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 The Pentagon Early Bird 1 Dec 2008 C U R R E N T N E W S E A R L Y B I R DJanuary 2, 2008 placeRandomImg() Use of these news articles does not reflect official endorsement. Reproduction for private use or gain is subject to original copyright restrictions. Story numbers indicate order of appearance only. This is the single print version. Use the PRINT command in your browser to print the entire Early Bird as one document. (NOTE: This single file format is a long document and can use 50 or more pages of paper.) IRAQ
New York Times January 2, 2008 30 Dead In Baghdad’s Worst Attack In Months By Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Qais Mizher BAGHDAD — Thirty people were killed Tuesday when a suicide bomber strode into a gathering of mourners at a home in eastern Baghdad and detonated an explosives-packed vest, the Interior Ministry said. It was the most brazen and deadly attack in the capital in months. The force of the blast scattered severed arms and legs about the site of the attack, a house where scores of friends and relatives had gathered to pay tribute to a man killed three days earlier by a car bomb in Tayaran Square in central Baghdad. One survivor ran in the street outside screaming and crying that five of her sons had been killed. Then she collapsed, said a car salesman who works nearby. “There were many children killed,” said the salesman, who gave his name as Abu Firas. “You could see pieces of flesh everywhere.” The late-afternoon blast in the Zayuna neighborhood, days after American officials gave an upbeat briefing about how civilian casualties had declined significantly, was one in a string of attacks on Tuesday that included the killing of five family members in volatile Diyala Province. The violence underscored how dangerous Iraq remained despite a drop in killings to what Iraqi authorities had said was the lowest level in two years. All told, at least 40 people were killed across Iraq on Tuesday, just hours after revelers celebrated the new year in public places for the first time in years. The Zayuna blast was unusual not only for its heavy toll but also for its location: a neighborhood that has a large Iraqi military and police presence with many checkpoints and barriers intended to prevent attackers from entering to the area. An Iraqi military base is also near the site of the bombing, a mixed area of Shiites and Sunnis. An official from the Interior Ministry said at least 38 mourners were wounded in the attack, in addition to the 30 killed. A spokesman for the American military command in Baghdad, Lt. Patrick Evans of the Navy, said early reports provided to the military indicated that 25 people had been killed and 20 wounded. Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, a senior Iraqi security spokesman, told Reuters that he believed the attacker was a member of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia from Diyala who might have known the family of the man killed in Tayaran Square. “According to those who were present, no stranger had entered,” he said. “So either he was a relative or someone well known to the family.” The attack in Baghdad followed the gruesome abduction and killing of five relatives on Tuesday morning in Jalawla, a village northeast of Muqdadiya in Diyala Province. One of the five killed was a policeman, an Iraqi police official in Diyala said. An Iraqi Army official in Diyala also said nine Iraqi soldiers were wounded in explosions as soldiers rushed to reinforce a checkpoint in the province that was under insurgent attack. In the last year, Sunni militia groups have begun working with the American military to establish security and drive out Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown insurgent group that American intelligence says is led by foreigners. In the latest sign that the group is stepping up attacks against those Sunni militias, called Awakening Councils, the severed head of a member of one council was found north of Muqdadiya, the police said. Also, the police in Salahuddin Province said fighters from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia kidnapped a farmer and killed his son in Dhuluiya, and stole 200 of the farmer’s sheep. Sheik Ahmad Hameed, a leader of the Awakening Council in Dhuluiya, said many insurgents had migrated to Dhuluiya and Samarra from nearby Diyala and had been attacking anyone they believed to be connected with the anti-extremist Sunni groups. “Qaeda fighters have been attacking Awakening members in revenge, but the people insist on defeating Al Qaeda,” he said. But dozens of families have also fled the area recently because of the growing threat from the insurgents, he added. Gunmen killed three people in a village 40 miles south of Kirkuk, a police official there said. The American military reported that a United States soldier died from a “noncombat-related injury" on Dec. 31 near Qayyarah Airfield West, south of Mosul. The Ministry of Interior reported that 246 civilians were killed in Baghdad last month, according to data provided by an official at the ministry on Tuesday. That compared with 275 killed in Baghdad in November, and 1,093 in May. Across the country, 462 civilians were killed in December, according to icasualties.org, which tracks fatalities, down from 471 in November and 1,629 in December 2006. Though far fewer civilian deaths have been reported in the last five months than the same period in 2006, recent civilian casualty trends track closely with late 2005, before the bombing of a Shiite shrine enveloped the country in a brutal sectarian war. Abeer Mohammed, Mudhafer al-Husaini and Anwar J. Ali contributed reporting. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080102570713.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3726546_AEL PjkQAAMbgR3xC1ggFBC0P7yg&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080102aaindex_concat.html&cred=NnmGKnvQBh2pb83v RonGfKppLuLPvuZYRGapAoTjKkFsx5.kZ6XufQUC18rZxxBj#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Post January 2, 2008 Pg. 7 Suicide Blast At Baghdad Funeral Of Bomb Victim Kills Dozens By Joshua Partlow and Zaid Sabah, Washington Post Foreign Service BAGHDAD, Jan. 1 -- By the time he reached the front gate of his neighbor's house, just minutes after the blast, Adil Ahmed saw flames leaping off the funeral tent. The guests' cars parked outside were blasted and burned. Some of the mourners were screaming with grief and rage, and many others were scattered on the ground, dead or dying. The chemistry professor recalled bending down to one man who had saliva running down his chin. He pumped his chest and breathed into his mouth, again and again, in a vain attempt to save him. He ran to other, less seriously injured men, and helped drag or carry them to cars waiting to rush them to the hospital. He noticed that some of the dead were still sitting upright in the burning tent on their plastic chairs. After an hour of this, his clothes were messy with blood. "I failed," Ahmed said. "I couldn't help them." The suicide bombing in Baghdad's Zayouna neighborhood Tuesday was one of the deadliest blasts in the capital in months. It occurred as many Baghdad residents are saying they feel more secure and express hope that the worst is behind them, even as they acknowledge that random attacks will continue. The explosion killed at least 25 people and wounded 20 others, according to the U.S. military. Iraqi police and ambulance officials told news services that the death toll was at least 32. The year closed with levels of overall violence far lower than when it opened, although the number of suicide bombings has been rising in the past two months. The target Tuesday was a crowd that had gathered to mourn Nabil al-Azzawi, a victim of a car bombing four days before. A teacher, he was one of at least seven people killed Friday at the crowded intersection at Tayaran Square, according to neighbors and an Iraqi official. The Azzawis are a Sunni Muslim family, neighbors said, with relatives in Diyala province, where some of Iraq's worst violence has occurred. On Tuesday, the family was hosting the third and final day of the funeral service in a tent in the garden, located at the house of the brother of the deceased man in a Zayouna enclave known as Officer's City, a