Early Bird 9/22/07

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E A R L Y B I R D

September 22, 2007

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IRAQ -- BLACKWATER
1. Iraq Probe Of U.S. Security Firm Grows
(Washington Post)...Joshua Partlow and Sudarsan Raghavan
Iraq's probe into a deadly shooting by Blackwater USA in Baghdad last weekend has expanded to include allegations about the security firm's involvement in six other violent episodes this year that left at least 10 Iraqis dead.
2. Blackwater Resumes Guarding U.S. Envoys In Iraq
(New York Times)...Andrew E. Kramer
American diplomats on Friday resumed travel in convoys escorted by Blackwater USA, the private American security contractor, three days after the Iraqi government banned the company following a shooting in which at least eight Iraqis were killed.
3. Blackwater Gets OK To Resume Iraq Duty
(Los Angeles Times)...Ned Parker
The security company Blackwater USA was approved Friday to resume escorting American officials in Baghdad, just days after the fatal shooting of 11 Iraqis galvanized the Iraqi government over the company's conduct and the immunity its employees enjoy from Iraqi law.
4. Security Firm Is In Smuggling Probe
(Washington Post)...Matthew Lee, Associated Press
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said yesterday.
POW/MIA
5. Nation's POWs, MIAs Honored In Annual Pentagon Ceremony
(Mideast Stars and Stripes)...Lisa Burgess
Pentagon leaders and representatives of all four military services honored the nation’s prisoners of war and missing in action servicemembers in a ceremony Friday.
6. Holm's Homecoming From Vietnam Faces New Delay
(New London (CT) Day)...Jennifer Grogan
Crash site could be contaminated by Agent Orange.
IRAQ
7. Iraq War Budget Jumps For 2008
(Los Angeles Times)...Julian Barnes
After smothering efforts by war critics in Congress to drastically cut U.S. troop levels in Iraq, President Bush plans to ask lawmakers next week to approve another massive spending measure -- totaling nearly $200 billion -- to fund the war through next year, Pentagon officials said.
8. American And Iraqi Forces Control Half Of Baghdad
(New York Times)...David S. Cloud
American and Iraqi forces control a little more than half of Baghdad’s neighborhoods but 8 percent are “free of enemy influence” and are being secured primarily by Iraqi units, according to a senior American commander.
9. U.S. Gains More Control In Baghdad, But Insurgency Still Rife
(Washington Examiner)...Rowan Scarborough
...The numbers reflect the tough fighting that lies ahead if the surge is to achieve its main objective: complete control of the capital.
10. Iraq Urged To Spread Power To Provinces
(Boston Globe)...Farah Stockman
Frustrated with Iraq's deadlocked central government, the Bush administration is pushing for more power to be given to Iraq's provincial councils, in the hope that local elected leaders will be more accountable to the people they serve.
11. Cholera Spreads From Northern Iraq To Baghdad
(Washington Post)...Megan Greenwell
An outbreak of cholera has spread from northern Iraq to Baghdad, infecting at least 1,500 people, the World Health Organization announced Friday.
12. British Commander Defends Basra Pullout
(Washington Post)...Kevin Sullivan
The commander of the British army said Friday that the recent withdrawal of British forces from downtown Basra was part of a "successful" strategic plan for Iraq and not the result of pressure from Shiite militias.
13. Top Shiite Cleric Loses 2 More Aides
(San Diego Union-Tribune)...Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press
The slayings of two associates of Iraq's top Shiite cleric raised fears yesterday of a worsening Shiite power struggle in the country's oil-rich south, prompting some clerics to go into hiding or abandon their robes and turbans for their own safety.
14. U.S. Will Speed Entry Of Refugees From Iraq
(Washington Post)...Paul Lewis
About 12,000 Iraqi refugees will be admitted into the United States over the next year as measures to speed up the process begin to take effect, government officials said yesterday.
15. Rice Vows Diplomatic Security Review In Iraq
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution)...Matthew Lee, Associated Press
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday she had ordered a "full and complete review" of security practices for U.S. diplomats in Iraq following a deadly incident involving private guards protecting an embassy convoy.
16. Do GIs Have To Spin War's Facts?
(San Antonio Express-News)...Sig Christenson
In murmurs occasionally tense with anger, U.S. soldiers in Iraq have talked more than once about the pressure they and other troops are under to cast the war in a positive light in the reports they file with their commanders.
17. War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says
(Washington Post)...Kari Lydersen
...The estimates made by the group, which opposes the conflict, include not only the immediate costs of war but also ongoing factors such as long-term health care for veterans, interest on debt and replacement of military hardware.
ARMY
18. U.S. Agency Assails Ft. Meade Plan
(Washington Post)...Steve Vogel
Federal officials warn that the Army's proposed expansion of Fort Meade with new buildings and two 18-hole golf courses could threaten a nearby wildlife refuge and clog the roads that lead to the post in western Anne Arundel County, according to an environmental impact report released yesterday.
19. Bias Against Non-Christians Alleged
(Washington Post)...Unattributed
A U.S. soldier serving his second tour in Iraq says he was threatened by an Army officer when he tried to hold a meeting of atheist and other non-Christian troops.
NAVY
20. Drunken Party On Destroyer Cost Skipper His Job
(San Diego Union-Tribune)...Steve Liewer
An in-port party that resulted in sailors showing up drunk to fight a shipboard fire contributed to the February dismissal of a San Diego-based destroyer's commander, according to a Navy report obtained by The San Diego Union-Tribune.
21. Navy Officer Facing 18 Months In Theft Of Military Gear
(Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)...Kate Wiltrout
Navy Lt. Kevin Beers faced as much as 79 years behind bars for stealing government property - including body armor he used in Iraq - and selling it to people around the globe on eBay.
AIR FORCE
22. Gates Seeks 2nd Inquiry Of Bomber Mishap
(New York Times on the Web)...Associated Press
Three weeks after the Air Force began investigating the mistaken arming of a B-52 bomber with nuclear weapons, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked for an outside inquiry led by a retired general who once commanded the strategic bomber fleet, an official said Thursday. (THIS ARTICLE APPEARED ONLINE, NOT IN THE ACTUAL NEWSPAPER.)
NATIONAL GUARD/RESERVE
23. National Guard Pulling Some Troops At Border
(San Diego Union-Tribune)...Leslie Berestein
National Guard troops stationed along California's border with Mexico are being scaled back, as are Guard troops elsewhere along the southern border.
CONGRESS
24. Feasibility Of Repairing Tomb Eyed
(Washington Times)...David C. Lipscomb
A senator has introduced legislation that would prohibit the Army from replacing the 71-year-old marble sarcophagus marking the Tomb of the Unknowns before submitting to Congress a report on the feasibility of repairing the monument.
25. Why Dems' Iraq Pullout Failed
(Arizona Republic (Phoenix))...Anne Flaherty, Associated Press
...Democrats' momentum on their anti-war effort has stalled abruptly, ending weeks of White House hand-wringing. The reason? A convincing four-star general, an activist group that overplayed its hand and a plainspoken Defense secretary who doesn't bother to defend the Iraq invasion.
26. Nine-Month Iraq Timetable Is Voted Down By Senate
(Washington Post)...Shailagh Murray
The Senate yesterday rejected a nine-month timetable for bringing most troops home from Iraq, yet another legislative defeat for Democrats in what is shaping up as a losing battle to force President Bush to end the war.
27. As Bills To End War Stumble In Congress, Partisan Din Swells
(New York Times)...Carl Hulse
With the Senate sinking into a legislative quagmire over Iraq, lawmakers and their allies are shifting to what has proved to be more solid ground when it comes to the war: political recriminations.
28. Democrats Step Up Scrutiny Of Private Military Companies
(Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)...Bill Sizemore
In the wake of Sunday’s shootings of at least 11 Iraqis by Blackwater USA contractors, Democratic senators Friday assailed what they called a climate of impunity surrounding private security contracting in Iraq.
POLITICS
29. From The Campaign To The Battlefront
(Wall Street Journal)...Monica Langley
...Mr. Lippert, a lieutenant junior grade sporting a buzz-cut and desert camouflage, is training here before being shipped out to Iraq, where he will serve as an intelligence officer for the Navy SEALs. In his civilian life, he is the chief foreign-policy adviser for Sen. Obama -- the Democrat whose most well-known foreign-policy stance is his opposition to the Iraq War Lt. Lippert is about to join.
MIDEAST
30. Israeli Raid On Syria Fuels Debate On Weapons
(New York Times)...Mark Mazzetti and David E. Sanger
American concerns about ties between Syria and North Korea have long focused on a partnership involving missiles and missile technology. Even many hawks within the Bush administration have expressed doubts that the Syrians have the money or technical depth to build a serious nuclear program like the one in Iran.
31. Rice Says Paris Agrees On Pressing The Iranians
(New York Times)...Thom Shanker
The United States and France agree on increasing diplomatic and economic pressure to force Iran to abandon its nuclear program, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday as the Bush administration played host to a meeting of major world powers to discuss another round of United Nations sanctions.
32. War Of Words Over Nuclear Weapons
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution)...Unattributed
Israel accused Iran of lying and Tehran challenged the international community to send inspectors to investigate its arch-rival's nuclear capabilities, in a rare and unusually bitter direct confrontation at a 148-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
33. New York Braces For Ahmadinejad
(Baltimore Sun)...Unattributed
Columbia University planned yesterday to go forward with a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while the city mobilized security to protect him from protests during his New York visit.
AFGHANISTAN
34. Iran Accused Of Sending Bomb Parts To Afghans
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Brian Murphy, Associated Press
...Adm. William Fallon, the head of U.S. Central Command, said Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards force was supplying parts for the type of sophisticated and deadly roadside bombs found in Iraq known as explosively formed penetrators.
35. Deal To Immunize Afghan Youths Made
(San Diego Union-Tribune)...Combined Dispatches
Afghan health officials said yesterday that they had brokered a deal with Taliban leaders to allow the immunization of children in rebel-held areas in a rare sign of cooperation between the warring sides.
ASIA/PACIFIC
36. Musharraf Shores Up Base, Naming Intelligence Chief
(New York Times)...Carlotta Gall
Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, promoted a close ally to the important post of intelligence chief on Friday, shoring up his power base as he prepares to run for another term as president and possibly to resign from his position as army chief in the coming weeks.
37. High-Level Team Visits From Syria
(Washington Times)...Unattributed
North Korea and Syria held high-level talks yesterday, the state-run news agency said in Pyongyang, amid reports the communist state was secretly helping Damascus to develop a nuclear-weapons facility.
AMERICAS
38. In The World
(Philadelphia Inquirer)...Unattributed
Relatives of three U.S. defense contractors being held by Colombian rebels are traveling to Venezuela to meet with President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday to work for their loved ones' release. The three have been held since their small plane crashed during a surveillance mission in February 2003.
39. Troops In Drug War Accused Of Abuse
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution)...Unattributed
A government-run human rights commission accused soldiers of rape and torture and recommended the army be pulled out of Mexico's nationwide drug war.
WORLD WAR II
40. Honor Flights Bring WWII Vets To Memorial
(Washington Times)...Arlo Wagner
A plane carrying about 120 World War II veterans is scheduled to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport this morning, bringing a group of heroes from the past to visit a memorial honoring their legacy.
BUSINESS
41. Navy Awards Raytheon $1B Contract
(Boston Globe)...Robert Weisman
Waltham defense contractor Raytheon Co. yesterday won a nearly $1 billion Navy contract that will take its combat systems for the new DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer from design into production.
OPINION
42. 10 Years In S. Florida
(Miami Herald)...Barry R. McCaffrey
The U.S. Southern Command is currently celebrating the 10th anniversary of its move from Panama to South Florida. From its headquarters in Doral, Southcom advances U.S. objectives in Latin America and the Caribbean -- an era encompassing 32 countries, 13 territories, 450 million people and 16 million square miles.
43. Abizaid's High-Risk Idea
(Washington Times)...Jay Ambrose
John Abizaid, a retired Army general, says “there are ways” the world could “live with a nuclear Iran.” The question is how much of the world, for how long.
44. Public Problems For Private Security Firms
(Chicago Tribune)...Georgie Anne Geyer
...Are we, in essence, preparing America for a time when even more of our major fighting and security work will be carried through by men and women who do not operate under the rules and regulations of our armed forces? Are we at the point where all sorts of activities will be "contracted out" to people who do not serve under the laws, discipline and traditions of our professionals?
45. What Does Osama Want?
(Washington Times)...Victor Davis Hanson
...The truth is that bin Laden and al Qaeda want power for themselves, and use religious grievances and shifting political demands to try to achieve it.

