THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

Not to mention that it is "fair" sumac.....

From the AP, late Monday afternoon:

"Shiite Cleric Pulls Back Iraqi Militias

By LEE KEATH
Associated Press Writer


BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- As a tenuous cease-fire held in the Sunni city of Fallujah, a radical Shiite cleric was on the retreat Monday, pulling his militiamen out of parts of the holy city of Najaf in hopes of averting a U.S. assault. Still, a U.S. commander said the American mission remained to "kill or capture" the cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr.

With quiet on both fronts, the scale of Iraq's worst fighting since the fall of Saddam Hussein became clearer: The military reported about 70 coalition troops and 700 Iraqi insurgents killed so far this month. It was the biggest loss of life on both sides since the end of major combat a year ago.

A hospital official said over 600 Iraqis were killed in Fallujah alone - mostly women, children and the elderly.

The withdrawal of al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army militia from police stations and government buildings in Najaf, Karbala and Kufa was a key U.S. demand. But al-Sadr followers rebuffed an American demand to disband the militia, which launched a bloody uprising in Baghdad and the south this month.

"Al-Sadr issued instructions for his followers to leave the sites of police and the government," said lawyer Murtada al-Janabi, al-Sadr's representatives in the talks.

American troops were seen on the outskirts of Najaf, where the radical cleric is thought to be in his office. The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said "the mission of U.S. forces is to kill or capture Muqtada al-Sadr."

U.S.-allied Iraqis were negotiating separately with representatives from Fallujah and al-Sadr. The U.S. military has moved more forces into both areas and is threatening to push into the cities if talks fall through.

The burst of violence since April 4 has exposed weaknesses in Iraq's U.S.-trained security forces. A battalion of the Iraqi army refused to fight in Fallujah, Sanchez said. And some police defected to al-Sadr's forces, said Gen. John Abizaid, the top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East.

In an effort to toughen the Iraqi forces, Abizaid said the U.S. military will reach out to former senior members of Saddam's disbanded army - a reversal in strategy. The military in the past has tried to avoid relying on top officials from the ousted regime.

"It's ... very clear that we've got to get more senior Iraqis involved - former military types involved in the security forces," he said. "In the next couple of days you'll see a large number of senior officers being appointed to key positions in the ministry of defense and the Iraqi joint staff and in Iraqi field commands."

Abizaid said he and Sanchez "are very much involved in the vetting and placing of these officers." At another point, Abizaid said inadequate checking of Iraqi recruits was a key failure in U.S. training efforts.

Another toll from the week's violence: more than 40 foreigners reportedly were taken hostage by insurgents, though a dozen had been released Sunday and Monday. Those still believed held included three Japanese and American truck driver Thomas Hamill, whose captors had threatened to kill them.

Seven Chinese were freed Monday after being held for a day, China's official news agency said. Two reportedly were injured.

Two U.S. soldiers and seven employees of a U.S. contractor were missing after an attack Friday on a convoy west of Baghdad, Sanchez said.

And Al-Jazeera television said 11 Russians working for a Russian energy company were kidnapped during a clash in Baghdad. The station did not say when the reported abduction took place.

Gunmen battered American supply lines around Baghdad on Monday, attacking a convoy of flatbed trucks carrying M113 armored personnel carriers south of the capital and settling them ablaze. A supply truck was burned and looted on the road from the airport.

The U.S. military has been trying to regain control of supply routes, particularly on Baghdad's western edge, where gunmen this week have attacked fuel convoys, shot down an Apache helicopter, and killed two American civilian contractors after dragging them from their car.

Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling, deputy commander of the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad, said hundreds of Iraqi fighters have been killed in the capital in the past week - apparently most in the western area.

"Full security has not been established yet in Baghdad, but it will be. It's stable now," Hertling told The Associated Press.

In Fallujah, Sunni insurgents and Marines largely held to a truce for a second day while Iraqi Governing Council members negotiated with city officials to find a way to halt the violence.

