Troops May Leave Iraq This Year

[thedrifter]

Troops May Leave Iraq This Year
United Press International
January 13, 2005

WASHINGTON - U.S. troops will begin leaving Iraq this year, Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an interview released Wednesday by the State Department.

Powell said he hoped the Iraqi army, national guards and police will soon play a larger security role, allowing the United States to withdraw some troops.

In the interview with National Public Radio, Powell gave no timetable for troop withdrawal, but said: "I believe that during 2005 (the Iraqis) will be able to assume a greater burden, and ... the burden on our troops should go down, and we should start to see our numbers going in the other direction."

Almost 140,000 U.S. troops are currently deployed in Iraq while the Pentagon has listed more than 2,800 U.S. soldiers as killed or wounded.

So far nearly a million U.S. troops have been deployed for war in Iraq or Afghanistan since those conflicts began.





"The issue now is not more American troops or coalition troops for the long haul, but more Iraqi troops for the long haul, and that's where all of our resources and energy are now going," Powell said.

In another interview to Fox News, also released Wednesday, Powell said he believes Iraq's Sunni Muslims want to participate in the Jan. 30 elections. He said "a good Sunni turnout" was important for the Iraqi elections and hoped that the participation would be high.

Sunnis are a minority sect in Iraq and some members of this community held positions of power in the government of Saddam Hussein, who was also a Sunni.

Iraqi insurgents, who appear to have greater support among the Sunnis, have urged them to boycott the U.S.-sponsored elections.

Unlike the Sunnis, the majority Shiites, who were suppressed by the Saddam regime, seem more interested in voting on Jan. 30.

But Powell said he believes the Sunnis also want to participate.

"The reason that there may be not as many coming forward as we hope is because of the insurgency, so we've got to do everything we can to improve security," he added.

Powell also said that it's necessary to have Sunni representation in the government elected on Jan. 30.

Powell's comments appeared on the same day as the White House announcement that it was wrapping up the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, prompting some observers to say that the quest ended without fanfare or evidence of proscribed weapons.

The Bush administration had based its justification for invading Iraq on a CIA report claiming that now ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and had even attempted to buy uranium from an African state.

Armed with this report, Powell argued in the U.N. Security Council before the U.S. invasion of March 2003 that it was necessary to send international troops to Iraq and disarm "a dangerous regime."

But on Wednesday, White House Spokesman Scott McClellan told a briefing in Washington that the Iraq Survey Group, which has scoured Iraq since 2003 for chemical and biological weapons agents, was leaving the country. Some members of this group remained in Iraq assessing documents, but were not actively conducting new searches of suspected weapons storage sites or production facilities.

"I think (survey group head) Charles Duelfer has made it pretty clear, and it is my understanding, that the comprehensive report he issued last year is essentially completion of his work," he said.

Duelfer's reported to the Bush administration that the Saddam regime of did not appear to have possessed the WMD Washington suspected he had on the eve of the war and had probably not had it since the end of the first Gulf War.

Saddam, however, was drawing on the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Program and was intent on reconstituting his WMD programs at a later date, the report said.

Since October 2004, when Duelfer presented his interim report, the Bush administration has appointed a panel to investigate how U.S. intelligence had been mistaken over Iraq's weapons caches for more than a decade.

At a briefing at the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said U.S. weapons inspectors in Iraq had confirmed that Saddam intended to make weapons of mass destruction.

Commenting on the withdrawal of U.S. arms inspectors from Iraq, announced earlier at the White House, Boucher said the team is working on an addendum to an earlier report it filed in October.

But the addendum will not "substantially change" their interim report, which "indicated an intent on the part of Saddam Hussein to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and a desire and intent to maintain the capability to do that," said Boucher.

U.S. experts, he said, had removed low-enriched uranium and other radioactive sources, and helped secure materials that were known to be in Iraq.

Boucher said besides searching for WMDs, the United States also has provided employment for some 120 Iraqi scientists, who worked on Saddam's plans to make weapons.

He said a U.S.-sponsored program that began last year had successfully employed these scientists for work in fields other than making weapons.

The U.S. stipend, Boucher said, also allowed the scientists to stay in touch with their peers in the United States and exchange information with them in their fields. The program encourages them to work on projects inside Iraq.

United Press International
January 13, 2005

WASHINGTON - U.S. troops will begin leaving Iraq this year, Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an interview released Wednesday by the State Department.

Powell said he hoped the Iraqi army, national guards and police will soon play a larger security role, allowing the United States to withdraw some troops.

In the interview with National Public Radio, Powell gave no timetable for troop withdrawal, but said: "I believe that during 2005 (the Iraqis) will be able to assume a greater burden, and ... the burden on our troops should go down, and we should start to see our numbers going in the other direction."

Almost 140,000 U.S. troops are currently deployed in Iraq while the Pentagon has listed more than 2,800 U.S. soldiers as killed or wounded.

So far nearly a million U.S. troops have been deployed for war in Iraq or Afghanistan since those conflicts began.





"The issue now is not more American troops or coalition troops for the long haul, but more Iraqi troops for the long haul, and that's where all of our resources and energy are now going," Powell said.

In another interview to Fox News, also released Wednesday, Powell said he believes Iraq's Sunni Muslims want to participate in the Jan. 30 elections. He said "a good Sunni turnout" was important for the Iraqi elections and hoped that the participation would be high.

Sunnis are a minority sect in Iraq and some members of this community held positions of power in the government of Saddam Hussein, who was also a Sunni.

Iraqi insurgents, who appear to have greater support among the Sunnis, have urged them to boycott the U.S.-sponsored elections.

Unlike the Sunnis, the majority Shiites, who were suppressed by the Saddam regime, seem more interested in voting on Jan. 30.

But Powell said he believes the Sunnis also want to participate.

"The reason that there may be not as many coming forward as we hope is because of the insurgency, so we've got to do everything we can to improve security," he added.

Powell also said that it's necessary to have Sunni representation in the government elected on Jan. 30.

Powell's comments appeared on the same day as the White House announcement that it was wrapping up the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, prompting some observers to say that the quest ended without fanfare or evidence of proscribed weapons.

The Bush administration had based its justification for invading Iraq on a CIA report claiming that now ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and had even attempted to buy uranium from an African state.

Armed with this report, Powell argued in the U.N. Security Council before the U.S. invasion of March 2003 that it was necessary to send international troops to Iraq and disarm "a dangerous regime."

But on Wednesday, White House Spokesman Scott McClellan told a briefing in Washington that the Iraq Survey Group, which has scoured Iraq since 2003 for chemical and biological weapons agents, was leaving the country. Some members of this group remained in Iraq assessing documents, but were not actively conducting new searches of suspected weapons storage sites or production facilities.

"I think (survey group head) Charles Duelfer has made it pretty clear, and it is my understanding, that the comprehensive report he issued last year is essentially completion of his work," he said.

Duelfer's reported to the Bush administration that the Saddam regime of did not appear to have possessed the WMD Washington suspected he had on the eve of the war and had probably not had it since the end of the first Gulf War.

Saddam, however, was drawing on the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Program and was intent on reconstituting his WMD programs at a later date, the report said.

Since October 2004, when Duelfer presented his interim report, the Bush administration has appointed a panel to investigate how U.S. intelligence had been mistaken over Iraq's weapons caches for more than a decade.

At a briefing at the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said U.S. weapons inspectors in Iraq had confirmed that Saddam intended to make weapons of mass destruction.

Commenting on the withdrawal of U.S. arms inspectors from Iraq, announced earlier at the White House, Boucher said the team is working on an addendum to an earlier report it filed in October.

But the addendum will not "substantially change" their interim report, which "indicated an intent on the part of Saddam Hussein to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and a desire and intent to maintain the capability to do that," said Boucher.

U.S. experts, he said, had removed low-enriched uranium and other radioactive sources, and helped secure materials that were known to be in Iraq.

Boucher said besides searching for WMDs, the United States also has provided employment for some 120 Iraqi scientists, who worked on Saddam's plans to make weapons.

He said a U.S.-sponsored program that began last year had successfully employed these scientists for work in fields other than making weapons.

The U.S. stipend, Boucher said, also allowed the scientists to stay in touch with their peers in the United States and exchange information with them in their fields. The program encourages them to work on projects inside Iraq.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Witness: Graner Often Disobeyed Orders <br />
Associated Press <br />
January 13, 2005 <br />
<br />
FORT HOOD, Texas - The first witness for Army Spc. Charles Graner, the alleged ringleader in the Abu Ghraib prison...

[thedrifter]

Iraq Weapons Search Is Over
Associated Press
January 13, 2005

WASHINGTON - The White House acknowledged Wednesday that its hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction - a two-year search costing millions of dollars - has closed down without finding the stockpiles that President Bush cited as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Bush's spokesman said the president had no regrets about invading Iraq.

"Based on what we know today, the president would have taken the same action because this is about protecting the American people," said Press Secretary Scott McClellan.

The Iraq Survey Group - made up of as many as 1,500 military and intelligence specialists and support staff - is ending its search of military installations, factories and laboratories where it was thought that equipment and products might be converted to making weapons.

