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 Early Bird Oct 19 2007 Use of these news articles does not reflect official endorsement. Reproduction for private use or gain is subject to original copyright restrictions. Story numbers indicate order of appearance only. This is the single print version. Use the PRINT command in your browser to print the entire Early Bird as one document. (NOTE: This single file format is a long document and can use 50 or more pages of paper.) GATES/MULLEN PRESS BRIEFING
October 19, 2007 Pg. 16 Gates Seeks Changes On Iraq Contractors He Says Their Goals Clash With Military's By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post Staff Writer Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday that the mission of private security contractors guarding individuals in Iraq is fundamentally at odds with the broader U.S. military objective of stabilizing Iraq, and that changes would be required to reconcile them. "Right now those missions are in conflict, because the objective of . . . delivering a principal safely to a destination" has led to the mistreatment of Iraqis "to put it mildly," Gates said at a Pentagon news conference. "So those kinds of activities work at cross-purposes to our larger mission in Iraq." Gates's comments came as the State Department reviews the actions of Blackwater USA private security guards who on Sept. 16 allegedly shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad traffic circle. The Iraqi government has demanded that the contractors -- hired to protect U.S. diplomats -- be held accountable. Gates plans to meet soon with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss changes in how private guards working for the State Department operate in Iraq to insure that they do not undermine U.S. military goals of winning support from Iraqi citizens, said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell. "Private security contractors will likely have to assume greater risk. They are going to have to pay greater consideration to the larger mission" of gaining the trust of Iraqis, Morrell said. That may require "changing their MO, the way in which they operate, how they drive, how they handle busy traffic circles" as well as how they use force, he said. The upshot, Morrell said, is that private security contractors would have to change their tactics to take into account the safety of Iraqi citizens -- in essence adopting procedures more similar to those of U.S. soldiers. That could mean driving less aggressively, escalating force more gradually, or taking time to better identify targets. In meeting with Rice, Gates plans to raise the idea of placing all private security contractors working for the U.S. government in Iraq under a central entity to strengthen oversight. "It is important that we have the means and the mechanisms to ensure that we know what's going on and that these activities are coordinated," Gates said. "But I'll sit down with Secretary Rice and we'll see how we can work this out to achieve the objectives that I described," he said. He said the U.S. military could take over the work of contractors but "it would require an enormous commitment of American troops . . . to assuring the security of our diplomats and civilians working in Baghdad and in the rest of Iraq, as opposed to working the security situation for Iraq more broadly." The security restraints on diplomatic activities in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere have led to recent studies advocating "risk management" rather than "risk avoidance" in the Foreign Service. A report titled "The Embassy of the Future," written by retired senior State officials and former ambassadors, recommended that the State Department provide "specialized training" for its diplomats, such as "training offered by U.S. military and/or intelligence agencies, connected to service in the most challenging assignments, including high-danger pay posts." Security worries have inhibited the personal contact that is key to diplomacy, said the report, published Monday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "A risk-averse culture persists," it said. In the Pentagon news conference, Gates discussed other concerns in Iraq. He said there is a serious risk that Turkey will cut off critical U.S. military air and ground supply routes if Congress passes a resolution calling the deaths of Armenians genocide. "I don't think the Turks are bluffing," Gates said. Seventy percent of U.S. military air cargo, a third of its fuel, and 95 percent of new mine-resistant armored vehicles are moving through Turkey, he said. He also suggested that the United States and Iraq would be willing to step up efforts in northern Iraq against members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is waging a guerrilla insurgency in southeastern Turkey. "We are determined to work with the Turks in trying to reduce this threat to the Turkish people and the Turkish army," Gates said. "These people are basically terrorists and I think we would try and do the appropriate thing" as intelligence on them becomes available, he said. Adm. Michael Mullen, in his first news conference as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also pointed to rising concerns about Iranian involvement in both Iraq and Afghanistan, which he called a "huge and growing" concern, adding that the United States has ample reserve of forces to take action against Iran if necessary, although that remains a last resort. U.S. and Afghan officials yesterday described the intercept last month of a convoy into Afghanistan from Iran that carried advanced weapons materials for making roadside bombs. "The Taliban are getting support from Iran, both weapons and money," Gates said. Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak called the trend "significant" and said Afghan authorities are "monitoring the situation" carefully. Staff writer Karen DeYoung contributed to this report. <A name=e20071019553976.html> Los Angeles Times October 19, 2007 Gates: Security Contractors Conflict With U.S. Mission In Iraq The Defense secretary says guards who protect clients at any cost are working 'at cross-purposes' with soldiers trying to gain Iraqis' trust. By Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON —The behavior of private security contractors in Iraq is in direct conflict with the goals of the U.S. military, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday in an unusually frank critique, adding that the guards' mistreatment of Iraqis is hindering Pentagon efforts at winning hearts and minds. Gates said at a Pentagon news conference that he planned to meet with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in coming days to iron out new regulations governing the conduct of the estimated 8,500 armed guards working for the Pentagon and State Department in Iraq. Last month, the Defense secretary sent a five-man team to Iraq to investigate contractor oversight after the high-profile killing of 17 Iraqis in a Baghdad shooting involving Blackwater USA, the private security contractor hired to protect U.S. diplomats. Although Blackwater works for the State Department, the Pentagon employs the vast majority of such hired guns in Iraq -- about 7,300 -- and Gates within days ordered commanders in the country to be more aggressive in using military law to discipline contractors in their areas of responsibility. Pentagon officials have said Gates also is considering a proposal to put the security contractors under a new Baghdad-based military command so Pentagon officials would have more direct oversight of their actions. Gates did not publicly advocate such a restructuring Thursday, but he suggested he was planning a more extensive review of how the U.S. regulates the private security guards. Gates said the mission of many contractors in Iraq -- to protect their U.S. government employers regardless of other consequences -- was "at cross-purposes to our larger