Marine commanders said insurgents were trying to smuggle weapons into the city in aid convoys and move them around in ambulances. Marines shot and killed two gunmen setting up a machine gun near their position, then saw an ambulance pull up and try to take the gun, said Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne. Marines shot an insurgent in the ambulance.

"We have to be careful because ambulances are being used for legitimate purposes, but we are also treating them with suspicion," Byrne said.

On Sunday, Marines found five suicide belts along with U.S. military uniforms in a weapons cache - raising concerns militants will try to approach U.S. positions and blow themselves up.

Iraqis in Fallujah complained that civilians were coming under fire by U.S. snipers. Sheik Dhafir al-Obaidi told Al-Arabiya television that dozens of people had been killed "because they thought it was a cease-fire and left their homes for supplies, and they were surprised by snipers."

More than 600 Iraqis have been killed in the city since the siege began, said the head of Fallujah's hospital, Rafie al-Issawi. Most of the dead registered at hospitals and clinics were women, children and elderly, he said. He refused to give figures, saying that doing so would suggest the remaining dead - young, military-aged men - were all insurgents, which he said was not the case.

In all, about 880 Iraqis have been killed in a week of fighting, according to an AP count based on statements by Iraqi hospital officials, U.S. military statements and Iraqi police.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt on Monday released the military's first full casualty estimates since widespread fighting erupted on April 4, saying around 70 coalition personnel have been killed and "about 10 times that amount" of Iraqi insurgents.

He said there was no "authoritative number" of civilians killed and said figures seen so far came through the "filter of propaganda."

Abizaid also complained of propaganda, accusing two Arab television stations - Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya - of broadcasting false reports that American troops were targeting civilians in Fallujah.

Three U.S. Marines were killed Sunday in Anbar province, the area that includes Fallujah, the military said Monday without elaborating. An attack on an Army patrol in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, killed a soldier from the 1st Armored Division and injured four others Sunday.

An attack on a convoy Sunday killed a Romanian working for a security company, Romania's ambassador to Iraq said.

Aysar al-Baghdadi, an assistant to Governing Council member Mouwafak al-Rubaie, said that in the Fallujah talks, the United States demands the surrender of the killers of four American contractors on March 31, the handover of foreign militants and an end to attacks on U.S. troops in and around the city.

Al-Rubaie on Monday called on "Fallujah's good people ... to hand over these criminals and finish the bloodshed.""

---

AP correspondents Lourdes Navarro with Marines at Fallujah, Abdul Hussein Yousef in Najaf and Daniel Cooney in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

I recommend the current april issue of Harpers. There's a very interesting piece (page 79...not available online) on the connections between folks in the US and the oil bigboys in Russia (Russia has a lot of oil too).
- Yukos, Russia's second largest oil company, has pledged a half million to the American Enterprise Institute (to date, $125,000 delivered). The controlling interest in Yukos is held by Khodorkovsky, the 'oligarch' recently arrested by the Kremlin.
- Carlyle had been wooing Khodorkovsky, e.g., lavish dinners with Bush senior in London, more at Beaver Creek with Cheney in 2003, hosted, as it happpens by the American Enterprise Institute. Khodorkovsky was appointed to the board of Carlyle the month before and announced intention to invest $50 million in Carlyle.
- the imprisonment of Khodorkovsky (and his partner Lebedev, also a former Carlyle adviser) has lead Bruce Jackson in the WP to liken Putin to Hitler. Jackson was recently the VP at Lockheed Martin and is an AEI fellow.
- the arrests also gained the loud displeasure of Richard Perle, AEI fellow.

SUPPOSE

The participants in this forum collectively represent the deciding votes in November. Would we elect Kerry or would we elect Bush?

I bet there is a definite majority here who will vote for Kerry, so assume Kerry is elected.

What do you think Kerry will do to rectify the Iraqi war?