McClellan said the active search had virtually ended. "There may be a couple, a few people that are focused on that," he said, adding that they would handle any future reports that might come in.

At a meeting last month, McClellan said Bush thanked the chief U.S. weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, for his work. A special adviser to the CIA director, Duelfer will deliver a final edition of a report on Iraq's weapons next month. McClellan said it is not expected to fundamentally differ from the findings of a report last fall.





Duelfer said then that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and had not made any since 1991. However, he said the government harbored intentions of recreating its weapons programs and had gone to great lengths to manipulate the U.N. oil-for-food program.

In an interview Wednesday with Barbara Walters of ABC News, Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq.

"I felt like we'd find weapons of mass destruction - like many here in the United States, many around the world," Bush said in the interview, to be broadcast Friday night. "We need to find out what went wrong in the intelligence gathering. ... Saddam was dangerous and the world is safer without him in power."

In a statement, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said Bush "needs to explain to the American people why he was so wrong, for so long, about the reasons for war."

The end of the weapons hunt comes as the Bush administration struggles with a dangerous security situation in Iraq leading up to Jan. 30 elections.

Meanwhile, other countries - notably Iran and North Korea - are suspected of developing covert nuclear weapons programs.

When asked whether the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq would damage U.S. credibility in handling future threats, McClellan said the president would continue to work with the international community, particularly on diplomatic solutions. He said pre-emptive military action was "the last option" to pursue.

"We are acting to make sure we have the best possible intelligence," McClellan said, adding that a number of changes have been made since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Almost one year ago, Bush formed a presidential commission to investigate U.S. intelligence capabilities on weapons of mass destruction, focusing not only on Iraq but on how well the intelligence community understands the threat from other countries and terror networks. Its report is due March 31.

The closing down of the weapons search was first reported in the Washington Post on Wednesday.

David Kay, who headed the Iraq Survey Group until stepping down last January, said he was not surprised the group was concluding its efforts without finding any major weapons stockpiles.

"It is like dropping a shoe a little late. Quite frankly, I don't think anyone who follows it very closely has suspected anything else over the last year. It was a matter of when the obvious would be done," Kay said.

He said that intelligence analysts working in Iraq had found themselves in a dangerous security situation and that many had reached conclusions about the lack of weapons as much as 18 months ago. "How do you keep them motivated?" he asked.

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said the U.S. government was paying stipends to about 120 Iraqi scientists who once had been working in weapons programs. They now are working on scientific research outside weapons development.

Greg Thielmann, the former manager of the State Department office that tracked chemical, biological and nuclear weapons issues, said the United States should devote energy to employment of these scientists, who now appear to have been involved in non-weapons work under Saddam in recent years.

"Who knows what they are going to do?" asked Thielmann, who left his position in September 2002. "One can question whether we improved the security situation through the invasion."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

USS Lincoln Leaves Indonesian Waters
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
January 13, 2005

Washington - The aircraft carrier spearheading U.S. tsunami relief efforts pulled out of Indonesian waters Wednesday, shrinking the American military footprint as the ravaged Southeast Asian nation reasserted control over its territory.

The White House sought clarification of a statement by the Indonesian government that U.S. military forces must be out of the region by the end of March.

Meanwhile, Knight Ridder Newspapers reported that an official document posted in Banda Aceh, on the hard-hit island of Sumatra, said nearly 210,000 people in Indonesia were dead or missing from the Dec. 26 tsunamis, a toll far higher than officials have reported publicly.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the administration hopes the Indonesian government "will continue to show the strong support" for international relief efforts.

Just a week ago, a stunned world watched TV footage of U.S. helicopters plucking grateful survivors from the devastation on Sumatra and dropping food and medicine for desperate victims.

In recent days, however, the government of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has gotten antsy about perceptions of a mounting U.S. military presence.




In response, 2,000 U.S. Marines diverted from duty in Iraq are bunking on amphibious carriers in the Indian Ocean instead of in a planned camp on Sumatra.

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln steamed out of Indonesian waters after the country denied permission for pilots based on the ship to conduct required training over Indonesian airspace.

Indonesian authorities today announced foreign aid workers in Aceh province, where the government has long battled separatist guerillas, must have military escorts, raising new concerns about aid bottlenecks.

Global relief efforts continued, meanwhile, to address the plight of 5 million people across the region left homeless by the tsunami.

In Washington, World Bank President James Wolfensohn said the $900 million U.N. emergency relief effort is just the beginning. It will take "weeks or months," he said, for the world to get a handle on long-term reconstruction costs that private analysts have said could top $15 billion.

A key issue for the World Bank, Wolfensohn said, is how to harness the massive reconstruction.

"We need programs that will really deal with the issue of not replicating slums, but dealing with the question of poverty," Wolfenson said.

Separately, the United States and 18 other wealthy nations agreed Wednesday in Paris to allow tsunami-ravaged countries to defer debt payments for up to a year. The five countries hardest hit by the disaster --- Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and the Maldives --- together pay $23.1 billion a year in public debt to Paris Club donor nations and other creditors.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Some New Haven Marines get ready to deploy

(New Haven-WTNH, Jan. 11, 2005 10:40 PM) _ Just days away from the elections in Iraq and we're seeing more US troops heading to the region.

At this hour, Marines from the New Haven area are getting ready to deploy.

by News Channel 8's Bob Wilson
At roll call 39 Marines were called to Iraq. As you look into the young faces, for most it's their second time around into the battlefield and they go willingly.

"The majority of us actually volunteered for the assignment. Me personally, I knew a Sergeant last time around that was writing a letter to his newborn son that he had never seen. And if I can take one Marine out of that situation, I'm single with no children and I'd rather be over there," says Cpl. Daniel Gay, New Haven.

They check and double check their gear. These Marines are with the 6th Motors Battalion. They haul ammo, food and troops all over the country, a job these Marines know is critical and tough.

"I was hauling one trailer when it got hit by a rocket propelled grenade. I didn't know it at the time... but when I got out at the next stop a Marine jumped out and said did you feel that? The rocket went right through your truck. No. I didn't so I guess no harm no foul," says Staff Sgt. Brian Musco, New Haven.

This time things will be different. The Marines say a lot has changed since they deployed two years ago.

"I think the conditions should be a lot better. This time we'll be wearing armor on our body and they'll be armor in the trucks. It will be a little bit safer."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Death-Squad Democracy
Are there parallels between El Salvador in the ‘80s and Iraq today? Maybe. But the ‘lessons learned’ by Washington are the wrong onesWEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Christopher Dickey
Paris Bureau Chief, Middle East Regional Editor
Newsweek
Updated: 6:42 p.m. ET Jan. 11, 2005Jan. 11 - Among the many tools used to build and defend pro-American democracies, murder is among the trickiest. But murder—yes, let’s insist on that word—is also quite common in the annals of nation-building, at least in my experience, and sometimes it’s been very effective. Now we hear that some of the Bush administration’s strategists are talking about what they call “The Salvador Option”, which seems to imply “death squads” (as the murderers were called in El Salvador and Guatemala) or “hit teams” (as they’ve been called in Israel).


Having watched the slaughter in El Salvador first hand during the early 1980s, having lost many friends and acquaintances to the butchers there—among them nuns, priests and an archbishop who will someday be sainted—and having been targeted myself, I have something of a personal interest in this notion. I’m not about to forget the bodies lying unclaimed in the streets, the families of the victims too afraid to pick them up lest they become targets as well. When I hear talk of a Salvador Option, I can’t help but think about El Playón, a wasteland of volcanic rock that was one of the killers’ favorite dumping grounds. I’ve never forgotten the sick-sweet stench of carnal refuse there, the mutilated corpses half-devoured by mongrels and buzzards, the hollow eyes of a human skull peering up through the loose-piled rocks, the hair fallen away from the bone like a gruesome halo.

Still, I’m prepared to admit that building friendly democracies sometimes has to be a cold-blooded business in the shadowland of moral grays that is the real world. The Reagan administration was just doing—or, more often, allowing to be done—whatever it took to defeat a largely Communist insurgency. I’m even prepared to believe that Arena, the political party founded by the late death squad leader, Roberto D’Aubuisson, has long since cleaned up its act. Salvadoran voters returned Arena to power last year for the third time since 1992. Its presidential candidate, Tony Saca, beat former guerrilla leader Shafik Handal by a landslide. Would El Playón’s voters have made a difference? Well, we’ll never know.

The question of the moment is not the state of play in El Salvador, however, it’s the disaster in Iraq. The Bush administration has a dismal record learning the wrong lessons from the wrong paradigms when it comes to Iraq. This was not the liberation of France, nor the occupation of Germany or Japan, and America’s war on terrorists is not the same as Israel’s war with the Palestinians. So, let’s take a real close look at what we’re talking about here when we discuss the Salvador Option.

For starters, what’s been written about the NEWSWEEK report by Michael Hirsh and John Barry goes far beyond what the story says. It doesn’t suggest for a minute, as the BBC reported, that the Pentagon is looking to create “paramilitary” death squads. It’s about the possible training of elite units to snatch or kill very specific insurgent leaders.