mission in Iraq." The larger mission includes persuading "more and more Iraqis [to] see the coalition forces as their friends and their allies," he said. "As I see it, right now those missions are in conflict, because in the objective of completing the mission of delivering a principal safely to a destination, just based on everything I've read and what our own team has reported, there have been instances where, to put it mildly, the Iraqis have been offended and not treated properly," Gates said. The Pentagon's increasingly critical scrutiny of its contractors contrasts with the response by the State Department, which for weeks after the Sept. 16 shooting defended Blackwater's behavior in Iraq. This month, however, Rice ordered a complete revamp of its policies governing Blackwater's operations, ordering all convoys to include U.S. government monitors and video cameras to record actions taken by the guards. The State Department has ordered a separate review of its oversight of Blackwater and its two other private security contractors in Iraq, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy. Although Gates said he did not believe there were conflicts between the departments' reviews, he said he would meet with Rice to iron out any differences. Relations between the active-duty military and private security contractors, long strained because of soldiers' perceptions that the armed guards undermine their mission, has become increasingly uneasy, with military officials accusing the contractors of recruiting away their best personnel. Erik Prince, Blackwater's chief executive, testified before a congressional hearing this month that his company does not actively recruit soldiers in uniform. But at a meeting with military writers Thursday, the Army's top personnel official said the service was being forced to constantly raise retention bonuses for technically skilled service members to keep them from leaving the military for contractors. "It takes about 10 years to build a major, but it takes decades to build these highly, highly skilled special operators, and those are the ones who are the most attractive to the contractors," said Lt. Gen. Michael D. Rochelle, the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel, referring to the Army's elite Special Operations units. "It's almost impossible to be fully competitive." Gates has asked military lawyers whether it is possible for the Pentagon to include noncompete clauses in its contracts with private security firms that would bar firms from recruiting among active-duty units. He has not decided whether to impose such requirements. In Iraq, Blackwater works for the State Department, not the Pentagon. The firm is employed by the Defense Department elsewhere overseas. Despite Gates' conclusion that private security firms are undermining the U.S. military mission in Iraq, he continues to believe that the U.S. government needs to employ the armed guards there, arguing that using soldiers to take over their roles would pull resources away from more important goals. "It would require an enormous commitment of American troops . . . to assuring the security of our diplomats and civilians working in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq, as opposed to working the security situation for Iraq more broadly," he said. InsideDefense.com October 18, 2007 Gates Nixes Idea Of Shifting Marines To Afghanistan Defense Secretary Robert Gates today shot down Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway's proposal to shift Marines from Iraq to Afghanistan, which would leave the Army to handle operations in Iraq. Gates dismissed the idea when asked about it at a Pentagon media briefing. “I have pretty much literally, up until this point, heard one sentence about it, that they were thinking about it,” he said. “So I would say that if it happens it will be long after I'm secretary of defense.” Conway recently said the Marine Corps hoped to brief Gates on the idea. “It's unfortunately premature to talk about it in a public audience at this point,” Conway said on Oct. 16 at an event sponsored by the Center for a New American Security in Arlington, VA. “We have not briefed the secretary of defense on any concepts. Until such time as that has happened and he has made a decision, I probably ought to let it alone.” In Afghanistan, there are about 26,000 U.S. military, coalition and NATO forces, including between 300 and 400 Marines. In Iraq, there are about 178,500 U.S. and coalition troops, including about 25,000 Marines. The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times disclosed Conway's proposal on Oct. 11. -- Christopher J. Castelli <A name=e20071019553996.html> Washington Times October 19, 2007 Pg. 6 Mullen: U.S. Can Strike Iran Troops not 'too stretched' By Bill Gertz, Washington Times U.S. military forces are capable of conducting operations against Iran if called on to bomb nuclear facilities or other targets, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said yesterday. "From a military standpoint, there is more than enough reserve to respond if that, in fact, is what the national leadership wanted to do, and so I don't think we're too stretched in that regard," Adm. Michael Mullen told reporters when asked if current operations had worn out U.S. forces. Adm. Mullen said he has been concerned over the past year and a half with Iranian leaders' statements of intentions, Tehran's support for bombers in Iraq and Iran's covert drive for nuclear weapons. "All of which has potentially a very destabilizing impact on a part of the world, a region of the world which is struggling in many ways already," he said in his first press conference since becoming chairman Oct. 1. "So they're not being helpful." Defense and military officials have been preparing U.S. forces within striking distance of Iran. The forces would be dominated by Navy and Air Force weapons and forces since Army and Marine Corps forces are focused on Iraq and Afghanistan. There are two main targets of any Iranian military action, according to the officials. First, U.S. forces are set to attack Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps facilities because of the paramilitary's support and provision of armor-piercing roadside bombs. A U.S. official said the location of a factory where Iranian bomb materials are being produced has been identified. A second target would be Iranian nuclear facilities, which are in numerous underground facilities across the country. Adm. Mullen said Iran's support for terrorism "adds up to a huge and growing concern about Iran and where it's headed." "There is a significant amount of activity right now to try to influence them diplomatically," he said. The use of military force would be an option "of the last resort," Adm. Mullen said. Adm. Mullen said many are working to try and influence Iranian leaders to move in a more positive direction. "But the concern that I have is very, very real." Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, appearing with Adm. Mullen at the Pentagon, warned about the dangers a nuclear-armed Iran poses to the Middle East. "If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it seems very probable that there will be other states in the region that decide for their own protection they will have to obtain nuclear weapons as well," Mr. Gates said, likely triggering a "nuclear arms race in the Middle East." Mr. Gates said as nuclear weapons materials and perhaps nuclear weapons become available in states that did not have them in the past "the risk of an accident or a miscalculation or of those weapons or materials falling into the hands of terrorists seem to me to be substantially increased." Nuclear weapons escalation in the Middle East would increase the risk of "a major war" in the region, he said. "This is not to mention the fact that you've got a leader in Iran who has already publicly said that Israel ought to be destroyed," Mr. Gates said. "So let's just say that the leadership in Iran doesn't give us confidence, even by their public statements, that they would handle this kind of a capability with any kind of responsibility. And then when you add to that the proliferation part of the equation, it seems to me it ends up being a far more dangerous world." <A name=e20071019554032.html> Houston Chronicle October 19, 2007 Joint Chiefs Head: U.S. Could Attack Iran If Needed By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press WASHINGTON — While military action against Iran is a last resort, the U.S. has the resources to attack if needed despite the strains of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the top U.S. military officer said Thursday. Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the focus now is on diplomacy to stem Iran's nuclear ambitions and its support for insurgents in Iraq. But, he told reporters, "there is more than enough reserve to respond (militarily) if that, in fact, is what the national leadership wanted to do." Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons could set of an arms race in the Middle East. "The risk of an accident or a miscalculation or of those weapons or materials falling into the hands of terrorists seem to me to be substantially increased," he said. Appearing together before reporters for the first time since Mullen became chairman on Oct. 1, they expressed concern about Iran and Turkey — hot spots commanding attention even as the military focuses on the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both leaders warned of serious repercussions if Congress were to pass a nonbinding resolution labeling as genocide the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, around World War I. "I don't think the Turks are bluffing. I think it is that meaningful to them," Gates said. "I think there is a very real risk of perhaps not shutting us down" in terms of access to Turkish airspace for resupplying U.S. troops in Iraq, but of at least restricting it. "I will say again it has potential to do real harm to our troops in Iraq and would strain — perhaps beyond repair — our relationship with a key ally in a vital region and in the wider war on terror," the Pentagon chief said. At the same time, Gates said the U.S. and the Iraqis are "prepared to do the appropriate thing" in acting against the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, that has conducted raids into Turkey from northern Iraq. The Turks have expressed frustration about the lack of action by the U.S. against the group. Gates attributed that largely to a lack of specific intelligence. The Turkish parliament this week authorized the government to send troops across the border to go after the Kurdish rebels, despite repeated pleas from Washington to focus on diplomatic efforts. Gates also said he believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin is serious about trying to play a constructive role in resolving the crisis over Iran's nuclear program. "President Putin takes Iran seriously as a security concern for Russia, and I think they are prepared to take some actions as befits that," Gates said. Mullen said the U.S. military is working hard to stem the flow from Iran into Afghanistan of high-tech materials for roadside bombs. The military has said that parts from the armor-piercing bombs, which have killed hundreds of troops in Iraq, are now getting into Afghanistan. Mullen said he is not aware of any high-level Iranian government connection to the weapons in Afghanistan, although officials have said that is a concern in Iraq. At a separate Pentagon news conference, Afghanistan's defense chief, Abdul Rahim Wardak, told reporters that his government recently obtained evidence that Iranian weapons are entering his country. He said he raised the matter with Iranian officials last month and they denied any involvement. Also Thursday, Gates said the private security guards in Iraq — such as those who killed a number of Iraqi citizens — may be hurting the U.S. military's effort to stabilize the country. The military and the contractors, he said, have conflicting missions. While the contractors are trying to keep alive those people being guarded, the military is striving to improve relations with the Iraqis and solidify the government. "There have been instances where, to put it mildly, the Iraqis have been offended and not treated properly" by the private guards, Gates said. "So those kinds of activities work at cross-purposes to our larger mission in Iraq." Gates said he plans to confer with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about tighter controls over the contractors. <A name=e20071019554068.html> Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) October 18, 2007 Gates: Armenia Genocide Resolution Could Harm US-Turkey Ties WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional passage of a resolution labeling the World War I-era killings of Armenians by Turks as genocide would hurt U.S. relations with Turkey - "perhaps beyond repair," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday. Gates told reporters that he has encouraged congressional leaders not to pass the resolution. Earlier, he met at the Pentagon with Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan. Gates said neither of them raised the subject. "Having worked this issue in the last Bush administration...I don't think the Turks are bluffing. I think it is that meaningful to them," Gates said. "I think there is a very real risk of perhaps not shutting us down" in terms of access to Turkish airspace for resupplying U.S. troops in Iraq, but of at least restricting it. "I will say again it has potential to do real harm to our troops in Iraq and would strain - perhaps beyond repair - our relationship with a key ally in a vital region and in the wider war on terror." It was Gates's first joint news conference with Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, who became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Oct. 1, succeeding Marine Gen. Peter Pace, who retired. The administration is trying to soothe Turkish anger over the Armenia matter. The House Foreign Affairs Committee defied warnings by President George W. Bush with its 27-21 vote last Wednesday to send the nonbinding measure to the full House for a vote. The administration will now try to pressure Democratic leaders not to schedule a vote. On Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the prospects of a vote on Armenian genocide were uncertain after several members pulled their support amid fears it would cripple U.S. relations with Turkey. "Whether it will come up or not, or what the action will be, remains to be seen," Pelosi told reporters. Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I. Scholars view it as the first genocide of the 20th century, but Turkey says the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 during a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a Muslim ally of Ankara, and maintains a virtual blockade that hurts Armenia's economy. <A name=e20071019553884.html> Washington Post October 19, 2007 Pg. 17 Reconstruction In Iraq At A Crawl, Auditor Reports Progress Varies by Area, Official Says By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer Provincial reconstruction teams, the civilian centerpiece of the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq, are making "incremental" progress in some areas and very little in others, a government auditor told Congress yesterday. "Improvement . . . is likely to be slow and will require years of steady engagement," Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction , told a House panel. The teams are designed to help Iraqis build and maintain democratic institutions, provide basic services and create jobs at a local level. There are about two dozen teams spread across Iraq, each staffed with a handful to several dozen U.S. civilian and military subject experts. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has described the teams as the front line in the administration's "bottom up" strategy of developing local governance even as sectarian divides have stymied political reconciliation on the national level. As the number of U.S. military forces in Iraq increased earlier this year, Rice doubled the number of reconstruction teams, boosting their overall cost through this fiscal year to $2 billion. The need to work on the local level -- as opposed to the massive and largely unsuccessful infrastructure projects that characterized initial U.S. reconstruction efforts -- has been described by Rice as an important "lesson learned" during four years in Iraq. Bowen agreed, telling the oversight subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee that "if the story of Iraq reconstruction tells anything, teaches any lesson, it is that the U.S. government was not well structured . . . in 2003 to engage in the kind of post-conflict relief and reconstruction operations we have faced." But a review by the inspector general's office, published yesterday, concluded that the success of the strategy varies widely in different parts of Iraq and in different task areas, including governance, security and rule of law, economic development, administration, and political reconciliation. Overall, it criticized the program for lacking uniform guidelines and measurable objectives. Bowen also cited the failure of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to pass a law delineating provincial and local government powers -- one of the "benchmarks" for progress set by Congress -- as a "key obstacle" for the program. Among the relative successes, the report cited the three reconstruction teams in Anbar province in western Iraq. The changing allegiance of Sunni tribesmen there, from supporting insurgent groups to backing U.S. and Iraqi forces, has sharply lowered the level of violence and allowed team members to travel and work more closely with local officials, the report said. The opposite is true in other parts of the country, it said. U.S. teams officially assigned to the provinces of Karbala, Najaf and Qadisiyah have been based in another province and unable to travel because of security concerns. In Baghdad, where most of the new teams are located, some "districts and neighborhoods remain too 'hot' " for political reconciliation or meaningful outreach, the report said. "In areas that included mixed Sunni-Shia populations, we were told [by team members], the departure of U.S. forces would produce open battlegrounds of ethnic cleansing." <A name=e20071019554086.html> Baltimore Sun October 19, 2007 Report Says Buildup In Iraq Gained Little U.S. military, civilian officials warn progress will require years of work By David Wood, Sun reporter WASHINGTON -- Despite hopes that the U.S. military "surge" in Iraq would encourage economic and political headway and sap the strength of the insurgency, very little lasting progress has been achieved, according to a new U.S. report. The study, based on the assessments of dozens of U.S. military and civilian officials working at local levels across Iraq, runs counter to the optimistic forecasts by the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. It said that with the exception of Anbar province, there has been "little progress" toward political reconciliation, a key U.S. goal in Iraq. Withdrawal of U.S. troops would produce "open battlegrounds of ethnic cleansing" in some Baghdad neighborhoods and elsewhere in Iraq, the report said. In high-profile congressional hearings last month, Petraeus and Crocker testified that the addition of 28,000 American troops in Iraq, ordered last winter by President Bush, was reducing violence and providing opportunity for economic projects, government reform and political reconciliation. The troop "surge" is temporary, with the first of the reinforcement units scheduled to leave Iraq before Christmas. But instead of charting progress, the new report, by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, warns that Iraq "will require years of steady engagement" before there is significant progress in providing Iraqis with power and clean water, jobs, health resources and government that works. "Iraq's complex and overlapping sectarian, political, and ethnic conflicts, as well as the difficult security situation, continue to hinder progress in promoting economic development, rule of law, and political reconciliation," the report cautioned. With a $44 billion investment by American taxpayers in rebuilding Iraq, there are some visible improvements, the report said. But it warned that local and provincial governments "have little ability to manage and maintain" new health clinics, water treatment plants, power-generating facilities and other projects. One U.S. official in Iraq, quoted anonymously in the report, said he foresaw a "train wreck" ahead as costly U.S. projects in Iraq grind to a halt for lack of manpower or maintenance. The report's grim conclusions parallel previous U.S. assessments, including a major national intelligence estimate in August that said there had been little economic improvement. That report forecast that sectarian violence would continue displacing Iraqis from their own neighborhoods and that Iraq's government would "become more precarious" over the next six to 12 months. Nevertheless, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates dismissed the report's conclusion, which he said "doesn't square" with what he is hearing from senior U.S. military officers in Iraq. The office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, created by Congress three years ago to probe U.S. spending in Iraq, is headed by Stuart W. Bowen, a lawyer who previously worked for then-Gov. Bush in Texas and served on Bush's White House staff in Washington. His report, released yesterday, is based on assessments from 32 provincial reconstruction teams made up of U.S. military and civilian experts in local government. Despite the arduous and often dangerous conditions these teams work under, they have achieved some "incremental" success, the report said. But it went on to document continuing problems that run deep and wide through Iraq. The judicial system is not functioning because of police corruption and judges who are subject to intimidation by sectarian violence. To boost employment, U.S. military commanders are spending millions of dollars on short-term reconstruction projects that employ Iraqis, but these projects often are not coordinated with local governments and rarely provide long-term job opportunities, the report said. The report documented "a growing public frustration" of Iraqis with their government. As a result, there has been "little progress" toward political reconciliation, which it said was being undermined by jockeying for power among rival Shiite groups and a "sense of alienation" on the part of the minority Sunnis. Asked yesterday about the report, Gates said he had not read it and does not believe its assessment. "The information that we're getting from the commanders and from the ambassador doesn't square with that," Gates said at a Pentagon news briefing. "Our sense is that, in fact, there is progress in these areas - more than we would have expected." Adm. Mike Mullen, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said the report's assessments differ from what he saw on a recent trip to Iraq. As evidence of a growing economy, Mullen cited a butcher at a local market just outside Baghdad who until recently was selling a sheep every week. Now, the butcher is selling a sheep every day, Mullen said. "I don't want to overly state it ... but it's starting to happen," he said. <A name=e20071019553885.html> Washington Post October 19, 2007 Pg. 16 Private Guards Fire On Taxi; Three Iraqis Hurt, Police Say By Steve Fainaru and Amit R. Paley, Washington Post Foreign Service BAGHDAD, Oct. 18 -- Two men and a woman were wounded Thursday