Analysis: Army seeks authority for repeat deployments for Guard, Reserves

A member of the Missouri Army National Guard at farewell ceremony before deploying to Iraq

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Strapped for soldiers, the U.S. Army wants new authority to send National Guard and Reserve soldiers back to Iraq for repeat deployments, even those who have already served the maximum time allowed by the Pentagon.

A national commission looking at National Guard and Reserve issues will decide in March whether to endorse the Army's plan, a change that could affect the 522,000 citizen-soldiers in the Army National Guard and Reserve, and more broadly the 800,000 reservists serving in all the military services.

The policy in question limits reservists to 24 months cumulative mobilization on active duty, and they may not be involuntarily deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan more than once. If a reserve soldier is to serve more than that, they must volunteer. The Pentagon's desire is to be even more strict, with active duty service limited to one year out of every six -- that is, a year deployed followed by five years at home, unless a soldier volunteers for additional time. They are not expected to deploy beyond those limits, in deference to their status as citizen-soldiers.

Many active-duty soldiers are deploying every other year, spending less than a year at home with their families in between combat rotations.

Read the rest at UPI

Opinion (Patrick Cockburn): The year of gold and blood

The golden dome of the al-Askari shrine before and after bombing.

The history of Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein has been full of fake turning-points - the capture of Saddam in 2003, the supposed handover of sovereignty to Iraqis in 2004, the parliamentary elections and referendum in 2005. All these events were greeted by the White House and Downing Street at the time as important and encouraging signs of progress, justifying the invasion of 2003. But with every year the war has become more intense. Iraqis are now dying at the rate of about 1,000 a week, according to the UN. Civil war is raging in central Iraq. The war against the US soldiers has also escalated, though American casualties are far lower. The country is awash with blood.

There were two real turning-points of very different kinds in Iraq in 2006: the blowing up of the Shia al-Askari shrine in Samarra on 22 February; and the Republican defeat in the US mid-term elections, in which Iraq was the main issue, on 7 November. The first was the starting gun for the present sectarian bloodbath. The second also had a vast effect within Iraq as the US began to contemplate failure.

In Samarra, nobody was killed by the explosion itself, though it wrecked the great golden dome of the shrine. But the attack led to a Shia onslaught on Sunni Arabs. Shia restraint, already close to breaking point, finally gave way after more than two years of bombs aimed at army and police recruits, who were mostly Shia, as well as at purely civilian targets. Within days, 1,300 people, mostly Sunni, were dead. People caught in the wrong areas at the wrong time were dragged from their cars and slaughtered.

Amid this bloodbath, it is difficult to pick out long-term trends. However, several were clearly visible in 2006:

Read the rest at the Independent

Opinion (Robert Fisk): The men that got away

Saddam to the gallows. It was an easy equation. Who could be more deserving of that last walk to the scaffold - that crack of the neck at the end of a rope - than the Beast of Baghdad, the Hitler of the Tigris, the man who murdered untold hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis while spraying chemical weapons over his enemies? Our masters will tell us in a few hours that it is a "great day" for Iraqis and will hope that the Muslim world will forget that his death sentence was signed - by the Iraqi "government", but on behalf of the Americans - on the very eve of the Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the moment of greatest forgiveness in the Arab world.

But history will record that the Arabs and other Muslims and, indeed, many millions in the West, will ask another question this weekend, a question that will not be posed in other Western newspapers because it is not the narrative laid down for us by our presidents and prime ministers - what about the other guilty men?

Read the rest at the Independent

Opinion (Fred Gedrich and Paul E. Vallely): To win in Iraq, U.S. must fight unconventionally

Most Americans desire an effective change in current Iraq war strategy and the wider global war against Islamic extremists and nations supporting them. President Bush and the new U.S. defense secretary, Robert Gates, could deliver it by placing experienced unconventional warfare leaders in charge of the war effort.

Since forcibly removing Saddam Hussein from power in 2003, the U.S.-led coalition has been unable to quell insurgent-, terrorist- and sectarian-generated violence concentrated mostly in four of 18 provinces and Greater Baghdad which are dominated by majority-Sunni populations. About 150,000 Iraqis and nearly 3,000 Americans have died during continuing hostilities.

While many Americans recognize that the conflict in Iraq is not going well and changes need to be made, there is substantial disagreement at the national level on a military strategy. The United States is seriously considering adding several combat brigades from outside Iraq to "purge" Baghdad and several provinces infested with local and foreign troublemakers. Sending an additional 20,000 U.S. troops to Iraq under current military strategies and rules of engagement will be unlikely to make much difference.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

Opinion (Robert Scheer): Ike Was Right

The public, seeing through the tissue of Bush administration lies told to justify an invasion that never had anything to do with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 or weapons of mass destruction, now has begun a national questioning: Why are we still in Iraq? The answers posted most widely on the Internet by critics of the war suggest its continuation as a naked imperial grab for the world’s second-largest petroleum source, but that is wrong.

It’s not primarily about the oil; it’s much more about the military-industrial complex, the label employed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower 45 years ago when he warned of the dangers of “a permanent arms industry of vast proportions.”

Read the rest at Truthdig

Perspective: Bahrain's majority Shiites demanding changes from Sunni kingdom

The island kingdom is home to great wealth, with projects such as the Bahrain Financial Harbor, scheduled for completion next year

SITRA, Bahrain - Like most Shiite Muslim villages in this wealthy Gulf kingdom, Sitra is hidden away from the glitzy shopping malls, the steel-and-glass skyscrapers, the six-lane highways and luxury seaside hotels.

Less than three miles outside Manama, the booming capital, Sitra is dusty and poor. Many of its homes are shoddily built. The streets are dimly lit at night and some are unpaved.

Young men in cheap tracksuits idly gather on street corners. Hardly a wall in the village is without anti-government graffiti or images of Shiites killed in years of anti-government protests.

The disparity between the country's affluent areas and Shiite villages such as Sitra lies at the heart of a potentially bloody conflict in this tiny island nation where a Shiite majority is ruled by a Sunni Muslim establishment.

Many fear that any unrest in Bahrain - held up by the U.S. as a paragon of democratic reforms - could spill across the Persian Gulf, including to Saudi Arabia whose Shiite minority of some 15 percent is centered in the country's east, where its oil fields lie.