In fact, the policy could be a formalization of what's already taking place. “We are, of course, already targeting enemy cadres for elimination whether by capture or death in various places including Afghanistan and Iraq,” says Patrick Lang, former chief of Middle East analysis for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. According to Lang, so many people in the Special Operations Forces have been caught up in efforts to do just that, there’s actually a shortage of Green Berets to do what they’re most needed for: training regular Iraqi troops. “Surely,” says Lang, “no one except the Jihadis thinks that we should not be hunting enemy leaders and key personnel.”


continued.....

[thedrifter]

But that’s not the problem, quite. What those of us in El Salvador learned was that American policy might call for surgical action, but once the local troops are involved, they’re as likely to use a chain-saw as a scalpel. And that, too, can serve American ends. In almost any counter-insurgency, the basic message the government or the occupiers tries to get across to the population is brutally simple: “We can protect you from the guerrillas, but the guerrillas can’t protect you from us, and you’ve got to choose sides.” Sometimes you can win the population’s hearts and minds; sometimes you just have to make them more frightened of you than they are of the insurgents.

That was part of the thinking behind Fallujah,” says a well-informed Coalition official, referring to the ferocious offensive that re-took the city in November. “We have only one of the tools so far. That is, ‘You can’t protect your people from us.’ In Fallujah they had a little Salafi state. Well, that’s gone now.” The city remains in ruins; at least 50 American soldiers lost their lives, as well as hundreds, perhaps thousands of insurgents and civilians. It was a mighty tough lesson to teach. In terms of toe-to-toe urban combat, “that was the heaviest fighting the U.S. has been involved in since 1968,” says the same official. Yet the Americans have not managed to protect the Iraqi citizenry from terror and intimidation by the guerrillas. “That’s not something we’re good at,” says the official.

His remarks were echoed by a senior U.S. embassy officer, who said the Americans just can’t begin to out-intimidate the guerrillas. “It’s a lesson we can’t teach,” says the embassy official. “We’re not capable of that.” Grabbing here and there for analogies, this guy started talking about what the late Syrian President Hafez Assad did to Sunni fundamentalists holed up in the city of Hama in 1982. Assad flattened a large section of the town. “Short of ‘Hama rules,’” the official asked rhetorically, “what do you do?”

In Iraq, in fact, as in many other places where the United States has tried to train ethical armies to fight dirty wars, the Iraqi troops are tacitly expected to do what American troops won’t. A fundamental purpose of the upcoming elections on January 30 is to create democratic legitimacy for whatever extreme measures the newly organized military decides to take.

Because we’re talking about the supposed Salvador Option, I figured I’d get back in touch with Joaquín Villalobos, El Salvador’s most brilliant guerrilla leader. Now at Oxford, he favored the Iraq war in 2003, but is dumbfounded by the direction the conflict has taken. Villalobos was dryly analytical, as ever. “The problem of repression and its possible effectiveness corresponds to five basic elements: proportionality, the scope of the conflict, time, a context that favors a multiplier effect or not, and the ability to control what you’re doing.” If so, a helluva lot more fine tuning is needed than we’re likely to see in Iraq any time soon. “If the generals think that with the hatred against the United States that exists in the region, with the divisions in Iraqi society, with Syria, Iran and others around, starting a dirty war is something that will give them an edge, they are totally and absolutely lost and desperate,” says Villalobos. “Invading Iraq without a post-war plan created chaos, subsequent mistakes converted the chaos into organized resistance, and if they keep blundering ahead blindly, they’ll convert the resistance into a real civil war.”

A U.S. official in Baghdad agrees. “We’re bleeding from so many self-inflicted wounds,” he told me the other day. The Salvador Option would be just one more.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

January 17, 2005 <br />
<br />
News Briefs <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Photographic memory <br />
When Maj. Benjamin Busch prepared for patrols in a region near the Iraq-Iran border in 2003, he strapped body armor across his chest,...

[thedrifter]

January 17, 2005

Soldier: Question for Rumsfeld was mine

Joseph R. Chenelly
Times staff writer


When Spc. Thomas “Jerry” Wilson emerged from a crowd of some 2,300 troops Dec. 8 to ask Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld why Iraq-bound soldiers had to rummage through Kuwaiti scrap yards to armor their vehicles, he was asking his own question, the way he wanted to ask it — and not acting as a reporter’s puppet as has since been widely implied.
Wilson, 31, said that while a reporter embedded with his National Guard unit helped him get to the open forum with Rumsfeld, the question was all his.

“Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?” Wilson asked the secretary. The soldiers around him cheered so loud that Rumsfeld asked Wilson to repeat the question.

Wilson said he decided to ask the question after finding out that there were hundreds of armored vehicles at Camp Arijan, Kuwait, for a unit not due in theater until July. He asked that his unit, the 278th Regimental Combat Team, be allowed to use the vehicles in the meantime, but said his request was rejected.

U.S. Central Command did not respond to questions about the vehicles or Wilson’s initial request.

Rumsfeld was criticized for his answer: “You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

The query garnered an abundance of international news coverage. A week later, Army leaders announced that $4.1 billion had been earmarked to armor nearly 11,000 Humvees and trucks in Iraq and Afghanistan by June.

Still, some officers took exception to the way Wilson addressed Rumsfeld. But Wilson, according to Time magazine, told an officer that if the question “costs me my career to save another soldier, I’ll give it.”

Source of the question

Shortly after word of Wilson’s actions reached the United States, Lee Pitts, a reporter for the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press, sent an e-mail to his colleagues taking credit for orchestrating the exchange between Wilson and Rumsfeld, writing that he did so because reporters weren’t allowed to interview Rumsfeld directly.

The e-mail, which appeared on the Internet, began, “I just had one of my best days as a journalist today.” The entire e-mail also was printed in the Dec. 20 issue of Marine Corps Times.

“I was astonished to see the subject [change] so quickly from a lack of armor to whether or not someone planted a line of questions to me,” Wilson said. “The simple answer to the Lee Pitts involvement is no, it’s not true.”

The Times Free Press agreed in a Dec. 19 column by the newspaper’s publisher, Tom Griscom.

Wilson first met Pitts at Fort Irwin, Calif., during pre-deployment training. Once in Kuwait, Wilson said Pitts encouraged him to come up with “intelligent questions” to ask.

Wilson told Time that after he showed Pitts the question, Pitts advised him to reword it in a “less brash way,” but Wilson refused.

“I wanted to make my point very clear,” he told Marine Corps Times.

Wilson said that he talked with Rumsfeld after the forum and shook his hand.

“Actually, I had several more questions for Secretary Rumsfeld, but after the immediate response from my fellow soldiers in the hangar, I thought it was best just to let my question stand for itself,” Wilson said. “I am a longtime Bush supporter and hope that I didn’t do any damage to the Bush administration or to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.”

Wilson said he is grateful for the treatment he has received from his command and fellow soldiers since the town hall meeting and its aftermath. He even admits that he has something of a “celebrity status” in his unit.

“As a whole, the response has been overwhelming positive,” he said.

But his family in Georgia has received threats, according to Wilson’s ex-wife, Regina Wilson. “Some people don’t think what he did was right,” she said. “But I am very proud of Jerry. He did what he was supposed to — he said what he had to to help others.”

Regina Wilson said the family received about a dozen “negative” telephone calls in one night, more than two weeks after it all began. Local authorities are aware of the threats and a caller identification device has been installed, she said. Their 9-year-old daughter no longer rides the bus to school.

“My immediate chain of command is aware of both the positive and negative responses,” the soldier said. He said he does not regret asking the question, but hasn’t “slept well since.”

A Defense Department spokesman said the criticism and threats are unfortunate and unnecessary.

“Specialist Wilson was on the verge of moving into Iraq, a combat environment, and deserves to have his concerns addressed,” the spokesman said.

President Bush echoed the sentiments. “If I were a soldier overseas wanting to defend my country, I’d want to ask the secretary of defense the same question and that is: ‘Are we getting the best we can get us?’ And they deserve the best,” Bush said Dec. 9.

Joseph R. Chenelly covers the Army.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

US marines flatten tsunami-damaged Sri Lankan school in a day

GALLE, Sri Lanka (AFP) Jan 13, 2005
It took a team of 10 US marines less than a day to flatten a school ravaged by the tsunami in this southern Sri Lankan port town and, assisted by dump trucks and front-end loaders, clear the site.
"Yesterday the school building was standing, now there is nothing," said schoolteacher Indika Kuruneru, pointing to vacant lot where the marines, watched by a large crowd of locals, were clearing the last of the rubble.

The Sudharana Maha Vidyalayapave school was battered when the tsunami washed through Galle on December 26, leaving it unusable.

Desks and teaching aids salvaged from amongst the debris were stacked up in a storeroom still awash with sea water next to the vacant lot.

The school housed 700 pupils, who all survived and were being accommodated in other institutions, said Kuruneru.

"It will take may be up to a year to rebuild the main schoolhouse, he said. "We are happy the Americans are helping us like this."