in a quiet Kurdish village in northern Iraq when guards from a British security company raked a crowded taxi with automatic weapons fire, local police said. It was the third shooting of Iraqi civilians by a private security firm in less than a month. A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said the guards were employed by Erinys International. The British firm provides security for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under a contract that has paid the company about $175 million since 2004, $125 million more than originally budgeted. The contract is set to expire next month after Erinys failed to win renewal. The Erinys guards were traveling in a convoy of three armored sport-utility vehicles on the main street of Qara Hanjiel, a village about 22 miles east of the northern city of Kirkuk. The vehicles were in an area bounded by concrete dwellings, restaurants and stores when they encountered the taxi, which was filled with five Kurdish civilians, according to local Iraqi police and the vehicle's passengers. Navy Capt. Vic Beck, the military spokesman, said Erinys reported that the guards opened fire after the vehicle approached "at a high rate of speed" and that one person was wounded. The guards issued a series of warnings before shooting into the vehicle, "which resulted in the alleged injury to a civilian occupant," Beck said. An Erinys spokesman in Washington said he had no information on the incident. Iraqi police and passengers said that the shooting was unprovoked and that three people were wounded. After the initial volley of bullets, they said, the Erinys guards continued firing to prevent a passenger from getting out of the taxi and later refused to speak to Iraqi police. "Those are wild monsters, criminals and killers who shot us even though we did not obstruct their way and we are in a safe area where there is no al-Qaeda or terrorists," said Singer Moulmood, 24, an employee of a Kurdish television station, who was wounded in the shoulder while sitting in the back seat. "The Americans are responsible for this act by this security company because they are supporting them." The two other wounded passengers were Zarak Nouri Qadar, 35, who was shot in the right eye while in the front seat; and his brother Yara, 28, who was struck in the neck and hand, which he had raised to protect himself. A Washington Post special correspondent counted three bullet holes in the windshield of the orange-and-white taxi, two on the hood, one in the passenger-side door and one in the roof. The private security industry in Iraq has come under scrutiny following a Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad in which the Iraqi government says guards employed by Blackwater Worldwide killed 17 civilians. On Oct. 9, guards from Australia-based Unity Resources Group, killed two women on a crowded Baghdad street. In each case, the companies said their guards opened fire after a car approached in what was perceived to be a threatening manner. The cases are under investigation. The three companies work in support of the U.S.-led coalition but fall under separate operating authority. Erinys operates under a Defense Department contract, placing the company under U.S. military command. The military said it would investigate the case according to U.S. military regulations. Blackwater is a State Department security provider, subject to that agency's regulations. Unity provides security for RTI International, a research and technology firm under contract to the U.S. Agency for International Development, a taxpayer-funded agency affiliated with the State Department. Because Erinys did not remain at the scene of the shooting, Iraqi authorities were unable to identify the firm, they said. The passengers reported only that the SUVs had lion logos, the Erinys company emblem, affixed to their doors. Elsewhere in Kurdish northern Iraq, hundreds protested the Turkish parliament's approval of a measure authorizing a military incursion into Iraq to stop attacks by rebels. In Irbil, protesters carried Kurdish flags and signs that read "No to a military solution" and "Protecting Kurdistan borders is a national duty." Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said he anticipates limited Turkish airstrikes on Kurdish separatists in the north of the country, and he called for the rebels to leave as soon as possible. "To talk about a major military offensive and major cross-border incursion, that I do not expect," he told the Reuters news agency. In Baghdad, residents braced for violence after reports that Saddam Hussein aide Ali Hassan Majid, known as Chemical Ali, was expected to be hanged shortly, along with at least one other top Baath Party official. Majid has been sentenced to death for his role in the so-called Anfal campaign in the late 1980s that killed more than 100,000 Kurds. Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi said the executions could not take place until there was agreement between top government officials over rulings by Iraqi courts dealing with the case. Special correspondents Zaid Sabah and Naseer Nouri and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report. <A name=e20071019553887.html> Washington Post October 19, 2007 Pg. 15 Local Foes Commit To Peace In Baghdad U.S. Helped Negotiate Agreement Between Shiite, Sunni Leaders By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post Foreign Service BAGHDAD, Oct. 18 -- Local Sunni and Shiite leaders from southwestern Baghdad signed an agreement Thursday intended to halt sectarian violence and attacks on American and Iraqi troops, with the condition that security forces limit their raids and offensive operations. The 12-point "reconciliation document between Muslims" was the result of two months of negotiations between U.S. soldiers and power brokers in an area of the capital that has become an important base for Shiite militiamen but has also experienced attacks by Sunni insurgents. The agreement, signed in a conference room in the U.S.-protected Baghdad International Airport compound, is an example of the U.S. military's wide-ranging effort to encourage local leaders to make such peaceful commitments in the absence of momentum toward national reconciliation by Iraqi politicians. "The people in this room are leading the process for all of Baghdad," said Lt. Col. Patrick Frank, commander of the 1st Infantry Division's 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, which operates in southwestern Baghdad. "You are the hope for the entire city." U.S. military officials said that while they did not expect a cessation of violence in such neighborhoods as al-Jihad and al-Furat, the agreement represented a statement of good faith by rival factions and could contribute to improved security in coming months. Frank described the tribal leaders and neighborhood officials as highly influential in the area, a swath of southern Baghdad that is home to 125,000 people. Those involved in the reconciliation agreement are Sunni tribal leaders; members of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a leading Sunni political party; and local government officials, many of whom have ties to the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. It remains unclear exactly how much power the participants have to rein in either sectarian violence or the lucrative criminal enterprises run by militiamen. Some neighborhoods near those covered by the pact, particularly al-Amil and Bayaa, have witnessed increases in roadside bombings this month and remain strongholds for the Mahdi Army. Thousands of Sunni families have been driven from their homes there. Those districts are "more complicated," said Sabeeh Radi al-Kaabi, president of the district advisory council in the area, noting recent clashes between Sunni tribesmen and the Mahdi Army. "But I have seen the desire of Sunnis and Shiites to end the fighting," he added. The reconciliation meeting was attended by two senior Iraqi