feel like it. There are some good decorations in the hospital, but we had no Christmas music in the OR today, and no snow on the ground. No nativity scenes or festive cheer in this part of the world. Then, after a routine for here but hardly routine day in the OR, my day was made. I'm referring to the interaction I witnessed and helped facilitate between a young injured soldier and a high ranking official. Here is how it happened:

I was reading foxnews.com at around noon when I told the anesthesiologist that “the Donald” was in town on a surprise visit. No, not Donald Trump, but Donald Rumsfeld. He laughed cynically and said no way would he come here. Well, at around 1600 I was in the OR and I was told that Rumsfeld was downstairs, and we could go down there if we wanted to. I was not in a position to leave, obviously.

Well, the timing worked out well, because I was taking my patient to the recovery room when we wheeled the stretcher through a mob of dignitaries, to include 3 and 4 star generals. I knew the Secretary was nearby, and it turns out he was in the ICU. The patient drew enough attention because of his bruised, banged up face that the 4 star came over to get his story from the surgeon. I was doing some charting by the bedside when Mr. Rumsfeld came over and heard the kid's story from the 4-star. Rumsfeld looked concerned and kind of kept his distance from the gruesome site. He said something like “bless his heart”, as if talking a