Read the rest at the San Jose Mercury News

Security Summary: December 31, 2006

Prayers in Baghdad today on the Eid al-Adha (The Feast of Sacrifice) holy day, commemorating Ibrahim's willingness to obey God by sacrificing his son, and God's mercy in allowing Ibrahim to sacrifice a lamb instead.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed one person and wounded four others in central Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed one person and wounded six others in Hurriya, a district in northwestern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

BAGHDAD - A rocket landed on a residential district, killing two children and wounding a man and a woman, in Kadhimiya, a district in northwestern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A total of 12 bodies were found shot dead and most showing signs of torture on Saturday in different districts of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb near a Sunni mosque killed two people and wounded eight on Saturday in al-Dhubat street in Adhamiya district in northern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

HABANIYA - U.S. and Iraqi forces detained 15 suspected insurgents during operations on Saturday in Habaniya near Falluja, west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

FALLUJA - U.S. and Iraqi forces detained five suspected insurgents during operations on Saturday in the city of Falluja, the U.S. military said.

From Reuters/Alternet

Opinion (Emily Miller): Finding meaning in fighting the wrong war

Here is what my brother, a member of the Army National Guard, told me as he prepared to serve in Iraq this year:

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is who controls the armed forces. Civilian command of the Army is a cornerstone of our democratic system.

My brother told me that he takes his oath to defend the Constitution seriously and that he will fight and die if necessary to honor his commitment. When I asked him if he would be offended if I participated in activities opposing the war, he replied that it was not only my right but my obligation, and the obligation of all civilians opposing this war, to try to change bad policy. "Give us good wars to fight," he said.

While acknowledging that another possible moral option is to refuse to participate in a bad war, my brother chooses to place his oath to the Constitution and his belief in our democratic system at the pinnacle of his moral convictions. That some of us might differ with him is basically irrelevant — we (most of us) are not faced with his decision.

For the record, he believes that the war on terrorism is necessary to deal with real threats facing the United States. He is not convinced of what Iraq has to do with the matter, which puts him fairly well in the mainstream of American opinion.

So it is terribly upsetting to me to hear that some people despair that there is "no point" to their soldier's death or wounding in the Iraq war. America does not have to be right in order for our soldiers' service to have meaning.

Read the rest at the Houston Chronicle

Opinion (Christopher Dickey): This Is the Way the War Ends…

Not so very many years ago, Baghdad thrived with intellectuals and artists, a few of whom survived even during the decades of Saddam Hussein’s single-minded tyranny. The poets considered T.S. Eliot something of a god, and his iconic work, “The Waste Land,” a kind of scripture. They found hope in the notion that love and sacrifice might triumph over the despair and sterile devastation of their own “cracked earth.”

Today, those I knew in Baghdad who remembered Eliot and wrote about him have died or, long since, abandoned a city that has become the epicenter of a widening civil war. But as I watched President George W. Bush give his press conference yesterday, I couldn’t help thinking of another Eliot poem. In “The Hollow Men,” there is that line about “paralysed force, gestures without motion,” and the famous conclusion about the world ending “not with a bang but a whimper.” And there was Bush: trying desperately to contrive some way to claim a triumph in a country he has turned into death’s dream kingdom, pretending to have strategies where none exist, ignoring realities and taking refuge in willful ignorance even as he claimed to feel the pain of the dying.

Read the rest at Newsweek

Perspective: In a year, Baghdad falls to pieces

A Kadhemiya jeweler in early 2005

BAGHDAD -- The tiny, dusty shops of Kadhemiya are treasure chests filled with agate, turquoise, coral and amber. I used to spend hours in this colorful Baghdad market district, haggling over prices for semiprecious stones etched with prayers in Arabic calligraphy.

That was just before I left Iraq in 2005, when rings from Kadhemiya were simply sentimental reminders of a two-year assignment here. When I returned to Baghdad last month, however, I found a city so dramatically polarized that sectarian identity now extends to your fingers. Slipping on a turquoise ring is no longer an afterthought, but a carefully deliberated security precaution.

A certain color of stone worn a certain way is just one of the dozens of superficial clues -- like dialect, style of beard, how you pin a veil -- that indicate whether you're Sunni or Shiite. These little signs increasingly mean the difference between life and death at the terrifying illegal checkpoints that surround the districts of Baghdad. In a surprise reversal, Shiite militiamen have usurped Sunni insurgents as the most feared force on the streets.

Read the rest at the Miami Herald

Perspective: In Baghdad, a Last Stand Against Ethnic Cleansing

Members of the Shi'ite-dominated police force in Ghazaliya. Many members of Iraqi security forces are believed to have ties to militias.

Lt. Sam Cartee doubts the Sunni families barricading themselves in his sector can hold out much longer. Shi'ite militants thought to be from the Mahdi Army have mounted an aggressive campaign since this summer to clear Sunnis from the northern end of Ghazaliya, a formerly posh neighborhood in western Baghdad. The cleansing push has moved steadily southward, gaining ground house by house, day by day. Cartee says Mahdi Army fighters typically give Sunni families they threaten in Ghazaliya just 24 hours to leave their homes, which are then handed to Shi'ite families. Anyone who defies the deadline risks death. Few do, allowing the Mahdi Army to flip up to five houses a day. Many of the Sunni families forced from their homes have now gathered in an enclave in central Ghazaliya under the protection of a local sheik named Hamed Ne'ma Taher al-Obaydy, who has turned his block into an Alamo of sorts.

Read the rest at Time

Perspective: Distant war claims soldier in Maryland

The standoff lasted 14 hours before the fatal shooting

James E. Dean's first Christmas as a married man was supposed to be a joyous affair.

The man everyone called Jamie had received a diagnosis of depression, but things were looking up. He frequently told Muriel, his wife of four months, that she was the best thing that had ever happened to him. He had plans to celebrate his 29th birthday two days before the holiday. His parents and grandmother, to whom he was extremely close, lived just a few miles away in the same St. Mary's County town -- perfect for sharing Christmas dinner and opening presents together.

But everything good in Dean's life had been overshadowed by a letter he received three weeks earlier. The letter, from U.S. Army headquarters, instructed him to report to Fort Benning, Ga., on Jan. 14. From there, he was likely to be sent to Iraq.

