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 Early Bird 10-23-07 Please Scoll down to read the Headlines. Then scroll down to that number to read Headline in it's entirety. 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 TRIP
Philadelphia Inquirer October 23, 2007 Gates Hopeful On Missile Plan The Bush administration is aiming to strike deals by the end of the year to establish missile-defense bases in the Czech Republic and Poland, yet that ambitious timetable might be in jeopardy. Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested yesterday he still believes Warsaw will cooperate after Poland's opposition party ousted ruling conservatives in parliamentary elections on Sunday. The opposition does not oppose hosting a U.S. missile base but has criticized the outgoing government for not negotiating harder. Gates, asked about possible ramifications for the Pentagon's plan to expand missile defenses, said the United States has enjoyed good cooperation from Poland regardless of the makeup of its government. "I expect that cooperation to continue," Gates said in Kiev, Ukraine. The Pentagon wants to install 10 interceptor rockets in Poland that could defend all of Europe against a long-range missile fired from the Middle East. - Associated Press <A name=e20071023555380.html> Christian Science Monitor October 23, 2007 U.S. Prods NATO Over Afghan Security Secretary Gates this week is expected to press the alliance to supply more trainers for the Afghan police and Army, a key to countering resurgent violence there. By Gordon Lubold, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor WASHINGTON -- The Afghan police and Army are in dire need of more training, and when US Defense Secretary Robert Gates attends a summit of NATO defense chiefs starting Wednesday in the Netherlands, he is expected to demand that member countries send additional trainers to a nation considered crucial in the war on terror. As violence rises in parts of Afghanistan, the mission to build a strong security force there is flagging in part because NATO members that had pledged support as recently as last year have yet to fulfill all their commitments, US defense officials say. Secretary Gates said last week that pressing those countries to step up will top his agenda during the two-day meeting. "I expect this subject to be the centerpiece of those discussions – of people meeting the commitments they have made," Gates said. Gates is seeking not only more trainers, but also a "strategic plan" for adding trainers and better coordination of economic and civil development in the country. But the addition of more trainers is key, defense officials agree. More personnel to train Afghan forces will speed coalition forces' ability to build the Afghan National Army and police and – as in Iraq – lead ultimately to coalition withdrawal of troops. Some progress, but trainers sought While the Afghan Army has been lauded for making good progress, the Afghan police have not made the same strides, plagued by problems with corruption, low pay, and promotion. A shortage of trainers has slowed progress on both fronts. Gates, who was in Kiev Sunday, is asking Ukraine and other Eastern European countries for help, according to a Reuters report. "The greatest shortfall that we face right now, both in terms of increasing the size of the training base and in taking units into combat and employing them, are trainers," said Army Maj. Gen. Robert Cone, commanding general of the Combined Security Transition Command for Afghanistan, during a briefing at the Pentagon last Thursday. The training mission needs an additional 60 training teams – consisting of about 16 individuals each – to help the Afghan Army and police, according to Major General Cone. Currently, about 22 teams are on the ground and another 20 or so are promised by NATO countries. The 60 new teams would bring the overall program to 100 training teams. US and coalition forces will have to remain in Afghanistan far longer than would be necessary if the international community does not provide more military trainers and mentors to buttress the Afghan police and Army, so that those forces can provide Afghanistan's security, say US and Afghan defense officials. What Afghanistan says it needs Afghan officials also want more weaponry and equipment, as well as the ability to transport troops and materiel. All will contribute to a more independent, secure country, said Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, minister of Defense. General Wardak is seeking more help from the US and European countries. "The ultimate formula for victory is that the Afghan government and its US partners and international friends should do everything possible to accelerate the development, both in number and capability, of the Afghan national security forces," said Wardak, speaking at the same briefing last week as Cone. "By growing faster and ... with enhanced protection, mobility, firepower, and combat enablers, [Afghan units] will be more able to partner effectively with our international forces, operate more independently, and more quickly take the lead on physical security." The mission in Afghanistan, which is led by NATO, includes a total of about 49,000 coalition forces, to which the US contributes about 26,000 military forces. By agreement, the objective is to train an Afghan Army force of about 70,000 and a police force of about 82,000. Earlier this year, American officials marveled that the Taliban's "spring offensive" never materialized. Since then, however, the opium trade has blossomed along with a bumper crop of poppies, and violence has steadily increased, especially a rise in suicide attacks, defense officials say. Last week, coalition forces confirmed that in early September they intercepted a shipment of Iranian-made improvised explosive devices being shipped in from the Iranian border – a sign that Iran may be intervening in the mission in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the US Marine Corps recently floated a proposal to essentially redeploy to Afghanistan some 25,000 marines now assigned to Iraq. Under the proposal, the Army would be responsible for the Iraq war and the marines would assume the bulk of the US commitment to Afghanistan, a mission Corps officials suggest the Marines are better suited to handle. But if the plan had any chance of consideration, Gates appeared to dismiss it last week. "I have pretty much literally up to this point heard one sentence about [the proposal] and that they were thinking about it, and so I would say that if it happens, it'll be long after I'm secretary of Defense," he said. <A name=e20071023555424.html> Washington Post October 23, 2007 Pg. 11 Gates Prods NATO States On Deployments To Afghanistan By Robert Burns, Associated Press KIEV, Ukraine, Oct. 22 -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates criticized European members of NATO on Monday for failing to provide the extra troops that their governments promised last year for security duties in Afghanistan. "I am not satisfied that an alliance whose members have over 2 million soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen cannot find the modest additional resources that have been committed for Afghanistan," Gates said at a news conference after a meeting of a separate organization of Southeast European countries. The main shortfall is in troops to serve as trainers for the Afghan National Army and the Afghan police. Gates said he intended to pursue the matter at a NATO defense ministers meeting in the Netherlands this week. During Monday's meeting here of the Southeast European defense ministers, a group created in 1996 mainly to promote stability in the Balkans, several countries "indicated that they intend to increase their commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq -- principally in Afghanistan," Gates told reporters. He added that those countries did not want to be publicly identified yet because they have not finalized their plans. Earlier, Slovak officials told Gates that they will send at least 47 more troops to Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan, where they will work with Dutch forces, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said. That will increase its troop total in Afghanistan to 125 next year, he said. Slovakia also will send eight doctors