washington Post
September 22, 2007
Pg. 1

Iraq Probe Of U.S. Security Firm Grows
Blackwater, Accused of Killing 11 on Sunday, Cited in Earlier Deaths
By Joshua Partlow and Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post Foreign Service
BAGHDAD, Sept. 21 -- Iraq's probe into a deadly shooting by Blackwater USA in Baghdad last weekend has expanded to include allegations about the security firm's involvement in six other violent episodes this year that left at least 10 Iraqis dead.
The incidents include the killing of three guards at a state-run media complex and the shooting death of an Iraqi journalist outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, chief spokesman for the Interior Ministry.
Iraqi officials say these violent encounters have made them increasingly frustrated with Blackwater's conduct in Iraq, but the government backed away Friday from its attempt to expel the company. Blackwater has said its guards acted appropriately in the weekend incident, but it did not respond to requests for comment Friday on the other episodes cited by Khalaf.
"These acts, this is what made the Ministry of Interior stop trusting them," Khalaf said in an interview. He said the ministry's findings would be referred to court for possible criminal prosecution.
On Friday, Blackwater-protected convoys resumed leaving the Green Zone, three days after the U.S. Embassy froze such travel amid Iraqi declarations that the company would be expelled. Mirembe Nantongo, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman, said the convoys had resumed "on a limited basis" after "consultation with Iraqi authorities." She said it was "likely that Blackwater will be supporting with some of the movements."
The North Carolina-based company, with an estimated 1,000 employees in Iraq, protects virtually every senior American diplomat and civilian official here.
Bassam Ridha, a senior adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, conceded that the Iraqi government, at least for now, cannot follow through on a ban on Blackwater, even though the firm has been operating without a license for more than a year. "The reality of the matter is we can't do that," Ridha said.
The ministry said Blackwater guards fired without provocation at a Baghdad square on Sunday, killing 11 people and wounding 12. The shootings sparked outrage across the country and spurred the strongest effort yet by Iraq's government to assert control over the tens of thousands of security contractors who operate without regulation and sometimes with impunity in the country. They have been shielded for years from Iraqi laws by a regulation written by U.S. occupation authorities before the nation's post-invasion government was formed.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday that she had ordered a "full and complete" review of the department's handling of security contractors in Iraq. "We will review how we carry out our security," she told reporters in Washington. "We take seriously what happened in Iraq."
State Department spokesman Tom Casey said allegations of misconduct by Blackwater will be investigated by a joint U.S.-Iraqi committee. "We are committed to working with the Iraqi government to address both any individual incidents that may have occurred as well as the broader questions of security and safety related to the operation of personal security details," he said.
Matthew Degn, who until recently served as senior adviser to the Interior Ministry's intelligence directorate, which oversees private security, said the new allegations should be viewed with caution. He said Iraqi authorities frequently made charges against private security firms, including Blackwater, that were not supported by evidence. Degn said the inflated accounts heightened the powerlessness Iraqi officials felt over their inability to control Blackwater.
To bolster their case against Blackwater, Interior Ministry officials included six other incidents in their preliminary report, Khalaf said. The government had videotapes of some attacks, license plate numbers of Blackwater vehicles involved and eyewitness accounts implicating Blackwater, he said.
In one of the most violent episodes cited by Khalaf, Blackwater guards shot three guards at Iraq's state-run Iraqiya television network on Feb. 7.
"It's videotaped. And it's really very ugly when you look at it," Khalaf said.
Habib al-Sadr, the head of Iraqiya television, said, "Blackwater neither paid any compensation to the victims' families nor offered a letter of apology to them for this horrible, unjustifiable act."
On Sept. 9, Blackwater guards killed five people and wounded 10 near the Baghdad municipality building, Khalaf said, and three days later Blackwater guards severely wounded five people in east Baghdad.
According to the Interior Ministry investigation, Sunday's shootings began around noon, shortly after a bomb exploded about a mile from Nisoor Square in Baghdad's Mansour area. Blackwater guards were escorting a State Department motorcade of at least four vehicles. The convoy entered the square, and the guards quickly took positions to protect their passengers, halting traffic.
One car, carrying a couple and their child, did not stop and was fired upon by the guards, Khalaf said. "The father was shot first, the woman was yelling, and the policeman came to save them. And they continued to shoot at them, and continued shooting till they set fire to the car," he said, referring to the Blackwater guards.
The other victims were in nearby cars or standing close to the gunfire, Khalaf said.
Several witnesses reiterated Khalaf's account. "She was screaming and holding her son in her lap," said a traffic policeman at the scene who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It looked like [a Blackwater guard] used some kind of missile launcher to hit the car."
The policeman and his colleagues entered the crowded intersection but rushed for cover when Blackwater began shooting at them. A second traffic officer said that he ducked behind his guard booth and that Blackwater guards strafed it with bullets, breaking the window.
"They kept shooting for no reason. No one shot at them," the first policeman said.
U.S. officials have maintained that the convoy was fired upon in the square.
Khalaf said the Interior Ministry has drafted legislation that would place strict controls on foreign security firms. Those that commit crimes "will be punished according to Iraqi law," he added.
Hamid Rashia Mualla, a Shiite legislator, predicted that Iraq's parliament would unite behind such legislation. Although security contractors have an important mission, he said, they need to be regulated. "When mistakes happen, there should be some resolution to these mistakes, especially when these mistakes concern innocent people's blood," he said.
Staff writer Steve Fainaru in El Cerrito, Calif., and special correspondent Naseer Nouri in Baghdad contributed to this report.