Dean had already fought in one war, serving 12 months as a sergeant, leading a small infantry unit on the front lines in Afghanistan. Army records show that he was an excellent soldier, and he had a fistful of awards to prove it: for service in defense of the nation, good conduct and outstanding marksmanship with rifles and grenades. He was such a good soldier, in fact, an Army spokesman said, that the military needed him back just three weeks after his first Christmas with his wife.

He couldn't stomach the thought. His post-traumatic stress disorder, which was diagnosed shortly after he returned from Afghanistan, became worse immediately after he received the letter -- and so did his drinking and his rages, family members said. He would break down in front of his wife, telling her over and over that nobody knew what it had been like.

"The next time you see me, it's going to be in a body bag," she said he told her as he walked out of their house for the last time.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

Perspective: Army Tries to Buoy Holiday Spirits of Trainees

RICHMOND, Va. -- Pvt. Jasiri Kirkland gave up his holiday leave in exchange for a month to spend later this winter with his 18-month-old son, a swap shared by only a fraction of his fellow soldiers in training.

"This is the first time being away from him for this long," Kirkland, of Columbus, Ga., who is training at Fort Lee, about 25 miles south of Richmond, said after a recent trip with fellow soldiers to an ice skating rink. "It's very difficult. This is the most happy time of the year. But I'm staying here for a good reason."

The Army is the only military service that allows all of its soldiers in training to go home for the holiday season. The Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps do not shut down basic training, but do allow students in technical schools to go home.

About 1,700 of the Army's 78,000 trainees didn't go home from the Army's 16 training bases during the service's two-week holiday exodus.

The Army tries to keep trainees such as Kirkland, 25, in high spirits by taking them on outings for bowling, a hockey game or a special holiday meals with people in the community.

"Christmas is probably one of the happiest times of the year and also probably going to be one of the more depressing times of the year if you're not with your family and friends," said Capt. Dhramen Singh, commander for headquarters and headquarters company for the 244th Quartermaster Battalion at Fort Lee.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

Perspective: Artist father, warrior son

Here's the thing about fathers and sons: Fathers nudge, they suggest, and they push. It's an irresistible urge.

And sons, well, they listen but sometimes they go in other directions. It happens. And in the best of relationships, everyone is fine with that. Sometimes puzzled or concerned, but fine.

This is one of those stories.

Thirty-two year old Nick Johnson is an Airborne Ranger, a helicopter pilot in the middle of his second tour in Iraq. He is often one of the first responders to an IED (improvised explosive device) attack on American convoys. He is home in San Francisco for two weeks but then goes back to finish his seven-month tour.

Robert Johnson is Nick's father. He's the curator of the Legion of Honor Fine Arts Museum. Nick likes to say his dad is the kind of guy who would "weigh whether to pay the electric bill or buy a new piece of art." Robert hates the war.

Read the rest at the SF Chronicle

Perspective: In Ramadi, no seeking hearts and minds

A house search in Ramadi

RAMADI, IRAQ — The soldiers of Combat Outpost Iron set out to help one Ramadi neighborhood get back to normal. The troops tried to learn local tribal politics. Passed out Beanie Babies. Drank tea. Attempted Arabic.

Lt. Brian Braithwaite said he truly felt they were making a difference.

Then in early November, Braithwaite's Bradley Fighting Vehicle hit a roadside bomb filled with gasoline, setting his gunner on fire. In the muffled intensity of pulling his friend to safety, Braithwaite said he heard sounds coming from the homes of the people they were trying to help. Laughing. Cheering. Celebrating his friend's near-death.

Braithwaite's unit, the 1st Battalion, 36th Infantry Regiment, has been in the capital of western Iraq's Anbar province since June. Most of the guys here can remember the moment when their frustration killed their empathy. When they no longer felt guilty about knocking down doors. No longer cared to hand out candy.

"Hearts and minds," the soldiers shrug. They joke like this often. The few Iraqis still living in Ramadi have had their homes raided and streets patrolled for three years now. Every time a window is broken, a bedroom is trashed or husbands are questioned, the glares become harsher. Compliance with U.S. troops turns to hatred.

Read the rest at the Houston Chronicle

Perspective: Many soldiers say troop surge a bad idea

Members of the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry on patrol in Baghdad Wednesday

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Many of the American soldiers trying to quell sectarian killings in Baghdad don't appear to be looking for reinforcements. They say the temporary surge in troop levels some people are calling for is a bad idea.

President Bush is considering increasing the number of troops in Iraq and embedding more U.S. advisers in Iraqi units. White House advisers have indicated Bush will announce his new plan for the war before his State of the Union address Jan. 23.

In dozens of interviews with soldiers of the Army's 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment as they patrolled the streets of eastern Baghdad, many said the Iraqi capital is embroiled in civil warfare between majority Shiite Muslims and Sunni Arabs that no number of American troops can stop.

Others insisted current troop levels are sufficient and said any increase in U.S. presence should focus on training Iraqi forces, not combat.

But their more troubling worry was that dispatching a new wave of soldiers would result in more U.S. casualties, and some questioned whether an increasingly muddled American mission in Baghdad is worth putting more lives on the line.

Spc. Don Roberts, who was stationed in Baghdad in 2004, said the situation had gotten worse because of increasing violence between Shiites and Sunnis.

"I don't know what could help at this point," said Roberts, 22, of Paonia, Colo. "What would more guys do? We can't pick sides. It's almost like we have to watch them kill each other, then ask questions."

Read the rest at the Houston Chronicle

Security Summary: December 30, 2006

A distaught Irai after a car-bombing in a Kufa market killed at least 17 today

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed one U.S. soldier and wounded three more in southwest Baghdad on Friday, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD - Three car bombs exploded in quick succession in the mainly Shi'ite neighbourhood of Hurriya in Baghdad, killing 36 people and wounding 77, an Interior Ministry source said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed two people and wounded eight in Baghdad's western Mansour neighbourhood, an Interior Ministry source said.

TAL AFAR - A suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his body killed five people and wounded eight, including four policemen, in the northern city of Tal Afar, police said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb in the southern Baghdad neighbourhood of Saidiya killed one person and wounded four, including two policemen, an Interior Ministry source said.

BAGHDAD - Three U.S. marines died from wounds suffered in combat in Anbar province, one soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad and another soldier was killed in Anbar, the military said on Saturday, bringing to 2,997 the number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq since the invasion in 2003. December is now the deadliest month for U.S. troops in two years.