relatively peaceful part of eastern Baghdad. An Iraqi army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Qasim Ata' Zahil, blamed the attack on the Diyala network of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. Authorities here nearly always blame suicide bombings on the al-Qaeda in Iraq group, because the tactic is not generally used by other militant groups. Zahil said the funeral took place at the home of Muataz al-Azzawi, a former brigadier general in the Iraqi police who subsequently worked at the police sports club. The bomber was a man known by the relatives of the deceased, Zahil said. "When the suicide bomber got inside the funeral, he shook hands with everybody," he said. "When he arrived at Muataz, he blew himself up." As often happens, other witnesses gave varying accounts. A cook at the funeral said he believed that there were two bombs and that the explosives had been smuggled into the funeral under the long robes of two strangers whom he greeted as they came in, according to a senior Iraqi Interior Ministry official who had spoken to the cook. Whatever the details, neighbors who rushed to the house found a scene of shocking carnage. The windows of the house were shattered, and smoke billowed from the burning tent. "I saw a lot of bodies," said Raad al-Jumaidi, who lives nearby. "Some of them were injured and still alive, hardly breathing. We were taking the injured out. We pulled out a body without a head. I know him. He lives on the next street over." "We thought Zayouna and Baghdad had become safer, but it will never be," said Samar Muhammad, 33, a neighborhood resident. Such attacks had become noticeably rarer in Baghdad starting this past summer, before violence rose again as the year neared an end. Tuesday's attack was the deadliest since 15 people died in an animal market Nov. 23. The general fall-off in violence has coincided with the deployment of 30,000 additional U.S. soldiers in Iraq. This December, about 600 Iraqi civilians were killed, down from 3,000 in December 2006, according to U.S. military figures. The number of American soldiers killed has also fallen sharply during the past six months. In December, 23 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq, according to http:icasualties.org, a site that tracks military fatalities. That is the second-lowest monthly total in nearly five years of war. Also Tuesday, the U.S. military said that an Apache helicopter firing Hellfire missiles and guns killed nine suspected insurgents during an operation Monday targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters in Arab Jabour, southeast of Baghdad. This area became a focus last year in the U.S. offensive known as the surge because it had no Iraqi security forces and was therefore frequently used by insurgents to plan and execute attacks. Special correspondent Naseer Nouri in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080102570751.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3726546_AEL PjkQAAMbgR3xC1ggFBC0P7yg&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080102aaindex_concat.html&cred=NnmGKnvQBh2pb83v RonGfKppLuLPvuZYRGapAoTjKkFsx5.kZ6XufQUC18rZxxBj#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Post January 2, 2008 Pg. 8 After Tests, Iraqi Premier Says He Is In 'Good Health' Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who flew to London during the weekend for medical tests, said his health was fine. "I want to take this opportunity to express my thanks . . . to sons of the nation who have asked about my health. . . . I am in good health, thank God," Maliki said in comments from London broadcast on al-Iraqiya state television. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080102570765.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3726546_AEL PjkQAAMbgR3xC1ggFBC0P7yg&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080102aaindex_concat.html&cred=NnmGKnvQBh2pb83v RonGfKppLuLPvuZYRGapAoTjKkFsx5.kZ6XufQUC18rZxxBj#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Times January 2, 2008 Pg. 8 Citizen Forces Seen Key To Driving Out Violence Deadly attack on mourners points to risk By Richard Tomkins, Washington Times BAGHDAD — Ordinary Iraqis helping take responsibility for neighborhood security and earning money while doing so are contributing to hopes for a continued downturn in violence in Baghdad in the new year. Nevertheless, the year got off to a bloody start yesterday, when a suicide attacker killed at least 32 men gathered in eastern Baghdad to mourn the death of a retired Iraqi army officer, a Shi'ite who was slain last week in a car bombing blamed on al Qaeda in Iraq. The attack was a reminder of the dangers that persist despite the recent decline of violence in Baghdad and of the peril for any mass gathering in a country where the bereaved often find themselves targets. Still, the rapid growth of Sunni Muslim forces opposed to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden marked a dramatic turnaround from the abysmal first four years after the U.S. invasion. In the volatile Adhamiya District of eastern Baghdad, for example, Iraqi Security Volunteers, or ISVs, last month found a large cache of explosives as well as several car bombs and reported them to U.S. and Iraqi army forces. It was the fifth such find for them in just a few weeks. West of Baghdad, another group of volunteers discovered a large cache of artillery shells through a tip from a local resident. In the East Rashid area of southeast Baghdad, Sunni volunteers establishing a neighborhood headquarters in a rented house last week found two artillery shells that could have been used to blow up U.S. and Iraqi security forces. "The ISVs are doing a good and important job," said U.S. Army Capt. Alfred Boone, who is in charge of the ISV project in East Rashid. "This is a temporary security solution that could lead to these groups going into the Iraqi army or the national police," Capt. Boone said. The ISVs fall under the general, overall nomenclature of Concerned Local Citizens, a force distrusted in its present state by the Shi'ite-dominated government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which fears the predominately Sunni volunteers could become a military force outside the control of the government. The Sunni opposition to al Qaeda began with the so-called "Awakening" movement by Sunni tribal leaders cooperating with U.S. forces in Anbar province west of Baghdad. President Bush and Gen. David H. Petraeus, architect of the counterinsurgency strategy now being followed in Iraq, credit the movement with being a major factor in the drop in violence nationwide and in pushing al Qaeda out of its strongholds. A cornerstone of the strategy, which includes the surge of U.S. forces into Baghdad, is securing neighborhoods from a return of terrorists once the terrorists are driven out. That means boots on the ground in the communities, or in this case, shoes and sandals. "The fact is concerned local citizens are helping provide security," Air Force Col. Donald Bacon, chief of strategy and plans and strategic communications for U.S.-led forces, told reporters recently. "Without it, [al Qaeda in Iraq] would move back into these areas if we didn't have our forces there," Col. Bacon said. In East Rashid, part of the larger Dora District of Baghdad, more than 200 men turned up recently at St. Peter's Chaldean Catholic Seminary on the first day of recruiting for just 135 ISV slots. One by one, they were called forward, presented with identity documents and questioned by Iraqi interpreters who registered their information. They were then fingerprinted by a team of Americans, who also photographed them and took biometric information, such as retina scans, for entry into a new database and for cross-referencing. "I don't have a job," said Hazem Abdullah Ali, a middle-aged recruit. "I need the job. And I want to help bring peace." Volunteers for the U.S.-Iraqi funded program are paid $10 a day and use their own weapons. Under Iraqi law, each household is allowed to possess one AK-47 rifle. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080102570814.