Around 400 US marines are deployed in the south of Sri Lanka where they are focusing on clearing debris and rebuilding bridges washed away by the earthquake-whipped seas.



Ellie

[thedrifter]

NARCOTIC FERVOR:
Fallujah insurgents were addicted to more than mayhem
By TONY PERRY
Los Angeles Times



FALLUJAH, Iraq - Although the ferocity of insurgents is generally attributed to religious fervor and a hatred of America, Marines who participated in the November assault on Fallujah say many of their foes also had something else to bolster their tenacity: drugs.

The Marines say they found numerous stockpiles of needles and drugs such as adrenaline and amphetamines while battling insurgents in the fiercest urban combat waged by U.S. forces since the Vietnam War.

In some homes used by insurgents, crack pipes were found, the Marines say.

Senior U.S. military officials in Iraq say some of the drug caches discovered during the Fallujah offensive had an estimated street value of several thousand dollars.

Top military officials consider the discoveries evidence not just of drug use among insurgents, but also of smuggling operations that they say the Sunni Muslim rebels in Fallujah may have been using to finance the insurgency.

"They are just as likely to be indications of drug smuggling as insurgents being doped up to provide stamina or have the courage to fight and die," a senior military official in Baghdad said.

Officers in Iraq say soldiers and Marines found similar evidence of drug use among Shiite Muslim militiamen during April and August uprisings in Najaf.

The conduct of many of the insurgents during the fighting in Fallujah suggested that they had ingested drugs that allowed them to continue fighting even after being severely wounded, Marines and Navy medical corpsmen say.

"One guy described it as like watching the `Night of the Living Dead,' " corpsman Peter Melady said. "People who should have been dead were still alive."

Marines say the information prompted them to change their strategy on how best to kill their enemy.

"On the second day of the fight, word came down to focus on head shots, that body shots were not good enough," said 1st Lt. Tim Strabbing, a platoon leader with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, one of lead units in the assault to oust the insurgents. The battalion, known as the Thundering Third, suffered 23 dead and 300 wounded.

Strabbing said his platoon found five locations with stockpiles of needles and adrenaline. "My guys put five (machine gun) rounds into a guy who just stood there and took it and then took off running," he said.

Stimulants can allow the body to continue functioning despite mortal wounds, momentarily forestalling, although not preventing, death, medical experts say.

Many combat veterans recall watching insurgents in Fallujah who had been shot at close range return fire and hurl grenades at Marines who stormed their strongholds.

"We actually shot four or five guys multiple times and they got up and moved across the room," said corpsman Quinton Brown, who had accompanied a front-line platoon to treat wounded Marines.

"It reminded me of the stories you hear about people on PCP who just keep going," 1st Lt. Cosmo Calvin said. "I think it's safe to say that nearly 100 percent were doped up on this stuff."

Second Lt. Adam Mathes said the fighting tempo of the insurgents seemed to suggest drug use: hyper-energy in the morning and early afternoon, possibly after a fix, and then less energy as the day wore on.

"When you see a house land on somebody and they're still kicking, you know something is wrong," he said.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

NBC's Engel admits he rarely reports on heroics of soldiers
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NBC's Richard Engel conceded on Tuesday's Today that he rarely gets to report on the heroics of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, but he did this one time because those heroics saved him. Recounting how the Army unit with whom he was traveling came under attack, Engel noted how a soldier "actually stepped right in front of me protecting me with his body and started to return fire at the insurgents. And I just remember thinking that this is one of the small acts of heroism, I think you can say, that I so rarely get a chance to see and even less frequently report about." Apparently, it's only news to Engel when it involves himself.

The MRC's Geoff Dickens caught Engel's personal story which Engel recited during the 7am half hour news update on the January 11 Today. News reader Ann Curry set up Engel: "Today, two separate bombings in Iraq killed at least 13 Iraqis south of Baghdad and Tikrit. A U.S. convoy just missed getting hit but on Monday a convoy was hit. And NBC's Richard Engel was in the middle of it. He's in Mosul this morning with more on this story. Richard, good morning, I'm glad to see you well."

Engel, at an indoor location in Mosul, explained: "Thank you very much Ann, good morning. So often we report about these attacks on what seemed to be anonymous convoys this time as you said we were right in the middle of it and got to see how the soldiers react when they're faced with these truly life and death situations. Soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division set out at noon in a convoy of Striker Fighting Vehicles."

Over footage of troops in vehicles, Engel recounted: "But as we approached a mosque under construction we were attacked. The roadside bomb targeted a pickup truck nestled in our convoy [video of truck on fire]. In it were Iraqi national guards. It was only a few feet from the vehicle carrying our NBC News team. U.S. soldiers and medics rushed in to help the Iraqis. [matching video] But during the rescue another attack from the mosque." [video of shots being fired from mosque]

Engel, running on a road with smoke rising behind him from the mosque: "We had been on a mission to deliver heaters to schools but our convoy was hit by a roadside bomb then we were attacked with small arms fire. U.S. troops have spread out through the area and are trying to catch the insurgents. [video switches to Engel laying on ground as he talks] There is still a lot of fire coming at us some of it's exploding in the car that was hit by an improvised explosive device. They are, U.S. troops are retaliating, trying to fight off what they think could be an intense ambush. Four Iraqi guards were killed, two others remain hospitalized. For our news team cameraman Kevin Burke and audio technician Martin Francis it was a close look sometimes too close at how these daily attacks unfold."

Back live indoors, Engel concluded: "Ann, one of the things I'll remember most about this experience was as I was standing there obviously unarmed, feeling very exposed wearing a bright blue flak jacket was there was a soldier standing next to me. I didn't know him I hadn't even noticed him before. And suddenly as the gunshots were coming at us he came over to me and said, 'It's gonna be okay, don't worry.' And he actually stepped right in front of me protecting me with his body and started to return fire at the insurgents. And I just remember thinking that this is one of the small acts of heroism, I think you can say, that I so rarely get a chance to see and even less frequently report about. Ann."

Curry: "And small acts of heroism that certainly must exist every single day there in that region by U.S. troops. Thank you so much. NBC's Richard Engel this morning reporting from Mosul."

Nice that NBC finally observed one of those "acts of heroism" which take place "every single day" in Iraq.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

TV embarks on Iraq-themed programing
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January 13, 2005
By Sharon Waxman
New York Times

LOS ANGELES - It took two decades for television to mock World War II, in "Hogan's Heroes," and "M-A-S-H" relied on the distant Korean War to mock the morass of the Vietnam War. But if a few ambitious producers have their way, the Iraq war will be the first converted into prime-time, episodic shows while U.S. troops are still fighting overseas.

Steven Bochco, the creator and executive producer of hits like "Hill Street Blues," "L.A. Law" and "NYPD Blue," is shooting a pilot for "Over There," a military drama set in Iraq, for the FX cable network. Meanwhile, a veteran television comedy writer is working on "Spirit of America," a Fox sitcom about the creation of a Western-style television network in contemporary Baghdad, and a Hollywood producer has taken a high-definition camera into the Sunni triangle to shoot a 10-part documentary series about daily life among the troops, to be shepherded by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney.

Is America ready to engage as fiction the all-too-real events on the front page of every newspaper? Is it ready for up-close depictions of wartime horrors, like car bomb victims and dismembered soldiers, they have so far been largely spared? And is television prepared to present the conflict realistically, without fear of discomfiting viewers?

If the shows are as visceral as the pilot script of "Over There" suggests, and as absurd as the conceit of "Spirit of America" indicates, they may bring the fighting home to American viewers in a way that even the real war has not.

Which is at least partly the point, their creators say.

"I'd like to reveal the reality of war - as real as we can get on television," said Chris Gerolmo, the co-creator with Bochco of "Over There." "I want to do a show that's powerful and meaningful and doesn't shy away. I'm trying to break your heart."

In the pilot episode of the drama, Army recruits with nicknames like Bo, Scream and Doublewide find themselves in a firefight against faceless Iraqis hiding in a small village. The soldiers are crouching in "Ranger graves," foxholes they have scraped out of the earth, when Bo sees "an Arab kid running at him from a few yards away, firing his AK past Bo at the Humvee, as a grenade the size of a can of Red Bull hits him square in the chest," the script reads.

What happens next to the boy is hard to imagine seeing on television: "The top half of him disappears. His head, his torso, his AK-47, all dematerialize in a puff of pink smoke."

That's not the only raw moment. The pilot opens with a steamy sex scene between Bo (to be played by Josh Henderson) and his wife, enjoying some of their last moments together at home. In another scene a female soldier is caught under fire while defecating.

Despite the provocative material, Bochco, who courted controversy for explicit language and sexual suggestiveness in "NYPD Blue," and Gerolmo, who was criticized for embellishing historical fact in his film drama "Mississippi Burning," say the show will not take a position for or against the war.

"What occurred to me was that for every young man or woman who goes to fight at war, there is left at home a family of loved ones, scared to death," Bochco said. "You don't need to take a political position about that. For young soldiers in combat, whatever their political thoughts may be, when they're fighting in the war, they're not fighting for an ideal, they're fighting to survive."