New York Times
September 22, 2007
Pg. 7
Blackwater Resumes Guarding U.S. Envoys In Iraq
By Andrew E. Kramer
BAGHDAD, Sept. 21 — American diplomats on Friday resumed travel in convoys escorted by Blackwater USA, the private American security contractor, three days after the Iraqi government banned the company following a shooting in which at least eight Iraqis were killed.
It was not clear if the resumption of convoys was a signal of some political compromise between the State Department and the Iraqi government, which had demanded that the United States drop Blackwater as its protector, or whether it simply meant that American officials felt they could not afford to remain grounded. The State Department relies on Blackwater for its security outside the fortified Green Zone.
American Embassy officials have declined to give details of an investigation of the shooting on Sunday in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, but a preliminary report by Iraqi officials found that Blackwater guards had fired at Iraqis in their cars without provocation.
Mirembe Nantongo, a spokeswoman for the American Embassy, said a limited number of diplomats traveled outside the Green Zone on Friday. They were likely to be accompanied by Blackwater guards, she said but declined to give details. “As a general rule, in a limited manner, Blackwater is operating,” she said.
Ms. Nantongo said the decision to resume diplomatic convoy traffic had been taken “in consultation with the Iraqi authorities,” but she would not elaborate on whether the Iraqis had approved the Blackwater escorts, after the din of official Iraqi criticism toward the company earlier this week.
On Tuesday, the State Department halted all diplomatic travel outside the Green Zone. The move seriously handicapped its operations at a time when the focus of the American effort in Iraq has turned to contacts with tribes, local leaders and citizens.
In its only statement on the shooting, Blackwater said security contractors fired in response to an insurgent attack, an account disputed by the Iraqi Interior Ministry. The ministry concluded that the shooting had begun when a Blackwater guard fired at a car that did not stop quickly enough, killing the driver, a passenger and a baby.
The ministry has recommended an overhaul of the rules for private security companies here, including revoking a law written by American administrators shortly after the invasion granting such companies immunity from Iraqi law.
Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, has demanded that the State Department drop Blackwater as a security contractor, something security experts said was unlikely because of the department’s heavy reliance on the company. There was no official Iraqi response on Friday to the resumption of convoy traffic.
The State Department has set up a joint 16-member commission, together with the Iraqi government, to analyze the events of Sunday and to recommend ways that security procedures for diplomats need to be changed.
State Department personnel are based principally in the Green Zone in Baghdad and in provincial reconstruction teams at 10 locations around the country. In addition to Blackwater, the State Department has contracts for personal security with two other companies, Triple Canopy and DynCorp.
Violence continued to displace Iraqis. Between 50 and 100 Sunni families fled their homes in the Baghdad neighborhood of Washash around midnight on Friday after being threatened by members of the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia, according to an Interior Ministry official.
After a senior leader of the Mahdi Army was killed in an ambush several hours earlier, militiamen began moving through the area with loudspeakers, telling people to leave, said Sheik Abu Hasan, one of those displaced. American forces came to the area, he said. Though they did not stop the flight, they helped the families reach the Sunni Arab neighborhood of Adel in safety. The ministry official said that four Sunni women from the neighborhood were killed.
“We had no other choice but to leave our houses at once,” Sheik Abu Hasan said. “What shocked us a lot was that as soon as we reached the main streets, we saw Iraqi and American forces who were showing and directing us to the highway.”
Also on Friday, in a sign of mounting turmoil amid Shiite groups in the south, two aides to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric, were assassinated in Basra and Diwaniya, in the latest of a string of attacks on the cleric’s followers.
An Iraqi police official said Friday that 25 people had been arrested in connection with the assassination on Sept. 13 of a Sunni leader, Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, who had worked with the United States in Anbar Province to fight insurgents, The Associated Press reported.
Mudhafer al-Husaini and Sabrina Tavernise contributed reporting.

