General Warns Of 'Spectacular' Plots
General Warns Of 'Spectacular' Plots
Associated Press
January 8, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. general warned Friday that insurgents may be planning "spectacular" attacks to scare voters in the three weeks before Iraq's landmark elections, and Shiite and Sunni religious leaders voiced sharply divergent views on whether the vote should be held at all.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, who is deputy chief of staff for strategic communications in Iraq, said the United States has no intelligence indicating specific plots, but he said American leaders expected a rise in attacks.
He said the insurgents' biggest weapon was their ability to instill fear.
"I think a worst case is where they have a series of horrific attacks that cause mass casualties in some spectacular fashion in the days leading up to the elections," Lessel said.
"If you look over the last six months, they have steadily escalated the barbaric nature of the attacks they have been committing. A year ago, you didn't see these kinds of horrific things," he said.
In Washington, President Bush expressed optimism about the Jan. 30 elections, saying they will be "an incredibly hopeful experience," despite rising violence and doubts that the vote will bring stability and democracy.
"I know it's hard but it's hard for a reason," Bush said, adding that the insurgents are trying to impede the elections because they fear freedom. He acknowledged security problems in four of Iraq's 18 provinces.
The comments came amid an escalating insurgency ahead of the parliamentary vote believed to be led by minority Sunnis whose dominated the country during Saddam Hussein's regime. In the election - the first democratic vote in Iraq since the country was formed in 1932 - the Sunnis are certain to lose their dominance to the Shiites, who comprise 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million population.
Reflecting Shiites' demands to hold the vote as scheduled, and Sunnis' calls for a boycott or postponement, two senior religious leaders expressed sharply differing views during Friday prayers.
"We want all the Iraqis to participate, we also insist on holding the elections as scheduled and to put these elections behind us as a way to end the conflict in Iraq," Saadr Aldeen al-Qubbanji, a leader of a prominent Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said in the southern city of Najaf.
"We all want elections, but we are seeking fair and free elections," Sheik Mahmoud Al-Somaidie of the Sunnis' Association of Muslim Scholars said in Baghdad. "Those of us who are calling for postponement are seeking that for the benefit of the country. Elections have to be an Iraqi demand not the demand of the foreign countries."
The United States insists on holding the vote as planned, and strongly opposes a postponement.
This week has seen a string of assassinations, suicide car bombings and other assaults that killed more than 90 people, mostly Iraqi security troops, who are seen by the militants as collaborators with the American occupiers. The insurgency is apparently intended to scare voters.
On Friday, a police captain was killed in a drive-by shooting in Abu Ghraib west of Baghdad, police said. In the northern city of Mosul, gunmen shot to death a policeman walking near his house. And in the central city of Samarra, a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. military base, killing an Iraqi, police Capt. Hashim Yassin said.
The assaults came a day after a roadside bomb killed seven U.S. soldiers in Baghdad, the deadliest attack on American forces since a suicide strike in Mosul 2 1/2 weeks ago that killed 22 people, including 14 U.S. soldiers. Two Marines also were killed in western Iraq on Thursday.
Also Friday, a Marine was killed in a non-hostile vehicle accident in the western province of Anbar, the U.S. military said. The incident is under investigation, and the name of the Marine was being withheld until his family can be notified.
In the village of Naimiyah, hundreds of refugees from the nearby city of Fallujah demonstrated after Friday's prayers, demanding that U.S. and Iraqi forces leave the city, open all the roads for residents to go back, and pay compensation for property damaged during the U.S. military assault against the insurgent stronghold in November.
Lessel said he expects the insurgents would escalate attacks before the election, and that the incidents would probably decline after the vote.
"What the terrorists fear most is a simple piece of paper called a ballot," he said. "They fear the election. I think successful elections will have a significant impact on the insurgents."
Ellie
Jury Seated For Abu Ghraib Trial
Jury Seated For Abu Ghraib Trial
Associated Press
January 8, 2005
FORT HOOD, Texas - A jury of 10 soldiers was selected Friday to decide whether the accused ringleader of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal was illegally beating inmates or following orders to soften up the detainees for interrogation.
Opening statements begin Monday in the court-martial of Spc. Charles Graner Jr., of Uniontown, Pa., the first soldier to be tried in the scandal.
Graner, pictured in some of the notorious photographs of Iraqi inmates being sexually humiliated at the Baghdad prison, sat calmly at the defense table Friday and may testify on his own behalf. He was upbeat when speaking to reporters after the jury was picked.
"The sun is shining, the sky is blue and this is America," Graner said. "Whatever happens is going to happen, but I still feel it's going to be on the positive side."
The jury is made up of four male officers and six enlisted men, all stationed at Fort Hood and all of whom had been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.
"This case involves terrorists and insurgents and the war on terrorism," defense attorney Guy Womack said later. "We could not pick a truer jury of peers than to have a combat veteran tried by combat veterans."