to work at a military hospital in Kabul, the Afghan capital, Morrell said. In opening remarks at Monday's session, Gates urged members of the Southeast European Defense Ministerial to boost their contributions to security efforts in Afghanistan, warning that the group "risks eventual irrelevance" unless it does more to fight terrorism and increase European security cooperation. <A name=e20071023555196.html> Yahoo.com October 22, 2007 Gates Rallies European Support For Afghan Mission By Daphne Benoit, Agence France-Presse KIEV--US Defense Secretary Robert Gates rallied European support for operations in Afghanistan on Monday as backing from key ally Poland appeared threatened by a change of government after elections. Speaking in Kiev during a tour of European allies, Gates castigated his NATO partners, saying he was "not satisfied" with their support for the NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. "I encourage all allies and partners to contribute as much as they can, especially in support of our efforts in Afghanistan," Gates said. Growing casualties in Afghanistan have led some countries to plan troop reductions or withdrawals from ISAF, which currently has a total of 37,000 people from 37 countries. The issue will be the "principal theme" of a meeting of alliance defence ministers in the Netherlands later in the week, he said. Gates was speaking at a grouping of southeast European defence ministers in the Ukrainian capital. He also called on them to increase their support for the US "war on terror." The United States enjoys the support of several former Soviet bloc nations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But results from Poland's parliamentary elections on Sunday appeared to strike a blow to its position as one of Washington's closest allies in the region. Poland's liberal opposition Civic Platform won Sunday's polls, trouncing the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski. While strong military cooperation with the United States has been at the heart of the Kaczynskis' foreign policy, Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk has vowed to bring home soon 900 Polish troops serving in Iraq. He has also voiced reservations about the size of the 1,200-strong Polish force serving in Afghanistan and threatened to soften the Kaczynskis' strong support of US plans to build part of an anti-missile shield in Poland. "We are clearly hopeful that the kind of cooperation we enjoyed recently both in Iraq and Afghanistan on the one hand and... negotiations on an agreement on missile defence will continue as before," Gates said. "Obviously we'll have to have discussions with the new government of Poland in terms of specific future plans" on Poland's contribution to the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said. Gates's primary concern appeared to be the support from other NATO states, which he said had not fulfilled pledges made at a summit in Riga in November 2006. "I am not satisfied that an alliance with members who have over two million soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen cannot find the modest additional resources that have been committed for Afghanistan," he told journalists. In particular Gates called for additional reconstruction teams and help in building up the Afghan army. Gates also called on NATO members to keep their troops in Kosovo after a December 10 deadline for a decision on the future of the disputed province. "I'm asking all nations to keep their forces in KFOR regardless of what happens after December 10," Gates said, referring to NATO's Kosovo force. Talks run by the European Union, Russia and the United States are due to be concluded by December 10 under a deadline set by the UN Security Council. Kosovo is demanding independence, while Serbia is only prepared to award autonomy to the majority ethnic Albanian province. Officials from Brussels, Moscow and Washington began new talks with delegates from Pristina and Belgrade on Monday in Vienna to determine the future status of the province. <A name=e20071023555195.html> Yahoo.com October 22, 2007 Gates Ups Pressure On NATO Over Afghan Commitment By Kristin Roberts, Reuters KIEV--Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized NATO allies on Monday for failing to send enough troops and equipment to Afghanistan, setting the stage for tense discussions in the alliance later this week. "I am not satisfied that an alliance whose members have over 2 million soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen cannot find the modest additional resources that have been committed for Afghanistan," Gates told reporters in the Ukraine capital Kiev. Some 50,000 troops are taking part in the separate NATO and U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan. Only the United States, Britain, the Netherlands and Canada have major presences where the fighting is worst -- in the south and east. Western armies are overstretched by missions in Iraq, Kosovo, Lebanon and elsewhere. Key nations like the Netherlands want to cut troop levels in Afghanistan. Alliance officials say the NATO force in Afghanistan is some 10 percent below full strength, without giving details. The Pentagon chief wants the 26-nation bloc to stump up a further 3,000 trainers for the Afghan security forces -- which are not seen as able to lead the fight against Taliban insurgents until 2011 at the earliest -- plus more combat troops and vital equipment such as helicopters. Speaking after meeting eastern European defense chiefs, Gates said he would press allies for more at a meeting in the Netherlands on Wednesday and Thursday. "This will clearly be a principal theme of the NATO defense ministers' meeting," he said of talks in the Dutch coastal resort Noordwijk, where the future of the alliance's 17,000-strong Kosovo peacekeeping force will also be discussed. Violence has increased sharply in southern Afghanistan over the past two years, the bloodiest period since the Taliban's radical Islamic government was toppled by U.S.-led coalition forces in late 2001 with some 7,000 killed across the country. Helicopters Yet no announcements of major new deployments are due at Noordwijk. Britain has denied suggestions it is preparing reinforcements, as has Denmark. "This is no force generation meeting," said a NATO official, noting the next regular attempt to drum up troop offers was set for a meeting at NATO military headquarters next month. Newspaper De Telegraaf quoted sources at the weekend as saying Dutch Chief of Staff Dick Berlijn had advised The Hague it could keep up to 1,200 soldiers in southern Afghanistan after 2008, down from 1,600 now. The government declined to comment. Norway is under pressure to help fill any gap left by the Dutch, and in general only small-scale troop offers are on the horizon. Slovakia will increase its presence to around 120, and there is talk of possible Georgian contributions. NATO is set to plug a shortage of helicopters with a commercial leasing deal for 20 machines, officials said. In a sign of growing U.S. frustration, Gates is considering withdrawing U.S. forces from Kosovo at some point unless Europe does more in Afghanistan, according to his spokesman. He has ordered that the 1,600 U.S. troops in Kosovo remain until summer 2008, but then will reconsider the deployment based on Europe's progress in fulfilling its promises. Gates on Monday stressed all nations should for now keep forces in the breakaway Serb province, which has threatened to declare itself independent if there is no deal in talks between Belgrade and the Kosovo Albanians due to end by December 10. The build-up of Turkish troops, tanks and fighter jets ahead of possible strikes at Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq is not on the agenda of the NATO meeting, but could feature in any bilateral contacts between Gates and his Turkish counterpart. Turkey has said it is not a NATO matter and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said this weekend he expected the United States, which has some 170,000 troops in Iraq, to take "swift" steps against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels. --Additional reporting by Mark John in Brussels and the Amsterdam bureau <A name=e20071023555232.html> Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) October 22, 2007 US Defense Secy Urges Europeans To Do More Against Terrorism KIEV (AP)--U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged members of a European defense group Monday to boost their contributions to security efforts in Afghanistan, warning the group "risks eventual irrelevance" unless it does more to fight terrorism and increase European security cooperation. In an address to the Southeast European Defense Ministerial, or SEDM, which was created in 1996 in a U.S.