Los Angeles Times
September 22, 2007
Blackwater Gets OK To Resume Iraq Duty
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad approves the security firm for protecting limited movements by American diplomats.
By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
BAGHDAD —The security company Blackwater USA was approved Friday to resume escorting American officials in Baghdad, just days after the fatal shooting of 11 Iraqis galvanized the Iraqi government over the company's conduct and the immunity its employees enjoy from Iraqi law.
The decision by the U.S. Embassy came despite Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's insistence that the State Department sack the company and his government's demand that Blackwater and other such security firms be stripped of the immunity granted them in 2004 by L. Paul Bremer III, the administrator of the former U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.
"This morning, we resumed taking requests for movements. The idea was to have limited movements outside the Green Zone. Obviously this was a step taken in consultation with the Iraqi authorities," said embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo.
A senior Iraqi lawmaker, Sami Askari, said officials would be informed of Blackwater's whereabouts, but Nantongo denied that the embassy would be providing them precise details of their missions.
"This time they will be restricted; they will be required to inform the Iraqi government about their movements until the end of the investigation," said Askari, an advisor to Maliki.
The embassy announced Tuesday that it had forbidden U.S. officials to travel outside the Green Zone, the fortress-like enclave harboring the Iraqi government and the diplomatic community, citing the increased threat of attacks after the incident involving Blackwater.
The U.S. and Iraqi governments have been in consultation since Sunday, when a Blackwater security detail killed 11 people in Nisoor Square in west Baghdad's Mansour district.
A preliminary Iraqi government investigation, carried out by the Interior Ministry, found that the armed guards had fired on Iraqi civilians without provocation. In turn, Blackwater and the State Department have said the security detail had been fired upon.
Nonetheless, nearly a week into the dispute, which has seen an unprecedented stand by the Iraqi government over the conduct of private security firms, Iraqi officials have retreated after initially declaring that they would take away security contractors' immunity.
Instead, the prime minister agreed Wednesday that a joint Iraqi-U.S. commission would review the status of security contractors and also receive the results of an Iraqi and U.S. military investigation.
The investigation of the incident Sunday has been complicated by the involvement of the embassy's own diplomatic security agents, who work with and supervise Blackwater. The embassy's security department has been accused by some diplomats of having failed to challenge Blackwater over questionable episodes.
Peter W. Singer, a Brookings Institution expert on security contractors, was skeptical about whether the joint commission would change the rules and hold Blackwater accountable for any misconduct in Iraq.
"Based on the past track record, I don't have a lot of evidence to base that hope on, but maybe this [event] changes the game," Singer said.
Singer criticized the embassy's insistence on conducting its own investigation, parallel to the Iraqi government's inquiry.
"It is utter silliness. All it does is guarantee we will have two versions of the story, and further the disconnect and sense of double standards," he said.
'Complete review'
In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday that she had ordered a "full and complete review" of procedures for providing security to U.S. diplomats. Rice said she issued "directives" to State Department officials to study all facets of security practices.
The review will examine the role and function of private security guards and their "rules of engagement," department spokesman Sean McCormack said later at a briefing.
While announcing the review, Rice also made a point of defending Blackwater personnel.
"We have needed and received the protection of Blackwater for a number of years now, and they have lost their own people in protecting our own people -- and that needs to be said -- in extremely dangerous circumstances," she said.
She also noted that she had called Maliki to express her regret at the loss of life in the Sunday incident.
Singer said contractors such as Blackwater have damaged the U.S.-led effort to woo Iraqis away from Sunni and Shiite Muslim extremists.
"It has hindered rather than helped us in the counterinsurgency," he said.
The animosity was evident at Friday prayers in the Shiite shrine city of Najaf, where a senior cleric railed against Blackwater and warned Washington that apologies like that made by Rice were not enough.
"It is important that these companies be regulated by the law, and therefore an apology from Rice is not enough. Thousands of Iraqi children, women and elderly have been killed -- as the Americans put it -- by accident," cleric Sadruddin Qubanchi said.
Civilian contractors also doubted that any justice would be done.
"We think it's hard to give Blackwater the benefit of the doubt," one contractor said on condition of anonymity. "Even among their peer group, we are also tired of having guns pulled on us and being generally abused."
Against the backdrop of the Blackwater controversy, military officials said Friday that there had been an increase in the number of Baghdad areas under the control of U.S. forces, but acknowledged that Iraqi troops were taking the lead in less than one-tenth of the city's neighborhoods.
"The level of violence is way, way down," Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil Jr., the divisional commander in charge of U.S.-led forces in Baghdad, said during a teleconference with Pentagon reporters. "And perhaps more significantly, the ability of the Iraqi security forces to control their own neighborhoods . . . is growing."
The control phase
In Baghdad, U.S. troops move into neighborhoods, take control, and eventually turn them over to Iraqi units. Fil said 46% of neighborhoods were in what he termed the control phase, with the U.S. military leading a joint effort with Iraqi troops, up from 42% in June and 19% in April.
However, about 8% of neighborhoods are being "retained," or held, by Iraqi forces, with U.S. forces in those areas taking a supervisory role, he said.
The pace of the turnover has been a subject of debate within the military.
Some skeptics of the strategy have said the U.S. is moving too slowly in handing responsibility to the Iraqis. But military officials in Baghdad caution that moving faster could jeopardize security gains.
Fil said more neighborhoods could be turned over but that Iraqi forces were not yet adequate to handle the responsibility.
"The fundamental question: Are the Iraqi security forces sufficient to truly protect the city? I do not believe they are," Fil said, noting that the Iraqi forces are being expanded.
Fil also complained that attacks by Shiite militias were continuing in some neighborhoods, despite a call to stand down by radical cleric and Shiite leader Muqtada Sadr.
In the southern port of Basra, Shiite followers of the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani canceled Friday prayers to protest the killing of six of the leader's aides across southern Iraq since June.
Since British forces started withdrawing from bases inside the city this month, Basra has seen an increase in violence as various Shiite factions battle for influence. On Thursday, gunmen killed Sistani aide Sheik Amjad Janabi in the southern oil city, and a second Sistani representative was shot down in Diwaniya, another southern city.
Separately, a U.S. soldier died and another was wounded Thursday in a bomb blast in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, the military said Friday, bringing to 3,795 the number of American troops killed in Iraq, according to icasualties.org.
Times staff writers Julian E. Barnes in Washington, Raheem Salman, Said Rifai and Saif Hameed in Baghdad and special correspondent Saad Fakhrildeen in Najaf contributed to this report.

Washington Post
September 22, 2007
Pg. 10
Security Firm Is In Smuggling Probe
Blackwater May Be Charged for Bringing Weapons Into Iraq
By Matthew Lee, Associated Press
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said yesterday.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors, who have concluded that there is enough evidence to file charges, the officials said. Blackwater is based in Moyock, N.C.
A spokeswoman for Blackwater did not return calls seeking comment yesterday. The U.S. attorney for the eastern district of North Carolina, George Holding, declined to comment, as did Pentagon and State Department spokesmen.
Officials with knowledge of the case said it is active, although at an early stage. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reported today that two former Blackwater employees -- Kenneth Wayne Cashwell of Virginia Beach and William Ellsworth "Max" Grumiaux of Clemmons, N.C. -- are cooperating with federal investigators.
Both men pleaded guilty in January to possession of stolen firearms that had been shipped in interstate or foreign commerce. The men agreed to testify in any future proceedings.
Officials said the investigation into U.S. weapons that had gone missing in Iraq gained steam after Turkish authorities protested to Washington in July that they had seized American arms from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, rebels.
The PKK, which is fighting for an independent Kurdistan, is banned in Turkey and is considered a "foreign terrorist organization" by the State Department. That designation bars U.S. citizens or those in U.S. jurisdictions from supporting the group in any way.
The North Carolina investigation was first brought to light by State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard. He alluded to it Tuesday while denying he had improperly blocked fraud and corruption probes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mideast Stars and Stripes
September 22, 2007
Nation's POWs, MIAs Honored In Annual Pentagon Ceremony
By Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes
ARLINGTON, Va. — Pentagon leaders and representatives of all four military services honored the nation’s prisoners of war and missing in action servicemembers in a ceremony Friday.
“They may be missing in body, they are always present in spirit,” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said during the event. While “the vagaries of war still mean we cannot account for everyone,” Gates pledged “not to relent in our efforts” to recover and identify the lost servicemembers.
According to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, there are more than 88,000 U.S. servicemembers whose whereabouts are unaccounted for, with 78,000 of those from World War II alone. On average JPAC identifies and repatriates the remains of about six missing American servicemembers a month, according to command officials.
Meanwhile, about 30,000 former prisoners of war are still alive today, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Peter Pace said during Friday’s ceremony.
“Their gift is simple, pure and heartfelt, from them to us, and it is our freedom,” Pace said.
The widow of Col. Charles Scharf, an Air Force F-4 pilot who crashed near Hanoi in 1965, spoke about efforts to locate and identify her husband’s remains, which finally took place in 2006.
Patricia Scharf said military forensic scientists used DNA from stamps on love letters he sent home to positively identify his remains. “He was buried in his uniform and medals, and with some of those love letters,” the widow said. “I visit him every week, and sit for a few moments of peace, talking to him.”