KUFA - Police in Kufa, near the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, said 36 people were killed and 58 wounded by the car bomb at a market packed with shoppers ahead of the week-long Eid al-Adha holiday. They said a mob killed a man they accused of planting the bomb in the town about 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad.

MAHMUDIYA - Police said the bodies of four people who had been tortured and shot dead were found in Mahmudiya, about 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed one U.S. soldier and wounded two others when it hit their patrol in northwest Baghdad on Friday, the U.S. military said.


From Reuters/Alternet

Monthly U.S. toll in Iraq at 2-year high

BAGHDAD — The monthly death toll for U.S. service members in Iraq hit a two-year high Friday.

Three Marines assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 were fatally wounded while fighting insurgents in Al Anbar province, bringing the December figure to 107, the military said. That is the highest monthly tally since January 2005, according to the website icasualties.org.

Forty-seven of the deaths occurred in Al Anbar, a western province that is a haven for Sunni Arab insurgents. The Baghdad area was next in number of deaths.

More than half the fatalities in December occurred during attacks involving improvised explosive devices, the website reported.

The remaining troops were killed by gunfire, mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades and in vehicle accidents, including a helicopter crash. Two servicemen died of illness.

The Marine deaths reported Friday brought the number of U.S. military fatalities in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 2,996, icasualties.org said, with 816 of them occurring this year. Last year, 846 American service members died; in 2004, the figure was 848.

Read the rest at the LA Times

Pentagon plans options for 'surge'

WASHINGTON -- As President Bush mulls over possible changes in Iraq policy, military planners are mapping out a number of options for a surge of U.S. troops, if that is one of the decisions he makes.

Pentagon officials said Friday that any surge of forces into Iraq would be done by extending units currently there, moving units into Iraq earlier than planned, or shifting them from other locations around the world.

The most immediate and likely move would be to shift the 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division from Kuwait _ where it is expected to deploy early next month _ into Iraq, said the officials, who requested anonymity because no decisions have been made.

That brigade is being sent to Kuwait to serve as the reserve force, and military commanders have routinely moved the reserve force into Iraq when needed. A typical brigade is about 3,500 soldiers, and moving them in would give an instant boost of troops.

Several officials said that military planners have been working on an array of options, but no one will know what units could be affected until the president decides how many troops he needs, and how quickly they have to be in Iraq.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

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Saudi Arabia criticises Iraq over Saddam execution

RIYADH, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Leading Sunni Arab power Saudi Arabia on Saturday criticised Iraq's Shi'ite leaders for executing former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein during the Eid al-Adha religious feast, saying his trial had been politicised.

"There is a feeling of surprise and disapproval that the verdict has been applied during the holy months and the first days of Eid al-Adha," a presenter on the official al-Ikhbariya TV said after programming was broken to read a statement.

Read the rest at Reuters/Alternet

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Siniyah surrounded, cleared, walled off

Siniya is the main town near Iraq's largest oil refinery

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- U.S. and Iraqi troops have cleared a small city in Iraq of residents and erected a 12-foot high dirt wall.

The eight-mile berm wraps around the town Siniyah of Salah ah Din province like a horseshoe, according to U.S. Central Command. It is topped by razor wire and surveillance posts.

The clear-hold-berm approach has been used successfully in places like Fallujah and Tall Afar to limit physical access to the towns, forcing traffic -- both vehicular and foot -- to move through controlled access points. There is now just one route in and out of Siniyah.

Siniyah is a small town near Bayji where there is a critical oil refinery that services northern Iraq and exports to Turkey and other locations. It suffered a spike in roadside bombs and attacks on coalition and Iraqi forces in late 2005. Locals insisted the problem was coming from outsiders - people moving in from the Syrian desert to disrupt Iraq. The entire local police force of more than 100 in Siniyah quit on Oct. 24, citing terrorist attacks and threats against their family. Two weeks later, the police station was destroyed by attacks. The city council quit and so did the mayor, according to a news release issued by U.S. Central Command.

Read the rest at UPI

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Iraq 'Expels' 2 Iranians Detained by U.S.

BAGHDAD, Dec. 29 -- Two senior Iranian operatives who were detained by U.S. forces in Iraq and were strongly suspected of planning attacks against American military forces and Iraqi targets were expelled to Iran on Friday, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

The decision to free the men was made by the Iraqi government and has angered U.S. military officials who say the operatives were seeking to foment instability here.

"These are really serious people," said one U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They were the target of a very focused raid based on intelligence, and it would be hard for one to believe that their activities weren't endorsed by the Iranian government. It's a situation that is obviously troubling."

One of the commanders, identified by officials simply as Chizari, was the third-highest-ranking official of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' al-Quds Brigade, the unit most active in aiding, arming and training groups outside Iran, including Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, U.S. officials said. The other commander was described as equally significant to Iran's support of foreign militaries but not as high-ranking.

Read the rest at the Washngton Post

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Perspective: Back to the kill zone in Anbar

Members of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry in Anbar last year

Staff Sgt. Mike Root summed up his thoughts about his third, yearlong deployment to Iraq next month:

"Crappy," said Root, 35, from Lexington, Ky. "It's kinda hard going into a place knowing that they're targeting us."

Weariness and resignation echo through the low brick buildings and training fields of the Fort Stewart Army base as Root and his comrades at the 2-7 infantry battalion of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division are gearing up for their third combat tour in Iraq since 2003.

The soldiers are about to spend a year in a province where American troops are being killed almost daily, at a time when domestic support is fast dwindling for a war the soldiers know America is not winning.

"It's heartbreaking to go back and know that the support is not there," said Staff Sgt. Darrell Foster, 26, from Buckhannon, W. Va.

Most soldiers agree that the upcoming deployment will be their toughest yet: The 2-7's new mission is to bring peace to Hit, a town in Iraq's volatile western Anbar province, where the anti-U.S. insurgency rages with undiminished ferocity.

"I don't think anybody wants to do it again, but we train and we're ready to go," said Sgt. 1st Class John Teasley, 33, of Ormond Beach, Fla., with a shrug.

Read the rest at the SF Chronicle

Perspective: Contractor's war role debated

DALLAS - DynCorp International runs its operational hub from a dark glass building bearing another firm's logo. The office complex, on the outskirts of Irving, Texas, gives no indication of the huge footprint the military services company is leaving around the world.