government officials -- Safa Hussein, deputy national security adviser, and Bassima al-Jaidri, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki -- who are members of a government committee to implement national reconciliation. Some participants were particularly encouraged by Jaidri's approval of the agreement, given her reputation among some U.S. and Iraqi officials as an ardent Shiite partisan. "I believe that reconciliation is the only solution to save Iraq from violence and terrorism," Jaidri said in an interview after the meeting. "Where it has happened in other areas, we see the curve of violence going down. Reconciliation is the only solution, not military operations." The most contentious issue at Thursday's meeting was a stipulation that the U.S. military and Iraqi security forces would retain the ability to conduct "limited raids on specific targets" in the area. Some Iraqi local leaders wanted all raids and offensive military operations halted, but the American soldiers refused. The compromise language said that the security forces could move against "specific targets that break the law and threaten peace" and that murderers would still be subject to prosecution in Iraqi courts. Frank, the U.S. commander in the area, said his soldiers had already limited themselves to targeted raids, so the agreement would not significantly change their day-to-day behavior. Hours after the agreement was signed, mortar shells or rockets landed near two U.S. military bases in southwestern Baghdad. The reconciliation agreement also calls for the "cessation of firing on main streets, markets, and parks," demands that both Sunnis and Shiites refrain from stealing property from displaced families, and says that authorities will release all innocent people held in American and Iraqi prisons. "These are members of Sunni and Shiite tribes who were involved in fighting each other, but they agreed to look to the future and forget the past," said Hussein, the deputy national security adviser. "I think it is the beginning of a success story." Special correspondent Zaid Sabah contributed to this report. <A name=e20071019553891.html> New York Times October 19, 2007 Pg. 1 Shiite Refugees Feel Forsaken In Their Holy City By Alissa J. Rubin NAJAF, Iraq — The men gather somberly at midday on soiled straw mats under a makeshift canvas canopy in a valiant effort to simulate the traditional Arab formal reception room, but here they have no fans to keep the flies from landing, no sweets or tea to offer strangers. They hoped that this city, holy to their Shiite sect, would welcome them and begin to heal their grief. But instead they have found themselves in a refugee camp outside the city, far from jobs and shops, squeezed five to a tent, sleeping on squalid blankets smelling of sweat, and drinking cloudy brown water hauled from a nearby ditch. Most galling for these Shiite refugees is that they feel abandoned by the government, which is run by fellow Shiites. “When Maliki came to Najaf he didn’t even come to see the camp; he didn’t even visit his own people,” said Issa Mohammed, 47, a dignified man wearing the black checked scarf favored by tribal sheiks, referring to Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The scope of sectarian killings in Iraq and the relocation they have caused have yet to be publicly acknowledged by the Iraqi government. But a visit to Najaf, whose refugee population is typical of the southern provinces, lays bare the vast needs of displaced Iraqis and the rough road ahead for the project of national reconciliation. In Najaf, estimates of the number of the displaced range from 60,000 to more than 400,000. The official number of displaced is 10,000 families, or 60,000 people, since there are six people on average in an Iraqi family, according to the International Organization for Migration, which works with governments worldwide on refugee issues. However, numbers are hard to track because some displaced families stay only a few months in one place and then move on. The majority live in squatter villages in the country far from services; there are about 1,700 in the refugee camp. Because registering with the Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration is a difficult process that requires going to Baghdad and presenting several documents that prove former address and family size, only a fraction of those displaced register, according to officials at humanitarian agencies. In addition, said Kammal Abdul Zahra, the head of the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization’s Najaf office, many rural, less-educated people are afraid of being on any official lists, so they do not register with the provincial government, or with any charitable agencies. His guess is that the real figure is closer to 400,000. That would be a huge increase in Najaf’s population since the bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006, which marked the beginning of the mass migrations. Prior to the bombing, Najaf’s population was estimated at about 700,000. More than 1.1 million Iraqis have been internally displaced, most of them since the time of the bombing, when sectarian violence intensified, according to numbers gathered by the Iraqi Red Crescent and the International Organization for Migration. In addition, at least two million Iraqis have fled the country, with the majority heading to Syria and Jordan. Najaf is a low-lying city of sand-colored houses that sprawls across the northern tip of the Arabian desert. The golden-domed shrine to Imam Ali, the martyred son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, stands at the center of the old city, a place of narrow alleys lined with religious booksellers and the offices of ayatollahs. The size of the jump in Najaf’s population would present huge problems for cities in a developed country, let alone a less developed country still recovering from decades of war. Daunted by those demands and worried about the effect of the influx on Najaf’s image as a center of Shiite culture, the Najaf Provincial Council decided in the summer of 2006 to stop the refugee flow. They instituted rules requiring newcomers to have at least two members of the Najaf government vouch for them or be turned away. The effect has been to limit immigrants to those who already have relatives in Najaf. “The trouble is that we are trying to bring back the identity of Najaf because its society has been disrupted for 30 years,” said Abdul Hussain Abtam, the deputy head of the Provincial Council, referring to suppression of much of the city’s Shiite identity under Iraq’s former president, Saddam Hussein. “We are trying to make people from Najaf more educated, more organized, but these other people, these displaced people, are making this difficult.” In fact, Najaf has a more affluent refugee population than most other areas in the south because of its status as a center of Shiite culture. While a vast majority of refugees are poor, many of them because they had to leave behind everything they own, an estimated 20 percent are part of the middle class and 5 percent are wealthy, according to Red Crescent officials. At one of Najaf’s two largest hospitals, the director has snapped up 10 surgeons who recently emigrated from Baghdad. The province’s main university at Kufa has employed several professors, refugees from the climate of fear in Baghdad, Mr. Abtam says. Businessmen have come, too, closing up their shops in the capital and transplanting their business. For a vast majority, however, even those with middle-class origins, flight has brought a profound malaise. They live in smaller houses with more people, patch a living together and have barely enough to feed their families and pay the rent. But few see returning home as an option. “We have no idea if our houses are still standing,” said Abu Noor, 47, the refugee camp’s unofficial mayor. “We cannot go back to see because they have killed us and we have killed