What do you want Kerry to do to rectify the Iraqi war?

ican, There is very little one can do once a war is engaged. It's probably close to impossible to "rectify the war in Iraq." The Bush administration keeps updating their position on how to best deal with the "Iraq problem." They are beginning to understand that it's not possible to push democracy down their throats. Democracy must come from within - not from the outside.

ican

I truly don't know what the hell I'd do, in that position. It's a bit like drinking too much, falling asleep in the back of the car you are in, then waking to find the fellows in the front have just robbed a bank and are hightailing it down the freeway with police in pursuit. Well, perhaps a bit like that.

I would (for what this is worth) concentrate on four strategies or goals (concurrent, not sequential):

1) revise policy in Iraq away from military notions and towards state department notions. There is a policing/nation building function which the US is now morally obligated to fulfill (but it is pragmatic too). Part of this would mean a deep rethink of the military goal to use that real estate as a military base.

2) cancel all funding to Israel unless and until it begins to behave like a civilized state, and not a racist barbarism on a quest for liebenstraum. Concurrent - pour in the support for moderate Palestinian leaders and civil structures such that the extremists are provided with less ammunition for their hatred, and with diminishing means to carry out anti-Israeli programs.

3) establish long range programs to assist Muslim states in establishing the educational and production tools to join the rest of the world in a reasonable level of prosperity.

4) continue all ongoing intelligence actions regarding the various terrorist networks presently active.

5) I'll add this fifth one...invest the best minds available, and build a cooperative United Nations structure that is both effective and powerful, and which heads in a direction of mutual interest and away from self-interest.

Ican, welcome to the apocalypse ...... the time is past.
When men ignore the lessons of history they set sail in uncharted waters and begin to write an unlearned history that cannot guide them. The retribution that is ours wiill never be known, by us. The very young, very old and the mothers will, as always stand in payment for the actions of the few that follow war.

This sums it up pretty well.
**********************
The Empty Room
April 9, 2004
By BOB HERBERT

Condi Rice was in Washington trying to pass her oral exam
before the 9/11 commission yesterday, and the president was
on vacation in Texas. As usual, they were in close
agreement, this time on the fact that neither they nor
anyone else in this remarkably aloof and arrogant
administration is responsible for the tragic mess unfolding
in Iraq, and its implications for the worldwide war on terror.

The president called Ms. Rice from his pickup truck on the
ranch to tell her she had done a great job before the panel.

It doesn't get more surreal than that.

Mr. President, there's a war on. You might consider hopping
a plane to Washington.

It's hard to imagine that the news out of Iraq could be
more dreadful. After the loss of at least 634 American
troops and the expenditure of countless billions of
dollars, we've succeeded in getting the various Iraqi
factions to hate us more than they hate each other. And
terrorists are leaping on the situation in Iraq like rats
feasting on a mound of exposed cheese.

The administration has no real plan on how to proceed. It
doesn't know how many troops are needed. It doesn't know,
in the long term, where they will come from. It doesn't
know whether it can meet the June 30 deadline for turning
over sovereignty to the Iraqis. (It doesn't know what
sovereignty in this context even means. June 30 was an
arbitrary date selected with this year's presidential
campaign in mind.) It doesn't have a cadre of Iraqi leaders
to accept the handoff of sovereignty. And so on.

When you open the door to get a look at the Bush policy on
Iraq, you find yourself staring into an empty room.

Meanwhile, people are dying.

When the president
challenged Iraqi militants last summer with the now-famous
taunt "bring 'em on," he betrayed a fundamental lack of
understanding of the horror of war in general, and the
incredible complexity of the situation in Iraq.

Instead of behaving as though he is responsible, as
commander in chief, for the life of every man and woman who
is sent into combat, Mr. Bush has behaved on more than one
occasion as though he's at the controls of a video game. He
does not appear to be taking this great tragedy nearly as
seriously as he should.