Using billions of taxpayer dollars, DynCorp is quietly doing the U.S. government's work in Iraq, Afghanistan and other world hotspots. Its paramilitary forces can kill or be killed in combat, but there's little public accounting of what DynCorp does or whether tax dollars are being well spent.

Many Americans probably think it's the government's job to train foreign security forces, eradicate drug crops or maintain Air Force One. But these and other sensitive Pentagon and State Department tasks are in the hands of a private company with such a secretive history that even members of Congress say they have a hard time getting information about it.

Those lawmakers, along with some military leaders, academics and human rights groups, are pressing to lift the cloak of confidentiality over DynCorp and other military contractors while asking whether their performance justifies the billions of dollars being spent for their services.

"Members of Congress have a hell of a time" getting information about DynCorp and other contractors, said Rep. Janice Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat who has monitored DynCorp's activities for several years. "It's one of the biggest scandals - and least known - that we have."

Schakowsky complained that she has been repeatedly thwarted in efforts to review U.S. government audit reports of DynCorp's contracts because, according to the State Department, the need to protect DynCorp's commercial secrets supersedes the public's right to know.

"There seems to be no real interest in overseeing or reporting or holding accountable any of these contractors. And we're talking about billions of dollars of taxpayer money," she said.

Read the rest at the Miami Herald

Perspective: Crisis in Housing Adds to Miseries of Iraq Mayhem

BAGHDAD — Along with its many other desperate problems, Iraq is in the midst of a housing crisis that is worsening by the day.

It began right after the toppling of Saddam Hussein, when many landlords took advantage of the removal of his economic controls and raised rents substantially, forcing out thousands of families who took shelter in abandoned government buildings and military bases. As the chaos in Iraq grew and the ranks of the jobless swelled, even more Iraqis migrated to squalid squatter encampments. Still others constructed crude shantytowns on empty plots where conditions were even worse.

Now, after more than 10 months of brutal sectarian reprisals, many more Iraqis have fled their neighborhoods, only to wind up often in places that are just as wretched in other ways. While 1.8 million Iraqis are living outside the country, 1.6 million more have been displaced within Iraq since the war began. Since February, about 50,000 per month have moved within the country.

Shelter is their most pressing need, aid organizations say. Some have been able to occupy homes left by members of the opposing sect or group; others have not been so fortunate. The longer the violence persists, the more Iraqis are running out of money and options.

Read the rest at the NY Times

Perspective: Jail house of horrors

The Serious Crimes Unit was regarded as one of the most corrupt elements of the British-mentored and trained constabulary in Iraq’s second city.

In Saddam Hussein’s time, local security forces dragged hundreds of people to the al-Jameat compound in the middle of the night. They were never heard of again. It became known as the “station of death”.

The two-storey building had been reopened by the British as a police station, part of the coalition’s optimistic attempts to restore order after Saddam’s overthrow.

Before long it was nicknamed “Gestapo HQ” by British officers. The horrors taking place behind its thick white walls were feared to compare with the sadistic excesses of the toppled dictatorship.

“When I visited the intelligence department at al-Jameat police station, I found prisoners stiff with fear, bound and gagged,” Stephen Grey, the journalist, wrote in the New Statesman.

No crime seemed too extreme for the unit, based at the police station in a once-pleasant middle-class neighbourhood. Its officers were blamed for death squad killings, extortion rackets and smuggling weapons from Iran.

Read the rest at the Times of London

Perspective: A patrol of death along the Tigris

BAGHDAD — Divers call it "the burial ground," an impenetrably dark stretch of the Tigris River, about 20 feet deep, passing through the heart of Baghdad.

Cruising the river on a recent day strapped into life jackets that double as body armor, members of Baghdad's river patrol pointed to bridges near where they swam as children and now recover the city's dead.

"Violence, terror — it is part of what is going on here in Iraq," said a river patrol captain who would not give his name, fearing that insurgents in his neighborhood would discover that he works with the police. He said he gave up swimming in the river years ago and bought a pool.

The patrol's commander, Lt. Col. Alaa Saleh Ibrahim, has learned this much patrolling the stretch of muddy river the last two years: It takes at least 10 days for bodies to surface in winter. Men float faceup, women facedown.

Read the rest at the LA Times

Perspective: Sectarian Ties Weaken Duty’s Call for Iraq Forces

BAGHDAD, Dec. 27 — The car parked outside was almost certainly a tool of the Sunni insurgency. It was pocked with bullet holes and bore fake license plates. The trunk had cases of unused sniper bullets and a notice to a Shiite family telling them to abandon their home.

“Otherwise, your rotten heads will be cut off,” the note read.

The soldiers who came upon the car in a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad were part of a joint American and Iraqi patrol, and the Americans were ready to take action. The Iraqi commander, however, taking orders by cellphone from the office of a top Sunni politician, said to back off: the car’s owner was known and protected at a high level.

For Maj. William Voorhies, the American commander of the military training unit at the scene, the moment encapsulated his increasingly frustrating task — trying to build up Iraqi security forces who themselves are being used as proxies in a spreading sectarian war. This time, it was a Sunni politician — Vice Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie — but the more powerful Shiites interfered even more often.

“I have come to the conclusion that this is no longer America’s war in Iraq, but the Iraqi civil war where America is fighting,” Major Voorhies said.

Read the rest at the NY Times

Perspective: Shiite struggle in Iraq spills over area

BAGHDAD, Iraq — When Ziad Saleh, a Sunni Arab, married a Shiite woman 17 months ago, it did not cross his mind that their mixed marriage would bring risk of death.

But these days, love between Sunnis and Shiites requires extraordinary caution. Saleh and Rawaa al-Saadi, both 28, live in Saleh's house in the Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah. When al-Saadi visits her parents in a Shiite area across Baghdad, Saleh drives her to a neutral zone between the two, where one of her brothers picks her up.

"We sometimes feel like we have done something really wrong, rather than just being an ordinary married couple with a child," said Saleh, bitterly.

The fall of Saddam Hussein was supposed to have heralded a joyous era, freeing Iraqis from decades of oppression that touched everyone _ Shiite Arabs, Sunni Arabs and Kurds alike.

Instead, the nation has been torn apart by an ancient divide.