New London (CT) Day
September 21, 2007
Holm's Homecoming From Vietnam Faces New Delay
Crash Site Could Be Contaminated By Agent Orange
By Jennifer Grogan
A WHITE CANDLE BURNS daily in Margaret Brewster's living-room window, lighting the way for her brother to return home.
The search for Brewster's brother, Waterford native Capt. Arnold E. Holm Jr., hit another snag recently, with a report of possible Agent Orange contamination at his crash site in Vietnam.
Today, on National POW/MIA Recognition Day, Brewster fears that her 35-year vigil is still far from over.
“Most people don't know about today. It's forgotten, like the MIA are forgotten,” said Brewster, who lives in Cromwell. “But the family always remembers. The family is always waiting, always waiting.”
Observances will be held today across the country on military installations and ships at sea, at state capitols, schools and veterans' facilities to honor people like Holm.
Holm, nicknamed “Dusty,” had been flying reconnaissance in a small scout helicopter in Thua Thien-Hue province in central Vietnam, just north of Da Nang, in 1972. Enemy fire sent him and his crewmates, Pfc. Wayne Bibbs of Illinois and Spc. Robin Yeakley of Indiana, crashing through the jungle canopy.
After several failed search attempts, the crash site was discovered in July 2006. The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, or JPAC, scheduled it as an alternate for excavation in 2007 and a primary site for 2008.
But when a JPAC team went to Vietnam this summer to refine the perimeters of the site, local village elders raised concerns about Agent Orange contamination, according to a letter from Brig. Gen. Michael C. Flowers, JPAC commander.
“As a result, our team was withdrawn from the site,” Flowers wrote to U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District. “We are in the process of assessing the situation, therefore I cannot give you a specific timeframe (when) we will return to the site.”
He added, “I wish the news was more positive on Capt. Holm's case.”
“It was going so well for a while,” said Holm's widow, Margarete. “It was almost like tempting fate.”
Courtney plans to meet with staff members from the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, including analysts for Holm's case, on Wednesday to discuss the status of the recovery effort and the Agent Orange issue.
“They tell us repeatedly that this is a project that is still on the top of the list for 2008,” Courtney said. “The family had strong roots in the community and not to get closure on a tragic loss like this is something that I think really eats away at people. I certainly understand that it's really important for us to bring this to an appropriate close that honors the sacrifice he gave.”
About 20 million gallons of herbicides were used in Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 to remove unwanted plants and leaves that provided cover for the enemy, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Veterans reported a variety of health problems after serving in Vietnam, which some attributed to exposure to Agent Orange or other herbicides.
But the report of possible contamination came as a surprise to Holm's relatives and to Rob Simmons, who went on an unsuccessful search mission in April 2003 when he represented the 2nd District.
“I was furious,” said Margarete Holm, who lives in Lebanon, Pa. “It just seemed too convenient. I know that money is running out and manpower is tight, but if that's the case, they need to say so.
“It reminded me of when they supposedly went looking for the site the first time,” she added. “They sent a guide out to look for it. He went over the hill, took a nap and said he couldn't find it. That's why I'm hesitant to believe them.”
Simmons, who later learned he was searching only about 200 meters away from the correct site, said no one mentioned Agent Orange contamination when he was there. The U.S. government should have records of where the herbicides were sprayed that could be used to resolve the question quickly, he said.
“This is something I've been involved with, and the community has been involved with, for a long time. And to be told that the excavation might be delayed or postponed indefinitely because of the question of Agent Orange is hugely disappointing,” Simmons said. “I wonder how much this family has to go through.”
JPAC is waiting for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take soil samples to see if the Agent Orange claim has any validity, according to Courtney's staff.
“I think the Army has an obligation to at least investigate a claim like that when people are going to be disturbing the earth and vegetation,” Courtney said. “But obviously this isn't the first time they've been out there. Rob (Simmons) was there and he seems healthy, so my hope is that it really is just a false alarm.”
If discovered, the remains would have to go through a battery of DNA tests before they are given to the family. Margarete Holm said she will hold a memorial service at the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer in New London, where they were married in 1966 and where Holm was baptized, followed by a burial at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
“We don't want anyone to go there and become ill or injured,” Brewster said. “It just seems incredible that there are so many roadblocks even after they found the site. It's like we're standing on the edge. We know they're going to bring him home sometime, but when?”

Los Angeles Times
September 22, 2007
Pg. 1
Iraq War Budget Jumps For 2008
Bush plans to increase his request to nearly $200 billion. The troop buildup and new gear are the main reasons.
By Julian Barnes, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — -- After smothering efforts by war critics in Congress to drastically cut U.S. troop levels in Iraq, President Bush plans to ask lawmakers next week to approve another massive spending measure -- totaling nearly $200 billion -- to fund the war through next year, Pentagon officials said.
If Bush's spending request is approved, 2008 will be the most expensive year of the Iraq war.
U.S. war costs have continued to grow because of the additional combat forces sent to Iraq this year and because of efforts to quickly ramp up production of new technology, such as mine-resistant trucks designed to protect troops from roadside bombs. The new trucks can cost three to six times as much as an armored Humvee.
The Bush administration said earlier this year that it probably would need $147.5 billion for 2008, but Pentagon officials now say that and $47 billion more will be required. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and other officials are to formally present the full request at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Wednesday.
The funding request means that war costs are projected to grow even as the number of deployed combat troops begins a gradual decline starting in December. Spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is to rise from $173 billion this year to about $195 billion in fiscal 2008, which begins Oct. 1.
When costs of CIA operations and embassy expenses are added, the war in Iraq currently costs taxpayers about $12 billion a month, said Winslow T. Wheeler, a former Republican congressional budget aide who is a senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information in Washington.
"Everybody predicts declines, but they haven't occurred, and 2008 will be higher than 2007," Wheeler said. "It all depends on what happens in Iraq, but thus far it has continued to get bloodier and more expensive. Everyone says we are going to turn the corner here, but the corner has not been turned."
In 2004, the two conflicts together cost $94 billion; in 2005, they cost $108 billion; in 2006, $122 billion.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are financed through a single administration request to Congress, and their costs are combined in the legislation.
The new spending request is likely to push the cumulative cost of the war in Iraq alone through 2008 past the $600-billion mark -- more than the Korean War and nearly as much as the Vietnam War, based on estimates by government budget officials.
Opposition
After the defeat this week of Democratic proposals to force faster troop withdrawals from Iraq, the new funding request presents a potential target for war critics on Capitol Hill.
"Now that we have a Democratic Congress and the war is less popular and we are not talking about $100 billion a year but $200 billion a year -- some of which is not directly war-related -- the question is whether the Congress will slim it down," said Steven M. Kosiak, vice president of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Despite setbacks, the staunchest war opponents on Capitol Hill are pushing for new limits.
This week, Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) unsuccessfully proposed cutting funding by next summer for most military operations in Iraq. In the House, antiwar lawmakers have gathered 80 signatures on a letter they plan to send to Bush expressing their opposition to "appropriating any additional funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq other than a time-bound, safe redeployment."
But Republicans continue to oppose such funding limitations. And it is unlikely that any funding cut could win a majority in either chamber. Feingold's proposal garnered only 28 votes Thursday, as 20 Democrats joined 49 Republicans and one independent to quash it.
"The additional funding is so closely tied to the safety of U.S. troops, the Democrats are unwilling to challenge it, even though it is a potential point of leverage for forcing a drawdown," said Loren B. Thompson, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute think tank.
The Bush administration's initial estimate of 2008 costs, released in February, did not include money for the troop buildup.
The military needs additional money to continue the deployment of those forces, which are due to withdraw between December and July.
Still, military budget analysts said that just a fraction of $47 billion would go to support the additional forces. The bulk of the money would be spent on better armor, weapons systems and fixing the materiel ground down by the punishing environment of Iraq.
Kosiak estimates about $15 billion of the new request would be used to cover the additional troops.
"They don't want to just replace what was worn out and destroyed, they want to get better stuff, and get more stuff in some cases," he said.
New armored trucks
Military leaders hope that new armored vehicles like "mine resistant ambush protected" vehicles can better protect forces in Iraq. Production of MRAPs, which have a V-shaped hull to deflect bomb blasts, is being dramatically ramped up, and the military is seeking to speed their delivery to Iraq, where improvised explosives remain the gravest threat to troops.
Defense contractors produced 82 MRAPs in June. The Pentagon has set a production target of 1,300 a month by December.
MRAPs were once primarily seen as a vehicle suited for clearing bombs from roads, but the Army is gradually coming to the conclusion that it needs to replace most of its Humvees with the better-armored vehicles, said Thompson, who also has consulted for defense contractors.
"This was a modest program that has grown into the biggest armored-vehicle program in a generation," he said.
Demands for better armor, coupled with the ease with which insurgents can make roadside bombs, suggest that even as troops gradually draw down, war costs could remain high.
A study released this week by the Congressional Budget Office estimated that a long-term presence of 55,000 troops in Iraq would cost $25 billion to $30 billion a year if those troops were regularly involved in combat operations.
But it may be some time before the U.S. force reaches such a small size, and budgets in the years to come are likely to be far larger than those estimates.
Pentagon analysts are working on 2009 budget estimates, to be unveiled early next year. Even if the Bush administration reduces the size of the force in Iraq in 2008, analysts expect the 2009 budget to remain between $170 billion and $200 billion.
"As long as large numbers of U.S. troops and civilian contractors are deployed in the country," Thompson said, "it is going to cost billions of dollars a month to protect them."
Times staff writer Noam N. Levey contributed to this report.