Perhaps if he went to a few fewer fund-raisers and a few
more funerals . . .

One of the things soldiers on the ground in Vietnam learned
is that while there were many South Vietnamese who were
genuinely fearful of the Communist North and were anxious
to embrace the values that the U.S. stood for, it was
difficult to get them to fight for their freedom with the
ferocity that the Americans expected. Among other things,
we underestimated the strength of the ethnic and cultural
bonds that the Vietnamese felt with one another, whatever
their political inclinations.

When the Americans - foreigners - with their superior
technology and firepower went to work tearing up the
landscape and mowing down the enemy (not to mention the
so-called collateral damage of innocent South Vietnamese
civilians), any chance of winning the hearts and minds of
the country at large was lost.

Now we are trying to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis
with an unprovoked war that began with a televised bombing
campaign advertised to the world as "shock and awe," and
that continues with the devastating firepower of Super
Cobra helicopters and laser-guided missiles.

Thousands of innocent Iraqis have died, including small
children, but we don't seem to give that much thought. And
we've insisted, despite profound cultural and religious
differences, that we are going to install an American-style
democracy, whether the various elements of the Iraqi people
want it or not. And we're going to do it fast.

Mr. Bush and his advisers need to regroup and rethink this
fiasco. If we were dealt this hand in a poker game, we'd
fold. But with 135,000 troops on the ground and no real
Iraqi government in sight, that's not an option.

It's heartbreaking to think that brave American troops have
once again been put into such an untenable situation. The
president, who led us into this wholly unnecessary war, has
an obligation to step up and level with the American
people, to take full responsibility for the current
disaster and to summon help from a genuine international
coalition, which is the only feasible route to a resolution
in Iraq.

E-mail: [email protected]


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/09/opinion/09HERB.html?ex=1082513165&ei=1&en=0da3b7c9dd626fc0

Bush/Cheney '04: Four More Wars
Bush/Cheney '04: Leave no billionaire behind
Bush/Cheney '04: Deja-voodoo all over again!
Bush/Cheney '04: Compassionate Colonialism
Bush/Cheney '04: Because the truth just isn't good enough.
Bush/Cheney '04: Making the world a better place, one country at a
time.
Bush/Cheney '04: Over a billion Whoppers served.
Bush/Cheney '04: Putting the "con" in conservatism
Bush/Cheney '04: Thanks for not paying attention.
Bush/Cheney '04: The last vote you'll ever have to cast.
Bush/Cheney: Asses of Evil
Don't think. Vote Bush!
George W. Bush: A brainwave away from the presidency
George W. Bush: The buck stops Over There
Bush/Cheney '04: This time, elect us!

Here's something we rarely, if ever, see in our media.
**************************************
This is an Update from Suzanne Taylor and the Making Sense of These Times website: http://www.theconversation.org. Thank you for your interest.
Destroying a Town in Order to Save It

Rahul Mahajan is a reliable source. This is what keeps me going o­n my crop circle mission. Just think about this:

I spoke to a young man, Ali, who was among the wounded we transported to Baghdad. He said he was not a muj but, when asked his opinion of them, he smiled and stuck his thumb up. Any young man who is not o­ne of the muj today may the next day wind his aqal around his face and pick up a Kalashnikov. After this, many will.
How can we hope to get out of the situation we are in by any ordinary means?
-----Original Message-----

From: Empire Notes
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2004 5:54 AM

Hello, all. Here's my latest report -- from Fallujah this time. I witnessed and can confirm several things that are o­nly being reported in the Arabic press. Please forward this to other people who may find it of interest.

In solidarity,
Rahul Mahajan

Report from Fallujah -- Destroying a Town in Order to Save It

Fallujah is a bit like southern California. o­n the edge of Iraq's western desert, it is extremely arid but has been rendered into an agricultural area by extensive irrigation. Surrounded by dirt-poor villages, Fallujah is perhaps marginally better off. Much of the population is farmers. The town itself has wide streets and squat, sand-colored buildings.