Womack has said he plans to argue Graner was ordered by higher-ranking soldiers and intelligence agents to soften up the detainees for interrogators, and had no choice but to obey. Graner's trial will be an important first test of that argument.
At least seven jurors must vote guilty for Graner to be convicted on charges that include conspiracy to maltreat Iraqi detainees, assault, dereliction of duty and committing indecent acts. He faces up to 17 1/2 years in a military prison if convicted on all counts.
Womack said his client and other low-level soldiers were scapegoats and the acts of higher-ranking officers who directed the abuse were being ignored.
"If I was prosecuting this case, (Graner and others) would be witnesses and we'd be going after the officers and senior enlisted who gave these orders," he said. "We have to hold the order-giver to a higher standard than the person who was following the order."
Prosecutors are not legally allowed to comment on the case.
Graner, 36, appears in one photo giving a thumbs-up behind a pile of naked Iraqis. In another he is cocking his fist as if to punch a detainee.
On Thursday night, Graner gave KTRK-TV of Houston a photo of himself smiling with three men in orange jumpsuits, one of whom is also smiling with his thumb up. Graner said the men were Abu Ghraib prisoners, and that the smiling man was the same one who was photographed standing on a box with a hood over his head and wires attached to his body.
Womack told The Associated Press that the photo was taken with Graner's camera after the alleged abuse incidents. He said it was released after he and his client talked about how other photos from Abu Ghraib had been taken out of context.
A list of potential witnesses was released during jury selection.
Among them are the four other soldiers who have reached plea deals after being charged with Abu Ghraib abuses: Pvt. Ivan Frederick, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, Spc. Jeremy Sivits and Spc. Armin Cruz. They received sentences ranging from demotion to eight years in prison.
Also on the list was Sgt. Joseph Darby, the soldier who was the first to report his colleagues were abusing Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib.
In addition, three Iraqi detainees were expected to testify in videotaped depositions.
Three more soldiers from the Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company unit are also awaiting trial at Fort Hood. Among them is Lynndie England, who in October gave birth to a child who Army prosecutors say was the result of a relationship with Graner.
Charges against England have not yet been formally filed, and her trial date has not been set.
Ellie
Sergeant Convicted Of Assault
Sergeant Convicted Of Assault
Associated Press
January 8, 2005
FORT HOOD, Texas - An Army sergeant was acquitted Friday of involuntary manslaughter in the alleged drowning of an Iraqi civilian who was forced into the Tigris River by U.S. soldiers for violating curfew. The jury, however, convicted Army Sgt. 1st Class Tracy Perkins, 33, of assault in the January 2004 incident.
Defense attorneys contended the victim may still be alive, but say if he is dead, it was not at the hands of U.S. soldiers.
The jury of Army officers and enlisted members, who deliberated 17 hours over two days, were allowed to consider lesser charges against Perkins, who has been in the military for 14 years.
Perkins and another soldier were accused of ordering soldiers to push two Iraqis into the river in Samarra. Prosecutors say Zaidoun Hassoun, 19, drowned and his cousin, Marwan Hassoun, climbed out the river.
Marwan Hassoun testified that he and his cousin were detained while driving back to Samarra with plumbing supplies, then forced at gunpoint into the river as U.S. soldiers laughed.
He said he tried to save his cousin by grabbing his hand, but the powerful current swept Zaidoun away. Marwan said the body was found in the river nearly two weeks later.
"I was fighting death. I had no other choice but to do everything possible to survive," Marwan testified through an interpreter.
But three soldiers called by the defense testified that they were looking through night-vision equipment that night and saw two Iraqis on the river bank after the incident.
Sgt. Irene Cintron, an Army investigator, testified that government officials never had Zaidoun's body exhumed for testing because of security concerns. She said she could not confirm whether the corpse shown in a video provided by the family was Zaidoun's.
Perkins was convicted of assault consummated by battery in Zaidoun's purported death, which carries a maximum sentence of six months. He was convicted of aggravated assault in connection with Marwan Hassoun.
Perkins also was convicted of aggravated assault for ordering a soldier to throw another Iraqi man into the river in December 2003 near Balad, and of obstruction of justice. He was found innocent of making a false statement.
The sentencing phase of the trial was scheduled to begin Saturday. Perkins' penalty ranges from no punishment to 11 1/2 years.
Defense attorney Capt. Josh Norris said in closing arguments that the soldiers were trying to find non-lethal ways to deter crime and establish respect in the hostile area.
No soldiers disputed that the two Iraqis were forced into the river. Soldiers testifying for the prosecution and defense said they never heard Perkins order the Iraqis into the river and that he stayed in his vehicle that night.
The soldiers said the orders came from Army 1st Lt. Jack Saville, the platoon leader, who is to be tried in March on the same charges as Perkins - as well as a conspiracy charge. His trial was postponed until March after a judge ordered the victim's body to be exhumed for an autopsy and identification.
Ellie