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 The Pentagon Early Bird 16 Feb 2008 Use of these news items does not reflect official endorsement. Reproduction for private use or gain is subject to original copyright restrictions. Item 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
Washington Post February 16, 2008 Pg. 1 Evolution Of A U.S. General In Iraq No. 2 Commander Transformed Tactics By Amit R. Paley and Joshua Partlow, Washington Post Foreign Service CAMP VICTORY, Iraq -- When Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno first came to Iraq in 2003, the division he led was quickly accused of overly aggressive tactics that did more to fuel the insurgency than quell it. But over the past 15 months, Odierno has earned a very different reputation. Even some of his critics now say his tenure as the No. 2 military official in Iraq -- a position he handed over this week -- reflects a newfound understanding of counterinsurgency doctrine and the necessity of using nonlethal tactics to reduce violence in Iraq. "General Odierno has experienced an awakening -- I've now completely revised my impression of him," said retired Army Col. Stuart A. Herrington, who wrote a 2003 report for the military that identified Odierno's unit as "the major offender" in carrying out indiscriminate detentions of civilians. "He recognized that his guys were very, very heavy-handed before and realized tactics had to change." Odierno's evolution over the past five years is in many ways the story of how the U.S. military has transformed its Iraq strategy and helped to ease back the country from the brink of civil war. In an interview before leaving Iraq to become the Army's vice chief of staff, Odierno said one pivotal moment came in late 2006 as he agonized over whether the United States should ally itself with Sunni tribesmen, many of whom had fought with the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq against the Americans. "I might have had a harder time doing that in '03 and '04," said Odierno, 53, who said descriptions of his division's conduct in those years have been overblown. "But I realized it was time to do that. We had to reach out to them." In December 2006, Odierno sat down with Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, the Sunni tribal leader in the western province of Anbar who led his tribesmen against al-Qaeda in Iraq and who told the general that he saw the best chance for his people in joining with the Americans. "I spent quite a long time speaking with him, and he told me how his mind-set changed," Odierno said. "I was willing to take a risk." Coercive Tactics A man of striking appearance -- 6-foot-5, 285 pounds and bald -- Odierno is known to his troops as General O. He arrived in Iraq in April 2003 as commander of the Army's 4th Infantry Division, which was based in the northern city of Tikrit, the home town of Saddam Hussein and a stronghold of the budding insurgency. Although the division would eventually win acclaim for capturing Hussein, its initial reputation centered on hard-nosed tactics that some officers feared were alienating the local population that the military was trying to win over. "I think they used excessive force, as if their goal was just to kill people and break things," said Lt. Col. David J. Poirier, who commanded a military police unit attached to the 4th Infantry Division. "It's just not a great way to win the support of local Iraqis. I think that many of them helped start the insurgency." He said a brigade commander in the division blew up a home in Tikrit -- as a "show of force" -- that belonged to someone helping Poirier. "It was just absolutely wrong," he said. "You really don't have to do that when you have a division full of tanks." The 2003 report by Herrington said the division was "sweeping up large numbers of people and dumping them at the door" of prison facilities. "Conducting sweep operations in which many persons are detained who probably should not be detained, and who then wind up incarcerated for three to six months, is counterproductive to the Coalition's efforts to win the cooperation of the Iraqi citizenry," the report said. Lt. Col. Gian P. Gentile, a brigade executive officer in the division, acknowledged that "there were mistakes made along the way. I think especially early on, I think perhaps we didn't have a sense of the people we were detaining and the effect that was going to have." Odierno, who was a major general at the time, says the critical assessments didn't take into account that he was operating in a particularly dangerous Sunni area. He said it was difficult to use nonlethal means because Sunni tribal leaders at the time were not receptive to working with the Americans. "I don't think I was perfect, and I made some mistakes," Odierno said. "But I think I was mischaracterized." A senior military official in Iraq at the time, though, said tribal leaders were unwilling to reach out to Odierno because of the way his division treated the Sunnis in the area. "The sheiks believed that the 4th ID would go and arrest everyone in the village," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he continues to deal with Iraq issues. "There was this mentality of, 'We'll arrest everyone now and sort it out later at Abu Ghraib,' " he added, referring to the U.S.-run detention facility. "That didn't create goodwill." 'A Brilliant Job' Col. John M. Murray, the head of operations for Odierno over the past year, had read news accounts about Odierno and arrived in Iraq prepared to work with a man with no understanding of counterinsurgency doctrine. "The man I met was completely different," Murray said. "He wasn't anything like this caricature I was expecting." Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has been the public face of the troop buildup over the past year known as the surge, but it was Odierno who began work on the plan before Petraeus arrived. Odierno said part of the spark for his plan was a call by Petraeus's predecessor, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., to find a way to secure Baghdad. At the time, about 15 combat brigades were in the country, and there was pressure to draw them down to 10 brigades. Odierno said he realized they had to request more, which eventually led to the deployment of a full 20 brigades in Iraq. "Ray Odierno forthrightly requested the surge in forces upon taking command in mid-December 2006," Petraeus wrote in an e-mail. "He then did a brilliant job as the operational-level architect of the plans to employ those forces." Odierno's aides said he was determined to move soldiers off large bases and into smaller combat outposts among the population, a tenet of counterinsurgency doctrine. "He just said right from the beginning, 'We've got to figure out how to move our people downtown to provide 24-hour coverage to the population,' " said Brig. Gen. Mark McDonald, a senior commander under Odierno. "He said, 'We can't just go downtown and conduct security operations and then go home at night.' " Odierno also promoted the forging of alliances with Sunni tribesmen and the formation of U.S.