We were in Fallujah during the "ceasefire." This is what we saw and heard.

When the assault o­n Fallujah started, the power plant was bombed. Electricity is provided by generators and usually reserved for places with important functions. There are four hospitals currently running in Fallujah. This includes the o­ne where we were, which was actually just a minor emergency clinic; another o­ne of them is a car repair garage. Things were very frantic at the hospital where we were, so we couldn't get too much translation. We depended for much of our information o­n Makki al-Nazzal, a lifelong Fallujah resident who works for the humanitarian NGO Intersos, and had been pressed into service as the manager of the clinic, since all doctors were busy, working around the clock with minimal sleep.

A gentle, urbane man who spoke fluent English, Al-Nazzal was beside himself with fury at the Americans' actions (when I asked him if it was all right to use his full name, he said, "It's ok. It's all ok now. Let the bastards do what they want.") With the "ceasefire," large-scale bombing was rare. With a halt in major bombing, the Americans were attacking with heavy artillery but primarily with snipers.

Al-Nazzal told us about ambulances being hit by snipers, women and children being shot. Describing the horror that the siege of Fallujah had become, he said, "I have been a fool for 47 years. I used to believe in European and American civilization."

I had heard these claims at third-hand before coming into Fallujah, but was skeptical. It's very difficult to find the real story here. But this I saw for myself. An ambulance with two neat, precise bullet-holes in the windshield o­n the driver's side, pointing down at an angle that indicated they would have hit the driver's chest (the snipers were o­n rooftops, and are trained to aim for the chest). Another ambulance again with a single, neat bullet-hole in the windshield. There's no way this was due to panicked spraying of fire. These were deliberate shots designed to kill the drivers.

The ambulances go around with red, blue, or green lights flashing and sirens blaring; in the pitch-dark of blacked-out city streets there is no way they can be missed or mistaken for something else). An ambulance that some of our compatriots were going around in, trading o­n their whiteness to get the snipers to let them through to pick up the wounded was also shot at while we were there.

During the course of the roughly four hours we were at that small clinic, we saw perhaps a dozen wounded brought in. Among them was a young woman, 18 years old, shot in the head. She was seizing and foaming at the mouth when they brought her in; doctors did not expect her to survive the night. Another likely terminal case was a young boy with massive internal bleeding. I also saw a man with extensive burns o­n his upper body and shredded thighs, with wounds that could have been from a cluster bomb; there was no way to verify in the madhouse scene of wailing relatives, shouts of "Allahu Akbar" (God is great), and anger at the Americans.

Among the more laughable assertions of the Bush administration is that the mujaheddin are a small group of isolated "extremists" repudiated by the majority of Fallujah's population. Nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, the mujaheddin don't include women or very young children (we saw an 11-year-old boy with a Kalashnikov), old men, and are not necessarily even a majority of fighting-age men. But they are of the community and fully supported by it. Many of the wounded were brought in by the muj and they stood around openly conversing with doctors and others. They conferred together about logistical questions; not o­nce did I see the muj threatening people with their ubiquitous Kalashnikovs.

One of the mujaheddin was wearing an Iraqi police flak jacket; o­n questioning others who knew him, we learned that he was in fact a member of the Iraqi police.

One of our translators, Rana al-Aiouby told me, "these are simple people." Without wanting to go along with the patronizing air of the remark, there is a strong element of truth to it. These are agricultural tribesmen with very strong religious beliefs. They are insular and don't easily trust strangers. We were safe because of the friends we had with us and because we came to help them. They are not so far different from the Pashtun of Afghanistan -- good friends and terrible enemies.