The creation in Iraq of the only Shiite-run Arab government, toppling long Sunni dominance, has released long-restrained hatred between Islam's two main sects. Battles between Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias are claiming scores of victims every day and forcing tens of thousands to flee the country.

And while the main battle has been in Iraq, Shiite power has become a dominant issue across the Middle East, and Sunni Arab leaders in Jordan and Saudi Arabia are expressing growing concern about Shiite power in the Arab lands, often backed by non-Arab, Shiite Iran.

Read the rest at the Houston Chronicle

Perspective: Iran expands links with Syrians

DAMASCUS: Early next year, Syria's first domestically manufactured cars are scheduled to roll off an assembly line. They will have an Iranian name, be produced in a plant partly financed by a state-controlled Iranian car company and be made of parts from Iran.

Not long after that, Syria hopes to open two new multimillion-dollar wheat silos, add 1,200 new buses in Damascus, open another Iranian car factory in the north and start operating a cement plant — all in partnership with Iran. The two countries are also talking about building an oil refinery, opening a joint bank, constructing housing, developing electric generators and, someday, linking their rail systems through Iraq.

As the White House begins to rethink its strategy for dealing with the Middle East, particularly how to calm the chaos in Iraq, pressure to try to re-engage with Syria has grown. Some Western analysts contend that Syria, with a government more pragmatic than ideological, can be pried away from Iranian influence and convinced that its long-term interests lie instead with the West.

But Washington has spent years trying to isolate Syria, while Iran has for decades moved to entwine itself with Syria on many levels — political, military, economic and religious.

Iran is a country of many power centers with different pools of money, from funds controlled by grand ayatollahs in the religious city of Qum to those in the hands of the Revolutionary Guards. They may not all be directed by the central government, but they all help promote Iranian influence in Syria.

As a result, some Western diplomats in Iran say that, even if the United States tried, it might be impossible to extricate Syria from Iran's orbit.

Read the rest at the International Herald Tribune

Perspective: Saudi Arabian Medicis

WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 (UPI) -- When King Abd al-Aziz -- also known as Ibn Saud -- died in 1953, he left 44 sons and uncounted daughters by 17 wives. He used to break up the monotony of daylong cabinet meetings with intimate interludes selected from a catalogue that contained pictures of over 600 concubines.

Founded by Abd al-Aziz in 1932, modern Saudi Arabia is an oligarchy of 7,000 male princes. The royals number an estimated 21,000 (including up to 4 wives allowed by the Koran). King Abdullah, who succeeded the late King Fahd in August 2005, is the fifth son of the founder to mount the throne as the guardian of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina.

First among royals are known as the "Sudairi Seven," which comprised seven brothers with the same mother, who was the founder's favorite wife, Al-Fadha bint Asi al-Shuraim. Surviving Sudairis are in their late seventies and include next in line to mount the throne Prince Sultan, the defense minister, who is the father of Prince Bandar, the national security adviser to the king and former ambassador to the U.S. He is known to see himself as a future kingmaker. His unique global Rolodex of the planet's powers that be also puts him in a stable of dark horses.

Interlocking royal blood relationships give over 100 princes and one princess commanding positions throughout the government, armed forces and National Guard. Only finance and petroleum are under non-royal technocrats, a safeguard against any one royal acquiring control of the kingdom's income stream.

Read the rest at UPI

Perspective: Saudi Arabia braces for haj

RIYADH, Dec 24 (Reuters) - Over two million Muslims begin the haj in Saudi Arabia this week, amid fears of sectarian violence and militant attack as well as the stampedes and hotel collapses that have marred the pilgrimage in recent years.

A duty for every able-bodied Muslim at least once in a lifetime, the gruelling five-day ritual beginning on Friday is one of the world's biggest displays of mass religious devotion.

Pilgrims converge on the Grand Mosque in Mecca and follow a route around the rocky mountains of the ancient city in line with a tradition established by the Prophet Mohammed.

Overcrowding is a perennial worry but this time, regional tension between Shi'ites and Sunnis has heightened security concerns while authorities remain on the look-out for al Qaeda-linked militant violence -- a fear in recent years.

"We have been prepared to deal with the worst, may God forbid it, including things that can be deadlier than sectarian violence ... stampedes or building collapses," said a senior police officer in Mecca, declining to say if measures were in place to monitor specific religious sects during the pilgrimage.

The haj takes place in the shadow of violence between Sunnis and Shi'ites that has taken Iraq to the brink of civil war this year. Sunni-Shi'ite tension is also high in Lebanon, where Shi'ites are leading efforts to bring down a Sunni-led cabinet.

Iranian and other pilgrims have used the haj for political protests in the past. Shi'ite Iran is at loggerheads with the West over its nuclear programme and its backing Shi'ite groups in Arab countries, raising the potential for trouble at the haj.

Read the rest at Reuters/Alternet

Security Summary: December 29, 2006

British army soldiers take-up defensive positions as two British army vehicles are seen destroyed following a surprise attack on Friday

BAGHDAD - Three U.S. marines died on Thursday from wounds suffered in combat in Iraq's western Anbar province, the U.S. military said.

BASRA - A British patrol was hit by a blast south of Basra and one British soldier was slightly wounded, Captain Olly Pile said.

KHALIS - A suicide bomber killed 10 people and wounded 11 near a Shi'ite mosque in the town of Khalis, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

RAMADI - The U.S. military said gunmen shot a policeman and a woman and wounded three others, including two children, when they attacked their home in Ramadi on Wednesday. A U.S. statement said Iraqi police later arrested 13 suspects.

BAGHDAD - U.S. forces killed two suspected insurgents and wounded two civilians in a raid on an al Qaeda target in Baghdad on Friday, the U.S. military said. A U.S. statement said its forces "regret the injuries the local nationals sustained".

JURF AL-SAKHAR - Gunmen attacked a police checkpoint in Jurf al-Sakhar, 85 km (53 miles) south of Baghdad, killing two and wounding seven, a police source said.

From Retuers/Alternet

Military Poll: 42% of troops diaspprove of Bush's handling, 35% approve

WASHINGTON — The American military, once a staunch supporter of President Bush and the Iraq war, has grown increasingly pessimistic about chances for victory.

For the first time, more troops disapprove of the president's handling of the war than approve of it, according to the 2006 Military Times Poll.