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3726546_AEL PjkQAAMbgR3xC1ggFBC0P7yg&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080102aaindex_concat.html&cred=NnmGKnvQBh2pb83v RonGfKppLuLPvuZYRGapAoTjKkFsx5.kZ6XufQUC18rZxxBj#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Philadelphia Inquirer January 2, 2008 Unmanned Planes A Key Tool In Iraq By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press WASHINGTON - The military's reliance on unmanned aircraft that can watch, hunt and sometimes kill insurgents has risen to more than 500,000 hours in the air, largely in Iraq, the Associated Press has learned. New Defense Department figures obtained by the AP show that the Air Force more than doubled its monthly use of drones from January to October, forcing it to take pilots out of the air and shift them to remote-flying duty to meet part of the demand. The dramatic increase in the development and use of drones across the armed services reflects what will be an even more aggressive effort over the next 25 years, according to a new report. The jump in Iraq coincided with the buildup of U.S. forces last summer as the military swelled its ranks to quell the violence in Baghdad. But Pentagon officials said that even as troops begin to slowly come home, the use of Predators, Global Hawks, Shadows and Ravens is not likely to slow. "I think right now the demand for the capability that the unmanned system provides is only increasing," said Col. Bob Quackenbush, deputy director for Army Aviation. "Even as the surge ends, I suspect the deployment of the unmanned systems will not go down, particularly for larger systems." For some Air Force pilots, that means climbing out of the cockpit and heading to places such as Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, where they can remotely fly the Predators, one of the larger and more sophisticated unmanned aircraft. About 120 pilots recently were transferred to staff the drones to keep pace with demands, the Air Force said. Some National Guard members also were called up to staff the flights. And more will do so in the coming months, as the Air Force adds bases where pilots can remotely fly the aircraft. Locations include North Dakota, Texas, Arizona and California. Some already are operating. One key reason for the increase is that U.S. forces in Iraq grew from 15 combat brigades to 20 last spring and summer, boosting troop totals from roughly 135,000 to more than 165,000. Slowly over the next six months, five brigades are being pulled out of Iraq as part of a planned drawdown that began in December. The increased military operations all across Iraq last summer triggered greater use of the drones and an escalating call for more of the systems - from the Pentagon's key hunter-killer, the Predator, to the surveillance Global Hawks and the smaller, cheaper Ravens. In a recent example of what the aircraft can do, a Predator caught sight in November of three insurgents firing mortars at U.S. forces in Balad, Iraq. The drone fired an air-to-ground missile, killing the three, according to video footage the Air Force released. Air Force officials said Predator flights steadily increased last year, from about 2,000 hours in January to more than 4,300 in October. They are expected to continue to escalate when hours are calculated for November and December, because the number of combat air patrols increased from about 14 per day to 18. "The demand far exceeds all of the Defense Department's ability to provide [these] assets," said Lt. Col. Larry Gurgainous, deputy director of the Air Force's unmanned-aircraft task force. "And as we buy and field more systems, you will see it continue to go up." Use of the high-tech surveillance and reconnaissance Global Hawk also has jumped. "I think it has to do with the type of warfare we're engaged in - it's heavy into intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance," Gurgainous said. "This war requires a lot of hunting high-value targets." http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080102570813.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3726546_AEL PjkQAAMbgR3xC1ggFBC0P7yg&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080102aaindex_concat.html&cred=NnmGKnvQBh2pb83v RonGfKppLuLPvuZYRGapAoTjKkFsx5.kZ6XufQUC18rZxxBj#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Miami Herald January 2, 2008 Refugees Hesitate To Return Home Iraqi officials are working to get many who fled the bombs and ambushes in 2006 and 2007 to return to their Baghdad neighborhoods, whether services and security are ready or not. By Jamie Gumbrecht, McClatchy News Service BAGHDAD -- Dr. Ahmed Farid heard it from his family and saw it with his own eyes: his old neighborhood in Baghdad is safer, maybe secure enough to move back from the city of Basra. Since his family left the capital city in fall 2006, one of the most brutal periods since the war began, he has worked two medical jobs to cover rent and food. His children study in crumbling school buildings with 55 students to one teacher. Basra is close to his wife's family, but violence is boiling and Shiite Muslim power struggles continue. Still, he won't return to Jihad, his Baghdad neighborhood, just yet. It's the place where he was a target for kidnappers, his daughter woke daily from panicked nightmares, and he's not sure he can find a job. ''I think of going back,'' he said after visiting his old neighborhood during Eid ald Adha celebrations last month. ``But I can't guarantee I will find the comfort, security and accommodations I have here.'' Farid, like millions of other Iraqis who fled the bombs and ambushes in 2006 and 2007, is choosing between the rising costs of displacement and the painful memories of home. For 2008, those choices will become even more difficult as Iraqi officials work to woo them back to their neighborhoods, whether services and security are ready or not. An estimated two million Iraqis are living in neighboring countries; an additional 2.4 million have fled their homes but remain scattered around Iraq. Former residents of Baghdad make up nearly 60 percent, according to estimates. Drop in violence As violence dropped in the final months of 2007, thousands of people who had fled their homes returned, especially in Baghdad. Statistics about how many have come home vary, but Iraq's Ministry of Displacement and Migration estimated in early December that 30,000 had returned from other countries, along with 10,000 who had gone home from other parts of Iraq. That success also will be 2008's challenge, as uneasy peace and overtaxed services and utilities leave the country unprepared for mass returns. Abdul Samad Rahman Sultan, Iraq's migration minister, said the government would need help from other countries and aid organizations to make it possible for people to return. He said the government hoped to resettle people in the neighborhoods they had left. ''The focus will be on returning them to their original living places, or perhaps to other residences inside their old neighborhoods,'' he said. Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said that goal would be difficult to meet, and he predicted violence as homeowners and squatters battle over property. Petraeus warned that some people will have to resign themselves to never being able to reclaim their homes. ''That is not ideal, not right, not legal, not a lot of things, but it is reality,'' he said last week. ``This is just going to remain a very, very tough issue for some time.'' Coalition forces will offer some aid, but Petraeus said he didn't have ground forces capable of organizing returns, settling property debates and maintaining safety. Those solutions will have to come from Iraqis, he said. Dana Graber Ladek, a displacement specialist in Iraq for the International Organization for Migration, said fewer people had left their homes in 2007 compared with 2006 as security improved and neighborhoods that used to have both Sunni and Shiite Muslim residents became more homogenous. Fewer options Iraqis also had fewer options to leave because of restrictions from nearby countries that couldn't handle droves of jobless refugees. Ladek said that for those who didn't come home this year conditions would worsen as costs rose and savings dwindled. Middle-class Iraqis -- ''teachers, doctors, nurses and shopkeepers'' -- who ran out of money are the biggest group of returnees, Staffan de Mistura, a United Nations envoy in Iraq, said in December, when he warned against a mass return. The