Having written four scripts so far, Bochco added: "If you are pro-war, you will not be uncomfortable with the show you're seeing. If you're anti-war, I think you'll be moved by the show."

Instead of advancing a political agenda, the writers say, the show will explore the daily moral dilemmas and life-and-death choices that U.S. troops face in Iraq. In one script, soldiers on roadblock duty must decide whether to fire on a car that has not followed orders to stop. In another, soldiers struggle to identify an enemy "spotter" for rebel artillery threatening their trucks, but the spotter looks like a regular Iraqi civilian. In a third, they must interrogate a prisoner who shows no fear of dying; how can they get him to talk?

"This is stuff you never see," Gerolmo said. "But if what you want to write is drama, about the most important things going on in your world, it's where you end up."

The idea for "Over There" started with the two top FX executives, John Landgraf and Peter Liguori. They brought the idea to Bochco, who had never written for a cable network.

"It struck me that since 'China Beach,' for a long, long time no American TV series had dealt with war," said Landgraf, the network's president of entertainment. "Definitely one of the reasons I wanted to go there is that no one else was. But you have to be impeccable about the dramaturgy, the research."

Though the show does not yet have an official green light (and won't until FX sees the pilot), Landgraf said he was confident that it would make it to the schedule by summer. FX is known for tough, male-oriented shows like "The Shield" and "Nip/Tuck," and Bochco says he was attracted to the idea of writing for cable at a time when broadcast television seems risk-averse. On Veterans Day, numerous ABC affiliates declined to broadcast "Saving Private Ryan" because of its explicit battle scenes and language.

Bochco and Gerolmo did not seek the Army's cooperation because they did not want to submit scripts for approval. Instead they have hired Sean Bunch, a former Marine and an Iraq war veteran, as a consultant, and are privately renting tanks, C-130 transport planes and all manner of military props. But men and women in uniform may welcome the show, if, says one former Marine, it is done accurately.

"The military and Hollywood are on opposite sides of this war, said the former Marine, Owen West, who fought in Iraq and is now working on a screenplay about the battle for Fallujah, "that's clear, to the tune of 95 percent for the war on one side, 95 percent against the war on the other. The idea that both sides can come together in an accurate medium is challenging. The onus is on TV producers to get it right. "

Even trickier may be an effort to make it funny. Mort Nathan, who won two Emmys for "The Golden Girls, " is writing a pilot for Fox based on Al-Iraqiya, a television station the U.S. government is sponsoring in Baghdad.

"There's an absurdity to the whole process of bringing Western-style media to a Middle Eastern country, " Nathan said. ''It seemed like an interesting slant on how to do a situation comedy, but at the same time be respectful of the sacrifice soldiers are making. "

The show features mainly Western characters and takes place inside the Green Zone, the part of Baghdad most strictly controlled by U.S. forces.

Nathan and Brad Johnson, the project's co-producer, insist that the show will be sensitive to the tragedies of war. Both say that their model is "M-A-S-H, " Larry Gelbart's satire about a dissipated medical unit in war-torn Asia.

That series was set in the Korea War, long since ended but seen - and meant to be seen - as a comment on the Vietnam conflict. Gelbart says there is an inherent peril in undertaking shows that address Iraq explicitly while the conflict is under way.

"You're competing with reality, " he said. "I don't know the need for this. Are we going to laugh at how screwed up things are? Are we going to make a sadcom out of the sitcom? "

If U.S. troops are pulled out this summer, when FX hopes to broadcast the "Over There " pilot, it could undermine the premise of the show, not to mention public interest in it. Even if the troops stay, neither show will be able to incorporate or respond to major news events that occur during the season. Gelbart said: ''What do you do one week a mess hall gets blown up in Baghdad? Put your comedy show on? And let's see how funny this show is when there's a draft. "

That may be less of a problem for the documentary-style series in the works from Pat Dollard, a talent-manager-turned-director who has been accompanying Marines in the Sunni triangle for the past seven weeks. He has shot about 60 hours, and Soderbergh, Dollard's client, and Clooney plan to produce it as a miniseries and possible film. They are negotiating with HBO and Mark Cuban, an owner of the cable network HDNet and Landmark Theaters, Dollard said in a phone call from Iraq.

"There are 120,000 kids over here, and no one knows what it's like, " Dollard said, adding that lately he has become a conservative. "Morning, noon and night they are being shot at, they are getting into Humvees and waiting to get blown up, waiting to get ambushed. They are doing what kids should not have to be doing. "

But recent efforts by entertainers to document the lives of U.S. soldiers have not gone well. "Combat Missions, " a reality show produced by the genre's guru, Mark Burnett, featured former soldiers competing in different missions. It was shown on the USA Network for a few months in early 2002 before being canceled. (The contestants included Scott Helvenston, who was one of four private guards lynched in Fallujah.)

The Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer created a brief reality series that followed soldiers in Afghanistan on ABC. But he was turned down by the network when he sought to do the same in Iraq. At the time, before the 2003 invasion, the producer said ABC did not want to pay for an Iraq version, while the network said there would be enough mayhem covered by its news divisions.

All that was back when the war effort appeared likely to go relatively well. Now that the conflict has turned uglier, some wonder if Americans will want to face the war on a television show, especially with real men and women being killed and injured - and killing and injuring - daily.

"I do legitimately wonder how interested the American public would be in following a show in this world, " said Keith Addis, a talent manager. "It's hard to know. " Addis produced "War Stories, " a scripted show starring Jeff Goldblum as a war correspondent. A two-hour pilot was broadcast on NBC in January 2003, but the show was dropped after that. The network said there wasn't enough audience interest in the war as entertainment, but the producers suspected that NBC didn't want to undermine its news operation.

"When you look at the shows that work, they're not about reality, " Addis said, noting that ratings for "West Wing " have headed south since its Clinton-era heyday. "They're all about escaping reality. It's 'Desperate Housewives' people want. With so much difficult stuff going on in the world, it's not hard to imagine that the audience is overloaded. "

But Bochco said he is not worried. For one thing, he said, a show on cable does not have to sustain the same number of viewers as one on a broadcast network. And for another, he said: "I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong about stirring up some controversy. It's not our intent, but I understand that certain kinds of drama, when rendered artfully and powerfully, can stir a lot of intense feelings. It's supposed to. That's our job. "

Bochco recalled a lesson he learned years ago from the producer Norman Lear, a veteran of television controversy. "He said to me: 'Don't mistake angry mail for hateful mail. What it most often means is you have, on some fundamental, visceral level, engaged them. Which is something you're not used to when looking at TV. When someone responds in anger, or passion, it's because you're doing your job.' I've always taken that to heart. So I've never flinched from that stuff. "

Ellie

[thedrifter]

26th MEU in exercise off coast
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January 13, 2005
ERIC STEINKOPFF
DAILY NEWS STAFF

Members of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit have begun an exercise off the East Coast - preparation for a regularly scheduled deployment in March to the Mediterranean Sea.

Earlier this week, reinforced versions of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment and Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 162, as well as MEU Service Support Group 26 and its command element, boarded the USS Kearsarge, USS Ashland and USS Ponce. The Expeditionary Strike Group Exercise started Tuesday and is scheduled to last through Jan. 27.

Once off the coast, they expect to join the guided-missile destroyer USS Gonzalez, guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy, guided-missile frigate USS Kauffman, nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Scranton and a shore-based Orion P-3 reconnaissance aircraft.

According to a MEU press release, the Kearsarge will begin the exercise and practice shooting and moving at sea. Beginning Monday, it will participate in training missions for situations Marines usually face like moving a MEU headquarters ashore or reinforcing U.S. embassies.

The exercise will serve as an opportunity for those aboard the ships to practice working together before their final weeklong certification exercise next month and the upcoming deployment, the press release states.

The 26th MEU, with 2,200 troops, has not received orders to go to Iraq, said Staff Sgt. Angela Mink, a spokeswoman for the II Marine Expeditionary Force. Between now and March, nearly 14,000 Lejeune-based troops are scheduled to deploy to Iraq as part of the II MEF forward.

"There is no plan to send us to Iraq," said Capt. Will Klumpp, a 26th MEU spokesman. "We have no assigned mission other than the MEU's role as strategic reserve."


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Fallujah insurgents were addicted to more than mayhem
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By TONY PERRY
Los Angeles Times
Jan. 13, 2005

FALLUJAH, Iraq - Although the ferocity of insurgents is generally attributed to religious fervor and a hatred of America, Marines who participated in the November assault on Fallujah say many of their foes also had something else to bolster their tenacity: drugs.

The Marines say they found numerous stockpiles of needles and drugs such as adrenaline and amphetamines while battling insurgents in the fiercest urban combat waged by U.S. forces since the Vietnam War.

In some homes used by insurgents, crack pipes were found, the Marines say.

Senior U.S. military officials in Iraq say some of the drug caches discovered during the Fallujah offensive had an estimated street value of several thousand dollars.

