IRAQI ARMY, MND-N SOLDIER LAUNCH OPERATION GAUGAMELA

From Central Command:

Title:
IRAQI ARMY, MND-N SOLDIER LAUNCH OPERATION GAUGAMELA
Release Date:
7/20/2006
Release Number:
06-07-02P
Description:

KIRKUK, Iraq (July 20, 2006) – Thursday morning, Soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army Division and Bastogne Soldiers of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division simultaneously surrounded and entered the cities of Hawija and Riyadh, just west of Kirkuk, searching for suspected al-Qaeda terrorists as combined Operation Gaugamela (gaw'guh-MEE-luh), gets underway.

The ongoing operation, requested by local Sunni Arab leaders, follows a series of terror attacks in the area, and comes as there are reports indicating the presence of al-Qaeda terror cells in the area. In the past five weeks, 31 Iraqi soldiers have been killed in terrorist attacks in the region and just three days ago six policemen were killed in Hawija.

In Hawija, Bastogne Soldiers and Iraqi Security Forces surrounded the city, blocking off escape routes, as another combined force air assaulted into the market in the heart of the city. The units are cordoning off the area and searching for terrorist forces. Meanwhile, Iraqi Security and Coalition Forces surrounded the village of Riyadh, approximately 10 miles away, and are also searching that city.

Operation Gaugamela is named for the battle in which Alexander drove the Persian army from the city of Gaugamela.

Extremists linked to drug trade

COMBINED FORCES COMMAND – AFGHANISTAN COALITION PRESS INFORMATION CENTER KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 18, 2006
Release # 060718-07

Extremists linked to drug trade

KABUL , Afghanistan – Coalition Soldiers have seized an estimated $3 million in opium from an extremist compound July 13 after a Coalition patrol held off more than two dozen fighters until additional firepower arrived.
Following the engagement, the Soldiers found five dead extremists, but believe many more were killed.
A search of the compound found 70 kilograms of opium paste, a rocket propelled grenade launcher, four rockets, an AK-47 and ammunition, a passport and other documents.
“Recovering these weapons and drugs increases the safety and security of Afghans, and reduces the danger posed by criminals and extremists who might use those munitions indiscriminately to cause harm on the Afghan people, Afghan security forces or Coalition forces ,” said Col. Thomas Collins, Coalition spokesman. “This engagement also confirms with physical evidence that the extremists are linked to the drug trade in southern Afghanistan .”

Israeli Tanks in Central Gaza; Fighting Is Fierce

The New York Times
July 19, 2006
The South

Israeli Tanks in Central Gaza; Fighting Is Fierce

By CRAIG S. SMITH
GAZA CITY, Wednesday, July 19 — Just hours after withdrawing from the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli tanks moved into central Gaza early Wednesday, encountering fierce fighting that wounded at least three Israeli soldiers. One Palestinian was killed, Reuters reported.

The renewed fighting after a day of relative calm came as the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, returned to the territory from his home on the West Bank for meetings with United Nations envoys.

With Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon, the fighting in Gaza has been largely overlooked. But people continue to die daily in the territory, with 103 Palestinians killed so far, and Palestinian fighters continue to fire rockets into Israel.

Late Tuesday, Palestinian militants fired two homemade Qassam rockets from Beit Hanoun, which earlier in the day was vacated by Israeli tanks. The rockets, simple finned tubes carrying just a few pounds of explosives, landed near Sderot, Israel, without causing injuries, according to an Israeli Army spokesman.

The current crisis began with a raid by Palestinian militants on an Israeli Army post, in which two Israeli soldiers were killed and one, Cpl. Galid Shalit, 19, was taken prisoner.

But Palestinians are quick to point out that the dying began long before Corporal Shalit was captured, when what they say was shelling from an Israeli gunboat in early June in response to rocket attacks killed a family of seven while they were picnicking on a northern Gaza beach. Israel denied responsibility.

The abduction of Corporal Shalit set off an initially strong Israeli response, in which roads and bridges, the territory’s main power station and government offices were bombed. Most border crossings were closed and Israeli forces eventually moved into central Gaza, cutting the roughly 28-mile-long strip in two. Israel arrested 8 of the 24 ministers in the Hamas-led government and 20 members of the Palestinian parliament.

But the intensity of the initial assault waned as negotiations with the Palestinians’ Hamas-led government began through Egyptian mediators. Hezbollah’s attack on Israeli troops along the Lebanese border soon drew attention and resources away.

Israel withdrew from central Gaza last week and its incursions since then have been relatively light, limited to menacing tank and artillery fire without penetrating far into the territory. Most of their activity has been airstrikes focused on individual militants or suspected munitions factories.

On Tuesday, as Israel withdrew from the north, there were hopeful signs of normalcy. The border crossing with Egypt opened to allow traffic into Gaza. The Palestinian cabinet members not under arrest, including the prime minister, Ismail Haniya, and the foreign minister, Mahmoud Zahar, met at Mr. Haniya’s office. Both he and Mr. Zahar are on Israel’s list of targeted officials and have not often been seen in public since the crisis began.

On Tuesday evening, Mr. Abbas arrived for meetings with United Nations envoys in hopes of ending the conflict. The United Nations delegation, led by Vijay Nambiar, met with Israeli officials in Jerusalem earlier Tuesday.

But by midnight the boom of artillery fire once again echoed across northern Gaza, and by early Wednesday the Israeli Army was moving back into the middle of the territory. The target this time was the Maghazi refugee camp, north of Khan Yunis and not far from where Israel had earlier cut Gaza in two.

The refugee camp, which has grown into a crowded town since it was established a half century ago, is near the fence separating Gaza from Israel.

The Israeli Army said the incursion began late Tuesday with tank movements on the Israeli side of the border. It said it encountered heavy fighting as it entered the refugee camp and that “three or four” soldiers had been wounded. It did not say whether they were seriously hurt.




Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

U.N. Force in Lebanon Offers Harsh Realities and Lessons

The New York Times
July 19, 2006

By HASSAN M. FATTAH and WARREN HOGE
HOSH, Lebanon, July 18 — Buried in the rubble of one of the homes demolished in Israel’s relentless bombardment of southern Lebanon was a stark illustration of why the United Nations’ peacekeeping efforts have been seen as ineffective.