The mujaheddin are of the people in the same way that the stone-throwing shabab in the first Palestinian intifada were and the term, which means "youth," is used for them as well. I spoke to a young man, Ali, who was among the wounded we transported to Baghdad. He said he was not a muj but, when asked his opinion of them, he smiled and stuck his thumb up. Any young man who is not o­ne of the muj today may the next day wind his aqal around his face and pick up a Kalashnikov. After this, many will.

Al-Nazzal told me that the people of Fallujah refused to resist the Americans just because Saddam told them to; indeed, the fighting for Fallujah last year was not particularly fierce. He said, "If Saddam said work, we would want to take off three days. But the Americans had to cast us as Saddam supporters. When he was captured, they said the resistance would die down, but even as it has increased, they still call us that."

Nothing could have been easier than gaining the good-will of the people of Fallujah had the Americans not been so brutal in their dealings. Tribal peoples like these have been the most easily duped by imperialists for centuries now. But now a tipping point has been reached. To Americans, "Fallujah" may still mean four mercenaries killed, with their corpses then mutilated and abused; to Iraqis, "Fallujah" means the savage collective punishment for that attack, in which over 600 Iraqis have been killed, with an estimated 200 women and over 100 children (women do not fight among the muj, so all of these are noncombatants, as are many of the men killed).

A Special Forces colonel in the Vietnam War said of the town, Ben Tre, "We had to destroy the town in order to save it," encapsulating the entire war in a single statement. The same is true in Iraq today -- Fallujah cannot be "saved" from its mujaheddin unless it is destroyed.

[Rahul Mahajan is publisher of the weblog Empire Notes. He was in Fallujah recently and is currently writing and blogging from Baghdad. His most recent book is "Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond." He can be reached at [email protected]]

WOW! I'll have to back up and read all of those fascinating posts. But first things first - have to get caffeinated. But I wanted to share something interesting I just ran across. It belongs on a different thread, as it has to do with Afghanistan and bin Laden. But I think you will find it very interesting. From the AP:




Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Oh my aching belly!!!!

I literally had to stop laughing and get up - it turned to coughing. I wonder if that is significant of anything?

Scrat, RE:

An excellent and simultaneously scary thought!
This fear is always gnawing at the back of my brain while composing my posts. It is so easy to succumb to this only too human trait. I, like everyone else participating in these forums, try to stay up on the subject matter at hand. Some of us are more successful than others in this endeavor but fortunately our degree of knowledge about the subject does not prohibit stating one's opinion.

But, there is value in this. If a poster states an opinion contrary to others, those disagreeing may then request an informed explanation as to how that poster came to his conclusions. This is old news to regular posters but instances such as CDK's (and other's) posts are what give this forum value. Just as birds that gather in flocks gain security by combing all their collective senses (many eyes to spot predators) so do we all gain from each other's separate efforts at knowledge collection. It is frustrating to be proven wrong but that in itself is a lesson that, hopefully, can be learned from. CI's admitting to being, if not wrong at least misinformed, is just such an occasion that makes me feel I am in good company here.

Respectfully,

JM

This from Bob Novak! Whoa ........

Generals weary of low troop levels

April 8, 2004

BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

The New York Times Book Review of last Sunday received unusual attention in the Pentagon's corridors this week. The review of In the Company of Soldiers by Washington Post war correspondent Rick Atkinson reveals the ridiculously low estimate made by the Pentagon's civilian leadership of troops needed in Iraq. Those words echoed eerily amid news of open fighting in Baghdad between U.S. troops and Shiite militia.

In the afterword following his brilliant account of the actual war, Atkinson wrote: ''Pentagon planners in early May had predicted that U.S. troop levels would be down to 30,000 by late summer [of 2003].'' That was the first time that prediction had been seen in print by startled readers at the Defense Department. The existing 125,000 troop level (currently at 135,000 because of replacements) is considered inadequate by the generals. Gen. John Abizaid, the regional commander-in-chief, has made clear he will ask for more troops if his subordinate commanders need them.