When the military was feeling most optimistic about the war — in 2004 — 83% of poll respondents thought success in Iraq was likely. This year, that number has shrunk to 50%.

Only 35% of the military members polled this year said they approve of the way Bush is handling the war, and 42% said they disapprove. While approval of the president's war leadership has slumped, his overall approval remains high among the military.

Just as telling, in this year's poll only 41% of the military said the U.S. should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place, down from 65% in 2003. That closely reflects the beliefs of the general population — 45% agreed in a recent USA TODAY-Gallup poll.

Read the rest at USA Today

3,300 ordered back to Mideast; 550 only home 2 weeks

Members of the 82nd Airborne, 2nd Brigade have been ordered back to Iraq

One of the 82nd Airborne Division's four brigade combat teams was abruptly ordered to Kuwait, where it will be poised to jump into the Iraq war if U.S. commanders decide it's needed.

The order Wednesday was unexpected -- 550 soldiers in the unit had been home from Iraq less than three weeks -- and comes amid speculation and debate in Washington about a potential surge in troop strength in Iraq. A division spokesman, though, said the move is not part of a boost in troop numbers.

"I'll tell you as emphatically as I can," said Maj. Tom Earnhardt in a phone interview Wednesday. "No, it's not part of any surge."

Typically talk of a short-term injection of troops has referred to a jump of 20,000 or 30,000.

If this deployment were part of a surge, the Pentagon would surely be sending more than the 3,300 paratroopers of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, Earnhardt said.

Instead, he said, they will replace the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which had been kept in reserve in Kuwait before being sent to Iraq last month.

"This is just a move to re-establish flexibility," he said. "Current events being what they are in Iraq, at this point, obviously it's a good time to maintain as much flexibility as possible."

Still, the Marine unit's move into volatile Anbar province raised the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. Once in Kuwait, the paratroopers would be positioned to quickly boost the numbers even more.

According to a Pentagon news release, the paratroopers are expected to leave Fort Bragg in early January.

For most of the Iraq war, brigade-sized units have been notified months in advance as part of regular rotations designed to give the hard-worked U.S. military regular breaks.

The 2nd Brigade Combat Team hasn't been deployed as a full unit since 2003, Earnhardt said, but parts of the brigade have been deployed four times since then on short-notice missions such as bolstering security for Iraqi elections.

The most recent of these deployments, by the 1st Battalion of the 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, began in August and ended two weeks ago.

News of the deployment was a blow to the soldiers of the battalion and their families.

"My family didn't take it well," said Sgt. Brian Mundey, 25, who has parents and three siblings in Austin, Texas, and a girlfriend in Arizona. They will suffer through Mundey's third deployment since 2004.

"There were a lot of whys," he said. "Why is this happening? What's going on? I think they're as confused about it as a lot of people are."

Mundey said that several men in the unit had returned to newborns and wanted to spend time at home.

Read the rest at the News Observer

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Pentagon: U.S. forces on high alert

U.S. Soldiers conducting a house-to-house search in Baghdad on Wednesday

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon said Friday that U.S. forces in Iraq are braced for any violence that may follow the execution of former President Saddam Hussein.

"U.S. forces in Iraq are obviously at a high state of alert anytime because of the environment that they operate in and because of the current security situation," said spokesman Bryan Whitman. "They'll obviously take into account social dimensions that could potentially led to an increase in violence which certainly would include carrying out the sentence of Saddam Hussein."

Saddam has been in U.S. custody since he was captured in December 2003, and his lawyers said Friday that he had been handed over to Iraqi authorities. But there was conflicting information.

Tom Casey, deputy spokesman at the State Department, said in early afternoon that "there has been no change in his status" and that Saddam remained in American hands. In Baghdad, an Iraqi government official who refused to be identified by name because he was not authorized to release the information said authorities there were not yet in control of Saddam.

Casey said the information he had was provided by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Read the rest at the San Jose Mercury News

U.S. to fly controversial Osprey in combat

The U.S. Pentagon is forging ahead with plans to get the MV-22 helicopter-aircraft into combat, despite a controversial and deadly performance history.

The Boeing Co. and the Bell Helicopter's aircraft takes off vertically as a helicopter and the engines rotate forward to fly as a turboprop plane. The craft is used primarily as a troop transporter.

But six years ago, two crashes of the Osprey killed 19 Marines, and the project was shelved.

Now, the Pentagon has ordered 458 of the $70 million craft, most of which will go the Marines Corps, although those destined for the Air Force will cost $89 million each because of enhanced electronic combat features, the Escondido (Calif.) North County Times reported.

Read the rest a the Washington Post

Revered Saudi cleric denounces Shi'ites as infidels

Ibrahim Abdel-Rahman al-Barrak

DUBAI, Dec 29 (Reuters) - An influential cleric of Saudi Arabia's hardline Sunni school of Islam has denounced Shi'ite Muslims as "infidels" in a new religious edict that comes amid rising sectarian tension in the region.

"The rejectionists (Shi'ites) in their entirety are the worst of the Islamic nation's sects. They bear all the characteristics of infidels," Sheikh Abdel-Rahman al-Barrak said in the fatwa, or ruling, distributed on Islamist Web sites.

"They are in truth polytheist infidels, though they hide this," it said, citing theological differences 14 centuries after the death of the Prophet Mohammad, such as reverence of shrines which followers of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi school consider abhorrent.

Concern is growing in Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Islam, over Shi'ite-Sunni violence in Iraq which has taken the northern neighbour to the brink of civil war. Sunni-Shi'ite tensions are also high in Lebanon, where Shi'ites are leading efforts to bring down a Sunni-led cabinet.

"The Sunni and Shi'ites schools of Islam are opposites that can never agree, there can be no coming together unless Sunnis give up their principles," the fatwa said.

Barrak, an independent scholar, has come to be regarded by many as the highest authority for Wahhabi Muslims.

Read the rest at Reuters/Alternet

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Re-opening of Iraqi National Assembly postponed by slaying of Sadr aide

Nouri al-Maliki, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, Moqtada al-Sadr,
Harith al-Dhari and Massoud Barzani

The resumption of Iraq's parliament has been delayed by the killing of a senior aide to politically and militarily powerful Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Sahib al-Amiri was killed by a U.S. soldier during a joint raid with Iraqi forces in the southern holy city of Najaf, which infuriated Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Washington Post correspondent reported.