A Ghanaian member of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, known as Unifil, was killed along with his family here on Sunday by an Israeli bomb. And more than 24 hours later, peacekeeping troops could not even leave their base to dig out his body, because the short trip to his house was too dangerous.

“They are barely able to take care of themselves,” said Timur Goksel, who spent 20 years as an official with Unifil, and now lectures at American University in Beirut. “How can you expect them to do their work? It’s a mini-force with small engineering capacity and a narrow area of operation right along the border. What can anyone expect them to do?”

The saga of the troops, who are charged with keeping the peace and observing the border, offers a sobering reminder of the grueling realities of peacekeeping to politicians hoping that a new United Nations contingent might be the solution in Lebanon.

And, peacekeeping experts say, it offers lessons on how to shape a more effective force.

On Monday, Secretary General Kofi Annan, backed by Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, called for a new stabilization detachment in southern Lebanon.

Mr. Annan said that the unit would have to be much larger than the existing 2,000-man Unifil, and that it would operate with a broader mandate, which would give it the ability to stabilize Lebanon so that the government could gain control of the south and “sort out the question of the disarmament of the militia.” It is not clear if Mr. Annan will propose that any new force be drawn from major powers.

Mr. Annan, who returns to New York from Europe on Wednesday, is expected to brief the Security Council on Thursday. Creating a blue-helmeted contingent will require a Council resolution, a requirement that can delay swift action.

In a telephone interview from Brussels, Mr. Annan said, “I will be appealing for their political will for action because around the world people do not understand why the Council has not been able to act when the Middle East is burning.”

The Council has met three times to discuss Lebanon without taking any action or making any statement. On Monday, John R. Bolton, the American ambassador, discouraged talk of either a multilateral force or a cease-fire, both proposals that Mr. Annan has made.

Mr. Annan said he questioned a call from Israel to set up its own security cordon in south Lebanon. “They may call it what they want, but to the others it will be an occupation, since it will be on somebody else’s territory,” he said. “You need a third party, hence my suggestion for a stabilization force.”

Mr. Goksel emphasized that any unit with the job of deterring actions would immediately be seen as an attempt to rein in Hezbollah.

“This will immediately be seen as an occupation force, and then the trouble will start,” Mr. Goksel said.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno, the under secretary general for peacekeeping, said the problems confronting Unifil were ones frequently experienced when peace broke down.

“One should never forget that peace is made by those who fought, it is not made for them by the international community,” he said in a telephone interview from Brussels, where he was accompanying Mr. Annan.

When Unifil was formed in 1978, it was meant as an interim force to confirm the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, restore security in the area and help the government regain authority over the area. But to many here, Unifil gradually became a lifeline, too, as a series of flare-ups and wars forced the mission to undertake humanitarian missions as well.

Undermanned and often outgunned, Unifil did not have the political backing of major powers to enforce peace.

At times, the force served as a successful buffer in Lebanon, but ultimately the system broke down. Unifil troops failed to control first Palestinian guerrillas, then Israeli occupiers, and then the Hezbollah militia, which drove out the Israelis.

The Unifil force shrank significantly after Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. It has 2,000 members today, including Indian, Ghanaian, French, Italian and Polish troops and aides, down from more than 6,000 troops and aides at its peak.

The unit was reduced deliberately, according to United Nations diplomats, in an effort to pressure the Lebanese government to take action to disarm Hezbollah and declare its authority over the south.

That number of troops has proven woefully low as the bombing campaign began last week. The force has had a hard time supplying its own bases and observation posts in the south.

They have about a week of diesel fuel left and are running short of food and water, and the bases have come under fire, said Richard Morczenski, a civil affairs officer with the force.

“If you operate in a war zone and you are also helping people, there are risks, calculated risks, but risks nonetheless,” Mr. Goksel said. “That’s why you have armies doing the job.”

Hassan M. Fattah reported from Hosh for this article, and Warren Hoge from the United Nations

Evacuations Underway in Beirut

The Washington Post

Israel Continues Deadly Airstrikes; Hezbollah Fires Scores of Rockets

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 19, 2006; A01



BEIRUT, July 18 -- By helicopter and ship, hundreds of Americans and Europeans fled on Tuesday from Beirut, ending its first week of siege, as casualties mounted in deadly Israeli raids that struck a Lebanese military base, a truck carrying food from Syria and a village near the border. The militant group Hezbollah fired at least 100 rockets into Israel, killing one civilian.

On a sweltering day, Norwegian, Swedish, Greek and British ships pulled into Beirut's harbor, most of them trying to load their passengers before nightfall. From a helipad at the U.S. Embassy overlooking Beirut, the dull thud of rotors announced the arrival of helicopters, which ferried passengers to the island of Cyprus, taking 30 people on each trip. Other U.S. citizens waited, growing more frustrated over having to endure another day of a conflict that has begun to impose a wartime logic in the city.

"I had to come and cry at the door of the U.S. Embassy, kissing hand and foot, telling them they must let me leave," said Raba Letteri, a child-care provider from Reston, Va., who was on vacation in Lebanon with her husband and two children.

They were living near Beirut's international airport, a swath of the capital barraged in Israeli airstrikes. Her 2-year-old son, Aaron, had a stomach infection. As they waited to board, he burst into tears. "This is the worst thing in my life," she said.

Through the day, Beirut itself was relatively quiet. Life returned to some streets so far unscathed by the attacks. Even traffic in the battered Shiite Muslim suburbs, Hezbollah's stronghold, trickled past the rubble of destroyed bridges and the shattered glass from apartment buildings that littered the streets. To some, the day was a brief respite as evacuations got underway. What might follow the foreigners' departure was a question many asked.

"I feel in my heart that after the foreigners leave, big problems are on the way," said Jamil Abu Hassan, a burly 56-year-old, loitering near the port. "Today, the embassies are taking their people. Tomorrow, the next day? God knows what will happen."

Hezbollah fired at least 100 rockets at Israel on Tuesday, including a large barrage an hour before sunset, striking about 10 towns and cities across northern Israel, from Haifa on the Mediterranean coast to tourist communities in the southern Galilee region. [Two big explosions reverberated over Beirut early Wednesday, and missiles hit towns to the east and south of the capital, the Associated Press reported.]