-led initiative designed to enhance security in the Balkans, Gates praised the group for sending a small headquarters element to Kabul, Afghanistan, last year and said more such missions should be considered. "Given the wide range of global threats which confront us, contributions by SEDM members to the war on terrorism are particularly important," Gates said, according to a transcript of his remarks released after the start of the closed-door conference. "SEDM risks eventual irrelevance if it is principally only a talk-shop," Gates said. "To sustain and increase SEDM's relevance, member nations must be willing to address these crucial issues." Gates was using the meeting to underscore the importance of international assistance for Afghanistan, where violence remains high despite some success this year in blunting a planned Taliban offensive. Gates has been pushing for more help in Afghanistan from European countries, not only those in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance but others with security and other resources that could contribute to stabilizing the country. Slovak officials told Gates during a conference of southeast European defense ministers they will send at least 47 more troops to Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan, where they will work with Dutch forces, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said. That will increase its troop total in Afghanistan to 125 next year, he said. Slovakia also will send eight doctors to work at a military hospital in Kabul, the Afghan capital, Morrell said. After the meeting Gates was headed to the Czech Republic for talks on the U.S. proposal to install a missile-tracking radar there as part of a Europe-based U.S. missile defense system that is strongly opposed by Russia. Later this week Gates is scheduled to attend a meeting of NATO defense ministers in the Netherlands, where Afghanistan is expected to be a central focus of talks. Much of the higher levels of violence in Afghanistan has been in the southern and eastern provinces. The insurgents are increasingly using Iraq-style tactics, such as roadside bombs, suicide attacks and kidnappings to hit foreign and Afghan targets around the country. <A name=e20071023555278.html> New York Times October 23, 2007 Pg. 1 2 Reports Assail State Dept. Role In Iraq Security By Eric Schmitt and David Rohde WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 — A pair of new reports have delivered sharply critical judgments about the State Department’s performance in overseeing work done by the private companies that the government relies on increasingly in Iraq and Afghanistan to carry out delicate security work and other missions. A State Department review of its own security practices in Iraq assails the department for poor coordination, communication, oversight and accountability involving armed security companies like Blackwater USA, according to people who have been briefed on the report. In addition to Blackwater, the State Department’s two other security contractors in Iraq are DynCorp International and Triple Canopy. At the same time, a government audit expected to be released Tuesday says that records documenting the work of DynCorp, the State Department’s largest contractor, are in such disarray that the department cannot say “specifically what it received” for most of the $1.2 billion it has paid the company since 2004 to train the police officers in Iraq. The review of security practices was ordered last month by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and it did not address the Sept. 16 shooting involving Blackwater guards, which Iraqi investigators said killed 17 Iraqis. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is leading a separate inquiry into that episode. But in presenting its recommendations to Ms. Rice in a 45-minute briefing on Monday, the four-member panel found serious fault with virtually every aspect of the department’s security practices, especially in and around Baghdad, where Blackwater has responsibility. The panel’s recommendations include creating a special coordination center to monitor and control the movement of armed convoys through areas under the command of the American military, which has long complained that contractors operate independently in the field. The report also urged the department to work with the Pentagon to develop a strict set of rules on how to deal with the families of Iraqi civilians who are killed or wounded by armed contractors, and to improve coordination between American contractors and security guards employed by agencies, like various Iraqi ministries. “They don’t have the right communications, they don’t have the right procedures in place, and you’ve got people operating on their own,” said one official who has been briefed on the report but who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it has not been released yet. “This is not up to the degree it should be.” Sean McCormack, a State Department spokesman, said Ms. Rice would closely examine the report’s findings and recommendations and consult with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on what steps to take. Mr. Gates, who is traveling overseas this week, is pressing for the nearly 10,000 armed security contractors now working for the United States government in Iraq to fall under a single authority, most likely the American military, in an effort to bring the contractors under tighter control. State Department officials say they have already tightened controls over Blackwater by sending State Department personnel as monitors on Blackwater convoys in and around Baghdad, and by mounting video cameras on Blackwater vehicles. The panel was led by Patrick F. Kennedy, the State Department’s director of management policy. The other members were Eric J. Boswell, a former diplomat and intelligence office and a former head of the bureau of diplomatic security; J. Stapleton Roy, a former ambassador to China and Indonesia; and George Joulwan, a retired four-star Army general. While the panel’s review focused on work overseen by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security at the State Department, the second report, focusing on DynCorp, was an audit carried out by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, and it focused on another department office, the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. The audit said that until earlier this year the State Department had only two government employees in Iraq overseeing as many as 700 DynCorp employees. The result was “an environment vulnerable to waste and fraud,” the audit said. Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the chief of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, said in an interview that while the department had made “significant strides” in scrutinizing payments to DynCorp in the past year, the police training contract “appears to me to be the weakest-staffed, most poorly overseen large-scale program in Iraq.” He added that “when you put two people on the ground to manage a billion dollars, that’s pretty weak.” The contract gave DynCorp the job of building police training facilities and deploying hundreds of police trainers to instruct a new Iraqi police force. Developing a police force was considered central to stabilizing Iraq, but the effort, led first by the State Department and then by the Defense Department, has been criticized by administration opponents as well as by the bipartisan commission on the war led by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton. The State Department said it had improved monitoring of DynCorp, but in a letter to auditors department officials said that it would still take “three to five years” to reconcile fully the payments made to the company during the first two years of the training contract, beginning in February 2004. As a sign of the confusion, the State Department reported to auditors that as part of its work in Iraq, DynCorp had purchased a $1.8 million X-ray scanner that was never used and spent $387,000 to house company officials in hotels rather than in existing living facilities. Then, later, the State Department said those costs were actually incurred in Afghanistan, according to the audit. State Department officials say they have always said the spending occurred in Afghanistan. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut said the special inspector general has shown, once again, “how vulnerable the federal government is to waste when it doesn’t invest up front in proper contract oversight.” He added, “This scenario is far too frequent across the federal government: we spend billions of dollars for goods and services with no oversight plans in place and hope and pray that an audit will identify any mistakes later.” Thomas A. Schweich, the acting director of the law enforcement bureau, said it had increased staffing in October 2006 and had thoroughly checked all DynCorp invoices since then. He said a detailed review of all DynCorp spending was under way. “We put more people in place,” he said, referring to three additional staff members sent to Iraq to oversee DynCorp. “We have put together a team of 11 people to review historical invoices.” A review of DynCorp’s spending over the past year identified $29 million in overcharges by DynCorp, including $108,000 in business travel, according to a State Department letter in response to Mr. Bowen’s auditors. A separate review by the Defense Contracting Audit Agency found that DynCorp had billed for $162,869 of labor hours “for which it did not pay its workers.” Gregory Lagana, a DynCorp spokesman, said the amounts involved were small fractions of the $1.2 billion paid to DynCorp since 2004. He said that if DynCorp filed an erroneous charge the company would reimburse it, adding that DynCorp had already reimbursed the State Department for $72,000. “There was no intentional misbilling,” Mr. Lagana said. “It could be just a documents problem.” He said that the company initially struggled with some record-keeping, but that it had informed the government whenever it found errors. “We fully acknowledge that we have some problems with invoicing,” he said. “It’s something we’re working really hard to clean up.” In a letter to Ms. Rice on Monday, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, accused the department of failing to respond to a request the committee made in March for DynCorp-related documents. Mr. Waxman, whose committee is investigating the department’s oversight of both DynCorp and Blackwater, demanded that the department send him the records by Nov. 2. “The police training program is a critical component of the administration’s efforts to bring stability to Iraq,” Mr. Waxman wrote. “It is a matter of serious concern that this critical initiative appears to have been so poorly managed.” Officials and auditors said the law enforcement bureau that handled the DynCorp contracts was overwhelmed when large police training programs were begun in Afghanistan and Iraq. A senior State Department official said the bureau was not equipped to handle such large contracts. “You have a perfect storm of bad events,” said the official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. “You have huge amounts of money passing through an organization that is being retooled as it’s running the race of its life.” John M. Broder contributed reporting. <A name=e20071023555236.html> Washington Post October 23, 2007 Pg. 1 U.S. Warns Iraq To Halt Rebel Raids On Turkey Kurdish Attacks Prompt Border Troop Buildup By Robin Wright and Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post Staff Writers The United States has warned Iraqi leaders to take concrete steps to crack down on Kurdish rebels operating against Turkey from northern Iraq, as Turkey yesterday dispatched more troops and heavy weaponry toward the Iraqi border. President Bush yesterday personally reached out to the leaders of both countries in an effort to prevent an outbreak of open hostilities. Over the past two days, top U.S. officials have made clear to Turkish, Iraqi and Kurdish leaders that Washington fully backs Turkey in the growing crisis, administration sources said. Twelve Turkish soldiers were killed and eight others taken captive in an ambush Sunday by Kurdish rebels who crossed from Iraq into Turkey in a brazen nighttime attack. Iraq now bears responsibility for containing and then dismantling the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a separatist movement from Turkey that maintains camps in northern Iraq, U.S. officials said. Bush has been drawn into the crisis with Turkey as relations deteriorated over the attacks from Iraq as well as by a recent House committee resolution that denounced as genocide the mass killings of Armenians by Turkey in 1915. A longtime NATO ally, Turkey has provided critical logistical support for U.S. air operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. With Turkey sending a convoy of about 50 military vehicles toward the Iraqi border, President Bush called Turkish President Abdullah Gul to express "deep concern" about the attacks against Turkish soldiers and civilians. He also pledged to work with Turkey and Iraq to "combat" cross-border PKK operations, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. But the United States is also urging Turkey not to make unilateral strikes until Iraq has an chance to deal with the Kurdish rebels, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. "From our perspective this is a diplomatic full-court press. We want to see an outcome where you have the Turks and the Iraqis working together and we will do what we can to resolve the issue without a Turkish cross-border incursion," he said. In conversations Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asked Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a "few days," Turkish sources said. But the Turks may not allow much more. "If expected developments do not take place in the next few days, we will have to take care of our own situation," Erdogan said yesterday. Bush administration officials say the upsurge in PKK attacks in southeastern Turkey over the past few weeks has complicated diplomatic efforts. "It's not just telling the Turks 'restraint, restraint, restraint.' Urging restraint at this stage will fall on deaf ears," a senior U.S. official familiar with the diplomacy said. "Our message has been that we share completely your outrage at the attacks, but be smart about what you do." Bush also held a videoconference yesterday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, after telephone calls from Rice and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, to Iraqi Kurdish leaders on Sunday. The United States is not prescribing a specific formula, U.S. officials said, but wants to see Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq to take tough measures, such as securing the borders to prevent guerrilla incursions, interdicting rebel operatives, arresting the group's leaders, or putting Iraqi forces around the PKK camps in the rugged Qandil mountain range. "Part of the message is that you have to get serious. The Turks are under attack and have shown responsibility. You should, too," the senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "The other part of the message to Iraq and the Kurdish regional government is: Why risk it all? Look at your own interests. Why put at risk all the prosperity and security achieved in the Kurdish region by alienating a neighbor?" he added. The administration is pressing for urgent action, seeking a resolution of the crisis before a regional meeting on Iraq that Turkey is scheduled to host in Istanbul on Nov. 2 and 3, State Department officials said yesterday. In a joint statement with visiting British Foreign Minister David Milliband, Rice said they are proposing a meeting of a tripartite committee -- made of Iraq, Turkey and the United States -- at the November regional meeting to discuss ways to implement an agreement between Iraq and Turkey on combating terrorism. In a joint statement, Rice and Milliband called on Iraqi and Kurdish regional government authorities to take "immediate steps" to halt PKK operations from Iraq. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates met on Sunday with Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul in Kiev, Ukraine, and urged the Turkish government to show restraint. Gates stressed that the United States is taking steps to work with Turkey to gain better intelligence on the PKK fighters. "The key, as I indicated, is developing intelligence that would enable us to find these people," he later told reporters. In Washington for talks with U.S. officials, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurd, warned Turkey that military intervention could invite a wider regional conflagration, leading others, notably Iran, to join in. "Turkish military intervention in Iraq will be a precedent for others to do so. And that is the last thing we need," he said at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center. Salih also said there are no military solutions to the PKK problem: "We were guerrillas ourselves before coming to government in Baghdad and we know how guerrilla warfare is fought. And we'd be talking very difficult terrain along the border." He also noted that Turkey has fought PKK guerrillas at home that its troops have been unable to defeat. In a statement late yesterday, the PKK said it was ready for "a political solution" with Turkey. The group accused Turkey of violating an earlier cease-fire "and that the PKK used their legal right to defend themselves." In an interview, PKK spokesman Abdul Rahman al-Chaderchi warned that if Turkey "continued their attacks" the PKK would fight back. "We have enough forces from our sons to defend ourselves against any attack that Turkey would implement," he said. Turkish officials, meanwhile, scattered across Europe and the Middle East yesterday in a flurry of diplomatic meetings. Prime Minister Erdogan traveled to Britain to meet British and Israeli prime ministers, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan flew to Kuwait City for meetings with his Kuwaiti counterpart, and Interior Minister Besir Atalay was scheduled to meet today with his counterparts from Iraq's neighbors, according to a government spokesman. In new details about the 2 a.m. Sunday raid, Turkish news media reported that a group of about 200 PKK fighters attacked from three sides, ambushing soldiers separated from their infantry unit. The guerrillas then blew up a bridge to hamper Turkish reinforcements. In response, Turkish forces launched a pursuit just over the border into Iraq with combat aircraft attacking "63 targets," according to the Turkish military. Turkey routinely fires artillery barrages into northern Iraq in response to PKK activity and has recently bombed PKK targets. Turkish officials initially said that 17 soldiers had been killed but later revised the total to 12. Yesterday, protesters in several Turkish cities, including Istanbul and Ankara, staged small demonstrations calling on the government to take action against the PKK. The Turkish parliament voted last Wednesday to authorize the government to conduct cross-border attacks into northern Iraq against PKK operatives, training camps and other targets. Correspondent Molly Moore in Paris, staff writer Ann Scott Tyson in Washington and special correspondent Dlovan Brwari in Mosul contributed to this report. <A name=e20071023555280.html> New York Times October 23, 2007 Pg. 1 In Iraq, Conflict On A Second Kurdish Front By Richard A. Oppel Jr. BAGHDAD, Oct. 22 — Deadly raids into Turkey by Kurdish militants holed up in northern Iraq are the focus of urgent diplomacy, with Turkey threatening invasion of Iraq and the United States begging for restraint while expressing solidarity with Turkish anger. Yet out of the public eye, a chillingly similar battle has been under way on the Iraqi border with Iran. Kurdish guerrillas ambush and kill Iranian forces and retreat to their hide-outs in Iraq. The Americans offer Iran little sympathy. Tehran even says Washington aids the Iranian guerrillas, a charge the United States denies. True or not, that conflict, like the Turkish one, has explosive potential. Salih Shevger, an Iranian Kurdish guerrilla, was interviewed recently as he lay flat on a slab of rock atop a 10,000-foot mountain on the Iran-Iraq border, with binoculars pressed to his face as he kept watch on Iranian military outposts perched on peaks about four miles away. He and his comrades recounted how they ambushed an Iranian patrol between the bases a few days before, killing three soldiers and capturing another. “They were sitting and talking on top of a hill, and we approached, hiding ourselves, and fired on them from two sides,” said Bayram Gabar, who commanded the raid, and who like all the fighters here uses a nom de guerre. The guerrillas from the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, or P.J.A.K., have been waging a deadly insurgency in Iran and they are an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the P.K.K., the Kurdish guerrillas who fight Turkey. Like the P.K.K., the Iranian Kurds control much of the craggy, boulder-strewn frontier and routinely ambush patrols on the other side. But while the Americans call the P.K.K. terrorists, guerrilla commanders say P.J.A.K. has had “direct or indirect discussions” with American officials. They would not divulge any details of the discussions or the level of the officials involved, but they noted that the group’s leader, Rahman Haj-Ahmadi, visited Washington last summer. Biryar Gabar, one of 11 members of the group’s leadership, said there had been “normal dialogue” with American officials, declining specifics. One of his bodyguards said officials of the group met with Americans in Kirkuk last year. Iranian officials have accused the United States of supplying the fighters and using them in a proxy war, though those assertions were denied by the American military. “The consensus is that U.S. forces are not working with or advising the P.J.A.K.,” said an American military spokesman in Baghdad, Cmdr. Scott Rye of the Navy. A senior American diplomat said that there had not been any official contacts with the group and that he was unaware of its having received any support from the United States. He also said that Mr. Haj-Ahmadi, while in Washington, did not meet with administration officials. Because the P.K.K. is on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations and aiding such groups is illegal, the United States is eager to avoid any hint of cooperation with the P.J.A.K. Guerrilla leaders said the Americans classify the P.K.K. as a terrorist group because it is fighting Turkey, an important American ally, while the P.J.A.K. is not labeled as such because it is fighting Iran. In fact, the two groups appear to a large extent to be one and the same, and share the same goal: fighting campaigns to win new autonomy and rights for Kurds in Iran and Turkey. They share leadership, logistics and allegiance to Abdullah Ocalan, the P.K.K. leader imprisoned in Turkey. While most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, the guerrillas reject Islamic fundamentalism. Instead, they trace their roots to a Marxist past. They still espouse what they call “scientific socialism” and promote women’s rights. After skirmishes between the guerrillas and Iranian forces intensified this year, the Iranian military began shelling border villages in August, sending residents fleeing and killing livestock. The shelling drew angry criticism from Iraqi leaders, who condemned it as a disproportionate response. But interviews with guerrillas suggest that they have inflicted considerable damage on Iran. While it is impossible to verify the claims, the leader of the P.K.K., Murat Karayilan, said the P.J.A.K. fighters had killed at least 150 Iranian soldiers and officials in Iran since August. And Biryar Gabar says 108 Iranians were killed in August alone. The group said the intensity of its military actions varied with the degree of persecution of Kurds within Iran. The P.J.A.K. guerrillas anchor their operations in small bases in the valleys equipped with generators, satellite television, spring wells and gardens of eggplant, pomegranates, tomatoes and peaches. They have built several cemeteries to rebury the remains of fighters killed in previous years and to prepare for those yet to die. Pictures of more than 100 dead fighters, including women, cover the interior walls of a building inside one cemetery. Up in the mountains, where