-backed groups known as "concerned local citizens," his aides said. "We thought about a spot here and a spot here," McDonald said. "He said: 'This looks good. Why don't we figure out how to get this across the force?' "He saw quickly that this should be much bigger," McDonald said. A native of a town of 6,000 in New Jersey, Odierno said he found the Sunni tribesmen to be similar to the cops of his childhood: They might not join the military, but they would protect their own neighborhoods. And Odierno, who was accused in 2003 of failing to understand Iraqi culture, also repeatedly emphasized that the program, which now includes more than 80,000 men, would never work if it were imposed by the U.S. military. "It's clear now that we can't succeed without the support of the Iraqi people," he said. Striking a Balance Some military officials say that Odierno has mainly been following the instructions of Petraeus, who wrote the Army's counterinsurgency manual. "Odierno is just following his lead," said one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid possible retribution. Petraeus disagrees. In an interview, he said that when he visited Odierno in 2006, it was clear that he understood that they were no longer fighting a conventional war. "There was no question at that time that he and his staff and subordinate leaders absolutely understood the principles that we had all come to accept as necessary for the conduct of counterinsurgency operations," Petraeus said. He said the whole military has had to adapt to the war. "All of us learned enormously throughout our first deployments in Iraq," he said. "Some of those lessons were learned the hard way." Odierno prefers not to talk about specific mistakes from his time with the 4th Infantry Division from 2003 to 2004. He said his unit did the best it could during very difficult conditions with limited tools. But he said it was undeniable that his tactics and focus had shifted since then. "There is this balance," he said. "You've got to strike this balance of lethal and nonlethal. It's hard to determine what that balance is, but I've learned a little bit. . . . You clearly in some cases have to understand who you have to be lethal against and where you can do engagement. "This time," he continued, "we understood them a bit better." Staff writers Josh White and Thomas E. Ricks in Washington contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080216580861.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1319856_AEX PjkQAAC7OR7ccMgHEX1jdvoo&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080216aaindex_concat.html&cred=H_T360XqZdb2UzZS E_bGB1KHqatpRIBh6GU3OE8QjKa2MulPOIx2E.Hf0wRhaYM5#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Boston Globe February 16, 2008 Pg. 1 Iraqi Insurgents Rig Houses With Bombs Militants' tactics adapt as US defenses improve By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff WASHINGTON - Insurgents in Iraq, countering improved defenses against lethal roadside bombs, are converting private houses into large-scale, booby-trapped bombs set to detonate when American or Iraqi forces burst in on raids, according to US officials in Iraq and Washington. Since late December, US forces in northern Iraq have found at least 42 so-called house-borne improvised explosive devices in their sector, many located in the middle of neighborhoods, the top US general in the area reported earlier this week. And more than a dozen were discovered in the past few weeks in Diyala Province, where coalition forces are conducting major combat operations against insurgents who have fled the heavier US military presence in Baghdad and elsewhere, they said. Authorities said six US soldiers died recently when they stepped on a trip-wire placed under a carpet, triggering an explosion that destroyed much of the structure. US military officials believe Sunni Muslim extremists and Shia militias are using house bombs more often because coalition forces have become better able to detect and defuse other IEDs, such as those hidden along roadways or buried in the ground. The growing use of the tactic, they say, reveals that, despite setbacks in recent months, insurgents are determined to in flict large-scale casualties on American and Iraqi troops. "It is a very, very complex problem," said Lieutenant General Thomas F. Metz, director of the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization in Washington. "Man has been ambushing man for a long time." In the new wave of bombings, insurgents have buried powerful explosives under floorboards and hidden them in jugs, engineering hair-trigger booby traps such as blasting caps strung with copper wire. The bombs have proved "very, very lethal," said Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, a military spokesman in Baghdad. But while the latest tactic is not entirely new - attacks have been reported in the past - the practice of booby-trapping houses and other buildings is beginning to have strategic influence, according to Metz. Though most of the booby-trapped dwellings have been identified before detonation, including those defused by robotic surveillance systems, ground forces have turned to US air strikes to destroy them. Authorities say bombing the houses is safer than sending in troops to try and neutralize a building filled with sensitive detonators and high-powered explosives. But the air strikes could have consequences that imperil long-term US objectives, officials acknowledge. Bombs and missiles can kill or maim bystanders and cause unintended damage that could engender the resentment of residents. John A. Kringen, deputy director of the CIA, told a House panel on Wednesday that the house-borne IEDS are "quite dangerous to our deployed forces." "As we go through and clear [a house] after an operation, more and more, we're seeing those now being booby-trapped," Kringen said, adding that the tactic is intended to "inhibit our ability to clear an area after an operation." It is the latest round in what has been an epic struggle to overcome the insurgents' weapon of choice - the inexpensive, low-tech bomb - only to have the insurgents respond with new kinds of IEDs or triggering mechanisms to overcome coalition defenses. US commanders estimate that coalition forces, with the help of local Iraqi citizens, now find and clear more than 50 percent of all IEDs - as opposed to less than 30 percent a year ago. They also report that insurgents now have to place an average of seven IEDs to wound or kill one soldier, a far larger ratio than in the recent past. But despite the billions of dollars the Pentagon has invested in IED countermeasures since 2003 - including cutting-edge surveillance technologies and electronic jamming devices to thwart some of the more sophisticated bomb detonators - the insurgents' capacity to place different kinds of IEDs has grown over the past year, according to military officials. Detailed figures remain classified, but the total number of IEDs in Iraq - those found and cleared, rendered ineffective, and the bombs that inflict casualties - is climbing again after a drop between April and November 2007, according to a Feb. 13 unclassified brief prepared by Metz's staff. Improvised explosive devices of all kinds - on the ground, packed into vehicles, or hidden in buildings - remain the biggest killer of US troops in Iraq. Their use has also risen dramatically in Afghanistan, according to the brief, reaching unprecedented levels last spring and summer. The changing enemy tactics are injecting added urgency into the Pentagon effort to neutralize the devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military researchers have developed new technologies, better training, and greater intelligence about the bomb-making and supply networks operating in both battle zones. Metz said his office, which has a $4.3 billion budget, is also trying to predict the enemy's next move. He anticipates insurgents will create larger, deadlier, and more rudimentary bombs that would defeat high-tech US systems. Smith, the spokesman in Baghdad, said recent interrogations of Shia extremists indicate that Iran has recently stepped up its training in the manufacture of powerful IEDs with so-called explosively-formed penetrators - large, molten-copper projectiles that can rip through heavily armored vehicles. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080216580791.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1319856_AEX PjkQAAC7OR7ccMgHEX1jdvoo&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080216aaindex_concat.html&cred=H_T360XqZdb2UzZS E_bGB1KHqatpRIBh6GU3OE8QjKa2MulPOIx2E.Hf0wRhaYM5#T OP">RETURN TO TOP New York Times February 16, 2008 U.S. Struggles To Tutor Iraqis In Rule Of Law By David Johnston BAGHDAD — A mob had gathered by the time the F.B.I. agents arrived at the house where an assassin’s bomb killed nine people last year, narrowly missing a deputy prime minister. Fearing their own lives might be at risk, the agents gave themselves no more than 30 minutes to collect evidence. As agents worked inside the house, an Iraqi police commander outside ordered the arrest of a man on the fringe of the crowd, according to American agents who were at the scene. The man later confessed to complicity in the attack. The case, if it could be called that, was quickly closed. But it was never really clear to American investigators whether the man was actually guilty, or whether the Iraqi police coerced his confession. As an attempt at Iraqi-American cooperation in law enforcement, the investigators said, the episode was clearly disappointing. The attempted assassination of the deputy prime minister, Salam al-Zubaie, in March, is just one of many episodes American law enforcement agents recounted as they described their often frustrating efforts to bring the rule of law to Iraq. In other examples, a suspect arrested after a brazen, deadly armed robbery managed to escape, and officials implicated in the abuse of prisoners have gone unpunished. Investigators cannot easily visit crime scenes, and judges live in fear and hiding. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, in a visit this week to Iraq, claimed “significant progress” in strengthening law enforcement here. He said the United States would “continue to pursue ways to help the Iraqi people to achieve a stable and transparent government.” At the heart of the effort is an Iraqi-American unit called the Major Crimes Task Force, meant as the nucleus of a professional investigative agency. It has investigated bombings, killings, torture cases and corruption, including the notorious Iraqi prison known as Site 4, where Shiite guards had savagely abused mostly Sunni detainees. Many of the cases are politically volatile referrals from the Iraqi government, focusing on sectarian violence in a country whose criminal justice system has been riddled by dysfunction and corruption. The group has opened a widening investigation into a smuggling ring trafficking in antiquities dug from Iraq’s archaeologically significant sites. In a case pointing toward complicity of Iraqi officials in the sale of hundreds of irreplaceable artifacts, one American police officer worked under cover, posing as a buyer. Even as American investigators assert that the cases have built the Iraqis’ experience, professional skill and credibility, they acknowledge that many of the inquiries have yielded mixed results. James H. Davis, who until recently was the F.B.I.’s legal attaché in Baghdad, said that American investigators were frustrated by the problems that they encountered. But he said the task force was gaining a reputation for integrity and could become a model for a different Iraqi approach in the future. “I think there is a feeling within the Iraqi government, the State Department and our military that when something happens, the task force is a group you can turn to and know that the investigative work is going to be done properly and fairly, free of sectarian influences,” he said. Thomas V. Fuentes, chief of international operations at the F.B.I., said the bureau had partnerships in other countries, but “Iraq is the only place we are doing it in war zone, where there is such extreme violence and the people who are doing it are taking such extreme risks to themselves and their families.” “When policing takes the place of soldiering as the primary method of guaranteeing the rule of law, we’ll know we’re succeeding in Iraq,” Mr. Fuentes said. So far, an Iraqi in uniform is not necessarily a comforting sight. Last year, a group of uniformed Iraqi special operations officers stormed the offices of Iraqna, the country’s major cellphone company, in a robbery. In the course of it, the officers terrorized employees and shot dead a company guard. The task force investigated. Agents noticed on a surveillance video an unusual scene reflected in the bulletproof glass inside the office. The tape was sent to the F.B.I. lab in Quantico, Va., where an enhanced version clearly showed a group of police officers dragging the guard outside, where he was shot. A police commander who was the son of an influential army general was identified from the video. He was arrested and charged with the crime, but later escaped, almost certainly aided by inside help. Iraqis on the task force are under constant threat. A brother of one Iraqi investigator has been killed. Another investigator has been wounded. Their cars have been burned. Still, most of them live outside the Green Zone, relying on their own resources for security. Some move from house to house to avoid being targets. The unit is led by the F.B.I., and its investigators also include agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Drug Enforcement Administration, serving in Iraq on three-month rotations from their offices in cities like San Antonio, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Iraqi investigators on the team are hand-picked by top officials at their parent police agencies in the Interior Ministry. The American authorities subject the candidates to intensive interviews, including a final polygraph examination intended to weed out possible double agents. Working inside the relative safety of the Green Zone, guarded by its own heavily armed security force, the team occupies squad rooms lighted with computer screens. On the walls are poster-size sheets of paper on which are scrawled, in English and Arabic, words familiar to the police the world over: who, what, why, where and when. In its biggest cases the task force works with a single investigative judge, a court officer who in the Iraqi legal system functions as a prosecutor and a magistrate combined. The judge has signed dozens of arrest warrants, including some against powerful officials in the government. In a country where three dozen judges have been killed in the last five years, American officials said the judge had been a courageous and valuable ally. But his life has been threatened. Along with his wife and children, he has moved to guarded living quarters. “These cases are dangerous because 70 percent of them involve militias or powerful people in the government,” said the judge, who spoke only on the condition that his name be withheld. “We are all in some danger. I don’t think about it, but I don’t go out anymore.” In Iraq, civil institutions of law have only a tenuous foothold. In determining guilt or innocence, Iraqi judges have been accustomed to concentrating on whether a defendant has confessed — an emphasis that American officials said encouraged abusive interrogations. Mr. Davis, the former F.B.I. legal attaché in Baghdad, said the task force allowed only nonconfrontational interview techniques used in the United States. Iraqi courts are only slowly accepting some of the staple techniques of American law enforcement, like forensic evidence. In one case, American officials said, a judge dismissed DNA evidence as unbelievable. In a bomb case, agents said their Iraqi counterparts marveled as they identified a possible suspect from a fingerprint taken from a shred of skin found at a crime scene. American investigators may not venture outside the Green Zone unless they are accompanied by convoys of heavily armed escorts. Short of launching military-style operations, they have found it nearly impossible to get into neighborhoods where witnesses and suspects live. The task force evolved from F.B.I. investigative and training efforts that began shortly after the American-led invasion almost five years ago. At first operating only in an advisory role, the agents on the task force now engage directly in investigative work, helping to teach their methods to Iraqi investigators. But solving crimes has not always meant that defendants have been brought to justice in Iraqi courts. The inquiry into the abuses at Site 4 are a case in point. It followed longstanding complaints by human rights groups and uncovered systematic and severe abuse — one photograph taken by the F.B.I. showed a ceiling hook from which detainees were hung and savagely beaten. Inmates were shoved out of the prison’s gates, apparently into the hands of death squads. Their bodies were recovered days later far from the detention center. Task force investigators interviewed surviving detainees and the victims’ families, and succeeded in turning some guards into cooperating witnesses. Lower-level employees implicated superiors in what emerged as a grisly pattern of abuse. The case appeared to break open in late 2006 when the Interior Ministry announced human rights charges against 57 officials, including senior prison officers. “We limited this torturing and beating of prisoners,” said an Iraqi investigator who took part in the inquiry. “The situation is now these officers know somebody is watching them.” But the aftermath of the inquiry has been disappointing. Only three people have been arrested, and one senior commander at the prison has received legal immunity from the Interior Ministry, placing him beyond the reach of Iraqi courts. Human rights groups have said the failure to bring suspects to trial has reinforced a different message: that the Iraqi government still lacks the will to crack down on its own security forces. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080216580774.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1319856_AEX PjkQAAC7OR7ccMgHEX1jdvoo&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080216aaindex_concat.html&cred=H_T360XqZdb2UzZS E_bGB1KHqatpRIBh6GU3OE8QjKa2MulPOIx2E.Hf0wRhaYM5#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Post February 16, 2008 Pg. 17 U.S. Forces Accused Of Killing Relatives Of Iraqi Ally By Amit R. Paley, Washington Post Foreign Service BAGHDAD, Feb. 15 -- Residents and officials in a rural area of northern Iraq said U.S. forces on Thursday night killed six relatives of the head of a Sunni tribal group that has allied itself with the Americans, but the U.S. military said it had received no reports of such an incident. In the Zaab area, west of Kirkuk, hundreds of people took to the streets to mourn the dead, who included a woman and a child, and to demand that U.S. forces release the tribal leader, who local officials say was detained in the assault. "There was a great mistake that took place last night and pushed the American forces to commit a massacre against this family, which supported the security and the stability and was a victim of the terrorists," said Col. Muhammad Muhsin Jumaa al-Jubouri, the Zaab police chief. The incident was one of several in recent days in which American forces may have inadvertently killed civilians and U.S.-backed tribesmen. The episodes illustrate the murky line between friend and foe in Iraq and the difficulty of carrying out precise raids on suspected targets. The U.S. military said it led an assault in the Sharqat area of northern Iraq late Wednesday and early Thursday in which six insurgents, two of them women, were killed. The military said it was investigating claims that some of the 15 people detained in the operation were members of mainly Sunni U.S.-backed groups, known as Awakening councils of "concerned local citizens," that have turned against the insurgency. And early Friday, the military said, it responded to small-arms fire near the town of Jurf al-Sukr, south of Baghdad, by shooting rockets at a building. U.S. officials said they were investigating reports that members of the concerned local citizens groups had been killed in the incident. According to officials and witness accounts, the attack in Zaab took place after 10 p.m. Thursday when the U.S. military began an operation nearby with air support from four helicopters. Hemood al-Sabiel, a resident who sobbed as he described the assault, said U.S. troops entered the area after one of their helicopters came under attack. When Latifa Abdullah al-Sabiel, 33, went outside to wash dishes, an American soldier shot and killed her, he and other witnesses said. When Sabiel's 11-year-old daughter ran out after her, she was killed, too, they said. Then two men, Ajeel Shafiq and Falah Abdullah, 28, the brother of the tribal leader, went out with guns but were also shot, witnesses said. Jafar Najeeb, 23, their cousin and a member of the Awakening, ran out with a gun and began shooting at the source of the gunfire, the witnesses said. "He thought that it was al-Qaeda attacking them, and he did not know that they were American soldiers because he did not see them," Sabiel said. U.S. forces detained the head of the local 700-person Awakening group, Isa Muhsin al-Sabiel, who is also the leader of the Baghzawi tribe, local officials said. Muhammad Khaliel al-Jubouri, a member of the provincial council, demanded that the Americans apologize and release the tribal leader. "How are we going to have a political and security role in the future to fight the terrorism and the sectarianism while our people get killed at the hands of the alliance and our friends?" he said. Sgt. Nicole Dykstra said the U.S. military had no record of the assault. "The only engagement in the entire Kirkuk province were the 6 terrorists killed" Wednesday evening near Sharqat, she wrote in an e-mail. Meanwhile, in the northern city of Tall Afar, at least three people were killed and 16 wounded in a double suicide bombing, local officials said. After a police officer guarding a mosque prevented the bomber from entering the building, the attacker tried to throw a hand grenade and then detonated the explosive vest he was wearing, according to Brig. Gen. Najim Abdullah, the mayor of Tall Afar. A few minutes later, another bomber ran toward a group of worshipers and blew himself up as police opened fire, Abdullah said. Special correspondents Naseer Nouri in Baghdad, Dlovan Brwari in Mosul, Muhanned Saif Aldin in Tikrit and other Washington Post staff in the Zaab area contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080216580853.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1319856_AEX PjkQAAC7OR7ccMgHEX1jdvoo&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080216aaindex_concat.html&cred=H_T360XqZdb2UzZS E_bGB1KHqatpRIBh6GU3OE8QjKa2MulPOIx2E.Hf0wRhaYM5#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Los Angeles Times February 16, 2008 U.S. Error Killed Guards, Iraq Police Say Three are reported killed in an airstrike on a neighborhood checkpoint. The military hasn't confirmed it. By Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer BAGHDAD — Three neighborhood security guards were killed and two injured early Friday when U.S. attack helicopters fired at their checkpoint south of Baghdad, Iraqi police said. It was the latest in a series of complaints about errant strikes, which have stoked tensions between the citizen security groups in central and northern Iraq and their American backers. Mohammed Ghuriari, who heads the so-called Awakening Councils that supply fighters to protect neighborhoods in the north of Babil province, said it was the third U.S.-led strike on their checkpoints in less than two months. He said 19 people had been killed and 14 injured. "The U.S. forces should learn from their mistakes," Ghuriari said in a telephone interview. "Such repeated attacks will make the Awakening Councils review their stance in the agreements they signed with the U.S. forces." The U.S. military has thus far acknowledged one mistake, a Feb. 2 airstrike that killed nine people, including at least three Awakening members and a child. The soldiers thought that they were targeting insurgents preparing a roadside bomb in a rural area 25 miles southeast of Baghdad, officers said at the time. In Friday's incident, the U.S. military said attack helicopters fired rockets at a building near the town of Jarf Sakhr after American troops in the area were attacked with small arms fire. Maj. Alayne Conway, a military spokeswoman, said she could not confirm further details while the incident was under investigation. U.S. forces credit the neighborhood groups, which they have dubbed concerned local citizens or Sons of Iraq, with helping to bring down violence by 60% nationwide since June. They pay many of the mostly Sunni Arab fighters about $10 a day to guard roads, bridges and other key infrastructure. U.S. commanders have asked them to wear special T-shirts and reflective belts to help distinguish them from the insurgents they fight. But the citizen groups, whose members have swelled to more than 80,000 in the last year, complain that there are not enough of the outfits to go around. U.S. commanders also suspect that insurgents have infiltrated some of the groups, which include many men who used to support or actively serve as members of the Sunni insurgency. The strike Friday was the second apparent case of mistaken identity in three days. A citizen security group in the northern village of Zab said four of its members were killed when helicopters fired at a house in the area about 20 miles southwest of Kirkuk during raids late Wednesday and early Thursday. Two women were also killed. The U.S. military said it called in the strike after gunmen fired at troops from the building, and it maintained Friday that the six victims were insurgents. U.S.