One Israeli was killed Tuesday in a rocket strike in Nahariya about four miles south of Lebanon on the coast, the Israeli military reported. Twenty-one people were injured. So far, in the fighting, 25 Israelis have been killed, including 12 soldiers.

[Israeli forces entered the central Gaza Strip early Wednesday and clashed with Palestinian militants, the Reuters news agency reported. Witnesses reported heavy gunfire near the Maghazi Refugee Camp, not far from the Gaza Strip's border with Israel. There were no immediate reports of casualties.]

Several rockets struck Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, about 22 miles south of Lebanon, where eight civilians were killed in a rocket barrage Sunday, the Israeli military said. The city's port remained closed for a second day because of the danger.

More than 720 Hezbollah rockets -- a small portion of the militant Islamic group's arsenal -- have struck Israel since hostilities began a week ago, when Hezbollah crossed the border and seized two Israeli soldiers. In the wake of the attack, Israel has unleashed a destructive military offensive that has killed more than 230 Lebanese, most of them civilians. The country's airport is closed, and the south is largely cut off from the rest of the country by wrecked roads and collapsed bridges.

The Israeli military said its jets flew about 110 raids over Lebanon on Tuesday, part of a campaign that has created competing narratives of the war. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the raids were targeting trucks carrying Hezbollah weapons, Katyusha rocket launchers in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah weapons storage facilities, bridges and roads used to transport weapons and fighters -- "all of this to damage the Hezbollah infrastructure," she said. In Lebanon, anger grew at the number of civilians killed and the dismantling of infrastructure that many Lebanese saw as their greatest achievement in the post-civil war era.

"This is a city of ghosts," said Adib Hourani, a 26-year-old gas station attendant, pointing down a deserted street.

In Aitaroun, a village near the Israeli border, a family of five was killed, although some witness accounts put the toll at nine. On the twisting mountain road to Damascus, an Israeli raid struck a truck carrying sacks of sugar and rice bound for Beirut, as well as two other large trucks, a pair of sedans and a four-wheel-drive taxi. In Kfar Chima, a Lebanese army base took a direct hit as troops rushed to bomb shelters, killing at least 11 Lebanese soldiers and wounding 35, the military said. Black fires stained nearby cinder-block tenements, and charred, twisted fenders, engine blocks and debris were scattered along the highway overlooking the base.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that Israel wants the Lebanese army to deploy to the border, now under the effective control of Hezbollah, but on several occasions, Israeli aircraft have targeted Lebanese military installations.

An Israeli military spokeswoman, Capt. Noa Meir, said the military was checking reports of the strike on the base, reiterating that Israeli forces were "doing everything we can to keep civilians and the Lebanese military out of harm's way."

Even the most optimistic Lebanese officials have acknowledged that diplomacy to end the conflict remains at its initial stages. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan have suggested that a U.N. force deploy to the Lebanese border. Annan said the force would have to be more effective than the current U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, which was largely ineffective in stopping either Hezbollah or Israel.

Although some European countries have expressed support, both the United States and Israel have responded coolly, and Israeli officials, after meeting U.N. negotiators Tuesday, said that the campaign will not let up before the soldiers are released and Hezbollah withdraws from the Israeli border. For their part, Hezbollah officials seem to have become convinced that the stakes of the war have become much higher: a U.S.-backed Israeli plan to strategically realign the region.

To a striking degree, both the Israeli public and Hezbollah's supporters seem prepared for a longer struggle.

A poll in Tuesday's Yedioth Aharonoth, an Israeli daily, found that 86 percent of those surveyed said that the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah was "the right thing to do," and 81 percent wanted it to continue; 58 percent said it should continue until Hezbollah is destroyed, and 17 percent said they favored a cease-fire and the start of negotiations.

In Beirut's southern suburbs, where trash has piled up on corners and shops were almost uniformly shuttered, Abbas Fattuni sat with a friend smoking a water pipe in front of his auto parts store. They watched the traffic, enjoying the respite of bombing in the capital.

"We're nothing without the resistance," he said, as his friend nodded his agreement between puffs. "When a Lebanese dies, anywhere in the country, no one in the Arab world lifts a finger. Only the resistance takes care of them."

Across Lebanon, the siege began reverberating in people's lives. The price for items like kerosene for cooking and flour have all increased. Residents are withdrawing money from banks and trying to convert their Lebanese pounds into U.S. dollars, fearing a devaluation. The price of gasoline in the southern city of Tyre has increased more than sixfold.

"Six days, no sleep. We couldn't even buy bread," said Mirna Ballout, a 30-year-old Lebanese American who left Tyre on Monday and was standing outside the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday. "It's not fair -- whether it's for Hezbollah or whether it's for Israel. It's just not fair for the people living here."

Her two sons, Bassam, 7, and Yassine, 4, leaned against a suitcase. A few hours earlier, she comforted them after they thought a car door slamming was a bomb. Her daughter, 9-year-old Dana, held the handle of her pink Hello Kitty suitcase and recounted the days, her eyes wide with fear and surprise. "It's my first time," she said. "That was why I was really scared."

She smiled. "I hope this is my last time."

The helicopters ferried what the embassy called special cases on Tuesday -- the sick, elderly and families with young children. Officials said 136 American students studying at the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese American University were evacuated aboard a Norwegian vessel from Beirut's port.

U.S. officials said they believe they will have the capability to transport as many as 2,400 U.S. citizens out of Lebanon on Wednesday, using two civilian cruise ships and Marine Corps helicopters to ferry people to nearby Cyprus. The boosted evacuation effort could include the removal of more than 5,000 citizens by the end of the week.

State and Defense department officials said they have been limited to air and sea evacuations because they have deemed the roads leading out of the country into Syria to be too hazardous. The Orient Queen cruise ship, with the ability to carry 800 to 1,000 people, docked in Beirut on Tuesday night and was preparing to leave for Cyprus at dawn Wednesday. A second ship, slated to carry about 1,400 people, was also scheduled to be available Wednesday.

Vice Adm. Patrick Walsh, commander of the U.S. 5th Fleet, said sailors and Marines from the Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group and the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit had been ordered to the Mediterranean Sea to assist in the large-scale evacuation. Nine U.S. warships were headed to the region to provide security and, if needed, to help transport civilians to safety.