New York Times
September 22, 2007
Pg. 7
American And Iraqi Forces Control Half Of Baghdad
By David S. Cloud
WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 — American and Iraqi forces control a little more than half of Baghdad’s neighborhoods but 8 percent are “free of enemy influence” and are being secured primarily by Iraqi units, according to a senior American commander.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil Jr., the American commander in Baghdad, told reporters in a video briefing at the Pentagon that in around 38 of Baghdad’s 474 neighborhoods American forces were playing mainly a supporting role to Iraqis, and that violence was at minimal levels. That represents only a slight increase in Iraqi control since June.
In another 46 percent of the city’s neighborhoods, he said, American and Iraqi forces were able to prevent the area’s use by insurgent forces and protect the population. That is up from 42 percent in late June and 28 percent in late May. “The level of violence is way, way down,” General Fil said.
In 16 percent of Baghdad neighborhoods, American and Iraqi troops still face problems protecting residents, while in 30 percent operations are under way to “remove all enemy forces and eliminate resistance,” General Fil said.
More than half of the 30,000 additional American troops sent to Iraq this year as part of the “surge” have been operating in Baghdad. President Bush has said that all the additional troops will be withdrawn by next July.
Even after the American reinforcements are sent home, there will still be areas that require continued fighting by the remaining American troops, General Fil said, noting that Iraqi police and army units are not now capable of taking the lead in providing security.
But as American forces draw down over coming months, he said he was “confident” that Iraqi forces would “be sufficiently strong” that they could assume responsibility for security in more neighborhoods.
Critics of the American war effort have long contended that the American military is following a “whack-a-mole” strategy, driving insurgents out of one area only to find them popping up in another. They have also raised doubts about whether the Iraqi Army and police forces, which have been racked by corruption and militia infiltration, will ever be able to provide effective security in the absence of American forces.
A recent assessment of the Iraqi security forces by a Congressional commission concluded that the Iraqi Army and police units would not be able to operate independently for at least 12 to 18 months. The panel, which was led by James L. Jones, a retired general and the former supreme American commander in Europe, also recommended eliminating the Iraqi national police, a 25,000-officer force charged with playing a key role under the current strategy, because it said the force was crippled by public distrust and sectarianism.
General Fil said that despite the small increase in areas where Iraqi units were in the lead, “the ability of the Iraqi security forces to control their own neighborhoods, their own areas, as they stand side by side with American forces and, in fact, as they take the lead, is growing.”
He noted that American forces had gone into only a small corner of Sadr City, a Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad and a stronghold of Moktada al-Sadr, an anti-American Shiite cleric. American commanders have held off trying to clear the area of militia fighters, fearing that it would set off a fierce street-to-street battle.
“We do not plan to actually move into Sadr City for several months, and that will be done as we work with the local government there and the government of Iraq,” General Fil said.
He focused on what he said was a growing number of Iraqis volunteering to protect their own neighborhoods from insurgents and cooperate with American troops. He said that there were almost 8,000 volunteers in and around Baghdad, and that they were gradually being incorporated into the Iraqi security forces as part of a new American policy of giving support to neighborhood militias as long as they agree to eventually integrate with regular police units.
Critics of the policy of working with the largely Sunni volunteer fighters say it could backfire by arming groups that might eventually turn against the government, and the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has only tepidly backed the idea.

Washington Examiner
September 22, 2007
U.S. Gains More Control In Baghdad, But Insurgency Still Rife
By Rowan Scarborough, The Examiner
Washington DC - U.S. and Iraqi forces control slightly more Baghdad neighborhoods today than they did when the troop surge reached its peak in June, a top commander said Friday.
But the proportion of 474 neighborhoods, called mahalas, that remain uncontrolled, and defended by pockets of insurgents, stands at 16 percent, the same as in June.
The numbers reflect the tough fighting that lies ahead if the surge is to achieve its main objective: complete control of the capital.
"It's a mosaic of progress and violence, of accomplishments and frustration," Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil told reporters at the Pentagon. The two-star officer, who commands the 1st Cavalry Division, said his forces control 56 percent of the city's ethnically diverse neighborhoods, up from 48 percent in June.
In an indication of how al Qaeda is fiercely defending its few remaining strongholds, Fil said, "We're in a very tough fight down in east Rashid. ... We have reduced al Qaeda down to where they are dug in in several neighborhoods. And the fight continues."
In June, Fil said of the same east Rashid areas in southern Baghdad, "They are standing and fighting. And we are fully prepared for that."
He predicted Friday that the number of controlled neighborhoods would swell "well over" the current 56 percent. He said overall bombings, and rocket and small-arms attacks, are down by 50 percent per week, compared with February, when the Baghdad crackdown began.
Fil faces a multifaceted enemy in Baghdad: Sunni insurgents; al Qaeda terrorists; criminals; and Shiite extremists who the U.S. says are funded and trained by Iranian agents.
In June, Fil told of how the enemy was hiding improvised explosive devices in the sewer system. Now, they are molding them in concrete to simulate a roadside curb.