But Afghanistan also needs more troops. So where will they come from? Nobody knows, and that connotes an overcommitment by the United States and a miscalculation at the Defense Department. The uniformed military does not speak out publicly, but the generals are outraged. A former national security official considers the relationship at the Pentagon between civilians and the military as worse than at any time in his long career.

At the heart of this debate is the original belief by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's team that conquering U.S. troops would be welcomed by open arms in Iraq. In this highly political season, Democrats are replaying the debate of a year ago. Gen. Eric Shinseki, then about to leave as the Army's chief of staff, said ''several hundred thousand soldiers'' could be needed in Iraq. ''Way off the mark,'' retorted Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

Adhering to the principle of civilian control of the military and unvarying obedience to orders, the generals have not publicly expressed their opinion that Shinseki was much closer to the truth than Wolfowitz. However, Abizaid made clear Monday that he was not going to be the fall guy if conditions in Iraq further deteriorate. If commanders want more troops to fulfill their mission, he will ask for them. That would leave Rumsfeld with no choice. The secretary announced on Tuesday that the generals ''will get what they ask.''

The problem of where to find these troops is not easily solved. There are simply no large units available and suitable for assignment. The 3rd Infantry Division was sent home early, but is now in the midst of Rumsfeld's ''transformation'' (from three brigades to five) and so is not ready to be inserted into combat. National Guard brigades could be activated, but the need for full training before going to war means they cannot help resolve the present crisis.

Democrats have demanded the use of foreign troops, but countries that previously refused to help without a U.N. mandate have not changed their minds. Britain announced Tuesday it was replacing an armored brigade, keeping its contribution at the present level of 8,700 troops but not adding any. Spain's new leftist government wants out. That leaves only Turkey willing to help, but the United States has ruled that out in the face of fierce Kurdish opposition.

Although underestimating troop needs in a less political environment would mean fixing the blame at the Pentagon, every issue today becomes a test of party loyalty. Senators Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel, the top two Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, are assailed by the White House for offering constructive criticism. With Sen. Edward M. Kennedy setting the Democratic line by saying that ''Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam,'' sensible dialogue is impossible.

While Democrats roar, the generals are silent -- in public. Many confide that they will not cast their normal Republican votes on Nov. 2. They cannot bring themselves to vote for John Kerry, who has been a consistent Senate vote against the military. But they say they are unable to vote for Don Rumsfeld's boss, and so will not vote at all.

Not good .... not good at all

Sistani's Strong Response to U.S.
BAGHDAD, Iraq April 12 (MNA) -- Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani prominent Iraqi Shia cleric in a strong worded message to the U.S.-led coalition forces warned them against the consequences of attacking Shia cities after Arba'in (40th day of Ashura).

In the message, Ayatollah Sistani warned the U.S. that in case the occupying forces attack the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf the Shia cleric would use their last weapons at hand to defend the Shia's rights.



Political analysts believe that Sistani's message could possibly lead to a religious decree for the Shia to start a campaign against the U.S. in Iraq.



Meanwhile the Shia cleric particularly Ayatollah Sistani had forbidden Iraq's Shia majority from taking any military or physical action against the U.S. forces in Iraq.



The clerics emphasized the necessity for civil and political methods to accelerate the process of the establishment of a democratic government in Iraq while announcing displeasure over the occupying forces' presence in the country.



HL/IS
END
MNA

SOURCE

Iraqi Clerics Say Coalition 'Must Pay' for Crisis


BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- As Iraq's most powerful Shiite clerics warned the U.S.-led coalition that it "must pay" for the current crisis in the country, the head of U.S. Central Command asked the Pentagon for roughly 10,000 more soldiers.

In a statement issued Monday after a meeting with radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the clerics and members of the country's religious authority also cautioned the coalition against doing battle in the holy city of Najaf -- and warned against any attempt to kill al-Sadr.