they will stay for a year or more at a time, the fighters live spartan lives, subsisting on plain soups, tea, rice, beans, water and bread baked in makeshift ovens. They have a few tents and sleeping rolls, explaining that the only home they have is what they carry on their backs. The camps are designed for quick getaways. The guerrillas are adept at hit-and-run tactics, and they thrive in the thin air almost two miles above sea level, climbing and hiking rapidly over the most challenging terrain. They send small teams into Iran armed with Kalashnikov rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, Russian-made sniper rifles and machine guns. Typically, they will attack a few soldiers at the fringe of a larger group, said Sadun Edesa, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd who said he had been fighting up here for five years. He said the small attack was usually all it took to derail an Iranian operation aimed at rooting out guerrillas inside Iran. He was recently part of a four-man ambush team that sneaked into Iran and killed five Iranian soldiers, he said, before scampering back to camouflaged positions. “When you hit one of their groups like that, their military operation dies,” he said. At one outpost, the guerrillas allowed a brief interview with the Iranian soldier they say was captured in the ambush described by the P.J.A.K. ambush commander, Bayram Gabar. The prisoner identified himself as Akbar Talibi, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran. His uniform bore Guard insignia, and he sat cross-legged on a thin carpet as six guerrillas stood or squatted nearby, one resting a Kalashnikov rifle on his thighs. The prisoner said that of his 70-man unit, 15 had been killed and 17 wounded since August. The Iranian military, the prisoner added, “wants to destroy P.J.A.K.” Iranian officials in Tehran did not respond to requests for comment about the guerrillas or the man the guerrillas identified as a captured soldier. A former member of the Iranian Parliament, Jalal Jalilizadeh, who is Kurdish, said the guerrilla group increased its attacks and began singling out Revolutionary Guard members and assassinating other officials on the Iranian side of the border a year ago. There are no official tallies of Iranian casualties, though Mr. Jalilizadeh estimated the total at around 100 since last year. He also confirmed several recent attacks described by the guerrillas, including the downing of an Iranian helicopter near the border in September, which killed at least six. Mr. Shevger said he led the team that destroyed the helicopter, bringing it down it with a fusillade from machine guns and sniper rifles. “We found a weak point in the helicopter, and we opened fire,” he said. The fighting with Iran, he added, “will be worse a year from now.” The group now has “far more” than 2,000 guerrillas fighting Iran, said Biryar Gabar, who added that most of them were based in Iran. There was no way to verify his claim. But the group still has more than enough fighters in this part of Iraq to be a law unto itself, controlling the few roads in the area with checkpoints. A guerrilla outpost on the crest of a ridge of mountains straddling the border suggests that it holds sway over much of the border, while Iranian soldiers are garrisoned several miles away. When the heavy shelling began in August, the Iranians also unleashed infantry attacks on guerrilla positions near this outpost but were beaten back, the guerrillas say. The outpost is concealed within a rock outcropping the size of a battle cruiser. Above it, along the ridge, guerrilla sentries peer through binoculars at troop movements several miles inside Iran, careful to keep their heads down, they say, because the Iranians direct artillery fire at any sign of the guerrillas. Nothing in their demeanor suggests that the guerrillas will soon abandon their fight. But their growing attacks inside Iran this year have put pressure on the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the dominant political party in the eastern sector of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, which sees Iran as a crucial trading partner. For their part, the guerrillas believe that the party, whose leader is the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, has become a toady for Iran. But party officials say it would be foolish and shortsighted not to cultivate better relations with Iran and Turkey, from whom the landlocked Kurds obtain gasoline and other critical supplies. Kurdish leaders are also keenly aware that the guerrillas remain popular with the Kurdish public. Tension between the party and the guerrillas apparently led to a skirmish in late August, when fighters crossed the border from Iran and were attacked by the pesh merga, the armed force affiliated with the party. Mr. Karayilan said he immediately phoned a counterpart at the P.U.K., who he said told him that the party was “getting pressure from Iran.” Mr. Talabani has warned the guerrillas to put their weapons down or leave the border. But a senior party official close to Mr. Talabani admitted that “the people would be against us” if it took action against them. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, declined to comment on the August skirmish, but he acknowledged that the pesh merga could not defeat the tough and proficient guerrillas. “If Iran and Turkey with their huge armies cannot control their borders,” he said, “how could we do that?” The guerrillas also appear confident, though they fear the Iranian artillery. Mr. Edesa, the 22-year-old fighter, spoke with assurance about their capabilities against the Iranians. “They have a level of discipline in them as well,” he said. “But we are more disciplined. They are a military force, and they live in barracks. But we are a guerrilla force.” Warzer Jaff contributed reporting from Iraqi Kurdistan, and Nazila Fathi from Tehran. <A name=e20071023555288.html> New York Times October 23, 2007 Pg. 10 Bush Administration Urges Iraqi Kurds To Help End Raids Into Turkey By Helene Cooper and David S. Cloud WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 — Scrambling to forestall a threatened Turkish retaliatory attack in northern Iraq, the Bush administration pressed Iraq’s Kurdish leaders on Monday to rein in the Kurdish group whose raids into Turkey have heightened tensions along the border. But American officials acknowledged that neither the United States nor Iraq had done much recently to constrain the Kurdish group, known as the Kurdish Workers’ Party, or the P.K.K. Current and former Bush administration officials said a special envoy appointed by the Bush administration in 2006, Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, who had retired from the military after serving as NATO’s supreme allied commander, had recently stepped down in frustration over Iraqi and American inaction. The United States lists the P.K.K. as a terrorist organization, but American military commanders in Baghdad have long resisted calls by Turkey to devote American military resources to going after the group in mountainous northern Iraq. The commanders say they have barely enough troops to deal with the insurgency in Iraq, so using them to contain the P.K.K. has never been a serious option. The United States has no significant military forces near the Iraqi border with Turkey, in a mountainous part of the autonomous Kurdish region. In concerted messages on Monday, which the State Department spokesman Sean McCormack referred to as a “full diplomatic press,” the White House and the State Department both sought to emphasize that at this point it was up to Iraqi Kurds to demonstrate that they did not want a war with Turkey. President Bush discussed Turkey’s concerns with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq during a video conference on Monday. “The prime minister agreed with President Bush that Turkey should have no doubt about our mutual commitment to end all terrorist activity from Iraqi soil,” said a White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe. Administration officials said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had told Massoud Barzani, the leader of the Iraqi Kurdish region, in a telephone call that the relative peace and prosperity of Iraqi Kurdistan was at risk because of the cross-border attacks by the P.K.K. At the United States’ urging, President Jalal Talabani of Iraq, who is a Kurd, and other Iraqi leaders have made public statements insisting that Iraqi territory should not be used as a staging ground for terrorist attacks. The administration has also urged Turkey not to make retaliatory attacks into Iraq. But Mr. McCormack said the administration’s task had been complicated by a House committee’s vote this month that approved a nonbinding resolution describing the killings of 1.5 million Armenians beginning in 1915 as genocide, a move that so infuriated Turkey that the government recalled its ambassador to the United States. “It exacerbates the tension,” Mr. McCormack said. “It raises a question where there shouldn’t be one, about the U.S.