them.” Until January, Haider Jawad, 32, lived a comfortable life in Baghdad, in a sprawling house with room for three families. Then three families in his predominantly Sunni Arab, western Baghdad neighborhood of Khadra received death threats in the form of a note wrapped around a bullet that said, “Leave tomorrow and do not take anything.” “We knew we were going to be next, so my father came to Najaf ahead to arrange a place for the family,” said Mr. Jawad, who had supported his family as an auto mechanic when they lived in Baghdad. “But here they made us pay six months’ rent in advance.” Now, he, his wife and 7-year old son, along with his parents and five other family members, are crammed into a small house on an unpaved side street. The yard is overgrown and strewn with empty plastic water bottles and stray bits of garbage. Some laundry hangs on a line next to the family’s only remaining possession, a satellite dish. The worn furniture inside belongs to the landlord. He tried to start a cellphone business in Najaf and put some of his savings into a small store, but sold few phones. Then he tried to sell satellite television subscriptions, but gave up three months later after selling only one subscription. He is not sure what else to do and his savings have run out. “I can’t run a business here because I don’t know the people,” he said. “In Najaf everybody pays in installments but I am an outsider and I don’t know whom to trust, who will pay and who will not.” When asked if he would consider moving back to Baghdad, he spoke of a dream, not a plan. “If we were to go back we would sell the house and move to one of the predominantly Shiite neighborhoods,” he said. “All that has happened — it does something inside you. Besides the fighting and the killing, even when that is over, it will leave something behind. Those around you have lost many family members. You have lost people you love. You cannot just forget that.” For the family of Salah Abdul Hussain, who now lives in the refugee camp, the feelings of pain and grief are especially raw. A former Iraqi Army corporal, Mr. Hussain lived with his four sons and his wife for nearly 15 years in Habbaniya, a city near Falluja in the Sunni-majority province of Anbar. The city was home to many army families, and they felt comfortable. After the bombing of the Shiite mosque in Samarra, the atmosphere changed in Habbaniya. One of Mr. Hussain’s sons was attacked by gunmen. That son tried to fight, and two of the other sons, hearing the shots, rushed to help him. The gunmen shot the first son, and he died almost immediately. By then the compound where the family lived was largely controlled by militants, and the family knew they had to leave immediately. They called the local sheik, whom they had known for years, and he promised to protect them, and said they should come to his house. But when they left the compound’s gates, armed men attacked their car. Mr. Hussain was dragged from the vehicle. Two of his sons tried to fight. “My two brothers were kidnapped and the insurgents beheaded one of them and killed the other,” said Mehdi Saleh al-Ardi, 31, the only surviving son. “Then they took our two cars and everything we had.” The family made their way to the sheik’s house, but when they entered his compound they saw some of the same people who had kidnapped their sons a few hours earlier and realized they had been betrayed. They fled Anbar that night. Weeks later they heard from a friend that their sons’ bodies had been found; Mr. Hussain collected them and buried them in Falluja, in a graveyard for unidentified bodies. The family quietly presented pictures of their slain boys to a reporter. The bodies are mangled; one boy’s throat is slit and the other is headless. The mother looked away. “I would like to go back to Baghdad maybe, but not to Habbaniya,” Mr. Hussain sighed. “The vengeance killing will continue. But then we cannot stay here. The Najafis call us ‘guests’: How can we say we will stay?” Ali Hamdani contributed reporting from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Najaf. <A name=e20071019553900.html> New York Times October 19, 2007 Security Contractors Shoot At Taxi, Wounding 3 Iraqis By Andrew E. Kramer BAGHDAD, Oct. 18 — A man lost his eye and two other people were wounded when private security contractors fired into a crowded taxi as it approached their convoy of sport utility vehicles in northern Iraq on Thursday. The incident came less than two weeks after a shooting by another company killed two women in a taxicab here, and just over a month after guards with the private American security company Blackwater USA killed 17 people in a Baghdad square. The shootings on Thursday took place when security guards working for the British company Erinys International were escorting employees of the United States Army Corps of Engineers on a highway east of Kirkuk. The guards said that a car approached “at a high rate of speed,” according to a statement issued by the Corps of Engineers. When efforts to warn it off failed, the contractors fired into the vehicle, the statement said. One of the occupants of the car, who was interviewed from a hospital bed in Kirkuk, said that after they fired, the security contractors pointed their guns at the car to discourage those inside from climbing out. The guards then drove away without offering medical help, said the man, Zairak Nori Qadir, whose right eye was hit by a bullet. “They fired on us, and we never threatened them,” Mr. Qadir said. “They shot us and didn’t let us release ourselves from the car until they escaped and left us covered in blood.” “Those are savages and criminals and killers,” he said. A man who answered the phone at Erinys’s Middle East headquarters in Dubai referred questions to the Corps of Engineers. In its statement, the Army Corps said it would appoint an officer to investigate the shooting. “No further details are available at this time,” the statement said. The incident carried the potential to inflame Iraqi opinion about the operations of private security contractors who travel Iraq’s roads in heavily armed convoys but are immune from Iraqi law. Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, has demanded that Blackwater leave the country in the wake of the September shooting in Nisour Square in Baghdad. The dispute threatens to undermine United States reconstruction efforts here as civilian employees of the American government travel with private security rather than military protection. Also on Thursday, thousands of Kurds marched in cities in northern Iraq to protest a decision by Turkey’s Parliament to authorize military incursions against Kurdish separatist rebel bases in Iraq, a threat that could introduce a new military dimension to the Iraq war in the country’s north. About 12,000 people marched in the cities of Erbil and Dahok, calling on the semiautonomous government in the Kurdish region to resist any Turkish military attacks. Marchers also expressed solidarity with the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a group listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and many European countries. “We defend Kurdistan with our souls, and I won’t allow the Turkish troops to stain our beloved land,” said Jara Rikani, a high school student at the march in Dahok. The popular support among Kurds for the Workers’ Party makes this multisided standoff in northern Iraq even more fraught. If Turkey attacked, the situation would pose a quandary for the United States. The United States formally opposes the rebel group, but taking action against it would alienate the Kurds, who are America’s natural allies in Iraq. Yet Turkey is an American ally in NATO, and much of the air cargo for the American war effort in Iraq passes through Turkey. The dominant ground forces in the Iraqi Kurdish region are an irregular militia, the pesh merga; the United States controls the airspace. The stated position of the regional government is