One of those departing was Adam al-Sarraf, a 20-year-old American from Los Angeles, who was studying Arabic at the American University of Beirut. His Iraqi-born father, working in Baghdad, had called to give him advice: Get off the fifth floor and stay in the basement. Watch out for the windows. The two planned to meet in Amman after the son was evacuated.

"The students really sympathize with the people here," Sarraf said, standing on the campus before his departure to the port, where he was to board a Norwegian ship. "We understand they're going through much more than we are."

Correspondent John Ward Anderson in Jerusalem, staff writer Josh White in Washington, and staff photographer Michael Robinson-Chavez and special correspondent Alia Ibrahim in Beirut contributed to this report.


© 2006 The Washington Post Company

U.S. Appears to Be Waiting to Act on Israeli Airstrikes

The New York Times

July 19, 2006
U.S. Appears to Be Waiting to Act on Israeli Airstrikes
By HELENE COOPER and STEVEN ERLANGER

WASHINGTON, July 18 — The outlines of an American-Israeli consensus began to emerge on Tuesday in which Israel would continue to bombard Lebanon for about another week to degrade the capabilities of the Hezbollah militia, officials of the two countries said.

Then, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would go to the region and seek to establish a buffer zone in southern Lebanon and perhaps an international force to monitor Lebanon’s borders to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining more rockets with which to bombard Israel.

American officials signaled that Ms. Rice was waiting at least a few more days before wading into the conflict, in part to give Israel more time to weaken Hezbollah forces.

The strategy carries risk, partly because it remains unclear just how long the rest of the world, particularly America’s Arab allies, will continue to stay silent as the toll on Lebanese civilians rises.

On Tuesday, the seventh day of the face-off, Israeli warplanes battered more targets in Lebanon, killing 30 people, including 11 members of the Lebanese Army, when bombs hit their barracks east of Beirut. Four of the dead were officers, and 30 more soldiers were wounded.

In southern Lebanon, nine members of a single family were killed and four wounded in an Israeli airstrike on their house in the village of Aitaroun, near the Israeli border.

Some 500,000 Lebanese have fled their homes to escape the violence, the United Nations estimated.

Hezbollah rockets again hit Israel’s port city of Haifa and Nahariya, a coastal town just south of the border, where one man died and several were wounded, one critically. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis continued to spend their time in shelters, and Haifa was largely shut down, with only grocery stores and pharmacies open. More than 130 rockets were fired, Israeli officials said.

American officials said Washington was discussing with its Arab allies and Israel how to beef up Lebanon’s borders, a central Israeli demand. Israel has been lukewarm to the idea of an international force in Lebanon, but is willing to consider such a deployment if it includes troops from major powers and is used to prevent Hezbollah from supplementing its arsenal.

On Tuesday, Israel said it blew up six more long-range rockets that it said were being transported by road into Lebanon from Syria.

American and Israeli officials are also contemplating a 12-mile buffer zone in southern Lebanon to keep Hezbollah away from the Israeli border. While disarming Hezbollah entirely remains Israel’s goal, it is no longer demanding that as a condition of a cease-fire, officials said.

Israeli airplanes have been pounding Hezbollah targets, in particular the two dozen or so long-range rockets in the militant group’s arsenal believed to be capable of hitting Tel Aviv.

Israel had made clear that it does not want Ms. Rice to begin a peacemaking effort yet, and the Bush administration has, for the time being, gone along with an Israeli request for more latitude. President Bush and American officials have resisted joining other world leaders in calling for an immediate cease-fire, reflecting the Israeli view that reaching a truce before destroying a significant number of Hezbollah’s missiles would open Israel up to the possibility of more attacks.

President Bush, as he has repeatedly, said Tuesday that Israel must be allowed to defend itself. “Everybody abhors the loss of innocent life,” he said, speaking at the White House before a meeting with Congressional members. “On the other hand, what we recognize is that the root cause of the problem is Hezbollah.”

“Some people are uncomfortable with the American position, and we’re very careful how we talk about it,” a senior American official said yesterday. “We are not going to be wagering with the lives of innocent people here,” he said, adding that privately, Bush administration officials are telling the Israelis that there is a limit to how much more time the United States will be able to give Israel. He spoke on condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic rules.

Beyond the desire to give Israel time to weaken Hezbollah militarily, administration officials said Ms. Rice should not go to the region until she can actually produce results. Israel, which is trying to destroy the military capacity of Hezbollah and secure the release of two captured soldiers, said it is targeting only Hezbollah and not the Lebanese Army, although attacks on Monday and Tuesday killed 19 Lebanese soldiers.

Again on Tuesday, cities and towns in southern Lebanon and the densely packed slums at the southern edge of Beirut that are Hezbollah’s stronghold bore the brunt of the barrage. While the Israelis say they have carefully targeted 1,000 sites thus far, the attacks seem to have spread almost randomly across the country.

A cement truck near Jbeil, also known as the ancient city of Byblos, up the coastline in Christian territory, was hit on Tuesday. The Israeli military said the vehicle was suspected of carrying weapons.

The Lebanese prime minister, Fouad Siniora, criticized the world for not stopping the Israeli offensive. “The international community is not doing all that is can in order to stop Israel continuing its aggression against Lebanon,” Mr. Siniora said in an interview in his Beirut office. “They are stopping short of exercising the necessary pressure on Israel while Israel is taking this as a green light.”

In other comments, he accused Israel of “committing massacres against Lebanese civilians and working to destroy everything that allows Lebanon to stay alive.”

As the bombs and rockets fell, diplomats and officials continued to debate the effectiveness of any new international force that could patrol the border and help Lebanon implement United Nations Security Council resolutions that call for Hezbollah to be disarmed and for the Lebanese government to extend its authority over the whole country.

A team sent by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan met in Jerusalem on Tuesday with senior Israeli officials, including the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, and top aides to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Mr. Olmert dropped in at the end of their meeting to explain the Israeli position, Israeli officials said, underlining his skepticism about how any new force might work.

Mr. Olmert, in a televised speech to Parliament on Monday night, said that Israel would continue fighting until its soldiers were free, the Lebanese Army was deployed along the border and Hezbollah was effectively disarmed in line with Security Council Resolution 1559. Hezbollah has consistently rejected those terms.

In the last seven days, the Israelis have carried out about 2,000 sorties by warplanes and attack helicopters and hit 650 targets, the Israeli Army said.