Boston Globe
September 22, 2007
Iraq Urged To Spread Power To Provinces
The White House hopes local politics spur reconciliation
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON - Frustrated with Iraq's deadlocked central government, the Bush administration is pushing for more power to be given to Iraq's provincial councils, in the hope that local elected leaders will be more accountable to the people they serve.
US officials are urging Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to set a date for new provincial elections as soon as possible, hoping that the rise of local politics in Iraq will spur better governance and grass-roots reconciliation between Shi'ites and Sunnis. Sunnis, who boycotted the 2005 provincial elections, are grossly underrepresented on the councils.
The push for new provincial elections - a key benchmark on which Congress is judging Iraq's progress - is part of the Bush administration's increasingly urgent effort to show improvement in Iraq. But it is facing opposition from both Iraqi politicians and officials at the United Nations, who say the 2005 elections were free and fair, and that the country is not yet ready for another vote.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Maliki are slated to discuss Iraq's progress today at the United Nations in New York with international donors and neighbors. But the subject of provincial elections has already been a source of friction.
UN officials advising Iraq's nascent electoral commission say that the country is at least a year away from being ready to hold credible elections in the provinces, due to ongoing resistance to dissolving the current councils, whose mandates expire in 2009, and other difficulties with voter registration and passing an electoral law.
"The United States has pushed for provincial elections without fully understanding the problems," said a UN official who asked that his name not be used because he did not want to offend anyone at today's meeting. "Empowering the Sunnis is a good argument, but at the end of the day, they chose to boycott and these councils are considered democratically elected."
He also told the Globe that the United Nations has complained to US officials about a recent White House report that states that the United Nations, alongside the United States, is "strongly encouraging the Government of Iraq to set a date for provincial elections."
"We are not strongly pushing for elections," he said. "We maintain that this is a sovereign country and it is up to the Iraqis when the elections take place."
Many Iraqi leaders are resisting the US push, fearing that new power centers in the provinces could loosen the central government's already tenuous hold on the country.
Feisal Istrabadi, who recently left a post as Iraq's deputy representative to the UN, said the United States could be creating more problems for Iraq's government by pushing for early elections that extremists will almost certainly win in many provinces. Politicians loyal to anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who boycotted with Sunnis in 2005, are now poised to sweep elections in Basra and other provinces.
But current and former US officials working on Iraq policy insist that holding new provincial elections and providing for a greater role for the provincial councils are crucial to stabilizing Iraq. They point out that in Ninawa Province, which is predominantly Sunni, no Sunnis currently sit on the council. In the Sunni province of Anbar, where only two percent of voters turned out, the council lacks public support.
The debate is still raging in both Baghdad and Washington about whether new provincial elections should be held everywhere at once, on a rolling basis, or only in places where Sunnis are considered underrepresented. Iraq has 18 provinces, but three make up the Kurdish semi- autonomous region ruled by a single Kurdish assembly.
For years, the US strategy in Iraq centered on the central government in Baghdad in the hope that top-down actions by national politicians would solve Iraq's problems and avert a civil war. But after Maliki's unity government became bogged down in disagreements and failed to deliver basic services to Iraq's population, US officials began to concentrate on building up governance in the provinces as a way to spur progress.
The new strategy for Iraq that President Bush announced in January doubled the number of US diplomats and development workers in the provinces. During the recent round of congressional hearings on Iraq, US officials, including President Bush, touted the successes of local, "bottom up" initiatives.
"Some of [the provincial councils] have made remarkable progress in providing essential services," said Matthias Mitman, director of the Iraq policy office at the White House, in an interview. "Sunnis, Shi'ite, and Kurds are getting together to make decisions about what should be funded."
Joost Hiltermann, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, said that holding new provincial elections is a good idea in theory, but that they could lead to violence. In areas of mixed populations, new elections would force Shi'ite Islamic parties and Kurdish parties to cede some of their power. In predominantly Shi'ite areas, such as Basra, new elections will exacerbate the current struggle between the radical followers of Sadr and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a powerful party in Maliki's government.
But even if Iraqi leaders agreed to new elections, the country is simply not ready to hold them, UN officials say.
Meanwhile, the UN is focusing on drawing up a voter registry, not preparing new elections.
"If you have any voter exercise, you will need political parties to be on board, you will want them to agree that this is a good thing, so they don't boycott it and they ensure that the turn-out is calm," said the UN official. "The benchmarks have gained momentum in the administration that 'This is what needs to be done,' without understanding the difficulties of doing it quickly and without gaining the full support from the Iraqis."

Washington Post
September 22, 2007
Pg. 10
Cholera Spreads From Northern Iraq To Baghdad
By Megan Greenwell, Washington Post Staff Writer
BAGHDAD, Sept. 21 -- An outbreak of cholera has spread from northern Iraq to Baghdad, infecting at least 1,500 people, the World Health Organization announced Friday.
A 25-year-old woman this week became the first Baghdad resident found to have cholera, and more cases are likely to be confirmed, a WHO spokeswoman said. About 1,500 cases have been confirmed in Iraq's northern Kurdish region, and more than 24,000 other cases are suspected there. At least 10 people have died of cholera in Iraq.
Cholera is an acute intestinal infection spread through contaminated water or food, making it easy to prevent in countries where clean water is prevalent. A nationwide shortage of chlorine in Iraq has limited access to potable water and put millions at risk of contracting the disease, which can remain dormant in some people while quickly killing others. Officials say the widespread displacement of people within Iraq has contributed to cholera's swift spread over the past several weeks.
In the Kurdish north, restaurants have stopped serving tea because of fears of spreading cholera, but poor families continue to drink whatever water is available. The WHO has sent medical supplies to the area, as well as literature encouraging people to wash their hands and boil their water to kill the cholera bacterium.
Meanwhile, two aides to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, were killed on Thursday and Friday in southern Iraq, prompting hundreds of Sistani followers to boycott Friday prayers in protest. Ahmed al-Barqawi, Sistani's top representative in Diwaniyah, was assassinated as he drove home Friday. The night before, a Sistani aide in Basra, Amjad al-Janabi, was gunned down along with his driver. Three other Sistani advisers have been killed in the last two months, reigniting fears for the cleric's safety. Sistani was the target of an assassination attempt in January.
Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., the top U.S. commander for Baghdad, said Friday that attacks in the city have fallen by 50 percent since February and are at their lowest level in 10 months. He said slightly more of Baghdad's 474 neighborhoods -- 8 percent compared with 7 percent in late June -- are largely pacified, with Iraqi security forces taking the lead in maintaining security.
Another 46 percent of neighborhoods are under the control of U.S. and Iraqi forces, compared with 41 percent in late June, based on the assessments of U.S. ground commanders, he said in a videoconference with reporters at the Pentagon.
Fil said that Iraqi security forces are currently not sufficient to protect Baghdad but that a planned increase of 12,000 Iraqi police officers will allow a gradual handover as the U.S. military begins to withdraw forces from the city. He predicted, however, that some Baghdad neighborhoods would still not yet be under the control of U.S. and Iraqi forces.
Also on Friday, the office of prominent Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr issued a sharp rebuke against the detention of Sadr followers in the southern city of Karbala, calling the arrests part of a "battle against the Sadrists."
Abu Haider al-Rubai, a senior leader in Sadr's office, said nearly 400 Sadrists have been arrested since an outbreak of violence that killed 50 people at a religious festival in Karbala last month. Rubai alleged that many people have been arrested without probable cause.
"The arrests are ongoing against the members of the Sadr office and whoever hangs a picture of Moqtada or his father," Rubai said.
Karbala police spokesman Rahim Mishawir disputed Rubai's account, saying everyone who had been arrested in the city was suspected of wrongdoing. He confirmed that roughly 400 Sadr followers had been arrested since the festival but said that more than 300 of them had since been released.
"There have been no random arrests," Mishawir said. "All those saying that whoever hangs Moqtada's picture will be arrested are incorrect. The Sadrists are still there and their office is still open, and whoever is being arrested is arrested because there are arrest warrants against them."
Staff writer Ann Scott Tyson in Washington and special correspondent Saad al-Izzi in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Washington Post
September 22, 2007
Pg. 11
British Commander Defends Basra Pullout
General Says Move Was Part of 'Successful' Plan and Not a Result of Coercion
By Kevin Sullivan, Washington Post Foreign Service
LONDON, Sept. 21 -- The commander of the British army said Friday that the recent withdrawal of British forces from downtown Basra was part of a "successful" strategic plan for Iraq and not the result of pressure from Shiite militias.
"To say that we were bombed out of Basra is just completely wrong," Gen. Richard Dannatt said during a talk at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a research center in central London.
"We have been successful in southern Iraq," Dannatt said. "Three of the four provinces that we were responsible for we have handed over to Iraqi control. That was always the plan. The optics of us drawing down and repositioning at the same time that the Americans were surging upwards -- the optics, inevitably, were awkward."
Some in the U.S. government have criticized Britain's decision to leave its last outpost in Basra and station its remaining 5,500 troops in Iraq at the airport outside the city. Some U.S. officials worry that the British military made arrangements not to be attacked in exchange for staying out of factional fighting in Basra.
"We had withdrawn according to our plan," Dannatt said. "We knew that other people wished to present our withdrawal as a result of their pressure on us. We accepted that, we knew that."
Dannatt said British forces had "lost no tactical engagement" and had made long-term efforts to train Iraqi police, refurbish schools and prepare for turning over security responsibilities to Iraqi forces.
He declined to discuss his views on whether Britain should further reduce its troops in Iraq.
Last year, Dannatt caused a political storm when he told interviewers that British troops should leave Iraq "sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems." He later added that troops should leave only when "the mission is substantially done."
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected to report to Parliament on Iraq next month as pressure grows to withdraw troops from a war that is extremely unpopular in Britain. Although Brown, who took office in June, has vowed not to withdraw British troops prematurely, he is far less publicly enthusiastic about the war than his predecessor, Tony Blair.
In wide-ranging remarks about the future of the British army, Dannatt also said he had become "increasingly concerned about the growing gulf between the army and the nation." Many Britons, he said, had become "dismissive or indifferent" to the efforts of British soldiers in Iraq "because, if they ever did, they now no longer approve of the campaign."
"We are in danger of sapping at our volunteer army's willingness to serve in such an atmosphere again," he said.
Dannatt said that while Iraq was an "unpopular war," Afghanistan is "a misunderstood war." He said many Britons fail to understand that British soldiers are in Afghanistan "at the invitation of the government."
"In America, appreciation for the armed forces is outstanding and, frankly, I would like to be able to mirror some of that here," he said. "In the States, many companies offer military discounts for serving soldiers, sports teams give out free tickets, people in the street shake the hand of men in uniform."
In contrast, Dannatt said, in Britain "we still have people objecting to a home for our wounded soldiers' families, we still have a nation that at times seems immune to homeless and psychologically damaged soldiers."
Dannatt called on local governments to pay for homecoming parades for units returning from active duty and for increased donations to military charities.
"As our operational commitments have become more intense, so has the need for support from the nation," Dannatt said, adding that British society too often uses the military as "a political and media football."