-Turkish relationship, and makes it more difficult with respect to Turkish public opinion.” The genocide resolution appears to have run out of steam in the House, after several Democrats who had initially supported Speaker Nancy Pelosi on it changed their minds. Military officials at the Pentagon and in Baghdad said there were no plans to involve American forces, either in assisting Iraqi government forces in moving to the border region or in moving troops there themselves. “The Iraqis don’t have the capacity to counter a Turkish incursion, and they know that,” said a senior military official in Baghdad. At a meeting of European defense ministers in Ukraine, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said after meeting with Turkey’s defense minister, Vecdi Gonul, that a “a major cross-border operation would be contrary to Turkey’s interests as well as to our own and that of Iraq.” Mr. Gates seemed to lay out the possibility of intelligence-sharing about the locations of P.K.K. militants in northern Iraq. The key, he said, was “developing intelligence that would enable us to find these people.” “I think that has to precede any action by anybody,” he said. Mr. Gonul told reporters: “We would like to have something tangible. We are expecting this.” American officials say they hope that Turkey will hold off on crossing the border to give diplomacy more time to work. In particular, they say, they are hopeful that the P.K.K. will declare a cease-fire and that Iraqi officials will announce further steps that will lessen the pressure on Turkey to carry out reprisals. Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said in an interview on Sunday that he expected Turkey’s foreign minister to visit Iraq early this week and that a high-level Iraqi delegation would go to Turkey soon after. Mr. Zebari, who is a Kurd, said that in future talks it was important to have the Kurds at the table as part of an Iraqi delegation, as well as the Turks and the Americans. The presence of the Kurds is crucial because, as a practical matter, most of the measures that can be taken to discourage the P.K.K. from starting more attacks need to be carried out by the Kurdish regional government. “Yes, there are responsibilities on our side,” Mr. Zebari said. “Turkey has some legitimate security concerns over the P.K.K. So come, let’s sit down and talk with the United States.” Mr. Zebari said there were a number of steps Iraq could take short of military action against the P.K.K., including disrupting its activities and interdicting shipments of weapons and food. Although there has been much tough talk by both the Kurds and the Turks, a ministerial-level conference of Iraq’s neighbors, planned for Istanbul in early November, is still scheduled. American officials said that even if Turkish forces did move into northern Iraq, they were hopeful that the operation would focus on P.K.K. camps in the mountains and not expand to a large-scale raid that might provoke a response from the Kurdish regional government. The most worrisome situation, however, would be if Turkey conducted large-scale operations and moved close to Mosul, because that could set off wider clashes with Kurdish militias. In that case, the United States might be forced to intervene to separate the two sides, American officials concede. Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Baghdad. <A name=e20071023555377.html> Washington Times October 23, 2007 Pg. 14 Violence Down 70 Percent Since Troop Surge Report may have prompted new bin Laden plea for unity By Aseel Kami, Reuters News Agency BAGHDAD — Violence in Iraq has dropped by 70 percent since the end of June, when U.S. forces completed their buildup of 30,000 extra troops, the Interior Ministry said yesterday. The ministry released the new figures as bomb blasts in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul killed five persons, and six gunmen died in clashes with police in the city of Karbala, southwest of the capital. Al Qaeda, meanwhile, released a new audiotape in which a voice identified as that of Osama bin Laden called on Iraq’s various insurgent factions to unite. Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf told reporters yesterday there had been a 70 percent reduction in violence across Iraq in the three months from July to September, compared with the previous quarter. In Baghdad, considered the epicenter of the violence because of its mix of Shi’ites and Sunni Arabs, car bombs have decreased by 67 percent and roadside bombs by 40 percent, he said. There has been a 28 percent drop in the number of bodies found dumped in the capital’s streets. In Anbar province, a former insurgent hotbed where Sunni Arab tribes have joined U.S. forces against al Qaeda, there has been an 82 percent drop in violent deaths. Data from the Health, Interior and Defense ministries in September showed a 50 percent drop in civilian deaths across the country from August, when 1,773 fatalities were recorded. The dropoff in violence may have prompted the latest bin Laden tape, which warned that divisions between insurgent groups only helped the enemy. “The interest of the Islamic nation surpasses that of a group . . . the interest of the [Islamic] nation is more important than that of a state,” said the recording aired on Al Jazeera television. “The strength of faith is in the strength of the bond between Muslims and not that of a tribe, nationalism or an organization,” said the voice, which sounded like that in previous bin Laden recordings. “I advise . . . our brothers, particularly those in al Qaeda, wherever they may be, to avoid fanatically following a person or a group,” the voice said. Al Jazeera said the tape was titled “message to the people of Iraq.” Gen. Khalaf was cautious in announcing the new figures on violence in Iraq, saying they “show a gradual improvement in controlling the security situation.” While the figures confirm U.S. data showing a positive trend in combating al Qaeda bombers, there remain trouble spots in northern Iraq and growing instability in the south, where rival Shi’ite factions are fighting for political dominance. In the northern province of Nineveh, where many al Qaeda and other Sunni Arab militants fled to escape the crackdown in Baghdad, there has been a 129 percent rise in car bombings and a corresponding 114 percent increase in the number of people killed in violence. Police, meanwhile, reported that six gunmen were killed in police raids in Karbala, 70 miles southwest of Baghdad. About 50 people were killed in the city in August in fierce clashes between fighters loyal to Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and local police, who are seen as aligned to the rival Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council’s armed wing, the Badr Organization. After the clashes, Sheik al-Sadr said he was imposing a six-month freeze on the activities of the Mahdi Army, which is increasingly seen as beyond his control, so that he could reorganize it. <A name=e20071023555414.html> Los Angeles Times October 23, 2007 Iraqis Weigh Limits On U.S. Military Leaders of parliament may seek to restrict American operations in response to a rash of civilian casualties. By Christian Berthelsen, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer BAGHDAD — Leaders in the Iraqi parliament said Monday that they were taking steps to examine the U.S. military presence in Iraq with an eye toward possibly restricting the force's activities, in a continuing backlash over an American raid that Iraqi officials say killed 13 civilians. Before the end of the year, the United Nations is expected