moves already have started in some neighborhoods, such as Khadhraa, a wealthy Sunni-majority district in western Baghdad. Iraqi national police Lt. Col. Raad Ismaeel said his unit had guided the return of about 150 families, including many Shiites. The only return-related violence so far involved a displaced Shiite family that wasn't originally from the neighborhood. ''Those who are returning are opening their arms to their neighbors. They were living in misery when they were displaced,'' Ismaeel said. ``Imagine someone who owns a house in a high-class neighborhood paying rent and being displaced again and again. They were desperate to come back.'' For all the improvements in Khadhraa -- a 225-member citizen militia, a dozen checkpoints, newly paved roads, functioning telephone service -- not everybody is convinced, Ismaeel said. So many people lost family members, property and jobs that they won't come back unless the government helps them start over and offers consistent water, electricity, food and -- most important -- security. ''I hope refugees will talk to people living here, be convinced to come back, even if there's no room and people have to stand on the bus,'' Ismaeel said. ``No matter what, they will not want to leave again.'' Gumbrecht reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. McClatchy special correspondents Mohammed al Dulaimy and Hussein Khadim contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080102570689.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3726546_AEL PjkQAAMbgR3xC1ggFBC0P7yg&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080102aaindex_concat.html&cred=NnmGKnvQBh2pb83v RonGfKppLuLPvuZYRGapAoTjKkFsx5.kZ6XufQUC18rZxxBj#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Christian Science Monitor January 2, 2008 Does A Safer Iraq Mean More US Troops Can Exit? Service member fatalities fell to 21 in December, compared with 126 in May. By Gordon Lubold, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor WASHINGTON -- Security in Iraq has improved dramatically in the past four months, including much lower casualty rates among American service members. But there is little consensus yet if a safer Iraq can translate to an Iraq with fewer US troops. The conversation about Iraq has changed from a year ago, just before President Bush announced a "surge" of what would become 30,000 additional troops. At the time, many experts doubted Mr. Bush's new policy, but some of that skepticism has faded, at least for now, as tangible benefits have emerged. Chief among them is a significant drop in the number of Americans killed in Iraq each month. During December, 21 US service members died in Iraq, and of those, at least 13 were considered killed-in-action (KIA), as of Dec. 31. That is far below the rates earlier this year, when a total of 126 were killed in May, just as the surge was starting. Even in October, when US officials were comparing how much less violence there was compared with the summer high, the amount of KIAs was double what they were in December. Although 2007 saw the highest total of US casualties for any year of the war, the precipitous drop has stunned many analysts and even military commanders who weren't sure the surge would have much effect. Overall, violence in Iraq is down dramatically from earlier this year, according to Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq. The number of attacks per week is down about 60 percent from a high in June – a level that is roughly equivalent to that of the summer of 2005. Iraqi civilian deaths are also down in December by 75 percent from the high a year ago, he wrote in an open letter to troops last week. "With fewer attacks, we are also seeing significantly reduced loss of life," he wrote. But General Petraeus, who wrote the "how to" manual on counterinsurgency for the US Army, has long said that counterinsurgencies can take a decade or more to fight. At the same time, better security in Iraq brings an expectation by many Americans that more US troops can return home. Petraeus has already signaled his desire to send home as many as five brigades, or about 18,000 troops, by next summer. But many expect he will resist efforts, perhaps led by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, to bring twice that number of troops home by the end of 2008. Instead, Petraeus would like to use the improved security to focus efforts on helping the Iraqi government to rebuild and strengthening Iraqi security forces. "We remain mindful that the past year's progress has been purchased through the sacrifice and selfless service of all those involved and that the new Iraq must still contend with innumerable enemies and obstacles," Petraeus wrote in the letter. Analysts worry that improved Iraqi security will cause the American public to think it's time to bring the bulk of forces home. Mr. Gates has already suggested that, if conditions on the ground dictate it, he would like to see an additional five brigades returned home by the end of 2008. But bringing home five combat brigades from Iraq could spread US forces too thin by next fall, says Frederick Kagan, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. Mr. Kagan is not even sure reducing any amount of the surge forces to alleviate strain is a good idea just yet. "We all recognize the strain on soldiers and we're willing to accept some risk to do that, but when you get to 15 [brigades] and below, you get close to the red line where risk becomes gamble," says Kagan, who co-wrote a report on Iraq last year from which the Bush administration drew heavily before announcing its surge strategy. Even as the surge strategy can be credited, in part, with better security on the ground, Iraq's central government in Baghdad must overcome key political hurdles before it can govern effectively, say analysts. "Iraq's political environment and its economy are only marginally better than a year ago," wrote two analysts, Michael O'Hanlon and Jason Campbell, at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. The overall effectiveness of Iraqi security forces must also be weighed before US forces can be reduced in any great numbers. While Iraqi forces are growing, they still confront major challenges refining their logistical capabilities. That's all the more reason US troop withdrawals should be handled carefully, agreed O'Hanlon and Campbell. "Given Iraq's fragile sectarian relations and weak institutions, the likelihood is that further American troop reductions will have to be slow and careful if the progress is to continue," they wrote. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080102570766.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3726546_AEL PjkQAAMbgR3xC1ggFBC0P7yg&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080102aaindex_concat.html&cred=NnmGKnvQBh2pb83v RonGfKppLuLPvuZYRGapAoTjKkFsx5.kZ6XufQUC18rZxxBj#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Times January 2, 2008 Pg. 8 Press, Political Pressure Helped 'Lose' Fallujah, Report Says By Shaun Waterman, United Press International A secret intelligence assessment of the first battle of Fallujah shows that the U.S. military thinks that it lost control over information about what was happening in the town, leading to "political pressure" that ended its April 2004 offensive with control being handed to Sunni insurgents. "The outcome of a purely military contest in Fallujah was always a foregone conclusion — coalition victory," read the assessment, prepared by analysts at the U.S. Army's National Ground Intelligence Center, or NGIC. "But Fallujah was not simply a military action, it was a political and informational battle. ... The effects of media coverage, enemy information operations and the fragility of the political environment conspired to force a halt to U.S. military operations," concluded the assessment. It added that the decision to order an immediate assault on Fallujah, in response to the televised killing of four contractors from the private military firm Blackwater, effectively prevented the Marine Expeditionary Force charged with retaking the town from carrying out "shaping operations," such as clearing civilians from the area, which would have improved their chances of success. A copy was posted on the Web last week by the organization Wikileaks, which aims to