After meeting the United Nations envoys, Ms. Livni said Israel would insist that any settlement include provisions to ensure that Iran and Syria cannot rearm Hezbollah, perhaps through some form of international monitoring at the Syrian border and the Beirut airport. Israel has bombed the airport and routes from Syria, and has put a sea blockade on Lebanese ports.

Ms. Livni said that any settlement must “end the Iranian and Syrian control over Lebanese and Israeli lives” and repeated Israel’s demand that its three captured soldiers — two by Hezbollah and one by Hamas and other militants in Gaza — be released “immediately and without conditions.”

Mr. Annan said in Brussels that any force must have a different set of instructions from the current, toothless United Nations force, known as Unifil, still in southern Lebanon. “It is urgent that the international community acts to make a difference on the ground,” Mr. Annan said.

Giora Eiland, until recently Israel’s national security adviser, said an international force is not in Israel’s interest if it acts just as a buffer. It can only be effective, he said, “if the other side does not want any provocation and wants to maintain quiet” and “if there’s a credible address on the other side” with control over Lebanon.

Israel should, he said, insist that any international force “make it possible for Lebanon to do what it has to do and not be a buffer between us and them, which would reduce the Lebanese government’s responsibility.”

Gholam Ali Hadad-Adel, the president of the Iranian Parliament, told a rally in Tehran on Tuesday that Israelis should “flee occupied Palestine.” He called Israel “this filthy tumor” that “lies in the body of the Islamic world,” and he warned the United States that as long as Israel exists, “Muslims will not stop hating America.”

In other attacks in Lebanon on Tuesday, a convoy of medical goods donated by the United Arab Emirates was hit in the Bekaa region near Zahle, a mostly Christian town on one of the few open roads linking Syria and Beirut. Two trucks were destroyed and their drivers killed.

The evacuation of foreigners continued for a second day as a ferry chartered by the French government carrying over 1,200 people reached Cyprus. The American Embassy began airlifting its citizens by helicopter, with some 320 Americans scheduled to leave by the end of the day, and another 1,000 on Wednesday. About 8,000 Americans are registered with the embassy but there are an estimated 25,000 Americans or dual nationals living in Lebanon. Britain sent six ships to the region.

In the interview, Mr. Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister, said that he favored a release of the two Israeli soldiers. But he coupled that call with other requirements.

Any solution to the crisis, he said, should include Israel’s withdrawal from the disputed Shebaa Farms area of the border, the release of Lebanese detainees in Israeli jails and a return to the terms of the 1949 armistice between the two countries.

He suggested the Lebanese Army would move to southern Lebanon once these conditions were met. He backed the idea of a more robust international force, but only after “all the issues” were put on the table, and he stopped short of condemning Hezbollah for inviting the Israeli attacks on the rest of the country.

Meanwhile, Beirut settled into its first week of violence and conflict. Many shops, banks and stores opened for a few hours in the morning, but closed much earlier than usual. The city streets were calm, with little traffic.

In the newly rebuilt city center, where thousands of tourists and Lebanese usually gather at the end of the day to smoke a water pipe, meet for a drink before dinner, or take the children for a walk, there were only private security guards and soldiers. Beirut’s luxury stores, famous throughout the region, were shut.

Helene Cooper reported from Washington for this article, and Steven Erlanger from Jerusalem. Greg Myre contributed reporting from Haifa, Israel, and Jad Mouawad from Beirut, Lebanon.



Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Israeli ground troops enter Lebanon

Yahoo News
July 19, 2006

Israeli ground troops enter Lebanon
By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press Writer




Israel declared Tuesday it was ready to fight Hezbollah guerrillas for several more weeks, raising doubts about international efforts to broker an immediate cease-fire in the fighting that has killed more than 260 people and displaced 500,000. The military said early Wednesday it sent some troops into southern Lebanon searching for tunnels and weapons.

Despite the diplomatic activity, Israel is in no hurry to end its offensive, which it sees as a unique opportunity to crush Hezbollah. The Islamic militants appear to have steadily built up their military strength after Israel pulled its troops out of southern Lebanon in 2000.

Israeli warplanes struck an army base outside Beirut and other areas in south Lebanon on Tuesday, killing 27 people, and Hezbollah rockets battered Israeli towns, killing one Israeli. Five big explosions reverberated over Beirut early Wednesday, and missiles hit towns to the east and south of the capital.

At daybreak Wednesday, a small number of Israeli troops were operating just across the border inside southern Lebanon, looking for tunnels and weapons, the Israeli military said without providing any more details.

The incursion came a day after Israel indicated that it might send large numbers of ground troops into the southern Lebanon, but Israel's U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman denied Wednesday's operation was part of any such operation.

"What is going on at the moment is a number of Israeli ground troops very near to the border on the Lebanese side, trying to destroy some Hezbollah outposts," he told CNN.

"This is an operation which is very measured, very local," he said. "This is no way an invasion of Lebanon. This is no way the beginning of any kind of occupation of Lebanon."

Israel's forecast of a lengthy campaign, coupled with President Bush's evident reluctance to bring pressure on Israel to agree to a cease-fire, seemed to quash any hopes for an early resolution of the crisis, now entering its second week.

Hundreds of Americans and Europeans fled Lebanon aboard ships, and hundreds of other foreigners prepared to evacuate in coming days. Many Americans complained over what they saw as a slow U.S. response. And after criticism from Congress, the State Department dropped plans to ask Americans to pay for their evacuations on commercial vessels.

Families in southern Lebanon, the site of most Israeli airstrikes, drove north on side roads, winding among orange and banana groves and waving improvised white flags from their car windows.

In an interview with the BBC, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said Israel is "opening the gates of hell and madness" on his country. He urged Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, to release two captured Israeli soldiers but said Israel's response had been disproportionate.

Bush said he suspects Syria is trying to reassert influence in Lebanon more than a year after Damascus ended what had effectively been a long-term military occupation of its smaller, weaker neighbor.

"We have made it very clear that Israel should be allowed to defend herself," Bush said in Washington. "We've asked that as she does so that she be mindful of the Saniora government. It's very important that this government in Lebanon succeed and survive."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert blamed Iran for sparking the clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, saying the country was trying to distract the world from the controversy over its nuclear program.

The offensive was sparked by the soldiers' capture July 12 but has now broadened into a campaign to neutralize Hezbollah.