Top military officials consider the discoveries evidence not just of drug use among insurgents, but also of smuggling operations that they say the Sunni Muslim rebels in Fallujah may have been using to finance the insurgency.

"They are just as likely to be indications of drug smuggling as insurgents being doped up to provide stamina or have the courage to fight and die," a senior military official in Baghdad said.

Officers in Iraq say soldiers and Marines found similar evidence of drug use among Shiite Muslim militiamen during April and August uprisings in Najaf.

The conduct of many of the insurgents during the fighting in Fallujah suggested that they had ingested drugs that allowed them to continue fighting even after being severely wounded, Marines and Navy medical corpsmen say.

"One guy described it as like watching the `Night of the Living Dead,' " corpsman Peter Melady said. "People who should have been dead were still alive."

Marines say the information prompted them to change their strategy on how best to kill their enemy.

"On the second day of the fight, word came down to focus on head shots, that body shots were not good enough," said 1st Lt. Tim Strabbing, a platoon leader with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, one of lead units in the assault to oust the insurgents. The battalion, known as the Thundering Third, suffered 23 dead and 300 wounded.

Strabbing said his platoon found five locations with stockpiles of needles and adrenaline. "My guys put five (machine gun) rounds into a guy who just stood there and took it and then took off running," he said.

Stimulants can allow the body to continue functioning despite mortal wounds, momentarily forestalling, although not preventing, death, medical experts say.

Many combat veterans recall watching insurgents in Fallujah who had been shot at close range return fire and hurl grenades at Marines who stormed their strongholds.

"We actually shot four or five guys multiple times and they got up and moved across the room," said corpsman Quinton Brown, who had accompanied a front-line platoon to treat wounded Marines.

"It reminded me of the stories you hear about people on PCP who just keep going," 1st Lt. Cosmo Calvin said. "I think it's safe to say that nearly 100 percent were doped up on this stuff."

Second Lt. Adam Mathes said the fighting tempo of the insurgents seemed to suggest drug use: hyper-energy in the morning and early afternoon, possibly after a fix, and then less energy as the day wore on.

"When you see a house land on somebody and they're still kicking, you know something is wrong," he said.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Representative of Top Iraq Cleric Killed

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen killed a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq (news - web sites)'s most senior Shiite Muslim cleric, along with the aide's son and four bodyguards in a town south of Baghdad, an official in the cleric's office said Thursday.


Insurgents trying to derail Iraq's Jan. 30 elections appeared to be sending a message to al-Sistani, who strongly supports the vote. Insurgents have targeted electoral workers and candidates.


Elsewhere, gunmen opened fire on a minibus picking up a Turkish businessman from the Bakhan Hotel in central Baghdad on Thursday, killing six Iraqis and kidnapping the Turk, who reportedly ran a construction company that worked with U.S.-led occupation authorities.


Iraq's interim President Ghazi al-Yawer also weighed in on the U.S. announcement Wednesday that the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has concluded without finding any evidence of the banned weapons that President Bush (news - web sites) cited as justification for going to war against Iraq.


Al-Yawer, in Paris for talks with French President Jacques Chirac, said the war still served a purpose.


"What has happened has happened," he told reporters, speaking in English. "But the war rid Iraq of a vicious regime which established a dynasty of villains."


Sheik Mahmoud Finjan, al-Sistani's representative in the town of Salman Pak, 10 miles southeast of Baghdad, was shot dead Wednesday night as he was returning home from a mosque where he performed the evening prayers, the official said on condition of anonymity.


The aide's son and four bodyguards also were killed, the official said at al-Sistani's office in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.


Shiites make up 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people and are expected to dominate the 275-member National Assembly in the first free elections held in Iraq since it became independent in 1932. Some Sunnis, who are 20 percent of the population, fear a loss of the dominance and privilege they enjoyed for decades. Sunni clerics have called for a boycott.


Al-Sistani has urged Iraqis to vote, calling it a religious duty for every man and woman. The cleric is not running himself but is backing the 228 candidates from the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of 16 groups that includes Iraq's largest Shiite political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.


If many Sunnis do boycott the vote, the United Iraqi Alliance stands to dominate the assembly, whose main job will be to write a permanent constitution.


The Turkish businessman, identified by police as Abdulkadir Tanrikulu, was abducted and the pavement in front of the hotel was stained with blood. Six Iraqis on board — the driver and five employees of the businessman — were killed, police Lt. Bassam al-Abed said.


A Turkish news channel said the construction company was working in Iraq with Americans. A hotel employee who gave only his first name, Alaa, said he had been in Iraq for about a year.


Insurgents have routinely targeted Iraqis and foreigners working with the U.S.-led coalition.


Iraqi Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib also met police chiefs from around the country on Thursday to discuss security for this month's election.


"I would like to assure the Iraqi people that we will protect every citizen who will come forward to vote in the elections," al-Naqib said before the meeting, which was closed to the press.


Meanwhile, oil resumed flowing through a major pipeline linking Kirkuk's oil fields with the northern refinery of Beiji following a three-week stoppage caused by a Dec. 23 sabotage attack, an official with the North Oil Co. said Thursday.





The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said pumping to the refinery resumed two hours before Beiji's reserves would have run out. Insurgents often have targeted Iraq's oil infrastructure, repeatedly cutting exports and denying the country much-needed reconstruction money.

In other violence Thursday, gunmen shot to death a member of the Diyala province's local council in the city of Baqoubah, northeast of Baghdad. Mouayad Sami was slain in front of his house, a doctor at the Baqoubah General Hospital said.

Hours earlier in Baqoubah, a roadside bomb exploded as an Iraqi police patrol was passing, killing a police officer and wounding six others, police Lt. Hussein Jasim said.

Gunmen also killed Iraqi National Guard Capt. Hamed Hassan Salman in a market in the western city of Qaim, near the border with Syria, witnesses said.

In the capital, U.S. forces searching for those behind the assassination this month of Baghdad's provincial governor raided a mosque and detained two more suspects, the military said Thursday.

Wednesday's raid on Al Khashab mosque followed one a day earlier on a house in the city's northern Hurriyah neighborhood in which six suspects were detained.

The governor, Ali al-Haidari, was killed on Jan. 4 when gunmen fired on his armored BMW. The attack also killed six of his bodyguards.

Residents reported seeing insurgents fleeing inside the mosque after the shooting and said weapons had been stockpiled there, the military said in a statement.

In other developments Thursday:

_ Iraq's electoral commission detailed what would be considered crimes during this month's election process, ranging from carrying weapons in or around polling stations, inciting violence and forgeries and bribes.

_ The largest group so far of Iraqi police recruits, 1,440, graduated from a training center in the Jordanian desert, an official said.

_ Gunmen stormed a bank in the restive city of Ramadi and stole $14 million worth of Iraqi dinars before fleeing, police said.

_ Explosions rocked the area of the heavily guarded Green Zone in Baghdad, but it was not known if any casualties or damage were reported.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

U.S. Marines head for eastern Sri Lankan shores, close to areas with Tamil rebel influence <br />
The USS Duluth was bound for eastern Sri Lankan shores on Thursday to carry out tsunami relief work that...

[thedrifter]

Elwyn bandages provide Marines a feel for home
BETTE ALBURGER, Times Correspondent01/11/2005
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MIDDLETOWN -- Corporal John Clements of Upland, a member of a U.S. Marine reservist unit based in Folsom, was surprised to find a touch of home when he opened a first-aid kit he was issued at Camp Pendelton in California, prior to his first deployment to Iraq.


The kit contained bandages manufactured at Elwyn.


Clements’ mother, Doredda Shaw, is an executive secretary at the main campus of the facility for individuals with various developmental disabilities and disadvantages. He told her that he’d like to see how the bandages are made. He also wanted to express his thanks to those at Elwyn who make them.

Now home after his second tour of duty in Iraq, Clements, who just turned 22, got his wish Monday.

He and two buddies from Bridge Company Bravo, 6th Engineer Support Battalion, 4th FSSG in Folsom, toured the bandage manufacturing and packaging site in Elwyn’s Kevin Dugan Center. Along with Cpl. Christel Helton of Exton and Cpl. Paul Hegarty of Coatsville, who also recently returned from Iraq, he was impressed with what he saw.

And the Elwyn consumer/workers were thrilled to meet the three Marines and learn that the job they’re doing for the military is so much appreciated.

"I didn’t realize all the work is actually done here," said Clements, after observing the bandage-making process from raw material to finished product to packing. "It’s very labor intensive. It’s pretty incredible."

State Rep. Tom Killion, R-168, agreed. He and BertLambert, a retired Marine, joined the visiting Marines and Elwyn officials -- including President Sandra Cornelius and Dugan Center Director Heidi Eifert -- in touring both floors of the bandage manufacturing area.

Since 1989, Elwyn has been the site of the Javits Wagner O’Day Set-Aside Program (JWOD is the enabling legislation).

Thirteen different kinds of bandages for the U.S. military are produced, ranging from large sizes for chest wounds to those for small finger cuts. After the bandages are assembled, vacuum sealed and packed in cartons, they’re shipped out to be sterilized before being sent on their way to the military

Although parts of the government contract go out to Elwyn in Philadelphia and Wilmington, the majority of the work takes place at the Dugan Center by 165 workers, with 24 staff members overseeing the production.