provide a secure way for whistleblowers to "reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations," and says it favors government transparency. Although a spokesman for U.S. Army intelligence declined to comment on the document, United Press International independently confirmed its veracity. The authors said the press was "crucial to building political pressure to halt military operations," from the Iraqi government and the Coalition Provisional Authority, which resulted in a "unilateral cease-fire" by U.S. forces on April 9, after just five days of combat operations. During the negotiations that followed, top Bush administration officials demanded a solution that would not require the Marines to retake the town, according to the assessment. Crucial to the failure, the authors said, was the role of the Arabic satellite news channels Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. An Al Jazeera crew was in Fallujah during the first week of April 2004, when the Marines began their assault on the city of 285,000 people. "They filmed scenes of dead babies from the hospital, presumably killed by coalition air strikes," the assessment said. "Comparisons were made to the Palestinian intifada. Children were shown bespattered with blood; mothers were shown screaming and mourning day after day." By contrast, the assessment stated that later in 2004, when U.S.-led forces successfully retook Fallujah, they brought with them 91 embedded reporters representing 60 press outlets, including Arabic ones. "False allegations of non-combatant casualties were made by Arab media in both campaigns, but in the second case embedded Western reporters offered a rebuttal," the authors said. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080102570701.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3726546_AEL PjkQAAMbgR3xC1ggFBC0P7yg&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080102aaindex_concat.html&cred=NnmGKnvQBh2pb83v RonGfKppLuLPvuZYRGapAoTjKkFsx5.kZ6XufQUC18rZxxBj#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Los Angeles Times January 1, 2008 Pg. 1 Iraq Deaths Surged And Also Fell In 2007 For civilians and U.S. troops, the year was the deadliest of the war. But the figures last month continued a steep decline. By Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer BAGHDAD — December emerged as possibly the safest month for U.S. forces in Iraq since the 2003 invasion and the least deadly for Iraqi civilians in the last 12 months, but overall 2007 was the bloodiest year of the war, according to figures released Monday. The Iraqi Ministry of Health said 481 civilians died nationwide last month in war-related violence such as bombings, mortar attacks and sectarian slayings. It said 16,232 civilians died last year. The 2006 death toll was 12,320. "I remember 2007 was the explosions year," said Abd Hadi Hussein, a Shiite Muslim resident of Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood. He recalled carrying a woman who had been injured in a bombing to a hospital in August. "She was completely burned, and people could not recognize whether she was a man or a woman. She kept asking about her little girl. But then the woman died. This memory I can't remove from my mind. "But this year, 2008, I am very optimistic," he said, citing the recent celebrations for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha and the crowded Christmas Masses held in Baghdad. On the military front, 21 U.S. personnel died in Iraq during December, according to Department of Defense figures released by the independent website icasualties.org, making the average daily death tally last month the lowest since the start of the war. It was possible the military could report additional deaths for the month in coming days, but the casualty number was striking when compared with the December 2006 total of 112. During 2007, at least 899 American troops deployed to the Iraq theater died, according to the website, the highest annual toll since the American-led invasion in March 2003. After considerably higher monthly death tolls earlier in 2007, the number of fatalities among Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops has been decreasing since the American military completed a troop buildup in June. But few were celebrating the recent downturn in violence as proof of irreversible progress. If anything, U.S. military and political officials are warning that recent months' security gains have opened the door to new challenges, some of which could spawn fresh violence as Iraqis jostle to reclaim their lives. These issues include satisfying about 70,000 young men, most of them members of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, who have volunteered as security forces and who expect employment from the Shiite-dominated government. Iraqi officials also must find a way to accommodate refugees who return to the country and need housing, essential services and jobs. In addition, there remains the problem of the Iraqi government's failure to pass major legislation considered essential to fostering trust between religious and ethnic groups. This includes bills to manage Iraq's oil wealth, expand job opportunities for former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and decide the powers of provincial governments. "We have a window. I don't know how long that window is," said the U.S. military's No. 2 commander in Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, during a recent meeting with foreign journalists. Odierno described "signs of a return to normalcy" that he had seen recently in Baghdad: trucks delivering big-ticket retail items such as heaters and washing machines to shops, children playing soccer on public fields. "The key piece now is, can we sustain this and can it be sustained so the government can move forward?" he said. Nobody seems certain, least of all Iraqis, who have endured a year that began with the monthly civilian death count topping 2,000 nationwide last January. They remain edgy -- for good reason, as underscored by fresh violence Monday. A suicide bomber drove into a checkpoint of the security volunteers, called concerned local citizens by the U.S. military, about 20 miles north of Baghdad. Police said 12 people were killed: five children attending a school near the checkpoint and seven security volunteers. The U.S. military said two people died. There was no explanation for the different casualty counts. In Iskandariya, 25 miles south of Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed two civilians when he attacked a volunteer checkpoint, police said. An Iraqi army official also said U.S. and Iraqi forces fought insurgents linked to the group Al Qaeda in Iraq northeast of Baghdad, in Diyala province, in battles Monday that killed four Iraqi soldiers. But the violence, though it persisted, was far less than at this time last year. "We're afraid of only one thing: that it won't stay this way," said Haki Ismael Ibrahim, a Sunni taxi driver who a few months ago would not venture into many Shiite areas of Baghdad. Now, he goes throughout the city. Ibrahim attributed the improved security to better patrols by U.S. and Iraqi security forces, diminished activities of Shiite militias, and the emergence of the volunteer groups. But like U.S. officials, Ibrahim said the Iraqi government needed to move quickly to give the volunteers what they want: jobs in the Iraqi security forces or other government institutions. Hussein, the Shiite from Sadr City, expressed concern about the volunteer groups, but for a different reason: because they are Sunnis and, in many cases, former insurgents. His viewpoint underscored the distrust lingering across much of Iraqi society. "They are very dangerous and sectarian," Hussein said. "Before, they were hiding. Now they are killing people." It's a worry that some American soldiers share. "I'm concerned," said 1st Sgt. Richard Meiers of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, speaking from a base in Iskandariya. "We're paying them not to blow us up. It looks good right now, but what happens when the money stops?" Iraq's government initially resisted embracing the volunteers, fearing the onetime insurgents might return to violence after the eventual departure of the U.S. forces that keep them in check and pay them a daily $10 