"I think that we should assume that it will take a few more weeks," Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, head of the army's northern command, told Army Radio.

The army's deputy chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski, said Israel has not ruled out deploying "massive ground forces into Lebanon."

Israel, which has mainly limited itself to attacks from the air and sea, had been reluctant to send in ground troops because Hezbollah is far more familiar with the terrain and because of memories of Israel's ill-fated 18-year-occupation of south Lebanon that ended in 2000.

But Kaplinski said Israel had no intention of getting bogged down for a second time.

"We certainly won't reach months, and I hope it also won't be many more weeks. But we still need time to complete the operation's very clear objectives," he told Israel Radio.

Israeli Cabinet minister Avi Dichter said the country may consider a prisoner swap with Lebanon to win the soldiers' release, but only after the military operation.

White House spokesman Tony Snow declined to react to Kaplinski's comments, but said the administration opposed a return to the situation before the outbreak of violence.

"A cease-fire that would leave intact a terrorist infrastructure is unacceptable," Snow said. "So what we're trying to do is work as best we can toward a cease-fire that is going to create not only the conditions, but the institutions for peace and democracy in the region."

Diplomatic efforts to end the fighting, which has killed at least 237 people in Lebanon and 25 in Israel, continued Tuesday, as a U.N. mediation team met with Israeli leaders a day after speaking with Lebanese officials in Beirut.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a cease-fire is impossible unless the soldiers captured by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid are released and Lebanese troops are deployed along the border with a guarantee that Hezbollah would be disarmed. Her comments indicated Israel would not demand that Hezbollah be disarmed before any cease-fire deal can take effect.

A proposal to send a new international force to bolster the 2,000-member U.N. force in south Lebanon gained momentum.

Western nations have proposed the stronger force as part of a possible cease-fire agreement, and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday that a new force must be "considerably" larger and better armed than the current force, which is viewed as weak and ineffectual. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also called for the introduction of a strong peacekeeping operation.

Livni said Israel's experience with the current U.N. force was "not satisfactory," and it prefers no such force in the long-term, but left open the possibility of a temporary international force.

In a statement, Olmert said he would be cautious about a new force. "It seems to be it's too early to debate it," he said.

The Israeli air force kept up its strikes early Wednesday with two major blasts that appeared to be from hits in Beirut's southern suburbs. Missiles also hit Chuweifat — a coastal town where several factories are located, just south of the capital — and Hadath, a mainly Christian town just east of Beirut, local television said. There were no immediate word of casualties.

On Tuesday, Israeli jets struck across southern Lebanon, hitting a military base at Kfar Chima as soldiers rushed to their bomb shelters, the Lebanese military said. At least 11 soldiers were killed in an engineering unit and 35 were wounded, it said. The base is adjacent to Hezbollah strongholds often targeted by recent Israeli strikes.

Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr denounced the strike as a "massacre," saying the regiment's main job was to help rebuild infrastructure. The Lebanese army has largely stayed out of the fighting, confining itself to firing anti-aircraft guns at Israeli planes. But Israeli jets have struck Lebanese army positions.

Israel did not give a reason for the strike on the base.

Nine members of the same family were killed when a bomb hit their house in the village of Aitaroun, near the border, Lebanon's state-run news agency said, citing the police. Israeli warplanes also struck southern Beirut, and hit four trucks that Israeli officials said were bringing in weapons.

"That is intolerable terrorist activity," said Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli army spokesman.

Hezbollah guerrillas fired a barrage of rockets into northern Israel on Tuesday afternoon, killing a man in the town of Nahariya and setting fire to the top of a two-story apartment building.

At least 100 rockets fell into Israel, hitting a string of towns, including the city of Haifa.

More than 750 rockets have hit Israel since the violence began, forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to take cover in underground shelters.

Some 500,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon by the violence, according to the U.N.'s most recent estimate.

With the fighting unabated, foreign citizens fled Lebanon on Tuesday.

Military helicopters ferried 120 Americans from the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, and 200 more left on a ship chartered by Sweden to rush out nearly 1,000 Europeans. About 180 British also left on a warship.

But a plan to evacuate more of the 25,000 Americans in the country on a cruise liner, the Orient Queen, was delayed a day.

Lebanese-American Jonathan Chakhtoura said he was extremely disappointed with the Americans' response.

"Every time I call to see what's going on the lines are busy. When they answer, they say they don't know," the 19-year-old fashion design student said. "A lot of people don't know what is going on. There is so much confusion. If it's security they are worried about, then I think we will be more secure if we know what is going on."

___

AP correspondents Sam F. Ghattas and Zeina Karam in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed to this report.

Diplomats Seek Foreign Patrols for Mideast

Bush's Bull Session: Loud And Clear, Chief

Just another reason to love the guy!

Cheney argues against Iraq timetable

The Democrats just don't get it.

Gunmen kill 50 in Iraqi market attack

Toll Climbs In Mideast As Fighting Rages On

Iraq Reconstruction Report 7-14-06

Central Command releases a weekly Iraq Reconstruction Report. I am going to start linking to it here. Click the link above or click here.

More Iraq Progress

CENTCOM PRESS RELEASE:

July 13, 2006

BAGHDAD – Iraq witnessed a historic event today with the transfer of security responsibility in Muthanna Province from the Multi-National Force - Iraq (MNF-I) to the Provincial Governor and civilian-controlled Iraqi Security Forces. The handover represents a milestone in the successful development of Iraq’s capability to govern and protect itself as a sovereign and democratic nation. Muthanna is the first of Iraq’s 18 provinces to be designated for such a transition.

N. Korea missile aimed at area off Hawaii - report

TOKYO (Reuters) - A North Korean missile launched on Wednesday was aimed at an area of the ocean close to Hawaii, a Japanese newspaper reported on Friday.
Experts estimated the Taepodong-2 ballistic missile to have a range of up to 6,000 km, putting Alaska within its reach. Wednesday's launch apparently failed shortly after take-off and the missile landed in the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan, a few hundred kilometres from the launch pad.

But data from U.S. and Japanese Aegis radar-equipped destroyers and surveillance aircraft on the missile's angle of take-off and altitude indicated that it was heading for waters near Hawaii, the Sankei Shimbun reported, citing multiple sources in the United States and Japan.