The yearly average number of bandages turned out by a total 780 JWOD consumer/workers over a 12-year period has been 1.4 million. However, with the war in Iraq, production was stepped up to 6.8 million in 2003 and 5 million in 2004.

Steve McLean of Secane, who oversees five individuals working on a machine that makes cotton padding for the bandages, noted it can turn out as many as 20,000 small pads per day. As a national guardsman, he knows how important the work is.

Said John O’Malley of Glenolden, who helps make the padding, "I like doing this work and helping the troops overseas."

Joanne Vivian, one of several individuals working on another aspect of the production, shook hands with the special visitors and wished them well.

"It’s a very vital thing they’re doing here," said Shaw about the work carried out on a daily basis. "It’s nice for them to see that their work is important and appreciated."

Added her son, "There are probably thousands of lives saved because of what they’re doing."



Ellie

[thedrifter]

Assailants Kidnap Turk, Kill Six Iraqis

By JASON KEYSER, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Ten assailants sprayed gunfire at a minibus picking up a Turkish businessman from a Baghdad hotel Thursday, killing six Iraqis and kidnapping the Turk, who reportedly ran a construction company working with Americans.



The gunmen swarmed the bus as it pulled up to the Bakhan Hotel at dawn to pick up the man, identified by police as Abdulkadir Tanrikulu. The gunmen opened fire, killing the bus driver and five of Tanrikulu's employees, police said. The attackers then sped off with their captive.


It was the latest bloodshed in a surge of violence about two weeks before Iraqis will choose a national legislature in the first election since the collapse of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s tyrannical rule.


On Wednesday, gunmen killed a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq (news - web sites)'s most senior Shiite Muslim cleric, along with the aide's son and four bodyguards in a town south of Baghdad, an official in the cleric's office said Thursday.


His slaying was apparently meant as a warning to al-Sistani, who strongly backs the Jan. 30 vote. Rebels have also targeted electoral workers and candidates.


Sheik Mahmoud Finjan, al-Sistani's representative in the town of Salman Pak, 12 miles southeast of Baghdad, was shot to death Wednesday night as he was returning home from evening prayers at a mosque, the official said. His son and four bodyguards were also killed, according to the official at al-Sistani's office in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.


Shiites make up 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people and are expected to dominate the 275-member National Assembly. Many Sunnis, who make up 20 percent of the population, fear a loss of the influence and privilege they enjoyed for decades. And Sunni clerics have called for a boycott to protest the November assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.


U.S. and Iraqi officials fear that a low Sunni turnout will cast doubts on the new government's legitimacy.


Al-Sistani has urged Iraqis to vote, calling it a religious duty for every man and woman. The Iranian-born cleric is not running himself but is backing the 228 candidates from the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of 16 groups that includes Iraq's largest Shiite political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.


If many Sunnis do stay home on election day, the United Iraqi Alliance stands to dominate the assembly.


Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Thursday that Iraqis' participation in the vote could help end the violence.


"One of the ways to end the insurgency is to continue going forward with the political process and that Iraqis participate in the political process, including elections," Allawi told Al-Arabiya television.


Also Thursday, U.S. troops clashed with insurgents in Baghdad's northern Azamiyah neighborhood, and some Iraqis were killed, witnesses said. Several cars were scorched by fire and bullet casings littered the ground. The military had no comment.


Thursday's attack at the Baghdad hotel left the pavement stained with blood. Gunmen dragged the bodies out of the minibus and drove off with it, along with the Turkish businessman.


There has been no claim of responsibility or demands.


A Turkish news channel said the man's construction company was working in Iraq with Americans. A hotel employee who gave only his first name, Alaa, said he had been in Iraq for about a year.


Nearly 180 foreigners have been taken hostage in Iraq since last April; more than 30 of them have been killed.





Also Thursday, gunmen kidnapped an Iraqi of Egyptian origin in the northern city of Kirkuk, police said. Sayyed Abdul-Khaleq was taken from the gas station he owns by gunmen dressed as Iraqi National Guard, police Maj. Gen. Torhan Abdul-Rahman Youssef said.

In another sign that insurgents were stepping up their activity in the capital, explosions rocked the area of the heavily guarded Green Zone, breaking a lull of a couple of weeks in insurgent shelling of the international district.

Two explosions were heard Thursday morning, and up to three others shook the area after sundown. It was unclear where the explosions occurred and whether there were casualties or damage.

The Green Zone, located on the western side of the Tigris River, includes major U.S. and Iraqi government offices.

Interim President Ghazi al-Yawer weighed in on the U.S. announcement Wednesday that the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has concluded without finding any. President Bush (news - web sites) had cited the weapons as justification for going to war.

Al-Yawer, in Paris for talks with French President Jacques Chirac, said the war still served a purpose.

"What has happened has happened," al-Yawer told reporters, speaking in English. "But the war rid Iraq of a vicious regime which established a dynasty of villains."


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Iraq rebels in video taunt
Wed Jan 12, 2005 03:05 PM ET

By Michael Georgy
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Departing from fiery Islamic slogans, Iraqi guerrillas have launched a propaganda campaign with an English-language video urging U.S. troops to lay down their weapons and seek refuge in mosques and homes.

The video, narrated in fluent English by what sounded like an Iraqi educated in the United States or Britain, also mocked the U.S. president's challenge to rebels in the early days of the insurgency to 'bring it on'.

"George W. Bush; you have asked us to 'bring it on'. And so help me, (we will) like you never expected. Do you have another challenge?," asked the narrator before the video showed explosions around a U.S. military Humvee vehicle.

Threats intended to demoralise and frighten in the tense build up to elections at the end of the month were tempered with invitations to desert and escape retribution.

A masked guerrilla from an unknown group called the Islamic Jihad Army, eschewing past impassioned Arabic-language threats of holy war, told U.S. soldiers: "This is not your war, nor are you fighting for a true cause in Iraq."

"To the American soldiers we say you can also choose to fight tyranny with us. Lay down your weapons and seek refuge in our mosques, churches and homes. We will protect you," he said.

There was no way of verifying the authenticity of the video obtained by Reuters.

Previous insurgent videos have been dominated by grisly beheadings of foreign hostages who kneel beside radical Islamic banners before their deaths.

The Islamic Jihad Army video featured familiar scenes of guerrillas blowing up U.S. convoys but also highlighted some of the key issues of the Iraq war, from weapons of mass destruction to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

"We have not crossed the oceans and seas to occupy Britain or the U.S. nor are we responsible for 9/11. These are only a few of these lies that these criminals present to cover their true plans," said the narrator, apparently referring to the Bush administration's assertion of a link between Saddam Hussein and those attacks.

A masked speaker with a machine gun beside him delivered his message to triumphant music with the ring of U.S. military propaganda films during World War Two.

He said the enemy was on the run as the video showed guerrillas firing on U.S. convoys, standing beside the corpse of an American soldier, or loading a large shell for an attack.

The U.S. military has said it would stay in Iraq until the country is by its definition secure.

The rebels focused on political issues that divided the United States and its European allies over the war in Iraq while reminding troops of casualties with images of burning trucks.

"We also thank France, Germany and other states for their positions, which we need to say are considered wise and valid until now," said the narrator, who also urged economic warfare against Washington.

"Stop using the U.S. dollar. Use the Euro or a basket of currencies," he said on the video dated December 10, 2004.

At least 1,067 U.S. troops have died in combat since the start of the war that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Area marines take first step on journey to Iraq

By Christiana Sciaudone
Staff Writer

January 13, 2005


NEW HAVEN -- The Advocate is following these soldiers as they prepare for a tour of duty in Iraq.

"Dog tags out."

The U.S. Marine Corps reservists of the 6th Motor Transport Battalion's 1st Truck Platoon dug inside their sand-colored camouflage uniforms and produced the metal bits.

"ID cards, license, weapons card, left hand," Staff Sgt. Brian Musco said. He checked their documentation.

About 50 family members and friends of the 39 Marines watched in the drill hall of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Center in New Haven. It was 9 p.m., and they would have just less than six hours to say goodbye to their men being shipped off to Iraq.

The Marines, who were activated last week, left yesterday for Camp LeJeune, N.C. They are among 14,000 Marines being deployed to Iraq next month after scheduled elections of a new government in the war-torn country.

The friends, parents, siblings and children milled about for hours. They sat in metal folding chairs set up around the hall, drinking cup after cup of coffee. They had been saying their goodbyes since November, when word came the reservists would be activated.

Veterans embarking on their second tour in Iraq said the mood in the hall was laid back compared to the last time the unit was deployed in 2003.

Children, just a handful, toddled around packed green bags, locked and lined up, ready to go. The Marines, in their late teens and 20s, collected their M-16 rifles from the armory in the same room.

Clack. One man cleared his rifle. Clack. Another. Clack. Thirty-seven rifles and one 9-mm pistol for Musco. The men got bayonets with numbers etched into the black glare-free blades.