stipend. U.S. officials say Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has committed $155 million to job-creation programs for the concerned local citizens groups, matching a U.S. financial commitment, but there is no deadline for them to be given permanent employment. "That transition needs to take place in the course of 2008," U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said last week in a meeting with reporters. Crocker and Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, cited the return of refugees and national reconciliation as two other major issues looming in the new year. While saying it was good to see Iraqis coming back into the country, Crocker and Petraeus said the Iraqi government needed to establish a system for settling disputes that arise when returnees find squatters or illegal renters in their homes. "I think this is just going to remain a very, very tough issue for some time," Petraeus said. "It's one that Iraqis, as the security situation continues to improve, are going to have to come to grips with more and more." Times staff writers Kimi Yoshino in Iskandariya and Saif Rasheed in Baghdad and special correspondents in Hillah, Baghdad and Baqubah contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080102570740.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3726546_AEL PjkQAAMbgR3xC1ggFBC0P7yg&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080102aaindex_concat.html&cred=NnmGKnvQBh2pb83v RonGfKppLuLPvuZYRGapAoTjKkFsx5.kZ6XufQUC18rZxxBj#T OP">RETURN TO TOP New York Times January 2, 2008 U.S. Isn’t Ready To Accept Pakistan’s Initial Findings By Eric Schmitt WASHINGTON — United States intelligence analysts are not convinced by the evidence offered so far by Pakistani authorities that a militant linked to Al Qaeda was responsible for Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, American officials said Tuesday. Pakistani authorities, working from a single intelligence intercept collected the day after Ms. Bhutto’s death, have identified a militant leader, Baitullah Mehsud, as the chief suspect behind the attack. “As far as I know, the Pakistanis are saying this is it, this is the proof,” said a senior State Department official, who, like other officials contacted for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation. “Before our guys say yes or no, they need a hell of a lot more than one thing, even if it is a substantial piece of evidence.” As American officials disclosed Tuesday that the Bush administration had differed with Ms. Bhutto’s representatives over how best to improve security for her, questions surrounding her assassination mounted, adding to the pressure for outside involvement in the inquiry. A Pentagon official said that American analysts were examining several other potential enemies of Ms. Bhutto, including elements of Pakistani Taliban groups and other Islamic extremists. “There are so many people who’d want to kill her, it’s difficult to ascribe any one agency,” the official said. American officials said that the United States did not have access to all the information available to Pakistani authorities, and that in the end, Mr. Mehsud might well be held responsible for the attack on Ms. Bhutto. Based in the South Waziristan tribal areas near the Afghan border, Mr. Mehsud has been accused by Pakistani officials of being behind most of the suicide attacks on government, military and intelligence targets in recent months. With skepticism growing inside and outside Pakistan about the competence and objectivity of the investigation into Ms. Bhutto’s assassination, President Pervez Musharraf is expected as early as Wednesday to ask Scotland Yard to send technicians to help with the inquiry, an American official said. Senior Bush administration officials and American lawmakers from both parties have privately been urging Mr. Musharraf to allow international involvement in the inquiry to give it credibility with Ms. Bhutto’s family and supporters, and to help tamp down civil unrest. While a team of forensic experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been standing by to fly to Pakistan, an American official said Tuesday that sending British specialists from Scotland Yard would be less likely to inflame tensions in Pakistan. Outside experts joining the inquiry are unlikely to assuage Ms. Bhutto’s most fervent supporters, including her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, and her 19-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who has been chosen as chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party. The elder Mr. Zardari has called for an inquiry modeled on one by the United Nations after the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri, a former Lebanese premier. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Mahmud Ali Durrani, seemed to rule out that possibility, saying in a telephone interview on Monday that such an international investigation posed “a lot of complications.” The elder Mr. Zardari has also complained that the Bush administration failed to press Mr. Musharraf’s government hard enough to provide adequate security for his wife during her campaign. On Tuesday, however, American officials fired back, saying they had provided a constant flow of threat reports to Ms. Bhutto and her political advisers, even before she returned to Pakistan on Oct. 18 after a self-imposed exile. American intelligence officials said they never received a credible threat of an attack with a specific date, time or place. Short of that, they said, Ms. Bhutto, a strongly opinionated, two-time prime minister, decided she would mount an aggressive political campaign. “U.S. officials repeatedly met with and spoke with former Prime Minister Bhutto and members of her party — including Zardari — to discuss her security concerns,” the State Department official said. “It was general advice, not what route to take or which rally to attend.” The official said that each time Ms. Bhutto or her advisers requested the administration’s help in getting increased security for her from the Musharraf government, administration or embassy officials pressed her case with Pakistani authorities. On the day she was killed, Ms. Bhutto was riding in an armored car after a political rally in Rawalpindi. The State Department official said diplomats at the United States Embassy in Islamabad, including Ambassador Anne W. Patterson, were in daily contact with officials from Ms. Bhutto’s party. The Americans passed along information and specific advice on private security contractors to hire, counsel that Ms. Bhutto and her aides apparently spurned, the official said. Diplomats and security experts at the American Embassy, for example, discouraged Ms. Bhutto from hiring American or British private security firms, fearing that a Western guard detail would draw too much attention to her and become a target. Security officers at the embassy instead recommended the names of half a dozen Pakistani security companies that the United States and other Western countries had used to protect their personnel, the State Department official said. “The local companies employed guards who spoke the language and knew the landscape,” the official said. But Ms. Bhutto and her husband rejected that suggestion, the official said, apparently fearing that even the reputable Pakistani firms might be infiltrated by extremists. “Was she aware of the threat? Of course, she was aware,” said the Pentagon official. “But I don’t know how foolproof you can make any security when people are willing to kill themselves.” http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080102570739.