-led forces detained 15 suspects that night during raids targeting Sunni insurgents in the area, some of whom they said also claimed to be members of the Awakening Council. Residents described the area as a stronghold of Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni militant groups. Insurgent attacks against the security groups have increased as their influence has spread. In Baghdad, a bomb planted in a car carrying U.S.-allied fighters was remotely detonated Friday as it approached one of their checkpoints in the west Baghdad neighborhood of Ghazaliya, police said. Two of the fighters were killed, including the driver, and four were injured. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki urged Iraqi military and police chiefs to keep their "fingers on the trigger" at a ceremony Friday to thank them for helping to improve security in Baghdad through a year-old crackdown. He said the campaign, whose launch coincided with the start of a 28,500-strong U.S. troop buildup, had pulled the city from the brink of civil war. "This year our focus will be reconstruction, economic development and providing services," he said. "But this doesn't mean that we should put our ongoing efforts to rest." The U.S. military says insurgents driven out of Baghdad and neighboring Anbar province have regrouped in regions to the north. In Tall Afar, about 240 miles northwest of Baghdad, two suicide bombers attacked worshipers outside a Shiite Muslim mosque Friday, killing at least three people and injuring 16, officials said. The attackers struck during the midday Friday prayers, the most important of the Muslim week. One of the bombers tried to enter Sheik Jawad Mosque but was stopped by police officers, who pushed the man aside and shot him, said Maj. Gen. Najim Abdullah Jubouri, the city's mayor. The explosives strapped to the man's waist detonated outside the gate. As a crowd gathered, another bomber rushed toward them and was also shot by police, triggering a second blast, Jubouri said. "It was good that our security forces were able to prevent them from going inside the mosque, otherwise we would have a disaster," he said by telephone from Tall Afar, where he had just visited the wounded in a hospital. Times staff writer Raheem Salman in Baghdad, special correspondent Ruaa al-Zarary in Mosul and special correspondents in Baghdad, Hillah and Kirkuk contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080216580821.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1319856_AEX PjkQAAC7OR7ccMgHEX1jdvoo&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080216aaindex_concat.html&cred=H_T360XqZdb2UzZS E_bGB1KHqatpRIBh6GU3OE8QjKa2MulPOIx2E.Hf0wRhaYM5#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Arizona Daily Star (Tucson) February 16, 2008 Suicide Attackers Target Shiites At Mosque, Killing 4, Injuring 17 By Associated Press BAGHDAD — Two suicide bombers, one armed with a grenade as well as an explosive vest, killed at least four people and wounded 17 as worshippers left a Shiite mosque after Friday prayers in the northwestern city of Tal Afar. The explosions came on a day when the U.S. military and Iraqis were at odds over who was killed in a raid earlier this week, also in the country's restive north. The Americans and their Iraqi allies are pushing to take control of the region, where insurgent fighters are making a stand with their influence diminished in Baghdad and other areas. The suicide bombers struck the Sheik Juwad mosque in Tal Afar, about 260 miles northwest of Baghdad. The first attacker raised suspicions because he was walking in a hurry and seemed confused. Police shouted at the man to stop, then shot him in the leg when he started to pull something that was later determined to be a grenade, said Tal Afar police chief Brig. Gen. Ibrahim al-Jubouri. He managed to detonate his explosives vest, killing himself but causing no casualties, according to al-Jubouri. Less than five minutes later, an elderly man wearing an explosives vest ran toward worshippers gathering at the scene and blew himself up, killing four people and wounding 17 others, al-Jubouri said. Earlier, the U.S. military said six insurgents, including two women, were killed in raids late Wednesday and early Thursday targeting al-Qaida in Iraq militants in the northern Salahuddin province, but local Iraqi officials said those killed included two female civilians and four U.S.-allied fighters. The differing accounts highlight the ongoing problems for the United States in trying to conduct a war in which the enemy is not always clear and tensions can arise easily. The U.S. also faced complaints this month from its Sunni partners over the deaths of civilians in attacks both north and south of Baghdad. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080216580866.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1319856_AEX PjkQAAC7OR7ccMgHEX1jdvoo&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080216aaindex_concat.html&cred=H_T360XqZdb2UzZS E_bGB1KHqatpRIBh6GU3OE8QjKa2MulPOIx2E.Hf0wRhaYM5#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Boston Globe February 16, 2008 Al Qaeda Has Fled Baghdad, Iraq's Prime Minister Says By Kim Gamel, Associated Press BAGHDAD - Iraq's prime minister said yesterday that US and Iraqi troops have chased Al Qaeda in Iraq out of Baghdad in the year since a security crackdown began, and he promised to pursue insurgents who have fled northward. Underscoring the rising violence in northern Iraq, a double suicide bombing targeted Shi'ite worshipers as they left weekly prayer services in the city of Tal Afar, killing at least four people and wounding 17, officials said. Police said guards at the Juwad mosque prevented a worse casualty toll by opening fire on the two attackers, one of whom was an elderly man, before they could reach the bulk of worshippers emerging from the building. In remarks broadcast on state television, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki hailed what he called a "victory in Baghdad" and thanked the US military and its allies for "standing with us in defeating terrorism." "Today our forces are locked in battle against outlaws in Nineveh and we are chasing them," he added, referring to the northwestern province where Iraqi officials say Al Qaeda in Iraq has regrouped. Tal Afar is in Nineveh province. The Shi'ite leader has promised a "decisive battle" in that region, although US commanders have said it will be more a protracted fight. The Bush administration launched its so-called surge to clear Baghdad and surrounding areas on Feb. 14, 2007, with the 82d Airborne Division as the vanguard of an American troop buildup that climbed to 30,000 extra US soldiers by the summer. After a sharp initial spike in military and civilian casualties, violence has declined sharply, particularly in Baghdad. Still, US military commanders have been cautious in describing the successes and stress that Al Qaeda remains a serious threat. "We should keep our hands on our weapons to maintain the victories," Maliki said. "Therefore we shouldn't lose focus or the enemy might regroup." A senior aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's senior Shi'ite spiritual leader, said the government should "be careful" as it negotiates a long-term security agreement with the Americans that is aimed at replacing the current UN mandate for foreign troops in Iraq. The agreement "should secure the interests of the Iraqi people and not the opposite, because the coming generations will be committed to it," Sheik Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalaie said during Friday prayers in Karbala. Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has said the first round of talks on the agreement would begin Feb. 27, although the US Embassy says no date has been confirmed. David Satterfield, senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, insisted that negotiators would not seek a permanent US military presence in Iraq. "We are not asking for - we are not seeking - permanent basing in Iraq," Satterfield told reporters in Paris. Turning to violence in Iraq, Satterfield said that attacks using armor-piercing roadside bombs that the United States says come from Iran have "increased significantly" this year and that Tehran continues to train, equip and support Shi'ite extremists who attack US troops in Iraq. "We very much believe that Iran wishes to see the forced departure of foreign forces - particularly US forces - in the most humiliating and devastating manner possible," he said. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080216580762.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1319856_AEX PjkQAAC7OR7ccMgHEX1jdvoo&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080216aaindex_concat.html&cred=H_T360XqZdb2UzZS E_bGB1KHqatpRIBh6GU3OE8QjKa2MulPOIx2E.Hf0wRhaYM5#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) February 15, 2008 US Gen Sees Iraq Surge Ending With More Troops Than Before WASHINGTON (AFP)--The U.S. "surge" is likely to end in July with more troops in Iraq than the 132,000 that were there before five extra combat brigades were sent in over a year ago, a senior Pentagon official said. Lt. Gen. Carter Ham said that support forces and trainers that went in with the surge will still be needed to back up Iraq's expanding security forces after the last of the extra combat brigades leaves. "It's likely that the number will be a little bit larger than the 132,000 or so that was the number of personnel on the ground pre-surge," said Ham, who is the operations director at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. About 8,000 support troops were deployed to Iraq as part of the surge. Ham would not say whether 140,000 troops would be the upper limit of the post-surge U.S. force. "I wouldn't want to bound it just yet. I think let's let the commanders make that assessment," he said. It was the latest sign that Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, intends to keep as large a U.S. force as possible in the country to keep a lid on the violence, while Iraqi security forces assume responsibility for more territory in the country. Petraeus is expected to make his recommendations on post-surge force levels in April. But he already has called for a pause in U.S. troop drawdowns after July to allow time to evaluate the performance of Iraq's security forces and the impact on security of a smaller U.S. force. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has hoped to continue the drawdown after July, said this week after meeting with Petraeus in Iraq that he also was inclined to support a brief pause. But keeping large numbers of U.S. troops in Iraq is placing a greater strain on the U.S. Army, which is looking to reduce tour lengths from 15 months to 12 months to relieve the stress on the force. Currently there are about 158,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, down from a high of about 170,000 at the height of the surge. So far, only one of the extra combat brigades has come out. The next is due to redeploy in March, and then the remaining three will come out at a rate of one every six weeks through July, Ham said. The support troops include logistics, aviation, military police and intelligence, as well as trainers for the Iraqi military and police. "We always knew we would provide the enablers as we grow now their logistics capacity and capability, their artillery, all of the others supporting arms and combat support elements," said Lt. Gen. John Sattler, the Joint Chiefs of Staff's director of plans. "So as we bring some of our combat elements out, (and) the Iraqis grow up toward 600,000 for a total security force, we will still be required for a period of time to provide those enablers," he said. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080216580803.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1319856_AEX PjkQAAC7OR7ccMgHEX1jdvoo&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080216aaindex_concat.html&cred=H_T360XqZdb2UzZS E_bGB1KHqatpRIBh6GU3OE8QjKa2MulPOIx2E.Hf0wRhaYM5#T OP">RETURN TO TOP New York Times February 16, 2008 Pg. 12 Missile Defense Future May Turn On Success Of Mission To Destroy Satellite By Thom Shanker WASHINGTON — The order by President Bush for the Navy to launch an antimissile interceptor to destroy a disabled satellite before it falls from orbit carries opportunity, but also potential embarrassment, for the administration and advocates of its missile defense program. The decision was described by senior officials as designed solely to protect populated areas from space debris, and not to showcase how the emerging missile defense arsenal could be reprogrammed to counter an unexpected threat: in this case hazardous rocket fuel aboard the dead satellite. Even so, the attempt, expected within the next two weeks, will again throw into sharp relief the administration’s antipathy to treaties limiting antisatellite weapons, which puts the United States opposite China and Russia, which just this week proposed a new pact banning space weapons. Often compared to hitting a bullet with a bullet, the shooting down of ballistic missiles with an interceptor rocket is difficult, as an adversary’s warheads would be launched unexpectedly on relatively short arcs — and most likely more than one at a time. So it should be easier for the Standard Missile 3, a Navy weapon launched from an Aegis cruiser in the northern Pacific, to find and strike a satellite almost the size of a school bus making orbits almost as regular as bus routes around the globe, 16 times a day. Should it succeed, the accomplishment would embolden those who champion even more spending on top of the $57.8 billion appropriated by Congress for missile defenses since the Bush administration’s first budget in the 2002 fiscal year. It might even revive a dormant effort to focus the military on antisatellite operations, as well. Failure, on the other hand, would be cited as hard and fresh evidence for those who point to the futility of space-warfare programs. Beyond arguments over whether antimissile weapons also provide thinly cloaked antisatellite capabilities, and Russia’s caustic opposition to building American missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, the highly unusual mission to destroy an American spy satellite has highlighted what historically was a sideshow of superpower nuclear arms control negotiations, the question of whether to ban space weapons altogether. The United States is perhaps the nation most dependent on satellites, both for commerce and for military communications, reconnaissance and targeting. And, to be sure, the Bush administration was harshly critical when the Chinese launched an antisatellite missile last year, the first time any nation had blasted an object in space in the 22 years since the United States last conducted such a test. At the same time, however, the United States has resisted suggestions that a new arms-control regime be negotiated to govern space weapons, and has asserted its sovereign right to defend its own access to space and to deny it to others in future wars. “The administration places a higher priority on military flexibility and does not want to constrain military options,” said Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center, an arms-control advocacy organization. That assessment is not refuted by White House officials. “The United States is committed to preserving equal access to space for peaceful purposes,” a White House spokesman, Scott M. Stanzel, said Friday. “At the same time, we oppose the creation of legal regimes or other international agreements that seek to limit or prohibit our use of space.” Mr. Stanzel noted that previous administrations opposed similar treaties, in part, he said, because they are hard to verify and police, since any object in space, even debris from a destroyed satellite, can act as a weapon. During the cold war, the United States and the Soviet Union conducted about 50 antisatellite tests: a significant number, but small compared with the 2,000 nuclear weapons tests carried out in that same grim period of superpower arms races. Efforts to ban space weapons, like the treaty proposed by China and Russia, are generally favored by arms-control analysts, even though they view the latest such initiative as deeply flawed. During a session of the Conference on Disarmament earlier this week in Geneva, China and Russia proposed a pact that would go beyond the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which bans orbiting weapons of mass destruction, and would prohibit all weapons in space. Mr. Krepon of the Stimson Center said the problem with the new proposal, a hindrance that has bedeviled previous efforts, was how to define a weapon. For example, lasers can be used harmlessly for determining distances in space and gathering information on objects in space, as well as for beaming communications back to earth, but also can be used as weapons. Similarly, debris from a decaying object in space, a satellite for example, can be as dangerous to other platforms in space as a missile fired from Earth. The new proposal, by focusing on weapons in space, also “does not cover ground- and sea-based means that could be used to harm satellites, such as the Chinese ground-based antisatellite weapon tested a year go,” Mr. Krepon said. Despite renewed interest in antisatellite weaponry sparked by Thursday’s announcement in Washington, the reaction from Beijing and Moscow thus far has been muted. Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080216580766.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1319856_AEX PjkQAAC7OR7ccMgHEX1jdvoo&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080216aaindex_concat.html&cred=H_T360XqZdb2UzZS E_bGB1KHqatpRIBh6GU3OE8QjKa2MulPOIx2E.Hf0wRhaYM5#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Post February 16, 2008 Pg. 2 U.S. Makes Case About Satellite To Foreign Envoys By Marc Kaufman, Washington Post Staff Writer The State Department sent cables to all embassies yesterday instructing diplomats to explain to foreign governments how the upcoming attempt to shoot down an out-of-control spy satellite is different from China's destruction of one of its orbiting satellites early last year. "This particular action is different than any actions that, for example, the Chinese may have taken in testing an anti-satellite weapon," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. "The missions are quite different, and the technical aspects of the missions are quite different." The administration is sensitive to international concerns that the United States might be moving toward beefing up its anti-satellite weapons or developing an offensive anti-satellite system, and the diplomatic message is an attempt to convince foreign countries that they need not worry. Unlike the Chinese anti-satellite test, the cable said, the U.S. attempt to destroy the potentially dangerous satellite is being done for peaceful reasons and in a transparent way. "Our role is to reassure nations around the world as to the nature of what we are trying to do," McCormack said. "It's an attempt to try to protect populations on the ground." National security and military officials said Thursday that the Navy would try to shoot down the malfunctioning satellite as it begins to reenter Earth's atmosphere -- as early as next week. They said President Bush ordered the action because the satellite is carrying 1,000 pounds of frozen hydrazine fuel, which could be harmful if it falls to Earth and a person came into contact with it. The announcement came at a somewhat awkward time, because earlier in the week Russia and China had put forward a proposal at a 65-member United Nations Disarmament Conference to ban the development of weapons in space. The proposal would not necessarily prohibit the United States, or any nation, from shooting down satellites from the ground, but it does forbid development of offensive weapons based in space. The United States has been in a small minority opposing similar treaty proposals. Theresa Hitchens, director of the Center for Defense Information, said the administration's plans to shoot down the satellite -- using a missile that is part of the missile defense program -- will inevitably be interpreted by some as a test of an anti-satellite system. "I don't believe our missile defense was developed as a secret offensive system, but this plan [to shoot down the satellite] shows the technology can go either way," Hitchens said. "We've given the Chinese and the Russians more cause for concern, and there could be very unfortunate consequences." John Tkacik, a China specialist at the Heritage Foundation, agreed that the satellite shoot-down will be seen by Chinese and Russian leaders as further indication that the United States intends to develop its abilities to intercept incoming ballistic missiles that travel through the atmosphere and briefly through space. "I don't think the U.S. is in fact sending that message, but I'm certain the Chinese will think so," Tkacik said. He also said he wishes the administration were more serious about expanding the missile defense system into space. David Wright, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the Navy has no better than a 50 percent chance of hitting its target. He also said he is concerned that a successful strike could push debris further into space and harm spacecraft in low orbit. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080216580846.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1319856_AEX PjkQAAC7OR7ccMgHEX1jdvoo&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080216aaindex_concat.html&cred=H_T360XqZdb2UzZS E_bGB1KHqatpRIBh6GU3OE8QjKa2MulPOIx2E.Hf0wRhaYM5#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Philadelphia Inquirer February 16, 2008 Zeroing In On A Satellite High-powered team has worked for weeks on a seek-and-destroy mission. By Robert Burns, Associated Press WASHINGTON - Long before the public learned that a damaged U.S. spy satellite carrying toxic fuel was going to crash to Earth, the government secretly assembled a high-powered team of officials and scientists to study the feasibility of shooting it down with a missile. The order to launch the crash program came Jan. 4, according to defense officials who described yesterday how it came to fruition for a final go-ahead decision by President Bush this week. The officials spoke to the Associated Press on condition they not be identified because of the sensitivity of the work. The initial order was twofold: Assess whether shooting down the satellite with a missile was even possible, and at the same time urgently piece together the technological tools it would take to succeed. In a matter of weeks, three Navy warships - the Lake Erie, Decatur and Russell - were outfitted with modified Aegis antimissile systems, the ships' crews were trained for an unprecedented mission, and three SM-3 missiles were pulled off an assembly line and given a new guidance system. The decision to attempt a shootdown was disclosed by the Pentagon on Thursday. Yesterday officials said it could happen next week, shortly after the space shuttle Atlantis returns from its voyage at midweek. Officials want the Atlantis to be home to avoid the risk of being hit with satellite debris. Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters yesterday that it's difficult not only to hit the satellite but even to know the best time to shoot. With an eye to the possibility that the missile effort will fail, the government has placed six rescue teams across the country to be prepared to act if the satellite hits the United States, according to a Federal Emergency Management Agency memo dated Feb. 14 and obtained by the Associated Press. The spacecraft contains 1,000 pounds of hydrazine in a tank that is expected to survive reentry and a fuel tank liner made of beryllium. As a first of its kind, the shootdown scenario draws on a wide range of scientific and military technologies - from ships and radar sites in the Pacific to high-powered telescopes in Hawaii and elsewhere, to a specially fitted Air Force plane and a Navy ship that snoops on missile tests. To begin the planning, the government assembled a high-security team of about 200 people - Navy scientists and missile-defense experts, plus representatives of defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, as well as scientists from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Lockheed is the manufacturer of the Aegis system and Raytheon makes the SM-3 missile. The Lake Erie, a destroyer that has participated in a dozen mostly successful tests to intercept a mock enemy missile in flight over the last six years, would take the first shot at the satellite at a distance of about 150 miles, just beyond the reach of Earth's atmosphere. The SM-3 missile aboard the Lake Erie is equipped with a heat-seeking sensor that has been modified to enable it to zero in on the satellite, whose heat "signature" is smaller than that of a ballistic missile in flight. The SM-3 costs $9.5 million, not counting its one-of-a-kind modifications. It is designed to destroy its target not by detonating an explosive nearby but by slamming directly into the satellite at high speed. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080216580871.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1319856_AEX PjkQAAC7OR7ccMgHEX1jdvoo&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080216aaindex_concat.html&cred=H_T360XqZdb2UzZS E_bGB1KHqatpRIBh6GU3OE8QjKa2MulPOIx2E.Hf0wRhaYM5#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Baltimore Sun February 16, 2008 Errant Satellite To Pass Overhead Orbital estimates show flybys observable from Baltimore over the course of next week By Frank D. Roylance, Sun reporter While the Pentagon mobilizes for an attempt to shoot down a falling spy satellite before it becomes a hazard to people on the ground, Marylanders will have several opportunities in the coming days to see the errant hardware as it soars up the East Coast. It might be the last chance anyone has to see USA-193. Some estimates say the satellite will fall into the atmosphere within the next three weeks if it is not destroyed. Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said a weeklong window of opportunity to shoot it down will open this weekend. Christina Rocca, U.S ambassador to the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament, said, "If the engagement fails, the satellite is expected to make an uncontrolled re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere on or about 6 March 2008 in any region on the Earth's surface between 58.5 degrees north and 58.5 degrees south latitudes," according to a report on SpaceDaily.com. Orbital predictions for USA-193, gleaned from the Heavens-Above.com Web site, include one evening pass visible from Baltimore each night for the next week - through Friday. At least four of those flyovers should be high enough above the horizon to be seen without too much difficulty. But the weather will be iffy on several evenings. The other issue will be the satellite's magnitude, or brightness. Predicted magnitudes for the four best passes by USA-193 range from 1.4 and 2.7 - similar to some of the brighter stars of the winter sky, but not the brightest. Dark skies away from urban light pollution will make the satellite easier to spot. USA-193 should look like a small, unblinking star, moving briskly from one horizon to another, crossing the sky in four or five minutes. If an object has blinking, multiple or colored lights, it is an airplane, not the satellite. Here are the predictions for the four most favorable flybys. They may prove to be off by several minutes because of the satellite's decaying orbit, so allow for extra time on either end of the predictions, especially for those passes at the end of the sequence. The first pass high enough to be easily tracked will come Sunday evening. The weather forecast was poor, however, with an 80 percent chance of showers. But, if the clouds part, look for the spy satellite to rise above the southern horizon at 6:28 p.m., climbing to a little less than a third of the way up the southeastern sky by 6:30 p.m. It will skim just above the bright star Sirius before racing off toward the eastern horizon, disappearing there at 6:31 p.m. Monday night's forecast is also doubtful - mostly cloudy. But, just in case, look for USA-193 to rise above the southern horizon at 6:22 p.m., climbing higher this time - rising 56 degrees (more than halfway up) into the southeastern sky and passing just above Orion at 6:24 p.m. before sliding off toward the northeast and vanishing at 6:26 p.m. Tuesday evening's pass could be the best of the batch. The forecast from this distance is excellent - clear skies. Look for the satellite to rise from the southwest at 6:15 p.m., climbing swiftly to more than 70 degrees above the northwestern horizon at 6:17. It will fly above the constellation Cassiopeia, then head toward the northeast, disappearing at 6:20 p.m. The last convenient flyby during the coming week will come Wednesday evening. The satellite will rise above the western horizon at 6:08 p.m., climbing to about a third of the way up the northwestern horizon at 6:10 p.m. It will pass below Cassiopeia this time before disappearing at 6:14 p.m. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080216580826.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1319856_AEX PjkQAAC7OR7ccMgHEX1jdvoo&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080216aaindex_concat.html&cred=H_T360XqZdb2UzZS E_bGB1KHqatpRIBh6GU3OE8QjKa2MulPOIx2E.Hf0wRhaYM5#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Arizona Daily Star (Tucson) February 16, 2008 Soldier Charged In Slayings Of Iraqi Family Want Case Switched To Military Court By Associated Press LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Lawyers for a former Army private charged with raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdering her and her family asked a judge Friday to dismiss federal charges, saying he should be prosecuted in a military court. The attorneys argue that the government doesn't have the authority to prosecute former Pfc. Steven D. Green in civilian court for acts committed in a war zone. "Simply put, the government had no civilian jurisdiction over Pfc. Green when the offenses at issue were committed," Federal Public Defender Scott Wendelsdorf wrote in a motion. Prosecutors have until March 7 tor were convicted for their roles in targeting the girl from a checkpoint near Mahmoudiya, a village 20 miles south of Baghdad, and helping rape and kill her. Two of the soldiers testified they took turns raping the girl while Green shot and killed her mother, father and younger sister, and that Green raped the girl and shot her. Green, 22, faces a possible death sentence if convicted. He pleaded not guilty in November 2006 after being indicted on charges that included premeditated murder and aggravated sexual assault. The decision to try four of Green's co-accused in the case in the military "introduces a level of disparity that needs to be rectified by the judicial system," said Darren Wolff, an attorney on Green's defense team. "This is a military case and should be tried in a military court," said Wolff. "Prosecuting Pfc. Green in federal court is fundamentally unfair, especially given the fact all of the co-defendants in this case were tried in a military court." Green had been honorably discharged from the military with psychiatric problems when allegations surfaced of U.S. military involvement in the March 12, 2006 slayings. He was arrested that July as a civilian, while visiting family in North Carolina. The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act allows prosecutors to try military personnel in federal court if they are no longer in the service and charged for a crime punishable by at least a year in prison. Green offered to re-enlist in the Army and face a court-martial for the rape and murder, but was turned down, defense attorneys said in the motion. Green's lawyers say he faces a much harsher punishment if convicted than his alleged co-conspirators received in military court. A soldier charged as an accessory received five years, while the others' sentences ranged from 90 to 110 years. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080216580827.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1319856_AEX PjkQAAC7OR7ccMgHEX1jdvoo&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080216aaindex_concat.html&cred=H_T360XqZdb2UzZS E_bGB1KHqatpRIBh6GU3OE8QjKa2MulPOIx2E.Hf0wRhaYM5#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Arizona Republic (Phoenix) February 16, 2008 Pg. 1 Study Faults Bureaucrats For Deaths Of Marines Missteps slowed delivery of blast-resista |