Lance Cpl. Alex Horelick, 27, was anxious to get going. Two friends, one a former Marine, came to see him off. Donnie Huot, who had been in Iraq two years ago with Horelick, had been a corporal before he completed his commitment to the reserves in August. Huot felt left behind watching fellow Marines prepare for battle.

"I wish I could go with my brothers," he said.

Huot and Horelick flipped through pictures from recent parties: Horelick's birthday, New Year's, his goodbye party at the Black Bear Saloon in Stamford. They reminisced, laughing, being goofy.

Horelick had left his parents at home in Norwalk. He didn't want them to come and go through the emotions like the last time.

Lance Cpl. Nelson Figueroa's parents came late, about 11:45 p.m. Figueroa, 20, also of Norwalk, had been anxious for their arrival. He got out of boot camp less than a year ago.

Figueroa's girlfriend, Jaqueline Benitez, took a photo of him fiddling with the green strap of his rifle.

Figueroa's parents, two sisters, uncle and two friends sat with him for hours. None of them took their jackets off. They joked some, but there was more waiting than talking.

At about 1:30 a.m., Musco called the men up to formation.

He handed out phone cards. To the families, Musco said, "I'll be watching them. I'll have my eyes on them the entire time."

Last pictures were taken and embraces were briefly shared.

It was about 2:10 a.m. when Musco shouted, "The bus is here, the bus is here."

The men lined up. Figueroa's father helped him readjust his pack.

They packed the bus with their gear and trudged through the slush with just rifles and backpacks.

Figueroa made the rounds, hugging his father, mother, sisters, uncle, friends -- once, twice, two at a time. His mother and father hugged, sobbing into each other's arms.

Horelick watched them.

"I went through this the first time," he said as the clock approached 3 a.m. "He'll be back. I'll look after him."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

borrowed from fontman(Mark) with permission...


Pols Push to Boost Soldiers' Death Benefits
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Fox News

WASHINGTON - So far, 1,511 members of the U.S. military have died in Iraq (search) and Afghanistan. The government currently pays a death benefit of $12,000.

That's double what was paid a year ago, but a bipartisan push in Congress is seeking to increase death benefits to $100,000. Several states are also moving to increase death benefits for their National Guard (search) and Reserve forces.

Lawmakers working on the increase say while they can't measure the cost of freedom, the payment for a battlefield death isn't nearly enough.

"You can't value a life. But we know that we can do a lot better than $12,000 for the families of those who have given their lives in our defense," said Sen. Joe Lieberman (search), D-Conn.

Lieberman wants to boost the death benefit to $100,000 and make it retroactive to all U.S. personnel killed in Afghanistan (search) and Iraq. He's joined by Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions.

"We need to have this kind of benefit. It goes to a family, regardless of rank. Anyone who gives their life for their country will receive this benefit," Sessions said.

Boosting military life-insurance policies is another priority for some lawmakers, who want to raise the payout from $250,000 to $400,000. Lawmakers want the United States to pay the premiums on nearly half the policy. Momentum is building in Congress.

"I'm very confident that we'll have strong support for it. I am particularly hopeful it will be in the Defense Department budget, and I think that will really help us move it forward," Sessions said.

Lieberman and Sessions said they hope President Bush endorses these ideas in his State of the Union address. Both predict near-unanimous support even if he doesn't.

"It's not going to matter whether a senator supported the war in Iraq or not. Everybody's going to come together to make sure that we treat the families of our servicepeople with minimal decency," Lieberman said.

Eleven states are also moving to boost death and life-insurance benefits for members of their National Guard - weekend warriors pressed into perilous duty.

"Yes, we need to provide them the ammunition and the armor. But, my God, for their families that are devastated when there's a loss, when there's a death, we've got to do a lot better as a nation," said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (search).

Richardson said he also wants a check-off box that would allow state-tax refund recipients to divert cash to provide emergency assistance to surviving relatives who are in the military.

"Just simply a fund to help our families that are devastated by this war when they lose a Guardsman or when a Guardsman is hurt," he said.

New Mexico has check-off boxes on tax forms to save trees and wildlife and to provide drug treatment and maintain military cemeteries. He said the New Mexico Legislature is more than willing to add another check-off box to aid the families of fallen Guardsmen.

Lieberman told FOX News that he supports the idea of a federal check-off box to aid all military families. He said if Americans have been willing to use a part of their tax refund to help pay for presidential elections, they will be more than willing to do it for troops in the field.

Click on the URL below for the rest of this story: www.foxnews.com/story/0,2...13,00.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marine Has Message for Fellow Hoosiers
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
News 8 has a rare opportunity to hear from an Indiana Marine serving in Iraq. Many WISH-TV viewers have come to know Lt. Col. Mark Smith, also an Indiana state trooper, through Karen Hensel's email correspondence with him. He has sent a message back home to Hoosiers, from Fallujah, Iraq. The videotaped message aired Thursday, Jan. 13th. This is a complete transcript of the message.

From: Lt. Col. Mark Smith
Indiana State Trooper
January 2005

My name is Lt. Col. Mark A. Smith and I have the unbelievable privilege and honor of being the commanding officer of the finest battalion in the USMC. The second of the 24th: the Mayhem from the Heartland Battalion.

With the help of our new parent command, the fighting soldiers of the United States Army 1st Calvary division, 2nd Brigade combat team, the Blackjack Brigade and our new commanding officer Col. Fightin' Mike Formica I have been afforded the opportunity to send this video message to family, friends and supporters in the Midwest.

There are only two things I'd like to accomplish in this video message: One, to express my hope this message finds all the families of 2/24 in good health and high spirits. I speak for each and every one of your wonderful Marines - your Mad Ghosts - in expressing how much you are deeply loved and missed. Second is to update you on the activity of the Mad Ghosts. Do not listen to the so-called experts, talking-heads and pundits who make a living criticizing, doubting and nay-saying. This war against evil, terror, oppression and the minions who seek to bring it on the Iraqi people IS being won. It is being won because there is no force in the world that can withstand the precision and skill of America's warriors. But in this war in particular, there is no force in the world, particularly our enemy force of evil that can withstand the humanity, decency and compassion brought to the lives of the people of Iraq by your warrior.

Your Marine, your Mad Ghost, brings not only his weapons and lethality to this fight so far from the warmth of your embrace, but he also brings his love of all that is right and proper. He is the best ambassador freedom has ever known and he spreads among the people of Iraq an unconquerable desire for freedom. For in your Marine, the people of Iraq have seen the true fruits of freedom.

So let me thank you for sharing your loved one in this cause. So righteous, for it is my honor and privilege to serve them. Let me reassure you their spirits are high, their humanity intact and their victory assured.

In closing, I would like to especially send the warmest wishes and never ending prayers of this entire battalion to the families of our ten fallen heroes. They are alive with us everyday and you are in our prayers every night. May God continue to bless and keep you and may his peace be upon you. God willing we will see you all again before the May flowers. And on that day when you embrace your warrior, embrace him not only as your loved one but as a true hero. For his actions have been nothing but heroic.

And to my wife Sheila, please save the first dance for me. God bless all who have supported us whole heartedly. God bless the United States Marine Corps and God bless America.

Semper Fi.

[thedrifter]

Fears Ease Over Disease Risk in Tsunami Zone-U.N.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Fears that the Indian Ocean tsunami could unleash epidemics which would double the death toll are fading as access to clean water improves, the World Health Organization (news - web sites) (WHO) said on Thursday.


Over 158,000 were killed, most of them in northern Indonesia and Sri Lanka, by huge waves sent crashing across the ocean after an undersea earthquake on Dec. 26.


The U.N. health agency warned last week a similar number could succumb to diseases.


But the biggest global relief effort seen in peacetime is reducing the health threat, particularly from water-borne disease, although there is a need for continued vigilance, WHO spokesman Iain Simpson told Reuters.


"The risk of large numbers of fatalities from disease is beginning to fade ... I do not think we are looking at potential death from disease to match the tsunami," he said.


Most people in the affected area, which stretches from Indonesia to Somalia on the Horn of Africa, had access either to clean water or to water purification tablets.


"The threat of water-borne diseases is easing, even if it has not disappeared entirely, and that was something that we pointed out as a concern in the early days," he said.


But sicknesses spread by mosquitoes such as malaria were still a worry, as was the overall health situation of tens of thousands of people in outlying areas of the Indonesian province of Aceh where information was scarce, Simpson added.


Malaria already exists in Indonesia and Sri Lanka and the WHO has launched a campaign with local health authorities to prevent any major outbreaks, he said.


The disease is not so widespread as in Africa, where it is a major killer, because many more people use bed nets, one of the most effective means of prevention.


But the mosquito nets have gone along with the houses destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami, Simpson said.


The United Nations (news - web sites) has already raised some 70 percent of the near $1.0 billion that it has sought to feed, clothe and provide medicine for people in stricken areas over the next six months.


The WHO has received $35-40 million of the $67 million it requested as part of the U.N. appeal, Simpson said, adding this was enough to finance immediate operations.


Ellie