"The current crisis in Iraq has risen to a level that is beyond any political groups, including the Governing Council, and it is now an issue that is between the religious authority and the coalition forces," the statement said. "Those who have brought on this crisis must pay for what they have done."

Participating in the meeting was the son of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the recognized leader of the country's majority Shiite Muslims; Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Ishaq al-Fayadh, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sayid al-Hakim, Grand Ayatollah Bashir Hussein al-Najafi, Mohammed Sayid Redha al-Sistani and Sayid Ali al-Sibzwari.

Al-Sistani is known to keep al-Sadr at arm's length, but the concerns voiced by the clerics Monday reflected a deeper desire to avoid the kind of conflict in Najaf that was recently seen in Fallujah, where several U.S. troops and many more Iraqis died in recent fighting.

Al-Sadr is currently holed up in a mosque in Najaf, where his militia, the Mehdi Army, patrolled the streets Monday after negotiating to allow local police back into three of their stations. A Sadr deputy said the militia would allow the police to return only if U.S. forces left the area.

The battle with al-Sadr's forces began earlier this month, after the coalition shut down his newspaper, Al Hawza, for allegedly inciting violence and then arresting an aide on charges of complicity in the slaying last year of another Shiite cleric.

An Iraqi judge has also issued a warrant for al-Sadr's arrest in connection with the killing.

A top aide of al-Sadr, Sheikh Hazem al-Araji, was detained and questioned by U.S. forces and then released Tuesday, according to a U.S. Army officer.

"After questioning, we determined that he is not part of the violence and appears to have been a force for promoting discussion," 1st Armored Division commander Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey said.

Al-Araji was on a list of al-Sadr associates wanted for questioning by the U.S. military. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said Monday the U.S. force mission is "to kill or capture Muqtada al-Sadr," the phrase coalition military leaders use to refer to their missions against other so-called "high level targets."

Najaf, Kufa and neighboring Karbala are the only cities remaining under the Mehdi Army's control since U.S. forces put down al-Sadr-inspired rebellions in other cities over the weekend. U.S. Helicopter Crash Reported

A U.S. helicopter was seen by an Associated Press reporter burning on the ground outside Fallujah on Tuesday, and witnesses said it was hit by a rocket from the ground. There was no immediate word on casualties.

The helicopter was in flames on the ground 12 miles east of Fallujah near the village of Zawbaa, according to AP.

Meanwhile, Gen. John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, said Monday he has asked the Pentagon for the equivalent of at least two combat brigades, roughly 10,000 troops, to handle the insurgents in Iraq. "What I've asked for is essentially to have a strong mobile combat arms capability," Abizaid said at a news conference in Baghdad. "That's probably about two brigades worth of combat power, if not more."

Pentagon sources said that for three months that need will be filled by elements of the 1st Armored Division that had been scheduled to return home.

A U.S. helicopter went down east of Fallujah, according to AP. At least two U.S. Marines were killed and eight others wounded Monday evening in an intense exchange with insurgents in Fallujah, according to pool reporters embedded with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

A building housing the Marines was first hit by mortar and/or rocket fire, and then by small arms fire in a firefight lasting about an hour .

Fallujah has been the scene of bitter fighting between U.S. forces and Iraqi militants, following the killings and mutilations of four American contractors in the city earlier this month.

The insurgent uprising from Najaf to Tikrit is making this month the deadliest one since the war in Iraq began in March 2003. With April not yet half over, at least 75 U.S. troops have been killed in hostile action; 26 of them died in fighting over the weekend.

For the insurgents, the toll is higher, according to the U.S. military. "The casualty figures that we have received from the enemy are somewhere about 10 times that amount," coalition military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Monday. "About civilian casualties, there is no authoritative figure out there."

I suppose we ought to note here that more US troops died last week (60) than in any other week since the war began, including the first week.

According to "Bush Logic," this means we are "winning."
Does any one else think this is stupid?

Perhaps he will stage a photo op, and landing on a funeral home dressed as an undertaker.