Amiri was suspected of supplying explosives to insurgents and reportedly raised an automatic weapon at an approaching Iraqi soldier and was shot.

That dashed Maliki's hopes of getting the anti-U.S. Sadr to end a parliamentary boycott of his 30 parliamentarians and four Cabinet ministers. Sadr called the boycott last month over Maliki's meeting with U.S. President George Bush in Jordan.

Read the rest at the Washington Times

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Report: Two Iranians held by U.S. troops in Iraq are released

TEHRAN, Iran - Two Iranians detained by American troops in Iraq and suspected of transferring weapons technology to insurgents in that country were released early Friday, Iran’s state-run television and news agency reported.

The U.S. military had no immediate comment. There was also no immediate response from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Iranian state TV referred to the Iranians as diplomats and said the release happened Friday.

The two were handed over to Iranian officials in the presence of Iraq’s National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie, said Iran’s state-run news agency, IRNA.

Hassan Kazemi Qomi, Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad, said the arrest of the two diplomats was against internationally accepted regulations, IRNA said.

“Fortunately with the effort exerted by the Iraqi officials, the U.S. forces, who first denied their arrest, were obliged to admit it and under pressure from the Iraqi government to release them,” IRNA quoted Qomi as saying.

The White House said earlier this week that U.S. troops had detained at least two Iranians and released two others who had diplomatic immunity. A White House spokesman said the Iranians were taken into custody during a raid on suspected insurgents.

On Thursday, a Pentagon official said U.S. forces had found “indications and evidence that all of the people rounded up, including the two Iranians, are involved in the transfer of IED technologies from Iran to Iraq.” IED stands for improvised explosive devices, or small bombs that are commonly used in attacks in Iraq.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not yet been made public, said that U.S. forces were working out ways to turn over the Iranians to the Iraqis.

A spokesman for Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Monday that the two detained Iranians were in the country at his invitation.

Read the rest at the Boston Herald

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Exile Group: Captured Iranians Were Part of Elite Force

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Two Iranians detained by U.S. forces in Iraq were senior members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards and had coordinated attacks against coalition troops and Iraqi civilians, the head of an Iranian opposition group said Thursday.

The White House said earlier this week that U.S. troops had caught a group of Iranians in a raid on suspected insurgents in Iraq. Two of the men had diplomatic immunity and were released them to Iran, but the other two were kept in custody.

Maryam Rajavi, who heads the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NICR), an anti-regime umbrella group based in Paris, said the two men being held were senior members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Qods force and were responsible for sectarian attacks in Iraq.

She cited the group's intelligence officials as the source of the information.

It was not possible to independently verify Rajavi's claim, but the group has provided relatively accurate information on developments in Iran over the past several years, including details on the country's secretive nuclear program.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

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Report: Bush focusing on up to 20,000 troops for 'surge'

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 — The Bush administration is considering an increase in troop levels in Iraq of 17,000 to 20,000, which would be accomplished in part by delaying the departure of two Marine regiments now deployed in Anbar Province, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

The option was among those discussed in Crawford, Tex., on Thursday as President Bush met there with his national security team, and it has emerged as a likely course as he considers a strategy shift in Iraq, the officials said.

Most of the additional troops would probably be employed in and around Baghdad, the officials said.

With the continuing high levels of violence there, senior officials increasingly say additional American forces will be needed as soon as possible to clear neighborhoods and to conduct other combat operations to regain control of the capital, rather than primarily to train Iraqi forces.

“The mission that most people are settling on has to do with using them in a security role to quell violence in Baghdad and the surrounding area,” said a senior Pentagon official involved in the planning.

Read the rest at the NY Times

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Security Summary: December 28, 2006

A child is treated for injuries from a car-bombing that killed 12 today in Baghdad

BAGHDAD - Police found 41 bodies in different parts of Baghdad over the past 24 hours, an Interior Ministry source said.

MOSUL - Police found three bodies, tortured and shot dead, in the northern city of Mosul, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed one U.S. soldier and wounded another while they were on patrol north of Baghdad on Thursday, the U.S. military said.

MOSUL - A suicide bomber in a minibus attacked the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in the northern city of Mosul, witnesses said. Police said two people were killed and 19 wounded in the blast.

BAGHDAD - One U.S marine was killed in combat in Anbar province on Wednesday, the U.S military said.

TIKRIT - Gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint, killing two soldiers and wounding one in Tikrit, 175 (110 miles) north of Baghdad, army sources said.

KIRKUK - Four gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms opened fire and killed a policeman and seriously wounded another in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police said. The gunmen were arrested.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded at a petrol station near the Shaab stadium in central Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding 25, police said.

BAGHDAD - Two roadside bombs exploded in Bab al-Sharji in central Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding 35, Interior Ministry and police sources said.

BAQUBA - Gunmen killed a police captain and wounded two other policemen in a drive-by shooting in Baquba, 65 km north of Baghdad, police said.

HAWIJA - A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol wounded three policemen in Hawija, 70 km (43 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said.

YUSIFIYA - Iraqi special forces backed by U.S. advisers have captured an al Qaeda cell leader believed to be behind the kidnap in June of two U.S. soldiers who were found tortured and dead, the U.S. military said. The man was captured in a raid on Tuesday in Yusifiya, 15 km south of Baghdad.

Read the rest at Reuters/Alternet

Report: Gates 'wary' of troop surge

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates returns from a classified display of road-side bomb detection equipment under heavy fog at Camp Victory in Baghdad December 22, 2006.

WASHINGTON — With President Bush leaning toward sending more soldiers to pacify Iraq, his defense secretary is privately opposing the buildup.

According to two administration officials who asked not to be named, Robert Gates expressed his skepticism about a troop surge in Iraq on his first day on the job, December 18, at a Pentagon meeting with civilians who oversee the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marines.

The view of the new defense secretary appears to be at odds with the leanings of Mr. Bush, who is expected to announce a new troop surge when he unveils his new war strategy next month. Mr. Gates met with Mr. Bush Saturday at Camp David after a trip to Iraq, where the defense secretary met with the commander of American forces there, General George Casey. General Casey said he would be open to an increase in troops, but a spokesman for him told the Christian Science Monitor over the weekend that the general had not formally requested more troops.

Read the rest at the NY Sun

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