to take up its annual reauthorization of a Security Council resolution that allows the presence of U.S. troops here. Iraqi leaders have complained that the U.S. military has used too much force in responding to attacks, leading to the deaths of civilians, and that the Americans have not coordinated enough with Iraqi forces. The U.S. military maintained that it killed 49 "criminals" in the raid Sunday on Sadr City, a mostly Shiite Muslim neighborhood in the Iraqi capital, and was unaware of any civilian casualties. But journalists for Western news organizations, including The Times, saw the bodies of two children at the Imam Ali hospital who were killed in the attack and interviewed other children who were wounded. The parliament speaker's office, which includes representatives from all three of Iraq's major ethnic groups, issued a statement Monday saying: "The Iraqi parliament condemns these violations that are against the basics of military work and human rights. . . . The Iraqi parliament is taking these negative violations seriously as it touches the life and dignity of Iraqis." Leaders in parliament are to meet Oct. 31 to consider forming a committee, to be made up of representatives from various parties, to make recommendations on limitations Iraq should seek in the U.N. resolution. Factions are already squaring off, with some Sunni Arab moderates saying that the continued U.S. presence is crucial to Iraq's future and Shiite leaders angry over the U.S. incursions into their neighborhoods seeking to curtail the American presence. It is not clear what recommendations the committee might ultimately make, but members of parliament speculated Monday that they could include limiting the U.S. presence to certain areas in Iraq. The committee also could express a desire for a mission statement that the primary goal of American troops should be to train Iraqi forces, while establishing a timeline for U.S. withdrawal. A recommendation to oppose the U.N. reauthorization entirely would appear to be unlikely. "We think the issue is about establishing and developing Iraqi security forces capable of confronting the challenges," said Salim Abdullah Jabouri, a member of parliament and spokesman for the Iraqi Accordance Front, the body's main Sunni bloc. "It's not right to speak about not having the presence of the U.S. forces, taking into consideration the chaos and security instability." Iraqis have increasingly chafed under the U.S. occupation, now well into its fifth year. Passions have been inflamed in recent weeks after a rash of civilian casualties stemming from military operations gone awry and killings of unarmed Iraqis by Western security contractors. Two previous military raids in Sadr City this summer killed a total of more than 50 people. Should the parliament ultimately move forward with the effort to restrict U.S. military operations here, it would be the second time this year that members have sought some form of control over the U.S. presence. In June, the parliament passed a resolution, over the objections of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, requiring the government to seek parliament's permission before asking the U.N. to extend the authorization for the U.S. troop presence. The spokesman for the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, declined to comment, saying he was unfamiliar with the proposal. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy could not be reached by telephone and did not reply to an e-mail seeking comment. Any changes to the U.N. military authorization would have to be approved by the 15-member Security Council, which will vote on the measure after hearing from military leaders and the Iraqi government. Although Iraq's position would carry great weight in the deliberations, said Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the U.N. on Iraq issues, the U.S. is one of five Security Council members that has veto power and it could dash any changes it finds unpalatable. Meanwhile, a roadside bomb in the Shiite enclave of Karada in Baghdad killed four people Monday and injured 12, including victims who were riding in a minibus that passed by at the time of the explosion. An additional three people were killed and 11 injured, including four policemen, by a pair of roadside bombs near a day laborer site. And another roadside bomb attack targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed one soldier and injured two others Monday afternoon. Police found the bodies of five men, who had been shot to death, on the streets of Baghdad. Times staff writers Saif Rasheed and Saif Hameed contributed to this report. <A name=e20071023555506.html> Philadelphia Inquirer October 23, 2007 U.S. Presses Shiite Enclave The U.S. military kept up pressure on Shiite Muslim militants in Baghdad yesterday. Police said U.S. helicopters strafed a building in the Sadr City district, wounding a woman and her daughter. It was the second claim in two days of civilian casualties from U.S. attacks in the Shiite enclave. Iraqi officials disputed a U.S. military claim that 49 militants were killed Sunday in an assault that targeted an Iranian-linked militia chief. The Iraqis said the number of casualties was 15 - all civilians. The military said the Sunday death toll was one of the highest for a single operation since President Bush declared an end to active combat in 2003. Other Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad were rattled by bombs as at least 50 people were killed or found dead nationwide, according to police, hospital and morgue officials. The figure included 25 bullet-riddled bodies, some decapitated, in a mass grave at Nadhum village in the mainly Sunni region northwest of the capital. --Associated Press <A name=e20071023555436.html> Miami Herald October 23, 2007 Iraqis: U.S. Raids Killed Civilians Differing accounts over the death toll from a U.S. military raid in Baghdad sparked confusion. By Bobby Caina Calvan, McClatchy News Service Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood seethed with anger Monday over a U.S. military raid that U.S. officials said targeted a kidnapping ring but that Iraqis say killed as many as 17 women and children. U.S. officials declined to provide additional information on the Sunday raid, though they continued to insist that no civilians were among the 49 people killed in the sweep. It was the latest violent incident in which U.S. and Iraqi accounts sharply differed. Last month, Iraqis accused private U.S. military contractors from Blackwater USA of killing 17 civilians in an unprovoked shooting spree at a busy Baghdad traffic circle. That incident is under investigation. Blackwater has insisted that the guards opened fire only after they were ambushed, but Iraqi officials have said their investigation has found no evidence of that. In Sunday's incident, U.S. military officials said U.S. troops came under attack in Sadr City on three separate occasions and that only insurgents were killed in the ensuing combat. But Iraqi officials denounced that version and called for an investigation. ''People in Sadr City are upset with the Americans, the Iraqi government. Why can't they protect the innocent?'' said Jassim Hashim, a 35-year-old train engineer who was shot in the leg during the raids. Hashim said he was on his way to work when U.S. helicopters swept low over Sadr City, which is home to more than two million Shiites in Baghdad's northeast quadrant. He said the helicopters began raining fire on the area. Confusion over the number of dead continued Monday. The U.S. military stuck by its count, while local Iraqi officials said the number was much smaller. The toll rose to 17 on Monday after several of the seriously wounded died. Among the dead were four children, an emergency worker at Imam Ali hospital in Sadr City said. There also have been varying counts of the injured, whose number was estimated at as many as 69 on Sunday by Iraqi police and hospital workers. Usually, U.S. accounts of an incident offer lower death and wounded totals than Iraqi versions do, so the tallies coming from both sides in Sunday's incident added a perplexing twist. ''Yes, it is very strange,'' said Salah al Ubaydi, a close advisor to Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia is the dominant military force in Sadr City. ''What I know is that no patrols came to |