North Korea may have targeted Hawaii to show the United States that it was capable of landing a missile there, or because it is home to the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific fleet, the paper said.

An alternative explanation might be that a missile could accidentally hit land if fired towards Alaska, the report said.

A separate report in the Mainichi Shimbun daily cited U.S. and Japanese government officials as saying a piece of the Taepodong-2 missile fell off immediately after take-off, strengthening the view that the launch was a failure.

Military claims gains on Iraqi terrorists

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military claimed an advantage in the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq on Thursday, saying raids since the death of its leader have forced many of its foreign fighters out into the open to be captured or killed.

Iraq's bloodshed continued. At least 46 deaths from violence were reported across the country, including nine bullet-riddled bodies pulled from rivers — apparent victims of sectarian death squads.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraqi, acknowledged Iraqi civilians were suffering most from the insurgency, accounting for 70 percent of all deaths and injuries, while he said the number of U.S. casualties did not appear to be on the rise.

But he said the Americans gained momentum in its fight against al-Qaida in Iraq after killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and have devoted a lot of resources to targeting his successor as leader, Abu Ayyub al-Masri.

"There is no question, if we can take him down, that will just disrupt the organization ... to the point where it would be ineffective for a long period of time," Caldwell said. "It is very disorganized right now. And it is very disrupted right now."

He said coalition and Iraqi security forces had captured or killed 57 foreign fighters this month.

"The reason we were able to pick up and track some of these mid-level people ... in the last few weeks is because they've been forced to conduct meetings, to get out and be more visible, because their system has been so disrupted," he said. "And that has given us the opportunities to find them, track them and go get them."

On Wednesday, Iraqi authorities said they had captured an al-Qaida suspect from Tunisia who allegedly bombed a Shiite shrine earlier this year, setting off a spasm of violence between Sunnis and Shiites.

Caldwell said Yousri Fakher Mohammed Ali, also known as Abu Qudama, was captured May 20 after he was seriously wounded in a clash with security forces north of Baghdad. Haitham Sabah Shaker Mohammed al-Badri, the alleged Iraqi mastermind of the Feb. 22 attack on the shrine in Samarra, remains at large.

While cracking down on terror groups, the Iraqi government has offered an olive branch to the Sunni-dominated insurgency, with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announcing a national reconciliation plan and reaching out to militants with an amnesty proposal.

The amnesty would not absolve those who have killed Iraqis or American coalition troops. But proving which individuals have carried out fatal attacks would be a difficult task in many cases. The issue is extremely sensitive in the United States, which has lost more than 2,500 uniformed men and women in Iraq, many to insurgent bombs and ambushes.

Insurgent and government officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday that 11 Sunni militant groups had offered an immediate halt to all attacks — including those on American troops — if the United States agreed to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq in two years.

On Thursday, Iraqi presidential security adviser Wafiq al-Samaraie said he received an e-mail Wednesday with an offer of cooperation from a person describing himself as a member of "one of the most dangerous violent groups abroad."

"We answered him immediately by e-mail and welcomed him, and he replied to us that there are ammunition piles at point X, go and find it, and there is a criminal in such a place ... so this is a blessing of the reconciliation initiative," al-Samaraie told state-run al-Iraqiya TV.

He did not discuss whether the information was accurate.

Shooting and bombings Thursday killed 12 people in Baghdad, including a Shiite trash collector, a university security chief, a baker, two merchants and an electrical worker.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, a suicide car bomber struck the funeral of a Shiite soldier in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing four people and wounding 27, police and hospital officials said.

Police in Kirkuk also found the body of a 15-year-old girl who had been kidnapped five days ago in the oil-rich city.

Seven bullet-riddled bodies were found floating in the Tigris River in Suwayrah, 25 miles south of Baghdad, while two men who had been shot to death and showed signs of torture were found in the Euphrates River in Musayyib, 40 miles south of the capital.

Highlighting the government's efforts to rein in the violence and take over control of its own security from U.S. forces, Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani led a celebration at the police academy in Baghdad to swear in 560 newly graduated recruits.

He said al-Maliki's reconciliation plan "is evidence of the government's intention to restore stability and promote reconstruction."

The Future of America

Over 230 years ago (pre United States) a professor by the name of Alexander Tyler wrote this about Democracies:

A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist only until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back into bondage.

No one seems to realize what is at stake right now. This war is about far more than the present. If we quit this war, our children will see the collapse of the United States as we know it. If we continue to feed and house and medicate the lazy and worthless that suck the life out of the bottom of our nation, our children will see the collapse of the United States as we know it. If we continue to allow illegal immigrants to enter our country and send roughly $20 billion from our economy and put it into Mexico’s, our children will see the collapse of the United States as we know it. If my generation continues to be completely ignorant, apathetic, selfish and self centered… we will earn the credit for destroying America.

We are at a stage in our Nation’s history where change is occurring. It is up to us to guide it.

To all you that complain about America being in everyone’s business, about us running the world… I promise you that if you see the day when we aren’t running the world… you will wish with every ounce of your existence you had done something when you could’ve.

Newly Declassified Information Concerning Chemical Weapons Discovered in Iraq

“This is critically important information that the world community needs to know” – Senator Santorum


June 21, 2006
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, joined Congressman Peter Hoekstra, (R-MI-2), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, today to make a major announcement regarding the release of newly declassified information that proves the existence of chemical munitions in Iraq since 2003. The information was released by the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, and contained an unclassified summary of analysis conducted by the National Ground Intelligence Center. In March, Senator Santorum began advocating for the release of these documents to the American public.

“The information released today proves that weapons of mass destruction are, in fact, in Iraq,” said Senator Santorum. “It is essential for the American people to understand that these weapons are in Iraq. I will continue to advocate for the complete declassification of this report so we can more fully understand the complete WMD picture inside Iraq.”

The following are the six key points contained in the unclassified overview:

• Since 2003 Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent.

• Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.

• Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the black market. Use of these weapons by terrorists or insurgent groups would have implications for Coalition forces in Iraq. The possibility of use outside Iraq cannot be ruled out.

• The most likely munitions remaining are sarin and mustard-filled projectiles.

• The purity of the agent inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives, and environmental storage conditions. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.

• It has been reported in open press that insurgents and Iraqi groups desire to acquire and use chemical weapons.


Read the declassified portion of the NGIC report.