San Diego Union-Tribune
September 22, 2007
Top Shiite Cleric Loses 2 More Aides
Killings stoke fears of power struggle
By Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press
BAGHDAD – The slayings of two associates of Iraq's top Shiite cleric raised fears yesterday of a worsening Shiite power struggle in the country's oil-rich south, prompting some clerics to go into hiding or abandon their robes and turbans for their own safety.
The two were killed late Thursday in separate shootings within 30 minutes in the southern cities of Basra and Diwaniyah. They joined at least four associates of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani who have been assassinated in the holy city of Najaf since June, including one stabbed to death 30 to 40 yards from the house where the Iranian-born al-Sistani lives.
On Tuesday, an aide to al-Sistani was shot and seriously wounded by gunmen in Basra. One of his guards was killed.
The attacks reflect the precarious security across much of Iraq and suggest that the Shiite-Shiite competition for domination in the south is growing deeper and bloodier. That poses an additional threat to embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite whose 16-month-old government has been seriously undermined by a shrinking base of support.
The killings also have raised questions about the safety of Iraq's four top Shiite clerics, particularly al-Sistani, who is known to have been the target of at least one assassination attempt since 2003. Like the three others, al-Sistani rarely leaves the house where he lives and works in Najaf's old quarter, a labyrinth of narrow and dusty alleys.
Iraq's mainly Shiite south is a particularly coveted prize given its vast oil resources and the shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala, which attract millions of visitors every year and the cash gifts of wealthy Shiites abroad.
The region has been rocked in recent weeks by violence between rival militias linked to political parties. The main protagonists are the Mahdi army militia loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Badr militia linked to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, Iraq's largest Shiite party.
The recent withdrawal of British troops from central Basra to the nearby airport has threatened to allow Iraq's second-largest city to become a free-for-all for rival Shiite factions.
As was the case with the earlier killings, no one claimed responsibility for the assassinations Thursday of Ahmed al-Barqaawi in Diwaniyah and Amjad al-Janabi in Basra, and no arrests were made.
Security officials said several al-Sistani aides have been threatened, forcing them to go into hiding in the city's relatively safe old quarter or elsewhere in Iraq. They said some had stopped wearing clerical robes or turbans when traveling outside Najaf.
In other developments, the U.S. military reported the deaths of two U.S. soldiers Thursday – one in a roadside bombing in Diyala province and another in a noncombat incident in the northern Tamim province, home to Kirkuk.
Romania also lost its second soldier since the war started in March 2003 – a corporal killed in a roadside bombing near the Tallil air base in southern Iraq.

Washington Post
September 22, 2007
Pg. 10
U.S. Will Speed Entry Of Refugees From Iraq
Officials Say New Measures Will Allow 12,000 to Be Admitted in the Next Year
By Paul Lewis, Washington Post Staff Writer
About 12,000 Iraqi refugees will be admitted into the United States over the next year as measures to speed up the process begin to take effect, government officials said yesterday.
The new target represents an increase in the number and pace of Iraqi refugees entering the country and means that 17 percent of the 70,000 refugees expected to be admitted next year will come from Iraq, officials from the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security told reporters.
An estimated 4 million Iraqis have been displaced and about 2.2 million have fled the country, mainly to Syria and Jordan, since the March 2003 U.S. invasion. Tens of thousands of those are believed to have left after they were targeted because of their work for U.S. or coalition authorities.
In February, State Department officials promised to expand their commitment to Iraqi refugees, but long delays in reviewing applications have drawn sharp criticism from lawmakers, refugee groups and senior diplomats.
Officials said that of the 11,000 refugee applicants referred to the United States by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, only 1,135 have been admitted. More are scheduled to enter before the end of the month, but officials acknowledged that they will probably fall short of the State Department's target of 2,000 arrivals this fiscal year.
The Bush administration announced on Wednesday the appointment of two senior officials who will work to improve the government's response to the Iraqi refugee crisis. Immigration law expert Lori Scialabba was appointed as a senior adviser at the Homeland Security Department, and diplomat James B. Foley will become the State Department's senior coordinator for Iraqi refugee issues.
Yesterday's announcement was received with caution by some lawmakers. They said the administration has an obligation to protect many more Iraqis whose lives have been endangered because of their work for U.S. or coalition authorities.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said the administration's performance has been "slow and halting," and he promised to press ahead with legislative reforms to U.S. refugee programs.
"America has an obligation to help those who are persecuted, especially those who have the assassin's target on their back because of their association with our government," he said.
But administration officials defended their record at yesterday's briefing, saying that before February there was no program in the region to handle the unexpected flood of Iraqi refugees.
"We had to literally build programs in Syria and Jordan," said Terry Rusch, who directs the office of admissions in the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. She added that the refugee program has "accelerated dramatically" now that resources are in place.
Paul Rosenzweig, deputy assistant secretary for policy at Homeland Security, described the government's efforts over the past six months as "heroic."
"You show me another government program that goes from a standing start, ground zero, to full on in six months," he said. Of the 4,300 Iraqi refugees interviewed by his department this fiscal year, he said, 753 have been rejected for reasons including criminal records and inconsistencies in their stories.
The officials conceded continued difficulty in processing cases in Syria, where a number of U.S. officials have been denied entry visas.
"Not only has DHS not been able to get in to do more adjudications, but we have not been able to expand our own processing staff at the pace we would normally have done because of restrictions by the government of Syria," Rusch said.
Syria has absorbed 1.5 million Iraqi refugees -- by far the most of any nation. But since September 2006, only 208 have been admitted to the United States after being processed in that country.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution
September 22, 2007
Rice Vows Diplomatic Security Review In Iraq
By Matthew Lee, Associated Press
Washington--Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday she had ordered a "full and complete review" of security practices for U.S. diplomats in Iraq following a deadly incident involving private guards protecting an embassy convoy.
Rice's announcement came as the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad resumed limited diplomatic convoys under the protection of Blackwater USA outside the heavily fortified Green Zone after a two-day suspension because of the weekend incident in the capital.
Rice said she had directed the State Department to examine &q