that the rebel group should not use Kurdish territory as a staging area for attacks into Turkey, but the government has said the rebel bases are in areas beyond its control. According to the Turkish military, between 2,800 and 3,100 rebels from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party operate from bases along the mountainous border. In Baghdad on Thursday, a dispute intensified over which branch of government had the authority to sign death warrants as three top officials from the government of Saddam Hussein await hanging. They include Ali Hassan al-Majid, who is known as Chemical Ali for ordering poison gas attacks on the Kurds in the 1980s. A United States Embassy spokesman said that Mr. Majid, who is in American military custody, would not be handed over to the Iraqi government for execution until the matter is settled between the offices of the president and the prime minister. Qais Mizher contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Kirkuk, Basra and Dahok. <A name=e20071019553979.html> Los Angeles Times October 19, 2007 Blast Kills 2 At High School In Basra Attack on the facility, which held coed classes, comes amid a Shiite power struggle in the southern Iraqi city. By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer BAGHDAD —Iraq's largely Shiite Muslim south was jolted by more unrest Thursday when an explosion ripped through a high school, killing two students and wounding 15, while authorities announced the arrest of two Shiite members of a provincial council on charges of terrorism. Tensions also flared over the role of private security contractors after three civilians were wounded when foreign guards contracted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened fire on a taxi in northern Iraq. The explosion ripped the Faraheedi secondary school in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, police said. The blast was caused either by a bomb or a grenade, police said. Some of the city's wealthiest families send their children to the private school, which has conducted coed classes, a rarity in Iraq. Omar Khalaf, 17, said he was heading to pick up paperwork so he could transfer to another school when the blast occurred outside the building. "Before we arrived, we heard a very loud boom," Khalaf recalled Thursday night. "I saw my schoolmates' blood on the street and panicked." His parents had worried that the school might be attacked because of its mixed-gender classes and its reputation as a leading Basra institution. Basra, a major oil exporting center, has been a stage for fighting between rival Shiite militias and criminal gangs intent on increasing their power. The violence has escalated since British soldiers moved out of the city to a nearby air base last month. The city's police chief said this month that Islamic extremists were attacking women. In another troubled southern region, police arrested two members of the Qadisiya provincial council in connection with killings and alleged terrorist activities, Iraqi officials said. The men belong to Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's movement. Mohammed Abed Hassan was detained in the provincial government building and Haidar Hamza was arrested at his home, said Qadisiya government spokesman Fadel Mahna. Qadisiya's previous governor, who was a member of the Badr Organization, a rival of Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, was killed in an August bombing. Dhia Shuber, the current governor, declined to say whether the jailed officials were suspected of involvement in the slaying of his predecessor. Salem Ahmed, a Sadr spokesman in Qadisiya province's capital, Diwaniya, denounced the charges as false and politically motivated. Diwaniya has been roiled by violence since the spring. But residents believe that some people who claimed allegiance to the Mahdi Army have formed their own groups as a cover for criminal activities. Meanwhile, three Iraqis were wounded when security contractors in a convoy opened fire on a taxi in the town of Qara Anjir, east of the northern city of Kirkuk, police said. A private security team with the British-owned company Erinys Iraq Ltd. fired warning shots after the vehicle approached at a high speed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said in a statement. The incident was under investigation, it said. Occupants of four large vehicles with tinted windows opened fire on the taxi, witnesses said. A sign on one of the vehicles told drivers to stay more than 300 feet away or risk death, they said. Qara Anjir's police chief, Col. Othman Abdullah, said the contractors did not stop after shooting the civilians. "These security companies are killing Iraqis in cold blood," said witness Razgar Fatih. "We demand the Iraqi government to stop these inhumane violations all over Iraq. These companies must be put on trial." Tensions have risen over the presence of foreign security contractors after as many as 17 Iraqis were shot to death Sept. 16 by bodyguards employed by the security firm Blackwater USA. Two Iraqis were killed in Baghdad on Oct. 9 by employees of the Australian firm Unity Resources Group. The U.S. military reported that an American soldier was killed and three were wounded Wednesday when a bomb exploded near a vehicle in Salahuddin province, north of Baghdad. Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, at least 3,830 American military personnel have been killed, according to icasualties.org. Times staff writers Usama Redha, Saif Hameed and Said Rifai, and special correspondents in Basra, Kirkuk and Hillah contributed to this report. <A name=e20071019553978.html> Los Angeles Times October 19, 2007 Iraqi Downplays Turkey's Intentions Baghdad's foreign minister says airstrikes or ground incursions by Ankara's military are possible but a major offensive is unlikely. By Ned Parker and Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers BAGHDAD —Turkey might launch airstrikes or a limited ground incursion against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq but is not likely to unleash a major offensive, Iraq's foreign minister said Thursday. His statement came as thousands of Iraqi Kurds demonstrated against a possible incursion into the north, vowing to fight Turkish troops that cross the border. Turkey's parliament on Wednesday authorized the country's military to pursue Kurdish fighters from Turkey into Iraq during the next year. The vote fanned fears that a strike would damage the prosperity of the three primarily Kurdish provinces in the north, widely considered the leading success story in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. However, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari downplayed the chances of Turkey taking robust action against rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, who operate in the rugged terrain of Iraq's Qandil mountains. He cited the imminent winter, Turkey's plans to soon send a delegation to Baghdad, a coming visit by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the United States, and the hosting Nov. 2 and 3 in Istanbul of a conference on Iraq to be attended by regional foreign ministers and others. "I don't believe there will be any large-scale Turkish military incursions across the border," said the foreign minister, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. "If the worst would happen, one would not discount some air attacks on some . . . PKK positions or some very limited operations . . . to send some troops across certain border points to look for PKK," he said. The Turkish threat has put the Bush administration in a bind: Turkey is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally that provides air bases and supply routes supporting American forces in Iraq, yet the Iraqi Kurds have been key allies of the U.S. going back to Hussein's rule. Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, American officials have tried to persuade Iraq's Kurds to move |