Iraqi police storm farm, free 17 hostages

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer

Iraqi police stormed a farm north of Baghdad early Thursday and freed at least 17 people who were snatched a day earlier in a mass kidnapping of about 85 workers and family members at the end of a factory shift.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, reported that four Marines and a soldier were killed in operations south and west of Baghdad, and an explosion of sectarian and revenge killings in Mosul — Iraq's third-largest city — over the past three days claimed 19 lives.

The chief lawyer representing Saddam Hussein and his seven co-defendants said they went on a hunger strike to protest the shooting death Wednesday of a defense attorney. It was the third such killing in the 8-month-old trial.

The freed kidnap victims brought to nearly 50 the number of captives who have been either released by their captors or extricated by police. About 30 of the hostages, mainly women and children, were released shortly after they were taken captive Wednesday. It is routine in Iraq for women to take their children to work.

One kidnap victim, a Shiite Muslim, said he was set free Wednesday night after showing the kidnappers a forged ID card listing him as a Sunni. He said two hostages had been killed trying to escape. The man refused to give his name fearing retribution.

"As we were leaving the factory we were stopped by gunmen. They got on our buses and told us to put our heads down. Then they took us to a poultry farm," the man said.

"One of the gunmen told us to stand in one line and then asked the Sunnis to get out of the line. That's what I did. They asked me to prove that I am a Sunni, so I showed the forged ID and three others did the same. They released us," the man said.

A National Security Ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters, told The Associated Press that several insurgents holding the kidnap victims were captured during the Thursday morning raid on the farm in the Mishada area, about 20 miles north of the capital.

Police operations were continuing in the area, the official said, in a bid to locate the rest of the victims who were taken at the end of the day shift at al-Nasr General Complex, a former military plant that now makes metal doors, windows and pipes.

Sectarian violence has raged in the region and tit-for-tat kidnappings and revenge killings are common, but nothing had been reported on the scale of Wednesday's mass abduction. The al-Nasr plant is between Baghdad and Taji, a predominantly Sunni Arab area.

In the capital, where a security crackdown has been in place for nine days, insurgent and sectarian bloodletting was muted Thursday, with no major violent incidents reported by midday.

Elsewhere, the speaker of Russian parliament's upper house said Thursday that negotiations were being held to secure the release of four Russian Embassy staffers kidnapped June 3 in Baghdad, a news agency reported Thursday. A fifth Russian was killed when the men were captured.

The comments by Federation Council speaker Sergei Mironov came a day after an al-Qaida-linked insurgent group said that it had decided to kill the four after a deadline for meeting its demands had passed. As of midday Thursday, there was no indication whether the four had been killed.

Mironov said that "round-the-clock" talks were being conducted to secure their release, but he did not say by whom and where, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.

The military said the four Marines were killed Tuesday in insurgency-ridden Anbar province, three of them in a roadside bombing and a fourth in a separate operation. A U.S. soldier also died Wednesday south of the capital, the military said, giving no further details.

At least 2,512 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians.

The killings in Mosul occurred primarily in groups of ones and twos, with several of the dead found dumped throughout the city. All the victims died in targeted shooting attacks, Mosul police Capt. Ahmed Khalil told The Associated Press.

Lawyer Khamis al-Obeidi, a Sunni Arab who represented Saddam and his half brother Barzan Ibrahim, was abducted from his home Wednesday morning. His bullet-riddled body was found on a street near Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City. Police provided a photo of al-Obeidi's face, head and shoulders drenched in blood.

Saddam's chief attorney, Khalil al-Dulaimi, blamed the killing on the Interior Ministry, which Sunnis have alleged is infiltrated by Shiite death squads. He said Saddam and his co-defendants had gone on a hunger strike to protest the killing.

The strike could not be independently confirmed. It was not the first time the defense team said Saddam and his co-defendants were refusing food.

On Feb. 28, al-Obeidi said Saddam and several other defendants ended a 16-day hunger strike to protest the chief judge in their trial. In December 2004, the U.S. military acknowledged that eight of Saddam's 11 top lieutenants went on a weekend hunger strike to demand jail visits from the international Red Cross.

Bushra al-Khalil, a Lebanese member of the defense team, said al-Obeidi was taken from his house by men dressed in police uniforms and driving four-wheel-drive vehicles used by Iraqi security forces.

However, al-Obeidi's widow, Um Laith, was quoted in The New York Times as saying the attackers wore civilian clothes. She said 20 men burst into their house while the couple and their children were sleeping, and identified themselves as members of an Interior Ministry security brigade.

There was no comment from the ministry.

The Times also quoted Iraqi witnesses as saying al-Obeidi was transported in a convoy by people known to belong to the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army.

Al-Obeidi was the third member of Saddam's defense team to be killed since the trial began Oct. 19. His colleagues said the slaying was an attempt to intimidate the defense before it begins final arguments July 10, a process that will take about 10 days.

Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi said the trial would continue.



Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Marines in Haditha

Just wanted to share my thoughts with you on the discussion and the news floating around about the alleged Marine massacre in Haditha, Iraq.

If these Marines did in fact commit the crimes they are being investigated for, they deserve to be punished to the fullest extent of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.

I wanted to assure everyone that if this did happen, it is an isolated incident. For twelve months I walked the streets of Baghdad. I NEVER saw any coalition forces mistreat any civilians at any point during my time there.

Our enemies however have no regard for the lives of the people of Iraq. Whether it's a school bus and a road side bomb or a family that is in a house they desire to occupy... they are relentless in the terror they inflict on the people of Iraq. They would gladly inflict the suffering on you and your family given the opportunity.

My unit and every other unit I have ever encountered have made tremendous sacrifices for the people of Iraq. We put our lives on the line for them. We developed personal relationships with families in our designated Areas of Operation. We loved and love them. We did everything we could to protect them. Everything.

On the other hand... do not be too quick to judge these Marines. The black and white world in which you live is far different than the gray world over there. They deserve a fair investigation and a fair trial.

And, if you live in North America or Western Europe... no matter how gray you think your world is, it is a very distinct black and a very distinct white compared to life in Iraq. Don't try and believe otherwise.

I'd encourage America and its leaders not to jump to conclusions. The situation needs to be assessed before we start talking about punishment. There needs to be a clear separation between collateral damage and murder.