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3726546_AEL PjkQAAMbgR3xC1ggFBC0P7yg&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080102aaindex_concat.html&cred=NnmGKnvQBh2pb83v RonGfKppLuLPvuZYRGapAoTjKkFsx5.kZ6XufQUC18rZxxBj#T OP">RETURN TO TOP New York Times January 2, 2008 Pakistan Vote Delayed To February By Jane Perlez LAHORE, Pakistan — Parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 8 have been postponed by the government until February, the secretary of the Election Commission said Tuesday. The election date is expected to be announced formally on Wednesday, and President Pervez Musharraf is scheduled to address to the nation that evening. The timing of the elections and how the news of the delay is received could be critical to Pakistan’s stability. The two main opposition parties have threatened continuous protests against the government over the delay. Members of Mr. Musharraf’s faction of the Pakistan Muslim League acknowledged in the last several days that the elections could not be delayed for more than six weeks without risking fresh outbreaks of violence. “Six weeks is just about the outer limit before the frustration really hurts Musharraf,” said a member of the president’s faction. The Election Commission secretary, Kunwar Muhammad Dilshad, said it would not be possible to hold the elections next Tuesday because the printing of ballot papers had stopped after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the opposition leader, and rioters had damaged election offices in Sindh Province. “In 11 districts of the Sindh Province, offices of assistant election commissioners have been burnt to the ground,” he said. “Nothing is left.” Mr. Dilshad defended the delay, saying it was the first time in Pakistan’s history that an election had been postponed after the date had been announced. But opposition party members and Western diplomats said the decision to push the election into February was largely intended to deprive the two main opposition parties of a huge sympathy vote after Ms. Bhutto’s death on Thursday. Her party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, is now led by her son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, 19, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari. That party and the other, somewhat smaller, main opposition party, the faction of the Pakistan Muslim League led by Nawaz Sharif, said they were ready to participate in the vote on Jan. 8. President Musharraf’s party wanted to try to recoup some of its plummeting popularity and to let the sympathy toward the opposition parties wear off, the opposition party officials said. What form opposition protests of the delay would take was on the agenda of a central executive committee meeting on Wednesday of the Pakistan Peoples Party, said Raza Rabbani, a member of the panel. “This question of agitation and what line of action” will be discussed, Mr. Rabbani said. “We do not want to move in isolation. We would talk to other opposition parties on a course of action.” A February voting date would probably be acceptable to the Bush administration, even though the Americans have been pushing for elections on schedule, the member of Mr. Musharraf’s party faction said. The February date for the election was also influenced by a desire not to hold the elections during Muharram, the annual festival for Shiite Muslims that begins Jan. 10. The festival is often an occasion for sectarian violence in Pakistan, and party officials of both the government and the opposition agreed that Muharram was not a suitable time for elections. The elections could have been held on Jan. 22 or 23 after the most important part of the festival was over, but the government chose a later date, officials said. Furor continues over the Musharraf government’s assertion that Ms. Bhutto died not from gunfire or shrapnel from a suicide bomber’s explosion on Thursday, but from striking her head as she tried to duck during the attack. Many of her supporters blame the government for her death, some accusing it of poor security and others of outright complicity. On Tuesday, an aide to Ms. Bhutto, Senator Latif Khosa, said Ms. Bhutto had been planning to give two visiting American lawmakers a 160-page report accusing the Musharraf government of taking steps to rig the Jan. 8 vote, according to The Associated Press. The meeting, with Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island, was scheduled for a few hours after she was killed. Anger over Ms. Bhutto’s death has added to growing disenchantment with the government over other issues, including increased terrorism attacks. With its decision to postpone the elections, the government risks increased polarization, said a Western diplomat, who added that people would see the delay for what it really was. The problems of burned electoral offices in Sindh were easy to remedy in a nation with more than 100 electoral offices, the diplomat said. At the same time that the government delayed the election, it extended the detention of Aitzaz Ahsan, the leader of the opposition lawyers’ movement. Mr. Ahsan was arrested on Nov. 3, the first night of the emergency rule, which Mr. Musharraf lifted in mid-December. Mr. Ahsan was presented with new detention papers ordering him to remain under house arrest for another month, his son, Ali Ahsan, said Tuesday. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080102570699.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3726546_AEL PjkQAAMbgR3xC1ggFBC0P7yg&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080102aaindex_concat.html&cred=NnmGKnvQBh2pb83v RonGfKppLuLPvuZYRGapAoTjKkFsx5.kZ6XufQUC18rZxxBj#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Philadelphia Inquirer January 1, 2008 Afghan War Took Bad Turns In 2007 The year saw record highs in U.S. deaths and suicide attacks. But the Pentagon also sees positive signs. By Jason Straziuso, Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. military deaths, suicide bombings and opium production hit record highs in 2007 in Afghanistan. Taliban fighters killed more than 925 Afghan police, and large swaths of the country remain outside government control. But U.S. officials here insist things are looking up: The Afghan army is assuming a larger combat role, and militants appear unlikely to mount a major spring offensive, as had been feared a year ago. Training for Afghan police is increasing. Still, six years after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, violence persists in much of southern Afghanistan, where the government has little presence, and recent extremist attacks in Pakistan highlight a long-term regional problem with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Civilian deaths caused by U.S. and NATO forces in the first half of the year rattled the government, and more foreign fighters flowed into the country. Taliban fighters avoided head-on battles with U.S., NATO and Afghan army forces in 2007, resorting instead to ambushes and suicide bombings, but militants attacked the weakest of Afghan forces to devastating effect. More than 925 Afghan policemen died in Taliban ambushes in 2007, including 16 Saturday during an assault on a Helmand province checkpoint. "The Taliban attack whom they perceive to be the most vulnerable, and in this case it's the police," said Lt. Col. Dave Johnson, a spokesman for the U.S. troops who train Afghan police and soldiers. "They don't travel in large formations like the army does. That puts them in an area of vulnerability." Afghanistan in 2007 saw record violence that killed more than 6,500 people, including 110 U.S. troops - the highest level ever in Afghanistan - and almost 4,500 militants, according to an Associated Press count. Britain lost 41 troops, while Canada lost 30. Other nations lost 40. The AP count is based on figures from Western and Afghan officials and is not definitive. Afghan officials are known to exaggerate Taliban deaths, for instance, and NATO's International Security Assistance Force does not release numbers of militants it killed, meaning AP's estimate of 4,478 militant deaths could be low. Seth Jones, an analyst with the RAND Corp. who follows Afghanistan, said the country's ability to improve governance was vital to defeating the insurgency. "The thing that concerns me most," he said, "is the general perception in Afghanistan that the government is not capable of meeting the basic demands of its population, that it's involved in corruption, . . . that it's unable to deliver services in key rural areas, that it's not able to protect its population, especially the police." The Taliban in 2007 abandoned the strategy of large-force attacks after devastating losses in 2006 and has shown no signs of mass regrouping, but Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, promised an increase in suicide attacks, ambushes and roadside bombs against U.S. and NATO forces in 2008. "We will gain more sympathies of the Afghan people," he said, "because the people are upset with this government because this government has failed." Taliban suicide bombers set off a record number of attacks in 2007 - more than 140. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080102570823.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3726546_AEL PjkQAAMbgR3xC1ggFBC0P7yg&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080102aaindex_concat.html&cred=NnmGKnvQBh2pb83v RonGfKppLuLPvuZYRGapAoTjKkFsx5.kZ6XufQUC18rZxxBj#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Boston Globe January 1, 2008 National Guard To Train Afghan Soldiers PORTLAND, Maine -- An elite Maine National Guard unit is going to Afghanistan to live and fight alongside Afghan national soldiers as the unit teaches them techniques to use against the Taliban, insurgents, and criminal gangs. Members of the Embedded Training Team are scheduled to ship out this month to Kansas for more training, and then go to Afghanistan. (AP) http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080102570753.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_3726546_AEL PjkQAAMbgR3xC1ggFBC0P7yg&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080102aaindex_concat.html&cred=NnmGKnvQBh2pb83v RonGfKppLuLPvuZYRGapAoTjKkFsx5.kZ6XufQUC18rZxxBj#T OP">RETURN TO TOP USA Today January 2, 2008 Pg. 1 Mental Toll Of War Hitting Female Servicemembers On front lines, women face trauma like never before By Andrea Stone, USA Today MENLO PARK, Calif. — Master Sgt. Cindy Rathbun knew something was wrong three weeks after she arrived in Iraq in September 2006. Her blond hair began "coming out in clumps," she says. The Air Force personnel specialist, in the military for 25 years, had volunteered for her first combat zone job at Baghdad's Camp Victory. She lived behind barbed wire and blast walls, but the war was never far. "There were firefights all the time," Rathbun says slowly, her voice flat. "There were car bombs. Boom! You see the smoke. The ground would shake." As the mother of three grown children prepared to fly home last February, she took a medic aside. Holding a zip-lock bag of hair, she asked whether this was normal. "He said it sometimes happens," she says. "It's the body's way of displaying stress when we can't express it emotionally." Numb, angry, verging on paranoia, Rathbun checked herself into a residential treatment center for female servicemembers suffering the mental wounds of war. Last month, she and seven others became the first all-Iraq-war-veteran class of the Women's Trauma Recovery Program here. The oldest of 12 residential centers run by the Department of Veterans Affairs, it is part of a rapidly growing network of 60- to 90-day programs for female warriors who, until the Iraq insurgency, had mostly been shielded from the horrors of war. Many who seek help are haunted by another demon that can exacerbate their battlefield stress: military sexual trauma, or MST. For Rathbun, 43, of Yuba City, Calif., the war brought back to the surface a long-buried secret: She says she was raped by a military superior when she was a young airman. Shell shock. Battle fatigue. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The military's mental toll of war has historically hit men. But more women are joining these ranks. More than 182,000 women have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and the surrounding region — about 11% of U.S. troops deployed, the Pentagon says. That dwarfs the 7,500 who served mostly as nurses in the Vietnam War and the nearly 41,000 women deployed during the brief Persian Gulf War. Although some of those women suffered PTSD, few saw actual fighting or were subjected to the stress of multiple deployments. In Iraq, "there are no lines, so anybody that deploys is in a war zone," Rathbun says. "Females are combat veterans as well as guys." Darrah Westrup has treated hundreds of women since she founded the Menlo Park program in 1992. Only during the past year, though, have large numbers with war-zone trauma sought help. Many learned only recently that there are specialized VA mental-health programs for women. Those who come, Westrup says, often have seen the most gruesome aspects of war. "Women are talking about dismembered bodies, seeing their buddies blown up in front of them," she says. "They are trying to reconcile, 'I have killed people.' " The 'equal opportunity war' Women are barred from ground jobs in infantry, armor and artillery units and are technically confined to support roles. But those jobs include some of the most dangerous: driving supply convoys, guarding checkpoints and searching women as part of neighborhood patrols. Iraq is "an equal opportunity war" in which attacks come not only from enemy fighters, but also from roadside bombs and mortars, says Patricia Resick, director of the Women's Health Sciences Division of the VA's National Center for PTSD in Boston. More than 100 female servicemembers have died and nearly 570 have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon says. More than 4,200 men have died and nearly 30,000 have been wounded. The ranks of psychologically wounded from this war are far larger. In 2006, nearly 3,800 women diagnosed with PTSD were treated by the VA. They accounted for 14% of a total 27,000 recent veterans treated for PTSD last year. In June, the Defense Department's Mental Health Task Force reported that the number of women suffering from trauma might be higher than reported. It cited "a potential barrier" for women needing mental-health treatment as "their need to show the emotional strength expected of military members." The report also said that after leaving the military, "many women no longer see themselves as veterans" and might not associate psychological symptoms with their time in the war zone. Yet Rachel Kimerling, a psychologist here, sees the signs: "Driving is so treacherous with the (roadside bombs) in Iraq, they come back and report seeing a paper cup in the mall parking lot and swerving around as if it were life or death." Many women become overly protective. Even the innocent pop of a biscuit tube on a kitchen counter can speed the heart, Rathbun says. When young soldiers left Camp Victory and didn't return, she thought of her 21-year-old son. "Women are protective, nurturing. I couldn't do either," she says. "I couldn't prevent them from dying." For some, combat trauma is complicated and intensified by rape or other sexual abuse, often by comrades they've trained and fought beside. The VA says 20% of women seeking its care since 2002 showed symptoms of military sexual trauma, compared with 1.1% of male veterans. Like Rathbun, many say they were preyed upon by men higher in the chain of command, crimes military women call "rape by rank." Rathbun says some women in Iraq risked dehydration by refusing to drink liquids late in the day for fear of being raped while walking to latrines after dark. Recent allegations that civilian female employees of contractor KBR were raped in Iraq have renewed attention on war-zone sexual assaults. VA research on Gulf War veterans found higher rates of sexual assault and harassment than in the peacetime military. The Defense Department's 2-year-old Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office says there were 201 sexual assaults in 2006 within the U.S. Central Command, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan. That's up from 167 in 2005, when the Pentagon began a policy that allows victims to get medical help without launching a criminal investigation. Kay Whitley, who heads the office, says "restricted reporting" is expected to boost the numbers of cases as more women grow bolder in stepping forward. There is no way to know whether sexual-assault rates are higher in combat areas because "women back-burner assaults," she says. "There may be more (assaults) over there, and they may be waiting to report it until they get home." USA TODAY does not identify victims of alleged sexual assault except in cases in which the victim makes the allegation public. For military women, abuse by fellow soldiers is "an unnecessary betrayal," Westrup says, noting women often are more scarred by sexual violence than combat. "Most go over understanding the nature of war." PTSD and MST "will exacerbate the other," Kimerling says. "It erodes the social support you have to cope with th |
